CONTENTS

LETTER FROM THE EDITORS

PROSE

LONG TIME LURKER, FIRST TIME BOMBER

Malon Edwards // 6912 words

Sometimes we hurt the ones we love the most. This story of a future Chicago feels too real and achievable, and reminds us that no matter how far we stray there is humanity in every single one of us.

POLICE MAGIC*

Brent Lambert // 6996 words

A new age of magic has come and it’s brought the apocalypse with it. Two brothers must journey to find out if there is a way to move forward from the sins of the past.

REVIVAL

Wendi Dunlap // 2808 words

Sometimes the more we change the more things stay the same. In this story, a woman learns that life on a new planet can be just as restrictive as life on the old one.

THE SHADE CALLER

DaVaun Sanders // 4808 words

Do the accursed have the right to choose their path? In Engosfur Pools, accursed beings must decide whether to heed unseen voices that whisper of a new way, or undergo a deadly ritual to rid themselves of their curse.

SISI JE KUISHA (WE HAVE ENDED)

V. H. Galloway // 2882 words

When you’re an endangered species, your continued survival is not up for debate. How far will Eloko go to ensure that he lives to see another day?

CHESIRAH*

L. D. Lewis // 8962 words

A gilded cage is still a prison. Chesirah has decided to fight for her freedom, and she’ll burn anyone who stands in her way.

EXTRAS

INDIE SPOTLIGHT

THE SEEDBEARING PRINCE

THANKS

* author debuts

January 2017

LETTER FROM THE EDITORS

Welcome to the inaugural issue of FIYAH Literary Magazine of Black Speculative Fiction!

This issue’s theme is Rebirth, and all of the stories featured in this issue contain some sort of re-creation, be it physical, symbolic, or existential; whether the characters themselves are reborn, or their worlds are built anew. This magazine itself is a rebirth, a spiritual successor to the Niggerati Manor’s FIRE!! Magazine. FIRE!! was a fearless volume that published cutting edge Black literature in order to challenge the status quo and end the pigeonholing of Black art and thought. FIYAH was created out of a similar desire to combat the marginalization of Black speculative fiction, and it has been reborn into a political moment where the work of art and literature that celebrates the Black imagination is extremely necessary.

We are excited to present you with this first issue.

Geneva Benton has provided us with a phenomenal cover that is absolutely on fire with Black girl magic. Our chosen fiction for this month is from a slate of badass black writers: Malon Edwards graces us with “Long Time Lurker, First Time Bomber,” a genre-bending, futurist tale of love and sacrifice. Brent Lambert’s “Police Magic” is a story of two brothers trying to unshackle themselves from the sins of the past. Wendi Dunlap’s “Revival” is sobering tale of love and sacrifice on a human space colony. DaVaun Sanders’ “The Shade Caller” forces us to explore the truth of the curses and afflictions that we live with. V.H. Galloway gives us a tale of one creature’s survival in the face of extinction in “Sisi Je Kuisha (We Have Ended),” and in L.D. Lewis’ “Chesirah,” we learn that death cannot deter one who wants to escape their shackles and fly toward freedom.

We have big dreams for FIYAH. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves; everything starts here, with our contributors, and with you. Thank you so much for reading, subscribing, and supporting Black speculative fiction. We hope you enjoy the issue.

Executive Editors: Justina Ireland + Troy L. Wiggins

Acquiring Editors: Brent Lambert + DaVaun Sanders

Layout: LeKesha Lewis

Cover Artwork by Geneva Benton

All material in FIYAH is copyrighted to the original authors and may not be reproduced without permission.

LONG TIME LURKER, FIRST TIME BOMBER

By Malon Edwards // 6912 words

You step into The Black Hand Side and never see coming the smack upside the back of your head.

“Girl, didn’t I tell yo’ narrow ass if you come up in here agin I was gone snatch a knot in yo’ head?”

Big Mama Black has a heavy hand. Tears come to your eyes. The cowl of your lurksuit is seamless. It is tight. It is thin. It is sensitive. It is bonded to you by SoulSkin. It does not offer much protection.

“I’m sorry, Big Mama Black,” you tell her, “but I’m looking for Roshan. Do you happen to know where he is?”

Big Mama Black puts her hands on her hips and twists her mouth as she looks down her nose at you. She does not like you. She has never liked you.

She will never like you.

“You juss tryin’ to start some mo’ mess, is what you—”

“No—”

“Girl, you bet not interrupt me agin.”

You dip your perfect round head and hide behind your long lashes, but only for a second. You do not want Big Mama Black to think you are being flippant or disrespectful by not looking her in the eye.

“I’m sorry, Big Mama Black.” You do your best to make certain your voice is even and deferential.

Big Mama Black kisses her teeth. “Naw, you ain’t sorry. I can see it in yo’ eyes. If you was sorry, you wouldn’t be up in my shop right now. If you was sorry, the first thing you would have said when you brought yo’ narrow behind up in here is, ’Big Mama Black, I know you done said I cain’t step foot up in here no mo’, an’ I’m sorry fo’ disobeyin’ you on that matter, but I juss got to git out there an’ start some mo’ mess agin, so that’s why I’m here.’ Right?”

You do not know how to answer that question, so you go with what you believe to be the safest answer. The answer that will leave Big Mama Black less inclined to smack you upside your head again.

“Yes ma’am, Big Mama Black,” you say after an almost-too-long pause.

“You ain’t even payin’ attention to me right now, is you?”

You do not know how to answer that question, either. But you cannot lie. Big Mama Black is the world’s best lie detector. She has caught you in every lie you have ever told her since you were five years old. She has even caught you in the lies you did not tell yet.

“No ma’am,” you say, and you try not to wince as you brace for the smack upside your head. You fail. The smack does not come.

“Mmm hmm. I knew it.”

Big Mama Black checks the digital read out of a cryo-box attached to the wall on the biotech half of her shop. It contains organic black silicon solar cells for sale.

“Like I said, you juss here to start some mo’ mess.” Big Mama Black makes an adjustment to the cryo-box’s environment with a few taps of the keypad. “Ain’t you done enough of that already? Ain’t you kilt enough people?”

The skin on your face tightens. Your jaw clenches. Your ear canals constrict. Your forehead sweats. Your cheeks get oily. The shop sounds as if it is underwater. The door to The Black Hand Side slams open. You flinch.

Two solarpunks stumble into the waiting room. A young woman and a young man. Your arms are trembling. The young woman and the young man look to be your age. Your legs are trembling. The young woman has her arm around the young man’s waist. You want to sit down. The young man has his arm around the young woman’s shoulders. You need to sit down. The young man leans against the young woman. His legs have buckled. Your legs want to buckle. His toes drag across the marble floor. Your tear drops onto the marble floor.

Big Mama Black has never said anything like that to you before.

Big Mama Black helps the young woman get the young man into a waiting room chair. You wipe the tears from your eyes. No more shall fall.

“Chile,” Big Mama Black says to the young woman, putting the back of her hand on the young man’s forehead, “you slam open my door like that agin an’ I’m gone make sure you cain’t sit down fo’ a week.”

The young woman, like you, is tall. She, like you, is strong. She, like you, is twenty-two years old. And she, like you, believes with all of her heart Big Mama Black will take a switch to her if she does slam open the door again. You can see it in her eyes.

“I’m sorry, Big Mama Black,” the young woman says, “but something wrong with Niko.”

“’Somethin’ ain’t wrong with him.” Big Mama Black looks at her receptionist and nods, once. “He is what’s wrong with him. What was the first thing I tol’ y’all when y’all came up in here last month for them solar cell implants?”

“Don’t wait too long to upload our stored solar energy.” The young woman squeezes Niko’s hand.

“Why?” The receptionist hands Big Mama Black a sheaf of cool-down strips.

“Because the unprocessed excess energy can make us sick.” Two tears roll down the young woman’s cheeks and plop onto Niko’s hand.

“How?” Big Mama Black crouches in front of Niko, sticks a cool-down strip on his forehead, and then motions for the young woman to remove his shirt.

“Our accumulator can only store so much solar energy. It’s a delicate organ. The excess energy spreads throughout our body and becomes infused into our organic cells.” The young woman says this with a practiced and measured cadence.

“And then what happens?” Big Mama Black raises Niko’s arms and gives two cool-down strips to the young woman.

“Our body temperature rises. We sweat. We overheat. We fall into a coma. We die.” The young woman places the cool-down strips within Niko’s armpits, adhering them to the coarse, dark hair there.

“You die.” Big Mama Black clucks her tongue and shakes her head. “Y’all either hard-headed, stupid, or both, ’cause I cain’t get mo’ straightforward than that.”

Two more tears quiver on the young woman’s round chin before they drop to the floor. Big Mama Black’s eyes soften for a moment and she wraps her strong arms around the young woman in an enormous hug.

“Chile, I know you ain’t stupid,” Big Mama Black says, her voice less mama bear now, “’cause if you was, you wouldn’t be here. You lit up from within. You beautiful. You a sunchild. You a solar. That’s the smartest choice you could have ever made in your life.” Big Mama Black flicks you a gaze and her eyes go hard. When she looks back to the young woman, her eyes are soft again. “But it’s gone be all right. Big Mama Black gone make it all better.”

Big Mama Black stands. Her knees crack like rifle shots. Two male nurses appear at her side. One helps Niko through a door leading to an examination room.

“Now, go on in the back with that knucklehead boyfriend of yours to one of them repair an’ relax solariums so y’all can get better. By the looks of you, yo’ accumulator juss about full too.” Big Mama Black gives the remaining cooldown strips to one of the nurses. “And Inaya?”

The young woman turns back to Big Mama Black before following Niko through the door. “Yes, ma’am?”

“I bet not see you or him up in here like that ever agin.”

“Never agin, ma’am.”

Big Mama Black sighs and turns to you. There is no trace of softness in her eyes now.

“You out there in Chicago, runnin’ roun’ that godforsaken city-state, startin’ wars that been long finished since Ol’ Heck was a pup for this sorry, greedy-as-a-mangy dog State we live in ’cause It either too scairt or too smart to start them Itself. Prolly both.” Big Mama Black kisses her teeth again. “You doin’ the Devil’s work, an’ don’t even know he whisperin’ in yo’ ear.”

“Now, Big Mama Black, I—”

You do not see that smack upside your head coming, either.

You rub the back of your beautiful, curved head. The smarting pain is combined and magnified by the pain receptors in the thin layer of your SoulSkin and the pain receptors in the epidermis and dermis of your real skin. Your SoulSkin stings. The back of your head stings. More tears come to your eyes. You tell yourself these tears are because of Roshan and not Big Mama Black.

And you are still telling yourself lies.

“Chile, I ain’t yo’ mammy, an’ I ain’t yo’ gran’mammy, but if you take that tone wit me agin, I’m gone make you go out back an’ cut me a switch off of that birch tree an’ whoop you like you done stole a Mississippi mule.”

You open your mouth to speak, and then close it. It is the smartest thing you have done since you killed your boyfriend in a terrorist attack.

∙∙∙

You are not a terrorist. You do not love Roshan.

This was your morning prayer. It was your half-day mantra. It was your night-time hoodoo charm.

But you did not believe it.

And yet, you cleaved to it. You clutched it close. You chanted it for resolve. You chanted it for strength. You chanted it for courage.

But on the day you killed Roshan, your words fell from your mouth and dribbled onto the ground like warm, fat raindrops on a summer afternoon.

You wanted to get down on your hands and knees, put your lips to the hot, sandy concrete, and suck the moisture back into your mouth before it sizzled away. You wanted to form the words again and speak them with confidence that one time.

But it was too late. Those words did not matter anymore.

You had placed the bomb. You had identified your escape route. You had less than three minutes to get as far away from Oak Street Beach as you could. And you had to go through more than one hundred thousand people to do it.

And then, in the light of Venn diagram green and purple and yellow flower bursts overhead, you saw Roshan.

He should not have been there. You knew he would be there. Your chant made him be there.

Your lurksuit collected enough photons from the dim light of your surroundings to shift you from the shadows of the nearest Beachstro Restaurant gazebos and expose your hiding spot. A woman eating grilled chicken cavatappi with spinach, cremini mushrooms and sun-dried tomatoes in the gazebo on your left startled at your sudden appearance. She yipped. She flung the sliced mushroom on her fork at your feet.

You pushed through the white and brown and black and bronze arms and legs and shoulders and hips toward Roshan. Some people stumbled. Some people fell. Some people yelped. Some people cursed.

They would not get out of your way fast enough.

“Zèl.”

Your Haitian Creole pronunciation was passable. Your lurksuit shed photons and the shadows rushed back to you in response to your whisper. Enormous ragged black wings unfurled behind you. They rose twelve feet above your head. Your hands flexed. Your nails were ready to rend. You screeched. You raged. A thin thread of saliva stretched top to bottom within your wide open mouth.

The people around you recoiled, ran, tripped, fell, trampled, screamed—

“Rakaya?”

And then, Roshan was in front of you.

A champagne flute had lain broken at his feet. The sand was wet and stained dark in places. You hoped it was not blood. Roshan’s boys stood behind him, disheveled. They all wore tight, black ribbed tank tops. They all wore wrinkled, black linen shorts. They all wore casual black leather loafers. They all looked scared as hell.

Roshan cupped your face in his large, soft hands. His eyes showed worry as he looked down at you. His smooth, dark, bald head gleamed from implanted solar cells, reflecting a quick succession of blue and white and red fireworks from the night sky.

“We have to go we have to go we have to go we have to go,” you told him.

“Are you okay?” Roshan searched you for injury, but his hands stayed on your face.

Your lurksuit gobbled more photons until your harpy wings faded. You grabbed his wrists and started to pull him away from the beach, away from Lake Michigan, toward the Red Line, toward the L train, toward home, toward safety—

But you were too late.

Arusha Donta, Manyara Donta, and Karatu Donta surged forward. You had not seen their Hurry Up and Wait position, where they hid. You had not seen their approach. You had not seen them coming for you.

They were quick. They were fast. They were tall. They were wide.

They were zaftig class bodyguards.

You were surprised by their agility. You did not know the zaftig class could move like that. You had heard they have heavy-plated Maybach Exelero exo-suits fused to their bodies. You expected them to amble along on their massive legs like the lumbering pachydermata their exo-suits were designed to resemble.

But they did not.

Arusha Donta, Manyara Donta, and Karatu Donta charged the crowd. Full speed. Seven-hundred-plus pounds of bulk each. Most of the crowd had been appreciating the fireworks. Most of the crowd had their chins tipped toward the sky. Most of the crowd had perished without knowing who or what hit them.

But you knew. You saw.

You saw Arusha Donta break their backs with her massive feet. You saw Manyara Donta crush their chests with her massive fists. You saw Karatu Donta split their stomachs with his massive tusks. Men. Women. Children. Old and young. Healthy and infirmed.

They committed these atrocities so they could get to you. They committed these atrocities so they could protect you. They committed these atrocities so they could save you.

And they did.

You act as if you do not remember this. You act as if this is your first time hearing this. You act as if you are stunned by this.

Do not be. They were hired from the Mercenaries Guild to protect you at all costs. They were hired from the Mercenaries Guild to protect you by any means necessary. Just as you have vowed to destroy the city-state of Chicago by any means necessary.

You have good reason for this vow. Never forget that.

You believe, as most State of Illinois residents do, the children’s tale of Michaëlle-Anicia and Michaëlle-Modeste. You believe these twin despot rulers of Chicago, in their city-state’s infancy, pillaged and plundered and looted the State of Illinois, siphoning Its wealth and power.

You believe this is why your town, Ford Heights, is poor. You believe this is why your town is at the center of the solarpunk movement in the South Suburbs, where only black and brown faces reside. You believe this is why your town, and all of the South Suburbs, must sell its blackpower back to the State to survive.

And you believe revenge is the best way to rectify your town’s misfortune. Never doubt that.

Seconds before the bomb you planted exploded, Arusha Donta, Manyara Donta, and Karatu Donta surrounded you. They hunched down. They were careful with their strength. They were careful with their bulk. They were careful with their tusks.

They pressed against you. They embraced you. They shielded you.

You did not see the explosion. You did not feel the explosion. You did not hear the explosion.

All you saw was their metallic matte black skin. All you felt was their cold metallic matte black skin against your cheeks. And all you heard was Arusha Donta’s clear soprano voice through the curve of her metallic matte black belly.

She had sang:

When this world is over,

It will come again,

Formed of hate, formed of evil, formed of carnal sin.

When this world returns,

Fire will give it purity,

Hatred and greed will burn,

Of that is a surety.

And when Arusha Donta, Manyara Donta, and Karatu Donta released you from their embrace, giving you back to the world, you saw your blessing of purity. The beach burned. Three hundred and fifty-six people burned. Roshan burned.

Oily, orange, and black.

∙∙∙

“That boy ain’t been the same since you kilt him.”

Big Mama Black has an audience on the spa side of her shop now: Ms. Irene, Ms. Elaine, and Ms. Savannah Mae. All three solar women look at you. All three solar women frown at you. All three solar women kiss their teeth at you.

You flop into a chair beside them. You keep your promise. No tears fall in front of these dignified yet gossipy women. But you are tired.

“He shouldn’t be the same. He’s a Naomi Nakamura Industries android now.”

The shop goes quiet. Spa side and biotech side. You did not mean to take that tone. It is a good thing Big Mama Black is on the biotech side of the shop, or another knot would have been snatched upside your head.

“One of y’all better tell this heifer that ain’t how you talk to grown folk, or I’m gone come over there an’ remind her.”

Big Mama Black does not look at you. You do not look at her. It is better this way. You are sure of it. You would wither under her cut eye, in every sense of the word, including the literal one.

Your oversized, long-sleeved white linen shirt would strip away. Your loose, white linen pants would strip away. Your lurksuit would strip away. Your SoulSkin would strip away. Your real skin would strip away. Your bones would turn black. They would shrivel. They would crumble. They would blow away.

So instead, you look at Ms. Elaine, Ms. Irene, and Ms. Savannah Mae. They do not pardon your insolence, however.

Ms. Elaine kisses her teeth again and turns a page of the glossy magazine she is reading. “Look like somebody gettin’ too big for her britches.”

Ms. Irene takes a peppermint from her purse, unwraps it, and puts it in her mouth. “I got somethin’ to fix that.”

Ms. Savannah Mae shakes her head, and then gives your lurksuit cowl the side eye. “That girl ain’t gone feel yo’ switch through her catsuit.”

Ms. Elaine cackles, quite tickled by Ms. Savannah Mae’s misnomer. “Girl, that ain’t no catsuit. It’s called a ’lurksuit’.”

Ms. Irene crosses her long, dark, lovely arms and rocks side-to-side. “I don’t care what it’s called. When I get ’hold of her, she ain’t gone be able to sit down fo’ a week.”

Ms. Savannah Mae crosses her long, dark, lovely legs and humphs. “I heard tell it’s made of some special technology that keeps heat an’ cold out while providin’ light armor protection at the same time. That girl ain’t gone feel yo’ switch through that.”

Ms. Irene rolls her peppermint in her mouth. “Oh, truss me, she will.” Ms. Irene pulls the right sleeve of her black tee shirt up over her deltoid. She flexes her bicep. You are surprised to see a fifty-something-year-old woman with such muscle tone. She grins at Ms. Savannah Mae. “You ain’t seen my switch arm lately.”

Ms. Elaine leans across Ms. Savannah Mae, puts her hand on Ms. Irene’s bare knee, and stage whispers in her ear: “We got church early tomorrow mornin’, an’ yo’ friend Ms. Savannah Mae over here talkin’ ’bout catsuits. You better tell her she need to get her mind out the gutter, an’ get right wit God.”

Ms. Irene pulls back from Ms. Elaine in mock offense. “Oh, so this heathen my friend now?”

Ms. Savannah Mae frowns at Ms. Elaine. “Honey, somebody tol’ you wrong. I am right wit God.”

Ms. Irene gives Ms. Elaine a knowing smile. “The way I remember it, you an’ Ms. Savannah Mae used to run the streets on the South Side of Chicago e’ry Saturday night lookin’ fo’ juke joints to get yo’ dance on, while I was at home, on my knees, sendin’ up prayers to our Lord an’ Savior Jesus Christ fo’ y’all heathen souls.”

The shop goes quiet again, this time for three beats. And then, Ms. Irene, Ms. Savannah Mae, and Big Mama Black burst out with cackles of girlish glee.

Ms. Elaine does not laugh. Her face is serious. Her voice is quiet. “I heard tell them lurksuits bonded wit SoulSkin, so the people wearin’ them feel e’rything.”

Ms. Irene leans into Ms. Savannah Mae this time, puts a hand on her bare knee, and stage whispers in her ear: “An’ she mean e’rything. I heard tell Mr. Darnell bought Ms. Elaine one of them catsuits last Valentine’s Day, which is how she know all ’bout the way they work.”

Ms. Elaine looks up high at the ceiling and fans her eyes with both hands to prevent the coming tears from spilling down her cheeks. “No, I know how they work ’cause my gran’baby got one of them.”

Ms. Elaine’s voice is softer now. You almost cannot hear her, and you are sitting in the seat next to her.

“Which gran’baby? Marquis?” Ms. Savannah Mae asks Ms. Elaine.

Ms. Elaine nods, still fanning her eyes. “He one of them Assassin Guild members, like this gal over here.” She means you. “They recruited him when he was six years old. Right after his good-fo’-nothin’ daddy cut out on him an’ his mama.”

Ms. Irene shakes her beautiful, dark, bald head. “It ain’t right fo’ a guild like that, one of them shady guilds, to take our chirren so young. That sinful Thieves Guild doin’ the same thing.”

Big Mama Black shakes her beautiful, dark, bald head as she fusses with the vacutainers for brown sugar and honey exfoliant on the spa side of the shop. “Y’all can say they sinful all y’all want, but that guild ain’t no diff’rent from ours.”

Ms. Irene closes her eyes and raises both hands. “Preach, Sister Reverend.”

Big Mama Black rolls her eyes at Ms. Irene’s silliness. “We do the same here in the Energy Guild: we train up our babies when they young, startin’ them wit solar cell implant surgery as soon as we think they can endure it. The younger they are, the easier it is fo’ them to learn ’bout them cells an’ e’rything else they need to know ’bout bein’ a solar.” She casts her cut eye toward the back-room solariums where Inaya and Niko are receiving treatment. “Take some of them longer to learn than others, though.”

Ms. Elaine shakes her beautiful, dark, bald head. “Juss ’cause that’s the way we do it don’t make it right, though. An’ neither does all that money the Assassins Guild gave my baby girl in exchange fo’ my gran’baby. I ain’t seen him in six years. I wouldn’t know what he looked like if he walked past me on the street today. His mama wouldn’t, neither.”

Ms. Irene stands, shoos you out of your seat, sits next to Ms. Elaine, and takes Ms. Elaine’s left hand into her own. “We all slaves to the Guild. E’ry last one of us.”

Ms. Savannah Mae takes Ms. Elaine’s right hand into her own. “Why didn’t you tell us ’bout this?”

Ms. Elaine shrugs, and then lets out a big, shaky sigh. “Ain’t no gran’mother in this world gone tell her best friends that her gran’baby a terrorist an’ her daughter sold him to Guild like a slave owner.”

“I am not a terrorist.” The words leap out of your mouth and onto the marble floor before you realize you have spoken them. They hiss their sonorant and sibilant consonants with a confident but defensive measured cadence. “We are not terrorists.”

Ms. Savannah Mae takes a sip of her complimentary peppermint tea. “That may be the case, but you fo’ damn sure a mass murderer.”

Ms. Elaine licks a finger and turns another page of her magazine. “Ain’t no two ways ’bout that.”

Big Mama Black fusses with the vacutainers of homemade shea butter whip moisturizer. “Funny how the State of Illinois gives you millions to kill three hundred and fifty-seven people who ain’t done a damn thing to you—includin’ my heart, my boy, my son—but when somebody call you out on it, you an’ Webster’s Dictionary cain’t agree on the definition of the word ’terrorist’.”

You stop yourself from looking up at the ceiling and fanning your eyes. “I paid for—”

Ms. Savannah Mae waves you silent. “Chile, we all know you paid fo’ that boy’s funeral, you paid fo’ his conversion into a Naomi Nakamura Industries android, an’ you paid fo’ his psychiatrist after he woke up. We been in the know ’bout him, you, an’ e’rything y’all done since Ol’ Heck was a pup. They don’t call us The Three Whispers fo’ nothin’.”

Ms. Irene points to the spa side front door in the vague direction of Naomi Nakamura Industries. “But what The Three Whispers don’t know is why them fake human cells Naomi Nakamura gave Roshan ain’t playin’ nice wit them new solar cells Big Mama Black implanted in him. That boy losin’ money on his solar energy upload left, right, an’ center.”

“Speakin’ of money,” Big Mama Black says, as she gives Ms. Elaine a complimentary cup of peppermint tea, “how much you take fo’ that Oak Street Beach contract from the State of Illinois? Ten million? Fifty million? One hundred million? ’Cause we know it was a lot. You was able to pay fo’ Roshan’s conversion an’ have money left over fo’ renovations to yo’ house.”

Big Mama Black knows better than this. She is from the old school. She is from a time when people did not stick their noses into other people’s business. She is from a place where it was rude to ask people about their salary and money, unless the topic was broached first. Her mama taught her better than that. Her mama’s mama taught her better than that.

“Mama, you know better to ask a question like that.”

She taught her son better than that.

You turn and see Roshan standing behind you on the biotech side of the shop. You want to run to him. You want to jump on him and hug him and kiss him and apologize to him—

Instead, you do nothing. You say nothing.

Roshan walks past you to the spa-side entrance of the shop. “I need some sun. And some privacy. Let’s talk outside.”

∙∙∙

Big Mama Black does not care you tried your best to make sure Roshan would not be at Oak Street Beach that night. Roshan does not care you tried your best to make sure he would not be at Oak Street Beach that night. Only you care you tried your best to make sure Roshan would not be at Oak Street Beach that night.

But you did not try hard enough.

That is what Big Mama Black and Roshan are thinking at this very moment.

The good thing is, I know your thoughts. You know my thoughts. We are forever connected. And I am here to help you.

I am your lurksuit. I am the paragon of black market Haitian Creole technology. I am the interface between you and your SoulSkin. I am your millions of synapses. I am your trillions of electrical and chemical nerve impulses. I am your manifested speed of thought. We live and die by your thought and my action.

But today, right now, at this very moment, I have a wonderful idea.

I can speak your thoughts. I can speak my thoughts. I can speak the right thoughts. I can make Roshan love us again.

(He still loves us now. I mean, he still loves me now. He is just upset. Hurt. Confused. And maybe afraid.)

See, that I cannot understand. I cannot understand how you do not understand Roshan has stopped loving you. Humans can fall in love with someone, just as humans can fall out of love with someone. Time can end love. Death can end love. Betrayal can end love.

(I don’t believe that. People can’t fall out of love. Once you love someone, you love them, in one way or another, forever. People don’t turn love on and off like a faucet.)

Roshan is not people. He is a Naomi Nakamura android. And being transformed into a Naomi Nakamura android can end love.

Do not mistake me, though; you made the right choice. You should have paid for Roshan’s conversion into an android. You should have paid to have all of his memories extracted and downloaded into his new body. And you should have kept that most painful memory intact.

Otherwise, how would he trust you again? How would he love you again?

You know this will not be easy, eske se pa sa? Roshan may never pick up his love and give it to you again. Are you prepared if he does not? You should be prepared if he does not. And you should not be surprised if he does not.

(Everything I did, every action I took, every decision I made was for love.)

Love of Roshan, or love of the State?

∙∙∙

See, that pause is why we are having this conversation now. You cannot hesitate when Roshan asks you these kinds of questions when you join him outside The Black Hand Side in a few moments. Were I him, and you hesitated like that with me, even if it was just the zero-point-six seconds you took, I would have turned, walked away without another word, and you would never see me again.

(You don’t understand. I—)

I do not understand? Did you truly just say I do not understand? If anyone understands your actions, your machinations, your orchestrations—your calculated decisions—it is I.

I understand why you invited Roshan to spend the week of the Twelfth of August at your place. The weatherman had said there would be an extreme heat warning that week. The window-mounted air conditioner in your bedroom was old. Loud. Decrepit. It coughed, dry and hard, like an old man with emphysema.

The central air conditioning in Roshan’s house is efficient. Powerful. Quiet. It is the dry, cool touch of desert twilight on skin. But you knew he would stay with you. You knew Roshan would endure pain and suffering for you. You knew he could not resist you.

He loved the taste of your sweat in the hollows your collarbones. He loved the taste of your sweat in the crooks of your elbows. He loved the taste of your sweat on the backs of your knees.

But he could only taste you and love you for so long.

(You know that’s not fair.)

His stamina was fleeting.

(You know that’s a side effect of the humidity.)

His muscles pained him.

(You know that’s a symptom of his solar sickness.)

His mood was unpleasant.

∙∙∙

Silence. The passive assent.

You cannot be defensive like that when you speak with Roshan. If you are, he will turn and walk away. I would turn and walk away, and I am your lurksuit.

You must remember why you are here at The Black Hand Side. You must remember why you have endured Big Mama Black’s heavy-handed smacks. You cannot waver. You cannot falter. You cannot hesitate.

If you must, remember those special moments you and Roshan shared to bolster your confidence. For example, remember when you and Roshan were little and Big Mama Black would not let him play outside on days the humidity was higher than sixty percent? The cloying, moist air would filter through the outer layer of his solar cells on those days. Water vapor would form. The condensation would become trapped.

Roshan would become irritable. Sluggish. Cranky. He would stay in bed all day. And where were you? Beside his bed. All day. In the exact place a best friend should be.

He should also remember that. He has those memories. He shares those memories. You made sure of it. Mention them. Use them to your advantage.

(That feels wrong. Dirty. Immoral. As if I’m manipulating him.)

You are. I thought you realized this, considering—

(I’m done with that.)

Take pride in that.

∙∙∙

Rakaya, I tell you this with the utmost of admiration: you executed a masterstroke of genius on the morning of the Twelfth of August. You played Roshan like Beethoven’s Violin Concerto in D Major, and I do not mean this in a negative way.

(How can I take that in any way but—)

I am ignoring that to remind you Roshan wanted to taste the salty warmness in the hollows of your collarbones and the crooks of your elbows and on the backs of your knees as you lay in bed that morning. He did not want to roll away from you and pull the sheet over his head. He did not realize you had brought about those conflicting reactions.

And why would he? Roshan had responded in the very same way to humidity ever since he was five years old. Ever since his mother agreed to have the State of Illinois implant solar cells just beneath his skin at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Ever since Ford Heights and the Chicagoland area got point-three percent hotter in summer and point-five percent more humid in August.

For him, this was just chronic illness.

(Don’t you think it’s sinister and cruel and treacherous I did that to him?)

I said you were a genius, not some Sunday afternoon holo-vid supervillain. Listen: in this case, the end justifies the means.

(But in the end, Roshan died.)

Think positive. In a new beginning, Roshan is waiting for you outside in the warm sunshine right now.

(He remembers me blowing him to bits.)

No; he remembers you helping him to push through his pain and discomfort throughout the years. He remembers you laying in bed with him when you were teenagers, reading Parable of the Sower and Brown Girl in the Ring and The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms and Who Fears Death to him. He remembers you whispering, “Dekolte.” He remembers your lurksuit retracting below the waist. He remembers you exposed your SoulSkin. He remembers you pressing your naked hip against him.

He remembers being content with you.

(I remember his sun-starved solar cells devouring the ATP within his mitochondria. I remember making him poached eggs and hash browns and bacon in the morning to drive away his lethargy.

(I remember him dragging himself out of my bed, pulling on a tight, black ribbed tank top and black linen shorts, pushing through his discomfort and pain, and going to see his mother at The Black Hand Side.

(I remember him wanting his mother’s food, his mother’s love, and his mother’s healing.

(My love didn’t heal him. My love didn’t comfort him. My love didn’t restore him.)

And he remembers returning to you a week later. He remembers climbing into your bed. He remembers hugging you up in apology for his too few kisses and his lack of stamina and his unpleasant mood.

Do you remember that? Do you remember hugging him back, kissing his dark, shimmery, bald head, pressing your naked hip against his muscular thigh, and doing things to him that his mother could not do?

(Why are we bickering about this?)

Why are you being so sullen and petulant and bitter about this? Why are you pretending you never loved Roshan? Why are you pretending you do not want him in your life anymore?

Sometimes, I wonder about you, Rakaya. I have intimate knowledge of how your mind works. I know you. You are not evil. You may not think of yourself as a terrorist, but you are. And you may not think you love Roshan, but you do.

I know this with every fiber of my being.

You could have, in a more detached, straightforward manner, moved Roshan out of the way on your chessboard of treachery on the day of the 8-12 bombing.

Instead of inviting him to spend the week at your house, facilitating his debilitating illness, you could have dropped by his house and pointed to the blue skies overhead that fateful morning. You could have reminded him double time upload rates were in effect because of the abundant sunshine. You could have told him it was the perfect day to sell his blackpower at The Black Hand Side.

And you could have suggested he spend some quality time with his mother. She had not seen him in a while.

You did not need to read to him or kiss his bald, shimmery head or retract the bottom of your lurksuit. His solar energy upload would have taken most of the day, and his rest and recovery from such a massive upload would have lasted through most of the night. You did not need to bond with him. You did not need to love him. You did not need to sicken him.

He would have been at Oak Street Beach that night, regardless of your actions. Your meddling—which failed, to be sure—did not change the course of his life.

Either way—

(No. There is no either way. Just one way. My way. The only way. The fucked up way. The way that got Roshan killed.)

You did not kill Roshan. God killed Roshan. The Universe killed Roshan. The State of Illinois killed Roshan. The Sovereign State of Chicago killed Roshan. Roshan’s boys killed Roshan.

(Now, you’re not making any sense.)

And you are?

Correct me if I am wrong, Rakaya, but you are not divine. You are not omnipotent. You are not omnipresent. You did not create life. You did not sit in a darkness that was not called dark and determine every thought, word, and action of every person on this planet at a time so far gone Time itself did not know seconds.

You did not know Roshan would meet his boys at The Black Hand Side that morning, charm his mother into giving them a free rest and recovery boost, so they could all be at Oak Street Beach that night to ogle the scantily-clad city-state girls.

Certain events are meant to transpire in the manner they do. The Sovereign State of Chicago was meant to be selfish and greedy. The State of Illinois was meant to be a champion for every city, town, and suburb in the Land of Lincoln. This long conflict between the two polities was meant to be a battle between good and evil.

Just as you were meant to be a terrorist.

Just as you were meant to love Roshan.

Just as Roshan was meant to love you.

So go get your boy. Tell him you love him. Tell him he loves you. And tell him you two will love each other forever.

∙∙∙

Roshan basks in the sun, arms outstretched, eyes closed, face raised to the blue sky. His tight, black, ribbed tank top is minimal for maximum exposure. His tight, black solar shorts are minimal for maximum exposure.

His solar cells do not gleam in the sunshine as they once did. His dark skin is no longer lovely. It looks bruised and soft, like fruit that is rotting and has gone off.

Tears come to your eyes. You did this to him.

“Do you remember everything?” you ask him in an almost-whisper.

“I remember enough.” Roshan does not open his eyes. He does not drop his arms.

“I wanted you to remember everything.”

“Did you want me to remember that?”

“…”

Why are you hesitating?! I told you not to hesitate when responding to him!

“No.” Two of your tears fall to the hot concrete. “But I wanted you to trust me. You wouldn’t have trusted me if I paid Naomi Nakamura to have her coders delete that memory.”

“I dream about you. I dream about that night. I dream in orange and black.”

More tears fall to the hot concrete. “You probably won’t believe me, but I don’t sleep anymore because when I do all I see is you on the sand, dead, broken, and burned.”

“Why didn’t you tell me you were a terrorist?”

“You knew. You saw my lurksuit. No non-initiate is supposed to see a lurksuit and live. You knew I was Shadow Guild. It was just a matter of you guessing Thieves Guild or Assassins Guild.”

“But you didn’t tell me. You didn’t confide in me. We’ve known each other since we were five years old.” His face is slack, without expression. You think of rotted fruit again.

“There was nothing to tell. I was an initiate. An acolyte of the Praying Hands. I hadn’t killed anyone yet.”

“Until me.”

“Until you.”

You smear the tears across your cheeks. You touch his dark, smooth, muscled arm. The skin there is not warm. Not like it used to be when he basked in the sun.

“Do you love me?”

He opens his eyes. He drops his arms. He looks at you.

And you know. You have always known.

∙∙∙

ABOUT MALON EDWARDS

Malon Edwards was born and raised on the South Side of Chicago, but now lives in the Greater Toronto Area, where he was lured by his beautiful Canadian wife. Many of his short stories are set in an alternate Chicago and feature people of color. Malon also serves as Managing Director and Grants Administrator for the Speculative Literature Foundation, which provides a number of grants for writers of speculative literature.

POLICE MAGIC

By Brent Lambert // 6996 words

The motorcycles surrounded the two brothers in the abandoned, dusty parking lot. They were lions about to take down injured gazelles. Back to back, the hot Phoenix sun bore down on them as the laughs and jeers of the scavengers assaulted them. Kalup knew his machete and Adrian’s guns might take out a couple of the barbarians, but death pretty much stood as a guarantee if more drastic measures found themselves unimplemented. They’d traveled too far for things to end here. Not this close. “Adrian, you have to!”

His brother screamed in frustration which only made the motorcycle gang hoot and holler more. The Twisting made human interaction a brutal affair. The gang could just want their supplies or want to boil them in a pot. Starvation drove people to primal places. Adrian spun away from his brother, a look of anguish on his face. “Get down!”

Kalup dropped to the ground and watched as his younger brother dropped both of his guns and held out his palms. The black scar in the shape of two capital P’s etched on his right hand began to glow.

Adrian screamed as his eyes flooded with red light. The tips of his fingers turned translucent with specks of red floating amongst them. With a wave of his arm, a shiver passed over him like walking into a cold room. The metal sizzled against leather and the bikers screamed as they rushed to get off the vehicles. The heat came so quick, several burned right through their garments. Skin melted and peeled away. Kalup tried not to gag at the sight. Even knowing what the men might have done to them, he couldn’t bear the visual.

Waving his opposite arm, Adrian sent the scavengers into another fit of screams as they clawed wildly and desperately at their eyes. The nails against flesh made Kalup wince. The sound reminded him of trapped rats scratching against the insides of his school’s bathroom walls. Frozen in the moment, he watched them tear at their skin until they pulled away strips of flesh. They were manic, screaming at themselves to stop as some dropped to their knees and others rolled across the hot asphalt.

Kalup caught Adrian right before he fell to his knees and helped his brother keep his balance.

They walked away, the attackers still screaming.

Kalup did his best to steady his brother through the magical recoil. Adrian tried to avoid using this mad power, but Kalup was familiar with how to handle the aftermath. The shakes, the mumbling of names they never knew. For years, they had found a way through it, but time was running out. The violent energy inside of his brother was going to drive him insane. This is what The Twisting did to the world. This was what the wages of hate and brutality brought them all.

∙∙∙

“We’re running low on water,” Adrian repeated for the fifth time. He said it flatly and even but Kalup knew it for panic.

The dry air and bleached bone sun served as legitimate reasons for the feeling. Crossing the desert after Phoenix took all of their gas. Adrian proclaimed rape, death, and vultures picking at them were in their immediate future. Kalup almost started to believe him as the road to San Diego stretched impossibly far in the horizon, but they eventually reached the broken metropolis. They had to find her.

Walking and drenched with sweat, they stood in the shade of a parking garage, the sign saying “Mission Valley.” The once vibrant red paint dulled to a soft pink and the places where it chipped revealed shades of white. Kalup tried to imagine how this place might have once appeared. How much capitalistic traffic used to stream under this sign? Did as many people pack it out during Christmas as Lenox Mall?

“This place needs more trees,” Adrian said. He leaned against a pillar supporting the parking structure. His labored breathing echoed through the emptiness as he searched in his rucksack. Finding a piece of beef jerky, Adrian bit into it hard.

“Bro, this isn’t Georgia. You should enjoy the lack of humidity.”

“You make it sound like we’re never going back,” Adrian said between chews, the cool breeze of San Diego beginning to dry their sweat. “It’s not ’enjoy’. It’s ’get used to’.”

Kalup nodded. “Yea, but you knew that before we left Atlanta.”

Adrian stomped his foot. Kalup had seen those size 12s kick many an ass back home. “I know! Damn, stop throwing it in my face like I can’t miss home. Like I can’t miss—”

Kalup sighed, knowing the name Adrian wouldn’t put out there. She took them in after their parents died during The Twisting. In the midst of complete chaos, Yvette saved them from cops who no longer felt their duty to protect and serve. Sirens blasted everywhere that night and bullets flew indiscriminately. They left her behind to come here and find a woman they thought could maybe fix things.

“I miss her too,” Kalup said.

They’d tried to convince Yvette to come, but in her husky, rough voice she’d proclaimed Atlanta home. She tethered herself to a place in a desperate hope things might get right again. Regret filled him for what they might have left her behind to face.

“We should probably start moving,” Kalup said, swinging on his rucksack and picking up his machete. Adrian didn’t disagree, throwing on his gear and patting down the holsters on his hips to make sure the guns still rested there. If Yvette had taught them anything, you always made sure to be well-armed.

“So we’re moving, but we don’t know where the hell we’re going. We don’t have a clue where this lady is.”

Kalup shrugged. “You could always—”

“No! I told you I don’t like using it.”

Kalup bit down on his bottom lip and gripped his machete a little tighter. “Ok then. If you aren’t going to use it don’t give me a hard time about knowing where we’re going. We’ve come too far to turn back.”

“Humph! Never said a damn thing about turning back.” Adrian moved from out of the shadow of the parking garage and into the bright California sun. Not a single cloud could be spotted in the sky. He looked up with a hand right over his brow to shield his eyes. “Just saying this is a big city and we don’t even know where to find her.”

Kalup stepped behind his brother. “Stories of this lady made it all the way east. We’re bound to run into some local who knows where she is.”

Adrian looked back at him, hazel eyes wide and mouth slightly open. “Locals? So you really want to just start walking up to random people?”

Kalup pulled together his eyebrows. “You got a better plan?”

Adrian threw his hands into the air. “The heat must be getting to you. You’re asking for a bullet in our domes!”

“We’ll be careful about it,” Kalup said, trying his best to muster a persuasive smile. That smile got them many an ass whooping from their parents. But even those hands and belts didn’t stop Adrian from falling into the trap of Kalup’s smile.

“Oh. don’t give me that shit!” Adrian shook his head. “You cannot convince me this is a good idea.”

Kalup folded long, limber arms across his chest. “You tell me what you think we should do?”

The two brothers stared at each for a long time, until Adrian puckered his ample, pink lips to one side of his face and smacked them. “Alright, damn it. I don’t know any other way. Well, I do but those would get us killed faster. So where the hell do we go?”

“Wherever people have De-Sal gear.” Water was life and desalinization technology became a norm in what remained of industry after The Twisting. If you wanted to find people, you went where there was water. Kalup smiled, knowing his next words would be enough to cheer his brother up. “We go to the beach.”

∙∙∙

They kept a close path to I-8 as they followed the signs to Mission Beach. Cars from over ten years ago still packed the Interstate, abandoned by people with no idea why their vehicles suddenly stopped. A truck vandalized by the words “The Age of Reason is Dead!” caught their attention and they passed five more vehicles with similar proclamations. Kalup didn’t disagree. Violence and mayhem swallowed the world up after The Twisting.

Even in the light of day, the bleached skeletons, burnt toys and forgotten goods provided reminders of what was. Could this be the rebirth nature waited for? Some people did blame The Twisting on Mother Nature finally lashing out at her disobedient children.

“We’re getting close to the beach,” Adrian said, taking a big whiff of the air. “I can smell it.”

Kalup agreed with him, picking up on the salty texture of the wind starting to blow against his face. He nearly rejoiced at the coolest air he’d felt in years. The last time he felt the touch of A/C was at his parent’s home the night of The Twisting. That night the electricity died and everyone in the neighborhood went out to get cool. No one expected to run into a bunch of police who had lost their damn minds. Kalup sometimes looked at Adrian and wondered if he stood to lose his mind, too? Magic bound itself to certain people and everyone thought it stemmed right from those batshit cops.

I-8 gave way to beachfront properties, most rendered ragged by time and weather. Adrian walked up to and leaned against the white wall of one of those properties. He slid down to the ground and laughed. “Well, I guess we made it.”

“Not exactly on your guard,” Kalup said, tempering the scold with a smile. It felt good to see his brother actually relax. So different from his usual.

“You must not have seen the beach? No way would someone living next to it become a homicidal maniac.”

“They would if they don’t have de-sal gear. This may be a beach, but it damn sure isn’t water.” Adrian perked an eyebrow up at his brother and Kalup threw up his hands. “You know what I mean.”

“You always complain about me complaining. Then you go and fuck up a good mood.”

“I’m just saying. We gotta be careful out here.”

“Oh you weren’t being cautious back in Phoenix when you wanted to go running through that parking lot.”

“Look, we do what we gotta do.” Kalup walked over to his brother and held out his hand. Adrian took it and he used it as leverage to pull himself off the ground. “Don’t mean we start acting stupid.”

Adrian smiled. “You probably wouldn’t want to know when I started thinking you did.”

Kalup rolled back his shoulders in mock bravado. “I’m confident when making tough decisions. There’s a difference.”

They heard the sound of a gun cocking. “Then here’s a decision for you, brother. Get the hell on or catch a bullet in your ass.”

Adrian tensed up. “We’re not here looking for—”

The bulky Mexican man holding the pistol let loose some guttural sound. “Nobody asked what the fuck you were looking for! And it don’t matter because we ain’t got it.”

“Profeta de profetas,” Kalup said, not much above a whisper. No need to make a tense situation worse. But judging by the man’s softening of eyes, he figured the title resonated with him. Slowly, he turned around with his hands up in the air. The same practiced set of steps his parents told him about when dealing with police.

“What do you want with her?” the Mexican man said, gun right on the level to shoot Kalup in the heart. “You from the piss ass government?”

Kalup laughed. “We’re black. How many of us you think are actually left in that?”

The Mexican man shrugged. “Who can say? You guys always were ready and willing to chase behind those gringos tails.”

Kalup felt himself tense up. He steadied his breathing in an effort to not take offense. Most of his anger came from the fact that in more depressing moments, he might have agreed. He often wondered how different things would have been if people had refused to pray and march time after time. If they’d shouted “no more!” and snatched nightsticks and kicked those damn dogs right in the nose.

“We’re not with the government,” Adrian interjected, giving his brother a quick, knowing glance. “They wouldn’t take one of my kind.” He held out his palm where the scar of two intersecting P’s throbbed.

The Mexican man backed away and held his gun up in surrender. His eyes grew wide and the slightest tremor ran through his hands. “My bad, boss. I didn’t know. If you want her, I can take you to her.”

Kalup watched Adrian take a deep breath and clench his eyes tight. Whatever internal dam his brother built up to keep back his anger always stood on the verge of breaking. “Take it easy, man. We’re not going to do anything to you. We just heard this lady is special and we need her help.”

“If you’re here to kill her I doubt you’re strong enough.”

Adrian’s head snapped back and Kalup flinched at the anger present in his brother’s expression. “I’m not trying to kill anyone! Just because—”

“The magic hasn’t consumed him,” Kalup interrupted, knowing the unspoken word among all of them was yet. The inevitability drove them from Atlanta. San Diego held their last hope to try and keep fate at bay.

Understanding entered the man’s expression and he nodded. “Sorry man. I just figured.”

A woman came from behind one of the houses. “So it’s them.”

Kalup perked up at both the sight of the woman and her words. “Wait. You say it like you expected us.”

“We haven’t,” the woman smiled, more sympathy there than any kind of welcome. “But she has.”

“Then take us to her,” Adrian said, his face twisted in aggravation. “Why are we wasting time?”

The woman walked past and put a hand on the man’s shoulder. “They look hungry. Take them to get something to eat.”

Adrian shook his head vigorously. “Un-uh. Fuck the food! We want to see her.”

“Of course, but she’ll see you when it’s fitting.” She looked down and shook her head, rubbing the bridge of her nose and closing her eyes. “Please, let Ignacio take you to get something to eat and I’ll let her know you’re here.”

“Follow me. I think Carmen is making some tortillas and beans,” Ignacio said, turning toward a group of beach cabins in the distance.

“Wait,” Kalup said, jogging a little to catch up. He didn’t know if Adrian followed. “You guys have processed foods left?”

Ignacio smiled from ear to ear, “Yea, she had a huge stockpile. And not just that, she can make things grow with just a touch.”

“So we came all the way out here to get some white bread?” Adrian asked from behind them.

“She can do a lot more. Shit look around, man. She’s built a community.” He waved a hand out towards the beach and Kalup couldn’t argue with him. The water was pristine as far as he could see. They hadn’t seen water that clean since before The Twisting. A perfect blue. Throw some desalinization gear into the mix and you had clean water overflowing. Atlanta had tried to hold it together at first, but a lack of resources just made things go south.

“Well this Profeta de Profetas better be everything you make her out to be,” Adrian said, eyes locked on the crashing waves of the beach. His brother was being too stubborn to admit the miracle that was in front of them. Clean water and a damn abundance of it.

They found themselves at a small, sea green cabin with a white door. The chipped paint and missing doorknob mattered little in the beach backdrop. Ignacio stuck his hand through the hole where it used to be and pushed the door open. “Hey Carmen! We got company!”

“Sara and—”

She stopped when she turned the corner out of the kitchen and saw them. Short and round, she reminded Kalup of one of those salt-shakers their caretaker sat around her kitchen. Infinitely friendly and wrapped in an apron. Carmen’s plump cheeks gave her a jolly, grandmother quality. She possessed genuine warmth he hadn’t seen since the night of The Twisting. His mother had walked around with such a smile. It sparked an instinctive yearning for the mothers they’d lost. He bit back tears.

“They’re from Atlanta, but I didn’t catch their names.” Ignacio looked back at them and shrugged.

Kalup stepped forward. “I’m Kalup.” He pointed back at his brother. “Adrian.”

Carmen kept smiling. “I had a brother named Adrian. You look just as kind as him.”

Oh, Kalup definitely knew she was being nice. Adrian looked the farthest thing from kind at the moment. His brother always wore his emotions on face, but everyone else always assumed the mark to be at fault. The power it invoked terrified everyone and with good reason. Across the country whatever was left of law enforcement ran rampant with the dark, twisted purpose of it.

Kalup remembered all the things he’d seen them do on the night of The Twisting. The old homeless guy always on the corner turned inside out by some cop. Another officer took away the eyes of the family of Jehovah’s Witnesses up the block. Everyone had always feared them before, but that night they might as well have been Apollyon and his demons coming to bring the Devil’s Army. Yvette saved them, but he still remembered their parents, turned into a grotesque mess of loose skin, bones and exposed organs. More than anything he remembered them begging for someone to kill them as their new guardian dragged them away. Kalup always prayed someone had obliged them their pleas.

“Kalup!” Adrian slapped his arm, snapping him back to attention. “The lady asked if you wanted Tapatio on your beans.”

He smiled, pushing away those dark memories. “Of course. I’d love some.”

She led them to dinner and they all ate until full. Silence hung over the meal and Kalup suspected Adrian’s brooding played a part. The man could generate enough negative energy to put the whole Georgia Dome into a bad mood. Kalup couldn’t do much about it and he only admitted this to himself, but he believed the mark played a part. Adrian seemed to think if he didn’t do the magic the mark wouldn’t change him. It wouldn’t drive him mad. So far the theory held up considering most people lost themselves to the power a lot sooner, but Kalup still wondered if it only meant the difference between an overdose and a slow poisoning.

“So you’ll love her once you meet her,” Carmen said, trying to inject some cheer, as she stood up from the table and gathered everyone’s plates. “She’s done so much for this part of San Diego. I have a feeling she’ll be able to save the whole city one day.”

“We’ve heard rumors about this lady all the way back to the East Coast.” Adrian wiped his mouth with a towel. “Maybe she should try and work a little faster.”

“She’s doing more than most people,” Ignacio said with a scowl. “Besides there’s a lot more of you than there are of her.”

Kalup winced. Anger flared on his brother’s face, but the moody bastard brought the insult on himself. “We’re not trying to make any trouble, Ignacio. But you know how rumors are. They get more sensational the further they travel.”

“I’m sure she’ll be happy to answer your questions,” Carmen said. Bless her for being so patient.

“She’s answering them one way or another,” Adrian responded, turning away from everyone and walking out of the door.

Kalup watched him with a feeling in his gut bordering on sadness. “I’m sorry. We’ve just come a long way and he’s been through a lot.”

Carmen nodded. “I’m sure it’s a burden. He’s brave to have traveled so far with it.”

Kalup sighed. “Brave and desperate. We all know what happens to people with it. He hates the power in him. Never uses it.”

A lie. Adrian used it in the tightest of spots, but certain details needed to stay between them. As kind as they were, he still couldn’t trust how they might react to knowing Adrian had tasted his power before. Knowing about something like Phoenix.

“…the beds are upstairs.” Ignacio said.

Kalup turned to him, wide-eyed. “I’m sorry?”

“We have guest beds upstairs. You and your brother are welcome to them.” Ignacio had a pair of fresh bed sheets in his arms. “We haven’t had any company in a while, but they’re clean.”

Kalup took the sheets. “Thank you.”

∙∙∙

Neither of them slept well, but Adrian woke first. “A damn shame we couldn’t actually enjoy these. We been sleeping on grass and concrete too long.”

Kalup laughed and rolled out of bed. “Doubt that’s why we couldn’t sleep. We’re just anxious.”

“She’s gotta know we’re here by now. All these people are pretty serious about her.”

“Given all we’ve heard, wouldn’t you be, too?”

“Maybe.” Adrian looked out the small window at the heads of their beds. “We should go out to the beach. Actually enjoy the water before she shows up.”

They threw on some clothes in a hurry and headed out. As the waves lapped against their ankles and then their knees, the ocean moved them to peace. Looking into the vastness of it brought them to a stillness. Words of hope lingered unspoken between them. Neither of them wanted to stake too much on the natural beauty in front of them.

“It did that to me too the first time I saw it.”

The brothers looked over their shoulder and in the doorway stood a tall black woman with luxurious, thick dreadlocks and a sharp face. Her peaceful green eyes examined them. A sea foam dress wrapped around her athletic frame, held out of the surf as she moved closer to them, her shell necklaces jingling. She walked between them and let her toes be touched by the water. “There’s power in the ocean. It is truly an ancient thing and we can never really touch it.”

Adrian snickered. “Send Exxon the message.”

“Oh, sure. We can hurt it. We’ve done a lot to hurt this planet. The Twisting slowed some of that down. To our peril of course, but we couldn’t exactly expect the Earth to give a damn about us when we did so little to care for it.” She bent down and let the water rush across her fingers. Kalup couldn’t help but to imagine her as a nymph making her way out of the ocean to only realize she missed it terribly.

“You’re her,” Kalup said.

She looked up at him and smiled. “Thank God you didn’t call me that silly name. I’m Nya.”

Adrian folded his arms and sneered. “We’ve been waiting for you since yesterday.”

“My apologies, but I had some preparations to see to. Besides, you’ve been traveling for months. I’m sure one more day of waiting couldn’t have destroyed you too much.” She stood up and shook her hand to flick some of the ocean water away. Easily as tall as them, her presence both soothed and imposed. Kalup could see why people flocked to her. She carried the right degree of charisma and power.

“Glad the rumors didn’t have us expecting you to be punctual,” Adrian said.

“A lack of punctuality is a small price to pay in the grand scope of what’s about to happen between us.”

Kalup frowned. “And what exactly is happening? Do you already know why we’re here?”

She nodded and turned her nose up at Adrian. “His police magic. I can smell it. It’s a festering wound. You want me to take it away from him.”

Adrian sizzled. She not only told him he stunk, but she called his power the derogatory term everyone used for it. Kalup did his best to never say it. Adrian looked ready to throw a punch. Police magic only earned that name because the police were the ones who set it loose after The Twisting.

Nya’s gaze turned back to the ocean. “I wonder if you two are ready to dive into deep waters. Are you willing to take my hand and go out there?”

Adrian stared holes into her bare back. “You just told me I stink.”

“Hate and violence aren’t exactly fragrant concepts.”

“What are you asking of us?”

“This world has so many cycles. Things come and things go and they come right back again. Some of those we tried to forget. Even now we’re still denying it when it’s right in our face.” She started to walk away from them, but not in a hurry. It was obvious she didn’t plan on stopping, so the brothers followed her.

“What are we denying?” Kalup asked. Even he could feel his patience beginning to wear thin. “We’re trying to learn, but you aren’t telling us much.”

“Magic once existed in this world in all its terrifying glory. Science and magic have always been a cycle, one we have tried to deny. No matter what the age, we’re always denying the other coming after it.” She waved to Ignacio and Carmen as they passed their house. “These people see me as a miracle, but I am really only a beginning. As are you, Adrian. We’re the breaking water.”

Kalup picked up on her metaphor. “Ok, so we’re going through some kind of birth? Was The Twisting a birth?”

She stiffened and shook her head. “No, just a contraction. And like all contractions, painful. In its pain it latched on to the most prevalent emotion. It latched on to hate and violence. America had more than enough of both to go around.”

“So your power is violent, too?” Adrian asked.

“Not in the way you would think,” Nya said, stepping up a short flight of stairs to the door. She opened it and beckoned them in. “My magic comes from a need to protect. Yours comes from a need to dominate.”

Adrian frowned. “Police did protect people.”

“Yes, it would be foolish to say they didn’t.” She closed the door behind her and led them into her living room. No couches, just large black pillows. She took a seat on one and wrapped her arms around her knees. “But I think we can all agree corruption walked alongside their ranks almost from inception. They ignored and encouraged the rot and those who tried to fight it didn’t understand the depth of what needed to be done. We know the names.”

Even after all these years, Kalup could recite them like some terrible poetry. Sandra, Rekia, Amadou, Eric, Michael. The names could keep going in a never ending cry of unjust sorrow. He remembered the tragedy of Sandra vividly and remembered seeing his mother try to hide her weeping when watching the story on the news.

“Each of them was so beautiful and so strong. The energies already sought release, the pressure building before they died. Magic was ready to make its way back into the world.”

Adrian shook his head. “Ok so you’re wanting me to believe magic, real magic is back?”

“And what would you call what you do?”

Adrian scowled. “I don’t know. But it ain’t magic. It’s from Hell.”

“You have to understand magic in so many old disciplines relied on emotional intensity. America with its myriad of problems proved a perfect breeding ground for this new age to begin. The wide-open deaths of our brethren were a tipping point. So many were heartbroken, there was righteous hate in others and even the purposeful indifference of those watching us die in the streets created the stress necessary to break the first barrier.”

“The water breaking,” Kalup said.

She nodded. “Think of The Twisting as the first trickles of magic coming back.”

Kalup laughed. “So a trickle was powerful enough to knock out technology across a whole country and make police into raving lunatics?”

“No, the trickle latched on to what already existed in these men and women. These people dealt with extreme stress. Violence was part of their daily existence and the voices of so many demanding them to change made the perfect circumstances for connection. They were already dealing with their own birthing pangs in a fashion. The Twisting simply latched on to that commonality.”

“So how do you make it go away?” Adrian asked. His words cut sharply through the air.

The ocean breeze blew through the open windows and swayed Nya’s dreadlocks. “I’m hoping with both of your help I can destroy all the police magic.”

“How?” Adrian asked, his excitement too obvious. Kalup watched him quickly pulled back into his usual sullen expression. His brother wasn’t ready to believe yet.

“With forgiveness.”

Kalup felt slapped. “Why should we forgive those bastards? They tore this country apart and stomped their boots on our neck before then.”

Nya shook her head. “They’ve paid their penalty in madness. Is our anger, however justified, worth keeping the land in the state it’s in? Believe me, if we’re still in the same position when the next contraction comes you’ll see new magic and it will be dark. Much darker than anything police magic could conjure.”

“We’ll help you if it means Adrian is freed,” Kalup said. He didn’t want to give his brother time to mull this over. Disaster loomed around every corner and if they could help her fix it, they would. “But why us? What makes us special?”

“Your brotherly bond. No one can exchange forgiveness like siblings. And Adrian’s reluctance to use his power for years. He’s rarer than rare in that respect. My mind has seen too many cave in to it. Power, no matter how dark, is a hard thing to ignore.”

She moved closer to Adrian and put a hand on his shoulder. “I know you do not trust me Adrian, but I respect your will. I’ve waited years to find you.”

Adrian looked down at the hardwood floor. “What are you?”

“I’m the opposite. Duality is one of the foundations of magic as well. There has to exist an opposite. My power is born from a need to protect. It’s something our people know how to do well. We protected each other as slaves. We protected each other from lynchings and mobs. We protected each other from the police.”

She reached out and took both their hands. “I’ve been making preparations. Come with me and we can undo all of this.”

∙∙∙

They followed her without hesitation. This is what they’d come for. What madness would it be to lose faith and turn back now? Kalup didn’t want to use the term messianic to describe her because his people spent enough time sitting around for a messiah. So he wouldn’t call her that, but she was something amazing to behold. She walked through the wreckage along I-8 with confidence and yet her eyes burned with a deep compassion. The destruction laid out before her made her sad.

Kalup wasted so much time trying to survive that he never really stopped to feel sad about anything anymore. She took a moment to bend down by a burnt doll. “My mind has been filled with so much. I can’t remember the last time my dreams were my own. Everyone’s hurt sits right in my heart.”

Adrian sighed. “Mines too.”

She took them through the parking lot of the mall they were at yesterday and up a small flight of stairs. They walked by broken, forgotten stores stripped clean of items, leaving nothing but glass and carpet. Nya came to a halt in front of the movie theater. “Inside is where we will do the ceremony.”

They walked into the movie theater and where concession lines would have once been a circle of chairs stood in its place. Kalup thought they were ripped out theater seats. Six of them. “Who are the other three?”

He could have sworn he saw a shiver go through Nya. “They’re for spirits. Things we must summon. Abstract forces.” She motioned for them to have a seat. “Please. I have to meditate a bit before we can begin.”

Adrian folded his arms across his chest and Kalup could see he tried his damndest to not start tapping his foot. They were nervous. Nya wasn’t giving them a lot to go on and she wanted them to just follow along. But one thought steadied Kalup; was anything in this world really worth sticking around for anyway?

Nya released a deep breath and ended her meditation. “The three abstracts we’re summoning forth are brutality, dominance, and fear. The living representations of those three things will be right here with us. We’re going to bargain with them.”

Kalup perked up an eyebrow. “So are they ghosts?”

Nya frowned. “Closer to demons.”

Adrian hopped in his seat. “What?! Are you kidding? You got to be out your fucking mind!”

Kalup crossed his arms. “Bro, we came here for this. I’m not running away now.”

Nya looked Adrian in the eye. “I won’t lie to you. This doesn’t sit well with me either, but if we don’t do this then The Twisting will be thought of as timid in the days to come. We have an obligation to do this.” She looked at Adrian’s clenched hands. “And you want it gone.”

“I’m sorry.” Adrian looked up at them and he was that kid in Atlanta all over again. “I’m just scared.”

“It’ll be worth it,” Kalup said, trying to stir on himself as much as his brother.

Nya clenched her fists and sat them on her knees, her head bowed. “Then close your eyes and keep them closed no matter what you hear or see.”

Kalup obeyed and felt a vibration travel through him. He had no idea what grabbing a live wire was like but he had to figure what he just felt came close to it. The jolt tightened every muscle in his neck and made him incredibly sore. Did the other two get the same feeling?

The empty chairs started to creak and the air filled with the smell of burning oil. It made Kalup flare his nostrils and his heart clenched up at the thought of what might actually be happening that he couldn’t see. The noise of knuckles cracking and hooves sliding against the wax-stripped linoleum joined in the creaking. Kalup squeezed his eyes harder as a hot breath warmed one of his ears. The smell of rotten eggs made Kalup gag, but somehow he managed to keep his eyes closed.

Then came the voice, rough and indecent. “I oughta rip your face off you stupid black sonuvabitch!”

Kalup recognized the voice despite the otherworldly distortion in it. It belonged to the cop who had first tried to kill him and his brother on the night of The Twisting. The pudgy, fat bastard had run at them with unnatural speed and caught Adrian by the neck of his jacket. Yvette had saved them by blowing the cop’s arm clean off. Kalup still never asked how she came across a rifle that big.

“Shut up! Did your mother not teach you to be quiet?”

Shock gripped Kalup. The second voice belonged to his Kindergarten teacher, a terrible woman he hated to even think about. She’d taken pleasure in being cruel to him and didn’t mind watching the other kids join in on it. Her sole purpose was to make a five-year old understand how worthless society thought him and how grateful he should be to have her as a teacher. He never told his parents because he just thought it would make it worse. Even now after all these years, her voice made him crawl into a small space within himself.

“Kalup, boys don’t play with other boys like that.”

Never in all his days did he imagine he would hear the voice of his mother again. Fear gripped him. He wanted to look, but what if some twisted thing claiming to be his mother stood there? What if he saw her corpse, flesh falling away from decay? His imagination proved horrible enough so he not only squeezed his eyes, but his fists as well. His nails began to dig into his skin, but he didn’t care. He couldn’t give in and open them. Nya had told them to keep their eyes closed and he held on to whatever belief he put in her. Believing in what she could do drove him and his brother across the country.

“Hear me stalwarts of the old age! Harbingers of darkness in the new.” Nya’s voice cried out and a silence fell that almost made Kalup think she banished the voices away. “We haven’t come here to hear your warnings and temptations.”

“Shut up bitch! I oughta cut her throat!” the voice of the cop cried out.

“She’s just entirely too sassy.” Hearing his mother again sent a chill through him. How many more times could he stand hearing her and not take a look?

“Brutality, you have always sought to harm our bodies. Dominance you have always sought to control them. Fear, you have always held us back from embracing them. But we come bearing our forgiveness. As I forgive, so shall Kalup and Adrian forgive. You must speak it!”

Kalup took a breath. He wondered if Adrian heard Mom too. Didn’t matter now. Forgiveness needed to happen and up until this moment he couldn’t see himself giving it. But the voices he heard reminded him of the power these things held over his life. He didn’t desire them to have a single ounce of power over him anymore.

“Brutality. I forgive you for destroying my family. I forgive you for burdening my brother. I forgive you for every brother and sister you slew in cold blood. I forgive you while still knowing I must always be vigilant against you.

“Dominance. I forgive you for never seeing me as innocent. I forgive you for reminding me every day how small you thought I was. I forgive you for never thinking I would be or could be good enough. I forgive you while knowing I must live every day going forward in my freedom.” He wished the strength to say those words could find its way to a five-year old him. But what five year old should ever be expected to wield such courage?

“Fear. I forgive you because I must forgive myself. I forgive you for never letting me believe in myself. I forgive you for making me believe that me wasn’t good enough.”

A terrible tremor rumbled through the theater. Kalup heard screams from the three voices and amidst the screams came a cacophony of slashing noises. God, his mother sounded like a creature being dragged back to Hell. She’d already died once. Why did he need to experience it all over again? That awful ripping would never end. He covered his ears and curled into a ball in the seat. He screamed when an arm touched his shoulder.

“It’s over, Kalup. It’s over.”

Kalup opened his eyes. Adrian stood over him. The two immediately hugged, both wracked by the pain of their experience. All the wretched miles spent traveling through broken cities and every horror they saw lurking inside them poured out in that moment. Kalup’s love and compassion for his brother had never felt so intense. He cried for the nights he wasn’t sure if his brother’s dreams were going to drive him crazy. He wept for the parents they lost. But the tears could only come because there was a chance this might all be over. That something new could start.

“They wouldn’t stop screaming,” Kalup whispered.

“I know, man. I know.” Adrian pulled away and held up his palm. The scar was gone. “Look. Can you believe it?”

Nya laughed. “Easier than I thought.”

Kalup stretched his eyes as far as he could. “You thought that was easy? Did you not—

“There was much hate and violence, don’t misunderstand me.” Nya stood up from the chair and stretched. “But hope lingered, too. A forgotten need to do the right thing. To help people. That’s what pulled us through.”

“What do you mean?” Adrian asked.

“In the end, the police magic could only ever really be broken by its source. Their spirits strengthened by our forgiveness finally did it.” She smiled radiantly.

Adrian sat down and smiled, too. Kalup could hardly believe it. A scowl had served as Adrian’s default expression for years. “So what do we do now?”

“We wait.” Nya wiped sweat off her forehead. “And we remember. Perhaps if we say their names and keep them close to our hearts, the Earth will see we have recognized our offense.”

“And it’ll give us more of your magic?” Kalup asked.

“We’ll have to wait. The forgiveness is a just a seed. It’s not the end. True change can only start at forgiveness, but work must follow.”

Adrian got up off his feet and held out a hand to Nya and his brother. “Then let’s get to work.”

ABOUT BRENT LAMBERT

Brent Lambert is a military brat so don’t ask him where he’s from. Currently living in San Diego, he’s in the pursuit of writing great stories and living even better ones. He grew up on a healthy diet of comics, Saturday morning cartoons and SFF novels. His tastes are still the same except he now has the good sense to throw some black on it.

REVIVAL

By Wendi Dunlap // 2808 words*

As the old Earth passed away beneath the stars, they were delivered. They discovered a new world where they could be free. The old order was done. The elders gathered and they called their new home Revival, a celebration unto the Lord. And they rejoiced.

Remnants of the Chronicles, Revival Community Colony 3030 A.D.

∙∙∙

It’s midnight and I can smell the new moon through the cracks in the concrete. This organism in my womb has heightened my senses in unnatural ways. I can hear the Council’s hushed arguments through the walls of my cell as they contemplate my death, their words carried by the night wind through the cracks in the concrete that constitutes the community prison.

Old habits die hard.

We’ve been on this planet for less than ten years and a prison was the first building we constructed. We have spent the majority of our lives behind prison walls. And here I sit, face pressed against cold concrete, trying desperately to hear my fate, a future that I reclaimed when I escaped the child prisons on earth. I’d been shackled since the age of eight for offenses I no longer remembered. I fought the galaxies for this. We came here to be free. The irony of my imprisonment now is not lost, but stroking my swollen abdomen, I know my freedom no longer matters. They will murder me and the creature that grows within me. Fear and execution are perhaps the only lessons we’ve mastered.

Charlow pours boiling water into the steel tub in my cell and places a towel next to it. It doesn’t matter that I am not dirty. She busies herself with inane tasks to avoid looking at me. Instead, she folds the blankets on my bed, conspicuously looking for droplets of blood. To her disappointment, the sheets are pristine, stainless.

They told me she is here to ensure my comfort. In actuality she is my confessor, but she hasn’t said a single word. Her silence is confirmation of my damnation. It is sharper than the blade that they will slide through my belly.

“It is not my fault I am pregnant,” I tell her.

She pauses briefly and then decides to pull the sheets off of the bed. She knows that I am not coming back.

“I’ll bring you fresh linens,” she lies, dumping the sheets into a pile. She gestures towards the tub, “Get in before it cools.”

The silence of pure innocence persuades when speaking fails – William Shakespeare. I read that in prison, the first one.

So, I hold my tongue and comply. I stand and slip off the white gown before she takes my arm to help navigate my bulk into the tub. I can feel her eyes as I slowly sink in the water and when I am finally submerged she shudders and turns away. It has been years since any of us have seen a pregnant woman, at least until recently. I marvel every time I look at myself. It feels good to carry life, even it that life eventually brings death. I do not know if that is my emotion, or the creature’s. So I slide into the hot tub, but the soothing, hot water only fills my body with guilt.

“Then whose fault is it?” she finally asks.

“You can go if you want. I didn’t ask you to come.”

She turns now and stares openly at my full stomach floating in the steaming water. “How could I not come? You’re my sister.”

I smile.

“And you are the most selfish bitch I know,” she continues, “you threaten the entire community with this life you hid for so many months.”

“It will be human,” I say with a certainty I do not feel.

“We don’t know that,” she shakes her head, “Tell me. Who is the father, Serene?”

As a child my mother would tell me that I had an answer for everything. I could explain the inexplicable. As our jailers broke their frustrations on our black and brown backs, my grandfather would test me with why. “Why, Serene, does the moon mark night?” he would ask.

And I would answer, “Because, Abba, whiteness always brings darkness and when we see it coming we must fight, hide or flee.” Eventually, we would choose the latter. When outnumbered, always flee. But I do not have an answer for Charlow. Not one that she will understand or accept. Tonight there is no moon, and the darkness that comes is pitch black. Agitated by my silence, Charlow bursts into tears.

“I am so sorry, sister.”

“You are not sorry,” she spits the words with the fire of accusation, untethered by her tears.

I do not know if it is the shame of my transgression or the inevitability of my execution that fills her with sorrow. I suspect it is both. I watch as anger and sadness over take her in equal measure.

“It will be human,” I whisper, but there is little comfort in denial.

There is a knock at the door.

There is no time for neither remorse nor denial. Charlow wipes her tears roughly on the hem of her shirt and snaps to action. Quickly, she helps me out of the tub and covers my swollen body with a large white sheet. As I dry off and slip into a fresh gown, she opens the door a crack and pokes her head through. I cannot see, but I know it is Achebe.

“Yes,” she says, her voice filled with nerves.

“Did she tell you?” he asks.

She casts a look back at me and then slips out the door, slamming and locking it shut behind her. It is no matter. I can hear every word.

“No, Achebe, she has told me nothing,” Charlow responds, “She just says it is not her fault, that the child will be human. Nothing that will save her life. Please talk to her. They will kill her tonight.”

Achebe sighs. He does not want to see me pregnant. But, despite my betrayal, he does not want to see me executed either. He will come in and face me.

I back away from the door and take a seat on the bed. My hair hasn’t been braided or oiled in days. It surrounds my head like a brittle halo. My brown skin is gray from the bath water and I am easily triple my normal size. My ankles are swollen and deep purple veins are visible up and down my legs.

I won’t be the woman he remembers.

He steps into the room, and as always, I am startled by his beauty. Six feet five inches and lean, he walks over to the bed and takes a seat next to me. But he can’t look at me. Instead, he stares at the wall, his smooth ebony hand sliding over my own and squeezing. He frowns, trying to find the words. His tight cornrows reveal all the stress and confusion furrowing his brow. I love him and I want to comfort him, but I was never in love with him. I think he knows that now.

“Serene,” he begins slowly,”why?”

Why does he have to begin with why? I take my hand back and rub it nervously against my thigh. “If you have to ask than you never really knew me,” I say.

He sighs. I have always frustrated him.

“I wanted a baby,” I finally answer. “And a guess a new lover too,” I add.

He winces. “And that’s worth your life.” It is more statement than question. He condemns me. “It wasn’t time, Serene. We still don’t know this planet. We could have had a baby together in a few more years.”

“Or become extinct waiting. Why did we escape earth? To grow old and slowly die off?”

He lowers his voice to a whisper, “The last pregnant woman gave birth to a monster, Serene. It ripped her apart.”

“No,” I stand now. “I was there. It was not a monster. It was just different and she had lost so much blood. This place is different so the children will be different. Different is not always dangerous.”

“It ate her alive, Serene. It ripped Ayo apart and almost went after you before they put it down. You are not thinking clearly. This thing inside of you … it’s clouding your judgment.”

There is a sharp pain in my womb. I ignore it.

“And Ayo wouldn’t confirm paternity either,” Achebe continues, “Serene, does this creature have a father? I mean, it sure as hell ain’t me.”

“All children have fathers.”

“A human father?” He stands and begins pacing the room. “Serene, it is a virus,” he beings to explain. Like most men, he assumes he has information that I do not so I just listen as he continues, “It’s affecting us all. In the food we eat, the water we drink. It’s slowly changing who we are. Wounds are healing. Disease is disappearing. For god’s sake, we’ve stopped aging. Why do you think this thing is keeping us alive? We are its cattle! And you’ve just elected to breed with it.”

“Change is not always a bad thing.”

But he ignores me, “Until we understand this virus, figure out what’s happening to us and why, it is not safe to give birth. It is a threat to our entire community and everything we’ve been building for the last 10 years. This whole situation is draining our resources. We need to conquer this disease, not spend weeks trying to figure out if your baby will be human.”

I cup his face with my hands and kiss the creases on his forehead. He doesn’t pull away. He’s missed my touch as much as I’ve missed touching him.

“Achebe, it is not a disease. It is gift. And I promise you it is sentient.”

He pulls away. “And you bred with it? You gave your body to it, Serene.”

“Would it hurt less if I lied?”

“There are no advanced life forms on this planet, Serene.” He spits my name like it is poison.

“Stop saying my name like that.”

“This has been confirmed by elders much older and wiser than you, Serene.”

“Then how do you explain this?” I say gesturing towards my belly. There are tears in his eyes now. “If I wanted my sex life and reproduction to be regulated, Achebe, I would have stayed on Earth. This was my choice.”

“You stupid …”

“Leave now.”

“Goodbye, Serene.”

He leaves with the bitter dignity of a man who has finally accepted the infidelity of his lover. He needed to see me again to convince himself that I am not the woman he fell in love with. Hopefully when I am dead, he will not suffer.

The pain returns. If I make it through the night, my baby will be born by morning. I hid its existence for 7 months. Now both of us must face the consequences of this conception.

“Come now,” I urge, “or they will kill us both.”

The pain intensifies. I sit back on the bed and breathe deeply. This baby must be born tonight.

Charlow returns. Her anger is gone, her cheeks stained with tears. She leans against the door, as if to block the inevitable. “The Council is coming,” she chokes back the sobs.

I just nod.

“I can’t stop them,” she says.

I nod again, “I know.”

“You did this to yourself.”

“I know that, too.”

She falls to her knees, overwhelmed by the inevitable. I go to her and I press her head to my womb. Then the child speaks. I do not know what it says, only that the gentle vibrations from my womb are words. Charlow scurries away, her hopelessness replaced with terror.

“What … ?” I ask.

Her mouth opens but the words do not come. The child has taken her voice. She doubles over in pain, grasping her flat stomach and retches violently. Thick vomit flows down her chin and over the front of her dress. But there’s nothing I can do about that now.

My water has just broken.

The fluid from my womb washes down my dry thighs and spreads across the coarse cotton of my gown. I brace myself for pain, but instead I am filled with a strange tingling. The room begins to spin and I slip to the ground to avoid falling, but there is no discomfort. My birth pains have been transferred to Charlow. She stares at me, racked with pain, the contractions rippling through her body like violent waves. The amniotic fluid spreads across the floor and towards her legs. She moves away as if fleeing from poison.

The door bursts open and it’s Abba followed by the other Council members. They are our elders, men and women who have endured the worst of Earth. Their eyes are empty of empathy. The brutality of their lives have prepared them for the unspeakable violence required to survive an apocalypse and the sacrifices to rebuild civilization. They come to murder one of their own, to help a grandfather execute his granddaughter. He carries with him a large machete used for cutting the outgrowth of wilderness surrounding the settlement.

There is no ceremony for murder.

The first thing that they see is the puddle of fluid. Then they see Charlow, holding herself, shaking inexplicably with birth pains. They immediately turn to me. I crouch under the verdict of their judgment as Abba lifts the blade. I consider pleading for my life, begging for banishment instead of execution. But I won’t. I was chosen to carry this child. There is dignity in distinction, even when that distinction demands your death.

There is love in Abba’s eyes, but there is also fear and desperation. This is perhaps the hardest thing he has ever had to do. A father who escaped the imperial prisons of Earth so that his family could rediscover their humanity, now stands above his pregnant granddaughter with a machete. When did we forget the sanctity of life?

The blade sweeps down and time slows, seconds become minutes. I watch the light reflect against its surface. I am transfixed by the sweet song of the air as it whistles through. I close my eyes and pray that this will be quick and painless. I mourn for the child that will never know life outside of my womb.

And then I am slammed against the wall and pushed towards the open door. I open my eyes in surprise. The machete strikes concrete and Abba’s arm is broken by the force. Arms spread to shield me from the Council; Achebe stands between Abba and myself. Charlow’s arms wrap around Abba’s feet to restrain him.

Mama now.

I hear a distant voice, growing louder.

Stunned, I look at Achebe. “Why?”

“Go,” he says, eyes fixed on the approaching Council, protecting me, warning them.

It is in this moment that I realize it is very possible to love someone too much. They will kill them for this.

I scramble to my feet, but pause for one final look at my sister. “Give me back the pain,” I command the child and Charlow is immediately relieved. She staggers to her feet and stands with Achebe between me and the Council.

With his good arm, Abba knocks Achebe to the floor, but Achebe is quickly back on his feet, swinging in retaliation. Charlow joins him with her own kicks and claws as the rest of the Council piles on.

“Run!” she shouts.

When outnumbered, always flee.

They are all too confused and bewildered to come after me, so I lift my sagging belly with both hands and race down the hall and through the prison doors.

In the distance, I hear the sweet laughter of my lover. I feel Its kisses on my toes as the soil massages my bare feet. I am intoxicated by Its earthy odor and titillated by the seduction of Its whispers, carried with the wind. I race through the thick bush, away from our settlement, and into the wilderness. Everywhere I turn I am assaulted with love and the unbridled passion of an organism millions of years old. As I inhale I take It deep into my body, and then slowly out again. It is my world.

This planet has seduced my soul, crept through the tightness between my thighs and brought me the pleasure of a thousand feathered tongues. It planted this seed in my womb and that seed will give new life to a humanity that has all but destroyed itself. I blow kisses to the wind and my lover caresses me with a soft, sweet breeze. It leads me towards sanctuary to give birth to our child.

My contractions come like gentle hallelujahs.

∙∙∙

ABOUT WENDI DUNLAP

Wendi Dunlap has been writing speculative fiction since she was seven years old. Drawn to the genre by the Arthurian legends and the epic traditions of Europe, she eventually found a home in the works of Octavia Butler and Tananarive Due. She credits the novels Wildseed and My Soul to Keep for opening her eyes to the potential of combining African mythology, history and culture into the fantastic sagas she enjoyed as a child.

Her writing career has spanned across film, journalism, poetry and cultural critique. She has worked as a freelance journalist for The Amsterdam News, and wrote op-eds on race and diversity for The Bergen County Record. She has won national awards for playwriting and was a regular in the NY / NJ spoken word circuit. Her literary reviews and cultural critiques have appeared in independent press publications like African Voices and New Jersey Perspectus magazine.

Wendi holds a BA in Film and Africana Studies from Cornell University. She currently resides in the Seattle, WA area with her son. By day, she works in Digital Media & Advertising for a major technology company. In the evenings, she is completing her first full-length novel, a YA horror epic. Follow her on Twitter @lovingbrowngirls.

THE SHADE CALLER

By DaVaun Sanders // 4808 words

Prayers of thanks steal through my lips at Mother Night’s embrace. The sun is nearly set. The villagers of Engosfur Pools flank my path, a fence of crossed arms and stony faces singing in twilight’s gathering murk. My every step closer to the Elder’s Rise is spit in their faces. I have an urge to cast aside my tattered body shroud and taunt them, finally, as an equal, but it won’t do for a flash of pride to stir Mother Night’s displeasure and invoke my madness. Not this night.

“Stop where you stand, thief!” Deryat yells, bursting into my path. The villagers’ song dies mid-praise. They expected this, expected me to fail this task and remain as I am.

“What?” I extend a quavering hand toward the awaiting Elders. “I’ve stolen nothing—”

“I told you not to move!”

She snaps a black star free of her constable’s vest and flings it. Pain blooms in my thigh. I stagger, hold in a hiss. Another black star, wide as her palm, is already in her hand, its six edges honed by hours of cruel devotion.

I do not move.

Another constable shoulders through the villagers, eying me uncertainly. “He’s the thief?” Etkaru muses, brandishing his own black star. “Fouled timing for you, Sonu. So close.”

“Please,” I moan, fearful Deryat will mistake the fluttering threads of my body shroud for disobedience. “I’ve been inside all day! Washing my shroud for the rites!” My wrapped hands offer witness, the tattered fabric now reeks only faintly of the filth I tote to the offal vents in penance to Mother Night.

“The seeds are within the folds, then.” Something cruel colors Deryat’s pronouncement. “You will not shame our village, Sonu. I won’t allow it. If you’re innocent, reveal your hands.”

My eyes snap to the horizon. “The sun—”

“Now, Sonu.”

My heart is an unhatched bird afraid to peck through its shell. I unwind the shroud, willing the sun to descend faster. The tatters gather around both of my wrists. Obedience splays my fingers wide, and my Tainted skin is bared for all to see.

Elder Nhath taught me the way of what it means to be Sonu when he found me, a small cursed boy. My kind are marked by Mother Night; punished for our parents’ sins. A trader deals dishonestly and the sun will gobble up her child’s fingers one by one, hiding them away from sight until jagged stumps of wet bone and quivering flesh are all that is Seen. Once, an herb purveyor insisted that desperate folk grovel for his cures; his child was born with a face licked down to the soft-bone, their cheeks and teeth hidden so all would know of his father’s cruel tongue.

I can only wonder what of my parents’ evil Mother Night sought to reveal. The sun’s teeth ate past my elbows long before Elder Nhath stumbled upon my orphan cries in the steam forest.

Villagers gasp at the faintest trace of my exposed glistening bone. Even that eye-watering sight fades as the sun’s teeth gnaw my bones, warming my translucent skin.

“You’re nearly eaten away.” Etkaru’s fist rises to his mouth, his voice on the edge of disbelief or sickness. “That’s why you stole the olayo seeds.”

“I’m not mad!” Is that my voice, so fearful and raw?

“What else but a madman could ignore that wound?” Deryat scoffed.

Deryat’s black star had only grazed me, but my blood is heavy with Mother Night’s curse. It has oozed from my thigh through my shroud, and part of my leg appears to vanish. I curse, hastily rearranging the fabric to hide the unsightliness. The stunned murmurs surround me still, but they are no longer directed at me.

A woman clothed in the richest, bluest robes I’ve ever beheld cleaves through the villagers, her very presence an edge that causes people to shuffle away and stare at the ground. Elder Nhath trails behind this eryuba, sharing our collective awe for the priestess but simultaneously irritated by it. Her skin is radiantly ebon, as though Mother Night lent the finest stars to grace her face and hands. A hundred pockets cover her robe’s front. When she speaks, her words cut me far worse than Deryat’s black star.

“A worthless waste to journey all this way,” the eryuba pronounces. “This one will never be Seen.”

“But I—”

Elder Nhath silences me with a scowl. “Take the Sonu to the penance cavern.”

Deryat bows, eyes glittering with loathing as she retrieves her black star. We played kissing games under the midnight vines as children. I still remember the taste of ash-cherries on her lips. Now she spits at my feet to make me hop back. “Move, Sonu!”

The constables march me past the villagers, their slant-slate dwellings, and the stone slab where my rites were to begin. Another Sonu, Mirka, stands just before the penance cavern. Mirka was found one season after me in the steam forests. Even now, she hovers on the outskirts of an Engosfur Pools gathering to avoid offense, even though this rite is meant to celebrate one of our own.

Etkaru reaches for Mirka’s neck and rips away the fabric cocooning her head. Strands of Mirka’s muscle and pale soft-bone are visible around her round rolling eyes and naked jawline. The sun’s teeth have eaten away her hair and skull bone. I get a glimpse of a pale gray mass on her exposed head before she is able to hide herself.

Etkaru tosses the torn bit of fabric to Deryat. Deryat laughs and uses the shroud to clean my blood from her black star.

They prod me through the chiseled doorway of the penance cavern and warn me to wait for Elder Nhath. The space is a magma boil that cooled many seasons ago. Its smooth, thin chamber walls are covered with the ocher and gold feathers of vojo raptors that glow softly in the fume lanterns’ light. Prepared food is stacked all around the penance cavern, intended for the completion of my rites. My shame deepens, as does my bewilderment.

A crash of rock echoes through the chamber and I freeze. On the far side of the chamber, a puff of dust clouds the floor. I hear faint voices. Two of the feathers shift, and an enshrouded figure emerges from a narrow cleft in the wall that was not there before. Mirka. Her voice is both melody and whip.

“Tell him what you’ve done, children,” Mirka hisses back into the cleft. “Of all the nights!”

Jandra and Jalendren are brother and sister, and much younger than us. They flinch and shuffle their way inside, staring at the feast as though lost in a fever dream. The shroud beneath their eyes is damp. “We...we stole the olayo seeds,” Jalendren manages.

“Mother Night should flay you!” My voice is a harsh whisper. “You don’t deserve whatever skin is left you!”

“I was hungry and—we’re so sorry!” Jandra flings himself into my arms.

“We’ll tell them everything,” Jalendren adds, her shoulders slumped in defeat—or exhaustion. The bottomless hunger is as much a part of being Sonu as the Taint, or the rags that hide us from the sun’s teeth.

Mirka’s eyes widen, then soften a fraction as she looks at me. “You don’t know what you’re saying. You are so new to the village, you will be cast out.”

The young ones go rigid.

“You will not,” I say immediately. As much as I want to burst from the chamber dragging a child in either hand, I cannot. I set Jandra down. Despite our shrouds, we become mirrors for each other in that moment. They must see some hope for their future through me. Far too much of my past is visible within them. “Elder Nhath is merciful. And he knows of my madness.” Jandra’s snuffling ceases. I take a breath. “I may still see my rites through yet. No reason to waste a chance at yours. Which one of you broke through the stone?”

Jandra shakes his head. “We didn’t do that, how could we? We saw the great crack, and...thought you were fleeing.”

“Fleeing? No. We watch out for each other. Mother Night wanted you to know I was still here,” I say, and Mirka nods her solemn agreement. It must be, no villager would break a hole into the penance cavern out of pity for me. I squeeze Jandra’s arm. “Just remember the cost of stealing. Leave now. And don’t get caught.”

“Maybe better if Mother Night cracked your great Sonu head instead of that wall, Kandiri,” Mirka murmurs, gazing at me from beneath her shroud. “You’re all fools.”

“We see you, Kandiri,” the children whisper in unison before they steal out. I arrange the feathers behind them.

“Flay them. Roast them. Break them.”

My teeth and fists and mind clench at the sudden whisper. This is a man’s voice. “Sonu fool, great fools, eats nothing but is surrounded by food.”

Not now, I silently plead, not daring to speak aloud. Any interaction with the Taint’s mad voices is folly, same as gazing at the sun. I pull my shroud down over my eyes. My low humming doesn’t drown the voice out.

“Ganhat sees Sonu. Ganhat knows your every breath.”

A grunt pulls my attention to the tent’s entrance. Elder Nhath regards me, eyebrows raised. I scramble to kneel before him.

“I boasted of you.” His disapproval echoes through the circle. “Our first Sonu to take the rites, to prove I was right in not leaving all four of you in the forest.”

“I wasn’t myself today.” I hitch my shoulders just so. Meek. Eager. Truthful. “The madness overcame me.”

Elder Nhath grimaces. “Show me.”

“Elder?”

“Remove your shroud.”

The wraps are barely piled around my feet before Elder Nhath waves a hand. “Enough.” He’s ready to vomit. A few patches of skin cling to my torso, not enough to conceal the bone of my windcage and the guts beneath. The Taint has worsened since Deryat revealed me to the sun. Sweat beads my translucent arms, looking like the faintest shimmer in the air.

“It grieves me to see you so ravaged.” His sigh is indeed sorrowful. “Villages south of us believe Sonu cease to exist once the sun’s teeth have devoured you completely. The truth is far worse. The madness will end you. And now...not only you. Mirka, the young ones.”

“How?” I croak. “Their Taint is far less than mine!”

“Because of you. You are our first Sonu allowed to perform the ascension rites. You could have finally been Seen, Kandiri! And now, after what you’ve done? The eryuba will never journey here from Kolbash again, and no one here will risk the trek for a Sonu. There will be no more rites.”

“But they did nothing,” I croak. “If I—”

“Already the people whisper, how Kandiri must teach the Sonu to skulk and mock. They will be cast out. Your failure tonight assures their death.”

“No! I will search out new seeds. I know where to go.”

Elder Nhath blinks as I rewrap the long folds of my shroud. “I will tell the village of your...penance. Pray that Mother Night changes the eryuba’s heart. And do not get caught.”

•••

I barely squeeze through the break in the penance cavern. My racing feet burn as need directs me to the Cauldron, a sinkhole valley on the edge of the Shatterlands where fresh-cooled magma and disintegrating glaciers form a treacherous stew. Sulfuric plumes give the air bite. Eyes are upon me here, as surely as the ground crunches under my feeble weight. The Taint’s madness searches for me, stalks all around me.

I pass deeper into the Cauldron’s maze of weeping ice cliffs and bottomless black pools. The type of ground I seek eludes me. My breath still mists in the air, marking this place as too cold to harbor olayo and their coveted seeds. I follow a winding path that leads toward a red glow on the horizon, a glow we’re taught to avoid. The path abruptly terminates before a deep chasm, inside of which lies a simmering pool of magma. Gas boils from below and surfaces in splattering blossoms that will burn holes right through me, Unseen skin or not. Across this expanse, a dark fist of crumbling, skyward pointing rock slowly sinks into the magma below. I exhale. I can make out slim olayo leaves upon the rock. Hooked seed pods hang heavy from the vines.

I sprint forward and spring off the lip of the chasm. My shroud flutters in the wind. After a long, breathless, weightless moment, I strike the sinking rock, the impact knocking the air from my windcage. I scramble for crumbling handholds. All I hear is the sizzle of loose stones slapping into the magma below.

“Slide, slip, boil your skull, flip your skin—”

“Shut up! You shut up!” I scream at the mad voice. “Mother Night, please—”

Something powerful grasps my chest and sets me safely on the outcrop. I scramble from the edge, rolling backward with a shout. For the only time in my life, Mother Night responded to my plea.

“Stop staring up at the stars.” I nearly leap in the magma as the voice pierces the night. It is no longer fouled by madness. “Why do you cling to that loathsome rag?”

“Who are you?” I demand. “Reveal yourself!”

“We’ve scarce time to acquaint ourselves, little brother. I could not speak to you, until you acknowledged me. Many have whispered to you through the years, yes? But I’m the one who called you out. I must know how deep your Shade reaches.”

“Sonu,” I whisper, and take the answering silence as assent. I shrink a little further into my shroud.

“That looks hot. And itchy,” the night’s voice observes. The same something tugs at my enshrouded arm. I shrink away. “Best cast it off, little brother.”

“You wear no shroud. Who are you?”

Rough hands grab mine and yank me forward. My fingers feel the outline of muscled shoulders, neck. The Sonu’s Unseen skin is etched in raised scars that weave in and out of my touch like hunting birds.

“Now you know my name,” he says. “Call me Setcha until you learn our ways.” He grasps my neck and slides his hands down my thin shoulders. I’d forgotten my old scars. He grunts with surprise. “Your name...is Shenthis. ’One who is kind and powerful.’ I know the ancestral line of both your parents. There is strength in knowing a name.”

I wrench myself from his grasp. “My...parents? All there was before Engosfur Pools is cold and fear! The Elders gave me my first blindfold—”

The shadows sigh. “A reckoning will come for that, I promise you. But that is another’s task, not mine.

“Hear me, little brother. The sun has no teeth. Light does not eat your flesh. The air hasn’t cursed you; you’re not a bloodless demon, a star-soldier, or any of the other foolish things I hear within these endless villages. Mother Night has not forsaken you. You must know this to be true if you want more than to grovel in this village all your days.”

“I do not grovel,” I snap. “And my rites are—”

“You are a very good liar.” His words snap my retort from the air. “The eso-ekun led me to you. One of them has imprinted on you. You feel him, prowling? I see how you tense.”

I recall the eyes upon me, how the land shifted for more than my weight. I ransack the old tales stacked within my memories. My mouth goes dry. “A dreadcat?”

The Shade Caller laughs. “You didn’t believe I pulled you up myself just now, surely? Ganhat is his name. Speak it and he will rise to your defense—”

“Sonu!” A whoop pulls my attention back to the chasm edge. Etkaru is there, a coil of rope over his shoulder. “Did you find the olayo?”

I nearly forgot the cursed seeds, so intense was my discussion with the Shade Caller. I wrap a handful of them in my sleeve, enough for what was stolen and more for the children to add to their stores. I hastily tighten my shroud and wave for Etkaru. He tosses the rope.

The Shade Caller kisses his teeth as I catch it. “You’re not cursed, Shade-son. They know this—their Elders do, at least.”

“You wait until now, to say these things in my ear?” I ready the rope around my waist and wave to Etkaru. “Why now? Because of the rites?”

“I would take you away from this place. Far north of here, to the cloud wall. If you stay here, you’ll become a brave sentry for these people. Loyal. But always Sonu. Wet nurses, guards; but never fit to be mothers or fathers.”

“And who will come for the ones I leave behind?”

The night pauses. “That falls to another. It’s a choice to acknowledge that hearing an Unseen voice does not mean one is mad.”

I shake my head emphatically. “I cannot. We must watch for ourselves.”

I hear the Shade Caller grinding his invisible teeth, but he does not disagree. “A fine waste this is. Hear me keenly. You will never hear a Shade Caller’s voice again. It is a gift, to give your flesh completely to the sun. Not all Sonu can do this, but you can. Ganhat wouldn’t have chosen you unless—”

I swing free, leaving the Shade Caller and his whisperings behind on the spire.

Etkaru looks at me strangely after he catches me. “Nhath sent me to see you safe,” he manages, disentangling himself. “You’re Sonu, but you’re no thief. It was one of the others, wasn’t it?”

He nods to himself at my silence. “One of the children. Elder Nhath reasoned with the eryuba on your behalf. Your rites will go forward.”

The last bit of weight slips free of my shoulders.

Etkaru makes fumbling attempts at conversation on the way back, practicing for a reality where I am Seen. He peels away well before we reach the village outskirts to find Elder Nhath. I stare at his back for a time, finally allowing my disbelief to slip away before I squeeze back into the penance cavern.

Inside, the eryuba sits on a woven mat.

Fear roots me in place. I can make out her eyes from the shadows of her hood. She flicks her arm at the cold ground before her. “You’re caught, Sonu. You may as well sit.”

I lower myself to the ground, daring to speak. “Eryuba, please—”

“You will not receive the fruits of the rite.” My shroud feels as though it strangles me with every word. “Theft and a lie on the eve of your ascension...and you spit in Mother Night’s face, blame your actions on madness?”

“I’m not mad, I—” She leans forward, suddenly intent. I cannot speak of the Shade Caller, but desperation unfurls my tongue. “The children...thought the seeds were for eating, not planting. I left just now to replace what was taken. I only wanted them to...” My eyes flood with tears and I flounder for words that I hope will appease her. “See a higher path. They will never see it if you do not return for them because of me.”

The silence stretches. “You are a very good liar,” she finally says. “We will proceed as planned, Sonu. But only because you care to show your people the right path.”

I can only offer the eryuba a ragged gasp as thanks. She sweeps out of the cavern, and my breath is mine again once Elder Nhath enters. His eyes rest approvingly on my tear-stained shroud. “I could not be prouder of how you shielded the young Sonu.” I tense, but he raises a hand. “Etkaru told me of their theft. But they’re not lost to the village now, thanks to you. Prepare yourself.”

When he leaves I wait a moment alone in the circle. But there is no whisper singing in my ear, no lilting rhyme to torment me. The Shade Caller is gone. I step out into the night.

Elder Nhath falls in step by my side. All of Engosfur Pools circles around the Elder’s Rise. Etkaru and Deryat flank us, silent as we approach the altar. Mirka catches my gaze, suckling a villager’s newborn. Dampness glistens in her eyes. I cannot wait to tell her everything. I ascend the three steps and stand before the awaiting eryuba on the chiseled stone.

“Kandiri,” she pronounces, her voice rising, “tonight you are Sonu no more. You’ve borne the Taint for long enough and earned the right to be Seen and touched, as one of us.”

I gasp in spite of myself. A glance shows Jandra and Jalendren are rigid with euphoria as Engosfur Pools repeats the litany. The rites meant we would be acknowledged, but to be Seen...! Mirka shakes her head, sharing my disbelief.

Memory, not madness, pulls the Shade Caller’s voice to mind. Your name is Shenthis. One who is kind and powerful.

The eryuba produces a needle-like, fluted blade and several vials of dark liquid from her robe. She places them just so on the rough stone.

“Remove your shroud,” she commands, “for the last time.”

I swallow and obey. Fresh gasps from the villagers stab me with every layer I unwind. My Tainted skin is naked before them. The bones of my windcage end in jagged claws, half-eaten away. My glistening heart pulsates behind them in the fume-lanterns’ pale glow.

I am a horror to them.

At the eryuba’s gesture, I lay on the stone. The fluted blade bites into my shoulder, hot as lava’s caress. A groan boils up from my center. Etkaru grasps the air for my ankles, Deryat grips my shoulders.

My arm trembles. The space of ten breaths is all I can bear.

“Please,” I rasp. “A moment.”

The eryuba relents. “The pain is great for someone so punished by Mother Night,” she supplies, stilling the ripple of murmurs. “None in my village were so far gone as this one. He is strong.”

I rise and examine my shoulder in awe. A circle of skin half the size of my palm is reddish-brown and glittering, like the peeled flesh of djanda birds that our hunters bring back from the splintered plains.

A small piece of me is Seen.

“You see?” Elder Nhath exults. “Sonu no more! The blessing of Cultom Peak covers his Taint now!” The villagers burst into cheering and shouts. Even Deryat’s sneer is replaced with wonder to see me anointed with minerals from the home of Mother Night herself.

The eryuba presses a bandage to my shoulder and leans in, whispering to me despite the urges of the villagers to press on. “An end of being eaten by the light is worth this fleeting pain.”

She raises her hand before me and I gasp at the sight of it. Striped bands of the same glitter blend faintly into her Seen skin. “You are—”

“Careful, lest my hand slip and nick one of your blood roots.” I swallow at the blade held ready in her Sonu hand. She smiles down at me. Horror slithers in my stomach at sight of her eyes. A deep, true concern lurks there, along with more of the same glitter from Cultom Peak.

No.

“Threading your eyes will take years.” I know her whisper for madness. “And years more to scrape away the scars. You will lose some vision, but you will never be Unseen again. Ah, the bleeding has stopped.”

Villagers gasp at sight of the bandage, marred by holes. I will never be truly free of my blood, no matter my attempts to hide it. Mud as an infant, the shroud throughout my youth. Now this...dust etched into my skin.

My blood will always lurk beneath.

I will always be Sonu.

“Let me finish it,” I say suddenly. My head inclines to Mirka and the young ones. “I must be strong. For them.”

Her eyebrows—bits of cut vasva feather, pasted just so, I realize—lift in approval. Her smile—carved slivers of delanga wood, shrouding her invisible teeth—assures my permission.

Etkaru and Deryat tense as the eryuba relinquishes her knife. I inhale deeply and grip the blade. I trace a line around the swell of my shoulder.

The eryuba hisses in frustration. “Too eager,” she complains, reaching for the knife. “The Taint isn’t removed so—”

I fling it away, then sweep aside her jars and bandages and tinctures. Gourds and earth-heart glass shatter, splashing glittering liquid from Cultom Peak across the altar.

Shouting envelops the Elder’s Rise as I spring up. Warm blood slides down my arm. My heart races for all the village to see.

Elder Nhath strides forward, enraged. “Stop this, Sonu! You shame your kind!”

“We’re not cursed.” The intensity of my own voice startles me. Jandra, Jalendren and Mirka must hear. The Shade Caller’s words come easier than I thought. “This is a gift!”

I cover my palm in my own blood, and smear it across my chest. My beating heart, sinew and the half-Seen bones of my windcage disappear wherever I touch.

I am completely Unseen.

The constables spin in frantic circles, hurling insults at me, their black stars in hand. I clap beside Deryat’s ear, dance away laughing as she screams and slashes the air around her like a fevered drunk.

“Free yourselves,” I shout to Mirka. “There’s a place for us to—”

I am suddenly being crushed by a sure and strong grip. Air flees my lungs. “Young fool,” the eryuba snarls, squeezing me from behind. “Do you know what will happen to you now? In Ishkrat, you’ll be...trained, to become perfect servants, never Seen!”

“I don’t need your ways, or your eyes!” I shout.

“Enough!” Elder Nhath thunders. “Feed him to the earth before the sun’s teeth take their fill. Feed them all. We’ll find others that will heed Mother Night’s chastening!”

His words stun me to the core. The constables approach, slashing where they guess my limbs might be. Mirka cowers as villagers surround her, soothing, extending their arms for the newborn. The young ones are crying, screaming for Mother Night. She’s never helped us, but I know something that will.

“Ganhat!” I shout. “Ganhat, aid us!”

Everyone goes still. Some villagers clap their hands over their ears, convinced I’m casting a spell. Deryat and Etkaru exchange a confused look. Nothing happens save a whisper of palanda blossoms brushing my nostrils.

The eryuba suddenly releases me and flees faster than anyone I’ve ever witnessed.

The air between me and the constables shudders. Villagers flee in every direction as a horrible growl, like metal ore riven apart within a fissure, thunders over the Elder’s Rise.

Etkaru screams. Three bloody slashes erupt from the front of his constable tabard, staining it with hot crimson. Something grasps his head, locks it in place as his lurching body still twists beneath it. Six holes pierce him at the temple and cheek. He howls.

“The sun’s teeth,” Deryat cries, falling to her knees. “Mother Night rises against us!”

“Ganhat!” Etkaru still pleads for his life. There is power in a name. I repeat it, more forcefully. The Unseen dreadcat releases Etkaru, who clutches what remains of his face.

I search out my Sonu kin among the remaining villagers. Some faint when Ganhat snorts beside me. A paw print appears in a patch of dirt, larger than both of my outstretched palms.

Jandra holds the eryuba’s knife. I help the young ones cut free of their shrouds as Engosfur Pools weeps for mercy all around us. They nick themselves with the knife and what Seen flesh remains vanishes.

Mirka is last. She kisses the Seen newborn in a moment of anguish, but her eyes harden when the boy screams at sight of her exposed teeth and sinew, her lidless eyes. She sets him in the dust. A cupped hand of mother’s milk hides her face from sight.

I extend a hand to the children. They argue, then ruffle through their discarded shroud. Finally six olayo seeds settle into my palm. Elder Nhath stares as the seeds seemingly float across the air and rest on the ground before him.

“We are Sonu,” I whisper into his ear, “We are not thieves. Nor will we ourselves be stolen ever again on this world.”

He cannot see my smile as the four of us leave Engosfur Pools. I squeeze Mirka’s hand and tell them everything of the Shade Caller’s words, the cloud wall, and the dreadcat who defends us.

We are Unseen, and I fear for us no longer.

•••

ABOUT DAVAUN SANDERS

DaVaun Sanders is an SFF author currently based in Phoenix, Arizona. His upcoming novella trilogy centered around the Sonu civilization introduced in “The Shade Caller” will feature prominently in the unfolding Dark Universe shared story world. @davaunwrites.

SISI JE KUISHA (WE HAVE ENDED)

By V. H. Galloway // 2882 words

Baba and I bolted through the forest as fast as our short legs would take us, our small steps not nearly enough to distance us from the Ituri following close behind. We dodged through the knotted tangle of trees, veering around spiky cycad palms that scratched my face and chest. For centuries, our advantage had been stealth, not speed.

I leapt over a fallen branch and lifted my snout, tasting the air. The Ituri were not far behind; I could hear their grunts, smell the piquant sweat basting their arms and crotches, marinating their backs.

I did not know how old my baba was and only had a vague idea of my own age. But there had been twelve favored siblings before me. And I had watched his and mama’s coating turn brittle, straw-like over the last year. He was no longer young. His snout hung open, his tongue, age-darkened along the edge, lolling out. He was tiring; we didn’t have much time.

“This way,” I said between gulping breaths. “Toward the mountain pass.”

Baba didn’t answer, but followed when I veered right. The outline of the mountain rose between the treetops. Crashing trees and brush revealed that the Ituri had turned in our direction. I was a few paces ahead of Baba and turned to see where he was when the ground disappeared beneath me.

Had I been watching, I would have spotted the trap easily. As I fell I blinked and, like almost all of our kind, saw my end unfolding before me: my body skewered like the flank of an antelope. I flailed, my hands grasping nothing but damp air, when a hand clasped my wrist in a solid grip. Despite his age, Baba was no weakling. Years of living in and amongst the trees had kept his body taut and strong.

I whimpered gratefully as he hauled me out of the pit. He did not think me the cleverest of his brood, nor the bravest, but he had tolerated me. I glanced into the pit that would have been my undoing: a rain-dampened, spiked earthen grave. Clawing at his shoulders, I pulled myself over the threshold and my eyes went wide.

The Ituri were almost upon us. Baba rolled to his feet in a fighting stance, armed with nothing but his gnarled fists and claws. I hefted a branch and took my place beside him. But he snatched the branch from my hands and shoved me so hard I nearly fell over.

“Go,” he said, his eyes glowing like dying embers. “I will not tell you twice.”

I knew that look but I did not care. I would not leave him. I took one step, two, back toward him. He turned, growled, and let out a war cry that set the grass at the back of my neck spiking straight out on end. He turned away, and for the briefest of moments his face clouded in depthless grief. He took off, walking at first, then running, straight for the Ituri.

I toddled on unsteady legs toward the nearest silk cotton tree and crawled over its raised roots. Chips of dark, rich bark gave way as I clambered up the trunk and swung myself up to the nearest branch. What we lacked in speed on the ground, we more than made up for in dexterity in the trees.

I looked back down to see where Baba was and noticed someone watching me. One of the Ituri; not quite a man, but past boyhood. He watched me on the branch and I held my breath. I only released it when he turned and went back to his comrades without raising an alarm.

Perched high, I watched as Baba met our pursuers in a clearing several spans ahead. The patch, like a riverbed gone dry, was one of so many places in our forest destroyed by the industry of men. Six humans surrounded him, shouting jeers and insults. Nyassi troll, they called him. Mixed in with Lingala and Swahili was a language I did not understand. Perhaps it was the new one: French.

The Ituri trained their guns on Baba as one of them stepped forward, waved on by another. He was tall and slender with a shaved head. His short skins revealed thick calves; his bare chest rippled with corded muscles. He gestured at the other men and they lowered their weapons; he wanted to enjoy this.

I inched along to another branch that would give me a better view and came face to face with an agitated puff adder. It was as long as my arm, its body already inflating. A hiss escaped the slit of a mouth. It sat luridly enjoying the shade, its thick body draped over the branch. I held its gaze and bared my fangs, easing forward inch by inch. The adder clamped its mouth shut and slithered away in search of easier prey. Cheers rose from the crowd and when I looked down. I saw Baba down on one knee. His opponent hefted a heavy log over his head, posturing for his comrades.

While his back was turned, Baba sprang up and sliced him down the length of his spine. Then he clamped his jaws around the man’s right calf, ripping out flesh, muscle, bone.

The man cried out and slumped to the ground. He was dragged out of the circle, leaving Baba turning to and fro, trying to guess from which direction the next attack would come.

I saw a noose fly through the air and land, sure as the rainy season is long, around my baba’s neck. The man on the other end of the rope, tall and slack-skinned, charcoal skin glistening with the effort, grinned like he had captured a prized okapi. The markings on his face, the deference shown by his comrades, marked him as their leader, the chief.

Every cell in my body urged me to action, but I sat there and did nothing, hating myself as much as I hated them. I was afraid; a coward just as Baba knew me to be. My survival was more important than dying by his side with what little dignity was left to us. Extinction would be the new order; my survival, a dubious exception. I was like the last drop of rain, squeezed from a spent storm cloud.

They speared, they cut, they skinned, they humiliated. I couldn’t turn away from Baba’s murder even though I knew what they did to him would be forever seared in my memory, there whenever I closed my eyes, with each breath I took. It was if I were fading, that my baba’s weakening screams were all that tethered me to the earth. When they ceased finally, mercifully, the world tilted. The sky suddenly too close overhead. The trees, the forest, contracting.

The sun sank lower in the sky as I gnashed my teeth and held my sobs deep in my belly. I could not kill them all, but I could try for the chief. I could slip into their camp after they fell asleep, creep up to him and rake my claws across his throat. If the rest awoke and killed me after, it did not matter. The humans had already killed us all. As night approached I climbed down the tree.

And then I smelled him.

My plan was over before it had begun. I faced the person who would send me to join my ancestors. It was him, the man-child.

“I could call them,” the man-child said. “But I won’t if you give me a blade of your nyasi.”

I eyed him suspiciously. “It is only grass. You can pick a blade from anywhere.” I pointed. “There. I will not stop you.”

He stared at me. “Yours will make me strong. I will make as many sons as my father. Besides,” he added. “Yours tastes sweeter.”

These oafs still held to their ridiculous myths. I plucked a blade of grass from my lower leg—where the feeling was more like that of a mosquito bite than real pain—and handed it to him. He plopped down on the ground and chewed that part of me like it was a delicacy, oblivious to my anger. He gestured for me to sit with him.

“There aren’t many of you left.”

I sat, curiosity momentarily displacing my rage and grief. “Your kind made sure of that. Your new friends, your fancy weapons. You should take care that those same weapons aren’t turned on you one day.” I did not tell him that I, in fact, was the last of my kind.

The man-child scrunched up his face. “But you devoured the griot.”

I waved a claw-tipped finger at him. “You, of all creatures, judge us? We only eat enough to survive,” I lied—only a little. “You destroy every animal in the forest that you can trap. Who is to speak for the suffering of the wild boar? What of the gorillas you kill for sport? We relieve the sick and the weak of their suffering. We have maintained this balance in our beautiful home for centuries. Why is it so wrong now?”

The man-child considered this for a moment. Finally, he shook his head. “My baba says, ’He who will swallow an apple seed must consider the size of his anus.”

The man-child’s baba sounded like a wise man. Someone of importance in the village, perhaps. Yes. The chief’s son.

“Who did we catch?” he said after he could no longer bear my silent scrutiny.

“It was my baba.”

“I am sorry,” he said. He did not avert his gaze. His breathing remained even. He did not sweat. I believed him. “If it was up to me, I would have let you both go. I saw you in the tree and didn’t turn you in.”

The sound of shouts and leaves crunching under many feet interrupted us.

“Come,” he scrambled to his feet. “They are looking for me.”

A short distance away, we crouched behind a fallen walnut tree. The group, led by the chief, passed without incident. We exhaled and turned to sit with our backs against the trunk.

He had not raised an alarm; an Ituri more worthy than all the others I’d encountered. Bark of alike trees, it seems, could have different patterns.

“What is your name?”

“Eloko.” I eyed him, still wary.

“That’s the name of your people. I mean what name were you given?”

I said nothing.

“Well, may I have another blade of grass, maybe a few?”

“Of course,” I said and rose. He had made up my mind for me. “You humans may not know this, but the sweetest, most potent nyasi grows on our backs.”

The man-child’s eyes widened. “Here,” I turned my back to him. “You may pluck a few for yourself.”

He hesitated. “Go on. It does not hurt me.”

I stood with my back to him and winced as he yanked a fistful of blades from me.

I spun around and before he could lift the blades to his salivating gullet, I sank my claws into his neck and ripped out his throat. The man-child died with quiet gurgles, grasping at his ruined neck. Before the light in his eyes faded, we shared a glance of mutual shock and disappointment.

Despite myself, my mouth watered. There, behind the fallen walnut, I consumed him, dredging the chunks of flesh in a pool of his blood. After I sated myself, I regarded a small finger bone. If our people were not on opposing sides, perhaps he could have been a friend. I would keep the bone to remember him by.

I stood and licked his blood from my claws.

Before long, the chief and his warriors sped past me again and returned to the clearing, checking once again for the man-child. They called a name, but I could not make it out. I followed, maneuvering through the tall grasses, camouflaged like a kindred sprout.

The group stood around a low campfire, conversing. A short distance away lay Baba’s body. It had been plucked nearly clean, leaving bloody patches of ripped gray-brown skin. His corpse was covered with spear wounds, his hands severed. It was sacrilege to leave him to waste away like this. I gulped down a dizzying lump of anger and grief.

I threw the man-child’s finger bone into the opening and it landed lightly at the chief’s feet.

His howl echoed through the rainforest and I wished on him every bit of the pain and emptiness I now carried with me.

“Like my baba,” I cried, hoping my voice carried into the clearing as I backed away, “he died...nobly.” I turned and ran, crashing through the thick forest undergrowth, hurtling blindly, buffeted by the twin storms of uncertainty and isolation.

∙∙∙

Baba used to say that to demoralize the enemy within you must not succumb to weakness. This is the true war that must be won. It is only then that the enemies outside cannot hurt you.

I carried an enemy that weakened me: broiling rage twisted around a stump of loneliness so blunt that at times it caught my breath.

In the days following my baba’s death, I found it difficult to leave the village. I hovered at the edge of the man-child’s village watching and listening amidst shoulder-high thickets of shrubs and weeds. I narrowly escaped capture many times. Perhaps too many, as whispers of gossip revealed the chief’s obsession with finding me had begun to take its toll on him.

He is unwell in the head, the villagers said. He is unfit to lead us.

Soon, they dubbed him the mad chief, replaced him, and cast him out. And though I’d considered slipping into the village one last time and making a meal of the slender one with the shaved head that had tortured Baba most, I knew it was time for me to move on.

Only the mad chief’s stubborn pursuit of me did not end.

Rage and madness drove him onward long after his emaciated body should have broken down. He had little strength left. Whenever I allowed him to get close to me, his killing thrusts were easily dodged. It shames me to admit that part of me enjoyed these volleys. In my loneliness, I had come to consider him an uneasy companion.

One day, I lounged in the dim space between sleep and wakefulness on a low branch when the mad chief called out to me. Startled, I tumbled from the branch and would have fallen had I not had the good sense to reach out and snag the trunk with the very tips of my claws.

I should have smelled him. But my despair was such that I grew lax and wandered the forest in a snout-blunted stupor. I’d slept little and had consumed no human flesh; only animals dumb or injured enough to cross my path.

“Tree man,” he babbled as I clung to the tree. He stood beneath me, atop a gnarled root. He banged his spear against the earth and called again, “Won’t you come down to share my meal?” His bearing, his voice, everything that had easily marked him a chief before had vanished.

I watched as he labored over a non-existent fire, flipping an unseen bit of meat to and fro. I lowered myself to the ground and crouched in front of him.

Dirt and insects made a nest of his scruffy hair while I still groomed my nyasi daily. All of his muscle had wasted away—skin clung to his bones. And he stank of human excrement. I was disgusted when hunger stirred inside me at the sight of him. He regarded me with bulging, bloodshot eyes.

“My son was groomed to be a chief from the moment I learned of his conception,” he said. “A bloodline of warrior chiefs spanning five generations. We have ended.”

“His death was swift, a kindness I do not regret.” I clenched my fists so hard that my claws drew blood. “My baba’s last moments were drawn out for as long as you and your men cared to make sport of his murder. Who then, is uncivilized?”

The mad chief nodded. His hand grazed the shaft of his spear and I knew that if he lifted it against me this time, I would not stop him. Each agonizing day that I lived only postponed the inevitability of my kind’s annihilation. But he sank to the ground with his head in his hands, the last traces of the warrior he had been obliterated in his madness. After a fleeting moment of grief, he again set to work at the imaginary fire. The sun sank beneath the canopy of mahogany trees. A soft wind danced through their leaves, playing a song of sorrow.

“We will share a meal, my son,” he said again, and snatched a finger into his mouth as if he’d suffered a burn. My nyasi bristled. I wondered for a moment if he mocked me, but it was only his madness speaking and I felt an immense sadness for the chief. I inclined my head and ran my claws across the ground at my feet.

“Indeed, we shall,” I said. “Indeed, we shall.”

ABOUT V. H. GALLOWAY

V.H. Galloway is an ex-Brooklynite, rolling stone, and 20-year IT professional. Author of the Un-United States of Z trilogy, she is also a graduate of the Viable Paradise Workshop. In 2008, she traced her African ancestry to Sierra Leone and made the life-changing pilgrimage home. African themes are often weaved into her fiction.

Website: vhgalloway.com Twitter: @veronicawrites

CHESIRAH

By L. D. Lewis // 8962 words*

“It is almost time.” Chesirah smiled despite her screaming fingers. They were a blur, working feverishly to finish lacing together the last of her dark braids before Nazar the dollmaker made it home. She wove one braid into a dozen others and then a dozen more until she wore a high crown of them pinned in place by the dollmaker’s thick needles. She needed them to make her escape.

Fenox as a rule were kept creatures, usually by those of means, influence and the odd eccentric streak. They needed a safe place to burn and someone to keep their ashes. Their keepers needed a conversation piece; something subservient and entertaining. By and large, it was a shit life, and Chesirah had a tendency to run so she spent thirty of her adolescent years in the city of Kirjan, caged.

First there’d been the Banker: a mountainous Common Man possessed of an arrogance misplaced in a species with such a short lifespan and a fondness for the misery of others. As his toy, “others” usually meant her. He liked to collapse the shell of ash she became when she cycled through her burning; and he emptied her into an ornate glass bottle. It had been a lovely blue color with a round bottom and a long, fluted neck and a heavy brass stopper that tinkled like a bell when she tried to escape and re-form the thousands of times she cycled at his command. He loved the tinkle of that bottle. In her less subtle days, she’d contemplated killing him with it.

On her least subtle day, she did.

The view she had now was nothing like what she’d seen of Kirjan from the banker’s penthouse. The city outside her small, round window sparkled at night. It was known as one of Atlas’s most beautiful cities, an island tiered with jewel-toned architecture and bustling with wealth and secrets. The glowing arc of Irth beyond Atlas’s atmosphere washed everything with blue notes. Skyfaring vessels shuttled goods and their traders between the planets and looked to her like lazily drifting stars.

One of them would be her way out.

She was enshrined now in Nazar’s attic workshop: a long, red room where Chesirah existed in secret surrounded by carved heads with sightless eyes on shelves separate from their arms and legs and naked, varied torsos with immaculate breasts. Nazar kept her behind gilded bars adorned by weeping falls of beautiful blossoms, and a throne of colorful pillows she was sure he thought spoiled her. He’d hung a swinging perch at the center of the cage where she was allowed to sit like some bird, her legs swaying, the length of her raven hair reaching through the bars further than even her arms had gone.

Until recently, anyway. For a while now she’d been letting herself out at night while Nazar slept. She wandered the house with the most delicate of footsteps and touched with ghostly faintness objects she’d only ever seen handled before. More importantly, she’d ventured out to explore parts of Kirjan, the better to make her escape. She locked herself back in before sunrise. She was a few nights’ wandering away from escaping for good.

Chesirah finished braiding the last of the needles into her hair when the front door slammed. She startled. Pricked herself. Cursed. She could hear the dollmaker’s whistling through the floor along with his shuffling footfalls on the creaky floorboards. He was relaxed, which she knew by now meant he’d had a good day. It was of no comfort.

She took a deep breath, steeling herself for their interaction as he clunked up the workshop stairs.

“Chesirah!” Nazar sang. “My muse, my wonder, I come bearing gifts.”

She stared at him, her large eyes dimmed. The lantern light glinted off the rim of his over-large glasses and the fine sheen of sweat on his bald head. He always seemed damp somehow.

Nazar panted excitedly as he heaved the trunk he had dragged upstairs onto a workbench. He lifted the doll out first; a near life-sized thing he placed gently on the counter like some beloved damsel before dropping a bag heavy with metal money dramatically beside it.

“We’ve done it.” He beamed. “Forty orders just today! Everyone wants you. Look what fortune you’ve brought me!”

“Uh huh.” Chesirah leered at the doll on the workbench as Nazar stroked its plaited hair. For the better part of two years he’d feverishly worked her likeness into this thing. It would have been life-like if not for its dead glass eyes. They were big and brown like her own, and rimmed with long, rigid lashes. The lids floated listlessly with demure intent if moved. He’d given it her full lips free of any style, attitude, or expression that might disconcert its owner. Were it made to grin, she was sure he’d have given it her over-large mouth lined with its pearlescent, dagger-like teeth designed for the tearing of flesh.

He’d carved the doll out of ebony wood to mimic her silken dark skin, complete with the faint shimmer she had at the peak of her rebirth when she was fresh from ash. He’d watched her for months to emulate it. The banker had taught her to control her cycling for his amusement; and having mastered the process, she refused to burn for anyone when she could help it. Too long without cycling and she grew lethargic. Painful fissures like parched, flaking desert flats would crack her skin and the magma of her blood would rise to form keloids in healing over them.

She scratched at the tree-shaped scar on her left hand, remembering the day Nazar slashed the flesh from whatever parts of her he could reach in order to force her burning. A lifetime of threading needles had made him adroit at slinging his whip through the bars of the cage.

He’d kept at it with an unexpected intensity until tears of lava streaked her face and singed pits in the iron floor. She combusted, and watched him marvel at her brilliant green flame until her eyes melted.

Nazar never bottled her, though. For all she knew, he let her be. In the hours or days it took her to regenerate, he would draw heµr in whatever pose her ashen figure froze and hang the images on the walls. He would come into her cage and replace her charred pillows and flowers. He left her new clothes: a dyed muslin dress or two and gold chains and trinkets with which to adorn herself should she want to make herself pretty for him. And then he would work, salivating, watching for when the ash shell began to crack and Chesirah emerged again, aglow and flawless and still very much in her hell.

All of this to perfect the doll’s veneer.

He slid three small, neatly wrapped boxes along the floor toward her. Their soft tap against her bars brought her back to her insufferable present. She reached through the bars to untie their satin bows and peel back the patterned paper wrapped around them. Inside: a gossamer-fine gold ring for her pierced nose, a set of bangles, and an expensive-looking comb made from the bone of a creature who shouldn’t have died for something so ugly.

She left them in their packaging. Nazar’s gifts were never really gifts.

“You’re not saying anything.” He sighed. Annoyance tinged his voice and Chesirah’s skin prickled. His violence could be sudden, and she’d have to gather the damn needles again if he forced her to burn.

“You know what I am going to say.”

“And I thought we’d celebrate. Don’t you like your gifts?”

“Yes,” Chesirah replied flatly. She’d never been very good at disguising disdain, and her beckoning freedom made her much less inclined to pretend.

Nazar clenched his jaw and narrowed his eyes. “Ungrateful creature.” He scoffed. “I give you everything. What, you want me to treat you like some slave? Some squalid little show-beast like the rest of your kind?”

“I want to be out of he—”

“You can’t be trusted!” He shrieked. “You think I don’t know you killed that banker, girl?”

He moved closer until the gold tips of his shoes met the arc he’d carved in the floor; a fail-safe keeping him just beyond the reach of her flames should she feel vengeful. Lantern light flashed against his glasses, obscuring his mad eyes and Chesirah felt the spark of panic in her chest. She fought the glow beneath the surface of her skin that would tell him he was frightening her.

“You think I believe he chose to swallow glass? You’re lucky to be here whole and not a mess of sodden ashes elsewhere. But me…I understand you, Chesirah. I concede that he did not treat you properly. You did what you had to do to get to someplace better, and now you have and you can’t see it. Here, you are secure…”

“I am caged!” Chesirah cried, her blood flaring visibly in her veins.

“You are treated like a queen…”

“A queen? What queen you know gets whipped like I do?”

“You are stubborn! It is the only way to love you. I am the only one to love you. How do you not know that by now?” He shuffled back to the doll, brandishing it at her as if it was evidence of something besides his obsession. “Look at what I’ve done for you. I couldn’t have done this if I didn’t love you. Now I’ll admit she isn’t perfect just yet. You have such a divine voice, my dear, and I think I’ve found a way to implant a device… you’ll have to be more cooperative than you were last time, of course…”

“Uh huh.” Chesirah smirked as Nazar began to ramble. In his excitement he’d already forgotten his rage, forgotten even his attempt to threaten her into loving him.

Almost time, she thought. Any moment now he would sigh, exhausted with her. He would go back downstairs and boil his fish soup and stuff the seeds of a sleep aid into his clove pipe. By the time the acrid smoke wafted beneath the workshop door, he would be slumped and dribbling in his chair. And she would be free until sunrise.

“Sing me something.”

“What?” The banker hadn’t taught her to sing; that was her own gift even if he used it for his pleasure. Now, Chesirah refused to sing for anyone but herself and the wooden heads she lived with.

“Imagine your life as it could be,” he said wistfully. “You, the living embodiment of Nazar’s famous dolls, happy and traveling with me to perform for the world. You would be the one free fenox. Go on, sing. And for goodness’s sake, take that hair down. You always look so severe with it piled up like that.”

“You are a mad old man.”

Nazar’s jaw clenched. He reached into a drawer of the workbench and pulled out his coiled whip. She could hear the leather being squeezed in his fist. He plopped it on the counter. “I said, sing.”

Shit.

“We doing this?” Chesirah huffed and got to her feet. Her mind raced. Pride choked any song in her throat, so there would be no singing. Her options were a violent few.

“If you would just do as I say…”

“I am not singing and you are not going to touch me with that, you understand?” she said evenly. She stared him down even as her hands shook at her sides, reminding herself not to blink.

Nazar squared his shoulders and unfurled the whip at his side. “You going to stand there and risk a lash to the face or are you going to turn around?”

Chesirah didn’t move. Time seemed to slow. Her eyes glazed as she observed with dread his steady breaths and the furious twitch of his cheek indicating his restraint had left him. She watched the whip writhe like a serpent at his beckoning, watched the gargoyle scowl crease the leather of his face, and the flicker of lantern light in his little round glasses as he finely threaded the whip between the bars of the cage.

Snap!

The whip stung as it snared her left wrist, but the shrill scream in her ears wasn’t her own. She blinked her eyes clear and found her right arm extended through the bars and Nazar clawing desperately at the needles in his eyes.

“You bitch! Whadidyoudo!” He shrieked, crashing into the shelves on the walls and tripping over the things he knocked from them.

Her heart pounded: get out, get out, get out! She plucked another couple of needles from her crown of braids and twisted them with shaking fingers in the lock on her cage. The limp whip fell from her wrist, revealing stripes gouged into her flesh.

The needles broke. She groaned and tried again as Nazar stumbled nearer.

“Chesirah! Demon! My eyes!”

“Well if you just did as I said…” Chesirah muttered as the lock finally clicked and the bars swung away. She almost chuckled.

With a deep breath, she stepped out and moved around the screaming man, careful not to disturb his flailing. She locked eyes with the doll made in her image. It cared nothing for the bleeding eyes of its maker, the broken dolls, the fleeing fenox.

This was it. She was fleeing. But Nazar’s cries might bring someone to his rescue. They would find the doll and search for the fenox who looked like it.

Chesirah raced to the door, swiping the lantern to the floor. She knocked the doll into the shattered glass and flaming oil behind her. The whooshing sound of spreading fire trailed her down the workshop stairs. She’d rehearsed this a thousand times in her mind, but never with such urgency. A new, desperate pitch in Nazar’s voice spurred her to his bedroom where she grabbed a pair of trousers and boots, then barreled back into the living room for the hat and topcoat he’d left strewn across his favorite chair.

She flew down the apartment stairs to the storefront and out the back into the alley, as she had done dozens of times before. Firelight flickered and smoke belched from the third story workshop overhead. She glared around wildly, pulling on Nazar’s clothes as she moved toward the street at the end of the block.

The alley opened out into a market street and most of the shops were closed at night. Foot traffic on the sidewalks was light. The smoke hadn’t wafted this way just yet and no one seemed to find her remarkable.

Kirjan shone like a distant beacon before her, the arc of Irth pointing her way off this rock. She had only the faintest glimmer of a plan, but she tugged her braids down to fit the hat over them and started walking.

Nazar’s home was in a garden suburb inhabited by honest, respectable merchant families and the shops that contained their livelihoods. It was built on fertile hills, fed by springs and made of brick and stone and climbing flowered plants. Chesirah walked an hour before the buildings became taller. Brick and stone turned to metal and glass beyond the limit of Nazar’s suburb. Old Nyit women wearing bright scarves covering their heads and gold bangles trailing up their arms conjured smoke dragons from long clove-burning pipes over warring board games in open-air cafes. Their husbands, brothers, and fathers laughed loudly when gathered together on stoops, or softly into the necks of lovers they escorted. The center city lights reflecting off the buildings here were enough to make night time seem like just a new sort of day.

Chesirah moved through them as a ghost, paying mind only to those who whispered when they looked at her. A crack of thunder finally got her to look back. A dark, unnatural cloud of smoke marked the distant place where she’d left Nazar to his end. It blended into the growing storm clouds creased in flickers of violet light as they crept toward her.

“Wouldn’t have any change on you, would you, friend?”

Chesirah spun back to find a shabbily dressed man sitting alone on a staircase holding a cup outstretched in a grizzled hand.

The answer, of course, was yes. Not that she ever really thought about it, but as a fenox she was positively made of change. But that hardly seemed any of his business.

He must have read puzzlement on her face, because he shook his cup at her. Coins jingled within. His eyes were cheerful, dark pools set in gnarled, darker flesh, his skin seeming as if it was made of scars. He smiled, his teeth gleaming.

Feeling a little silly, she searched her pockets and came across Nazar’s purse tucked into a pocket of his topcoat. Far be it from her to ignore the customs of Common Men and draw attention to herself by not giving change when asked for it. Shit, it wasn’t even her money.

She dropped a few coins into the man’s cup and smiled uncertainly.

“Thank ya.” He nodded at her and then made sure to meet her gaze. “You be careful out here, sis.”

She kept walking, disturbed a bit by his words. They might not have seemed like such a warning if she hadn’t just burned a man alive. She reflected on his skin and the gleam in his teeth. He could have been a fenox. A masterless one like her. And the raised ribbons of his flesh could have been from years, decades of not burning. How could he have known what she was? And how easy would it be for people who wanted more than change from her?

This was all she could imagine of the modern, free fenox: destitute, hiding, scarred from decades of surviving on their own or to make themselves less beautiful, less attractive so buyers would not want them. Lore spoke of them as ancient and terrifying in their glory. Fenox were desert Kings once. The wealthy Common Men who owned her kind now kept these stories close, recalling them in just enough detail to relive the pride of conquering such prosperous creatures without giving them ideas about their real worth.

She was countless generations removed from when these teeth of hers had an evolutionary purpose. There was so much she didn’t know—could never know—about who and what she was.

She reached the edge of Center City with its towering buildings, ornate glass storefronts and electrically lit signs. The banker had lived somewhere near here, but the world was different from the ground than it looked from his penthouse. Irth felt closer, the warbling whoosh of passing skyships was louder. People glanced at her and her peculiar fashion a bit longer here, but the whispers were as likely to be about dozens of other vices as about her.

The problem was that now she’d also exhausted her plan. The marketplace and launching zone known as the SkyDocks towered overhead. She could go there, but then what? She could barely read, let alone hijack something. It seemed unlikely whatever was in Nazar’s purse could buy her passage to another planet. Perhaps she could stow away?

Damn it, dollmaker.

Wide, moving, mechanical staircases carried Kirjan’s nightlifers to the SkyDocks, an elevated avenue of bars, traders’ shops and launchpads that wound its way like a canopy over the city’s center. Chesirah rode them quietly amid groups of friends and off-duty co-workers, all varying shades of opulent and beautiful. She knew their type and it was a luxury now to be able to ignore them. The lights had her attention. Green and gold and violet orbs of light burned in the eyes of streetcars and streetlamps. They flashed in signs over every entrance and lit the doorways that swallowed their patrons.

The air up top was tinged with the caustic odor of spent fuel. Industrial fans disguised as ornate mesh grates circulated hot breezes that none but Chesirah seemed to mind. Her heart pounded as she moved through the crowds along the promenade toward the enormous, scattered landing pads the ships used. Before, she’d only imagined being so close to them but here she was, near enough to feel their rumble in her bones and have her hair blown by the wind in their wake.

Water tapped the brim of her hat. A slow creep of clouds had brought rain with it. She pulled a hand from the trouser pocket in which she’d had it jammed and watched a few droplets fall, splash and drip away. She smiled. Rain was the reason fenox were kept.

The banker had only wanted to view her at the start of her cycle when all of her was new and shimmering shades of obsidian. When she inevitably began flaking and graying he shut her away in the dark because she was of no use to him when she was not beautiful. Eventually these unfortunate ugly spells of hers went on too long for him and he demanded she learn to control it.

This was unheard of. She became angry, indignant and refused to even try something so impossible. He threatened her with water; no big deal to a solid fenox, but the natural enemy of flame and ash was water. Dousing the ashes was a means of murder unique to the fenox and Chesirah was young and angry, but not suicidal. And so the threat of water drove her to control her cycles. And the threat of being caught in wet weather when their burning began kept other fenox captive.

She stopped and turned her face to the clouds, letting the rain kiss her there. She smiled, pearlescent, pointed teeth shining like moonlight.

Suddenly aware of watching eyes, she closed her lips. A man huddled beneath his umbrella nudged her in passing. Whether Common Men encountered fenox in life or in lore, they would know her by her mouth. And somewhere in this city were forty buyers of her likeness.

Everyone wants you. Nazar’s dead words spread a chill through her body.

The chill could also have been from the rain. Suddenly it was falling in sheets, obscuring everything that wasn’t a light itself. A buzzer sounded and the strips of green signals indicating safe flight all flicked red. People ducked into a nearby building beneath a glowing violet sign Chesirah couldn’t read. Every time the door opened, she heard laughter and smelled food. After years scented with clove and fish soup, her mouth watered. She decided Nazar would buy her dinner while she waited out the storm.

Inside smelled of spirits and vanilla smoke. Elaborately etched metal screens lined each wall, and amber light danced behind them. Matching table lamps illuminated faces, each in varying degrees of seductive, watchful expression. She headed toward the long counter in the back where customers leaned over stools meant for sitting and ordered drinks and small plates from uniformed men before a wall of ornate glass bottles. She tried not to flinch.

She wedged herself into a space at the counter and tried to discern the system for requesting something to eat. Three servers seemed to be tending their patrons in an order known only to them, mixing drinks, exchanging tender, and holding spirited conversation with everyone and no one at once. Every now and then, one of them would disappear through a doorway at the far end and return with a plate of something fresh or sizzling.

Her skin prickled the way it did when she felt eyes on her. Too many faces surrounded her but all seemed to be minding their business. This was the sort of crowd she once entertained at the banker’s; young, affluent, and frivolous, but these people would have been infants then and there was no cage around her now to tell them she should be the center of attention.

The eyes on her—she was almost certain—belonged to a woman wearing glasses tinted dark blue despite the room’s low light. Her blue tailored suit made her seem out of place, and she whispered in the ear of an impeccably dressed and (frankly) beautiful white-haired man beside her. Her companion’s face was wise without being aged, and vaguely feminine without being delicate. They had eccentric written all over them, and eccentrics were best avoided by fenox on the run.

A mustachioed server appeared and presented her with a menu. She couldn’t read it, so she pointed at a plate of meat and vegetables on skewers someone else was dining on. She kept her head down until he returned, drumming her fingers against the wood counter and standing rigid against the jostling of merrier patrons beside her. Her plate was placed in front of her and the server stood with a professional smile, waiting for payment. Anxious, Chesirah dropped coins onto the counter until the server’s impatient expression indicated there were enough. She glanced at the couple in the corner and found the white-haired man staring, amused.

Now annoyed and mortified, she took her food to a small table near the exit and sat with her back to the wall. She took a deep, long breath. For decades, her bars kept crowds at a distance. Without them, she found she was easily overwhelmed and hated that about herself. But all this playing at being normal would end soon enough. Now, though, the first meal she’d ever bought herself was hot and tantalizing before her and it was time to tuck in...

“My, my, my,” someone said in a purring baritone. “You are much too lovely to be alone and scowling like that.”

A large man with a substantial beard had approached her table unnoticed. His light eyes twinkled, adding to his air of insufferability. Chesirah blinked at him. Surely she hadn’t give the impression she wanted attention, but he lowered himself into a chair across from her anyway.

“The alone part is easy to fix, but I see I’m going to have to work for that smile.”

She kept eating.

“My name is Sam. And you are?”

“Not interested.”

“Well, Miss Interested,” —here, a self-satisfied chuckle and stroke of his beard— “you look familiar. But I own about a third of the ships on the SkyDock and you don’t strike me as a sailor. Where do I know you from?”

Familiar panic seized her chest. If this Sam man owned a bunch of ships, he could afford one of Nazar’s dolls. She watched the shine of his eyes as he appraised her. For a moment, she considered running off to hide in the storm. And then remembered she had a card to play.

“You own ships?”

He licked his lips and grinned. “That’s right. Four of them active, two more in the garage. I transport fuel to the Berneo settlement and trade minerals to Irth. I guarantee you not a merchant in three planets can work without what I do.”

A simple yes would have sufficed, but she sat back and smiled coolly. Men’s egos were always such low-hanging fruit.

“Ever take passengers? I am bored here.” She said. It wasn’t entirely untrue.

“What would I get out of it?”

“The pleasure of my company.”

“Tempting. But I’m sure you can do better than that. You are such an exquisite thing.” He reached across the table and rested his hand on her wrist. In that moment, it felt too much to Chesirah like the grip of the whip.

Dry heat rose in her diaphragm and behind her eyes and began to course through her veins. “I am not a thing,” she growled. Confusion flickered across Sam’s face as Chesirah’s skin heated beneath his touch.

“There you are, dear!” A sultry voice startled Chesirah back to calm. The woman from the bar, the one in the tinted glasses appeared beside the man named Sam, her expression eager to appear familiar. “We’ve been looking everywhere for you.”

Chesirah wondered what kind of trap this was before the woman plopped down beside her and waved Sam away with a flick of her long fingers. “She’s taken, dear, you can go away now.”

Sam squinted at Chesirah as if reading a ruse but ultimately pulled back his hand and inspected its odd warmth. He muttered something imperceptible before straightening himself and leaving the table.

The woman sighed when they watched Sam deposit himself on a stool on the far side of the room. “Pardon my intrusion. You seemed distressed.” she smiled broadly and held out her ringed right hand. “Esperanza. Ess, really.”

Chesirah inspected the woman for signs of treachery. She was elegant, lithe, her sand-colored skin possessed of a violet undertone in this light. Her face was freckled and the strange eyes behind her dark glasses seemed too large for her face.

“Chesirah,” the fenox replied, and shook her hand with a tighter squeeze than perhaps was necessary. Ess didn’t seem bothered.

“Lovely name.” Esperanza purred, stirring her drink with a finger. “Chesirah, I’m going to ask you a couple of questions. And before you haul ass out of here, I want you to know my associate and I mean you no harm by them. We won’t chase you if you run.”

Chesirah studied the white-haired man casually watching them from the bar and considered the strong possibility that this Esperanza woman was lying. They could chase her into the storm, and force the burning that would kill her. “Fine.”

“You are a fenox, correct?”

Chesirah blinked but did not reply. That certainly wasn’t the first question she expected.

“It’s in the eyes, dear. We are not Common Men, either.” Esperanza winked a strange, cat-like, yellow eye at her over the rim of her glasses. “You were previously in the possession of someone who has recently met an… unfortunate end?”

“More or less.”

Ess nodded. “That fire in the north. That you?”

“How do you know about that?”

“There are more people here who know than do not by now. Half a block’s still blazing.” She replied with an air of amusement. Chesirah had no idea it had gotten so bad. For the briefest instant, guilt fluttered across her face.

Ess chuckled. “Relax. It’s nothing this storm can’t rain out, I’m sure. That’s not what I want to talk to you about. No, it occurs to me that you are a skilled liberator of things. Yourself included, apparently. And we, my associates and I, are of a nature that we sometimes find ourselves faced with things in need of liberation.”

“You are thieves.”

“Among other things.” Ess sipped her drink.

Fenox as a culture had complicated relationships with thieves in the way livestock have complicated relationships with the farmers who raise them for butchering. And the extra s on “associates” hadn’t been lost on Chesirah, either. There were more of them somewhere. Maybe here. Maybe Sam was one of them. Maybe this was a trap.

Maybe.

“What’s a fenox to a thief but a bounty?” Chesirah asked, more keen now to be done and gone. She continued to scan the room for anyone doing a bit too much noticing of her.

“Ah. We don’t prescribe to that brand of thievery. Do you mind if he joins us? We were afraid we might frighten you off if we sat here together.” Esperanza asked, her head tilting toward the white-haired man at the bar.

Chesirah nodded. Nothing but a few feet of hardwood floor separated her from the doorway. The table was heavy, but she’d flip it on them if she needed to, before making her escape.

The man was lean and not terribly tall, and lighter of skin than anyone she could recall ever seeing. He sauntered effortlessly through the crowd until he reached the table and offered her a polite smile.

“This is Chesirah,” Esperanza told her associate. “She’s precisely who we thought she was.”

“I am Vannish,” he said with a deep, theatrical bow. This being the first time such a thing had ever happened to the fenox, she squinted.

“And you are who? King Thief?” she asked, assertively, she was sure.

“The Master of Ceremonies.” His eyes twinkled. “A ringleader. Beyond and before that, O Ladrón Mago. Today, your most humble and curious servant.”

“Uh huh.” Chesirah smirked.

“So, what’s your plan beyond dinner?” Esperanza asked.

“To get free.”

“And how do you plan to do that?”

Chesirah was silent a moment and tried to discern their motives from their pleasantly unreadable expressions. She was used to being addressed, or gazed upon with some sort of hunger by people who wanted to have her perform or else do something to her. Sam was still on the far end of the room, shooting her his violent, hungry stares. Alarmingly, a few other sizeable men had joined him, their mouths obscured by thick beards.

These strangers, Esperanza and Vannish, looked at her with an interest bordering on casual. Chesirah squirmed.

“You don’t look like you’re from Kirjan,” she managed, trying to match their coolness. “Which means you must from somewhere else. You two got a ship?”

They glanced at each other before Esperanza replied: “No.”

“Then all you need to know about my plan is you’re not part of it.”

Vannish’s smile didn’t falter. “Fair enough. We are performers, Chesirah. Players of something called the Cirque Nocturna. There are a good number of us from as many places. All are the last of some peoples, the misplaced of others. And occasionally we are in a position to liberate a thing or two. Given your new, impressively obtained status, we want to invite you to travel with us. You do well alone, I see, but there is something to be said for the benefits of family. And we have been family for a very long time.”

Ignoring this Vannish character’s riddle-speak, Chesirah asked: “How long, exactly?” If it was true that age was honest in the eyes, the strangers could very well have been ancient. She herself had lived longer than old Men and was still young.

“Long enough to know what we’re doing,” said Vannish.

“So, you sing and dance and steal things.”

“Again, reductive, but yes,” said Esperanza as she sipped her drink. “You are still young, beloved. More in experience than in years through no fault of your own. We would keep you safe and give you direction, at least for a little while.”

But the fenox hadn’t heard a thing that mattered past “we would keep you.”

Chesirah’s skin began to prickle again. Danger was mounting somewhere in this room but it was impossible to know if it was from the growing stag party in the corner or the mysteries at her table.

“I know enough about what I need to know about, beloved,” Chesirah sneered. “So let me tell you what I know about thieves. First time I saw the inside of a black box, I was twelve. A thief put me there. That’s how they transport us, in these cast-iron cases just wide enough to squat in if you’re small like I was. And see, before we get where we’re going, they leave us in there for days or weeks or however long it takes to get us cycling. Starve and stress a fenox and we burn faster, so that’s what they do. Once they can see our flames from these three little slits toward the top of the box—too high for us to see out of and just wide enough not to suffocate our burning—they know it’s safe to open it because ash can’t fight for its life.”

Vannish gazed at her in mournful sympathy while Esperanza looked down at the ice in her glass. And as she stirred with a long finger, it appeared to be refilling itself.

“Know how long I was in that box? Six weeks before I lost track of time. Dirty. Sick. Dying if that kind of thing could kill me. By the time I became whole again, I’d been given to a man who spent the next thirty years of his life trying to break me. And I killed him. Then I went back into a box and came out the pet of a man who beat me out of love for a few years before I killed him, too.

“There is no safe place on Atlas. Not for fenox,” Chesirah snarled. “I am getting the fuck off this planet before they find some new unimaginable bastard to hand me off to. I don’t know what your game is, Players, but anybody in the way of that can get wrecked, too.”

Esperanza gave either an impressed or condescending nod. Of the two Players, Vannish seemed the most disappointed but he recovered quickly. “Understood,” he said. “I admire your tenacity.”

“I’ll bet.” Chesirah stood to leave.

Esperanza raised her glass in a salute, now full of brown spirit and tinkling ice. “If you’re headed to the flightline, avoid the workers in muddy green uniforms. They’re your friend Sam’s crew,” she suggested.

Chesirah paused a moment, laden with questions as the strangers waited for her to leave. Instead of asking them, she scoffed and then rushed up the narrow entryway and out the door. The rain had been reduced to the streams from overfull gutters and slack awnings, and hung as a mist in the humid air of the SkyDocks. Now, distant thunder rumbled pools and puddles as she followed the green launch lights to the flightline.

A breezeway over a floating bridge separated the nightlife from the commercial launch space. Over one side she could look out over the northern city lights. She glimpsed the sodden gray haze over the remains of Nazar’s suburb in the distance. An enormous plume of smoke rose from the neighborhood to melt into the night sky.

She leaned against a support beam, pretending to be some introspective tourist as she watched the launchpads. Skyfaring vessels were not shaped unlike sea ships. They varied in size and color and bore markings on their flanks instead of sails but were varyingly shaped like arrowheads. There were meandering crewfolk tucked beneath awnings and atop cargo crates, smoking their pipes and talking before getting back to work. More than a few of them wore murky green uniforms.

Escaping using the crates was not an option. Damned if she was going to put herself in another box. If she wanted to hang around the work zones and not draw attention while she pieced this scheme together, she needed a way to blend in.

Someone was going to have to come out of one of those uniforms.

Innumerable dark, narrow alleys separated buildings along the docks. And surely there were items of the bludgeoning variety somewhere within one of them. The problem would be luring her mark into an alley. A lifetime spent encouraging folks to leave her alone had left her seduction skills woefully underdeveloped.

Typical.

Should be easy enough, she told herself. A demure gaze from her big, brown eyes, a bat of lashes, a coy smile, a bit of skin. She smoothed Nazar’s long coat. Thought a moment. Then lost the coat, rolled the hat inside it and crammed the bundle into a nearby trash bin. The sheath of muslin playing at being a shirt would suffice for the evening crowd. She made out what she could of her reflection in the gleaming glass wall of the breezeway and fixed her braids to spill over her shoulders, one shoulder, down her back, fuck it.

She’d gotten Sam’s attention with less effort.

A whistle.

“Hey, Miss Interested!” A giant man called after her.

Shit.

Sam stalked toward her, at the center of a group of other curious and gruff men too close now for her to duck away as if she hadn’t heard him. Danger returned with him. She sighed and reluctantly turned to face him.

“What are you doing on this end of the docks? Going somewhere?” he asked, that impish smile playing about his lips. The other men, a half dozen or so of them, had that hungry look in their eyes.

“I’m a little busy right now.”

“That right?” Sam grinned and smoothed a hand over his beard. “Listen, I was trying to place why you’re so familiar to me and my friends here helped me out. You wouldn’t happen to know a guy by the name of Nazar, would you? Weird old man. Makes dolls up on the north end.”

Her heart hiccuped in her chest. “Nah.” She started away.

“You’re not gonna lie to me twice in one night,” he called after her.

“Can’t help you,” she called, fighting down panic as she picked up her stride. This wasn’t going the way she planned. Maybe she should get off the SkyDocks, disappear into the city for a minute until Sam was gone…

Another whistle. She looked up, noticing that she appeared to have the attention of all the crew in muddy green uniforms. They outed their pipes and left their work zones to block her path on the flightline. She spun. Sam’s friends had fanned out behind her as well.

“See?” Sam sauntered forward. “A few of these gentlemen purchased something in your likeness from Nazar this morning. I’m not a doll man myself, but far be it from me to question what another man wants with them. Nazar’s shop burned down tonight. And these men are out a lot of money. A dead man can’t pay that back.”

“That’s not my problem,” Chesirah said, her skin vibrating in anxiety. Where could she go? How?

“You say that, but this little standoff here’s on the Interplanetary Trade Commission’s property which means you’ll have police attention soon. Even if they don’t shoot you on sight for gumming up the Atlas’s economy, they still want to know who killed a man and burned down a city block.”

“Shootin’ her’s not gonna do anything, Sam. That’s one of those fenox creatures,” a round, shabby man spat.

“Oh, that’s right.” Sam chuckled. “I’ve never had a fenox. Don’t seem worth the money or the stress. But you, honey, are spectacular. So, I’ve offered these men what they paid in exchange for letting you be.”

“All right, then let me be.”

“I’m a businessman, girl. I pay them to keep you alive. And I get to keep you.”

“That’s not going to happen,” Chesirah scoffed. There were a thousand things to be unsure about just then but her willingness to be kept wasn’t one of them.

“It probably should, though. I’ll give you a moment to consider your options.”

Chesirah panted, and her mind reeled. She could jump over the edge of the SkyDock but all her bones would be broken and she’d be as good as caught anyway. Behind her, Sam’s workers closed in and stood ready to follow his next order. A steady beeping behind them revealed a black box on a cargo cart edging toward the standoff circle. Bored police officers in their pristine blue uniforms appeared on the fringes of the growing crowd with their sidearms trained on her. They shouted threatening orders: who to face, where to put her hands as she faced them, answer these questions, and do it all now.

“Do you want to die today?” someone yelled, as if being shot might be any more to a fenox than a painful inconvenience.

Police aerial vehicles arrived, whipping the flightline with deafening wind and blinding spotlights. Chesirah squeezed scorching tears from her eyes as she tried to orient herself in the sudden chaos. How anyone was expected to adhere to orders demanded over speakers in blaring, indistinct monotones was beyond her.

Sam called in the middle of it all: “Your time is up.”

“Get on the ground!” said the police.

“Fenox are monsters. Just kill her,” said someone else.

“Did you hear what she did?” said a third.

“… NOW!” a police officer shouted over the speakers.

Shutupshutupshutupshutup...

“I am not goin’ back!” Chesirah bellowed in a voice akin to a thunderclap.

Time slowed. The world outside her body went silent. Her heart’s pounding, slowing, stopping, filled her ears. Sam and his men and the police and the nosy bystanders began to vibrate in her sight. Her skin cracked in glowing black jags and her breath ignited. Fiery wrath pulsed from her body in great ripples that crunched the metal and concrete and scorched the faces of her would-be captors before roaring black flame consumed them all.

She burned bright, and in the moments before she became more fire than flesh, she was able to make out Sam and his men in their frenzied, melting to screaming heaps on the rippled concrete. Helicopter blades tore free of their housing and slashed into the docks around her.

“Well that’s new,” she said to herself, soundlessly, as her voice was more ash than not.

For all she knew, they were her last words.

∙∙∙

Fenox do not cease to be when they are ash. Rather, they wait, dormant in a state of black Nowhere. For all they know, it is a state of black Everywhere, but lacking the senses that come with a body, Nowhere is just as likely.

They bide their time as thoughts. Memories. Life intangible, without its mechanics.

As such, Chesirah considered it might be hard to tell if she was dead. Death could be forever in this void, never whole again, never knowing what happened to kill her. It could be argued there was peace in it. There is no spectacle in the dark. No masters. But rage, being an intangible thing, was always very much with her.

Death at this particular time, so close to her freedom, would have been inconvenient.

But what had happened? She’d never blasted so widely before. And her blast had never been black. The standoff circle had been well beyond the distance Nazar had carved his arc in the floor of his workshop. Was this normal? Was this some dead skill, something her ancestors had been capable of centuries ago and bred out of the modern fenox’s memory?

Impatience was another intangible thing she felt as much when she was ash as when she was whole. But she had to wait. For now, at least it was quiet.

For all intents and purposes, she slept.

And then a breeze. She was not dead.

It wasn’t a real breeze, more the slightest feeling of restored touch. She had a finger. A hand. She clenched it into a fist. An arm. Re-forming always felt like climbing. Her left arm, too, grew unsteadily from her ashes and she began to pull herself up jerkily out of the pile until she was an entirely solid thing, cold and naked, and kneeling on a round wood table.

She was inside someone’s quarters, surrounded by windowless deep blue walls. There was a bed, a desk, a long bookshelf burdened with some things that were books and some that weren’t. Whoever it belonged to kept things neat. An electrical hum grew in her ears.

The remaining needles that’d been stuck in her hair pinned a note to a neat stack of muddy green shipworker’s clothing left on the table beside her. Panic struck again.

Did Sam’s people have her?

She couldn’t read the note, but scrambled into the clothes anyway and armed herself with the pins just as she heard footfalls on the metal floor just beyond the room.

The door slid open and before she could doubt herself, Chesirah launched two needles… into a thick, hard-bound book Esperanza held before her face.

“You’re awake,” Esperanza said cheerily as she walked in. She’d abandoned the suit jacket and seemed much more relaxed in shirt sleeves but she still wore those blue-lensed glasses.

“You…” Chesirah squinted.

“Yes, yes. Pardon our intervention. You seemed… distressed, again.”

“Where am I?”

“All your pieces in order?” Esperanza took stock of her and nodded her approval. “Come with me,” she said, and left.

“I’m not going anywhere with…”

“Darling, you’re on a ship. If you want to know how and why, you’ll have to come on.”

Chesirah grumbled and joined the woman out in the hall. The walls were gunmetal grey and tiny blue lights ran along the edges of the floor. “I thought you said you didn’t have a ship,” she said.

“We didn’t. But circumstances necessitated we get one and Sam happened to not be using this one at the time,” Esperanza explained. “Liberators and all that.”

They emerged in a common room outfitted with lounging couches, a gaming table, and a small bar in the far corner. Chesirah recognized Vannish immediately, but a couple of other people were there as well. They didn’t seem nearly as interested in her as Vannish was.

“Welcome back,” he beamed.

“I don’t understand,” said the fenox. “How did you get to me before the police?”

“Black box,” said Vannish. “I drove the cart. With everyone else more or less indisposed, we weren’t exactly challenged. As something of an authority on dramatic exits, I must say you certainly know how to work a room.”

“Bridge is this way.” Esperanza winked and walked her around the room to a door on the other side. “Mind your eyes.”

The door slid away and Chesirah was blinded a moment by bright and dazzling blue. As her eyes adjusted, she made out the dark, familiar arc in the blue’s periphery. A second more and she could identify wispy white bands floating across the surface.

Clouds.

Perhaps she was dead, because this was Irth.

Well, this was the ship’s navigation room, but they were navigating toward the impossible vastness of Irth in the wide window. Chesirah dodged around control panels and pressed her palms against the glass in awe.

“We’ve been to Irth before. Often. Much of our team is there at any given time. The planet is well settled, but its inhabitants have never heard of fenox. There are millions of other wild species requiring study or being plied as resources, and the people have so much of their own drama that you’ll be of little interest. We put into port on one of the settled continents. If you don’t like it there, you have other options.”

Vannish joined Esperanza in the doorway with one of his contented smiles.

“So you’re not going to keep me?” Chesirah raised an eyebrow.

“Of course not,” said Vannish. “Our offer still stands for you to stay, travel, and work with us. And we hope you do. But we have no interest in slaves.”

It’s a strange thing to reach a certain age and never having had a kind thing done for oneself. To have that first kind thing being spirited to another planet in the evasion of doom may be even stranger. Chesirah frowned, as she was wont to do in strange situations.

She took in the swaths of deep green land she’d never noticed before. All of it was hers to roam. No spectacle. No masters. The cosmos was infinitely grander than the one rock in it that did not value her. It was nearly impossible for Irth to be worse than Atlas.

“I’m free, then,” she muttered, barely believing the words. A sort of agoraphobic chill rolled in her veins as the planet consumed every corner of the window. Free and alone.

And as suddenly and unexpectedly as her joy had come, regret had finally shown itself. It wasn’t for what she’d done to Nazar’s neighbors this time, or to the Common Men on the SkyDocks. It was for her people, the trapped descendants of Atlas’s fallen desert kings. She’d only felt a world away from them all, until now. Every day for the rest of their long lives, the fenox would endure life instead of live it. They would stay isolated and broken and far removed from their former glory until the only freedom they could imagine anymore looked like the graces granted to them by Common Men.

But so many put themselves there, she thought angrily. They accept their lives. They choose weakness. I solved my problem. The others who want to can solve theirs.

Yet here she was on a ship, inches of glass and scant atmosphere separating her from the only dream she’d ever had. And instead of looking at her future, she stared at the scar on the hand she still pressed against the window and thought of the man who asked for change. A niggling itch beneath her skin suggested perhaps that in deciding to escape, she had also decided to abandon.

She was still young. She had barely saved herself. But maybe—if the feeling stayed—enough time with Ess and Vannish and these “liberators of things” might bring her back to where her people still suffered, and she would have a new world to offer them. And flaming retribution to offer anyone else.

“Some of them have to remember how great we once were,” she muttered to herself. Some of them will get free while I’m lost on this planet trying to figure it all out.

Chesirah spun back to the strangers in the doorway and tried to maintain an indifferent expression as if the idea of the world before her hadn’t suddenly become terrifying. “Alright, I’ll bite. Tell me about these Players and this Cirque Nocturna. You obviously went through a lot of trouble to help me and I don’t want to be rude.”

Ess grinned. “Oh? Is that what changed your mind?”

ABOUT L. D. LEWIS

L.D. Lewis is a synesthete and roving medic. She primarily writes stories of carefree Black girls and their magic for her niece, Athena, who will inevitably be old enough to read them. You can find her on

Website: ldlewiswrites.com | Twitter: @ellethevillain

INDIE SPOTLIGHT

The road to publication is not easy for anyone and comes with a number of hurdles. For Black writers, these challenges are multiplied and because of institutional issues, the path seems almost impossible. But the resiliency of Black folks always finds a way and for many Black SFF writers that way was in the form of self-publishing. At FIYAH, we do not snub our noses at those writers who chose this path. We salute them because they have decided to embark on a journey by themselves that in traditional circumstances would involve a team. So we wish to acknowledge those Black indie SFF writers out there working hard and dropping a good product, by featuring them in this special section of some of our issues.

This issue’s feature is THE SEEDBEARING PRINCE by DaVaun Sanders.

The first chapter lies in the pages that follow. Visit our website to read an interview with the author and support the work by purchasing it at the link below.

INTERVIEW | BUY ON AMAZON

INDIE SPOTLIGHT

THE SEED-BEARING PRINCE // DaVaun Sanders

Dayn Ro’Halan is a farmer’s son sworn to a life of plowing on his homeworld, Shard. After finding a lost artifact called a Seed, he’s thrust into an ancient conflict between voidwalkers of the hated world Thar’Kur, and Defenders from a floating fortress called the Ring. Dayn must become a Seedbearer and learn to use the Seed’s power to shape worlds before the entire World Belt is lost.

THE SEEDBEARING PRINCE

By DaVaun Sanders

PROLOGUE

The torrent shifted again, and a thousand shards of onyx flashed to fire as Corian swept through a roiling field of ice and stone. The sheath on his worn black armor held, but would not last much longer. The stream of rock in the space between the worlds drifted slower here, and boasted several floating mountains large enough to hold a layer of air. Green ferns covered the surface of the nearest, providing plenty of cover. Corian was tempted to stop, but crater wolves likely roamed in such thick foliage. The entire World Belt hung on the message he bore to the Ring, and he could rest after his task was done.

A field of red granite stretched in the space above him like the bizarre clouds of some nightmare, the individual boulders careening off each other by the hundreds. Only the hardest minerals and metals endured the endless pounding of the rock flow, and only the most foolish men would brave such a swath of torrent. They were moving the direction he needed to go, into the flow where the rock moved fastest. In the torrent, speed kills, he reminded himself. He was the best courser among the Ring’s Guardians, but the rock never cared.

Corian deftly attached a new talon to what remained of his silver wingline, then heaved it. The metal hook took hold, his wingline snapped taut, and the boulder yanked Corian into the flow. He repeated the process, each time roping a boulder moving faster, until his last guide rock pulled him along at hundreds of spans a second. A layer of white frost appeared on his armor and mask in a blink. He reeled himself in and clung to the red surface, like a flea riding a river bison in the middle of a stampeding herd. He watched every direction at once from his perch, digging his gauntlets into the crumbling surface. The boulder was actually some ancient rusted metal, not granite as he first thought. The torrent here was so thick he could barely see the stars, and it filled his ears with a distant roar.

He sped along this way for some time, until he spied a pockmarked mass of stone and iron, large as a dwarf moon. A cleft right down the middle threatened to split the entire thing in half. A tower in the northern axis had seen more than its fair share of rust, but the light strobing from it pulsed regularly, illuminating the smaller rocks orbiting around it. As a whole, the wayfinder was ugly and old, but the mass of rock was the most blessed sight Corian could imagine after a week of surviving the torrent’s attempts to grind him to powder.

His next wingline took him closer. If the wayfinder was powered as well as he suspected, he could use the array inside it to find out where he was in the torrent, and see how close the Ring lay. He might even find food and water, if peace favored him. A fellow Guardian must stop here often for such an old wayfinder to be this well preserved, he thought.

Smaller debris pelted the wayfinder’s old crust, disintegrating in flashes of light. The surface shone with hundreds of impacts, large and small. Corian chose a crater near the old tower, perhaps seventy spans deep with high walls that would offer good angles to slow himself as he approached.

As he prepared to throw out another talon, dark shapes poured from the wayfinder’s cleft. He stared for a moment, incredulous. There could be no crater wolves on a wayfinder, with no game to hunt, unless they were marooned after fleeing some other erratic in the torrent. No, those shapes moved with a military precision, more lethal than the deadliest pack. He could see them clearly now, massive men covered in black. “No. Not here!” Corian barely recognized his own weary voice.

The voidwalkers had seen him. A pinprick of light shone on the wayfinder’s surface, brighter than the tower’s regular strobe. He eyed it mistrustfully as he searched for a place to throw his next wingline and change his momentum. He spotted a tumbling boulder half-covered with ice, moving away from the wayfinder too fast.

The light near the voidwalkers flashed. A beam of energy rushed into Corian’s path, hot as molten steel. A lifetime of coursing experience kicked in, and he curled his legs up until his knees touched his mask, rolling forward. The strange fire passed underneath him by less than a span. He could feel the heat of it through his protective layer of sheath. The beam burned past, and slammed into a rock fifty spans away. The tumbling plodder barely even slowed in its course, but the spot where the weapon struck—for there was no question that is what it was—glowed red hot at the edges. The glistening center cooled quickly, smooth as glass.

Another pinprick of light. He twisted around in the weightlessness of the void to point his feet back toward the wayfinder and make himself a smaller target. It did no good. The beam rushed straight at him, and his world turned red with pain.

An impact jarred him awake. Another. Corian opened his eyes. I’m much too cold. The voidwalker weapon had burned away his sheath. Layers of his black armor were peeling away from the metal plates like paper curled in a fire. He had been caught in a tangle of purple-rooted vines intertwined in a mile long cluster of the floating rock, what Jendini coursers called a knotted forest. The roots were nearly hard as stone in places. Dusty old bones from animals Corian did not even recognize littered the tangles. Debris from the torrent stretched around the forest in every direction, and errant stones pelted the mass of vines, which he immediately recognized. Courser’s nap, the whole forest is covered with it.

Corian reached into a compartment on his armored belt and removed his last flask of sheath. He applied the clear liquid to his ruined armor in quick, smooth motions, not leaving one inch exposed. The sheath locked together in small patches of light, and his body’s heat immediately began to warm the interior of the invisible, protective barrier. Once the sheath was gone, his armor would not prevent the smallest pebble from killing him, if one struck him moving fast enough. For the first time, Corian considered that he may not survive.

This was to be his last circuit as a Guardian for the Ring, and he held the hope that he would look into his grandchildren’s eyes back on Jendini now that his service was finished. Yet his duty hung over him, heavier than ever. In the distance he could see the world of Shard, verdant and green just beyond the torrent’s chaos. His resolve hardened.

He slipped a speechcaster into his mouth and began to speak as he worked himself free of the tangled vines. The small wafer could hold his words in secret for a few days, should things go badly here.

“I am Corian Nightsong, a Guardian of the Ring. There are Thar’Kuri warriors on the world of Nemoc. The voidwalkers have built a device that allows them to…teleport themselves at will through the Belt. They are gathering in numbers, preparing for an attack. There are captives from all over the worlds imprisoned on Nemoc. The voidwalkers have weapons unlike anything known from the Ring. They use energy and can attack over great distances. They must have been made in the age before the Breach.

“If you knew where to look for this message, you must deliver it with all haste to Force Lord Adazia on the Ring. The worlds all depend on you, for I have failed them.” The admission filled Corian with bitterness, but he forced a strength he no longer felt into his words. “My sons and daughters live in Denkstone, on Jendini. Tell them…their father served well.”

One of the vines tangled around his torso began to quiver. Corian looked down, fearing a leaf, but instead he saw a voidwalker, climbing toward him. Corian was tall, but the hulking brute easily overtopped him by a head. His glistening black armor looked as if it were melted to his frame, and covered him from head to toe save two dark slits for his eyes. The vines broke like dried mud in the voidwalker’s grasp.

Corian began to climb, scrambling further into the vines. He did not bother to draw his sword, the voidwalker would overpower him in moments if they were to fight.

“So afraid of an old courser?” Corian shouted. He pulled at every vine in his path as he fled, but most of them were stiff and gray. Living vines of courser’s nap were purple and sticky, but the true danger lay with the leaves.

The voidwalker’s gravelly voice called to Corian, cold as an orphan’s gravestone. “Come to me, degenerate.”

Corian drew his sword, and began slashing his way through the vines. They sparked as his blade struck, but gave way. He leapt through an open space nearly ten spans across. The voidwalker followed without hesitation. Corian knew the brute meant to take him alive. He could not allow that.

He landed on a solid gray swath, fleshy beneath his feet. He rolled and lunged just as the leaf stirred. A row of spikes slipped out of the edges, thick as Corian’s leg and sharp enough to cleave a horse in two. Corian barely cleared them. The voidwalker was not so lucky. His momentum carried him right into the center of the carnivorous plant, which enveloped him with a twist of blue-veined leaf. Steam issued from the folds near the plant’s edges as it fed.

More pods of the courser’s nap stirred, enlivened by the voidwalker’s screams. Corian avoided the leaves wherever they stirred. He climbed and lunged and dived through the vines, soon pulling himself to the edge of the knotted forest. Pure torrent lay before him, an endless landscape of chaotic rock. There was no clear flow in any direction, the individual boulders in the skyscape crashed into each other in a hundred shattering impacts. I’ll leap blind and pray that my sheath holds.

Another voidwalker tore himself out of the vines a few spans away. Peace, but look at the size of him! The voidwalker’s armor looked as chewed up as the oldest rocks of the torrent, endless dents and scratches plastered the black surface.

“I’ve enjoyed hunting you, degenerate.”

Another courser’s leaf reared up behind the voidwalker as he lumbered toward Corian. The plant lunged and took the voidwalker up, curling round and round as the gray folds tightened. Corian allowed himself a moment of elation, but it was short-lived. A pale hand burst through the side of the leaf, and bright green fluid poured out. The courser’s nap whipped back and forth, emitting a piercing shriek as the voidwalker pulled it apart piece by piece from the inside. Corian needed to see no more. He leaped, and prayed the torrent would show him mercy.

∙∙∙

ABOUT DAVAUN SANDERS

DaVaun Sanders resides in Phoenix, Arizona with his wife, toddler twins and a turtle named Slickback. He’s hard at work drafting the remaining three novels of his World Breach series, disaster prepping for the Orange Apocalypse, and mastering the art of pillow fort construction. Find him on Twitter @davaunwrites.

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