GEMMA IS with us again. We are Abrythnia, and we are in the Garden of the Passions. Yet things are different, not pleasant at all. The dark sky is threatening with violent streaks of silver and great claps of thunder. The lightning brings forth shapes in the dark clouds, like an army of sky gods charging the heavens and letting forth blasts of wind with their battle cries. Trees and statuary have been toppled, uprooted, and ruined.
We are sitting at a stone table in the middle of the once-beautiful garden. It is all but destroyed now and centuries done. Instead of lush greens and climbing vines, the garden is colored dust brown and the vines are but twigs, seasons past their youth. Nothing grows here anymore.
Our clothes are in tatters. They barely stay on our forms.
“I’m scared,” says Gemma, looking around at the devastation.
“We know this,” we say. “It is natural to fear. It is a good thing.”
“What will happen to my friends? To Mr. Tully and Usker Lance?”
“They will play their parts.” We try to be comforting, but we realize there are no comforts in nightmares. “They have been waiting for you. They knew things would become dangerous.”
“Then they are the true heroes. Not me.”
We are in the wind now, drifting high above the Garden, but still seated at the table. Below us, the world moves. Around us, the sky churns and flashes.
“Why me?” she says. “Why have I been chosen?”
“We like you.”
“But why?”
“We like you.”
“What if I refuse to play my part? What if I go home?”
We smile tenderly. “They would kill you. You know this. And they would kill everyone you now hold dear. We know we ask a heavy task of you. But the world will be better for it if you hold true. All victories begin with a simple action, word—or person.”
There is a blinding flash, and a man sits with us now. His hair is long and shaggy, and he wears a black coat. He stares straight ahead, as if neither of us is there.
“When he comes to you,” we say to her, gesturing to the man, “listen to him.”
“Who is he?”
“I am a boy without a father,” says Cayden Lothair. “I am a man without a soul.”
We touch his hand. “No. Your soul is not gone. Only hidden. We made sure of that. Yet it will be returned to you.”
“This is the man from the shadows in the Garden,” Gemma says.
He turns to her, his eyes glassed over. “I think I know how this ends,” he says.
“How what ends?”
But another blinding flash takes him away.
“I don’t like this dream,” Gemma says. “Not at all. It is too strange.”
“You will not be harmed here. This is your place, your mind. All you need do is calm your thoughts, and the agitation will go away.”
She listens to us. Her face relaxes, and we are once again back on the ground in a beautiful garden. The clouds have gone and the sun is shining over fields and fields of green. Passions play like children beneath the trees.
“Who are you?” We have been waiting for this question. “Are you truly the goddess Abrythnia? Are you a Passion or a demon of light?”
“Like you, we have many different names and many different worlds. Unlike you, we are able to see them, to live them, and be aware of them, all at once.”
“You speak in riddles,” the girl says. “I do not understand.”
“We are the Something Else. That great Other you feel when you are at your most alone and scared. We, sweet girl, are fragments of your souls, and you are figments of our imaginations. We are here to guide you.”
“Guide us? Where?”
“To guide you out of your self-made prisons.”
CAYDEN LIES uncomfortably on the makeshift bed and stares at the ceiling. Again, his sleep has been interrupted by dreaming. And again, it is the girl, the one they call “hero.” He nearly had her tonight. She should have been easily caught. Rebels can fight, but she is no rebel. She is just a girl. How did she get away and with at least thirty others? Was it the hound? The woman rider? Usker Lance? Or was it something altogether different?
He found an ancient stable nearby to bed down for the night. Someone has recently used it, leaving fresh hay on the ground and the remains of a small fire. He thought that things would be clearer in the morning after a good sleep. But he has dreamed.
The girl was in the dream, seated across from the god Helix, who was immersed in blue flame, his face black ash. Thunkill is nowhere to be seen this time. They were above an expansive ocean, bluer and greater than any known to man. They sped over it, the white clouds above them like passing cities. Cayden spoke in the dream, and this disturbed him. “I am a boy without a father. I am a man without a soul.”
And then came a flash of light, and he saw himself as a child standing above his father’s motionless and bloodied body. Or what remained of it. His father’s corpse was in bits. Like a puzzle that proved too difficult to put together and was shredded to pieces in anger. There lay a hand. There lay an eye. A feral dog was lapping up blood and another was tearing at the flesh on his father’s face. If someone were ever to ask Cayden when he had lost his soul, he would say it occurred when he saw his father’s remains being feasted on. And yet this is a new memory. Who knows what other horrible things he has chosen to forget? Who knows when they will resurface? Already flashes of a separate life are firing in his brain like a synaptic slide-show. He remembers a mother’s presence. He remembers Senator General Hegart and a sword. He remembers seeing the ninth ring for the first time.
He remembers fear.
Cayden rises. The dreams have a way of making him think. He much prefers the nights when he does not dream, does not think. Everything has been numb for so long. Why are things becoming painful just now? Why do these memories have an edge?
He digs in his trench coat for a match and strikes it. He looks around the stable and finds a broken shard of glass. He has a feeling something is different. Strange. He picks the shard up and angles it so that he can see his reflection. But it is not him he sees.
The match burns his fingers and he drops it, quickly stamping out the flame in the hay. The wind outside begins to howl. He remembers fear. He strikes another match and returns his gaze to the glass. There is his face, some might say oddly handsome and rugged, but it is not him. At least, not the eyes he has known. It is a frightening peculiarity, as if someone is hiding behind a mask of his face. There is something else, someone else, in the eyes looking back at him, studying him. And it occurs to Cayden: That is just it. There is something in the eyes when all his life he has been so used to seeing nothing.
He remembers Helix’s words in the dream: Your soul is not gone. Only hidden. We made sure of that. Yet it will be returned to you.
Cayden drops the shard and the lit match to the floor. He leaves before the stable goes up in a cloud of smoke.
IT IS morning, and Senator General Hegart stands in front of a crowd in the third ring. The square is filled to capacity. People are leaning from their windows to get a view of the executions. For once these are taking place not in the glass heart of the Immortal City, but in the midst of the lesser folk. The faces of the people are an amalgam of emotions. Some are angry, some are excited, some are grief-stricken, and some have no feelings at all. It is quiet. Five of the rebel sinners have been hung—three men and two women—their bodies suspended behind Hegart, swinging gently. Yet they are mere appetizers. Usker Lance is to be the main course. The big show.
“This is your folly,” the Senator General growls at those assembled from the stage. “This is your doing. Not mine. GOD does not enjoy this. We find no delight in the death of those who once were our brethren.” The air smells of lies. “But these were sinners. They sought to corrupt, and those who seek to corrupt must be dealt with. When a nail comes loose, one must never fear to hammer it back in place. Any one of you caught collaborating or helping these sinners, these rebels, these corruptors, will meet this same end… or worse.” He cannot hide the pleasure he takes in this. A smile appears where none should be.
“Bring him out!” the Senator General yells.
Usker Lance is brought forth from a death wagon. He is naked and beaten, wounds and bruises coloring his muscular frame. His hair is roughly shaved, every braid gone and gouges of flesh taken from his bloodied scalp, and his eye patch is gone as well, revealing a deep black hole. He struggles, but he has been weakened by the abuse, and he stumbles forward. He is forced facedown on a small block of a table. His arms are fastened to the side with chains, his legs spread wide and fastened as well. The crowd is still silent. Some turn away, expecting a beheading.
“Here is the lover of Colm Archer,” says the Senator General in a mocking tone. “See how your heretical heroes fall one after another like dominoes. And yet we are not heartless. No. For we have been moved by the Great Sinner’s plight, his need for vengeance. We understand it.”
The crowd is confused.
“And to show that GOD is indeed love, we will love Usker Lance.” A line of ten Kingdom Guards line up behind the Great Sinner. “We will love him to death, in fact. Men,” Hegart says to his guards, “love this sinner.”
And the first guard unfastens his belt, pulls out his large penis, and inserts it between Usker’s legs forcefully. The Great Sinner grits his teeth, but he does not make a sound, even as the guard goes deeper and deeper inside him. One by one, the guards take their turns to spill their seed inside the Great Sinner, the people’s hero. They are not kind lovers. They are angry and degrade him as they fuck, with words and fists. They show him no mercy. The Senator General has asked for only those guards with the largest and most dangerous penises to step forward, and that is exactly what he got. These men, who rarely got the chance to be inside of anyone, were free to stretch the Great Sinner as wide as they pleased and in front of a crowd. Hegart watches, salivating with each thrust, lusting after every strike from the guards.
Usker Lance is in pain, but he is brave. Tears stream from his eyes, but he refuses to so much as whimper. The veins in his forehead are large and engorged. We do not know how much longer he can bear this. And so we let him see us. He sees Colm Archer standing in the midst of the crowd. Colm is bright and healthy. He is smiling with love and compassion. He extends his hand to his soul mate. Thus, we make Usker forget the pain. He forgets the horror that is happening to him, and he smiles. His eyes now fill with new tears. Tears of joy.
Senator General Hegart sees this, as does everyone watching. The senator calls a halt to the proceedings, and the ninth guard reluctantly pulls out of the Great Sinner before he comes.
Hegart crouches down and spits in Usker’s ear, “What are you smiling at, man lover?”
“I see…” he stutters, “I see… me lad Colm.”
The Senator General looks up and into the crowd, searching, searching. “There’s no one there but the righteous and those you’ve led astray, fool.”
“Oh no, ya daft basterd,” says Usker, not taking his eyes from us. “Me lad Colm is standing right there. He… he be with the dead.” Usker strains to look up at the Senator General. “And they be marchin’ with our gal, Gemma.”
The crowd stirs. His words carry like wildfire through the throng, whispered from one ear to the next.
“Ridiculous,” Hegart snarls. “You ridiculous fool. I’m through with your ass and so are my men.”
With those words, he runs his sword up Usker’s rectum. Only then does Usker Lance make a noise, a short scream followed by a sigh. When he lowers his face in death, he wears a smile.
The Senator General draws his sword out and, with a quick swipe, takes off Usker’s balls, holding them up triumphantly before the plaza. The crowd does not seem impressed. They are whispering, humming. Senator General Hegart looks out at them. Their faces are filled with disgust, though not for Usker Lance, the Great Sinner. No. They are looking directly at the Senator General himself.
ROSSA, BORN of the name Bouadica, led them out of the third ring by means of a great fissure in the monstrous wall. The small group had ridden the whole night, staying clear of districts and roads known to be heavily guarded. GOD would be hunting them now, seeking His vengeance. Everyone kept watch as they rode, even Gemma, though her thoughts were visibly elsewhere.
The fissure was guarded by a pack of orphans Rossa had befriended. They could be angry and vicious, but they were honest. When Rossa arrived near the abandoned village, the orphans were initially inclined to turn them away.
“There be thirty of ya!” said a pudgy little girl three feet high who had been charged to keep watch that night behind a thick spotted pine. She carried a small knife and had a breastplate of wood. “And ya got horses and…” She looked at Madden with amazement. “Wow!” she gushed. “Okay. C’mon, then. The doggie first!”
The motley crew was then led through the fissure by the small band of orphans. The little girl walked beside Gemma and Madden the whole time, staring at the hound in amazement. “I got some food. Not much, but he can have it if he’s hungry.”
Gemma smiled and thanked the child.
“My name is Eight, on account of me bein’ the eighth kid born to me ma. That up there,” she said, pointing to an older boy around thirteen or fourteen who kept looking back at Madden nervously, “he’s Two. He’s me brother. He’s not rude or nothin’, miss. He’s just shy and slow. Ma dropped him when he was a babe, and he ne’er got better.”
Once safely through, the five orphans led the party to Dingy Hall, an old dance palace at the edge of the fourth ring. They led the horses into the building as well, where they could rest and be fed. Eight kept her word and gave Madden her meager dinner. Her little mouth hung wide with awe between two plump cheeks as she watched the beast scarf the food down.
Now, days later, they are sitting in the center of the dance floor. Thirty sinners, Gemma, Rossa, the hound Madden, four horses, and nine orphans. All of them are brothers and sisters to Eight and Two, and every one of them is named numerically.
The dance hall itself still holds a dying beauty, like fading laughter. At one time it was a spectacle of a place. Now all the gold and silver has been stripped away, and any statuary that adorned it is either broken or stolen. A faint swirling design decorates the wood floor, at the center of which sits Gemma and Rossa.
It is the sinner Royce who is speaking. He is a fairly ordinary-looking man, which helps when he needs to not be noticed. He and Sary Cledes doubled back after the attack and attended the executions of Usker Lance and their five brothers and sisters. Sary is still unable to speak of what she saw. She stares at the floor with an expression of seared angst. Royce, though, is heavy with anger, with rage. His face is red, his eyes crazed.
“…and what they did to the Great Sinner before that final moment… Nine guards. Nine! They raped him in front of the whole crowd. Right there in front of all. Sweet Passions, have mercy.” The room is dim and weighted by the tale he is telling.
Gemma looks as if she might crumble into dust at his words.
“But he won at the last,” Royce says with a grin. “He took away the Senator General’s thunder. Snatched it away with a smile. He says he saw Colm Archer.”
Gasps from his small audience. Mouths dropping.
“Aye!” says the teller, looking around to every set of eyes. “He says that Colm and all the dead are marching with us.”
He looks to Gemma.
Rossa nods. “Of course they march with us.” She is proud of the path she is on. “Don’t ya see?” she says, looking around the room. “This is proof. This is the Passions proof that we are on the right side of things.”
“Is it?” Gemma is not certain. “In my dreams lately, when I speak with Abrythnia, she responds in riddles. I ask her who she is, what she wants of me, and she says nothing of godship or Passions. She refers to herself as the Something Else. As if she is but another being, invisible. As if she is but a part of my own soul, my own self. I do not think I even believe in the divine anymore.”
“I think it impossible for her to be an inner echo,” Rossa says. “For you are not the only one to see her, Gemma Kerr. And as for the possibility she may be but some underseen invisible entity who has the talent to invade your dreams, who is saddened by the way we treat one another and is determined to do something about it… well, I thank her for her kind interruption then. Seems to me someone had to get this ball rollin’. Seems to me it’s been teeterin’ for far too long.”
“Aye,” say Royce.
“Aye!” echo the sinners.
Gemma is watching the girl Eight and her brother Two play on and around the lounging mountain of fur that is Madden. The world the way it is has no place for these children. Gemma is not yet certain what happens to orphans once they are taken by the ferrymen, but she has a gut feeling that when she discovers the truth it will shatter her. She is already cracking.
“I’ve not heard anything more about the child you asked me to look for,” Gemma tells Rossa. “Key.”
“I didna think you would, but I had to ask. He is a good boy. A smart boy. He knows how to get lost and how to stay lost.” Her eyes are wells of stifled emotion. “But I’ll find him yet.”
Gemma looks to her. “Can we do this? Can a group of thirty rebels and sinners hold against GOD’s might?”
“Aye,” Rossa says. “We know secrets that GOD has forgotten. Look around. We have friends. And if Usker Lance was right, we have the dead on our side as well.”
“And our number will grow even more once word gets out of what happened in the third ring, of what they done to Usker,” Royce promises.
“GOD’s a basterd!” seethes Sary Cledes. She looks up from the floor. “He gives a bad name to true basterds everywhere.”
“See there?” Rossa smiles. “Sinners, rebels, and basterds. We’ve got one hell of an army already.”
“And us!” Eight is standing with her brothers and sisters now. “Us little kids is tired of being pushed around.”
Gemma smiles. “This won’t be easy,” she says. “I know the Senator General. He will be furious. Some of us might die. He’ll send ferrymen, Kingdom Guards, even Mags Hensil herself after us.”
“He sends an army for us, then we need to build an army to defend ourselves.” Rossa’s voice is reason. “But you leave that ol’ bitch Mags for me.” This brought snickers from the group and whickers from Claire. “I owe her a good bash to the face, I do.”
“We would need armor and weapons.”
“Leave that to the orphans,” says One, Eight’s oldest sibling, a young lady with tired gray eyes. “There be all sorts of buried things you come across when you’re an orphan. There be pockets of true might in the forests. GOD’s done forgot His own history.”