“DEAR BANA. I’m going to have to kill you.”
Esther is intoxicated. She has had nothing but bitter wine since being imprisoned in her home with her husband, and it has served only to darken the dimly lit rooms she walks through. She is a disheveled mess. She will not look at herself in a mirror, for she knows what will be staring back at her. Not a lady, but a beggar. She feels her eyes are as dry as sand, and her color must be that of paste. Her gown sags like a servant’s uniform. And the only voice she has heard aside from her own has been the Voice of GOD echoing outside, tormenting the first ring with thinly veiled threats. She occasionally finds herself shouting out the windows, cursing the Voice with language she had never dared to use before. People have gawked, but let them. They are all just as dead as she is on the inside. She prays for plague.
“You see, my darling,” she continues speaking to Bana, “I am quite suffocating. You and this life, this government, you have all quite pulled the pillow over my face.” She smiles, laying her head on the pillow beside her husband, watching Bana’s fearful eyes. “Is that how you would have me do it? Should I smother you with a pillow? Or is that too humane? I think so. I think you deserve something more terrible. You realize, my sweet love, that they will kill our brave daughter Gemma when they catch her. You see that, right? Without my girl…” She is tearing up. She blames it on the wine and throws the glass across the room. It shatters against a cedar chest. “…I see no reason to live any longer. I see no reason for either of us to live. Especially now that I just broke my last wineglass. I think you should die first. You’ve sacrificed so little else.”
She can tell Bana wants to scream. His eyes are enormous.
She wraps her hands around his throat and applies pressure. Just a little at first.
“You should indeed have a bloodier death, but this will have to do.” The Voice of GOD hammers His word into the streets outside. “And my, won’t GOD be angry, won’t He be horrified when He finds you dead… with me.”
She squeezes harder. Bana is doing his best to struggle. He moves his fingers, fluttering them in meager defense. “What a lovely shade of violet your face has become. Gemma loves this color. Maybe I should have—”
She eases up, distracted. The Voice has changed. It has stopped and now… and now a feminine voice takes over. Esther cannot hear the words, but the tone is altogether familiar. She rushes to a window and flings it open, letting the cold morning air into the chamber. The light causes Bana to moan in pain, but Esther has no interest in him any longer. She is focused on this new Voice. A sweet Voice. Her daughter’s voice:
Rise up. Rise up and unite against GOD. He has led you astray. I am Gemma Kerr.
I am with the Sinner’s march, and we can offer you hope. We can offer you
freedom from the oppressive, terrifying tyranny of GOD and Senator General
Hegart. They are but bullies, and you have the real power. We have the real power.
Rise up. Rise up. I am with you. Abrythnia is with you. Bring forth the Passions.
Bring forth your righteous anger. You shall not be abandoned. It is time we left the
Immortal City. It is time we destroyed it. Rise up. Rise up. Join us at the ninth.
We have the power.
Esther is in hysterics. She has never been more happy or more proud or more sad. She laughs as she looks out the window onto the street below, as she looks at the guards watching her and sees the dumbfounded people of the city waking. Slowly waking.
“What do you know,” she says loudly and coherently. “Maybe we’re not so dead after all.”
THE CHILDREN in Red cower, running for shadows far from the high chair of GOD. Senator General Hegart stands at attention before Him. He does not flinch, but on the floor, he sees the bloody mess that was once a child in a red robe. A ferryman stands expressionless over the mutilated corpse. Hegart lets his drool creep down the side of his mouth and form a stream on his black coat. Best not to move when GOD is seething.
GOD screeches. He throws a fit, seizing in his chair, thrashing his head this way then that, screaming unintelligible things. Every word is a high-pitched scratch on the air. It flays at the mind. The Children in Red are hiding and sobbing. One of their own has just been killed in front of them. When GOD gets angry, He looks for an outlet. With ferrymen at His beck and call, He finds that outlet quite easily.
Hegart watches GOD shake and tremble. It has never been this bad before. GOD has never raged so long and so very loud. Is it weakness, Hegart wonders, that causes Him to carry on so? Surely a GOD should be able to more comfortably control Himself. Yet this one seems quick to anger. As quick to anger as… well, as Hegart himself would be in the situation. Is then GOD only as human as everyone else after all? Heresy. That is heresy to think. And yet…
Senator General Hegart wonders for the briefest of moments if he could be a GOD. If all it required was passing judgments and a certain quantity of blinding bloodlust, Hegart has that in copious amounts. What would happen if the Children of GOD suddenly stopped feeding His Holiness? How long might it take for GOD to waste away to nothing as his councilors have done? As Bana Kerr is doing?
GOD has stopped screaming. The children still sob, and the ferryman stands as if waiting further instruction. The Voice of Gemma has now replaced that of Hegart’s, and is being piped over the speakers. At least all of GOD’s carrying-on has given Hegart respite from Gemma’s constant sticky sweet droning.
GOD’S voice is ragged. It shakes now as He finally speaks. “Find the marchers,” He says, “and burn them! Bind them wrapped in the copper they have used to make this blasphemy happen and then melt them down! If my people want misery, I’ll give it to them. Send out the carriages with the ferrymen. Round up every person who’s even seen a riot and take them away. Take them to the ninth ring. I want to be feasting on souls before the week is out.”
“But Your Holiness, won’t that be—”
“Go!” cries GOD. “Go now! Strip their souls from their bones. Make them cry before they die.”
THE GATES have opened with a heavy steel clamor that fills the landscape with angry echoes. At once the death wagons pour forth. Twenty black carriages led by ebony stallions, each one with angels on their rooftops and devils locked inside, screaming, crying. More will follow. These twenty are but a taste. Royce and Lorien watch them, hidden in the treescape, with the marchers who have been sent by Rossa to keep an eye on the fifth-ring gate.
Reports have come in that GOD is growing more volatile. That He is rounding up as many sinners and degenerates as He can to send to the ninth ring. Rossa intends to put a cog in His Holy wheels. GOD would not expect them to be anywhere near the main road. He would expect them to hide while He carries on with His play, with His torments. GOD is mistaken. GOD has grown too proud.
Royce and Lorien count the number of ferrymen and Kingdom Guards with the horde. Lorien looks down at Royce from his steed and grins. “We will smash them.” He draws an arrow from his quiver and aims it at the lead ferryman. Royce draws his sword. The forest folk with their arrows and spears and throwing stones do not need to be told when to charge. As soon as Lorien lets his arrow fly, they know to attack. Gol has stayed behind with Gemma and Rossa, but he has left very capable warriors in charge.
The death wagon approaches, and Lorien concentrates. Aim for the ferrymen, he knows. The guards are often clumsy cowards, easily dealt with. First the sinners must see to the ferrymen. There are nine with the wagons.
Lorien shoots.
Eight. Eight ferrymen now with the wagons.
The forest folk are upon the dark caravan. Lorien dispatches another ferryman, and the wagon flips over, throwing the guard to the ground. Royce is upon him, thrusting a sword through his gullet. The ferrymen react swiftly, jumping from their carriages and bringing out their long scythes. Two of the forest folk are immediately decapitated as they attack a ferryman, but he is brought down by one of the horsemen as they gallop through the carnage shooting arrows. Those inside the death wagons are shouting, confused as to what is happening. It is all dust and arrows, blood and screams.
Lorien stays in the forest, picking off guards and ferrymen. Some are not dying immediately, so he is shooting them more than once. One ferryman looks like a porcupine before he falls expressionless and bloody to the ground.
Horsemen and warriors are providing cover as the forest folk break open the carriages and free those locked inside. Some are not able to escape. Some are already dead. Those who can run off to the forest and are soon swallowed up by the trees. And with that, having done all they can do, the horsemen ride off. Not a guard is left standing. Everyone behind on the road is dead or dying. The marchers have had to leave some of their own. Cries of pain and anguish follow them through the forest. Lorien meets up with everyone at a designated ancient causeway in the jungle. They free their prisoners, who express their gratitude to their rescuers with confusion and relief.
Royce has not returned. Lorien saw him cut through the gut by a ferryman at the end of the battle. There is nothing for it now. If he is not already dead, he will be soon.
The horseman leads on with a heavy heart.
CAYDEN SITS alone in the ancient library. The sinner’s march has moved on, and he has followed them. He does not know why he is drawn to the library, but it has called to him. Here, for the first time, he has a sense of home, of belonging. These tattered remains of old books are whispers of friends.
He has shaken off the guards. He does not care where they are as long as they leave him be. They will most likely be lost in the jungles without him, dinner for a Helix wolf or a briar cat. Since losing them, he has seen the strange ruins of the world before the Fall. He has seen large pictureless frames attached to beds of keys painted with symbols; he has seen rusting mechanical men in various states of repose. His curiosity grows with each new discovery.
Cayden does not feel like following after the marchers tonight. He will catch up to them later. Their group is so large, they will be easy to locate. If he cared. He finds that he develops a kinship with the girl.
Kinship. Another new idea.
He sits cross-legged on the floor in the center of the library beneath the massive tree. His eyes are closed. He is asleep, but not really, just as he is alone, but not really. Cayden has only ever been half of anything—half asleep, half alone, half a man, half a monster. He is perfectly balanced by the other half.
This night, as has occurred the three previous nights, a new visitor comes to see him. The god Thunkill is no longer in his dreams, but has taken the form of Cayden’s father, a fair-haired young man with a wistful smile and sad green eyes. Cayden did not know how to react when he saw his father on that first night, so he did not react at all. He simply woke up. But then the next night, his father came near to him and touched him on the forearm. The feel of his flesh, so gentle and easy, made sleeping memories race to the fore, and Cayden felt his first tear crawl down his cheek. Now he remembers his father, the poet. The artist. The man who tried to give Cayden some type of education, and that is what got him killed.
“Ya still wish to learn,” his father says as they sit opposite one another in the darkness of the library. Strained moonlight pours through the roof. “Why else would ya be here? Why else would ya feel the call?”
“I doona understand any of this,” Cayden says. “Who are ya? Me father has been dead for years. I saw him cut to ribbons right in front of me.”
“Ya saw a man’s body cut up, aye. But a man’s soul was not taken.” He is smiling, such gentleness and patience.
“Mine was. Mine was sucked right out of me eyes. I remember now. They took me to a dark room and attached tubes to me eyes. I was screamin’. I was cryin’ for you…”
“But I couldna be there. Not in physical form. But I saw what they did to ya, and I knew one day ya would wake up like you’re doin’ now.”
“Wake up?”
“From your long nightmare. Gemma Kerr is not the only hero in this tale, Cayden. You are her, she is you. Ya will complete one another.”
Cayden looks at his father—at us—with a pinched brow. “I am a monster. I am asleep.”
“No. You are a hero. We all make mistakes.”
“Breakin’ a dish is a mistake. Breakin’ a man’s neck is somethin’ worse.”
“And now ya recognize that. Do ya see? You are waking.”
He is stunned by this realization. More light appears in his eyes now. Even more than five minutes ago.
“Ya were a poet,” he says. “Ya were a great poet.”
“I tried to give ya that poetry as well.”
“Ya failed. It did not take.”
His father laughs lightly. “My sweet boy, the seed was planted. It is inside ya still, just waitin’ to sprout. You’re lettin’ in the sun with every new moment of realization. Soon ya will feel it within ya. Keep practicin’. Keep recitin’ your poetry and ya will see. Your soul, your beautiful soul, will be replenished.”
“Why do I need a soul? Those with souls seem only to find hurt.”
“Because ya need to live in order to die. And ya need to die stuffed full of soul to be with me, with all of us who are waitin’ for ya outside the Immortal City.”
Cayden’s eyes are glistening. “What’s it like? Out there?”
“No words,” his father whispers. “There are no words.” He looks up to the top of the tree, then back down to Cayden. “But ya need to go now. Ya need to find the march. To join them. They need ya, my son. Some of them may not like ya at first, but they need ya.”
His father leans in and gives Cayden’s forehead a delicate kiss.
“G’night, Da,” he says.
We smile. “G’night, son.” And then we fade.
THE FORESTS and jungles of the sixth ring fade in density the closer the marchers get to the wall. The Plains of Coirean stretch out for miles, and during the day, the golds and greens wave in the winds like a groundswell under the orange sky. At night, the fields are sucked into the line of a blushing horizon.
The march is resting as the dusklight fades into dark. Rossa has situated herself on a hill above the marchers so she might keep watch. Lorien and others keep guard with her. Gemma has wandered away a bit. She is wading through the tall grass, deep in her own thoughts. She walks with Usker Lance.
“I want to get away,” she says, catching the grass between her fingers as she strolls.
“Away?”
“From the march. From all of this.”
“Ye want to abandon the march?” Usker says, no judgment in his voice.
“Not abandon. No. I just… I’m wondering if I even need to be with the marchers anymore. They know what to do now. They know where to go. And all this rage… I feel their rage. Sometimes I have such rage that it scares me. I feel as if I am soaking up all the anger around me like a dirty sponge. I killed a man, Usker. That guard in the wall. I killed him. Me.”
“He was gonna kill Rossa.”
“I know, and I know it had to be done. But when I slid the knife into him, I felt nothing.” Her eyes water. “I took a human life and felt nothing. Doesn’t that make me some kind of monster?”
“Every man and woman is a monster, Gemma girl. Aye, and every man and woman is a kind spirit as well. Both light and dark are in us all. Whichever of those two shows up in any situation, that’s when a man knows who he truly is. Ye protected your friend by killin’ that man. Ye had to reach into yourself and call forth the dark, but then when it was done, ye put the darkness back, didn’t ye, gal?”
“But I feel different,” she whispers.
“Aye. Many things be different now. You’ll never be the same. You’ll never see your ma again. Nor will ye see the first ring. Do ye want to?”
She is silent for a moment, walking on through the grass. “No.”
“Well then, what ye moanin’ about, ye silly girl?”
“Change, even if it’s for the best, it’s very strange.”
“Aye. ’specially if the change is more about who ye are than where ye are.”
“And who am I?”
“Gemma Kerr.” The voice catches her off guard because it is new to the conversation. Usker Lance has disappeared and in front of her, under a small tree, is the man she met in the forest, Cayden. They connect without coming any nearer to one another or saying a word. They know one another as well as family somehow. The night wind blows around them, the sounds of the tall grass being swept by the breeze is whispered conversation.
And then the horn sounds.
Gemma is startled and looks back toward camp. “That’s Gol’s battle horn,” she says.
“You’re under attack, miss,” Cayden replies.
And they race back to the camp.
CAYDEN SEES what is happening before he hears the cries of terror. There is mass confusion in the darkness below the hill. He sees the fire dogs—great snarling beasts that streak the night with the glow of flames lit on the thick quills of their backs. They are on leashes, but leashes of such length the ferrymen are able to stay back from the confusion on the fringes as the beasts rip into the marchers.
The marchers overturn the camp as they flee. But Cayden notices the fire dogs and the ferrymen are not the only nightmare unleashed here.
Hungry men, a breed of man once created by GOD that Cayden thought extinct are on leashes, enormous naked men made of enhanced and grotesque muscle and vascularity. With drooling mouths and penises, they have nothing but an unquenchable appetite for the taste of sex and flesh. They roar through the camp led by their bloodlust, snatching up mostly the old and the young and ripping into them, tearing them apart, for sex and hunger.
Cayden pushes Gemma back into the grass. “Head to the forest,” he tells her. “Now!”
He does not have the time to see if she listens. He charges into the confusion. The horsemen who have joined the marchers are doing their best to repel the fire dogs, but the beasts are full of anger. Cayden sees the tail of a horse catch on a fire dog’s quills and both horse and rider are engulfed in flame. Nothing can be done for either of them as they run howling into the night.
Cayden stealthily grabs a leash and wraps it around a ferryman’s neck, killing him instantly. He steals the ferryman’s scythe and gives those too far gone mercy from their misery as they are being mauled or burned. Looking back, he sees some hungry men are already making a meal of the strangled ferryman even as one fucks the corpse.
Another ferryman comes for Cayden, pausing as if in recognition, allowing Cayden the time to slice him through and steal his scythe as well. From here Cayden carves through fire dogs, hungry men, and ferrymen alike. The screams around him are deafening, yet there is plenty of light. The fire dogs provide that easily.
A horseman has come to Cayden’s aid, fighting beside him. The leader of the march, the queen called Rossa, is up ahead. She is cornered by a group of hungry men, but neither she nor her horse seem ready to give up as she slashes and the horse kicks. Cayden is uncertain if he can make it to her in time.
Suddenly, he feels teeth sinking into his shoulder blades with a vicious pain. He twirls around and comes face to face with a hungry man, eyes as red and crazed as a demon of hell, veins like blood worms beneath his skin. The massive hungry man reaches for him with crooked, long fingers, scratching at his cheek, but Cayden takes both scythes and separates the man into quarters.
Ahead of him a large white dog has taken the hungry men’s attention from the queen and allowed her to escape. A small boy rides on her saddle. The large white dog then bounds away from the hungry men with a couple of orphans on its back. As the white dog leaps, a fire dog snaps its jaws down on one of its legs, causing the older child to fall off.
“Two!” the little girl screams.
Cayden is up. He beheads the fire dog with ease, allowing the white hound to escape. The little girl is still crying “Two” as she races away. A hungry man pulls up the boy by his hair. “Bad dog! Bad dog! Bad dog!” the boy is crying. The hungry man opens his maw, but Cayden slices the top of his skull clean off, and the boy falls back to the ground. Cayden picks up the child and hands him to the horseman.
“Make for the trees,” he says. “This is lost.”
And it is true. Looking around, all he sees is death. Cayden does a ballet of the macabre as he fights on. He will take out as many as he can, indiscriminately. Ferrymen, fire dogs, hungry men—and marchers. It will be doing them a kindness, these marchers. He is the swordsmen now, cutting fathers into ribbons before their sons. But unlike Hegart, he will have mercy. He will kill the sons as well.