To be quite clear, my mind was foggy when I left The Doc's, and foggier yet when I left him next... so pardon my discrepancies against whatever you've heard of these events. This is how I remember it.
I left The Doc's care, and met him outside on a path along the wall
around the fort. He was smoking the New World's leaf in a fat roll of
paper, thicker than a thumb. It smelled sweeter than what I'd tried, but
heavier, too. He passed it to me, and told me to puff gently, then
inhale the smoke it makes. I took less than he probably expected of me,
but it still burned my lungs and burst coughing and tears out of me.
He grinned. "It's from the New Tropics. Something fun I've been saving."
I held my throat, and cracked, "How much?"
He shrugged. "Barely a copper. But wait until some pomp with a bloated
ship comes along and calls the whole vast land in his own name, and
tells everyone he 'discovered' it. Then, it'll probably cost a golden
arm and silver leg."
I looked at the horizon. The rising sun glowed
red warmth into the dim grey above, and together they were violet ahead.
"Who did discover it?" I asked.
"It's ancient, as old as we are. So... whoever got there first." He puffed it again, and took a drag.
I glanced at him. "Thank you, by the way. But why'd you save me, anyway? I was inches from dying."
"Try a centimetre."
"It must have been very expensive."
His lips and nose snobbed. "You're a... worthwhile test subject."
"Because I'm stronger than the average tyke?" I joked, waiting for a response.
He looked over at nothing. "You'd already met the plague, and lived.
You were valuable. Quite frankly, you'd be just as good to me dead, like
any other moor. But I wanted to push myself to bring you back, and I
did. So, you're welcome."
I was at once grateful and yet taken aback
by his casual cruelty, as if my origins made me fact-of-life worthless
except as I was of use to 'im. Cold-hearted crow. "Moorish or not," I
jabbed, "my blood can still boil, y'know."
He said nothing. Cold-shouldered, too.
After silence, and more smoke, I asked, "So how'd you know I've already
been sick? Anything to do with my father holding your letter's seal in
his grave?"
The Doc suddenly looked surprised, and took off his
glasses with one hand. With the other, he put out his roll and flicked
it over the wall's own fence-like wall, and onto the roof of a store of
some kind below. He rubbed his eyes, and took a handkerchief to wipe the
glasses clean. Thumbing the smudges as delicately as he could, I could
tell he wanted to say something. Finally, he did.
"I didn't know my brother had died," he trembled.
It shocked me through my spine, not unlike the pain I'd just endured, and made the hair on my arms stand. "I knew it."
He held back tears, and then swallowed a lump in his throat. Then, in an
instant, he was cold again. "I didn't want you getting attached to me.
Third-sexes can be very clingy, I find." He took a breath.
I was confused. "I've been WEARING his SKULL, how did you not know he was DEAD?"
He shrugged. "I figured you were making it up, that you ghouled a
stranger." He took another breath. "If you guessed me, then you've no
doubt guessed my wife is your mother's sister, as well."
I nodded, my hands clasped around my temples as I leaned on the wall with my elbows. "So... does that make us family?"
"No," he remarked, "Like you, our fathers have sewn many seeds across
scattered fields, as nature compels them. Still, two in one year? Trés
impressionnant, Reaper."
I was shocked already, and could feel no
more now, not with the smoke buzzing around in my skull. Unlike the last
toke I'd had, that left me stimulated, I felt held down and mellow. I
at once knew by its effects, gossiped by sailors, that it was cannabis
blended with tobacco; du melangé.
"I have ONE child," I protested.
The Doc laughed. "I suppose The Lady might be telling tall tales, then.
But who knows? A careful cut here and there, and you could have one
yourself some day. In ancient times, you might've been revered as some
kind of fertility icon." He put his glasses back on, so shiny they
glinted the sun's beam off like a spark. "Au revoir, mon petit
frére-sœur."
Then, he left. I watched him leave, and held my guts
with one hand, the other still on the wall's edge for support. Before I
could make sense of any of it, I smelled smoke. I looked down, and the
store below us was catching fire. The Doc's stupid reefer! I started to
run, but the ground shifted underneath me, bricks crawling out of place
to trip me. My head was too light to stand up again, and all I could do
was whisper, "water...", hoping that someone would get some and pour it
over the wall. I rolled onto my back, and left Earthly realms for
another plane.
* * *
THE VOID
I saw in the cosmic stars
a ring of rings 'round a gem
past, now, future, near and far,
and everything rested in them
one may use a ruler,
to measure in three dimensions,
but more exist that can't be seen,
growing with each ascension
the spiral curls, it never ends,
it numbers from one to ten,
but zero's the same, it starts over again,
and the end is right where you begin
All and nothing, space and time,
body, mind, realm, and soul,
questions, commodities, trades and identities,
these things that make everything whole
the ones who watch over us, loops of mixed teams,
they live as eight groups of four,
defined by vocation, or possibly gender,
it's hard to say what matters more
mages and warriors, monsters and hunters,
inventors and forgers, reapers and bards,
a full round each turn for young, met, and elder,
a heart for each age, whoever you are
All play the same role, but not in same way
we all want this gem to shine
for the rings to turn time and time everlasting
and make cycles of seeming straight line
our threat is a muck that holds back the gears
the product of light and dark
from chemical flashing of twilight in motion
the residue grafts to the arc
it comes from the void, but yet so do we,
so smudge it back in we must,
and be ready still when it comes back again,
and unbalances what's been made just
My task, I'm now told, by a man old as sand,
is to clean up that muck with soap,
with a broom, and a dustpan, and pen if you please
to restore the cycle of hope
he asks how I'm finding my new current life,
I tell him "it's been pretty swell,
though frankly, I find, that the world's pretty dull,
and everything hurts like hell"
he says, "That's because you haven't looked hard enough,
for beauty that's in all dear,
but one day you'll see it, and it will be time
for you to return to us here."
* * *
When I came to, I was in stocks, standing in town square. Everyone was
shouting at me, throwing rotten food, angry looks on their faces. I
looked over them from the platform under my feet... yep, the store burnt
down. The Doc and Killer were nowhere in sight, and the guard captain
I'd met previous was holding my scythe.
"What say all, irmãos?! SHALL I TAKE HIS BLADE AND CUT OFF HIS HEAD?!"
"SIM, CULPADO!" they cried, and whistled and shouted for my demise. I'd
picked up enough to know what they were saying: 'AYE, GUILTY!'
I coughed, and blinked my dry eyes. "S'cuse me," I croaked, "like... what the fuck, man?"
"OH, HE SPEAKS!" the captain jeered. "Or are you really a man at all?" He took down my hood, to show my long hair.
One man shouted, "Take 'er shirt off!"
I shouted back, "Keep yer pants on, pez, and I'll keep mine!"
I stuck my tongue out at him, and he sneered and did it right back, couched safely in the mob's anonymity.
I told the captain, "It was an accident, and I'm not the one who
flicked the joint." I could barely hear myself over the yelling.
The captain held up his hands, and everyone silenced over a few moments. He turned to me.
"Reaper, you stand guilty of burning down our ration store-house, and damning us all to starvation. How would you like to die?"
I said, "I didn't set the fire, The Plague Doctor did, by mistake! He was smoking over the wall."
"We found you," the captain argued, "not him."
"Aye..." I said, to an awkward silence. "He shared with me some 'erb,
an' I passed out. Think twice, cap'n: who's more likely the culprit? The
man who you find, or the man who's fled the scene? An' anyway-"
"CHOP OFF HIS HEAD!" screamed a woman.
"RIP OFF HIS FINGERNAILS!" screamed another.
"MAKE 'IM FUCK THE GOATS!" screamed a man.
Everyone turned to that.
One voice asked, "Christ almighty, what is it with you and fuckin' goats?"
He shyed. "Nothin,' s'just punishment, I think."
"No," she asserted, "You bring this up at every town meeting, too."
Another man chimed in. "And I caught you in my barn handling my pigs last week."
An old woman wailed, "And the week before that you were watching my horses breed!"
"He's got paintings, too," a boy yelled. "He paints himself taking
animals from behind, even dogs. I saw them in his house when I was
bringing 'im grain!"
The man piped, "No, you didn't! I never did any of that!"
While the crowd was giggling, I noticed that my stocks were built for a
man's rugged hands – not the delicate hands of a half-woman. I slipped
out of them almost easily, and grabbed my scythe back from the captain
to stamp on the platform.
As everyone turned to look, I flipped my
skull mask down, and announced: "I AM THE GRIM REAPER! Know that I am
here because DEATH IMPENDS UPON YOU!"
Displeased silence.
One person cawed, "What the hell does 'impend' mean?"
I shouted quickly, "IT MEANS IT'S COMING VERY SOON! HOW MANY WERE LOST IN THE FIRE?" I pointed my scythe towards the captain.
Him, looking cross, said, "None, actually. We're pissed about the food, because now we're GOING to die."
"EXACTLY!" I pointed upwards. "Without food, you are ALL GOING TO DIE."
The captain didn't buy my act, and tried to wrestle me for the scythe
like it was a talking stick, pushing against my mask and slapping me in
the face all petty. Guards stood by, ready to intervene. I evaded him,
and spun around so he tripped, and he groaned with red face as the crowd
guffawed.
"I PROPOSE..." I began my wild tirade, "WE GATHER EVERYTHING WE HAVE, BUILD A NEW STOREHOUSE, AND MAKE IT A BAKERY!"
A woman shouted back, "We already have a bakery!"
I said, "FANTASTIC! Then we're already ahead of schedule." I laughed
out loud at my own hubris. Somehow, the gravity of the situation seemed
lighter than sky itself, and I could bound as high as I pleased.
The
people met my cheer with more, and laughed too. They swarmed the
platform, and I was swept up scythe an' all, and taken to the burning
wreckage. There, smolders lay steaming, wisp trails still rising, from
white and grey ash peppered with red and black coals.
I looked down at it. "Fuck me," I sighed, "This is gonna take a while, innit?"
I was made to pay my own lodging to stay longer in O Rosto, exhausting my prize of silver, but I kept my head and my word. O'r the next month or so, we swept out the ash, cooled down the coals, and made use of them for fire-pits and gardens. Then we raised a tall shed, twice the size of the last, from wood of pine trees as high as the mountain peak itself. We brought all resources to restaurants, cut deals for selling meals, and formed a line for breakfast, lunch, and dinner each. I was no good to drive nails or lift wood, so I was made to cut wheat in the fields down the pass, a good steep hike from the fort and a hell of a task on the knees and thighs. I also helped to bake bread, showing some tricks The Baker in Morocco had taught me. Then I made soup at the inn, and later prepped roast at the pub. Doing so afforded me the vegetables I needed, which others wanted a bit less. I was shown the care and time it takes to brew mead, and in the final weeks felt proud to see the townspeople enjoying my batch (at least, the one I helped with). The shed was finished into a full store-house, with stone tile for a roof, to make sure no fire could ever claim it the same way again. Then, the merchants lured travellers afar to visit our fort, and spend their coin on trinkets carved from leftover wood, and on food and mead found spare. After another month, the fort was back on its legs again, and instead of being pelted with old food, I was singing badly with a visiting troupe of bards. I felt fully drunk on acceptance and cheer from the people, knowing now not to sink into liquor and let it claim my newfound strength and clarity. I was so busy forgetting my troubles, I scarcely noticed them creeping back.
One day, a maid from the fort clinic decided to wash some old, bloodied towels to re-use them. Then she hung them up to dry, and three days later, she was dead. You see, The Doc had taken careful measures to keep my sickness isolated, making nurses and bedpan maids wear masks and wash their hands when dealing with me. He burned my old towels, and used some type of detergent on my clothes. Somehow, one or two towels were missed, found in an old moldy pile somewhere. No matter the exact method, The Black Plague had found its way now to the people of O Rosto, and what was three sick became ten, became twenty, until all faces had upon them black boils, and armpits were as apples. Even the livestock were falling over from fever, an' I tried to help contain the spread, but it was too late. Sickness missed me again, having already seen me too recently, and night by night I watched half of the townspeople fall into a pile behind the outer wall. Men, women, and children were pleading with me as I walked to eat, asking me why I'd forsaken them after all of our neighborhood. Folks that fled the fort were whispering darker tales about me, telling that I was The Grim Reaper in true an' I'd slashed my scythe across the spirits of all in O Rosto. That I'd begrudged those who once held me in stocks simply for their stinking karma, an' having made them survive, I commanded buildings from them and cheered them to thrive, only to dash their hopes next morn – I was the cruellest of lower Gods to them. I cried, inside at first, and then at night till I slept. The inn was so empty, you could hear a pin drop, and each sob echoed for what felt like an hour. I woke up too soon, and when I wanted food, there was not one chef in sight to cook it for me. There was so much more we could have done together, and that this place could have been. By the time I'd gathered my things to leave, not a week from the bloody towels' bein' hung, there was not a soul left in that stony place in the face of the mountain.
Comments (0)
See all