Sarah Zettel: Reclamation

Eric flung himself across the floor and rolled again. Above him, the woman took fresh aim. Eric kicked both legs out and caught her ankle. She crashed against the floor. He hauled her shoulders up and cracked her skull against the deck plates. She grunted and sagged in his arms. His fingers found the catch on her bracelet terminal and snapped it loose.

Eric scrambled to his feet. He shoved the plug from the stolen bracelet into the socket beneath the warning light and twisted. The light blinked from red to green and both sides of the airlock hatch swished open.

Something sharp slammed between his shoulder blades and Eric sprawled across his own deck, pinned down by a weight that squirmed. Reflexively, he rolled, ready to swing his fist out, but the weight had scrambled out of the way. Aria towered over him for a split second. In the next, she bolted down the short hall toward the common room and the view wall.

“Cam! Get us out!” Eric shouted without even trying to stand up.

The engine’s hum became a rumble. Over its noise came a scream of pure terror followed fast by the sound of a body hitting the floor.

The Notouch had looked out at open space, and had passed out, as Eric had known she would.

It was, after all, what had happened to him.

Relief and exhaustion blurred Eric’s mind until the world took itself away.

The Nameless Powers walked their Realm and spoke among themselves. They named the Walls, and the Walls grew strong. The Nameless spoke of the people then and each life they named became True and took up its place in their Realm.

—From “The Words of the Nameless Powers,” translated by Hands to the Sky for all who follow.

“Broken Trail dena Rift in the Clouds, don’t do this.” Trail ignored Cups’s urgent whisper. She kept on looking toward the darkness that hid the walls of Narroways city. The wind blew hard, brushing her cheeks with warmth from the dying fire at her back. Thankfully, it was a dry night and she could sit outside with nothing worse to worry about than cold. Around her, the tents flapped and creaked in the wind that whistled down Painted Canyon. A baby whimpered from the left and someone, it had to be Yellow Stones, snored loudly enough to call back the Aunorante Sangh. No one had woken up when she crawled outside. No one, of course, except Empty Cups.

“She’s been gone too long.” Trail pulled her poncho around her. “I am going to find out what happened to her.”

Cups sighed and crouched beside her. “She wouldn’t thank you for it if you did. I saw her face when she left. No interference, that’s what she wants. Let her be, wherever she is, Trail.”

“No.” A lump of wood broke apart in the fire, setting loose a shower of sparks so, for a moment, Trail could track the wind with her eyes. “I am going to find out what the Skymen have done with my sister. I’d be going even if Mother didn’t tell me to, that’s the whole of it.”

The baby’s whimper became a wail and groans arose from all around as tired women tried not to wake up.

“Trail"—Cups laid a hand on her head and shook her gently—"think, would you? We need your hands in the pens tomorrow. I’ve got a promise of two bolts of whole cloth and three new pots if we get…”

Trail jerked her head away. “You’ve got the brains of an ox, Cups. The Skymen are here. They’re trying to win over King Silver. The Nameless know why and we need to find out.”

“As if it’ll make a difference.” Cups gouged a fistful of dirt out of the ground and held it up for Trail. “As long as there’s mud we’ll be sitting in it"—she threw the lump down again—"be it owned by the Nameless, the Heretics, or the Skymen.”

“Haven’t you heard the story about how, after the Servant moved the Realm, the power-gifted started taking lives on their own authority, not the Nameless’s, so the Nameless Powers allowed the People to raise their hands against the Teachers for a time.”

“Trail,” said Cups severely, “if you’re going to teach the apocrypha, do it elsewhere.”

“What are you fools doing out there?” The fire’s orange light showed Branch in the River’s face poking out of the shadow. “Get back in here!” She brandished a leather tent flap.

Cups groaned. “If your sister had any proper feeling,” she whispered, “she never would have left her family where Branch could get her claws on them.”

Trail’s hand smashed across Cups’s cheek before she even knew what she was doing. “Unsay that, Empty Cups, or I’ll have your guts for breakfast!”

“And I’ll have yours, Broken Trail, if you don’t get back in here and quiet down!” hissed Branch.

Cups, holding her cheek and wrinkling her forehead, slunk back toward the tent. Reluctantly, Trail gathered her poncho hem around her and followed. She could feel Branch’s smug satisfaction like she could feel the wind whipping around her head.

Trail bowed her head and ducked back into the tent, shuffling on her hands and knees until she found a blanket corner that wasn’t snatched away when she tugged on it.

See what a good obedient girl I am, she thought as she rolled herself up in the threadbare fabric. I always do as I am told.

And I have been told to find my sister.

Memories of pain chased each other around Aria’s skull. The needles that drew the scars down the backs of her hands burned. Cobblestones dug into her knees as she groveled at the city gates. Her jaw ached from keeping her thoughts silent. Childbirth tore her in half.

Gradually, Aria became aware that the pain was more than memory. It burned in her deflated stomach, pounded in her head, throbbed in every joint. Old bile and metallic heat weighed down her tongue.

Other memories. The woman of the Skyman with her strange green eyes and skin that turned red under the light of day. “I’ve heard the apocrypha, too, you know. I know your family’s story. My people are looking for a way to take the Teachers down where they belong. You can help. For your help, you’ll lose those hand marks. All you’ve got to do is bring your stones over the World’s Wall and talk to my people.”

She is not Shameful Blood. I would know. I would know. Of all people I would know…

They led her up one of the dark canyons, to the threshold of a white building that looked like a gigantic mushroom squatting in the permanent night. The palest, hairiest man she had ever seen had walked up to her. She forced herself to hold her ground.

Dispassionate eyes looked her over. There had been more words and she had agreed to everything unconditionally. A needle bit into her arm, and there had been blackness, until she woke surrounded by bald, babbling children and realized her namestones were gone.

The fear brought by the memory of that waking kept Aria’s eyes shut while she sorted out her physical sensations. She lay on her side. Her arms were behind her. Something soft cushioned her right shoulder and her back. The air was as cool and dry as the inside of a Temple. It smelled of nothing at all. She could hear a whirring noise from somewhere underneath her, soft, but constant.

Gentle pressure rested against her ankles and knees. She tried to separate her wrists and couldn’t.

Blast him! He’s got me tied! The realization overrode the fear and her eyes opened. First, she saw Teacher Hand sitting in front of her. His square chin stuck out a little too far and his black eyes held the glimmer of anger.

A sensation of absence crept into her consciousness.

“Where are my namestones?” she croaked around the sand that seemed to be clogging her throat.

“I have them.” Teacher Hand clipped off each word as he spoke it.