Lawrence Schoen - Barsk - The Elephants' Graveyard

“Yes, that’s the person I’ve been seeking. Thank you, Jorl.”

Without ritual or patterns, invoking nothing of the conclusion from traditional summoning, she held up a hand with a single golden thread between thumb and finger. She let it fall, and their connection severed in that instant. She had what she’d come for.

THEillusion of the Matriarch’s long-vanished home blinked out and Jorl found himself back in the yard of the internment camp, feeling as though he had just awakened from a dream.

“Jorl, are you all right? Do you need help getting up?”

The carver, Rüsul, stood in front of him, extending a hand.

Jorl shook his head, but made no move to stand. “Just lost in my own thoughts. I’m fine, thanks.”

The old Eleph nodded. “Well, if you like, you’re welcome to join us in our little corner. Doubtless Tarva has more tales of his gram he wants to fill our ears with.”

Jorl smiled. “I’ll join you soon. I just need some time … to process my, um, thoughts.” Rüsul nodded again and wandered off, and Jorl let his head drop to stare blankly at the snowy ground of the yard as he tried to make sense of the enormity of his visit with the Matriarch.

He wasn’t sure how much time had passed when he felt a shadow fall across him. He glanced up, expecting to find Rüsul again, but instead Krasnoi stared down at him.

“Ensign-Retired, have you had the experience of searching for something only to find it in the very last place you look?”

Jorl allowed his puzzlement to show on his face. “Why would you continue to look once you’d found it?”

“Exactly. You understand me exactly. And having found you, I can now stop searching.”

“Me? I thought you wanted knowledge of how to make koph? I only know about the finished product, not how the drug is made.”

“No, you don’t,” said the Bear. “No more than the rest of these useless relics do.” He swept one arm in an expansive gesture that took in the entire yard. A squad of Pandas were ushering all of the Dying Fant into a large circle freshly etched into the packed snow.

“What are you doing?”

“Putting an end to a tactic that has done nothing but waste time and resources. They have nothing I want or need.”

“You said I didn’t either.”

“Not quite. None of them have what I seek, but you know someone who does. My Lutr Speaker will wring the knowledge from him soon enough. I’ll hold on to you until she does. This mission has been cursed with too many complications to let you slip away prematurely. But the others? They’re beyond useless and I will not suffer them any longer.”

For a moment, Jorl saw Urs-Major Krasnoi in a new light, gracious even as he admitted failure. “You’re letting them go? You’ll take them to the last island and let them finally die?”

“Don’t be absurd. Nonyx-Captain Selishta and her vessel are long gone. Easier to have them die here and now.”

He lifted his head and caught the eye of one of the Pandas, who in turn shouted an order at the other members of the security squad. The two hundred some Dying Fant stood bunched together where they’d been gathered, swaying listlessly as the Ailuros formed a shallow arc in front of them. Then the Pandas drew the devices they’d worn strapped along one leg, two-handed stocks with cables running back to canisters mounted on their backs. They pointed these at the Dying Fant and a moment later began spraying them with streams of liquid, like children playing a game with squirt bottles on the hotter days of the mist season. Several focused on dousing the outer perimeter of Fant while others aimed their streams higher, soaking those in the middle and back as well. Their canisters didn’t contain water.

Jorl jumped up, arms and trunk waving, dashing toward the guards. He tripped on Krasnoi’s suddenly outstretched foot and sprawled on his face, the packed snow scraping his skin.

Sparks erupted in front of each Ailuros, and their streams turned to fire. The blaze sped to the Fant like a living thing, rushing to embrace each of them in brightly burning arms. A few screamed but most made no sound. The squad stood prepared to take down any that broke from their cluster but none of them fled. They stood there, numbed beyond life, and burned.

The flames shone red but transformed gradually to a blinding white as the Ailuros continued to pour accelerant on their targets. The snow beneath the Fant transformed to steam, creating a grave like some macabre magic trick. Jorl managed to sit up, gagging in the acrid smell of burning flesh. His ears hung flat against his head; his mind simultaneously attempted to reject the horror and insisted he take action. He shouted and trumpeted and surged to his feet, desperate to do something, only to be knocked flat again by Krasnoi. A series of kicks kept him down, leaving him to gaze helplessly at the burning Fant. Waves of heat radiating from them made him flinch, but he could not bring himself to cover his face. The ink of his aleph burned on his forehead, and he had the odd thought that his privilege of passage must sometimes mean stumbling into places he’d have passed on in hindsight, and owning the obligation to stay there all the same. He bore witness, the silent slaughter of old men and women who had sought nothing more from life than its proper end. The nightmarish moment combined with the skills he’d honed as a Speaker as every individual face seared itself into his memory. There was no point to looking away now; the image of them would be with him forever.

The Dying Fant stood packed together, holding one another up as they burned until they crumpled en masse, and still the guards maintained their position, weapons poised and active until every bit of flesh and bone and tusk and tooth had been reduced to ash. Krasnoi kicked him again, savagely, but Jorl’s own pain couldn’t matter now. He raised his head and stared into the flames and ash, still reeling from the slaughter. The wind shifted and mercifully blew the stench of death away. Rüsul, Phas, Kembü, Abso, Tarva, and all the others who had been interred short of reaching the final island were gone, finally dead though not in the manner their lives had promised. He dropped his face into his hands, sobbing, and the image of them standing there still, burning and dying, lay vivid in his mind. A light snow began to fall as if to mark the moment of pure despair. He whimpered, realizing that at last, Margda’s Silence had ended.

“What’s going on here?”

Jorl’s ears spread out at the question and he turned his head toward the unfamiliar voice. A large figure strode toward them from the far end of the yard where the Fant had never been allowed to congregate. The Pandas all lowered their devices but otherwise remained alert. The fire continued to burn.

“Senator, I wasn’t expecting you for another few days.” Krasnoi’s brusque tone had changed, and Jorl heard worry in it.

The new arrival’s hair hung so long in places that it had been braided, his fur gray with age. He projected power. His gait held purpose and strength. Metallic threads wove elaborate geometric patterns through the flowing robes he wore, and a chain of black glass links hung from around his neck. Jorl had never met a Bos before, taller than any Fant and easily as broad, but he knew from the horns emerging out of both sides of the fellow’s head that he could be nothing else. More, there was something familiar about him, but Jorl couldn’t place it. The Yak’s voice rang like a deep metal drum, clear and strong, the sound authoritative but not unkind.

“I’m the chair of the Committee of Information. I didn’t get to that position by being predictable. No doubt you’d have this all cleaned up and sorted by this time tomorrow. A pity then that we’re having this conversation here today and you have to tell me what I’m looking at.”