Mickey Reichert: The beasts of Barakhai

"Yes. My name is Falima."

He had not expected a reply; so, when he got one, it stunned him to wide-eyed silence.

"Why?" Falima added.

Collins found his tongue. "You-you do speak English," he said, holding accusation from his voice.

"English," she repeated, rolling the word in her mouth as if to taste it. "Is that what I am speaking?"

"Yes." Collins approached the bars but did not touch them. "And quite well, I might add."

"You might add?"

Knowing idioms, slang, and expressions often confused newcomers to a language, Collins amended. "Well, I did add, I guess. Do all your people speak English?"

"No." Falima considered her own answer briefly, apparently recognizing the word from their previous encounter. Her eyes narrowed, and she studied him further. "No friends." She spoke the last two words with a heavy accent that had not tainted her previous conversation.

Collins' heart rate quickened. He had finally found someone with whom he could communicate, and he seemed to be failing miserable. "Why 'no friends?' " he asked with genuine concern.

Falima pronounced each word with slow and bitter force. "You… are… evil."

"Me?" The question was startled from Collins. "Evil?"

"Yes."

"Why would you say such a thing?"

"Murderer," she hissed. "Cannibal."

Collins blinked ponderously, certain Falima had chosen the wrong word. "Cannibal? What are you talking about?" A moment later, he wished he had reacted as strongly to the claim of murder. To his knowledge, he did not have a violent bone in his body.

Apparently misunderstanding, Falima defined the word. "One who eats its own kind. Cannibal. You."

"I've never eaten a person in my life." Seeing the opportunity, he added. "And I've never killed anyone, either."

Using her thumb and middle finger, Falima pulled back her locks, black as ink, thick, and shiningly soft. They fell instantly back to the sides of her head. "You killed Joetha, Ben Collins." The blue eyes filled with ice. "Then you ate her. We found the remains in your possession, some in your very hands."

"What?" The suggestion seemed nonsense. "I didn't have-" Realization struck with the force of a speeding truck. "Are you talking about the rabbit?"

"Joetha," Falima corrected.

Stunned, Collins stuttered. "I couldn't-I mean I didn't- know…" He trailed off. It seemed impossible that he had discovered a society so tolerant of differences that its citizens considered animals on a par with humans. Why not? There are people in our world who do. He recalled incidents of loonies breaking into laboratories, murdering humans to "rescue" laboratory animals that swiftly perished in the wild. "I-I didn't know. You have to believe me."

"I have to?"

"Because it's true. In my world, animals are considered…" Collins chose his words with care. "… our charges, not… our equals."

The blue eyes narrowed, as if Falima found his explanation impossible to fathom. "What is your switch-form?"

The compound word made no sense to Collins. "My what?"

"Your switch-form. Your switch-form?"

The repetition did not help. "I don't understand."

Falima spoke louder and with awkward sluggishness. "YOUR… SWITCH… -FORM."

Baffled, Collins regarded Falima blankly, then came back with the same volume and tone, "I… HAVE… NO… CLUE… WHAT… YOU'RE… TALKING… ABOUT."

Falima tilted her head. Her lips pursed, and she squinted. Clearly, she thought him a moron. "What are you when you are not a man?"

"Not a man?" Collins shook his head. "… well, I used to be a boy." He could not help adding, "My girlfriend thinks I still am."

Falima rolled her eyes. "So, you are hiding it. A carnivore of some sort, no doubt. Or a bear, maybe. They are always the ones that fall off their oaths."

Collins threw up his hands in surrender. "I honestly have no idea what you're getting at." He put the scattered details together. "Are you saying that sometimes you're something other than a woman?"

Falima's hands clamped to her hips. "You rode me here." "I did?" Collins' eyes widened at the realization. "You're… you're… a horse?" The words sounded twice as ridiculous coming from his own mouth. One of us is entirely crazy. He studied Falima more fully, now noticing the minutiae that seemed too clear for coincidence: the large blue eyes, glossy black hair, and golden skin tone. As impossible as it seemed, he believed. Once Collins' mind made that leap, worse had to follow. "Oh, my God!"

"Yes, my switch-form is a horse. What's wrong with that?" "That rabbit was… was-"

"A sweet old woman." Falima's eyes narrowed again. "And you ate her."

Collins' stomach churned. Bile climbed up his throat. "Oh, my God. My God!" Though nauseated, he felt certain he could not vomit and desperately wished he could. "Holy shit. My God. My God!" Nothing more coherent seemed possible. "I-" His voice emerged hoarser than he expected. "I… didn't know. Where I come from, people are just people. Animals are… animals. All the time. Always."

Rage rekindled in Falima's pale eyes, and she regarded Collins like some loathsome insect. "In Barakhai, you are a murderer and a cannibal. And you will be hanged midmorning."

Stunned dumb, Collins could only stare as Falima turned her back on him and strode swiftly beyond sight.

BENTON Collins sprawled on the floor of his cell, the stone warming to his body. His eyes lay open; he felt incapable of closing them. The irregular, plank ceiling became indelibly etched on his vision: the watermark in the shape of a bottle, the knothole like an ever-staring eye, the spidery crack that emitted a steady patter of water droplets. You will be hanged midmorning. The words cycled through his mind, always in Falima's voice, a death knell he had no way to escape. "I didn't know," he said to no one. "How could I possibly know?"

Collins scraped his fingers along the damp stone in mindless circles, his back aching and his wrists throbbing with every heartbeat. This can't be happening. People changing into animals? It can't be real. He forced his eyes shut, hoping that, when he opened them, he would awaken from this nightmare. The darkness behind his lids was filled with shadows.

Beyond his control, Collins' eyes glided open to confront the same water spot, the knothole, and the crack. The water plopped steadily against stone.

Collins awakened with no realization of having slept. Only the diffuse glow illuminating the prison revealed that morning had come. Distant voices wafted to him, unintelligible and intermingled with the occasional clink of metal. He sprang to his feet, the movement inciting a sharp pain through his back and right shoulder. The hard floor had stiffened him during the night.

Four men entered Collins' field of vision. They all wore the familiar rust and gold, swords, and batons. They also carried a rope.

Terror seized every part of Collins. He flattened against the back wall of his cell.

The men spoke to one another in their odd language, then gestured Collins forward.

Collins did not move. "There's been… a mistake," he wheezed through a throat gone painfully dry. "I didn't know. I… didn't… know." Enough time had passed that the rabbit no longer filled his belly, a constant reminder of a heinous crime. Yet he found it impossible to eat.

The guards exchanged more words. Then, one stepped forward and unlocked the cage. Two of the men entered, one carrying the rope. The door clanged shut behind them.

Collins measured the two with his gaze. Both stood shorter than his five-foot-eleven frame, and only one outweighed his 155 pounds. However, both moved with a wary dexterity that threatened experience and strength. It seemed as foolish to fight as to go willingly. The first would gain him bruises in addition to his sentence, but the latter would mean he had done nothing to avert his fate. Either way, he had nothing to lose but more pain. He was going to die. I'm going to die. Despite the time he had invested in it, the thought seemed beyond comprehension.