Chapter 16

  The door thudded shut behind them, Other Juan’s brutish grin the last sight Aquiles’ caught of the world above, and below him, his brother threw back his hood and spun in a circle, the poor country boy enamored with the whirlwind of changes in his surroundings. Aquiles tried to keep his own interest in this secret room hidden from his twin. He saw his brother’s awestruck expression, eyes and mouth wide and hung open with disbelief, and refused to look so out of place.

  Socorra waited for them both at the bottom of the latter facing the center of a massive circular chamber. The roof was low, but the diameter was a good portion of the entire pyramid’s base, held wide and open at some four hundred paces across. Steady, white light inlaid at the base of the walls ricocheted about the room, bouncing from glossed black walls and floors and ceiling, the very same unnatural stone lining the hallways and atrium of the Monastery, a little chunk of that holy fortification ripped out and placed in this dingy pyramid of dust and dirt. The artificial lighting unsettled Aquiles, not so much as his doppelganger unsettled him, stumbling about like a pendejo, but enough.

  “The great hall was constructed sometime after this chamber was excavated from the mountains,” Socorra called out, tiny steps taking her further from the ladder and into the strange room. Her voice echoed off the walls, and she didn’t have to speak up for her words to fill the air.

  Aquiles’ unsteady tone betrayed some of his anxiety, “Was the pyramid itself constructed on top of it?”

  “Or was this an addition? My mentor believed the latter. Now, Arturo, please walk to the center of the room,” Socorra beckoned the petrified looking man further into the room. The Arm passed Arturo on the way back to the escape from this gleaming dungeon, and patted his shoulder when they got close.

  He whispered, but the words carried, “How will I know when-”

  Socorra patted him again, “You’ll know.”

  Arturo continued taking painstakingly slow steps towards an indeterminate point as Socorra arrived to stand shoulder to shoulder with Aquiles. “He called it the sound box,” she hissed now, “my mentor that is… for obvious reasons.” The country boy turned and held that same dumb expression on his face, lips pulled down in a childish frown like his tio in a skeleton mask just spooked him on El Dia de Los Muertos, and Aquiles, the Arm of Us, swordmaster, and astronomical scholar knew he’d never look at anyone as stupidly as that.

  The pendejo turned back and froze in mid step, the loaner robes not even swishing about him, and he squealed, the din careening through the sound box, amplified tenfold through some unknown mechanism.

  “Ah, there. He made it to the center,” Socorra called over Arturo’s cry.

  Then, the poor country boy dropped to the floor, spent and silent. Socorra stepped forward and dragged Aquiles with her as he blabbered, “Que? Are the conversations always that fast? They feel so much longer.” And his questions got overtaken by babbling.

  “The- the- the babies weren’t real? The executions disgusted me… like I knew. But- but the Parents are gods. How could they need ou- our help?” Arturo lay there mumbling, face wet with tears and mucus.

  Socorra bent and cradled his head in her hands, “Maybe we built them into something they are not over the years, nin?o,” she brushed his longer hair aside, it looked dirty, then she turned her head up toward Aquiles, “or, maybe the Ministry is much stronger than they let on.”

  ***

  With their promise not to run off, and her own promise to answer their questions, Socorra turned from the lanky boys climbing that ladder shaky like stick bugs, and attuned herself to a new mindset, able to handle the Father’s mind in his rapid decline. He had not been like this before. Pues, el siempre ah sido loco. Always a bit off and unstable, but his degeneration worsened by the week now. And, at her age, that speed felt like the dipping of the sun below the horizon, at one point the valley full of light, then another a darkness falling across the city. She approached the connection.

  “Ah, hija. Mucho gusto. Just the person I wanted to speak with.”

  His mask was in the downturned frown it had been mostly stuck on for the past few years, the clouds about his shoulders rolling in a melancholic lilt. Socorra cleared her throat, “Of course.” She cleared her throat again in an attempt to remove whatever was catching up her words and failed, so she spoke through it anyway, “It worked, Father. We have a Greatstorm, and we can challenge the Ministry.”

  “Why would we challen-” The mask flicked on and off, the face of the young man flashing through, long black hair hanging in strands about his face. “Yes, yes. I remember. Those boys. Arturo… Aquiles… strong, but not ready.”

  Her heart thumped in her chest, “Yes, but Father, hold to this. You cannot let the Union know their weakness. They must fear the threat. The twins are untrained, and it is too early. Please, understand this.”

  “What Union? I may share- yes, yes. Those pale devils. I will deceive them.”

  Socorra breathed out, relieved in this relative lucidity of the Father, “Bien. Then, we can begin with the next phase. Remember, send the visions only to your Children of the Monastery. You must do it as soon as you can, so we can bolster their support.”

  “Si?. I remember,” the mask went neutral, human eyes now showing through slits in the mask under the protruding brow, intelligent and powerful, spears of confidence and expectations, the eyes of a god. Socorra hadn’t seen this face on him in many years. “The Union advances in their developments. They’ve created monsters, hija. The Mother weeps. Abominations of our blessing. You must be careful.”

  “We will, and I will do my part,” she pronounced. “It will not be much longer, Father. We will free you from them, free this land from whatever is to come.”

  His eyes vanished, and the storms wrapping his shoulders billowed and blew, “What is to come has come before.”

  The Father turned and ducked through a ripple in the air, then he was gone.

  ***

  “The cooks made enfriijoladas and fried eggs for lunch, would you like some?”

  Arturo’s stomach rumbled with ready agreement, “I would love some.” Tired and irritable, Socorra had fetched him from his rooms after finishing with whatever responsibilities bore down on her and pulled him from a trance of the Father’s doing. At least, the god had promised to stop sending all of those horrible visions, and it was good to know what, who, had been doing it, yet disconcerting that the Father might be just as unhinged as Socorra said. “Do you have any more of that sweet stuff?”

  “Not for now, that’s for getting your energy up,” Socorra paused and smirked, “and you’ll get plenty of it when you start training to use your blessings.”

  They both grew silent then, and Arturo’s heart grew heavy. He felt for the Father’s problems and wanted to help, but the Ministry had always treated the people of La Terra right. It was surprising to learn they had strayed from the Parents’ guidance. Socorra seemed earnest in her desire to provide all the help she could, however the pleasant and understanding persona she had put on, in a failure of subtlety, was starting to crack. She’d want them training to help as soon as possible. They walked through the empty hallways in the underground portion of the Monastery in the northeastern corner of the pyramid, and he was becoming familiar with the layout, directions being important to him after years of guiding by sunlight.

  Arturo believed them, Socorra and the Father, that the Greatstorm myths were just that, myths. Many people, merchants and travelers, passed through the pueblo to buy and drink their money away, shaking his hand in deals for the raw wool Barto would load into their wagons, full of outlandish and far-fetched tales. Mean tales. People could spin horrible stories about others just because they were different. He thought of the kids when he was younger who’d slap his back and make fun of his trembling hands, spasms forcing him to the ground, arresting his legs and thoughts and lungs, torturing him without a care. Yes, they were just kids, and kids do not understand, but kids grow; and grown people can be cruel. Arturo didn’t hold it against them. No one got it easy in this life. People just needed to find what would make them happy and hurt as few others as possible, like he would be hurting Valeria if he stayed here training.

  His thin voice broke his own introspection, “I can’t stay here and learn to help, if my help even is needed. I have people waiting for me. People that will wonder where I am.”

  Socorra took a clean inhale through her nose. “And what will you tell them of what happened on your pilgrimage to the Capital?” She stopped and tilted her head to the side. “Will you lie to them?” She took a step forward, “How long will you lie to them?”

  Arturo’s chest grew tight hearing his unspoken fear. If he went home, he’d have to lie to Valeria and Barto and everybody about what happened here, he’d have to lie for the rest of his life and live with the worry that he would hear rumors a man with Arturo’s face had wandered into town, or worse, was running the Monastery itself. Was there going back without finishing what had begun here? “I just want a normal life.”

  “Everyone does, Arturo. That’s what we’re fighting for.”

  “How do you know?”

  Irritation flashed in her eyes, “How do I know what?”

  “That the Ministry has poor intentions controlling the Parents. Why is it so bad to be governed by people alone? Do we really need the Parents?”

  Socorra took a step back. “There are old evils in these lands. We need them more than you could possibly understand.”

  “You monks presume much about what I am capable of understanding.” He leaned down, the air around him stirring, his hair drifting in little puffs of wind, little blasts of thunder, “I will stay and learn my place in this. But I’m not doing it for you. Not for my ‘brother’. And, certainly not for the Parents. I will not live a lie with the people I love.”

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  “You do not love the Parents?”

  He chuckled, “I loved my parents. They died in a fire. And the gods did nothing.” And he hoped to everything beautiful in the world that those gone people were his parents, his own flesh and blood.

  Socorra shuddered, “I will have your lunch sent for you.”

  He grinded his teeth, hot rage contained at the edges of himself, “Gracias. I like mine with a bit of serrano.”

  She nodded and walked away. Arturo returned to his room.

  ***

  Aquiles leaned out over empty space at the top of the world. He was convinced not to jump now by the Father, but the drop would be so freeing. He could be free from knowledge of a heretical Ministry, free from a family he did not know, and free from blame if he failed in what the Father asked. Yet, he turned and walked back through the garden, a low sun casting the green stalks like bars in a prison cell. Training called to him, called to erase the anxieties from his mind.

  On his walk, he distracted himself with academics. Even now, faint booms and pops could be heard ricocheting off the stone and into the halls of the Ministry, evidence of the presence of Storms. Aquiles guessed the chamber below the great hall was designed somehow to contain sound within its walls. It could explain the odd acoustics inside and how Socorra had hidden its location with such ease. Plus, the Juans never trained with the other Storms, and their skill was apparent, which meant they held discreet training sessions somewhere else. Those twins’ feet danced with a practiced grace through his mind, one after the other, placed and flowing to where they needed to be. Aquiles couldn’t imagine the connection required to develop such precision. He felt confident in his own abilities after years of drilling, but relying on someone else to perform in tandem was foreign to him. He had relied only on those opposing him. He imagined his country boy brother stumbling over his feet attempting to move with an ounce of grace.

  Disdainful thoughts and overwhelming worries clouded Aquiles’ mind, so he almost missed the crowd of twins leaving the ready room. He’d gotten to the training grounds without noticing the passage from the peak. He sat back from the opening far enough to avoid notice, faking some task with the leather armor and straps available in an alcove for Young Ones to get comfortable with training. After the group thinned, he lowered his head and slipped past the stragglers. Socorra stood at the ramp to the training grounds. Her shadow stretched towards him, taller than the woman spawning it by several times over. The ethereal black form made a beckoning motion, and the flesh and blood Socorra turned and walked up the ramp. Aquiles wondered which version of her was real. He followed.

  When he reached the top, a sword came at him in a quick strike. He side-stepped then jumped further back to put room between him and the tip of the weapon. He let his awareness fall into that flow of the blade, allowed himself to release as if Child Horacio was frowning down at him from beneath his forest of eyebrows, but she grinned at him, swishing the blade through the air. The thin metal whipped and whirred reflecting the waning sunlight in small flashes on the pyramid’s wall. “By the Mother’s tits, I haven’t swung a sword in years,” Socorra swore with a nonchalant smirk, “do you think you can beat me?”

  “That was crass, Child Socorra.”

  “Ah, well, I have a direct line to the Parents, she wouldn’t mind.”

  Aquiles rolled his eyes and sighed, “You speak to the Father.”

  “And the Mother said ‘buenos dias’ to me this morning.”

  She lunged with a sudden jab, and as he side-stepped again, she swiped at his stomach, the tip of the sword nicking his robe. Aquiles pushed his finger through the hole in shock, “Are you trying to kill me after everything we went through today?” She jabbed at him again. His ankles popped as he stepped in the same direction as before, but now he watched her hips for clues. He didn’t have a sword of his own, so he needed to get inside her sword’s reach. Her hips twisted for another swipe at his stomach, but he was prepared. Aquiles lunged into her motion, catching her sword hand on his hip.

  He forced his thumb into the tendons on her wrist, his grip enjoying the give of her thin, old skin, and he wrenched the joint around as he drove his shoulder into her chest. That pushed her back, loosened her grip on the sword, and gained Aquiles room. The woman fell back to the ground, the weapon vibrating now in Aquiles’ grip. Maybe a physical confrontation with her was what he needed.

  “I do think I can beat you,” he chased her into her fall with a hiss.

  She sat up laughing, “I haven’t been hit like that in years!” She cackled and clapped the dust from her hands, coughing at the puffs of regolith catching in her throat.

  “I’m glad I could give you the luxury.” Aquiles was not amused.

  “Alright, a fight’s a fight’s a fight.” Socorra stood and strutted to the weapons rack on the round wall of the training ground enclosure, and she walked back over, erecting a basic fighting stance with her shoulders and legs, sword outstretched, and not one of those blunted training swords, the real thing. Her left hand rested on her side, the right held her sword pointing towards the ground, and her hips pointed off to the side. If she was a larger person, she’d make for an intimidating opponent, confidence pouring off her like a pot boiling over. As it was, Aquiles had no doubt in his ability to win a duel against her. His reach combined with her status as an out-of-practice swordsman would be daunting for her to overcome.

  “Bien, bien,” he replied, the corner of his mouth turning up, his cheeks burning from the lack of practice with the expression. Aquiles copied her stance. He preferred less structured forms, but he enjoyed tradition from time to time. Socorra’s sword came up, and Aquiles rested his against it, metal sliding over metal in the quiet dusk of the day. His chest rose and fell, her’s moving in the peaks and troughs of his diaphragm collapsing and growing, controlled breaths for a controlled mind. Her weight shifted to her front foot.

  He capitalized.

  He darted forward to throw off her weight while anticipating a retreating jab. She flicked her wrist instead to meet his blade, but it was too late for her. Aquiles drew his sword toward his body, pointing it towards the sky while lowering his hand, deflecting the light blow. He began to bring his arm back up and place the blade at Socorra’s neck to end the duel.

  The hand resting on her hip came up and slapped him across the face. Aquiles’ stumbled back, confused more than dazed from being hit. He looked at Socorra, accusing, and she responded, “Horacio gave me tips.” He just clenched his jaw in response, so she shrugged her shoulders and giggled, “I didn’t say a fair fight.” She returned to her starting position. “Again, Arm of Us.”

  Aquiles got back into position, “Who were my parents?”

  Socorra attacked first in this bout, and they exchanged several quick blows. She appeared to be testing his reactions, and Aquiles began to doubt she hadn’t held a sword in years. He was not strained by the attacks, but his lack of sleep would catch up at this tempo. His stance had to be adjusted to accommodate a smaller opponent than usual.

  “Sheep herders from the countryside. Arturo knew them well.”

  Aquiles scowled and battered away her strikes with a blazing ferocity. “You kept me here while he was raised by them?”

  Venom dripped from his words and endowed his blade. Aquiles became tired of defending and went on the attack. He dropped his shoulders into swings and bobbed around, sliding feet forward in unpredictable steps. His backhand opened and closed, raised and lowered to offer him leverage for his strikes.

  “Everyone has Parents that love them, Aquiles. You just have to be willing to accept that your relationship with them will differ from those around you.” She presented no tiring and fended off his attacks with ease. Maybe the Juans weren’t training alone after all. What was it with these old monks and hidden stamina?

  Their engagement resumed. She slunk forward behind several quick jabs at his shoulders and chest. Aquiles moved for most and swiped at one. Children often considered sword fights big swipes at each blade. That was not the case. A big swipe left a swordsman open to steel in their gut. He held his blade at an angle making of himself a harder target. He was confident to wait for her to make a mistake. She came again with the same combo but added a dipped swing with a bent wrist to this side.

  Aquiles exploded into motion. He hopped over the blade, low and short as she was, it was easy for him. He landed in a low crouch with his left leg to the side and stood into a jab. She twisted away, and he followed her with heavy crashing blows. Too heavy for a woman of her stature and he too quick for her to make anything of his methodical movement. He slid his blade down hers and slammed her hilt, rattling her hand. Then, he turned in his stance with weight on his front foot and back kicked her guard. She stumbled back.

  Their engagement broke. He watched a single bead of sweat drip from her brow to her cheek. Human after all.

  Pondering, investigating him with animal intensity, Socorra returned to her stance, a look like a big cat from the plains, attention pinned to a rabbit before a quick and easy chase, hardening her face. He returned his own look, cool intensity and logical judgment, but he was shoving anger deep in his throat.

  She sighed and broke off her gaze. Socorra spoke more softly and less sure than before, “We suspected Arturo to be plagued with problems from your separation. He couldn’t be the one to live in the Monastery, all eyes on him.”

  “What problems?”

  “If you’d like, you could ask Arturo about his childhood in the coming weeks.” Socorra’s humor returned to her posture, “You’re going to be spending plenty of time together.”

  He didn’t wait to return to stance, and he wouldn’t wait for answers any longer, cryptic messages and veiled turns of phrase. He jabbed out at her, but Socorra turned his blade away. Aquiles took that momentum and spun fully back around to swing low at her feet. As she moved, he directed the blade back up, and she bolted back; but now he scored a blow of his own.

  Socorra’s eyes turned down to a tiny trickle of blood forming on her cheek. “You wanted to hurt me.”

  He had become carried away. He had never cut someone with intention before. Sure, accidents happened while training, scrapes and bruises, but he went for blood this time and got it. Aquiles didn’t like the feeling, and Socorra looked… betrayed. She dropped her sword. Her hand shook as she tightened her fingers into a fist.

  “Humbling does not stick with you, does it, Aquiles? You want more and more. You have all the power here with not an inkling of how to use it, and yet you strike out at me.”

  The rage stuffed in his throat escaped, “You’ve treated me like DIRT! My WHOLE LIFE! But he gets the family?”

  “We raised you to be hard.”

  “You raised me into a weapon! Left me without a heart!” It hurt to admit it.

  The blood dripped down her cheek like tears, “We needed one of you to be ready to fight, and the other to have the heart to sacrifice. Arturo is a kind soul.” She was blurry in his eyes now through his own tears, “Yours is sharp, honed. Dangerous. You will crush them. We have every faith in you, Aquiles.”

  Rain sank its aroma into his skull. The air about him caught fire, and his rage turned white hot and shot for Socorra.

  She reached her hand towards him and guided the lightning to blast into the air behind herself, the training ground blinking with stark, white light outshining the sun, and shadow too deep to be natural. Disappointment smoothed Socorra’s face.

  “But we have not taught you anything about being Bolt.” She lowered her hands, “So, here’s your first lesson. Do not use your blessings in anger.”

  A flash of purple light and heat erupted in his vision. When his sight returned to normal, he was looking up at the sky. Dark clouds were blurry in his eyes, the top of the Monastery barely separated in color from the sky around it. His chest felt empty like it was a void and not flesh and blood. The pain came then, his left arm and hand were on fire, and his hands clutched at his robes. Socorra entered his vision.

  Her hair and clothes were alight with dancing arcs of lightning, and her voice was jumbled and metallic when she spoke. “Be deliberate with your actions, Arm of Us. Do not underestimate your enemy.” She touched a sparking finger to his chest, and a jolt shuttered through Aquiles’ body. He gasped for air and felt the blessed return of a heartbeat he wasn’t aware of before it was stopped. Aquiles just stared off to empty space, gulping air into lungs lit in flame and lightning.

  And his soul grew sharper.

  ***

  Barto, the fat one, and the creepy one packed their bags and waited for the wagons to arrive. They were all worried about Arturo. The boy never turned up. If he had some dealings with the church, that was his own business. No sense getting all frazzled over it. “Mierda,” he shook his head.

  He’d told the fat one that Arturo was nowhere to be found. The creepy one said he was a grown man and could do as he pleased. Arturo would return home when he wanted. He had money and a mind for travel.

  Barto cursed under his breath again, “Pinche cabron.”

  A grating voice behind Barto spoke, hammer on a metal pin, and surprised the little group, “I am with the Ministry, and we have your friend. The Parents told me where to find you. Come with me.”

  Barto turned to see a woman, shorter than he by a few thumbs, and with a stocky build. She wore a black robe, and her skin looked… lifeless. She smiled, it looked practiced, but what choice did Barto have; he needed to make sure his friend was ok. “Bueno. We’ll follow.” He cocked his head at the stupid pair he stood with. They all followed the Ministry woman.