Chapter 19

  Buenos dias, mi hijo.

  Aquiles let out a low groan. It grew louder and more tired and more angry until it turned into a yell. “Puta! Puta! Puta! Por que yo? Pinche puta!” He’d been woken up from his sleep again, not the nice little greetings he used to receive as his mind became conscious, no, he was torn from a deep sleep into a cold room with his nose dry and raw from the end-of-summer mountain air. He flew out of his bed and screamed out his window, hands flung to the sky.

  “Mira! Todavia esta noche! Puta!” He hammerfisted his windowsill until the skin on his hands became raw and tender. “Do you not see I’m trying to sleep, Mother? Why do you insist on waking me in the middle of the damned night?” He leaned out and looked up, the moon sitting right overhead. “Yup, first hour of the day. AGAIN!”

  Aquiles stormed over to his clothes and dressed, fumbling with irate fingers at impossible knots. His head got stuck at an awkward angle against his robes with his arms held up by the fabric. He shook and screamed and spun in circles, and he set about cursing and jerking around the room. His back knocked into the wardrobe, and the clothes inside came off their hangers and fell to the floor. At last, his arms came free, and he pointed out toward the Ministry and shouted, “You’re cleaning that up!” Then he did up his boots. “Voy a caminar! It’s going to be so incredibly relaxing!” Aquiles threw open his door and slammed it behind him, uncaring about waking others up. He murmured curses at the Mother and his clothes and the walls and himself as he stomped down the hallway. He doubted Arturo would be awake again, they’d had a very long day yesterday, and Aquiles knew it, he felt it in his bones and his heavy eyes and limbs; but it turned out he wouldn’t be sleeping it off this night. The pyramid was buzzing with restlessness after the Father’s revelations, and he was buzzing with tenfold energy.

  He entered the main square of the pyramid, and the old Child from the night before sat in the center again. “Que hace?s?” Aquiles interrogated.

  The man looked over at him and then around himself, “Sitting, hombre?,” the man responded, like he was explaining the sky was blue.

  Well, Aquiles insisted it was green, “Why don’t you go to sleep?”

  “Why don’t you, hombre??”

  That wore the initial rage off, and he was at a loss for words.

  “That, Child, is a fantastic question!”

  “Lo se?,” the man responded, and the sky was back to blue. Aquiles turned and flew up the stairs this time, body floating over the ground with great bounds of his legs skipping multiple steps. Perhaps he could scream more at the Mother from the top of the pyramid again. Maybe that grass Arturo was so fond of had some intrinsic calming property to keep his brother in such good spirits all the time. Ah, Arturo, so innocent and ignorant. Ah, is this how I stand? Que pena. Aquiles mocked him more, screwing up his face and taking his time to stop at each landing of the stairs to perform an incorrect stance, emphasizing the stupidity of his brother’s stupid movement. “Oh, is this a fist? Oh…” Then, he realized he shared all the facial expressions and audible gaffs he was mocking and stopped mid-sentence. “Pendejo.”

  The stairs were a blur under him, and his breathing grew heavy and labored. He noted running up and down the pyramid stairs could be a good conditioning tool and filed the thought away for later recall. He blasted through the opening to the peak, and there stood Child Emilia, dark skin drinking in the moonlight. His fury ended in an instant.

  “Aquiles?”

  “Emilia?”

  “What are you doing up here?”

  Aquiles let out a nonchalant sigh to hide his heavy breathing, “Oh, just a midnight stroll.”

  “Me too,” she responded with such cheer Aquiles came close to vomiting at her feet. Her voice pitched up so high at the end that he winced and poked at the inside of his ear.

  Aquiles looked around, searching for words to say, so he picked the worst possible for some reason, “Would you like to join me?”

  “Por supuesto!”

  “Fantastic.”

  Emilia bobbed alongside Aquiles. Extra empty space between them did not seem to be a driving metric for her enjoyment, bumping his shoulder with every other step. He took a step to the side and absently brushed at his robe where she’d touched, out of discomfort rather than disgust. The untroubled girl didn’t notice, and just moved closer again. “So,” she squeaked, “couldn’t sleep?”

  Aquiles played the Mother’s greeting over and over in his head, “Nope.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that.” She watched him, expecting more.

  Alas, he resigned himself to the small talk, “You couldn’t sleep either?” His voice had to be oozing with fake interest, but Emilia didn’t notice. Didn’t notice or looked past it.

  “Nope! I was pretty caught up in an idea I had!” She yanked his arm and pulled him to a stop next to a bush bristling with chiles. “So, I found that plants of different fruits and other flowers next to each other grew with traits shared between the two parent species.” She couldn’t keep up with breathing and her rapid information dump at the same time, so she breathed out at the end of every other sentence, “And better yet, flavor is one of the main traits I could share! So, I was wondering how two types of chile? would react when planted next to each other. Would the result be spicier, milder, more floral, or some weird, unexpected thing?” Her breath ran out, and she leaned back as she sucked in another thousand words worth of air, “What do you think?”

  Aquiles kept his act up, “Wow, I just haven’t a clue. Why don’t you plant some and see?”

  “I already did!” She pointed with a finger Aquiles only now realized was covered in dirt at a disturbed section of soil next to the blooming plants. “Jalapen?o y habanero. I can’t wait!”

  “I would love to try them when they’re grown.” That was a lie. He would not. “I love trying different things like that.” That was a lie. He did not. “It is a very interesting finding, Child Emilia.” That part could be debated to be closer to the truth.

  “Gracias!” She bubbled with excitement and danced on her tiptoes.

  They continued through the garden, Aquiles doing everything he could to avoid more conversation. His walking partner looked at the moon and traced her finger on the sundial. She passed over the ‘1’ and the ‘A’ next to it, leaving a bit of rich soil at its base, and he watched the miniscule clumps break apart and fall into the grooves of the markings before flinging his eyes about the circle. A thought began to form in his mind.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  Emilia broke the chain with an exclamation, “Wow! The city is so pretty from up here!”

  Aquiles broke his eyes from the sundial and looked out over the city. “Si?, que tan bonita.” The truth at last.

  He stood just behind and to her right, hands folded behind his back, and his eyes on the twinkles in hers, a bit of the starlight up above come down to La Terra for a moment to grace him and the city. Her hair flung about with a turn, and he shook himself.

  She prodded, “You’ve been promoted to a full rank of Child too now, yes? On top of becoming the Arm of Us of course.” She flaunted her own early promotion, a result of her studies in botany. Aquiles was impressed.

  “Yes.”

  She looked at her feet then, seeming to rile something up within herself, and she asked, “Would you like to show me some of your moves with the sword? With the news of the Parents and everything, it could be useful for me.”

  Aquiles froze, and his chest tightened with anxiety. People never wanted to do stuff with him. Even Josefa figured that out within a quarter hour of meeting him, so he laughed with his practiced, derisive energy and shook his hands and did all the things to let her know he didn’t want to, and he replied, “Lo siento, Emilia. But, with my own training as the new Arm…” And training with his identical twin. “...I just don't have the time or desire to be wasting hours showing a botanist how to swing a sword.”

  And that was a lie, too.

  “No, no. I understand.” She bowed her head, the typical deference to his superior station. She continued, “It was a pleasant walk, Child. I will retire to bed now.”

  She’d called him ‘Child’, and not his name.

  Before, she was calling him by his name.

  ***

  Arturo awoke to the burn in his hands, feet, and heart. He’d gotten a taste of his lifelong affliction every morning of the past several days, ever since the Mother became silent at the dawn, readying herself to surprise him in the afternoon. The pain receded, and Arturo could breathe again. It was less of a torment and more an annoyance. These little reminders made him wonder why he was always so eager to lose his pain, it was familiar, part of his home.

  After a few days’ sleep, Arturo determined the bed was indeed softer than he was used to. It took him time to tell the difference, it wasn't something he ever paid attention to, rather over his life he’d learned to sleep mostly without a blanket and still as stone, else his skin and muscles alight in agony and refuse him his sleep. His bones creaked and his joints popped as he stretched and yawned. El Mercado Rojo wafted into his room with its scents and meandered in with its sounds, but his previous experience with the shaft encouraged Artruo not to go shoving his face up to catch a glimpse of the city above. He was weary of any terrifying visions in his alone time. Yet, no voice called to him, and no disgusting gore flooded his room.

  A craving for the warmth of hot water pulsed in his skin. He pushed aside his memory of the heat of blood soothing his hands in his visions. The voice he’d heard all those times sounded similar to the Father’s, yet he knew now, definitively, what the revered god’s voice sounded like. He couldn’t reconcile the crazed rantings of the visions with the Father he’d spoken with. Socorra had said the god was unstable, so he supposed he would believe her.

  She had come the night before to tell him to wash himself and his robes. She said he smelled worse than, quote, “Un culo de un burro.” Then, he had sniffed himself, and it turned out her quip was less offensive than the stench in his underarms.

  Cold metal chilled Arturo’s fingers. He stuck his face into the grated opening on his door and looked into the hallway for anybody to ruin his plans to get clean. He turned his head and pressed his ear to the opening. His chest grew hot as he held his breath, waiting and listening for people. Arturo heard nothing, so he pulled on his door. Socorra had been kind enough to leave it unlocked now. He closed the door behind him with a delicate pull on the handle. The torches in the hallway were placed at larger intervals than the rest of the Monastery he’d walked through. The workers must not want to come change the lights out for an uninhabited section of the pyramid. If he worked here, Arturo would neglect this section entirely, to be honest with himself.

  Feet shuffled behind him. Arturo’s heart jumped out of his throat when an unfamiliar voice questioned, “Hola?”

  So, he croaked, “Hola,” in response. It came out deeper than his real voice, so he rolled with it, and didn’t turn around. A less grimy set of robes with a hood covered his head and face. For now.

  The voice got closer. “I don’t see many people down here.”

  “Si?, I was just doing laundry for a Child.” That sounded natural.

  Closer still. “Hm, laundry normally gets done upstairs.”

  Mierda. “Si?, pero…,” Arturo ached for a reasonable reply, then he got one somewhat based in reality, “this Child is embarrassed by their stench and wanted the clothes washed separately.” Arturo identified the stranger to be a man from his voice, but the man couldn’t be much older than he was. He turned, keeping his head down to hide his face, and held the dirty robes up. The man made it to him and sniffed and swiped at his nose, Arturo only catching the wave of the man’s forearm below the brim of his hood.

  “Oh! I bet it’s Horacio, isn’t it? That old geezer stinks to hell!” The stranger seemed to contemplate for a second, “Please, don’t tell him I said that. I’ll be mopping in the rain for weeks.”

  “I won’t, I promise.”

  “Thank you. Me lla?mo Emiliano. Y tú?”

  Arturo panicked, “Miguel.” Believable enough. Why wouldn’t it be?

  “I come down here to get away from everything. My brother has been a real jerk lately. Just need some alone time.”

  Arturo wasn’t sure why this man was sharing his life with him, but he responded in kind, “Si?, I like my alone time too.” Emiliano didn’t try to look at his face, the privilege of a worker was that no one looked at you.

  “Jorge?, he’s a piece of work. I don’t know what got him so hot-headed.” Emiliano tsked and continued, “I just wanted to gain us favor with the Arm, and the Arm of Us. Been trying to do stuff for Child Socorra. Running messages and errands. It. Is. Exhausting. And, on top of it all. We may be confronting the Ministry in the future about their abuse of the Parents. I haven’t even internalized that one yet! Doesn’t even seem real!” Emiliano clearly had no one to vent to in his life, but Arturo was used to it. He enjoyed giving people his ear if it made them feel better. “And don’t get me started on Aquiles. That guy’s got some reputation, you know? Do they talk about him among all of you guys too?”

  Red vats and dead babies took up Arturo’s mind, the Father screaming. He took a second before realizing Emiliano had asked him a question, “Oh, no. No talking about the monks. Solo trabajamos.”

  The shadow of a nodding head was cast onto the wall, “Huh, very respectable, I like that.” He dipped his head to try and see Arturo’s face. Mierda. He thought the man would just ignore it. So, Arturo feigned dropping the clothes and bent over to hide his face and pick them up.

  “Woah there! Looks like you gotta get dirt and stink out of those robes!”

  Arturo laughed and tried to hide his nervous energy, “Si?, si?. Don’t tell Horacio, please!” He faked a joking tone, trying not to faint.

  “Absolutely not. My lips are sealed, amigo.”

  That seemed to be the end of it then…

  Emiliano sighed and kept talking, “It must be a thing with old men to stink. Some rough looking viejo came cursing and hollering into the great hall the other day looking for some random guy. Man, he smelled like he slept in a pigsty.”

  Arturo was so glad the man kept talking that his heart was now fully out of his throat and plopped onto the ground. Barto had come looking for him. Who else could possibly fit that description? He held his breath, wheezing, “Did he have two younger guys with him?”

  “What? No, just the old guy. Why?”

  Que pinche dolor. “Oh, uh, mi tio. He’s always cursing and hangs around with younger people. I thought maybe it was him.”

  “Yeah, maybe it was him.” Emiliano laughed off the awkwardness. The man wasn’t charming, and he might have been more nervous than Arturo talking to a stranger; but to Arturo, that was charming all on its own. It was nice having someone be nice.

  “Well, I’ll be around more if things up there get more frustrating.” Emiliano pointed towards the ceiling. “Hope I see you around again, Miguel.”

  “Me too, Emiliano.”

  The nice man nodded at him and turned back the way he’d come, seeming to be satisfied with relieving his stresses into a listening ear. Arturo was happy to help and felt incredible relief at not finding out what nice men think of Greatstorms.