Chapter 25

  Aquiles shifted his weight for the hundredth time, hands raw on the horse’s reins, watching the animal’s languid bobs of its head, listening to its hooves, and being lured into a trance of tight legs and a sore backside. His brother got to be unconscious for the ride. The Capital was out of sight, so he had slowed from the full gallop, much to the horse’s thanks, trotting along now with all the endurance of a creature made to move. His mount was light footed and hearty, taking the weight of two riders with a determination to run from the licking flames behind them.

  The Monastery quit burning even before Aquiles lost sight of it over the mountains, but that was enough time. Once gray, sturdy stone, now looked like charcoal, blackened and porous. It slumped, crippled against the mountain, its structure still intact, but the air around it injured with a disheartening permanence. The Stranger had his work cut out for him, scattering lightning into all that stone, throwing ash from the peak, staining the pyramid forever. Aquiles had turned at the crest of the pass through the mountains and watched with all the other travelers and onlookers as the beacon for their religion was wiped out. And, they were, all of them, thankful, for the Father broadcasted then a slander of the monks, and the people believed it because who else is there to believe? The god said it, and the people knew not that gods were fallible. Controllable.

  Which of the people he’d known his entire life were now dead? Years and decades of progress in learning, in weaponry, in dedication to the Parents’ guidance, in loving their community, in providing food, lessons, and good will to the people of the city and La Terra were just breath in a whirlwind. They were ended, and they were ended protecting Aquiles and his brother. He looked at the messy black hair in front of his face. Sweat from the day’s exertions had dried on the collar of the thick wool robes in white patches. Youth clung to Arturo, only told by a perspective that close, that angle. Pimples and other blemishes lined the bottom of his hairline. Not many, but enough to notice when Aquiles looked. He rubbed the back of his neck. He had some of his own.

  People, friends, had died for them on this day. Aquiles thought back to his leap from that high window, and he remembered the fear disappearing from his chest and from his mind. In that last second, he’d accepted his death. He’d conquered that fear. Had the Children? Aquiles tried blaming himself and his brother now, blame for being the demons he thought they were when learning the truth of his family.

  But for the pimples on the back of Arturo’s neck. Wacked out by another kid with a wooden stick. And he was what? Some sort of threat? Was Aquiles a threat? Why did they have to apologize for being born to a world that didn’t want them? Why must they die? The world didn’t need protection from them. That was the lie.

  But, to the Ministry, they were a threat. To those who feared losing their power. And the Ministry had shown they were afraid. And the Stranger was afraid. And they strayed far from the Parents’ guidance. What other hidden massacres had occurred? What violence was precipitated by the Ministry? Aquiles would find out. He promised the dead of his home. He would find out. No, Aquiles and Arturo weren’t the Parents’ demons.

  They were their saviors.

  Two more crucial things stood in his way he needed to deal with before any investigations of that nature were to happen. The first, and most important, was the need to survive. They’d grabbed cheese wheels, rice they had nothing to cook in, and a handful of dried meat in their haste. Past that, they had a dozen or so vials of that syrup if they needed to fight. Less food, more like a weapon. Aquiles had no idea how long they’d need to survive out here with no money. It was impossible to ask for the hospitality of other travelers who would most certainly give it. There would be no hiding the twins’ nature from others in such a circumstance.

  The second problem was the abnormality of the Mother’s morning greetings. Abnormal in that sometimes they came too late in the day and other times far too early. With the Father’s behavior added to the confusion, there was no doubt in Aquiles’ mind the Parents were being controlled and abused. But what power could control gods? He shivered. He and Arturo would have to get stronger, much stronger, to reach that legendary and disastrous power the Greatstorms of myth held. That power could challenge the Ministry.

  Aquiles reached into his saddle pack and pulled out one of the cured sausages. He actually enjoyed these. They were pretty salty, sure, and were packed with paprika and garlic, but he almost understood people’s obsession with flavors when he ate one of these. The skin was tight, and the fat rendered in his mouth in an instant. The sausage broke off with a satisfying snap. The flavor was acceptable.

  A low growl broke the steady sounds of clopping hooves. Aquiles jerked his head around looking for the source of the animalistic warning. His surroundings were becoming more and more sparse with vegetation. Rolling hills blocked his view of the far horizon, and low brushes with thin brambles were too skimpy to hide anyone, or anything. Short, skinny trees with delicate leaves were scattered about the hill tops.

  The growl rumbled again. Aquiles braced himself to be knocked from his horse by an unseen predator. Then, from behind a bush halfway up a small hill to his right, a scrappy dog jumped into the road.

  Rough, beige hair and of medium build, the dog’s tongue lolled at the side of its mouth, and its tail wagged bag and forth. The road was wide enough for Aquiles to pass around, but this dog seemed to block the way with a presence. Aquiles met its eyes, and the look it gave back to him was too knowing.

  The dog growled again, an intimidating sound. The hair on the back of Aquiles’ neck stood up, he looked away, and it became friendly again. It turned and walked down the road. Aquiles didn’t guide the horse after it. The dog stopped and glanced over its shoulder, panting and still wagging its tail. The eyes beckoned. Maybe it was the insanity of the previous hours or his exhaustion or some softening of his mind by proximity with his brother, but Aquiles decided to follow it.

  An hour passed following the dog. Every couple of minutes, the dog threw its drooling tongue and snout over its shoulder and checked on Aquiles and his brother. Satisfied, it turned and bounced along the dirt road. The hills blocked Aquiles’ sight beyond the road, but the dog would perk its ears at some indiscriminate interest between its check-ups. Was it looking out for them, or just hearing some scuttling creature it wanted to eat?

  The sun began dropping from its apex in the sky, and Aquiles felt his brother stir in front of him. Arturo mumbled some nonsense then jumped, yelling, and nearly fell from the horse. Aquiles reined in the animal and tried to calm his brother.

  “Where am I? What’s going on?” Arturo exclaimed, tossing his head about like a cat wriggling in someone’s grip.

  Aquiles held the horse steady and tried to do the same with his brother, “Calm down, hermano. Listen.”

  “Don’t tell me to calm down!” Arturo swung his legs over the saddle and plopped to the ground. His feet slipped from under him in the road, and he landed rough and hard. “Mierda!” He brushed himself off then noticed their canine company.

  “Is that a dog?”

  It walked to him and began licking his face. Arturo stilled. The dog sat back on its haunches and stared at the man. Arturo whispered out of the side of his mouth, “There’s something off about this dog.”

  “Yes, I thought so too. He’s been leading me down this road for an hour.” Aquiles jumped down from the horse, a small plume of dust poofing into the air.

  Arturo looked from Aquiles to the dog and back. “You’re just following this mutt? I thought you were some great, educated monk.”

  The dog growled. A bit meaner than last Aquiles heard it. “It appears to be a rather intelligent dog, not mutt,” he responded.

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  Arturo locked eyes with it, and the dog stopped growling. “Yeah, you don’t say.” He paused then made a kissing sound, “Ven, perro. Come here.”

  The dog cocked its head and raised its ears. It snorted and licked around its snout and stayed where it was, watching the brothers quizzically. The dog looked at Arturo then at the horse, then at Aquiles then at the horse, all three objects of its attention returning blank stares. The dog made the motion again.

  “I think it wants us to continue riding,” Aquiles said, not believing his own words.

  “Uh huh,” Arturo responded with a matching level of hesitancy. They got back on the horse, riding tandem as before. Aquiles kicked the horse into motion, and the dog spun and continued bouncing along the path. “Alright, besides whatever this is,” Arturo gestured towards the happy pup, “what happened?”

  Aquiles breathed in, trying to calm his nerves. Jalapen?os and habaneros. “You got hit on our way out. I took care of those men and rode us out here.”

  Arturo touched his fingers to his crooked nose, he sucked in a breath and winced. “I definitely feel the hit. What about Socorra and the brothers? Have you seen them?”

  Aquiles groaned, “I haven’t seen anyone. The pyramid was burning in the distance.”

  “What? The Ministry actually took it?”

  “I believe so. I believe the worst has happened. We’re on our own.” The dog tossed its head at them. “With a guide.”

  “By the Father’s name,” Arturo lowered his head, “what are we going to do?”

  “Survive. Get stronger.”

  “Get stronger? For what?”

  “For a siege of our own.”

  Arturo swung his hands out in the negative, “No way, hermano. We don’t know what they have, and we can barely use the blessings.”

  “What would you recommend we do?”

  Arturo guffawed, “I don’t know! I just woke because the M- because of the pain in my face! In a completely different place than I went out at! We need to slow down and think about this.”

  “What were you going to say?”

  Arturo straightened his back. Aquiles couldn’t see his face sitting behind. “I don’t know, amigo. I’m all out of sorts right now.”

  He didn’t push it, but Aquiles would have sworn to the Guidance his brother almost said the Mother had woken him up.

  “The dog seems to know where to go,” Arturo continued. It barked in response. “It seems to know what we’re saying.” It barked again. “What is up with this dog?”

  “Forget the dog!” Aquiles exploded. “Yes, maybe taking it slow is a good idea, but don’t you think we should strike back as soon as we’re able?”

  Arturo shook his head. “It's just the two of us. And I’m not sure of anything.”

  “Coward.”

  Arturo whipped around in the saddle, and the horse nearly bucked them in fright. “Which one of us stood up to that thing that killed my friend, puto? You? Slackjawed from when an untrained country boy took you out? Before you ran off and turned yourself in?”

  That pulled shame from Aquiles’ chest. “I didn’t think the Ministry would-”

  “Didn’t think they would… what? Destroy everything? Didn’t you listen to Socorra? They’ve done this kind of thing before!”

  “Why is Socorra the trustworthy source? She was just the crazy old hag most of my life. Forgive me for just not stupidly taking her accusations at her word alone!”

  “Oh, so I’m stupid for believing? Well, it turned out she was right!”

  “Just because you got lucky on this-”

  “I DON’T FEEL VERY LUCKY, AQUILES!”

  The shout echoed off the slanted hills on either side of them.

  “I feel lost,” Arturo turned back around. “I have lost… so much.” He shuddered, “Barto was a grump the entire time I knew him, but he didn’t deserve that. Miguel and Antonio didn’t deserve that.”

  Names to the mutilated faces, Aquiles’ stomach sank. “Lo siento. I didn’t mean to push so hard.”

  “Forget it. Let’s follow the perro a little further then get something to eat.”

  Aquiles nodded before realizing Arturo couldn’t see him. “Si?.”

  Hills rolled by with the time and the silence, and the horse’s hooves thudded to the road, and the dog’s panting was raspy but cheerful. The scenery and setting were so different for Aquiles. He let himself feel it for the first time. Loose dirt shifted in the wind, a light orange moving to tan, and more deeply packed earth provided a steady foundation for his mount to walk, trot, or gallop, and for wagons to creak on the path. They’d passed people on the road in wagons or on horses of their own. None of them looked Aquiles’ way, none of them noticed the identical face on the man in front of him. They went about their own lives.

  The surroundings maintained a simple look, missing the lush foliage from the mountains, dried out by the air dropping its water up the slopes and moving out over the hills. At least, that’s what Child Felix taught, his best hypothesis for the climate difference. Aquiles wondered if Felix survived. Ignore that. Look at the hills, the sky. Aquiles craned his head up at the orange sky, he followed the changing colors towards a setting sun. It was beautiful, unrestrained… free. The bowl valley of the city cut out parts of the lower sky, a high horizon filtering out the far reaches of the world. He knew, academically, the sky would look this way, but seeing it with his own eyes made it seem almost alien. If the Parents had sculpted La Valle de Las Tormentas and stacked the stone of the pyramids, who made the sky, the sun? The Children had debated over supernatural and mundane explanations, but Aquiles never saw the reason for the discussion until now. His hands tensed, as he imagined wrapping them around that Stranger’s throat, sending rivers of energy through his body and burning out every last drop of life it contained.

  Aquiles shook the image from his mind. In time. He watched the mutt walking in front of them and pondered where it might want to lead them. Aquiles didn’t care as long as it was somewhere safe, but he would like to know for peace of mind.

  “Arturo?”

  His brother took an exasperated breath, “What.”

  “Where is your hometown?”

  Arturo pointed down the road, at a slight off angle to its current direction. “West and a little north of the Capital. A few days' journey.”

  “Might that be a good place to go?”

  “Yes, let's meander into my small town that’s never even seen a grown Storm before with our faces as they are.” Arturo turned to look at him with a condescending expression. “Better yet, let's only go to places the Ministry would almost certainly go to look for us.” He twisted his face harder as if talking to an idiot. “Regardless, there are many branches of the road. I’d be lucky to remember the way.”

  “I’m only trying to come up with solutions.”

  “Your solutions appear to be mighty fine ways to have another run in with Ministry spooks.”

  Aquiles glanced at the dog through their conversation to gauge if it had any reaction. “We could ambush the group there. We have a few more days to get more consistent with our powers. We don’t need the years of mastery for finesse. We are plenty powerful.” He eyed the dog again, its ears were perked, listening.

  “Well, maybe I don’t want to be sending men to their deaths and blowing apart mountains like I did back there. They’re only following orders. It must be the ones at the top that are the problem,” Arturo studied the undersides of his fingernails.

  “Men can act with their own autonomy.”

  “Can we just stop talking about this today already? I’m getting tired of-”

  “Arturo, that dog is listening to us.”

  The perro stopped and turned around. It sat back on its haunches and watched them both with a flat expression. “What in the Mother’s hell is up with that thing?” Arturo broke his attention from Aquiles. The dog seemed to lower its gaze from them to look at the horse. “Is it gonna attack the horse?” It appeared to nod at the horse, and the horse bobbed its head down and up again, like it understood something. “You learn anything about this with all your education? Anything about the Parents talking to animals?”

  Aquiles swallowed, “No.”

  “Great because that thing definitely just sent our horse some message.”

  “Yes.”

  The dog stood, then walked back the way they’d come. It slowed to stop by them and slowly lifted its head to meet each of them in the eyes. They seemed to sparkle, knowing and old. “Socorra used to look at me like that,” Aquiles said mindlessly before hearing how insane it sounded.

  “I believe you,” Arturo laughed.

  Then, sound burrowed into Aquiles’ mind, unlike any message from the Mother or words of the Father, unlike any experience of noise, the sound was and always would be, but he did not understand it.

  Ts? jong.

  He felt a voice in him. Not in his mind, but in his heart. He did not know what that voice said, but he felt the words resonate through his body. Arturo stiffened, and Aquiles knew he felt it too. It came again.

  Ts? jong.

  Those sounds released something inside his body and soul Aquiles had never felt. A sorrow and loss of a million screaming voices, and the revival of something forgotten. The dog had spoken to them.

  Aquiles asked, “Do you know what he said?” The question felt clumsy and meaningless against the dog’s words.

  Arturo shook his head, eyes on the dog, and with a sob stuck in his throat, “No, but I’ve never heard anything like it.”

  The dog looked at them both. His voice was kind. As a dog’s should be.

  “I can’t help but feel like I should know what he said,” Aquiles felt his own cry ready to come out. A serenity of suffering and joy was locked in those words. They both shook themselves. The dog’s tongue lolled from its mouth, and it walked down the road, back towards the Capital and the Ministry that likely hunted them now as they sat on their horse crying over some words they didn’t understand. Aquiles shook his head, “I didn’t even realize there were other ways of speaking in La Terra. Why weren’t we taught this?”

  Arturo shrugged his shoulders, a tear in his eye, “You’re asking very much the wrong man that question.” The horse sauntered forward without Aquiles’ kicking it down their path. He hardly noticed nor cared, and he let the beast go wherever it decided. As long as they were safe. The dog must have spoken similarly to the horse. Aquiles trusted it knew where to take them.