Chapter 29

  Silence made of itself a fourth companion in the journey down the right road toward ruin. A companion of the two brothers and restless nights relegated to the study of stars and blinking lights moving across the sky. Aquiles could sense a coldness and a rage seeping into the air from Arturo in the days since their run in with the merchant. The country boy had proven his worth as a survivalist in the grasslands, assembling intricate traps and cooking the game over low fires, but he’d begun to fail at his established role as the one that talks too much. Now, he looked forward and into the horse's mane and never shared but maddened glances with Aquiles.

  The steed whinnied in rebellion when Aquiles pulled on its reins to direct it after Chico, down the road to the rumored destruction of Arturo’s home. The dog disappeared into the grass, and the man began trembling, crying to himself without admitting he was upset, and Aquiles appreciated the fortune of time he had to look up at the stars at night and cry on his own when his brother was asleep. He let the man have this moment.

  “I have to see it,” Arturo said through gasps of poorly contained sobs.

  “I know.”

  “I don’t care what I said before. They’re all bad.”

  “I know.”

  He turned towards Aquiles in the saddle, eyes puffy and red, “But we take them out here. As many as they’ll send.”

  “They may not send any.”

  Arturo faced forward then. “They will.”

  Aquiles nodded, though Arturo couldn’t see it. He let his silence be the affirmation his brother needed.

  “How far from here,” Aquiles asked after a few minutes of Arturo composing himself.

  “Maybe another day.”

  “Bien.”

  They rode on for a few more minutes, seeing nothing and hearing nothing, before the dog reappeared in the road. He sat back on its haunches, ears drawn back and head lowered. His tail rested still on the ground.

  “You knew,” Arturo called out to the little beast.

  Chico raised his head and looked ashamed, guilty, that look strays gave when you yelled at them for stealing food from carts, or playing too much with the children.

  Ts? jong

  “Yes… you knew,” Arturo whispered.

  Whether or not this mangy little beast knew, he had somehow planned their path and guided them towards inevitability. Aquiles was tired of it and of the jaguar, of any odd animals that seemed to act as men, but those words of the wild and of the free, they were a crack of a whip in his chest with each syllable. Jolting. Jumping and loving. Terrifying. Full of purpose.

  “You hate them too for what they’ve done,” Aquiles said to Chico. It looked up and snarled a nasty, gruesome thing, teeth bared and pearl white and sterile and ready to be stained by something more full of life, more unwilling to let it go. “Yes… you do.”

  These things were using them to fight back against the Monastery. Maybe they were some sort of hidden agents of the Parents, trying to regain the control over the country the Ministry had eroded from the gods.

  But what did that even mean?

  Aquiles could not begin to fathom how those in power in the government had managed to wrangle the Parents to do their will, show what they wanted, lie to who they wanted. Were the gods less powerful than believed? They sculpted La Terra from clay and mud and dirt, swept wind over the seas, dropped rain in the plains, and fed the great, giant trees of the west with all the bountiful things of the land, but they weren’t all-powerful. By the Parents’ guidance. He supposed it was possible the legends around them had blown their abilities out of proportion, a similar mechanism that led to the demonization of Greatstorms. Of course, aided by the lies of the Father, regardless of a desire to do so or not. Aquiles settled on this working theory for now. Too many strings tugged at his attention, so he prioritized the mysteries.

  The sundial he’d acquired from the merchant fit into the palm of his hand. Today was his second day without a greeting from the Mother in the morning. If he recalled correctly, he had two days of midday greetings before three days of waking in the middle of the night. So far, that could just be random, but if he woke in the middle of the night again…

  Arturo spoke, as if reading Aquiles’ mind, “The Mother hasn’t been greeting me normally. I was scared to tell anyone at first, but… I can’t seem to care anymore.”

  That froze Aquiles’ thoughts. He was preparing inconspicuous and careful ways to bring this conversation up, tactfully, of course. Carefully. With subtlety. Aquiles could be subtle. It seemed his preparations were for not. Arturo’s head was hung low, shoulders caving in on himself, making him look small and weak. Aquiles made a snarl of his own.

  “Sit up and stop acting sorry for yourself.”

  Arturo straightened slowly, pulling his shoulders back, and tensing his body. “I share something like that with you, and that’s all you have to say?”

  “No, I just can’t stand seeing you… my own body, looking so sad and wilted. You can direct this energy at them.”

  After that, Arturo looked to be deciding whether to turn and try to punch Aquiles. Like he would let that happen again.

  “She’s done the same to me,” Aquiles conceded. He didn’t want to admit it either, but Arturo needed to focus. Fighting amongst themselves wouldn’t solve anything, wouldn’t be using their energy against the right people.

  His brother seemed to relax and squeaked, “Really?”

  Aquiles took a deep breath and in his exhale, he said, “Si?.”

  “It's been completely random,” Arturo stammered, “and I get these pains in the morning. Exactly like the pain as I had before…”

  “That’s how you used to feel all the time?”

  Arturo furrowed his brow, “Si?. Why?”

  That was shocking beyond disbelief. That pain was not something to brush aside, not just discombobulating or incapacitating, not just agony, it reached his soul and tore quiet tears from him. This country boy? This man, had he experienced it every day of his life?

  “You just earned a great deal of respect from me. You went about your days feeling like that?”

  “I got used to it.”

  “I could never,” Aquiles gasped, “I’ve been feeling it too. Thank the Parents it lasts but a moment.”

  “You might be surprised what pains people get used to, what horrors their lives might be to you.”

  A ball of bundled emotions that had battered against Aquiles’ view of his brother unraveled and washed away. He sensed jealousy and anger there, jealousy over his brother’s normal life with family and friends.

  It had been anything but.

  Aquiles shook his head, angry at himself for being so resentful, “I’m sorry I yelled at you that night in the garden.”

  Arturo’s mouth twisted into the slightest of smiles, “It’s alright, hermano. I just gained some respect for you too.” He snorted and added, “You’re not just the pompous pendejo you make yourself out to be.”

  Moment ended.

  “Hey, we’re brothers. We joke with each other. You take it too seriously.”

  Aquiles scowled back, “Never learned not to.”

  “Well, if we die fighting an army of the Ministry, you won’t have to worry about learning.”

  Now that was funny. Aquiles snickered, and that made his brother look uncomfortable, and that made Aquiles laugh even harder.

  “Looks like humor isn’t shared in identical twins.”

  “No, no it's not!” Aquiles responded through fits of laughter, and it helped boil off the nervous energy of the conversation about the Mother. He wiped tears from his eyes and took deep breaths to calm the laughing.

  They resumed their silence. They followed Chico down the road. He dragged his feet on the ground, and his tail hung limp from its backside. Shame was ubiquitous amongst species, that much was obvious from the lectures and studies from the monks on animal behavior. The length and intensity one felt the emotion however, that was reserved for man, and that dog had his head hung low for hours now. These animals made his skin crawl.

  Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  With the fog in his mind burning off in the sun, he would pay closer attention to the Mother’s greetings now. Something didn’t add up. Arturo’s posture returned to the stiff, waiting look of a man about to fight. Brief joy couldn’t cover the anger Aquiles knew his brother was feeling. Emotions could be shared, if not the humor.

  “We should train,” Aquiles slapped Arturo’s back and pulled the horse from the road. They arrived at a clearing in the grass an hour into the wilderness. The horse splashed its hooves in several streams along the way, and they refilled their canteens. Both the brothers forced down the last of the cheese to use as fuel for the blessings. Neither had much of an appetite.

  “Ok, take up stances. We’ll cover what we went over yesterday and move on.”

  Arturo ignored him and stretched his joints and muscles like Aquiles showed him.

  “I assure you the stances will stretch you. Let’s train them.”

  Arturo ignored him further and shook out his limbs, flailing hands and flopping feet.

  “Arturo?”

  “Just because I’m agreeing to fight now doesn’t mean I’m going to be your student, Aquiles. I need strength and consistency with the blessings, not fancy stances.”

  “The forms are made for the blessings, pendejo.”

  Arturo clenched his jaw. He was being a real stubborn idiot. Didn’t Arturo know Aquiles was better at this sort of thing?

  “I’m going to train that focused blast. I haven’t gotten good enough over the past couple days. You can give me pointers or not, it's up to you.”

  Aquiles stood slack jawed. The country boy was really just throwing all of the practices that Socorra taught them in the trash. “I thought you wanted to do it the right way.”

  “I want to end this fight as quickly as possible, so I can forget I was ever blessed.”

  “You don’t mean that.”

  “I do.”

  Arturo took the first stance in the form of the jaguar and thrust out his hands. The air ripped out of the clearing, wind rushing through Aquiles ears, and a massive punch of thickened white air slashed through the grass, cutting the stalks in half. It drove over the land far enough for the perfectly straight rows of cut grass to appear to narrow in the distance. “Maybe I am improving.”

  Green stalks rained down then, a pleasant, semi-sweet smell tickling Aquiles’ nose.

  “You’re using emotions.”

  “Yes. I am. I will. You did too when you took out those soldiers to protect me. You must have. Socorra said never, so which is it? Never? Or it depends.”

  Arturo’s tone was mocking, flippant, and Aquiles felt that scratching bite in his brain people like this always gave him. It was like dealing with a little kid. “You have no idea what you’re talking about. Let me train you.”

  “Can you just admit I’m capable with our blessings too? I ripped a mountain apart after all.”

  “Exactly! There’s no telling what might happen if you lost control!”

  “I thought you didn’t care about collateral.”

  “I do care for innocent bystanders!”

  “There’s nobody out here anyway. It doesn’t matter.”

  Aquiles sighed at that. He wished Arturo could see the mistakes he was making, and during that thought, the man leveled a determined look at him.

  Arturo punched the air at Aquiles. A shockwave split around him and flattened the grass at his back. Arturo swung wild blasts a few more times before grunting and rubbing his hands. They were red and raw.

  “Socorra said Thunderheads should rotate where they push from. Maybe listen to that at the very least.”

  Nose scrunched and gums exposed, Arturo’s face resembled the snout of a hissing wild cat very much, fierce.

  “I KNOW WHAT SHE SAID.”

  The words almost trickled out of Arturo’s mouth before they caught the wind and exploded, a growth in magnitude like a contained fire, the whisper of a thunder crack, the sliding of a mountain top down the slopes in the distance then in an instant looking up at that great boulder before it crushed you. They were broken by a battery of wind and carried off into the distance. Air rushed by Aquiles face and berated his robes. A quiet voice but an onslaught of thunder. He watched Arturo wide eyed, then breathlessly, “Another use for your powers besides blasting people away.”

  Arturo slumped to the ground, curled into a ball. “It’s too much.”

  Aquiles slumped beside him. He supposed he could give Arturo some affirmation to calm him, despite never receiving it from his instructors. “You have picked up the forms quickly. You move better than some of the lifelong Thunderheads. And your strength,” Aquiles made an aimless gesture, “is immeasurable.”

  He got a short, “Thanks”. The man shifted and spoke again, “What are we going to do when we get there? Sit and wait? Fight whoever they send, just the two of us?”

  Aquiles met Arturo’s gaze and held it for severable heartbeats, “There’s no one else.”

  No response. He pushed harder.

  “We will stand and fight them off as brothers,” Aquiles encouraged. “As a Greatstorm.

  “Trust me, we will try to find our serenities with this training before they get there. If they get there.” Aquiles still held Arturo’s gaze. “And if we can’t, then we have plenty of rage to tap.” He stood and held a hand to his brother. “I learned recently that brothers bicker.”

  “Yeah, it makes sense when your brother is a bastard most of the time,” Arturo retorted. Aquiles held back an angry response, remembering the man was probably just joking. He did enjoy doing that at poor times.

  They stood and took up the form of the butterfly. Just then, Arturo’s feet caught, and he jerked, falling to the ground in a heap. “It catches me off guard every time.”

  “Was that the Mother?” Aquiles’ words came out almost as one.

  “Si. The puta has been choosing the worst times.”

  “Random times, yes? Not the same time every day?” Aquiles glanced back towards the sundial.

  “I think so. It's mostly in the afternoon. She waited until the nights a couple days I think.”

  “Yes, it does sound pretty random,” his eyes squarely fixed on the sundial now. “Maybe we should keep track of when it happens.”

  “Why?”

  “You’re not interested in the mystery?”

  “Aquiles, everyone I know back home might be gone. And I don’t care about your academics.” He punctuated the last part with a dismissive wave.

  “And all this craziness with the Father and the Ministry is unrelated to the Mother going crazy herself?”

  “Fair enough,” Arturo relented.

  Aquiles set the sundial on the ground and oriented it to the sun's direction, casting the shadow to land almost exactly on the number thirteen.

  “The thirteenth hour!” Aquiles bubbled excitedly. Was this how Emilia always felt? And the smell of burning chilis returned, so he thought of better things, happier things.

  “Yeah… thirteen. That explains everything.”

  “You seem to complain when I’m sour and when I’m not. There’s no pleasing you.”

  Arturo scoffed, “You’ve just chosen an odd time to not be sour.”

  “Fine. But I’m going to record this and my own odd greeting when it comes.”

  “You know, our mother got really excited about things too. Papa? would roll his eyes… but he always ended up getting swept along anyway.” Arturo stared at nothing, a smile creasing up his cheeks. Wind fluttered past them, a light whistle in the air and a coolness settling into their robes.

  Aquiles’ face burned, and he strained against tears in his eyes. He wiped his face quickly, making sure Artruo couldn’t see, but his chest had a boulder on it. “I apologized for being jealous earlier, but please don’t rub that part of your life in my face.”

  Arturo’s head drooped. “Ok. I’ll leave it alone.”

  “Graci?as.”

  He sifted through the pack for something to record the times on, and settling on the leather they, well just Arturo, were using for traps, he etched ‘Trece’ to officially catalog their first mistimed greeting. His brother walked over and prodded, “I was going to use that for traps.”

  “You said it would make them easier, not that you needed it to make them.” He turned his head up to stare Arturo down who looked back exasperated.

  “Fine.” The country boy moved back to continue the forms.

  They finished training, satisfied with their progress for the day. Either they were naturals with the blessings, or the power of Greatstorms masked their shortcomings, because Aquiles and Arturo both were producing bolts and blasts with a greater intensity than he ever saw the other Storms were capable of creating. Aquiles liked picking these things up immediately. He didn’t do well when he wasn’t good with something on his first try, be it mathematics or weapons training. Knifework held a special place in his heart to despise.

  Chico barked at them, beckoning them to follow as they jumped onto their horse. The equine mount had been swishing its tail all day grazing on the grass and slurping at nearby streams. It was strong and alert, and it took to the road at a brisk pace. “We will make camp in a few hours. The days grow shorter,” Aquiles noted.

  “And I can show you how to set a trap with some blades of thick grass and some twigs. If you think you can handle that, of course.”

  Aquiles could almost hear the smirk. Bobbing and swaying, the brothers embraced the motion of the travel, bodies moving in harmony to the bumps of the road. Aquiles would have preferred his own mount, but he was making do. The sun began to set into the west, painting the sky in smears of red and orange, warming their faces as they traveled on the road. That dry wind whipped over the grasslands, bending stalks and buffeting the brothers. As the light grew low and the warmth grew stale, they moved off the road to find another clearing. A small round of dirt on the bank of a lazy stream offered them a place to set up for the night.

  Their stomachs growled, and Arturo set about gathering supplies to make traps. When he was done, he gestured with an armful of tied grass blades and twigs pulled from the sparsely placed trees to follow.

  “Here, you set twigs into the ground at an angle to each other.” Arturo placed the twigs on the ground, the close tips overlapping and the far a pace apart. He piled dirt up on the overlapping grass and buried most of thickest stalk just behind, and in the portion a pace in the air he wrapped up another stalk at its midpoint with a bit of string wound through. Arturo’s face was so knowing and calm, his hands so practiced, and Aquiles was proud. The ends of that were tied in the angled stalks and pulled back to make a sort of spring waiting to close in. At last, the man lined the string to a point where it seemed the stalks would snap down to and tied a piece of cheese in the end. He gestured at the cheese.

  “Take it.”

  Aquiles gave a distrusting glare.

  “Come on, it's just grass, it won't hurt you.”

  He picked up the cheese. The string unraveled the spring and the grass stalk came down and wrapped around his hand, making it difficult to move his fingers. “Ingenious.”

  “Thank you,” Arturo looked smug.

  “Can this hold an animal for long? It seems fragile.”

  “That’s why you stay nearby. Rabbits panic and kick but get out after a bit.”

  A few hours, a snap of foliage, and the rustling of struggles later, the brothers took in the smell of a rabbit roasting in an open fire. They decided to let themselves have one now that they were essentially walking right into the Ministry’s hands anyway. Aquiles had never had such… rustic food before this stay in the wilderness, but he had been quite smitten with the results. Arturo pulled pieces away and handed strips of meat to Aquiles. They were fatty and quite tasteful, and Aquiles was sure it would be good nutrition. “This is good, graci?as.”

  “De nada.”

  He would have to hold off on the praise now with all this going to his brother’s head. Arturo tossed a leg to the Chico, salivating and waiting just out of the firelight.

  Buenos días, mi hijo.

  Aquiles sprung up. “Just got the greeting.” He’d been checking his sundial to gauge the time with the remaining sun. The light was gone now, but he was confident he kept the time accurately, counting the minutes as they passed, letting his mind wander with the rhythm. It was an hour past sundown, so he recorded the time. “Twenty,” he said absently, notching the time into the leather.

  “You’re a real scholar.”

  “And you’re a veritable halfwit.”

  But Arturo looked taken aback by the quick response.

  Unsure, Aquiles checked, “Jokes, correct?”

  His brother huffed air from his nose and smiled, “Correct.”

  They carried the rest of the night on without a word. Aquiles went to sleep, hoping he would be woken in the middle of the night. It would be annoying, yes, but it would be a step further to confirming his theory of the Mother’s supposed randomness.

  Buenas noches, mi hijo.