Chapter 30

  Buenos días, mi hijo.

  Wood had turned to embers in the smoldering pit of their fire, and Aquiles’ vision was kissed by the reminder of how things change, how they age, and he wasn’t angry at this early morning greeting as he had been days prior. He was not annoyed. Instead, he pushed up from the supple ground to his elbows, vindicated in his prediction for he had been right. His teeth reflected the soft glow of the dying fire as he smiled.

  The Mother’s greetings were coming in a pattern.

  If that pattern held, they were coming in repeated five-day intervals. Aquiles experienced two greetings in the afternoon, then three at this time, right in the middle of the night. The moon overhead broke the monotony of a dark sky, its light drowning the billowing colors amongst the stars of remote night. He used its light to etch a new number into the leather: ‘Uno’. From the moon’s position, he knew it was the first hour, the Parents’ hour, and he predicted he would awake at this time the next two nights following this one. Satisfied, Aquiles closed his eyes and went back to sleep, listening to the Mother’s words, coming so strangely, so predictably soon after their morning counterparts.

  Buenas noches, mi hijo.

  ***

  Arturo awoke to a faint aroma of smoke and coming rain. He shot up, worried that gray Stranger had finally come for them, tracing their location with the foolish fire they allowed themselves. He squinted at the sky, and relieved, saw the building storm clouds there, dark and promising.

  “Cold rabbit?” Aquiles sat in the dirt with his legs bent up towards his chest.

  Arturo’s stomach growled. He was used to eating more. “Por favor,” he replied as he got to his feet. He shuffled over to his brother and took the shreds of meat from an outstretched hand greasy with eating, the fat congealed into a smeared paste. Arturo ate it, bland and unseasoned, but fresh and caught with his own hands. That always made things taste better. “I miss tortillas,” he sighed.

  “Seriously, it’s been less than a week since you’ve had one, I’m sure.”

  “That long?” Arturo took another bite and added with his mouth full, “And you don’t eat only one, what’s wrong with you?”

  “I don’t find them to be nourishing, so I typically avoid them.”

  Blasphemy. Heresy if they weren’t already demons. He couldn’t bring himself to chew his jaw hung so far open. “Are you sure we’re brothers?”

  “Ha.”

  Arturo squinted back at the sky, “We’ll be getting rain around midday if the storm’s course holds.” He watched the clouds moving in the sky, messengers for the waters to come.

  “It will be great fun riding soaked,” Aquiles stated. His attempts at sarcasm and normal conversation in general were amusing.

  “Come on, hermano. It’s just some water.” Arturo sniffed at himself and yanked his head back. “And it might be good for that.”

  The other man sniffed and made the same disgusted face. “It has been a nightmare out here with the lack of hygiene and gross uncleanliness.”

  Arturo spread his hands, “Bienvenido a La Terra! The real La Terra anyway. Not cooped up in a pyramid.”

  Chico gnawed at a rabbit bone, legs stretched out behind him in the dirt. He should be more matted, mangier in his travels, and it was scrappy and ruffled, yes, but not dirty like the brothers were. He lifted his head and looked at Arturo, playfulness in his perked ears and tongue hanging from his mouth. He licked at his fur then stood and shook himself out. Arturo never cared for the animals as pets or to play with, but it did look cute bouncing around. He walked over to pet Chico.

  “What are you doing,” Aquiles’ voice came from behind him.

  “Petting the dog.”

  “Por que??”

  “Porque? no?” Arturo approached the dog, and Chico sat on its haunches eyeing him curiously. “Hola, Chico.” The dog sniffed at his outstretched hand and let Arturo pet him. The fur was rough and wiry, and that probably helped with the dirt. He scratched behind the dog’s ears and patted down his back. Chico seemed to enjoy it.

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  Ts? jong

  Arturo’s world spun as his vision went black. When it came to, he was looking up at a very tall man. Aquiles? No, no. That was him. He could feel the fur against his hand, but… he felt it on his own back too. And surprisingly, getting a pet by these people felt great! Arturo decided to play with more of the mutts when he saw them. He decided he would try to get people to pet him more. People didn’t normally give them, him, much attention past throwing out food they didn’t finish themselves. That was a shame. Wait, no. He shook himself. The man’s head jerked, and his body twisted, his fur dragging his skin around.

  No, Arturo was Arturo, not the dog. He was getting lost. Chico was everything.

  A low murmur of voices broke his focus from the confusion and the enjoyment. His human head turned, but the voices weren’t speaking in those ears. They were in his ears, floppy and powerful. This seemed natural. Aquiles spoke then, but it didn’t sound right, muffled but loud at the same time. Arturo perked his ears and cocked his head at the other tall man. Aquiles’ voice became clear, “What’s wrong, Arturo?”

  Arturo tried to respond with, “I don’t know, I think I heard something,” but Chico’s throaty bark was the only sound he could make. He liked the name they had given him enough, but the language was so unnatural for him.

  Aquiles stood, but Arturo lost sight of him as his vision ripped free of Chico’s head and soared across the grasslands back towards the Capital. This too seemed natural. The dog always looked around La Terra for threats to the brothers. He was their guide after all. Arturo began to lose himself in a simple and vast experience, soaring over the land as those shooting stars did in the night, faster than his legs could ever carry him, faster than the Guii rai even. He blinked, trying to hold to his mind. He knew the words, the words from their soul but not their mind. Arturo shared in Chico’s mind.

  Guii rai. Reina. Queen.

  The wind never whipped at the dog when he did this like when he ran through fields and trees. He liked it when the wind threw his ears around. He stopped the moving sight as two triangular silhouettes broke the sky. People cowered into their shops and little homes, children ran about crying for their mothers and fathers, and a mass of soldiers grew at the west gate of the Capital. The dog didn’t like the city. Too many people tried to kick him away from their food.

  The Ministry, the killers of La Terra, they were coming after them. That horrible man with the mask, an old man, too old, he found the brothers. They were coming for them. The line of soldiers started marching out of the city.

  Arturo gasped and fell away from Chio, his vision going black and returning to his own head. “Que mierda…” He looked up at Aquiles shaking his shoulders, felt his head bouncing off the dirt. Arturo grasped at his brother’s shoulders. “They’re coming. I saw it.”

  “Que?? What do you mean you saw it?”

  “I pet the- I pet the dog and my eyes… I shared them with him. I felt him. I understood the words.”

  They both turned to Chico which returned a quizzical look, jerking its head from brother to brother. “I almost lost myself in it. That dog… Either they’re all much smarter than we realize, or that thing really is special. His mind was so big.”

  Ts? jong

  Aquiles’ face went pale as he looked at the dog. “So, you know what it’s saying?” The canine just cocked its head at them.

  And… Arturo did not. He pleaded with this mind and thoughts to tell him, tried to force back that knowing he had before, but he could not. He slammed his fist to the ground, a burst of dirt flying up with a small shockwave.

  “All the damned things! I don’t! I lost it!”

  Aquiles shook himself then looked back at Arturo. “You saw the Ministry, didn’t you? How many? How far?”

  Arturo took deep breaths to calm himself and sat up. “They’re still at the Capital. They just left. But Aquiles,” he tried to bury the fear, “there were hundreds. Maybe a thousand.”

  The man sat back, his face went from that pale fear to anger and then resigned determination. Aquiles looked straight into Arturo’s eyes, buried them there.

  “Ten thousand can’t fight the rain and sky. Let’s open it for them.”

  Arturo saw his brother’s burgeoning fire, wild as it struck through dry trees and grass to sweep everything along in its path, but he himself was still, he was stiff, he was cold. He thought about Barto and his friends, to the news of his destroyed home, to the mystery of the Mother and Father seeming to seek their death, and his chest and limbs froze in a winter vortex of screaming, biting wind. He would thaw himself in the warm blood of the Stranger. Only then could he rest, only then would he grieve for his life lost.

  “Si?, hermano.”

  Aquiles broke into a menacing grin.

  “Their swords will melt in a blaze of lightning.”

  ***

  A Brother strode down the line of guards, most were highly trained military men and women, but some were fresh and untested. Their faces were a mix of determination, longing, fear, and zeal. A Brother could use zealotry. A Sister met A Brother at the front of the column as the guards began to march.

  “The Mother held against the Union and Father for long. She broke. The Father has found them nearing the pueblo the Thunderhead hails from.”

  A Brother smiled and pictured the smoldering wreck. “Did A Sister manage to pull the All-Transmitters into this fight? The Father indicated the demons’ power has grown.” A Brother’s leg twitched at the remembering of ripping to shreds against the mountainside from the Thunderhead’s push. A Brother would have revenge.

  “The column marches with a full stack, twelve in all.” A Sister looked up at A Brother, still eyes drilling uncomfortably into A Brother’s brain. A Brother felt… uneasy. A Sister had a way with looks to freeze a man despite A Sister’s small build. A Brother towered over A Sister, yet A Brother was not so foolish to challenge A Sister.

  “Must A Sister stay behind for this excursion. The column could use the assurance.”

  “If this column cannot defeat the demons, the Ministry will require more additional force than only A Sister can provide.” A Sister paused, “There are questions of heretics that need attending to.”

  A Brother nodded.

  A Sister walked away, and A Brother turned forward, the sun an annoying pestilent thing heating the air in the sky. “On! Forward!” The group of All-Transmitters followed up the column, A Brother’s equals clad in black robes billowing, revealing gray flesh in an unfelt wind.