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He woke to screaming. Distant, but within the walls of the keep. He knew he should get out of bed and investigate. Grab his sparring sword just in case. He knew he should check on Thala. She might be his older sister, but it was still his duty to protect her. But instead he lay in the dark, trembling, frozen.
The night was still, and hot. Uncomfortably so. Usually he enjoyed the warmth. Lying on the sand and napping in the suns until his mother would come along and wake him up, teasing him, calling him my little ru’ata, after the little desert lizards who would burrow deep, then hibernate for months at a time when faced with a drought. I wish I could sleep for months! he’d told her, and she had laughed. As long as you get your training in, too.
Something heavy was pushed over and fell, accompanied by the sound of shattering. More yelling, but this time different. And then his door flew open, and there was Thala, holding a blade in one hand, eyes wide in terror. She gestured for him to come to her, but all he could do was stare. She snapped her mandibles in irritation and he could feel his legs moving then, kicking the thin sheet off of himself. The smooth, cool stone floor below his bare feet.
His sister took two quick steps forward, grabbed his wrist, and yanked him after her as they scurried down the hall. Away from the unfurling chaos on the other side of the keep.
“What is happening?”
“Hush! Be silent and we may yet live!”
“Let me go! Your grip is hurting me!”
Instead, she squeezed tighter. They dashed to the top of the steps, and she leapt, dragging her little brother along with her. They landed quietly. They had done this before, but those occasions were fun. Those times were play. By the look on her face, he could tell that this was serious. As if the screaming and crying wasn’t enough to let him know that this was not simply Thala wanting to run around the keep in the dead of night.
She opened a door and flung him in, then joined him. He knew this place- it was an unused bedroom in their keep, something left over from when their clan was prestigious and their land bountiful. All they had now were crumbling walls, a perpetually leaking roof, and never enough food. The entire state had been cursed, their mother would always joke. But he wondered, sometimes, if there was some truth to it. First was a plague of dahyee which had descended and consumed every bit of foliage in the valley leading to the sea. Then came the drought, which had killed most of the flora in the region. The torrential rains. And the fish all seemed to swim away, out of the normal places along the shore where they would congregate and be hauled up by the great, colorful, writhing mass net full. But his clan was reluctant to give up. It was good land. It was normally fertile. They just needed to wait out their troubles, and they would be rewarded for their patience. Their influence and wealth would grow to what it was once. In the meanwhile, though, all the men had left. To join the military, or to find work in neighboring states and send gekz home so that the women and childlings could eat. The last of the elders had died several months earlier in an act of self-destructive despair when his body gave out and made it impossible for him to move about on his own. And so now there were only Thala and his mother, her three sisters, and his eight cousins. Every few months one of their uncles would return briefly from the front, and stay for several days. They were always distant and sullen, as though the war had sucked out whatever spark it was that made them unique. And sometimes, they would become violent.
A scream from another youngster, too distorted and terror-filled for him to recognize, and then a woman’s voice, pleading. Do not do this, Yto, why are you doing this- His mother. Their mother. Their mother needed him, and here he was, hiding. He tried to pull free of his sister’s grasp, hissing at her in annoyance, but she was bigger than him, stronger than him, despite the fact he was already abnormally large for his age, and her being a girl. She held him firm, her claws digging into his skin. Another wavering scream, and something breaking. Thala looked at him in horror, then clamped her hands over his ears. His hearts pounded, but by the contorted, pained expression on Thala’s face, he was thankful that all he could hear was the rhythmic thwoom thwoom thwoom thwoom of his own blood pumping. Thala was breathing hard, her mouth open and panting like she had just run across the desert. He clamped his hands over her fingers, hoping to comfort her.
He began to say her name and her right hand flew to his mouth, shoving his mandibles shut, and she shook her head once, in warning. She took his arm and guided him deeper into the room, back into the furthest corner. It was so dark. He couldn’t see anything; not even his own feet. Not even his own legs as he crouched down at Thala’s insistence. He realized, then, that he didn’t have a weapon. He hadn’t even dressed himself- he was huddled in the dark, in a loincloth, unarmed. Like a frightened animal. You are a frightened animal, he told himself. A stupid dumb little animal, too weak to help your own mother like a man should. But he wasn’t a man, not yet. He was a child, a little boy, still with the scales of youth on his neck.
At least Thala had her sword. Of course she did. His sister was only three years older than him but was the best fighter among the younglings. Boys and girls, she put them all to shame. She could even beat their mother and some of their aunts. Sometimes she’d walk for half a day to the neighboring keep just to beat up the boys there, then return home bruised and dirty and grinning, mandibles pressed together to cover every last one of her perfect teeth, and she would regale their clan with tales of battles won. She was headstrong and brave and a fervent believer in the Covenant, despite being only a child. When I am a woman, I will join the military, she’d announced at dinner one night. They don’t let girls in, dummy, their cousin Teko had told her. They will make an exception for me, Thala had said, and believed it. But the boy… he wasn’t so sure about all the Great Journey stuff, or the Prophets, or gods at all, but he dared never give voice to those doubts. It was better to just nod in solemn agreement, like his mother and aunts and uncles all wanted him to.
The door flung open, then, spilling light deep enough into the room that it blinded him for a moment. His free arm instinctively went to shield his eyes, and he felt Thala drop her grip on him. When he regained his sight, he was shocked to see the form of his uncle in the doorway. Almost taking up the entire doorway. Yto ‘Charamaee was the most physically imposing man he’d ever seen- not only tall, but muscular. He was still dressed in his full Covenant regalia, now painted with blood. With the dishonor and maiming and slaughter of his own clan. That is my mother’s blood, he thought, stunned. That is the blood of my aunts. And my siblings and cousins. I heard them screaming. I did nothing.
“All of you!” He snarled, and his energy sword flared to life. “I will destroy all of you!”
Thala roared at him, then, a high sound that filled the room and actually made Yto (our father, he is our father, he looks just like Thala and I) blink and pause. And then he began to laugh.
“Stay away from us or I will have your head!” Thala screamed, and took a battle stance.
Yto closed the distance between them in three steps, and took a hacking swing down at her. She parried, keeping her little brother at her back to protect him. But he was too stunned to do anything. He felt dizzy, outside of himself, floating, observing.
The fight was over quickly, as their father drove his sword through Thala’s throat. The burning hot plasma hissed as it seared and tore her flesh and boiled her blood. He looked down to see the twin tips of the sword had cut clean through her body, out her neck- and then punctured his chest. He didn’t feel the pain at first. He didn’t feel pain until later.
Thala gurgled and continued to hack at him, and Yto withdrew his sword, then neatly sliced off her head as her brother dropped to the floor, his blood pumping violently from a punctured heart. His eyes grew hazy as his father loomed over him, and stabbed him in the chest once more, and the boy lost consciousness.
-
“And so, when you ask if I pray to any gods, I tell you this story. If you had seen what I have seen in the void beyond life...” Vuze’s eyes were glassy, distant. He blinked and looked back up at her. Deep orange-gold, burning like embers at the heart of a fire. “No. I do not. There are no gods. After this life, there is only a black maw which consumes the consciousness and spits out your rotting flesh.”
Lys wanted to attempt to comfort him, but his body language was tense enough that she was afraid that her touch would cause him to snap, like pressure on a wire pulled too taut.
“Even if there were gods, I would not worship them. Not pray to them.” His fingertips skimmed over the thick scar tissue on his chest and he took another shuddering breath. Forced himself to exhale again, this time without trembling. A breathing technique the Sangheili did, something like what pranayama was for humans. Vuze had difficulty with arranging his thoughts sometimes, when the words all tumbled together and he could not put them in order and push them out of his mouth.
“Vuze…”
He held his hand up and she fell silent.
“He had killed or maimed all of my brothers and sisters by the time he got to us. He had killed my mother, and several of my aunts, as they attempted to protect us. But he was large, and very strong…” He shifted uncomfortably and looked back up at her. “I see him, sometimes, when I catch my reflection. We look so much alike. As I grew older, I saw even more resemblance. And I swore to myself that I will never be like him. I will never harm innocents, those who are weaker than me. This is why I never joined the Covenant, and have only held them in contempt. This is why I have never really fit in with my own people. There is no honor in culling the weak. It is shameful. I have felt that… terror… at being the weakling. And I did not deserve to suffer for it. Nor did my siblings or cousins. My mother, my aunts… they were all good people. So instead, I built ships.”
“What happened to your dad… uh… uncle?”
He looked up at her face and for a moment he softened. “He at least did the honorable thing in the end, and killed himself before help could arrive.”
“Did he just… go crazy? Why did he do it?”
Vuze shrugged with his mandibles and made a dismissive gesture with a hand. “What does it matter. The actions of an insane man… the actions of a cruel man… often they are inseparable. His intent holds little importance to me, regardless.” He studied her face. “You look as if you are in pain.”
“A little bit,” she said, and wanted to laugh. “For you.”
“Do not pity me.”
“I don’t,” she said quickly. “I don’t, Vuze. I just… I know you guys have the concept of empathy in your culture. Where thinking of the pain of another causes pain in yourself.”
“Yes.”
She nodded. “That’s what I’m feeling. Not pity. You’re not pathetic. I only pity things or people who are pathetic. You’re…” She felt her mouth twitch into something halfway between a grimace and a smile. “You’re you.”
He chuckled, a surprisingly light sound despite his mood. “I will take that as a good thing.”
“Yeah. It is. I think you’re fantastic.”
“I have had too much pity in my days. People telling me they are sorry for me. I am not sorry for myself, why should others be? Besides, those events made me who I am today, and I am stronger for it. I have had humans use the phrase trial by fire and I feel that is accurate. I am a blade tempered by flame.”
She felt like the air had been sucked out of her lungs, but could only nod at him. Not understanding, but to some degree feeling what he had said. Lys tried to formulate different responses to him, but after all of the rusty churning of her mind, the thing that popped out was: “I’m really glad I met you.” And she was surprised when he responded:
“I am pleased to have met you, as well. The Covenant’s hatred of humans is enough for me to know that I should like your species.”
“Well… I’m thankful.”
He nodded, and stared at her a moment. “I never know how to finish serious conversations like this.”
“We just… go on,” she said, and felt stupid. She didn’t know, either.
“Yes. I suppose we do.”