The burning in his brain matched the pulse’s own crescendo, like it was guiding him towards a terrible truth. Glancing back to check on Ishtan meant slowing down. Tev couldn’t afford that extra second or two. Ishtan would have to fend for himself.Ishtan.Ishtan, who now had a gun to protect himself with. Ishtan, whose first instinct was to freeze. Another turn. Around the corner. Iris stopped cold, his bare foot squishing into a pool of liquid yet to absorb into the moss. He looked down. Blood. He stepped over it and broke into a full run.
Not a significant amount,VIFAI stated calmly.That wouldn’t be what did him in. Stop—
Iris dug his heels into the ground, breaking his momentum.
Up,was all VIFAI said.
The rest pieced itself together. A strangled cry fell from Iris’s lips the instant he looked up. Something had tried to drag Tev’s body through the metal grate into the vent—unsuccessfully. The boy’s right arm bent the wrong way at the elbow, and his leg made an angle that Iris’s mind couldn’t follow. Bloodied bone broke through the tear in his coverall leg. But it was the way that Tev’s head hung limp, to the side, the way no head would ever hang on an intact neck, that caused Iris to squeeze his eyes shut in defeat. Too late, always a moment too late. With what little will power remained, Iris slowly opened his eyes and brought them up to meet the boy’s lifeless form. He couldn’t leave him, not like this, not alone.
Pressing his heels and palms against the walls, Iris slowly climbed towards the ceiling. A thin trickle of blood dripped from Tev’s parted lips. Mixed with saliva, it stretched towards the floor in a thin ribbon. Iris rested his forehead against Tev’s bloodied coveralls.
He’s—
“Don’t.” Iris brushed the hair from Tev’s face. The boy didn’t stir. One by one, Iris disentangled each of Tev’s mangled limbs until only the vines around his torso held him to the ceiling. Under the weight of the body, they unravelled, and he slowly descended towards the floor. Iris caught him and gently lowered the boy all the way down. Careful to not inflict any more pain on the already battered body, he realigned the arm and the leg. He paused at the neck.
“Should I?” he asked VIFAI, but he already knew the answer. Nonetheless, Iris pressed his ear against Tev’s chest. Nothing but silence. Iris sat back on his heels and realigned Tev’s neck with a snap. With the corner of his sleeve, he wiped the thin blood around Tev’s lips.
When Ishtan placed a hand on his shoulder, Iris screamed in shock and spun around on his knees, pulsar blade in hand. Ishtan’s lips moved, but Iris heard nothing. Then Ishtan’s eyes fell to where Tev lay, and the archaeologist crumpled to the ground like a paper marionette with its strings cut. The gun fell from his hand and bounced against his knees. Iris watched Ishtan’s lips move in a practiced pattern of prayer.
Empty calm claimed his body. His training refused to give way to grief as he watched Ishtan pray, with no hint of sympathy. When the archaeologist fell forward and pressed his head to the floor, Iris wanted to join him, but he remained sitting. Through the thin fabric of his trousers, he felt the muted, but persistent pulse of the ship reverberate through the floor. Whatever had come for Tev was still around, still watching them. His pulsar blade, now safely stored in its holster, was always ready to deploy, and Iris kept his right hand free in case it came to that. But as Ishtan prayed, the pulse died and so did the burning in Iris’s brain stem. Only the numbness remained.
More and more of Ishtan’s words reached Iris as the ringing in his ears subsided, each syllable coming in desperation, a plea for some hope to come to them in an otherwise hopeless moment.
“We should think about moving—about moving Tev,” Iris cut in when Ishtan broke into a prayer Iris had already heard for the third time.
Ishtan wiped his eyes. His face was ruined with tears and pieces of moss stuck to his cheeks and forehead, leaving a spiderweb of indentations. Unselfconsciously distraught, he frowned at Iris as his upper lip trembled. “Vessel, you are probably used to this, but for someone like me—someone who is just a scholar—” Ishtan sobbed and wrapped his arms around himself.
Iris gave him a gentle bow. “You may take little comfort in this, Ishtan, but I can tell that the fatal blow was delivered first,” Iris lied. “Tev didn’t suffer. He passed in an instant.” He punctuated the last word with another light bow. He didn’t know that for sure. In fact, Tev’s neck was probably broken when the vines had tried to shove him through the vent. His arms and legs probably snapped first in the struggle. Over and over, the bone had splintered as Tev was overwhelmed by the pain, too weak to cry out. He had not passed instantly. He had not gone peacefully. Iris would never tell Ishtan so; he would never tell Jesi that, nor Yan.
Yan.
Iris’s heart lurched at the name.He’ll kill me and he’d be right to do so.Instinctively, he bowed so deeply that his forehead touched Tev’s curling fingers. From this angle, he could see Tev’s side, right below the fourth rib, where a gunshot wound had made its way into his lungs. Maybe it wasn’t the broken neck. Maybe Tev was gone the moment Ishtan had discharged his gun. Without proper aim. Without hesitation. The realisation brought little relief to Iris.
“We should move Tev somewhere where it would be easier to work. Then I will prepare his body the best I can and say some words. I don’t think Tev was Starlit, but he would have appreciated the sentiment.” Iris stood up, smoothing out his robes. He had had them on for nearly a week and they had been soiled beyond salvage. The hems of his trousers were frayed aroundhis ankles. Scratched and bruised skin peered from beneath the torn fabric. “I will prepare the body, Ishtan, and then we will take Tev with us. Jesi and Yan would want him to return, even if …” There was a finality to that. He would deliver Tev to Yan and accept Yan’s anger.
Iris had been around many grieving people, but never around those who mourned a loved one Iris was entrusted with protecting. This was too personal, almost intimate. Any degree of separation had been discarded long before, and now the boy was too familiar to Iris: the multitude of his expressions, the tells in his demeanour when he was frightened. Iris wouldn’t ask for Yan’s forgiveness. Whatever came for him, he would accept willingly. Tev had been entrusted to Yan as a student. Tev had been entrusted to Iris. They had both failed, each in their distinct way, and they would both suffer for it.
When they returned to the main corridor, they set Tev down on the floor and rested. Ishtan’s hands shook badly, and Iris convinced him that the gun was best left holstered. He would have taken the thing away, but there were rules about Vessels handling firearms, and Iris couldn’t bear breaking yet another rule. He looked at Ishtan’s ashen face, his trembling lips behind the grey beard. Ishtan had fired out of panic. He didn’t have the luxury of aiming. Iris made the deliberate choice to believe this. He couldn’t bear the alternative.
There were no blankets here, no cloth to wrap Tev’s body in. Iris reached for the side knot of his robes. It was only appropriate. “Ishtan, I think it would be best if you laid down,” Iris said as he slid his robes from his shoulders. “I will manage here on my own. Please, go off a little ways where I can still see you and try to get some sleep.”
Ishtan obediently moved. He staggered off in a daze without uttering a word and dropped to the ground in a heap. This wasn’tthe demeanour of a man who could kill. Before Iris even began his work, Ishtan’s soft snores reached him.It doesn’t feel right to do this.Iris detached his pulsar blade from its holster.
You still have nearly two days to go and, pardon my directness, without the fungi doing all the work, he will start to rot.
Partsof Tev would begin to actively rot, that was certain. One way Iris could slow down the body’s decay was to remove those parts altogether and drain the body of blood. It was not a simple or appealing task. Iris was relieved Ishtan would be asleep for most of it.
“Forgive me, Tev,” Iris said. “I am about to desecrate your body in a futile attempt to give your friends some closure. I’m sorry. I don’t know what else to do. All I know is how to prepare the dead. I’msosorry, Tev.” Iris bowed low until his forehead touched Tev’s cold hand. “You’ve found your way back to the One Beginning, Tev. You’re home, you never left it, and in your last moments—” Iris didn’t finish. In his last moments, Tev had been frightened and in pain, unless of course, Ishtan’s bullet had killed him before any more violence befell Tev.Accidental bullet, Iris reminded himself. He shook his head against Tev’s hand. What more could he do? What worth was there to anything he would do here on out?
The meditative state, the simple detachment, was so appealing. To disengage from the sight of the dead boy before him, gone because he had failed. The dark was beckoning him, promising relief, and he would accept.Don’t panic, Vessel.Iris sat up, eyes still closed. Yan’s voice. Its characteristically demanding edge cut through the despair.Stop fucking around, Vessel, and be useful.
Iris took a slow breath. He would be useful, he wouldn’t panic, lest the memories of Yan accost him further. Only he could do what needed to be done, only he could prepare Tevfor the journey, and heneededto. Iris took another breath and triggered the pulsar blade at two inches in length. It would be an arduous task, but no one could do it but him. Iris went to work.
First, he sliced through Tev’s clothing. It was faster than undoing the buttons along the jumpsuit. Studying the naked skin up close reaffirmed Iris’s suspicions that Tev had died instantly. Ishtan’s bullet had passed cleanly through Tev’s lung and heart. A modest relief, one Iris would never share with anyone but himself. Now came the hard part.Please, project an anatomical schematic for me, Iris asked VIFAI,and mark down incision sites I’d need for all the major organs.VIFAI complied.
Iris made the first incision just below the rib cage. Tev’s dark skin gave way to the intrusion, spreading as Iris’s slender fingers pulled the bleeding edges apart. He made quick work of finding the spleen and removing it. It sat on the floor, organ against moss, in a small puddle of blood. Harmless, soft, vulnerable. At their cores, people were all soft and vulnerable, no matter how many layers of armour they erected, no matter how hard they fought against their inevitable demise, how admirable the resistance. They were all nothing but flesh.
Working his hand farther inside, Iris pushed the intestines away to grab hold of and detach the liver. The organ lay heavy in his open palms, nearly black with iron. Bleak light from shattered panels shimmered across the slick surface, playing along Iris’s blood-stained fingers. He placed Tev’s liver beside his spleen. Slowly, over the course of an hour, each one of Tev’s organs joined the ones already laid out on the floor. The fine trembling in Iris’s hands grew with each organ that passed them. It wasn’t his first time preparing a body, and yet …Please forgive me for the suffering I impart on this body. Please forgive me for the callousness of my actions,Iris recited in his mind.Please, please, please.He’d done this before; what made it different this time?
