Arcanum Paterfamilias -- Chapter Seven: Ndaluar Zalulya
Arcanum Paterfamilias -- Chapter Seven: Ndaluar Zalulya
Authors: mfelizandy & fractured_chaos
Genre: Drama/Political Thriller. Futurefic, Genfic, Plotfic, Light Romance. No Sex.
Rating: Teen, for violence and Ed's potty mouth.
Chapter Word Count: 8600
Main Canon Characters/Pairings: Scar/OC. With nods to: Roy/Riza, Ed/Winry and Al/Mei. Hints of: Jean/Rebecca and Ling/Ran Fan. Appearances by other canon characters.
Warnings: Spoilers for the end of the Manga/Brotherhood. Futurefic set primarily in the Manga/Brotherhood universe. Some past incidents have been changed to render this story “Divergent”. Elements from the first anime have also been woven in.
Disclaimer: Fullmetal Alchemist (Hagane no Renkinjutsushi) was created by Arakawa Hiromu and is serialized monthly in Shonen Gangan (Square Enix). Both 'Fullmetal Alchemist' and 'Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood' are produced by Funimation. Copyright for this property is held by Arakawa Hiromu, Square Enix and Funimation. All Rights Reserved
Summary: Fifteen years after the ‘Promised Day’, secrets better kept buried come to the surface. Against a backdrop of political tension, a family fights to keep from being torn apart by one man’s dark past.
Special Thanks: To evil_little_dog and alchemyotaku75 for the beta, and dzioo for the awesome artwork!
and--
Thank You To: havocmangawip and Sgt. Jody Sunday (ret) for their patience and wonderful technical advice on paraplegia and blindness, respectively.
Written for the 2010/2011 FMA Big Bang Challenge
“But I’m fine, Momma!” Diyari’s boyish voice floated down the steps into the front hall of the Amestrian consulate. “I beat the guy who grabbed me, and Zhoji Jean had his gun, so I’m safe here. I’m supposed to stay for three days, remember? I was in trouble!” Whatever his mother answered, Diyari wasn’t happy with it. His further arguments rose in pitch and volume as his father, Jean Havoc, and Elder Shan waited at the foot of the steps.
“Good set of lungs on that boy,” Shan huffed. “Not much sense though. I guess that bred true.”
“Hey, he’s only eight. Most boys that age think they can take on an army and win,” Jean grinned as Diyari emphatically declared his intention to stay and “protect” the Emissary. “Trust me, I was one and I’ve got the scars to prove it.”
“As was this one.” Shan jerked her chin at the senior yevarshedaht. “It must be true that God loves the reckless fool.”
“God is wise,” Mishyael said calmly. “If She allowed all the reckless children to die, after a few generations there would be no one but frightened mice and dimwitted strutting roosters to defend the tribes.” He lifted an eyebrow toward the Elder, who gave him a short laugh.
“You know, I never thought of it like that,” Havoc put in thoughtfully. “I’ll have to try that on Mom next time I see her. ‘Climbing the birch tree was a sign that I’d grow up to be a good defender and provider for my family, Ma. An Ishbalan Elder told me that God loves the reckless kids, so there wasn’t really any risk I’d break my neck.’" He chuckled and shook his head. "Sorry, ma’am, but I don’t think even your authority will change her mind.”
“Would it change yours, if it was your boy climbing the tree?” Shan asked.
“Nope. I even used my birch tree story to tell ‘em why I didn’t want ‘em up in the trees and on the porch roof.” Jean swept his shaggy blond bangs off his forehead and rolled his eyes up as though trying to look at the two thin lines of old scarring that traced down from his hairline and petered out before reaching his temple. “This used to look a lot worse. If I could show ‘em what it looked like when I was fifteen they’d take to wearing padded helmets just as a precaution.”
Diyari stomped down the stairs ahead of his mother, who was carrying his satchel. His stormy expression shifted to wide-eyed hope when he saw his father. "Papa! Tell Momma that I'll be safe here. Tell her I have to finish my punishment!"
“One of the many reasons I treasure your mother is that she sees with the wisdom of an Elder in a young woman’s body,” Mishyael answered gravely, his eyes not on the boy but on the mother, who met his gaze with a sharp look. “She knows, as I do, that this service is no punishment to you. You will go home and help with the laundry.” He cut off his son’s protest with a glance that made it clear it would be easier to lift the toz and move it to Xing than to change his mind.
Jean jerked a thumb over his shoulder, pointing out a pair of Imperial Shadow Guard waiting patiently by the door. "Ling left these two here to escort you home, Ysa. He went back to the Xingese consulate to get Izyan ready."
"Dazhtil has gone ahead to make sure our home is safe," Mishyael added. "He will walk the walls tonight."
“Like anyone who knows you is going to play cat burglar at your place,” Havoc said with a snort and a grin.
“My husband is one of the finest warriors ever born, but he is human and he sleeps better when he knows a friend is on watch,” Ysa said firmly.
"The mozhkarishki have reasons enough to hate me as much or more than they hate Amestrians," Mishyael said. “We captured the raiders who breached the walls, but we don’t know whether there are others waiting for us to relax our security.” He turned toward the black-clad Xingese by the door. “I’m not going to risk leaving my family unguarded until I know the truths behind this attack.”
1914
He kept his head down and his feet light as he threaded his way through the maze of corridors of Lab Two. The halls were mostly empty at this hour, tenanted by only the occasional sleepy technician nodding off at a desk or shuffling along with his nose in a folder, and the equally inattentive guard in a military uniform leaning against the walls here and there. The scarred apostate padded down the unused, darkened corridors, sweeping night-adjusted eyes across the floor and walls, pausing to look through open doors and listening with well-trained ears. The cool of the night air of the streets outside had quieted his nausea and eased his headache until it was only a nagging throb, but he had no desire to fight any more tonight. He sank back into a shadowy corner and allowed a bored sentry to pass unaware, then slipped along the walls and paused to survey another flight of steps, leading down into the lower levels that Amestrians usually used to create the worst of their hells. The men guarding the steps looked more alert than the rest. Still, there were only two of them. The Ishvarun gathered himself and made his strike fast and silent. The armed men had been too long untested, and they made no sound as they crumpled. Their broken bones and concussions would teach them better. He dragged them into the stairwell and used their own handcuffs to lock them to the handrail and pocketed the keys. It bought him some time before the alarm went out.
A faint sound caught his attention, and he stopped, then dropped to a crouch. It came again: a soft but definite scratching from below. The Ishvarun’s face tightened, and he touched just his fingertips to the floor. The flash of destruction opened a gap in the concrete floor, and he peered down through the dust...
Reflex sent him vaulting back down the corridor as someone -- something -- grabbed the broken edge and climbed up, dragging overlong arms with moth-eaten patches of fur beside a squat naked body. It made a gargling sound and charged.
He kicked off a wall and planted his foot in the long-armed monster’s face even as another living nightmare hoisted itself up by main strength to support its comrade. This one had a misshapen beak and rasped as its claws slashed at the intruder. With no room to leap clear of it, Scar twisted, grabbed the thing’s beak, and let the power of his brother’s arm surge. The monster’s explosive death spattered him in its blood, and its claws locked around his right thigh, pulling him with it into the horrors of the lower levels.
The long-armed creature dropped to the floor and advanced on him as he gasped to recover the wind knocked out by the fall. He started to pull himself out from under the dead thing’s body and yelped as claws dug into his flesh. He reached back with energy singeing the fine hair along his arm, and the death-grip shattered as the long-armed thing reached toward his head. He closed his fingers around its wrist, and the power surged again. His hand closed to a fist around rapidly-deteriorating bone, and a scream tore through his ears to his soul.
The apostate allowed himself one deep breath of foul air, then pushed himself to his feet, his blood sluggishly soaking into his trouser leg.
He was dyehboj. Oath-breaker, murderer, exile. The Flame Alchemist was a fool, to simply trust that he would keep his word. He could leave this place. Climb back out and go, leaving the Amestrian colonel thrashing in the web of corruption and cursed alchemy that was his country’s reigning power. The man with no name tested his weight on the injured leg and grimaced. Roy Mustang had stayed his hand and offered a deal to an enemy. He’d given two young boys shelter for their consciences under the barrel of a gun. He asked for a death out of mercy, and trusted that his enemy would feel compassion enough to avert a horror by shedding an innocent’s blood. It was utter madness. The apostate took another deep breath of air befouled by suffering and alchemy, then straightened and put his hand to the locked door between himself and the rest of this evil place.
1930
“Untie him?” Wahyid turned to stare at Roy Mustang in disbelief.
“I don’t think we need to worry about an attack, Wahyid,” the Amestrian Emissary answered calmly from the bar. “He’d have to be suicidal to take on all of us alone and unarmed, and I doubt he came all this way just to get himself and his friends killed.”
“Do as he asks.” Hamzhya waved at the ungwaiyar. “This is his home.”
The young man scowled, but freed the erstwhile intruder, then stood back and twisted the rope around his hands like a garrote and pulled hard for a long moment. The nomad rubbed his wrists and sneered back at Wahyid in a silent challenge, but said nothing and remained sitting on the floor.
Roy Mustang handed the Caledonian ambassador and his wife tumblers of whiskey. “Anyone else? Mishyael, Vrua?”
“No, thank you,” Shan answered. “I want his head clear.” She set her hand on the shoulder of the ominously silent senior sitting on the floor beside her chair. “Let’s get to the questioning, it’s late and my mood’s not going to improve.”
“You’re such a fine delicate flower of a woman, Lady Shan,” Nia teased lightly.
“No, I’m not. I’m a mean old biddy who doesn’t like young pups keeping her up half the night with their yapping.” Shan focused on the prisoner wedged between the burly bodies of Mustang’s bodyguards. “So say whatever it is you wanted an audience for, boy.”
“You are a senile old woman, to side with these bloodstained anakmiya against your own people,” the captive declared.
Wahyid reached for the sword sheathed on his hip, then forced himself to relax as Mishyael caught his eye and shook his head ever so slightly.
“You are a vain and stupid boy, to insult those who might have helped you,” Hamzhya told the nomad flatly. “Are you the best the mozhkarishki have to send to us, or are you simply a stray from someone’s flock?”
“Pardon me, Elder, but I think he’s more likely the leader of the breakaway group,” Colonel Miles put in from his perch on the windowsill. “He might be able to update us on who’s fighting whom in the deep desert.”
“Why would we care about that?” Clancy leaned forward and pinned the prisoner with his gaze. “The caravans are guarded, and there’s nothing of any value out there in all that sand. Let them fight over it if they like.”
“He’s got a point.” Mustang propped an elbow on the arm of his chair. “Tell me, young man, what is it you hope to get here that you can’t get on your own? Your people have made a point of telling everyone just how little they need anything from the outside world. So... what brings you here?”
“I led my people here to offer you one last chance to admit your crimes and return what you took from us,” the man on the floor said. “But it is as my wife counseled. There is no honor or guilt among you.”
“You’re the ones who decided an armed party-crashing was a good way to open negotiations,” Jean Havoc pointed out from the secretary desk near the kitchen door. He was making rapid notes in pencil.
“That might be a case of cultural misinterpretation,” Miles answered. “It’s a custom in some of the nomadic tribes for potential allies to ride into the camp and act fierce, to demonstrate how valuable they’ll be as allies and how dangerous as enemies.”
“Sounds like a way to get a lot of people killed.” Jean shook his head. “It’s kind of hard to tell a fake surprise attack from a real one when you’re in the middle of it. If someone had jumped the wrong way out there I’d’ve put a real bullet in him, and that kind of thing makes the diplomatic stuff a lot harder.”
“Our friend here can probably explain it more clearly, but as far as I know the mock attack is usually carefully planned.” Miles shrugged. “It’s a custom from ancient times. The rules were different back then.”
“We’re getting off track,” Roy interrupted. “I understand your people don’t like to give out your names,” he said to the nomad, “but I’ll need something to call you.”
“You may say ‘Dhayha’ to mean me.”
“‘Leader’?” Shan snorted. “Ishvarra didn’t bless you with overmuch imagination, did She?”
“It’s good enough for our purposes,” Roy said firmly. “What do you accuse all of us of, Dhayha?”
“What crimes haven’t you committed against us, Amestrian?” The fiercely coiffed and tattooed man got to his feet in a creak of leather and soft clinks of metal and bone. Darius and Heinkel rose as matched walls of muscle and threat. The nomad who named himself a leader snorted scornfully. “Call off your tamed animals. I came here to talk.”
The Emissary lifted his chin a little. “At ease, gentlemen.” He turned his blank gaze back on the stranger. “If one of my people has somehow offended or injured one of yours, say so and I’ll take care of it.”
“You can start by returning all of my people now held as slaves or made into monsters in your country,” the nomad growled. “We will wait for the heads of the alchemists until we have seen to our own.”
“We released all the Ishbalan prisoners years ago, and we’ve sent the remains of your dead as we’ve found them,” Roy Mustang said crisply. “The laboratories that made monsters were broken up and the alchemists that ran them were tried and convicted under the new government. Amestris has proven her regret time and again, and supported the Ishbalan people in the rebuilding.”
“Rebuilding what your soldiers destroyed. You came to our lands, kidnapped whole tribes and killed our kin,” Dhayha accused. “Others have forgotten, or chosen to believe that God, rather than your own sin, took your eyes. I remember the flame that burned Daliha.”
“And where were you, brother, when the fires burned in Daliha?” Mishyael spoke up. “Did you ride with your sword and your spear to fight the invaders? Did you lift the Elders and the children into your saddle and lead them away from the bloodshed? Or did you run deep into the desert and offer thanks in secret that the village-dwelling mongrels were falling like grain before the foreigners’ sickles?”
“You are hardly one to say such things, brother,” the stranger said, his eyes glittering. “You left your own tribe to the zaio'autsa alchemists. The past is not dead, tribeless man.” He turned his eyes on the Amestrian Emissary. “This one will not tell you the truth. It is his business to tell lies, and hide behind his blind eyes and his crippled--”
“That’s enough, and more than enough,” Hamzhya broke in. “That the Emissary allows you to stand and make accusations without proof, and insult him and his people in his own house proves that he is not the Godless barbarian you name him to be.”
The nomad’s face took on an angry red tone. “Do you truly believe this varisti snake-tongue even comprehends the idea of truth?”
“Far more than you could ever grasp,” Roy rumbled, his face and voice impassive. “No one here has forgotten the war, or the atrocities committed by my people and yours. But it ended years ago. Make your point, Dhayha.”
“You say the war is over. You say your soldiers will go and the varisti who took our lands will return to their own places. But the soldiers are still there with the tanks. Your country builds roads into our land. You send railroads across the desert. You cut the river in half and send its waters over the border. Why are you doing these things, if you mean to make peace?” Dhayha glared. “Why do your soldiers ride with the caravans and your men bring their machines to our land?
The Amestrian Emissary’s eyebrows rose a little, and his aides exchanged a glance.
“How about, ‘We’re trying to help clean up the mess we made,’?” Havoc asked in a drawl tinged with disbelief. “That’s not exactly alchemical calculus.”
“Or perhaps you are building trails right to the heart of our lands, while telling the weak-willed asvnad what they wish was true.”
“You’d be wise not to let any more insults fall out of your mouth,” Hamzhya said with the weight of his authority hanging over their heads.
"Are all of you so blind that you fail to see what slithers under your blankets?!" The nomad leaned toward the Elder, but Darius dropped a heavy hand on his shoulder. "Ask him." He jutted his chin at Mustang. "Ask him why the soldiers still ride in our lands, and our brothers and sisters and children are still vanishing in the night!"
“I’ll let the insults to my ethics, my people, and my country pass, for now,” Roy Mustang growled. “Instead I’ll just ask what you think we would want a bunch of Ishbalan prisoners for. We have plenty of our own people to do the work, and most of them both speak Amestrian and don’t plot to blow up innocents in the streets.”
“You want them for the same reason you have always wanted prisoners,” Dhayha snarled. “You say there are no more alchemists making men into monsters, but my people know better. We have seen what comes of your treachery, and we know how to bring you to your knees. You are not as mighty as you think, alchemist.” He spat this last with an air of triumph, then looked crestfallen as no one jumped up or shouted in surprise.
“Huh-- I think we missed a cue, Boss.” Jean flipped back a page in his notebook, then set his elbow on top of it and turned to look at the heavily-tattooed man between the Emissary’s bodyguards. “Sounded like that was supposed to be a revelation. You think it’s too late to improvise something for him?”
“Does it surprise you that we know the name of the Flame Alchemist, and we allow him to speak to us for his country?” Shan directed her withering scorn at the young nomad. “Was that what you meant to use as a rallying cry against his people?”
“I don’t make a secret of my past,” Roy said calmly. “Nor do I push it into the faces of people who remember the war as well as I do.”
“It is hardly your past,” Dhayha snapped. “You still carry the clock of silver.”
“You mean this?” Roy dug into his hip pocket and took out a worn silver case. He held it up and let it hang from its chain for all to see. “Yes, I do. Its weight is an excellent reminder of my past, and--” he flipped it into his palm and popped its lid open “--a good metaphor for my life now.” He held up the watch with its embossed face turned toward the angry warrior. “The case is the same as it was when it was issued to me, but the mechanism’s been replaced, and so has the face.” There was a challenge in his smirk. “It’s my personal sazamuz.” He closed the lid with a sharp click and pocketed the watch again. “Now-- do you have any more accusations or insults for tonight, or do you need some time to come up with a new strategy for making a fool of yourself?”
1914
Demons. Those who had created this place, then used their own people to make monsters to fill it, could only be demons. Pitiless sivar, taking pleasure from the suffering of innocents and lusting always after more power. He killed their warped creatures as he searched for the girl. It was likely she was already one of the hideous things, but he’d given his word and Roy Mustang had accepted it on faith.
Another door shattered to splinters at his touch, and the stink of unwashed bodies and fear swept over him like a wave. Shapes swam before his eyes, and he stopped absolutely still while his mind recoiled and his soul screamed in horrified despair.
Some of them crouched in cages fouled by their waste and the remains of what little they’d been fed. Others were collared and chained to the walls among the corpses of the ones lucky enough to have died. Some of them still had patches of pale Western skin and child-dark hair, but...
...most of them were, or had been, his people.
They huddled in their captivity, their bodies warped and battered. Some of them were small enough to have been children before the demons had forced their faces to take snouts like dogs or the ears and hooves of horses. Several of them had the animal’s eyes set in their misshapen heads above or beside or even between the remnants of the human eyes. Human eyes, deep red like his own in the merciless glare of the lights overhead.
His rage and grief erupted in an explosion that tore out the walls and brought the weight of the floor above down on the sight he couldn’t bear. Instinct overrode despair and sent him scrambling back into the shelter of the hallway. He coughed, vomited, then crouched on the floor while the dust fell into his hair and tears streaked his blood-spattered face.
“Ye...ye...” The wheezing voice jerked his head up, and he met eyes glassy with impending death. “Yevarrrr...”
“I was, once,” he answered in his mother tongue.
“Come.” A hand with fingers too long and twisted like wind-bent trees twitched. The remnant of his people stared at him, blood bubbling from a nose that pushed lips down and under toward its chest.
Helpless, he obeyed, and knelt beside the dying creature. “Forgive me. I acted without thought.”
The twisted hand reached from amid the rubble, and fell heavy on his head, bending him under its misshapen weight. “Tet-Tetar Z’ohhhh--” The hand slid down over his shoulder as the suffering ended.
The warrior of God breathed, squeezed his eyes shut and ground his teeth for a long moment. Then he forced himself to look at the dead man, whose eyes stared into the cool, welcoming sky above. “Sartu Zhevath”, he said softly to the departing soul. He brushed the dulled red eyes shut and rested his deadly right hand on that unnaturally-shaped forehead for a moment, then staggered to his feet and turned back into the labyrinth of horrors.
1930
Makhu crouched at Edward Elric’s side, bandaging the unconscious man’s wounds as the rest of the camp took stock of the casualties. Three men were dead: the cheetah had ripped out one Aerugan’s throat, another had been kicked in the head by a panicked camel, and one Bharati had gotten in the way of an elephant determined to break her shackles. The smallest elephant had broken the chain holding the iron manacle around her right foot and was now favoring that foot. She was calm, though, in spite of her injuries. One camel had suffered deep gashes across his rump. Eight camels were gone, their tethers snapped in the panic. Almost every other animal had suffered some form of superficial injury.
The remaining people weren’t as seriously hurt as Edward, but all of them were scratched or bruised, and one Bharati man had been winged when he’d stumbled into a panicked Aerugan’s line of fire.
“A cheetah,” Vasupati said, as he watched one of his men and one of Makhu’s ungwaiyar use a bedroll to cover the torn flank of the elephant. The Bharati captain had a bandaged arm around the shoulders of Elric’s sobbing son. “It was well-trained. It knew exactly how to keep the rest of the camp busy while the panther attacked Edward and that man grabbed young Theo.”
“The cat had been fed war herbs,” Sango said. “No cheetah would challenge a camel, say nothing of an elephant, no matter how well trained.” His tone gave no hint as to his thoughts, but his hands were shaking a little as he bandaged the worst of his horse’s gaping wounds.
Bindi squeaked and shook her head when one of the men touched a tender spot, then stood still. Vasupati’s face tightened as he turned to call reassurance to his injured animal, then he turned back and stared at the bound kidnapper. Two of Sango’s men attempted to yank the large thug to his feet, and he struggled a little, clearly still groggy. “This wasn’t a simple robbery,” Vasupati said levelly. “He entered our camp with the sole purpose of kidnapping the young one and killing his father.”
The Aerugan’s horse squealed and went down, pulling Sango with him. “Akilah!” the Aerugan cried.
Makhu sized up the destruction and shook his head. “There are too many injuries that need attention now.” He faced Vasupati. “Can you rally the drovers and break camp right away? My men and I can lead you safely through the dark.” He gazed up at the moon. “If we can get moving in two hours, we should make the city by mid-day.”
Vasupati nodded. Theo sniffled and looked up at Makhu from behind bedraggled blond bangs. “Will Dad and Bindi be okay?”
Makhu took the boy’s chin and wiped a thumb across his wet cheek. “Your Uncle Alphonse will take good care of Bindi.” Gentle amusement curled his lips, and he added, “I have no doubt he’ll fix your father, too.”
Vasupati rose and patted Theo on the head. “Stay by your father. He’ll look for you first when he wakes.”
Theo nodded and resettled closer to Edward, taking his uninjured left hand.
Vasupati inclined his head at Makhu, then started off to the center of camp. He came to a sudden halt and breathed, “Pavitra bakavasa.”
Makhu’s head snapped up at the profanity. “What is it?”
“The panther.” Vasupati stared back over his shoulder at Makhu, his face gone ashen and the whites of his eyes shining in the firelight. “It’s... gone.”
Makhu’s brows pulled down. “Nonsense. That beast died before it hit the ground.”
Vasupati waved at the form laying still in front of him. “Something is dead here, yevarshedaht, but it is no cat.”
Makhu came to his feet. To Theo, he said, “Do not move from your father’s side.” Then he strode up next to Vasupati. He glanced down at the body lying dead, his life absorbed by the sand, and hissed. “Ishvarra quarveh.”
Where a black panther had died, a naked, brown-skinned man lay.
There was a shout of alarm, and the kidnapper’s escorts were thrown to the ground. The big man bellowed and strained at his bonds. Static crackled all around him, and he rippled. Makhu snapped his bow up, nocked an arrow, and shot at the demon. Between his nearness to the target and the power of his bow, Makhu’s arrow should have torn completely through the flesh and punched into the bone of the big kidnapper’s shoulder. Instead, it embedded just above the arrowhead; the shaft waving even as muscle and armor-thick hide bulged and flowed up around it.
Behind Makhu, Theo screamed and hid his face in Edward’s chest. Makhu’s arrow was joined by bullets from the closest ungwaiyar and drovers, but they bounced off the surface of what was now a very angry rhinoceros. It stumbled toward Makhu and Vasupati, shook its head as another of Makhu’s arrows skidded off its tough skin, then it bellowed again and ran past the men into the darkness.
“What in the name of God is going on?” Makhu whispered.
“Neither your god nor mine had anything to do with that, my friend,” Vasupati murmured.
1914
He stalked the alchemists’ hell with his senses buzzing and his heart turned to dry stone in his chest. The tattoos twined around his brother’s arm flexed and dug into skin and muscle, glowing with the red of God’s baleful justice awaiting release. He felt the sticky warmth of blood leaking sullenly from his punctured thigh, but the injury itself only twinged with his steps. True pain would set in the instant he stopped to rest. Later. For now, there was work to be done.
He paused, lifted his head and sniffed. The very air of this place stank of vomit and blood and alchemy. His target was nearby.
Target. Not enemy. The Scar of Ishvar blinked. [Victim, helpless innocent trapped...] He shook his head, then gasped a little and reflexively grabbed his right forearm with the opposite hand as the lines of power lit a sullen red and tightened to the point of pain. Work. He had work to do. He lurched into motion, favoring his stiffening leg.
There were fresh scuffs on the floor near the third door from the end of the hallway, and as he approached he not only smelled sweat and blood, he also heard a faint mewl. His gorge rose again. She was there. No-- it was there. A body made by alchemy [... a helpless thing whose only crime was existing at all...] He’d come to deliver the unnatural [...innocent...] creature in blood from the monsters who would turn its emptiness into a hungry void... The power of God exploded from him with unnecessary force. The door and most of the wall surrounding it burst into splinters and dust at his touch. The dim light from the hallway illuminated a naked body lying prone and at an odd angle on a narrow cot. Her (Its. There was no soul in it, it was only a doll that breathed) right arm was propped awkwardly against the damp wall, its right hip hung off the side of the thin mattress -- a dirty knee on the cold concrete floor, like a rag doll tossed on top of the thin blanket.
The dyeboj took a short breath, then let it out and hardened his face before moving forward. This wasn’t the enemy -- not a sivar alchemist who perverted God's world and work -- nor was it a critically injured woman begging for release from a slow, agonizing death. It was an empty vessel, created in sin, and unaware of everything around it. It was not human; it was hardly even alive, yet he hesitated.
A muted whimper floated out of the dark, and the instrument of God snapped around. Peering into the shadows, he could make out a form huddling in the corner, arms up to hide his face, his pants in a puddle on the floor around his ankles. Scar’s eyes flicked from the half-naked man to the entirely naked body sprawled face-down on the blanket with its legs open, then back to the wretched garbage cowering in the corner.
Righteous fury burst forth in a roar, and the Scar of Ishvar leapt across the cell and lifted the zookeeper by the front of his shirt. The man gaped and pawed ineffectually at the tattooed arm, and Scar paused. God gave him no words for the degenerate. Well enough. God would spear his heart with Her words Herself, rather than speaking through Her servant. The nameless one had only to send the rapist to Her. He slammed the Amestrian back against the cinder-block wall, and the man’s gasp drew an answering whimper from the victim still spread on the blanket. The faint sound sliced his soul, and words escaped him entirely as his vision tunneled and the power of his right arm arced. The rage cloaked in human skin commanded, tightening the dank atmosphere of the cell. The destructive power of his brother’s arm crackled, momentarily wrapping the would-be rapist in a net of red lightning... and then the criminal exploded.
The apostate used the handful of fabric that was all that remained of the man to wipe blood and bits of flesh and bone from his face, then turned toward the one he’d been sent to kill.
It breathed as he approached. Somehow that tiny movement, the shift of bruised skin over bones, multiplied the horror tenfold. He’d meant to get only close enough to see that there was no Ouroboros, then destroy the soulless shell without looking into its eyes -- to spare it a life of suffering and himself another face in his nightmares -- but he found himself crouching and touching it gently, leaving its attacker’s blood on its leg as he straightened it on the cot. He lifted one edge of the blanket it lay on, then threw it down as the smell of it wafted into his nose. He rolled the warped thing onto its back, and hissed.
Mustang hadn’t said it was only a girl. A girl barely beginning to flower into womanhood, breasts and hips starting to shape her body into an adult... but mottled with bruises and needle marks. Blank eyes stared at nothing, though the faint whimper buzzed again, as of an abandoned kitten dying without knowing why. He would be doing this poor creature a kindness by ending its suffering, but as he prepared himself to strike, something shifted within his soul. It pushed through his veins against the tide of his pulse, arcing along the nerves in his palm and fingertips... into the empty vessel on the cot, making it twitch and jump and seize. The red light faded from the tattoos on his arm and the lines darkened, loosening the pressure on the muscle beneath the marked skin. The girl blinked and gazed up at him with clear eyes -- frightened, confused, but human -- and he saw his soul condemned again for this new crime.
“Well, this is a surprise.” The voice sounded slightly puzzled but not disturbed in the least by the stink and the evil of this place. The exile spun fast, the power of God already surging with his heartbeat. His punch fell slowly and sideways, but the power slammed into the stranger and burst his bones, sending bloodied shards through the softer muscle and organs within the man’s chest. The ruined body slumped, and the man of Ishvar stood, looking down at his latest kill. How had he gotten so close?
Alchemical sparks sputtered and hissed over the man’s broken body, and he rolled to his feet, rubbing his chest and brushing himself off. “That was rude.” The creature was a slim Xingese in black and the Ouroboros stood out clear and stark across the back of his hand.
“Homunculus.”
“That’s right. I’m Greed. And you’re not the guy I’m supposed to wait for, so I guess I’ll have to take your life. Nothing personal, just business.” The creature moved between bats of an eyelash, his strike catching the vigilante in the chest and throwing him into the wall. Scar hit his head for the second time in one night and his knees failed him.
“What, you’re not even going to put up a fight? Hey, wait a minute.” The homunculus crouched and grabbed Scar around the jaw with one hand. “An Ishbalan with an X-shaped scar--” his hand closed around the warrior’s wrist and yanked the attached arm up with effortless power. “--and a right arm covered in tattoos. I’m supposed to know who you are, aren’t I?” He let go of his captive’s head and absently tapped the Ishvarun’s scarred cheek with a finger while searching the middle distance. “A big ugly scar on your face -- and you’re Ishbalan. Give me a minute here, I’ll get it.”
“Maybe this will jog your memory!” The alchemist killer surged to his feet, putting all of his weight behind his shoulder and arm and punching toward his enemy’s chest, sparks crackling from his fingertips.
The homunculus startled, then tightened his grip on Scar’s wrist as the apostate’s fingers stretched to touch his shirt. He stepped back and yanked, throwing the larger man down the hallway.
Trained reflex twisted Scar’s body and flipped him through most of a somersault before his feet hit the wall and floor. Desperation mixed with fury to slam his right hand to the floor, the power tearing a furrow through concrete and into the hard ground below. The homunculus bounced back a few steps, then leaped to a perch atop a filing cabinet.
“I guess I’ll work out just why you look familiar later. No one said anything about leaving intruders alive, after all.” Greed launched himself from the cabinet and sprang for Scar.
The apostate dodged the monster’s charge, then drove his hand into the concrete and the power into the floor beneath the homunculus, which was even now turning back toward him. The floor cracked and exploded upward, then fell down into the thirty-foot-deep trench the condemned Ishvarun’s touch had just created. The homunculus dropped with the debris of the concrete floor, and the scarred man turned and ran back toward what was no longer an empty vessel.
She was lying where he’d left her, watching her own fingers work back and forth in front of her nose. She looked up and met his eyes as he approached, and a puzzled expression tightened her brows. She focused on his face, without fear of his race or revulsion for his scars, and he was abruptly aware of the stink of blood and sweat and dust clinging to him. He sank to his knees and lifted her gently up to a sitting pose. “Don’t be afraid.” He braced her shoulders while she swayed, then recovered and sat upright. He found words. “Do you understand me?” She blinked, and he realized he’d spoken his mother tongue. He gathered his tired wits and tried again in Amestrian. “Do you understand? Can you tell me your name?” Something flickered in green eyes, and her mouth opened a little, but no sound came out.
A bright flash and a grinding sound of moving earth and concrete chilled his spine. Clanking feet, and a boyish voice. “Scar!” Edward and Alphonse Elric skidded to a stop in the hallway outside the cell. The Fullmetal Alchemist surveyed him with wide yellow eyes, then spotted the girl, who stared blankly back at the boy.
“Move away from her, Scar,” Edward growled. He advanced, pressing his palms together and converting most of his right arm to a wide blade with a glinting sharp edge.
The man called the Scar of Ishvar stood his ground even as Alphonse circled to his right. The muscle in his right leg fluttered, weakening. That decided it. He lunged forward, grabbed the boy above that wicked blade, pulled and kicked, throwing him into his brother’s chestplate with a crash. Fullmetal’s sword flailed and caught him across the chest and left arm, drawing blood. He spun and risked a strike to his back, snatching the girl from the floor and throwing her over his left shoulder. She was his sin, a weight on his back. If she cost him his life, so be it. He spread his palm flat to the wall and sent the power angling upward, then skipped aside as the broken earth burst out and blasted dusty clay into his face and nose. He charged into the plume and scrambled up the narrow ramp. He paused only an instant at the top, then touched the ground and collapsed his escape route. The Elric brothers would have the Amestrian guards to help them face down the homunculus soon enough. Sirens rang through the streets as the vigilante wheezed, then adjusted the squirming girl over his shoulder and forced his battered, trembling body into a limping run.
1930
Her children were asleep in their own beds. The twins were disappointed by that, but Ysa wasn’t. She watched Tuki sniffing the edge of the herb planters and breathed in the scent of relatively calm night air. Dazhtil stepped lightly along the wall, earnestly trying to earn the approval of his yachos by catching the motion of even a mouse that might dare to stir. Sixteen-year-old enthusiasm and energy might wake Misha a time or two, but the vigilant boy meant peace of mind for the night.
Tuki squatted, then bounced back toward Ysa, unaware of the tension and confident as only the very young could be. Ysa herded the small dog into the house, then cocked her head and smiled softly at the sound coming from the bedroom. The soft rumbling was reassuringly familiar. She padded to the bedroom with Tuki at her heels.
Mishyael glanced up at her as she entered. His low humming continued in time with the rhythmic pushes of his bare foot against the floor. Zhevah lay cradled against her father’s chest, thumb in her mouth as he rocked her. He’d made the rocker himself, sanding and varnishing it so Ysa could more comfortably feed their firstborn. The rocker had also proven a good place for a father to rock a child and sing a murmuring lullaby in accents that echoed down the generations of the southwestern Ishvarun. Mishyael rarely allowed the purring lilt of his childhood into his speech, but it came back in full force in the quiet, private little moments that came all too rarely anymore.
Ysa smiled and let the lullaby end. Mishyael gazed up at her, his face unguarded. “Here,” she whispered, “let me take her.” The baby cooed softly in her sleep and began sucking her fist. Mishyael watched her closely as she tucked their youngest into the cradle at the foot of the bed, his scarred face guarded and a little too intensely focused.
With the baby down for the night, Ysa turned her full attention on her husband. He was still in the rocker, his face toward her, but his attention far away. She reached down and brushed his bangs from his forehead, and his eyes widened, then locked onto hers. “You’re brooding, husband,” she told him gently.
Mishyael reached up, and cupped her cheek. “You collapsed.”
Ysa smiled and settled into his lap. “I fainted. Nothing more.”
“You’ve never fainted before.”
“I’ve never had one of my children held hostage before, either.” She rested her head on his shoulder and nuzzled into his neck.
He turned his chin toward her temple and both stroked her hair and defended her with his bandaged hand. “Isobel,” he murmured.
“Oh dear,” she said, sitting up a little to look into his face. “You are worried, to use that name.”
“I should have known,” he answered with clear regret. “I should have known. We’ll never--” he stopped as she laid a finger to his lips.
“Enough. Worry only puts a curtain between you and life -- and me. It’s in Ishvarra’s hands. For now,” she got up and held out her hand, “come to bed, nyeri.”
1914
He could only run so far. He picked the shelter of one of the bridges over Central’s small river, and set the girl down on the cobbles while he panted and let his body shake with reaction. He sank to his knees, then his hands, knowing that if he let himself fall completely he wouldn’t get back up. The sirens were distant, for the moment, but if the homunculus didn’t track him down the police and their man-hunting dogs would... and he had the girl to consider.
The girl... his sin. An innocent trapped where she didn’t belong, a pawn in an alchemist’s game of horror. A fragment of holy soul-stuff... he closed his eyes and let the memory close over his head for a moment. A child merged with her pet, betrayed by the man who should have been her fiercest defender... the power had been new and strange then. He’d shredded what he meant to release entire. Even now, he could save no one. The only mercy left in him was the mercy of a quick, painless death. He forced himself up and sat back on his heels. She watched not him but the water sliding along in its man-carved channel, and there was real fear in her eyes.
“It is only the river,” he told her between breaths. “There is nothing to fear.” He turned and glanced at it. “Even in this godless and corrupt city of demons, God is present. The river flows...” He turned back toward the girl, “and it will carry us to Her bosom.” He reached, and closed his fingers around her head. “Go to God, and if you can bear the thought of me, please forgive me.” He tightened his grip and closed his eyes against the bewildered, frightened gaze. “Yishvarra, Zhevat vorna Zhivot--” he startled and his eyes popped open as fingers brushed his forehead.
She didn’t try to free herself from his deadly hand. Instead she traced the edge of the scarred flesh above his left eye, intent. Her thumb swept over his eyebrow, then traced the scar down his cheek. “Z-zheffaa,” she whispered.
His soul froze and he let go of her, his hand falling nervelessly to the stones. She moved her hand, rested it on his head, and opened her mouth again. “Saaa...” She trailed off, looking uncertain, then appeared to notice her hand anew.
He sat there, trembling and tired, while she ruffled his hair and searched his scarred face for something, some gift or comprehension he didn’t have to give.
The sirens were getting too close. The man known only by the marring of his face sat back and looked up at the sky for a long moment, then into the water that ran always deeper than it appeared. “Sartu Zhevath,” he murmured softly. He drove himself to his feet, looked up in surprise when the girl did the same, then glanced at the reflection of the moon in the river’s gliding surface before grabbing his charge’s hand and leading her along the bank at a run, following the water downstream.
Authors: mfelizandy & fractured_chaos
Genre: Drama/Political Thriller. Futurefic, Genfic, Plotfic, Light Romance. No Sex.
Rating: Teen, for violence and Ed's potty mouth.
Chapter Word Count: 8600
Main Canon Characters/Pairings: Scar/OC. With nods to: Roy/Riza, Ed/Winry and Al/Mei. Hints of: Jean/Rebecca and Ling/Ran Fan. Appearances by other canon characters.
Warnings: Spoilers for the end of the Manga/Brotherhood. Futurefic set primarily in the Manga/Brotherhood universe. Some past incidents have been changed to render this story “Divergent”. Elements from the first anime have also been woven in.
Disclaimer: Fullmetal Alchemist (Hagane no Renkinjutsushi) was created by Arakawa Hiromu and is serialized monthly in Shonen Gangan (Square Enix). Both 'Fullmetal Alchemist' and 'Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood' are produced by Funimation. Copyright for this property is held by Arakawa Hiromu, Square Enix and Funimation. All Rights Reserved
Summary: Fifteen years after the ‘Promised Day’, secrets better kept buried come to the surface. Against a backdrop of political tension, a family fights to keep from being torn apart by one man’s dark past.
Special Thanks: To evil_little_dog and alchemyotaku75 for the beta, and dzioo for the awesome artwork!
and--
Thank You To: havocmangawip and Sgt. Jody Sunday (ret) for their patience and wonderful technical advice on paraplegia and blindness, respectively.
Written for the 2010/2011 FMA Big Bang Challenge
“But I’m fine, Momma!” Diyari’s boyish voice floated down the steps into the front hall of the Amestrian consulate. “I beat the guy who grabbed me, and Zhoji Jean had his gun, so I’m safe here. I’m supposed to stay for three days, remember? I was in trouble!” Whatever his mother answered, Diyari wasn’t happy with it. His further arguments rose in pitch and volume as his father, Jean Havoc, and Elder Shan waited at the foot of the steps.
“Good set of lungs on that boy,” Shan huffed. “Not much sense though. I guess that bred true.”
“Hey, he’s only eight. Most boys that age think they can take on an army and win,” Jean grinned as Diyari emphatically declared his intention to stay and “protect” the Emissary. “Trust me, I was one and I’ve got the scars to prove it.”
“As was this one.” Shan jerked her chin at the senior yevarshedaht. “It must be true that God loves the reckless fool.”
“God is wise,” Mishyael said calmly. “If She allowed all the reckless children to die, after a few generations there would be no one but frightened mice and dimwitted strutting roosters to defend the tribes.” He lifted an eyebrow toward the Elder, who gave him a short laugh.
“You know, I never thought of it like that,” Havoc put in thoughtfully. “I’ll have to try that on Mom next time I see her. ‘Climbing the birch tree was a sign that I’d grow up to be a good defender and provider for my family, Ma. An Ishbalan Elder told me that God loves the reckless kids, so there wasn’t really any risk I’d break my neck.’" He chuckled and shook his head. "Sorry, ma’am, but I don’t think even your authority will change her mind.”
“Would it change yours, if it was your boy climbing the tree?” Shan asked.
“Nope. I even used my birch tree story to tell ‘em why I didn’t want ‘em up in the trees and on the porch roof.” Jean swept his shaggy blond bangs off his forehead and rolled his eyes up as though trying to look at the two thin lines of old scarring that traced down from his hairline and petered out before reaching his temple. “This used to look a lot worse. If I could show ‘em what it looked like when I was fifteen they’d take to wearing padded helmets just as a precaution.”
Diyari stomped down the stairs ahead of his mother, who was carrying his satchel. His stormy expression shifted to wide-eyed hope when he saw his father. "Papa! Tell Momma that I'll be safe here. Tell her I have to finish my punishment!"
“One of the many reasons I treasure your mother is that she sees with the wisdom of an Elder in a young woman’s body,” Mishyael answered gravely, his eyes not on the boy but on the mother, who met his gaze with a sharp look. “She knows, as I do, that this service is no punishment to you. You will go home and help with the laundry.” He cut off his son’s protest with a glance that made it clear it would be easier to lift the toz and move it to Xing than to change his mind.
Jean jerked a thumb over his shoulder, pointing out a pair of Imperial Shadow Guard waiting patiently by the door. "Ling left these two here to escort you home, Ysa. He went back to the Xingese consulate to get Izyan ready."
"Dazhtil has gone ahead to make sure our home is safe," Mishyael added. "He will walk the walls tonight."
“Like anyone who knows you is going to play cat burglar at your place,” Havoc said with a snort and a grin.
“My husband is one of the finest warriors ever born, but he is human and he sleeps better when he knows a friend is on watch,” Ysa said firmly.
"The mozhkarishki have reasons enough to hate me as much or more than they hate Amestrians," Mishyael said. “We captured the raiders who breached the walls, but we don’t know whether there are others waiting for us to relax our security.” He turned toward the black-clad Xingese by the door. “I’m not going to risk leaving my family unguarded until I know the truths behind this attack.”
1914
He kept his head down and his feet light as he threaded his way through the maze of corridors of Lab Two. The halls were mostly empty at this hour, tenanted by only the occasional sleepy technician nodding off at a desk or shuffling along with his nose in a folder, and the equally inattentive guard in a military uniform leaning against the walls here and there. The scarred apostate padded down the unused, darkened corridors, sweeping night-adjusted eyes across the floor and walls, pausing to look through open doors and listening with well-trained ears. The cool of the night air of the streets outside had quieted his nausea and eased his headache until it was only a nagging throb, but he had no desire to fight any more tonight. He sank back into a shadowy corner and allowed a bored sentry to pass unaware, then slipped along the walls and paused to survey another flight of steps, leading down into the lower levels that Amestrians usually used to create the worst of their hells. The men guarding the steps looked more alert than the rest. Still, there were only two of them. The Ishvarun gathered himself and made his strike fast and silent. The armed men had been too long untested, and they made no sound as they crumpled. Their broken bones and concussions would teach them better. He dragged them into the stairwell and used their own handcuffs to lock them to the handrail and pocketed the keys. It bought him some time before the alarm went out.
A faint sound caught his attention, and he stopped, then dropped to a crouch. It came again: a soft but definite scratching from below. The Ishvarun’s face tightened, and he touched just his fingertips to the floor. The flash of destruction opened a gap in the concrete floor, and he peered down through the dust...
Reflex sent him vaulting back down the corridor as someone -- something -- grabbed the broken edge and climbed up, dragging overlong arms with moth-eaten patches of fur beside a squat naked body. It made a gargling sound and charged.
He kicked off a wall and planted his foot in the long-armed monster’s face even as another living nightmare hoisted itself up by main strength to support its comrade. This one had a misshapen beak and rasped as its claws slashed at the intruder. With no room to leap clear of it, Scar twisted, grabbed the thing’s beak, and let the power of his brother’s arm surge. The monster’s explosive death spattered him in its blood, and its claws locked around his right thigh, pulling him with it into the horrors of the lower levels.
The long-armed creature dropped to the floor and advanced on him as he gasped to recover the wind knocked out by the fall. He started to pull himself out from under the dead thing’s body and yelped as claws dug into his flesh. He reached back with energy singeing the fine hair along his arm, and the death-grip shattered as the long-armed thing reached toward his head. He closed his fingers around its wrist, and the power surged again. His hand closed to a fist around rapidly-deteriorating bone, and a scream tore through his ears to his soul.
The apostate allowed himself one deep breath of foul air, then pushed himself to his feet, his blood sluggishly soaking into his trouser leg.
He was dyehboj. Oath-breaker, murderer, exile. The Flame Alchemist was a fool, to simply trust that he would keep his word. He could leave this place. Climb back out and go, leaving the Amestrian colonel thrashing in the web of corruption and cursed alchemy that was his country’s reigning power. The man with no name tested his weight on the injured leg and grimaced. Roy Mustang had stayed his hand and offered a deal to an enemy. He’d given two young boys shelter for their consciences under the barrel of a gun. He asked for a death out of mercy, and trusted that his enemy would feel compassion enough to avert a horror by shedding an innocent’s blood. It was utter madness. The apostate took another deep breath of air befouled by suffering and alchemy, then straightened and put his hand to the locked door between himself and the rest of this evil place.
1930
“Untie him?” Wahyid turned to stare at Roy Mustang in disbelief.
“I don’t think we need to worry about an attack, Wahyid,” the Amestrian Emissary answered calmly from the bar. “He’d have to be suicidal to take on all of us alone and unarmed, and I doubt he came all this way just to get himself and his friends killed.”
“Do as he asks.” Hamzhya waved at the ungwaiyar. “This is his home.”
The young man scowled, but freed the erstwhile intruder, then stood back and twisted the rope around his hands like a garrote and pulled hard for a long moment. The nomad rubbed his wrists and sneered back at Wahyid in a silent challenge, but said nothing and remained sitting on the floor.
Roy Mustang handed the Caledonian ambassador and his wife tumblers of whiskey. “Anyone else? Mishyael, Vrua?”
“No, thank you,” Shan answered. “I want his head clear.” She set her hand on the shoulder of the ominously silent senior sitting on the floor beside her chair. “Let’s get to the questioning, it’s late and my mood’s not going to improve.”
“You’re such a fine delicate flower of a woman, Lady Shan,” Nia teased lightly.
“No, I’m not. I’m a mean old biddy who doesn’t like young pups keeping her up half the night with their yapping.” Shan focused on the prisoner wedged between the burly bodies of Mustang’s bodyguards. “So say whatever it is you wanted an audience for, boy.”
“You are a senile old woman, to side with these bloodstained anakmiya against your own people,” the captive declared.
Wahyid reached for the sword sheathed on his hip, then forced himself to relax as Mishyael caught his eye and shook his head ever so slightly.
“You are a vain and stupid boy, to insult those who might have helped you,” Hamzhya told the nomad flatly. “Are you the best the mozhkarishki have to send to us, or are you simply a stray from someone’s flock?”
“Pardon me, Elder, but I think he’s more likely the leader of the breakaway group,” Colonel Miles put in from his perch on the windowsill. “He might be able to update us on who’s fighting whom in the deep desert.”
“Why would we care about that?” Clancy leaned forward and pinned the prisoner with his gaze. “The caravans are guarded, and there’s nothing of any value out there in all that sand. Let them fight over it if they like.”
“He’s got a point.” Mustang propped an elbow on the arm of his chair. “Tell me, young man, what is it you hope to get here that you can’t get on your own? Your people have made a point of telling everyone just how little they need anything from the outside world. So... what brings you here?”
“I led my people here to offer you one last chance to admit your crimes and return what you took from us,” the man on the floor said. “But it is as my wife counseled. There is no honor or guilt among you.”
“You’re the ones who decided an armed party-crashing was a good way to open negotiations,” Jean Havoc pointed out from the secretary desk near the kitchen door. He was making rapid notes in pencil.
“That might be a case of cultural misinterpretation,” Miles answered. “It’s a custom in some of the nomadic tribes for potential allies to ride into the camp and act fierce, to demonstrate how valuable they’ll be as allies and how dangerous as enemies.”
“Sounds like a way to get a lot of people killed.” Jean shook his head. “It’s kind of hard to tell a fake surprise attack from a real one when you’re in the middle of it. If someone had jumped the wrong way out there I’d’ve put a real bullet in him, and that kind of thing makes the diplomatic stuff a lot harder.”
“Our friend here can probably explain it more clearly, but as far as I know the mock attack is usually carefully planned.” Miles shrugged. “It’s a custom from ancient times. The rules were different back then.”
“We’re getting off track,” Roy interrupted. “I understand your people don’t like to give out your names,” he said to the nomad, “but I’ll need something to call you.”
“You may say ‘Dhayha’ to mean me.”
“‘Leader’?” Shan snorted. “Ishvarra didn’t bless you with overmuch imagination, did She?”
“It’s good enough for our purposes,” Roy said firmly. “What do you accuse all of us of, Dhayha?”
“What crimes haven’t you committed against us, Amestrian?” The fiercely coiffed and tattooed man got to his feet in a creak of leather and soft clinks of metal and bone. Darius and Heinkel rose as matched walls of muscle and threat. The nomad who named himself a leader snorted scornfully. “Call off your tamed animals. I came here to talk.”
The Emissary lifted his chin a little. “At ease, gentlemen.” He turned his blank gaze back on the stranger. “If one of my people has somehow offended or injured one of yours, say so and I’ll take care of it.”
“You can start by returning all of my people now held as slaves or made into monsters in your country,” the nomad growled. “We will wait for the heads of the alchemists until we have seen to our own.”
“We released all the Ishbalan prisoners years ago, and we’ve sent the remains of your dead as we’ve found them,” Roy Mustang said crisply. “The laboratories that made monsters were broken up and the alchemists that ran them were tried and convicted under the new government. Amestris has proven her regret time and again, and supported the Ishbalan people in the rebuilding.”
“Rebuilding what your soldiers destroyed. You came to our lands, kidnapped whole tribes and killed our kin,” Dhayha accused. “Others have forgotten, or chosen to believe that God, rather than your own sin, took your eyes. I remember the flame that burned Daliha.”
“And where were you, brother, when the fires burned in Daliha?” Mishyael spoke up. “Did you ride with your sword and your spear to fight the invaders? Did you lift the Elders and the children into your saddle and lead them away from the bloodshed? Or did you run deep into the desert and offer thanks in secret that the village-dwelling mongrels were falling like grain before the foreigners’ sickles?”
“You are hardly one to say such things, brother,” the stranger said, his eyes glittering. “You left your own tribe to the zaio'autsa alchemists. The past is not dead, tribeless man.” He turned his eyes on the Amestrian Emissary. “This one will not tell you the truth. It is his business to tell lies, and hide behind his blind eyes and his crippled--”
“That’s enough, and more than enough,” Hamzhya broke in. “That the Emissary allows you to stand and make accusations without proof, and insult him and his people in his own house proves that he is not the Godless barbarian you name him to be.”
The nomad’s face took on an angry red tone. “Do you truly believe this varisti snake-tongue even comprehends the idea of truth?”
“Far more than you could ever grasp,” Roy rumbled, his face and voice impassive. “No one here has forgotten the war, or the atrocities committed by my people and yours. But it ended years ago. Make your point, Dhayha.”
“You say the war is over. You say your soldiers will go and the varisti who took our lands will return to their own places. But the soldiers are still there with the tanks. Your country builds roads into our land. You send railroads across the desert. You cut the river in half and send its waters over the border. Why are you doing these things, if you mean to make peace?” Dhayha glared. “Why do your soldiers ride with the caravans and your men bring their machines to our land?
The Amestrian Emissary’s eyebrows rose a little, and his aides exchanged a glance.
“How about, ‘We’re trying to help clean up the mess we made,’?” Havoc asked in a drawl tinged with disbelief. “That’s not exactly alchemical calculus.”
“Or perhaps you are building trails right to the heart of our lands, while telling the weak-willed asvnad what they wish was true.”
“You’d be wise not to let any more insults fall out of your mouth,” Hamzhya said with the weight of his authority hanging over their heads.
"Are all of you so blind that you fail to see what slithers under your blankets?!" The nomad leaned toward the Elder, but Darius dropped a heavy hand on his shoulder. "Ask him." He jutted his chin at Mustang. "Ask him why the soldiers still ride in our lands, and our brothers and sisters and children are still vanishing in the night!"
“I’ll let the insults to my ethics, my people, and my country pass, for now,” Roy Mustang growled. “Instead I’ll just ask what you think we would want a bunch of Ishbalan prisoners for. We have plenty of our own people to do the work, and most of them both speak Amestrian and don’t plot to blow up innocents in the streets.”
“You want them for the same reason you have always wanted prisoners,” Dhayha snarled. “You say there are no more alchemists making men into monsters, but my people know better. We have seen what comes of your treachery, and we know how to bring you to your knees. You are not as mighty as you think, alchemist.” He spat this last with an air of triumph, then looked crestfallen as no one jumped up or shouted in surprise.
“Huh-- I think we missed a cue, Boss.” Jean flipped back a page in his notebook, then set his elbow on top of it and turned to look at the heavily-tattooed man between the Emissary’s bodyguards. “Sounded like that was supposed to be a revelation. You think it’s too late to improvise something for him?”
“Does it surprise you that we know the name of the Flame Alchemist, and we allow him to speak to us for his country?” Shan directed her withering scorn at the young nomad. “Was that what you meant to use as a rallying cry against his people?”
“I don’t make a secret of my past,” Roy said calmly. “Nor do I push it into the faces of people who remember the war as well as I do.”
“It is hardly your past,” Dhayha snapped. “You still carry the clock of silver.”
“You mean this?” Roy dug into his hip pocket and took out a worn silver case. He held it up and let it hang from its chain for all to see. “Yes, I do. Its weight is an excellent reminder of my past, and--” he flipped it into his palm and popped its lid open “--a good metaphor for my life now.” He held up the watch with its embossed face turned toward the angry warrior. “The case is the same as it was when it was issued to me, but the mechanism’s been replaced, and so has the face.” There was a challenge in his smirk. “It’s my personal sazamuz.” He closed the lid with a sharp click and pocketed the watch again. “Now-- do you have any more accusations or insults for tonight, or do you need some time to come up with a new strategy for making a fool of yourself?”
1914
Demons. Those who had created this place, then used their own people to make monsters to fill it, could only be demons. Pitiless sivar, taking pleasure from the suffering of innocents and lusting always after more power. He killed their warped creatures as he searched for the girl. It was likely she was already one of the hideous things, but he’d given his word and Roy Mustang had accepted it on faith.
Another door shattered to splinters at his touch, and the stink of unwashed bodies and fear swept over him like a wave. Shapes swam before his eyes, and he stopped absolutely still while his mind recoiled and his soul screamed in horrified despair.
Some of them crouched in cages fouled by their waste and the remains of what little they’d been fed. Others were collared and chained to the walls among the corpses of the ones lucky enough to have died. Some of them still had patches of pale Western skin and child-dark hair, but...
...most of them were, or had been, his people.
They huddled in their captivity, their bodies warped and battered. Some of them were small enough to have been children before the demons had forced their faces to take snouts like dogs or the ears and hooves of horses. Several of them had the animal’s eyes set in their misshapen heads above or beside or even between the remnants of the human eyes. Human eyes, deep red like his own in the merciless glare of the lights overhead.
His rage and grief erupted in an explosion that tore out the walls and brought the weight of the floor above down on the sight he couldn’t bear. Instinct overrode despair and sent him scrambling back into the shelter of the hallway. He coughed, vomited, then crouched on the floor while the dust fell into his hair and tears streaked his blood-spattered face.
“Ye...ye...” The wheezing voice jerked his head up, and he met eyes glassy with impending death. “Yevarrrr...”
“I was, once,” he answered in his mother tongue.
“Come.” A hand with fingers too long and twisted like wind-bent trees twitched. The remnant of his people stared at him, blood bubbling from a nose that pushed lips down and under toward its chest.
Helpless, he obeyed, and knelt beside the dying creature. “Forgive me. I acted without thought.”
The twisted hand reached from amid the rubble, and fell heavy on his head, bending him under its misshapen weight. “Tet-Tetar Z’ohhhh--” The hand slid down over his shoulder as the suffering ended.
The warrior of God breathed, squeezed his eyes shut and ground his teeth for a long moment. Then he forced himself to look at the dead man, whose eyes stared into the cool, welcoming sky above. “Sartu Zhevath”, he said softly to the departing soul. He brushed the dulled red eyes shut and rested his deadly right hand on that unnaturally-shaped forehead for a moment, then staggered to his feet and turned back into the labyrinth of horrors.
1930
Makhu crouched at Edward Elric’s side, bandaging the unconscious man’s wounds as the rest of the camp took stock of the casualties. Three men were dead: the cheetah had ripped out one Aerugan’s throat, another had been kicked in the head by a panicked camel, and one Bharati had gotten in the way of an elephant determined to break her shackles. The smallest elephant had broken the chain holding the iron manacle around her right foot and was now favoring that foot. She was calm, though, in spite of her injuries. One camel had suffered deep gashes across his rump. Eight camels were gone, their tethers snapped in the panic. Almost every other animal had suffered some form of superficial injury.
The remaining people weren’t as seriously hurt as Edward, but all of them were scratched or bruised, and one Bharati man had been winged when he’d stumbled into a panicked Aerugan’s line of fire.
“A cheetah,” Vasupati said, as he watched one of his men and one of Makhu’s ungwaiyar use a bedroll to cover the torn flank of the elephant. The Bharati captain had a bandaged arm around the shoulders of Elric’s sobbing son. “It was well-trained. It knew exactly how to keep the rest of the camp busy while the panther attacked Edward and that man grabbed young Theo.”
“The cat had been fed war herbs,” Sango said. “No cheetah would challenge a camel, say nothing of an elephant, no matter how well trained.” His tone gave no hint as to his thoughts, but his hands were shaking a little as he bandaged the worst of his horse’s gaping wounds.
Bindi squeaked and shook her head when one of the men touched a tender spot, then stood still. Vasupati’s face tightened as he turned to call reassurance to his injured animal, then he turned back and stared at the bound kidnapper. Two of Sango’s men attempted to yank the large thug to his feet, and he struggled a little, clearly still groggy. “This wasn’t a simple robbery,” Vasupati said levelly. “He entered our camp with the sole purpose of kidnapping the young one and killing his father.”
The Aerugan’s horse squealed and went down, pulling Sango with him. “Akilah!” the Aerugan cried.
Makhu sized up the destruction and shook his head. “There are too many injuries that need attention now.” He faced Vasupati. “Can you rally the drovers and break camp right away? My men and I can lead you safely through the dark.” He gazed up at the moon. “If we can get moving in two hours, we should make the city by mid-day.”
Vasupati nodded. Theo sniffled and looked up at Makhu from behind bedraggled blond bangs. “Will Dad and Bindi be okay?”
Makhu took the boy’s chin and wiped a thumb across his wet cheek. “Your Uncle Alphonse will take good care of Bindi.” Gentle amusement curled his lips, and he added, “I have no doubt he’ll fix your father, too.”
Vasupati rose and patted Theo on the head. “Stay by your father. He’ll look for you first when he wakes.”
Theo nodded and resettled closer to Edward, taking his uninjured left hand.
Vasupati inclined his head at Makhu, then started off to the center of camp. He came to a sudden halt and breathed, “Pavitra bakavasa.”
Makhu’s head snapped up at the profanity. “What is it?”
“The panther.” Vasupati stared back over his shoulder at Makhu, his face gone ashen and the whites of his eyes shining in the firelight. “It’s... gone.”
Makhu’s brows pulled down. “Nonsense. That beast died before it hit the ground.”
Vasupati waved at the form laying still in front of him. “Something is dead here, yevarshedaht, but it is no cat.”
Makhu came to his feet. To Theo, he said, “Do not move from your father’s side.” Then he strode up next to Vasupati. He glanced down at the body lying dead, his life absorbed by the sand, and hissed. “Ishvarra quarveh.”
Where a black panther had died, a naked, brown-skinned man lay.
There was a shout of alarm, and the kidnapper’s escorts were thrown to the ground. The big man bellowed and strained at his bonds. Static crackled all around him, and he rippled. Makhu snapped his bow up, nocked an arrow, and shot at the demon. Between his nearness to the target and the power of his bow, Makhu’s arrow should have torn completely through the flesh and punched into the bone of the big kidnapper’s shoulder. Instead, it embedded just above the arrowhead; the shaft waving even as muscle and armor-thick hide bulged and flowed up around it.
Behind Makhu, Theo screamed and hid his face in Edward’s chest. Makhu’s arrow was joined by bullets from the closest ungwaiyar and drovers, but they bounced off the surface of what was now a very angry rhinoceros. It stumbled toward Makhu and Vasupati, shook its head as another of Makhu’s arrows skidded off its tough skin, then it bellowed again and ran past the men into the darkness.
“What in the name of God is going on?” Makhu whispered.
“Neither your god nor mine had anything to do with that, my friend,” Vasupati murmured.
1914
He stalked the alchemists’ hell with his senses buzzing and his heart turned to dry stone in his chest. The tattoos twined around his brother’s arm flexed and dug into skin and muscle, glowing with the red of God’s baleful justice awaiting release. He felt the sticky warmth of blood leaking sullenly from his punctured thigh, but the injury itself only twinged with his steps. True pain would set in the instant he stopped to rest. Later. For now, there was work to be done.
He paused, lifted his head and sniffed. The very air of this place stank of vomit and blood and alchemy. His target was nearby.
Target. Not enemy. The Scar of Ishvar blinked. [Victim, helpless innocent trapped...] He shook his head, then gasped a little and reflexively grabbed his right forearm with the opposite hand as the lines of power lit a sullen red and tightened to the point of pain. Work. He had work to do. He lurched into motion, favoring his stiffening leg.
There were fresh scuffs on the floor near the third door from the end of the hallway, and as he approached he not only smelled sweat and blood, he also heard a faint mewl. His gorge rose again. She was there. No-- it was there. A body made by alchemy [... a helpless thing whose only crime was existing at all...] He’d come to deliver the unnatural [...innocent...] creature in blood from the monsters who would turn its emptiness into a hungry void... The power of God exploded from him with unnecessary force. The door and most of the wall surrounding it burst into splinters and dust at his touch. The dim light from the hallway illuminated a naked body lying prone and at an odd angle on a narrow cot. Her (Its. There was no soul in it, it was only a doll that breathed) right arm was propped awkwardly against the damp wall, its right hip hung off the side of the thin mattress -- a dirty knee on the cold concrete floor, like a rag doll tossed on top of the thin blanket.
The dyeboj took a short breath, then let it out and hardened his face before moving forward. This wasn’t the enemy -- not a sivar alchemist who perverted God's world and work -- nor was it a critically injured woman begging for release from a slow, agonizing death. It was an empty vessel, created in sin, and unaware of everything around it. It was not human; it was hardly even alive, yet he hesitated.
A muted whimper floated out of the dark, and the instrument of God snapped around. Peering into the shadows, he could make out a form huddling in the corner, arms up to hide his face, his pants in a puddle on the floor around his ankles. Scar’s eyes flicked from the half-naked man to the entirely naked body sprawled face-down on the blanket with its legs open, then back to the wretched garbage cowering in the corner.
Righteous fury burst forth in a roar, and the Scar of Ishvar leapt across the cell and lifted the zookeeper by the front of his shirt. The man gaped and pawed ineffectually at the tattooed arm, and Scar paused. God gave him no words for the degenerate. Well enough. God would spear his heart with Her words Herself, rather than speaking through Her servant. The nameless one had only to send the rapist to Her. He slammed the Amestrian back against the cinder-block wall, and the man’s gasp drew an answering whimper from the victim still spread on the blanket. The faint sound sliced his soul, and words escaped him entirely as his vision tunneled and the power of his right arm arced. The rage cloaked in human skin commanded, tightening the dank atmosphere of the cell. The destructive power of his brother’s arm crackled, momentarily wrapping the would-be rapist in a net of red lightning... and then the criminal exploded.
The apostate used the handful of fabric that was all that remained of the man to wipe blood and bits of flesh and bone from his face, then turned toward the one he’d been sent to kill.
It breathed as he approached. Somehow that tiny movement, the shift of bruised skin over bones, multiplied the horror tenfold. He’d meant to get only close enough to see that there was no Ouroboros, then destroy the soulless shell without looking into its eyes -- to spare it a life of suffering and himself another face in his nightmares -- but he found himself crouching and touching it gently, leaving its attacker’s blood on its leg as he straightened it on the cot. He lifted one edge of the blanket it lay on, then threw it down as the smell of it wafted into his nose. He rolled the warped thing onto its back, and hissed.
Mustang hadn’t said it was only a girl. A girl barely beginning to flower into womanhood, breasts and hips starting to shape her body into an adult... but mottled with bruises and needle marks. Blank eyes stared at nothing, though the faint whimper buzzed again, as of an abandoned kitten dying without knowing why. He would be doing this poor creature a kindness by ending its suffering, but as he prepared himself to strike, something shifted within his soul. It pushed through his veins against the tide of his pulse, arcing along the nerves in his palm and fingertips... into the empty vessel on the cot, making it twitch and jump and seize. The red light faded from the tattoos on his arm and the lines darkened, loosening the pressure on the muscle beneath the marked skin. The girl blinked and gazed up at him with clear eyes -- frightened, confused, but human -- and he saw his soul condemned again for this new crime.
“Well, this is a surprise.” The voice sounded slightly puzzled but not disturbed in the least by the stink and the evil of this place. The exile spun fast, the power of God already surging with his heartbeat. His punch fell slowly and sideways, but the power slammed into the stranger and burst his bones, sending bloodied shards through the softer muscle and organs within the man’s chest. The ruined body slumped, and the man of Ishvar stood, looking down at his latest kill. How had he gotten so close?
Alchemical sparks sputtered and hissed over the man’s broken body, and he rolled to his feet, rubbing his chest and brushing himself off. “That was rude.” The creature was a slim Xingese in black and the Ouroboros stood out clear and stark across the back of his hand.
“Homunculus.”
“That’s right. I’m Greed. And you’re not the guy I’m supposed to wait for, so I guess I’ll have to take your life. Nothing personal, just business.” The creature moved between bats of an eyelash, his strike catching the vigilante in the chest and throwing him into the wall. Scar hit his head for the second time in one night and his knees failed him.
“What, you’re not even going to put up a fight? Hey, wait a minute.” The homunculus crouched and grabbed Scar around the jaw with one hand. “An Ishbalan with an X-shaped scar--” his hand closed around the warrior’s wrist and yanked the attached arm up with effortless power. “--and a right arm covered in tattoos. I’m supposed to know who you are, aren’t I?” He let go of his captive’s head and absently tapped the Ishvarun’s scarred cheek with a finger while searching the middle distance. “A big ugly scar on your face -- and you’re Ishbalan. Give me a minute here, I’ll get it.”
“Maybe this will jog your memory!” The alchemist killer surged to his feet, putting all of his weight behind his shoulder and arm and punching toward his enemy’s chest, sparks crackling from his fingertips.
The homunculus startled, then tightened his grip on Scar’s wrist as the apostate’s fingers stretched to touch his shirt. He stepped back and yanked, throwing the larger man down the hallway.
Trained reflex twisted Scar’s body and flipped him through most of a somersault before his feet hit the wall and floor. Desperation mixed with fury to slam his right hand to the floor, the power tearing a furrow through concrete and into the hard ground below. The homunculus bounced back a few steps, then leaped to a perch atop a filing cabinet.
“I guess I’ll work out just why you look familiar later. No one said anything about leaving intruders alive, after all.” Greed launched himself from the cabinet and sprang for Scar.
The apostate dodged the monster’s charge, then drove his hand into the concrete and the power into the floor beneath the homunculus, which was even now turning back toward him. The floor cracked and exploded upward, then fell down into the thirty-foot-deep trench the condemned Ishvarun’s touch had just created. The homunculus dropped with the debris of the concrete floor, and the scarred man turned and ran back toward what was no longer an empty vessel.
She was lying where he’d left her, watching her own fingers work back and forth in front of her nose. She looked up and met his eyes as he approached, and a puzzled expression tightened her brows. She focused on his face, without fear of his race or revulsion for his scars, and he was abruptly aware of the stink of blood and sweat and dust clinging to him. He sank to his knees and lifted her gently up to a sitting pose. “Don’t be afraid.” He braced her shoulders while she swayed, then recovered and sat upright. He found words. “Do you understand me?” She blinked, and he realized he’d spoken his mother tongue. He gathered his tired wits and tried again in Amestrian. “Do you understand? Can you tell me your name?” Something flickered in green eyes, and her mouth opened a little, but no sound came out.
A bright flash and a grinding sound of moving earth and concrete chilled his spine. Clanking feet, and a boyish voice. “Scar!” Edward and Alphonse Elric skidded to a stop in the hallway outside the cell. The Fullmetal Alchemist surveyed him with wide yellow eyes, then spotted the girl, who stared blankly back at the boy.
“Move away from her, Scar,” Edward growled. He advanced, pressing his palms together and converting most of his right arm to a wide blade with a glinting sharp edge.
The man called the Scar of Ishvar stood his ground even as Alphonse circled to his right. The muscle in his right leg fluttered, weakening. That decided it. He lunged forward, grabbed the boy above that wicked blade, pulled and kicked, throwing him into his brother’s chestplate with a crash. Fullmetal’s sword flailed and caught him across the chest and left arm, drawing blood. He spun and risked a strike to his back, snatching the girl from the floor and throwing her over his left shoulder. She was his sin, a weight on his back. If she cost him his life, so be it. He spread his palm flat to the wall and sent the power angling upward, then skipped aside as the broken earth burst out and blasted dusty clay into his face and nose. He charged into the plume and scrambled up the narrow ramp. He paused only an instant at the top, then touched the ground and collapsed his escape route. The Elric brothers would have the Amestrian guards to help them face down the homunculus soon enough. Sirens rang through the streets as the vigilante wheezed, then adjusted the squirming girl over his shoulder and forced his battered, trembling body into a limping run.
1930
Her children were asleep in their own beds. The twins were disappointed by that, but Ysa wasn’t. She watched Tuki sniffing the edge of the herb planters and breathed in the scent of relatively calm night air. Dazhtil stepped lightly along the wall, earnestly trying to earn the approval of his yachos by catching the motion of even a mouse that might dare to stir. Sixteen-year-old enthusiasm and energy might wake Misha a time or two, but the vigilant boy meant peace of mind for the night.
Tuki squatted, then bounced back toward Ysa, unaware of the tension and confident as only the very young could be. Ysa herded the small dog into the house, then cocked her head and smiled softly at the sound coming from the bedroom. The soft rumbling was reassuringly familiar. She padded to the bedroom with Tuki at her heels.
Mishyael glanced up at her as she entered. His low humming continued in time with the rhythmic pushes of his bare foot against the floor. Zhevah lay cradled against her father’s chest, thumb in her mouth as he rocked her. He’d made the rocker himself, sanding and varnishing it so Ysa could more comfortably feed their firstborn. The rocker had also proven a good place for a father to rock a child and sing a murmuring lullaby in accents that echoed down the generations of the southwestern Ishvarun. Mishyael rarely allowed the purring lilt of his childhood into his speech, but it came back in full force in the quiet, private little moments that came all too rarely anymore.
Ysa smiled and let the lullaby end. Mishyael gazed up at her, his face unguarded. “Here,” she whispered, “let me take her.” The baby cooed softly in her sleep and began sucking her fist. Mishyael watched her closely as she tucked their youngest into the cradle at the foot of the bed, his scarred face guarded and a little too intensely focused.
With the baby down for the night, Ysa turned her full attention on her husband. He was still in the rocker, his face toward her, but his attention far away. She reached down and brushed his bangs from his forehead, and his eyes widened, then locked onto hers. “You’re brooding, husband,” she told him gently.
Mishyael reached up, and cupped her cheek. “You collapsed.”
Ysa smiled and settled into his lap. “I fainted. Nothing more.”
“You’ve never fainted before.”
“I’ve never had one of my children held hostage before, either.” She rested her head on his shoulder and nuzzled into his neck.
He turned his chin toward her temple and both stroked her hair and defended her with his bandaged hand. “Isobel,” he murmured.
“Oh dear,” she said, sitting up a little to look into his face. “You are worried, to use that name.”
“I should have known,” he answered with clear regret. “I should have known. We’ll never--” he stopped as she laid a finger to his lips.
“Enough. Worry only puts a curtain between you and life -- and me. It’s in Ishvarra’s hands. For now,” she got up and held out her hand, “come to bed, nyeri.”
1914
He could only run so far. He picked the shelter of one of the bridges over Central’s small river, and set the girl down on the cobbles while he panted and let his body shake with reaction. He sank to his knees, then his hands, knowing that if he let himself fall completely he wouldn’t get back up. The sirens were distant, for the moment, but if the homunculus didn’t track him down the police and their man-hunting dogs would... and he had the girl to consider.
The girl... his sin. An innocent trapped where she didn’t belong, a pawn in an alchemist’s game of horror. A fragment of holy soul-stuff... he closed his eyes and let the memory close over his head for a moment. A child merged with her pet, betrayed by the man who should have been her fiercest defender... the power had been new and strange then. He’d shredded what he meant to release entire. Even now, he could save no one. The only mercy left in him was the mercy of a quick, painless death. He forced himself up and sat back on his heels. She watched not him but the water sliding along in its man-carved channel, and there was real fear in her eyes.
“It is only the river,” he told her between breaths. “There is nothing to fear.” He turned and glanced at it. “Even in this godless and corrupt city of demons, God is present. The river flows...” He turned back toward the girl, “and it will carry us to Her bosom.” He reached, and closed his fingers around her head. “Go to God, and if you can bear the thought of me, please forgive me.” He tightened his grip and closed his eyes against the bewildered, frightened gaze. “Yishvarra, Zhevat vorna Zhivot--” he startled and his eyes popped open as fingers brushed his forehead.
She didn’t try to free herself from his deadly hand. Instead she traced the edge of the scarred flesh above his left eye, intent. Her thumb swept over his eyebrow, then traced the scar down his cheek. “Z-zheffaa,” she whispered.
His soul froze and he let go of her, his hand falling nervelessly to the stones. She moved her hand, rested it on his head, and opened her mouth again. “Saaa...” She trailed off, looking uncertain, then appeared to notice her hand anew.
He sat there, trembling and tired, while she ruffled his hair and searched his scarred face for something, some gift or comprehension he didn’t have to give.
The sirens were getting too close. The man known only by the marring of his face sat back and looked up at the sky for a long moment, then into the water that ran always deeper than it appeared. “Sartu Zhevath,” he murmured softly. He drove himself to his feet, looked up in surprise when the girl did the same, then glanced at the reflection of the moon in the river’s gliding surface before grabbing his charge’s hand and leading her along the bank at a run, following the water downstream.