Below Even the Depths

Once upon a time, down, down, down, beneath the great gray sky and ancient, crumbling cities of distant lands, beneath drying earth where mottled dirt becomes hard and turns to stone, beneath the dark abodes of the Filthworms and the caverns full of twisted bones left by the Fae peoples of old, there rots a city.

No light touches the city, but alas, no light is needed. A great orb of darkness hangs to illuminate this world beneath the world. The peoples of this place call it the Shadowclipse, and it is feared and worshiped.

This city, built into the deepest caverns of the earth, and sprawling beneath the oceans and the mountains of our world, was cut into the earth by the Sea Wanderers of times past. Its people are cold, hard, and brutal. Centuries of endless darkness has driven the light from their eyes and the warmth from their hearts. So depraved are they and eager to receive the blessings of their gods, that even their own children become the means to such an end.

This night, as happens every year, when the last drop of water from the earth above slides through the cracks in the rocky sky and ushers in the Great Scorch, eighteen young virgins upon whom fate has cast an ugly fortune are sacrificed to the Shadowclipse and his children, in the hopes that the people might not dry up and die as the earth above them.

* * *

My chest hurts. I think it is the beatings. Last year when Helena was given to the goddess Effren she was beaten too. It is customary. At least that is what Mama says.

I can see Mama now. She is weeping and little Belle is weeping beside her. Papa clutches her shoulders as if he cannot stand on his own but he does not shed a tear. It is not right for our men to cry. They are trained not to. Being the ones who carry out the sacrifices, it would not be right for them to show emotion while doing their duty.

Mama said I must not be scared. She said that the gods have chosen what they have chosen and I must find solace in that. Still, my heart beats furiously and my hands are clammy. I am tempted to lick the sweat from them. I have not tasted water in three days—for lack of it in the city or because it is customary to deprive the sacrifices, I do not know.

I see Yelena and her brother, Adolfo, standing next to their father, Honorable Mayor Tenebrae. Yelena is crying, and I see Adolfo brush a tear from his cheek, though it is not supposed to be there in the first place. I look away before any of them has time to meet my eyes. I cannot bear to look at Adolfo’s beautiful face now.

I kneel in line with seventeen other city virgins on a stage overlooking the crowd. Behind us men wait, holding wicked glinting swords. I can picture the curve of the blades even with my back to them. I have seen them before. Many times.

Bowls rest at our knees, ready to catch our heads, and hopefully, most of the blood. Mama always says that cleaning up after the sacrifices is the hardest part. She has done it once. She scrubbed her own sister's blood from the ground and it has licked her dreams clean of anything but that moment ever since.

Overhead, a basket woven of rock hangs from the stone sky. In it, the priest readies himself to offer us up to the gods. He wears a white robe to signify the purity of the virgins and around his waist is a red sash to symbolize our blood. The priest is as old as time it seems. Mama says that the gods have blessed him with immortality and I wonder sometimes if he does not grow tired of his ugly job.

He begins to speak, his ancient voice filling the cavernous hall and all of our ears. A wave of agonizing fear washes over me. My chest heaves despite the pain of the bruises that cover it. Next to me, little Gertie Lamb begins to sob. She is so young that her chest is flat and her womb has not felt the monthly pang of emptiness before it bleeds. She takes hold of my hand and I feel that it is just as cold and wet as mine.

“Courage,” I whisper, more for my own comfort than for Gertie’s.

The priest finishes his sermon. It is so close now. I can feel the men behind us move forward, weapons brandished. Above us, suspended like the priest, the Choir begins to hum, then chant, and then whisper in a strange, broken melody that crescendos as the priest calls for our heads to be cast off.

“Effren give me strength,” I mutter. I hope desperately that it does not hurt. From the time we are two, girls in the city are prepared for the possibility of one day being chosen for the gods. We are prepared for death but that does not erase the fear of suffering.

There is a man directly behind me now. My heart is pounding and tears fill my eyes.

“Please,” I whisper, overcome by sudden panic as the realization of what is about to happen washes over me. “Please, I don’t want to die.”

A hand scales down my neck, pushing my head to one side and exposing my flesh for an easy cut. Swift and steady, Mama says. The hand is shaking, and I wonder if the man is just as afraid as me.

The priest calls for complete silence but I can still hear desperate weeping in the crowd. One of the virgins cries for her mother to save her and I hear a loud wail from somewhere far away.

I roll my eyes up just enough to be able to meet Adolfo’s gaze. He is shedding tears unashamedly now, but my breath catches in my throat as I watch him pull a dagger from his pocket. I shake my head.

“No,” I whisper, pleading with him. I am no stranger to Adolfo’s rash behavior but this is unacceptable. “Please, no.”

But there is no stopping him. With a shout he jumps onto the stage. He raises his dagger and calls up to the priest.

“This must end. These girls do not deserve such a death.”

The priest raises a hand in a signal for Adolfo to be removed from the stage. This is not the first time a crazed rebel has called for the sacrifice to cease. But Adolfo is not crazy and I know what they will do to him. He is a threat. He will be executed and his blood will be left to serve as a reminder of how pointless rebellion is.

But Adolfo is big. Strong enough to hold off the men who advance upon him.

“Stop this!” he screams, his hands and feet thrashing wildly against his offenders. “This is foolishness. This has gone on for centuries, this offering of innocent blood, and our world still crumbles. Do the gods heed us not?”

The fighting stops. Time slows. Adolfo stands tall and proud, confident in his power. “We labor, and die, and barely live, each year offering our children to gods who give us nothing but more suffering. Why? Why do we do it? Tradition and cowardice have spawned the deaths of generations of daughters, and sisters and—” he looks at me with sad eyes, “—and lovers, perhaps.”

I look away.

“Why do we go on? I see the way our city is crumbling. The Shadowclipse grows weak. There is barely enough food to fill our bellies even once a day. Only five children were birthed this year and twenty times that have died. We are doomed! Why waste more precious life? Let them go!”

The priest’s basket is lowered by some unseen mechanism. He slithers out, lithe as a serpent, face twisted into an ugly smile. “I see this young one has bravery.”

He stands before Adolfo and touches his face, fingering a silvery tear that slides down his cheek. He brings the drop of liquid to his lips and then plants a kiss on Adolfo’s nose. It is well known that the priest is a man of perverse pleasures. My stomach twists in disgust.

“Perhaps the gods would oblige us a second sacrifice? Say, that of a stupid boy who dares stand against me.” He turns to the crowd. “What think you, people of Belhelm? What say you? Shall this boy be our second sacrifice?”

A man in the front of the crowd raises a hand. It is Vel, a scribe. “I have read the great book, O Mighty Priest. If a male virgin offers himself, it may be in place of the female virgins of the year. Offer him instead and let these younglings go free.”

Adolfo’s face is steady. He is strong. Death does not haunt him, he has told me many times. Yet I am scared for him. He cannot die. If he did, I fear part of me would die with him.

“I concede,” the priest says after a minute. “Offer the boy instead.”

“No!” Yelena is held back by her father, whose mouth is set in anger. “No, don’t kill him! Please!”

The priest shrugs. “As the book says, so we must do. It is finished, it is done. Let the others go. Kill the boy.” The priest slithers away. Perhaps, I think, to drink himself into madness in the darkest corners of the city.

Adolfo is grasped by the shoulders and brought to kneel directly before me. I wonder if they know the extent of our relationship and if that is why they will kill him in front of me.

My tears are thick and heavy as I look into Adolfo’s face. “Why have you done this?” I am choked by my sorrow.

Adolfo takes my face in his hands. “For you, love. You shall be married by next year. You shall never have to worry of being chosen again.”

“But I wanted to marry you.”

Adolfo touches his forehead to mine. “I know.” Tears are sliding down his cheeks, too. “But at least now you shall live to be married. Please, love, accept it as a gift. My gift.” He moves forward and presses a tear-touched kiss to my lips.

The crowd is loud, wailing and moaning. Women are smearing soot down their faces, men are cutting their arms with sharp stones and knives. The sorrow hangs heavy in the air.

The man behind me unshackles my wrists and ankles. I am free, but I will not move. I will stay with Adolfo until the end.

“Go,” Adolfo pleads. “Do not be a witness to this.”

I shake my head. “I will never leave you.”

Adolfo’s neck is wrenched back by a man who holds Adolfo’s own dagger.

I brace myself and take his hand. Firm and resolute, our fingers fold together.

One slice through silky flesh and Adolfo’s beautiful head is taken from his shoulders. I burst into fresh tears as blood, his blood, pools around my knees and drenches my skirt. It will be left for the Rock Rats to devour. No one will have courage enough to clean it up, anyway.

Time is moving slowly, thick and heavy. Vaguely, I am aware that my mother takes me away from Adolfo’s body. I cry out and reach for him, not wanting to leave, but I don’t have the strength to fight my mother’s soft touch. I walk through the grief silenced throngs. I am saved, free forever. But such freedom was not easily bought and my heart hurts so much I can barely breathe. I fear it is broken, like our crumbling sky.

* * *

They say that when the earth quakes here above, it is mourning for its lost brother below, a trembling testament of grief. Or perhaps it is those cities so far beneath us, falling apart at last, their peoples long since lost to the wrath of their gods. I think we shall never know, but if they do still live down there, struggling through each year, souls ever fearful of being offered as a sacrifice, you might drop a bit of water through a crack in the ground and let it slide through the earth until it reaches the gray lands of Belhelm. Perhaps it will not reach them, but perhaps it will. It is only a little sacrifice, after all.

THE END. . .