A few words from Dayr…
The following is from book two of the Dispatch Sequence.
Daughter, you will surely know this sura:
And the earth vomited up the dead.
And they rose,
The freshly dead and those long decayed,
Rose into the sky.
The innocent rose.
The sinners rose.
But at a word from God, the sinners stopped,
A constellation of inky sin blotting out the sky,
Until the righteous word of God cast them down,
Away from the light.
Down past the earth,
Past being,
Past memory,
Past thought.
The sinners of the flesh were cast down into Unforgiving Hell,
The sinners of the spirit were cast down into Merciless Hell,
And they were no more,
Except in their suffering,
For they became suffering itself.
They are suffering still.
They will suffer until the end of time,
For such is the righteous justice of God.
I thought I would begin by giving you a glimpse of what this righteous justice actually looks like. It’s one of my earliest memories.
Come with me now. Let’s go back to when little Ari was about ten and he visited the quarry. Little Ari, which is what mama called me, is hiding in the bushes at the verge of a clearing. He’s a proper little Feremite, with his child’s tonsure and his little prayer belt. Isn’t he cute? His mama has read to him from the Books every day of his life. He tries to be good, but he knows deep down that really he’s wicked. Because he believes in the Books, and they tell him he’s wicked. We’re all wicked. Mama says so too. Ari wants to be better than the wicked little boy God made, but he doesn’t know how. He wonders why God didn’t just make him better. Why did God make him this way?
These are bad thoughts. Little Ari knows he’s not supposed to have thoughts like these. He tries not to think. He tries to obey and be good.
But he’s still here, hiding at the edge of the clearing where he’s not supposed to be. The little chuzz can’t help himself. Wicked he is, and wickeder he’ll become. As all-knowing God must have planned.
Now, Mama told little Ari not to go to the quarry, which was where the prisoners worked. Prisoners are bad, and Ari isn’t supposed to even look at them. But here he is, hiding in the bushes. Bad little Ari!
It’s near sundown. Guards stand around, casually watching as dust-covered prisoners come out of the mines. Exhausted they are, stumbling and glassy-eyed in the rocky clearing. They look dangerous to little Ari, and he shrinks back into deeper shadows. But he doesn’t leave. Wicked little Ari!
One dazed prisoner is dragging a shovel; it’s scraping and clanking as it bounces behind him. A guard shouts and knocks the shovel out of the prisoner’s hands. The man gawps vacantly. The guard strikes him in the face and he collapses like the bundle of dirty clothes he is.
This is confusing to little Ari. Guards are supposed to be good, but hitting like that isn’t good. There must be some mistake here. Little Ari wants to ask mama what this means, but he knows he can’t. He’s not supposed to be seeing this. Wicked little Ari!
Some little creature moves in the undergrowth behind him. Ari turns to look. Nothing. But when he turns back… oh my!
The collapsed prisoner is rising into the air. Unconscious he is, floppy as a corpse, but ascending. Nothing is lifting him, he’s just… rising.
Ari can’t understand what he’s seeing. He starts breathing fast. He feels light headed. Is the man dead? Is this how dead people are taken up to God? Mama read to little Ari about this, from the Books. It was terrifying. Was it happening now, right in front of him?
Then Ari hears cries and moans from all around. He sees that all the prisoners are rising. They lift up from the open area, from the mouth of the mine, from behind the gravion ore carriers. They can’t have all died at once, can they? All of them? Dead men don’t moan, do they?
None of the guards are affected. Some stand and watch the prisoner bodies lift, others head to their opilions to leave. Ari realizes that this is familiar to them. Routine.
In the air above each prisoner is a dark gash that angles down and pierces each man in between the shoulder blades. These are made of nothing, just… an absence. They’re pulling the men up. Pithed human insects they are, being lifted on these black needles by invisible hands. They rise together to a height above the trees, then form three neat rows.
The regularity of it is obscene. Some arms and legs move, most just dangle. Bits of earth fall here and there.
Poor little Ari, he has no idea what he’s seeing. Could this be the apocalypse? It’s just like the description: a constellation of sinners in the sky.
The bodies start forward, then pick up speed. They race toward the prison, Invormach. Ari has never been there, but he’s seen it and he knows where it is. In moments, the prisoners have passed over the wall of forest opposite little Ari. They are flying fast.
The joking guards climb into their opilions and leave.
Little Ari wonders if he’s just seen the beginning of the end of days. But shouldn’t everyone rise up then? He wishes he had someone to ask, but there isn’t anyone. Because he’s seen what he shouldn’t have seen. He’s wicked!
But he comes back the following day to see if it will happen again. It does! Returning again and again, little Ari learns that prisoners are always transported to and from the mines in this way. This isn’t the end of days, it’s just how prisoners are moved around. It’s the same technology that moves the gravion ships. He is relieved that this is not the hand of God. God would never do this. No. The Feremite God does not like technology.
A few weeks later, poor little Ari sees something that gives him his first blackout. He is tucked into his now familiar, comfortable place between a boulder and some bushes. Ari has been watching long enough now that he knows the personalities of the different guards. The one who hit the prisoner is always cruel, and Ari wishes that the head guard would keep him from abusing the men. But the head guard is lazy, often intoxicated and always indifferent to how the prisoners are treated.
It’s a shorter guard, bald but with a moustache, who does the deed. The prisoners are emerging from the mine openings as usual, but the guard pulls one aside as though to talk with him privately. The prisoner looks frightened, but he has no choice. The two of them go to one side, next to an ore car. The guard takes out a tool of some kind and motions to the shackle on the prisoner’s ankle. The guard bends, as though to adjust something. In a flash, however, he attaches the shackle to a metal handle on the side of the ore car.
The prisoner begins shrieking. He reaches for the guard, who steps nimbly back, then turns and walks away. Unconcerned he is.
Moments later, the dark spikes appear above the prisoners and they begin lifting off the ground. The shackled prisoner’s leg twists around when he rises. His body stretches as the dark spike above him pulls at his torso, but then the spike brakes free, shooting up into the sky before pinching out of existence. The prisoner’s body falls against the metal ore car and to the ground. He writhes, screaming. A moment later another rift folds into being above him, this one thicker. His torso snaps around and his body jerks skyward. All the prisoners have been lifted back first, facing down. This thicker spike, however, lifts from the sternum, so the prisoner is facing up. The shackle holds his leg down; something in his hip pops and his body jerks. He stretches impossibly, then comes apart at the ankle. His body flies up, leaving the foot behind. Thick, pulsing ropes of blood hose down as the man slots into line above.
Poor little Ari’s vision blurs. The three lines of prisoners begin gliding off toward Invormach. A trickle of blood rains a trail across the opilions as the men pass above. Several of the guards chuckle. Little Ari loses consciousness.
This was my introduction to Panticaya justice. Human justice, carrying out the brilliant, righteous justice of our Feremite God.
My mother would soon be turned over to these men.
Can you see why I looked elsewhere for justice? When I couldn’t find it, can you see why I decided to make my own?
~~~