THIS STORY NECESSITATES A WARNING.
Depicts: Child sexual abuse.
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Dead Sparks
The crackling of the flame. The creak of rusting iron. Beneath the embalming perfumes, the stench of flesh mortified, sanctified, imbued with reddish light everlasting. They sway softly in the wind, strange fruit hanging ripe from bare metal trees, gaunt and shriveled sentinels against the impenetrable darkness outside the city. Sockets empty, eyes long consumed by the fire inside. Tongues reduced to ash, maws gaping into a silent scream. Chests cut open and ribs torn wide, innards food for fire. And still they see, still they speak, still they give themselves to duty in sacred undeath until they too are nothing but embers fading in the inky embrace of shadows.
Your father once let you and your sister witness how they are made, the corpse-lanterns. The body of a man most esteemed by the city – a teacher, a priest, a citizen of irreproachable character – is drained of blood and bathed in embalming oils, then left to dry for twelve tolls of the bell. With the cadaver reduced to a shriveled effigy of its former self, the abdomen is cut open and the ribs are forced apart to expose the innards. A chain forged from iron and inscribed with sacred glyphs is wrapped around the neck, then hoisted up on a pole until the body hangs with its feet dangling some three spans from the ground. Only then does a priest deliver the gift of flame, igniting the corpse-lantern in a mighty flash and searing away the darkness if only for a moment before the fire simmers down into the kindly glow of public lighting.
They are holy things, the corpse-lanterns. Set in rows, they line the streets and provide safety as you walk through the shadows. Arranged into a great ring around the city, they keep out the things that lurk where no light can pierce. And if you stay long enough in their light, cozying in the warmth they emit, your dreams will be pleasant even as impish fingers try disturbing the still waters of your sleep.
In death they are wise, the corpse-lanterns. They are vessels not only for flame, but for knowledge of ages and peoples bygone. The fire remembers all it has consumed, and through the ragged throats and charred mouths of the corpse-lanterns it can speak these memories back from oblivion. Tales brought by strangers from afar, stories from the city and those who have inhabited it since its founding – the fire recalls even the moments when the first men gathered around its light and spoke what they had woven in their imaginations to amaze, to frighten and to entertain themselves. Eventually, it will know your story as well.
It is thus not strange in this dark city of yours for people to seek the company of the dead even more so than that of the living. Often a multitude gathers after their labors are done to listen to the tales the corpse-lanterns tell, the flame dancing in their eyes as they gawk in marvel, imagining worlds where darkness is not absolute – worlds where there are things called day and night, where a great flame in the sky scares away the shadows and reveals colors unknown, where even the dark is peppered with smaller lights called stars which spell out fates and whisper things yet to pass.
“Tell me a story,” you ask the corpse-lantern who hangs over the crossroads at the end of your street. In life, its name was Faseer, a scholar and traveler to strange lands beyond your own. He saw many things and heard many stories, and you are lucky he still has a mouth with which to tell them. “Tell me again about the stars.”
“It was many ages ago that the land of Elrich was soaked in blood,” the corpse-lantern begins. “A grieving father took up arms for his slain son, and the name of his cause was revenge. But although his pain was justified, his violence was not. The stars, seeing the green pastures ravaged and the innocents put to the sword, delivered fiery justice and laid the father’s crown and empire low. His pride, his rage, it all burned to ash as the stars crashed over the killing fields, and the sky wept silver light until–”
“You already told me this one,” you interrupt, frustrated. “Don’t you remember?”
Its silence is its answer. Corpse-lanterns remember all things past, but the present seems to be out of their grasp, impossible to recall. And so, it merely twitches slightly before opening its mouth again and saying:
“When the world was not yet formed, Old Man Coyote stole Black God’s bag and tossed out its magic dust. The stars became spread across the firmament…”
Again it tells a story you already know, but interrupting it a second time would be rude, so you let the words pass you and allow your mind to wander. You have dreamt of the stars many times by corpse-lantern light, huddled at the base of a pole with only cold stone for a pillow. You imagine them in the only colors you know light can be: reddish and wild, their flame flickering back and forth as they consume themselves in the black heavens, burning longer than any person may live, defying the frigidness that seeks to snuff them out. They are countless, so many that the darkness can barely stand against them, their light threatening to usurp its tyranny and give birth to that which even dreams cannot help you envision: the thing called day where the king of all stars – the sun – reigns unopposed.
Light, so much light! Your eyes could never withstand it, for you are a child of the dark, but still you wish you could stare into the sun until you go blind; your alabaster skin would blister and burn under its caress, yet you would gladly give it up to be consumed if only you could spend a few instants basking in such glory.
“Day, unknown and unknowable in this enclave erected amidst nothingness, yearned by those who have never witnessed it, by those who know only the glow of the undead,” corpse-lantern Faseer says. “Sun, slayer of shadows, giver of life and light, will you not come to cleanse us?”
There are things in the dark, things that wait behind closed doors and breathe heavily as they sneak in when they think you are asleep, their steps making the floorboards creak as they crawl into your sister’s sheets. If you dared to look at them, you would see the shape as it writhes; if you dared to listen closer, you would hear words coated in honey to disguise the rot beneath; if you dared to remember, you would again behold the thing that wears your father’s face. Such things happen in the cover of darkness, and you wonder if in daylight there are no monsters waiting for you at home.
When you return, Silese tends to the hearth and prepares supper; father has not yet arrived. Wordlessly, she hands you the knife so you may start gutting the blind, slimy fish dredged from the river that borders the city while she dices the vegetables – precious and expensive produce the merchant mages bring from beyond, for no plants grow in this sunless land. As you begin your task, you notice the dry blood on her knuckles; she has been punching the walls again. Neither of you will address it: to do so would mean speaking father’s name, and to name something is to invite it in.
“You went to see Faseer,” Silese says accusingly between cuts. Her tongue drips resentment, yet you are relieved that she has broken the silence. “You said you would take me this time.”
“I am sorry, Silese,” no excuse can satisfy her, so you offer none. The fish guts are cold and slimy, ceding before the knife with the ease of butter and sliding wetly into the waste bin; their stench will haunt your fingers for hours afterwards.
Silese’s face is still on the softer side, her budding adolescence not yet chiseling away the roundness that hides her cheekbones. When she pouts, her lips purse like she’s about to weep, a display of childish malice aimed at making you feel as guilty as possible; that is the way she punishes you, the only way she can lash out. Sometimes you wish she screamed at you, that she tore down the house with her skinny arms and stomped the hearth to embers. Instead, she looks at you in silence, the hardness in her eyes overwhelming. If she knows the reason you have never taken her to Faseer, she has never said it, content thus far to see you squirm in discomfort at her accusations.
Is this what your father sees too? Does he know what his youngest daughter’s silence means, the weight her gaze carries? What penance does she impose upon him, if any at all? Perhaps father is not as easily moved by guilt, and so the gifts he brings with him are not meant to appease, but to remind you both of his own terrible power and lordship over your lives. Or perhaps that is why he comes in darkness, for to meet Silese’s eyes could undo him.
The meal is ready when father comes home. He eats first, fast and ravenous, and you both wait until he is finished to serve yourselves. You do not mind it; the quicker he is done, the sooner you will be left alone. On his way to his room, his caress finds its way up your necks and onto your cheeks. You remain rigid, your eyes avoiding his own while you try not to flinch, not to recoil like a scared animal. Silese, as usual, offers no resistance but her harsh gaze and her grey silence, and father acts as if he does not notice or care. He then puts a small package between the two of you and mutters something about picking it up on the way here. You wait until his steps fade and inspect his gift.
Inside the package there is a book bound in leather. A luxury item if there ever was one: very few people in this city know how to read, for what use is the written word in a world without light? Candles are expensive, hearths cannot stay ablaze forever, and the light of the corpse-lanterns is not for one single person to possess. Books provide status, the presumption of an education reserved only for the elite who may one day become corpse-lanterns and preserve the knowledge they gained from these symbols wrought of ink.
How much did father pay for it? Not much, judging by the state it’s in: the reddish leather is old and worn, dulled with time and use, and the pages inside are on the brink of disintegrating into dust. Silese quickly loses interest and returns to eating, leaving you to ponder the book not as an object, but as a means. What stories does its ink tell? For how long could the words within it spirit you away, take you from this house of silent sin and into the unknown?
At bedtime, an effigy of pillows and folded clothes beneath the sheets conceals your absence, the book held tightly beneath your arm as you gingerly take the five steps that separate you from your exit. Somewhere in the darkness, the thing that wears father’s skin holds his breath and waits. Every noise could be his weight shifting as he slithers towards your room; every creak could be his hand on the doorknob; every glint could be his eyes watching as you sneak out the window. Heart drumming so loud you fear it will betray you to him, you take your chance and slip through, feet mutely touching the cobblestone. Then, just before you go, you see it: the accusing glare, cold and stony, too harsh for a child’s face. Silese makes no sound, but you can still hear the screaming.
You run down the street and past the houses of the neighbors who in murmurs wonder about what goes on inside the walls of the house of Lemza, widower and father of two, and why his youngest daughter has bruised and bloodied knuckles while his eldest scurries off like a thief. On every lightless window you see fingers pointed at you, prying eyes peering in silent judgement, your truth laid bare by the corpse-lanterns that mutely hover above your head.
It’s not my fault, you tell yourself. I didn’t ask for it! I never wanted things to be this way!
Yet denial is not enough to silence the phantoms that whisper in your ears, the guilt of feeling relief so true and deep that your father no longer visits you in your slumber, that his hands and breath favor a skin much softer than your own. Silese can see it plainly with those piercing orbits that seem to peel away your layers until all that is left is your rotten core; she never screams because she knows there is no point in it – only silence would answer her pleas.
This is why you run, why you let your lungs burn and tears stream down your cheeks until you reach the crossroads and stand in the light of Faseer, corpse-lantern and confidant. Who could listen better than one who has no voice of his own? Who could be a better confessor than one who cannot carry the memory of your sin? The fire remembers all it has consumed, but the man who was once Faseer is no more. There is no soul inside his burning form, no trace of Faseer but what memories the fire cares to preserve. All that remains is the stories, and none of them speak of your shame.
“Hello, Faseer,” you address the corpse-lantern even though you know that it no longer answers to that name. “I brought you a new book with new stories. Would you tell them to me?”
The corpse-lantern sways softly as you feed your father’s bribe into its burning chest, heat licking your fingertips while paper becomes ash. The flames grow larger, brighter, and the chain rattles with the throes of digestion. Faseer cranes his neck towards you, his mouth curved into a lipless smile.
“This is the Book of Idolaters,” the corpse-lantern says. “These are the stories of ancient sin.”
It speaks for hours, one story after another. It speaks of the Garden and the Woman and the Serpent in the Tree. It speaks of cursed sons and daughters, of envies and killings in perfidious moonlight. It speaks of betrayal and guilt, of irredeemable evils wrought of selfishness. And when it is done speaking, when you retrace your steps home before father notices your absence, a new weight has crept upon your shoulders: your own story could fit snugly in the rotting pages of the red book.
Silese agrees. She acknowledges you because to do otherwise would catch father’s attention, but she does not speak – her eyes convey the only message she has for you. It makes you want to scream, to dig your fingers into her shoulders and plead until your throat is raw.
What else could I do but run? Would you have me stay and bury my head in my pillow, pretend like nothing happens? What good is it to be the powerless witness to the deed? What good is it that I see him do to you what he did to me for so long?
Pain shared is pain lessened, Silese would tell you if she cared to speak to you at all. Pain witnessed does not fade into obscurity. You owed me that much. We are sisters. Why should I speak to you when you will not scream for me?
The first night he came for you is a blur, a sequence of images and smells and sensations with so many gaps in between that they barely form a coherent picture. Coarseness and a pungent stench of liquor, slurred words weaving empty promises that everything would be alright, the crushing realization that you were truly alone and that all your pleading would fall on deaf ears. Mother had just died and her last gift, little Silese, could not even comprehend the evil happening next to her crib or imagine that would also be her fate one day. And so you did not beg, you did not ask for it to end – you took it like a good daughter ought to, obedient to a fault.
On the night he first came for Silese, her screams tore the dark asunder and drilled themselves in your ears. They stifled in her throat when his hands squeezed, but they refused to die. A shrill wheezing, like deflating air, reached out to you in one last desperate attempt to cling onto something she was certain about, onto someone loved. You still remember the look in her eyes, that final spark of innocence about to be swallowed and snuffed out; all you did was turn in your sheets and pretend to sleep.
Silese never screamed again after that. She never pleaded, never fought back. She just remained still like a corpse, stiff and hollow, almost indifferent to her tormentor. She almost seemed content in knowing you were trapped with her, ensnared by the same thread and bound to witness her defiling, unable to escape into sweet slumber – she never imagined you would deny her even this.
Again and again Faseer’s mouth repeats the stories you have fed the fire within him. Again and again you listen to it, grinding your teeth and clawing at your own flesh in hopes of finding some sense of absolution in self-inflicted pain – a coward’s attempt at punishment, for to mortify oneself will always be more tolerable than to endure true judgement.
“The Lord of Mists rose over the black forest in all its perfidious luminescence, bathing the dreamers in blighting light,” Faseer says. “In the depths of their own desire, they received its poisoned gift and rejoiced in the madness of their awakening.”
“No regret…” you mutter. “Faseer, how can I rid myself of the regret that weighs down my heart? How can I do away with guilt born from seeing and not speaking?”
“Omission is the sin of those who believe themselves to be powerless,” the corpse-lantern answers. “To raise your hand in protest of injustice, to stand for what is good, it takes courage often lacking in the hearts of mankind. Those who have erred in this way will find no rest until they take the path they once shunned and walk down to whatever waits ahead. Be it triumph or failure you find, intent can free you from all guilt. To try true and faithfully is to absolve oneself.”
Your guts bubble and the taste of bile floods your throat. These are empty, stale words from men who do not live to suffer what you have suffered, platitudes void of wisdom yet delivered with the arrogance of those who presume to understand what they have never endured. The voices that speak through the fire know nothing; they belong to those who lived in comfort and who are honored even in undeath. They can grant you no illumination, for they were blind to the horrors happening under their very noses, too preoccupied with building their legacies to gaze at the things creeping at the edge of darkness. Even now, having been turned into fuel for the all-knowing flame, their ignorance is monumental.
Foolish girl. How many times have you held one-sided conversations with these simulacra of life, with these talking carrion who cannot even recall your name? How many times have you emptied your heart into the fire, whispered your pain in hopes of receiving solace? There is nothing here for you, nothing but futile escapism – a dying candle that will soon be smoke dissipating in the endless night.
All composure exhausted at last, your hands clasp Faseer’s feet, pulling with all your might as if to rip the corpse-lantern from its post and bring it low to stomp the light into dying sparks and embers. His charred skin and ashen bones crack and hiss, and the fire inside flares wildly at the disturbance of its eternal rest. The chain moans a dry rattle and the tips of your hair smoke with the corpse-lantern’s first and final warning. The blaze knocks you off your feet and onto the cobblestone, your body ground and cut by countless molars as it skids over the jagged surface. Something hits your head hard and all is null.
When you wake up, the stench of seared hair is overwhelming and your fingertips sting with a pain you can only describe as red. Your bones whimper under your skin as you turn on your back, unable to stand but determined to look at the corpse-lantern who, strangely, seems to meet your eyes. It is a shy glint, barely perceptible amidst the flame, but it’s there: a tiny furrowing of the brow, a twitching of the mandible, a look of recognition.
Legs dragging behind you, flesh mortified by fire and stone, you crawl on your belly like a supplicant worm towards Faseer and gaze up into his eyes expecting not mercy nor deliverance, but the tiny fleck of understanding you have awakened beneath the fog of undeath. There, in the corpse-lantern’s shriveled and cloudy eyes, it does what is in the nature of all fire: it hungers.
Your hair goes first. It is so singed and brittle that it crumbles in your grasp, eager to feed the flame, your curls turned to fiery serpents and then smoke. Next goes cloth and blood, easy fuel for the fire. Little by little you feed yourself to it, to make it know beyond what it learned in life – to make it remember you. And as the spark becomes its own searing light, rusty chains rattle and ragged throats gasp in unison. Throughout the street, as far as you can see, the corpse-lanterns turn to observe you.
“And behold the Woman, she who desires not the Fruit of the Tree of Knowledge but to sunder the world with fire and rage,” the undead of the dark city speak.
This is a story whose ending you have already heard; the fire – all-consuming and all-knowing – reveals what must be done. And as you drive your fist into Faseer’s entrails, a single prayer comes to your lips: “Sun, won’t you come to cleanse us?”
A million stars glimmer in the darkness, one million points of light floating away to poke holes in the sky and let pieces of day come through. At their center, an inner sun burns with all its wonderful and terrible radiance, worshipped by a choir of men and women tasked with scorching away the city’s blindness so they may be cleansed and at last know the light. Silese does not smile, does not weep as the fire dances its way from one house to another and the neighbors crawl to safety; she just gazes like she always does and holds silent about the roar of the hearth and the screams it barely managed to drown out. When the fire has burned to embers and the people stop running like the world is ending, they will ask about her father and sister, and the corpse-lanterns will answer for her. They will scream it. They will weep it. They will tell it again and again until the entire city knows the story by heart. And perhaps, bathed in reddish corpse-light and mollified by the retelling of your shared story, Silese will turn her eyes to the ruins of the house and look on your ashes less harshly.