Stitch, p.7
STITCH, page 7
“I'm not a monster,” she said.
“Of course you're not, Molly. But for Sugar Music to succeed, for Vora's cities to rise, the Bow Enders must die and you must kill them.”
Molly drew her blade and became the blood-letting wind that drained the Bow Enders dry.
When they lay still and the air was filled with the iron-tang taste of their color, Molly did what the General told her: she dipped her finger in the blood and wrote her name.
*****
That night, Molly slept at the Eastern edge of the city where it met the sea. She washed the blood off in the waves, and Molly thought their lapping would calm her, but anything wet just reminded her of the Bow Enders.
To them she had been a little bone-bladed demon, a slicing whirlwind who spatter-spilled their lives in the dirt. Molly remembered the pitiable surprise and the terror and helplessness that filled their faces, and she wept.
The General sat cross-legged next to her in the wave-smoothed ruins exposed on the low-tide beach. When he saw her tears, he said, “You did well tonight, Molly. It is good that you understand sacrifice because there will be more to kill. Many more.”
“Are they all like the Bow Enders?”
“They're all thieves and murderers if that's what you're asking, but that's not why they must die. They must die because that is what will be required for you to reach the Stitchlife imprisoned here and only she can make Vora's dream of Sugar Music a reality. They must die so that mankind can rise again. For that to happen, sacrifices must be made. It will be the sacrifice of many to die, and it will be your sacrifice to be the hand that kills them.”
The General told her she needed a new face – a fearsome face to match the terrible nature of her deeds and the hero she'd become. He told her to pull her hair out from under the wreath and to braid it into a pair of pigtails so tight that they jut up into the air on either side of her head. “Like horns,” he said.
The wreath loosened, and she took it off. She made the tight pigtails the General had told her to make, high up on either side of her head like horns. After she put the wreath back on, she looked at her reflection in a puddle. The braids didn't jut upwards; they flopped over either side of the wreath. “Too much like rabbit ears,” the General said. He told her to tie them off tightly, cut them short with her blade, and wrap them with threads cut from her dress until they pointed up into the air.
After she'd done what the General said, Molly looked at her reflection in the water again. Now, her tightly bound braids looked like horns. The General insisted they did. He told her she was a twin-horned hero who looked as fierce as any demon and that he was proud of her.
As Molly lay on her back and looked up at the green night-haze and the smothered stars beyond, the General told her a story about a raven that died and became a rabbit and then transformed into a mighty, twin-horned hero. He said there was more to the story too, but she wasn't ready to hear it yet.
When the General was gone and Molly lay sleepless, listening to the awful, bloody surf, Fin Singh's ghost whispered the rest of his plan in her ear.
Chapter Eleven
The Devil Ho
When morning came, Molly walked back to the Rekki Maru to meet Uncle Ho.
The bodies of the Bow Enders were gone, and the ship was surrounded with armed men. They had machetes in hand, but the General pointed out how their faces showed fear. “They got your blood-letter,” he said.
Molly walked slowly through the Red Hand that stood guard around the ship. She felt their eyes on her and wondered if the ocean had really washed her clean or if her dark deed was still written on her in stains and spatter her bathing had missed.
When she reached the five men that guarded a claw-torn, midsection entrance to the ship's hull, she said what the ghosts told her to say: “I'm here to see Uncle Ho.” They stared at her blankly until she said, “Tell him it's Molly,” and then the color drained from their faces as if their throats had been cut.
Uncle Ho's men sent a runner ahead. Then, with two men behind her and two in front they walked her inside the midsection of the broken ship. Here, there were none of the huddled masses she'd seen sheltering in the bow. There were only the grizzled soldiers of Uncle Ho's Red Hand drinking and throwing dice against the broken hull. Molly's escorts led her to a wooden platform that was raised up with rope and winch through a blinding rectangle of light high above, up to the sun-lit deck.
Far off across the deck, at the base of the towering, blocky castle that rose from the stern, a broad shade canopy was stretched with taught line. It was made of red-dyed cloth, and the light that shined through it stained everything underneath.
Molly waited on the deck for nearly an hour with her nervous Red Hand escorts around her. The Rekki Maru was the highest of the city's four ships, and Molly looked out over rooftops and markets and the other three ships while the three ghosts admired the view with her.
When she finally looked back to the canopy, she saw two rows of guards arrange themselves on either side of it. Then a man came out to lift the cloth draped over a single, massive, high-set chair. A throne. Moments later, a man like a mountain of shiny, yellow robes walked out and sat in it. Even with hundreds of feet of deck between them, Molly could feel him watching her.
The far away figure in the throne beckoned, and Molly's escorts walked her down the long deck to meet Uncle Ho. “Say what we tell you, Molly,” Fin Singh's ghost advised.
“And don't be afraid,” the General said. “You're a twin-horned hero. It is Ho who should have fear.”
“Everything's going to be alright, Molly.” Vora's ghost smiled when she said it, and Molly didn't really believe her. “Just say what we tell you.”
Once she stepped into the canopy's vulgar shade, her Red Hand escorts withdrew and left Molly to stand alone in front of Uncle Ho. His girth filled the throne, and Molly wondered if he got so big by taking everyone's food and eating it. Ho spoke first. “You're a very little girl,” he said, “to have made such a big mess of my Bow Enders. They were one of my junior gangs. Not especially important, but they were under my protection. They were part of my operation, part of my Biz and that is important. I should kill you for what you did to them, Molly. Tell me why you did that.”
Molly spoke the words Fin Singh's ghost put in her mouth. “I had to show you what I can do,” Molly said. “You wouldn't have believed me if I'd told you.”
“Told me what? That you're a witch-sped blade as fast as any noble or that you're a murdering little freak?”
“I've come to make a deal with you,” Molly told him.
“And why should I listen to any deal you propose?”
“Because what I did last night I can do again. If I fight for you, the witch-sped whirlwind that was unleashed on your Bow Enders will be unleashed on your enemies.”
Uncle Ho considered this for a moment, and Molly thought she saw a light in his eye kindle and grow like brush-fire. “And what do you want in return, little demon?”
“I want Pietra Fona,” Molly said, and it was a full two seconds before Ho responded.
“Who is that?”
“She's the one you keep up there.” Molly pointed up through the canopy at the tower. “The witch.”
“I see you have a wreath like hers. Are you a Stitchlife, too? Never heard of a witch-sped Stitchlife. Have you come to kill old Fona and keep her witchy secrets from common men? Is rescue your plan? She's useless, you know. Mad. She's been locked up there for a century. Either she can't do a thing anymore or she won't. I've tried everything from torture to treats. The men who sat in this chair before me did, too. They couldn't make her do anything either. So she sits. In the tower. Like worthless treasure. For as long as anyone can remember.”
“Then give her to me in exchange for the blood of your enemies. Remember, I could kill you and every man here in heartbeats.”
Ho sighed. “If I die, the witch dies. As soon as you mentioned her name a blade was at her bony old throat.” Molly stared gimlet at Uncle Ho and he grinned. “Alright, little demon. I like your deal. I'll give you what you ask, but I want the benefit of your unnatural talents first. My Red Hand has rivals for power here. The Dragons. The Blood Dowsers. The Sons of Samson. You're going to kill them for me. All of them. Not one, not ten, but all of them. Once my enemies are cut up in pieces like the poor Bow Enders and all of Wrecks' Landing is mine, then I'll give you Pietra Fona.”
“I want to see her,” Molly said. “Before I fight. Now.”
“Agreed,” Uncle Ho said, “But... if I smell betrayal,” Ho said, “or see mercy stay your hand against my enemies, then I'll kill the Stitchlife Fona and all you'll get from me is her witchy bones.”
Fin Singh's ghost smiled in the corner of Molly's eye.
*****
Ho's guards locked the tower's outer doors behind them and led Molly down narrow, metal-walled corridors. Every surface had been brushed thickly with the same moonlight paint she'd seen on the ceiling of the Rekki Maru's bow end. The light it cast made everyone look bloodless.
Before the guards unlocked the cabin where Pietra Fona was kept, they told Molly not to get any ideas about escape. “If you kill us,” they told her with blued, devil's faces, “then they'll never open the outer doors until you starve to death.”
“And if you kill the men outside the tower,” the second one added, “then we'll lock and bar the tower's doors from the inside, and you won't ever get in. And we have instructions to kill the witch if you try it.”
“So be a good girl,” the blue-faced guard said. At the end of a dim hallway, he spun a wheel set in the middle of a door. Then he pushed it open on shrieking hinges and shoved her inside. The door shut tight behind Molly with a metallic clang, and she heard the wheel spin and lock her inside.
The only light came from the living paint, a few helio blooms, and a crack where a thin vine had burst the riveted seam of the tower's metal wall. It reminded Molly of Vora's shelter under the ruins, but although she recognized some of the same vines and queer, living equipment as she'd seen in Vora's underground lab, here everything was covered with fine dust and particolor molds. Instead of humming with life and effort, this room was still as a grave.
Against the far wall was a cot, and as Molly approached, she saw the frail figure on it was older than Molly had ever imagined a person could be. The wrap of her skin was loose, and veins showed through her paleness. Her hands were crossed on her chest atop a long white coat like Vora's, but so much older, worn smooth, dirty with time. Her bones were everywhere on her, and over her face and hands there was almost no flesh. There seemed to be so little between her bones and the world outside her body that the yellowed, cracked bone wreath on her thin-haired head just seemed like part of her skeleton.
Pietra Fona's eyes opened like ageless jewels, gleaming with light. “Hello, Molly,” her thin voice said, “With their tip-tapping dance, the wasps told me you were coming, and I've been expecting you.” She smiled.
When Molly heard the hum-buzzing and felt the wing-beaten air on her cheek, tingling alarm shot through her body. She tried to speed herself and dodge the wasp's stinger-stab, but somehow the wreath kept her moving as slow as the rest of the world. Molly felt the sting in her neck and the poison in her veins.
It was different this time. First, she was dizzy. “Sit, Molly,” the voice said. Molly found herself sitting on the edge of the cot with the old woman suddenly standing over her. “Lay back, dear child,” the voice said, “and rest now. Sleep.”
*****
Molly awoke to see Pietra Fona's jeweled skull looking down at her. She held Vora's wreath in one bony hand, lifted Molly's head with the other, and placed Vora's wreath on Molly's head again. “I'm sorry I took the wreath,” she said. “I needed to see what was inside it.”
“You could have just asked me for it,” Molly said. “I came here to bring it to you.”
“I'm sorry. I didn't know that until after I'd taken it.”
Molly sat up, took in Pietra Fona's ancient face and spindle thin limbs and asked, “How old are you?”
“I'm two hundred years old. Give or take.”
“But how?”
“Telomerase chain extension. Witches all rewrite themselves to live longer. Like Vora rewrote you for speed.”
“Do... Did you know Vora?”
“I was her teacher until I ran away and left the Hales.”
“Why did you leave?”
“I decided that serving the Hales only served the nobles' power.” She chuckled and shook her head. “It seems that when Vora saw Sugar Music, she decided the same thing.”
“Why do they keep you locked-up?” Molly asked. “Are you a monster?” The question made Pietra Fona chuckle.
“I'm here because I was naïve,” the witch said.
“What does that mean?”
“It means that when this place was raising itself from the dirt I thought I would come here and make it a great city – the city that marked the beginning of a new age for mankind. But I never considered that the nature of men is the same everywhere. Nobles, common men, it doesn't matter; they crave power. To the endless string of men like Uncle Ho, the strong who rose to rule the weak, I was only a tool, a means to gain more power. I resisted, and instead of weapons, I gave them the living paint that lights this ship. I gave them tools to heal and crops that grow in the worst conditions. I made the copper-blood lizards that dot the meadows and swamps with endogenous lights and snatch malarial anopheles in clouds from the night.” Pietra Fona made a buzzing noise like a fly. Then, her ancient tongue whip-spit and retracted. She swallowed, rubbed her belly, and laughed.
“The glowsies!” Molly exclaimed. “You made the glowsies!”
“Yes, I made those unnatural, hot-blooded lizards. They continue to breed?” the Stitchlife asked. Molly nodded. “I'm the one that crafted the bacteria to make methane gas from the thinnest of feed and waste. They were happy with that gift because it could be sold, but what the gangster warlords really wanted from me was the same thing my noble masters had. They wanted weapons, monsters, and modifications to make them invulnerable to their enemies and help them gain power. When I refused to give the Red Hand's leader the speed he wanted, he locked me away. Here. They tortured me, starved me, hurt others in front of me. They tried everything they could to make me give them what they wanted. But I refused. Why am I under lock and key? Because I refused to serve Power.” She chuckled and sighed. “So here I have rotted for a century, growing older and older while my dreams for a new, bright world lifted high by Kitty Hawk's craft languished here with me.” Then she smiled and said, “Until now. Until Vora. Until Sugar Music. Until you came, Molly.”
“Vora showed me a little city she made, but everything went wrong and then crumbled to sand.”
“Vora Mbuntu was a brilliant Stitchlife, but I left the Hales before I taught her everything I knew. There are secrets I never revealed to her.”
“Like what?” Molly asked.
“I met Kitty Hawk when I was almost as young as you. She was old like I am now. The Witch whispered secrets to me. Secrets she didn't tell the others. She said she didn't trust them, but she trusted me. Yes, with what Kitty Hawk whispered to me, I can make Sugar Music work. At full-scale, too. I only need some time to grow the first seed.”
“That's wonderful.” Molly smiled and Pietra didn't.
“The mnemonic constructs inside the wreath told me about the deal you made with the devil Ho and what you agreed to do for him.” She shook her head and took a long slow breath and a sigh. Then, she rose and said, “Sleep, Molly. You're going to need all your strength.”
Just after Molly closed her eyes, Pietra Fona warned her that killing five hundred men might drive her mad. Molly pretended she was already asleep and wondered how much the General had told the old witch about her.
Chapter Twelve
Dragons and Silver-Tongued Snakes
Fin Singh sent his second-in-command North to raid a timber town with his men. He told Hassam to wear Juan Chang's red cloak and to play the part of the Red-Cloaked Rider, the Populist guerrilla fighter turned bandit. Hassam seemed pleased as if he thought he'd been promoted.
Singh told him that he was returning to the Hales' enclave to report the loss of Sugar Music in person, but once he was gone from sight, he took his galloping carriage Southeast. Its hooves beat against the mud of the rolling-hilled 'Fills all the way to the banks of the gray-green river, to what was left of the Zabbas' camp. As the carriage followed the river's meander South to the city, Fin Singh donned a helm and took to the sky.
He felt air swelling under his wide wings, tickling his fan-spread tail feathers, and rushing between his curved talon-toes as he soared. Helm-linked to Vargas Hale's Thunderbird, he saw through raptors' eyes and looked down to survey Wrecks' Landing from high above. He eyed the four ships set in the midst of the city below – broken-hulled, dead giants around which the little brick buildings had sprung up like grave-mound flowers. The Rekki Maru sat near the city's center, and as the bird circled above it, Fin Singh watched the walls of its aft tower. Uncle Ho has her, he thought. She's there. They both are.
His spies had once heard a rumor that the Stitchlife who'd betrayed the Hales over a century ago ended up in the Red Hand's hold. He'd kept the secret for himself, hoping to use it one day for his own advantage. His construct, stolen from the Archive, trapped in Vora Mbuntu's wreath, and twisted to her goals knew it, too.
Fin Singh laughed out loud, and the raptor's cry cut the air above the city. It was partly the pleasure of soaring flight that moved him, but it was mostly because he couldn't believe his luck. Once he took Sugar Music for himself, he'd need his own Stitchlife to perfect it, and Molly had brought the two things he needed together for him.
