Deeplight

by Frances Hardinge

Fear is an essence, as real as oil or blood. The gods breathed it—had you never heard that?”

It was an ugliness and otherness that could only be holy, a breach of the rules that echoed those that no rules could bind. The ancient, sacred buildings aspired to that sublime distortion. Frecht transcended beauty and carried you into a realm of awe and terror. It demanded your slavish devotion.

“They say his dome rippled like silk, shot with a thousand colors,” continued Vyne. “They say he had a scream so beautiful it broke people’s minds. Though that doesn’t make much sense, if you think about it. Who was unbroken enough to report it?

On Hark’s “morning off,” a searing white sun fought the film of white cloud. The wind was restless, and from the cliff top Hark could see a fine frill of pale crests lining each wave on the dark silver sea.

Whenever I leave you to yourself, you get like this. All these weird ideas push up in your head like weeds. Takes ages to pull ’em up so that you start making sense again.” For some reason, his words chilled Hark more than the shock of the water. The day no longer seemed so bright. They’re not weeds, Jelt. They’re thoughts. And they’re mine.

Was it always this way? Did Hark start to get ideas of his own when Jelt was away, ideas that Jelt took pains to kill as soon as he got back?

As they took up their paddles again, Hark tried to smother an uneasy nagging resentment of Jelt. You’re not allowed to go places he can’t go, said a small voice in his head. You’re not allowed to have things he can’t have. You’re not even allowed to think things he can’t think.

Cuz he’s trash. The while trash bag!

I’m bigger when I’m around Jelt, sang the little voice in Hark’s head. I’m better. I do things I’d never even try if I was by myself.

Like getting arrested like potentially dying coo

Everybody in the Myriad knew in their gut that true power could only come from something twisted.

I’m not broken! she continued, her brow creased with frustration. I’m not crazy! I’m just not stupid like everyone else! I stopped going into the sea so it couldn’t kill me!

The only other person who seemed to be miserable about the entire healing racket was the Sanctuary boy. Talking to him was like trying to grip an eel, though. Selphin always ended up threatening him and wanting to hit him with rocks.

She could imagine it pumping its dark energies through air, rock, and flesh, rippling them as it did so. She visualized veins slowly blackening, minds twisting, bodies subtly melting and morphing. It was a poison none of her friends could taste or see, and it was changing them all, inch by inch.

If I’m not me, I’m dead. Selphin’s signs were bold and clear. Still my body, but someone else. Nobody knows I’m gone, but I am.

Do you think I’m stupid? demanded Selphin angrily. Your lump of evil is always adding new things to people without asking! It’s always changing people so they’re how it wants them. I’ve watched it changing my friends—people I’ve known all my life!

“But . . . what if I change so much I turn into somebody else?” Hark blurted out. “Then I’m not me anymore, am I?” “A very philosophical question for someone who has just woken up!” retorted Quest. There was an intrigued glint in his eye, however. “Perhaps you need to work out which parts of yourself are essential to your nature. Who are you? What aspects of yourself would you fight to protect, as if you were fighting for your life?”

“You are still young,” Quest said phlegmatically. “You will find out who you are when your choices test you. In the end, we are what we do and what we allow to be done.”

“Change is a lot more frightening when you are older,” Quest continued, conversationally. He did not look afraid. If anything, he seemed slightly wistful. “Gradually, gradually, your body lets you down. You reach a certain age . . . and almost every change is bad news. Bulletins from the front in a war you are losing. At your age, you are still asking yourself: Who should I be? I must ask myself: Did I manage to be the person I wanted to be, in the end? And how many chances do I have left to be that person?” Of course, Hark did have urgent reasons to be afraid of dying, but he understood that there was a difference. Hark was facing danger; Quest was facing inevitability, and facing it with his usual ironic, analytical smile.

it still meant forcing something on her that terrified her.

“I’m not an unbeliever!” snapped Kly. He was reddening now with embarrassment and annoyance. “Just because I don’t worship your . . . rotting, murderous fish-monsters! What’s the point of a god you can pickle?”

Talking to her was like accepting an invitation to someone else’s house, only to find that the walls are made of teeth and all the doors lead to the moon. You realize suddenly that you have not been talking about the same thing, and never could.

“Dolor occasionally let us pull off one of her legs, though that was unpleasant—the bones were hollow and filled with tiny, luminous beetle-like creatures that swam and bit. Kalmaddoth gave us spare eyes, like fat, pearly melons. The Armored Prince would shudder, until one of its pincers shrugged off the hard case of its shell and was left slick and pink—” “I get the idea,” Hark interrupted sharply. He did not want to think of the greater gods surrendering their relics with a terrible meekness, barely understanding why.

“She was human, Hark,” said the old priest. “Once, a very long time ago. All the gods were. At the center of each of them was a twisted core that was once human and the groaning, maddened remains of a human soul.”

“The doctor believes that a human body has an inborn idea of what shape it should be. When it encounters Undersea water or godware, however, it becomes confused about what its ‘true shape’ is. It becomes convinced that its actual shape is wrong and broken, so it tries to heal itself by making itself more like what it now thinks is its true shape. That results in Marks.

Stab the guards in the eye with it, then, Selphin suggested. You’re feral, signed Hark, but he felt his spirits rise a little. Captivity and interrogation didn’t seem to have crushed the smuggler girl’s nerve. You’ve been spying on them?

When they bring us breakfast or come to question us, signed Selphin, we stab them with your fork and we run to the warehouse. Then we smash your relic before they can stop us.

Quest was like a dry rose, a tightly folded knot of old secrets. Every papery petal you pulled away revealed more.

“You must not love them,” said Quest gently. “It is easy to love power, because power tells you it is majesty and beauty and greatness. But the gods were monsters. Do not even love their memory. Hate me if you like for the human deaths I caused. I tried to avoid them, but I knew the risks. I am not a good man. But the gods are dead.”

If he still thinks like Jelt, he’ll want to eat me, explained Hark. It’s . . . been that kind of friendship for a while. You are not allowed to choose your friends anymore, signed Selphin, and Hark couldn’t quite suppress a smile.

“I don’t! There are things you can’t owe anybody!”

Jelt had saved Hark’s life, but that didn’t mean Hark owed Jelt his life. Maybe you couldn’t ever owe somebody your life, not really. You couldn’t let anyone else decide what you did with it. You had to live it yourself, as truly as you could.

“So I can’t let you eat me, Jelt. Maybe I am a bubble, wanting to dance off and live my own life. But I don’t want you to vanish, either. You were my friend, my hero, my brother, and soon I’ll be the only person who really remembers you. Once I’m dead, you’re gone, too. Not even a memory left. “I’m not your friend anymore, Jelt. I’m your storykeeper.”

I have even tried to guess how many more would have been killed by the gods or murdered as sacrifices over the last thirty years, if I had not done what I did . . . but that is self-deception. You cannot justify an atrocity with mathematics. Is a terrible deed ever worth it for the greater good? I am sure those Leaguers thought so when they were building that god. Am I any better than them? I cannot say. All I know is that I could not bear to do nothing about the gods, and I could not think of anything else to do.”

Maybe sometimes there isn’t a right thing to do. Maybe there’s just lots of wrong answers, and you have to pick one you can bear—something that doesn’t break who you are.

I beat you again, she told the sea, her beloved enemy. We saved everyone from you, and we survived. I’ll keep beating you, you’ll see. I won’t let you kill me. But you can’t make me live in fear of you, either.