When June and Hank emerged from the interior, something shrieked above them, the dark clouds obscuring the source of the cry.
Not that June needed to see them. “They know we’re here.” Witness had remained within. He had told June that he would meet them on the top.
“Yeah,” Hank said. “June, maybe I can take over. I mean, I’ve been—“
Wordlessly, June held out the spear. Hank took it, but then started straining as June relaxed her arms. Moments later, the thick, wooden shaft was pulling Hank down, until June took it away from him.
“Holy—What is that thing made of?” Hank murmured.
June stared at it. “Lost hope,” she said. “I can feel it… Teacher taught me a little, but it wants us to hear its story. The first time it was used, it didn’t even have a sharp tip—some desperate saurian grabbing a length of wood and not putting it back down when the moment had passed. The first tool. The very first tool.”
June shook her head. What would the world have looked like if you hadn’t been killed? And how unjust is the universe that you—we—were killed before we could reach our full potential?
Another cry shook the air, and June looked up. “Let’s go.”
Hank nodded, and they headed to the last flight of stairs, heading for the top of the ziggurat. June looked down at the steps. In the living world, they’d been made of baked mud bricks. Here it was obsidian, seeming to pull the dim light out of the air. But even there June could see the impression of ancient feet, claw marks where a saurian had passed before the mud had dried.
“They must have worked on this, fixing it after every rain, or when too many people had passed over it. For thousands of years.”
“June?”
“Just thinking about what it took to give this structure the kind of strength to endure in the Memory Lands.”
“Yeah. Don’t get too glum about it. Remember where we are.”
“Right.” June nodded and looked away from the steps. Above them, there was the hint of things moving. They know where I am. But the memory was of fighting on the top of the structure, proving herself. They wouldn’t attack June here, and June couldn’t just stay here. She had to go confront them.
It took a few minutes longer to get to the top of the structure, and there June paused for a moment.
When they’d approached the ziggurat, it had been in the center of the valley, the walls of the valley rising up around it.
Now? Now June could look down and see the valley, and beyond it, the graveyards and the rest of Darktown—and beyond that, the bright lights of the City.
Because once this ziggurat was the tallest artificial structure in the world. June stomped her foot down once. She could feel it. The ancient valley, Darktown, the graveyards… they had crystallized around this structure.
But not just because of despair. Now June could feel it. There was a core here, a determination born of the last moments of a species, a determination that it would not surrender. Around her, June saw the images. Saurians, young saurians, standing and holding spears in their long, delicate hands. Tails lashing in both anticipation and fear, wondering if they would come down as an adult to join the tribe—or be brought down as an adult to be placed in the gardens of memory. The only way you could fail to be an adult in the eyes of the People was to fail to make the attempt.
The memories pressed in on her and June looked up to the sky, raised the spear and gave a long, challenging cry.
This was how they did it. The eaters of the air weren’t afraid of this place, because the People were forbidden to kill them anywhere near the ziggurat, or interfere with their eating… June smelled strange scents, scents no human nose could have detected, and looked down at her hands. A mixture of feathers and scales adorned her skin and her fingers were now long, sharp talons.
June took a breath and pulled herself away from those endless, deep memories. I am June, and these are just memories. They will not make me theirs. June felt the pull of the memories lessen slightly. She put her will against them, remembering summer days and movies and first kisses. I am a memory-worker, and you serve me!
And then, with an almost palpable snap, June was free of the temptation. She summoned the memories, calling the speed and strength of long-dead saurians to her, but she was now using those memories, instead of being subsumed by them.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
And then, with deafening shrieks, her enemies dropped from the overcast sky.
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Before she had died, June hadn’t had a serious fight in all of her life. After all, if you needed serious help, you called 911. Of course, even the police had died to the plague, as fast as anyone else.
Now, she knew what to do, memories of the dead filling her mind and muscles. The first ‘angel’ was all twisted limbs, inhumanly long teeth keeping it from closing its mouth. June could see scales and feathers on its body, a sign that the memories of this place were influencing it as well.
Good. It wasn’t a memory-worker and was as much at the mercy of those memories as it was using them. June raised her spear, the copper tip gleaming with the remembered light of the sun from those long-ago days. She waited until it was nearly touching her, its hands outstretched, slaver flying from its mouth—
And then she moved, ducking under the attack, dust rising from where she stepped. June spun to the right, evading a slash from clawed fingers, then ducked under the monster as it tried to bite her mouth off.
She thrust the spear into its chest, the tip pushing through and then emerging from its back. The twisted figure’s roar was louder than anything June had heard in her life or after. She spun around, remembering how it had been done in the past, slamming the figure down on the ground, avoiding its failing claws, and then sent the memory into it.
Die. This is your death!
The creature wailed and then… dissolved. Skin turned black and rotten, before falling off the bones, even as the bones turned white, as if they’d been in a desert for a thousand years, and then they dissolved into dust.
What—did I kill it? Really kill it?
June stared, stunned. It was hard to end something in the Memory Lands and—
“June!” Hank’s shout came just in time as the second twisted angel shot down, shrieking in rage. June dove to the side, rolling frantically as the monster’s talons tore furrows in the floor. Then Hank leaped up, a switchblade in his hand, and slashed down, cutting deeply into its back. It spun around, body now flickering, memories seeming to change skin to feathers to scales, and kicked Hank across the top of the ziggurat, almost knocking him over the side as he frantically scrambled to his feet.
But that gave June the opportunity she needed. She charged her assailant and slashed down with the spear, amputating the monster’s left arm. It howled in fury and charged her, but June dodged it, and then slammed the tip of the spear into its back, before she forced it down and pinned it to the surface of the ziggurat like a butterfly.
It thrashed and howled, as its form started to dissolve, much like its companion had. Then it stopped struggling.
“Mary?” it said, and then lay still as it turned to dust.
June pulled the spear out and stared at it. I think I just killed two beings. If you had no memories to hold on to…
You could cease. But there had to be nothing left—or almost nothing. What had that ritual done to them? What was it doing to Mom!?
“Well done. You’re now an adult.” Witness had just appeared on the platform, tilting his head as he stared at June. “How do you feel?”
June glanced over at Witness and shook her head. “Worried. I didn’t realize you could lose all your memories like that.”
“Something you must investigate.” Witness paused. “I am happy about this. It has been some time since the old ways were honored here.”
Honored here… June blinked and stared at Witness. “This isn’t just a building, it is. It’s also part of your body. Witness.”
“You are wise, June. But it is time to leave.” Witness glanced to the side, staring at the bright lights of the city. “You may have beaten your pursers, but Darktown will still seek to thwart you. Fortunately, you have a tool.”
June looked down at the spear. It felt natural in her hand. “But this was yours.”
“And I still have it.” Witness raised one hand, and a duplicate appeared. “But you have used the spear, conducted the rites, and triumphed. Its memory, in part, comes to you, Memory-Worker.”
“Oh, that’s why you didn’t think I could help,” Hank said.
“In part. But equally, June shall need assistance if she is to solve this problem.” With that, Witness made a curious dipping motion with his head. “I have stood against time, against the erasure of our memory, but I remember the days after the Great Death. Something very much like this happened back then…”
“What?”
“Not all who are lost are willing to tolerate other’s who are not lost.” Witness stared at June. “But remember this, ultimately the choice to return to the lands of memory, rather than seek oblivion, is an individual’s choice. You cannot force it.”
“I… I understand.”
“Then go, Memory-Worker.”
June nodded. “So, ready to head back to the city that wants to kill us?”
Hank rolled his eyes. “It doesn’t want to kill us.”
“Right, worse than kill us.” June shook her head. “Thank you, Witness.”
“Thank you, my child, you have given me much to remember.” Witness tilted his head. “It is… Good that thought returned to the earth, even if it did not endure. Perhaps you shall one day speak to other’s who have come to know memory and thought.”
June opened her mouth, but then Witness just vanished into the air.
“Guess that’s our cue,” Hank said.
“Yeah,” June looked out over the crater of the dead and dying jungle, then to the far away lights of the city. “Let’s go back home. I have some things to do.”