Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
THE JUDGMENT
Scarcity had taken us far over the windswept plains, but not far enough. I’d heard the human’s thought in my mind as clearly as if she’d whispered it in my ear.
Sooty.
The nickname the humans had given me. I’d tried to hate them.
Tried to turn a blind eye to their plight.
I knew what I was…I was their undoing. Why should I care what happened to them?
But I’d watched them too long. Witnessed those rare moments of grace in the face of loss and anguish.
Even now, I fought the urge to settle the storm, release the roots struggling below me, spare the animals whose breaths were numbered.
Humans made mistakes. They were children here to fail and learn.
And what did I do? What did all four of us do?
We made it worse. Everything—every disaster, every calamity that befell them—we made it worse.
And why? Because we wanted our wandering to end.
When the rapture came, our agonizing existence would be over.
Our selfishness compounded these mortals’ woes and God did nothing about it.
Sooty.
She’d called to me and here I was standing before her, trapped by her heavenly gaze.
I’d released Mercy from her pursuer. She was free to run back to her life.
I pointed the way for her. Why wasn’t she running?
Surely, my marred and battered human form was not enough to tempt her.
What held her here in this moment with me?
Something on her perfect face changed. An arm fastened around my neck. Before I could react, I was ripped from my feet. Mercy screamed.
The Cheat scrambled on top of me like a mindless crab.
He rained a fist down on me, and another.
His feeble attempts would injure my human form, but not me.
With each blow, my disguise slipped away.
My true visage stretched and pulled at the space around me.
This mortal was a distraction. I gripped him by his throat.
Tendons squished beneath my fingers. Bones bent.
I pushed to my feet and changed my shovel back to scales.
The unearthly figure with the flowing black hair raised the scales with one thinly muscled arm.
With the other he held Raymond off the ground by his neck.
The pans heated to a golden glow. Sparks trailed on the wind.
The eerie gleam lit the stranger’s sunken features.
Pale eyes, bony cheeks, a mouth drawn in a cruel line.
The man looked near to starvation, yet somehow radiated strength.
His fierce jaw clenched and then I saw it—the resemblance.
This otherworldly specter who had appeared from the depths of the storm looked very much like Sooty—if the digger had grown a foot taller, and exchanged his tattered clothes for armor.
Sooty’s hair was not that long and his eyes did not hold the same intensity.
But the battered nose was the same. I could practically see the indentations of old man Berringer’s knuckles on the bridge of the stranger’s nose.
Slowly, the scales tipped as though a great weight had been placed on one side. I could see both pans were empty, but something substantial filled the far pan. Something leaden, hulking, and weightier than stone.
“Mortal, you have been weighed.”
Raymond kicked the air and clawed at the stranger’s grip.
“The wheat you have stolen, the money you have not paid, your deceptions and fraud have sealed your fate.”
Raymond’s eyes bulged. His mouth worked for air he could not breathe.
“You shall know the hunger you have caused. You shall feel the misery you visited on your brethren.”
With that the wraith tossed Raymond to the ground. Dust piled against him as he flailed on the river stones. He gripped his throat, his stomach. Raymond’s pale cheeks hollowed. His shaking hands withered as he reached for me. He pleaded with eyes that sank into his skull.
What could I do?
Raymond was a horrible person, but did he deserve this?
“You have been judged.” The words rode the wind, shook the ground I stood on.
I stole another look at the fearsome creature. Sooty, but not Sooty. The digger had quoted enough bible verses to know that only God could truly judge a man. This was wrong. If Sooty was in there, he knew this was wrong.
“Please.” I forced the word past my fear.
The stranger turned to me. Gravity pulled and pushed. My body swayed with the contrary forces. Terror filled my head with wordless wailing, but something in his eyes rode above my fright. It slipped past my panic and whispered my name.
Mercy.
The mind talk hummed through me.
I am here. You called to me, and I am here.
Heavenly Father, had I summoned such a creature? My thoughts raced back to my bedroom, to the terror, to Raymond looming over me. I’d called for Granma. And…I’d called for Sooty.
Raymond choked and coughed. I tore my gaze from the armored man and looked down to see Raymond shoveling sand into his mouth with skeletal hands. Even the howling wind could not blot out the grinding of grit against teeth.
“Please, you can’t do this.” I fell to my knees next to the hollowed husk Raymond had become. I hated him, but I hated the look of madness on his haggard face more. “Please, stop.”
“Back away from him, Mercy. Brother Death comes.”
My name. He said my name again.
“Sooty?”
The thin man lowered his arm. The scales darkened.
“Is it you?” I asked the question, but I could already feel the answer. As my mind raced back over our acquaintance, I realized the digger had never truly passed for human. Some part of me had known it all along.
This strange new version of Sooty looked down at me and gave a slow nod.
Raymond convulsed.
“No.” Tears fought their way through the dust collecting on my lashes. “Sooty, this is not God’s will. This is murder.”
He seemed struck by my words, but not swayed. The invisible weight which had filled his scales pressed on my heart.
“He is a sinner, but doesn’t he deserve forgiveness too?” And then I remembered it—a bible quote I’d heard Sooty whisper once down by the train tracks after the market had closed for the day. “Blessed are the merciful, for they will be shown mercy.”
Something moved behind the tall man’s eyes. Was there mercy in him? There was mercy in Sooty. I knew it.
“You wish me to spare him?”
I nodded, speechless beneath his penetrating gaze.
“Have you looked into his mind? Have you seen what he intended for you? What he will, no doubt, attempt again?”
I staggered. How could this thin, looming shadow of a man know about the conjure? How had he heard me call for help? Was he listening to me now?
I nodded in answer to his question. The conjure had given me a door into Raymond’s repulsive thoughts.
“Please, Sooty.” I fought for breath to speak. “For me.”
I reached for the man’s hand. I touched his fist where it clenched the handle of the scales.
Power. Deep, drowning. Sparking with primordial purpose.
I saw him riding endlessly, scouring the planet, seeking the hungry places.
I watched him judging, weighing, warning, and wreaking ruin.
Civilizations came and went. So much suffering.
So much loneliness. His soul, once filled with certainty and righteousness, now curled around his own isolation.
In the long span of his life, he’d rarely known companionship.
He’d met his three siblings off and on, but never all at once.
He’d tried to find succor in the arms of humans but he’d starved any mortal he’d dared to touch.
Even those with the conjure. Waste, decay, surrender… famine.
I’d wondered when I’d first laid eyes on him if this was how I would end, but now I saw that this was how so many had ended and how so many more would. He was hunger. He was death. He was hungry death.
I ripped my hand away from his and backed away. My feet stumbled over rocks and drifting sand.
“Mercy.” My name again on his fearsome lips. Heartbreak, anguish, razor sharp longing—all of these emotions and so many more swam inside the oblivion of his eyes.
“I know who you are.”
Beneath my armor, in the empty cavity of my chest where heart and lungs had not been placed, my breath stopped.
Sweet Mercy searched my face, my torso, my long limbs. For the first time, I felt weighed. Somehow my entire worth teetered in the scales of this small human’s gaze.
What does it matter? The question rang hollow. After so long with no one but Scarcity to ease my loneliness. After thousands of years observing, but never partaking. And now to have found one singular person who could withstand my nearness. It meant my undoing.
“Speak what is in your mind,” I whispered and calmed the gusts. The dust settled around us in gentle veils.
“You are a Horseman,” she rasped. The words shook as she spoke them.
“You are Famine.” The glow left her pale cheeks.
Very few had named me. My two brothers, my sister, a handful of humans throughout the ages and, last year, the old man named Berringer.
He had figured out my identity just after I’d taken all that he loved.
He’d thrown a punch at my nose that had crushed his hand.
A brave soul. Lost in sorrow, but brave nonetheless.
Brother Death had come for him soon after.
Berringer had welcomed him. I’d buried the old man behind his house.
Death had not understood. He felt no pity for God’s children. No responsibility for their demise.
I stared at the woman as the ruby and gold strands of her hair settled around her shoulders. Her plump bottom lip quivered. Her pale-brown eyes swam with tears.
“You are here to kill us all,” she whispered.
My legs shook. My heart banged against my ribs. A buzzing silence stuffed my ears with cotton. I’d gotten so used to hearing the wind’s howling that its removal left a deafening quiet in my head.