Meet Me in the Future by Kameron Hurley

Author:Kameron Hurley [Hurley, Kameron]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Amazon: B07N8CT4Q6
Publisher: Tachyon Publications
Published: 2019-06-27T16:00:00+00:00

“No,” Bet said.

At least Lealez said nothing else.

V.

Bet’s partner, Keleb, too, had retired, but had chosen a canal that acted as a main trading thoroughfare into the city instead of a hard-to-find retreat like Bet’s. It took a day and a half to reach the shoman’s house, and Bet found herself counting down the time in her head. Lealez, too, reminded her of the ticking chirp of time as they poled downriver. The current was sluggish, and the weather was still and hot.

Despite the stillness, Bet smelled the smoke before she saw it. Lealez sat up in per seat and leaned far over the prow, knuckles gripping the edge of the craft.

The guttered ruin of Keleb’s house came into view as they rounded the bend. The shoman had built the house with Bet’s help, high up on a snarl of land that hardly ever flooded. Now the house was a charred wreck.

Bet tied off the pirogue and climbed up the steep bank. She counted three sets of footprints along the bank and around the house. They had stayed to watch it burn.

Bet poked around the still smoking house and found what was left of Keleb’s body, as charred and ruined as the house.

“Help me here,” Bet said to Lealez.

Lealez came up after her. “What can we do?” Lealez said. “The shoman is dead.”

“Not the body I’m here for,” Bet said. She walked off into the wood and chopped down two long poles from a nearby stand of trees. She handed a pole to Lealez. “Help me get the body rolled back, clear the area here.”

Lealez knit per brows, but did as per was told. They heaved over Keleb’s body to reveal a tattered hemp rug beneath. Bet yanked it away and used the pole to lever open a piece of the floor. Peeling back the wood revealed a long, low compartment. Lealez leaned over to get a better look, but it was clearly empty.

Bet sucked her teeth.

“What was here?” Lealez asked.

“The cloak,” Bet said.

“I thought there were two relics, a sword and a shield.”

“That’s because that’s all we reported,” Bet said. “Because we knew this day would come.” Bet saw the edge of a piece of paper peeking out from the bottom of the cache and picked it up. It was another note, made out to her in Hanere’s handwriting.

“What does it say?” Lealez asked.

Bet traced the words and remembered a day thirty years before, rioting in the streets, a plump painter, and a future she had imagined that looked nothing like this one.

Bet crumpled up the note. “It says she will trade me the objects in return for something I love,” Bet said. “Good thing I don’t love anything.”

Nothing but Hanere, of course. But that was a long time ago. Bet hardly felt anything there in the pit of her belly when she thought of Hanere. It was the time in her life she longed for, not Hanere. That was what she told herself.

“What a monster,” Lealez said, staring at Keleb’s charred body.

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