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Pretty Noose

Chapter 1

Christ on the Cross

My name is Andronicus Io. I am a poet, historian, and foot solider in Caesar's XXV Legion. Though I've fought bravely in many battles, when faced with certain death, I deserted my post. For my cowardice, my centurion had me crucified.

Now my broken body hangs upon a wooden cross.

The sun is setting far in front of me. A giant ball of fire. I stare directly at it, letting it burn itself into my retinas. My chest aches. Each breath, agony. Slaves used to tell me you suffocate from crucifixion. I never understood why, until now.

I look over at my hands. They're lashed to the bleached wood, not nailed to it. I don't know why. The legion's lands are rich in iron and ash-choked from the fires of thousands of smelters. Maybe it's just to elongate my suffering. I'm in too much pain to think about it further. A cool wind rolls over the hills and blows against my sunburned skin.

The setting sun, the cool, night wind, the gentle, orange, scrub-capped hills; these will be my last memories. I wish I could have painted this. Preserve my consciousness as scribbles on canvas for everyone to see once I'm forgotten.

I picture a candle being snuffed out by wet fingertips. Its flame reduced to a thin coil of smoke. Then embers. Then nothing. Only its shell, a pale pillar of wax, remains. That candle is me. My shell; my body.

Once I'm extinguished, what's left?

Smoke? Soul? Essence? Anything?

Religion leaves me unconvinced. Caesar's pantheon and the Old World Bible read like fairytales, spun by the dead to keep the living ever-hopeful and obedient. Slaves to an imagined afterlife. There is no bearded man in the sky. No gods. No masters. Just oblivion. An unfathomable state of non-being.

That's why I have to savor the dregs of my life, like I'm doing now. Keep yearning for more, regardless of the pain. If there is a God, my only prayer to Him is to let these final few hours on the cross last an eternity. Let me bask in them. Cherish my consciousness until the moment its gone.

I lower my eyes. My legionary uniform billows in the wind. Red-dyed wool and chainmail, fluttering. Footsteps slowly crunch their way down the gravel road that lies beside my cross.

Another traveler is coming to gape at me.

A tan, hooded shape approaches. A woman in brahmin skins. Most passersby by on this lonely road don't give me a second look. A glance at the cross, a nod of the head, a silent prayer, and they're off again. Some curse the legion and me with it. They pelt me with stones and mole rat dung. One pierced my side with a rusted spear. My ribcage still throbs from the wound, but it's no longer bleeding.

"You were a soldier? You were legion?"

This woman looks unremarkable. Her hood hides all, except for a few wisps of brown hair, and a tiny nose caked in desert grime. I try to answer her, but can't form words. There's too much pressure on my diaphragm.

"Why'd they do this to you?"

This question too, I cannot answer. I want to see her face, but it remains veiled. Her voice echoes in my mind. Its nice to hear a woman's voice. There's something comforting about it. It stirs up a long-forgotten memory of my mother. I can feel her gnarled hands cradling me, callused rock-hard from grinding maize on the grist stone from dusk till dawn.

For a brief moment, I feel like a child. I'd weep, but have no tears left to shed.

The woman below me is wearing a rucksack with a knife-spear looped through it. She frees the spear and comes closer to the cross, using the spear point to probe my bonds.

"You can't talk?"

I try to nod. My neck is too weak, chin locked against my chest. Instead, I nod with my eyes. She looks up at me, and I can finally see her face. Dirt-spattered, olive skin, brown eyes, matted, chestnut hair. Her mouth is crooked. The right corner is much higher than the left. I've always thought that people's faces have a vague resemblance to animals. My centurion looked like a Rottweiler. She looks like a fish.

The woman uses her spear to saw at my restraints, first the ones that are strangling my feet, then those on my right hand. I stay limp, and when my right hand is freed, I lurch forward off the dry wood. My left hand slips out of place, and I come crashing down into the dirt, too tired to speak or move.

The cross seems to have been the only thing holding me together. I feel worse without it, shattered and naked. The woman hovers over me. Things are both hot and cold at once, growing more extreme the closer I come to slipping away. Her voice is the only constant. What she's saying I can't comprehend, but it sounds like my mother singing me a lullaby.

Chapter 2

Kiss the Snake

I wake up in the dirt, lying in the center of a small, brown tent. Its leather walls flap from a gust of wind. My head throbs. I go to sit up but can't move. My arms are tied to metal stakes that have been pounded deep into the dirt.

"Hello?"

The tent is mostly empty. An odd ornament hangs down from the ceiling; a copper hand with a single turquoise eye staring out of its palm. I feel something strange resting on my windpipe. I look down and see that a necklace of yao guai teeth has been looped around my neck. Each sharp tooth is stained with blood.

Two deathclaw horns are mounted upright in the dirt on either side of me, hemming me in. I wonder why they are there.

An altar perhaps?

Am I about to be sacrificed to some savage god?

"Hello?"

This time footsteps answer me. The tent flap rustles and the woman from before ducks inside. She kneels in the dirt and removes her hood. Her dirty hair puffs out. Greasy, tangled curls slowly migrate over chocolate-brown eyes. She looks weatherworn, but not haggard. I'd guess she's no older than thirty.

"Who are you?"

These words I can barely manage. The woman ignores them, and instead, picks a gourd up from the dirt and holds it to my cracked lips. The water that flows out of it is mildly irradiated. I gag at first and then take a few swallows. It burns as it floods my raw throat.

The woman pulls the gourd away and looms over me, staring down at my face with pitiless eyes.

"Why am I tied down? Who are you? What do you want from me?"

"What's your name?"

"Io. Andronicus Io. Who are you?"

"Twil."

I look over at my restraints. "Are you going to untie me, Twil?"

"Not yet." Twil sits down on the dirt. I need to crane my neck to see her. Her eyes narrow, examining my sunburned skin. "Why were you tied to that cross?"

"My centurion had me crucified."

"Why?"

I consider my answer. The tent walls flap. Raindrops tap against them, gently at first. A storm is brewing.

"Cowardice in battle."

My answer gives Twil pause. Her crooked mouth straightens. She wipes her nose and sniffs back mucous. It gurgles in her sinuses.

The sound makes my stomach churn.

"Are you a coward?"

"No." I struggle against my restraints, trying to bring Twil's attention back to them. "Why am I tied down? Why did you free me to tie me up again?"

"I need someone to help me get revenge. Vengeance." Twil bares her teeth as she says the word, clenching them like a rabid dog. "Are you good at fighting with a sword? Have you ever killed before?"

"Yes. But I couldn't fight a bloatfly now. I don't think I can even walk. I'm exhausted."

Twil rummages through her rucksack. She pulls out a fistful of green herbs, what looks like an unripe lemon, and a small, burlap bag. The bag seems to move on its own when she puts it aside. She rubs the herbs together in her hands, reducing them to a pulp. This wad of green gives off a strong, mentholated odor. She proceeds to rub this smelly mush against my chest, arms, and legs.

The salve has a cooling effect on my scorched skin. A bit of the pain melts away. A slight chill rocks my body.

Twil throws the pulp out of the tent and then peels the strange fruit with a paring knife. Its innards glisten. Juicy and blood red.

"You need sugar. Eat this."

This is an order, not a suggestion. She force-feeds a segment of the fruit to me, pushing it onto my tongue. Its incredibly sour. More so than a lemon. My whole face puckers up. I try to spit the fruit out, but she clasps her hand over my mouth until I swallow it. This pattern is repeated until I've eaten the entire fruit.

Once I'm finished, Twil turns her attention back to the burlap bag. She reaches inside and pulls out a black snake. An unfamiliar species of desert viper with a flared, cobra-like head. Its writhes in the air, wiggling desperately.

I despise snakes. A rattlesnake bit me on the leg when I was young. The bite nearly killed me. My hands and feet swelled up until they felt like they were going to burst. I remember my mother sticking by my bedside day and night, keeping vigil over her only child, mumbling prayers to an ancient, unnamed God.

When I see this snake, I reflexively tense. My exhausted muscles spasm in protest, shaking uncontrollably, making my pain even worse.

Twil grasps the snake just under the head. She then dangles it over my exposed abdomen. Its cold tail tickles my skin.

I struggle but can barely move. My heart pounds furiously.

"What are you doing!"

Twil presses the snake's head against my stomach. It opens its mouth and digs thin fangs into my flesh.

I moan in protest but can do nothing else. Twil delicately removes the fangs from my skin, and then drops the snake back into the bag, cinching it shut with some twine.

"Why? Why did you do that? I'll die!"

"The venom won't kill you. You'll just be paralyzed for a while." She begins to unite my hands. "Your muscles are locked up. All tense. The venom will loosen them and knock you out."

I feel the poison tingle as it creeps through my capillaries. What's left of my pain evaporates. So does my vision. Everything blurs and I can hardly see.

Twil uses a cigarette lighter to singe the tip of a small twig. It gives off fragrant smoke. Incense that smells like lavender. As the smoke wafts through the tent, she mumbles to herself. Her words are repetitious. Unintelligible. Some kind of eerie, tribal chant.

I try to move my limbs, but they won't listen to my tired brain. They're dead weight now. Twil continues her mantra in monotone, putting her hood back on, and using the sweet smoke to wash her face. I think of escape, but my eyelids are heavier than mountains.

Within moments, I'm asleep.