Justice: Part 2

This story is fan-fiction made in the Grimdark Future universe, by One Page Rules.

When Sika had finally finished her meal, the hum shifted again. “Now,” the monk spoke, “you are from the Colony of New Holden, yes? Why don’t you tell us what has caused you to brave such a difficult climb? We did not choose this mountain for its accessibility.”

“My father said it was because you didn’t want anyone from New Holden visiting you who did not need to,” Sika said through a mouth half-full of fowl flesh. She chewed quickly and swallowed a gulp of juice. “So you are not plagued with people begging you for help.”

The giant’s head twisted back and forth like a dog. “Your father is close to the truth of it. You must have a great need to have climbed so far…and a dark one, to seek us.”

Sika set the flagon down. She stared at the misshapen giant, watching as the skin-flaps of its face waved gently in the air like flower petals. In the span of mere minutes, the certainty she had felt while climbing the mountain had begun to show cracks of doubt. Twice she opened her mouth to speak, only to realize no words would come.

After a moment, the giant tossed its head again. “I can guess your hesitation. You have never seen a monk such as I.”

“No ma’am…or is it sir?” Sika stumbled over her uncertainty.

“Neither, anymore,” the giant slowly waved back and forth like an ancient tree in a firm wind. “I am the eldest of all the monks here, and have been blessed with a form befitting my status. You may simply call me Bishop.”

“My grandfather told me stories,” Sika muttered. They had been an odd mix of horrific and exhilarating, stories of being given a breathing mask by his parents and sent to his room early. Looking out his bedroom window and seeing the yellow-green clouds filling the streets, pouring out of mortar shells and shatter-grenades. A steady and inexorable wall of shambling flesh and bone that set the Tyrant’s soldiers running in fear. Lumbering beasts taller than the tallest person, carving through attack-jeeps and APCs like paper. Lithe monsters leaping from shadows and vanishing again just as quickly.

“Ah,” for the first time since Sika had entered the room, the speaking monk shifted, turning to glance at the Bishop. The giant didn’t move. “Grandfather? He must have been young when the Thousand Hands came to your settlement. A young child’s memories are hardly an unimpeachable source…”

“He called you heroes,” she said. “A kind of divine justice on the Tyrant and his cruelty.”

“As I said,” the monk sounded sad, “your grandfather saw us as a child would.” The monk shifted again, her skin shifting under her robe. After a moment, she lifted a club-like hand to her chest. “This one was a soldier of the Tyrant, many years ago, before being reborn to us.”

Sika looked back and forth between the monk and the Bishop. “You were?” She leaned forward in spite of herself.

“Yes,” the monk’s face looked somehow sad in spite of its stoic demeanor. “…The memories are still quite clear. The things this one did were…quite horrible.”

“You…are still you?” Sika asked.

The monk’s face rippled like boiling tar. “It is…difficult to explain to one who is not of us. Am I still me? You seem to be nearing your seventeenth year, but you were once only ten. Only five. Only two. Are you still you? This body, this…flesh has changed. It houses not only the flesh of what I once was, but the body of the Thousand Hands as well. The thoughts that fill this head are born from memories both of the body’s past and the past of the strain. We hear the song of the Thousand Hands, and we are changed by it.”

“So…” Sika stopped, not certain what her question actually was. She thought for a moment, listening to the Bishop’s humming, before she realized it wasn’t a question she had, but a need. She took a deep breath. “I want justice.”

“Hmm…” The giant’s head rolled. “Justice is indeed one of the tenants of the Thousand Hands, but it is a difficult thing. We have discussed justice with the Legion, the Blessed Sisters, the Hives, even the Protectorate, on the few opportunities we’ve had. Sometimes justice is no more than vengeance, other times it is enforcement of a social contract. Always there is punishment. it is a cosmic justice; a balancing of the universe, not individuals.”

Sika looked down at her plate. It wasn’t vengeance she wanted, she knew that. She wasn’t the injured party, not really. It was her brother who had lost a piece of himself, somewhere in that temple. It was he who looked at her with pity instead of love, like she was some kind of pet instead of her dear older sister. Hot tears sprang to her eyes as she remembered that night, so many years ago, now, when she had stood by his crib and placed her hand on his tiny chest, feeling his shaky breath. She remembered telling him…no, not telling; he was too young to understand anything she was saying, and asleep besides…it must have been a prayer. Not a prayer to any Gods or Goddesses, but to the person her younger brother might one day become, that she would love him and do everything to protect him and make him happy, if only he would live long enough to become a man.

“My brother,” she began, choking on the words, “he has a girl. She seemed nice at first, but now she has become cruel. She treats my brother like a child and our family like a chain. She drags him to secret gatherings where they drink foul water and…do things to each other.”

The hum wavered, undulating in the air like a fish in water. The giant’s head tipped forward, its bladed teeth parting in what could have been a horrible smile. “Your brother would not be the first male to cast aside his life for the sake of a warm soft body to lie against, nor will he be the last.”

“But he’s changed too,” Sika protested. “He used to love us as dearly as any family, and now he spits on us. He scorns our mother and father’s trade, saying he would rather die than live a life repairing machines. He used to love searching the junkyards with me, and now he wants only to eat and drink and dance. This woman corrupted him, I was sure of it.”

“Everyone changes, my dear,” the monk’s placid voice was now kind but firm. “Your brother will change again into someone new, just as you will, just as all the Thousand Hands have,” the giant tossed its head, “though perhaps you will not change as drastically.” There was a pause, and then the monk spoke again. “Forgive me. ‘was sure,’ you said?”

“I was,” Sika took a deep breath, “so I followed them. I waited and watched outside our home, so I saw her coming to take him. He crept out of his window, and they ran off to the old woods. I kept after them, and they met with others, men and women of all ages. There were children there! They sang and danced and ate and…I don’t know how long they reveled, but it was more than just a gathering. The songs had strange words, and there were six fire-pits. In each one, there was an iron sigil, a symbol of two flowers. Naked people walked between the fires, throwing bones and liquids and other things into the flames. It was a ritual of some-kind, I know it! A cult has claimed my brother for their own, taking him from his rightful family! They stole him, and I want justice!”

The hum rose in strength and pitch. the giant reared back to point its jaws at the ceiling while the fleshy petals closed around them. “Ah. Child, I think you have the right of it.”

Sika was only briefly surprised at the Bishop’s sudden reversal, but she did not question it. “Then, you will help me?”

“Perhaps,” the monk said. “Though you may not see it that way. Or perhaps you will, and be grateful to us. It does not matter, I’m afraid, and your brother will have to make his own choice.”

Sika blinked. “What do you mean?”

Slowly, like a tree uprooting itself, the giant stood upright. Now that Sika could see how tall the Bishop was, it was truly terrifying. Almost as tall as her home, the monster towered over her as its jaws opened and the hum became a thundering roar. The air turned greasy and foul. She could feel the electricity as sounds of hurried activity echoed from elsewhere in the monastery.

“We are a faithful people,” the monk said, reaching out a gnarled club-like hand to Sika, “and we are not ignorant of other faiths. We have made many agreements throughout the years, with many different people. I am afraid you have made us aware of a broken agreement, and for that, dear girl, we will have justice.”