The Custodian, Chapter 4

Gallard

He told the old man he didn’t need to go in with him this time, told him to just open the door and leave. The man looked up at him sheepishly, and lowered his head. “That one there, he tried to kill me. He’s lucky he’s still alive. He should be in restraints, sir, for your own safety.”

Gallard gripped the old man’s arm. “I’m armed, you old fool, and even if I wasn’t, I assure you I can take the kid. Now open the damn door and leave.” The old man nodded, his shaky hand reaching for the sensor on the door.
“And when I say leave, I don’t mean stay just outside. I mean I want you gone to where I can’t see you until you’re needed.”

The doors opened, and he watched the old man walk away, head still down, as if out of habit. He waited until he turned the corner, out of sight and finally walked in.

It felt like a lifetime had passed since he last saw the kid, though he knew damn well it was only two days. Two days and the boy was hiding from him again. Gallard hoped he could take whatever the old mad had done to the kid.

Calton did not face him. Gallard took in the kid’s hands, bound with simple plastic ties, but hard enough to draw blood. He took the knife out of his pocket and walked over, needing to cut those damn things off. The boy didn’t move, didn’t turn to face him either, and Gallard felt that whatever Calton was hiding was worse than he thought.

“Would you please look at me?” He spoke as softly as he could through all the anger in him. He wanted to chase after the old man and run the knife through him over and over again, until he could see nothing but bones and blood and guts.

The kid didn’t move and he was far too worried to be patient. He took him by the shoulder and the kid bolted away from him, the thin muscles on his bare back straining with the tension.

Gallard jerked back, surprised, backed up and into the wall on the other side of the tiny room from Calton and slid down to the dirty, cold floor. He felt as if the kid slapped him, the way he recoiled from his touch. He shut his eyes and tried to slow his breathing.

“It’s not as bad as you think.” When the boy finally spoke, his voice was quiet, controlled. He still didn’t turn to face him. For a brief moment, Gallard wished he could walk away, if only to shake off the tension. He took a few measured breaths. The kid didn’t move an inch. Gallard bit the inside of his cheek, the quick sharp pain of it steadying him enough to go through with the story he had to tell him. The story that had been eating away at him since he saw him last.

“They take you out to the Gorge,” he began. “They make a grand ceremony out of it, likely for how rare it is. The whole place is lit up with torches and all the women are dressed in these long flowing gowns, their faces covered with elaborate masks, a glittering sea of silks of all colors, except for red. Nobody is allowed to wear red for this….” Gallard kept his voice even, making the words roll out slowly, as if reading from an old text, something that happened to someone else a long time ago - a child’s story that couldn’t touch either of them.

The boy stood very still and he wished that he could see his face, if only to make sure what he was doing was all right; that the kid could take it.

“The women take their places on the outside of the circle. They are silent beautiful statues of golds and blues and whites, and the men take them in, seeking the one they’ll take to bed when it’s over. The men are bare-chested, save for the painted patterns that identify their families. The elder of the masters can tell their lineage by these swirls and lines on their chests, and they will take note of any who cower at their task or look away. The men are unmasked. They are expected to get through it without showing weakness. You are brought out into the center of the circle by one of the masked guards. They don’t want you to know who they are. You are wearing a red tunic with your name stitched in white over your breast. No one speaks. The Grand Master dismisses the guard, takes you by the shoulders and slowly turns you to face everyone in the circle. The men dip their heads, but you don’t move. You are expected to show nothing of the humanity you still inhabit. They want their distance from what you did….” He took a deep breath, the air burning his lungs as if he were inhaling something wet and hot and sticky.

“You are stripped naked. It is the Grand Master who does it, but you don’t see him as he slides the tunic off your back. He drops it into the Gorge, the thin fabric catching fire before it ever hits the roiling river below. Two girls the Grand Master chooses wash you with scouring pads, the kind we use on old copper pans. The water steams and it smells bad, like something sour. The girls move slowly around your body, scrubbing at every part of you. It is considered cowardly for you to close your eyes or show any shame or discomfort. They want you stoic for this, so they don’t feel your humiliation or your pain–” He stopped, not wanting to keep going, not to his back in any event.

“Keep going. It’s alright.” Calton’s voice was surprisingly even.

“I need for you to look at me. I can’t do it like this.”

The kid took a sharp breath and faced him, his face a mask of so many bruises, he gasped. The boy’s eyes looked straight at him, but they were haunted, in pain. He couldn’t tell if anything was broken, but his whole face was a collage of purples and greens, and it was swollen. Stupidly, he wanted to ask him if it hurt, if he was in pain, but he could see well enough that he was. Gallard closed his eyes for a few seconds, just long enough to regain some control over his face and his voice. The boy didn’t rush him. When he looked at him again, he was sitting cross-legged in front of him, his hands laced in his lap.

“When you are clean, the girls rub the sacred oil of Metoria over your skin, so your smell doesn’t offend Calysta. They do it with their bare hands. You cannot flinch away, not even when they touch you in your most intimate places. The Grand Master stands in front of you as they do it, watching you carefully, and if you try to move away, he lashes at your chest with a Syrox sapling. Its spores release their poison into your flesh, turning it black where it touches. These lines are marks of shame and you are branded a coward in death. Everyone you were close to in life will be banished before the next sunrise, if you are so marked.

“When you are oiled, the Whisper Masters take you to the very edge of the platform. They tie your hands to the joints in the walls, pulling on the silver ropes hard enough that you have no choice but to stand straight, your body making a cross. They bind your feet to the floor with a long, metal chain. The metal turns red from the heat of the Gorge. The Masters do everything slowly, because they want every man and woman in attendance to picture themselves in your place. They want them to have enough time with the fear of it.” Gallard shut his eyes, not wanting to see the boy’s face when telling him the rest of it. Didn’t think he could take watching him as the kid pictured himself on that platform.

“When you are bound, the eldest of Whisper Masters calls on six men to volunteer. There are always more than six who step forward, but the Master handpicks the ones he want for this. Each of the chosen men is given a sharp-edged knife, thinner than any knives we use for fighting or hunting. The blades glint in the lights and the women gasp as the men approach in a line. You are expected to lock eyes with each of the men, as if to grant them permission. They want you to see the sharp blades before they ever pierce your skin. They want you to accept it as something you deserve. The men are each told to make a dozen cuts anywhere on your body. The cuts are supposed to be shallow, not so deep that you’ll die too quickly. Most will not go for your face or anything below your waist, but there is always one who enjoys the task too much, the power of it–“ he swallowed hard, and dropped his head “–I’m sorry, Calton. I can’t…. I can’t keep going. Please, don’t ask me to.”

The boy stood and turned away from him. “Have you?” the boy choked out, shook his head. “Were you ever chosen?”
He winced. “Yes.” He didn’t want to remember that night, not ever. He couldn’t cut into the man’s back, couldn’t bring himself to do it for how many cuts were already on it, so he had to do it facing him. Zeryx, son of Alton. He could no longer remember his crime, blocked it somehow, but it felt too small for what they did to him that night. He remembered that….

“I don’t know if I can take it without screaming,” Calton said in barely a whisper.

Gallard felt his stomach clench in a painful spasm and he waited for it to ease up before pulling himself to his feet. He walked over to the boy and stood next to him, not looking at his battered face.

“If you had taken an innocent life or did something else that was terrible, irredeemable, I would tell you that you had to, that you had to pay for what you’d done. But you didn’t do any of those things. You don’t deserve the Gorge, Calton. But if you did, I think you’d take it without making a sound, without flinching. I think you’d make yourself.”

The kid lowered his head, as if he were embarrassed and they stayed silent for a long time after that.

“What will they do to you if they catch you helping me run?”

He stared at him, surprised. The boy faced him, waiting. He could lie to him, tell him that there wasn’t a thing they could do to him, being who he was, but he couldn’t bring himself to do it. He couldn’t tell him the truth either, so he stayed silent.

“They’d make you die the same way, wouldn’t they? The Gorge?”

He remained silent and the boy let him be, but he could tell he knew by how he looked at him, all the anger gone out of him.

“I can’t ask you to risk that,” the kid finally said. “I won’t.”
“You didn’t ask me. And I won’t get caught, not if you let me do what I need to. But even if do, I’m alright with it. I am not alright with not trying.” He kept his voice steady, but even he could hear an edge in it at the end. The boy just nodded and started pacing the small cell.

“Greer and Sorana would have to run.” Calton faced him.

“I know.”

The kid nodded in that calm way he had, walked over, and stuck his hand out.
“I need you to swear to me that you will make sure all three of us make it out. Swear to me that you won’t lie to me or trick me in some way, and I’ll do what I have to do to help. If you can’t, I’m okay with it, but please, don’t lie to me.”

He expected the kid to ask, knew it was coming, but he couldn’t promise him that, not yet. He curled his hands into fists to keep them from shaking and dipped his head.

The boy dropped his hand and took a step away from him. “It’s all right, Gallard.”
He wished he’d stop calling him that.
“Rion, Calton. You can call me Rion.”

The boy nodded.

“I know how to get you and Greer out. I just need to find a way to get Sorana out of the city beforehand and I’m not sure how to do that yet. I’d been thinking about it since I left here the last time, and I still don’t have it square in my head. That’s why I couldn’t promise you. I need you to know that,” he said, the kid looking at him strangely.

“You knew? About Sorana, I mean?” He seemed almost embarrassed.

He smiled. “I told you I’d watched you. So yes. I knew.” He took a step to the boy and raised his hand to his face, not touching him yet. “I need to check if anything is broken.” The boy lowered his eyes and nodded. His skin felt hot under his fingers, but that didn’t surprise him. The softness of it did. It was so much like Lyx’s skin when he first knew her, he wanted to stop. He steeled himself against the memories of her face all bruised and swollen after what that man did to her. Calton gritted his teeth as he probed around his nose and his right cheekbone, and he could see tiny drops of sweat on his upper lip.

“How bad is it?” He asked it gently, not wanting to embarrass him.
“Pretty bad.” The boy’s honesty surprised him. He had to assume that something was at the very least fractured and he took his hand away, the kid exhaling in relief. He lifted his head by the chin, so he’d stop hiding from him. The boy’s eyes seemed so much darker in this light, almost black. Gallard had always thought he’d inherit everything from Lyx, and he did, all but the eyes. That was all him, and he felt strangely guilty for giving him something that people were afraid of.

He sighed, staring at the kid, who seemed vulnerable and small now.
“I need to go.” He let go off the boy’s chin. “I wish I could have told you before somehow. I never meant for this, you know–” he swatted his Custodian uniform, disgusted by it, as he always was “–anyway…. If we do make it out of this, I’ll tell you what you want to know, what you asked me before, I swear.” Gallard turned to the door. “Don’t let him touch you again, if you can help it.”

He waited for Calton to say something, but the kid stayed silent and he didn’t want to force him. For the first time since Lyx’s trial, he felt useful. Felt that he could maybe do some good after all.

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Here are links to previous chapters of this story, in order:
Chapter 1, Part 1
Chapter 1, Part 2
Chapter 2, Part 1
Chapter 2, Part 2
Chapter 3

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