Elephants and Corpses Read Online Free Page A

latrine, but wearing what he did made it possible to get in the front door.
    He scrambled forward on sluggish limbs, trying to work new blood into stiff fingers. His second wind came as he slogged back up onto the street. He found a street fountain and drank deeply to replace the vital liquid he’d lost. Then he was running, running, back to the God’s eye temple.
    They let him in with minimal fuss, which disappointed him, because he wanted to murder them all now: fill them full of purple plumed arrows, yelling about fire and elephants and unnecessary death, but he could not stop, could not waver, because Tera was down there, Tera was drowning, Tera was not like him, and Tera would not wake up.
    He got all the way across the courtyard before someone finally challenged him, a young man about fourteen, who curled his nose and said some godly-sounding greeting to him. Nev must not have replied correctly, because the snotty kid yelled after him, “Hey now! Who are you?”
    Nev ran. His body was humming now, rushing with life, vitality. A red haze filled his vision, and when the next armed man stepped in front of him, he dispatched him neatly with a palm strike to the face. He took up the man’s spear and long sword and forged ahead, following his memory of their descent to the cistern.
    As he swung around the first flight he rushed headlong into two armed men escorting Corez up, still wearing Tera’s sister’s skin. Surprise was on his side, this time.
    Nev ran the first man through the gut, and hit the second with the end of his spear.
    â€œGod’s eye, what—” Corez said, and stopped. She had retreated back down the stairs, stumbled, and her wig was aslant now.
    â€œYou take the scalps of your people, too?” Nev said. He hefted the spear.
    â€œNow you think about this,” she said. “You don’t know who I am. I can give you anything you like, you know. More bodies than you know what to do with. A workshop fit for the king of the body mercenaries. A thousand body managers better than any you’ve worked with. You’ve dabbled in a world you don’t understand.”
    â€œI understand well enough,” he said.
    â€œThen, the body. I can give you this body. That’s what she wanted, isn’t it? I have others.”
    â€œI don’t care much for people,” Nev said. “That was your mistake. You thought I’d care about the bodies, or Tera, or her sister, or any of the rest. I don’t. I’m doing this for my fucking elephant .”
    He thrust the spear into her chest. She gagged. Coughed blood.
    He did not kill her, but left her to bleed out, knowing that she could not jump into another form until she was on the edge of death.
    Nev ran the rest of the way down into the basements. They had to have a way to fish the bodies out. He found a giant iron pipe leading away from the cistern, and a sluice. He opened up the big drain and watched the water pour out into an aqueduct below.
    He scrambled down and down a long flight of steps next to the cistern and found a little sally port. How long until it drained? Fuck it. He opened the sally port door. A wave of water engulfed him.
    He smacked hard against the opposite wall. A body washed out with the wave of water, and he realized it was his own, his beloved. He scrambled forward, only to see Tera’s body tumble after it, propelled by the force of the water. For one horrible moment he was torn. He wanted to save his old body. Wanted to save it desperately.
    But Tera only had one body.
    He ran over to her and dragged her way from the cistern. She was limp.
    Nev pounded on her back. “Tera!” he said. “Tera!” As if she would awaken at the sound of her name. He shook her, slapped her. She remained inert. But if she was dead, and yes, of course she was dead, she was not long dead. There was, he felt, something left. Something lingering. Tera would say it lingered in her