Free Icarus Descending by Elizabeth Hand

careless. He had found the means to restore himself during the days when they held their Ascendant Masters hostage: he had learned about the harrowing. Later, when there were no more humans left alive, he discovered that the effects of the harrowing were even more intense when practiced upon his brothers. But that must be done with great care. A few of his brothers—Bili here on Helena Aulis, Castor and Mfwawi on Totma 3—had displayed the same flair for leadership that Kalaman possessed. It would not do for the Alliance to be destroyed by internecine fighting even before they joined their father and the Oracle. And, of course, harrowing his brothers meant that there would be fewer of them, though those few would be stronger than before, oh, much stronger.
    The first had been Jhayash, injured during that final skirmish against the humans, when their masters had assaulted them with their last stores of protonic flares. He could not bear to watch Jhayash suffer and slowly die, could not bear to feel it; and so almost without thinking he had taken him, and afterward felt strong, so strong! and all his brothers with him.
    He had heard of such things—it was well-known that the energumens of Advhi Sar had ritually dispatched their own kind, and there were many tales in the Archipelago of both human and energumen cannibals. But for Kalaman and his brothers, Jhayash had been the first. In the last months there had been others: all given to Kalaman, to keep him strong, to keep his clever mind alert and able. When he felt horribly wearied by his efforts at communicating with their sibs in the other stations, or exhausted by the hours linked to the stratboards, watching scenes of the destruction on the Element: then he would give himself over to the harrowing. At such times he had plucked a human hostage from the dwindling group in the prison bay. Later, when they were all dead, he had begun to choose carefully from among his brothers, and always he had invited his other siblings to share the harrowing with him. Afterward the survivors had grown stronger, their psychic link more intense. Kalaman had grown strongest of all, but he needed to: the Oracle had said he was to be a leader. Now, if he went for many days without a harrowing, a sickness came upon him, and so upon his brothers. And they could not weaken: not now, not when they were so close to closing the ranks of the Alliance.
    Kalaman sighed, breathed deeply the salt-scented air. He should choose one now, before he grew too tired to make the summons. Ratnayaka was the nearest. Standing there beside him, his single eye was fixed upon his brother with a vigilance that resembled hunger as much as it did love. And Kalaman knew that hunger, real hunger, was as much a part of Ratnayaka as his scarred eye socket and the line of fine gold rings along his brow. If he was truly wise, Kalaman would choose Ratnayaka for the harrowing, and spare himself the confrontation he knew was to come.
    But he could not do that, even if it meant that his brother would destroy him. At the thought Kalaman groaned softly, his great hand closing upon the toy-sized kris at his side. Ratnayaka was the one he loved best. He too had been born in Cluster 579 and had journeyed in that same crowded hold with Kalaman to HORUS. With Ratnayaka, there was little effort lost in speaking—their thoughts flowed together, a warmth running through Kalaman’s veins, a taste in his mouth like honey. He could not take Ratnayaka, not yet at least; but the notion warmed him so that he turned to his brother and smiled.
    Ratnayaka, he beckoned him.
    Ratnayaka gazed down upon his brother, tilting his head so that the gold-and-crimson patch above his cheek glowed like fine brocade. Yes?
    Come to me.
    Slowly Kalaman drew his brother onto his chest. He kissed him, let his open mouth fall upon Ratnayaka’s brow, probed the line of little gold rings with his tongue while his brother moved atop him. Then his hands grew rougher,