Mirage

by Perry Brass

  Aawkwa raised his voice. Right had nothing to do with it, he explained. Everyone knew the Off-Sexers went berserk during the Second Moon. Greeland had been duly warned, but that was not the problem. "The truth is," Aawkwa said, his voice strained to the point of hoarseness, "you have killed the son of the First Couple of the Off-Sexers."

  Suddenly, I remembered what he said: about taking our heads back to show his parents. The Court? I had not understood what he was saying. There was no word in our language for "King." The First Couple were believed to be descended from the daughter of Ki herself. That meant that this unbelievable creature, who died while watching me, was truly a descendant of the Goddess.

  If this were true, I wasn't sure how much I wanted to have to do with the Goddess. Even if the stranger—even dead—was beautiful.

  "We will have to bring him back to the Temple, and report all," Aawkwa said.

  Greeland's face looked dead-white. "All?"

  "I'm afraid," the old man said, "there is no escape from this."

  The young couples lifted the body. Their hands held his head, while his hands were placed on his chest. I walked near the body, and when we made a turn, his left arm dislodged and fell inertly at his side. I grabbed the cold, dead hand and held it until Aawkwa made me put it back on his chest. I looked as if Greeland himself had been killed. Greeland put his arm around me. "Why are you looking so miserable?" Greeland asked. I couldn't answer. "You are such a gift, Enkidu," he whispered. "You even love a man who would kill you."

  We brought the body back to the old men's hut. There it was dressed in skins, beads, and whatever ornaments the elders felt might please the priestesses. "With luck, they will not examine the posterior," Aawkwa said. "He'll have to stay here tonight. At the first light of morning, we'll take him back."

  Greeland and I went back to his hut. It was small but comfortable for me. We blew out the oil lamps and stripped off our breechcloths, and lay down together for the first time on his bed mat. He held me in his large arms, so thick with hair they reminded me of the hides of small deer. The kind of hides I had slept in as a child. He pulled me on top of him and brought my face to his lips. I let him kiss me, but there was little joy in it.

  "I will never understand you," he said. "Sometimes I think you would have preferred that I had died and the Off-Sexer had lived." He suddenly started to cry. Tears rolled down his dark, hard cheeks. "He could not love you, Enkidu. I know with every part of me that he would have killed you."

  "I did not want you to die," I said. I wasn't sure what else to say. He began to fondle my male-sac, and feel for the Egg. The Egg got warmer. It quivered in my scrotum. I streamed with the same visions I had in the forest. Colors. Vibrations. But I was not afraid of them. I enjoyed them. He leaned over and kissed my male-tube, taking the round tip in his hard mouth. "I love you," I said to him, not knowing if this might be considered a lie.

  We got up at the first hint of light from the Star warming our enclave, and poured some water from the stream on us and then went over to the old men's hut. The old men were all ready. They carefully tied the body to a litter, and then said good-by to us. Only six of us would carry it the arduous distance to the temple of Ki.

  Chapter Three

  The Temple was roughly a quarter of the way across the settled territories of the planet. It sat at the apex of a triangle, midpoint between our land and the majority of the guarded, fortress estates of the Off-Sexers. We had our own designated holdings. For the most part they were wet forests, dryer woods, and deeper marshes. We had adapted ourselves to these terrains; they could not support a larger population without destroying their character. We never asked to be invaded, or have others move next to us. We were content with the wildness of our environment.

  But because of their endless land disputes, some of the Off-Sex estates—after treaties, resettlements, and more wars—fringed dangerously close to us. This made our lives tenser: where once we had been virtually left alone, the Off-Sexers menaced us. But much of the land between us and the Temple was still uninhabited. It was bare, scrubby rock where no one could live; or hot, flat marshes licked with salt—and, unfortunately, this was the geography of a large portion of Ki.

  It was slow walking with the burden of the body, which was covered so that flies could not nip at it. We stopped when the Star was at its highest in the mid-day sky. Greeland brought a small lunch, and we shared it with our brothers. There was Aawkwa and one of his friends, another old man named Shoomoo, and a couple known as Wingfra. Sometimes, our couples joined names and had one name. They were actually Wing and Frango, but they were known as Wingfra. I thought they were both handsome and young. How sweet and happy they seemed. Then I realized something was missing from their lives. They began to sing a funny song they'd made up. Wingfra sang, "We want a kid! We want a kid! We want one, but the Girls won't allow it! Bitches of the Goddess!"

  "Hush!" Aawkwa said. "What an awful song."

  Greeland loved it and began to join in. "We want a son, but they won't allow it. Damn them now! Bitches of the Goddess!"

  They sang the song for a long time, making up variations and new verses, that I noticed really appealed to Greeland.

  "We wish those Gals

  from the big Ki Temple

  would do something

  we think's damn simple—

  and get us a kid of our own!

  We'd be so happy

  when he called us 'Pappy'

  and we brought him

  back to our home!

  The Girls from the Goddess

  are not a bit modest—

  and boy, do they like to roam!

  They're always out to lunch

  and eat it in a bunch,

  but it looks like

  for us, they ain't home!"

  "That song is terrible," Aawkwa said to me, away from Greeland's hearing. "They don't understand what's going on at all."

  I asked him what was going on, I meant as far as the priestesses were concerned.

  "I'm not sure I can tell you everything," Aawkwa said.

  "You might as well," Shoomoo said. "Or else he'll hear it from someone else." His eyes looked directly at Greeland. "And," Shoomoo added, "That one won't give him all the facts right."

  I had no idea what he was referring to, until Aawkwa said, "Shoomoo is right—I believe, Enkidu, you are smart enough to understand: Greeland has never had any use for the priestesses. He believes in the Goddess, yes, that is true. But he and Wingfra don't understand how difficult our Sisters' lives are."

  I asked him to explain it to me and Aawkwa did, as we resumed walking through the barren landscape on our way to the Temple.

  "It works like this," Aawkwa began, while Wingfra and Greeland took turns bearing the litter. "At times, certain Off-Sex females break away from their families. Eventually they become the priestesses of Ki. It's not easy. Though the priestesses have all the power, their vocation is hated. They have no families of their own. Even when one arranges the birth of one of our sons—and becomes like a godmother to him—it is she who must tear him away from his mother and bring him back to us. So even the Off-Sex women hate them. Later, she must pretend not to know him, when he comes to the Temple with his mate to ask for a son. It is terrible: eventually, the priestesses are left alone, with only each other."

  "How sad," I said.

  "Yes," Aawkwa agreed. "But I think it is the only way things can work, since they pose such a threat to the men of their own families."

  He explained it to me, how the priestesses came into being. "Let's say that certain Off-Sex girls, at an early age, start showing dominant characteristics. War," he held up one finger, "interests them. Or," two fingers, "they insist on making their own decisions. They dispute their fathers. And other men. The men—in retaliation—may accuse them of immorality. Witchcraft. Nothing is too low to bring up.

  "Finally," Aawkwa said, "if nothing else works, and they can't beat her into submission one way or another, her parents
lead her to the temple of Ki. We hear the scene is heart-rending. The parents go through a whole show. Screaming. Crying. They offer her one last chance. If things have gone that far, and she's already promised in marriage, her future husband joins in. He curses, too, and screams."

  "Then what happens?" I asked.

  "What do you think?" Shoomoo interjected. "They all leave her. Frankly, I'd be happy as a cat in a pail of milk."

  "Yes," Aawkwa said, "but they certainly heat the fire up under the kettle! In the Temple, she must renounce her family. On the streets, her brothers shun her. It takes years for the other priestesses to trust her. But once initiated, she will join the group that controls Ki."

  How was that?

  "Not easy," Shoomoo said.

  "No, it's not," agreed Aawkwa. "For them or for us. The priestesses maintain the Agreement that keeps our small planet together. They determine punishments, as well as the boundaries of our enclaves, the territories of the Off-Sexers, and the immense holdings of their Temple. They declare the beginning of every Off-Sex war. And later establish peace. They decide when our children will be born, and how. That is why keeping the priestesses on our side is important. It grieves me that Greeland has so little respect for them. He wants a son so much that he thinks he can just force his way into the process."

  I looked around me. The land was so barren, in contrast to the beauty of the forests we lived in. How difficult it must have been to keep this small planet working with these opposing groups.

  "You are right, Enkidu," Aawkwa said. "I am reading your mind. I can tell what you're thinking. It is difficult. On Ki we have a tense arrangement. But the result keeps this small, barely fertile planet in population control. The cycle is awful, but it works: The Off-Sexers are in a constant state of antagonism and war; their natural instinct is only to reproduce. Their men resent the power of our Goddess, which is maintained by their women who have broken away. We Same-Sexers, by the planet's Agreement, must devote much of our energies to the Goddess. As men, we perform Her ceremonies and dances, and are protected by Her priestesses from the ruthlessness of the Off-Sexer fighters."

  But that did not seem to be working, I pointed out.

  "Oh, for the most part they leave us alone," Shoomoo said. "It's just that at certain times of the Moons—like when they feel entitled to sex from their women, their damned men go berserk!"

  "Yes," Aawkwa said. "And then the whole course of the planet Ki is thrown out of balance."

  I listened attentively to this talk. I was beginning to understand more about Ki, the planet where I was born. Listening to Aawkwa and Shoomoo also helped pass the time as we walked through the desolate landscape, before we entered the gracious holdings of the Temple. By late afternoon, we were at the outskirts of the Temple compound.

  Chapter Four

  The compound was placed in a spacious valley with soft green hills running around it. It was like the hub of a wheel, this special place that directed the destiny of our planet. I had been there once before during a Festival of the Ten Moons. Then the Dark Men came to dance and other delegations came from the other enclaves, while the Off-Sexers sent their own groups.

  It was from these meetings that the priestesses decided who would be allowed offspring during the next cycle—our year was divided into showings of the Moons. The culmination of our year was that period lasting for approximately eleven days when all ten moons that revolved around Ki were synchronized and could be seen at once.

  The Ten Moons belonged to the whole planet. They were not designated special for any group, as the others were. The Two Moons, the Fours, and the Sevens were periods of war and mating for the Off-Sexers; the coming Three Moons—and the Sixes and Eights—were special for us. The priestesses kept for themselves the showing of the large First Moon. They retreated into their Temple to plan and meditate; they also kept the sightings of the Five Moons and the Nines. But who would believe what our sky looked like with a view of all Ten Moons in it, like ten glowing pearls? The first time I saw it, I said to Wilf, one of my fathers, that the sky was full of eyes.

  He laughed and said that it was the opposite, "Your eyes are full of our sky!"

  The land around the Temple compound was tended meticulously, with ancient clipped trees, flowering shrubs, and small ponds. Pink, spoon-billed water birds dipped in the ponds, and ducks swam among them. They were never disturbed. All the animals in the compound were sacred to the Goddess and no one—no hunter from any enclave, not even an Off-Sexer—would dare trespass on temple land. The ponds were fed by sparkling waterfalls and fountains. Some of the fountains displayed images of stone in the shapes of planetary beings. I saw a large couple in stone that looked eerily familiar. "They were the first of us," Aawkwa pointed out. "Leeland and Kina, the twin sons of Kiwa." Both images looked surprisingly like Aawkwa, with beaky, flaring noses and large foreheads. I wondered how such goony looking characters could be important.

  "What do you think of them?" Aawkwa asked.

  "They look like you," I said.

  "Goony?" he asked.

  I looked away at the carpet of shimmering grasses. "Yes," I said. It was true. We Same-Sexers could never lie. Aawkwa smiled at me. He had great patience, which I appreciated. "Who takes care of all this?" I asked him.

  "The priestesses have a force of laborers who do their bidding. Some of them are Off-Sex females whose husbands leave them. They are usually of the lower caste. Tenant farmers. Common soldiers. Their husbands leave, or are allowed new wives, or die in wars. The females then have nothing, so they come to the Temple. But some of the workers are like you and me. They are Same-Sexers, but have lost the power of their Eggs. They will die soon and know it."

  "Why will they die?"

  "I can't tell you, Enkidu."

  I asked him why not. He told me I was too young to know. That seemed stupid to me; I was afraid he'd see my thoughts in my face. "If I'm old enough to be promised to Greeland, why can't I know this?"

  "All right," he said. "You are wise, Enkidu. That is appropriate, because we knew being promised to Greeland would not be easy. It is time you know this: they die because they can't get any more seed. Sometimes their partners leave them. They find someone else, and pull them into a net of lies and deceit. We don't die of broken hearts, we die because we can get no more seed. It's a horrible thing, when it happens. Everyone must die, and we have natural deaths like everyone else. Usually, they happen quickly. But we don't want it to happen. Because of the power of the Egg, our life span can be prolonged. But when an old man like me sees death coming, it makes me very sad."

  Greeland walked back over to us. I didn't want him to know that I'd been told such a secret. He looked at me. "Aawkwa's been telling you secrets, hasn't he?"

  "He wanted to know who worked here," the old man said.

  "I guess he'll have to find out sometime," Greeland said sadly. "Death is not a nice thing to us, Enkidu. That's why we keep it away from us as much as possible."

  Aawkwa cleared his throat. "That reminds me. I will not mention what you did to the body, unless I am asked. You understand, Greeland, we cannot lie."

  Greeland's eyes closed. His face quivered, like he was holding something in. "I understand." Suddenly, he opened his eyes and said, with the funniest jolt in his voice, "Don't you think the Temple grounds are simply exquisite this year?"

  I hadn't heard that jolt, almost a snappy lilt, before. Not in the enclave of the Dark Men.

  "My feelings, exact-ly!" Aawkwa screamed.

  "Ex-qui-seet!" Greeland rolled his eyes and clowned. I became angry. What kind of joke were they playing on me? "The Temple forces have been putting their haunches to it. But of course, one has to work hard under these circumstances!"

  Was I angry! Why were they talking like that? Greeland and Aawkwa started laughing hysterically, and I could hear the others left with the body of the stranger. They, too, were laughing. It was a shrill mocking laugh that seemed to have no joy in it.

  "Don't
you think," Greeland said, winking, "it's such a delightful place to come before you die!"

  "Without a doubt," Aawkwa giggled, lifting his fingers delicately to his mouth. "But these priestesses work the very soul out of you—pitiless! Like I was saying to my husband last night—what a shame this planet is run by priestesses. What we need are a few smart old aunts. They'd know what to do!"

  What were they talking about? Husbands. I had never heard anyone from our enclave say that. I thought that sort of language was saved for the Off-Sexers.

  A moment later, someone whom I thought must have been a priestess approached. Previously, I'd only seen them from a distance. They wore leather outfits, had shorn hair and a purposeful stride. They didn't look like Off-Sex women, who looked—at least to me—so apologetic. Of course, when you've been promised to an Off-Sex man, what could you expect? I knew I shouldn't have grouped them so generally; there must have been some worthy men of their sort. It was just the way they acted, especially when the mating instinct drove them crazy, that made me wonder about them all.

  "All Greetings from the Goddess," the priestess said. "Why are you here? State our business quickly. This is not the season of convening. Come on. Quickly now." She snapped her fingers.

  Aawkwa pushed his way towards her. "Your ... Your ... Your Grace," he quavered. "Please we beg of you ..."

  "Old man, what matter is your bidding? If you trifle with the Goddess, you know what will happen."

  "Yes, Ma'am," Aawkwa said. His face darkened. He could barely lift his eyes from the grass.

  Suddenly I realized why Aawkwa, Greeland, and the others had been laughing so shrilly—why the strange language and jokes. Terror. The only way to release their fear was laughter.