“Whatever,” Casamir says. “It’s different for us.”
“Aren’t you afraid to anger the sea?” Arankadash says.
“I don’t even know what that is,” Casamir says. “No.” She pops the rest of the mushroom into her mouth. “You really should try one of these. I have others.”
“Won’t you get an infection or something?” I ask.
“From mushrooms?”
“Cutting out body parts,” I say.
“Why?” Casamir says. “We’re all made of the same stuff, us and the world. Stuff doesn’t rot here, really; it’s just recycled. The world eats it. Eats us, too. We’re all one thing. Haven’t you listened to me at all? Those women we have in the engineering room, they don’t get infections when we experiment on them. Your leg, too, have you noticed? We took a fist of flesh out and you’re walking as well as ever. You just need to treat it with the right stuff. Your body heals the rest. Sews itself back up, almost. Most of us, anyway.”
“What does most of us mean?”
Casamir glances at Das Muni. “Not mutants,” she says.
“Because they aren’t from this world?” I say.
“Well, I wouldn’t go that far. I mean, I’m not saying I don’t believe you, but—”
“Your explanation is just that they’re mutants?”
“Yes. Born wrong. So, they don’t heal right. They don’t grow right.”
“What right is seems to be a matter of opinion.”
“I feel my opinion matters highly.”
“You’re all so full of noise,” Arankadash says. “Like nattering hipjacks.”
“I’m not going to ask,” I say.
“You don’t want to know,” Casamir says.
“I sure hear that a lot.”
“Sometimes it’s easier to live out here if you don’t know,” Casamir says.
“So I’ve been told,” I say.
Das Muni is lying with her back to us, but she is pushed up against me for warmth, and in her hands is the scrap of parchment. I can see no great advantage to not knowing the things this world is keeping from me, except, perhaps, a great sense of despair. Das Muni has that despair, and Casamir and Arankadash too, in their own ways. They believe whatever myths and truths they are told. But I have no faith in any of it. Is this what Jayd wants me to be, a faithless woman who can carry on?
I’d say it seems to be working, but that parchment tells me that I’ve been this way before, and if it didn’t work then, why should I think it is working now? And what was I working toward? Surely, I cannot have been down here for the same reasons last time. How many times can the Bhavajas take over a world?
When I wake, it’s Casamir’s grinning face I see. How she remains so peppy, I have no idea. Maybe I’d be happier too, if I knew stories about women wearing wombs on their heads.
We pack up and drink bitter dregs of coppery water from the bulbs Casamir filled at the last puddle.
I set down the one I’m sharing with Casamir and turn to pick up my walking stick.
Casamir is babbling at Arankadash, back turned, and out of the corner of my eye I see Das Muni lean over the water bulb. She drops something in it. I stare hard at her. She sees me watching and jerks her hand away.
“What is that?” I hiss. I snatch her hand and kick over the bulb. The water dribbles out.
I pull Das Muni away from the others.
“What’s wrong?” Casamir says.
“Nothing,” I say, loud. “Das Muni kicked over the water. I don’t think she’s well.”
I take Das Muni by the shoulders and give her a little shake. I lower my voice. “What were you doing?”
“Nothing.”
“Don’t lie to me. I saw you put something in there. Don’t lie to me or I’ll leave you here to get eaten by whatever thing they’ve got out here.”
“These people are dangerous,” Das Muni says.
I shake her again. “Tell me.”
“I tried . . . it is . . .”
“Were you trying to poison me?”
“Not you! You already drank!”
“Casamir, then?”
She looks down.
“Shit and fire, Das Muni, this is not a game,” I say.
“It wouldn’t poison her,” Das Muni says. “She would just feel very sick. Things here don’t kill you.”
“We need these people,” I say. “Do you understand? If you want to go home, to go back to your monsters and your garbage heaps, I’ll find a recycling chute and happily throw you back into it.”
“Why do we need their help? We can do this together,” Das Muni says.
“I should leave you,” I say. “I wanted to leave you in the pits, but I didn’t, did I? You’re making me regret that decision.”
“Zan?” Casamir’s voice, close.
I start, turn around. “Yeah, we’re coming,” I say. “I just don’t like her wasting water.”
“There’s plenty of water,” Arankadash says. “We’ll get there in another fifteen or sixteen thousand steps.”
As I gaze at Das Muni, I remember how she cared for me in the pits. She could have left me, too, or eaten me, or fed me to her precious monsters, but she didn’t. Did I owe her, the way Arankadash now thought she owed me? Maybe.
“Let’s get going,” I say.
Das Muni lifts her head slowly. “You won’t leave me?”
“I won’t leave you,” I say. “Just . . .” And I’m aware Casamir and Arankadash are listening now. “Just never do that again.”
We pass great crimson formations, through dripping mist that stings our skin and numbs my tongue, and finally the path we’re following takes us from the broad open caverns to a narrower corridor. If I lay down, I could probably stretch out and touch both sides.
Arankadash sets her litter down and tells us to wait as she forges ahead. There is light here, emitted from pulsing pustules in the ceiling.
Little insects scurry along the walls, flashing red, gold, and green lights, but those emissions are dim.
We wait with increasing restlessness.
“Think she’ll eat us after all?” Casamir says lightly, but though it’s meant to be a joke, it falls into flat silence. “You two are a tough crowd,” she says, but she shifts from foot to foot now and pokes at the wall of the corridor with her bone stick.
Arankadash returns. “It’s clear,” she says.
“Of what?” I ask.
“Mutants,” she says. “They run prey through here and lie in wait at the end of the corridor. Come quickly.”
We pick up the pace through the narrow pass. The bodies we carry are heavy now, their mouths filled with bugs. Their eyes are sprouting fungus. Behind me, Das Muni stumbles, and her end of our litter jams in the wall, lodging firmly. A thick green ooze wells around the wound.
“Wait!” I call ahead, but Casamir and Arankadash are still moving, oblivious.
“I’m sorry,” Das Muni says.
“Don’t be sorry,” I say. “Help.” She does, and together we yank the bone from the wall and continue on our way. There’s light enough to make out the bends in the corridor, but we’ve lost Casamir and Arankadash.
My heart thumps loud in my chest. I’m tired, and my sharpened walking stick isn’t going to be easy to pull out if we’re attacked.
Das Muni is quiet, and all I can hear for some time is the beat of our feet and the huff of our breath. Occasionally, I look up at the pustules of light.
After five or six hundred steps, I hear raised voices, and slow. Listen.
I motion to Das Muni to lower the litter. I creep ahead, putting most of my weight on the outside of my foot and rolling my step inward, a trick to minimize sound that I only now realize is a skill I know.
I peer around a bend in the corridor and see Arankadash and Casamir circled by a group of women wearing bone-and-sinew armor. Finger bones rattle in their hair. They’ve smeared their faces in black grit, and they have pointed bone weapons strapped to their wrists. Arankadash
has her hands out, palms up, and she is speaking quickly. The bodies Arankadash and Casamir were carrying lie at their feet.
I motion to Das Muni to lower our own load of bodies, to free up my hands. I pull my walking stick free and wait. Diplomacy first, always. I’ve found I prefer it.
But the leader of the group is having none of it. She bashes Arankadash in the face with a bone club. Arankadash crumples.
Casamir puts her hands behind her head and gets to her knees. She is showing her teeth, babbling.
I move.
I come at them quickly, weapon up. I dive at the one nearest Casamir first and drive the end of my stick into her eye. I turn as she drops and stab my weapon into the unprotected armpit of the woman behind her. The others are moving now.
Surprise lost, I’m still outnumbered four to one. I kick out the legs of the one that comes at me from the left, head-butt the woman in front of me, and duck as the woman with the club swings. Her weapon collides with someone else’s forearm. I hear the crack and cry.
I go for her eye, but she’s fast and ducks, landing a punch to my gut.
I lose my breath, stagger back, and collide with the fourth woman. I swing my weapon, but her armor deflects it. I’m getting sloppy.
The woman with the club swings for me again. I catch the swing with my stick and kick her in the stomach. She goes down, and I gore her throat, and turn.
There’s one woman standing, and she’s running.
“Get her!” Casamir says. “She’ll bring more of them! Zan!”
I bring up my stick and get ready to heft it like a spear. Hesitate. Who am I, to murder a fleeing woman in the back?
“Zan!” Casamir says.
I lower my arm. “We’re almost to Arankadash’s people,” I say. I crouch beside Arankadash and move the hair away from her bloody wound. “Bring some water,” I say. “Let’s see if I can rouse her.”
Casamir doesn’t move. She’s still staring at me, mouth pursed. “What?” I say.
“You’re a coward,” she says.
I point the bloody end of my stick at her. “It’s easy to murder people, Casamir. There’s nothing brave about it.”
“They’ve killed Arankadash! They would have killed me!”
“She’s not dead,” I say.
“You are softhearted,” Casamir says.
“You’re not?” I say. “You could have left me and Das Muni down there in that pit. You could have cut that rope. Untied that line I put on you and left me to shake until I fell off that rope. You didn’t. So, what does that make us both? Cowards? Weak?”
Das Muni runs up to us. “Is Arankadash all right?” she asks.
“No,” Casamir says, folding her arms. “None of this is all right.”
“We can’t be much farther from her people,” I say. “We’ll carry her and follow the path.”
“Why don’t we just leave them all?” Das Muni says quietly. “The world will eat them. That’s as it should be.”
“I made a promise,” I say. “Carry what bodies you can. We will send Arankadash’s people back for the rest.”
I heft Arankadash over my shoulder. I can’t carry her and the bodies of her kin, too, but Casamir and Das Muni are able to lift one set of them. The three of us follow the path up a long, winding stair. It’s in heavy disrepair, and I stumble. Das Muni and Casamir struggle to carry the bodies up.
We walk a long time in silence until we see a woman standing on an outcrop far ahead of us.
I wave at her. She ducks. I say, “I have Arankadash!”
She disappears.
“Scout?” Casamir says.
I nod. “Let’s wait. I don’t want to bumble into anyone the way we did with those other women.”
“How do you know she’s not with those other women?”
“Her hair is different,” I say. “You should know how to pay attention to that more than me.”
“I can’t see that far,” Casamir says, squinting. “My eyes aren’t as good.” But she and Das Muni let the bodies they carry rest on the steps.
After a few minutes, a long procession of women comes out to meet us. Two are armed, but the rest wear long flowing robes of hemp and waxy leaves.
Casamir greets them in their language. Arankadash is heavy. I feel her stir but don’t set her down. She may have trouble walking with a head injury.
The woman at the front is middle-aged. She wears a mass of bone and a hemp necklace that cover the front of her robe, hanging nearly to her waist.
“I have not spoken Handavi in some time,” she says to me.
“I’m good practice, then,” I say. “There are more of her sisters back there. We couldn’t carry them and her, too. She asked us to bring them home.”
She gestures to the people behind her. One of the women with a weapon runs back up the steps.
“They will retrieve our sisters,” she says. “Come, we offer rest and water. We will have a funerary feast. You are invited. You will be our special guests.”
“No offense meant,” I say, “but nothing good has come of me being a special guest.”
“You have suffered,” she says, not unkindly. “That is unfortunate. We are a peaceful people. You are in no danger here.”
“Peaceful unless I’m a mutant,” I say. Das Muni has put on her cowl again, but I’m aware of her breathing hotly next to me.
“All are welcome,” she says, and she peers at Casamir and Das Muni. “You have done us a great service. To lose the bodies of ours is to lose a piece of our people. We lose our future.”
I follow after her and her retinue. Two women come down the hill with a stretcher and take Arankadash from me. My hands are covered in her blood. I wipe my hands on my suit.
Das Muni takes my arm, Casamir rolls her eyes, and we go up and up, into some other world.
“CONTROL OF FECUNDITY IS SOMETHING EVERY WOMAN WANTS, AND EACH BELIEVES IS HER BIRTHRIGHT. THE WORLDS HAVE OTHER IDEAS, AND IT EVENTUALLY LED TO THEIR DESTRUCTION.”
—LORD MOKSHI, ANNALS OF THE LEGION
25
JAYD
When I aborted the thing in my first womb, I expected to see some sad, tentacled monster in a jar, a half-baked gob of potential life, now just mutilated flesh; a collection of nubby tentacles and burst tissue. Or maybe I’d see the thing itself, whole and writhing in a pool of bloody afterbirth before the witches recycled it at Anat’s order.
I fought the gauzy dream of the light anesthetic huffing through the air, and struggled to sit up when they tugged away the hungry tuber that was emptying my womb. But when the witches raised the jar overhead, I saw only a knuckle’s depth of dark, frothy blood. I could see nothing within its murky depths. No mangled monsters. No tattered substance. Just blood.
“Is that all?” I asked, and my words came out slurred, muddy, like the stuff in the jar.
“That’s all,” the witches said. They looked amused, as if they had just told some recycler girl that the cog she bore to replace the dying one inside the core atmospheric lung of the world was just what they wanted, everything they had hoped for.
It was the first time I realized that we had some power over what the ship did to us. It was the first time I dared to hope that we could escape the Legion. I realized I could build a future instead of just a fate.
When I took the new womb, the one I knew Rasida would need, and my mother learned it wasn’t going to be just another bit of organic shielding or some new recycler monster, Anat put me on a regular schedule of what she called “treatments,” though the witches begged and pleaded for reason every time, because it’s been so long since we had a womb like this on the first level of the world that they considered it a great portent.
“We don’t need it yet,” Anat said, as if what I bore could happen only so many times, and maybe she was right. I didn’t know. I’d never had any contact with people who gave birth to what I could now. I started to wonder what she was saving it for.
I learned to recognize my mother’s look
of distaste every time the witches made their case—suspicion, fear, and something else, something more—a realization that I was not the daughter she had hoped for. She had wanted me to lead an army. But I had fallen in love and given myself a valuable womb and failed to give her the Mokshi. It was not the future she wanted.
“Get rid of it,” Anat said, every time.
The witches would bow and scrape before her, nodding all three of their heads. “She is necessary. It’s necessary. Please, we must have this one. This one is for us. Please. We must have it.”
“End it. You know what happens.”
“It’s the will of the world. A world without issue—”
“She hasn’t birthed it yet, has she? Get rid of it or I’ll have you recycled after all, the way I promised when I sent Zan out. It’s not as if she’s giving birth to a world, just another sorry piece of it.”
This is how I know that Rasida is not taking the same treatments that I am. I know the signs and symptoms. If she is going to give birth, if she is pregnant or has recently aborted, she shows no signs of it. When Rasida invites me to dinner, I accept. When she brushes my fingers, I do not flinch. When she speaks to me of the troubles of the world, I listen with my most sympathetic expression, the one I used on Anat throughout my whole childhood.
And this is how I come to realize that Rasida doesn’t have the world, the same way that Zan no longer has her own womb. Rasida has given it to someone else, and I need to find out who.
And then after dinner one night, I sit on Rasida’s bed, drink in hand, and she lies down in my lap, and I stroke her cheek, and she says, “It is very lonely, being the lord.”
“I imagine so,” I say, and I do not say, “Because you have murdered everyone who has ever cared for you or could ever care for you.” No, we are past that. I know what will happen if I say that. I have shifted how I am playing this game, though it is no easier than the last.
She presses her hands to my belly. “I can feel it moving,” she says.
“Yes,” I say, “sometimes it does that.”
She coos at my belly. “You have never taken it this far?” she says.
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