“No,” I say. She smiles and closes her eyes, and finally, I ask, “What about your own issue? I have not seen you pregnant in all this time.”
“Pregnancy is a risk,” she says. “Each of them, no matter what you birth. I need to stay fit to lead the Legion.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean exactly that,” she says. “There is only one that will ever come to term. You must be absolutely sure it is the right time to birth it. It could destroy you in the birthing. As with any birth. Too dangerous for me. I did what many women do. I gave it to someone else to bear.”
“Does it take a long time to come to term?” I ask, because the question of where her womb is now is far too obvious.
“No,” she says. “I believe in absolute control over what I have to bear. It’s incubating now. It will be born when we are ready to go to Katazyrna. While we are there, it will remake Bhavaja into a new world.”
“How will it do that?” I ask. Ignorance worked with Anat.
“Did they not tell you?” Rasida asks. “How cruel, not to tell you.”
“Tell me what?”
Rasida rises. Her hands move to my neck, and I stiffen, but she only rubs my shoulders, as if I am some creature in need of comfort. “I can give birth to worlds,” she says. “Surely you had heard of that on Katazyrna.”
“There were rumors,” I say. “We always thought it was a rumor you planted to make you seem very powerful.”
“Patience,” Rasida says. “Everything is coming together.”
“It’s difficult to be patient, without answers.”
“I anticipate your little experiment with Zan was also aggravating for her.”
“Are you comparing what’s happened with Zan with what you’re doing to me?”
“Not at all,” Rasida says. She shifts away from me.
“That’s not convincing,” I say, and my tone is wrong. I’ve misstepped. I wish, again, that I could slough off my memory the way Zan can. She can afford to be decent. I can’t.
Rasida stands. “I look forward to your birthing time. I’ve never had one myself.”
“Never? Not even someone else’s issue?”
“No,” Rasida says. She chuckles. “I suppose that is something you would ask, of course. I’ve seen your scars, Jayd. I know you weren’t born with a womb that makes what I need. No, you got it from someone else. Who, I wonder? Most importantly, though, I wonder why, and how you convinced her to give it to you. Or did you just take it, rip it from her body the way we ripped the life from that woman on Tiltre?”
“I wanted it,” I say. “Does there need to be another reason? I was tired of fighting. I wanted to make something that lasted.”
She smirks. Her smiles are becoming smirks now more often, amused and disgusted. She does not try to hide her contempt. “I like that you are not a little fool,” she says.
“It could kill me too,” I say, trying to find a safer subject, perhaps one that will tug at her heart, if she has one. “I could die birthing this thing for you, and then you’d have killed my family, taken my world, for nothing. Is this love?”
“I didn’t do it for you,” Rasida says, “not at first.”
“Then who?”
“I did it for Zan,” Rasida says, “to free her from that awful prison you constructed for her. She’s some prisoner from the Mokshi, isn’t she? Made to throw herself at her own world. You are a bunch of monsters over there.”
“And what are you, then?” I say. “You murdered my whole family.” We have arrived here again, though it was exactly where I didn’t want to go. How does she continue to twist me even when I know better?
Rasida laughs. “What does that make me?” she says. “I am a slayer of monsters.”
“Rasida—”
“You are not ready yet,” she says, dismissive. “Go back to your rooms. When you are ready to be mine and be civilized, you can return. But you are not there yet. Not by half. Will you ever be? My mother didn’t think so.”
“I’m yours, Rasida.”
“You keep saying it,” Rasida says, “and for a time, I think you believed it. Your body is mine, certainly, and what you carry. But not you. Not you. And it’s you I want, Jayd. Body and soul.”
She meets my look, and I think it, though I don’t say it: “You will never have me.” And though she cannot hear that thought—certainly her powers cannot go that far—she nods, once, and I feel that she’s heard me, and it’s twisted something in her, something that wasn’t already twisted, which seems impossible. How can she be any more twisted?
“Good night, love,” she says, and opens the door. And for the first time, I pity her, because when she says love, I think she really means it. For her, this is love. This is what she does to someone she loves. And I wonder if I am any better, because this is what I did to Zan all those rotations ago. I seduced her until she loved me with all her heart, and when it came time to do what needed to be done, I was willing to sacrifice that love, but she was not. Instead, she left me and came back to me without a memory. And we began our long dance. It’s the first time I consider that perhaps she lost her memory on purpose. Maybe it was not the Mokshi that took it. Maybe loving me was too much to bear.
Rasida is a slayer of monsters.
But so am I.
“I DON’T REMEMBER A TIME BEFORE I KNEW THAT THE LEGION WOULD KILL US. THERE WAS NEVER A TIME WHEN I DIDN’T STRIVE TO BE FREE OF WHAT IT HAS MADE OF US. I THOUGHT THAT COULD ONLY BE ACHIEVED BY MURDERING EVERYTHING THAT STOOD IN MY WAY.”
—LORD MOKSHI, ANNALS OF THE LEGION
26
ZAN
The funerary feast is exactly that: a feast of the dead.
I’m not sure what I expected as I sit at the table and the bodies of the dead we hauled back from the great doorway are laid out before us. Ribs are cooked and slathered in sauce. Mushrooms are sliced and fried with fingers. I would be more repulsed if it all didn’t smell so good.
I look at Casamir beside me, who simply sighs when she sees the heads of the dead lined up on the mantel of the enormous eating hall, their faces illuminated by great green bioluminescent flora. These plants are feathery ferns, and they hang from every crevice and niche and overhang in the irregular walls.
All around us, robed women carry bowls of water and tea and dishes made from the leavings of their dead.
“Eat, eat,” says the woman who met us on the stairs. I have since learned her name is Vashapaldi, and she is a religious headwoman of some sort. Not the leader, no; that is the woman at the head of the table, sitting up there with Arankadash in the place of highest honor. The leader is much older, her hair shorn short in mourning, they tell me, as two of her kin were killed in the mutant attack. Or, rather, the mutant hunting party gone wrong.
I’m not sure what I think of the fare.
Casamir leans into me. “Not hungry?” she says.
“I haven’t . . . eaten this before.”
“What do you think you’ve been eating?” Casamir says. “Us and the world, we’re all made of the same stuff.” She raises a bowl of bitter wine.
I ask Vashapaldi where the wine comes from.
“From the orchards, of course.”
“I’d like to see them. I haven’t seen any plants here. Only mushrooms and some strange creatures.”
Vashapaldi nibbles at a finger bone. “After supper, yes. I have something else for you as well.”
I pick at my food and finally settle for eating a broth-based soup. I try not to think what it’s flavored with. The broth is good. I have to admit that.
After we eat, we retire to the rooms they’ve given us, which are built into great bulbous mounds that remind me of the insect caves. Das Muni is so tired that she doesn’t even protest when Vashapaldi returns and escorts me away to visit the orchards. As we walk along the well-worn path, I realize this is the first time since I’ve descended into the belly of the world that I’ve been free of Das Muni.
We travel up a
long spiraling stair that has been carved into the flesh of the world. The flesh has been seared but still oozes in places, viscous green mucus. The pustules of light far above illuminate our way.
At the top of the stair, I smell something sweet. I crest the peak of the stairs and gaze out over a lush plateau, high above the rest of the settlement. Tangled vines are lined up on poles, stretching as far as I can see. There are a dozen tangled trees, too, not like the fungal pillar forest, but trees made of wood. I walk up to one and press my hand to the trunk, just to be sure. I know these things, these words, though I have no memory of seeing them.
“We grow hemp as well,” she says, “and several kinds of tubers and green leafy vegetables.”
“How?” I say. I gaze up at the pustules of light.
“Yes,” she says, “the light is a factor. Only a few settlements have it. Many of them have gone out over the generations, leaving increasingly little. We bring our waste up here, and dead fungi and other detritus, to feed them. It took a long time, more generations than many remember, but eventually, we grew things here.”
“Where did the seeds come from?” I ask.
“The traders. Casamir’s people. They have a surprising trove of useful items, much of it salvaged from the muck at the center of the world. It’s amazing what people throw away.”
I breathe in the scent of the growing things. I crouch and take up a pinch of soil. It’s rich and black and pungent. “The world doesn’t absorb it?” I say. “And water—”
“We have everything we need,” Vashapaldi says. She laughs softly. “It surprises you now, too. That amuses me.”
“What do you mean?”
She pulls a fist-sized sphere from the pocket of her robe and holds it out to me.
I take it. It’s soft on the outside. It gives just a little when I squeeze it, like a ripening fruit. It’s green-gray and shiny. I have a flicker of familiarity, as if I should know what to do with it, but the feeling passes.
“What’s this?” I say.
“I am hoping you can tell me,” Vashapaldi says. “The last time you were here, you told me to hold it for you.”
A cold knife of fear strikes my gut. “You’ve met me before?”
“About a cycle ago.”
“How long is a cycle?”
“There are sixty heartbeats in a minute, sixty minutes in an hour, six hours in a period, six periods in a day, six hundred days in a cycle.”
So, I finally know how long this has been going on, then. A cycle. “That’s a long time,” I say. “What else did I tell you?”
“You said your name was Zan. You were on a quest to save the Legion. I didn’t ask more than that, and you did not offer. There is a woman you loved, though. I know that much, because you would not succumb to the charms of any other. We did try.”
I squeeze the sphere.
“You said that if I ever saw you again,” Vashapaldi says, “I was to give you that. You told me you likely wouldn’t remember me, or even yourself, but that I would know you just the same, and that by giving you this, I could help you on your mission to save us all. And I have. So, I have kept my promise.”
“What did I do for you,” I ask, “that you held on to this so long?”
“You helped us with the children,” she says.
“I haven’t seen any children here,” I say.
“They come in waves,” she says. “We haven’t had a child-bearer in some time. But we have several women coming into adolescence.”
“There are pregnant women down there, though.”
She raises her brows. “Of course. We all become pregnant. But not everyone bears a child. Those blessed of the light to bear children are highly sought after. That’s how you helped us. You went out with our rangers and found a child-bearer. She perished after just a few births, but it was enough to ensure the survival of our people.”
“How did I do that?”
Vashapaldi puts a finger to her lips. “Some things I don’t ask.”
I shiver. Was I a murderer and a kidnapper, too? The more I learn about the woman I used to be, the less I like her. Is there a way to stop becoming her? Once the memories all come back the way Jayd says they will, will I become this other Zan again? Will I lose myself?
I pocket the sphere. “Thank you,” I say. “I’ll need your help one more time, though.”
“Anything.”
“We have to go up to the next level, and the next after that, however long it takes to get back to the surface. To my home. There is . . . there’s a woman I love who is in a lot of trouble. I have to get back to her.”
“Ah, yes. The eternal story,” Vashapaldi says. She lays a hand on my wrist. “It’s all right, I’m not going to try to make you stay.”
“How much longer is it to the surface?”
“I don’t know. You talked of it then as now, but I have never heard of such a place. There are other levels, certainly, but the world is a great circle. You’ll find that when you reach the top, you’ll be back at the bottom again, back in the pits.”
“I have to believe in something else.”
“We all must believe something,” she says, and points to the pustules on the ceiling. “I believe in the light. Come, I will find someone to accompany you.”
When I get back to our quarters, all is still. Das Muni snores softly in her sleep, and Casamir fairly rumbles in hers. I stand outside for some time, watching the lights on the ceiling and the little clusters of robed women going about their daily business. I wonder who works the fields up there. Surely not these women in their pretty robes, and I think of the mutants. Is it a peaceful and perfect society if you don’t see the filth? If you don’t look too hard? Perhaps every society is a utopia when you fail to peel up all the layers and look at what’s underneath.
It’s Das Muni who wakes me after the sleeping period, and her expression is pained. “They want that woman to go with us,” she says.
“Who?” I ask, and as I sit up, I see Arankadash in the doorway, leaning on her long club.
“I’m to take you to the sea,” Arankadash says, “and the hole in the sky where we leave the children who have come out wrong. I am bringing rope, but none of you look fit enough to use it to go into the sky.”
“If you don’t want to—” I say.
She grimaces. “Councilor Vashapaldi has reminded me of my blood debt to you. You saved my life and brought my sisters home. We owe you a debt. It must be paid.”
I have to admit I like this better than leaving behind a hunk of flesh.
“How far to the hole in the sky?” I say.
“Quite far. Many sleeping periods, but we have a way to get there faster. Then we must cross the sea. Sometimes there is a boat, sometimes not.”
“What do we do if there’s no boat?” Casamir asks.
Arankadash shrugs. “We’ll consider that when the time comes.”
“This seems like a vital piece of logistics,” Casamir says.
“Have you actually been to this sea?” I ask Arankadash, and glance over at Casamir. “I’m having some trouble with guides who turn out to have no idea where they’re going.”
“I got us here, didn’t I?” Casamir sniffs.
“I have been there,” Arankadash says. Her tone is darker now, and I wonder if I’ve offended her. “There is a road,” she says. “We will take a sledge to the sea. It’s not as wild as the way down to the tinkers’ door.”
“We’re engineers,” Casamir says.
Das Muni tugs at my sleeve. “I don’t feel well,” she says. She has her cowl up.
“Are you sick?” I ask.
“I think there is something wrong with my guts,” she says.
“Do you need to rest?” I ask.
“No, but we should go.”
“You ate a lot last night,” I say.
“Please, let’s go from here.”
“You say that about every place.”
Casamir and Arankadash have resupplied us. Arankad
ash gives me a pack to carry too, made of hemp and slick material like that of my suit, all sewn together with sinew. I rub the shiny patches and think of the surface. How many of these suits did my sisters up there throw into the belly of the world without a second thought? Are all of these people, all of these different settlements, this whole world within the world, is all of this encompassed in what they call “bottom-worlders”? It seems a poor term for so much.
As we leave, the council of robed women comes out to see us off. Vashapaldi takes my hands and presses her forehead to mine.
“Is there anything I should tell you the next time you pass through here?” she asks.
“There won’t be a next time,” I say.
“Very well,” she says, but I know she doesn’t believe it. Is this my fate, to be recycled again and again? No. I don’t believe in fate. I believe in making my own way.
We start off back down the broad steps and out again into the dim. I get ready for another long march, but then I see the sledge and its attendants below, and I come up short, remembering what Arankadash had said about a road.
The sledge is just that—a long vehicle on great slick runners. Hitched to the sledge are eight beasts with heads twice the size of ours. They have mashed-in faces and wobbly chins. Their ears hang down almost to their feet, and when they shake their heads, the ears look like enormous tassels. They have six legs, all lined with thick, horny fingers tipped in massive claws.
“What are these?” I ask.
Das Muni leans into me. Her skin is hot against my arm. I can feel it through her clothes and mine.
“Sledgesaw,” she murmurs.
“They’re deercats,” Arankadash says. “We breed them for protection against the mutants. But they also do well hauling the sledge, when it’s necessary.”
“If one of those eats me,” Casamir says, “I’m going to be very disappointed.”
Arankadash pats one of the big animals on the head. It slobbers and works its mouth, revealing a long purple tongue. “They are quite nice,” she says. “Just don’t be mean to them.”
We all settle into the sledge. Arankadash secures an inflated purse of light at the front. I’m not sure what’s inside of it, but if I had to guess, they’d put whatever filled the pustules above into an inflated stomach or other sort of organ. Putting our gear in the middle, me and Casamir and Das Muni can sit on benches inside, knees pressed to our luggage. Arankadash takes a seat at the front on a broad seat of bone and hollers at the deercats. The sledge lurches forward. I grab hold of my pack, fearful we’re all going to fall out, but after a couple of jerks, the sledge trundles off across the plain.
The Stars Are Legion Page 20