by L. K. Rigel
The rest of the world came flooding back to her senses. Magda and the others had joined their circle. Magda, for one, seemed quite amused by Durga's flustered discomfort. Durga had never felt so exposed and vulnerable.
Khai of Luxor turned to Jake. "Lord Ardri, Luxor is honored to stand witness to your coronation. Adding well-run settlements like yours to the increasing number of city-states is the key to real peace and stability in the world. Welcome to the monarchy."
"A bit premature, don't you think?" Garrick smirked. "He isn't king yet, and this settlement is not yet a city."
"Allel," Jake said.
"Come again?" Garrick said.
"Allel," Jake said. "The city's name will be Allel, all gods. All gods and all people are welcome here. Exotics. Ghosts. Samaeli priests." Jake nodded to Maribel. "I mean to rule with respect for all."
"We all do at the beginning, Ardri," Prince Garrick said, as if he knew anything about beginnings or mutual respect. "Poor bastard. You have a few things to learn about people. What will your trade export be? Partially cut stone and wooden raptor cage technology, I suppose. Or radical democratic philosophy."
"We're working on something," Jake said. "Of course we honor the Great Chain, but this city will welcome all people on the chain as long as they obey the laws."
"You have no right!" Maribel backed away to the center of the room, her face wild and her finger pointed at Jake. "You don't even have the right to call yourself lord."
"Of course he has the right," Magda said. "Come, Maribel. Calm yourself." She tried to take Maribel's arm, and Maribel shook her off.
"It's your fault, you know. Your perfect son isn't so perfect, and it's your fault! You couldn't give the Emperor even one moment of ecstasy."
Magda's face was bright red. "What do you mean?"
Maribel had a point. If Jake had no soul, it meant Magda and the Emperor had never reached the highest heights in their lovemaking.
"I mean that Jake, Lord Ardri, has no soul." Maribel reveled in her triumph. By now everyone in the room had gathered around. "He has no soul, and he can't be king. He is the lowest of the low."
"Prove it," Magda said. "You can't."
"Ah, you're wrong, Matriarch." Maribel loaded the word with contempt. "Watch me."
It began. Against her will, Durga was drawn to Maribel as she had been drawn to Faina during meditation. The veil between them was so thin. Maribel was so close, so beautiful. If Durga could just get closer, just a step closer, she would know true bliss. Just a step.
But there was something between them. No, not something. Nothing. A chasm. It was Jake. If she looked into Jake she would see nothing. She would become nothing.
Somebody screamed. Did she scream?
A Kiss Like Lightning
Char punched Maribel in the face. Though Char had never been in trance herself, she knew what one looked like, and something strange was at play here. Somehow Maribel had created a psychic hold on Durga. Durga's eyes were still fixed on some other world, but the punch did appear to weaken the connection. Char slapped Maribel. The trance was deep; hard to tell if the slap had any effect.
Before Captain Gordon could get to Durga, Khai of Luxor swept her up in his arms and commanded the captain, "Help Lady Charybdis."
Good. Khai had already struck Char as a serious man, and he looked dead serious about Durga's safety now. His personal guards surrounded him on four sides.
Prince Garrick backed away from the action, joined by Geraldo. Char felt sure that Garrick was unsurprised by any of this. Geraldo didn't look too shocked either, just afraid for his own skin. Two of Garrick's men tried to stop Captain Gordon. Maribel was, after all, technically under Garrick's protection.
Jake's guys needed backup. As Prince Garrick had noted, most of the citadellers were absent. They were outside the perimeter wall, secretly bringing in Alice's bees. Captain Gordon called the doorkeepers over to help. Thank Asherah the Garricker guards were so out of shape.
Maribel closed her eyes and raised her hands and Durga whimpered. She was so tiny and helpless in Khai's arms. He headed toward the door. Maribel made a humming sound, and Durga moaned in agony.
Another of Garrick's men stepped in front of Char with the mocking grin of a bully about to go into action. The guy was so soft a white top could take him. Before Char thought about it, she lifted her knee and shot a front kick into his solar plexus.
"That's right," she said as he stumbled backwards, a puzzled look on his face. "Some people train." Shibadeh. She'd ripped her gown's side seam all the way up to her hip.
Jake got behind Maribel and pinned her arms to her sides. She let loose a scream that sounded like it could rip through flesh. Maribel's eyes popped open. There was no one in there.
Khai nearly ran into a woman in the entryway, Lydia, the settlement priest of Asherah. She said, "The Emissary is no longer in danger from the broken chalice." She touched Durga's forearm. "She could have died, Lord Ardri, but your touch broke their connection."
Prince Garrick signaled his guards, the ones not subdued by Gordon, to fall back.
Lydia crossed the room to Jake. She wore the standard garb of a priest of Asherah, light green shift and forest green tunic, embroidered with stylized seven-branched trees. Her hood was thrown back to expose straight, light brown hair in a loose braid. She had hazel eyes and a fair complexion, and her features were plain and ordinary. Char had never thought about it, but Lydia was as beautiful as any chalice.
The priest touched Maribel's blank face and said softly, "All is well, my sister."
"All isn't anywhere near shibbing well." Char broke the room's awed silence. "Can't you see she's gone to a place far, far away?"
"What do you know, Lydia?" Jake said.
"I suspect that my sister tried to look into your soul, Lord Ardri, and found none. This one has fallen into the abyss."
Shock rippled through the room. People took a collective step away from Jake. If it wasn't so horrible, it would be comical. This couldn't be happening. Everyone had a soul. Jake of all people had a soul. Char would bet her life on it.
"You called Maribel a broken chalice," she said. "How do you know Maribel? I've never seen you in Sanguibahd."
"I have never been to Corcovado, and I have never met Maribel. But I recognize my sister. I too am a broken chalice."
"I don't understand."
"Not every woman who bleeds longs to become a glorified prostitute."
"It's not like that." But part of Char said it was exactly like that.
"Perhaps not," Lydia said. "This is not the time to argue that point. I'm one of the older chalices. I was forty-five years old when the gods returned."
A murmur ran through the room, disbelief in some voices and the satisfaction of confirmed belief in others. Lydia appeared no older than her mid twenties. That's what it would have been like. Char had never regretted being passed over as a chalice, but she had to admit it would be nice to keep such youthful good health and beauty for more than a hundred years.
"I was never religious," Lydia continued. "I had a husband who was no lord or king of anything. Then I was given fertility. If I was going to have natural born children, fine. But I wanted them to be my husband's children. I hid from the Great Red Beast—"
"Monster," Jake and Char said at the same time.
"Quite."
Lydia closed her eyes and touched Maribel's arm. Maribel's eyes closed and she slumped against Jake's chest. After a silent minute that felt longer, Lydia continued.
"I did become pregnant with my husband's child, but I lost the pregnancy in the fifth month of gestation and with it my ability to bear a child. Asherah punished me for my sin. My husband suffered an aortic aneurysm the day my uterus ruptured. It was as if she had spoken to me directly."
"And so you became her priest?" Char said. "I'd think you would hate her."
"The gods are mysterious in their ways," Lydia said. "I am still a chalice, if broken. I have another purpose now, and
I accept it."
Lydia radiated serenity. She had the beatific certainty of someone possessed by a divine force. Char thought of her own response when Asherah no longer needed her. She can smite me. Not so classy, but she still felt that way.
Lydia turned to Jake. "Chalices are able to do more than conceive and bear natural children. Trained properly, a chalice can pierce the veil between the sacred and profane realities."
The only sounds were Lydia's voice and the crackling of the fire.
"Maribel seems to have discovered what Sanguibahd has not. A chalice can look beyond that veil into a human soul. It's a blissful, ecstatic experience, as long as there is a soul to behold. When there is no soul, the attempt fails and the chalice may well fall into the void between realities."
"Priest of Asherah," Khai said. "How do I save the Emissary?"
Lydia closed her eyes, then said, "Like Maribel, Durga's constituents have disintegrated. Her soul is there, but her spirit has fled. I am sorry, Khai of Luxor. I don't know if anything can save Durga."
"I demand you examine the infant Sanguibahd tried to foist on Versailles!" The delegate from Versailles knocked Char aside and tried to grab the priest. With a nod from Khai, two Luxor guards lifted the Versailles delegate off his feet. As they took him away, he shouted, "I'll wager that infant has no soul."
Lydia didn't hide her contempt, and she didn't answer the shibdab. "I'll take Durga and Maribel with me to the ashram. We will maintain a constant vigil of meditation and invite their spirits to return."
"That is not acceptable," Prince Khai said. "Do what you will with the other. The Emissary must remain in the citadel."
Durga's head rested on Khai's chest. She didn't look psychically damaged. She looked like a young woman in the arms of a man who cherished her. A twinge of pain pricked Char's heart. The prominent spider on Durga's shoulder told all. The Emissary could never be a young woman in the arms of a man who cherished her.
"I agree," Jake said. "We can't let the Emissary go. Maribel should stay in the citadel too."
Lydia said, "It might be better to separate them. Let Captain Gordon bring Maribel to my sisters, and I will visit the Emissary here."
"Wait." Prince Garrick stepped forward. "Isn't everybody forgetting something? If Lord Ardri has no soul, then he is no longer lord sheriff. A soulless human being can't be put above humans with souls. Certainly not as lord or king. His offspring must also be soulless. There is no dynasty. His coronation would be a sacrilege."
Magda's face had gone white, and she said nothing. Char didn't know what to say either, but she took hold of Jake's hand. It didn't matter if he had a soul or not. He was still her Jake.
He kissed the top of her head and squeezed her hand.
"There is a way," Lydia said. "That is, there may be a way." She looked shibbing tentative. "We would have to do it at the ashram. In the citadel there are too many people. Too many competing psychic signals."
"It's dangerous," Char said. Of course it was.
"Very," Lydia said. "You see Durga and Maribel. The risk is ending up like them. In our meditations on the soul, my sisters and I have been able to induce a phenomenon we call the liminal gauntlet. A metaphysical tunnel. One of my acolytes calls it a wormhole between the sacred and profane worlds. I think that's right."
Acolytes? Char had met Lydia once. Unimpressive and unimportant. Jake's settlement priest of Asherah. Char had clearly read Lydia wrong.
"Why are you here?" Char said. "It can't be a coincidence."
"It could be." That beatific smile was irritating, actually. This was a crisis. Serenity was not the appropriate response. "It could be that Asherah told us to establish our ashram here. Or it could be that one of us knew about Lord Ardri's condition and came to study him. When she discovered his tolerance for all religions, we decided this was the place to do our work."
"Tell me about the wormhole," Jake said.
"The liminal gauntlet is a direct connection between the mundane and the divine. We can open the gauntlet to allow a human in deep meditation to enter the liminal space. The presence of a soulless human within that space attracts a shard of the All—a soul. That's the theory."
"No one has made it through the gauntlet yet?" Jake said.
"No one has tried."
"What about children? My daughter is only a year old, and my son is yet to be born."
"Your daughter will have to enter the gauntlet when she is older, but you can easily give your son a soul before he is born. Once you have a soul, you can perform the hieros gamos with your chalice."
Char was a petty, petty person. Whatever this hieros gamos was, it sounded like something she definitely did not want Jake doing with Faina.
"As Matriarch of Sanguibahd, I speak in the Emissary's absence."
Magda had found her voice. Confident and commanding, she drew every eye her way, demonstrating why an Emperor had been fascinated by her. Too bad for Jake the fascination hadn't gone both ways.
"The liminal gauntlet wouldn't exist if the gods didn't intend us to use it," Magda said. "If Lord Ardri is willing to undergo the ordeal, who are we to deny him?"
"Matriarch," Jake said to his mother. "May I impose upon you to preside over the feast while Lady Char and I take care of Maribel and the Emissary? There is no reason the rest of our guests should go hungry."
Char looked from Maribel to Durga to the ripped seam in her gown. This was not how she'd expected this evening to go. Jake was about to risk his life in a psychic shredder. And if he made it through that, he'd be off to have sacred sex with Faina.
-o0o-
Nothing. Silence. Longing. Emptiness. Sadness, sadness. Despair. The Empani's unending sorrow. Samael, Samael. Ugh.
Nothing.
Maribel, so beautiful. Maribel, and the universe.
Jake, and then no Jake. A chasm of nothingness. A never-ending void.
Silence.
Music. Guitar music. A baritone, lovely, lovely. The sound vibrated over Durga and washed through her heart. Inhale. Exhale. The musician's voice.
A kiss like lightning rips through the numbness
Three seconds and counting, my whole life changes
A kiss like lightning tears through this frozen
Underground shelter
I do believe I'm dreaming
Feels like I'm dreaming
Thank god I'm dreaming
Under cover of darkness or in the glare of the morning light
Will I ever fall into your arms in this life?
Khai. Khai was singing to her, singing her back to him. From where? Where was she?
A spider spins her mystery in silence
Three minutes and counting, I am bound by her labor
A spider spins and weaves
A timeless, amoral endeavor
I do believe I'm dying
Feels like I'm dying
Thank god I'm dying
Under cover of darkness or in the glare of the morning light
Do you think I might come to your arms in the next life?
Khai, don't die! The scion of Luxor. Such beautiful eyebrows. The loneliness disappears when I see you.
My guardian angel stands at the fountain
A brush of her shoulder, and I remain human
My guardian angel takes away all grieving contemplation
I do believe it's raining
Smells like it's raining
Thank god it's raining
Under cover of darkness or in the glare of the morning light
I will never fall into your arms in this life, in this life, in this life.
Yes, you will, Khai! You will fall into my arms. Fall now. Fall now.
Durga opened her eyes. The window was open. It was early morning, first light. She could hear distant sounds of the bay, the seagulls and the surf. This was her turret room in the citadel. Allel, Jake's city. Oh, Jake…
She never wanted to do that again. Never wanted to experience that emptiness, like looking of
f a cliff into a universe of nothing. What did it mean, really? Jake wasn't evil or bad, so lack of a soul didn't affect the person.
It affected the world. The soul was necessary to existence itself. Asherah had said the material world needed more souls or everything would cease to exist.
Durga didn't want to think that a soulless person was less than an ensouled person. She didn't want to think it. She didn't want it to be true.
She turned away from that memory.
A guitar leaned against the wall. Khai of Luxor was on his knees beside the bed, his head bent down. Her hand was grasped between his two hands. She pressed her fingers against his palm.
"Praise Asherah, you've come back to me." A smile spread over his face. He radiated joy. His eyes were kind, concerned, and happy all at once. No harm could come to her as long as Khai was near.
Please, Asherah, let Khai have a soul.
He leaned forward, and his lips found hers.
Get A Dog
The first thing Char noticed was the rough weave of Jake's sheets, the weight of his blankets. They'd slept in his bed last night. Alice was in Char's suite.
Alice was going to give ghosts a bad name, taking bubble baths and speaking in sentences. Well, two-word sentences. Yes, please. No, please. She was anxious for her bees, and Char had promised to take her to hydroponics to see them today.
It was early. The sun was probably just peeking over the eastern forest. There had been rain all night, but at the moment a rosy-colored light filtered through the window. Char stretched and rolled over to kiss Jake good morning.
Shib. He wasn't there.
Her heart sank. "Jake?" No answer. No, cripes, no. She understood that he had a busy schedule today, what with learning how to get a soul and have sacred sex and all, but couldn't he have waited until the sun was truly up?
She was being childish. Selfish. But she didn't care.
She kicked her feet in the blankets and threw a private fit. "Jake!" It didn't change anything, but she felt a little better. She put on her robe and went into the bathroom to brush her teeth.