by L. K. Rigel
“It took shibbing forever for that pilot to tie down. I’ll play.” Kim smiled wickedly. “But it’ll be rough.”
The Rites served a two-fold purpose: to sanctify the year’s release of chalices to the queue, and to qualify princes to bid on Triune Contracts. They were the culminating event in a prince’s guest-host journey, a week in Corcovado filled with seminars and sex.
Princes were banned from the square, but they were allowed in hydroponics, and the younger girls crammed around the tables near the glass wall hoping for a good glimpse. The ones Kim had chased off were over there sitting on other girls’ laps.
Mostly, the girls just wanted to laugh and be silly together. Before your Rites, that was life in Red City: learn and work out and play with your dog and be adored.
“I miss Beastie,” Mal said. Her little pug had been with the groomer since yesterday morning, and she wouldn’t get to see him again until this evening. The others nodded. It was horrible being separated from their dogs, but there was just too much to do.
Two days ago they’d gone to the Tat Man for the roses that signify chalice status.
Yesterday they undertook their vision quest and received their totems.
Tomorrow they’d be sanctified and available for contract.
Today, they were going to see souls.
Nin groaned at the girls leering at the window. “They’re embarrassing themselves.”
“How quickly you forget, Ninny,” Mal said. “We did the same thing.”
Normally someone would throw out a smart comeback, but not today. Prime Hub had come down with a case of humility. They didn’t have the luxury anymore to indulge in giggling speculation about sexual technique and which city provided the best living quarters and the least disgusting substitute for coffee.
Everything was about to become real.
With the gift of fertility, the goddess Asherah had given bleeders the ability to see souls. Today, they were going to do it for the first time. Sister Marin was taking them up on Corcovado for the task, to the old world statue.
Nin handed around a basket of bread. “What if we see an Empani?”
The thought perked everybody up. The mountain had a reputation for Empani sightings. Supposedly, there was a nest up there. The shapeshifting Empanii weren’t a new special species, but not much was known about them. Sister Marin said they’d been around since the cataclysm. Maybe before. No one had any idea of their true shape. Supposedly, the Matriarch kept one in her penthouse.
Creepy if true, but even Mal didn’t believe it – and she’d love to believe anything creepy about Durga.
“I don’t think an Empani can change at all.” Kairo didn’t know anything about the Empanii, but since when did that stop her from having an opinion? “They just get into your mind to make you see things.”
“That can’t be right,” Roh said. “They’re supposed to be enslaved by human desire.” Her eyebrows scrunched together above her shades. She complained about wearing them, but the protection was mandatory outside, even under awnings or the bistro’s shade trees.
Red City had the best protective technology. No one who wore Red City shades had gone Ptery in years. Pterygium, a gauze-like wing of tissue that grew over the eyes, was the one mutation bleeders were prone to. Pteryi had a normal lifespan and seemed to physically age more rapidly than normal. If your eyes went white, you were out.
When it happened, the mutation occurred almost exclusively in blue eyes, less commonly in green eyes, and rarely in brown. It was unheard of in metal-cast eyes. No surprise, since exotics were nearly unheard of themselves. Sister Jordana was the only exotic Mal had ever seen.
Since the cataclysm, darker tones in hair, skin, and eye color generally signaled more stable genes. No one talked about it, but contract prices for blue-eyed chalices were always lower.
Kim flexed her arms and clipped a proof of service attendant. The proof dropped the bowl she was carrying, but Kim caught it before it hit the ground.
“Nothing spilled, Lily. See?”
“They really are working hard this week.” Roh stabbed a gargantuan strawberry with her fingernail, painted the same bright red as the fruit. To Lily she said, “Why don’t you go get something good to eat? You’ve been working so hard today.”
The pink rosebud on Lily’s forehead creased with her frown. “That sounds nice. I will.”
“Sometimes I think they’d be more help if they didn’t try to help.” Kim popped a slice of papaya into her mouth.
“Kim, darling, be nice.” Kairo sniffed. “You’ll offend Ma-Da’s sensitive heart.”
“Her name is Mal or Mallory,” Nin said. From the beginning she’d befriended Mal against snobs like Kairo. “And it isn’t seemly to be unkind to the proofs.”
Kairo was natural-born. Half-sister to the king and counselor of Muskova. She was also take-your-breath-away gorgeous. Her eyes were so dark, sometimes they looked black. Her hair was black and thick, down to her hips, not one frayed or split end. She wasn’t as tall as Sister Jordana, but she was taller than any chalice in the queue.
She spoke in lovely modulated tones – especially when she said something mean, like making fun of Mal for saying ma and da instead of mother and father. She never made fun of Nin for saying mataji and pitaji. But then, Nin was an aristocrat.
Without doubt, Kairo would bring the highest first contract price in Red City’s history. The bartender who ran the books down in the boardroom wouldn’t even take bets on where she’d go. Garrick, of course. Everybody knew Prince Garrick was waiting for Kairo to enter the queue. He hadn't even bothered to complete his Rites until this year.
Mal ignored the Ma-Da taunt and re-braided her hair. When she was little, she’d thought her hair was the color of dirt, but it might just have been dirty. They’d shaved her head before she left the settlement, and it grew in pale blonde. White, really – with scattered strands of gold, like something from an old-world fairy story.
She was so proud of it, she had let it grow past her thighs, never trimmed it, though it frayed horribly. It was her one distinguishing mark. She couldn’t let a fraction go.
Last year swimming in the cove near the grotto, her hair had tangled in seaweed and she nearly drowned. She remembered Kim diving after her as she was losing consciousness, and suddenly they were on the shore along with her seaweed extensions.
She decided then her hair was just as special trimmed to her waist and secured in a braid.
“Oh, great gods.” Roh nodded toward hydroponics. At the window, Luxor’s prince flexed his muscles and posed for the girls in the square. “My parents want me to contract with that one.” The hubbies adjusted the sliders on their shades to get a closer view.
“He’s awfully gorgeous, Roh.” Mal focused her shades. “Look at those biceps. Yum.”
“Too close to home. They’d visit every week I was in country.”
Adjusting her slider, Mal spotted Lily at the edge of the courtyard by the garden. She seemed more upset than usual today.
Kairo scoffed at Roh. “You’re trained to disconnect from all emotion. You can raise and lower your body temperature to control conception. You can manipulate your hormones after fertilization to select for gender. But you can’t detach from your parents?”
“She wouldn’t do that!” Nin looked horrified. Neither she nor Roh could detach from their parents – Roh because she couldn’t stand her family and Nin because she loved hers so much.
“Too bad the contracts are public record,” Kim said. “They always know where you are. I’m glad my people don’t bother with grid gossip.” Kim’s parents were ceramicists in Taos, an artists’ colony bound to the city-state of Austin.
Like Settlement 20 was bound to Garrick, but without the stigma.
Mal pushed back her chair and stood up, still watching Lily, and bounced on the tiles to disburse some pent-up energy. Her gi pants made a satisfying snap with each hook kick. Maybe Lily was overwhelmed by excitement over the Rites. U
nlike other proofs, Lily always seemed a little depressed.
“You know, just because the proofs don’t have souls doesn’t mean they don’t have hearts.” Without waiting for Kairo’s inevitable retort, she jogged away from the hubbies and through the tables.
“Lily, can I ask a favor? I’m going to be busy tomorrow. Would you like to watch Beastie for me?”
There, a smile. Lily promised to come for Beastie in the morning and bring more proofs for the other dogs. She ran off to get something good to eat.
The chatter in the courtyard surged louder, and girls started climbing up on their chairs. At the table, Kim and Roh were on their chairs, and Nin was on the table. Kairo remained seated and picked through the fruit. She was much too dignified for such behavior.
“She’s coming.” Nin plopped down and tried to look casual.
Queen Chiyo! The name filled the air like the chirping of excited birds. Queen Chiyo was coming, the most notorious of breeders, first to invoke the queen clause. Queen Chiyo, who lived exactly as she liked and scoffed at every rule.
And Red City could do nothing about it.
Red City’s mission was to provide a safe haven for chalices, humanity’s fertile females. Everything operated through the Triune Contract, the sacred document that bound three parties: Red City, the Concord City, and the Brood Queen.
Once Mal and the hubbies were sanctified, Red City would be their home base. When they accepted a bid, the Concord City would pay the contract price and their expenses and provide the physician. As brood queens, as they’d be called when under contract, they’d deliver two ensouled children, first a female and then a male, to be the city’s next-generation counselor and king.
But a bleeder of royal blood couldn’t be expected to produce children for another city. Under an obscure Concord law, if a counselor was fertile she would become queen of her city and her brother served as counselor.
The queen clause, as people called it, had been a forgotten sentence in the world’s governing documents. In the generations since ratification, no counselor had bled – until Counselor of Nihon.
She’d taken a name. Chiyo, a thousand generations.
And she was spending this gestation in residence at Red City for the better weather and clean air and water.
She’d brought her other offspring with her.
She strode into the courtyard like the most important person in the world. Her silk kimono was blatantly cheerful, pale yellow with blue, pink, and green camellias. No shades on her eyes. Four courtiers flanked her with poles that supported a canvas tarp embroidered with stylized fans and irises.
The queen herself – herself! – held the infant she’d delivered a week ago.
“Great Asherah, it’s true.” Kairo looked away, her face pale.
It wasn’t just the infant that was so exgusting. Three small children toddled behind the queen like fat ducklings.
“I hear she spends hours with them every day,” Nin said.
“Great gods.” Kairo looked nauseous.
“What if she has twenty-four?” Mal knew a retired chalice, the regent of Allel, who had borne twenty-four children.
“That’s gross.” Kairo didn’t even attempt to keep her opinions quiet, though Queen Chiyo was near enough to hear.
“No. It isn’t gross,” Roh said. “She’s also acting as the mother. They’re bonding.”
“Ick,” Kairo said.
“There’s nothing wrong with it,” Kim said. “It’s natural.”
“So is arsenic,” Mal said. “And peeing in your pants.” She agreed with Kairo on this one. Queen Chiyo should have arranged for a proper mother.
It was perverted to bond with the infants she’d borne. Of course it wasn’t unnatural, technically, but it was a breach against civilization.
“Natural-borns bonding with their breeders is like baggers bonding with hospital techs,” Kairo said. “Just weird.”
Emotional control was critical to a chalice’s happiness. The world called chalices cold, even unfeeling. That wasn’t it. They had feelings. But they were disciplined. They directed their feelings to safe places – their hubmates, their dogs, their teachers.
While under contract, Kairo’s breeder had fallen in love with the king’s minister. It was a huge scandal. A king under contract could play with anyone; what did it matter? But from quarantine to delivery of an infant, a chalice was restricted to sex with her contracted partner.
The scandal wasn’t about sex; the chalice didn’t breach her contract. It was the falling in love part. During a first or second contract it would have ruined her, but luckily, it was her third. As soon as the wolf tattoo was on her left cheek, she retired to marry Kairo’s father. She later bore two children with him, Kairo and her brother.
They had still hired a mother.
The entire courtyard of silly girls was stunned silent by the shameless parade. Queen Chiyo had been gone several minutes before conversations resumed their former decibel level.
In the queen’s wake, the hubbies’ teacher charged into the courtyard.
Sister Marin’s service tats were the conservative style, two small symbols on her left arm below her jackrabbit totem and the ladybug completion tat on her left cheek, symbol of Neotroy. She had done the minimum three contracts before becoming a teacher. She wore workout clothes – gi pants, training shoes – and had a backpack slung over one shoulder.
“Grab your gear, ladies. The Redeemer awaits. Last one to touch the statue’s feet will have bad luck!”
Empani
There was a shortcut up to the old world statue on Corcovado, but naturally they didn’t go that way. Sister Marin put the hubbies on the long trail at a full run.
The low scrub was like the terrain outside the settlement where Mal and Pala used to hunt for rabbits and wild berries. Two granite boulders leaned against each other. The sight brought back Mal’s last day at the settlement.
That’s when she’d found the half-buried sandstone god she kept hidden like a treasure in her pocket. She’d never shown the Asherah to anyone, not even Harriet.
She rounded a bend to a grand view of the bay. She stopped to take it in, and then everybody stopped to rest. The harbor, empty yesterday, was packed with sailing ships and steamers. The dirigidock was crammed full. She recognized the Zhongguó airship from pictures. Queen Chiyo’s vessel from Nihon had the first berth.
“There’s Garrick.” Nin pointed at the airspace above the bay. Kairo looked but immediately tried to appear uninterested.
A sleek gray airship with black jets and black raptor talons on its tail circled the compound, hovered over the citadel tarmac, rotated the jets, and floated downward.
Mal felt a twinge of pride. After all, Settlement 20 was bound to Garrick, the most important city in the world. She’d met the prince briefly – not as a settlement girl; that would never happen – but as a newly discovered bleeder. He’d seemed nice enough. He had strawberry blond hair and light blue eyes. His children would certainly benefit from Kairo’s stronger genes.
Mal continued up Corcovado and took the lead. She’d reach the Redeemer first. The morning mist had burned off, and the air smelled of warm grass and wildflowers.
A flutter of loneliness passed over her. In four years she hadn’t heard from anyone at the settlement. There was one contact from Pala’s da. A honeybee arrived at the hub carved from one of the blue amber rocks she’d sent. No note. It had hurt terribly. Then she made a horrible mistake borne out of ridiculous pride. She had refused to write back, not even to ask for the rest of her stones.
Time passed. Too much time, until it was too awkward to write. Now she was ashamed of herself, but she didn’t know how to fix it. She was a day away from her ritual. She could use that as an excuse to write to Palada.
Or to Ma. With the distance of time, Mal could admit a grudging fondness for the tough, ignorant woman, even a little pity. After so many years raising Mal, Ma’s lies had cost her the bounty she’d dreamed o
f.
Pala would be gone, in Garrick now with the guard.
A flash of movement off the path pulled her out of her daydream. Something slithered up her leg, like fingers, grasping at her pants then her top, so fast she couldn’t get a good look. It flipped her braid forward over her shoulder then scampered down her other leg and scurried off into the brush.
Her heart pounding, she followed its movement and saw Pala! He flashed his brilliant smile at her and turned away. His quiver slapped at his backside as he ran into the brush. She was vaguely aware of the others passing behind her as she veered off the path to follow him.
“Mal,” Nin called out. “You’re going to be last!”
How did Nin get so far ahead? Mal shook her head and returned to the path, her blood racing. Either Pala was still sixteen years old and had magically teleported to Corcovado, or she’d just had an encounter with an Empani.
She got to the statue last, climbed the stairs, and slapped the Redeemer’s toes.
“Mallory, are you unwell?” Sister Marin said.
“I’m fine.” Mal regulated her temperature and felt the flush leave her face. The Empani had felt creepy, but she had sensed no danger. If she told Sister Marin about it now, she might cancel the soul session. “Why did the old world call this the Redeemer?”
Sister Marin smiled at the question. Her focus was special species, but she was a fair scholar of pre-Rise history. “In the old world, some believed that the Christ event was a singular occurrence in the history of time and space. This is a depiction of the human said to have embodied the event. The Redeemer was one of their names for him.”
The statue was a gigantic man dressed like an old world priest and facing the bay. Hand to hand, its outstretched arms spanned over ninety feet. The herons of Corcovado often perched on the arms and watched the world go by.
“Was he a mutation, like raptors?” Mal asked. “Was there ever a human being so huge?”
They all knew about raptors. Mal had watched one kill someone dear to her. No one scoffed at the idea of a species mutating into a giant version of its old world self.