by L. K. Rigel
“He was normal-sized. There wasn’t much gross mutation until the cataclysm.” Sister Marin sat down and crossed her legs. “Let’s turn to today’s task.”
The hub faced her in a similar position to get ready for meditation.
“Yesterday on your vision quest you encountered your personal totem. You will keep the nature of your totem within you, hidden like a treasure in your pocket, until you order your first dagger. Only then will the world be astounded by the revelation of your deepest inner natures.”
She flashed her jackrabbit and knitted her eyebrows in mock consternation. Mal tried to think what a jackrabbit said about Sister Marin’s deepest inner nature.
“Until then, you can commune with your totem in meditation as a spiritual resource.”
Mal visualized her firebird, radiant, flickering orange and red and yellow and blue. Ferocious. It made her feel serene and complete.
“You believe your totem is the most profound symbol ever. No one was ever so satisfied with her totem as you are.”
Mal nodded, and so did the others.
“In times of psychic stress, your totem can be a source of power. But it has another purpose.”
“The counselors’ daggers.” Kairo sounded wistful. Her half sister was a counselor.
“Exactly. You have your roses. And you will have your marks of service and your totem. Symbols that announce you and anchor you to humanity. But the counselors you bear will not be permitted any symbol, not even a name. By the gods’ will, they are bound to serve their brother, the king, as he serves his city. Wise disinterested counsel is their gift to humanity.”
Counselor of Allel was the only counselor Mal had ever met. She’d seemed happy. Mal had envied the bond between Counselor and her brother Edmund, but Mal wouldn’t like that role. She touched the stone god in her pocket.
“The daggers you give to your counselors will be their roses, their anchor and their symbol.”
“Not to mention, they can tell who they share DNA with at the counselor convention.” Roh, always the joker.
“I’m not sentimental,” Sister Marin said, “but I want to cry like Harriet when I think how far you have come in your training. I’m quite proud of you all.” She clapped her hands twice, the signal to begin meditation.
“So breathe. We are here on the sacred mountain to complete your last task before you see the princes. Yesterday you received your totems. Today you will see souls. Tomorrow you will have your princes. And then it begins.”
She had been their main teacher since they came to the hub. After the ritual, she would take on a new hub of twelve and thirteen year olds. Like all the sisters, she was once a chalice. She probably wasn’t very old with only three contracts.
“So many princes.” Nin surveyed the bay crowded with vessels, including the Golden Wasp, Allel’s ship. “How do they choose the five?”
Prime Hub would act as surrogates in the ritual, and five princes would pair with them and represent all princes completing their guest-host journeys.
“Garrick was chosen for obvious reasons.”
“Yeah, they’ve got all the fuel, plus Red City expects a huge bride price from them.”
“Dear Roh,” Sister Marin said. “Always to the point.”
It was hilarious the way Kairo puffed herself up. But who could deny it? She was born to be brood queen to the richest city in the world.
Sister Marin continued. “The Matriarch and the Emissary decide which princes will participate.”
It must drive Durga crazy that Mal was in Prime. The showcase of the ritual would bolster her first contract price. It might save her from bringing in the lowest first price in Red City history.
“But why Allel, in Sophia’s name?” Kairo said.
Sister Marin seemed as perplexed as anyone. “It isn’t the bees. Red City is guaranteed hives in perpetuity through Celia’s contract.”
At the Golden Wasp, the captain’s yacht had just been lowered into the water. Mal adjusted her slider to look. She recognized Captain Serna talking to the pilot. The yacht, the Happy Drone, sped away from the larger ship toward the open sea.
“Sister Jordana and Celia are friends,” she said. “Maybe that’s it.”
She had no feelings for Edmund now, but she remembered the little-girl crush she’d had on him. She’d been terrified that he’d pat her bald head in front of everyone when he gave her the presents! But he’d only given her a friendly wink.
Later that night in the tunnel, when he thought she’d endangered his search for the Scrolls of Scylla, he’d grabbed her and practically shoved her against the wall. It made her a little excited to think of it now. Admirable, really. He was passionate about his city’s welfare, as he should be.
“The Blackbird!”
Red City’s famous transport floated in over the bay and hovered above the Happy Drone. Its mechanical extensions telescoped out with inflated pontoons at the ends, and it set down on the water like a monstrous, mechanical spider.
Stairs extended to the Happy Drone which the crew attached to the deck. Mal moved her slider to watch Sister Jordana and Harriet descend from the Blackbird with a young girl in a white jumpsuit.
Sister Jordana’s hood was thrown back, showing the copperhead snake tattoo that crawled around her neck and wound around her bald head like a turban. The snake’s head rested on her left cheek, and the forked tongue licked the corner of her mouth.
Short cheerful Harriet, with haphazard brown curls and a dimpled grin, followed Sister Jordana, chatting with the new girl like they were old friends. She helped the girl move safely from the stairs to the Happy Drone’s deck.
A surge of happiness and love welled up in Mal. That girl had no idea how wonderful her life was about to become.
“Wonderful! A new bleeder.” Sister Marin glanced from the yacht to the dirigidock. “Looks like Queen Chiyo wanted the Blackbird’s berth.”
Sister Marin paired them off, taking Kim for her partner. Kairo was with Roh, and Mal with Nin. Excitement and nerves started playing with Mal’s stomach, and she took a few deep breaths to calm herself.
“This is somewhat similar to starting a pregnancy.” Sister Marin’s tone slowed to training mode. “Be aware of your body rhythms and temperature. In this case, keep your temperature as close to normal as you can. Small fluctuations are unimportant.”
This was going to be easier than expected. They’d been manipulating their body temperature for years. Mal eased into a state of centered self-awareness and hypersensitivity to her partner. Thank Asherah it was Nin. When Harriet had confirmed Mal’s soul, it had created an everlasting bond between them.
“Remember, this is as awful as it is wonderful. For a nanosecond, you will expose your own soul to the person whose soul you seek, whether they are aware of what you’re doing or not.”
“What if it turns out she doesn’t have a soul?” Roh laughed, and Kairo stuck out her tongue.
“It’s devastating,” Sister Marin said. “Devastating to seek after a soul that doesn’t exist. As though you had come upon a never-ending void that wants to pull you in, a place of hopelessness, of just – nothing.”
“But Harriet?” Great Asherah. That must happen to her all the time.
“She exposes herself regularly. She is a warrior in her own way.”
“She has her roses but no completion tat.” It was a day to ask this kind of question, something Mal had always wondered about. “Is she one of us?”
“Harriet is one of us. She was older when she came to Red City. In those days, we weren’t as successful in finding everyone early on. Her uterus ruptured during her proof of service. She never had a contract.”
“That’s too awful to think about,” Nin said.
“We take care of our own. This is Red City’s promise. Harriet could have spent the rest of her life being cared for, learning, playing, or doing nothing at all if that was her desire. But she wanted to serve. She went to the academy at Versailles, became a phys
ician, and dedicated herself to your well-being. Don’t pity Harriet. She is one of the happiest people you will ever know.”
That much was undeniable.
“Now relax, girls. Your souls have been confirmed. You won’t be falling into any voids. And breathe.”
Already, the boundaries between Mal and Nin were dissolving. Thank Asherah she wasn’t paired with Kairo.
“The gods resent us for our souls.” Sister Marin resumed her lulling tone. “When our bodies die, our souls return to the All, where they can never go.”
Such discipline. She could speak and trance-trip at the same time. Unbelievable if you didn’t see it yourself.
“Time and space make the skeleton of the material world. But the interstitial sinews make differentiation possible. Borders, boundaries, limits, laws – without these, all is chaos.”
The world? The world ... didn’t matter.
“Chaos is seductive. When you confirm a soul, there is a moment in the mingling that feels so good, so pure, so right, you never want to pull back into the lonely, sealed-off existence of a single self.”
Nin’s breath filled Mal’s lungs; their hearts beat at the same pace.
“The membranes and barriers that make the material realm possible were weakened in the cataclysm. In our time, gods and souls are as perceptible as the smell of a rose, when we know how to perceive. By Asherah’s grace, women who breed also see souls, even the Pteryi.”
Kim let out a squeak. Mal touched her shades. Or Nin’s. Or was Nin doing the touching?
“Open yourself to the fullness of your partner and know that you are both shards of the All. There is nothing to fear.”
Did she scream? Did someone scream? She and Nin were hugging each other. There was no difference between them. Mallory was Ninshubur and Nin was Mal. Life on earth was a lie, a game, a lark. They burst out laughing, and the joy and the laughing were the only things real in the universe.
Then they heard everyone else laugh too. In that instant, Nin was gone and Mal was walled off from the universe, contained inside her body.
So lonely. “How sad for the soulless.”
“Now you understand why we love the proof of service children unreservedly,” Sister Marin said. “It is our sacred obligation to make their lives easy and pleasant.”
Poor Lily. Mal lifted her shades just enough to dry her eyes. Making the proofs’ lives easy and pleasant didn’t seem fair compensation for denying them souls.
“Ma-Da thought sure everybody had a soul.” Kairo snorted. The boundaries were indeed resealed.
“If you say it enough times, Kairo, the Matriarch might think you want a contract with Hibernia where the aristocrats call their parents Ma and Da.” Sister Marin laughed at her own joke, but Kairo was scandalized; Hibernia was too poor to make even a first bid on her service.
The others didn’t seem bothered by soullessness. They were aristocrats, brought up to understand that there were unfortunate beings in the world, and it was sad, but what could you do? Some people didn’t have souls. Most people couldn’t breed naturally. You couldn’t save the entire world.
“I don’t care where I serve,” Roh said. “As long as it’s warm and there are no raptors and it’s more than two days’ travel from Luxor.”
Mal thought of Allel. “Even cities with raptors need royal children.” Allel had had cages on its wall, so they must have raptors, but the people survived. Other than Red City, it was the only real city she’d seen. Garrick was famous for its riches. It must be wonderful. But no city could be prettier than Allel.
A white heron sailed by and descended toward Red City. It soared over the compound and settled into a tree in the hydroponics court. Mal remembered the Empani.
“Is there really a nest of Empani on Corcovado? Because I think I saw one earlier.”
Ptery
They glistened with sweat from the run down the mountain, but no one was thinking about a shower. In the concourse foyer between admin and residential, Mal and the hubbies ignored the hub lifts and followed Sister Marin up the curving marble stairs to the mezzanine lifts that went to the teachers’ offices in the tower.
“You saw a friend from your city?” Sister Marin had already asked this.
“Settlement.”
Kairo rolled her eyes at the word settlement. The others pretended not to hear.
“My settlement.” It felt good to say it aloud.
Shib it, she was practically in the queue. She was in Prime. Some city would bid on her and be grateful for her service. She would not be ashamed of where she came from. That had been the lesson of the blue amber: The world may change how it sees me, but I remain myself.
“And you dropped out of the race?”
“It was strange. I didn’t care about winning all of a sudden. I forgot about the Redeemer until Nin called to me.” Thank Asherah for Nin!
“The Empani took your friend’s shape from your thoughts.” Sister Marin seemed thrilled. “But they aren’t known to leave their nests. They went into hiding not long after the cataclysm. Everything we know is from people who’ve stumbled into a nest.”
Then Durga couldn’t be keeping an Empani.
The six of them filled the lift and another sister crammed in. She wrinkled her nose and stuck out her arm to keep the door from closing so she could get out.
Roh slipped her shades into her pocket. “I guess we’re a bit ripe.”
“Why don’t the Empani come out of their nests?” Nin said.
“The one I saw wanted something. Now that I think about it, it seemed more interested in my clothes than in me.”
“Amazing.” Kairo deadpanned. Humor from Kairo?
“We think they stay in the nest for self-protection. The Empani are shapeshifters, but they lose psychic integrity when they encounter a human being. It would be like having your soul open and unprotected at all times.”
Great gods. As blissful as the soul encounter had been, it could be terrifying in the wrong circumstances.
“In the presence of a human being, an Empani is compelled to shift to a shape that serves the human desire. That doesn’t mean the human controls the change. In fact, it can be dangerous to encounter an Empani.”
“You could get trapped,” Mal said, all the more grateful Nin had been there to call to her. “You could think that you were just where you wanted to be.”
Sister Marin’s office was on the seventh floor. They passed a sisters’ lounge then the open double doors to the Office of the Emissary where Harriet was talking with Sister Jordana. They looked bemused at the sight of Sister Marin leading the excited hub.
In Sister Marin’s office, Roh and Kim plopped down on chairs and Kairo settled on a sofa. Sister Marin retrieved a notebook from her files and started writing furiously while Nin read from over her shoulder.
Mal walked into Lily. “I’m sorry. I didn’t see you there.”
“I’m cleaning.” She was wearing the same light green hemp jumpsuit she had on earlier, but there was an ugly gray scarf draped around her neck. She looked happy.
“I thought you were going to get something good to eat, Lily. Do you feel better?”
“I’m fine,” Lily said. “Thank you.”
Sister Marin’s head jerked up. Proofs said oh, yes and that sounds nice. Never please or thank you. “Lily, why don’t you go and get something good to eat? You’ve been working so hard today.”
“I really am fine,” Lily said. She moved away from Sister Marin’s desk.
Sister Marin vaulted over the desk to put her body between Lily and the girls. “Roh, Kairo, run and fetch Harriet and Sister Jordana.”
Lily edged back to the window and climbed out on the ledge. Sister Marin lunged after her and grabbed her legs. Lily spread her arms wide – like the Redeemer – and smiled, not like any proof Mal had ever seen. This smile was victorious, intelligent.
Lily fell backwards, taking Sister Marin with her.
“No!” Mal grabbed Sister Marin’s l
egs and started to go out the window too, and Nin and Kim grabbed her. “Ack!” Her ribs banged against the windowsill. She laughed at the same time. This would be funny if it wasn’t so terrifying.
Lily twisted free and fell, but Nin and Kim managed to keep their hold on Mal and Sister Marin. Lily transformed into a white heron. The bird spread its wings and soared above the compound. It seemed to take a victory lap over the bistro courtyard before it flew up toward Corcovado and out of sight.
“Great gods, what happened?” Sister Jordana and the others arrived. They helped pull everybody back into the room.
“How beautiful.” Kim held up the gray scarf she’d snatched from Lily’s neck at the last minute. “Shiny.”
Mal and Nin exchanged a look; the scarf was ugly and dull.
“Extraordinary.” Sister Marin grimaced as she ran her fingers over the fabric. “I believe we’ve just been visited by an Empani.”
“Not fair!” Roh said. “I missed it?”
“You might have to rethink that free will thing,” Kim said. There was something not quite right in her tone. Sarcasm. She knew more than she was saying, Mal was sure of it.
“But what would be the point?” Harriet said. “Of coming among humans, I mean.”
“That is a very good question.” Sister Jordana touched the scarf in Sister Marin’s hand and let go. Sister Marin nonchalantly dropped it into her desk drawer. The sisters knew more than they were telling too, and that scarf had something to do with it.
“But there is another matter.” Sister Marin locked the drawer and looked at Kim. “I’m so sorry to report that the thing I was afraid of has come to pass.”
“Oh, my dear.” Harriet turned to Kim.
Kim’s face lost its color. “No!” She bolted toward the door, but Sister Jordana had already blocked the way.
“My dear, my dear.” Harriet put her arms around Kim.
“It’s not true.” Kim shook Harriet off, trembling, and put a hand to her shades.
Oh, Asherah! All at once, it was obvious. Kim hadn’t taken off her shades. Actually, Kim had been wearing her shades indoors for quite some time. Everybody forgot to take them off once in a while, but with Kim it was on purpose. She said her eyes were such pale blue that she wanted to be extra careful.