Alluna got to her feet, pushing away the kneeling Ebouline and padding away on bare feet, saying not a word.
I will not even say goodbye, she resolved as she returned to her room. Her womb was hurting. The Moon was calling to it, ripping it this way and then that in her abdomen. She moaned and turned with it, rolling with the pain. Finally the hurt became too much to lie still and she got out of bed and went to the window. The desert stretched outward as far as she could see — farther than it should. Rags dipped in scented oil fluttered from sills and rooftops. The world was dying though they tried to deny it, tried to mask the last breaths of its disease. Near where the animals were quartered a camel was down on the ground, bellowing in labour. Her belly rippled like a snake while men dragged the calf from her with ropes and curses. The calf’s coat, when they pulled it clear, was as dry as the sand. It flopped lifeless beside its mother and the men whooped around it, beating its chest and puffing dirty breaths of air into its mouth. After a while the men became quieter and then walked away, leaving the beasts on the sand, the mother snuffling her dead while the gathering of flies over their heads grew denser.
A gust of wind managed to steal its way through the perfumed rags and deliver a breath of pure decay to her lungs. She coughed until she spat up blood. The hushed seeds, smelling it, stirred again.
This time she did not quieten them.
“Yes, now,” she whispered. “Now at last.”
The muscles of her belly contracted as the seeds awakened. She screamed with the pain of it, falling to her hands and knees and breathing in harsh pants.
After a moment the ache eased enough that she could crawl over to the wall and lean her sore back against it. She held her arms out in front of her to examine them. Her skin was shrivelling, pulling tightly back from her fingernails so they seemed elongated, gleaming like talons in the moonlight. Her veins bulged upwards through her drying skin. Alluna dropped her hands back down, hating the look of them. The seeds were sucking her dry. She felt blood at the side of her mouth where her screams had torn her cracked lips.
Loud footsteps sounded outside the room. She knew the guards were coming to investigate. The women would never have dared to make so much noise. They entered her room and found her, bent and bleeding, shivering against the wall, her arms clasped around her belly. Fearful that the man’s most treasured slave would die and they would have to answer for it, they hauled her to her feet and dragged her to him, letting her fall on the ground before him.
She moaned on the rug, gripping her belly. He extended one foot to push away a fold of her skirt where it had flowed towards him.
“The slave-driver had something wrong with him as well,” he said. He looked down at his own vast stomach swelling beneath his robes and then back at Alluna writhing on the ground.
“Take her away,” he said, stepping back from her. “Get her away from me!”
Once again the guards grabbed her beneath the arms, heedless to her further cries of pain. They pushed her into the nearest room, closing the door and locking it behind them. She knew from the way they scurried away, wiping their hands against the sides of their legs, they would not be back. Alluna looked around. She had never been here before. Hunting trophies and weapons lined the walls. A low table surrounded by cushions sat in the centre of the room. She dragged herself over there and placed one of the cushions beneath her knees and another beneath her head. Then she lay back, exhausted, as the seeds continued their work. Her eyes stung as the seeds stole water from them. Her skin tightened. Cracks appeared not only at the sides of her mouth but beneath her arms, at the back of her knees, and between her fingers and toes. She hacked and coughed, twisting on the ground, her throat torn apart by her spasms until it seemed the air she breathed in passed to her lungs over a bed of knives. .
The door to her room opened and a slight figure entered.
Ebouline.
Alluna froze, hushing the seeds even though they protested. Despite herself, Alluna couldn’t help but be intrigued by Ebouline’s action, by the risks she had taken to be there.
The woman crossed the distance between them to kneel down and place her hand on Alluna’s forehead.
“Oh Alluna,” she said. “What has he done to you?”
Alluna smiled at her, blood trickling from the corners of her mouth. She felt a pang of remorse for what she was about to do. Another bout of coughing racked her, forcing her to try and sit up. Ebouline held her, placing one hand on her back and intertwining the fingers of the other with hers, not minding the blood or the dry skin or the ropey veins. Alluna felt her trying to push comfort across her skin, the weakest hint of it. It surprised her.
The coughing passed. Ebouline helped her to lie back down. She ran her fingertips across Alluna’s bloody lips.
“You’re so thirsty?” she asked.
The two women looked at each other. Ebouline’s eyes betrayed her fear for Alluna. The women were allowed only half a jug a day. By now, this late in the night, everyone would have drunk theirs. There would be no more until the morning. A guard stood over the well. There was no way to get any.
Alluna didn’t answer, unable to speak through her shredded throat. Ebouline placed a finger into her mouth and felt her gums.
“They’re dry as dust,” she said. “You’re dying of thirst. I can’t let him kill you.”
A thought struck Alluna. One last test. She forced her throat to speak even though it was her own blood lubricating the chords.
“What can we do?” she said. “We have no water. A soldier guards the well.”
Ebouline pushed the hair away from her eyes.
“The sentry is old and often sleeps. I can creep up on him and steal some.”
Alluna leaned back.
“And what if he wakes? He will have you killed.”
Ebouline pulled her veil across her face to demonstrate. “I am young and fast. If he wakes, I will run, and he will never know who disturbed him.”
“And what if he wakes before you can fetch me water?”
The women were silent. The threat of Alluna’s death hung between them.
Alluna pointed to the wall. A knife, as long as an arm, curved and vicious, a line of moonlight dancing upon the blade, hung there.
“See. You could take that.”
Ebouline looked at the knife. Then she crossed the room and took it down from the wall, holding it in front of her so Alluna could see the reflection of the woman's eyes in the blade. Then Ebouline walked out of the room, the knife held in a firm grip at her side.
“I'll get a jug and return to you,” she said as she left.
Alluna played no further part in the test, but when Ebouline returned with blood on the knife, she knew it had been a true one. Ebouline dropped the knife on the floor and knelt to offer Alluna water from the jug she held with trembling fingers.
“Are you sorry you killed him?” Alluna asked.
Ebouline shook her head no. “They would have let you die,” she said.
Alluna smiled and pulled Ebouline close to kiss her on the forehead.
“Go now,” she said. “You have healed me. You have saved a life tonight.”
Before Ebouline left she paused and looked at the animal heads lining the walls. One, a male ortex with long curling horns, was of particular interest to her. At last, shaking her head as if chiding herself for being foolish, Ebouline tore her eyes away from the heads and, smiling at Alluna, she left, locking the door as she had found it.
Alluna was certain now she had made the right decision. Ebouline had sensed something. The ortex was newly killed, and so its spirit still clung to its flesh, denying its death.
“Come,” Alluna said to it.
The ortex came forward, torn between a fear of abandoning its post and a desire to do Alluna’s will.
“I am the last of my kind,” it said. “I cannot die. I must stay alive for them all. I must stay alive or there will be no more ortex.” It bleated in its despair.
&nbs
p; “Sshh, ortex,” she said. “I harvested your seed. Don’t you remember?”
She allowed him to retrieve the memory of the time he had played with a young female ortex, and the joy he had in finding her because he had been convinced all the females had died, and his despair when she had disappeared before their young had been birthed.
“Your young will be born,” she promised him. “Now take your rest. You have done well.”
Her voice reassured him and the ortex at last consented to abandon his lonely vigil by his own grave.
Then Alluna spoke aloud the name of each seed. All this time and she had not lost a single one. All had their place, the hard-shelled and the many legged, the swimmers in the sea, those that lived in the breeze, the poisonous and the timid, the toothed and the clawed, the rooted living. All would be given their second chance. Even the one who had forced them all to this beginning again, the one she had this night vowed to destroy forever.
Man.
Close to her womb, the last seed of the man cowered, certain it too would be destroyed as the others if its kind had been, but Alluna turned aside the tide of anger that would have fallen upon it, and she allowed it to enter.
“So that Ebouline’s kind may try again,” she said as the last of the seeds completed its journey to her womb.
In the morning the guards returned, expecting to find her dead. Instead they saw she was huge with child. They called the man and when he saw her, he sent at once for his brothers and his uncles so they could praise his fruitfulness.
They arrived with jugs full of wine and brandy, ready for a celebration. They pushed Alluna’s dress up and spread her legs, staring upwards into her cavity, hungry for what would emerge, hungry for something else to own.
She released her baby upon them. It poured out of her in a flood that drowned the men and the camels, the women, the creatures of the deserts and the plants.
And the waters kept rising until they covered the whole world. Alluna swam in the currents, the knife in her hand, striking at any remaining living thing until the waters flowed red and warm with blood.
Then she rested, floating on the waves, cradling the child on her stomach. It cried in confusion as all infants do, wanting to know its name, needing to know its story.
“Sshh,” she said. “Do not fear. I remembered it for you. In time you will remember everything.”
****
in the name
Robert Holt
Just before sunrise, three girls were led to the altar where they quietly sat and waited. Addu was the youngest, having just entered womanhood with the coming of the moon, but the other two were not much older. Addu, glad to be the youngest, knew she would be last.
Her hands fidgeted, knees bounced, and heart pounded in anticipation. The binds that held her wrists together were made from a thorn bush, and the sharp points dug deeper into flesh every time she moved. It was excruciating, but she refused to cry. She promised her father that no tears would be shed and all pain would be endured quietly and with dignity.
The priest, a bare-chested man with a braided beard, pointed to the three and said something in a language Addu had never learned, a Babylonian dialect of some sort. She picked out only the name Marduk from the speech. Marduk was the reason for her presence. She closed her eyes and thought of when he had turned the sky dark over her home village and blessed them with rain, beautiful rain in the middle of the dry season. That was three years ago and the last time Addu saw rain. Tiamat had opened her foul maw and exhaled her deadly breath on the town killing the crops, animals, and many people, including Addu’s mother. This led her father to the decision that Addu would be the one to save the village. It had been the happiest day of her life.
Now, with thorns digging into her wrists, she cursed the day but would not cry. She would go fulfil her promise with honour.
The priest came for the first girl, grabbed a handful of hair, and lifted her onto unsteady legs. The crowd cheered enthusiastically as she begged in Egyptian. Addu repressed laughter as the poor fool evoked the name of Horus. ‘Your petty gods can’t penetrate Marduk’s temple,’ Addu thought. The brutish priest slapped the Egyptian, and she fell to the ground. Chants from the crowd grew in intensity, drowning out her continued pleas and prayers. Addu did not know the chant but joyfully joined in.
The priest took a blade from his robe, and the chant broke away into deafening screams of approval. Addu watched mesmerized as the showman circled behind his intended victim. His long, bony fingers wrapped into the girl’s black hair and yanked upwards, stretching her neck. She screamed and squirmed but could not get away. He placed the inwardly curved blade against her throat. Addu looked away as a sickening feeling rose inside her, but then she thought of Marduk and returned her gaze to the scene being performed in his honour. The blade, crude and dull, did not slice the fragile skin as much as sawed through it. The Egyptian’s scream drowned in a gurgle that sent blood splashing from her mouth and smearing her fine Egyptian makeup. Addu smiled.
The body went limp, and the priest struggled to get his blade between the bones of the spine. Once he did, he held the head up for the crowd, which once more roared with approval. He signalled at two men who began pulling on chains to reveal a hot glow of a roaring fire behind the altar. He said a few more words and tossed the head into the flames. Then the body was lifted by the two assistants and was fed into the furnace. The stench made Addu hold her breath in revulsion.
The next offering was trying so hard to break her bindings that a pool of blood was forming beneath her. Addu watched as the grinning priest grabbed the bloody hands and pulled her into the centre of the altar. He danced around her, laughing and speaking his strange words. This girl was a Babylonian, for she knew the tongue that mocked her and replied with venomous gumption. The blade cut the retort short by entering into her open mouth and ripping out the side of her cheek. She did not try to speak again but continued to scream. The bare-chested, blood-drenched priest sawed open the girl’s stomach and seized her innards. Addu had thought nothing could smell worse than the Egyptian’s flesh burning, but exposed insides were far worse.
It was over quickly, and the disembowelled body was tossed to the flames. The priest turned toward Addu and stuck his tongue out in a taunting gesture. Addu did not know what torments awaited her, but she decided that if her fate was to be the same as the Egyptian girl’s, then she wanted her hair to remain pristine and untouched when her head was displayed for the crowd. Before he stepped towards her, she rose to her feet, walked across the altar, and dropped to her knees before the executioner. She stretched her neck as far as possible and lifted her dress to reveal her stomach, giving him the choice of targets.
The crowd fell silent. Addu looked up into the priest’s confused eyes and forced herself to smile. There was a clanking sound, and she lowered her head to see what it was. The knife had fallen from his hand. She looked up to meet his wide eyes again. Not understanding, she leaned forward, picked up the knife, and placed it back into his hand, but he stepped away and let the blade fall again.
A chant began in the crowd, not bloodthirsty but a peaceful one. Addu choked back her tears and tried to interpret the situation. Was she being rejected as a sacrifice?
The priest stepped forward with unease, placed his hands delicately in her armpits, and encouraged her to stand. He picked up the blade, and Addu smiled. He put it between her hands and cut the bindings, then motioned to the furnace. Addu pointed and asked if she was to go in there. Someone translated for the priest, who nodded and escorted Addu to the furnace by the tips of her fingers. She lifted the end of her dress and stepped into the flames.
Beneath her, the inferno turned from orange to blue. The two corpses continued to sizzle and pop, but she did not burn. The wide-eyed priest tried to reach his hand toward her but pulled away as his skin blistered.
Addu stepped out of the furnace and onto the altar. The crowd kowtowed at the sight. The blood splattered, sadistic executioner
bent down and kissed her bare feet. At the feast in her honour, she was adorned as Marduk in the flesh, the forty-seventh name.
The next day they sacrificed three children to her, and Addu wept.
****
when they come to murder me
Bill Ward
Upon this baldric of tough hide hung my sword all these short, glorious years. With it now I hang myself; suspended from this stone like a pillar. I will not lie down in death. In the time after me, when this age is naught but mist and memory, they will carve upon this rock and not know why. They will say it is for another who died young — another who knew his fate and tasted it with his every breath. They will confuse us, though I am the monster and he the meek. I know they will confuse us in the same way I know that this moment of dying is only a kind of end. Only a kind.
With the third cast I was struck, here below the rib. The red and grey ropes of my belly slipped out with the wound upon the chariot floor and I gathered them back into me. Loeg watched as I did so with eyes like willow water, no life in them. He too died for me.
I smile because fate has decreed I die a man and not, as was always the chance, the god-spawned monster. Can you know how many I’ve killed? I slew the sons of Nechtan as easily as you draw breath; their heads a gory display upon my chariot. Whole flocks of swans I brought down with my stones, and stags...stags I outran on the hoof, their necks I broke with an action of the fingers. And that was but the first day of my manhood. So hot did I become in the doing of this, the green of the earth was blackened at my passage, and three barrels of cool water did I burst and render steam before those around me no longer feared death at my hand. All this was done to win the love of a girl.
Dead Souls Page 7