Resurrection (Blood of the Lamb)

by Mandy Hager

  He sounded so like a wheedling child she nearly laughed aloud. But she looked at him directly now. How much he'd changed since she'd first seen him all those months ago. The tension in him, the wound-up feral danger that he'd worn like a tightly fitting skin, was mostly gone. Beneath it, he was just a boy—a prickly one, no doubt of that, and one who'd tested her patience and her temper sorely many times—but, to her utmost surprise, she realised that on the whole she did like him. His brain was quick and his emotions were strong. Just like me. How strange to have identified with him so closely twice in as many days.

  “I do.” Now she couldn't resist teasing him. “Just a little bit.”

  He grinned. “All right. Enough of this extravagant flattery, Sister Maryam…I think it's time to say goodnight.” He stood, stretching his arms high above his head as he yawned, exposing the soft white curve of his belly before he dropped them again. He offered her his hand and hauled her to her feet. “It's too cold to sleep exposed out here—I've made you up a bed inside the yacht.”

  He walked toward the moored boat, calling back over his shoulder when she made no move to follow him. “It's quite safe. I've made up two separate beds.” He spoke with just a pinch of sarcasm, no doubt to let her know her wavering distrust of him was noted still.

  “Good,” she said, playing along. “I'd hate to have to force you to sleep outside alone.”

  The following morning Maryam awoke with her head filled with every possible variation on disaster the Judgement day might bring—disruption…disapproval…even death—while, over on the thin bench-seat across from her, Lazarus mumbled in his sleep, his hands shooting out as if to deflect something of great force. It seemed he too was fighting with his inner dread.

  She also felt unsettled by his question to her, so similar to Joseph's as they'd sailed toward Marawa Island, just before everything had descended into hell. You know how much I care for you, don't you? he'd whispered. Do you like me too? How strange to hear those words again, this time from his cousin's lips.

  It was cold in the little yacht, so Maryam rose as quietly as she could. She wrapped the slightly fishy-smelling blanket around her, then clambered from the boat back to the inner beach. The first shimmers of dawn were filtering down through the sinkholes so she dared not restoke the fire in case someone spotted its smoke from the village, but the hearth still held some of its residual heat. She picked out a relatively soot-free stone and clutched it to her stomach, curling herself around it to soak in the warmth. That's better. The niggling cramps she suffered whenever her Bloods were due had struck her in the night, explaining why she'd felt so on edge the day before. No wonder she'd stewed so over the threat of the Territorials…There was something in the heralding of her Bloods each month that meddled with her moods, making her even more anxious than usual—although Lazarus would no doubt argue she was already difficult enough.

  The timing could not be worse. They were travelling within hours to Kakaonimaki for the Judgement and she'd have no choice now but to stop and harvest several sea sponges to stem the flow. No way could she keep such intimate secrets from Lazarus now.

  “Are you all right?” His sleep-tousled head emerged from the yacht's forward hatch.

  She nodded, not bothering to answer aloud, and he disappeared inside again, re-emerging five minutes later with two steaming mugs of something from Newbrizzy he called “coffee.” She'd grown used to its strong bitter taste as they'd sailed from Marawa Island, finding it sharpened up her brain when she was tired and needed help to think.

  “So,” Lazarus said, taking a noisy aerated sip. “Are you ready to plan?”

  For the next half hour they circled around every possible approach to the day's events, deciding in the end that it would be safer if they waited for the Apostles’ formal involvement in the Judgement ceremony to end before they staked their claim. They could hide amidst the crowds until Father Joshua and all his attendants had returned to the Holy City, leaving them to speak to the villagers of Onewēre on their own. But they would have to set off soon if they were to make it before the celebrations got out of hand. The toddy would flow all day, and by evening all sense was sure to have fled. Their only near-disagreement came over the issue of weapons.

  “You must take Charlie's knife to protect you,” Lazarus insisted. “I've got one from Koko, so we'll both be safe.”

  Maryam shook her head. “I could never stick a knife into a living person, so what's the point?”

  “The point is that you won't be defenceless. All you have to do is wave it threateningly and people will keep away.” She opened her mouth to say something, but he cut back in. “I know what you're going to say: you're going to accuse me of raising my knife to Ruth. But see, that just proves my point. I never would've cut her, but none of you knew that and you couldn't take the risk.”

  “It still feels wrong.”

  “For heaven's sake, Maryam. My father and his people are dangerous. They'd have no qualms about doing it to you.”

  “But I—”

  Lazarus leaned over and took her by the shoulders, his face so close to hers she could smell the coffee on his breath. “No buts. I will not let you go there unprotected, and if you try I'll tie you up and go alone.” His intense blue eyes, so like Joseph's, dared her to argue while his absolute resolve insisted she should not.

  She glowered at him for several seconds, caught between horror at the thought of arming herself with such a deadly weapon and knowing that he would not budge—and that he only meant her good. She had no doubt he'd carry out his threat if she refused to acquiesce. “All right,” she finally agreed, her tone leaving him in no doubt of her discontent. “But if I agree, then you must promise you'll not do anything risky…I will not lose you too.”

  She hadn't realised the strength of emotion behind the words until she'd let them loose. Lazarus's eyes widened. “No dramatics,” Lazarus agreed at last. “If it's clear I'm outnumbered and out of luck, I promise you I won't take any unnecessary risks.”

  She narrowed her eyes at him. “No, not good enough. I know how you can twist my words. No risks, Lazarus. No risks at all. This is my fight and I will defeat them with the truth. You wait and see.” She took the knife he'd lain before her and used its razor-sharp tip to prick the soft pad of her thumb.

  Lazarus's hand shot out to wrench the knife from her grasp. “What are you doing, you crazy girl?”

  Maryam bristled. “Making a bond of blood, stupid. Don't you remember how they spoke of it back at the camp?”

  For a moment Lazarus merely looked annoyed and confused, but then she saw remembrance ripple across his face. He turned the knife onto himself, making an identical small nick into the pad of his thumb.

  Now she offered him her hand, her thumb welling with one bright pearl of blood. “Come on. Swear you'll do nothing to risk your life on account of me. I truly mean this, Lazarus. If we are…friends…then honour me by promising to guard your life.”

  “But if you—”

  “Enough! Just say you will so we can get on our way.” Her head was buzzing with a thousand indecipherable thoughts. She tried to stop her hand from trembling as she held it up for him to meet.

  “Damn you're stubborn,” Lazarus muttered between clenched teeth. He took two short, furious breaths and then pressed the drop of blood that had arisen on his thumb hard onto hers.

  A surge like a bolt of charged lightning ran through her arm, peaking at the point where the two thumbs met. So strong, yet the act was also so intimate she found heat flaring up her neck to burn her cheeks. She felt a subtle change had taken place between them, as if the uniting of their blood had forged a bond so complex and intricate it would never break. It shocked her, how much this one small action could take on such a life of its own. Something had forever changed between them, of that she was sure, even if she didn't really understand quite how or why. From now on their fortunes were bound together by this pact—just as her gift of blood to Joseph had bonded her to him—and
, though it silenced none of her rising fears, she knew she was ready, now, to make her move.

  They were not alone on the trek around the coast from Motirawa to Kakaonimaki village, which lay upon the northern shores of Onewēre by the causeway that led out to Star of the Sea. Every villager on the island was making their way there, ready for the Judgement that would select the latest batch of victims for the Apostles’ bloodthirsty game.

  Thanks to Hushai's brother Kokoria, Maryam now wore one of Motirawa's distinct black and brown tapa ceremonial gowns to blend in with the crowd. What no one could see, of course, was the knife she'd tucked into her underpants. Never for one moment could she forget it was there. She felt like a criminal, a potential murderer, disguised beneath a gown that symbolised the strength of Motirawa's village bonds.

  Lazarus seemed to have no such qualms, laughing at her when she'd voiced her discomfort. He'd switched his clothes for the white uniform of the Apostles, in keeping with his lighter skin and golden hair. His knife, strapped below his knee with woven strips of flax and hidden beneath the leg of his trousers, was also safe from sight.

  Their route took them through the vast tangled network of mangrove wetlands, passing between pools of silted tidal mud on rough causeways constructed long ago from felled bamboo and fallen logs. Whatever lay ahead, Maryam couldn't help but revel in the beauty of the place. The huge mass of aerial roots formed a perfect nursery-ground for many of the fish that later made their way out to the reef, as well as harbouring a great wealth of food—fish, of course, and clams and crabs. It was a place of many unexpected gifts: te tonno buanaui bark to dye the tapa cloth; the precious pigment from te tongo trees that had the power to stop the fungus that destroyed so many nets and traps. The place was so vital to people's lives that even the tiniest of toddlers knew the value of the mangroves—apart from its great store-basket of riches, without this twisted blockade of roots the land had no protection from the hungry surges of the sea that sometimes overwhelmed the reef.

  After a good three hours of walking, Lazarus called a halt. “We're only half an hour or so away now. Let's take a rest.”

  Maryam drew over to the side of the narrow path between the trees and let another family pass before she clambered over a giant tree root after Lazarus, who was already nestling down into a hollow fringed with ferns.

  He unwrapped the last slab of bread that Kokoria had given him the day before, and broke it in two. “Here,” he said, passing half to Maryam. “Eat this while we have the chance.”

  Beyond their nest, they could hear the excited voices of children as they made their way along the path. How many will be Chosen today? Maryam wondered, her nerves starting to erupt from her determined state of calm. A sharp pain ripped through her abdomen, twisting her gut.

  She leapt up. “I'll be back shortly,” she called to Lazarus as she fled into the knot of trees. There, screened from his watchful eyes, her bowels released their worst, purging her stomach in griping blasts. Her Bloods always upset her stomach, though she guessed it could just as likely be her body sensing the heightened danger even as she fought to rout it from her conscious mind.

  “Better?” Lazarus asked when she returned, a grin tweaking his lips. Maryam knew he must have heard every explosive sound.

  “Let's go,” she said, not deigning to reply to his question. His nerves must be made from the same thick steel as Star of the Sea, she reckoned, while her own betrayed her pathetic weakness of their own accord.

  She marched resolutely on, forcing Lazarus to jog to catch up with her. Soon they'd left the peaceful mangroves far behind, and jungle opened up around them. When they came across some long-decaying creature, she averted her eyes and held her breath to block out the cloying stink of death, but it seemed to gather around her now, accompanying her in a kind of terrible portent as they finally approached Kakaonimaki village with its scruffy huts laced in between the stands of palms.

  The place was overrun by people making their way toward the little wooden chapel in the clearing on the far side of the huts. Out near the reef, linked by the snaking bamboo causeway, the Holy City—Star of the Sea—gleamed in the midday sun. The huge rust streaks that flecked its sides looked to Maryam like bleeding wounds. Again her gut spasmed with nerves and she had to halt a moment to rein the urge back in. Now is not the time.

  “Let's find a spot back in the trees,” Lazarus murmured, taking her by the elbow to guide her away from the tide of people who flooded toward the open chapel doors.

  She followed him without argument, her brain so ramped with fear she hardly could think. Just a few scant weeks ago she'd been imprisoned by the Territorials, wishing with every cell of her being to be back home, but now the whole grand plan began imploding in her head. Had she lost her mind, believing she could counter such an evil force? Her knees turned to jellyfish beneath her, and it was only Lazarus's steady grip that prevented her from falling, helpless, to the dusty ground.

  “Are you all right?” he asked, worry darkening his eyes. As he did so, he reached down to pat his leg, as though to reassure himself the knife was still safely in place.

  Maryam merely shrugged, not trusting herself to speak. But his attention bolstered her, and now she followed him into the grove of pandanus palms that flanked the overflowing chapel. Inside, the first part of the Judgement ceremony was already underway, and the villagers who flocked around outside, unable to squeeze in, joined those inside to raise their voices in song.

  “Are you washed in the Blood, In the soul-cleansing Blood…” The words filtered through Maryam's fear, their familiarity plucking at the chords of memory inside her head. How she had loved to sing with the other Sisters—no one voice perfect, yet through some strange alchemy the combined sound formed something bigger and inexplicably beautiful that used to warm and calm her. But now more recent memories pushed their way to the front of her mind. It was in this very chapel she'd vowed her allegiance to the Apostles before she Crossed.

  Inside, she knew, the carved depiction of the Lamb gazed down at the congregation from his vantage point on the chiselled cross with Father Joshua and his Apostles blessing the sacraments and working the crowd into a frenzy before the luckless toddlers took their test of blood. “…Lay aside the garments that are stained with sin, And be washed in the Blood of the Lamb; There's a fountain flowing for the soul unclean, Oh, be washed in the Blood of the Lamb…”

  “I hate this song,” Lazarus muttered in her ear.

  She turned to him and saw how all the colour had bleached from his face. In truth, he looked just as scared as she was—yet somehow the recognition of it dampened her own fear and she smiled at him. “This little light of mine…” she sang quietly back to him. “…I'm going to let it shine…”

  He snorted as recognition of the childish song dawned on him, then broke into a grin as he joined her, the two of them standing beneath the rustling fan of pandanus leaves as their muted voices wove into the air. “This little light of mine, I'm going to let it shine, let it shine, let it shine, let it shine…”

  At the completion of the villagers’ song, Father Joshua led the whole congregation into a recitation of The Rules, the sound of his voice bleaching Lazarus even whiter and further twisting Maryam's gut. “Rule Number One: There is but one thing in the world that can cleanse us of our sins, and that is the power of the Blood of the Lamb. Rule Number Two…” All around Maryam and Lazarus The Rules poured from the mouths of the faithful, repeated in the flat, tolling drone of those who had recited these same words since they'd first learnt to speak. On and on they rumbled, working through each of the ten Rules just as they'd been dictated by Father Saul—Lazarus's distant ancestor—who'd set up the whole structure of the first Apostles of the Lamb. Maryam tried to resist it, but each cue dredged up more of the words inside her head. She slapped her hands over her ears, humming wordless nonsense as she tried to block the triggers out, but still she was invaded by them, The Rules swirling around inside her like an icy wind …D
ominion over His entire congregation…willingly to slaughter…cast from the flock and punished in the name of the Lord.

  “I truly can't stand this,” she whispered to Lazarus. “I hear The Rules now and they make me want to scream.”

  “Shhh,” he silenced her. He jerked his head toward the chapel door, where the villagers were separating to make way for Father Joshua and his party of white-clad Apostles to join the mass outside.

  At the sight of him Maryam's first instinct was to run. She could feel her pulse speeding, her breath weak and shallow as she fought for air. Beside her, Lazarus slipped his sweaty hand into hers and squeezed it tight. “Wait,” he mouthed, edging slightly forward for a better view.

  Father Joshua stood by calmly as his Apostles set up the Judgement table in the centre of the waiting crowd. His uniform, so starkly white it hurt her eyes, gleamed gold and silver from the many polished buttons and braids that adorned his tailored jacket and his white peaked hat. His face was masked by utter stillness, yet Maryam could see past this ruse to the cold hard evil within—an evil betrayed by his restless twirling of the ornate silver crucifix that hung around his neck. She knew that crucifix; knew precisely what harm it could do. Its end was fashioned to a point so sharp that just one nick from it would draw an innocent's blood. She'd seen it used each Judgement time. Had experienced the stabbing pain it could inflict herself.

  Now the Apostles raised their arms to draw the crowd's attention and a sudden hush fell as Father Joshua stepped forward to the table and raised up his lethal cross. Only the grizzling of the little ones in their mothers’ arms broke the expectant hush.

  “And now,” he intoned in a voice that resonated as if the Lord himself was calling down from Heaven. “Let the Judgement begin.”

  Maryam scanned the crowd as the mothers and toddlers stepped forward. Lazarus's mother, Lilith, stood beside Father Joshua, her beautiful face etched with a sadness and longing Maryam had never observed in her before. It was strange to see her again—to recognise so much of Lazarus in this woman she dreaded. And there, behind her, stood the betraying Mother Elizabeth, her pregnant belly so tight beneath her white Judgement gown her navel could be seen pressing at the cloth. She looked tired and haggard, and had one arm linked to Mother Michal, as though at any moment she might fall. The rest of the white-clad Apostles massed around them, flanked by the servers from the Holy City in their uniforms of white and black.