The floor master followed me around, poking me with his stick each time I bent down to stir the molten liquid. I slowed my pace when I noticed his impatience. He wanted me to finish so he could steal me away again, no doubt, but I wouldn’t give him the satisfaction. I’d do anything to keep from being called back to the slender tower.
When I knelt down in front of the gold kidney-shaped tub to stir the steamy substance with my sterling rod, the swirling liquid put me in a trance. Everything around me disappeared and I hovered above the liquid as though suspended in air. Surely I’d have burned if I’d dropped into it. The swirling liquid spun faster and soon melted away to reveal a crisp image, a landscape I didn’t recognize. The colors were vibrant and rich and alive. This must be olive green! Soon the space opened up and I saw a sapient on the rich green grass. She held her arms out and spun them around making pinwheels in the air. She was beautiful, more beautiful than any sapient I’d ever seen. Her hair was dark like the cosmos and trailed loosely behind her all the way down to her waist. I couldn’t see her face, aglow as it was. She followed someone, walking on tiptoed feet through the grass. When she reached a long trough, I recognized it as Bendo’s—it was my yard, my patch of grass. The sapient knelt down and looked into the water. I couldn’t see her expression but she turned to the side, as though looking over at someone or something. Guided to look into the trough, she leaned over and strained to see—to see—to see into the water. It was Minosh!
The image dissolved and I stared into a steamy bath of molten liquid again. My hand stirred the bath but my mind was a million visions away. His whip stung and I almost dropped the rod in the tub. “Sapient.” His shout could reach the clouds of Venus. “Get it done. You have been asked to the hall of stones. Hurry up.”
I couldn’t know if Tiro had planned some sort of trick, but if he were bent on taking me up the path through the forest, he’d surely burn me down to a crisp. I had no reason to go out to look for Tal and had to obey the floor master. I was trapped and hoped Saturnia’s sister would come to the Temple early. I silently begged Minosh to heed my plea. Please let her come. Please let her come. Please let her come.
The Venusian shriek snapped me from my invocation when a bather called the floor master away. He floated over on the steam to greet her. I dropped the sterling rod by the tub and followed the lit wax through the Temple to the cedar door of the fire pits. This time when I pushed it open, Onine wasn’t there to catch me. No one awaited me on the other side and for a brief moment I recalled the sublimity of Kypria—the goddess is good. She wouldn’t want to harm any of us and would protect me, surely.
I searched for Tal on the patio but the smoke from the fires made it difficult. I went to his side of the pits, expecting to see him bent over a fire but I couldn’t find him anywhere. Some of the fire starters looked at me with suspicion, others ignored me altogether. I was too hurried to ask for Tal and pretended I was sent out to give an order. I spoke to the sapient nearest me.
“The tub of brine needs an extra fire,” I said. “Its temperature is dropping.”
The fire starter nodded but I couldn’t see his expression through the veil and I wondered if I’d seen him before.
“El!” Tiro’s screech made my heart race though I’d already headed back into the steam. I found him with Saturnia’s sister and she beckoned me to follow. I hid my relief beneath my veil but Tiro still wacked me with his stick once the Venusian bather turned to lead me out. I followed Saturnia’s sister, masking the sting from my lashing.
The beautiful being floated above the steam, out into the clear sky, through the courtyard, past the cylinders of fire, around the silo of liquid luster and water pumps and into the forest of white gold trees. When we reached the path leading up to the hall of stones, she stopped and turned to face me.
“Little Pchi,” she said. “Let me take your pain.”
She held out her stick and waved its point over my shoulders and collarbone, drawing out the injury. The sting faded and her warmth tingled my skin. She placed the tip of her stick beneath my chin and brought my gaze up to meet hers. “All better?”
I nodded, mesmerized by her tenderness.
“Be strong now, little Pchi,” she said. “The good will prevail.”
She turned to go up the path and I followed. My stomach somersaulted in anticipation of seeing the hall of stones. Minosh had told me she’d seen the hall when she was a youngling.
“When you were assigned?” I’d asked her. I recalled how she avoided my question, telling me I’d see the hall at my time of selection. I could’ve asked her then if the seed-bearer she’d been assigned to was still around but she was all I needed.
The hall of stones sat high on a treeless ledge bordering the forest. The steep path was a chore to climb, but sparkled with the peppered jade stones that reflected the eye’s rays. Saturnia’s sister continued to float, even as we reached the peak, and turned back often to make sure I kept up.
“Almost there, little Pchi.” She coaxed me encouragingly, as I panted my way to the top.
At a point when you came around the bend, the huge glass hall stood before you as though it appeared out of nowhere. It almost looked suspended in midair. The tall glass walls hovered above you on approach like they were going to topple over. If the eye sat in the right spot, all you saw were crystals lighting up the path, and then as if by magic you came through the brightness into the hall itself. The transition from outside to inside was undetectable. Once inside, I felt lightweight, as if I were floating.
“The energy is different here,” Saturnia’s sister said. “This is the realm of our goddess. You are feeling her all around you.”
I embraced the euphoria I felt in the hall but it was nothing like the sublimity I’d seen in Onine’s eyes.
“Come,” she said.
She led me through to another opening and when I entered this other chamber everything went white. Blinded by the brightness, I couldn’t tell if I was actually standing in a room. I felt suspended and couldn’t see the ground, the walls, or the stones from which the hall was built. I didn’t see any other Kyprian either, if any were there. Even Saturnia’s sister seemed to fall away and I waited in the silence, in the brightness, relieved when someone finally spoke.
“You have been selected.” I didn’t recognize the speaker. The voice was strident, less like Saturnia’s sister than any other. “Our goddess has chosen you to be the sample and you will surrender without reluctance.”
Em’s experience seemed quite different from mine. I waited quietly to hear the pronouncement of my fate, despite knowing it already, and secretly hoped Tal and Tiro were wrong.
“The copulation will commence in three moonscapes when your master comes for you. Your preparation, however, begins now.”
The brightness receded, if only a little, and I thought I could make out the shapes of three large flames hovering on a pedestal.
“Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I said.
“The submersion will begin at once.”
I was unaware what that meant and wished I’d never found out, but unfortunately my story is not void of suffering. I expected agony but the degree of pain I experienced in the cleansing baths is unforgettable, a torture of my own doing.
When the bright light dimmed, I could finally see the glass room around me, even as the eye spilled into the entire solarium. Three large stones, as big as any Venusian, stood at the three corners of the glass house, looking like the jade stones in the path up to the hall. The milky green rocks changed clarity, as the eye danced about their surface.
“Come, El.” Saturnia’s sister called me from an enclosure at the front of the solarium and I glided across the crystal floor to meet her. Before exiting the space, I looked back at the hall so befitting a goddess, and that’s when I saw the shrub with the wax flowers—sweet smelling like Onine—the Kyprian tree of life.
***
I wrapped myself in silk when I returned to gre
et the darkness of my shanty. I’d spent the time until then wading in scalding hot liquid that seemed to burn away a layer of my skin. When I was finally pulled from the searing bath, Saturnia’s sister gave me a sweet serum to drink but the pain didn’t cease until she treated me to her gift of healing.
“I cannot take it all away, little Pchi. But you will feel some relief when night arrives.”
Night had arrived and I was still waiting. My throat was hoarse from the cries of pain I couldn’t suppress during my torture. The serum she’d given me made me feel lightheaded and fuzzy, but my body ached from the burning liquid. I tried to lie down on the bed of silks but even a soft touch was too much for my raw skin. I went out into the garden to greet Bendo and my fractal goddess. Luna reigned full in the sky and shone so brightly she seemed in competition with the sleeping eye. I stood between the cabbages with my goat, keeping her warm pelt away. I wanted to pet her but even my calloused palms hurt.
I don’t know how much time past before I heard Tal out in the field. The wheat rustled first and then his step shuffled the soil. When he came over the wall into my yard, I felt the greatest sense of relief and sorrow too.
“El,” he said. “You’re okay. I’m so glad you’re okay.”
He didn’t reach for me or try to touch me but stood a few paces away as though he wanted to keep himself in the shadows.
“Where were you?” I asked. “I looked for you.”
“I was assigned to help in the silo.” He wasn’t telling the truth. “I saw her take you. I knew it was coming.”
“It’s official now. I’ve been assigned.”
He looked away when he said, “To Tiro?”
“Yes,” I said. “The master will come for me on the third moonscape.”
“It must be this way for now.”
“What?” I couldn’t believe he thought so. “This way? How can it be this way?”
“For now,” he said.
“What’s changed? You were so against it. You promised Minosh you’d save me—you promised me you’d keep them from taking me—from hurting me.” I lost myself and crumbled to the ground in tears. The pain of the liquid haunted me still, that scalding bath I was forced to lie in while under the hot rays of the eye. I couldn’t do anything but wail in the darkness of my garden.
Tal kept his distance and repeated himself with a voice I barely recognized. “It must be this way for now.” He spoke in hushed tones, uncertain of his words. “But don’t give in to it.”
I thought he acted strangely because he found me repulsive. I assumed my appearance had changed with my submersion in the hot liquid. I certainly felt as though my skin had peeled off my bones and melted in the bath. Ashamed, I pulled the silk covering around me and pressed it up against my face to hide it.
“Don’t cover yourself,” he said.
I felt exposed, as if he could read my mind and his command made me angry. “You promised Minosh,” I said. “You told her you’d keep me safe.”
“The pain will pass,” he said. “I promise.”
I was so frustrated I couldn’t suppress my tears. I wanted him to hold me, despite the pain, and so I moved toward him, but he kept backing away deeper into the shadows.
“How do you know about the pain?” I asked.
“Sweet El,” he said. “I-I-I must go …”
He turned and left, lost among the stalks of wheat, but I was certain he whispered “clay-born goddess” when he went.
Our meeting was so terribly strange and different that I’d forgotten to give him Em’s message. I was reluctant to chase after him, but I’d given her my word and so I ran into the field, leaving Bendo bleating for my return.
It took me some time to find him in the darkness. He seemed to vanish in the stalks. Bright, beautiful Luna couldn’t guide me, she’d shrunk back into the black sky, tucked between a row of clouds. I wandered in the darkness, hoping to hear his step on the path or smell his smoky skin on the air. I couldn’t catch a trace of either one, but finally found him several stretches from the shanty. He wasn’t alone. I heard her voice before I saw them. Em had found him despite my help. I went unnoticed in the stalks of wheat, as audience to their hushed whispers. I didn’t want to turn back—to leave them alone. I hid myself a few rows over from where they were and listened.
“A youngling?”
“Yes.” She hadn’t given up her tears and fought to speak despite them.
“What did the council do?”
“They forced it out of me,” she said. “They gave me some kind of drink to destroy the seed.”
“Good,” he said.
“I didn’t want to take it,” she said. “So I faked it.”
“What do you mean?”
“I didn’t ingest the drink.”
“You didn’t take the emetic?”
“I only pretended to and when I vomited, it was merely grains and milk.”
“They didn’t know the difference?”
“How could they?”
“They’ll know soon enough,” he said. “You can’t hide this from them. You must destroy it.”
“But how could you want that? Didn’t our attempts mean anything to you?”
“No,” he said.
I felt a pang of guilt when I heard him confess their union meant nothing to him.
“I’m sorry, but they’ve decided we’re not meant to procreate and we can’t go against Kyprian rule.”
“Why not?” She pleaded. “How can they give us this and then take it away?”
“My life is not my own,” he said coldly.
That didn’t sound like the Tal I knew.
“I won’t give up,” she said. “Please don’t go.”
“I have to,” he said. “I can’t stay out here with you any longer. I must get inside.”
“Please don’t give up.” Her pleas were heartbreaking even for me. “Please, Tal.”
Either he stepped away and she pushed forward, or she ran toward him and he stepped back, but his voice turned forceful when he told her to stay where she was. “Don’t touch me,” he said. “You mustn’t.”
“No,” he shouted with a voice that came from somewhere else. I heard the struggle without seeing it and Em was silent. Not a scream, or a sigh, or a sob. “No,” he whispered over and over again. “No.”
I wanted to comfort him but was too frightened to reveal myself. I couldn’t know what happened and when I heard him walk away through the stalks, far past my hiding spot between the tall blades of wheat, I searched for Em. I assumed she passed out on the ground and he left her, but I was wrong. When I found the spot where they’d been standing, nothing was left but a pile of ash.
***
For two moonscapes, as I bathed in searing hot liquid beneath the eye, I thought of Em. I hadn’t seen her in the cart on the way to the Temple and Bee was gone too. My world seemed to shrink at a rapid pace. Each arrival at the Temple took me away from the fire pits, away from Tal, through the courtyard, past the cylinders of fire, around the silo of liquid luster and water pumps and into the forest of white gold trees, up the glimmering path to the hall of stones high on the hill. The beacon of my torture made me sick to see by the third rise of the eye.
“Your final trial,” Saturnia’s sister said. “Your new beginning.”
Her words were more and more cryptic and I’d come to rely on her to soothe my physical pain, though not my mental anguish. I was desperate to speak of Em but didn’t know how.
When I returned from the Bathing Temple on that final night, before I suffered my real torture, I felt utterly exhausted. Tiro would come for me at the rise of the eye, but for much more than my sitting quietly in the back of his cart to ride to the Temple. He’d have other places to take me, I was sure of it, and grosser tasks for me to do. I sat on the pile of silks and replayed Em’s scene over and over in my mind. Would I feel pain too?
I was grateful when Bendo’s bleats broke my train of thought, drawing me out to see Luna and bask in
her blue light. When my goat’s calls turned to groans, I knew she was in pain. I found her between the cabbage rows and kneeled down beside her.
“What is it, sweet Bendo?” Her gray coat looked dark in the blue light and I reached out to pet her with my calloused hand. “You look frightened,” I said. “Are you scared too?”
She wore the sorrow of life on her face. I lay down beside her on the cold ground, stroking her soft pelt. The heat of her sticky blood rushed to meet my hand and I jerked it away. I held my palm up to Luna’s light and watched the blood run down the pad of my hand and inside my arm. I’d never seen blood—so dark, so thick. It dripped onto the soil that nourished the cabbage seeds. I rubbed the bloodstains into the dirt with disbelief.
“El.” I hadn’t heard Tal’s step this time and when he reached down to pick me up from the ground, my body tightened.
“Tal?”
He pulled me close to him and carried me into the warmth of the shanty. Once inside, he placed me on the bed of silks without breaking our embrace.
“I saw you in the wheat field with her,” I said.
“It wasn’t my fault,” he said.
“What do you mean?”
“She touched me—never mind, it wasn’t me.”
“But—”
“We’ve got to leave,” he said.
“What about Bendo?”
“We’ll have to leave her.”
“But she’s hurt,” I said. “I saw blood.”
“We don’t have time. The eye will be up soon.”
The flashbacks of my pain in the burning liquid beneath the eye were so vivid I winced at the reminder.
“Tiro will be here,” he said. “You can’t escape once they’ve come.”
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