She was alive.
Aleya looked at her hands imprisoned in the girl’s grip; an aging woman’s fingers, but not a dead woman’s. “How—?”
“You were never dead. Reyozem Ahon tied up your life, but he never took it from you. I suppose he conceived some plan for you before he died—”
“To send me to Leyothan, past the spells of the Temple,” Aleya whispered. “He must have known the prophecy all along. Maybe he learned it from one of the Shenna temples.”
She had been lying in the tomb like an enchanted maiden, not even her fingernails growing. Except that unlike a heroine of story, she had aged …
“What prophecy?” demanded the girl.
“About the treasure. ‘In Leyothan is a weapon that will undo all who oppose it.’ The barbarian, the one who summoned me out of Shenna—he told me about it. He said his spells had raised me because I was the one who could find it—”
The girl was frowning again, but at the basin. Aleya followed her gaze and, with a chill, saw reflected in the basin an image of Guribast beneath the boundary stone, as clear as if he stood beside her.
But the girl said, with irritation, “What treasure? The priestesses owned some books. They never had weapons. The Temple didn’t even keep men-at-arms. Everything else left behind was just—dishes, linens, kitchen stores.” She shook her head. “‘Stupid people rely on prophecies; the future is not yet written.’ The Abbess wrote that in her pillow-book—she, the great Oracle whose prophecies they all sought out. Is that the secret of Leyothan?”
She released Aleya’s hands and turned restlessly toward the entrance of the sanctuary. “But the mage laid a command on me to—” Aleya said.
“I told you,” the girl said, looking back, “I took all the spells off.” And then, when Aleya tried to speak further, “You’re safe here, for the moment. The nariyo do pretty well at keeping him lost.”
Aleya barely heard those last words, because all at once the reflection in the water changed. A hole opened, obliterating the image of Guribast, and the void rushed toward her. As before, time and space fell away, blackness swallowed all her senses, and the God of the Gate’s cold sword swept toward her.
But this time Aleya remembered that he who wields the sword of Judgement is master only of the dead who pass through the Gate. The one who rules the Gate is the goddess sometimes named Maro, which means divine truth, and the door into the mansions of heaven is also called the Gate to vision.
Once again brightness pierced her, and this time—
“You are the Oracle,” Aleya whispered.
The girl jerked as if slapped. “There’s no Oracle. The Temple has been empty for a hundred years.”
“No,” said Aleya, “you are the Abbess, the Abbess’s—who are you?”
“The last Abbess’s great-great-granddaughter,” said the girl, angry now. “She opened the doors of the Temple. She said the cloister was a great evil and no one should ever be bound to the service of prayer, and she left the Temple herself. It doesn’t mean anything. The talent isn’t passed down—”
“No,” said Aleya. “The Temple is still here—the peasants who know so much—the nariyo, whoever they are—it’s just spread out, growing up through the grass and the trees. The Temple has no walls or roof.”
The girl pressed her lips together. Aleya recognized the fear in her eyes, and just as Aleya had always felt the cold wind of death blowing out of a doomed man’s future, now her newly sharpened sight showed how there was neither Gate nor wall between this girl and the mansions of the gods. No fleeting visions for her; only her angry refusal to look kept her from seeing all the time.
At least in Aleya’s former life, she had known how to delight in beauty, how to seize moments of joy despite the terrible war that, one by one, took everyone she loved. Aleya saw how this girl had all the things she herself longed for, but owned none of them. The girl wandered old ruins because she preferred things with no future.
And Aleya knew—the way she had always seen approaching death in the eyes of those doomed young men, her lovers—she knew that this girl was the weapon of Leyothan. She came and went from Shenna, and Reyozem Ahon had never suspected. To discover her, temples pored over old prophecies, the barbarian summoned the dead, all so far in vain.
Aleya was not going to speak about it. It was as if the goddess herself laid hands upon her lips.
The girl turned toward Aleya again. “My grandmother expects me,” she said. And then, formally, “You are welcome to stay in our house. That’s one thing that hasn’t changed since the priestesses ruled Leyothan. Any woman in distress or with no other recourse can live here, though there’s no room for idle hands.” She sighed. “If you really are the one who will find this supposed weapon of Leyothan, we can’t let the barbarians have you.”
9
Aleya watched the still-nameless girl, daughter of the manor, depart through the ruins. Now what?
The mirror the priestesses had sent to Shenna had, after all these years, found her and worked its change on her.
The girl had untied knots from the past but had left the straggling threads in the road.
Aleya did not know how to gather herself up and proceed. Still, she remembered her childhood lessons: Magic and prayer, dust drifting out of the divine realm, have their ineluctable laws. Like the peasant woman, Aleya was now left with a spiritual debt that she must repay.
And as surely as she had divined the girl’s nature, she knew what task the goddess Maro demanded of her. Reyozem Ahon was banished safely back to Shenna, but there were plenty of living people to come searching for the weapon of the prophecies. Her own gift remained so much less than the girl’s, but she had to learn to use it so she could guard the girl from them.
Aleya had been afraid her whole life that because of her gift she would be taken to serve the Oracle, and now it was her fate.
With some trepidation, Aleya looked again into the stone basin. For a moment, she did see more fragments of vision: Guribast gloved in blood; a young cavalier on a black horse, hunting him through a maze of stone, a maze of spells; barbarian temples; armies marching to war; Reyozem Ahon; a cliff face shattering into ruin.
Then the fragments dissolved and left only a strange woman’s haggard face. She would have to work to recognize the face as her own.
Aleya genuflected before the spring of the Oracle and followed the girl out of the ruined temple, as she had once followed her out of Shenna.
The cold mountains, iron-dark and ice-pale, towered over the valley. How small Leyothan was, for a sanctuary against the haunted past and the barbarian present.
Aleya descended the temple hill and trudged toward the manor. Peasants at a smithy glanced at her with desultory interest, as if she were no more than a hopeful beggar. Didn’t they know she was a revenant from the tombs of Reyozem Ahon, dead lord of Shenna?
Didn’t they know, she mocked herself, she had once been beautiful and highborn, needing no one’s pity?
Her first unthinking impulse was to seek the front door of the manor, but she turned instead to the kitchens as a beggar would. The middle-aged woman who answered her knock seemed to find Aleya, two hundred years old, as unremarkable as the peasants had. “Oh, yes, miss told us you might be coming.”
The servant led her to the bathing rooms behind the kitchen stoves. Steaming water out of the stove tank, soap scented with balsam: O gods, how that bath soothed her to her bones. The clothes they gave her were coarse-woven in the country style, dyed a plain brown and lacking embroidery, but they were clean and nearly new.
When Aleya returned to the kitchen, the servant who had admitted her sat her at a trestle table, below hanging bunches of onions. It would no doubt be the lady Aleya’s fate to chop the onions, and to scrub the pots as well.
But the kitchen was clean and warm, and Aleya had stopped feeling cold altogether. Apples and a round of cheese waited on the table. From a big copper pot rose the smell of sage and turkey, and someone had jus
t removed fresh-baked bread from the oven.
Small and human things; what reverence they were due, o gods and goddesses, with more holiness in them than all the prayer-ridden temples in the world.
“What did you say your name was?”
Aleya looked up to see the plump head cook offering her a plate. “You look more than half-starved,” the cook said. “We don’t dine for an hour. Why don’t you warm yourself meantime with this?”
On the plate sat a slice of buttered bread. It was darker and denser than what Aleya would have expected in a manor house, but its rich fragrance rose up with the steam, headier than incense. “Thank you.” Her words emerged in a whisper. She took the plate and lifted the slice for a tiny bite.
“It’s good,” she said.
© 2007 by Judith Berman. Originally published in Black Gate. Reprinted by permission of the author.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Judith Berman’s shorter works have appeared in Asimov’s, Interzone, Realms of Fantasy, Black Gate, Best Short Novels 2005, and Lightspeed Magazine, as well as in her chapbook from Small Beer Press, Lord Stink and Other Stories (2002). Her novel Bear Daughter (Ace, 2005), which was praised as “brilliant” (VOYA), “powerful” (Locus), and “utterly absorbing, unforgettable” (Booklist Starred Review), is being re-issued through Book View Café in December 2016. She has been a finalist for the Nebula, Sturgeon and Crawford awards, and her often-reprinted essay “Science Fiction Without the Future” received the Science Fiction Research Association’s Pioneer Award. She has lived in Philadelphia, Dubai, and northern Idaho, and currently resides on a hilltop on Vancouver Island, BC, in sight of the ocean.
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EXCERPT: Beltrunner (EDGE-Lite)
Sean O’Brien | 9047 words
Chapter One
Come on, come on. Show me the Ps. It was becoming a liturgy. Collier hadn’t even raised the cabin lights—he had programmed Sancho to let him sleep, for all the good it had done him—but the glow from the console was more than enough to illuminate his craggy features. Rocinante was still executing her flyby of M-1875, sending back telemetry to Collier in the Dulcinea in full 3D color. Sancho was doing his best to analyze the data, as he always did, but Collier knew better than to rely solely on the computer. He was looking for something he couldn’t ever put into words, no matter how many belters back in Ceres had asked him to try. Not that he had been the center of any conversations for many years now. He had, at best, been a quaint curiosity some time ago, but now was an eccentric old man who was close to becoming a nuisance.
There! There it is! Mark it and bring Rocinante back in, Sancho, Collier rewound the telemetry to the precise moment he had seen the signs, and told Sancho to lock the coordinates.
Coordinates locked in. Rocinante returning to her stable, Skipper, Sancho confirmed cheerfully. I’m always curious, boss—what did you see?
Collier had never been able to explain the markings of a P-vein on the surface: indeed, he had been caught more than a few times excavating what he was sure would be a strike only to find nickel and iron. But he was not about to abandon his methods. Deep impact probes were far more reliable, but they were expensive consumables he simply couldn’t afford. Rocinante was not equipped for laser mining, as many of the third-generation rock hounds were. All Collier had were his instincts and subjective experiences. And hope. Still, he made an attempt to explain his art to his computer.
There is a fissure there, running from the top right to the bottom left. Do you see it?
Sure.
That’s a heavy-metal impact fissure. Bound to be some P in it, or at least nearby.
How do you know it’s an impact fissure? Couldn’t it be just cleavage in the rock?
Collier snorted. I know cleavage when I see it, Sancho. That’s not it. Takes a man to tell the difference.
What?
Never mind. Rocinante back yet?
Still on approach. I’ve got a good track. Her stable is ready—all lights green.
Good. When she’s tucked in, take us to M-1875. Right over the fissure. How’s the spin?
Not too bad. Well under tolerance levels. Do you want to attach correctors?
Collier shook his head. Not if I don’t have to. Takes up fuel. I’ll just go down myself, start cutting. Hover us one hundred meters away, but don’t deploy the canopy. What’s your estimated time until hover?
Rocinante should be tucked in about ninety minutes from now. Under standard procedure, it will take me about two hours to achieve stable hover over the coordinates. So three and a half hours, Skipper.
Great. Just enough time for a nap. Wake me when we get there. Or if there’s a fire or something.
If there’s a fire, I’ll just evacuate the oxygen. Sleep well, Skipper.
Collier laughed at the computer’s joke, glad at the machine’s attitude. He had long dismissed the question of Sancho’s self-awareness as immaterial and worthless. It pleased him that the almost hopelessly outdated computer had quirks and bugs—including, possibly, sentience. That ill-fated experiment was one of the few taboo subjects left in the system. Earth was rumored to still have hundreds of thousands of rogue Calibans who had blended into the background of the planet’s artificial workforce. Perhaps some had left the planet to Luna or even Mars—no one was certain. Collier suspected that someday, Sancho’s increasingly corrupted programming would reduce him to uselessness, but he dared not take him in for an overhaul. If he had achieved sentience, Collier would be held liable. He did not relish the idea of being ground up in the Ceres bioconverter for fertilizer. And anyway, if Sancho were sentient, the computer would be killed as well in an overhaul. No, better to continue as he was, with a quirky, erratic computer who asked odd questions. Collier drifted off to sleep with a smile on his lips.
• • • •
New contact, Sancho’s voice woke Collier instantly. Approaching at 23 meters per second relative velocity. Distance 345.6 kilometers and closing.
What the hell? Who is it? Collier tore loose the sleep restraint and shoved off toward the control seat. Even as he maneuvered into his station he was glancing at Sancho’s readouts. One look told him all he needed to know.
Configuration suggests a mining vessel, highest probability—
Ad Astra Corporation. Yeah. Collier heaved a sigh and squeezed his eyes shut for a moment, as though girding himself for what he knew must come next. Why didn’t we see them from farther away? he asked irritably.
They were in obstruction, Sancho said.
Collier took a deep breath. No sense in blaming Sancho for that. So, the Ad Astra guys want a piece of this rock too, huh?
Affirmative. I’d say they are making for the same rock we are.
Collier studied Sancho’s readout. The corporate mining ship would catch up to him in just over four hours at this velocity. They would get to the asteroid at about the same time. His eyes found Dulcinea’s fuel supply indicator: every liter of propellant he used to increase his own velocity meant a slower return to Ceres later, but it might be worth it to get to the asteroid first and claim it before the corp could. Of course, there was no telling how fast the corp was willing to go to beat him to it.
Let’s talk to them, Sancho.
Sure thing, Skipper, Sancho said brightly. After a momentary pause, he said, Contact established. Comm ready when you are.
Collier drew his breath and said, in what he hoped was a cocksure drawl, This is the Dulcinea to approaching corporate mining ship. Who are you, and what do you want with my rock?
Your rock, huh? I don’t think you’re going to be able to make that stick, Col.
His eyes half-closed when he heard the voice. The sudden dryness in his mouth and slight stirring in his loins betrayed the conflict within him.
Isa, he croaked.
Corporate Captain Mitchell, Col. Been a while, hasn’t it?
There was no mistaking the casual venom in her voice. Even without a visual link, he could see her half-s
mirk and narrowed eyes. She always tried so hard to be serious and grim—but in rare moments of total honesty with him, she had revealed secret insecurities and fears that had made him love her all the more.
For a time, at least.
Yes, it has. And you still haven’t answered me: what are you doing chasing my rock?
For starters, Col, it’s not your rock. I know you haven’t filed a claim on it, and you certainly haven’t begun excavation. As far as I’m concerned, this is still a free asteroid. And we’re going to get there ahead of you. Isa’s smugness was a shade too heavy.
I’ve got plenty of delta-vee in my tanks still, Isa, he said, deliberately emphasizing her name rather than use her title, so unless you want to spend a lot of your corp’s water, you should break off and look for another rock.
Isa chuckled mirthlessly. Nice try, Col. You know we carry much more water than you. I can outrun you even from here, get to the rock ahead of you, set up the mine and begin processing while you’re still nursing those shit engines of yours. I’m surprised the Dulcet is still working, actually.
Dulcinea. And she’s never been better, he snapped. Isa knew very well how sensitive he was to comments about his boat. You try to keep up, Isa. I’m going to get to the rock first, and then you’ll have to lay off. Don’t waste your corp’s water on a stupid race you can’t win.
Since when are you so worried about Ad Astra’s profit margin?
Since when are you? He knew it was a childish rejoinder, but it came so swiftly and easily he barely knew he was saying it.
Isa sighed. You never did understand, Col. But after the last six years, I would have thought you would have come to the same realization I had.
Nope, he said, too much petulance in his voice. He winced at his own tone.
Silence from the other side, during which time Collier ached to ask Isa questions: questions that he had never fully put away. Why had she left that morning six years ago? Her long letter, written on real paper and left on his pillow in some old-fashioned gesture that angered him even more at the time, had said much but answered little. How many times in the past six years had he wished he had not spaced the letter? How many times had he wondered if he would ever find it again, floating in the belt?
Lightspeed Magazine - January 2017 Page 20