by James Axler
Feeling a sweat break out at the effort, she reached down into her guts and willed herself to vomit again. If she expelled it all in one spasm, then she may be able to settle and regain her equilibrium. Once more, she splattered the rush matting, but this time with less force. Feeling the aching muscles begin to lose the force of the spasm, she spit the sour taste from her mouth and returned to her position on her back, breathing heavily. She had closed her eyes to stop the room spinning as she moved once more, and was surprised—but too weakened to protest—when she felt her head gently lifted and a wooden cup pressed to her lips. The water in the cup felt cool and sweet as she sipped it. Her throat cried for more and she tried to gulp, realizing how dehydrated she had become. But the cup was taken away.
Mildred opened her eyes once more, holding her breath as the room spun then slowed so that she could see who had given her the water. The woman leaning over her was, she figured, about the same age as herself, with lines at the corners of her large, hazel-brown eyes that creased the skin deeply. Her skin was darker than Mildred’s, almost mahogany in the dim light of the lamp. Her full mouth was also lined at the corners, the lines being up rather than down, laughter rather than frown lines. Her nose was pierced with a single diamond stud on the right side. Despite the darkness of her skin, she was finer boned than Mildred would have expected, with high cheekbones that came to a logical point in a chin that, on any other face, would have seemed pointed. She reminded Mildred of the Abyssinian women she had met when a child, exiled from Ethiopia in the early 1970s when Emperor Haile Selassie had died, leaving the country in the grip of a military junta and a continuing famine. Certainly she didn’t resemble the central and western Africans from whom the majority of African-Americans Mildred had ever known were descended.
And when she spoke, she had the gentlest, softest voice, like the tinkling of a brook over smooth, worn stones.
“So, you will feel better for that. Nature is like this. That which does not belong under the skin must eventually find a route from which to emerge, like the burrowing of mammals that need to come into the light to feed and live.”
Mildred tried to speak. At first a dry croak was all that emerged, but as she swallowed, she regained the power to articulate and express herself.
“Is that how you’d put it? I don’t think I would, frankly. How I’d put it is, Where am I? Who are you? Where are the rest of my people? And not necessarily in that order.”
The woman looking over her laughed, a mellifluous sound that echoed her speech. “You have the spirit of a fisherman in a storm. I think I would be more inclined to thank my benefactor and then rest before asking any more questions.”
Mildred raised herself up on an elbow, ignoring the sharp pains in her ribs and the insistent throb at the back of her skull as she rose.
“Lady, I am not you. And I’ve been in too many positions where the only reason I’ve been kept alive is for the benefit of those who are doing it—not for me—that I’m not inclined to give anyone the benefit of the doubt.”
As she spoke Mildred scanned the room. It seemed to be the living quarters of the woman who sat on the bed. It was sparsely furnished, but what there was bespoke of comparative riches. The furniture was well made, the hangings on the wall of silk and the finest dyed cottons, and on a table stood sculptures and ornaments, mostly of animals, that were made of what appeared to be gold and silver. This was no poor woman’s abode, but rather the home of someone with taste and jack to spare. It also seemed that she lived alone, as there were no signs of anyone else sharing. And there was no one actually in the room, no sec guard of any kind. As her benefactor appeared unarmed, she was either taking a risk and had somehow rescued Mildred alone, or she was of such a high rank that she could dictate her own terms. The presence of the precious metals made this the likely bet.
The finely boned woman watched Mildred with an amused expression on her face. Mildred was so preoccupied that it took her a moment to realize it.
“What?” Mildred asked sharply. She knew she should be triple-red, but she still felt shaky, and this woman gave no air of threat to which she could respond.
The woman’s full lips broke into a smile that showed strong teeth, stained by herbs and betel nuts.
“You are suspicious, and perhaps a little scared. This is no bad thing, and perhaps in your position I would feel the same. But, truly, you have nothing to fear. You are among your own people now, and need no longer talk of those who would wish to keep you alive for your own benefit. They have been dealt with.”
Mildred felt a lurch of panic deep in her guts. “Dealt with…What do you mean?”
The woman shrugged. “I mean what I say. Markos’s patrol found you before they were about to chill you as the wolf chills the rabbit. You had all been washed ashore, and they had carried you with them until such time as they were ready to do as their will. Fortunately, we were able to prevent your chilling and bring you back to the fold like the stray that seeks shelter.”
Mildred hoisted herself up into a sitting position, the pain in her ribs and the intensity of her headache drowned in the wave of panic and concern that threatened to engulf her.
“Let’s back up here for a minute, lady,” she began, trying to keep calm and to keep her voice level. “When I asked you about my friends, I meant the people I was traveling with. The last thing I remember was being in the raft and…Shit, some kind of big mutie fish turning the damn thing over. We were tied to the raft, but the rope must have broken.” She shook her head gently, as if to clear it, being careful not to aggravate her headache. “I don’t know anything about anyone trying to chill me when I was out, but the people I was with were friends, and whatever this Markos thinks he saw, they were trying to help me, okay? Anyway,” she added almost as an afterthought, “who is this guy Markos?”
A strange expression crossed the woman’s face. It was hard to work out exactly what was running through her mind at that point, but the question seemed to stir up a greater answer than she was prepared to give.
She contented herself with saying, “He is our chief of security and law. Answerable only to my father or myself. He was told of a sighting of boats at sea, falling prey to the sea devils and the turning of the tides. It was observed that the boats were washed ashore and that the ones with the shining skin carried a sister into the woods, with an albino in their wake—”
“That’ll be Jak,” Mildred affirmed.
“Another slave like yourself,” she said, continuing before Mildred had a chance to interject. “You were lost to view, and the darkness was falling. It is easy for our security to move after dark, for the beasts are quiet and they know the island well. Markos decided that they would look for you then. And so they found you, and overpowered your oppressors with ease, bringing you here to recover.”
“And where the hell are they?”
“They are safe.” The woman shrugged. “Markos has imprisoned them awaiting their trial.” She was silent for a moment, a thoughtful expression crossing her face, before she spoke again. “Strange that you should call them friends, as that is just what the albino said, choosing to be imprisoned with them.”
“Yeah, and I’ll tell you what, lady,” Mildred said coldly, ignoring the pain in her head, “you can lock me up there with them. Because they’re not my captors, you are.”
The woman looked genuinely perplexed at this. “I do not understand. We are your brothers and sisters. We do not seek to oppress you, only to bring you to us in the spirit of harmony.”
“Harmony be damned,” Mildred snapped. “I think there’s a few things we need to get straight. It’s like I said—the people I landed with are my friends. We’ve been through more shit than you’re ever likely to see on this island, isolated from anywhere. You say they were trying to kill me? How?” she demanded.
“Markos and the others saw the red-haired woman try to inject you with a needle as you lay unconscious,” the fine-boned woman replied, although in a tone that sug
gested she was confused and unsure when confronted with Mildred’s authoritative tone.
Mildred frowned, her mind racing. Krysty trying to inject her? Why would she do that? Her keen doctor’s brain, sharpened by the need to focus, raced through the possibilities.
“Where did the needle come from? Inside the jacket I was wearing?”
“You were wearing no jacket. Markos told me it came from a jacket that was full of pills, bandages and other needles.”
“I hope to hell that you haven’t done anything to that jacket or what was in it,” Mildred said in low voice. “I need those medical supplies.”
“You are a medicine woman?”
It was Mildred’s turn for an enigmatic expression to cross her face. “I guess you could say that. Yeah, I guess you could. I was the medicine woman for the group. I taught Krysty—the redhead—to give that injection in extreme circumstances. Guess they must have been worried, and I must’ve been out for a long time.”
“But how can that be? They treat you as an equal?”
Mildred furrowed her brow. “Yeah, why shouldn’t they?”
“Because it has never been that way. That is why we are here. That is how we came to be here. And why we continue to be here.”
Mildred sank back onto the bed. It seemed to her that there were two different stories being played out, and until both she and her benefactor—why not call her that?—knew each other and understood their circumstances, they couldn’t understand each other and would continue to go in circles. If the others were imprisoned, at least they were alive and safe. Rather than try to rush matters, it would be as well to take the time to attempt to explain and understand. For this woman who sat by her feet seemed to hold high position in this ville.
“Look,” Mildred began, “this is ridiculous. How about we play a little game of truth or dare? Give me some of that water, and I’ll tell you about myself and the people I travel with, and then you can tell me about where the hell I am and who you are. At least that way we may start to understand each other. Sound reasonable?”
The fine-boned woman nodded. Filling the wooden cup and handing it to Mildred as she propped herself on one elbow to drink, the woman said, “Your language is coarse and strange in some ways. It lacks the manner of our ways, and so is sometimes hard to grasp. It seems like the promise of rain on the breeze after a drought. It offers a release, and yet frustrates by being forever just out of reach. And yet you speak sense. Tell me of yourself, and then I will endeavor to reveal to you the history of myself and my land.”
Mildred handed her the cup and began to speak. She told the woman her name and about her meeting with the companions—omitting the fact that she was a freezie, as this would only complicate matters unnecessarily—before detailing some of the things they had been through together. She talked of Ryan, J.B., Doc, Krysty, Jak and Dean as individuals, so that the woman would get a fuller picture of the people she traveled with. She told the woman about herself, and what she felt for her companions. And she told her how they had found themselves on the peninsula—changing the mat-trans for a smashed boat to simplify matters and stall unnecessary questions—before deciding to explore the island.
“So you did not wish to come here to join us, and they were not trying to stop you?” the woman asked when Mildred had finished.
Mildred shook her head. “We didn’t even know the island was inhabited. And I don’t know who you are yet, let alone why I should be looking for you.”
The fine-boned woman nodded to herself, before saying, “You have been most illuminating. I will endeavor to be the same.”
“THE STORY OF OUR LAND is one that goes back through the mists of time, to a place where legends begin and there is nothing that can be taken for an absolute truth. But there are some things that we know to have occurred and men of legend who we know to have existed.
“Mandrake was the name of he who founded our land. He called it Pilatu after the place from where he came. The lands over the distant seas, where many of our forefathers were plucked in their prime to be brought to the whitelands, where they were used as slaves and treated as lower than the beasts. There were many who sought to escape such places, but where could they go where the paler skins did not single them out and seek to return them to those who would claim to lay ownership upon them? For many, the route to freedom lay at end only with the peace of being chilled.
“But Mandrake was different. He stood apart because he had intelligence beyond any pale skin, intelligence beyond many of us. He traveled far and wide, staying out of the reach of oppression by his wits, until he found this island. As you know from your own experience, the strange waters make it hard to reach, even though the mainland is but a short distance as the birds fly. When he found this place, he knew that it could provide a haven for his fellows and make for a land where we could live in peace. As time went on, knowledge of this place spread to those brothers and sisters who also sought peace, and so they began to make their way here. Not all were lucky. There were many who perished and bought the farm in an attempt to attain that peace.
“However, there were many who landed here. And we made our own way of living, and our own speech, using the common language we had been taught by our oppressors, but keeping the rhythm and tone that was unique to our shared heritage, though the tribes had different tongues. It is said that there were many terrible things that occurred. Children who were shameful because of their parents. But Mandrake had sense and learning, and he passed this on. There were others like him who followed, and so we evolved the methods we have of making sure such abominations before the Lord are not conceived. We make sure that blood does not mix and taint wherever possible, and we keep a strict watch on ourselves. There is always new blood coming in, but in the several generations since the nukecaust, this has lessened. We know from the newcomers that there are less people out there in the world, but still word spreads, and still we get people arriving to join us.
“I know that one of the things you are wondering is why we have not ventured forth since the nukecaust. This is because we are divided. There is a deep schism between us, and there has been since the years before the nukecaust.
“We are told that there was a war called Nam, and in that war the young of our people were sent by those of the pale skins to go and be chilled for their glory. There was talk among those who arrived here that we could never live in their midst as they would not allow us to be ourselves. More, there were those who believed that the only way to stop them harming us was to chill them first. They believed that we should stay apart.
“It was a time of bitter debate, but all this was halted by the nukecaust. For more than a generation, it was a hard time to be alive. The seasons were wrong, there was little to be made from the land and livestock perished easily. There was rad sickness and many chilled.
“But many survived, and others managed to find their way through the darkness of the world to join us. Pilatu survived, and we have since grown strong. And now the debate rages again. There are those who wish to go out into the world to explore and to see what the lands beyond these shores have to offer, and there are those who wish to stay here, to stay separate from the pale ones. The only thing they would wish to do on the mainland is eradicate those who are not as us—partly as revenge for the past, and partly to neutralize any threat the pale ones may pose. Indeed, there are some among us who would wish to pursue such a fight at any cost.
“The problem we face is that what has been before nothing but a matter for idle, if heated, debate is now a necessity. It was always predicted that one day we would mine the depths of what this island has to offer. There is little left. And now, with the calming of the earth, we find that our population is growing again—we have people living longer, more arriving and more children. It is growing at a time when we can no longer support it. We must move, and it will not be easy.
“For me, the matter is made worse as it comes at a time when our leadership is in the balance. My fath
er, Barras, is the baron, and he has been a good and wise baron. Yet he is old now, and he is tired and ailing. He has not long left to live and is past the peak of his powers. I do not say this to disrespect him, as he is my father and I love him. But the truth cannot be denied. When we need strong leadership, we have a man who is in the twilight of his powers.
“Matters are made worse because I am his heir, and I am a woman. There have been no woman barons in the history of Pilatu. It is strange, is it not, that a community based on escaping oppression should still harbor this? I would wish to take my own responsibility, but the weight of tradition says otherwise, and I find myself at the center of a private battle that would mirror the greater.
“There are two who wish my hand…and my power. One is Markos, who has a distaste for the pale ones and would not wish to leave the island at all. The other is Elias, who believes we must move on and out to the mainland in order to survive. He is not a bad man, neither is Markos, who is a fine security boss, despite his views that I do not agree with…but neither of them wish for my hand because of me. They do not see me as Sineta, a woman who needs a partner. Nor do they see me as Sineta, a woman who will need a partner for her own spirit. No, they see me as Sineta, the daughter of the baron. In matter of truth, they do not even see me as that. They see me as lever with which they can take power and rule over Pilatu, forcing their own point of view upon me and upon the people.
“I would not take either of them if the choice were solely in my hands, but it is not. My father is courted by both of them as though he were to be their wife, not me, for it is on his word that I must act. Tradition dictates that I marry the husband he chooses for me, for the good of the island, as though I am not capable of making any decisions myself, either about my own life or about the future of the people—my people, by lineage.