by Pete Hautman
“The Death Gates,” Lah Lia whispered.
“The Death Gates are poorly named,” said Pike. “Those who pass through may simply choose not to return to us, perhaps because life on the other side is sweeter.”
“Tell me of Heid,” Lia said.
“Ah, Heid, the Prophet Maker. This is the Gate I would choose, were I permitted. Few return from Heid, but those who do have light in their eyes.”
“Yes. They are mad,” said Lia.
“From our perspective, perhaps.”
“Yar Satima eats bugs and soils herself.”
“You almost ate an insect yourself, just today,” said Pike. “And you soiled yourself many times as an infant.”
“It is not the same,” said Lia.
“Perhaps not, but Satima says such interesting things.”
“Such as what?”
“She speaks a language of her own.”
“She speaks gibberish.”
“Even gibberish may not be entirely meaningless.”
Lia considered arguing that the meaning of the word gibberish was “meaningless speech,” but she knew Pike would only refer her to her languages tutor, Yar Tan.
“Does Satima have Plague?” she asked.
The Lait Pike took a very long time to reply. “Perhaps,” he said at last.
That answer sent a chill up Lia’s spine. Plague!
“Many of us yet have hints of Plague, although so long as we avoid digital thinking, we are safe from its most unwholesome manifestations.”
“Tell me again of the Plague.”
Pike shifted uneasily in his chair. “I will tell you what I know. The Digital Plague was the last of the great sicknesses to visit humankind. Before that, there was the Black Death, smallpox, the flu, and several lesser epidemics. During the middle years of the Digital Age, Plague victims were believed to be suffering from something called autism. Even before that, symptoms of Plague were mistaken for other maladies — schizophrenia, demonic possession, or simple dull-wittedness. For many generations, Plague hid under various guises, always present but never recognized. Father September was the first to see it for what it was, and to identify its root cause.”
“Numbers,” said Lia under her breath.
“Yes. But despite the warnings of the Father, people immersed themselves in the digital. The Father found great difficulty in convincing people that Plague was real. That was why he made himself a martyr.”
“By sacrificing Tuckerfeye,” Lia said.
“Yes, and thereby sacrificing himself. His followers were horrified and ashamed, and they abandoned him.”
“But then Tuckerfeye returned,” Lia said.
“So it is written. And the Lah Sept regathered, and once again we were whole. But Plague continued to spread. Those infected found it increasingly difficult to express nonquantifiable concepts, such as feelings and emotions.”
Lia wondered if she herself had a touch of Plague. She felt many things she was unable to express. Even in this moment, as her approaching blood moon filled her with terror, she was sitting calmly in her chair, listening to the Lait Pike.
“Soon the Medicants were able to communicate only with the aid of digital appurtenances. Plague spread through the medical, technical, and scientific fields, then to the rest of the population.
“For reasons we do not understand, light-skinned, light-haired people were more likely to succumb. That which gives color to our skin, hair, and eyes apparently provides some resistance to Plague. This is why you, with your pale hair, were made a Pure Girl.”
“Lah Kim had black hair,” Lia pointed out.
“Lah Kim had a birthmark on her face, reason enough for the priests to make her a Pure Girl. Had she been a boy, she would have been culled.” Lia detected a strain of bitterness in Pike’s voice. “It is believed that the Medicants found a way to deliberately spread Plague — those who went to them for medical treatment often returned with their minds permanently altered. Only the Lah Sept, who rejected the digital ways of the Medicants, were spared.”
Lia recited, “And, in the darkest hour of the Plague, Tuckerfeye appeared at the center of their city, and their devices fell from them and landed upon the hard earth and were crushed beneath the feet of the Chosen, and there was weeping and gnashing of teeth, and the storms came, and the city burned, and chaos reigned, and Romelas rose from the ashes.”
“Your memory is prodigious,” said Pike. “You might have made a good scholar.”
“I might well yet,” said Lah Lia.
Pike’s smile flattened. “Perhaps,” he said so quietly that Lia was not sure she had really heard him. She stared at the old man — at his grizzled beard and his moist, yellowing eyes — and realized that the end of his life might be near as well.
“I am sorry,” she said.
“For what? For asking questions? Fah! You have nothing to be sorry for, Dear One. It is I who should beg your forgiveness, and I do so now.”
“For what am I to forgive you?”
Pike reached out a spotted, veiny hand and laid it upon her forearm.
“Let us simply forgive each other, child, and ask not the reasons why.” He gave Lia’s arm a gentle squeeze. “The things I tell you may not be true. Remember always, the stories in The Book of September are simply the words of men.”
The Lait Pike stood, his ancient knees cracking, and hobbled out of the room.
The Pure Girls socialized little. They were encouraged to spend their hours in contemplation and learning, but the palace was finite, and they would see each other in passing or hear mention of one another from the Sisters, who were less discreet than they might have been.
After the Lait Pike left her study, Lia ventured into the east garden, hoping to calm the storm of thoughts in her head. Pike had said the stories in the Book were “the words of men.” Was he suggesting that some of the stories in The Book of September were lies? If so, which ones? And if the Book was not true, then what about the other stories she had been told?
A young red-haired woman was sitting beside the fountain in the shade of a lemon tree, watching ripples in the water. Lia stood watching her, puzzled. The girl looked too old to be a Pure Girl. Lia sat beside her on the fountain lip. Neither of them spoke at first. They watched the water and listened to the cooing of the pigeons atop the crenellations lining the garden wall. After what she considered a polite interval, Lia asked the girl her name.
The girl turned her wide blue-green eyes on Lia. Such eyes were rare among the Lah Sept. She would have been made a Pure Girl for that reason alone.
“I used to live here,” she said, half smiling.
“You were a Pure Girl?”
The girl nodded.
“Where do you live now?”
“I am a temple girl.” She looked away.
“You live with the priests?” Lia tried but failed to keep the distaste out of her voice. She had heard whispers that occasionally a girl would be sent to the temple, never to return.
“It is not so bad,” said the girl. “Brother Tamm treats me kindly.” She gazed at Lia appraisingly. “You are a bit on the thin side, else you might make a good temple girl yourself.”
“I would refuse!” Lia said.
“You would have no choice. In any case, your blood moon cannot be far off.”
“It is not.”
“I am sorry.” The girl pushed herself off the lip of the fountain. “I should not be here.” She walked out of the garden, leaving Lia alone with her fears.
LAH LIA CONSIDERED YAR SONG TO BE HER MOST difficult tutor, yet she always looked forward to their sessions.
Yar Song had once had the dark hair and chocolate eyes common to the Lah Sept, but the years had turned her hair to gray, and her right eyelid was sewn shut. On the lid of that eye was tattooed a pale blue iris with a dark pinprick of a pupil, an eye that never opened yet never closed. Her mouth was flat, wide, and framed by deep creases. Her arms and back were crisscrossed with ropy scars. Alth
ough Song was no taller or heavier than Lia, her thin skin rippled with muscle and sinew. She wore a sleeveless black tunic, black cotton leggings, and nothing on her calloused feet.
Despite her forbidding appearance, Yar Song remained, always, utterly composed and respectful to her students — or as respectful as it was possible to be while lifting them into the air and slamming them onto the hard woven straw mats of the dojo.
Yar Song was Lah Lia’s self-defense tutor.
On the morning after her encounter with the green caterpillar, Lia was summoned to Yar Song’s dojo for training. When she arrived, she found her tutor in the “warrior” pose: standing on her right leg, body parallel to the floor, left leg and arms thrust straight back. The warrior was one of the least comfortable of the tantric poses. Lia suspected that Yar Song had been standing that way since sunrise.
Lia took her place beside the motionless Yar and slowly positioned her own body into an identical form — or as near to it as she was able. She was determined to hold the pose for as long as it took to gain Yar Song’s approval. How long that might be, Lia had no idea. She had no sooner assumed the pose than her right leg began to throb and her arms to sag. She imagined that her left leg was fastened to the ceiling with invisible cords, that her right leg was augmented with steel rods, that her arms were feathers, that a powerful gyroscope was holding her effortlessly upright.
Had she known of Lia’s thoughts, Yar Song would not have approved.
“Do not imagine,” she would have said. “Become.”
Easy to say, Lia thought. Not so easy to do. Imagining herself propped and suspended helped for a time, but soon her arms were quivering and her leg threatened to cramp.
Song, without looking at Lia or moving by so much as a hair, said, “Your blood moon is nigh, Dear One.”
Lia did not reply. The pose was requiring all her concentration. She funneled the pain from her legs and arms into her core, as Song had taught her, and sent the strength of her heart into her extremities.
Song slowly moved from the warrior position to the tree pose, still on one leg but upright now, with her palms pressed together before her breast. “Maintain the position,” said Yar Song. “You are strong.”
With those words, Lia could feel Yar Song’s strength flowing into her own legs. Her arms became weightless. She felt she could hold the pose indefinitely, effortlessly, as if the pose itself had formed an invisible shell to support her.
“Defend yourself.”
Lia had only the briefest of instants to wonder whether she had heard correctly before Song’s knee slammed into her side. Lia twisted away from the impact, striking out with her foot and grazing Yar Song’s hip. Song caught Lia’s ankle, but Lia was already spinning and bringing her other foot to bear, breaking Song’s hold with a blow to the forearm. Lia hit the mat with her shoulder, rolled, and came up on her feet to assume the all-purpose defense posture Song had drilled into her, over and over again.
The Pure Girl and the Yar faced each other across the mat.
Song smiled and nodded slightly. She turned her back on Lia and walked out the door. Lia slowly returned her body to a relaxed position, relishing the way her muscles moved. Yar Song’s teaching methods were frightening, and often left Lia sore for days, but, always, they left her stronger. She followed her tutor out of the dojo into the garden, where she found the Yar sitting upon the miniature bridge, dangling her bare feet in the stream and staring down into the water. Lia took a seat on the boulder across from her.
“I do not believe that Pure Girls need to die,” said Song. She raised her chin and transfixed Lia with her tattooed eye. “I myself returned from Gammel.”
Lia stared back at her. “No one returns from the Death Gates,” she said.
Song let her head fall forward. “And yet here I sit, with my aging feet in running water.” She sat in silence, watching the water run over and through her toes.
Lia waited. The Yars were reticent to speak of their experiences, but occasionally they did so.
“Do you know why I was made a Pure Girl?” Song asked.
Lia shook her head. She had wondered about that. Unlike most of those who had been made Pure Girls, Yar Song had no visible inborn flaws.
“I taught myself numbers,” said Yar Song.
A chill prickled Lia’s spine. Numbers!
“The numbers have not harmed me.” Song shrugged. “I find them useful at times.”
“But . . . Plague!”
“Life is risk. Life is random. Not all who learn numbers are stricken. Do you remember your mother?”
Lia shook her head. She had been made a Pure Girl as an infant; she remembered nothing.
“She was much like you,” said Song. “Light of hair and quick of tongue. We became Pure Girls the same summer.”
That made no sense. Yar Song was old. “My mother was a Pure Girl?”
“Yes . . . until she became pregnant, of course.”
“How old was she?”
“Do you wish me to number her years?”
“No!”
“She was about your age.”
Lia had always assumed that she had been born of noble parents who had given her to the priests because of the color of her hair. The notion that she was the child of a Pure Girl shocked her. And she did not understand how her mother could be the same age as Song, nor how a Pure Girl could have come to be with child.
“What happened to her?” she asked.
“Once you were born, she was sent to the farms. She may have picked the fruit you ate for your breakfast.”
On the surface, Lia absorbed this information placidly, as Yar Song would wish, but inside, she felt things crumbling, as if the girders of her emotions were made of brittle foam. She did not trust herself to speak.
Song lifted her feet from the water and moved effortlessly into the lotus position.
“There are some things I can tell you that may help and may explain that which seems to make little sense. Are you listening?”
Lia jerked her head up as if slapped. “Yes, Yar.”
“Do you know why the Pure Girls exist?”
“We are throwbacks,” Lia said, quoting the teachings. “We represent that which was. The past. The Plague years.”
“That is true, and they fear us for it. But what I am asking is this: Why, if we are so dreadful, do they celebrate us as children, make us Pure Girls, then cast us into the Gates?”
“Because it is our way.”
“Which begs the question. The truth is, the Pure Girls are the scapegoats of the Lah Sept — a repository for the sins of the people. By casting out the Pure Girls, we Lah Sept hope to cleanse ourselves. We destroy those who we fear we might become, and in so doing, we achieve salvation.”
“That makes no sense,” Lia said.
Song shrugged. “I did not say it made sense, only that it is so. You have been granted a brief but enviable life. This justifies, in the hearts of the people, your eventual fate. Or so the priests tell us.”
“Do you believe it?”
“Many do not. The priests maintain their power through fear, and the power of machines they obtain from the Boggsians. Should those machines ever fail, the priests themselves may become scapegoats. The cycle repeats itself endlessly.”
Lia did not understand, but she nodded.
Song smiled. “You do not need to know these things. Let me tell you some things you do need to know. The Gates are openings in time. Aleph, Bitte, and Heid lead directly or indirectly to Medicant hospitals with the technology to repair damaged bodies. In most cases, the Pure Girls survive their initial transition. But each of those hospitals is different, occurring at different points in Medicant history, each with different sets of laws and practices. At the hospital served by Bitte, for example, the doctors employ the Gates as a source for body parts. At Heid they are more concerned with psychological manipulations. Aleph leads to the most ancient of the hospitals, and the least dangerous, though Plague is rampant ther
e. If you should land at any of these, you must assert your rights vigorously.”
“What rights?”
“You have the right to refuse treatment. If you are treated against your will, you have the right to refuse to pay. They may let you go, although in their later period, the Medicants began to extort payment in the form of involuntary labor. A sad commentary on the human race. No matter how often we repudiate the practice of slavery, it finds its way back like a cast-off cat.
“In any case, the Medicants will not kill you. They are rigid and in some ways cruel, but they are bound by their numbers and their ethic. The Gates Gammel and Dal offer a greater challenge. Your survival will depend upon dexterity and speed while you are on the altar, and there may be no medical treatment waiting on the other side. You witnessed the passing of Lah Kim?”
Lia nodded.
“As did I,” said Song. “Lah Kim did not move, alas. She was well stabbed. I was not surprised when she did not return to us.”
Lia recalled how Lah Kim’s heart had spouted blood as she was cast into the disk.
Song continued. “The priests will serve you poppy tea. Take as little as you can. You must remain aware. If you wish to live, you must take every opportunity, no matter how slim, to alter your fate. There will be a moment, as the priest strikes, when you can turn”— Song twisted her torso —“thusly. If you do so correctly, the blade will miss your heart. The priest will not strike twice — it would be shameful for him to do so. They will feed you into the Gate, to live or to die. The severity of your wound will determine your fate.”
Lia said, “What will I find on the other side?”
“I can tell you directly only of my own experience. Gammel leads to a primitive place populated by primitive people. The first man who came upon me as I lay bleeding in a ditch threw me over his shoulder and carried me to his home. He bound my wound with a poultice made from forest plants, roped me to a bed, and waited to see if I would die.