by Ono Ekeh
“She suffers?” Senaya said, surprised at the words coming from her. “It is the boy that suffers.”
“Now you see. Don’t you, Captain Tenade?” Skene said. “She is an evil manipulator. She’s turned these people and now they are possessed by a madness by which they forget their own self interests. These are not the actions of a benevolent god.”
“It is the madness of eros,” Nouei’s hoarse voice, barely above a whisper, registered through the sanctuary. “It is the madness of true love that takes you out of yourself. You can’t know it, Skene, because you’ve hardened yourself against me. I knew your father when he served the Jaru in these courts.”
“Don’t you ever talk about me or my father!” Skene’s voice boomed. He rushed up the remaining steps kicked her hard on the shin and then drove his knee hard into her chest. Nouei screamed out and then gasped as though trying to catch her breath. Her pained reaction seemed to enrage him. He roared in anger and delivered blow after blow to the queen’s face and body.
“Stop!” All ten of the Sybu kneeling by the throne rushed to Nouei’s aide. They all surrounded her, crying at her feet and comforting her. The hall had erupted in loud cries, but the cordon of Jaru personnel held them back.
Skene turned to Senaya. “Captain Tenade, give the order to execute these people.”
Senaya froze.
“You have your orders!”
With trembling hands, she removed her pistol from its holster. Unsure when the tears started, she could feel them streaming down her face. Nouei looked up at her. “I have my orders.” Her voice cracked as she addressed the queen. “This is my only salvation, to return to my people. You yourself said it, I can’t be saved.”
The guards dragged the Sybu back to the base of the platform and forced them to kneel.
“Carry out my order, Captain Tenade,” Commander Skene said, firmly.
Behind her she heard Nouei’s chains banging against the marble throne. A guttural sound from behind signaled that the queen was trying to speak to her. She flinched at the sound of the thud. It was a blow. Skene must’ve hit her again. The blow was followed by another one, and then another, until there were a series of them and all was silent. Nouei was either dead or unconscious. Either way, those piercing eyes were no longer on Senaya.
She raised the pistol towards the young boy, the first of the ten. Taking a deep breath, she fired the weapon. It was a clean shot—right through the head. The body collapsed to the ground. The other nine remained unmoved. Her hand trembled. She’d expected screams or other expressions of fear. But nothing. She looked into the eyes of the next one, a girl, probably in her teens. The girl returned her gaze. It was neither defiant nor angry; a little resigned, nonetheless hopeful. She bore Senaya no ill will. The shot went off before Senaya could think further about it. The girl dropped to the floor. Then a loud series of loud shots reverberated in the hall and all was silent. All ten were dead. Sprawled on the floor. Pools of crimson blood from each one joined together and spread.
Senaya looked up and the hundreds of Sybu present in the sanctuary had knelt down in silence. But all eyes were on her, the executioner. She clicked her safety back on and holstered her weapon. Fumbling around, she removed the holster and laid it on the ground. Every fiber of her being wanted to turn around to Nouei but she couldn’t bear to face her. She walked down into the ever-thickening pool of blood and knelt. She pulled the young boy she’d killed and cradled him. Rocking him gently, she let herself cry loudly.
SHE’D ADJUSTED HERSELF a few times in the last few hours. But every time she moved to get more comfortable, her thoughts went to the dead boy in her arms. His dried blood was now matted on his curly hair and she was now soaked in blood from sitting in it.
Senaya had never held a child before. As an adult, she’d been in physical proximity to some. It was to be her lot in life, she was never going to be close to a child. They were so closely guarded and nurtured. What sort of monster was she? To raise a gun to a child, an unarmed one at that, and to actually follow through with an execution. All for the hope of a tranquil and prosperous future. She squeezed the boy’s corpse tighter trying to imagine what hopes and dreams she’d killed. Every few minutes, she pounded on her stomach in despair, hoping that harming her own child would relieve the guilt. But no, her little peanut still remained nestled, safe in her womb, while this little boy was gone.
The Sybu had not helped at all. They all kneeled silently in the sanctuary. Every half hour, those in the hall rotated out, allowing a fresh audience to come in and mourn the dead, silently. By the third rotation, some walked boldly through the Jaru cordon and laid wild flowers around the dead. Others attended to Nouei, who’s chain rattling signaled that she was now conscious.
Nouei moaned and sobbed. Senaya couldn’t even imagine the sort of pain she was in. But what Senaya soon learned was that the queen’s cries were less for her pain and more for her people. Senaya was beginning to understand the depth of the queen’s sorrow. It was the pain of a heart that understood the contours of darkness. The suffering of one whose only way to interpret her world was in such stark apocalyptic poles. There was light and there was darkness and everything was magnified by understanding such truths. The pain of this boy’s death, for Nouei, was the pain of a thousand deaths. Now Senaya understood why the people were at such pains to comfort her and quell her agitation. They somehow shared in her sorrow.
“Captain,” the soft voice of Mali interrupted her thoughts. It was a welcome interruption. “Let’s get you cleaned up.” He reached out his hand.
She couldn’t remember how long he’d been there, but he had for a while. She looked at his kind face. He was sitting down, also in the sticky blood that stained the floors. She couldn’t bring herself to speak, so she just stared.
“Skene,” Mali used the commander’s name without his title, signaling the informality of the moment. Senaya appreciated that. He continued. “He was upset that we hadn’t stationed security at the atmospheric scrubbers. I know. I hadn’t even thought to do that. It makes sense. When the Navalese attack, the scrubbers and all radiation protection would be an obvious target.” He cleared his throat and scooched closer. “We went there and you know what? Those plants run on a solar power, but they are all a ruse. They scrub absolutely nothing from the atmosphere.”
Senaya tried to make sense of what she was hearing. She finally cleared her throat. “What do you mean?” Her throat hurt from speaking.
“The radiation up here is negligible and it is not because of any technology.” He glanced upward behind Senaya. He was glancing up toward the queen.
“How?” she asked.
He shook his head. “Think about this. The two groups that worship her are both incredibly fertile. We’d been warned about the radiation up this way and it turns out something is pulling all the radiation out of the atmosphere and it is not technology. Maybe she’s not a god, but she’s something,” he whispered.
It was time to face her shame. Senaya struggled up with Mali’s help. She leaned on him to steady her legs. With his help, she picked up the boy and the mounted the steps toward the queen.
Nouei, cut a shrunken figure, chained in her throne. Her body drooped forward and her hair hung over her face. At Senaya’s approach, the chains clanged softly. Nouei’s raised her head. Her right eye was completely swollen and a clear fluid dripped from the eye. Her disfigured nose had the appearance of an oddly-shaped beak. Her bloodied left jaw, swollen and dark, drooped. She tried to shake her braids from her face but moaned as the effort left her in pain.
Senaya, the boy in her arms, knelt in front of Nouei. “My Lord, I have sinned and I can never be forgiven. I don’t ask for forgiveness. But take my child. I am no mother. I am not worthy to be a mother.”
“Do you... ask for yourself... or for the child?” Nouei’s strained whisper was accompanied by a whistling sound through her swollen throat.
“I can’t live with this guilt.”
N
ouei groaned as she straightened in her throne. “That boy... gave his life... he gave—”
“No!” Senaya said, loudly. “He did not give anything. I took his life. I, a coward, took the life of a child.”
“This is the way...” Nouei continued to struggled with her words. “A life must pay for another.”
“Well, I don’t want this child in my belly!” Senaya laid the corpse down and stood. “Corporal, your knife.”
“Captain?”
“Your knife!” She turned to Nouei. “If you won’t help me, I will rip this thing out of my belly if it’s the last thing I do.”
“Captain, what’s going on?” Mali asked, standing behind her.
Senaya turned to Mali, barely a foot from him. “I am pregnant... with your child.”
He gasped and shook his head. “It’s not possible. We’re not fertile.”
“It’s her,” Senaya pointed to Nouei. “We were too close and she made us fertile.”
A few of the other guards, members of her scout force walked toward them. “Captain, what are saying?”
“If any of you have been intimate in the past three weeks,” Senaya said, “chances are you are pregnant. The queen gives life and vitality to all.”
They all looked at Queen Nouei, who, though battered, look every bit the noble she claimed to be.
“I may be pregnant?” One of the soldiers looked to another one, who obviously would be the father.
“I don’t believe this,” Mali said, more to himself. “I am to be a father?”
“But does that mean that she is indeed a god?” Another soldier asked, nudging her head in Nouei’s direction.
“I don’t know,” Senaya said. “All I know, is that she is much more than we’ve been led to believe.”
“Hey what’s going on there!” A voice called out from the base of the platform. It was one of Skene’s men. “What’s the huddle about? Why is that boy’s body there?”
“Stand guard, active guard. Do not give ground,” Senaya whispered her command to her force. “Osoni, get the others and bring them in discreetly.” She turned to the man and eyed the laser rifle in his hands. “It’s nothing,” she said to him. “I’m going over their assignments.”
“What tasks?” the man asked.
“This is my outfit, Captain,” she snapped. “I suggest you focus on yours”
He eyed each of them suspiciously and spoke into his wrist and pushed a button. Senaya tensed. He was calling for the Commander.
“Captain Tenade,” he said, “you’ve been compromised. I’m relieving you of command.”
“Scout Force, on guard!” she called out, calmly and was satisfied with the clicks that followed her command. She was only thirty-strong in here. Others were out fulfilling different tasks. But thirty was enough. Yes, an elite force was respectable, but she had trained her guys. They’d developed very careful and subtle communication cues, they were adept at reading the situation and her. That was their advantage. That was how they wiped out a Navalese squad without breaking a sweat. A pretty-boy elite squad with unwieldy weapons did not scare her.
“Captain Tenade, are you turning your men against fellow Jaru?”
“I am simply protecting our prisoner according to Jaru law,” she said. She watched warily as other members of the elite squad joined. Both lines of soldiers stared at each other in a stand off until there was a stirring in the back of the sanctuary.
“Captain Tenade!” Commander Skene’s voice carried across the hall. He made his way to the base of the platform. “Why are these bodies still here?” He growled.
“Commander Skene, I apologize,” Senaya said. “We were just—”
“Get your folks down now,” he barked. “I am relieving you of duty.”
“Sir, this is not us,” she protested. “The Jaru don’t do things like this.”
“Like what?” he asked, his palms raised upward. “Like execute our enemies. Captain Tenade, would you like to see a written copy of my orders?”
She swallowed. If he produced written orders and all his actions were authorized by his superiors, then her moral force was undermined. Knowing the Commander, she had no doubt he was in compliance with his superiors.
“Get your men down here, now,” he repeated.
“Sir, this is a violation of the uniform code of military justice. This woman is a noble and by law, spiritual and natural, she must be treated as such.”
He took a step up toward her.
“Sir, do not come any closer,” she said calmly.
“What?” Commander Skene looked down the row of the scout force. “I am giving all of you a direct order, now. Stand down.”
Senaya held her breath. There was no sound. No one moved. She exhaled quietly, hoping no one would notice just how nervous she was. “Sir, we do not mean to undermine the chain of command, but the Commander-class trained us, Sir. We are all beholden to a higher law.”
“What are your intentions?” he asked.
She didn’t know. “You relieved us of command as of six hundred hours. I intend to follow that order after seeing to the care of the prisoner in our custody.”
Commander Skene looked around. He glared at Senaya, turned and walked away. The sound of his shoes clacked loudly in the silence. His elite force all followed him, leaving only the Sybu and the scout force with the queen.
There was burst of sudden commotion as the Sybu rushed towards the front of the sanctuary. Some went for the executed bodies, carefully wrapping them in white cloths and taking them out. Others rushed in with pails of water and soap and began to scrub the blood on the floor. But by far, the majority rushed to the queen’s aide.
Pushing Senaya and her soldiers out of the way, they descended on her and began to work on her. Some tended to her injuries on her leg, others washed her, others worked on her hair. Nouei screamed out in pain as a multitude of hands worked on her. A solemn hymn filled the room capturing the sanctuary and bringing it into sacred depths.
“Can we remove the chains?” Senaya asked one of the guards, who shook his head. Skene had the keys. Senaya squirmed at the thought that Nouei was stuck on her throne in her condition.
A man spooned a liquid into her mouth but it dribbled out. The little bit that must’ve gone through irritated her throat and caused a fit of coughs that wracked her body, causing more pain. Senaya sent two of her soldiers to get equipment for an intravenous drip and any other medications. She had no doubt Commander Skene’s crew would’ve come fully equipped, but they returned an hour later emptyhanded. Their request was denied.
Nouei’s breathing was becoming more and more ragged and her body raged with the fever. She slumped over but would periodically struggle to sit up. At one point she began to cough up blood.
In all this, the soft, solemn music never stopped. The Sybu filled the hall with harmonious melodies. No one directed them, they just seemed to know what to sing. It had gotten dark outside and Senaya ached to go outside and breath fresh air. But then she looked at Queen Nouei, chained to her throne, a broken face, multitude of broken ribs, internal injuries, and such. She couldn’t go outside. Maybe she’d never go outside again.
“Captain Tenade,” one of the men tending to Nouei called. “The Queen asks for you.”
Senaya rushed to the Queen’s side. Nouei raised her broken face, now completely swollen and disfigured. “Get me earth,” Nouei said.
At her words, her attendants started crying.
Confused, Senaya asked, “What did she mean? Why is everyone crying?”
Nouei’s attendant sniffled and spoke. “As we die, we lay hold of a piece of the earth. This is what she asks. She’s bestowed you the honor of bringing her earth.”
Senaya knelt by the slumping queen, “Of course, I would be honored.” She wished she could hug Nouei, but that wasn’t possible. She rushed out through the singing Sybu crowd until she was outside the temple. The wind was biting cold, but it was refreshing for a change. The grounds were lit up in
lamps, with colorful shades around them. She walked down the steps and sat on the ground, so grateful to feel the raw earth under her feet. Carefully, she scooped up a large helping of soil.
She walked back in slowly, not wanting to lose any more soil particles than necessary. The crowds parted for her. She felt some hands touch her as though consoling her. Guilt tore through her in waves. She had killed two of their precious children and yet they treated her like royalty; yet, Nouei had granted her this honor of bearing holy soil.
“What is she doing?” Senaya asked, as she poured the soil into the Queen’s hand. Nouei had straightened up considerably in the past few minutes. Her one available eye stared straight ahead and she muttered words.
“She does this. Sometimes, she sits for days in a trance, speaking silent words.”
The clang of the chains startled them. Nouei’s face, though still distant, had turned fierce. She pulled hard against the chains and strained.
“My Queen! My Queen!” Senaya called out in an attempt to quell the Queen’s agitation. Where was she getting all this strength from? After a minute, Nouei slumped again. Her body was clearly spent but the muttering continued. The pattern continued all night. She wilted under the pressure of a broken body and then had moments of inhuman energy where she strained everything she had as she leaned forward at the edge of her throne and pulled her body against her chains. As agonizing as it was to watch, there was nothing anyone could do or say to stop her. All they could do was comfort her.
SENAYA’S EYES SNAPPED open. She’d dozed off again. The Sybu hymns were still going and the sanctuary was still packed. She turned toward the throne where three attendants took care of the queen. Nouei was in one of her trances again, muttering. Senaya looked around. Mali was in the corner by the wall, taking a nap. Fifteen guards, all watched attentively, while the rest of the force rested.
“How is she?” Senaya asked one of the attendants.
“I wish we could get her back to her chambers and lay her down,” he said.