Clarkesworld: Year Seven

by Neil Clarke

  Too afraid to turn his back on the partition, Abel backed away. For the first time since entering the convent he cursed himself for leaving his crook outside, though he didn’t believe it would be of any use now.

  But as rapidly as she had risen up, the sister subsided. “No,” she declared in a voice deeper than it had been before. “I am only human . . . like you. Subject to the desires of the flesh. But I have not yet been tempted enough by any man to stand before me. Is this why you came, shepherd? To tempt me?”

  The idea shocked Abel. “No, Sister. Never.”

  “How many years have you lived?”

  “I don’t remember.”

  “No,” she agreed. “You would not be here if you did.”

  The sister then pulled a slow, savoring breath. “You’re afraid,” she said.

  “Afraid of you, Sister,” Abel admitted. “And afraid to die.”

  “All men are afraid to die,” the sister said, not unkindly. “Which is why you all seek us out, we who move our race toward its true home. We whose burden it is to ensure the purity of our generations. We who shape the final two who will stand before the god on the last day, not as a man and woman, but as Man and Woman. As vessels to carry us all to Paradise in the marrow of their bones. As long as they are not found wanting—as long as they are pure.”

  “I know the stories of Paradise,” Abel said. “But you must forgive me, Sister—I believe none of them.”

  “Yet here you stand. In a convent.”

  “I was wrong to come. If you allow it, I’ll go.”

  “Allow it?” the sister said. “Tell me, shepherd: when the wolf falls upon your flock, do you not rise up to fight, whatever the cost?”

  “I do, Sister,” Abel answered.

  “And when a lamb strays, do you not go forth and bring it back?”

  “I do, Sister.”

  There was silence for a little while, and when the sister spoke next, her voice had turned weary. “Where would you go, if not here?” she asked. “Back to the mountains? To the abominations waiting to devour you?”

  Abel looked to the thin window. “My flock—”

  “Will be cared for,” the sister told him. “For I, too, am a shepherd.”

  Abel heard the thin door on the Sister’s side of the partition open. “You fear needlessly,” she said in parting. “This is not a place of death, but of consummation. Fortunately for you, there is one here who will have you. To her you will cleave, and in her you will be sheltered. She is the one who will show you what you’ve come so far seeking, but are too afraid to ask for.”

  Abel was led to another empty room, where the sister to whom he had been given was already waiting. Like the rest of them, she wore a plain brown habit, but on her gaunt frame it hung as though on a rack of bones. Her hood was pushed back to reveal a shaved scalp and sallow complexion. One hand covering her mouth, the famished sister faced him eagerly.

  “You’re the shepherd,” she said through skeletal fingers.

  But it was the tapestry on the wall that captured Abel’s attention. Looking past her, he marveled at creatures large and small, things he’d never imagined. Here was all of Paradise in faded thread. And at its center, the hub around which all else revolved: a man and a woman. He stepped closer, leaning forward to see such tiny figures and what surrounded them.

  Following his eyes, the sister touched the weave. “Children,” she said.

  Abel pulled back, startled to realize how near to her he had come. Moving closer, she slipped an arm possessively through his, and Abel felt a terrible heat burning through her habit. Lightly, she touched the two figures at the center of the tapestry, who stood beside a tree from which vines draped to the ground. “Adam was the first father,” she explained. “And Eve the first mother.” Her fingers shifted to the smaller images around them. “They made little ones. Children. And from those children—” she waved her hand in the air, “all of this. From two we came; to two we shall return.”

  Abel was conscious of her eyes on him as he glanced down. Now that her hand was away from her mouth, she kept her lips pressed tightly together. Clutching his arm, she pulled his attention to another scene, showing him a child emerging from a bloated and suffering woman. “You see?” she said. “We were once capable of such things. Just like the animals. Just like your sheep.”

  Abel averted his eyes, disgusted. “Humans are not animals.”

  “No?”

  “There are no children,” Abel said. “There never were.”

  “Never? Then how did we get here?”

  “Not like this.”

  The sister smiled at the corners of her mouth. “If you could make a child, what name would you give it?”

  “I can’t make a child,” Abel said.

  “But if we could?”

  “Adam,” Abel answered. “As my father named me.”

  “A hopeful name,” the sister said with approval.

  “He would change it. As I did.”

  Without releasing her hold on his arm, the sister turned toward him, and her hands slid down his arm. Lifting his hand in both of hers, she pressed her cheek into his palm. Her skin felt taut and feverish. Eyes closed, she turned her face into his palm.

  Abel jerked his hand back when the sister bit him. Angrily, he shoved her away. He raised a hand to strike her—and would have—but she cowered, face hidden and fingers once more covering her mouth. Abel looked at his hand. The double row of punctures left by her teeth on the heel of his palm were very small, and perfectly spaced.

  Abel found his crook exactly where he had left it beside the door, and seized it with relief. Rushing down the steps, he stumbled at the last and spilled into the courtyard. Even as he pushed up, he was whistling quick and sharp for his flock. The sheep hurried over themselves in their haste to follow their shepherd from the convent.

  The poison took hold beside a shallow creekbed in the long light of evening. Struggling for every breath, Abel stopped to stare into the setting sun, unable to go on. His mouth had gone dry, and his lips cracked with fever. His flock milled round him stupidly, bleating as he shivered. When his crook slipped from numb fingers, he hadn’t the strength to retrieve it. Not long later he sat heavily, slumped forward. Because they were there in his lap, he stared at his trembling hands—at the purple bruise from which the sister’s poison spread.

  He had enough strength to lift his head when she approached from the west, her habit rustling through the long grass. She knelt in front of him to measure his condition, and he offered no resistance when she took his shoulders and pushed him gently to his back. And there were the brightest of the stars, dim and quivering. He only wished he could see more of them. Leaning over him, the sister felt his forehead and caressed his cheek. She smiled for him, showing many sharp teeth.

  “I’m not mad that you ran,” she comforted him. “Men always run.”

  He wanted to speak, but she sealed his lips with a hot finger.

  She removed his clothes and folded them into a neat pile. She had brought a skin of water with her, and a rag, and used these to wash his body with great care. Her hands were kind, and she left no part of him unclean. This task complete, she produced two soft cords and bound him at the knees and ankles. Then she shrugged out of her habit, revealing a flushed and emaciated frame. She knelt by his feet and clasped them in her hands, head lowered as though to kiss his soles.

  “You mustn’t struggle,” she instructed him. “You’ll only hurt us.”

  But he did, and his resistance caused them both suffering. At his waist she found it necessary to crack his wrists to keep him from injuring her. Bit by bit, she forced him into herself with a starved determination. It took a long time, and he begged only a little at the last, just before his strength failed him.

  When it was done, she slept in the crushed grass there beside the creek.

  After two days beneath the open sky her distended skin began to harden. Bones bowed and flexed; organs surrendered their shape.
Waking, she dragged herself toward softer ground to dig herself into a shallow pit with hands that no longer felt like her own. She pried rocks from the clay, and stacked them over her swollen body. Their weight pressed her down, and the chill mud sapped her warmth. Her thoughts slowed, and she gave them up readily to dissolve into the bloated shell of her old shape. There, she joined the new life already stirring in the muck.

  Naked and alone, Adam shouted into the darkness at the edge of the prairie. At first, he was frightened by the unfamiliarity of his own voice. As a result, his noises were timid. But there was strength in his chest, and in his back and thighs; and when it woke to him he was reassured. Arms thrown open to the vivid stars, he celebrated the fact of himself with triumphant whoops and wordless cries.

  When he had shouted his throat raw, he returned to stand over the shallow grave from which he had risen. At the bottom lay the offal of his birthing: the desiccated husk that had been his mother, the partially digested bones of his father. Looking on these things, he remembered consuming, and being consumed. He remembered the digging of the grave, and how hard it had been to breathe under so many rocks.

  “I will never forget,” he swore to the grave.

  Then he wondered if his father had once sworn the same.

  “I am not my father,” young Adam declared.

  By moonlight he bathed in the creek, marveling at the unblemished perfection of his skin. His hands were broad and strong, uncalloused from years of wielding the shepherd’s crook. He found the clothing his mother had folded and laid aside: the shepherd’s cassock, as well as her own habit. He made a fire and wondered whether he would keep the name his father had wanted for him—and almost immediately decided he would. It was, he remembered saying, a hopeful name—better for a son than for a father. When that was decided, he wondered where he would go. He would not return to the mountains from which he had come, nor to the convent for his sisters to fawn over. His way lie to the east, into the plains. He wanted the rising sun in his face.

  He slept close to the fire that night, his mother’s habit his only covering. In the morning, he kicked dust over the ashes and filled his grave with rocks. Dressed in his father’s cassock, he took up the shepherd’s crook and struck east. He did not know where he would go, or what he would find there, having resolved only to keep the convent forever behind him. He called for his sheep as he went. They were out there somewhere—not terribly far. They would be glad to see him, he suspected. They would know him.

  Soulcatcher

  James Patrick Kelly

  After years of planning and scheming, of deals honest and not, of sleepless nights of rage and cool days of calculation, Klary’s moment arrives when xeni-Harvel Asher, the ambassador from the Four Worlds, enters her gallery.

  As a concession to local xenophobia, the xeni is embodied as a human male. Of course, he is beautiful. Some liken the xeni to the faeries of Earth legend, their charisma so intoxicating that, at the merest nod, a groom will walk away from his new bride, a mother will abandon her infant. Is it telepathy? Pheromones? The lure of great wealth and power? No matter. Klary has steeled herself against the xeni’s insidious power. Ever since the Ambassador made planetfall, Klary has been on a regimen of emotion suppressants. Not that she really needs them. After xeni-Harvel Asher ruined her life, Klary has had just one emotion. No chemistry can defeat it.

  Her hopeless assistant Elloran makes a fool of himself groveling before the xeni. Klary slips behind a display case protecting a cascading sculpture of lace and leather and spun sugar. She is content for now to study her prey. The xeni is slight, almost childlike, but he commands the room with eyes as big as Klary’s fists, a smile brimming with wide teeth. Slender hands emerge from the drooping sleeves of his midnight jacket. His fingers are delicate enough to pluck the strings of a harp—or a woman’s heart.

  “Here at Hamashy’s Fine Textiles we have the best collection . . . ” Elloran is talking too fast.

  “Yes, this one is sure you do.” Asher cuts him off. “This one would speak with the owner now?”

  Which means it’s time. But when Klary steps from her hiding place, she sees that her plan is going hideously awry. Dear, beloved, lost Janary, clone sister of her sibling batch, has followed her abductor into her gallery.

  Even though it has been fourteen years since they last saw each other, even though she has lost her name, her face, and her innocence, Janary knows her as her sister. How could she not? Her frightened stare pricks Klary’s shriveled heart. All is lost. Yes, a reunion was part of her plan, but that was for later. After this was over. Will she give Klary up? Can Janary even guess what her sister plans to do? But there is no turning back.

  “Ambassador.” Klary steps forward and bows. “You honor me. I am Klary Hamashy.” Despite the suppressants, she braces herself against the xeni’s fierce regard. It’s like leaning into a headwind. “Welcome, sir.”

  Xeni-Harvel Asher inclines his head. “This one has heard tell of the local rug merchant, Friend Klary.” She is not sure whether he intends this as a slight. Hamashy Gallery sells native and off-world carpets, yes, but it’s no rug shop. Klary is too busy trying not to goggle at Janary to take offense. She has not changed since the xeni lured her away from their ancestral commune. Bitter years have aged Klary and she has taken steps to smudge her appearance, but Janary is still as striking as Klary once was. She has the rust-brown curls framing pale features of their genetic line. She wears a high-necked white gown, perhaps to satisfy some ancient bridal fetish. Her sister shows no signs of anger or sadness as she shies behind the Ambassador, as if she is afraid of Klary. Has she accepted her humiliation? Embraced it? Unthinkable. Klary tries to imagine herself in Janary’s place as her sister catches up the decorative glass chain that dangles from the choker around her neck.

  “What?” Asher notices her. “She won’t hurt you.”

  Without a word, Janary presses the end of her chain into his hand.

  “One never knows what bothers the pet.” Xeni-Harvel Asher does not apologize. “It’s been skittish today.”

  Klary wants to yank the chain away, crush it in her bare hand until shards of broken glass bite her. “Not to worry,” she says. She addresses the xeni, not her sister. “She is safe in this place.”

  “A pleasant enough shop.” He gestures at the racks and display cases, the hangings and the shelves that line the walls. “Might one find a present for a good friend here? A unique present, perhaps?”

  Klary’s smile is tight. She knows why the xeni is here. Klary has paid an outrageous price to bait the trap, has discreetly encouraged the rumors about her illegal acquisition. But she must not rush; there is a scene to play before the final act. “Let me show you my treasures.” She tries to gesture for Elloran to peel Janary away, but her assistant is useless. Tomorrow Klary will fire him—if there is a tomorrow.

  The xeni is not impressed with the life-sized nylon nudes wrapped around moveable skeletons nor does he appreciate the remarkable properties of nylon. “It’s semi-translucent,” says Klary, “so several layers of differently colored nylon produce the subtle skin tones. See how the artist’s needle modeling suggests wrinkles about the eyes?” Nor does he care for bowls made of taut coiled snuro or the hanging of cloth beads arrayed on glow-wires. He passes Tuktuk’s mixed-media tensioned fabric sculptures without comment. Klary stubbornly describes a French tapestry from the twenty-second century. “Notice the classic border filled with floral bouquets and architectural scrollwork, around very fine floating landscape scenes from old Earth. Depictions of Oriental life with courtiers seated on motorcycles, and see here, plants, birds, zombies . . . ” But Asher has already moved on, past an area carpet in the Tabriz style by master weaver Kumanen and the chain mail business suits; Klary hurries to catch up.

  He flips through Fovian rugs hanging on a telescoping display like they were pages of a book he’s deciding not to read. “One wants something special for a special friend,” he says. Then he leans close
—too close—and for a second his huge black eyes erase all Klary’s worries about her ruined plans. In that instant of domination, Klary feels something for her sister that she has never felt.

  Envy.

  “There is more.” She twitches free of the xeni, gathers herself. “Work not yet priced. Items I had not intended to sell.”

  “Keep the best for yourself. A strategy to live by.” He chuckles. “Still, one might be interested to see, if not to buy.”

  “Of course, Ambassador. Although it might be best if your companion stayed with Elloran.” She raises her voice to rouse the bedazzled Elloran. There may still be a way to salvage the plan, but Janary must not see what is to come.

  “No.” Janary is trembling.

  The xeni glances over his shoulder, as if he has forgotten that she is following them. “You’ve provoked the pet to speech, Friend Klary.” He gives her chain a tug and she doubles over, eyes downcast. “It’s not often so bold in public.”

  “Want . . . ” Her voice grates from disuse. “ . . . to come.” She raises her eyes just enough to meet Klary’s horrified gaze.

  “One is at a loss to explain this behavior.”

  Worried lest the xeni punish her, Klary babbles. “It’s fine. Not a problem, I just thought she . . . it would be more comfortable out here. I live here, you see, and my rooms are rather cluttered just now.” She gestures for them to follow and, when the xeni hesitates, she almost makes the mistake of putting a hand on the ambassador’s shoulder to steer him toward the rear of the gallery. “Please,” she says. “It would be my pleasure. Elloran, you can close up and go home.” The fewer witnesses the better. “Elloran.”

  “Most accommodating, Friend Klary.” Asher lets Janary’s chain go slack and then gives it a tinkling shake to get her moving. “Be assured that the pet will be on a short leash.”

  Klary has four rooms at the back of the gallery: bedroom, bath, galley kitchen and the office where she eats and connects. The office is half again as big as all the other rooms combined. Klary had planned for this visit and has removed all traces of her sister clones, their long-dead first, and the world she lost when the family chose her to retrieve Janary. She has replaced mementos of that former life with pix of men she has never met. Clothes they might have worn hang in her closet. There is an artful scatter of presents she might have given or received had she dared intimacy: a vase filled with the latest airflowers, a reproduction ship’s clock, a set of magma tiles that serve as trivets, kites and crystal and antique hubcaps. But what draws Asher’s attention is the art Klary has kept for herself. The xeni points at a chair and Janary sits. He coils the glass chain on her lap and she stares down at it glumly as if to read her fortune. Then he strides about the room inspecting the needle lace hamaca and Ringwell’s blood-stained War Quilt and Xary Merry Kari’s Wrapped Dog. He pauses in front of Kumanen’s Tabriz carpet, which hangs beside the bedroom door. “But you have this one hanging in the gallery,” he says.