by Rey Balor
An attack had only come once since they had made their bet, but for as quickly as it started, it had diffused just as fast. Ranger struck; Ranger hit; Olena flipped the woman over her shoulder and rolled her eyes. Outside of that, the trio progressed in an almost normal procession over the days. Olena never left Hops and Ranger alone for fear of what she might do to him, but he was good at patching the women up and gathering food when they needed it. The meat Olena had brought was enough to last them until their arrival, but with his help, they had real meals. The company and their full bellies was enough to keep them moving forward. Ranger sang strange melodies along the trail, and very rarely, Olena offered a song of her own.
If any of the Erie-folk had seen them, Olena could only imagine what they would think about their soon-to-be leader. How could she lead a revolution from leagues away? Illias had promised her a month, and she had promised them the same. Ranger had nothing of the sort to live for or think about. It seemed as if her entire waking hours were poured into plans against Olena, and while such a rivalry would be one marked in songs, Olena had no time for it. Her body ached, and she was eager to arrive.
“One of us dies at the end of this,” Ranger spoke, demanding Olena’s attention again.
“So you continue to say.” Olena hesitated. “Can I pull a truth from you, woman?”
There was an ease in the way they settled beside one another — Ranger snorting at the question and Olena immediately rolling her eyes. Ranger wore that easy, devilish grin of hers as she responded, “You can try.”
It was invitation enough, and Olena settled back down, rolling onto her side to watch Ranger’s reactions as she spoke.72 The Erie-folk wore emotions so plainly on their faces, but every secret was guarded with care when it came to the scout. Every thought was hidden behind layers that Olena could not begin to unravel, and as much as she hated to admit it, it was fascinating to watch unfold.
“A truth for a truth. How’s that?” Olena asked.
“A much sweeter offer, between the two of us. Who knows when the day may come when I decide to blackmail you instead of simply killing you? I should take notes. You don’t happen to have something to keep notes in, do you?” She searched around her, as if expecting something to appear. “Maybe I’ll just carve it into a tree somewhere — that’s what you do, right?”
An odd look crossed Olena’s expression, and she abruptly rolled onto her back, dismissing the woman and the little game she had so casually suggested. Although she did not close her eyes, her focus remained on the high of the tree tops instead of anything on the ground. “Forget it.”
Ranger’s expression lit up at the resistance she was met with, and she moved herself closer to Olena. The instant she neared reaching distance, Olena pulled out her knife and twirled it casually in a hand. The scout rolled her eyes but remained a safe distance away.
“You said a truth for a truth. Oh, come on! Why are you so prideful? Big, bad wolf in the forest. Big, bad girl in the towns. Give me something to work with here. I didn’t give up my freedom for more boredom!” When Ranger’s efforts received nothing, she tried a different tactic. First, she glanced over at Hops to ensure the man still dozed peacefully, and second, she lowered her voice so that not even the trees would capture what she said. “Fine, I’ll start…” She took a deep breath. “My first real memory — and I mean bright, vivid, worth remembering memory, not what came before — was one of the Queens waving for another to let me die. She was dressed in pink, and I’m talking about the most horrific, vomit-inducing shade imaginable. That shade of pink is worth a story in its own rights, but if we’re trying this honesty thing here, her voice was somehow even worse than that! I know, I know. How? It was sweet, that’s how. ‘A failed experiment,’ were her exact words. ‘What could I possibly want with it?’ She discarded me with a tsk, but the one she ordered about saw something good in me and put me to use. I’m incredible, honestly, with how many skills I have — what?”
Olena sat up abruptly, and the hold of her knife loosened, tumbling to the ground. For the first time since she had met the other woman, something close to pity stirred in her. Although pity was not the right word for it… She swore that she felt the same way about all wild things, caged by those who thought themselves in control.
“A failed experiment?” As quickly as Olena had turned away, she returned. “The Queens experiment on people? What did they do to you? Why? Who would —!” Through gritted teeth, “That place should be burned to the fucking ground.”
Ranger broke into loud laughter after a moment’s pause,73 waving off the words. Her stance was clear: delving more in depth was not what she desired, and by ignoring any remembrance of it, it was destined to go away. “You believed me? Shows what a good liar I am. Next time, save your fury for someone else, princess.”
At the sound of laughter, Hops stirred and sat upward with a yawn. He blinked, not entirely aware of his surroundings, and Olena gestured to him that they were both still alive. For the first time, she vaguely wished he was not present in their camp, and later, he would have to deal with another of her lectures.
For now, she sent him off to fetch water from the nearby stream they had camped close to, and realizing they only had a few minutes, Olena turned back to focus on the matter at hand. It didn’t matter what Ranger said, she took the story for truth.
“I don’t read, and I certainly don’t write,” she spoke. “We’ve no use for that in the wilds, and those chained-folk traditions don’t mean a damn thing to me. Will learning to write help me wield a bow better? Will learning to read what some Queen writes better teach me what it is the people desire?” She was not a lone example in the world of the Erie-folk; none of them carried such skills. It was not a note of shame that accompanied the truth, but she was a prideful woman. Admitting that she couldn’t do something was the most she could give.
“A truth for a truth,” Ranger repeated, and she nodded her head in acceptance of the story. “I’ll be writing you notes all the time now, calling you all sorts of awful names in them but telling you that they’re actually really sweet. Others will know, and they’ll laugh and laugh. I’ll make a joke out of you, and you won’t even know it. Petty, yes, but equally as gorgeous a plan. I’m close to laughing again now, but I’d rather Hops not come running back. Poor boy would trip.”
“That would be a great plan if it wasn’t for the fact you were planning on killing me first opportunity you get,” Olena drawled out.
“Fair is fair.”
Hops came back as quickly as he had promised, and he passed out the flasks of water carefully. Even in a forest area as this, one could not stand to waste what precious commodities they had. Olena took a long sip before rolling to her feet, gathering the few supplies that had remained with her.
She now knew something new about what those in the Citadel were doing — experiments, for whatever reason. The lack of explanation was something she did not care as much about as she supposed she should. There were other battles to fight, and so long as the Erie-folk won them, the five Queens would fall, that five-pointed star would be poisoned, and whatever excuse they had conjured to torture people would disappear with them. Kill a queen, and one gets her power. Kill the idea she stood for, and one gets her legend.
“Tomorrow, we show up at the Citadel,” Olena spoke to the small group. “We die, or we live — it doesn’t matter. The stars in your veins are the stars in mine, and we’ll reach our end one way or another.”
Chapter 27: Beneath the Space Station
“To end in ice or flame: that is our fate.”
Death’s Lament, 12.24
Sweat — sweat was definitely something that Pat did not enjoy about the earth. It clung to her skin, sliding beneath the folds of her hips and sticking to the softness of her clothes. Her inner thighs were getting chafed from walking and her lungs wheezed with weakness, but the sweat never seemed to let up. It turned her a blotchy red and made her feel far more self-conscious than she ever h
ad running down the halls of the station. Only half her attention was spent trying to find the village Anile had pointed her toward. The rest was spent wiping her brow and not thinking about how thirsty she was.
She walked past the path the first time, but tracing over her steps, she saw the overgrown divergence in the road. She was almost sorry to see the old woman had been right about it. Placing her trust in a stranger was not how Pat had thought her trip would begin, but there was nowhere else for her to turn. She was given instruction, and while she had never been particularly good at following instructions, she normally had a better sense of how things worked. There was no sense now, and she felt as naive in some things as a newborn.
The trail was more visible as she moved farther from the main road, and she let out a sigh of gratitude for it. It was easier than she had imagined. Although an itch of suspicion scratched at the back of her neck, she continued along the trail for almost an hour before coming across the signs the old woman had spoken about. There were no words on them,74 and she had to stand on the tips of her toes to brush the moss from the first sign to see clearly. A worn picture of a skull greeted her, and its naked grin was enough to make her shudder.
“Discovery always comes on the back of pushing limits — even my own,” she muttered to herself, not daring to speak too loudly. She became intimately aware of how separate she was from the rest of the world. No one on this planet knew of her existence, and any other Light Bringers who might have survived the years were leagues away. She could feel beads of sweat on the back of her knees now. Reminding herself to push past the doubts, she took one step forward…and then another…and another…
When she could finally see the edges of the village, she allowed herself to pause for a full breath. The village truly was small, with less than twenty makeshift homes visible. When no curious faces peeked out at her, she was made hyper aware of its emptiness. Somehow, in some way, this village was more quiet than the woods. There was no feeling of desertion to the place. Tools were discarded in the front of some huts, and moss had begun to grow over them. All the doors were tightly closed, and all curtains were drawn. Instead, it was if ghosts watched her from just beyond her line of sight — as if they had never left.
“Hello?”
The sound echoed along the trees and repeated back to her, sharp and mocking in a hundred ways. No longer did the hummingbird beat of her heart come from exhaustion; panic was loud in her chest. In all her readings, she had never understood why one might mark a place as sacred, but something was present with her. It reminded her of the feeling she had gotten in the cockpit of her old home. She wasn’t certain if she wanted to remain, but night was drawing near. Never had she attempted building a shelter on her own, and she would need as much light as the world could offer. There wasn’t another choice. She had to camp here.
Walking past the first few homes, she found one of the smaller huts, tucked away toward the back of the village. It was only when she neared the door that she noticed what waited behind the collection of homes: there was a small clearing, but it was the ground that caught her eye. The earth had been overturned, more than once and deeper than the shallow surface. Nothing grew over the space. Something warned her not to near it, but she promptly ignored the feeling.
Pat moved from the shelter to the unknown of what lay beyond, and when her foot stepped onto the overturned dirt, she knew with the same base instinct of an animal that this was a place of something important. There was darkness in such sacredness, but she had been named after a scientist. Scientists craved that darkness, and she continued walking until she reached the approximate middle of what she could only describe as a filled-in pit. She fell to her knees.
Her hands curled into the earth, her nostrils flaring with the scent of dirt, and the digging began. It was not desperation that guided her, nor was it fear that continued to push her. Obsession was a far better way to describe the way Anile’s warnings echoed in her mind. Pat would prove she was right. Of course, she was right! It was only superstition that kept people away. She had to know why such a reaction had spurred within Anile, and she wanted to prove her wrong about it. When Pat had nothing left, she had this to hold onto, and she clutched it as tightly as she gripped the dirt and moved it aside.
About a foot down, her fingers jammed against something solid. A lump formed in her throat. Was she going to be sick? Her stomach seemed to think so, and she began to expire through her mouth in an effort to calm it. No, no… This wasn’t anything worse than what she had been through before, she attempted to convince herself. All she had to do was brush away the dirt and—
A hand reached for her from the ground. Small insects clung to what remained of the skin. Sores coated the few places the maggots left untouched. Pat let out a horrified scream, immediately falling back away from the exposed body. How many others rested beneath her feet? This was a mass grave, she knew. She should have guessed as much! A mass grave! Bodies shoved together as something wiped them out rapidly — too rapidly to give them each a proper goodbye. She knew. She knew. A mass grave! Covering her mouth with her hands, she forced herself to her feet and stumbled closer to the small hut. There was nothing in her stomach to lose, but she began heaving all the same.
There was no sound to trigger Pat’s attention, but suddenly, the feeling of being alone left her. It was a subtle difference; it was shadows filling a space where before there had been only air. Terror made her blood pound. She felt it move with life and purpose, unsure how much longer it would last. The only thing she could do was turn toward the pit once more and stare into the eyes of the ghosts she had dug up.
When she turned her stare, however, it was the gaze of another ghost that greeted her. With a crown of red on her head, the woman gave the appearance of one of the Queens that Pat had learned so little about. The blue tint to her skin was much less pronounced on the ground, but it remained, as if in shallow reminder that she was not of this world either. Despite the gravity that worked so hard on Pat’s body, the woman still appeared effortless — born of chaos, risen of Death.
“I know you,” Pat said, tone nothing short of awe-filled. With forgotten terror, she inched forward. There was something inherently wrong about the woman’s appearance, as wrong as the silence of the village had been, but it calmed her.
“How sad, how sad, how sad. A girl today, a ghost tomorrow.” The woman did seem sad, with lips curved downward and a heaviness with every word. Pat wanted to comfort her; she wanted to turn away from her. Instead, she did neither, trapped in the awful world of in-betweens. “You’ve been lonely for so long, my ghost. How do you take it?”
“Am I dreaming again?”
“Dreams, dreams — what are dreams but the wishes of reality? We do not dream, but we offer so much in the darkness of tomorrow.” The woman’s voice was as musical as the song she had given, and all thoughts fizzled out of the girl’s mind. Never before had she felt one with the world, but there was revolution in the woman. “Do you know what awaits you otherwise?”
The girl from space shook her head.
The woman from space answered.
“You come to this place of Death with disbelief in your heart. Disease, you blame; disease, you believe. Your faith did this to us, but surely, you know. Surely, you, who see all, understand this.” There was no laughter, no change in her expression. If Pat dared to look closer, she would have noticed that not even the woman’s lips moved in time to the things she said. Pat did not dare. “Worry not, never fear. Our name is Domina Mors, and we have not come for you.”
Sickness rose in Pat once more, but she could not remove her eyes from the red-headed woman. From the corner of her gaze, she could see the earth begin to bubble beneath her feet as the rocks and dirt were shoved aside. Something was crawling forth from the magma core, and it was a something that was old and hungry. It was neither evil nor good; it was neutral in the purest sense — neutral in the same way that the gray sky above was neutral to their plights. What
else could Pat do but stare in awe of it?
“We have come for the atoms in the air. We have come for the rebirth of a world that has forgotten its own existence. You brought us to this planet, and in the heat of your ship, we were forged anew. We thank you, we are beside you, and we will not forget you — but you denied our knowledge once.” Pat wanted to scream that it had been a dream, but her voice was scratchy against the backdrop of everything that was Domina Mors. The woman’s hair flickered like flame, and without moving, she was suddenly several feet closer. She extended her hand. “It would be wise not to do it again. What say you, Hypatia of the Cosmos?”
Light Bringers, her people were called. They were meant to bring knowledge to those on the surface, and in her brain, she still carried that goal. Staring into the depths of Domina Mors’s eyes,75 she realized the things she knew were dwarfed in comparison to the things the woman offered. Such knowledge came at a cost. If she brought it to the people of the Citadel, its cost would be their way of life; if she accepted it from this being, the cost would be far greater.
“Look at the thing giving you knowledge,” Nikola’s voice echoed from years past. “Is it truly giving you knowledge, or does it feed you a bias so that you follow the hand that gave it to you?”
Pat was not Nikola though, nor had she ever aspired to be. The decision was not a difficult one to make. Why had she come to the planet? Those above had placed her with a task they could not do. It was a task she took seriously, but their understanding of it was limited. They were blinded by their own traditions, by these old ways they wanted to protect so soundly. She would do better. She would revolt against them. She would educate the globe and populate the solar system. She would command the very atoms that Domina Mors spoke of, and domination only came through understanding.
“Teach me what you know.” Pat’s voice no longer shook, and she gripped the hand offered to her. It was not cold. It was not warm. It was nothingness.