by J. S. Fields
Atalant heard additional instructions from Emn: Focus on the object. Identify its purpose. Alter its purpose. You are in control of the andal.
You’re not a gun, she told the object in her palm. She remembered Emn’s destruction of the Risalian lasers, the destruction of the Eld Palace on Ardulum, and pushed those images forward. You’re just a ball of cellulose biometal.
Creaking, the metal began to fold. Emn’s manipulations had been much faster. This gun almost sounded like it was fighting her to remain in its current shape. Simultaneously, a feeling of something like discord rippled across her skin. Like a million pinpricks of not-quite-right. Like she was being crumpled up with the gun.
It’s weird the first time, Atalant. It gets easier. You just have to push through it.
Atalant shuddered. If this was what it felt like to manipulate cellulose, she’d leave it to Emn. Or, maybe she was doing it wrong—or her physiology was just different enough for something to not resonate right. Regardless, it was disconcerting.
Atalant prodded the gun again with her mind, squirming when the unwelcome sensations returned. You’re a ball, damn it. Pay attention!
The gun snapped. The handle folded in on itself and then climbed up the barrel, leaving a spiraled clump of metal in Atalant’s hand. It was surprisingly warm, almost uncomfortably so, and Atalant let it roll off her palm onto the ground. Her muscles relaxed. Her skin stopped…whatever it had been doing.
Stunned silence followed as the ball of metal crunched leaves in its path and came to rest at the side of Emn’s foot. She’d…done it? Well, hell. Everyone got lucky once. Atalant shivered. Maybe she just wouldn’t think about what she’d actually done for a while. Maybe ever.
Emn picked it up, smiled warmly at Atalant, and then reformed the gun back to its original shape. Emn offered the fixed gun to Atalant, who took it with a nod. Emn made it seem so easy, like reshaping cellulose was the most normal thing in the world. That the whole process had felt natural, once she got over the weird tingling, was disturbing in and of itself.
“Eld Atalant,” Nicholas prodded. Atalant snapped her mind back to the present. She had to finish the show. Finish the lie.
“The Mmnnuggls—” The planned words caught in her mouth. They were sticky and acidic, and she didn’t want to say them.
Please, Eld Atalant, Ekimet implored her. If you break their remaining ties to Ardulum, they will not aid us in this fight.
It’s not their fight, Atalant sent back viciously. They hadn’t discussed this properly. Atalant had been too overwhelmed with thoughts of her home and the fires. They have a right to the truth.
In time, Ekimet said. They’re not ready, emotionally. You know that. Look at your uncle. And if they turn on Ardulum, with two elds on-world… The Mmnnuggls do not need more allies. They will find Ardulum. They will destroy it. You have to stop them now, at Neek.
Atalant seethed and shouted her response to both Ekimet and Arik. They couldn’t hear each other, but they could definitely both hear her. These are weak, conjecture-filled arguments at best, she sent. You’re placing Neek in harm’s way just to preserve Ardulum.
Ardulum deserves preserving, Atalant, Arik argued, which only made Atalant angrier. We have to protect the andal.
Ekimet just burned the andal! she yelled into their minds. Why is Ardulum more important than Neek?
We haven’t burned the andal of Ardulum, Ekimet countered. If damage were to occur to the actual planet, we would all die. The Ardulans cannot live without Ardulum. The Neek cannot live without Ardulum. Ardulum must be preserved.
Argh! Atalant stomped her foot. She pushed Arik and Ekimet from her mind and addressed the crowd, tossing their words, and caution, aside. These were her people. She would decide what they needed to hear.
“My people. The Mmnnuggls give you muddled science. My uncle gives you mutated fairy tales. There are Ardulans on-world. You’re trying to make sense of it. I’m trying to make sense of it. There is a lot to understand and…” She stumbled over the words, rethinking her brashness. “I…I’ll keep you updated, okay?”
“You didn’t really stick that landing,” Nicholas whispered to her.
That’s the best you’re getting out of me right now, Atalant fumed at Ekimet, ignoring Nicholas. She tore her eyes from the confused crowd and looked to the horizon. If she squinted, she could see into the downtown area, see its wooden high-rises and parked settees, against a backdrop of mountains. She could see the haze of the sky from where the forests had burned, the sunlight scattering into rays of orange.
The high priest chuckled as he moved to her side. He lowered his voice. “It is good to see that godhood hasn’t changed you. If you’d come back talking like Eld Ekimet, I’d have been worried.” Ekimet began to protest, but the high priest cut zir off. “I think you’ve riled up the populace enough for the day. What would you like to do now?”
A lilting thought from Emn settled Atalant’s mood to a simmer. They’d done what they’d come here to do. The fires were contained. She could play god tomorrow. Maybe she’d be better at it after sleeping. There were the ships in orbit to deal with, but she probably shouldn’t make any major decisions until Yorden had a chance to contact her. If he contacted her. She needed a few days to sort that whole thing out. What else pressing needed to be…
Words she hadn’t wanted to say bubbled across her lips. “Father? Talther? Brother?” she asked softly, her voice fading into the muttering of the crowd. Would they want to see her? Given the boxes and the labels in her room…
Her uncle caught the words and nodded.
“Waiting for you,” he responded. “They were evacuated from their home and are currently staying in the temple.”
Words from Ekimet cut through her uncle’s voice. Forgive me, Atalant, for putting you through this. I didn’t realize… I didn’t know who the other elds were. If I had known a Neek had ascended, that they were an outcast…
Atalant shrugged. “It’s fine,” she responded out loud, facing Ekimet. She had to work to keep her voice neutral. “You’re Corccinth’s grandtochter. I owe her a great deal for everything she has done for her community. I bear you no ill will.” That wasn’t entirely true, but she did owe Corccinth if for no other reason than her suggestion to mark the spaces for those seeding tapestries.
Ekimet blinked in surprise and looked questioningly at Atalant. “Her community?” zie asked. “Of retirees?”
Zie doesn’t know, Atalant sent blankly to Emn. Do you think I should tell zir?
I think you already did.
“We have a lot of things to discuss, Eld Ekimet.” Atalant offered her hand, palm up. “Let’s go inside. I want to see my family first,” she added in a voice that not even Yorden would have argued with. “I don’t deserve to be kept from them anymore.”
Chapter 17: Ardulan Temple, Neek
Pilot no more. Exile is the only name she will use from this day forward.
—Excerpt from a planetwide broadcast from the President of Neek, third lunar cycle, 220 AA
JANUARY 26TH, 2061 CE
“What the hell are you wearing?” Atalant’s brother asked her the second she pushed the door open to the small apartment on the third floor of the temple. They were in each other’s arms a moment later, laughing and trying to step on one another’s feet in a silly ritual they’d enacted as children.
“You look awful in gold,” he whispered into her ear right before Atalant punched him in the shoulder and pulled back. He was a handspan shorter than her, and she could see that his red hair was thinning near the top of his head. His face still looked boyish under its smattering of brown freckles, and it didn’t take much to remember him as a child.
A lopsided grin spread across her brother’s face, but he made no move to rub the place where Atalant had punched him. “You’ll never get worshipped if you hit people. Bad form, Eld.”
Atalant had a retort, a perfect one, right on the tip of her tongue, but she held back. She looked over his
shoulder at her parents. They were standing side by side, silent and cautious. Both seemed torn between joy and dogma, and it tore at Atalant’s heart.
“Father. Talther. Come on. It’s Atalant. She’s not an exile, she’s your daughter—and she’s an eld.”
Something in her parents broke then, and they were suddenly at her side. Atalant was entwined in arms and familiar smells, the absence of her mother still tugging at her but mitigated in the current warmth.
“We’ve missed you, Daught— Exile. Eld. Forgive me,” her father whispered as the four lingered in the embrace. “Ten years is too long without goodbyes.”
The clarifier cut. It shouldn’t have. Atalant expected it, after seeing the boxes, but it was somehow harsher coming from her father’s mouth.
“The high priest told us what happened but…” her talther trailed off, unable to finish. Atalant understood. How did you put something like this into words? “We didn’t think we would see you again. We…we needed to not see you again.”
“I understand.” Which she did, despite the pain of her talther’s honesty. “I can stay for a while, if you wanted me to stay,” Atalant mumbled into her talther’s shoulder, that little flicker of hope refusing to be snuffed out. “After this is over, for a few days. And after that, you are all welcome to come back with me to Ardulum, if you wanted. If…if you wanted to stay together.” She didn’t know where the offer came from. She hadn’t considered it at all beforehand, but being in such a tight embrace swarmed Atalant with bittersweet memories she didn’t want to leave behind.
“I don’t think I could deal with the fame of being brother to an eld. Besides, a settee, even for a few days, would be dull now. You’d get bored,” her brother whispered in her ear, loud enough for the whole family to hear, and then pulled away. As he did so, the joviality bled from his face and was replaced with seriousness. Suddenly, he was grown up, a man she had never seen before. Her father, talther, and brother all stepped back to the window in the small apartment, reserved once again. Their faces didn’t match her memories anymore. They were older. Thinner. Tired. Certainly, she looked different, too, although perhaps her family couldn’t see past the gold robes.
“I know this is sort of awkward,” Atalant said as she shoved her hands into her pockets. “I’ll try and get the Mmnnuggls away as soon as I can. I did check the house, while we were working on the fires. It’s fine. Our land…” She hesitated. Atalant didn’t want to drive the god wedge further, but it would be a comfort to her family to know their home was safe. “The fires never came near our house—or property. It…might have been the wind.”
“Yeah.” Her brother nodded, a wry smile on his face. “It was definitely the wind and not divine intervention for my exiled god of a sister.” The coolness that had crept into his eyes waned. “I always knew you’d make it back to Neek. I just never thought it would be in gold.”
“It’s a good color on you, Daughter.” Her talther reached over and brushed a wrinkle from her left side. “Trimmed with green or tied with a purple sash, we are proud of you. Your mother would be, too.”
Atalant tried to catch her talther’s hand before zie pulled it back, but they only managed to brush fingers. “Proud but afraid?” she asked, hurt seeping into her tone. “I’m still Atalant. I just… I’ve had some changes. The Mmnnuggls—”
“The Mmnnuggls and the Ardulans and the Risalians all appear to be heavily invested in us right now.” Her father’s tone was stern. “We don’t need more corrupt politicians who privately mock Ardulum. We have your uncle. Backed by us. By our family. By me. Now, the people search for our new truth. That we are genetic cousins of Ardulans is undeniable, especially given that you stand before us, so what else is a lie? Will you tell us, Eld Atalant?” His tone softened. “You were so determined to find answers. We weren’t ready to listen, but we are now.”
“Please,” her talther added. Zie held tightly onto her father’s hand, lips pressed into a tight line. It was so painful to see tension in zir face. Atalant remembered being pushed on the wooden swing, battles with pretend swords, laughter. Hugs. Never this.
“It…” Atalant stumbled for the right words. She couldn’t just dump information on them. Her brother might be able to process everything, but her talther? Her father? They were both older, so set in their ways. Her father was brother to the High Priest of Neek, and there hadn’t been enough time for him to really sit down with her family and explain things. She couldn’t just… She couldn’t just crush their hearts, no matter how much groundwork the Mmnnuggls had already laid.
Atalant sighed and clasped her hands behind her back. “I can try to explain it, but it’s a lot. Maybe we can start with me?” She looked to her brother for confirmation. He nodded somberly. Frustrated and confused, Atalant grabbed his hand and pushed her mind at his. His hand slid from hers, and he shook his head and backed away.
“This isn’t real.” Atalant, exasperated, pulled at the sash, tugged the robes over her head and tossed both to the floor. “This is genetics, as the Mmnnuggls said. The Ardulans who came here interbred with the population. We are Ardulans, all of us. These—” Atalant pulled up her pant leg and pointed at the markings. “—were simply triggered. No magic was involved. I lead Ardulum in sort of a triarchy.”
“Which came about how, exactly?” her brother asked. Atalant growled and reached again for his hand. He evaded her, but she caught the subtle quirk to his mouth and let out a low breath. It was good to see him, even under all this formality, even if he was playing with her.
“I, um. Well, I sort of had a thing where the planet spoke to me in awkward metaphors and I agreed to help out. It wasn’t intentional on my part.”
Her father and talther shared a look Atalant couldn’t discern.
“Ardulum is just made up of sentient trees,” Atalant cautioned, afraid of where that look might head. Afraid they might cling to the comfort of myth. “They, it, needed someone to help, and there were some…extenuating circumstances, and I was their next best choice for the job.”
“Visions like the ones you had as a child, Eld?” her father asked.
“Dreams, yes, maybe, but that’s beside the point.” At least she hoped it was. “And my name is Atalant, remember? You named me. Mother hated the name. You argued about it constantly.”
Her talther stepped forward and offered her a hand, which she only just noticed was covered in thin stuk. “Eld Atalant, perhaps, for right now,” zie said in a conciliatory tone. “Your journey has made you something different. We respect that and the forces that made it so, whether they be biological or divine.”
“I’m not a god,” Atalant whispered. She looked at her father, silently imploring him to understand, to laugh and clasp her on the shoulder and offer to make her pancakes. But, the father who looked back at her was serious—loving, but distant. Her talther was the same, and even her brother held back, as if bound by some invisible cord. It was a cord strong enough to overthrow a corrupt president. To release the populace or bind them again into myth. A cord thick enough to hang herself with, if she wanted.
Silence stretched again between them, this time becoming a chasm Atalant feared she could never cross. She shivered in the coolness of evening. Her brother dropped to one knee, retrieving her robes and sash. He offered it up to her, a look on his face that she couldn’t place.
They’re yours, he sent to her as their fingers connected. His voice felt foreign after being so long apart, yet sounded the same as during the last time they spoke. I have a story to tell you, later. When there isn’t impending doom. When you have time.
The last sentence made her grumble as she slipped the robes back on and retied the sash. Her brother asking for her time was as asinine as her robes.
“I have some things to take care of,” Atalant muttered. She nodded at her parents, at her brother, and then turned to the door. If they responded or called after her, she didn’t hear them as she took long strides through the hall, determined not to cry.<
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THERE WAS NO moisture in her eyes when Atalant joined Ekimet in a substantially larger set of rooms on the top floor of the temple. The difference in decoration was significant. While the furniture in her family’s suite had been made from machine-carved veneer, this room was all solid andal and hand-cut relief marquetry. The ceiling was held up by pillars, and windows spanned the south wall. Atalant could see the tops of most of the city buildings, which, with the receding sunlight and the smoke, made for a shimmering view.
“Nicholas and Emn have been shown their rooms, although perhaps Emn will be staying with you?” Ekimet offered Atalant a still-steaming branch of andal, which she politely declined.
“Yes, she will. She’ll be coming with me to any future meetings, as well. She belongs in an Eld Council as much as I do. Nicholas too, if he wants.”
Ekimet nodded as zie took a large bite of the twig. It’s not unprecedented, zie said as zie chewed. The Eld have many advisors, including one for flares, as I’m sure my grandmother has told you. Though, this may be the first time an actual flare has done the advising.
They were back to this. “Ekimet, I—” She reached into a wide pocket of her robes and pulled out a rolled biofilm. “Maybe you’d better read this. Alone. It’s from your grandmother. I think she… She needs to explain a few things to you.”
Ekimet set the remains of the twig down on a polished end table and took the scroll. “Alone?” zie asked as zie stroked the biofilm. “Very well. To matters at hand, then.” Zie looked out the large bay window, and Atalant followed zir gaze. The sky was fletched in the silver and black of ships backlit by the sunset. It was beautiful—and painful.
“Are you in contact with the male eld?” Ekimet asked.
Atalant pried her eyes away. “Of course. He’s distracted at the moment—working on some new seedlings in the system Ardulum decided to impose itself on. Shall I have him listen in? I guess you two cannot connect since you aren’t familiar with one another? I’m not really certain how that works.”