by Ken Rivers
I reached out and slid my hand into hers. She was trembling. I was as delicate and reassuring as I could be. “Nobody is going to kill you. Speak.”
Her head titlted to the side, searching out voices and sounds, but when her voice entered my mind, her head jerked and locked onto me. Her breath smelled of dried blood and rot. “I was the younger cousin. I was the first one that Tawa tried to make into a Mother but failed. I have been by his side all this time. I was the younger one, and the younger one always follows the older one. I was made into the newest cousin after the last Maiden failed Tawa’s test.”
“What happened to the older new cousins?” B asked.
My other palm slid over top of Yare’s cold, frail hand. “They were thrown into a pit deep under the Jian-Di base,” I said. “There were too many piled up to count when I was speaking with the Mother, Saiina.”
Yare flinched and the dust and dirt began swirling away from her mouth.
“I’m afraid,” she said. “I am supposed to hear that name twice in my life. I hear it once when I become veiled, and once again when the veil is lifted.”
Letting go of her hand, I turned to the crushing rock on top of her. The power swelled within then whipped outward around me so fast that it caught me off-guard. “I’m sorry I waited to do this, Yare.” I swung my fist with purpose and the boulder atomized in front of me. “Ladies, it’s time to show this girl what being alive actually means.”
B moved up next to me, still gripping her battle-wand and looking down at Yare. “So, that’s it? We’re gonna trust her just like that?”
“It’s hard to get anything from anybody if you’re not willing to give a little first, B. So yes, just like that.” I snapped the locks off her wrists. She pushed herself away from me, then grabbed her leg.
“We aren’t going to hurt you,” I said. “In fact, we’re going to heal you right now. Lana, if you would.”
She calmed down after Lana began to work on her shattered leg.
B was right there, wand in hand like a prison guard waiting for shit to kick off.
I crossed my arms and stood next to B. “Will you get the bike for us, B? We can handle this.”
She gave me stern look but left without protest, although she stayed armed and looked over her shoulder as she moved back into the rubble. Pusi was awake and licking herself, and sniffing the air. “Blue-hair smell. Smell like Yari...”
“I need to talk with her, Lana. Can she manage while you’re healing her?”
“It’s no trouble at all. The cousins have Tawa’s life force pumping through them. She is the younger one so it’s not going to lengthen her life, but it’s enough to keep looking young and also happens to make it very easy to help heal her.”
I sat beside her and reached out to her. “Yare, do you have a sister?”
She took a while to answer so I had time to really study her. No matter how hard I tried, I could only gauge her so much. I needed to see eyes. She looked right at me when I thought that. “I did,” she said.
“What happened to her?”
Even with her voice linked to my thoughts, there was a faint hiss to her words. “I was born, then my sister was born a few years later. I went off to train as a Maiden when she was still an infant. I grew up in a temple with someone they called my father. I knew he wasn’t really, but he was kind enough. I became ready for the test and he brought me here to Tawa. I did my best, but I wasn’t strong enough for him, so big sister welcomed me into the Veil.”
“Did you write a letter to your younger sister?”
“I wrote it to pass a test of loyalty to Tawa. I wrote it years ago. I couldn’t refuse because I wouldn’t have been able to undergo the Mother’s test. I would’ve written whatever they wanted me to. I didn’t care. I was sure my family had been dead for a long time. I was sure because I hadn’t heard from them, ever. I thought I must’ve been dead to them.”
The orange light danced around her legs, billowing over her tattered white gown and across red scratched lines and patches of purple and brown.
She needed to know. “The message was cast into an amulet with blood magic. Lana brought it to us. What was your sister’s name?” I asked.
“Yari,” she whispered.
Telling her was the only option. As I did so, Yare’s lips pursed together like she was about to cry, and then she exhaled, but no tears came. Lana’s healing light began to dim. She was nearly finished. Yare stayed on the ground and brushed the blood-soaked dirt from around her mouth and nose.
“Didn’t you see her that night we had dinner?” I asked.
Lana cut in. “She was told to close the door and to face it the whole time we were in the room with Yari. I didn’t think anything of it at the time because the cousins have their ways.”
“Had them. That big bitch is dead,” I reminded her.
Lana was always very matter-of-fact. “I was happy to do it.”
“Yare,” I said, “We need to find your sister. We are her friends and we care very much about her. I know you’ve had a hard life—”
Yare’s words in my head were clear determined.
“What!?”
“What did she say?” Lana asked.
“She wants us to kill her.” I looked right at her. “Yeah, no.”
She repeated it. I couldn’t read what was going on in her head for shit. The doorway to her soul was shut off by that eternity of iron. Lana pulled her hands away from Yare’s once-shattered limbs. The bruising and bloody gashes were gone. Smooth, lightly tanned legs remained unmoving. Despite being healed, there was no life in her at all. The only thing left was her desire to die.
The iron stared back at me. “Lana, can you do anything about this mask?”
“The Veil? I’ve never tried. I never wished to see them when Tawa took it off.”
“So, who puts it on?”
“Tawa,” Lana replied.
“You’ve seen my powers. I admit, they’re nowhere near his level, but could I take this thing off her?” I asked.
“It’s possible. But I imagine it takes some finesse with the power. And since you don’t have that yet, her head could end up like the boulder that was just on top of her. I saw how surprised you were when you called to it. It’s too risky.”
“No, it’s not, because you’re going to help me,” I told her.
“I can heal physical wounds, but the power of the Father deals with matter. When Tawa touches the Kaiju, his being flows through the whole body, becoming one with the very building blocks of it. It’s impossible to manipulate something on such a level and not have it change part of you. That’s the rot. It’s the Kaiju becoming part of him. So, even if you get that thing off her head without blowing it clean off, I don’t know what kind of reaction will happen between you two. She is dripping with Tawa’s life-force. It might poison you with his twisted will or even kill you.” Her hand, still warm from healing, caressed my face. “Please don’t ask this of me. Maybe granting her wish is the best for everyone.”
Openly heated then, I pinched the bridge of my nose and barely held onto my tongue. I was in total disbelief at the ease she had voicing that plan, like Yare was merely a stray or something. “So, we should simply end her life and be done with it?”
“She will tell us where Tawa is. Like she says, she didn’t care when she came here, and I’m sure she cares even less, now. After that, yes, we give her a painless death.”
“I can’t do that,” I said. “So much so that I say, without any doubt, fuck that plan. And fuck the Levani social hierarchy bullshit that made you say that. Help or don’t, but what happens next is on your head as much as mine.” Placing my hands on her mask, I called on the power and it came to me without effort. I felt the will of Tawa Yen swell up inside of her and push back against mine. “Lana?” I was urgent. “Anytime, now.” Like a cloud of fine hairs, black tendrils broke through her skin around the mask and wrapped around my hands. “Something’s happening. Lana?”
She said
nothing, but she moved into position, orange-sheathed hands wrapped around mine. Whether she wanted to do it or not, I couldn’t tell. But she wasn’t much for argument, so she did as I asked.
The black retreated and I braced myself. “Yare, I love your sister. I love her with all my heart. She only came here after knowing she might be able to meet her sister. Which means I’m never going to let anyone hurt you. EVER again.” She remained still. “Let’s make a bet. If your eyes are green, I win, and you join the team.”
Whispers and whimpers floated through my mind. “If you lose, then I get what I want. I need you to swear to end me if you want a deal.”
I took her offer seriously. I was never one to go back on a bet and this was a fucking beast of one. Did I have it in me to kill her? If I agreed, I would have no choice. But could I?
My exhale was long and slow. “I swear it.”
She nodded, wiped her shaved head and braced. I thought about losing the bet and having to help her die. I also thought about Yari hugging her, and my heart nearly broke. The power inside me shifted and focused.
“I’m ready,” Yare said.
Lana nodded, and I began.
First, I felt the iron all around, skating the edge of the Veil with my fingertips and laying my palm flat against the cold metal. I pushed into the ingot’s structure. Solid and unchanging until I found her bone fused to it. I backed my senses out of the iron and found her eyes, made null and void of any expression or utility. No surgeon in the galaxy could’ve undone that.
I was no surgeon, to be sure. But I was a damn good mechanic.
Pushing past the bigger particles of the iron, I came to the mixed ocean of her bone and the metal. I brush away the non-organic matter, but much white came with it. I would have pulled out then but the grey and white began to pulsate with dawn’s light. Lana was right there with me, pulling back the damage and repairing as I went. There was no going back. Soon, the gray pulled away from the white. The white reformed as unmolested bone and the gray was expelled, no need for its cruel filtering function. She would see again, I swore it.
The mask came clear of her face. It was heavy, and jagged where it had been placed pushed into her face. I threw it on the ground and looked upon her features for the first time.
Lana’s medical light poured into the woman’s eye sockets. She wasn’t simply undoing the damage I’d caused, she was regenerating Yare’s eyes.
The orange light faded, and Lana pulled her hands away. We both waited. Yare tried a few times to open her eyes, but the light of the approaching dawn, as muted as it was, was still too much for her to take.
I took my jacket off and held as a shield against the sun’s rays breaking over the crater’s rim. She looked up at me for the first time. Emerald green ringed black irises under sea blue eyebrows and a beauty mark under her right eye.
“Looks like you lose,” I smiled.
She took my hand in hers and held it tight against her chest. Her mouth wasn’t so black anymore. She licked her chapped lips and spoke. “I knew I would.”
24
“Thank you, Lady Yen. You’ve done more than enough.” She smiled and teared up. “You’ve given my voice back. Tawa no longer clouds my thoughts. I,” she hesitated, then straightened. “I can handle the rest from here.” Her hands were already glowing orange over the rectangular gash around her eyes.
“Why cover eyes?” Pusi asked.
Lana watched Yare healing herself. “So they are nobody. A vessel for the Father,” Lana said.
Yare’s voice was quiet, but very sure. “It’s true. Maidens are meant to be such vessels. But, my kind have a special burden to bear. Impure Levani don’t have silver hair and perfect complexions. We don’t have crystal blue eyes. We have blue hair and green eyes, and never have perfect skin. Silver hair comes from the Father, and the eyes from the Mother, so every Levani knows their roots. Even if they are unsure of exactly who their parents are, everyone knows they are Levani.”
“In the case of my sister and I, since the origin of the Mother or Father isn’t apparent in our impure features, we are looked on as soulless. And therefore, Tawa saw us as perfect for the Order of the Veil. A true empty vessel for the Father.”
“Sounds horrible. Why shave head?” Pusi was getting closer with every question, her tail flitting around, looking for something it could never find.
Lana cut in, “Because the elder sister of the cousins was a twisted bitch, that’s why.”
B hovered over us on the rail-bike and set it down a few feet away. Both Midori and Aoi were perched like little gargoyles on the edge of their pod, eyes locked on Yare.
Yare had finished with the healing, but the top corners of the mask remained stained into her skin above her eyebrows. With her hands on the ground, she squinted back at the two tiny faces.
Lana wheeled around and joined the staring competition. “Mark, what are those?”
“Saiina did mention she had two small Kaiju before Tawa went totally—”
“They’re Kaiju!” Yare’s voice cracked and she smiled and stood. Two steps later she fell forward, catching herself with one hand and her elbow. Before I could reach out to help her, Midori and Aoi were right in front of her, Midori nuzzling her in the chest, and Aoi trying to lick her hand off.
“I never thought I’d live to see two real Kaiju. I could always feel the abomination that lived under us in the rock every day, but I thought it was the last one.”
“They had a bit of a rough ride coming out from the cave-in, so they’ve been hiding in the rail-bike the whole time. I’m glad they’ve found something to get them out of there.”
B watched it all, arms crossed and expressionless. “Where’s Tawa?” she asked.
“B, chill.”
“Mark, she’s ready to go. We need a direction.”
“She needs more time to get her bearings, B.”
B crossed the distance to Yare and squatted in the dirt in front of her. Midori perched on Yare’s shoulder, and Aoi looked out from under one of her arms. “Time to pull your weight, and it’s now or never with me. Where’s Tawa?”
“The only place he can go now with the Kaiju released. The Spire.”
“What is the Spire and, let me be exceedingly clear, here, where is it?”
B was never one to warm up to someone quickly. Some leftover academy jock shit, probably. Or, she was instantly jealous of any new addition to the group. It was probably both.
“You don’t know about the Spire?” Yare asked, her green eyes trained on B’s. For a brief moment, they were both totally still as if chiseled from stone, unbending wills and all.
With a hand pushing the handle of her battle-wand parallel with the ground, she wiped her mouth and spoke slowly. “If I did, do you think I would be wasting my time waiting for you to tell me what it is?”
“So, the history of what happened has been hidden,” Yare said carefully. “Looks like Tawa wasn’t lying, after all.”
“What exactly does that mean?” B was as curious as I was.
“Tawa called me sister, but obviously we aren’t blood because he’s been alive for hundreds of years. At first, I thought he told me everything, but I figured out he was very careful with what he revealed and who he revealed it to. I watched him tell many things to many people and I got pretty good at figuring out when he was telling the truth. It wasn’t often. But, hearing now that you don’t know about the Spire, I know for sure he wasn’t lying.”
B had her Enforcer bullshit detectors on and was analyzing Yare’s every word and movement. “I’m not lying,” Yare said.
B broke from her squat, put an arm around Lana and flipped the battle-wand around in the other. “And I believe you, so don’t you worry about a damn thing, girly-girl. We’re gonna end him and you won’t have to think about it ever again.”
Yare continued, “The Spire is a place of power erected for one purpose, the bonding of the Mother and Father. After the humans helped kill off the Kaiju, they ensu
red Tawa couldn’t go back on their agreement.” So, they built their headquarters around it. The Spire is the tower at the center of the human occupiers. It is CONTROL.”
B dropped her wand. “How the fuck can CONTROL not know about the Jian-Di and Tawa-fucking-Yen if their headquarters is built around a Levani monument to Kaiju?”
I didn’t doubt it for a second. “Those fuckers have been blowing smoke up all our asses since Day One. CONTROL cares about one thing, its continuation and prosperity. But, first things first, B. We take Tawa down when he hits the border.”
B nodded and collected her weapon from the dirt. She put her game face on and started strategizing. “That would be easiest for us, but it puts Yari at great risk. We need to get to them before that happens.” She knew she wouldn’t live it down if something happened to Yari because of her.
Yare stood with the tiny Kaiju wrapped in her arms. “That’s where he’s going,” she said. “If he gets there with my sister, that Kaiju he rides will ascend to its true form. The first interstellar Kaiju in hundreds of years.”
“Thank the gods there is only one of them,” Lana said.
“He has Yari, so one is all he’ll need. He’s been pouring bits of mist infused with his own life-force into it. It’s more Father than Mother, now. Another reason I fear for my sister. I’m not sure he needs her for very long for the change.”
B was swiping and sketching on her Clear-Tech. “Can you track Tawa, Yare? Do you know where he is right this second?”
Yare nodded.
“Thank you,” B said.
“Time to ride,” I said.
Pusi and B hopped in one pod, Yare in the other snuggled up with Midori and Aoi, and Lana was our eyes in the sky.
“B, when they start firing from the border, they’ll fire at anything, you know that.”
“Yes, I know.”
“Give me your Clear-Tech.”
“Huh?” It wasn’t customary to share one’s Clear-Tech. Asking her that was like asking to borrow her toothbrush.
“If I can send out an Enforcer-level clearance signal, it might buy us some maneuvering room when the barrage starts.”
