Odds Are Good

by Bruce Coville

  As if he had read my mind, the man said, “Do not worry, Banang. It is not your fault. The world turns as it will. Sometimes relief comes sooner, sometimes later. I still have years to wait. But knowing you are here and ready to begin makes my heart lighter.”

  I nodded, said nothing.

  The man turned to the Pyong Myar. “Leave us,” he said. “I will do what must be done.”

  To my astonishment, the Pyong Myar turned and left. I would not have believed that anyone could give him an order.

  “My name is Naranda,” said the man. “I am the one who speaks the language of blood. This is not an easy thing, but it must be done. I do it for the people. It is you who will do it when I am gone.”

  I stared at him, eyes wide, but said nothing. I am not sure I could have spoken had I wanted to.

  “To do this, you must be prepared,” continued Naranda. “That is why you are here today. What I do to you today, you will do to others later. Almost always you will take from them. Only once in all the years that follow will you give as I am about to give to you.”

  His eyes were powerful, his voice soothing. He was moving closer to me. As he spoke, his eyes began to change. Soon they were glowing, deep red, like coals in a firepit. Then he smiled, and I saw for the first time the sharp fangs that curved down from beneath his upper lip.

  I wanted to scream, but found that I could not, could not move, could not resist.

  Naranda bent over me. My heart was pounding so fast that I feared it would explode. Drawing back his lips, he plunged his fangs into my neck.

  A spasm wracked my body. Fire seemed to pour into my veins.

  Then the world disappeared and I found myself floating in a strange nothingness. Odd shapes, made of mist and edged with fire, whirled past me. Voices whispered in my ears.

  I thought I was dying, but knew that I could not be that lucky. The agony was exquisite.

  Then all went black.

  When I woke, Naranda was sitting nearby. He looked tired, gray, worn-out. He raised his head, and the eyes that had glowed red when he first approached me now seemed empty, as if the fire had consumed what was there, and only cold ashes were left.

  “You live,” he whispered.

  I nodded.

  “I was afraid you might not.” His voice sounded like dried corn husks rustling in the wind.

  I wanted to rage at him for what he had done to me. But his weakness was like a poultice, drawing out the sting of my anger. Whatever his purpose, his action had clearly cost him as much, possibly more, than it had cost me.

  “Are you all right?” I asked.

  “I’ll live. I have to, until you are mature yourself. Who else will speak the language of blood until then, if I do not? Can you stand?”

  I tried, and found that I could—found, in fact, that I felt surprisingly strong.

  “Help me up,” said Naranda.

  “What is the language of blood?” I asked, as I drew him to his feet.

  “It is the language to which you were born, Banang,” he answered. “It is words of warning, whispers of prophecy; tomorrow itself singing a song that only the drinkers of blood may hear and repeat, only the Pyong Myar interpret.”

  I did not understand, nor did he expect me to. At his command I led him to a pallet. It was covered by a finely woven robe. When he lay upon it I noticed, with a shudder of revulsion, the line of dried blood that ran from the side of his mouth. My blood. Looking more closely I saw that traces of it circled his lips as well. As if aware of what I was looking at, he flicked his tongue at the corners of his mouth, trying to clean away the brown flakes.

  “Tell me what you have done to me,” I said, my voice quavering.

  “I have made you a man of the people,” he replied. “When I am gone, it is you who will read the secrets written in the language of blood.”

  I stared at him, saying nothing.

  “When the time comes for your change, your body will grow in the ways that all young men’s bodies do—with this addition. Like me, you will have the bloodteeth.” And here he drew back his lips to show the fangs with which he had pierced my neck.

  Ah—I notice you looking at me nervously. Do you want to see mine? Don’t be shy; I don’t mind. Here. Impressive, are they not? And never more so than when blood is in the offing.

  Naranda became my teacher, and for the next three years I was trained in the ways of the Speaker. This was difficult, for at first I could not stand to be near him, as his very presence brought to mind our first meeting and what he had done to me. But after a time I grew used to him and even, I suppose, to love him. He taught me a great deal: how the Sources are chosen, and why they die after their third contribution; why those who speak the language of blood can never see the sun again; what it is to live longer than anyone save the Pyong Myar.

  This and more he taught me, as I will teach you. He prepared me well to take his place, and when in the spring of my sixteenth year he finally died, I felt that I was ready. My own change had come upon me nearly two years earlier, and as my voice had deepened, my shoulders broadened, so, too, had my bloodteeth developed, just as Naranda promised.

  He had prepared me for everything, except for what I found when I climbed the stairs to meet my first Source.

  The stairs, as you will eventually see, are on the outside of the temple. They lead to a small structure on the very top of the building. The walls of this structure are chest high—tall enough to hide what happens within them. It has no roof save the sky, and the moon’s light fills the chamber. Inside is a stone table, much like the one in this room.

  An eager dread, a mix of excitement and terror, filled my heart as I climbed to the top of the temple. I had been moving toward this moment all my life. The breeze was cool. I could see the city below me and knew that the people depended on me, on the knowledge I would bring them. I wanted to be a good Speaker, yet feared the act that would make me one.

  Fear turned to dread when I walked through the door and saw my Source waiting for me on the stone table.

  It was Shula, of course. Not mere coincidence, but the will of the Pyong Myar. This act would be the test and the binding of my will to speak the language of blood.

  She was not bound. There were no guards. She could have walked away.

  But she lay waiting for me.

  “It has been a long time, Banang,” she whispered, as I stared at her in shock and horror. “I have missed you.”

  “And I have missed you,” I said at last.

  I felt as if two snakes were fighting in my stomach, twisting and writhing. I was torn between the fire that was stirring in my blood and my horror at using my long-lost childhood friend as my Source.

  “Why do you look at me that way?” she asked. “Are you angry?”

  “Why are you here?” I replied.

  “They chose me. I came. Just the same as you.”

  “Run away,” I said, my voice flat, my heart filled with shame at the betrayal of the people carried in that simple sentence.

  “Will you run away with me?”

  I shook my head. She shrugged, as if to ask how I could possibly expect her to do what I would not.

  I sat beside her on the stone table and we talked of old times, of our families, of what had happened in the years since I entered the temple. Too soon I saw in her eyes that the moon was overhead, and I could wait no longer. I stood, turned away, turned back. My mouth ached as the bloodteeth grew for the first time, stretching down past my upper lip. She closed her eyes, extinguishing the moon, as I bent over her and pierced the smooth flesh of her neck.

  Her blood pumped into my mouth, hot and fragrant, and the gods reached down to touch me. Despite my revulsion, I drank deep, sucking the blood through the wounds I had made.

  Then the Fit of Prophecy came upon me. As Shula’s blood released what is in me, that part that makes me a Speaker began to read the secrets of the blood, the past of our people which flows in all our veins and points to our future. Fire c
rawled along my limbs. The heroes whispered their messages. Images swam before me, not like a dream but like a new reality, sharper and more clear than anything seen before. I was transformed, and my heart saw into the past and the future with eyes that would shame a hawk’s.

  I fell to the floor, writhing and jerking, as the words flowed out of me. The tiniest part of me was aware of the Pyong Myar standing nearby, taking down everything that I said.

  When finally the fit ran its course, I slept as if I were dead. When I woke, I was in my own room. The Pyong Myar was again nearby, staring at me. He smiled when I opened my eyes, and said, “You did well.”

  The sickness in me made it impossible to answer.

  “It is always this way after the first time,” he said. “You will feel better tomorrow.”

  What he did not know was that I suffered not merely the sickness of the First Speaking. I suffered a sickness of the heart, a terrible guilt and fear over what I had done to Shula.

  He showed me what I had spoken, the words of blood that told the future of our people. It would be a good year, but a cloud was growing on the horizon, a darkness yet unclear. Thus was the importance of the speaking reinforced. Knowing that this danger was coming, we could begin to prepare. In six months I would again speak the language of blood. Perhaps then we would know what the danger was.

  Shula and I were married, of course. My first bride. How many since, I have lost count. A year for each, wed at the first speaking, taken to new heights at the second, separated by death at the third.

  Six months later a new bride.

  I will be glad to lay the mantle down.

  Naranda, I suspect, did not find this all so difficult. In the training he gave me, there was no hint of the pain that I felt in regard to Shula. For him, it was the way it was. Maybe he had forgotten. Maybe he had never cared.

  I cared. I brooded day and night about Shula’s fate.

  The second speaking came and went. She was pale and weak for many days afterward. But the speaking had been important. A war was brewing, enemies gathering in the distance, forces joining against us. This we needed to know; this we would not have known, save for the language of blood.

  I went to visit Lala and Ariki. I could not tell them what I was thinking, that I could not do this again, not when I knew that it would mean the death of my Source, my friend, my love. They knew what I was thinking anyway, of course. They always did. Without a word they let me know that my thoughts, my doubts, were shameful.

  Finally I spoke to Shula. “We should run away,” I said.

  “Silly Banang,” she answered. “What is, is. There is no running away.”

  But I persisted. Every night I whispered to her that we must leave the city, flee to the jungle.

  “Silly Banang,” she would respond. “You have tasted the blood. You must drink now, whether we are here or in the jungle.”

  “I can find other blood,” I replied. “It does not have to be yours. I do not want you to die. We must leave, we must leave.”

  Then she would put her hands on either side of my face, resting her little fingers in the scars the Pyong Myar had made the night he took me from my family. Looking deep into my eyes she would ask, “Then who will speak for the people?”

  For that, I had no answer.

  “Silly Banang,” she would whisper. Then she would cuddle against me, and lying in my arms fall asleep.

  I could not.

  I noticed the Pyong Myar watching me and wondered if he knew what I was thinking. He took me aside to talk to me.

  “The next time you speak the language of blood will be terribly important,” he said, his face stern, his blue eyes glowing with that horrible fire. “If all goes well, you will speak of the enemy and his plans—where the army gathers, when it will attack. This is what you were born for, Banang. You will tell the city what it must know in order to survive.”

  I did not tell him of the hollow horror growing in my heart. I could not make the words come past my thick, rebellious tongue.

  The night before my third speaking, a year since I had first tasted Shula’s blood, a sunrise and a sunset before I would be called upon to drink until she died, I said to her, “We are leaving the city.”

  The horror in her eyes matched what was growing in my heart. But its roots were different. She could not imagine this terrible act of betrayal. “What will the people do without us?” she asked.

  “I don’t care,” I replied. My voice was savage. “I don’t care about the people. I care about you.”

  She looked down. She did not answer. I knew she was ashamed for me, but that she would come with me if I insisted.

  I insisted. Late that night we left the temple, slipping out through the secret ways that Mam had taught me long ago, the first and only time that I had ventured into the city after the night of my calling. I feared that we would be spotted. My plan was to run. Once I had been called the fastest boy in the city. I did not know how fast I was compared to the guards, but counted on love and fear to put wings on my heels. I knew that Shula could not keep up. But if I escaped myself, at least she would live. I did not want to lose her. But better to lose her yet know she still lived than to lose her to the demands of the language of blood.

  Or so I thought at the time.

  No one stopped us.

  We traveled far from the city, deep into the jungle.

  Two nights later we found the enemy.

  It might seem like the oddest of chances. It was not chance. There are no coincidences. The heroes led me there, to see what I needed to see.

  We came upon the army when we climbed a hill and saw, in the valley below us, row on row on row of tents, stretching as far as the nearly full moon could show us.

  These men were coming to take the city. If they were successful, they would rape the women, kill the children, loot the Red Temple.

  There were no words to be said. Language was not needed. Shula took my hand and turned me around. Silently, carefully, we made our way back to the city.

  The Pyong Myar stood at the temple door, the not-quite-secret door through which we had fled, through which we returned. He did not speak, only nodded, his eyes dim and sorrowful.

  The next night I climbed the temple stairs to the low-walled room where Shula lay waiting on the stone table. I swallowed the rest of her life, and as she lay dying I writhed on the floor and spoke again the language of blood. All the secrets of the past, all the wisdom of the people, all the strength of the heroes flowed from my tongue. In the language of blood I told not only the location of the enemy, which I well knew, but their numbers and their plans and their secret weaknesses.

  The city was saved, of course.

  I have had many Sources since then.

  I am more weary than I can tell you.

  I am glad you are here.

  So. Now you know what it is all about, know far more than I did the day I came to Naranda.

  Are you ready? Place yourself here, please.

  Turn your head just so.

  This will only take a moment.

  Old Glory

  Donald B. Henderson

  Civic Responsibility Class

  Ms. Barnan

  Sept. 15, 2041

  ESSAY: The Day I Did My Duty

  My great-grandfather was the craziest man I ever met. Sometimes it was embarrassing even to have him be part of the family.

  For example: You should have seen how he acted when Congress passed the S.O.S. law last June.

  He actually turned off the holo set!

  “Well, that’s the end of life as we know it,” he said as the image started to fade. Then he stared at the floor and started to mutter.

  “Oh, Arthur, don’t be ridiculous,” said my mother.

  She switched the set back on and waited for the newsgeek to reappear in the center of the room.

  “Ridiculous?” yelped Gran-Da. “You want to see ridiculous? I’ll show you ridiculous!” He stood and pointed to the big flag that h
angs over our holo set. “That’s ridiculous! Thirteen stripes, sixty-two stars, and not a bit of meaning. After what they did today it’s all gone.”

  “That’s not so, Grampa,” said my father quietly. His voice was low and soft, the way it gets when he’s really angry. “Now sit down and be quiet.”

  That was a relief. After Gran-Da came to live with us I was always afraid he was going to get us into trouble. So I felt better whenever Dad made him be quiet. Sometimes I wished Dad would just throw him out. I didn’t really want him sleeping on the streets, like all the old men I walk past on the way to school. But I didn’t want to make our Uncle angry either.

  Later that night, when I was going to bed, Gran-Da called me into his room.

  “How you doing?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “I’m okay.”

  Gran-Da smiled. “Are you afraid of me?”

  I wanted to say no. Only that would have been a lie. So I just nodded my head.

  “Afraid I’ll talk dangerous?”

  I nodded again. I didn’t know what I would do if my friends were ever around when he started talking like he does sometimes. I knew what I should do, of course. But I didn’t know if I could do it. I mean, he was my great-grandfather, even if he was crazy and wicked.

  He looked sad. “Are all the kids at your school like you?” he asked.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Scared little sheep, afraid to talk.”

  “I’m not afraid to talk,” I said loudly. “I just don’t talk nonsense, like . . .”

  I broke off.

  “Like me?” he asked, scratching at the little fringe of white hair that circled the back of his head. (I don’t know why he never got his head fixed. All the other great-grandfathers I know have full heads of hair, whatever color they want. Not mine.)

  I looked away from him. Suddenly I realized what was wrong with his room. “Where’s your flag?” I asked.