The Fifth Sacred Thing

by Starhawk

  The questions went on and on, and the exhaustion, after how long without sleeping? He no longer knew or cared. What mattered was pleasing them, getting them to believe him. Sometimes they did; sometimes, even when he told the truth, they did not.

  “You have destroyed your data bases.”

  “No, we haven’t done that.”

  “You lie. Nothing will function for us. None of the hardware responds to our commands.”

  “No, no, they won’t function under stress. They don’t work that way.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Look, I’m not a tecchie, I can’t really explain this very well. Maybe if I had some water.…” Earlier, when he still had his soul, he had refused food and water, but now he begged like a child for it.

  “Just answer the questions.”

  “A little water …”

  They placed a cup in his hand. He couldn’t see anything, or maybe his eyes were still closed, he wasn’t sure anymore, and the water tasted like blood. It was cool on his tongue and it bought a respite; maybe that was a bad idea because it gave him something they could take away, something more for him to fear.

  “The data bases?”

  “They’re all based on crystals,” he said, barely audibly, “and the crystals have a consciousness of their own. They cooperate with us, as long as they want to. We don’t command them.”

  “You cooperate with rocks?”

  “That’s how it works. The tecchies spend a long time in meditation before they try to work out a program. It’s tough, believe me. I had to do it in school.”

  “You lie.”

  “It’s the truth. I swear to you!”

  He was beyond what he could endure, but he endured more, until they tired of the question.

  “What is the secret weapon?”

  “What weapon?”

  “The secret weapon that gives you all such confidence.”

  “We don’t have a secret weapon.”

  “Don’t lie. We know you do. The old woman told us so herself.”

  “What old woman?”

  “Your cancerous friend who was arrested with you. There is a power here you will never defeat or understand,’ she said, on the first morning of the invasion. What is the power we do not understand?”

  “That power is not a weapon. It’s a metaphor.”

  “Liar. Armies are not defeated by metaphors.”

  “I mean she didn’t mean that literally. She meant—spirit.”

  “The power is a spirit?”

  “Right, our spirit.”

  “How do you harness and command this demonic spirit?”

  His head hurt so badly he wished they would put a bullet into it.

  “Not that kind of spirit. A feeling spirit.”

  “Armies are not defeated by feelings. Tell us what the weapon is.”

  “I can’t!”

  “You will find that you can.”

  “I mean I can’t because it isn’t what you think.”

  A nice quick bullet that would stop everything, as his father had been stopped, as he himself had stopped a man once. But he had to think, to think what to say. It’s not the truth that matters, some exhausted part of his brain acknowledged. I can’t satisfy them with truth, I have to tell them what they expect to hear. What they’re capable of believing. There was something hopeful about that, but he couldn’t focus on it. He existed only to make sounds that would bring some short relief from pain.

  “Perhaps he needs a reminder of what we can do to him if he continues in this stubbornness?”

  It was almost funny, Bird thought, a hilarious comedy of miscommunication, but he was beyond laughing, and after a while he was crying and pleading and begging them to let him die.

  But he didn’t die. They stopped, just before he lost consciousness.

  “Tell us about the weapon.”

  Dear Goddess, Diosa mía, Mama, Rio, somebody, anybody, I can’t stand this and there is no way even to break. I would tell them anything if I could only think of something to tell them. My tongue won’t work; I will never be whole again.

  “We are losing patience. You will see that up until now we have been restrained.”

  The voices that came to him were the voices of the dead. “You think you cannot bear this, but we have borne worse: the rack, the stake, the Middle Passage, the torture of children, the forced labor, stone upon stone, while the people died of disease. We have already borne every unbearable thing human beings can do to each other, and why should you escape, or expect the rescue that never came to us? Are you so much better than we?”

  No, no, but help me, please, Goddess, please, please. He was no longer sure whom he was talking to, whether he was begging aloud or in his mind; the dead were thick and swirling in the room.

  “What is the weapon?”

  He screamed, or thought he screamed; he was no longer quite sure of what was inside him and what was outside. Something hurt his ears and he thought it was his own voice. I don’t want to die of fear, he thought. I just want to die, to join the ghosts who are safe and winged and out of their pain.

  “Again? Do you need more persuading?”

  “The dead!” he cried out. “I swear on the Four Sacred Things, on the Goddess, ow—on Jesus, on anyone you want, name it and I’ll swear on it, our weapon is the dead.”

  “What do you mean by that?”

  “Ghosts, hauntings,” he said wildly, desperately, “poltergeists. Things moving through the air on their own. You don’t have to believe it—the Goddess does it. The power of Hecate is in us. Every one of us you kill becomes a ghost. We’ll haunt you. Kill a Witch, and you’ll never be free again.”

  Even as he spoke his words grew dark wings. There was a cold wind in the chamber, and the dead swarmed through as if he had indeed opened a gate for them.

  “You don’t see them yet,” Bird said, “but soon, soon. And you will never be free. Don’t you see? It’s a trap. The whole thing is a trap we set for you, to deliver you into the hands of the dead, who will take you to Hecate, the Reaper, the Goddess of Death.”

  He could talk on and on to them, forever, as long as his words bought a moment free from the pain. This is what I have become, a traitor, a liar, living from moment to moment, breath to breath.

  But they believed him.

  “Tell us more.”

  “Water—I need water.”

  They gave him another drink. He savored it on his parched tongue; it was cool on his throat, almost like forgiveness. He drank slowly; while he drank nothing was real to him but the cup, and the water, and his own body swallowing.

  “Enough. Tell us more, and you can have more to drink.”

  He nodded dully. What more was there to tell? But he was not the grandson of the city’s foremost storyteller for nothing. Great Mother, Dark Mother, Mother of Rebirth, forgive me for what I am about to do. I have seen your face, and in your eyes I see reflected the limits of my strength. He took a deep breath and began to tell them what they wanted to hear.

  “Every child in the city is dedicated to Hecate at birth. And what she offers us is this—anyone who hurts us, anyone who kills us, belongs to her. She will take your soul and ride it and drag it into hell for eternal torments that will make this stuff look like a birthday party. And the ghosts will haunt you. That’s why there’s no violence in this city—everybody knows better. The Goddess of Death keeps the peace for us.”

  They put him in a dark room to recover. For a long time his own mistreated neurons fired and misfired at random, carrying on the work of the torturers. The relief when the storms of pain finally quieted was almost worse than the pain itself, for with every moment his fear grew that they would begin again. There was one small blanket and he huddled under it, shaking. I’m in shock, he thought, I’ve got to keep warm, I’ve got to not think about what happened or what will happen. They were subtle experts, this bunch; nothing was broken, there were no outward wounds. Yet. But I’ve got to think what to do.
This is only the beginning. They’ll want more from me.

  His eyes were assaulted with a brief flash of light, as a door opened and someone was tossed into the closet where he was locked up. The door slammed again. Bird reached out and touched a naked shoulder. A young girl’s voice screamed in panic.

  “It’s okay,” he said hoarsely. “I won’t hurt you.”

  “Bird?”

  “Rosa?”

  She began to weep silently. He wrapped her in the blanket and hugged her through its coarse cloth.

  “Marie is dead.”

  He didn’t know what to say, so he just hugged her tighter. Marie is lucky, he thought.

  “Did they hurt you?”

  She nodded, her head moving up and down under his chin.

  “Did they rape you?” He had to ask it.

  “I fought them. But there were too many.”

  “I’m sorry, baby. I’m so sorry.”

  “I told them things,” Rosa said.

  “Of course you did, honey, I know.”

  “I couldn’t help it.”

  “No, you couldn’t. I told them things too.”

  “You, Bird?”

  Somehow that question hurt him more than anything.

  The next morning they came for them both. The General himself interrogated Bird.

  “Her fate is in your hands,” the General said. “Cooperate with us, and she will be left alone. Disobey, and we send her to the breaking pens for new whores. Which, since she wasn’t bred to it, will be hard for her. And you will watch.”

  “How can I believe you’ll do what you say?”

  “You can see her every day. Talk with her. Have her yourself, if you like.”

  “She’s thirteen years old!”

  “For some, a little past the prime. Never mind.”

  “What do you want me to do?”

  “There are ways we can use you. We need a liaison to your own people, someone who can command their respect and cooperation.”

  “They are not used to being commanded in any way.”

  “Then it’s time they got used to it.”

  He put on their uniform and walked out in the city, flanked by two guards who stayed with him everywhere. They wanted him to wear their uniform as a sign of his defeat, to shatter the morale of the city and say to the people. See, here is one of yours who has turned. He wore it as a warning to them all, a way of saying, Watch out, I am no longer your friend, no longer the one you trusted. Put no faith in me.

  Bird walked through the Central Plaza. The market stalls were shuttered, the streambed dry. The city looked like he felt, shattered. Two soldiers walked with him, one on either side. His dog chain, his tether.

  They flanked him as he settled himself at the far end of the plaza, near Market Street, beside the old sculpture fountain of upended concrete forms that was dry now.

  A woman he recognized was coming toward them: Sachiko, from the Musicians’ Guild. Strange, that she could still walk these pathways, the rainbow reflections on her black hair dancing in the sunlight, while he was ruined and Rosa … Better not to pursue those thoughts. Better just to do what he needed to do.

  She averted her face from the soldiers as she passed them, but he called out to her. “Sachiko!”

  She turned, saw his uniform, and poised to run. He called to her again.

  “Don’t be afraid, it’s me, Bird.”

  “Bird!”

  The first spontaneous joy that leaped to her eyes froze rapidly into shock as she took in the significance of his uniform. Bird wanted to turn away but he forced himself to meet her eyes, even though the effort sent a tattoo of pain playing over his skin. They’ve done something to me, Bird thought. My emotions are dead; what’s left is this random burst of neurons, my inner firing squad.

  “Why are you wearing their uniform?”

  He didn’t answer her question. “Will you do something for me?”

  “Sure, Bird.”

  “I need to speak with somebody on the Council.” The guards would be recording everything he said, and they might get suspicious if he used Sign too overtly. But he turned slightly, to hide his right hand from their view, and quickly his fingers spelled “Lily.” “Could you find someone from the Council, bring them here?”

  Sachiko’s eyes flicked down to his hand, back to his face.

  “I’ll try. Bird, are you okay?”

  “Thanks,” he said, and closed his eyes, a dismissal. Sachiko’s footsteps clattered on the pavement as she hurried off. Bird leaned back on the bench and sank into the well of darkness that closed over him, an exhaustion so deep that sleep could not touch it, a sensation of falling and falling, endlessly falling, with no bottom to hit, no ground to stand on.

  He had no idea how much time had passed when he looked up to see Lily standing in front of him. He hadn’t noticed her arrival. She was dressed in a simple green tunic, her hair pulled austerely back, her eyes kind. He wanted to look away.

  “Bird!”

  He spoke quickly, to get it out and said before he lost his nerve. “I’m not a very good hero, Lily. I talked to them. I told them everything.”

  The kindness in Lily’s eyes did not waver. “No one expects you to be superhuman.”

  He wanted desperately to look away from her eyes, but he couldn’t seem to move.

  “Maybe I do. Maybe we all need to be, or we’ll lose. Lily, I don’t see how we can win here.”

  “You don’t have to see.”

  He glanced at his guards, who remained beside him, impassive as the cement seat beneath them. Nevertheless they had eyes and ears and wore recording devices.

  “I told them about the weapon,” he said.

  “What weapon?”

  “They kept asking about the secret weapon. Really, it was Marie who told them, that first day, when she said there was a power here they could never conquer. They—they kept on me until I told them what the power was.”

  There was a subtle shift in Lily’s face, a glint of something almost like humor.

  “What did you tell them?”

  “I told them how we’re pledged to Hecate and can call up the dead, and how the dead will haunt anyone who kills one of us.”

  He thought he felt something ripple through his guards, a shiver, stifled before it became perceptible.

  “You told them that?” Lily said, her expression unreadable.

  “I told them all about it. All the details. I couldn’t help myself.”

  “I see.”

  “They finally believed me,” Bird said. “I’m sorry.”

  “But they want more from you,” Lily said. “What?”

  “They want me to be their liaison, to try to get more cooperation out of people. Starting tomorrow, they’re going to issue water ration cards. Everyone has to have one, if they want to get any water.”

  Her eyes were dark half moons above a grim horizon. “And what do they have to do to get one?”

  “Sign a pledge not to oppose the Stewards, and say the Millennialist Creed.” He paused. Better say it all. “I’ll be handing them out, here in the plaza, starting tomorrow morning.”

  “No one will come. Surely you know that, Bird.”

  Of course I do, he wanted to yell at her, why do you think I agreed to do it? But the guards were listening, and besides, it wasn’t true. He would have agreed to almost anything, to protect Rosa. No, to save himself more pain. She was staring at him so hard that maybe she could read his mind.

  “Will you do something for me, Lily?” he said at last.

  “If I can.”

  “Put a flower on my grandmother’s grave for me. Tell her I’m sorry. I’m sorry I wasn’t stronger.” He hoped to Goddess she would understand what he meant. He’d told the Stewards that his family was dead, that that had been a prerequisite for all members of the Council, so there would be no hostages to hold against them. Please, Goddess, let Maya stay away. If they found her, found out who she was …

  “No one’s strength
is endless,” Lily said, her voice soft. “I am sure you endured much, and will endure more. I wish you could be spared and healed.”

  She was offering him a forgiveness he didn’t deserve and could not accept. Not because he had failed; anyone could fail, but because he was going to go on failing, betraying.

  “I should have died with Roberto and Lan. Marie is dead, now, too.”

  “Leave the inflicting of pain to the conquerors, Bird. Don’t do it to yourself.”

  Bird wished he could read something in her eyes, pity or judgment or compassion. But they were blank as stones.

  “There is a place set for you at our table, Bird, waiting for you to come home.” She turned to his guards and smiled. “And for you, and you also.”

  She turned and walked away. Her words reverberated in him, like the ripples of pain from a kick in the gut. They made him what he had made himself, an enemy, a stranger.

  The next morning, when he arrived at the plaza, a small circle waited beside the fountain: Lily, Sam, Cress from the Water Council, and a woman he did not recognize. They opened the circle as he approached, making a space for him.

  Bird stopped. He was flanked by his two guards. Motioning to them to keep a few paces back, he approached the circle, feeling a great reluctance to enter. How could he sit with them while he wore the uniform of the enemy? But there were certain things you had to do, he knew, that you only could do by closing off, shutting down. Don’t think, don’t imagine what they will think of you, just step in and sit, and do not look into the eyes that turn to you, do not notice too closely how the energy shifts, as they observe you, bought and broken.

  “Bird!” Sam said.

  “You’re still alive!” Cress said. It sounded almost like an accusation. Cress looked thinner than Bird remembered; gray streaked his dark hair and blue shadows pooled under his black eyes.

  “I’m here representing the Fourth Stewardship Expeditionary Force. They’ve asked me to be their liaison.” His voice was still hoarse, he wasn’t sure why. Probably from screaming, maybe just dry from the meager rations of water they gave in the barracks where he had been moved two nights before.