Apocalypto (Omnibus Edition)

by L. K. Rigel

  Was this what a god looked like?

  “You shot the eagle,” the Emissary said.

  Pala stepped forward, still holding his longbow. The guards watched him but didn’t try to take the weapon. Mal glowed with pride. Pala was the bravest person she knew. His yew longbow with horn nocks, etched with designs by Palada, was grander than anything the guards carried.

  “How did you come by mechanical arrowheads?” the Emissary asked.

  The short friendly woman glanced at Palada, but Pala answered. “I made them.”

  “Impressive,” the Emissary said. “You appear old enough to join your city’s guard. Will you show Garrick this invention?”

  “Unlikely.” That was odd. Pala and Palada never said anything bad about Garrick, but it occurred to Mal that they had never said anything good either. Garrick was the greatest city in the world. Everyone knew that. Why would Pala withhold anything from the king?

  “Will you show the captain of my guard?” the Emissary said. “A weapon like that would well serve Red City, and therefore humanity.”

  Pala held the Emissary’s gaze. “I’ll talk it over with my da.”

  “Excellent.”

  The Emissary turned to Mal. Her eyes stayed red-brown. She scanned Mal’s boots, coveralls, hat, and even the purple-black stains on Mal’s fingers. Mal had always paraded her matted hair and the dirt on her face as badges of honor. Suddenly, she didn’t see them that way.

  The Emissary gestured toward the friendly lady. “This is Harriet, Red City’s Physician in Chief. She’ll speak with you privately.” It wasn’t a request, and it wasn’t an order. Just a statement of fact.

  Mal shrugged and led Harriet to her room. Like the Emissary and every Red City guard, Harriet was entirely clean. Her clothes looked like they’d never been worn before. In contrast, Mal was dusty and sweaty, and maybe she didn’t smell very good. She clasped the stone god in her pocket.

  “Is Asherah your personal god?”

  Mal’s heart raced. How could Harriet know about the stone god? But the physician only nodded at the wood carving on the chest where Mal kept her clothes.

  When Garrick converted to Samael, Mal had kept the wooden Asherah the old priest had given her. She’d made a shrine for it – a half-burned tallow candle, several treasured pomegranate seeds long dried up, a white heron’s feather. The new priest called such shrines abominations, but she didn’t think he was right about that.

  “Yes. Asherah is my personal god.” A wave of well-being washed over her, as if the goddess had heard and been pleased by the declaration.

  “What do you know about the gods, Mallory?”

  Mal frowned. She didn’t know which god loved Red City, so she didn’t know what Harriet wanted to hear. The priest of Asherah had said the gods want the people to light holy fires and prepare to pass through the liminal gauntlet to get their souls. The priest of Samael said people were to love Samael and not make shrines to any other god.

  “The gods are notoriously unpredictable.” It felt grown up and clever to use the old priest’s phrase.

  Harriet smiled.

  “Is that wrong?”

  “In my opinion, it’s quite correct, dear. Would you lie down?”

  Harriet took a white stick out of her bag. When she swept it over Mal’s belly, a picture appeared on a tablet in her other hand. “This is what you look like inside.” It was only shadows and light, but Harriet seemed pleased.

  She had questions: How many days had Mal bled? How many times had it come back? How many days in between? Had Ma given her anything strange to eat before it started?

  “Your mother says you’re thirteen?”

  “And a half.”

  “And she’s explained that you will come to Red City to live?”

  “Palama said it’s wonderful there, and there’s always plenty to eat.”

  “Palama?”

  “My friend Pala’s ma. A raptor got her.”

  “I’m sorry.” There was a catch in her voice. Mal believed she really was sorry.

  “When I was little, I called Pala’s ma and da Palama and Palada. It stuck.” Funny, she didn’t even know their real names.

  “You mean Gopala.” Harriet put away the instruments.

  How did Harriet know that name?

  Harriet snapped the blue bag shut before Mal could ask. “Palama was right.” She raised her eyebrows like she was letting Mal in on a fabulous secret. “Red City is wonderful. And there are good things to eat from all over the world.”

  Oh, Palama! What would she think if she were here?

  “But you’ll find something even better,” Harriet continued, “something you might not have thought about. Lots of other girls like you.”

  Blood Chosen

  Other girls. That’s what Mal missed. Why despite Palama she had always felt so achingly alone.

  Ma didn’t have much womanly sentiment. It was always a battle with her, a game where Ma was the adversary. Not as bad as a raptor. More like the coyotes outside the wall, to be avoided if at all possible.

  Harriet sat on the floor and crossed her legs. With dimpled cheeks and tiny wrinkles at the corners of her twinkling gray-blue eyes, she seemed young and old at the same time. Mal sensed that she could ask Harriet anything and get a true answer, not a snap or a joke or an outright lie.

  “How old are you?”

  “Thirty-seven.”

  Great Asherah! So old and yet so pretty and healthy. Harriet must be natural born – or blood chosen. Blood chosen. The phrase came up in stories about the chalices of Red City. Harriet’s arms were covered. She had no visible tattoos or service marks to indicate whether she was a chalice.

  “How old is the Emissary?”

  Harriet smiled the way adults did when Mal asked too many questions. “Will you sit?” She indicated the floor in front of her.

  “All right.” She mimicked Harriet’s position, legs crossed and palms face up, resting on her thighs.

  “I don’t know how old the Emissary is, Mallory. She was Emissary when I came to Red City. I do know she’s lived there from its founding.”

  Well over a hundred years ago. “Then it’s true, what they say about Red City.”

  “They say a lot of things.” The corners of Harriet’s eyes crinkled.

  She showed Mal how to breathe relaxation in and blow bad feelings out, but it was hard to stop thinking about the Emissary. Mal had heard the legends about chalices, that the goddess gave them extraordinarily long lives. But a story was one thing. It was quite another to see the reality.

  Harriet closed her eyes. Mal touched the stone Asherah in her pocket and closed her eyes too. A tingly feeling came over her. Not excitement. Anticipation.

  Her eyes were closed. She sensed a light glowing around Harriet, but she was too relaxed to bother looking. A pulsing stream of energy seemed to connect them, flowing from one body to the other. Harriet was beautiful. The most wonderful, kindest person in the world. It would be so good to be closer.

  A pulling sensation tugged just below Mal’s heart. At first it was like when the Ptery looked at her, but this wasn’t violent or invasive. More like an invitation. A sense of something ripping open came over her, like the real Mallory was trying to escape, get out of this body, this suffocating prison. The world went away. She was somewhere else – somewhere wonderful – with Harriet.

  Or maybe she was Harriet. She burst out laughing.

  Or was Harriet laughing?

  The tugging and ripping changed to an immediate closing up. The world came back. She was Mal, and Harriet was Harriet.

  She opened her eyes, and Harriet said: Forgive me.

  Or had Mal felt the words, rather than heard them?

  Forgive? She loved Harriet and Harriet loved her. Mal’s heart could burst open, it was so full. Nothing could ever separate her from Harriet.

  “I think we’ll cut this off and let it start over.” Harriet was looking at the knots in Mal’s hopelessly tangled hair. As
if nothing had just happened between them. She rummaged through her bag and pulled out scissors and another instrument. “This will do it, yes?”

  As globs of her matted hair fell away, Mal felt even lighter. Happy, if that were possible. “What did you just do?”

  Harriet finished with the scissors and proceeded to shave Mal’s scalp. “I just determined that you have a soul, Mallory.”

  “But I’m …” Mal didn’t finish the sentence. She was going to have to change how she saw herself: But I’m from a settlement. One step above a wildling.

  When the old priest of Asherah spoke of preparing Mal for the liminal gauntlet, Ma had scoffed. She don’t need a soul to work in a saloon.

  “Whatever happens,” Harriet said, “you will never have to endure the gauntlet.”

  Mal returned to the saloon a new version of herself, her head shaved to the skin. She wore a long white jumpsuit with sleeves just past her elbows covered with a sleeveless white mantle. She’d thrown the hood back the way Harriet wore hers. Everything fit perfectly and accented the breasts and hips that had recently begun to take shape under her coveralls.

  All white. Mal wanted very much to impress Harriet and the Emissary, but she’d never be able to keep these clothes clean.

  Harriet spoke to the Emissary, who glanced at Ma dubiously. Poor Ma was worse off than the jackrabbit. She kept running her hands through her hair, pulling it out of the string.

  Mal felt shaky but full of energy. Some wild power had awakened in her, ready to be tamed and enjoyed. Ma was a stranger to her. Mal was more like the exotic Emissary than she would ever be like Ma.

  Palada sat on a stool at the bar, working on a pink quartz stone she and Pala had found outside the wall. When Palada wasn’t cooking, he was always carving pieces of wood and stone into shapes. The quartz in his hands was becoming a miniature peregrine.

  Mal’s heart tightened. She wouldn’t get to see the finished carving.

  “Very well, madam.” The Emissary addressed Ma. “It’s been confirmed that Mallory is blood chosen. Our physician will see you now.”

  “See me?” Ma blinked.

  “As soon as you’re verified, you can claim the bounty.”

  “Verified?”

  “Our physician must verify that you gave birth to Mallory.”

  “I never!” Ma stepped back in disgust. “I’m no wildling. I’m a citizen!”

  “Quite.” The Emissary raised a tattooed eyebrow. “That will lower the bounty, but not significantly. May I see her birth certificate?”

  “Sir what?”

  “Madam, if the girl wasn’t born naturally, then you must have her birth documents.”

  Ma glanced from Harriet to Mal to Pala to Palada and even to the guards. There was no help for her anywhere.

  “Is Mallory your daughter or not?”

  Ma’s face went as colorless as her hair, and she looked like she was going to faint. Mal wasn’t so steady either. She barely heard the answer: Not.

  “Explain.” A command, not a request.

  “Thirteen …” It took some time for Ma to get the words going. “Thirteen years ago, I was scrapping for wild asparagus in the rough. Settlement 20 was nothing then. Nothing but outliers. Tents only, no wall, no raptor cages. A fraction of the workers we have today. We didn’t qualify for children.”

  Ma perked up reciting the list of hardships and indignities. Her eyes glittered.

  “I heard a cackling in the scrub.” She loved the attention. Even the guards were listening to her. She pointed at Mal. “It was that one. Bound in a great papoose. Strapped to the back of a dead woman.”

  Mal felt dizzy. She saw the wood planks of the floor coming at her face, but Harriet caught her before she fell. “Don’t worry, dear. You’re with us now.”

  “You couldn’t tell anything from the fabric.” Ma hunted and pecked for words to meet with the Emissary’s favor. “The dead woman’s clothes were ripped to nothing. One side of her face was gone, and her body was gouged and torn.”

  “Raptors.” A tear rolled down Harriet’s cheek.

  Ma is not my ma.

  “But the infant was untouched,” Ma continued. “You see? The gods meant the little one to live.”

  That one. The infant. The little one. So impersonal.

  “Who gave the child her name?”

  Ma brightened. “It was the priest.”

  “Asheran or Samaeli?” The Emissary hissed the second word. No wonder the priest hadn’t shown up to greet the visitors.

  “They was Asherahs then.” Ma had to tell the truth. This was too easy to check. “Long before the Samaeli came.”

  The Emissary pulled up her hood, replaced her sunglasses, and walked out of the saloon. Apparently, the interview had ended.

  “These are your shades.” Harriet pulled a pair of the wonderful sunglasses from her mantle’s pocket and pointed to a tiny knob on one side. “This slider works like binoculars or a telescope. Never go into the sun without them.”

  What were binoculars? Mal put on the shades. They automatically adjusted to the shape of her head. A burst of colors sparkled in front of her and she laughed with pleasure. The word calibrated flashed and faded.

  In the bright square, there was no pulling down the bill of her cap, no squinting resistance to the day’s glare. She played with the slider and immediately lost her balance. She’d have to practice to get the focus right, but these would be great for hunting.

  She wished she had another pair to give to Pala.

  “Wait a minute! Wait a minute!” Ma came running outside after them. “What about me?”

  “You.” The Emissary swung around in full fury. Her eyes flashed fire orange – no doubt about it. “You’re not the natural mother. You’re not the legal mother. You discovered an infant in the wild and kept her for yourself. Why shouldn’t I report you to Garrick?”

  “She was a gift from Asherah!” Ma fell to her knees, sobbing.

  Unwittingly, Ma had said the right thing. The Emissary softened one tick. “And you thought yourself worthy?”

  Ma nodded, bewildered and forlorn. Pitiful.

  The Emissary showed no pity. But her tone softened. “More likely, you kept a living infant female for yourself, hoping to one day cash in. You have nothing to show us, no proof that what you say is true.”

  “But I do, I do. I have it!”

  The Emissary’s eyes flashed fiery green, and Harriet said great Asherah under her breath.

  Hope and greed and defeat competed for position on Ma’s face. “I have the papoose! Wait!” She scrambled back into the saloon, screaming wait! wait!

  The Emissary and Harriet fixed on the saloon door while Ma’s muffled waits continued inside the saloon. Mal ran over to Pala. “I’m going then, Gopala.” She never called him by his full name, but it seemed right under the circumstances.

  He nodded. “It’s good.”

  “Yes. I feel sure it is.” She didn’t care about the settlement. She didn’t care about Ma. But it would be as strange to be without Pala as without the ground under her feet. “Don’t forget me.”

  He flashed his wonderful smile, the brightest smile in the world, and patted her bald head. Mal’s heart felt like it was tearing in two. Pala was like her brother, the best friend anybody could have.

  “The Emissary is right,” he said. “I’m no settlement worker. I’ll be off to Garrick now. Join the guard.”

  “You always protected me.”

  “Now you admit it.”

  Ma hobbled out of the saloon dragging a cradleboard. Stood on end, it was as high as her armpits. Mal ran back to Harriet, making sure the little stone god was tucked safe in her pocket.

  The Emissary herself examined the cradleboard. She showed no outward disappointment, but Mal thought her initial eagerness faded. “You managed to do something right, madam.” The Emissary crooked her hand and nodded to a guard. “I suppose we can leave Garrick out of this.” The guard took away Ma’s prize.

 
Ma buckled to her knees, shaking her head like she couldn’t believe how badly things were turning out. She looked longingly at the Blackbird. All these years she’d kept that cradleboard safe, likely dreaming of the reward to come from such a machine.

  “I kept her alive!”

  Not I loved her. Mal was doubly glad for her shades. No one could see her tears of humiliation. She followed Harriet up the stairs into the Blackbird. Ma remained crumpled on the ground, sobbing.

  “I kept the sun out of her eyes!”

  Edmund of Allel

  From the regent’s turret window, Edmund watched the crew of the Golden Wasp lower the captain’s yacht into the water. With the fog bank rolling in, the lighthouse was lit, but there were still a few hours in the day before the sun set. Plenty of time to bring in the Emissary and her settlement girl and make the run north to pick up Garrick.

  Edmund turned away. He’d rather be down in the tunnel with the dig team, but he had to confer with the regent about tonight’s reception. One thing he didn't mind about the whole thing: He would finally get to see the Emissary’s famous copperhead tattoo and flashing eyes.

  The regent’s black whippet jumped onto her lap, and a strand of her white hair fell forward as she kissed and nuzzled the dog. Celia was ninety-four, and the only line on her face was from her frown. It was bizarre to think that when he was sixty, the chalice who had borne him would still look thirty.

  If he lived that long. He of all people knew long life wasn’t guaranteed, even to the natural born.

  Celia ran a finger over the honeybee tattoo on her left cheek, a sign she was bothered by some political problem. “Lady Drahan will be insufferable with gloating tonight.”

  “Great luck for Allel, though, that Claire turned bleeder.” It was the reason for the Emissary’s visit. “The tax on her bounty will pay for tubing for the hospital and a new pump for the public lift.”

  He instantly regretted the remark. It wasn’t Celia’s fault his father had impoverished Allel to win her contract.

  But it was her fault he thought about such things at his age. Hospital maintenance, beekeeping, improving raptor defenses. Hiding contraband crops from Teams of Inquiry. He’d never had the chance to be a child, let alone a prince. From the start, Celia had trained him to think like a king, to care about Allel’s municipal infrastructure and follow petty intrigues among the Concord Cities.