by L. K. Rigel
“Let her go.”
Sister Jordana nodded. “Of course, Durga.”
The spider woman was the Matriarch.
“So. Another Mallory.” Durga walked a circle around Mal with none of the delight the others had shown. “Any artifacts?”
Sister Jordana crooked her hand, and a guard brought the cradleboard forward. “She was found strapped inside this.”
“Nothing else?”
“Nothing. But the woman carrying the cradleboard was ripped to shreds.”
“And?”
“And the cradleboard is unmolested.”
The woman ran her fingers over the cradleboard’s framework. There were no signs or symbols, no identifying marks. They’d probably be interested in the stone Asherah too. Mal closed her eyes and tried to still her pounding heart. When she opened them again, Durga was staring at her.
“I’ll get to keep my rocks, won’t I?” Great Asherah, she should have kept her mouth shut. She didn’t care about the other gifts – well, maybe the honey – but the rocks were personal. Like the stone Asherah, or Pala’s friendship, or her own breath, the blue amber belonged to her. “Edmund gave them to me.”
“Edmund, is it?” Durga’s eye looked like it might pop out of the dagger. “Jordana, what did you do?”
“It was an accident, Durga. She was lost in a corridor, and they met.”
“Were they alone together?”
“It wasn’t long,” Mal said. Good thing they didn’t know about the dig tunnel. “Counselor came to get me.” What was wrong with talking to Edmund?
“Counselor too?”
“Don’t look at me,” Harriet said. “I was with the Drahans.”
“Celia was behind this. She’s bonded with Allel.”
“We knew the risk when she became Allel’s regent.” Sister Jordana said. “But it’s of no consequence. Edmund and Mallory were together but a few minutes.”
“Edmund and Mallory.” Durga spat the words. “Celia can dream all she likes. If this were Damini’s true daughter, Allel wouldn’t stand a chance against Garrick, no matter how much Edmund and Mallory liked each other.”
Harriet’s gentle hand rested on Mal’s shoulder. She leaned close and whispered, “Don’t worry, dear. None of this means anything.”
But it did mean something. Mal wasn’t sure she trusted Sister Jordana, but she had no question about the woman with the red dagger through her eye. Mal had been so elated to get away from the raptors – yet she sensed this scheming spider woman was more dangerous than the most cunning peregrine.
“Go ahead, Jordana,” Durga said. “See what you can get out of your settlement trash. This one’s not of the blood. She’ll have white eyes before she has her roses.”
The End of the Beginning
Part 2 - Chalice
Vision Quest
Mal’s second wind was about to give out. From dawn she had run through the hills of Corcovado, and now she groaned at the stretch of white beach before her. Her legs went wobbly. Her feet sank into hot sand with each pace.
Seagulls called to each other over the water; the fishermen had been diverted from the bay. One white heron sat on a black rock and followed Mal with a judgmental eye. On the last stretch of beach, her gi pants clung to the sweat on her legs. Her muscles ached, her mind screamed for rest, and her feet hurt.
The path should pick up somewhere down the beach. She put a finger to her temple to slide her shades for a better view. No slider. The generic shades had no telescoping feature, only ultraviolet protection.
Of course. She wasn’t supposed to think ahead, figuratively or literally. The whole purpose of the marathon was to evoke an altered state, break the mind/body connection, and open a metaphysical window for the vision.
She had to receive her totem today to be included in the Rites of May and become a consecrated chalice. Don’t go to your totem; let it come to you.
There, at the far end of the beach, the path turned uphill again away from the water. Easily spotted.
She didn’t need shades. For years she’d hunted berries and jackrabbits with her bare eyes, before she knew about shades or sliders, before Red City was anything to her but the subject of tall tales told by hungry settlers.
She flipped her heavy braid forward, shifting its weight to her shoulder. The white hair laced with strands of gold glistened in the sunlight. It was the one feature she was proud of, but it would be so much easier today if she were as bald as when she first came to Red City four and a half years ago.
Her legs didn’t want to take her. The path was so steep, and she was so tired. On her hands and knees, she half climbed, half crawled while somewhere in the scrub brush two purple martins sang a pretty melody back and forth. Keep going.
She came to a clear pool fed by a waterfall and surrounded by pink and white lilies. She slipped her hand into her pocket and touched the sandstone god she always carried. Thank you, Asherah.
The priests had laid out her quest materials. On a flat granite slab at the pool’s edge were a set of colored charcoal pencils in an embroidered silk wrapper, a bamboo bowl half filled with brown rice, a jar of quest water, red and gold ribbons, and the box of ganpishi paper Edmund of Allel had presented to her years earlier.
Edmund would be coming for the Rites.
Mal ran her fingers over the spot of skin on her wrist lighter than the rest. She usually wore a bright-cut gold bracelet on her left wrist, a gift from the City of Allel. Today she wore no jewelry. Even the band that secured her braid was generic and plain.
The priests had left a towel and clean clothes. She put the Asherah beside the quest water and stripped off her sweaty shirt and pants. The sun on her bare skin recharged her with energy.
She took off her shades – a few minutes wouldn’t hurt – and put them with the stone god. She wished she’d kept at least one of the blue amber stones Edmund had given her. It would be a comforting presence beside the god.
She picked up the jar. The peyote in the quest water made it nasty, bitter stuff. She could only get through half of it. The reset could wait until she washed off this grime. She fixed her braid on top of her head with the chopsticks and stepped into the pool under the waterfall.
The water was warm, sourced from the artesian wells that supplied Red City. It swept away the sweat from the run, and the muscles in her neck and back relaxed. The circle of roses tattooed around her right upper arm glistened, and she flexed her biceps with satisfaction.
“So.” A cold voice sounded behind her. “Another one.”
The Matriarch stepped into the pool. The oldest living chalice, Durga had been the first touched by Asherah at the brink of the cataclysm. Well over a hundred years old, she didn’t look more than thirty.
Her hair was hidden in a black turban. Her left shoulder and arm were bared to expose her totem. Legend was the black widow spider had been seared onto her skin by Asherah herself. The Matriarch’s completion tattoo, a red dagger, plunged through her left eye to her jaw.
She stared past Mal and said, “Another Mallory, Jordana?”
But no one was there.
The spider detached from the skin on the Matriarch’s left shoulder, crawled off, and jumped onto the waterfall, dancing on the spray.
Mal shook her head and blinked. The Matriarch paid the dancing spider no attention. Her hard stare through that dagger eye sent Mal back to the morning she had come to Red City.
“Any artifacts?”
From the start, the Matriarch had despised her. From before the start, really, all because of her name. Mallory. The old world Emperor’s lost granddaughter. Last living member of the Imperial dynasty, whose rightful place was at the top of the Great Chain of Being.
According to the Matriarch, the Mallory legend was a lie planted by enemies of the new world order who plotted to destroy Red City and the Concords and restore the Imperium. Every girl of a certain age with that name was a pretender and a fraud.
As if Mal had chosen it for he
rself.
Sister Jordana’s voice. “She was found inside a cradleboard strapped to a dead woman.”
Mal had learned about the cradleboard at the same time Sister Jordana did: Ma wasn’t her ma. Ma had found her in the cradleboard lodged under a bush, dropped by a raptor.
Unlike the Matriarch, Sister Jordana and Harriet had wanted Mal to be the real Mallory. The Matriarch had sent the cradleboard for analysis. A Team of Inquiry confirmed it was a wildling artifact.
Wildling. Worse than settlement trash. She was a wildling and raptor droppings.
But better than a legendary princess. Mal wanted nothing to do with politics and intrigue. She just wanted to be a normal chalice, if there was such a thing. To play with her dog, hang out with her hubbies, collect her contract prices and ponder what she’d do in retirement. Not royalty, but not trash either.
Edmund, a prince, had treated her like a citizen.
“I’ll get to keep my rocks?” Mal said. Eighteen-year-old Mal spoke, but her thirteen-year-old voice echoed the words. This was all wrong. Or was it part of the vision quest? Time had split. Then and now were happening together.
She never cared about the other gifts from Allel, but the rocks were personal. They weren’t from the city. Edmund himself had given them to her, to Mal, not to some future chalice.
Like the carved Asherah she had found outside the settlement wall, the blue amber had seemed meant for her the moment she touched the stones. She glanced at the Matriarch.
“Edmund gave them to me.” The words channeled through Mal’s body, replayed from the past.
“Edmund, is it?” The Matriarch’s eye looked like it would pop out of the dagger. Mal hadn’t laughed then, but she did now. The Matriarch glared into empty space where Sister Jordana should be. “What did you do, Jordana?”
“It was an accident, Durga. She was lost in a corridor, and they met.”
“They were alone together?”
“Only a few minutes.” Mal tried to explain, as she had tried before, and failed again. She was so confused. Was it now? Was it then?
The Matriarch wouldn’t listen. She was furious. Why was it wrong to talk to Edmund? He was nice.
Now, of course, Mal knew. She should never have been left alone with Edmund. He was the prince of his city, would be king one day. They could never be friends. She agreed! She wasn’t a child anymore. She had achieved detachment.
Sister Jordana said, “Edmund and Mallory were together but a few minutes.”
“Edmund and Mallory.” The Matriarch mocked the joining of the names. “Go ahead, Jordana. See what you can get out of your settlement trash.”
The sting of it felt fresh. Mal had never forgotten the Matriarch’s label. Settlement trash. Or her prediction.
The dagger floated off the Matriarch’s face, its tip teasing the spider in the waterfall. The vision and the voice faded with the Matriarch’s last sentence. “This one will have white eyes before she has her roses.”
A loud, grating croak jolted Mal out of the vision. The scratching call of a white heron. She stepped out of the water and ran the towel over her skin, the slur still ringing in her ears.
She’d borne the insults over the years. Settlement trash. Wildling droppings. Check her eyes; are they white yet? Taunts from other bleeders – not her hubmates or teachers, but girls like Claire of Allel who resented her for other reasons.
Well, the Matriarch and Claire and everyone else could drink disappointment. Mallory of Settlement 20 was a bleeder, as touched by Asherah as any of them.
She flung the towel to the ground. Standing naked on the granite slab, she flexed her right biceps and shouted toward Red City. “No white eyes yet, Durga!”
But … was that it? The vision of her vision quest? No spirit guide, no blinding flash of insight? No totem?
Mal blinked back tears as she put on the clean clothes left by the priests. She’d been sure she’d receive a totem. Not just because she was a bleeder. She had been touched by Asherah in another way.
She’d never told anyone about the voice – she didn’t need more ridicule. A voice, both womanly and childlike, had spoken to her twice right after she’d become a bleeder. Look! Once, it directed her to the carved stone god. The second time, it showed her the skeletal remains of Sky Meadowlark through solid dirt.
It must have been Asherah. Didn’t that mean she was chosen? Didn’t it have to mean she was supposed to be a chalice?
Maybe they had her birth year wrong. Ma could have lied about that too. One time, a bleeder failed to receive her totem, and it was because of a mix-up about her birth date. The next year she saw her totem in the vision quest, no problem.
Mal’s heart felt sick. She laid out the colored pencils and spread the paper on the prayer rug beside the rock. She had been allowed to keep Allel’s gifts, the stones, the bolts of different cloths, and this ganpishi paper. But if she received no vision of a totem, what was the point?
She poured the rest of the quest water over the rice and pulled the chopsticks out of her braid. The rice was good and she was hungry, even if her heart was heavy with disappointment. That was the vision’s message: The Matriarch had been right.
Mal had forgotten to put her shades back on, and the bay was so bright it hurt her eyes. Sunrays struck the waves and ricocheted into the air, leaping flames of light.
Don’t let the sun get in your eyes! She didn’t remember the world being so bright before she had shades.
Over the water, the light flames danced higher and brighter. They changed color from white gold to yellow, then orange, red, and blue. Dazzling – something was wrong. The bay was on fire. The fire consolidated into a flickering, floating sphere. There was a consciousness within the flame.
No. The consciousness was the flame. And it knew her.
The sphere rose above the water and moved toward her, and she wasn’t afraid. The flame expanded and opened outward like wings, and she stood and spread her arms with it and laughed with sheer joy. The fire knew her, loved her. It was her champion.
It had known her before she was born and would know her after she died.
What happened? She was lying face down over the ganpishi paper. The sun was well past its zenith. She was wearing her shades. The charcoal pencils were flung all over the rocks and the ground, and the paper contained a picture.
A firebird. Better than anything she’d ever drawn.
Tears slid down her cheeks from under the loose shades, out of relief more than happiness. The Matriarch couldn’t deny it now. Mal deserved her roses. The goddess had revealed her totem.
She kissed the stone god and put it in her pocket. She rolled the paper with the firebird on the inside and tied it with the red and gold ribbons.
The sun dipped behind the western mountains as she headed back to Corcovado. She felt fantastic. Lights were on at the top of the admin tower in the Matriarch’s wing. The landing lights at the dirigidock and the harbor lights in the bay all flashed twice in unison then stayed on. The load masters must have coordinated that just for fun.
The princes were arriving.
She returned to the compound past the barracks and through the garden, then across the empty bistro courtyard. Everyone stayed inside today; no one would risk corrupting a chalice’s vision quest. Asherah willing, the other nineteen would return with pictures on their paper.
Nin was waiting for the lift to their hub in the residential tower. The poor dear was filthy; apparently she didn’t get a nice shower. Nin was such a goof. It was easy to forget how pretty she was. Her perfect complexion was light olive, and she had waist-length brown hair. Her nose was straight and flat and turned down in a cute and graceful way. She rarely looked directly at a person. It was startling now when she looked up with sparkling green eyes.
She too had red and gold ribbon tied around her ganpishi paper.
They didn’t break the rules. They remained silent as they waited for the lift. But once they were inside and the door closed, th
ey burst into giddy laughter.
The Queen Clause
Every girl in Red City had decided the bistro was the best place to have a meal. The outside court was flooded with pink and white and yapping dogs. Mal and her four hubmates navigated to the center of the court around the extra chairs sticking out from every table.
Girls thirteen and under wore white. Every year a greater number of bleeders were found, but seeing so many whites together in one spot was a little shocking. There must be fifty out here. Near the hydroponics glass wall, they were doubled up.
“Great gods,” Roh said. “If they all make it, contract prices are going down.”
“Roh, your lack of feeling for the sacred nature of the mission is appalling.” Nothing escaped Kim’s dry humor. She tilted her head toward five whites at the courtyard center and jerked her thumb toward hydroponics. “Double up over there.”
The whites didn’t argue. Mal’s hub was Prime Hub.
Kim was the shortest of the hubbies and the most athletic, blonde and blue-eyed – though Mal couldn’t remember the last time she’d seen Kim’s eyes. Kim didn’t hate her shades like Roh did. Kim and Roh swung their chairs around and straddled them backwards while Mal and Nin sat down and stashed their backpacks under the table.
Kairo settled like a feather floating down to a satin cushion.
A breeze fluttered the leaves of the shade trees. Fountains of hot pink and bright orange nasturtiums overflowed the waist-high pots interspersed through the court. There were roses everywhere, but Mal’s favorite flowers were the peonies that bloomed this time of year.
The time of the Rites.
“Did anybody get any sleep last night?” Roh lifted her shades for just enough time to rub her eyes. “When I find out who took forty minutes to dock at two o’clock in the morning, I’m not playing with him.”
She had dark brown eyes and brown-black skin. She wore her hair in a mass of thin braids like Pala, Mal’s friend at the settlement, except Pala liked to put decorations in his hair. Roh called herself a purist and refused ornaments, but she worked her braids into elaborate artistic configurations.
