This was as far as I’d ever been. We are brought this far in a group, after our eleventh Deluge, and the sages point the way to the barrier, a straight line running to the North, down the sloping hillside and beyond the outcrop one could barely see from the summit. It was different, coming here with others. Alone and exhausted, weary with hunger and wrought with worry for my family – it was not always only our homes that the Deluge claimed – the distance seemed far greater than all the distance I’d already crossed.
I began my descent. I fell into the shadow of the hillside, granted relief from the angry suns. I pushed myself a little less now, stopping to rest when I felt the need, continuing on when I feared I’d fall asleep. Rocky soil was replaced with sparse greenery our people called grass in honor of the plant for our home world, though the sages insisted our long lost grass did not bear teeth. One stepped carefully through the bitegrass; it was not uncommon for adults to come through the ritual missing parts of their toes.
The outcropping loomed in front of me suddenly and I realized I was there. I paused just on the south side of the rock face, nervous and giddy and terrified and exuberant all at once. The adults never spoke of what happened at the barrier with the children; the sages said only that the barrier guardian lived beyond, keeping the barrier up, keeping the Malicious Ones out, keeping us safe. They said the guardian had come with us from our world, crossed the stars with us, and sought only to keep us safe. They said we owed the barrier guardian as much as we owed our Benevolent Hosts. They said we must make our offerings, so that the guardian would know us and watch over us.
This close to the barrier, I expected to feel it or see it. Looking around, I could see the bitegrass taper away to gravel and clumpbush and, further away, I could see hazy shapes in the distance. Malicious Ones? I couldn’t tell from where I stood, and I certainly didn’t want to get any closer. The sages’ tales were close enough.
Still caught between excitement and fear, I gathered my courage and walked around the outcropping.
She stood with her back to me, a miserable form tethered at the ankle to a curved post. Her attention was fully on the moving forms in the distance. I stood, struck dumb, staring at her. She was . . . even now, so long after, I cannot come up with the words.
I must have made a noise, for eventually she turned to regard me. Hair redder than the blood that pours from a fresh wound, redder than my burned and blistered skin, fell in lush waves from her head, half-cloaking her nakedness. Her skin was the color of damp earth, buried beneath the soil and out of reach from the Triple Suns. She did not look burned. Her eyes were a color akin to the bitegrass, but richer, a brilliant shade of vert that did not exist in the land of our Benevolent Hosts.
She gazed at me across the distance, the weight of her eyes a pressure on my chest that trapped my breath in my throat. Few remember much before our sixth Deluge, but all of us carry the memory of our presentation and acceptance by our Benevolent Hosts. Her gaze was much like that: heavy and penetrating, judging, considering. Whatever decision she came to she did not speak it. She turned from me, taking away the privilege of her astonishingly brilliant eyes, and I could have wept from the lack.
The sages had never called the barrier guardian a woman, but what else could she be?
I moved closer to her, holding my meager offerings before me. On the ground around her was a scattering of like vessels. Some were tossed far from her reach, others were set around her. Many were crumbling, as if they’d been there for a long time. How many had come before me, to offer her such paltry gifts? What could we give, to show our appreciation for her benevolence?
“Blessed Guardian --” I began, my voice halting on my rehearsed speech.
She turned back to me so swiftly I did not see her move. Her hand reached out, water-quick, and yanked the vessel from my hands. She hurled the container at the outcropping, where it hit the stone and smashed into pieces. Sweetwater hissed against the rock, and my mingled blood separated from it, trickling to the ground.
Dazed, I fell back to my haunches and crawled away from her.
She gave me her back once more, dismissing me from her mind. I sat, confused as to how to proceed. The sages hadn’t spoken of this.
I don’t know how long I sat there. The growing shadows of nights soothed the scorched landscape. The wind played with her hair, causing it to undulate around her body. I watched the stillness in her limbs, the utter focus she had for the creatures in the distance. I felt the weight of the world around us, gravity twisting and twirling, the longer I sat, to weave around her. The light and shadow of the coming evening played with her, swimming around her as though the air was the water of the Deluge and as if they were fish from across the stars.
As night came on and the Dancing Moons rose, brilliant white light washed the land in silver relief. My heart felt it might break at the beauty of the tethered woman before me. I stared at the odd, link-rope where it encased her ankle. A prickling of unease wormed its way into my awareness, managing to disrupt, just a bit, the wonder and majesty I felt simply by being in her presence.
And then the Malicious One reared up before her, its body pressed as close to the barrier as it could get without being harmed. In the white and blue light pouring down from the Dancing Moods I could see its face, its eyes rolling with destructive desire, its mouth gaping wide, teeth slick with saliva. The sages made sure we knew of the Malicious Ones, grasping, biting, devouring creatures that resented our arrival and sought our destruction. We would be torn asunder, without the barrier guardian to keep them out. The Benevolent Hosts erected the barrier, but it was the guardian who watched over us. Even now the Malicious Ones sought to destroy her, the one thing keeping us safe.
The Malicious One rose to its full height, stretching five of its six limbs moonward and releasing a vibrating cry that split the night and set my teeth on edge. Never before had I been this close to a Malicious One. Never before had I heard its cry. The sound traced up my skin like so many knives piercing my flesh, making my already scorched skin break out with a stinging, cold sweat.
The barrier guardian stared up at the creature in rapt fascination, reaching for it even though her tether and the barrier itself kept her from touching it. The Malicious One came down onto all six limbs, shook itself, and then stepped through the barrier.
I watched in horror as it closed the distance between it and the naked woman. It moved as though through great resistance, and I knew the barrier had to be causing it pain. It moved slowly, its steps careful and deliberate. When it reached her it gazed up at her with its plentiful eyes. It lifted its massive head, deadly fangs glistening in the moons’ light. The guardian made the first noise I’d heard from her, a soft, encouraging sound without words, not unlike the sound a mother makes over her young. The Malicious One struggled nearer, grunting with the effort. I did not dare so much as breathe, this close to certain death. The woman reached out with her hands once more, and finally, finally, the Malicious One brought its great head to rest upon her out-stretched palm.
The woman went down onto her knees, still making her soothing noises, and the Malicious One followed her, its many eyes closing with a sigh.
They sat like that for the remainder of the night. I watched, unable to take my gaze from them, though none of us moved for hours. Finally, as the first of the Dancing Moons set, signaling the approach of dawn, the Malicious One took its head from her hand, rose to its feet, and began to make its way back across the barrier.
The woman did not move while the beast retreated. Over her bowed, bare shoulder I could see other forms is the distance. Other Malicious Ones, I realized. As the nearest one rejoined its kin a wild cry went up, going on and on and on as night turned to day. Then, with the coming of dawn, the cry ceased and the moving shapes of the Malicious Ones disappeared from sight.
Just as I began to inhale a breath of stunned relief the tethered woman tossed her head back and keened such anguish into the air I was sure the Dancing Moons wo
uld return, if only to comfort her. The sorrow that spilled from her was deeper than anything I had ever known before, than anything I had ever heard the sages speak of. In her ringing cry I felt every loss I’d ever known in my short life, every person claimed by the Deluge, every valued item swallowed by the rushing waters that purged our land and made us start anew. In her keening I felt every life ever lived and lost, since the time of our ancestors and beyond, all the way cross the stars, through time back to our lost world whose name we would never even know.
My body wanted to turn itself inside out, if only that would ease her sorrow. My skin begged to bleed for her, to bring her comfort. Helpless, desperate, I clutched the dried berries and mege-nut, and crawled the distance to her. She collapsed further as her cry echoed around us, her hands on the ground, fingers disappearing into bitegrass. I ignored the sharp stinging as hundreds of tiny teeth tore small bits of flesh from my legs. The discomfort was nothing compared to the wretchedness in my soul, shattered by her sorrow.
Her whole body trembled with a grief I didn’t understand. Helpless in the face of it, I pushed the berries into her hands, wanting to give her something, anything. She gave a shuddering sob, looking up at me with eyes nearly lost in tears.
She seized me with hands as strong as stone, fingers wrapping around my wrists before I could even think of resisting. She took my hand in her own and, impossibly, reached into her chest and withdrew a piece of her heart. It ran with blood and tears, a dismal piece of meat, a faded, withered bit of organ. With her other hand she pried my mouth open and shoved the meat down my throat until I could either swallow or choke.
I swallowed, and the salt of blood and the salt of tears mingled in my stomach, forming a heavy weight. Heat speared my insides, unfurling through my body. She placed her hands on either side of my head, gazing into my soul with those amazing eyes, and in the span of that second I knew her sorrow. I knew the treachery of our ancestors, stealing her away from her kind, taking her across the stars with them, promising her a new home as her own, as their own, teetered on the brink of destruction. Here, she was alone like we had never been alone, bereft of the company of her kind and the companions of her choosing, left to linger when all that she knew and loved was lost.
She poured her memories into me with her heart and tears, too many, far too many to fully comprehend. My mind danced around them, letting most of them slip through my awareness in order to save my sanity. I caught glimpses of that forgotten world, formations and structures that made no sense to me and thus were easy to let go. But in them all, I saw her, running through wild places with a host of other beings with her, untamed, unfettered, adored and beloved, or forgotten and unknown, but always, always free.
She watched the beautiful beasts of this new place, running across their plains, hunting and feasting, mating and creating life with a longing that went beyond words. She captivated their attention as surely as she captivated mine, and they came as close as they dared, seeking her out, beckoning her to join them, inviting them into their lives. A few strong, brave ones embraced the stinging pain of the barrier, allowing her to touch them, to heal them so that they may cross back over again. They knew her wildness, knew her for one of their own, trapped and unable to break free. They raged at her pain and saw us as the cause.
Hours or days passed while I observed her memories, my body sprawled on the ground and cared for by the barrier guardian. I came back to myself flat on my back, my head in her naked lap, her fingers stroking my face. Her tears bathed my flesh and kept me from burning. I shivered with my new knowledge. The barrier came first, the hatred of the Malicious Ones after. The sages had the story wrong. I wanted to crawl away in shame that was not truly my own shame, could not be my own shame. Her memories were of ancestors my ancestors could barely remember at all; how could we be to blame from what they’d done?
She made a small sound within her throat, that same soothing noise she’d offered the Malicious One. I found, as it washed over me, that I could not hold on to the wretched guilt I felt. She was generous. She was kind. Even now, as she still suffered, as she still bore her sorrow, she sought to protect me.
My heart shuddered within my chest. I had to ease her pain. Did anyone else know of this? I couldn’t imagine even the sages remaining silent with such cruelty in our midst. She could not stay here, tethered in place, captured, unfree.
She continued making her soothing noise, but her eyes lifted from mine to gaze upon the plains of the Malicious Ones. Her muscles quivered with the need to run, to take flight, to roam wild.
I reached for her tether. The curved post would not budge. When I reached for the link-rope around her ankle she stopped me with a gesture. She pulled my foot so that it was next to hers and placed my hands upon the link-rope. She stroked my face one more time. She pressed her eyes closed, her perfect brow wrinkling with the force of some inner struggle, and then she pushed one of my fingers against the link-rope. The piece around her ankle sprang open, pivoted, and closed around my own ankle.
The piece of her heart, still within my stomach, bounced around a bit as the link-rope closed on my ankle. My skin rippled violently, and I thought I would be sick, but then the sensation passed. I leaned heavily against the post, staring up at her, unable to speak.
She gazed at me a while longer still, not speaking, barely moving, and I felt my awareness of the barrier grow until I could see it, shimmering a few paces away, stretching along to the horizon in either direction. It shimmied back and forth, as if made of heat, and within me the piece of her heart shimmied in time with it. She watched as I came to understand that this bit of her would keep the barrier up even as she was free beyond it, and then she smiled. It was a glorious smile, brighter than the brightest light of the Triple Suns and the Dancing Moons together, a wild, joyous smile that would feed me for the rest of my days. She whooped in delight, turned, and ran across the barrier. The Mistress of the Wild Ones , the last of her kind, let loose a triumphant trumpet and disappeared, at long last, from the knowledge of humankind.
Alexander's Heart
by Rebecca Buchanan
Imperial Stellar Barque: The Fox Who Is Both Loyal and Clever
Position: T-plus three hours fourteen minutes Charites Pylon / T-minus seven hours twenty-seven minutes planet Antheia - star Euphrosyne - Charites Trinary System
For the third day in a row, the priest insisted on interrupting his morning cacahuatl. Expecting Tadi with his drink (and maybe a side of strawberries and orange slices), he called "Enter" when the door chimed. Instead of the ship's bondswoman, it was Prophētēs Kyrillos who tumbled into the room, the dragging hem of his sacred robes nearly tripping him -- again. The elderly priest blinked in mild confusion as the Captain set aside his scroll and rose from his chair, offering a low bow.
"Prophētēs Kyr -- "
"Ah! Captain Mammeri!" His too-fuzzy eyebrows knit together. "Am I interrupting?"
Mammeri clasped his hands behind his back, trying to ignore the stack of scrolls -- engineering reports, security reports, personnel files, stellar activity reports, weapons reports -- neatly piled atop his desk and awaiting his attention. Count on Tadi to have everything organized before he set foot in the office. He would be hard-pressed to replace her when her term of service ended and she went off to farm whatever piece of undeveloped colony awaited her .... "Not at all, sir. How I may be of service?"
Kyrillos twisted his hands in his robe, bounced on his feet, and finally plopped down in the chair in front of Mammeri's desk. The Captain took that as permission to sit, himself. He waited, eyes occasionally dropping to the stack of scrolls (was it getting bigger?), while the priest looked around. The Prophētēs' gaze slid passed the hand-woven Berber rugs hanging on the walls, with their intricate geometric patterns; passed the small shrines to Tanit and Ba'al; passed the small shrine for Pharaoh; finally stopping on the two dozen diamond-shaped cubicles along the right hand wall filled with real papyrus scrolls. The priest's eyes widened and
he grinned.
"That is an impressive collection."
"Thank you." Mammeri nodded his head. "All copies, of course, though some are quite old. The originals are in the Mother Library in Alexandria." He suppressed an irritated sigh. They had had this conversation the previous morning, before making the jump through the Nestor Pylon to the Charites Pylon.
Kyrillos grunted and his eyebrows crunched together. His hands, still twisted inside his robe, pulled the cloth tight across his chest. The priest's gaze suddenly sharpened. "I am concerned. About the Oracle. Her sleep, you see."
Mammeri dropped his head slightly and peered at the priest. This was new. "Pythia Theone is not sleeping well?" He had not seen so much as the Pythia's shadow since she and Prophetai Kyrillos and Oreias had boarded at Delphi, with orders for the Fox to transport them to Antheia.
"She is not sleeping. At all. Bad dreams, you see. Bad dreams."
Mammeri shifted in his chair. "Are these oracular dreams, if I may -- "
"Yes." Kyrillos' head started bobbing and his gaze began to slide around the office again. "Bad, bad dreams. A dog. A red dog. Walking along a road. Locusts swarm. Eat the flesh from its bones. Bad dream."
Mammeri rubbed his hand across his chin and tried to slow his heart. Deep breath. "Have you any idea as to the meaning of this dream, Prophētēs? And -- well, are you sure that it is an oracular dream and not -- "
"Yes." The priest's head snapped up and down, emphatic. "She is the Oracle. Pythia. Beloved of the God. Once she has been kissed by Him, no Pythia ever has ... ordinary dreams again."
The Shining Cities: An Anthology of Pagan Science Fiction Page 13
