“Ghosts,” inferior Irunn gasped. “Lonely.”
Death-dreaming through depths of time.
“They died when the atmosphere changed,” superior Irunn said, as if making a report, “when the oxygen dispersed into space. They couldn’t adapt to the increasing temperatures.”
Superior Irunn: I screamed my scraping, scour-breaking, bones scattered in the wind!—I dried out!—I weakened, I wept!—I heard scream-hearses as I scraped life, I heard shout-shrouds, I heard final-fires, pitiful pyre-pants on the plains, palimpsests of dead: dead on dead on dead, I died on them!
Inferior Irunn: I shrine-shouted my death, dry-drowned in a far farra!
Superior Irunn: shout, shout
Inferior Irunn: listen, listen
A different day—days, superior Irunn saw, days were passing every time she looked at her screen—inferior Irunn asked, “Is it possible they’re alive? Microbial life in the more temperate parts of the atmosphere, extremophiles on the surface—something?”
“Soaking up ghost memories like us and passing them on? Nothing’s normal, Irunn.”
“Telling stories. Inventions, not memories.”
“Microbes don’t do that!”
“Not on Earth, but we’re not on Earth!”
“It’s ghosts!” superior Irunn shouted. “Old, old ghosts and now they’ve got us, trapped here like ear-bones transmitting to Earth, and it’s beautiful—”
Superior Irunn: I gripped ground long-gone, I long
Inferior Irunn: for far-flung farra full of life
Superior Irunn saw the attempts by ground control to override her spacecraft’s computer. Saw the error messages. Saw soft-boned, beatific bodies body-singing to her. The computer had extended a tube to her, to hydrate and feed. Saw parabola-buried predators parading on her pelvis. Transmissions from Baghdad and Beijing didn’t reach her craft—or the sound didn’t reach her ears. Venus-drowned.
Transmissions from her craft reached Earth. She saw that.
Every time she thought of manually overriding the computer to lift her from the planet’s atmosphere and return—
Superior Irunn: I long!
Inferior Irunn: I remember—radial fractures forming in my family-farra, ground grinding open—breathing—breeding—bones memory-modified in bright memorials—caressed, curve-covered, breeding bone-bright—swift swimming-songs fought for in filled farra, cracked coronae—rain—lost—I ate, I mated, I made bone-life bright—life on life—lost—I want
Superior Irunn: memorial-life
Inferior Irunn: not no-life
Superior Irunn: not no-life
Inferior Irunn: shrine-shout memorial-life!
Warnings of low oxygen went unheeded. Alarms screamed. Winds screamed. Superior Irunn screamed, and inferior Irunn gasped, empty-lunged—and eventually both went still.
* * *
Bones on both superior Venus and inferior Venus sing of her childhood as Irunn, sing of her splitting into superior Irunn and inferior Irunn—seeing herself, touching palm to palm and smiling, pride-flushed with the success of sanity—sing of her journey to Venus, sing of her work recording the memorial-life, the not no-life, of long-dead life.
Are singing still.
The Games We Play
Cassandra Khaw
The Dog-King is not quite what Yavena expects.
He is physically imposing, of course, military upbringing exposed in the thickness of his musculature, the midnight fur sliced close to his hide.
The other Ovia in Yavena’s court speak of the Dog-King as a monster among Gaks, a fearsome legend. But where Yavena anticipated the flatness of a killer’s regard, there is a penetrating curiosity instead. A scholarliness amplified by his chosen garb—the earthy, flowing raiment of an academic—and the small amber glasses crouched precariously atop his muzzle.
Nothing Hahvah prepared her for.
“Ah.” His voice is warm and younger than the striations of white in his pelt suggest, boyishly pleased. The Dog-King slinks away from a desk piled high with official-looking documentation. “Yavena, was it? We’re charmed.”
Yavena traps fist against open palm, bows almost low enough to tempt accusations of impudence. Beside him, her sponsor—Hahvah, the little Gak with a wailing laugh—crumples into an exaggerated kowtow.
“This one is honored you recognize her face,” declares Yavena, her command of the Gak’s growling, liquid language impeccable. With monarchs, subservience is never inappropriate. “This one begs an audience from the Scourge of Kyonadrila Valley, the Conqueror of the Ten Thousand Colors, the Lord-General of the Gak, the—”
“‘This one’”—a youthful playfulness thrusts through the Dog-King’s voice—“is overwhelmingly polite. We’re amazed that you resisted the temptation to call us the Dog-King. After all, is it not our name among those of the Ten Thousand Colors, our most treasured of vassals?”
Yavena snaps her head up, guilt blooming. Words can be schooled, but thoughts have always enjoyed a rebellious autonomy in her head. “This one would not dare! This one—”
“We would have you address us as peers, Yavena.”
A beat. “My lord.”
“Good enough, we suppose.” A broad hand, caged in iron rings and steel-grey bangles, is flapped delicately.
Yavena unbends but finds herself unable to loosen the knot of tension crushing her lungs. She is disarmed, robbed of equilibrium by the Dog-King’s frictionless affability. She folds her arms behind her, adopts the posture of a soldier at rest. As she does so, she captures the sliver of a smile on the Dog-King’s mien, its meaning impenetrable.
Unbidden, her gaze jumps back to Hahvak next, but she finds no reassurance there, only slyness, a wheedling humor. Yavena stiffens further, elegant in defiance.
“So,” the Dog-King begins as he mounts the steps to his throne. It is an intimidating structure, mythic in proportion, cobbled together from the bones of a thousand devoured Mothers. “What is it that you wish to ask from us, Yavena?”
“This one—” She stumbles, words snagging on ceremony. “I mean, I wish to play a game with you.”
The Dog-King laughs loudly. “Cordial and learned! Trust the Ten Thousand Colors to know the ten thousand desires that lurk in the living heart. Tell us the desire that beats at the core of that most sacred organ.”
The massive Gak monarch slouches onto his seat, elbow propped on an armrest, muzzle cupped in a broad paw. A hush glides over the dignitaries in the audience chamber, tautening muscles and attention. Dark eyes anchor on Yavena. They wait. Watch.
The Ovia inhales thinly, exhales her entreaty in a measured torrent.
“As per custom, I have won all of the Supplicant’s Challenges.” Here pride burgeons for an instant. “I have beaten all your Overseers. I have earned innumerable favors, six guild recruitments, three requests to join a noble’s entourage, and … one slightly drunken marriage proposal.”
Silence. The Gak are barely respiring, their bodies statue still. Only the Dog-King alters expression, smile broadening. In the background, Hahvah’s slithering giggles. “Small little thing? Carmine fur? Pompadour? Speaks like he swallowed a flute?”
Yavena nods, expression grave.
“Avah has always enjoyed unusual tastes.” A chuckle that spreads like an infection through the courtiers. “We apologize for the interruption. Continue.”
The Ovia swallows her apprehension and resumes as instructed, voice held steady through the application of will. “I wish … I wish to claim my right to challenge you to a game of your design. If I win, return Iraline of the Ten Thousand Colors, Mother of the Dead and beloved brood-sister. If I lose—”
Ventricles strain against the onset of terror. Yavena’s pulse hammers like fists. The audacity of her coming revelation is not lost upon her, and like the wail of a wolf pack, it bleeds her spirit of courage.
“—return Iraline to the Ten Thousand Colors and let me take her place instead. She is soft. I am muscled. Larger, better suit
ed for your banquet hall, my plumage more impressive. I—”
Shocked noises detonate in the hall. In between, a strange, shrill laugh. Hahvak.
The Dog-King maintains his genteel smile. “Correct us if we are mistaken. But do you not belong to the Court of the Living?”
“I do.” It is too late for retreat.
“And does not the duty of feeding the Gak belong to the Court of the Dead?”
“It does.”
The monarch leans forward, eyes hooded, lamplight-gold. “Tell us, then: why would you have us risk political unrest between our kingdoms? Do we not have a treaty? Do my packs not watch the mountains of your nests? Do we not feed you as you feed us? Do we not have a deal?”
Yavena can scarcely breathe. “We do.”
“Then tell us why we should grant you this boon.”
Because of love, Yavena thinks. But what she tells him is, “But you are the greatest mind among the Gak. You would win. I’m sure of it, and you would have stories to tell of my insolence. Is that not worth the infinitesimally small chance of loss?”
“Your confidence in your deliciousness is appreciated.” A slight, slow inclination of the head. The Dog-King shifts in his seat and rests his jaw atop steepled claws.
Yavena spreads her hands and advances a step, no longer willing to divide decorum from desire. After enduring so many trials, so many weeks of combat, has she not earned the liberty of uncensored expression? She is pleading now, openly. “Iraline deserves more years to her life. She is an accomplished artist, a masterful poet, a historian of unparalleled accuracy. I know there is no honor greater for one belonging to the Court of the Dead than to appear on your table, but give her back to me, Lord-General.
“Please.” Ragged, that final word, like a belly slit open. “Give my nest-sister back.”
The Dog-King says nothing for long minutes. Seconds lengthen, viscera thick, suturing together into a wait that might as well have been eternity. Around Yavena, silence descends in waves, until there is only the sound of a hundred lungs in harmonious palpitation.
Then at last: “We see merit in your suggestion.”
Yavena waits, shoulders knotting. The Dog-King’s easy acquiescence inspires suspicion. Triumph is never this faultless, this clean. Something is amiss. A heartbeat’s worth of quiet, then Yavena cautiously supplies, “My lord.”
Neither agreement nor displeasure, a neutral postponement of opinion.
“Mm.” Equally ambiguous the Dog-King’s response. “We agree to your terms, but we will set the structure of the game.”
“I would desire nothing more.”
The Dog-King’s muzzle wrenches into something like a grin, feral in timbre. “So pliable. We would almost think you were born into the wrong court. Very well. This is our decision. This is what we require. Ask Iraline to leave of her own free will. Fail, and you shall have a fortnight to help prepare your own feast.”
Confusion yields a thoughtless exclamation. “M-my lord? I don’t understand. How is that even a game? That doesn’t—”
Yavena’s protest is slaughtered like a lamb, dismissed by a wave of the Dog-King’s hand. “It makes every iota of sense if you have the right scales to weigh it. You simply need to adopt the correct perspective. Iraline is in the kitchens. We will have someone escort you. Our game begins now.”
“My lord.” There is nothing else she can say.
* * *
“Wrong, Scahul.” A gentle rebuke, feather soft as it floats down the shadowed corridor. “It’s a basic error, however. Many presume that the Ten Thousand Colors have a united physiology, a uniformed distribution of collagen in their muscle fibres. But we do not. Our muscular composition differs from—”
Yavena accelerates. Her steps lengthen. It is all she can do to resist breaking into a lope. She crosses the threshold into the kitchen, her voice hoarse when it escapes. “Iraline?”
She interrupts the scene: a kitchen vast enough to contain hundreds, a fragrant landscape of gleaming steel, threaded with spice and carnivore predilections. An Ovia stretched provocatively over a broad wooden table, posture relaxed, expression inviting. She is tattooed with ink, limbs separated by lines, her most delectable regions marked for easy identification. A quill—lime-green; it is from her own person—dangles from her claws.
Around her, a battalion of Gak, their hands crowded with notepads. One clutches an inkwell.
“Yavena?” The Ovia rights herself. Her manner is delicate, fertile with confidence. Every motion is an expression of art. “Yavena! What are you doing here?”
“Iraline—” Now Yavena’s voice weakens, pales to a whisper. An avalanche of memories—Iraline at her Naming; Iraline’s exhausted mien as she clutches her firstborn; Iraline and she as nestlings; Iraline, her sister of the spirit, her saviour, her sacrifice—chokes Yavena. Her knees sag. “Ira—”
“You’ve said my name twice already, you know?” A fluting laugh. “No need for the third, little sister.”
“I’m sorry.” Yavena’s head lowers for an instant before she adopts a semblance of propriety, her smile ambassadorial smooth. “It’s just been—I’ve—”
“It was you who caused all that commotion, wasn’t it? Winning game after game, the Ovia foreigner, beating all the Gak at their own tricks. I’m so proud,” Iraline says, excitement gleaming silver in her voice. She flutters a hand at the waiting mob of Gak who disperse after sketching respectful half-bows, their faces unreadable. Chattering softly among themselves, they slink back to their duties, the sounds of culinary effort rising like a war chant. “Did you kill anyone?”
“Yes. I—”
Iraline turns smoothly, an arm draping around Yavena, dominance claimed with a flippancy even kings would envy. “Well, finally. You were long overdue. Who ever heard of a Bloodless Keeper? You have no idea how many times I had to defend you among the other Mothers, who all thought you were a little … off your game, to borrow from the locals. Too kind to be a killer. Too—”
“Motherly?”
A jolt of remembered grief, and Yavena shrugs free of Iraline’s grip. She was never meant to be Keeper. Iraline was. It was Yavena who was meant to bear a hundred eggs to a hundred strangers. Yavena who was meant to waste her last days in the kitchens of their benefactors, their masters.
“You said it, not I.”
Yavena shrugs. She is too grateful for Iraline’s presence, too enraptured by the scent of her—milk and vanilla, with a dusting of talcum—to consider offense. “I’m happy you’re alive, Iraline.”
The answering smile is halfway between ruefulness and pleasure, an expression glazed with sadness. “And I’m happy that you have an impeccable sense of timing. Just a little longer, and you’d need a necromancer.”
Before Yavena can answer, Iraline interrupts her own non sequitur, laughter dazzling as a mouthful of stars. “A little joke, my beloved. Don’t look at me that way. A Mother is allowed humour.”
Iraline preserves eye contact for a moment longer before flouncing away towards a stove, unoccupied save for an earthen kettle. She pours herself a cup of something warm. Yavena follows, leaning over just enough to be able to inspect the contents—a decadent creaminess redolent of mugwort and blackberries.
“Are you here to rescue me?” Iraline asks over the rim of her drink.
“That was the plan.”
More silence. Yavena already knows the answer, is already cogitating on solutions when Iraline concedes a reply, her voice weighted with a long, drawn-out sigh.
“Little sister, you know as well as anyone else that no one forced me here. I have no more eggs to give the Court. And so it is time to give my flesh.”
Yavena’s thoughts catch on a slurry of unwanted images, but she shoves them aside, hands balling into fists.
“You’re lying.” She spits out syllables that are broken-glass sharp, razored despite her attempts at congeniality. “You’re too young to be barren. You have time. Years, Ira. You have years still. Why, why are you do
ing this? Iraline, come back with me. Please.”
Now the ambient bustle shrinks. Now it condenses to pinpoints of noise as the Gak slide curious glances over wide, dark shoulders.
“You’re being unreasonable,” Iraline retorts, tone reasonable as always.
“It should have been me.”
Light drains from Iraline’s stare. She puts her mug aside, face collapsing into quiet horror. “Yavena—”
“You. You’re the one who belonged to the Court of the Living. Everyone knew it. All the fortune-singers, all the officials. They knew it. They knew you gave it all away for me.” Yavena jerks backwards, all pretenses of composure forgotten, all poise submerged in that seething guilt which rises thick as tar, clogging her throat. She swallows and swallows, unable to dislodge the marrow-deep agony. “You could have been Keeper. You could have been happy. You should have been. I was supposed to be a Mother, Ira. Not you.”
She freezes as long arms envelop her, warm with affection. “Oh, Yavena. You’re being blind. In your Court, I would have been always afraid, always wanting, always desperate to hoard those few decades I owned, to pretend that seconds could be made to accumulate interest. This sacrifice is a small price to pay for the years of fire.”
“I don’t want you to die.”
Iraline welds them cheek to cheek. Sighs. Her pulse reassures with its steadiness, appalls with its indifference. “We all die, little sister. Sooner or later.”
Yavena pushes her away. “Yes, but one is preferable to the other.”
The moment is broken. The Gak return to their toil. Iraline retreats to her drink, coiling catlike atop a counter, while Yavena glowers out a window. The light of the city has stained the night a seamless indigo, unscarred by constellations.
“If you’re going to be maudlin, you should go home,” Iraline declares finally, the music of her voice only slightly marred by petulance.
“I can’t.” Yavena folds her arms. “You know that. I’m playing a game with the Lord-General, and you’re the prize.”
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