Green g-1

by Jay Lake

  I must push, I realized. If they’d intended me to remain silent, Mother Vishtha would have said so coming up the stairs. “We judge every moment, Mother,” I called out loudly. “We are taught to judge when not to bare our weapons. We are taught to judge when to step into one dispute and when not to interfere in another. We judge all the time, for to make no judgments at all is a far worse error than to sometimes be wrong.”

  “You… do… not… judge,” said the Temple Mother. “And in your pride, you brought a dangerous foreigner to our city.”

  On this, much of the matter hung. I turned to the Dancing Mistress. She was strangely relaxed, given the trouble unfolding around her. Surely the general meaning of the Temple Mother’s words were clear, even if their specifics were hidden in the sounds of an unknown tongue.

  If the Dancing Mistress had been a woman of Kalimpura, she would have been safe from the Death Right. As a foreigner, she was at risk.

  Another strategy occurred to me. I almost laughed. All was already lost, how could another throw of chance deepen the well? “She is not a dangerous foreigner, Mother. I have been told by Mother Vishtha and Mother Argai that this is an animal.” I cleared my throat and cast my voice as loudly as I could. “Animals are not subject to the Death Right.”

  Someone yelped with startled laughter high in the gallery, but was quickly hushed.

  “Be careful what you ask for,” the Temple Mother said in a conversational voice. “If she is an animal, we are free to chain her in the training rooms and spill her life for weapons practice.”

  Like the pigs and dogs I had killed, and the bullock for whose life I had asked so recently. I felt slightly ill. The time for a simple plea for forgiveness was long past. Not that I’d known what to ask. Mercy, perhaps, but I’d had little mercy shown to me in this life, nor held much in my own heart.

  I pitched my voice high again. “Am I wrong, Mother? To aid my oldest teacher in her time of need? In the cities of the Stone Coast, we do not have Mothers, but she was a Mistress to me. Much the same. I bared my blade for her just as I would have done for you.”

  She gave me a long sad look. “ We do not have Mothers? Surely you meant to say they do not have Mothers.”

  The gallery broke into a roar of voices. A drop of water hit my face, then another. I looked up, but there was only the towering point of the sanctuary’s distant roof.

  “You do realize what this place looks like,” the Dancing Mistress muttered. I glanced at her as she made a vagina sign by nearly crossing the webs of her thumbs until a curved slit showed between them. Crude as that was, in that moment I was very glad that no one around us spoke Petraean. She’d intended the insult, and she’d intended it to be understood.

  Nothing was above me to send the water down. Another spray of drops swirled around me on a wind. I recalled my dream, down in the cell below, of rain and lilies and the death of cities.

  “I call…,”I shouted, then stopped. The gallery began to calm at the echo of my voice. I stared at the Temple Mother, but she was not focusing on me. From the fiery glare in her eyes, she had caught the gist of the Dancing Mistress’ remark. My last gambit had failed; now I would play for all. “Mother Umaavani,” I said, adding to the Dancing Mistress’ insult with deliberate disrespect of my own, “I call upon the mercy and wisdom of the Lily Goddess to pronounce upon my case. Lay your charges before Her, if She does not already know them, and let us see what She says of both me and my teacher.”

  I heard another laugh in the gallery, this one loud and clear. The voice sounded like Mother Shesturi. There were some here who still cared for me.

  “Very well.” The Temple Mother’s tones were ice now. “So it will be done. On your soul the burden rests.”

  The gallery erupted again. Protests were shouted from higher up-by the outsiders, I was sure-but they were drowned out by the chatter of the women in the lower seats.

  The Temple Mother pointed the Dancing Mistress and me to a low bench at the edge of the altar circle, just beneath the bottom tier of the gallery. It was normally used by aspirants awaiting their vows, or others sitting out a service until their special role was called upon.

  This bench also had the advantage of being out of the line of fire of Mother Argai’s crossbow.

  “What takes place here?” the Dancing Mistress asked in an urgent whisper.

  “We are to be judged by the Goddess.”

  “Really?”

  “Yes.” I frowned at her. “I have made the best play I know for our lives and freedom. These women have no mercy, but the Goddess has been speaking to me. And Her power is very real. This is not Copper Downs. The divine does not drowse the years away here. There is risk, though. Most dicta from the Goddess are as She inspires the Temple Mother.”

  “The Temple Mother says what she wishes, then credits your Goddess?” The sarcasm in her voice could have been scraped off with a spoon.

  “Well, yes.” Put so baldly, the flaw in my plan was obvious enough. “Yet there are times when the Goddess speaks directly through her. Our gamble is that the Goddess will personally engage this matter, as she has been with me at times.”

  “Why do you think that, Green?” I could hear the fear in her voice. The end might come at any moment, and the Dancing Mistress could not fight free of so many.

  “Because I dreamed of rain, when we were below, and rain fell on me just now at the altar.”

  She sighed. “She is not a rain goddess, is she?”

  I shook my head. My Mistress’ life hung by far too thin a thread.

  “Then let us hope your dreams are far more powerful than mine.”

  As the altar was set up, a woman of the Bittern Court finally forced her way down to the sacred circle. Several Mothers from the Blades trailed protesting in her wake. The Temple Mother was having her sacred robes drawn over her by two aspirants.

  When she turned to face the woman who approached in the harbor-gray silks of the Bittern Court, exasperation was plain upon the Temple Mother’s face.

  “You cannot do this,” the Bittern Court woman said quietly. That there was no greeting or introduction told me they must have been speaking earlier, and were once more taking up the conversation in this awkward moment.

  “I do not strut into your Great Room and tell the Prince of the Bittern Court how he may dispose ships in the harbor,” the Temple Mother said sharply. “It is not for you to come to my altar and tell me when and how to petition my Goddess.”

  “We have an agreement.” Though she stood with her back to me, and might as well have pretended I was made of air and smoke, the Bittern Court woman’s wag of her chin to indicate me was clear enough from behind.

  “We have an agreement to pursue the deaths today,” the Temple Mother said. “I am pursuing them. You will have your turn.”

  “My turn is first.” There was venom in the other woman’s voice.

  “Not when the issue is at prayer before the altar of my Goddess.” The Temple Mother’s tone matched the poison of the Bittern Court woman. “Now I suggest you go back to your seat before your daughters are made barren.”

  When she turned, the woman finally looked at me. If a cast of the eyes could cut, I would have departed in a basket. I smiled broadly at her and nodded as though we were friends meeting in the market.

  She left, shaking. I wondered if she would resume her seat in the gallery. More likely, there would be bullyboys in the pay of the Bittern Court lying for me, should I pass out the doors of the sanctuary with my freedom intact.

  Though it would take a particularly foolish or ignorant street fighter to take on a Lily Blade. Any Blade had a number of very well armed friends.

  Assuming, of course, that vowed or unvowed I was still a Blade when this proceeding ended.

  One of the priestly aspirants began to light the thuribles hung around the altar. The look she shot me was full of worry. Interesting . I was still not convinced that my life was at stake, but the Dancing Mistress’ certainly was. We h
ad upset whatever their plan was for this convocation.

  The incense smoldered. At this time of year, there was saffron crumbled into it, which gave the smoke a strange smell of wormwood and sunflowers-nothing like what the spice did in food. A chanted prayer began among the circling aspirants, who were joined by two Priestess Mothers whose faces I recognized but who I did not know by name.

  The prayer went on, calling on the Lily Goddess for Her strength in times of strife. I hadn’t heard this one before. It sounded more like a war prayer than an invocation of wisdom. The women’s way was not to stand to a fight. Even we Blades ran secretly, or did black work.

  Still, they prayed the virtues of arm and shield and bright helm. The Temple Mother stepped forward, spread her arms, and led the gallery in the Hymn to Change. O Lily, Mother of us all Here in Your sacred hall

  Watch over us as we age

  From cradle to the grave

  From child to maid so gay

  To mother then crone so gray

  Make us better than our fears

  Down the course of bitter years

  The singing died down with the last notes of the peti being played above the gallery. Its bellows eased to a stop with a familiar creaking wheeze. The Temple Mother turned to her altar, dropped her chin, and began to pray again, this time alone. Her voice ran in a long wavering chant, never pausing for breath.

  The Dancing Mistress clutched at my arm. “Something comes,” she whispered so softly, she scarcely had voice at all.

  The Temple Mother’s vestments began to stir in a familiar swirl. I felt a chill down my own back-fear or something else, I did not know. A great wind rustled, even though it did not pass through the hall except to send the smoke from the thuribles circling the Temple Mother.

  I thought of rain, and the death of cities, and slipped the Dancing Mistress’ hand within mine. This was to be a channel, direct possession by the Goddess, rather than “inspiration.” What I had gambled for, but all I’d really done was change the rules. I could not say what profit this would bring me, or whether I would be right in the risk I had taken for both me and my teacher.

  The wind suddenly turned furnace hot. Screams echoed in the gallery above as doors slammed open. Some of the altar cloths whipped loose to catch upon the great silver lily. My groin ached like a stab wound, and I felt a sudden, terrible flow of blood from within my vagina. Doubled over against it, I could see red-brown spots emerging on the robes of the aspirants near the altar. A fearful wailing erupted from above.

  All the women in this place must be bleeding.

  SILENCE, said the Temple Mother in a voice that was much, much larger than she.

  The air stilled in an instant. Even the thuribles stopped shivering on their chains. A moment later the sanctuary was quiet enough you could have heard a flower unfold.

  I AM CALLED. The Lily Goddess slowly turned the Temple Mother’s body so everyone in all the galleries could see Her divine aspect. If I focused my eyes on Her hand or Her hair, I still saw Mother Umaavani. Except for the dark blood flowing down one sandaled foot, she looked the same as ever. If I tried to see Her as a whole, She filled the sanctuary. More to the point, She filled a place in my head.

  I AM COME. Dust sifted down from the ceiling. I WILL SPEAK TO THE GIRL GREEN. The Lily Goddess said something else, in a language I did not know.

  I realized I was kneeling on the floor. I did not remember falling forward. Everyone I could see, from the aspirants in front of me to the back of the gallery beyond them, knelt as well. Everyone except the Temple Mother in her theophany as the Lily Goddess.

  I stood and took the half dozen steps to present myself before Her. I could not look at the Temple Mother’s eyes, and found myself drawn again to the blood on Her foot. My own loins felt both hot and empty, in pain like the worst of a monthly.

  The Dancing Mistress stood with me. Out of the corner of my vision I could see her head was held high. She addressed the Lily Goddess in her own language. The Goddess answered likewise, in that gigantic voice. Then She spoke to me.

  GREEN. YOU ARE A POOR SERVANT, BUT A BRILLIANT TOOL.

  Drawing my shoulders up a bit, I nodded toward Her feet. I felt like a kestrel before a typhoon. Why had I thought this better than the simple judgment of women against women?

  There was nowhere to go, nothing to do, but stand in place, even against the tearing feeling within me.

  YOU HAVE SINNED AGAINST MY HOUSE, THE HOUSE OF SHIPS, AND THE HOUSE OF STREETS.

  I fell to my knees once more and wept.

  I LOVE YOU TOO MUCH TO LET YOU BE THROWN DOWN FOR THIS.

  My weeping became tears, from the base of my stricken heart.

  DANGER ARISES TO SELISTAN, TO KALIMPURA, TO MY TEMPLE. YOU ARE THE BLADE I WOULD TURN AGAINST IT. IN ANSWER TO THE PLEAS FOR JUSTICE AMONG THE WOMEN OF THIS CITY, I BANISH YOU FROM THESE SHORES TO THE COLD NORTH, ACROSS THE SEA. THERE YOU WILL STOP WHAT HAS BEGUN BEFORE IT CAN STRIDE ACROSS THE WATERS AND STRIKE HERE.

  I was on the floor. Drool ran from my mouth across the marble. My ears were bleeding. I realized that I must know one thing. “Wh-where, Goddess, does this d-danger lie?”

  The Temple Mother’s hand trembled as she pointed to the Dancing Mistress. WITHIN THE COILS OF THIS ONE ’ S HEART.

  A great thunderclap echoed. The thuribles fell; some crushed or shattered even though they were made of silver and brass. The Temple Mother staggered forward, slipping on the pool of blood beneath her left foot. I tried to gain my feet, but it was the Dancing Mistress who caught her before she tumbled to the floor.

  “Th-thank you,” the Temple Mother said.

  Wailing and screaming rose all around. It took all the Priestly Mothers, and the Blades besides, to calm the gallery this time.

  The Dancing Mistress and I stood in the sacred circle surrounded by Blades. Mother Argai was there with her crossbow, and a dozen more, including Mother Shesturi, who would not meet my eye. The gallery was being cleared of visitors, aspirants, and some of the vowed Mothers.

  “Mother,” I said.

  The Temple Mother looked up at me. In that moment, I could see within her face all the women she had been-the girl aspirant, the young priestess, the training Mother of middle years, and now the wise old woman who led us all and took the Goddess into her body at need. I wonder what she saw in me. Scars? Rebellion? Perhaps a foreign fool pretending to be a good Kalimpuri.

  “It is too late, Green.” A sick smile quirked her face. “That was being a shout from the heavens as surely as I have ever heard in my life. The Goddess’ command was clearly stated. You will go.”

  “I… I am not ready.” True as it was, the admission surprised me.

  “Your time is done.” Her face hardened as she pulled herself wearily to her feet. Pitching her voice loud to the gallery, the Temple Mother announced, “I will have order. We are in convocation now.”

  The room fell silent again. Not the stunned silence of the Goddess’ departure, but the rustling, noisy silence of a group of unhappy people waiting to hear what might come next.

  “We have been told what must be done,” she said. “We have not been told how to go about it.”

  “If the danger is in her heart,” shouted someone whose voice I did not know, “cut her open and still the threat while we can.”

  I glanced at the Dancing Mistress. Certainly she knew she was surrounded by women who would have her life in a moment if they could.

  “Do we remain at risk?” she whispered.

  It took me a moment to understand that she made a joke. I snorted, then turned my attention back to the Temple Mother. She was speaking to the gallery directly above and behind me, where I could not see the seats or know who was asking for the Dancing Mistress’ life.

  “… not so much a fool,” the Temple Mother was saying. “Even our youngest aspirants would know better than to think the Goddess meant our troubles were literally coiled within this one’s heart like worms in a dog.”

  “It i
s a clean solution,” the woman called back down. “And does not turn against the word of the Goddess.”

  “Do not be stupid,” I called out, surprising myself.

  The Temple Mother gave me an angry look.

  “We are in convocation,” I told her. “Surely I am given right to speak.”

  “You are not vowed or sworn,” she said. “Even so, the Goddess called you by name, so you stand tall in Her sight. Speak if you must.”

  I stood and stepped to the center of the sacred circle. Turning around, I saw a knot of women in justiciary robes. One of them had loudly called for my friend’s death.

  “You insult our intelligence,” I said, “and betray the clear intent of the Goddess. My oldest and greatest friend has crossed the Storm Sea to bring me word of a disaster in the north. The Lily Goddess has joined Her voice to this foreign news to ask that we return there. The Dancing Mistress holds close some deed or choice or hope or love that will play a part in the unfolding of this.”

  “There is no argument here.” The Temple Mother looked around. “We have been given as clear a directive as has crossed this altar in my lifetime. There will be no appeasement of the Bittern Court. There will be no killing of this stranger.” Her gaze settled on me. “You have been banished from the shores of Selistan. From these shores you are being cast.”

  She then gave her orders to Mother Vajpai. “Wrap them both in beggars’ robes and march them to the Avenue of Ships. There you will throw them into the sea, with three handles of Blade archers to see that they do not return to Kalimpura. If either of them sets hand or foot back on land, pierce it with an arrow.”

  Mother Vajpai bowed her head. “So it shall be done, Mother.”

  “This is the will of the Goddess,” the Temple Mother called out.

  The answer echoed in a mix of voices almost as loud as the Goddess’ voice had been: “This is the will of the Goddess.”

  I had never seen such a run. As crowded as this city ever was, almost forty women with weapons in their hands and murder in their eyes cleared a path through which you could have driven an elephant. A knot of toughs in Bittern Court colors were shoved back just in front of the Blood Fountain, and I saw a great many disappointed Street Guild men as well.