by Eden Wolfe
Irene turned her head, “Let’s discuss while we move. The farther we are from Geb the safer we will be.”
Roman nodded, “Yes, you’re right.”
Irene stopped. “I never expected it would be you of all people who... would be with me...” Irene shook her head gently.
“Likewise,” Roman also shook his head. “Likewise.”
36
Daphna
“We leave tonight,” Daphna had her closest supporters with her in the alley behind the Tower. She couldn’t have guessed they’d be leaving the capital this soon, but with the knowledge she had now, there was no reason to stay a minute longer. And they had every reason to get out of Geb as quickly as possible.
“Lynn, you’re coming with me to the Dark Counties. Everyone else must head back to the Strangelands as planned. Begin rounding up the Sisters through the agreed communication channels. I’ve got what we need, but I must go one step further before we can develop the antidote to the illness. My work isn’t quite done. But yours is. Vick, you will lead everyone back out in the morning. Lynn and I will leave tonight, back the way we came.”
Vick nodded. “Yes, of course. Wherever you need me.”
Another Sister spoke, “I can get the logistics team working on gathering materials. We’ll bring back as much as we can, but it’ll be hard to do it all with a few hours’ notice.”
“The most important thing is that we’re gone. We can always get more supplies, I’m not worried about that.”
“I’ll be happy to get out of here,” Vick said, “This place just feels so wrong.”
“I know what you mean,” Sola nodded. “How has the Queen captivated all of them? How can they be so subservient to her?”
Daphna knew the answer to that. They had long ago coded in quasi-contentedness in the present moment as part of the common code of women. But it would not help to tell the Sisters that now. “Stay focused, Sola. You are on strategy. Jean, you are on logistics. Where is Adel? I want her on communications.”
“She hasn’t emerged yet from Cork Town. Could she be lost?”
“No,” Daphna shook her head, “I gave her very clear directions. She knows the way. If she’s delayed, then it’s because something has happened.” Daphna took in a deep breath. Things had to go to plan now, everything relied upon it. By the time the Queen realized that Irene was not coming back with Gale, Gale had to already be amongst the Sisters. “Do you all understand what you must do for our exodus?”
Every head nodded.
“All right then. Lynn, let’s get ready. We have no time to waste.”
“Is the Commandante going to give us trouble?”
Daphna hoped Irene was long gone by now. “No, she won’t.”
“Look,” Vick pointed in the opposite direction. “It’s Adel.”
Adel was walking fast in their direction. The look on her face gave Daphna concern.
She looks like she has seen a ghost.
Daphna started walking towards her, and they met each other partway down the alley towards the Tower.
“What’s happened?” Daphna put her hands on Adel’s shoulders. “What’s wrong?”
“Not wrong. They are waiting. In the sewer. Daphna, deviants. There is so much more going on than we ever imagined. Whispers of hope, shadows of mutiny. We must stand up for them, we must find a way to bring them to the Strangelands…”
“What have you done,” Daphna tightened her grip on Adel. “We can’t be bringing Cork Town deviants to the Strangelands, not now! Don’t you understand what scrutiny we are under? You might feel sorry for them but - ”
“Daphna, it’s a boy.”
Daphna’s hands dropped and she felt the blood draining from her face.
“Ah. The boy.”
Adel nodded. “They have been in hiding. Please, come see them.”
“Yes, yes. Take me right away.” Daphna turned back to the others, “Lynn, you and I leave now, we’ll follow Adel and then make our way out of the city. The rest of you, move to your positions, as we have discussed. The Queen will be very pleased to see the backs of you at first light in the morning.”
Adel led Daphna down the maze of back alleys and streets until they were down a dead end. Nothing other than a garbage enclosure. There Adel lifted the sewer grate. Daphna and Lynn went down without a word spoken between them.
As her feet dropped onto the concrete of the sewer ledge below, Daphna heard a gasp. Her eyes had not yet adjusted to the darkness; only the tunnel of light from the sewer grate above gave her any visibility. Little by little the outline of a woman holding the hand of a small child began to appear, ghost-like, a gentle glow from the moonlight above illuminated the outline of their bodies.
Then they came into focus.
The woman must have been in her mid-twenties, the child looked like any other in Lower Earth. The dress was the same, the facial features gave no sign of being anything other than genetic development as expected of a female in Lower Earth. Daphna stepped closer. She kept her voice as low as possible and gentle, for she saw the fear in the mother’s wide eyes.
“Don’t worry, Adel has led me to you.”
The woman’s shoulders relaxed a little.
“And who is this?” Daphna opened her hand towards the child, as she was yet not certain that the child was all Adel had proclaimed.
The woman did not reply.
“May I inspect the child?”
“No,” the woman whispered.
Daphna thought for a moment. “If I am to do all that Adel has asked me to do for you, then I’m going to need to have a look. I promise, I mean you no harm. Even if the child is not what Adel has described, you are in no danger with me. Do you understand?”
The woman blinked.
“Let me look, just for a moment,” she held her arms out. “Don’t worry, I’m not going anywhere.”
Daphna watched the woman look over her shoulder to Adel.
“Go on,” Adel said, “This is what Roman was hoping for you.”
The woman blinked again and then slowly let go of the the child’s hand. The child stepped in front of her, head cocked to the side. While Daphna felt the ongoing passage of time might have been putting their mission in danger, she had come this far and had to know.
The child spoke, disarming Daphna. “You’re going to help us?”
“That is my intention,” she replied.
With that, the child nodded and lifted the dress. She looked him over, turned him gently.
Could it be that all the work Lucius did had come to some fruition? Wasn’t this what he spoke of for so many years during our quiet moments together?
When he’d come to the Strangelands those many years before, full of excitement, before things had turned so wrong for him... wasn’t it all for this, the birth of a boy?
The coincidences were too many. She could hear Lucius’ voice in her ear, laughing, chiding, almost pushing her forward to take the child into her arms.
She then stepped closer, touching him, running her hand down the child’s body from neck to chest to gut.
That’s unusual.
She gently manipulated the child’s gut feeling the position of organs, interpreting what she could from touch alone.
Let it be so, for Lucius, let it be so.
Gently pulling the fabric away, inspecting, a wash of admiration came over her.
Lucius. You did it. I don’t know how, but you did it.
Daphna looked up at the woman’s face, anticipation, and terror written across it.
“You have done good, woman. Real good. You have nothing to fear, you are safe with us. But we have to leave, and we have to leave right now. If you are willing to join us, I will explain more to you on our journey. Will you come?”
Daphna wasn’t sure what she would do if the woman refused.
But the woman gave several small and quick nods. “Yes, we’ll come.” She lifted the boy into her arms, though the child kept his eyes fixed on Daphna, “Lucius always said
we would have to escape one day.”
Daphna gave a small smile, “Then let’s go.”
The child cried softly and Anna soothed him as Daphna led them through the maze of sewers. She knew them like the back of her hand.
They did not emerge until they were well past the boundaries of Geb.
37
Ariane
Ariane closed her eyes. The silence was killing her. So much silence. Surrounded by silence. She scanned the city, but even the sounds that had become so familiar to her seemed to be muffled in the distance. She squinted her eyes as she looked out the window, down to the square, but only a guard could be seen. Even Central Tower was nearly black but for the lights on the seventeenth and nineteenth floors. She knew who was there, and that gave her no comfort whatsoever.
Maybe I can call for Irene? she thought, but she knew full well that Irene would be preparing for her trip the following day.
The task she had given to Irene would not be as straightforward as it sounded. She knew Irene was struggling with it, but she also knew that Irene lived for service. She’d seen it with Lucius. She had seen it with her mother. At Queen Maeva’s every turn, Irene had always been there. Just as she always had been with Ariane.
Was it not Irene who had helped her mother choose her to be the reigning Queen? Was it not Irene who had fulfilled every whim of disappearance that Ariane had ordered? There was no reason to doubt her now.
And yet, the voices within her murmured.
Betrayal.
Two-faced treachery.
Abandonment.
The whispers in her veins continued.
She’d thought that the silence would be a welcome byproduct of the lockdown. A chance to better hear what was being asked of her by the settlers.
But so far the settlers were quiet.
And the Queens of Before were rumbling in her.
Ariane inhaled and pushed them down, only just to the very brink of hearing. This was not the time to trust those voices. They were the voices of those who had brought them into this very situation, even if she couldn’t define exactly what the situation was.
The times in which they were living had been painted with the blood of the Queens of Before. And Ariane had had enough of them. She sat at her bureau and let her face rest in her hands. Twenty-four years old, and she didn’t have any answers. The sensation was so unusual to her. Her whole life she’d had answers. Why would they abandon her now, just when she needed them more than ever? She sought within, searching behind memories and sensations, she let her mind scan itself, doing what it did best. Allowing the answers to rise to the surface. Her task was merely to listen, to interpret, and to act. But the answers had always come from elsewhere inside her.
Except that now there weren’t any at all.
Settlement Day, and I feel no more grounded than an orbiting rock. I have lost all my gravity. I am stuck in this cycle, floating above the earth, watching it all happen and being helpless to its direction. This cannot be what you want for me, settlers.
She grabbed at the lava rock around her neck.
When you stood on those cliffs, when the wave of death was overtaking the planet, what did you imagine for us then? I am listening. I am listening because the answers are not in me anymore. I am dependent on you. As your feet came to rest on the lava rock of Rainfields, so now do I call upon you to be the rock beneath my feet. To ground me into our world. To open up new avenues of thought, new approaches. Whatever it takes, settlers, I will do it.
Just be with me.
I am so alone here.
The voices of the queens are untrustworthy. I cannot trust my own blood to speak words of wisdom to me. They have motives of their own. Legacies to protect. Fears to relieve. And yet they are the voices who ring most loudly in my own history. Was it not them who lifted my arm, knife in hand, to stab my sister-self in the back?
Was it not them who whispered words of death in my ear as I coaxed my mother to jump?
Was it not them who raised my hands to push her when she hesitated?
Settlers, who are these voices, and why do you allow them to rule me? What penance must I pay for the decisions made by these Queens, for their actions and for what they have made me do?
Settlers, it is me you want as Queen, isn’t it?
The silence deepened into a void that seemed to envelop the entire fortress, all of Geb, maybe even all of Lower Earth.
Her whole life she had been fighting to reach this point. This was what she had always wanted, what she had always dreamed of.
Queen of Lower Earth.
But if it was not what the settlers intended, if she was not the one the settlers had selected for Queen, then she was no better than those who came before. Those whose decisions, their mighty royal decrees, had brought them into this place of despair and suffering and brokenness.
Brokenness.
So much within her was broken. She was perfect, she knew it; everything in her had been designed that way.
But she was broken. Broken from the day the blanket had lifted from the glass box in which she had been born. Broken perhaps even from the moment her mother had decided she would be the one to be born apart. No mother’s blood to feed her, no mother’s womb to console her.
What is mother’s love if not to give the very lifeblood needed before we arrive in the world?
She thought of the deviant mother. In her eyes had been wholeness. She had not birthed that child, she couldn’t have, every policy forbade it. And yet even from across a crowd, Ariane felt the power of mother’s love towards the child.
She had to have it. She deserved it. She had only been a helpless baby without any way of protecting herself. That love should have been hers.
Perhaps it still can be, perhaps when I find this woman, she can explain it to me. Or if she can’t explain maybe she can simply give it. If she can give it to a deviant child, then certainly she can give such love to her Queen.
Can’t she?
It couldn’t be too much to ask, she had given up everything for these people. Any dreams of a life for herself, she had long laid to rest. Everything that used to boil in her, the visions of her future in freedom, away from Lower Earth, away from duty and obligation, she had abandoned it all.
For the people of Lower Earth.
That was what her mother had said. That was what she had been born for. The people of Lower Earth were an extension of her own soul, so her mother had said.
If the people suffer, you suffer.
If the people are broken, you are broken.
So much brokenness. With the world, with each other.
No wonder we are being invaded from every side. These are not viruses created by the world, they are viruses created by us. How far we have strayed. How do I bring us back?
I have led us astray.
It was never supposed to be me on this throne.
Suddenly, Ariane knew it as plain truth. The words rang loud and hard and true between her ears.
I was not the one designed to lead this world. Not this one.
It should have been Aria.
And now it never can be. I took that away. Took her away from Lower Earth, took her away from the people, took her away from myself.
Could Aria have loved me? Could she have found a way that we would all live together in oneness?
Three sides of the pyramid, indestructible together. It could have been possible.
Except that I broke our communion. The moment I let the Queens of Before guide the knife into her back.
I am the one who has stolen the future away from Lower Earth.
I am a puppet. No better than a puppet.
The words circled around and around in Ariane’s head. There was no escaping it, she had created a destiny that was never the one settlers intended.
From the roof, she could see in every direction around the fortress. Central Tower to the west, the cliff to the east, the hills far to the north, and the coast to the south.
She stood looking up to the sky just as clouds covered the moon and the land darkened.
“Settlers,” she spoke upwards, “I’m listening. tell me what you want the world to be. I will make it so. No matter the pain and hardship, no matter the suffering I must face. No matter the fight I must endure within my own body, against those wretched Queens of Before, whatever it needs to be, I will make it be. Just give me a sign. Any sign.”
She heard a child crying. It echoed up from the ground, the sound of it chilling. It sent shivers up her spine. She recognized it immediately, for the sound was unlike any other in Lower Earth. No child cried like this. No child except that of the deviant woman.
And then the voice, the voice rose from beneath her. Her mind couldn’t make sense of its direction. It sounded like comfort rising from the very stones below, from the streets of the city, as though a mother’s hushed and calming voice could shift the earth.
I am hearing things, or is Roman bringing them closer to me?
Perhaps the child knew what danger it was in. Perhaps he knew Ariane would have him killed at once. But not before she could take that mother’s love for herself. She would help the woman understand; her love had been misdirected, it had always been intended for Ariane, for Queen and country, never towards this deviant child, this evil child who represented all those generations before. The woman could be convinced. Deviant women of Lower Earth were made of malleable mind and heart; that’s precisely why Ariane could never suffer to have them integrated into the rest of Lower Earth. They could never be trusted.
Just look at how this woman gave her love so freely to the deviant child. Not a deviant child - a demon child. Possessed with the DNA that had destroyed the world.
Yes, yes, I can help her see. Perhaps she’s even been led to believe that what she’s doing is good for the world, but I can convince her. I can earn her love better than any demon quasi-boy child.
Ariane closed her eyes. The curtain of darkness was velvet against her eyelids. Her eyelashes brushed the top of her cheeks, a tickle like butterfly wings.
