by Nisi Shawl
It goes on like that for hours.
IN THE MORNING light, the carnage is incredible. Limbs and heads and feet are strewn about like the aftermath of an explosion in an abattoir. The stench of blood and spilled bowels is a foul blanket, heavy even with the wind that has not stopped since last night. Quineltoc stood witness the entire time, watching the soldiers trying to evade the righteous dead. They all failed.
Inside the camp administration building, other former prisoners are using the wireless radio to contact the other camps. The wisewives’ plan worked in all of them, but there were many casualties. Quineltoc mourns all the lives lost, even the Dawncomers’, but does it quietly. Privately, and with weightier grief, he mourns the aching silence: the absent small, still voice. He doesn’t have the heart to explain to his people that while they might be alive, they are damned.
Even illusory joy is a blessing after the horror they’ve endured. It’ll be soon enough that he’ll need to tell them that they are no longer the Living Lord’s own and will never see their loved ones who have already passed through the Sunset Gate into the next world beyond the west.
Quineltoc takes a deep breath and goes to search for his wife. He finds her outside the soldiers’ mess, sitting on the wide green fender on the back of a Dawncomer armored car.
Citlal looks proud and defiant and strong to him, sitting there in her dirty grey prison smock. He thinks about the first time he’d met her, eighteen years old on the day before their wedding—their parents had been old-fashioned and arranged it all—and how beautiful she’d been, golden brown and flush-cheeked, clear brown eyes dancing. He’d thought himself very lucky, a student of the law to whom God had already spoken, about to marry a beautiful girl with power and learning of her own. He has loved her for almost forty years. But the words come of their own accord, the impulse deeper than reason: “Quineltoc-ne amo-namictili Citlal-te.”
They’re in the Nawa, the holy tongue, the one the People use for blessings, rites, and spells.
“I, Quineltoc, divorce you, Citlal.”
He’s a lawspeaker. His words are enough to make—unmake—a blessing, a curse, a rite, a marriage.
It’s simple enough.
He’s shocked himself, but Citlal just laughs. It’s a deep, appreciative laugh, the kind only long-time lovers or intimate friends who know each other’s every secret can laugh. It’s the laugh of delight that comes when someone does exactly what you know they’ll do, and you love them for it.
It’s a wife’s laugh at the folly of her husband, and that’s when Quineltoc knows that he can accept the silence of God if he can but hear Citlal laugh like that for the rest of his life.
AFTER SPENDING AN hour with Quineltoc not really saying much aloud, Citlal goes to the communications room in the camp headquarters. Yoal and Ce-Mishtlin are sitting there talking quietly at a small table. Ce-Mishtlin holds the contract in her hand, unwilling to let it out of her grasp, her magicked stylus serving as a hairpin to keep her tight black curls in a semblance of order. Yoal drinks a cup of black coffee she liberated from the Dawncomer officers’ mess, her pin holding a thin blue wool blanket around her shoulders like a shawl.
“Did they get the Hierophant?” Citlal asks.
“Yes,” Ce-Mishtlin replies smiling, tears glimmering in her warm black eyes.
“He was visiting Mazaán,” Yoal explains with quiet viciousness. Mazaán was the largest of the reservations, where the People were kept before being shipped to one of the work camps. “Ometzin and Chinueh died, but they got the bastard.”
Citlal closes her eyes briefly, mourning two of the five wisewives who were imprisoned at Mazaán.
“There’s more: the Emperor has sent word that none of the magebloods of the People will be imprisoned by the Dawncomers any longer,” Yoal continues. “It seems that the Miktlán dead”—the Miktlán camp was small, but it was just north of the capital—“paid a visit to the Imperial Palace in Zochimílc. He’s sending away his Dawncomer ‘advisors’ and calling for rebuilding the Temple Major.”
“Nice to see that His Majesty has a spine after all, no?” Ce-Mishtlin grins, hope and hurt in equal measure in her eyes.
Citlal laughs and joins them at the table. She knows that the People won’t ever be free of the Dawncomers—there are too many of them, and a growing number of mixed blood children—but the scales are no longer so unbalanced now that the usurpers know that the People can retaliate in ways that cannot be evaded even with their cold technology and guns.
“Thankfully, they don’t understand the bounds of the wise-work. Typical Dawncomer ignorance, but I’m grateful for it this time,” Ce-Mishtlin says.
Smiling, Ce-Mishtlin holds up the contract for Yoal and Citlal to see. Then the southerner dips her head in farewell, takes a deep breath and uses her stylus to add a line to the fire glyph, changing the word’s reading to cold: death. Ce-Mishtlin exhales and stills forever, cold, cold. The air freezes around her, wintry steam rising from her like the memories of benedictions. All of the righteous dead she had marked are now just corpses again.
Yoal sighs, and tears come to her eyes as she murmurs something that might be the prayer for the dead under her breath. She pulls her stylus out of her improvised shawl and changes her fire glyph with it and says to Citlal, to the empty husk that once was Ce-Mishtlin, to the morning light, and to the memory of the skeletal dancers in the dark, “Thank you.” Then Yoal, too, dies.
Dry-eyed, Citlal nods her deepest respect to the bodies of her sister-magicians and pushes herself away from the table. She takes their contract, and walks out of the building, needing a moment alone under the winter sky.
She continues past the Dawncomer officers’ housing to a small green garden, planted with roses and lilies forced to grow out of season by Dawncomer technology. It had been where the camp commandant liked to take his afternoon tea.
It’s deserted now.
Citlal sits down on the grass, the new year’s cold sun an indifferent blessing. Alone and safe for the first time since Shochi was murdered, she cries. They aren’t easy tears. Each sob pulls a barbed thorn of pain from her heart. The absence of Shochi is a void she knows will not be filled. Citlal will not cross through the Sunset Gate to find her daughter beyond the west, if Shochi has made it to the next world. But perhaps the People will find a new home, now that they’ll have the chance.
After a while the tears calm, and she is quiet. The wind has died down, and she is perfectly at rest. She takes a deep breath and stands.
It’s then that she hears the voice of the Living Lord. It is not a small, still voice: it’s the roar of a hurricane, the tumult of a mountainside falling. The sound knocks her to her knees. Even through the din, it’s everything that the Starry Codex and the stories and Quineltoc said it is. It’s bliss and grace and fulfillment and balm, sweet balm on Citlal’s battered heart.
Daughter, blessed are you. You are truly the mother of your people. I grant you life for proving it.
It’s warmth and light, a bonfire lit and blazing. It’s the peal of conch trumpets heralding joy. The sound is like receiving judgment and being found worthy.
Through you, the People will live on to nourish Me. Feed Me, daughter.
Her anger is incandescent. It leaves no room for shadows, for doubt: whatever test she’s passed, whatever plan she’s fulfilled, whatever blessing this might be, it isn’t right and it’s not enough. They all are owed more than this. The countless dead, Quineltoc, her sister-magicians, Shochi, are all owed more than this.
Citlal shouts, a piercing scream that assaults the vaults of heaven. The sound of skeletal women, dancing, fills the cold winter sky and the void beyond. “No,” she says. “Better the anxious night than a certain path down your monstrous gullet. Better that we live and die by our own choices than at your whim. Better the night and all the cold stars than your hunger.”
The warmth and light retract, surprised, afraid.
Citlal takes the contract and her stylus
and carefully adds a line to the remaining glyph: life becomes death. Elsewhere in the camp, the last of the righteous dead lie down, all animation fled. She tries to let go of her anger, of her injured sense of justice, with her last breath, but doesn’t quite. The sense of responsibility for the People remains, but she knew that it would. Her body falls to the ground.
Visible only in the dark between the stars, the newest Bone Woman gets up and walks off. The fulfilled pact between the wisewives and the Dead Sisters blows away in the cold wind that howls. Bones rattling, the Tzitzimimeh continue to dance.
The Freedom of the Shifting Sea
Jaymee Goh
Superpredator
E. aphroditois is a polychaete marine worm that grows up to three meters or ten feet long and swims using bristle-like appendages, called parapodia, along the length of its body. It has a reversible pharynx and long mandibles with which it catches prey.
—An Introduction to the Deeper Sea
SALMAH MET MAYANG on a sunny day in an isolated lagoon. Astonishing, as tourists had devoured the beaches near her coastal town. Even more astonishing: Mayang’s lower body. Salmah was repulsed by the waving legs at her sides, but drawn to the iridescence of the segments of her body, like a centipede’s, glinting rainbows in the midday sun.
Mayang had shrunk back underground—underwater underground, Salmah marveled—but her face was still uncovered, her hair drifting like seaweed. Salmah should have run away; instead she pulled on her goggles and got on her knees to investigate the sharp little face, broad nose, lush lips, beguiling eyes. Salmah’s hand hovered over Mayang’s face, wondering if she dared touch it, but decided she didn’t. Besides which, Mayang looked like she wanted to be left alone.
So Salmah left, and immediately went to the library to find out what the creature could be. Not a mermaid: mermaids were not half woman, half centipede like that. (Not even a centipede, but some sort of worm.) Not a spirit: she was too real. She went through a list of all the female monsters she knew and then some, but still came up with nothing.
She returned the very next day, to enjoy the quietness, and to find the stranger sitting on a rock, eating a fish. The stranger receded into the seabed a little when Salmah approached, but Salmah held out her hands as non-threateningly as possible, with a gift: homemade kuih.
“Asalamualaikum,” she said, wondering if the creature was Muslim. “My name is Salmah.”
“Walaikumsalam,” came the cautious reply. A pause. “Mayang.”
With this firm introduction, Salmah made friends with the first non-human creature she had ever known. By the end of the dry season, Salmah had learned a great deal about Mayang, like Mayang’s age (Mayang could remember a time before British imperialism), Mayang’s favorite fish (stingray), Mayang’s length (twenty meters), and Mayang’s favorite hunting grounds (a beach off the coast of Thailand popularly considered haunted). They sometimes swam out into the ocean, Salmah with a precious snorkel and mask she’d saved up for, holding gently onto Mayang’s shoulders as they investigated reefs far from shore. Salmah watched Mayang hunt: swift movements too fast to see, mandibles slicing creatures in half. Salmah found herself unable to turn away from the sight.
In turn, Salmah told Mayang about changes in the human world, and the latter listened with a patient disinterest, expression flickering at odd moments that Salmah thought completely boring. She confided in Mayang: troubles at home, college applications, job seeking, boyfriends. Mayang was not always good at listening: she hated humans generally, men specifically.
“I don’t really see any problem,” Mayang replied for what sounded like the hundredth time to Salmah’s complaint about a recalcitrant boyfriend who refused to call. “If he doesn’t want to be with you, then you’re free.”
“But that’s not what I want. Have you ever liked anybody?”
The ensuing silence was punctuated by the sound of thunder in the distance. Mayang bobbed in the water, staring into the distance as the tide came in. Salmah began picking up her sarong to go when Mayang said, “I like you.”
Salmah almost slipped. She was about to respond when lightning crackled across the sky. Mayang reached out to shield her. Salmah hugged her in return, feeling the cold skin, the almost-human skin, slick-smooth.
“I’ve loved many,” Mayang said into Salmah’s ear. “Many many. I’ve lost them all, to men, to marriage, to murder. And I will lose you too, someday. You’re too full of this world, of life on land, for the sea.”
Salmah opened her eyes to find that Mayang had been bearing her closer to the shore, making sure she was in shallower waters. “Don’t say that. I will always come back.” Shyly, she kissed Mayang on the mouth, before running off, face hot in the cold wind.
The monsoon season beat down, flooding schoolyards and fields, blowing off roofs as it had done for generations. Salmah went out on the better days to look for Mayang, but with little luck. Mayang’s last words echoed in her ears like a portent, an omen.
The lagoon lost a sandbar near its mouth, opening into a dense mangrove swamp. In low tide, the tree roots were visible, with curious curves: too petted, too cultivated. Salmah waded past mudskippers and fish, until she found Mayang’s body, half-buried in the sand, shining in the dappling sunshine. Panicked, she ran along the trail of legs, screaming Mayang’s name.
Mayang rolled over with a grumpy groan, and blinked sleepily at Salmah. She smiled. “Hello. How was work?”
Salmah clung to Mayang tightly, shaky with relief. She kissed Mayang’s forehead, cheeks, and mouth. Mayang drew back, hissing, and Salmah saw the inside of Mayang’s mouth: the mandibles in her cheeks uncurling a little, the tiny teeth that looked disturbingly normal, and a looseness of skin behind them. “I’m sorry! Was I too rough?”
“I just woke up.” Mayang stroked Salmah’s hair gently. “But I missed you, too.”
Just like that, their friendship continued as before, but Salmah could not stop thinking of the inside of Mayang’s mouth, her soft cool skin, her vestigial breasts. Mayang’s eyes glittered with amusement when she caught Salmah staring, permitted the human woman’s hands to linger on her waist, shoulders, even the frond-like legs on the sides of her wormbody. Their arms entwined as they swam together, Mayang swimming on her back to kiss Salmah’s belly, knees, toes. Salmah would whine as they returned to Mayang’s grotto about unfairness, because Salmah couldn’t return the favor.
“I’m not like you,” she groused, coming to rest under a mangrove tree.
“You are not,” Mayang agreed, pointedly staring at Salmah’s fine-haired legs. “Not with those useless things anyway.”
“I can do things with these that you can’t with yours.”
Mayang tilted her head, raising an eyebrow.
Carefully, Salmah hooked her legs around Mayang’s waist, drawing the wormwoman closer to her. Then she wrapped her arms under Mayang’s arms, determined to make sure the latter couldn’t slip away. She blushed, but grinned through it anyway.
Mayang brushed a tendril of hair from Salmah’s face, kissed her temple.
“Have you ever kissed a woman?” Salmah asked.
“Many,” Mayang replied.
“Who?” Salmah thought maybe she sounded too demanding.
“Have you ever kissed a woman?” Mayang asked, not deigning to answer that question.
Salmah nodded. Her school had been an all-girls’ school, although she now dated men. “But… not someone like you.”
Mayang tasted like saltwater, like the sea. Salmah ran her fingers through Mayang’s hair and down her back. Mayang smelled like warm winds over the ocean. When Salmah pulled Mayang closer, she let her legs slide down, and resisted a giggle when the arches of her feet brushed against the bristles along Mayang’s sides.
Mayang tasted Salmah, with what felt like multiple tongues down the length of Salmah’s neck, clavicle, chest. In horrified fascination, Salmah watched as Mayang’s jaw unhinged, pharynx extending a little to encompass the whole of one breast, a
nd teeth at the back of Mayang’s gullet tickling her nipple. Hard nubs lined Mayang’s mouth, massaging, grazing. Oral membrane still extended, Mayang worked her way downwards, tickling Salmah’s belly, pausing right before the cleft between her legs.
Mayang’s eyes shone with an inner light, ghostly and still, her arms curled around Salmah’s thighs. Salmah tried to breathe evenly, the thudding between her legs growing and growing, her alarm at the seams on Mayang’s cheeks coming apart also growing and growing. But Mayang’s mouth—the inside of it, Salmah reminded herself—pressed among the soft hairs there. Internally shrieking, Salmah nodded.
The pharynx pressed in, rubbing itself all over trembling muscle within and labia without. Salmah gripped the tree roots above her head, staring up into the sky beyond the leaves but not focusing, feeling the tide coming in around her body, feeling a tide coming inside.
Mayang curled her body underneath Salmah, keeping their torsos above water, for Salmah to catch her breath after. She held the human woman through the ragged breathing and occasional gasps—Salmah sat right on top of some of Mayang’s legs, that had to keep moving to steady them—and stroked Salmah’s hair, singing an ancient song.
“You don’t—how do I—” Salmah frowned.
Mayang laughed. “No, you can’t. Not now, anyway.”
“This seems unfair.”
“I have the freedom of these shifting seas in exchange for this small pleasure.”
“I don’t think—” But Salmah’s thought was cut off as it began to rain.
“You should go home,” Mayang told her.
The season passed: thunderstorms and lightning displays crashing across the skies made it too dangerous to go to the beach to look for her lover. Salmah moved into the nearby town to work at her family’s behest. She thought about Mayang often, but like a dream, an unreal experience with an untrue creature, as her work as a clerk took up her days. University abroad seemed even more possible than before.
