Dead World

I | Ceremony-1

I | Ceremony

The hooded and blinkered draft horse knew only the road before it. Of the alfalfa patches they had passed on the way to the ceremony it had shown no interest, although surely it had smelled the plants more acutely than any person. Even things that could have affected its very survival, such as the rawboned fox slinking through the willows along the River Dire, had garnered only a nervous whinny.

“Here we are, miss,” said Dr. Terazza, sounding far away even though he was sitting directly beside her. She’d been so focused on the horse that she hadn’t noticed they’d ground nearly to a halt.

She looked down through the porthole window of the buggy, past the edge of the coffin road and past the long, wide, descending steps (which were abutted on both sides with pews of onlookers, some of whom broke etiquette and turned to look at her). The sacrificial pier was there, ashen black amidst the fog, its dim lanterns maintaining an outline as it stretched away from land—so that when viewed from the road it resembled some Cyclopean, crescent-headed polearm, the tips of whose blade vanished into river smoke.

“Yes,” said Shekalane. “Here we are.” She stared at the pier vacantly. “The ride seemed shorter this time. Isn’t that odd.”

“It seemed short to me, too,” said Terazza.

She looked away from the pier to find him looking at her intently, but kindly. “Perhaps it was only the company,” she said, and smiled at him warmly. “Thank you, Sestus.”

“The honor has been all mine, Ms. Shekalane. It’s a shame it took these circumstances for neighbors to get to know one another. I’ll be sure to free Milkweed when you are well clear, and to look after her after, you have my word.”

She gripped the cushion wing and stood slowly, mounting the short step delicately before proceeding onto the long step and finally the cobblestones.

“Ms. Shekalane ...”

She turned to face him.

“Whatever the Lucitor has called you home for, may your passage be a safe one.”

She moved to respond but hesitated, finding herself drawn to the draft horse again, which snorted and hung its head. She lowered her makeshift veil. “Goodbye, Sestus.”

He tipped his hat to her and snapped the reins, causing the carriage to lurch forward, the horse’s hooves clattering against the stones as Shekalane stepped to the edge of the stairs.

“All rise and face the chosen,” said the rector, followed immediately by a tumult of shifting bodies and thudding woodwork as the congregation rose from their pews.

The sound and the sight of it startled her—but sobered her, too, especially when the wind moaned and a silence fell. There were so many—where had they all come from?

She scanned the faces haphazardly, her attention flitting from one to another. Unklung was there, as she’d known he would be, nearly unrecognizable without his straw hat, and wearing a formal sash across his chest instead of his mushroom bag (all those hours together traipsing dry creek bottoms and shady, overgrown grottos!). Silentina was there, despite their friendship having cooled since her involvement with Valdus. And, to speak of the devil, he was there also—no. No, she could see that she was mistaken. The man in the green cloak and cravat was not Valdus.

“We love you, Shekalane,” someone cried.

And another: “Hear! Let’s hear it for our most beautiful teacher!”

Someone started clapping tepidly—then another, and another, until virtually everyone had joined in, and Shekalane realized she was misting up, even smiling, in spite of herself. The scene somehow touched her beyond words.

“The Lucitor won’t have a jimmy to get up if you get your hands on ‘im,” someone shouted, and there was laughter.

“Not after what He’s put you through!” Cheers.

“Who said he had a jimmy?” More laughter—which became a tumult, which, fueled by the jugs of liquor being passed around as well as everyone’s pre-ceremony jitters dissipating into euphoria, became a crescendo, which quickly became boisterous and carried on too long and led Shekalane to search the crowd for Valdus yet find him nowhere.

And then a raven cawed and a red dot fell wavering upon the rector’s ample forehead, causing those nearest him to gasp and cower, and this, too, spread throughout the crowd, as the dot swung in great but diminishing circles—touching everyone, it seemed, as though it were branding them—until the great, black bird alighted on its special platform and cawed again, this time with finality, ruffling its feathers, folding its wings, and staring coolly out at them with its one real eye and its one cybernetic one—beside which a scarlet light shown piercingly.

The rector fidgeted, and a bottle shattered somewhere amidst the murmuring crowd.

“Ah—yes, well...” He adjusted his robes and patted his torso, searching for something on his person. At last he withdrew a scroll from an inner pocket and spread it open.

“Who stands with this woman to express the good wishes of her family and friends?”

Everyone said, “We do!”

The rector made the sign of the inverted cross—tapping his left hip then his right, then his chest. “Benedictus Lucidus. Shekalane of Jaskir, you may proceed to the edge of the River Dire, whose waters are the sweat and the blood, the, ah, urine and the semen, of the Lucitor Himself, and present yourself to his courier.”

The usual introductory notes sounded from the great and terrible organ which sat to one side of the pier, and Shekalane waited for the inevitable pause between those notes and the music proper to take her first step onto the long, maroon carpet. When the music started, its notes sounding somehow weaker and less substantial than usual, she couldn’t help but dwell on why the melody was different for different groups of people—men from women, children from adult, the aged from all. But she knew why in her heart. It was because the men were going to fight for the Lucitor, the children were going to be trained, the aged and the infirm were going to die, and the women—at least those among them that a man or even a god might find pleasing—were probably going to be raped. How particularly perverse it was then that, as Valdus once explained, the music used for women had once been used to accompany brides on the happiest day of their lives.

She glanced at the player as she proceeded and took note of old Harianna—her wispy white hair fluttering in the breeze, and her little nose just visible beneath the hood of her ceremonial robes. How many such ceremonies had the old woman played, Shekalane wondered, in the expanse of her eighty years? A draft horse whinnied from the vicinity of the carriage lot as if to whisper for her, Too many, Shekalane, including the ones for your son and your beloved Stachtyr, and now my back is curved and I see only the keys before me.

Shekalane scanned the crowds one final time for Valdus as she approached the pier, and not finding him, focused again on the pier itself. The sight of it did not torment her eye or fill her with dread as it once had, when she’d watched from these same steps as big Stachtyr disappeared into a cloud at its terminus. Nor did it seem to suck the very breath from her lungs as it had when little Sihadi was called. She had lost everything so long ago that her own selection in the Lottery was merely an anticlimax; she would miss the ragged children she tutored on Solstice-days, and she would miss the passions of Valdus—although he, too, however indirectly, had been taken from her by the Lottery years ago—but she would not miss the woman who had loved them, or the world in which they had lived. Seeing the children that one last time had been good enough for her—for she had specifically asked that they not be allowed at the ceremony. And as for Valdus, well, she now had her answer as to whether he had ever loved her or not. What he knew of love was reserved for his rebellion—his Quixotic quest to kill Asmodeus and to unseat the Lucitor—she was but a thing to draw strength from.

And what of you, Shekalane? Did you not share his passion for this at first? Was that not the very genesis of the affair? And would you not still be colluding with him intimately as well as strategically were the situation any different? Yes, but ... She shook her head. As with the children, their last encounter had been good enough. That had been a lovely night, the night they’d stolen away in Grintherp’s fishing boat to make stormy love beneath the Dire Borealis. Anything more, anything beyond his physical passion, any single thing expressed verbally or otherwise—would have merely disappointed. It always had.

No, at this point she wanted only to dash the cup of blood and sweat and tears to the ground. Black hole, white fountain, as she’d often expressed to her students. Death and rebirth. What was lost in this universe was lost; what was to come was not of this universe.

There was a commotion as she reached the bottom of the stairs and moved toward the altar—something that sent a ripple through the crowd and caused people to gasp and to express surprise. Shekalane turned to see a winged creature the size of her hand flying toward her erratically—an elfemale, its lithe, white form dancing bat-like through the hazy pools of light. It was Milkweed, and she was carrying something—something which, as the little creature fluttered wildly about her head, Shekalane recognized to be a tiny scroll.

But then the raven entered her frame of vision, cawing excitedly, and Milkweed dropped the thing to the carpet. The little elfemale darted away as the raven pursued, and what followed was an aeronautic dance above the transfixed crowd in which the ignudi tried to escape but was blocked at every turn by the raven. And seeing how distracted everyone was, Shekalane bent quickly and snatched up the parcel.

She turned it in her hands: the scroll was contained in an emerald ring which acted as a seal and bore Valdus’ standard, which glinted in the lantern-light. She swooned a little looking at it—this despite her feelings just a moment before. It touched her somehow beyond words; it was almost as though he were proposing to her—here, now, in her darkest of hours, when it seemed all the world had abandoned her, and with a rush of emotion she pulled the scroll out and put on the ring, then quickly opened the note.

It read: The emerald in this ring is a homing beacon, however its power source is limited. Activate it by pressing the emerald when you approach the Stygian Flowstones, or on my command (which will manifest as a vibration), whichever comes first. Stay alert. You will know what to do. Watch the gateways to the Forbidden Channels. Although he doesn’t know it yet, the ferryman is already dead. Power to the Revolution!

“Hear, hear,” shouted the rector as the airborne combatants vanished into the fog. He tapped his scepter several times. “Order, I say!”

She quickly stuffed the note into her patched, green shawl.

At last the congregation settled. The rector indicated that Shekalane should join him in standing within the great black circle sewn into the carpet, a circle which contained the Lucitor’s own standard—a giant, blood-red inverticus—which was made by connecting the dots of the inverted cross. She did so and he took her hand, then everyone bowed their heads.

“Our Lucitor Who art in His Mansion,” he began, which everyone repeated, including Shekalane. “Tremble we who come before you. Thy kingdom has come, thy will has been done, in the earth and not the heavens. Accept from us this night our blood and souls. And forgive not our wills, as we forgive not our willful. And lead us not to the tyranny of choice, but deliver us one and all down the River Dire. For Thine is the choice, and the predetermination, and the terminus, forever. Benedictus Lucidus.”

“Benedictus Lucidus,” everyone repeated.

“Do you have final words to say, Shekalane of Jaskir?”

She shook her head. She had already said her goodbyes.

He turned her hand palm-up and unfastened his knife sheath as Shekalane looked up at him through the frayed veil—her greenish-brown eyes steady but not without fear—then slid out the knife and laid its sharp edge across her palm.

Shekalane nodded once. Still, he hesitated—until the raven came cawing back and relighted on its upraised platform, its piercingly-lit third eye seeming to focus on him and its tiny beam cutting through the gloom to paint the back of his hand with a scarlet dot. Swifter and more assuredly than she might have thought him capable, he drew the blade across her flesh—then quickly cut his own, re-sheathing the knife and clasping her hand tightly in both of his.