The Magnificent Bastards

II | The Dagger and the Chalice-2

AS IT TURNED OUT, SHE had been hungry—enough to eat both chicken breasts Jeremiah had prepared for her and part of a third before he refilled her wine glass and she settled in for what promised to be an interesting conversation. He had changed into comfortable clothing and fetched her some silky, pajama-like garments belonging to Jasper (who was much smaller than Jeremiah, in part because of his build and in part because of his age), and now they sat about the round table in the tiny kitchen as though there’d never been a war between the Witch Doctors and the witches, between men and women, between man and wife and brother and sister.

As for Jasper, he had proven to be an erudite and charming host in spite of his great age, and had regaled her with tales from before the Pogrom and before what men called the Betrayal throughout dinner, until music was heard outside and they looked out the cracked window to see a black War Wagon zoom past with its red lights flashing and its belly (presumably) full of Witch Doctors, after which a silence settled over the room and his tone became more somber. “You want to know what happened ... how women became witches and men became Witch Doctors. And how the sexes became so estranged that they would kill each other on sight rather than suffer another Betrayal or Pogrom. Don’t you?”

She nodded slowly.

He dabbed at the corners of his mouth with his napkin and sat back. “Well, I told you how things were, how men and women were. That there weren’t any Witch Doctors except the kind you saw on TV, and there weren’t—” He paused, noticing how they both looked confused. “TV—television—the boob tube, squawk box, the glass teat. Nevermind. It’s not important. The thing is, men and women liked each other. Sure, they got to squabbling once in a while—hell, some might say that was half the fun of it. But they didn’t fear and mistrust each other to the extent that, that—okay, well, some did—they’d kill each other. The point I’m trying to make is: they were bumper cars that enjoyed ... bumping.”

Satyena and Jeremiah looked at each other.

“They danced,” said Jasper. “And when they danced it was something to see. But over time that dance began to sour, mainly because, outside the dance hall, only one side seemed to have all the power. Now, whether that was true or not depends on your point of view, but having read all about it and lived through some of it, I’d say the case could be made. And if you’re wondering,” He looked at Satyena. “It was your ancestors that felt they didn’t have any power. So, steps were taken to even the balance, just as they were with my own ancestors, and I think most would say that those steps were successful.”

Again there was the sound of music, and again a War Wagon blew past with its lights flashing.

“The problem with human nature is, it doesn’t know when to stop. Eventually, every apparatus designed to right a wrong just becomes a new one—it has to, you see, because once created, its focus becomes its own survival. That’s when the ideologues come—like saviors, some would say, while others would say like vampires—who feed off everyone’s fear, stoking it and fanning the flames. Our Chairman Kill-sin is a man like that. Perhaps you’ve a counterpart among the witches ...”

Satyena nodded.

“I thought as much. For the most dangerous time is always after the battle; when new enemies must replace the old so that the apparatus, the entire machinery of war, which millions have come to rely upon, can continue to function. Our Chairman Kill-sin, for example, came to power not during the hot war between our two genders but only after it had been won. The status quo had to be maintained, you see, hence, the Pogrom. So it was with the winners of the first gender war—the cold one. The one which led to The Betrayal. They, like Chairman Kill-sin, began to see enemies behind every bush. And what began as a reasonable cause soon begat an entire mythology of thousand-year conspiracies and age-old oppression—every man was the enemy and had been since the dawn of civilization. Why, civilization as they knew it was the invention of men, something designed top to bottom to oppress women at every turn! But now it was their turn to suffer, said the ideologues. If a man had too much power he must be shorn of it, immediately, and by any means necessary, for it had been bequeathed him of privilege and must therefore be returned to the oppressed. And they embarked on a crusade, although some would call it a witch hunt, the weapons of which were accusation and shame, and before they were finished the streets ran with blood—metaphorical blood. They could kill with a word, and soon no man was safe and no man could be safe, that is, if he’d had any interactions with woman at all. And then came the Pestilence, the Great Plague ... which wiped out three-quarters of the world’s population almost overnight, and opened in women a kind of Third Eye, an eye which allowed them, some would even say forced them, to access a realm previously unimagined.”

For the first time, he regarded her almost suspiciously. “But it did something else too, didn’t it? It bound you up into a kind of hive mind; it collectivized you so that, and you would know more about this than I, you became a single entity. A single organism. And it is here that some would say The Betrayal found its genesis, for this organism, just as any other, sought first to protect itself, and its autoimmune response was to cleanse the world of what its individual cells had been programmed to view as the enemy. And so began a pogrom of treachery and murder the likes of which the world had never seen, as wives turned upon husbands and sisters upon brothers and even mothers themselves killed their male children. Nor were the attacks direct acts of violence but rather whispers, suggestions, misdirects, and illusions; more often than not the men killed themselves, or each other, even as they defended their wives and lovers and mothers and sisters, and their daughters too, all of who’s skin had begun to pale and their eyes to turn white, against the mounting calls for a quarantine, which, as more men died—among them the doctors and the scientists—became accusations of deviltry and witchcraft. Until at last the surviving men retreated from their homes and loved ones completely and began to establish their own enclaves, of which New Salem is one. From that point forward it became a hot war, a hot war I dare say the men readily won, for they knew now that war had been waged upon them. But as for the rest I know not, except what has occurred locally in New Salem. And what followed the war here was another outbreak of the Pestilence, which a young preacher named Kill-sin, a child prodigy at the time, blamed on the surviving witches in the cities. And so the Witch Doctors were formed to deal with the matter, and young men drafted into its service. After that, the Pogrom was waged cold or hot over many years depending upon the political climate and the overall health of New Salem’s citizens. I’m happy to say it had dwindled almost to nothing ... until again, Kill-sin. And his ascension to the Chair.”

“I take it you do not approve of him ... or the Pogrom,” said Satyena.

“Fewer do than you might realize,” he said. “Especially since the discovery ...” He studied her, his eyes passing over her skin, lingering on her face. “Is it true? That witches are being born half—that is, with fewer signs of the Pestilence?”

“Half-human, you meant to say,” said Satyena. “It’s okay, no offense is taken. We are viewed far worse by our own. And yes, it is true. Nor are we trusted by the other witches any more than if we were men—Sister Samain has made certain of that.” She looked at Jeremiah. “That is why I was being held in such a manner, like an animal. And the fact that I had argued before the council that peace should be made with the men. You must understand ... we half-breeds don’t share this, this bond you speak of. Indeed, we would have attempted to ... eliminate Sister Samain ... had she not consolidated power so quickly.” She shook her head and then quickly drained her glass. “No, it is lost. So long as she alone can maintain the cloaking spell, her stranglehold on the home coven will be complete.”

She watched as Jasper and Jeremiah exchanged curious glances. “You’d like to know more, wouldn’t you?” Then she lifted her wine glass suddenly and slammed it back down in the middle of the table. “Fill me ... and I’ll tell you.”

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