IGMS Issue 50 (16 page)

Witch? Tara felt a laugh bubbling in her chest as she nuzzled Jack's curls.

Tara was a goddess.

Absurd. Here she was, in sweat-pants and t-shirt, stretching arms over a bunch of snoring kids in their underclothes, touching fingers to a man in his boxer shorts. But . . . maybe, yes. Maybe that was what a goddess really was--embracing those who loved her, who followed her, in their weak, frightened moments. This moment in their room, intimate, vulnerable, this was the expression of every good thing she and Mike believed. The children trusted they could find refuge here; and she and Mike welcomed them in.

How could the witch's bloody dribbles compare with that?

She whispered to Jack--her faith in him, her love for him--and her memories of him. Remember when you were six and tried to put sunscreen on the Patel's dog? Remember when you broke your toe sliding into third base, but pretended it wasn't, so that you could finish the game, and we had to cut off your cleats because your foot was so swollen? Remember when you made a spaghetti picnic?

Remember when you pulled down a witch's tower to protect us.

The storm raged. But the longer Tara spoke to Jack, the softer his eyes became. The wind squalled; he settled against her. Thunder pounded the sky; Jack blinked and yawned. Lightning burned in the clouds, but his eyes were already closed. Tara continued whispering to him until she felt his body ease into sleep, and his breathing slow.

Sometime in the night, the wind broke against Jack's dreaming breath. Tara woke to hear the storm's echoes squealing, rumbling, off in the distance. But the noises of her tower shushed her back to sleep.

The dirigible's takeoff from the top of the pyramid was accompanied by the same pomp as an Imperial bloodfeast. Everyone in attendance had shined their carapaces, and some had gone so far as to paint themselves as on a high holy day. The mateless filtered through the crowd, sacs of spume mounded on their backs so any who wished for food could have it.

Hygeria, my left-mate, tapped her foreclaw against my neck. "No more will our race scrabble in the dirt," Hygeria said with the taps, gesturing at the dirigible with her mandibles.

I passed the message to Ryke, my right-mate, as was expected of me, but I kept my own thoughts unmoving lest I be suspected.

The dirigible lifted into the sky amidst a great clacking of foreclaws. Clusters began to clack in unison, and words rippled through the crowd. "Progress, Progress, Progress," was the first to assert itself. Then, "We reach the sky."

All eyes were on the dirigible.

Its bulging airsac gleamed silver in the bright sunset, and the crew clung to metal racks along the bottom.

"The silver of our glory!" someone tapped, and the crowd took it up with zeal.

Then the dirigible exploded. Orange flame ripped through the silver airsac, blooming instantly over the entire structure with a roar. Everyone froze in horror, then stampeded away as the fireball crashed back down on the pyramid's side, frame crumpling, crew trying to pull free of the wreckage.

I looked at what I had wrought and allowed myself to be pulled away, rejoicing grimly.

It would never reclaim what they had destroyed. Nothing could. But finally the flames of my anger, so long hidden inside the world of thought, rose a column of smoke in the world of the body so that all could share in my pain.

A disaster requires reflection. This is a known thing, even among the artless. The Trifold Emperor, therefore, ordered all to go into early hibernation to ponder in the thought world what had happened.

Of course, none of the military mate rows would be hibernating. Bred directly to the Emperor, they were beyond suspicion. They would be counting the sleepers, noting any who were missing. The Emperor thought, perhaps, that whoever had sabotaged the dirigible would refuse the call to reflection and try to escape judgement while all were hibernating.

Had I a desire to do so, I might have indeed escaped; I am a strong tunneler. Escape, however, was not what I sought. I sought justice.

In the thought world I would lay out my case before all those who slept, and I would see if justice found me.

When the call to reflection came, as I knew it would, I went deep into the earth to the tunnels of sleeping. There, I found my designated spot in my mate row, between Hygeria and Ryke, and began to spin my cocoon.

Hygeria tapped upon my thorax before she was fully encased. "Mourn beautifully," she said.

I passed the message to Ryke, and he passed it to his other mate, who passed it on down and down the row. Being my direct mates, Hygeria and Ryke could be killed for what I did if I failed to convince the colony of my righteousness in the thought world. My whole mate row could be killed, in fact. As the message to mourn beautifully passed on, I hoped desperately that I had not condemned them all.

I finished my cocoon and ordered my body to shut down. My limbs shuddered and went still. My antennae became limp. My view of the inside of the cocoon vanished into nothingness. Finally, all but my uppermost heart ceased to pump.

For a moment I lost all thought, lost all emotion, lost myself. I was as a stone. Then my mind sharpened, and the thought world gradually came into focus.

Lights fuzzed into being to either side of me. Those would be the thoughts of Hygeria and Ryke. The thoughts of the rest of my mate row began to shine dimly too, the close ones brightest.

I gazed into their thoughts as far as I could see and found they were all focused on the dirigible explosion as commanded. As the hibernation went on, their minds would each wander their separate ways, but now they were unified. With their minds all attuned to the same thing, a revelation about the subject of their focus would ripple through them all until the whole colony heard.

With a practiced concentration, I pictured the dirigible in flames and made the lurid light into that of satisfaction. "The flames were mine," I said, "and mine the destruction."

The thoughts of both Hygeria and Ryke reeled in surprise. The lights of their thinkings burst with sun-like brightness. On down the line, other lights flared as well and turned their attention to me. They pelted me with thoughts of hatred and confusion.

Against the violent force of their thoughts, I solemnly offered them a memory.

In my memory I was young. I had just experienced the second hardening of my carapace, and I could barely walk for the awkwardness of my newly formed body.

Unmated, of course, I carried sacs of spume upon my back, that others might taste of it and perhaps decide I was a worthy addition to their mate row.

I was also disoriented, as many are at their second hardening, and I stumbled across a grand gallery dappled with light. Unlike the hugging tunnels of most of the colony, this gallery was massive. It was indeed so large and bright that I thought at first I had stumbled outside at midday and must surely crisp and die.

But no, this tunnel was simply large and open, and into the sides and ceiling of the tunnel were images carved of pure light. What science was this, I thought to myself, that pictures could be made of the very light? And how has no one told me of this marvel?

An old fellow clacked toward me on uneven legs. His limbs were calcified at the joints and his gait was more lopsided even than mine. His carapace was a dull and cracked contrast to my newly formed body.

"Have you come to add yourself to our row, Mateless?" he asked with trembling taps.

"What is this place?"

The old fellow took a sac of spume from my back and sucked out its contents. "You could join us if you wish," he said, after savoring it. "Our row is small, and our task is ever seeking new limbs to support it."

I clacked a formal thanks as best I could with my newly grown claws. Secretly, though, I was skeptical. Disoriented I may have been, but even pupa know to expect negotiations when seeking to find a place in a mate row. For this one to accept me so blithely meant they were surely a pathetic and diseased lot.

"What is this place?" I asked again.

He scraped disappointment with his rear claws, then with his front said: "It is history, Mateless. The history of our species, carved into the sands of our home and lit from behind by the raging of the sun. Our mate row, and yours if you reconsider, has tended this place since the founding of this colony, that all might know from whence we came."

As my eyes adjusted, I took in the first series of shining images above me, a creation story that was instantly familiar from my instruction as a pupa. It showed a worm venturing to the surface, blistering in the sun, and retreating back into the ground to hibernate. After its sleep, it had transformed. It now had mandibles with which to eat the other worms and gain strength. As time went on, it grew legs, antennae, and a hard outer carapace as well.

The set of carvings showed the worm progress through the stages of development in stunning detail, and I pulled myself out of my memory enough to focus on those details with an artist's eye that I did not yet possess at the time of the memory itself.

In the thought world, the hatred and confusion ceased for a moment and was replaced by awe at the beauty I showed them. I waited briefly to resume my memory, hoping the question created by their marveling would be the same as mine all that time ago.

"Why have I never seen this before?" My young self asked. "Why would such beauty be kept hidden?"

"Perhaps, Mateless, this colony has lost its taste for beauty."

Still gazing at the bright carvings, I could not conceive this to be true. "Never," I said.

"Then perhaps it is the
past
they have lost their taste for. It used to be, Mateless, that our gallery branched from the main-most tunnel. All stopped through often. But now the tunnels have been changed. There is only one way here, and that long and twisted. Only the lost happen by."

I tore my gaze from the first series of carvings to see the length of the tunnel. More carvings shone down and down, like a mate row.

"Show me more," I said, tapping with my mandibles as if I were addressing the Trifold Emperor itself.

The old one turned on his calcified legs to lead the way, letting his rear claws drag lightly behind him in satisfaction.