She Who Was Promised, Her Radiance Senrian Sira, sat upon her throne as her dominion fell and she wasn’t issuing commands heroically: she was listening. Listening to the sound of distant screams, listening for an insight from the god that was supposed to be protecting them. The violence drew steadily closer but the promise of deliverance only seemed to grow more tenuous. Perhaps detractors in a coming age would call her indecisive in a crisis, but shit: they hadn’t been at war two hours earlier.
Their foes had bypassed the borders entirely. The assault on the capital had been as devastating as it was unanticipated. To say that reports were confused would be an understatement: soldiers from outlying neighborhoods claimed their assailants were monsters, bestial demons walking bold as you please beneath the sun. Armed like people and intelligent enough to fight with discipline.
The doors to her throne room were flung wide, the invaders entering in a stunning flood. Her picked bodyguard charged forward and was mowed down. She could see for herself that their attackers were demons, shaped like people but with snouts like boars or fangs like wolves. Her people were killed with stunning speed and then they came for Senrian. Some hideous, snarling monster with burning coals for eyes sank its hand into her hair and dragged her from her throne. She fell to the floor, knees bruised upon the stone, head twisted awkwardly.
“Stop!” A woman’s voice, filled with authority. It certainly wasn’t anyone Senrian knew because the demons wouldn’t have listened to them.
The monsters moved back, chests heaving, weapons propped on their shoulders and dripping with gore. Senrian pushed herself to her feet unsteadily in time to see her savior approach: a woman who looked to be no older than her, with skin that was very pale and hair as black as pitch. Her eyes were a startling blue, so bright Senrian was sure it couldn’t be natural. She wore a low-slung pair of comfortably-loose pants, workmanlike shin-high boots, nothing on top but a skimpy halter the purpose of which was definitely holding her breasts in place, not enticing men. It was hard to say how Senrian knew this, although the swords she held in either hand and the purposeful way she moved were hints.
“You’re the one whose place this is?”
Senrien’s eyes went beyond her and she was startled to see how many of her people lived. Most of her priests and councilors had sheltered in this final refuge with their families, and there they still were, huddling against the walls with their kin in their arms. She found this startling: it had felt as if they were being exterminated.
“Hey. You.” The woman snapped her fingers in her face. When she turned back, bewildered, the woman repeated, “Are you the one in charge? No one’s going to hurt you, I just need to know who I’m talking to.”
“I am queen,” she admitted, although she felt the wave of fear it sent through her people.
“Huh,” was all the terrible warrior said. Eyes roved across her with such interest that she felt as if the woman must be able to see through her clothes, all the way down to her soul. “Gerubem,” she barked, and everyone but her own soldiers flinched.
“Give me good news, Bialla,” a new voice replied, and Senrien almost cried aloud when she saw where it was coming from: there was a hole in the world right in front of the throne. Senrien sank into that seat slowly, bereft of all strength, as she stared at it. She was peering into what felt like another world. Another room, but she could make out little of it: the hole was right beside a man who eclipsed most of the view. He was the same age as the woman and looked enough like her that Senrien came to the conclusion they were siblings.
What she could see of the room was dim, lit entirely by artificial light. It was furnished in hardwoods and black or blue upholstery, the wall to the man’s side lined by books. He sat in profile to them, attention fixed on the one other person Senrien could see, a middle-aged man kneeling on the floor at his feet, a stranger who looked oddly familiar to her. The kneeling man kept his gaze down as if deliberately avoiding her eyes, but when he twitched uneasily, Senrien heard a tinkling of bells. She gasped and the kneeling man flinched.
“It’s done,” the terrible woman was saying, “but I think we need to change the plan.”
“What? Why?”
“This place is nice. Nicer than we were led to believe.”
“We already did the math. Piecing it up and auctioning it off in parts is the most profitable way to deal with this.”
“I think we could find a buyer wholesale. It’s isolated and picturesque, just the right thing for someone starting out.”
“This dumbass is proof that’s not tenable.”
“In the right hands, it could be, and we’re not selling insurance, we’re selling a dream.”
The young man grunted.
“Just come here. Take a look.”
He heaved a put-upon sigh. “It’ll be a while, I have a million other things on my plate today.”
The woman mirrored his sigh, but Senrien wanted to say she was amused and she did this for play. “Whereas all I had to do was kick ass and my work is complete.”
“You can help me with the paperwork.”
“Goodbye, brother dear!” As suddenly as it had appeared, the aperture vanished. The woman put her swords away before turning to Senrien. “Walk with me.”
She forced herself to stand on knees that wobbled. She felt as if she might faint as she stepped down off the dais and followed the woman out the back of the hall. The swordswoman made straight for the door in the rear wall, walking with the purpose Senrian was already gathering was characteristic of her. It was all she could do to keep up.
The woman named Bialla led them on a twisting zigzag path through the halls of the palace until they emerged into the gardens in the dying light of dusk. They had come here so swiftly, along the most efficient route possible, it was almost as if she had known where to go. She stopped as soon as they were outside, planting her fists on her hips as she gazed up at the mountains towering over them.
“So I saw you recognize your god.”
Senrian had no response to this.
“What’s happening here is, Cenuwa got behind on his debts, which we own. We’re foreclosing on some of his holdings to recoup our investment. Bad news for you: you’re one of them.”
She nodded and held silent, because what did you say?
“We originally planned to split the place up, sell off the real estate here, the movables there, march your people off elsewhere to swell the followers of someone in the market to expand. I’ve convinced my brother to come take a second look. He’s on the business end, I do the fun stuff. Ultimately the decision is his, so you’ll want to be persuasive if you don’t want to find yourself setting off tomorrow to embark on a career of slavery along with everyone you know.”
Senrien swallowed very hard and the palms of her shaking hands were sweaty. “How can I convince him?”
She studied her, lips pursed, like she was choosing her words. When she came to a decision, it was to be blunt: “Look, my brother is a mess. Dead lover, torn up about it, you get the picture. I’m not suggesting you give him a sales pitch, I’m telling you to suck his dick.”
She took a step to the rear. “What?”
The woman made a face but then shrugged off her own distaste. “I know it’s a shitty situation to find yourself in, but considering the alternative…”
“I don’t… work like that.”
“No? Well, too bad. Anyway, best of luck.” Giving her a pat on the shoulder, she walked away like that was an end to it. Senrien was so totally confused by everything that it didn’t cross her mind to curse or beg, she just turned to watch her go with her mouth ajar. In the warrior’s wake, several of her bestial servants entered this outdoor space, taking up posts at all the exits in a way that made it clear she wasn’t free to leave.
She was still loitering in the gardens hours later when she suddenly felt as if she wasn’t by herself. She turned around and a man standing there. The stranger was ghostly-pale, his hair black as night, his dark eyes serious. The moment their eyes met, his mouth quirked, and his amusement was dry, cynical. Unamused, if that was possible.
“I see why Bialla wanted me to come look at ‘this place’ myself.”
She understood what this meant but couldn’t bring herself to acknowledge it. “Um…”
“No need to worry, I’m not going to…” He gestured aimlessly.
“My people deserve better.”
The man turned away, rolling his eyes impatiently.
“Please. Let me—” Her voice shook and she tried again. “Let me convince you.”
She had made no attempt to approach but the man jerked away as if she had grabbed at him. “Look, I’d love to help…”
Suddenly, she couldn’t take it anymore. She had been hanging back with twenty feet of distance between them but now she closed, walking right up to the man and grabbing him by his shirt in both fists. “I’m so embarrassed, but why? This is stupid! Everything that’s wrong with this situation is your fault, not mine! My people are going to be taken as slaves, that isn’t okay. This business of yours is bullshit, it isn’t right that I just lost a war I never consented to, none of this is acceptable!”
She had never aggressed another person in even so mild a way and was more discomfited by her own actions than the stranger appeared to be. Taking Senrien by the wrists in a grip that was firm without being rough, he pushed her hands away until the shirt was released. Then he made for the nearest bench, placing a hand in the center of Senrien’s back to indicate that she was to accompany him. “Chatu, wine!” he shouted, and one of the demons slipped away.
They sat together in awkward silence while they waited for their drinks, the man beside her shifting unhappily. It was hard to tell whether he was out of sorts because of his sister’s scheme or simply because he was being forced to talk to Senrien. When the wine arrived, he turned the glass in his hands and didn’t drink. Senrien took a hearty pull, happy to imbibe for both of them. Either she succeeded in making herself a whore tonight or embarked upon a career of bondage tomorrow; drunkenness struck her as equally desirable in either circumstance.
“I don’t normally explain,” the man began, “but Bialla stuck me in the middle. I hope you’re ready for more information than people usually feel grateful for. Mortal souls are currency. They can’t actually ‘spend’ you in the sense of getting you killed, unless they encourage you to do something really dumb and you’re stupid enough to listen to them, but they buy and sell the promise of reincarnated souls to one another. To get themselves more power or more real estate in the Afterlife.”
Senrien took another drink, a nice big one. “You say ‘they,’ not ‘we.’”
“Oh, my sister and I were mortal once. Not everyone gets reborn. Gods can,” he gestured with one hand as if beckoning, “hook you out of the cycle if they want. Since souls are so valuable to them, you have to be someone they really love or hate so much they’re willing to pay personally to take a shit on you. People of the sort who get legends told about them.”
“So there is some justice in the grand scheme of things,” she suggested, looking for a positive.
That made the man laugh bitterly. “Not necessarily. A great hero can anger a god not his own and he just has to hope his own god remembers to look out for him. Otherwise, eternity as a demon, here we go!”
Her head turned, eyes searching for the soldiers in the growing gloom. “You don’t have to be a beast to get stuck looking like one.”
“Every single one of them will tell you that’s what happened. Having met a few gods in my time, I have no problem accepting that some of them must be telling the truth.”
“What does being a demon mean?”
“Well they’re at the bottom of the pecking order. They obey us whether they really want to or not, it’s how they work. As for people like us, we have no actual power of our own, dying doesn’t turn humans into deities.” He grimaced, as if contemplating something that embarrassed him. “We have quite a lot of pull anyway, but if push comes to shove, we’re the ones who have to back down. Gods love us because we’re beautiful to them, we remind them of the mortals who are so important to them. Nothing actually compels them to be nice to us and if you die in the Afterlife,” he spread his hands. “No do-overs.”
Senrien set her empty glass down on the flagstones at her feet and took the full drink the man was offering her. “So what you’re saying is, we’re commodities. Our lives are otherwise meaningless. The only way to get off the wheel is to piss off a god enough to wind up in the Afterlife, wearing the head of a dog, so you can spend eternity a foot soldier serving the people who made your life a farce.”
“I’m sorry, for what that’s worth.”
“No you’re not.” She turned on the bench so she could look the man in the eyes. “You’re sorry you had to be present when I learned the truth because it makes you uncomfortable, but you aren’t sorry for my pain. You’ve been dead too long to remember empathy.”
The man’s eyes blazed in a satisfying way and his nostrils flared indignantly.
“You said demons don’t always deserve their lot. What about ‘heroes’ like you?”
His chin came up. “My sister and I climbed a mountain to kill a giant roc that was stealing our people’s children and eating them. One year after we succeeded, a wyvern took its place. After the wyvern, a drake. When we killed the drake, that’s when we woke up in the Afterlife. A bit of digging eventually led to the revelation that our king was paying the monsters because he believed that fear and grief tied the peasants to his soil and gave them something to worry about other than their taxes. He’s what put us early in our graves.”
“It’s funny how far you’ve fallen. The people who tell legends about you, I wonder what they would make of you?”
The man thrust himself to his feet. “I know this isn’t nice, but it’s how it is. In time, I’m sure you’ll get over it. I regret that we gave you false hope.” A new hole opened, a window letting onto another place such as Senrien had seen earlier that day, decorated all in dark colors and lit by lamps. Before she could decide whether she meant to respond, he was gone.
She sat there for a long while, watching the last of the light fade from the sky. At one point, she sent one of the demons standing guard on her to get more wine; she could guess this wasn’t something that often happened, because it went. Perhaps obedience had been built into its shape, just another facet of the hateful injustice that was life’s ultimate punchline.
She wasn’t certain why she was being sequestered from her people but was glad for it. ‘I think I might have an idea’ was not likely to reassure anyone and perhaps false hope would cut crueler than defeat. She had been, by her own measure, a mediocre ruler, guiltless of any great injustices but without much to say in support of herself. She had been born to simple craft folk down in the valley below the palace, her birth foretold, pulled by the priests from amongst the children who didn’t have so grand a destiny.
Only when her head was swimming with wine did she rise. She made for her bedchamber, her bevy of watchful demons trailing behind. The hallways were deserted, but she saw lights emerging from under doors here and there; her people were around, holed up in terror with their kin. Knowing what she now did, she could guess that their conquerors had killed as few of them as possible. They didn’t care for their wellbeing, let alone their peace of mind, but these scabrous immortal dogs would want to recoup as much of their investment as possible.
If she understood this twisted new economy, a dead body would be worth less than a living person. The dead would eventually be reborn but that was in the future. A soul in a living body could breed more followers, it could go to war. The soul was money in the bank; the person was money in the hand.
In her private chamber, she knelt upon the floor. Bowing her head, she prayed, Cenuwa. I am our people’s leader, the prophesied queen. I reach out to you now and you must hear me, this is what you promised my people when you told them I was come.
The silence that followed was lengthy and Senrien felt her flesh grow hot with anger, ‘til sweat broke out on the back of her neck. After everything else, the god owed her this. She was about to repeat her plea when a sad voice said in her ear, I cannot save you, child.
I figured that out for myself.
Do you want to share your anger with me? Nothing you have to say can hurt me more than losing you.
Please, she retorted. I suspect you’ll get over it, no one’s selling you into slavery. I didn’t get the sense you would face any actual consequences for failing us.
My shame is as broad as the sky and as deep as the sea.
But not, I think, nearly as compelling as my people’s grief.
Silence answered her.
She hadn’t contemplated asking after this, although she had wondered many times, especially in her youth. The question leapt to the forefront of her mind unexpectedly: Why me?
You were the leader foretold.
By you. Why?
Another silence, and Senrien became aware of the discomfort in her knees, grinding against the stone of the floor. When she asked herself why she was bothering to make herself uncomfortable in reverence to her failure of a god, she pushed herself to her feet. She turned a lap of the room, blowing out the lanterns that had been lit, before tossing herself onto her back on her bed.
Your parents were attractive. I had reason to hope the child would be beautiful, suited to the crown and robes.
She nodded to herself as she digested this. It should have been humiliating, but for some reason, it made her feel more, rather than less, brave. Everything divine in her life was a joke or a lie; none of it had ever been anything but mummery. If she didn’t have a destiny of any sort, it meant her life was truly hers, to do with as she chose.
While you are still my god, she told the pathetic wretch who had told her so many lies, you will do one more thing for me.
When she told the god her plan, Cenuwa tried to balk. This is madness. I can’t!
Sure you can.
You aren’t mine anymore.
Aren’t I? They can’t have finished the sale, they wouldn’t have left me rattling around my palace if they had their deal finalized. My people would already be on the march to our new home and our new god.
What you’re suggesting is counterproductive.
For you, not me, and you owe me. Anyway, is it? Wouldn’t you like to stick one to these people who are doing this to you? Make sure they know they’re not gods, however high they climb, and there are things you can do that they just can’t control?
She had thought that argument would go over well. It was only a minute before Cenuwa prompted, voice quivering with fear and eagerness, Are you sure, my child?
I don’t suppose we ever are, she replied, but it’s the only way of fighting I have left.
Very well. If I do not see you again, know that I have loved you.
That’s kind, she said, because she didn’t care, but feared to alienate her god at this precarious stage. Winding up a demon for eternity was not desirable.
Are you ready?
In response, Senrien withdrew from her heavy, cloth-of-gold vestments the small dagger she had concealed all day while she talked to one monster after another, weighing the futility of attacking them. Her heart was thundering, palms slick with sweat, and she knew, if she let herself think, she would balk. Bringing the dagger to her neck with both hands, she found the thick vein under the hinge of her jaw and drove it in.
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