Science Fiction Originals Vol 3 Part 6

With her head still bowed, Lilith looked up. She saw all of the men bowing toward the speaker. The speaker was a powerful-looking Haramite priest with a white beard. Tahir Ranon stood at his right hand. The priest's fierce eyes seemed to search out Lilith's, and in terror she covered her face.

"Behold the Messengers of G.o.d: Abraham, Moses, Solomon, Zoroaster, Buddha, Jesus, Muhammad, and the Bab, who foretold the coming of Him-who-G.o.d-shall-manifest."

"Behold the Messengers," repeated the men as they knelt and bowed.

The white bearded priest looked over the a.s.sembly, waiting until every last sound had died. He placed his hands to the sides of his face, then held his hands up to the sky.

"Behold the Founders who named the Enlightener-"

"-who foretold the Voyage and the world of Haram," completed the men.

The priest turned and held out his hands toward the hundreds of women who knelt on the floor, their heads bowed. "Behold the daughters of Shaytan: defilers of men, poisoners of hearts, minds, and bodies." He held his hands out toward the bronze inscription. "And behold the legacy of Magda, the wife of Shaytan, the edge of the Sword of Justice, who turned the Sword against G.o.d and his people on Haram."

The men bowed again and pressed their hands over their hearts. The white-bearded priest bowed, kissed his starcross, and made the triangular sign of the starcross before the men. When the priest had finished, he joined the rank of priests at the rear of the raised area leaving Tahir Ranon standing alone.

The breeze caused a dry leaf to skitter across the paving stones. The sound it made seemed raucous and disrespectful in the silence. As the leaf pa.s.sed a rank of kneeling women, a quick hand darted from beneath a black veil, captured the offensive leaf, and snapped back out of sight.

"Men of Joram, men of Planet Angerona," began Tahir Ranon. "All over this world there are ruins such as this. The ruins are of temples, schools, universities, factories, government buildings, and great houses of finance. These ruins have been preserved to make certain that memory never again grows vague. Every town and city maintains one or more such reminders. They remind us of who we are, from whence we came, and what we must do to continue to serve the will of Alilah."

"In the name of Alilah," repeated about half the men in the a.s.sembly. Lilith noticed that her father was not one of them. Her father stood alone, apart from the others, his face in a frown.

Tahir Ranon continued, "From the death of Magda and the destruction of the Sword of Justice until over a century ago, each year the men of old Haram would bring their women to the local ruin to remind them of the sin their silence carries. They were shown the image of Angerona, ancient G.o.ddess of silence, and told why Haram, the place forbidden to war, had become Angerona. They were brought to the ruin to have the Female Law read to them. Over the bones of Magda, in the year Eighty-Nine, G.o.d gave us this simple ordinance: 'Look upon Magda's monument and remember, oh men, lest ye forget and again fall victim to woman's tongue.'

"This is the Female Law: Women's sins against G.o.d, nature, and man have brought down upon her and her female offspring the curse of silence to mark them as evil. Until woman is again born with speech, this shall be her penance: "Upon pain of death, no female shall bear a name save in reference to her patron; "No female shall learn to read; "No female shall learn to write; "No female shall enjoy the protection of any rights save for those extended to her by her patron; "The female who bears a name, or reads, or writes, or teaches, or claims property as her own will be put to death by slow strangulation.

"This is the will of Alilah."

"In the name of Alilah, by the spirits of the Messengers," said the men.

After a long silence Tahir Ranon held out his hands. "How simple it would have been," he began, "to have honored the ceremony and thus pay respect to the word of G.o.d." He lowered his hands and continued with a grave voice.

"Decades ago, however, our leaders confused compa.s.sion and mercy with laziness and lack of discipline.Our leaders sought new interpretations of the Female Law, allowing the women's finger-talking and the Mogam writing to be tolerated, and then simply excused, as though this talking was not really talking and this writing was not really writing."

His fierce eyes looked over the a.s.sembly. "As of this moment, all of these blasphemous practices cease." He pointed at the women with a shaking finger. "There can be no compromises with G.o.d's ordinances, and we violate them only at the risks of ending human existence on Angerona and condemning our immortal souls to eternal fire. G.o.d has stricken down an entire world of sinners before, and the Female War was G.o.d's warning that the next time he will spare none of us."

He held out his hands to indicate the temple ruins. "Witness the effects of violating the laws of G.o.d. Men, your eyes will speak to you the truth. Because of Magda and her followers, half the population of this world was killed. All of our cities, homes, schools, industries, and houses of worship were destroyed. Read your histories and remember, you men. It was not so long ago that our forefathers battled in the gutters for vermin to eat."

He clasped his hands behind his back. To Lilith it looked as though Tahir Ranon was looking directly at her. She reached out her hand and found Rihana's. Rihana's hand was cold.

"The first minister and I have come together with our families this morning to tell our great nation and this world that never again shall we see misguided compa.s.sion bring on the destruction of civilization. As of this moment we return to the values that were born in the fires and ashes of this temple. Without exception, both the Reform and Orthodox parties support this return to G.o.d."

He nodded at the priest, and the priest's deep voice called, "Priests and novices of Alilah, unopposed knowledge of a sin is as great a violation of G.o.d's will as the sin itself. You do not serve G.o.d and you do no service to either men or women by keeping such sins secret."

"Great father," called a voice from behind Lilith, "I have seen this one use the finger-talking."

Lilith's stomach went cold as she gripped Rihana's hand. Rihana squeezed back. A tall priest with a closely-cropped black beard came down from behind the great father and walked toward Lilith. Every muscle tensed as she searched for an explanation, some kind of defense. She had used the finger-talking. Lots of times, even with Rahman, and Rahman hated her. Everyone, even Jamil, Isak, and Majnun, knew about her finger-talking. She had even used it with her father.

Duman Amin had said that no one would come to any harm. He had joked that someone might be bored to death or catch a chill. Jamil had beaten her for leaving the female wing, and that was only Duman's rule.

Finger-talking was breaking G.o.d's rule. But her father was the minister of trade and best friends with Mikael Yucel, the first minister. Who would dare to touch the daughter of Duman Amin- The sounds of footsteps came from behind her. She could hear the sand grinding between shoes and the paving stones. There seemed to be a sickeningly sweet scent of rotting flowers on the air.

She held onto Rihana's hand more tightly and prayed to herself- "No!"

It was her father's voice. Lilith opened her eyes and turned to see four men holding Duman Amin. He began screaming and flailing his arms. The child turned to ask Rihana what she should do when Rihana's hand was torn from her grasp. Lilith looked up and saw that a priest had a length of rope looped around Rihana's throat from behind and was twisting it tighter and tighter through a wooden sleeve by a wooden handle.

It was as though the blood exploded in Lilith's head. She sprang to her feet, wrapped her hands around the executioner's arm and sank her teeth into the priest's flesh. The taste of blood filled her mouth as the man screamed in terror and pain. A hand she didn't see slapped her down. The back of her head struck a paving stone, and for a moment the world became soft and gray.

There were soft lights, gray ones, yellow ones, sunbursts of blinding white, a pain as though a steel needle had been thrust through her spine.

There was an image of Rihana, her swollen tongue pushing against her veil, her feet kicking as her hands clawed at the choke loop. Then she hung limply from the rope, her legs only twitching. The priest who smelled like rotting flowers continued to twist the rope's wooden handle.

Ghostly screams ate at the edges of Lilith's awareness, and she felt her hands and elbows push against the paving stones as Rihana's limp body fell upon the temple floor.

On the platform the priests seemed to be saying something, but Lilith couldn't make out the words. On her knees she crawled over to Rihana's body and picked up the woman's hand. It was very cold, the nails torn and b.l.o.o.d.y. The child dropped it.

A dark figure pa.s.sed close by her right, and as it pa.s.sed it pressed something into Lilith's hand. It was a tiny chip of the temple's yellow stone, and the girl stared stupidly at it as she heard Isak and Majnun calling.

"Back here! Woman, come back here!

The priest with the white beard held out his hands and said in a voice that was slow and distorted, "You guards, stay where you are. She will condemn herself." Her father screamed again, his voice almost a whimper, "G.o.d, no! She is not well! She is not well! In the name of Kamil, have mercy."

The pain in Lilith's head seemed to drown every other sensation. She rubbed her eyes to clear them.

Exploding lights and pain made her weave upon her knees as she saw her mother walk toward the stone pillar with the inscription. Hedia pulled off her veil and let it fall to the floor. She lifted a dark stone and, with one swift stroke, marked a Mogam center line beneath the bronze plaque. She quickly filled it in.

By the time Hedia was finished, the priest with the choke loop was behind her. He placed it over her head.

Hedia turned so that she faced her executioner. As he began to tighten the loop, she spat in his face.

Lilith took a step toward them, but hands reached out and held her arms and legs, and covered her eyes and mouth. She bit one of the hands, and as she again saw light, she read the inscription her mother had made on the pillar.

"Lilith will not be silent."

She felt a blow on the back of her head. The gray returned, and then came the black.

Hovering above her dreams, but not yet awake, she hid from the images that reached at her from her sleep.

She concentrated on the pain in her neck and head. She let the pain fill her and drive those images of the temple out of existence.

There was a noise, something hard hitting stone, and from the echo of it she knew the noise came from the courtyard. She tried to leap up, but the Shaytan himself was digging at her head with a trowel. She eased her head back upon her pillow, her eyes still shut.

"Did I hear her stir in there?"

A strangely distant voice came to her. Her lips felt dry as she wondered if they were coming for her; coming to place her head in a choke loop. She listened but the voice was gone.

She lifted her hands and touched her fingers to the skin of her throat. It seemed so soft. There had been a cased wheel of cheese in the kitchen that had rope handles. She had tried to lift the case, but it had been too heavy. She remembered the feel of the rope, how coa.r.s.e it had been, the bite of its sharp fibers into her skin.

She held her breath for a moment, then let it escape as the horror of her experiment touched her.

There was another sound. It was a sound that she had made. The rustle of the bedclothes sounded strange. The bed beneath her felt strange. She reached out with her hands and found that the bed was much wider than her bed. The reaching made her head hurt even worse and she brought her hands in to her sides.

"There," said a strange voice. "She's coming to."

There was a muttered response that the girl couldn't hear. She opened her eyes and squinted against the pain. The shades on the windows were drawn against the late afternoon sun. There was a bearded man standing near the windows. He was a priest doctor.

The priest came over, lifted her arm, and looked at his timepiece. Lowering her arm, he leaned over her and held up his left hand. "Look at my fingers, girl."

She looked at the man's stubby fingers as a light flashed past her left eye then her right. He smiled and placed the light into his coat pocket.

"Do you have a headache? I'd wager that you do."

She lifted a hand to answer and the priest placed his hand upon hers as he shook his head. "Not with your fingers, child. Either nod or shake your head."

Lilith closed her eyes and gave a tiny nod. It hurt to nod.

"Do you feel tired? Sleepy?"

She shook her head.

The priest patted her hand as he turned. "It's probably nothing more than a mild concussion. A little rest and she'll be fine."

Lilith lifted her head slightly to see who the priest was addressing, hoping that it was her father. Beyond the priest was Sergeant Jamil's gloomy visage. The guard was slouched against the door, his legs crossed, his arms folded. Lilith had never seen Jamil slouch.

"It can't be true."

The priest c.o.c.ked his head toward the child. "Outside, Sergeant Aswad."

"Creeping Jesus, has the world gone mad?"

"Not here," insisted the priest. He patted Lilith's hand again and said to her, "Try and rest quietly, child.

Just close your eyes and rest and you'll be up playing in no time."

He turned and followed Jamil out of the room. The priest pulled the door almost shut and said in a low voice, "Guard what you say, sergeant. If some church father dangles a choke loop in front of my face, you may be certain that I will tell them anything they want to know, including your occasional blasphemies."

"Please accept my apologies."

There was a silence and the doctor spoke again in a quieter voice. "The girl didn't need to be reminded of her mothers." "I cannot believe it," hissed Jamil. "Next to the first minister there is no more powerful man in Joram than Duman Amin. How can this be?"

"The first minister needed to quiet the opposition. Duman Amin was Tahir Ranon's price."

"The first minister is Duman's closest friend!"

"Mikael Yucel is Mikael Yucel's closest friend."

"Father, such things cannot stand before honor, loyalty, and friendship."

"Sergeant, you are greener than that girl in there. The party in power will define the nation's slice of the new world government once it is formed. Of course, that world government will be the instrument that will control trade with Imahn and other alien worlds. You cannot even imagine the incredible fortunes and the degrees of power involved-"

The door opened and the priest leaned into the room. He glanced at Lilith and pulled his head back out of the door, closing it behind him. The sounds behind the door died to nothing.

She closed her eyes and concentrated on thinking about anything other than her nightmares. She thought the room she was in was strangely familiar. Opening her eyes, she gingerly turned on her left side and saw a table and chair. It was the table her mother had been sitting at that one day so long ago. This was her mother's room.

She pushed herself up with her elbow and arm until she was sitting up. For a moment the room seemed to spin, but she focused on the window until the feeling pa.s.sed. There was a numbness inside of her; a confusion. How was she supposed to feel about her mother's death? How was she to know what to make of her mother's death when she still did not know what to make of Hedia's life? And there was the death of Rihana. She chose not to acknowledge at all the existence of that event.

She looked down to see that she was wearing a black bed-dress. There was a veil for her at the foot of the bed. Looking away from the veil, she moved to the edge of the bed and slipped to the floor. Her naked feet touched the cold planks and her headache and the dizziness left her.

With one hand on the bed to steady her, she reached to the chair. Once she was next to the chair, she climbed up into it. Letting her fingertips glide across the table's surface of soft wood, she sought out the shallow grooves made by her mother's pen writing with the strokes of Mogam. That was where Hedia had done her writing. Perhaps she had even written on the day she was murdered by the priests.

Lilith frowned as she remembered that her mother hadn't just written on that one day. The girl had crouched outside the door a hundred times, and almost every time she had listened she could hear the scratching. Hedia must have written a lot.

No sense could be made out of the grooves in the table top. Many sets of grooves had been made one on top of another. She asked herself, what had been done with it?

She looked around at the room and it was still tiny, dark, and small. Except for the bed, the table, a built-in closet and clothespress, and the chair, there was no furniture. The walls were painted a pale blue.

Dark brown and gold waspwood beams and planks formed the ceiling from which a single electric globe light was suspended.

Where could Hedia have hidden her writing? A sudden flush of shame warmed Lilith's face. G.o.d hates the female who writes. What must G.o.d think of the female who seeks out the words of another female? The future seemed to be a barren, colorless road guarded by men wearing black fezzes and carrying choke loops.

The girl returned to the bed and sat upon it, her feet dangling above the floor. There was a tightness in her chest and throat. She knew there were tears waiting for her, but she did not want to cry. Tears were too hard.

There were too many things to sort out, a whole new world to learn. It was a world without a mad mother, a world where Duman Amin was no longer powerful.

The specter of the workhouse loomed in her imagination. If her father was no longer powerful, did that mean that he was poor? Did she still have a patron? Onan always talked of the workhouse as though no human could sink any lower. Would it be the workhouse for her? She had been so evil.

The image of Rihana came into her mind as her eyes filled with tears. Rihana had always been there to chase away the nightmares with a kiss, a touch of her fingers, an embrace. There would be no more kisses; no more embraces. Rihana's death was before her and refused to be denied. The nightmares were here to stay.

The memory of the temple murders flashed through her mind. The choke loop was on Rihana and the girl had tried to stop them. The taste of the priest's blood was still in her mouth. They had swatted her aside as if she were nothing but a snowfly. Lilith knew she would cry for Rihana for many days. She did not know if she would cry for Hedia.

Another piece of memory presented itself. Hedia had been writing, and as soon as Hedia knew she was being watched, she had thrown herself to the floor. What an insane thing it had been to do.

The floor. She studied the floor, the chair, the table, the edge of the bed.

Lilith climbed down from the bed and lay down on the chilly planks where her mother had fallen that day.Looking up, she could see the underside of the desk and the chair. There was nothing there. Looking at the bed, she turned around, reached out her hands, and grabbed the edge of the frame. Pulling herself beneath the bed, she felt with her hands at the underside of the frame, but she could find no opening, no papers.

Lilith came out from beneath the bed and sat up, although her headache almost made her faint. She knew her mother must have hidden her writing somewhere. The need to find the writing drove her. She got on her hands and knees and crawled over the floorboards, testing the edges of each plank with her fingernails. She tested dozens of cracks, finding each one tight and sealed with varnish. Then, near the wall, one of the short boards moved.

Holding her breath, she dug in her fingernails, and lifted the board. Its edges had been shaped and smoothed by a careful, patient hand. Lilith looked into the opening. Inside there were four writing pens and a wad of papers. She reached in, took the papers, and looked at them. All of the pages were blank. She looked through the opening into the floor and saw more papers tied into a roll with a black ribbon. The roll was as thick as her fist and two hand-lengths long.

She reached in and removed the roll from its hiding place. She sat back on her heels and read the line of Mogam written on the outside of the roll. It read: "To my daughter, Lilith."

The girl felt a teardrop on her forearm. More tears rolled down her cheeks. She put the papers back in their hiding place and replaced the board. When she was once again in bed, she buried her face in the pillow and cried for her mother, the hard mouth, the bringer of pain, the author of her name among women.

"The world is standing on its head," declared Sergeant Jamil many weeks later. He was sitting in the kitchen sipping at a hot cup of aba.n.u.sh. Lilith was in her invisible place behind the ranges. The extra stoves were always cold now. Onan only used the small range near the sink since the other servants had been dismissed and her father no longer did any entertaining. It seemed as though only dustflowers and ghosts roamed the empty halls.

Onan was shaking his head as he gloomily rested his elbows on the edge of the scrub sink. "I can't cry for Majnun and Isak. It was only a matter of time before Duman Amin sent them down the road. How many men does it take to control one sick woman?"