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Title: Martyrling
Status: undergoing 1st edit
Updates: will be posted as completed
Notes: THANK YOU TO MY EDITORS!
The drop forms, shivers, pauses, and finally cascades down my nose and into the shadow that slashes across my mouth. The salt tastes ill on my tongue, an alien liquid that could not possibly have fallen from my own eyes. But fall it does. I cannot hold it in reservoir, cannot bite it back into nothingness. And the woman before me sees well.
“That would have been sweat, would it not, Luza Lyleah?” she questions softly, bending close to look me in the face. I can feel the threat in her body, the way she flaunts her status before me like a sword before a naked peasant. I shudder. She is a weapon of God.
"Yes, Priestess," I say. My voice is small in the cold room.
"Luza do not sweat, child," she tells me harshly.
"Yes, Priestess."
"Thrice the Prayer of Pure Death, and do not allow it to happen again."
"Yes Priestess."
And with that she sweeps away, down the line of straight-backed girls, all as nervous as I am. We do not know for what reason we have been called here, to this echoing office, but we fear it all the same. It is not often that fair things come of a meeting with the High Priestess Caerabella.
I know that I am lucky today, that she has been kind to me. Even as I stand motionless against the painted white wall, I count the blessings of God. It is true that Luza do not sweat, but more importantly, they do not cry. I shudder like a fish tossed off the line, biting my hooked lip.
I begin to repeat the words:
Daughter am I, servant am I
Pure shall my heart stay
For I am to be one with the Wings of God
And for this, nothing may be too much
Hallowed be the walls that keep me...
In the background I can hear Caerabella’s shoes snapping on the white stone floor, the sound like a cracking whip before the row of girls who flinch at every noise. Never will she strike us, for this is not done by the laws of the Greater Compound. But Caerabella’s voice is known to hold the power of the Bird Spirit within it. It might as well be a rod on our backs, that voice, and we cattle in the ancient texts, for all the power it wields. This woman speaks with a voice that is whip, chain, and executioner’s knife to us all.
We love her. We fear her. We can do nothing else, for she is the High Priestess.
Caerabella finishes her inspections and moves to the front of the room with an air of great solemnity, all eyes locked upon her.
“My children,” she begins, and in our hearts we cower. What trouble have we caused? For what shall we suffer now? Why have we been called before this tribunal of one? Oh, that God might show her mercy upon our souls, and grant us freedom from the justice of Her servant!
Caerabella continues. "You have heard of the great September Compound," she says, no question in her voice. But it is not the lash that I had expected. "It is not a place for impure, disobedient girls such as yourselves. It is a place for the finest of the Luza, the most honorable and fair of the girls here, who have not the slightest blemish upon their souls." She shoots us a dark, meaningful glance, clear in its message: we are not among these angels. She lets her word echo against the walls of the chamber, and we wither like plants beneath the sun.
"And yet, by the grace of the Bird Spirit—blessed be Her Wings—some of you have been granted this privilege. You are not ready. You will defile the September Compound with your impurity. Next to those who have walked in its plazas before you, you are nothing," the High Priestess tells us, bitterness lacing her words. "Less than nothing. But I am obliged by our God and Her will to send you there, for I am Her voice and hands before you."
She reaches into her sumptuous robes, and from between layers of heavy brocade cloth, draws out a tiny, glowing screen. It casts blue light onto her face as she reads.
"These are the names, listen well. Step forward if you are fortunate enough to be called, that I might see your face. Remember the names of those who are called with you, for they shall share your room and be your sisters from now until the end time. And mark also the section in which you will bed.
"Luza Saaloresh, Luza Ulmirani, Luza Kalsejaia, in the North. Luza Thiria, Luza Yunaniko, Luza Loreahan, also in the North. In the West, Luza Kaeldris..."
I hold my breath until I think I can hold it no longer. September Compound is famous beyond comparison here in the Greater Sections, for it is the core of our world. Bound by a wall all of its own is the September Compound, and stabbed through the center by the great Spire, so that its hallowed shadow traces the northern side of the Compound like a vast sundial. And there go the finest of Luza, the ones who will be given to God in the most honorable way, who will be one with the Bird Spirit and Her children.
If they are good enough.
Who are we, then, to wish for the Spire, to crave a place in the pure September Compound when we are mere young Luza? Who are we, creatures of sin and impurity, to ask for ourselves what is given to God’s favored? Caerabella is right, we are not worthy.
And yet, somehow, this day the scales tilt in my favor, for there is the High Priestess Caerabella reading my name from the list on her screen.
“Luza Lyleah, Luza Jhulenaia, Luza Hanalori, in the East.” I let my breath go. My eyes close and I listen to the sound of my heart pounding out her words again in my mind. I am to have a chance at honor. A chance only, but it is something.
Perhaps, if I can make it. Perhaps, if I can please Caerabella and the other Priests who choose my fate. And most uncertain of all, if my simple soul can please the Bird Spirit Herself—that would be the greatest honor.
No sign of elation is shown as we walk in solemn silence back to the dormitories. All we Luza step with careful deliberation, no glance into the faces of the others needed to tell us what we already know. We circle the raised beds of the Greater Compound for what shall be the last time, careful not to step on the few blades of grass that poke their tentative leaves from between the plaza tiles. They are accidental inhabitants of this great white stone desert, their seeds spilled outside the confines of the planting areas by careless gardeners, leaving them to bend wearily beneath the threat of doom raining from the sky with the next spring shower.
The gardeners rip up those not suited for the austere landscape. They are not exalted creations, only base plants to be torn up beneath our human fear, and so they are uprooted, moved and destroyed. Location, color, length—little things decide the fate of our green cousins. And so we Luza step around them with a kind of quiet sympathy. I think we understand a little of the grass’s lot in life, and what it is to be tended, sown, and shaped. We are together, grass blade an human, molded by the cracks in our world. And so the tracks of our bare feet trace reverently the domain of grass.
As I walk home the voice of Caerabella resounds in my mind, tearing it from idle flights of fancy.
"Go home," she had said, "And let yourself sleep if you be one for light rest. But if you sleep deeply, I advise that you stand vigil this night, for we will toll the bells late in the dark hours. Do not dare slumber through it!" I place my feet one in front of the other more rapidly, anxious over something I cannot quite mark. It is not likely that I would sleep through the bells, for their sound is characteristically harsh, and my reaction is carved by years of training. For nigh all my life the bells have rung at odd hours, and many a night passes that we scarcely close our eyes before the Bird Spirit demands that we wake again. I am well used to the clanging sound in my ear, reminding me that every moment of peace is a privilege, to be taken as easily as it is given. But still I worry that I will not wake. Tonight is the one night beyond all others that I must be ready to answer the call. My heart races, counting down the unknown time, and I know I will not slumber tonight.
All about me the white stone buildings of the Greater Compound stand like sentinels, their jagged outlines forming a row of teeth along the horizon. And beyond them, peeking over the September Wall, I can see one more thing: a great Spire, rising like a lashing tongue above the jaws of the world.
I have never been there, though all my years I have seen the sight. I have watched it at the heart of the Greater Compound, felt the pulse of its power in my veins. Now I walk toward it at last, admonishing myself to stay alert. I cannot allow this time to winging by me like some shadow of a dream. I must do it. I must be there. I must learn how it is done, how souls are cleansed and spirits purged. I must learn to be pure before God.
"Go, go, go," the other girls whisper. "Caerabella speaks!" I snatch a candle from the shelf on the dormitory wall, lighting it with a communal match and setting it on the sill to cast trembling shadows that crisscross on the floor. The Luza are bathed in orange light from the multitude of suddenly lit flames, wide eyes highlighted by the tiny fires. We pull on delicate shifts and walk barefoot into the cold, for the voice of God is come to announce to us.
"Come forward, those who have been called!" The High Priestess’s voice thunders into the frozen air when we arrive. The Luza stand arrayed in a fan across the grand plaza, waiting with bumpy skin beneath our light coverings. Caerabella’s arms are wrapped in a rich shawl much thicker than any we shivering girls wear. The younger ones shake harder when they see it, but we older ones still our bodies on reflex. Better, when Caerabella is here, not to move at all. Better, when faced with the miracle of warmth draped over ancient and wrinkled skin, not be jealous. The Bird Spirit’s gift to Her servant is not for us to envy, though the warm red wings of silk that pour like blood from the High Priestess’s shoulders are a prize we would be lucky to have in Paradise. We are only God’s honored, after all, not God’s lavished-upon.
"Come!" she calls again, and I jolt from my reverie into motion. I am one of those called. All along the rows girls are stepping forward as I do, expressions dazed and numb from the cold and the surreal air of the scene. I hesitate for a moment, wondering if I am right to go—perhaps it was all a dream and my sleepy mind has betrayed me? For I am only the Luza Lyleah, after all, unworthy to be called forth. I am neither pure nor fair. I am nothing but faithful, and not even that as cleanly as I should be.
And yet, I cannot find the elements of a hallucination in my mind, so I trust memory against my better judgment. I follow, stepping into a new line behind the twilit form of the Priestess. Her eyes seem to follow each of us as we move, scuttling like crabs to an uncertain shelter. The dark skin of her face remains motionless.
Caerabella still has words to say to the huddling crowd we leave behind.
"Luza, be silent," she says, though they are silent already. "These, your comrades, are not pure. They are sullied still, far from the gifts we wish to make of them. But mark that they are still better than you, still cleaner than your filthy souls. Work hard, my children, pray hard, and perhaps one day you will have a chance to become like them." She smiles, half-lidded eyes mysterious in the dark, not quite meeting the adoring gaze of white-clad children before her. Behind her, a row of delicate white butterflies cling to her every word.
"And what a chance they have," she says. "They are going to September Hall."
Caerabella the High Priestess wheels about then, and we follow her away, the soft night wind lapping at our ankles. I stay for a moment to watch as the shadows of arms and skirts and bare legs writhe across the plaza, lanterns swinging into darkness with their stabbing light. I know some in that crowd. But they are nothing to me now, just more creatures seeking order in the burning night. The High Priestess leads me now to September Hall, so I turn and sprint after the billowing silhouette of her cloak, my heart pounding with joy in my chest. I am going. I am going.
And in my foolish hope I run, mindless of the blades of grass that slip beneath my bare feet, toward the coming dawn.
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