19. Sullha #2
Sullha nodded. "I know that. We are carriers, and we give the genes to our sons and daughters, but only the sons can be turned immortal. The girls can't."
"That's not true," Margaret said. "Any child born to a dormant mother can transition, male or female. The venom bite is the catalyst for both, but the properties of the venom needed for activating boys are different from the ones needed to activate girls."
Sullha frowned. "I didn't know there were different kinds of venom. How does it work?"
"I'm getting there." Margaret smiled. "The venom needed to induce boys is produced in response to aggression, and the venom needed to induce girls is produced in response to sexual desire.
The boys fight older immortal boys, those whose fangs and venom glands are already fully functional.
The fight triggers the older males' aggression, and their glands produce the venom needed to induce the younger boys' transition.
The same bites that can be used to kill another immortal are used to activate the dormant genes.
That's why it's important to choose the right initiators, those who possess the necessary self-control not to overdose the boy and kill him by mistake. "
"I didn't know that it was dangerous. I knew that the fight was brutal but not that it could be deadly."
Margaret frowned. "I don't think it ever happened in the history of the clan, but I don't know about the Brotherhood.
From what I know about them, they don't even value the lives of their own warriors.
Luckily, the kind of venom that induces women is never deadly.
For a young girl, twelve or thirteen, a bite alone is enough, and the venom production can be induced by something as simple as a kiss.
The boy doing the kissing should have transitioned at least six months prior, though.
That's how long it takes for their venom glands and fangs to become operational. "
"What do older women need in addition to the bite?" Sullha asked.
Margaret glanced at Bowen and smiled. "There's no reason to feel uncomfortable, my love. This is basic sex education for immortals."
"I'm perfectly comfortable when you are the one providing the education."
Margaret chuckled and turned back to Sullha. "An older dormant female needs the full sexual act along with the bite to trigger the transformation."
Sullha sat very still.
The pieces began sliding against each other, rearranging and locking into a new picture.
The enclosure wall. The guards who were always human.
No immortal males were ever allowed inside.
The thousands of immortal warriors who filled the rest of the island were not permitted past that wall, not even to visit their mothers and sisters.
Once they were out those gates, they never came back.
She'd assumed it was about control, about keeping the breeders sealed away, and about severing the soldiers' ties with their families to hone them into the killing machines the Brotherhood needed.
Except that hadn't been the reason. The wall kept the immortals and the breeders apart so the males couldn't induce the females' transition into immortality, so the women could never become strong enough to mount any sort of resistance, so they would remain subjugated forever.
It was so cruel. So unfair.
"That's why," she said quietly. "That's why immortal males were never allowed inside. It wasn't to protect us. It was to keep us from turning immortal."
"Yes," Bowen said.
"But why?" She looked at him with dry eyes, anger keeping the tears at bay. "Why keep us human? So we couldn't escape? So we wouldn't be strong enough to fight off the humans they brought in to impregnate us?"
"That was a bonus but not the main reason," Bowen said.
"Immortal females have a very low fertility rate.
They rarely conceive. Immortal males aren't more fertile either.
But dormant women, those carrying the godly genes, can conceive at the same rate as human women.
The Brotherhood needs a steady supply of warriors, and immortal warriors can only be born to dormant mothers.
Keeping them human keeps the numbers up.
Sons for the army. Daughters to replace their mothers in the enclosure and keep it growing.
It's a production line for the Brotherhood. "
Sullha's hands curled into fists.
Generations of dormant women. Her mother. Her grandmother. Every woman in the enclosure, growing old and dying behind that wall, and every one of them unknowingly carrying inside her body godly genes. The potential for immortal life.
"What about the harem ladies?" she asked. "The Brotherhood claimed that they were the daughters of gods who Lord Navuh got from his father, the god Mortdh."
"That's partially true. Navuh inherited the harem ladies from his father, and they are over five thousand years old, but they are not the daughters of gods. They are immortals from prominent immortal families of old. There is more to the story, but it's not relevant for what you need to know now."
Sullha was glad that neither Tomek nor Leehy understood a word of English, so even if either of them had overheard what Margaret and Bowen had just told her, they wouldn't understand any of it.
This was too much for her mother to handle. And Tomek was too young.
She would find the words for her mother later, step by step, gently. Tomek's version could wait until he was much older.
"Do the soldiers know?" she asked Bowen. "Or are they fed the same story we were?"
"They are told the same story. The official teaching of Mortdh is that females can't transition because they're unworthy of it.
Though I doubt that even Mortdh said anything like that.
It was most likely Navuh's idea to cloak his program in a godly decree.
" Bowen shrugged. "Some of them might work out the truth eventually but, given the brainwashing and the low level of education they get, they'd need to be exceptional to reason that out. "
Yaaf was exceptional. Did he know?
The question lodged itself beside all the others. He'd told her about the harem and about Navuh. He'd never told her this. Because he didn't know? Or because he did, and couldn't find a way to say it, or a reason to, when they had both still been trapped?
She needed to ask him, and she needed to see his face when she did.
Sullha straightened. "On a different but related subject, I need to ask you about visiting the eight soldiers that were taken to another location. Yamanu promised that we could. How does it work, though? Who decides?"
She pulled her phone out of her pocket and held it up.
"I have this, and I've learned to use it.
I even helped Karina and Zohara with theirs.
There are pictures of many of the village's residents, but Yaaf and his friends are not in them.
I can't call him. I can't even find out if he's well, if the scientists made his medicine, anything.
" She forced herself to slow down. "Mirumah wants her son.
Baruha and Asira want to see Camdor. All the mothers have been asking me, because they think I have the answers, but I don't. Who decides the when and how? "
Bowen studied her for a moment. "I'll find out for you." He rose to his feet. "Let me make a call."
He stepped out onto the front porch and pulled the door shut behind him. Through the window, Sullha watched his back, his free hand moving as he talked, but she could not hear what he was saying.
"Sullha." Margaret touched her arm gently.
"I'm sure it will be soon. Bowen will sort it out.
Don't worry." She kept talking, filling the wait with chatter about her daughter who was about Sullha's age and whose name was Wendy.
She was married to a guy named Vlad, and Margaret was hoping for grandchildren, but it wasn't easy for immortals, and Wendy had transitioned.
Sullha smiled and nodded in the right places, but her mind had drifted to the enclosure, the human guards, and the venom that was produced in response to either desire or rage.
Immortals bit their partners during sex. That was another bit of new information that should have shocked her, but it paled in comparison to everything else.
She thought about Yaaf's face in the starlight on the boat, all the things he'd chosen to tell her and the one enormous thing he never had.
She thought about a building somewhere in a city she couldn't picture, where he was sleeping and waking and taking his injections and maybe aching like she was because he missed her.
The front door opened, Bowen stepped back inside, and Sullha's heart began to pound.
"Good news," he said. "Turns out that the visit has already been discussed and approved. You can go tomorrow."
"Tomorrow?" The word came out as a croak.
"Talk to the others and find out who wants to go. Okidu will drive you to the keep in the morning."