forty #2
“Well,” he then said, “one of us should go find out what’s happening with Olma. I can’t imagine her wanting to halt all contracts to deal with this, though. She’ll say,” he switched to his impression of Olma, making his voice comedically deeper and speaking with quick, clipped words,
“‘If the two of you can’t take this fucker down, then what hope do the rest of us have altogether?’”
Sulim did her best not to roll her eyes at his offensive caricature. He didn’t even do her deadpan downward inflection. It was like he didn’t pick up anything from her over the years. Sulim may have been shit at manipulating her voice to pass it off as someone else’s, but at least she knew how.
“I should get back downstairs,” Mira said. “You guys want a lift?”
Sonall lowered his arms with a shrug. “If you’re offer—”
They were back down in the chapel without another blink.
“—ing.”
With another sigh, Sonall gave up.
“There you are.” The tall julah man with a cane approached them. Hannu and Kema stood by the altar, one of them staring in their direction. “I was looking for you. Don’t suppose you know where a man tired from teleporting could get a room around here?”
He must have asked that in Basic for the mercenaries’ benefit, for Sulim was the first to recommend the same inn that she did to Hannu and Kema, both of whom now looked away from them.
Ramaron thanked her before heading out on foot.
Before she could ask, her girlfriend said, “If anyone tries something funny in the middle of the night, they’ll quickly figure out he’s the second most powerful julah in the universe.”
“Where do you rank?” Sonall asked.
She barely deigned to answer, but ultimately said, “Somewhere.”
As she walked away, Sulim turned to her partner. “That means middle of the pack.”
“Thanks. Got it.”
Before they could decide their next move, Mira returned, this time hauling a reluctant Kema with her.
As the other julah woman put up a decent fight against whatever Mira was making her do, Sulim tilted her head in curiosity, and Sonall openly gawked at the woman in the fitted beige dress who quickly made herself presentable while suspiciously avoiding eye contact with anyone in front of her.
What in the world is she hiding? If this were a mission—and not the middle of the night—the social engineer in Sulim would go to work getting it out of Kema.
“I think you two would get along.” Mira gestured toward Sonall before pushing Kema forward. “Sulim, could you help me with something?”
“Why?”
Mira didn’t wait for her to get it. Sulim followed her to the altar, where her girlfriend handed her a piece of silver and a cloth. Seems like the kind of thing sorcery is for, but okay…
“What are they saying?” Mira asked, head down. “Go with it, okay?”
Sulim glanced in Kema and Sonall’s direction. “You’re kidding…”
“I know you read lips just fine.”
“Yeah, took me years to learn how, thanks.”
“That’s why they pay you the big bucks. So… what are they saying?”
In truth, Sulim could only see a part of Kema’s mouth, but from the way Sonall relaxed around her and even grinned, she didn’t need her binoculars to know what was happening.
“Oh, what big muscles you have,” Sulim mimicked with a fake girlishness nobody ever heard out of her. “You just don’t see weapons like these on Yahzen!”
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“Okay, never mind.” Mira tossed her cloth and silver at her mother’s feet. “I don’t know why I bothered.”
Sulim took the hint to stop cleaning as well. “’Cause I’m your soulmate.”
That got a tender look out of Mira, and it was all Sulim needed to forget her troubles.
Mira somehow dragged herself out of bed in the morning, despite being up half the night managing a host of new visitors and processing Sulim’s revelations.
Did she really see parts of her other life?
Did my own mother truly visit her? Julah like Kema and Hannu receiving holy visitations in their sleep were not completely unheard of, assuming they were proper vehicles for spiritual quests. Humans? Much less so.
Yet Mira had a Temple to tend to while plotting her father’s imminent arrival to…
do what? Do to us what he did to all of those other planets.
If what Ramaron said was true, then holy instructions were imparted to stop him.
Why couldn’t she stop him herself? The High Priestess was omniscient and practically omnipotent.
Not to mention, the love of my father’s life.
Mira knew she couldn’t dwell on this for too long.
There were chores to take her mind off things, and everyone else being asleep—either upstairs or in the nearby inn—meant she had the place to herself.
Shield Town didn’t wake up until the late morning.
So while couriers made early rounds and both domestic and intergalactic deliveries arrived at the taverns and shops, the lack of motorized vehicles and horses clomping on the main street outside meant Mira could meditate in front of her mother’s statue and commence with her chores.
She had just gotten up from her meditations and prepared to sweep and air out the altar linens when someone came through the main entrance.
Mira had unlocked the doors, after all. She did that first thing every morning, in case there were any stragglers out there looking for sanctuary or in dire need of her counsel.
Yet she rarely received such early visitors unless there was a scheduled delivery from Yahzen or there was an appointment to go over some child’s dedication, a marriage, or a funeral—three things that the civilians could do, but the mercenaries were barred from approaching.
They don’t allow marriage, children belong to the fortress, and they have their own…
customs for funerals. Mira found the disposal of bodies into the cavernous ravine on the other side of the fortress to be repugnant, but also knew that generations of propaganda told mercenaries that it was a great honor to be “dropped” from the concrete slab for the jungle carnivores and aerial
scavengers.
I’ll be damned if they ever do that to Sulim…
Those things flashed before Mira’s eyes as she greeted her visitor and came closer, taking cautious steps down the aisle between pews and slowly recognizing the woman who had come to call.
Short, but strong; dour, but dependable.
Her utilitarian haircut went with the simple black garments of a mercenary, but it wasn’t lost on Mira that this woman’s clothing was tailored to her muscular form.
She was high-ranking, like Sulim and Sonall.
Honestly, she ranked the highest of all in Second Tribe.
“You are Priestess Mira, yes?” asked Chief Olma, the curt but courteous leader of the region.
Her influence didn’t stop at the fortress looming over the village—she was the de facto mayor of Shield Town, approving of new developments, trade agreements, and overseeing personal matters that could not be privately sorted.
She also never came to the Temple.
“Yes.” Mira stopped halfway to Olma, who confidently closed the distance between them with a stride that spoke of someone who was used to making quick and efficient decisions. “And you must be Chief Olma. We’ve met a few times.” Not enough, honestly.
The woman who was two heads shorter than Mira stopped a few feet in front of her, arms hanging at her sides but posture immaculate. “Never had much use for the Temple,” Olma said. “Until today.”
“I’ve actually been wanting to talk to you about something.” Mira relaxed her shoulders and hips so she would not loom so anxiously above Olma. “So, this is fortuitous.”
Out of all the things she did not expect, perhaps it was Olma brandishing the firearm she kept on her hip that shocked Mira the most.
Things moved slowly from there. Mira instinctively raised a defensive ward around herself, praying that her early-morning sorcery was strong enough to stop a bullet or a laser—whatever that was Olma had in her hand.
Will I have to kill another chief? Even in self-defense?
Those were Mira’s thoughts as Olma casually turned her firearm on its side and held it up, uselessly, in her hand.
She sank to her knees in the middle of the aisle and offered the weapon up to Mira on a fleshly platter.
Mira lowered her ward. “I’m sorry, but what are you doing? You gave me a fright.”
Olma lifted her arms higher. Yes, that’s a gun. Thank you. Was her Basic lacking? She was under the impression that Chief Olma was more intelligent than her predecessor, the hedonistic shell of a woman named Ayna Aiya.
“She came to me when I was indisposed,” Olma calmly explained as she continued to offer her weapon to Mira, who could hardly believe what she was seeing.
“She told me that for the universe to unfold, to be saved, you are to become the true chief of Second Tribe.”
Mira dropped the prayer beads that had been in her hand.
“Who?” she whispered.
“Her Holiness,” Olma responded with candor. “The woman in the golden light, who stands on the altar behind you. She told me to get out of your way, so you may save this sorry world on her behalf.”
That doesn’t sound like her. Mira wanted to look at her mother’s mien behind her, but was suspicious that it was a trap put forth by a woman who was loose a few…
well, whatever the mercenaries used to hold themselves together.
“She wants me to be chief? Me. A julah with no history of being a mercenary.”
“Yes.” Only then did Olma’s hands slightly falter, but her arms remained steady, holding the firearm up as if she made an offering to the High Priestess behind Mira.
“She showed me the many worlds where you are the chief of Second Tribe, and the glorious, final reign you bring to this place. We are often destined to doom, it seems.”
“Get up, please.” If Mira was to process yet another human’s holy confession, then she would look that human in the eyes.
“For you to become the rightful chief of Second Tribe,” Olma continued, not listening, “you need to kill me. Right of regicide is your fastest track to righting the wrongs of this world.”
Mira said nothing.