Published in Luna Station Quarterly issue #61.
They said the bog was always watching. But as Saisha wended deftly through the tangled eiker thicket, the men behind her stumbling over its cresting roots, she had the terrible feeling that every half-submerged eye had turned away.
Fine. Let the croak-folk instead bear witness to her people, however many still lived. Let them stare down the interstellar invaders who’d corralled all of Mayashei into the village center, forcing them to kneel in the muck pits as they begged for reprieve. No one else in the galaxy was looking; what happened in wayside jump-stop systems like hers tended to stay there. The Galactic Radicate would’ve never glanced their way had it not been for a simple story spun far out of hand.
But now…
This is the end of Iscadei.
The nozzle of a pron gun dug into Saisha’s spine.
“You said it was close,” Captain Austek hissed in the nasal accent of Argohan, a favored world in the Radix Superior’s coterie. “I can always get another mudling to guide us. Waste our time, and I’ll rot you.”
This planet will rot you, Saisha wanted to spit back at the Galactic Scout, but she held her temper. “We’re almost there. We must approach the Ley with respect, or the curse will awaken.”
Another Scout snorted. “Spare us the superstition. The curse is just a story to deter the foolish and weak from seeking the ellestrine. But we’re not weak, are we, lads? And certainly no fools.” The other Radicants hooted in agreement.
Saisha kept her expression even. “My grandmother has seen what the Ley can do to someone. The creeping red, the salted tongue, the rabia of mind–”
“Then it’s a good thing we have a local to ward it off,” Austek sneered, and shoved her forward.
Saisha knew the path to the Ley well; her people often brought it offerings of fruits and crafts to appease the gods and keep the curse trapped within the caverns. But no deity had stopped the Radicants from landing haul-runners on their cran fields, leaking caustic rainbows of fuel and spacewash into the water. Not even the croak-folk had spoken up when the invaders placed a claim on the village of Mayashei and the rare mineral they’d heard was here. Thus, the blame lay just as much on the forces and folk of her own world as it did on her.
But that’s not quite true, is it? whispered a dim voice in the back of her mind.
A patch of darkness soon swelled behind a thick swath of eiker. Saisha pointed. “There.”
Four visceral thwacks of a Scout’s hexiblade exposed the gaping maw of the Ley. It was a hole in a hill two heights tall and three wide, smooth of stone and pure of shadow. Saisha was pleased to see the Radicants shifting uneasily, even as the hairs on her own arms stood on end. There was a wrongness in that cavern, perceptible not just in the way light seemed to stop mere inches into the hole, but in the dankness that seeped over and through one’s skin, right down to the bone. It was no wonder no plants grew within ten feet of the opening. The only colors against the gray rock were the rotting remains of prayer cloths.
Austek leveled his pron gun at Saisha, shoving a lantern into her hands. “After you.”
Coward, Saisha thought. The word echoed back at her as she peered into the Ley. But she had long made her peace with what this descent would mean. Ever since she’d watched the tail-burners of the Rouge Moon shrink into common starlight, she’d been awaiting this day.
Let it be quick, and let it be easy, Saisha thought, touching a prayer flag before the darkness ate her.
***
“Stay away from those starfolk,” Ganna had told her firmly seven years ago. The Radicate astrocraft had just arrived at the Mayashei Way Station, and nearly the entire town had rushed out to greet the rare newcomers as they refueled. But Saisha and her grandmother had remained home, crushing dried herbs for the apothecary.
“But why?” Saisha had pleaded, setting down her mortar. “I know their gods are false. I promise I won’t be swayed.”
“It’s not just that,” said Ganna. “You’re eighteen now; you are an adult in the eyes of the Radicate. There are things they can ask of you that you would not be able to refuse.”
“Like what, to go into space?” Saisha looked longingly at the massive starship in the distance.
Ganna rapped her on the hand with a long stick of berrecane. “Keep on now, we need that salve. And yes, they could take you to space. But don’t start thinking it would be a vacation. They might make you an escort on an orbiter, or a breeder on a colony world. Would you like that, Saishanna?”
“I might,” Saisha said, cranking her pestle sharply over a half-pulverized clump of wodseed. “If I can see the galaxy beyond our bog and marry a—ow!”
The wooden bowl her grandmother had lobbed expertly at her head clattered to the floor.
“Have some respect for your planet and yourself. You are not going to marry a star traveler. They jaunt around the galaxy thinking of no one but themselves. If they cannot even embrace a single planet, how could they care for one woman?” Ganna took the peeled berrecane and began twisting the crimson juices from its fibers. “Space made humans cold. Cold and greedy. We never should have left the Origin.”
Wasn’t greed the reason they left it four thousand years ago? Saisha always wanted to remind her, but never found the nerve. She sighed. “I won’t talk to the Radicants. But when Kisa and Nusa come back from the Way Station without a hair out of place and a lyopad’s worth of stories from the crew, maybe you’ll give them a chance.”
“I have given them too many chances,” Ganna muttered harshly, wringing the berrecane like a coquerel’s neck. “You want to know why I stopped? Ask your parents what happens if you deny them their way.”
Saisha shut her mouth, watching the berrecane drip into the waiting bowl like blood from a hand nailed to a tree.
***
The air grew warmer as they descended into the cavern, starkly dry after the humidity of the planet’s surface. Saisha’s stomach quivered, her skin lapped by pulsing chills. It was her own doubt and fear, she knew. Not the rabia. Her mind was whole.
For now.
As they continued, casting brilliant lantern beams from wall to wall, Saisha began to count the little cairns, each built of stones and fabric scraps and offerings. Each one had a legend to it, a name to mourn. “They’re trail markers,” she told Austek when asked. But anyone from Mayashei knew there was only one tunnel.
Joking and laughing and jeering behind her, the Radicant Scouts grew rowdier with each step.
“I think I’ll buy a starliner of my own with all this cash,” one pondered, kicking a stone along the passageway. “With a whole team of escorts for my crew.”
“Why not take a local as one of your spoils?” asked another, giving Saisha’s waist an unbearable squeeze. “Find out if the swampers really are made of mud.”
A heavy hand clapped her on the shoulder, and Stone-Kicker cackled. “You’d like that, girl, wouldn’t you? A chance to see the stars? Your friend Rizo said it’s all you ever talked about.”
Saisha whirled, raising her lantern, but Austek caught her by the wrist. “That’s enough fooling around, all of you. We’ve got a job to do.”
“Yes, Captain,” his subordinates grumbled. Saisha pulled her arm free and kept walking.
It was blissfully silent for a few moments. Then some Radicants broke out into raucous song. It took Saisha a moment to recognize the words as a folk chant from the Origin.
“Canary, canary, down in the mine, sing us your song if we still have time. Canary, canary, gold among soot, hush your sweet voice if there’s danger afoot!”
Saisha wished she had some moss to plug up her ears, but knew it was far too dry a cavern for anything to grow. She lifted her lantern to inspect the walls, anyway. To her surprise, its beam caught a verdant patch above a cairn. But it wasn’t moss.
She paused next to the cairn, illuminating the Iscadian letters painted on the wall. Above the words were swirling, wavering marks of green paint and white chalk, rippling minatorily above her head like silights.
Austek shoved his way to the front of the group. “What is that? What does that say?”
She couldn’t bring herself to read it out loud.
This is where it began the dread talk fear talk nasty talk red eyes red hands it saw us coming before we saw it. Tell my wife I’m sorry. I belong to the buried goddess now.
“It’s nonsense,” said Saisha. “They thought the curse was upon them. But I’m not feeling anything.”
One of the Radicants laughed. “See? It’s just a scare tactic. Superstitious nonsense.” The others chortled, too.
“Keep moving, then,” Austek said, shoving Saisha away from the cairn. “Just remember, lads, it’ll be a long hike back up with packs full of ellestrine.” The Scouts groaned.
Saisha turned to continue into the Ley, but a sudden crack and clatter made her jump.
The Radicants cackled as they kicked apart the cairn, sending stone and scraps of fabric everywhere. Then one of them unzipped his trousers and began to piss the warning away while the others screeched and hooted like wild Gowher monkeys.
Saisha turned away in disgust. If only she could’ve told her grandmother how right she had been about the starfolk. If only she could have apologized.
If only you hadn’t been so selfish in the first place, said the voice in the back of her mind. Ganna was right about that, too.
The men resumed their taunting song as Saisha continued straight ahead, trying to ignore the taste of salt rising in the back of her throat.
***
Seven years ago, as night had fallen over Mayashei, Saisha had checked to make sure Ganna was sleeping before crawling out the window. She stole into the darkness, heading straight for the Way Station and the tavern which was typically its only active component.
Incredibly, the astrocraft seemed to get bigger as she approached, as if it hadn’t already become the tallest human construction in all of Mayashei. But as she entered the tavern, she was surprised to find only one table of people in Radicate standard dress, no more than a dozen bearing the sigil of the Beihan Cluster. A number of Iscadians were also in the tavern, trading drinks for stories of the stars. Kisa and Nusa were both sitting at the bar with cups in hand and smiles across their faces, very much not abducted.
Laughter filled the room as the starfolk bounced a tale between a few of them, each contributing to the picture of a treacherous world they’d once visited where volcanoes rained diamonds upon them. It was apparently a brilliant sight to behold, but a terror to stand under as the diamond shards tore through their spacesuits.
“Lost a few friends that day and properly burnt my hands trying to scoop up mantle-hot diamonds fast as I could, but the return was well worth it,” a gray-bearded man said, pointing to a badge on his skipcoat with the stub of a melted finger.
“I’d take the diamond world over that jungle planet with the eater flies any day,” said a middle-aged woman with one eye and a number of chunks missing from her cheeks. “Ruguvrin. It’s a parsec from here. I hope you lot don’t have anything like those nasty bugs.” She held up her hand and Saisha gasped; all that remained was her thumb.
As the starfolk continued showing off their various lacerations, Saisha drifted away, seeking a spot to plant herself without being spotted by Ganna’s usual informants.
“Half of it’s nonsense, you know,” came a too-near voice. It was a traveler, a young man a few years older than her. His Argohan twang was as unmistakable as the emblem on his skipcoat. “If Pauren had really found a diamond trove, you think he’d really be out here scouting the Naison system? Er, I don’t mean any offense.”
“None taken,” Saisha said. “I know we’re just a pit stop on your way to the Colpian Arm.”
“You know the jump routes?”
Saisha shrugged. “I’ve seen the maps. And we’ve had visitors before. Though this is the first time I’ve really talked to one of you.”
“Yeah? Well, I’m pleased to be your first.” The traveler winked. “I’m Rizo Zaymith, Galactic Scout.”
Saisha was momentarily blinded by his ultra-white smile. “I’m Saishanna. Or just Saisha. What, uh, what kind of things are you scouting for?”
The young star traveler didn’t seem fazed by her response; he was probably used to meeting awe-struck locals across the galaxy. “Oh, you know. Interesting things. Things of value. Things I like.”
Saisha couldn’t miss the way the corners of his mouth curled up at that last remark. “Have you found anything on Iscadei you like?”
“A few things, I’d say,” Rizo chuckled, then drained his glass. “Hey, you wanna come check out the ship? I’m sure you’ve never seen a hauler like the Rouge Moon, huh?”
Saisha’s heart skipped a beat, but she hesitated. “I can’t go to space. I’m not even supposed to go near the ship.”
Rizo laughed. “We’re not leaving for another day. I’d just give you a tour. But it’s up to you. I could go for another drink, too.”
Saisha glanced over at the bar, where Kisa and Nusa were deep in their cups with the other starfolk. None of the Iscadians had even noticed she was here.
“You got any drinks on the ship?” she asked.
Rizo grinned and took her hand.
***
Saisha licked her parched lips, watching the Radicants pass around canteens as her throat burned.
“How is it so dry in here?” Stone-Kicker muttered, brushing precious droplets from his beard. “You’d think we’re on a desert world, not under a swamp.”
“Caverns can have their own microclimates,” said another, who Saisha had determined to be the group’s geologist. “See how there are no stalactites or stalagmites? The swamp water can’t seep down here when this iscolite is so dense.” The geologist knocked on the wall. “Though I’m stumped as to how this tunnel got here in the first place. It doesn’t look manmade, or a product of natural erosion. Tectonic movement, maybe?”
It was dug by the gods, Saisha wanted to tell them, but the salt in her mouth made it hard to open. She took a long breath through her nose. Then she glanced down at her arm, which had been prickling for the last few minutes. As soon as she saw the streaking red veins, she had to look away.
It’s death. Certain death.
Ganna’s voice drifted out of her memory. The Ley is the vault of the gods. If you dare to enter, it will take your mind and it will bend you into the rabia. It will know your fear, and it will multiply it a thousand-fold. It is not the creeping red that kills, nor the salted tongue; your heart will speed until it bursts.
Saisha closed her eyes. Her heartbeat was fluttering. She took several more breaths, acknowledging her fear and releasing it. She had known what it meant to enter this cave. There was no turning back. But perhaps that wasn’t such a bad thing.
A Scout bent forward, propping his hands on his thighs. “Can we take a break? I think the pressure down here is getting to me. We must be, what, a mile below now?”
“Or maybe Hawley’s got the curse,” Wall-Pisser snickered.
Austek turned his harsh beam on Saisha, making her squint. “How’s our canary? You cursed yet?”
Saisha let her sleeve fall over her hand. “Nothing yet, sir. Just thirsty.”
“Seems your people were wrong. What a surprise.” Austek swirled his canteen, listening to the water slapping the container’s sides. He popped the cap, tipped it back, drained it dry, and cast the empty bottle at Saisha’s feet. “You get your water when we get our ellestrine. Best get moving.”
Throat rasping, Saisha led the group onward, but the captain’s voice echoed strangely in her ears. Your people were wrong. They were wrong. You were wrong. And now you have come to make amends.
***
As she paced through the astrocraft’s bridge, Saisha trailed a hand over the inactive console and all its levers. Rizo was explaining the controls, but she was hardly listening. She had always tried to imagine what the inside of a starship might look like. It had thrilled her to imagine the luxury of space travel. But strangely, seeing it in person had tempered those fantasies.
“You alright?” Rizo asked, leaning against one of the uncomfortable-looking pilot’s chairs.
“I didn’t realize it would be so cramped,” Saisha said. “These hallways are so much narrower than I imagined. And the rooms are so small.”
“Well, the Rouge Moon is an old model. Most of the ship is made up of the hold and the jump engine. We hardly spend any time awake on the ship, anyway. Space travel takes years. Most of the time, we’re in those stase pods.”
Saisha’s stomach turned as she thought of the narrow boxes he’d shown her, like coffins made of plucoglass. “Where will you go next?”
“Just back to Argohan. My work is done for now, so I’ll head back to the Scout agency.”
“How long will that take?”
“Oh, a little over three years in stase. But to me, it’ll feel like no time at all.” Rizo took a swig from a flask he’d found and offered it to Saisha. She took a sip of the strange alcohol; it tasted like bog water. She tried not to make a face.
“I wish I could stay a bit longer, though,” Rizo said. “It seems nice here. The air is so fresh. We don’t have nearly this much green.”
“You could stay,” said Saisha. “We could build you a house.”
“Yeah?” Rizo stepped forward, reaching for the flask. But once he’d taken it, he didn’t draw back his arm. Instead, he let his knuckles graze her skin, trailing up her arm. Then he dropped the flask into the chair next to her and pulled her closer.
“I wish I could stay,” he murmured. “Just as much as I wish I could take you home.”
She let his lips meet hers.
***
“Stop that, mudling,” said Wall-Pisser. “I know you’re trying to scare us.”
“I’m not doing anything,” Saisha protested.
The humming had been so quiet at first that Saisha thought it was just a ringing in her ears. It was at once low and high, a polyphony no human vocal cord could produce. Saisha had ignored it, keeping her thoughts on Ganna, imagining the prickle on her skin and the taste in her mouth were merely the byproduct of grinding some noxious herb for medicine. She had nothing to fear.
But the Radicants grew more agitated as the sound increased in volume.
Then one of them screamed.
The group halted, whirling to cast their beams onto the geologist, who was staring at his hands. His skin was dark, but Saisha could see the red welts blossoming on his palms, striating down towards his wrists. He was muttering something under his breath, too low for her to hear.
“What are you playing at, girl?” Austek growled, shining his light into her eyes. “What is this? A trick? Some kind of chemical?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Saisha said flatly. “I feel completely fine.”
“Show me your hands.”
Saisha’s pulse sped, and her vision was suddenly tinged with a dizzying red. No, she thought. This isn’t my fear. Just breathe. She exhaled, and the red haze faded.
Slowly, she extended her hands. The veins weren’t there.
Austek shoved her away. “How much farther?”
“We’re close,” said Saisha, pointing at a cairn up ahead. There was more green writing on it. She didn’t want to read it. It was the last marker in sight.
Do you really think you can hold the rabia back? said her doubt. You brought green to the sky, and now you will wash your world in red.
Saisha picked up her pace as the humming became a howl.
***
Rizo’s fingers were warm as they traced the veins on her arms, her breasts. Saisha caressed his other arm, wrapped around and under her. The bunk in his room was small, but just wide enough for both of them beneath his lodweave sheets.
“My Ganna was wrong about starfolk,” Saisha said. “She says you’re cold and greedy. But I don’t think you are.”
“The Radicate is wrong, too,” Rizo murmured, pressing his lips to her neck. “They tell us Iscadians are made of mud. But it’s not true at all. Your world is mud, but you’re a crystal.”
Saisha smiled. “Actually, my people believe all humans were formed from mud, back on the Origin.”
Rizo laughed. “I haven’t heard that before. Will you tell me more of your stories?”
“Like what?”
“About your town, your people, your planet.”
Saisha’s cheeks flushed. “You’ll think it’s silly.”
Rizo shook his head. “I think it’s interesting. You’re interesting.”
Saisha didn’t know how to respond to that.
So she told him the legend of the buried goddess of fury, Ley, and her ellestrine cage.
***
Saisha could no longer pretend she felt nothing as they trudged forward, the final cairn lost in the shadows behind them. But still she held it in as the Radicants screamed, their voices melding into the drone. It was music to her ears.
She turned to find Austek with wild eyes and bared teeth. “It’s just up ahead,” she said calmly. “There’s the light.”
“What light?” the captain bellowed over the noise. “What light?”
Saisha didn’t know. She couldn’t see the light. She could feel it.
“It’s a trick! It’s a trap!” the others shrieked, clutching their ears with red-scored hands.
“Forward!” Austek hollered.
They went forward. Then, finally, the tunnel opened into a vast cavern. Saisha gasped.
The Ley was full of massive red crystals, spearing up from the ground and down from the ceiling like a giant geode. The raw ellestrine, untouched by human hands, glimmered in the beams of their lanterns, a razor-sharp hoard of temptation like prisms of congealed blood.
The men cried out in awe and horror. They saw their deaths before their eyes. But they would die in a pillager’s paradise.
Saisha could hardly concentrate on breathing, covering her ears against the awful sound. The humming, the ringing, the howl, the drone, all of it was reverberating through the crystals as if they themselves were screeching. But no—only one crystal was screaming. The one in the very center of the room, suspended in the air by tendrils of unknown matter.
Go on, take your treasure, said her doubt. It’s all yours, you know.
“I don’t want it,” she whispered back.
You do. You want it more than anything. Isn’t that why you’re here? An ancient power lies ahead—the power to choose. A people will end today. Will it be yours?
“Take that crystal!” Austek screamed at his men. “We just need to bring back proof, the Blasting Corps will take care of the rest.”
Wall-Pisser stumbled forward. Saisha watched as he approached the crystal, slicing his arms and legs and screaming as he went. He reached out.
Then his veins punched through his skin, streaking towards the crystal as his body withered and unwound, and soon he was just a strand, joining the other tendrils in their support of the screaming stone.
The other men just stared. Their eyes were unfocused. Rabid. Inhuman.
Then Hawley dove forward, crawling across the geode like a lizard. Shards of crystal tore into his skin, but the red that seeped out was not a liquid.
There was nothing left of the man when his tendrils met the Ley-stone.
Austek lunged for Saisha. “You! This is your trap! You’re the only one unaffected. You’ve done this to us, swamper filth!”
Saisha didn’t move, but she didn’t have to; Austek was too weak to reach her. He fell to his knees, scrabbling at the communicator on his wrist. “Zaymith? Are you there? Execute the rest. Do you read me?”
“No!” Saisha cried out, but Stone-Kicker tackled her before she could grab the communicator. All she could do was wrestle for her own life as a garbled voice crackled something in response.
Saisha screamed, and the rabia surged.
Will you let this be the end of Iscadei? her doubt hissed, louder than the crystal. Have you earned your forgiveness?
Every light in the room looked red.
Then she saw green.
***
Light spilled through Rizo’s window, waking Saisha in his arms. But it wasn’t the morning star. She sat upright with a gasp.
Rizo stirred, then startled when he realized the world outside had gone emerald. “What in the Reaches is that?”
“Silights,” Saisha breathed in horror, sliding out of his warmth and dashing to the window.
The undulating ribbons of green light shimmered directly overhead, casting an eerie glow over the Way Station. Gowher monkeys whooped and screeched from the trees; birds of every kind flew in spirals through the glow.
“It’s beautiful,” Rizo said. “Almost as beautiful as you. Come back to bed.”
“I can’t,” Saisha said, reaching for her clothes. “I have to go.”
Rizo scoffed. “Really? You’re just gonna leave?”
“I’m sorry. I have find my grandmother. She’ll know what this means.” Saisha started for the door, but a firm hand grasped her wrist.
“You don’t need to go back to your mudhole,” Rizo murmured in her ear. “You’ll come home with me. We’ll be rich together. I’ll take you to see any system you’d like.”
“What?”
“From the ellestrine, of course. The Radix Superior will reward us so handsomely when we bring it to him. And you won’t want to be here when the planet’s dredged. Messy process, that one is.”
Saisha’s stomach twisted. “You lied to me.”
“I didn’t. I really do find your stories interesting. And valuable.” The Radicant grinned, holding her tighter as she tried to pull away. “Oh, come on, crystal, gimme a smile. You said you wanted to see the stars.”
Saisha bit his arm hard, tore her wrist loose, and raced back into town.
All of Mayashei had gathered below the spectral phenomenon, including Ganna, who must have been awoken by the monkeys’ calls. She stood in her nightgown in the center of the crowd, eyes glazed.
“We are nearing the end of a people,” Ganna announced, and her neighbors gasped. “Those who come to plunder will wake the Ley. She will walk among us and strike down those in her path. Iscadei shall run red with rabia.”
“Ganna!” Saisha cried out. “Stop this!”
Ganna blinked, as if shaken from a trance. Then her expression contorted, and she grabbed Saisha by the shoulders. “I saw you in the lights—red eyes, red hands, soul spoiled, skin stained. What have you done to us? What have you done?”
Saisha apologized, over and over under the silight glow, and swore to never see Rizo again.
But it wasn’t enough.
He had never made such a promise.
***
When Saisha opened her eyes, she was alone.
She looked down. The Ley-stone was in her hands, its severed tendrils draped gently around her wrists. The screaming had stopped, but the sound still rang in her ears.
The crystal was pleased.
Saisha started back towards the tunnel, tendrils from other crystals rising to greet her as she passed. Some separated, slithering after her like snakes.
This is what you wanted, the Ley whispered. This is what you owe them.
As Saisha started up the incline, a choking breath drew her gaze. It was half a man, a head and torso descending into red twine.
“Lying swamper,” Austek croaked. “They will nuke your planet into nothing. You mud-folk will splatter.”
“I did my job,” Saisha heard herself say, but the reverberant voice was only partly her own. “Did you ever hear this canary sing?”
“Bitch.”
Saisha held out the crystal. “Go on. Take it. It’s our gift to the Radicate.”
***
The end of a people came that day, as Ganna had foreseen. But Saisha had already decided it would not be hers.
Rizo was not as delighted to see her as she was to see him.
“You wanted a crystal among mud,” she said, raising the Ley-stone as the survivors of Mayashei knelt, croak-folk singing in the bog all around them. “Now you have two. Isn’t that interesting?”
Rizo fired his pron gun several times, but her skin was ellestrine-strong. “Shit. Shit. What in the Reaches…?!”
Saisha glanced at her grandmother, who looked back at her with the last of her strength before succumbing to her wounds. The apothecarian of Mayashei died with determination in her eyes and one hand laying open, a ragged pron-scorched hole marking the center of her palm. Right where one might nail a young couple’s hands to a tree, their blood dripping like berrecane.
“Come on, star traveler, gimme a smile,” Saisha said. “Now you get to take me home.”