“Little one,” Gulxán panted. The miniscule specter slowed. “So our meathead’s alive?” The spirit danced about the air and returned an affirming answer like a calligraphy of light.
“Is he far off?” the mœgla asked.
It drew on the night less definitely.
“When you find him, tell him, if you could…Oh, you can’t talk in any way he would understand. Fly away. Find him, but take your time.”
The tavanávis curled off to find the hunter.
“Looking for a friend, are you…?”
Out of the darkness, once more, all around him, the wraiths shook into sight. Now they were not a band of bullies, but a war party, brusque and arrogant, sitting upon órhlun, enormous spirit mounts, each one a trellis of asperity dragging unctuous tentacles and taunting the mœgla with the luminous ends of their tentacles.
“We remember Barac, Gúlcu...”
“It’s a distraction for you to have all this loose string, isn’t it? He is still alive and you hate him, too. So off you go to make sure it’s done right.”
“Best to keep all the hatchlings in one nest…”
“When we come back, ghost, the new master will become the old master, and then all the niceties towards you will be very unnecessary. Ah, this is a splendid scheme ...”
“It’s a feast…”
“What can you going to do, Gúxa…?”
“What I can.”
“Turn him against us in the meanwhile…?”
“If you warn him, everything’s up for you, too…”
“I have friends,” Gulxán said.
“But they’re all dead…!”
And in a blast of contempt, they swirled away and took to the sky. Their órhlun ran up the wind as if it were a slope of an invisible hill, and finding a level plain in the atmosphere they kept a careful distance behind the little spy and followed it towards the West, until they became a half-clear gambogian ball, like the dusty head of a comet.
The mœgla whispered, “O Brother Wind, come and blow against this storm,” and as he waited for the winds to rise, he saw too much aright, with an honesty as cold as the ice of the Órsh-Mal. If Gulxán himself was to survive, he must save his master from himself, at least until another power could appear and conquer the world from both him and his false friends.
Then, remembering, he glided through the many tents and shelters of the Murdágua to the one ally who might be true.
Like psychopomps leading a magician through the veils between two dimensions, a quartet of xathúthasun escorted Gulxán into the inviolable heart of the Muradoc’s camp. The Ódhrug, the gynaeceum of the Muradoc’s women, was a bastion of the nubile, young, and fertile women, a womb, toilette, nest, and wardrobe. No longer the hidden, libidinous chambers of the matriarchs, charmed by phallic stones and the skulls of bucks, under the Muradoc the Ódhrug was a fragrant and tittering enclosure effervescing with constant chatter.
After Gulxán and his escort walked through shelter within shelter, as into the whorls of cactus blossom, they reached the casemated heart of the Ódhrug, and halted. Before an embroidered barrier sat a young woman in the indigo garb of the Mothers. She rose from a throne-like seat, and though only a pubescent, approached them with the studied carriage of an aristocrat. Once before them, she made a gesture and the death-mockers retreated.
Gulxán said, “Copális al Mœásimas, your mistress. Please.”
The girl said, “You never need announce yourself, Dar Mœgla, and you certainly need no escort.”
Copális had an inviting face but Gulxán sensed a lurking duplicity. “Lady Copális, your mother is a Great Mother and your sister as well, so it is strange that you should show any regard to a defunct witchdoctor.”
“We all have regard for you, especially the Ám-Nóa.”
“You demonstrate a notable devotion to our Dagahlas and Lady Nehælis that you endure the hardships of this pilgrimage.”
“What hardships can touch a soul when she meets with the courtesy and kindness of a sage such as you? Come. The goddess will speak to you.”
Copális preceded Gulxán through the final tent-flap.
Copális announced, “Ám-Nóa, the tale-teller comes to you.”
The young woman within, laying on a divan of furs, smiled. “Gulsha,” she said. Nehælis rose to greet him as small spirits trailed after her attentively.
“Ah, my síyathul,” Gulxán said. “Or should I say Ám-Nóa?”
Having clasped his thin hands, she returned to her couch and the same tavanávas streamed about her like starry matter, some resuming a circle-dance about her pregnant belly, others flying to her hair and braiding themselves into it, and some like flames flying to the cloth ceiling to provide light. Within this tent, their love for this girl had made the tavanávas gentle and they were a peaceful humming assemblage, insects gratifying their queen.
Gulxán went to her side and Nehælis glanced to Copális. The latter retreated backwards from her presence and exited.
“Something the Mothers do,” she said. “She does not need to. But she is kind to me. She is not like her sister at all.”
“No,” Gulxán said, “Cathlámis would not hurt a fly.” Gulxán held up a finger until he was sure that she was out of hearing. “No, Cathlámis’ victims are much larger and walk upright.”
“Copális’ sister rules in Ithládhis, so she stands in her place beside the Muradoc.”
“I suspect that her position with the god may become decidedly more horizontal. The spring line may be slimming, but her middle is only a little less swollen than yours.”
“Then there will be many little Muradocs this fall.”
“And winter and spring. The master’s been very busy. I can only wonder whether they are all his. I won’t be surprised if a few of your ladies will try to pass them off as such.”
“I cannot help what they do.”
“You hold a very magnanimous court. You aren’t jealous?”
She shook her head.
“You’re a rare woman. At heart, at least. But, my dear, look at you. You blend into this sorority. You all look the same. The same robes, the same braids. Make some effort to be the great lady.”
“I wouldn’t know how. I don’t want that. I’m no different from them.”
“Yes, you are. You may not care for him, but he does love you.”
“Dagahlas thinks he loves me. But he does not know what love is.”
“You, though, do, my girl. But, tell me, are you safe here?”
Running her hands over her abdomen, Nehælis said with a serenity unsuited to his subject, “The xathúthasun are strong.”
“They’re very angry. But I have been doing some thinking. I have made a few calculations and I wonder: may I could share with you a problem I have discovered?”
“I never learned ciphering.”
“This is double-entry accounting. The death-mockers…”
“They’re not at all funny at all.”
“Quite clever. But listen, síyathul.” He looked patiently into her eyes. “The xathúthasun are dying off.”
“They can go to their peace,” Nehælis said.
“And good riddance. But, my dear, once they are gone there are no new women to replace them.”
Nehælis considered his words, but their import did not strike her.
“But there will be little girls,” she said.
“Not even little girls,” Gulxán said. “The xathúthasun they have been refusing all sexual congress to your males, not that they have any great appeal, but once they’re dead, they lose any of their charm.”
“I don’t understand.”
“In a twist of history that your ancestresses—if that’s a word—would deplore, you tribe will soon be wholly male.”
“They will find mates.”
“Not out here. Unless we come upon a commune of repentant separatists, all their wrestling matches, foot races, and corn-holing don’t satisfy them. They want women. And I want you to be safe.”
“The world is very evil, I know.”
“You aren’t distressed?”
“This child is coming. I will raise her and we will do what we can. My spirits will protect my ladies and me.” The small tavanávas whirred and hummed about her limbs and face and couch as if she were a gorge of honey. “What evil would a man do to a woman?”
“Ah, síytathul.” There was nothing he could say to her. Snow could take grime and blood, but Nehælis’ purity was incapable of accepting any stain. In her ignorance she journeyed with her jailer on a quest, while in truth they were fleeing into for safety of a wasteland. And why had he thought to approach her for protection? Gulxán saw that Nehælis, though he cherished her, could no nothing. The tavanávas would return with the body of Barac in tribute, and as Dagahlas stupidly exulted that another foe had fallen, they would lay their tentacles on them all, in front of his moonstone eyes torture Nehælis and her child, and then take all their souls into the wormholes of the Váuhla for torment eternally and forever.
The knocking of a wooden gong broke their conversation. A pair of slaves, each an elderly woman deprived of her tongue, came through the deer-flap with bent heads and bore in one of the Black God’s chests.
“Well, time to make for the Lake,” Gulxán said.
The slaves arranged the boxes before their Áma-Nóa, then prostrated themselves eight times. With the last of these, they withdrew several steps and spirits from Nehælis’ hair flew to the boxes. With the energy of their many small forms they lifted the hinged lids.
She stood and from a chest threw around her with a feminine swirl what was at best a long cape of mist, and she vanished before him. But as suddenly she reappeared, happy at the game.
Gulxán said, “I forget that the master had these. Pelts from the spirit realm. A better use for the órhlun than I have lately seen.”
Nehælis said, “Copális and I will wear these, but the other ladies will wear our robes. If you see her send her back to me.”
“For once you will not all look exactly alike.” He left her to ready herself.
Gulxán floated unaccompanied out of the many yurts of the Ódhrug, but at the last of the women’s pavilions he heard behind him, “Look after yourself, mœgla.”
He spun about. In the shadows Copális stood like a ghost plant. She said, “The spirits want to kill you off, but you cannot be killed.”
“I know, milady.” He wondered at how much knowledge this girl had of their plots. “They want to ‘encase’ me,” he said.
“I do not know what it means.”
“I do. So what else have you overheard?”
“A little of everything. Tell me more of you calculations. What are the numbers you spoke of?”
“You’re all business. Very well. Less than nine months ago, when the women of Ithládhis lost all their sense and became the xathúthasun, Ithládhis had a population of more or less, 1,371 persons, which takes in slaves and hangers-on. 5/8 of them were females, of whom 2/3 fell into a fit of religious hysteria and became possessed. The remained 1/3 of the females were either too old to take part in fashioning our universe anew, or too young to understand. Just over half, that 5/8, of 1,371 is an unruly decimal, but let’s say we can reckon the women of Ithládhis to be have been 685 souls, over eight of your ‘vunas.’ Two-thirds of 685 is, give-or-take, 460. Somehow 460 xathúthasun defeated the Black God and cast him down as the dread of the human race and, if I may speak frankly, took his place. But that 460 xathúthasun, because of attrition, has become 105, by my count yesterday. We are losing about 60 every moon, or almost 2 each day, because of: disease, since no one is doing the cleaning, paltry meals, since no one is doing the cooking, and murder, since the death-mockers eliminate any woman who shows any independence. The population of unpossessed females capable of reproduction, now made up only of women from your citadel…”
“Lácashish,” she said.
“…and of girls who have in the aforementioned nine months come to experience the humoral undulations of the monthly promise of fertility—and this takes in you and your mistress—is only 44. Now, we will assume that nature takes its course and these 44 become great with child. At the current rate of obstetric mortality, half of those will die in childbirth sometime in the future, and half of their children will die as well, and half of the surviving children are female. One quarter of 44 is 11. This generation of women, therefore, will only give out 11 more females. That is bleak, but to be realistic, let’s pad that number and get maybe 20 females, of whom half will reach adulthood. Et cetera. What is the other side of this stone? Sniffing around these 44 females there are, as of a count I made two days ago, 354 functional males. Over 8:1. Young lady, I have yet to meet a man who will accept 0.12429ths of a woman.”
“You have told the Last God of this?”
“I told him three months ago while he was planning this jaunt. But ‘The world is changing,’ he said.”
“I have heard him say that all women must become possessed to give birth to the new race.”
“Then the Age of the Mothers is ending,” Copális recited.
Gulxán snorted. “Well, milady, you need a little nap, a touch of beauty sleep. Not that you need it. You’re a fresher version of your sister.” He touched her chin and examined her. “But just a little touch-up. And stay out of the Sun.”
She bent her face from his touch and returned to the depths of the seraglio.
Gulxán also set off, but stopped short at a disjointed outline before him. A clutch of xathúthasun was meeching and gargling in mirth. Within sight of the harem’s main portal, a young man only then growing silken hairs along his ears and up his belly twitched and choked on the shaft of wood. The death-mockers had impaled him and in warning had ground the shaft into the earth before the sweet dwellings of their master’s women.
“353,” the mœgla tallied and floated on into the night.
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