"Do you know why you're here?"
A deep voice came from out of the dark, jolting her awake after a long and troublesome sleep. The jittery movements of the machine caused her headache to resurface, bringing back feelings of terror and homesickness. She looked at the figure looming over her on the bed, already knowing who it was.
"You bastard!", she shrieked. "I came to you and you still killed my Sisters. May the Goddesses cast you back into the Hellfire from which you came."
"Pity," said Drake in a tedious tone. "I was expecting more appreciation for saving you from that prison of ignorance."
She couldn't see his face, it was darkened by retreating shadows caused by the morning light. And she knew why he kept it hidden. If the eyes were windows to the soul, he was hiding them for his own protection, lest she could see the monster he was with a single glance. Nobody's soul could ever stand to be seen after the things he'd done.
"You burned all that land to get me, was that really necessary? And Managua, what about Managua? Did you kill him too?... Tell me, please!" She tried lunging at him but found it was useless. She was bound to the bed with ropes around each of her limbs.
"Such passion! You're as robust as a dragon. Yes, the boy was killed, but if it makes you feel any better, I wasn't the one who did it."
Her wailing could have silenced a flock of crows.
"Aw, yes, it was sad to see him go. He was vigorous and spirited, like you. We could have used him, but he was too stubborn for his own good. Your boy failed everyone when he decided to challenge us. You know, if he'd joined us, you could have still seen each other every day. He could have made all of us happy."
"Just go away." She could barely get the words out amidst her sobbings.
Drake could see that his words couldn't penetrate her sadness, not today. "When you're ready, Sister Naya, I will tell you why this was necessary-"
"I already know why you came. We all knew why you were coming and how dangerous you were. All except for the boy, he was innocent."
"You knew?"
"Yes, Selene, the one you killed- she had the power to see into the future. The Mothers knew I'd be chosen soon after I was born."
"Yet she hadn't foreseen her own death."
Naya looked at him with hate. "You know nothing about her, or any of us, killer."
"I know more about Serenity than your foolish Mothers. The only thing I don't understand is this: if you knew we were coming, why didn't you leave?"
She'd thought about it in the moments before leaving Managua at the top of Great Bonsai. It had been a tough decision: let her village burn and risk getting him killed if they found her, or turn herself in and save many lives. After seeing the first plumes of smoke on the horizon build up exponentially all morning, she finally decided that the threat was too great to risk them all dying trying to defend her. The latter option seemed far better; her sacrifice would save everyone who'd raised her and everyone she loved. Leaving Managua would hurt, but not as much as seeing him get killed trying to defend her. The only thing she hadn't counted on was the Fire Army being heartless enough to kill everyone despite turning herself in. Such evil never happened in these parts of Gambria.
"I thought you would have kept destroying everything until you found me", she said. "There are people in this world who care about others more than they care about themselves, you know. You and everyone in that army you command are too busy killing them off to know the difference."
Drake shrugged off the accusation, like he'd already known it was coming. "You could have come looking for us before we assembled this massive operation and taken countless lives. In a sense, you killed all these people and we are completely innocent of your charges. I have my orders. All I do is follow through on them as efficiently as possible."
"Only the bravest disobey orders when it's needed most. And I didn't come looking for you because we are forbidden to leave. I told you, you wouldn't understand."
He laughed it off like her logic was lunacy. She looked away, with a deep sadness setting in. There was a flaw in what she'd said, she realized. She hadn't disobeyed her Mothers in order to go looking for him, making her look like a coward judging by her own statement. She'd only waited until the last minute to turn herself in, perhaps because some part of her didn't want to believe in the prophecy, or believed they could actually defend themselves against the army. Naya feared she looked like a hypocrite in Drake's eyes, but he didn't expose her. Instead, he pressed for more information about Inana.
"Tell me more about this strange village. Those men who came to help you at the end- they weren't the hunters you mentioned, and they certainly didn't live there. You women governed it yourselves, didn't you?"
"Yes, and what of it?"
"Remarkable. Absolutely remarkable. I know of only a handful of places in the world where the women are the governors and not the men (and they are all weak states, mind you), but this is the first place I've ever seen that didn't have any men whatsoever. Where did they come from? Are they your fathers?"
"Fathers?..." She said it like he was out of his mind.
"Yes, fathers. Don't tell me those wicked crones didn't tell you how babies are made."
"Stop it, you're just trying to confuse me. We don't have any Fathers: only Mothers. Managua's village had Fathers. That's who those men were who came to rescue him."
Drake's laughter was so loud that it might have shook the whole machine. Had he been more empathetic he'd have stopped there, but there was no limit to his provoking, especially around defenseless prisoners. Naya meanwhile did her best to ignore him, and she soon succeeded after he got up to leave.
Babies come from men AND women, he'd said. Not just boy babies, but girl babies too. You all have the same parents. The way they do this is they FUCK each other- something you'd know nothing about, being a virgin and all. And they never told you? They probably fucked each other behind your backs. How do you feel about leaving them now?
"Being a virgin...," she said quietly to herself after he'd left. He had no clue that she wasn't anymore, that it had only been some weeks ago that she'd lost it to the boy who'd defied him. Perhaps she'd be in danger if Drake ever found out the truth. The prophecy he'd spoken about during the raid relied on her being one, though she wasn't clear why it was important.
There was a chance he didn't know what he was talking about, and simply took pleasure in confusing her. What he said about babies made no sense at all: clearly they only came from women. Managua couldn't have come from one; he didn't have the same body. It was like saying monkeys were born from humans, to her anyway. And yet, she had seen monkeys- and a whole lot of other animals- mate the same way she and Managua had. Several of the wildcats that lived near the village, whom many of the women loved as pets, seemed to give birth shortly after mating with others. If she'd done the same thing with Managua, it was possible that she was already pregnant. But there weren't any indications of those changes in her body: not yet, anyway. Plus, Selene's prophecies had never mentioned a boy who'd make love to her before the dark ones came. It was all so damnable.
After many hours of brooding, a sliver of light came into her eyes. If the Sisters had voted to let her turn herself in before the army came, she never would have met Managua. There had to be a reason he'd been in her life. Perhaps they'd known about him too, and never told her. Perhaps he had a role to play in all this. And if that were true, he couldn't be dead. It was the only thing that gave her hope.
As Naya was waking up to her miserable surroundings, Managua was doing the same, to far better ones. Out of the fog of his sleep, the face of a girl appeared to be looking down on him, a face that was wild and dirty and different in every way from his lost lover's. Yet it was still beautiful by some stretch of the imagination that allowed it if the beheld person were cleaner. Her face scowled at the sight of his awakening, making him realize who it was: the girl who'd saved him after he'd saved her.
She called out to several men who were resting by a mast, all of whom Managua recognized instantly. He thanked the heavens once he saw the faces of Jingo and the examiner Ojaca. However he was not happy to see Maracaibo, the spy who'd gotten him banished. Barranquilla was nowhere to be found.
"By Deus. Jingo, Ojaca, I've never been happier to see your ugly faces. But what's he doing here? And where is my Father?"
"No doubt you have many questions, young man", said Ojaca. "But first you must rest."
"No, I was nearly killed. We were all nearly killed. I want answers now."
"Spoken like a rebel honcho. No manners, no patience," spat Maracaibo.
"All in good time," said Ojaca. "You aren't asking the right questions though. Don't you want to know how you survived the battle?"
The thought hadn't even crossed his mind. He must've been unconscious for days, since his saviors had assembled a ship that was apparently sailing them down a river. Rivers in Marduk's territory weren't generally large enough to assist a ship as seemingly big as the one he was in. Slowly he got up and crawled onto the ledge of the vessel, so he could gather his bearings. He was aghast to find that they were sailing down the biggest river he'd ever seen. Yet more amazing was the fact that it was orange, and flowed under a sky that had gone from light blue to a tangerine tint. The only things that weren't a shade of orange were the palm leaves that hung off trees over the sides of the river. The sight took his breath away. Ojaca was right, he wasn't asking the right questions. In fact there were far more than he'd first been aware of having.
"How? Why? Where?", he muttered under a suffocating breath. Then he lost consciousness again.
A lot had changed in Jingo's life since Managua left. He'd been perceived as an accomplice by many people in the village, not because anybody ever saw him breaking any laws, but because of his association with someone who had. Many privately asked him if he'd been with a woman like his friend had, hoping to get an exclusive description of one all to themselves, and potentially an invitation to being introduced to one. Whenever he denied it they'd ignore him, asking instead if the way Managua had described women was true. It has to be, his reply always came, the mirror doesn't lie.
Others had been less friendly. Guilt by association seemed to be a veritable crime when you got to the heart of things. No evidence could have made them believe he'd had nothing do to with his friend's river crossing (though if they'd waited a week he might have, since Managua had promised to take him there). It was a good thing the old rat Maracaibo never heard his consent to meeting one, or else he would have been in trouble too. His only wish was that the spy had waited until after Managua showed him a woman to expose the boy, so he'd have had a chance to see one. If that had been the case he'd probably have been banished as well. But from the way women sounded, maybe it was worth it.
Managua had left him a note inside the fort when he went away. In it he expressed his deepest apologies for getting himself in trouble, explaining why he had to take the Star Dancer to a safer place. I'll be damned if I'm going to let those old fools get their hands on our baby, he'd written. He'd also told him where he would keep it hidden, in case anything ever happened to him. He wrote that he could always find it close to the Forbidden River, near a tree they'd found when they were kids, a tree that had yellow flowers growing out of its many branches, branches that were actually the bodies of other trees growing on a fallen log. He'd mentioned it might be gone at times, since he'd be taking it to Naya's bungalow and showing her what it could do. If they ever bumped into each other at the place where he kept it, he promised to have him meet her.
Jingo had been excited at such a prospect. He contemplated waiting at the secret spot for a rendezvous with his old friend, but then thought better of it. Maracaibo had been a real threat at the time, and he feared being followed by him again. He ultimately didn't want his fate to be the same as his friend's, so he tore up the letter and burned it, lest the spy get his hands on it and bring to light the Star Dancer's whereabouts.
Star Dancer. It was what he'd decided to name the strange instrument that brought the stars closer. On the first and only night he'd looked into it, he noticed the way it seemed to draw them in closer: a brief and swift movement that felt like a dance with the observer. For all he knew, the stars were making their own music as they pulsed and radiated energy out into the far reaches of space. Perhaps they even had ways of communicating with each other, using the frequencies that give them such astounding characteristics. Could it be that the very stars that gave life were alive themselves? And how many other worlds were out there that harbored life the way Serenity did?
When he came to Ojaca searching for answers, the examiner didn't have any for him. He could only estimate that there were thousands of stars out there, and that only a handful had planets like theirs orbiting them. Why would you ask such a mind-boggling question?, the sage asked. Jingo hadn't yet told him about Star Dancer, but things were different now. Looking at the old sage as they told stories on the boat, Jingo thought there were a great many questions that even the wisest man in Marduk had no answer for. Yet his confusion paled in comparison to Managua's, who had no idea that his Fathers had known the invasion was coming, or that they'd prepared to stop it.
It was on the following morning that they explained it all to him. Two days prior to the invasion, Jingo had spotted smoke over the horizon while running on his track through the canopy. The following day, the smoke increased to an alarming level. He climbed up the tallest tree he could find in order to get a better look. The smoke seemed to be coming from a great swath of land that covered a major portion of the horizon. Most alarming was that it darkened the closer to the ground it came. Jingo's first fear was that an incredibly large fire was spreading to their village, and spreading fast. He couldn't have guessed it would be something that forced him away from home, sailing down a strange river the color of orange juice.
He'd told his Fathers about what he'd seen, and they'd called a powwow. Chief Colom revealed that a prophecy was coming true, one that would mean the demise of their village if they didn't defend their territory. It was pronounced that on the following morning, every man would need to grab his weapons and head for the forbidden territory, which was in the direction the smoke was coming from. All the men went aghast with fear, arguing that perhaps it was the women who were waging such incredible destruction on the land, not any outside forces. But the men who knew what women really were knew better, men like Ojaca and Maracaibo and the chief. It took some convincing to get men like Barranquilla to go with them- the ones who'd grown up in ignorance.
"When we got to Inana", said Jingo, "Many of us looked at the women in awe, including yours truly. It was like catching a boar for the first time, or tasting a jelly bean. No, far better in fact. Nothing can describe it really. When you and I looked through Star Dancer for the first time- which is gone by the way, the Fire Army took it- and saw how ferociously our sun burned, it was more like that. Amazement at nature's power. A disillusionment with reality. What was once far away became up front and center, and all you had to do was reach out and touch it. But they were being slaughtered by the Fire Army, and we had to help them. The men, they were only flesh and blood, like us, and they were the ones destroying everything, not the women like we'd expected. It appeared that we'd been the real devils all along, and the ones we'd believed to be evil were entirely innocent. The supposed devils were the victims of a great crime happening right in front of our eyes."
Jingo paused and bashfully looked at Nautica, the girl who'd saved Managua. Then he looked to his surviving Fathers with a look of frustration. "How could you do that to us!?", he waled at them. The old men looked down into the ground and nodded, like they wanted to bury themselves in shame. To everyone's surprise, the anger in Jingo's eyes quickly fled. Managua thought it looked like he'd already reconciled his pain with forgiveness. When times were as trying as these, you couldn't hold grudges for long. You had to drop the shit and just move on, so the survivors could work together.
Nautica spoke next: "The wretched brute who slashed at you after you'd already beaten the other one, he hit you over the head and dragged you off into the woods. The monkey followed, and so did I." Mango, who'd been quiet up until now, piqued up at his name being mentioned. "He was about to kill you, but we stopped him. Guster was his name. He got away though, they all did. After they beat us, they got in their machines and kept going even though they got their prize."
"You saved me twice?", asked Managua, to which she nodded. "I'm forever in your debt. Where was that ugly man going?"
"Marduk, my son," said Maracaibo, his eyes still downcast. "They burned it down and killed the other Brothers, every last one. I'm sorry to be the one to tell you, I know you must be batshit angry at me. But since it all happened, I have renounced the faith and sought forgiveness from those I have wronged. If only Santana were here, I could pledge my life to both of you, for being courageous enough seek the truth when it's too dangerous to find. Managua, son of Barranquilla, I beg of your forgiveness, please."
It was all too much to take in. He wasn't like Jingo, he would need a lot more time to forgive Maracaibo. "You brought this on yourselves," he said. "I don't know how all these lies started, or what happened to cause such an intense distrust in women. Those questions will be answered in time. In order to completely forgive you, I need to know the whole truth."
He looked at the woman. "Nautica, I thank you from the bottom of my heart for saving my life."
"I owed you one for saving mine, tough guy... Maybe a couple." She winked at him, making all the men slightly uncomfortable.
Managua looked back at Jingo. "How did my Father die?"
"The girl saw it all happen. When Baranquila saw you'd been hit by Guster, he tried to save you, but Guster ended his life with that swift dagger of his. Then he dragged you off into the brush, but no one knows why."
"We have a theory-", began Maracaibo
"Don't", interrupted Jingo. "He's heard enough."
"What? Tell me?"
"We think he wanted to... You know... Play around with you. Men from abroad are far different from the ones at home," said Ojaca.
Managua buried his head in his hands. The toll the events were taking on him felt heavier than the weight of a boar on his shoulders. The Fire Army had burned everything to the ground, ended the life of his Father, and taken Naya wherever it was they were going. Naya. How could he lose her, right after meeting her? He cursed himself for not protecting her, yet she was the one who'd left him as soon as it became evident Inana would be destroyed. Why hadn't she woken him? Probably to keep him safe. Well, if she didn't need him to keep her safe, he reckoned she didn't need him much at all. The pain in his gut swelled with bitterness at such thoughts.
"Where are we going?", he finally asked.
This time Maracaibo was the one to speak: "Down the Fanta River, my son-"
"Don't call me that."
"My apologies, Managua. The chief's dying wish, may he rest in peace, was that we follow the Fire Army and bring justice to what they've done. He mentioned you in passing, that you'd be strong enough to lead us through the wild, if we could find you. And with our wise council, our little band could travel anywhere."
"Wise council? You think I need your council, the spy who got me kicked out of my own home?"
"If you won't take his counsel, then at least take mine", said Ojaca. "We understand your frustration with our laws, but this isn't the time to complain, Managua. We need each other if we are going to survive."
"Great. So you kidnapped a child you banished, only because you needed him to help you survive."
"It might appear that way, son, but believe us, you're no better off alone in the jungles of Gambria than you are with us. There are plenty of wretched things out there that could have very well disposed of you by now. A bit of gratitude might be in order for taking you with us, wouldn't you say?"
It was a question better left unanswered. He needed some time to sort things out.
"One last question, why did they take the woman I love?"
The men looked uncertain, so Nautica stepped in. "Naya had been chosen even before she was born. It was destined that she'd give birth to a child for the King of the Crosswinds, due to her superior health and fertility. I never believed it until today."
"The Crosswinds...", he echoed, more bewildered than ever. He was starting to realize that the more answers he got, the more questions came to him- a curious axiom that is common among inquisitive people. Exhaustion was creeping up on him, like the way Guster had done before popping him over the head and putting him in such a blind state. He needed to rest.
