Halloween: Magic, Mystery, and the Macabre (27 page)

them anyhow. Waste is waste, if it’s a human life or a stalk of wheat.

“Now, back on Earth, in the old days, there used to be these big

snakes. Not like any old rock viper or hedge green. No, sir. These snakes, they were so big could stretch from one side of a dome to the other with space left over past the end of their noses. Got hungry, they’d squeeze anything to death they wanted. Anything. Can’t recall what they were called, those snakes, but that’s what they’d do.”

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“Boads and ambakandees,” says Miranda.

“Pythons,” adds Dope. “Them, also.”

Jack just glares at them, then goes of with the tale.

“And that last night of the war, the Seven and the Seven came

down and settled over Barsukov, and they wrapped themselves as

tight around the dome as those big Earth snakes would have done.

The Four, who’d been busy and distracted, what with feeding on the dead and dying and the bloodthirsty, saw too late the fate rushing over them. They didn’t have a chance to flee before the goddesses

began to squeeze in. That’s when the dome busted.
That’s
when the worst of the dyin’ started.”

There’s a clacking noise from the crank, and Dope jumps, which

sort of makes Jack feel better.

“After all, when the people under siege saw how they were

going to lose, some of them burned their
own
terraces and ponics, poisoned their
own
water, just so the Saganites wouldn’t get at it.

And waste is waste, right, no matter who commits it. So, the Seven and the Seven, they went and squeezed like them giant Earth snakes, and the dome started coming apart. So ferocious was their anger,

that of the goddesses, that the Four fled back to their caverns down deep below Arsia Mons, leaving the conquerors
and
the conquered to their fates. Was almost a full week before rescuers from the south reached Barsukov, and most those people who didn’t die the day the dome came down, they’d already perished by the time help arrived.

Only a hundred or so got into the bunkers, a few dozen more air-

locked and radsafe in private shelters. Some of the wealth-off, in-clover folk, those few were.

“They say, and it’s gospel, when the rescuers were still coming

the Hydaspis, they actually
saw
all the Ladies, still swirling about the crumpled mess left of Barsukov, and they looked a thousand times

more terrible than the Four. Rescuers almost damned turned back

then and forgot the distress signals, ’cause sure the people must have had coming to ’em what they got, if the Ladies were so riled.

“They had to decide, weighing the lives of whoever—if anybody—

might have survived against the will of the Seven and the Seven. We’d have done the same.”

CAITLÍN R. KIERNAN [207]

The clip and crank box squeals loudly enough that Jack has to

pause until he can once more be heard over the cacophony. You can

buy new clips, the sound clean and adjusted—same as you can buy

new playbacks, instead of relying on half-century old cranks that

should have gone to the reprocess plant before he was born. But

Jack’s family grows potatoes and cabbages, and there’s never money for luxuries.

“Respect the grace of the Ladies,” his mother says, “and be glad

for what we have. Don’t mope for what we don’t.”

And he tries.

“The captain of the team, he went so far as to halt the rescuers

then and there, and was gonna be a vote, to go on or turn back. That’s when the birds came flying overhead, those huge black birds died

out long, long ago, and all we have are pictures. Ravens, so they were called on Earth. Shouldn’t have been able to fly here in the thin air, naturally, and sure shouldn’t have been able to breathe or—shit, you both know—but, still, there they were. And not ghost birds, neither.

Genuine
ravens, their ebon feathers shining in the sun. The rescuers figured had to be a sign, but was it a sign to turn back, or was it a sign to finish what they came to do.”

“I’d huh-have turned back, you bet,” murmurs Dope.

“Fine thing then you weren’t the priestess who read the

significance of those ravens. She met with the captain in this dragger, and she told him that—even in their fury—the Seven and the Seven

were not without mercy, and by their hands had the miracle of the

birds been sent from the past of Earth and the memory of man to

beckon him and his team on despite the terror of the sight before

them. He listened. ’Course he listened, because that’s what we do

when a priestess talks.”

In the dark attic, Jack finishes the sacred duty imparted upon

him by drawing short. He tells of the heroism and the pardoning of the surviving Saganites by vote of the dome councils. He tells of how the ruins were abandoned to winds and dune, and of the survivors

of the war who didn’t live to see the brassy foil shimmer of Balboa’s skin.

“So it was the Ladies did show us how even in the most sour

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crannies of our hearts is there something worth salvation. But to

this day, to this very day, prospectors and surveyors and the like who have cause to pass by those ruins, they can hear the bombs, and the crash of the broken Barsukov comin’ down. Worst of all, they tell of the shrieks of the dying swept too and fro across the flats.”

He knows that maybe that last part’s true, and maybe it isn’t. But he also knows that Phantom Night is more than a celebration of the life that will return beyond the long Martian winter. It’s reverence of the dead, and it’s time to send a few shivers through the soul, as well.

Fear is the twin of Determination, that they dance always locked

arm in arm, and there will not ever be the one without the other.

When his tale is done, the three children bow their heads, and once the clip has run out an the crank automatically shut off, they recite the janazah, the specific fardth al-kaifāya demanded on that night to insure the community will see another year and to beseech another

ten score years farther along. It is the task of the young to pray for the future. When Jack and Miranda and Dope are finished, they quietly

exit the attic, and Jack pulls the trapdoor shut behind them and locks it. The clip is in his pocket, and he’ll place it beneath his bed, where it will rest undisturbed until the conclusion of the March and the festivities.

In the strictest sense, the temple wasn’t built. Rather, it was found, and then made the
cradle
for an elaborate construction. At least, as elaborate as the dome could manage, post-cutoff. The temple began as a cavern, discovered beneath the northwestern perimeter of Balboa

during the digging of a basement vault for a genetic repository by the local office of the Provision Syndicate. Unlike the caverns on the flanks of Arsia Mons, this one is not an ancient lava tube, but was carved through sedimentary rock by an underground river long

before the first multicellular life evolved on Earth.

Scaffolding, catwalks, and stairwells—mostly built from bamboo

and adobe—wind downwards from the surface, as well as forming

various levels. On the uppermost are the plazas for public prayer

and the classrooms. The monks and priestesses have their spartan

CAITLÍN R. KIERNAN [209]

dwellings on the mid-levels. And at the very bottom is the series of interlinked ceremonial chambers. As Phantom Night is the most

important of the year, the central chamber is the largest and the one with which the greatest care has been taken. But it isn’t ostentatious, as waste is the one evil in all the cosmos. In accordance with the holy writ of the Seven and the Seven, it is functional, sufficient to its purpose and no more.

As is the custom, this year’s avatars have been chosen by the

drawing of lots from men and women between the ages of sixteen

and twenty-three. They are the ones who much enact the most critical of all the observances of Phantom Night. They are the ones who will tread the line between
waste
and
sacrifice,
a hairline that exists only in the heart of humanity.

Beneath the sandstone roof of the cavern, at dawn on the day of

the March, the drums sound like an old clip recording of thunder

and cannon fire. Their rhythmic tattoo bruises the air and batters the bodies of the avatars. Seven plus Seven daughters for the polar Ladies, and four men to represent the Four. Within a central ring, the men stand on pedestals that have been placed at north, south, east, and west. Upon a low dais of polished basalt, placed
precisely
at the center of the circle, the women stand hand-in-hand, a ring with their backs to the men.

In a bamboo cage suspended ten feet above the dais is a single

priestess, the highest appointed of that year, the Junon. Unlike the avatars, she isn’t nude, but wears a heavy robe of the coarsest jute and a cap of thistle vine.

Flutes and strings join the drums, and the braziers are lit. The

chamber quickly smells of sage, coriander, clove, and burning stalks of wheat. The smoke is drawn upwards through the natural chimney

of the temple. Those who live nearby are blessed with the scent before the scrubbers remove it from the air. The avatars chosen to represent the Seven and the Seven turn to face the avatars chosen to stand in for the Four. In unison, the women recite the Litany of Preservation, and then the men jeer and curse them. Now the hands of the Seven

and the Seven hang at their sides.

Overhead, the Junon dips her left hand into a gourd and

[210] WHILST THE NIGHT REJOICES PROFOUND AND STILL

sprinkles water upon the heads on the women. Then, with her right, she scoops up a mixture of fine dust from dunes near the poles and ground human bone, and this, too, she sprinkles on the heads of the daughters. She gazes down at the avatars, and her face is both solemn and angry.

“Until the coming of the fleets, the Four held sway over the world, and during the days of darkness did they bring upon us the full force of their wickedness and destruction.

“Until the coming of the fleets, the Seven and the Seven slept in

their towers of ice, for there was no need of them. But we came from the stars, and we
brought
need. We came, it seemed, only to destroy ourselves, as we had done on Earth, and the Four gathered to feast upon us. But the Seven and the Seven were awakened by the cries of the righteous and the just, by those who cherished life above all else.

“They awoke and did do war against the Four, and drove them

deep below, and bound them there.”

Each of the women steps off the dais, taking one step towards the

outer ring, four of them taking a step towards the men. The women

bow their heads, and the men continue with their carefully rehearsed insults.

“Having delivered us,” the priestess says, shouting now above the

rising music, “but this covenant can last only so long as we remain true and show our respect, and squander nothing which is precious!

And as
all
things are precious, we squander
nothing,
or surely the Four
will
be once more released to ravage the world!”

The women take another step forward, wait, and then take five

more. Now four of them are very near the heckling men who stand

at the rocks arranged at the Four Quarters. At the feet of those four women are daggers planted in the hard-packed dirt, blades of black volcanic glass and iron hilts forged in the temple furnaces. The

women stoop and draw the blades from the floor, and the men fall

silent.

“Here, in this sacred place and on this morning, we remember

the battle the Ladies bravely and selflessly fought on our behalf. In this hour, we offer our gratitude. We do this with no hesitation and with no regret.”

CAITLÍN R. KIERNAN [211]

The Junon falls silent then, her part done. And the four women

descend upon the avatars of the Four with the scalpel-sharp daggers.

The only resistance offered by the men is pantomime, but their pain and screams are real. Their wails rise, as the smoke from the incense rises, though few above will hear them, so deep is the cavern.

A pair of monks emerge from among the musicians, each bearing

a guttering torch, and they turn the Junon’s bamboo cage into an

inferno. Her robes, her hair, her skin, all drenched with oil, burn with flame as hungry as any of the Four, and her screams are added to

those of the men.

The ten daughters who were not fortunate enough to draw the

crimson tiles turn to watch the slaughter of their brothers. All but two among them are young enough to have another opportunity for

that honor next year.

But nothing here is wasted.

Nothing.

After the four women have eaten, whatever is left of the men

will be gathered by the monks, and—along with the Junon’s ashes—

will be dispersed among the people of Balboa to fertilize gardens

throughout the dome. The four women kneel, and their ten sisters

repeat the Litany.

Beneath every dome across the planet the ceremony is coming

to a close, and beneath every dome the bells above temples ring out across an indebted populace.

The dead of Mars are not buried. In the living memory of all the

inhabitants of all the domes and that of all those who live on the out farms, mines, and wellingsteads, have the dead been buried. Instead, carved stones are erected beneath the orange-blue sky, carved stones marking a birth, a life, and a death, but signifying the final resting place of no one. The deceased are not ever tossed aside, but composted and so resurrected—bone and sinew, blood and organs—to nourish

those who will come after.

Honor lies only in continuation, and the only immortality in