The Bitter Taste (2 page)

Yau smiled and sipped at it, feeling the
potion beginning to affect her from the first mouthful.

She didn't fight it; she simply allowed
herself to slip into the drugged slumber. She heard the clunk of
the cup against the floor, and then heard nothing else.

*

She became conscious of someone humming. It was
muffled and distant, but it was pleasant if a little discordant.
There was heaviness to the sound that didn’t seem right to her
current perception.

Yau rose, twisting in her seat to face the
room. Nan sat watching the fire. There was a damp sheen to her
cheeks and Yau knew the older woman had been crying. The song she
was humming was an old prayer. The words had been lost a long time
ago, but the melody and the sentiment remained.

Yau stood and walked over to her, lifting an
ethereal hand to rest on the old woman’s shoulders. She wondered
what would happen when her friend and mentor finally shuffled off
the mortal coil.

Yau lifted her hand, leaving her friend to
her grief and she stepped out of the hut. She had a momentary
impression of mud surrounding her, but it was a physical thing and
no match for her walking soul.

The world was dark- inky and midnight blue.
The shadows seemed darker, deeper almost. There was no sound in
this place between worlds and that brought a small comfort to
Yau.

She marveled, instead, at the movement of
living creatures. Flashes of golden light in the air where bugs
flew. Deep red entwined in gold for the people of her village. Even
the ants on the ground glowed with a subtle yellow aura.

She walked towards the village, already
knowing where she was heading.

She moved towards her hut. It glowed faintly
with a deep blue aura, and she knew this was the colour of loss.
She wondered if she had the strength to enter it. She thought she
should feel something, and though she hesitated, her feet took her
closer. She found she could feel nothing- no fear or apprehension-
just a blank emptiness in her chest where emotions had once
lived.

She pushed open the door to her home. A
figure stood lost and forlorn in the middle, shoulders hunched as
he stared at the shrine in the wall, and Yau knew that it was right
that he be there. She had known since waking up that she would find
him here, wandering and lost.

“Tepil,” she whispered, and pulled him into
her arms.

She stayed there with him, her cheek resting
against his back for a long time, until at last he pulled away and
turned in her arms.

If she'd had a stomach, she would have thrown
up. His flesh- what remained of it- was grey and bloated. His eyes
were clouded and sagging in the sockets, and when he spoke, water
dribbled from his mouth.

“Yau, I’m so sorry. I broke my promise,” he
gurgled, sea water gushing down between them. Yau flinched.

“I know. It isn’t your fault. I should have
stopped you.”

“I’m lost, little sister, and I can't
escape,” he said again. “Please help me- I don't want to wander
lost forever.”

“Where are you? Where did they take you?”

“I don't know,” her brother moaned, the water
staining the tatters of his clothes. “It's dark, and they come to
taunt me- they know I am bound to my body- that I will have to
return with the rising sun... they eat little pieces of me, one by
one, knowing there is nothing I can do, that when they have
finished, I will be lost and wandering for all eternity, unable to
move on, and unaccepted into the afterlife.”

“You need to tell me where you are, brother,
otherwise I can’t get to you. I can’t help you.”

He gripped her arms, the bones of his
fingertips digging into her flesh.

“Please, Yau, I can't wander around for all
eternity. I need a burial. Please, find a way to save me. I need
you.”

She wanted to cry, to promise him everything
in the world, and tell him he would be buried and safe once more,
but there was nothing but static in her mind and the feeling of
shadows moving into place behind her.

“I- I'll try,” she said.

He shuddered, and Yau heard the squelch of
the sea in his lungs.

“The sun is rising,” Tepil said after a long,
uncomfortable silence.

“Where is your body?” Yau asked.

“In the deepest part of the lagoon- where the
crabs always scavenge and the Maidens practice their singing. Will
you come for me?”

“Yes,” said Yau, “although I don't know
how...”

“Yau, listen to me... You were right. I
should have listened to you. I thought my sacrifice before leaving
would be enough, that the Gods would listen to my pleas and keep me
safe, but it was a lie. The Gods do not care.”

Yau nodded and sighed.

“I know. I knew the day they took Mother and
Father from us.” She held on to him, felt how insubstantial he was
as the sun pulled at him. “I will help you find rest, my brother-
and if I cannot, then I shall make sure I die so that you will not
be alone for eternity.”

He smiled and rested his head against hers
for a moment.

“Thank you. I'm sorry, little sister. I never
meant to leave you alone.”

“I know that, Tepil. I place no blame with
you.”

“Will I see you again?” Tepil asked at
last.

“One day. Either we will walk this place
together for eternity, or we shall join mother and father in the
afterlife.”

She reached up and cupped Tepil's face in her
palm. She suppressed a shudder as her thumb slipped inside the hole
in his flesh, and she was thankful she couldn't feel his teeth
beneath her finger pad.

“Good bye, my sister,” Tepil murmured.

“Good bye, brother. You will rest in
peace.”

She smiled faintly and moved away from him,
turning her back to him as she left the hut. She didn't look aback
as the door closed behind her, but she felt the void he left behind
as the greying dawn light forced him back to his body.

She stood and watched the dawn. It was a
swirling kaleidoscope of colour, brimming with life and promise.
She turned her back to it, walking towards the cliffs where she
could look out over the lagoon. She knew he would be waiting there.
She had always known he would be waiting there- when she was
ready.

*

“I expected you sooner,” he said, not turning away
from the ocean view as she came to stand beside him. “I didn't take
you to be quite so sentimental...”

“He was the last of my family, and I loved
him dearly.”

Yau glanced up at him, terrified despite the
familiarity of his features.

Finally he turned away from the view and
looked down at her. He was shrouded in black- not material but
something older than time. It clung to his body, moulding to the
musculature. He did not have flesh, but he did have the front of a
human skull over his face. The bone was old and yellowed. The jaw
hung loose, giving him a permanent open grin. Within the maw she
could see his tongue lashing about. She would have turned and run
away but for his eyes. When he looked down at her she was engulfed
and encompassed in the cold, uncaring beauty of the stars. She was
safe in that gaze and she did not fear him as she would have done
once upon a time. He had haunted her dreams all her life, walking
with her as a child. He had been there when her first blood came.
He had taught her the potions she had used to help the village. He
had been there in her dreams when her parents had been taken, and
he had held her in strong arms when she cursed the names of all the
gods. He was the only one she had any faith left in.

“I’m ready,” she said at last.

“I know,” he replied, turning to stare back
out over the ocean. His voice was deep and gentle in her mind. “I
feel the power inside you,” he said after a moment. “I have
nurtured and fed it for so long, but it has always remained
immature. I feel there is no fear in you now. You are ready to
wield the gifts I could give you.”

He turned to face her fully and reached out a
hand. Yau looked at it before taking it and allowing herself to be
drawn into his embrace

“Do you remember what I promised you?” he
asked.

“I do, and I am ready to accept my
responsibility.”

“I will give you unimaginable power. As I am
lord over the souls of the dead, so I will give you dominion over
their bodies- to use as you see fit.”

“Yes,” Yau murmured.

“Do you feel my power inside you? Can you
feel the dead; their bones calling to you?”

“Yes,” she murmured, her hands curling in the
shroud of nothingness.

“Accept it. Take the mantle and be my
consort. Create with me a line of prodigy with dominion over the
bodies of the dead.”

“I accept it,” Yau said. “All of it.”

She stared up at the skull, deep into the
night-sky eyes.

He was strong, his grip around her solid. She
smiled and raised a hand to touch the skull. She remembered the
fear he’d once inspired in her, but now that fear was replaced. She
felt hope for the first time in a long time. She felt able.

The bone was neither warm nor cold beneath
her fingertips.

“Are you ready?” he asked, pulling her
against him. She moulded to the shape of his body.

“Yes,” she whispered, and smiled as his
shroud flared out to surround and encapsulate her inside with
him.

*

Yau woke with the knowledge that life bloomed and
grew inside her. She could feel it, growing and waiting to be
born.

She remembered everything. She could still
feel the bruises from where Tepil had gripped her arms. She could
feel the ache inside her from where the God of Death had poured his
essence into her and given it the spark that would create life.

She swallowed and waited as fear, rage and
exhalation rampaged through her. She could feel the pull of the
dead even now. She longed to call them up from their rest just as
she had been instructed, and she longed to teach her child how to
do the same.

She moved at last.

“I was beginning to think you would not
wake,” Nan said, coming towards her with a small tray of foods.
“The sun is already high.”

“I slept for so long,” Yau said.

“And you look better for it. There is peace
in your eyes whereas before there was only rage and hurt.”

“Why is there no sound of work from outside?”
Yau asked at last as she ate.

Nan’s expression saddened.

“Today Amoxtl is buried. We must go to bear
witness and usher his soul to the next world.”

Yau winced at the pang in her chest.

“And Tepil? Will the priests spare a prayer
for him?”

She already knew the answer, but she could
not help asking the question.

Nan looked away.

“They cannot,” she said at last. “As much as
I wish they could, you know it is not our way. The gods’ always
demand a sacrifice for access to the underworld.”

Yau said nothing, merely sipping at her
drink. Nan watched her, sympathy plastered all throughout her
expression.

“I’m sorry, Yau,” she said at last. “I wish
it could be different.”

She touched Yau’s knee, her touch lingering
for a moment before the she turned and went back to her herbs.

Yau watched her for a few moments and then
placed her cup and plate down.

“I’m going home,” she said at last.

Nan spun round. “You can’t-” she gasped, “the
priests-”

“I don’t care,” Yau snapped. “I cannot leave
my brother to wader alone.”

“The grief must be too much for you, Yau. You
aren’t thinking properly!”

“I’m thinking perfectly,” she said quietly.
“The god’s have taken enough from me. I will not let them deny my
brother also.”

She left the hut, ignoring Nan calling after
her. She was aware of the people watching her, of their whispers as
she wrenched her home’s door open. She ignored them. She knew what
she needed to do.

No fire for two days had left the hut cold
and uninviting. Yau left the door open to let the light in and made
her way to the ceremonial altar. She stared at the hideous faces
and felt her rage boil up again. She grabbed the knife and then,
using a large stone, smashed the receptacle from the wall and
defaced the holy depictions as best she could.

She left the hut taking only the knife, a pot
of salt and a small pack of supplies. She had no doubt she would
never return here. In truth she had no intention to. Nan was her
only connection to a village that already avoided her and her
cursed family.

She paused at the edge of the village to
watch the procession that followed Amoxtl’s shrouded body to the
burial ground. She nodded out of respect to him. He had been one of
the last to stick by her family, and for that she owed him.

She turned her back as they lowered him into
the ground and began piling the dirt back over him. She had
preparations to make before the sun sank below the horizon.

*

The breeze came from the sea. It was cold and salty
and whipped around Yau as she sat watching the sun turn from
burnished orange to blood red. It was time.

She stood and moved back to the small altar
she had made. Salt encircled it, giving her little room to move
inside. She didn’t need a lot.

The wind dropped and she felt his presence.
She turned. He came towards her, his arms open.

She ran to him, willingly folding herself
into the nothingness that always followed him.

“I sense out child growing within you,” he
murmured, placing a hand over her stomach. “She will be
strong.”

Yau smiled.

He raised his hand, taking hers and holding
it tight.

“I have a gift for you,” he murmured. “A
symbol of our joining.”

He passed his hand over her finders. She felt
cold numbness spread through her and she shivered, looking
down.