Yog seems shocked by the sudden turn of events, as she initially doesn’t react.
Edda scans the fallen trunk and grabs a long, thin branch sticking out at the end of her reach. She tears it out, splits it in two, and keeps the half with the sharpest end.
As Edda removes the last rests of foliage from the stick with her bare hands, the heavy trunk lifts off the ground, and accelerates upwards.
It’s Yog! Ximena realizes. She’s using her will to escape!
But Edda reacts almost instantly, applying her own will across the trunk like a balm on a wound. The canceling of wills destroys Yog’s hold on the trunk, which falls down precipitously for the second time.
Both Yog and Edda remain next to each other, firmly trapped under the insufferable weight. Edda is gaping in silence and sheer agony, trying to gather the last threads of discipline. Ximena wonders what is passing through Yog’s mind as the alien turns her white eyes towards Edda. It must be as painful to Yog as it is to Edda, Ximena thinks, and the hatred that they share against the arrogant mare is so intense that Ximena finds the thought disturbingly sweet.
“You act like a fucking vampire,” Edda says between heavy breaths, as she leans over the alien with her upper body, “you end like a fucking vampire.” She drives the stick—or stake, for that is what it is now—deep into Yog’s chest, and stares wide-eyed at the wound, panting, as transparent fluids begin to spurt out.
“Redeemed van Dolah,” Rew says, “this exercise has concluded. Do stand down and drop your will.”
Edda cannot hear her—does not want to. Hatred pumps in her ears like it has a voice of its own. She takes the stake out and readies herself to stab anew.
“Redeemed van Dolah!” Rew’s voice sounds demanding, filled with abnormal intensity. Even emotion. Ximena has never heard that before, not from Rew, not from any other mare. “Stand down this instant!”
A memory of the fight as it began flashes through Edda’s mind. Goah’s Mercy, it feels like it happened hours ago. Yog was standing far afield, and Edda was shooting arrows at her. The memory sharpens around Yog’s arms. They moved then—didn’t they?—covering her abdomen in an instinctive rush. It was just a reflex, yes, but reflexes carry the logic of physiology.
“Taste wood, bitch!” She puts her weight on the stake and thrusts it rabidly into Yog’s abdomen.
“Redeemed—!” Before Rew can complete the call, Yog disappears, leaving behind nothing but the wooden stake laying in a puddle of transparent gore on the grass.
Edda laughs loudly, almost maniacally. She jumps to her feet, sending the enormous trunk tumbling in the air. The pain in her legs disappears. Oh, the relief! Even fury flees her now.
She turns to Rew, eyes beaming. “Can you believe it, Elder Rew? I won!”
“I do fear that your win over Overseer Yog shall be detrimental to your chances of reaching the Path in the Shadow, Redeemed van Dolah.”
“What?” Edda frowns. “Why?!”
“I do fear that Overseer Yog might not take kindly to what you have done to her.”
“What I did to her? I just did what you asked me to do! I fought the bitch—and won, Goah’s Mercy! Fair and square. I sent her whining back to the wake, yeah?”
“I do fear you have done much more than that.”
“What? Oh, did I hurt her pride?” Edda snorts and spreads her arms wide. “Aren’t you mensas looking for the leanest and meanest humans to Walk the Paths?” She places her left hand on her hip and waves her right hand theatrically at herself. “This is it.”
“You do fail to understand, Redeemed van Dolah. It is not Overseer Yog’s pride that you have hurt.”
“Yeah, no. Don’t get it,” she says, frowning and shaking her head. “What have I hurt?”
Rew doesn’t reply immediately. And when she does, her voice reverberates slower, carefully modulated, giving Ximena the distinct impression that she is measuring every word. “We marai are not only creatures of the wake, like you humans are. We are also creatures of the mind—of the psyche. On one hand, we do live in the wake, and can die in the wake, just like you and the rest of your fellow Earth creatures do. But on the other hand, Redeemed van Dolah, we also do live in the dreamscape.”
“What are you saying?” Edda asks. Then she gasps as it sinks in. “Did I kill her? I mean, for good?!”
“Overseer Yog still does possess two remaining limbs. It was very fortunate indeed that she is not single-limbed like I myself am. I shall try to repair the damage that you have inflicted on your prospects. But losing a limb is traumatic to an extreme a human cannot comprehend. I know from experience as once, I was two.”
“Goah’s fucking Mercy,” Edda mutters slowly, her thoughts still lost in the unnerving implications of what Rew is saying. Oh, Goah has Mercy, it was… an accident! I never intended to kill the gatekeeper that can grant or deny me the power to stop Dad’s Joyousday! The best chance I had, and I just… She draws a deep breath, trying to calm her nerves. In vain. “But… Why in Goah’s Name did she insist on fighting with me, if she could be killed all along? That makes no sense!”
“It does not indeed, Redeemed van Dolah. Alas, not all marai are as wise as they ought to be.”
Twenty-Two
Elders
“Okay, people,” Professor Miyagi says. “Moving now to the 21st of December 2399. We are about to see firsthand the happy family life of Willem van Dolah. Yes, his daughter Edda included.” He snorts, stretches a hand theatrically to the distance and speaks with mock intensity, “Oh, how blessed he surely felt, engulfed in the delights of home and family on those his last weeks on Earth.”
Ximena and her peers raise their curious heads at
