Asimov's SF, February 2010 (3 page)

Njeri tensed at the interruption, then relaxed. Odion knew better than to startle her while she sewed, but she hadn't taken up the needle yet. The boy was certainly persistent in seeking her attention. She considered his question. The work she did was good, healing those who came off the wall, but she had her share of secrets, her share of shame. Life demanded dark things sometimes, she didn't need the wall to tell her that. What would her balance be? She hoped the good in her would be enough to cancel out the darkness, but she could not say for sure.

"I do,” Odion said, finally. “Wonder, I mean. I've never seen anyone clean—not on the smaller wall in Zwibe, and not here."

"True, that.” Njeri picked up her needle, ending the conversation, and began to reconnect the muscles of the woman's mouth. She stitched the entire face together without taking a break, though, by the end, her fingers ached.

When the sewing was finished, Njeri made Odion examine her work. It served two purposes. First, it was good for the boy to learn the ritual of checking and rechecking before the patient was restored to consciousness. Ripping out seams already sewn was a tedious process, but a mistake caught now could be corrected. After the mindstone was removed, however, mistakes meant pain and often death. She had to train the boy to be observant, to notice the slightest error. Second, of course, was that Odion's eyes and hands were fresh—he was more likely to catch a mistake if she'd made one.

Odion ran his fingertips up the seam of the woman's left arm, then down the seam of her right. His touch was firm enough to feel both the surface seam and the muscles underneath, allowing him to test the depth of the stitches. He tested the woman's legs, her chest, and finally her face. He didn't speak as he worked.

"Flawless,” he said. “You never make mistakes."

"I'm well-practiced now,” Njeri answered. “I made my mistakes before your time."

She laid her fingers on the cool flesh at the base of the woman's neck. Odion might be more likely to catch a mistake, but that did not relieve Njeri of her obligation to check her own work. She pressed her fingers along the center seam, sliding her hand between the woman's breasts and over the gentle rounding of her belly. Her body was softer than Njeri's, an alluring contrast to the fierceness she had shown in facing the wall. Where Njeri was lean and angular, this woman was feminine and curved. Njeri lost her place and had to backtrack her pattern along the seams.

"Did I miss something?” Odion asked, frowning. He placed his hand over Njeri's.

"No,” Njeri said. She moved her hand away and finished tracing the seams.

Confident that she had made no errors, Njeri slipped her thumb and index finger into the woman's mouth, which was dry and cool, preserved in a state of half-life. She grasped the mindstone and pulled it free. The woman's muscles tensed, then relaxed.

Odion held out a cup of hibiscus mint tea, but Njeri waved it away. Too soon. The woman's eyes were closed; she wasn't ready to face the world. She remained motionless, as though the stone was still in her mouth. Even her breath was shallow, as though she begrudged the rising and falling of her chest.

Odion shifted his weight from foot to foot, refusing to be still. Patience was not a virtue he possessed. Perhaps the young were never patient. Njeri had not been, when she was Odion's age. Noticing her attention, Odion thrust the cup forward again. Njeri took it.

The woman's eyes opened, clear and dark.

"The light of the wall shines upon us and reveals our shadows,” Njeri said. “Its light is the gift of a race long gone from this earth. You have faced the wall and returned. Speak your name and you may go."

These were the ritual words that Talib had taught her, when she was in training. There was a falseness to them, for no patient was ever ready to leave so soon after being awakened, and none saw their ordeal as a gift. But the speaking of names was good, for it confirmed that the mind had returned from the stone. A name provided continuity between time before the wall and time afterwards.

"Kanika.” Her voice was breathy and weak. Odion pulled her shoulders up and pushed a wedge of bundled straw behind her back so she could sit. Njeri tipped the cup against Kanika's lips, slowly pouring tea into her mouth. For every sip she swallowed, two spilled down her neck and over her chest. Njeri gave the empty cup to Odion to refill it.

"My son?” Kanika asked. “Bahtir's men came for my son."

General Bahtir put only his most powerful enemies on the wall, for fear that if he killed them they would curse him from the Valley of the Dead. A child, even one with royal ancestry, did not pose enough of a threat to be spared.

Odion returned with more tea. “Drink,” he said, pressing the cup into Kanika's hands. Njeri reached to take it from her, but she clutched the carved wood in her fingers and drained the cup.

"I remember,” she said, “I feel myself open on the wall. Like looking in from the outside."

Her hands shook. Had there been any tea left, it would have sloshed over the sides. “So much darkness I never knew was there, and my son is dead by now, because I couldn't protect him. I failed him. You should have killed me. There's nothing left of me worth saving."

Njeri took the cup. She wanted to cradle Kanika in her arms and comfort her, but she had to act as a surgeon, not as a friend. She searched for something she could do to ease Kanika's pain. The stone that had held Kanika's mind still sat beside her on the table. Rainbows swirled beneath the clear surface of the smooth stone. It was a relic of the Ancients, made from the same glassy material as the wall.

"Here.” Njeri picked up the mindstone and pressed it into Kanika's hand. “To remind you that there is light inside you, too. The colors in this stone are the echoes of your mind."

"There are not so many stones that we can give them freely,” Odion said. He scowled at Njeri. “You're treating her differently because she's a woman, because you knew her before the wall."

There was truth to that, but Njeri did not retract her offer. Kanika stared into the stone. “So pretty. Light without shadows. I could swallow it, and drift away from my pain."

"You would have no way to return, if you changed your mind,” Njeri said.

Kanika smiled, but her eyes were sad. “I speak of escape, but that has never been my way, you know that. Holding life at such a distance would be like not living at all, too big a price to pay."

Odion reached for the mindstone, to take it from her, but she closed her fingers over it.

"I may not be able to use the stone,” she told him, “but I cannot give it up. It is my light, and I carry much darkness."

Heat rose from the cracked-mud earth. The stars winked in and out of existence at the edge of Njeri's senses, their light distorted by miles of wavering sky. Beyond the thatched rooftops of the village, rolling hills of dry grass stretched into the darkness. Kanika leaned against Njeri as they walked across the village to the healer's hut.

"I wish I could go home,” Kanika said. “I want to pull into myself and sleep. I feel like I could sleep forever."

"Your punishment is ended. You could leave for home tomorrow, if you wished,” Njeri said, but she hoped that Kanika would stay.

"Ended? The wall was the worst, Njeri, but my punishment will last until I die. Anyone who sees my skin will know that I hung on the wall. Do you think people will forgive me? Embrace me into their lives?"

"Any man worth having would want you still,” Njeri said. “Or any woman."

Njeri couldn't read Kanika's expression. Was there interest there?

"You don't know what it's like to be up on the wall. The things I saw...” Kanika brought her hand to her heart, digging her fingers into the fabric of her shirt to press against the seams in her skin.

"Dreams from the mindstone. Many of my patients have spoken of such visions."

"No. There is only truth on the wall,” Kanika said. “I thought, before I went on the wall, that I wouldn't have shadows. But I was only adding self-deception and arrogance to the list of my flaws.” Her words came in a steady stream, with only the barest pauses for breath. “No one can understand me, not with these scars. Not because of how I look, but because I know my shadowself."

Kanika fell silent as they approached a cluster of Bahtir's guardsmen. Normally they patrolled the periphery of the village in pairs, so it was unusual to see them gathered in the road. Several men shook their shields, zebraskins stretched taut over oval frames. Strands of human teeth hung below and rattled as the shields moved. One man ran his fingers over the tigers-eye clasp that held his threadbare orange cloak closed, and another tapped the butt of his spear against the dirt. The guardsmen were on edge tonight.

One of the men stepped forward to stop the women, then recognized Njeri and saw Kanika's scars. He signaled to the others, and the entire group turned and headed back toward the guardhouse, a large clay-brick building at the outskirts of the village. When they had gone, Kanika pulled out her mindstone. In the moonlight there were no rainbows, only swirls of a silvery blue. “This is what I thought I was. I was so foolish."

"That is as much a part of you as the shadows are,” Njeri said.

"We all have darkness,” Kanika said.

Njeri had heard this from many of her patients. It was a source of great comfort for them to think that they were not alone in having shadows. Sometimes Njeri wondered if there was truth in their assertion. There was no way to know; the innocent weren't sentenced to hang on the wall. “You've lived your life well, despite your darkness. Doesn't that give you some comfort?"

"No, don't you see? We all have darkness.
All
of us,” Kanika pulled away. “The wall is pointless. You torture people for no purpose."

Kanika took a few steps, then stumbled. Njeri caught her. Her skin was moist with sweat—heat and exertion were taking their toll. “The wall is about revealing a person's darkest truth. If they see their darkness, they can fight it. The knowledge can heal them."

"It destroys them. It destroys me. And you condemn people to this torture."

"I am the hands that do the work,” Njeri said. “I don't decide who faces the wall."

Kanika tried to pull away a second time, but she was too weak. “You pass judgment every time you open someone onto the wall. Don't pass the responsibility to someone else. We all judge, and we all mete out our punishments. You saw how all the guardsmen fled at the sight of me."

"Superstitious fools,” Njeri said.

They walked in silence to Durratse's door. Njeri knew the old healer well, for he had cared for her for several months after her mother died. She watched carefully for his reaction when he opened his door. He hid his revulsion well, but she could see the slight flare of his nostrils, the falseness in his smile. She wondered how she'd failed to notice it with the other patients she'd brought him. Or perhaps he'd been more forgiving of the men.

"We all judge,” Kanika repeated.

Durratse led Kanika inside. It was late, so he did not invite Njeri in. He simply nodded his head and closed the door.

The roughly hewn wood of the door had shrunk with weather and age, and she could still see them through the gaps in the wood. She wanted to argue with Kanika, to defend herself. Kanika insisted on focusing on the worst of the wall, the worst of her, the cutting. Like Odion, she paid no mind to the important work of sewing. She healed people, just as Durratse did, and her patients needed more healing than anyone.

When Njeri went out to stoke her cooking fire shortly after sunrise, the village was bustling with unfamiliar guardsmen. The new arrivals were Upyatu—a tall people, with broad flat feet. She watched them as she boiled plantains for breakfast. They were more boisterous than Bahtir's men; they spoke in loud voices punctuated with barking laughter. Their heads were covered with elaborate beaded headdresses, and their shields were round and crimson. It could mean only one thing. The capital had fallen.

Njeri pounded the boiled plantains into mash. It made little difference to her, the struggle for power. One general was replaced by another, but they all wanted the same work done. She wished for peace not out of support for any current ruler, but because in times of war she had to put more people to the wall. She took her mash back to the hut, where Odion was waiting.

"The new general brought two prisoners for the wall,” he said, speaking quickly. “He wants to hang them together."

Njeri divided the mash into two bowls and topped each one with slices of green mango. How could Odion be excited about such a thing? The Maiwatu were his people. Besides, to put criminals on the wall was one thing, but to leave one there for the time it took to flay a second was cruel. Dissecting them simultaneously, but slowly, would be no better. “Cruelty. Already I dislike the man."

Odion stirred his mash. “I thought, with two men, I might be charged with opening one of them."

"We have but one obsidian blade,” Njeri said, “and the new general will want the services of a surgeon, not an apprentice. I will open them, and you will assist, as we have always done."

A guardsman came to fetch them before they'd finished their morning meal. He was paler even than Odion, with a reddish tint to his skin, like dry dusty earth. Shorter, too, than most Upyatu warriors, and injured. Njeri could just make out the outlines of a bandage beneath the guardsman's tightly fitted leather tunic.

"General Yafeu commands your presence,” the guardsman's voice was nasal, and far higher pitched than Njeri expected. Not a man at all, but a woman with her breasts bound. The warrior laughed at Njeri's surprise. “Call me Zola, and a woman. Bahtir would not allow women in the fight, he wanted them only for his bed. Yafeu is better. With him I can show my strength in both places."

Zola grinned at Odion, exposing teeth sharpened into points. Her stare had an animal quality to it, something almost predatory. Judging from his reluctance to meet the woman's stare, Odion did not find her aggression appealing. Njeri didn't like it either; Zola had a showiness about her that was distinctly off-putting. Not like Kanika's understated strength.