Twenty-three fifty hours, ten minutes until the day. Sandeman has spent his entire life preparing for this day. I have been bred in preparation for this day. She and I were made for one another so that we might stop this day from going forward. For one moment I wonder what will become of us on the day after tomorrow. Will mankind find its destruction with our deaths? If we save the world then what could possibly be left to us. Could I possibly live without her, or she without me?
In eight minutes we would run into some unknown situation. We would have nothing but a decade's old plan to see us through. Most of the people I'd ever cared for were here, Biggs and CeCe, Joshua and Mole and Dix, and her. Five minutes until it all goes down. She still lived yet; if she passed I have to believe that I would know it. I could feel her in me still, taste her, touch her, hear her voice, sense her perfume which was an odd combination of roses and leather and her own scent, only the vision of her dimmed with absence.
It doesn't matter, in two minutes I'll see her again. She is my mission, my goal, the iron to my magnet, she draws me on to the end of this. One more minute and then I'll know the truth. Win and live, another destiny, one day more, or a hundred years. My heartbeat beats the rhythm to which we'd been joined. I can feel the blood in my veins, carrying life and that extra something that Sandeman's tampering had added. Chanting echoed endlessly through the enclave, channeled by old stones which have heard it all before. Eighteen seconds. Wind whips my bare chest evaporating my sweat, I clutch the long handled dagger steadily in my hands. Three, two, one. No more chanting, or running footsteps, even the dull thudding of my heart is hushed.
Everywhere silence.
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A tomblike stillness shrouds the room. Regardless of the outcome of the day, many souls both transgenic and familiar will find their lasting rest here. Twelve feet of blood red silk lay against the smooth curves of my body, scarcely disturbing the wounds which the old crone had just inflicted on me. If I get out of this alive, I'm keeping the stuff and making a dress out of it. Ten years of post-pulse living, running from Manticore hadn't ever afforded me many frills, and I've never been dressed with more luxury. If I do die today, at least I'll look damn pretty when I go.
Our carbon copy dresses bring out the strong resemblance between Lela and me. Lela doesn't look happy, I'm sure that I don't look entirely pleased either. We hadn't gone more than an hour between being bled, before we found ourselves being tied up again. I'm beginning to think that these familiars have serious sado-masochistic issues. The stone dais we're bound to now is wider and somehow colder than the first. Of course the chamber's dimensions are appropriately grandiose, large enough to hold the three hundred or so familiars taking part in the ceremony. So many people packed into the room and not a single one of them makes a sound.
From the depths of the silence a gong reverberates through the space. Three hundred shadowed faces turn towards the ornately carved entrance.
She walks with the haughty grace of a royal. Waist length blond hair splayed over the statuesque figure of a Valkyrie. In contrast to our red wraps, her robe shimmers in shades of the purest white. Snakes wrought from silver twine up the length of her arms. She frightens me more than I can say. A woman who emanates power in waves, and smiles with the coldest expression I've ever seen. The kind of person who would crush six billion people under her heel and not blink once.
She raises her hands over her head and walks widdershins about the circle three times, drawing closer to the platform with each turn. Stooping carefully she lifts the great cobra in her arms and twines it about her large form. In a surprisingly swift and deft movement her hands fling outwards, each one cradling a wickedly curved blade. Shit, not again, I've had about enough getting sliced up in the past week to last me a lifetime. Fortunately, the movements are ceremonial and she barely nicks my forearm, before moving on to my sister, herself, and finally the snake. I watch in morbid fascination as our bloods mingle in the recessed center of the dais. The woman dips her finger into the mixture and draws the sinuous form of the snake on her forehead. As she steps back, two women and two men step forward dropping to their knees before her. Each of them proffers a chaste silver bowl of some viscous liquid. She nods her head in approval and they offer the bowels to each of the innermost circle of familiars, who drink from them in turn. Ish, I really hope that that isn't my blood in their. Somehow I have the creepy feeling that it is though.
"From our blood, from our life, our sisters, our brothers, our mothers, our fathers. From ancient ground breaks the waves of revolution, from the spirits of those before we find our strength. From our blood, from our life, our sisters, our brothers, our mothers, our fathers. From ancient ground…" The circles of familiars pick up the chant in outward radiating waves.
The unearthly clatter of metal on stone rings out of the dark as one of the silver bowls spins in flight across the chamber.
His presence tingles at the back of my neck, and for the first time today I dare to feel a sliver of hope.
