The Shape of Things to Come, Part 2
At first Julia wasn't sure she heard her correctly. It was, after all, noisy and crowded in the Maenad bar. In truth, though, it wasn't the sound of two dozen other ladies playing canasta, gossiping, and drinking, that made the anxious envoy difficult to understand. More it was that the message was so anathema to Julia's understanding of the world that her brain wouldn't and couldn't process it.
"The Goddess requests your presence," the envoy whispered again. As Julia was already quite drunk it took a lot of willpower to refrain from loudly correcting the young woman, one of Hecate's Golden Children; that the goddess was dead, that she'd killed the goddess and the goddess's body was at the bottom of a mesa somewhere getting eaten by scavengers and flies. Instead she recovered just enough composure to be scared. She sucked in a sharp breath.
Julia slammed her palms down on the Formica table. All the girls at her table jumped; all eyes were on her. She dug her nails into its surface and clawed herself up into a standing position, swaying unsteadily. She took another deep breath, and with a bow said, "Excuse me ladies, there is business I must attend to."
On the outside she was calm and composed. On the inside she was a canary caught in a cage about to choke to death. It was obvious either someone was setting some sort of trap for her, or she'd just inadvertently caught someone in a lie. It was possible someone had discovered Julia's ongoing lie and was merely taunting her through messenger. It was possible she was walking into a private trial from which she'd never return. She reasoned, though, that it was more likely that someone was posing as Hecate to enforce their will over Ouroboros. She'd already ranked the council of priestesses by their likelihood to attempt some sort of coup, and at least half the council she considered more likely than not to try it.
"What exactly did the goddess say? Did she leave her chambers?" Julia interrogated the young girl once they left the bar. The bright wasteland sunlight caught her off guard, so much so that she almost fell backwards through the door, but she grabbed onto the frame and steadied herself.
"Are... are you okay, ma'am?" the young messenger asked. Her name was Holly, and she'd been born to a woman of the Hangdog tribe, not that she'd ever know that. Holly had grown up, like all of Hecate's Golden Children, revering the High Priestess; she'd never seen Julia drunk before. Julia took a drink from the mason jar she didn't realize she'd grabbed before exiting the bar.
"I'm fine, sweetie. It's just not every day the goddess calls for you," she lied through her teeth. It was disappointing how easily Hecate's Golden Child fell for the lie.
"I don't really know anything," Holly shrugged. Not knowing anything was easy, and came naturally to her, "I was just told to get you."
Julia cringed but said no more. It was a short walk up to the temple's control room, where Holly politely and humbly excused herself. Julia wanted to grab her by the shoulders, to scream at her, to tell her everything she knew was a lie, to tell her to Wake Up. Instead she waved the young girl off, let her go live her life.
There was no trial like she feared. Nor was there a coup, or an assassination. Instead what Julia found was the council of priestesses huddled around a single computer monitor, nervously whispering and arguing. They looked less like a cabal of the wasteland's most powerful women and more like a cadre of teenage girls anxiously waiting for their favorite crooner to perform on American Bandstand. Yvana was the first to spot her.
"Julia!" she cried. The light from the monitor gave her face an eerie, flickering glow. She ushered the high priestess over.
"Alright, great, she's here, so let's get this started," growled another priestess, an older woman whose elaborate face tattoos were accented with ritual face-paint. Julia asked what was happening.
"About forty minutes ago there was a new message from the Goddess," Yvana said, "She wanted the whole council gathered together before she told us more."
"Well, we're all here, so let's get this fucking started," Olaya hit the command prompt. The servers groaned to life. Green script slowly spilled out across the screen, ticking through one sentence at a time. The goddess said:
For the first time since Caesar emerged from the ashes of the past, he and his slave-army know defeat.
It was a long time coming, a tall climb for a long fall.
I have seen this, and I have seen the shape of things to come.
As quick as Caesar's rise was, his fall will be all the quicker.
Loss will precede loss, defeat will follow defeat.
His allies shall leave him, one-by-one, until he stands alone.
And in that time, in five years' time, Caesar the man will be dead.
He will die alone, betrayed by his own mind, dead of tumor medical science could have cured.
Caesar the God will be forgotten soon after.
In the ruins of his legacy, we will build our kingdom.
We shall purge the salt he has left upon the earth, and our garden shall grow to encompass the world.
All children shall be Hecate's Children.
All men shall be Hecate's Hounds.
And all women shall be Hecate's Daughters.
And that was it. To the council it was the word of god, and they all took a collective breath. All Julia could think, though, was mine was better.
The council confirmed that the goddess wanted her message read aloud to Ouroboros, and they volunteered the high priestess to do so but Julia declined. After some fighting they came to the conclusion that each one of them would read a single sentence.
Julia skipped the ceremony. Instead, she withdrew to Hecate's chambers, where she found the code that would trigger the message. An automated missive, set to trigger in the event that Caesar attacked the Dam while they were still struggling through the Utah wastes. She couldn't find any more pre-written messages from Hecate. Finally, truly, there was nothing left of Dark Mother. Nothing that could tell Julia what to do, or where to go. Silence.