No, this will not happen. I have a job to do. My training and my enhancements were all gifts to me exactly for this moment. XBA9 was tortured to death so I would have this opportunity. This is one of those classic turning points in history when one person, one “hero” can make the difference and everything changes, forever.
End blog post #72
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Begin blog post #73
Chapter 32 – The Fight of the Beasts – Part One
The evening before the fight gives us a clear sky with glowing red clouds in a fiery sunset. The setting sun sends off rays all the way to the meridian above the keep. It is beautiful. I ask my handlers if I can just stand for a while and watch the patterns in the sky, alone. To my surprise they acquiesce to my request and two of them stand almost respectfully at some distance behind me, also staring into the beauty spread so lavishly above us. Suddenly they both approach me and hold my arms gently. One of them puts his hand under my chin as I instinctively bow my head in submission and makes me look into his face. He pulls me slowly to himself and kisses me, as he’s undoubtedly seen women do with each other many times.
This too is another of those massive breakthroughs.
The other looks perplexed by his partner’s move, then tries it also. I kiss him back warmly and gently. I move my hand to his penis and it is fully erect, hard in my hand. I fondle him. He understands now at least one of the uses of kissing. To him it had always been nothing more than some kind of stupid display of female emotion and weakness.
Both of them take me around the back of the weapons cases and make love to me. Yes, they actually make love. They allow me to play them and arouse them fully before they come. It is pleasant; it is good; it is like giving the finger to that terrible Force that my “high” sense keeps telling me uses the artificial world of Albaral to poison the men’s minds against women on this world. No it’s even better than that. It’s an awakening for the three of us. A bonding that can never be reversed.
They walk me back slowly to the cages. Tiki is standing, a bit worried I think, maybe jealous. I take her in my arms and for a long time after the gate has closed and the handlers have walked away we hold and caress each other. I see many faces turned to me, to us. On those faces closest to me I see smiles – smiles! I smile back at them then Tiki and I slip down together into the straw and soon fall asleep. Another dreamless, innocent sleep that ends with the morning call. I awaken from a great distance and immediately realize what day this is.
It has been said that ‘only the dead do not know fear’ but if that is true then I must surely be dead. I do not feel fear. I feel as a bride on her wedding day. This is when it comes together for me.
So many paths, so many twists, turns, dead ends. But this path has been the most trying. For years I struggled on it and the thorns, thistles, broken branches and fallen trees kept blocking my advance, tripping me, crushing my bones and making me bleed. For some days now I’ve stopped struggling and now the path is clear.
Ahead, in a clear bright light I see one single set of stairs and two altars. The one on the left is covered with a pure white linen cloth on which the sacrificial victim must lie to be offered in death to the god. Beside it stands the high priest with the sacrificial knife to cut the victim’s heart out. Yes, I remember that part.
On the other is a wonderful set of deadly blades and a knight with a golden sword half drawn waiting to knight me and hand me the blades.
It’s a simple, age-old choice.
One, I believe and I trust the High Priest to know better than I ever could. In his hands I die a sacrifice to the God as I have been in the habit of doing over and over.
Two, I walk to the Knight, kneel, accept the knighthood proffered. I take the weapons, walk past the altar into the room where the demon in black metal armour awaits my entrance. He is ready to fight me, dishonour me, kill and devour me along with all I have ever loved and cared for, living or dead.
That is the choice I have been moving towards since I evolved into ISSA consciousness. This choice determines whether I graduate, or remain in obedient subservience and servitude to a Higher Power.
I choose the weapons. I go to meet Warmo. It is time.
End blog post #73
~Burning Woman~ 
Very well done my friend. This is probably my favorite chapter so far.
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Thank you very much, Jim. I’m not surprised you picked up on Antierra’s change of response pattern. To borrow from the title to one of Donald R. Stevenson’s novels: “This day all gods die” (from his science fiction series, “The Gap into Ruin”)
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Once again, stunning. I can say that it is absolutely true that a well trained, well led, and experienced warrior does not fear battle. Long before battle, the sense of self is absent and death has no more hold on the mind than life. Not so for the lesser beings thrown into the battle where the horror of what they know is ahead wrecks the mind with imagination long before the truth of the day is known. The scene so eloquently painted is reminiscent of a shared bond the warrior has with his kindred spirits that went before and will follow after. It shows the change of heart when wisdom finally comes to old enemies after the reason for conflict and the pride of lions grow quiet. Beautifully done Sha’Tara. And now the true battle begins.
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Thanks Daniel and yes, now the true battle begins, indeed.
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This is a most interesting chapter in that it presents an interlude at one unexpected but having become use to Antiterra not surprising.
She has now reached a stage where she has begun to influence, in fact subvert the mindset of the men, generations of brutality being replaced by something else. Along another path we might we the development of tenderness. Ah, but will this take place under such a regime.
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Thanks Roger. When one individual faces a counter world, small steps are all that one can take. Small steps, always small steps. Revolutions are sudden large leaps that unleash deep seated resentment but as we both know from reading history, revolutions are well named in that the are revolutions: the wheel turns away from the road surface and travels along its circumference only to return inexorably back to the road surface. We don’t want revolutions, we want change, gentle, constant, positive change. That is how we walk out of the societal rut that keeps meeting us at every turn of the wheel. Kissing and making love between a man and a woman is not a big deal to us, but on Malefactus these are acts have the power to unseat its status quo.
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I agree….I have little faith in ‘revolutions’. There’s a lot of blood and one group of oppressors and suppressors takes the place of the original ones while setting themselves up in the same palaces. (‘Animal Farm’…anyone?)
This is why the kissing incident was such a powerful part of the narrative….Brilliantly done Sha’ Tara.
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