Antierra Manifesto – blog post #106

“Never again we be goras.  Now we be ahya!  Always! Forever! Together we be ahya!  Say it low together.  This is my last mantra, my last Teaching.  Remember you all be ahya!   Let men say ‘gora’ but you must translate that as ahya in your mind each time to break the evil spell.  Practice self-empowerment, always.  That is our greatest weapon, ahyas.”  

End blog post #105
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Start blog post #106

Throughout the cages hundreds of voices in turn repeat that last Teaching.  Then there is silence.  They sense I wish to be left alone now to think and sleep.  It’s not so different than facing a fight to the death in the arena.  The part about not being able to win doesn’t quite become real after so many fights ‘won’ during those long, long years that seem at least four times their physical number: a mere thirteen years. 

Yes, only thirteen years to go from a beautiful twenty five year old female to one who feels seventy-five and looks it.  My hair is short and almost completely white at thirty-eight.  My body is covered in scars and lumps.  One leg is bent outward from a badly set fracture when I was not able to get proper medical attention after a particularly vicious fight.  I’m missing my middle finger on the right hand.  A deep cut across my left breast left a thick ugly brown welt there.  The top half of my left ear was lopped off long ago and half my teeth are missing from blows to the face, not all from the arena.  It’s no wonder they learned long ago to feed us with gruel, broths and stews.  Many of us could never chew solid foods and would starve to death.

The clanking of the cage gates awaken us in the morning.  A shaft of sunlight bathes our space for a few moments and it is glorious to see the dust motes floating in its gold and silver rays.  I can sense how much nature would like to speak to all of us and teach us simpler, better ways.  I have sensed the same things on Altaria… and back on Túat Har.  For a few moments I let myself bask in the comfort of those memories.  One more day, and however long I can last in the arena tomorrow and I’ll be going home should I choose to do that. 

I try once more to communicate simple words with some of the dikfols – we are twenty-three, including myself, shackled to the sliding rings – and this time meet with some success.  A few are not so far gone that they cannot speak but their minds are all darkened.  They spit at me, or in my direction and call me every low slang curse word they can dredge up.  I let it pass as a storm and say nothing in return.  They had expected me to react in the same way; my silence takes them by surprise.

“Why you hate me, goras?”  ( I have to use that term or they will get even angrier.)

One of the women snarls at me.  “You turn men against us, evil you be.  We know.  Men, they beat us and say because you hate them.  We know.  Now you die in orgy too krosspeeg.  Maybe I kill you myself.  Hate you.  Haaaate you!” She screams it at me.

“Stupid you be goras.” I reply in the fighter’s low throaty power voice.  “Stupid to listen lying men.  Is why you are here, because you stupid.  I help women, many years.  You be knowing this.  I get lovers together.  I send hurt goras to doctor to save life.  I take on bad drooks and fight myself for some I know cannot fight good.  I teach many good weapons trick, yes? 

“I say this to you goras.  Yes, you kill me tomorrow, instead of men who be killing all us.  Is smart?  I be best fighter ever.  Tomorrow, if we together, kill many, many evil men.  Maybe so many they no have killing orgy again.  Maybe young lovers not have to be killed that way no more.  Try understand!  Tomorrow  we all die.  We be friends to fight men? Or we be stupid and kill one-other to believe lying men?  You try kill me tomorrow, I promise I kill you first.  I better than you, any weapon I use.  Weapons my magic.  I be daughter of Great Desert Beast.  Ask others tonight.  They be knowing.  But maybe I just let men, let you, kill me because I tired living with stupid goras.  Maybe I just die, go home, never return to help more.  Maybe I just spit on T’Sing Tarleyn and let women and children continue die.  My world, it good place.  Everyone happy there.” 

And I turn my head away from them and say again the one word they understand better than anything else: “Stupid!”

There is silence for a time then one of them says hesitantly, “I think.  I too be good fighter.  I think I fight with you, be partner?”

I reply slowly, “Yes.  Is good thinking.  I like.”

“How you know when dead you go home?  When dead, I dead.  Not have home.”

“Listen to me.  First I give you name, Tomia.  You like?”

“Yes, very good, I like much.  I be Tomia.  It mean?”

“It mean quick understanding.  It mean now you have person.  Now you have name, no stay dead.  They kill, you move from dead body, you fly to home.  Not hard.  You find quick.  Friends there, they help.  All fine.  Is how it is.  This big ahya secret, men not know this.  Men not find Tomia home.  Safe there.”

“Other dikfols here, how they go home?  No name, cannot speak.  Brain broken.”

“They be your family now, Tomia.  You think name, give name to each one.  That name, it go inside broken brain and follow spirit after body dead.  Very powerful is secret name.  When awake from dead body, they find name.  They too be free.  You, Tomia, set ahya friends free.”

I watch her working her mind to find names for the other women.  She frowns deeply and certainly works hard to find fitting names.  She knows these women, a couple of whom are just small girls barely thirteen I’d wager, someone having faked their brands to expedite their sale and make a quick buck.  They likely went over the edge from sexual and other physical abuse, torture, overdosing on chakr or from having witnessed horrors their young minds could no longer absorb.  It could be all of the above.  The most dangerous part of any young fighter’s life is the trip from the crèche to the fighter arena.  I try not to imagine watching these children being set upon by males to be dismembered while still alive and their parts thrown over the walls into the crazed crowd, but the image remains nevertheless.  This is one more horror I must remember, in case the temptation to forget becomes too seductive.

End blog post #106

Antierra Manifesto – blog post #100

True Avatari teach detachment and self-empowerment in all things.  We do not create dependents just as we are not dependent.  Our home is the cosmos and together we seek to shape it to the betterment of all life as it reveals itself and its chosen purpose. 

Remember this also, that truth as it self-defines with each sacred breath you take of life is characterized by simplicity.  Evil, being its opposite, is characterized by complexity.  With this information you can readily identify the true nature of the forces who vie for control of your life.

End blog post #99
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Start blog post #100

Chapter 39 – A Daring Escape Plan Revealed – More Troubles

It has been decided that I can remain ‘here’ for a two day recuperation and rest period.  After some discussion I opt for one day.  I am eager now to return to the women and assess the results of our decision to find a way for Tieka and Hudu, Zel and Huntu and whomever else would dare it, to escape from Hyrete into the deep desert and eventually beyond the land of the black people, into the far south.  In speaking to some of the women I found out there may be lands, or islands of sorts not inhabited where escaped slaves may be able to create some kind of life and perhaps begin the task of building a counter-culture to the misogynist powers ruling Malefactus.  I take several deep breaths as YBA4 finishes her scans and proceeds to offer me a full-body massage which I cannot refuse.

She expertly and effortlessly rolls me over facing down and begins.  I feel I may fall asleep so I ask her my burning question in a voice muffled by the mattress:

“Yoba Four, what lies beyond the Great Desert, to the south, beyond the land of the black people?”

“Interesting question.  You’ve never shown much interest in T’Sing Tarleyn geography or topography.  May I ask why you wish to know this?”

“Could you just answer my question without another question, please?”

“Certainly.  The Great Desert is where nothing at all grows.  It is two great sections that practically circumscribe all equatorial regions.  Two hundred kilometres below where we are it thins to a narrower centre providing a (relatively speaking) shorter way across.  Beyond lie plains of rolling hills of semi-arid country where only plants living on condensation can grow; where finding water is almost impossible as most of it flows hundreds of meters below the surface. Beyond that along a wide strip are the lands of the black people as they are called because their skin, unlike the citified T’Sing Tarleynans, tans dark under the sun.  These are tribal peoples with a strict patriarchal structure and as everywhere else on this world, the women are slaves.  They are cannibals and of extreme and violent temperament.  It is perilous to venture on foot across those lands.

Without raising my head to reply I mumble in the cover sheet, “Yes, I’ve encountered a black challenger in a fight long ago.  He wasn’t a pleasant character.  I remember he wanted to eat me, not fight me.  Considered being pitted against a female fighter to be a great dishonour.”

“That is their way.  Beyond that land lies the southern ocean with thousands of kilometres of flat white sandy shores broken up with oases where pressurized water forced from the lower continents strata surfaces before flowing into the sea.  Trees resembling palms and dates grow there, as well as the amazing dollam bushes with their sweet water laden, edible leaves which are about a centimetre thick and average twenty centimetres across.  Delicious, juicy and available year round, though not as filled in summer.”  She brings her lips together in a sucking sound at the memory of them.  “Beyond this polar ocean the basic topography repeats.  I am told that ocean is rich in mineral deposits and has countless islands scattered all over the central polar area.  Oh, and of interest to the nature of your question, the orbit of the satellite asteroidal moon Albaral does not pass over that area.”

“So you’ve guessed why I asked you this question?”

She flips me over again, now facing her.  “Oh no, I did not guess.  I used mind touch.  You were so willing to share your dream with me, I thought it proper to do so.  Why won’t you ask my family and doctor Echinoza to help you in this venture, Antierra?”

“Simple Yoba Four.  I’ve already jeopardized your mission here and you have saved my life so many times, plus that of Deirdre, how could I impose upon you again, in all conscience?  I was even instrumental in causing the torture death of XBA9!”

“I think you have some serious misunderstanding of this situation. First, you don’t know what our ‘mission’ is here, we’ve never really told you the full story.  We saved your life because it suited our purposes and we did mention to you that from that moment you were a part of our mission as you call it, our group of subversives if you will.  So, really, we are the ones who used you.  And we need you yet.

“We took Deirdre because we needed to discover the secret of her nature in hopes that we could clone others like her.  She fascinates us.” I do not fail to detect the use of the present tense in speaking of Deirdre.  She continues to explain.  “As for the death by torture of XBA9, that was his choice, not yours.  He would have thanked you for providing the experience, and may yet some day.  We don’t die so easily as you know.  Why could we not proceed without the “you owe me, I owe you” human type bargaining?  Like friends; like people who must work together towards a common goal?  Perhaps we should be entertaining this with the avatar, not the slave woman.”

A bit crestfallen, definitely chastened at being found so ‘human’ I reply, “Very well then.  No strings attached, I can understand.  There is a crime being committed in the compound and the cages at this very moment; a terrible crime.  Two women are in love with two men, and they, in turn, love the women.  This is possibly the greatest crime men can commit on this world and the consequences if the love affairs are discovered by the wrong people, will mean terrible punishment for all involved, and you may be sure it will not stop at the four principals, but reach deep into the compounds, wherever the Teaching as I call it, has begun its inroads.  We are speaking here of the potential death by slow torture of several hundred women, perhaps involving many male trainers and handlers as well. 

“I feel it is a foregone conclusion the love affairs will be discovered.  The young trainee called Tieka has determined to refuse to fight because it would dishonour her love for the man Hudu.  That’s the spark that will set the fuel depot on fire, Yoba Four.  To prevent this from happening we need to get these people out of this compound, away from Hyrete, past the dangers you just described and down to the southern sea where they have a chance of surviving.  From my viewpoint, never mind the ‘Avatari possible,’ the obstacles are insurmountable.  I have no idea how to proceed.  All I’ve done so far is speak with the two men and contrived to have their lovers put in the same cage so they can plan something, whatever that be.”

The Cydroid looks sagely at me. “Why don’t we eat now, you need to get your strength back up and I’m finished with the massage.  Then we can check on our resources and compare notes on possibilities.”

I don’t know where she got the food prepared.  It comes in sealed metal containers, cool to the touch, hot inside yet does not appear to have any insulating properties, just a thin metal wall.  The food tastes delicious to me, quite a cut above the sustaining but bland fare of the compound.  When I have eaten two full helpings she offers me a half-glass of red wine.  Wine!  Sadly it’s been such a long time since I’ve tasted anything alcoholic, I do not enjoy the taste but sip on it nevertheless as I listen to her go on about our subject.  She realizes the wine is affecting me as would a drug and takes it away, touching my head to remove the slight headache and unease I feel.  She hands me a glass of juice, cooled to perfection.  I sip and listen.

“As to the love affairs, we’ve been anticipating a re-occurrence of such an event for many years.  We considered it inevitable but were beginning to wonder if we’d see it happen.  This is a good thing and now we have you in the compound to help us develop an escape with more than a chance of success.  We don’t want a repetition of the slaughter that greeted your arrival on this world in 1328.  If we involve ourselves in planning an escape we would consider nothing less than a substantial event involving a force capable of establishing a solid and permanent beach-head in the south, preferably on one of the islands.  If we had such a place we could establish a base there. 

Distance, obstacles and ideally ocean waters, would protect us all from any attack from mainly ground force of the two major powers on this world: Elbre and Estáan.  Neither has any significant navy or air force and whether these traditional enemies would even consider a united attack into the deep south is highly unlikely, though possible. The costs would far outweigh the benefits and that alone speaks volumes in Estáan, if less so in Elbre.” 

I interrupt.  “So if we plan an escape then, you see a massive one, not just the four principals mentioned?”

“Oh yes.  We would anticipate a major break-out.  If we are to go to the trouble of manufacturing a break-down of the security system and create diversions to confuse security people we want significant results for our effort.  Our plan, even before you came on the scene and provided us with new resources, was to bring our entire family here, all fifteen of us, to help in creating the confusion, steal the three to four carriers necessary for the desert crossing, gather the provisions, water, tools and weapons the people will need and get them on their way, each carrier having one of us to operate it.

“Here’s how it plays out.  We infiltrate the security people first, and set up trip switches throughout the compound, setting up a com center here to operate gates, doors, lights, sensors, drawbridges – two of them – if needs be should we feel shooting the carriers over the walls too dangerous due to their heavy loads.  All these fine points would have to be surreptitiously pre-tested to ascertain we have not forgotten anything – even if unlikely because of how we operate in Cydroid common link.  Once our shunts are in place and reliable we would pass word along those chosen for this escape.  That’s where you come in as our main access to the female holding cells, Antierra.  You know these people better than us and you also have an in to the male trainers, handlers and a few guards because of the money you earned them and the fighting tricks you have given them should they ever need to defend themselves without their guns.

“Part three of the plan is much more chancy.  We need a particularly wicked desert wind storm combined with strong electrical discharges and heavy banks of clouds to blind any satellite sensors that may be operating.  We think there may be some but we have not found them while passing out of the atmosphere.  We do not think this world is under long-range interplanetary watch.”

End blog post #100

Antierra Manifesto – blog post #87

“There be no new method.  Train or be punished.  You – you,”  they point at me and Tiki, “continue.  You-you,” they point to the two other women, “wash, drink, change partners.  Stop again, we flog.”  And to make their point they pull out their fibre-steel whips, making the “tails” vibrate and sing like tight wires in cold weather.  We bow to them in full submission mode – enough to convince them, not enough to forget it is all a pretense.
End blog post #86
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Begin blog post #87

Ah, new trainers.  Stupid, dense, closed minded.  Always the same with new ones. 

“OK Tiki, get ready, I your challenger now.  I nod head, you attack.”

As soon as I nod she charges into my guard and I barely have time to block her.  She swings wide to the left – a perfectly executed and masterful feint.  Spinning and dropping below my block she comes in and lays her staff solidly on my hip.  I feel that!  But I’m proud of her then.  She has the talent and the will.  Able to overcome the reticence of hitting a friend, that is good.

“Good Tiki.  That hurt for real.  Now I be more careful with you, mongoose.  I am enraged cobra now.  If I get near, I have poison in fangs, hah!”

And we continue to spar.  She scores several painful hits on me.  I know I haven’t yet put in all my power in this fight and I’ve pulled back my own blows because I don’t want her to become discouraged, but I’m not far from my limit.  This creature is a natural fighter, bred for the work.  She will do as well as any has ever done.  She won’t get angry, she’ll get even.  Her vengeance will not be personal and won’t eat at her as it did with the Concubines and so many I’ve seen pass through here.  She’ll lay them down neatly and professionally.  Tomorrow I plan to test her on the swords, then on the axe.  I will have to introduce a bit of creativity in that professionalism, for the entertainment value and the surprises.  That’s my specialty: the surprise effect.

‘Tomorrow is promised to no one.’  Yes, I know.  But for all of us here, beside perhaps enough food to sate our hunger later, some loving tonight in our cages, what is there but tomorrow?  Don’t call it a promise then, just call it hope.  Some won’t even make it.  Bodies will be taken out of the cages this coming morning, I know.

During our break and partner switch the late day heat rises even more.  The breeze has died out completely and it is oppressive.  Our drinking and washing water is almost hot.  The stones would burn the feet if we weren’t walking on thick calluses.  This has to herald another thunder storm; nature’s impromptu performance to give us a little bit of entertainment and brief excitement in the night.  I’m reminded of the last night I spent with Deirdre.  So many storms since that night yet so little precipitation even through the winter that was unseasonably cold and we suffered much from exposure in it.

My new sparring partner is an older fighter I’d seen before.  She smiles at me and gestures for a quick talk. 

“We remember, Anti.  Remember Teaching of Great Desert Beast.  We pray like you say and the Warmo was killed.  We know in heart he now dead.  Not even ghost remain.  We need learn more of Teaching.  Tonight, you speak, yes?  Give more power to woman.”

This is such a terrible responsibility, to teach people the very concepts they need to free themselves but which will cause them so much more pain in the beginning.  You get used to a situation and settle into it, getting the most of it you can.  Comfort is relative.  Suddenly you are given a new idea and your relative comfort rug is pulled from under you.  This new idea is naked and vulnerable so you protect it with your body and mind.  Now you become vulnerable.  Certain you must be that it is worth protecting and even dying for.  Or else, why do it?  So if I teach these women, it has to be about becoming free from the horrors men are imposing on them. 

How do we approach this concept of freedom?  It cannot, ever, be with violence.  Slaves throughout the histories of the worlds of humanity have attempted violent rebellions time and again.  In each case they were slaughtered and the conditions of survivors made worse.  This the Teaching makes very clear.  Most women of Malefactus have no means of turning to violence against the men.  They are untrained, unarmed slaves.  Even us with our weapons’ skills – what are those good for but to entertain?  They are useless against the real weapons of the police and military.  In any confrontation the laser weapons would turn our bodies into piles of smoking meat in seconds.

I spar with the woman, demonstrating as many new tricks to her as I can.  As do most of the fighters she learns quickly.  We are using the long double edged, double-handed sword lately, for whatever reason, becoming the new fad in the arena.  Most challengers go for it now and this has meant we’ve had to spend much more time boning up on our skills with it.  The smaller women have a difficult time with this weapon.  It is too long and it slows their movements down.  Consequently our losses have increased incrementally.  That probably explains why the ‘brave’ men of Malefactus choose this weapon: it gives them an automatic advantage over the shorter, lighter females. 

But I must say this: the women are game.  Not only because they have no choice, but because they continue to improve themselves in many ways.  They now understand that any weapon can be mastered with skill if it is understood.  A small woman can move her body as she wields the long sword, thus not having to move the whole weight of it.  Kind of a hammer-throw concept: if you understand the lever concept, the centering balance point of your body does not have to be the fulcrum all the time.  You can create a hypothetical point for your fulcrum, your body at one end of the lever and the point of the sword at the other.  Now you can ‘orbit’ around your imaginary centre point. This requires great agility of feet and complete focus.

You use the weight of the weapon to propel you to a different location, removing the target – you – and placing the sword in an unexpected position relative to the challenger.  When he goes for you, neither you nor your sword are there – just your imaginary fulcrum point – and you can take him by surprise from an endless possibility of unexpected angles.  Those of us who are larger of body have less use of this concept and I find it difficult to teach.  So I have trained and assigned other fighters to do this part for me. 

“Can I ask you to teach my slave this sword technique you have developed, please?”  I ask her.  “And can I have your woman power name also?”

She beams to be asked a favour by such a one as I.  To be able to teach the Desert Beast Woman’s slave, that is truly an honour for her.

“In prayer, I be Swala.  Yes, and please, I do this for you.  I teach good.  The slave… ‘Tiki’?… she is very good with weapons already.  She very lucky to be slave to you and learn by touching much with you.”

“Your number for the trainers, Swala?”  She turns and I read 1334-02-28.

The women here believe it is possible to absorb another’s skills and strength as much by being physically close as by training with you.  I have noticed lately that many of the women find ways to get close to me to let their hands linger on me.  They want to absorb, to share the fighter part of me that has survived so long in the arena fights.  This is especially true now that I have killed the Warmo.  I have become a sort of inamorata to them.  They truly believe I am the reincarnation of their Great Desert Beast.  I have reawakened the old myth and they are putting fuel on the fire.

For better or worse it is a truism that avatar change agents have consistently used existing mythology to propel themselves upon the stage of whatever ISSA world they felt called to make change in.  We take on the persona of their favourite idol, myth, deity, or claim we are a child, brother, sister or other relative of that deity.  Again, it’s that compromised morality problem.  For us time is ever of the essence.  We rarely have the luxury to begin from scratch to build ourselves up to their expectations.  We are coming on stage so to speak somewhere in the middle of the action, or more often near the end of it.  We have to fit ourselves in someone else’s story – believably so or we don’t get to speak our lines – it’s that simple.

Thus Antierra or “Anti” is now the daughter of the Desert Beast and has become, in the eyes and hearts of the women fighters of T’Sing Tarleyn  the legitimate Desert Beast Woman, symbol of freedom for all T’Sing Tarleyn womanhood.  Well, as my good doctor said, I’ve brought all of them to a very dangerous crossroads.  How many avatars have brought those who believed in them to such a place then been martyred or killed to disappear following promises to return soon but never did?  How many worlds were thus politically changed on the surface but the basic problems that originally called the avatar’s attention remained unchanged? 

Earth was, or remains, one of those places.  Promises were made that were not kept and each time the people’s hopes were raised only to be dashed.  They were abandoned to their own devices and continued to perish despite Herculean efforts to maintain the reality of their disappeared avatars.  Powerful movements became powerful religions or powerful political factions  that claimed to exist as stewards for the avatar but refused to take on the responsibility such a claim entailed.  If anything can be said of those institutions it would be that they ended up demonstrating the exact opposite of what the “Master” taught so clearly.

I am on Malefactus fully aware of this problem and determined not to repeat this terrible mistake. 

And how do I propose to do this? 

First by beginning the process of self-empowerment among these female fighters.  They must ultimately believe in themselves as possessors of the power deriving from ‘the Teaching’ of their avatar.

Second, by understanding that my redemptive work achieved through deliberate submission to the lowest form of degradation in human slavery will only have begun when I leave here. 

Third, by programming myself to ‘return’ immediately after I die here.  No break, no hiatus, no seeking advice, no rest and relaxation on beautiful Altaria or other hidden world.  I belong to Malefactus until such time as it recognizes me, that is, its female population.

Fourth, by exercising my rights and powers as a WindWalker – to live and die by my own choices.  My fate and that of the people I choose to share myself with is entirely in my hands. 

Five, by empowering myself to reject any and all temptations put forth during my ‘in-between’ times by those who would buy me out or destroy me.  For it is true that all of us are constantly being watched by the forces we come upon and challenge.  Every battle we fight in the flesh is a battle we have already fought, are fighting, must continue to fight, in spirit.

End blog post #87

Antierra Manifesto – blog post #79

(The one-on-one battle to the death between Antierra and Warmo continues and concludes.)

This is his power over me, he knows.  He pictures himself to me thus:  I see the spy who took over the leadership of the people I had come to love so long ago in Galilee and Judea, the serpent who destroyed the work begun by the man I’d hoped would change things forever.  I see the Christian judge in C-16 who had me tortured and hanged as a witch in England.  I see the father who rejected the blind daughter and condemned her to a short life in the wilds of Scotland in C-19.  I see the husband who beat me regularly in the barn on that farm in eastern France.  I see the SS Obersturmführer in Paris who personally directed the torture of female prisoners connected to the French underground and at whose hands I died.  I see Warmo himself, master of the T’Sing Tarleyn official Inquisition and my recent escape from his clutches.  He shows me that not only is he going to finish the job, but he’s going to get every woman still alive who was released from his torture that day. 

 

End blog post #78
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Begin blog post #79

I must die at his hands.  No, not just die, I must know he has triumphed and I must wear the pain he will inflict on me as part of his necklace of conquests.  He must drink my blood while I still live and that crowd up there must know he is the Master.  ‘I am your death’ he whispers in my brain.  ‘I am the One who will destroy you and all those who believe in your power.  This time there will be no escape for you.  No next life, no place to go.  It ends here.  I will rape, not your body, but your mind.  I will destroy you utterly, Al’Tara.’

He has discovered my true nature and revealed his.  Whoever heard of such a contest?  Yes, in the stories of “The Highlander” – a similar tale of arch-enemies chasing each other across the boundaries of time until only one remains, evil or good.  This contest does not mean there are only two of us in existence but that one of us here, today, must die for all time. 

It’s my turn to touch his twisted mind with thoughts as clear as water flowing from melting snows on a high mountain.  I call forth my light and speak into his mind:  ‘I’m not so easy to convince that another entity, however powerful, however evil, can destroy me.  I have met with gods and other entities in the cosmos.  I have seen into infinity.  I have penetrated the very fabric of the web of life.  I have seen the twists and turns of infinite changes.  It does not have to end here, even if I cannot complete this task with this fragile and broken body.  I can escape you…’

I feel elation come from him.  I continue, ‘Ah… now I understand your game demon.  Of course I cannot escape from you.  I am bound to this fight by a promise I have made long, long ago.  A promise to help, not only the women of Malefactus, but those of Earth also.  I have a task to accomplish and I am trapped by it.  Yes, you are right, it will end here.  It will end between you, my ancient nemesis and myself.  I must defeat you, you give me no option.  I must.  And so let me show you how I brace myself for this final act.  However it plays out, I cannot let you have me for I’m all that stands between you and those I’ve promised to protect from you.  To the death of the self, Warmo.’ 

If only they would call a break!  But there will be no break. 

Already the crowd has become restless again.  They want a resumption of the gore; they want blood and they want to see one die.  They want to feel that death, the death of a female fighter.  They want him to tear my body apart and throw pieces of it over the wall into their hands.  They want to take their drug, the chakr they carry for their celebration and suck the blood from the dripping pieces.  They are blood-maddened, enraged. 

Aristocrats!  This time the arena authorities must have decided to take no chances and spend the money on proper policing.  Black-clad police-soldiers, armour pulsing in combat readiness,  begin to file down, goose-stepping through the aisles, two abreast, lasers activated to stun.  The crowd subsides somewhat.  The ones who refuse to settle down are removed without any struggle.

I move my arms and my legs as if I were working a water-logged wooden puppet.  But at least I can control my movements.  I flex my hands, elbows, knees and toes.  Everything works, in slow motion, so it seems, but it works.  I can continue.  Do I feel pain?  What is pain?  All of life is pain, it seems. Everything a birth and a death at the same time.  Nothing but a sea of pain that you swim in just to stay afloat.  And you wonder why you do it and you know:

It is the way of it.

Warmo stands now and has tested himself also.  He brings his hands together, grabs them, pulls then releases.  He forces his lame and terribly swollen foot forward and exercises it lightly, enough to show me he can stand and he can fight.  He smiles through his mangled lips.  I counter with the attacking female fighter’s last sound: the call to the death – “Aieeeeeeeeeeeaaahhhh!” and approach him once more. 

Into the death grip.

With the encouragement of the crazed crowd we come at each other.  No finesse now;  no wild moves.  Just pure determination and force of muscles.  Our hands lock together and we both begin to pull down, trying to break each-other’s wrists.  Oh, the pain!  He has the strength of the demon in him and if he could he’d bite at my face.  His battered mouth opens and despite the gap where I knocked out two teeth he still intends to bite into me and suck blood.

I lock in the bionics and tug down more, bringing his face closer.  The smell of him is overwhelming but I block it with my pain.  I give one final pull and snap his left wrist.  His hand goes limp.  I release it and bring my hand to his face, slamming into the bleeding gums, breaking more teeth.  He tries to bite my fingers as I jab into his mouth to grab his tongue.  He cannot and I tear it out of his mouth.

Meanwhile I’m still pulling down to break his other wrist.  Another pull and another snap.  What his hellish cross did to my wrists in his dungeon I have returned to him.  I know I have won.  Bit by bit I tear away at him, breaking bone, tearing into muscle.  I stomp on his feet with the bionic-equipped foot and break his arches, making him collapse on the sand.  I continue to beat his body to a pulp.  I aim a kick at his genitals and rip one of them off.  A few more blows and kicks and I ease off slowly, watching him convulse and bleed to death at my feet.

I stand utterly alone.  There is no crowd.  No arena, nothing.  Just empty space with colours floating around me as if I were experiencing the Shearing drive effect. 

End blog post #79

Antierra Manifesto – blog post #65

(In which Antierra faces her most challenging arena combat to-date which she hopes will score a very important point for the empowerment of women in Elbre.)

To all of this, much more and repetitively, Tiki listens.  I can feel her tensing at times, and wanting to speak but even here in these dreadful compounds there is an order.  When the older women engage certain topics among themselves, the young stay quiet.  They are expected to listen but may never interrupt.  Those who do are quietly but viciously “punished” by the older ones in the training compounds.  When they are punished, they know why.  Thus the women discipline ‘their’ children even under these circumstances.  Of course of those we are given, we can discipline freely.  They are our slaves.
End blog post #64
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Begin blog post #65

Chapter 28 – Vengeance as a Redemptive Act

Through Tiki I have been contacted by the female Cydroid who works as a goronda in the kitchens.  The Koronese “sting” operation on Warmo and his infernal inquisition has been successfully concluded, details to be given to me in the future should I require them.  Yes, XBA9 was tortured to death as was expected and his “re-cloning” (at astronomical cost to Dr. Echinoza and his associates on Koron) was immediately implemented when XBA9’s death on T’Sing Tarleyn was confirmed and officially accepted on Koron.

I am told that the King ordered a secret raid on Warmo’s dungeons following the death of a “terrorist” whose activities the King wanted to know more about.  All the victims of Warmo’s torture, alive, dying or dead but still on the stakes, were taken out into a secure courtyard for official examination.  Warmo was arrested on a technicality to do with a health code violation.  Apparently he failed to remove the decomposing bodies of his victims and keep the floors and walls disinfected and a member of his entourage got sick from accidental contact with the bodies.

Again I must point out the twisted logic on how laws are used in pseudo-ISSA societies.  I saw many such inanities when dealing with “environmental” or “health” related issues on Túat Har.  There never were any doubts in my mind then that the endless legal subterfuges used by the courts to hide real crimes through the prosecution of misdemeanours would inevitably result in the great die-back.  There never was the will to tackle the real problems because that would have exposed all the powers that be and all the rulers, leaders, CEO’s including the great heads of organized Religion.

But back to my story here.  The “member” in Warmo’s employ – one of the Cydroids – blew the whistle.  Another Cydroid, a member of the King’s legal counsel group, laid the charges against Warmo.  After short deliberation and the additional startling discovery that the “terrorist” was a confidant of the King and friend of the court, Warmo was officially pronounced guilty.  As you know, all crimes on Malefactus are capital crimes.  Warmo was given the chance to redeem himself through a fight to the death in the arena.  He naturally jumped at the chance and when he was told I would be his opposing fighter, he apparently raised his fist in the air and yelled, “I finally get to kill that bitch!”

All the men in the compound, from the overseer to the medics, are aghast at the bold move by the King and his counselors in reaching down into the official inquisition’s affairs and condemning “the” Warmo.  The man is well known in Elbre.  Before the previous King gave him the position of chief torturer – it is well known that the King used to go and watch Warmo work and sometimes provide him with interesting victims for the fun of it – Warmo had been a drook.

His reputation was so that no owner of female fighters would enter them against him and he had no more takers by the time he was promoted to be the King’s Grand Inquisitor.  He killed with precision and mastery but more, with utter malice.  Warmo was (and remains) a consummate misogynist.  He literally tortured opposing fighters before killing them.  No one died quickly at his hands.  He would entertain the crowds with blows and cuts, to maim and disfigure after he’d tired his opponent.  Even if the fighter quit and lay down to die, he’d continue beating and cutting as long as he could make her endure.  He never sexually assaulted his victims and the story spread that he was a eunuch.

Well, maybe I’ll find out.  In the case of Warmo, I’m going to be utterly “human” in performing my own ritual with him in the arena.  Yes, I know I should not be so cocky, that anything can go wrong, that I am supposed to be a new person with a new outlook on life and that I need to be humble in all things.  Sure, I know all that, just as you know all that.  But again, there is that which I call compromised morality.  This is not about me, even though I will be the center of interest and attraction.

This is much more than personal.  This fight is a social comment and a political statement.  It is of paramount importance that my purpose is not to survive an arena fight against a powerful drook, but meant to avenge his victims, particularly the female ones.  I must be more than the ultimate fighter; I must also be the consummate actress to demonstrate that I am indeed the avenger.

In exacting vengeance on Warmo I will be causing the deliberate humiliation of a once “great” man and performing an elaborate execution by torture to be done by a woman to a man.  This must be seen by all, and reported openly.  This is my ultimate dare and my chance to make these males see what a fearless, self-empowered woman can do.

Even if after the fight I am publicly flogged to death or otherwise killed for my temerity, for having dared flaunt my womanhood towards a man, I must do this.  The law is clear on this: the penalty for a woman demonstrating power over a man (other than in the handling of weapons, of course) is death.  The choice of death, if it comes on that day, will be given to the crowd to decide.  Not likely will it be a mercy killing.

Nevertheless, there must be no doubt that I am meeting this monster in my own capacity as monster.  The meeting of Beast Warmo and the Desert Beast.  The stakes will likely be the highest the gambling  world has ever heard of.  The betting will go ‘through the roof’ as the saying went.

I have two weeks to prepare myself for this event.  It’s not that either Warmo or I need that time, but the longer the event is delayed, the higher the stakes will rise, and the farther the news will reach so betting will take place in all the major centers of Elbre, and perhaps even beyond.  This is “play off” time and the Big Money will be in evidence everywhere.  This also means that in the meantime, fewer women will be fought in the arenas as the money will be hoarded for the main event.  That also is a great victory to me, although I can see an uglier side to this as well.

I hear the King has decreed there is to be but one fight in the arena of Hyrete on that day, regardless of how quickly it ends.

Also, the day of the “Fight of the Beasts” as it is billed is to be a kingdom-wide holiday.

I wonder how that will affect the non-fighter women and girls in the kingdom?  They won’t see any holiday; in fact they will have a greater load to bear as a result of the partying, visiting, merry-making and the various needs for exotic pleasures and entertainment.  There is also the very real danger that should the fight cause great losses of money, and I am the one who causes it by killing the Warmo, innocent women will bear the brunt of reprisals in a surge of hate and anger against women in general.  This is, after all as I have already said, a world at war and in any war it is always the innocents who suffer the most.

Tiki and I speak of the coming fight.  This girl is no fool.  She understands her world and moves within its twisted ways with a skill born of breeding and necessity.  If it’s information she wants, she gets it quietly and quickly and she deduces much from what is not being said or publicized.

I don’t have to explain the Inquisition or Warmo to her.  She gets as much as I could tell her from her contacts which she has naturally developed as she works the kitchens, the yard and the cages.  By now everybody knows her and she has had many offers to leave me and share younger flesh in other cages.  She could do it, if she wanted it badly enough.  Yes, she belongs to me, in a sense, but she could “trade” herself for another, say an older trainee who wanted to ingratiate herself to me for special training.  This old human trading for advantage, for favours, is found everywhere except in the most advanced and evolved world touching the top edge of ISSA consciousness.  No matter where I’ve encountered this process, I’ve always found it particularly repugnant.

End blog post #65