Jason Sanford - [BCS299 S03] Read online

  She wanted the romance of being a day-fellow, not the reality.

  “You message your family about the festival?” she asked sympathetically, as if finally understanding that something bad could happen to Alexnya there.

  “Nah. They’d just worry. And their caravan couldn’t get here in time—not that they could do anything to help if they did.”

  As they walked down the road they passed an anchor’s sod-house with a day-fellow caravan parked nearby. They’d passed a number of anchors and day-fellows heading toward the festival—evidently the grains had notified everyone in the region and ordered them to attend.

  The anchor and his family and all the day-fellows lined the road to watch Alexnya go by. Purple fairies fluttered above the anchor’s head, showing off this land’s power. Several day-fellow kids waved at her, excited by both the projected fireworks and cartoons and at seeing one of their own who’d become an anchor.

  However, the adult day-fellows merely shook their heads and whispered to each other. While Alexnya might have been born a day-fellow, she knew they now saw her as the enemy.

  Behind one of the day-fellow wagons, Alexnya caught of glimpse of a red-glowing face laughing at her. The strange anchor who’d attacked her!

  But when she looked closer, the face was gone.

  Multiple times since they’d left home Alexnya had felt the glowing red anchor watching her. Not that she ever fully saw the anchor—only a glimpse here, like behind that wagon, or a blurred movement there. Still, she couldn’t quit the feeling that she was being watched by more than the grains themselves.

  Alexnya glanced back to where she’s seen the red anchor, and there instead was a dancing cartoon bunny. The kids lining the road—both anchor and day-fellow—laughed and clapped excitedly.

  “The grains are making a joke of my pending death,” she muttered.

  “What do you mean?” Wren asked.

  “That,” she said, pointing at the cartoon bunny. “I’d like to smack whoever programmed the grains to mix parades and festivals with judgments and executions.”

  “You don’t like fireworks and cartoons?”

  “Only if they shoot out Pinhaus’s ass.”

  Wren laughed, only to jump from a low growl right beside her even though no one was there.

  Several yards away Pinhaus laughed softly. While Alexnya really hated Pinhaus and knew that feeling was extremely mutual, she did admire his ability to throw his voice. At family get-togethers he often used it to amuse the kids. Alexnya had long wanted to know how he did that trick.

  Not that she could ask him. Even with his body powered down Pinhaus stood a third again taller than Alexnya, and he was strong. He was also smug and conceited, never speaking more than a few condescending words to her.

  “Apologies,” Alexnya said to Pinhaus. “I should have said we’d ask the grains to create the illusion of rainbows and fireworks shooting out your ass.”

  Pinhaus’s yellow eyes sparked to anger, and his right hand swelled as long claws grew from his fingers. Alexnya tsked loudly at him showing such anger. He was so easy to provoke.

  Chakatie stepped between them. “Pinny,” she said, “run down the road and let the festival’s anchor lord know we’ll be there in a few hours.”

  Pinhaus froze at his mother saying his nickname, especially in front of Alexnya. He glared at her for a moment but quickly demurred.

  As Pinhaus ran to do as his mother said, Alexnya snorted just loud enough for him to hear. Wren chuckled—Pinhaus clearly irritated her too.

  “You have a death wish?” Chakatie asked. “Pinhaus doesn’t forgive slights.”

  “Don’t you mean ‘Pinny?’” Alexnya asked. “Besides, with the grains angry, I’m unlikely to live long enough for him to kill me.”

  “I was wrong.” Chakatie sighed. “I don’t like you when you’re defiant. You should definitely work on that—if you survive the festival.”

  Alexnya glanced at Wren, but the girl wouldn’t meet her eyes. It was the same with the rest of Chakatie’s family.

  No matter how big Alexnya talked, she knew she would face what was coming alone.

  This was Alexnya’s first judgment festival, although she’d seen plenty of other festival grounds while traveling as a day-fellow. There were grounds like this one scattered across all the lands, always beside the main entrance to a mountain-sized biosphere.

  Alexnya felt a touch of vertigo as they neared the shimming biosphere, which rose above them a half league into the sky. The dome was supported by massive arches and lattices and panels of ancient nano-reinforced glass. There were thousands of these biospheres around the Earth, built by the people who’d also programmed the grains. The biospheres preserved pristine environments and species as a safeguard against any future devastation of the environment.

  The glass panels higher on the biospheres were clear, to let in the sun, but the panels at ground-level were opaque, preventing anyone from looking inside. Alexnya had heard of a few anchors and day-fellows who climbed up the sides of a biosphere to peek inside, but usually they all fell to their deaths before having the chance to see anything.

  Despite that, there was plenty to see outside the biosphere. The open grasslands of the judgment festival grounds contained hundreds of clear stele made of the same nano-reinforced glass as the biosphere, each rectangular memorial rising to twice the height of any human. The stele were arranged in geometric patterns like an ancient graveyard, and each one played scenes from Earth’s long history. When not used for judgment festivals, the grounds were a place to learn the history of this world, always open to both anchors and day-fellows.

  But today people were having fun. Hundreds of day-fellows filled the grounds, eating different foods and playing games and drinking home-brewed ales and whiskeys. A dozen caravans were parked on the outskirts of the grounds, their wagons not circled in protection but instead strung along in welcoming lanes. The wagons’ armored doors and windows were open as people traded food and different goods.

  And anchors—there were at least a thousand anchors here too, their tents pitched all over the grounds. None of the anchors were powered up, and most of them wore nice suits or dresses, the same as Chakatie’s family. Alexnya saw anchors dancing and eating their fill of delicious foods and drinking so much that a few grassy spots on the festival grounds had been kept open so they could pass out and sleep.

  But even in this sacred place where conflict wasn’t allowed, the anchors and day-fellows kept their distance from one another. The children of anchors played with other anchors and the day-fellow kids did the same, running and hiding and shrieking with joy but only among their own. A few anchors bartered with day-fellow traders, but everyone else stuck to their own kind.

  “Did I mention how fun judgment festivals are?” Chakatie asked. “Aside from, you know, the judgment part.”

  Alexnya grumbled to herself. She’d known she was in trouble, but was it really such bad trouble that the grains needed to gather this many day-fellows and anchors to see it?

  As they approached the festival, the projections of fireworks, rainbows, and cartoons built to a climax, shooting across the blue sky to tell everyone the guest of honor had arrived. The crowds of anchors and day-fellows stopped their eating and drinking and dancing and stared at Alexnya.

  Alexnya grew nervous at being the center of everyone’s attention and she stumbled, unable to move forward until Chakatie hugged her in a motherly embrace.

  “Don’t give them any fear to enjoy,” Chakatie whispered.

  Alexnya swallowed and forced a fake smile to her face as she and Chakatie walked toward the center of the judgment festival.

  She thought the crowd would be angry at her, but instead they clapped and cheered, both day-fellows and anchors. A number of people tossed pine boughs on the path before her to walk on. One day-fellow girl yelled for her to stay strong. A group of anchors bowed at her in respect.

  Alexnya was starting to feel a little more at e
ase until she passed a young anchor.

  “When will the grains kill her?” the child asked his mother impatiently.

  “Hush,” the mother snapped. “That happens tomorrow.”

  Irritating little snot. Alexnya glared at the kid and fought back a smirk when he flinched and darted behind his mother’s dress.

  In the middle of the festival grounds rose a large glass stage. That was where she would be judged. Standing on the stage alongside a few other anchors was that simpering fool Pinhaus, who yet again smirked at her. Alexnya climbed the steps with Chakatie and stood on the stage so everyone could see her.

  “Now what?” she asked Chakatie.

  She found out a moment later when a mass of red grains began spinning in the air above the stage, like an inverted dust devil. The swirling grains quickly joined together to create the illusion of arms, legs, body, and face before their pixilation ended and they formed a near-perfect approximation of a giant person standing twice as tall as Alexnya.

  The red anchor, who’d choked her.

  The anchor smiled. “You must be Alexnya,” she said.

  Alexnya stepped backward, unsure what was going on but not trusting this red anchor.

  Chakatie grabbed her arm. “You know her?” she hissed.

  “She attacked me at my house the other day.”

  Chakatie looked the simulated anchor up and down. “Impossible. That’s the festival’s anchor lord. The grains base these simulacrums on the memories and consciousness of the original anchors, who died thousands of years ago. There’s no way you’ve ever met this person.”

  “No... that’s her...” But Alexnya couldn’t explain what was had happened, which made the red anchor lord smile even more.

  The anchor lord turned to face the crowd of anchors and day-fellows, her body of grains fading in and out but still looking solid.

  “Welcome to the judgment festival!” she announced in a booming voice. “The grains, in their compassionate knowledge, have designated all of you anchors to judge these lands. And you gathered day-fellows are to bear witness to this historic event.”

  She motioned at the history lessons being projected on the hundreds of glass stele around them.

  “Grains and anchors and day-fellows, we all play a part in maintaining our world,” she continued. “Our history as humans is written in light on these memorials, available for anyone to see. As we all know, it is a sad history of death, destruction, and extinction, so the grains now keep us in check. But sometimes even the grains need help. Sometimes they need us to remember our purpose in life.”

  The anchor lord motioned for Alexnya to step before her. When Alexnya didn’t move, Chakatie pulled her forward.

  The anchor lord took her hand and raised it in triumph. “This is Alexnya, a day-fellow girl who became an anchor. A remarkable achievement seen only once in a thousand years! And she has been a good anchor, protecting her lands from all who would harm them. But what happens if her lands have gone wrong? Is it her fault? Ours? You anchors will be the judge. And you day-fellows will be the witnesses.”

  The anchors and day-fellows surrounding the stage cheered. Alexnya struggled to free her arm from the red anchor’s grasp, but she might as well have been struggling against the weight of the biosphere itself.

  “Judgment starts tomorrow,” the anchor lord announced. “For today, enjoy the festival. Enjoy all that the grains have given us!”

  Again the crowd cheered. In the middle of the noise the anchor lord leaned over until her face was nearly kissing Alexnya, just like she’d done when she’d attacked Alexnya two days ago.

  “My name is Sri Sa,” the anchor lord whispered just loud enough for Chakatie to also hear. “I am so happy to meet you both.”

  Chakatie looked at Sri Sa with a troubled expression, as if suddenly understanding there were dangers here she hadn’t expected.

  Sri Sa stood back up. “Mistress Chakatie,” she said, “would your family do me the honor of escorting Alexnya into the biosphere? Before someone is judged, they deserve a day in paradise.”

  Chakatie glanced around nervously as if evaluating the situation. Alexnya had seen her tense up like this before, usually when Chakatie believed a battle or blood-letting was near. But why was she acting this way now?

  Not that it mattered. At a judgment festival, everyone was supposed to follow the anchor lord’s orders—to do otherwise would mean taking on the thousand other anchors gathered here.

  “It’d be our honor,” Chakatie finally said as she bowed to Sri Sa. She waved for her family to do as the anchor lord requested.

  Alexnya followed Pinhaus and Chakatie and Sri Sa as they led her to the biosphere’s entrance. It was large enough for entire wagons to enter. The glass doors of the biosphere flowed with projections of rainbowed light that looked like glowing wax dripping from strange invisible candles.

  None of the other anchors and day-fellows at the festival dared approach the entrance. But likewise none of them could look away, hoping to see the sacred world inside the dome.

  If they wanted a look that bad, Alexnya would have gladly traded places with any of them.

  The doors opened, and Alexnya and Sri Sa and Chakatie’s family filed through into an armored entryway. The outer doors then closed, leaving them stranded in the entryway before the biosphere’s inner doors.

  “Those being judged are allowed the rare honor of entering the biosphere,” Sri Sa said to Alexnya. “This allows you to both experience the paradise Earth once was and be reminded of why we must never again harm our world.”

  “I love it when you over-explain shit,” Alexnya said. “The more you talk, more it delays my judgment.”

  Sri Sa looked irritated before forcing her lips back into a simulated smile. “Just touch the inner doors,” she stated. “The grains embedded there will wrap a necklace of light around you. You can’t enter the biosphere without that necklace.”

  Alexnya had heard of this—everyone who was to be punished at a judgment festival wore a necklace of grains that kept them from fleeing and not standing judgment. If they didn’t go to the festival when it was time, or tried to hide in the biosphere, the necklaces choked them to death.

  She wondered what would happen if she refused to touch the door and receive her necklace, but the eager look in Pinhaus’s eyes told her not to try. That fool, and others of Chakatie’s family, would no doubt relish dragging her forward and making her do as Sri Sa ordered.

  Alexnya touched the inner doors. What looked like liquid light flowed from the door up her arm and around her neck, where it spun into a red necklace as thick as her thumb. The necklace felt like a lukewarm waterfall hugging her throat.

  “Aren’t the doors supposed to open now?” Alexnya asked.

  “They are,” Chakatie said. “Maybe it takes a moment.”

  Nothing happened. The entryway was silent, all of Chakatie’s family eager for a glimpse inside the sacred biosphere.

  Sri Sa, though, was smiling so hard her red simulated face looked like it was about to explode.

  Alexnya tapped the necklace, as if that might do it. As an anchor she’d grown used to hearing the grains’ orders. Usually her land’s grains spoke using snippets of memories from the lives of past anchors. Once or twice when she’d angered them by mistake, the grains spoke to her with more pointed memories of people saying words directly relevant to what she was doing.

  But here the grains had a simulated anchor to speak for them—and Sri Sa was laughing.

  “Sorry, sorry,” she said as she appeared to catch her breath, which she didn’t need to do since she was created of swirling grains and didn’t breathe. “Just wondered how long it’d take you to figure things out.”

  Chakatie stepped protectedly between Sri Sa and her family, which Alexnya was pleased to see included her. Chakatie’s grains synced together, preparing for battle.

  “Are you playing with us?” she asked in a low, dangerous voice. “The grains said to deliver Alexnya
for judgment. We did as ordered.”

  Sri Sa shrugged, or the grains making up her body rearranged themselves into the reflection of a shrug. “Sorry, but everyone needs to touch the door,” she said. “The grains want your entire family to receive a necklace. While Alexnya’s the only one being judged, when she’s found guilty, the grains will kill all of you along with her.”

  Alexnya watched realization flit across the faces of Chakatie, Pinhaus, Wren, and the rest of the anchors. She wanted to say something, to smart back like she’d done since learning she was to be judged and killed. But she was too astounded for words.

  “Why my family?” Chakatie asked. “We’ve done nothing wrong.”

  “What did you tell Alexnya the other day?” Sri Sa asked. “Oh yes, something inspirational and deep about it not being fair what the grains were doing. Well guess what, the grains aren’t fair to anyone.”

  Sri Sa powered up her simulated body even more, as if challenging Chakatie and her family to defy her orders as anchor lord. Alexnya reached out with her power and analyzed Sri Sa’s grains—it was quickly obvious to her none of them could come close to her power, not even if they all attacked together.

  Instead of waiting for Chakatie and the other anchors to come to this realization on their own, Alexnya sarcastically clapped her hands.

  Chakatie and the others glared at her.

  “You were right, what you told me in the field,” Alexnya said to Chakatie. “It appears ‘we’ will indeed be dealing with this together.”

  Instead of doing as Sri Sa ordered, Chakatie’s family spent the next hour yelling at each other.

  Chakatie was furious that Pinhaus had arrived early at the festival but had not sniffed out that they were also to be punished—evidently the main reason she’d sent him ahead was to scout for surprises just like this. And Wren and many of the other anchors were shocked and sick to their stomachs at what was happening, with several actually throwing up.