The Mother of the Tree of Life, Aleister Hanek [best way to read ebooks txt] 📗

was rotted. If only you lost a limb that meant you were spared.
To a few of the ones it spared it spoke. It spoke about the next plague.
It said that someday it would be back to make sure that number one hundred would not be stopped.
This made people think that it could be stopped.
And that made people think that it had to be stopped.
In Milera’s history nobody ever tried to stop one of these abominations. It never even occurred to most people. To those to whom did it occur, they guessed that it would be just like trying to carve out cancer. To remove the tumor only makes it spread faster for its survival. They guessed that if you tried to abort the non-child or kill the mother that would only make the abomination spill out sooner… and possibly with a vengeance.
Somebody guessed, somebody who was spoken to by the plague Melkam, that lucky number one hundred would be different. And he was right. He would have young skinny girls hunted until a mercenary did not come back from the mission. He did not have to wait long, his first guess was right, so there was no homicide controversy. Only one mercenary lost is pretty good.
“No Mercy.” he said.

2

“Mercy,” Andun says from the other end of the hall, and Mercadia stops in her tracks. Her hands are supporting her lush round belly; she is so pregnant that she has to hold it up at all times. She loves Andun when he carries it for her. She loves him when he touches her.
Mercadia, sixteen beautiful and still too slender to be safe from this world’s judgment, turns around and smiles for the man who is ten minutes her husband. She has been looking for him. She just made a new friend mingling at their after-wedding party and she wanted to introduce them.
“There you are, silly.” she says with so much affection and she starts towards him. Her walk is graceful despite the weight she must support. Her baby hangs from her really, so that it does not interrupt her delicate and narrow skeletal structure. Andun runs to her from across the shadowed hall so she does not need to take another step, she takes two before he gets to her. Rather than embrace her completely Andun puts his hands under her belly with hers. When he lifts her stomach it elevates two whole inches with no resistance just like the limb of a corpse.
The heavy eight pounds of life rolls around as soon as the father is putting warmth into it too. Mercadia loves it; it is just like being massaged with oil but on the inside. The sensation of the baby moving against her womb is akin to orgasmic brushing but different, it is a divine sensation without being sexual. The only kind of non-sexual divinity she has ever felt in fact.
“You should tell me.” She is still too happy from the ceremony –and the wine they might have picked seven years ago, wine too pure to be poisonous to the baby—to sound it, but that demand is born of unhealthy possessiveness she feels over Andun. He has been instructed not to talk to any of the other girls tonight, especially the ones who have boobs.
“I was just going to the bathroom darling.” He responds sweetly and she responds to that with a giggle and a smile, but it is on account of the baby they are holding together, and the way it moves in her. If there were nothing rolling around in her she would be angry with him.
With her husband helping her equilibrium Mercadia can slip her right foot out of its shoe and brush her toes against Andun’s left foot “How does it feel sweetheart?” She says to change the subject; she can tell he is sorry enough that he deserves to be spared her pissyness.
In Milera: There exists a farmed pet called the Lemph. It is not harvested for food and produces no product. It is a green scaled land creature that looks just like a lamprey in its natural born form. Humans raise and nurture these animals to be all different sizes and lengths to serve as replacement limbs. Whenever a person is in need of a replaced limb or digit a Lemph of the proper length and thickness can latch itself to the open wound and change shape according to the muscle memory it reads in the wounded body. They can grow and age with the body but tend to have longer life spans than humans so when a body dies its Lemph just falls off and returns to its lamprey shape.
His replacement foot is kelp green and appears to be scaled. It is just the right size and shape, and save for the row of pearl smooth teeth around the base of his ankle it feels just like his flesh too. Mercadia brushes her toes against his sock and dress shoe and rubs her big toe against one of those soft teeth. She loves doing this when they make love –avoiding the teeth—so that she can pretend they were not hunted seven years ago and that he never lost his foot at all.
“Let’s go back in, love.” She is insistent. She turns around and he puts his arms around her so he can support her stomach with her from behind.
The indoor court is magnificent and Mercadia could not have asked for more –though she would have, had there been something grander available. This ballroom is half the size of a football field. The ceilings are so high the drunken people think the curtains are the night sky, and the chandelier candles the stars. The floor is checkered with pearl and copper colored marble, the ceiling and walls are artistic black frames and polished glass. And the room is lit with torches that are a liquid fungus that, when lit, burn bright for hours like yellow lava and illuminate the room so that it looks just like daytime.
As soon as they are back in the ballroom everybody in the immediate area applauds for them and Mercadia pretends modesty. She places one hand on her breast as though to calm her heart and she blushes. Andun widens his smile and holds Mercadia’s belly, he thinks that is why they are applauding him.
Mercadia waves to the crowd with the motion of screwing in a light bulb. Her eyes look dazed as though she is intoxicated: she is so enthused by receiving this attention that she has forgotten Andun is holding her stomach. She has almost forgotten that she is pregnant and that the attention is actually for her.
But the truth is, the crowd is applauding because they have to. Everybody in the room is afraid that Mercadia is number one hundred. That the… thing, in her belly is no human but an abomination that might kill them all. It is widely believed that the one hundredth human-born plague would be the most decimating, that not even an evacuation would be able to save the city.
Or the world.
But Mercadia is oblivious. Though the worry burns as bright as the fungus torches in everybody she interacts with, Mercadia does not see it. She chooses not to, because to be the one hundredth would degrade her importance in society: in fact it would be a shame worthy of exile. She would not be the first. She is just like a grandmother, who pretends that her junkie grandchildren are dead already. She is just a normal girl, that’s all.
She’s going to be somebody’s mother.
The crowd’s applause dies down and everybody drinks the wine she and Andun might have picked seven years ago had they not been interrupted. Everybody faces her though, everyone in the court is obligated to face the bride whatever they are doing.
Andun takes this opportunity to let go of her. Mercadia does not remember that he was behind her until she feels that weight hanging in front of her again. “Can I get a drink and talk with my friends, love?” he asks just like a child, and just like a snobby older sister, without turning around, she looks at him sharply. She is hurt that he let go so abruptly.
“Go ahead.” She says coldly, with so much warmth reserved in her throat for when he is polite again. Why does he not understand that she is cold with him because he is impolite, and that she will be sweet again as soon as he is?
Andun walks away to the patio where he will brag with his friends and avoid any mention of plagues or the number one hundred.
The crowd disperses, careful to keep facing Mercadia. Few of them are still paying total attention to her and the rest mingle amongst themselves, moving with Mercadia as she moves. It is those who pay total attention to her that she chooses to mingle with when that commotion dies down.
Mercadia does not have two minutes to mingle before her dearest friend Murcilla flings herself from the crowd. She latches onto Mercadia’s belly and hangs like a lamprey does on the shark. Murcilla nuzzles her face against Mercadia’s swollen belly. Mercadia, embarrassed, dismisses everyone surrounding her gracefully with laughter and a smile. But she cannot shake the feeling she is being judged by them after they leave her because of their obligation to face her throughout the ceremony.
“Sweety stop, people will think that I’ve married you.” Mercadia tries to wave her friend off but Murcilla still snuggles against her just the way a child or even a lover would. Murcilla is close to her but…
But the truth is… Mercadia feels relieved to be touched this way by somebody. Andun only ever touches her sexually any more. He never touches her just for the sake of touching her; just for the sake of being loving and keeping her warm. In fact, since she became pregnant he has not touched her so much at all. She cannot imagine why.
She cannot even see the fear in her husband.
Murcilla is the ideal woman in Milera. Her body is deliciously pear-shaped and her every thought is of devotion to loved ones. She will make a fine mother in her husband’s eyes. Perhaps not in her child, but certainly in her husband.
Murcilla reaches around Mercadia’s back, almost touching her butt, but not quite. “Oh Mercy, I love this baby.”
Murcilla is perhaps the only person in this room -other than Mercadia—who has not wondered if the child is not human. She squeezes her friend, she holds her ear against the swollen belly and that convinces her, this child is human. No plague could feel so solid, so wonderful, so soothingly innocent.
Mercadia can ignore the fear in anybody –she ignores it instead of missing it, her pompousness cannot take seriously anybody who demeans her—but her friend pierces that shield with admiration and love. It is not until now that Mercadia has considered that she may be number one hundred, now that she is forced to because of trust.
But she trusts her friend’s bad judgment. She does not believe she is the one hundredth abominable mother.
Mercadia looks sad suddenly but she is smiling at her friend who is oblivious to all depressed emotion, “I love this child too sweetheart.” She puts one hand on her friends head and the other on her stomach. She feels the life in her roll and she thinks it feels just like flesh rolling inside flesh.
Mercadia returns Murcilla’s affection by stroking her hair; she runs her hand down her friends neck and back just as a lover would, but not a lover sexually inclined. Murcilla’s hair is wavy, black, and soft as down. As she strokes Murcilla’s hair a secret