The Habitation of the Blessed - Catherynne M. Valente [119]
My mother said: You know how these things are done. Cai owns a cleverness and wariness few could claim. And it is all uglier than you know.
And in my mother’s reply I heard the necessity of it—for her child she would betray even her friend to death. I do not like that world.
And so I did kill the queen before me. I have heard that you told my children this. I wish they did not know it—but there it is. It was not as hard as I expected. She smelled me coming, but pregnant I was too fast and strong, and I tore her limb from limb in the throneroom as easily as breaking a toy. Her guards watched—she had done the same to the king before her; they could not interfere. The release of the awful strength in my limbs made me shudder—I had held it in check so long. At the end of it her blood drenched me, and at the core of the wreckage of the queen I saw the drop of the Font her flesh clutched so dearly trickle out onto the floor and steam away. It was over. A silver vessel lay empty and waiting, in the hall. I interred her myself—it was only right.
And I birthed my young, and worried that some other ambitious whelp would destroy me when my strength had ebbed, and so departed. I took up my palanquin and my elephants and traveled my country to discover a city where folk did not consider that living forever meant drowning in the worst cruelties they could fashion. Where despair was not the only law. And I found you.
I, Who Had Desired Cruelty, Too, in My Time: Majesty, there are many in Nimat who have no good qualities.
Abir, Who Did Not Believe Me, Not Really: But not in you. And I brought you here, and the rest you know. Save for what I intend. And what I intend is to break immortality over my knee. I had to wait, you see, until my children were grown, so that no one would think me selfish. I would take wealth and power from my own young, too, not just theirs.
You do not understand.
I will remain queen at the next quarter-moon. No one else will be the same. We will have a wonderful Lottery, and in it will go all possible lives, and we will draw from among them. Whatever the Lottery dictates, so we will live, for three centuries, and then change again. I will only remain queen until the second Lottery, to minister and salve, for it will be difficult. But my children will draw lots, and go where they are bidden. And so, I hope, will you. Can you see it? Boredom will cease and there will be pain, terrible pain, when the Lottery separates families and lovers and children and friends. But that pain will take the place in us that lies fallow now—in a thousand years, in two thousand, Pentexore will forget deceit and rough instincts. They will forget, even, that Imtithal the Butterfly was not chosen for a nursemaid by a spinning barrel, and debate how else your fate might have gone. History is an old, confused crone. But she has her lessons, and her mercies.
They will understand that you must let go quarrels—for the Lottery will erase them, regardless. They will understand the essential truth of the Fountain: if we do not love each other, forever is intolerable. We will find a rhythm. We will create a heaven. It will be done, and no other queen need rot in those silver vessels.
I kept my silence. I did not really think it would work. Memory works its way.
Abir, Whose Face Was Illuminated By the Last of the Sun: Do you know the god of the cametenna? She is nameless, faceless, the seven-bodied goddess of luck, who with three hands throws dice, and with four prays to herself. The Lottery will be a devotion to her. I will sacrifice a whole nation to her holy games, and she will bless us, and protect us, and guide us on the correct path.
You will join the Lottery, will you not? You came from so far. If you draw a stone, many others will