The Hierophant's Daughter by M F Sullivan

Author:M F Sullivan [Sullivan, M F]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780996539586
Publisher: Painted Blind Publishing
Published: 2019-05-18T23:00:00+00:00

XI

Welcome to Kabul

After all they’d endured, Dominia had not expected getting a taxi to be simple, but they were soon well away from the train thanks to a driver who didn’t look twice at the disheveled, suitcaseless women and their dog. He had seen weirder tourists—probably ones more criminal, too, since he didn’t bat an eye as Miki guided him, in brisk Arabic, to her choice pawnshop. Dominia, still buzzing with adrenaline, barely registered the city outside; yet, even to her distracted eye, how it resembled San Valentino as it was when she was young! The San Valentino with which she’d fallen in love, before she’d fallen in love with Cassandra. All the tight-clustered shops: so many shops that even the DIOX-I could not comprehend the many passing signs. There was the market district, disrupting like a cock’s crow the sleepy morn with vendors shouting a chant to hypnotize listeners into purchase. (This, perhaps, was the meaning of “enchantment.” No wonder she didn’t trust Mass anymore!) There were the glittering spires and massive towers and all-over busyness of construction, of doing, of being and seeing. Kabul had stolen the achievement once held by San Valentino, and did so in a manner somehow more glorious. The sunlit mirage of a megacity glittered its defiance against the martyrs in a collective cry of humankind: We are still here, we will never leave, we will never die.

Something soft rested on her hand; the dog had lowered his chin.

“You are such a good boy,” she said. Though the animal’s tail wagged, the praise felt condescending for a creature so intelligent. This wasn’t like shaking hands or rolling over. How did you thank a dog for stopping a train? How did a dog know to stop a train, and with such precision? Was Basil even a dog?

Now, that was a weird thought. She recalled the game show aboard the ship: its well-trained Shiba Inu, conditioned to press a random button. Basic Pavlov. But Basil seemed a mite more advanced. Her head hurt as she considered it, and she stoked memories of cell phones thrown at her skull, the hisses of the angry people, and the horrible thought that, if Miki was right, she was, in a way, having that experience eternally. Not that she didn’t deserve it. Dominia glanced at the human, who had lapsed into silence with the driver to count the cash and coins in their bag.

Dominia licked her lips. “What he said about the Black Night—”

“I don’t want to talk about it here.” Soto didn’t look up from her count.

“Does he speak English?”

“I don’t think so, but, to be honest, I don’t want to talk about it anywhere. ‘Garbage Day’?”

The General could only bear to face the city. “It was a different time, I was a different person. When I believed—”

“That humans are trash? That Asian people don’t deserve to live in the United Front?”

“That my Father was right,” said Dominia helplessly. “That my Father was right, that he was close to God, and that if I did something like this, I could finally get his real approval.

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