Be Not Afraid is my first story where I attempted to encapsulate a full fantasy world, detached from humanity’s earth, in a short story format.
This story takes place on a planet inhabited by Mansa. They are descendants of cats and have many genders, such as miri, kori, and nubu. Angels have lived on this planet for a few hundred years and have brought miracles to the Mansa. A religious extremist group called the Tassoumankan despise Angels and tyrannize the town where our protagonist, IssaInna, lives.
I hope it stirs you into contemplating the illusionary binaries between fantasy and science fiction. May it delight your imagination in realms beyond European aesthetics and principles.
Story Content Warning: species/racial discrimination, religious extremism, death, threats of violence against minors and elders
Be not afraid
Their bodies were woven sweet dough in the morning light, rising in secret, their skin a caramelization partially swallowed by blankets in their carved bamboo bed that congested this bedroom lingering with myrrh. Its canopy caressed the ceiling, and its bedposts refracted light against hardened black mud walls. The bedframe was an identical imitation of the advertisement torn from a city newspaper smuggled for IssaInna. The Tassoumankan burned most print.
Kokanko had always watched IssaInna, to remember what breathing looked like or study how to flick her tail to indicate nuanced emotion. Kokanko didn’t need childhood instructions anymore. Both claimed miri as their gender and they were of moon age between kit and adult. No, Kokanko didn’t need to watch IssaInna. But she wanted to.
All four of Kokanko’s arms slithered from IssaInna’s hold. IssaInna had the typical two arms, but hers were robust with expectation. Even in sleep, she barely let Kokanko take her arms back. Next, Kokanko unbraided her legs from IssaInna’s. Like all Mansa, they were digitigrade or toe-walkers like their feline ancestors, with elongated furred feet that most Mansa kept decorated with rings and concentric chains. But Kokanko’s feet did not end in clawed toes. They were hooves.
Kokanko’s body had no weight as she crawled on the sleeping IssaInna. Her bones were not hollow. She was not airy like the ginger pulp rising in a glass of djablani nor fluttering like the toxic swallowtail. Her weight simply wasn’t.
IssaInna felt not weight but want. She feigned sleep, curled into the play, and squeezed her eyes shut when the sun pelted her deception. Kokanko would not let the sun take IssaInna from her. She shielded IssaInna’s eyes with her wings–daunting, opalescent feathers. They stretched from her scapulas as the insisting boast of a falcon but moved like a gilded toy whose wind-up sputtered as pitiful, stilted ornaments. Her wings’ one elegance was their ability to caress IssaInna’s face. Which made IssaInna sneeze.
The spell of morning was broken, and they laughed like kits new to light. The sun gleamed on Kokanko’s silver hair, squeezing IssaInna’s pupils to slits, refracting boiling envy into her belly. With a swallowed snarl, she tossed Kokanko from the bed. Kokanko, affixed in unawareness, clawed at IssaInna with fierce glee, taking Grandelder’s mudcloth blanket tumbling to the floor with her.
There was no sound when Kokanko landed. IssaInna crouched on the edge of the bed and watched Kokanko laugh into hiccups. Her wings wedged between the vanity and the bed in contortion. When Kokanko couldn’t sit up, her hiccups choked into panicked squawks. The stuttered flapping scraped the walls, knocking over jars of fatty creams and scented oils.
Shame licked up IssaInna’s spine. She sprang on cat-like legs and liberated Kokanko. IssaInna smothered Kokanko against her soft, furred chest. To comfort. To muffle.
“I’m sorry.” IssaInna chanted in whispers. “You’re okay. I’m here. Would you like me to comb your hair? Would that feel nice?”
Kokanko nodded against IssaInna’s chest.
“Alright, Ee-Ee’s got you,” IssaInna exhaled as she lifted Kokanko onto the calfskin stool, ignoring every leaking vile and spilled jar.
In obstinate beauty, Kokanko stared into the only mirror, a humble oval of polished obsidian; her dark skin echoed its gleam. The miri synced their breathing. IssaInna combed Kokanko’s silvery hair, a stark contrast to the typical Mansan black. Despite this, she looked virtually like a Mansa, but she wasn’t. Kokanko was an Angel.
Both miri had traditional long hair, but that was IssaInna’s only option because her hair was quilled. Grandelder often assured IssaInna that her quills were more desirable because sand easily slid through. IssaInna would smile politely but was jealous of bristle hair for its ability to be cut and shaped. Bristle hair was preferred in the cities where they didn’t have to wear veils, or dhoti that bagged around the ankles, or tunics that hid the body. IssaInna knew the body as sacred. What is hidden is closer to the Unseen One’s holiness. This hardly stopped her from imagining herself in the fashions encouraged by the Angels themselves. Miri, nubu, kori, and other genders could wear tight clothes, show their face to the light, and cut their hair in short, geometric shapes. IssaInna shuddered with a craving that carved her bones at the thought of such outlandish expression.
The room’s chaos summoned a furious, churning breeze that squeaked and grumbled as it struggled to lift the edges of Grandelder’s discarded blanket, oils soaked into the cloth’s celestial patterns. Grandelder Mamani, gendered a nubu, lifted the door flap and shuffled into the room. They were hunched and gloriously bald, as all elders lose their hair. They held a delicate plate of teal-colored glass with golden palm sugar lumps.
“I heard mischief. IssaInna, what happened here?” They sucked their teeth.
The hairs on IssaInna’s tail puffed.
Kokanko turned and spoke in a voice like a stream lapping the wet season’s first rain, “I’m sorry Grandelder, I awoke with such excitement for the market that I made IssaInna wrestle with me.”
Grandelder didn’t blink, “IssaInna, look at me.” IssaInna set the bamboo comb with gentility, but it had a fracture along its spine.
She turned, “yes, Grandelder?”
“You are too grown for this mischief. And I see you’ve angered the Fae with your mess.”
IssaInna bowed in sapling grace. Wrapping her tail to her chest.
Grandelder bent over with the groan of cracking kindling and placed one sugar lump in front of the swirl of wind.
They clasped their hands and prayed, “May the darkness keep you, oh holy Unseen.”
With sugar, what was unseen became seen. The creature looked like a mango-sized Mansa with ashen skin instead of the Mansan burnt sienna, the same Mansan feline eyes with black sclera and pointed, thin ears. Unlike a Mansa, they had leathery clawed wings instead of arms. They greedily ate the sugar lump, bowed to Grandelder, and then hissed at IssaInna, whose nose wrinkled in an attempt not to hold the insult. The Fae looked up at Kokanko and tilted their head. She stuck her tongue out and smiled. The Fae laughed like a shepherd’s whistle and returned the face before shifting into a tiny tornado to sweep the miris’ mess.
…
Breakfast for IssaInna and Grandelder Mamani was fonio with lentils in a chili peanut sauce. The Angels offered consistent bountiful harvests, but Grandelder insisted on keeping meals humble. They would say, we thank the Angels. We honor the Unseen.
Kokanko plugged in her metallic collar. It hummed as electricity pulsed into her body as sustenance. She swayed, eyes closed, dreaming.
“It’s unnatural for you to be eating this. I make good food,” Grandelder snorted. A daily complaint.
“Your food is the best Grandelder. I wish I could eat it,” Kokanko cooed on cue.
“The cities have had electricity for ages. We’re the unnatural ones for waiting so long to adapt.” IssaInna mumbled that last part.
Grandelder shot a sharp look as IssaInna washed her dishes and started to leave.
“Eh, eh! Get back here. Two things.” Grandelder shuffled and collected mudcloths. “Bring these to market. And say good morning to Oracle. Rude child.” They sucked their teeth twice.
IssaInna nodded dutifully, “forgive me, Grandelder.”
“One more thing,” they gently pulled IssaInna’s face down, kissing her forehead. “I love you dark one.”
IssaInna melted into a soft smile and cradled the mudcloths before descending the stone steps into the cellar’s cool throat.
Kokanko unplugged and followed but stopped at the entrance to look at Grandelder.
“May I go to the market this time? If my wings are bound, and I am fully veiled?”
Grandelder sighed, and Kokanko understood, turned on her hoof, and descended behind IssaInna. The miris’ anklets chimed in harmony.
…
“My Kokanko?” A wheezing voice cut the dark. There was a strain of movement as mechanical whirring inhaled. Tiny, turquoise lights flickered, illuminating the worn, red stone cave with an otherworldly twinkling of technicolor stars. They could survive this far out in the desert, surrounded by red boulders and bamboo clusters, because their home was the cave’s mouth. The cellar protected meats, water, and other goods from the dry season’s aggression. It was also Oracle’s sanctuary. Oracle looked like Kokanko, a miri, with white hair, four arms, hooves, and a tail. Her wings were the curling, grey rose of a mourning dove. Oracle looked ageless in her fragility, and never left the machines attached to her collar.
“It’s me sister,” Kokanko sang with the brightness of a jewel beetle at dawn. She kneeled and wrapped her arms around Oracle’s unnatural waist. Oracle’s wings slid between the wires and held Kokanko in an embrace like pale hands.
Oracle had never harmed IssaInna, but she was not warm like Grandelder or jingling like Kokanko. IssaInna wouldn’t be here long.
“Good rising to you Oracle,” IssaInna bowed her head.
“Good rising, you may leave us.” She did not look up. She brushed Kokanko’s hair with her wingtips. Kokanko lay there smiling, eyes closed.
“Look at everything Ee-ee. I’ll miss you,” she did not open her eyes.
“And I’ll miss you.”
IssaInna lingered a moment after she shut the cellar and wished she held Kokanko this morning instead of pushing her off. As she walked away, yellow light streamed from beneath the cellar door, dappling the kitchen like the skittering legs of a hunting sun spider.
…
Grandelder would tell stories about the market, not of their own kithood, but their Grandelder’s Grandmother’s market. Before the Angels, the market was a craven beast with each Mansa operating like a different organ or limb trying to tear itself open. A market of screaming violence—all fighting to win the best price.
Grandelder would shudder and raise their crooked finger and announce, this was the world when gold ruled. When the Scholars kept all us Untaught poor and hungry. They made us mine their stones but lectured owning them was their burden. That the Unseen One wanted us to be pure of such material things. Yet the Scholars wrote a world where gold was survival, and so our ancestors fought and died for rocks. The land is set right for the Angels returning the minerals to the soil, back to the Unseen.
IssaInna’s market was insuppressible laughter, kits snatching treats with their tails and weaving between stalls, undulating scents of cured lamb and dried river perch, and copious piles of apricots, mangos, sorghum, and beans. The abundance spilled onto the sands. These stalls were rarely attended. Beneath wide, linen umbrellas, languid adults sang together and sipped goblets of faint emerald mint tea on woven rugs. Some sat proudly in front of deliciously intricate wares that were honed lovingly without profit’s hauntings. Most crafts and tools were carved from bamboo or glass blown from the sands. The only metal sanctioned by the Angels was copper but weapons were forbidden. Grandelder Mamani’s weavings were used to trade for crafts and prepared dishes. While gold was banned and trade was not required, it was polite to offer trade for labored works.
An elder called to IssaInna. He was gendered kori and covered his bald spot with an indigo turban. His remaining bristles stuck out the back.
“How does the Unseen watch the outlands, my most favored customer?”
“The Unseen keeps us Elder Mati. Have you…” IssaInna leaned toward him, “anything from the cities?”
“Does this answer your question?” He opened his mouth to show pearly teeth. They used to be like aching gravel.
IssaInna ears twitched, “did the Angels in the city fix your teeth?”
He grinned, “a Cleric Angel poured a silver potion into my mouth. I spit, then I have white fangs like a kit again!” He cackled. “The Clerics take too long to come out to our sands, so I had to go to them. Seems though I jumped over the sun too soon, a Cleric is coming to our village at sunrise tomorrow!”
“Here? The last time they came I was too young.”
“Ah yes, a glorious day. All healed that day. The Tassoumankan stayed quiet. But I fear it may not be that way tomorrow.” His point shook over IssaInna’s shoulder. She looked slyly back and saw a pack of Tassoumankan whispering to each other. As if by instinct the leader, Sonrai, a kori, shot his golden eyes through the slit in his veil in their direction. IssaInna and Elder Mati quickly tucked their scarves over their nose and mouth. “Go, they are watching.”
IssaInna’s only path was past the gathered Tassoumankan. She quickened, but Sonrai’s words caught her by the back of her neck.
“IssaInna. You do not see the One, but they see you. Keep your face hidden.” IssaInna turned on her heel and bowed her head.
“Apologies. May the darkness keep you.” IssaInna hid her shaking hands. While many villagers compromised modesty with flowing tunics and scarves, the Tassoumankan moved together in long indigo veils that swallowed everything but their eyes. They swayed their bodies as starling murmuration.
Jalikoro, a leeni gender, and Sonrai’s pactmate came forward from the cluster. IssaInna knew it was Jalikoro by zir eyes, green unripe figs, attentive like a mother scorpion. Zie placed zirself between Sonrai and IssaInna. Jalikoro was the Tassoumankan’s storykeeper and kept their memories alive.
“IssaInna! By the Unseen’s blessing you’ve grown quite tall.” Even through zir veil, IssaInna could see zir smile with full fangs. On zir shoulder was a shadowy outline of a Fae, the size of a peanut shell. Jalikoro tore off a bit of candied date and placed it onto zir shoulder. While eating, the Fae revealed himself to have the abdomen of a scarab beetle, but the torso of a Mansan kit. “You see the Fae?”
IssaInna nodded.
“Blessings! Many have lost their ability to see the ripples in the shadows, let alone provide them offerings. Bewitched by the Angels’ light, many Mansa have forgotten the Unseen’s children,” zie sighed. “This betrayal has eaten many Fae alive. Corrupted them. Fae can only hold one emotion at a time you know? I saved this one from his own mother. She would’ve eaten him.” Zie sucked zir teeth then placed a bag of spices in IssaInna’s hand. “Take this to Guardian Mamani. You’re both welcome to come to prayer anytime.”
Prayer meant sitting silently in pitch-black rooms with Tassoumankan for hours. Grandelder, devout as they were would say, my prayer is in my weaving. But IssaInna knew Grandelder found traditional prayer boring.
IssaInna took one more glance at Sonrai, who had already forgotten her and engaged in conversation more pungent and boiling than a young miri’s misstep. IssaInna ran home.
…
The Fae beckoned Kokanko to play with them further into the boulder fields. They flapped higher, encouraging Kokanko to fly.
“Wait! I have questions!” The Fae flew off into the bamboo grove to hide. Kokanko started to flap her wings, sending sand everywhere. She strained, then gave up and ran, breaking the inky meniscus of shadow in the bamboo grove. “Fae! Where are you? Have you ever seen another Ang—”
Kokanko’s voice broke as two Mansan kits stared at her, pupils flickering. Kokanko stepped back, but didn’t move beyond that. She was fascinated. The smaller kit, a nubu, glanced up at the taller one, a kori, who looked closer to Kokanko’s age. The kori stepped hesitantly in front. And then another step with more assuredness until he was in front of Kokanko. Their breath kindred.
“You’re no god,” the kori grabbed one of her left arms. It tingled as he squeezed.
“Who said I was?”
“You Angels! My family said, they, they said you think you’re god, but that’s a lie!” He gripped tighter.
“Ow!”
“Farka you’re hurting her, stop!” The nubu whimpered.
Cries echoed off the boulders, “Kokanko! I’m home! Where are you?”
“Yell and I’ll break your arm!” This new voice panicked Farka.
“Ee-ee, I’m here!”
Farka twisted her arm. The friction ignited desire. An overwhelming need to crush him smaller than sand. Kokanko raised her arms to strike him, but the Fae burst from hiding. Farka fell back. The Fae transformed into a fox-sized, snarling beast, with a serpentine head, spines, and elongated claws from their wings and feet. They arched their back and got between Kokanko and Farka, hissing at him. IssaInna ran into the grove. An oxidized copper sickle in her hand.
“Who do you belong to?!” IssaInna panted. Farka stuttered, absorbed in Kokanko’s broiling stare. “I said who do you belong to?!”
“I made my shadow pact with the ones who birthed me. With Sonrai and Jalikoro of the Tassoumankan. Drissa was also birthed by them but is without pact and belongs to the village.”
IssaInna tensed and raised the sickle higher. The nubu, Drissa, dropped to their knees before the Fae.
“Holy Unseen! She’s yours and we didn’t know! Forgive us!” The Fae went to claw Drissa’s face. Farka scooped Drissa up in his arms as Kokanko grabbed the hissing Fae. The kits ran far out of the grove. The Fae clawed at Kokanko’s chest, swallowed by its anger. IssaInna pulled the Fae off and threw them into the bamboo. She didn’t know if they could change back. Kokanko stared, unblinking, at the ground.
“Farka.”
“What?”
“His name is Farka.”
“Yes, and he’s Tassoumankan and now they’ll know we have Angels, have you!” IssaInna pulled, but Konkanko, once weightless, became lead, gravity, the bottom of the sea. IssaInna tripped slightly, shocked. She put her hand on Kokanko’s shoulder.
“What’s wrong?”
“I could have killed him,” she whispered. No blood ran from Kokanko’s chest.
…
The news sent Grandelder into fearful prayers and Oracle to hushed strategizing. The two miri were sent to bed. They held each other, pressing their foreheads together.
“Ee-ee?”
“Yes?”
“What’s a shadow pact?”
“Mansa are born untethered, not even bound to the ones who birthed us. Raised by the village. When you’re old enough, you can make a shadow pact with someone to declare your bond. They cannot be broken.”
“Have you ever made one?”
“Yes, with Grandelder Mamani. Birth parents deeply crave to make a pact with their offspring, but they must accept the kit’s decision. Mine were not alive to try to earn my shadow pact. You didn’t know because no one talks about a shadow pact before it happens. You don’t mention it after unless someone asks. When two or more agree on a bond, it happens in the night under a ceremonial veil, before no one but the Unseen.”
Kokanko's eyes shifted away from IssaInna, “that kori, Farka, hated me.”
“He is Tassoumankan. They see anything not of the Unseen to be violent blasphemy.”
“Like me?”
“The Unseen watches you Kokanko. Tassoumankan are narrow. They keep everyone in the village in line with their brutal ways.” IssaInna attempted to sound braver. “Out here we listen to Grandelder. The Desert Guardian. Grandelder was born into the Tassoumankan but made no shadow pact with them.”
“I see,” Kokanko considered quietly, “today I thought I might be taken like Oracle has warned me. Will you make a shadow pact with me? One where we can stay together?” IssaInna jolted up and Kokanko followed.
“With all my heart.” They used Grandelder’s mudcloth as the veil. It’s starry patterns lost in the indulgence of the moonless bedroom. Kokanko’s wings stuck out with fledgling ineptitude. “Follow my words. Before the Unseen One/We are/One Unseen.”
“And now?”
“To seal it you kiss each other. On the forehead for family. On both cheeks for friendship. On...the lips for mates.”
Kokanko nodded. She kissed IssaInna on the forehead. On each cheek. Without hesitating, she kissed IssaInna on the mouth. IssaInna’s hands shook until Kokanko entwined her fingers with them. Kokanko received a kiss on the forehead, a kiss on each cheek, and then a slow kiss on the mouth. Kokanko held IssaInna’s face with her second set of hands.
Thunder bellowed at the front door. They jumped and tore the mudcloth. Grandelder shuffled down the hall and opened the door wide. Unafraid.
“Young Sonrai, you’ve brought your whole family to my door. It is customary to give three days of food preparation before a sacred gathering in the Unseen’s night. I hope you forgive my rudeness but I have nothing but tea and some day-old bouille to share.”
“We know you have an Angel.” Sonrai pushed past Grandelder and a flood of Tassoumankan filled the kitchen like ink.
“Sonrai, how dare you!” A growl rumbled from Jalikoro’s throat as zie pushed to the front. “You have forgotten yourself. Guardian forgive us. This is my son Farka.” The kori from the bamboo grove stepped forward. His head low. “He tells us that a young Angel lives here. We have no love for Angels, but we have respect and love for you. You have been Guardian of the outlands before many of us were born. We wish only to question the Angel to protect the village.” Grandelder looked to Sonrai, who looked away.
“You may meet her, but she will know nothing about Angels. She was raised with me. She is Mansa. However, her sister told me this day might come. You may ask her.”
“You keep two demons in the house of the Tassoumankan!” Sonrai towered over Grandelder.
“It’s my house now,” Grandelder didn’t break eye contact. “Kokanko, IssaInna, come bring our guests to Oracle.”
Holding hands, the miri walked out, their heads bowed. Kokanko’s wings scraped against the walls. All Tassoumankan held their breath. The new pactmates did not look up, simply opened the cellar door and descended. The Tassoumankan followed Sonrai down.
Oracle’s lights were twittering, anticipating.
Sonrai eyes darted over Oracle’s fragile form, “it seems you may not be immortal after all.” A wheezing hiss shot out of several machines. This was Oracle’s laugh.
“We are not. But we are much closer than you beasts.”
“Demon,” Sonrai hissed as he stepped forward.
The Tassoumankan closed in, shoulders rolling as they stalked. IssaInna’s joints prepared to spring to the door, but Kokanko pulled her in front of Oracle with her. Kokanko’s wings extended as instinctual intimidation. Wider than fear. Jalikoro stepped forward.
Zir voice echoed, “do you know who we are?”
“Tassoumankan. The failed revolutionaries. Your ancestors were too cowardly to take down the Scholars, so the Angels did it for you.”
Hisses reverberated but Jalikoro remained still, “we did not ask for this, but your kind asks of us to disown the Unseen and love only Angels. Tomorrow a Cleric and her guards come to our village to ensure we love them. We do not. Everyone is in danger. So I ask you, Oracle, will you protect your Mansa family? Will you tell us how to kill an Angel?”
“No.”
Jalikoro inhaled sharply, but Sonrai got there first. Tears soaked through his veil.
“Tassoumankan withered from sorrow and died in this house! Our purpose stolen. Corrupted!”
Oracle looked unphased, “you protect no one by killing the Angel. It will be the beginning of suffering, not the end.”
Sonrai unveiled a copper scimitar.
“Stop!” A voice, tiny as Indigofera blossoms, roared. Drissa, the nubu, stood before Sonrai, the Mansa that birthed them. Fists clenched, they hissed, “there will be no bloodshed in the Unseen’s night!” Their face told everyone they had no intention to make pact with their birth family. This poison crept into Sonrai’s veins. He lowered his scimitar and stepped back.
“We’re leaving,” he pushed through the Tassoumankan with the resistance of black water. Jalikoro hesitated, but said nothing, then ascended the stairs.
…
In bed, the miri held each other so every part of them touched.
“Are you immortal?”
“All I know is that this is not my true form. This body you see, sister calls a ‘density hologram.’ I can be injured but I can recalibrate.” She took IssaInna’s hand and rubbed it on her chest, which was smooth. No Fae wounds.
“Why don’t I know your body?”
“Oracle says it will scare you. And when I’m in it I feel weak. Maybe then someone could kill me?”
“No one will kill you! And, you could never scare me. I know you. You’re my pactmate.” They wept until they fell asleep.
Their bedroom door flap was torn down and Kokanko was dragged by her hair and wings out of the room. Tassoumankan claws grabbed IssaInna’s arms and pushed her out into the sands. Grandelder was escorted with timid reverence. Sharpened bamboo sticks held IssaInna and Grandelder still. They were surrounded. Kokanko was in the center shrieking with otherworldly trills. Her hooves kicked sand everywhere. Her hair tethered to Sonrai’s hands. IssaInna screamed for Jalikoro or Drissa, but they were nowhere. The rising sun painted their indigo veils a poisonous violet. Tassoumankan shadows wounded the desert.
“If you do not tell us how to kill Angels, then we will have to experiment before the Cleric arrives.” He yanked Kokanko back to reveal her throat and raised his scimitar.
“Don’t!” IssaInna sobbed. “These bodies, they aren’t their bodies—” Panic suffocated Kokanko’s words so she hissed and spat for IssaInna to stop. IssaInna swallowed hard, “you have to get them to transform. They’re weaker then and you…can kill them.”
Sonrai threw Kokanko at IssaInna’s feet. The bamboo withdrew. IssaInna collapsed and buried herself in Kokanko’s wings.
“I promised Drissa I would not kill you, today.” He nodded, and the Tassoumankan slithered, their backs to the sun.
“How could you?” Kokanko choked before running inside.
By the time IssaInna aided Grandelder downstairs, Kokanko was hiding behind Oracle, weeping.
“You’ve doomed us,” Oracle wheezed.
“They’re going to kill that Cleric and—” IssaInna was interrupted.
“It’s the Tassoumankan that will die. Kokanko has no idea what we are and I realize it has been my miscalculation to withhold the truth.” A yellow brilliance made Grandelder and IssaInna cover their eyes but it did not protect them from the uncontrollable dread that pierced their minds. “Be not afraid.” IssaInna felt the verbal frequencies of the sonic deactivation code as her mother’s thumb smearing cool mud on her forehead at high noon. A memory of infancy unlocked. She was released, calm. Her eyes adjusted.
Kokanko and Oracle were not Mansa. Their bodies were huge interlocking golden rings. Not gold like metal, a living light. They pulsed, blinked. Unfamiliar eyes with bulging white sclera and cornflower irises grew around their surfaces. They had no wings but hovered above the ground. The rings that formed Kokanko floated next to Oracle. She was significantly larger and had nine rings while Oracle had three. Her rings spun around each other in metallic, whirring song. IssaInna stepped forward, her hand fighting to reach out. Kokanko hovered toward IssaInna but Oracle interveined.
“We are Mellifera,” Oracle spoke through manipulated vibrations that resonated in many voices. Unmoving, all of her eyes looked at Kokanko, who looked down at the ground. “We are not gods. There are no gods. Only energy. Calculations. We are a hive. There are thousands of us.”
“Where?” Kokanko’s eyes widened. IssaInna relaxed her shoulders. Her body was transformed but her voices were still honey-tongued. She was Kokanko.
“Our Mother’s ship rests as the sky, invisible to the Mansa.”
“Mother?” Kokanko’s rings whirled faster, her light gleamed.
“We serve the Great Mother who birthed all Mellifera. Even here we serve her though she doesn’t know.” All of Oracle’s eyes closed as a sigh. “Mellifera do not make their food like these terrestrial plants nor eat flesh like beasts. We collect the psychic energy of other species’ adoration and turn it into nectar. After descending on a primitive planet we take their form, offer technological solutions, and harvest their gratitude through Clerics. Kokanko and I are weaker in our true form because we have been feeding on electricity. It maintains us, but it’s not sufficient.”
“You’re not magick? But your potions? You make plants grow and rocks dissolve?”
“Those ‘potions’ are nanobots. DNA-enhancing fertilizer. Density manipulators. It’s science. You’re magick,” she sneered. “All Mellifera are named for their function. I am Calculator, but it translates for you as Oracle. I analyze time and calculate the most probable futures. We’re often opposed. Many species cannot understand the benefit of our symbiosis. We then resort to fear-based tactics. We can harvest fear, but it’s not as nutritious and unsustainably drains our subject’s physical forms.
This planet is different. I told the Great Mother my analysis: a deep magick lives within the Fae. One the Mansa would hone in collaboration with the Fae’s rage. Together they would kill hundreds of Mellifera. In response, she created Weapon.”
“What’s the weapon?”
“Not what, who.” Grandelder stepped forward, eyes fixed on Kokanko as her whirring slowed to stillness.
“You knew?” Kokanko resonated as a thousand whispers in all directions.
“I did young one. I know who you are and what you're capable of. Still, I raised you. Protected Oracle. Protected your secret.” Grandelder’s eyes welled up, “I held you, a beautiful jellied egg…” Grandelder’s voice trailed off as they cried.
“What am I capable of?”
“Absolute destruction,” Oracle said flatly. “That jelly was Maternal Nectar. There are two kinds of Angels. Warriors and Clerics. Killers and healers. A Mother produces Maternal Nectar once in her life and gives it to a worthy Cleric spawn to grow and start her own hive. You’re a Warrior spawn and cannot give birth. Mother’s actions revealed new data and thereby new prophecy: Weapon would be a Mother of Death. You would kill thousands of Mansa. That grief would awaken the Fae like never before and they would kill every Mellifera.”
“But this is my home!”
“Precisely. To recalibrate this future I stole your egg. When Grandelder found me dying in the desert this provided new data. They could teach you how to love Mansa and Fae, neutralizing any desire for their termination. In secret. Your function as Weapon will rapidly accelerate unless we keep you malnourished. If the Mellifera found you before your reprogramming, they would complete your metamorphosis into a Mother powerful enough to convert this desert to glass. You had to be trained first.”
“I wanted to kill Farka.”
Oracle’s pupils dilated.
“I want to kill Farka and Sonrai for touching me!” Kokanko’s rings spun faster and screamed. Grandelder covered their ears. IssaInna lept forward, linking her arms through a ring. A burning cold. A freezing heat. Kokanko resisted her and pounded her arms in gyroscopic frenzy. IssaInna wouldn’t let go. Kokanko tired. The rings slowed. Deep bruises bloomed in IssaInna’s arms. All of Kokanko’s eyes were crying iridescence.
“Ee-ee?”
“I’m here Kokanko.”
Oracle stiffened, “IssaInna, find the Tassoumankan and warn them.”
“But—”
“Go!” The dread surged. IssaInna pressed her forehead against Kokanko’s rings and then ran. Kokanko hovered into the cave's darkness and prayed to the Unseen One.
...
IssaInna ran to the abandoned library, a sculpted mud temple that twisted around a spiral staircase that led to nowhere. The remaining books were entombed by ash and sand. Once the Scholars, it belonged to the Tassoumankan now. The streets were empty. The only sound was the leather door of the library flapping in the desert winds. IssaInna flattened her body against the library and peered inside.
An Angel was tied to a chair, swarmed by Tassoumankan. Her vibrant garments revealed her face and soft, auburn stomach. She had white bristle hair cut in a diagonal that hugged her neck. Her wings, thin as herons’.
“What is the meaning of this? I’m here to heal!” she screeched. The Tassoumankan melded together but IssaInna heard Sonrai above them all. Saw the glint of his scimitar.
“For the Unseen.” A chorus echoed his words and they stabbed into the Angel.
A scream punctured the village and golden light gouged IssaInna’s eyes, searing the skin on her face and arms. She fell, blinded. She heaved against the library with dread. When her sight crept back into her eyes, pale halos encompassed all she saw. A low growling permeated the library’s porous walls. She blinked hard and ripped the door open. The Mellifera’s rings collapsed into a pile. Three Fae, in bestial forms, gnawed at the Mellifera. Her light dimmed and then was gone. Husks that were once the Tassoumankan lay shriveled in indigo chrysalides.
IssaInna had never heard the pulse of wings cut through atmosphere, nor felt the wind betray gravity for the adoration of flight. Two Mellifera, with scimitars in all four of their arms, flew so close over IssaInna that she could smell their acrid sweetness. The same scent as Kokanko. She wondered if the scimitars too were illusions. Were their scarlet skirts with tinkling bells a collective dream? What did nakedness mean to an Angel, to Kokanko, when they anointed each other with olive oil in the Unseen’s night? When IssaInna combed Kokanko’s hair, could she feel it? And were the hairs left on the bamboo comb a trick of the light? The warriors did not answer. They did not see IssaInna, held by morning’s shadow. It was still morning after all when the Angels were reminded they are not immortal, Jalikoro learned zie had no pactmate, and Grandelder questioned the existence of god. IssaInna was still as she watched the Angels enter the library. They made no sound. Neither did she. The wind swarmed in a new direction, and IssaInna’s scarf flew off her face to join the revelry. The air tasted like copper.