Dome Chapter 23
The Parents
Terra stared into the fire. The only feeling of warmth in the cold room, no bigger than a closet. She sat seiza, as customary of one awaiting deliberation among the elders.
It took fifteen weeks of intense geological survey, soil tests, and microscopic observations of dirt particles; no one can quite understand the pain of arching one’s neck to peer into a microscope while seven months pregnant, but it would be worth it. Once the elders see what they found, they have to agree with the research.
“You cannot be sure of anything,” Hugo told her once. “The elders have always been suspicious of science. It was science after all that led to the Days of Fire.”
How? It’s simple; what is is. You discover how something works, and now the world is less mysterious.
But it seemed to Terra that people like mystery, or need it. Most people don’t know how crops grow; they just need them to grow.
Her stomach dropped. Here she was now, asking that they burn an entire season’s worth of crops because the dirt told her to.
It sounds as ridiculous as a bone reader.
She huffed a tired breath from her lungs.
The door behind her slid open, and a guard appeared at the door. Her muscles tensed.
“They’re ready for you,” his voice low, quiet, heavy. Her fists clenched. He heard everything the elders talked about. He knows already.
Waddling to the side, she tried to get up, but her large, pregnant belly was making it all the more difficult. She was in her final month now, and it could not be over soon enough.
The guard stooped down to help her, but she pushed his arm away.
No, I don’t want to see your face. I don’t want to see the pity, the fear. I don’t want to know what you know yet.
Placing her hand on the floor, she pushed herself up to her knees and, leaning on the wall, lifted herself to her feet. The guard stood there, mouth agape, bumbling about, not sure what to do for her.
She lifted her hand to him. “I can do this!”
His cheeks flushed red as he grimaced.
I didn’t mean to hurt his feelings, but his fumbling is enough to make the mountains lose patience.
There I go worrying about others’ fragile egos as though it’s my responsibility to reassure everyone.
Following the guard, she entered the elder’s chamber and, climbing down to her knees, resumed the seiza position at the center of the room facing the stage.
A familiar knock as the door to the stage opened, and seven men dressed all in black wearing white masks walked onto the stage.
The lives of hundreds of villagers lay in their hands, and they still followed the ceremony. Resuming their ridiculous positions.
Zoraster was one of them. She didn’t know which. She did not want to know. It would only make her angrier to think of him sitting (or lying) in one of these idiotic positions. His devotion to their dying authority. No one took them seriously anymore. Not even the king. But it meant everything to Zoraster to be the youngest elder; they even gave him the title of Child Elder, though he was entering his thirties.
She suspected, however, it had less to do with Zoraster’s talents as a mage and more with the elders’ attempt to recapture the youth, a gesture that no one wanted nor accepted.
Yet, with all that in mind, the elders still managed the village's daily operations, which is why she was subjected to their banality.
Clear the mind.
Clear the heart.
Her anger was getting the better of her again. She didn’t know yet what their decision was. They may side with her.
There is no past.
There is no future
There is only now.
Be in the now.
A sigh strained through her lips, putting in as much effort as possible not to make it noticeable.
Zoraster knew her contempt for the elders, but as for the rest of them, she hoped to make as strong an impression as possible. There are lives at stake here, and these men’s egos are the line between saving them and destroying them.
Men and their egos. If anything caused the Days of Fire–
Stop.
You’re making yourself angry again.
Clear the mind.
Clear the heart.
Hugo taught her that. He had seen her anger and taught her to control it. Everyone else saw her anger as a danger, but Hugo taught her to channel it.
“Let it fuel your passion,” he told her. “Your anger will propel you, and how much sweeter it will be when they see your success.”
They were both misfits. Hugo was unable to use any magic even though he burned with the desire to learn. Terra was mediocre at best, but she lit up when Hugo showed her science for the first time.
Science, another type of magic, but knowable. No guessing. No trusting old men with their old traditions. No authority of the past on the future.
No. Science is knowable. It has rules. Clear rules. Follow the rules, and you obtain a result. Information. Data. The world made plain and clear.
A world they could make.
He had shown her his plan. His secret. His dream. The Project. The Dome.
“Terra, Sorceress of Dento,” the middle elder called in a deep, husky voice.
She did her best to bow in acknowledgment, but, being in the ninth month of pregnancy, her stomach hit the floor before her back could even form an angle.
At the sight of her struggle, the men on stage looked at one another until the middle elder lifted his hand to signal his acceptance of her attempted reverence.
“Terra,” the middle elder began, his voice utilizing the tonal mysteria to disguise everything about his voice but his words, “we thank you for your efforts in compiling your agricultural research. As is the custom in a situation like this, we would like to hear your closing statement before the verdict is given.”
Knowing that the custom to address the elders required the speaker to bow while giving their oration, Terra bent her neck to make as clear a bow as possible.
“My lords,” the word feeling dirty in her mouth, “thank you for listening to the data and research I humbly compiled. Please consider that these are the facts of the matter. The winter was particularly harsh this year due to fallout from the Days of Fire. The rains carried with them toxic radiation that polluted our soil. This year's crops are harmful to villagers, cattle, and our children. Therefore, I present my opinions humbly, lords, that we must exterminate this year’s crops.”
Silence fell over the room. Some of the masked men turned to one another; some fixed their stares toward oblivion, but Terra could feel a mournful cloud hanging over them all.
The middle elder’s voice sliced through the cloud like a beam of light. “Right, Elder, present your verdict.”
The elder on the far right is in a genuflecting posture with his right hand looped under his right thigh, the tips of his fingers touching the tips of his left fingers.
Zoraster had once explained to her that each pose held significance and channeled certain magical properties, but any further information was kept secret by the elders. Even if he did want to indulge her, it would have passed through one ear and out the other. Positional magic was utterly too ridiculous for her.
Like a sprouting plant, the elder untwined himself to his feet.
“The Council of Elders has convened,” his voice also using the tonal mysteria. “A final vote has been reached. In a tally of four to three, the council has decided to maintain crop supplies for the seasonal cycle.”
Terra could feel water forming in her eyes.
“Farming and harvesting are to resume on schedule.”
She covered her mouth, fighting every urge to scream.
“To avoid hysteria, all data on soil research will be sealed–”
Her face glowed red.
“–and all involved from researchers to the council are barred from any public discussion on the matter.”
Her fist pounded the mat floor as she let out a small cry.
For a moment, the decorum faded as the seven men watched a pregnant woman mourn the deaths of hundreds. The leftmost elder got up first and moved back to the door they had come from. The rest followed, solemn shadows preparing for a funeral procession.
“No!” Terra cried.
They turned.
“No, you don’t get to make that decision.” Tears streamed from Terra’s face as she looked up at them. The burning rage in her gave her the strength to lift herself up. The ceremony, the lies, the secrets, she was going to make the truth clear. “Their blood is on your hands!”
“We accept that reality,” the middle elder stated.
“But the reserves.”
“That was discussed and taken into consideration.”
“And? Is it possible for us to survive on the reserves?”
Silence as the elders looked at one another. An unspoken answer.
“Rest assured,” the middle elder’s head tilted in the direction of her belly, “that your family will be safe.”
Her eyes widened as the words unlocked the full truth. “You’re keeping the reserves for yourselves.”
A warm breeze whipped through the room, and embers appeared around her face. Fading into a sharp glow of hot red light.
“Terra!” a voice came from one of the elders; it was not clear which, but at the sound of it, she calmed her storm. The embers evaporated into smoke.
Zoraster…
The other elders turned toward a tall elder wearing a small, square white mask and a naive smile. His height immediately shrank at their unseeable glares, and without a word, he was the first to exit the stage.
Typical.
She now felt loneliness like she had never known, a rabbit surrounded by wolves. Her stomach convulsed as she felt the baby in her stomach kick. She doubled over from the pain.
“I understand that your…” the middle elder’s head once more nodded to her belly, “...condition can cloud your judgment. For that reason, we will ignore this transgression. I’m sure once you see whose life you saved, your opinion will change.”
With that, they left.
The pieces of wood lay on the floor; Zoraster stood over them, contemplating how they were to be assembled into a crib. While he had seen carpenters at their tasks, he himself had never attempted it, and even though it would probably be more efficient for him to pay someone himself, or even use magic, he found that since Terra had told him about the pregnancy, he had a strong desire to do more with his hands.
Besides, he thought as he rolled a wooden cylinder in his hand. It would mean so much more to them if it were something their dad built himself rather than bought, and even if I am better at magic, they can see that being good at magic doesn’t mean you cannot be good at other things.
He picked up a longer piece of wood from the golden wood floor.
This must be the railing.
He stuck the cylinder into a hole in the railing and found it was far too big to fit.
Maybe this is the leg.
Muffled sobs echoed from behind the thick wooden walls of the house.
He knew where they were coming from and whose they were. A part of him knew that he was building this crib to hide from those sobs.
There was nothing to be done. The Council made its decision; he was only to add one more vote.
The actual number, though, shocked him. Elder Caiaphas assured him that the Council would vote unanimously.
But three broke. If he had voted against the Council, even as a protest, it would have swayed everything.
He could hear a sob through the wooden wall.
His heart stung.
I can’t go in there. She’ll find out.
She always found a way to twist the truth from him. Her words, she could use them better than he could use magic.
The wood door to the bedroom slid open. Terra stood in the doorway, her black hair over her pale brown face in a stringy tangle. Beneath her large pregnant belly, he could still see the slender form that ignited his passion. Even now, greasy and sullen, she looked like the specter of a haunted princess, whose decay only accentuates her most beautiful aspects.
The sting in his heart worsened. What could he do to make it better?
It was his fault. His deciding vote.
How do you take back murder?
Maybe if he could finish the crib.
She passed by him, her soft feet silent on the wood floor as her hand glided over the carved floral patterns on the wall.
He avoided her glance, pretending to estimate the correct size of another piece of wood that he could not identify.
The phantom passed by him, and he sighed a breath of relief.
Perhaps I can hire a carpenter and pretend I did this.
A loud thump echoed from the hallway. It sounded as though Terra was in the pantry.
Good, at least she is eating again.
He found a thinner wooden cylinder, and after pushing it into the hole in the railing, it seemed either too small or the right size. He squinted at it, trying to figure out if he did it right.
His heart stopped as a scream rang down the hallway. A banshee could not heave anything more harrowing. Pain, sadness, and frustration ran down the wood floor to his ears.
Scrambling to his feet, he turned the corner and stepped down into the cool, shaded pantry to find Terra sitting on the ground, crying, in her arms a loaf of bread.
He held himself back.
This is dangerous. One wrong word and she’ll know.
He bent down, reaching out to her. “Did you slip?”
She slapped his hand away. “How many people did this bread kill?”
“Terra,” his voice dry, “you can’t think of it like that.”
“How else is there?”
“Our child needs to eat; we have to feed them.”
Her fingers clutched the bread, drilling holes in it with her nails. “And how many mothers and babies had to die so I could feed mine?”
He took a deep breath.
There is no argument that I can give her. She doesn’t want ideas. She wants me to feel with her.
He bent a knee to move closer to her.
“I don’t know, none of us do. You did your best, but the Council gets to decide these things. You did your best, you tried, but it’s not your failure.”
Her eyes soften. He pets her hand.
She’s calming down.
“After all,” Zoraster continued, “it’s possible nobody will die.”
Hatred flashed in her eyes for a moment. “You think I’m stupid?”
“I’m not saying you’re wrong…”
Be careful.
“...but, look, you said that we’re looking at a sickness, right? Eating it will make people sick?”
She nodded her head.
“The body is strong, Terra. We’re a strong people. Consider the possibility that people can fight the illness and survive.”
“That’s not what Hugo thinks.”
Hugo.
Zoraster blew air through pursed lips.
He also studied under Hugo. It was required in the academy to have a primer on technology from before the Days of Fire. The only reason the elders required it was to remind everyone of its evils, but he also suspected that it existed to give Hugo a job.
“Hugo may know a lot about math and technology, but what does he know about people?”
“Enough to know they can’t be trusted,” her words filled with venom.
“But Hugo can be?”
“He cares about the truth.”
Zoraster rolled his eyes as he got to his feet.
Not this conversation, again. The accusation. Her black-and-white thinking. Her inability to see the gray in truth.
“And I don’t?”
She hesitated as though the words that she wanted to say were trapped. Trapped behind what? Zoraster could not tell, but he sensed she was withholding something from him. It made his stomach hurt.
Whatever she’s holding on to, I’m not afraid. Just tell me.
“What?” Pride in his voice as his chest puffed up. “What were you about to ask?”
She glanced up at him. Calm, serene. Her black eyes pierced through his green. The dark pools reflected the galaxy; she didn’t need magic; they had their hold on him.
“Which way did you vote?”
He blinked before his eyes could give it away.
“The vote was four to three.” Terra’s eyes became darker like a shark that smelt blood. “One vote made the difference. Which way did you vote?”
It was inevitable. There was no way out of the conversation. It was one that would have happened regardless.
His eyes broke her hold. “I voted for what I thought was right.”
Please, let that be enough.
She knew he couldn’t divulge the vote.
He peeked back over to her. The predatory stare gone. Replaced was something worse.
Disappointment.
Her voice was quiet, and yet what she said next drifted in his mind forever: “Then their blood is on your hands.”
His eyes became moist. He clenched his jaw and tightened his fists.
It’s not fair.
Air flowed through his nose, stinging his nostrils.
What did she know? Had he known, he would have voted the other way. If he voted against the Council, it would have made their lives so much worse. It was the right decision.
“You have no right to judge me,” his voice cold.
“That doesn’t stop you from judging everyone else. You think you’re so intelligent–so pious, so much better than the rest of us, but look at you. You can’t even build a baby crib.”
He gripped the wood in his hand. She was right, for all the information he had, for all of his devotion to the elders, he knew so little about what was real.
But one thing was not true. He did not think he was better than other people. Truly, in his heart he knew. Maybe others were intimidated by his knowledge and abilities, but he believed anyone else should be able to do what he could. He believed Terra could, but when he tried, she would accuse him of being too demanding, too insensitive, too inflexible.
That’s what excellence takes.
But what is excellence in being a mage if you fail as a man?
What would his father say? Would he be as ashamed of him as he was with himself?
No, I can’t go there right now. This isn’t about that. She’s just angry that we voted against her. This is just another one of her tantrums.
“If we destroy the crops, we all starve. This way some can survive.”
Focus on the moment, press those feelings down.
“And who gets to decide that?” accusation in Terra’s voice. “A bunch of feeble old men and their pet?”
Now, she is just trying to anger me. Trying to get me caught up in my own emotions. No, I’m not playing into this.
He stared directly into her eyes. “You’re getting emotional.”
She stared back. The black portals into the universe became the gates of hell.
The pantry grew hot. Flames swarmed about her. The dark pantry brightened in a red heat as the flames formed around her.
Zoraster sighed.
Fire bellowed from the pantry as she stood up. Flames licked from her mouth as she spoke. “I wish I were emotional.”
He stood like a pillar of stone, refusing to give in. He knew the flames were not real. He knew she wasn’t even trying to intimidate him. She was wrapped in her emotions, and her energy was simply manifesting into illusory flames.
This is why you cannot master your powers.
“I see things more clearly now,” her voice, the sound of a storm. “Even my own husband is only a man, and we women are too fearful to stand up when we need to.” In a whirl of smoke and fire like a tornado as it all sucked down and in a puff, Terra stood in the doorway Here eyes narrowed, head high and proud. She stepped past Zoraster. “So, I shall leave.”
Zoraster rolled his eyes as he folded his arms. The theatrics.
“Where are you going?” An unconscious chuckle escaped from him.
She turned, all emotion smoldering inside her stare, “There are things that not even Zoraster, the Dragon Lord, knows.”
His eyes widened, “Hugo.”
It was now her time to chuckle, “Hugo is also a man, and it will only be time before he betrays me. I know what is right and no man will stop me.”
Before she could walk away, Zoraster reached out and snatched her by the wrist.
“I won’t let you. That child doesn’t belong to you alone; it’s my child as well.”
She smiled at him before he felt the sensation of electricity run through him. A painful vibration coursed through his entire body. Burning everything within him. He fell back.
“You men thought you could keep magic to yourselves. Enslave us with your secrets. What none of you realized was that there was something even more powerful. Science. Combined with magic, I will remake the world. No men. No women. Equal. Square. Like Science itself. No emotions and no pain.”
A pillar of fire rose into the air, and with a flash, fire sprayed across the room. No longer an illusion. Real, Burning. Consuming the hard carved walls in black and red.
On the floor where Terra once stood, a black scorch mark, like a black widow.
A gasp. Nadia’s lungs pounded against her chest with every desperate breath. The darkness fades. Zoraster’s face is the first thing she recognizes.
His eyes calm, gentle, healing.
“It’s ok, my baby, daddy is here.” She can feel his rough hand caressing her bald head as his voice becomes clearer. “You’re going to be ok.”
Somehow, his voice, the sudden awareness that he was holding her. It soothed her fear. Made her feel safe.
“I’m so sorry, Nadia.”
She realized that he was cradling her. Sitting on the stone ground and holding her as close as he could. He smelt of wood and fire.
Mother. Father. Daughter. Pain. Sadness. Loss.
All of it merging and forming like clay in her chest. With every understanding, a question. With every fulfillment, a loss. Her heart twisted as her mind made the connections that brought her to one truth she was sure of.
“Father…”
I was already sweating for Terra when she was explaining the situation with the year's crop! By the end of the chapter, I was ready to ride a revolutionary wave hahaha