Revelation

They were called the Celestial mountains, for they towered above the New Colony like the peaks of heaven. For thirty Mother Earth years, as the New Colony molded its new home, the colonists could only look at them with wonder. It was said that the perennial snow that graced their peaks was encrusted with diamonds, and they might have been, but no one now living had ever seen a real diamond. The one thing they did know for sure was that the mountains were a symbol of mystery and romance mixed with a terrible evil. They held the beauty and the ugliness of this precious new world in their image, but diamond peaks or not, they were also the home of the Nazgul...

On their last trip to the New Colony before the coming of the first Reckoning, the seven remaining Nazgul encountered two unprotected humans. The two species looked at each other curiously. For the humans, the small flying horses stirred instinctive memories of a home planet they had ever seen. For the Nazgul, the scent of these strange, wingless creatures, whose minds whistled with complex, frightening thoughts, made them crazy.

One imagines that the Great Disaster began with a battle, but that was not what happened on that fateful, double-moon evening. Nazgul approached human; human reached out to touch with the wonder and stupidity of a child. Torn wing. Scratched face. Alien blood mixing with alien blood. Confusion. Infection. And the history of a world so carefully chosen as the last hope of a dying planet was altered forever.

Who changed the Nazgul or the human? Both. The last of the Nazgul mutated in more ways than a simple infection would suggest. It was, in a fashion, like the piece of videre that Ellie Lewis tasted in the cafeteria of 28 Mercury. The Nazgul became like human memories. Human nightmares of vampires on a full moon night.

And what of The Two? They completed the nightmare in an act of feverish sabotage designed to kill all those who would dare change the planet to a copy of Mother Earth. They tried to kill them all, and they almost did, except for the forty-two children and three nurses housed in an isolated dome.

What saved the remains of the New Colony? A hitchhiker on a great galactic cruiser oddly named Chicken Pox.


"Bullshit," Ellie said, but without much enthusiasm. The remark was made more as a defense than a statement. She was lying on her couch feeling woozy. Benny had placed a cold wash cloth across her brow.

Benny smiled. "An odd expression. What does it mean?"

"It means that first you expect me to believe that a little squirt like you carried me all the way back here from the bell tower, and then you tell me that the New Colony was saved because of Chicken Pox?"

"Bullshit means all that?" Benny replied with absolute seriousness on his face.

"Oh, God!" Ellie exclaimed.

Benny sat there looking perplexed. At last, he spoke. "Ellie?"

Ellie was rubbing her temples, trying to sort out the shittiest day in her life. "What?" she said.

"Benny likes that word, 'bullshit'."

"That's great, Benny," she said, wishing he'd leave her to fall into blissful sleep.

"It's a much greater word than Chicken Pox."

"This is true, Benny," Ellie said, her voice now sounding far off.

"Ellie?"

"Yes?" she replied after a long pause.

"This whole thing is bullshit, isn't it?"

"I suspect it is, Benny," Ellie said as sleep gripped her in its arms. "I'm beginning to suspect it is."

Benny watched her silently for the longest time. He watched the swell of her breasts until her breathing slowed, and he knew she was asleep. After a time, he covered her with a blanket, secured the berth, and left her. Let her sleep, he reasoned. Maybe rest will restore her. But as he went to his own birth he couldn't help but think that Ellie Lewis would never be whole again.

****

"Benny, why do I work as a prostitute?" Ellie asked sadly, her eyes downcast. It was morning. They were drinking a New Colony version of coffee, a bitter brew called Kuva that tasted terrible but still managed to please the senses. Benny had brought it from the cafeteria in two thick mugs.

Ellie saw that Benny was uncomfortable with the question, but he was powerless to avoid it. She had come to realize that she had a power over him, and though it left her with a tinge of guilt, she felt obliged to use it. He squirmed in his seat, not wishing to answer.

"Benny," Ellie said, pressing.

"You are not working as a prostitute," he said, sounding as if the words had been pushed out of him. "You are serving your sentence."

Ellie was too stunned to speak.

"The New Colony is ruled by the Mission Controller, a person blessed with a Sacred Name, and granted power in the name of the Lords of Mercury," he explained. "The current Controller is a woman, Her Excellency Wilma Schirra. She wields the power; she possesses the name and authority."

"What does that have to do with me?" Ellie asked woodenly.

"They say you disgraced her son, the chosen successor."

"How did I do that?"

"They say you--seduced him."

"I what?"

"Benny does not believe any of it, Ellie," Benny said hurriedly, "but you must remember your last name is Lewis. It is not a Sacred Name, nor is mine for that matter. In that, we are like The Two. For us and those like us, the New Colony can be a very unpleasant place. The fundamentalists would have us all thrown to the Nazgul if they had their way, or return to the dark years of slavery, or at the very least banished to the wastelands beyond the Outer Territories. But there are those who don't agree. Those who would like to see the colony ruled by reason and truth, not superstition. The balance of power is fragile. Very fragile."

"That's all very interesting, Benny, but it's just more bullshit to me. Tell me, how did I come to seduce the Mission Controller's son?"

"You have never told Benny exactly, but..."

"But what?"

"Given what you have hinted and what Benny has learned from the whispering of others, Benny can imagine."

"Tell me what you know, Benny."

Benny gulped. "You are sure of this?"

She looked at him with stone cold eyes, and Benny knew that this wonderfully stubborn woman would not be denied. And as Ellie listened, the final pieces fell into place. Her mind opened, and she remembered the horror and the heartache. She remembered it all, and the truth made her shake with unbridled emotion...


It was the eve of Slayton's Day, and there was to be a grand party. The Great House was alive with activity. All the servants were working fervently in preparation. Ellie Lewis was there, fresh from a communal farm in the Outer Territories. She worked hard that first day, hoping to build a better life in the rarefied heights of the New Colony.
That was where he first saw her: lithe, beautiful and naive, the perfect ornament for the Great House. She was fussing over the long table that would celebrate the feast that evening. His name was Virgil Schirra, the only child of the Mission Controller, the next in line to rule.

He was a young man with everything: the looks, the shrewd personality, the iron will to rule the restless colony. And rule he would someday, but for the moment, as his eyes beheld the young, enticing image of Ellie Lewis, he knew he had something sweeter to conquer.

Was it rape? Or simple seduction? Was he an evil monster, corrupting the fruit of the colony, or was she a common temptress? The truth did not matter, for Ellie would be in the wrong no matter what the facts revealed. Virgil Schirra got what he wanted, but never did he dream he would contract a virulent disease that night. It was a disease of the heart that no man can ever conquer, for it was illusive as the stars, illusive as the Nazgul. It was a disease called love.


"Oh, God," Ellie moaned, clutching her hands to her chest. Tears quickly filled her eyes and spilled in a mournful cascade down her cheeks.

"I remember it all, Benny," she said in a whispered gasp. “I remember it all!"

Benny sat silently, waiting, feeling entirely helpless.

"He loved me," she said. "He wasn't supposed to, he never dreamt to. My virginity was a prize. That was all I was to him. A prize for him to selfishly take. But he fell in love with me, I without a sacred name, and God forgive me, I fell in love with him!"

She looked out into the distance and shuddered. It looked to Benny as if she had forgotten he was in the room, forgotten everything except a tragic memory now sadly remembered.

"He found a place for us, a secret hidden place near the edge of the colony," she continued. "It was just a small cottage with an enclosed courtyard, but I was happy there. He came when he could. Always alone. Since his mother was healthy and would rule the colony for many more years, Virgil's duties were light. No one was supposed to know. No one!"

Ellie's face became ashen as her memory deepened. "It all began to unravel after the birth of Emily. She was born at the cottage. There was a doctor there, thank God, one sworn to secrecy on pain of The Reckoning. And he was a good man, but Emily--she, she was not perfect. There was something wrong with her leg. It was deformed, twisted. She would never be normal. Virgil was devastated...

"Our fantasy of domestic bless continued for three years. We began to fight about Emily. His mother, the colony, would never accept her, but I pretended that someday reason would rule, and we would become a real family. I was such a fool! One night, when he was away, the police came for us. They took Emily and dragged me off to jail. I never saw her or Virgil again."

Ellie was quiet, remembering her grief. "In secret I was summoned before The High Commissioner. I was called the defiler of the royal seed--not worthy to live. I was condemned to be cast out during The Reckoning. But first I would have to suffer.

"In the tradition of The Two, I would be allowed to live two more cycles. Then, on the first night of the third Reckoning, I would be cast out to be taken by the Nazgul. Until then, I was commanded live like a whore. I was given a place here to sleep by day, but during the night, I would be all that was dirty, all that was vile!"

"This is your second Reckoning here," Benny said.

Ellie nodded. "On the next one, I die." She took a sip of her drink, looking deep into the depths of the black liquid as if it were a magic ball. "I accepted my fate. I told them I would go willingly to my death, as long as they spared my Emily. And I thought they would. After all, she was half the blood of Virgil!"

"The brace," Benny said.

"Yes, the brace," Ellie replied. She began to cry. "Oh! Oh, God! Emily! My sweet, dear Emily!" she wailed and fell into Benny's comforting arms.


The New Colony was a pure land, a land prepared by the survivors of the Great Disaster for the Lords of Mercury to return. Those not up to the task faced the Nazgul. That was the law.

If a stranger were to walk the streets of the New Colony, he would notice two things. First, for a community as old as the colony, the population was not very large. Even taking the farming land of the Outer Territories into consideration, the entire human population of this healthy planet seventy odd light years from Earth, was not more than 77,000 souls.

And the second thing one would notice is that he would encounter no one with a disability. No one blind. No one deaf. No one with a missing limb or other disfigurement. No one in a wheel chair. No one on crutches. No one without a sacred name over seventy-seven years old.

And more importantly, no little girls with a metal brace on her leg, no matter whose blood flowed in their veins.

It was just the way of this world.

One teeming planet whose population was limited to a mere 77,000 when millions could have thrived with room for more. One planet who worship the seven Lords of Mercury. One planet with seven seemingly immortal Nazgul to feed on those not perfect, those cast out, those who dared question the why of it all. The New Colony once could easily argue, was nothing more than a quaint subdivision of Hell...