He smiled at me, the same cruel smile that I always saw on Pernist's face. I just stood there for a moment, forcefully keeping myself from watching Jalki as he started to creep across the back of the room at a snail's pace. Finally, after watching me stare back at him for some length of time, and he knew I could see him, even if my eyes didn't seem to say that, he laughed. It was a confident laugh, one that told me that, no matter what I did or said, he wasn't afraid of me.
"You don't believe me," I said.
"Of course I don't believe you," he replied. He had stopped laughing, but his voice mocked me without the laughter. "How could you possible take me down?"
"You'd be surprised what I can do, Father," I said. "After all, I'm your daughter. And not just that, I'm your heir, the one who got the power you covet so much. I can do much, much more than you think I can. And because you couldn't accept that, I'm going to take you down."
"You can't," he said. "This is the middle of my territory, girl. Do you honestly think you can get away with trying to harm me when I'm surrounded by my people? Your stolen mayin powers won't help you, no matter how strong they are, against the whole of this Chapel."
"But they can't get to you," I said softly. "I have all mayin powers into and out of this room blocked off. You can't get a warning out, and they can't get anyone, or any power, in."
I couldn't feel it, but I knew at that point that he tried to mindspeak someone outside of the room. He was too well trained for me to be able to tell that he was battering his mind against the shield that Jalki had activated. Still, I could see the momentary look of panic that flashed across his face when he hit the wall. I saw him frown as he continued to press against the wall, and I smiled, knowing that he was feeling a little bit of the frustration I had felt when he had me collared.
"How?" he asked me. I smiled at him some more and watched as the panic grew inside of him. His composure started to crack as I stayed silent, and finally he stepped forward, as if he was going to grab and shake me. In that instant, I realized that he was fully prepared to hurt me, daughter or not. Just as his hands touched my throat, ready to choke me, I pushed him away with my mind and put an invisible wall of force up between us. "How are you doing it," he asked me. He had a sour look on his face, as if just asking me was disgusting to think about.
"It's all thanks to you," I said lightly. "If you hadn't pissed Zeki off, she wouldn't have run away and joined up with us. She's the one who developed the shield for us. And if you hadn't collared us she might not have had the materials to make the shield, since it was made from the collar you put on my friend."
He almost snarled at me. I saw his lip curl up, just like I had seen in pictures of angry dogs, just like Pernist's had several times when he didn't want to be visiting me. I could almost feel the snarl building up in him. But, it never came out. Just before he let it out I watched him take control over himself, and the mask of cool composure that I had see so many times fell over his face. I could still feel the frustration in him though, almost radiating no matter how much he tried to quash it.
"I almost feel sorry for you," I said quietly. "Or rather, I would if you weren't such a bastard. You seem to have it all right now. You're leading the whole Mayinist world. You're at the top. But now it's all going to come tumbling down, just because you couldn't act like a decent human being toward those are different than you."
"I'd just like to know... What did I ever do to you to get treated the way you've treated me? I'm a person, just like you are. I feel. I live. I'm even a mayin, like you. The only difference between us is age, and one lousy X-chromosome. Why should that make you so much better, than you can be more or less a king when I have to slave my life away?"
"You're female," he said, as if that was enough of an answer.
I glared at him, and let just enough of the anger rising in me come out to pick him up with my mind and hold him there. "So?" I asked him, trying to keep my voice from rising to echo through the mostly empty room. "I didn't choose to be born female. It's not my damned fault! In fact, if it's anyone's fault at all, it's yours. You were the one who gave me that second X-chromosome instead of a Y. So why do I have to suffer for something that most scientists agree was determined by random chance?"
"You just do," he said. "That is the way God decided he wanted things. Males are superior, and that is just something that you have to learn to accept. Trying to go against it is trying to go against God."
"There's nothing that could make you think otherwise?" I asked. "Nothing that might convince you that what you believe is flawed, that everybody has just as much right to be happy as everybody else?"
"Nothing," he said.
I shook my head ever so slightly. His stubborn refusal to even consider a different view than the one he had embraced when he was young almost made me sad. At the same time, it frustrated me just as much as Zeki's shield had frustrated him, and that made me angrier than I had been in a long, long time.
"You're blind," I said. "I may be the one who isn't able to see normally, but you're the one who's blind. And unless you open up your damned mind you'll always be blind."
I mentally nudged Jalki, who had been behind my father for quite a while. He had stood there, listening to my conversation and waiting for my signal. "Do it," I thought to him. He nodded at me.
"Who are you talking to?" my father asked, a suspicious look growing on his face. "I thought you had this room blocked off." He started to turn around as he realized that there must be someone else in the room, but Jalki held him still.
"You heard that?" I asked him. I sounded surprised, because I was surprised, even if my father thought it was feigned. He shouldn't have even been able to tell that I was communicating with Jalki, because we were thinking on our bond, deeper than any normal mindspeaking channel.
"Of course I heard that," he replied. "I'm a fully trained mindspeaker, girl. I can tell when someone else is mindspeaking near me, even if I can't make out the words. I..."
I never found out what he was starting to say then. At that moment, Jalki, who continued to keep him frozen in place, reached around him, collar in hand. He saw it just as he said the word I, and he trailed off as he realized what was going to happen with that collar. I watched as Jalki leaned forward to whisper something in his ear. I couldn't hear it, but I knew what was said because I could feel it in Jalki's mind as he said it.
"I forgive you for collaring me," he said. "I even forgive you for letting your lackeys torment me. But, I will never forgive you for collaring Kiya, or for giving me to your little pervert of a son." Then, with a few quick movements, he grabbed the collar with his other hand, pulled it snug against my father's neck, and snapped the clasp shut.
Then my father screamed.
It wasn't a scream of pain. It was one of desperation, fear, and loss. I couldn't quite sympathize with it either, because I hadn't been conscious when the collar was placed around my neck. As much as the loss of my mayin senses had disturbed me, I imagined that it was infinitely worse to have them disappear while conscious. Still, it seemed a little more than I expected to see my father suddenly collapse to the ground, clutching at his eyes.
"What in the world did you do to me?" he asked, a frantic note rising quickly in his voice.
"The same thing you did to me, Father," I said. "I stole your mayin powers from you with one of the collars that you had made, the same one that you had put around Jalki's neck."
"You had the girl change it," he said, his voice dull.
"Well, yes," I replied. "I had her take out the part that makes it hurt if you try to use your powers, so that it just blocks them. I may hate you, but I don't hate you that much."
"That's not what I mean!" he yelled, the same note of panic coming back into his voice. Then he took his hands away from his eyes and brought his head up. He seemed to be trying to look at me, but the angle of his head was off. Still, I could see that the light seemed to have gone out of his eyes. His eyes had once seemed to be staring straight into my soul, but in that moment they were dull and sightless, the same look that I recognized from looking in the mirror.
"What else did you do to me?" he asked me.
"Nothing," I said as the realization of what had happened hit me.
I hadn't just inherited his mayinness. He was a she-mayin, though no one ever knew it. Just like me, he was blind. I had inherited both his blindness and the mayin power that compensated for it. But his compensation was stronger than mine, strong enough that not even he knew it was there. He had gone his whole life hating she-'s, thinking they were inferior to him, never knowing that he was one. It was enough to make me burst into laughter.
He frowned. "What do you think is so funny?" he asked angrily. "And what did you do to the collar to rob me of my sight?"
"I didn't do anything, and neither did Zeki," I replied. "You can't see right now because the only thing that allowed you to see before was your mayin power. I find it quite amusing. You always thought you were so superior to all the she-'s and shelons in this world, and now this proves that you were being a hypocrite. You're the same as I am, Father, like it or not."
He just seemed to crumple then. I was expecting him to burst out in anger, or at least some righteous indignation. I was expecting something close to violence, some sort of stubborn refusal to accept the fact that he was the same as the people he had always hated. But he didn't do that. He just seemed to fold in on himself and start sobbing. To be honest, that disturbed me, because no matter how much I hated him, I knew he was a strong person. To see him break right in front of my eyes sent a chill down my spine and made me suddenly want to be anywhere but there.
At the same time, I knew that he wouldn't be causing any more problems for us. I couldn't read his mind because of the collar, but I could tell that he had truly given up. It was written all over his face and in the way he was sitting. Even if Jalki and I left him alone, he wouldn't try to grab his power back. The fight was gone from him, and it scared me.
"I need to get out of here," I thought to Jalki. His agreement came back to me almost immediately, and I realized then that Jalki was as troubled by my father's state as I was. I hadn't felt it until then, though, because my own disturbance was masking it.
Before I left the room I ran across the floor to where my father was crumpled on the floor. He didn't react to my presence beside him, though I was sure that he had heard me approach. Then I kneeled down on the floor and, for the first time in my seventeen and a half years of life, gave him a warm, tight hug, the same kind that my mother had given me each time she came to visit.
"I'm sorry," I said to him softly before getting up and running from the room. If he responded, I didn't hear him. I didn't stop running until I was out of the room and down the stairs by the still unconscious mayin Jalki had knocked out.
Jalki joined me just a few moments later. As soon as he passed through the door at the bottom of the stairway I flung myself at him. I hugged him so tightly I would have been afraid of hurting him if I had been thinking about it. I clung to him as the tears started to flow. He hugged me back, providing the comfort that I needed at the moment. We stayed like that for almost five minutes before I felt Myini's mind touch ours in a light question.
"We did it," Jalki thought. He avoided mentioning anything else, though Myini clearly realized that more had happened. He, wisely, didn't press for answers.
"Dsekene and I haven't found anything," he thought. "We're almost where you are, so I doubt we're going to find anything before we reach you. I contacted Tuadra just a bit ago. She said they found a room full of collars, and that Julo had smashed them to little bits using things he found in the room. They're done searching and are on their way up to find you two."
"Thanks," Jalki replied. After that he contacted Tuadra and told them where we were. They were close, and in a few minutes we were joined by not only their group, but Myini and Dsekene as well. I stayed silent, and I could tell that everyone else was worried about me. No one mentioned it, though. They knew I would talk about it when I was ready.
"I can't believe we actually did it!" Myini exclaimed, just to break the tense silence that had fallen after the other two groups joined us. "I mean, we just succeeded in breaking into the Central Chapel and taking down the man in charge!"
"Yeah, we did," Jalki said, a slight grin on his face.
Most of the tension broke then as Jalki started laughing happily. Dsekene and Myini joined in almost immediately, and the others, except for Julo, followed shortly after that. Julo looked angry, and I would have given anything to know what he was thinking at that moment. I stayed silent, though a smile crept onto my face, as the others celebrated.
When the giddy wave of triumph that had swept over our group died down, Tuadra looked thoughtful. "I was thinking," she said slowly. "As weird as it may seem, Isuni really was the head of the Council, thought I can't help but think he was only recently promoted to that position. But he has been neutralized, which leaves the Council temporarily headless."
"We should take advantage of this weakness," Serru said, picking up on Tuadra's train of thought. Tuadra nodded. "If we play things right we can keep the Council from getting a new head."
"We can't let them put another Isuni in power," Dsekene added. "Not after we finally won. We can't let things just go back to normal and slink back to the shelon schools and hiding spots in normal society."
"Let's take over," Myini said. "We're here, and they can't know whether Isuni is all right or not at the moment. Rather than prevent the Council from getting its head back, let's provide it with a new head, one of our choosing."
"Who?" I asked. "We can't just tell the Council that we're going to choose the new head for them. We have to give them someone, and we have to have a good reason to do it. Do you have someone in mind that you can offer them?"
He nodded. "One of us," he said.
"But who?" I asked. The look that Myini gave me said that he didn't expect me to be asking that question, that the choice was obvious. I pressed my lips into a stubborn line and stared back at him.
"It can't be me," Tuadra said. "I'm not noble, and I would prefer to work behind the scenes anyway. Serru and Dsekene just aren't suited for it either. They have other, more creative, callings in life."
"I don't want to lead," Myini said. "I wouldn't do it right, and I just want to be a priest."
"I don't think I'm even being considered," Julo said, his voice hard and strange. "We can't have a collared mayin leading."
"That leaves Zeki and Jalki," I said. Zeki was one of us, even if she wasn't present, and everyone knew it.
Jalki shook his head. "No," he said. "There's only one of us suited to this, and you have to realize that."
I tried to ignore what his mind was telling me. I tried to ignore what I could practically hear the others saying in agreement with him. I knew what they all thought, and I didn't want to hear it. I shook my head in denial. "No," I said.
"You're the daughter of the last head," Jalki said. "You are intelligent and strong. You are more like your father than you want to admit, and you know it. You were the unspoken leader while we were at school, and you know it. And you are mayin; not just mayin, but a special mayin. It has to be you, Kiya."
"No," I said flatly. "I can't. They'll never accept me."
"They'll have to," he replied. "We aren't going to give them a chance."
"I won't do it," I said. I felt a bubble of hysterical laughter starting to come up my throat and had to push it down before it came out.
"Why not?" Tuadra asked. "This is your chance to get what you've always wanted, Kiya. You can make the whole world know who you are, and that you're better than what they think of you. This is your chance to change things."
"But..." I said.
"It's not like we'll make you do it alone," Dsekene said. "We'll all be behind you to support you. If you want, we'll be beside you. But you have to admit that you've always been the leader."
"Please?" Myini asked.
I sat down on the floor and stared at them all. They all replied with looks that said that they knew it had to be me, and that they would always be there for me. Jalki's mind radiated those same feelings at me. I sent my own fears at him, though I knew he could already feel them. All I got back from him was confidence and support, and that was enough to break my resolve to refuse.
I didn't say anything, just bowed my head in defeat. I felt Jalki's happiness, with everyone else's, except for Julo's, behind it. It washed over me, giving me the energy and confidence that I knew I would need for what they wanted me to do. Then, as I stood up, I asked the question that I knew I would have to ask eventually, even if it scared me as much as agreeing did.
"How the hell am I supposed to start this?" I asked. Jalki smiled at me.
"There's a balcony on this floor," he said. "The head of the Council makes speeches to the public from there. It's not used very often, just for important events and the like. I think it would make a perfect place for you to announce your election as the new head of the Council."
"I wasn't elected," I protested, though I silently prodded him to start leading me toward the place. "And the Council head isn't usually elected at all." He started walking away from the elevators. I followed him, and the others started scattering, each going in a different direction. I realized then that there had been silent conversations taking place while I fought their decision. They had planned without me even realizing it.
"Yes you were," he replied. "We elected you. And who cares what's traditional? We're trying to change things here."
I fell silent after that. I needed to think, and Jalki realized it. We reached the balcony quickly, but we waited there a while before doing anything. The others needed time to do whatever preparations they were doing, and I needed time to come up with what I wanted to say. Jalki stayed beside me, a calm, comforting presence who didn't require anything of me.
As I waited there for the others to return, I made a decision. I kept it carefully hidden from Jalki, since I wanted everyone to hear it at the same time. It would surprise the others, but I had the gut feeling that it was the right way to go. Then I tried not to think about it. By the time the others returned I was close to being a nervous wreck.
They had gone to fetch recording and broadcasting equipment. We didn't have the kind of things we needed to get it on television right away, but they could tape me as I spoke, and we could put it on the radio. As they set up the equipment, I stepped out on the balcony to look at the streets.
Zeki had stopped rampaging a while ago. Her mecha had disappeared, probably taken back into the basement of her friend's laboratory. It had been long enough that people were out on the streets again. There were more people than before. The normal street traffic had stopped, and most of the people out were staring at the destruction that Zeki's mecha had caused. With all the people out and staring at the Chapel, it didn't surprise me that someone noticed as I stepped out on the balcony. Once that had happened, it was a matter of moments before I felt every eye on the street on me.
I had just finished trying to calm my mind when Myini announced that he was done setting up the equipment. I took a deep breath and silently started using my mayin powers to amplify my voice, a combination of mind moving and mindspeaking. Beside me, I felt Jalki doing the same.
"Isuni'Kastny'Myini'Mayin is no longer the head of the Council," I said, trying not to let my nervousness cause my voice to waver. "His cruel deeds have been reflected back upon him, and he is now paying the same price that he made others pay. I am his daughter, the child that he refused to admit the existence of, because he was ashamed of me. My name is Kiya'Alansa'Isuni'She-Mayin."
I held my head high as I pronounced my name that way for the first time in my life. It was the way it was supposed to be, and I didn't care that it wasn't what was officially recorded as my name. As I said it, I heard the gasp run through the crowd below, and I felt the waves of disbelieve and scorn coming from them.
"I am mayin," I continued. "I am more than just mayin. I have more than one of the mayin powers; all three in fact. I would try to prove it, but I don't think it would do too much good. All I can do is ask that you take my word for it."
"She's telling the truth!" a man called out in the crowd. "I was with her at the Knight Shelon School. I saw her prove it to her father!" I recognized the man as the father of one of the smart she-aivan we had recruited to our cause when we went to Knight. After he spoke up, a few others did as well, and I realized that most of the crowd believed me. I hadn't expected it, but they actually believed me.
"The Council, and the mayin in general, have been ruling us and running our lives for hundreds of years," I said. "They teach that men are superior and mayin even more so. They teach that women are worth nothing, and that a person's life can be disregarded just because he or she is a little different. I have lived in a shelon school my whole life because my father couldn't stand to think that his daughter wasn't perfect, because I was born with the inability to see without using the mayin powers I was also born with. I have seen an intelligent and kind man collared like a dog and put into a work camp simply because his ears are pointed. I have watched as those who are potentially the most useful to our society are forced to waste their talent simply teaching others like them, because they are considered inferior and cannot get any job but teaching at a shelon school. And I say now that all of these happenings are unforgivable."
"The problem is that these happenings are all results of the teachings of Mayinism. The ideas central to the Mayinist faith are cruel ones that must be cast aside. Unfortunately, I cannot ask this of all those who were raised to believe these ideas. I cannot ask you all to simply discount these thoughts that you have based your lives on. That would be unfair of me. But, I do ask that you all think about these ideas that you have been fed your entire lives. The next time you are tempted to consider yourself superior to someone merely because of your caste, consider that you might be wrong. Hopefully, if everyone can do that, we may find ourselves living in a slightly more kindly world."
"Meanwhile, I have been elected as the new head of the Council. The Council, of course, was not involved in this decision. I am just one of several people who entered the Chapel earlier today and have brought about the removal of my father from his position. We are taking charge of the Chapel, and they have named me as their leader. I am both noble and mayin, and am thus not unsuited for the position of head of the Council. I am also Isuni's daughter. Since I am mayin and neither my older sister nor my twin brother are, I am also his heir by common law. The position of head of the Council has been passed on from father to son several times in the past, so I am also claiming the position by right of being Isuni's heir."
"As head of the Council, I am declaring a split between church and government. People all over the world figured out before the Cataclysm that the combination of the heads of spiritual and governmental power was out of balance for a society, and I agree with this. Highly ranked priests will no longer automatically be important figures in ruling. Government officials will no longer have to be mayin. Any person, male or female, mayin, duseken, aivan, quarun, or even shelon, noble or not, normal or she-, will be allowed to get involved in running this place. And the Central Chapel will be the center of neither government nor church. Instead it will be something completely different, something that I will explain at a later date."
"I require all employees of the government in this city present themselves to me tomorrow, starting at 7:00 in the morning. I will, with the help of many others, be looking over the state of our ruling body, and then I will make decisions as to what changes need to be made. Anyone who does not want me where I am may present their grievances starting next week."
I realized as I said it that it wasn't going to be that simple. I could feel the anger and resentment rising off the crowd, almost all of it caused by the changes I wanted to make. I knew that it wouldn't be easy, but I refused to think that it might not happen. I knew that it would never happen if I doubted.
"And now I am going to go see to my father."
With that I turned and went inside to be greeted by hugs and cheering friends. They were proud of me, and I could feel their approval. As Jalki got his turn to hug me, last so he wouldn't have to give me up again, I noticed that Julo wasn't there.
I cast my mind out around the building, searching for the blank spot that Julo's collar would cause. I almost skipped over the room just one floor up, since I knew I would find the blank spot that was my collared father up there. When I found two blank spots there I was glad I hadn't skipped it. Then I realized that the two blank spots meant that Julo was up there with my father, and I got a horrible feeling that something was wrong. As soon as that feeling hit me I 'ported up there, so suddenly that it momentarily broke the link between Jalki and myself.
I arrived, I looked around, and then I screamed.
I had appeared in the same spot that I 'ported across the room to before. Halfway across the room my father was still in the place where Jalki and I had left him. Julo was also there, right next to him. He had a large, wicked-looking knife in his hand. The knife was covered with blood, as was most of his body, like he had smeared it on himself. The blood was still flowing out of multiple stab wounds in my father's chest, even though I could tell the moment I saw them that my father was very much dead.
As I said, I screamed.
Then Jalki arrived, to the sound of me screaming. He was pale when he finally got me quiet and looking at him, when he finally got the link between us reestablished. Once I was silent, Julo started laughing. It wasn't normal laughter though. It was an insane, mad sound that made me clap my hands over my ears and wish that I could somehow block out the noise. It continued until Jalki snarled and blocked off Julo's air supply with his mind.
As soon as the sound was gone I ran over to my father's body. I knew I couldn't do anything to bring him back, and I wasn't sure why I wanted it. Even so, I started shaking him, begging him to open his eyes. I used my mind moving to gather the spreading pool of blood and try to force it back in his body, as if that would bring him back. I did that for a whole minute before the final realization hit me. My father was dead.
"You killed him," I said dully, turning to look at Julo. Jalki had relaxed his mental hold on Julo's throat almost immediately, and he hadn't resumed his disturbing laughter.
"He deserved it," he said. I could hear the edge of the laughter in his voice, as if he would start again any time. "He had this thing put on me because he couldn't stand to think that his precious little son was a pervert. He blamed it on me and sent me off to rot in that godforsaken work camp! And then he put the collar on you, on his own daughter. He had to be punished!"
"He already was punished!" I yelled. "I punished him. He was collared, just as I was!" I wrenched the collar off of my father's neck and held it up to wave it in his face. "Or didn't you notice? Were you too busy stabbing him, blinded by rage, to notice this?"
"He needed more than just that," he said.
I flung myself at him. The only thoughts in my mind at the time were rage and sadness, far more sadness than I ever thought I would feel at my father's death. I gave myself over to the rage and started beating at him with my fists. I didn't even notice if I was actually hurting him, or just working out all the emotions running through me.
"He did not!" I screamed while pounding my fists against him. "He was already defeated, broken! I watched him break! We took everything from him, his pride, his power, everything! He couldn't even see you when you attacked him. Did you even give him a chance to fight back, or did you slaughter him before he even knew who was holding the knife?"
I continued to rant and pummel his body until Jalki finally pulled me off of him. I fought his gentle hands, trying to get back and continue beating Julo, who hadn't moved at all since before I started hitting him. Jalki waves of calming thoughts at me, working at the mad fury that my mind was in until I finally stopped struggling. Even so, I continued to radiate the rage that still filled me.
"He doesn't deserve this, Kiya," Jalki said softly as he folded me in his arms. I started shaking as the adrenaline and rage started to drain out of me, and his arms just tightened around me.
"Neither did my father," I said.
"Don't be like him," he said, and my own words of less than two months ago came back to me. I saw myself begging Jalki to stop choking Pernist, begging him not to stoop to his level. With that image, the last of my rage-born energy seemed to drain out of me, leaving me feeling weak like a rag doll in Jalki's arms. I could tell Jalki felt it, and I felt him smile, even though I wasn't looking at his face to know it was there.
I sent my mind out, questing through the Chapel for a 'port mayin. When I found one, I touched his mind and informed him that he was to come up to where I was. There were to be no questions asked; I would not tolerate disobedience. He was not pleased about it, but within moments there was a young mayin not much older than I was standing in front of us. He paled when he saw my father laying there in a pool of his own cooling blood.
"This man killed my father," I said, my voice horse from the screaming I had been doing. "I want him locked up as securely as possible, and I never want to see his face again."
The young man nodded and grabbed Julo by the arm. He 'ported out of there, taking Julo with him, and I let myself collapse completely into Jalki's arms. I just sat there for a few moments, until Jalki gently reminded me that I didn't really have the free time to spare. I had things I needed to start doing, so that I wouldn't be unprepared when I met with everyone the next day. He was right, so I pushed my grief out of my mind and forced myself up and out, to start learning how to run something even bigger than a nation.