Ellen Datlow - After - Nineteen Stories of Apocalypse and Dystopia

Except it didn’t matter how she felt, so she could feel any way she chose.

She tried to feel determined as she climbed the steps to the dais, her heavy golden skirt trailing behind her.

Then she looked down upon her people, from women and children—some cheering and some silent, some holding on to their men with white-knuckled hands—to the contestants for the Trials.

There were men wreathed with blood and bruises and in rags, and men who seemed fine—happy, healthy, and eager to die for her. Somebody cheered and called her name. She looked but could not tell who it had been.

She could not quite understand why someone would cheer for her when she hadn’t done anything.

What am I to you? she thought as she looked at the crowd. What is Rosamond to you?

Different things, she thought, looking at all the different faces. The Knights of the Order stood in black ranks, like soldiers at a funeral, and one of them was staring at her with the widest eyes in the crowd, large and dark and wondering.

There was worship in those eyes, and an abyss.

In the most bruised and ragged group, she saw the knight’s counterpart, the one with the narrowest eyes in the crowd. He was looking at her appraisingly, as though she were a gold coin he could bite down on so as to assess her worth.

Love her, hate her, blame her, worship her, whatever they felt toward her, they did not know her. Maybe they did not care to. Maybe they thought her face was all there was to know.

None of the other Rosamonds had known Dareus and Miri, and how they loved each other despite being imperfect.

Roz did not know herself what else there was to her, but she wanted to know.

The First Minister, standing on the dais, observed her approvingly. Roz wore the golden gown, wore her hair long and loose, looked like a queen. Looked the part.

When you look perfect , Miri had said. When you stay perfectly within the rules. When the Court proclaims you to the whole city as perfect, that’s your opening.

Everyone was watching her. The whole city was watching her, and she looked perfect.

“Welcome to this day, the beginning of our city’s thirty-second Trials,” she said, and heard cheers. “I was consulting with our First Minister yesterday”—she nodded to the First Minister, who appeared mildly pleased by this courteous going off script—“and she reminded me that women have to volunteer to enter the Trials.”

The Court had their Trials and their rules, and Roz was playing by the rules. They had their figurehead queen, and now it was her right to speak.

The maze, the monster, and the mystery of the Trials. They weren’t the test. This was.

Roz put her hands to the large buttons on her gown. It was a stiff, high-necked thing, more a robe than a gown, and the buttons slipped under her fingers.

The crowd went still and silent as she undid it. The gold gown fell with a sound like coins tossed in a scale.

Beneath the robe, Roz was wearing dark, simple clothes that she could move freely in. The clothes she trained in.

“I volunteer to enter the Trials,” she said.

“What are you doing?” the First Minister exclaimed, her careful politician’s face going slack.

Who is it going to be? the First Minister had asked her.

Not a knight or a city boy. If the rules said she was a prize to be won, so be it. She would obey the rules to the letter.

All the screens in the city reflected her face, and it was determined. The whole city heard their perfect queen speak, and her word was law.

“I am going to fight,” said Queen Rosamond, who knew as no man did what she was fighting for. “I am going to win myself.”

“THE EASTHOUND BAYS AT NIGHT,” JOLLY SAID.

Millie shivered. Bad luck to mention the easthound, and her twin bloody-well knew it. God, she shouldn’t even be thinking “bloody.” Millie put her hands to her mouth to stopper the words in so she wouldn’t say them out loud.

“Easthound?” said Max. He pulled the worn black coat closer around his body. The coat had been getting tighter these past few months. Everyone could see it. “What is that east-hound shit?”

Not what ; he knew damned well what it was. He was asking Jolly what she was doing bringing the easthound into their game. Millie wanted to yell at Jolly too.

Jolly barely glanced at Max. She knelt in front of the fire, staring into it, retwisting her dreads and separating them at the scalp, where they were threatening to grow together. “It’s my first line,” she said. “You can play or not, no skin off my teeth.”

They didn’t talk about skin coming off, either. But Jolly broke the rules whenever she damned well pleased. Loup-de-lou was her game, after all. She’d invented it. Jolly was so thin. Millie had saved some of the chocolate bar she’d found, to share with Jolly, but she knew that Jolly wouldn’t take it. If you ate too much, you grew too quickly. Millie’d already eaten most of the chocolate, though. Couldn’t help it. She was so hungry all the time!

Max didn’t answer Jolly. He took the bottle of vodka that Sai was holding and chugged down about a third of it. Nobody complained. That was his payment for finding the bottle in the first place. But could booze make you grow too? Or did it keep you shrinky? Millie couldn’t remember which. She fretfully watched Max’s Adam’s apple bob as he drank.

“The game?” Citron chirped up, reminding them. A twin of the flames of their fire danced in his green eyes. “We gonna play?”

Right. The game. Jolly bobbed her head yes. Sai, too. Millie said, “I’m in.” Max sighed and shrugged his yes.

Max took up where Jolly had left off. “At night, the easthound howls,” he growled, “but only when there’s no moon.” He pointed at Citron.

A little clumsy, Millie thought, but a good qualifying statement.

Quickly, Citron picked it up with, “No moon is so bright as the easthound’s eyes when it spies a plump rat on a garbage heap.” He pointed at Millie.

Garbage heap? What kind of end bit was that to loup with? Didn’t give her much with which to begin the new loup. Trust Citron to throw her a tough one. And that “eyes, spies” thing, too. A rhyme in the middle instead of at the end. Clever bastard. Thinking furiously, Millie louped, “Garbage heaps high in the…cities of noonless night.”

Jolly said, “You’re cheating. It was ‘garbage heap ,’ not ‘garbage heap s .’” She gnawed a strip from the edge of her thumbnail, blew the crescented clipping from her lips into the fire.

“Chuh.” Millie made a dismissive motion with her good hand. “You just don’t want to have to continue on with ‘noonless night.’” Smirking, she pointed at her twin.

Jolly started in on the nail of her index finger. “And you’re just not very good at this game, are you, Millie?”

“Twins, stop it,” Max told them.

“I didn’t start it,” Jolly countered, through chewed nail bits. Millie hated to see her bite her nails, and Jolly knew it.

Jolly stood and flounced closer to the fire. Over her back she spat the phrase, “Noonless night, a rat’s bright fright, and blood in the bite all delight the easthound .” The final two words were the two with which they’d begun. Game over. Jolly spat out a triumphant “Loup!” First round to Jolly.

Sai slapped the palm of her hand down on the ground between the players. “Aw, jeez, Jolly! You didn’t have to end it so soon just ’cause you’re mad at your sister! I was working on a great loup.”