I stepped outside the temple and the ring of guards still stood around me. My wounds, I realized, were closed without scars. They held their swords carefully, professional men doing what they were taught. I pulled the sword from its sheath, holding the sheath in my left hand. The sword was a great length of light, insubstantial but burning white light. The men pulled back, staring carefully, some seemed ready to run, others uncertain.
I walked back along the carnage I had left. There were more bodies than I remembered. A young man, fopishly dressed, lay with a deep slice into his chest, blood still leaked from him but he did not move. I leaned to him. My master was gone, no longer within me or watching me. Had the god broken his hold? Or did my master fear me now, blade in hand? Or was I beneath his notice now, the slaughter done?
The men surrounding me were watching, completely uncertain what to do. Was someone in command? Or had I slain their authority? Mechanisms such as I, helpless without a master's will. Or as I had been. What was I? The monster that had slain this man? A helpless man, patron of the whores perhaps, but not their pimp. My breast itched and I looked down at it.
My body was soaked in blood, but the breast, the one the goddess of the mountain had restored, was not, was the untainted brown of my skin. It ached, now that my attention was on it, and seemed heavily laden, to pull on my body as they never had before. I felt it, it seemed thick and full. Full of what? I pulled on the nipple and little beads of white formed on it. Milk, somehow. I pulled again and it sprayed out, dribbling over the bloody corpse below me. And his lips, his lips moved, just a small twitch, then a tongue was lapping the milk from them. I knew not why, but I leaned down and placed my nipple in his mouth, and he suckled from me. It felt, odd. Not sexual, but not entirely without pleasure. A new sensation for a body used to use. He suckled from me and as he did his wound bound up. It's hard to describe, it was not as if it healed quickly, but rather as if the cut were undone, played in reverse and then gone. He looked up at me, eyes wide, pulling his lips from my nipple.
“What?” he asked, befuddled. He knew not where he was. I had nothing to say to him, so stared stupidly. There were gasps from the soldiers around me. I looked and most held wide eyed expressions of awe. A few were cold, disciplined, watching. The resurrected man propped himself on his elbows and stared up at me, wide eyed.
I passed on. A woman dressed in silks and heavily perfumed lay on the earth with her throat slashed open. I crouched next to her. The sun was very bright, the street muddy with dirt and blood, which caked to my legs and itched. She was a pretty woman, a face powdered white and curled hair, a wig I realized. I placed my nipple in her mouth, but nothing happened. Who was she? Not a whore, not a pimp probably. A wife perhaps? I knew nothing of these people, save that they called slaves free. I squeezed my nipple gently and dribbled some milk onto her lips. Nothing at first, then a slow lick, eyes not opening but meaning to. I gave her my breast again and she drank, her neck closing up, her lungs gasping in air. She lay moaning still when I left her, eyes still shut.
I passed on. Two more bodies before the door to the brothel. I gave each my milk, first a soldier who had been stabbed through his chest, his armor somehow split. The second was a dirty boy dressed in greasy rags. I did not remember killing him but must have, his guts had been spilled out, a look of agony on his face.
The soldiers were still with me. Some watched me, swords ready. Others were helping the people I had resurrected, helping them up, reassuring them, pointing at the church and speaking words I heard but did not listen to. I walked inside the brothel.
People had scattered. A number of the nude girls pulled back away from me, pressing themselves into the far side of the room. There were two dead whores just inside the door. I did not remember murdering them, but restored them all the same. They drank deep and looked more alive than the girls who had not been slain when I was done. One scampered away from me, weak but helped along by some of the other girls. The other looked at me with dreamy eyes and I saw the tar in her look. High as I was. Or had been, I did not feel high anymore, but neither did I feel the need in me. She smiled at me, dreamy and far, far away.
Further in one guard was being patched together and two others were dead. The men trying to staunch the bleeding in the living guard backed away from me. I placed my nipple before the dying man and he stared at me.
“What, hey,” he said, but I sprayed the milk on him and pressed my breast into his mouth. He did not suckle and tried to pull away, but I sprayed my milk into him and his wounds closed.
“The fuck?” he said, and I restored the other two as well. The men pulled away from me but I ignored them and I moved on.
Cuntshabble lay dead, his guts spilled out along the rug. I took him onto my lap and he suckled at me as a babe. He came aware only slowly, looked up at me blankly, then slowly fear and awe replaced his confusion. I passed on.
Upstairs there were two bodies, both whores. I restored them both and passed on before they could register me. I entered the room and Dakra was gone. The man I had slain lay in a pool of blood. I paused above him, remembering the glee with which he cut me. Remembering my old master slicing my skin and back as he fucked me.
What was I? Was I still that slave? Or had that self died in the church, bled to death and been reborn as a free woman. What was the difference? I hated the man, but I took him to my breast and restored him to life. Why did I do it? I did not know. Some judgment of my subconscious, no logic, benevolence spilling from me as it overflowed my spirit. A soul I did not believe in. Bah. The man came aware slowly, eyes registering shock, then horror. He tried to move away from me but I held his hair.
“Drink the milk, you motherfucker, drink it and be restored to life.” Nothing registered on his face. I wondered why I had spoken as I had already revived him.
“If you ever cut a girl again, I will return for you,” I said. His pale skin turned paler. Hate, but let it go, he is too small. A petty man who would rape and cut me, I was all of womanhood, not scared or cynical anymore. “
“Come and fuck me, I care not, I am woman and I will bring you life motherfucker.” I threw him to the ground and grabbed his cock, tried to mount him but he was not erect. He was trying to get away from me then and I let him go. Why had I done that? I let him go.
Outside the room only a few soldiers were still trying to keep track of me. A few people were openly on their knees and praying, many others watched in fear and fascination. I walked downstairs.
There was a bar with several chairs around it. Men, no whores, cleared quickly as I approached. I sat and felt empty, felt that there was nothing in me. Three choices. Free myself from my master. Bring back Jade. Bring back Argyl. Were they mutually exclusive? How was I to chose? Do I run away? What was I, what should I be? The possibilities all lined up about me, in opposition, suggesting that I do each other and themselves, an impossible array of options. Three choices, but they might have been a million. A million ways to be, to think and feel. The only one I could not be was what I had been. Ten billion possibilities and all as insignificant as any other, to be devoured by time and the explosion of our star. Yet, I thought of Jade. That was important. Not to the world, but to me. Is it always so? Always qualified, always to me or at what? I felt dizzy and wondered if my blood had been restored or not. I placed my head down on the bar and closed my eyes.
Jade was there, staring at me, I love you she said as I plunged the knife into her perfect breast. Perfect to me. Would I carry this image behind my eyes?
“Uh, what's your, I mean.”
“Mr. Cuntshabble.” He was standing a few steps away, fidgeting with his hands and sunken into himself.
“Yes Ma'am.”
“When I was pulled from the river I wore a dress and boots. I want them. And also the gloves and mask that were with them.”
“Um, I didn't,”
“I don't care about the details, Mr. Cunstshabble.”
“Um, yes ma'am.”
“Also Dakra will need a dress. And we will need provisions for a journey. Food and drink.”
“Uh, it will cost,”
“I don't care about the details, Mr. Cuntshabble.”
“Um,” he looked down at his hands. Was he afraid? Was he in awe? I wondered if he was a religious man. He said, “Yes ma'am.”
“Dakra?” I said. She stepped forwards from the mass of whores, looking skittish, not looking at me.
“Will you come with me? You were kind and I have much to do. And it will be better than this life.”
“Ma'am, Kara, my debts...”
“Dakra, they are not real. They believe in the power of property, but behind that is the sword. It only exists with the sword. And this is more powerful,” I said, holding my hand to the blade I had sheathed. When had I sheathed it? It did not matter.
She was quiet for a long time. I wonder if she was thinking or just staring. “Where are we going?”
“I don't know.” I said, and looked at her. She stared at me. She looked sickly and tired, the make-up having run in her blood and tears.
“Yes,” she said, “I will come.”
Three choices, but really four. My suicide below all three, pervading everything I did or could do. To die, to simply end. Obedience still roiled deep inside me, the compulsion to obey, to murder for my master. But also I was in open rebellion now, restoring life where he would have committed desecrations. No longer the thick sand that clogged my blood, now my heart pulled me in new directions. Jade, Argyl, my lover. All three drew me to them. Obedience still tethered me to my master, but in my hand I held a blade that might sever that bond if it only were pulled taught.
Do I disappoint you? Ending here, with so much still to do and so much unsaid? But it is the end of the first movement of my life, away from slavery, the first steps into my own will. And what terrible steps. It is the end of what I had been, its final death splattered in blood across the brothel and streets, within the halls of whatever god that was. But no, not the blood. The blood was my master's will, the slaughter. My milk was my knife, the resurrection my salvation. To undo my master's horror, to have mercy where none was deserved.