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  He giggled to himself as he returned to the house’s main room, where the television had been left on and had now returned to its normal schedule. If he succeeded in his intent next month, they would have to add a new commandment for all new ‘selected,’ he thought to himself, One, don’t speak to the Goddess unless the Goddess speaks to you first. Two, obey the Goddess in anything she asks you, no matter how demeaning the task might seem. And three, do not kill the Goddess!

  The moons performed their little dance in the heavens, and another month passed by. Eggshufont waited in until that day’s lottery had been drawn. He was still half hoping it might be he that got ‘selected.’ It would make his decision that much easier to go through with, as well as easier to carry out. He almost sighed with relief when the name pulled wasn’t he, but a female by the name of Lowsiobenno. That meant he had a little bit of time before the actual ceremony to consider whether or not he was really going to go through with it. He still had ample time to change his mind, but he loved his sister and he missed her greatly. Besides, the more he thought about the fact that he was living in perpetual fear that one day he too would be chosen to walk through those gates, the more he was sure he would end it tonight one way or another.

  When the opportunity arose, he sneaked back into his father’s study. He took the pistol and its five pieces of ammunition out of the glass display case and hid the weapon beneath his shirt, holding it in place as he crept out of the study again.

  A quick visit to his bedroom and he loaded the first of the bullets into the firearm and then taped the thing to his body so he wouldn’t have to physically hold it any longer. The tape and the weapon itself were both uncomfortable next to his skin, especially if he tried to sit, but it was a small price to pay to get the weapon out of the house past his mother and father.

  Indeed, his mother seemed to suspect that something was up. It was obvious that she didn’t know what, because if she had she would probably have stopped him right there and then. She was, however, waiting at the front door as he approached it to leave. ‘Going somewhere?’ she asked in a tone that sounded accusing to him and almost made him think he had been discovered.

  ‘Out,’ he replied simply. ‘I fancy a walk. I need to get away from the television and the ceremony of the ‘selected.’’

  ‘You should watch the ceremony; it’s important to the relatives of those who are ‘selected’ that they’re known to the rest of us. How do you think we would feel if no one had shown any interest when your sister was chosen? I know you loved your sister—we all did, and we’re very proud of her—but you must get over her loss. It’s not as if she’s dead; she’s in the Temple now, doing her family proud, and that’s what you should be aspiring to.’

  ‘I do, mother, I do. I would have given anything to have my name up on the lottery board today. But it wasn’t, and I don’t think I can stand to watch the ceremony as another takes the place I wanted. I need a walk. Maybe I’ll end up taking a walk over to the Temple itself to pay my respects that way. If I’m in time, I might watch the ceremony there. I just can’t bring myself to watch it on the television.’

  ‘Be good,’ she told him and then stepped aside to allow him access to the door and the outside. ‘Your father and I should probably come along with you, but neither of us is really dressed for the occasion. You should have given us more notice; if you want to go again next month, let us know in advance and we’ll make a day of it.’

  ‘Okay, I will, I promise,’ Eggshufont replied. If everything went according to plan, he wouldn’t be around next month, but he wasn’t about to tell that to his mother. Instead he just opened the door and stepped out into the world.

  When he had taken his sister to the ceremony two months previously, he had taken the family buggy and then spent any time he might have saved trying to find a place to park. This time he decided to walk. It wasn’t too far to the Temple, and it would give him the time he needed to go through the plan in his head a few times before he got there.

  Once at the Temple, he mingled in with the crowd, exchanging greetings with many, some of whom he remembered seeing among the crowd on that fateful day he had brought his sister and who, he was surprised to discover, seemed to remember him from that day too. Slowly he made his way through the crowd towards the Temple gates and the Compare, who already stood waiting on the raised plinth, all the time trying his best not to appear as if he was trying to push forward.

  The sun had actually set when Lowsiobenno showed, but it was at that twilight time when the Compare would be hard pressed to claim she had defaulted and would probably let the matter drop. Lowsiobenno didn’t look all that keen on making her way into the crowd and beyond. Indeed, she had been bought by two others, possibly her brothers, and by the look of it they had brought her by force and were still holding on to her by the arms and dragging her unsympathetically towards the crowd.

  Her brothers, or whoever they were, released her at the very back of the crowd and then moved together as if acting as a living wall to prevent her from trying to head back that way.

  She looked around herself as if lost at first. Perhaps she was considering the possibility of somehow getting away. But while she hesitated, those at the back of the crowd came to greet her and congratulate her and guide her through their numbers towards the Temple itself.

  The two brothers looked a lot less stressed as Lowsiobenno was herded through the crowd. One of them took a moment to mop his forehead with a piece of cloth. They were probably relieved that they had gotten her this far; after all, if they were her brothers and she hadn’t made an appearance tonight, then all of them might have found their lives forfeit. Eggshufont noticed that they stayed at the back of the crowd in much the same way that he had when he had brought his sister two months previously. It was clear that they didn’t want to mingle with the rest of the crowd but still wanted to give their sister the moral support of their presence.

  Eggshufont offered to pat Lowsiobenno on the back as she approached, but she visibly moved out of the way. It was clear that every step she took was an effort. She was terrified of what awaited her in the Temple itself. As she passed, Eggshufont fell into step behind her, following her more closely than he wanted to as the crowd pressed in from all sides to congratulate her on her good fortune.

  When Lowsiobenno climbed the plinth to the Compare, Eggshufont found himself at the very front of the crowd with no one to stop him now when the gates opened. The pistol was a single-shot affair and would take a few precious seconds to reload. He so wanted to wipe that smile off the Compare’s face, but he couldn’t help thinking that the delay in having to reload would cause him to miss the window for the Goddess. It would be a better move to go directly for the Goddess and forget Mister Herbaht, at least for now.

  As he always did, the Compare descended from the plinth with the latest ‘selected’ and escorted her to the now-opening Temple gates. Eggshufont waited patiently yet eagerly. The main doors to the Temple always opened before the gates closed. If he made his move when those doors began to open, he ought to be able to get into the Temple before they had managed to close again, and that would be the end of the Goddess.

  The Compare returned to the plinth and turned to look at the ‘selected’ with that sickening smile on his face, actually holding that far-too-long tail in one of his hands as if wanting to cuddle his own tail, something that Eggshufont hadn’t noticed before. No one else seemed to notice. Everyone was too busy watching the ‘selected’ as she walked through the garden and past the statues to the marble doors.

  When the doors began to open, everything seemed as if it was moving in slow motion for Eggshufont as he started to run. It was too late to change his mind now. He was committed. As he ran he tried to free the pistol from where it was still stuck to his body beneath his many layers of clothing.

  He was through the gates of the Temple with no problem. No one in the crowd seemed to be trying to follow him or stop him. Even the Compare seemed to have
taken cover behind the plinth, maybe realizing that Eggshufont had murder in his green eyes.

  Lowsiobenno looked around as if lost as Eggshufont entered the Temple gardens; maybe she feared that he was after her. She seemed to be frozen to the spot just outside the now wide open marble doors. The longer she remained paralyzed like that, the better Eggshufont’s chance of getting into the Temple itself.

  An alarmed murmur began to find its way around the crowd. If the murmur had any meaning, though, it was lost to him by the sheer weight of numbers that it was coming from. Nevertheless, this noise, combined with a few shouts from people telling him not to do it, was pretty much the last thing he would ever hear in his life.

  Before he had even reached the two gorgeous statues that stood on either side of the short path, a sudden flash of light shot from a small grill at the top of the Temple’s roof, and a moment later Eggshufont lay dead in the garden.

  But that wasn’t the end of it. To those outside the Temple it must have seemed as if the Goddess had gone berserk. She was clearly angered by the attack on her Temple, and it soon became clear that just one death wasn’t going to be enough to sate her temper.

  The crowd that had gathered in front of the Temple was still murmuring, but they were also beginning to disperse with the full intention of returning to their homes when the Temple’s roof-mounted weapons opened fire again and again and again. The crowd began to stampede as, one after another, they were cut down in quick succession. Very few of those in the crowd made it to any sort of cover. They had been the ones lucky enough to be on the very outskirts of the crowd and closest to the neighboring buildings. Everyone else in the crowd, including Lowsiobenno’s two brothers, was lying in the dirt mere seconds after Eggshufont had been killed.

  Lowsiobenno survived the carnage. She had watched in shock as the crowd was slaughtered like animals. Then she entered the Temple itself, but she seemed to do so in a trance.

  The Compare also survived. He had taken refuge behind the plinth, and if anything, the Goddess had avoided shooting at him. He was Herbaht, after all. When the slaughter was over, he climbed slowly to his feet again, shook his head slowly and descended from the plinth. A minute or two later he had retrieved the small television camera from the corpse of the cameraman and was headed for home. He would have his job cut out for him during the next month as he tried to twist what the viewers at home would have seen to make it appear as if the massacre had really been necessary.

  Lowsiobenno was greeted just on the other side of the large marble doors by a male Herbaht who went by the name Mitshutosh. Almost before she could do anything he had injected her with a syringe. He said, ‘It’s a simple sedative; it won’t put you to sleep, but it will help to calm you after what you’ve just seen happen.’

  She felt a little dazed for a moment, and then the events outside the Temple seemed to fade into distant history. She looked at him strangely as he offered her his arm so he could escort her into the main part of the Temple. ‘Are you the Goddess?’ she asked, more than a little bit surprised and more bothered that he was Herbaht than because he was male.

  ‘No, no,’ Mitshutosh replied simply. ‘I am simply one of the Goddess’ other servants. I was sent to escort you to the Goddess herself.’

  ‘But you’re Herbaht,’ Lowsiobenno stated, her voice clear and calm as the drug took effect. ‘Herbaht aren’t included in the lottery.’

  ‘Herbaht are selected at birth personally by the God or Goddess,’ Mitshutosh responded, ‘and not by a random spin of a wheel. We are given different tasks than the kind you will receive. Although there are four Herbaht servants to the Goddess at any one time, only one of us is ever likely to be in the Temple. Our tasks usually take us outside the Temple walls and sometimes even the Temple grounds. Those gardens don’t maintain themselves, you know.’

  ‘I guess not,’ Lowsiobenno responded slowly.

  ‘Well, one of us is trained gardener; one, a cook; and another, myself, happens to be a driver, in case her holiness wishes to leave the Temple herself. Which she would do incognito, you understand; we must maintain the illusion that the Goddess is here at all times.’

  ‘Is she here now?’ Lowsiobenno asked.

  ‘Oh yes, she never misses the day of the lottery. None of us do,’ Mitshutosh replied with a smile. ‘She’s waiting for you in the main living quarters of the Temple.’

  The main living quarters of the Temple looked like a small palace stateroom. The floor was an exquisite marble mosaic that unfortunately had gathered a few scuff marks since it was built. There was a comfortable-looking fireplace, a large wooden table and six wooden chairs, all inlaid with gemstones and gold filigree. There were also a couple of side tables with vases of flowers on them and a large glass-fronted display cabinet containing a very ancient-looking, yet heavily polished silver dinner service. On the nearest wall was a large picture frame. It dominated the entire wall top to bottom, yet seemed to be missing its picture.

  On the largest of the walls in this room was a series of television screens, showing the viewer the various aspects of the city from any number of small cameras that had been secretly hidden about its streets, its shops and even in some of the newer houses. These seemed to allow the Goddess to keep very close tabs on her people. In front of this wall of screens sat a female Herbaht. She seemed to be glowering at one of the screens in particular, the one that currently showed the pile of dead bodies just outside the Temple.

  The Goddess Mitsiocaler looked young, very young, much younger than Mitshutosh, yet when she spun around in her chair, she gazed at him with irritation and seemed to ignore Lowsiobenno altogether.

  ‘Did you have to do that?’ she asked with a hiss in her voice.

  ‘I had to make an example,’ he replied calmly. ‘You know what happened last time; the history books are filled with the stories of the rebellion. It’s even taught to the throwbacks. I just nipped it in the bud before it got any worse.’

  ‘Really,’ the Goddess responded, ‘I hope you’re right. I guess we’ll see. In the meantime, I might have to punish you. Find some task outside of the Temple to perform while I decide whether or not I should have you replaced.’

  ‘But mother…’ Mitshutosh started.

  ‘She’s your mother?’ Lowsiobenno interrupted, surprised.

  Mitshutosh glanced at Lowsiobenno and then walked away. He left the room out the same door they had entered, leaving Lowsiobenno alone with the Goddess.

  ‘He’s your son?’ she repeated.

  ‘He’s my son,’ Mitsiocaler responded with a comforting grin, ignoring the fact that Lowsiobenno had already broken one of the commandments she had been given before entering the Temple. ‘Nearly every Herbaht in the city is either my son or daughter or grandson or granddaughter or the children of the same or their children and so on.’

  ‘Please forgive me if I spoke out of turn, Goddess,’ Lowsiobenno suddenly uttered. ‘I guess I wasn’t ready for what you have told me. Do you have a task for me?’ She looked around herself at the lack of other servants of her race in the room. She loved the look of this room and didn’t really want to leave it, but she was now sure that when she was assigned something she wouldn’t be allowed back here again.

  ‘I need you to go and assist my daughter, Mitsiobon. She’s the cook. Return the way you came, look for a small door to your left and then follow the smells of cooking. You should be able to find her easily enough. By rights Mitshutosh should take you down there, but as you might have guessed, he’s currently in disgrace.’

  She left the stateroom and followed the Goddess’ instructions down to the Temple’s kitchens, where she was surprised to find Mitsiobon alone. She had expected the place to be teeming with the servants of her own race; after all, one was ‘selected’ every month.

  ‘The Goddess sent me down here,’ Lowsiobenno told the cook as she entered the kitchens.

  ‘Of course she did, of course she did,’ the cook responded gaily. ‘So you are the lates
t to be ‘selected.’’

  ‘Chosen today for the honor of serving her holiness. I have to admit I’m surprised that no one else is here assisting you already. In fact, I’ve not seen another of my race since entering the Temple; where is everyone?’

  Mitsiobon seemed to ignore the question, instead asking one of her own: ‘You are aware that the Goddess is immortal, aren’t you?’

  ‘I believe so,’ Lowsiobenno responded. ‘After all, she wouldn’t be a Goddess if she wasn’t.’

  ‘Indeed, indeed,’ Mitsiobon replied. She picked up a cleaver and started to hack away at some non-descript piece of meat on a table. ‘But she’s not naturally immortal, you know. Every so often someone is chosen from the non-immortal members of the Herbaht race to occupy some new Temple that has been built or to replace a God or Goddess that an accident has befallen. You see, they can live forever, but they can still die from unnatural causes. Anyway, those chosen to be Gods and Goddesses are given a special elixir, an elixir that can extend life indefinitely.’

  ‘With you so far,’ Lowsiobenno replied, unsure where this was leading or, indeed, why she was being told this.

  ‘You see, the elixir has a small problem: it’s not perfect by itself. Every month the God or Goddess needs to reinforce the effect of this elixir by ingesting a certain chemical. It works as a sort of booster for the elixir, if you like, and keeps it going for another month. If the deity should miss a month, then the power of the elixir is lost and he or she will age until the next booster is taken. It is said that if they go without the booster for five or more months, then all effect of the elixir is lost for good and they will eventually die of old age, just like the rest of us.’

  ‘Unless they get the elixir again,’ Lowsiobenno added.