Seven Cities of Gold

Seven Cities of Gold

By David Moles

(Read the full text in The Best Year’s Science Fiction Anthology 2011, edited by Gardner Dozois)

The ex-nun was seated on the bed. Nakada’s formulary kit lay open on the mattress in front of her. Dos Orsos had found, or someone – Noda? Nakada didn’t think so – had shown her, the trick panel that concealed Kawabata’s ampoules of experimental antipsychotic.

“They used to do this every night,” Dos Orsos said, looking out the window. “Not the candles, but the parade, the lights.” There was a sound like a mortar being fired, and a star shell burst somewhere far above, sending a wash or red light across the room. “And I heard, as it were the voice of thunder, one of the four beasts, saying Come and see; and I saw…”

She turned to Nakda. “It doesn’t matter who built the bomb,” she said. “Say the bishops built it, and feared to use it. It doesn’t matter who set it off, or why, whether it was done in my name, or the bishops,” or the name of the Caliph of Cordoba.”

Darkness. “There was a black bank of clouds on the southern horizon, and below them an impenetrable darkness” (David Moles). Photo: © Megan Jorgensen (Elena)

“Or the name of the Regent of Yoshino,” Nakada suggested.

Dos Orsos inclided her head.

From the courtyard, Nakada heard the sound of trumpets. She looked down, and saw that a throne had risen up from the ground, and seated on it was the figure of a white-haired man in European robes. Seven angels stood in front of the throne, each with an open book.

“And the books were opened,” Dos Orsos recited. “And another book was opened, which is the book of life: and the dead were judged out of those things which were written in the books, according to their works.”

Nakada thought of the children in the river village. She thought of Hayashi’s pyre, and then of Hyashi herself, as she had first seen her, in the sunlight of the Gulf of Mexico. She thought for the first time in weeks of her own husband and son, who, she was sure now, she would never see again.

“You understand,” Dos Orsos said suddenly, as if she had seen the thought in Nakada’s mind. “The blood of the children of Espirito Santo is on all our hands. All of us will answer on the day of judgement. Now all these things happened into them for ensamples,” she said, “and they are written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the world are come.”

Nakada looked down at the open formulary kit. She wondered for the first time, and was surprised to realize it was for the first time, what those ampoules actually contained.

“I know whose blood is on my own hands,” she told Dos Orsos. “It’s not for me to tell you whose in on yours.”

She turned to go. In the doorway, she hesitated.

“I’m sorry.”