the ceaseless carnage? How do we keep our world from becoming, unlivable, even for we who ate technically dead? Te starts with honesty. Ie stares with admiteing the truth about ourselves, So what I want everyone here to dois say along with me, “Tam a vampire, I drink the blood of children, and sometimes I am bat.” So listen again and let me repeat that so you can all gee it: "T am a vampire, I drink the blood of children, and sometimes I am a ba.” Okay, so now ler’ all say ie rogether: “Iam a vampire I drink the blood of children, and sometimes [am a bas.” How does that feel? How does it feel to finally be admiteing the truth, co accepr just little responsibility for who you are and what you've done? Ie feels good, right? Listen, it not going to be easy. It's going to take time, You're going to want ro forgee about all of his, and you probably will ae firs. You'll go back ro your old habits; you'll go back to carelessly tearing ‘out the throats of passersby on the street. But you wont feel great about it anymore. Something in the back of your mind will nag at you, taking all the fun out of it. And eventually you'll find yourselves here, where I'm scanding, realizing chat a change is long overdue. ‘And for those of you who don't believe a word ofthis, who think T’m juse a wacky eransgender doing some kind of at piece, I have to say, I pity you. Because youve cut yourself off from what you truly are, You ape humanity, bur you are not human. Your empathy is a sham. Your commitment co peace and justice is an obscene joke. Une you are willing co accepe that you are a fucking Dracula, you are never going to be able to lve seriously or authentically. You will always be ensnared by this ie we've all woven around ourselves, ‘So wake up, folks. Wake up before were all drowning in blood. Nor thar we can literally drown, because we're immortal, bur its sill a powerful meraphor. appreciate your listening. Try to enjoy the rest ofthe show, and please, please tip your waitresses. They work hard and, judging by the hunger in a lot of your eyes, they'll all be dead soon. Thank you. 96 Lilah Sturges i shall remain KAI CHENG THOM “The place they go towards isa place even less imaginable to most of aus than the ety of happiness Teannot describe it at al. eis possible that it does not exist. But they seem to know where they are going, the ones who walk away’—Ursula K, Le Guin, “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas” awn has just begun to crawl into the sky, its colours faring d orange, violet, and green through the smog, when che warlord atrives at my temple by sea. Selen, my gorgon, hisses and uncoils her enormous body from where she is wrapped around one of the tunfallen pillars in my sleeping chamber. her serpent mane froths, a hundred forked tongues testing the air in anticipation, but Selen does noc need to warn me. i know he is here. ic has been so long since my last supplicant chae my skin has gone hard and cracked, lke lay eft out in che aun. scales rain down from my head tails asi ise from the lichen-covered dais where ihave lain forthe past chree moon cycles. the sound of the warlord’s moror- cade echoes off the cliff walls into which my temple is etched. i can hear only 2 few engines—three or four at most, which is unsurpis- ing. even warlords fear being known to visit mei cross the stone room and stand before my altar, Selen at my side she licks my hand asi caress her absencly. gingerly lift the box of beaten metal and seashell on the alear and slide back its lid ever 30 slighty. Light—life—lares within, and i snatch it, his morse of sot, shimmering essence, between my long sharp fingernails. this is the last {have saved i al his long while, denying myself in anticipation of this day. no matter. it shall soon be replenished a thousand times over. throwing my head back, i drop the shred of essence into my open, jaw. warmth floods through my body, down my throat and into my gullee. in char moment, iam, briefly, everything—the roaring of the ‘ocean, the sting of che sale. iam the sky and the screaming drones that fy beneath ic. iam the sun-blasted earth and the spined plants that take rooe within, the euphoria of the essence fades, but its replenishing effect does not. my skin is as fresh and moist as the day i was fire called into Being in the Shining City. my scales fully restored, are iridescent, bright as stars. my head-tails are long and supple. sensing my erans- formation, the surge of my Divinity, Selen purrs and rubs her body against mine in ecstasy. i smile, revelling in the sensation. for in rare moments like this, my Divinity is for no one else—not for Shining Daddy, not for any supplicant—itis just for me, i walk the cavernous expanse of che chamber, skircing broken statues and toppled pillars 2s igo i step out onto the once-majestic zriggurat carved into the cliffin which my temple was made, ascending the steps from the beach is che warlord, dressed in raiments of red and black leather and silver metal. from his colours, i discern that he is the greatest warlord in the region—the one to whom other warlords pay tribute in food and oil and labour and other such affairs in which i have litle interest, he is the one the ‘others fear. on the sand below wait his guards, a lonely pair of them, and sworn to secrecy on pain of death, no doube. i stand and waie, Selen towers on all fours behind me, her ser- pent mane writhing and spraying venom into the ai. 98 Kai Cheng Thom he reaches the top of the aiggurat, one step below mine, and stops. he pulls off his war-mask—an ugly, crudely wrought thing— and i see that his face is weathered and lined. he is old in the years of those who dwell Below, bue his body is muscled and strong. in his eyes, i see che deaths of all chose he has killed, an unending vision of slaughter. hear their screams, cheir pleas for mercy. i hear the threats this man, this Below-dwelling creature, has uttered in che dark. in his hands, i see che blood he has spilled, the bodies he has beaten and torn apart. these are hands soaked in the stories of vio- lence, hands that could break open a creature such as i, fragile as i have become since Shining Daddy forsook me. his eyes wander over my naked body, my shining scales and hhead-rails, my bare breasts and phallus. hunger sparks within him, and wonder, and fear, and greed. kneel before me, i say, and he does. in the Shining Cicy, i wanted for nothing. i had power, and grace, and wisdom beyond measure. i was Best Beloved, Daddy's Delight, preferred child of the Shining Father by whose Divinity we are all called into Being. ‘had many names, then, and titles too, chough even i have for- gotten most of them by now. i tended His garden and His creatures and drew His charior. i buile grear monuments of crystal and coral and shimmering nacre in testament to His glory. i delivered His judgments to the dwellers Below, and they looked at me in terror and awe. all this was mine, and more. ry highest honour, however, was che time i spent each evening in the uppermost tower of the Shining City. there, i and i alone attended to Shining Daddy. chere i performed the dary that i loved the most: i sang for Him the songs of Creation. i sang with the voice that He had given me, che voice chat sounded like che light of His Divinity piercing the darkness of the Void for the firse time. i ‘was that light, that sound, that colour, that song. no other in all of shall remain 99Creation had been given a voice such as mine. every night, isat upon His lap and sang my heart out for Him. ic would be a lie to say that i don't still miss those nights, sometimes. He took my singing voice away when i left the City. what Shining Daddy gives eo you, Shining Daddy can take back. this is ‘ota punishment, He said ac che time. for I do not punish my children. ‘even as you abandon me, you must know that I love you stil. bur he took it away, all the same. the warlord kneels at the mouth of my temple and performs the ritual sacrament, a hodgepodge of prayerful words and gestures that he does not know the meaning of, likely he learned ic from a Below-dwelling priest or sage, some mumbler of fables and mythic haalferuchs. i take the offering from his outsteetched hand, a jangle of metal coins and jewels and computer circuitry. a small fortune to those who live and die Below, bue noching to me except that ic is a sac rifice. it is something that is given up for something granted in return, this, che most ancient of sacraments, still holds power in the Below. {puta hand to his chin and raise him to his feet. caking him by the hand, ilead him back into the temple, the gorgon hissing at ‘our heels, he tries not to react bur cannot help recoiling from Selen ever so slightly, which pleases me. powerful men should have some- thing co fear. wwe enter the shadowy cavern of che temple's inner chamber. the warlord cannot seein the dark, but i smile. ilove this next part. raising my arms in the air, i rasp a long, guttural sound that tends the air and makes the warlord shudder. my days of song may be over, bur my voice has some power in ic still. behind us, Selen rises con her hind legs and croons in harmony. ‘on the wal all around us, bioluminescent mosses and algae flare co glowing, blue-green life. che lichens growing on my dais alight as too Kai Cheng Thom well. che effect is satisfyingly dramatic, and the warlord is suitably impressed. i turn to him, standing at my full height, and drink in his frightened wonder. bare yourself i say tohim, and he does, scrabbling ac his garments like a child ordered by its parents to bathe. in moments, he is naked, and though his body is heavily muscled and crss-crossed with barrle scars, he is boyishly shy, shifting from one foot to the other. so much the better. he will not chink to ery any violence against me, to seize against my will what i am not prepared to give. iam one of the lucky ones. chere are others like me in the Below, fallen children of the Shining City, who have no temple to sleep in, no gorgon to guard them. when i left Shining Daddy's side, i took with me the vestiges of the great power that his favour afforded me: the powers of creation, transformation, and healing, Twas the first, the first that Shining Daddy called into Being and also the first co leave him. many of chose who have since followed _me were nor so favoured, and so they brought less power with them ingo the world Below. those few of us whose Divinity remained intact enough ro do so created cemples and monuments on the edges of the sociery of Below-dwellers, drawing them in with our powers of glamour. we took our great familiar daemons from the City wich us as guides and guardians, relying upon them co keep us safe from the violence of those Below-dwellers who sought to destroy or enslave us. but the greaver part of my ex-Shining siblings had been granted no daemon familias in the ist place. their powers of Divinity had been small in the Shining City and are smaller still Below. unable to reshape the elements at will and without guardians to protect them, these members of my brethren are forced to wander che murky depths of the Below with only meagre enchantments for protection. they wander from city to city seeking offerings and sacrifice, secking essence from the dwellers Below. sometimes they receive ie, for there are dwellers who still know the true meaning of Di ishallremain 101bur sometimes, marked as monsters by their wings, scales, ten- tacles, and ocher physical features-uncommon to the Below-dwellers, they ate often attacked and hunted down, tortured and slain. some are forced to endure such agonies of physical labour as have never been known within the ivory walls of the Shining City. worst of al, however, is when the Below-dwellers discover the power of the fallen ones’ Divinity its miraculous effect on life, and attempt co take it for themselves. chey do so with violence, instead of the offerings, the essence, that we require. yet despite these horrors, small scores of my fallen siblings con- tinue co leave che City. every few ceneuries, another one arrives in the Below. they will follow you, Best Beloved, Shining Daddy said to ‘ me once. they wil fnish what you have begun. he did not say, you are leading them to ruin. he did not say, you ave brought suffering and death to your brethren, Best Beloved, first of amy children, he did not need to say it. the warlord lies naked on my alas. in the blue-green light ofthe bio- luminescent algae, ican see the greying sores, open and weeping, that mark his body. the stink of decay, of mortality, comes from them. in these wounds, i see a future full of pain and slow dying. is it erue, the warlord murmurs, his eyes wide, that you can heal ime, goddess or god, or whichever itis that you are? i do not answer him for a brief time. i lec him rest in the fear, in the knowledge that his life isin my hands. i was not always so cruel. but time in the Below has hardened me, ‘yes, i say Gnally its true. and he moans in relief his fierce hard ‘man who has tortured and slain. rears run down his scarlined face +0 water the moss of my cemple with liquid salt. the gift of my Divinity is delivered through touch. it has always, been, since beginningless time. some of my fallen brethren per- form the miracle of healing through the eransfer of breath; others, through che sharing of blood. still others do so through acts of toa Kai Cheng Thom consensual violence, a deliverance through the pleasure that is born cout of pain, chere are at many ways co exchange Divinity as chere are Daddys children. icbegins, however, mus always begin, with incimacy. with trust. with sacred exchange. tis isan ancient law, a law that is older chan the Shining City, older than me, older pethaps than even Shining Daddy himself blasphemy, Hie would say, fhe heard me say this. once again, you break my heart with your infidel thoughts, Best Beloved with slow deliberation, i lay my hands on the warlord’s nude body. he cringes eflexively for the feel of my flesh on his is strange, but ido not falter. i lay my palms against the hair and skin, the mus- cle and sinew of his chest, until his breathing is steady and his eyes are calm. and then i begin. ie searts with long, slow, gentle strokes. at my mental command, iy palms secrete a sweer-smelling oil that smooths their path. che warlord makes 2 small, wordless sound of pleasure. i continue on, my strokes gradually becoming deeper, until ican feel the radiance of his life wichin—the energy currents of essence chat low through all living beings. my Divinity cals o that essence, heightens and awak- ens it. the man beneath me moans. deeper and deeper into his body i dive, increasing each move- iment until my breasts are flash against his chest, my thighs pressed into his midsection. my head-tails coil and uncoil, caressing his face and throat, sliding down to touch each part of his body. he grunts land presses against me, hard, chen harder stil. with powerful hands, he grabs my arms and pulls me against him. emotion and sensation toil within him, his essence burning beneath my touch. overcome, he grabs my throat. the gorgon roars and crashes down from above, slamming her forelegs onto the altar on either side of my and the warlord’s cenvwined bodies. he cries out in terror as her jaws plunge down, but caught in the gaze of the golden-eyed snakes that make up her mane, he cannot move. he is transfixed. shall remain 103Sclen holds him there, caught and squirming for along, terible moment. the bravado drains from him. i feel his terror, his surten- der. i pluck his hand from my neck and catch his gaze with mine. do not presume, isay, and he makes the barest of nods. Selen withdraws and his muscles go slack beneath me, i give him time to recover, and then we begin again. there are chose who might whisper chat i was banished from the ‘Shining City for crimes of blasphemous thought. others still might say that i attempted a coup, that i grew arrogant and prideful of ‘my own powers. they might say chat I gathered a host of rebellious brechren by nighe and led chem in fruitless revole against the omnip- tence of our creator. those who say such things are credulous fools, or else veil gos- sips. they know nothing of Shining Daddy nor the nature of His love. Shining Daddy banishes no one; his methods are not so crude, Shining Daddy never withdraws his affections, for a love that ends is an imperfect love, and my Father is perfection itself. i want you to know, Ele said to me on the day that ileft, that you do this by choice, and by choice alone. my love is infinite and unending ‘you are the one who spurns it, i know, i replied, for what else was there to say? lett be known, He further decreed, that Iam as merciful as 1 am powerful, as powerful as I am wise. and so my forgiveness is always avail able to you, my child. you need only repent, and you may return to me. i know, i replied. willful Beloved, most ungrateful of children. Shining Daddy said to me, [see that you are resolved inthis, to carry your corruption to the ends of space and time and back into the Void from whence I summoned ‘you, and for what? for folish pride? for some juvenile shortsighted rebel- liom agains che order of things, which neither you, nor I, nor any thing in this wide Creation might change? ‘noi said, though i knew berter than to argue. igo for a freedom of my owm making i go for a Divinity that is mine and mine alone, to tos Kai Cheng Thom give or withhold asi decree. igo because i have seen what lcs Below, and ‘have seen the Shining City, and i have seen your great Design through to its end, andi will have no part of it, not while this freedom of wil that ‘you have given me sil beats inside my chest and he might have been angry with me then, and stricken me, had he not been so perfect a being, perfection is not petty. ‘my child, he said, and his voice was terrible and gencle. my love ‘and my Design are one and the same. they are as infinite and undying. _freedom of will i have given you, for that isthe nature of loving, bt you ‘cannot and will never be fre of my love. ‘know, i said, for ie was true. what else was there to say? the warlord hums and writhes beneath my glowing hands. che ‘essence within him rises and falls like the surging of the tide beyond ‘my temple. higher and higher i ride its waves, until it crests and barsts within him, filing me with its light. and fora single instane, iam there in the place where i was made. i smell its perfumed ait. isce its skies, Bue and free of the smog that chokes the Below. i hear its music, caste the sweetness of ambrosia i soar among the vaulted arches and spires wrought in architecture so glorious that the memory of them still makes me long to weep. essence. its the power of Creation, oflight in the Void. i gushes forth from the warlord’s body, filing me with life, and i drink e in thirstily—enough to last for several moon cycles, and ro save for times of need, my Divinity fowers in answer, a glorious unfolding of silenc song that nonetheless makes the air hum and the temple walls tremble. i blaze like a star, so bright that the warlord must shield his eyes. ‘and when the light fades, his sores are gone. his sickness is healed. this is the power of Divinity when fed by the essence of dweller Below life for life, a sacred exchange, the oldest sacrament. the warlord shudders a final cime. i sense the relief chat rolls through his bones, followed by a sweet, aching sadness char wells up from the core ofthis wicked, wretched creature. in my presence, ishall remain 105he longs to be more than what he is—more than his limited being ruined by the unrelenting violence and suffering of Below. there was a time when i believed chat my Divinity could cleanse the corruption of the dwellers Below. i thoughe tha if only T could bring enough of them to me and my brethren, bring them to their knees with my power and grace, i might love them enough to turn this entire putrescent world into something both beautiful and free—a place purer than the Shining City ever was. for a time, I pursued this prideful dream, so that cults of Below-dwellers lived and died building monumenes in my name. the mote fool, i. Shining Daddy's love indeed runs deep—so deep thac it found a home in my heart and tried to remake me in His image. i would have ruled the Below with His hand, in His Design, and though myself free. but i know this now: love that you cannor leave is not love. the warlord is gone when the dusk begins to fall, returned to his petty wars of conquest. outside my temple, the ocean rises and falls. there were once giant creatures that swarmed through the waters of this place Below—leviathans thac ruled over ecosystems of infinite variety. now, the boiling seas are full of poison and acid, giving rise ‘only to vase ields of algae and the bacteria that live there. sy Father's Creation is dying. i is collapsing in on itself, consum- ing ieslf. ic may take ererniey, bur the day will come when i is gone. from the ziggurat of my temple, ifi strain what powers of vision are left to me, i can still glimpse the Shining City. it shimmers through the smog filled skies of Below, invisible to all but me and ny fallen brethren. even i can barely make it out—perhaps, afterall this time, i am only imagining that i can see it, farther and further away ic drifts from Below, unmooring itself from our inevitable descent into the Void. despite the unending cho- rus of anguish that echoes from this world, it has been many, many millennia since Shining Daddy or the children who still serve him have descended to answer those prayers. 106 Kai Cheng Thom. that is why those who dwell Below still seek us out, me and my fallen siblings—monstrous though we may seem to them, with the stigma of blasphemy still clinging co us. ours is che only Divinicy they might still hope to see. it is not too late for me to escape this fare. even now, i can feel the pull of Shining Daddy's promise. ineed only repent, i could ride sy gorgon into the sky, back to the Shining City, i could sie in His lap and sing to him in the highest rower. He would redeem me, for- «give me, is waiting for me co return. ican feel ic now, as feel it every moment of every day. {iam tempced, sometimes. but here i have chosen. and here shall remain, ishallremain 107