Blood Diamonds

The river ran backwards on the day the Queen vanished.

Well, that's what the historians said. Historians, the same people who are in the pay of whatever whim of the current royalty. Their words are always flattering, their opinions sway in the high head wind of the current crowned head (cough, cough), and the annals of history take on a certain overblown view of things.

What happened, instead, is that the mines flooded. Which was worse, really, because all the workers were members of the royal family.

My brother was one of them, may the Powers be gentle with his soul.

I was young, but old enough to remember. The searches, the investigations, the suspicions, the secrecy. For reasons unknown to us then, every female who lost a child to the catastrophe was questioned, and not nicely. My grandparents never walked right again after they protested my mother being dragged away. Mum returned, but she never spoke again.

And no, the tallinas trees didn't break from weeping. Nor did the dogs howl for a fortnight straight, and the watchtower fires didn't refuse to light. The trees were cut for the funeral pyres as bodies floated to the surface, because tallinas wood burns hot and long. The dogs didn't howl because they were terrified, and then they were eaten in the food shortages that happened right afterwards. And the watchtower fires? When you're dealing with a military takeover, you don't want the truth spreading. Captains were ordered to keep the truth from leaking, using any means possible.

It worked about as well as you'd expect, of course. Everyone already knew.

All the diamonds had gone dark.

We all have stashes, of course. It's our currency. Those who work the mines are allowed to keep whatever they find, because it's our legacy by blood. It's what made us royal. It's why we lived here. Just because we weren't in the direct line of succession doesn't mean we could be cut off from mine access. We hear them, humming in the back of our minds, whispers of melody trailing the ground. You want food? Go mine for gems, trade them with the food sellers or jewelers or faceters. Or grow it yourself. Everyone knows the going rates by carat and quality, and they in turn sell to the merchants that come by. Or the manufacturers buy them up, if they're the ugly gray ones. They're very useful; they are ground up and used as grit or sandpaper and suchlike, to make things very smooth, or scribing tips, or edging other tools like saws and drills. Mum's engraving stylus is set with a yellow-gray glittery diamond that she got on her first trip into the mines.

I didn't have a stash, because I was too little. But my brother gave me a beautiful crystal he'd found, double pyramid, five carats. For luck, he'd said. Small for what he would usually pull out.

It didn't go dark like the others.

When Mum found me cradling it under my bedcovers one night, months later, with me thinking my brother must still be alive and trying to bring him home, she snatched it away and buried it. I screamed till Pappy, my grandfather, figured out what she did, and he threatened her bad if she didn't give it back right away. They blamed our dog for the noise when the neighbors asked, though the dog was long gone by then. Mum-mama had to explain, gently, that brother was truly dead, and the reason it stayed clear was for a different reason that would have to wait till I was older. And stay a secret. It took years for me to figure out why Mum did what she did, and how it tied to her never speaking again. And how much we hated those guards.

And why Pappy and Mum-mama were so, so scared for me.

Pappy taught me things.

Secret things.

No, I won't tell you, because then they wouldn't be secret, would they? And I knew my life depended on my being able to keep secrets. Mum's life too, and Pappy and Mum-mama. And my tiny little sister, born nine months after the flooding.

Yes, I figured it out. Mum couldn't or wouldn't talk, but she could make her feelings known all the same. She thought long and hard about her choice, and we helped all we could. A tiny life brought into food shortage and martial law is terrifying. But we sang her songs and played with her and taught her how to crawl and walk and speak, and Mum gave her kisses and cuddles and cried into her baby hair when she nursed, and thought no one was looking.

Little sis had a peculiar hair color. No one else had it – except for one particular guard. He was the cruelest of the lot of them, and the neighbors aren't stupid neither. Guards started vanishing. Always where they wouldn't be missed for hours, and never where anyone could be blamed for it. When guards went out in pairs for security, both disappeared. Any squads sent out to “question” people met with abandoned houses, even blocks. The places were empty, like the town was emptying out.

I'm guessing we had spies in the guard. I know of at least two who “vanished” early that showed up at night in our back room, whispering to Pappy in the darkness. But the guard must have had spies too, because eventually they came for us.

I don't know why we weren't ready. Pappy had drilled me thoroughly on what we needed to do if cornered, either at home or when we had to go out on the street. I was playing with the baby when the door flew open, and there stood the new Captain of the Guard, his flaming hair shining in the sun. His eyes landed on my little sis, with the same hair color.

I grabbed the baby and turned to run out the back.

He lunged after me, but Mum stood in the way – and screamed.

Time stopped.

Well, I think it did.

The guards couldn't even clap hands to their ears. They froze, like I did, like we all did. But while it hurt a bit to hear Mum scream like that, the guards looked like they were going to explode. You could see it in their eyes. I could see ripples of sound jiggling across their pupils, and it looked like it was creeping into their brains.

I didn't care. I knew what they did to Mum. I saw what it did to them, and was glad they finally tasted real pain.

When she finally stopped screaming, long long long after I thought she had to stop, she collapsed. So did the guards, all of them. I started to cry, because I knew Mum was gone.

Pappy appeared, grabbed me, got me to move. Others were there, gathering our stuff and carefully picking up Mum-mama and sneaking out the back. It was dark – what happened to the sun? I was also picked up, and someone else had the baby, and we left. Someone set fire to the house to bury Mum properly. I saw them covering her with tallinas leaves, dragging the guards from outside to accompany her. Like the queen didn't get a proper burial entourage, but Mum did.

It was very dark. We moved quietly.

Eventually, I realized we were in a cave. A big one.

Tunnels led to soft rush-lights in side openings.

It was the whole town, now underground.

The only ones left above were the guards. Well, what few were left. When Mum screamed, most just died. I was so proud of her for getting revenge, even though the tears were still dripping off my face.

Pappy got us settled in our own little spot, with what furniture and rugs came with us. And our boxes of stuff, which must have been packed long before. Don't worry, my diamond was tucked inside a leather bag and was always around my neck. I saw other leather thongs being worn, so I didn't stand out. But, somehow, I knew theirs were all black. Mine was not.

Secret.

Pappy told me it was safe to wander a bit, but to take one of the rush lights with me. He took off to plan something with the others. Mum-mama was crying and holding the baby for comfort, and some other ladies were helping. I slipped out into the tunnel, but went the other way, away from the light. I didn't need light to see. I needed to be alone to grieve for Mum.

There was an underground lake.

We were in the mines.

My brother was still down there, somewhere.

I sat on a hard rock, very very hard. Diamante-Cradle, the mother rock. I heard whispers in the air. The warm lights were far behind me in the tunnels, but here, tiny points of cold silvery light shone like stars in the darkness. Little diamonds, singing in the dark, humming strange words about great heat, and being deep in the ground, and traveling up and out and forming crystals and the joy of matrixed lattices, whatever those were.

We will teach you the words, they sang.

I don't know how long I lay there, listening to the songs, but Pappy eventually found me. He was crying, and I could tell it was because he could see I heard the song.

And he couldn't.

Not anymore.

I was the only one.

He hugged me tight, and we both cried, for the changes, for what was lost. So much, so many. So fast.

We slowly made our way back to our spot, where the baby and Mum-mama were sleeping.

We slept too.