The Goddess of the Land stood in front of her temple with her arms raised to the night sky. She was wearing a white ceremonial robe that she and Elaine had designed. It was open in the front exposing her unscarred belly to reveal that the gods had healed her wounds.

Various passers-by, noticing an obviously religious rite being performed by their goddess, stopped to see what was happening. Word spread quickly and a large crowd gathered around her in a very short time.

The goddess was chanting a simple prayer in ancient Sumarian, a dead language no one around her knew. It was the chanting that was important, not the understanding. The understanding would come later. Where she stood was important to the understanding. Before her was the blackened lamppost where the Lady Sarah had been executed.

‘Are you ready, Chief?’ Princess Béla asked in the mind of the Bridge Officer in the ship high above her.

‘Almost, Princess,’ the Chief replied. ‘The carrier is less than ten… what you call kilometers from your position. It carries the project you requested. You realize the carrier won’t have enough power to get back…’

‘Park it in my back yard…’ Béla replied. ‘We will be happy to care for your pilot until the northern sun returns.’

Béla patiently chanted her Sumarian prayer several more times. Appropriately, it was a simple prayer for a good harvest. She finally heard the carrier’s noisy propellers as the craft approached. She and Elaine were mind-linked together. Elaine was standing in her position opposite Béla, one of them on each side of the lamppost.

‘Ready, Darling?’ Béla sent to her sister.

The two of them had spent several exciting hours designing this little ritual. They also had been practicing for several days on objects close to the size of the project they needed to teleport.

Elaine, excited that she was helping create a real, live miracle, glowed her anticipation and readiness. This was the first time she’d ever been on the ‘inside’ of one of Béla little miracles. This was also the single most important thing she had ever done. They were attempting to change a world.

‘You may fire when ready, Chief,’ Béla informed the Bridge Officer.

She began to chant louder.

Firing in five seconds! Four! Three! Two!

‘Are you ready, Darling?’ Béla asked her sister again, unnecessarily.

Elaine was ready and had never felt this special sharpness in her mind before. They both concentrated on the project in the carrier as it set down behind the manor.

The goddess made a final plea to the heavens and was answered by her father, the Storm God. A brilliant flash of lightning blasted out of the clear night sky and blew a perfectly round hole three feet in diameter right in front of her, vaporizing the fire-blackened lamppost. When the onlookers could see again, there was a marble slab four feet high and three feet thick where the Lady Sarah had been executed for attempting to assassinate a goddess.

Béla and Elaine looked across the slab at each other, trying not to shriek with their glee. The ceremony had gone off without a hitch. There would be no more killing in the name of justice.
It was Elaine’s turn, now. Béla dropped to her knees before the marble slab, feigning exhaustion from her religious trance. Elaine helped her sister goddess to her feet and helped support her as they retired to the manor.

This act made their escape from the surrounding crowd easy. They wouldn’t have to answer questions. The slab was self-explanatory; the same message etched on both sides. The Great Bard Geoffrey could take it from here.

As the goddesses slowly departed, they could hear the Great Bard beginning to speak as he read the inscription:

TO ONE WHO WOULD TAKE THE LIFE OF ANOTHER,
THE FOLLOWING JUSTICE WILL BE ADMINISTERED:

1. You and all your possessions are to be made available for restitution
to the family of the deceased. Your possessions and property rights
are to be distributed between your family and the family of the deceased
as determined by the Justice.

2. You are indentured to the family of the deceased for a period to be
determined by the Justice. This period may not exceed the expected
life span of the deceased, had he or she lived, as determined by the Justice.

3. You are denied participation in any familial functions; either of the family
you are indentured to or your own, for the time you are indentured, other
than as one who serves.

4. You are denied personal relationships for the time you are indentured,
other than as one who serves.

5. The indentured may not be prohibited from visiting the Temple of the
Goddess in his or her district to implore the goddess for intercedence
if he so desires.

6. Penalties for wanton cruelty to the indentured by the family of the
deceased will be determined by the Justice.

7. Once every year, the indentured may petition the Justice for parole.

~~~~~

Perpetual night had fallen over New Eden. There would be no sunlight until the artificial moon that cradled them all in its womb passed from behind Jupiter still almost five months from now.

The goddesses from the neighboring districts departed once it was determined that their sister goddess had recovered and was able to perform her duties. Martial Law was immediately lifted, allowing the populace to return to reaping the summer’s harvest and getting it into storage before everything froze solid.

Having received all the images Jolene had ripped from the Lady Sarah’s mind before Sara was executed, Béla was surprised that Sarah had so successfully hidden her intentions from her.

During Béla’s last absence, Sarah had ingratiated herself into Bard Geoffrey’s employ as a gift to the goddess upon her return as the goddess’ own special handmaiden. Having returned to the manor, she immediately resumed her old tricks. She drugged the staff who knew her and hypnotized them to forget. That same trick had fooled Béla twice, now.

The Lady Sarah’s plan to revenge the murder of her consort and the ruination of her own campaign to take over both the manor and the district was coldly calculated and completely diabolical. There was no way that Béla could fault Jolene for having Sarah executed, nor for the manner in which it was carried out. The good Lady Sarah had murdered several of her rivals with that dress or others like it. It was a ghastly way for anyone to die.

“That should make the populace feel safer,” Béla said, collapsing down on her bed.

She was referring to the slab that she and Elaine had just erected in front of her temple. Elaine bounced down next to her, causing them both to moan. They both had slab-size headaches from teleporting the thing from the carrier in their back yard.

“Do you know how to get rid of a headache?” Elaine asked hopefully.

Béla shook her head and immediately regretted it.

“That thing was at least twice as big as anything we practiced on,” Elaine whined. “I almost couldn’t manage it.”

“I’m glad there were two of us…” Béla groaned.

She immediately brightened up as her eyes fell on the leather-upholstered cabinet across the room.

“Alcohol!” she exclaimed, and stood up to cross the room to her private bar.

“Ahhhgh!” she cried, holding her head. “This is getting worse.”

She stumbled her way to the bar and picked up the closest bottle to her. She upended it and took a deep swallow. Then she stood, leaning on the bar, gasping for air through a scorched and burning mouth.

“Did it help?” Elaine asked, plaintively.

Béla, open-mouthed and breathing rapidly, nodded delicately. Picking up another bottle, she stumbled back to the bed carrying both bottles.

After consuming about half of the second bottle, Elaine, frustrated and drunk, threw herself onto her older sister, pinning her to the bed.

“I love you!” she proclaimed, lying on top of Béla and holding her down. “I’m so happy you’re all right!”

She chomped down on her sister’s throat and greedily swallowed her blood as it pulsed into her mouth. As she sucked Béla’s life-blood away, her headache receded. So did her drunken condition.

“Oh, shit!” Elaine said as Béla passed out from lack of blood to her brain.

Elaine was recovered. Béla, however, was still suffering from the effects of the teleportation, as well as alcohol poisoning. And now, Elaine had just depleted her of at least a quart of blood that she probably needed desperately.

“Come on, Honey,” Elaine told her, holding her sister’s limp and unconscious head to her shoulder. “Time for me to return the favor. Again…”

She had to open Béla’s slack mouth and press her neck against Béla’s teeth in order to get a response. This was the second time in a week she’d had to revive her sister in this fashion.

‘At least,’ Elaine thought as she helped Béla close her mouth and bite into her neck, ‘the first time wasn’t my fault… We should’ve just gone Sappho when we came in, regardless of how we felt. Our blood can cure anything.’

Béla slowly recovered, suckling on Elaine’s neck.

‘Why didn’t our blood just cure our own headaches?’ Elaine wondered. ‘Why do we have to drink each other’s blood to do it? We’re both suffering from the same condition and we have the same blood. It shouldn’t make any difference.’

After a moment, Elaine, already lightheaded from Béla’s feeding, passed out on the bed, Béla still sucking on her neck.

~~~~~

There was an insistent knocking at the door. Béla awoke. Her headache was gone. Elaine was lying on top of her, sleeping soundly.

“Get off me!” Béla grunted insistently, roughly poking her sister in the side with her fingers. “God, when did you get so heavy?”

Elaine stirred and groaned, her slender body reacting to the unpleasant poking. The door was being opened from the outside. It was Jeff.

“Come on in,” Béla called out to him, “we’re naked.”

She was determined to tease Jeff about her personal preferences in dress code until he got used to them.

“Goddess,” he informed her, “I thought I would come up and personally congratulate you on quelling the unease of your subjects.”

He was referring to the unrest that the recent execution had caused.