The Eleventh Resurrection and the Twelfth Life by Devin Miller
3200 words, ~16 minutes reading time
Issue 4 (Spring 2024)
Medevia took slow, deep breaths as an eighth hexagon was tattooed onto her thigh. She had seven already healed, one for each of her professional deaths and resurrections, inked in shades of peacock blue and teal.
"It was more difficult this time," Poloa said.
"The resurrection?"
"Yes." Poloa's fingers were tight on Medevia's knee, holding her leg in place for the single needle. It was not a stretch for Medevia to feel the love and relief of a difficult resurrection in her firm grip. Friend, lover, tattooist, resurrectionist–Poloa was all of those things. Their relationship carried the legacy and traditions of past death explorers and resurrectionists.
"The place I was in was new to me," Medevia said. "I think it was the swamp necrobiome Gregorion Filis wrote about in his second volume of death travelogues."
Her sense memory of the swamp was strong: it was deeply green and smelled of vegetal decay. Mud sucked at her shoes; many of the dead were sunk hip-deep, peacefully dreaming and sinking deeper. People in death looked as they had living, but their bodies often merged with the landscape over time. There were narrow dry paths of moss and grasses, but it was slow going. Medevia did not have time to explore as much of it as she wanted to before the skin-crawling sensation of a resurrection hit, and she was wrenched out, returned gasping to life in Poloa's arms.
"The difficulty has always varied, hasn't it?" Medevia asked.
"Not as much as that."
"I don't remember any writings about it. Travelogues focus on the explorer's experiences, not the resurrectionist's."
"I'd like to ask someone about it," Poloa said. She brushed a dark curl off her face, dipped the needle again into the vivid ink.
"We haven't anyone to ask," Medevia muttered, looking away from the sharp, painful pierce of the tattoo needle.
They never had. They'd taught themselves from The Book of Resurrections, experimented, with youthful recklessness, and survived the terrifying uncertainty of the first death. In a few months, they'd sent Medevia into death enough times to write a travelogue chapbook. It had been enough to win them a patron, the rich Emeter Coralis, wealthy enough to give them bread and board and spending money, to make them professionals.
Now Medevia went into death once a season, a safer frequency. In between her resurrections, she wrote of her explorations and trained her body until she was muscled and hardy enough to withstand her deaths. She went to Coralis's parties to show off her tattoos and tell stories of white forests and beaches pebbled with pink stones and the dead. Poloa practiced her tattooing and edited Medevia's writing. It had been two years under his patronage.
Hexagonal tattoos were the traditional mark of a death explorer. They were for Coralis, for him to brag of Medevia's adventures, but they were for her, too. Her skin burned under the scratch of the needle, but the burn was good. Alive.
Medevia lounged back on a green velvet sofa and put one foot up on the edge of the table, letting her long tunic splay open to reveal her tattoos. The pretty young man who'd gone to fetch her a drink returned and pressed a cocktail into her hand. The glass was wet, sweating in the warmth of Coralis's overly heated parlor; he hated winter and spared no expense on fires.
Medevia liked Coralis's parties, for the most part. She would have been happy as a death explorer without the pomp, and she couldn't respect Coralis for how transparently he kept her as an accessory rather than for scholarly interest. But it was fun to wear the expensive silk version of the death explorer's traditional ankle-length tunic and talk about what she'd seen in death. The socialites who sat on the sofas around her were easy on the eyes, and Poloa, off in a corner somewhere having a deep conversation, never minded her flirting.
Sometimes there were other death explorers and resurrectionists at the parties, but Medevia usually stayed out of their way. They were older than her, and seemed either indifferent to or vaguely offended by her existence. She'd tried to start professional discussions, with frustratingly little response beyond a few dismissive words. But none of them had shown up tonight--no, there was Tevai Suin across the room, glaring. Not at anyone in particular, just at the room.
Medevia sipped her drink and eyed the woman. Tevai Suin was forty-something and had been in the game for a long time. She gave the impression that she had survived all her deaths by virtue of being built like an oak tree. Medevia had read her death travelogues; they were precise, uncompromising.
Honey-scented perfume wafted into Medevia's nose and distracted her, and she found herself telling the perfume-wearer and company about the swamp necrobiome. She liked to talk about the sumptuous clothes of the dead, make it sound like they were all rich and famous, give her audience a thrill–it could be them dead in a swamp some day. Partway through the story, she looked up to see Tevai Suin standing on the other side of the table, listening.
Medevia wasn't about to let herself be intimidated; she finished the story.
The listeners went to get drinks, and Tevai Suin sat on the edge of the table. It creaked under her weight.
"Your stories would play better if you didn't spend so much time talking about what the dead were wearing," Tevai Suin said.
Medevia stared her down. "My stories play fine."
"Fine, sure. There's always room for improvement."
"Did you come over here just to critique my performance?"
"More or less," Tevai Suin said, leaning forward over the table. "If you want, I'll give you some tips."
She said it in a flat voice that put Medevia's hackles up. "I do not want," Medevia said, and stood, stalking away to find Poloa.
On her ninth death, three months later in the fresh flush of spring, Medevia returned to the swamp necrobiome. If she'd explored a place before, she could direct herself back, though it took focus she couldn't always achieve.
Death had no seasons; it was as green as it had been before. The slow-moving water between the trees and mossy throughways was grey with reflected sky, the air heavy with the smell of brackish water and plant life. The people in death did not smell.
Medevia walked slowly, careful of her feet. It always seemed possible that death might grab her ankles, pull her down, and keep her. She was a careful observer of the landscape; many scholars of necronomy were interested in why death organized itself into different necrobiomes. But the general public was always more interested in observations about the dead.
She saw dead in the white robes and copper jewelry of Caloum, dead in the puffed and slashed doublets of Palatin-era Setera, dead naked but for blue paint. Medevia loved writing about the clothing of the dead, and it always intrigued her that they were never grouped by origin. Surely no one of Caloum would have imagined themself in this swamp, so different from the arid country of their life.
Then one person caught her eye. He was a hale silver-haired Seteran, seated cross-legged beneath a tree in shallow water. Medevia realized with a shock who he was; she had seen his portrait–Gregorion Filis, her predecessor in exploring this necrobiome. Her heart lurched. She had never met a dead explorer before.
Medevia knelt before the dead man, who looked only a little older than his portrait. She caught his eye and parted the slit of her tunic to show him the hexagonal tattoos of her deaths. He smiled. "An explorer! A pleasure to know the tradition lives on." He spoke formal Seteran, sounding archaic to Medevia's ears.
"A pleasure to meet you, sir. You are remembered." The dead always liked to hear that. "I wonder if you would share some of your knowledge of death with me."
He answered generously, telling her of other necrobiomes he had visited, of the dead anchored there, of his observations since his own death. It was nothing like meeting other death explorers at Coralis's parties; he didn't tell boastful stories like they did. He talked to her as a fellow death explorer, dropping information freely. Maybe because he was already dead; she would never be his rival.
Finally she asked, mouth feeling clumsy and uncertain, if he had any advice to impart to a young explorer.
"Solve your problems," he said, "in the place where you experience them. The problems of death in death, the problems of life in life."
Before she could ask what that meant, her body seized, her skin crawled. It was the familiar beginnings of a resurrection. Her mouth formed a "no" in silent protest. She was not ready; she wanted to learn more from Filis. It felt so good to learn from him.
The Book of Resurrections advised never resisting a resurrection. She was sure she was not resisting–she wanted to, but tried hard to relax her body and let it happen. But the skin-crawling sensation went on too long. The swamp seemed to want Medevia; her fellow death explorer wanted her. Poloa was struggling to bring her back.
Then, finally, Poloa said her name aloud and the resurrection succeeded. Medevia's body jerked, shivered; her lungs squeezed. She opened her eyes in life.
"You shouldn't go there again," Poloa said.
Medevia's thigh itched from the fresh tattoo of her ninth death. They sat on the patio of their favorite restaurant; Poloa had taken her to dinner.
"It was too difficult to bring you back, even more so than the last time you were in the swamp necrobiome. You scared me."
The waiter came. Poloa ordered fish cooked in garlic yogurt sauce, a platter of vegetables in a pomegranate glaze, fresh mango blended into a thick drink.
"But I could learn so much from Gregorion Filis. I could find out what was in his lost manuscript. I have so many more questions to ask him."
"It's too risky."
"You think it's that necrobiome? That something about it makes resurrections more difficult?"
Poloa spread a linen napkin over her broad thighs. "I remembered that the introductions to Lucinth Vant's travelogues were all written by his resurrectionist. When she talks about resurrecting him from a moorland necrobiome, she mentions that it was uncommonly difficult."
"There could be lots of reasons for that," Medevia said.
"He went there four times, it was difficult every time."
Difficult didn't mean impossible. If Medevia returned to the swamp, she could ask Filis about it. And maybe he would have advice about this sort of disagreement with one's resurrectionist.
Their food arrived. Poloa reached across the plates and rising scent of pomegranates and wrapped her fingers around Medevia's. "There's no need to risk it. Go somewhere else, see something new. I don't know what I'd do if I failed to resurrect you."
On her tenth death, pleasantly cool in contrast to the summer heat of life, Medevia found herself in a pine forest necrobiome. It wasn't the swamp; her focus had failed.
Resurrected with no unusual difficulty, the skin-crawling, bone-pulling sensation painful but brief, Medevia pushed down her dismay that she would have to wait another season to talk to Gregorion Filis again. Even so, she smiled up at Poloa, bending over her on the resurrection bed.
"That was much easier," Poloa said. "Thank you for not returning to the swamp."
Medevia chose not to say that she'd meant to visit the swamp again. They didn't need to have that argument now. She wasn't disregarding Poloa's concerns; she simply had unlimited faith in Poloa's ability to resurrect her. And she couldn't pass up the chance to talk to such a venerable death explorer.
Medevia's eleventh death came in the dying autumn. She opened her eyes in the swamp necrobiome and warm anticipation settled into her. She wasn't in the same place she'd arrived last time, but she was confident she could find Gregorion Filis again.
She had to walk quite a long way and worried she was losing time, but she found him. He was still sitting cross-legged in the water, which hadn't risen, still lapping at his knees. Happily, she splashed up to him and sat, heedless of the wet seeping into her own clothes. They'd be dry, back in life.
"Hello, do you remember me?" she asked.
Filis focused on her and frowned. "Yes," he answered. "What are you doing here again?"
"I'm sure you have so much more you could teach me. I wanted to learn."
"You're a death explorer, girl. You're not exploring if you return to places you've already seen. That's a waste of a good death. Go away and see something new."
"But–" It had seemed so obvious to Medevia, in the months between deaths, that Filis would teach her, if she returned to him. He'd be a mentor, something she'd never had. Talking to him the first time, being able to ask questions, had felt as if an empty cup inside her was being filled with warm coffee. Now it was draining again.
"Don't ask people for advice you're just going to ignore," Filis said.
Confused anger welled up against her skin, but before it could overflow into speech, resurrection grabbed her. She'd taken too long finding Filis, and even if he'd been willing to talk to her again, she wouldn't have had much time.
It felt like a thousand slight pinpricks across her body, like someone was pulling on her ribs and wrist bones. Medevia leapt to her feet, splashing, sliding against mud. She stumbled back against a tree, bracing herself, her legs trembling and hands clutching at the place below her left breast where it felt like a fist was squeezing her ribs together. It hurt. Resurrection always hurt, but it was usually quick. This was too slow, and if the pain kept squeezing her like this she thought she'd crack.
She didn't want to stay here; she didn't want to be dead. She'd trusted Poloa to resurrect her since they were 19 years old and trying it for the first time, and she still trusted Poloa, but this was unlike any other resurrection.
"Medevia, Medevia." She could hear Poloa's voice, maybe in her ears or maybe in her mind, maybe in her bones. Medevia gritted her teeth and tried to answer the call, tried to reach back for life. Couldn't quite grasp it. Tried harder.
She breathed. She opened her eyes in the resurrection bed.
Poloa was kneeling over Medevia, tear tracks smearing the makeup on her face. "Did you go back to the fucking swamp?" Poloa asked. She sounded gutted, angry but exhausted.
Medevia started to nod, found that this hurt. Instead, she wet her lips and said, "Yes."
"Why?"
"I wanted to talk to Gregorion Filis again." Slowly and gingerly, Medevia sat up, bracing her arms on her knees.
"You knew it was risky. I told you not to go back there, I thought you agreed."
"I thought it was worth it. It felt so good to talk to him the first time, to have a teacher." She scrubbed her hands across her face. "But he didn't want to talk to me again, anyway."
"Worth it? What if I hadn't been able to resurrect you? Do you know how I'd have felt?"
Medevia looked up at Poloa's face. It was messy, dark smudges circling her eyes, but that wasn't what hurt to look at. Her eyes were wide and haunted by the specter of Medevia's death. The ghost of that possibility was so visible that Medevia did understand how she'd have felt.
Medevia grabbed her hand and squeezed. "I'm sorry. I just..." The disappointment surged forth suddenly, the sense of loss for this thing she'd needed bone-deep. But it was hard to explain, and she opened her mouth, closed it again before she could find a way forward. "We taught ourselves everything we know about death. I taught myself everything I know. Or learned from friends as ill-informed as me. Stole knowledge from people who didn't care to teach me. I never had a mentor who was older and wiser, who cared about me and wanted me to learn. And that hurt. But when I found Gregorion Filis, I thought, here was an expert willing to help me. I don't think I realized how big an empty space there was in my life. But he filled the empty space." Her heart twisted painfully. "The first time, at least. This time he rejected me. He said he wouldn't give me more advice if I was going to ignore what he'd already told me."
There was a silence. Medevia had to look away from Poloa's face to keep talking, and she couldn't make herself look back. She stared at the oval leaves of a vining plant on the windowsill.
"What was his advice?" Poloa asked at last.
"He told me to solve my problems where they are. Death problems in death and life problems in life. I was hoping for something more practical, to be honest."
"You absolute idiot."
"What?" Medevia finally looked at Poloa and was confused by how thoroughly her haunted expression had melted into one of total exasperation.
"You know there are plenty of death explorers who aren't already dead?"
"Well, sure. I've met them at Coralis's parties."
"So if you want a mentor, you don't have to go to a risky part of death to find one. That empty space in your life–I'm sorry, I didn't know that hurt you like that. But that's a life problem. You should solve it in life."
"The death explorers who go to the parties are assholes. Most of them ignore me, and the ones who don't are condescending. Tevai Suin offered to give me 'tips' on my storytelling last winter."
Poloa laughed, slightly hysterically. "Have you not heard the rumor that Tevai Suin is looking for an heir?"
"A what?"
"She's thinking about retiring and she wants to pass on everything she knows about death first."
Medevia stared at a wrinkle in Poloa's blue tunic. The memory was fuzzy, but she was sure Tevai Suin had sounded sarcastic. But maybe that was just her voice. "I don't believe it," she muttered, not certain what she did or didn't believe.
"Well, maybe the rumor is wrong," Poloa said equably. "But you should find out. And if not Tevai Suin, someone else. If there is a space in your life and that hurts you, fix it."
Medevia thought about that. Her hand was still entwined with Poloa's. She pulled, and leaned forward to kiss Poloa on the corner of her mouth. The skin there was damp, but Poloa's mouth stretched into a smile.
"I trusted you to resurrect me," Medevia murmured. "I always trust you."
Poloa pulled away. "But you won't go to the swamp again."
"No. I promise."
Poloa squeezed their fingers together, hard, then got up to fetch her tattoo inks and needle. Lying down again in the resurrection bed, Medevia looked at the pattern of sunlight on the ceiling and thought about exploring death, about filling spaces in her life, and about the spaces that were already filled.