4 Rabi' al-Akhir, 1427
"A woman came to the prophet and asked for purification by seeking punishment. He told her to go away and seek God's forgiveness. She persisted four times and admitted she was pregnant. He told her to wait until she had given birth. Then he said that the Muslim community should wait until she had weaned her child. When the day arrived for the child to take solid food, Muhammad handed the child over to the community. And when he had given command over her and she was put in a hole up to her breast, he ordered the people to stone her. Khalid b. al-Walid came forward with a stone which he threw at her head, and when the blood spurted on her face he cursed her."
--Sahi Muslim No. 4206
Wafia bint Qadir ibn Hamid al-Asadabad held her head high. This was by no means what she was supposed to do. She was supposed to cower before them, supposed to cry, to beg, to plead for her life. She was supposed to feel shame; she was told she should feel shame.
She felt no shame.
Nineteen years she had lived on this earth, listened to the teachings of her parents, to the teachings of the Prophet Mohammed (peace be upon him), to the teachings of the elders. She had endured the rise of the fundamentalistsher father had cursed them, and the fact that they ended the drug trade. She had chafed under her burqa, and had not been too sad to see the Taliban chased out by the Americans. They were brusque, and certainly not devout, but they were People of the Book, and at the very least, she'd been able to resume wearing somewhat normal clothing; she'd been grateful for that.
Then the Americans retreated to Kabulthe troops were needed elsewhere, they shrugged. And the rebuilding of her village slowed, then stopped. And the same men who had profited in opium and weapons trade before the Taliban began enriching themselves again.
Her father was one of those men. He had a mind for business, and he had connections; his father, Abu Qadir Hamid al-Asadabad had been a leader in the resistance to the Soviets; the smuggling routes into Pakistan were well-established by the time Abu Hassan Qadir al-Asadabad took them over. The poppies grew quickly; the guns were needed by the reconstituted Taliban across the border, and they also came back west, through Iran and on to Hojatoleslam al-Sadr's men in Iraq. Abu Hassan made money on transport in and out of Afghanistan; he had two of his sons learning the business. Wafia knew that she was one of the few things that gave her father concern; she knew he thought she should be married by now, should be giving him grandchildren like her brother Hassan. But she had hoped that in time, she would find the strength to leave, to go to Kabul and study, to become more than just a mother and wife.
She had hoped. But the illegal international drug and weapons trade is not for the faint of heart; there are rivals everywhere. And the virginal daughter of a leading smuggler is an attractive target to those who would put him off his game. Khan's men had made sure that Abu Hassan knew exactly who had defiled his daughter, and how many; they made sure he knew that they had dishonored her in the most vile ways. And they left her crumpled on the ground just off the village square, a living message of warning to her father.
He had cried, and then had met with the Imams; she knew as she tried to forget the sight of the four of them, tried to forget the pain of the attack, the hurt of the moment they'd taken her chastity from hershe knew that this pain was far from what she would soon endure. For the Imams held with the ancient ways of her people; she had been defiled, and because of that, she had dishonored her family.
She would have to be punished.
They had let her heal a bit before dragging her to the village square; there they called her a whore and worse, told her that she had sinned in the eyes of Allah (peace be upon him), and that they had no choice but to stone her to death.
Her father had looked at her, and she had stared him down. She knew she should feel shame.
She felt no shame.
But as the rock struck her temple, she felt pain of many kinds.
Her brothers threw the next rocks, and then her friends; she began to cry, and cried out finally from the pain.
"Yaa Allah," she sobbed, "I have committed no sin!"
The rain of stones continued, and she was dimly aware of only pain, and somewhere, somehow, a flickering of hope.
"Please," she said, or prayed, or dreamed. "Help me."
And that is when the miracle occurred.
◘ ◘ ◘
Thousands of miles away, in a world entirely different, a screen lit up.
"Teacher! Asia Two-Four-Two is going berserk!"
Jon Smith roused himself from his email and turned to the green Deputy at the listening center. He cursed inwardly that he'd let Scott talk him into coming back; he and Jessica had been talking about having another child (technically, their firstBrittany was not his genetically. But she was theirs in every way that mattered), and he had been quite happy in early retirement.
But Scott had laid out a long and winding tale about how he never saw his wife anymore, and certainly Jon could understand that they needed his expertise, and couldn't he come back part-time, like a Reserve Officer?
And so it was that Jon Smith found himself in the command center of the Society on a pleasant Wednesday morning in May, overseeing a bunch of junior officers who were still trying to tell a shrink spell from a speck of dust on the screen.
"Well, now, probably just the Sisterhood; they're in China, you know. Nice women, neutral of course. Group of four adepts, you're bound to get a blip."
"Teacher, that would be Asia One-One-Three. Andhell, One-One-Three is showing some noise to the west. But it's Two-Four-Two"
"Yes, yes," said Anonymous, as he looked over the shoulder of the young man jabbing his finger at the screen. He looked at the screen, already prepared to show that Two-Four-Two was notorious for giving false positives, and besides, coverage in that area was spotty to begin with.
He was prepared to say that. He didn't. Instead, he said simply, "Good Lord."
◘ ◘ ◘
Wafia looked down at the village, at her attackers, at her accusers. She looked down in disbelief at her body, which seemed healed completely. Looked out at the menthe tiny little menwho had just seconds before been competing to see whose rock could take her life.
"Subhaan'Allah," she whispered, though to the throng below it came out as a thunderous cacophony. "Alhamduillah!" she roared, seeing their terrified faces. He had heard her prayer. And he had saved her.
"Demon!" an old Imam shouted, pointing at her wildly, hand shaking. "You are a djinn! A succubus!"
"Blasphemer!" she said reproachfully. "It was Allah (peace be upon him) who heard my prayer."
"He would not empower a woman so!" the mouse at her foot shouted.
"But he has," she said, realizing as she said it the truth of the statement. "He has given me power. Power to revenge the wrongs against me. Starting with you." And with that she swung a foot whose shoe had disappearedthrough growth or through stoning, she knew not whereand stomped down on the tiny holy man. She felt him crush below her foot as a hamster mightbones breaking and body flattening until the life ebbed from him.
It felt right. It felt just.
"So," she said, looking at the masses, a smile crossing her lovely face, "who shall I destroy next?"
◘ ◘ ◘
"No, I bloody well won't hold! This is a priority one communiqué! I need Ceres, and I need her now! This is Anonymous, I'm in the Command Post, and we have a Code Magenta."
Anonymous was pacing, furious with the officious stooge upstairs, who seemed determined to make life difficult for anyone and everyone. It was with relief that he heard the voice finally come over the line.
"Anon, this is Ceres, what's going on?"
"Get down here, Ronnie. Code Magenta in Asia."
"Where?"
"Afghanistan or Pakistan, maybe India. Damn thing's near Kashmir. Nothing going on there, of course."
"Anyone in range?"
"Titania and Oberon are in Tokyo. But I haven't been able to raise them."
"We need this locked down. Localized. Anontake a team to the area with listening devices. Let's get this nailed and get Scott and Sarah in. We don't want to screw around with a new adept."
"Agreed. I'm on it," Anonymous said. "Master, I'll take Deputies Rice and Bellanger from here. Assuming you can assist with a gate."
"On my way," Ronnie Ceres agreed. "Time is of the essence."
◘ ◘ ◘
She held her father in her hand like a ragdoll. He looked at her with something she'd never seen a man express toward herawe and fear. "Wafia, please, I beg you, bismillah, do not do this!"
"Father," she said, looking at him with contempt, "when I was broken and bleeding, you went to them and told them. You told them you would need to stone me to redeem the honor of our family.
"It was you, father. You have besmirched our family. Allah has given me the power to end that now."
"I would have revenged you! After your death, we were to ride north to where Abu Khan has his base, and destroy them!"
Wafia leaned back just a bit. "Tell me, father, where is it that Abu Khan's men reside?"
"Northabout thirty kilometers. They have a basethey are running missile launchers. They wanted in on munitions. They're easy to find. Wafia, let me live and let me revenge you!"
"No," she said. "Though I thank you for the directions. I think I shall seek my own revenge." With that, she tossed her father carelessly over her shoulder, and set upon her brother.
◘ ◘ ◘
It was nighttime as the small detachment transported in to the area. Well, it was nighttime in Afghanistan; it was still about 11:00 AM back in the States. Smith didn't worry about it, he simply barked commands. "Deputy Bellanger, what do you see?"
The young woman was fiddling with a reading device, trying to get a bearing. "North, I think," she said. "Actually, fairly close. Maybe twenty klicks or so. Tayshawnget out a ways. We need to get this thing triangulated."
"Right, Meg," said Rice, who was already sprinting rapidly to the east, holding his reader toward true north, watching to see if he could get the needle to move. When it finally did he stopped dead. "342 degrees," he called out. "Yeah, about twenty kilometers. Hike it, Teacher?"
"It will take too long. We'll transport," Anon said. He wasn't a great natural talent, but he could get them that far. "Let's go."
They rematerialized south of a burning village. "Bloody," he murmured at the carnage. A few hundred bodies lay scattered in the middle of the village. All male.
"Fan out," he said. "Let's see if anyone survived."
He walked calmly through the ruins of the town, noting with the practiced eye of an investigator the torn and bloody clothes trod into the ground by the massive, expanding footprint at center. This was the epicenter. Where she'd grown the first time.
What had triggered it?
"Teacher," Rice called, "I've found a survivor."
Anonymous turned and raced toward the Deputy's position. He was standing by a teenaged girl who was clutching a crying infant, staring straight ahead. She murmured a few words to them.
"Assalaamulaykum," Anon replied. He had picked up Arabic long agonot fluently, but enough to get by. His father had insisted. He was now glad of it.
"It was Wafia. Wafia. She did it," the girl said in broken replyit was of course as much of a foreign language to her as to Anon. "My sister
she was a monster."
"What happened?" asked Anonymous, and slowly the girlHudatold him how her sister was being stoned to death for her crime of having been raped, and how she had grown and attacked her tormenters.
"This is my brother's baby girl. In'am. I am her only family now
my mother
she killed my mother even. Why did she spare me?"
"Perhaps out of love," said Anonymous. "Where did she go?"
Huda pointed weakly north. "To kill her rapists."
Anonymous rose, and said, "We've got to get going. More than that, we've got to get Scott and Sarah in. This is going to get bad."
◘ ◘ ◘
It was the middle of the night in Tokyo, and Scott and Sarah Chelgren lay mingled together in a bed, Scott settled comfortably in the crook of her arm at a nice 1:6 scalea bit big, to be honest, but pretty safe. They'd had the phone off the hook most of the night, enjoying their time together.
It was when Sarah had finally, blearily placed the phone on the hook that the message light lit.
"No," she'd groaned. "Don' wanna."
"Well, I'm too small to," Scott pointed out. "So I can't."
"Like you couldn't grow and get it," Sarah replied.
"I could," Scott said, "but then I'd have to wake up."
"We'll get it tomorrow," Sarah said.
"Good idea," Scott said.
The phone rang.
"Persistent," Sarah muttered, and reached out with her free arm. "Hello?"
She paused, then said simply, "Titania, 'A pleasant, frolicksome girl.'"
And then she listened.
When she spoke again, it was only to say, "We're on our way. Titania out."
She looked down at her tiny husband, and said, "No rest for the wicked. Magenta in Afghanistan."
"Afghanistan? Great. It couldn't be Tahiti. You want backup?"
"Anon's there, a couple deputies. You and I will make five. Do we need more than that?"
Scott sighed. "No. But I swear to God, I'm taking a vacation some day."
"This is our vacation. Come on, if we hurry we can be back to train the group tomorrow morning."
◘ ◘ ◘
Wafia came upon the settlement in the dead of night. It was still operating, of coursenight time was the best time to run things through the mountains. Her father had taught her that.
She sensed she could change her size the way one senses the ability to breathe; it was simply a part of her. She reduced her height as she got close to a relatively slight four meters tall; no sense letting the camp be ready for her.
She heard the sentry shout out a warning as she approached. "No," she said, "it is you who should be on guard." She reached out a hand and thought of him shrinking, and so it was done.
She looked at her hand, then looked up. "La hawla wala quwata illah billah," she muttered in prayer. Her strength flowed from Allah; she told herself that she must remember that. She told herself that because it was at that moment that she suddenly started to sense that her power outstripped any that a mortal had wielded, outstripped that of the Prophet himself (peace be upon him).
She, a girl who hours before had been at the receiving end of a hail of stones.
She crushed the sentry with a careless step, and then deciding not to care any further, she launched herself to a hundred meters tall, and attacked Abu Khan's stronghold with a righteous fury.
It was after the four dozen men lay dead, and as she reduced herself back to normal height, that she noticed the woman.
"Impressive," said the American in surprisingly fluent Pashto, sweeping her hair out of her eyes. "They must have harmed you greatly to inspire such anger."
"They took my honor," said Wafia in reply, sizing up the woman. "They took my family from me."
"Yes, the 'honor killing.' Foolishness, indeed. God looks askance at that, I can tell you."
"You speak of God," Wafia said warily. "Your people do not believe in Allah (peace be upon him)."
"No," said the woman, approaching, her face lit by the fire. "We have discovered the Truth, my dear. We have discovered that the religions we were taught as children are lies. That Allah, or Jesus, or Buddha or whoever are just tools to make sure that the rightful owners of this world never know it."
"That's blasphemy."
"Perhaps. But it is the Truth nonetheless. After all, are you not here because you struck against the teachings of your faith?"
Wafia considered this. "I prayed to Allah."
"Those with the gift find their prayers answered by the current which unites all women," the American said. "I can teach you. I can teach you to save all the women who are stoned for the sin of being attacked. I can teach you how to save women the world over. You are not the only one who deserves revenge."
Wafia looked at the woman. She was blaspheming against Allah (peace be upon him). But Wafia looked at her, and sensed that she was speaking the truthor at least part of it.
She was much closer to the truth than her father had been.
"What is your name?" Wafia asked.
"Leah," the woman replied. "Now come, we have to go quickly, before those who would deny women their rightful place arrive."
And so they did.
◘ ◘ ◘
"We've lost them," said Sarah as they scanned the rubble. "She's gone."
"Gone where?" asked Anon.
"God only knows," Scott said, trying to stretch his senses to their limit. "And that scares the hell out of me."
"Maybe she's dead," Rice offered.
"No, no. She won't be found dead. The only two on Earth who could stop her for sure are with us. No, she's alive."
Sarah looked at Scott, who shrugged. "We need more data. We need to sweep the area. And we need some sleep. She's bound to pop back up sooner or later."
Sarah nodded. Scott was right, of course. But that didn't mean she liked it.
"This is going to be bad," Sarah said, before calling into headquarters. She wished she'd left the phone off the hook.
Giantess World
Author's Chapter Notes:
This is a story I've wanted to write for a while. I will warn right away, this is light on "action." It won't kill you to read it, though.