by Loki Renard
“Somewhere Entity cannot harm us,” I say. I will not say more than that. She could not understand it if I did. I never told her about Okeanus, or about her grandfathers or grandmother, or her aunt. At first, I did not tell her because it was too painful to remember. Then I did not tell her because the only thing worse than no hope is false hope. Almost none of these people truly knows what awaits them. They come not because they understand what is happening, but because they believe I will do my best for them.
Of all the people I have known on this world, only Magellan knows of Okeanus. He is my secret bearer, my confidante. As for the rest of them, how could I have told these oppressed people that there is a world of gods no more than a blink away, filled with power and life and freedom which they can barely believe? It would sound like wishful thinking, or perhaps a lie. I never told them about heaven, knowing that doing so would only make their hell more tragic in comparison.
“Who actually is he?” Magellan murmurs the question in my ear, a look of well-earned suspicion on his face.
“Tanuk. He is... like me. He is the one who came with me.”
“Ah,” Magellan says. “The one who left you behind.”
“Yes,” I say. “I've mentioned that.”
“Sapphire’s…”
“Yes,” I say, cutting him off before he can say that which I would rather remained unsaid for the moment.
Sapphire wriggles down from my arms to stand next to Magellan, holding his hand. The pair of them look at Tanuk with shared suspicion. I would tell them that he can be trusted, but the truth is, I don’t know if he can.
Tanuk does not ask any questions. He does not seem interested at all in anybody besides me. He barely bothers to look at them. I wonder if he doesn’t think there is anything to see, or if he is afraid of what he will see if he does look properly.
As the shards begin to arrive, the noise and danger increases. The odds that none of them have been spotted is close to zero. But we have to take the risk. This is the first, likely the last chance to leave Earth en masse. This is a miracle and we cannot waste it.
Weeee…
The first sign of Entity’s arrival is a high pitched squeal. I’ve learned to tune my ear to it over the years. There’s a scout here. A tiny drone no bigger than a fly. I am sure it has spotted the gathering and sent a signal back to the swarm. We have maybe two minutes to finish gathering the shards.
“Hurry!” I shout. “To me! Hurry!”
Everybody drops what they are doing and runs. We live in a state of permanent emergency, knowing the price for being slow is death. I think I can already hear the main swarm coming, those fine filament wings bearing death to us all.
I shift Sapphire in my arms. She used to be so light, but now she is almost too heavy to carry. I will not leave my baby as I was left. I will protect her with everything I have.
The sky is darkening all about us. Entity’s drones are coming in every direction at once, encircling us because they believe we have no means of escape. I know what the machine believes, that it is about to wipe out the last of the resistance, consume tender, free human flesh.
I look at Tanuk, my eyes meeting his in hope and mistrust.
“NOW!”
Tanuk
The blue-eyed child clings to Raine as I extend my powers across the group of people. It is not easy to lift them all at once, but I do it for her. In a flash, we are taken from this shattered world and the better part of three hundred humans stand on the beach outside the golden palace, milling about, shouting, screaming in fear or relief, it is hard to tell.
The following hours are chaotic. Helios and Ragnar, who expected to meet Raine, find themselves suddenly assailed by more mortals than any of us have seen in thousands of years. Settling them will not be easy, but when they are given food and wine, they begin to settle themselves in small encampments along the beach.
After a brief greeting with her parents, Raine returns to the humans. I see the expressions on their faces. We share the same sentiments. I know they echo my own feelings of sorrow and dismay. The Raine we knew is gone. This woman is stronger, more powerful. She is beautiful, but there is little innocence left in her. It has been taken, hour by hour, day by day by the struggle for life on the human world.
I try to go to her, but she brushes me aside.
“Raine…”
“I’m helping my people, Tanuk,” she says. “You can wait. Like I did.”
I don’t deserve that, but I suppose I will take it.
I sit and I wait for her to attend to each of the people who need her help. There are many. She seems to know each one of them and care for them deeply. I can see the respect they have for her, the trust they feel. The chaos I expected is not unfolding, and I am certain it is because Raine has led these people out of hell into a new world where they are more precious than any of them can imagine.
“Now,” Raine says finally, walking up to me with just one little human in tow, that same girl who looked up at me with determined blue eyes. It finally occurs to me that I should be curious about her, but before I can ask anything, the girl takes matters in her own hands.
“This is my mama,” she announces rebelliously, in case I did not know and failed to respect her sufficiently. “She is my mama, and not yours.”
I look at Raine. “You had a child?”
“Yes,” she says. “I did. It’s what happens when a man and a woman…”
It is difficult to contain my temper, but I manage to do so. It is not her fault. I am sure she needed to take refuge in the arms of some man. Perhaps this man who is coming now, limping with the effects of what is likely an old injury.
The child is pleased to see him. “Magey!” She grabs for him and is lifted aloft on his shoulders. Raine smiles as the pair of them walk away, and it is with an expression I have not seen on her face before. A maternal happiness, a familial sweetness. My jealousy knows no bounds, but again, I work to contain it.
“So you had a family.”
“I didn’t know if you were ever going to come back for me, Tanuk. I didn’t know if anybody would. I was alone. For a very long time. I did what I had to do.”
I grit my teeth. I can only imagine all the things she had to do.
“I am sorry,” I tell her. “I am more sorry than I can say. I would never have left you if I’d had the choice. I was taken.”
Raine
I know it wasn’t his fault. It wasn’t anybody’s fault, really. I should tell him the truth, but I can’t. I’m still so angry at being left alone. He may not have meant to leave me there for so long, but there have been lasting, all too human consequences for his rash actions.
“I’ll talk to you later,” I tell him. The conversation with him will be the hardest. I want to have the easier ones first. So I leave him standing on the beach and go to retrieve my daughter.
“Sapphire, come here. There are some people you need to meet.”
“But I’m playing with Magey,” she pouts.
“You can play with him later,” I say. “It’s time to meet the rest of our family.”
I could say I am surprised that my fathers and my mother stayed clear of our arrival, but I am not. I am sure they have had many discussions among themselves in the short hours we have been here on the beach. I do not know how they will greet me now. To them, no time at all has passed. To me, it has been perhaps too long to heal the wounds inflicted by our separation. They are no doubt taken aback by the ravages of time. They probably don’t even recognize me. It is even possible that they are all tucked away in the palace, not even noticing that I am here at all. There is no limit to the things gods can ignore when it suits them to do so.
Sapphire comes to me and I lead her toward the golden palace. It feels like yesterday that Lucy and I walked on these sands, looked up at those white walls and dreamed of the futures we would one day have. I never imagined my future would come so quickly or so painfully.
We take only a handful of steps towa
rd it before the walls fly open and my mother, Ragnar, and Helios come stampeding out toward us. I see their faces. Their smiles. I feel their energy washing over me and tears start to run down my face as I finally allow the internal floodgates to open.
Ragnar reaches us first. His gaze falls upon the pair of us, and unlike some males who seem to have trouble putting two and two together, he knows her in an instant.
“My daughter. You have borne a daughter.”
“Sapphire, this is your grandfather.”
Sapphire hesitates. She has always gravitated toward the larger, powerful males in our shard. I liked to think it was because she saw Ragnar in them somehow, that she knew her family.
Ragnar does not hesitate at all. He bends down and sweeps us both up in his arms. He has no words, and I know there is sorrow. For the time I was left on Earth, he missed so much. Sapphire will soon be ten years old. To him, she appeared out of the ether, and I aged many years in less than an hour. But it doesn't matter. He loves her. He loves her instantly and without reservation, because she is his blood and he knows it.
“We will kill Tanuk,” he promises me, growling the words softly in my ear.
“No, father, please,” I beg him just as softly. “We need peace.”
I pull back. There are more introductions to be made. “This is your grandmother,” I tell Sapphire as my mother reaches for us. There are tears in her eyes too, gleaming in her gaze.
“Gramma?” Sapphire has a tendency to shorten words. It’s a holdover from the way the people in our shard speak. There’s no time for full sentences when you're being hunted ruthlessly day and night.
“Hello, sweetheart,” my mother says. “Welcome home.”
I find a smile breaking over my lips. I always wondered how it would be if they met Sapphire. Would they love her as much as I do? Would it be too strange for them to accept me, a lost daughter and her child?
“Gramma,” Sapphire says. “Do you have any food?”
“I have cake,” my mother smiles. She is fully human, and has full human grandmothering instincts which kick into immediate action. When faced with a grandchild, it is a universal law that the grandchild must be fed.
“Cake!” Sapphire’s eyes widen. “What kind of cake?”
“What kind do you most like?”
Sapphire has never known the culinary delights of Okeanus. She has only eaten the plainest of foods, the limited protein and carbohydrate sources we had available on Earth.
“Nothing too rich or sugary,” I say. “She's not used to it.”
My mother smiles at me with proud eyes. “You have changed, my dear. And for the better. I am so proud of you.”
I could cry. And I do. I stand sobbing in the arms of my family, my fathers embracing me with all their might. Even Helios is focused entirely on me. He is usually the supreme center of attention, but today the sun must give priority to the daughter. He does not seem to mind. I feel his warmth extending around his body, enveloping me even as he drapes an arm over my shoulders.
“You have endured much,” he says. “I am sorry we did not find you more quickly. Sapphire is beautiful.”
“Yes,” I agree. “She is.”
“Are you intending on having us meet her father?”
I look away from him and fall silent.
“Her father left me,” I say after a moment or two of thinking. “She has never known him.”
“I am sorry,” Helios says. “That must have been painful.”
“It was.”
He does not ask any more questions. Instead, he stays silent. Beside me. With me, as he always was. Never intrusive, but always just there. Tears run down my face as my body finally begins to react to the fact that I am safe again. I have spent ten years jumping at the slightest sound, trying to protect my child and the people who depend on my limited powers to keep them safe. I will never have to do that again. I can rely on him and Ragnar and my mother to look after her.
We all retire inside the golden palace, where Sapphire is covered in cake and playing with her grandmother. The sound of my daughter laughing with my mother is the sweetest sound imaginable.
“You’re home,” Helios reminds me, as if I might have forgotten. “And we are never going to let anyone take you again.”
“Where’s Lucy?” I haven’t forgotten my sister, even though my sister appears to have forgotten me.
“Long story.”
“I want her to meet Sapphire.”
“Lucy chained herself to Yggdrasil in protest at something or other. We’re letting her get herself free.”
“Why…” I don’t even bother finishing the question. Lucy likes to be demonstrative. I’m sure she had a reason to try to get Ragnar’s attention. Very possibly, my absence was untenable for her.
“I’m here!” Lucy snorts, coming down the stairs. “I freed myself from Yggdrasil ages ago. I…” She stops and stares at me. Clearly, she was very much out of the loop until this very moment. Nothing has prepared her for seeing me suddenly aged.
It must be a shock to a creature who values beauty over everything to see the sudden ravages of time written on my face. I am still very young by all reasonable standards, but eighteen to twenty-eight is a significant change. I look at her, and I wonder if I was ever that fresh faced and innocent. I feel as though I’ve carried this internal corruption forever, all the fear and the hate and the hunger which comes with being stranded on Earth and left to face the ravages of the human condition.
She was always the younger twin, but only by a matter of minutes. She was also always the prettier twin, but now we are so different. Her face is still full with innocence and youth. Mine has been hollowed out by hunger and deprivation. My cheekbones seem higher, my eyes have lines about them, my lips are less full. Lucy stares at me with what I can only describe as miserable horror.
“That bastard,” she curses. “What did he do to you?”
“Bastard!” Sapphire repeats with a shriek of glee as she runs past in pursuit of what appears to be a miniature unicorn Helios has manifested for her.
“Left me on Earth for an hour, which is ten of their years.”
“Raine!” her voice cracks. “Oh my god.”
“It wasn’t all bad. You’re an aunt now.”
“You had a baby?”
“This is Sapphire,” I say, grabbing Sapphire on her way past and making her stand in front of me.
Lucy stares at my daughter. “She’s so big!”
“You’re pretty,” Sapphire says. “I like your hair and your eyes.”
That was the right thing to say. Lucy melts in an instant, crouching down so she can look Sapphire in the eye. “You have very pretty hair and eyes too, just like your mama and your grandfather.”
Those words make Lucy smirk. She looks up at Ragnar. “You’re a grandfather. How old must you feel?”
“I’ve always been eternal,” Ragnar shrugs.
“Uh huh. It’s different when you have grandchildren,” she beams.
It is our god blood, I think, which allows her to take this in stride. Strange things are the order of the day here in Okeanus. A sister goes missing for an hour or two and comes back a decade older with a child. Life will go on.
“What is going to be done to Tanuk?” Lucy asks the question I have not asked. I am still furious at him. Seeing him again brought back so many memories. Not just of loving him, but of being young and innocent enough to think that love was worth sacrificing everything for.
“That will be Raine’s decision,” Helios says. “Much has happened. Much is yet to happen. There are now three hundred people on this island.”
“No, there aren’t,” Lucy says. “Unless they’re hiding really well. This island is empty besides the five of us.”
“There are hundreds of people on the beach, Lucy.”
“Uh, no, there aren’t. Look outside.”
We look outside, and see that she is not completely dense. The beach is empty. My shard sisters and brother
s have left no trace of themselves besides their footprints. They are gone. And so is Tanuk.
Anxiety grips me. “If he has returned them to Earth…”
“He won’t have taken them to Earth,” Ragnar growls. “He will have taken them to his island.”
He looks at Helios with a grave expression.
“Tanuk has believers now. He saved their bloody souls, didn’t he, by bringing them here. Three hundred of them at least. You know what that means.”
I do not know what that means. I am confused, and concerned that I am being blamed for something. I was the one who insisted that he bring the shards here.
“Of course he couldn’t resist taking a few extra humans,” Ragnar growls. “Tanuk has never been one to miss an opportunity.”
“I asked him to do that. I forced him to,” I say “They were innocent. They needed to be rescued. What’s the problem?”
“The problem is, a single human’s belief is enough to tip the scales of power among gods. And Tanuk just got three hundred. His power now dwarfs that of any god on Okeanus. Even we will pale into insignificance if the humans believe in him.”
“Don’t forget,” I say. “They believe in me too.”
“That’s right!” Helios brightens and it is as if the room has been flooded with fresh new light. “They do believe in you, Raine. I know you have been through much and suffered greatly, but we will need you to reclaim the humans. We will aid you, but they must live on our island and be under our control. The risk to all Okeanus is too great if they are left to believe in Tanuk.”
My heart sinks. I did not come here to play power games, but the business of being a god is never done, so it would seem.
12
Tanuk
I am not left to wallow in my thoughts. The humans have found me and are thankful for their rescue. They show that gratitude by festooning me with compliments and thanks. I would usually be uninterested in the feelings of humans, but the wound of losing my love in a single hour makes me vulnerable to their charms.
