by Tyler Krings
“So,” he interjected. “How does it look? My marriage?”
They smiled as one, sharing a silent laugh. The Red put down her cup. “Like folly.”
“It will have to be made real,” said the Black. “In the eyes of gods and men.”
“What purpose would that serve?” Jon started. “Can we throw some notes on paper and make it official to escape notice? That is, assuming all of us in this room are in the business of keeping Ana hidden?”
“Ana? Is that the name you have chosen for her? Yes, we are that, and more,” agreed the Black. “But it is not so simple. The plan in the making is one of greater…drama.”
“For the time being, we can make it seem as though this marriage is legitimate,” said the Red. “A whispered word here and there can make sure your hunters stay off your trail. The Women’s Council will indeed aid you. After all, they serve the Wise.”
The White sighed and turned from the window. “But they will have to be dealt with. The one in particular.” The three fell silent in shared looks of disgust.
Jon turned to the White. “The general.”
“Oh,” she whispered, “it is the other, I’m afraid.”
Jon cocked an eyebrow.
“Truths will be revealed to you in time, godchild,” said the Black. “I do not think you are ready to hear them all just yet.”
Jon turned his gaze to her. “If not now, when?”
She smiled. “When she is ready to tell you.”
Ana held back the tears as she gazed at her friend, quietly sipping tea. Maerko, Lady of the Dance, looked upon her with love.
“How are you?” Maerko asked, her smile sad. It was all Ana could do to not throw the cup to the floor and grab the goddess in an embrace. But through the smile and the pleasantries, there was warning in her eyes.
Ana waved away any concern with a small shake of her head. “I’m fine. How…How are you here? The Wolf said—”
“I’m not. Here, I mean. Not truly. Think of it as…looking through the veil.”
“So then…where are you?”
Maerko’s eyes found the floor. “We are…still there.”
Ana nodded solemnly. “And is He…?”
“He busies himself with his experiments. More fall to his predilections every day. The last of the Arthen’s rebellion are swiftly fading. He was very angry when you escaped. Halafel and Raro did not fare well when they were caught.”
The sound of their names brought tears to Ana’s eyes. “And you?”
Maerko considered the question. “I…am hanging by a thread. But I am still me for now. You, on the other hand, seem to have found Arthen’s heir.”
Ana noted the change in her old friend and regarded her with sadness and knowing. Ana nodded. “So it would seem.”
“Do you like him?”
She sighed. “Yes. I like him.”
“But…?”
“I do not think there is much godblood in him. He is not Arthen, and if what I hear is true, then Nathera was indeed crushed long ago, leaving only Jon.”
“How has he remained hidden this long?”
“The old man. Noah. He has power of some sort.”
“A human sorcerer?”
“I think he’s a divine one. I just…don’t know who he is.”
Maerko’s grin faded. “How do you not know? Has he not told you?”
“His history is shrouded, and he is not very revealing. If he is a Lord of some sort, I do not remember him.”
Maerko’s look became pensive. “Perhaps it is a result of the tampering.”
Ana scoffed. “Is that what we’re calling it?”
Gently, Maerko placed a hand on hers. “We will make it right.”
“Will we?” Ana whispered. “There is no one left.”
“There is you. And Jon. There is still some hope.”
Ana shook her head and stood. Unseen weight rounded her shoulders. She looked to the sunlit window and allowed a tear to fall. “Have you ever thought…maybe it is better to—”
“No.” Maerko’s voice was suddenly hard. The touch of venom brought Ana around, seeing Maerko’s face become a wall of metal. Tight, beleaguered lines spoke of the iron still left of her will. “There is no forgiveness. There is no turning back. My last breath will be my own, not His.”
Ana sat back down, retaking her friend’s hand. “I’m sorry. I had a…moment.”
Maerko’s grin was strained. “I know. I’ve had one or two myself. You know as well as anyone what He can do. He must be stopped, or there will no longer be a you or an I.”
“But how?”
“There is a plan. One that involves a certain ‘binding of threads.’”
“The marriage?” Ana asked doubtfully. “Of Jon and I?”
Maerko grin widened. “Yes.”
Ana stared in confusion. “You…think he will come here to prevent my thread from being bound?”
“We do.”
“He desires me that much?”
“He does. He will not tolerate you being bound to another.”
Ana folded her arms across her chest as she ground her teeth in frustration. “Is this truly the only plan we have?”
Maerko dragged her finger around the rim of the teacup. “As far as the resistance is concerned, our numbers are in the single digits. We have to be clever. So far, you are the only subject that has fought and beaten Fate’s ministrations. So far, you are the only subject of His that he has fallen in love with. His conquest of your heart and mind is of a personal nature. He would have you be his queen in Anu.”
The shock must have been evident on her face. Maerko reached and placed her hand on Ana’s shoulder. “I…I don’t remember any of that,” Ana managed. She stood quickly as frustration and anger invaded her muscles. “I don’t remember being bound to him, I don’t know how long I was there, and I have absolutely no recollection of how I was able to escape His grasp. And how am I here? As a human of all things!?”
“Arienaethin, calm down.”
“No, I won’t fucking calm down! My skin burns in the sun, my belly aches from hunger, and my fucking…womanhood is bleeding for unknown reasons for days at the end of every month!”
“Those are all symptoms of being human, Arie.”
“But why? Why human?
“It was the only way to get you out. Anu is locked; Lords and Ladies cannot traverse the gates, and souls have not been allowed admittance. We were able to use the Ways to smuggle you out, but obviously there were complications. Your heavenly body would have been too easily tracked.”
Ana slowly let the anger fade, breathing it and out as Jon had shown her. She paced the floor as her mind raced to find some memory of the time before that would aid her now. She remembered the war; she remembered creation and millennia upon millennia of life in Anu, but she could recall nothing after her capture at the end of the war. She sat and put her head in her hands.
“Sorry,” Ana muttered. “I’m frustrated.”
“I know,” said Maerko, “These are confusing times.” She waited a moment. “So…you like the boy?”
Ana sputtered a laugh. “It’s worse than that. I think I’m falling in love with him.”
The Three and Maerko watched from the second story window as Jon and Arienaethin departed. They watched as the goddess deftly threw saddlebags over a horse and mounted with ease. Maerko grinned to herself. Well, she’s adapting.
“The power in the boy will need to be awakened,” said the Black.
“But it is there,” answered the Red.
“If only just. It will have to arranged.” The Black rubbed her hands. “Perhaps a push is in order?”
“I am not so sure there will be a need,” the Red replied. “The shroud around them is potent. If not for the boy’s deception, we might have never found them.”
“And it is certainly not the boy’s handiwork. Someone else is here, just as our Lord predicted.”
“Yes, but who?” the Red wondered. “Did Ar
ienaethin have anything useful to offer?”
Maerko hesitated. In the past, during the war, the three had been invaluable to the Revolution. Now, in the wake of the Coalition’s defeat, she could not trust that they had not already been swayed to the other side. “She is playing her part, adamant in her role to revitalize the revolution, but she could offer nothing regarding the ‘old man, Noah,’ as she called him.”
“That is troublesome,” said the Black.
“Oh,” remarked the White, “I know that ass anywhere.”
They turned to her with similar expressions.
“Sister?” asked the Red.
The White pointed. “That’s Irving. And his wife, Isca.”
Maerko stifled a gasp. The Lord and Lady of Horses? How did they get here?
The Lord of the Hunt watched from a rooftop as the human and the goddess mounted horses he recognized. The scents of the town assailed him. Fear, anger, piss, shit, dirt, horse, dog, sex, cooking meat, and boiling vegetables. With their heads bowed together he could not hear the conversation they had amid the crowded street and hollers of street vendors.
“Are you sure that is her?” he asked.
“Can’t be certain,” offered Murder. “Her face is hidden from me for some reason.”
“Mine as well.”
“Can you track her?”
The Hunt grunted. “She will be difficult. There is a haze. Should I follow, no doubt I will become lost quickly and forget everything I was doing. I’ve not seen this veil’s like in some time.”
“Oh, you’ve got to be fucking joking.”
“I’m not. Do you not have another blood rite in preparation?”
“Yeah, but it takes time. At the moment, I’ve only got one guy gathering the supplies.”
“Then we wait.”
“Oh, come on!”
“Not for you,” the Hunt stood. “I will have to flush her from the source. Give me a few days.”
9
The Forest
“Wanderer.”
The old man threw the last of the hay into the Isca’s stall and turned to Dax, who waited patiently by the barn door. The morning chores were Noah’s today, and the boy and Ana were off falling in love against the old man’s cautioning.
“What is it?” he asked. The shepherd padded to him.
“Death. In town,” said Dax, “Not natural.”
“Another?”
“Yes.”
“Who?”
“A woman in the same caravan as the first. Found further down the river from the man. Insides the same. Ripped.”
“When?”
“Same night as the first from the smell.”
Irving’s ears picked up and he raised his head from the hay. “That’s two in a single night,” the horse observed.
The old man nodded. “Murder has been busy. Clumsy work, but for what purpose?”
“Got a dark mind, that one. Perhaps for sport?” replied Irving.
The old man snorted. “He is not that stupid. He is forbidden from direct intervention. He would have had the girl killed through proxy. But why so many? It will bring attention to him.”
“He was bored,” said Isca. Possibly. Murder was rarely a creature of patience, often carried a flair for the dramatic, and was erratically violent. But a killing, first with Jon and Ana within spitting distance, and now another, suggested a grander scheme.
Dax cocked his head as though he wished to say more.
“What else?” the old man asked.
“Something else came through a rift. Smelled of dead meat and fear.”
The old man went still. “Dax,” he said, “Find the Wolf. Now.”
“You’re going to kill it?” Ana whispered over his shoulder.
“Aye,” Jon replied calmly as he looked down the shaft of the arrow. The string was tight, and the yew bow gave slightly. The doe grazed calmly a few dozen meters out, within bowshot but still far enough to allow some sound to be made. Which was good considering Ana’s breathing could have woken a graveyard.
“I’m not hungry anymore,” she said quickly, “In fact I think I saw some nice berries only a few yards back.”
“Oh, those nice big red ones?”
“Yes! Those.” She grew excited.
“Poison,” he replied.
She grunted. “You made that up. You just like killing things.”
“I like eating. And you’re the one who ate my entire bag of jerky before the first sun went down.” The doe twitched her ears. Too loud. He lined up the shot. A twig snapped and Ana sprang past him waving her hands and hollering as loud as she could, “RUN! RUN! He’s going to kill you!”
The doe’s head came up fast, and before he could blink, she had sprinted away. Ana breathed an audible sigh and turned back to him with a triumphant smile.
He let off the tension in the bow and gave her the most annoyed expression he could manage. “That was dinner, and all of our meals tomorrow.”
“It looks like we shall be dining off something else, tonight. Now, which way to the berries that are not poison?”
He slung his bow over his shoulder and placed the arrow back in the quiver. “You are aware that more than half the meals you’ve eaten have been meat, yes?” He gestured broadly to the forest. “Where do you think that comes from?”
“If we find a deer dead from natural causes, the meat is all yours. Now, please, a meal without death?”
She started to walk in a direction she picked seemingly at random. Jon watched her walk away while shaking his head. This trip had been her idea. A few days in the woods to whet her tongue on living off the land. Get to know the surrounding area, she had said, learn to live among the wild and free. It had brought more trouble that it was worth. She’d eaten their first stash of rations, namely the jerky, in the first day, and she did not appreciate the lack of soft, warm bread. Or a bed, for that matter.
The forest before them was one Jon had come to know well. He and the old man had hunted this area, rife with game, many times, and before Ana had come to them Jon had trekked here often. At the edge of the Empire, there were not many who wandered this far from town except for the occasional trapper, and even they found plenty of furs closer to home. Beyond the forest, the eastern villages stayed far and away, wishing to neither leave their fishing boats, nor entangle with the Emperor’s legions.
“Very kind of her, you know.” Jon looked up to find the dark-skinned spirit watching from a high branch. Ana had wandered some distance and was inspecting a shrub that would not produce the berries she was looking for.
“She’s a nuisance,” said Jon.
“Don’t give her grief for not wanting to eat dead things. It’s rare to meet someone so inclined to let things live. You know well which berries to eat.”
“Aye, and they usually go well atop a venison pie.”
“Come, Jon. Teach her some things. She may be here awhile.”
Jon gave the spirit a wry smile. “One can hope.”
“Who are you talking to?” Ana called. Jon looked to the branch to find it unsurprisingly empty.
“Myself. Apparently.” He walked to her. “Come on, let’s find some berries. Keep a lookout for mushrooms as well; mayhap we can get a stew going.”
“You men and your stew,” she said. She left her shrub alone and made to follow him. He led her through the dense foliage to a clearer patch. Here, the trees grew unencumbered with trunks many times thicker than a man and spires that nearly reached the sky. The sodden carpet of dying leaves bent softly beneath their boots as they explored the forest’s inner reaches. He showed her berries that were not poison on twisting vines, tart reds and sweet blues, and fattened mushrooms among the roots. Wild onions grew in sparse gardens of stray sunlight, and Jon even turned up a few turnips. They decided they had collected enough when Ana’s stomach began to grumble audibly. Jon led her to a stream some distance from where they had seen the doe. He collected enough water to fill his pot and started a fire from
dry kindling.
It was nearly dusk before the water reached a soft boil, and he emptied the contents of his pouch. The mushrooms browned the water, making a sour broth. The onions and the turnips came next, followed lastly by the berries to sweeten the soup. He set some of the blues aside for dessert. When they had eaten, and their stomachs were nearly full, they sat among the roots of a sheltering tree and listened to the sounds of the forest, watching the sun fall.
“Light of Anu, there is beauty in this place,” she said softly to herself. “What other sights does this world hold, I wonder?”
“Stay long enough, you may find out,” he replied, lighting his pipe.
“You would show them to me?”
“Sure. Might have to find another guide along the way. It would take many lifetimes.” He jested at her immortality, but it drew from her a long silence. The sun burned the rest of its little light and the stars sparked to life through the canopy.
“Have you ever been married before?” she asked.
He nearly laughed. “Can’t say as I have.”
“So, you’ve never been in love either?”
“You don’t have to be married to be in love. Or the other way around.”
“Oh? Well then, in human terms, how do two people usually end up married?”
The boy blew out a puff. “Usually the girl just ends up pregnant.” There was a pause, and then she laughed. He smiled. “What?” he asked. “You think I’m joking? I’m serious. Farmgirls get trapped on the farm, farmboys run off to be soldiers, and all of a sudden everyone wants to run away together. To consummate their love, they spend a night in one of those ‘special spots’ that everyone knows about and then ‘pop!’ Less than a year later they’ve got a baby, and everyone moves back to the farm to repeat the cycle.”
She laughed again for a few moments more. When she finished, she said, “You still didn’t answer the question.”
