“They bound my body tightly in rags and sank it in a cask of oil to preserve it. They are bringing me home for a funeral.” He smiled. “I could enter that body again and reanimate it.”
“That would cause something of a commotion.” Tsiwen shook her head. “This is not a course I would recommend.”
“If there were another, I would choose it.” Jorim frowned. “I have seen my sister and I have searched for my brother. I found him in Helosunde. He is distant and unapproachable.”
“How so?”
“Keles does not seem to know who he is. Since he is lost, there is no way to find him.” Jorim shrugged. “The point is moot, however, since getting him to Anturasixan would take a long time and then…They are twins. He could never kill her.”
“Could you?”
Jorim slowly shook his head. “I do not know. Grija and Chado tell me that Nessagafel wishes to scrape away all creation save for his Viruk, and start over. That would destroy everyone I know and love. I can’t let that happen. At the same time, can I kill my sister to save everyone else?”
“Could you kill me to save everyone?” As she spoke, Tsiwen took on Nirati’s form and stole her voice. “Which do you love more? A small piece of creation, or the larger part of it?”
“Don’t do that, please.” Jorim turned from her and stared down at Nemehyan. There, on the Stormwolf ’s deck, Anaeda Gryst shouted orders to sailors. A portion of the crew looked to be made up of Amentzutl, which surprised Jorim. The Amentzutl had no maritime tradition to speak of, but it looked as if they’d taken to their training rather quickly.
From belowdecks emerged a tall, slender Amentzutl woman—Nauana. She possessed a serenity out of place with the beehive of activity around her. What struck Jorim most about her was the black silk robe she wore with gold at the cuffs and lapels. It had been embroidered in gold with an image of Tetcomchoa, the feathered serpent. Jorim had been recognized as the incarnation of that Amentzutl god. The robe, clearly manufactured from Naleni material, had been decorated with Amentzutl designs, demonstrating cooperation between the two peoples.
Jorim watched her as the sea breeze caught a lock of long, black hair and brushed it over her cheek. He wished he was there to sweep it back, to kiss that cheek and enfold her in his arms. As a god, he would have the ability to crush her, but as a man he could have held her tight and shaped a new reality with her. Though her face betrayed none of it, he felt the ache born of his death lodged deep in her heart.
He would have sunk into glumness, but Shimik bounced and rolled after Nauana. His fur had become midnight black, save for gold over his throat, chest, palms, and soles. His eyes had even become golden, completing a transformation that marked him with Jorim’s colors. The Fennych darted between sailors, scaled one of the ship’s nine masts, ran along a yardarm, then leaped to the deck right in front of Nauana with a shriek.
She caught him up off the bounce and laughed. That laughter spread through the crew, and even Anaeda Gryst cracked a smile at the creature’s antics.
Tsiwen rubbed his shoulder. “I know the pain you feel; the pain they feel. You mustn’t think of returning, however.”
“Why not?”
Grija growled and materialized in a grey, furry lump. “Because I simply will not allow it. You’ve passed through the gates of my realm and they have closed behind you. If I let you back out again, who knows what havoc you could wreak? You might release the demons of the Fifth Hell, or the wizards in Tolwreen. They could cause more trouble than Nessagafel.”
Jorim’s golden eyes narrowed. “How is it, brother, that you have such poor control over your realm? Are you not the god of Death?”
“I am.” Grija drew himself up to his full height and manifested as a black wolf with fiery eyes. “I have claimed you, have I not?”
“You have. Many times. I was trapped below because of you.”
“Then you know my power. Do not trifle with me.” He glanced toward the mortal world. “Have you determined how to get rid of the woman?”
Jorim said nothing because Grija’s protestations of power seemed paper-thin. Either he could control his realm or he could not. If he could not—and Qiro’s defiance suggested weakness—then could Grija’s solution be the only one?
Or would it be the most expedient and beneficial only to Grija?
Something else struck Jorim as odd. While the Naleni had nine gods, the Amentzutl only had six. In their cosmology, Omchoa had consumed the god of death, Zoloa. To the Amentzutl, Grija existed, but only as an aspect of the Jaguar god of Shadows. Jorim did not know how the gods had become consolidated, but he wondered if that somehow reduced Grija’s grip on power. Was his ability to manipulate reality limited by the number of people who believed in him?
“I have tried to reach Nirati on Anturasixan. You know she cannot be touched. And as I am now, I am not part of Qiro Anturasi’s creation, so I am barred from interfering with it. The only way I know to reach her is if I reanimate my mortal remains. That is the key—much as I was the key to unlocking the divine aspect of myself to recover my power. Let me do that, and this can be over.”
“No. Impossible.”
“Why? You allowed me to reincarnate time and time again.”
“Yes, but always in a new body, a new place. That is the way it is done.” The wolf flashed fangs. “Bodily resurrection, never.”
“‘Never’ is a strong word.”
The wolf glanced at the goddess of Wisdom. “You should lend him your intelligence, dear sister, for he is in sore need of it.”
Jorim looked at his sister. “What is he talking about?”
“When Nessagafel created us, we did not have our aspects. There was no god of Death nor goddess of Wisdom. But when we created Men, we also shaped these aspects for ourselves. They allowed us to concentrate power—much as your Mystics do in perfecting a skill. Yet while death was a reality, none of us chose to become the guardian of it, except that it proved necessary.”
Grija growled from deep in his throat. “Our father made the Viruk long-lived. Our creation was flawed, so Men died in an eyeblink. Their souls reincarnated and Men remembered their previous lives. This became messy, so the underworld was created. We shaped the Nine Hells, then matched them with Nine Heavens. I kept spirits and souls for as long as it took them to forget who they were, then I would release them to be born again. Some I keep longer, like the wizards, for they cling to their memories and power, but most return shortly.”
“And if I were to reanimate my mortal body, some balance would be upset?”
“You are a god, Wentoki.” The wolf sniffed. “Your mortal body could not contain what you are. And the essence that could not fit would be loosed in my realm to cause havoc.”
Jorim frowned. “But a vast chunk of my divine nature was severed from me before. Could that not be done again, allowing me to return to deal with Nirati and Nessagafel?”
“If you would fully embrace your divinity, you would recall how painful that was.” The wolf’s hackles rose. “The scream of a god is not pleasant.”
“But it would work?”
“It might. But, no, I cannot allow it.”
“I think you must.” Jorim’s form swelled into that of a dragon. He curled around the wolf and looked down upon him. “It is our only choice, brother.”
The wolf leaped from within the circle of Jorim’s tail. “Do not think to threaten me. This is not an action to be taken lightly. I will consider it, but it must be the only way.”
Jorim returned to his mortal form. “I do not threaten and I will seek an alternative. Understand this, however. The pain is of no consequence if all we know is to be saved. I suspect the discomfort will be as nothing compared to the loss of never having existed. Deliberate with haste, brother, lest we find out my fear is true.”
Chapter Eleven
23rd day, Month of the Hawk, Year of the Rat
Last Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court
163rd Year of the Komyr D
ynasty
737th Year since the Cataclysm
Wangaxan (The Ninth Hell)
He always wondered why Grija made a light when coming to torture him. Nessagafel saw no need for it. The Underworld existed, but its shape and form was an illusion agreed upon when Grija accepted the role as its sovereign. The Underworld was dark because it was dark, but no god needed light there.
Grija’s movement and hunger drew Nessagafel back from infinity. If Nessagafel had actually given it any significant amount of consideration at the time he had created everything, he would have made himself omniscient. But as he created things, especially his children, he found bits and pieces of his creation shut off to him. At first this was intriguing, since he found his children’s surprises a challenge. He could always discover and destroy their little plots, but he allowed them to plot because he found the challenges so entertaining.
Grija, being the first of his children, was conceived in haste and therefore lacking in imagination. Grija latched on to death as his aspect without thought, while the others choose more carefully. While all of his children hid things from him, Grija had the least amount to hide. Over the eons, Nessagafel had come to know him very well.
Almost completely.
Grija grew closer—though distance was again a concept without meaning in the Underworld—so Nessagafel gave himself form and substance. He had not yet escaped the heavy shackles and slender ring his children had fashioned for him. An eternity of imprisonment would soon end, however, as well-laid plans slowly coalesced.
Grija came to him as a wolf, so Nessagafel became a wolf’s carcass, rotted and bloated, flesh black where his fur had fallen out. One eye hung against a blood-caked cheek. His lips had been eaten away, giving him a perpetual snarl.
“Very nice, Father. A vision of my future?”
“Not one you would ever see, my child.”
Grija recoiled from the comment. “I shall never end up thus. Things progress as I have planned. Soon, very soon, I shall set you free. As my agent, you may again raise your Viruk to the heights they once enjoyed. You may rid the world of Men.”
Nessagafel allowed the flesh to slough from a forearm. “And you will then bring your Ansatl to full flower? Men defeated them when you sought to make them ascendant.”
“Wentoki followed in your footsteps and became a man. He gave Men magic. Without him leading them, my Ansatl would have crushed Men.”
And then would they have come to oppose my Viruk—what remained of them? He would have laughed had he not found Grija’s transparency so tedious. When Grija and the others conspired to create Men, Grija chose an aspect which Men would never respect or truly worship. They might pay Death attention and deference, but revere it? Impossible. And then Wentoki, the clever one, had created the Fennych and Tsiwen had created the Soth. Grija attempted to make his own creatures, the Ansatl, but the lizard-men were, like Grija, shallow and ill-suited to conquest. Their appetite for killing meant they always overgrazed their home and Men were forced to destroy them. Even now, the remaining populations remained on a scattered archipelago where they had split into factions and waged cannibalistic raids on each other.
Grija bared his fangs. “There need be no conflict between us, Father. The Ansatl and Viruk will rule the world between them. We shall destroy those who oppose us, then we shall balance each other. Twin powers, night and day, light and dark.”
“Creation and the absence thereof.”
“Reality and the void from which it was sprung.” Grija looked up toward the heavens—another unnecessary gesture. “You were correct when you decided to unmake things, but you wanted to go too far. You had to be stopped.”
“Of course. Much consideration of my errors has convinced me of this. But your brothers and sisters must be destroyed. They are too unpredictable and too difficult to control. If they did not fear you, Grija, they would have long since destroyed you.”
“Speak plainly.”
Nessagafel opened his jaw in a smile, then let the bone hang loose from one side of his head. “They think you weak. They have accepted that Wentoki is the key to keeping me locked away here in the Ninth Hell. They have no idea that when you agree to strip divinity from him, you will assume his power. Then, using it to control me, you will destroy them. They think you incapable of such subterfuge.”
Grija growled defiantly, yet both of them knew it would become a whimper if Chado, Quun, or Wentoki were to appear. “They have forever underestimated me. They assume I care only to harvest souls and keep them here to draw sustenance from them. The prayers of the dead are thin broth compared to the devotion of the living. They think I am weak because of it.”
“But you are weak, Grija.”
Grija’s dark eyes became molten hatred. He lashed out and the collar around Nessagafel’s throat tightened. Pure fury flowed through it, constricting it. Agony pulsed into the elder god. It turned Nessagafel inside out. It melted his bones into ivory plasma which Grija carved into an intricately decorated sphere, trapping the rest of his father’s essence.
Pain rose through Nessagafel as bubbles through boiling water. He could not speak and would not scream. He could barely twitch. Pain played over him as argent lightning arcs, then sank deep like fangs into flesh. It melted him from the inside out, churning him into a roiling lump of unrecognizable existence.
“Weak? Weak? Is that weak?” Grija assumed human form to more properly strut his outrage. “You are in my power. Do not forget that, Father. You will obey me. I do not need you to succeed. I wish to return to you the freedom you have long been denied because my brothers have wronged you. Their oppression wearies me.”
Nessagafel allowed himself to gasp weakly, feeding Grija’s ego. As quickly as he could, the elder god hardened the lines pain made in his essence. He clung to that lattice, pouring himself into it. Through it he could read every outrage Grija had known since the moment he burst into existence. As with every other instance of torture, Grija used his own pain as a model for that which he visited upon his father. Instance by instance, he gave Nessagafel what a lack of omniscience denied him.
One does not escape a prison, one escapes the warden.
Grija paced and prated. “You alone are capable of understanding what I put up with, for we are both trapped here. They think they tricked me into accepting the Underworld as my realm, but I knew what I was doing. I will have all the power eventually.”
“But you were not content to wait.”
“Impatience is only a vice to those who lack the intellect to see the inevitability of the future.” Grija closed a hand into a fist. “All is to be mine, so why wait?”
“Why, indeed?”
Grija narrowed his eyes. “Why do you say that? What do you know?”
Had Nessagafel felt the need, he would have shrugged. “Is it not curious that you are the god of Death and, yet, you have not died?”
“Curious, but immaterial. Were I to die, I would simply bring myself back into existence.”
“Create something from nothing? That is quite a difficult task.”
“But you did it.”
“So how hard can it be?”
Grija laughed. “Exactly.”
“Not hard at all.” Nessagafel chose to smile, but Grija could not recognize it as such. “I made death from nothing. I made all of you from nothing.”
“And yet, here we are.” Grija shook his head. “But you shall be freed soon, to be my vassal.”
“I prefer agent.”
Grija’s eyes sparked and pain drilled through Nessagafel. “Be pleased I do not make it slave.”
Nessagafel grunted and became quiescent.
“I am not fooled, Father.” The god of Death shook his head. “Do not think I have not considered treachery on your part. I have taken precautions.”
I am certain you have. Nessagafel formed an eye and stared at Grija. I do not choose to believe they will be effective.
“Soon, Father.” Grija waved a hand and the glow
surrounding him blinked out of existence. “Gods will tremble and gods will die.”
Chapter Twelve
24th day, Month of the Hawk, Year of the Rat
Last Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court
163rd Year of the Komyr Dynasty
737th Year since the Cataclysm
Kelewan, Erumvirine
The trio of ships stood out, in part because of their enormous size. The hulls had been made of a black wood and the ships were so broad abeam that little of the deckhouse could be seen from the riverside. Six tall masts rose from the center of the ships, but none bore any canvas. They drifted upriver slowly, and had they been found floating in a bay, they would easily have been taken for derelicts.
Though clearly designed for traveling the ocean, the ships moved up the river steadily. As with much other river traffic moving against the current, the ships had a line out which had been fastened to the harnesses of draft beasts. But where a buffalo or ox might have drawn a raft along, a dozen of them could not have even held the ship in place against the current. Yet the lines did go out, and draft beasts did draw them along, step after plodding step, closer and closer to Kelewan.
Nelesquin read the disbelief on Keerana’s face as the first of the black ships came around a bend in the river. The warrior’s expression had begun to change earlier, into one of puzzlement, as the ground shook with the beasts’ footfalls. Nelesquin had known what to look for, so he’d seen the first beast’s head rising just past the tallest trees. The creature, easily a hundred feet long and half again as tall, had a long neck which made nipping tender leaves from the tallest branches easy.
The Durrani stared, dumbfounded. “Such a beast I have never seen.”
“They were created after you departed.” Nelesquin waved casually toward the dark green creature pulling the ship upriver. “I remembered, belatedly, how difficult Tsatol Deraelkun could be to destroy. I created a few things to aid you, and I shipped them here.”
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