Wildmane

by Todd Fahnestock

  “You don’t celebrate your birthday?”

  “No.”

  “So, is it GodSpill that gives you your power? Does Oedandus fill you with it?”

  “What fills me is actually Oedandus. He lives inside me. He doesn’t pull from the threads. He pulls his power from somewhere else. Or the power actually just is him. I honestly don’t know.”

  “Is that why Harleath Markin’s capping of the Fountain didn’t kill you?”

  He glanced at her. “Do you know how GodSpill came to be in the lands?”

  “The Godgate. Where our spirits go when we die,” she said. “Where Natra and the other original six gods met to create the world.”

  “Yes. Well, their power of creation still resides there. Long ago, the Godgate cracked open, loosing the power of creation into the lands. It would have consumed everything, erasing the details of all we know and returning the world to an amorphous ball of infinite potential. The crack was repaired by a brave mortal woman named Sasha Braen’dite and her followers, but not before it soaked into the lands, leaving GodSpill behind that could be used by some humans, giving us the ability to do what before only gods could do. Giving us the force to create.”

  “Okay.”

  He didn’t say anything else, and she suddenly realized this was going to be a one-way conversation if she didn’t prod him.

  “Why did you kill Dervon in the first place?” she asked.

  “Hmmm. Well, long before I came to Amarion, before humans recorded history, Dervon and Oedandus fought. Oedandus won. Centuries later, they fought again, and Oedandus won again. The third time was a trap, and Dervon conspired with two other of the gods to destroy Oedandus. But he was too strong. They couldn’t eliminate him permanently, so they stretched his life-force over this continent, trapping him and diluting his sentience. After a hundred years of that, Oedandus went mad. When I arrived, he found me, and he...moved in.”

  “Why?”

  “Because his blood runs in my veins. Because he couldn’t focus himself in any one place long enough to form a thought, but he could focus himself inside me. He opened me like a gate and made his new home.”

  “That sounds awful,” she said.

  “Gods aren’t known for asking permission to do things, especially to mortals.”

  “Can you speak to him?”

  “Not like I’m speaking to you. He’s like the ocean. You can yell at it all you want, but it does what it does anyway.”

  “It must be hard, having all of that power all the time.”

  “I imagine it is the same as being a threadweaver.”

  She doubted that. That force around him was staggering. It was hard to imagine everything that he might do with it.

  “I didn’t know your name was Medophae,” she said. “Why don’t any of the legends tell your real name?”

  “Because people love the dramatic more than the real. My name is recorded in many volumes in many places, if one cares to look. But most people don’t care. And even more people don’t read anymore.”

  She let out a breath. “The things you must have seen in your life. I simply cannot comprehend...” She let the thought hang in the air, hoping he would pick it up and tell her something about himself.

  He looked at her, as though considering saying more, and his gaze captured hers. This close, she could see the blue of his eyes. They were almost gray, like storm clouds blending with an azure sky. She looked closer...closer...and suddenly she was falling into those eyes....

  The moss-covered city vanished. The sky of his eyes became a storm, and she was floating in it, looking down, seeing Medophae on the ground, running hard:

  Burning like a golden torch, Medophae sprinted across rocky ground toward a chasm filled with black tentacles rising up, slick and whipping. Beyond the chasm loomed a hideous monster, thirty feet tall and covered in mucous and more tentacles that grew on its back like hair. Thin legs folded underneath it to support a bulbous belly and sunken chest. Where its arms should have been, thin arms with multiple joints sprouted, each ending in a single deformed claw. The monster’s head was tiny and round, with pointed ears.

  She knew the creature had to be Dervon the Dead. She was seeing Medophae’s epic battle through his own memories.

  Medophae leapt across the chasm, slicing through the tentacle wall with a fiery sword. He slammed into the other side and scrabbled for a handhold...

  The storm blew her away to another time in his past, deep in his memories:

  An elderly woman with dark eyes, dark hair and a kind smile—Medophae’s mother—held his hand as she slipped out of her dying body to walk the path to the Godgate...

  Years flipped by her like leaves of parchment to another moment:

  A young woman laughed. The laughter turned into a knowing look as she flashed bright green eyes at Medophae. Her short, dove-blond hair framed her face, and she cocked her head, beckoning to him. Love shone in those eyes. Assured. Dedicated.

  Mirolah looked away, embarrassed without knowing why. Years rushed by, and she was in a different place, a castle of red stone:

  Then there was a hot, red light. Medophae stood in front of a miniature red sun that bled crimson all around. The blond-haired woman stood in front of it along with another man, but then both vanished into the red. Medophae spun. Someone laughed. It was a horrible laugh. Medophae was horrified and...

  A huge hand shot out of the storm and grabbed Mirolah’s face like steel pincers. The scene shattered. The storm clouds vanished, and Mirolah plummeted earthward...

  She drew a quick breath and jerked. Medophae had his hand around her chin, pushing her away.

  “Stop it,” he said.

  She was back in Denema’s Valley. Her heart pounded hard. Cold sweat seeped into her palms. She jerked her chin out of his hand, and he let her go.

  “What are you doing?” she demanded.

  “You went into my head, threadweaver. And you didn’t ask me.”

  “I...” She felt herself blush. “I’m sorry.” She suddenly realized what she had done, what an intrusion it was. “I’m so sorry. I...didn’t know. I’m still learning to control this.”

  He nodded.

  They sat in silence.

  “That’s never happened to me before. I didn’t mean to pry.”

  He grunted.

  “It is difficult being around you,” she finally said.

  “Imagine having to do it every day of your endless life.” He gave her a rueful smile. It was like the sun rising, and warmth spread through her. That warmth was followed by a chill of realization. She was like a puppet on a string next to him. It was as though whatever he wanted her to feel—welcome, cautious, afraid—seeped into her.

  “I’m going to go now.” She stood up. “Are you going to sleep?”

  “Goodnight, Mirolah.”

  “Goodnight, Medophae.”

  She gently manipulated the threads and floated down from the wall.

  “Mirolah,” he said quietly, and she turned.

  She didn’t look at him through the bright bridge this time, only with her normal sight. He had stood up, a tall silhouette against the starry sky.

  His odd accent rippled across her skin like a cool breeze as she listened to the words.

  “You are happy,” he said.

  “Yes,” she said up to him.

  “The GodSpill sings inside you.”

  She hesitated. “Yes.”

  “Orem said you have brushed against a small part of the evil in these lands.”

  “Yes.”

  “Remember it. There is an opposite to the joy you feel, and it’s every bit as real and powerful as you are. That evil found you. It won’t forget you, though you may want to forget it.”

  She swallowed. “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because you’re happy now. Those who are happy remember only the pleasant things.”

  “Are you saying that I should be miserable?”

  “I’m saying be ready.�
�

  She managed a nod, then she left him, feeling distinctly less happy as she made her way back to their camp.

  32

  Silasa

  Silasa stood in the ruins of Belshra, the city her ancestors had built. It had taken her a full night of travel to get here. She’d been forced to sleep in the ground while the sun blazed overhead. She hated that, but there had been no cave in which to hide from the sun.

  It was as Medophae had said. Belshra was gone. Only the skeletons of its houses, shops and palace remained. Crumbled towers thrust up like arms. Dry weeds grew in patches everywhere, and the lower buildings, their walls fallen and smoothed by time, lay like the bones of giant hands.

  Medophae said that Belshra had survived the capping of the Fountain, but like every other kingdom after the GodSpill was stripped from the land, its population had been devastated. It became a poor city where survivors huddled in broken buildings, eking out what living they could. But it had survived....

  Until the Sunriders came. It was the horsemen of the south who dealt the death blow to her city. They razed Belshra to the ground, severing Silasa’s final connection to humanity.

  When Silasa had been turned into a vampire, she had been separated from those she loved forever. She couldn’t stomach the idea of her family knowing that she’d become a cold, dead monster. She’d made Medophae swear to tell no one, not even her father. She would rather have them believe she was dead than see what she had become.

  Instead, she loved them from afar, a ghostly parasite clinging to the shadows. She watched her father mourn, pacing the halls without sleep for a year. She watched her sister cry herself to sleep night after night until, finally, she ran out of tears. And she watched their time of mourning slowly pass, and their memories of her fade. She saw her father throw himself into leading his kingdom and into strengthening his ties to his remaining daughter. He would walk her to her room every night and hug her before bed. Her father and sister stole moments at midnight to eat pastries in the kitchens. She watched laughter slowly return to their lives. That had been salve to her soul. That had been a reason for her existence, if only to see that.

  And it had been excruciatingly painful.

  Eventually, she had moved her gaze to the city outside the palace, watching other families and their nightly rituals. And when she ran away to feed, as she must always eventually do, she fed upon highwaymen and cutthroats. She preyed upon those who thought to prey upon the good and hardworking people of Belshra.

  After a few sightings of her, a legend sprung up amongst the people that the lost princess’s ghost had returned to protect her city, and that those with evil intent were not welcome in Belshra.

  For three and a half centuries, that was Silasa’s life. From a distance, she came to know her sister’s children. She came to know her father’s young new wife and their new children. She watched over them all—her father’s grandchildren, his great-grandchildren, his great-great-grandchildren—down through the years. Every mortal life in Belshra was a brief flame that flared and died, and she cherished them all. She cupped her protective hands around their flames and watched, silently, from the darkness.

  She thought she’d known what loneliness was, a cursed soul living on the periphery of city, but as she stared at Belshra, she felt a keen pain unlike anything she’d ever know.

  What a cruel parody it was, to believe that the gods had anything to do with our fate. The gods never cared for us.

  The god of humans, Tarithalius, played with humans like toys. Silasa had met Tarithalius once. The god did not seem to have any concept of good or bad, only what inspired him and what did not, what made him laugh or cry. Yet this was who humans sent their prayers to. Thalius, please give me this.... Thalius, please give me that....

  Silasa didn’t see how one could worship a god who considered you a toy. If you were a legendary beauty, Tarithalius might take an interest in you. If you were remarkably hideous, or clever beyond your years, it might pique his interest. If you accomplished some amazing feat, he might notice you.

  But if you were an honest farmer, tilling fields from sun up to sun down, methodically working the soil every day to ensure that your family could eat, Thalius would never even see you.

  Silasa would rather send her prayers to Medophae. He was incredibly flawed: impetuous, quick to anger, often confused, prone to overreacting, but he was the closest thing to a patron deity humans would ever have. He made many mistakes, but at the end of it all, Medophae wanted to do what he considered good. That was a rarer quality in humans than it should be.

  And in the gods... Well, if you were lucky, their predatory hands never touched you at all. The best you could hope for from any of the other gods was to be ignored.

  Medophae had told her what he knew of the original seven gods, present at the creation of the world, and the younger two who followed: Natra, the Breather of Life, who created the world, her father Zetu the Ancient, her lover Oedandus the Binder, her brother Avakketh, her sons Dervon and Tarithalius, and her daughter Saraphazia. And then later came Vaisha, the child of Tarithalius and Saraphazia, and finally White Tuana, the spawn of the divine rape, when Dervon forced himself on Vaisha.

  Though there were nine gods at one point in history, there were only five left now. Natra had left the world before history was even recorded by humans, Vaisha died giving birth to White Tuana, Oedandus had been all but destroyed by Dervon, and Dervon, of course, had been slain by Medophae, which was recorded in the epic ballad Wildmane, told and retold down through history.

  Only five remained: Saraphazia, Avakketh, White Tuana, Zetu the Ancient, and Tarithalius. Six if you counted Oedandus, but he was barely aware.

  Saraphazia, the goddess of the True Ocean, was as distant and cold as her waters. Humans could die out tomorrow, and she would watch with impassive eyes. The only human she had ever cared about was Medophae. He said it was because she had hated Dervon above all things for his rape of Vaisha, and Medophae had done her a great service by killing Dervon. But Silasa wondered if Saraphazia also handled Medophae with care because somewhere, deep within him, was Oedandus. And aside from the absent Natra, Oedandus had once been the strongest of the gods.

  Then there was Avakketh, god of dragons, whom Medophae had not met, but Bands knew. She had spoken of him as one would speak of a taciturn leader. Avakketh lived among his dragons, hunted with them. To Avakketh, humans were ants crawling about in a distant neighbor’s house. He paid them no mind unless they crawled into his house, and then he squashed them without remorse.

  According to Medophae, not much was known about Zetu the Ancient. He made the rocklurs and spine horses, but aside from that, he hadn’t done much else that had been recorded. It is possible that he left Amarion, going to wherever it was that Natra went.

  And of course, there was White Tuana, Silasa’s patron deity, the daughter of godly rape. It was White Tuana’s hungry blood that ran through Silasa’s veins. It was the misty white of Tuana’s sightless gaze that marked Silasa’s own pupil-less eyes, though, unlike the blind goddess, Silasa could still see. Most humans did not even know Tuana’s name, and for that they should be grateful. Silasa had met her once, and if it hadn’t been for Bands’s and Medophae’s intervention, the eyeless goddess would have pulled Silasa’s body apart strip by strip for amusement.

  Silasa twitched her head, banishing the horrible memory, and looked over the ruins. The scant moonlight topped the jagged buildings and burnt homes in silver. She heard rats scurrying behind broken walls. A cricket chirped in the rubble behind her.

  I am the dead princess of rats and insects. She shook her head.

  “I shouldn’t even be here,” she said aloud, noting that her voice had smoothed to its normal timbre, not the rasp it had been when Medophae woke her up.

  She and Medophae were both mistakes. Humans were meant to grow up, grow old, and die. To cease growing, to become immortal, unchanging...it hammered at the mind. Every morning she awoke with the s
ame hands, the same face, the same length of hair, the same smooth alabaster skin. She watched mortals burst with vitality in youth, then mature, then wrinkle down to death. It was important for a person to feel connected to the cycle of life, and watching mortals live and die like the leaves on a tree reminded her that she belonged to no cycle. Talking to Medophae and Bands every year or so was the only thing that kept her sane. They were her cycle, the only thing to which she really belonged.

  And Medophae had belonged to Bands. Her calming presence protected him, and Silasa imagined that Medophae could have remained sane for another millennium with Bands at his side. But the great dragon was gone. He was alone now, and his indomitable will was cracking. She saw her own hopelessness reflected in his eyes, because he also belonged to no one now.

  Of course, as long as the selfish Oedandus raged inside him, Medophae’s body couldn’t die. But his spirit was slowly failing. When she looked at him, she saw a setting sun, low on the horizon, and about to dip out of sight. She had seen it in mortals before, and they always died soon after. She wondered what Medophae’s body would be if he finally gave up. Would Oedandus be lost again? Or would the angry god prop up the body and walk it around, a raging puppet without direction?

  She shuddered at the thought and walked across the mossy, broken floor of the building, out into the street. But she could do nothing for Medophae. Whatever fate would befall him, he was beyond her aid.

  She drew in a breath, and she smelled lilies. A whiff of life amidst the decay.

  “I would help you if I could,” she whispered to Medophae, wherever he was. “I would give you hope if I had hope to give.”

  “Perhaps you do.” The quiet voice spoke from behind her. Silasa spun around.

  In the center of the street stood a small woman. Her hair, braided like Silasa’s, was snow-white, and her skin was midnight black like the flanks of a stallion. She wore clothing that a courtier might wear riding. A gray vest trapped the body of her white shirt beneath her breasts and over her shoulders. Black pants made of soft leather hugged her legs and tucked into calf-high gray boots. Her black eyes were bereft of any white whatsoever, and the only thing that set them off from her midnight skin was that they glistened.