The Undying God

by Nathan Wilson

  “They are staying of their own will despite our efforts to remove them.” Arxu refused to accept his explanation.

  “A man has been scouring the cities in search of Astalla’s temples and killing her followers. He has already lay ruin to the temples of Sepulzer, Azia-Nocti, and Gaelithea.” Captain Balthasar did not look surprised by this information. Rather, he looked irritated, as though it took all of his resolve to take Arxu seriously.

  “Why is this man killing them?”

  “He is trying to become a demigod.” The corner of Balthasar’s mouth twitched, revealing the first hints of a demented smile.

  “You are a fool.” Arxu locked stares with the man across the desk. Nishka suppressed the urge to punch the captain, mostly because of the consequences.

  Sensing a challenge, Balthasar leaned forward and hissed, “Are you suggesting that one man murdered dozens of men and women single-handedly? What you describe is beyond mortal endeavor. Any man would be struck down by the guards and city watch. And of all places, in Gaelithea!”

  “What sickness is it?” Arxu asked.

  “Achiovillis. An affliction of the mind,” he replied. The expression on Balthasar’s face didn’t match his voice. Suddenly, he snapped, “Are you an agent of Gaelithea?” If this tactic was meant to put Arxu on the defensive, he didn’t even flinch. Several guards observed the escalating situation, remaining faceless behind their helmets. One of the two discretely let his hand slip toward his blade. Balthasar continued his heated tirade.

  “I seriously doubt your claims. Who’s to know you aren’t diverting our watch so you can incite crime? Or make us more vulnerable to attack? Who am I to place so much trust in your words, this fantasy?” he ranted. He rose from his seat and pointed at Arxu to assert some authority over him.

  “I am obligated to protect the people. There’s a malevolent sickness beyond those gates, and I won’t risk you unleashing it! Now get out!”

  Arxu turned his back on Balthasar and left. He had to restrain himself from cursing the impertinent man. Nishka slammed the door behind her, not realizing she left Hrioshango inside.

  The captain of the guard looked awkwardly at the darkling. The peculiar creature smiled mischievously.

  “I’ve never been much of a law-abiding citizen,” Hrioshango confessed. “I’m going to sell illegal goods today, perhaps rob someone. Feel free to intervene.”

  Arxu stomped his foot in indignation outside of the guardhouse.

  “He’s not telling us everything,” Nishka said. “There’s more to this than Balthasar is willing to reveal.”

  “I can sense it, too,” Arxu said, staring into the distance toward the temple quarter. He would not accept the man’s strange explanation. In fact, their meeting fueled his determination to slip through the quarantine.

  “How were they able to evacuate an entire quarter?” Nishka asked rhetorically.

  “From my understanding, it is the smallest quarter in Eternitas, with a population of less than six hundred. Still, I can’t even fathom how they managed to accomplish it.”

  * * *

  The pounding resonated like a siege machine assaulting the temple. Ethan almost mistook it for thunder, but it continued unabated, relentlessly pummeling the doors. It shattered the silence he so cherished as he knelt before the candles in prayer.

  He studied the doors with indecisiveness, anticipating a horde of people breaking the lock and tumbling inside. Ethan couldn’t see any guards stationed by the entrance to address the disturbance. He presumed they were acting under new orders to shadow the clerics as their personal bodyguards. The duty would fall to him to investigate whatever menace threatened the temple.

  As Ethan reached for the ornate handles, something slammed against the temple again. This time he could hear voices vibrating with anger. Years ago, they had faced riots from the public when a murderer fled to the temple for sanctuary. He had no desire to witness an encore of that scenario.

  They were ultimately forced to relinquish the thief like a sacrifice to appease the raging masses. Once the deed was done, Ethan sealed the doors to avoid witnessing the vulgar display of vigilante justice.

  Despite the chill running up his spine, he unbolted the doors and forced them open. A dozen women dressed in pale gowns stood outside, hardly the rabble Ethan was expecting. In fact, he recognized them as devout disciples who complied with the evacuation last night.

  “We must be let back in!” a woman wailed. “Please, we have come to show our devotion to Astalla.” A disciple with raven hair swept toward Ethan. He barred her from entry, turning his body into a human shield.

  “No! This is a mistake!” he said. “Please, your lives may be in danger! I beseech you to seek sanctuary elsewhere! You will not be safe within the temple!”

  “We must go inside!” the woman proclaimed. “You will not separate us from our demigoddess!” They would not turn away and leave the temple, he knew. Nothing short of a blockade would break their conviction.

  She looked intensely into his eyes, revealing a depth of fanaticism that Ethan couldn’t crush.

  “There is nothing for you here,” Ethan said, knowing his words would fall on deaf ears. They shouldered past him in defiance, casting him aside as a mere annoyance. Ethan could only watch in dismay.

  * * *

  Arxu emerged from the inn to the sound of merchants haggling, blacksmiths tinkering with metal, and livestock bleating. Everyone around him was fulfilling their duty to the city, acting with purpose.

  He felt a void in that place that so often gave him purpose, now simmering with restlessness and agitation. The authorities forbade him from going anywhere near the temples, compounding the threat with a suspicious quarantine. He yearned to know what they were concealing beyond those walls.

  He vowed to bypass the quarantine and expose the truth, no matter how heinous it may be. Before he could act on that ambition, a graceful figure attired in armor approached him.

  Nishka flashed him a smile and said, “Arxu, I want you to come with me.”

  “What? Have you found a way into the temple quarter?” He nearly leaped forward, hungry for the opportunity to defy Balthasar.

  Nishka just laughed, denying him the satisfaction of an answer. They traversed the streets with little interaction from guards and citizens alike. Nishka waved away a simple merchant trying to entice her with baubles. Arxu was perplexed when they approached a small, humble dwelling.

  “I don’t understand,” he said. Instead of enlightening him, Nishka knocked on the door. Muffled voices answered and a few moments later, the door cracked open to reveal a man inside. A thick mane of brown hair settled around his shoulders and his eyes housed a certain spark that most people lacked.

  “Ah, here you are! I received word you might show up at my door. Please, come in!” He welcomed her inside and Arxu naturally followed. As he entered the abode, he noticed a middle-aged woman and a young girl. What business they had with a common family, he could only imagine. Furthermore, how did the man know to expect Nishka?

  Arxu caught her eyes, suspicious of her motives.

  “What brings you here?” the father asked as he beckoned them to sit. “As I said, word has reached me that a foreigner has been looking for me. So tell me, what brings you here, young lady?”

  “Please call me Nishka,” she said. “Several weeks ago, I journeyed to Gaelithea to sell my father’s wares. While I was exploring the city, I encountered a boy named Adrian.” The mother shot straight up at the sound of the name.

  “What happened? Is Adrian okay?” Nishka looked apologetically at her, steeling herself for their reactions.

  “He has lost his mother.” She gave them a moment to absorb the tragic knowledge. “His mother was imprisoned for stealing food to feed Adrian. It was an act of desperation.”

  “Eva was imprisoned? That means… Oh Gods…”

  “I tried to help Adrian. He said he had family in Eternitas and I offered to bring him here. Moments
later, he fled at the sight of several guards.”

  “I hope he is safe,” the mother said.

  “I was unable to find him again. I’m sorry.” With paternal instinct, the father took Nishka’s hand in his own, and he reminded her so much of Matthias.

  “I will journey to Gaelithea as soon as possible and bring him here,” he assured her.

  “Thank you.”

  “You must be weary from traveling so far. Please, take this.” To Arxu’s surprise, the man produced several coins from his pockets.

  Nishka smiled, “I didn’t do this expecting pay. It would be wrong for me to accept this.”

  “I wish we could repay you in some way.”

  “Consider taking care of Adrian as my payment.” Again her voice drifted as though lost in her thoughts. Thoughts of her own loss.

  The mother embraced Nishka and said, “Gods bless you.”

  “We’ll never forget what you’ve done for us.” The father and daughter joined in, as if to welcome her into their family. “And you—” the father said, turning to acknowledge Arxu. “Thank you. You deserve our praise for your kindheartedness.” Arxu almost fell back a step, struck by the meaning of the words. He didn’t have the faintest idea how to respond to gratitude. Nishka walked past him and indicated it was time to leave. With a lingering glance toward the family, Arxu followed.

  He left the house feeling different, a subtle shift in his identity. Nishka just looked at him with a disarming smile. Arxu tried to clear his thoughts from the strange experience. He retired to the inn to unlock the truths Nishka held in that smile.

  Chapter 35

  Nishka drifted through the labyrinth grove, beckoning Arxu toward a fountain. Its dark waters burbled in the courtyard, whispering secrets in the quiet of night.

  Nishka peeked inside the basin and, through the shadows, she could see markings outlined in precious silver. She dipped her fingers in the cool water and traced the sigils, wondering what mysteries the architect inscribed.

  She glanced at Arxu as he settled next to her. Nishka couldn’t deny it any longer; her feelings for him had evolved beyond friendship. She enjoyed his company, but she wished he was capable of being more than just a friend.

  His repressed personality made that connection unlikely, but she couldn’t help hoping he would change. She didn’t know if it was possible to express this, if there was any way to make him understand her feelings.

  “Why did you do that?” Nishka froze. Heat flowed to her cheeks and she wondered if he knew what she imagining.

  “Do what?”

  “Help that child.” Nishka almost burst into relieved laughter. She wasn’t expecting him to question her about Adrian. In fact, the abrupt reference to the orphan perplexed her.

  “He reminded me of myself when I lost my mother.”

  “Did you do it for the boy or for yourself?” His razor-sharp eyes may as well have stripped her down to her soul.

  “What do you mean?”

  “Did you do it to close a painful chapter in your life? To live your own fulfillment through him?”

  She settled her icy gaze on the Nightwalker.

  “I did it for Adrian.”

  Arxu turned away with nothing more to add to his interrogation. However, Nishka’s focus remained fixed on him.

  “Now I want to ask you something. Why were you murdered?” Arxu tightened his grip on his staff. “Why did it kill you?”

  He instinctively reached for the pendant dangling around his neck, the blackened stone where part of his soul once resided. His eyes looked fainter in the dark as his mind traveled to another time and place.

  “Neither did I have a mother in my childhood,” he confessed. He slumped down by the fountain, sitting on the edge of the basin. “I was found on the streets by a common beggar.”

  “You were an orphan?” Nishka said in disbelief.

  Arxu looked silently at the stone between his fingers, stroking its perpetually cold surface.

  “She raised me as if I were her flesh and blood, teaching me the art of stealth and survival. I accompanied her during her operations. She had numerous ways of acquiring coin in the city, performing tasks for clients who would pay outrageous sums of gold.”

  “What kind of tasks?”

  “Theft. I helped her infiltrate everything from the guardhouse to the city treasury. Sometimes we took objects of value, sometimes information from journals and logs. I suspect she was doing the bidding of a politician who hoped to blackmail someone in the city.

  “One day, she vanished. I fear she was imprisoned by the guards or someone caught on to her ruse and exacted punishment. I attempted several times to approach the garrison to learn her fate, but there were too many close calls. A year passed and I was forced to survive on my own. I formed a few alliances with petty thieves, hoping to join a criminal syndicate to build myself up. However, I couldn’t blend in with the commoners because of my skin. I couldn’t traverse the city without alerting the guards.” Arxu’s eyes darted furtively like an animal.

  “I learned to fear something worse than the city guards and the executioner’s block. I learned that people with wealth are immune to the law.” He could still remember that vile face, a sight that portended torment. It was a face he thought forgotten.

  “Each day, a nobleman’s son would torment me for the pale color of my skin. He said my mother must have been a whore and he labeled me a product of disease. Every day brought another insult worse than the last. I did nothing to provoke this boy but he felt compelled to hurt me.”

  Nishka put a reassuring hand on his shoulder, but he didn’t notice. He couldn’t escape his past as it gushed forth.

  “I do not believe he had a sense of morality,” he said with a fading voice. The past seemed to overlap with the present, confusing his senses. He heard the toll of the evening bell and people crying out either in joy or fright. He could distinctly remember the palace in the distance, a horizon broken with spires and universities.

  “Eternitas,” Arxu murmured. “I recognize the streets and the city square. I lived here once.”

  The evening bell pealed in the distance, the curfew for children under seventeen to return home. Whether the bell was tolling in reality or haunting him from his past, he couldn’t tell.

  He remembered the feeling that metallic sound ushered, a sense of disconnection. Without a home or family to return to, Arxu felt exempt from the curfew.

  Beckoned by its mourning call, he would emerge from the burial grounds like a soul that strayed beyond the netherworld. In truth, he harbored a secret refuge in an abandoned mausoleum. The guards wouldn’t suspect a cutpurse of living in the realm of the dead.

  Arxu ensured the burial ground’s haunted reputation stayed intact. Rumors of a ghostly white figure roaming the courtyards ensured that few people ever approached to pay tribute to ancestors. The bell tolled again as if threatening Arxu to scamper back to his hideout.

  As he walked through the streets in the plaza, he scanned the unfamiliar faces around him, mostly guards and reclusive noblemen. Normally, a street child could walk invisibly among the elite, but he was not afforded that privilege. Women and merchants clutched their coinpurses a little tighter as he drifted by.

  Suddenly, a black shape arched through the air and clipped Arxu’s jaw.

  “Damn it!” He looked down at a stone at his feet, the object that had pelted him. Without warning, another stone struck him in the stomach, knocking the wind out of him. A familiar and malevolent voice rang in his ears, his childhood tormentor.

  Through half-closed eyes, he could see the guards watching the spectacle unfold. Another stone lobbed through the air, stinging his arm. Authorities would allow a boy to be stoned to the brink of death, but they would not risk punishing another boy with wealthy connections.

  Arxu lifted himself from the streets and began to run. Merchants cried out as he pushed them aside, cutting a path toward the city gates. Their shouts rallied the guards and they
broke into a pursuit. Fleeing from the guards was all the probable cause they needed to issue an arrest.

  “Stop the boy from escaping!” Arxu raced past a grand emporium and stopped short of bashing into a horse-drawn cart. Arxu could barely remember escaping from the city.

  He tore through the forest in the dark, nearly blinded with tears. Brambles clung to his clothing and cuts from thickets littered his skin.

  He wept until he was too tired to feel, until the darkness weighed heavy on his eyes. He refused to move, lying dejected on the forest floor. The city gates would admit no one at night, leaving him to face the wilderness alone. He drifted to sleep, having no desire to ever return to his hideaway. Arxu shivered and rested his head on the grass as sleep swallowed him.

  Arxu woke to the sensation of a hand on his shoulder. It felt deceitfully like a dream that transcended reality. Fog clouded his mind. He peered over his shoulder to find a woman with raven black hair kneeling above him. Her kind expression calmed him, her blue eyes gazing into his.

  “My name is Umbra,” the woman softly cooed. Arxu remained silent, wary of the stranger. She wore a cloak as ethereal as water reflecting the night sky, and a pale brooch rested on her breast like a moon perched in the heavens. “Come with me.”

  Arxu couldn’t tell whether this was a dream or reality. Intrigued, he followed her beyond the glen. Her toes barely touched the grass, as if a force suspended her above the earth. She walked with the grace of a dancer.

  Even the forest around her did not feel connected to reality. Violet and turquoise leaves bowed in the wind, exotic highlights in the darkness. Stars wheeled above in the sky on their celestial path, instilling awe in Arxu. He had never seen the heavens so vividly aflame.

  As Arxu crested a valley, his eyes fell on a sanctuary concealed within the forest, a dome-like temple glowing beneath the moon. The identity of this place began to dawn on Arxu. He devoured stories about the Nightwalkers in his childhood, a clan of mystics that gathered in worship of the moon and the life that darkness ushers.