Hammer of the Earth

by Susan Krinard

  “Do you remember, Talos?” Baalshillek asked, taking the woman’s hand. “How many years have passed?”

  Talos stared. His hands began to shake on the arms of the chair. “Melissa,” he whispered.

  Baalshillek led the woman forward and released her. “You have not forgotten,” he said. “She has lived in your heart all this time, since you abandoned her and fled the court for Tiberia. Did you not wonder what became of her?”

  Talos tried to rise and fell back again. “This is not Melissa,” he said hoarsely. “She is dead.”

  “Is she?” He turned to the woman. “Do you not know this man?”

  She took a step forward. “Talos?”

  The philosopher’s mouth worked. “No. This is some evil…a phantom….”

  “Go to the one you love, Melissa,” Baalshillek said. “Show him how little you have forgotten.”

  The woman’s eyes welled with tears, and she knelt at Talos’s feet. “My love,” she said. “You have changed, and yet you are the same. Oh, how I have missed you.”

  Talos sat rigid, his gaze fixed on her face. She took his hands in hers and kissed them from knuckle to fingertips. He touched her thick brown hair. “You…you are dead,” he stammered.

  “But she lives anew.” Baalshillek leaned on the edge of the table, watching the desperate struggle in Talos’s eyes. “You could not take her with you to Tiberia. You thought she would be better off in Karchedon than fleeing with a fugitive from Arrhidaeos. And the emperor did not hold her to blame for your transgression. He gave her to a wealthy merchant, Kallimachos, and she bore him a daughter. But then a madness came upon her, and she was given in sacrifice to the Stone God.”

  Talos jerked his hands away from the woman and shrank before Baalshillek’s eyes like a withering piece of fruit.

  “You sorrow for one who is lost,” Baalshillek said gently. “You could not save her. But now you have a second chance. Look at her, Talos. What was Melissa that she is not?”

  Talos looked. His eyes flooded with tears.

  “She is everything you knew,” Baalshillek said. “All Melissa’s memories, her feelings, her devotion.”

  “A simulacrum,” Talos said. “You control her—”

  “No, my beloved,” Melissa said. She grasped the hem of Talos’s chiton. “I have but one master. I have waited and prayed that you would come back to me.” She pressed her face to his knees. “I live, Talos. I do not understand how this miracle has come to pass, but I live. For you.”

  Talos wept openly now, the tears running down his seamed face. “Your daughter,” he croaked. “Who…”

  “Danae,” she said, lifting her head to smile with open joy. “She is beautiful, Talos. She might have been ours. I did not see her come to womanhood, but if you will have me again…we will know such happiness that even the gods will envy us.”

  Baalshillek backed away, unnoticed, and left the room through the secret portal. He sat in the anteroom, emptied his mind of thought and waited for the simulacrum to complete her work. When he returned to his chambers, Melissa sat with her head in Talos’s lap, and he gazed down upon her with the helpless agony of the conquered.

  “You must leave us now, Melissa,” Baalshillek said, “but only for a little while.”

  She rose to her feet, smiled at Talos and slipped out the front door. Baalshillek took his seat behind the table.

  “What will become of her?” Talos asked, staring at the floor between his feet.

  “Why, whatever you desire…if you perform the simple task that the One True God asks of you.”

  “And if I do not?”

  “Then she must suffer the same fate as her predecessor.”

  Talos was silent for a dozen breaths. “What is this task?”

  “My servants tell me that you once performed a trick for the old emperor when you served the court. You placed a new-laid egg in a box of your own construction, spoke a few words and opened the box to reveal a full-grown bird.”

  Talos shook his head. “It was a trick,” he said. “An illusion. Nothing more.”

  “So everyone believed. But they did not know you came from Hyperborea, where such ‘illusions’ are commonplace.”

  “I do not understand you.”

  “What you may conceal from men cannot be hidden from the Exalted,” Baalshillek said. “Those I serve have told me much of your homeland…how its greatest mages can control and alter the very flow of time itself. This is what you did with the egg, old man. And this is what you will do for my masters.”

  He spoke then of the Children of the Stone, those infants specially bred from women of godborn blood and touched by the Stone to create tireless, flawlessly loyal soldiers for the Exalted and their priests. Through the power of the stones embedded in their foreheads, they could be brought from infancy to adolescence in a matter of months instead of years.

  “But they are subject to one weakness,” he continued. “The very force of the Stone that brings them to maturity also destroys their bodies after a few years of service. The Temple requires far more Children than we can produce. You will construct many of these time boxes so that the Children can grow from birth to readiness without the dangers inherent in early exposure to the red stones.”

  Talos rose from his chair, feet braced in pathetic defiance. “What you ask is impossible,” he said. “I know nothing of such machines—”

  “I believe you do,” Baalshillek said. “And I believe that you would rather perform this small service than watch your beloved burn in the altar fires, begging you for her life.”

  Talos turned for the door, stooped and shuffling like the old man he was. Baalshillek let him go and gave orders that he was not to be detained. He had failed to give an answer, but Baalshillek knew it would not be long in coming. The philosopher was weak—his scruples about his war machines were proof enough of that—and his heart ruled his otherwise considerable intellect. His heart, and his guilty memories of Melissa, whom Baalshillek had so perfectly re-created that even her own mother would not doubt her reality.

  By the time the first of the perfect Children was born—the one fit to bear the soul of an Exalted—Talos’s time box must be ready.

  Baalshillek summoned Orkos and heard the commander’s report of Buteo’s “escape” from his cell in the Temple. All was proceeding as it should. Tomorrow the High Priest would meet formally with the emperor to discuss the foolhardy behavior of the lord Alexandros, and how his actions threatened the fragile balance between Temple and Palace. That was when Baalshillek would suggest that the emperor’s half-brother might be best employed for a time away from Karchedon…hunting down the fugitive Tiberian rebel. Who better than one Tiberian to locate another?

  The High Priest smiled to himself and removed his scrying bowl from its cupboard. He summoned a guard and sent the man for a jar of fresh blood from the great altar, where a number of offerings had been made within the hour. He set the bowl on its iron stand, and when the guard returned, he poured the blood into the bowl and waited for the liquid to settle.

  It had been several days since he had found the time to observe his simulacra in their progress through the forests of the South. He had been pleased to see that they had not faltered in pursuit of the godborn, in spite of their ignominious defeat in the desert. And he knew they were close, very close, to discovering the location of the Hammer.

  But when he sought to look through the eyes of his agent, he found nothing but darkness.

  He upended the bowl, splattering blood on walls and floor. A guard dared to open the door, and Baalshillek cursed him so bitterly that even the man’s dull, obedient mind must have known fear.

  Baalshillek sat down and dropped his head into his hands. The Child he had selected to be his eyes and ears had finally met his demise after surviving the battle that had slain two-thirds of his cohort. The question was whether that death had come in the course of his duty…or as the result of treachery.

  If Yseul or one of the other si
mulacra had exposed the agent and slain him, they could no longer be trusted. Yet the freedom they sought was as false as Talos’s dreams of love restored. In a matter of months—or years, if they were lucky—they would be consumed by the power of the Stone that animated them. Even if they cast off all ties to Baalshillek and the Exalted, their own natures would drive them to fulfill at least part of their mission. And whether they merely killed the godborn or took the Weapons for themselves, Baalshillek would profit from their acts.

  He smiled, rose, and summoned an omega priest to clean up the blood.

  Chapter Seventeen

  T he journey passed as if by magic. And perhaps it was magic, Yseul thought, for she kept no memory of days spent walking through the endless forest, or nights huddled with Urho and Farkas beside fires that sprang out of nothing and vanished at first light. She saw the world in brief scenes of movement and stillness.

  Contrary to Eshu’s warnings, neither she nor the others suffered unduly from insect bites, soaking rains or the attacks of ravenous beasts. The little god seldom showed his face, though every day a basket of meat, fruit and nuts appeared at their camp, eliminating the need for hunting. Yseul was vaguely aware that the òrìshà must be guiding them by a path known only to him, but she did not question.

  Finally the morning came when she woke to see everything clearly for the first time since they had left the villagers’ territory. The forest was dense with trees and undergrowth so closely packed that she could hardly believe even a god could find his way through it. Birds and long-tailed animals screeched from the canopy, and a constant rain of moisture fell from the leaves and branches.

  Yseul shook herself in disgust and carefully touched her tender forehead. The wound she had made in removing the red stone was nearly healed, and it was the same with the others. None of them had suffered ill effects from the excision, and even Urho had grudgingly admitted that the doom he’d predicted had failed to materialize.

  Now that Baalshillek’s spy among the Children had been eliminated, Yseul trusted that the High Priest remained ignorant of his servants’ reckless acts. He had lost Yseul’s allegiance, and she was sure that in time Urho and Farkas would begin to see things her way.

  She smiled and looked for her companions. Farkas was just beginning to stir. Urho sat up and blinked in the dim, filtered light.

  “Where in Tabiti’s name are we?” Farkas demanded, scratching his beard. “And where is that cursed dog?”

  Yseul selected a fresh piece of meat from the food basket before the males could claim it all for themselves. “I believe,” she said, licking her fingers, “that we have reached our destination.”

  Urho peered into the seemingly impenetrable wall of trees. “This is the place where the Hammer lies?”

  “Have you already forgotten, my friend? Eshu said he would lead us to the land of those who guard the Hammer…the females who hate all men.” She grinned at Farkas. “Females like me.”

  Farkas glanced about sharply, as if he expected imminent attack. He cursed all creatures of the gentler sex.

  Yseul laughed. “You’d do well to keep your tongue between your teeth, Farkas, if you wish to stay alive. If these Alu are indeed of my blood—”

  She broke off, alerted by a whiff of new scent from the forest. The hairs on the back of her neck stood on end. A dark-skinned figure dropped out of the branches above and landed on silent feet, bared knife in hand. She wore only a few scraps of fur about her hips, and her eyes were slits of feral gold. She straightened, stared at Yseul and regarded the men with open contempt.

  A harsh, coughing cry echoed from the forest. The woman cocked her head and answered, making a noise alien to any human throat. Leaves rustled, and one by one sleek black shapes emerged from the tangle of shrubs and vines, a dozen ivory-fanged panthers forming a loose circle about the intruders. Every pair of yellow eyes promised death.

  Yseul held up her hands and stepped forward. The woman growled, shaking the earth beneath her feet. With the most deliberate of motions, Yseul removed her tunic, belt and trousers, her gaze fixed on the Alu female. Her clothes fell to the ground. Then she changed.

  No breath of sound disturbed the perfect stillness. The panthers crouched, ears flattened. The woman kicked at Yseul’s abandoned garments, her face frozen in unwilling shock. She spoke a single word, a question that Yseul knew meant the difference between life and death.

  Yseul searched the darkest corners of her memory—memory distilled from the blood and bone of the Ailuri Baalshillek had captured and sacrificed to create her. She discovered the ancient language, known only to the Northern shapeshifters and the female warriors they chose as their mates. She became human again and found her voice.

  “Alu,” she said slowly. “I am your sister of the North, come to greet her kin and give them warning.”

  The woman hissed, and the panthers lashed their tails. Farkas chose that moment to shift his weight, and three beasts leaped to confront him. He shrank back, flinging his arms across his face.

  “Stop!” Yseul cried. She met the leader’s gaze. “These are my servants. They must not be harmed.” She addressed the men in Hellenish. “Keep your hands away from your weapons and remain quiet.”

  Urho and Farkas made themselves very small. At a gesture from the Alu leader, the panthers retreated, casting glances of unappeased hunger at the males.

  “You call yourself our Sister,” the woman said to Yseul. “You know the ancient tongue, and you wear our shape. But you speak of the North, and your skin is pale. How can you be one of us?”

  Yseul knew she walked a very fine line between victory and disaster. One wrong word, one mistaken assumption, and she might find herself fighting for her life against others almost as powerful as she.

  But these creatures were savages, ignorant dwellers of the forest with neither writing nor civilization. They could be manipulated as easily as children by one with courage, intelligence…and imagination.

  “I do not know your history, Sister,” she began. “I can only tell the stories of my people…how our males betrayed us long ago, and how we females of the Alu were forced to leave our homeland to scatter far and wide. We believed that some of our sisters went into the South, but until now…” She bowed gracefully. “Now I have the joy of learning we of the North are not alone.”

  The Alu woman fingered the blade of her knife with a frown, digesting Yseul’s tale. One of the panthers changed, becoming a tall, ebon-skinned woman with hair braided tightly to her skull. She addressed her leader, speaking in a tongue foreign to Yseul’s ears.

  The leader’s eyes grew hooded. “You came to find us, Sister of the North?”

  Yseul inclined her head. “Much has changed since my people settled in the lands beyond the Great Desert. When the new time of trouble came—”

  The Alu woman made a sharp downward slash with one hand. “Why do you travel with males, when all know that none of their kind can be trusted?”

  Yseul thought quickly. “The number of Alu is small in the North,” she said. “We have found males useful for certain tasks, and since we could spare few of our own people on this journey, we deemed it advisable that I travel with an escort…no matter how inferior they may be.”

  “You crossed the Great Desert?”

  “Yes. These are the males who survived. I would keep them alive until they have served their purpose.”

  The women argued briefly in their own tongue. Finally the Alu leader came to a decision. “It is clear that you are one of us,” she said, “even if your ways and appearance are those of an outlander. The grace of Ge has brought you to our land, and we will hear what you have to say.” She glanced at the men with a lift of her lip. “You may come with us to our village, but the males must stay here.”

  “They are not familiar with the dangers of your country.”

  “We will see that they remain alive until your story has been told. What happens after that is Ge’s will.”

  Yseul bowed aga
in. “As you say. I will relay your command.” She backed away from the Alu and turned to the men. “Farkas, Urho, listen to me. Your lives depend on what I say. You will remain here—”

  “What?” Farkas gathered his legs to rise, but Urho held him down.

  “Urho is wise,” Yseul said. “Eshu said these females would kill you, and it is obvious that they won’t hesitate to do so if you fail to obey.” She lowered her voice. “I am to be taken to their village. If they know anything about the Hammer, I will hear of it. You’ll camp here, guarded by the Alu. Make no trouble with them.”

  Urho nodded. Farkas looked as though he’d bitten into rotten meat, but he had enough sense not to argue.

  Yseul returned to the Alu leader. “I am ready.”

  The woman spoke to two of the panthers, who advanced on the men and crouched to face them with hot, baleful eyes. Then she shed her scanty clothing, changed and immediately leapt into the forest, followed by the others.

  Yseul changed quickly and scrambled to catch up, aware that she had much yet to prove. Soon she had reached the hindmost of the Alu; in a few heartbeats she had surged ahead, her paws barely touching the earth, a triumphant hunter’s cry bubbling in her throat. She recognized the leader by scent and raced with her, leaping over fallen trees and sliding like a serpent between knots of brush and coiling vines. She flew, and all the yammering, chattering creatures of the jungle fell silent at her passage.

  Here, she thought. Here I belong.

  They ran through the day and into the night, pausing only to drink at a trickle of water flowing from the face of a rock, and continued until the new dawn. The land rose in a steady climb and the trees grew taller, towering two and three times higher than any edifice built by men. It was among such trees that Yseul first saw the houses, woven seamlessly of leaves and smaller branches tucked between vast, outstretched limbs.