Age of Myth

by Michael J. Sullivan

  “You don’t understand.” Herkimer tried once more to explain. “This sword has been handed down from father to son—”

  The god rushed forward and punched Raithe’s father in the stomach, doubling him over. Then the Fhrey stole the copper sword, a dull scrape sounding as the weapon came free of its sheath. While Herkimer was catching his breath, the god examined the weapon with revulsion. Shaking his head, the god turned his back on Herkimer to show the tall servant the pitiable blade. Instead of joining the god’s ridicule of the weapon, the servant cringed. Raithe saw the future through the weasel man’s expression, for he was the first to notice Herkimer’s reaction.

  Raithe’s father drew the skinning knife from his belt and lunged.

  This time the god didn’t disappoint. With astounding speed, he whirled and drove the copper blade into Raithe’s father’s chest. Herkimer’s forward momentum did the work of running the sword deep. The fight ended the moment it began. His father gasped and fell, the sword still in his chest.

  Raithe didn’t think. If he had paused even for an instant, he might have reconsidered, but there was more of his father in him than he wanted to believe. The sword being the only weapon within reach, he pulled the copper from his father’s body. With all his might, Raithe swung at the god’s neck. He fully expected the blade to cut clean through, but the copper sliced only air as the divine being dodged. The god drew his own weapon as Raithe swung again. The two swords met. A dull ping sounded, and the weight in Raithe’s hands vanished along with most of the blade. When he finished his swing, only the hilt of his family’s heritage remained; the rest flew through the air and landed in a tuft of young pines.

  The god stared at him with a disgusted smirk, then spoke in the divine language. “Not worth dying for, was it?”

  Then the god raised his blade once more as Raithe shuffled backward.

  Too slow! Too slow!

  His retreat was futile. Raithe was dead. Years of combat training told him so. In that instant before understanding became reality, he had the chance to regret his entire life.

  I’ve done nothing, he thought as his muscles tightened for the expected burst of pain.

  It never came.

  Raithe had lost track of the servants—so had the god. Neither of the combatants expected, nor saw, the tall weasel-faced man slam his master in the back of the head with a river rock the size and shape of a round loaf of bread. Raithe realized what had happened only after the god collapsed, revealing the servant and his stone.

  “Run,” the rock bearer said. “With any luck, his head will hurt too much for him to chase us when he wakes.”

  “What have you done!” the other servant shouted, his eyes wide as he backed up, pulling the god’s horse away.

  “Calm down,” the one holding the rock told the other servant.

  Raithe looked at his father, lying on his back. Herkimer’s eyes were still open, as if watching clouds. Raithe had cursed his father many times over the years. The man neglected his family, pitted his sons against one another, and had been away when Raithe’s mother and sister died. In some ways—many ways—Raithe hated his father, but at that moment what he saw was a man who had taught his sons to fight and not give in. Herkimer had done the best with what he had, and what he had was a life trapped on barren soil because the gods made capricious demands. Raithe’s father never stole, cheated, or held his tongue when something needed to be said. He was a hard man, a cold man, but one who had the courage to stand up for himself and what was right. What Raithe saw on the ground at his feet was the last of his dead family.

  He felt the broken sword in his hands.

  “No!” the servant holding the horse cried out as Raithe drove the remainder of the jagged copper blade through the god’s throat.

  —

  Both servants had fled, the smaller one on the horse and the other chasing on foot. Now the one who had wielded the rock returned. Covered in sweat and shaking his head, he trotted back to the meadow. “Meryl’s gone,” he said. “He isn’t the best rider, but he doesn’t have to be. The horse knows the way back to Alon Rhist.” He stopped after noticing Raithe. “What are you doing?”

  Raithe was standing over the body of the god. He’d picked up the Fhrey’s sword and was pressing the tip against the god’s throat. “Waiting. How long does it usually take?”

  “How long does what take?”

  “For him to get up.”

  “He’s dead. Dead people don’t generally get up,” the servant said.

  Reluctant to take his eyes off the god, Raithe ventured only the briefest glance at the servant, who was bent and struggling to catch his breath. “What are you talking about?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “I want to know how long we have before he rises. If I cut off his head, will he stay down longer?”

  The servant rolled his eyes. “He’s not getting up! You killed him.”

  “My Tetlin ass! That’s a god. Gods don’t die. They’re immortal.”

  “Really not so much,” the servant said, and to Raithe’s shock he kicked the god’s body, which barely moved. He kicked it again, and the head rocked to one side, sand sticking to its cheek. “See? Dead. Get it? Not immortal. Not a god, just a Fhrey. They die. There’s a difference between long-lived and immortal. Immortal means you can’t die…even if you want to. Fact is, the Fhrey are a lot more similar to Rhunes than we’d like to think.”

  “We’re nothing alike. Look at him.” Raithe pointed at the fallen Fhrey.

  “Oh, yes,” the servant replied. “He’s so different. He has only one head, walks on two feet, and has two hands and ten fingers. You’re right. Nothing like us at all.”

  The servant looked down at the body and sighed. “His name was Shegon. An incredibly talented harp player, a cheat at cards, and a brideeth eyn mer—which is to say…” The servant paused. “No, there is no other way to say it. He wasn’t well liked, and now he’s dead.”

  Raithe looked over suspiciously.

  Is he lying? Trying to put me off guard?

  “You’re wrong,” Raithe said with full conviction. “Have you ever seen a dead Fhrey? I haven’t. My father hasn’t. No one I’ve ever known has. And they don’t age.”

  “They do, just very slowly.”

  Raithe shook his head. “No, they don’t. My father mentioned a time when he was a boy, and he met a Fhrey named Neason. Forty-five years later, they met again, but Neason looked exactly the same.”

  “Of course he did. I just told you they age slowly. Fhrey can live for thousands of years. A bumblebee lives for only a few months. To a bumblebee, you appear immortal.”

  Raithe wasn’t fully convinced, but it would explain the blood. He hadn’t expected any. In retrospect, he shouldn’t have attacked the Fhrey at all. His father had taught him not to start a fight he couldn’t win, and fighting an immortal god fell squarely into that category. But then again it was his father who had started the whole thing.

  Sure is a lot of blood.

  An ugly pool had formed underneath the god, staining the grass and his glistening robes. His neck still had the gash, a nasty, jagged tear like a second mouth. Raithe had expected the wound to miraculously heal or simply vanish. When the god rose, Raithe would have the advantage. He was strong and could best most men in Dureya, which meant he could best most men. Even his father thought twice about making his son too angry.

  Raithe stared down at the Fhrey, whose eyes were open and rolled up. The gash in his throat was wider now. A god—a real god—would never permit kicks from a servant. “Okay, maybe they aren’t immortal.” He relaxed and took a step back.

  “My name is Malcolm,” the servant said. “Yours is Raithe?”

  “Uh-huh,” Raithe said. With one last glare at the Fhrey’s corpse, Raithe tucked the jeweled weapon into his belt and then lifted his father’s body.

  “Now what are you doing?” Malcolm asked.

  “Can’t bury him down here. These river
s are bound to flood this plain.”

  “Bury him? When word gets back to Alon Rhist, the Fhrey will…” He looked sick. “We need to leave.”

  “So go.”

  Raithe carried his father to a small hill in the meadow and gently lowered him to the ground. As a final resting place, it wasn’t much but would have to do. Turning around, he found the god’s ex-servant staring in disbelief. “What?”

  Malcolm started to laugh, then stopped, confused. “You don’t understand. Glyn is a fast horse and has the stamina of a wolf. Meryl will reach Alon Rhist by nightfall. He’ll tell the Instarya everything to save himself. They’ll come after us. We need to get moving.”

  “Go ahead,” Raithe said, taking Herkimer’s medal and putting it on. Then he closed his father’s eyes. He couldn’t remember having touched the old man’s face before.

  “You need to go, too.”

  “After I bury my father.”

  “The Rhune is dead.”

  Raithe cringed at the word. “He was a man.”

  “Rhune—man—same thing.”

  “Not to me—and not to him.” Raithe strode down to the riverbank, littered with thousands of rocks of various sizes. The problem wasn’t finding proper stones but deciding which ones to choose.

  Malcolm planted his hands on his hips, glaring with an expression somewhere between astonishment and anger. “It’ll take hours! You’re wasting time.”

  Raithe crouched and picked up a rock. The top had been baked warm by the sun; the bottom was damp, cool, and covered in wet sand. “He deserves a proper burial and would have done the same for me.” Raithe found it ironic given that his father had rarely shown him any kindness. But it was true; Herkimer would have faced death to see his son properly buried. “Besides, do you have any idea what can happen to the spirit of an unburied body?”

  The man stared back, bewildered.

  “They return as manes to haunt you for not showing the proper respect. And manes can be vicious.” Raithe hoisted another large sand-colored rock and walked up the slope. “My father could be a real cul when he was alive. I don’t need him stalking me for the rest of my life.”

  “But—”

  “But what?” Raithe set the rocks down near his father’s shoulders. He’d do the outline before starting the pile. “He’s not your father. I don’t expect you to stay.”

  “That’s not the point.”

  “What is the point?”

  The servant hesitated, and Raithe took the opportunity to return to the bank and search for more rocks.

  “I need your help,” the man finally said.

  Raithe picked up a large stone and carried it up the bank, clutched against his stomach. “With what?”

  “You know how to…well, you know…live…out here, I mean.” The servant looked at the deer carcass, which had gathered a host of flies. “You can hunt, cook, and find shelter, right? You know what berries to eat, which animals you can pet and which to run away from.”

  “You don’t pet any animals.”

  “See? Good example of how little I know about this sort of thing. Alone, I’d be dead in a day or two. Frozen stiff, buried in a landslide, or gored by some antlered beast.”

  Raithe set the stone and returned down the slope, clapping his hands together to clean off the sand. “Makes sense.”

  “Of course it makes sense. I’m a sensible fellow. And if you were sensible, we’d go. Now.”

  Raithe lifted another rock. “If you’re bent on sticking with me and in such a hurry, you might consider helping.”

  The man looked at the riverbank’s rounded stones and sighed. “Do we have to use such big ones?”

  “Big ones for the bottom, smaller ones on top.”

  “Sounds like you’ve done this before.”

  “People die often where I come from, and we have a lot of rocks.” Raithe wiped his brow with his forearm, pushing back a mat of dark hair. He’d rolled the woolen sleeves of his undertunic up. The spring days were still chilly, but the work made him sweat. He considered taking off his leigh mor and leather but decided against it. Burying his father should be an unpleasant task, and a good son should feel something at such a time. If uncomfortable was the best he could manage, Raithe would settle for that.

  Malcolm carried over a pair of rocks and set them down, letting Raithe place them. He paused to rub his hands clean.

  “Okay, Malcolm,” Raithe said, “you need to pick bigger ones or we’ll be here forever.”

  Malcolm scowled but returned to the bank, gathered two good-sized stones, and carried them under his arms like melons. He walked unsteadily in sandals. Thin, with a simple strap, they were ill suited to the landscape. Raithe’s clothes were shoddy—sewn scraps of wool with leather accents that he’d cured himself—but at least they were durable.

  Raithe searched for and found a small smooth stone.

  “I thought you wanted bigger rocks?” Malcolm asked.

  “This isn’t for the pile.” Raithe opened his father’s right hand and exchanged the rock for the skinning knife. “He’ll need it to get to Rel or Alysin if he’s worthy—Nifrel if he’s not.”

  “Oh, right.”

  After outlining the body, Raithe piled the stones from the feet upward. Then he retrieved his father’s leigh mor, which still lay next to the deer’s carcass, and laid it over Herkimer’s face. A quick search in the little patch of pines produced the other end of the copper sword. Raithe considered leaving the weapon but worried about grave robbers. His father had died for the shattered blade; it deserved to be cared for.

  Raithe glanced at the Fhrey once more. “You’re certain he won’t get up?”

  Malcolm looked over from where he was lifting a rock. “Positive. Shegon is dead.”

  Together they hoisted a dozen more rocks onto the growing pile before Raithe asked, “Why were you with him?”

  Malcolm pointed to the torc around his neck as if it explained everything. Raithe was puzzled until he noticed the necklace was a complete circle. The ring of metal wasn’t a torc, not jewelry at all—it was a collar.

  Not a servant—a slave.

  The sun was low in the sky when they dropped the last rocks to complete the mound. Malcolm washed in the river while Raithe sang his mourning song. Then he slung his father’s broken blade over his shoulder, adjusted the Fhrey’s sword in his belt, and gathered his things and those of his father. They didn’t have much: a wooden shield, a bag containing a good hammer stone, a rabbit pelt Raithe planned to make into a pouch as soon as it cured, the last of the cheese, the single blanket they had shared, a stone hand ax, his father’s knife, and Raithe’s spear.

  “Where to?” Malcolm asked. His face and hair were covered in sweat, and the man had nothing, not even a sharpened stick to defend himself.

  “Here, sling this blanket over your shoulder. Tie it tight, and take my spear.”

  “I don’t know how to use a spear.”

  “It’s not complicated. Just point and stick.”

  Raithe looked around. Going home didn’t make sense. That was back east, closer to Alon Rhist. Besides, his family was gone. The clan would still welcome him, but it was impossible to build a life in Dureya. Another option would be to push farther west into the untamed wilderness of Avrlyn. To do so they’d need to get past a series of Fhrey outposts along the western rivers. Like Alon Rhist, the strongholds were built to keep men out. Herkimer had warned Raithe about the fortifications of Merredydd and Seon Hall, but his father never explained exactly where those were. By himself, Raithe could likely avoid walking into one, but he wouldn’t have much of a life alone in the wilderness. Taking Malcolm wouldn’t help. By the look and sound of the ex-slave, he wouldn’t survive a year in the wild.

  “We’ll cross back into Rhulyn but go south.” He pointed over the river at the dramatic rising hillside covered with evergreens. “That’s the Crescent Forest, runs for miles in all directions. Not the safest place, but it’ll provide cover—help hide us.”
He glanced up at the sky. “Still early in the season, but there should be some food to forage and game to hunt.”

  “What do you mean by not the safest place?”

  “Well, I’ve not been there myself, but I’ve heard things.”

  “What sorts of things?”

  Raithe tightened his belt and the strap holding the copper to his back before offering a shrug. “Oh, you know, tabors, raow, leshies. Stuff like that.”

  Malcolm continued to stare. “Vicious animals?”

  “Oh, yeah—those, too, I suppose.”

  “Those…too?”

  “Sure, bound to be in a forest that size.”

  “Oh,” Malcolm said, looking apprehensive as his eyes followed a branch floating past them at a quick pace. “How will we get across?”

  “You can swim, right?”

  Malcolm looked stunned. “That’s a thousand feet from bank to bank.”

  “It has a nice current, too. Depending on how well you swim, we’ll probably reach the far side several miles south of here. But that’s good. It’ll make us harder to track.”

  “Impossible, I’d imagine,” Malcolm said, grimacing, his sight chained to the river.

  The ex-slave of the Fhrey looked terrified, and Raithe understood why. He’d felt the same way when Herkimer had forced him across.

  “Ready?” Raithe asked.

  Malcolm pursed his lips; the skin of his hands was white as he clutched the spear. “You realize this water is cold—comes down as snowmelt from Mount Mador.”

  “Not only that,” Raithe added, “but since we’re going to be hunted, we won’t be able to make a fire when we get out.”

  The slender man with the pointed nose and narrow eyes forced a tight smile. “Lovely. Thanks for the reminder.”

  “You up for this?” Raithe asked as he led the way into the icy water.

  “I’ll admit it’s not my typical day.” The sound of his words rose in octaves as he waded into the river.