And that was definitely why he’d used paper, she realised, her eyebrows shooting up as she read the information on the pages.
Dossiers. He was compiling dossiers on each of the sub-level gods, assessing if they were harmful or beneficial to mortals and deciding how best to go about assassinating them if they proved unworthy.
He had even gone to the trouble of printing off two-dimensional images of some of the gods. There was a fuzzy picture of the Desine standing before a sandstorm, obviously threatening the people in his path; there was a clear shot of Finara, the fire goddess, waving towards whoever was holding the vidcam aimed at her; and there was even a close-up of the Tirine, the tundra goddess.
Renaei. Once Isabis’ closest companion. But no longer.
Her heart squeezing painfully, Isabis forced herself to read that dossier very closely.
• • •
He was a teenage girl, bouncing across the grass and laughing, his hand held firm in Renaei’s. The Tirine was round and smooth and beautiful — and so much more vibrant in real life than in the footage Sanyul had managed to locate of the tundra goddess over the years.
With ivory skin so unlike his own and golden tresses that fell past her shoulders, Renaei wasn’t unaware of her beauty but she didn’t care for it. No, the things she cared about the most were the insignificant mortals in her domain — and her immortal sisters, especially this new goddess she had taken under her wing.
‘Oh!’ Renaei said, smiling down at — Isabis. ‘Someone’s calling my name. I need to go to them. Will you come with me?’
‘Yes!’ Sanyul/Isabis cried. ‘Do we always have to go when they call us?’
‘Indeed we do. The mortals are so vulnerable. They need so much help!’
Sanyul/Isabis laughed and laughed. Silly mortals.
The young savannah goddess assumed her godly form, remaining invisible as she watched her older sister attend to her duties. Renaei answered as many as pleas she could, even stopping to help fifty mortals who were perched on the edge of an eroding cliff. The Tirine teleported them somewhere more stable, somewhere they could rebuild the town that had crashed onto the rocks below. They had waited so long for her to come to them, long after they could have saved their own lives and all the possessions they had lost.
The pain began as a dull throb and at first Isabis didn’t know what was causing it. But as she continued to watch the Tirine help those who clearly could have helped themselves, and as the thoughts of the mortals became a howling maelstrom that threatened to overwhelm her entire being, Isabis realised that those desperate little minds hurt her.
She recoiled, frightened.
Later, when the sisters sat by a fire inside a hidden cave, Renaei leaned against the wall, exhaustion flitting over her perfect features.
‘Sometimes I wish we did not have to help them so often,’ the Tirine said. ‘It is difficult to always be listening for their cries — especially for you, Isabis, because of your unique powers. But this is what we were created for. We cannot ignore the duties Father has given us.’
‘It feels awful being near them, Ren,’ Isabis said frankly. ‘Why should we put ourselves through this?’
Renaei laughed. ‘Give it a few more centuries. You will understand eventually.’
Isabis soon grew into a woman and lost the carefree spirit she had possessed as a child. Her title, the Savine, now came with responsibilities instead of just a place in the Galactic Pantheon. She kept in touch with Renaei, always worried about the sister who felt too deeply, always trying to please Renaei by adopting the same attitude in her own domain. Even if doing so hurt Isabis so much she couldn’t take human form without curling up into a ball and sobbing until her eyes ran dry.
The mortals didn’t like being told what to do. Once, the Savine outright spoke to them, trying to avert a war, but her people ignored her and chose to fight to the bitter end.
Many died that day. And Isabis fled, unable to bear their agony when hers seemed so much worse.
Decades later, a man hurled himself off a cliff inside her domain. She teleported him to safety and took human form, wanting to see if her words could do what her powers could not; she might not be there to save him the next time he tried. But he yelled at her, told her that she shouldn’t have bothered. His fury was like a blunt knife hacking into her skull.
The next time she let him fall.
He cursed her with his dying breath. Because he’d expected her to save him.
From that day on, Isabis left the mortals to it. Let them live and die however they chose. She would not interfere, not unless she absolutely had to.
Hundreds of Old Earth years later, the bot uprisings that tore the galaxy apart and destroyed the lives of so many were eventually suppressed — by mortals. Including her own. Some of her siblings, the other sub-level gods, had actually helped the mortals win those bloody battles, but Isabis had refused to involve herself in any of it.
‘You let them suffer!’ Renaei cried when the last bot was rendered useless, tears streaming down her porcelain cheeks. ‘Your people died when you could have prevented it!’
Isabis shrugged off the stinging moss that grew across her shoulders, a weak attack by Renaei’s standards. ‘They died proud, knowing that their sacrifices would lead to victory. Your people died screaming, because they expected you to save them. Mine fought until they could fight no more. They would not have thanked me for making them reliant on some invisible being.’
Isabis and Renaei stared at each other, the rocks and trees around them splintering and even exploding. Their domains were similarly bare and sparse, but the climates and the species that grew and lived within them had always set the sisters apart.
Now something greater had become between them.
‘You don’t care enough!’ Renaei hurled at the Savine. ‘You don’t even care about me!’
‘I hope one day you care so much it kills you,’ Isabis hissed in response.
The Savine left rather than take on a goddess who was so much older, so much more powerful and so unwilling to listen. Isabis found herself standing by an ocean on one of her worlds, fists clenched, so angry she thought she might burst.
‘She sees my thoughts and thinks she knows me — well, she’s wrong,’ Isabis snarled.
‘Many of our siblings are like that,’ Fayay, the water god and Watine, said as he rose from the waves to stand beside her. ‘You will have to be more specific about which one has offended you, sister.’
Isabis eyed him. He was callous and cruel and that was no secret, even among the mortals, but this ensured that he never had too many followers relying on him. He would never care to the point of poisoning himself. And he could make it rain if she bargained with him. It was a boon to be used sparingly — and use it she did.
Because she couldn’t stop caring about those foolish mortals. Couldn’t block out their thoughts or panic when a drought set in.
She would have to protect the very minds that hurt her.
Forever. And alone.
CHAPTER FOUR
‘Forever and alone,’ Sanyul repeated in a parched whisper as he opened his eyes.
He breathed deeply and lay there in the dying afternoon light, stunned to find himself alive. When he touched his chest, checking for wounds, he felt his shirt gaping as though someone had undone a few buttons before giving up. The Goddess, most likely. Hanging on the door of his childhood bedroom was one of his spare suits, free of tears and soil stains. She must have found it in his starship.
Sanyul rubbed his aching temples. What had Isabis done to him? Implanted her memories? They were vivid and awful — but the things she had seen! He had watched, through her golden eyes, as Sundafar had changed from an empty planet colonised by his ancestors into a growing galactic power. His people had accomplished so much with so little. This had filled Sanyul with pride, something he had never thought he would feel for his homeworld.
He glanced up, frowning. His family’s voices were so
loud it was as though they were in the room with him, but they had to be in the kitchen. They always gathered around the counter, squeezed in between the cupboards and the stove. The much wider lounge room lacked both intimacy and the convenient snacks that were required to fill the many awkward silences that his mama inspired.
Sanyul strained his ears, curious to know how the rain meeting had gone, but all he heard was a confusing mess of half-finished sentences. The three of them — Mama, Baba and Ablar — were speaking over the top of each other, not even pausing to acknowledge what the others were saying.
‘They saw that he wasn’t there, why wasn’t he there!?’ Malikar wailed. ‘They will say it is our fault the rain didn’t come — they will blame us, they will say we told The Goddess to pass us by, when we suffer just as much as anyone — !’
‘And in an unexpected turn of events, the rebels on Frossi have managed to overthrow their planet’s government practically overnight,’ droned Baba’s voice, as though he was trying his best to sound like a half-asleep mediaist.
‘I hope it rains soon, if only to make Mama shut up,’ was Ablar’s contribution.
‘Oh for stark’s sake!’ Malikar exploded, but instead of rebuking her daughter, as she normally would have, she said, ‘Are we all just going to sit here and pretend nothing’s wrong or are we going to talk about Bibi? She’s only got three months left — the doctor on the medical app said so!’
Sanyul jerked out of bed and stabbed his feet into the shoes on the floor (they were scuffed and filled with dirt — The Goddess had not replaced those as she had done with his suit, but he hadn’t expected that from someone who went barefoot). Still buttoning up his navy jacket, he marched into the kitchen and glowered at the trio clustered around the counter.
His baba dropped the techpad he’d been holding, though not before Sanyul noticed that the device’s screen was displaying a recent article written by Grace Pendergast, the galaxy’s most famous e-paper reporter. The article had indeed been about Frossi’s change in leadership, Sanyul remembered. He’d read it on the way to Sundafar while his ship’s leapdrive had been engaged.
‘When were you going to tell me that Bibi’s dying?’ he demanded of his family.
Ablar sighed. ‘Mama, you were so loud even the corpses in the burial plain heard you.’
‘It’s nothing,’ Malikar said with a violent jerk of her head. Her lips sealed but Sanyul kept hearing her voice, as though she was still speaking. Oh, it’s horrible. The cancer got into her bones. Why didn’t Bibi tell us something was wrong? We could have taken her to a clinic, before it was too late — but would the stubborn old popo have gone? Stark her for doing this to me!
Sanyul opened his mouth then quickly closed it, confused — and worried.
‘Fine, I’ll tell him,’ Ablar muttered, rising from her stool. Her eyes were full of sorrow. ‘Bibi’s got cancer. And it’s gone into — ’
‘Her bones,’ Sanyul finished.
Ablar’s shoulders relaxed, her burden taken off them. ‘Oh. Bibi told you.’
Sanyul stared at her.
What did you expect — tears? From him? Ablar’s voice exclaimed inside his head. She sounded so much like Mama all of a sudden. He doesn’t even feel anything when he looks at a woman. No wonder no one wants him.
‘What did you say?’ Sanyul snapped.
‘Bibi…told you?’ Ablar repeated, eyes wide as he advanced on her.
‘No! That other thing — about me not feeling anything!’
Ablar backed up against the cupboards, trembling. ‘I…I said nothing.’
‘I can feel love, you know,’ he said, swiftly tempering his fury and loosening his stance. He had not meant to frighten her. ‘Sure, there are times when I can’t afford to feel anything — it could mean death for me, you get that, right? But when the job’s over, when the money hits my account, I’m as human as you, Ablar. And I can still get hurt. I just don’t show it as much.’
‘Sanyul, I didn’t say…’
‘No, but you thought it,’ he realised.
The Goddess had wanted him to see what it was like to be her. His lesson had begun with the dream, but it hadn’t stopped there. He could hear everything: Malikar’s horror as she considered a future without the mother-in-law who had helped her raise a family, Ablar’s shame that Sanyul had known what she was thinking, Baba’s focus drifting as his eyes found the article on his techpad again.
And that wasn’t all.
Sanyul could hear everyone inside the town.
Hundreds of minds accosted him with their worries about the rain, their annoyance that Bibi, the town elder, hadn’t bothered to show up to the rain meeting and their suspicions about her strange grandson who hadn’t come either. Their shrill words scratched their way into Sanyul’s skull, stealing a surprised draw of breath from him, a physical tell he had never failed to conceal. Until now.
Stark, it hurt. It hurt so much —
‘I have to get out of here!’ Sanyul cried, a hand clapped to his aching forehead.
He ran — past his family and their open mouths, out the door and onto the soil that was still warm from the day’s heat, then through the lines of dying banana trees. He thought, perhaps in vain, that Bibi might be able to help him. But he never made it to her shack on the rise.
Sanyul collapsed onto his knees, his silent scream aimed at the dirt.
The voices crowded in around him, more insistent than before, seemingly intent on ripping him apart. But he wasn’t some useless first-year student at the academy.
He could handle this. He just had to…had to…
Breathe in, breathe out, he reminded himself. Breathe in. Breathe out.
He continued this silent chant, his breaths long and even, until he found the strength to stand. Furiously massaging his temples, he began to stagger away from his family’s farm. The further he went the less painful it became, so he kept going, heading towards his hidden hoverbike. He just had to get to his starship, then he could get the stark off this rock. Space would be silent. He hoped.
But Sanyul’s head was throbbing so badly he wasn’t sure if he could ride his hoverbike without crashing it.
This was insane. He had to put an end to it. Now.
‘Isabis!’ he called, a hand braced on a tree as he tried to keep himself upright. ‘Isabis! I understand. I have learned my lesson. Can you please take this…this thing from me?’
The Goddess swirled into being, a cocoon of broad green mgunga leaves blowing apart to reveal her scowl. ‘How you do know my name? I did not give it to you.’
‘But the dream…’ Sanyul began.
Her golden eyes widened.
He has seen too much, she thought. Isabis, you fool!
Sanyul grimaced. ‘I can hear you, you know. Ouch.’
‘Yes, I am aware that you can hear my thoughts.’ Isabis tossed her head from side to side, as though aggravated by a mistake he had made instead of one of her own. ‘It was a punishment as much as a lesson. But…’ Her gaze roved over him, her forehead creasing even further. ‘I did not mean for this to happen.’
‘Isabis, what did you do?’ Sanyul demanded.
She bared her teeth. Grass fronds began to lash his ankles.
‘Goddess, I meant to say Goddess,’ Sanyul amended quickly. He wouldn’t bow or get to his knees, as her mind was suggesting he do, but it was offensive of him to use a name that only her siblings and her father — the Creator God — knew.
Isabis glanced at the ground and the restless grass stilled. ‘My mind-reading abilities have always been…unique. And uniquely strong. I can affect dreams. My past has been on my mind lately and some of my memories must have transferred to you. It appears I lost control of my powers.’
Some goddess you are, Sanyul thought.
Isabis’ head jerked up.
Well, there’s no point pretending I didn’t think that, he mused. I will not apologise. My thoughts will never be pleasant in regards to you and you have done nothing t
o change that.
She threw her head back and laughed.
Sanyul basked in her amusement for several long seconds, enjoying the warmth of her presence. It was strange, talking to The Goddess this way. But he liked it. There were no secrets, no hidden thoughts. She had seen his past. And he had seen hers.
Stark, she was always in so much pain. What she felt was so powerful it could very well kill him if he let it.
He forced himself to breathe.
‘How do you do that?’ she asked.
‘Do what?’
Isabis growled in frustration and gestured at his forehead with a slashing motion. ‘You can close yourself off until the thoughts don’t hurt you anymore. How?’
‘Oh, they hurt me,’ Sanyul corrected. ‘But I won’t let someone else’s thoughts rule me. And I’ve had training.’
‘I haven’t had any training.’ Isabis blinked, as though startled by this revelation. ‘But none of my siblings, not even Renaei, have the same trouble that I do. How could they have taught me?’
‘But the Creator God…’ Sanyul tried.
‘He never has any time for his children,’ Isabis said flatly. She had drawn closer to Sanyul, but there was no malice in her stance or her mind. In fact, she felt envious. ‘Your family always has time for you. And you tried to run for your grandmother first. Why?’
Sanyul wasn’t sure if he should bother speaking out loud — The Goddess had to have already seen the answer in his mind — but he made himself say it anyway. ‘Bibi has always cared for me, always understood me. Once she’s gone I will have no one I can really talk to. No one who gets me.’
‘Oh,’ Isabis murmured, her eyes travelling past him, back towards the town.
‘You didn’t know,’ Sanyul realised. ‘Don’t you know everything about your followers?’
Isabis shook her head. ‘It would be intrusive if I stayed in everyone’s minds all the time. And exhausting.’ She hesitated. ‘I’m sorry. There is nothing I can do. I cannot heal.’
‘Bibi would have refused your help anyway,’ Sanyul said.
The Galactic Pantheon Novellas Page 15
