Theros: Godsend, Part I

by Jenna Helland

  “That’s right,” she murmured, holding him closer. The little light from her candle was like a fragile bubble, and she glimpsed movement in the inky darkness beyond.

  Her son moved so he stood directly in front of her. He gazed at her with wisdom far beyond his youthful age. Daxos’s expression seemed perceptive and mournful, like that of a sphinx she’d once seen in Meletis. The reflective sheen of his eyes that she once had taken for blindness now reflected the stars of Nyx. And suddenly she understood what her son was. Not deaf or mute but a seer of things beyond her comprehension.

  Daxos was an oracle.

  The realization took her breath away. He spoke again, but the voice that emerged from his mouth was layered and immense, like a thousand voices speaking in unison. It was like the voice of the oracles that she’d heard in Meletis—speaking the language she imagined like glittering stars.

  “Your son is not safe here,” said the voice from her son’s mouth. At the pinnacle of the multitude of voices was a woman’s voice—the voice of Karametra, the god of mothers. “You must flee.”

  As Lidia rose to her feet, she could see a pinpoint of light racing toward them. The light of Athreos’s ethereal lantern emerged from the depths of the cave. Lidia stared at her beautiful son and asked herself, Where was my son’s soul? Inside him all along.

  “He sees the divine more clearly than any oracle before him,” the god-voice intoned. “Your mortal life is just a shadow compared to the glory of the gods.”

  A stale wind blasted against their faces as Athreos lurched up the tunnel toward them. Beyond the orb of firelight, Lidia heard cries carried on the wind—the keening of those waiting for passage over the river to the land of the dead.

  “Athreos, Servant of the Dead, is coming for your son,” said the god-voice. “The Lord God of the Underworld desires this vessel. Erebos will try to claim your son.”

  Daxos was a speaker of god-words, a seer of the veil, a star-touched. He was a gift that all gods desired. Sobbing, Lidia scooped him up in her arms and ran frantically for the entrance. By now Erebos had discerned what was happening from deep beyond the boundaries of the mortal realm. The tendrils of his tattered cape were like grasping fingers that tore at Lidia and slowed her escape, but he couldn’t contain her. Daxos screamed his terror in the language of the gods.

  Through his god-sight, Daxos knew that Erebos had heard his voice and would remember it for all time. He sensed Erebos rise from his throne. The God of the Underworld urged Athreos closer to the daylight. Athreos refused to go beyond his dismal cave, but his hooked staff could reach farther than Lidia could flee. Because he could perceive all the gods, Daxos heard Athreos reaching for him through the winding passages. He sought to snare Daxos and deliver him to Erebos. Daxos tried to warn his mother, but the words that tumbled from his mouth made no sense to her mortal ears. Despite the dark intentions of the gods, Daxos heard a whisper of hope. Karametra recognized Lidia’s overwhelming love for Daxos and took pity on the woman. Daxos heard the footfalls of a celestial creature racing to them. Karametra sent her own emissary, a giant sable, to encircle Daxos and prevent Athreos from pulling him away from his mother’s embrace. But the fleet-footed sable was a heartbeat too late. Athreos had hooked his staff around the boy and dragged him deeper into the cave. Daxos could feel Erebos hungering for him as he outstretched his clawed fingers, so eager for a vessel that could touch the mortal world.

  Despite the strong arms of his mother and Karametra’s aid, Daxos was slipping.

  Without hesitation or regret, Lidia traded herself for her son. The staff would not depart empty, so she squeezed her body into the crook and pushed her son to safety. Karametra’s sable streaked into the cave, and Lidia begged it to bear Daxos into the sunshine. Then she let herself be dragged across the ragged waters to the unknown lands of the dead. And Daxos dug his small hands into the sable’s fur, and he sobbed for his mother. With three bounding leaps, the sable had crossed the Despair Lands to the relative safety of the Nessian Forest.

  “There, in the sunshine.” Daxos heard Karametra talking to her sable. “Leave the boy and come back to me.”

  The sable hesitated, but obeyed. As soon as the child was laid onto the emerald moss, the sable was running back to his mistress in Nyx. Daxos curled onto his side under the spreading oak and wept himself to sleep. The gods may be whimsical, but they respect the fates. And Daxos was not Karametra’s to claim, any more than he was Erebos’s. The grieving boy would be on his own until he stood up or died in the elements.

  Daxos lay there for three days, clutching his mother’s amulet and sorting between the noise of the divine and the din of the mortal world. Most mortals could only see the god-forms in the night sky, and they were hazy and fleeting. But for Daxos, Nyx was a brilliant vision even in daylight. And for those three days, he watched the gods fight and listened to the pip and chatter of birds around him. He saw Purphoros, the God of the Forge, wield a gleaming sword that cut the divine fabric of Nyx with every blow. Daxos felt the mundane wind blow across his cheeks and rustle the leaves above his head. Finally he was ready. He understood what things belonged in what realm. He could think in the language of his mother and still breathe the language of the gods.

  When he sat up, he found that he was not alone.

  There was a girl watching him. She crouched at the edge of the clearing wearing a black cloak that was too big for her. He didn’t know if she’d been there for three minutes or all three days. Her hair was brown and her skin was pale, as if she’d been kept from the sun for a long time. And because he perceived the world in a multitude of complexity, he saw her grief like a prism, and it took his breath away. He’d lost his mother, and felt as if he might die of it. Whatever she had lost was so much more.

  “I need food,” she said in a scratchy voice from a throat that needed water.

  They both needed food, Daxos knew. He was desperately hungry, and she looked as if she’d been starving for a while. There were strange markings on her arms, scars but not scars, and the skin around her eyes looked like ash. He worried that the ashes might spread down her face until she was half ash and half flesh and the winds of Theros would blow to her pieces.

  “None,” he said. His voice was his own again, a child’s voice. But he could still hear Karametra’s words ringing in his mind like temple bells. It made it hard to focus on the mortal realm.

  “What’s this world called?” the girl asked.

  Daxos didn’t find her question odd. He could see both the god-realm and the mortal realm. And probably the Underworld, too, if only he knew where to stand. Perhaps the girl was from Nyx, and she’d stumbled into the wrong place. But there were no stars shining in the shadows of her body, and all creatures born in Nyx had that same starry essence.

  “Theros,” he said.

  The girl winced like his answer hurt her physically.

  “I need food,” she said.

  “Yes,” he agreed. She hadn’t asked it like a question, and even if she had, he didn’t have an answer. He had no idea what to do next. She just wanted food. He envied her single-minded purpose.

  The sun was setting, and Daxos stared at the sky as the gods came into sharp focus above him. Purphoros was locked in a death match against Heliod. A god couldn’t kill another god, but they would cause each other as much pain as possible. To the mortals, such a duel would be confined by a custom called between the pillars. But to the gods, the entire sky was their proving ground.

  “What’s your name?” the girl asked.

  “Daxos,” he said.

  “I’m Elspeth,” she told him, but the boy made no reply. He was distracted by the brilliance of Purphoros’s Sword, which the god had created in his divine forge. Heliod was weaponless. He’d flung his spear far to the north in a miscalculated strike. In the sky, the gods circled each other like wolves moving in for the kill. Daxos could perceive the history of their conflict etched into the foundations of the heavens. He knew that the God of Horiz
ons had warned them not to let their hatred spill from Nyx into the mortal realm. But their fury had consumed them.

  “Where’s your mother?” Elspeth asked. It was strange that she didn’t know that the gods were fighting. Daxos wondered if she perceived Nyx at all. She moved closer to him, but like a frightened animal, she crossed the glade in short bursts. He waited, motionless, watching the sky. Soon she drew close enough to touch his hand, if she’d wanted to. She stared at the glass amulet around his neck. Now the asphodel glowed green, reflecting the life of the forest.

  “Dead,” Daxos said. He hadn’t yet put two words together in a sentence, but she didn’t seem to notice.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, but she made no move to comfort him. He perceived her silent plea, the one she made with the slant of her shoulders and the pits of ashes that were her eyes: Please help me.

  Daxos didn’t know what to do, so he watched the sky where Phenax, the God of Deception, skulked across the horizon above the skeletal girl.

  “I’ll try,” he promised.

  Daxos and the girl moved slowly through the night and the forest. Elspeth walked like she was broken. Daxos kept tripping over roots because his eyes never left Heliod and Purphoros’s battle. Finally, Elspeth took both his hands as if she were afraid he would fall and hurt himself. Elspeth’s chin was bowed, and her eyes firmly on the ground. Shafts of divine light illuminated the forest around them as Purphoros’s blade destroyed great swaths of Nyx. Daxos believed Elspeth moved with purpose up the mountainside. Years later he wondered how the girl knew to lead him to the summit. If she had not been there to take his hands, he never would have found his way. But at the time, he was too distracted to give it much thought. He could feel the reverberations of the god-war through the soles of his feet.

  At daybreak, they’d reached the timberline. It was just a short distance to the summit. The sound of bubbling water made them pause. A few steps away there was a misty pond with unnaturally blue water surrounded by cattails. It was the domain of naiads, or water nymphs. Daxos could see the Nyxborn creatures shy away from the strangers.

  Elspeth fell beside the pond and drank her fill. She curled on her side in the grass and closed her eyes. Daxos was torn—he needed to climb higher to see the gods more clearly, but he didn’t want to leave the broken girl. After their initial shyness, the nymphs approached Elspeth in a kindly way. She was an innocent, and they took pity. They wouldn’t let her perish in the haven next to their healing waters.

  So Daxos continued his journey. Once he reached the summit, he had an unobstructed view of Heliod and Purphoros. He could now see Purphoros’s Sword clearly and marveled that such a thing existed. Purphoros had designed the blade to bring chaos to the god-realm. Heliod presumed to be the king of Nyx, and although Purphoros couldn’t destroy him, he would punish his arrogance. Purphoros meant to lay Heliod low, to ruin his domain, and cast him shattered on the ground. He attacked with madness and cared nothing of the wounds he was inflicting on the world.

  As they so often do, destruction and creation intermingled. As Purphoros cut into Nyx he rattled the celestial creatures that populated the night sky. He accidentally dislodged Polukranos, the World Eater, from its heavenly perch. The fifty-headed monster plunged toward the mortal realm, leaving a trail of Nyx blazing in the sky.

  Daxos felt fear echo in the belly of the gods, who knew what a disaster Polukranos would be to civilization. Heliod demanded help from Kruphix, the eldest god. The God of Horizons had inscrutable powers, even to the rest of the pantheon, and he could stop Purphoros from destroying Nyx. Kruphix unfolded himself from the edge of the world and swept across the sky. Purphoros saw Kruphix coming for him and turned to face him. But when Purphoros turned, Heliod struck him with such force that the earth shook and water crashed over the sea wall of Meletis. The blow knocked the sword from Purphoros’s hands. Before he could retrieve it, Kruphix had encircled him with his four shadowy arms, each the length of the horizon. Purphoros’s Sword slipped through one of the gashes it had created in Nyx.

  Daxos watched Kruphix drag Purphoros away toward the edge of the world. But before he departed, Kruphix entered the mind of every god and warned them in the immeasurable language of creation: Do not threaten the mortal realm again, or I will declare a great Silence. The gods will be threaded into the fabric of Nyx, unable to tread the land for as long as I will it.

  There was no time to protest the edict. The hydra was about to be unleashed on the unprepared mortals. Heliod joined with Nylea, God of the Hunt, who cast vines beneath the hydra’s body to ease its harsh entrance into the world. Below Daxos, the hydra materialized in the valley and was momentarily stunned into stillness. Though much diminished in size, the hydra could still destroy every human city unless it was immediately contained. Heliod didn’t see Purphoros’s Sword fall because he had become a winged horse racing across the sky to help his sister Nylea. Together they trapped the hydra inside a cavern deep under the Nessian Forest.

  Of all the mortals in the world, only Daxos saw Purphoros’s Sword enter the mortal realm. He saw it leave Nyx and come to rest on the summit near where he stood. It burned hot through the sky, but when it landed, it was small enough to fit a human’s hand. Just as it was with the hydra, the abrupt shift between realms had robbed the blade of its divinity. It became fundamental—comprised more of iron than of Nyx. Daxos whipped his head around and stared at it in shock. The devastating weapon of the god lay just a few feet from him in the red dirt.

  As Daxos struggled to make sense of what happened, a rejuvenated Elspeth climbed to the summit next to him. Jagged stellar light flashed in the heavens. Long strands of Nyx dangled from the dome of the sky from where Purphoros’s Sword had damaged it. Below them in the valley, Nylea was still wrestling with Polukranos, who rebelled against the darkness of the cavern.

  “Your world …” Elspeth said. “It’s too immense.”

  “Can you see his face?” Daxos whispered. “He’s everything.”

  As if in response to Daxos’s question, Heliod revealed himself in blazing glory. He took human form and appeared as a man with black hair and flowing robes, but he loomed like a mountain on the horizon. It was as if he encompassed the sun. It shone out from inside his form, its fierce rays radiating across the sky in victory. As Heliod turned to Daxos, the boy threw himself to the ground in supplication.

  Elspeth was awestruck by the immense visage dominating the skyline. But her home plane had been overrun with unfathomable evil, and things she didn’t understand meant death. In her mother tongue, there had been a word for “god,” but it had become forbidden and dangerous. Heliod’s divine light burned Elspeth’s eyes, and she shielded herself from his blinding illumination.

  Behind her, Daxos raised his arms to the heavens and spoke. “She died for me.”

  His words frightened Elspeth. She was afraid he was talking about her and the violence to come. She’d just escaped from a place of degradation and pain and had no intention of letting anyone touch her ever again. Her mind fought against itself. Part of her wanted to believe that this world was safe, that the god on the horizon wouldn’t hurt her and might even protect her. The other part was like a rabbit, instinctively fleeing whatever she didn’t understand.

  At that moment, she spied Purphoros’s diminished sword. Twin orbs glowed in the hilt like unblinking eyes. She didn’t stop to question how it came to be on the mountain. She only thought of leaving. She didn’t know where she was going, but somewhere else with a smoother sky and smaller gods. Anywhere would have a measure of violence, she’d learned that already. And she had nothing with which to protect herself but her own hands.

  Elspeth’s prey instincts triumphed. She ran forward, grasped the sword, and slid down the embankment. Hiding behind a boulder, she prepared herself to flee the world. By the time she departed Theros, Daxos had given himself over to his god.

  Skola Valley was infamous for its endless revels. Miles away, in the back rooms of Meletis, p
eople whispered tales of the debauchery of satyrs. The drums and cymbals crashed from morning to night. Cups overflowed, the dancing never ceased, and all desires could be fulfilled, or so they said. The tales of orgies and riotous celebrations spurred humans to make the arduous trek from their walled polis through the Nessian Forest to this isolated valley where they could experience the bacchanalia for themselves. Framed by verdant trees and bathed in the light of the bonfire, humans and satyrs mingled in the pursuit of everlasting euphoria. The reputation of the valley was well deserved, but not tonight.

  Xenagos, the satyr-king of the Skola Valley, glowered disapprovingly at the revelers swaying on the grass below him. He perched on the edge of a chaise lounge on a wooden platform above the revel ground. To the revelers, euphoria was the end goal. A night of mindless release, and they were sated. Food was plentiful, work was scarce, and the satyrs of the valley lived for the celebration—all the satyrs except their king, who had become jaded to the pursuit of pleasure. Revels were tiresome but acutely necessary.

  Xenagos had seen more and endured more than his brethren could comprehend. Not one of them could appreciate the burden of his gift or the trials he had to go through to give these light-hearted revels lasting meaning. Seething with frustration, Xenagos slumped back with his double-pointed spear resting across his chest. It hadn’t been so long ago that he’d been a foolish believer just like them. But once his spark ignited, he’d seen beyond the boundaries of Theros, and everything he thought he knew had been shattered. Even the haughty sphinx, prognosticating in his cave, had never alighted on other worlds like Xenagos had.

  He’d always known there was something special about him, but his burden was truly unique. There must be some grand design because most mortals couldn’t have handled seeing the infinite planes—they would have gone mad with the knowledge. Only a mind like his could truly profit from the experience. But still, he had never asked for this ability. It was thrust on him in a moment of great weakness. And now he shouldered the responsibility of leading these bleating sheep. For he alone among mortals—and gods—knew what was best for them, what was best for this tiny speck of existence known as Theros.