Emissary- Beasts of Burden

by Silas Post

  Okkor paced in a slow circle around his throne, ignoring the limp bones that sat there in a sad pile.

  “I spent so many years hoping for a path to another life,” he said. “Yet, the prospect still fills me with fear. Even a god has no instinct for what lies ahead. Abra, my faithful child, it would mean leaving you without a god to serve.”

  “Holy Okkor,” Abra said. “I want only that you rest peacefully and march onward to the life that awaits you. None have earned that privilege more.”

  “The island will lose its protection,” he said. “I cannot stay the wind or hold back the storms. I cannot fortify the ground against Araine’s intention. She will come for you.”

  “We stand ready,” I said.

  Okkor folded his hands together and the mountain rumbled in every direction. A boulder of considerable size broke from the temple’s wall a story overhead, sending the giant rock rolling down the outer slope of the mountain. Light poured in, making the god’s spirit appear paler by contrast.

  At the same time, a crack opened in the ground behind his throne. Seawater flooded that pool, providing a new path back to the ocean.

  The light inside Okkor’s skull flickered and dimmed as he worked, though it steadied again when he finished molding the island to suit our needs.

  He nodded and turned toward me. “I want Redelia to hold my face in her mind,” he said. “That is my truest gift to her. Otherwise, there is nothing more to say or do. I am ready.”

  “Abra,” I said, holding the copper farthing forward. “It’s the least of all coins, but it should do the trick. As a woman who served Okkor until his last days, it should be you who proves to the cloud carriers that he was loved in life. Would you do this honor?”

  She approached slowly, her ancient legs trembling with each step. Her back hunched forward as she bent to take the coin from my open palm.

  Okkor’s ghost stood beside his withered bones, glowing the same light blue as the energy that illuminated his skull from within. “I am ready,” he said. “I have been ready for a hundred years.”

  Abra bowed one last time before Okkor’s skeleton, then she placed the copper coin inside his jaw. The blue light within pulsed bright, holding that coin aloft and preventing it from falling through the empty bones that rested in that seat.

  A powerful wind swept through the room, likely the first this cavern had ever known. Fog condensed in every direction, swirling as it thickened into a dense mist. Drifting downward toward us, slipping through the thin crack at the mountain’s peak, were a pair of women whose bodies were chalk white. Their heads were shrouded in hoods, their shoulders draped in loose robes, all the same color as their pellucid skin. At their waists, they dissolved into formless wisps, their shapes blending with the thin cloud that filled the room around us.

  The first woman to speak folded back her hood, revealing a wrinkled face far older than Abra’s. One eye was a brilliant green, though the other was a fiery red. She looked at her companion and asked, “Who pays for this man’s passage?”

  “I do,” Abra said. “He is no mere man, he is the god Okkor, and his journey ahead is long overdue.”

  “A god is a man like any other for our purposes,” the second woman said. Her hood slid back from her head, revealing a face that was young and smooth. Her eyes were the same mismatched pair as the older woman’s. She held her companion’s gaze as she spoke, rather than direct an answer to the sphinx herself.

  “Are you cloud carriers?” I asked. “Will you take him to his next life?”

  “Sister,” the older woman said. “He questions our provenance.”

  “No, sister,” the younger said. “He speaks from concern. Mortals rarely see our kind, but then we are rarely summoned so sharply. A god’s passage requires our full force.”

  She held her hand toward Okkor. His ghost reached out and clasped it. His ethereal shape shrank and morphed into a perfect sphere that floated inside her palm.

  The older woman spoke while the younger prepared Okkor for the journey ahead. “This man’s soul will return to the well of life, where every soul begins. Only the worthy are born anew, and we assess this man’s life as balanced and just. We accept the fare offered as proof of love.”

  She removed the glowing coin from Okkor’s skull, though it did not lose its blue gleam. The women began to ascend together, the fog lifting as they rose toward the mountain’s tip with Okkor in their custody.

  “Is he the one?” the older woman asked the younger, glancing down toward me with her red and green eyes.

  “Not yet,” the younger said. “But he will be.”

  “What sadness must a man bear in a single life,” the older said. “He has no fathom of the path he’s on.”

  “It’s sorrow enough to know his fate,” the younger said. “Sadder for him that he must live it.”

  “What do you know?” I asked. “What fate do you speak of?”

  The younger looked down at me and shook her head. “He needs it more than we do, sister.”

  “I think this once, sister, that’s true,” the older said. “A coin given for a coin received.” She tossed the farthing from up high and I reached up to catch it in my palm. “Do you think he’ll despair of his course before the life has left his bones?”

  “I’m sure of it,” the younger said. “He’ll taste its power and beg for our return, knowing full well the price of our invitation.”

  “A soul,” the older said.

  “Yes, sister,” said the younger. “Always a soul.”

  “What does that mean?” I yelled after them, but they did not respond. The preternatural cloud that had filled this temple chamber vanished as quickly as it descended, leaving Sadine, Abra, and myself to stand in the center of an island that lost its god, once and for all.

  The coin in my palm was light, as it always had been, but it was no longer copper in color. It was white, and its surface ever-shifting. It billowed in layers as if a window to the heart of a cloud.

  Abra’s body shook as she released tears a generation in the making. “Thank you,” she said.

  A faint rustling behind me turned into a loud and scratchy tumult, cutting Abra’s sob short and forcing all three of us to step back. The small mound of wet sand that had slipped from my boots swirled of its own accord, building into a towering cylinder that quickly took the shape of its ceaseless master, Araine.

  “Oh yes,” she said, the brown color taking hold of her skin and her long dark braid unfurling down her back. “Thank you, very, very much.”

  22

  “The whisper of the wind was always faint on this island,” Araine said, stepping carefully around the perimeter of the hollow mountain’s floor. “I listened long and hard, though patience was never my strong suit.”

  Her body lacked the smooth, solid skin of a natural woman. Instead, she was half-sand, constantly shifting and rebuilding herself but failing to crystalize into the same steady form we met on the beach.

  Abra kept her eyes glued on the infernal woman. Her cat’s tail stayed low on the ground while her pointed ears thrust back along her head. She stalked toward Okkor’s abandoned throne and stood before it, as if prepared to protect her master’s bones long after he had discarded them.

  “The future was never yours to know,” I said.

  “On the contrary,” Araine said. “The winds spoke of your arrival. In words ever so faint, drifting toward the shore despite the island’s opposition to the air’s ardent flow, they said a man with dampened lungs would float toward my domain. And you did.

  “They said you would carry me where my own feet could not, and you have. Here I stand, with you to thank.”

  And yet, she did not stand. Her body limped and lurched. Her legs were pillars of churning sand, rematerializing with each step she took but never quickly enough to allow a consistent, stable gait.

  “I accept no gratitude for aid not freely given,” I said. “Whatever grains of vile silt settled in the sole of my shoe were place
d by your dishonest hand, not mine.”

  “I am a goddess and you will speak with respect,” she said. “I saved your life once.”

  “But you have ended many others since,” I said. “The bankruptcy of your soul eradicates any debt you thought to collect.”

  “Victor?” Sadine asked. “Is this the goddess you spoke of once, the one you serve?” The kraken’s confusion seemed to pain her face.

  “My goddess is a woman of resplendent valor,” I said. “This creature is an infernal.”

  “Call me what you wish,” Araine said. “I will build this jagged island into a pyramid of perfect design. I will conjure enough sand to fill the oceans of the world. Can you not feel it, pitiful mortal? There is power in the island’s heart. Once I lay my claim, I will have the strength to walk the island’s every inch.

  “You have done well, but,” she continued, frowning at the skeleton and the sphinx that stood before it, “my use for you is through. I’ll leave you and this… vestibule of curiosities as I ascend to my new throne and claim it.”

  Araine’s body flaked away as a swirling gust rounded the cavernous room. She became sand on the wind, blowing in a constant arc upward and escaping through the narrow crack at the tip of Okkor’s former sanctuary.

  The sand seemed to multiply, to arrive from nowhere and stay everywhere at once. A thin layer of it built on the floor, while the wind increased its acceleration. Abra stood with her wings held wide, struggling to shield Okkor’s remnants from the sandblast wind that swirled in Araine’s wake.

  “The island is up for grabs now,” I said. “I can’t let Araine take hold of it. Sadine, the ocean awaits. You should go before this place fills with sand.”

  “I will not be far,” she said. “Speak my name below the water’s surface and I will return.” She kissed me, a quick and tender expression of her lasting affection. Then she patted my beard with her tentacle arm and dove into the open pool that Okkor left here just for her.

  Abra released a long-held breath and lowered her wings. “I was worried,” she said. “That Araine might realize the power she sensed was only inches away. Okkor meant his face for Redelia, not the sand sorceress.”

  I puzzled at her for a moment and followed her gaze back toward Okkor’s skeleton, still resting in his stone-hewn throne.

  “He meant that?” I asked. She nodded.

  With a deep breath and a pang of irreverence, I approached his holy seat. The skull of Okkor maintained a pulsing blue glow from within, radiating most fervently from the hollows meant for eyes. I lifted it from his long-dead bones.

  The rest of Okkor’s withered body disintegrated into dust, time finally catching up to his physical form now that his spirit had departed, but the glowing skull remained intact.

  “The energy he accumulated in life,” Abra said. “It could not disperse until used. He spent it thriftily on protecting this island over time, but he cannot complete that task now. If Redelia wants to honor his legacy, she will do this in his stead.”

  I gripped that skull with all the intention my body could channel. “Abra,” I said. “We must preserve the island for Redelia and deflect Araine before her stake is claimed. What’s the fastest way to the top of the mountain?”

  “I’ll take you there,” she said. “Stand firm.”

  She stood behind me and hooked her arms inside mine.

  “I don’t want you to get hurt,” I said. “If there’s another way—”

  “There isn’t,” she said. “I will not let that infernal destroy my master’s island, even if it kills me. My death is nothing after all these years. I’ve served my life’s purpose after this.”

  She jumped, causing joints in her old body to pop and crack, but her wings were still powerful and a single thrust propelled us further upward.

  “Your life still has purpose, Abra,” I said.

  “For now,” she replied, flying us through the gaping hole in the mountain’s wall that Okkor had opened before his soul left this plane.

  At first we emerged beside leafy ferns and tall palms, all of which absorbed the brunt of Araine’s winds. As we ascended further, leaving the trees to shrink below us, the full force of the infernal’s assault on the island became clear. Even the waters around the island churned now. We were at the center of an island-wide tornado.

  I could barely keep my eyes squinted open as sand pelted them hard. My hands were full, with Okkor’s skull gripped firmly, and Abra’s were unable to shield her face as she flew with me held fast against her arms.

  “The winds become harsher as we go,” Abra said. “My wings ache against them.”

  “We’ll take a minute to rest,” I said.

  “We don’t have a minute!” Abra yelled. “Dedicating a temple is not a long affair.”

  “Neither is falling to our death,” I said. “You need a moment’s respite and we’ll take exactly that. Look, below. I know that village. We’ll land ourselves there.”

  A hundred cyclopean men and women were gathered in the central plaza, their arms and legs still shackled by the infernal’s cuffs. They backed away as Abra and I landed amidst them, their faces alight with astonishment and awe.

  I had hoped their elation at the return of a fabled forestkind might thrill them enough to break their shackles, but there was no such luck.

  “Victor!” Jarah yelled. I spun around and found her, running toward me at full speed. Her cyan clothing pressed firmly against her from the wind, outlining her large unitary breast as it bounced in time with her sprint. I clasped Okkor’s skull in one hand and threw my arms open to embrace her.

  “You were amazing on the beach,” I said. “So strong and precise in bursting open the ship’s hull, so patient and quick in helping your people escape it. You’re a wonder of the world, Jarah.”

  She kissed me hard and looked back at Abra. “There are many wonders of this world, it seems.”

  “Yes,” I said, stepping back. “Abra was Okkor’s servant, and this is his skull. I will explain when time allows, but for now I need Rikki to come here.”

  “Victor—” Jarah started.

  “Abra will fly me with Redelia’s soul and we will claim the island before Araine can.”

  “I’m sorry—”

  “That is,” I continued with a slight chuckle, “if Rikki doesn’t pounce on me too hard and demand my specific attention before she’ll let us take back to the sky. She’s always—”

  “She’s gone.”

  I blinked twice at Jarah before I could even think to speak. “How is she gone? She was meant to protect Redelia from all harm.”

  “I’ve looked everywhere in the village for her,” Jarah replied. “There’s no sign of her or of Redelia’s soul.”

  My jaw dropped and I drew in a sharp breath to speak again, but I choked on sand that hit the back of my throat. I wasn’t even sure what words would have fought their way forward if they could. I turned back to get myself right and order my thoughts.

  The other cyclops men and women shuffled into alleys and cowered beneath doorways, squeezing into whatever crevices might hide them from the storm that threatened to bury their ancestral home.

  Everyone except Merla.

  The flinty old woman stood with her feet forward, leaning back on her cane. Her hands were still clutched in black manacles, but she held her staff of knotted palmwood behind her and rested calmly against it with her face tilted toward the tumultuous sky.

  “I can’t just have another child,” she said, squinting at the mountain’s peak. “I’m old. His father is dead. But most importantly, you can’t replace a person. He was my Ketson, and I loved him with everything I had.”

  “I know,” I said, after moving the sand around the inside of my mouth with my tongue. “And I’m sorry. The world is made cruel against all the wrong people. Have you—”

  “Met Wolly?” She asked. “You bet I did. Kid had a tough life, and I’ve already taken him in. He’s inside now, where the air is calm. I’ll do righ
t by him. I think he’ll do right by me too, though he’s an addition. Not a replacement.”

  She stood upright then, lifting the wooden cane from the ground now that she wasn’t resting on it for support.

  “He was a good boy, you know,” Merla said, a far-off look in her eye. “A brat and a scamp, but a good boy. He deserved a full life.”

  “We all deserve that,” I said.

  “No,” Merla said. “Not that bitch Araine. You kill her for me, Victor. You kill her for Ketson. You said once you knew how to wield a staff, so take mine. It’s a sturdy cane, and it’s fitting Araine should face it before she goes.”

  She turned around and passed me the walking stick from her shackled hands. “It’s as good a weapon you’ll find here,” she continued. “Our people don’t deal in blades and bows. We’ve always held peace with both hands.”

  “Victor!” Jarah yelled. “Look!”

  I followed Jarah’s gaze toward the mountain. Halfway up the smooth rock spire that formed the island’s highest tip was the blurred shape of a person with arms and legs outstretched mid-climb.

  “That must be our Rikki,” I said. “Too headstrong to wait for our separate returns and too devoted to Redelia to allow the goddess to dwindle inside her damaged gem. She doesn’t know the dedication ceremony though. It’s something Redelia and I worked out in private.”

  “She makes progress,” Jarah said. “For all her hesitations, she presses on with her ascent.”

  “She cares for Redelia more than she fears for herself, but her progress is slow and our time is short.” I glanced back at Abra. The old sphinx was still breathing heavily and hunched over her bent knees.

  “Araine draws power the more we suffer under her tempest assault,” I continued. “Each speck of sand that abrades our skin is a mote of life she draws for herself.”

  Together, Jarah and I gasped. “What life would she draw from a painful death?” she asked.

  The blurred shape of the woman we loved had faltered. As she clung to the smooth face of the rock before her, her feet slipped from their perch and her body slid sharply downward.