Ambrosia

by Aaron Lee Yeager

  She reached into her pack and pulled out the cracked urn. The moon sprite inside burned excitedly, pinging off the jar in anticipation as she carefully unscrewed the lid.

  “Hey, are you sure you should be messing with that thing?”

  “It’s all right,” she said steadily. When she held up the device to the jar, the moon sprite jumped into the center of the held hands, and the entire bracelet burned to life, erupting in blue soulfire that burned cool.

  Storgen had sat around many fires in his life. At night, he preferred to watch the dancing flames after a long day of traveling from house to house, asking the same question and getting the same answer. But no flame he had ever stared at could compare to this one. It was truly hypnotic.

  Philiastra could not help but giggle happily as she rolled the bracelet back and forth in her palms. “It feels like a heartbeat,” she exclaimed. “It can feel me.”

  “Is it alive?”

  “Yes, it is. They absorb dreams over time, eventually becoming a living thing. Her name is Odelia, she says she was last kept by Merete, the wife of the chieftain.”

  Storgen watched as the reflection of the flame danced in Philiastra’s eyes. He had always loved how energetic she got when she was excited, but it was different this time. She was alight, luminous, effulgent. He had always considered her cute, but right now she was radiantly beautiful, and he could not decide if she had always been so, or if something had changed about her that he was just now noticing.

  “Human, nymph, get over here!”

  Erolina’s bellowing broke the moment, and Philiastra tucked the arm bracelet into the jar as they ran up to the spring.

  The smell hit them before they saw it. Putrid brown and yellow ribbons within the little bubbling brook that slipped out from the mountain bedrock.

  “Ugh,” Storgen exclaimed, pinching his nose. “It smells like someone dumped perfume into orange juice.”

  Erolina dunked her fingers in and gave them a sniff. “The water is fouled.”

  “From what?”

  “I’m not sure.”

  “If you don’t recognize something, don’t put it in your mouth,” Pops advised. “I learned that the hard way.”

  Storgen noticed a complex apparatus of clockwork pumps and pistons running down into the ground alongside the spring. “Well, how about we use this to…”

  Erolina caught his hand as he reached for the activation lever. “Don’t even think about touching it.”

  Storgen grimaced.

  “Now what are you doing?”

  “I’m thinking about touching it as hard as I can.”

  “Ugh. I swear, you’re like King Midas, except everything you touch breaks.”

  She flicked his hand away. “Nymph, do you think you can get the purity gate working?”

  “I have a name, and yeah, no sweat.”

  Philiastra reached up and freed one of the wrenches that kept her pigtails tied, her leafy hair falling free as she loosened a pair of rusty bolts and pried open the access panel.

  Pops blinked in confusion. “Wait, those are real wrenches?”

  She poked her head inside. “Yeah, why wouldn’t they be?”

  “I dunno, I figured they were just for decoration.”

  She pulled her head back out and snickered. “Why would I put fake wrenches in my hair? That would be silly.”

  “Yeah…silly.”

  “Can you get it working?” Erolina pressed.

  Philiastra unrolled her tool kit on the ground. “Most definitely.”

  Erolina was visibly relieved as Philiastra got to work, sifting through the alchemic circuits, replacing decaying components, cleaning out clogged pathways.

  “Pops, why don’t you go introduce yourself to the locals? We don’t want them to panic when they see us out here tinkering with their spring filter.”

  “Right.”

  As Pops sauntered further up the mesa, Erolina took out her spyglass and began to look over the village again. Something was nagging at her, though she could not tell exactly what.

  “It’s fortunate that you are here to repair the device,” she remarked. “We might not have found another fresh water supply in time.”

  Philiastra took a careful measurement with her sextant and wrote it down. “I’m kind of surprised it doesn’t bother you.”

  “What?”

  “That I use Alchemy. Most beastmen freak out when they find out.”

  “It doesn’t bother me.”

  Philiastra looked up from her notes. “Huh, that’s not what I expected. You’re usually so judgmental. Well, good, that’s refreshing actually. Maybe you’re not as bad as I…”

  “For your craft to offend me, I’d have to first think of you as an equal, and I do not.”

  “And there it is!”

  Storgen chuckled as he lay on the grass, looking up at the blue sky, the cloudy shattered remains of the heavens slowly drifting above. “As always, Erolina is as tactful as a head wound.”

  Erolina shook her head. “I cannot fathom being so weak that words would cause one harm.”

  Philiastra took out her crystal pendulum, and used it to get a measurement of the local ley lines. “In Erotan, the humans outnumber us a thousand to one. I think we beastmen have a duty to look out for each other.”

  “We are nothing alike. Amazons are a fine race of proud warriors.”

  “So are forest nymphs.”

  Erolina gave a superior sniff. “A tribe that could not even stave off an invasion of their homeland at the height of their power? Please.”

  Philiastra threw down her wrench. “It wasn’t our fault. We were betrayed.”

  Storgen looked up. “Betrayed?”

  “The centaurs never forgave us for their defeat. They spent decades building up a huge army, a massive invasion fleet. Then, just before they attacked, my people were betrayed. A spy infiltrated our island. She killed the heart of the forest, leaving us defenseless. Those filthy centaurs slaughtered my people. Now, we are all but extinct.”

  Philiastra stood up, hate in her eyes. “That spy was an amazon.”

  Erolina lowered her spyglass regretfully. “Not our finest hour.”

  Philiastra balled her fists. “I was left without a people and without a home, because of your kind!”

  “Shut up.”

  “No, I won’t shut up. How dare you?”

  “No, I mean, shut up. Something has happened.”

  Erolina pointed up the path as Pops came running down as fast as his bony legs would carry him.

  “You need to see this,” he wheezed.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Vincenza is the Godmother of Virtue, and the creator of the Amazonian race. Whilst she can take on any form, as a woman she is fair and tall, her beauty rivaling that of even Reinala herself.* Her husband is Ouranos, Godfather of Philosophy. Together, they care for fifteen children in their household, none of which are his. Having few temples or territories, Vincenza is largely free from the duties of governance, and frequently travels the world to bless the men that catch her fancy.

  To Danaeto, Prince of Fenuae, she appeared as a silver rain in the middle of the night while he slept, bearing him a son Persennae, who would eventually lead an army from Caenbrach and slay his father on the steps of his own throne.

  To the great shipwright Ganymedast, she became a giant eagle that snatched him away, storing him deep in the caves of Agatha and forcing him to lie with her until she bore him twin sons, then returned him to his household, where his wife found him holding the newborns in his arms.

  To King Eurothain of Yargos she became a great golden cow, abducting him on the eve of the Pellaherain Wars and demanding that he lie with her. When he refused, she locked him away in the Dungeon of Wainross, and journeyed back to Yargos, where she appeared before his son Asathain and took on the appearance of Viona, his wife. When the real Viona found them together, she stabbed her husband in rage. Vincenza then returned to the Dungeon of Wainross, releasing
King Eurothain and allowing him to return to his country to find his son slain and his capital besieged.

  *Editor’s note: The scribe responsible for this comment has been sacked. Said scribe does not reflect the opinions of Agatinla Publishing or its editorial staff. We humbly implore The Great and Merciful Reinala to remove the curse on our lands.

  - The Powers of the World, a Pocket Guide to the One True Pantheon. Published in Agadis 391 H.B. to present

  The further they worked their way up the mesa, the more it became apparent that something was wrong. A faint rankness in the air, a metallic taste at the back of the throat. Unattended shutters clacked in the wind, and sun-bleached laundry flapped limply on the lines, the edges frayed and unraveling.

  They walked carefully through the maze of houses, a dry wind whistling sorrowfully through the streets.

  It was like a place frozen in time. Rotting food sat on tables, bites taken out of molded bread and decaying ears of half-eaten corn. Dolls and blocks laid out on doorsteps in the middle of some game that would never continue. The place was devoid of a living soul. Only the empty eyes of lifeless homes, and weeds socializing across the cracks in the cobblestone.

  Wooden beams sickly with dry rot creaked, tables moaned as dust collected on them like growing dunes. The clattering of machines running with no one to turn them off filled the imagination with specters and phantoms. Movements of cloth and tumbleweeds tricked the periphery of one’s vision, conjuring images of scuttling and creeping things.

  “What happened here?” Storgen wondered aloud.

  “I don’t get it,” Philiastra said worriedly. When my family moved away, this was a thriving town. There should be people here.”

  “Judging by the rot on the food, I’d say there were people here about three weeks ago,” Erolina judged, gripping her weapons carefully.

  Pops began to shake, his aged eyes darting about as if in a dream. “I’ve seen this before.”

  “Before?”

  He nodded. “Over the last five years, human villages have been attacked along the border with the Phillian Confederacy. Whole towns of people disappearing. At first, they thought it was the amazons starting yet another one of their blasted wars, but…”

  “But my people fight warriors, not civilians,” Erolina corrected. “Civilians are spoils of war, it would be wasteful to dispose of them.”

  “You make slavery sound so noble,” Philiastra said venomously.

  Erolina looked at her sharply. “It is our right as victors.”

  “Might makes right, eh?”

  “Exactly. If we were to be conquered, we would submit to their strength, it is only right that those we conquer submit to our strength.”

  “Such savagery. Do your kind never tire of bloodshed?”

  “One might ask the same of those who tried to visit these lands in ages past.”

  “That’s different. We were defending our land.”

  Erolina stopped and looked at her intently. “Now, you listen here, because I shouldn’t have to explain it. Land is not a birthright. It belongs to whoever is strong enough to keep it. If your people could not hold it, it didn’t belong to them to begin with.”

  Philiastra ground her teeth in anger. “I despise you.”

  “Good, because I feel nothing towards you.”

  “Could the amazons have taken the people with them back to their own lands?” Storgen asked, running his fingers along a dusty windowsill, a rotting pie still sitting where it had been placed to cool.

  “And make our homeland unclean with their presence?”

  He picked up a little sailing seed that had lodged itself into the pie and flipped it like a coin. “Guess that answers that.”

  Pops peeked around a corner nervously. “Whatever this is, it’s been working its way deeper and deeper into Erotan. I just never thought it would penetrate this far.”

  “Yes, but if it’s not the amazons, then what is it?”

  Pops put his fingers in his mouth, biting on them painfully. “Something terrible.”

  When they rounded a corner, Philiastra shrieked at what they saw. Hundreds of fresh graves, lined out in neat rows at the edge of the mesa. The piles were rough and disturbed, without headstone or offering. A grisly cemetery. When they saw a cluster of tiny graves at the end, even Erolina had to look away.

  Storgen felt like he might throw up. In his mind, black smoke seemed to bubble up through the loose dirt, forming a dark cloud that hung over the entire town.

  “You see it, don’t you?” Erolina asked, still averting her eyes.

  Storgen nodded. “These poor people were buried alive.”

  Philiastra was on the verge of tears. “Who would do such a terrible thing? These were good people, decent people. They lived alongside the forest in peace. They had no quarrel with anyone. They were supposed to be safe here.”

  Pops covered his face and began to cry. “No one deserves to die like this.”

  There was a crack like thunder and everyone fought to keep their footing as something impacted the ground near them. It steamed in its impact crater, a sphere of tattered rags and brass that began to unfold grotesquely into a skeletal form. Bronze cables poked out through the ribs, black lubricants dripped free like ichor, smoking crystals clung to it like boils, sunken eyes of vicious hunger above a face without lips or ears. It moved stiffly, creaking and moaning as it cracked and snapped into an upright shape.

  “What is that thing?” Philiastra asked, backing away and covering her mouth from the stench.

  Storgen’s face became sickly pale. “They found me.”

  Three flashes of light pulsed at the horizon, and cannonballs sailed over the hillsides, slamming into the ground near where the first one had. They too began a sickly transformation.

  “Is our own ship firing on us?” Pops asked aloud.

  The first one lumbered forward, reaching out for Storgen with sickly steaming bronze fingers. Erolina slashed with her Scythe and cut it in half at the waist, the torso sliding free and falling to the ground.

  The next three moved forward with a sloppy gait, dislocated jaws releasing black smoke as poisonous darts fired from their eye sockets.

  Storgen jumped to the side as the darts sailed past. Philiastra fired an alchemic blast of energy, but the construct only soaked it up and sprinted at Storgen.

  Storgen ducked beneath a powerful swing that tore the corner off a wall, then smashed the thing with his cast, taking the head clean off, but the body was undaunted, reaching out and grabbing him, oil erupting from its cadaverous spine.

  Erolina spun her weapon and released a blade of crimson energy, cutting its arms off at the elbow, then fired another, bisecting it from neck to crotch. While Pops hid in a doorway, Erolina sprinted past the other two constructs. They stood there for a moment, motionless, then came apart into perfectly sliced wedged of putrid mechanics.

  More flashes of light from the horizon, and six more cannonballs thudded into the ground and began to unfold.

  “What are these things?” Erolina asked, twirling her scythe before her to deflect a volley of darts.

  “Dípsa tou aímatos,” Storgen recalled with horror as he rolled away from a sallow lunge. He kicked out the things feet from under it and its deformed body fell to the ground. “Dead souls grafted onto metal constructs.”

  Storgen grabbed a rock and lifted it above his head, smashing it down and breaking the thing’s copper spine before it could right itself.

  Philiastra’s tattoos charged up again and she fired, but again the creatures soaked up the blast and began to ramble and sprint towards Storgen.

  “They’re drinking up my alchemy. That shouldn’t be possible.”

  “They’re from the tower, Phili. They’re made from alchemy.”

  Six more cannonballs thudded to the ground.

  “Give it to me, then,” Erolina called out, slicing one construct from shoulder to hip, then whipping her long hair around, the weighted ball at the end smas
hing another in the chest and sending it into a wall.

  Philiastra spun the glowing tumbler of sigils on her arm, charging her tattoos up to maximum and snapped off three powerful bolts of energy. Erolina held out her palm and caught each one, the magical power condensing into a white-hot ball in her grip.

  A forth shot came streaking in at her head, and Erolina barely managed to get her hand up in time to catch it.

  “Hey careful!”

  “Woops.”

  “You did that on purpose!”

  “Help me!”

  Pops squealed as he retreated further and further into the abandoned building, a trio of grotesque dripping machines coming in after him. He took out one of his busty dolls and held it out before him, hoping she would save him.

  “Get down, old man!”

  Pops instinctively fell to the ground as Erolina held out her hand. She released the collected energy as a condensed beam of fire, slicing across the building at hip level. The mortar and wood came completely apart, evaporating in the heat of the beam as it struck out over the tops of the trees and off into the horizon. When her attack ended the entire top half of the building was gone. Pops uncovered his head and looked up. Before him stood three sets of dismembered metallic legs frozen ominously.

  Storgen backed up further and further as six of the fiendish things closed in on him, firing darts and giving off shrill metallic moans. He weaved and bobbed, the darts sailing just inches past his skin, until he almost lost his footing, his heel slipping back over the edge of the mesa.

  He swung his arms wildly, turning sideways to regain his balance, giving him a perfect view of the sharp drop down to the jagged rocks far below.

  He turned back to find the foul machines moving in a semi-circle towards him.

  One screeched in hunger and lunged at him. Storgen jumped aside, letting his attacker pass by him, then struck it in the back with his elbow, sending it careening over the edge of the cliff. As a second one leapt at his legs, Storgen jumped up in the air, letting it pass beneath him, then gave it a reverse kick to the back of the head. The vile creature slid off the edge, releasing a metallic screech.