by S. M. Beiko
Ryk elbowed Deon and the two twins smirked. “If it’s a fight they want, against us or amongst themselves, they will not want for spirit.” The sea empress was all confidence. “We will keep them in their place.”
The twins’ laughter echoed throughout the Roost, where the four had met. Beneath them shone the three golden rings, and it was this silence that was loudest — the silence of their fifth sibling, present through those rings but not in being. When the humans were born, the door to the Glen swung shut, as if slammed by a small child. Even Phyr couldn’t penetrate the separation, and while she didn’t say it, that fact weighed heaviest against this new burden of humanity in their world.
Heen placed a rooted hand across Phyr’s shoulders, as if sensing right away that something amiss. “Would that we could hear from Fia,” the sage said. “For it is from them this new order has emerged.”
“From Ancient,” Phyr corrected. “Always Ancient.”
“By the Godhead,” the four gods echoed, nodding. Even the battle twins were reverent, which relieved Phyr. For if Ancient was still observed, and this was their creator’s will, then all of this was surely part of the Narrative, and that could always be trusted.
Fia had given humanity their spirits, though. The last ingredient that bound them to the gods. That made them more, beyond the gods’ influences. Fia had known Ancient’s plan before the others had, and that troubled Phyr the most.
Phyr straightened her back. “We have our place in this. Deon is right. These creatures are under our dominion now, and so they are our responsibility. We will go out amongst them and pass along our divine gifts to those we choose, and see that Ancient’s will is perceived. We will trust Fia’s withdrawal on this matter, for whatever happens is meant to be.”
* * *
The next time the sisters met, it was in the Warren. Things had been progressing as the ages did, and they watched closely, intervened as they saw fit. They were in the Realms and they were without at all times.
But they did not expect the shadows.
These shadows, the little shards of dark, were calculated and subtle. Darkness dogged the steps of the gods’ new children. Greed. Ambition. Killing. None of the four gods guessed where the shadows had come from, save that these new enemies, once again, must be the will of Ancient. But Ancient was silent on the matter — Fia, too — and the sisters had no right to ask. They were only there to guide. To inspire. To make this world grow. A difficult task when grief entered the new world. But light and shadow needed each other to exist. It was the order of all things.
As humanity grew, and those who were born under the gods’ blessings manifested their powers, there were those who coveted these gifts, those who were not born with them. Foxes and Deer and Owls and Rabbits and Seals changed forms, to blend in with the other, new creatures, but it was not enough.
These Mundanes are of a different gods’ domain, Ryk had said when it had come up, time and again, until the Mundanes became violent, and Seals were killed just as often as Foxes and Rabbits dwelling on land. It became quickly apparent that it was best to shield one from the other — Denizens from Mundanes. Death, always a certainty, and still a true neutral, was often sought for counsel.
“They covet and envy,” the Moth Queen said, bowing her head to the gods. “These words may mean very little to eternals like us, but these creatures are not us. They are finite beings. And fragile, despite your gifts. They compete like any animal. They kill. They blink into and out of existence. They must be protected, for it is into them that Ancient has poured its will. It is through them that Creation will endure.”
Heen, who had always been the calm centre of them all, paced the Warren on her long feet, and Phyr noticed then that the roots that once were just her sister’s hands were growing wild amongst her hair, her ears. It seemed she was becoming more a part of her realm the more she fretted, and had Phyr addressed it then, perhaps none of this would have happened.
“Some have chosen,” Heen said, “to take their animal forms permanently, and live out their lives in this way. But Denizens still must learn to protect themselves.”
Deon said what the others refused to. “You speak as if we will not always be here to protect them.”
Heen looked directly at her sister, face hard. “You do remember the point of us, do you not?”
Deon folded her mighty arms. The flames licking her mantle died down, and Phyr saw the great warrior question herself. “I know that we must separate ourselves from them. We all know that. But we have come to care for them. That is not something we can deny. How can we care for them if we must be separate from them?”
Heen was quiet a long while. Then she reached inside of herself and pulled out an impossible green light.
The light danced there, and after a time compressed into a shining solid surface of many facets. The sisters drew closer, considering the stone.
“Be careful, Wood Wife,” Phyr warned. “Our Denizens are young yet in the world. Weakening ourselves for their benefit, when we are not assured of their endurance, is a dangerous play.”
“This is not a game,” Heen reminded Phyr, reminded them all. “We are gods with obligations. If we wish for them to protect themselves, we must choose one among them that will lead them from this oppressive darkness and towards the rising light. And this is how that leader will do it.”
Even when the darkness made them spill blood.
Deon, never looking away from Phyr, plunged her short-clawed hand into her chest, and pulled out her soul-stone as if it had always been outside of her. The red and green and purple light folded neatly into a stone that was at once smooth and jagged, the inside of it a flaming starburst. A fierce thing of exploding love, contained, as Deon herself was.
Phyr smiled, for she loved her siblings well, and trusted them, and was content to know they were doing this together.
Once they had all performed the act, they gazed upon the things they had made and that had been inside of them. Phyr’s heart, a stone like the moon where her throne was, would shield all Denizens from Mundanes. From harm.
They all knew the risk, even then, of doing this thing. But seeing what life had cost their respective children, even with the gods’ gifts, they would risk whatever to keep them safe.
“Send these stones out into the world,” Heen said, “and the stones will choose. It will be a burden, but what is life if not a burden of survival?”
* * *
A divine body is a thing beyond reckoning. None of the gods considered such a thing as tangibility. Though they felt and loved and commanded and made things, they were — and remain — on a plane beyond anything humankind could comprehend. And it worked the other way. Time meant nothing to them. Death, while tinged with a kind of regret, always gave way to new life. Denizen spirits had a choice: remain in the realm of your god if you wished, for an age or for a blink, or be thrust into the world as something new. Nothing really ended. Not for Denizens. And especially not for the gods.
They never considered mortality would become their dominion, too.
The little shadows of dark thought, of greed and bad intentions, became stronger. And the gods learned where they had come from. The time of the Darklings arrived and cast a pall over Ancient’s great creation. The Darklings meant destruction, and they were capable of it and more.
Ryk, of all the siblings, had brought up their own mortality out loud. If the Darklings could destroy Ancient’s work, could they, the gods, be destroyed as well?
“We are undying!” Deon cried. She was angry — and afraid. The gods hadn’t known fear, until now.
Ryk’s fist tightened around her great harpoon. “We must consider it. Now more than ever before. We have seen what this conflict with the Darklings has done to Heen, and now I worry the same thing is what happened to Fia.”
Heen had changed. Once so assured, she had been shaken by the new w
orld order, by control slipping from the gods’ grasp. She had not left the Warren for a time, going deeper and deeper into the realm and speaking less and less to her trusted sisters.
Deon paced across the wide and endless sea of the Abyss, the water around her bubbling and snapping with her god-heat. “Heen will recover. She is strong. We will endure. We will weather this storm.” Everyone could see that the garnet blade, held tight at Deon’s side, was black with the muck of Bloodbeasts, the immense monsters that the Darklings brought up from their cold nothingness and threw at Ancient’s daughters, at the gods’ very Denizen children. At first, both Deon and Ryk had treated it as sport, as a challenge accepted. The bracers on Deon’s great arms and legs were incised with these battles that seemed endless.
But everything had an end.
“We must speak to Ancient.”
They all startled at Phyr’s suggestion. She could not stand idle, though, and her greatest strength had always been her ability to observe, then decide. The sisters saw her as the leader amongst them, the one who could see through infinity and make them all feel in control.
Deon and Ryk stared at her. “To speak to Ancient is to question its plan.”
Phyr held the Pendulum Rod steadily in front of her, in both hands, bisecting her great face, which showed only strain. The stars vibrated in her wings. For this war, she had stopped time. But she could not do it forever.
“We already question the plan,” Phyr said. “Was the destruction of this precious world, of Mundanes and Denizens alike, Ancient’s plan? Is it a test for us all? Are we failing Ancient?”
Phyr’s questioning seemed to shake them. Phyr was not made to question. She could see beyond infinity. And yet here was a god, one who should know all . . . not knowing.
“We will fight using faith,” Deon said. “Speak to Heen, Phyr. I do not wish to see her isolated as Fia became. Ancient gave us a purpose: protect this world. Teach our descendants to protect it. Darkness cannot endure. That is not our legacy.”
Ryk nodded. “There is something else to this. There cannot be creation without destruction. We know this well. And we cannot go against Ancient. But until we know more, we must keep fighting while you find out.” She shook her kelp-crowned head. “We won’t speak to Ancient until then.”
Phyr spread her great, galactic wings, and was gone from the Abyss. Ryk swept her harpoon, and a current snatched her away. Phyr saw, in her expansive mind, that Deon lingered, beneath the crushing water, smouldering. She knew that Deon, like Phyr, loved her siblings dearly. But even Phyr was beginning to lose hope it would be enough.
Calamity’s Restoration
Roan paced under the wrathful pyre, blazing behind her, all around her. The shades watched her, like they always had. At first they had come after her. Then they worshipped her because she had the fire. Now she’d seen their doubt, especially with Saskia’s appearance and the stone she carried. The dead were looking for rest, or at least considering it, and it made Roan frantic.
“What are you worried about?” the voice asked, comforting. Roan hadn’t heard it in a long time and stopped dead.
With one amber glance, the pyre chamber emptied, the Hound shades fled.
She turned, left alone with a single person. One she didn’t recognize.
Herself. Younger. Whole. The person she had become now was such a mockery of this nearly pristine version, despite its dead black eyes. She hated it and longed to be it all at once.
“What are you doing here?” Roan asked it.
“You know what my purpose was. To put aside the things that held you back. I did that. If I’m here, it means those things are coming to the surface. You don’t want that, do you?”
For all her armour and her sword and her scars and her rage, Roan could not fight this part of her. “No. Of course not. So go back inside me and do your job.”
“I’m trying,” this other part of her hissed, circling her. This dark version of Roan was an impulse. A selfish need. Roan didn’t want to know anything about what this part of her had put aside. Why was it leaking through now?
“The girl,” Roan said, voicing her fears. “She reminds me of a time before. A time when —” She shoved her gauntleted hand through her short hair and held on tight.
“Then you have to kill her,” said the other Roan, comforting, a memory from a dream. “Take the stone from her. And make sure no one ever finds out what’s under that tree. Then you can stay here forever. With Eli. That’s what you want, right? It’s very simple.”
Roan’s arms fell to her sides, the inside of her head ringing. The thing that was causing her pain and panic was already fading, being tucked away. “Yes. Simple.”
She unsheathed her garnet blade, tipping her helm over her one eye. “I am touched by Death, too. I am a god. The girl is no one.”
Roan left the chamber and walked out of the canyon, alone, towards the Heartwood.
* * *
It was more than strange, walking side by side with a real, start-of-creation god. But Saskia had to be adaptable.
She swallowed and addressed Ryk, and all of them, as they walked together through the wilderness. “I had a theory about the Heartwood, when I saw it.”
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Eli nod gravely. He said, “Barton must be inside of it, along with the Emerald. It’s the only thing that could make such a tree. Not even the Bloodlands could.”
“Yeah,” Saskia agreed, “but it feels like . . . from what the Onyx showed me. It’s like he’s trapped. Or fighting. I don’t know.” She looked up at Ryk. “If it’s on top of the Brilliant Dark, and Ancient’s there, we’ll need to get the tree out of the way so Ancient can rise.”
Ryk, for all that she was devastating, had had a playful, even jubilant expression across her brow the second they’d started off. “Ancient will repair this rift. My sister, Heen, must be protecting Ancient. I am certain that if we gather my other siblings’ stones and awaken the others, Heen will unfold and the way will be clear.”
So Saskia had been right, partially. It just seemed too one-dimensional to work. “Roan and Eli brought the stones together in the Uplands,” she recounted. “The Darklings came through, yes, but it still woke Ancient. Down here, the result was that all the realms came back together again, like they were, at the beginning . . .” Saskia frowned. “What had broken them apart in the first place? I thought it was Phyr —”
“That’s just something the other Families always said, blaming the division on the Owls,” Eli snapped, but Ryk held up her hand.
“I was there. It was her, my winged sister, who was Ancient’s mind.” She shook her great head. “Some terrible fear had consumed her. She told Deon and me, while we were fighting the Darklings, that it was the only way — separating the realms. The only way to save everything: the world of our descendants, but especially Ancient.” Ryk stared Eli down, looking from his gaunt face to the Moonstone he carried. “I resented her for it. For not trusting us. Perhaps I can confront her at last, when this is all through.”
Eli cloaked himself in his wings, then he stopped abruptly, as if something had cut him across the back. “Roan is coming.”
A glimmer from the Moonstone shone through his feathers. Ryk’s shoulder strobed blue. The Onyx let out a deep groan in Saskia’s hand and she winced.
“My twin,” Ryk grinned, striding ahead of them to meet the coming fight full on.
Baskar was still in shade form, wrapped around Saskia’s arm like a slumbering python. But Baskar seized strangle-tight when Ryk’s great harpoon met with Roan’s garnet blade. She’d appeared suddenly like a terrible comet of fire and human limbs. Roan and Ryk smashed together and held but didn’t break.
“You,” Ryk grunted, “are not my sister.” She shoved back and Roan leapt, sliding around the god and striking with a corona flare.
“Your sister is dead!” The blade wa
s now all fire, and it snapped against Ryk’s furious face. “We are the gods here! Go back to your shallows!”
Saskia didn’t know what to do, how she was going to do this. Ryk beat Roan back, but Roan was fast, and strong, and something beyond her normal power seemed to be carrying her through these steps. Her expression was vicious and focused.
Saskia whirled on Eli, who had fallen back and frozen at the edge of the confrontation. “You have to go into her mind. You have to remove whatever it is holding her back and keeping her like this.”
He looked wildly unsure. “I tried. You know I tried.”
“Try again!” Saskia shouted. Baskar gasped, and one of Roan’s flaming tongues came off her blade and struck Ryk’s Sapphire.
“Your sister is dead, and I killed her!” Roan screeched. Ryk may have been a god, but she was, obviously, weaker than what Roan had evolved into. Ryk staggered back, blocking the blows with raised forearms. “And I will kill the rest of you, and I will endure here, alone, forever.”
Roan’s blade came down again and again like a bludgeon, and Ryk shrank. But a great taloned hand caught what would have been the finishing strike and held firm. Eli’s arm shook with it, but he didn’t let go.
“You’re not alone. You know I wouldn’t leave you.” He grunted with effort. Roan grinned, and when she stepped back, Eli nearly fell forward onto the tip of the sword still held at hip height.
Roan laughed cruelly. “I don’t need you,” she said, surveying them all with the blade held out before her. “I don’t need any of you. I’ll cut you all out. Every last one of you, until all that’s left is the fire.” Then she levelled the garnet at Eli, and Saskia saw his pained eyes reflected in the dark red glass. “I’ll start with you.”
Eli straightened his spine and held out his hand to Roan.
Baskar hissed, “What is he doing?”
Saskia shook her head. “He’s giving up.”
