She was just as beautiful as the day I had first seen her face through the crystal face of her armor. Her eyes were wide and inviting, and I thought I could stare into them forever. So strong, so determined. How could I stand against her when she had chosen her way forward? How could I deny her will when she had already made the decision to be the sacrifice to protect the people? My people? “If it doesn’t work, you will be gone forever,” I pleaded, my voice cracking as a lump rose in my throat.
Joanna gave me that sad smile again. "Then just in case I don't come back, I had better do this first." She stepped into me, suddenly, pressing her body against mine. Even through my armor, the contact with her was electrifying, and I felt my magickal heart speed up as my blood rose. Her scent was intoxicating, sweet and heady, and I was so dazed by her sudden proximity that I was caught completely off guard when she pressed her lips against mine and kissed me. I had kissed and been kissed before, but never like this. She came at me hungrily, biting my lower lip, her tongue flicking into my mouth and tasting me with ravenous curiosity. My arms closed around her, and I returned the kiss in kind. For a moment, the world vanished around us. I didn't feel the cold, or the weariness of such a long and hard journey. I forgot my fear for Joanna for just a moment and reveled in her passion, her taste, her heat.
After a minute we broke apart, breathing hard. Joanna smiled up at me, her tanned cheeks rosy, her eyes bright with joy. “That’s what I needed,” she said, satisfied. “I’ll see you on the other side, ranger.”
Before I could even stop to think about it, I blurted, “I’ll do it.”
“What?” said Nissi, who was caught halfway between a pleased smile and a pained grimace.
“Let me bear the knife. Someone has to do it, and I promised to see this through. I’ll do it.” I glared at Ravanur. “But not for you ‘Great Mother’. I’ll do it for her.”
Ravanur was unconcerned. “Fair enough.” She gestured to the bloody altar. “We have little time. Chosen one, remove your garments.”
Joanna didn’t hesitate, shucking off her tattered furs and tossing them aside, once again revealing her tight, muscled body. She handed her curved sword to me with a serious expression. “Hold on to this, ranger. I’m going to need this before long.” Then, without waiting for a command from Ravanur, she clambered up onto the blood-stained altar and lay down.
She looked cold. Her skin was stippled with gooseflesh, and her nipples stood out hard against her breasts. Her breathing was slow and even. Somehow, even knowing what was coming, she was calm.
“Bring me the burug heart from her bag," Ravanur ordered, and Thukkar, who had been standing as if transfixed, leaped to obey. He rummaged through the discarded furs and found her pack, then withdrew the black heart and held it out to the Great Mother.
Ravanur took the burug and closed her eyes, and as we watched it began to change. It shrank, staying mostly the same shape but shriveling in on itself until it was the right size to fit in the chest of an Erinye. It was the right size to fit in the chest of one who was very much like an Erinye, as well. I suddenly understood what was happening, but though my stomach lurched with revulsion, I held it together. There was no turning back now. I had promised.
Nissi drew out something from within her robes, and I recognized it immediately. It was the kazakatta from the atrium of the temple, and its razor claws glittered menacingly in the strange light of Ravanur’s sanctum. Meeting my eyes with an expression of faint apology, she proffered the handle of the vile tool to me, and I took it.
Ravanur stepped up beside me, the now Erinye-sized black heart in her hands. “Do it quickly, Volistad. I must make the switch before her body fully dies.”
“Is this going to hurt her?” I asked, immediately knowing that my question was ridiculous. “Can’t you do something for the pain?”
“It would be pointless,” Ravanur replied, shaking her head. “The pain is a part of it. But it will pass quickly enough, and she will be better for it. She will be beyond such petty things as pain.”
I blew out a long breath and stepped up to the altar. Joanna smiled up at me, trying to keep a brave face in spite of what she knew was coming. I swallowed hard and gritted my teeth to maintain my composure. If she could be courageous through this, so would I. “I’ll see you on the other side,” I said, repeating her own phrase.
Joanna grinned, as if everything were alright. Her eyes were lit with some dark inner fire as if the whole thing were a grand joke, and immensely amusing to her. “Do it, Vol. I’ll see you in just a little while.”
I placed the claws against Joanna's skin, just beside her breast, where I could feel her heart beating. I took in a deep breath and let it out sharply. Then, before I could think about it any further, I dropped my whole weight down onto the heart-taker. Joanna didn't scream; she just grunted as the spidery fingers of the ritual device plunged into her skin and into her chest. Her eyes flew open wide, and her mouth gaped, but she did not scream. I had to do this quickly. The sooner it was done, the sooner her pain would be over. I squeezed the little trigger in the hilt of the kazakatta. There was a series of sharp cracking sounds inside Joanna's chest as the fingers snapped closed, severing arteries and breaking ribs. Joanna bucked, hard, groaning, her eyes filling with tears as red showed at her lips. She met my eyes, and her mouth formed the words, do it. I bared my fangs, and with a roar, I tore her heart out of her chest in a spray of bright red.
Ravanur immediately shoved me aside with unexpected strength, sending me staggering back several paces before I tripped and fell heavily. The kazakatta and its grisly prize went skidding from my grasp, and it was all I could do not to throw up at the sight of it.
By the altar, the Great Mother of the Erinye worked quickly, laboring over Joanna's bloody form with deft, precise motions. After a few agonizing seconds, she placed both her hands on Joanna's bloody, torn chest and roared. The sound was huge, greater than the roar of the most ferocious Erinye I had ever heard, greater than the crash of a surface storm. I could feel the raw power of that sound pressing against my ears, and my head felt like it would burst from that horrible pressure. I squeezed my eyes shut and felt terrible winds sweeping through the temple, tearing at me and laying me out flat on the stone. Light burned in even through my eyelids, and I screamed as hurricane rage crashed down all around me. A great, thunderous laughter filled my ears, and I recognized it as the voice of the Great North Wind. The ground shook, the temple shuddered, the North Wind laughed, and Ravanur roared. And then it was over.
I opened my eyes. Ravanur was gone. The temple was dark, again, but I could still see, by the light of a faint luminescence emanating from the top of the altar. I stood, shakily, and beside me rose Nissikul and Thukkar. They looked as terrified as I felt, and I took some comfort in the fact that at least I wasn’t alone in the feeling. Tentatively, we approached the altar, the bluish glow casting us into stark shadow. “Joanna?”
A woman sat up atop the altar, naked and perfect but for a pale, branching scar between her breasts. Thick black hair spilled down over her light brown skin, cascading over her shoulders in luxurious curls that fell almost to her waist. Her face was much the same as it had been before, but there was something new about it, something I couldn’t quite place. Her eyes met mine, and where they had once been brown, they now glowed a dull orange, like embers from last night’s fire. She smiled, and I felt the same longing I had the night before, when I had looked upon her naked in the garden pool. “Volistad,” she said, meeting my eyes with a directness that told me that she knew exactly what I was thinking about. “Would you please fetch my clothes?”
Chapter Fifty-Three
Joanna
Homecoming for a Queen
The main surface entrance to the village of the Erin-Vulur was a scar in the ice, a cavern that had been formed by the very tip of one of the tallest mountains, just barely thrusting up through the ice. According to Volistad, there were many other passages down to the village, most of the
m unused and locked. We could easily have snuck around to a lesser used tunnel and into the home of the Erin-Vulur, but we had discussed it, and the consensus said otherwise. To defeat Barbas, and whatever horrors he dredged up to kill us, we needed the Erinye tribesmen. All of them. The first step towards accomplishing such a lofty goal was to make an undeniable show of power and authority. And since I was the actual, living, breathing god in the group…
"Are you ready for this?" Though Volistad had crept up beside me in total silence, his presence didn't startle me. One of the fringe benefits of having become a god was that in addition to being utterly impervious to cold, my senses had gotten sharper and finer. Volistad had made no more noise than a whisper of air over a cold glacier, but I had been able to hear the metronome rhythm of his heart. I had been able to hear even the tiny, normally inaudible cracks of the ice beneath his armored feet.
I turned just my head so that my eyes met those of the ranger. “I’m a demigod. I’m much harder to kill, and I have power that will dwarf even that of the Stormcallers.” I grinned at him, showing all my teeth in an expression that, to him, would normally have appeared to be a threat. “Even with all that, Vol, I’m still nervous. Does that seem strange to you?”
Volistad returned my smile with interest- though the fangs that filled his mouth lent him the threatening aspect that I lacked. He matched the smile with his people's own pleased expression, a narrowing of his canted blue on brown eyes into a sliver of amusement. "It is not strange at all," he replied, speaking in the Erinye language. "You are strong now, but you were strong before. You have great power now, but once you made a machine that leashed the fury of a storm to your will. You may not have been a god before, but I dare say that you were closer to divinity than you might have admitted." The ranger gestured out to the open cavern mouth that would lead us, one way or another, to the home of his people. Those people had tried to kill both of us, not so long ago. I was immortal now, but not indestructible. I could still be slain. This could go catastrophically wrong, and if it did, this planet and everyone on it would only be the first destroyed. "Those people are afraid. They are right to be afraid, even if they got the reason for their fear so drastically wrong." He put a hand on my shoulder, careful not to scratch my skin with his exposed claws. "You're nervous because you don't feel much different than you did when we first met. You know yourself to be a god now, but you are not all that much greater than you were before. But take heart, Joanna. You could have done this without the power of Ravanur. How much more successful will you be now that you have taken your rightful place?"
I snorted. “You’re a flatterer, Ranger Volistad.”
Vol rose just as silently as he had come, and with easy, practiced motions, he strung his great bow with its braided steel string. He made it look so easy- as if the bow he wielded didn't boast a draw weight in excess of five-hundred kilograms. He fitted a matching steel arrow to the string and winked a predator's eye at me with a tilt of his head. "It isn't flattery if it is true, Akkandaka." Without another word, he bounded off over the ice and quickly disappeared.
I winced. Akkandaka. Storm Queen, in Erinye. All three of my companions had been calling me that since my ascension, apparently referencing the title of one of the mythical "First Stormcallers." I wasn't sure how I felt about being compared to the legendary figures of the Erin-Vulur religion and history. I was a demigod- and that had been hard enough to accept. I wasn't sure it was entirely healthy to be referred to as one of the great historical founders of Erinye magic and religion. It felt like a massive weight was settled on my shoulders every time one of them said it. Akkandaka. Storm Queen. I felt like an imposter wearing that name. After all, none of it was really magic. It was all ancient technology "sufficiently advanced," to quote Arthur Clarke. Try explaining that to the Erinye at large, I thought. My three companions had been there with me when their own central deity, Ravanur, had told us about the whole divine lie, and they still swore by her name and called me Storm Queen.
A figure appeared in the mouth of the tunnel, swathed in tattered ranger's leathers and a ragged fur cloak, leaning heavily on a blunted iron short spear for a cane. That was Thukkar, the other Erinye ranger in our group. Unlike Volistad, he had not been empowered by a crazy old tech shaman when he had nearly died. Instead, he had been forced to deal with the agonizing reality of his own injury, and he had kept up with all of us nonetheless. He really was amazing in action. I could see why Nissikul, Volistad's sister, liked him. Behind Thukkar, a cluster of fur-clad Erinye appeared, bearing a wide variety of weapons. Among them, I could see the ornate scrimshaw staff that Vol had told me would indicate our chief adversary in all this. Elder Lot, the Master of the Stormcallers- the one who had betrayed Volistad and all but killed him, and the one who had ordered my death. He was only one of several Elder Councilmen, but everything hinged on him. It was he that I had to defeat, if not by words, then by a dramatic and humiliating show of force. The Erinye may have looked much like humans, but they had diverged at a crucial juncture, long before civilization had developed on the third rock from Sol. They were predators- pack hunters, and like any pack of wolves, they responded to displays of dominance. It was almost time. It was time for Nissi's part in all this.
The wind hissed across the ice, scraping up clouds of ice fragments and turning them into a crystalline fog. I could feel the little points touching my face, though they did not sting the way they once would had. I was, regardless of my reservations, Akkandaka. The Storm Queen did not fear cold, ice, or lightning. The storm and this world were now my home. My domain. It would take more than blowing ice to make me flinch. Nissikul emerged from the thickest part of the glittering cloud, looking much as she had the day I had met her- the day she had tried to kill me. She was clad from head to foot in black plate armor, shaped by the strength of her own substantial powers from the witch-ice that was the symbol of Stormcaller power. Her missing arm had been replaced by a replica, made from the same dark ice, and in that hand, she gripped a jet-black great hammer that dribbled lightning in her wake. She strode directly towards Elder Lot, appearing from the fog with all the menace of the grim reaper. She passed Thukkar without a word and stood tall before her former master; her faceless helm tilted to stare down at the frail old mage.
For his part, Elder Lot was remarkably cool and unconcerned. Of course he was. Not even the specter of a Stormcaller that he had thought dead could shake him in front of those he purported to lead- not if he wanted to remain an Elder. Not if he wanted to remain alive. Though he was a full head shorter than the armored menace of Nissikul, he somehow managed to look down his nose at her. In a theatrically loud, commanding tone, he laughed with feigned joy and relief and said, "Nissikul! Daughter! We thought you dead along with the faaaaaaaaaalse god! How joyoussssssss is the return of a lost daughter to the servants of Ravanurrrrrrrr?" It seemed to me that the air of command that he was projecting was somewhat blunted by his tendency to stretch out his words randomly, but none of the Erinye around him seemed to think so. Behind the Master Stormcaller, the dozens of gathered Erinye muttered and shifted nervously. Despite Elder Lot's confidence, they were unsure of the situation. They could feel the tension. They knew something else was coming.
Another voice, much less booming, but no less commanding, spoke from within the crowd. “Lot! Is this the Stormcaller that slew the false god and smote down her foul tower?” The speaker emerged a moment later, dressed in ornate furs and cloaks, his short, colorless Erinye hair thinning a little at the top of his head and giving him the unmistakable aspect of a priest. “Surely we cannot be surprised at the survival of so great a warrior?!” It was a pretty good bit of theater. Clearly, they had not been prepared for Nissikul’s return. The tragic death of a martyr was much easier for the rulers of the tribe to use to their own benefit than a living, breathing hero. For her part, Nissikul didn’t give them anything. It was not the time yet. She just stood, her black helm staring into the face of Elder Lot, and exuded raw me
nace.
The crowd around Nissi, Thukkar, and the Elders was still growing, and before long, the whole mouth of the cave was packed with eager onlookers. Good. We needed as many Erinye as possible to see this. Nissikul shifted the glowing hammer in her icy fist and planted its wide, crackling head firmly on the ice beneath her feet. The signal. It was almost time. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath, and reached out in my mind for the heart of my power. Stormcallers were marvels of technological design. They were mages who could call to the nanite "winds" that Ravanur and her fellow rebel gods had made so long ago. These clouds of nanites and ancient collective intelligence obeyed their commands, usually. A Stormcaller, sufficiently motivated, could create a storm much like the one my tower had produced so many weeks ago. With a wave of her hand, she could reshape the ice of the glacier, and she could move heat around with incredible efficiency. Sometimes, a Stormcaller could even hear the very edges of people's thoughts. I was not a Stormcaller. I was something much, much worse.
I called, and all the minor wind spirits within a hundred miles answered me. I gave them just a little push, a little suggestion, and the wind changed. The mist that Nissikul had summoned for her entrance was whipped away like a ragged flag before a hurricane. Clouds gathered in the sky, swirling in an ever-expanding vortex. My newly regrown hair whipped up and swirled around me in a silken halo, and I could feel static start to crawl along my arms and in towards my new, mechanical god's heart.
The gathered Erinye shouted with alarm and tried to back away, into the cave, but a new voice, both strident and commanding, froze them all in their tracks. "Stand fast you sniveling cowards!" It took me a moment to realize that it had been Volistad who had spoken. He stepped out into view of his assembled people, his crystalline armor reflecting the darkening sky, and shouted to rival the gathering growl of thunder. "Stand fast, Erin-Vulur, you who are the children of Palamun, the children of Ravanur! Stand fast and face judgment!"
Volistad: Paranormal Sci-Fi Alien Romance (Alien Mates Book 3) Page 31
