Immortal Progeny (Fragile Gods Book 1)

by Philippa Ballantine

  She could never have anticipated the thing that took root within him; the wild seed that even now rumbled with pain in the back of his head.

  Generally, chimera did not work together. Most were mad, too arrogant to form alliances, or simply untrusting of their own kind. His twisted mother and he were the exception. It hadn't saved them though.

  Croombe usually knew better than to argue with his mother, but on this point he would not budge. Stepping nearer, he looked down at her. The Rainbow Queen might be an impressive sight, but he was still taller, and he knew she did not like looking up at him. The stitcher cowered away from the horror of the two of them together.

  "Can you read them, dear Mother?" He smiled crookedly at her. "Can you read the Book of Bone and Flesh?"

  Her jaw tightened, and the tentacles that made up her hair gleamed a dark purple, lashing the air around her face. She did not answer.

  Croombe leaned down towards her, just a fraction. "Does your priestess you gave matching hair to, can she?"

  Ohian was the only creation the Rainbow Queen managed to save when she was overthrown by the Skykeeper. Croombe knew she shared things with her remaining priestess that she did not with him. In his revenge, he did nothing to help her find either one of the other two sisters. If that meant Ohian had to traverse the length of the countryside every day of the year for generations, then that was even better.

  Of everything he had to hold over the Rainbow Queen, the one who made him so callously, it was the two books that meant the most to her. She glanced over her shoulder, to where they rested in among the stones. Even she didn't like to look on them.

  Supposedly they were carved from the flesh and bone of the first god to come from the Void. Or the book came before the gods. Or they were scrawled by the first human to raise his hand to a god.

  Even Croombe didn't know the answer. However, he was the only person found who could read them. The Rainbow Queen possessed them for generations, but she'd been unable to make anything of the writing inside. That her experimental son had been able to was quite a surprise.

  Croombe made sure to drip feed her information from them, since he had the feeling if it should ever run out he might cease to be useful. Everyone had to be useful to the Rainbow Queen.

  His mother shook her head and replied, "You know she cannot."

  "Then she cannot tell you anything useful." He flexed his hand backwards, and the spine there extended out from the juncture of his palm and his wrist with a slight hiss. Croombe felt he needed to make a point. "For example, the flying prophet has sent her guard once more to Penance."

  The Rainbow Queen's eyes flashed green like the algae. The Lightkeeper had always been a sore point with the queen, since it was the citizens of Diligence who destroyed her temple-cities and ultimately brought her here.

  "She has not done that for many years," Croombe went on. "She must feel the change in the air."

  "She is an insignificant piece of flesh." The Rainbow Queen's tone was dismissive, but a slight flutter of her hair gave away her concerns.

  "We are all insignificant pieces of flesh." Croombe let the spine slide back inside him. The frisson of pain had long since ceased exciting him. "Remember, you can either be omniscient or present, but never both. I am afraid for us—with omniscience no longer an option—this is all we have."

  "Unless things change." The faint hope echoed in the cave, and Croombe tried very hard not to look at the Rainbow Queen as she continued. "The Void, or what came from it, could change things a great deal."

  He heard the desirous tone in his mother's voice, and knew it was directed at the girl from the temple. Croombe spun about, the spines in his mouth replacing his teeth in an instant. Such a display would send mortals into a frenzy of panic, but he knew better than to try and impress his fellow chimera—it was only done to prove a point.

  "We are attempting to harness creatures from the Void," he reminded her. "We are long-lived, but we can still be killed. Have a care greed doesn't blind you."

  She stared at him a moment with a blank expression, before giving a shrug. "Then you should be careful too. Do not spoil this girl with too much information. She is not as we are, and until we find out what exactly she may be, treat her with care."

  He nodded, his eyes sliding to the books, which as always seemed to call to him. Croombe had not told his mother everything, but he wanted her away from what he could sense was coming soon. The temple girl was close to change; he smelled it on her, the books made of bone and flesh made it clear. His mother could and would take her from him if she guessed.

  "They say the Rainbow Queen will go to Penance, to take her revenge," he said, never removing his gaze from the books. "They say there is a reward for blood that can be had there."

  It worked better if he was a little cryptic; his mother always liked that.

  She straightened, her chin lifting and her eyes gleaming with delight. It was just the right set of words at just the right time, but she was not completely fooled. "And you, Croombe?"

  "I must watch the temple girl," he replied. “It is what the book says.”

  Her hand brushed his hair, and for a moment there was a ghost of an expression on her face that might have been a mother's care. Croombe was not fooled, but he kept his own expression still and calm. Her eyes narrowed on him, but she could not rake open his mind as she could most others. Her little dark seed had grown beyond that.

  When she pulled him in and embraced him that did surprise him. It was an awkward gesture she ended quickly. The Rainbow Queen patted him on the cheek. "Be careful you are not seen, son. You may be The Pierced Man, the Eyes of Death, and the Sharp Wind, but as you just reminded me, you can be killed. We still do not know what this girl is, and she may be greater than even you."

  Her lips twisted into a half-amused half-bitter smile, as she waved him away with one hand and gestured to the terrified stitcher to resume his work. Croombe walked away from her, not looking back. Whatever she was preparing for, he didn’t want to know. For now, there was only the girl.

  Chapter Five

  From Out of the Pit

  It was cool out in the darkness. Amaranth couldn't feel anything but the breeze coming in from the sea. The sensation was strange and almost painful in its newness. It rolled over her skin in ways that made her shudder, and for an instant she fought the urge to run back into the pits.

  In the shadows she felt as if there were many cruel eyes watching her, and her skin crawled with fear. Mastering that ridiculous thought, the young woman turned her head to the right and saw the undulating motion of the sea under a sickle moon. The smell of it was sharp and tangy, lodging in the back of her throat and making her nose prickle.

  When she dared touch the minds of her captors, she lifted as many facts from them as she could; it was one way of not going mad in the pits. From their memories, she felt the movement of a ship on the ocean, heard the call of their wives summoning them to dinner, and walked the paths of their town.

  Fleabane tugged on her arm, and the other woman realized she was standing stock still on the edge of the trench, her back to the pits, and her form outlined dangerously against the horizon.

  Around her feet, the little creations stood still too, mimicking their mistress and staring out at the sea. If she stayed like that, they would be caught in very short order. Amaranth ducked down low, tucking her remaining arm about her protectively.

  "There," Fleabane said, pointing away from the churning ocean, and deeper inland over rough rocks and scattered, wind-tossed grass. The shapes out there were no land formation, they were square and rose proudly from their surroundings. They also gleamed and twinkled with many lights. Those had to be candles flickering in windows, showing where families waited for their workers to return for dinner and rest. Some of them would not make it back tonight. That realization did not provide as much satisfaction as Amaranth thought.

  It had to be the town of the pit drivers, where they went after their hard day
's labor of selling portions of beast and man, gathering coin from living beings' misery. That thought made Amaranth's insides burn. Over the years, and especially in the last one when she began to discover her powers, she took an interest in the masters' talk of home, wives, children. Those things were foreign, something she had been denied from birth. Her mother was sold to the pit drivers as breeding stock from a village of free folk who went up against the wrong temple. At least, that was the story her mother gave her before she was gone.

  If the battle never happened, if her people had been left in peace, she would have been an entirely different person. The pit taught Amaranth many things; one of them was not to go wishing to change a past she could not. The future, however, thanks to her strange talents, was open to debate.

  With a gesture, Amaranth summoned her progeny. They scampered up her ankles and then kept going higher. Their little hooked feet were slightly painful on her skin, but nothing compared to the ignominy and pain of a life in the pit.

  Neither she nor Fleabane had enough clothing to hide them, as their little insect brains would have preferred, so the creations scrambled up Amaranth's back and into the long mass of tangled hair that hung almost to her waist.

  "Come on," she said to Fleabane, and led the way towards the flickering lights which offered danger but also a slight chance of success. The two young women began to work their way towards the town, stumbling over rocks in their bare feet, shivering when a wind blew in off the sea and over their half-clad forms.

  As they approached the town, Amaranth felt the weight of their predicament settle over her. From all her listening and planning she deduced much of the shape of the world beyond the pits. She knew of the theocrats and their creations, and she understood how they played with the world as the pit drivers played with the spare parts. What she did not have was much of an idea what to do with that information. She knew she wanted to be free, to live her life, but what that might be was not quite shaped in her head just yet.

  Nor was there much of a plan beyond the initial escape of the pits. "One thing at a time," she muttered to herself.

  Fleabane's hand unexpectedly slipped into Amaranth's. Such a display in the pit would have been unlikely, but out here under the blanket of stars, and the sharp rocks beneath their feet, it felt good.

  The city was probably not much by the standards of the rest of the world, merely a place where the pit drivers lived and entertained the buyers that came to view the goods. The spare parts were not difficult to maintain, Amaranth imagined. Most were born and bred into slavery. Kept fed and watered, they stayed mostly compliant.

  She stumbled to a stop, her breath catching in her throat even harder than usual. What if she and Fleabane were the only ones ever to escape? Her mind raced over that thought, and then crashed into another; what if they were not? In the warren of pits there could be plenty of things happening she never heard of. The drivers would not want any of their remaining produce to know about the possibility of escape. In fact, there could be many, many escaped people like her out there, maybe even able to help.

  Amaranth's gaze darted to the huddle of buildings only a few moments away. If it happened before, it had not swept away the trade in any way. The pit drivers undoubtedly survived, and perhaps learned from it. They would know what to do when pieces of meat made a bid for freedom.

  "We must hurry," she said, squeezing Fleabane's hand hard. "If we are not away from here by morning, we probably won't get away at all."

  The two young women rushed to reach the buildings, crashing painfully to their knees many times. Amaranth found herself gasping, but she could never seem to take a deep enough breath. Fleabane urged her on without words, picking her up, shouldering her weight despite her slight frame, and guiding them in the right direction.

  Finally, after so long blundering about in the dark, they reached the outskirts of the town. It was immediately apparent it was laid out much like the pits, but with streets and buildings rather than pits and tunnels. The buildings were stone with strange pitched roofs, and for a moment fear made Amaranth's feet stick to the ground. The houses were so tall, they loomed over her and Fleabane, and she wondered that they didn't just collapse on them both then and there.

  Her missing arm ached terribly, and the pain seemed to penetrate her resolve somehow. The buildings reminded her how little she knew, and how much of a precipice she cast both herself and Fleabane into. These realizations kept her from moving forward.

  At last, her young companion, with much tugging and scrabbling, pulled her on, and into the dark shadows of the walls. The smells were different, too. Instead of excrement and sweat, there were the mouth-watering odors of cooking meat and spices. Voices floated down to the two escapees as they huddled there; woman's laughter followed by the giggles of small children. They sounded so happy and carefree Amaranth was quite undone. Was this the life she might have had if it had not been for fate having her born in the pits?

  The creations against her back and under her hair stirred as if they would scuttle out and undo the joy in that particular house. For a second that seemed like justice, but then Amaranth remembered the children of the pit. No child was born with hatred in their heart, and these should not be responsible for the sins of their fathers who worked with the meat.

  She jerked her head and she and Fleabane moved on before she could change her mind. Ahead were more houses and more families, though these ones as they passed seemed not to be full of such joy. The two of them were witness to arguments, shouts and a few screams as well. So perhaps it was not that different to the places they left.

  The further they went the weaker Amaranth felt herself becoming. The goods were kept generally fed just enough to keep body and essence together, and her body was especially compromised. Her vision blurred in and out as her breath struggled to make its way through her. Dimly she felt Fleabane's presence at her side, but it paled in comparison to the wreck they made of her own flesh. The creations trembled where they clung to her, her essence barely sustaining them.

  What Amaranth definitely did not need to hear was what made her cry out: the howls of dogs, distant but closing. Fleabane let out a little whimper, and her companion knew why. They heard the beasts of the wilds from time to time howling around the pits. The drivers kept them at bay, but the sound was both chilling and ominous. It spoke of the savagery and death that awaited outside.

  Amaranth stopped, and looked up and down the street. All the doors were securely barred, all the people within their houses, and there were no lights on outside. No one was on the street, and as the sound of the dogs came closer, it dawned on her why.

  The pits of Damnation were far from anywhere, keeping the business isolated in the wilds, but they were not uninhabited by all creatures. She and Fleabane began pounding and shaking on the doors, as the howling was joined with snarling and the rattle of paws on the stone road.

  Amaranth's creations scampered from her back, spreading out, digging with tiny claws into her flesh, desperate to get their mistress from the road, but there was no sand for them.

  Fleabane, hanging uselessly off a nearby handle, glanced over her shoulder at Amaranth. "We'll be torn apart," she said with a ragged gasp. In her eyes reflected the horror of youth about to be cut short.

  Amaranth had nothing soothing to offer; neither of them could outrun the hunting beasts. It would be ironic if they escaped the pits only to become more pieces of meat to a ravening pack of dogs.

  "This way," she said, using her remaining arm to hold herself upright against the walls of the houses as she followed where her creations led. The sound of claws on the stone was getting louder all the time, but her mind locked in with her creations, and while that was so her panic was held at bay. They were leading the young women across to the far edge of the town, just on the edge of the wilderness. Hopefully that would confuse the dogs for a little while.

  When Amaranth and Fleabane emerged from the shadows of the town, they found themselves stari
ng across a wide plain with twisted grass blowing in angry winds. They would never be able to run fast enough across such ground before being torn down by the wild dogs.

  Amaranth stared, but then felt a little pull from her progeny that demanded her attention; they found something their little beetle brains were drawn to. Upon investigation she discovered a round metal grate buried in the earth. The stench emanating from it however was terrible.

  "By the Morning sky," Fleabane choked out, holding her hand over her mouth. "Those are the dead pieces." Not all goods could be sold, not all of the flesh was useful, and what was left had to be disposed of. This narrow offal pit must be close to the driver's market. The slope would drain the fluids away from the town and its water supply.

  Amaranth stood, commanding her creations and trying not to think of the irony of going from one pit to another. The beetle-scorpions dug in the dirt, freeing the clasp that held the grate of the pit down. It was embedded in rock, but the dirt was loose.

  "Amaranth..." Fleabane's voice was soft and low, but conveyed all of her terror and urgency. Amaranth could not look, but she imagined the size of the dogs coming towards them. She heard their low growls, and vaguely sensed the mass of their pack fanning out around them. She could not allow herself to look up and be distracted; she needed to drive her creations on.

  She was losing more in the haste to free the clasp, but it was their last chance at life. Finally, just as the snarls got close enough ruffle her hair, or at least it felt like that, the beetle-scorpions did their work.

  Amaranth threw the grate back, grabbed Fleabane, tossed her down, and then grabbing the underside of the iron-work, jumped in after her. It was not a long fall, but it was a disgusting one. Entrails, bones, blood formed a vile mountain that softened the young women’s impact. The smell was so overpowering that for a long moment Amaranth and Fleabane were struck dumb by it, and there was no use trying to avoid it by breathing through their mouths.