Whom the Gods Hate (Of Gods & Mortals Book 2)

by M. M. Perry

  “I will tell you about my uncle Rankle, who fell in love with a mermaid,” Gunnarr began.

  “Mermaids are fish,” Patch said grumpily.

  “And satyrs are goats,” Suman replied.

  Patch shook his head.

  “Not the same. Mermaids are truly fish. They can sing and talk, but they have no human bits whatsoever.”

  “Are you a satyr then,” Gunnarr asked, curiously. He had been harboring suspicions ever since he met Patch, and Suman dropped hints every now and then, but it hadn’t been said outright yet.

  “You’ve met satyrs?” Patch asked coyly.

  “A couple.”

  Nat and Viola found Gunnarr’s tone of voice unusual. It was oddly guarded with a completely foreign undertone of menace. They only noticed because they had spent so much time with him. No one else in the wagon seemed aware of the change in Gunnarr’s demeanor.

  “And you are right,” Gunnarr continued, his manner lighter now. “Mermaids are fish.”

  “You’ve never spoken of Rankle before,” Nat said.

  “No, and you’ll know why soon enough,” Gunnarr said, relaxing into the tale.

  “My people are quite familiar with mermaids. Fisherman all are. We curse the gods whenever we catch them. No one wants to listen to so much drivel. There’s a saying among some of my people. If someone has wronged you, send them a mermaid,” Gunnarr said smirking, “though the logistics of actually doing that makes me wonder if anyone actually ever has. The males wouldn’t work for this particular cruel revenge, though.”

  “Male mermaids?” Suman questioned.

  “Perhaps I should offer a little more explanation,” Gunnarr began. “Mermaids, for those of you who haven’t seen one, are fairly large fish. About the size and weight of the average man. They are covered in gaudy golden scales. There’s a sadly persistent rumor that their scales are made of actual gold, though they aren’t, and that they will only remain gold if taken from a living mermaid. And despite how insipid the fish are, they don’t deserve to be skinned alive. They are just silly creatures. Most people don’t eat them for superstitious reasons. It’s said they are the favored fish of Laota. My people believe they are actually a practical joke played on Laota by Freesus to punish him for his affair with Timta. We still don’t eat them, though. It’s considered bad luck and of course there’s the matter of killing something that begs you not to. The male version of the fish doesn’t speak. My people believe when Freesus gifted the mermaid the ability to speak, she purposely did not do so for the males to drive home a point to Laota. ‘Men are better seen than heard,’ the tales say.

  “Other than their gift of speech and gold scales there is nothing particularly remarkable about mermaids. They can speak, but they are still fish. Most of what they say is gibberish. Though they are amazing mimics. They repeat what you say to them in the most obnoxious manner possible. If you had any siblings when you were young, you can probably imagine what this is like. Everything you say, said just a second behind when you say it in a mocking tone for as long as that fish is within earshot.

  “I once met an ass of a captain who kept a huge tank of water in his cabin just so he could keep a mermaid in there. If a sailor messed up in some way, he’d make you come to his cabin to explain yourself. That damned mermaid would make any excuse you had sound moronic.

  “The only exception to this babbling is when they are in peril. Then they just cry. Sob actually. It’s disturbing in the extreme, so you can see why we might not want to kill them.

  “Now… imagine a man falling in love with one of these things. Rankle was lonely and old. It can be hard to find another soul on Braldashad, let alone a wife. I guess one day Rankle was fishing and he caught one. We don’t know exactly when it happened. He never told us how long he had been living with it. He had been pretty good about hiding it. One day my father and I went to visit and Rankle had forgotten to put the lid on the tank of water he was keeping it in.

  “We’re invited in. Rankle was standing in the seating area and my father began to ask him about his health, ‘How are you, Rankle. You feeling alright? We’re getting worried about you living out here all a…,’ and he cuts off. Because as he’s speaking he hears a high pitched repetition of exactly what he’s saying.”

  Gunnarr started speaking in falsetto to imitate the sound of the mermaid, “How are you, Rankle, you feeling alright? We’re getting worried about you living out here all a…”

  Hearing the big man mimic the high-pitched voice of the mermaid made even Patch chuckle. Gunnarr waited for everyone’s laughter to die down before continuing.

  “Obviously my father knew something was off immediately. He started accusing my uncle of harboring a mermaid, to which my uncle responded that my father was exaggerating and it was just a lot of shouting after that. Now imagine this with every single word spoken, or shouted, repeated by that high nasally voice. I couldn’t help myself, I fell down laughing. This did not help matters. My uncle accused me of thinking this was a big joke, which of course was repeated by the mermaid. At this my father couldn’t help but start laughing. All this made Rankle even angrier. It certainly didn’t help calm us down that our laughter was now being mimicked by the mermaid, filling the little hut with this piercing high pitched laughter. Eventually, to shut us up, Rankle went into his bedroom and put the lid back on the tank.

  “Finally my father and I manage to stop laughing and my father started trying to talk sense into Rankle again, asking why the mermaid was in his bedroom, and the sorts of things I wish I could forget. Rankle claimed the creature was in love with him, that it followed him home from the sea. He had accidently caught it in his nets and had immediately released it. Apparently it followed him back to shore. He took that as a sign that this mermaid was intelligent and that it had fallen in love with him. No matter what my father said, Rankle would not listen.”

  Gunnarr rubbed his face and shook his head sadly.

  “As far as I know, Rankle still lives with it. I don’t know the life span of those things. Didn’t see much of Rankle after that. Just at a few family gatherings at which there were two rules. We weren’t allowed to mention mermaids and if he talked about someone named Rita we were just to nod our heads politely and ask no questions.”

  “Well, that definitely explains why you never mentioned uncle Rankle,” Viola chuckled.

  Chapter 11

  The night had worn itself out to the tattered edges of early dawn as the heavily laden wagon moved up the mountain road. The only sounds escaping the thick canvas covering the wagon were the warring snores from two of its inhabitants. Anya barely registered the sounds. She was concentrating on keeping the wagon on the road in the slowly dispersing gloom. The mountains loomed to the south of them. Luckily, she mused, her village was not located in the range proper. Trees covered the foothill they were descending now, giving the area a very lush feeling. The Djinn had not spoken to her during the trip, choosing instead to stare resolutely ahead as if meditating on something in front of him that only he could see.

  Anya was just fine with his silence. She had no interest in engaging the Djinn in conversation. His people’s relentless requests for a dragon were well known among her people. She had first heard of their periodic visits was when she was just a child. It was many years past now, but the memory was somehow always fresh in her mind.

  She remembered how her brother Driscol had dared her to sneak into the elders hut and get a look at the little blue god. She managed it quite well, hiding among the stacks of wood inside the hut before anyone else had entered. He had been bigger than she expected. From what she’d heard about them, she had imagined a being the size of a cat, but the blue devil stood as tall as Driscol had been then. The Djinn had entered the hut with her mother, begging for a dragon. He told her that a dragon was the only thing that could free his people. Anya felt sympathy for the little blue man and was shocked when her mother coldly told the blue god that he would never get what he wanted, and
ordered him to leave.

  She waited until her mother wasn’t looking to sneak out of the hut. She had to run to catch up to him, her breaths coming in frightened gasps. He didn’t notice her rushing up behind him because he was lost in conversation with himself, his head hung low with grief. She was worried someone might catch her and punish her for talking to the Djinn if she wasn’t very careful. Anya saw a shimmer in the air around him, and knew it to be magic. Unperturbed, when she got close enough to him she put her hand gently on his shoulder. He turned toward her and when his eyes met hers he straightened a little.

  She saw the wet streaks on his face then. Anya knew shameful tears when she saw them. They were the same tears her brother had been wearing when he came home after some older kids in the village had roughed him up. Driscol then, like the Djinn now, had tried to hide them from her. It was in that moment that Anya knew she had to be this Djinn’s advocate. Her mother had been so unusually callous with the Djinn surely, Anya thought, she could get her to change her mind.

  Anya still recalled the family dinner that night. She had asked her mother why the Djinn could not have a dragon. Her mother turned abruptly toward her and stared hard at her, unspeaking, for what seem to Anya like an eternity. Anya squirmed in her seat as her mother looked down upon her with enough anger to stretch her face into something terrible and unfamiliar to Anya.

  “Did the Djinn approach you?”

  “N-no,” Anya stammered, “I only heard someone talking about the Djinn, and why he was here.”

  Anya’s mother narrowed her eyes, knowing Anya was hiding something but not quite sure what.

  “You cannot trust the Djinn, Anya. They do not care about the dragons, only themselves. They would endanger all of the gods of old with their desires. We have spent generations repairing the damage the gods have wrought. The Djinn would undo that work in one day if they could. Only a fool would believe otherwise.”

  Anya still felt the sting of her mother’s words all these years later. Her mother had always been a calm woman, loving and rarely ruffled by anything her children did, no matter how dangerous or destructive. The harsh edge that her mother’s voice had carried that night was something Anya had never wanted to hear again. But she was just as haunted by the Djinn’s tears. As a child, it had affected her deeply. The men in her village never cried and despite his stature, the Djinn had clearly been an adult. Although it was a different Djinn who sat beside her now, he was after the same thing.

  Anya was conflicted. The dragons were the charge of her people, and it was their well-being she was sworn to protect, not the Djinns’. Anya had taken that to heart, and though she hadn’t then, she came to understand why her mother had been so cold toward the Djinn. The Djinn had good reason to want what they did: they too had suffered greatly at the hands of the gods. But as an ukrotiteli ognya, Anya had a responsibility first to the gods of old.

  Yet here Anya was now, agreeing to help the Djinn, something that her mother would have been very displeased about should she have lived to see this day. However, Anya had promised Driscoll she would help Cass in any way she could. Several months ago he had made the long journey back home to talk to her. Anya had thought the visit merely a friendly one, catching up on what they’d been doing in the years since they’d last spoken until the day Driscoll was to head back home.

  “Anya, I need you to promise me something,” Driscoll said in their native tongue.

  “Anything brother, you know that,” Anya said.

  “In a few months’ time you will wake to see a snow turtle sunning itself on a stone outside of your hut. It will be eating a lone highsong that managed to grow there. On that day you should travel down to Gull’s Landing and eat at the biggest pub in town. You’ll meet some people there. They will take you to Cass.”

  “Wait a minute, is this something your wife told you? You know I don’t put much stock in seers…”

  “It is not important who told me. I know it to be true. That is enough,” Driscoll said trying and failing to stretch his shirt out over his considerable girth.

  “Cass has been missing for a while, you said. If you know she’s going to be here, why don’t you just meet her?” Anya was more than a little confused at her brother’s behavior. He was acting cagey and wary, two things that she hadn’t seen him do since he was a child.

  “Trust me, sister. If I could, I would.”

  “Okay then. Keep your secrets to yourself. It doesn’t seem too much to ask,” Anya began.

  “I’m not done yet,” Driscoll said.

  Anya stared at her brother. He seemed to be having difficulty voicing his thoughts.

  “Clearly this is the unpleasant bit. Enough courting. Out with it.”

  Driscoll sighed heavily, “She will need something that only you can give her. Anya, you must promise that you will give it to her. Everything depends on this.”

  Anya crossed her arms.

  “I could never agree to a promise like that. You know this from when we were little and you tried to get me to promise you half my harvest day sweets. She could ask for my life, after all. That is something that only I could give her. I can hardly be expected to give my life to a stranger, whether she is your adopted daughter or not.”

  “This is different. And she will not ask for your life. Anya, I cannot tell you why, but this is more important than anything we have ever done.”

  Anya couldn’t help but feel a little shocked. Driscoll wasn’t prone to exaggeration or solemnity and rarely asked for favors—certainly nothing of this magnitude in her memory. She uncrossed her arms and put her hand on her brother’s massive fist.

  “I promise.”

  Now Anya sat in a wagon beside a Djinn, taking him to the very place she’d sworn to keep secret from all but her fellow ukrotiteli ognya. She hadn’t known for certain what Cass would need, but she had suspected. Apart from her life, there was really only one thing she could think of that only she could give, and that was the dragons. Anya had not expected the Djinn, however. That morning, when she woke to see the snow turtle eating the highsong outside her hut, she had been a little apprehensive. She trusted Driscoll and even though she had never met Cass, she knew what to expect from warriors. Her brother had left Arless to become one, and Anya had never been prouder of him than on that day.

  The Djinn, however, changed things completely. Anya’s inner child still wanted to help the blue man. But her mother’s chiding voice still echoed down the years in her ears, louder now, as if her mother’s spirit was there, shouting them at her, “only a fool… only a fool… only a fool.” Anya stared forward and tried to settle her nerves. She would never go back on her promise to Driscoll. She knew that much. She also knew convincing the tribe to allow her to take this party into the sanctuary would be impossible. They would never understand, and certainly would never agree. Anya knew this because she herself wouldn’t allow it if another of her tribe said they needed to do this thing. She would first strike them down where they stood before she would let them risk the dragons. Anya imagined she would need to find a new place to live after she completed her task. She knew Driscoll would take her in. She wondered if she could bear to live with him, though, after this. She greatly feared what she was about to do would mean the destruction of her people’s work. Seeing his face every day, or the face of any other ukrotiteli ognya, would be a constant reminder of her betrayal. She didn’t think she could bear that.

  “You’re lost in thought,” Manfred said. “I wish there was something I could say to ease your worries, but I know there is not.”

  “It is best you keep quiet,” Anya barked softly, not wanting to wake her traveling companions, “lest you remind me why I should not do this.”

  “I know your people don’t think we care about what happens to the dragons. But the simple truth is if the dragons perish, so too does our only hope of ever fulfilling our prophecy.” Manfred spoke in what he hoped was a soothing manner. It had been a long time since he had had to try r
ely on words to persuade humans. Magic was far more efficient at these types of things, but he knew he had to hold back every ounce of his own for the task ahead.

  “You misunderstand our people completely. We are not worried what comes before your prophecy is fulfilled,” Anya said. Her words had an icy edge of finality that effectively shut the Djinn up for the remainder of the trip.

  Cass woke as the wagon lurched to a stop. She looked around to see everyone else rubbing their eyes and stretching. At some point during the trip someone had covered her in one of the blankets. She didn’t even remember drifting off to sleep—the past few weeks had taken more of a toll on her than she realized. The air was cold enough now that she could see her breath misting in front of her face. She could feel goosebumps prickling up wherever the air touched her skin. The blanket would not be enough if they were heading further up into the icy peaks. Cass pulled the blanket tightly around herself and braced for the frigid onslaught she expected to receive when she opened the wagon’s flap.

  Anya was already around the back of the wagon, however, and whipped the flap out of Cass’s fingers. The muffled sound of evening creatures sharpened as it filled the wagon, carried in on an icy blast. Everyone clutched tighter at their blankets as cold fingers of air filled the wagon, easily poking their way through the groups’ blankets and clothes. Anya lowered the tailgate and placed her finger on her lips as she motioned for them to come out.

  The group climbed clumsily out of the wagon, cold and sleep conspiring to make them stiffer and more sluggish than normal. When they were finally all out of the wagon and huddled around Anya she spoke to them.

  “I cannot take you into my village. I have been thinking about it on the way up here, and that just will not work. My people will never let you into the sanctuary,” Anya’s voice was weary.