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

by M. M. Perry

  “First gods? You mean the old gods?” Nat asked.

  “No,” Anya said, “They were not the first. That is the lie they spread after the war. The dragons were the first gods.”

  “But dragons aren’t gods,” Viola protested. “They’re just beasts. Big, powerful, extremely dangerous beasts from what I’ve read. But flesh and blood creatures that can be killed.”

  “Are they not gods? Why do you think that?” Anya asked, glancing over her shoulder at Viola.

  “Well, they don’t create anything, like gods do, for one thing. They don’t have that kind of power. They have raw strength, and are capable of devastating destruction, but that’s it. I mean, they can’t even speak, which according to Lamarck’s Hierarchy means they are beasts, and not people.”

  “Hmm. And Cartan. Do you think Cartan do not speak?” Anya pressed.

  “Of course they speak,” Viola said.

  “But you cannot understand them.”

  “Not if they are speaking in their native tongue.”

  “Dragons also speak in their own language,” Anya said.

  “You could say the same about dogs and cats, birds and bees. Many beasts can communicate basic things, but not with the nuance and complexity that a language affords. It doesn’t mean they have the kind of intelligence a Cartan does,” Viola said.

  Anya shrugged, “I think intelligence is a matter of perspective. Do you know all the math that describe the world and how works?”

  “No,” Anya admitted.

  “But you do know much about flora and fauna, much more than most. But some people, those that do know it and can calculate it, would call you stupid because you did not know the maths for it. I call you intelligent because you are an expert in your own field. The man who grows corn may not know history, or math, but he is very good at growing the best corn. Society has decided that is not a particularly demanding task, intelligence-wise, but I know plenty of scholars who could not raise even weeds if their life depended on it,” Anya said.

  “That’s ridiculous. Clearly people come in a range, some intelligent and some idiots. What about simpletons? Are you telling me they are intelligent?” Viola asked crossing her arms.

  “No. But I doubt you would argue they are not still people. You would not call them an animal or beast would you? So it is not just intelligence, or your level of intelligence, that makes you a person. If that is true of humans, why should it not be true of gods as well? Besides, you have only heard of dragons from myths and legends told by the old gods to discredit the dragons, and make men fear them. These stories in turn have been further exaggerated and distorted over time. I have seen dragons and I tell you that they do speak, and that they are very intelligent. Just because they may not come up to you and have a conversation in Common with you does not prove otherwise. Their interests are not those of humans. Even if we could communicate with them, I doubt we would grasp what they were trying to tell us.”

  “Fine, but they don’t have powers like the gods.”

  “They do, actually. Though their powers are different, they certainly have powers that no human has, and is that not really why we call the gods, gods?”

  “What powers do they have?” Nat asked.

  “They have the power to kill gods, for one. And not just through sheer strength and ferocity, which you will see displayed soon enough. They have their own magic. That is why the old gods wanted them destroyed. That is why they had their war.”

  “But if they had the power to destroy the gods, then why didn’t…” Viola began before Anya cut her off.

  “They did kill them. Hundreds of them. There were far more old gods than you have ever heard of. The dragons killed most of them. Long ago, before the war, the dragons cared little about what the old gods did. They kept to themselves and rarely even noticed the gods. But eventually they found their lives, and plans, being disrupted by the gods. The dragons began to grow concerned with how numerous the gods had become. You see, dragons do not really exist on the same level as gods or people do. Physically, they occupy this same world that we do, but their thoughts are… elsewhere. Their concerns, well not even my people understand their concerns. But they were never interested in exterminating the old gods, just thinning out their ranks. They killed a great many… likely most of them, but then when they had reached a point they felt was right for their plans, they just stopped. They retreated to their mountains and went back to their business. The gods did not know why this was either. The dragons certainly could have hunted them down to the last. But the dragons decided not to.

  “I am sure you can imagine what came next. What you would do if, say, a neighboring village launched, from your perspective, an unprovoked attack one day and killed off three in every four of your people, particularly if that village just went back to its day to day activities afterward. I can’t really blame the gods for what they did. From their perspective, the dragons massacred them for no reason. My people believe the dragons were simply performing pest control. But, like you Viola, the gods didn’t see the dragons as anything more than violent animals either.

  “I think the misunderstanding went both ways. I think the dragons saw what the gods were doing and, not really understanding why the gods were doing it, just thought they were mindless pests. They never tried to understand the gods. Never tried to communicate,” Anya said.

  “How could they not see the intelligence of the gods? The gods were creating things! They were creating creatures just like them!” Viola said, her voice revealing her growing incredulity.

  “There is an insect that farms a kind of fungus found nowhere else. It has figured out a way to cultivate this unique thing that no other creature knows how to grow. Yet, it is still an insect. We do not call it a person. I am never going to fully be able to comprehend how a god sees things, but what if what the gods use to create their creatures, their krakens and their oracles and their nymphs and satyrs, what if, to another god, that creating new life is as simple to them as the accomplishment of that insect, gathering and growing the fungus, seems to us? I make bread with things I can find everywhere. What if all it takes to make a creature is the ability to perceive the stuff of life, harvest it, and combine? What if, to them, all we are is a kind of fungus they have figured out how to grow and manipulate? To the dragons that just is not particularly incredible or special, because they are far beyond that.”

  Viola was silent for a while.

  “Based on that logic, cats could very well be gods, too. We just can’t understand it.”

  “Well, I am not basing this entirely on what ifs and conjecture. I have seen evidence of what dragons can do. I may not understand exactly what it means, but I have seen them do things… things I do not even have the words to describe. What it is I am seeing? I cannot say. All I have seen my cat do is lick her anus which, I agree, is pretty damned impressive considering there is no way I would be able to do that to myself. But you make a fair point. In any case, I and my people, have always held that dragons are gods. You can decide for yourself when you see them. I am merely relaying to you a history that, until now, no mortal save my people have heard.”

  “So what happened then? I mean, how did the gods destroy the dragons?” Nat asked.

  “By destroying everything. As far as my people know, despite their powers, dragons do still need to feed, to breathe and drink. The old gods did not seem to need these things. So they worked together and destroyed everything on Tanavia. Everything burned. Plants. Animals. Everything. The mountains turned to liquid rock and flowed into the seas. The oceans boiled dry. Even the air itself was blown away to the stars. The gods turned Tanavia into a lifeless husk of barren rock. And when they were finished, the dragons were gone.”

  “But they didn’t see them die?” Cass asked. “They just assumed they’d been killed?”

  “I do not know if they saw any of them die. All the legends say is that all the dragons were gone when the gods had finished.”

  “So
where did your dragons come from?”

  “The legend says that at first, when the old gods walked the lifeless land, there was nothing but them. No dragons. But when the old gods started to re-create everything and restore Tanavia, dragon eggs just began to appear. The old gods did not make them, that is for sure. But they were there, nonetheless.”

  “There are no legends I know of that say the gods destroyed and then re-created us,” Gunnarr said.

  “It is said that Morte saved us from destruction. When the world was scoured of life, all people went to his realm. Instead of treating us all as he normally would, he held us over and waited until his brethren had recreated the world. Then, he brought us all back from his realm to the newly created Tanavia. These stories are ancient. Some of the oldest surviving histories we have. They are written in the old way of my people, on urns and tablets, from before we had writing. They are not particularly detailed in many aspects,” Anya said.

  “So how do you hatch a dragon’s egg? Or is that also one of the vaguer points of your history,” Cass asked with a smile.

  “That is actually very detailed. First you have to find the egg. Now, we find eggs here. But then we had to search for them,” Anya began.

  “Wait, let’s go back a step. If the world was destroyed, how did you know about dragons,” Viola asked.

  “Gron,” Anya said.

  “Gron?” several of the group asked at once.

  “He is not spoken of in many texts, as he has not been seen for thousands of years. Gron is an old god. Our people refer to him as the God of the Living. He balances things out. Creates the circle if you will,” Anya said.

  “Circle?” Viola asked.

  “Crickets eat leaves. Birds eat crickets. Snakes eat birds. Weasels eat snakes, and so on until you get to mountain bear. Then mountain bear dies. Mountain bear’s carcass makes the soil good. Leaves grow in soil. The circle.”

  “Okay. So, Gron told you… because the destruction of dragons messed up the circle somehow?”

  “It is not really known why. Guilt? Duty? Fear? We do not know. He just told us everything we needed to know to bring them back. Helped us hatch some. Then he disappeared.”

  Nat kicked a stone and listened to it as it skipped away into the brush. He had been watching the trees carefully, unsure if he had seen something or not. As Anya continued, he stayed calm but kept a wary eye on the woods.

  “A dragon’s egg,” Anya continued, “looks very much like a stone. It is not smooth like a bird’s egg. It is rough and cracked and usually not symmetrical. It is not particularly remarkable looking. But it does have a roughly egg shape to it. It is about the size of a man’s head. It is subtle enough that when our people were first looking we brought back many eggs that turned out to simply be rocks. Then, depending on what kind of dragon you want to hatch, you place it in the right habitat.”

  “A dragon egg can become any type of dragon?” Viola asked.

  “Yes. A properly clutched egg can be hatched to be an ice, fire, earth, or water dragon.”

  “Where do you place them?”

  “Ice dragons are born from the heart of a glacier. Fire from the heart of a volcano. Earth from the heart of a mountain. There is a large glacier to the south of here that we can reach without too much trouble. Of course there are the mountain ranges, and a few active volcanoes on the smaller islands around Arless that are not that hard to reach. Because of that, we do not have much trouble hatching those. But the other two species are a different matter. Water is trickier for us. You would imagine it would be easy. Just toss the egg over anywhere in the ocean and—water dragon. But you actually have to place it at the heart of an ocean. Gron had to tell us where the ocean’s heart was located. It actually has more than one, but there is another creature that tends to roam those waters.”

  “Kraken,” Gunnarr said stiffly.

  “Yes. Not only do we have trouble sailing these waters, but you have to wait until the dragon has hatched before you can leave. We have to gather up the hatchling to take it home. It will surface near where you drop it, but it takes two weeks for the egg to hatch. We have the charts, so we know when the kraken will not be in that part of the ocean, but when you are clutching a dragon, it seems to call them. We do not know why, it just does. We have lost many friends over the years trying to hatch more water dragons. We have eleven of them now. I am not sure if we will ever have more unless the dragons themselves are willing to drop off and watch over their eggs. We do not know if they ever will. They seem content to let us do the work for them.”

  “You said there were two other kinds you had trouble hatching,” Patch said. “What’s the last one?”

  “Star dragons. Those we cannot hatch. As you probably guessed, the egg is placed in the heart of a star. Gron hatched the only three we know of. Those are the ones we are going to visit now. They are the most cantankerous of the lot. Their aerie is the last place my people would expect me to go. We don’t have to go there much, since we never have any hatchlings to drop off. So they are unused to seeing people, and do not like it too much when they do.”

  “As much as I’m enjoying hearing all about dragons,” Nat said, careful not to raise his voice in alarm, “I’m quite certain we’re being stalked by a protean lion. I’m guessing we’ll want to do something about that. Now.”

  Chapter 14

  “Okay,” Anya said quietly, “we want to slowly come to a stop. Do not run. Just group up.”

  Following Anya’s lead, each step a little slower than the last, they bunched together first and then halted. Gunnarr and Nat drew their swords in unison. Anya produced a short but lethally sharp dagger. Manfred, Cass, Patch and Viola, were weaponless.

  “Are you sure,” Gunnarr asked, keeping his voice level lest he antagonize any potential predators.

  Nat nodded.

  “I first caught sight of it a while ago, but in the forest it was hard to tell if it wasn’t just a shifting shadow. It was far off then, deep in the trees. It could have been a trick of the light, so I just kept an eye out. But a few moments ago I saw its face. It can change its skin color to blend in all it wants, but it can’t change those yellow eyes.”

  “I only ever had to deal with a protean once,” Anya said, “and we had six guardians with us. In the end, the protean ran off, badly wounded, and four of the guardians were dead. I do not know how we are going to manage this. Our guardians are what you would call warriors, and we only have two of those at the moment.”

  For a few tense moments nobody said anything. The woods around them were utterly silent—not even the birds were chirping.

  “There’s a husk hive off that way a bit,” Patch said, the sudden sound startling everyone.

  “How could you know that?” Anya asked, surprised.

  “I can smell it. Those things reek of rot,” he replied. “I’ve always just written that off to their ghastly diet.”

  “You couldn’t have scented the protean, too, eh goat boy?” Manfred said snidely.

  “Certainly I could have, had there been anything to scent. But he’s smart. He’s been downwind of us this whole time. The smell of the hive has been growing stronger with each step. It also would have drowned out his smell until he was too close for us to do anything about it, even if he hadn’t been keeping downwind.”

  “Are you suggesting we lure the protean to the husk hive? If you can smell them, it has to be able to as well,” Anya said.

  “Yeah, I know it can. It won’t go near the hive. Proteans aren’t stupid,” Patch said.

  “So you’re saying, we should go to the hive?” Nat asked confused, “but…”

  “Yeah, they’d kill us faster than the protean. No, I’m thinking maybe if I can get it to give chase, it might get a little reckless. It might just follow me into the husk territory,” Patch said, “if it was really close behind.”

  “That’s not going to work. Even if you did manage to trick it into following you in there, you’d be sucked dry before you
made it back out of their territory,” Cass persisted. “You don’t need to be a hero here, Patch.”

  Patch reached out slowly, hesitating the moment before contact, then gently settled his hand on Cass’ arm.

  “I owe a blood debt, and more.”

  Cass stared at the satyr. Patch evenly returned her gaze. What he wanted more than anything at that moment was to stop thinking about Suman. He hoped this act, if he survived, would allow him to let go of his guilt and drive the image of Suman’s smirking face from his mind.

  “I know it might seem otherwise after my performance back in the cave, but I am the swiftest and most sure-footed of us. I’m the only one who has any chance of baiting the protean without getting caught, not to mention escaping the hive. If we stay here and face the protean head on, one or two of us might get away. At best. This way, maybe all of us get away and, at worst, all but one of us does. We don’t really have time to argue, he’s going to get impatient and rush us soon enough,” Patch said.

  “The husks will kill you, Patch,” Cass said.

  “Oh, they’ll come down as soon as I get close, but I’m just a scrawny snack compared to the protean. The protean is a four course meal, and they’ll all need to concentrate on it if they hope to take it down. I think I’ll be able to get out.”

  “How will you get it to follow you?” Gunnarr asked as he scanned the forest trying to pinpoint the great lion.

  “I’m goat enough that he should pick that scent up. Goats are a prey animal. One whiff of me breaking off from the group, alone, in an apparent panic? I might as well dress myself on a giant platter. Trust me, it’ll follow me,” Patch said.

  Anya wasn’t willing to risk waiting any longer. She made the decision for the group.

  “As soon as you have dealt with the protean,” she told Patch, “head southeast, keeping that ridgeline on your right. After about six hours brisk foot travel you will come to an area that looks like it has had a lot of avalanches. Massive boulders littering the area, some piled precariously atop each other. If you look carefully, you will find one such cluster, a narrow, tall shard of boulder protruding from it, like a knife blade jutting into the sky. On the east face of the base of that pile a narrow crack between all the stones that, once beyond the opening, opens up onto the path to the star dragons. That is where you will find us. We will rest at the opening until dawn, as it is unwise to approach a dragon at night. I hope we see you again, brave satyr.”