“Naamah talks rebellion,” Agrat Bat said in a lower voice, as if afraid she might be overheard.
“She should not encourage such a thing!” Eisheth’s voice rose in alarm. Then she too lowered her voice and leaned toward her sister. “Komor’s men are everywhere.”
“You mean his spies?”
“Komor must keep the peace,” Eisheth said. “If he can stop an uprising before it starts, it will saves live in the long run.”
“And if not?” Agrat Bat said quietly. “If the people rise up?”
“He will make an example of them,” Eisheth said. As she spoke, she realized she sounded like Komor, using the very same words he’d used to explain to her how important it was to maintain order and discipline. “But better that than it happen again in the future.”
“What happened to Komor’s kindness and gentleness?” Agrat Bat shook her head. “I don’t believe you even hear your own words, sister—if they are your own words. You have fallen under the Storm King’s spell, but he’s using you. He doesn’t love you, Eisheth. He only loves himself and power and riches.”
“You’re wrong. You don’t know him.” Eisheth turned without waiting for a response and marched out of the temple.
At the base of the steps was a cluster of soldiers. They blocked her way. She stood on the step above them, waiting for them to move aside.
“Dorse returned to Storm King’s Mountain this morning,” one of them was saying. “The Carria tribesmen have sued for peace. They have offered up enough gold to fill three wagons.”
“Which is an insult,” another said. “We should take it all.”
Eisheth cleared her throat. The men didn’t even look at her, but they stood aside just enough to create a small opening between them.
“Make way for the Goddess,” one of the men said as she passed.
It wasn’t said in respect, but with a mocking tone. She whirled on him, a talon forming on her right hand. The man’s eyes widened, and he stepped back.
Eisheth went on, hearing the men whispering behind her. There was fear there, but also scorn. As she turned the corner, she heard laughter.
She wasn’t sure what was most alarming: the soldiers’ disrespect, or that they spoke of Lilith’s Home as Storm King’s Mountain.
***
The Rites of Spring were far grander than anything that had come before. The priests and priestesses wore cloaks of gold and vermillion, and their high, peaked hats flashed in the morning sun, covered in gemstones and silver. The litter they carried Agrat Bat upon was of polished and ornately carved wood. Flower petals were strewn upon the path, and their fragrance filled the air. Komor had brought musicians from the outside world, who played a stately march.
Eisheth wore a white gown covered in pearls. The worshippers who surrounded her were gathered in orderly rows. None would look at her. The crowd itself was quiet, instead of the usual raucous celebrators of past springs.
Eisheth sought out Agrat Bat’s eyes as she passed. Where is the disrespect now? she wanted to ask. Komor had done everything he could to honor the ancient rituals. Surely it would enhance the people’s veneration of the sisters. Komor was right: they’d become too common, too much like their followers. As Goddesses, they were above that, and should be treated with formality and honor.
A murmur ran through the crowd. Eisheth heard gasps.
She turned to see Naamah approaching, followed by the denizens of the lower city. They were unwashed, Eisheth saw, which was something she had never noticed before.
Naamah might as well have been naked. She wore a dress that was so sheer that her entire body could be seen beneath it. She was barefoot, her hair wild. She had a gleam in her eyes and a sway to her walk.
Eisheth felt herself responding. She looked over at Komor, who sat like a king upon a throne on a small hill overlooking the ceremony. She hoped to catch his eye, to communicate the desire she suddenly felt for him.
He was frowning, and Eisheth was confused.
We are Goddesses of love and fertility, she thought. We aren’t meant to be above men and women; we are the embodiment of them.
Agrat Bat descended from the litter, fatter than ever before.
She didn’t look around as she began the cutting. There was no joy in the act; no one cried out in gladness as she sprinkled the fields with her blood.
Eisheth and Naamah followed without speaking to each other. The whole thing felt wrong, joyless, as though it was a duty and not a blessing.
The Blood is as potent as ever, Eisheth reminded herself. It will do what it was meant to do.
There were more fields than before. It was almost too much. By the time Naamah had shed the last drop she dared, they were all three skeletons, barely able to stay on their feet.
They reached the white path and started upward.
It was only then that Eisheth realized that the people had not paired up. They had not wandered off hand in hand to celebrate the spring. Instead, they stood with heads lowered.
The Storm King was standing upon his hill, and he gestured for the Daughters of Lilith to approach. Agrat Bat looked as though she wanted to ignore him, but Eisheth gave her a pleading look. Naamah followed her sisters out of curiosity.
The Storm King strode down the hill, his arms spread. “Magnificent. I’m glad to have witnessed it.” He took Eisheth in his arms. As she laid her head on his shoulder, she felt her arm lifted. The wound there was still open, and would be until she regained life force.
She stepped back, confused, as Komor raised her arm and sucked upon the wound.
He threw his head back and roared as blood ran down his chin and splattered onto his armored chest. The sound sent a chill though her, because it sounded anything but glad. It was a shout of triumph.
“The Blood of the Succubus!” the Storm King shouted to his men. “It is all that I hoped for!”
He stood back and examined the Goddesses. Unconsciously, Eisheth stepped backward, between her two sisters, and put her arms around their waists.
“Take them!” Komor shouted.
The Daughters of Lilith were at their weakest, and they were surprised, even Agrat Bat and Naamah. Eisheth didn’t even move as the soldiers swarmed her, throwing her to the ground and putting chains on her.
They dragged her to her feet and pushed her in the direction of the temple. Agrat Bat and Naamah were being carried, screaming, their talons extended, their faces turning to their ugliest, most primitive form.
No, Sisters! Eisheth wanted to shout. Don’t let the people see you thus. It will only help the Storm King!
She tried to keep her dignity, despite being shoved from behind by the soldiers. She maintained the illusion until she was out of sight of the crowds. Only then did she strike out.
Perhaps because she had appeared to give in, her guards were taken by surprise. She cut into the neck of one of the soldiers who was pushing her, and then bit into the arm of the soldier on her right. The soldier on the left clubbed her with the pommel of his sword, and she staggered and fell to her knees.
Then she was up, snarling, and it took an entire troop of men to bring her down, and there were bodies and pieces of bodies strewn about the temple floor by the time they did.
She was struck again, this time by some kind of club, and the next thing she knew she was being carried, tied up so tightly she couldn’t move.
The soldiers took the sisters deep into the caves, where water clung to the walls and the temperature made them shiver.
Iron chains had been attached to the rock, and the Goddesses were put into them, side by side, just out of reach of each other.
And then the men retreated, the light of the torches and the boisterous voices receding, until they were alone and the only sound was the slow dripping of water.
Agrat Bat screamed a primordial scream, and Eisheth knew that her sister had regressed back to being one of the creatures they had been before the first men and women found them. Naamah joined her, her voice hig
her, more screeching.
Eisheth herself could no longer maintain her human form, and felt herself transforming completely, her thoughts becoming unformed and instinctive, and her screaming joined that of her sisters.
Chapter 13
Gasper Gerhard’s Journal
My son asked me a question that startled me—not the question itself so much as the fact that I’d forgotten that I once wondered the same thing.
Why should the Cutting make us invisible to the Succubae?
Lord knows, I still dream of making love. My wife comes to me, young and happy, not knowing about my destiny and how it will be her destiny too. We lie as we did that first time beneath a tree in the dark, our parents in the house just feet away, trying to make love passionately and not make any noise.
In my dreams, I even climax.
So why should the Cutting work? I never discovered in my readings when the Cutting started. Sometime after the Fall, I suppose. Did the Succubae, having escaped, come back to take revenge on the surviving Guardians?
The histories don’t say.
Once discovered, the Cutting became the method by which we hid from the Succubae. No one asked why. No one wondered if there was any point to it, beyond our own survival. It has occurred to me at times that we should try to capture or kill the Succubae, but our line is too weak, so diminished that there is no chance we could succeed.
So we continue on, protecting the Blood, but to what purpose?
***
In the end, Heinrich found his way upward by going downward.
He worked on the trapdoor for a long time, trying to pry it open with the knives, then attempting to cut through it. The trapdoor was solid, with barely a seam to put a knife blade in. He snapped off the end of several blades, cutting a large gouge into his forearm with one of them, the kind of wound that once would have seemed terrible, but was now no more than an inconvenience. A single drop of Blood, and he was made whole.
He pounded on the door in frustration and shouted for help, Succubus or no Succubus.
Does Father lie dead beyond? The thought of it made him retreat and reconsider.
Surely Gasper didn’t intend for him to die here.
The door seemed to be the only way out, and it looked impervious. While it may have been possible to open it in the long run, in the long run, he was going to starve. On the bright side, there was a steady water supply from an underground rivulet under the rock fall that blocked the tunnel. Heinrich’s food supply was limited, however, and would eventually run out.
Even worse, he was running out of lantern oil, and it was only the light and the reading of the manuscripts that kept him sane. He’d never thought he could be lonely, but now he was finding that the time he had spent with his father had been more important than he’d thought.
The voice that came through Gasper’s journal was that of a stranger: thoughtful and kind, patient and considerate. So different from the brusque, angry parent Heinrich had known.
Of all the journals, going back to the beginning, his father’s was the most interesting. Gasper asked the most impertinent questions, pondered the contradictions, wondered at the magic. Only he, it seemed, doubted the Guardians’ purpose.
Until Heinrich, who was truly his father’s son, and who questioned it all, doubted it all.
Before the lantern oil was gone, he fashioned some crude torches, breaking the empty wooden shelves and wrapping the pieces in the bed linens. He was forced to sleep on the hard wooden table, for the stone floors were freezing.
He did an inventory, like so many Guardians before him. The shelves were almost empty of the Blood. His father had done hundreds of Cuttings, whereas most Guardians had needed only two or three in a long lifetime. But Heinrich had the sense that other Guardians had also been profligate as their hope faded. Many of them had spent much of their lives down here, sipping the Blood, dreaming of escape.
There were three unopened stone jars left. They were larger than they looked, containing enough Blood to fill many more of the small bottles his father had used. Heinrich vowed not to touch the older receptacles, but to subsist on what his father had made from honey and Blood.
He was reading when the lantern finally sputtered out. Heinrich lit the first of the torches and made his way to the small room where his father had stored the food. All that was left were a few moldy carrots and a few pieces of jerky that Heinrich had saved for last. He dropped the scraps into a crude backpack he’d fashioned from the remnants of the bedspreads. He added the bottles of honeyed Blood.
It was now or never.
It was a desperate plan, concocted over the last few days. One morning, while drinking on his hands and knees from the small puddle at the base of the rock fall, his fingers dislodged a stone where the water seeped into the rocks. He reached over and lifted the stone. The puddle drained away, the water splashing into the darkness, and he realized that there was a larger gap behind the stones. He clawed away the loose rocks, careful not to dislodge the boulders above. He shoved the torch into the gap, which widened a few feet farther in. He tossed a rock into the darkness, and it skittered across a flat surface.
He had no choice but to explore it.
After filling his handmade pack with the food, Heinrich returned to the library and added the six bottles of Blood. He grabbed up the torches. At the last moment, he snatched up Gasper’s journal. The rest of the histories and most of the Blood, he left behind.
He slithered through the opening in the rock fall. He barely fit and the rocks ground threateningly. He started to back out, which only made it worse.
If I quit now, I’ll never try again, he thought. He pushed through the narrow opening into a broader space behind. With a crash that shook him to the bones, the tunnel through the rock fall collapsed behind him, and dust filled the narrow space, sending him into a coughing fit.
Dirt covered him, the grit grinding down between his flesh and his clothing, coating his lips and nostrils. The sound of running water faded, and when he reached up into his ears, he found them clogged with dirt.
The torches were damp from the stream. Heinrich didn’t try to light one, but continued slithering onward in the dark. I’m going to be buried down here, he thought, fighting off panic, like a giant worm; Guardian of nothing. His clothes were soaked and covered in cold mud. He was shivering, his teeth chattering.
He was gasping, trying not to scream, when he tumbled into a larger chamber.
He struggled to light a torch, and finally got one sputtering. It emitted more smoke than light, but his eyes adjusted and he went on.
It was a crooked path, created by centuries of running water always seeking the lowest point. There were spots Heinrich could squeeze through only by dragging his meager possessions behind him. He winced as the bottles banged against the rocks, but they didn’t break.
His torch sputtered its last. When it went out, he went on into the blackness, feeling his way. He had only one other torch left.
What have I done? he wondered. This is far worse than before. I’ll die alone and in the dark.
But he would probably have died the same way above, and then he would have died with the regret of not trying to escape.
Heinrich had brought several of the sharp knives. They could cut his wrists as well as they could cut his other parts.
His foot landed on air, and he fell forward. His hands flew out to either side, grabbing at the slick stone walls, and stopped himself from falling. He scrambled backward, breathing hard. When his heart finally slowed down, he inched forward on his hands and knees to the edge and struck a match.
The light illuminated only his hand, for there was nothing but darkness beyond. As the flame reached his fingers, his eyes straining, he finally managed to see the contours of the place.
The chamber was huge. The streaming water was collected in a wide, dark pool along the bottom. Heinrich threw a stone, and a couple of seconds passed before he heard the splash.
Now what?
He couldn’t go back, but the fall was too far to go forward.
He got on his stomach and slid backward into the cavern, hoping there was something, anything, under him. He was fully stretched out when his toes hit a ledge. He leaned against the rock face, closing his eyes in relief.
God still needs the Guardians, he thought. Then he grimaced. I sound like all my misguided, deluded ancestors.
He let himself all the way down onto the ledge, then reached up to get his pack. The rock was slick, angled downward, and he felt himself sliding backward. He snagged the bundle as he toppled backward and started falling.
His shout was swallowed by the cavern, a far-off, desolate sound. The fall seemed to take forever, and forever after he dreamed of it, the endless fall into the pitch dark. He expected to land on sharp rocks, but landed on the hard, wet surface of the pool instead. He hadn’t taken a breath, and as he plunged downward, he almost breathed in reflexively.
The freezing waters paralyzed him, and he sank. Only the bundle kept him from sinking farther. He kicked upward, following the buoyancy of the bundle. It was the Blood, he realized. It was lighter than water.
He burst above the surface, gasping.
Air went into his lungs instead of water. He floated on his back, trying to get a sense of where he was. He treaded water for a time, until something slick brushed against his feet and he started swimming. It didn’t matter what direction I’m going, he thought, as long as I end up somewhere on solid ground.
He pulled himself up on the shore of the pool and lay there, breathing hard. Eventually, he dragged himself completely out of the water and onto the dry shelf of rock. The bundle had held together. Gasper’s journal, which was probably waterlogged, the bottles of Blood, and the torch and matches were all there.
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