Bloodchild

by Anna Stephens

  ‘It may be the divine in man relates to the child as well?’ she murmured and Dom couldn’t help his intake of breath or the cough it triggered. Tanik nodded as though he’d confirmed her suspicions. ‘You will betray your child to the enemy. When it is born it will be special, with powerful magic or magic performed upon it. It has a great destiny and will draw all souls to itself. You know this, and so you harbour thoughts of killing it and so preventing the catastrophe.’

  Dom had no words, could hear nothing more over the roaring in his ears. He hadn’t thought that, not once. He wouldn’t. Betray Rillirin and their babe? Never. Never. He’d die rather than think such horrors.

  But Tanik’s words were chiming with something deep inside, something oily and putrescent, a lingering idea that had sparked almost as soon as he’d killed the Dark Lady and knew what an awful mistake it had been, how he needed to bring Her back.

  ‘This is horseshit,’ he said, as steadily as he could manage. ‘These cards are toys; you can interpret them any way you like. They’re not the gods’ words. We agree I likely have deep-seated feelings about my birth parents and of course I don’t want my own child to feel the same and so I’ll do right by it, and the harvest is the hope for peace! It’s not complicated. They’re just pictures that tell a story.’

  Despite his words, he didn’t know what to believe, or what he’d been thinking when he’d selected the cards. She’d seeded the thought in his head, yes, but had it found fertile soil?

  ‘Now, we had a deal,’ the Seer-Mother said as though she hadn’t just carved a hole inside Dom. ‘What did you see during your rather theatrical vision?’

  ‘Is this it?’ Dom demanded, ignoring her question and sweeping the cards aside with the stump of his arm. ‘Is this the only way you see the future? You don’t speak directly with the gods?’

  ‘The gods speak directly through the cards,’ Tanik corrected him, a hint of impatience creeping into her voice.

  ‘And you decide what you think they mean by adding together the pictures into a story? That’s not knowing; that’s not real. It’s – it’s pretend. You could say anything that fits those images.’ He took a breath. ‘You’re trying to discredit me, and you’re trying to pretend Crys isn’t your god, but you’re the one who’s a fraud. These cards are meaningless. They can be interpreted in a thousand different ways – there’s no chance you could ever know for sure what the Dancer is telling you.’

  He’d expected Tanik to erupt, but instead she sat serene before him, hands folded together, her many beads and amulets rattling softly as she tipped her head on to one side and watched him along the blade of her nose.

  ‘You are wasting time playing games with me, when you should be on your knees pledging to serve your gods, to serve Crys,’ he continued, heaving for breath in the dark, close confines of the smoky vision house. ‘What is it you want from me? Why have you led these people astray?’

  Tanik gestured and Pesh slid past her to throw more herbs on to the brazier. A thick grey cloud rolled up to hang among the low roof beams. Dom’s head swam. ‘You’re going to give your child to the Red Gods.’

  ‘I am not,’ Dom snarled as images tickled at the corners of his eyes. He blinked them away.

  ‘Lies and falsity, the very things of which you accuse me,’ Tanik said, tapping a fingernail against the cards Dom himself had chosen. His head was reeling and the tattoos around her eyes seemed to draw him in so he couldn’t look away. ‘Fire,’ she murmured, ‘bright flags of fire in your eyes. In your head. Messages in the fire. Messages about your child, about Rillirin. Tell me of her. Rillirin. Tell me.’

  ‘How do you know that name?’ he managed but again it was too late. Dom’s jaws snapped together and he lurched sideways – and fell. Into the flames. Into the images and the pain and the knowing. He could hear screaming.

  When it was over, when the world returned to him and he to his body, the ground was pressing into his back. The pain in his head was excruciating and tears were sliding down his cheeks into his hair. A familiar exhaustion, stinking as a corpse shroud, lay over his limbs. Heels and elbows and shoulder blades throbbed with bone-deep bruises from the convulsions.

  The words were in his head and his throat was raw, but he had no idea if he’d told them anything. Everything. He forced open his eyes and Tanik and Pesh were there, silent, watching him.

  ‘You make quite the spectacle,’ Tanik Horse-dream said eventually, and that’s when Dom noticed the cards on the yellow silk square before her had changed. He grunted and held his hand to his right eye, trying to focus the left. Didn’t work; he couldn’t make out the images as they writhed like living things across the cards. Pesh threw more leaves on the fire and Dom suddenly realised what they were doing, how they were forcing the knowings out of him. He hadn’t even suspected such a thing was possible; he had no idea how they knew what to do or how he could stop it. A whimper slid from his throat and he tried holding his breath, but his body was so spent it demanded air. He sucked in smoke as well, felt it tingling in his throat, his lungs, into his brain.

  ‘Please don’t,’ he managed. ‘The Fox God will never forgive you. You’re His priestess, His and the Dancer’s. Please, no more.’

  The Seer-Mother chuckled and wafted the smoke in his direction. She breathed deep of it herself, but he knew it wasn’t meant for her. ‘You can feel it, can’t you? The lure of the Blood? You can see the Dark Path once more beneath your feet, can’t you, Calestar? Serving Blood, always serving Blood.’

  Dom tried to scrabble backwards but his body was as unresponsive as a sack of meat. And shining bright in the centre of him: memory and loss and love and devotion. Adoration. He tried to push it away but it coated his hands and arms and face and soul, drew him into its red-black vortex. Drew him back in. He wept and struggled and begged and then surrendered and embraced it. Felt it slip around him Blood-warm, Blood-soft. Wept some more.

  ‘Fire and knowledge, Calestar. Such knowledge; enough for us all to share. Where is General Mace Koridam and what are his plans?’ Tanik asked, her voice low and coaxing. ‘You can see him, can’t you? In the flames? Go to him, learn his intentions. And tell me.’

  Teeth gritted, fist clenched at his side, Dom thought of Gilda’s face instead, wise and laughing and suffused with strength. Gilda and the Light. He reached for her but the image trembled, shifted, slid into another. A different woman, one beautiful, lustful, and lost. He choked.

  The fire roared.

  Time passed of which Dom knew nothing, and then someone was lifting his head and shoulders roughly, shoving a hard cushion under them and letting him drop with little care. The inside of his skull felt as though it had been scoured out with salt and rusty blades and his eyesight, if anything, was worse. Blood and saliva mixed thick and sticky in his mouth and he couldn’t spit it out. Couldn’t move. Could barely breathe.

  Dom had lost count of the knowings, of the questions or the answers he’d given – if he’d given them any. Gods knew he’d tried not to, but his throat was raw with screams, stinging with bile and thick vision smoke, and, for all he knew, from shouting answers at them in response to the incessant questioning.

  ‘Go,’ the Seer-Mother said, though not to him, and a figure exited the vision house. She loomed over him and there was a sharp sting beneath his ear and then a fierce burning through the skin and into his head and neck. The light filtering in through the wattle walls was a rich golden summer afternoon. Hours, then. Hours in the fire, burning.

  Numbness spread through Dom’s neck and tongue from the site of the stinging pain beneath his ear, stealing sensation from his skin, his mouth, his nose, creeping towards his eye.

  Sound faded in and out and his vision steadily darkened. The numbness moved into his chest, down his arm.

  The fire raged one last time inside him, and Dom flung himself towards it, seeking not knowledge but oblivion. An ending. The cushion did nothing to deaden the impact of convulsion, but Dom’s body was so drained that
he did little more than twitch, weak as a drowning kitten.

  He found the fire – the ending – with something like relief.

  He fell.

  CRYS

  Eighth moon, first year of the reign of King Corvus

  Seer’s Tor, Krike

  ‘What the fuck? Dom?’

  Ash’s shout brought Crys at a run from the kitchen, fingers clutching for a sword that had been confiscated before their imprisonment began.

  The door was open and Dom lay in front of it, sprawled and unconscious. ‘He had one of his fits,’ a Krikite said and walked away.

  Ash stared after him for a second and then bent to Dom. The calestar was the grey of a dead fire, his skin waxen with old sweat. ‘Help me get him inside,’ he said and Crys grabbed his legs and together they manoeuvred him on to a bed. ‘He’s breathing, but only just. Lie him on his side; I don’t want him choking if he pukes. And get all the blankets we have. And make some broth.’

  Crys did as he was told, moving fast. He handed Ash a cup and the man tried to dribble some into Dom’s mouth, but he didn’t swallow and they had to tilt his head to get it back out again.

  ‘He’s barely breathing,’ Ash said. ‘This is bad, Crys. We need a healer.’

  ‘Keep him warm; I’ll get one.’ Crys opened the front door again and the guards leapt to attention, brandishing spears. ‘Our friend is sick. Fetch a healer, please.’ Nobody moved. ‘He might be dying.’ Still nothing. ‘Then get me the Seer-Mother. Dom was with her when this happened and I’ve got some questions of my own. Fetch her!’

  ‘Seer-Mother is in retreat at the top of the tor,’ a Krikite said. ‘No one’s to interrupt her when she’s communing with the gods.’

  Crys’s mouth was sour. ‘Oh, believe me,’ he grated, ‘she’s not communing with the gods. I’d know if she was. Whoever it is she’s talking to up there, it’s not for your benefit or your land’s. Now get her here.’

  The warrior who’d spoken blew out his cheeks with affected boredom and then spat a thick gob of saliva on to the grass. ‘Not happening.’

  Crys slammed the door on them and returned to the bedchamber. ‘They’re not shifting and they won’t send for aid.’ He stared down at the motionless figure. ‘All right, move. Let me see what I can do.’

  He knelt by the bed and put his hands on Dom’s brow and stomach, closed his eyes and reached. ‘Come on, come on,’ he muttered through gritted teeth. ‘Foxy, come on. He needs us.’

  Climb the tor.

  Crys’s eyes opened. ‘What?’

  Climb the tor and make them all see. Dream with them. Go now.

  He rose to his feet. ‘What are you doing?’ Ash demanded. ‘Crys, love, I know what he did but … I think he’s dying.’

  Crys pulled off his boots and socks. ‘I have to climb the tor. I have to go … home, to my birthplace.’

  Ash gaped. ‘What the living fuck are you on about? We need a healer, not a fucking picnic with a view.’

  ‘I know it doesn’t make sense, but I have to dream with them. It’s time to show them all who I am. The Seer-Mother’s up there and she won’t come down, so I’ll go to her.’ He pulled off his shirt, unbuckled his empty sword belt and kept just a knife shoved into the back of his trousers. ‘Find Cutta and tell her I’m climbing the tor. Tell her the Fox God will dream with them all at dawn, but they have to take the Cunning Way. You too, and bring Dom. I’ll see you at the top. Bring as many as you can; tell Cutta to help.’

  ‘Dawn?’ Ash demanded. ‘Trickster’s cock, man, what are you going to do?’

  Crys took a swig of water and then shook out his arms. ‘What I have to. Just get them up there. When they see me climbing, they’ll want to come. I hope.’ He didn’t wait for an answer, just ripped open the front door again and stalked out. Shirtless in the bright sun, he knew the spectacle his scars would make and he could feel the heat in his eyes as they began to glow. ‘Take me to the Seer-Mother.’

  The Krikites stumbled backwards and half of them set their spears in readiness to run him through. ‘It is forbidden. You have not been summoned and you are not Krikite.’

  Crys shrugged and began walking; they scattered from his path and then rushed to catch up, trying to slow him but unwilling to touch. ‘Then stop me or bear witness.’

  They wouldn’t stop him.

  Crys dug his toes into a crack in the rock and ground out a curse as a nail split and a hot spike of pain shot through his foot. He spat on his palm, rubbed his fingertips in it, repeated with his other hand and then shook out both arms one at a time. Just dropping his arms below shoulder height was exquisite relief. He stretched out his aching fingers, face and chest pressed to the rock to maintain his balance.

  The sun was tumbling out of the sky and he was only a little over halfway up, but his heart was slowing now that he’d made the traverse around the outcrop. The rock face was already in shadow, making it harder to see the route he’d thought to take. If it was a route. Looks bastard different up here to how it seemed down there. Higher for one. A fuckload scarier for two.

  He took a steadying breath and chanced a look down and then all around, studying the striations and cracks, trying to find a dozen that he could string together to get him higher. Up and to his right, an arm’s length distant, was a wide lip of rock. He could get his hands and maybe even his elbows on that, haul himself up to sitting and have a proper rest, and then use it to move up. He squinted. No toeholds to reach it. He’d have to swing, handholds or nothing. If he missed the lip he’d fall, but even so it looked like his best option. It was that or climb back down and start again, and he knew this was his only chance. If he didn’t summit now he’d started, the Krikites would kill him.

  Hundreds had gathered at the base of the tor, craning their necks up to watch his progress. He just had to hope Ash and Cutta could encourage them to come back at sunrise to dream with him. If they didn’t, well, there was a good chance the Seer-Mother wouldn’t let him back down alive.

  Flicking the blood off his feet and then wedging his sore toes deeper, Crys shook out his arms again and flexed his fingers, got a tight grip with his left hand and then pushed his arse backwards and began to rock from side to side, right hand reaching for the ledge. He swung three times and at the apex of the fourth he let go, drove through his legs and flung himself through space towards the lip.

  He missed.

  Crys wasn’t falling. He absolutely wasn’t falling, because that would be ridiculous and terrifying and oh fuck, I’m falling!

  In fact, once he’d slammed into the rock, it turned out he really wasn’t falling so much as sliding back down, stone burning his palms and chest and the soles of his feet as he pressed himself against it, scrabbling for purchase. He slid twice his own height before his right foot hit a ledge almost hard enough to break his ankle. The impact arrested his speed just enough for him to find a crevice and burrow his fist inside and then he hung, suspended by his left hand and right foot, panting, bleeding from a score of abrasions and with an insane laugh bubbling through his chest.

  Cursing and giggling and drunk on adrenaline and fear, he found a fingerhold for his right hand and, shoulders burning, rock rash scoring his bare flesh, he began again to climb.

  Crys could clearly see the rock wall despite the dark, and the stir of the wind against his skin was a language he could almost understand. Guiding him, teasing him towards the handholds that would take his weight and gain him another few inches. As though he’d become a part of the landscape, its heart beating in his chest.

  His legs were shaking now, his forearms and the muscles in his hands thick and stiff with fatigue, but the stars were above him instead of stone – another half-dozen reaches and he’d have made it.

  Sweat stung his eyes and trickled down his cheek to slide bitter into his mouth. He licked his dry lips with his dry tongue, thirst ravaging his throat. Soft and furtive sounds from above – people moving around, talking in low voices, the growing orange glow of tor
ches. It was tempting to call for help, but he’d come this far without it and didn’t need it now.

  The next few handholds were easy, his toes jamming into crevices and clinging to tiny outcrops as though he was more squirrel than fox, and then, suddenly, he was there. He climbed over the edge and reached flat ground, standing tall despite the urge to cling to the surface in case he inexplicably threw himself off the top after all his efforts to reach it. His belly undulated as he sucked in cool air and starlight.

  There was a group of people peering down the tor’s side about twenty strides from him; they must have lost sight of him in the darkness. He backed away from the light, around a hump of rock and into the darkness, leaving them to their useless searching, wandering until he found his feet rooted to the stone.

  Here?

  Here. Sit and listen.

  Crys sat cross-legged, feeling the sweat dry on his chest and shoulders and back and his muscles soften and relax, the poisons of exertion seeping away. He watched the night, the sliver of moon and the peeking stars hiding and revealing their faces behind veils of cloud. The wind hummed around the stone, laughing, and bats and owls and night moths rode its currents. Crys listened to the wind and the stone, the moon and clouds and stars, the gentle lullaby of the earth sleeping far below.

  The tor connected earth with sky, body with soul, and human with divine. Crys was a knot in the thread between the heart of the night and the soul of the earth. He could reach out and touch … everything. He could feel the sanctity of this place moving like a slow ripple through the tor and through him, a constant ululation. It was both ancient and familiar and sparkling with newness.

  He inhaled summer night and reached inside himself, probing into the spaces the god inhabited, curling into and around and through what he found there, ivy through a skeleton, binding life with memory.

  And the Trickster grew to meet him, a feeling like a beloved’s fingers sliding through his in every part of his body so that Crys realised he was laughing and weeping at the same time, quietly so as not to shatter the experience. He was welcomed into his own body, understanding then that it had never really been his, and wasn’t his now. It was theirs, a shared and sacred space. A home. The binding of the split souls begun under Dom’s torture was completed now with love.