Mythic Journeys

by Paula Guran

  “There will not be if you follow my instructions.”

  Steq had known from the day the god had first spoken what food it preferred, and what they would be required to give it, if they accepted its offer. He was not ordinarily a sentimental man. But he thought of the people he had walked with in the last few days. They had been a smiling, happy lot, had offered him food and beer without stinting, even though they could not have had any idea who he was.

  They had also killed twelve of his people, had only been prevented from killing more by the protection of the god, and would not hesitate to kill Steq himself if they knew he was not of Au. Steq was not unaccustomed to the idea of human sacrifice, or shocked by it. It was only that he could not avoid some small sympathy; the Godless were well used to being required to pay gods with their lives. Still, he had not come this far to quail at the last moment.

  The camp of the pilgrims was a noisy, sprawling affair. Here and there a few tents had been raised, but mostly the men sat in the open, passing the ever-present skins of beer. What light there was came from three or four campfires, though what fuel they burned, since there seemed to be little or no wood anywhere, Steq had no idea. Everyone seemed to be near someone else, to be in conversation or sharing food or drink. If Steq had known more of the language, he could conceivably have taken a likely prospect by the arm and said something like, “Come aside, I must tell you something.” But he could not, and he reached the far edge of the camp without seeing how he could do what the god required. The thought crossed his mind that one of his own people would be made to pay, if he could not find someone of Au.

  He would not allow it. He stopped at the far edge of the camp and looked more carefully at the people around him. The two nights he had spent with the pilgrims he had taken care to stay at the edges of the camp where darkness would hide his foreign features, and where others would not pay him too much unwelcome attention. If anyone in the crowd wished to be alone he would likely do the same.

  He walked the perimeter of the camp, just outside the edges of the light cast by the several fires, and when he had nearly made a circuit he found what he sought. A single shadowed figure sat motionless on the sand, just outside the camp. He stood quietly, watching, and the man didn’t move. After a few minutes Steq walked slowly behind him, any sound he might have made covered by the raised voices of the celebrating pilgrims. He knelt behind the man and threw one arm around him, the other hand clapped across the man’s mouth.

  Steq realized immediately, with a mixture of regret and relief, that it was a boy he held, not a grown man, and in the same instant the boy bit his hand, hard. Steq did not dare let go and let the boy shout for aid, and did not dare cry out himself. He raised the arm circling the boy, meaning to strike him on the back of the head, and instantly the teeth were loosed and the boy was up and running across the beach. Steq ran after.

  He caught up quickly, and brought the boy down to the sand. Steq pinned his arms behind and wrestled him up, dragged him, as he struggled ineffectually, down the beach to the water where the dim shadow of the priest stood. In all this time, though he fought Steq ceaselessly, the boy made no sound.

  The god-possessed priest did not turn as Steq came up. “You took too long,” he said in his flat monotone. “Get a boat.”

  “And in the meantime, what about this one?” Steq asked. “I can hardly just let go of him. And you don’t want me to kill him yet.”

  Before the god could answer a sharp, thundering crack echoed across the sky. The encamped pilgrims cried out and then were silent a few moments. “We are in great danger,” said the god. “We must leave immediately.” Behind, in the camp, someone laughed and the voices started up again as though nothing had happened.

  “Why?”

  “The mountain Mueu is a volcano,” said the god. “As I have withdrawn from the island, I can no longer contain it, or any of the others.”

  “You might have said as much sooner,” said Steq, and dragged his captive along the beach until he found a small hunting boat, carefully stitched skin stretched over a frame of bone and osier. In the bottom of the boat was a coil of rope, and this he used to bind his captive. Then he called to the priest. “Over here! I have found a boat, and it will be quicker if you come to me, rather than me coming to you.” He tipped the boy into the boat and then pushed it across the tide line and into the water, hoping the skin wouldn’t tear along the way. As the god reached the boat another loud crack silenced the camp yet again. This time the returning voices were pitched higher, and seemed to carry a note of fear. The god climbed in, and Steq pushed the boat out further and then stepped in and took up the oar he found and began to row.

  “You will have to bail,” he said after a short time. “We are too many for this boat.”

  “Give me some blood,” said the priest. “I will ensure that we do not sink.”

  “Blood! To keep water out of the boat? You do not inspire confidence in your power. Are you not well-fed by the sacrifices of the people of Au?”

  “Much of my attention is currently elsewhere, keeping back the flood of melted glacier that will shortly sweep down the sides of Mueu and wash Ilu into the sea. Until we are farther from shore we are not safe, and I cannot turn my attention from Mueu. I could not do this were I not strong enough, and you will not be disappointed in me, once this danger is past.”

  “Bail,” said Steq. “I will not row the distance wounded, and I will not bleed the boy lest you complain about the condition of your victim when it comes time for the sacrifice.” He rowed a few more strokes. “Bail or drown.”

  Without a word, the priest took up a bailer from the bottom of the boat, and set to work.

  When they reached the Fleet of the Godless, Steq turned his captive over to his crew. The priest, still inhabited by the god, took up the stone again and went to the deck where he sat in front of the mast and stared ahead, saying nothing. The crew avoided him, though Steq had not told them the body was dead.

  They had already abandoned their island camps, and now they sailed south, away from Au. By afternoon the sky had darkened and ash began to fall from the air, like snow. The boats were muddy with it, and the Godless lashed the covers over the hulls to keep it out, and swept the covers and the decks constantly. They still avoided the dead priest, who did not move but sat at the mast covered in ash. That night the northern horizon was lit by a baleful red glow, and Steq approached the god.

  “Am I to understand that Au is in the process of sinking beneath the waves, thereby releasing you from your contract?”

  “Yes.” A small slide of gray ash fell from the dead priest’s mouth, the only part of him that moved. “Though it will take several more days.”

  “We are sailing away from Au with what speed we can manage.”

  “So I noticed,” said the god.

  “Will the body last long enough?”

  “I intend to preserve it until I no longer need it,” said the priest. “But in any event, I will tell you how the sacrifice will go. Cut the victim’s throat and let the blood fall on the stone. Say these words.” And here the god spoke the words of the rite. “Put both bodies into the sea. By doing this, you will be bound to the terms we agreed upon.”

  “Let us review those terms,” said Steq.

  The priest’s head moved, dislodging more ash from his face, and he opened blank, staring eyes. “I warn you, I do not have any intention of re-negotiating at this late date.”

  “Nor I,” said Steq. “I wish only to be certain there will be no misunderstandings.”

  “As you wish. I have no apprehensions.”

  “This is what we have agreed. We will give our prayers and sacrifices to no other god but you. With your assistance, we will compel all those we meet either to abandon all other gods but you, or die as your victims. We will do so until no one lives who offers rites to any other god, whereupon we will no longer be required to offer humans as sacrifices, though we will still owe you our exclusive devotion.

>   “For your part, you will protect us from all danger and misfortune, and will assist us against our enemies. We will be pre-eminent over all the peoples of the earth.”

  “For as long as you keep your end of the bargain,” said the corpse at the mast. “My wrath will be terrible if you break the terms of the agreement and turn to another god, or fail to seek out every person who does not worship only me. Such was our agreement.”

  “And if you don’t keep yours?”

  “I will keep it,” said the god. “Do you think I have gone to these lengths only to amuse myself?”

  “No,” said Steq. The corpse said nothing more.

  Steq went forward, and stood at the rail.

  He had known almost from the beginning that they were dealing with a minor god—a deity of some spring, or small island. This hardly mattered if, fed, it could do all it promised, and keep the Godless safe.

  The past sixteen years had been like a dream Steq had feared to wake from. Food had been plentiful, illness rare. The hunters of Au had let them be after a few failed attacks. No vengeful god had come upon them. And they would shortly be Godless no more.

  Do you think I have gone to these lengths only to amuse myself?

  That the god had gone to great lengths—greater lengths, perhaps, than it wished to admit—had become more and more obvious. And why did the dead priest still sit guard over the stone?

  Only one conclusion seemed likely—the god was vulnerable, and did not trust the Godless. And so, why put itself in this position?

  Steq had believed the god when it had said that it was ambitious, that the people of Au had failed to serve that ambition as it had wished them to. But was that ambition enough to drive the god to take such a risk? Steq thought not.

  The mountain Mueu is a volcano.

  The god of Au had exhausted its strength, or nearly so, holding back Mueu. Why wait sixteen years, then? Why not flee the moment the Godless presented themselves? Had it, perhaps, waited until the danger was so extreme that the island was certain to sink entirely, thus releasing it from its obligation to the people of Au?

  He thought of the wet and windy trek along the coast, the drunk, chattering villagers hauling their tribute to Ilu, the women who had pressed skins of beer on him, the men who had cheerfully shared fish and other, less identifiable food along the way. The image rose unbidden of the man in line before the Place of the God, morose until Steq took his place.

  One of the Godless spoke, then, interrupting Steq’s thoughts. “Captain, you’re needed in the starboard bow.”

  Steq climbed from the deck into the starboard hull, and stooped to pass under the coverings, which on this shallow vessel did not allow one to stand up straight. In the bow he found two crew members hunched, bewildered, in front of a crouching, naked young woman. She looked directly at him, clearly afraid but also clearly in command of herself. He remembered her silence during the pursuit and struggle on the beach. This woman was not given to panic. She was short compared to the people of Au he had met, and wide-boned. Her hair was flat and lank. Her face was the face of a woman Steq knew had died some sixteen years ago.

  “Get her some clothes,” he said to the two guards. “No one is to speak of this.” He turned, and made his way to an opening in the covers, and climbed back up onto the deck.

  Steq had his supper that evening under the covers of the port bow of O Gods Take Pity. He sat on a bundle of skins in the flickering glow of a single oil lamp, the captain of O Gods Take Pity facing him, on a bunk. They spoke in low voices, bent forward under the low ceiling, knees nearly touching.

  Steq reported all that had happened. “I don’t doubt that it will do everything it says for us,” he concluded. “But neither do I doubt that it will sink us in the sea like the people of Au if it finds some other, better bargain, or thinks itself endangered.”

  “This is self-evident,” said the captain of O Gods Take Pity. “But this is not what troubles you. You hesitate now because of the woman.”

  “I do not hesitate,” said Steq.

  “I knew you when you were an infant at your mother’s breast,” said the captain of O Gods Take Pity. “Lie to the others as you wish, but I won’t be deceived.” Steq was silent. “She is none of ours. If you asked her where was her home, who her family, she would say Au, and name people we have never seen or heard of.”

  “But for an accident,” said Steq, “she would be one of us.”

  “But for an accident I would be king in Therete, dressed in silk and sitting on a gold and ivory throne, surrounded by slaves and courtiers. But for an accident, the king in Therete would be one of us, fleeing the wrath of the gods, wresting what life he can from the waters with no luxury and little joy, though I assure you the thought has never crossed his mind. And rightly so. Begin this way, and where do you stop? There is no one in the world who would not be one of us, but for an accident.”

  “Years ago you urged us not to take this course,” said Steq, bitterly. “Now you are in favor of it.”

  “No,” said the captain of O Gods Take Pity. “I am not in favor of it. Only, if you pitch this god and its corpse into the sea without accepting its deal, do so because you have found some way out that will not cause all our deaths. Do not take this step, which will surely have dire consequences, because of qualms over this woman. We have all lost people because of mistake or accident, and we have all regretted it. Do not be the first to endanger the fleet because of your own regret.”

  “I said nothing of taking such a step.” The other captain said nothing, and Steq took another piece of fish from the bowl in his hand, chewed and swallowed it. “It is tied to the stone, and cannot be released without a sacrifice.”

  “It is not confined, and it has power yet to animate the corpse. It may have power to do other things as well.”

  “What would they do, our people, if I threw the stone into the sea?” Both men were silent, considering Steq’s question, or perhaps unwilling to answer it.

  “We have opposed gods in the past, and survived,” said the captain of O Gods Take Pity after a while.

  “Not all of us,” said Steq.

  “There is no use in worrying over the dead.” He set his bowl beside him on the bunk. “We have lived too easily for too long.”

  “Perhaps we lived too hard, before.”

  “Perhaps. But we lived.”

  And Steq had no sufficient answer to this.

  Ifanei lay bound on a bunk on Righteous Vengeance. Two guards sat opposite her, and they never looked away. When she had shivered they had covered her, but left her hands in sight.

  It would not have mattered had they not—they had tied her with strong, braided sealskin and she had no way to cut it. They had taken her knife, and when they had taken her clothes they had found the needles and awls she had carefully wrapped and tied to the inside of her leg. She could see no means of escape.

  She had understood that she was on a boat of the Fleet of the Godless, though she would not have known to give them that name. What she had not understood was why she had been captured to begin with. They had not killed her, or otherwise mistreated her. When they had done searching her they had returned her clothing. She could not imagine what anyone might want with her, unless they knew of Ihak’s caches, which seemed unlikely.

  She had days to consider. Days in which she was fed and her other needs cared for as though she were ill and helpless. Never at any time was she allowed off the bunk, nor were her hands or feet ever unbound.

  The darkness never faltered—the coverings were tightly lashed, and even if the sun could have shone through, the skies were dark with smoke and ash, but Ifanei had no way of knowing that. She knew only the close, dimly lit darkness and the smell of unwashed bodies. Eventually she felt stunned with the sameness of it all, and ceased to wait for anything further to happen.

  An unmeasured time later, she woke to the chill as her cover was roughly pulled off. One of her guards held her bound wrists, the other cut the
bonds around her ankles, and she was pulled as upright as the low ceiling allowed, and pushed down the narrow space that ran the length of the hull, bunks on one side, unidentifiable bundles and stacks along the other. She took two steps and her legs buckled under her, weak from long inactivity. Her guards caught her, pulled her up again, and helped her along to where a faint light shone through an opening above.

  Hands reached down and pulled her through, up onto a railed platform. The sky was dark, and the breeze cold, and despite her coat she shivered. Guttering torches, a few oil lamps, and a fire in a large box provided some light. There were people all around, all along the railings. Facing her was the man who had brought her here, his face expressionless. No one moved, though the platform pitched and rocked in a way that made Ifanei step and stumble as she tried to stay on her feet.

  In the center of the platform was a wide, tall pole and leaning up against that was a pile of gray dust. In front of this was the Stone of Etoje.

  “God of Au!” she cried. “Help me!”

  A weird gasping, choking noise came from the pile at the foot of the pole. The whole thing heaved and from underneath it a man stood up, swaying and staggering slightly, and the gasping noise continued. The dust fell and swirled away in the wind.

  His long blond curls were covered in ash, his face and clothes gray with it, but she knew him. She realized, with a freezing horror, that the choking sound was laughter.

  “Ifanei,” said the dead Speaker in a flat, toneless voice. “I provided you indeed, and I will have you back from your father.” She said nothing, could think of no answer. “Here is symmetry,” said the god. “Here is perfection.”

  “My god.” Ifanei’s voice trembled with cold and dread. “I know you will protect me. The people of Au are your people and you have always kept us from misfortune.”

  “Au has sunk beneath the waves,” said the priest. “Not the smallest part of the island remains. And you were my victim from the beginning. I lent you to Ihak, and it is only right that you return to me at last.” Still the people around her, and the dark, hard-faced man in front of her, were silent. There was no sound, except the wind and the water.