Embrace of the Medusi (The Overlords Trilogy Book 2)

by Toby Andersen

  ‘With this knowledge of the sundering of man from Medusi we are now equipped to learn of Velella’s real prophecy. With the power of foresight gifted to her by our brethren, the Medusi, Velella saw the future re-joining of Medusi and humankind.

  ‘First would come the Queen of Darkness, the true mother, the Medousa. A being in whose heart beats of the dual forces of our world; creation and destruction. First among thralls. Noctiluca, the Goddess.

  ‘Velella saw that she would lead both the people of the world and the Medusi back to our original state. She would thrall the world, joining human and Medusi together again.

  ‘You live now in a time of the fulfilment of prophecies. A time of miracles and magic. Velella’s true prophecies are coming true.

  ‘I look around this square and I see many thralls, our inadequate word to describe those who have embraced the coming of the Goddess, and the ascension back towards those original beings.

  ‘Many think the word thrall means slave. Nothing could be further from the truth. A thrall lives in symbiosis with their Medusi. It is pleasure and pain, creation and destruction, light and dark. It is a return to the perfect being that we were all destined to be, before destruction came to this world.

  ‘When joined we become greater than the sum of our parts. Many receive gifts, the power of creation or destruction, enhanced in potency. Many are healed of their illnesses, cancers and tumours. But this is just a fraction of what can be achieved.

  ‘Think of the Goddess as the mother of the world. A mother carries their child inside them until they are ready to be borne into the world. The womb is safety and silence, the womb is love and purity. A place of pure creation.

  ‘Soon, when all are thralled, the Goddess will begin the ritual that will return us to our original state. She will give birth to the ascension. The return to the womb state. Behold.’ He gestured to the floating orbs that held the slowly dissolving humans. ‘These are the first among us to be lifted up. They are close to ascension. The joining by a Medusi to a human is achieved via a tube, a connection; the thralling tentacle. Think of this as the umbilical cord, only for now the womb and us are separate. Once the Goddess performs the ascension ritual, the thralled will become one with the Medusi even more completely than we can possibly imagine. Medusi and human will cease to be two separate beings and become one being.

  ‘None but the Goddess knows the final form we will achieve. The perfect harmony of Medusi and Human, the return to the womb, to the original state, is within our grasp.

  ‘Those of you still not thralled after the liberation of the city need only come forward. A Medusi will be found to join with you. There is one for every man, woman, and child.’

  At the word child, Anthrom was viscerally aware of himself again. Harling’s words were transformative, bewitching, and he had swam away with them. He could see others had too, beatific smiles on their faces. Was it Harling, or was it the Goddess? With his awareness came his scepticism. How much of his sermon was the truth, and how much was corrupting lies? Did it matter? He knew beyond doubt that thralling to a Medusi gave humans gifts of power and magic. Was it much more of a leap to believe the Goddess’ story of a primordial beings and returning to a perfect state? Could he make use of the power without having to buy into the doctrine? Whether it was a sham or a farce, the power was real.

  He caught the eye of a street kid watching him through the crowd, bright green eyes and a dirty face and then, gone.

  Harling’s words continued, but they washed over Anthrom now. Those not yet thralled were stepping forward and being ushered away by acolytes and Clerics. Through the movement of the crowd Anthrom slipped, careful not to be observed by the child he had seen as he closed on his position. Several other kids were moving at the same time, vacating the square in unison. If Anthrom had had to guess, they were avoiding the thralling, getting out of the square while they still could. These kids were survivors, still un-thralled months after the occupation had begun. How had they stayed ahead of the Clerics? He found he had a grudging respect for them. They’re like me, he thought, when I hid in the palace. How had they succeeded when he hadn’t? They were still free and he was doing the Goddess’ biding.

  Well, they never had a Xantusi set on them.

  Resentment bubbled up in him, not just for the street urchins, but for the Goddess too. He was far enough away from the palace now, to be outside of her field of influence and he could feel its absence.

  As he extricated himself from the crowd he saw the first child disappear into an alley strewn with rubble. He quickly followed, pausing at the entrance and peering round the broken brickwork like teeth around a mouth. He saw the child, rounding a corner ahead.

  There were no hollow walls here, but Anthrom fell back on his skills, hiding and tailing those in the palace. He sped up approaching a corner, stopped and looked round carefully, staying just on the tail of his prey. The alleys followed one by one, twisting and turning. The child would check carefully for danger, before darting out across main streets, and back into the shadows. Anthrom copied him.

  After a few minutes he was hopelessly turned around, and found himself in an alley without landmarks, and an enclosed ceiling. He couldn’t see the palace to orient himself. He also could no longer see the child.

  ‘Why are you following me?’ asked a shrill voice from above.

  Anthrom peered up into the sole source of light in the tunnel, to find a boy sitting on the wall above him, nonchalantly waiting, swinging his legs.

  ‘I’m not following you.’

  The boy jumped down and Anthrom got his first good look at him. Dirty and dusty from head to foot, he wore rags he’d likely worn since the siege ended. The only places he was clean was two thin rivulets that snaked from the corners of his eyes down his cheeks to his chin. He fixed Anthrom with a suspicious stare. ‘You’re not from around here are you?’

  ‘No, I’m on my own.’

  The boy squinted again. ‘You speak like a noble.’

  ‘Nobles have children too, you know,’ said Anthrom, using his cover story.

  ‘Well, you need to be much better at following. I saw you back at the square.’

  ‘Maybe you could teach me?’ Anthrom suggested. Even just that little irked him. He’d been following just fine. What did this child know?

  The boy didn’t agree or disagree. He shrugged. ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Fernishal,’ said Anthrom.

  ‘Woah. Noble see? I’m going to call you Fern.’

  ‘And you?’

  ‘They call me Urth round here. I forget my real name.’ Urth picked at Anthrom’s patchy clothing. ‘You’re skinny. You got food?’

  Anthrom shook his head, acting more helpless. He would need to befriend this kid if he was going to get him back to the Palace. And Urth was savvy, street smart. He wouldn’t go there without a good ploy.

  ‘I know a place.’ He beckoned Anthrom to follow him.

  Was it that easy? Anthrom had no real idea how hard or easy making friends would be; he’d never had any.

  Only a few alleys further into the densest part of the destruction in this neighbourhood, and Anthrom would never have been able to find his way back. He was thoroughly lost. Urth knocked on a seemingly random wooden board and waited. Someone knocked back. Then a door appeared in the rubble, leading into the derelict building. Urth tilted his head and Anthrom followed him inside.

  There wasn’t much light, but what Anthrom could see was cleared of wreckage; the ceiling had been boarded and patched to keep out the rain, the walls filled where holes let in the cold. It was an abandoned basement, linked to more then one building.

  A young woman stopped them only a few steps in.

  ‘And who’s this?’ she asked Urth.

  ‘This is Fern.’

  ‘You know the rules. You can’t just invite any old orphan back here. He could be a spy.’

  Urth made a face? ‘A spy? Look at him. He needed food.’

  Anth
rom’s clothes were ripped and showed the angry wound turning to angry scarring around his neck. ‘I can go,’ he said meekly.

  ‘No little one, it’s not your fault,’ said the woman. She wasn’t obviously pretty, but the more his eyes accustomed to the dim light, the more appealing she became somehow. ‘Urth here just needs to take more care. He’s a liability to what I’m trying to do here.’

  ‘Does he look like a spy?’ said Urth. ‘He doesn’t even have a jelly.’

  The woman just raised her eyebrow.

  Urth sighed. ‘I’m sorry. I won’t bring anyone else back. So, can he stay?’

  ‘Yes.’ She smiled at Anthrom. ‘Come inside Fern, I’ll fix you some bread and soup.’

  Urth led Anthrom into the main room; a cramped dilapidated hall, with pillars of wood holding the ceiling up, and benches full of unthralled street children. It was a food station for the homeless orphans of the city.

  He was shown to a bench at a table filled with other dirty children, and the pretty young woman deposited a heel of bread and a cracked mug of soup in front of him. When she was gone again he turned to Urth. ‘What is this place?’ he said around a mouthful of bread.

  The other children eyed him warily. Distrustful of anyone new, he thought. And with good reason.

  ‘This is a simple way station,’ said Urth. ‘Hidden from the Clerics. We are safe here from prying eyes. No thralls are allowed, and no Clerics.’

  Anthrom picked a boy at random. ‘How did you find this place?’

  The boy was younger than Anthrom, maybe ten, though it was hard to tell through the dirt that caked his face. ‘Same as anyone,’ he said, affronted. ‘We keep an eye out for each other. Thix showed me.’ He pointed to another boy with a pot belly, clearly malnourished.

  ‘And you?’ Anthrom asked.

  Thix smiled. ‘Wend showed me.’ He threw a thumb sideways to a girl this time.

  She got the idea. ‘You’re going to ask who showed me. You’ll never find the first ones. We just found it. After a battle, orphans have to look out for each other.’

  Urth nodded. ‘Probably the first were orphans already. Well used to living on the streets.’

  ‘Like you?’ asked Anthrom.

  Urth shook his head. ‘No. The battle made me an orphan.’ He said it slowly, but Anthrom asked anyway. He’d never been good at reading emotional body language.

  ‘What happened?’

  ‘My parents,’ he said, then bit his lip. ‘We don’t talk about before much. But I will tell you. My parents ran the bakery in the Shorelight district. When the army came, my father fought bravely, but he had no chance. He was killed by barbarian thugs from Terracon. When the Medusi came we had no one to defend us. My mother hid me and my sister in a cupboard. The Medusi attacked and thralled my mother, stinging her and then attaching. My sister couldn’t cope. She ran to mother and was thralled herself. The only reason I survived is that I stayed hidden. Once the Medusi were sated and I woke the next day, everything was different. My mother and sister were strange, they hardly recognised me. They were alive and healthy, but they were thralled, they were changed. After a day they left, and after another my stomach drove me out into the streets, looking for food. This place has been my only home for weeks.’

  Anthrom listened carefully to Urth’s harrowing story, thinking how horrible it must have been to watch his mother and sister thralled. And even worse that he was made an orphan later when they acted cold towards him. Anthrom had been attacked, and probably by worse. He knew the fear Urth must have felt hiding in that cupboard. He remembered he’d pissed himself when the barrel Medusi were released in the palace.

  He looked to Wend and Thix. ‘And you?

  ‘You ask a lot of questions,’ said Wend, narrowing her eyes. ‘My elder brother and me survived the battle, but my folks didn’t. They’re dead. Two other brothers are thralls.’

  Thix nodded. ‘Both my parents are thralls, but not from the battle. They became thralls voluntarily in the weeks after. They listened to the lying Clerics and when they got their Medusi they abandoned me.’

  The first kid with the dirty face said. ‘I never knew my father or mother anyway. They died years ago. My auntie died in the fighting. She was the one taking care of me and my cousins. They’re around somewhere. I’m Shin, by the way.’

  Anthrom nodded a hello.

  ‘What about you?’ said Urth. ‘Seems only fair you share your story too.’

  ‘My mother and father died in the fighting,’ Anthrom lied. His story was ready. ‘We lived in the noble Gardenia district. Mercenaries came looking for riches in the large mansions there. My parent’s died trying to hold on to their possessions.’

  ‘That’s stupid,’ said Urth. Then, ‘Sorry,’ when he realised.

  ‘It is,’ said Anthrom. ‘What good will jewellery do now? Apart from to sell.’

  A man came in through the same opening as Anthrom had. He didn’t pay any mind to the rows of children, simply caught the young woman by the arm, whispered in her ear as he gave her a quick peck on the cheek and descended a flight of stairs Anthrom hadn’t noticed before, that led even further underground.

  ‘Who was that?’

  ‘Oh, just one of the rebels,’ said Urth. ‘I know his face, but not sure anyone knows his name.’

  ‘He’s one of my brother’s friends,’ said Wend. She seemed proud that her brother was a rebel. ‘He was in the Imperial guard once.’

  ‘And who is she? The one who thought I was a spy.’

  ‘That’s Marlena.’

  Thix sighed. ‘Oh Marlena. Beautiful Marlena.’

  ‘Don’t mind her,’ said Urth. ‘She’s suspicious of everyone. She was suspicious of me to begin with.’ The other kids laughed. Seemed no one could be suspicious of Urth. He did seem to wear his nature openly, and without guile.

  Thix said, ‘Marlena started this waystation. She makes the rebels pay with food, but she gives the food to us. In return they have a safe haven underground where the Clerics never go.’

  ‘Down there?’ Anthrom looked at the stone steps.

  ‘Yeah, the rebels are in the sewers.’

  It seemed nobody heeded Marlena’s advice regarding spies. He’d been shown in, and now he knew where there were rebels congregating. It paid to be a child sometimes. You were below suspicion.

  ‘Everyone owes Marlena,’ Anthrom said. He got a benchful of nods, and was suddenly struck with an idea how to achieve his goal here. ‘You ever think of paying her back?’

  ‘Fern’s a noble boy,’ laughed Urth to the others. ‘She’s not like your maid. We don’t have any money.’

  ‘And that’s the only way people exchange around here, is it? You said the rebels pay for her secrecy and protection. With food.’

  ‘They do.’

  ‘And you’re grateful to her?’

  ‘Of course.’

  ‘This is the best I’ve eaten in a week. We should pay her back.’

  When he still got blank looks around the table, he sighed. Not all were created equally smart. ‘With food,’ he said. ‘I know a secret way into the food stores of the Order.’

  ‘The priests?’ said Thix. ‘Sounds dangerous.’

  ‘The Clerics. And yeah it might be, a little. It’s right up by the palace. I’ve been in once, but I was too scared to go back. We can go in, eat our fill, and steal enough to feed everyone here twice over. We could pay Marlena back for her kindness.’

  ‘Sounds risky,’ said Urth.

  ‘When is something worth doing not risky? With more of us, we will be able to steal more, and it’ll be less dangerous. Some can keep lookout while the rest of us go inside.’ He looked around the table. Urth was considering it, Wend grinning, Thix – who had a soft spot for Marlena – was nodding. Shin looked at Urth opening his mouth, but Anthrom didn’t give them chance to back out. ‘Who’s with me?’

  *

  It was after dark and creepier than Anthrom had appreciated, when they arrived outside the pal
ace. They really could be attacked by Medusi and thralled, and then where would he be? He squatted at a break in the wall to the gardens that had been caused during the battle. Ahead were the remains of the Routillier, the airship crash that signalled the end of the siege.

  Behind him, trailed six street urchins; Thix, Wend, Shin, two others Anthrom hadn’t bothered to learn the names of, and finally Urth. He’d been the hardest to convince, despite his nonchalance in inviting Anthrom into the rebel stronghold, but Thix had been adamant they should do this for Marlena. Thankfully Urth wasn’t suspicious of Anthrom, but he did consider the food raid a risk too far.

  Anthrom looked back at them all crouching in the dark. This is my last chance not to do this, he thought.

  He was free of the Goddess right now. She had let him off the leash, allowed him to venture into the city on the understanding that he would return to her, complete with offerings. She’s a Goddess, no wonder she wants sacrifice. But what he hadn’t realised until now was he was free.

  When he’d been avoiding capture in the palace it had meant everything to stay free. Fear had kept him away from the Clerics until Harling used that creature. But since the Goddess arrived he hadn’t sought freedom from her. In fact he’d contrived to help her, to be closer to her. Now he found himself inadvertently free again, and he hadn’t even tried. And it felt good.

  I could turn them around, I could disappear into the underground with the orphans and the rebels. I could probably even tell them who I was, become some kind of leader or at least figurehead in the rebellion?

  But what was that when compared to the Goddess’ promise? It was a kind of power, maybe it would even lead to greater power in future. He could command soldiers and rebels in a fight against the Goddess. He could overthrow the Clerics, claim back his city. These street children could become his trusted lieutenants.

  And it might feel good to fight her.

  It was a fantasy. Nagging doubts assailed him. Did he really want to be on the wrong side again? And by wrong side Anthrom meant the losing side, always. The fear he’d felt when he’d waited for Stauros’ sword to fall came back to him.