Servant of a Dark God

by John Brown

  “Talen,” said River. “I can’t stop the flow. You’re bleeding Fire. Your days are rolling off you like smoke. You must help me.”

  “Fire?” asked Talen.

  River glanced at Nettle and Sugar. Then she faced Talen. She’d decided something. He could see that by the set of her brow.

  “You’ve been multiplied,” she said. “Da has begun your awakening. But it’s all gone wrong. You need to close it off.”

  That made no sense to Talen. Only dreadmen and Divines could do that. Then through the fog of his mind he began to feel at the edges of a horrible idea.

  “You’re going to feel an intrusion,” said River. “Fight it. Push with all your might. You’re leaking through a thousand holes. You’ve got to close every last one of them.”

  Suddenly he felt something enter him. It was crushing, and he gasped.

  Push! a voice in his mind said.

  He’d been caught once in a tumble of earth, and this was what it had felt like. A panic began to rise in him.

  He could feel her. He could feel River in him. It terrified him. The weight of her presence began to bear down.

  Talen tried to flee, but she was everywhere. A crush of sand.

  Fight me, you fool.

  He struggled against her.

  Fight!

  “I don’t know how!” he shouted.

  All about him the sand of her presence pushed at him, coming in through his ears, his nose, his mouth. She was the very air he breathed.

  Talen struggled in panic, and then in one part he felt her recede.

  Was it his imagination?

  He tried again, but whatever he’d done fell to pieces and River’s presence swallowed him. He was trapped, pinned, a man under a ton of grain. He couldn’t breathe.

  His panic rose to a pitch, then he did something-he couldn’t explain it-he pushed, and he found he could breathe again. He pushed again. And she moved farther.

  That’s it! Fight!

  River rushed at him with renewed force, but he held his space and withstood her. He did not know how long he struggled, managing only to keep her far enough away to breathe. Then he closed a small rent in his fabric.

  Another, she said.

  But there were so many.

  Close another!

  Talen was so tired, but he fought. He fought and lost track of time. It was only him and the suffocating sand of his sister.

  After what seemed like hours he found himself facing the last hole, one rent in his fabric that separated him from the rest of creation. It was like trying to stop the sea with his hand. Talen fought to no effect.

  “I can’t do it,” he said and did not know if he’d spoken this aloud or just in his mind.

  You will, said River. Mother didn’t save you only to have Father kill you with his reckless ways.

  It’s just one hole.

  Close it!

  Talen mustered the last of his strength and tried to close the rent. And to his surprise he felt it narrow and then shut up as tight as boiled leather.

  He slumped in the tub. Tired. He was deathly tired. And thirsty. But the ragged edge of his weariness was dulled, if only a little.

  Talen opened his eyes. Most of the water had sloshed out of the trough to the floor. River’s tunic and pants were soaked all down the front. She slumped alongside the trough, and heaved a sob of relief.

  Behind her stood Nettle and the girl, their faces slack with confusion or shock. Which it was he could not tell. Talen started to say something to Nettle, but his exhaustion overwhelmed him, and he closed his eyes.

  Talen woke and found himself in River’s bed. Someone had slipped small heated sacks of grain under the covers next to him to keep him warm.

  He could see through the shutters that it was still dark outside. On the floor beside the bed stood a jug of water. Talen slowly sat up. His head swam, and he clutched it until the dizziness passed. He grabbed the jug and took a long drink.

  When he finished, River stood in the doorway.

  “I don’t know that I want to hear it,” said Talen. They were caught, all of them. In a black web of Slethery.

  “It’s too late for that,” said River. She walked in and sat beside him on the bed. “How do you feel?”

  “Awful,” said Talen. “But not as bad as before.”

  Nettle came to the doorway. His ear had been stitched and cleaned. “So he’s not dead yet? There goes my wager.”

  “Ha,” said Talen.

  Nettle grinned.

  “Are you well enough to travel?” asked River.

  “I don’t know,” he said.

  “Well, it doesn’t matter. We have to leave tonight.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Ke has come and gone since you slept. They’re holding Da in Whitecliff.”

  “The Council?”

  “He’s been accused of being Sleth.”

  Talen recoiled.

  “Talen,” said River. “I need you to listen to me. I need you to be calm and listen.”

  He looked at her.

  She took a breath then said, “You know how Mother died.”

  Talen nodded. She’d died in the pox plague year. Died of stress and worry.

  “You think you know: laid into the ground, she was, without a blemish upon her. Perfect and whole, broken with grief for her little boy who was covered with the ugly rash, all blisters and pus. This is what you think, but grief did not break her, brother. Grief could not have broken that woman, not in a million years.”

  She paused.

  “It was love that broke her. Your little body was consumed with sores. Da called every healer he knew; we tried every herb known to have any effect. We danced and sacrificed to the ancestors. But the disease only grew. And so Mother and Da did what any loving parents would do. They gave their Days to make you whole.”

  Surely, she was talking about a Divine’s gift. “They went to the temple?” he said.

  River shook her head, and dread came over him.

  “You were broken in body and soul. Da could not see how to heal you and steeled himself to losing you. He had given up. After all, many families lose one here or there. But Mother would not give up. She saw possibilities invisible to him.

  “You struggled a week, then two. Everyone marveled at your spirit. But then Da discovered one night it was more than your tenacity keeping you alive. He caught Mother pouring her life into you. Her Fire flowed through you and held you together. And when you finally vanquished the disease, she was spent. A whole lifetime spent in two weeks.”

  River smiled, but her eyes glistened in the dim candlelight.

  “She died in the morning the day after your fever broke, holding your hand.”

  Talen could not speak.

  “Do you understand what I’m saying?”

  He nodded. But it just couldn’t be.

  “Your veins, brother, run literally with our mother’s Fire.”

  “But-”

  He glanced at Nettle. His expression was unreadable. The girl stood behind him in the doorway. He hadn’t noticed her come.

  “Shush,” said River. “Mother said that parts of you, parts of your weave were… twisted. Most of that she was able to heal. But as she delved into the fiber of your being she found other parts that defied her knowledge. Parts that she said were complex, beautiful, unlike anything she’d ever encountered. There are things about you she could not change. Things she dared not change.” River paused. “At the end, she was half mad with the effort and kept telling us you needed a flaw. She thought you were perfect. We’ve all been waiting to see what you would become, to see what gifts the wisterwives had bestowed.”

  Talen felt lost. It was all too much. Wisterwives, Sleth, weaves. “Nobody’s seen a wisterwife,” said Talen.

  “They are elusive, but Mother and Da found the charm.”

  “The charm? You mean that odd necklace she used to make me wear?”

  “The very same. Legs has it now. Mother
gave it to Purity when he was born, thinking it might still have some virtue.”

  “It was yours?” the girl asked in confusion.

  River nodded. “Mother woke early one morning to find the shutters to her room open and the mosquitoes buzzing about her face. The charm was lying on the chair inside the Creator’s wreath. Something had taken the wreath from above the door to the house and brought it inside. Mother looked out the window. A troop of ferrets stood about the yard gazing at her, still as stone. They stood for some time, considering her in silence like wise little men. And then, just before the light broke above the hills, the little creatures turned and disappeared into the forest. Mother conceived Talen with that charm about her neck, and he wore it for the first few years of his life. But when Legs was born, she thought it had a better purpose.”

  Talen had heard about the ferrets, but not the charm.

  “But my da said it was given to us,” said the girl.

  “It was, but not by a wisterwife,” said River. “He probably didn’t want to repeat the story. Such encounters are special, and should be treated so.”

  “Did she see the wisterwife?”

  “No, but how else do you explain the curious charm, the ferrets, and the wreath?”

  Talen wondered. Wisterwives were said to bestow great blessings upon humans. Some said they served the Divines. Others said they served none but themselves.

  It puzzled him that his family hadn’t said anything about this. Of course, a wisterwife’s charm was a rare and precious thing because it gave fertility and health. He supposed if people knew the source of that necklace, they would have stolen it. Perhaps that was the reason for the silence.

  “Regret has servants as well,” said Talen. “How do you know it was a blessing? How do you know it even has anything to do with me?”

  “I don’t,” said River. “I am trusting Mother’s judgment.”

  “I might not manifest anything at all,” said Talen. “Maybe those changes were already in the bloodline. Traits can sometimes skip generations.”

  “That’s true,” said River. “But your differences were exceptional.” She shook her head. “And they needed exceptional care. Da was reckless. I have no idea how much of your life you’ve lost. Nor whether you’ve burned yourself to the core.”

  River’s description of his “weave” bothered him. “You talk as if I’m some piece of wrought jewelry.”

  “We all are, Talen.”

  He didn’t know what she meant by that. “So what was different about me?”

  “I don’t know. Mother died and took her secrets with her. But there’s this: Fire can be eaten only very slowly and so it must be given only very slowly. To do otherwise is to risk the life of the person you’re giving it to. How she transferred a lifetime of Fire in the space of only a few days is beyond us. It should have killed you. Your exhibition tonight should have killed you. You were pouring forth quantities of Fire that would have killed ten men had they tried to tap into it. The amounts of Fire you’re able to handle is astonishing. On the other hand, Da’s charm: that should have had only the slightest effect on you.”

  “You’re talking about that godsweed charm, aren’t you?”

  “Yes,” said River.

  “That was a weave?”

  “Yes.”

  Talen looked at Nettle and the girl. Both of them were standing aside with grim faces.

  Too many thoughts coursed through Talen’s mind. But one stood out from the rest. Mother and Da had been using lore for years. These hatchlings hadn’t subverted them.

  “You’re saying we’re soul-eaters,” he said.

  It couldn’t be, but a number of things that had puzzled suddenly made horrible sense. Harboring the hatchlings, for one. Da’s dislike of the Divines, for another. His demonstrations of uncanny strength when there was nobody but a son to see them, his odd lack of sickness.

  Talen thought of Ke. His brother was as strong as stone and just as unmovable. Yet, at other times he was lively as a cat. Talen remembered once a few years ago spying Ke upon a cliff in the distance. One moment he was standing on a ledge, then next he was moving, leaping and scrabbling up the rock like a mountain goat. Talen knew that cliff. He’d asked Ke how he’d done it, and Ke had said he had a rope. And that Da was pulling him up. It seemed plausible and Talen had dismissed what he’d seen. But now it made sense. Ke hadn’t used a rope. He’d jumped, just as Talen had jumped and scrabbled up that elm earlier today.

  Dozens of such events came rushing back to him. River swimming out in impossible seas to help Blue. A deer Da brought home from the hunt with a broken neck and nary an arrow wound. The time Talen went out to chase after Ke, who had just disappeared down the trail, only to find the trail was empty for as far as he could see.

  Talen thought about his earlier daydreams of hunting and catching Sleth. There was nothing like this in the old stories.

  “Am I not myself then? I’m just bits and pieces of what Mother stole?”

  River cleared her throat. “That is the difference between us and them. When you give Fire freely, it flows between two people as clean and easily as the wind. Freely given it is without taint. You haven’t a speck of her soul, Talen. What she gave was all Fire-pure and brilliant and sweet. It is only when you forcibly take, as the Divines and soul-eaters do, that you contaminate. Taking tears the soul and brings madness to the thief. The Divines think to avoid the consequences with their filtering rods. But you cannot filter away the darkness such deeds sow into the heart.”

  “But the people freely sacrifice themselves.”

  “They offer themselves up. But that is not a free gift. You must know what you’re giving. And to do that you have to be able to give it yourself. Why do you think they drug sacrifices with wizardsmeet or opium? No, they do not gift their Fire. What they do in reality, Talen, is promise to struggle less. And if they only take part of a man, they’re still killing him, only it’s by degrees.”

  “So you are not Sleth?”

  “Do you know where that word comes from?”

  Talen did not.

  “It comes from Urz. In that country it is the name given to the dry killing wind that comes from the east. The wind that steals all moisture from the crops.” River paused. “Brother, I do not steal life.”

  Talen searched his sister’s eyes, those kind, lovely eyes, and he believed her. “But what are you then?”

  “In the beginning, the Creators taught all how to use their powers. Some excelled in the lore, but instead of sharing their knowledge, they hoarded it, and in some instances killed to keep their advantage. Over the ages, those people have gained the upper hand. Look at the Divines: they kill any who try to use what was given freely in the beginning.”

  “There are others then?”

  River nodded. “A few. We cannot do the mighty deeds that were done of old. But still we work what we may. We are banded together in an order whose purpose is to break the yoke of the Divines and let every man, woman, and child control their own Fire just as they control their own breath.”

  Her words astonished him. “How do you know you’re not under some spell? How do you know your master, or whatever you call it, hasn’t subverted your will?”

  “Talen, there are those that practice wickedly. There are indeed nightmares in this world. But I’m not one of them. This is the truth of the matter.”

  “But why was all this kept from me?”

  “Because telling you would endanger many lives.”

  “Despite what Da thinks, I do not have a butter jaw. I can hold my tongue.”

  “No, that isn’t what I mean. It doesn’t matter how much you want something, you need the skill to perform the act. You have a pure and loyal heart, but you don’t have the skill to close your mind to a Seeker. And that can’t be taught to a child. And so it is better to tell you nothing so that if something happens, and you are taken, you have nothing to share. The Order is not yet powerful enough to reveal itself. One day we w
ill walk in the sun, but for now we must keep to shadows. We are bound by oath to do so.”

  Nettle, the girl, and the boy stood in the doorway. He was ashamed to look at them.

  “Purity, Sugar’s mother, and Uncle Argoth are both part of the Order as well.”

  Talen’s world was spinning. “And the creature?” he asked. “That thing that fetched the Sleth woman?” Talen did not want to hear the answer to that question, but he steeled himself.

  “Her name is Purity,” River corrected. “And we have no idea what the creature is, much less who it belongs to.”

  Talen heaved a sigh. At least there was that. Then something struck him. “If I couldn’t keep a secret yesterday, what has changed so I can keep it today?”

  “Nothing,” said River. “A Seeker would ransack your mind as easily as you would that cupboard. But, as I said, we are leaving. And in time you will learn the skill.”

  “Leaving? But what about Da?”

  River looked down. “We are bound by an oath,” she said. “Da.” Her voice faltered. She closed her eyes and regained control of her emotions. When she opened them they were wet with tears. “Ke has been set to watch him. Once he’s assessed the situation, he will meet us at the refuge where I’m taking you. We’ll see what we can do at that time. But you need to prepare yourself because Da might not ever be coming back.”

  Prunes was roused by a sharp dig into his ribs.

  “It seems we have ourselves a situation,” said Gid.

  Gid had already wakened him twice. Once to tell him that he’d had to tell a pack of Fir-Noy they already had the place under observation. Another time to watch the spectacle of two boys in a wagon pull into the yard. If this was another false alarm, Prunes was going to throw the man off the side of the mountain. And he didn’t care about blowing their cover.

  Prunes sat up. He was wrapped in his soldier’s sleeping sash. “This had better be good.”

  “Oh, it’s the tart’s delight. They’ve been busy as bees down there all night. In and out, lamps burning. And something interesting just went into the barn but she’ll be back out.”

  “Who?”

  “The girl who told the bailiff she was from Koramtown. But what do you know? It appears there’s also a boy with her that can’t find his way unless she leads him about by the arm.”