by John Brown
Hogan turned on the monster. With deadly violence, he struck it in the head with his stone.
The monster reeled to one side.
Argoth marveled at the power of Hogan’s blow. He’d seen the dreadmen attack this thing. He’d seen the Skir Master. None had come close to this.
Hogan followed with another blow, the very air seeming to bend before him.
The monster fell back to the floor.
There was more in those blows than the simple force of stone. The mantle was at work. He could see the stone glistening with the power of it.
The ribbons of light swirled about the room. A number still clung to Hogan, and Argoth could see they’d eaten partway through the mantle.
Hogan raised the stone once more and suddenly jerked back.
The woman had penetrated the mantle with her weapon. It stuck deep in Hogan’s back.
He twisted around and caught her with an elbow.
She flew backward, but Hogan dropped to one knee. He tried to rise, but the monster scuttled over and fell upon him. It ripped the stone away from his grasp.
Hogan struggled. He delivered two more mighty blows to the monster, but they were not what they had once been. Argoth could feel a weakening in the binding between him and the crown. The monster caught the second blow in its rough hand, and wrapped Hogan in its long arms. Then it took him down to the floor in a full body hold. Hogan thrashed, but he did not break free.
The woman walked up to Hogan, a number of her shining school of light still writhing, hissing, and whispering about her. She reached down and clutched at the golden square of the crown.
Hogan twisted in the monster’s grip.
Argoth felt the woman through the bond of the crown. It felt like something gnawing on his bones. She was breaking the crown.
How was this possible? This was a victor’s crown. It was supposed to be impenetrable. And then he realized the crown was, but the bond was another matter entirely.
The bond suddenly changed. The harmony that sang through him departed, replaced by something painfully off-key. Then the bond snapped altogether.
The Creek Widow cried out.
Argoth felt a great gust of his essence whirl up and away. The break had rent him. In panic, he tried to close up the leak.
Hogan grunted and struggled once more against the monster’s grip.
Argoth stemmed the break. A portion of his strength returned, but it felt as if a sword had just sliced through him.
The woman ripped the crown from Hogan’s head and tossed it aside. It landed only a pace or two from Talen.
The monster squeezed Hogan tighter, then shook him. And as it did, sparks of light fell from Hogan like pieces of ash to the floor.
“Unruly beast,” the woman said to Hogan. Her shimmering school drew around her, but not so tightly as before, for she was visible in their midst. She felt the side of her face where Hogan struck her with the chain.
She turned to the monster. “Hunger. Take him there.” She motioned to a place next to the rough figures on the floor.
The monster changed its hold on Hogan to clasp him firmly in one arm and got to its feet. Hogan struggled, but to no avail. The monster dragged him to the earthen bodies lying in their horrible rows on the other side of the chamber.
“That one will do,” said the woman.
The monster stopped and lay Hogan next to a rock and clay figure with a vicious muzzle. Splotches of dead grass sprouted from the side of the figure’s head and chest.
The woman moved close to the monster. She hovered over it. “This,” she said, “will be your first child. He’ll be more aware than you were, have more human memories from the start, be more intelligent, more powerful. You were a mishmash of many things; I couldn’t recover you whole. Not with the binding your original master had put upon you. But he is unfettered and pure.”
What was she talking about? Fear rose in Argoth’s mind.
“Separate the man,” she said. “Put his soul and Fire into the body of earth.”
At first Argoth could not believe his ears. Then the shock rolled over him. She was transferring Hogan’s essence-Fire and soul-to one of the still creatures on the floor.
“No!” he cried. “Stop!”
The woman turned to them. “You all will serve me,” she said, “with a lesser binding or with one of rock and stone. In your current bodies or that of another. I am now your master.”
Hogan struggled in the monster’s grasp. “Ke!” he called out. “River!”
Ke was already charging. But how could he? The breaking of the bond had nearly crippled Argoth. Argoth marveled at the strength in the boy.
Ke held Hogan’s chain in his hand. In a blinding motion, he drew back and struck at the monster with terrible ferocity. The chain wrapped around the monster’s neck.
Ke grabbed the chain with both hands and yanked it backward. Such a move would have ripped the head off a normal man. The monster jerked back, but it did not loosen its grip on Hogan. Instead, it reached up with one hand and tore the chain out of Ke’s grasp. Then it struck him with it full in the face. Ke fell to the floor.
“No!” shouted Talen. He held a knife aloft and charged.
The monster turned slightly when Talen got close and struck out in an almost lazy fashion. The blow made a sickening sound and sent Talen flying backward to land sharply on his side.
Talen gasped, rolled over, and tried to catch his breath.
The monster turned back to Hogan.
“Please,” said River, her collar still circling her neck. “We can come to an agreement.” But the woman paid her no mind.
“Nothing!” Hogan shouted. “Give her nothing!”
The monster covered half of Hogan’s face and head with one hand. It put its other hand on the face of the earthen figure.
The woman turned to the rest of them and spoke. Her voice carried like soothing music into his mind. “You cannot hide the one that was conceived and developed by my power.”
She held something up. It was the wisterwife charm Argoth’s sister had found on the chair in her bedroom. “Where is the one I planted? Where is the one that wore my might?”
Her words confused him. The one she planted?
Legs suddenly came shuffling in through the entrance to the chamber, feeling the wall as he went. “Sugar?” he called.
“You are such wild creatures,” said the woman. “Such difficult things to manage.” She motioned at Legs. “You fooled my servant with your ploy, but you cannot fool me.”
The ribbons of light obscured her face for a moment. “A new order is arising here,” said the woman. “One that hasn’t been seen in ages. The master that leads this harvest will rule empires. You will bring him to me.”
Argoth looked at Talen, who was holding his side in pain. Argoth’s mind raced. His sister, Hogan’s wife, had conceived wearing that weave. She had worn it through the whole pregnancy as the boy ripened in her belly. She had placed it upon Talen from the day of his birth.
They had all suspected he would be a prodigy: a restorer of lost knowledge, a champion. A gift from the Creators to help them fight their enemies.
He looked at the weave. Dear gods, what had they done? His mind snagged on something she had said: “this harvest,” she had said.
A great foreboding rose up in him. Snippets of ancient tales and lore flashed in his mind. Tales of devouring. He’d thought they were figurative. But he now realized they were literal.
“I have been calling,” the woman said. “I know he’s alive. I can feel him. He should have heard me. He should have come. But instead you hide him.”
“Lies!” shouted the Creek Widow.
“We shall see,” said the woman.
The monster turned back to Hogan and the earthen figure on the floor. Then the creature covered Hogan’s face with its massive hand.
Hogan twisted, trying to wriggle away, but he could not. He cried out and grasped the monster’s forearm.
“Be careful,” said the woman.
Hogan arched his back; he struck violently at the monster’s arm. The schools of light moved furiously, shining, shimmering, swirling around the woman, around the monster, around Hogan and the figure on the floor. Hogan jerked once, twice.
Argoth was paralyzed.
How could he fight this being? How could anyone when they didn’t even know what she was? The only thing he did know was that she was full of malice and that she wanted Talen. For what purpose, he could not guess. But she wanted him. And so she must not have him.
Argoth could not save Hogan, but he could rescue Talen from her.
He turned to River, who had almost worked the collar off her neck. “There is no way out,” he said. Even if they could find their path in the dark, they could not run fast enough to escape the monster. They could not fight it or its master with lore. “I used to think we could fight the thralls, but we cannot. Better to die free than live a slave to some horrible purpose in which we deliver our kind up on platters.”
River paused. He could see the anxiety in her bruised face.
“I do not have the strength, so you must deny her the one thing she desires. Put Talen beyond her reach. And then eliminate the rest of us.”
River’s eyes grew wide in dismay.
“I beg you,” he said. “Tell me another way.”
Death was their only escape. He wasn’t prepared to go through that doorway, but who ever really was? He thought of his wife, his daughters, and wondered if they still lived. He could not protect them now. He thought of Nettle lying on that table and the sacrifice that Argoth had recklessly wasted. Grief welled up in him.
He could see River felt that same grief. Her mouth was a line of grim determination. Her eyes brimmed with angry tears.
River nodded. Then she slipped the collar ever so slightly to the left, gave it a smart tug, and broke it free.
The woman’s words reverberated through Talen. They stroked and caressed him. Every time she spoke he was filled with a small elation. He wondered if she were one of the old gods. And yet, there was Da, lying in the dust.
Da jerked. Beneath the monster’s hand, he screamed. And then the screaming stopped. Da’s body relaxed, and his arm dropped to the floor.
“No!” Talen cried out. “No.” His ribs were on fire. They cut like knives every time he took a breath. Talen tried to stand and gasped from the pain.
The woman was cooing, her shining escort swimming about the monster kneeling between Da and the clay figure on the floor.
He needed to stop this. The crown lay in the dust within his reach. It still glittered as it had upon Da’s brow. He clutched at his side, crawled forward, and picked it up.
A vast power stirred within. It was alive as the Creek Widow had said. He could feel its music. A small thread of peace welled up in him. He could feel the power, but he was blocked from it as if a heavy iron door stood fast in his way. What was more, Talen had no idea what to do with this weave. He knew no lore, only the bestowing of Fire River had taught him. The crown was useless to him.
He looked up at the Creek Widow for help, but she was on her hands and knees as if recovering from a mighty blow. He turned to Uncle Argoth. “Help me,” he mouthed.
“I’m sorry,” Uncle Argoth said, his face full of despair.
Talen clutched the crown. There had to be a way, but he could not think.
Through the ribbons of light, he watched a thick blackness pass from Da into the monster’s arm.
Da’s leg shuddered.
The blackness rose into the monster’s forearm. It reached its elbow.
Talen could not speak. Was that the essence of Da’s soul?
A moment passed. Another. The blackness rose almost to the monster’s shoulder.
“Well done,” the woman said. “Well done.”
Talen felt the praise in those words and craved it.
The monster removed its now black hand from Da’s face, and Da’s head flopped to one side.
“Da,” Talen said, horror slithering itself about him.
The monster held its ink-black arm aloft, then it punched it into the belly of the figure lying on the floor. It knelt there until Talen realized the blackness was leaching out of the monster’s arm and into the clay belly of the second monster.
Talen could barely whisper. “No,” he said in a small voice. “No.”
An eternity passed, and then the monster withdrew its fist. The blackness was gone.
The earthen body upon the floor stirred. Its hideous mouth opened as if taking a breath. Then it turned its awful head to look Talen in the face.
Talen recoiled.
He could not breathe. Could not speak.
They had killed Da, used him to animate that creature.
The woman turned to them. She reached up, her escort shimmering about her.
Talen’s attention was drawn to her hands. They were smoky, flickering. Almost like that of a wraith. He had not noticed this before.
“Your former masters were lax and allowed untamed elements into the populace. So I shall educate you. There is a great order of beings. This is the nature of creation. Humans have mastered many things, but not all. There are greater powers still. I will protect you from all takers. Serve me, and I will give you knowledge and power beyond what you can imagine. I shall raise you and crown you as Divines to your people. Think of all you could do with such power. Just bring me the master of the harvest.”
Her words were as smooth as silver. She was so beautiful, so convincing. A scrap of a memory came to him. And he realized that when he was a child, he’d dreamt of this woman, of the bands of living light. He remembered the joy of those dreams. So long ago. Before Mother had died.
Part of him wanted to bask in her radiance. But there was a part of Talen that resisted her, part of him roiling with revulsion. If he could only don the crown, perhaps he could do something. But the power of the crown was beyond him.
“So I shall ask again,” the woman said. She held up the wisterwife charm. “Where are you hiding the one that bore my might?” Her words caressed Talen like silk. If he had known the truth, he would have told her.
But perhaps…
The charm, the dreams, the words River and the Creek Widow had spoken to him-they all roiled in his mind. His mother had discovered, working in the fiber of his body, strange and intricate patterns of power. “Twisted,” River had said. “Pruned and grafted for a great purpose,” the Creek Widow had said.
They had all suspected it was for some greater good. But none of them could have imagined this.
It’s me, he thought. I am the one she seeks. With a clarity that rang like a bell, Talen felt the truth of it. It sounded in his very bones.
But what was he? Was he even human? He felt the panic of standing next to a high precipice and knowing he was going to tumble over the edge. He felt the fear of being dragged by a treacherous current far out to the deep and rough waters of a cold sea.
The woman motioned at Da’s body. “He’s cooling even as we speak, but it’s not too late. I can reverse the quickening. Tell me where the master is and you shall save your friend.”
He could save Da. Talen’s world was gone, replaced by this nightmare. But he could save Da.
His mind told him this was true. But in his heart was a warning.
He looked over at River. Her face was wracked with grief and fear. She shook her head, indicating he should say nothing. He noticed she’d freed herself of the collar, which meant she was probably working her lore, multiplying her powers. Even so, what could she do that Da as a victor could not? Her attack would be as futile as Ke’s had been.
“Don’t listen,” said Uncle Argoth. “She means to put us up like so much smoked meat.”
“That is true,” the woman said. “But this is the order of things. You love and cherish your cattle, your sheep, your beasts. But in the end you feed off of them. Why should it be any different with us? Besides, you will fare better u
nder my management than you ever could on your own. Your people will grow old in peace. You yourself will live to the age of a tree, doing, if you decide, much good. You will protect those most dear to you. You will put down injustice and grind your enemies beneath your feet. You will heal sickness in children, cattle, and herb. Peace and fatness will reign in these valleys and hills, these shores and mountains, until the end of your days. This is what I give you-the power to bless.”
The joy of her vision overwhelmed Talen. Indeed, he thought, why should they fight her? Is this not what every man and woman desired? The good he could do was unimaginable. And how could he be so ungrateful when she was offering him the means to save Da?
Again, revulsion roiled in him. The vision faltered. Was she lying?
He looked at Da lying in the dust. He could save Da. He could do good. And if they didn’t pick up the reins she offered, surely someone else would. Someone like Fabbis who would rule with cruelty.
Her words filled him with hope, and he made his decision.
“I am the one,” he said. “It is me you seek.”
“No, Talen!” Uncle Argoth shouted. “She twists life. She will steal your will.”
“On the contrary,” the woman said.
Her countenance shined upon Talen and it made him glad.
“An overseer must take the position freely or not at all,” said the woman. “It must be so. Thralls do not endure. They are creatures destined for madness and wrath. And when a creature’s wrath is full, there is nothing left to do but cut it down for the devouring. Thralls are used for those who fight, but not for those who rule. And it’s best that humans rule other humans. It’s a matter of trust.”
“She lies,” said Uncle Argoth. “You can fight her.”
“Does not a dog glory in the praise of its master? Has it not been bred to do so? The world of men was domesticated ages ago. Your very nature makes you dependent on us. The only difference between you and your dogs is the genius with which you were bred.” She turned to Talen. “You were woven to work with me without impediment. Your only taskmaster will be my approbation.”
The woman came to him in her beauty and shining light.