by Jean Johnson
“How will this anima-draining happen?” Zuki asked.
Siffae was glad Zuki was still so sharp. She hadn’t thought about that. If it required moving . . . well, her gold bangles looked fancy, but it was not the lightweight golden metal of the gods, the metal they called faeshiin. She would give what she could, even if she dropped lifeless to the floor, of course, but if it wasn’t necessary . . .
“I am bound to each of you by healing magics,” Mother-of-All explained. “I have given each of you anima over the years. I have even transferred some of it. This will be no different. It will not hurt, though you may grow tired or hungry. Make yourselves comfortable, and we will begin in thirty more heartbeats.”
Oh. That wasn’t so bad. Siffae had helped with that in the past, when the red-spotted fever had swept through the tribe some . . . thirty years ago? No, twenty . . . twenty-six. Settling herself in her chair with a little wiggle, she brushed away an imaginary hair from her fine, if simply cut, clothes.
I will live to see my gods . . . become gods? I am not certain how this will be described in the holy records, she decided. It was all rather confusing in the details, if clear in the need. But I am certain we will debate this day for generations to come.
***
The local humans had more than enough energy for the task. Once she began drawing upon all the people connected to her, Jintaya shimmered and glowed with saturated energies within just a hundred or so heartbeats. Beckoning Jinji forward, she cupped her niece’s cheeks, transferred energy until she ceased glowing and Jinji “sweated” anima, then released her and stepped back out of range.
A clean slice, a slump of the body that caused the humans to cry out in shock—and again in awe when that body exploded and vanished, leaving behind a spark-laden wind that hummed, coalesced, and said, “Mmm . . . yesss . . . This is a bit different. I shall enjoy learning how to deliver good fortune to our friends . . . and delivering punishment to a certain someone who is naughty beyond words . . . I go to join Éfan and Zedren—thank you for your faith!”
The wind vanished. Ban held himself ready for the next. Shava refused to be parted from her mate even for a short while; in truth, the gentle teacher could be quite fierce when she asserted herself. So Jintaya filled them both at about twice the length of time it had taken to test the process on her own niece. Filled them until they glowed and spilled spark-bubbles of energy, and stepped back.
Unsheathing both blades, Ban flexed his wrists, locked them into their strongest postures, and stabbed the two Fae simultaneously through their hearts. He pressed his wrists inward when jerking the blades out, ensuring that the pair fell into a pile together . . . and exploded so brightly, if silently, big blotchy sunspots danced in front of his wincing eyes. It certainly took Jintaya several extra seconds to blink away the afterimages.
By the time everyone could see again, the newly paired winds had formed a spiraling helix of shimmering anima. Beautiful, he acknowledged, still blinking a little to try to clear the lingering, vaguely purplish blotch that had been their golden, vanishing bodies. A little too bright, but beautiful. I am not going to look at the next pair, after they drop.
Next came Fali and Adan, who linked hands and approached. Jintaya consented with a nod and set to work. Easy enough, since doing them in pairs worked. Ban almost got his eyes closed in time, and had to blink away more eyespots. When Kaife and his mate, Parren, stepped up, he just stabbed with his eyes open long enough to be sure of his targets, then squeezed them shut and jerked his blades free.
Even with his lids shut . . . bright. Very bright. At least he didn’t have to worry about cleaning up a pile of bodies or a lake of blood. Even his blades ended up clean after each transition. When Muan stepped up on her own, not in Kefer’s company, Ban sheathed his left-hand sword. For her, he beheaded her quickly, as he had Éfan and her brother. Kefer came last.
Almost last. When his body fell and vanished, when Ban opened his eyes again after the flash had faded and the law-sayer of the pantean swirled around them, testing his new existence . . . he met Jintaya’s troubled gaze.
Quietly, carefully, she closed the distance between them. Like a mother trying not to wake a sleeping infant. Those sun gold eyes stared into his dark brown human ones, and she licked her lips, before whispering for his ears alone, “I don’t have to make the transition. They can do this without . . .”
Ban lifted his finger to her lips, silencing her. “They need you to lead them. You are the heart of this pantean. You are the kindness that will always temper their power with compassion. They need you to join with them, so that they will never forget to be gentle and kind and caring—I have seen worlds where the gods have lost their way. Where they have become beings of power without conscience. They need you. More than I do.”
Her lips curled upward, or tried to curl in a smile. It wavered a bit much. “I could feel Udrin tearing the other two apart, and them regathering up their bits and pieces. If they can survive that . . . then I guess . . . I guess I will finally be . . .” She paused, swallowed, and struggled with another smile. “Immortal.”
Cupping her cheeks, Ban kissed her. This woman, who was not human, who was not from his world, who was not like anyone he knew in more than three thousand years of existence, had taught him how to be himself again. How to be human again.
How to love again.
Forcing his hands and his lips and his head away, Ban stepped back. “Gather the anima. Fill yourself full . . . and do not forget to end the spell connecting you to all these humans. I do not know what will happen if you transform while still bound to them.”
She nodded, agreeing. “One last time,” Jintaya called out, raising her voice a little. “One last gathering of power . . . and then we will be your gods in full. Flawed, but earnest in our need to help you.”
This time, she managed a smile that was more warm than tremulous. Closing her eyes, focusing her will, she gathered in the energies binding her to the health of her humans. Filled herself full, until just a few spark-bubbles leaked out. A flick of her fingers rippled through the aether. Ban sensed the webwork of ties dissolving, and looked out at the hundreds of tribe members. Each one gasped in ragged waves as a section of the network collapsed, releasing them from her long-standing spell. For a moment, they all looked cold, rubbing their arms and their cheeks, shivering despite the warmth of the brazier-lit theater.
He turned back to Jintaya in a smooth motion, checking in a split second one last time to make sure she leaked anima rather than needed it, and cut her down in one blow. She had taught him how to live again, how to feel again . . . but in truth, there were over three thousand years of numbed and damaged scars in his heart, mind, and soul. He felt nothing, watching her fall. He did not ache when her head tumbled across the stage. He shed not a tear when her blood spilled bright red across the sculpted flagstones.
He did not blink when she vanished in a soundless explosion of light. Not until the wind of her transformed presence first chilled, and then gently dried, the tears streaking his cheeks.
“. . . It is done. We have a whole world to protect . . . and a wayward child-god to correct. We will return. We may even take solid enough form in the future to interact with you. And we will always answer to the core bloodline of Am’n Siffae for anything Udrin does.”
“Udrin-taje,” the head of the Family Siffae asserted.
Jintaya’s sparkling wind-shimmer twisted, the habits of a mortal body causing her to turn when it seemed to Ban that the transformed Fae didn’t need such limitations anymore.
“His name is Udrin-taje. He is still the First God of the Flame Sea,” the elderly ex-southlander insisted, her voice more firm than quavering. “And we shall pray to him to help him heal his broken mind. What he has done is terrible . . . but if there is something I know about children after all these generations,” Grandmother Siffae said, “it is that they need to be acknow
ledged. Particularly if they think they are in the right. They may actually be in the wrong, but the more we insult him, the more difficult he will become.”
“You are wiser than I am, to have seen this . . . and I have born as many children as you,” Jintaya acknowledged.
“Yes, but did you raise them?” Siffu challenged her. “The Dai-Fae you begat are not capable of becoming god-beings, or one of them would have tried and managed it before now. But Udrin was capable. So we will mollify him on points of ritual and respect.”
It was Siffu speaking in that moment, Ban instinctively knew, the great-plus-grandmother, not Grandmother Siffae the Priestess. He turned and bowed to her. “You show great wisdom for your young and tender years, Grandmother.”
She chuckled and smiled, and patted the armrest of her carved litter chair. “Who knew Death could be so funny and charming? I hope it is you that comes for me when my time to die draws near, and not pestilence or infirmity.”
He hesitated, then spoke the truth. “I, who cannot die, support the right to die of those whose quality of life has declined into misery unending. If you ever achieve such a state and cannot manage it yourself, you may call upon me. But I suspect you shall live to be a hundred, and not just ninety-three.”
“. . . I must go. The others will need my help in tracking down Udrin . . . taje,” Jintaya stated.
Or rather, Djin-taje, Ban acknowledged silently. He felt her presence, her power, even a ghost of her hand brush along his jaw in gentle caress, and then she left the theater. For a moment, silence reigned . . . then someone’s stomach rumbled. Unlike the Fae, he was accustomed to tending to the needs of his body every day. Death by thirst, by starvation, was not fun. These humans needed to eat.
“If you are hungry, then eat. In fact, I suggest everyone eat at least a few things. I do not want to see a single scrap of food from the last feast of the Fae left in those baskets,” Ban ordered. “I do not want to have to clean up any of it, so . . . take the baskets with you, too. Taje Zuki, if you would appoint an animadj to remain so that the fires in the brazier-lights can be extinguished, I would appreciate it.”
“And what will you be doing, Ban-taje, Maker of Gods?” she called back dryly. Pointedly, reminding him in her typical, skeptical way that she would not put up with any airs, reticence, or goat-shitting from him.
“Getting some sleep. I am still mortal in that I need to sleep . . . and aside from you . . . I have just executed my friends,” he returned bluntly. Looking down at the sword still in his hand, Ban sheathed it at his hip. His volume softened when he spoke again. “. . . I think I need the oblivion of sleep.”
“Then go. I’ll make sure everyone cleans up,” his aging human friend pledged.
***
He did not sleep. Not throughout the whole night. Returning to the pantean stronghold evoked too many memories. Moonrise found him up on the cliff heights some distance from one of the sentry posts. The position lifted him just high enough to see the occasional set of dust devils fighting in the distance. Udrin did not quell easily, but at least it looked as if the Fae were able to herd him away from civilized lands.
He knew he had to fly the Efrijt back to their settlement. Tired, aching with exhaustion and pain, Ban ignored the damp chill of a storm approaching from the northeast. He knew the winds often swept in from the west, butted up against the mountains to the north, swung around over the sea to the east, and curled down across the southern mountains.
But right now, they had a storm surging in over the low pass from the Brinnish swamps and jungles to the north and east. More rain to come, moistening the sands, dampening the parched soil, and giving everyone the water they needed to live in this dry, sandy place. The rocky terrain and great dunes in the distance did not at this moment resemble the shimmering-hot illusion of a sea that gave this tribe and this region its name. But give it a few months, and the desert would return to its normal roasting self.
Vastly different from the rain-drenched humidity of his jungle home. Vastly different from the lakes and bays and inlets of long-lost Mendhi.
Wind ruffled at his hair, swirled around his body . . . and wrapped him in a shimmering embrace.
“They have him confined to a patch of sand. It’s taking a team of seven, but they’re keeping him in place,” Jintaya told him. To him, she would always be his Jintaya, and not the Djin-taje-ul, Mother-of-All, of the local humans. “One each to the east, north, west, and south, plus one below, one above, and an extra to spot and cover any points he can use to escape. A pity he teleports away whenever he comes close enough to see you, or you’d have him contained by now.”
He turned to look at her . . . and saw nothing more than a heat-shimmer in the vaguest outlines of her face. One day, she might learn how to shape an image like Éfan had. She might even figure out how to make herself seem solid and opaque. One day, he might see her, but . . . it hurt, not meeting her gaze right now. Blinking, Ban looked away.
“He sounds remarkably powerful, overcoming six of you.”
“He did something to himself before his transformation, I think. Found some key to grasping and melding with the anima far more thoroughly than we have done. But we are learning, we have more education, more patience, more attention to spare for studying the details, and as the hours pass, we are each growing stronger,” she promised. A phantom hug warmed him, only to be followed by a sigh. “I cannot wait until I can manifest a body to hold you.”
“Jintaya . . .”
“I’m sorry, Ban, but you were right. They need me. At least this way I will most likely live as long as you do.”
He closed his eyes at that, hanging his head, his forearms braced on his folded thighs. “I cannot follow you, Jintaya. I cannot be one of you. I don’t have that power . . .”
“We will find a way to be together,” she promised softly. “We have time, and we will learn as we explore and experiment.”
“And if I somehow end up leaving this world? Pulled or pushed through a portal by an enemy? If you leave this realm, you leave the very thing keeping you immortal. Keeping you alive,” he reminded her. Again, he tried to look at her, only to fail.
Her energies brushed his cheek, draped around his shoulders in parody of the affectionate touches he craved and missed. “If that happens, I charge you with the task of making your way to either Faelan, where you will demand to know what happened to our people, or to Kasir, where you will demand them to open a portal to this realm. This is a solid world, Ban. It will not dissolve or shatter overnight. We have time for you to find your way back home.”
Home . . .
Ban looked out across the plant-dotted landscape, green because it was the season of spring, and realized this was his home now. Jintaya was his home. That was why it hurt so much not being able to see or touch her. Swallowing, he nodded. “Learning to care for others hurts,” he whispered, in echo of words he had spoken to her not long after she had rescued him from a world too harsh for either of their kind to survive in for long. This time, however, he did not flinch from the truth. “But I can learn to care again. I have learned to care. This place and these people are my home.”
“They are,” she agreed in a murmur that almost sounded right. Almost didn’t echo all around.
“I just . . . need . . . you,” he whispered. “And I cannot join you, where you have gone.”
“You have me, Ban. I will always be yours . . . and I will find a way. I promise you,” she repeated. “My beautiful, foreign, caring Painted Warrior . . .”
She caressed him in unseen little zephyrs. Ban leaned into her phantom touches. Basked in them in what little ways he could, watching nearly a dozen gods kicking up sand in the distance with their fledgling skills. Birds twittered in sleepy ones and twos, a couple insects buzzed past his face, and blue sky peeked through the storm clouds to the north and the east, while those same clouds struggled to block o
ut the rising sun.
It wasn’t a bad world . . . and this time, he was no longer the only immortal on it.
Jean Johnson is the national bestselling author of both military science fiction and fantasy romance, including the Flame Sea novels, and various series, such as Theirs Not to Reason Why, Sons of Destiny, and Guardians of Destiny. Currently, she lives in the Pacific Northwest.
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