She became the falling snow, dancing along with its quiet song, loving to fly, loving to fall. Tiny flakes stuck to each other as they touched the earth. When the storm cleared and the sun rose the following day, most of them would melt away. Even the flakes in the highest reaches of the Corialis Mountains would only last the months of winter. They were all doomed. But the snowflakes were oblivious. They whispered their merry song, intertwining with the rage of the wind.
Stop it. A voice bubbled up past all of the sensations. I am not these things.
It was just one more voice in an endless cacophony of voices, and she ignored it, riding the raging wind again. She found the seagull a mile away, pumping his wings fiercely. He was at his breaking point. He—
The seagull’s wing folded, broken at last, and the wind took him down in a spiral. He crashed against the side of the craggy mountain. His limp body fell to the shore and lay there, unmoving, and the merry snowflakes began to cover it.
It was the way of things. Life and death. Oceans crashed into the shore only to draw back and crash again. Seagulls were born and seagulls died.
Stop it!
She looked down at her naked body, half-buried in swirling snow. Her skin was turning gray. She flexed her hand, and it barely curled. This human body was dying, too. Dying again. Something about that annoyed her.
Like a cook kicking over a cauldron of hot water, she pulled GodSpill into this body. Her skin healed, filled with a rosy pink color, flush with the vitality of an eighteen-year-old woman.
She looked away again.
Yes! the voice said. That was how it began. Now stop. Stop it!
Below her, she felt a huge, skinny dog scrambled up the rocky cliff. He wanted to reach her, too, and he was determined. He had tracked her all the way from the place of human-made stones and towers.
He would not make it. He was a strong beast, far stronger than the seagull, but he, too, was at his limit. He had no fur and, like this human body, he was already beginning to freeze. His muscles were stiff and knotted. He could not hang on. Like the seagull, he would fall to his death in a moment.
She became the ocean again, rolling out, crashing in, but the voice pestered her again.
Help him.
She frowned, looked down at her skin. It had lost its pink vibrancy already. Frost collected on the hairs of her arms and the crooks of her elbows.
The skinny dog slipped, his back legs scrabbling desperately on the snow and rock. But he was too slow, too cold. He went over the edge.
Help him!
His paws whipped futilely in the air. He yelped and plummeted—
She caught him, suspending him in the midst of the howling storm. He quieted immediately.
Why not? She had let the seagull die. She would let the dog live.
She brought him back and put him on the ledge next to her. He whined and sat down, shivering in the snow, then went silent, shaking uncontrollably as he watched her.
She reached out and found the essence of the cold air around the dog. She changed the color of the threads, warming the air. After a moment, the dog stopped shivering.
“And now what?” she murmured to the dog. Her voice sounded deep and ragged compared to the symphony of voices that spoke to her from the sea, the wind, the rock, the snow. The voice of this human body was crude and inept.
“Mistress?” the dog barked.
“I am not your mistress,” she rasped. “I do not know who you are.”
The dog whined miserably.
She considered letting the cold batter the dog again. She considered throwing him off the cliff, but she didn’t. Something about that seemed wrong. A flicker of identity came and went.
Why? What is the difference between embracing death and killing? How can I feel this deep need to murder while at the same time feel it is wrong? Why is it wrong?
The rocks of the mountain did not long to kill, nor the ocean nor the wind. They simply followed their passion and their purpose.
What was her passion and purpose?
“Do you know me?” she rasped to the dog.
“Yes, mistress,” he barked.
“Why am I here?” she asked.
“You died,” the dog whined. “They killed you.”
For the first time, she blinked her eyes and turned this human body to face the dog, looking at him through the lens of human vision. He sat solemnly, watching her. The snow swirled between them. She could barely see him. Even when the snow cleared for a brief instant, he was blurry.
She realized her eyes were watering in the wind of the storm, and that was causing the blurriness. Annoyed, she turned her attention to the wind, to the cold, to the snow of the mountain. She changed these threads, changed herself, and a radius of summertime radiated outward from her, enveloping her human body and the dog. The snow melted away underneath her. She rejuvenated her dying skin, muscles, and tissues once more. There. That was better. Now she could see the dog clearly.
“I am dead,” she mused. “I was this body.”
The dog whined again and hung his head. “This one does not know. This one licked you, and you were cold like a fallen deer. This one does do not know.”
“Did you kill me?” she asked.
“No, mistress!”
“Then how do you know?”
“This one tried to follow you. They threw you from a window.”
“They. They who?" Murderous images flashed through her mind. A man with black clothes and bright blue eyes. A boy with silver hair, white skin, and a shiny metal stick. A sword. He’d had a sword.
“Bad GodSpill. Bad man.”
“Where are they?”
“Leave them, mistress. Bad GodSpill. Let us just go,” he whined.
She contemplated that. “I do not understand.”
“They will kill you again. Let us go.”
“I do not think so,” she said. “If I have died, they cannot kill me again.”
“This one does not know,” the dog whined miserably. He shifted from foot to foot, though he was no longer cold.
“Where would we go?”
“Back to the forest. Away from the towers, the bad man, and his bad GodSpill.”
“Why not stay here then, as go there?”
The dog looked out into the storm that swirled a foot away from his face.
“This one does not understand,” he whined. “Not go to the forest?”
“Yes.”
“Stay here?”
“Yes.”
“But mistress, there is death here. All around. Too cold.”
“You are not cold anymore,” she said.
He shifted on his feet, looked at the blizzard. His tongue lolled out and he panted. “This one does not know,” he barked.
“Then we shall stay here,” she said.
“No food. You are not hungry?” he barked.
“If I am dead, do I eat?” she asked.
The dog whined, but he did not answer.
She considered.
“You need food,” she said.
“Yes,” he barked.
“Then we will get you food.”
The dog stood. His long, bony tail wagged vigorously.
She pulled the threads. They both rose slowly into the air, floated away from the mountain ledge, and disappeared into the howling storm.
Also by Todd Fahnestock
Threadweavers Series
Wildmane
The GodSpill
Threads of Amarion (coming July 2018)
The Whisper Prince Trilogy
Fairmist
The Undying Man (coming September 2018)
The Slate Wizards (coming October 2018)
The Heartstone Trilogy
(with Giles Carwyn)
Heir of Autumn
Mistress of Winter
Queen of Oblivion
The Wishing World Series
The Wishing World
Loremaster
The Hate Man (coming 2019)
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The GodSpill Page 33