by Nhys Glover
I frowned. "No. Do your men get upset having to share you?"
She shrugged. "It is an unusual situation. I acquired my harem one at a time over several years. They each understood what they were agreeing to, and for the most part are content sharing me. But I see jealous looks at times, and it is hard not to prefer one over another. Though it is never a permanent preference. When I am in need of the unique gifts one has to offer, I prefer him. Like Ki, my favourite right now. He has healing abilities, like I do, and loves to sooth my body when I have been working too hard. I do not have to put myself out when I am with him. When I have more energy I will prefer one of the others. It balances out in the long run."
I did not like to think about having favourites, even if the favouritism rotated. In my head all my men were my favourites. The only difference was which one I was with in any given moment. But our bond was new. Who knew how it would evolve over time.
"Are they faithful to you? Harem wives are faithful to their husband."
"Of course. It is unheard of for a harem male to stray. I think it is because they make the choice, knowing the situation. It is restrictive, of course. They would probably prefer more sex than they get, sharing me. But I am told sex with me is so much better than with anyone else that it is worth it to them. Quality over quantity." She grinned smugly.
"How big do harems get?" I could not imagine wanting any more men than my four brothers. But my father had forty wives!
"Yours is the largest, we assume because you are more powerful. Most of us have two or three. I have three."
"I am more powerful? No, that is not the reason I have four. They are brothers. One could not be left out." I grew uncomfortable at the thought of being more powerful than others of my kind. I had hated being the favourite daughter. Being special, I had discovered at an early age, had more disadvantages than advantages.
"Of course you have not been tested yet, but as the direct seed of the Godling, we all assume your power is undiluted. Having four consorts only reinforces that belief."
"No, I think you give me too much credit. Many daughters developed powers. I was just the only one who was able to hide their magic."
"So you became the only one who was not castrated. Do you know why magical daughters are castrated?"
I shook my head uncertainly. "Because we are an abomination? A sign of the disfavour of the gods?"
She barked out a laugh and swiped a length of her straight black hair back over her shoulder. The few women I had seen here in the rebel's fortress all wore their hair down, and showed themselves freely to my men. Was that simply because they were my men and would not be tempted by another woman's hair? Would they hide themselves from unattached males? Would I be expected to cover myself when around other men?
Reia broke into these passing thoughts and brought me back to important matters. "Because women with magic are more potent than their male counterparts. And men in power will not risk the questions raised by that reality. We must be forced to remain in the lowly place they have granted us. Do you know how they have twisted the divine truth to achieve their ends?"
I shook my head again. I had challenged every belief I had ever been told in the harem, but now, equally, I wanted to challenge these new beliefs.
"No, I cannot share that with you now. It is not my place, and you are already overtaxing yourself. There is time to learn the truth. A little time, at least. The war has come earlier than we expected. But news of you has spread, and more and more people are rushing to join our ranks. With the support of the Goddess it will be enough this time."
"This time?" I seem to be parroting the words I was hearing each time I tried to make sense of what I was hearing.
"You have been taught that when the gods withdraw their favour the people can rise up and replace the Godling. What you do not know is that every one of those uprisings has started with the goal of replacing the Godling with a magical woman. It never works out that way in the end. Men are physically stronger than we are, and more of them are trained to fight, trained in strategy and politics. So, when the dust settles, another man is usually assigned the role of Godling after all and the twisted cycle starts again."
I frowned. The uprisings always started with magical women? Then the unrest was caused by the demon spawn after all, just as the priests said? Magical women were dangerous, they caused unrest.
"I can see that what I am saying is too shocking to believe. Mayhap I should have said nothing. There are manuscripts, ancient manuscripts that support what we are trying to do. And there are wiser women than I who can explain this to you more clearly.
"Just know that we have been trying to regain our power for millennia. The Goddess supports us. And we will eventually win. It has been foretold."
Chapter Nineteen
Days passed as my health slowly improved. I had not discussed with my men what Reia had told me of the cycle, and how the rebellions to replace the Godling with magical women had failed, time and again. The news was too depressing. I was forced to reconsider my two other options: returning to the airling homestead or going on the run. Neither option had merit, but they had to be better than joining a cause that was doomed from the start. Repeating an action that fails, over and over again, expecting it to one day miraculously succeed, was the height of foolishness.
And I could not escape the insidious thought that such a history gave credence to my Father's belief that magical daughters were spawned by demons to create unrest and upheaval.
On the morning after my first day back on my feet, Reia came to me and asked that I follow her.
"The rebel leaders need to discuss their plans with you, now you are well enough to hear them," she told me benignly. I had been expecting the invitation, but now that it had come I was nervous. I could not help feeling that I was on a runaway beastling, powerless to control my destiny. In the last mooncycle I had experienced this feeling many times.
I had no idea where the Airluds were, but I knew I needed them with me. They may consider I was the one making the decisions, but I would not make them without their input again. I had done that once before and they nearly died rescuing me from my foolishness.
"Call my men, please," I said.
Reia frowned. "The request is for your attendance alone."
"I am not like my father. I do not make decisions that affect my harem without their input. They need to know what we are possibly walking into."
Her surprise was evident. "We are not like your father. We do not... Well, we may... But they agree that we make..." She was flustered and wrong-footed, having never considered herself to be like the Godling. She had simply assumed a role, one usually given to men, and she played the role like a man. But what difference does it make what gender you are if you treat those you love as lesser beings who must dance to your whims?
"As you will, Airsha. I will send for them now."
When they all arrived less than half a 'turn later, looking bemused, I told them about the meeting and my need for their attendance. Immediately they agreed. Together we went to face our fate.
The room we were led to was as large and airy as the room I had called my own during my illness. This one, however, had rows of seats rising in tiers in a semi-circle around the walls. There were twenty people, at least half of them women, already seated waiting for me. From their appearance, which was diverse, I assumed they came from all over the kinglunds.
I moved to stand facing the group and my men formed up behind me, much as they had when I faced the Godslunder captain. My heart was racing in my chest, just as it had that seemingly long-ago day. But this time I would not make decisions on my own. This time I would not try to play the martyr. It wouldn't work. My Airluds wouldn't allow it. I had to get it through my head that I was as essential to them as each of them was to me. Sacrificing myself would not save them. It would destroy them.
"Mistress Airsha, we are pleased to see you have recovered," a tall, elegant woman about twenty years my senior i
ntoned. Her light brown hair was braided in a style I had never seen before. It wound around her head like a crown. Piercing brown eyes held mine, assessing me.
"Yes, I am much improved, thanks to you and your people. Without your help my men would not have been able to rescue me."
"They were very insistent. Not an uncommon phenomenon with harem men," the woman replied, dismissing their monumental efforts as insignificant. I bristled inwardly and felt Calun sooth me: 'What others think of us is irrelevant to us. We know how much you appreciate what we've done'.
I focused on the woman again and addressed the harem issue. "So I am led to believe. To be honest, I have never heard of women having harems before. I thought myself unusual."
"You are unusual. You are the only daughter of the Godling who has magic. That makes you very special. Do you not know the prophecies that surround you?" This was said by a grey haired, aristocratic man sitting next to the woman who had spoken.
"I am sorry. You know who I am, might I not know who you are?" I asked, indicating him and the woman, not liking the feeling of being ignorant and at a disadvantage.
"I beg your pardon, Mistress. This is Moyna and I am Yianni, your much older half-brother. I was born of a Highlund wife of the Godling some forty years ago. My daughter is magical. And, unlike my father, I saw her magic as a gift."
Though I had been told of the source of the other magical daughters, I had not considered their fathers would be amongst the rebels. I assumed they would feel as my father did about such aberrations.
"I am pleased to meet you, brother. And doubly so because you value your daughter so highly."
He gave a little laugh. "I am not as forward thinking as you imply. I am happy to have a magical daughter because it breaks the monopoly our father holds over magic. He gives his magical sons out as if we are treats awarded to obedient beastlings. The existence of magical daughters born of our blood demonstrates he is not the only one with the gods' favour."
The woman at his side stiffened. I wondered what she did not like about his revelations.
I considered this political perspective. Magic was a commodity. The Godling held his position because he controlled a valuable commodity. Now others could produce the magic for themselves his usefulness was reduced.
But I was more curious about his reference to producing magical daughters than I was in his economic concerns.
"Do you not have magical sons as well as daughters?" I asked.
The man shook his head. "Only the Godling produces magical sons. Daughters can appear in the second or even third generation. Moyna here," he indicated the regal looking woman, "is a Water Mistress and the daughter of the grandson of the last Godling. Our current Godling's grandfather. So she is a third generation magical daughter."
Again the woman stiffened, as if he had directly insulted her. Her voice when she spoke dripped censure. "And power is not always weakened with distance from the Godling, as my own vast power exemplifies."
Blinking, I tried to take this in. The magical father produced sons who were not magical, but who could, in their turn, produce magical daughters. I assumed that these daughters were not as plentiful as the Godling's magical brood. Mayhap they were like blue-eyed parents who might rarely produce a brown-eyed child. Such had been observed in the offspring of all the blue-eyed Godlings, my father included. Because any evidence that a child might not be the Godling's was studied closely, the women of the harem passed on knowledge of such phenomenon for their own safety.
"Are all magical daughters born in the other kinglunds fostered, valued, and kept secret?" I asked
The woman called Moyna spoke up again. "Most are. We are the secret magical force that keeps our respective economies running. In the past there have been few of us. Far fewer than magical sons. But when the Goddess' patience," she stressed the word goddess as if to make a point to the man at her side, "grows thin then more of us are born. Right now we have more Elemental Mistresses than ever before. And with you finally coming amongst us, our rightful place is assured." Pride was apparent in every word. This was a woman who considered herself superior to men and was determined to prove it.
"I am sorry, but why is my presence so important? I am just another Air Mistress. I assume you have plenty of them. And I am inexperienced. I have had little chance to use my magic, keeping it secret as I was forced to do for so long. I am not of much value to you yet."
A much smaller man with an odd pointed beard spoke up. "My dear, you are of the utmost value to us. Do you not know the prophesies?"
This was the second or third time I had heard about these prophesies. I still had no idea what they were.
"Let me start at the beginning," Moyna said, determined to keep the reins of this meeting firmly in her hands. "The world was created by the Goddess. She gifted human-kind, one of her most precious creations, with magic. Not to all. But enough magic was spread throughout the population to assist humanity to prosper and grow."
I looked back at my men to see if they knew this story. They shook their heads.
The creation myth I knew claimed many gods took on the task of creating the world, each focusing on a different area. These gods had many names, most I had intentionally forgotten, but they were the ones who gave man magic, elemental magic. My ability to move air, summoning it at will, was the gift of Airdon, or so they said. There was no mention anywhere of a goddess who created everything. That was... blasphemy.
"Over time, men noticed that magical offspring were more common to certain men. Those men were seen as powerful. A new mythology about creation sprang up which claimed there were many gods, not just one Goddess. Those gods favoured certain men, who were the mortal incarnation of them. The favoured men were called Godlings. Eventually, the Godlings warred among themselves, each claiming they were the one true incarnation of the gods, until only one remained. To sustain the myth it was written that when the seed of the one Godling's line began to fail another Godling must come forth to replace him. Violently, if necessary."
Again a good proportion of this was new to me. More than one Godling? How could that be true, if I had never heard of it before?
"Then one of the magical daughters, who had the gift of prophecy, made a startling prediction. She said that the Goddess deplored the selfish games men played with her gifts and that she would replace the Godling with an incarnation of Herself: a magical woman who could give birth to magical sons and daughters, no matter the seed of the father. When she came to power the world would once more have a plentiful supply of magic."
I thought about the assumption that only males could pass on magic. I knew that a woman could pass on traits as readily as a man. Who was it who determined that males were responsible for the magical offspring? If men spread their seed wide, and a woman did not, and if he consistently chose women with magical potential to bed, then it might look like he was responsible for the magical offspring. Most truths were based on observation, and observation could be faulty. I had decided that long ago.
Yet if this story, of how Godlings came to be, was true then why was it that magical sons produced only magical daughters, not sons, now? And why did the Godling's magical daughters, married off and capable of producing childlings, castrated as they might be, did not produce magical daughters like their brothers?
The last was easy. Because magic had to be flowing through the daughter for her seed to be magically fertile. But then why did the non-magical sons of magical sons produce magical daughters?
I was confusing myself and Calun was calling me to order. But I could see another possible pattern in all this that seemed to have been ignored by both sides. Why was I the only one who could glimpse it, even if not fully yet?
I let Calun have his way and refocused on what I was being told.
"The prophecy came from the most powerful Air Mistresses, and the one remaining Godling began to fear a threat to his power from a new direction. He began castrating any daughter who showed signs of magic, so her mag
ic would disappear. He declared that there were no magical daughters anymore. Any who professed magic were the spawn of demons, not gods. Differing rumours spread about the reason for the castrations, but the Godling's power was absolute and the castrations rare and secret, so the real reason became forgotten over time.
"We were told it was because women were too emotionally volatile to handle powerful magic," I interrupted, wanting my information to be added to the rest. "There were incidents that justified such reasoning. My best friend set fire to a gossamer curtain during an important ceremony. The priests were horrified."
Moyna nodded sagely. "We have all been told our emotional natures are problematic. But it is untrue as far as magic is concerned. Boys coming into their power have incidents equally as dangerous as the one you described. Control must be learned by both genders."
She resumed her tale. "Every few hundred suncycles or so enough magical daughters were born elsewhere to fuel the rebellions.
"But the view that only a male could consistently produce magical offspring persisted, so the Godlings always ended up being replaced by other Godlings. They would immediately fall into the patterns of their predecessors, making sure no daughters were born to him that might take his power."
Again the woman stopped so that I could process what I had heard.
"You think Airsha is the one the prophecy speaks of," Darkin said from just behind my right shoulder. I was so shocked by his suggestion I turned to roll my eyes at him. Calun's agreement rushed into my mind. I huffed at them both in amusement.
"Yes, we do. Despite everything done to make sure the Godling had no magical daughters, one grows into her power just when he loses his? This is exactly what the prophecy foretold. This time the rebels will not replace the Godling with another Godling, they will put the incarnation of the Goddess on the throne and magic will be freely available to all."