“At the same time, another faction was being born in Vigil. The mortals who could not bring themselves to scorn my father for the atrocity he had committed, instead, began to worship him for it. They embraced the title of Butcher, and began to undertake some rather sinister practices; self-mutilation, necrophilia, anything that represented death and bloodshed, they came to cherish.
“As Vigil’s new rulers, the three of us did our best to squash this group, who called themselves, as I’m sure you’ve guessed, the Butcher’s Cult, but despite our efforts, and with Rathervian’s guidance, their teachings spread.”
“So… the things in the spellbook are true? Mycah’s former mentor, he was the founder of the Butcher’s Cult?”
“That much is true… as to the rest, I couldn’t say. If I could read it, I could probably point to all the lies. If he’s justified himself in his crimes, then I’m sure there are bound to be plenty of them.”
“What did you do?” Null asked.
“To save the city? Well, Null… I think… I think that is the moment I felt the most hopeless in my life. It seemed the more we tried to stop the cult’s spread, the quicker it did so. We outlawed their meetings, we banned their books, we even went as far as to have a few of their leaders executed – a fact I’m rather ashamed of today. And yet, no matter what we did, the cult spread, until one day they ousted us.
“Under Rathervian’s leadership, the cult had been meeting in secret. Somehow, perhaps from Rift, or maybe he discovered the method on his own, Rathervian had discovered how to make a mortal into godkind. He called the process anointing, and to the cult, it was the highest of honors, their most holy practice, reserved only for those who had proven themselves truly worthy.
“With this newfound power, they sprang their trap. They attacked our homes, and that night they killed Eve and wounded Kalec. To regroup and recover, he and I fled the city, and when we did so, the cult instituted a new government, under the collective of mages they called the Rightful Priests.
“Kalec had only convinced me to leave because he claimed that we would continue fighting, but Eve’s death had taken its toll on him, and he no longer had the will. I couldn’t accept that he would simply give up, and even though it was not his fault, I blamed him for what had happened. I apologized later, but the loss of Vigil had sapped our relationship greatly, and eventually he and I parted ways.
“I was not content to let the Butcher’s Cult spread any farther, so went looking for someone to aid me. By this time, most of the gods were gone or dead, consumed by their civil war, but I found a few that still stood strong. The Whore’s consort, Dydal, and his daughter Tyrena – who you might know as Mason – had reunited a large portion of the western province, Trellahn, which he ruled under his newly formed priesthood. Together, with the help of Just, who still ruled in Settin, they had enforced a kind of peace over the continent, and those few of us godkind who still remained agreed to a ceasefire.
“There truly were only a few of us. Kalec had taken shelter in a place even I do not know – though after seeing Bell’s armor, I have taken heart. The Mother had vanished, leaving only a note with Dydal explaining that she could not face her children after what they had done. The letter you received from Dydal recently, implies that Mystic and Rift were sealed in some sort of tomb, and since they vanished rather abruptly, I am wont to believe it. My only reservation is that you saw Rift last night, but that does not matter.
“The point is, openly, it had come to just the four of us who remained: Mason, Dydal, Just, and myself. I approached Just first, asking him to help me reclaim Vigil. He agreed, but only if I agreed to his terms – those same terms he listed today. The two of us met with Dydal and his daughter, and together, we devised a plan.
“The Butcher’s Cult had spread to encompass most of what is today Atherahn, and had begun to spread west. As modern day Settin, Atherahn, Denerahn, and parts of Lock, had all once been a part of the single, former province of Atherahn, the Butcher’s Cult claimed sovereignty over Dekahn and its peoples. As you can imagine, Lock was not very happy about it, and had already begun the process of gathering the nearby peoples, such as the Vandu, into a coalition that might withstand the Butcher’s Cult.
“It led to a war, now known as the Succession, even though officially, the city of Dekahn was never actually part of Atherahn – just one of those unimportant details of history, I suppose. As he saw the forces rallied against him continue to swell month after month, Mayor Lock began to look for any help he could get. He approached Dydal, who had once been a close friend of his, and begged him for Trellahn’s aid.
“At first Dydal refused, though of course, Dekahn’s sovereignty was exactly what we wanted. I’ll admit, we were somewhat underhanded in our dealings with Lock. His Atheists worried us, because many of the younger mortals in this land had never seen a god in person. They didn’t believe that we had actually existed, and they were quite convinced that we were a myth, told to them by their parents and grandparents. Lock, being a rather… unpleasant, though charming man, had been using that sentiment to his advantage. You see, before him, the gods had ruled by divine right, so if they were real, then how could there possibly be a government that was ruled by men? He feared that his people would see his lack of godliness as proof that he had no right to rule as a king.
“So, we tricked him. We told him that we could not help, until the moment that he had become so desperate that he would accept me as Dekahn’s administrator. At first, Lock would not have it, but eventually he agreed under the condition that none would know that I was a god. Trellahn entered the war, we pushed back the Atherahnians, and secured Lock’s borders.
“But by then, our kingdoms were exhausted. We no longer had the will, nor the troops and supplies, to continue the fight into Atherahn, so we simply stopped. The ceasefire lasted, and as always seems to be the case, the four of us went our separate ways. I remained in Lock, for I had found a new home, and a sort of friendship with Dekahn’s mayor. Dydal and Tyrena returned to Trel and Just to Settin. A few years after that, the three of them left. Outwardly, the only reason they gave was that they simply could not fight the decay any longer. They had seen our family and the mortals we protected fall into chaos, they had lost loved ones and friends, they had lost everything they had once called normal, so I did not blame them for giving up. I had seen that loss of will once before in Kalec, and knew it was not a thing that could be argued with, so I let them go without complaint.
“And so, I have been here the last four hundred years. Lock died, but he had a daughter who became queen, and that daughter had a son who was king, and on down the line until King Rickard, who I fell in love with. I have always been here, in the palace, under different names, and with different masks. Over the years, I let the kings rule with more and more power of their own, until Rickard; he and I ruled jointly and when he died, and Erin took the throne, I resigned myself to administrative work, though my son never once refused my advice. It has been a nice life these last centuries. I’ll admit, it has been nice enough to have made me negligent in my duties.
“My dream of regaining Atherahn has fallen away to the point that holding Lock’s borders is enough for me. How do you fight against a people unfettered by the Call? They do not care if it drives them mad; their faith means more to them than their sanity. I have even grown slack with the Atheists. It is true, they are largely cowed, but every now and then, they commit some act like what was almost done to you. And for those who-”
“Queen?” Null interrupted.
“Yes, Null?”
“All of these gods, why are they returning now? What has changed?”
“I… I don’t know. Clearly it has something to do with Dydal’s text, but it had been here in Dekahn even before I arrived. If it is so important, I do not understand why that realization would be so sudden, or why it would seem to strike everyone at once. Dydal, Rift, Just, and now Silt, all of them arriving on the very same night to retrieve it? It
seems like too much of a coincidence. And why not earlier? Just could have skipped in at any time and taken it. It was not protected… Unless he was afraid of touching the book himself.”
“Why would he be afraid?”
“You said that Dydal was chasing the man with the book?”
“Yes.”
“Then perhaps Dydal had placed some sort of protection on it. Perhaps an alarm that responded to touch. It is possible that Just knew of that protection, and had reason to fear Dydal.”
“But you said that he and Dydal were friends.”
“Yes, but… much can change in four hundred years.”
“Or maybe Just lied,” Null suggested. “Maybe he knew that the book was tied to the Blessing, and did not want it to look like it was he who destroyed Dekahn?”
“That is… quite possible.”
“You say that Erin was like a father to me. Was he my father?”
“I am afraid not, Null. Everything I have told you of the orphanage is all that I know. It was probably a mistake to send Tyvan to retrieve you. You see, I went to the orphanage myself and spoke to the matron, but she would tell me nothing. I am certain that she feared Atheist reprisal should she admit any guilt in what had occurred, especially after the spymaster himself arrived to cut you free of that fence post. But that does not mean that Erin or Mycah, or myself have loved you any less.”
Null closed her eyes and breathed. It was all a lot to take in. She kept thinking of the passages in the spellbook. “Is… is Mycah a cultist?”
The queen frowned. “What?”
“I… I mean, I knew that he had been part of the Butcher’s Cult, but does he still believe it… is he still part of their cult?”
“What would make you think that?”
Null motioned in the direction of the table. “Because… because he gave me that.”
“You mean the spellbook… no, Null. I do not think that he has any loyalty to his former cult, nor his former mentor. I think he gave you the spellbook as a means of educating you, and nothing more.”
“But the things in that book are sinister.”
“All of them?”
“Well… no, not all of them… but… but…”
“But it is hard to take even good advice from someone who seems so repulsive. I understand, Null. I am sorry that I allowed him to give it to you. I should not have.” Her gaze dropped to her hands in her lap. Her hands were knotted and she stroked her thumb in a slow rhythm. “But it may do you good, to have read it.”
“What?”
“I think… I think it is good, that he gave you it. At least, so that you can understand what it is we face. Rathervian believes firmly that death and mayhem, are natural things. He believed firmly that he was doing something noble when he ousted me and my family from Vigil. Their cult is evil, Null. And I think it good that you understand what we face. If Just means to march on Vigil, then… then there will be more bloodshed. There will be more death.”
CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO
Rolling onto his side, Just blinked open his eyes. He lay in a grass field, the blades short like the recently grazed lawn of a goat’s enclosure. Crickets chirped. Frogs croaked. To the east, the sun tipped the horizon, its light peeking between the umber trunks of a pine forest. At the end of the field, a small hamlet nestled at the forest’s edge.
“You’re awake.” It was the same voice; the high-pitched, mocking voice that sounded so much like his own.
Rubbing his eyes, Just sat up to face his heckler. Today, it was a woman who stood before him, her head wrapped in a shawl that ran over and down her shoulders. Her eyes were a lifeless gray, her skin and clothing the color of rotting flesh. Beneath each arm, she clutched a child, one who looked to be around ten, and the other five, but both with the distended stomachs of starvation. They too had empty eyes and flesh the color of death.
“Where am I?” Just demanded.
“We are in Vale.” The woman’s mouth spoke, but the voice was that of his male tormentor. The two children were silent beneath their mother’s loving embrace. As the woman’s gaze scanned Just’s form, so too did the young boys’, all three sets of eyes moving as one.
“How?”
“You have lost more hours,” his tormentor stated.
“That is not an answer,” Just said.
“It is the answer you need.” The woman smiled, her mouth spreading wide to reveal an empty abyss and a tongue that floated like a pale moon in a cloudless and starless sky.
Scowling, Just forced himself onto his feet. “Who is this today?” he asked, beckoning to the woman and her children.
The woman’s head cocked an inch to the side. “You do not recognize them?”
“No.”
“That is no surprise,” the voice answered. “To you, she must simply be another faceless victim in a sea of dead.”
“I have no victims, only the condemned.”
The high-pitched cackle echoed in the empty field. Though there were no walls off of which the sound could bounce, the laughter seemed to come from everywhere at once. “Again, your conviction makes for convenient lies. You have many victims, and these three are some of the first.”
“Who?”
“Do you remember Cantrel Lee?”
“The thatcher?”
“Yes, the very same.”
“Of course I remember him, but, how do you?”
The apparition laughed. With a firm smile, it watched him.
“Who are they?”
“His widow and their children.”
“But they left, they packed up and moved to another village.”
“They starved.”
“But she had family there.”
“She was a widow without a skill. The parents passed and she had no others. Without her husband, her children starved. She died of grief.”
“No,” Just protested. “Lee was violent, and a drunk. He had killed three others.”
“And you killed three more.”
“No.”
“No?” the heckler asked.
“Their deaths were not my doing. I am Justice. I did only what was required.”
The cloudy shroud that encased the three figures collapsed inward like the plume from the volcano above the Pits. The gray dust swirled and Silt’s silhouette stood in place of the dead woman and her children. “And does believing that ease your conscience? Do you even feel pity? Or guilt? Or regret?”
“Not for the damned.”
The shadow blinked, his gray eyes growing even darker. Silt’s long hair swung like a pendulum as his head shook in an expression of pity. “You have degenerated to nothing,” the heckler accused. “You once had compassion, and now you have nothing but conviction.”
Just turned on his heel and headed for the village, refusing to answer.
“Your silence is not an escape,” the silhouette mocked. “You cannot hide from your own madness.”
“I am not mad.”
“No? But all of those deaths. All of that blood on your hands. You think yourself so great that you have avoided the inevitable? The Call has taken you.”
“I outdate its touch. It cannot affect me.”
“Do not be such a fool,” the heckler scoffed. “You are losing hours. You see your victims, and they speak with your own voice. I am in your head. The Call has taken you.”
“I do not have the cravings,” Just said. The grass crunched beneath his heels. His feet ached, as if he had been walking for millennia.
“Don’t you? Then perhaps your hours are not lost. Perhaps you hide them. You strip away the memories to hide your guilt.”
“I have nothing for which to feel guilty.”
“And what would happen if you did? What would happen if Justice condemned himself? Would he cower before his own might? Would you hide it away, for fear it might destroy you? Look at your hands, Just. They are covered in blood.”
Lifting his hands, Just saw nothing. “My hands are clean.”
“
But your past is not. You are drenched in the blood of your kin. Like Tabetha, you hunt in darkness, in pits so bleak, not even you can see. In your wake, there is a trail of the dead. The Call has taken you. True justice, I think, that in killing Death you created the Call, and that it now seeks to fill Death’s void with her murderer.”
Whirling, Just thrust out an arm. The energy from his flesh swept the earth from its bed, swirling grass and dirt into a fountain of gravel and green blades. The dust settled. The grass whisked back and forth in slow descent. His anger left a narrow trench ten feet deep and twenty long. The crickets stopped chirping. All else was silent and calm.
The cackling burgeoned behind him. The shadow stood on the edge of the green, on the road leading to the small town. “You cannot kill what is in your head,” the heckler mocked. Though the heckler stood at a distance, the voice was as clear as if they stood side by side.
“The Call does not affect me.”
“No? But can’t you see it, my friend? With all the death in your wake, you are the perfect candidate.”
Seething, the blood boiled beneath Just’s flesh. He hated this man, this heckler, who at every turn questioned him; mocked him. He wanted this apparition to die, but it was invincible. It knew him. It anticipated him. And worst of all, it spoke the truth he did not want to hear.
“Wilt is Mother’s candidate for Death,” Just growled. “And Wilt is trapped in my service.”
“Do not be so naïve,” the shadow laughed. “You have no proof of that. You cannot even find the memory of this dream in which your mother came to him. You know as well as I, that Wilt is but a deluded fool.”
“If we speak of proof, then I have not had proof of Mother’s meddling in four hundred years.”
“Hah! Then how do you explain Ternobahl’s tyrant? Her hand was clear in that, and Gable’s Riots are not even two decades past. Her meddling continues. Worse yet, if her meddling does not continue, then how do you explain your behavior?”
Death's Merchant: Common Among Gods - Book One Page 83