The Demigod Proving

by S. James Nelson

  “Pyter overthrew draegons and scaella because of their harsh dominion over humans. Why would you put one of us back in power?”

  “The human body tempers some of the draegon and scaella nature. Coupled with my guidance, whoever is my heir will prove the strongest and most just god there has been.”

  Wrend didn’t know what to say or to think. It seemed unreal that he was a draegon. And Teirn a scaella. He almost didn’t believe it. After all, he felt no different than a minute before—not beyond being disturbed.

  His stomach rumbled; he hadn’t eaten since morning. One of the dogs stirred, whimpered in its sleep. Another got up from the floor by the divan and padded over to the Master’s feet. He reached down and scratched the dog behind the ears with one hand, while with the other he ate the other buttered half of the bread.

  “This serving girl claims that she, too, is a draegon. She says she was your mate when you were a draegon, and she wants you to go back to being a draegon with her. What do you think of that?”

  “I can’t remember being a draegon. I know nothing about her. It means nothing to me.”

  The Master nodded, apparently satisfied with something.

  “Why does one of us have to die?”

  “To prevent future discord, Wrend. I have seen much more history than you, and understand this to be necessary. You would do well to accept it, for I will not budge on this.”

  Wrend felt mentally and emotionally numb. What more could he possibly do?

  His body ached from the ropes. He shifted in his chair, hoping the Master would untie him. Yet the Master didn’t move, except for eating some strips of dried meat. Several dogs looked up at Wrend. The one at the Master’s feet settled down with its head on the carpet, and looked at Wrend as if bored with the conversation.

  “I see you aren’t convinced,” the Master said. “Recite for me the Parable.”

  Wrend blinked. “The Parable?”

  “Don’t you know it?”

  “Of course I—.”

  “Then recite it for me.”

  All Novitiates knew the Parable. They learned it before reaching age four. It taught them their place in the world, and within the program of the Master.

  “Locaran,” he started, “is like a pleasant garden, where men and women live their lives in peace and comfort, in the shade of a Great Tree that protects them and even produces fruit for them.”

  The Master nodded. He ate as he listened, leaning one elbow on the table and turning his head toward the food, not looking at Wrend.

  “Athanaric, god and father, is the Great Tree. He is the trunk, and his wives are the roots. His children are the branches. They stretch wide, shading the garden, dropping fruit to feed those below.”

  Wrend swallowed, trying to see what lesson the Master would teach from it. He thought he knew what the Parable meant, and saw no new application.

  The Master did not look up from the table.

  “Keep going.”

  “But some of the branches, as they grow, do not bear fruit. They are weak and provide little shade. Such fruitless boughs are pruned away—and in this manner they serve the tree. By dying, they do not take up the nutrients needed to make the tree strong. They do not choke and tangle the branches that remain, and they do not grow large and then die—cluttering the tree and perhaps breaking off and crushing those below. Their pruning serves the purposes of the tree.”

  “Tell me, Wrend,” the Master said. “Why do I allow these fruitless boughs to grow in the first place? Why not only allow to grow the number of branches I know I will need?”

  Wrend licked his lips. Every Novitiate knew the answer.

  “If you only grew the number of branches that you needed, some would prove weak and harmful to the tree and all around it. So you grow many, and keep those who will bear the best fruit. Those most-choice branches will spread wide to shade the people below, and drop their fruit to feed them.”

  The Master nodded, still chewing bread, still looking at the food on the table. He waved a hand for Wrend to continue.

  “When the fruitful boughs have reached the point of maturity, when their works begin to wane, they are pruned and used for fuel by those below, and provide warmth and strength. Thus, all branches serve the Great Tree from beginning to end.”

  Finished, Wrend waited for the Master to respond. Ten seconds. Twenty. The Master continued to chew. He looked at his food as if it were his last meal. Thirty seconds. Longer. He swallowed his food and looked across the table, as if at a person Wrend could not see.

  “Keep going, Wrend.”

  “I—that’s it. That’s all of the Parable.”

  “It’s not.”

  “But—.”

  “That is not all of the Parable.”

  Wrend bit his lip and searched his mind. It was all of the Parable.

  The Master swiveled his head toward Wrend.

  “There is more to the Parable. Shall I teach it to you?”

  “Yes, Master.”

  “Next to me, the Great Tree, grow two other trees. They grow strong and tall in anticipation that one day one of them will replace the Great Tree.”

  All his life, Wrend had known his place in the Parable. It had defined him and taught him his role, his duty and fate. To learn that he had his own place in the Parable—a place unique to almost all others—made the blood drain from his arms and legs. They felt weak as he sat there in the chair, still bound. He was not a branch. He was a tree. He could possibly become the Great Tree in the Parable. He was not as other demigods. Neither was Teirn.

  “Tell me, Wrend,” the Master said. “How can I know which tree is best? How can I know which should be the tree that I allow to grow strong?”

  A dryness consumed Wrend’s mouth. He could hardly speak.

  “As it is with the branches, so it is with the trees.”

  The Master finally looked at him, his lips a thin line, his eyes like glistening stone.

  “That’s right. I must have two trees. With only one, I cannot see if it is the right tree. I have nothing to compare it to. But with two—with two carefully chosen trees growing up near me, I can watch them. I can compare them and determine which is strongest. Which I should allow to grow into a mighty tree, with its own branches intermingling with mine, growing ever stronger, until the time when it overshadows my tree, and I can cease to produce branches, and fade away.”

  Wrend wanted to ask why the second tree could not also be allowed to grow, but he knew the answer.

  “I cannot have two trees growing alongside me. Combined, they would choke and strangle me. Those who enjoy the shade and fruit would fight over which new tree produced the best fruit.”

  “Can’t you graft one of the trees into the branches of your tree?”

  The Master gave him a sharp look. “You cannot graft a mature trunk into the branch of a tree. You can take a branch and graft it into a new trunk; or in some cases take a branch and plant it, so that it can become a trunk—but you cannot take a trunk and turn it into a branch. It would strive to overpower the original trunk, or simply die. It would not work.”

  He looked at Wrend for a long time. Wrend looked back, understanding, seeing the logic of the addition to the Parable, but rejecting it. It was only a metaphor. He could become a Caretaker. He would not someday rise up against the Master or Teirn.

  “You see, then,” the Master said, “that I must kill it, lest it destroy me or the other tree.” His eyes grew soft and regretful. “Though I loath to, I must put the ax to the root of one of those trees and destroy it completely.”

  Wrend saw that he could not argue with the Master any more on the topic. He understood that the Master would not budge on this thing. A sick weight dropped his heart like rotten food into his belly.

  “Now, Wrend,” the Master said as he began to slice another loaf of bread, “we’ve talked much. I believe we understand each other better. But there is one thing I can’t yet comprehend, that has bothered me. And I hope tha
t you can illuminate me.”

  “I’ll try.”

  “Where did you get the idea that others should be able to defy me and live?”

  Wrend shook his head and sighed. He couldn’t keep this from the Master. Not after the Master had told him so much.

  “A priest.”

  The Master kept his body toward the table as he spread butter over more bread. He didn’t look at Wrend.

  “A priest?”

  “Well, he didn’t teach me that people should be able to defy you. And he didn’t really teach me anything. He just said things—things that have made me think.”

  “What kind of things?”

  Wrend’s nervousness suddenly returned. The Master’s casual curiosity had caught Wrend off guard. Certainly it meant more than it seemed. Maybe he should have lied about this. But he couldn’t get out of it, now. He shrugged, to try and make it seem like a smaller thing.

  “Just things that have made me think.”

  The Master set the knife down and turned his body back toward Wrend. “And what priest was this?”

  Wrend hesitated, trying to find a way out of the line of questioning. But he couldn’t. And he couldn’t very well lie about this, as it could harm an innocent person.

  “Naresh.”

  “Naresh? The doddering old man?”

  Wrend nodded. Did Naresh have some connection with the rebels? That was probably why the Master had such interest in the topic. After all, just hours before, a dozen priests and demigods had betrayed and attacked the Master.

  “And what did he teach you?”

  “Well, he hasn’t ever really taught me anything. Just suggested things casually, in passing.”

  He raised his eyebrows at Wrend.

  “What things?”

  “It’s hard to pinpoint them. That I should consider other’s perspectives when making decisions. That’s the main one.”

  The Master sat there for another moment, pursing his lips, then he stood and headed for the door. Several dogs joined him. But the Master only pulled the flap aside and leaned out. His voice came back into the tent as just a murmur. After a moment he returned to his chair, his face pensive. The dogs settled back down around him.

  “What is it?” Wrend said.

  The Master gave him a thoughtful expression and reached for another loaf of bread.

  “The priests have rules just as you do. I’ve summoned Naresh, so we can talk with him. Plus, I want meat. Pork. I asked a servant to bring it.”

  Wrend considered asking to be unbound, and to have some food, but the Master’s expression kept him quiet.

  Servants brought the pork before Naresh arrived, and the Master ate it in silence. Wrend tried not to look too interested in how the meat just fell off of the bone, and failed to keep his stomach from growling. The noise made several dogs cock their heads at him, but the Master didn’t seem to notice.

  He looked up only when Naresh arrived.

  Chapter 42: Not who he said he was

  When a weariness of life settles in, you anticipate death. When death’s messenger comes, you welcome him.

  -Athanaric

  Naresh hobbled in, his back bent. He smelled of ale and cinnamon—both primary aspects of the Strengthening celebrations—and prostrated himself on the floor among the dogs. They gathered around him, licking his hands and face. He laughed and tried to push them away as he bowed.

  The Master didn’t speak, just looked at Naresh. Still bound, Wrend wished he could wring his hands in worry for the old man. Naresh was his friend, and Wrend had always trusted him. Too late, he’d realized that he shouldn’t have spoken of the friendship.

  When the dogs had settled down on the carpet around the Master’s feet, Naresh looked up. His hands trembled and his head shook from side-to-side from his palsy.

  “It seems,” he said, “that I’ve caused some kind of trouble.” He glanced at Wrend, his eyes dull and soft, then back up at the Master. “How may I be of service, great god?”

  The Master moved so fast that the action ended before Wrend even knew what had happened. He jerked with surprise at the blur of the Master’s arm and the scrape of a knife sliding off of the table and brought down on Naresh’s head—except Naresh was no longer there. He flipped backward, also just a blur.

  When it was over, and stillness had settled over the tent, the Master leaned from his chair with his knife stuck into the carpet up to the hilt, his face shocked. He looked up at where Naresh stood tall, half a dozen feet from where he’d been, next to the divan. He held his head high. All traces of drunkenness and senility had disappeared from his countenance.

  The dogs, roused by the sudden action, leapt up and began to bark, first at the Master in excitement, and—as if sensing their master’s angst—turning to the priest and baring their teeth. Their hackles lifted, and several crouched in preparation to spring.

  “What,” Naresh said, “have I done to merit such an attack?”

  Wrend looked from Naresh to the Master, then back and forth again.

  Ichor. That was the only explanation. Naresh had somehow used Ichor to react and move that fast. That meant he was a demigod—if not one of the Master’s sons, then the child of another god, in another country. An enemy.

  The world seemed to shift. Wrend’s perspective changed as he considered that this old man who had befriended him and given him advice through the years was actually a foe.

  The surprise faded from the Master’s face as he pulled the knife out of the carpet, stood, and drew himself to his full height. He blocked much of the light from the lantern on the table, and cast a shadow over Naresh and most of the room. He held the knife down at his side, yet his muscles remained tight beneath his black shirt.

  “Who are you?”

  “I,” Naresh said, as he inclined his head politely and let one corner of his mouth turn up, “am the one known as Godslayer.”

  Wrend had heard the word only once—back at the feast at the start of the proving—and this second time it made the skin on his back tingle. He shivered from the sudden chill.

  Especially because of how the Master’s face became relieved.

  Chapter 43: Accusations

  If I have learned anything in my years, it is that tyrants and gods have one great tool: deception. Take that away, and their kingdoms crumble.

  -Naresh

  Relief washed through Athanaric as he stood over Naresh.

  The slayer of gods. For a thousand years this man had moved among the nations, striking at gods and bringing them down one by one. How many had he killed? Two dozen? More? And now he’d come for Athanaric. It would end soon. His boredom and weariness, the weight of life, would perish with him.

  What a relief.

  He hadn’t expected to feel relief when confronted with the Godslayer. He’d known that one day the Slayer of Gods would try to kill him. It was inevitable. He’d anticipated a thrill of danger or perhaps a surge of adrenaline. But not relief.

  Life had indeed become a burden for him.

  He didn’t speak, but waited for Naresh. The little man stood in the shadow with a placid expression, arms at his sides, not intimidated by the dogs inching toward him.

  How blasphemous for him to wear the vestments of a priest. He killed gods—he didn’t worship or serve them. Only, why had he assumed the mantle of a priest twenty-three years before? How many times since then had he foregone the opportunity to attack and kill? Hundreds of times, probably. Why wait? Why do nothing until now?

  Except even now he hadn’t done anything. He no doubt would’ve continued on as a priest had Athanaric not forced him to expose himself. Athanaric had thought to kill the doddering fool as punishment for teaching his son forbidden ideas, and been as surprised as the dogs at Naresh’s ability to dodge the blow. He’d moved so fast. Athanaric had never seen anything like it, and it should’ve made him afraid, not relieved.

  But as he stood there, contemplating his next move and binding Thew and Flux to his body in
preparation to react, a seething anger rose up to replace the relief.

  He wouldn’t let the Godslayer kill him.

  He wanted to die in his own way, in a manner he chose, not like some criminal executed for heinous crimes. For two thousand years he’d strived for—and achieved—peace. How many lives had he improved? How many wars had he averted? How much suffering had people avoided because of the culture he’d created?

  No one could measure it. He’d done infinite good and didn’t deserve to die like a criminal. He needed to pass on in a dignified way, after having left the kingdom in capable hands. If he didn’t, the country would plunge into war, and everything he’d worked two thousand years for would come to naught.

  No, he would not die this day under the blows of this man. He would live and select an heir, and lay down when the time was right. Perhaps when Rashel and Calla had both died from old age. Life would certainly become even drearier without them.

  “This would be easier if you forsook your throne,” Naresh said. “Together, we could avert a grievous war.”

  He ignored the bait. The Godslayer didn’t understand his people’s welfare. He didn’t know what was best for them.

  Athanaric shook his head, tapped his discernment, and bound Spirit Ichor to the part of Naresh’s soul attached to his brain. Athanaric didn’t have much of the Ichor left; he’d used a great deal when confronting Leenda that afternoon. It was an unusual type of Ichor—it depleted faster than Flux and Thew, and required large quantities to do anything. He probably didn’t have enough to kill Naresh outright, but perhaps he could incapacitate the priest long enough to kill him.

  “You deserve to know,” Naresh said, “that the cultists don’t act alone.” Sorrow descended over his face. “They’re joined by others. The Hasuken honor guard.”

  Athanaric didn’t understand—but he didn’t care.

  “Your exploits end here, today.”