Gods and Demons in Love
Page 9
*****
Nate Lee
I found the woman named Silk in a backwater port on the edge of the Big Empty, a place of no importance to anyone save those born there. Silk lived in a city where worn red brick facades glittered with new frost, and trash blew freely down the treeless streets like small animals fleeing the cold. I'd stopped at an inn where travelers rested. From there I'd sent a quiet probe into a few minds and learned that Silk was a teacher here, drilling the history of their planet into the heads the half-grown children of local merchants.
It was a history of wars unending. For generation after generation, two nations fought one another for reasons that meant nothing. Atrocities committed in the name of patriotism led each side to believe the other to be monsters without heart or soul. It was clear to me that they'd never met true monsters, but since I was here, that was about to change.
I'd arrived a week before on a ship bringing yet more weapons to be used in the futile fight, and today I waited patiently outside the building where I knew Silk worked. As I loitered there, I stared down at the ruby that I'd had set into a ring that I wore on my right hand. I gazed into its deep and bloody light and reflected with bitter irony on the promise that had brought me so low. Old memories made light from the stone flash fire and agony, and I looked away.
I wasn't human. Never had been. But I'd been bound to a line of human women for millennia. And then, at long last, I'd thought I was free. I'd believed old Razor to be the very last far daughter of my long dead love. When I granted Razor's wish to have youth and health again I'd thought my curse was ended. For time turns love to dust and ashes, and even an immortal godling can grow weary of carrying love's burden for too long.
My Laheese had won a promise from me; a promise that I would grant the heart's desire of her daughter and of each of her daughter's daughters so long as her line continued. Young, just sprung fully formed out of chaos and desperate with longing to please my beloved, I had agreed. So began my curse.
I'd tracked Razor to where she ran a shop on the docks repairing ships for captains who weren't too choosy about where they did business. She'd claimed she had money enough and power enough to please her without my help, but she was weary from her many years and tired of the ache in her bones. I'd granted her youth, knowing the gift would destroy her, as my gifts had destroyed all the far daughters of my beloved Laheese. Yet, I'd felt nothing but relief that at last my curse was ended.
But Razor had paused in the doorway and turned to look back at me. She'd smiled, a mocking grin, white teeth flashing in a newly handsome face, and tossed the words over her shoulder, "I'm not the last, Nate Lee," she'd said, "in case you thought you were done. In my youth, I found pleasure with men as well as women. I have a daughter of my own—somewhere. I haven't seen or heard from Silkie for nearly thirty years, but if she's still alive, then she is the last far-daughter of your Laheese, not I."
With that final blow, she'd left me there, alone on the terrace in the night. But no night was so dark as the despair that filled my heart.
My curse continued, and so did I. I'd looked deep into the paths that Razor's life had taken, and I'd finally found this place where she'd abandoned her only daughter thirty years before.
The woman called herself Silk now, and nothing more. By local custom, abandoned as a child, with no family to claim, she had no other name. Silk had grown up on charity, but she'd grown well. Peering into the minds of those who knew her showed me that she was respected for her intelligence and sometimes feared for her strength of will. What the woman set her mind to do, she did; and what she desired, she got. Silk was more like her far ancestor Laheese than any of the daughters I'd met in all my long, long journey.
I waited for her now, leaning casually against the wall near the doorway to the school where Silk taught. The bricks were bright red with oxides of the local soil and felt cool against my back. A mob of children had come out an hour ago. They shrieked with laughter, and their breath steamed in the chill of the planet's winter tilt. I watched them disperse, bright in color and sound, and I wondered again at how far this one small species had spread. I'd seen empires rise and fall, and still humans continued. But they almost never changed, not in any way that mattered.
Or maybe I was missing something.
Some humans believed their mortal lives were dreams, that they came, they lived and died, and then awoke to their true selves in some immortal realm. Was there more than just this life? I'd been born in the world of spirits, thrust out of chaos with no name and no idea of what sort of creature I was. I stared down once more into the red hell I wore on my hand. I could go back to the spirit world or I could be here, but nowhere else. The ruby was my life, my heart, my soul—if I had such a thing. Over time, I'd come to keep many spirits prisoner in that stone. If they ever escaped, would they go on to live again? As one who had never died, could never die, I was forever barred from knowing whether this was true.
But that didn't matter. There was Silk, just leaving the building. A tall woman, wrapped in a hooded cloak of tan wool; it had to be her. The wind blew her scent to me, and I knew this was Razor's daughter.
I waited until she'd walked well down the way, and then followed. I didn't know how I would meet with her; I only knew that I must.