Tears of the Dead

by Brian Braden

  She could not admit to herself why she waited. The deed should have already happened.

  Fu Xi needs time to climb higher. I must allow the man with white hair to get his people farther to sea.

  Now, however, eternity crushed impatiently on her.

  He’s not coming. His presence was the last thing she should desire, yet she did and hated herself for it.

  Now history and bitter duty could wait no longer. She pointed at the waterfall as the Offering Blade materialized in her hand. Before she could deliver the cut, a dark shape flashed in the water next to her. And then another.

  She lowered the blade as the demons approached like wind driven streaks. They crowded along the glacier rim, slithering over one another eager for release from epochs of imprisonment. They hummed in a filthy chorus.

  Release us, oh Bringer of Death. Do as the Celestial Emperor promised!

  Sometimes a smaller demon slipped through over the waterfall like a salmon over a boulder, to join the others already infesting the world.

  Their prison weakens.

  Deeper underwater, massive black shadows slipped to and fro like cloud shadows. The waterfalls were too small for these demons. They required the Angel of Death to release them.

  Suddenly, the demons plunged into the depths, and the ocean fell silent again.

  He is here. Anticipation and regret gripped her. Why did I wait so long? What have I done?

  The man with hair spun from sunlight, skin as pale and flawless as the snow, and garb as black as midnight, materialized from the mist.

  She knew she’d made a horrible mistake.

  He assumed a relaxed pose opposite her across the waterfall, a vision of white fire and black smoke against the brilliant blue sky. A kindred spirit masquerading in human form, his high black boots hovered a hair’s breathe above the glacier. Coal black trousers, long shirt, and cape hung limp, unruffled by the wind.

  Why did he choose that form? But she already knew the answer. He cloaked himself in the form she loved best.

  Blue eyes as cold and deep as the artic sky drank her in with a hint of lust. “You’ve been standing here for a quite some time. How long does it take to murder a world?”

  “If you come here to stop me, you are more arrogant than even I could have imagined,” she replied coldly.

  “You know exactly how arrogant I am. I know how haughty you can be.” His laugh flooded her with bittersweet memories of a thousand perfect spring days, casting an ancient magic on her heart, a charm she both longed for and feared. “And we both know I cannot stop you. Did you wait this long just to insult me?”

  “Be gone.”

  “You don’t want me to leave.” His eyes danced playfully up and down her form. “I thought you would wear the memory of Nuwa. Yet, here you are as my beloved Gaia.”

  “It pleases me,” she lied, crossed her arms and turned away.

  “It pleases me, too. I would be more pleased if you were flesh. You wanted to see me here, didn’t you?”

  “I did not,” she lied again. She wanted to ask him if his form was simple chance, but knew better. He did nothing by chance. Neither did she.

  What have I done?

  “Go,” she said. “Your banter no longer charms my heart.”

  “Ahh, but you no longer have a heart, do you, love?” Like a snake sliding from a rotted log, his voice rolled through her mind with a silky smooth draw. Spirits can conceal little, even when imagining themselves as flesh. Truth shines through them like the sun through perfect crystal. She tried not to show how his words cut.

  He, however, lied with perfection. She could only lie with perfection to herself.

  “Why did you wait for me?” he pressed.

  She lowered her head and wrapped her arms around her shoulders, shielding her will from his power like from a cold wind.

  “You toy with me. Are you so cruel to think I haven’t suffered?

  “No,” she whispered.

  “Look at me,” he begged with such tenderness it melted her resistance.

  Hand outstretched, angelic face pleading as if begging her to save his life, his outline shimmered. The wind suddenly tousled his robes and hair. A shadow materialized behind him. With a soft crunch, his boots settled into the snow.

  She tried not to show her astonishment. The power to transform spirit to flesh was a power reserved only for Him.

  “I can give you a heart, Gaia. I may not have power in other domains, but I am master of this one. The only power left to Him here is destruction.”

  Another lie. She tried not to stare at the body she last touched long before she became Nuwa.

  “Go,” she repeated, with even less conviction as the demons slowly rose again from the depths. She gestured to the meandering black forms. “And take them with you!”

  “Did you think them mine?” He sounded surprised. His laugh, born aloft on the wind, floated like a ray of light; airy and beautiful.

  The man in black knelt next to the water and reached out. A few demons swam lazily back and forth like carp rising at the expectation of a thrown crumb. A small, childlike demon tentatively neared the surface and reached out, almost tenderly, with a gnarled claw. A thin sheet of black ice formed where it touched the surface, flat and perfectly mirrored.

  “Are they not the Children of Chaos?” Genuinely shocked, she assumed these demons were his servants, wrestled from his control by the Celestial Emperor, to pick the flesh from the bones of the earth.

  “The Children of Chaos are still chained in my domain, perhaps never to rise again. I have no power over these beasts, though I strongly desire it. If I commanded legions such as these, we would not be having this conversation. I would be master and not rebel.”

  “Save your lies.”

  “Lies?” He turned and transfixed her with an expression of such powerful melancholy, she found herself drawn into his eyes. “These are not my servants. They are born neither in Heaven or Hell. These are memories of mortal regret, the afterbirth of earthly grief given form. When confined to the human heart, they shred the human soul from within. When let loose upon the world, they devour the living and the dead.”

  He touched the disc of ice, and it flashed into flame. The demons fled once again into the deep.

  He stood and faced her. “Tell your master He will fail. I cannot stop you, but I can pervert your purposes. Whatever He creates, I corrupt.”

  She wanted to reply, but knew he would only twist her words. She drank in his beauty out of the corner of her eye and remembered.

  He pointed to the fireballs lazily arcing high above. “Behold His rage. He speaks of love, but I practice it. I love the world and He regrets it. It eats Him.” His voice softened with tenderness. “Who is the evil one? Tell me!”

  “I trust Him,” she snapped.

  For a long moment he considered her. His flesh made an even more effective cloak for his thoughts.

  “Did he tell you why he wants to destroy it?” he finally asked.

  “To set right your corruption. For love.”

  “Love?” He shook his head and stepped away from the ice cliff, eyes narrowed and tone sharp. “Do you find the lack of feeling comforting? Is it everything you wanted, everything you remembered? For what promise did you exchange your flesh? What prize so valuable you sacrificed the hot pleasures of the Water for a pale agape ghost?”

  Nuwa wanted to feel rage, to lash out at the man in black with the Offering Blade. She could do neither.

  “It is because of your sons you shed the flesh and cast your lot with Him.” He casually lifted his nose like a wolf and sampled the air. “Fu Xi nears the Roof of The World, and here you stand, ready to unleash a tempest so powerful it could kill even him. If he dies, it is by your hand.”

  “No!”

  “Did He promise to spare him?”

  She lowered her eyes. “No,” she whispered. “He only promised Fu Xi a chance.”

  “And what promise was given for your other son?”r />
  He’s turning the truth against me. Strike now and unleash the Scourge before his words turn my hand.

  He raised an eyebrow at her silence. “I see. Once again you abandon your first born.”

  “You know that is a lie!”

  “If it is a lie, why does it sting? Perhaps you still have a heart, if the truth can make it ache.”

  He returned his gaze to the tundra far below. “Turn your blade, Gaia. Come back to me. Let us finish what we started and transform this world into a paradise for both god and mortal. We will succeed where He failed.”

  She couldn’t look at him, though she felt the unrelenting draw of his will. If she lingered, he would turn her heart. She could not, must not, let that happen.

  “I am an instrument of His will. I’ve made my choice. Now go. You’re wasting your time. I have work to do.”

  In a flash of smoke he vanished. The sunlight momentarily dimmed as if shrouded by dark lightning. Instantly, she sensed him behind her.

  He touched her and spirit became flesh, beginning with her heart. Hot blood pounded into her body as frigid air poured into her lungs. She gasped as an eternity of memories burst forth. Once again, she became Gaia.

  He grabbed her from behind, squeezing her wrists to the point of pain. He forced her hand, stiffly grasping the Offering Blade, toward the thin glacier wall. His lips hovered only inches from her neck, his warm breath gently caressing each hair follicle

  “Then do it!” he whispered into her ear. “Let us do this together. Tell me, love, how much blood must I spill, for Him to offer me forgiveness? Is there enough blood in the entire world for me?”

  His grip relaxed as his other arm encircled her waist.

  “Can He give you this?” he whispered softly. The man in black pressed hard from behind and pulled her tightly against him.

  She moaned at the sensation of his body pressing firm against her’s through the thin, smooth silk robe.

  “I have always loved you.”

  She hoped and feared to hear those words, lies she believed as truth. Lies she cherished and loathed with every fiber of her being.

  She ran her fingers through his hair, turned, and kissed him. His tongue ran sweet and warm in her mouth. They embraced, and lifted by their passion, floated off the ice. With unyielding arms but tender hands, he hungrily sought her body’s forbidden realms.

  Her spirit filled every inch of this new, sensuous flesh. The wind pierced her robe with a thousand icy needles deliciously penetrating the nooks and crannies of their embrace. Heat, ice, and smooth silk simultaneously caressed flesh with overwhelming pleasure.

  “Let the spirit and the flesh be one,” he whispered.

  The wind caught their robes and entwined the lovers in a twisted wreath of white silk and black satin. Their shadows darkened and wrestled across the virgin snow at the top of the world.

  A line of wrathful clouds, pregnant with lightning, raced from the south and obscured the blue sky and falling stars. Demonic voyeurs slowly rose from the depths, drawn by forbidden passion. The water’s surface crackled into a sheet of black ice.

  Their robes merged and flapped like wings, but instead of lifting the lovers they sank, almost imperceptibly, to the snow. He reached up to strip away her robe just as her silken slipper touched the snow.

  It melted through to her toes. Unlike the wind, it seeped against her flesh as dank and clammy as a grave.

  Images of the stone garden in Nushen and the bodies of its dead flashed into her mind. Her eyes flew open.

  “No!” She enveloped herself in a ball of fire as he flashed into a swirl of smoke. Flame and fume wrestled atop the glacier until all flesh and passion burned away.

  The black ice shattered as demons fled to the deep once again.

  Two spirits stood separated by the narrow stream, robes limp, feet not touching the ground. Offering Blade firmly clenched, she fully veiled herself in the image of Nuwa.

  “You have chosen,” he said and faded into the mist.

  A single mortal tear, a tiny remnant of his dark gift, fell from her eye and dropped upon the Offering Blade. It slid down along the razor edge until it transformed into blood as red as the orichalcum metal.

  The tear rolled off the tip and dropped into the water.

  “It is done,” she whispered.

  A familiar voice rumbled on the wind from the approaching storm.

  Keep your promise, and I will keep mine.

  Nuwa transformed into the Golden Dragon and vanished.

  The blood drop did not disperse and wash over the waterfall. Instead, it sank deeper into the ocean and grew, changing from crimson to black. The demons gathered into a twisting school of blackness and pursued it, drawn to its desolation and regret. They chased the bloody teardrop into the abyss until all sunlight vanished.

  The tear grew into an enormous, sinister glob, larger than all the demons combined. Ruddy red eyes blinked to life, and armored plates clinked into existence down its long form until it became a monster of unimaginable power and size. The monster hurtled upward toward the surface, screeching demons trailing closely behind.

  The beast suddenly turned and plunged into the ice wall encasing the sea. The ice wall exploded as the glacial ocean and countless demons cascaded thousands of feet to the tundra below.

  In both directions the ice wall crumbled, and the ocean fell upon the land. The glacier itself, freed from the titanic weight, suddenly bobbed up hundreds of feet. A hidden ocean trapped below the ice, even larger than the vast surface ocean, blasted forth from its confinement near the bottom of the glacier.

  Combined, they formed a wave of deathly cold water a mile high. As tsunamis wiped the world’s coasts clean, the glacial juggernaut began to scour three continents from within.

  Between the two, the rains began.

  7. The Cold Forge

  “The icy sea pushed south, the cold wind blew north. The world inhaled deeply, preparing for the long plunge into the abyss.

  On that first night the God of the Narim showed me my fate, our fate. In a cold forge of water and ice a new people would be created.”

  - Conversations with the Uros

  The Chronicle of Fu Xi

  ***

  Levidi and Ghalen lashed the rafts together to form a platform and secured them to the treetops, unwilling to risk navigating the powerful current in the darkness without the stars. The lines tugged hard against the trees as the current strained to drag them out to sea. The expertly tied Lo knots held firm.

  Night cloaked the world in darkness blacker than any Aizarg could remember, mirroring what he felt in his soul. He sensed the clouds thickening above them, pregnant with death.

  The decks felt like ice. They found a sturdy Lo brazier among Virag’s supplies and gathered plenty of dead limbs tangled in the tree tops.

  Without regard to tribe, grudge or allegiance, they huddled in intimate closeness around the brazier. The wind whipped hard at the bronze pan, bending the flames and stripping embers away, casting them into the void.

  Aizarg stood outside the circle, leaning on his staff and considering the motley assortment of lost souls gathered around the fire. He grasped for some idea what to do once the sun came up.

  If it comes up...

  Aizarg’s thoughts raced, pondering the fate of those gathered around the brazier and his people lost somewhere beyond the darkness. Hope for Atamoda and his people burned like the brazier against the overwhelming darkness.

  How will I find her without a shore or the stars to guide me?

  Aizarg’s gaze fell to Sana, hunched under a horsehide blanket and tense as the ropes securing the rafts to the trees. With the extra clothes they had scrounged from among Virag’s supplies, and the Sammujad skins heaped on her shoulders, she looked every bit the a-g’an savage. The Sammujad henchmen eyed her from time to time, but made no move toward her.

  Pity filled Aizarg’s heart. He dearly wanted to hate the Scythian, but could not bring himself to do
so.

  She is truly alone. Her people are surely dead by now.

  Virag sat closest to the fire, his perpetual grimace barely visible under a thick bearskin blanket. Ghalen sat opposite from Sana between Levidi and the six Sammujad, staring hard into the flames. Occasionally, Levidi tried to draw Ghalen into conversation, but Ghalen would have none of it.

  Earlier, Levidi tried to do the same with Aizarg, but the Uros needed counsel not from a friend, but his Second.

  Ba-lok, Second to the Uros, huddled alone in the cold shadows, his back to the party.

  Darting outside in the firelight, Ezra followed Okta from raft to raft, helping him secure ropes and rigging. Okta doted over the rafts like they were children. It pleased Aizarg how Ezra threw himself into learning the ways of the sea, and Okta was obviously happy with his new apprentice.

  Okta finds hope in purpose. Ezra is wise enough to recognize it.

  Aizarg possessed a purpose, but he didn’t know how to accomplish it.

  He thought of Noah and the night they spent talking. He thought of Noah’s Nameless God.

  Open your heart. Speak in truth. Bow in humility. Do these things and He will listen, Noah had told him.

  Aizarg took a deep breath and bowed his head. The voices of the Sammujad murmuring among themselves and Okta instructing Ezra barely penetrated the howling wind. Soon, Aizarg heard nothing and time seemed to stand still. The deck swayed gently under his feet. The staff seemed to warm in his hands.

  Aizarg’s eyes flew open as a thought sprung into his head.

  It starts here.

  A pile of red embers glowed in the brazier, barely illuminating a circle of slumbering mounds, including Ezra and Okta.

  Ba-lok still hunched in the shadows, staring into the distance.

  I need my Second. “Ba-lok, throw some more sticks on the fire.”

  Ba-lok obeyed and the fire sprung back to life.

  “Come here,” Aizarg said. No one stirred as Ba-lok slowly shambled to Aizarg, shoulders stooped.

  “Tell me about these wedding barges.”