The Galactic Pantheon Novellas

by Alyce Caswell

  ‘Ablar, no, don’t say things like that!’ Malikar scolded. ‘Someone might hear.’

  Sanyul Bello accepted the beer from his sister and took a pull. The mbege, made from his family’s own banana trees, was a balm on his sore, dusty throat, an annoyance he had been afflicted with while riding in from the cave where he’d stashed his starship. His hoverbike was an older model and he hadn’t yet found the time to fix the faulty hoverpads; they had thrown great gusts of earth — and insects — into Sanyul’s face. He’d needed to change into a clean navy suit behind a large mgunga tree before knocking on his parents’ door.

  Anywhere else in the galaxy, his chosen garb would have garnered him respectful glances instead of suspicious ones. Here on Sundafar, a planet that favoured colour and comfort, he knew he stood out, like some clumsy mark. But he had no interest in impressing anyone in this town by wearing something more acceptable — even if the unusually thick lining of his suit made him sweat.

  Sanyul released a grateful sigh as the climate-controlled air inside his parents’ house washed over him. There were solar panels on the roof and so the brownouts that frequently beset the town didn’t affect his family — one of the many improvements Sanyul had paid for. Though he would have liked to send water, the liquid was prohibitively expensive to ship and usually it was stolen at the spaceport in Tanza, the planet’s capital city, before it could even move one step in the town’s direction.

  Sanyul had seen withered fields and the bleached skeletons of stock as he’d ridden in on his hoverbike. It seemed his parents’ neighbours were faring just as badly after five years of punishing drought. In times like these, the town’s children were either in Tanza or off-world, making money wherever they could.

  Just as Sanyul did. Just as he had done for half his life, ever since he’d turned fifteen.

  It had been his decision. One born from witnessing the tail end of a severe drought that had decimated his town and bankrupted many of its families.

  Sanyul had spent years in the Arms Academy on Leeds, learning to become an assassin and racking up an awful debt in the process. But it had been worth it; he’d managed to pay off his tuition fees after only two jobs. Sanyul’s parents had been horrified by his chosen profession, and still were, but they never refused the coin-chips he sent them to keep their mbege business running.

  ‘Aren’t you glad to see me, Mama, suit or no suit?’ Sanyul asked, lowering his beer.

  Malikar sighed, hands braced on her hips.

  ‘I only brought one lasrifle with me — and Baba said he’d lock it up,’ Sanyul assured her.

  He had found his father in the equipment shed, worn out from travelling back from Tanza on foot, no doubt having gone there to see if he could purchase anything from the city’s water importers. Sanyul’s baba hadn’t been conscious enough to speak to him, so Sanyul had locked the weapon up himself. But Malikar still thought of him as a teenager, frozen in time from the moment his feet had first left Sundafarian soil. She didn’t trust the boy he had been. She trusted the lie.

  ‘Mama, come on, stop sulking,’ Ablar spoke up. ‘It’s been years since Sanyul was last here and there’s so much to talk about — he doesn’t even know I have a husband yet!’

  ‘I do now,’ Sanyul said with a laugh. ‘Maybe I’ll go stay in your house, Ablar.’

  ‘No! You will do no such thing!’ Malikar told him, horror widening her brown eyes. ‘Everyone saw you ride in just now! What will my neighbours say if my own son does not stay beneath my roof? And what will they say if he does not stand beside me at tomorrow’s rain meeting? It’s bad enough that Bibi never comes to these things!’

  ‘Don’t stress so much, Mama.’ Sanyul moved over to Malikar and wrapped her up in a hug. Her head barely cleared his collarbone. ‘You know they will say nothing. They will be too busy thinking about it.’

  ‘Thinking might do those wretches some good,’ Malikar muttered, then stiffened inside Sanyul’s arms. ‘By The Goddess, please don’t tell them I said that. What will they think?’

  Ablar visibly shook with the effort to keep from laughing. She waved a hand in front of her face, tears streaming down her cheeks, and then ducked out of the room before she could incriminate herself any further.

  ‘Ablar! You should stay for dinner — your brother’s not here for very long!’ Malikar called after her. ‘Your husband can survive one evening without you, surely. He has kept you from me enough times this month!’

  Sanyul dropped a kiss onto Malikar’s head. ‘Don’t worry, Mama. I will go speak to her.’

  He followed his sister into the kitchen. Ablar tensed, then sighed in relief when she saw that it was Sanyul darkening the doorway. She took a second beer out of the fridge and gave it to him. The bottle began to sweat immediately in his grip.

  ‘For Bibi,’ she instructed.

  ‘Mama still not letting her have any mbege?’ Sanyul asked.

  Ablar chuckled. ‘Mama thinks that Bibi hasn’t had any for a while. Let’s keep it that away.’

  ‘It’s best if she doesn’t think any more than she already does,’ Sanyul said, smiling.

  He left the house and walked up the rise towards his grandmother’s mud-walled shack; she still refused to live inside the house, distrustful of the unfamiliar tech that Sanyul’s money had bought. As he’d expected, Bibi was sitting in the shade of the ailing banana trees. Even they, hardy though they were, had gone from green to yellow and were in the process of becoming ugly brown husks, just like the fruit they grew did if abandoned long enough.

  Sanyul’s grandmother was wearing two orange kanga as a dress, both pieces filled with diamond-shaped patches that were various shades of red and yellow. She looked like a sunset incarnated as a woman, a striking contrast to the dying plants around her. More than a hundred Old Earth years had passed since she’d been born. Though she had outlasted many trees and many droughts, she had never left Sundafar. She would probably die here, in this very spot, but to Sanyul that was always in some distant future.

  ‘Why are you here, Sanyul?’ Bibi asked once they were both seated, mbege in their bellies.

  ‘To help with the rainmaking, like I told you in my last vid,’ Sanyul reminded her. He had a communicator, but it seemed strange to contact his family in such an impersonal way when they could exchange footage of their faces instead. ‘This drought has gone on long enough. I must do what I can to help end it.’

  ‘Fala! You think I’d fall for that?’

  Sanyul smiled against the lip of his empty bottle. ‘Maybe I came home to take a wife.’

  ‘Don’t continue to insult me, Sanyul. I know you have no interest in marriage.’

  Sanyul lobbed his bottle at a banana tree several metres away.

  He missed.

  Annoyed that one beer had affected his aim, he muttered a curse he had learned from his fellow students at the academy. He hastily apologised when he remembered who was sitting beside him, but his grandmother was chuckling. His frown lodged firmly on her instead.

  ‘When did I ever say that?’ Sanyul demanded. ‘I’ve got no problem with marriage. It’s the other things the girls in this town would want from me once we got married — things I’m definitely not interested in doing.’

  ‘Ahh yes, many of us girls do enjoy being kissed and touched and made love to,’ Bibi said lightly, though she didn’t manage to mask the sigh. Her husband had died forty years ago. She was lonely. ‘But we can live without these things, Sanyul, even if we do think of them from time to time. Didn’t you date a Lentarian who wasn’t completely awful?’

  ‘Eli-Tra,’ Sanyul supplied. ‘She was fine with not doing anything physical, but that was the only reason I kept seeing her. I didn’t feel anything for Eli — I just liked that it didn’t bother her. It’s hard to find someone like that.’ Sanyul shook his head, resigned. ‘I haven’t found anyone else willing to give those things up. Not anyone I care about, anyway.’

  ‘You are very good at distracting your poor o
ld grandmother,’ his companion mused.

  ‘Oh, Bibi, I knew I couldn’t distract you for long.’

  ‘So. Tell me.’ She leaned forward, the sharp morning light from Sundafar’s nearest star shooting sparks through her deep brown eyes. ‘Why did you come home after so many years?’

  Sanyul refused to break his gaze away from hers. She had taught him to never back down, to never apologise for his decisions. It was something that had earned him the respect of his peers at the academy. And this decision meant the galaxy to him. If he succeeded, his family would prosper, no longer crushed beneath the heel of some invisible figure who withheld joy far more than she granted it. If he failed, they would be no worse off. He had to at least try.

  ‘I came to kill The Goddess,’ Sanyul said.

  Bibi stared at him for a long moment, then pointed back down towards the house. ‘You had better get us both another bottle of mbege, Sanyul. You have some explaining to do.’

  • • •

  Isabis, the goddess of savannah and third eldest daughter of the Creator God, smiled as she picked up the small wooden figure, recognising it as a child’s toy. It had smooth brown cheeks, specks of glass for eyes and two dark braids running from its crown into a knot at the nape of its neck — much like her own hairstyle. A tiny little goddess.

  It appealed to the Savine (her official title in the Galactic Pantheon) so much more than the pots of strange-smelling herbs that most of her people had placed on the shelves inside the shrine. Each item was an offering or a plea, sacrificed out of the expectation that something would be given in return. The herbs, though they might be missed come dinnertime, held no special place in the hearts of those who had left them there. But this toy, loved and worn, had been brought to the shrine by a child whose intentions were still pure, still unsullied by selfishness.

  Isabis knew her people were desperate for rain. Their minds were full of wild chaos and pure poison, a tumult that she could no longer ignore. This was usually the sign that her presence was required, that the mortals’ needs had finally outstripped their own abilities. She relied on their thoughts, potent though they were, to alert her to problems like this.

  But those same thoughts made her temples throb fiercely. She would have to leave soon.

  Isabis glanced towards the town, unsurprised to find that its streets were completely deserted. None of her people would see her here at the shrine; they were too busy in their so-called rain meeting, brainstorming ways to please her, or denouncing those they deemed to have upset The Goddess. As if simply talking about the drought could somehow lift it.

  The Savine’s teeth cut into her bottom lip. She would love to give the mortals some rain with a simple wave of her hands. But those hands were useless, and tied.

  She would have to rely on another. And here he was.

  The air stung her skin and tasted of salt, even though the nearest shore was many hours away by hoverbike. But the sub-level god who administered the oceans, rivers, lakes and other bodies of water had indeed left his domain and come to a landlocked town on the precipice of disaster.

  Isabis straightened her spine and narrowed her golden eyes, infecting them with disdain. This was not the time to plead or show any other signs of weakness.

  ‘You are late, brother,’ she said as a spout of water shot up in front of her. Immediately she became aware of his turbulent mind and didn’t try to fight the grimace that slashed across her features. She would bear this pain for her people, for their survival.

  And it wasn’t like her brother meant to hurt her. He couldn’t help it. He wasn’t even aware of what his presence did to her, because it never affected his other siblings. Only the Savine had mind-reading abilities so sensitive that another’s thoughts and feelings caused her physical discomfort.

  Fayay, the Watine and god of water, adjusted the rotting seaweed that made up his cloak, straightening it. Tiny droplets of water slid down each oily strand, glistening in the sunshine, a dazzling sight that contrasted with the dourness of the rest of him.

  He sniffed at the offerings lined up along the shelves. ‘This smells foul.’

  ‘Indeed, it smells worse than you,’ Isabis agreed.

  Fayay’s lip curled. It might have been a smile or a sneer. Either way, it made the scar that Finara, the goddess of fire, had lashed into his cheek stretch towards his ear.

  ‘Surely you are not going to cave at the first demand these mortals make of you?’ he asked.

  ‘It has been five Old Earth years since the drought began,’ Isabis said. ‘Usually they would make private offerings in their own homes, just before planting begins. But now they’re holding an abominably noisy meeting and are accusing each other of angering me.’

  ‘And did they anger you, sister?’

  ‘No,’ Isabis replied. ‘But it makes them feel better if they think the drought is due to some slight, something they actually have control over.’

  ‘Foolish, gullible mortals.’ The Watine smirked. ‘They deserve to perish.’

  ‘Be that as it may, I’d rather not rule over desiccated corpses.’

  Fayay slicked his dark hair behind his ears, his pallid features twisting beneath a frown. ‘I do not know why you won’t tell them to move elsewhere.’

  ‘And risk them leaving my domain? They might settle on a planet belonging to one of our siblings.’ Isabis shook her head, annoyed. She couldn’t trust any of her brothers or sisters to care for her people in her stead. ‘Worse still, they may end up inside the Desine’s grip. I cannot allow him to expand his destructive influence any more than he has already.’

  ‘Sandsa,’ Fayay hissed, his hatred of the desert god palpable.

  Isabis also disliked her eldest brother. Their domains shared too many borders and there was always a risk that the Savine might lose some of her followers to him. Sandsa did not mistreat his people — he loved and cared for them greatly — but he instilled in them the belief that they were apart from the rest of the galaxy, somehow different and better than everyone else. It was divisive and led to conflicts with those of other faiths. Often those conflicts became physical.

  ‘My people here on Sundafar need rain this season,’ Isabis said, once Fayay’s pale blue eyes were focused on her instead of midair. He often slipped into unhappy memories involving Sandsa and she had little patience for these lapses, especially since they made the ache inside her skull even more acute. ‘Will you provide it, brother?’

  Fayay’s chin tilted forward. ‘Yes. It is cruel that Father did not give you the ability to bring rain to your people. He makes you suffer as much as they do.’

  ‘The Ine has been like this for all eternity,’ Isabis remarked. ‘We should expect no better from the mortals’ Creator God, the one who created and then abandoned them, expecting us to do his dirty work for him.’

  The Savine did not thank her brother. She knew what came next.

  ‘What will you give me in return?’ Fayay asked.

  It was fair. He did not have to help her. And he rarely refused to do so.

  ‘I know what you’re up to,’ Isabis said. When Fayay darted a frantic look at her, she held up a placating hand — not the one clutching the wooden figure; she kept that safely out of sight behind her back. ‘Relax, Fayay. I happen to agree with you. This galaxy is in chaos. It needs to be unified. But you cannot do it alone, with only your small collection of followers to back you up. Have you forgotten how many loyal mortals I have inside my domain?’

  Fayay’s smile was cold and calculating. ‘A generous offer. Too generous. I will give your people many years of good rain.’

  Isabis bit down on the laugh. He does not want to remain in my debt. Wise.

  ‘I must go,’ the Watine said, taking a step back. ‘There is much to do before my plans can be put into motion.’

  His mind was now feverish, stirred up by the prospect of approaching another sibling, the one he cared about the most. Isabis snarled as his own pain magnified hers, but she wasn’t angry.
She pitied him. While many of the sub-level gods could read his thoughts, Fayay could read no one’s; his lack of mind-reading abilities isolated him from the rest of his siblings. Isabis was not sure she would be any less disagreeable in his position.

  ‘Don’t go to Rasson,’ she warned, naming the Watine’s beloved brother. ‘I have felt his mind. He does not wish to see you.’

  I’m sorry was left unsaid. It was pointless. It would do nothing to ease Fayay’s distress — and it might even delay his departure. Isabis would prefer her brother to take his emotions away with him, somewhere they did not hurt her so much.

  Fayay turned his back on his sister. ‘I must still speak to him, regardless.’

  Then he was gone.

  Isabis exhaled, her headache slowly dimming in his absence.

  When she could finally move without wincing, she left the shrine, allowing the long grasses to tickle her knees and bare feet. Her dress fell to her thighs and clung there, black and sleek, nothing like what the people on Sundafar wore. She enjoyed the simple elegance of the dress and the lines it gave her.

  But she detested the way the mortals looked at her if they saw her wearing it — as if she was an object. As if she had dressed this way for some mating ritual. She dressed this way because she liked it.

  As for mating, she had never felt the urge to indulge the way many of her brothers and sisters had over the years. For a time she had been perplexed by their behaviour, but then she had perused their minds while they looked at mortals and realised they experienced a physical attraction that she never had. Instead of becoming concerned, she had relaxed. Because she was glad to be unlike them, in all aspects.

  Isabis stood there on the warm soil, a gentle breeze sliding over her cheeks, her smile aimed at the sky. For a moment, she was happy — blissful, even.

  But then the nearby whispers rose into a roar.

  Agony cleaved through the Savine. Hundreds of mortals, those messy tornadoes of emotion, were gathered in one place for that useless rain meeting. And though the cacophony was nowhere near as bad as something she might encounter outside a city like Tanza, it still threatened to overwhelm her.