by R. Lee Smith
“And if not for my protection in that encounter, you would not have survived it. Rather than revile me, perhaps you should offer thanks.” He considered Somurg, who was snuggling happily up against him. “Whether I have your blessing or no, you will give yourself to me. I think you would not resist if you knew how many lives rest upon the outcome of your journey.”
“Why me?” Olivia demanded.
“Why indeed? You invoked my name, did you not? You claimed a visitation of my power.”
She stared at him, dumbstruck, and finally shouted, “I lied! For God’s sake, I made it up!”
“I know. Yet the lie intrigued me,” he said, tickling at Somurg’s chin. The baby promptly seized the god’s claw and chewed on it. The Great Spirit smiled. “But think, woman. Perhaps you meant deception when you called upon me to draw out the demon from your Mojo Woman, but was it a lie when you prayed to me for game? Was it a lie when you begged healing aid for your young human’s womb? Three blessings you have reaped from me, and so according to the ancient ways, I claimed you, even you, daughter of Bahgree, and sent Urga to birth her son by me, your Somurg.” He glanced up, his expression faintly chiding. “You should be honored.”
“Well, I’m not! And I’m not going anywhere with you! Can’t you pick someone else?”
“I could,” he said, rolling one mighty shoulder in a half-shrug. “Yet you interest me. Why do you protest? Vorgullum would never question the giving of yourself to me, even if I took you before his eyes.” His expression blazed briefly with undisguised desire, then subsided. “But I would spare you that, because it would displease you. Nevertheless, I will have you.”
She did hit him, Somurg or no; she hauled back her fist and drove it straight at his amused face, only to smack home in the center of his palm.
He closed his fist around her, pinned her. He was still smiling. “Do not mistake me. Although I require no reason to demand your flesh, I do so only because there exists a great need. There will be forces at work around and within you and you must learn to control them now or you will be consumed by the River.”
“What river? What are you talking about? Just tell me what you want with me!” she burst out. “Tell me what you’re doing here!”
His expression darkened thunderously as he looked out past her at the sweeping curve of the tree-drawn horizon. When he looked back, it was to consider her hand trapped within his, and then to release her. “I am here to couple with you.”
She stumbled back, slipped in the melting snow, and fell on her butt on Murgull’s grave. This left her on the ground, looking up at his immense erection as the sun burned behind him, turning him to a faceless shadow. “No!”
“It is the only way I have to share my power. And, although you will not believe me, it is also the only means you have of accepting it.” He hunkered down before her, holding on to Somurg, who was making happy sounds and twining his hands in the Great Spirit’s fur. “Olivia Blake, I chose you out of all humanity. You are not the first ever to falsely invoke my name, but you are the first ever to do so solely to comfort another. You gave yourself to my son despite your pain, to ease his own. You used my name only to spare him the wrath of your mate and, I think, to spare the life of his mate, who had done such harm to you both. You battled Mojo Woman to save those in her thrall. You asked for game to feed your tribe. You asked healing for another, that she might fulfill her purpose and provide young for her mate. In all ways, you have invoked me selflessly. Such a heart is rare indeed, and so you are chosen to help me.”
“You can’t possibly need my help,” she objected. “You’re a god!”
He looked at her with an expression of distracted frustration, then reached out and touched one claw to the tip of her forehead.
Light exploded behind her eyes, and she experienced the queer sensation of having something alien move through her mind, picking through her thoughts and memories.
The Great Spirit withdrew his hand, smiling. “I am an archetype, an idealized concept of divinity, formed by the combined credulity of my devoted children,” he announced. He showed his sharp teeth, looking pleased with himself. “Yes, I am a god, but my powers are restricted by their expectations. I possess failings in reflection of mortality. I hurt, I hunger, I lust, I rage. And at times, I require help.”
“My help,” she said angrily.
“Yours and that of my son, Kodjunn, whose body I must at times possess in order to accompany you on your journey.”
“You have your own body,” she said. “Leave Kodjunn alone!”
“I have no choice,” he told her. “Mine is not the power of flight. If I were to bear you instantly to the place where the River awaits our coming, you would die in the void between the worlds. No. One of my own must carry you, and I must inhabit that host.”
“Then I’ll go on this journey alone,” she said, pleading with him. “We’ll go on foot, and Kodjunn can stay behind.”
“It disturbs you that I would use him in this manner,” he realized, gazing at her with mild interest. “Very well. I am moved to humor you, yet if I exclude Kodjunn from my plans, another must take his place. Shall I allow you to select a male whose autonomy is less important to you?”
“Why?” she cried. “Why can’t I go alone?”
“Olivia,” he said. “You cannot make this journey unaccompanied, because you must be protected. Bahgree will surely attempt to destroy you.”
She couldn’t come up with an argument for that. Not without a sinking sense of desperation, she seized on another. “How long will I be gone?”
The Great Spirit merely shook his head, holding her eyes.
She stared at him, feeling the strength slide out of her body. “What?” she said in a little voice. “But, my son!”
The Great Spirit looked into Somurg’s eyes and smiled lovingly. “He will be the leader of his people in his time,” he said. “But only if you go on this journey. If you do not, our son will die.”
“Are you threatening him?” she gasped.
His eyes blazed; he reared back, holding Somurg possessively to his massive chest. He stopped being her opponent in conversation and became a god again. “I would not harm my son!” he thundered, and beneath their feet the mountain trembled minutely. “That you could think such evil of me!”
“You’re standing right there telling me you’re going to rape me and possess Kodjunn, what am I supposed to think when you tell me my son will die if I don’t obey you?” she shot back, her hands clenched again into fists.
He looked first enraged, then thoughtful, and finally, the fire of divinity died around him. “You spoke your insult in ignorance and so I forgive it,” he said, making an obvious effort to sound forgiving. “Our son is already dying.”
The memory of the sigru’s walls burned suddenly behind her eyes—images of death-grey infants, and Sudjummar’s troubled voice saying, ‘And they were well…at first.’ Olivia shook her head slowly, numbed by dread. “Wh-What do you mean?”
“When I joined with Urga to create the race of gullan, Urga gave to me all power over her offspring. I cannot heal them of the evils they have brought upon their own bodies, but I can possess them, empower them, even speak to them in their dreams. They are mine, you see? My children. They belong to this world because they come from my divine seed.”
Olivia waited out this masculine boast in grim-lipped silence.
“When I lay with Bahgree, she made humans in her own image. They came of my seed also and so belong to this world, though she gave me no power over them or any of her children. Then Urga came and ripped her divinity away, cursing her and casting her aside. Bahgree has no body now that I may lie with, no body with which to generate new offspring, and no power to give me over the get of her human get.”
“Get to the point!”
The Great Spirit tipped his horns at her. “The point, mortal, is this. The offspring that are made between humans and gullan have no place in this world. They are not made by any god’s
intent or blessing. They are doomed to die.”
Olivia’s eyes went to Somurg, but he was sleeping in the Great Spirit’s arm, healthy, happy, and uncharacteristically quiet. “I don’t understand,” she said, but she could still see paint on the sigru’s wall. They had all died, all those fine healthy children.
“Gullan do not breed as humans do. Perhaps you have suspected this. Having birthed once, they do not spark again for many years. The lives of my children are long, but violent. Death comes to them on many wings. Extinction,” he finished darkly, “is no new threat; to take humans for mates, no new solution.”
The Great Spirit looked down again at Somurg, who was sucking contentedly at the tip of the god’s claw. His expression was hard with pain. “Many times I have seen my children find willing mates among the humans, and there have been many young conceived, handsome in all form and feature. Perfect young,” he said. “Of course they are. They must be. This world does not know how else to make them. They do not belong to it and so cannot be corrupted by any stain of either parent. For so long as they drink the milk of their mothers, they live in their perfection, but when they grow to depend upon the world to sustain them, they will be rejected by it. They will die. It is not quick,” he said, staring into Somurg’s eyes. “It is not painless.”
“It…” Olivia’s voice failed her. Mutely, she could only shake her head.
“They will weaken, mortal,” the Great Spirit said, still looking at the baby. “In another year, two at most. They will take their last swallow of mother’s milk and they will all begin to die.”
“How can we stop it? How can I stop it?” she corrected herself. “What do you want me to do?”
“I can give my blessing to the gullan blood that flows through the veins of these children, but there is human blood also.”
“So you need…what? Bahgree’s blessing? How am I supposed to give you that?”
“Bahgree has no power any longer to give such blessings, but that blessing must be given all the same, if our children are to survive. The powers of the River Woman must be returned to a human body.” He touched the tip of one claw to the hollow of her throat. “I mean for that body to be yours.”
She stared at him.
“When you have become Bahgree’s incarnation, you will give your blessing to the human blood in the half-bred offspring and give command of their lives to me. I will weave them into the fibers of this world, as I have done with all living things. Then the world will embrace them and they will live.”
“There’s no other way?”
He shook his head, looking off into the distance. “I never believed this would become necessary, that Bahgree’s children would have so multiplied while my own diminished. But now it has become clear that unless our two kinds mingle, my children will perish entirely from this world.”
“Can’t you just give Bahgree’s powers back to Bahgree?”
He shook his head, frowning impressively. “She has gone mad. She will make me many promises if I will restore her, but I do not trust her to keep them.”
“She took over Mojo Woman.”
“She was invited.”
“And you cast her out!” she countered, a little desperately. “Why do you need me at all? Why not give her the power, get her to do it, and then just drive her back into nothing?”
“There is no such thing,” he said patiently, “as nothing.” He looked down at Somurg, brushed the tiny face with the tip of his claw. “And Bahgree is less of nothing than most.”
“But you defeated her!” Olivia repeated, almost wailing it. “You pulled her out of Mojo Woman easily!”
“I removed the River from the human she invaded, yes. But only because it was an invasion. The one you call Mojo Woman must have invoked the River Woman’s name much as you did mine. Be grateful for Bahgree’s madness. If she had not been so impatient, if she had seduced the human instead and found a willing host to carry her instead of a fool to be overcome and devoured, things might have gone very differently.”
“Could she have destroyed you?” Olivia asked, unsure what answer she should be hoping for.
The Great Spirit took his claw from Somurg’s sleepily protesting mouth and grasped Olivia’s shoulder. His grip was stone, he could easily crush her bones if he chose to, and the heat of him was like a furnace, painful to bear. “Bahgree has no desire to destroy me. She seeks instead to supplant me, to come back into her divinity and hold sway over all the life of this world! Whatsoever mortal form accepts her power, that form she will consume. Wherever the River flows, she will rule, until all living things are bent to her mad will.”
“You want me to be the one that takes Bahgree’s essence.” She fought back a swell of despair. “And even if I do this, you won’t let me go home.”
“The cost of immortality is pain. If you were to return in your divine form, the force of your presence would ultimately destroy those around you.”
“That’s not fair!”
He did not bother to answer that. “And so I will have you, Olivia Blake, and empower you with my divine seed. You will learn how to contain and command such energies, and we will go together with my son to the Place of Binding, there to fill yourself with the essence of the River. You will consume Bahgree, as she would consume you, and you will remove her evil utterly from this world and save the children of our two peoples.” He studied her, then quietly added, “And then I will take you up as my mate.”
“Urga is your mate!”
He shook his head twice, slowly, never removing his eyes from hers. “Urga’s usefulness to me is ended. Her efforts are not enough to keep life and health among her children. I will put her aside and take you as my mate,” he said again. “Our union will restore what the River has caused to be crippled.”
“Damn you!” Olivia cried, balling her hands into fists. “I won’t do it!”
The Great Spirit considered her. “I had hoped to convince you with words,” he said. “I could easily inflict hurts upon your flesh, but for this, I must have your willing oath. So be it. I will have it by any means I am able.” He lifted his hand and made a gesture as if pulling something from the empty air.
Threads of substance thin as smoke spun out from the clay of Murgull’s grave and bound together in a writhing, clawing, horribly familiar form. It was tattered, naked, bald, and brutally laid open. It was Murgull.
Olivia screamed, flinging out her arms as if to embrace the mindlessly writhing soul and pull it from its unseen tormenters. The Great Spirit halted her with one huge hand on her shoulder.
“For each life she cut short out of hatred, she will suffer the agonies of that slow death, until the years she stole are paid out in full. And when she has completed that retribution, she will take on the fresh agonies of another. And another. Until every soul she doomed to death is repaid on her.”
“You monster!” she screamed. Murgull’s single eye rolled towards her, but the spirit made no sound—her throat had been opened and her jaw torn away.
“It was not my hand that brought down the mountain. No, Olivia, this is justice. This is fairness. But this I will relieve of her, if you give yourself to me.”
“I’ll go, I’ll go!” Olivia sobbed. “Stop making her suffer!”
“Your oath, Olivia Blake.”
“I swear!” she shouted. “I’ll go with you and I’ll take Bahgree! What else do you want me to say?”
“Hm. That much will suffice for now.”
There was a moment when the world seemed to shift, and Murgull’s spirit was released from torment. The humped and misshapen thing stretched and grew straight. Two wings flung out and flesh poured between the joints and made them whole. Two eyes opened in a flawless, young-seeming face. Murgull opened her mouth to speak, but faded away and was gone.
“Where is she?” Olivia cried. “Where did she go?”
“To the world beyond,” the Great Spirit answered. “The mysteries of that place are not for my knowing.” He aimed a claw
at her warningly. “But you have given your word, Olivia, and the fate that Murgull did endure will be visited upon your own soul if you break your vow.”
“I won’t break it,” she said, still weeping. “You know I won’t!”
“Do I?” he asked, and he was smiling again, just as if he hadn’t dangled the tattered, writhing soul of one of his ‘children’ over her head for her to jump at. “You are a brave woman, but you are a daughter of the River, and the River is deceit.”
“How will you convince Kodjunn?” Olivia asked, rubbing the tears out of her eyes. “Or will you just leap into his body and not bother asking?”
“He required no convincing.”
“You knew he would agree,” Olivia accused. “You’ve been making him dream about me! You let him think there was something between us!”
“Yes.” He looked down again at Somurg, then tucked the folds of the blanket in around the little face. “But if you are fair, Olivia, the lie did not begin with me. Kodjunn desired you even before you led him to believe it was my will that he should couple with you. And you,” he said, pinning her in place with the golden light of his eyes, “suffered no pangs of guilt when he was inside you.”
She slapped him.
He tipped his head to one side and regarded her, unaffected. “It amazes me, Olivia, that one so bold as to strike a god hesitates to fuck one. Tell me, is it my touch that you fear, or that you might take pleasure from it?”
She hauled back her hand again, and this time it was a fist.
“Strike me, then,” he invited, looking amused. “You do me no harm, and I will have you anyway.”
Olivia lowered her arm, shaking with rage.
The Great Spirit looked down at the baby in his arms and smiled. “Sleep, my son,” he murmured, and Somurg obediently uttered his baby snore. The Great Spirit placed the baby in the snow and did something with his hand that caused a warm glow to cover the swaddled infant.
He straightened and held out his hand to Olivia.
She stared at it, them at him.