Chymaera's Overture: a Shadowed Ways novel

by A N Britton

  “Our ancestors liaised with them when they needed to interact with humans. The witches understood they were dealing with the ‘other’, but they saw those early Thumbra as their salvation. Sent by whatever bevy of gods they worshiped and they were not afraid. The Thumbra rescued their people, time and time again. There are species of beings that no longer exist on this world because our people did what they were sent to do. The creatures willing to make and keep a treaty, we allowed to live. Our people also helped humans in other ways as they got to know them and care for them.”

  “After a time, there were no more enemies to fight. Thumbras began the wait for God to return and take them to their home. Some grew tired of the wait. Everyone that had come was well into their adulthood when they’d arrived here and some were just done with life. Not bitter, just tired. Now disincorporation has always been one of the few ways Thumbras die. It has always been honorable. Return your life force to the universe when you are done. Simple. And the entire community traditionally attended the disincorporation ceremony. It was no different here. It took a few to disincorporate over time before anyone realized what was happening. The witches, seeing as they are the creations of the same Creator, well, many had a genetic predisposition, and could absorb Thumbra energies as they were released. That energy, an aspect of our core, bonded to their genetic structure and changed it. The closer to the disincorporation, the larger the dose. These witches were still significantly weaker than the weakest Thumbra. But there were incidences, some witches were exposed multiple times and each time they were exposed, they became more altered. The changes to their genetic structure fused into new abilities. As a result, they lived longer, kept the health and vitality of youth longer. Their immune systems were stronger and their senses more keen. It boosted previous strengths. Say a particular witch had always had an ability to perceive what plants were beneficial and harmful. Overnight she’d gain the ability to extract the healing or killing agent directly into her body and store it for later use. Restoration or death in a touch. And they passed these powers, these abilities to their children, adding to the genetic lottery. What a boon, right? The natural and supernatural worlds they could only perceive before, they could take action in.”

  “Some got greedy, or jealous. I am pretty sure that Thumbras became superfluous to many. While our predecessors had been heroes to humans at one time, those people were long dead. The stories were from generations previous. The threats had vanished. Hell humans had forgotten that creatures still existed on this planet that the Thumbra kept off their throats.”

  “So they studied the old ones while they grew idle, and depressed. Many hadn’t ever acclimated to Earth because they saw it as a temporary job, not a home. They were sitting on stores of power that many of these witches wanted for differing reasons. From what I understand, this was viewed as an unfortunate side effect of our being here too long, but no one worried about harm coming to our people. About infighting amongst the witches, yes, but no one interfered in those squabbles.”

  “Eventually, a witch named Lilith created the forced disincorporation spell. She wasn’t strong, just too bright for her own good. Supposedly, she loved the Queen’s son, Nazim. Supposedly, she wanted just enough of his energies to spend more time with him and bear his children. He may have taken part in her plan voluntarily, it isn’t known for sure. We know he disincorporated completely. As for Lilith, she didn’t run or hide, she stayed right in the spot where her love disappeared and mourned. It enraged and shocked the Queen, and she wanted to make sure no one ever attempted such a spell again.”

  “Well, our Queen was, and is, limited by our mandate. We aren’t supposed to harm humans. She rationalized that we couldn’t kill humans, but removing that which isn’t human from them was allowable. So she ‘stripped’ Lilith. She entered the witch’s body on a molecular level and ripped Nazim’s life force from every part of Lilith. It unmade the witch. The pain broke her mind, both the physical and the emotional torment of the violation. It damaged her body as well, tearing free what was knit in will do that, but she didn’t die. Lilith lived for many years as a babbling idiot with a twisted and deformed body. The Queen took care of her until the day she died a natural death. She also brought out the woman and put her on display when witches were dragged forward and made to pledge their loyalty. Lilith used to be a cautionary tale they murmured amongst themselves. However, it is believed that she was part of a group of witches working on that spell. After Nazim’s death, there were a few questionable disincorporations, but the spells were a cruder derivation. Lilith absorbed the vast majority of Nazim’s power. Not the paltry bit that the witches that followed her have been able to do.”

  “As for stripping, it seems to deter most power seekers; however, despite the devastation of the punishment now and then some witch believes they are special enough to steal the full wealth of a Thumbra’s power and escape capture. And then,…”

  “Duana…”

  “Yes, Duana.”

  They stood and listened to the waking of the nocturnal world. Kai knew that no matter what, nature was always indifferent to your struggles. Here he was sharing a solemn moment and the Santa Ana winds were skipping light rocks across the dirt-colored dirt. The bushes rustled and birds twittered. There was a lushness to the coming twilight as wide streaks of red, orange, and purple sat heaving in the waning sky. He didn’t want to talk about death. It didn’t make him feel sad, just useless, which was worse in his estimation.

  He’d been prepared to tell Chymaera many things, mostly how the compound would differ from her home. Though the Queen had advised him to tell her nearly anything she might want to know; he hadn’t realized how uninformed, or was it misinformed, she was.

  “Chy, what were you told?” He could practically hear her form words while he watched small rodent like creatures scramble around at the bottom of the ravine. A light shower of rocks flew down the side of the crevasse, likely the result of some animal looking for dinner.

  “Well, it wasn’t an elaborate lie. In the womb, Mama showed me how we were different, about how we had to be careful when we were around anyone who wasn’t Thumbra. She led me to believe we were an adaptation from humans. Like, some cataclysmic event in some corner of the world forced this rapid evolution that resulted in us. She told me, if humans realized we existed, that they would become both fearful and curious; probably want to turn us into lab rats until they could figure out how to become us. Gawd, it sounds so freaking stupid now! But it felt right! I never questioned it. I don’t even know why! We never really discussed it when I was a kid, it was all stuff explained in the womb.”

  He chuckled, how could he not? “Come on, your mom’s lie sounds saner than the truth! Plus, she had you at a disadvantage, she cheated.”

  She paused with a quizzical half-smile, “How so?”

  Kai sighed, “The bond we have with our mothers during gestation. They designed it to provide us with essential information prior to birth. During that time we aren’t distinct minds, we are a part of our mothers - we can’t reject what they share with us. What we learn during that time remains sacrosanct unless we have reason to revisit the topic after the cleaving time. Had she told you that stuff as a child you might have questioned it. She told you when you were literally a part of her, so you wouldn’t.”

  Chy let out a hoarse barking laugh. At least he could tell she was trying to not blame him for what she didn’t know. A short pause and then a rough, yet playful shove at his shoulder, “This is a truly effed up superhero plot. Come on, let’s get moving.”

  Kai turned and gestured to his torso as if to say like this?

  She didn’t miss a beat, “Um yeah, I don’t want to discuss my new status as a resident alien while running around as a talking coyote. I need normalcy.”

  Well, when you put it that way. “Like I said, Chy, it changes nothing, really. The crocodile that doesn’t know it is a crocodile is still a crocodile. Knowing only provides context.”

&nb
sp; She was pensive for a minute. “Yeah, funny you should say crocodile though. Because, they are predators, dangerous fucking predators. Now, you’re telling me the predators who escaped hell and came here are afraid of us. Like we are THE apex predator. While that sounds pretty badass, I have to wonder how and why we got that way. Want to tell me about that?”

  Kai was following her, looking at the tension in how she held herself that communicated the importance of the question her voice attempted to camouflage. His long strides swallowed the ground, and he was shoulder to shoulder with her in a few steps. “Haven’t you had enough new information for the day?”

  “No, maybe it’s silly, but I rather get these ‘big questions’ out of the way so I can process them and let it go. It’s weird, this shit only matters now because I know that everyone has been lying about it. But I need to know the whole story so I can reconcile all this in my head.”

  It was a more than a reasonable request. But how to start? “OK, just realize that you are kind of asking a ‘life, God & everything’ sort of question. There is no neat way to handle this. I will ramble, but try to keep up.” Glancing to his side, he caught her eye, she pursed her mouth, but nodded. Time to move on.

  “OK, first off, we have to start with our god. We call Him the Creator and humans get it all wrong. The Creator is one of a race of gods, but they aren’t like us. The Creator is one of the Three. They are a triumvirate. Three consciousness who work in concert. The members of the Three can all act individually, but they aren’t whole without the others. From what we can gather, the universe as we know it belongs to the Three, this is their sandbox, their playground. They are Three to represent the Beginning, the End and All That Exists Between.”

  “So, what I learned a long time ago is this. The Three were using their universe, our universe, to answer some questions. Within it they were conducting field experiments with life, engaged in how to design and nurture beings with the characteristics they desired. They created life, and they tested that life, jointly. At some point there was a disagreement between them, and they decided to work individually, to cultivate subjects in their own ways and to see who was best or right.”

  “They created planets to provide environments to shape their projects, their champions. Our home world, for example, is not gentle, it is not a place where passive survival is possible.”

  “While hammering out this competition there were many challenges, many changes to the parameters of the experiment. Ultimately, they worked together to create a single arena world, an absolute nightmare that allowed them to test their toys against one another and against the environs.”

  “That is what our God created us for Chy. We operate in God’s shadow to be gladiators or mercenaries. Apparently, we were His crowning achievement. So much so that the other members of the Three decided that we were a ‘cheat’, too much of the divine and not enough of the mundane. There is no other creature with our flexibility. They excluded us from competition; however, by that time the Creator seemed to favor us. For a time we were just left to our own devices to develop a way of life for ourselves. But there were already a multitude of worlds and sometimes we were called on to resolve situations. After all, we were clever and crafty problem solvers.”

  “As I kind of alluded to earlier, we had it way better than many other gladiators, or former gladiators. Our Creator focused on fostering our ability to creatively handle obstacles. At least one of the Three honed his champions like iron in a forge. All hammer and fire. Well, no one wants to live like that so some of them figured out how to escape the home worlds that were training cages and made it to Earth. Those scouts went back and brought settlers. The Creator had set humans up on this nice planet and wanted them to proceed in a self-directed fashion. He did not want them decimated by a bunch of savage creatures. He told the Queen, his first and mother of all, to choose the ablest of her proteges and that was Yesmin; whom he anointed. She in turn was tasked with choosing 100 of her brethren to stop the other alien hordes. The Creator sent them here to be a standing army. It wasn’t supposed to be any different from any other job they’d been sent out on. That was several thousands of years ago. As it stands, none of us has had any communication with the Creator since arrival, and the portal that worked for the other extraterrestrials doesn’t work for us.”

  Her steps slowed, but didn’t quite stop. “So you are telling me God created us to be killers?”

  “No, Chy, I’m telling you we are survivors. And let me tell you something else, we are the elite. We are adaptable, and clever, and formidable on every level. We have very few limits placed on our existence. Let’s be real, there’s no way you’d want to be anything else, is there?”

  Kai placed a restraining hand on her shoulder to stop her and stepped back several paces. A gleeful glint appeared in his eyes. “Would you rather be stuck in one body, one life forever? Or would you prefer this?”

  Chymaera saw Kai’s life flashed before her eyes. Different faces, varying body types. Different ethnicities which allowed him the ability to fade into the background while traveling. There were plenty of animals too, an albino wolf, a mountain lion, he seemed to have a predilection for large cats. There were other animals she couldn’t quite recognize. He stopped when he got to his coyote body.

  “We’ve grown to be more than was intended. That only proves our value.” Abruptly, he turned and began a dog’s version of a jog. “Enough talking for tonight. Take a run with me, it will clear your mind and you can ‘process’ all you’ve learned.” He knew she would change her form and follow him. Within moments he heard her footpads and nails on the ground.

  He huffed relief through his snout. A night’s reprieve.

  23 - I am the highway

  Chymaera

  I shut up and ran for my life that night. Yeah, it sounds melodramatic because I was feeling melodramatic. There was a certain cachet in believing I was a genetic mutant like the X men. That was cosmic and stellar. However, being descended from super mercs created for godly entertainment, while it might have been more cosmic, it was less than stellar. Kai kept repeating that my having knowledge only changed my understanding, but how many times have we all heard that context is everything? I wasn’t an idiot though; I resolved to not take it out on him. He was in the same situation as I was. He’d been told the same news and being how intelligent he seemed to be, I’m sure he had issues when he first found out. Kai just had several years to reconcile them.

  It seemed reasonable to have faith that at some point I would develop a mature perspective on our origins. But, at that moment, I couldn’t process the information. So I shoved it down and I’m sure it fed some of my building anger and resentment, but hey, that’s how you feed a volcano!

  So, like I said, that night, we ran. We were in the Inland Empire; it was obvious he was avoiding human interaction while we made steady progress towards the Sequoia National Forest. From there we’d travel from the forest to the national parks to B.F.E., as they overlapped each other on the trail north out of California. There was no way for me to guess the exact path he wanted to take, not that I cared. I assumed we’d travel somewhat parallel with the Sierra Nevada mountain range, so I ground down and I ran in that direction. I overtook Kai and didn’t glance back. He growled, and I pounded the ground harder, willing it to flow underneath me like an endless carpet. For the first time since we’d left my home, he gave me the lead, and I took it. It didn’t even cross my mind to slow down until the sliver of a moon disappeared and we entered the canopy of trees.

  Then I finally noticed the shift in our surroundings. It was still warm and dry, but not arid. The earth underfoot was softer, the hard packed dirt had become soil rich with life. And instead of the blankness of the desert-like chaparral, the plentiful trees and grasses provided a heady perfume that filled the air.

  Kai resumed the lead at that point. We loped through the woodland with an easy gait, being careful to stay away from areas that would attract hikers or campers.
Given how hard we’d run, and that I hadn’t paused or attempted to absorb energy from the surrounding life, I got pretty hangry. Kai must’ve read my mood because he found quarry and invited me to run it down. I joined him in the chase and when he dined on that furry flesh as well. Before you judge me, it was a cleaner kill than most animals raised for food experience. I needed to shred something with my claws, so I did.

  Kai kept moving us towards the higher elevations and further away from established trails. When it was still early, just past first light; he located a spot where we could rest our burdens. On a bed of leaves and needles hidden within a hollowed out tree trunk, we curled up and slept.

  Thumbras don’t normally dream, or have nightmares-and apart from the one I’d had just before the birthing ceremony, I’d never had them.

  Yet, I had one that morning, and it didn’t improve my sense of wellbeing. I remember waking up in a bed, my bed from home complete with the purple quilt and a mountain of pillows. It seemed like a weekend because sunlight filled the room and there was no one rushing me to go off to school. After I got up, I crossed the room to my private bathroom. I don’t get dirty. There are no bacteria on my skin, and nothing adheres to my body unless I want it to, but, I love showers. So, out of habit I turned the shower on, stripped and hopped in. The shower was scalding hot, just how I liked it. I used my favorite almond cookie body wash all over, enjoying how the scent carried on the steam. For a while, I stood there, letting the rainwater shower head sluice me through and through. I exited only because I knew I’d been too long and wanted to get out before someone yelled at me. After I wrapped myself in a fluffy green towel, I moved over to the sink. It wasn’t until I put toothpaste on my brush and stuck it in my mouth that I looked up into the mirror. And what I saw… it wasn’t me. Now, I didn’t see a monster or some other creature. The face was normal, so normal and indistinct that I can’t recall any specifics of it - except that it wasn’t mine. It wasn’t my face; it wasn’t my body (yes; I checked- don’t know how I missed that in the shower). I didn’t even recognize myself in my eyes. But the girl in the mirror moved when I moved, she was my mirror image - just an unrecognizable one. I tried shifting the shell to my normal body, but it would not change. Instead of getting fearful, I got angry. I cursed the mirror, shouting and raving at the stranger I saw there. In a final burst of rage - I punched the image. Spiderweb like cracks appeared in the reflective surface and spread through the entire pane. Simultaneously, similar cracks appeared in my hand and spread up my arm and covered that not-my-body. As the shattered mirror fell, the cracks in me separated, light spilled out and I - I woke the fuck up.