As A God

by T. G. Shepherd

His hurtling body struck the Voice high in the back, driving him sideways into the retaining wall. One wide, bright wing cuffed her on the side of the head, ears ringing. Those hard hands, tipped with sharp claws, clamped down on her shoulders.

  The breath screamed from her lungs in a keening shriek of horror and helplessness. Not again, she wailed with every fiber of her being as he enfolded her in his feathers. She could smell him, his sweat, his need. Her stomach turned and cramped, she doubled over with the sharp agony,

  The Voice of the God staggered upright just at the edge of her vision and punched clumsily at the winged figure.

  No, he reached out both hands, reaching for the Truth of the God in the blackness of the Goddess’ night. Whatever power he had swirled slowly, honey pouring from the lip of wide jar, sweet and thick.

  In horrid mimicry of Sequa’s own actions, their assailant drew back a hand and slashed his long thin talons up the Voice’s arm and into his face. The Voice yelled, staggering back while clutching his jaw.

  With a contemptuous snarl, the winged man picked Sequa up by the scruff of the neck and slammed her into the paving stones at his feet. She lost breath and thought in the same instant.

  ~ * ~

  Sequa awoke in a dark place of mind and body both.

  As she had been taught so long ago, she tried to control her breathing, let no gasp of air or untoward sound escape. If there someone watched her, they need not know she was awake. The blood roared in her ears, accompanied by a high, stinging tone, probably from the buffet on the side of the head. She could not move, her arms and shoulders a burning mass of agony. Suspended then. A quick twitch proved her feet unbound but not touching the floor.

  Her mask, helmet and armor were gone but no other clothes. He must have known she carried weapons hidden about her person. Why would he leave them on her?

  The air around her smelled leaden, stale and rank with blood and sweat. Her blood; her sweat. And someone else. Not him. She remembered his scent like vomit in the back of the throat. It must be the Voice.

  Straining her ears, she did not detect the sweep of bare feet on the ground, the rustle of wings, the scratch of claws. Measures and measures of enclosed space and darkness gave her the dimensions of the place from the way sounds bounced, roughly square, perhaps ten of her body lengths on each side. Large enough, but empty other than her and…

  Someone breathing shallowly and with a disquieting, liquid sucking noise. Even that was musical. The Voice, confirmed.

  Her eyes opened of their own accord… well, one eye opened. The other remained pasted shut with dried blood.

  Blackness, total and profound. No. A rectangle of less dark blackness high on the far wall from where she hung bound. A window and it looked big enough to admit her at least.

  So if she could get herself free, she could climb out and likely fall to her death.

  Sequa knew her own body. She knew her limits and how to push past them. Well past them now, declining fast, she felt weak and helpless. Blood loss, injury, lack of food and sleep, constant fear and uncertainty. The lingering after effects of the attack on the clerics, of her meeting with the Heart of the Empty, the rape itself still vital and sick in her heart. She should not have been out hunting in the night.

  If she had not, would the Voice have been drawn out into the open? Would he have been so vulnerable and alone?

  The attack had been aimed at him. She saw the pattern again in her mind, death building on death, power gathering more power. Of course the last strike in this sequence, of men dying by fire, would have to be the Voice.

  Or would it have been, if he had not placed himself outside of the protection of the Temple to beg her unworthy forgiveness?

  All her fault, like every disaster that clung to her.

  The window on the wall grew more distinct, and she realized that it came with the false rising of the God. So it looked east. She should have been able to see something outside, another building, the wall, something. But the light through the opening shimmered oddly, distorted and strange.

  It became harder and harder to concentrate. Numb now from the wrist down, her arms grew weaker with each breath.

  “Holy?” she gasped into the darkness, willing to risk the idea that the monster lurked there waiting for her to wake. He would have struck by now, she prayed.

  The Voice’s labored breathing did not change, catching and choking at odd moments. She swallowed her terror that it would stop as she swallowed the blood that still leaked into her mouth from shattered nose, split lip.

  Light filled the room rapidly, hurting her dark-sighted eyes. Something hung in front of the window, some mechanism or harness: ropes, a frame, a thin sheet of…

  Horror and understanding blossomed with the growing illumination.

  In front of the window hung a God’s Eye, focused into the middle of the room. Bound spread-eagled to the floor lay the Voice of the God, his bright hair matted with blood, his face turned away.

  His white linen shirt and light breeches looked soaked through with a thick, heavy liquid that pooled oddly. Straining every sense, Sequa could smell something under the blood and mucus and urine of her own stench.

  Tears of the Goddess. He had been soaked in the Tears of the Goddess.

  In the window, the Godlight grew rapidly brighter, heralding His rebirth into the world.

  Sequa screamed and screamed again, then choked herself into silence in hopes of hearing some rescue coming.

  Nothing. Not even bird song.

  The empty shadows fled the room, and now she could see it was obviously some storage place, empty racks against the walls, marks on the floorboards where barrels had lain. A door in one wall, unbarred. Next to it lay her armor and helmet and swords in a haphazard pile.

  Looking up, she could see her hands bound with rough chord thrown over a beam, each wrist tied alone.

  The edge of the God’s disk began to edge over the window frame, licking at the bottom of the God’s Eye. The glittering lens began to sparkle; the air in the room grew a little warmer.

  Sequa screamed again like a helpless maiden, a shriek of despair torn from her heart.

  On the floor, the Voice seemed to hear her, coughing blood and rousing a little, his head flopping from side to side in futile searching. As the God slipped higher, a bright spot appeared on the Voice’s chest, the God’s power focused by the Eye. With each labored rise of his chest, it grew a little stronger.

  “Mother of All! Help me!” Sequa screamed again into the rising light, knowing the Great Good Goddess would not aid her. Not here in the pitiless, relentless gaze of the God.

  A thin stream of smoke began to rise from the bright spot.

  She screamed once more, till her throat caught and bled, till the pain in her arms seemed trivial to the pain in her chest, in her soul.

  On the floor, the Voice of the God roused and she heard him speak softly through a mouth thick with blood. “Oh. So this…”

  At the end of her Run, she had staggered empty-handed and nearly dead into the arena to face a man who thought to cut her down like a stunned sheep. Some confluence of her own strength and the touch of all the Gods had saved her, drawn her to her feet, caused her to strike truly. Shown her victory at the edge of death.

  She could not touch the earth now, to speak to her Goddess.

  The shadows had fled and taken the Empty with them.

  The God Himself was the weapon of her enemy.

  But her toes touched the air, the medium of the Son’s strength. If she could not fly, she could at least strive upward. Her knees tucked up to her waist, her legs straightened until she pointed her feet to the ceiling. Lifting from the center of her body, Sequa managed to raise her legs high enough that she could hook her feet over the beam she hung from.

  The pressure fell from her arms; she snagged the right rope with her left hand, feeling slack in the give and hooked her insensate fingers under the loop around her wrist.

  Rough fibers tore at her s
kin like blades, but she contrived to pull and twist until the rope, lubricated by her blood, slipped over the base of her thumb and up over her fingers. Her precarious perch failed with the reaction and she fell headfirst into the ground, managing to take most of the impact on the back of her shoulders through sheer will.

  The smell of burning cloth grew stronger.

  Sequa hauled herself up onto her knees, arms still little more than clumsy flippers, trailing the rope like a tail. The God filled the narrow window, the beam of the Eye now too bright to look upon.

  The Voice cried out in agony and fear, a wordless protest. Somehow she rose to her feet and staggered toward him. She would block the light with her own flesh if she had to, let it burn her to the bone.

  Barely a finger length from her goal the Eye flashed one step brighter still.

  And the Voice of the God ignited into flame.

  Hurling herself on top of him in some futile attempt to smother the fire, Sequa felt her own garments catch and burn. She screamed again, the pain instantly unimaginable. Her eyes closed of their own accord, trying to protect themselves from the conflagration. Sequa’s shaggy hair caught and burned with an evil smell; her lungs felt raw and empty. Her leathers resisted the fire but the skin of her limbs and face already peeled back from the flesh.

  The body under her writhed once more, and suddenly she landed on the other side of the bare room, rolling until she hit a wall. The fire that had caught on her snuffed out, leaving her smoldering.

  His last gift, flinging her away with power ripped from the symbol of his God. Even as it killed him, he protected her.

  The Voice of the God died in fire. His aura, so bright and clear, popped like a soap bubble and the subtle wind of his soul ceased to flutter at the edges of her mind. It left her alone and empty, a hollow shell waiting to be filled with grief.

  She had failed to save him.

  Sequa lay face down on the bare boards wreathed in smoke and the stench of flesh burnt to the bone and gave up, wishing only to stay beyond the building sorrow forever.

  Chapter 10

  Cur slammed his shoulder against the door, expecting it to be barred, and nearly rebounded off the far wall when it burst open. He actually stumbled over the limp ball of charred cloth and raw flesh in the middle of the room. Sequa. He dropped to his knees, reached out to grab her and then stopped. Every visible patch of skin seeped fluid and blood.

  She lay face down, hands outstretched as though she had been crawling towards the other body in the room.

  Behind him, Anem, Parri and two of her personal guards charged into the room and stopped dead, staring at the other body in the room. Parri dropped to his knees, covering his face in his hands. One of the two other men turned and fled the room. The sound of him vomiting came loudly.

  Anem simply stood and stared, her uncovered eyes eloquent with horror, fear and agony.

  “This, how… oh, my friend.” Her voice filled with tears.

  Parri knelt, openly weeping. The last man slumped against the wall, also crying.

  Cur touched Sequa’s shoulder where her leathers had protected her, gingerly at first and then just grabbing her and turning her onto her back. Her head lolled to the side, her scars upmost. The sound brought Anem’s head around.

  “Is she dead?” Anem’s asked.

  Cur’s pale eyes seemed huge in the slit of his visor. His voice came, low and strained, the best he could do to disguise it.

  “Yes.”

  The word rang clearly enough that everyone in the room and outside would have heard.

  Anem jerked her head toward the door. “Then take out the damn trash and…go to the Temple. The Shadow… she needs to attend. I have… she must make this place safe.”

  Cur’s shoulders jerked at the insult to Sequa but he gingerly took the bundle of seared flesh into his arms.

  For a heartbeat, seeing the tiny form so fragile and broken, Anem’s eyes softened. She gestured at the rough bonds still hanging from one wrist. “At least she tried to save him. She practically tore off her own arm to get out of those ropes.” She looked over at the pile of metal by the door. “I’ll have that all brought to the Temple…eventually. I can’t think anyone else in the city will be able to touch those swords but the Shadow now.”

  Cur gathered the trailing end of rope into his fist and carried the limp body out the door, past the other guard, down several sets of stairs and onto the major street leading to the Temple. He barely registered the horror and disgust of the people he passed.

  At the Temple doors they tried to refuse him entry. He stared dully at the battalion of clerics ranged before him and simply went through the middle of the crowd as though wading through water. Those who did not part were knocked down. The Shadow met him in the main altar space, half-clad in a thin white robe. Her face looked ancient and cold as she rose from the attitude of formal prayer. The stone altar had been covered in fresh leaves and bright flowers to greet the new Measure. The scent of the buds swept over Cur for a moment like a benediction.

  “Halt. What abomination do you bring? I felt—”

  Cur checked instantly and bowed as low as he could without dropping Sequa. As he did, her still uncovered face lolled over his forearm and the Shadow cried out sharply.

  “Blessed Mother of Us All. Her too? She—”

  “She’s dead,” Cur gulped flatly, his grip tightening just a little.

  The Shadow laid one thin hand on Sequa’s scarred cheek, almost the only part of her not burned and raw.

  “I felt the Voice, my dearest brother… I felt him die?” Her desperate question begged for correction.

  “Yes. Burned alive.” He described the place, the scene, in a few terse words. Tears slipped and jerked down his face then, as though embarrassed to be seen.

  The Shadow drew herself up to her full height and took several deep breaths.

  “I had hoped—I knew, but I had hope for I thought she protected… He told me he intended to speak to her last night. I had faith even then. False hope.” And now her voice rang loudly, speaking not to him but to the restless, offended listeners. “I believe still that she would have died to save him… as I suppose she did. Rest now, Champion. Let the Goddess embrace you.”

  Without fear or disgust, the Shadow of the Goddess kissed the little form on the lips and forehead, coming away with a smear of blackened flesh and blood on her cheek like a brand.

  Cur closed his eyes against the surge of warmth and love that touched him then, some sort of backwash from the touch of the Goddess. When he opened his eyes, the Shadow looked directly at him, all the power of her station in her eyes.

  “Take her to my chambers, guardsman. I will send an escort with you; if slain by this blasphemous fire you tell me of, I think I must see her body cleansed before it can be disposed of. Stay with her, for I would need to cleanse you as well. And she should have an honor guard. I fear most of my clerics will not treat her with respect even now.”

  Cur hefted Sequa a little higher in his arms. “Holy, when she is…disposed…is there somewhere I might…bathe?” His voice sounded tiny and more than a little afraid.

  The Shadow of the Goddess started as though she had been pinched and her gaze sharpened.

  Cur was filthy, his borrowed clothing covered in soot, blood and body fluids. The stench of cooked human flesh clung to him like a cloud of gnats. The Shadow turned to her closest attendant. “Go now to the Commander and begin the prayers for the Voice. No—” she cut off his protest stillborn. “The Voice is dead. A new Voice will sing soon enough. He will not be less dead if I am delayed a few minutes to aid this honest warrior. Come. I will take you myself.”

  ~ * ~

  In the upswell of rage and grief that came with the announcement of the death of the Living Voice, Anem finally convinced a large portion of the Noble community of the veracity of Sequa’s ideas about the killer. More comfort to believe in a well-laid, long-standing murder plot than that the avatar of the God had been
bound and murdered by some random criminal.

  The Temple emptied of those clerics who could be spared to search for the young man or boy who had suddenly found himself filled with strange knowledge, overflowing with truths. Sometimes they came upon the new Voice too late to save his sanity and so the Temple would carefully house a gibbering wreck for the few seasons it would take for his mind or heart to burst open entirely.

  If perhaps more searchers left the city than normal, the Shadow of the Goddess could not blame them. With the pattern of deaths now laid bare, it seemed not a good time to be a cleric in Ressen. The Voice had been the last death in fire, if the pattern held. The element of the Goddess was water; Anem ordered the fountains in the city emptied or guarded day and night.

  The oppressive pall of fear grew worse as the Turn progressed to Fullness. Many households sequestered the older women, especially the mothers. The thrum of the streets grew deep and harsh with masculine voices. No women left their homes at night if they could avoid it. The restriction both daunted and enraged the populace. The night belonged to women, to those born in the image of the Goddess.

  With the first death in water Anem learned how many women in her city could not avoid the night…and also that the deaths need not be contained by city walls.

  A shepherdess, tall and strong, the kind of woman who could carry an ewe in labor over her shoulder to the birthing pens. She might have been doing just that, for they found a newborn lamb trying to suckle from her dead mother a few paces away from the water trough that held the body of her protector.

  The lamb had been freed from her mother’s belly by rending claws. The woman in her waterlogged linens looked almost peaceful when they unwound her veils to confirm her identity.

  When the woman’s eldest son would have slain the lamb as cursed, the Shadow of the Goddess appeared and took it into her arms, gently blessed the corpse and left again without a further word. The Shadow seemed to be everywhere in the city those days, walking Under Roof, pacing the curtain wall, trailing through the broad, flower-lined Noble’s Roads. When not out comforting her people, she stayed in her rooms with the doors locked. Only Anem ever gained admittance. She held no more ceremonies, the senior clerics who remained offered hollow praises to the Gods who had abandoned their city. Each night the Shadow looked older, more drawn, more haggard when she did emerge.