“Has this worked before?” she asked in his mind, though her voice sounded different than he remembered. “You just get high, and…oh, well, never mind. What can I do for you? Were my instructions not clear?”
“Goddess, please, tell me what happened to you? Where can we find the Storm Lord?”
“Right. Directions. Okay, wait a second. I’ll think up something properly godlike.”
He waited for a few moments, poised in the air.
The Contessa cleared her throat. “Woe! Hear the tale of my death, O Shaman, and glean from it what you may.”
Ap saw the beautiful Contessa hounded by a fierce god clothed in metal, the Storm Lord. She laughed as she ran, and the Storm Lord grew angry when he couldn’t catch her. He begged her to slow and love him, to bear his children, but she refused. Foolish god! He should’ve plied her with gifts and flattery, but he had only anger to offer. When her back was turned, he struck her down with a bolt of lightning.
Ap cried out as she collapsed. He tried to go to her, but her image dissolved like smoke, reforming in front of him again too far away to touch. Her dead eyes would haunt his dreams.
“He’s taken human form,” she whispered in Ap’s mind. “But you can get him if you’re quick enough. Probably. Maybe. Who knows?” She showed him where the Storm Lord was hiding; they’d have to cross the water, but they’d done it before when they’d traded with those on the mainland. “I’ll wait for you in this cold place, alone until he’s dead. Avenge me!”
Ap wept and thought he heard another voice beyond hers, a tiny, unfamiliar voice calling for help, but it fell silent after a noise like snapping fingers. Ap waited, floating. “Contessa?”
“What are you waiting for? Get going!”
Ap awoke with a start. The Deliquois jumped where they huddled around him. He clasped the hands of those nearest, used their help to stand, and rubbed at his burning throat. “We are hunters no more! We do not gather roots or reeds. We do not carve or weave or cook. We are god killers, every one of us, and we will avenge our goddess, or she will be lost forever.”
They wept anew, but before dawn had broken, they gathered what they’d need and unwrapped the canoes from woven reed covers. One by one, they came to Ap, and he cut their hair as he did when they’d displeased the goddess. No one would be beautiful or happy until she’d been rescued from the void.
Chapter One
Natalya could acutely recall being insane. Though she’d never been a healer, she’d known a few yafanai telepaths and micro-psychokinetics who dealt with mental illnesses ranging from the mild to the extraordinary. Sometimes their neural pathways could be changed or the mix of hormones regulated, but some were beyond yafanai abilities: those who heard voices that compelled them to act contrary to their nature or those who suffered such a break from reality that they never found their way back. Some were so dangerous their minds had to be wiped by telepaths, and they were left to drift like shadows through life.
Eight months ago, she knew she would’ve qualified for the mind wipe. After Simon Lazlo had augmented her, she’d heard voices, oh yes, every voice on the planet, maybe the universe, and she wasn’t even a telepath. They came charging in via her micro-psychokinetic abilities, and she couldn’t just hear the words; she could feel the words being formed by the brains around her. She’d felt heartbeats and organs and a cacophonous mix of so much feeling that she wanted to silence them forever. On top of that were the sensations her macro-psychokinetic powers delivered: the feeling of large objects and the spaces they occupied, of the gravitational pull of the planet itself. The whole universe seemed to breathe around her, and she’d just wanted it to stop.
At first, she’d thought she could handle it. She’d thought her new abilities would let her prove herself to the Storm Lord, and he would reward her for her strength and faith. But the feelings had just kept building, pushing her outside her own head; only she couldn’t drift like those insane shadows she’d seen in Gale. She was inexorably connected to herself, and it hurt. The pain kept building until she needed to tear and kill, needed to get her hands around Simon Lazlo’s neck for doing this to her!
And then, like a balm, the goddess had come. Naos, titanic force, had hushed the power inside Natalya, muting it to tolerable levels while still letting her access it. Naos had seen the potential in her where the Storm Lord had seen only madness, so Natalya had changed gods as quickly as changing a shirt.
Naos had a touch of madness all her own. She knew how power screamed inside one’s mind, and because she knew, she could grant sanity. They had made a good team for a month or so, exploring each other’s pain, plotting against Simon Lazlo, until Natalya had awoken in the middle of the night standing over a ditch. The long grass of the plains had whipped around her legs, all of it bathed in silver from the full moon. It wouldn’t have been a bad fall, but she might have hurt herself. She stumbled back from the drop and tripped, falling over one of the rocks that dotted the plains like wandering animals.
“Was I sleepwalking?” she mumbled. “I’ve never…”
“It wouldn’t have hurt,” Naos said, as if that distinction made all the difference.
They’d gone back to fun: wandering, spying on various groups of plains dwellers. Naos told her tales of Earth, the planet that had birthed humanity, and the true story of how a group of colonists had gotten thrown off course and wound up here on Calamity two hundred and fifty years ago. She told of the accident that had made some of them very powerful, how those with superior micro-psychokinesis could keep someone alive forever. The Storm Lord had taken credit for all of it before.
“So you have to be cautious if you’re going after Simon Lazlo,” Naos said. “His micro powers are as great as mine.”
Natalya snorted. “He can’t be a match for you and me together.”
“Speaking of together…”
Natalya’s belly went cold and she remembered the fall she’d almost taken. Naos explained that she’d wanted to borrow her body for a bit, but Natalya had thought it sounded as if the goddess wanted to wear her like a suit.
“It’s fine if you don’t want to,” Naos said. “You can always go back to being alone. And mad, let’s not forget that!”
And then what could Natalya do but agree?
Slowly, Naos started taking little trips in Natalya’s body, and Natalya had to watch behind her own eyes as Naos operated her like a puppet, steering her through the grass, tripping over rocks, and plunging her headfirst into more ditches. Naos could never get her arms up in time, and Natalya had to heal her own cuts and bruises, the occasional broken ankle.
“I don’t know what you’re always complaining about,” Naos said one day. “You can fix anything.” As if that made everything forgivable.
Natalya sighed and stared into the green sea of the plains. She never knew exactly when Naos was listening. Sometimes the goddess was absent for days, though her lingering power kept madness at bay.
“Just keep that in mind,” Naos said, an angry tinge to her voice as she read Natalya’s thoughts.
Natalya sighed again, missing the times when Naos had pretended to be beside her rather than inside her head, but she couldn’t keep Naos out if she tried. Not that she wanted to, she added hastily.
“Good girl.”
“You know that makes my teeth ache,” Natalya said aloud. “Can you please wait until I speak before you reply?”
“Oh, do excuse me. It’s so easy to tell speech from thoughts while in orbit, you know.”
It was a good point, but still…
“Enough moaning. Time for practice.”
Before Natalya could groan again, her body jerked upright and stumbled around for a few moments before Naos got her back on track.
“I’m putting a scheme in motion,” Naos said, her words coming in stutters from Natalya’s own mouth. “And I need a vessel.” After a few jerky steps and another fall, Naos retreated with a frustrated sigh. “Your flesh doesn’t suit me.”
“It doesn�
�t fit you!” Natalya cried as she sat up, rubbing her hip. “I’m already in it!” As soon as she heard the words, she regretted them, not wanting to give the goddess any ideas.
“Relax,” Naos said, “you’re right. And you’re all grown. Your muscles have their own memories. I need someone younger.”
Natalya stayed quiet as Naos’s presence withdrew. She didn’t know quite what Naos meant, but anything that would keep the goddess out of her body was worth a try.
“I sense someone close, a fight.”
Natalya felt around with her own powers and detected a group of people, adrenaline pumping, maybe a mile away. Some heartbeats fell silent as she watched. “A battle.”
“Let’s have a look. There’s one that feels perfect!”
Natalya ran with Naos hastening her along. With her augmented powers, she didn’t get tired anymore, though she still liked to sleep from time to time. She clambered onto a rock and spotted a camp just beyond.
Many of the plains dwellers were nomadic, moving camps and homes wherever the hunting was best. They usually followed the rivers that wound through the plains or went from this lake to that stream, keeping water close by. Sometimes they fought, but from what Natalya had seen, most traded; sometimes people left one group for another, often if they fancied themselves in love. Whether or not they returned if disappointed, she didn’t know.
But this was no simple dispute. Adults scattered through the camp, cutting down the elderly and adolescents, all but the children. These they lifted into the air and sought to comfort as if they hadn’t just murdered everyone else.
One of the attackers spotted Natalya and started toward her; she expected to see glee or anticipation in his expression, but he seemed pale, his mouth turned down in determination as if he took no pleasure in what he did, but it had to be done.
Her power flowed over his mind and turned it elsewhere as she erased herself from his vision. He shook his head and sought other prey. “Looks like they’re after the children.”
“Including ours,” Naos said.
“Ours?”
“Follow them.”
Natalya hopped down as the raiders withdrew, bearing the children with them. She stepped over bodies and threaded through the camp. The attackers hadn’t bothered to take food or water. They hadn’t even taken the few pieces of metal she saw here and there, the rarest substance on Calamity. She also didn’t see many young, healthy looking adults among the dead. Those were probably out hunting, and they would return to find the rest of their people slaughtered and their children gone.
She hurried in the footsteps of the raiders until they stopped to light a campfire at dusk. Ten adults sat around a circle of children and tried to comfort them with words or gestures, and the kids seemed too small to care what form comfort took as long as the violence had stopped.
“Good,” Naos said. “They’re young enough to work with.”
Natalya looked to the children. Most seemed under five. “Too young, surely?”
Naos only laughed. “She’ll make a lovely vessel. Her mind is so bright. Her mother named her Kora.”
One of the children lifted her head, searching for the source of the voice, but it would only echo inside her head.
“Bring her,” Naos said.
Natalya lifted the girl with macro powers and pulled her over. The adults leapt to their feet, crying out as Kora flew into Natalya’s arms. She stared with wide brown eyes, her little mouth open, and her four-year-old mind racing to understand. “Sleep.” Natalya’s power flooded the girls’ mind, switching it off. The raiders rushed closer, screaming, some of them weeping.
“No!” one cried. “We need the children. We need them! Get your own.”
“You’re one to talk.” Natalya tore the woman limb from limb with her powers. Naos melted one and flung several high into the air to land with wet thumps, unmoving. Natalya removed the heads of a few more while Naos attacked the brains of others, leaving them as mindless hulks, spittle flecking their mouths, soon to die. Before the sun had even fully set, there was nothing but a field of corpses and the whimpering children who’d seen too much death in one day.
“What about the rest of them?” Natalya asked.
Naos’s power skated over them. “We’ve got what we want in dear little Kora.”
Natalya frowned. One of the babies was crying in the grass. Several of the others tried to crawl away from her. “They’ll starve if we leave them.”
“Do whatever pleases you.”
With a sigh, Natalya laid her power over them. They quieted, hypnotized but not asleep, but their trauma would probably remain. She’d never been good at healing, not like Horace. She missed him and not for the first time. He’d know what to do in a situation like this.
“Get up and follow me,” she said.
The children obeyed, and Natalya lifted the infants with her power. As she walked, the children tottered behind her, and the infants drifted as if carried by the wind. She felt Naos watching her, felt a bit of amusement, all that Naos would let her see. Natalya didn’t care. Let the goddess be amused. Abandoning the helpless to starve to death was a line she wasn’t willing to cross, that was all. She headed toward the largest gathering of people she could sense, the children following her through the long grass.
As night got deeper, they began to stumble, and Natalya made camp, lighting a fire far away from the people she’d killed. She coaxed the children into true sleep, though she imagined it would still be filled with nightmares. Naos sighed and mumbled impatient noises until Natalya turned her attention to Kora, who lay closest to the campfire, her chest rising and falling steadily.
“Now what?” Natalya asked.
“Let’s comb through her memories. See what she’s got so far.”
Before Natalya could remind Naos that she wasn’t a telepath, Naos towed her along into Kora’s head. Natalya tried to protest, but Naos was inescapable. And this was worse than just seeing. She was the girl, going as far back as memory could take her, which luckily wasn’t far. Kora knew three faces well: Maman and Fatan, her mother and father, and Shufu, her older brother. Naos sped through her memories without rhyme or reason, settling on a fall here or a laugh there. Kora knew her people were the Miri; they wore the finger bones of the beloved dead around their necks. Her mother wore Grandmaman’s; her father bore his grandmaman’s and his fatan’s. Someone had told her she would have a necklace of her own one day, but she didn’t understand what that meant. She didn’t yet know death.
As the memories caught up to that morning, Naos slowed over them, lingering on Kora’s terror as the strangers attacked. She’d heard shouts from her elders. The raiders were of the Svenal, Shufu had said, and the word blazed in Kora’s mind.
“Hatred,” Naos said. “Anger like she’s never known before.”
And fear that caught Natalya as surely as it had Kora. Fatan had been gone for the day, hunting, and Kora had begged him to come save her. Maman had fought the Svenal with a long bone knife. Even Shufu had fired arrows until Kora lost sight of them, until the screams and smells of frightened people surrounded her, and she’d fallen and gone to sleep.
When she’d awoken, she’d been wrapped in a blanket, and though terror still lurked in the back of her brain, she’d thought it a bad dream. Then she’d seen that the blanket was the end of old Lilian’s skirt, and she’d laughed to think they were sleeping outside until she’d noticed Lilian’s blood-spattered face. She’d screamed for Fatan and Maman, but a strange man had carried her away. She recalled the long walk and flying through the air. That feeling had thrilled rather than frightened her, and then Natalya was looking up at her own face.
“Stop!”
With a laugh, Naos pulled them from Kora’s mind. “You didn’t enjoy reliving childhood?”
Natalya shivered and breathed hard. “Mine was never like that.”
“You should appreciate it more, then. Watch.”
They went inside Kora’s body this time, and
Natalya watched with horrified fascination as Naos commanded Kora to grow.
Kora’s eyes snapped open, her mouth opening in what would surely be a shriek, but there was too much pain for that. Natalya sensed white-hot agony crippling her, cramps flooding her limbs as her legs stretched by inches. She whimpered and mewled. Natalya scrabbled for Kora’s pain centers and tried to dull them, to put the girl back to sleep, but there was too much torment for that.
“I’m sorry, lovey, but you’re too short!” Naos said.
Kora gagged and dry-heaved as her body continued to grow. Tears poured down her cheeks. Natalya wiped them away and tried to do what she could with her power, but she paled next to Naos and could only watch as the transformation took place. She helped Kora struggle out of her dress as her body elongated, limbs growing, hips spreading, and breasts developing as if the girl was being baked into a woman. Her face grew along with her hair until the young woman she would have eventually become lay before the fire, twisted up in anguish.
“Maman,” she said softly, “Fatan.” She grabbed her throat; her voice had to sound so different in her ears.
“Take a look,” Naos said. “I think you’ll be pleased.”
Kora looked at herself, a four-year-old in a body that looked about sixteen. She shook, eyes as wide as a skull’s. “It’s not me! It’s not right!” She slapped at herself, shrieking.
Natalya grabbed her wrists. “Calm down! Goddess, do something!”
Kora managed one more scream before Naos’s power rolled over her, and she slept.
Natalya sat back, breathing hard. “Oh, shit.” She couldn’t have seen what she’d just seen. It had to be a trick, a joke, a mistake.
“Calm down yourself,” Naos said. “I just have to age her mind a little.”
“Wha…what?”
“Stay out here if you want, if you can’t appreciate power.”
Natalya felt Naos withdraw. Kora twitched in her sleep as Naos became part of her dreams. Natalya rubbed her hands together, wondering what she should do. She took the child-sized leather dress, laid it over Kora as best she could, and waited.
Widows of the Sun-Moon Page 2