by Mark Eller
Anothosia’s inner warmth cooled. The sensation of the goddess’s amused humor faded away to be replaced by waves of dark sadness. “We have a long history, you and I, my darling,” the goddess continued. “We have made many plans these last few hundred years. In fact, what we do now was originally partly your idea. This battle we are about to fight, the preparations made, even the journey of thousands of my beloved people toward the Hell Mouth to prepare the way for our battle with their own deaths, was part of our original plan.” Her presence felt grim. “It is a great sacrifice they make, young Missa, this giving up a nearly immortal life. For countless years they have taken refuge within my Garden, but they agreed to leave without complaint because when Terra is destroyed both my Garden and Hell will soon follow. A terrible price, child, but one both you and I and some others agreed must be paid.”
“But I don’t remember any of that,” Missa protested. “I don’t remember any other life. I only remember being me.”
“I am not so powerful as Zorce or Trelsar,” Anothosia explained. “Each rebirth came at a cost. Your old memories were cast aside. Part of your nano field, your soul, was lost in the transition, replaced each time with a piece of your new mother’s soul, budded with love from her field. The strongest of those is from your present mother, from Anithia, who bears you greater love than any mother before her. This is because every lost piece of your original nano field has found its home in her. ”
Missa fought back a sob at the realization death was not only real, it had happened to her many times before. “Does it hurt?” she asked. “Does it hurt when I die?”
“Sometimes it did,” Anothosia answered. “Sometimes you died peacefully in your sleep. But child, before we enter into a final joining you should know this rebirth shall be your last. I’ve not the power or knowledge to put you together again when neither of us has survived. If we fight this battle with Zorce you risk the final death, and none of us, gods or human, know what happens after we truly die.”
Missa felt confused. Her hands began trembling and sweat trickled down her forehead. “If we fight? I thought we had no choice.”
“It is your body, dear friend. Your final life. I cannot promise you will live, and I cannot risk your death without your permission. I can promise, however, that you will feel no pain. Most of you will be gone from this body and residing in my Garden. Death will come as no more than a gradual fading away.”
“Can I think about it for a while?” Missa begged. “I’m not sure I have that kind of brave.”
It almost felt as if the presence within her settled deeper into place. “The time of your final decision is not yet, Little Miss. We have time yet, and I hope our final joining will not be complete until shortly before we need to fight. If we act too soon all of Terra will suffer, perhaps to the planet’s doom. Now then, settle into place and clear your thoughts so we may learn one another to greater effect. While doing so, rest easy knowing Trelsar and Flinstar are assuring our time of exile will soon end.”
* * * *
“Sixteen possible priests to choose from and Jolson pushed me toward that gods damned bastard,” Tessla complained as she pushed her way through thick brush but, in truth, although her long conversation with Charmaine had not been as informative as she would have desired, he had given her some information. Enough, at least, for her to make a loose and very flexible plan. The extremely long and very anonymous letter handed to her by a young runner had helped change her flexible plan into something straight forward and set in iron. Normally information gained in such a happenstance and suspicious way would have been discarded, but not when Nedross’s invisible presence pushed her forward.
So, according to both Charmaine and the letter, hellkind had headed off in almost every direction in search of Missa, something Tessla already knew. To most people, including Tessla, their searches would have appeared random. Mostly, they were. However, not every hellborn was created equal or had the same information as the others. Those hellborn who were weaker in power or of a young age could be found anywhere. Those of slightly more worth concentrated their efforts toward the north of Grace, which drew the direct attention of others like Lord Calto and Anithia in that direction, also.
And then there were the most powerful. Belsac mainly now that Helace was dead, but also half a dozen others including a devil named Bent who was reputed to have murdered Lord Larson Morlon. Tessla had thought Bent was later killed at Anithia’s original home, but apparently this was not the case. Not surprising since the person who identified Bent was Sulya Ibarra. Barely trusted then, it had since come to light the similian was not only Zorce’s spy, but also someone highly placed within his ranks.
According to Charmaine, Belsac was stuck in Grace since politics and power required his constant attention. According to the letter, Bent and a few others seemed to be concentrating their attention to the south-east of Grace. Traveling with Bent were two lesser but still formidable devils named Harrow and Poldac. Also with Bent was a curious hellborn some called Rebel, someone Tessla had only heard of recently, and even then only through second and third hand rumor. Those rumors said Rebel was a hybrid changer who assumed a feline form instead of a hound’s. To Tessla, it was a strange choice of form, but it was seemingly effective since a few discrete inquiries provided other rumors saying Rebel had killed three hellhounds, a wyvern, and a changer within a three week period. Not being satisfied with this small amount of blood, she then went on to kill two demons, both in the same fight. Each of her battles seemed to have been driven by Rebel seeking higher status within Hell’s ranks, so the changer was ambitious.
Or so rumor claimed. Tessla wasn’t sure how much trust she could place in them. Still, if the stories were true, this Rebel was more than dangerous, and she was among those who hunted Missa.
So, after three days of inquiry and planning Tessla found herself trekking in the wilderness nearing the shoreline of Lake Elmere while hunting the hunters. This was a task for which she was normally well suited— just so long as the people she sought remained within the confines of a city or town. When the chase left areas for which she was trained, Trelsar had others who took over.
But not now. Not since Loc Mir Forest had burned to the ground and the virtuous god’s temples had been desecrated. Of late, Trelsar’s and the other god’s troops had been greatly thinned.
Which left her silently cursing as she neared the inhospitable lake after twelve hours of travel, swearing she would murder Mercktos if he had placed Missa anywhere over the water, assuming the devil was not already dead.
Very little frightened Tessla, not even death, but deep water gave her a great deal of concern. Since she had no body fat and weighed far more than a normal human, Tessla could neither float nor swim. If the water she traversed did not get too deep she could sometimes bounce up and down for a while, drawing in a breath every so often and praying a drop-off wasn’t in her future. Unfortunately, this method would not work well in Lake Elmere where shallow water was measured in several tens of feet directly off the shore. Deep water was measured at several hundreds of feet deep.
Tessla knew herself to be abnormally strong, but even she could not hop eighty or ninety feet while underwater.
Within cities Tessla hunted by rumor. She hunted by going to a being’s known places or chasing down its friends. Sometimes she hunted with Trelsar’s invisible hand resting on her left shoulder, guiding her along. Here, in the wild, without Trelsar’s guidance, she would have normally been lost. Tessla knew nothing about the meaning behind bent grass and disturbed leaves. She had not a clue if a bit of scuffed dirt belonged to a human’s shoe or a rabbit’s feet. Fortunately, she did not need great skill in wood-craft. Three of those she followed seemed to be experts at remaining unobserved, but the fourth tended to break small branches beside the trail every fifty to a hundred feet after the trail split. Arrows were frequently scratched into the dirt not too much further along. She would have suspected Missa was held captive and markin
g the way if not for the fact the arrows showed undeniable signs of having been made by a thin non-human foot bearing rather impressive claws.
Not being a complete fool, Tessla suspected the dragging foot belonged to the person who sent her the note, which meant the claw-footed being was either a hellborn in dissent with Zorce and Athos or someone who sought to play games with Trelsar’s former Assassin. Both explanations called for caution. This caution slowed her progress down while she constantly searched for ambush or traps.
Neither appeared. Near the end of the day, not long before sunset, Tessla arrived at Lake Elmere’s shoreline after cutting through a steep and rambling cut through the Dover Cliffs. Once through the pass all signs of the other’s passage ceased, leaving her with three possible options. To her right was the long, uninterrupted and brush studded face of the Dover Cliffs which loomed directly over Lake Elmere. To the left was a narrow band of shoreline which was set between the lake and the cliffs. The narrow band ended at a small village owning a dozen shacks, three floating docks, and at least two fishing boats. Before the village were several miles of open water before reaching the opposite shore. A few miles further, after passing over several miles of farmland along with two or three small villages, was another shoreline, the Whispering Sea’s.
None of which provided good options for a city hunter in search of a little girl.
Having nothing better to do, with dusk falling and her prey unseen, Tessla settled down. Soon it would be dark. Like many other hunters, Tessla saw best in the dark.
After making herself comfortable, Tessla breathed in the lake’s faintly musty air. Her fingers trembled and she wanted to reach for her cirweed pipe as need gripped her mind, but she refrained. Cirweed smoke held a very pungent and identifiable odor which would easily override the lake’s natural musk. With Dell containing Athos’s poison within her spleen, she no longer needed cirweed to survive, but without it she often found herself feeling jumpy, and her fingers sometimes trembled.
Reaching into her pocket, she gripped her pipe’s stem in a clenched fist and waited.
* * * *
Five figures headed out two hours after sunset. A human bearing a lantern took the lead. To Tessla’s relief, instead of taking the group to one of the fishing boats and heading out onto the water, the five walked along the shoreline back toward her.
Moving silently, she carefully set herself behind a small patch of brush that had grown up around several boulders scattered near the cliff’s base. Crouching low, she steadied her breathing and listened while they approached. Hearing them wasn’t hard since the lead human seemed to complain most of the way.
“Don’t know why you have to do this after dark,” a thin voice whined. “Daylight would be much better. Could see where we’re going then and be less likely to take a fall. I’m telling you, Lord Bent, that there cliff is nobody’s playground to climb, what with it being all broke up and crumbly and everything. Like to have broke my limbs four or five times climbing up to the passage a couple weeks back after the little quake shifted a bunch of boulders around, and to no point neither. Sure, it’s pretty and impressive in there, but everything belongs to a god. Can’t rightly steal something what belongs to a god no matter how much it sparkles. Riches only last a lifetime, you know. Gods, they can rip apart your soul. At least it’s what my great something grandpa said to himself when he found a way into the place more’n a hundred years ago, an’ it’s what’s been passed down to us since.”
“You talk too loud,” a rough voice grumbled. “On your life, you had best quiet down. Now, from what you just said, your family has known of this place for generations. How many others know it exists?”
“Nobody learned from us,” the human insisted in a much quieter voice. “Wouldn’t have been right to throw the temptation at good folk, not at the risk of their lives and their souls. Nope, my great something grandpa only told one son, and that son only told one of his own. Became something of a family tradition to show which son is considered most trustworthy and none of it much mattered because the entrance got blocked a long time back. Tradition’s breaking with me, though. The wife, she never did nothing but spit out daughters so I’ve no son to tell. Now I ask you, what good are seven daughters to a man? What good, and why do we have to do this in the dark?”
A female chuckled. “Thought you might have forgotten your original question. The answer is we are less likely to draw attention from unwanted watchers in the dark, an idea you and your family traditions should support. Besides, the only one here who needs light to see by is you. Show us the pathway to reach the entrance and we will allow you to go your way.”
“Not much chance of finding a pathway,” the man answered, his voice growing thinner as they passed by Tessla and moved further away. “Like I said, its been mostly ignored since forever. There’s just a bunch of brush sticking out of the cliff face along with a bunch of cracks and loose rock. Some big chunks of boulder like things sticking out, too, from where they broke off from the main cliff but forgot to fall to the bottom. I’m telling you, this place is well hidden and more dangerous than… well I guess I can’t say hell to you lot, but it’s dangerous anyway. It’s why I never bothered going back. That and being afraid to touch anything belonging to a god.”
Taking a risk, Tessla eased her body a touch higher so she could peer over a boulder’s top. As she had known, the group had passed her by and was headed along the narrow strip of land abutting the cliff face to the left side of the path. There were five in all, with the human leading the way, his lantern swinging by his side. The slim, outside figure had to be the female, the one called Rebel. The towering figure taking the lead immediately behind the human had to be Bent, which meant the other two were Poldac and Harrow, both hellborn Tessla had never before encountered. Fresh from Hell, she suspected, a not uncommon occurrence of late.
Not yet daring to leave her concealment, Tessla waited while the figures grew more distant. Perhaps half a mile away they stopped. The lantern bobbed around for a time as the human, Tessla assumed, searched for the proper place for the others to begin climbing the cliff. After a bit the lantern’s movement slowed, and then it remained in one spot. The figures shuffled about for a while. A heavy grunt came to Tessla over the light breeze. She heard a thin cry, and then she saw one figure jerk into violent movement. The lantern fell. The human fell along with it. Seconds later the lantern’s light extinguished, much to Tessla’s relief. She could see much better in the dark without the lantern’s interference.
Tessla settled back into place. If she followed now she would be apparent to any wandering eye. She had to wait until after they made their climb, until after they found the doorway to Flinstar’s Temple and entered. Only then could she follow. When she reached the place where they began their climb, she would have to respectfully kick the dead human’s body into Lake Elmere where the lake’s spring fed currents could pull him into the depths. It would be a much better finish for a fisherman than to lay unattended on the rocks while gulls and crabs ate his flesh in the morning. Tidier, anyway.
* * * *
Missa released a gasp when she heard a rumble.
“Quiet child,” Anothosia ordered. “Evil approaches. Speak to me only with your mind.”
“They won’t find us in here, will they?” Missa asked inside her head, following orders by keeping her mouth shut. “Or if they do, we can beat them up. You’re much more powerful than any hellborn other than Zorce.”
“In my other self I am more powerful,” Anothosia answered. “When you and I are fully joined this body will be more powerful. At this moment we may have the needed strength to offset these three hellborn, but we cannot use it. Releasing our power now will not only draw Zorce’s attention, it will give him some warning of a small part of our plans. Too much rests on him remaining unaware.”
“It’s really important, isn’t it?” Missa asked. “This fight between us and Zorce.”
“It might be the most important
battle this world has ever seen,” Anothosia answered. :”Although true importance is hard to quantify. Each of three other conflicts prevented the total subjugation of humankind to those bearing evil intent. If we win this battle we may prevent the same. If we lose, the planet may be destroyed.”
“So it’s at least kinda important?”
“Extremely important,” Anothosia agreed.
Missa sighed, feeling very unhappy with just about everything. “I guess when the time comes I’ll go to your Garden and let you take over my body. I’d never feel right if I let most everybody in Yernden die or if the planet sort of fell apart.”
“Thank you Missa,” Anothosia said. “It is the right decision, and I promise to treat your body as well as possible. Now settle into place and be not afraid. These hunters will find us if they remain uninterrupted. We have resided here for far too long and given this area a particularly unpleasant odor through a lack of washing and sanitation for them to not. Fortunately for us, they do not know they are hunted in return.”
* ** *
Thirty minutes after the four hellborn disappeared within some hidden place inside the cliff, Tessla rose from her spot and followed. When she reached the fallen human she took a moment to weigh down his body with several heavy rocks and kick it into the lake. Finished, she removed her shoes and tied their laces together before hanging them about her neck. She briefly considered using her claws during the climb, but decided her talons would suit this task better. Leaving her claws buried within her fingers, she extended both her foot and finger talons and quickly scrambled up the cliff face, being much quicker about it than had those she followed. Not surprising, she supposed. They had spent a considerable amount of time searching for a hidden entrance. She only climbed to where she had seen them last.