by Kyrja
“Drena?” It was Jonath’s voice. He called her softly. She thought she might cry. Oh! He was alive. The nightmare was over. She was alive and so was he. Still sitting on the floor, she looked up into his eyes, her lips trembling. And smiled. She fell into his arms when he smiled back.
* * * * * * * *
Glancing at Chared, Jarles smiled. He had no idea how this was possible, and at this moment, he couldn’t care less. He knew exactly who these people were. He’d seen them in the visions Amphedia had shown him. He had lived in his mother’s skin when she had been here the first time. He had seen his father through her eyes. These were his parents. His mother and his father. Drena and Jonath.
Chapter Ten – Outside of Time
As she walked across the ground barren of life, Denit wondered what could have caused the devastation she saw all around her. The emptiness stretched out in front of her from horizon to horizon no matter which direction she turned. There was nothing but a few tree stumps strewn randomly, like the discarded bones of a well-picked carcass. Nor was there any evidence the destruction had been caused by fire. The earth beneath her feet wasn’t blackened, there was no lingering smell of smoke, no ash in the air. And yet, there was no sign of vegetation, animal, or being anywhere. Not even flies. It was gone. All gone. If she had to guess, she was pretty sure that even the roots to those few stumps left standing were rotten.
She stopped then, still feeling distraught, with the initial rush of emotions fading. She’d been upset at seeing Giya’s state of ill health, and having her disappear altogether had been too much to bear. So she’d done what she had always done – she’d walked away. She felt a smirk lift her cheek when she thought that she had to at least give herself credit for not having killed the rooster.
That damned rooster. Youni was its name. Giya had said it told her that she would come. Denit sighed. How did that make any sense? Since Giya was nature personified, it was certainly possible, she supposed, but in all the time she’d known Giya, not once had she mentioned talking to animals. Then again, she conceeded, there were an awful lot of things Giya had never told her.
Wait! What was that? She’d heard the tiniest of sounds behind her; a single pebble scraping against the ruined dirt perhaps? Had the rooster followed her? She stood still, listening, purposefully not turning around, waiting for the sound to repeat itself. Indeed, it did, only this time it was right beneath her, between her own two feet!
She was so startled by what she saw, she almost cried out. There was a plant of some sort rising from the ruined earth, reaching towards the sun. Only it was growing quickly, almost throwing itself out of the ground. It seemed she was surrounded by a whole chorus of tiny, rustling sounds now. She stared, unable to believe her eyes. There was a layer of green surrounding her, and even growing right where she was standing. Just a moment ago, there had been nothing, and now there was an ocean of green all around her. It was like a flash flood in the desert, only this was a torrent of plants, instead of water. She wondered if they would be as dangerous as the rushing water could be.
As quickly as everything had started growing, it seemed as though it had all stopped again. She stood still to see if anything else was going to happen. She had never appreciated not being able to understand how things worked, nor why they were happening. Mysteries were not her favorite kind of activity, and this was the strangest thing she’d ever seen. Well, she paused to consider, maybe not quite as strange as turning into a giant Firebird had been, nor becoming a god, she supposed, but this should not be happening. Still, this strange growth was exactly what had caught her attention as she’d orbited around the planet day after day.
Denit continued to stand there, wondering what to do next, trying to understand what was happening, and why. She felt completely at a loss with no one to ask, and no frame of reference. She wondered what Giya would do if she was here, and then realized that Giya was here – and that something terrible had happened to her as a result of whatever was going on. And that made her feel suddenly very, very vulnerable. Since becoming a goddess – or, rather, since learning she had always been one – she’d felt powerful and capable. But this situation was making her feel like a child all over again. An uneducated one. And that, of course, made her feel angry – which she knew wasn’t helping her at all.
“Use what you know to find out what you don’t know,” she said out loud, remembering one of the many things Giya had taught her when she was trying to learn to control her temper. That, unfortunately, had never worked overly well for her, so she had stayed away from everyone all the time. And now she was alone all the time, except when she came to the planet, as she’d done today.
To the planet … Denit looked up to see where the sun was, already knowing it wouldn’t be where she knew it should be. Since she was a part of the sun now, and it was a part of her, she knew exactly where that part of her should be, and it most certainly wasn’t where it should be. And yet, from the sun’s perspective, it was exactly where it should be. So that meant there was something wrong with the planet. Not with her, and not with the sun itself. That was a place to start. It was something. A small start anyway. That was something she knew. What did she need to know that she didn’t know? After a moment, she decided she needed to know what was wrong with this particular place on the planet. She had already seen the evidence that something was different here than anywhere else, so now she needed to know why it was different.
The girl she’d encountered earlier had said not to worry about Giya, because this was the “wasting” time. So maybe this … now … was the “growing” time or something like that. So what did that mean was happening to Giya? Was she being “reborn” or “reformed” too? Or whatever was happening to everything else. Sov’s eye! she swore, how she wished Giya was here right now, to tell her what to do! She would know what was happening, because she would just … that’s it! Giya would know what to do, because she was connected with the land. The planet. With every living thing. So maybe all she needed to do was to stop thinking like a human and act like the goddess she was! Maybe she could feel the life in the planet too. Shaking her head at her own foolishness for not having thought of it sooner, Denit reached out with her senses to see what she could find.
She wasn’t sure how to even do it, but she decided that if she felt confident, that it would help her more than hinder her. She had never attempted to reach out with her senses like this, but had an inkling of what was required because she shared a connection with the physical mass of the celestial body the people on this planet called their sun. It wasn’t the same as the planet of course, but from here, that’s exactly what it looked like during their daylight hours – a round ball in the sky from which they received light and heat. It continued to amaze her just how differently she existed there than while she had her physical body on the planet. The transition, while accomplished quickly, was always a shock to her. And perhaps that’s what was needed here – less of a physical presence. Maybe the form of her human body would obstruct her senses instead of helping her.
Allowing herself to begin to transform to a more ethereal form, she reached out with the physical form of her true self, pouring herself as gases and liquids onto the surface of the ground, letting herself be absorbed into the soil. She purposefully kept her consciousness human, though, eager to understand in a way she would be able to tell others if it was necessary. It was obvious to her that any people living nearby would need to be warned of whatever dangers they might face here.
No, she sighed to herself after only a short time, she was feeling nothing. Nothing at all. Well, that wasn’t true. She was feeling trapped, as if she was inside a circle of some sort, but that simply made no sense at all. Letting go of her human consciousness, she allowed herself to experience the feel of the place as her rightful self. As the Sun Goddess. With her corporeal self diminished to a shell of human flesh, she explored the spaces between time and space and came to understand the shape of what she’d discovered. She�
��d been right in the first instance. She was trapped. Inside of a circle. By time itself. And now she knew where to find Giya. If she was right about what she felt, then it was important they work together to undo what had been done. And although she understood better what had been done, she still didn’t understand why.
This place, this circle, was ancient, and had been here as long as the planet had existed, which meant that either her father, Sov, had purposefully created it, or that Lumas had. She supposed it was possible that some other entity might have, but seriously doubted it could have existed without their knowledge and consent. As she withdrew from the earth to return to her human body, she still had many questions, but the most pressing was the turtle. There was no doubt whatsoever there was a turtle involved in what had happened to this place, and that it played a large role in undoing the imbalance she felt here, but how or why a turtle would be responsible completely eluded her. She shrugged her shoulders, fully returned to her corporeal form, thinking that if the rooster had spoken to Giya, maybe the turtle did too. She would find out shortly either way, now that she knew where to find the Earth Goddess.
* * * * * * * *
Watching as the gigantic tortoise continued on her rounds, one very slow step after the other, Ozahm knew frustration more intensely than he’d ever felt in the whole of his existence. Soon, Sina would come to tell him what she had witnessed, but there was nothing she could add that he didn’t already know. Giya’s precious “daughter” had arrived. He was torn between being elated, and being worried. On one hand, that meant that she, too, would end up dead, and that certainly added an extra layer to his delight. On the other hand, he didn’t appreciate the complication nor the distraction. He had never managed to kill a god before, and this tortoise was proving to be immune to his efforts. He’d already spent too much time trying to do so, delaying his inevitable victory over Giya. If he had to spend time dealing with Denit too, everything would be delayed.
Besides, it was Giya he wanted to punish, not Denit. She wasn’t a human, so it made no difference to him what she did or didn’t do. She never should have come. She was an undesirable inconvenience, whereas Giya was pure evil and needed to be destroyed. There was a time – a very, very long time ago – when he’d wanted to destroy Lumas for how she had wronged him, and if he ever had the chance to do so, he would still welcome the opportunity with opened arms. She had taken him from his home hundreds of years ago, reducing him to nothing more than a kind of a guard. He’d been one of four gods tasked with watching over that part of Lumas – the Goddess of Beauty – which she had invested in the planet so she would always be a part of the creation Sov had made. That “part” was Giya. In time, she had become a goddess in her own right. The Earth Goddess, in fact, and the irony in that fact tore at Ozahm as nothing else possibly could. When Sov had died, Lumas had left the skies over this world, leaving Giya behind.
As one of her “guards,” he’d witnessed her meddling in the natural flow of life and the humans on this planet over and over again. At first, he was unconcerned, because the humans deserved whatever misery Giya could create for them. Lumas had magically compelled him and the others to be unable to harm her during their long service. She had named them “Ahadi,” a word from one of the human languages which meant “promise.” He scoffed at the mockery of the word. It wasn’t much of a “promise,” if one was forced to perform a service instead of doing so of one’s own volition. Once Lumas had left, Giya had offered each of the four of them the opportunity to serve her, or to be banished. He’d lied, of course. He was not leaving this planet until he made sure the Earth Goddess was eliminated altogether. He was getting closer – she was getting weaker and weaker, unable to return to her former strength now. All he needed was a little more time.
Ozahm shook his head at the thought of “time.” That’s exactly what this place was; a place out of time. Lumas had created it, he knew. And now that part of her that was left, namely Giya, would die because she had created it, and because he had found a way to use it against her. She was trapped here, in this place called Jikangai, unable to leave because Lumas had once found it amusing, or so he assumed, to create a place where time was different and once you stepped foot within its boundaries, the laws of nature were changed. The only way you could leave was if you were dead. And then he had added his own twist by slowing the tortoise. It was she who was the crux of his problem. If he could make her stop, or find a way to kill her, then Giya would die and his revenge would be complete.
* * * * * * * *
Petting the rooster sitting in her lap, Sina waited patiently for Denit to return to her body. She had watched with fascination as some kind of substance – Youni had called it energy – had flowed out of Denit’s body into the ground. She was trying to understand the nature of Jikangai so she would have a better idea of how to proceed with whatever her plan was. Youni had told her that Denit would come, but not why, or what she would do while she was here. And so she had come to watch her, to see what she would find.
She, herself, had come several months ago, when she’d fled Nohoyo, because Ozahm had promised to help her. She had only found out she was a Fire Tender in the moments before she’d left her home, and hadn’t wanted that kind of power taken away from her. Somehow, in the moments before she had risen into the sky as a huge firebird, Denit had done many things, including destroying the barrier which had kept Nohoyo secret from the rest of the world, and changing the nature of the magic which had created the Fire Tenders. Instead of being able to kill others by draining their lifeforce away from them, now they would be able to heal. It was unfair to have made that choice for everyone, as far as Sina was concerned.
She wanted revenge on those who had killed her mother and destroyed her home. And so she had traveled with Ozahm. He had wrapped his arms around her, and in the next moment, she was here. She had found Jikangai amazing when she had first arrived. And frightening. She had always been afraid. All of her life she had been scared of everything and everyone. But here, she had learned how to stop being afraid with Ozahm’s help. She was, indeed, a Fire Tender, able to suck the life out of one thing and move it into another. Or to just suck the life out of another living thing, no matter what it was, without bothering to put it into another. That was the first thing she’d learned. And Ozahm, the Lord of Death, had been delighted.
It had been so very odd, at first, learning how to live without anything she’d ever had in her life before the day the strangers had come. She’d had a bag of things with her, of course, because she had already decided to leave, but it was nothing more than a change of clothing and a few things to eat, along with a container of water. The extra clothes had been helpful, but she had grown so quickly that none of her clothing really fit her any more. She had learned what she could eat more by trial and error than anything, because Ozahm hadn’t been any help there. He was a god, so he didn’t need to eat, but she did. Only once had he offered to help her with food, and that was when a fruit hadn’t yet been ripe, so he’d touched it, and made it ripen in a moment’s time. Even though she hadn’t wanted to eat it after seeing that, she had, and had been surprised how sweet it was. She still didn’t know what kind of fruit it was, although she’d had many of them since she’d first arrived.
She wondered if Denit would age as quickly as she had, or if she was immune to the effects of Jikangai, like Ozahm was. Giya hadn’t exactly aged, as she had become weaker, and less healthy. Both of them were gods, but each of them had reacted differently to the environment here. She didn’t hate Giya like Ozahm did, in fact she was pretty nice. And smart too. But she wasn’t about to help her, because she was sure Ozahm would punish her if she did. And the whole point of being here was to help him to kill Giya, so that wasn’t something she was likely to do. The sooner the Earth Goddess died, the sooner she could go home and deliver her own punishment to the strangers who had changed everything. She was no longer the scared little girl who’d run away from home, terrified of what wou
ld happen to her. She had grown, matured, and had become powerful in her own right.
The flora and plant life was growing again; it was the fertile time. It wouldn’t be long before it got out of control again, and Ozahm would ask her to kill it all. She liked the way it felt to be able to drain the lifeforce out of everything around her so quickly. It was exciting to watch everything wither, turn brown, and vanish into thin air. That was the fun part. Transferring all that energy to Ozahm wasn’t as exciting, but it still gave her a sense of her own power. Without her, he wouldn’t be able to do the things he wanted to either.
Chapter Eleven – Three is Better
The feel of the liquid in Batal’s hand was wrong. She had only become a “True Daughter of Amphedia” because of the magical Tear she had been given, she knew, but she had been enough of a sea creature long enough to know when water was healthy and when it was not. And this water was not.
“You already know what I am going to say,” she guessed, looking directly at Kani. He’d been a Bahari, part human and part crab, for a very long time, although she had no idea just how long that was, or if he had even been born this way. She had avoided asking any of the Bahari those kinds of personal questions. Some, she knew, had been specifically created, while others had been born creatures of the water who could take human shape if they desired. Or if they had been compelled by Amphedia, the former Goddess of the Seas. Most preferred their underwater forms to their humanoid, “above the surface” bodies, as they referred to their human shapes, although Kani seemed to enjoy his human form more than most of the others did. He had even begun construction on a kind of a human house, although it was more of a lean-to than any type of place where most humans would care to live. Still, if he was sleeping above the surface, even some of the time, then he was far ahead of most others in acclimating to the human world they had been invited to join, here in Nohoyo.