Bloodchild

by Anna Stephens

  Dom spat into the mud at his feet, trying to clear the taste of shame. Shame made him angry, and anger made him selfish, and that just reminded him of all he’d done and shame would fill him again. An endless, draining loop of emotion and beneath it all, beckoning, coaxing, waxed the call of the Blood. Growing stronger. Imperious. As always, he put an image of Rillirin’s face between him and it, an idea of their child and their future, the life they would have when this was done. It was his way of tending his soul, nurturing the Light in him, that little candle-flicker so small and brave against the darkness that threatened.

  Candle-flicker.

  A bloom of fire off to his left and Dom twisted his face away, screwing shut his eyes before it could take hold in his mind. Too late. The air left his lungs with a protracted moan as he rose on to his toes, arms outflung, sword spinning away in the mud.

  ‘Nnnno,’ he forced through a tight throat, a thick tongue and gritted teeth. ‘Nnnno.’

  ‘Dom?’ Gilda was by his side. ‘All right, let’s sit you down,’ she said, but he didn’t sit so much as collapse, distantly registering the impact on his tailbone and then his shoulder blades.

  Fire roared in his head, boiling his eyes, his brain, roaring until he screamed. He felt himself begin to convulse, his back arching, belly reaching for the clouds, felt Gilda’s hands on him fierce with worry, with love, and then She ripped him free and stole him away.

  Everywhere, numinous and without source, a golden glow, as though he were the wick at the centre of a flame. Wildflowers, pine resin, rich earth, the coppery tang of blood and the ozone of lightning all hung in his nostrils, while running water and birdsong and a breeze chuckling through leaves sang in his ears.

  ‘Calestar,’ She said, Her voice low and loving, and Dom cringed.

  ‘Send me back,’ he gasped, dread black inside him. ‘Please, I have nothing to say to you. You’ve done enough, hurt me enough. Send me back.’

  The Dancer’s eyes were wise and ancient in Her youthful, laughing face, and they stripped away his secrets in much the same way the Dark Lady’s had done. Divine violation, over and over, raping who he was, what he was, giving no thought to the consequences or his own needs. Taking what They wanted and leaving him hollow and hurting. Was one really better than the other, when all was said and done?

  ‘You grieve, my child. And you hate.’

  ‘Hate you,’ Dom spat with as much venom as he could muster as the Dancer’s love – broad and deep and smothering – seeped into his veins and muffled his thoughts, his emotions. Blanketed him in love. Stultifying.

  ‘We are so close to the end, Calestar,’ She said. ‘I just need you to hold on a little longer.’

  ‘Can’t die until you say so, is that how it is now? Condemned to live until you’ve wrung me out like a rag, sucked the last bit of joy and promise from my life and left me a fucking husk? Is that it? Is it?’ He pummelled his fists against Her and She held him tighter, ignoring his struggles until he was snared in Her eyes, a fly in a web. ‘You’re pulling me apart. All of you, over and over, just pulling me to pieces.’ His voice caught on a sob. ‘Please stop.’

  ‘You must not go to the Waystation again, Calestar,’ the Dancer said in her sweet, young-old voice.

  ‘I’ve already promised Gilda I won’t.’

  ‘And now you will promise me,’ She said. ‘Only hurt awaits you there.’

  Dom’s nose wrinkled as the scent of soot – so unlikely here – drifted towards him. He caught what might have been the puff of ash in the corner of his eye, there and gone. Blinking, he focused back on Her, let the anger rise to smother all else.

  ‘You told me once I had a great destiny. You told me I would do great things, but there’s nothing great about murder, betrayal and apostasy. Nothing I’ve done has been great; none of it has helped my people or those who stand in the Light. I’ve brought us to the brink. Doomed us all. And it was you who set me on this path. You who shoved me into the Blood deep enough to drown and turned away when I begged you to help me out.’ He wriggled free of Her embrace and raised a shaking, accusatory finger. ‘You put me in Her grasp and now you tell me I must not go? Where is my free will? When do I get to choose?’

  ‘You do not truly understand all the things you have done,’ the Dancer said, ‘and nor will you in this life. As for those sins you have committed, you still have time. You can change it all, make up for it all. I showed you once the things you would have to do and you fought against them.’

  ‘You’re fucking right I did,’ Dom screamed. ‘You said you’d showed me everything. You didn’t, you showed me not even a taste of what I had to survive. Not even a breath of the horror you forced me into.’

  The Dancer put Her cool palms on either side of his skull, stilling his struggles. ‘And now I will show you the last of it,’ She said, and though there was remorse in Her tone, there was no apology. ‘And if you fight this, if you give up on this, then all is truly lost. Gosfath and the Dark Lady, my wayward children, will be ascendant, while Their Brother and I will be lost for eternity. And despite what you think, precious child, you do not want that for the world or yourself.’

  ‘Wait. Wait!’ Dom took Her wrists and pulled his head free of Her grip, a suspicion so horrifying growing within that he could barely give it voice. ‘What do you mean, your wayward children?’

  Sorrow softened the Dancer’s expression and one of the vines in Her hair withered and died. The light in Her face flickered and dimmed, and another waft of burning reached him.

  The Dancer sat among Her flowers and beckoned for him to join her. ‘Millennia ago, the Dark Lady and Gosfath were mortal. More than that – they were my priests and I loved Them well. Over time They positioned Themselves between me and my followers. Over time, They sucked faith and power to Themselves, in secret, and then They came to me – as you are with me now – and They deceived me and stole. Wisps and tendrils and then ropes and cables and great sheets of me, of my essence and my love, and They wove Themselves monstrous shapes to inhabit and They demanded sacrifice, for only blood can sustain Them. And They became.’

  There was silence as Dom took in the words, silence unbroken now by birdsong or zephyrs. This was the silence of the burial mound, the stillness that falls after violence is done and blood is spilt.

  ‘This … this is all your fault?’ he whispered, and the Dancer – goddess of Light and love – flinched from his words. ‘You did this, you broke the world, you caused untold suffering and the deaths of millions over the years? And now you expect us – expect me – to fix it for you? How? Why should I?’

  ‘Because I cannot,’ the Dancer said. ‘I spent most of my remaining essence on weaving the veil that kept Them out of Gilgoras. Now that essence too is gone and my strength has failed. The veil has torn and though I tried, I could not stop the Dark Lady taking what She wanted from you. And now without you – without men and women and children of faith – I will fall and the Red Gods will rise and not even the Trickster can defeat Them alone. The world will turn to Blood and to ash. Worship and despair will become one, wedded for eternity.’

  ‘You did this,’ he repeated, unable to grasp anything else. ‘You caused all of this. Your blindness, your desperate need for love, for worship. Like a tick feeding on a dog, uncaring that the animal will die because of you. You’re no fucking better than the priests who became gods Themselves. If only we could do away with the fucking lot of you.’

  The Dancer’s sorrow grew until it filled the world and filled Dom and his heart was like to burst and all his angry words flew like bees from his mouth and were gone.

  ‘I loved Them, as I love all of my children and all Gilgoras. I was blind to Their ambition. And I and all the world has paid for it. But now I need you. When the veil failed I marshalled the last of my strength to aid my Son in His battle against Gosfath.’

  ‘You sent the lightning.’

  She nodded, and now he spotted the source of the ashy smell; Her left hand was blac
kened, tiny flakes of soot drifting from it every time it moved. Like his had been, melted to the knife he’d stabbed into the Dark Lady’s heart before the Fox God chopped it off.

  ‘And now I am almost spent,’ the Dancer said and Her grief was not for Herself but for the world – and for him. ‘I fear for you, for my Son, for all Gilgoras. That is why I ask your aid, Calestar. Without you, the world will fall. I can do little more. It must be you, and the Trickster, and those you love and who love you. All who stand in the Light must come together and fight. But you must understand how. And what it will cost.

  ‘This is why I come to you now, Calestar, because the final choice must be made. Before, when you were still in the Dark Lady’s grip, you would not just have said no: you would have revealed my plan to Her. I could not let that happen and so I had to retreat from you and your actions. For that – for the feeling I had abandoned you – I am sorry. But when Gilda forgave you – when she gave you the courage to begin forgiving yourself – I knew you were ready. And now here we are.’

  She looked diffident of a sudden, almost afraid Herself, and Dom was seized with a sudden impulse to deny Her. What would happen if he said no? ‘Why me?’

  The Dancer’s sorrow swelled further. ‘Because it must be someone.’

  It was no sort of answer, and yet the only one She could give. Had She chosen him from birth, or simply picked the closest person as events unfolded? Was he special, or just convenient? And did it matter?

  ‘I just want Rillirin,’ Dom whispered, as here, in Her presence, he found the simple shining core of himself and saw that it was family and peace. ‘I don’t care about great destinies and divine wars. I’ve done enough, more than enough. I just want to go home to Rillirin and see my child born. I want to apologise to her for everything that’s happened. Will I get that chance?’

  ‘Yes,’ the Dancer said and Dom’s heart stuttered. ‘May I?’ She breathed, reaching out to cup his head again.

  Dom ran his fingers over the stump of his sword arm. Even here, in the presence of his goddess, it was gone. ‘You’re asking me to take on your duty,’ he said eventually. ‘You’re asking me to do what you cannot.’

  ‘Yes, Calestar, that is what I am asking.’

  ‘And the reward is that I’ll see Rillirin again.’

  ‘No, my love. You will see her again anyway. This duty must be chosen, not bartered for.’

  His breath shuddered in his throat. ‘Will I survive it?’

  The Dancer leant forward and kissed his brow. ‘That depends,’ She murmured as the knowledge poured into him, a raging torrent of fire and understanding and pain and risk and hope and pain and sacrifice and pain.

  ‘It depends on whether, by the end, you want to.’

  Dom sucked in air and rain and the first hints of autumn. He was a shell filled with poison, filled with knowledge so awful that he teetered on the brink of tantalising, welcoming madness. So easy to fall in. So easy to let go. But there was a gleam, too, the promise of Rillirin and a love renewed. Redemption. It meant so much more than he’d expected and he clung to it as the hurt swamped him.

  ‘Breathe, lad. I’ve got you.’ Gilda was using the sing-song tone she always had when he was a boy. It told him the physical toll had been as bad as the rest of it. If he’d had the energy, he might’ve laughed. If he’d had the time, he would’ve slept.

  ‘Up,’ he croaked instead, opening his eyes. Mud beneath his fingers, wet soaking into his back and arse and thighs, the hurts making themselves known with unseemly glee. ‘Up now.’

  ‘You need to—’ Gilda began, but the certainty was building in his chest and he struggled on to his side and then his elbow, retching, not pausing.

  ‘Up,’ he managed again, and Gilda hauled him up to standing, put her walking staff in his hand and took his other side, shoulder in his armpit, a muffled grunt as she took his weight. He swayed, turning his head like a dog sniffing out prey, and then began to wobble along the road. It was only then that he realised how weak his left side was, leg and arm sluggish, unresponsive and barely able to support him.

  No time for that either. ‘Help me.’

  ‘What did you see? Where are we going?’ Gilda fretted.

  ‘Crys.’ It was so slurred she didn’t understand, the pain in his head almost enough to buckle his legs again; only fear kept him going. To get back to Rillirin he had a job to do, and getting back to Rillirin was all he wanted, a need clean and pure, a love untainted with power or control.

  Gilda didn’t ask him to repeat it; pulling his arm more firmly across her shoulders, she shuffled with him down the streets, through patches of utter darkness, faster than he could manage and only Gilda and momentum keeping him upright.

  Dom couldn’t hear the fighting over his own laboured breathing, so when they emerged into a marketplace or village green, where two vicious battles were being fought, the unexpectedness of it brought them to a halt. A brawling melee to their left collapsed even as they arrived, Easterners throwing down weapons and raising their arms, the other on their right raging as the Krikite line tried to bunch around a central point, as the left wing started to buckle.

  Dom headed for the knot where the fighting was fiercest, where discordant wailing – of both triumph and despair – was beginning to rise. He took a deep breath and pulled his arm free, dug the staff into the mud and lurched into a limping, pathetic run, a mangled war cry clawing from his throat.

  ‘Dom,’ Gilda cried, but there was no time. He wormed into the thick of it, wormed past the Krikites in the front of the battle and threw himself over the kneeling figure, knocking it flat and himself to his knees, and he swung the staff right and then left, clumsy and slow but with the element of surprise, right and left again, and then again, sitting on the Fox God’s back, shielding him with his crippled body, his dying life. The Rankers reared back in surprise but then recovered, crowding forwards, swords and spears lunging for them both, more sharp points than a hedgehog had spines.

  Dom threw himself flat and tensed against the promise of steel. It didn’t come. The hot salt of blood splashed the side of his face, one eye, and then the unmistakeable thud of weapons hitting shields as they locked above him and men died so they might not. A severed arm splashed into a puddle.

  Hands grabbed him and dragged him off Crys, then more grabbed Crys and dragged him back too, and the Krikites sealed the hole in the line and held it, though he could see – almost smell – their desperation. Has the Fox God fallen? What’s happened? Have we lost before we’ve even begun?

  Ash whirled past in a fury of bloodied steel. ‘He lives,’ he screamed. It was enough for the Krikites.

  Dom lay on his back staring into the night as the lines moved away from him. The rain was lessening, patches of clear sky to the east, heavy cloud still in the south. A star watched him as he watched it.

  ‘Crys?’ he slurred again, the pain unendurable now and bringing whimpers from his chest, adrenaline unable to temper the poisoned exhaustion of a knowing.

  ‘I’m here,’ Crys said from above and to the side as the last of the Rankers died or submitted. ‘As are you, Calestar.’ And there he was, looming over Dom with blood running down his face and his eyes burning a fierce yellow. He grinned, his teeth sharp and white. ‘You’ve chosen then,’ he added. ‘I have to say I’m glad. I didn’t want to die there because you took a darker path.’

  Prostrate and hurting, Dom began to laugh. ‘Trickster,’ he coughed, knowing Crys would understand him even if no one else could, knowing his choice had been no real choice at all, just another manipulation, this one intended to force him to commit. For all Her apologies and sad eyes, the Dancer had manoeuvred him one last time. ‘I’m not doing it for you, you bastard. I’m doing it for Rillirin.’

  Crys winked. ‘And that’s why you’ll never falter again, Calestar. Welcome home.’

  THE BLESSED ONE

  Tenth moon, first year of the reign of King Corvus

  Private audience chamber,
the palace, Rilporin, Wheat Lands

  The slave had agreed, as Lanta had expected. Now all they needed to do was find the perfect opportunity, not only to get Valan out of the city for a few days to alleviate suspicion, but to ensure that the transfer of power was seen by all Mireces as a good thing.

  The Blessed One shifted in her chair, biting back a groan. She had communed with the God of Blood two days before and was still recovering, though the triumph of it – for He had come to her in the temple rather than summoning her to the Waystation – had yet to fade. She had invited Him, summoned Him, and He had responded, though of course their union this time had been of the flesh, as well as the soul. The hurts were greater. The honour is greater.

  With at least eight weeks before Rill gave birth, she had three or four more opportunities to commune, to beseech. By then, the god would be used to coming to the temple, so when the ritual came to be performed, they would be guaranteed His presence, His guiding light to summon the Dark Lady to Gilgoras and Her new body.

  ‘It is time for Rill to move into the temple,’ Lanta said, and the woman jerked her head up.

  ‘She’s got weeks yet,’ Corvus pointed out, more to spite her than because he cared, she thought.

  ‘I’m not staying in that shithole,’ Rillirin said. ‘Bad enough you make me go there every day. It’s even more disgusting than the temple in Eagle Height. I won’t live in it.’

  ‘You’ll do as you’re ordered, slave,’ Lanta said, though in truth the thought of weeks more listening to her answer back and being unable to do anything about it would be a trial. ‘Your child is to become a goddess; what you want is irrelevant.’

  ‘My child is an innocent babe and will live its life in the Light,’ Rillirin started, as she always did.

  ‘Enough,’ Corvus snapped. ‘I’m sick of the two of you bickering like a pair of dried-up old consorts. If it’s time to take her to the temple, take her and have done with it. I’ve had enough of the whole bastard situation.’