by Dan Davis
“My people? You mean the Heryos? But are they not your people?”
“I am older than the Heryos. We all are. I came to this great northern sea long ago, after the war, and have cared for my children ever since. Later, the Furun came and they cut down the trees and made their grasslands and planted their wheat and kept their cattle and pigs and sheep. They kept to the land and we kept to the sea but their blood mingled with ours on the battleground and the birthing floor.”
“Their blood mingled? You mean the Furun and your children fought but also married?”
She smiled. “They have always traded furs and amber and meat and grain and copper and, yes, even each another.”
“When you say your children you do mean the Seal People? You are like a mother to them, protecting them, guiding them.”
“All that is true, yes, I protect them as a mother protects her children. But they are also my descendants, Herkuhlos. Some of them, at least. You see, long ago with a mortal chief across the sea to the east I bore sons and daughters and their blood flows now through many of my people from shore to shore and beyond every horizon. Since my first mortal love, I have found others worthy of my love. With some of these chiefs I was blessed with more children.” There was pride but also grief in her graceful features. “Not for some time, however.”
Herkuhlos’ heart hammered in his chest at her words. “You had half-mortal children?” he asked. “Half-mortal like me?”
She smiled. “They were strong, yes, but perhaps not quite like you.”
“Why not?”
“Most of our people do not bear children easily. Some of my kin have not carried or fathered a child in a thousand years. I, however, have been blessed many times over the long years but my children were always more mortal than divine. You, it seems, are more divine than mortal.”
Herkuhlos was not sure he agreed with her assessment. “So some of these initiates are your children? Born to you, I mean, your real children?”
The light in her strange eyes dimmed. “Their mortal fathers aged and died. My children aged and died, also, but not before they bore their own children in turn. The totem of our people flows through them also, their spirits passing from one to another down the ages.” She swept out a slender arm. “My initiates, the spirit walkers of the tribes, spring from the eternal well. Their blood comes from me as does their spirit but they are all many generations distant from my body.”
Herkuhlos looked down as he thought. Sif and Z’ta were different from the other Seal People, that was for certain. They were taller and more slender than the rest of their tribe and their noses narrower and their cheeks higher. He could see now the faint resemblance between them and Nehalennia their ancestor.
“Sif and Z’ta are of your line?”
She smiled at that. “Their father is descended from a powerful spirit walker of long ago and their mother comes from a chief that I loved. But yes they are both mine. You like them?”
“Z’ta has given good advice and he has been faithful even through my failures.”
“He found his path when he found you, Herkuhlos. And his sister also, I think.”
“But I have hardly spoken to her,” he protested, though his heart leapt. “And she shot me,” he added.
“The gods will show all of us the way,” she mused. “Yet it seems clear as a mountain spring to me.” Nehalennia sighed as she looked at the dark roof above. “I have such love for my children that sometimes I can hardly stand it, I can hardly breathe for the power of it.” She looked at him. “Have you sons or daughters?”
“Not yet,” he replied.
“Then for all the power of your arm you have never felt true strength. The ties that bind me to my people are stronger than life and death. And Torkos knows all of this, you see. He knows of my mortal loves and he knows of my children and this is why he searches for me with such fury. He wishes to find me and keep me and to put his child in me so that he will have immortal sons with which to create his own dynasty and through them to spread his rule across the earth. That is why he is here and that is why you have come. The gods have sent you to save me and my people and indeed all the peoples of this land.”
“You still think that I can stop him? I tried but I failed.
“You have slain others like him, I hear.”
“Yes, Leuhon and I killed one called Thrima.” He looked up as a vision filled his mind. “When I saw Torkos on the battlefield there was another with him. A giant with a huge belly. Another yotunan.”
Nehalennia’s face clouded. “Hrungna is his name. Some call him the Ravager, others the Gorger. He ruled the Furun further to the west and Thrima ruled to the east and neither is a good man but they did at least always provide order. They were contented with what the farmers brought to them and neither did they fight each other or cause their mortals to wage war on one another unnecessarily. When your people came from the east long ago, Thrima and Hrungna forced them into subservience also and feasted on the sacrifices the Heryos brought to them. They permitted the Heryos to raid the Furun and even to conquer and rule over them but they would not allow the Furun to be utterly destroyed.”
“But Torkos is different.”
She lowered her head to look at him. “He is a true destroyer of peoples and a devourer of spirits. There can be no order and no balance while he lives.”
“So what do we do?” He asked. “How do we defeat him?”
“I have no defence against him but secrecy and the sea but how long will that hold him? His endless scourings will find me eventually and then, perhaps, I shall slay myself before I am taken.” She looked down at the dog at her feet. “Kerdheros will slay twenty men or even a hundred but he will fall eventually.”
The dog lifted his great head at the sound of his name and looked up expectantly before lying down once more.
Herkuhlos was appalled. “But you are a goddess.” He could hardly understand it. “You must have some power to use against him. Some divine power, I mean.”
She smiled. There was affection in her eyes but once again he sensed she was amused also by his naivety. “You believe your father sees all from the sky?” She pointed up at the roof. “You believe lightning from the storm cloud is your father dealing his wrath against the earth?”
Warily, he narrowed his eyes. “What else can it be?”
Nehalennia sighed softly. “The gods exist, Herkuhlos. There is power in the sky and in the sea beyond imagining. The spirits rule us and there is an otherworld from which all springs and to which all returns. There is divinity in everything that lives which gives power to the flesh and to the green growth of the trees and the grass and all that grows and strives against death and disorder. There is a divine life force in you that is stronger than in any mortal and it gives you strength and I feel certain it will grant you long life, just as it does for me. But you and I and the rest of our people do not have power over the wind and lightning. Those gods we can never see, only feel, and know from afar. No, I have no power to defeat Torkos.” She spread her long arms. “I have power over only what you see.”
Confused, he shook his head. “Of course, goddess, I know that the gods are incarnated upon the earth and walk amongst mortals in the flesh for that is how I was fathered and I have spoken with Kolnos.” He raised an eyebrow. “He certainly smelled of this earth. But I thought, that is I hoped, that there would be some way to draw upon that other power that the gods possess, the divine, the eternal power that you say is within you.” He shrugged. “Within us.”
“We gods that walk the earth, Herkuhlos, are mighty and ancient and we are filled with divinity, that is true. But we were all born in these bodies of flesh just as you were.” She looked through him and through the wall and into another place and time. “When the world was first made, our tribe walked through a land of cold and ice and we hunted great beasts the like of which are not seen in the world today. We hunted them with our spears at immense cost. We survived only through the burning of their bo
nes for warmth and our houses were built from their great bones and their skins, for the trees of the ancient land were stunted and few. Where other tribes of small stature lived and died quickly and made many sons and daughters, our tribe went on with hardly a child between us for winter after winter.” Her eyes came back to the here and the now. “Other tribes died and yet we went on. The other peoples of the land worshipped us for we were greater than they and we protected some of them against others and in thanks they brought us some of what they hunted.”
He frowned. “I don’t really understand,” he admitted. “But what about the demons? Where did they come from? Why are they so powerful?”
“Did you not learn of this from your fathers?” she asked, as if intrigued but he realised it was an attempt to divert him from his questions.
“We did not learn about Torkos the Devourer. Nor did I learn about the Stag, or the Bull and what about the yotunan they call Geryon, Wodra, Ladon, and Kerberos?”
She stared in surprise. The names seemed to have some profound effect on her and she closed her eyes for a long moment before opening them again. “You have learned much. I have not heard those names spoken in more years than I can count.”
“Who are they?”
Nehalennia took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. “They are known by many names. Some of these names they choose for themselves and some they are called by others.” She seemed to choose her words carefully as she continued. “They come from a truly monstrous mother and father. Ekidna was her name and her mate was Typhon. Both immensely powerful. As strong, in their own ways, as your father.” Her eyes darted up for a moment. “Where we are straight and true, they are twisted and they are evil and where we seek order they long only to devour and destroy. Where most of our people bring forth but a few children in their long lives, there are some who are blessed again and again and we are thankful that one of those is your father, the protector of us all. But Ekidna and Typhon have also brought forth monster after monster into the world from their loins and with them has come great suffering.” She waved a hand before her face as if to scatter her words. “Thanks to the greatest of efforts they were subdued and contained but now it seems they mean to make the earth into a battlefield once more so that they might rule over the ashes and corpses of all the peoples of the land.”
He nodded, thinking of the destruction the yotunan had caused in the east. “So the gods defeated them before? Perhaps you could face Torkos with me?”
“You must understand that we are greater than mortals and our wisdom is as old as the world but we do not control the skies and the seas, Herkuhlos. We cannot strike down one another from afar. I cannot help you to strike down Torkos.”
Herkuhlos had known that the gods came from an ancient time when there was nothing but a land of ice and a place of fire so he understood some of what she said. He snorted a quiet laugh.
“That amuses you?” she asked, her voice hard now.
“No, goddess,” he said. “I was remembering that the people of that village called me something. T’hira. It is one of their gods but not one I know. They called me the Thunderer. I told them I was not but they did not believe me.”
“T’hira is a powerful god. He rides the storm cloud in a mighty boat and stirs the waves and reaches down to kill whales with a single blow.”
Herkuhlos was astonished. “You know him, goddess?”
She seemed amused. “Alas, he has never spoken to me. But I can see why they thought you were he.”
“But they called me the Thunderer because I healed their chief, not because of my strength.”
Nehalennia held up both hands. “The Thunderer sweeps the land clean with his strength so that it can be made anew. Destruction and creation in balance, do you see?”
He narrowed his eyes. “Do you think we can get him to help us?”
“He does not walk the earth, Herkuhlos.” She stopped herself. “Then again, perhaps he does. Perhaps you are the Thunderer after all.”
“I’m not,” he replied. “I wish I was. I wish I had that power.”
“We are what we are, Herkuhlos.” She spread her arms. “The undying ones are mighty but alas I cannot strike down Torkos with a lightning bolt any more than you can.”
“No matter,” he replied, “it is my task. It was given to me alone and so I shall carry it out alone or I shall die in the attempt.”
She was suddenly, keenly intrigued. “Why do you wish to carry it out alone?”
“It is my task. And all others have betrayed me or fallen because of my weakness. If you will have your people take me across the seas to Torkos then I will do what is necessary.”
Nehalennia looked at him for a while before answering and he felt naked under her gaze. “And why were you betrayed?”
“They believed I would not be strong enough to defeat Torkos and so, at the last moment, they changed sides to protect their people.”
“And you had asked them to follow you?”
He shook his head. “They had no choice. I defeated their chief and so became chief over them. That is our way. They were reluctant and there was a priest who also betrayed me during a rite.” He trailed off, remembering slaying the priest and ruining the rite before the village. He had bullied them and frightened them into following him and for the first time he saw how he must have appeared to them. A terrifying, angry, dangerous half-god, who cared nothing for their concerns and their fears and only for driving them into a battle with Torkos, another tyrant that they feared.
Some men had followed him but most of the others had not. He remembered not just that village and that chief but all the others he had seen and passed through. He had been arrogant and rude, demanding meat and mead and beer and they had given him women to lie with and he had taken them all without thought, indulging his stomach and his manhood. The chiefs who had been his hosts had been defending their people in one way or another, appeasing him or rejecting him or using him as they saw fit but always doing what they thought best for their own people.
She was looking at him, watching him as if she could see his thoughts laid out between them.
“I was a poor chief,” he admitted. “I thought only of what I needed from them and never what I had to do for them.”
“Is that what a chief is?” she asked. “A deliverer of his people’s wants?”
“Not when you use those words, no, but he looks after his people. Like a father cares for his family.”
“A chief is a father, yes, but he is more than an ordinary man and there is no comparison to be made, Herkuhlos. A chief must transcend the earthly realm through his power. There is nothing superior to the otherworld, that is where all power stems from, that is where this world emerges from. The origin of authority is not in mere strength or skill in battle or even in wit, wisdom, courage, or concern for feeding and clothing your people. Those things are all of this world. It comes instead from the other place, from the sacred and the eternal. Nor does your authority stem from your people, from your clan or your tribe.”
He half understood her but not quite. “How does a man draw upon the true strength, then?”
“You are the embodiment of the divine. Every chief stands above the mortals he rules, he is a god in the earthly form of a man while you are greater still for divine blood is in your veins. A chief must be the centre and the apex of his people and in him is the divine strength that powers the rites that you perform.”
“So you mean a chief does not need physical strength in order to assert himself?” he asked, disbelieving that anyone could suggest such a thing. “But he does. A chief must fight for his place when challenged and when leading his people in battle.”
“Those are but brief moments in the life of a chief and otherwise the power of a ruler is imposed through his spirit. You cannot give them victory on the earth alone without bringing them victory over the sacred forces of the otherworld. The dignity a god enjoys on earth is glorious but difficult to achieve for the weak. O
nly he who sets his spirit on this path is worthy to become a king. A ruler is a follower of the discipline practised by those who are gods among men.”
He did not really understand all that she said but he had a feeling emerging within him.
I have fled from my divine nature and tried to become more like a man, he thought. But all men must strive to become divine and to be a ruler I must do the same. I must not reject my divinity but embrace it. Not to flaunt it so that mortals fear me and give me gifts but to touch the divine within myself and bring it forth so that it guides my every action.
“I think I see,” he muttered. “The chief is an example. He must be aligned with the sacred.”
She nodded slowly. “The chief must be like the sun that conquers the darkness every morning and become the light that shines on his people. Your immortal blood is the fire that springs forth and flows from you into your children and so goes on in the great chain of kings.”
“My children?” he asked. “You mean I must make children to be a leader?”
“Men father children. What man is chief who is not also a man?”
He scoffed. “I don’t have time for that, we have to stop Torkos now or there will be no chance. And I still don’t know what I am supposed to do. How does knowing all this guide my actions? What must I do?”
She shrugged as if that was unimportant. “You know what actions are required. The hunter brings food for his people. The warrior wins glory and wealth for himself and his lord. The shepherd guards his flock. The mother nurses her child. What of the chief?”
“He protects his people from harm and he ensures they do not starve and decides where they will go and what they will do.”
An edge of frustration touched her voice. “Still, you think only of the earth and the flesh and the strength of the body. A leader brings harmony. He weaves together the strands of people into one structure and so creates and maintains order from the chaos. This is not done through the strength of his arm or the actions of his body or the words that he speaks. It comes from his virtue. From his being and not his doing.”