Of Gods and Men - Volume II

CHAPTER 3

Spells

             Shepherd idled along the crest of the great hill that overlooked Malthanon.  Once upon a time, he had journeyed to this very spot in the company of two friends.  Cecily was on her quest to retrieve the sword of the GodKing, and he had convinced Finnian, his dearest friend, that they should join Cecily’s enterprise. 

            On their initial journey from his small, shepherd’s village, Shepherd weighed whether or not he was doing the right thing.  He had been so invigorated by Cecily’s mission; by the chance to be great and fulfill a sacred crusade in service to the gods that had fascinated him ever since he was a child.  But the moment he saw Malthanon, perched atop this great height, he knew that he had made the right choice.  Though he’d question it all through their adventure together, he always fell back on the feeling of seeing the great city for the first time: a feeling of having found home.  He’d never been to Malthanon before, but he knew he belonged here.  For if such a beautifully intricate work of engineering, architecture, law, order, art, philosophy, culture and community was made by mortals; if indeed so great an achievement as Malthanon had been made to serve, and be served, by a god, then he had found his clan. 

            And since then, he had found that greatness.  He was the god now who ruled over Malthanon: the new Malthus, born to serve, and be served, by this great city.  And strangely, the place no longer felt like home. 

            Beside him there shimmered into being two shapes: one, a redheaded warrior woman with a sure stride, though one that never o’ertook his own.  The other was a dark-haired man with a boyish grin that never faded anymore.  Cecily and Finnian were with him always, now.  Though, he could not summon them at will.  In this, as in all things, his power proved mysterious.  Sometimes he could harness it and bend it to his will.  Other times it acted without his command. 

            “There is a simple enough reason for that,” Cecily said, in answer to his thought. 

            “It gives me what I want.  What I truly want, yes.  You’ve said,” Shepherd replied distantly.

            “Why so glum?” Finnian asked lightly.

            “Because I don’t know what that means,” Shepherd answered.  “I’d enjoy an apple right now, yet the power does not manifest one for me.  And you two appear, yet I did not call for you.”

            “I’m afraid you must learn what it all means for yourself,” Cecily droned.  “If it means anything at all.”

            “How?” Shepherd asked, a little annoyed that reflections from inside himself were being so withholding.

            “Easy friend,” Finnian chided playfully.  “No need to be so bothered.  We don’t know precisely because you don’t.”

            This was another element of his…connection to these phantoms that was growing more irritating by the day: they knew, and at least could sense, everything he knew and felt.  There was not an urge, an impulse, a fleeting thought that he could have that they would not know about.

            “That’s not our fault either,” Finnian pressed with that ever-present smile. 

            “It’s infuriating, nonetheless,” Shepherd confessed, giving up trying to keep his feelings to himself.

            “I can only imagine,” Finnian mused.

            “The power is no different than the lifespan of a mortal,” Cecily added as an exasperated Shepherd turned to face her.  “It’s a mystery.  Slowly unraveled in the folds of time.”

            “Why are you here?” Shepherd asked more in reflex then in genuine curiosity.  As Cecily opened her mouth to answer, he quickly recovered with, “you don’t know, yes.  Only I would know why you’re here.  Well I don’t.”

            “Then perhaps the better question to ask is, why are you here?” Cecily offered.

            Shepherd turned back to look over the city of Malthanon.  The sun was setting behind it, giving the whole city a warm, golden glow.  The spire of the GodKing, his spire now, rose in the center of the great metropolis, making the city look to him, for the first time, as though it were a spinning top with its bottom needle buried so that it sat flat, and its upper needle extending so far into the sky that it had no end in sight.

            “I don’t know where we go from here,” Shepherd finally admitted, resolutely fixing his focus to the city and not to either one of their faces.  “Malmira arose a thought in me I had not considered, though I should have.  I want to end the gods.  That includes her.  To act on that want…means killing them.  Killing Malmira.” 

            “And you don’t want to kill Malmira,” Finnian concluded.

            “Yes!  Yes!”  Shepherd had had enough.  “Enough telling me what I already know.  How do we move forward?”

            “We don’t know,” Finnian shrugged.

            Shepherd turned to Cecily. 

            “He’s right,” she agreed.  “If you don’t know how to move forward without killing the gods, then we don’t.”

            “The real Cecily would have at least had a suggestion,” Shepherd reflected.

            “Maybe the way forward,” the pale Cecily offered meekly, as though she didn’t believe in the idea she was about to put forth, “is to leave the gods be.”

            “After all,” Finnian hurriedly spoke, “you couldn’t kill Adulatio.  And he was as bad as any god you’ve ever heard of.”

            Shepherd wanted to be angry, but he couldn’t muster it.  They were right, the pair of them.  The power was supposed to give him what he truly wanted.  Malmira challenged him to be utterly sure in his willingness to destroy the gods.  And he truly believed that mankind would be better off ruling themselves, instead of the gods ruling over them.  Yet in the end, there was only one sure way he knew of to destroy the gods, and no matter his resolve, he did not want to go down that road.  He could not, as he had already proven with Adulatio.

            So here he was; at an impasse.  He wanted to save mankind from tyranny and slavery.  He wanted revenge for what the gods took from him.  But he did not want to do the one thing necessary to see his quest through. 

            “Please don’t…”

            Shepherd wasn’t sure if he heard the voice with his ears or with…something else.  It sounded far away to him; like the high-pitched passing of a cutting wind. 

            “…please…”

            He was there before the thought had even entered his mind to go: standing behind the trunk of a wide yew tree in a wood think with them.  He looked out onto a small forest clearing, where a group of men, women and children huddled around a roughly shaped stone table.  Upon the table, a young woman was strapped at her hands and feet.  Looming above her was a man who looked to be her age.  He wore a face of grim resolve, and he held two small, pointed blades like a doctor’s tools over the girl’s open, weeping eyes.

            “You agreed to this,” the knife-wielding man said.  “It’s the only way to save your village.

            “I know,” the woman cried.  “But please…there must be some other way.”

            “There is no other way.  Rana demands this.  Every year,” the young man implored, and not for the first time, Shepherd judged by his heightened fervor.  “She protects us and keeps us, and she asks only for the eyes of a young, willing villager.”

            “But…I am not willing now,” the girl pleaded through tears.

            “You were,” the man persisted.  “That is all that matters.  Be brave, and think how blessed you will be.  Your eyes go to Rana.

            “Please…” was all the woman could say, over and over again.

            A sturdy man with greying hair and his hat in his hands stepped forward.  “Janus, maybe we should let her go.  She’s not willing.”

            “Do you want to take her place?” a mother with two children clinging to her legs called out.

            “I can’t,” the man with the greying hair said, clearly caught off his guard.  “I’m too old.  But maybe one of your children…”

            “Say one more word and I’ll tear your eyes out myself,” the mother snapped.

            “Enough, good people,” another woman said, stepping out in front of the crowd and positioning herself between the older man and the mother. 

This woman wore the robes of a priestess; all a deep red with the symbol of a large, white eye sewn in the center.  Her hair was covered entirely by a white hood that was pulled tight to cover everything but her face.  Yet it was her face that was the most striking aspect of her.  For where her eyes should have been, the priestess had only empty, indented sockets. 

“I remember the day of my sacrifice,” the priestess went on.  “It’s natural to be afraid.  To doubt in Rana’s grace.  But this young woman is making a brave sacrifice that will not only benefit all of you, but her as well.”

“Priestess!” the sacrificial lamb called out from the table, “I’ve changed my mind.  I’m not willing.  Rana couldn’t possibly want me now.”

“Child,” the priestess said with genuine sympathy.  “Rana wants you all.  To be safe.  To be well fed and nourished.  To live and to love.  And to give her her due.”

“But…it isn’t fair,” the woman implored.

“It’s only fair,” the priestess responded.  “Janus, proceed.”

Shepherd put a hand to the hilt of Brand at his side.  He drew it forth.  There would be no mutilation on his watch.  He stepped out from behind the yew tree.  He was half a league away, but with a thought he could be among them in an instant, and once his power washed over them, they would all be prepared to do whatever he wanted them to do.

“Wait!  Wait!” the young woman screamed.

The desperation of a young woman with no card left to play gave them all pause, even the priestess.  There was nothing left to say; no arguments left to try.  There was only desperation at its most base level; the level that all mankind knows and shares.  It was a primal mirror, held up to the souls of all the villagers; man, woman and child; showing each of them the dreaded reflection of themselves in the young woman’s place.  Each of them begging for their own lives.  All of that begging falling on deaf ears.

Janus’s hands tembled, even as his sharp, thin blades hovered just over the young woman’s eyes.  The same open, beautiful, pale blue eyes he now gazed into.

“…please…” the young woman managed to whisper, only to him.

STAB

Her screams shook all of them out of their momentary reverie. 

Shepherd, the god, came to along with the villagers.  He stood rooted, still half a league away, watching as the villagers slowly began to turn their backs on the wailing woman and disappear into the trees.

Janus cut loose her bonds.  The priestess stepped up to the stone altar, kissed her hand, and placed it over the young woman’s bleeding eyes.  The young woman slapped the old priestess’s hand away. 

“You’ve made Rana proud today, child,” the priestess said.

The young woman did not answer.  Perhaps she could not.  She only wailed all the louder, trying to stem the tide of blood from her now useless eyes with her own hands.

Janus and the priestess did not linger long.  They soon followed the other villagers into the wood. 

The young woman thrashed from side to side on the stone altar, yet she did not roll off.  And all the while, Shepherd only stood there, half a league away, watching her suffer, and wondering how he had fallen so deep under her spell that he did nothing to save her.