Of Gods and Men - Volume II

CHAPTER 7

Laid Bare

            “The Messengers of Rama, as commanded my lord,” a female villager at the front of the throng declared.  They had escorted, rather forcefully, the Messengers to the center of Tessir.

Shepherd surveyed the group, settling with a searching eye on the priestess and Janus at their head.  He signaled them to step forward, and they obeyed.  They were in his thrall now, and would do whatever he commanded them.

“Is Rama among you?” Shepherd’s voice rang out.

“Not as far as we know, lord,” the priestess answered promptly.

Shepherd looked at the pair of them square in the eye.  They looked back at him with that same blank expression of the possessed; as did the villagers who had escorted them and the rest of the Messengers - save one.

He was tucked away in the rear of the line, with his head bowed in a seeming subservience.  Shepherd smiled as he laid eyes on him.  Rama had been hiding in plain sight.

“Well…bravo,” a soothing voice sounded in Shepherd’s ears. 

The man who’s head was bowed, slowly raised it.  He was plain of face; so plain that, even looking at him straight on, Shepherd could not distinguish any of his features afterwards - save for his eyes.  They were an inky black that conveyed a pure emptiness as he smiled at the GodKing.  He moved forward, through the throng of Messengers, to their forefront.

Shepherd was instantly struck by the divinity of this being; like a flash of the sun it was, appearing for an instant in a break of passing rain clouds.  As his power shone through, the heads of everyone in the throng briefly turned to him, their wills unsure which divinity they should be subject to.  

But just as quickly as it had appeared, Rama’s power was hidden again.  The GodKing was awed.  Whenever he had tried to suppress his power, he could only manage it for a short burst and with a strain that would have been unimaginable to him when he was a mortal.  Yet Rama seemed to effortlessly keep his power hidden, showing it only briefly; a challenge to the GodKing of Malthanon.

“You have much to answer for,” Shepherd began warily.  “Beginning with this mortal’s eyes,” at which point he held out a hand, and the blind Carys took it and stepped next to him prominently: an image of the horror Rama’s devotees could inflict.

“Really,” the eyeless Rama lilted, his lips spreading into condescension, “such small, mortal offenses that you level against me.  Ironic, given that what you are playing at is much more…devious.”

“What do you mean?” Shepherd was surprised.  What crime could Rama possibly level against him?

“I mean your little plot to end divinity itself,” Rama’s grin widened, and the void in his eyes began to swirl as if they were the black clouds preceding a great storm.  “To give this world over to mortal hands by destroying the gods.”

“I do not wish to destroy the gods,” Shepherd insisted.

“Oh Malthus…”

“I am not Malthus!”

“Forgive me.  I had forgotten,” Rama said with a laugh.  “You are younger than you were.  Given yourself another name.  Nevertheless,” Rama drew a hidden dagger from behind his back.  Its blade glinted in the afternoon sun, blinding Shepherd momentarily.  When the GodKing had regained his sight, Rama’s face was a mere few steps away from his own.  If he had wanted to, the eyeless god could have plunged the dagger deep into Shepherd’s chest before the GodKing had regained his sight.  Instead, the flat of the small blade was held against Shepherd’s throat.  “You will fail.  There is no hope of success.  You are one against many, and should you conquer them, there is still him.”

Shepherd knew, without having to ask, who Rama meant.  The dark robed one whom Adulatio called master, and served faithfully until Shepherd incapacitated him.  The one who mortally wounded Malthus with his own sword, forcing him to suffer for a thousand years: always on the verge of death, but kept alive by his power.  The one who stabbed Cecily in the back, intending for her to suffer the same fate.  

Shepherd was well aware that he only escaped the dark robed one because he had been allowed to.  Though the mysterious stranger took the shape of a man, there was no doubt in Shepherd’s mind that he was greater than all the gods.

“Who is he?” Shepherd felt compelled to ask.

“Such a small question,” Rama answered with that superior lilt.  “So mortal-minded.  As if the simple idea of who could contain him.”

Shepherd drew his sword, Brand.  He’d had enough debate.  He wanted answers, and he meant to get them now.

“Foolish young god,” Rama goaded, pressing the blade of his dagger into Shepherd’s throat.  Shepherd felt a cut, and then the trickle of what he assumed was blood fall from the wound.  “If I had wanted to, I could have slain you five times over already.  And make no mistake, I am willing to slay you.  But it is not the will of my master that you should be slain…yet.”

“What is his will?” Shepherd asked defiantly.

“Tut, tut,” Rama chided.  “Why should he have only one plan for you?  Fixed?  So that you can learn it, and futilely though it would be, try to avert it?  That was your mistake.  You have one desire, and no clear way to achieve it.  That is why you will fail.  Because you see, there is only one way to achieve your goal - and you have already decided against it.  But when you do come around to what needs to be done, he has a thousand ways to stop you.”

“He can’t stop me if I stop him first,” Shepherd tried to sound confident, but in the middle of his boast he faltered.  He knew it was an empty threat. 

Rama only grinned in reply.  He knew it was an empty threat too.  And then he vanished.

Shepherd was left there, surrounded by enthralled villagers, yet all alone.  He could feel Cecily and Finnian within him.  They wanted to talk: to appear in their ghostly forms and offer some form of comfort.  Shepherd did not heed that desire.  He wished to remain alone, and to think for himself.  

An instant later, Shepherd appeared on the top of his tower in Malthanon alone.  The air was brisk and chilly.  The season was changing, and Malthanon was bracing for winter below.  It would be a long, hard winter; Shepherd could feel it in the tendrils of his power.  The power of life and his own divine energies derived from the same place, after all.  

None of the people of his city knew it, though.  They had to face each winter hoping for the best, and expecting the worst.  But at least they had him to give them comfort - their god was supposed to look out for them.  Yet there was no one, and no thing, to look out for him.  

Shepherd’s plan; his hope for the salvation of mortal-kind; had been laid bare to an enemy he had never known existed as a mortal.  He hadn’t even begun to try and see it through.  

What was to be done now?