Of Gods and Men - Volume II

CHAPTER 2

Resolve

           “You want us gone,” the mare Malmira finally said, giving material breath to the immaterial quest that had been shaping itself in Shepherd’s mind from that day he decided to seek for answers.  “Not only gone…destroyed.”

            Shepherd stood up straight; a son prepared to defend himself against the accusations of mischief.  He inhaled, coming to the very cusp of speech when…

            “No,” Malmira interrupted him: halted him.  “Not to me alone will you plead your case.  Come.”

            Shepherd blinked in the face of the mare, and when he opened his eyes he saw that they were no longer on the Green Steppes looking down on the city of Malmot.  Instead, he found himself looking up at row upon row of stone benches as far as even his godly eyes could see.  They rose before him, encircling him entirely in one concentric ring after another, each level growing wider than the last. 

            On those benches the people of Malmot sat.  There were hundreds of them, all looking down at him as he stood on the earthen center.  Their whispers and huddles among one another told him that they were as surprised to be here as he was. 

            “What is this place?” Shepherd asked aloud of no one.

            “They call it the Playhouse,” Malmira’s voice answered from everywhere at once.  “Tis Malmot’s home for theater and music.  Sometimes people speak here, when they have something they deem important to say.”

            “That is why you brought me here?” Shepherd asked, his slight incredulity mixed with annoyance.  “I am not some traveling scholar with new ideas on ethics, or a young preacher peddling his god.”

            “Are you not?”

            Shepherd broke focus from the multitudes looking down on him and scoured the central ring he found himself in for any sign of Malmira, yet she was nowhere to be seen; not as the mare, nor in any other shape.  “Where are you, lady?” he whispered.

            “Close enough to listen,” he heard her reply.  “So speak.  Why should I help you destroy our kindred?  Why is losing us the only way, in your mind, to make life better for them?”

            “You would have me speak so openly among your flock?”

            “Not my flock, young god,” the disembodied Malmira reprimanded.

            “But the power compels them to…”

            “So control it,” Malmira interrupted.

            Shepherd had been.  From the moment he first arrived he was focusing all of his effort into keeping the power inside him contained.  Divinity held an authority over humanity as natural as breathing held authority over life itself.  For a mortal to be in the presence of a god, that mortal could not help but serve in any way possible; so much so, that mortals would lose themselves entirely in their service, becoming nothing but mindless fulfillers of a god’s will.

            The whispers had grown into mutterings and murmurings: a confused crowd only now finding the voice of their confusion.  A fatherly looking man wearing a farmer’s smock stood up.  His face and beard were covered in the evidence of his trade, and he pointed to Shepherd from his seat high up in one of the central rings.

            “Who’r you?” the farmer asked.  “Why’re we here?”

            “I am Shepherd,” the godling answered.  “And you are here because it seems we need to talk.”

            “Bout what?” the farmer pressed. 

Next to him a pair of feminine hands grabbed his arm and pulled him down.  The growing unease in the room was not hard to discern, especially for Shepherd.  Nevertheless, the crowd was quiet; waiting patiently for the stranger in their midst to tell them what it was he had come to say.

“The world is enslaved,” Shepherd began, suddenly regretting opening with such a dramatic statement.  “Or, perhaps controlled is a better way of putting it.  Subjugated.  By the gods.  I think that is wrong.  And I think it should stop.”

The murmuring suddenly erupted back into being, this time louder than the cautious whisperings before. 

A regal-looking woman stood up on one of the lower rings, closer to the central ring on which Shepherd stood.  She had flecks of silver in her brown hair, and the only ornament she bore was a polished golden armband.  “Who are you to deny the gods’ dominion?”

“I am not denying anything just yet, lady,” Shepherd replied in a strained tone.  Keeping his immense power from influencing this crowd was exhausting, and already he was feeling his grip loosen.  “For now, I am just here presenting an idea.” 

“Well it’s a dangerous idea,” the regal woman said in condemnation.

“A good one though,” a young man stood up.  He sat so high up that Shepherd could not make him out, especially with the power roiling inside him to erupt.

  “A useless one,” the regal woman continued.  “I’ve never known a king to give up his kingdom.  Why would the gods give up their dominion?”

“They make us do whatever they want just by bein nearby,” the male voice from high up replied.  “I dunno about you all, but I try my best to avoid the gods whenever I can.  Sure, some are alright.  Like Malmira.  But it’s their power we’re prey to.  Loyalty don’t factor into it.  And when I hear tell o’some of the things Narod has made his subjects do.  Or Catilla…”

“Ya can’t lump Malmira in with them,” Shepherd heard a young woman interject. 

His searching gaze found her several rows up, and his eyes widened at the sight of her red hair and kindly green eyes.  Surprised, Shepherd fell to one knee as he tried to refocus on maintaining his control.

“Malmira protects us,” the young woman cried out.  “Always has, whatever the other gods might do.  She loves us.  I don’t want to live in a world without that.”

There was an outburst of vehement agreement all around the amphitheater.  Here and there, Shepherd could make out echoes of dissent, but against the weakening of his will it was all becoming a cacophonous shrill.   

He tried to look up and call out; to calm the growing wave of anger and confusion that was cresting back in his direction.  But when he managed to raise his head to the throng, he could only make out two warriors, aglow from within, standing before the nondescript shadows of an arguing mob. 

One had long red hair and wore the armor of a knight of the KingsGuard of Malthus.  A lavish red cloak hung off her back, pinned to her breastplate with Malthus’s old standard: the sunstroke pointing down.

Behind her, with raised eyes and a wide smile, was a young man who dressed in shepherd’s greens and browns similar to Shepherd’s own.  Yet most of that pastoral garb was covered over by mismatching pieces of armor. 

Shepherd knew these two phantoms.  They were Cecily Thorn and Finnian Pell.  Once upon a time, the three of them went on a long quest to retrieve the sword of the GodKing Malthus and save him from death.   They failed that quest.  Malthus died and the sword, though retrieved, was broken. 

“I don’t think you told them, ‘I’m here to free you’ right,” Finnian said.

“Perhaps it’s a sign,” Cecily offered.  “To step back and rethink this plan of yours.”

“No,” Shepherd grunted, the power breaking past the bonds of his control. 

“Tarsus…” the voice of Cecily called.

“NOOO!!!”

The power inside Shepherd broke free, even as he grasped to contain it.

There was a dead quiet; a deafening silence in his ears.  No doubt now the crowd would be thralls to his will.  They would be sitting and silent and ready to obey whatever he asked of them, even if that meant embracing the idea that most of them had rejected before.

Shepherd opened his eyes, and to his surprise, found he was looking at grass.  He raised his head and quickly got to his feet.  There, once again, was the white mare Malmira on the crest of the Green Steppes. 

“You could not convince them,” Malmira said without speaking. 

“No,” Shepherd admitted. 

“What’s more, you could not convince yourself,” Malmira divined. 

“I am convinced,” Shepherd said brusquely. 

“Not wholly, it would seem.”

“Malmira, I swear to you…this is the only way,” Shepherd exhaustedly finished.

The mare looked at him for a long time without a word.  Shepherd could feel her dark eyes; pools of infinite black, weighing him and his purpose.  Finally, the white mare raised its head.

“So be it.  If you believe that it is the only way, then when next we meet I will offer myself to you gladly,” Malmira said.  “But be wholly sure, young god.  In body and mind.  For if we meet again, and you have any doubt, I will refuse you.  And then…I will destroy you.”

A strong breeze blew past, and out of habit more than anything else, Shepherd shielded his eyes. 

When he lowered his arm, the white mare was gone.