Threads of Amarion Page 27

  In the distance, a monstrous swell rolled toward them, the tidal wave of the approaching goddess.

  “Get me to the coast,” he said with a cough.

  She dove back into the water, the hands gripping him tightly. Medophae clasped them and held on.

  The swell neared, sucking the water out from beneath them, and suddenly they were swimming frantically down the wall of a wave.

  “Medophae!” Vee cried, leaping toward the shore, but it was too far away. The crazy hands stretched out of her back into long arms, and Vaisha threw him at the shore. He sailed over the rushing water, flailing to try to land upright. He slammed into the rocky coast. His leg snapped, and he fell down the cliff wall to crumple in the sand.

  Get up. Get up, get up!

  He spun, lurched to his feet, and went down again from the pain. He clenched his teeth and looked for Vee. She had fallen into the shallows beneath the enormous wave, a hundred feet short of the shore. She had transformed back into her human form and she ran toward him, stepping high through the knee-deep water.

  “Oedandus!” he called. In that first split second, he felt a cold waft of despair. He didn’t know this shore, and he wondered if the flighty Vee had somehow brought him to a shore that was not Amarion.

  Was Oedandus even here?

  Then he felt a flicker of awareness, a questing thought touch his mind. His god’s dark voice said, “Medophae?”

  “Medophae!” Vee shouted. The low surf became tentacles of water, grasping her around the waist, the arms, and the legs. They dragged her back into the face of the wave, and she vanished with a splash.

  “Come on,” he looked down at his left hand, trying to make the godsword appear.

  The wave reached the shore and smashed into him. It carried him fifty feet up the cliff and crushed him into it. His ribs broke. His broken leg twisted, and he screamed at the pain.

  The water surged backward, dropping him to the beach. The water tentacles wrapped around his ankles and wrists, yanking him across the rocks toward the ocean.

  Saraphazia? the dark voice said in Medophae’s mind.

  “She’s trying to kill me—” A tentacle of water smashed into his face. The water sucked him down the beach, hurling him into the front of the hundred-foot wave that had risen again. The water pushed down his throat this time, trying to drown him. With his feet off the ground, the dark voice of Oedandus vanished. He could see the coastline, but the wall of water withdrew, taking him away from Amarion.

  He coughed, and more water shoved down his throat.

  “This time, you die,” Saraphazia’s sepulchral voice vibrated all around him. The water shoved him downward with incredible force, crushing him against the shallow ocean floor. All of his ribs broke this time. His heart fluttered against its shattered cage...then stopped.

  A blast of golden fire burned through the water, creating a tunnel straight through the water from the coast, and slammed into him.

  The rage of Oedandus filled him, and Medophae felt joy along with the pain. Pain was an old friend, and it was much easier to deal with when he knew that the injuries would heal.

  Ribs mended. His heart beat again. His leg twisted around the right way, bones popping into place and mending. The fire repaired his ravaged lungs, his bleeding organs. Golden lightning danced around his stump, as if offended he was missing his hand, and the stump split open. Medophae screamed as a new hand burst from the end of his arm, bones extending, tendons slithering over them like snakes, muscles slithering over the top of that and finally, skin covered the hand like flesh-colored paint.

  Oedandus lit him up with fury. He spun, and the godsword flared to life in his new right hand. You are the hand of justice, the dark voice intoned in his head.

  Time to pick on someone your own size, Saraphazia.

  “He tried to steal my daughter,” Saraphazia shrieked from the water all around. “Let me kill him, Oedandus. He tried to steal my daughter!”

  Tentacles of water shot out from all sides. Medophae spun, slicing each in turn.

  He looked for Vee and saw her small silhouette deeper inside the huge wave. He pointed the godsword to the left of her and let loose Oedandus’s fury. The fire blasted through the water and created another tunnel. Medophae lunged forward and grabbed Vee’s arm. The water went solid, trying to pull her away, but he cut her free like she was in a block of ice.

  Vee was sobbing. “Mother, please... Mother, let me go....”

  Medophae tucked Vee under his right arm and sprinted up the tunnel. Golden lightning crackled all around them, but the pressure of the water broke through. Tentacles squeezed through, lashing at them. He cut them away and leapt for the shore just as the tunnel cracked and collapsed.

  They sailed through the air toward the rocky, sandy shore. This time, Medophae spun, cradling Vee and landing on his feet. Golden fire raced away from him along the ground like a prairie fire, then vanished.

  “Stay behind me,” he said to her.

  Saraphazia, in her enormous whale form, looked down on them from the crest of the hundred-foot wave, which had frozen in place, water surging up and down to support her girth.

  “Don’t make me!” Medophae shouted, pointing the godsword at Saraphazia’s face.

  She hesitated. She had been there when Oedandus had burned Dervon to death.

  Medophae looked along the cliffs and spotted a crack in the cliff face, maybe a path through. He needed to get Vee away from the ocean. If it got hold of her again, it might whisk her a hundred yards into the deep in an instant. Even Oedandus might not be able to retrieve her that far away.

  He slid sideways while Saraphazia hesitated. Every inch might count when she finally attacked.

  “Give her to me.” Her booming voice echoed against the cliffs. “And I will let you live.”

  “She doesn’t want to stay with you, Saraphazia. Let her go.”

  “Never!” The goddess’s voice burst his eardrums. The golden fire filled them, and his hearing slowly returned to recognize Vaisha’s sobbing.

  “Mother, please... Mother, let me go....”

  Saraphazia’s mute fury rippled through the water and shook the cliff behind them. A few rocks fell onto the beach, dislodged by the little earthquake. Medophae glanced nervously overhead, but no rocks fell on them. He kept moving.

  “Give her back,” Saraphazia shouted again.

  They were halfway to the cut in the cliff face, and the closer they got, the more he could see. Yes. It was a path.

  “Vaisha,” Saraphazia said to Vee, “they will hurt you. They will devour you, and then there will be nothing left. Is that what you want? Dervon almost killed you! He took away your divinity!”

  “He diminished me, Mother,” Vee said with a sob. “But you kept me from finding it again. You have to let me go.”

  “I saved you!”

  “And should I remain the way you wish me forever?” Vee shouted through her sobs. “I was a goddess! I explored. I created. I dared! I want to dare again, but you refuse to let me.”

  “You are alive. That is what matters.”

  “It’s not all that matters!”

  A ripple went through the giant wave. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. That world, that human world,” she spat. “It would kill you. It will break you, betray you, torture you, and then it will kill you.”

  “I will take that risk.”

  “You will stay in my ocean. And you will be safe forever.”

  They had reached the crack in the rock, and Medophae looked back into it. He could see daylight on the other side, rocks and greenery.

  “This mongrel human has filled your head with insanity,” Saraphazia said. “He is just a mortal. He doesn’t know.” She turned her hard gaze on Medophae. “Keep her from me, and we are enemies from this moment forward.”

  “You tortured me. You tried to kill me. And now you threaten to become my enemy? Swim away now, Saraphazia. Salvage some of your dignity. Let your daughter go with g
race, and she may someday return to you.”

  Saraphazia’s cry of rage filled the sky. A hundred water tentacles shot out of the wave and reached for Vee.

  “Run!” He shoved her into the crack and sliced the tentacles. Golden fire met water and exploded. Medophae shot a blast straight at the wave, burning the tentacles away.

  “No!” Saraphazia screamed, suddenly seeing the tiny crack. The giant wave crashed down, blasting into the crevice. It carried Medophae backward, spinning him around and bashing him into rock walls. He could only hope Vee had used the precious seconds to get as far down the crevice as she could.

  Medophae grabbed an outcropping, stopping his spin. Golden fire erupted around his hand, giving him the strength to hang on. He slammed against the rock as the current shoved at him, but it was enough for him to get his bearings. He pointed his sword back up the crevice and let loose. Water exploded and hissed all around him, and the blast of golden fire shot straight toward the huge form of the whale with her eye up to the crevice. The blast struck her in her enormous forehead, and Saraphazia screamed, the sound reverberating throughout the water.

  Medophae’s outcropping tore free from the wall, and he tumbled again in the turbulent water, striking one side of the crevice and then the other.

  He shot out the other end in a spray of water that launched him thirty feet. He landed and tumbled on the grassy hill. Water from the giant wave sluiced across the meadow, but it seemed like normal water now. The crevice drained as the wave receded.

  “Vaisha!” Saraphazia cried beyond the ridge. “Please, Vaisha! Come back!”

  Vee stood in the meadow, wretched, staring down the crevice and wringing her hands together. On the other side, the ocean raged, slamming into the ridge like she would break it to rubble. Sprays of water shot from the crevice, and Saraphazia wailed.

  “I hurt her,” he said. “I don’t want to do it again. We’ve got to go, as far inland as we can manage, as fast as we can.”

  Medophae grabbed her hand and ran, towing the girl behind him.

  It wasn’t wise to make an implacable enemy out of Saraphazia, but Medophae felt giddy with Oedandus crackling through him once more. He had made it to the mainland, and, strangely, the words of the unnamed goddess in his dreams returned to him.

  Take my gifts and wield your power for those in need. Gods and mortals alike.

  He’d been given another chance, and he wasn’t going to waste it. Not ever again.

  I won’t forget, he thought as he ran, holding tight to Vee’s hand. The wails of the goddess of the ocean faded behind them.

  I am the protector of Amarion, and Oedandus the hand of justice. Avakketh, if you insist on harming humankind, then you will have to go through me. And I will show you the rage that destroyed Dervon.

  Epilogue

  AVAKKETH

  Seven dragons were dead.

  Avakketh sat in his cave, high in Stak-lin Kur Mountain. He looked out over the glorious peaks of his realm, and he seethed.

  Seven of his dragons were dead, and the stripling demigod was hiding from him. Pashyli-kest Nadilaz and her sister had returned, reporting that the human city of Corialis Port was destroyed. It was the only bit of good news in a series of unexpected failures.

  Dyrfalikazyn and his flight had not returned. Zynderilifakyz, one of Avakketh’s own elites, was also missing. And they would have come home by now, if they had been able. Nothing would have stopped them.

  Which meant they were dead.

  He had not felt this kind of rage since the early days of the world, when Saraphazia was a constant annoyance, Natra walked around making decrees to suit her moods, and Oedandus enforced them, making the others bow to him as though he was the Breather of Life and mother of gods.

  Now the GodSpill had returned to Amarion. Threadweavers were rising, and the gods were to blame. They’d had two chances to exterminate humankind and passed up those opportunities.

  When humans first harnessed the GodSpill so long ago, it should have ended right then. The gods should have come together and sucked the life from these vermin who played at being gods. Avakketh had told the others it was an aberration, that it must be stopped. But without Natra to hear his grievance and command the fools, he was forced to speak to his loathsome family one at a time. He was forced to...try to convince them.

  But they were fools, and they wouldn’t comply.

  As always, Saraphazia ignored him. As always, Zetu could not be found, and as always, Tarithalius only laughed, eager to see what his little beasts would do with the GodSpill. If Avakketh had come south at that very moment, when the most inept, fledgling threadweavers began playing with the GodSpill, then it would have been over. He could have remove humankind from the world like he was slicing the hide from a carcass.

  But no... He had decided to wait. He had decided to watch, to give the humans the benefit of the doubt.

  He regretted that decision every day.

  The second chance had been mere years ago. After the humans’ dabbling in the GodSpill had nearly destroyed them, Avakketh had foolishly waited. He’d reveled in the self-damning justice of their blunder, and been content to watch their own folly slowly destroy them. He longed to see them get what they deserved, slowly sliding into a bestial state like the equines had done before them.

  But now, they’d somehow released the GodSpill again. Threadweavers were rising. The threat had returned.

  And none of the others had the wit to see it except Avakketh. Fools. He wasn’t even going to bother involving them this time. White Tuana could not be counted on as an ally. She was clearly insane, staging her bloody experiments with the half-human tribes in the Spine Mountains.

  Saraphazia, of course, thought nothing would ever invade her oceans, and she refused to see the threat. She harbored the illusion that she had created a safe haven for herself and her creatures for all eternity.

  And Tarithalius... Well, Tarithalius was an idiot and always had been. He only cared about giving his beastly little humans advantage after advantage to see what they would do with it. He reveled in laughing at their creations or their self-destruction.

  But if humans were allowed to harness the GodSpill long enough, eventually they would become little gods. Enough little gods could threaten the original gods. That was unholy on every level. And Avakketh, as the eldest and strongest, had an obligation to purge the world of the aberration of humankind.

  And there was only one being who might stop him: Oedandus.

  Avakketh could sense when the other gods were near. It took concentration, but he could do it. And so he went looking for Oedandus, feeling for when he concentrated enough of himself in the human called Medophae. Avakketh created a bridge to the human’s mind, and sent him visions.

  Avakketh had no wish to fight Medophae. The human-turned-demigod was like a dragon hatchling with an adult’s fire-breathing. He blasted his power around, always off-balance, striking at random. Medophae had burned Dervon’s head off that way.

  Oedandus had been unbeatable once upon a time, and no one knew just how much of the old god was left, stretched out across Amarion, and how much resided inside the upstart human. There was always the chance, however slim, that Medophae’s reckless fire might hit Avakketh and do what it had done to Dervon.

  The dreams Avakketh sent to Medophae, while giving the mortal the fantasy of escape, were actually Avakketh’s first attacks. Though Medophae had Oedandus’s power, he had a human’s weak mind. Human minds could be destroyed, their sanity undermined. Medophae had fallen prey to the attacks. Avakketh felt him slowly weakening.

  But then Medophae had vanished. Either he wasn’t using Oedandus at all, or he had found a way to hide himself when he did. Now, seven of Avakketh’s dragons were missing and likely dead.

  So either threadweavers had miraculously arisen in Amarion, coming to potency more quickly than Avakketh thought possible... Or Medophae had slain the dragons and kept Avakketh from seeing it somehow.

 
Avakketh gnashed his teeth, and a flicker of fire escaped his nose.

  He considered waiting, watching for a better opportunity, keeping his dragons in the north for the moment and waiting for Medophae to surface. But he had waited before, and he had regretted it every—

  Avakketh raised his head at the tremor in the great tapestry. It was slight, so slight he would have missed it a month ago. But he had spent so much time concentrating on Medophae lately that he felt the flicker of Oedandus.

  Avakketh closed his eyes and focused, sent his awareness through the threads.

  There! Medophae was in the Corialis Mountains, and he was battling Saraphazia, of all things. Avakketh could see it like a vision in his head. There were no details, only a glowing gold outline of Medophae’s human form fighting the glowing blue outline of Saraphazia’s whale form. Another human, small and barely visible, was with Medophae, and together they ran away from the goddess of the ocean.

  Avakketh cast aside his doubts. He considered flying directly to Medophae and eviscerating him right now, but that would be hasty. Oedandus was too unpredictable. This must be planned for. Oedandus must be trapped. And now that Avakketh knew where Medophae was, it was time.

  I see you, Medophae. It is time for you to die.

  Reader Letter

  Dear Reader,

  So I started working on the original manuscript of Threads of Amarion in New York City in 2001. I had a productive streak during that stint, and it all has to do with what one of my NYC friends called “the New York City Vampire”. The city is so full of activity and energy that it can fill you up, make you feel superhuman. It’s a natural rush, based on the nearly-limitless interesting things happening all the time. In my friend’s NYC Vampire model, when you’re pumped up on the energy of the city, you are the “fangs” of the “vampire”, feasting on the “blood” of boundless inspiration. It fills you up, sweeps you along and inspires you to action. Of course, the flipside is what you might expect of a vampire analogy. New York can become the “fangs,” drain you, and leave you feeling listless and lonely.