Monthly Archives: December 2009
Short Story – Time to Talk
This one came about because of the “Readers on Deadline” challenge over at http://www.deadlinedames.com/ – they post a picture to inspire readers to post a 250-word or less story.
*****
Time to Talk
“Mama!”
I jumped, I couldn’t help it, then looked around. The shopkeeper was still reading his magazine. The only other customer had just left, so it was just me and… a doll. Sitting lopsided on the shelf in front of me. I poked it tentatively.
Short Story – Sacrifice
Tondo Lachwallan was inspecting the storage caves with one of his fellow priests when they heard the screams. They paused in their task – checking for spoilage and evaluating rationing levels – and soon heard the sound of rapid footfalls as an initiate sought them out.
“Fathers!” the initiate gasped, prostrating himself before them as much to catch his breath as to show respect. “The Year-King! He’s dead!”
They exchanged glances. Calmly, Essan Felwenna said “Show us,” and then they left the torchlit cave for the surface, blinking in the bright sunlight and wrapping their robes securely against the biting winter wind. The initiate lead them to the Year-King’s residence. Priests and villagers alike were gathered outside the entrance to the lodge, looking anxious. One of the Year-King’s lovers was crouched by the door, sobbing. Everyone else looked to them as they approached, but they said nothing as they brushed past the crowd and entered the lodge.
Everything looked as it should be – the fire was well-stoked, keeping the lodge warm and comfortable in spite of the bitter cold outside. The rugs and pillows set around the room for visitors were all in order, as were the piled pelts that made up the Year-King’s bed. There was no sign of violence, no blood, no wounds on the body. But there was no denying that the Year-King was dead where he lay, his body slowly cooling to air-temperature, five days before his appointed time.
They examined the body closely, questioned the lover who had woken up beside it, questioned the guards of honor who stood vigil outside the lodge throughout the night, but nothing they heard indicated anything but a natural death. In some ways, murder would have been more reassuring.
The day passed quickly, and the sun was setting by the time the priesthood finished their questioning and gathered to determine their course of action.
“What did you find?” asked Elder Keemun. “Was he struck down by the Sun God? Or by the demons of the Long Night?”
“Does it matter?” Essan asked, “Either way we need to find a replacement.”
Tondo ignored his fellow priest and answered the Elder’s question instead. “We have found no indication one way or the other, Elder. All we know is that he was not killed by human hands.”
Elder Keemun sighed heavily. “Who shall we choose? Lellan?”
Lellan Etsucha had been mentor to the Year King, and was also responsible for preparing the Year King’s successor. He nodded to acknowledge the Elder, then shook his head. “Young Balen would not be an appropriate choice. He is ready to become the Year-King at the Solstice, but he is looking forward to indulgences of the year. I do not think he would be prepared to give up his life in a mere five days.”
Elder Keemun sighed again. “And that is the problem, of course. The harvests have been bad for six years now. The Sun God is obviously less than satisfied with the sacrifices we have chosen, but the Year-King must be willing… we cannot simply buy a slave or raid our neighbors.”
“Would he take a child?” asked Silfa Doyan, the most junior of their number. “My nieces and nephews are very eager to please. My sister would be angry, but a child, told he’s going to meet the Sun God, might even be excited.”
The Elder frowned, as did the other priests, but they considered the question seriously.
“A child,” Tondo countered, “Would be unable to intercede with the Sun God, and convince him to favor our crops with his bounty. Likewise, a reluctant sacrifice would be unwilling to persuade the Sun God in our favor, and might even work against us.” He paused, pondering the question of who would be both willing and able.
The Elder nodded, “Six years of bad crops. Imagine how much worse the next year will be if we choose a sacrifice who displeases the Sun God. We’ve been able to feed the People of the Sun through the winters so far, but if the harvest continues to decline…”
“And if we send no one?” Silfa asked, “What would happen then?”
The other priests stared at him in disbelief. “Our people would be destroyed,” Tondo said, incredulous that he could even think of such a thing.
Silfa shrugged. “Then it must be a child. I see no other option.”
The other priests nodded reluctantly, with the exception of Tondo. He shook his head sharply and said, “No. It’s too much of a risk. I will go instead, and see if one of his priests can convince the sun god to bless his faithful People, rather than putting their future in the hands of a child.”
The others protested, of course. Sacrificing a priest seemed like a dangerous precedent to set. But Tondo held firm. The People of the Sun were in need of the Sun God’s blessing, absent for so long. It would take a year to train a new Year-King in the ceremonies and disciplines that would allow for successful intercession with the Sun God, and the Winter Solstice was only five days away. Eventually Tondo convinced them, with the undeniable argument that only one of the Sun God’s own priests had the training, wit and knowledge to take up the challenge on such short notice.
Tondo himself was excited, although he endeavored to appear as staid and responsible as ever. He had spent his life in the service of the Sun God, leading the people in their worship, begging the God’s blessing for their fields and flocks, hunts and raids, and preparing sacrifices for their eternal service to the God. Now, he would finally meet his Diety. He knew his duty, and would not waver in his efforts to secure the Sun God’s blessings for his People. In his daydreams, though, he occasionally imagined taking the Sun God to task for His feckless behavior toward his own faithful worshipers. He dreamed of asking the Sun God “Why?” – so many “why’s” that had troubled him over the years, about the troubles visited upon the People. He knew his duty, but secretly he hoped there would be time for at least one “Why?” when his duty was done. The fact that his body had to die for the chance seemed… inconsequential.
He spent that night and the next four in the Year-King’s lodge, purifying his body with clear water and sage smoke, and meditating to purify his mind and soul. At the end of the longest night, he was escorted by the guards of honor to the Sun God’s altar, carved each year from the trunk of a lightning-struck tree. There, Elder Keemun waited, the Senior Priests standing by to lead the Solstice chant. Behind them, the People of the Sun gathered, initiates scattered through the crowd with drums to keep time and support the chant.
Tondo lay willingly across the altar, suppressing the nervousness that finally surfaced in his final moments. He looked up at the sky, marveling at the difference between the unsettling submission of sacrifice and his accustomed role as officiant. The knife rose into his field of vision, borne by Elder Keemun’s hand. Tondo saw a tremor in the Elder’s hand. He reached up, steadying both hand and knife and, as the chant peaked and the first glint of morning light caught his eye, adding his strength to the Elder’s to bring the knife plunging down. Then all was darkness.
Elder Keemun completed the cut as Tondo’s hand fell away from his, shaken by the other’s unconventional participation in his own sacrifice. The rest of the ceremony went smoothly, as the Elder cut out Tondo’s heart and held it up to the rising sun in offering. Essen held a torch lit from the fire in the Year-King’s lodge to the tinder laid around the altar, starting the bonfire that would speed his fellow priest’s soul to their God’s side. Then he stepped back, watching attentively as the flames licked up around Tondo’s body. His hair and simple loincloth caught fire and the flames grew thicker, enveloping him and affirming the Sun-God’s acceptance of the sacrifice. Sacrifice accomplished, Tondo’s heart was diced and eaten, binding the People of the Sun closer to their Year-King and through him, to the Sun God.
***
Tondo woke. Slowly, he became aware of a hideous weight on his back and a strange, featureless plain surrounding him. He was on his feet, but borne down by his burden so that his knees strained and his back bent. His shadow stretched out long before him, etched black as night by some light behind him. He tried to look at the light but it was too blinding so he turned back to his shadow, blinking tears of pain out of his eyes.
“Welcome, Year-King,” said a gentle voice.
He looked up and saw a strangely familiar face. A face that crinkled in confused recognition a moment later. “Father Tondo? What are you doing here?” the young man before him asked.
“The Year-King, Renick, that is, died before the Solstice,” Tondo explained. “I thought it would be best if I took his place, and came to see the Sun God myself.” He looked around, craning his neck awkwardly because of the way his back bent under his burden. “Where is he?”
The young man shrugged. Tondo gave him a sharp look. “I recognize you, Jaccho Tendisson. We sent you to intercede with the Sun God a year ago today. Where is he?”
Jaccho shrugged again. “I couldn’t find him,” he said simply. “The Year-King before me went off to look for him while I carried the Sun. Now that you’re here to carry it a while, I’ll go do the same. As I imagine you will when the next Year-King comes along.”
He started to turn away and Tondo staggered forward a step. “Wait!” He yelled, feeling a little frantic. Jaccho paused and looked back at him. “How do you carry the Sun?” Tondo asked, “I was prepared to treat with the Sun God, not to take his place!”
Jaccho smiled gently and said “Just follow the path. You’ll figure it out. You can’t do a much worse job than I did.” He shrugged again, then he turned away and was gone.
Tondo looked forward. “Path?” he said out loud, looking for a path to follow. All he saw was his shadow stretching out ahead of him across a snow-covered plain. As he looked, it stretched out far into the distance, and he realized this was his path, etched out by the Sun itself. He took a step, afraid that his knees would give out under the weight and terrified to think of what would happen if he fell. He stayed upright, though, and took another step, and then another, following the Sun’s path.
He walked and walked, one step after another, and after a while he thought that the Sun may have grown a little lighter, or perhaps he had grown stronger in order to bear it more easily. Soon after that, the field of snow started to give way in patches to brown ground, and then to green grass sprouting up to soak in the Sun’s blessing of light. Tondo smiled, feeling joy at taking part in bringing life back to the world after the long winter.
In the distance, he could sometimes see humans – working their fields and gardens and tending their flocks and herds. He tried to send them a little extra sunlight, only to see their crops wither and die of the heat. He saw rain clouds in the distance and called them near, hoping to revive the plants with water. The rain clouds drew near indeed, and unleashed a torrent that flooded the fields, drowning the already withered plants and threatening the homes of the people. Tondo sent them away again as fast as he could, angry at the realization that the People of the Sun were going to have another year of poor harvests because of him. He thought about the six hard years previous and wondered how long the Sun God had been missing, leaving his work to inexperienced humans.
Mindful of his previous errors, Tondo tried not to do anything but carry the sun along its shadow-path. Then the Spring Equinox came, and with it a sacrifice of lamb and calf. He could taste the meat as it burned and enjoyed it immensely. He thought he felt a little stronger after the sacrifice too, and that the sun seemed to ride his back more lightly. With the meat, the People sent prayers, the first he had heard since taking up the Sun God’s burden. While the floods of early spring had nearly drowned them, their crops were now parched and dry. The People begged for gentle rain to nourish their fields and gardens.
Tondo looked to the rain clouds that still gathered in the distance, and he examined them closely. He chose a tiny one that seemed lighter in color than the others, and called to that single cloud, watching carefully to be sure the others stayed away. The cloud came near and shaded the fields, giving the farmers and crops relief from the Sun’s heat, but no rain fell. Carefully, carefully, he selected another, slightly darker cloud, and called it near. He watched, elated, as it dropped gentle rain across the People’s lands, and when the fields seemed moist but not flooded, he sent the clouds away again to let the People rejoice in the Sun’s light.
Step by step, Tondo carried the Sun, and as he walked it seemed to grow lighter and lighter. At the Summer Solstice, the People again made a sacrifice. As always at Midsummer, it was an enemy of the People, captured in a raid and burned alive at the beginning of the longest day. Tondo could distantly hear the screams of the sacrifice and smell his burning flesh, but he found it less appetizing than the spring sacrifice of the lamb and calf. He wondered at the Sun God’s taste, but then the flames finished engulfing the man’s flesh, loosing soul from body and propelling it into Tondo. He felt the stranger’s soul, still screaming, and tried to soothe the man, unsure as to what the Sun God would have done. When he touched the stranger’s arm, though, he dissolved into light, and Tondo felt strength flood through his soul, almost carrying him forward as he carried the Sun.
Tondo was grateful for the extra strength as he moved forward through the year. At first, the Sun seemed as light as it had at the Solstice, but step by step it grew heavier. At the Autumnal Equinox, the People burned offerings of wheat, pumpkin seeds and wild boar. He was pleased by the smell, and by the songs of thanks that the People sent to him with the sacrifice. It gave him a little strength too, but as the days went on and the Sun grew heavier it took all his will to keep putting one foot in front of the other. He began to look forward to the Winter Solstice, when the new Year-King would take up his burden and set him free to go seeking the Sun God.
Finally, the day came. The smell of burning flesh brought him out of his focus on making one slow step after another, and he looked up to see Balen, the new Year-King, standing before him. The young man was not awake yet. It would be easy for Tondo to pass his burden on before the other became aware again, as the burden had been passed on to him. Instead, though, he watched Balen. The new Year-King looked so young, so inexperienced, and Tondo thought of his own mistakes with the drought and the flood. So instead, he waited, watching until Balen’s eyes flickered and opened, and the young man looked at him with confusion.
“Father Tondo?” he asked tentatively, “Where is the Sun God? And why is the Sun on your back?”
Tondo smiled gently at him. “The Sun God is missing,” he said. “You must go seek him out and bring him back to us. Until then, I will carry the Sun for the People.”
Balen pestered him with questions for a time, but before long Tondo grew weary of trying to answer them all and started his slow walk again, putting one foot in front of the other with stolid determination. Finally, Balen bowed to him and set off to search for the Sun God, disappearing from Tondo’s view between one step and the next.
Tondo continued on, sustained by the knowledge that the Sun would grow lighter soon, and that this year he had more knowledge, more experience, with which to shepherd his People’s fields and flocks. From time to time, he wondered whether Balen or one of the other Year-Kings would find the Sun God and bring him back, but he was in no hurry. Some of his “why’s” had already been answered, simply by learning the limitations of the Sun God’s power. He thought perhaps the others didn’t matter as much, now that he was the one granting the Sun God’s blessings and watching over his people.
Tondo Lachwallan was inspecting the storage caves with one of his fellow priests when they heard the screams. They paused in their task – checking for spoilage and evaluating rationing levels – and soon heard the sound of rapid footfalls as an initiate sought them out.
“Fathers!” the initiate gasped, prostrating himself before them as much to catch his breath as to show respect. “The Year-King! He’s dead!”
Short Story – Warning Signs
Warning Signs
I was shocked when I got laid off from my job. I hadn’t seen it coming at all, even though looking back on it now there were plenty of warning signs.
I was even more shocked when my boyfriend kicked me out a few months later. Again, there were warning signs well before it happened. I guess I just didn’t believe it would really happen. Maybe somewhere in the back of my head I thought that if I ignored it, the problem would go away. Instead, it was my home and my relationship with Jake that went away, just like my job had.
Short Story – Teamwork
Teamwork
Ilsa stood in the shadow of the trees, watching as a small caravan made camp for the evening.
“You could travel with them,” said the voice in his head, “Those carts must move away from the Church faster than you go on foot.”
“No,” Ilsa replied silently. “Didn’t you watch them arrive? Several people were on foot. The carts are only for carrying more, not for going faster. Besides, they’re members of the Church.” He looked pointedly at the Interwoven, a set of interlocking circles that symbolized the physical world, the spiritual world, and the Church’s role in binding them together. “See?” he asked, knowing that the demon could see through his eyes, but didn’t always look.
He took silence to mean assent, and moved through the woods to circumvent the camp before continuing along the road alone. “I would move faster if you would just hide me from travelers the way you hid me when we left the Church,” He complained once he was out of sight of the camp and moving along automatically again. Walking along a road didn’t take much attention, unless there were people around to avoid.
Again, silence.
“What should I call you, anyway?” he asked, feeling frustrated.
“Kevek,” came the answer, more quickly than he expected.
“No!” he snapped, rejecting the idea forcefully. After a moment, the flash of anger receded enough for him to elaborate. “Kevek was my friend. You can’t have his name.”
“But I was a part of him for years. I’ve gotten used to answering to that name. And that is why you want my name isn’t it? To get me to answer?” Inside his own head, the voice was more expressive than any he had heard out loud. He could feel the demon’s amusement as it spoke, politely choosing its words to cause the most possible pain and anger.
“You are not Kevek,” he said firmly.
He walked on for several minutes, ignoring the demon as it so often ignored him, not even thinking beyond the pattern of one foot in front of the other, listening to the soft rhythmic sound of his feet touching the packed earth of the road.
“This is boring,” said the voice inside his head.
Ilsa kept walking, kept not-thinking.
The sound of a sigh filled his mind, followed by “Fine. Call me Vekev instead.”
Ilsa thought about it for a moment, then said “That’s silly. It’s just the sounds of Kevek’s name turned around.”
“But it’s not his name, is it? And I’ll answer to it…” The voice trailed off, obviously leaving the choice up to him.
“Fine,” Ilsa decided, “Vekev. Why don’t you just do your trick to hide me from travelers so I can keep moving instead of dashing into the trees every time I hear someone coming?”
“Every time *I* hear someone coming,” the demon corrected.
“If you don’t want to tell me…” Ilsa let the thought trail off, stilling his mind into the pattern of simply walking again.
“It takes energy,” Vekev said after a moment. “Since I’m in your body, it takes your energy. And you need that for walking.”
Ilsa shrugged. The answer sounded like an excuse, but at least it was an answer. He started humming a working song from his time in the Church’s fields, to keep his mind from being completely silent. After a few bars, the demon joined in, singing along silently to the tune. They walked on.
Ilsa traveled as much as possible, set on putting distance between them and the Church. Vekev had declined to elaborate on a comment he had made about the Chosen being “drugged and drained” by the priests, but even without that detail Ilsa had no desire to remain a slave of the Church, and even less desire to be discovered as a Chosen and eventually killed in the Suivage. He was careful to avoid other people, who might try to imprison him, or simply report his whereabouts to the Church for them to come drag him back. He walked day and night, resting when he couldn’t walk anymore, hiding in the woods to avoid fellow travelers, passing by settled areas in darkness, and stealing food from camps and cottages as he could. The hoe he had stolen when he walked away from the Church’s fields served as a walking stick, but he also used it to kill a curious squirrel, which was not very tasty raw but filled his stomach nicely. Few animals were so incautious, but he also used it to dig for roots and grubs, both of which kept him going in between thefts of food from his fellow humans.
A few days later, Ilsa crouched in the cover of sparse trees watching travelers make their way across a narrow strip of the road that clung to the side of a mountain and dropped off into a deep ravine on the other side. There was no cover on that strip of road, and every time he thought it might be clear long enough for him to get across, another traveler would come along and start the crossing.
“Just cross,” suggested the demon, “as long as you’re not close to them, no one should mind how badly you smell.”
“My hair is still too short,” Ilsa explained. “Until it’s long enough to braid, it gives me away as an escaped Shorn.”
“So steal a hat.”
Ilsa shook his head. “Do you see anyone else wearing hats? Even if I could find one, it would stick out like a sore thumb. It would be obvious that I was hiding my head, word would get back to the Church, and they’d send people after us.” Ilsa wasn’t entirely clear on exactly who the Church would send, but he knew he didn’t want to find out. And threats of Church attention were a sure way to get the demon in his head to shut up for a few minutes, until it latched onto something else to criticize and disagree with. “I’ll have to wait for nightfall,” he said firmly, but he kept watching carefully for a chance to cross in the light.
There was no such chance. In the last of the sunset’s twilight, he watched a man in priest-like robes pick his way across leading two donkeys. Barely twenty feet from Ilsa’s hiding spot, the man heaved a huge sigh, evidently one of relief at making it across safely. He lead the donkeys a little further down the road, then set about stripping their burdens off, and making camp for the night. This close, Ilsa could see his head – shorn as clean as Ilsa’s had been. In the darkness, he couldn’t make out the patterns of the priestly scars that marked the man’s skull, but he knew they must be there. Only a priest would walk so freely with a shorn scalp.
Ilsa held himself as still as possible, debating whether to move away quietly now, or to wait until the priest was asleep to depart and make his way across the ravine. “Can you hide me?” he wondered.
“Yes. Go now,” Vekev replied tersely.
Ilsa went.
He moved slowly, carefully, picking his way as quietly as possible to the beginning of the ravine road, and then hugging the wall as he started out.
“You need to go faster if you’re going to be across before first light,” the demon said urgently.
Since Ilsa had been thinking the same thing, he picked up his pace, trailing one hand along the ravine wall to stay away from the other edge of the road.
“Faster,” the demon urged, its evident fear feeding into Ilsa’s own and making him break into a light jog without even thinking about it.
Then the ground moved under his feet.
He had thought he was still close to the ravine wall rising up above them, but his foot slipped, a stone turning under it and throwing him off balance as he tried to catch himself. The the world was rushing by. He tried to grab at it, to stop himself or at least slow his fall, but his hands flailed weakly, unable to grip any of the stones or saplings that they ran into as his body bounced off similar obstacles and continued to plummet. Bouncing, spinning, sliding and free falling over abrupt drops, Ilsa’s body finally came to a stop, and then the pain, which had seemed distant and inconsequential while he was falling, was suddenly his whole world.
Pain was all his stunned mind could comprehend for a time. It was still dark out when he finally brought his awareness back to the world around him, so he thought it couldn’t have been that long. He took a slow, shallow breath, and took stock of himself. “Ribs broken,” he thought, noting how they protested the simple act of breathing. He blinked his eyes and looked around, closing one at a time. “Eyes still working,” he thought with some surprise. He tried to push himself up to a sitting position and had to bite back a scream as first his right arm then his left refused to support any pressure. He could still feel his legs – unfortunately – and in the light of the moon and stars he could vaguely make out the twisted and broken mess they had landed in. “No,” he thought, “No.” Without help, without the ability to move from this spot, he was going to die.
But… there was the priest he had seen, camped within earshot of the ravine.
He took a deep breath in spite of the stabbing pain it caused, and let out a scream of “HELP!” Or at least that’s what he intended to do. Instead, the breath rushed out quietly – a huge, silent sigh instead of a scream. “What?” he asked out loud, surprised. His voice sounded hoarse, but normal. He tried again, with the same result.
“No priests,” the demon whispered in his mind, “No Church. When you die, I go free.”
“You swore to help me survive!” Ilsa protested.
The demon’s low, self-satisfied laughter filled his mind. “I never said for how long,” it pointed out gleefully.
“You swore to help me survive *in freedom*” Ilsa said, drawing up the memory of that moment, of their agreement. “You’ve taken away my freedom,” he said angrily, although silently since the demon was still controlling his voice. “You made me fall. You’re in my mind, and you twisted it so that I saw clear ground where there were rocks to trip on, and thought I was safely by the cliff wall when I was close enough to the edge to fall. You have broken your word!”
“I swore on nothing, to a nothing human,” the demon sneered. “Be sure I won’t trouble myself over it. Besides, you have enjoyed a month free of the priests, going your own way instead of working their fields. You should be happy enough with that, and get on with dying so you can set me free.”
Ilsa could feel the rage simmering deep in his mind. His own rage, familiar, ever-suppressed. Now there was no reason to suppress it any more, but also nothing to do with it any more. How, after all, could he fight something that was inside his own mind?
“My mind,” he said, following that thought. “The priests never controlled my mind. It was the only part of me that was free. It is *MINE*.” He closed his eyes, closing out the world around him as he used to in the dormitories, when work was done and the Shorn were left alone to rest. He embraced his rage, letting it send red flashes across the backs of his eyes. He looked around his mental landscape, searching for the demon. It took form before him, his mind drawing in the details as he clarified his perception of its form and presence within his mind. It was huge, a massive horned and spiked beast, its bright blue hide shadowed and discolored by darkness and red flickering light.
“Mine,” Ilsa said, facing it with determination. “My mind.” He concentrated, visualizing a cage around the beast. It flickered in and out of existence a few times before solidifying, silvery bars surrounding the demon and reflecting the red light in all directions.
Vekev laughed. Then it was standing behind Ilsa, leaving the cage empty. “I am more powerful than you can imagine,” it purred, looming over him.
Ilsa turned to face it, determined that this one thing, this one place that had always been his would remain his. “My mind,” he insisted, and attacked. He dug his fingers into the demon’s throat, pushing it back and down, pinning it against the rocky ground of his mindscape. He wasn’t sure if he had grown, or if the beast had shrunk, but he pushed his advantage. He pushed it in on itself, binding its limbs, constraining its head. Then he snapped off its horns, crumbling them into dust and it squealed like a wounded puppy. He grabbed its chin and turned its head until it was forced to look into his eyes. “I’m dying,” he said. “Which means you get to die to.” He twisted its head further, pushing steadily, ready to twist its head clean off if that was what it took.
“I can save you!” The demon gasped.
Ilsa paused. “How?”
The demon squirmed, suddenly looking more like a puppy than a monster. Ilsa kept his hold, though. “How?”
“We can join,” Vekev said softly, letting its body go limp in Ilsa’s grip. “It’s what the priests force us into with the Chosen. It will make it possible to use my power on your body rather than just your mind.”
Ilsa shook the demon again. “I thought I was a Chosen. You’re here.”
“The Chosen don’t have to be the way they are. You won’t have to be the way they are. They’re confused and uncoordinated because of the drugs the priests force into them, to control us.”
“I can’t trust you not to take control and kill me as soon as I let you go,” Ilsa said regretfully, readying himself to renew his efforts to dismember the demon.
“Wait!” Vekev squirmed again, looking at him with wide eyes. He raised his eyebrows, inviting it to continue.
“Would you rather kill me and be sure of dying? Or let me live on the chance of living?”
Ilsa pondered the question – which mattered more to him, the certainty of revenge, or the chance of survival? Even if he destroyed the demon and called for help, the damage to his body was likely to kill him anyway. And that was if the priest even bothered to try to help him. “All right,” he said. “What do we do?”
“We need to merge,” the demon said, squirming again. “You should let me go first, thought.”
“How do we merge,” Ilsa asked, pointedly not letting go.
Vekev sighed. “The symbols the priests draw on your bodies draw us into you, when the previous host dies. Then there’s a struggle for control. That’s why the new Chosen are so easy to identify. A strong human can keep us out, even with the symbols opening a door. If I hadn’t been bound to your friend, you never would have let me in.”
Ilsa scowled. “I can still just kill you,” he said.
“The priests drug the Chosen,” Vekev said quickly. “That keeps them from resisting when we join with them. Then their drugs keep us confused, and they drain away our power so that we can’t break free or fight back. That’s why they keep us – so they can use our power for themselves. I was as much a slave as you were.”
“This isn’t about the priests right now,” Ilsa said.
“You have to stop resisting me,” Vekev said, looking nervously into Ilsa’s eyes. “The priests make the Chosen stop resisting with drugs. We don’t have any drugs, so you have to choose to stop resisting.”
“And let you be in charge,” Ilsa observed.
Vekev let out a high, puppy-like whine. Ilsa noticed its skin had even become soft and furry instead of leathery and spiked.
“You can change your form,” he said, “yet when the Chosen change, they look like you did before, like monsters. Is that because the priests force them to submit to you?”
The puppy – “Demon,” Ilsa reminded himself – didn’t respond, but looked even more uneasy.
“What happens if you submit to me?” Ilsa asked. “Take on *my* form, join with *my* purpose.” He let the demon’s head ease back to its normal alignment, although he kept a secure grip on it. “Would that be so bad?” He waited a moment, then smiled, turning the demon’s question around on it. “Would you rather resist me and be sure of dying? Or join with me, submit to me, and have a chance of surviving?”
“You wouldn’t know what to do,” Vekev protested weakly.
“Doesn’t matter,” Ilsa said, “If we merge, like you said, we work for our joint survival. You contribute your knowledge as well as your power. I just have the final say on what we actually do.”
The puppy-demon sighed. Ilsa shook it. “If you’re waiting for me to die before you answer, I’ll kill you now and be done with it.”
In response, the demon changed shape again, growing under Ilsa’s hands, fur disappearing and changing into dark, smooth skin, limbs elongating until they were the same length as Ilsa’s own. Ilsa released his hold and instead helped the demon to its feet, watching the familiar face intently for any sign of betrayal.
The demon looked resigned rather than rebellious, though. It stretched out its arms, palms up, head back. “I submit to you,” it said. “Now you walk into me, and take control.”
Ilsa shifted his weight, uncertain. Then he steeled himself, and took a step *into* the body standing before him.
Power. Power washed over and through him like the sun beating down at midday in the summer. He opened his eyes, and could see clearly in spite of the darkness. He inhaled, using the motion to push his ribs into their proper positions and letting the power flow through them, filling and repairing the cracks. He pulled one arm and then the other into alignment, the searing agony distant as power surged through his veins more effectively than any pain-killing tea. Bone by bone, organ by organ, he rebuilt his body. It was light out by the time he was done, but he was far below the road, far away from anyplace travelers were likely to be looking.
“Thank you,” he whispered. Deep in his mind, he felt a stirring. It wasn’t the clear words he had become used to, but it felt like approval, perhaps appreciation for being thanked, with a heavy sense of distant fatigue to go with it. The sensation of power flowing through his body ebbed until he felt almost normal, just a little extra healthy and a little extra energetic. Satisfied, he picked his way across the ravine floor, a bounce in his step as he resumed his journey to find a free life.
Teamwork
Ilsa stood in the shadow of the trees, watching as a small caravan made camp for the evening.
“You could travel with them,” said the voice in his head, “Those carts must move away from the Church faster than you go on foot.”
Short Story – Possession
Possession
Ilsa stood patiently, stoically, as the priests painted arcane symbols on his black skin with acrid smelling white and red mixtures.
© 2010 Catherine Wechsler, used with permission.
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