Authors: Brian Braden
“I see you traded Ood-i’s woman for another,” Virag nodded to Sana. “I approve.”
“She is a free woman and under my protection,” Aizarg clenched his staff tighter, knowing he was going to have to live with the consequences of letting Virag live.
“Of course.”
“The woman you sold to Ood-i lies buried beside him.”
Both men returned their stares to the water in silence until Aizarg spoke again.
“Tell me, Virag, why does a trader of the steppe have a wedding barge, let alone two, that are fully equipped with ropes, sails, and rigging, all in Lo fashion and all in good condition?”
Virag shrugged without looking up at Aizarg. “I am a trader. Everything is for sale. Everything has its price.”
That answer left Aizarg completely unsatisfied. “Who did you buy it from?”
“From the young sco-lo-ti’s father,” he jerked his thumb back towards the last raft.
Ba-lok’s father?
The former sco-lo-ti of the Minnow Clan was dead by almost a year.
I will have to question Ba-lok about this later.
The dark clouds to the south loomed larger. Aizarg could not see the sun but knew it was close to setting. They would have to tie up on some trees soon and wait for morning.
Where are you, Atamoda?
“Uros...,” Virag said. Aizarg turned to look at him.
“I liked you better with red hair.” The slaver’s cold laugh preceded them across the black water and into the rising darkness.
Each woman’s soul carries a tiny shard reflecting some quality of Nuwa’s spirit. I see my mother in the eyes of the pining maiden, in every hag chained to a past of regret, in every mother cradling her child. I search those glittering shards for clues to who Nuwa truly was. My heart tells me I will search until my immortal flesh is no more.
I, a god, have learned little about a woman’s heart, but I know this. While a man must respect the tempest of a woman’s scorn, he must fear the darkness of her regret the most. In a woman’s heart are secrets so deep even the Emperor of Heaven must tread carefully, lest He lose His way.
The Chronicle of Fu Xi
***
Perched on the edge of the glacial cliff, the Angel of Death waited. Above her, falling stars etched glittering trails across the burning blue sky. Before her feet, a narrow waterfall, only a stone’s throw across, cascaded into a perpetual, icy mist. Similar waterfalls, spaced dozens of miles apart, stretched thousands of miles along the edge of the glacier, feeding hundreds of rivers and streams pouring south across the tundra. Combined, they slowly drowned three continents.
To her right, a freshwater glacial ocean covered the top of the world. A tranquil blue mirror perfectly reflecting the falling stars, it stretched horizon to horizon, broken only by an occasional iceberg. Only when the water neared the waterfall, only inches from her feet, did it reveal its swift power. At glacier’s rim only a thin membrane of ice a few feet thick protected the world below from the ocean. She felt the titanic pressure straining to explode forth. Only a nudge, a breath, would inundate the world.
Tsunamis generated by the great falling star scoured the world’s coasts clean of mankind. Releasing the glacial ocean would now complete the divine genocide. The Spirit of Death knew she should feel something, but she didn’t even feel the wind.
She cloaked herself in an ancient memory, an guise far different than Nuwa. She wore it the way a widow wears her wedding dress, a ghost of ancient passion, of love lost and dreams unfulfilled. White silken slippers hovered inches above the snow. Her white robe, emblazoned with the image of the golden dragon, hung as slack as her red hair.
She could not admit to herself why she waited. The deed should have already happened.
Fu Xi needs time to climb higher. I must allow the man with white hair to get his people farther to sea
.
Now, however, eternity crushed impatiently on her.
He’s not coming.
His presence was the last thing she should desire, yet she did and hated herself for it.
Now history and bitter duty could wait no longer. She pointed at the waterfall as the Offering Blade materialized in her hand. Before she could deliver the cut, a dark shape flashed in the water next to her. And then another.
She lowered the blade as the demons approached like wind driven streaks. They crowded along the glacier rim, slithering over one another eager for release from epochs of imprisonment. They hummed in a filthy chorus.
Release us, oh Bringer of Death. Do as the Celestial Emperor promised!
Sometimes a smaller demon slipped through over the waterfall like a salmon over a boulder, to join the others already infesting the world.
Their prison weakens.
Deeper underwater, massive black shadows slipped to and fro like cloud shadows. The waterfalls were too small for these demons. They required the Angel of Death to release them.
Suddenly, the demons plunged into the depths, and the ocean fell silent again.
He is here.
Anticipation and regret gripped her.
Why did I wait so long? What have I done?
The man with hair spun from sunlight, skin as pale and flawless as the snow, and garb as black as midnight, materialized from the mist.
She knew she’d made a horrible mistake.
He assumed a relaxed pose opposite her across the waterfall, a vision of white fire and black smoke against the brilliant blue sky. A kindred spirit masquerading in human form, his high black boots hovered a hair’s breathe above the glacier. Coal black trousers, long shirt, and cape hung limp, unruffled by the wind.
Why did he choose that form?
But she already knew the answer. He cloaked himself in the form she loved best.
Blue eyes as cold and deep as the artic sky drank her in with a hint of lust. “You’ve been standing here for a quite some time. How long does it take to murder a world?”
“If you come here to stop me, you are more arrogant than even I could have imagined,” she replied coldly.
“You know exactly how arrogant I am. I know how haughty you can be.” His laugh flooded her with bittersweet memories of a thousand perfect spring days, casting an ancient magic on her heart, a charm she both longed for and feared. “And we both know I cannot stop you. Did you wait this long just to insult me?”
“Be gone.”
“You don’t want me to leave.” His eyes danced playfully up and down her form. “I thought you would wear the memory of Nuwa. Yet, here you are as my beloved Gaia.”
“It pleases me,” she lied, crossed her arms and turned away.
“It pleases me, too. I would be more pleased if you were flesh. You wanted to see me here, didn’t you?”
“I did not,” she lied again. She wanted to ask him if his form was simple chance, but knew better. He did nothing by chance. Neither did she.
What have I done?
“Go,” she said. “Your banter no longer charms my heart.”
“Ahh, but you no longer have a heart, do you, love?” Like a snake sliding from a rotted log, his voice rolled through her mind with a silky smooth draw. Spirits can conceal little, even when imagining themselves as flesh. Truth shines through them like the sun through perfect crystal. She tried not to show how his words cut.
He, however, lied with perfection. She could only lie with perfection to herself.
“Why did you wait for me?” he pressed.
She lowered her head and wrapped her arms around her shoulders, shielding her will from his power like from a cold wind.
“You toy with me. Are you so cruel to think I haven’t suffered?
“No,” she whispered.
“Look at me,” he begged with such tenderness it melted her resistance.
Hand outstretched, angelic face pleading as if begging her to save his life, his outline shimmered. The wind suddenly tousled his robes and hair. A shadow materialized behind him. With a soft crunch, his boots settled into the snow.
She tried not to show her astonishment. The power to transform spirit to flesh was a power reserved only for Him.
“I can give you a heart, Gaia. I may not have power in other domains, but I am master of this one. The only power left to Him here is destruction.”
Another lie.
She tried not to stare at the body she last touched long before she became Nuwa.
“Go,” she repeated, with even less conviction as the demons slowly rose again from the depths. She gestured to the meandering black forms. “And take them with you!”
“Did you think them mine?” He sounded surprised. His laugh, born aloft on the wind, floated like a ray of light; airy and beautiful.
The man in black knelt next to the water and reached out. A few demons swam lazily back and forth like carp rising at the expectation of a thrown crumb. A small, childlike demon tentatively neared the surface and reached out, almost tenderly, with a gnarled claw. A thin sheet of black ice formed where it touched the surface, flat and perfectly mirrored.
“Are they not the Children of Chaos?” Genuinely shocked, she assumed these demons were his servants, wrestled from his control by the Celestial Emperor, to pick the flesh from the bones of the earth.
“The Children of Chaos are still chained in my domain, perhaps never to rise again. I have no power over these beasts, though I strongly desire it. If I commanded legions such as these, we would not be having this conversation. I would be master and not rebel.”
“Save your lies.”
“Lies?” He turned and transfixed her with an expression of such powerful melancholy, she found herself drawn into his eyes. “These are not my servants. They are born neither in Heaven or Hell. These are memories of mortal regret, the afterbirth of earthly grief given form. When confined to the human heart, they shred the human soul from within. When let loose upon the world, they devour the living and the dead.”
He touched the disc of ice, and it flashed into flame. The demons fled once again into the deep.
He stood and faced her. “Tell your master He will fail. I cannot stop you, but I can pervert your purposes. Whatever He creates, I corrupt.”
She wanted to reply, but knew he would only twist her words. She drank in his beauty out of the corner of her eye and remembered.
He pointed to the fireballs lazily arcing high above. “Behold His rage. He speaks of love, but I practice it. I love the world and He regrets it. It eats Him.” His voice softened with tenderness. “Who is the evil one? Tell me!”
“I trust Him,” she snapped.
For a long moment he considered her. His flesh made an even more effective cloak for his thoughts.
“Did he tell you
why
he wants to destroy it?” he finally asked.
“To set right your corruption. For love.”
“Love?” He shook his head and stepped away from the ice cliff, eyes narrowed and tone sharp. “Do you find the lack of feeling comforting? Is it everything you wanted, everything you remembered? For what promise did you exchange your flesh? What prize so valuable you sacrificed the hot pleasures of the Water for a pale agape ghost?”
Nuwa wanted to feel rage, to lash out at the man in black with the Offering Blade. She could do neither.
“It is because of your sons you shed the flesh and cast your lot with Him.” He casually lifted his nose like a wolf and sampled the air. “Fu Xi nears the Roof of The World, and here you stand, ready to unleash a tempest so powerful it could kill even him. If he dies, it is by your hand.”
“No!”
“Did He promise to spare him?”
She lowered her eyes. “No,” she whispered. “He only promised Fu Xi a chance.”
“And what promise was given for your other son?”
He’s turning the truth against me. Strike now and unleash the Scourge before his words turn my hand.
He raised an eyebrow at her silence. “I see. Once again you abandon your first born.”
“You know that is a lie!”
“If it is a lie, why does it sting? Perhaps you still have a heart, if the truth can make it ache.”
He returned his gaze to the tundra far below. “Turn your blade, Gaia. Come back to me. Let us finish what we started and transform this world into a paradise for both god and mortal. We will succeed where He failed.”
She couldn’t look at him, though she felt the unrelenting draw of his will. If she lingered, he would turn her heart. She could not, must not, let that happen.
“I am an instrument of His will. I’ve made my choice. Now go. You’re wasting your time. I have work to do.”
In a flash of smoke he vanished. The sunlight momentarily dimmed as if shrouded by dark lightning. Instantly, she sensed him behind her.
He touched her and spirit became flesh, beginning with her heart. Hot blood pounded into her body as frigid air poured into her lungs. She gasped as an eternity of memories burst forth. Once again, she became Gaia.
He grabbed her from behind, squeezing her wrists to the point of pain. He forced her hand, stiffly grasping the Offering Blade, toward the thin glacier wall. His lips hovered only inches from her neck, his warm breath gently caressing each hair follicle
“Then do it!” he whispered into her ear. “Let us do this together. Tell me, love, how much blood must I spill, for Him to offer me forgiveness? Is there enough blood in the entire world for me?”
His grip relaxed as his other arm encircled her waist.
“Can He give you this?” he whispered softly. The man in black pressed hard from behind and pulled her tightly against him.
She moaned at the sensation of his body pressing firm against her’s through the thin, smooth silk robe.
“I have always loved you.”
She hoped and feared to hear those words, lies she believed as truth. Lies she cherished and loathed with every fiber of her being.
She ran her fingers through his hair, turned, and kissed him. His tongue ran sweet and warm in her mouth. They embraced, and lifted by their passion, floated off the ice. With unyielding arms but tender hands, he hungrily sought her body’s forbidden realms.
Her spirit filled every inch of this new, sensuous flesh. The wind pierced her robe with a thousand icy needles deliciously penetrating the nooks and crannies of their embrace. Heat, ice, and smooth silk simultaneously caressed flesh with overwhelming pleasure.
“Let the spirit and the flesh be one,” he whispered.
The wind caught their robes and entwined the lovers in a twisted wreath of white silk and black satin. Their shadows darkened and wrestled across the virgin snow at the top of the world.