The Lightning God's Wife: a short story

  THE LIGHTNING GOD’S WIFE

  a short story of the Glimmer Lands in the world of MASTER OF CROWS

  BY

  GRACE DRAVEN

  The Lightning God’s Wife - Copyright © 2014 by Grace Draven.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed or transmitted in any form or by any means, including photocopying, recording, or other electronic or mechanical methods, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical reviews and certain other noncommercial uses permitted by copyright law.

  Publisher’s Note: This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are a product of the author’s imagination. Locales and public names are sometimes used for atmospheric purposes. Any resemblance to actual people, living or dead, or to businesses, companies, events, institutions, or locales is completely coincidental.

  This short story is dedicated to Lori Cecilia Snow Stevenson—that friend of mine who lives in God. Wait for me at the gate.

  Many thanks to Lora Gasway, one of my trusted editors, who rode in and saved the day – as usual.

  The Storm

  Martise woke to the banging of a window shutter against the wall. A rush of humid air, still thick with the day's heat, purled into the bedchamber. She slid out of bed and padded to the open window. Shadows pooled on the balcony floor, and in the distance, a tide of black clouds roiled toward Neith. Lightning ruptured the darkness, illuminating swathes of rain that fell in sheets on the dusty plains.

  She closed her eyes in a silent prayer of thanks. A storm was coming—this time of its own accord instead of wrenched into submission by the heretic mage still asleep in the bed behind her. Given half a chance, he’d do it again if necessary. The last deluge had provided a much-needed drink of water for the thirsty orange trees in Silhara’s beloved grove, but it was only one drink, and the drought had returned in full force within the week.

  More lightning split the rain-gravid clouds, and thunder rumbled in response. The rustle of sheets alerted Martise that Silhara was awake. She didn’t startle when a pair of arms slid around her waist and drew her back against a lithe body still warm with sleep.

  They stood together in silence, watching the storm. Another gust of wind whirled into the room, this time damp and cool. It buffeted Martise’s face and spun strands of Silhara’s long hair so that it whipped over her shoulders and fluttered against her arms.

  Martise caught a stray lock, letting it slide through her fingers. “Will you try and trap this one?”

  Silhara shifted behind her. “No. It’s coming at us straighter than a crossbow bolt.” His raspy voice was even rougher than usual with the dregs of slumber. “Though I might sacrifice Gurn as a bribe if it turns at the last moment.”

  Martise smiled, then squinted as a shock of lightning flooded the night sky. “You’d give up your only loyal servant for a bit of rain?” Her question was only half-teasing. Her lover was a mercurial creature—sour-tempered as well. While she thought he’d raze a village to the ground without blinking if that meant saving Gurn from some threat, a small doubt still remained.

  A flutter of breath tickled the top of her head as Silhara rubbed his chin into her hair. “A piss-poor servant. He calls me a horse’s ass regularly, Martise. Maybe one day I’ll tell you the story of how he threw me down the well when we argued over trimming Gnat’s hooves.”

  Martise turned in his embrace so she could see Silhara’s face. Flashes of lightning lit his features briefly, revealing his high cheekbones and thin mouth, the black eyes that watched her with faint amusement. “And what did you do as retribution?”

  He ran a hand down her back. “Dangled him off this balcony by his hair.”

  Gurn’s pate was as smooth and shiny as a polished antylus ball. Martise frowned. “He doesn’t have hair.”

  Silhara cocked an eyebrow, and his lips curved up a little at the corners. “Not on his head.”

  She gasped and flinched at the image his words evoked. Poor Gurn. Of course throwing his master down a well probably didn’t elevate him in Silhara’s affections.

  She’d never understand the relationship between the two. They were master and servant yet acted as brothers—arguing, bickering, and sometimes physically brawling with each other. Gurn’s respect for Silhara was obvious, but he was neither intimidated by nor obsequious toward the powerful mage. In turn, Silhara treated Gurn as his peer. It wasn’t so much that one worked for the other but that they worked together, lived together, and fought with each other as equals.

  She turned in Silhara’s arms to face the window once more. The night sky was a frothing mass of blackness occasionally broken by jagged strands of bright silver. The storm blotted out the stars except for the nacreous one that always hovered above Neith both day and night. Its dull light pulsed steadily, like the beat of a heart.

  Martise looked away from the star—Corruption’s blot on the sky. Far better that she admire something more natural, even if more violent, like the storm. “I’ve always enjoyed the time right before the storm strikes, when the air is cool and smells of the coming rain.”

  “As long as it rains on the grove, I’ll be content.” Silhara’s slender fingers played with the folds of her shift.

  She hoped he would be content. The last time a storm turned away from Neith, Silhara had exploded from the fortress in a rage and then proceeded to scare the life out of her and Gurn by forcing nature’s fury onto Neith with spellwork. Controlling weather was lethal sorcery. He’d been lucky to walk away from that endeavor alive instead of being reduced to a smoking husk.

  Martise hugged his arms harder to her waist and was rewarded by an even more enveloping embrace. She leaned her head back against Silhara’s chest. “The blessing of Revida. She’s withheld it long enough.”

  “Who’s Revida?”

  Martise smiled. Silhara was a master spellworker; she was more widely read. “A goddess of the Glimmer South. Once a human who became the wife of the lightning god Atagartis.”

  A disdainful snort sounded behind her. “No accounting for bad judgment there. She would have been better off marrying a farmer or even a king with the blood running too thick through the royal staff.”

  His sarcasm made her chuckle. “You wouldn’t marry a goddess if she wanted you?”

  Another snort. “I’ve no interest in any deity—worshipping them, swiving them, or marrying them. Useless lot who wouldn’t recognize a sincere prayer if it ran them over with a dung cart.”

  This time Martise laughed outright and pivoted to face him. She looped her arms around his neck. His was an aesthetic face, harsh and unforgiving, yet it softened a little as he stared down at her, a glint of amusement flitting through his gaze.

  “Tell me of this foolish Revida,” he said.

  “Don’t you want to go back to bed?”

  His hands traced the curves of her waist and hips before sliding up the length of her back. Unlike her, he was naked, and his arousal was obvious as he held her close to him. “Not yet,” he said. “I want to see what the storm will do. In the meantime, tell me your Glimming tale.”

  _____________________________________________________________________

  Revida’s eyesight wasn’t what it once was, but old age had suddenly chosen to wreak havoc on her vision by making her hallucinate. That or what she stared at now was real.

  Two small children raced toward her across the parched landscape—a young boy pulling frantically on a little girl as they struggled to outrun the nebulous wall of darkness bearing down on them. It flared over the plains, churning up powdery dirt and debris until the bl
ack wall turned brown. Had she not seen its transformation, Revida might have mistaken it for a dust storm.

  But this was no storm. Whatever seethed and roiled behind the fleeing children was built of shadow and smelled of power. Despite the sun’s punishing heat, chills pebbled the skin on Revida’s arm, and she gasped as a colossal face, twisted with hatred, coalesced within the dark wall.

  The children looked back and screamed in unison. The girl stumbled and fell, nearly yanking the boy off his feet.

  Revida abandoned the cave in which she sheltered and ran to the children. She scooped the girl into her arms and grabbed the boy’s hand.

  “Run!” she shouted over the howling leviathan pursuing them. Age had made her slower, but terror turned her fleet. They barreled into the cave’s cool dimness. Revida set the crying girl down and made for the remains of the previous night’s fire. She plunged her hands into the pile of cold ash and soot, coming away with black hands. The boy watched her for a moment, then mimicked her actions.

  She returned to the cave’s entrance. The shrieking darkness was almost upon them. The face had disappeared, replaced by a pair of twisting silhouettes that grappled each other for dominance. Revida sketched a sigil at the entrance with soot-blackened fingers. The boy did the same, drawing the complicated protection symbols with the practiced ease of a skilled sorcerer.

  Revida sketched the last line of her sigil just as the shadow wall struck. The impact threw her and the boy back into the cave’s interior and showered everything in tiny bits of stone shrapnel and dust. Sprawled on her back, Revida shielded her head with her arms as the ground beneath her shook.

  Her ears rang from the enraged shrieking just outside the cave. Whatever threw itself against their sanctuary couldn’t cross the sigil barrier. It beat against the symbols’ invisible bulwark, inhuman screams and growls punctuating every strike.

  Aching and dizzy, Revida clambered to her feet. The boiling shadows blocking the entrance also blotted out the light, turning the cave into a crypt. Revida reached blindly into the darkness.

  “Boy, are you there?”

  “Yes, I’m here,” a thin voice answered back.

  “And the girl?”

  “She’s with me.”

  Revida sat down. She couldn’t see half an arm’s length in front of her, and until whatever foul thing lurking outside the cave decided to leave, she could do nothing more than wait. The children sheltering with her huddled nearby, safe—at least as safe as anyone could be with an enraged demon pounding on their sigil door.

  As quickly as the attack began, it stopped. The howling ceased, and the shadows dissipated. Sunlight flooded the opening, illuminating the interior space with weak light. Revida found the boy and girl holding each other. Emaciated and ragged, they both squinted at the bright sunlight outside and then at Revida.

  “I think it’s over,” she said.

  With those words, the boy jumped to his feet and sprinted outside, the girl close on his heels.

  “Wait!” Revida tried to grab the little girl but missed. Cursing the children’s antics and her own creaking bones, she followed them out of the cave’s sanctuary.

  The shadow cloud was gone, leaving behind only a merciless blue sky, trenched earth, and a prone figure not far from the cave. The children hovered over him, both pleading in shaking voices for him to wake up.

  Revida drew closer and heard the boy command in a surprisingly powerful voice “Father, open your eyes.”

  She crouched beside him. A man sprawled on the ground, so caked in dirt and grit he looked more golem than human. Revida couldn’t make out much of his features and none of his hair color. Like the children who claimed him as their parent, he was thin and dressed in rags held together by prayer and stubborn thread. The girl clasped his hand in both of hers, and the boy gripped his shoulder with a white-knuckled hand.

  “This is your father?” Revida flattened her palm against the man’s chest.

  The boy nodded. “He was trying to save us from Sumarimis.”

  An icy whip snapped up the length of Revida’s spine. Sumarimis. The Bitter Dark. She’d admonish the boy for spilling tall tales except she’d seen the blackness hurtling across the plains herself. Why a creator god would chase two small children into a cave was beyond her. Equally surprising was that her sigil had kept the god out of the cave.

  Revida glanced briefly at the boy, eyes narrowed. She hadn’t been the only one who’d drawn sigils.

  She turned her attention back to the unconscious man whose heart beat strong and sure under her hand. “He’s alive.” The children grinned at each other. Revida addressed the boy. “Is she your sister?” When he nodded again, she said “Keep an eye on her. I’ll tend to your father.”

  The man groaned a little while Revida ran her hands over him, checking for injuries. She didn’t find any broken bones or open wounds, but the skin that shone through his torn clothing was crisscrossed with livid red score marks, as if he’d been branded by a fiery lash.

  She patted his dirty cheek, leaving a sooty handprint. “Wake up. You’ll have to stand and walk.” He’d suffer to do so, but he couldn’t stay out here in the blistering sun, and she wasn’t strong enough to carry or drag him.

  He opened his eyes, and Revida started. They were strange eyes, the irises so pale a blue, they were almost transparent against the whites. His pupils were pinpoints of darkness that shrank even further under the sun’s light. He blinked twice, focused his gaze on her and smiled.

  “Priestess, I’ve finally found you.”

  ***

  She’d coaxed him to stand and stagger to the cave, his arm heavy on her bowed shoulders. He fell unconscious as soon as he collapsed on the floor, uncaring that only hard stone and sand pillowed his head and cushioned his body. Revida tossed one of her two blankets over him and left him to sleep.

  The boy had built a small fire of dried twigs and scrub brush by the time she’d taken care of his father. His sister stayed close to him, her thin arms wrapped around herself as she stared unblinking at the sleeping figure half hidden by the blanket.

  Revida retrieved her pack and took out her dwindling store of food and drink—two skins of tepid water and a gnarled slab of dried, cured lizard meat. She brought them to the fire and sat down across from the children. “What are your names?”

  The boy pointed to himself. “I’m Ninun.” He tapped his sister on the knee. “This is Derketo.”

  Revida’s eyebrows rose. “Is that so?” Whatever their circumstances, no one could accuse these children’s parents of piety. To name one’s offspring after the god of winds and the goddess of fish bordered on blasphemy.

  As if hearing her amusement, Ninun’s eyes narrowed and his chin rose. “We’re the children of Atagartis.”

  Revida broke off a piece of the dried lizard. “So are we all.” She passed the meat and one of the water skins to him. “Here. It isn’t much. The lizard can be bitter, and the water is warm, but it will ease the gnawing in your belly and wet your tongue. Drink sparingly.”

  They ate in silence, grimacing so fiercely at the taste of the lizard that Revida had to hide her grin behind her hand. The girl Derketo tapped her fingers on the cave’s rock floor. “There’s water here,” she said. “Beneath our feet.”

  Revida paused with her water skin tipped toward her mouth. “How do you know?” The gods were a wretched lot if they put a water diviner in this dried husk of a world.

  Derketo flattened her hand harder to the ground and closed her eyes. “It calls to me.”

  Revida sighed. This was punishment for blasphemous names. Twenty-five years ago, Derketo would have held a high place in society, a citizen of value—useful and prized. Now it didn’t matter if her senses were accurate, and they were. No one would believe her. At best she’d be shunned, at worst, hunted and executed.

  “You’re right,” she told the little girl. “I sensed it as well, though I can’t tell how far down it is or how much is here. You’ve the
makings of a water diviner.”

  Derketo gave her an odd, knowing smile.

  With more water close by, Revida sacrificed a small splash from her drinking stores to clean the soot off her hands and instructed Ninun to do the same. When his father awakened, she’d clean the grime off his face. His strange eyes fascinated her, and she was curious to know what he looked like under the layers of dirt.

  She set the water skins aside for refilling later and repacked what remained of the cured lizard. “What were you and your father doing wandering these parched wastes?”

  There were no verdant places anymore, not even the watering holes. The shores of those shrinking oases had been trampled to mud and the withering trees eaten down to their roots by starving animals. The stricken villages perched nearby fought each other for access to the muddy waters. It was a harsh existence but still better than here, where the land was nothing more than baked earth, cracked and barren. Nomads and exiles like Revida wandered its unforgiving terrain, but it was no place for children.

  The sun slowly sank in the west, bleeding off heat and leaving behind a rising cold that could freeze a person without shelter or warmth. Ninun held his hands over the cheery fire he’d built for them. “We’re bound to the earth,” he said, and Revida was caught by the sudden maturity in his voice. “Cast down and hunted by the Bitter Dark who seeks to destroy us. We’ve been running from him for many years.”

  “And found yourselves a long way from nowhere.” Revida rose and dusted off her hands. “Find a comfortable place to sleep and curl up together. I’ll give you a blanket to share.” She retrieved one of the water skins and made her way to where the children’s father slept.

  The angry welts lashing his skin oozed dark spots through his ragged shirt. Revida carefully untied the laces, baring his torso. They looked even worse fully exposed. Her strengths didn’t lie in the healing arts, but she could clean the dirt away from the lashes and pray they weren’t deep enough to poison.