I remember nothing more.
13
“Exploitation”
(wax sculpture)
It all comes down to blood. Yours, mine. All of it.
No one knows how it was discovered that godsblood is an intoxicant for mortals. The godlings knew it already when they came; it had been common knowledge before the Interdiction. I suppose someone, somewhere, simply decided to try it one day. Likewise, gods have drunk mortal blood. Only a few of them, thankfully, seem to like the taste.
But some god, somewhere, eventually decided to try a demon’s blood. And then the great paradox was revealed: that immortality and mortality do not mix.
How the heavens must have shaken at that first death! Until then, godlings had feared only each other and the wrath of the Three, while the Three feared no one. Suddenly it must have seemed to the gods that there was danger everywhere. Every poisonous drop, in every mortal vein, of every half-breed child.
There was only one way—one terrible way—that the gods’ fears could be assuaged.
Yet the murdered demons had their vengeance. After the slaughter, the harmony that had once been unshakable between gods and godlings, immortals and mortals, was shattered. Those humans who’d lost demon friends and loved ones turned against humans who had aided the gods; tribes and nations fell apart under the strain. The godlings regarded their parents with new fear, aware now of what could happen should they ever become a threat.
And the Three? How much did it hurt them, horrify them, when the deed was done and the battle haze faded and they found themselves surrounded by the corpses of their sons and daughters?
Here’s what I believe.
The Gods’ War took place thousands of years after the demon holocaust. But for beings who live forever, would not the memory still be fresh? How much did the former event contribute to the latter? Would the war have even happened if Nahadoth and Itempas and Enefa had not already tainted their love for one another with sorrow and distrust?
I wonder. We all should wonder.
I stopped caring. The Lights, my captivity, Madding, Shiny. None of it mattered. Time passed.
They brought me back to my room and tied me to the bed, leaving one arm free. As an added measure, they went through the room and removed everything I might use to harm myself: the candles, the sheets, other things. There were voices, touches. Pain when something was done to my arm again. More of my blood-poison, drip, drip, dripping into a bowl. Long periods of silence. Somewhere amid this I felt the urge to urinate, and did so. The attendant who arrived next cursed like a Wesha beggar when he smelled it. He left, and presently women came. I was diapered.
I lay where they put me, in the darkness that is the world without magic.
Time passed. Sometimes I slept, sometimes I didn’t. They took more of my blood. Sometimes I recognized the voices that spoke around me.
Hado, for example: “Shouldn’t we at least allow her to recover from the shock first?”
Serymn: “Bonebenders and herbalists have been consulted. This won’t do her any lasting harm.”
Hado: “How convenient. Now the Nypri need no longer weaken himself to achieve our goals.”
Serymn: “See that she eats, Hado, and keep your opinions to yourself.”
I was fed. Hands put food into my mouth. I chewed and swallowed out of habit. I grew thirsty, so I drank when water was held to my mouth. Much of it spilled down my shirt. The shirt dried. Time passed.
Now and again, women returned to bathe me with sponges. Erad returned, and after some consultation with Hado, she put something into my arm that remained there, a constant niggling pain. When they came to take my blood the next time, it went faster, because all they had to do was uncap a thin metal tube.
If I could have mustered the will to speak, I would have said, Don’t cap it. Let it all run out. But I didn’t, and they didn’t.
Time passed.
Then they brought Shiny back.
I heard men huffing and grunting with effort. Hado was with them. “Gods, he’s heavy. We should’ve waited until he was alive again.”
Something knocked over one of the chairs with a loud wooden clatter. “Together,” said someone, and with a final collective grunt, they heaved something onto the other cot in the room.
Hado again, close by, sounding winded and annoyed. “Well, Lady Oree, it looks like you’ll have company again soon.”
“Much good it’ll do her,” said one of the other men. They laughed. Hado shushed him.
I stopped listening to them. Eventually they left. There was more silence for a time. Then, for the first time in a long while, light glimmered at the edge of my vision.
I did not turn to look at it. From the same direction, there was a sudden gasp of breath, then others, steadying after a moment. The cot creaked. Went still. Creaked again, louder, as its occupant sat up. There was more silence for a long while. I was grateful for it.
Eventually I heard someone rise and come toward me.
“You killed him.”
Another familiar voice. When I heard it, something in me changed, for the first time in forever. I remembered something. The voice had spoken softly, tonelessly, but what I remembered was a shout filled with more emotion than I’d ever heard a human voice bear. Denial. Fury. Grief.
Ah, yes. He had screamed for his son that day.
What day?
It didn’t matter.
Weight bore down the side of the cot as Shiny sat beside me. “I know this emptiness,” he said. “When I understood what I had done…”
The room had grown cool with the sunset. I thought of blankets, though I stopped short of wishing for one.
A hand touched my face. It was warm and smelled of skin, old blood, and distant sunlight.
“I fought, when he came for me,” he said. “It is my nature. But I would have let him win. I wanted him to win. When he failed, I was angry. I… hurt him.” The hand trembled, once. “Yet it was my own weakness that I truly despised.”
It didn’t matter.
The hand shifted, covering my mouth. I was breathing through my nose, anyway; it was no hardship.
“I’m going to kill you, Oree,” he said.
I should have felt fear, but there was nothing.
“No demon can be permitted to live. But beyond that…” His thumb stroked my cheek once. It was oddly soothing. “To kill what you love… I know this pain. You have been clever. Brave. Worthy, for a mortal.”
Deep in the murk of my heart, something stirred.
His hand slid up, covering my nose. “I would not have you suffer.”
I did not care about his words, but breathing mattered. I turned my head to one side, or tried to. His hand tightened steadily, almost gently, holding my face still.
I tried to open my mouth. Had to think of the word. “Shiny.” But it was muffled by his hand, unintelligible.
I lifted my left arm, the one that was free. It hurt. The area around the metal thing was terribly sore, and hot, too, with the beginnings of infection. There was a moment of resistance, and then the metal thing tore loose, sending a flash of white pain through me. Startled out of apathy, I bucked upward, reflexively catching Shiny’s wrist with my hand. Blood, hot and slick, coated the inner bend of my elbow and ran down my arm.
I froze for an instant as awareness flooded through me, the instant the apathy lifted. Madding is dead.
Madding was dead, and I was alive.
Madding was dead and now Shiny, his father, who had cried out in anguish while my blood-arrow worked its evil, was trying to kill me.
First had come awareness. On its heels came rage.