Chapter 2 — Wetland Birds
"Aw, I thought you'd last longer than that."
The Goddess-Queen Zhevnol sat upon the ritual cushions in the Spire Sanctum at the top of her unassailable fortress. Her eyes glowed with celestial energies, her true sight borrowed from a Botrufi puppet somewhere upon the Realm occupying Lower Discord. The morning sun of the Ur-World, beaming through the Sanctum's colossal arches, warmed her pouting face.
She watched as her Keldai of Lower Discord was torn apart by jukvoi, flying man-sized crab-things Zhevnol had seeded the Realms with several ages past. Bellowing with rage, the marked man made an imminently rude gesture toward her just before his head was wetly mandible-crunched.
More jukvoi fell upon the Botrufi, and Zhevnol departed.
The glow in her eyes faded, replaced by the lesser illumination of the Ever-Golden Sun. She took a deep breath, then stretched and lounged back on the cushions to stare up at the distant mandala ceiling. The tension of energies in her skull resonated with the cyclic forms above.
"That was disappointing," she said.
"Does my Lady have a desire?" Ninshu, as ever, was prostrate nearby, her forehead touching the baroque tile floor.
"No, no." Zhevnol waved her hand dismissively. "I just need a little while to process this. I really thought he'd last longer than a week. He seemed so dependable."
"Not all men are built to satisfy, my Lady."
Zhevnol's eyes flicked sideways, sending deep regard upon her soul-bound servant. Ninshu shuddered at the attention.
"Well," said the Goddess-Queen, "they should be. When I finally decide to get rid of all of you and start from scratch, I'm going to be sure to get the men right." Ninshu's form, stony, nonetheless stilled. Zhevnol snapped her fingers. "Only a week! Blight and terror."
"And—what of the women, Mistress?"
"Don't be ridiculous; you're all so far beneath me I can't even tell you apart, but I'm sure you're working as designed. No, it's the men that need repair, not the women."
"Very good, my Lady."
"It will be. Now then." Zhevnol propped herself up and resumed her transference position. "That wasn't satisfying. I want more. Which Sphere is next? Bureaucracy?"
"Aftermath, my Lady."
"Oh!" The Goddess-Queen laughed, the air shimmering with glee and prism-bursting against the perimeter pillars. "I forgot to—well!" She took a breath and shut her eyes; when they opened they were again glowing with divine power. "Let us discover if he lives."
* * *
Cappli slouched across the low marshes, idly scratching at several small but inflamed wounds. He wore a dirty cloak and purloined boots—the best he could acquire during his escape from the city—and nothing else, his ordinary garments left behind at the grisly scene of the woman's suicide. The sun was sick, hiding behind a thin veil of billowing mists, refusing to warm the bogs and soggy peat that stretched for so many miles in all directions. Low hills made a shadowy sawtooth in the far distance ahead.
His immediate aim was to escape the country, and knowing full-well that the constabulary would be hunting him along the roads, he resolved to cross direct over the marshes and thereby evade pursuit.
Two days had passed since departing the city; he was thirsty and hungry, and he had barely slept. The distant baying of hounds kept him on the move.
"Zhevnol," he muttered, finding himself on a spit of soil dead-ending in a bog. He backtracked and sought a different way. "Do you really believe that?"
Thus far, Capp had refused to consider it too deeply. The adrenaline of hasty retreat had kept his thoughts focused, but exhaustion crept cat-like upon him and his attention meandered. After satisfying himself that he had, in fact, truly witnessed what happened in that room, he was stuck trying to comprehend the woman's behavior.
If the Zhevnol stuff was crap, then she was just crazy. He sniffed, regretting it immediately as a noisome bog-stench struck him. I'm not sure which would be worse. "Who could do something like that to themselves?" Somehow, that thought seemed darker than the possibility of a capricious deity choosing him at random for arbitrary abuse.
A blue-crested bird fluttered onto the half-naked branches of a blighted shrub ahead of him. It preened and chirped, and then turned a glinting eye toward him. Capp spat.
"What're you looking at?"
The bird said nothing, then flew off after he'd passed.
* * *
By evening Capp found himself relenting to his fatigue, and with the waning light of the setting sun he found a small fern-covered hollow a few miles from a modest farmstead. Smoke from the farmhouse, visible over a low range of hillocks between the hollow and the farm, caught the last light of day.
He laid down and was asleep in seconds.
An indefinite time later, its passage indicated only by the moonlit night now surrounding him, Capp was startled awake. Someone was approaching, signaled by the swishing of grasses and creaking of branches. Agonized muscles competed with the sharp pain of his puffy wounds as he brought himself to a sprung crouch.
The marsh had gone quiet but for the approaching stranger. Cappli breathed.
"I know you're there." The voice was feminine, almost fluting, the vocal chime of a vivacious maiden. "Don't worry; I'm not going to hurt you."
Only Capp's eyes moved, seeking the girl amid the ghastly bog shadows.
"Oh, fine. Here."
A shrub rustled as the young woman pushed into view. It was difficult to tell in the dark, but Capp thought she was even younger than he'd supposed from her voice—barely more than a girl. She seemed to be wearing a rustic nightdress that had been torn by passing foliage. The moon caught in her eyes, which were aimed directly at him.
"I apologize for waking you. Won't you come out and talk with me?"
You've got to be kidding. Cappli's brow furrowed. Unless I'm already surrounded, it's only a girl-child. He considered. Could have a knife, though. Curse it!
The girl's eyes never deviated from him as he slowly stepped up from his concealing hollow. Teeth flashed in the darkness.
"What do you want?" he asked.
"I just want to get to know you." The girl slunk forward, the seductive motions grotesque on the youthful form.
Mentally signing himself with protective wards, he said, "I don't know you, child, nor do you know me. You are from yon farm? You have mistaken me for—"
"Shut up!" she shrieked. Capp ducked, eyes wide as the shrill voice carried across the marshes. His heartbeat pulsed. The girl was a mere pace away, now. "You will not tell me what I know—Keldai!"
Shit, it's real.
The girl's arm snapped forward, grabbing and tearing at Capp's cloak as he staggered backward. The clasp snapped and the cloth fell into a folded puddle on the damp soil and grass, leaving him naked but for his boots. He crouched and eyed his antagonist warily. He saw now that the eyes weren't reflecting the moon, they were faintly glowing with their own inner light.
Perhaps a mile or two distant, from the direction of the farmstead, a dog howled.
"Zhevnol," he declared.
The shining rage on the young moonlit face vanished, replaced with a satisfied grin.
"You're not quite so dumb as some," she said. "I am impressed you escaped that other situation. How did you do it?"
Oh ho! Some goddess you are. Gained knowledge granting courage, Cappli asked, "Don't you know?"
Zhevnol laughed. "Don't you know, worm, that mine is the all-being, Mistress am I of the Four Spheres and the Seven Realms? Do you think I grant the honor of attention upon every blade of grass?" She grabbed at a tear in her nightdress and ripped it in a pique of controlled rage. It was almost more scraps than garment, now. "I have seen enough Keldai succumb to the trial immediately; it is dull. But you—" Her voice lowered to an unlikely register, deeper than the small body could possibly have produced. A glittering drool ran from her lips. "Surviving, you show yourself worthy of some small attention."
Capp slowly reached out for his cloak and tried tugging it close, but Zhevnol's unclad, bruised and scratched foot stomped down on it. He grunted with frustration.
"This is a game, then? What is the prize of my victory?"
The dog's howl was repeated, definitely closer. Need to go!
"Oh, you sweet thing." She used her heel to grind the cloak into the dirt. "My prize is I get to watch you scurry and writhe. There is no prize for you beyond the mercy I grant you in death's oblivion. You are Keldai."
Letting his body relax, he then gave a swift and hard pull on the cloak, ripping it out from under the girl's foot. It tore but came free, and Zhevnol chuckled.
Then, as he swept the cloth around his shoulders, she leapt forward and tackled him; unprepared, he was thrown back and together they collapsed into the ferns of the hollow.
Cappli grasped her arms to throw her aside, and just as his grip tightened the deep witchfire in her eyes snuffed out, leaving behind a shocked and confused expression. It was no longer Zhevnol; in place of her will was now the terrified mind of a young girl.
She gasped.
He realized he was almost entirely naked and the girl's nightdress was ripped and torn from apparent violence.
Oh, you evil, evil, evil bitch.
The child screamed and began kicking and flailing.
Barking and the shouts of angry men were raised perhaps a furlong distant.
He flung the shrieking girl aside and leapt to his feet. Which way—? With a quick glance at the moon to regain his bearings, he crashed off blindly through the wetlands and away from the poor child Zhevnol had coopted into her demonic schemes.
"Goddess or demon, I'm definitely going to have to kill her."
Continue to Chapter 3 here.
You've created a believable goddess that exists only to cause pain and destruction.
Good job. The way she takes control of innocent people and uses them to frame her puppets.