Content Notes: violence
His feet and hands were shredded, but he barely noticed as he slammed into the altar. Unthinkingly, reflexively, he muttered a half-forgotten childhood prayer under his breath as he levered himself up. Angry muttering had him looking around in fear. He’d thought– hoped– the temple would help him. Protect him.
He’d miscalculated. The monks in the room were standing, glaring, reaching for him…
He took off running. Deeper into the temple.
Everyone called it ‘the temple,’ but it was really a complex. A maze. A dozen, dozen temples, each one dedicated to a god or gods or no god. He was lost almost immediately and didn’t know what to do but keep running. Still reciting that childhood prayer on harsh, panted breaths.
“My blood is yours, Great Goddess. Only you can track me.
“My prey is yours, Great Goddess. Only you can guide me.”
There had been more to the prayer, once. But it didn’t matter. All that mattered was finding a place to hide.
Dashing through another brightly lit, wide-open room, he saw a small door that almost blended in with the wall.
He looked over his shoulder, but his pursuers were out of sight for the moment. He heard them, though, very close.
Quickly, he pulled the door handle, surprised and grateful when it opened easily.
The room beyond was quiet and dark, and he closed the door behind him.
With the door closed, he could see a little. Only a little. There were statues that he couldn’t really make out. A square shape that was probably another altar. A few other shapes and shadows.
Something about the room — the darkness, the chill, the silence — quieted his panic. He was still hunted, but somehow here he didn’t feel alone.
“Did you mean it?”
He clapped a hand over his mouth to keep from yelling and spun around. What he thought had been a statue was moving. Coming toward him.
“Did you mean your prayer?” the chill voice demanded
“What? I…”
“Ah… You didn’t.” the stranger sighed with disappointment and turned away.
“I used to,” his voice started himself.
The figure stopped. “Used to?”
“Yes, I… tried. I looked for her — the Goddess. But I never found her, after– and… and I stopped.” What was he saying? Why was he saying it? Why was he wasting his time talking when he should be running?
“Ah.” The chill voice was full of satisfaction now. “Let me hear it again, boy. Mean it this time.”
“I…”
Voices from the next room, angry voices.
“Now, boy.”
“My… My blood is yours, Great Goddess.” He stopped, licked his lips. Tried to remember how it had felt to believe. The terror and safety and exhilaration of it. “Only you can track me.
“My prey is yours, Great Goddess.” He closed his eyes, focusing on the half-imagined feel of the Great Goddess standing behind him. “Only you can guide me.
“My…” he faltered, trying desperately to remember. “My name is yours, Great Goddess. Only you… only you can call me.
“Call me by name, Great Goddess so I may serve you with all I am.” He finished just as the door behind him banged open. Monks flooded the room, surrounding him, but he barely noticed.
For the light from the doorway had fallen on the figure he had been talking with — and there was no one there. Only a statue.
Or it should have been only a statue
“Very good.” The chill voice said, and the monks froze. “Very good, my own.”
And suddenly the room was full of light, flooded with it.
“Iberto. Iberto, child of Marg and Yulen. I call you by name.”
“Goddess…”
He felt his hands and feet healing. Felt strength fill him, making him stand taller. Knowledge poured into him.
He grinned. A feral grin. The grin of a hunter who knows at any moment he might become prey, and revels in the chase regardless.
The statue — the Great Goddess — pushed through the monks to stand at his back. Guide and huntress and friend.
“It is done. By blood and prayer, the great altar has been consecrated and I have claimed my priest.”
“That isn’t–“
The monk was silenced by Iberto’s hand around his throat. A pitiful ‘hunt,’ not worthy of his goddess. “Get. Out.”
He threw the monk toward the door, and the other monks scattered out of the way.
The monk who had tried to object fled, many of the other monks following him.
Iberto and his goddess watched them go, then walked slowly through the maze to the great altar. His feet did not falter or hesitate — they knew the way.
Others gathered in the hall before the altar. Knowing they would be there didn’t make it any less shocking to see Han the Sun and Ertu of the Fields and a dozen others waiting for them.
“Well met, sister,” called a tall goddess-statue made of some white stone (alabaster, the goddess whispered in his mind) and decorated with the moon trinity of Ahza. “It is good to have you returned to us.”
He forced his steps to stay steady, though walking in the open among humans would have been terrifying enough. None of these would touch him. She, and only she, would hunt him. In play, in joy, and one day in deadly earnest. For now, she walked at his back, guiding him in serving her.
The crowd parted and they walked up to the altar. The remaining monks watched from the doorway and Iberto tried not to laugh at the looks on their faces.
Then he was before the altar, the smear of his blood — the blood he hadn’t even realized he left there — glowing a dull red.
He raised his hand to his mouth and bit, ripping his palm open, letting his blood drip freely on the stone. Saying the prayer again. Before all the goddes, and with full intent, consecrating the altar to his goddess for all time.
Leave a Reply