Paul Kemp - The Godborn

“You manage fools and cowards quite well, Sweets.”

“Again, I think our marriage seals that ward.” She smiled as she spoke and he thanked the gods for it.

“I think I like you better asleep.”

She turned serious. “Be careful, Gerak.”

“I will,” he said, and pulled on his boots and cloak. “Go see Ana while I am gone.”

“A good idea,” she said. “I’ll take her a couple eggs. They’re suffering.”

“I know. See you soon.”

He opened the door and the wind rushed in.

“Wait,” she called. “Take my locket. For good fortune.” She leaned over and took the locket, a bronze sun on a leather lanyard, from the side table.

“Elle, that’s-”

“Take it,” she insisted. “Minser sold it to my mother. Told her it’d been blessed by one of Tymora’s priests.”

He came back to the bed, took the locket, secreted it in a pocket of his cloak, and gave her another kiss.

“I’ll take all the luck I can get.”

She smiled. “You need your haircut.”

“You’ll cut it when I return,” he said. “Everything will be fine.”

With that, he headed out into the storm. He opened his mouth to the sky and tasted the rain, found it normal, and thanked Chauntea. The crops would live another day. He stood for a moment, alone in the dark, alone with his thoughts, and eyed the village, nestled amid the elms.

The other cottages sat quiet and dark, each a little nest of worry and want. The dozen or so elms rose like colossuses from the plains, whispering in the wind. The rain beat a drumbeat on his cloak. Gerak had always liked to think that the elms protected the village, wood guardians that would never let harm befall those who sheltered under their boughs. He decided to keep thinking it.

Holding his bow, he pulled up his hood and cut across the commons to the pond, where he filled his waterskin. Then he headed up the rise and toward the open plains.

The limbs of the malformed trees rattled in the wind and rain. Sayeed recalled the Sembia of a century before, before the Spellplague, even before the Shadowstorm: fields of barley, forests filled with game, rivers that ran fast and clear, merchants everywhere. But all of that was dead.

Like him, Sembia was alive while dead.

The last time Sayeed had walked the Sembian plains, the nation had been in the midst of a civil war, and he and Zeeahd had worn the uniforms of the overmistress’s armies. They and many others had been captured and maimed at the order of a Lathandarian, Abelar Corrinthal. Sayeed had taught himself to fight left-handed over the intervening years. And now Sembia was in the midst of a war again. Damp air and bad memories caused the nub of Sayeed’s thumb to ache distantly.

“Why do you slow?” Zeeahd barked over his shoulder.

Sayeed had not realized he had slowed. He hurried forward, the cats eyeing him as he moved through them to his brother’s side. Zeeahd’s hood obscured his face.

“I was. . thinking.”

“About?”

“The plains dredge up old memories.”

Zeeahd grunted.

“I was thinking about the Spellplague. About why we were. . changed as we were. I wonder if there’s purpose in it.”

Zeeahd spat, the cats pouncing on the spittle. “There’s no purpose in it. We were on that ship when the blue fire struck, just the wrong place at an ill time. And we were there because of this.”

Zeeahd held up his own right hand, the stump of his thumb a mirror of Sayeed’s, although marred with scales and a malformed joint.

“And we owe that to Abelar Corrinthal. Look for no more meaning than that. Men do awful things to other men. That’s the world.”

“That’s the world,” Sayeed echoed.

“We’ll be free of all this soon,” Zeeahd said. “The Lord of the Eighth promised. We need only find him the son.”

The son. They’d been seeking their prey for decades, scouring Faerun. By now, the son of Erevis Cale would be an old man. Or dead.

“You think this Oracle will tell us how to find him?” Sayeed asked.

“We’ll make him tell us,” Zeeahd said. “And if the son is already dead of age, we’ll find out where his corpse is and give that to Meph-to the Lord of Cania. And he will free us. Come on. We must find a village.”

Zeeahd picked up his pace, his gait lumbering, awkward, bestial. Sayeed fell in after him.

Over the next several hours the rain picked up until it fell in brown, stinking sheets. The whipgrass under their feet squirmed at the foul water’s touch.

“Do you require shelter?” Sayeed asked Zeeahd. “Sleep?”

“No,” his brother said, in a voice deeper than usual. The hood of Zeeahd’s cloak hid his face. “You know what I require, and I require it soon.”

They hustled through the rain, the wet ground sucking at their boots, the anticipatory cries of the hungry cats driving Sayeed to distraction. His brother wheezed, coughed frequently, and spat a black globule every few steps-to the delight of the cats, who feasted on it.

After a time, moans began to slip through Zeeahd’s lips and his form roiled under the robes. Sayeed could not help but stare. He’d never seen his brother so bad.

“Stop looking at me!” Zeeahd said to Sayeed, half turning his cowled head, his speech slurred and wet from malformed lips.

Sayeed licked his lips and looked away, queasy. The plains looked the same in all directions. The road they traveled appeared to lead nowhere. He feared that they would not be able to stop whatever was soon to happen to his brother.

A small, secret part of him wished that whatever was to happen would happen. His brother disgusted him. Their lives disgusted him. He tried to exorcise the traitorous thoughts with a half-hearted offer of aid.

“How can I help, Zeeahd?”

Zeeahd whirled on him. “You can find me a vessel! Or become one yourself!”

Sayeed’s eyes narrowed. His hand went to the hilt of his blade. As one, the cats turned to face him, all eyes and teeth and claws. He tightened his grip on the hilt, prepared to draw.

But a sound carried out of the rain, the distant scream of a woman from somewhere ahead. The cats arched their backs, cocked their heads.

“You heard it?” Zeeahd asked, still eyeing Sayeed out of the depths of his cowl. “It’s not a phantasm of my mind?”

“I heard it,” Sayeed said slowly, and relaxed his grip on his blade. More screams carried through the rain, terrified wails, dogs barking feverishly. “Someone requires aid.”

“Come on,” Zeeahd said, turning and staggering over the wet earth toward the screams. Despair raised his voice. “Hurry. I can’t continue like this.”

They ran over the slick earth, Sayeed leading, the cats trailing. Twice Zeeahd slipped and fell. Twice Sayeed turned back, lifted his brother to his feet, and felt the flesh and bone of his brother’s body swell and roil under his touch, as if something were nested in his flesh, squirming underneath it in an attempt to burst forth. Bile touched the back of his throat and shock pulled a question from him before he could block it with his teeth.

“What in the Hells is in you, Zeeahd?”

Zeeahd kept his cowled head turned away from his brother. His voice was guttural. “I told you before! I don’t know. He put something in me. To make sure I did his work. It’ll. . change me.” He shoved Sayeed ahead. “Please, hurry.”

Closer now, Sayeed distinguished the screams of several women and men, the frantic barking and growls of not one but two dogs. He topped a rise and crouched low amid a stand of broadleaf trees. Zeeahd crawled into position beside him, wheezing and moaning. The cats formed up around them, silent and staring.