N. Jemisin - The Kingdom of Gods

Suddenly, though, in the depths of the silence and vagueness, I heard a voice. It called my name, my soul , with a fullness and strength that I had not heard in several mortal lifetimes. Familiar pulling sensation. Unpleasant. I was comfortable, so I rolled over and tried to ignore it at first, but it pricked me awake, slapped me in the back to prod me forward, then shoved. I slid through an aperture in a wall of matter, like being born—or like entering the mortal realm, which was pretty much the same thing. I emerged naked and slippery with magic, my form reflexively solidifying itself for protection against the soul-devouring ethers that had once been Nahadoth’s digestive fluids, in the time before time. My mind dragged itself out of stupor at last.

Someone had called my name.

“What do you want?” I said—or tried to say, though the words emerged from my lips as an unintelligible growl. Long before mortals had achieved a form worthy of imitation, I had taken the likeness of a creature that loved mischief and cruelty in equal measure, as quintessential an encapsulation of my nature as my child shape. I still tended to default to it, though I preferred the child shape these days. More fine control and nuance. But I had not been fully conscious when I took form in the mortal realm, and so I had become the cat.

Yet that shape was clumsy when I tried to rise, and something about it… felt wrong. I wasted no time trying to understand it, simply became the boy instead—or tried to. The change did not go as it should have. It took real effort, and my flesh remolded itself with molasses-slow reluctance. By the time I had clothed myself in human skin, I was exhausted. I flopped where I had materialized, panting and shaking and wondering what in the infinite hells was wrong with me.

“Sieh?”

The voice that had summoned me from the vague place. Female. Familiar and yet not. Puzzled, I tried to lift my head and turn to face the voice’s owner, and found to my amazement that I could not. I had no strength.

“It is you. My gods, I never imagined…” Soft hands touched my shoulders, pulled at me. I groaned softly as she rolled me onto my side. Something pulled at my head, painful. Why the hells was I cold? I was never cold.

“By the endless Bright! This is…”

She touched my face. I turned toward her hand instinctively, nuzzling, and she gasped, jerking away. Then she stroked me again and did not pull away when I pressed against her this time.

“Sh-Shahar,” I said. My voice was too loud and sounded wrong. I opened my eyes as wide as I could and stared at her, buglike. “Shahar?”

She was Shahar. I was certain of it. But something had happened to her. Her face was longer, the bones finer, the nose bridge higher. Her hair, which had been shoulder length when I’d last seen her—a moment ago? The day before?—now tumbled around her body, disheveled as if she’d just woken from sleep. Waist length at least, maybe longer.

Mortal hair did not grow so quickly, and not even Arameri would waste magic on something so trivial. Not these days, anyhow. Yet when I tried to find the nearby stars to know how much time had passed, what came back to me was only a blank, unintelligible rumble, like the jabbering of memory-worms.

“Cold,” I murmured. Shahar got up and went away. An instant later, something covered me, warm and thick with the scents of her body and bird feathers. It should not have warmed me, any more than my body should have been cold to begin with, but I felt better. By this point I could move a little, so I curled up under it gratefully.

“Sieh…” She sounded like she was regaining her composure after a deep shock. Her hand fell on my shoulder again, comforting. “Not that I’m not glad to see you”—she did not sound glad, not at all—“but if you were ever going to come back, why now? Why here, like this? This… gods. Unbelievable.”

Why now? I had no idea, since I had no idea what now meant. Of then , I remembered less thoughts than impressions: holding her hand, holding Deka’s hand. Light, wind, something out of control. Shahar’s face, wide-eyed with panic, mouth open and—

Screaming. She had been screaming.

Some of my strength had returned. I used it to reach for her knee, which was a few inches from my face. My fingers slid over smooth, hot skin to reach thin, fine cloth—a sleep shift. She gasped and jerked away. “You’re freezing!”

“I’m cold .” So cold that I could feel the room’s moisture beginning to cling to my skin, wherever the blanket didn’t cover it. I pulled my head under the blanket, or tried to. That pulling sensation again. It held my head in place, though I could move somewhat against its tension. “Demonshit! What is that?”

“Your hair,” said Shahar.

I froze, staring up at her.

She pushed at my arm, then pulled up a lock of hair for me to see. Loose-waved, dark brown, thick, and longer than her arm. Feet long. I couldn’t move because I was half tangled in it.

“I didn’t tell my hair to get that long,” I said. It was a whisper.

“Well, tell it to get short again. Or quit flopping about so I can get you loose.” She flipped up the blanket and started gathering my hair, tugging and finger combing. When she turned me onto my side, my head was freed. I’d been lying on the bulk of it.

My hair should not have grown. Her hair should not have grown. “Tell me what’s happened,” I said as she shifted me about like an oversized doll. “How much time has passed since we took the oath?”

“Took the oath?” She stared down at me, an incredulous look on her face. “Is that all you remember? My gods, Sieh, you broke the oath almost the instant you made it—”

I cursed in three mortal languages, loudly, to cut her off. “Just tell me how much time has passed!”

Fury reddened her cheeks, though the pale light around us—Sky’s glowing walls—made this difficult to see. “Eight years.”

Impossible. “I would have remembered eight years.”

I should have understood the anger in her voice as she snapped, “Well, that’s how long it’s been. Not my fault if you don’t remember it. I suppose you must have so many important things to do, you gods, that mortal years pass like breaths for you.”

They did, but we were aware of the breaths. I wanted to know more, like why she sounded so angry and hurt. Those things called to me like the sting of broken innocence, and they felt important. But they also felt like the sorts of things that needed to be softened with silence before they were brought forth sharp, so I pushed them aside and asked, “Why am I so weak?”

“How should I know?”

“Where was I? While I was gone?”

“Sieh”—she let out a hard exhalation—“I don’t know. I haven’t seen you once since the day eight years ago when you and I and Deka agreed to become friends. You tried to kill us and disappeared.”

“Tried—I didn’t try to kill you.” Her face hardened further, full of hate. That meant I had tried to kill her, or at least she believed I had. “I didn’t intend to. Shahar—” I reached for her again, instinctive this time. I could pull strength from mortal children if I had to, but when I touched her knee again, there was only a trickle of what I needed. Of course; eight years. She would be sixteen now—not yet a woman, but close. I whimpered in frustration and pulled away.

“I remember nothing from that moment until now,” I said, to take my mind off fear. “I took your hands and then I was here. Something is wrong.”

“Obviously.” She pinched the bridge of her nose between her fingers and let out a heavy sigh. “Hopefully your arrival didn’t trip the boundary scripts in the walls, or there will be a dozen guards breaking down the door in a minute. I’m going to have to think of some way to explain your presence.” She paused, frowning at me hopefully. “Or can you leave? That would really be the easiest solution.”