Нил Шустерман: Thief Of Souls

It had been an amusing-enough diversion to take these twelve, and set them above the rest of mankind— but a diversion was all it was supposed to be. He had not foreseen them turning on him as they had. Now, in the intervening years, their powers’ had grown un­checked, swelling wildly out of control. They were weeds, and like all weeds had to be torn out at the root.

An arch collapsed behind him as he crossed into the great hall. He barely flinched, for his mind was focused now. Time was short and the task immense. He could not be sidetracked.

He descended a narrow set of stairs toward the forge, as the shaking mountain settled to a slow rumble.

There, in the dungeonlike cavern of the forge, he found the blacksmith, cowering from the heaving force of the mountain. On the table lay the bronze form of a new creation: a hideous thing with snakes growing from its skull, like hair. It did not yet live, its metal not yet turned to flesh by the hand of the smith.

All-around were living monstrosities in cages. Crea­tures clearly too vile to be set free on the island. The cages shook and rattled with the rumble of the erupting volcano. Seeing this place made it clear that this day of reckoning had been too long in coming.

“Hephaestus,” he called out to the cowering black­smith. The blacksmith stood, a full six foot five, but still as hideously ugly as he had been at fifteen... on the day Hephaestus had shackled his teacher to the moun­tain. All that talent in shaping flesh, yet the homely blacksmith did not have the power to change his own unattractive features.

“Prometheus!” wailed Hephaestus. It was a name The Twelve had given him. Forethought. Premeditation. As if he were the divine embodiment of some greater plan. He abided the name, as it served his purposes, although he much preferred to be called the Bringer, for he had brought them all into the glory which they now abused.

The Bringer looked with scorn on the snarling, caged teratisms. “Thirty years of practice, and these monsters are the best you can create? How can you call yourself a smith?”

Hephaestus quaked in his sandals, and spoke in a voice far too weak for such a large man. “They . . . They are for the King’s amusement.”

The Bringer nodded. “After today the King no longer needs to be amused.”

He strode forward, and Hephaestus quickly ran to the other side of the stone table. “We grew afraid of you,” he tried to explain. “They made me build those shackles. They made me hammer you to the mountain. I couldn’t go against their wishes . . .”

“You had nothing to fear then,” the Bringer told Hephaestus. “But you do now.” He held Hephaestus in his gaze as he moved around the table. “In these years I have come to realize that your species is not only corrupt, but pathetic. Unworthy of the slightest charity or sympathy.”

“Let me live!” pleaded the homely blacksmith. “I’ll do better! Kill the others if need be, but let me live!”

The Bringer thrust his hand forward, and grabbed the blacksmith by his tunic, pulling him closer. “Your selfishness disgusts me, " he said. “But enough chatter. I’m hungry.” And with that, the Bringer smiled, and, for the first time in many, many years, prepared to dine.

As he held Hephaestus, he forced an ounce of his true self up from the depths of the human body he wore. He opened his mouth, letting red tendrils of light stretch through the air, probing forward like roots seeking water.

Hephaestus gasped, but could not squirm out of his grip. The hungry tendrils latched on to the struggling blacksmith’s face, and the fight drained out of him as the Bringer began his feast.

“No,” the blacksmith screamed, but it was already too late. The Bringer cast him aside. Weakened, but still alive, Hephaestus felt his arms and chest. His body was unharmed, but something was different. Something was wrong.

“What have you done to me?” he demanded.

“I’ve taken from you what you never deserved, " said the Bringer. “I’ve devoured your soul.”

As he said it, the Bringer could see the weight of the loss beginning to take effect in the blacksmith. A living, thinking brain suddenly robbed of being. A body going through the motions of life, with nothing living inside. Unbearable emptiness.

The soulless blacksmith fell to his knees, covered his eyes, and wept the dry, anguished tears of the living dead.

Seeking out the others was a simple matter. He found most of them in their temples, still playing the parts of gods to the servants who had gathered there, seeking salvation from the erupting mountain. The “gods” must have sensed he was coming, for there was no surprise in their eyes—only fear. They knew of his hunger for souls. In fact, they had helped him gorge on the boat­loads of virgins and eunuchs their loyal followers were so fond of sending from the mainland. They helped, that is, until they grew disgusted of the endeavor, and fixed him upon the mountainside. Now it was their souls that would be devoured, and they knew it. Some ran when they saw him coming, but he caught them as they fled. It was their fear of his hunger that gave him the upper hand. Even in his weakened state, the Bringer could latch on to their powerful souls and tear them loose as easily as a human might skin a rabbit. Others held their ground and fought him. Hera, Apollo . . . Yet with each soul he drank in, the stronger he became for the next confrontation. The self-proclaimed Goddess of Love did not resist him. Instead she wrapped herself around him, giving herself to him in one final moment of dark sen­sual ecstasy. Ares, on the other hand, proud and war­like as always, raised a sword and tried to cut him down, but in the end spat forth his soul into the Bringer’s devouring tendrils just as Hephaestus had, and the Bringer set his empty shell free to wander the crumbling halls of the doomed palace. Only Athena, seeing there was no hope, had the wisdom to take her own life before he arrived.

Finally, only one remained.

The King sat alone in his grand throne room, like a captain going down with his vessel. He must have heard the screams of the others, but did not lift a finger to help them. Even now they could be heard wailing in the crumbling chambers below, their soulless bodies still mimicking life.

The Bringer had dined on the others and was now bloated with power. He had never before dined on such great souls, and felt as if he would burst out of the human host-body that held him. Still he kept all of that energy contained within as he approached the King. He knew that this was his true adversary. The King was the strongest of them all, and would not be as easily defeated.

The King’s hair was white. Although he was no older than the others, he looked more weathered. Still his eyes were the same as they had been when he was fifteen. They held depth, and a hint of true greatness.

The King’s manner was calm, but the Bringer could feel his fear.

“Get off my island,” proclaimed the King.

The Bringer let loose a cold and bitter laugh. “It was not your island until I gave it to you, Zeus. You had nothing until I came to teach you of your powers.”

Then the King stood, stepping down from his heavy throne. “We would have defeated our titans, and learned of our powers without you. We would have achieved greatness all alone.”

The Bringer felt his lips curl from his own rage. “I see no greatness here. Only decadence and waste.”