The Godgame (The Godgame, Book 1) (20 page)

“Ashley,” a voice called out. “Ash! Look up!”

Directly above him, hanging by a rope from the rafters was someone he’d never seen before. The figure was dressed in a thick cloak with a hood pulled tightly over the face so that the figure’s features were obscured in shadow.

“Ash,” the strange figure said, reaching a hand down for him.

Panicked, his heart racing, Ash leapt up, swinging his hands desperately, but he fell short. He was out of reach.

The smoke was thicker now. Shrieks filled the space, curdling the air, human suffering and pain.

“Try again,” the cloaked figure said.

His mind blank, Ash began to claw, climbing the people around him like a cornered rodent, digging into the flesh with his fingers, kicking and pulling, until he was on top of the churning crowd. He reached up, and caught the figure's hand.

The cloaked figure pulled him upward, but something caught Ash’s foot. He looked down and a boy about his age was clutching onto his leg, looking up at him with a crazed expression.

“No,” the figure pulling him up said.

Without thinking, Ash began to kick. He smashed the heel of his shoe into the boy’s face. He smashed until something broke and the boy’s face was bloody and boy’s grip loosened and let go.

The hooded figure pulled him up, even as flames licked up the walls and charred debris began to fall into the crowd, up and into the shadows, into the smoke, through a torn opening in the roof, even as the smell of burning hair and charred flesh came after them, and down the back side of the barn, the strange cloaked figure tossing him into a hay pile at the foot of the barn. The cloaked figure landed lightly beside Ash and crouched before him. In the cometlight, he could see the figure was a woman, black hair leaking from the sides of her hood, eyes bright, skin glinting a faint purplish hue.

“I found you,” the hooded woman said. “Come with me.”

The woman stood and she was very tall, taller than anyone he’d ever met before. “This way,” she said. “We must keep moving.”

“Wait,” Ash said. “How did you—”

“I’ve been sent to find you. My name is Skin.”

“Skin?”

“Yes. Come.”

A great wave of heat washed over them from the burning barn, the screams from inside so constant they were almost white noise inside Ash’s head. “But…”

Something crashed inside the barn and the screams ebbed and flowed. Voices approached and two Talosians appeared, spitting on a young man, pulling his pants down, laughing. Another appeared from the other side, dragging a woman by her hair.

“We must go,” Skin said. “This way.”

Ash watched the unnaturally tall, purple-skinned stranger move toward the edge of the village, toward the trees. He had little choice: he followed.

They dashed across the open ground. The Talosians didn’t seem to notice them, too intent on their pillaging to care if a few stragglers managed to escape into the woods.

When they’d almost reached the trees, Skin stopped suddenly.

Something was coming, something dark and tall, even taller than Skin, its face looming. It crashed through the branches with impunity, not speaking or yelling or making any other sound.

“No,” Skin said.

Mother Marlena’s effigy thrashed into view and came at them.

~

“Get back,” Skin said, putting herself between Ash and the effigy, drawing an impressive blade from the scabbard at her back.

The effigy moved, not quickly, but relentlessly, its arms reaching out. With each step it took, chunks of mud flaked and fell from its skeletal structure, except from its face: impassive; blank depressions for eyes; a large, sharp nose; no mouth, no expression. It brought its arm up and swung it like a club.

Skin dodged nimbly, rolled, and her blade swung upward along the effigy’s abdomen, cutting away mud and filth, but little else.

The effigy immediately swung back with its other arm and Skin was forced to dodge back, put on the defensive.

“Hey there, pretty boy,” someone said, and Ash whirled around.

A Talosian soldier was approaching him, a man dressed in a woman’s gown—tattered and worn, that may once have been pink—pointing a curved blade like a sickle at him. “Come with me, pretty boy,” he said and smiled, missing teeth.

Ash turned and ran into the chaos.

He was engulfed in smog, choking him, making it hard to breathe. A horn honked and a buggy jostled by with a woman in the passenger’s seat stroking a strange animal with striped fur on her shoulder. The woman turned and, for a brief moment, made eye contact with him, before the buggy was gone. Ahead of him, a couple of Talosians tugged a group of women through the murk by ropes tied around their necks. Everywhere soldiers were intoxicated, swaying and laughing; one singing while another blew a small horn made from what appeared to be some sort of sea creature’s shell; one who appeared to be drinking slurry directly from an old china cup. Somewhere something exploded, a ripple like an earthquake going through the ground. A Talosian soldier about Ash’s age was sitting on a barrel clapping his hands enthusiastically, making exaggerated faces at no one in particular, next to him a man bent over, vomiting. Dust and exhaust swirling in irrational eddies. “Found some fruit,” someone shouted. And motors revved, and everywhere things were left in flames. And as Ash ran, someone on a motorized bike kicked him and he tumbled into a crater and was still.

~

Ash lay without moving for an indeterminate amount of time, until the last of the motors had passed, until the screaming faded, until a hazy ringing hush fell over everything.

He lifted himself, and peered into the murk. Threads of crimson mist slunk along the ground, slumping into crevasses of earth torn by buggy wheels and explosives. He stood and looked about. He could feel his legs moving beneath him, carrying him back toward the village.

To his right, there was an overturned buggy, flames burning lazily from several shredded pipes. A dead dog lay in the road, along with several other motionless heaps. An oxhoag floundered in the mud, its legs broken, its struggles useless.

His eyes, he found as he walked, no longer wanted to focus on anything, glazed and numb. Nothing he saw horrified or repulsed him any longer. He was in shock.

A girl, a young woman, materialized ahead of him, limping across the street.

“Pera?”

The girl stopped and turned to face him without recognition, her eyes completely vacant, staring past him, as if at some distant gray sea. Her mouth hung open, blood dribbling over her lips and down her chin; blood smeared the insides of her thighs, staining her dress.

“Pera?”

She turned back and walked slowly and stiffly to the other side of the street, and disappeared into the mists.

~

He found himself in the middle of the street, loose sheets of paper swirling all around. The papers were raining from the sky. He felt numb, and hot, feverish. He felt...detached. He felt...old. He knew what was written on the papers.

He couldn’t see anyone. He couldn’t hear anyone, just the howling of the wind. It was cloudy now, everything gray and colorless.

Blinking back dust and smoke, motion caught his attention and he could see Talosian soldiers approaching. They were not talking, moving silently; they’d already seen him.

He didn’t run. He stood motionless and waited.

The propaganda papers made a simple statement:
EXTERMINATE ALL NOVANS
.

LENA

She crawled, because she lacked the strength to stand. She was going to die. The dirt and leaves and twigs of the forest floor caked her hands, cut into her skin, but she didn’t care. The fever blazed through her. Sometimes it grew in intensity, as if someone were blowing fire through her skull, and she was forced to stop for a moment, her thoughts running riot, devouring themselves, tormented and violent. Insects crawled over her body, since she was unable to brush them away, eager to begin the process of decomposition that would return her to the natural cycle of the forest, to the muck through which she wriggled, one agonizing inch at a time.

Her head felt heavy and swollen. Sometimes she felt as if she was floating just above the ground, other times that she was too heavy for the earth, and with each pathetic movement was sinking into it, into the murk, into darkness.

At one point, she looked up to see an animal, with round eyes that shone yellow, four clawed feet and a mouth filled with sharpened teeth, staring at her. The animal stopped to sniff at her upraised hand, then moved away and was gone.

At dawn, as light began to filter through the trees, a calmness came over her. Her heart beat slow and steady. Her head continued to burn, her body trembling with exhaustion, but those things no longer seemed to matter. She was at a crossroads, something tugging on her gut, summoning her.

She lifted her head. A beam of light shone in her eyes, blinding her. She began to crawl more quickly, as if the cometlight had given her strength. When she came upon a tree fallen at an angle, she clutched at it, ignoring the rough bark that made her hands bleed, a stray branch cutting her cheek, and somehow pulled herself to her feet.

She staggered onward, slowly at first, as her legs pricked and burned, and then more quickly. She moved. If she stopped, she knew she would fall and rest forever beneath these trees, unable to rise again. The invitation continued to tug at her innards. Her bare feet began to bleed, but her body was no longer important to her.

Hours must have passed and she was numb, walking in the direction she was called, barely aware of her feet moving, one and then the other. Her mind was empty, her thoughts blessedly silent.

Somewhere toward evening, as the shadows of the trees became long and deepened, she came into a place—a grove of sorts, the trees falling away—the reality of which was in doubt. There was no longer ground beneath her feet, nor sky above her head. There was nothing, and it was pleasant.

She was filled with an overwhelming sense of peace and a desire to simply let go, and everything that she had still to do would never take place.

Then the tug became stronger, and she stepped forward.

She found herself alive—Lena Alexander, wife of Josef and daughter of Doran, mother of four children—in a forest similar yet somehow different from the one in which she’d been moments ago, everything brighter, deep and vibrant.

She felt her pains settle over her, like a heavy and familiar coat, her sickness and burning forehead, her hands and feet torn from her struggles, hunger and thirst like rabid animals fighting for importance within her.

She also felt something else, purpose and importance, dragging her onward.

~

She fell to her knees before the stream, plunging her head into the shockingly cold water, opening her mouth to drink. The sores on her lips stung, but she sucked the water in and swallowed and swallowed. She rose and puked everything she had in her stomach over the grass, then brought her head down and drank some more.

She was like this, in this vulnerable position, when the animal attacked.

It leapt onto her back, claws digging into the flesh just behind her shoulders. She fell, rolling, and the animal would have taken her throat in its jaws and ended her right there, but she brought her arm up just in time. The animal’s jaws closed over it, teeth sinking into her.

She watched her blood flow, filling the animal’s mouth—a bear. She was unable to free her arm, the pain coursing up and through her, giving her strength she didn’t know she had, making her angry.

She beat on the side of the bear with her free hand. Then struck its nose with her fist. The animal’s eyes glared at her, yellow and crazed, unrelenting. She tore at its mane, she clawed at its eyes, but the bear shook its head violently and held on.

She stood, and for a moment, she and the bear were at a standstill. She was taller and it was heavier. She glared back, trying to figure out what she should do, but the pain was intense, lancing up her arm.

The bear snapped its jaws for a better position, and she yanked her arm free.

The bear looked at her, licking its chops. She could see its legs tensing, preparing to lunge. She flung her hands out, frantically searching for a weapon.

The bear came at her and she threw an awkward kick. Those lethally sharp teeth closed over her ankle, pulled her off her feet. She tried to pull free, but the bear whipped its head and savaged her foot.

Her hand closed over a rock. She lifted it and brought it around. She smashed it against the bear’s head, but still it attacked her.

She lifted the rock high with both hands. The bear glared at her, its eyes dark and round, seeing her, preparing to once again lunge for her exposed throat. It was fast. She brought the rock down. She couldn’t see or aim. She could only bring it down.

A dull crunch.

The bear lay still.

Lena lay on the grassy bank by the stream for an untold amount of time, her wounds oozing feebly. When she’d regained her breath, she ripped strips of cloth from her clothing and bound her wounds. She bathed and cleaned herself the best she could in the stream.

The rock she’d used to kill the small bear had broken open into shards when she’d dropped it, dark and glossy on the inside: obsidian.

She took up the sharpest piece she could find that she could grasp comfortably in her hand and used it to open the belly of the bear. When she’d peeled back enough skin, exposing flesh red and sinewy and raw, she began to slice chunks of muscle free and devour them, blood running down her chin.

~

Sometime later, she came upon a camp of many tents, setup in a clearing in the forest.

She limped into the camp, her lips and hair stained with blood, cut and bruised and beaten, her makeshift bandages dark and soaked through. She wore the raw bearskin over her shoulders. As she moved slowly along the path that served as the main road between the tents, people began to appear, staring at her with fear and awe, unable to look away.

Lena limped, but held her head high, her eyes blazing with triumph. The people congregated and began to follow her. No one spoke. The crowd grew.

When she reached the center of the encampment, she stepped onto a flattened rock that lay there. She rose so that all the people could see her. She turned to them. Their eyes followed her.

For a moment, she hesitated, unsure, even at that moment, what she was about to do. Then, in a voice quiet but assured, she said, “The Talosians are here.”

People stared at her, looks of bewilderment and grief. She did not know where they had come from or what they had been through, but she knew, could see it in their eyes, that in a very short amount of time, they had seen a great deal of brutality, cruelty and death.

“They have attacked Fallowvane,” she said. “They have killed my family.” She swallowed and took a deep breath. She secretly hoped some of her family had escaped, but she didn’t dare say so out loud. She summoned her anger, and the strength she had found in the woods, pushing away the grief that threatened to overtake her. She clenched her fist and brought it up for everyone to see, her arm shaking with effort. “They have come from the vile City. They have fouled our lands.”

She paused, looking sternly out at the crowd. “Where have you come from? What have you been through?”

For a moment, no one answered. Then, a woman’s voice, “We are the People of the Conspiring Moons.”

“I know you,” Lena said. “You are here in Nova to live lives more closely bonded with nature, and with the universe. You’re stargazers. Something you could never be in Talos.”

A murmur of assent ran through the crowd.

“And Cave Town? What happened to your homes?”

More murmuring and pained looks, but no in the crowd spoke.

Lena nodded. “I’m sorry. I understand your pain.” She lowered her head and spoke softly. “I was alone, and sick. I was ready to die. I was ready…” She lifted her dirty face to the crowd. People leaned forward, listening intently. “But I was called back from the brink.” Her voice rose, louder and louder. “I have come back! There is a reason I am still alive!”

The crowd reacted now, more than murmuring, a collective exultation. A few people even clapped their hands.

Lena straightened her body, although it made her wounds throb, and stood tall. She practically shouted her next few words, strong and commanding. “My name is Lena Alexander and I have come
back
! I have come back for one purpose and one purpose only!”

The crowd held its breath, waiting.

“I am going to build an army!”

The crowd cheered and clapped.

~

“Who leads here?” she asked.

A woman spoke. “My father. I’ll take you to him.”

Lena stepped carefully from the rock that had been her stage and let the woman help her along. The people began to disperse, but they were talking now, excited. Her simple speech had uplifted their spirits, made them more than frightened refugees. They had begun to consider taking action against their aggressors. They had begun to consider revenge.

Now that she was back on solid ground, she became aware once again of her pains and the feeble state of her body. She was amazed at what she had just done, and in shock that it had worked. She hadn’t known what she was going to do until she was doing it.

“I’m Helen,” the woman said.

Lena smiled. “Thank you, Helen.”

They stepped through the opening of one of the larger tents and inside were several cots, a table upon which a map of the area had been unfurled and held in place with a few stones, and a man sitting in a chair looking over the map.

“Father,” Helen said. “Did you hear the commotion outside?”

The man lifted his head and smiled. “Every word.” He was much younger than he had at first appeared to Lena—hunched like an old man in his chair—perhaps in his late 30s or early 40s, with a dark beard, black hair, and kind eyes.

There was a dull buzzing sound and the man came around the table, his chair moving by a motor. He wheeled up to Lena and held out his hand. Lena took it, his grip firm.

“It’s good to meet you, sir,” Lena said.

“Likewise, but call me Fennric.” Using a set of controls before him with one hand, Fennric drove his chair back and around to face the table, turning his head to the side to look at her. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

Lena looked more closely at the man. She shook her head.

“That was a powerful speech,” Fennric said. “Do you really think you can go up against the Talosians? You can hardly stand.”

“I’ll need help.”

The man laughed, but it a good-natured sound. “You really don’t remember me? I suppose you wouldn’t. I’ve changed nearly as much as you have.” He looked her up and down. “We have a mutual friend.”

Lena held her breath.

“He’s the one who gave me this chair.”

Lena waited, knowing the name this man was about to speak.

Fennric raised his eyebrows, and opened his mouth to speak.

“Marrow,” he said.