Aftermath

If Ayan knew the men would be there, realistically, he should have rushed everyone out. I think that boy has a plot going of his own and isn't sharing with everyone else. Besides the whole oddity with everyone else and not recalling that his name is Ayan.

The fact that Una has never taken a life surprised me and I went back and through all the wars and fights and when his troupe got into trouble. He has a blade in his cane, for protection, but he hasn't actually killed anyone. I'm not even entirely certain he's ever made a person bleed. Then I realised Vera was the same.

The pair of them have a sibling who is extremely hard to find. He's quite a bit darker and a sort of "evil" to their good, but I still don't think that even he has taken a life before.

Maybe it's a Mother-born thing.

Durth's new saying is, apparently "you're joking... right?"

Read, Review and Enjoy.





They paused in the village an hour or two longer than Una had planned, to get the trailer fixed. Ayan made such a fuss about how the trailer tilted and shifted while he was trying to sleep that Una immediately sent for the man in charge of keeping the trailers in good repair. The young man had awoken in a mood, on edge and flighty, he wouldn’t sit still for more than a few minutes at a time. Una spent twenty minutes just convincing Ayan to sit still long enough to eat breakfast.

As the troupe finally mobilized, Durth realised why Ayan had been pacing.

Some of the villagers were waiting out on the road for them.

“Move,” Una called to them even as he pulled the horses to a stop.

“You ain’t people,” the leader snapped out. They were all males, mostly young males.

“Lack of women,” Una muttered to Durth, “and we’re leaving with yet another, the good parents there send their daughters off to be married and the bad ones sell them to passing merchants for slaves. Somewhat upsets the balance. Makes them itchy.”

“So how is that our fault?” Durth asked.

“’Cause you ain’t natural, neither of you with your touching.”

Raya appeared beside the trailer, broadsword out and a lethal look in his eyes, “what’s the hold up?”

Una sighed, “Durth, step down from the trailer.”

“Why?”

“You and I are the cause of this, Ayan, drive on, you know the way.” Una slid off of the trailer’s seat. Durth muttered a curse to himself and dropped to the ground himself.

The young men allowed the trailers to pass without incident. They were smirking at Una and Durth and seemingly ignoring Raya. The Brother adjusted his weight and looked from one man to the other before he glanced at Durth, eyebrows rising.

“Let us pass.”

“You,” the leader jabbed a finger at Una, “I’m going to kill myself.”

Una looked at Raya, “fine. Go.”

Durth looked back at Raya just in time to see the young man grin. He hefted the broadsword and rushed the nearest man, who turned in Raya’s direction as if he were checking something that had been seen out the corner of an eye. The men split up into two groups. Four men went after Una and three moved towards Durth. Who was not armed.

And everyone but the man Raya was fighting, was ignoring the Brother.

“I’m unarmed!” Durth squeaked, “I got no weapon, I got no weapon!” and he hadn’t been taught how to fight hand to hand combat. He wasn’t trying to protest the attack, he was trying to get Raya’s attention so that the Cousin would step in and do something to help him. Raya ignored him, Una glanced over once but that was it, “I have no-” an axe flew through the air, Raya having disarmed his opponent and thrown the weapon over.

Durth had to jump to catch it, even then it caught his hand painfully. He had only a moment to heft the weight before one of the attackers reached him, hoe in hand.

“Hoe against a trained warrior?” Raya hooted, cleaning his blade on the downed man’s shirt.

Except Raya hadn’t looked up, Durth noted as he side stepped a clumsy attack and smacked the man in the back of the head with the flat of the blade.

Just because they were stupid, didn’t mean Durth had to kill them. One of the others tried to sneak up behind him, Durth turned the axe in his hand, judged that one side was blunt and desperately in need of sharpening, and slammed that edge into the man’s wrist. He heard the crack of bone as the man dropped with a scream. And continued to scream like a little girl as Durth stepped over him and met the battered blade of the last man. He saw how the blade vibrated, some trinket made before the world had ended it had never been meant to see and survive battle.

The man hacked at Durth clumsily, leaving his gut open for a swipe or a hack from the axe but Durth waited for another opening. When it came, Durth misjudged the sides of the axe, the blade bit into the young man’s shoulder, breaking bone and causing what was no doubt going to mean the loss of the arm.

Durth glanced at the other two on the ground, obviously not interested in getting back up to fight. He turned his attention to Raya who was glaring at him.

“You should have taken their lives,” Raya snapped.

“Fewer bodies to bury,” Durth said in response, turning to Una.

The immortal slid to avoid an axe as he twisted his body to the side to avoid the swing of a rapier. It was an impossible move for a people to do. All four men were still awake and perfectly healthy. Raya growled and Durth frowned.

“Just off them already!” Durth snapped.

“He won’t,” Raya snapped back at Durth, “Una is a pacifist. He’s never taken a life before.”

“Wh-” Durth watched as Raya rushed the men and slid between them and Una.

The Cousin snarled at them and they backed off. Teeth bared, Raya stepped towards the young men, making them step backwards. All of a sudden Raya existed and he was scary as could be. They bolted, leaving their dead and injured friends behind.

“What in the hells?” Durth growled, closing the distance between himself and Una, “you get attacked, you attack back.”

“I left my cane behind.”

“On purpose,” Raya jabbed a finger at Una, “you did it on purpose. They’ll be reborn, damn it, it’s not like you’re killing them.”

“They won’t be reborn, you idiotic fool, only higher spirits and a select few souls are special enough to be born the same way again and again. They are dead, they are never coming back and their families will never get to see them again, they are dead,” Una yelled at Raya.

Una used to believe in reincarnation. Used to believe that a person who died was not lost forever, but only gone for a little while. He used to believe in a cycle of birth and death and the natural order of things.

Durth frowned and dropped his axe, “you’re an idiot,” he said to Una before he turned to Raya and said, “let a man believe what he wishes, even if it’s the stupidest thing in the world. He’ll only have himself to blame when he gets hurt.”

“My limbs will grow back,” Una growled.

“Apparently your mind does not,” Raya muttered, sheathing his broadsword, “come on, we’ve got a long walk ahead of us.”

“There is nothing wrong with my mind!” Una bellowed after Raya, the immortal frowned and turned to Durth, who simply returned to the look, “there is nothing wrong with my mind.”

“You were the one who said there are still bits of metal floating around inside your head,” Durth said quietly, “Fuzzy memories and you’re not the same any more. There is something wrong with your mind. Or. By your own beliefs, Una no longer exists and has been replaced by a bitter old man.”

“I’m not bitter.”

“The gods took your lover, lost him, tried to kill you to further their own plots and now you’re stuck trudging about with nothing and no one of interest. You’ve a lot to be bitter about and denying it isn’t going to help matters.”

“I do not think it is right to kill a child for smacking you with a rattle.” Una snapped, even as Durth wondered if Una meant the gods were but children to him, or if Una was simply referring to their previous discussion.

“If you kill a child for smacking you with a rattle, how many other children do you think will smack you with the rattle?” Durth asked.

“A good deal, that would be like poking a hive of bees.”

“Now what if you took the rattle from the child?”

“Stop saying child, it disturbs me,” Una growled, marching after Raya.

Durth fell in beside Una, “Fine. You have a village full of people. One of them has a club and thinks because he has a club and you won’t fight back, he can bash your head in with it. You take it back and bash his head in. What then?”

Una stopped walking, “the club is still the rattle, which is power, is it not?”

“Yes.”

“No one can do that.” Una muttered before he started walking again, “Despite his past, or perhaps because of it, Rahl-ta has never been the one to bash in the heads of the people. De has not inherited his father’s love of blood and Illuva only craves it when someone pokes her on a bad day.”

“So, none of the higher gods would want to bash heads in?”

“There is,” Una said quickly, “supposed to be a godling about but it is unknown what the godling’s attitude would be, or even who is the godling.”

“What about the god that’s referred to as an it, the one with no gender?” Durth said, recalling Raya’s words.

Una frowned, “The god of mortality? That one’s power is already overflowing into the people, that is why you find ones who have some control over power but have no power themselves. Why you, being normal, can have such a reaction to a bit of oddity, the shaking and passing out for three days that you did. Why Raya can make himself invisible unconsciously.”

“That was-”

“From the overflow. Raya has absolutely no power of his own but he managed to make himself appear first invisible then all consuming to those young men. The world is already imbalanced. Any fool with a spell book can achieve some level of work.”

“You’re joking.”

“It was bound to happen one day. Very nearly every people alive has some amount of power in their blood. Raya and those like him have absolutely none, but they are rare.”

“Those like him?”

“You, haven’t you noticed?” Una murmured, “Ayan’s hair is black as midnight, Tara, my fortune teller, is a lighter black. The more powerful a person is, the blacker their hair. Raya is a blond, you are as well. There is no power in you, Durth. Not a drop. A virgin vessel. Amusingly, you and Raya are also two of about a hundred candidates for a new people of the gods. They,” Una motioned upward, “choose a vessel which has no power of its own, and thus nothing to clash with, and pour themselves into it.”

“So a god can make whatever they want.”

“Yes, but the gods are only allowed to create one people. Whisper, Death, healer, prophet. They have their people. To make another would be against the …” Una looked away from Durth, “against the laws of the gods, it would start a war.”

“You paused, why did you pause?”

“I did not.”

“The god of mortality doesn’t have a people, does it?”

“It has the Aniege.”

“What?”

Una turned back to Durth, “the Aniege, boy, the family itself, the blood bound power, the ones who walk that line between god and people. They are the people of the god of mortality. Bound to do its bidding but more disobedient than any other people because the throne tries to keep the god from gaining power.”

“Then why does it have power?”

“…” Una’s lips pressed together, “the throne is focused elsewhere. What has he got planned? The game has been suspended while the world topples around, Illuva has the key in hand now and he hasn’t played since…”

“What?” Durth asked, utterly confused. The game between the gods, he had heard Raya mention it and it had to do with Rahl-ta’s betrayal but no one had said it was still going on, that there was a new round of it happening. Or. Had they and Durth just wasn’t listening?

Una stopped walking, “you don’t know?”

“Know what?”

“Rahl-ta’s betrayal. It was the god of mortality he tried to destroy.”

“Oh…” Which was a whatever, though that would tie Raya to the god that almost got destroyed and that was the god who wanted all power destroyed. Who. Was also the god who owned the Aniege, the most powerful bloodline of the people. Who at the same time was trying to create a mate for Una to replace the one Una lost because the gods took it from Una.

Which could either be a very good thing, or a very bad thing.

“And it was Raya who is the god’s mate.”

Durth let out a startled, high pitched squeak, “you’re joking. Right?”


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