Aftermath

Facebook is doing something funny, so those of you coming over from there, there are multiple updates for today... three... I ... think. Maybe four. Go back four and you should be good.

There could be as little as five more chapters for Aftermath.

For those who have not read Beginnings yet, head on over. Want to know where the axe head came from? Wait for the next chapter of Beginnings. Getting Una to talk about that part of his life is very difficult.

Off to bed I go, so no more updates tonight.

Read, Review and Enjoy.





The little alcove was off in the corner, away and near crumbling rocks. Giant boulders so old that they had almost been worn smooth by time. Durth could see where successive walls had been build around this area. The little Sidhe began stripping moss and vines off of the rocks, as he did so Durth spotted an indentation in one of the stones. He approached carefully and ran his fingers over it.

“There’s an iron axe imbedded in this stone,” Durth said, frowning as he bent close to it.

“Old history,” Ayan said dismissively before saying something to the little one. The creature immediately turned his attention to the plant that Ayan pointed out and began digging at the ground around the plant. Within moments, the Sidhe had several tubers and was munching on them, not caring about the dirt or the little bugs that stuck to the roots, “Durth, you’re going to want to sit down for this.”

Durth sighed and sat on the ground, “This seems very pointless. Sitting down, laying down, I’m still going to have my head spinning and want my blood to boil because everything hurts like. Like you’re smooshing me.”

Ayan shrugged as Paw leapt to the top of one of the boulders. Paw relaxed, draping himself across the top of the boulders to soak in the remaining rays of the setting sun. Ayan settled with his back against one of the boulders and let his breath out slowly.

The high priest dug around a bit in the ground then leaped up, like a startled fox. He chased something through the grass and then hopped on it and stuffed it in his mouth. Durth winced as he heard the crunching of bone. Licking the palms of its hands, the little Sidhe returned and settled down, crossing his legs. Strange syllables came out of the creature’s mouth, harsh and guttering, as if the high priest was trying to strangle himself.

“High priest, the language has altered over time.”

Head cocked, the Sidhe’s eyes narrowed to points, “Hiiihhhhuuuu pur eashh. Eeee aaahy ooooh eeeesh.”

“Is way of speech,” Ayan translated, “he can wrap his head around the one side or the other, but getting a hang of syllables and how vowels and consonants work together will take longer than we have.” Ayan launched into a long winded, but very quiet, speech. The high priest nodded emphatically, shoulders and torso bobbing as he did so.

Then the high priest began talking, making wide hand motions, voice becoming more prominent as he spoke. Young as he was, the Sidhe seemed used to making public speeches and broadcasting his voice to a large congregation. The Sidhe spoke and Durth felt nothing, nothing at all.

Durth looked at Ayan, who could only shrug, “Paw, I think it’s that ring. It’s star metal, I can’t work around star metal unless I can manipulate the metal itself. Otherwise, like anyone at all, I cannot get past it. Who would think to make a ring of it?”

“Who wouldn’t think to make a ring of it?” Durth asked Ayan, “seems smart to me. Star metal is that mythical stuff, empowered metal?”

“Yeah, that can’t be damaged in battle,” Ayan said in an acidic tone, “people have only ever made weapons… I suppose that’s the problem, isn’t it? People made weapons, this wasn’t people made.”

“Then who made it? The Sidhe?” Durth retorted, “they don’t even have. Well,” he winced as Paw’s head jerked up, as the big Sidhe male glared down at him, “you have to admit, your people come off as tribal at best.”

“Once your people were the tribal ones. Even then, we knew your kind to be dangerous,” the accent was funny, but the voice was all the high priest. Durth and Ayan both turned to him and made startled sounds, “once, we bowed to only God herself. And as we moved away from God above, she turned her eyes from us and we were damned by our own arrogance. God had a mate, we did not know that God had a mate, we simply called her God, the one and only. He made God a people and that people was your people. Rats and monkeys to our glory. But God, she smiled down on us and gave us a chance to redeem ourselves. And we took it. For giving up our lives and our selves to Her True Glory, we were gifted beyond the imaginations of your pathetic ancestors.

“Now this one tells me that he wants to take away the power of your people and leave you helpless once more. I say yes, then he says he cannot perform this thing any longer because of the ring God gifted down to us from the heavens themselves? Why should I remove it? It is binding me to God as her ever promise to my people. The true people.”

“Because, if you don’t remove it, the people keep their power, dumbass,” Durth snapped, “for a high priest so full of himself, you certainly are an idiot.”

“Be nice to him,” Paw snapped even as Ayan said, “enough!”

The young man’s voice roiled through the air and made the high priest whimper and flinch away. Ayan huffed out a breath, paused, then said, “Durth, he is telling the history of his people. Have a bit of understanding. He’s been raised to protect that thing with his life, it might not even been removable. Is it removable?”

The high priest clenched his jaw, then removed the ring from his middle, left finger. He set it in the palm of his left hand and loosely clenched his fist.

“Now try.” Ayan murmured quietly.

“Mother of God, hear the raising of my voice and understand the pride I feel at the blessing to even be alive, let alone in such a position as the one I am in now.”

And the world shifted sideways, spiralling out of control. Durth hit the ground and groaned. It was worse than the other two. He swore he could hear things speaking to him, could feel the stars reaching down towards him to drag him away from the earth. He latched on, hard and fast, to his mortal form even as his mortal form twisted out of control. There was no above or below him, simple existence in all its forms. Words drew him every which way and refused to let him be.

“Breath.”

Durth choked, vomiting on someone’s leg as they held his head carefully between two hands. His head hurt something awful, pounding with every breath he took. Closing his eyes didn’t help the way the world bent and moved under him.

“I think I’m going to be sick,” he groaned.

“You already have been,” Tah responded, barely containing the laughter in her voice.

“Old one says that you will live,” the high priest grumbled.

“Yes, you will,” came Vera’s voice, “but I suspect you will suffer a fever and headache until this process is completed.”

“What happened?” Durth grumbled, forcing himself to sit up, he commanded his stomach to stop complaining and focused on Vera, “I passed out?”

“The stars themselves went out,” Vera murmured, motioning upward as she looked, “some of them have not returned. That process has consumed the lives of many minor gods, cleaning the slate even more. Odd, how I had never realised before, how much they had been talking to me all this time. It is much quieter and yet much louder, now that I recognise what that murmuring is at the back of my mind.”

“Anybody?” Durth asked, rubbing his face, “a translation for those of us who don’t speak immortal?”

“When Shay-har fell, he and those who shared his bloodline, were pulled back into the heavens,” Ayan explained, offering Durth a hand up, “that line of stars, that thing that your civilization called an arm of a galaxy spread out before our little world, was actually the spirits of the gods, locked in the heavens for all eternity. What we just did, caused many of them to wink out, likely forever.”

“You’re crazy,” Durth growled, taking the offered hand to get himself to his feet, “Stars can’t just disappear.”

“Says the guy trying to become immortal to the flesh bound- oh, hello Una. I didn’t break him. Honest!” Ayan squeaked and bolted even as something creepy rolled over the area. Why creepy? Because Durth got the distinct feeling that Una was walking death, the kind that meant melting from the inside out, into a puddle of goo and still being alert enough to feel every moment of it.

Durth shifted away from Una. The immortal tilted his head just slightly and looked at Durth.

“I’m fine.”

“I told you no, Ayan!” Una completely ignored Durth and looked off to where Ayan had run to, causing the young man to duck behind the boulders, “I told you- is that my axe head? It’s still there?”

“That’s your axe head?” Vera growled, knocking the wind from Una’s anger. The older immortal put her hands on her hips and glared at Una, “that means it was you who put that feeling into my land? Into my walls? No one would work on this part of the garden after that axe head appeared. I should have known it was you, you and that damned Erit and those damned merchants, wasn’t it?”

“I’m going to bed,” Una said quickly, “Durth, come with me, as the only way to keep them from doing anything further to you seems to be keeping you within sight at all times.”

“But the process-” Ayan protested.

“I said no, Ayan,” Una took Durth’s hand and promptly walked off, leading Durth away and leaving behind a still glaring Vera.

Oh boy, this visit was going to be fun.

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