Birth of a Mortal God Read online

  “I’m sorry,” she said ashamed.

  “For?” he asked surprised.

  She looked back from whence they came. “Being such a burden. You had no obligation to bring me with you, but you did so, none the less, and I’ve been nothing but a hindrance.”

  He lifted her chin and kissed her softly. “You are no burden.”

  The captain of the ship saw the couple and approached. “The ship is ready for you, just as we agreed, Killmar.”

  “You knew?” asked he slightly surprised.

  The scruffy man smirked. “Well at first, I thought you were just a common criminal trying to get a discreet ship, but then I heard what had happened at the market square. It didn’t take much to make the connection.”

  He walked up the gangplank. “Then let us embark. I tire of this place.”

  The captain and Jessica followed suit. “You and the girl can use my cabin for the journey.”

  “You have my thanks,” said Killmar with a grin as he led her to the captain’s quarters.

  She turned to him as she closed the door behind her. “So?”

  “So?” he repeated.

  “So, it is later, would you mind explaining what in the nine hells just happened?”

  He sat down in one of the chairs and motioned for her to do the same. “I suppose I should tell you. Let me start at the beginning.”

  Chapter Seven

  Secrets

  ELIZABETH PUT HER hands next to the tinted alembic and added the needed energies. The mixture absorbed them like she had hoped and gained a slight white glow. She was extremely impressed with the craftsmanship of the U’norgarr moulders.

  She had not had much hope when she had first described to them what she required. Though it seemed like they were indeed able to fashion almost anything out of the material they call cre’per’um. At least, that was what she had come to believe after her time spent in the Black City. Almost everything, from their impressive architectural structures such as the arena, to their most basic cutlery where made from the material.

  They, however, had a very basic knowledge of working with other minerals like iron, gold, and silver, when compared to the other tribes. Their reason for this was that cre’per’um does not deteriorate like other minerals, and thus, they never had the need to learn how to work the others beyond making rudimentary decorations.

  F’lar entered her house and workspace. As the only individual with a more than meagre knowledge regarding healing, she had gotten her own villa, while many other yog’murgarr still lived outside of the walls in tents. “Any progress now that the moulders supplied you with what you needed?”

  She always enjoyed the old yog’mur’s company, and not just because he had his genitals covered with a lion pelt. “Yes, but the mixture needs more time. How are the U’norgarr men and women adjusting to the change?”

  “You seem to have all but mastered our language. Very impressive. I still struggle with Zinoxian, I’m afraid. If I remember correctly, you said it is similar to other spoken languages?” he said as he made his way through the array of tables and shelves housing various vials, herbs, and animal parts.

  “Yes, the closest of which would be Franca. It is a language that was created by traders over the course of hundreds of years. In hindsight, we probably should have started with it, as it has bits of various languages in it. So regarding the U’norgarr adjustment?” she said as she checked the progress of some of her other experiments.

  F’lar shook his head. “They have been isolated for so long . . . I’m beginning to fear they’ll never become one with the other tribes.”

  “Has there been another incident?” asked Elizabeth, concerned.

  Twisted strands of black hair swung from side to side as he shook his head again. “No, no, they are all still too terrified of Asteroth. When he stepped in after the third incident, they quieted down, but there are many things about yog’mur culture that they still reject. These Old Bloods claim they’ve longed to regain what they’ve lost, but I suspect the reality of it was not quite what they imagined.

  “They are obsessed with this idea of personal wealth and gain, longing for the little metal tokens they call money. A tribe is supposed to take care of each other; everyone should reap the bounties of the tribe, not just a chosen few. And don’t even get me started on their women . . . Did you know that the U’norgarr woman were not allowed to practice a craft? They are wholly unskilled, and more than a few are lazy. The men seem to have done everything in the tribe except what they were meant to. Small wonder they are blundering fools on the field of battle!”

  Elizabeth smiled as she tied up her golden locks. “You should not be so hard on them, F’lar. You would be hard pressed to find anyone in the world who would not balk at the idea of women filling all occupations, save warrior.”

  “But—” he started before she cut him off.

  “And all of the known world work with some form of currency . . . tokens to trade for goods,” she said compensating for the lack of the word in Yog’mur.

  “But, E’lir, you are more yog’mur than they are,” he said finally, using the yog’murgarr adaptation of her name.

  “Just give them time; they will come around. Though I can’t say I will be pleased to see more naked men and women walking about.”

  “A man—”

  “Must earn his Cloth of Honour during the Rite of Blood and a woman must be clothed by her mate to show she is taken, yes, yes, I know,” she finished as she bent over a counter to check on the growth of some magically altered herbs.

  “To know and to understand are two different things,” he said as he browsed through her shelves.

  “I understand.”

  “Then why are you clothed in that robe when you are not taken?” he commented nonchalantly.

  Elizabeth hit her head as she tried to come up. “You want me prancing around naked?!” she said, switching to her native Zinoxian.

  She saw him smiling at her obvious discomfort. “You are part of the tribe, are you not?”

  “Yes, but—”

  “And you don’t have a mate, correct?”

  She blushed. “I . . . yes but—”

  “Then you should not be clothed. You are scaring away potential suitors,” he answered in a very father-like tone.

  “Gods, F’lar! I’m human. Who among the tribe would want me as a . . . mate?”

  He walked over to her and placed a scrawny hand on her shoulder. “You are an immensely skilled Art user. Neither I nor any of the other shang’gomagarr is even close to your level of expertise in healing and mending. I am sure there are many young warriors who would swell with pride to call you their mate. It might not even be the only thing that swells,” he said with a wink.

  She blushed but did not react as a lady from the Kingdom would. Her time among the yog’murgarr had changed her in more ways than she was probably aware. She still thought of them as a strange people, but they had a certain charm about them; a warmness and sense of community that wins you over without you even realising it. “Come on, you old hur’thlu. It should be done by now.”

  They walked over to the alembic, which now had a dull brown glow. She poured the reddish liquid into a bowl and added a dash of each prepared herb on the table. “Now, if my theory is correct, this should work.”

  She placed the bowl on the floor before stepping back and beginning the incantation.

  F’lar stumbled back as she finished the spell in an explosion of energy. An image sprang up from the bowl and hovered in the air.

  “It worked!” she said before hugging him.

  “Well done. Now, if you would be so kind to give me some sort of explanation as to what I am seeing . . .”

  She turned around and made a simple hand movement that enlarged the hovering green image. It had two vertical strings of little balls; the strings being connected by horizontal sticks. Most of it was a light green, except for a certain section that glowed a deep crimson. She pointed to
it and said, “That is our problem.”

  “E’lir, I’ll need more than that,” said F’lar appearing a bit humbled by his lack of knowledge.

  She turned. “Before I . . . met Asteroth, I had a rather controversial theory that all manner of life had a formula, a recipe if you will; one which shows what a being is made out of. And if we could understand it, we’d be able to cure illnesses that are passed from father to son, most of which are currently untreatable.”

  He stepped closer to the image. “Remarkable. So this is one of these formulae?”

  “Yes,” she answered proudly before adding, “But I can honestly say I could not have done it without the help you and the other shang’gomagarr provided.”

  He looked at her surprised. “I don’t remember any of us helping you with this. Gods, I am not even sure I understand this. If I did not know better, I would think you’ve gleaned some of the Book Beast’s secrets.”

  “Not directly, but you taught me how yog’mur magic functions, allowing me to apply energy in a manner I never would have thought of otherwise. It also does not hurt that I’m a devout worshiper of Ge’noss,” she said with a wink.

  She saw his awed reaction and held up her hands. “It was just a joke. I am not Favoured. I have no divine powers.”

  “Ge’noss is the god of knowledge and secrets, E’lir. It is not unimaginable to think that those Favoured can be ignorant of being such,” he replied solemnly.

  “A valid point, but nevertheless irrelevant to my role among the tribe,” she said before pointing to the floating formula. “Asteroth tasked me with discovering why the U’norgarr possess a wholly superior intellect. I believe this is the start to an answer.”

  Out of all the yog’murgarr, she had come to realise F’lar was by far the most interested in their intellectual abnormality, even more so than Asteroth. Though, since their assimilation of the U’norgarr, F’lar had tried to discreetly distance himself from the issue; try being the operative word.

  She continued, “I decided to start at the root of the problem and work from there. What you see here is the formula for a typical yog’mur male. Now, I am not going to pretend I understand all that we are seeing, however, look here,” she said as the crimson section enlarged. “This shows something foreign has altered, or infected if you will, the formula.”

  “Something did this to us?” asked F’lar in disbelief.

  “It is the most probable explanation. I will need time to study this to discover exactly how, but at the very least, we now know for certain that the variances of yog’murgarr intellect is not natural.”

  The old yog’mur reached out to the crimson section. “Why? Why would someone do this to us?”

  “I am more concerned with how. If this was done by magic, it is something on a scale unheard off, not to mention the mastery of the magical arts required . . .” she left the thought unfinished when she saw the tears on her mentor’s cheeks. “What’s wrong?”

  “Oh, E’lir, I have done terrible things. In my youth, I was arrogant, possessing an intellect far beyond even the other shang’gomagarr; I thought I could do anything. I was obsessed with improving my tribe, fixated on the very thing my son asked you to uncover,” he said almost desperately.

  He was a foot taller than she but felt so frail and small in her arms. “That’s understandable.”

  “No, no, I had not your knowledge. My mate was a lovely woman, a smith by trade. But she was of low intellect, and when she told me that I was to be a father . . . Do you know that one in every sixty children is born a shang’goma? I just could not stand the idea of my child being born with a low intellect. Oh, In’kanak, have mercy. My methods were so crude . . .” he said, weeping.

  She pushed him back and saw a man ashamed of his past. “G’nar?”

  He only nodded.

  She led him to a pair of chairs and they sat down. “But how?”

  He avoided meeting her eyes.

  “You started this confession for a reason, F’lar. You knew I’d realise something as soon as I examine G’nar’s formula. Which is the next logical step, since he is the only Untouched yog’mur not of U’norgarr descent to possess a superior intellect. I am more interested in the how than the why,” she said, fascinated by this unexpected mystery.

  F’lar wondered if she was going to feel the same after hearing the details, but also knew she was right. There wasn’t much of a choice left. “I am not justifying my actions, but I had little time, so I had to be ruthless in order to make progress. For years, I had been working on a process to add human characteristics to yog’mur, to merge the strength of two races if you will.”

  “With the goal of increasing yog’mur intellect,” supplied Elizabeth, now making them some tea. A beverage she had introduced to the tribes upon finding wild tea bushes growing near the city while collecting herbs.

  He nodded. “I abducted childbearing human females from nearby villages and tested my theories, merging yog’murgarr blood with that of their unborn children. But I was so ignorant, I did not even know of this formula of yours. Had I known more . . . maybe not so many would have died.”

  She sat with a cup half raised to her mouth, before putting it down. “One of the creeds of the Mages’ Guild is to not let one’s power corrupt your morals and principles. It is a hard path to follow and one on which many great mages have stumbled off unknowingly. The road to the Nine is paved with good intentions, as the saying goes.”

  He had expected outrage and was surprised by her understanding. “I eventually succeeded; however, upon the child’s birth, it was clearly more human than yog’mur. I could not allow the other shang’gomagarr to discover what I had been doing, so I killed it. The mother, like all the others, died during childbirth. My mate knew what I wanted, but I don’t think she fully understood it. She consented, nonetheless. I took human blood, and using the same principle, I imbued my unborn son with human characteristics.”

  Elizabeth took a sip from her tea. “That was quite the gamble. There was no guarantee that a yog’mur would react to human blood the same way humans did to yog’mur blood.”

  “They didn’t. I almost lost both my mate and G’nar. I barely saved my son, and it was all for nothing. All those human women suffered for nothing! We now are on the path to cure this affliction for our whole race. If only I had not been so vain and arrogant. If only I had waited,” he said the last almost as a plea.

  She put her hand on his shoulder. “What you did was terrible, but if we use your knowledge to help better the entire yog’mur race, their deaths will have more meaning. But one day, you will stand in He’nensu’s White Hall and In’kanak will judge you for all that you have done.”

  He looked deep into her eyes. “G’nar can never know.”

  “WHAT DO YOU think, brother?”

  Asteroth ran his hand over the parchment detailing the plans for the city’s expansion. “It seems . . . ambitious.”

  G’nar laughed. “And when has anything we’ve done not been ambitious?”

  He sat back uncomfortably in a chair clearly too small for his massive form. “But the entire Viper Valley? How long would it take to erect so many structures?”

  “Ten, perhaps fifteen years,” he answered honestly before quickly adding, “Half that if you’ll lend me Father and his shang’gomagarr.”

  He smiled at his brother’s enthusiasm. G’nar had discovered his passion for the construction of things one night drinking with the moulders and their ilk. Normally, men were not allowed to practice such crafts, but their race was growing, and he had decided early on that he would not stunt that growth with traditionalism. “Well, I can’t find anything wrong with this plan, and I do want those still living outside the city to have homes to call their own.”

  “I may be able to even have some of the moulders craft you some furniture in which you actually fit,” said G’nar with a smile.

  “No, I’ll not have resources spent on luxuries while so many of our brothers and sisters
still live in tents outside our walls. I won’t die from a little discomfort.”

  G’nar was about to reply when someone knocked on the door.

  “Enter.”

  The warrior entered the sparsely furnished room. He was garbed in elk, probably earned during the Rite less than a year ago. “Little grey man captured at border.”

  Asteroth got up, happy to be out of that damned chair. “Show me.”

  The young yog’mur led them to the wall where four guards towered over the bound ashen-haired man. He was barely half the size of Asteroth’s leg as he stood in front of him. “Why have you trespassed on our land?”

  The man was a bit taken aback to be addressed in Zhēnli but quickly recovered and bowed. “Your Highness, I was sent by the Pillar of Light himself to extend the hand of the Empire to the tribes of the Viper Mountains in friendship.”

  He studied the emaciated man. “I’ve heard of your people. You are called ewiens, correct?”

  “Yes, Your Grace.”

  Asteroth saw him glancing at his dangling member and smiled. “Your kind has stayed north of the Viper Mountains ever since the Grey War centuries ago. We bear no grudge, for our ballads speak of an enemy that fought with honour, even when it became clear they were outmatched. However, in all the time that has passed since, your kind has never attempted to befriend us. Why now?”

  “Well, Your Grace, the yog’murgarr were fractured, and our most wise Emperors felt that it would be impossible to broker a friendship with a people who warred amongst themselves. But now . . .” he left the thought unfinished.

  “You mean we were not a threat before, but now we are, and your emperor wants to secure his southern flank,” said Asteroth as a breeze blew back his long black hair.

  “Your Grace is not wrong, but we are no longer the warmongering race we once were. We now try to befriend and understand other races. The Eranian Empire is wide and diverse with many different people living and trading within its borders. His Eminence hopes that we can add the yog’murgarr among those we call friends and perhaps, in time, discuss some trade opportunities.”