Black Sea Gods: Chronicles of Fu Xi Read online

  Ice!

  Aizarg didn’t have time to shout a warning before the table-like triangle briefly reappeared behind Sarah’s feet, water spilling over its smooth, flat top. Aizarg didn’t have time to breathe a sigh of relief before the ice block resurfaced to the right of Ghalen, whose head ducked briefly underwater between breaths.

  The ice slammed with full force into Ghalen’s skull. He instantly became still and vanished beneath the water.

  “Ghalen!” Sarah and Aizarg screamed in unison. Okta kept looking ahead, struggling for the next stroke and oblivious to Ghalen’s dilemma.

  “Pull me back in when I get him!” Aizarg shouted to Ood-i. He quickly tied the rope around his waist and plunged into the water. Immediately, the icy river attacked him. Aizarg swam as fast as he could, but the water robbed his strength faster this time.

  “Okta, save Ghalen!” Aizarg heard Sarah scream when he came up for air, but Okta kept swimming forward, his eyes beginning to glaze.

  Aizarg came up for air again where he thought Ghalen might be, but saw nothing.

  The giant’s carcass sped by and the southern cliffs loomed ahead.

  “I see him!” Sarah screamed to Aizarg. Perched on Okta’s back, she had a slightly better view than Aizarg. Oblivious to Ghalen’s peril, Okta carried her farther away.

  “Where?” Aizarg screamed.

  “To your left, I can see his back!” A large log floated by Sarah and Okta, barely missing them.

  “I can’t see him!” Aizarg grew desperate.

  “To your left!” she repeated.

  Aizarg spun about, still unable to locate Ghalen.

  Then Sarah did something Aizarg did not expect. She let go of Okta’s neck and dove for the log. She didn’t make it and slipped below the filthy water.

  “SARAH!” he screamed.

  Then her small hand emerged from the water and grabbed black bark. She pulled herself up, trying not to let the log roll back on top of her. Sputtering and gagging, she didn’t hesitate a second before she starting kicking her feet. Sarah’s desperate, uncoordinated splashes were adequate enough to propel her toward a point a few yards to Aizarg’s left front.

  Aizarg heard the muted roar grow louder and looked to his left. They were seconds from entering the rapids in the shadow of the southern cliffs. That’s when he saw an island of white skin and a shoulder blade briefly bob out of the water. He lunged toward it and caught Ghalen by the hair and, with all his remaining strength, grabbed a hold of the log Sarah rode.

  Suddenly, the rope around his waist tightened and water rushed over the back of his head. He strained to keep one arm around the log and the other hand on Ghalen. For a few seconds he felt hard rocks bump against his thighs, but then the bottom smoothed and wisps of smooth grass caressed his back.

  Ood-i dragged Ghalen from the water while Aizarg helped Sarah. Aizarg turned to see Okta laid out on the grassy bank, exhausted and taking heaving gulps of air. He laid Sarah next to him and attended to Ghalen.

  Ood-i knelt over Ghalen, gently slapping his face trying to get him to respond. A gash arced over Ghalen’s left eye and fresh blood began to cake the left side of his face and matt his wet hair. The gash looked odd to Aizarg. It looked less like a cut and more like a double claw mark.

  “His wound will heal,” Ood-i said. “But he has water in his lungs. Help me t-turn him over.”

  Aizarg assisted Ood-i and then stood back, knowing exactly what Ood-i was about to do.

  Every Lo learned this skill at a very young age, because even children of the Great Sea could drown. Ood-i positioned Ghalen’s head to one side and straddled his back. Ood-i put his big, meaty hands over each side of Ghalen’s upper back and pushed forward. After a few strong thrusts, Ghalen croaked and vomited out a few good bites of the river.

  Ood-i turned him over. “He’ll be fine!” Ood-i chuckled and stood. “I remember having to do that more than once when my little Su-gar fell off the d-dock as a b-baby.”

  Ghalen groaned and pulled himself on his elbows, squinting against the sun. “What happened?”

  “The river almost took you,” Aizarg said, examining Ghalen’s head. “We’ll have Setenay take a look at that...”

  Setenay!

  Aizarg shot up and looked back up river. To his relief he saw the figures of Levidi, Setenay and Ba-lok walking along the shore towards them.

  Sarah pulled herself up and rolled over to Okta. “Are you okay, Okta?”

  He raised his hand and nodded. “Yes, I just need a few moments to recover my strength.”

  Ghalen put his hand to his head and looked at the blood. “Who pulled me out?”

  Aizarg smiled over to Sarah. “You owe this girl your life. Without her bravery I would not have been able to find you.”

  Sarah smiled under Aizarg’s praise.

  “Ood-i,” Ghalen said weakly, lying back down with his hand over his wound.

  “Yes, Ghalen,” Ood-i leaned in, listening intently.

  “I think your girlfriend must like me,” Ghalen grinned.

  Ood-i sat up with a scowl and threw the wet rope at Ghalen. “Bah! That’s the last time I pull your sorry hide out of the wuh-water. Next time, learn how to swim before you cross such little streams!”

  Aizarg began to laugh, followed by Ghalen and Sarah. As hard as he tried, Ood-i couldn’t suppress a smile and soon joined them.

  “They’ve all gone insane,” Ba-lok said as they walked up.

  Levidi and Ba-lok looked no worse for wear, and, surprisingly, neither did Setenay.

  Aizarg stood and confronted Ba-lok. “I told you to wait until Okta and his group crossed. Why did you disobey me?”

  “Do not blame me, Uros, speak to my grandmother. She insisted we cross when we did. She wouldn’t accept no for an answer.”

  Puzzled, Aizarg looked to Setenay.

  “I had my reasons. That is all I will say,” she said.

  “So be it. The matter is closed. I am thankful you made it. Ba-lok, how was the crossing?”

  Ba-lok shrugged and motioned to his grandmother, “Easy, I had another pair of kicking legs.”

  Aizarg looked back at Setenay.

  “I am Lo. In my day, I could outswim any of you,” she said with all seriousness.

  Aizarg looked back to Setenay but she wouldn’t meet his eye. He sensed she wasn’t telling him something, but decided not to press the issue.

  Levidi brushed past Aizarg and whispered, “I dread the day I have to enter that cursed river again!” Levidi quickly untied his bundle and pulled his heavy garments out of his pack. “I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I can’t wait to don these winter clothes. I’m freezing!”

  Aizarg turned to ask Ghalen and found him already changing into his heavy garments. Only the blood drying on Ghalen’s smiling face spoke of his recent struggle.

  Under the warm afternoon sun and light breeze, they were all dry in a few minutes, dressed and ready to continue the journey.

  Levidi shouldered his and Ghalen’s packs and looked back over the river.

  “Aizarg,” he said, where only his friend could hear. “I miss home. The thought of the Black River standing between us and everything we love somehow fills me with sadness.”

  Aizarg shielded his eyes against the western sun and looked back down the long valley from whence they came.

  He felt it, too, the sensation of suddenly being cut off and isolated, as if they just passed a point of no return. He placed his hand over Atamoda’s li-ge and pictured her and his boys waiting for him on the dock.

  Aizarg clasped his friend’s shoulder. “Our purpose will guide us, our friendship will support us, the memory of our homes and families will sustain us. No river, no matter how black and foul, can wash this goodness from our souls.”

  A sly grin lit Levidi’s face, “You sound just like Atamoda!”

  Aizarg gazed to the distant horizon with a warm smile. “Yes, I suppose. As long as she is in my heart, I am home. Hold true to Alaya’s lo
ve and you will never be far from home, either.”

  The two old friends walked side by side as the rest of the group filed in behind them across the grassy steppe. They recounted the excitement of the river crossing as the wind blew warm from the southwest and a few puffy clouds raced across the pale blue sky.

  ***

  Setenay lingered a few moments at the bank. She had carried a very different recollection of the events along the Black River.

  Dozens of flat yellow eyes stared back at her from the depths. Wispy humanoid shapes darted to and fro, suspended and yet separate from the muddy water, so many they slithered over each other like spawning eels. Setenay shuddered as she considered how fortunate they were to escape relatively unscathed.

  She wasn’t entirely truthful when she told Aizarg this river was soulless. Hordes of demons, not water spirits, possessed it.

  Setenay knew such demons existed in all bodies of water, as water possesses the power of life and death. She’d never seen so many schooling at once, and so brazenly in the shallow water and open sunlight.

  Like marsh locusts without birds to eat them, the demons have spawned to fill the void left by the absent water spirits. The elements are out of balance.

  Setenay elected not to tell the rest of the group about the water demons, thinking it best to let them believe only floating ice and freezing water assaulted them. They had no choice but to cross the river, so she had no reason to frighten them.

  The patesi-le knows when to speak the truth to the blind, and when to simply lead them to safety.

  Without her protective chants, Aizarg and Ood-i would have surely died within seconds of entering the cursed river. However, as both men drifted downstream and neared the opposite shore, her incantations lost power and demons darted at the men like hungry catfish. By then, however, the men’s natural strength sufficed to ward off the demonic assaults.

  When Okta and Sarah entered the water, the black horde attacked them like a murder of crows descending upon a crust of bread. The demonic onslaught caught Setenay unprepared. They shattered her protective spell and lunged not for Okta, but Sarah.

  At that moment Sarah screamed, perhaps sensing the blackness ripping at her soul. To Setenay’s surprise, instead of dragging Okta and Sarah into the depths, the water demons were hurled back and fled to the bottom as leaves scattered before the wind. Setenay immediately turned to Ba-lok and ordered him to take her into the water. The demons also parted from Setenay’s path, but not with the same fear as they parted for Sarah. When Sarah lunged into the water to save Ghalen, her powerful aura scattered the demons yet again.

  “Grandmother!” Ba-lok called out. She snapped out of her trance and turned to see them all looking at her, waiting.

  “I’m coming,” she said, and turned once again to the water.

  Setenay looked down on the shadows slithering over each other in the shallows. She waved her hand over the water and the demons scattered like minnows away from a rock thrown off a dock. Suddenly, large chunks of the northern and southern cliffs broke free and crashed into the water.

  A chill went down her spine. She pondered the moments when she had her feet in the water before Aizarg’s crossing. She knew Aizarg recognized the fear in her eyes, grateful he didn’t press for an explanation. The demons’ presence didn’t shake her spirit, it’s what they told her.

  With her feet in the water, she communed with them, ever mindful of their deceptive nature.

  Let us pass, hell spawn, for I am a witch of great power!

  We do not doubt your power, they hissed in unison in her mind. Enter the water. Join with us and we will make you more powerful still!

  Save your lies, she reached out with her thoughts. Part before my power and speak truth. Why do you gather here in great numbers?

  You might defeat us this day, Lo bitch, but your days are short. Be fearful, for the springs of the deep have cracked open and we are free from the Abyss. Behold, for we shall devour all the earth.

  Another chunk of the northern ridge fell under the onslaught of the river. Setenay turned and followed her grandson and the rest of the party to the east.

  13. The Children Of Fu Xi

  Even immortals have a beginning, an earthly springtime of life where the heart rules the mind. In my youthful pride, I tried to bring enlightenment to the Ice Men, the dwellers of the north. In form and manner they were so much like the Tall Men. I was certain I could light their path.

  Mother didn’t try to stop me, but she gave me no encouragement, no advice or new craft for my quest.

  “They are monsters,” she warned.

  “They are men.”

  “A pebble and a seed may look the same upon the ground, but only one will yield fruit,” Mother said.

  “Are they not worthy of Grace? Is there no hope for them? Why is this breed of man treated so differently from any other?”

  “I will speak no more of this,” she said. “Search your soul for the reasons why you do this. Is it for their welfare or for your pride?”

  Without her blessing I traveled into the icelands. Millennia ago those wastes were not so distant. They covered the mountains and kissed the deep forests. I returned with only bitterness as my reward.

  The Chronicle of Fu Xi.

  ***

  Fu Xi saw the lifeless body before he emerged from the forest. Like the bars of a cage, the black trees framed the grisly scene beyond the shadowed woodland. The terraced fields fell away from the south side of the compound and sloped down to the forest edge. The body, an unnatural mound amongst the stubble of the harvested fields, rested halfway between the trees and the south compound wall.

  Fu Xi saw no purpose lingering in the forest, no reason to hide. He abandoned the forest twilight for the fading warmth of the harvest sunset.

  The ancient village perched high along the spine of a gentle ridge which fell off to terraced fields on its north and south slopes. In autumn, the south slope caught most of the sun. This is where Fu Xi now strode, sword extended low and ready.

  The convent’s southeast wall, its whitewashed clay reflecting the brilliant sunset, crested the hill about a hundred yards away. The graceful arch of the sanctuary roof rose above the outer wall. Both the wall and the roof were covered in red terracotta tiles shaped like carp scales.

  About a dozen thatched huts stretched along the main road beyond the convent’s west gate. From this perspective, Fu Xi could only see the back of the huts. A small corral, where the villagers kept their pigs and goats, nestled behind each hut. The bamboo fences were shattered, the livestock gone. Tendrils of smoke rose over the huts. Farther west, beyond the dwellings, Nushen’s main road vanished into the forest. That is where he would have normally entered the village.

  Out of sight to his right, hidden behind the convent, a path led downhill from the compound’s east gate toward Tortoise Mountain.

  Fu Xi approached the corpse. The dry crunch of his sandals on the stubble sounded unnaturally loud in the still air. The open field afforded ample room to fight, and he hoped the enemy would reveal itself.

  Finally, Fu Xi stood over the child’s dead body. He slowed his breathing and blinked back the tears.

  Fu Xi did not recognize the boy, perhaps ten summers old. Born in his absence, the child provided Fu Xi a gauge of the years gone by. He lifted the child’s torn peasant garb with the edge of his sword and instantly knew what horror befell his beloved village.

  His mother once told him the fruits of pride are slow to ripen and always bitter.

  “I understand now, Mother,” he whispered.

  ***

  I never referred to them as ‘unfinished men’, my mother’s disdainful term. Nor did I use the wretched names bestowed upon them by the Tall Men, like ‘troll.’ I called them ‘Ice Men,’ because they roamed the glacial northlands. In them I thought I found my true purpose, to bring them into the light of civilization.

  I returned to the cave after several days of scouting the glacier. I se
nt the Ice Men east to hunt reindeer without me. They needed to master their new spears, to gain confidence in their own skills without their god looking over their shoulders.

  Two days previous, I spied a herd of mammoths on the central glacier and hurried back to the cave to tell my children. A small band of nomadic Tall Men tracked this herd, as well as another clan of Ice Men.

  The Tall Men hunted a big female mammoth with a wounded leg, hoping to separate her from the main herd. The Ice Men followed the Tall Men like starving jackals, just out of sight and undetected. Only armed with sharpened sticks, this scraggly band aspired to glean leftover meat.

  The Tall Men did not concern to me. I wanted my clan, armed with their new spears and improved skills, to get to the female mammoth first. The Tall Men had plenty of other game in their warm lowlands; the glaciers were for my people. As for the other Ice Men clan, my goal was to combine the two groups. Getting the two dominant males to cooperate, however, would be a daunting task.

  The mammoths were still several miles south. If my clan wanted fresh meat, they would have to hurry. I also wanted to keep them away from the Tall Men, knowing the encounter between the two races would result in battle.

  Snow blew thick out of the gray sky when I reached the mouth of the cave.

  The Chronicle of Fu Xi

  ***

  The child’s head tilted back, his face frozen in a grimace of agony. His wide eyes were dry and beginning to shrivel. His face had started to pull back and decompose.

  This happened about three days ago. But how?

  The child’s arms and legs were gone, ripped off his body while they held him down. He bled out, but not before several of the attackers gnawed on his stumps. The boy wasn’t dragged off, which told Fu Xi the child likely died first in the attack, when the creatures’ hunger and bloodlust was raw and fresh.

  Fu Xi closed his eyes, took several cleansing breaths, and clenched and unclenched his jaw. His imagination ran wild with visions of what the child suffered. He opened his eyes and looked to the sky.

  No vultures. No flies. The strange curse has infected Nushen, too.