Blood Moons Rising

Chapter 29

The man was darker skinned than her, than most she had seen even of the Jaghan people. His skin was etched all over with white ink tattoos that seemed to ripple with light as he breathed and moved. He had bone pierced through his ears, roughly polished opaque red stones dangling from them. His hair was long, coarser than hers, bound into dreadlocks.

His only piece of clothing seemed to be a rough linen sarong dyed blood red, the same shade that had appeared in the clothing of countless Jaghans she had seen. Dye derived from red aladelius. He extended his hand to her, and she tentatively took it to be helped to her feet.

"You are behind schedule. The Blood Moons are approaching fast."

"I was not aware you were expecting me to request an audience." She replied.

"There have been stirrings of you among our worshippers since you slayed their pet. I am rather surprised it took you this long to seek me out." He began to move around the altar, Haneul scrambling away to where Kinara was on the floor to get out of his path. He opened the jar, removing the heart that had been cured by Haneul's attention and ripping a piece out of it with his teeth. "Especially after Ollafrey."

"I might have, if I had remembered everything, but I was awoken too soon." She told him. "What is it you are expecting me to ask for?"

"A way to stop the twins, of course. You are not the first. My sisters' worshippers have been doing this for millenia. Bring someone from the other world, manipulate them into being adored, offer them up as a sacrifice. It is a more sustainable alternative to sacrificing their own." He took another bite. "Most do not discover the plot until it is too late. Less than a dozen have done what is necessary to summon another of us to find a way out. Some of them took the gifts they were given, but none have accepted the solution."

"And what is the solution?" She asked.

The god smirked and swallowed his mouthful of heart-flesh. "Tell me, Ka'Ithal, how much have you discovered. Do you know what we are?"

"As far as I can tell, this world's oldest intelligent inhabitants."

"You are not far off. The Marain, the Hidden People, other such races and creatures across this world, are its true inhabitants. Its indigenous races. The rest of you, the humans that have overtaken this world, are an invasive species." He took a rather violent bite of the heart.

Nevada took a moment, thinking before she spoke her hypothesis aloud. "The connection between the worlds. It was discovered, perhaps opened by one of the Marain, and then we came through."

"We found you all so adorable," He told her as he began to move about the room. "So short-lived, so excitable, so small and desperate for purpose and meaning. We tried to take care of you, as your kind do with creatures more helpless than themselves, but our natural forms terrified them. Many of that first batch died trying to get away from us and falling victim to the natural predators of this world. The next time things fell into place, we changed our forms to look more like you."

Nevada could guess the next stage. "You provided for them, taught them, cared for them, and they began to worship you."

"You're as clever as I have heard. They could not perform magic, but many of them wanted to. We discovered we could lend our power through a sort of exchange. They would do things for us, and we could provide them with the means to accomplish what they wished."

"It would not take long to escalate." She completed. "Bigger and bigger gestures, sacrifices, favors, until someone gets it into their head to sacrifice a person for power." She swallowed hard, trying not to picture it all too vividly. "And since your kind is so long lived, adaptation occurs within life cycles, right? Some grouping of years occurs, however long it takes for every cell in your body to be replaced, and you change. Like those jellyfish on my world that regenerate each life cycle and adapt and are functionally immortal."

Pa'Kitar stayed silent, seemingly content to let her continue, letting her know she was on the right track.

"Soon the blood sacrifices became not only commonplace, but necessary, something you needed to be able to keep protecting us here. It was our payment for being allowed to exist in this world. The larger the population grew, the more you needed to sustain yourselves but also...the more capable you became. Eventually they'd realize the obvious, that a large quantity of sacrifices wasn't sustainable, and began using more substantial ones." She paused, her face falling. "People like me."

"The pulls from your world became more focused, taking only those that were capable of greatness. They would come, become beloved and worshipped in their own right, and then sacrificed to us. It was considered an acceptable cost. After all, those that had been born here and only knew this world lost all memory and connection to yours long before." He confirmed. "Over time, though, things changed again."

"Some were imprisoned," She said, thinking of Atris, "some found substitutions," Eochtylyxotla.

"Some fell in love and gave up their power, breeding with the humans and giving them the gift of using magic on their own." He continued. "But a few remained, and their worshippers stayed devout through the ages."

"They keep trying to bring you all back." She continued softly. "Through war, intrigue, pestilence, whatever it takes to make people desperate enough to return."

"But we are too far beyond that now. The most we can hope for is to change again." He replied. "You can help us accomplish that, as could the others that have reached out to us, but for that to happen the old way has to die, and that cannot happen while the twins live on in their current form."

Nevada took a few moments to think over the implications of that, and then took a steadying breath. "What do I have to do?"

The god smirked and she felt a chill run through her, frozen stiff as he stepped closer to her, sucking his fingers clean of vinegar and blood before he leaned in and whispered in her ear. Haneul and Kinara could both see her begin to shake, tears falling from her eyes as Pa'Kitar pulled away from her.

"Is there no other way?" She asked, her voice strained and shaky as the rest of her.

"What begins in blood must end in blood." He replied. "You must choose if you are willing to do it. I will give you what you need."

The room was silent for several long moments, the only sounds were those that poured in from outside of the building and Nevada's shaky breath. They began to hear voices approaching. Someone had finally noticed all of the busted glass and the light coming from inside.

"Ka'Ithal." He said flatly, a warning that they were running out of time. She swallowed hard, her face becoming detached and cold as if she was separating herself from what she was doing. Finally, she nodded. Pa'Kitar reached out, taking her right hand and removing the glove that covered it, taking her cold cobalt limb between his own hands. It may have been comforting if what he planned to do was not terrifying.

She felt the familiar energy of magic begin to run through her, and a twinge of pain. She remembered that on her other wrist she wore the bloodstone bracelet, and could not help but imagine that wherever Qetzl was, he was screaming in agony. Even with her pain being siphoned off, it began to be too much for her, her legs giving out beneath her to bring her to her knees. She saw white lines appearing in the blue of her hand, as if it were cracking apart like glass, and could feel it all the way through the limb. Soft colorful light began to pulse through them like Pa'Kitar's tattoos.

The white spots on her skin and the shock of white through her hair began to do the same, though she could not see them with her eyes squeezed shut and most of her skin covered. When the city guard burst in to see what was happening the energy was beginning to spill out of her and crackle in the air, the jewel around her neck glowing. She opened her eyes to look at them and light shone out of the whites of them. They all began to make signs of protection and scramble to get out.

They were gone again and ringing the warning bells by the time he released her, Nevada falling to the floor and panting hard as he body began to process the raw power that the god had poured into her.

"Move quickly, Ka'Ithal. By the time the Blood Moons fade this amount of power will destroy your mortal form if it is not used." He warned, crouching down to pet her hair. "I do hope that we will meet again."

Within a breath he was gone, Nevada left a sobbing mess on the floor of the temple. Reinforcements were coming, and Haneul and Kinara moved quickly to get her up and out of the building. She pulled herself together by the time they reached the gates, and they all took off running.