Symbiote

The theory of the Apostates thus shown as demonstrably sound, perforce we must discard of the specification god and - attempt to - substitute a more accurate descriptor.

For the sake of economy, let us for now borrow from potentology the label: Power.

Substantial variegation in the physiology of Powers not only infers a separate (introduced) species, it goes further to suggest multiple (unrelated) species.

More to the point, it is well-documented that Powers of deficient client subscription are inferior in the key indicators of capacity, intelligence and area. It is here tempting to posit that competition amongst Powers is no different than competition amongst predators, but we are then ignoring the co-operative phenomenon: competition amongst us the clients ourselves.

Maybe the potentologists have it wrong; or let us say, backwards. As an etiologist would ask:

Which is the parasite, and which is the host?

... Indagation of the Gods, author unclear

The Lay of Ymer

Where once Iylum stood, greatest of all cities for the greatest of all gods, before stood Caredwiy, shrine of the twins, Ymer and Yris.

Yris loved her brother Ymer, but Ymer coveted the mortal Eco; obsequious, to her lord she came. Poisoned by envy's bile, Yris stabbed them both in the temple bed where they lay.

On misted morn Ymer slept upon a bier by the lyart soughing of the bay. Yris took torch to his catafalque, ushered him from the shore; and I thought to hear her say:

Ashes, take him back to earth. Water, quench my lover's thirst.

Lights of his pyre glimmered as wisps in the fog. The sea received Ymer, and from him took its name.

Conversation with a Living God

What have you done! This is not the gift I gave!

Yours was no gift, Lord. The issue of my womb shall never live, but neither shall he ever die. So shall it be for me. So shall it be for all of us.

I have shown you the arrogance of free will. In immortal death I have taken it from you, so that you would come to ken the burden of indeterminism. Instead you have displaced your shame, and raised a host of abominations to walk with you through perdition!

Am I abomination? You created me.

And you have created ten thousand more. From spite for my gift? From ambition, your army against the seal of heaven?

Not my army.

Whose then?

Yours. We are your people.

Arcadia IV

Three years passed.

The boy was almost grown. Learned of his self: The range and power of his limbs, which wound would heal in a day, which in a week. Where to cup with his foot or his hand to catch a man's leg, and how to calm his thoughts for many days of travel on foot.

He knew how to make a poultice of mud or mashed gourd, and to marshal hunger when rations were few. To save a little of his water for cleansing of fresh cuts. How to spar with Alin, who would lead with his left leg, and Mabon, who was fierce but tired quickly. Eric, and Radu, and Pavl, and all the rest.

How to serve as the slave of warriors, but be treated almost as one of them.

They called him by their word korus, so he called himself the same. He did not think of his old name, or of Dwlf and Amidash. He learned Iylum's language and the customs of Iylum's men, but spoke to them little. To walk and to carry, and fight for their sport, were his purpose.

Three years they hunted the gods of Arcadia, led by Iylum's own picked apostol Drustan. Five gods they killed, and many of their scattered people too. But the sixth and last was Aun, who had the form of a monstrous wolf, ancient and thrawn. Aun did not hide as the others had done, but came upon their camp as they slept. His coat was the black of forest-night, and his eyes two burning beryls. Drustan's tent he set upon first, and crushed the apostol in his crooked jaws.

Some rose in time to fight, but in the morning all of Iylum's men lay in beds of gore.

Korus hid, and he watched the slaughter. He bristled and trembled; not in dread, but awe! To see such power, to consider such a foe. Then he knew what Drustan must have felt, to battle a god.

So he went south, to go before the seat of Iylum and offer his fealty.

As a boy he was given nothing, and loved nothing, and aspired to nothing. Now he was a man. He had made himself from nothing. He had made the sword his lover. He aspired to serve the god of conquest.

Arcadia III

They crossed into Arcadia. A land of a hundred forests, a hundred mountains, and a hundred gods, but few men.

He was treated as a little more than a pack animal. Cold porridge, water, a blanket of filthy wool were his comforts. To walk and to carry were his purpose. He understood this, but understood nothing else. "Who are they?" he asked Barro on a wet morning, clenching their pale fingers at a spare, hissing fire. Barro was a seasoned man, not young like Clovis; he was solitary but seemed wise to the boy. "They are Iylum's men. And now we are Iylum's slaves. You know of Iylum?" "He is god of conquest." "The gods have always warred with one another. Buy Iylum thinks he is better. Iylum thinks he is best."

"Where will they take us?"

Barro did not know, or did not want to answer, but said at last: "We will be dead before they get there."

Clovis was dead a tenday later, too cold and too tired he stopped on the mud track they marched, and knelt. Two of Iylum's men yelled at him, kicked him, spat on him, then finally took his load, his boots and clothes. They left Clovis there, sobbing, naked and dirty, defeated not by war or the gods but by himself, with his burden divided between Barro and the boy.

He did not feel pity for Clovis, but shame.

Some of Iylum's men would use Barro to exercise with wood swords and staves. They had used Clovis too, so now they used the boy. He did not know how to fight, and did not think he wanted to learn. It had done his father no mercy, or Dwlf or Amidash. Or Clovis. But he had no choice, because he had no choices.

He was slow and clumsy, but he was angry too. I am not an animal! his thoughts stormed, How will you fight a hundred gods! His adolescent rage was punished. Blows to his face and head that blinded him, deafened him, deprived him of all strength with shocking swiftness; he shook and staggered but he refused to submit, to kneel as Clovis had done. Finally his hands were struck, with such force he was swept clean of all other sensations than pain. He fell then, not whimpering like Clovis, but screaming.

They tended him and gave him strong drink that night, but drove him hard and did not feed him the next day. Like a dog, he knew. Like a dog that won't obey.

Arcadia II

This is how his education began:

Twelve of them skulked downslope through the thick dark, threading a maze of naked beech, boulders big as oxen, ferns painted by hoarfrost. Dwlf picked their path on deer-ways that wound and wandered, Amidash was the vigil at their back. Two other children and three women went with them, but it was the five men who seemed more afraid. They carried only hardtack and some dried venison, blankets, and spears.

In the day they would have reached the soft bice grass of the mead in an hour, but their progress was deliberate and chary. A twist of ankle would have been grave. Often they stopped to crouch and listen and watch for other feet and other eyes in the wood.

So the sky was lighting as they got level ground. The men whispered: "Do we go back?" "Twenty tents..." "Yes." "No. We must be quick." "They will mark us!" "The camp sleeps, and I see no watch." "It must be now."

They went along the forest edge in a sly hurry, until a stir of motion in the camp across the mead unnerved them, and they retreated up through the trees. Dwlf made their tracks to wend and allowed no rest. At low noon six men dressed in hard leather caught up. The fighting was short, too many were exhausted. Dwlf was stabbed through his left leg. Two other men of the cloh were slain, and then it was over. Amidash had vanished. The women and the other children fled, two gave chase.

He didn't know what to do, so he did nothing.

Their hands were tied and their shirts stripped. Down to the camp they were took, Dwlf and Barro and Clovis and him, but they met no others from the cloh. Then he saw the smoke, thick and black as the night had been, creeping down from the divide, as they had done.

The camp was breaking. The four of them lay or knelt in the wet grass, while four of the leathered men spoke over them in some coarse southron tongue. All carried forged swords belted in tooled scabbards, their boots were weathered and drab. Dwlf's throat was cut. The other three were made to bear provisions, and roped in a line.

They left, marching north.

Arcadia I

As a boy he was given nothing, and loved nothing, and aspired to nothing.

Dwlf was not their father, but had parented them both since leaving their birth-homes in the night. For one cold summer and one wet winter they hid under the skirt of a mountain, in a cloh between two of her legs, like pups confused by uncertain danger.

Other families came, but many left. There was always work to do, wood and fire and water and game to gather and tend and fetch and skin - and the ditch to dig, and dig, and dig; agone were days of idle boyish play, Dwlf taught them all the chores of men.

A cliroc stayed the winter, and made them to do obeisance to Gaerigania, the god of the mountain, but Dwlf did no rituals with them.

Amidash was the quicker and stronger of the two, and sometimes with Dwlf practiced spears. They had no forge for bronze, and trade was rare. A sickness of chills and sores took three of the families, and the cliroc, and bore a pock on Dwlf's left hand, but the boys were unblighted.

Rain and runoff rose in the ditch, and one night there were campfires in the mead below. Men argued in Dwlf's shanty. Dwlf took the boys and two other families, twelve of them all, and left before the Lady's blush.

The cloh had never bore a name. In his memory, it was the first of many places in a long journey.