Lily was taking care of the cows on the day that it happened.
The irritating task had fallen to her, as it usually did -- her parents were away from the homestead, doing business with their partners past Blestey Woods, and her brother Arren was locked in his room with his books and his lack of a life, just as he'd been ever since getting back from Coren. Lily understood he wanted to become a scholar or whatever, but she didn't see how that necessitated leaving all the manual labour to his twelve year old sister.
The cows were docile today, at least. Lily stepped down from the ladder she'd used to get up to the animals back, dunking her now inky-black brush in a bucket of water. The cow chittered pleasantly as soapy water dripped from its back, the white skin there now free of the grime and muck that had accumulated over the last week.
"Y'bastards just sit and drink all day," Lily muttered, dunking the brush twice more in a vain attempt to get it clean. "Dunno how y'get so dirty."
The cow shuffled on its wide, flat feet -- and then, as if to rub the point home, planted it's proboscis deep into the mud and began drinking. Lily rolled her eyes: cows really were stupid. They only had enough intelligence to eat and drink, and sometimes not even that.
The brush was a lost cause, Lily decided -- the amount of filth that had clung to it was clearly too much for a quick dunk in the bucket to clean off. She'd need to head back to the house and clean it properly.
What a pain.
Lily set off across the field, winding her way around the monolithic cows that stood still, drinking their fill of the water beneath the ground. These were fairly small specimens -- only half as big as her house -- so they didn't require as much in terms of food and water as some of the goliaths the bigger farms kept. It was life on a budget, in every sense of the word.
She rubbed the back of her neck, the unwelcome heat of the blue sun above blasting against her. The hot season was going on much longer than they'd expected -- she couldn't help but worry about the fungi fields. A good balance of hot and cold was needed for the most lucrative of those to grow properly. She'd have to talk to Dad about it when he got back.
The house stood right in the middle of their land, a ramshackle construction that was made from about half-a-dozen other former domiciles, stuffed together with as much consistency as could be managed -- which wasn't that much. Green and yellow fields stretched on in every direction surrounding the house, some for growing crops and others for the cows to graze. They had more land than you'd expect for an operation of this size, but it had come cheap -- proximity to Blestey Woods meant that predators often came sniffing around during the cold season. They'd found cows mauled outside more than a few times.
"Home!" Lily cried as she entered the kitchen through the back door, shaking her boots to get the worst of the mud off of them.
Her brother didn't reply -- no doubt he had his nose stuffed into some book about economics or natural history or something useless like that. Lily scowled, whipping off her sunhat and tossing it onto the counter. She wouldn't be ignored so easily.
Making sure her footfalls were as loud as possible, she marched up the stairs, past the wall lined with family portraits and yellowing sketches of the surrounding wilderness. The moment she reached Arren's door, she flung it open without bothering to knock, tilting her head so that her reachers didn't scrape against the frame as she entered.
"I said 'home'!" she shouted, angry fists balled at her hips.
Arren looked up, blinking in surprise. He'd nestled himself like a baby bird in one of the old armchairs he'd pulled down from the attic, and had obviously been reading through the dusty old tome that had fallen into his lap. A thick, black book with no visible title or blurb. Lily just didn't understand it -- why bother reading something when the creator obviously hadn't bothered writing it?
"Lily," Arren smiled weakly, shoving the book away into a drawer. "Sorry, sorry, I -- um -- didn't hear you."
Lily raised an eyebrow. "Liar. It wouldn't kill you to help me out with the cows, you know."
Actually, looking at him, that might not have been the case. He'd never been an exceptionally physical person, but it was obvious that he hadn't been doing much in terms of exercise while he was studying in Coren. His hollow cheekbones had grown more hollow, his pale skin more pale, and his thin limbs thinner.
The only thing about his appearance that seemed to have actually improved were the reachers sprouting from his temples -- he'd obviously had the chance to go to a proper boutique while he was in Coren. His previously unkempt and wild reachers had been shaved down to two delicate curving arcs, the kind of professional style you'd expect from a man of learning.
Lily couldn't help but feel self-conscious about her own reachers -- they'd gone through a growth spurt in the last month or so, and now were wide enough that she'd gotten stuck in doorways more than once. She'd need to get them cut down too before long.
"Sorry, Lil," Arren said again, hands fidgeting in his lap as he smiled sadly. "I've got some more research I need to do right now. It's -- ah -- really important, okay?"
Lily's frown deepened. "I've barely even seen you since you got back," she sulked.
Arren sighed. "I know. It'll just take me a little while longer, and then I can help you out with the cows."
She looked up at him suspiciously, narrowing her eyes. "You promise?"
"I promise."
That was the best she could hope for, really. Arren was sort of weak and sort of cowardly and sort of embarrassing to be around at the best of times, but Lily knew that he'd never broken a promise in his life. If he said he was going to do something, he did it -- without fail.
"Now," Arren went on, hand wandering back over to the drawer he'd thrown his book into. "I'd really appreciate it if you could --"
Bang. Bang. Bang.
Lily turned around, frowning at the sound. Someone was at the door? They certainly weren't expecting anyone. Mom and Dad wouldn't be coming back for days yet -- and they wouldn't need to knock.
"I'll get it," she muttered as she turned around and -- once again tilting her head -- left the room.
"Um, uh, Lily," Arren said hurriedly from behind her, his voice unusually panicked. "Maybe just hold on a little second--"
She ignored him as she hurried down the stairs. It was a little annoying how Arren was so keen to act mature when it didn't come to actual work. Besides, she wasn't a kid anymore: she was twelve, practically an adult! She could handle something like answering the door herself.
As she came back into the kitchen, the noise sounded out again, faster:
Bang bang bang!
"Coming!" Lily cried.
There was a strange sort of excitement in her chest. It was certainly possible, after all, that Mom and Dad had come back from their business early and just misplaced their keys somewhere. It would be good to have the full family at the farm again.
She grabbed the handle, turned it, and opened the door.
It wasn't Mom and Dad.
Three men stood outside the door, clad in thin black coats, their hands covered by white gloves. The two at the back wore blank masks, with only tiny dots to indicate eyes, but the young man at the head of the pack had left his face visible. Sheathed swords hung at their hips.
He smiled thinly down at her, but the expression didn't quite reach his eyes. He was tall, with a handsome-looking face and curly pale hair. The reachers sprouting from his temples were thin and aristocratic, winding around each other in complex yet symmetrical ways. His hands were clasped behind his back as he greeted her.
"Hello, young lady," he said, voice curiously chirpy. "Is your brother home?"
"Um."
It was the only thing that would come out of Lily's mouth -- she knew the answer, of course, but the presence of these people was so alien to her life that she couldn't quite comprehend what was happening. The man, seeming to recognize this, chuckled and sheepishly rubbed the back of his neck.
"Ah, what am I saying?" he sighed. "I haven't even introduced myself. My name is Lien -- Regulator Lien, from Coren. Are you familiar with the Regulatory, miss?"
Lily mutely shook her head.
Regulator Lien positively beamed at that. "That makes me very happy. Well done. As I was saying, however, is your brother -- oh, speak of the Blindman!"
Lily turned to follow Regulator Lien's gaze at that last bit, only to see Arren stood at the kitchen table, one hand planted against its surface, looking even paler than usual. The sweat running down his face could have filled the bathtub, most likely.
"Good afternoon," Arren mumbled, sounding as if he were going to choke on the words.
"And to you," Lien responded, tapping his left reacher. "You seem distressed. Are we interrupting something? I would hate to learn that we were interrupting something."
Just as silently as Lily had, Arren shook his head.
Lien smiled widely. "Stellar," he said, clasping his hands together. "Well, how about we all take a walk? It's such a lovely day, after all."
His tone permitted no argument.
----------------------------------------
"Young lady, do you go to school?" Lien asked, feet crunching against the grass as the three of them walked through the fields. The other two Regulators were staying some distance behind, but watching the conversation intently.
Lily opened her mouth to answer. "I--"
"She doesn't," Arren interrupted, hands stuffed into his pockets. "She was needed around the farm, so she stopped after First Honours."
Again, Lien clasped his hands together. "Admirable! The spirit of community! It's what keeps the world going, you understand -- that people understand what is around them, what is required of them, and behave appropriately." He smiled down at her. "Still, I'm sure you would have learnt how the world was created in First Honours. Could you remind us, dear?"
Lily glanced uncertainly at Arren, who was still staring at the Regulator with an unfriendly, solid gaze. "Go ahead," he muttered.
Slowly, she nodded -- straining her memory to recall all those boring morning lectures. "Okay. Um, when the world was young, it was a paradise for only the gods. The gods were irr -- irradian -- um -- glowing spirits who could take any form they wanted to. They could be a person, or a horse, or a bird, or anything."
"Masterfully recounted," Lien said with more than a hint of sarcasm. "Please continue."
"The gods got lonely, so they created people -- strong people and smart people and sneaky people and all kinds of people, and everyone lived together all happy -- happily, I mean."
"Until…?" Even though Lien was speaking to Lily, his eyes were fixed on Arren.
"Until the Blindman," Lily shuddered. This part had always given her nightmares. "He was one of the god's favourite creations, but he got mad because he didn't like the gods telling him what to do. So one day he tore his own eyes out of his head -- because he hated them so much -- and told all the other bad humans how to kill the gods. And then, um, they did."
If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.
Lien finished the story, coming to a halt near a few drinking cows as he did. "And the godsblood rained down from the heavens, down into the hands of the only good humans left. Us. That blood was the final gift from the gods to their chosen people. Without it, wonders such as the Guardian Entities would not be possible. Wouldn't you agree?"
Arren scratched at his shoulder, staring down at the ground. "I don't know much about that," he mumbled.
Lien's smile didn't shift in the slightest. "I see," he glanced down at Lily. "Would it surprise you, young lady, if I told you that the spirit of the Blindman was alive and well today?"
Lily paled. "What? Really?"
"Not in a literal sense, of course," Lien chuckled, placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder. Arren visibly tensed. "But the evil principles and philosophies he represents. Disrespect to the gods, disrespect to society, disrespect to… well, to the very way of things. Action born of spite. These things run through our society like a vein of tainted blood."
His grip on Lily's shoulder grew tighter, and she winced involuntarily in pain. "Y-You're hurting me..."
"Stop it." As Arren glared at the Regulator, his hands slowly came out of his pockets, balling into fists at his sides.
Lien ignored him, subtly pulling Lily slightly closer.. "And the very height of that disrespect is what I am here to deal with today," he said, a small theatricality entering his voice, as if this field were his stage and the cows his audience. "If godsblood was the last gift given to mankind, then surely the most heinous crime would be to steal it -- don't you agree, young man?"
For a moment, there was silence, save for the whistling of the wind and the groaning of the cows. Lien stared at Arren, Arren stared at Lien -- and Lily looked back and forth between the two, fear written into every facet of her expression.
Then there was a flash of orange light, like a split-second sunset, and Arren punched the Regulator in the chest.
Arren had always been weak -- Lily knew for a fact that he could barely muster the strength to lift a bag of grain. She expected that being punched by him would be like being punched by an ant. And yet --
-- and yet Regulator Lien went flying backwards, rolling to a stop nearly five meters away. He recovered quickly, getting to his feet and dusting himself off, but he couldn't hide the grimace of pain on his face. He'd felt that.
"I see," Lien said, taking a moment to spit blood down onto the grass. "So it wasn't enough to covet the godsblood -- now you intend to use it against your fellow man, too? How despicable."
Arren was still standing in the position he'd punched Lien from, fist still extended outwards as he panted in shock. Strands and sparks of orange energy -- of godsblood -- ran throughout his body. It collected especially in his fingernails, lending them a peculiar orange glow that pulsed in time with his breathing.
"Just leave us alone," he whispered, nowhere near as imposing as he clearly wished. "I haven't even done anything."
Lien laughed scornfully. "You've just attempted to murder me -- worse, you've stolen high knowledge from the Prester's libraries. I'm sure you know what punishment is in store."
Arren's eyes flicked to Lily. "Run," he panted. "Just run. Get out of here!"
Lily froze, her whole body shaking. The other two Regulators were still standing a distance away, hands clasped in front of them, clearly not worried in the least. She didn't understand. She didn't understand what was happening at all.
What was going on? What had her brother done?!
"Lily!" Arren screamed at her inaction.
"She's wise not to run," Lien smirked, holding his hands out as if to pray. "She's about to witness a miracle, after all. Arren Aubrisher, I invite you to witness the true favour of the gods."
Arren gritted his teeth, squeezed his eyes shut, and the orange godsblood around his body intensified. It was as if he was bracing himself for a hit.
At that, Lien only grinned. "Guardian Entity," he intoned, with all the dignity of scripture. "Teketeke."
Pale green godsblood appeared around Regulator Lien for a moment -- dancing around his entire body -- before detaching itself and collecting into a bright clump in front of him, like a miniature green star. Lily held up her hands to shield her eyes from the emerald incandescence, stepping back in fear.
The light began to dim -- and as it did, Lily noted a new sound had become apparent. A kind of hollow, wet breathing.
Gingerly, she moved her hands away from her face.
The humanoid thing that had appeared in front of Regulator Lien was vaguely feminine in shape, but sickly green, scaled, with a face that was little more than the vaguest shallow indentations to suggest eyes and a mouth. It dragged itself forward on stick-thin clawed hands, gurgling -- it couldn't walk, for its body terminated just past the torso, the closest thing to a lower body being the spinal cord that wafted in the air like a tail.
Ordinarily, this would have seemed a sickly thing -- deserving of pity, maybe, but certainly not fear -- if not for the scythe clutched in its hands. A huge weapon of bone and sinew, fresh blood and phlegm dripping from sores around the white blade. An organic, pulsing tube connected the base of the handle to the creature's navel, like a sick parody of an umbilical cord.
Lily couldn't conceal her disgust, face twisting in horror. This thing was meant to be a miracle? It looked diseased.
A nearby cow honked in distress, shuffling fearfully.
"You can prompt the godsblood you stole to flow," Lien chuckled, twirling a lock of hair between his fingers. "But you can't bring forth a divine servant -- how sad for you. Still, if you think you have a chance against Teketeke, you're welcome to try. She's ready to receive you."
Arren gulped, looking down at the creature dragging itself across the floor. It pulled itself across the grass with one hand, dragging the scythe behind it with the other, painfully slow until it --
-- until it wasn't.
With a flash of movement, the Guardian Entity zoomed forward from its position and appeared right in front of Arren, scythe raised high above its head. With a feral scream, it brought the weapon down, the blade shining with green godsblood.
Arren wasn't fast, wasn't strong -- but for just a moment, he was very lucky. As he jumped back in surprise, the sudden movement caused the slash to just miss him, the blade lodging itself in the ground instead.
Teketeke snarled in frustration as Arren retreated farther, his back thumping against the frightened cow's stomach as he met the organic wall. Lily screamed and charged forward to try to do something, anything, but she was far too slow.
The Guardian Entity struck again, with a wild slash of its scythe that sailed over Arren's head, barely nicking the hide of the cow.
Lien clicked his tongue. "The hell are you aiming at?" he mumbled under his breath.
Still clinging to the side of the cow, Arren looked over at Lily, tensing his legs. Clearly he intended to charge over here, grab her, and make a run for it -- but he wouldn't get the chance. The tiny scratch that Teketeke had inflicted on the cow glowed bright with an eerie green light, and --
-- and the cow was cut perfectly in half. Not from the wound that had been inflicted, not even in the same direction as the wound -- a new vertical cut appeared right along the cow's midsection, going all the way through it's body. A second layer, the animal collapsed into two pieces, screaming with strangled fear and pain. Green guts and viscera spilled forth freely.
Arren could only blink, horrified at how quickly the goliath had been killed. Lily too, stared agape at the cow's rapidly expiring carcass. She'd seen those animals survive being struck by lightning, and yet this creature had killed it like it was nothing.
This didn't make sense. None of this made sense. Just half an hour ago she'd been cleaning the back of a cow exactly like that one. Why couldn't she still be doing that?
Lien laughed, spreading his arms wide.
"You see?" he called out, the other two Regulators marching to join him by his sides. "This is the kind of power a Guardian Entity commands. The kind of power you tried to steal for yourself. By merely scratching something, my Teketeke has the ability to cut it perfectly in half. Right down the middle -- the transcendent ratio of execution! And what can you do, hm? Run and hide? Cower with your stolen power?"
Even with the green blood pooling around his feet, Arren stayed surprisingly firm. "It's just knowledge," he breathed, resolute. "That's not something you can steal. And it's not something you can punish me for."
"Oh?" Lien rubbed the back of his neck, a wicked grin spreading across his face. "I beg to differ."
Teketeke lunged forward again, moving at blinding speeds -- but this time, its target was different. This time, the nightmare visage of the creature grew larger in Lily's vision, it's skin-covered mouth wide as it screamed in triumph.
Arren didn't hesitate. "No!" he roared, leaping forward with a flash of orange light, slamming his body into Lily's, pushing her out of the way as he flew --
-- and then the very tip of the scythe's blade brushed against his boot, leaving the tiniest, tiniest scratch. It flowed green.
Lily fell face first on the ground in a heap, flipped herself around, and looked up at her brother. He stood there, foot glowing green, orange godsblood furiously raging around his body. His face was a mask of utter concentration -- eyes bulging, teeth bared.
"Run," he hissed down at her.
Behind him, Lien clapped sarcastically. The Teketeke creature returned to him, dragging itself to his side and rubbing it's face against his leg affectionately. He patted its head with a free hand.
"You're trying to delay the activation?" Lien smirked. "I wasn't even aware that could be done. Valiant -- but futile, I should think. Still, it's been interesting."
His eyes narrowed, and the tiniest smug laugh trickled from his throat.
"By the way," he whispered, his voice carried by the wind. "I've already killed your parents."
The orange godsblood spluttered away as a strangled cry escaped Arren's mouth -- and a second later, red blood exploded out from his midsection, striking Lily's face and obscuring her vision.
She screamed a choked scream of her own -- at the burning blood covering her, at what Lien had just said, and what she knew she'd see of her brother when she opened her eyes.
But she couldn't stop herself. She looked.
Just like the cow, Arren had been sliced cleanly in half -- his legs splayed out a meter away from his upper torso, connected only by the river of blood that had once filled his body. Through the gap in Arren's torso the Guardian Entity had created, Lily could see nothing but blood and muscle and awful white bone. Arren's breathing, such as it was, grew even more shallow as he stared up at the sky, his paling hands curled into fists.
"And that's that!" Regulator Lien said cheerfully, slapping his hands together. He glanced to his two compatriots. "I trust you don't need my help to dispatch a child?"
Lily was surprised by the sound of her own voice. It was only the faintest mumbling, spoken as she stared at her dying brother. "What…?"
Lien winced. "Nasty business, I'm afraid. Knowledge was stolen and could have been shared. You'll have to die as well."
"But…I-I don't know anything…"
There was no anger, no sadness, no real fear -- just a state of utter confusion. It was beyond not understanding why this had happened: she didn't understand what was happening.
Lien sighed, rubbing the back of his neck. "I don't want to stay out in this sun too long. Just cut her down and let's--"
The Regulator never finished his sentence, for a red hole had appeared between his eyes -- and a second later, the godsblood-sparking pebble that had created it blasted out the back of his head, painting the grass with red blood and brain.
He fell backwards, mouth still open for his final sentence -- and a second later, Teketeke vanished in a spark of sickly green godsblood. The remaining two Regulators stepped back from the corpse, surprise almost comical in their body language, before remembering themselves and drawing their swords.
Lily looked at the source of the attack, at her brother. In the last seconds of his life, he looked back up at her, and whispered through broken lips:
"Run."
And Lily ran. She ignored the shouts of the Regulators, ignored the roaring of the wind and the thundering of the sky as the hours stretched on, ignored the screams erupting from her own throat. The grass beneath her feet turned to sun-baked mud as her flight took her through the woods, deeper and deeper, deeper still.
She didn't stop running for a long time.
----------------------------------------
Six years later...
A star fell from the sky that night.
Lily relied on the comforting blue moonlight to show her what was before her. She'd brought a torch, but that had ended up being shoved into the face of the scout Coren had sent. Fire to the face had startled him, two kicks to the neck had finished him.
The star had crashed in the middle of the woods, leaving a flaming trail through the trees behind it. Lily hadn't quite been sure what she'd expected, but this certainly wasn't it.
It was made of metal, first of all -- shiny, smooth, white metal, like you'd expect a noble to have jewelry made from. The size of it, though, could fill storehouses with jewelry. It was bigger than most houses, like some giant metal creature curled in on itself.
Something was open on the side of the massive object, a huge crack in one side -- Lily poked her head through, holding her scarf over her mouth to stave off the smoke pouring from the ruin. She didn't have much time to look around -- Ted and the rest of her crew would arrive soon, but the Regulators would be right behind them. Lily had no choice but to make a quick inspection before preparing to flee.
She didn't have to look long.
Incredibly, impossibly, there were people inside the fallen star. Four of them all in a heap. A dark-haired older man, a white-haired younger man, and a blonde person lying atop the others. Those three were face down, but breathing.
The only one whose face was visible was the fourth -- a red-haired young woman, her hands covered with sharp armoured gauntlets that flickered out of existence even as Lily watched. Red godsblood spluttered around her wrists for a moment, then nothing. But that wasn't what sent chills down Lily's spine.
What did that was the fact that none of these people, not one, had reachers -- not even the requisite holes for reachers.
They weren't human.