Moon and stars, unexpected, greeted Ald when he opened his eyes.

Clivanaratea stood close by, keeping her Felsian form whilst she guarded her disgraced chosen one. In her boundless mind she toyed with her new acquisition. The Fairest One. When the Air Slitherers descended and circled up in the air like wingless vultures, she had cast their starlight scales back into the firmament. That, she thought, hadn’t been fair to these misshapen, that did only what their nature compelled them to. The Fairest one. Maybe she was meant to wear white now, at least when in presence of Ald. Yet Felsians knew her as a flock of corvids, and maybe she owed Ald that appearance. It saddened her to think that one by one most of those who knew her as Unkindness would die, and that there would be no more Felsians to do so if Ald succeeded in the quest she had given him. For all the things she could do, lifting the ratchet was not counted among them. Father’s curses were etched directly onto the essence of the primordial cosmite, from that stone that had shaped the All-Carver. And her visions told her that he would proffer another curse before exhaling his last breath, whether his killer were to be Ald or anyone else.

She chose to not tell Ald. Not directly. Enough had she implied already. His faith to the progenitor gods may have been blinding, but in time he would see. “You overslept.”

“I can believe that.” Ald pointed the sentence with a yawn and rolled over, initiating the arduous process of getting up from his position. Stumbling a bit before finding his footing, he shot a smile in the direction of his guide. “I am still tired. It doesn’t go away.”

“Take a page from Telesa’s book and steel yourself, Ald. At least your fatigue may end someday.”

“May?” He asked, a pained grin showing on his lips.

She barely nodded once. “Life itself is tiring for some.”

“Ah, I can see.” He said to himself, checking his nails with disinterest. “that’s a positive. How long until we reach Father?”

Clivanaratea turned and pointed across the plateau in which they stood, beyond the precipice far ahead, at a distant star that hung over the unreachable mountains, shark teeth on the horizon. “There our journey concludes. One of my siblings bears Father’s prison on their, for lack of a simpler word, back.”

Ald hobbled up to her and squinted, wishing for eyes better than the best his species had to offer. “And who got father imprisoned in first place, Clivanaratea?” ALd mad ethe question she feared, for she had no good answer for it.

“A Masterwork.”

“Sibling of yours?”

“Born as I was, at least.”

And hissed between his teeth. “You. You kidnapped Father, for some reason that escapes my knowledge. If I were to consider gods as sacredas when I started this journey, I’d be rushing at you, sword in hand. But I know father to be evil. A necessary one for our existence.” He turned with as dignity as he could, straightening his back, trying to hide the pain caused by his crippling injury. “An evil you have no reason to tolerate. You are allowed to act fairly. Your existence doesn’t depend on it.”

“That sobriquet you gave me, then, was a condemnation. Fairer than us, because she can be.”

“Sobriquet,” Ald repeated, feeling his teeth with his tongue as he considered his next sentence. “A fake name. No. I do think, Unkindness — if you prefer to be called so — that I consider the name to be just a nick. The crippled,” he stepped forward, showing his pegleg to her. “Should not blame the ones who can walk and run for his condition. You imprisoned father Father because he deserves to be a prisoner, and are giving us the chance to jailbreak him against all odds, to save our species. How can I consider you not truly fair?”

She stared at the mountains far away, a sour taste growing in her psyche, and in all her mouths. “A chance to jailbreak him. Yes. Ald, I admire your force of will, but I don’t think you will find it in you to free Father from his fetters. I refuse, however, to know for certain,” she gave him a shy, little smile. Her teeth beaks of ravens.

Ald laughed ever so slightly. No, his guide wasn’t a bad person. “Ah, we have gone full circle: from teethed raven to ravened teeth. How does it feel to walk among us mortals when you are this, Cli? You are older than any Felsian that draws breath. You have seen countless of my brothers and sisters die. How does it feel?”

“Taking a page from Telesa’s book,” she repeated. “I am tired, Ald. I want it to end. Not tired of the flesh: I have no flesh to call mine. Tired up here,” she tapped her head with a finger crowned with a sharp raven claw. “You are cursed with an ignorance that would feel blissful to me. I cannot have it. I cannot yearn for it. Every being that draws breath is owed the truth.”

“Then why do you keep me in the dark? You consistently feed me breadcrumbs of what’s going on, but I have to pry your mouth open to rescue a bit more of this truth you seem to hold sacred.” Ald’s tone wasn’t accusing, merely curious and fatigued.

“Are you fond of fishkeeping, Ald? As pets.”

“Decoration,” he almost barked. “A pet is something I can play with. Something that loves me.” He was tempted to kick the dandruff around a bit, but knew it would send pain coursing up his bad leg. “Do you love me, Clivanaratea?”

She turned and examined his face carefully. “Not more than any other Felsian. Except Gleur. I have taken a liking to bothering him. Not for a wee while I shall miss that curmudgeon.”

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

Downtrodden, with a thread of voice, Ald asked the question that he thought, needed to naturally follow. “Will you miss me?”

“There’s a world of lies out there, my esteemed. And it is as beautiful as you can imagine it to be. In that world, and only there, Ald, I am likely to miss you.”

He kicked the tear-dandruff softly with his wooden leg, and a slight grunt left his lips. “You hate the progenitor gods and they seem to have abandoned me. I have followed your every order: questioning, yes, but acquiescing in the end. And this is what you feel towards me. So, if father hates my guts, if mother has forsaken me, and if you don’t hold me dear, what hope is there in the world? What should I worship that will reciprocate my care and dedication?”

“You should worship nothing. Only then every ounce of care you put in —or rather, that you don’t put in— will be adequately rewarded.”

Ald let out a disheartened breath. “Felsians are born to be worshippers. We are a living testimony to the progenitor gods’ glory.”

“You are not born to worship them, even if you are born for their sake. Father’s foul mouth has spat more lies than sons and daughters it has swallowed. Almost no being has been born for worship, Ald.”

If Ald was sure of something, it was that no word in Clivanaratea’s speech was accidental. Unlike him —unlike anyone— she was likely to hold an absolute tyranny over what she said. To speak only words one chooses, all the time, every time. What a bliss that would be. “Almost.”

“Yes. There’s a Masterwork that lives far from here, on an island in the middle of the endless waters. I may call them Godmaker. They pray to ephemeral deities that exist only for them, which are created and unmade as their belief in them waxes and wanes. The exception to the rule. The one born to worship.” She began to drift away, her steps weightless, like a leaf fluttering in the wind. “Follow me, we are not far from a conclusion, Ald.”

He didn’t ask if good or bad. He then realized she had never concluded her point about fish. “What is it about aquaria? The point you wanted to make.”

“You need to acclimate fishes when you introduce them in a new tank, or otherwise they could die. Come, before the moon touches the horizon we should meet a friend of mine.”

And Ald followed. Like an old dog dragging behind his haughty master he followed. Through the fields of nothing but white, deformed tears he followed, lame and pained. And they arrived to the edge of the plateau, and to Ald it looked like the edge of the world as if he peered over it, to the sea of stirring shadows below, to the desert where the wind raised sharp claws of sand to and fro.

“I will die if I try to cross through there.”

“That’s why you will not,” Unkindness sentenced, compressing her form into a single raven and jumping onto Ald’s shoulder.

She began cawing, and from the rocks cut by the wind that adorned the drop in front of them crawled off a creature seemingly made of jewels. It was like a spring of emeralds seeping out from the cracks, shining green blood of the benighted crag. “Ald, this is Inheritance.”

Ald was tempted to poke the heap of jewels, but refrained from doing so. And he did well, for the jewels soon raised, imitated the form of a brother and changed appearance to fit that of a nude one. His mane was long and his hairs straight, his eyes burned with a hue far fierier than that of modern Felsians. A visage that reflected absolutely tranquility guarded those same eyes jealously. “Glad and eager to serve, Lady in Black,” he addressed the raven, not even glancing at Ald’s face.

“Masterwork like her?”

“You would call me a misshapen, as I am capable of a death so like yours. I named myself Inheritance. I can don the shape and the powers of any ancestor of mine. Have their memories, too. And you are?”

“Ald Elvisatcaught.”

With a borrowed smile, the misshapen tilted a head that wasn’t his. “Naming conventions must have changed since my ancestor lived. This body you are beholding belonged to Kalam of the Lumberlords Succession.”

It was pre-walls history, back before Felsia had unified. Lumberlords, inhabitants of the forgewood forests, in times before the Misshapen had become unmanageable. Maybe, Ald thought, in times before Wildfire.

“He mated with Kali of the Riverfarers Succession, and they called their deformed child Limiduz before releasing him in the forest, to save him from being murdered by their brothers and sisters. Limiduz, in time, found a mate too, but I won’t bother you with the story of every one of my ancestors.”

“Kali of the Riverfarers, painter of the Worldvein’s First Sunrise. We have her work hanging on a gallery inside the most prestigious art museum of the city,” Ald said, amused by the fact that he was speaking with a descendant of his ward’s namesake. He tried to manage himself with as much dignity as a hurt cripple could: straighten the back, don’t show the pain.

“My friend needs wings to reach Father, Inheritance,” Unkindness said. “I want you to provide them.”

“So that’s why I spent months in those cracks, hibernating, using my great-grandmother’s gem-shape.”

“Great-grandmother,” Ald ruminated on the word. It was so weird to heard such terms when not talking about an animal’s pedigree. To hear a seeming brother pronounce it. “You can go back any number of generations with your ability?”

“It’s not my ability, it’s my nature. With that clarified: Yes. Of any direct ascendant of mine, their form I have available for the taking. But don’t think I am willing to turn into them, as I inherit their minds too. Select forms are safe. Select forms are to save myself at the expense of everyone around.”

“I assume the progenitor gods fall in the second category. I was meaning to ask you to take the form of Father and lift our curse. That way, I can save my people, and Father can be brought to justice.”

The stare of the raven told Ald all he needed to know about the idea, but that didn’t stop Inheritance from elaborating on it. “Impossible. To become Father is to think like Father, and he would never lift the curse. Strong personalities override mine. Well, mine, that’s an overstatement: I am but a mishmash of the forms I take more often. Kalam was a serene man, a comprehensive one. Father is lust and anger and hunger and envy and hate.”

“And Mother? I am sure mother can force the real Father to undo the Ratchet, so, will you incarnate her?” Ald dared ask.

“I cannot speak ill of Mother while holding Kalam’s form. It fills me with unparalleled anguish. As for the forms that can talk harshly about her… I’d wager you would prefer to not listen to them. Several of my ancestors could fly, so worry not about me lacking one compatible with our current conundrum.”

Ald raised his eyebrow when he saw the misshapen sitting at the edge, and then letting himself fall on its back, with his lower legs dangling over the abyss and his arms open wide. “Uh, what are you doing?”

“Kalam of the Lumberlords Succession: prodigious sculptor, better slacker,” Unkindness cackled and jumped off of Ald’s shoulder, landing onto a spot of bare rock. “Inheritance will cooperate. Eventually.”

And so Ald waited, and as he did, he thought about what could be so bad about Mother, that the misshapen didn’t want to tell him, that Unkindness seemed to despise her. What could be so bad, if she was still considerate enough to grant her sons and daughters boons through the runes.