Walking slowly down the darkened street, the tall, slender man ran his long fingered right hand along the brick wall of the houses and small businesses he passed. The street was practically deserted, which he knew to be odd. For this time of year the people of this city usually kept their stalls and doors open for business until at least until the second bell past sunset. They were industrious people. Generally.
Lately they had taken a beating, of a sort. They had been taught to fear the dark a few nights past. Now many of these people decided to close their places of business earlier than they were usually want to do.
But, given time, they would numb themselves to this fear. They would, in weeks to come, stop hugging their children quite as suffocatingly close as they did tonight. Their dreams would roil less, and bring them fewer fanged horrors. His younger brother, Khuan, would appreciate that lessening of dark dreams amongst the people of Rhiada. His Domain of Dreams would be less turbulent than the storm tossed seas that they were now. And Khuan might be less grumpy.
He did not usually like to travel to these cities. But one of his brothers, his older brother, Bessar, had asked to meet with him at a particular inn.
After a quick look around, familiarizing himself with the city of Ghlow, to which he had not personally visited in… a very long time, Arluan wended his meandering way toward the Gull’s Nest.
Bessar had promised to treat him to the best meal he had had in a century, if his little brother would but simply come to Ghlow and hear him out. Bessar was always interested in what industry humanity involved itself in.
He had, if you heard Bessar tell the story, given humanity the idea of Ships. And many other ideas to go hand in hand with ships, like sails, because oars weren’t fast enough, and grain silos. He claimed to have invented commerce, but Arluan was certain their father also claimed that. And several other gods of Thach claimed to have given humanity the ideas of commerce. Arluan never argued.
He didn’t see the benefits of being right in a room full of the querulously wrong. His own Domain was rarely trodden upon by others, though, few other gods wanted to claim HIS toys. So he rarely argued with his own kin. Sometimes with gods of other houses. But, rarely.
Arluan walked through the door, and was affronted on behalf of the tavern keeper and her family to see such an empty common room. Near the long bar behind which the elderly woman had been industriously clean ceramic mugs, stood his older brother.
Looking at the god, though a god currently dressed as a man, no one would think the two ”men” were at all related. Bessar tended to tread the lands of Thach as a member of the Ghorma race. Broad, and brawny as any hard working trader or sailor, he looked to the casual observer like a human in his mid third decade. Blue and green hued skin, with an overlaid set of intricate tattoos showing wherever his seafarer's style of clothing allowed. A bullhorn mustache, waxed up into peaks that showed just enough silver-gray hair to make him look dignified.
The styles he wore were surely the most modern, Bessar kept pace with humanity and found them constantly fascinating.
Arluan, on his best days, dressed like a priest’s grandfather. Tall, pale skinned, sometimes mistaken for a human of the Piincar kind, though his skin tended to the silver-white, rather than the pinkish, light tan colors of that line of descent. His clothing was of the highest quality, if two centuries out of date. He wore a black robe with blue accents over a startlingly white tunic and black trousers. Leg wraps in black with the same blue accents that the over robe sported.
Incongruous, a pair of black sandals, the kind worn in this modern Thach most often by soldiers. A wide white leather scabbard with black accents of cavorting horses rode at his hip, and held a very broad, if short sword.
Arluan tended to not “keep up.” Not with fashions, not with art, and certainly not with politics. His mother had made him promise. It was safer for all involved. It had led to troubles at those various times in the past when he had paid close attention to humanity.
Turning to see his taller, younger brother enter the inn, Bessar let out a shout of exuberant glee as he set his mug down on the polished wooden bar, and ran to embrace Arluan.
Looking back at the old woman, “See, Mistress Rahm? I told you he would come! HA! Dinner, if you please! The fried platters!”
Arluan didn’t know what “fried platters” were, but he was here more to listen to his older brother than to eat. Eating was just a bonus.
As the two men sat on benches at a table in the middle of the common room, the elderly woman, Mistress Rahm had stared at Arluan the entire time, a look of mild astonishment on her face as she carefully placed the two drinks down for her guests. She had brought the two brothers large mugs of the locally brewed small beer.
Arluan knew it was traditionally a weak beer used in places where water was not always clean and safe, but drinking full alcohol beer constantly was a bad idea. But unlike most of the short beers he had tasted in the past, this was full of flavor and as savory as it was sweet. Sitting back as he let the thick ale play over his tongue, he could almost taste the sunlight on the grain that had gone into making the small beer. He was a little surprised by the revelation that such a thing could be made… well.
The broad smile on his older brother’s face made him want to punch the grinning buffoon, but their mother wouldn’t approve. He raised an eyebrow in question, and Bessar guffawed in delight.
“YES!” He crowed. “It tastes good! And they make hundreds of barrels of this. They ship this small beer out to taverns and inns up and down the coast. These brewers know their business! And business is wonderful!” The blue man paused to take a long drag from his flagon.
With some grumbled words to someone back in the kitchens, Mistress Rahm reemerged from the recesses of the building carrying a set of large plates, one in each hand, and oddly, a third plate.
Setting them down, one in front of each man, and then the third off to the side of Bessar, she bowed then to Arluan.
“My Lord Ashe, I am so honored to receive you in my humble inn. Please let me know if there is anything I can do for such an important gentle, such as yourself.” And with that, she scuttled back to the kitchens without further pause, white apron and blue dress vanishing from view as if the woman had been running for her life.
Arluan stared after the old innkeeper, confused.
“That was odd!” Bessar said, his voice as boisterous as ever. “But, food is on, best we dig in, and I’ll tell you my idea!”
Arluan watched his older brother for a moment, and then, “First, why is there a third plate?”
“A third plate?”
“The third plate, yes.”
“What third plate?”
Pointing, “That third plate, Bes. It’s by your elbow.”
The older god slowly turned his head to the left, and stared at the third plate. Like the first two plates, it was also piled high with fried fish filets, and a selection of both sliced vegetables that had also been fried, and small bowls of pickled vegetables. A small round bun sat on the edge of the third plate, just as it had on each of theirs.
“FUCK! That plate!”
Sighing, Arluan repeated, "That plate.”
“Well, if you must know…” and Bessar let his voice trail off.
“I would like to know, yes. “
“Look, Ari, if you really must know.” Bessar said.
“”Yes?”
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
“I…” and now his older brother was squirming a little in his seat, before almost whispering. “I invited Khuan.”
“You invited Khuan.” Arluan was confused. And slightly worried now.
“I invited Khuan.” Bessar confirmed.
“Khuan.”
“Yes.” Bessar looked honestly perplexed now.
“You brought Khuan into a human city. And now offer him flesh as food.” Arluan spoke slowly, in the voice of a younger brother explaining the YOUNGEST brother’s possibly irrational and completely out of proportion reaction to the eldest brother who should have known all of this to begin with.
“Ooooh… Right. That.” The broad shouldered man shrugged. “More for me, I guess.” The tattooed god immediately moved the fish from his brother’s plate to his own, replacing the pieces with fried planks of tubers from his plate. After a moment’s thought, he tosses one of the fish planks onto Arluan’s plate.
Smiling to himself, he took a draught of his beer, and smiled up at his taller brother. “See? No worries! All good!”
It was at that moment that Arluan first bit into a piece of his own fish. It was so much better than anything he had thought it would have been like. It was crunchy and spiced on the outer, flaked layers, yet piping hot, tender, and exceptionally moist on the interior. The peppery spices on the outer layers complimented perfectly by the lemon and herb flavors of the fish filet itself.
Arluan sat in stunned silence for a solid moment, staring down at his plate of smells and flavors. This was nothing like the foods he would have received in this same city, in this same neighborhood, a scant hundred years gone by.
He took up his own flagon of small beer, and sipped, savoring the mix of flavors that now mingled and danced across his palette.
Contemplating the food and drink before him, and wondering what favors his older brother was going to ask him for, Arluan almost missed the change in the air pressure of the common room of the inn. The sound of the door opening was so slight as to go unheard by anyone not of godly stock.
The door swung open upon empty night, slowly swinging back to shut out the cold night air, as a shadow moved across the dining room to stand beside Bessar, God of the Blue Moon of that same name, Commerce, Art and Industry.
Standing over the broad, stocky god, loomed the shadowy presence of an emaciated shadow in approximate human form. Where Arluan was tall, and thin, it was the height and trim physique akin to a human in superb condition and vigorous health. The figure who now stood over his elder brother, however, was only human in shape by happy accident, and more resembled the image of branches silhouetted against moonlight.
Possibly in the middle of the darkest forest.
Where you wandered, lost and alone.
“Khuan, please. I’m so happy you decided to join us. Sit, eat.” And Bessar did sound sincere, though he did not look up from his meal, his voice warm and filled with brotherly love.
The shadow stood a moment longer, before it nodded, and sat beside Bessar. With what looked like a visible effort, Khuan strained, and his form filled in, becoming more human in appearance. He was still incredibly thin, and looked like an Ocre human in his twenties.
The God of the Forest, Hunting and Magic sat with his two older brothers, and lifted his own mug of beer, sniffing it like a dog might, before he smiled and tipped the ceramic vessel back, taking a huge drink.
Speaking in a low, quiet, unrushed voice, Khuan asked, “Arluan, how have you been? I have not seen you on this plane in an age. And what are these…things?” With that last, he poked at some of the fried potatoes on his plate.
“Little brother, it is good to see you, too. Have you brought Aevana with you this evening?” He asked cautiously. His youngest brother's wife was a bad influence on, well, everyone. But, he thought to make the polite inquiry, nonetheless.
The god of magic and dark forests shook his head in solemn denial. “No. She is busy with the end of harvest season duties of her followers to the south.” Bessar and Arluan both nodded in sympathy for the cyclical duties of all gods with Nature domains.
“I have been well. I have tried to not allow myself to get drawn into the conflicts that have raged on the other continent these last twenty years, and so I have kept myself apart. And those are fried tubers. Try them with some of the green pickles, they are spicy and sweet.” He knew he was speaking in an awkward and stilted manner, but he never knew exactly where he stood where Khuan was concerned. The two gods had never gotten along as well with each other as they had with practically any others.
The youngest of the moon gods' face split with joy as he used a potato slice as a spade shoveling a pile of spicy green pickle into his wide lipped mouth.
The three brothers fell into a companionable silence of those who enjoyed a good meal and friendly familial settings.
Once plates had been emptied, and Mistress Rahm had cleared the table and refreshed the drinks, again bowing to Arluan and calling him “Lord Ashe,” which caused Khuan to snicker, as Bessar cleared his throat to begin.
“Brothers,” He started. “I have a proposal. I want to Lift this Kingdom. Mother has given Her specific Blessing to the new King, and I asked her if we, all three of Us, might force changes here to create an Advance. She acquiesced to my request.”
He smiled broadly, and held out his hands, as if to pantomime a “HUZZAH!”
“I do not want to see the ruin Lifting this realm will cause the other realms of this continent.” Khuan said in his quiet rumble.
With a dismissive wave of his hands, Bessar almost pleaded, “But that’s the beauty of this idea! All of the kingdoms of Thach are now connected, even across the Great Sea, and so the damage will be spread wide, and in so doing, lessened! A large wave on a small pond is disastrous, but a large wave across the entire ocean is just another wave. The only damages we need fear are the direct damages of War.”
Before Arluan could voice an objection, Khuan voiced his own concerns. “The new King is a Talent.”
Bessar and Arluan both looked to their younger sibling, waiting for more. Khuan picked up a fried piece of parsnip he had held back from the plate clearing, and nibbled at it for a moment. Then, “His mentor is a Greater Talent, but I can only see him some rare times, he is not originally of this Plain, and so only visible to me when he treads upon one of my domains.”
He then looked significantly at Arluan, and laughed lightly, mumbling, “...Lord Ashe…”
They waited. Again.
“And the young king has made a Pact with a Power.” Bessar nodded, as if knew all of this, but this was definitely news to Arluan.
“What? For what? And with whom?”
“He had made a Pact with the Heart of the Void. And She will expect payment from him. Soon.”
“What did he bargain with the Heart for?” Bessar asked, but with a smile on his face that said he knew exactly what was asked.
Slowly turning his head to look directly at Arluan, Khuan intoned softly, “He had bargained for certain deaths in exchange for a Pure Vessel;” both brothers listening sighed in relief. Humans would bargain for that one thing, over and over again throughout time. It was in their nature.
“Last week, that bargain was amended. Now, instead of taking his rivals and armies to the grave, he has asked for knowledge, in exchange for that Pure Vessel. And there is such a Vessel in this city.”
“WHAT?!” Bessar burst out before Arluan could even begin to frame a response. “How has he created such a thing?”
Khuan smiled now, possibly in triumph, or in anger. It was hard to tell the difference some days with the Dark God. “He has not. The two of you, and I, reluctantly, have created that Pure Vessel.”
Both brothers listening were on the verge of protesting. Arluan in anger, Bessar in confusion.
“My dearest Eldest Brother,” Khuan said, directly to Bessar. “You have connected these kingdoms with commerce. And now trade routes stretch across this world and its vast oceans. Travel between these lands does not require Greater Mages now.”
“And In this connected world, A god of both Love and War allowed a conflict to start between two nations, when He could have intervened, and used His other Domain to join the two lands. But, alas, brother, you allowed them to fight. And for that fight to build. And then to continue for decades. When that fight almost killed two lovers, creating a Madman of a husband and a Wife trapped within what was left of her own mind, the two fled that continent, and came here, to this city. Their journey took years, and over those years, the Madman used a Ritual of the Greater Arts to turn the body of his beloved slowly into a Living Artifact.”
Both gods stared at their youngest brother in shock.
“Now, that Madman is about to die. Someone has given him the Medallion of Arluan’s Protection.” The tall thin god shrugged, though Arluan almost cried out in anger now.
“Or, he will be driven finally into the last stages of becoming an asologe. And through Asologee, he will either fall either into Death or to become a Horva.” The tendency of the magically Talented to overreach their power and ability tended to drive the users mad, kill them outright, or strip their minds from their Talent bodies, creating a Magically durable, if mindless, slave. Both brothers shivered at this revelation.
“But regardless of what state the Madman ends in, the body of his love is now a Perfect Vessel. And it rests in this city. The Heart of the Void is owed her price. And will claim it for her own.”
Turning to Arluan, “Mother’s Head Priest is trying to protect the King from the Hungry Ones your Medallion is creating. I suggest that you retrieve your toy, while the Kingdom of Rhiada still stands.”
Then to Bessar, “I suggest you aid your seafarers, and your wife’s People’s Champion, the Merrow Captain who has offered so much blood in tribute to your Lady Wife, Goddess of the Seas. She can make it back here by Dawn, with Your help, Bes.”
“And what will you do, God of Magic and the Forest? What will your efforts be leant to tonight?” Bessar looked angry. He wasn;t used to his plans being so entirely sidetracked by his siblings.
“I?” And now he smiled at his eldest brother. “I am the God of both Magic and the Forest, as you pointed out. I will bless this Hunt, and the young King, Myrl, who leads it. I will also ensure that the tools he needs will be…At hand.”
And now the dark god laughed. In the streets for blocks in every direction, those who slept, had nightmares. Those who were still awake, shivered at the sound of maniacal joy and pain they heard reverberating through the dark, oddly moonless streets.