The Sacrifice Read online

  THE SACRIFICE

  The Airluds Trilogy Book 1

  Nhys Glover

  This is a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in this work come wholly from the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.

  Published by Belisama Press 2017

  (c) Nhys Glover 2017

  All rights reserved

  Chapter One

  My mother always complained that I came into the world crying, 'Why', and that I have never stopped asking questions since. Even though that story is unlikely, there is truth in it. I do have a tendency to question everything, even the most sacred truths held by my people.

  Like, why boys are allowed to wield magic but girls are not. Like, why boys can be trained to fight and girls cannot.

  Oh, I have been given answers to these impertinent questions, often by my indulgent father from his knee. But I did not like those answers: Girls are fragile, emotionally volatile creatures who would be damaged, and might damage others, if they were allowed to have magic. They are not as physically strong as males, who were better equipped to protect, so it was best to leave the fighting to them. Is it not nice to feel protected?

  And though I grumbled under my breath at these answers, finding them suspect yet indisputable, given my lack of experience and knowledge, I did not argue against them. Not at first. Not until I started to find holes in those answers.

  And that was why I now stood in the shadows beyond the arena watching the young men sparring, with bamboo rods as long as they were tall. Each manoeuvre I captured in my mind's eye, so that I could practise it again when I was alone.

  Because I have to practise those moves if I was ever going to be able to use them. Knowing them in my head was not the same as knowing them in my body. My muscles needed to repeat and repeat a move until they could move without thought. Or that is what the fighting instructors told their students, and what I had discovered, first-hand, for myself when I was young enough to pass for my brother.

  Back then, when we were about seven or eight suncycles old, and Airshin had first been removed from the harem to join the other boys in the barracks, we looked enough alike to be mistaken for each other. We were small for our age, having been delivered prematurely and never having caught up with our full-term counterparts. We both had white-blonde hair, porcelain skin and big violet-blue eyes. It had become a game for us in the harem. I would don his clothes and people would call me Airshin; he would don mine and be called Airsha. We would then roll around on the lushly carpeted floors of our mother's apartment, laughing at our private joke so hard our sides would ache. We were never caught playing our game, but I suspect Mother knew what we were doing. She seemed to always know things she should not.

  I shifted from one stiff leg to the other, my enforced stillness getting to me. But the practise was almost over. Only once it was done would I let myself leave and return to the harem.

  As the call went up to announce the end of practise I reluctantly hurried down the shadowed corridors and across the stable yard to the main complex of buildings that made up the palace. Keeping to the shadows was not a foolproof method of staying undetected, but it was enough to allow my disguise to pass a cursory glance. I might now be shorter and slimmer than my almost eighteen suncycle old brother but I could still pass as an anonymous youth-in-training. And it was amazing where you could go if you looked like you belonged and did not attract undue attention.

  I reached the main complex and took the turn off towards the women's wing. It was a large and luxurious part of the palace, with its own gardens and dipping pool. Before I reached the guarded and barred main entrance, though, I took a side corridor and entered a storage room. Once the door was firmly shut behind me, I quickly scaled the shelves in the darkness to the air duct in the ceiling, feeling blindly for the clip that would release the grate and allow me access.

  It was a commonly held belief that the harem was closed off from the world, all exits barred and locked for the 'protection' of the forty wives of the Godling and his childlings. But like most beliefs, this one was incorrect too. There were ways in and out of the harem if you were small enough, clever enough, and motivated enough, to find them. And my brother and I had been all three when we first faced separation.

  Unless you are a twin you cannot possibly understand what it is like to be separated from the other half of yourself. It is a physical pain that never eases and never ends. So, as the threat loomed nearer, we found a way out of the harem. From then on we assured ourselves the ability to remain close.

  As I scrambled soundlessly along the narrow duct on my hands and knees, I thought about that closeness. With each passing year our bond had, despite my best intentions, stretched thinner and thinner like taffy. Airshin was a man grown now, and he believed what others told him about women. That we were only good for two things: satiating sexual need and bearing childlings. For anything else men were superior.

  At first I had railed against his glib statements of superiority, pointing out their weaknesses. But, though I was always right, it only served to make Airshin angry, and never changed his mind. When I asked Mother about it she would simply shrug and say it was the way of men. An intelligent woman learned to accept men for who they were and work around them to get what they wanted.

  But I have no desire to manipulate, or a skill for it, for that matter. I say what I think, when I think it. I never learned the subtleties my sisters seemed to have mastered at an early age.

  I had been counting out my crawled steps and finally reached the number I needed. Still blind in the musty darkness, I felt around for the grate that would take me down into a similar storeroom to the one I had left on the outside of the harem. Finding it, I levered it open and climbed down into the harem. After listening at the door for sounds of passers-by, I finally opened it and hurried back to my mother's apartments.

  Once inside, I dashed into my own rooms to begin my practise. It would be another hour before I would call a halt and change back into my other disguise: my harem clothes. And into the role of docile and dutiful princess. Though I doubt anyone who knew me well would ever believe me either docile or dutiful.

  "Airsha?" my mother called from her rooms just as I was finishing up, the sweat running off me in rivulets. The heat of summer in Godslund was always harsh, and today was no exception. Not a whiff of breeze stirred the stagnant air. I wished with all my heart I could do something about it.

  I put aside my makeshift fighting rod and poked my head out the door. "Yes, mother?"

  "Come here, girl. I have news." Her usually calm and gentle voice sounded scratchy and unnatural.

  With trepidation I entered the communal area where she and I spent most of our time together. As one of the Godling's favoured wives, my mother had an apartment much larger and more private than most. It served us both well. She did not have to deal with the jealousies of the other wives; I did not have to play at being the perfect princess.

  Now this call had come and I thought I knew what it meant. I was well past the age of marriage. Only my father's soft feelings for his most spoiled daughter had kept me free so long. But now I felt my childhood finally coming to an end. Though marriage was the last thing I wanted, I would have to fulfil my role as princess by becoming wife to a King or Lud from another kinglund. Not my mother's homeland of Westsealund, of course, because that might invite inbreeding. But to one of the other three kinglunds; Norsealund, Sousealund or the mountainous kinglund of Highlund. Going so far away from my parents and my brother would devastate me, but there was nothing for it. I had run out of time.

  Mother was pacing the common room like a mad woman, pulling at her long pale hair so it fell los
e from its obligatory knot at the back of her head. A woman's hair was a sensual temptation and must be bound at all times. Except of course when the Godling wished to avail himself of its glory. Why a man's hair could be left down, and grow half way down his back, and not be considered a sensual temptation, I do not know. It was yet another rule I questioned.

  Mother was always a stickler for following rules, so to see her hair in such disarray was a shock. I felt my limbs begin to tingle and the first wafts of air dried the sweat from my skin.

  The movement of air immediately drew Mother's attention. "Stop it, Airsha. No magic!"

  That she used that word was another shock. Mother had known about my magic since my first blood but had studiously ignored it, reminding me what happened to women who were discovered to have magic.

  As sexual pleasure was said to intensify magical power, a woman with it would have to be castrated. It was a torturous barbarism in my eyes, which had killed my dearest sister at just thirteen. The procedure was painless, using the same herb the Godling used when he wished to have a god inhabit him for ceremonies and inception. Most girls survived. What happened to Mina was an unfortunate infection started in the bloody spot where her bud of delight used to be. That was what we were told. I did not believe a word of it.

  But Mother's reminder in this moment was all it took. I quickly harnessed my power and the air stilled. Even in our private quarters there could be eyes. Not even Airshin could be trusted with my secret.

  "What is it Mother, you are scaring me," I exclaimed, moving toward her slowly, as if she was an injured beastling.

  Mother threw back her head, wrung her hands, and wailed to the gods. "It is the worst news!" Then she seemed to pull herself together a little. She turned to me and spoke more rationally, even if tears were now streaming down her pale cheeks. "And the best. You have the honour of saving your father's kinglund. Only you can stop the revolts and the war that will surely follow if he doesn't regain the favour of the gods."

  My heart missed a beat. Was she suggesting what I thought she was suggesting? The only way to regain the favour of the gods was through human sacrifice. Since the gods had withdrawn their favour from my father, and none of his sons coming to manhood had shown any sign of magic, he had been forced to sacrifice four of his daughters on the summer solstice to try to appease them. None of the sacrifices so far had brought the return of the much needed magic. Not for the boys, that was. There had been an upsurge in girls displaying magic, which was an even more ominous sign of the gods' displeasure with the Godling and his people.

  In a little voice I asked the defining questions of my life. "I am to be sacrificed? Father would kill me?"

  Mother spun fully to face me, her eyes deep wells of horror. "He does not want to. But you are his favourite child. The gods demand the ultimate sacrifice. Nothing less will do. The Godling is beside himself with anguish. He would rather cut off his own arm than sacrifice you. But the gods have spoken. You are the ultimate sacrifice."

  There was regret in her tone as well as steel. I knew she abhorred this decision but, even so, would support it. Ever the dutiful woman, she had left her home to marry a man she had never met, a man already sixty suncycles old and in his middle years. She had become his favourite wife when she bore him twins, a sure sign of the gods' pleasure. Mother had accepted without a word the loss of her son to the barracks at seven suncycles, never seeing his face again, except at ceremonies from a distance and from behind the gossamer curtain. Now she was being asked to give up her last child, her beloved daughter, this time to death. And she would do it. Because that was what dutiful women did.

  I felt the fire rise inside me. My mother might be a dutiful woman but I was not! I would not accept the will of the gods. I was not even sure they existed. If they did, they were cruel and vicious beastlings. They had to be, to allow young girls to be tortured for possessing their magic, and for requiring human sacrifice for their favour.

  No, I was not a dutiful woman and I would not go peacefully to my death!

  "It will not hurt. You will be given the gods' herb and will go to the sacrificial block in bliss. Your father's blade will be fast and sure. There will be no pain, only bliss. And you will awake to find yourself the favoured child of a god. That is what all sacrifices become. It is an honour. It is an amazing gift. For you. Pity your father and me, as the ones who will be left behind. I do not know if I will be able to stand it. You are everything to me."

  Her anguish was plain and I felt sudden pity wash over me. How would she survive here in the harem once I was gone? She had no one. The other women hated her for her position of favourite, which she had clung to for nearly twenty suncycles. She saw Father only on rare occasions and never to just talk to and share her day with. Her loneliness would be a terrible thing.

  I walked to her side and drew her into my arms. We were of the same height, both small and fine-boned. Nobody had expected her to survive a twin pregnancy. They said she was so big that she could barely walk by the time she was six mooncycles gone. That she had delivered both childlings safely, and lived to rear them, had been taken as a sure sign of the gods' favour.

  And yet the male twin was given no magic at manhood and the female twin was, unbeknownst to all. Another sure sign to me that the gods did not exist or, if they did, they cared nothing for us mere mortals, even their earthly incarnation, the Godling

  "It is all right, Mother. Do not fret. All will be well," I crooned to her, as I rocked her as if she were the child and I was the mother.

  I felt her body slowly relax in my arms and I had to steel my heart against the pity and love I felt for her. If losing her daughter to sacrifice would wound her, what I planned to do would likely kill her. But I could not think on that, because I would not go peacefully to my death.

  And I had less than half a mooncycle to come up with a plan of escape.

  Chapter Two

  I gave no sign that I was anything but a scared and dutiful daughter to all those who watched me so carefully over the next days. Since I was a child I had learned how to trick others into seeing what they thought to see, not what was. Mostly this had been me passing as a boy, a youth-in-training, but I also did it to pass as a magicless girl. Now they expected to see my fear and my hopelessness. My grief too, though that was real. I was already grieving the loss of my parents and my brother.

  Two days after the news, I sneaked out of the harem and waited in the shadows for Airshin to finish his training session. He would always glance into the shadows at our meeting spot. If he felt like talking to me, he would make some excuse to fall behind the others and slip away. Often as not these days he would simply give me a slight nod when he met my gaze and then go on his way. He had little time for a useless woman like me. He could not bed me or have me bear his childlings, so what good was I to him?

  I had silently raged at him in the early days when he started doing that to me, remembering the times I had taken his place in the barracks so that I could stop the bullies from targeting him. He had been small for his age, back then, and more interested in his studies than in fighting. The bullies had found the perfect target in him, and when he had come to our meeting place bruised and bloodied one too many times, I had convinced him to change places with me for a few days so that I could end it for him.

  Bullies, I had already learned in the harem, would only bully those they thought they could defeat easily. Stand up to them, fight back, and they would back off and leave you alone. Even if you were small and seemingly weak.

  So I had taken my brother's place in the barracks, and when the first attack came I had used the few skills I had committed to memory from watching the boys at practise. I did not win, but I fought like a beastling and won my brother respect from his peers. And he had been grateful back then. But that gratitude and his respect had not lasted into manhood.

  But this day I stood in the shadows at our spot, hoping against hope he would deign to talk to me. It would be the last time I
would ever see him, and he would have to know that by now. My selection as sacrifice had been on everyone's lips since it was announced a few turns of the sandglass after my mother broke the news to me.

  He must have felt something for me, because his eyes as he passed were already searching me out. His feet seemed to go out from under him and he attracted several good-natured jibes about being fumble-footed, as the others passed him by. No one stopped to help him to his feet. Men did not do such things. A man stood on his own feet or he fell. No one helped him up, not even if he went down in battle.

  Airshin had explained all this to me as if I was an idiot. And I remembered him telling me about the unmanly actions of three airling troopers who had gone against orders and their own manliness to go after their brother who was shot down during an engagement with the Clifflings.

  All of the kinglunds were at peace, largely because of the network of marriages that linked them together. Godslund maintained the power, though, because the Godling was the only conduit to the gods, the only one who could produce the much-prized magical sons.

  When a kinglund gave into marriage one of their daughters, a magical son would be returned to them. Usually their magic would suit the kinglund's needs. Air magic was greatly prized by the sealunds because it helped their sailing ships. Water magic was also useful to them, to still storms and draw fish to their nets. Fire and lightning magic were prized by the Highlund people who were the craftsmen of the world. On their plateau high above the rest of us they used lightning to power their looms and fire to melt their precious metals into useful and decorative objects in high demand in other kinglunds. One magical son was worth his weight in gold to a kinglund and my father had been very good at providing those magical sons, at least one per suncycle for the fifty suncycles he had been the Godling. But in the last five suncycles, starting at about the time my brother came to manhood, there had been no magical sons to placate the other kinglunds. And they grew restless because of it.