"I was born over forty-nine years ago, the middle child in a large family. We owned a farm, so it was expected that we'd work it with blood, sweat, and tears as our very conception demanded."
"So you were alive when the land parted? And the earthquake?"
"No questions. The Parting came when I was four, yes.
It was my life to work the fields alongside my siblings, from Sunrise to Sunset, from before I can even recall. My first ever memory is picking weeds with my brother Otto when I was two. So, you see, I was born to work. It is the sole purpose for which my father begot me. Or any of us, for that matter.
But I was small. I came out of my mother prematurely and my body was never able to catch up to the rest of them. Like a grape plucked too early.
That is to say: I was the runt of the litter and that's just the truth of it. My muscles didn't grow strong from the daily physical labor like they were supposed to, and so my performance could not compare to that of my eight more capable siblings. In short, lightweight as I might be, I was considered a heavy burden on my family's shoulders. A failed attempt to grow the workforce into which I was birthed.
Sitryn, they called me. My siblings. To this day I can't be sure if they were the ones to come up with it, or if my parents truly ever named me that. They certainly didn't refer to me by that name and, on my life, I swear I sometimes suspect they'd simply forgotten it. They didn't like to interact with me much at all, so they just called me 'girl' if they ever needed to.
It wasn't as bad as I'm making it sound, though. These are just ramblings of my old resentments. My siblings were fine.
Some were better than others, but I remember feeling happy amongst them. We played when we found some new way to amuse ourselves; we talked and shared made-up stories in the quiet dark when it was time to sleep. We were children, after all, and we tried to act like it whenever we had a chance.
I remember one time when my older sister Kippy rubbed a healing salve from Mother's private cabinets on my knee. I'd torn my skin on a clumsy tumble, and she looked after me and kissed my cheek afterward. Kippy liked me a lot, I think.
And so I grew up a little disgraced by my parents, but in the company of eight other children. And they didn't seem to hate me at all. Thinking back on those times, I remember clearly that they used to take my tasks upon themselves unasked, sometimes. Like when we had to bring in the barrels of water from the stream, or really any chore that involved carrying heavy loads. They would step in and do it for me, and I don't think I ever said thank you to them in return.
I live to regret it now, of course. But children can be rather inconsiderate like that, I'd say. And, in general, I just didn't speak much at all. I remember being aware that my parents and most of my brothers and sisters assumed I was a little dull-witted for it, but I couldn't tell you why I didn't bother to contradict them."
Leroh stared and stared, transfixed by the Mantis standing a few paces away. She was the most alluring woman he'd ever laid eyes on.
It was quite frightening how enthralled he felt. There was nothing natural about it.
She looked younger than he'd expected; early twenties, perhaps. But no length of physical anomaly could truly surprise him, coming from an abomination such as she. Her eyes were the color of a burning log of cedar wood. Brown at the core and yet dappled with undeniable specks of bright orange. A frame of thick unruly eyelashes so black they could only be a product of the divine drew attention to the remarkable warm irises that had almost hypnotized him. Her infamous red lips looked as dangerous as he'd always heard they could be, and her beautiful hair, dark amber in color and silken like the most luxurious of fabrics, fell in soft waves to just below her jaw.
There was danger here. His very bones seemed to sense it.
Leroh felt a strong urge to hide, to protect and remove himself from this creature's reach. But she wanted him to sit and wait, so he would. What other option was there? He knew himself a foolish man, but disobeying or trying to cheat the Mantis was surely beyond even him.
He observed the back of her head and her heavy cloak stirring slightly in the Wind. Then she sank to her knees and, to his horror, positioned herself for prayer. When the sound of her enchanting voice reached his ears in soft murmurs of rhythmic verse, Leroh began to tremble.
Fists clenched and eyes popping out of their sockets, he waited. He watched and waited. He felt the least capable person to deal with this situation, having been brought up in a community that rejected the divine and adhered to the traditional values of man. There, children were not allowed to discover the temptations that modern Yriaa could offer them. They were protected from the knowledge of anything magical, and he was too new to adulthood to consider himself ready for whatever manifestation of magic the woman intended to conjure.
But he'd been focusing his attention on the wrong person. While he'd been busy waiting for the Mantis to do something, another, worse creature had seemingly materialized among the oak trees on the right side of the clearance and silently approached. It looked like a woman, but Leroh knew better than to believe that. The magic it commanded assailed his senses like a heavy fog. He could smell and taste it, feel it pressing against his skin.
It was a God.
He soiled himself and a low sob escaped his lips. It was looking at him.
"What is this?" It asked in a great, clear voice.
"The hunt went awry," the Mantis answered and took a few steps toward the female entity that stood looking down at him.
"Who is this man?"
"It is not important. Please, I need your help."
Finally, it looked away. Leroh felt his heart slow down marginally and took a deep breath.
The God before him looked nothing like what he would have imagined. He'd heard rumor of the physical appearance of the Sun God and, unless the description he'd gotten was highly exaggerated, this one looked nothing like the mighty being that ruled Yriaa. This God appeared entirely human and, if not for the unearthly energy that radiated from its every pore, one could even mistakenly think it a regular woman.
Its dark eyes now examined his sister curiously. "You killed this one?"
"Yes. I didn't mean to take the girl. I want you to put her soul back where it belongs."
The God's head snapped back to the Mantis and its eyes narrowed slightly. "Explain."
"It all went wrong."
"All?"
"I have the two targets for you, the butcher and the privateer. I didn't spoil that, at least," the Mantis assured her and lowered her head a little. "But I managed to kill three I shouldn't have in the process of acquiring the second."
The God didn't offer a response and continued to watch its servant closely.
She hadn't intended to take Teela? The woman had shattered everything he knew and it had not even been her intention? And what did she mean by three? He wondered if she were referring to the two men he'd seen dead on the tavern floor, but could not wrap his head around the meaning of her words. Surely she'd meant to murder them, as was her duty. Surely she could not regret having eliminated two men that had been trying to attack her.
"I killed two who I assume wanted to defend my second target. Maybe they knew him, or just wanted to do away with me. And when I shot my links to take their lives, I claimed three. The girl was standing perfectly aligned in front of one. Or he was standing behind her, perhaps."
"And the other two lives? What is wrong with them?"
"They swore to the Sea right before I took them."
"You took two souls that belong to the Sea?"
"Yes."
Leroh watched the scene unfold like a mote of dust flying in the air, entirely aware that this conversation was too big to reach his ears. He still committed every word to memory, awe-stricken. Every second spent in their vicinity defied the basis of what was known to him. Their physical presence and the very sound of their voices stirred him, fascinating and terrifying him. He could not look away for an instant.
The God, oddly enough, sighed. Then it shook its head and looked Mantis up and down. "You are going to have to give them back."
"To the Sea? How?"
"You must return them to him personally."
Leroh was horrified to see the Mantis frown and exhale, almost irritated, but the God she addressed didn't seem to take offense. Instead, it offered further explanation, as if placating a stubborn child. "I cannot take them. You know this. We cannot continue to provoke the Sea. Or any other."
"I will return the souls to him, and offer my apologies," she conceded.
"Good," the being said. "Now my lives, Mantis. I thirst." It extended both hands toward its servant, palms facing forward and fingers splayed expectantly.
"Not yet," the Mantis dared to say, and her God tilted its head a little, eyes penetrating her orange ones in a look that made Leroh aware that he had already soiled himself only because he could not do it again now.
"I want your help with the girl. Please."
"Nothing can be done. I will take her, too."
"No."
Leroh stopped breathing. It felt like he had entered a dream state in which reality and fancy collided to form the queer sight before him. His mind could not wrap around the idea that he'd heard the word correctly as it was pushed out of the Mantis's mouth, but he knew it to be true. The familiarity with which she treated the God astounded and unnerved him beyond anything he'd ever imagined. Would it kill them both now? Would he get dragged down into this even further by her madness?
The Gods wielded the magic. They ruled all, knew all, owned all. Nothing was larger or more frightening. Humanity itself knelt before the being standing in front of them, and she'd told it no.
"I would rather die this instant," she said, her expression grave, "than feed you the soul of that innocent girl."
The God remained perfectly still for a long moment, looking at its servant with a critical eye and a furrowed brow. Then, incredibly, its head gave the barest of nods, and it extended its slender hands toward the Mantis once again. This time, she complied. She raised her arms and held out her fingers loosely at her God. They linked all ten of their fingertips together and closed their eyes.
Leroh watched in astonished silence and wondered about the meaning of any and all he'd heard. What were they going to do with his sister? Would they give her back to him? He was shivering and his entire body was covered in a thick layer of cold sweat, but he could not peel his eyes away from their exchange. He caught glimpse of a thin cord of black tissue connecting the tips of their hands and tried to hold in a grimace. They opened their eyes.
Before his disbelieving stare, the God whose name he did not know walked over and knelt beside his sister, then lowered its face onto hers and placed its rosy human lips atop her dead ones.
When it pulled its head back, Teela's eyes were open.
Mantis released a great sigh. It had worked.
She could finally acknowledge to herself that she had meant every word of it. The idea was frightening, and it made her deeply uneasy to know herself in such a position. She had toyed with the concept for many years; in truth, for as long as her resolution had wavered, her thoughts had drifted to the inevitable conclusion of their own accord. Only today it had become a tangible possibility.
But the girl lived. The Mantis would continue to torment Yriaa for, at least, another day. The triumph tasted bitter on her tongue.
"Teela!" The brother got up from his awkward seated position a few paces away and ran to hug his shocked charge. The girl remained supine upon the grassy earth. Her stillness almost worried Mantis until she heard the breath coming out of her in loud heaves, getting louder and louder.
"It is all right. You are all right." The boy tried to calm her as he helped her to rise. She was looking around as if every minute detail her eyes landed on contained a lifetime of information for her to inspect. "Teela. You are all right? You feel fine?"
"Who are you?" The girl spoke. She was now looking directly at Ombira, and she her. It made a shiver run down Mantis's spine, but the Goddess ultimately looked away, a slight furrow to her brow but otherwise unmoved by the sight.
"He will want the bodies," she addressed her servant after a pause. "Do you have them?"
"No. I will try to obtain them, but I believe they would have burned them by now."
"Do what you must. He will want the bodies, Mantis," she emphasized with a severe look, and then was gone, back into the nearby greenery and vanished.
A long silence stretched. The boy was holding onto his sister's arm like she could run away at any moment, but she was much less scared than he. She did not want to flee at all. Teela was surveying Mantis from head to toe with the shamelessness of youth, much more interested than frightened. The same could not be said of her brother, whose sweat of terror she could still plainly smell, not to mention the piss. At last, she spoke.
"You killed me."
"Teela!" the boy reprimanded her.
"I did kill you."
Silence again. Mantis had no patience for it. She pushed a big exhalation of air through her nose and turned back toward the town. She would return to the tavern and see about the two corpses. The men had been regulars at the establishment, or at least local folk. The likeliness that the townspeople had just left them lying there was very low, but surely they could not have assembled pyres and burned them whole in the short time this ordeal had taken.
"Who are you? What are you?" Teela asked from beside her. She was keeping pace with her as she walked, her brother still clutching her arm tightly in both hands. "How am I alive? Why did you kill me?"
Mantis pretended not to have heard her at all and sped up her walk. She suddenly deeply regretted not having brought the horse.
But the girl was relentless. She continued the harassment long after it became clear that her questions would go unanswered, and had no trouble keeping up with her speedy walking to do so. The boy who had so annoyed her, coming out like the most agreeable man she'd ever met in comparison, continued to try and fail at restraining his sister. He warned her of the danger they were in still, he asked her to be quiet, he barked threats and, finally, he begged; but she would not be deterred.
The walk back seemed to take much longer than it had on the way there. Mantis was not used to children, or their babbling. She worked alone, traveled alone, lived life alone. For thirty years it had been so, and she was perfectly content with that isolation. Her mind, body and soul she had relinquished, and she would not for one moment believe it an unfair trade. But she wished to share her existence with no one else aside from Ombira, whom she had no choice but to interact with on a regular basis. Nobody else did she wish to speak to, or know.
The tavern came into view at a bend in the road. It was an aged but sturdy stone building of two stories with an old thatched roof, the sign on the front indicating the simple name, Oak's Shade, in freshly painted white letters. It had the typical appearance of a small, family-run business, with its smaller repairs looking more recent and the larger jobs neglected for a lack of funds and resources. All the curtains were drawn shut as if the establishment had closed for the day. She could blame herself for that, Mantis thought.
"Run back home, then," she motioned with a hand at the children beside her.
Upon receiving her permission, the older boy eagerly started toward the tavern, but his sister stayed where she was. "Teela, stop being an idiot!" He scolded her.
"I only want to talk with her. She isn't going to harm me, Leroh."
"Again, you mean," he said in a rough whisper, avoiding Mantis's gaze as if that would make his words indecipherable to her.
"You will both leave me alone. Now." This she said to Teela.
The girl looked at her for a long moment, eyes serious and focused firmly on her face as if she were searching for a weakness in her resolve. When she found none, she finally left her side and, although reluctantly, took her brother's extended hand to be led back to the safety of her home.
Mantis closed her eyes for a moment and savored the relief she felt. The girl was alive and unscathed. The boy, Leroh, had gotten his beloved sister back. She had not stolen Teela from him or the peaceful life she now returned to.
There was a family that had survived her mostly unharmed. She had preserved a life, not destroyed it, for once.
All was quiet in the charming dirt street where she stood, looking at the children walk toward their home. The funeral pyres had likely been erected in the nearest plaza, she assumed. She could hear the crowd gathered at the site a few blocks away. Communities such as this one tended to make a show of burning their departed as a stance for their freedom, honoring the dead by releasing the entirety of their lives back into the land that had provided for them. No God would they allow to claim their bodies, and, by burning the remains, they ensured their wishes would be respected.
Mantis made her way there to do the Sea God's bidding.
Forty to fifty townspeople had come to bid farewell to their two neighbors. She stayed just outside the circle of gathered folk and positioned herself between the closely adjacent walls of two houses, the thin space providing some cover and allowing her to remain undetected as she watched. In the center, two large wooden structures had been raised. A pile of firewood and kindling awaited on the side, and gruff, grave men hammered planks of dry oak wood that would become surfaces to place the deceased onto, the sound of their tools ringing loudly over the grieved voices of those who'd joined to pay their respects.
Two of their own had given their lives and eternal souls away, sold themselves and betrayed their convictions in an attempt to rid Yriaa of the Mantis once and for all. And for their bravery, they would be remembered as heroes by their fellows. A tremble racked her body and she clenched her teeth hard at the thought. She knew her pupils would be dilated with rage, but reminding herself that she had easily put an end to their attempt on her life and that their heroic souls still rested pressingly inside her chest helped her regain her aplomb. Anger served no purpose against the dead.
The two men she had killed were wrapped in white linen, their bodies carefully positioned before their funeral pyres. Around them had gathered their families and loved ones. A widow wept silently and held onto the shoulders of a boy of about ten, but he looked straight ahead with a pained expression on his face and dry eyes. There were two more children gathered at the front of the crowd and a solemn woman standing close beside them. They had their heads lowered toward the body of the other man and their hands clasped tightly as if supporting each other through the sorrow. Mantis watched them as long as she was able to keep her eyes on the scene, then withdrew quietly from her hiding spot.
The Sea God would not get what he was owed, she decided.
Making sure to stay unnoticed, she left the square where she had been an intruder, and headed to the inn room she'd paid for to share the rest of the day with a bottle of bad liquor.