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To Protect
A fantasy short story
Desh tightened her grip on the spear as the water rippled before her. It would be a while before the seedcar reached the pocket of air where she stood, but the tension was getting on her nerves. She wanted to act. She needed to act.
"It will be minutes before they arrive, Desh, you can relax," said Alfash.
Desh looked at her brother, angry but understanding and relaxed some. Her hand remained tight on the spear though. She would not relax her weapon before battle.
There was a shift in the world about them, sudden and too familiar.
"We’re losing another one," said Alfash, sadness in his voice.
Beyond the bubble where they stood on the side of Shetehv the water more than rippled. It shifted and turned, darkness begat a deeper darkness as the water swirled and moved. Another lifetree was let loose from the deep and floated up to the heavens. Another home, gone. How many were dead?
"I think it was Thebeht," said Desh.
"Out reefward?"
An enormous shape moved in the dark waters around the bubble. There was light enough to see the shape, much better than the pockets of air deeper down the tree, but still, little light illuminated the shape through the deep blue beyond the sanctuary of air. The shape which moved was not the lifetree, the great spire now dead. It was a monster, thirty times the size of Desh, with a hard leather shell on its back circled by fur.
"That is Thebeht's torfallo," said Desh. The great animal swam past the pocket of air where Desh, Alfash, and their small group of warriors stood. Below, Desh could see the lights within the other sanctuaries on the lifetree extending downward. Shetehv's bubbles of safety were smaller than her sister trees, but they were home to Desh. It felt right having less space to move. Life was more intimate on Shetehv.
The battle to come would be more intimate.
"Are we sure the downward tribes are not right?" said Alfash.
Desh shot him a glare stronger than her grip on the spear.
"They wish to act. I cannot be sure their actions are as wrong as the priests say, but at least they act!" he said. His long dark hair was never manageable on a good day, but with the preparation of battle, and the words he now spoke, its uneven shape made her brother look insane.
"Hush, Alfash, your voice is too loud and your thoughts too unfound to continue speaking."
Alfash quieted, but he did not cease. "Walking in the heavens surely is a sin, but what is another sin when the world around us dies? If Thebeht is gone, that is four lifetrees in the span of a week." Desh was silent now, thinking. She knew she must speak but she could not come with an argument that had no substance. "How many people have died as their home left for the heavens?" continued Alfash. "How many people were unable to escape to another tree as their home wilted and left upwards to certain death? Have you not noticed our air shrinks too?”
The bubbles on the side of Shetehv had been shrinking. The bark of the lifetree beneath Desh’s unshod feed was as solid as ever, but the lifetree may be hurting in other ways. Seedcar rides had been taking longer to get from sanctuary to sanctuary, bubble to bubble. Even the platform where they now stood, towards the highest point of the lifetree, seemed barely large enough for a battle to take place. This had been a place for prayer, so close to the heavens above. To think the other tribes wished to go beyond, to the heavens themselves.
A ripple below pulled Desh’s thoughts back to the moment. She looked down and saw the seedcar from below growing closer.
"I cannot answer philosophical questions," said Desh. "And I cannot answer for the deaths of others or our world. But I must fight to protect the heavens. You say it is another sin, but one more sin could be the end of Shetehv. It could be the end of us."
"Doing nothing could be the end of Shetehv too," said Alfash.
Desh did not have time to reply. The seedcar from below breached the surface of the bubble of air that surrounded Desh and her party. It was a large seed, large enough to fit a dozen people, its smooth exterior cut through water and air with ease. As it breached into the open air, the seed split and warriors rushed out, spears in hand. Desh yelled and charged, the people of her tribe followed, spears of their own.
The battle had begun.
The instant the dozen of the enemy exited the seedcar, it was pulled back out of the bubble of air by the rope at its rear. The seed was pulled downward, deeper, to another section of air along Shetehv, another sanctuary In the pressure of the sea. Where people lived. Her people. The downward tribes and the upward tribes were supposed to be one and the same, all the people of Shetehv.
With spear in hand, Desh knew that was not the case.
It could be.
It wasn't.
The first strike was quick, spears on both sides punctured flesh and killed kin. Desh lost sight of Alfash more than once, but her and her brother kept as much a watch out for each other as they could. Twenty-five warriors had stood beside Desh as they waited for the seedcar to arrive and the battle to begin. As they captured the final two of the dozen that had begun the invasion, twenty-four stood next to her. They were warmed up now.
Another seedcar breached and the battle began once more.
It went this way. Dozen after dozen of the enemy appeared and those protecting the heavens fought them off. There was no place to route to. The invaders could not flee, just as Desh and her people could not flee.
This was the worst of battles. It was two immoveable forces burning in a crucible of sanctuary. The bubble of air about them was intimate, surely. The stench of death began to fill it. The coppery miasma of blood could be tasted in the air.
“The seedcar is the problem!” cried Desh. They were in the moment of rest before the enemy arrived once more.
“I thought it was sin.” joked Alfash. His hair covered his eyes. It dripped blood from the battle. His smile made him truly look insane now.
“No jokes,” said Desh.
“Never,” he said. “Rush to cut the seedcar?”
Desh nodded and Alfash cried to the warriors about them. They revised their formation in the moments before the seedcar breached.
The fourth convoy of enemies arrived.
Desh and Alfash rushed towards it, ignoring the enemy pouring out of the open structure. The rope at the end was already tightening, ready to pull the seed back downward to reload.
Alfash connected his spear to the tight braid of rope first. It sliced clean, and the pressure of those below pulling on the seedcar finished the job. The rope disappeared back down into the water below, but it carried no vehicle.
Desh let out a small cheer under her breath as the seedcar now lay useless. With a slight shove, her and her brother pushed it back into the water where it closed itself, rising to the heavens on its own, vacant, and free.
"There's one less!" cried Alfash with joy. Desh smiled but saw another seedcar racing upwards through the water. "Ready for another!"
The warriors behind her could only ready so fast. Many were still fighting those from the seedcar before. Desh’s people were tired after the marathon they faced. She raced to help them as Alfash remained to cut the next car loose.
They had a plan now.
They would hold them off.
The new seedcar arrived and opened. Desh felt herself slowing with each strike. They had not finished off the enemy which arrived with the last car. Now more rushed at her and her people.
Alfash sliced the rope behind the seedcar. Desh saw him come around to join the fray and then lost him as the people from the car lunged between them.
The crowd surrounded her.
The melee was incomprehensible.
The world changed as a shove came from behind. Desh didn’t expect it. She had been focused on the man before her.
She fell.
Reaching out instinctively, she grabbed the collar of the man’s shirt before her. The enemy came with her as she fell into the seedcar.
She fought to stand but the melee had not ceased. The mass of people pushed against the seedcar. Desh did not see the edge of the seedcar touch the water, but she knew it had. The seed - hollowed out and now a tool of humanity, but once of the lifetree - did as it always would when met with water.
It sealed shut.
Desh was engulfed in darkness. She screamed but knew nothing would come of it.
She fell as the seedcar lurched.
It was no longer in the sanctuary.
Desh was pushed to the bottom of the vehicle as it rose untethered through the water.
Rising to the heavens.
The darkness about Desh was disorienting, but not so much as the movement. Neither her nor the enemy thought to fight in this strange place. They thought of fear and survival and death and all the flashes of images that fill a head immediately following the face of battle. Her body bumped the man’s as they jostled about the inside of the seed. As it had ridden up between the pockets of air on Shetehv, it may have been lit by rushlights, but now it was a chaos unseen. The rough carved seats within the woody seed smashed into Desh's knees and flipped her end over end. Where the seeds normally oriented down towards the lifetrees, the unattached seedcar flipped and rolled through the water as it rocketed upwards. The stranger yelled in panic and Desh realized she had been doing the same.
The journey lasted ages, in the same distorted time that a battle does. Then, an instant of calm struck. Desh floated, weightless, in a moment of surrealization, her body knew they had reached the heavens. They had gone where she fought so hard to keep others away from. To stay away from herself.
Light poured in as the seed split open. Gravity returned and Desh saw a deep blue wall approaching far too quickly. The seedcar crashed into the surface and Desh was thrown down into the water before the seed closed its walls once more. Instinctively, she swam upwards, towards the air she had breathed for a moment as the seed had opened. The pocket of air did not pull her in as it should though. She kept swimming, halfway in and halfway out of the water, shoulders and head in the air. Nothing pulled her away from the water.
A sound drew her eyes to the side. She saw the other warrior, the man from another tribe of Shetehv, swimming towards a green patch of land. She followed without thinking, without taking in the astounding scenery about her. The unreal world engulfed her, and she paid it no heed as she chased her quarry.
The man reached the green land first. It was massive. The green spread out in a line separating the water from whatever massive sanctuary of air surrounded them. The green mass appeared to be made of leaves like those of the lifetree’s branches in the depths. The mass was intertwined over and through itself, appearing solid, but as the other man stepped upon it, Desh saw it give way to his weight slightly, sinking into the water just a hair before supporting his weight. She swam faster.
When she reached the land, she threw herself onto the surface, rolling with little orientation towards the man who had gotten there first. He had the advantage. But when Desh stood, he wasn't looking at her.
He was looking up.
"We made it," he said, hearing her walk beside him.
"We?" she said in a huff. She hadn't noticed how out of breath she was until now.
"The heavens don't judge like the world below. And we are kin." He turned to her now. There was no malice in his eyes, no fight of the warrior, no drive. Wonder filled his eyes.
"We shouldn't be here," said Desh.
"Yet we are."
Desh noted her surroundings for the first time. There was no seam to this bubble, this pocket of air. The green land which they stood on outstretched a ways, but ended abruptly. Far in the distance lay a blue a different shade than that of the water, but somehow similar, a thin invisible line separating the two colors. Air was all about them, above and around. Above her, Desh saw a glowing orb which hurt to look at, its image remaining in her eyes even after she closed them to its brightness.
She was pulled out of her daze by blasphemy.
"There are no gods here," said the man. His voice was one of awe touched with fear.
"What?" she said, looking towards him. He still looked about lazily with wonder, though there was a hint of disappointment in his voice as he answered.
"There is nothing here but the top of the lifetree." he stomped his foot, causing the green canopy where they stood to sag slightly before bouncing back up.
He was not much of a fight for Desh. She charged him, to his surprise, and ended his life without mercy or malice.
Then she was alone.
She could not be here, in the heavens. She should not be here, but she could not leave. How does one return to the depths? They had floated upward too far in the untethered seedcar. She could never swim so far to return to air. Desh and her siblings had chosen to battle in one of the uppermost air pockets of Shetehv. It was so high, yet still so far away.
She didn't notice the fog roll in at first. She had never seen such a thing. It was thick and white, a mist brought in suddenly and fully, covering the whole of the expanse ahead of Desh. It approached and it blocked the orb of light overhead, dimming the world. Desh felt more comfortable in this shaded world, but she did not let that calm her. she stood, ready.
"You do so much to protect your way of life, little one," said a voice. It was as much in Desh's mind as it was in her ears. "What do you protect?"
Desh saw a shadow in the mist, an imposing figure, ten times her height, enshrouded and yet unknowable.
"I protect Shetehv!" She shouted at the figure.
"A great tree," said the figure, stepping forward. "You call them lifetrees, I see." the figure was some animal, though it did not swim, it walked upon the surface of the water. Pointed feet made of a single black nail each held up a great four-legged figure covered in auburn fur spotted with white. Its shoulders were broader than the entire width of a torfallo. Its head appeared adorned with branches, spiraling and intertwining out and up through the fog. But Desh saw only its eyes, eyes so deep with knowledge and love and pain that she thought she could see all of existence within them.
She bowed.
"Do not cover yourself, warrior. you have answered well." It stepped closer, almost atop the land where Desh stood once more. "I have stolen a thought from you without asking. This was malicious, but such emotion makes me now. I wish it did not, so I ask: May I read your heart?"
Desh looked at the creature, what could only be a god, and nodded.
"You need not be afraid, though I am. I am so afraid."
Desh heard the fear in its voice. She felt every emotion of the god. It was terrifying. Only then did she see the blood streaming down the side of its left front leg. before she could do anything else though, the god leaned forward and touched its nose to her forehead.
A soothing cool filled Desh's entire being. She felt seen and as she exhaled, her entire body relaxed.
It knew her.
"You are violent as all Osnir's children are, though that may be Kirad's doing as much as his. I wish it were not so, but my reaction to this violence was not one of kindness. All gods are weak in our ways it seems. can we blame our children for following us?"
The god backed away one step and looked down at Desh. She could not speak. Nothing but awe filled her mind.
"I have cursed this land," said the god. "But I have gone too far, I think." It leaned down, eyes at Desh's level.
"Will you protect the lifetrees?" it asked.
Desh nodded.
"Will you protect them to your people's end?"
Desh nodded, faster this time.
"Will you contain a weapon which would fell a god? Keep this weapon yourself, away from all other children of the gods?"
Desh looked up at the god. She did not know if she could do this. She should. But could she?
"Desh, daughter of Notai," said the god, standing to full height once more. "I am Orosso, fourthgod. I am the wild and I am the life of the forest. My children survive, but..." Desh saw a tear, glorious and endless, fall from the god's eye. "But my beloved does not. I will not let anger control my grief. Will you protect this weapon meant to destroy me as one destroyed my wife?"
Desh nodded. She did not know when she had begun to cry.
Orosso leaned forward, exposing a wound in his shoulder. Desh reached up and removed what appeared to be a sling, made of a leather she had never seen before. The sling felt too heavy in her hand, it warped the light about itself making her hand appear both larger and smaller than it truly was. She felt sick at its touch.
Orosso sighed as it stood. The wound did not heal, but the bleeding had stopped.
"Protect these as you protect your home, Desh. I shall leave my mist to hide your lands from the people above and return you home. Then, I think I shall leave this land. I have cursed enough of the world, destroyed enough life."
Desh wished to ask so much. she wished to delve deeper into all the things the god spoke before her, but there was no time.
"Thank you, protector," she said, bowing as Orosso leaned towards her once more.
The god merely laughed and touched his nose to her forehead once more.
Desh opened her eyes and saw the familiar bubble of Shetehv that was her home, so deep beneath the heavens. The bark of the lifetree felt wonderful beneath her feet.
The sling that nearly felled a god remained in her hand.
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Max