Godsfallen

“Do you take me for a fool, boy?”

“What?” Theo’s voice cracked. The slim, straw-haired youth averted his gaze, opting to look around the cramped shop instead of at the merchant’s round, oily face glimmering in the lamplight.

“Perhaps you do,” Sven said. “I send you out to collect godsfallen and you come back with a necklace that any journeyman in Cascadia could have made in an afternoon!” the older man sneered as he held the heart-shaped golden locket up for inspection.

“I found it on the beach! Not far from where I found that strange stone last week!” Theo protested. He recalled finding the odd, rectangular stone in a secluded tidepool. A bit of cleaning had revealed a glassy surface emblazoned with a once-bitten apple and strange runes.

“Oho!” Sven laughed. “I’m sure you did. At least that stone was worth something to me. I seek relics of a mightier past, Theo, as do my buyers. I expect more than trinkets, even from a star-touched boy like you.” He handed the locket back. “I’ll give you a day, no more. I leave for the capital soon, mind you, and I won’t return ‘til autumn. So, return by noontime tomorrow with something worth selling and perhaps your family will eat.”

“Fine.” Theo snatched the locket from the older man’s meaty grip and stormed out of the shop. He sighed and breathed deeply, trying to steady himself. The crisp summer air cooled his temper. Dense fog was already gathering behind the western hills, scattering the light of the afternoon sun. Soon it would flow down those wooded slopes and envelope the small town of Ambercrest. That’s sure to make my search more pleasant, Theo thought bitterly he made for home, his footsteps squelching as they churned the muddy street.

Who does he think he is? I’m the one out there searching for godsfallen – all while he threatens my family with starvation! It wasn’t right. It wasn’t fair. If only he could find something useful, something powerful. Not a locket. Not a stone or a relic. Something to make me like a god.

He almost laughed at his boyish fantasies. The gods were gone. Dead, some said, destroyed by their own unchecked power. Others believed they had simply fled, ascending to the heavens where they slept, awaiting the right time to return and remake the world anew. If that’s true, perhaps they can start with Sven’s shop.

“I’ll need something rare. Something he’s never seen before,” Theo muttered to himself as he made for his home at the eastern end of town. “The river, the beach, the bluffs…” He listed his favored scavenging spots. None would do.

At last, he arrived home. Theo inhaled deeply. The scents of pinewood and ocean fog lingered in the air. His anger faded away as he opened the heavy redwood door and beheld his sisters sitting beside the hearth, stoking the flames.

“Theo!” young Anna shouted in delight, springing up from her low stool to hug him. Her hair, so different from his own, was the color of the flames she tended.

“Look,” Theo said as he patted her head affectionately and freed one arm from her embrace. “I’ve brought you something.” He held out the golden locket. Anna’s blue eyes widened in delight.

“For me?” she gasped, turning to their sister. “Look Kalia! Isn’t it lovely?”

Theo’s older sister smiled softly then regarded him with her signature look of skepticism. “It is, Anna. You should go show mom! She’s in the bedroom.” Anna ran off at once. Kalia turned back to her brother. “We could have sold that for grain.”

“I tried,” Theo said. “Sven wouldn’t take it.”

“And if you devoted yourself to farming like dad did, maybe we wouldn’t need Sven’s silver.”

“I-,” he swallowed the impulse to spit some insult back at her. He would only regret it later. But why is she always like this? “Sven pays well for what I bring in.”

“So long as you bring something in,” Kalia replied.

“And that’s what I’m going to do!” He could feel the heat in his cheeks – and not from the fire.

“What are you going to do?” a voice asked from across the room. Both siblings turned to regard their mother’s inquisitive expression. “You’re not going out again, are you? The sea fog is already rolling in.”

“Theo was just saying how he’d rather play around in the-”

“Yes, I’m going out again,” he cut Kalia off. “I’m the man of the house and it’s my job to provide for you all!”

Kalia snorted derisively, but a stern look from their mother set her back to tending the hearth.

“It seems the men of this house have a taste for adventures,” his mother sighed. “Your father was the same way: always off searching for those foolish relics. But, that’s how we found you I suppose.”

He had heard that story a thousand times. How his parents had found him, whole and unharmed, amidst the smoldering ruins of a fallen star. That was why his hair and eyes were different. That was why he was different. Kalia just said someone had left him in the woods to die. Theo didn’t believe the tale either.

“No,” his mother said as he opened his mouth to protest. “No. I won’t argue with you Theo. Gods know what a help you’ve been since he passed. Go and wander if you must, but bring back something to trade this time.” There was a quiet desperation in her blue eyes, if only for a heartbeat.

“I will,” he said, his chest swelling with pride. Yet doubt pricked at him. I don’t know where to go.

He collected his things in a hurry. His ashwood bow and quiver of arrows rested against the wall in the far corner. His elk hide cloak hung was tossed over a stool. Noontime tomorrow, he repeated the deadline all the while, as if thinking about it would delay its arrival.

Theo was already shutting the heavy front door behind him when Kalia spoke from within the house.

“Forgetting something?” she asked. There was no malice in her tone.

She opened the door and handed him his leather satchel and waterskin. Then, once he had them secured about him, she handed him a carved redwood quarterstaff. Theo’s heart skipped a beat. It had been a gift from his father. And more valuable to me than a whole house filled with godsfallen relics.

“I don’t think he’d want you to forget this,” she said. Theo couldn’t find the words just then. “Do you know where you’ll look?”

“I’m not sure,” he admitted.

“Well, do you remember when dad took us south to look at the ruins?”

The ruins. He glimpsed his younger self through the dense fog of memory. They had traveled southward to the shores of Great Bay to meet their father’s old friend. Theo didn’t remember the man’s name, but he recalled the sights from that journey.

“Essef, they called it once,” his father had said. “A seat of the gods and a sister-city to Ellay, far to the south.”

“The gods lived there?” young Theo had looked in awe at the broken, fog-shrouded towers that stood beside the waters of the Great Bay.

“Who else could raise towers so high? Yes, the gods dwelt there – and there they spun steel and light into wonderous creations of which we have but remnants now. That was long ago. You must never go there. Demons and worse haunt those ruins now, just as they do the Demonwood on the edge of our land.”

The Demonwood! The memory of his father’s warning planted a thrilling and dangerous idea into his thoughts. If demons dwelt where the gods once had, then surely the Demonwood itself was full of relics! Relics that Sven would dearly covet – and ones that he would buy.

“That’s it!” he shouted.

“What’s it?” Kalia raised an eyebrow.

“It’s – I – nothing.” He turned away. She would protest if he told her his plan. No one from Ambercrest went into that forest. “Thank you, Kalia,” he said, lifting his redwood staff in a mock salute. Kalia chuckled. Then, Theo hurried off eastward as sun sank behind the fog-shrouded hills.

…

A brilliant full moon was rising over the massive redwoods as he approached the edge of the untamed forest. The forest itself would be as dark as any moonless, fog-bound night. He would have to wait for the dawn for any decent light. A torch would not do. If there were demons here, he’d be inviting an attack.

He paused at the imposing tree line, his heart beating erratically. His grip tightened around his father’s staff. Demonwood was just a name – just a legend. If demons were real, then they had gone the same way as the gods. And if they are still real? No. It didn’t matter. He had a job to do. Theo took a deep breath and walked into the gloom.

The nettles that covered the forest floor cushioned his every step. Even if his footfalls had made any noise, the forest would have swallowed the sound. Great trunks as wide as houses rose up like black pillars all around him, disappearing into the darkness above. He walked on.

Time stood still here. Theo was not sure whether he had only just entered the Demonwood or if dawn was fast approaching. As if in answer to his thought, the forest parted ahead of him. Truly massive trees stood sentinel over a silent grove. Silver beams of moonlight shone down through the wisps of fog… and there. What is that?!

Theo dove behind a huge gnarled root. After steadying himself, he peered out and saw a beam of red light illuminating the clearing. The thin clouds of fog flashed scarlet as the beam turned and passed. A subtle buzzing sound, like that of some giant bumblebee, filled the night air.

Then he saw it. A demon. The forest was aptly named and he was a fool for coming here. It floated in the air, its one red eye casting that bloody glow across the grove. Its four wings, set up thin arms, spun like samara seeds falling to the earth. Yet it glimmered in the moonlight like a man in armor. It is armored! Theo realized. Or else made of steel! Steel and light… like the creations of the gods.

And if I can kill it quickly, Sven will pay dearly for its odd hide. Theo strung his bow, notched an arrow and, loosed his shot.

He missed. The arrow sailed into the darkness. The demon spotted him - and in an instant the thing was on him, hovering over him as red light engulfed his body. Its great eyebeam flowed over him from his head to his feet, then back again. Theo held his staff at the ready. Let this thing take him if it dared.

“Biological Reserve Unit 734 identified. Termination protocol halted,” it chimed. Theo froze. The words were not of his language, nor did he know their meaning, but he could understand them clearly. It was some magic or trick. “Please state your name.”

“Uh… Theo. Theo, son of Thane,” he said, readying himself.

“Analyzing vocal patterns. Identity confirmed. You have three years, four months, and seven days before the Reclamation begins. Safehouse 17 is approximately 0.08 miles northeast of this location. Would you like to proceed? Please confirm verbally.”

“Yes.”

It spun in the air. As soon as its eye turned away he struck hard, snapping one spinning wing with his staff. The demon faltered and fell to the ground. He struck again and again – wildly and without thought. Another wing broke. Then, at last, he drove the end of his staff into its horrid red eye.

Three other eyes opened in the darkness, flooding the woods with red light. Theo snatched the dead demon from the ground and ran for his life.