Dead Eye found he needed less and less sleep. After he made love to Dove and then feasted with the People, he and Dove retired to their part of the God’s chamber. Dove had immediately fallen asleep in his arms, her naked body pressed trustingly against his. He’d expected to sleep, too. But the solace of dreams eluded him, and within a short time he had gently disentangled himself from Dove and made his way to the Balcony of the God.
“Champion, may I bring you something?” asked the young Attendant whose turn it was to be sure the firepots remained lit all night.
“My only requirement is solitude,” Dead Eye said without looking at her.
She backed soundlessly from the balcony.
Dead Eye went to the edge of the balcony and studied the scene in the courtyard below. There the firepots were smoldering and going out. The scent of succulent boar meat still lingered. As did several of the People who had gorged themselves so much that they had fallen asleep in little groups around the spit that still held a haunch of meat.
He shook his head in disgust. He shouldn’t have had to tell them that leaving meat out would draw insects—and worse.
“Attendant!” He pitched his deep voice so that he wouldn’t awaken his sleeping Dove.
“Yes, Champion. What is it you desire?”
He did look at her then, carefully schooling his face so that she would not see the disgust her cracking skin made him feel. Yes, she was young and just barely infected, but if things did not change he could foresee that she would go the way of the old Watchers of the God. She would be a diseased hag, driven insane by the poisons within her body.
Dead Eye was not going to let that happen.
“What is your name?” he asked.
“Lily, Champion.”
“Lily, wake as many of the other Attendants as you require and go down to the courtyard. Rebuild the firepots and add always keeping them lit to the Attendant’s duties, just as you keep the God’s firepots lit here on the balcony and in the God’s chamber. Then bring the leftover meat into the Temple and begin drying and smoking it. And wake the People who are sleeping below as well. Tell them I command they assist you. They must learn that if they wish to rid their lives of poison and disease they must change their behavior.”
“Yes, Champion.” She bowed low.
“And do not wake Dove.”
“Yes, Champion.”
When she hesitated before leaving the balcony, Dead Eye made an irritated gesture. “Why do you not do as I bid you?”
“I will, Champion. Should I have another Attendant remain here to keep the God’s firepots fed?”
“No. I will not sleep. I’ll feed them until you return.”
“It will be as you command, Champion.” Lily bowed again and hurried from the balcony.
Dead Eye watched the young women pour from the Temple to wake the sated People and begin cleaning the mess below. Then he shifted his attention to the distant forest and his thoughts to the Tribe of the Trees.
How best to go about conquering the Tribe and claiming their city as my own?
He had already sown the forest with poison. The man of the Others the People had captured, along with his canine, had been infected, and Dead Eye was sure he had spread that infection to the City in the Trees. Why else would they have allowed a forest fire to consume them?
That step seemed to be going well—very well.
He was also pleased by how quickly his Reapers responded to the flesh from the boar. They were already healing and strengthening, and the nine left after he’d made an example of Stalker seemed to be accepting his authority unconditionally. But was that enough to take over the City in the Trees?
Definitely not.
Dead Eye needed an army of men like Iron Fist and the other eight—men who were loyal to him and whose skin had been healed by the flayed flesh of a living, untainted creature. Dove’s Attendants needed to be healed as well, or the Temple would deteriorate into the poisoned cesspool it had been before he had taken control.
“So much to do before we attack the city, but is there time? If I wait until I have an army of Reapers, I take the chance that the Others will have recovered and rebuilt. Yet if I don’t wait, do my People have the strength to defeat a Tribe as mighty as the Others in their city in the sky?”
Dead Eye paced, feeling the fire building within him. What should he do about the People? When should they take the City in the Trees? The forest fire—the blaze that had ravaged the city—mixed with the poison sown in the forest—might very well have weakened the Tribe enough to allow the People to defeat and enslave them now.
He wouldn’t know for sure unless he went to the Tribe and saw for himself how weak—or how strong—they were.
Perhaps he should wait. Perhaps he should take each Harvester and each Hunter who remained to the forest and, as he had done with Stalker, cull the weak. Then, like Iron Fist and his newly appointed Reapers, reward the faithful by flaying the flesh of a forest beast and joining its skin with theirs.
Dead Eye rubbed his hand through his hair in frustration, feeling a jolt of surprise when he touched the antlers above his ears. They’ve grown bigger, just in the space of this one auspicious day.
He stretched his arm, flexing his powerful biceps, delighting in skin that was free of cracks and pustules—free of disease. He was strong. Stronger than any of the People. As strong as a God.
You are a God.
The thought lifted from his veins, filling his heart, his mind, his soul.
That thought was not mine.
Trepidation skittered through Dead Eye’s body. Unbidden, he turned to face the metal statue of the immense God that lurked behind him.
Had he really felt Her move when he’d returned from the Hunt and taken Dove into his arms? They hadn’t spoken of it afterward. They had made love and feasted, and only now did Dead Eye have the solitude to truly consider what had happened.
“Did you move? Are you there?” He spoke directly to Her.
She did not answer.
He scratched the back of his neck, feeling the soft coat of fine stag fur that now stretched the length of his spine.
“Or am I going mad?”
Climb and learn the truth.
The command filled his mind. Not like a thought, and not his own. It was as if a great force had awakened inside Dead Eye and was stretching and flexing after a long sleep.
He stared up into the God’s face. “If I am mad, then this madness makes me strong, heals me, and tells me to lead the People from the doomed City to salvation.”
Dead Eye began to climb.
With the agility of a forest creature, he leaped up onto the statue’s massive thigh, then, finding a handhold in the God’s long hair that had been formed from the strange, perfect metal and seemed to be billowing in wind only She could feel, Dead Eye pulled himself up and up, so that he was standing on Her mighty shoulders. There, many feet above the balcony floor, Dead Eye gazed out at the forest. The moon was huge and luminous—the People called it a Hunter’s Moon as it was so bright that even in the City it cast shadows, deep and dark. Far, far in the distance, he thought he glimpsed small yellow tongues of fire. Not the angry red blaze of the forest fire, but tamer cooking and hearth fires.
“How many of them survived?” Dead Eye muttered. “When should I attack?”
Ready the People.
The thought filled his mind with such force that Dead Eye lost his footing. Unbalanced, he began to tumble from the God’s shoulder. Dead Eye reached for something—anything that would save him—and his wrist found the tip of the Reaper’s triple-pointed spear, slashing through his flesh with a white-hot pain that had him gasping, even as his other hand closed around the shaft of the spear, saving him from tumbling down, down to certain death.
Breathing in gulps, Dead Eye regained his footing, meaning to climb down immediately and then wake Dove to help him bandage the gash in his wrist, but his gaze was trapped by the drops of scarlet that pumped from his wrist. His wounded hand rested on the God’s head, and Dead Eye watched, mesmerized, as blood turned to tears, raining down the God’s slick, metal cheeks. Her face was close to his and as big as a man’s body.
“Are you there? Are you alive?” he asked the God.
For the space of a breath in and then out the eyes of the God shifted, turning their sightless metal orbs toward Dead Eye. He held his breath as the answering voice filled his being.
I am Death, but I am alive. Look within. Accept Me and ever after we shall be one.
As Dead Eye’s blood drained down the face of the God, he looked within and accepted the God, and without the world changed.
* * *
The screams of her Attendant awakened Dove.
“What is it? What has happened?” She sat, reaching automatically beside her for Dead Eye. When her hands touched only empty space and the thick pelts of their pallet, her stomach clenched and she stood, shouting, “Attendants! Come to me!”
“Oh, Mistress, it is horrible! I don’t know what to do!”
Dove recognized Lily’s voice. She outstretched her hands, and Lily grasped them. Dove could feel that the girl’s body was trembling.
“Be calm. Where is our Champion? If something has happened, you must get him immediately,” Dove said.
“But it is our Champion! Oh, Mistress, I think he’s dead!” Lily sobbed.
“Stop this! Of course he isn’t dead. The God would not allow it.” Dove made quite sure her voice remained steady, even though her heart was beating wildly and fear coursed through her veins. If my love is dead, my life is over. Dove pushed the terrible thought from her mind and ordered Lily, “Take me to him immediately!”
“I found him at the feet of the God,” Lily said as she led her Mistress through the chamber to the God’s balcony. “I did as he commanded last night. Ordered the Attendants to help clean and repair the courtyard and made the sleeping People wake and help us. The Champion said he needed solitude—that he would attend to the firepots of the God. That’s why it took so long to find him.” Lily paused to sob again. “There’s so much blood, Mistress. What shall we do without our Champion?”
Dove acted on instinct. Moving with the preternatural grace she’d cultivated from a lifetime of blindness, she used one movement to pull Lily to face her and then Dove slapped the girl across her cheek—hard.
“Don’t you ever say that about our Champion. I am the God’s Oracle. If our Champion was dead, don’t you think I would know it?”
“Y-yes, of course, Mistress. I’m sorry! I’m so sorry! It’s just that there is so much blood. It—it covers the God and drips like tears from Her face down Her body to pool with our Champion, and he is cold and still.”
“Then it is a good thing that I cannot see so that I will not be deceived as you have been. Lead me to him!”
“As you command, Mistress.”
Lily took Dove’s elbow and guided her the rest of the way to the God’s balcony. Before she got to Dead Eye’s body, the scent of blood was so thick it seemed to Dove that the balcony must be awash in it. She almost expected to feel drops forming in the air, to drizzle around them like early spring rain.
“He is there, by—”
“I can find him now.” Dove shook off Lily’s guiding hand and followed the scent of blood and the pulsing energy that always radiated from her lover to find Dead Eye, crumbled on his side, resting against the God’s foot as if in supplication. She knelt and ran her hands all over his body, cataloguing the nasty, weeping slash that gaped from high on his right forearm all the way down to his wrist as the only wound she could feel. She found his pulse. It was shallow and too fast, but it was there. His skin was cold and felt damp with sweat, as well as slick with the massive amount of blood he’d lost. He was breathing in small, shallow gasps. Dove moved quickly and decisively. She pulled the short tunic she’d slept in over her head and, using her teeth to begin the tear, ripped a long strip from the hem and began winding it tightly around her lover’s ravaged arm, speaking to Lily as she worked. “Who else knows he has been injured?”
“No one. The other Attendants are finishing the tasks our Champion set us to. I only came here to begin brewing your morning tea, and to ask if you and he would like to break your fast with boar meat.”
“Do not allow any of the other Attendants within the chamber until I tell you so. And do not tell them the Champion has been wounded.”
“But, Mistress, he—”
“He is not dead!” Dove hissed the words at Lily. “And I will not have the People panicked!”
“Y-yes, Mistress.”
“I need your help, Lily. May I count on you?”
“Oh, Mistress! Of course!”
“Excellent, for when he awakens, and he will awaken, I give you the God’s word on that, our Champion will reward all who were loyal to me, and punish all who were not—just as he culled the blasphemous Watchers from this very balcony not so long ago again.”
Dove could tell by the rustling sounds of Lily’s skirts that the girl was bowing in deep supplication to her. “I hear and will loyally obey, Mistress.”
“Thank you, Lily. I value your loyalty. Now, listen carefully. First, bring pelts to cover him and make him comfortable. I cannot feel the heat of the firepots. Feed them. Our Champion is cold. Get me strips of clean cloth and plenty of clean water. Then order the Attendants to boil the marrowbones of the boar into broth, and bring it to me as quickly as possible.” Dove could feel Lily turning away to do her bidding, and her hand snaked out to capture the girl’s thin wrist. Thinking quickly, Dove said, “What has happened here is the working of the God. She has asked our Champion for a blood sacrifice, and the only blood rich enough, strong enough, was his.”
“And She has accepted his sacrifice?” Lily asked tremulously.
Dove forced herself to smile and nod confidently. “She has! Our Champion lives and he will speak with the God’s voice when he awakens. Until he does, the People would only be frightened by our Champion’s sacrifice—as were you.”
“I understand, Mistress. I will do as you say.”
Dove released her and the girl ran from the balcony, returning quickly with pelts.
“Make his pallet away from the pool of blood and nearer to the firepots,” Dove told Lily, who did as she commanded.
“The pallet is ready, Mistress.”
“Help me move him there—carefully.”
Together, the two young women slowly dragged Dead Eye’s huge body onto the waiting pallet.
“Now, get me that water and the bandages.” Dove paused; frantically she shifted through her memories, trying to find anything that might help her lover, and she remembered that the old Watchers used to stink of garlic cloves because they insisted if they smashed the cloves and added them to honey they found relief from the cracking wounds on their skin and even some small measure of healing. “Bring me garlic bulbs, too, and honey.”
“Yes, Mistress!”
Lily brought the water and the strips of clean cloth, and then she hastened from the chamber to search out garlic and honey. Finally alone with her lover, Dove began speaking to him as she cleaned the dried blood from his body and forced water between his slack lips.
“Beloved, you must awaken. I cannot lead the People from this poisoned City to the forest—only you can do that. Only you can be their savior—their God. Wake, beloved, and speak to your Dove.”
Dead Eye did not stir.
“Mistress, I have the garlic and honey.” Lily rushed back to Dove, breathing heavily. As she guided Dove’s hands to the things she’d asked for, Dove took a moment to tenderly squeeze the young Attendant’s arm and speak reassuring words to her.
“You are doing well, Lily. You have been a great help to me. Our Champion will reward you when he awakens.”
“Has he spoken yet?” Lily asked.
“He is still communing with the God,” Dove said. “Please get the broth now. Our Champion will need it very soon.”
As the girl hurried from the Chamber again, Dove crushed the garlic cloves, adding them to the wooden bowl that held the honey. When her concoction was ready, Dove unwound the cloth from Dead Eye’s wounded arm. Working fast, as he’d begun to bleed anew as soon as the pressure was released from the wound, Dove packed the sticky mixture around and within the long gash. Then she pressed the jagged cut together with one hand while she rewrapped new strips of cloth around his arm—tying it firmly.
Dove wiped the rest of the dried blood from her lover’s face and neck, and then she sat close beside him, holding his wounded arm on her lap so that she could apply pressure to the wound. She sat there with him, rocking gently and talking—always talking to her beloved.
“Awaken, my Champion. I need you to speak to me. I cannot imagine a world without your deep, clever voice. I need you, beloved. Please return to me.”
He did not speak, did not stir at all, but Dove was relieved when she felt his breathing deepen. She managed to get him to swallow several cups of water, though it seemed more of an automatic reflex than the reasoned action of taking sustenance. The balcony grew warmer as the firepots heated the area. Not long after Dead Eye had stopped shivering, Lily returned in a wash of the rich scent of marrow broth.
“Mistress, the broth is ready!”
“Thank you, Lily. You may leave us now.”
“But—but when may your Attendants return? They are already asking what has happened. What shall I tell them?” Lily said.
“You tell them the God is speaking with our Champion. If they are not satisfied by that answer, they may question the God and our Champion when they are allowed to return to the Temple. I pity the man or woman of the People who thinks he or she may question a God.”
“Of course, Mistress,” Lily said.
“When it is time, Dead Eye and I will call the Attendants to us here, the God’s balcony. Until then, wait in the courtyard. Tend the firepots. Smoke the meat. Be about the tasks your Champion commanded. I am counting on you to keep the People calm, Lily.”
“I won’t disappoint you, Mistress!”
Dove reached out with a blood-smeared hand and Lily grasped it. “Thank you, Lily. Your loyalty at this difficult time means more to me than I can say.”
When the girl was gone, Dove resituated herself so that Dead Eye’s head rested on her lap. She lifted him, struggling with his weight, so that she could hold him in her arms as she drizzled the warm, fragrant broth down his throat. He swallowed convulsively over and over, and Dove lost track of how long she sat there, holding her lover and coaxing him to drink. All the while she spoke to him as if he could hear her—as if he would awaken any moment and take her into his arms, laughing at her fear and reminding her he was mighty as a stag, that it would take more than a wounded arm and a fall to kill him.
The rising sun warmed Dove’s skin, and she tilted her eyeless face up, saying, “Beloved, the sun is high and warm. You must wake now. The Others will be limping about, trying to recover from the fire. You must be there, beloved. You promised me a place in the clouds by your side, and I hold you to that promise.”
She felt the change in his body immediately. He drew a deep breath, expanding his mighty chest.
“Beloved?” Her hands fluttered to his face, feeling his eyelids blinking open. “Beloved! You awaken!”
He didn’t speak. Instead, he sat up, disentangling himself from her arms. She could tell he was looking at her—feel his gaze on her. She smiled tremulously and stretched a hand to him. “My Champion, are you well?”
“Dove. It is pleasing to see you.”
It happened in an instant. The moment he spoke her name Dove knew the man sitting before her was no longer Dead Eye—no longer her Champion and her lover. To anyone who hadn’t spent a lifetime listening as closely as she had to people’s voices, the change would have been difficult, if not impossible, to detect. But Dove was not like other people. She knew things eyes could not see, so she understood—beyond any doubt—that whatever had happened that night had irrevocably changed her lover.
She felt as if her heart would implode. Dove wanted to scream her despair and loss to the sky, but for all the years of her short life she had been surviving and the habit to protect herself—to live—was strong, stronger even than her broken heart.
Dove forced her lips to smile. “My Champion! I knew you would return!” She leaned forward, opening her arms to accept him. She didn’t need eyes to feel his hesitation, though she remained there, arms wide, smiling as if nothing had changed between them.
He did finally take her into his arms, pressing her body to his. “I had forgotten the softness of a living woman’s skin. It is pleasing.”
“Beloved? I—I don’t understand your words.” She remained malleable in his arms, surrendering to his increasingly rough caresses. “We have joined many times. Why does this seem new to you? Have—have you somehow been reborn?”
A shudder went through his body then, and when he spoke next she recognized his voice as his own again and his touch became gentle and familiar.
“Precious one! Do not worry—do not despair. A miracle happened last night, and that miracle will change our world forever!”
“Beloved!” Dove clung to him, flooded with relief. “You have truly come back to me! I was so frightened. It seemed as if you were gone, though your body remained.”
Dead Eye’s skin quivered and he cupped her face between his hands. When he spoke, his voice was filled with power and lust—and was utterly not her beloved’s voice.
“Little Dove, it was your Dead Eye’s determination that finally awakened me, but you will soon realize that much has changed with your lover.”
“Forgive me. I do not understand.”
“Oh, I believe you do.” She could hear the smile in His voice, though it lacked humor. His words were filled with arrogance and something else, something dark and dangerous. “My Consort and I have long been content to sleep. For eons we have rested, watching the world turn, change, destroy itself, and rebuild again and again. We were content, allowing our dreams to walk the earth in the guise of old age, disease, and tragedy—as well as a flourishing forest, crops ripening, and winter changing to spring. But my sleep has come to an end. Through disease and desire, blood sacrifice and faith, you and your Dead Eye have awakened me, and now he and I are joined for eternity—just as you and my Consort shall very soon be joined.”
Dove couldn’t help that her body began to tremble. “Who—who are you?”
“Don’t you recognize me? You have been claiming to be my Oracle for years.”
“The Reaper God?” Dove whispered. “You live?”
His laughter had fear skittering down her spine. “I have always lived! I was simply sleeping, waiting for the awakening. Though I do not like this Reaper name the People have given me. I prefer the name I have had since the beginnings of the world.”
“Wh-what name is that?” she said through numb lips.
“Death. But you, my lovely little bird, may call me Lord.”
And then Death, wearing the skin of her Champion, her lover, her life, ravaged her there on the hard, bloody floor of the balcony while the silent God looked down and wept scarlet. Dove forced her body to accept Him, to be soft and submissive, though inside her mind she screamed over and over and over.…