You always underestimated your granddaughter. That she would be driven to raise her blade against my cousin to oppose my reign… The girl is her mother’s daughter and the ace up your sleeve. A shame you waited so long to play her. Fear not, Uncle. I shall keep the throne well warm in your absence.
Gama ran as fast as she could. The sand stuck on the bottom of her feet and the spray of the ocean mist wet her face. She didn’t always get to choose where the portal opened, especially when she couldn’t concentrate. Using the Isomerase wasn’t a perfect science and being dropped in the middle of the streets of Nanit El was not in the cards. People screamed, but then they always screamed.
Monster. Gama had heard that before. That’s what people called you when half your face looked like strips of meat cut crooked from an emaciated cow and beaten with a claw hammer. Jeweled eyes ran horizontally across her forehead, pincers clicking beneath her lip, and incisors growing above her left eyebrow. Gama was maloccluded, a crooked canine digging into her temple from beneath her white hair.
She grabbed her knees, panting loudly as her wing beat against her back.
The city was far enough away now, the sounds of civilization replaced with the waves hitting the sand and rocks. She was near a cliff side where the tides carved out sea caves and little crabs hid within intricate shells and bits of onyx.
The ocean breeze felt nice, like a spring current playing with her hair and tickling her nose. Her thin skirt and loose blouse billowed as the waves crashed against the shore. She took off her stockings, throwing them in the surf and making fists in the sand with her toes.
Gama’s grip tightened on her sword, its black molting sheath digging into her palm like the back of a thorny beetle. Her hands went white and the color in her cheeks drained as the sun rose, bloody and raw.
“Red sky in the morning, sailor’s warning,” she said, still catching her breath.
It wouldn’t be long now. Stealing from the Isomerase wasn’t something that went unnoticed for long, especially from Morta.
She’s coming. Said the voice in her head. Gama, she’s coming.
“Thanks, Sippero.”
I love you, Gama. Please be careful.
The right side of her face blushed scarlet red, and she almost dropped her sword.
What the hell was getting into him?
“Um, thanks. You too?”
She felt her stomach drop and an icy shiver ran the length of her spin as the sky above turned glassy and then split down the middle, peeled back like an orange. Reality’s skin fell, leaves from an otherworldly tree, and underneath was the blackness of the void, boiling tar dripping from the opening, making a sizzling noise as it struck the sand. Igor drifted through, an interdimensional biomechanical spider with eight legs that stroked the beach, hooves kicking up sand, his skull bleached white and camera lens glowing blue as the booking lung beneath his abdomen turned red hot.
Morta rode on his back, her legs draped over his left side as she grasped the extension cords that hung from his mane. She carried a long pole with a curved blade chained to the end, sparks flashing and darkness dripping from the steel and seeping into the sand like rain.
“Child,” Igor said, softly, as if calling a frightened animal. “We’ve missed you. Please come home.”
Morta leaped off his back, her black hair draped over her shoulder in a long braid, and her left eye glowing a vibrant blue. “You are out of line, young lady!” she said, her voice raised. “Look at me when I’m talking to you!”
Gama did, returning her gaze, defiant, stubborn, holding her sword in front of her chest as Morta dragged her scythe across the sands, leaving a black trail wherever it touched.
“Ladies, if we could but retire for a moment—”
“You stay out of this, Igor!” Morta and Gama shouted.
Igor shrunk back against the rocks, skittering up the cliff and blending into the jagged ravine, the sun’s light flashing off his camera lens and giving away his position. He was close, but only to watch. Would he interfere if things went too far? Gama didn’t know.
“This isn’t a game, Gama. Return the boy’s fate to the Isomerase this instant.”
“So you can just leave things as they are?” Gama’s eyes flashed. “I think not. What happened to your vocation? When did you become such a coward?!”
Morta’s eyes narrowed, snarling, a blood vessel popping near her hairline. “Is that what you think, you spoiled little brat? Give the boy’s fate back to me right now!”
“Death has to return to the peninsula, Morta! Look at how messed up things are becoming!”
Morta paused, taking a deep breath and curling her fingers into fists against her thighs. “One day, I’d hoped that you’d understand.” She pushed the butt end of her scythe into the sand, leaning against it. “Does that boy mean so much to you? I never thought you’d fall in love so easily. You are so much like your aunt.”
“I’m not in love!” Gama pulled on her skirt so hard it ripped, her right face scarlet red and her freckles swelling to the size of grapes. “I’m the duchess, Storge, and I will return death to the peninsula even if you won’t!”
“Give me his fate, girl!”
“Why don’t you make me!” Gama drew her sword, throwing the sheath into the sand and angling side-face towards Morta.
She felt the battle rush, her heart beating against her chest like a drum. A sense of joy washed over her, an ice-cold river with fangs that brushed against her neck, unnerving but strangely exciting. Gama licked her lips, her left hand hideous but powerful, tight against the pommel of her blade. The handle felt like hardened tissue, scabs, and a blister. It popped, the liquid seeping between her fingers and becoming like glue, a reptilian eye appearing above where her thumb gripped the handle. She was the only one among her sisters to manifest a blade of Kath’le Kal. The only one who could stand against a fate weaver.
“So be it,” Morta said, spinning her scythe as if it were weightless.
Their eyes locked, and for a moment, the trance was broken. Was she really doing this? Gama’s hands shook, her lips quivering. Morta was gruff, hot-blooded, and an awkward guardian, but she was still...
Gama’s knees trembled and the wisdom teeth beneath her ear clicked together.
Was she really doing this?
A moment, that’s all the time she had to think before Morta drove her blade into the beach. The sand spat upward, and the ground quaked as a deep ravine split beneath their feet.
Gama leaped away, water spilling into the opening and creating an unnatural trench. She swung her sword instinctively as Morta tried to sweep her off her feet, taking advantage of Gama’s imbalance. Their blades struck, and the metal sang like tuning forks. Sparks flew in Gama’s face and liquid darkness slithered across her sword but found no purchase.
Gama jumped away, adopting her eagle stance, positioning her sword above her head and exposing her belly. It was a faint. Morta came in low, aiming for Gama’s feet, not easily fooled. She thrust downward, her sword catching the scythe. Morta came in close, and Gama swung at her with her right hand. She missed, and Morta slammed her foot into Gama’s belly, sending her flying against the ravine.
Gama hit the rocks, crashing through them and making a human-sized crater, splitting the cliffside in two. She gasped, thrusting her sword into the sand to steady herself. Her wing beat furiously against her back, her blouse torn, her skirt in shambles, and her hair a snowy mess. Chunks of rock showered around her as a massive wave crashed against the shore, water reaching her toes and pulling sand and stone toward the ocean.
Morta grimaced, ringing the corners of her dress. “Look what you made me do,” she said. “I didn’t want to hurt you, Gama. Give me the boy’s fate, now!”
Too late for that. Gama thought, blood dripping from her split lip.
She rubbed her cheek, pulling her sword from the sand and dropping into her tiger stance, blade low to the ground. She screamed, face red and beads of sweat rolling down her shoulders as she shut the distance between them in an instant. Her sword clashed against Morta’s polearm, her longer reach meaningless in close quarters, but the woman was devilishly quick, wiping her scythe around like the stinger of a pissed-off hornet. Their steel sung, sparks flashing in the air as Gama launched a flurry of blows and Morta met each one, bringing her sinister black blade closer to her neck with each blow. Gama fell lock and step with her opponent, trading strikes and growing faster and more skilled, an unnatural progression of parry and riposte. Gone was her uncertainty, her fear, and her fickle need for familial love.
Morta was her enemy, and Gama was going to win.
Her eyes flashed bright yellow, ducking under Morta’s blade and narrowly avoiding taking the butt end of her polearm in the gut. She thrust her sword upward, drawing an arch with intense air pressure that cut clean across the shore, damaging the cliff side and causing a massive rock to fall into the sea with a crash. Morta never missed a step, sweeping Gama’s feet from under her. She collapsed, rolling out of the way, just narrowly avoiding the blunt end of a polearm.
Gama cursed, finding her feet and kicking sand at Morta’s eyes, who sidestepped, slamming her pole against Gama’s back. She felt the blow before she heard it. The wind knocked from her lungs as she flipped end over end into the sand.
“Enough, child,” Morta said. She paced the beach, balancing her weapon between her hands and spinning it like a fan. “Does this really mean so much to you?”
Gama found her feet, dragging her sword against the sand, her wing rubbing against the striations along her back and making a buzzing noise. “It means everything,” she said, gritting her teeth and crouching down, adopting a new stance, faster, lower, and more precise.
Her hands were shaking and her lips quivering not from fear or anger but elation. The thrill of combat was intoxicating, and she was drunk. The world didn’t matter; the people didn’t matter, and her reasons for fighting didn’t matter. Battle with a worthy opponent was enough, a razor’s edge that gave her such a high, knee-deep in sand, bruised and beaten, she wanted more.
She wanted more!
Gama charged, moving fast, the shore whipping behind her as another wave rolled onto the beach. She didn’t feel the current, the water brushing against her feet, just the rigid clash of steel against steel, a wicked grin spreading from ear to ear, Gama laughing maniacally as she brought her blade down and to the right sending a shockwave through the ocean, parting the waters. Morta leaped overhead, landing behind her and striking Gama across the cheek with the butt of her weapon, but the blow didn’t phase her, battle drunk and so razor-focused on the chase.
Morta was fast. She was skilled, but Gama was catching up, abandoning defense and taking her blows for one clean strike. She could smell the opening like a ripe fruit and struck, maneuvering her blade in a horizontal arch that cut Morta’s belly, not deep, but enough to leave a mark.
Gama leaped backward, dropping into her eagle stance, blade hovering overhead as a single drop of blood dripped onto the sands. She hesitated, watching her opponent bleed, and the battle fever left her as quickly as it came. Gama dropped her sword into the sand, her knees trembling.
Morta never bled unless she wanted to.
Look at what you’ve done. Said a strange voice in her head. You hurt her. Look at what you’ve done to your family!
“I-I didn’t mean…” Gama’s voice was shaky, and she collapsed to her knees. “This isn’t what I…”
She threw up, her belly turning inside out as she watched blood drip down Morta’s leg.
Look at what you’ve done! You ungrateful beast!
“I’m sorry… I’m so sorry!” Tears ran along her cheeks as she dry-heaved into the ocean, her stomach reeling, harming her family so counter to her nature that it revolted her. “I-I am the duchess, Storge…”
Monster, beast, demon, traitor!
“Gama.” Morta touched her belly, stemming the flow of blood as Igor crept behind her, the storm over, sunlight peeking out from behind the metaphorical clouds. “Child, please come home.”
Gama screamed, the voices in her head becoming a high-pitched squeal. She collapsed onto the sand, convulsing violently, the noise shattering her mind like glass. It resonated from deep within her, a tuning fork that wailed like a banshee causing her fingers to vibrate and her legs to curl until she was in a fetal position, frothing at the mouth, her eyes rolling into the back of her head.
“Igor, hurry, she’s having another episode!”
Someone pinned her down, and she screamed again, unable to hold her head as before, her headache now free to spread down to her chin and beneath her breast. “Please, make it go away!” she cried.
“Sweetheart, I’m here, but you have to hold still.”
Gama tried to calm herself, but her muscles twitched, her teeth clattering together. She yelped from a painful stinging sensation beneath her armpit that quickly numbed. All at once she felt warm, a tingling feeling spreading from her fingers to her toes and forcing the screeching noise in her head to dull. Exhaustion overcame her, her wing going limp and her fingers slack. She opened her eyes, pupils dilating as Morta cradled her in her arms, smiling.
“There, that’s better, isn’t it?” she said.
“Morta, please,” Gama said, the last of her tears dripping onto her lap. “Kill me…”
“Shhh, quiet now.” Morta pressed her finger against Gama’s lips. “Sleep, girl, all will be set right.”
The voice in Gama’s head soothed, transforming into the sound of a silver bell. The musical chime resonated with her soul, comforting her in ways she’d never felt before, wrapping her in swaddling clothes. A gentle lullaby, distant, but so exquisite. It became like a mother’s hands reaching for her but unable to hold tight. She beckoned and Gama’s body responded, wanting to go to her so badly her muscles ached. The bell rang, but more distant this time, those warm, beautiful hands fading into the recesses of her mind. Gama’s spirit panicked, chasing after the sound, a child lost in the darkness.
Let me come with you. She thought. Please, I want to come with you!
Soon. said the voice in her head. Soon.
Gama opened her eyes, drifting in and out of wakefulness. “Can you hear her? She’s so beautiful… Calling to me,” she said.
A look of horror crossed Morta’s face, her hands trembling as she touched her cheek.
Gama didn’t understand and was too weak, her wits drained, and her lips and tongue not working right. Sleep took her, dreamless and long, a well-deserved rest.
— ✦ —
Morta kissed Gama’s cheek. The girl lay in her lap, sleeping soundly, calm as a still spring. How long had it been since she’d told her stories or tucked her into bed? She’d grown so much since then. Far too quickly for Morta’s tastes. Who was this young woman who danced so elegantly with her blade? Surely it wasn’t Gama. Only yesterday, Morta was instructing her on the proper way to hold kitchen knives.
She smiled, running her fingers through Gama’s white hair and around the stem of a maloccluded incisor jutting from her scalp. She needed to learn to groom herself better, but her girl was still beautiful. The gods had to mangle her right side to give her half-sisters a chance.
Morta sighed, reaching inside the girl’s chest, her fingers passing through clothing and skin like dipping into a pond. She was careful not to hurt her, merely brushing her heart with a gentle nudge reminding her to live and to love. Then she felt the caress of a velvety fabric and seized Gama’s fate, pulling it from her chest.
She inspected the weave, pinching the fabric and teasing the spindly fibers. Gama’s fate felt so grainy, the sediment gathering in her soul and sticking to her spirit. Morta picked the grains until she could feel the silky sheen beneath and an undone stockinette stitch. She ripped out the loose knitting and excess tissue as her sister taught her. Nona was right. The fabric felt so much better with a little pruning.
Death really wasn’t necessary.
“Morta,” Gama said, her voice weak and sore. “I’m sorry.”
The girl stirred, her eyes slowly opening, revealing the flash of a yellow diode.
“It was only a scratch.” Morta returned the fabric to Gama’s chest, watching as it faded. “I’m tougher than that.”
Gama cried, her nose running and eyes watering. “I’m so sorry…”
Morta pursed her lips, lifting her into her arms and embracing her. “Child,” she said, the girl sobbing into her shoulder. “What am I going to do with you?”
“I didn’t mean to hurt you!”
“I know you didn’t, but you stole from the Isomerase.” Her embrace tightened, eyes glowing. “You know I have to punish you.”
“Why did you give up death’s mantle, Morta?” Gama asked, wiping her eyes and nose. “Don’t you see how the world is changing and not for the better?!”
Morta looked towards the sky where eyes descended from the heavens and a blood-red rain doused a distant kingdom from a cloudless midnight. She could hear the screams of men, women, and children as destitute wings erupted from their backs, fledgling valkyries painting the heavens with twisted flesh, macabre livers and kidneys.
How could she explain a mother’s love to a child?
“Gama…” Morta paused, leaning back while cradling her. She chewed on her lip, her forehead furrowed, struggling to find the words. “You’re beautiful,” she finally said, smiling as she touched the right side of Gama’s face, her human side.
“Please, answer me!”
Morta frowned, finding her feet and carrying Gama to a cliffside overseeing the ocean below. They were high above the bay, but she could still taste the spray of the ocean mist.
“I would rather watch the world burn than harm the women who are dear to me,” she said.
She looked out over the sea, the murky depths stirring violently below. The shadow of a massive leviathan appeared beneath the waters, red eyes glowing and synthetic fins kicking up the sediment hundreds of feet below. He surfaced, a biomechanical whale, water erupting from the hole in his skull and wetting Gama’s cheek.
The girl blushed, her freckles swelling to the size of grapes. “What’s gotten into Sippero?” she said, referring to whatever conversation she had in her head. “Why is he behaving like this?”
Gama’s retainer, Sippero bellowed, the orbital lens of a giant telescope mounted within his snout and his jaw suspended by rebar. Gears spun beneath his skin and cables dangled outside of his belly like entrails from a corpse.
“He loves you,” Morta said. “And he’s agreed to watch over you from now on.”
Gama’s eyes widened. “What the hell is that supposed to mean? What did you do?!”
Sippero’s nose lifted out of the water, his jaw opening as wide as the bay and his gray tongue reaching towards the cliffside.
Gama yelled, her eyes as wide as saucers, sweat beading along her brow as she looked down into the utter blackness that waited beyond Sippero’s throat.
“You disappointed me, Dūramgama,” Morta said, holding the girl so her feet dangled above the organic chasm. “I’m sorry, but I have to punish you.”
“Please, stop! Don’t!”
“Forgive me.”
Morta let her go, and Gama screamed, falling like a heavy stone, the wind racing against her cheek as the soft tissue of Sippero’s tongue greeted her. Gama struck like hitting a stack of pillows, an ant in a goliath’s mouth unable to control her momentum and rolling into the back of his throat.
Gama’s screams vanished, Sippero’s tongue slipping into his mouth, his jaw closing and his snout sinking beneath the water like a top-heavy ship. His shadow grew distant, returning to the depthless ocean, never to rise again.
Morta looked over the cliffside, Igor creeping up behind her and knocking his hooves against the soil. She whipped her black over her shoulder and stepped into his saddle, draping her legs over his side, and resting her body against his mane. She sighed, spinning his extension cords like pasta noodles in her fingers.
“You’re grounded, young lady,” Morta said, a tear running down her cheek.