Festering Dreams
The Goddess Vantaiga rubbed her head with growing detachment and frustration. The bickering and arguing among the gods seemed never-ending. And the latest debacle was proving itself to be just as futile as the others.
Enebros, the God of Wine, blearily leaned forward to the Goddess. “If you, little girl, would let me grow grapes in your forest, I wouldn’t have to worry about goats.” Some chuckles trickled around the table with the god’s slight.
Vantaiga’s frustration began to churn into a rage. She bit back her anger. Enebros was drunk again, and reacting to him would only diminish her in front of the other gods. She took in a breath before replying, “I can’t have my people bleary-eyed like you, stumbling around the forest. It’s dangerous. The vines are welcomed, but your rotten berries are not.”
Enebros lifted his goblet up in the air, sloshing some of its contents onto the World Table. “What’s wrong with being like me? I’m fun.” He looked down at the spilled wine on the table. With a , he wiped it off, crushing a village below. He then looked at the smudges on his hand. Dismissingly, he wiped the dirt onto his leg.
Vantaiga’s face blanched. She struggled even harder to contain her outrage and replied in a controlled tone. “We don’t need your kind of fun in the forest. If you want to protect your precious grapes, then raise them up on stakes so the goats can’t reach them.”
Enebros grumbled under his breath. “Fine, I’ll just raise them on stakes. Like that’s any fun.” He leaned to Argrian, the God of Crops, with a nudge. “It would be a lot more fun planting my grapes in her forest.” Argrian and Enebros snickered and giggled while looking over Vantaiga.
Argrian joked back in a hushed tone that all at the table could still hear. “With a deity like her, you should talk to the men down in the forest. I bet they could use some more fun.”
There were laughs around the table. With a huff, Vantaiga withdrew behind the leaves of her little willow tree and tried to quell her rage. She looked to Hydar for some support but found him too distracted in suppressing his own snickers. When he noticed her looking at him, he regained his composure and patted her sympathetically.
Vantaiga rolled her eyes and brushed him off. With the constant insults, flirts, and teases, she was losing her ability to contain herself. She needed to be elsewhere. Why all the talk that she should be here if all they were going to do was demean and insult her? Or was that the point?
She couldn’t stand thinking about it anymore. Being on high and basking in the faith of her following was nice, but it wasn’t worth the constant assault on her dignity. And other than the occasional misbegotten attempts of the other gods to “seed” her forest, her small patch of green was safe, so far. She needed to be doing something. She needed to be in the calm quiet of her trees. If there was a real threat to her domain, she could come back to address it. In the meantime, she would much rather be spending her time with Syffox.
It occurred to her that it had been a while since she’d heard his thoughts of her or even felt him in her forests. She looked over the World Table to search for him. He was not in Derabel. The temple they had built to her and the orchard she’d given them were doing well, but Syffox was not among the clerics that tended it.
She looked across her forest and did not find him there either, although that did not surprise her. She would be able to feel his presence if he was in her forest. She looked for him at Kundz; it was the last place he was supposed to be. She was a little surprised to find that a temple had been built to her in the fortress city, but she had not been petitioned for a gift. She looked more closely at the city but still could not find Syffox.
Had he left her realm without telling her? She slid from her throne and glanced at Hydar and Silhlotte with a curt nod. “There is something I have to attend to.”
Hydar looked concerned, but before either of the two gods could say anything, she quietly left them to walk around the World Table. The rest of the presiding gods had already returned to their petty bickering and didn’t notice the Goddess slipping out behind them. She shot a glance to the disgusting pile of Festor’s throne. The God of Death and Decay was not there. At least she didn’t have to deal with him watching her leave, or worse yet, taking the opportunity to follow her.
Once out in the cool, dark Hallway of Eternity, Vantaiga took a moment to catch her breath and calm her spinning head. The constant tension of the council left her with a nervousness she couldn’t shake. She soothed herself with the thought that she’d soon be back among the leaves of her forest and the arms of her Syffox. She hurried her pace and quickly descended the lapis Steps of the Sky.
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Once back in her forest, Vantaiga spread herself out to touch all the trees of her domain. She quickly found a lone oak tree in a temple dedicated to her on the rocky plain of Kundz. She collected herself to the tree and, with a single step, emerged from a young oak in the centre of a new temple in Kundz.
She looked around and found the place sparse and devoid of people. Before her, in the shade of the oak, was a large stone altar. Dotting the corners of the yard were a few potted shrubs. It was not a temple to her liking or even to the liking of her people. There were no grasses or flowers, nor any stands of shade trees. There was not even a single exotic species of plant used to entice newcomers to investigate. Instead of lush and inviting, the temple was hot and harsh. It seemed to Vantaiga more like a temple of Coronus with a tree stuck in the middle of it.
From behind, Vantaiga heard the sound of rushing sandaled feet. She turned to see two priestesses run to her and fall to their knees before her. They were shaking and breathing rapidly. Vantaiga’s hackles began to rise. “What is wrong? What is the matter here children?”
The young priestesses crawled forward to hug Vantaiga’s legs. One spoke through sobs. “They kept us prisoner here. They wouldn’t let us leave. We waited for you to come for us, but you took so long. They made us do things.”
Vantaiga lifted their faces. From the marks and tattered clothes, she could see they had been harmed. A hot rage flared inside her. “What! Not possible! Where is Syffox? Why is he not presiding at the altar?” She looked about the loathsome courtyard, her breath heavy with anger, but the young priestesses said nothing.
She looked down at them as they cowered their heads at her feet. Her anger twisted into a nauseous lump of fear. “Where is Syffox?”
One priestess managed a shaky reply but could not bring herself to look at her. “He is there, Goddess.” She began to sob and shake uncontrollably before finally bursting out. “But it’s not an altar. It’s a sarcophagus!”
Vantaiga stared at the priestess, struggling to process what she heard. Her dread erupted into horror. “What!”
She spun from the two women so quickly they fell on their hands. She leapt to the tomb and cast off the lid. Her breath caught in her throat, and her legs trembled as she stared at its contents.
Inside the coffin were the ghoulish remains of Syffox. The red of his hair and beard had turned grey and blended into his ashen skin. His normally broad and muscular frame was wizened and emaciated under his white burial robe. The only thing recognizable was his bow, still clutched in his hands. Tears rolled down her face as she grimly mused that of course he would still have his bowThere was nobody else capable of pulling the damned thing. She sank to the ground with a sob. She closed her eyes and let the courtyard spin around her.
She whispered to herself as a dark void of despair opened beneath her. “This is not happeningShe shivered from the chill of the stone crypt before her. “This is not happening…” Her legs ached from their loss of strengthNausea churned in her stomach and bile rose in her throat as she clutched her arms around herself.
She pressed her head into the cold stone of the sarcophagus and closed her eyes tightly until a numbing rush came over her and she spiralled into the engulfing void of darkness. “I can’t stop this…” Images of Syffox’s grisly remains circled around her as she fell deeper into the void
“I don’t want this…” She tried to replace the images with Syffox’s smile. “Make this go away…” She tried remembering the sound and warmth of his heartbeat, but she could only feel the cold void around her and hear her own gasps.
She opened her eyes and found herself curled on her knees. The two priestesses came close and knelt next to her. She looked at them, stunned, her brain still not fully able to accept what was happening. “What…? Why?”
One of the priestesses replied shakily, “They attacked us, and they stabbed Syffox. They poisoned him.”
Vantaiga was incredulous. “Eh! Poison? Impossible!” She looked around at the empty courtyard with disgust. “So why the temple?”
“They thought you would be honour-bound to spare them if they built you a temple like you wanted.”
Outraged, Vantaiga struck the ground so hard it rattled the stones. “Honour-bound to bury them in the sand!” The young women crouched away from her. Vantaiga hung her head and choked back her tears. “This is not what I wanted.”
She rose to her feet. Her legs struggled to find the strength to lift her. She looked at the horrible shrunken remains of Syffox and then looked away in agony. “This is not what we wanted.”
Vantaiga took in controlled breaths to regain herself. She could fix this. After all, she not only had dominion over the forest but of life as well. She pushed back her hair and wiped away her tears.
“I can fix this.” She brought herself to look at Syffox’s body. “Poison—ridiculous! What a lazy ass for not saving himself.” She sucked in a final shuddering breath before laying her hands on him.
She poured in her magic and love for him, feeling through the cold organs to bring them back to life and warmth. Colour began to return to Syffox’s face. He drew in air and his eyes fluttered open. Then, a shuddering spasm convulsed through his body, and with a single gasp, he fell still.
Vantaiga shook her head. “No, no. No!” She again laid her hands on him. This time she poured out even more of her power. The oak behind her blossomed and grass began to sprout from between the cobblestones. Syffox’s body writhed and arched. He grabbed one of her hands and moaned out “Stop” before collapsing again in death, his breath slowly seeping from his lungs.
Vantaiga tried a third time, now more with anger than sadness or love. Dark flowers erupted around her, and blooming, thorned vines snaked out of the sarcophagus. Syffox’s body convulsed and thrashed. He grabbed her arms and pulled her to his face, his muscles clenched in agony.
He growled, tormented and hoarse, “This will not work. You must stop!”
Shocked, she let him go, and he fell again into lifelessness. She looked over him, confused. She was bringing him to life, but the poison, and its pain, still gripped him. This was not supposed to be difficult. Life was a simple matter for her to create, and poisons were a simple matter to neutralise. Certainly, she had the power to restore her lifelong mate. There was no power on earth that could resist her will to life… That was, of course, unless this power was not of the earth.
“No!” She lifted Syffox and reached beneath his back.