Spear Mother: A Tale of the Fourth World by Brandon M. Lindsay
* * *
Sandrena awoke to the pungent smell of a dung fire.
Muscles shuddering, she pushed herself off of her side and propped herself up onto her elbow, barely able to maintain the position due to her weakness and exhaustion. Through her blurred vision she could tell that it was night, and that five forms sat around the crackling fire, and one more was still lying down. Mustering all her determination and strength, Sandrena fought her way into a cross-legged sitting position. She rubbed her eyes to clear the sleep from them and took in the scene before her.
Flickering firelight cast a dim orange glow over her five white companions, all of whom were awake and staring at the fire, as if making an effort not to look each other in the eye. Sandrena couldn't blame them; her shame at being compromised in such a way, and enjoying it beyond all right, overwhelmed her. Only Dormaun, lying on her side and propped up on her elbow much as Sandrena had been a moment before, seemed quite unaffected by the whole ordeal. Indeed, as she fiddled with a bit of grass that had been flattened in preparation for their camp with a dreamy smile on her parted lips, her tousled and sweat-drenched hair cast about her with abandon, Dormaun was an image of utter satisfaction.
Sandrena was anxiously and uncomfortably aware of her own silk dress saturated with sweat. Bits of dirt clung to it; smears of mud marred it where she had writhed on the ground in her ecstasy. Some of the stains were already losing color. Still, she felt an urgent need to wash the dress—alone, far away from the others.
As she brushed away some of the dirt from her skirts, she noticed a different kind of dampness on her thighs. Her shame multiplied. Hurriedly, she scooped up Motherspear and cradled it in her lap, running her fingers along the ridges in its haft to reassure herself.
The Lady, whose eyes Sandrena could not meet, sat across from her, just as if she were another woman, and not one of the God's two wardens of this world. Her armor had been removed and set at her side in an orderly fashion, along with her large broadsword. The Lady, even in a simple red tunic and black trousers, emanated a sense of majesty. Finally, after an agonizing silence, she spoke.
"I'm glad you're all finally awake," she said, "and coherent."
As if an army of evil feathers were attacking her, a series of gentle thrills coursed their way through Sandrena's body, bringing her nerves to life. It wasn't unduly pleasurable, painful, or unbearable, but she seriously hoped this didn't happen every time the Lady spoke. At least it wasn't as bad as it had been at first. She noticed that the other women in their group shifted uncomfortably as the Lady spoke.
"Again, I apologize for what I put you through this night. It's not something I would have done if I didn't think you had need. Speaking to you, that is. I know what it does to people, and as I have no way of stopping it, I try my best not come into direct contact with anyone unless there is great need. I usually tell people what they need to know through dreams. That, unfortunately, is no longer an option."
Sandrena glanced up, flinching when she caught sight of those silver eyes. Steeling herself, she opened her mouth to speak. A hoarse whisper emerged. She cleared her throat, and words finally came out. "Why? What's different?"
The Lady's face held a soft, sad smile. Her strange skin, with its metallic sheen, glinted oddly in the firelight. "We're nearing the Madding Shores."
Korilia, who had been silent this whole time, leapt to her feet. "What! That's a lie! I know my lands, and we are still a hundred miles from the influence of the Shores!"
"Peace, Daughter." The Lady raised her hand in a mollifying gesture, but Korilia's chest was heaving and she appeared to have no interest in sitting back down. The Lady sighed. "I'm not questioning your knowledge of these lands. You're absolutely right; we are nearly a hundred miles from where the influence of the Madding Shores used to begin."
No one moved. Sandrena was certain that the others heard the words the Lady had used: where the influence of the Madding Shores used to begin. Even Korilia was still, scarcely breathing.
Eventually she sat back down and, frowning darkly into the flames, said, "Explain."
Not exactly how Sandrena would have framed the request to a divine being, but the Lady seemed unruffled at this curt command. "The dreams I've sent you have outlined the basic purpose of this mission that I have called you on. We are here, all of us—myself included—to kill a god. As you may have determined, there's only one God that humanity generally concerns itself with, and I assure you that I am not one to ask you to kill Berahmain." Korilia seemed ready to protest, doubtless about her clan's Iron Gods, but when it appeared she wasn't going to speak, the Lady continued. "Not only do I not have it in me, but the results of such an action would be, to put it lightly, catastrophic."
The Lady seemed suddenly troubled as she spoke these last words, but she continued speaking with only a breath's pause. "So, you may have deduced that it is not a god of mankind that we shall kill, but a god of the Aberrations."
Rayell breathed in sharply; Semorie hissed. Dormaun, no longer dazed, peered up at the Lady, eyes wide with interest. Judging by their reactions, none of the others had any clue what kind of god the Lady would want them to kill. Sandrena certainly hadn't.
The Lady noticed all of this. "I see. I'm sorry to have dragged all of you out here for this with so little knowledge. Dreams are limited in what I can convey through them." She smiled again, that same gentle smile. "I'm honored that you would come at my bidding without knowing the reason for it. Honored, and also a little frightened that all of you, without exception, would be so impetuous and uncritical."
Duly chastised, the others hung their heads. All except Caella, the lone Tokkarintswoman in their group, who stared with a pleading look in her round face. "But... you're the Lady! A divine agent of Berahmain's!" As Sandrena understood it, the shorter, rounder woman had been a Sister of the Church before she had left Tokkarint to join them on this quest, and thus Sandrena was not all that surprised by this outburst.
"That's true," the Lady said at length. "But I am not your master. You need not come at my bidding. You six were chosen because of all the women in your respective clans, you were the ones whose dreams were most open to my touch." She glanced pointedly at Korilia, who sniffed loudly. "And though in our shared dreams I called you all my daughters, I now think of you more as sisters."
The second memory, the one Sandrena always tried to forget, suddenly flooded her mind. Quickly, she stifled it, focusing instead on this conversation.
"Why?" asked Rayell in a harsh tone. "Why us?"
"I think..." The Lady frowned in thought, an unexpectedly human gesture, but Sandrena realized that this divine being before her was full of such human touches. "I think that there is some sort of... harmony between us, that's not between me and other people. And I think that is why you heard my plea, and why you came to me."
"Why just women?" Dormaun asked in an exceedingly curious voice.
"You've heard my voice and know what effect it has." She tilted her head as she regarded her. "Have you ever been raped, Dormaun?"
Dormaun answered in a very small voice, "Yes."
"I haven't. Though many men have tried. They became... less useful to me afterwards." Her hand rested on the ornate hilt of her sword. Yes, Sandrena supposed that dead men weren't very useful to anybody. "And I am sorry if I made you relive such a memory. It must have been horrible."
"Yes, well." Dormaun made a dismissive gesture. "I'd say you more than made up for it last night." She smiled, though Sandrena could see that the memory of what was done to her haunted her still. The pain was evident in her eyes.
Under the vault of stars, their conversation lapsed into silence once more. Sandrena supposed that they were not quite used to each other, and that the addition of the Lady only seemed to amplify the strangeness of their situation.
With each answered question, that strangeness was becoming all the more apparent. A thousand questions popped into Sandrena's mind and she couldn't decide which one was the
The Lady nodded. "Of course. But perhaps I should tell you a little about the Fourth World, and how it came into being."
Everyone was suddenly rapt. The creation of all existence, as understood by the Lady herself? Caella's eyes were nearly bugging out of her head. Doubtless a priestess had much interest in such a topic.
"Well," the Lady continued, "perhaps came into being is not the proper phrase. While I don't know much about the other six worlds, I was here when the Fourth World was not yet the Fourth World, but rather a world populated by many other creatures which people now refer to as Aberrations.
"It's not the most accurate term, since it implies that Berahmain's plan somehow went awry, and the existence of these creatures was somehow a result of this. That's not true. While they certainly are not a part of Berahmain's plans for the Fourth World, they came before the plan. They were here first, and we—Berahmain, the Lord, and I—took over a part of their world to create what you see here now: the lands of the Six Clans."
Sandrena stared in open-mouthed astonishment. "But—"
"Please, Sandrena." The Lady lifted her hand and smiled again, soothingly. "I know you are boiling over with questions, and I hope to answer many of them. This story, I hope, will do just that."
Blearily, Sandrena nodded.
"Thank you." She shifted slightly were she sat. "Again, it isn't entirely accurate to say that their world is now totally ours. The Fourth World, as we know it, is only a small part of their world, but it is cut off from it by—"
"—the Madding Shores," Korilia finished, understanding dawning on her face. "And the reason people go mad is because they cross over from our world into theirs?"
The Lady nodded. "Yes. The rules of their world are not the same as ours, and our minds struggle to make sense of them. Often this ends up in madness, and always it ends up with being lost in their world forever, with no hope of returning to the Fourth World." She met each of their gazes forcefully to emphasize her next point. "Not even death will bring you back into Berahmain's plans."
Sandrena shuddered at the thought. She had heard stories of people removed from Berahmain's plan, never again to face the Challenge, with no hope of rising again in another world once death has been met in this one. The thought of permanent death, one from which she would never again wake, was terrifying.
"Is this what will happen to us?" Dormaun asked.
"No." The Lady's voice rang with finality. "I will make sure that none of you are lost. Killed, well... I don't imagine we will all survive our encounter with the god." She breathed in deeply and exhaled. "Know that I wish you all to survive this ordeal."
"And so, the Aberrations in our world..." began Rayell.
"Yes, they are those who slipped between the cracks in our world, remaining here after their old world was replaced. Some have even found a way to traverse between our overlapping worlds, though many cannot pass through the Madding Shores without suffering the same effects as humans. Of course, only a few of them know the truth, the longer-lived ones. The others have only heard what has been distorted in the telling of thousands, if not millions, of generations. There is disagreement between them as to what they should do with us. Some of them want to destroy mankind, others want to live in peace. Still others want to abandon this world and find another to live on."
"And it would be safe to assume, then," said Rayell, choosing her words with care and thought, "that this god you want us to kill is among the first group."
"Yes," said the Lady. "You have the right of it. Though he wants to go beyond merely destroying mankind. He was here at the very beginning, when we stole this world from the Aberrations. In fact, the Lord and I defeated him, and sent him off to another realm, which was how the Fourth World was won in the first place. He is, in many ways, the god of this world. Somehow, the Aberrations beyond the Madding Shore found a way to bring him back."
Something didn't quite add up to Sandrena. "Then, why isn't the Lord helping us now?"
"He can't." An expression of hopelessness came over the Lady's features. "Ever since the creation of the Fourth World, the Lord and I have had our distinct roles from which we cannot stray due to the order inherent in Berahmain's plan. He can only defend the existence of the Fourth World from threats that come from within the plan. I can only defend the threats from without. Against almost any threat, we can no longer work together."
"Threats from within the plan?" Caella asked, puzzled.
"Yes." For a silent moment, Sandrena thought that was all the Lady had to say on the topic, but then she continued. "He... the Lord, that is, made a mistake once. Granted a gift that was not his to give. As a result, the order of Berahmain's plans were upset, and the Lord has been fighting to correct it ever since." She shook her head and stared into the fire, lost in thought. "That one lapse in judgment has endangered everything."
Sandrena wondered what the Lord could have given someone that would cause so much chaos. The Lady didn't seem inclined to speak of it further, however, and it would likely just be one of those thousand questions that would never be answered. At least not in this lifetime.
The Lady suddenly stretched out her arms in an expansive yawn. "I think that's enough for tonight," she said when she was finally able. "We can continue this tomorrow. Is anybody fit for first watch?"
Semorie stood. With her clothes and cowl dried from proximity to the campfire, she looked none the worse for wear. "I will stand watch." With a tenderness that surprised Sandrena, Semorie said, "Sleep this night, my Lady. We will all take turns."
The Lady nodded gratefully and, in a way that was decidedly childlike, flopped to her back on the flattened grass. Within seconds, she was snoring.
Sandrena shook her head at the strangeness of it all, unfurled her bedroll, and arranged her pack into a suitable pillow. Exhausted emotionally as well as physically, she fared no better than the Lady, and sleep dragged her down in moments.