Isle of Gods II: Amara Read online

  Contents

  Title Page

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Part Two

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Part Three

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  From the Author

  Previous Books in the Series

  More Books by H. Lovelyn Bettison

  Title Page

  Isle of Gods II

  Amara

  By H. Lovelyn Bettison

  Nebulous Mooch Publishing

  Copyright 2017

  Cover Art by Thomas Shutt

  Part One

  “In the beginning all was created, even the gods.” Book of Gods

  Chapter 1

  They took me in the middle of the day. Variel came running up the trail, panting with panic in her eyes. “Mortals are here. We must warn the others,” she said. She stood in front of me for a few minutes expectantly, her hands shaking with fear. “We must hurry.”

  I waved my hand as if shooing away an insect. I already knew they were here. I was the one who told them to come, but I didn’t tell Variel that. I told her to go ahead without me. She hesitated a moment before continuing up the hill.

  I caught a whiff of the mortals’ sour scent long before they reached me. The sound of their heavy feet in the brush warned all of the creatures in the forest that they were coming. I stopped singing and doodling in the dirt for a moment to listen to their clumsy approach. They thought they were sneaking up on me, but that was impossible for them. They had needed my help finding this place and they wouldn’t be able to take me very far if I wasn’t willing to go with them. One of them swiftly put a canvas sack over my head that smelled of mold and rot while the others tied my hands and feet. None of this was necessary, but I didn’t tell them as much. I thought it would ruin the thrill for them. I didn’t struggle. I didn’t speak. I just complied.

  They carried me to the shore in their arms. Even though I did not fight them they dropped me when one of them called out in pain. He’d sliced his leg open on a large thorny bush. I could hear their hurried voices as they tended to his wound. I tried to pick out the steady cadence of Damek’s voice amongst them. He was the one I’d chosen to come here. I’d been looking at him through the seerstone for so long that I was excited to see him in person, but seeing him would have to wait.

  Their hands slick with sweat, they dropped me a second time into the water as they tried to put me in their boat, but I dared not run. I knew where they were taking me and secretly I wanted to go. I made it easy for them, so easy that they might have mistakenly believed they could do it again. They might’ve forgotten that we were gods and their endeavors to control us were foolish. I let them believe because it was good for them to believe they could win. Hope was important to them and I could give them hope when I was feeling merciful. This day was one of those merciful days. They didn’t know how lucky they were.

  “Sit down and don’t move,” a voice like hissing coals said into my ear before they lowered me into a boat. A sailor sat on either side of me and as they did the boat rocked so far to the left that I thought it might tip. Each time another being got in the boat moved again, shaking like the large leaves of a banana tree in the wind. Once they’d all climbed aboard they started to row.

  There were four of them. It took four men to catch a god. That was what they would tell people once they got home. It only took four of us. You should try it too. It isn’t that hard. How did they decide to bring four?

  At first they grunted as they rowed, I think it was a kind of chant to help them keep time or maybe a ritual that I’d never heard of. Maybe it was a song they’d created for this very event. It didn’t sound much like a song though. It was a series of grunts and groans that seemed to mean nothing more than “stick your oars in the water.” When your head is in a bag your remaining senses come to life. My ears drank in the sounds: the splash of the oars in the water, the rough edges of their voices as they congratulated one another on their catch, celebratory hands against flesh, the gulls’ angry protest overhead, the waves slapping the wooden boat harder and harder as the water got rough. I counted the strokes of the oars, three hundred and seventy-four. They sounded like good rowers fast and precise despite their unpleasant song. I wondered what their ship would be like and how long it would be before I was far away from this island.

  I also wondered how they would get past the rocks, the ones that Father said would always keep us safe. Their skill had helped them maneuver around them to get here, but could they do it again? Would trying a second time be hoping for more luck then they would be granted? It was important that it didn’t take too long. Father would notice my absence and when he did he might try to force us to come back to the island. I didn’t know if that was possible, but it was difficult to know what was possible with Father.

  “Rocks ahead!” someone behind me yelled, his voice like a knife’s edge.

  The rowing sped and the boat leaned left and then right and then left again. “Back, back, back!” someone yelled and the boat tipped right. The men on either side breathed in the steady rhythm of their rowing. My face grew hot in the bag. Its opening was gathered around my neck with a rope, preventing the relief of fresh air. My own breaths were growing more shallow as theirs increased in depth and intensity. Perspiration trickled down my face gathering around the sealed end of the bag. The harder it became to breathe, the less I noticed around me. The sounds of their voices, the gulls, the wind, and the waves slowly faded until I could only hear my own internal workings: my heart keeping time with the drum of life, my blood swooshing through my veins, my thoughts a soup of muddled words. I felt that all that I was was rising up into my head, rising up beyond my head into the sky. And then there was the still silence of the darkest night. That’s the last thing I remembered before I woke up on the ship.

  Chapter 2

  Before I opened my eyes there was only sound: footsteps overhead, fast and steady. I wondered how many people were walking around above me. Despite my skill at counting it was impossible for me to know for sure.

  The first things I noticed were the bars. They were lined up across my door preventing my free movement about the underbelly of the ship. Though I always thought of the island as a place of confinement I had never been this restricted in all my life. My room was small. So small that lying on the floor my head and feet touched the walls end to end. Making my cot just large enough for me. My cot was a thin piece of wood placed on a metal frame that was attached to the floor. They’d given me a rough blanket for warmth, but it was nothing like the soft blankets we weaved at home. It provided no comfort and scant protection from the damp chill in the air.

  I wondered if they’d housed anyone larger than me in this room in the past. They must have because I was small, my height measuring exactly five feet. I imagined Santali in a room similar to this one when she was taken from the island. She would’ve endured anything for freedom. How did I not know that before? I assumed that she told me everything, but sitting in this tiny room on this great ship the reality that she did not sank deeper into my chest. She was my best friend and I clearly was not hers for how could I not know about the longing inside of her that would drive her to leave us? Was I making too many assumptions? I didn’t even know for sure that she lef
t the island in the same way that I had. Maybe the people who took her treated her like the god she was. I could only hope so. It would pain me to know that she had to endure any time being treated like anything less than that. She would probably tell me that this was a small price to pay to flee the fate of eternity on the island. She would’ve been right too. That’s what I had to continually remind myself.

  My dress was wet and the air in the ship was like that of a deep dark cave. Goosebumps rose on my arms and my teeth chattered. The metal walls of the ship were cool and damp with condensation. I touched the smooth gray walls leaving a trail in the water droplets with my fingers. The ship seemed solid. It had made it through the storms that ringed the island once and would have to make it again. Father designed the storms to be brutal, ripping to shreds anyone that dared enter them. He once told me that he tried his best to make them look treacherous, that way most would turn away upon seeing them, fleeing for their lives. Mostly that worked, but there were some mortals that could not be dissuaded by the possibility of death. Those were the foolhardy souls that went right into the storm. Most disappeared, sacrificing their short lives to the ocean floor, but a few made it out the other side. If they planned everything exactly right they’d pass through the door in dimensions that would take them to the Isle of Gods. That was what the mortals called the island I called home.

  I stood slowly. The ground swayed underfoot. I walked forward approaching the bars. It only took a few steps. Beyond the bars rough black stones stood on narrow metal platforms. The stones resembled the barrier rocks that I saw every day looming off the coast of the island. Those great rocks held me captive. Father said they were guardian rocks protecting us from the outside world, but I had a feeling it was the other way around. Mortals needed protection from us. The smaller rocks before me now were to make sure I could not escape my cell even after we’d passed beyond the barrier rocks and the storms.

  I looked out into the corridor. A few bulbs affixed to the walls gave off a soft glow. I knew of ships, the great beasts mortals traveled our vast waters on made of wood and steel. When I’d first heard Father describe them to us I never imagined that one day I’d be in the belly of one.

  A ladder, the white paint flaking off revealing rust beneath, rose into the ceiling not too far from the front of my new cage. Beyond the ladder were three doors. Two remained closed and one was open just a crack. This was how she betrayed herself, because I could smell her. The sticky-sweet scent of the island remained not only on my flesh, but on someone else’s too making an alcoholic mixture of sweet and pungent. The sharp odor of dying flesh always peeks through the sweetness. I was not alone. I knew her by her scent.

  I took the cold bars in my hands and called out to the soul that belonged to the odor. “How did you get here?” I waited for an answer. I could only hear the hollow thumping of the shoes walking overhead, nothing else. “Speak to me.” I waited again for a response, watching the crack in the door for movement in the darkness of the room. Silent stillness met my inquiries. “I’m on your side.” After this last attempt the lack of response led me to believe I was talking only to myself. My nose was mistaken probably confusing the scent of all of the mortals above me with someone else.

  I went back to sit on my bed when the hatch the ladder led to suddenly opened and a pair of heavy brown boots started descending it. These boots were not on their own, of course, they were attached to a sinewy mortal man with hair the color of bark and skin the color of beach sand. A purple stain marked the skin beneath is eye. His face was pulled taut giving it a skull-like appearance. When he reached the floor he sauntered over to my cage. He smelled of a festering wound. “It’s good to see you’re okay,” he said.

  I took several large steps backward increasing the space between us.

  “They made me stay back here with the ship when they went to get you. I just wanted to see you awake and moving around. You were out cold when they brought you on board.” He inhaled deeply. “You sure do smell nice. Why don’t you come here so I can get a good look at you?”

  “No,” I said, narrowing my eyes at him.

  He smiled. “Look at me. I’m talking to a god,” he bellowed. “I mean, directly face to face to a god. This is wild.” He turned around and let out a wheezing laugh, doubling over with his hands on his knees. He took a few deep breaths calming down before turning again to face me. “Say something else.”

  I didn’t know what to think of this mortal. I shook my head at him and crossed my arms over my chest not wanting to speak on command.

  “Oh come on.” He drew out the vowels in his words.

  The hatch over us opened and a gruff voice called down. “Marco, come up here and get to work,” it said.

  “Yes, sir,” Marco yelled, never taking his eyes off of me. “I have to go.” He started up the ladder and just before his head poked through the hatch said, “I’ll be back to talk again later. I have so many questions to ask you.”

  He was the only visitor I had for a while and I was not looking forward to his return. The only mortal I wanted to see was Damek. His absence distressed me. If I had been him I would’ve hurried to talk with the one I’d been having visions of for so many months. He seemed to be in no hurry. I sat on the cot and waited for something to happen and when I tired of sitting on the cot I sat on the floor. I was anxious to leave the island and get into the world, but I could not make use of any powers until we entered the storm and even then I wouldn’t be exactly sure what powers I possessed.

  Father once told me that the island protected us from ourselves. If we were able to use all of our abilities we would ultimately harm ourselves and others. “Limitless power must not be granted to anyone, neither man nor god,” he’d said. “That type of power would be in itself a weakness preventing us from learning all we needed to learn. It is in our own limitations that we find ingenuity and ultimately strength.”

  I didn’t leave the island because I wanted to have power, but it would be a perk that I wouldn’t deny myself. I was certain that there would still be rules I had to follow even off the island. Some laws of the universe must always apply. I’d simply have to learn what those laws were.

  When the waters got rough Damek finally came down the ladder to talk with me. He was a large man with full lips and russet-brown skin. His shoulders seemed as broad as I was tall and his arms were like the oldest branches of the thickest forest trees. Despite his size his deep voice was quiet. I could easily picture him holding his infant daughter in his arms and singing her the sweetest lullaby. I had watched Damek for a while through the seerstone, melding my thoughts into his. I knew his daily life and how much he longed for the sea. I understood the conflict he felt between the pull of his family and the adventure of the work he’d chosen. As we sat talking face to face I felt the calm reassurance that speaking with a close friend brings.

  I still made him work for the knowledge he sought. How close I felt to him didn’t matter. I didn’t want anything to be too easy, but I was willing to share with him little by little as he needed it. I knew I needed to trust him for he was all I had on this ship. I wondered if he felt the same bond with me that I’d felt with him.

  As he prepared to leave me my heart ached a bit. I enjoyed his company, of course. He listened well and on the island since Santali left I didn’t feel very listened to at all. Just as he was getting ready to ascend the ladder and return to the world above he heard a sound. I heard it also. I was right. I wasn’t alone. She had come on board too.

  From my cage I could not see all of what happened. I could only hear them speaking and respond as I felt fit, but eventually Damek drug Twee from the room into the hallway where I could see her completely. I’d thought she was on this ship the minute I awoke in my cage. She had made it, and I rejoiced. I had promised her we would leave the island together, but I wondered how her presence on this ship would change the course of everything both on the island and in the mortal world. Father, of course, had a plan. He must
have known that this would happen. It was his job to know because he was the creator of all things. I knew not who created him, but I do know that someone did. I was in that being’s presence only once, briefly.

  Chapter 3

  Long ago I was given the privilege to go journeying with Father alone. I accompanied him on a pilgrimage up the great mountain at the center of our island. Every hundred mortal years he went there to commune with the spirit of life. Usually he went alone, but sometimes he took one of us with him. On this occasion he took me. To this day I am not sure why. Maybe it was simply my turn and everyone would eventually get a chance to go journeying with him. Even before this journey our relationship had been strained. My abilities were not like the others’. Like Father I saw visions of this world and the mortal world. I saw the future in stories and would share these stories with the other gods on the island. I did not follow his counsel as he would’ve liked. He wanted me to keep my visions to myself. He never told me why, but I suspected that he thought I was distracting from his power on the island. I knew that but had always had difficulty obeying. Visions were meant for sharing.

  “Amara,” he called as he passed by my hut one sunny afternoon. I pushed the boar skin covering the door aside and stuck my head out.

  “Yes?” I said.

  “We’re journeying tomorrow.” He stood with his back to the sun, the white light of the afternoon haloing his head forcing me to squint to see him.

  “Journeying?”

  “Yes.” He turned and walked toward the trees disappearing into the shadows without explanation.

  Later that day I found Herthe gathering starchy roots in the forest. “Good day,” she greeted me. The skin on her cheeks was rosy from the warmth of the sun. She quickly dug up tubers from the black soil. Wiping the sweat from her brow, she left a black streak of dirt across her forehead.