Goddess Rising

The carriage halted with a thump. From her position, Aria could see nothing of her destination. She tried to turn herself over, but her body might have been a lump of wood for all its obedience.

She heard Alogun disembark, heard footsteps approach. She knew them even before she saw their owner. She had learned to watch for them and step aside like the other attendants. Heavy, thudding footsteps accompanied by the smell of leather and metal.

Someone lifted her. She was granted the sight of Garo’s face before he slung her over his shoulder like someone would carry a sack of flour.

“Be careful,” Chalik’s voice came from out of sight. “This is delicate.”

Garo did not think much of that instruction. He dumped Aria onto the ground with all the tenderness of a bull.

Rocks and sharp-bladed grass pressed into her back. She felt them, but only for a moment. The next moment, every present discomfort was rendered meaningless by the promise of a more terrifying one. Occupying much of the sky, impossible to miss, was a statue. Her own face gazed down at her. It seemed to mirror every bit of terror in her heart, as if it too was sentient and it knew that potential rescuers were in short supply.

She fought with all her strength, though there was no outward sign of it. Her body remained as motionless as ever. Garo’s face leaned over her, stretched with a smile.

“Admiring yourself?” He asked.

Her eyes must have displayed her horror, because she had never seen him so happy before.

He pulled her arms over her middle, placed one of her wrists over the other, and began to bind them with a length of rope. As he worked, Alogun and Chalik came into view. Alogun still seemed impatient, but Chalik had the temerity to look ill.

“I’m really grateful to Chalik,” Garo said. “I’m a terrible negotiator, and Alogun is even worse. Without her, we would have been stuck with either torture or threats. Only she is capable of presenting our victory as a mutually beneficial deal.”

“It is mutually beneficial,” Chalik said. “That was the only intelligent way to handle this.” She looked at Aria with a soft gaze. “It’ll be difficult for a while, but we all went through this. There is no pain-free way to godhood.”

Garo scoffed. “Don’t believe your own lies. It’s nauseating.”

He turned back to Aria. “You are going to die in there. But as long as you do it slowly, these two will be able to hope that their plan is working.” He pulled her to her feet, though that was pointless. He was still forced to hold up her entire weight. “I was looking forward to torturing you parents while we waited for your failure,” he said, “but you had to rob me of that. It’s no matter. They’ll be dead soon, anyway and I’ve promised them a spectacular afterlife. If, by some miracle you survive this, remember to pick your battles with caution.”

He continued to hold her up while Alogun read from his book again.

For the first time since Achi’s death, Aria prayed. All the gods she had idolized were either dead, incapacitated, or here before her proving themselves monsters. She could not hope for anything good at their hands. But she prayed anyway - to a god she didn’t know - begging, hoping that somewhere was one who was what all these pretenders were not.

Alogun finished his reading, and Aria felt more unfamiliar magic settle over her. He closed the book and let it drop to the ground with a thud.

“I’ll send her up now,” he said. Then, he turned to Aria. “Here is a tip for you: Most people do not survive this process. If you want to, you’ll need a reason. Find something strong enough to keep you alive, and you might get the opportunity to thank us.”

He began another spell, this one without his book, answering her previous question. When it ended, Aria found herself floating upward toward the top of the statue. A terrified tear streaked down her face, proving that her body was still functional.

The interior was devastatingly familiar. She was forced onto the same chair and held upright by an invisible force. The ocean beyond was empty of ships, forcing a miserable loneliness on her.

Then came the waiting. No matter how futile her struggles, she could not make herself abandon them. Sometimes, she imagined that she managed to move a finger, or blink deliberately, but she knew that she only imagined it. She struggled more frantically as the waiting went on, because she knew that each moment that passed, brought her closer to her nightmares. She struggled, and the seconds passed, slow as the boiling of a pot, and fast as charging jaguar. And then, sudden despite the long wait, came the burning.

The burning was in some ways, easier. The fear was gone. There was nothing to do. And by the time it arrived, she understood that no one would save her. The heavy wait of hope and longing had given way to what was before her. Unlike her first time, she could not scream or move. She could only suffer. The burning lasted longer than the waiting. An observer might have said differently, but she knew the truth. The waiting had lasted an hour. The burning lasted a lifetime.

It ended just as suddenly as it had begun, then there was the waiting again, and the weeping. And so the cycles repeated. The burning, the weeping, the waiting, the burning, the weeping, the waiting. Like the rains come and go, year after year, always the same, but always new. Aria learned that it was possible to live the same experience a hundred times and be as terrified at the hundredth as you were at the first.

And just as the yearly rains wore paths in the landscape, Aria found that she grew different with each cycle.

First, she lost hope. It died with difficulty. Each time she swore that she would not indulge in it again, would not dream of Achi tearing down the walls to rescue her, she saw the rising flames again and fled back to hope. But, eventually, as slowly as a seed growing into a tree, it died and never bothered her again. Then, she lost her fear. Or, more accurately, she grew too tired to feed it. Her body, apparently, was not capable of summoning the same emotion over and over to no effect.

When both fear and hope were gone, the anger came. It arrived like the last challenger in a round of duels, its path prepared by the death of its predecessors. When she could no longer indulge in hopes of rescue, or dying, or of waking from the horrible dream, it came to keep her company.

Since this would never end, she realized, she could fill it with fantasies.

“You are going to die in there,” Garo said. But he was wrong. Death was impossible.

“You’ll need a reason,” Alogun has said. But she did not. Her body was a fortress, resilient against all shocks. But if a reason was necessary, she had one.

She had not revived Achi. So, the realms would crumble. This statue would cease to hold her. And since it could not kill her, nothing else would. She prayed to the silent, invisible god that every one of her enemies would live, so that she could spend the rest of eternity torturing them.

It happened subtly, over so many cycles that she did not see it happening until it was well underway. She was growing weaker. The first sign was exhaustion. Instead of spending each break bracing for the next round, she found herself jerking awake, unable to point out when she’d fallen asleep. Soon, it was happening every cycle. Sometimes, she woke minutes before the fire returned, but eventually, she only woke when the fire began.

She found herself in the strange situation of fighting the rest. She had longed for death for so long, but now she longed for strength. The thought of Garo gloating, of Alogun’s disdain, of Chalik’s self-righteous disappointment made her fury burn hotter. But no matter how hard she tried, she could not find the strength necessary to live and sate her anger.

“You’ll need a reason,” Garo had said.

In the space between cycles, while she struggled to stay awake, sustained only by her fury, she named her reasons.

One. Tivelo, because no world would be perfect in which he was not intimately familiar with the damage he had done.

Two. Garo, who had put her in this statue twice. The sight of all laughter wrung from his face, of every person who had ever worshiped him witnessing his humiliation, that sight would be a soothing balm to her wounds.

Three. Achi, because he had wronged her most of all. He had known, better than anyone, what his father was capable of. He had known how far Tivelo would go. He had possessed a device capable of telling the future. Had he truly wished to, he could have protected her. He could have been a stronger shield against his father. He could have killed her. He had possessed the tools to prevent this ending and had chosen not to use them. Every other person had the excuse of simply being evil. But not Achi. He had pretended to care but his motives, whatever they were, were not to her benefit. He was beyond her ability to harm, but if that ever changed, she would help him just as effectively as he had helped her.

Four. Alogun. The blackhearted demon might believe he was better than Garo, but all demons are demons alike.

And five, Chalik. People who are obviously evil belong to a special breed, but those who pretend to be kind are much worse. So, of all those she needed to dismember, Chalik deserved the most thoughtful treatment.

She repeated the names to herself, over and over again, but it was pointless. With each cycle, she felt herself sleeping longer, struggling less. Eventually, even her anger provided less strength. Garo had been correct. She would die.

As her strength faded, the torture hurt less and she was awake for less of it. She woke at odd intervals, not certain how many cycles had passed, or if any had passed at all, only knowing that eventually, she wouldn’t wake up.

She recalled Achi once more, recalled him asking to hide, and wished that she had listened. She thought of every moment that had led her to this position, from the day she had picked up her first weapon, to passing her trials, to winning a place as Garo’s attendant. She cursed every victory in her life for the defeat it had truly been. And she wished that it was possible to undo all of it.