As A God by T. G. Shepherd

Author:T. G. Shepherd [Shepherd, T. G.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: eTreasures Publishing, LLC
Published: 2016-12-17T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter 7

The Goddess rose a day past Her next Fullness when Sequa’s conjecture proved correct.

Anem had her people on high alert from a few days before Her fullness, and when nothing occurred even Sequa hoped their precautions had scared the monster away. For her own part, she roamed the roofs and the inner wall ceaselessly just before dawn and Godset, sleeping fitfully in the middle of the day and for a few nighttime hours at Her height.

Leaden and exhausted, making her way by the Peasant’s Road from her rooms to the Temple, the scream of Fire! Fire! rose ahead of her. The mass of people on the street paused and moved as one toward the cry.

Sequa found the tallest building on the street with an exterior ladder and made its roof in a heartbeat. Her blood tingled and sparked in the backwash of what she knew now must be wild magic. From three streets over thick, black smoke pillared. Gulls and carrion birds swooped and dove in a shrieking frenzy over the space created by four long blocks not quite meeting. The space inside their square, unusually, had not been covered over.

Quick as thought, Sequa crossed the rooftops in a few leaps to stare over the edge of the building. In the center of a small space a few hopeful pots of flowers clustered; the God would smile upon them for at least a little time each day.

The shattered mess of pottery and bruised petals spilled like drops of paint across the grey dirt. People in hastily wound veils entered the space and retreated abruptly.

That same greasy, sweet black smoke rose from the wreck of what had been a man on his back across the wreckage of the flowerpots. What Sequa could see of his clothes looked cheap and poor, but mostly just a charred mess. Even three stories above him she could make out bone shining through burnt flesh. The interior of the space had no windows and only one door.

The stones of the roof near the edge of the drop bore marks of fire, a black smear stretching to the edge.

Sequa vaulted over and rebounded off the walls of the space like a ball, dropping down to land in front of the door. The most recent people attempting to gain entry had pushed inside; screams of shock echoed around her ears.

Reaching up behind her head, she drew her sticks from their holder and brandished them.

“Back. And stay out till the Commander is here.”

One figure in woman’s veils remained braver than the rest. She stepped forward and held out her gloved hands in an imperious gesture. “Who are you to command honest citizens… you… monstrosity?” Her voice, thin but not frail, revealed a matron of middle Measures.

Sequa stepped forward aggressively and the woman flinched back. “The person who could have killed you three times before you finished insulting me. Get out, woman. Keep the rest of the rabble out. This is beyond you.”

The woman backed up a step then another.

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