I read from my story about a god in a pantheon of gods who refuses to use his power. Here is the selection I read last night.
War with Helgeror
One
morning in the library I was lolling around and strolled onto the veranda from
the third floor. The clouds had lifted and the sea stretched out magnificently
before me. I stared into the long and bright horizon aware of nothing more than
its beauty. A voice startled me. I turned to see Helgeror emerging from a
shadowy corner. She spoke softly, but with her usual gravity. "What are
you thinking about, dear brother?" she asked of me. I will never forget
this question, for her words were rich with the pathways of deceit. I told her
that I was thinking of nothing but beauty. "Do you not think of war?"
she asked quite pointedly. War. I did not understand the need to bring up such
a topic. But she pressed on. "War," she said to me, "is an
important part of being a god." I chose to listen if only to learn the
ways of my enemy. Helgeror turned toward the ocean and moved nearer the edge of
the veranda. She soliloquized on the value of war, its place in the realm, its
purpose in maintaining godly hierarchy and its necessity for containing the
lower realms. I listened with curiosity and loathing. Mother and Gersemi never
spoke this way. When Helgeror was finished she turned to me and said, "It
is time you learned war. Father has sent me to teach you." Father! This was
the first I knew he even thought of me. Helgeror approached me rapidly, turned
my arm behind my back and threw me to the ground. "This is war," she hissed
as she pressed her knee into the small of my back and leaned over near my ear.
Her long braid coiled around my head as a viper. I did not struggle against
her. There was more to learn. She rasped her next words into my ear. "You
shall know war from me, brother."
What
happened next was exhilarating and terrifying. I felt every fiber of my being
course with new strength. I had a new and full understanding that Helgeror
could never defeat me and that I could annihilate her. I leapt to my feet and
faced her only to realize that I had grown a league taller than her in that
instant. She backed away swiftly, but not swiftly enough. I bent down and
grabbed her by one leg, pulled her up into the air and then slammed her against
the marble floor. Her braid smacked against the veranda wall and then I heard a
terrible sound. The marble cracked beneath her and the ground began to tremble.
I could hear the books in the library falling from their shelves. And then I
saw it. It was only for an instant. Helgeror was afraid of me. She did not
linger in that moment though and struggled to get up, roaring in defiance. But
I pinned her legs against the marble. As the ground continued to shake, a great
fissure split open beneath her head. Her braid swiftly began to slither toward
it, but she grabbed it and swung it at me wildly. I wrapped it around my hand
and held her fast by braid and leg. Then I spoke to her and this is what I
said. "I will have no war with you." It was as simple as that. But
then I began to tremble. She felt it and began to laugh a terrible, mocking
laugh. I pulled her up and set her on the flattest part of the now broken
veranda. I towered over her taller than I ever thought possible. Helgeror
cackled and then she said to me, "I will war with you, my brother. If not
by strength, then by cunning." Another laugh dominated hers. I turned to
see my father looking on from another mountaintop. His face was fierce with
pride. His teeth flashed in the sunlight. I looked down in the valley and could
see lower ones running for shelter, covering their heads as they ran and rocks
tumbling down the mountainside. I looked my father in the eye and then turned
my back on his laughter, walking to the next mountain, sullen and dazed by my
own power.
Mother
told me that she sensed my change of mood very soon. She had been to the
library not long after my first war and watched from a safe and hidden corner
as Helgeror re-braided her hair with her feet swinging over the edge of the new
crevasse. Mother told me once that she loved Helgeror, but I did not believe
her when she said it. It seemed more like respect and fear but not love, not
the kind of love I felt from our mother.
Copyright M.R. Hyde 2013
