Paladin (Graven Gods 1) (10 page)

“I know, darling. But I’ve got to do this if I’m going to free you. Don’t you want to remember your family?”

“God, yes… but… it
hurrrrts
!” I screamed, arching against the vicious agony. It felt as if the spell was a physical cord, tightening until it cut. Tighter. Tighter, mental strain intensifying as I panted in bewilderment, trying to fight even as his hard arms pinned me.
What is he doing to me
?

“
Freeing you
,” he growled. “
Before your amnesia gets you killed
.”

The spell broke with a psychic
Crack
! that ripped through my spirit. I screamed, staring into Paladin’s anguished eyes.

The pain drained away.

I stared up at him helplessly, knowing everything was about to change. Something in his expression told me that it was only going to get worse.

“Remember,” Paladin whispered, stroking my face. His expression was so sad, my chest began to ache in sympathy. “Remember it all, Summer St. Clare.”

Fragments of memory started drifting to the surface of my mind, drawn by his magic like iron fillings to a magnet. At first it didn’t seem so bad.

Hell, at first it was wonderful.

Faces and emotions emerged from the fog first, accompanied by wisps of knowledge that gradually thickened like smoke from burning leaves.

A dark-haired woman, her features delicate, eyes large and dark as she held me in strong, slender arms. A big, blond man, giving me a smacking kiss, his laughter a happy boom. A blond boy’s face, grinning at me with mischief in his eyes.

Faces. Smiling, laughing, loving. Then crying out in determination, in rage, in grief. A storm of faces in every conceivable mood.

And I knew them. Recognized them, but not in the distant way I knew the photos my aunt had shown me. I
knew
them in my gut and my heart, as the foundation of my life.

My mother -- Barbara St. Clare. My father, Graham, and my brother, Richard, two years older. Each association triggered the next in a torrent of memory and knowledge.

Somewhere in the midst of that, I realized everything I had been taught about the world was wrong.

I was a Demi -- a demigoddess, a descendant of a deity, bred for intelligence, physical strength, and magical talent.

Humanity had created the gods with the magic of their belief, magic that accreted over countless centuries the way an oyster forms a pearl. Eventually whatever humans worshiped became a god in reality, whether it was an object, an animal, or another human.

The gods couldn’t exist without some kind of physical receptacle, even if it was only something inanimate, like a sword or a gemstone. To actually use their power, though, they needed a talented human host, or Avatar. They could survive in someone without talent, but such hosts lacked the neural pathways to work magic. So they bred talented hosts to get ever more powerful offspring they could then inhabit.

Both my parents, Barbara and Graham St. Clare, had been Avatars. My mother had been Paladin’s host until her murder, just as my father had hosted a god of wolves named Ulf.

More memories came, faster and faster, building into a mental whirlwind that tore at my consciousness with a rising psychic screech. I could only endure the storm as I reeled under the impact of the memories I’d craved so long.

* * *

December 25th, 1996

Squealing in excitement, I raced through the Victorian’s hallways at Richard’s heels. Together we pelted into the parlor to find our parents waiting, smiling indulgently from the couch.

All my five-year-old’s attention locked on the Christmas tree by the fireplace. Balls of red and gold hung from its fragrant pine branches, and colored lights flashing among its boughs. Packages stood around it, each painstakingly wrapped and topped with big, colorful bows.

I dove for the side of the tree where my gifts waited, even as Richard attacked the ones on the left. Shreds of bright paper flew as we unwrapped them with gleeful greed…

* * *

October 31, 1997

My big brother was dressed as a Wookie, complete with shaggy brown fur and big fuzzy mask. I skipped alongside him in my long white dress, my dark hair coiled in buns on either side of my head.

“The Force is with us!” I waved a light saber flashlight in one hand, a plastic pumpkin half full of candy in the other.

Our parents trailed behind us, far more wary than you’d expect, projecting shield spells to keep any enemy avatars from sensing us.

They had reason to be paranoid. Demis like us -- children bred for magical talent -- were prime kidnapping targets for evil gods, either as sacrifices or potential hosts. But our parents were determined that we wouldn’t miss the pleasures of childhood. Besides, being avatars, they were more than capable of defending us…

* * *

July 21, 1998

My father watched us, handsome and smiling. Blond, green-eyed, with the same broad cheekbones Richard had, the same shape of the nose. Above his hand hung a rotating globe of magic. “You reach deep into the base of your brain, and let the magic spill, then shape it to your will.”

The ball became a glowing horse dancing on tiny bright hooves just above his hand. I heard Richard laugh…

* * *

September 3, 1999

My father in the kitchen, slow dancing with Mom, a beautiful woman whose dark curls fell to her waist. She lifted her arms to drape them over his shoulders, smiling up at him. He lowered his head and kissed her. Richard and I giggled, fleeing back the way we came…

* * *

November 6, 2000

My mother’s dark eyes shone, serious and intent in her delicate face as she paced around Richard and me. We faced each other with wooden weapons -- bokken, Japanese practice swords. “Go.”

We began to pace in circles around each other. I focused on my brother intently, watching his weapon, his hands, his dark, determined eyes.

Spotting an opening, a fractional dip of his wooden blade, I sprang forward, swinging my weapon in a furious overhand pass. His bokken flashed up, parrying mine with the crack of wood on wood.

“Good, Richard!” my mother said. “A little faster on the attack, Summer. He’s got reach and strength on you. You have to use your speed or he’ll eat your lunch.”

I bit my lip and concentrated, surging forward, swinging. My blade popped him on the shoulder, but he didn’t so much as flinch.

“Better, Summer!”

I smiled…

* * *

The memories began to come faster, then faster, a blur of action and images, moments I desperately fought to seize and process, but they slipped away, spinning around me, lashing my consciousness, merciless as a tornado.

Tearing me apart.

Not just as images, but emotions. Fear, excitement, boredom, delight, love, hate.

And sensations: the smell of my mother’s perfume, the warmth of my father’s arms around me. Hurling a snowball at my brother’s head with a triumphant shriek, hearing his sweet childish giggle followed by my father’s deeper boom of laughter. A thousand memories, filling my brain and my heart until I screamed at the hurricane of awareness.

I felt my mother’s loving hug at the same time I heard her cry of woe and grief at my father’s death. Memories pelted me like hailstones, ripping at my senses, burning me… .

“Summer!” Paladin’s strength closed around me like the warmth of his arms, anchoring me against the blizzard of memory. “Stop it, Summer! If you don’t stop it, it’s going to drive you insane. I can’t protect you this time. You’re going to have to find the will to do it yourself.”

“I can’t!”

“You’ve got to, or it’s all for nothing! You’ll be lost, and so will I. I can’t survive without you. I won’t!”

That reached me. I was damned if I’d let Paladin be destroyed after so many centuries because I was too weak to withstand my own memories.

In that moment, I knew what to do -- what I always did when Paladin’s memories rose up to overwhelm me. I reeled blindly to my feet and headed to the desk where my laptop computer sat, booted it up.

And began to type -- furiously, beating my fingers as hard as I could on those keys, trying to get it all out before it destroyed me. Before my memories devoured me, and left nothing but an empty husk of skin and bone, burned mindless.

* * *

August 3, 2000

I sat shoulder to shoulder with my brother as he read aloud from one of Paladin’s great diaries, each of which were several inches thick. We were being home schooled. Hardly unusual -- though we were probably the only two kids being taught by a cat. Especially one who was the avatar of a cat goddess.

Calliope had been an ally of Paladin’s for generations. Unlike human avatars, she was immortal. Her power so filled her cat body that she was almost more magic than flesh. She paid for it with the lack of opposable thumbs -- and the fact that she couldn’t upgrade to a genetically superior offspring. She always insisted her body was the product of uncounted generations of Egyptian magic and selective breeding; trying to breed a new avatar with another cat would actually be trading down.

Now Calliope watched us, sitting on the table above the spot where the book lay, her tail curled around her toes. “Page 536, Richard. The entry for January 6, 1902.”

My brother nodded. “‘The mate’s ball was quite productive,’” he read, deciphering the swirling curls and loops of Paladin’s script with the ease of long practice. Richard was a tall, slim boy, with our father’s blond hair and our mother’s chocolate eyes. He was also the Heir of Ulf, god of wolves, just as I was to inherit Paladin, god of justice.

The two gods shared our parents’ bodies, acting through them and adding their magic to their avatars’. When we inherited them, our names would change, taking on the hyphenated form that would mark us as Avatars in the Demi community.

When referring to a human host, the name of the inhabiting god came first. So my parents were Paladin-Barbara and Ulf-Graham. Eventually I’d be Paladin-Summer, while my brother would become Ulf-Richard.

That wasn’t the case with the avatars of dark gods like Valak, who burned away their hosts’ minds when they seized control. That was one reason we fought them and their cultists with such cold implacability. They destroyed everything they touched.

But we had a lot to learn before we’d be expected to defend mankind from Valak. Every day we spent hours reading from the libraries of our two gods, learning their histories -- the tribes they’d led, the battles they’d fought, the enemies, major and minor, they hunted through time. The allies they made who helped them in those fights. And the names of our Demi ancestors.

“‘There were several prospects at the ball who interested me,’” Richard continued. He read well, of course, having been bred for intelligence as well as magical talent and physical strength. “‘But I’ve found a strong candidate for Charles’s mate, a lovely little blonde named Chloe Anderson. She is the avatar of Artia, a bear goddess, who has bred her line through five generations. Not so many as I would like, but Chloe has great natural potential for combat magic…”

“Calliope, what’s a ball?” I interrupted. A mate, I knew, was a word for husband or wife, but not one we used in public.

“It is a type of formal dance,” Calliope explained in her purring growl. She taught us whenever Mom or Dad had a particularly hard night fighting. One or the other of them normally instructed us. Father and his god, Ulf, usually handled the bookwork and spells -- he had particular skill with magical theory and application -- while Mother and Paladin taught us combat tactics and strategy. “A Mate Ball is when the gods and goddesses gather to show off their avatars and seek new breeding stock. It’s all very formal and stuffy. Everyone dresses to dazzle -- ball gowns and tuxedos and expensive gems to show one’s wealth. Quite the most amazing display of conspicuous consumption. I’ve been to several, advising Paladin and his avatars.”

“And that’s where they fall in love?” I’d probably seen more Disney princess movies than was strictly good for me. “Like Mama and Daddy?”

“Not always,” said Calliope, ever honest. The fact I was nine and Richard was eleven was not, in her opinion, a reason to give anything less than a truthful answer to any question. “That’s the ideal of course, but not all couples are love matches like your parents. I’ve seen some who had wonderful genetics, but the avatars simply couldn’t stand each other. Sometimes if the genetics are desirable enough, the parties may arrange a breeding. There may be a steep breeding fee, but if the DNA is desirable enough…” She flicked her ears in her version of a shrug.

“A breeding fee?” Richard looked up at that, his eyes wide and interested. “Like with horses?” He loved horses. My parents owned four of the animals, which were boarded at a farm in the countryside. Our gods considered riding a useful skill for us, building strength and balance.

Calliope nodded approval. “Exactly like horses.”

“Do they race them? Because how do they prove they’re worth the fees?”

Calliope’s muzzle curled in that way I knew was a smile. “Why yes, now that you mention it. There are many games the week of the mating ball to demonstrate the avatars’ skill in all manner of physical contests. Strength, combat, agility, track and field… All very entertaining. Those avatars who do best attract the most attention at the ball.”

I frowned, thinking of Paladin’s mortal enemy, Valak. “Do the evil guys come?” That struck me as a good way to get ambushed.

Calliope flattened her ears in revulsion, and her tail lashed once. “I have no idea how the dark gods breed their little snakes. Frankly, I don’t care to think about it. I can assure you we would never pollute our bloodlines with such trash.”

* * *

March, 2001

I was too late throwing up a shield. The globe of magic struck me squarely in the face. Invisible fingers dug into my ribs, tickling mercilessly. I squirmed, gasping with laughter. “Darn it, Richard!”