Nehmasis

Born a Goddess

The Birth of Vengeance, Time Immortal, Lost Necropolis, The Ruined City, Fields of the Lost, The Underworld

The First Rejected Soul

My chains are heavy today. Every breath I take is agony, and isn't that just cruelly unfair? The dead do not need air, yet I can't hold my breath. I can't stop the hurt from slicing me to ribbons, over and over, endlessly, hopelessly.

I force my attention to the round, squat tower imprisoning me for the moment. It's especially ugly today. To keep my mind off of the pain, I think of the changes I would make to this place if I could. A window, perhaps. A pool for bathing. The roof could stand to be fixed, although it never rains in the Fields, and at least it lets the weak, grey light filter in. No, I suppose I would keep the hole in the roof and forget the window. The black stone in the corner could be turned into a table. A bed. Oh, I would love a bed. With pillows and blankets. Wouldn't that be lovely?

Fewer chains, that would be first...

I curl deeper into myself, shutting out the four walls, the broken roof, the searing agony boiling my heart. My chains pull at my skin wherever the metal touches. I ache, and with the black stone so heavy today, there's nothing more I can do than huddle pathetically in the corner.

The female who steps inside my prison is like nothing that I have ever seen in this world or the Above. Hair red as blood, eyes dark as midnight, skin so pale she looks carved from alabaster. She is beautiful and terrifying, a perfect statue, mussed with a rainbow of tears from the forgotten souls haunting this place.

A goddess, but never have I seen one who appears like frozen fire.

I am bedraggled and disgusting. It is all I can do to rasp, "who are you?"

She doesn't answer, making me question if the last threads of my meager sanity have snapped.

"Are you the Love goddess? You bitch!" I breathe. I want nothing more than to flee from the goddess who wrapped these chains around me, who gave my truly fated such immense power over me, but I am too weak to move.

She inhales sharply, and through the haze of pain, I see her cup her swollen belly. A smile curls her blood-red lips, and I see the flash of tiny fangs. "I am the Lady Grief," she says softly. "I am the Princess of the Underworld. Grief made into Life. Daughter of Nateos, Death himself."

I have never heard of her, but every word she speaks rings with the truth. She is something other, something new, yet as Grief, she is as ancient as conscious thought.

"Why are you here, goddess?" I ask warily.

Her unfathomably dark eyes close briefly. When they open again, she asks, "how are you so cognizant in this place?"

"You must be a new goddess," I mumble. I am cold and miserable, and hurting, but I do my best to answer her. "I am the original. Lucky me," I add sardonically.

She stares at me as if she can see every chain that wraps my soul. "How did you come to be here?" She looks around my tower.

I don't know why I trust her, but wearily, I reply, "I was the first here. The soul... the soul I was bonded to... he left me here. He didn't want me in life or death. Over and over, he has rejected me and left me here to rot in this tower while he lives over and over in the above." It hurts.

She rubs her belly as a spasm of pain crosses her face. Gods, is she in labor? In this terrible place? "Do you know this soul's name?" she asks me.

I would laugh if I had the energy. I don't. Instead, I spit, "it changes. He's had four lifetimes since he left me here for the first time. In this last life, he was called Arim. Arim of the First House."

The goddess laughs. At first, I flinch, thinking she is laughing at me, but her laugh has a note of bitter understanding. I realize she is sharing my agony, although I don't see any chains on her. She knows my pain. She understands.

"What's wrong, goddess?" I ask to confirm my suspicions. I hope she doesn't get trapped here.

"What is your name?" She gasps out around the ripple of her belly. "No! Tell me, what do you want to be called?" she amends.

I hate all of my given names. They mean nothing to me but remembered betrayal and hopelessness. "I am vengeance and anger, nothing else," I whisper.

Those black eyes close again, "oh, my poor baby."

"You should leave," I tell her. "You can't possibly give birth in this place. This is a broken, awful place."

"It is," she breathes. Stumbling forward, she suddenly grasps my chains in her hands. My chains. Under her dainty grasp, the loathsome burden breaks apart as if the soul-bound iron were nothing more than papyrus cloth. I watch, stunned speechless, as she tears them apart, sending them to be dust at her feet.

"Just wait, baby, a little longer," she says. She moves away, leaving my squat hovel, her eyes unseeing, pain making her body tremble.

I follow her, stumbling on weak, stick-thin legs. "Wait," I gasp, "you are not a warrior. You can't give birth here..."

My being wrenches sideways, in one direction, then the other. I fall to my knees, then deeper. I fall... and fall... and fall... I am blind and deaf... Terrified, I try to scream, but I am mute, too. Helpless, weak.

I know this feeling... I am being reborn... and I am terrified, stricken. I will be tormented once again. I will not remember my pain. I will be defenseless. Worse, I will hope.

It is not the same. Fresh, not ancient. Ancient, but new.

Light flickers hazily in my sight. I can hold my breath. I can cry. My soul realigns, but it is not the same. I am still in the Necropolis, and the goddess's dark gaze is all I understand.

"I will name you Nehmasis, the goddess of Righteous Vengeance, my sweet baby," the goddess murmurs as she cradles me in her arms.