“I prefer Ta’xet.” I nod. “The Haida people were fine and strong.”
“Xolotl it is.” She purses her lips.
I can’t show her that I find her entertaining. It would encourage her to misbehave more. She’s lucky that I sense humans not far ahead, so I push past her, eager to fulfill my purpose and willing to let her small rebellion go. All around me, I feel the festering overgrowth of humanity, some old, frail, and sickly. Some of them are unwell in their brains. All of them are focused far too much on things that don’t matter, lacking in purpose or direction. I’ve been asleep far, far too long.
“But you didn’t answer me before about why I’m stuck to you.” She circles around in front of me, blocking my path yet again. “Because this is annoying.” She leans closer, glaring. “I’m annoying you, too. Why don’t you just kill me, or better yet, let me go?” She bites her lip. “If you’re on the fence, I strongly vote for ‘let me go.’” She frowns. “Do I get a vote?”
“No.” I shove her out of the way. “You don’t.”
As I close the gap between us and the small dwellings, I reach outward, snuffing the life immediately from all of those humans close enough. I sense some of them falling. I hear others cry out, before they too collapse, and then I breathe easier.
“What are you doing?” She wails, circling to block me again. “Balance is when things are even, when they offset each other. You’re just killing people. Some of those were kids!” She’s gesturing wildly. “It’s—it makes no sense. You have to stop.”
“Do your children understand complex science?” I lift my eyebrows. “Do your idiots comprehend the work of the true artist?” I shake my head. “I don’t have to explain myself.” I start moving again, this time stretching my powers. Fire. Electric pulses. Dehydration. Sickness. All of them send little shivers through my new body, reminding me of how exhilarating it is to fulfill the purpose for which I was created.
I prune from the earth that which has overgrown.
I can’t help my smile as we move farther south, removing the unnecessary, and eliminating the tired and unwieldy. I shiver a bit as I expand my powers, enjoying the feeling of a job well done. But when I turn to head more sharply toward the large settlement I feel ahead yet again, the idiotic woman I chose as my general leaps in front of me, throwing her hands toward my chest and planting her feet. “Stop, please, stop!” She’s crying, tears rolling down her face, and she blazes brightly. Her aura, her soul, is blazing.
How on earth did I make this mistake? Where’s the darkness I saw at first? “What now? We’ve established that you’re tied to me. I bonded you in error, but it’s difficult to undo, so you’ll just have to come along.”
“Undo?” Her eyebrows fly up. “Yes, do that, even if it’s hard. Even if it’s painful. I’ll help in any way I can.”
I don’t explain that the only way to end the bond is to kill her. The last thing she needs is more bad ideas. “I can’t do it simply. I can’t do it right now.” I can’t do it at all, at least, not without going back to sleep. So I’m stuck with her.
It’s all very annoying, the sleeping phase of our powers.
From what I understand, only the four death-bringers are forced into slumber. The stupid life-shepherds stay awake all the time. Perhaps that’s part of the balancing, since our powers work faster, but it still irritates me.
Until I’m ready to sleep.
Then I welcome the break. It’s all part of the cycle of what I am.
But I won’t be ready to sleep again for a while, not with the state of the world now. As I close my eyes and reach out, I feel it everywhere. The vibrant shaking of life, the teeming, feverish hum of the world all around me, growing, thriving, striving and expanding. It’s too much.
“Can’t we head back up into the mountains to talk about this more?” She points behind me. “You can explain the tether and we can talk about how to break it, since you seem bothered by it, too.” The smile she’s forcing looks more like a rictus of pain than anything else.
“Just trail along behind me,” I say, “and shut up.” I start walking again.
She ignores me, trotting along right beside me. “Assuming I can’t do that?”
I shift into a horse.
“Hey.” She slaps my rump, which I barely feel. “No fair.”
I turn my head slowly, my anger manifesting as steam rising from my nostrils.
“Right, I mean none of this is fair. I get that.” She glares. “But surely the tether exists for a reason. You could at least tell me why.”
I don’t want to confess that for the first time in millennia, I chose my champion badly. I don’t want to tell her that she’s now a vulnerability. She seems like exactly the kind of idiot who might try to kill herself at an inconvenient time. She already did that without knowing when she practically plunged off a cliff.
“Okay, so it’s clear you don’t want to talk, and you do want to kill people.” She nods. “But if you want to do that better, Utah’s so not the place.” She tosses her head. “I sort of shoved you west, away from Salt Lake City, which you seem to have noticed, but now that we’re circling Farnsworth Peak, I say we should keep heading west to bigger cities and more people.”
I tire of hearing what she wants to do. She’s not in charge.
I am.
I toss my head and start jogging at a quick clip, sick of her slowing me down and eager to stretch my powers. I burn, I level, and I destroy as we move, and it’s glorious. If I’m going a little fast, well, maybe I want to punish the stupid human for being such a huge disappointment. Maybe I’m mad at myself for choosing so poorly. Either way, she keeps falling farther and farther behind me, even running at full tilt, because she cannot keep up in her current form, not with me in my horse shape.
