Veles Read online

  Veles

  P. J. Marie

  Anxious Bean Publishing

  Veles

  First Edition

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, businesses, events, locales, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, businesses, or establishments is solely coincidental. The opinions expressed within these pages belong to the characters and should not be mistaken as the opinions or views of P. J. Marie, Anxious Bean Publishing, or any related affiliates.

  Copyright © 2021 by P. J. Marie, and Anxious Bean Publishing.

  ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

  No part of this book, in whole or in part, may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher, except where permitted by law.

  Book Cover Design by ebooklaunch.com

  ISBN: 978-1-7780028-0-9 (paperback)

  ISBN: 978-1-7780028-2-3 (hardcover)

  ISBN: 978-1-7780028-1-6 (ebook)

  Anxious Bean Publishing

  ON, Canada

  https://www.anxiousbeanpublishing.com

  For John, Dan, Julie, Devon, James, Ginny, Ryan, and my parents, without whom I wouldn’t be here to write at all.

  Thank you for listening to my ideas and supporting me. Thank you to those who read this in advance and gave me invaluable feedback. This would not be what it is without you.

  Contents

  1. Part One

  2. Mizuki

  3. The Altherrs

  4. The O’Kanes

  5. Aiden’s Request

  6. The Map

  7. Leaving

  8. The Wolves

  9. The Wild

  10. Earnan

  11. The Return

  12. The Mountain Path

  13. Veles

  14. Part Two

  15. Lilah

  16. The Accident

  17. Officer Wilson

  18. The Elk

  19. Incurable Changes

  20. The Great Destruction

  21. Part Three

  22. The Truth

  23. Death

  24. Veles Reborn

  Thank you!

  About the Author

  Part One

  Mizuki

  Broken shards of rock slid down the edge of the mountain ridge as well-worn feet carefully made their way to the top, stepping around the larger broken pieces with practiced ease and balance. The movements were precise, steady, and purposeful – executed a hundred times before until they had become as easy as breathing. Dirtied hands gripped the top of the ledge tightly and pulled until bright blue eyes peered over the lip to look out onto the world beyond. It was barren and worn, laced with a painful history that made the girl’s eyes crease as she surveyed the ruined land.

  The tall ridge served as a wall. It separated the small village and wild green forest at the base of the mountains behind her from the dead and rocky world that lay beyond. It ran the entire length of the village and into the Wild to the south, providing their only protection from the horrors of the Dead Zone. She tensed as the wind picked up. It howled violently against the ridge and threatened to dislodge her from the precariously held position.

  The storms were always worse beyond the ridge. The wind was wilder, the sun hotter, and the land more unforgiving. She gripped the rock more tightly and planted her feet wide as she squinted into the distance. Finally, the sun was up today after a long and cold winter. Spring had arrived, and with it, the view of the ruins had returned. During the winter months, everything farther than a stone’s throw away from the top of the ridge was covered in mist, ice, and an endless storm of thick flurries. It was impossible to see anything then, and it would be a death sentence to attempt to climb this high.

  She had tried it once when she was younger and far more foolish. It hadn’t gone well. One sprained ankle and several bruised ribs later, she had tumbled to the bottom of the icy hill. She gritted her teeth at the memory. It had been painful, and worse yet, it had been stupid. One wrong roll on her way down the slick rocky surface, and she could have cracked her head open or broken a bone. It wasn’t uncommon to die from such an injury, and even if you were lucky enough to live through it, your body was never the same. It would ache during the winter, and if the bones were not set just right you would limp for the remainder of your days. Worse than that was how it made you a burden on your family.

  Looking back, she could hardly believe that she had been I enough to try it – but then again, she had only been eleven. Now, at eighteen, she knew better. She had learned to wait for the snow to stop. She knew that just because the rocks might look dry, it didn’t mean they always were and that sometimes ice still lingered near the spot she used as a lookout. So she knew that she had to wait until the sun’s pattern changed – until it reached the point above the tallest trees in the village – for it to have warmed enough to melt the frost at the top of the ridge. After this, the second she was sure that it was safe, she would cautiously climb her way to the top to take the first look of the new year, and on bright clear days like today, she could see everything.

  They were the same as they always were, the ruins, unchanged for the last ten years and a physical reminder of what had once been.

  Her great-grandmother Miku had told her about them as a child, and her description had been remarkably accurate. The girl’s eyes scanned over the vast empty expanse, searching for the odd broken shapes that protruded from the ground in the distance just to the left of the mountains. She nearly smiled when the clouds shifted to allow the sun to hit the cold dead surface, making the strange objects visible once more.

  Sticks – as most of the people in the village called them, though not many had dared to climb the ridge to truly look. The majority of the village just believed the Elders’ words, and the Elders called them large sticks, so that had become the accepted vernacular. And that was how the Elders preferred it. They didn’t like it when people thought for themselves, asked too many questions, or listened to the words that her great-grandmother had spoken. They didn’t like that she climbed the ridge either, and she knew that if she were ever caught doing it again, the punishment would be severe.

  It had very little to do with her climbing the ridge and instead had everything to do with her being an Altherr. The Elders had not liked her great-grandmother Miku much at all for the same reasons they disliked her – she knew too much, thought too much, and questioned everything they told her.

  She had only been eight years old the first time that she climbed the ridge. It was days after her great-grandmother had died – she was hiding in the thorn bushes near her home, quietly staring at the ground and wondering what was going to happen to her family. Her great-grandmother had always encouraged her to climb the ridge when she got older. She had even shown her the hidden path through the thorn bushes and the safest way to ascend the rocky ledge.

  She hadn’t meant to do it that day, to travel to the ridge in a wordless stupor, only to find her small hands grabbing at the rocks as her feet slipped against the jagged surface. Yet it had happened just the same, and she climbed the ridge alone, terrified, lost, and unable to stop until she reached the top and hauled herself up to look over the uneven edge.

  The sight had taken her breath away.

  Even now, ten years later, looking out into the expanse, she could still remember the feeling of that moment perfectly. She could still feel the warm sun and the way that the air had tugged at her short black hair as her eyes grew wide with wonder. The view was exactly as Miku had described. Not a single thing was out of place. The mountains were to the right, stretching to the north a
nd east as far as the eye could see. A narrow path ran down the largest of them, Veles’s Mountain, twisting and turning until it reached the base of the ridge. The trail was bordered by a sheer drop on either side and aligned with the double-gated entrance to the village, two towering walls of oak marked with Veles’s symbol and covered in spikes. A great crevasse ran along the base of the mountains, separating them from the vast and empty landscape that stretched into the west. The overwhelming nothingness of the barren terrain was interrupted only by the eerie ruins that dotted the skyline before her.

  She had hardly been able to see it that day as she was barely big enough or strong enough to pull herself up to look over the rocks. Yet as the sun shifted and the clouds moved, true to Miku’s words, the ruins faded into view. They appeared as though they had risen from the dead ground just for her to see them, and at that moment ten years ago, she had known her instincts were right. Everything that her great-grandmother Miku had told her was true. She knew she would never question a word of it and never forget a single story.

  After that day, she climbed the ridge any chance that she could during the spring, summer, and autumn, only stopping when the rocks became dangerous or when the weather turned for the worse. Every time she lifted her head over the edge and peered out at the land, she felt her heart calm, and her body would become quiet as she inhaled deeper than she could ever manage to do inside the village. She felt at peace here, breathing out the cool air, despite the wreckage that lay before her. She felt at home – and she felt closer to Miku.

  She inhaled deeply, and her shoulders rolled back as her feet braced against the well-worn stone. Then her eyes fluttered shut as the calm settled through her bones just like it always did. It felt like ages since the last time she had been up here. She missed it. The winters always felt eternal without being able to climb the ridge to escape – yet, in some ways, it was worth the wait because the first climb of the spring always had the freshest air. Her bright blue eyes flashed open once more, and she began the familiar and steady routine of tracing every single bent and twisted remain she could find along the horizon, checking to make sure that they were all still there.

  Rebar – that was what the large sticks truly were – old decrepit metal leftover from before the Great Destruction.

  They were the remnants of massive structures that once used to fill the skyline like mountains. Miku had told her all about them, and she didn’t care what the Elders said or what anyone else believed – she believed her great-grandmother, even if she was the only one who did. It wasn’t something that she could explain. In the same way that an animal knows how to eat, run, sleep, and hide, she just knew. The feeling had hardened into her after the first climb when she gazed at the shattered remains of the past.

  It was unshakable.

  It was undeniable.

  And it was the truth.

  There had been a world here just over a hundred years ago. A world filled with people and creatures and things that she couldn’t even imagine. Her eyes travelled across the irregular shapes, their outlines appearing like dead black trees across the endless rocky lands. They stuck out at odd angles, bent, warped, and damaged. She knew that up close they must be enormous, and she knew that the Great Destruction must have been devastating and powerful in order to bend and crack them like they were. They were impossibly strong, made from materials harvested from the earth and then beaten into shapes by humans. They had once stood hundreds of feet in the air, constructed to withstand the howling wind and the shaking of the earth.

  Skyscrapers – that is what they had been called – giant concrete and metal structures that used to house hundreds, if not thousands, of people.

  Yet even though her confidence in great-grandmother Miku was unshakable, the concept escaped her. She could hardly imagine hundreds of people together in one space, let alone thousands, and she certainly had no idea what concrete looked like. She knew it was similar to rock – except homemade – a mixture of water and powder and pieces of stone that people used to pour into shapes to build these great structures. She knew that large portions of the earth’s surface had been covered in pavement or asphalt – which, according to her great-grandmother, had been very similar to concrete but thinner.

  Why anyone would want to cover the grass with something hard, dead, and cold, she would never understand, but Miku had said it was how the earth was during the Before time. While she had never been able to picture this distant world in her mind, she knew it was real.

  Miku had told her everything about it, everything that her own mother had taught her as a small child. Miku had explained it all in great detail, even telling her that people had managed to control water and bring it into homes. That people would travel all over in vehicles and airplanes – devices that allowed them to cover great distances in a matter of minutes. Miku had tried to describe it, even drawing a picture in the dirt with a stick to help illustrate. Yet trying to imagine it as a child had been like trying to see the air. It was there, and it was real – but she couldn’t actually see it. So, begrudgingly, she had accepted that the world of the past was beyond the capability of her imagination.

  Her hand carefully let go of the edge, reaching toward her chest and closing around the small pendant that rested against her sternum beneath her worn shirt. It was one of the few pieces of metal that the village still had. Most were used for various tools and weapons, though nearly all of it was rusted, dirtied, and old. They were relics from the past that the villagers had dug up over time. Each item found was brought to the Elders so they could decide how best to use it, and no matter how worn the item was, it was treasured and put to work.

  This piece, though, was hers and hers alone. The Elders would never get their hands on it. Besides, she couldn’t see why they would want it. It held no value for them, and it had no useful purpose, so aside from the satisfaction of taking it away from her, they didn’t need it. But their dislike for her and Miku ran so deep in their blood that she didn’t trust the Elders not to be petty or cruel and confiscate it regardless, so she kept the heirloom hidden beneath her clothes and securely fastened around her neck with a sturdy leather strip.

  It was the only piece of her great-grandmother that she had left, and she would be damned if she was ever going to lose it.

  Her fingers traced over the familiar shape, her thumb unconsciously running over the indents as she clung to the top of the ridge. It was old but not tarnished. It was silver and small – only roughly the size of the tip of her index finger – and it was the most valuable thing she owned in the world. It was a lotus blossom, which was appropriate because it had belonged to Miku’s mother, who had been named after the flower. The back was engraved with her name, and even after all this time, the kanji symbols were still visible as faint, thin lines.

  Gripping the ledge more tightly still, she let out a sigh and pulled herself further up the steep slant to rest her elbows over the edge. The toes of her leather shoes were barely touching the ground beneath her now, grazing the cold stone as she slumped her weight against the lip and watched the clouds begin to shift once more. Like always, they were moving quickly, spinning as they drifted across the light blue sky and sliced the sunlight into streams. No one else would agree with her, but she had always found this side of the ridge beautiful. Perpetually dead and wasted, sad and angry, yet oddly beautiful. Truth be told, as much as it terrified her, she was fascinated by it, and she loved it.

  Everything, that was, except for those mountains to the north.

  Steeling her nerves, she shifted her gaze to the Northern Mountains like she always did before leaving the ridge to head back home. She didn’t know why she did it when every time she saw them, it just made her angry, sick, and buzzing with unresolved fear. Maybe she was hoping that one day she would be able to look and not feel that twist of panic in her gut. Or perhaps she was hoping that someday she might see him. Yet no matter how many times she turned her gaze, it always left her feeling the same.
r />   Nauseated.

  She could feel her legs growing weak and trembling beneath her as her heart rate started to increase.

  The mountain.

  The thing that plagued her village and ripped families apart. The place where the Elders said that Veles, the god of the earth, lived. Some in the village called him Terra, others Prithvi, but she had always called him Veles because that was what was taught to them in school and Miku had never called it anything else. Other names were discouraged. Yet all names were known despite this, and each of them was both feared and respected. They were whispered throughout the village, their lore a tale told by older children to their younger siblings to terrorize them – or by parents to make their children behave.

  She knew that the kids usually meant it in good fun, but the fear was real, and for good reason. Veles’s Mountain loomed over the village, always. It haunted them. It taunted them. It took from them; it destroyed families and kept the Elders in charge. It was the wretched thing that had shattered her home, her family, her life – killed her brother and all but consumed her mother.

  She looked away from it, clearing her throat and forcing herself to swallow. Maybe one day she would be able to look at the mountain and not feel terror and sickness coursing through her veins, but today was not that day. So instead, her eyes traced the path that twisted around the mountain and led down to the edge of her village on the northern side. The double gates stood proudly, blocking the natural gap in the ridge and acting as the gateway into the Dead Zone. She could tell that the guards had been busy working there, adding even more wooden spikes, as if they thought that Veles himself might stroll down the hillside and knock on the gate looking for his next victim.

  She swallowed again, feeling the panic in the pit of her stomach start to churn once more as she looked at the large gates, which were always closed. Today, it seemed she wasn’t even strong enough to look at the pathway. Usually she could manage it, but this time it felt different, and she knew why. It was a Gifting year. Soon both gates would open. After ten long years they would open for the second time in her lifetime, and it would rip another family apart.