Amnesiak: Blood Divinity

By TJ O'Hare

To the fierce Shengri, the Tiger Empire represents all that is bad: decadence, cruelty, vassalage, and worse.
Sadly, the Tiger Empire is expanding - into the land of other nations. Next under their gaze are the Shengri, a proud people living on a resource poor steppe. The Tiger Empire has vast power, controlling dozens of other states. The Tiger-folk have demanded tribute from the Shengri for ten years, and they have built a city of decadence upon Shengri lands.
Enter Lord Sheng, folk hero and weapon God of the Shengri. The God awakens, having forgotten more than he realizes, into his people's hour of need. Sheng's arrival ignites the already smoldering hot bed of politics and limited warfare that is life where the Tigerites dwell. Alchemists, shamans, sorcerers, tailed men, and fearsome otherworldly entities will be drawn in as Sheng struggles to reclaim his memory and to unite his people to do battle against the arrogant and decadent foes who have come unbidden to conquer Sheng's people.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Spero Publishing
• Release date: Nov 30, 2012
• ISBN: 9781311299666

Book preview

Chapter 1

He woke to salt air and coldness. His world was rocking. He was in a wagon of some sort, which explained the rocking. He looked ahead, which meant looking straight up, for he was on his back. The ceiling of the wagon’s interior was bands of linen, flecked with candle-soot from what smelled like whale-oil lamps.

The light was thin and grey overhead, but as he turned his head and looked about, he saw he was surrounded by gold.

He was in a shrine of some sort. The gold was virgin gold, beaten into the shapes he saw about him. The shapes told him it was a primitive, but vigorous culture, greatly taken with sea-faring and the beasts encountered there.

His breath plumed before his face, which told him he was a warm-blooded being. He stirred and lifted up his hand and examined it. Five fingers; one of them an opposable thumb. He had dwelt in this form before. He rested his hand on his naked breast. He had nipples, so he was a mammal. A scattering of body hair on his chest gave him some idea of the closeness to his animal ancestry.

His skin puckered under his touch – goose-pimples. His skin was contracting to conserve body heat. He needed garments; he needed to keep warm. He needed to learn the local politics.

He closed his eyes again and relaxed all his senses. He was not alone on this planet. Out there, somewhere, his nemesis would be waiting for him. He wondered what shape it would assume in this the latest chapter of his immortal life.

Immortal life…? He paused and grinned. He liked the feel of that grin. It was a hard grin; mirthless, but powerful. He felt predatory. His nemesis would not find him skulking in a burrow, or hiding up in a tree.

He sat up with the ease of a powerful, seasoned warrior, and swung his legs over the side of the fur-littered bier. He was a biped. His body felt well-made. He ran his legs over the thighs that stationed him on the wagon. They were strong and vital, and hairy.

He had been lying on a white fur – a huge beast. It still had its paws intact, and included the fearsome head, with the skull as pillow. He looked into eyes of agate that had been mounted in silver. The teeth – tusks, almost – curled over lips of black leather. The creature’s muzzle had been sewn into a snarling mask – it must have been a formidable beast. How had it been slain? He searched its breast and found a single hole in the fur, embroidered with thread of gold in a heart-shaped motif. A single thrust had slain this beast, and it had been beautifully cured. He hefted its weight and enjoyed the feel of the soft fur against his cheek.

‘Thank you, brother beast,’ he said slowly.

The words came strangely to him. They were new to his tongue and his ears: guttural, strong and forceful.

He stood and held his arms out to balance him. His feet had heels, and they were configured to give maximum balance and weight-bearing ability; speed would be sacrificed with this arrangement, but he was of a mind to stand and fight rather than to run away. The tendon was exposed at the back of his legs in two places: at the heel and at the knee.

He took a step forward – interesting. He could pivot on his big toe – he had five toes on each foot. This race had evolved on a river-plain. The feet were for running, but also had a paddle-like use for swimming.

He noted that the almost invisible hairs of his body were aligned to allow water to flow freely over the smooth skin, hinting at a semi-aquatic past and a retained ability to swim.

He liked this form – not too specialised. He doubted if he would grow bored quickly.

He turned and took a few careful steps towards the rear of the rocking wagon. Already his hearing had registered from without the linen walls of the shrine that there was a wind moaning over a flat landscape. Ahead he could hear surf breaking on a long shore. Occasional lowing noises suggested that the draft animals that pulled this wagon were some sort of bovine quadruped. He stayed well back from the gap of the open curtains and moved his head to view what was without.

It was dark outside – dark, at least, to his new eyes.

There was another wagon behind his vehicle. It was being pulled by a train of ten furry quadrupeds with huge sweeps of horns, saliva-dripping muzzles and blinkers on their halters. He wondered if there were stars visible in the sky. The wagon was lit with flaming torches which obscured the night beyond.

He looked down at his naked body and saw that he was male.

The puckering of his skin told him he was in a cold environment, and the wind that entered through the gap in the rear curtains felt icy. It moaned, as if with the voices of ghosts from steppe-lands steeped in winter and permafrost.

He was cold, but not uncomfortable. He could have stepped out into the outside world and been resplendent in his nakedness. Something stayed him. Then he remembered: immortal life. He was a god. Immortality would have taken a normal specimen of this race and toughened it up to a supernatural – apparently supernatural – level. A god – of what – and of whom?

Who are my people? he wondered.

‘I cannot say,’ he replied aloud to his silent question. ‘What is my name?’

He liked the forceful glottals of this new tongue. It was a tongue for spitting fiercely into the face of adversity.

Then a word came to him – it was neither a name nor a title, and not quite fully a description, but it covered his situation. Rather, it covered his current situation, for he knew he would change. He was in a system of change, and changing would be an integral part of his existence for some time to come. Neither name, title, nor description. Instead, it was a term:

Amnesiac.

‘I am Amnesiak,’ he murmured.

He felt the power of the words flow through him. The word was ambiguous, but full of potential. What was it that he was forgetting? And how had he come to forget?

Arousing him out of his reverie – the sound of hoof-beats. He stepped further back within the shrine, but raised his arm to keep the curtains parted just a crack.

Two horsemen rode swiftly by, grim-faced and purposeful, their faces flaring wanly in the light of the torches on the following wain. They were barbarians by their dress: furs, leather belts, crude weapons. The horses were sturdy, shaggy steppe ponies, and horse and man seemed to ride as if they were one.

One of the characteristics that Amnesiak recalled from one of his previous lives was the jingle of metal on a horse harness – there was none with this pair. What did that mean? Were they a pre-smelting culture, or were they nomads from a resource-poor area? They had ridden past too swiftly for him to have checked to see if they were using stirrups – but he had a feeling that that essential of martial horse-gear was missing. He grinned; thinking of the impact heavy cavalry would have on a culture that wasn’t expecting a charge of massed knights.

It was difficult to tell in the uncertain torchlight, but their skin had a yellowish-cast. He had an impression of narrowed eyes, with epicanthic folds; round faces, with long black hair bound into braids.

But one of the most arresting aspects of their images was that they each carried the body of a creature over the saddle. The creatures were human-shaped and human-sized, but at least one of the specimens had a tail.

Arrows – or small javelins – with yellow fletching protruded from the bodies of the ape-like creatures. Again, the glimpse had been so momentary, but his impressions were enriching the hold he was assuming on his surroundings. Were the apes true apes, or were they a breed of human who had retained their tail?

Interesting. He hadn’t been expecting such a… such an exotic flavour to this milieu.

With the horsemen gone out of sight and out of ear-shot, he had time to notice that beside each yak-like draft beast walked an attendant. Their faces were hidden by the deep cowls of their furred hoods. The ornamentation on their fur-trimmed great coats suggested something of the priest about them. Their fur boots were caked with snow, but they had no trouble keeping up with the ambling pace of the yaks.

Amnesiak let the curtain drop and turned about to view his surroundings again. Apart from the central bier with the fur of the great white bear-creature upon it, he was surrounded by an array of lamps, all burning oil of some sort within their transparent stone quartz frames.

A throne stood at the front of the wain, facing forward. He strode up to it and found that an outfit that would fit him lay there. There were undergarments and richly-ornamented court garments, and under them were furs – lynx and snow leopard – the raiment of a potentate suitable for impressing such a barbaric culture.

Beside the throne stood a table, covered with a wicker basket, richly decorated with carvings and hieroglyphs. He lifted the basket and found a meal laid out – wrinkled fruits (almost certainly a delicacy, judging from the arable resources of what he had so far seen); a stew of vegetables and spiced meats; a flagon of spiced wine. He raised it and felt it tepid under his fingers, but once it may have been mulled with a red hot poker.

His belly rumbled and saliva sprang into his mouth. He set the wine flagon down with the drink untasted, and found a wooden spoon, richly decorated and incised. He tasted the sauce of the stew. The taste exploded in his mouth.

He grunted in pleasure. This was good!

Dressing as he ate, he left the wine to the last. He wasn’t sure how potent it was and he had memories from some time when alcoholic drink had been his downfall. He had a flash of being a king in a decadent kingdom, with a food-taster and all the accoutrements of an empire that was on its last legs.

As he dressed, he noted that the forward face of the wagon was lined with similar curtains to the back, except these were richly tapestried. He found the cord that pulled them apart and recognized that this was some sort of royal wain with the purpose of driving the god / divine king about his culture and making sure that the people knew of his presence and /or existence.

He parted the curtains an inch and saw ahead that the caravan stretched a dozen wagons ahead. His wagon had reached the top of a ridge, for he felt that the floor was shifting under his feet, and the wain was beginning a gentle descent.

Horns blared from without, although he couldn’t see the musicians or their instruments. They were hoarse, braying horns and he suspected they might well be animal horns.

Beyond the caravan, the road stretched ahead, dimly lit from stars or moon overhead. The road was hidden by the next ridge-top; but beyond, other ridges glimmered, flecked with snow, slush, or frost. And beyond that, shining and resplendent, was what could only be an ice-bound sea.

To the left, he saw the road dip down and enter a smallish harbour – perhaps a thousand buildings behind a stockade and a half-built stone wall. The waters of the harbour were thronged with boats, many of them visibly warships, arrayed with catapults and other engines of war.

He found a cloak with a deep hood and donned it and discovered that there was a bronze mirror underneath. He held it up to inspect his features – the mirror was obviously some sort of exotic import, decorated with motifs that were not in any way similar to the ornamentation of any of the local produce.

From his reflection he looked upon his face for the first time. His eyes were dark-brown, or black; and they bore the same narrow lineaments of the riders he had glimpsed, along with epicanthic folds. His skin was sallow, yellowish. His beard was thin and scanty, as was his trailing moustache. His hair was long and straight and black, falling to his shoulders, parted in the middle.

‘Behold,’ he said aloud. ‘The face of the god of the –’ He stopped. He couldn’t remember a name for his people.

He frowned at his reflection and it frowned back. He snarled, baring his teeth. He had all of his teeth, and they were white and strong.

He set the mirror down, straightened his tunic beneath great coat and cloak, stamped his boots to test their traction on the deck and turned to look for a weapon. There was nothing.

A race such as this would not follow a god of peace. He curled his fingers into half a fist and hefted the memory of mighty weapons. He could feel the tension in his shoulders and upper arm and the impact as he smote home – war-hammer, battle-axe, club, sword, flail – he had wielded them all in the half-forgotten past, in his previous incarnations, in his former avatars.

He felt the tension run through his shoulders; he wanted a two-handed weapon – a spear. Yes. He smiled at the thought of the spear he would fashion.

He glanced about at the shrine, and realized that there was a reason why he had been given no weapons. He was the smith-god of this culture. He had come to make weapons for (or of?) them– possibly to overcome an enemy threat.

He took a deep breath.

It felt good.

Even a god has to have a purpose.

He strode to the rear of the wain, threw aside the curtains and dropped to the ground.

Chapter 2

As soon as he had landed and looked about, he saw that it was not as dark as he had thought on first looking out. The sun was very low in the sky, either rising or setting behind a ridge of mountains, and the passage of the road had perhaps been hidden by a hillside when he had last looked out.

Now a red light with long shadows spilled over the landscape, as if ominous events stalked the caravan. When he thought of the sun, his thoughts framed it as the Lord of Day.

His exit from the shrine wain had not been noted by the attendants who were trudging alongside their draft-yaks. The pace of the caravan was slower than walking pace. He stepped out from the train and looked back along its length. A dozen wains were followed by a long train of pack-mules, all burdened with panniers.

He walked towards the back and checked the reactions of the attendants that he passed. None took any notice of him. Perhaps they were so deep in their priestly meditations that they did not expect to find a passer-by.

He reached the mules and found that they only had an attendant for every ten beasts or so. He kept an eye on the nearest attendants, who wore a different style of hooded cowl than the attendants of the yaks.

The panniers were woven from stiffened strips of leather and osiers. He pulled the leather rain-flap aside and pulled out a leather pouch from within. It opened on a draw-string and golden nuggets spilled out into his waiting palm.

He grinned at the flash of the precious metal. Gold! It ought to be red, as a memorial for all the blood shed for it.

A hoarse voice hailed him. He turned about to find a dozen spearmen with lowered pikes. The pikes were tipped with bone, but they still looked very lethal.

The man who appeared to be their leader stepped forward and snatched the leather sack from his hand. He turned his helmeted face to look up to him and the mailed hand that had been raised to strike him paused.

The warrior’s eyes opened wide in surprise. A burst of incomprehensible language spewed from his lips, and before Amnesiak could react, the warrior had dropped