Twin Sun Series: Musing #2

Excerpt from novel "Soothsayer" - Restless in her cell, Fern finds unexpected comfort.

“Gods and monsters are hard to predict. They do not think like humans.” It was yet another saying of her father’s so Fern found the words easy to say aloud.

She rolled over onto her side, fixated by her hands and how white they looked against the dark stone of the prison. Had they gotten paler? She had only been without the sun for two days. Perhaps she was too unappetizing to eat. Perhaps that was too much to hope for.

In a bout of restlessness, Fern stood and paced back and forth in her cell. When she grew bored of this too, she sat and found, with a shock, that her cell was not in fact featureless as she had originally assumed.

She had been wrong; this was not an entirely godless land. In the back corner where the light from the glowing orbs in the hallway did not reach, there was a triangular notch cut into the wall, and in it stood a solitary rounded stone. It baffled Fern until she saw crumbled bits of old food and a single silver bead placed before it. She ran her fingers over the stone’s smoothed edges, no doubt polished down by the hands of all the prisoners this cell had claimed before her.

It was an altar, raised up above the filth of the prison floor. There had been one such structure in her cell in the Justice House as well, a merciful gesture for a doomed convict. One last opportunity to call on a friendly god for favor. Of course, even if she did manage to contact a god of great power, it would little chance of finding her beneath the ground. Also Fern had nothing to offer the alter. She had eaten what little food they had slid under her door and the only item of value left to her had been stripped off her body yesterday by the Breeders"if not expensive, the marriage dress at least had sentimental wealth. But it was gone now, perhaps burned with the rest of the waste.

Having nothing else to give, Fern tugged her fingers through her hair, and pulled out as many brittle strands as she could, tucking them around the rock like a nest. No names came to mind; it was an utterly useless offering without a specific god to give it to and yet this small action eased the tightness in Fern’s gut.

Curling up against the wall, her knees pressed against her chest, she leaned close to the alter and gave the stone some words: “You are a very handsome rock. Thank you for helping so many people. I wish I had more to give you.” Fern swallowed. When she spoke again it was in a raw whisper. She was terrified that the other prisoners would overhear, for though she was sure that they too had hissed similar messages to each of their identical rocks, the next words that dropped from of her mouth were naked and plain, embarrassing to say and burdensome to overhear: “Help me. Please.”

Author's Note

This is a snippet from the Soothsayer story, also very early on. I thought it was a good self contained section so I posted it. All Reviews and loons will be appreciatively accepted.