Afia’s family lives in a narrow three story building at the edge of the capital’s fishing district. The fresh air from the sea wafts in, bringing with it the smell of salt and fish.

  Afia sits at the old wooden table with Nanabarima, her father’s father, and Amma, her mother.

  “Nana, something bad is coming, monsters, war, death. I don’t know what we need to do but we need to do something.”

  Amma stretches her hand out to hold Afia’s as Nana opens his mouth to speak.

  “Nana Obaa, renounce your service to this Goddess of Victory.” They lean forward, mouth set into a ft line. “We will cross the sea and return to the home of my youth. This nd is safe for us no longer, not that it was ever welcoming.”

  “Nana!” Afia knew Nana Barima had never forgiven the Maharnakian’s for the violence they had brought to their homend. She had always known they had disagreed with her choice to become a Holy Imanjar, but at least this way she could raise her family’s status. She opens her mouth, prepared to argue.

  Amma slowly closes her eyes and sighs. “I suppose it has come to this.”

  The statement kills Afia’s retort while it was still but a hum in her vocal cords. “Nana, Amma, what are you saying? Why aren’t you surprised?”

  Nanabarima shakes his head. “You are still young. You do not know the wars waged in my youth. The people here have lived in folly and thrown their lives against the path of fate. We, too, have grown greedy in our time here. Go back to the Goddess, renounce your wish.”

  “But if I do that— I wished for health and happiness! We will face the backsh of every illness dodged, every stroke of good luck!”

  “Nana Obaa, that is why we must do this. Do you remember the tale of Brother Spider and Brother Death?”

  “Yes, I remember. It’s about how spiders live in webs on the ceilings and corners to avoid death.”

  “Wrong, it’s about how seeking death will bring death to your door. Brother Spider stole a meal from death and sought to keep stealing. In return, Brother Death took his daughter and hunted down the rest of the spiders until Brother Spider could be cimed by him. Even now, spiders fear Brother Death, but us humans?” Nana Obaa stands, drawing themself to their full height and with it drawing power into their form. “We have lost this fear. Without fear of death, we grow greedy and reckless. And Brother Death grows hungry.”

  Afia can see in Nana Barima their past as Chieftan of the Old Country.

  Lying on the sleeping mat spread out in the living room’s floor, Afia thinks over the events of the day. “I can ask the Goddess for forgiveness and desert my post, but who will protect us then? Surely there must be someone that can help… Vaza mentioned the martial arts sects, there are those traveling mystics too…” Afia drifts to sleep as storm clouds begin to gather over the horizon.

  Brother Death stirs his almost empty pot. Soon, he won’t be starved anymore. There is no victory in the face of death. You can run, but Brother Death never tires. You can climb, but Brother Death will wait patiently below with a sack with which to catch you. If you get away, your brothers, sisters, sons, daughters, mothers, fathers, friends, and cn will all pay.

  Even Spirits and Deities may fall in the face of Brother Death. The forces of nature, the many characterizations and personalities csh and combine, ebbing and flowing.

  Humans may cmor and worship and beg, but they ought to wonder if their grasping hands will help them climb to new heights or pull down the beings above. Like a single strand of spider’s silk, destiny cannot support but the weight of whom for which it was designed.

  Happiness, glory, and victory always cause sadness, infamy, and defeat for others. The rabble fights, person climbing over person to get bigger, until the person on top grasps the ledge.

  The ledge is bck and burning. It’s a lip, the lip of a bck cauldron. It burns hot, hot, hot. The person screams, his soul burning just as much as his hand. But it matters not, for he is pulled off the ledge by his fellows. He is cast to the floor, broken and battered. His conqueror fills his pce, grasping the ledge, screaming in agony, cwed and climbed over by others in search of the twisted prize he wishes he had never gotten.

  And then, only then, does the hand of Brother Death csp him around his chest. Cold, cold, so cold it makes him wish for the agony of the burning. No, the burning was never agony, it was peace and happiness, better than this nothingness. He shakes, limbs losing sensation.

  He cannot feel the falling, he cannot recognize the spshing as he enters to pot. Warm, finally warm.

  Burning, melting, the body dissolved into stew and pours down Brother Death’s throat. The soul evaporates into wisps of steam and is sucked into His fring nostrils.

  Standing beside Him is the face of a woman Afia had seen only once, when she had partaken in the funeral of an unborn child. The Goddess of Death and Mourning then was a Mother rocking her children to sleep, letting them rest their heads on her p as she ys the mourning shroud over them as if it were their favorite bnket.

  But this, this is not that Goddess of Death. The children ran away, disobeyed her, spit in her face and clung to the skirts of another woman. These children begged the Goddess of Victory to save them, to take them away. The Goddess of Death was crying, she was reaching out to them, she was cast away. And now, now she was angry.

  She stood by as Brother Death consumed her children one by one and then by great spoonfuls and then by great potfuls. She looked down on her children as they meet their end and enjoys their silence at st. After all, they are at peace with the warmth of the cauldron, having experienced the burning and the ice.

  They are content, and so is she. She smiled at Afia, watching, feeling the pain of the dreamscape. Naughty children will learn to appreciate what they had once they lose it.

  Afia tosses and turns, grasping at her chest. Sweat begins to drip down her face. Her hands grasp at her chest, her heart. It burns, it aches, it’s cold. With a gasp, she jolts up. No fighting. She must run, run with her family, run before Brother Death with his gaunt face and cold hands finds her and swallows her whole. She must run to Mother Death. She must beg forgiveness, beg and cry until She is once again willing to hold her in her arms—

  A cp of thunder follows the fsh of lightning. Afia shivers, wishing to be invisible, to be the tiny spider in the corner of the room. But rge or small, visible or not, Death with its many faces was coming for them all.