Alexandria and the Slavic Myths: The Wheel of Rod (Volume One)

Chapter Five - Nemiza

She was in a cage. Next to her, a man sat somberly, looking tiredly ahead. His clothes were torn and ragged, and his face was thinning. He was in his own cage. Both enclosures were constructed with some sort of red string. As soon as Alexandria realized that she had been imprisoned, she started sawing away at the cage in whatever way she could think - with her teeth, with her nails, but nothing would work. The string was too strong. The thin man looked over at her, watching in annoyance as she struggled.

"You're not going to get anywhere," he said.

"Yes, I am. I will find a way out of here. Oh!" She tried freezing the string. The ice bounced off of the string, frosting her face. Next, she tried setting it on fire. The fire only singed her hair, not the string. With every force and power she could wield, she used it to try and cut the string, but nothing could defeat it. It was magical. "Aren't you going to try and do anything?" Alexandria asked the man.

He shook his head, and explained, "I can't do anything. I've been trapped here for longer than you could imagine. My name is Veles. The god of Nav." He sighed.

"The god of Nav...so, you're the rightful ruler? What are you doing enchained? You should be out there, putting a stop to Nemiza's evil!" Alexandria was pleading him.

"It's impossible! You'd think, a god as powerful as me, could defeat him. But he controls the fate for all creatures, except for the divine."

Alexandria interjected, "but you are divine. You are Veles! You are a god! He shouldn't be able to control you!"

"But I belong to Nav. And since Nemiza controls fate AND Nav...he controls me. He rewrote my fate, to put me in this cage and limit my powers. I am helpless to him." Veles' stomach grumbled. He was starving. "He can't kill me though, for I am immortal...so I must sit and suffer until someone puts an end to him."

"That's what I'm here to do. My father is a very powerful man, I'm sure you know."

"I don't," he explained. "I've been enclosed for far too long to know about any of the modern world. Who are you? Who is your father?"

"Oh. My name is Alexandria. I don't know who my father is, but...he gave me this." She grabs at her necklace, but before Veles can get a good luck at it, it disintegrates into smoke. "What the hell! Give it back!"

"I didn't do it! I'm powerless!" Veles cried.

"Hello, Alexandria." Alexandria whipped her head around. Standing above her cage of string was a man, holding her necklace. Nemiza. "I hear you've come to stop me. Well, how do you plan to do that now that you've been imprisoned?"

"Nemiza. You will give my charm back, or you will face horrible punishments from my father."

"Oh, please," Nemiza laughed. "You don't even know who your father is! And besides, you don't think I'm stronger than any of his punishments? Just look what I've done to Veles! I've taken all his power. No deity stands a chance against me."

"Save it, Nemiza. The power you have over Veles only stands here in Nav. If you were taken out of this underworld, you wouldn't stand a chance against my father's rulings."

Nemiza hid his surprise. Alexandria was right. "Then it's a good thing he sent his puny little mortal daughter to challenge me, rather than him." He got in her face to mock her. "Because, like you said, I'm not strong enough to hurt such a powerful god." Then, he flicked his wrist and Veles' eyes went blank, and he smashed his head against the cage and lost consciousness. Nemiza laughed. He was putting up a front, trying to convince Alexandria that he was more powerful than she expected. She didn't buy it.

"Well then, Nemiza. What do you have in mind for me?" Alexandria challenged him. "You took my powers, you've proven to me that you're all powerful. What else could you possibly have in store?"