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There is nothing that Goliath fears. Giants do not fear and neither do kings; fear is a weakness and fear is exploitable. Fear gets you killed, either in the hesitation before a strike or in the crack of armour a coup can stab. So, Goliath rationalizes: there is nothing he fears and most of the time he trains this out of himself. He is a giant, he is of god, he is stronger than anyone and anything that has ever been placed before him.
However, the lesson gets taught: just because he is of god does not mean he is a god. Hatred is an expression of fear. The God of the Israelites lets his chosen hero nearly kill Goliath, a thing which should not be possible for a man. It chases him into the hands of the God of Lemuria, whose chosen prophet is a witch whose delusions entrap him.
A god can defeat him. He hates gods because he fears them, tells himself that the only god he needs to answer to is himself and he will reforge himself in the power of gods, take what Miryam gave and remake himself stronger.
Miryam is still stronger than him. Not in physical strength, but in magic and stubbornness. Goliath stands on the deck of a ship with the scars on his neck turned into a choke-collar. Something worn by a dog who has yet to learn how to heel, from an owner who wishes to make it clear that the only options given are pain or its absence. She thinks this will instill the fear of god into him.
What she doesn’t know, as Goliath makes an obvious and audible tch when she addresses her seafarers and her collar activates to punish him, is that Goliath is at least as stubborn as she is. If not more so. Fear may make his blade waver, and it may let him rationalize biding his time so he does not have to raise his blade against her yet, but it cannot cow him. The scar of his decapitation opens up at the seam and one of her snake-heads rises to sink its teeth in his face.
Goliath doesn’t flinch. That’s playacting. It hurts like molten metal is poured into him. The message is clear: mock Miryam’s god and receive only a tightening of the collar and poison down his neck. The searing pain spreads from his cheek, down to the scar, down to his heart. It feels like the organ is going to try to escape his body, flee through his chest from the searing acid of Dissolution. Goliath looks up at Miryam, who is making a point of not looking (she almost never makes eye contact with anyone, and when she does it is to look disparagingly down upon them).
He spits on the ground in front of him. A clear response to her message. The same upon her god and his name, whatever it may be. The snake draws back and bites him again, this time over the neck. It takes his breath away, feels like knives roiling in his throat when an exhale is forced out of him. Bitch.
He hates her. He hates the pain, too. He can’t kill her and doesn’t try, not yet. He has no army. He can’t raise a hand against her. Don’t mistake: he does not enjoy pain. Goliath can tolerate pain, can stand straight and force himself to remain conscious and still regardless of how much Dissolution venom is forced into him, but he gets nothing other than spite out of it.
He doesn’t want to feel this, but the alternative is letting her win. And Goliath fears letting Miryam win more than he fears her. She is a power beyond him, she can make his strength useless, and without allies on his side it makes raising his blade impossible. No seafarers can be swayed to his side so long as she lives. None of the humans he comes across can betray her, who turns them into monsters and their higher reasoning to mush, in favour of Goliath who boasts merely strength.
Being alone is the only thing he hates more than the power of a god turning against him. He is the leader of a collective– a ‘king’ is one who rules their ‘subjects’, definitionally. A king without subjects is nothing, is a titleless entity who knows neither himself nor his duties. He was exiled from his home and lost all but one of his people, and then lost that final follower in Miryam’s ship and eternal reign as well. A king taken and controlled by another is not a king either.
Without allies, Goliath cannot begin the process of usurpation. He isn’t a king then. He may well be nameless, the ‘conqueror king’ being more a part of his identity than his actual name. Without it, without Philistines, he can be forgotten. He can disappear in an ignoble sinking to the bottom of the sea next to Miryam’s stupid homeland, and it won’t matter how strong he is there, either.
Strength is a creation of the physical world. Gods and magic have little need for it. Goliath alone, despite all his stubbornness and willing to bash his head against the brick wall of Miryam’s control for as long as it takes, is little more than an ant before the metaphysical. The idea of weakness makes a bile of fear rise up in his throat any time he thinks too much about it. (So he shoves it down, and reminds himself that one day his fortunes will turn. Loss is not forever, as he still lives. There will be an army he can use one day. On that day, when he has others to fight in front of, he will not freeze for a moment when Miryam turns her dark gaze directly onto him. His heart will not shudder then.)
But now, for these two thousand and more years, he is alone and he is afraid of her. The ire towards her god is eternal, and he never stops making it clear that she has not broken his hate into subservience. That there will one day be open rebellion from him. But deep within Goliath, he is aware that his blade is stayed due more to fear than strategy.
Even later, in Mythag once he has left the Sona-Nyl and the final dregs of the choke-collar are tugged from his neck, the ghost of that pain isn’t forgotten. Miryam appears here too, like a nightmare chasing her prophet Tulu’s dreams, and when their eyes meet in the hallway, Goliath feels fear still his steps. A ghost of the snakes’ venom conjured up to chill his heartbeat.
This, too, he hates. There must be nothing a giant fears. But for a second (and that already is enough for his weakness to be taken advantage of) he remembers being alone and collared. For a second, until Miryam lowers her gaze and the palpable wave of hatred between them ebbs enough for Goliath to remember who and what he is (or: what he must be, to himself and anyone around him) and leave. Call it hatred. At its root is fear.