04c Dreams of Fire and Gods: Gods (16 page)

It was all very confusing.

“I still don’t understand what
this
place is,” Seffni muttered.

“Didn’t anybody explain it to you when you arrived?” Koreh had assumed that everybody had someone to guide them when they went through the
tyeh-areh
, as he had. True, he’d been much more intimately connected to the Taaweh than… well, just about any human. But he’d seen a Taaweh woman escort an old woman into the mist, and it had seemed logical to believe this happened to all who died.

Seffni squinted, as though trying to see something far away. “I don’t have any memory of when I first arrived here. I don’t even know how long I’ve been here.” He turned to Koreh and his eyes were now pleading. “You’ve got to help me get back to her! Please!”

“We’re both dead, Seffni,” Koreh said reasonably. “I don’t know if there’s any way we
can
get back.” Though if he really believed that to be true, Koreh knew he wouldn’t have come out here in the first place. “Look,” he added, “I have a feeling that we’re at the edge of Bashyeh. The further we go, the heavier the mist becomes, and mist seems to mark the boundary to this… kingdom. I don’t know what will happen if we keep going deeper into the mist, but it’s the only way I can think of.”

“Then we’ll go through the mist,” Seffni said firmly.

Koreh nodded in agreement. Then after a long moment, he asked, “Do you remember Sael?”

At first, Seffni merely looked confused by the name, but then the light of recognition dawned in his eyes. “Sael! I have a brother named Sael!”

“Yes. And your father is Vek Worlen.”

Seffni said the names aloud a few times, before he turned to Koreh and regarded him suspiciously. “How do you know so much about me and my family?”

“I’m your brother’s
nimen
.”

Surprisingly, Seffni burst out laughing. “Out of all the people in this kingdom I might have met in my travels, I blindly stumble across my own brother-in-law!”

Koreh smiled and raised his hand to his mouth. By the time it touched his lips, it was holding a cup of hot
rawuk
-leaf tea, and he took a careful sip of it. “I don’t think anything here happens by chance. We were meant to run into each other.”

“Meant by whom? Who is in charge of this kingdom?”

“I don’t really know. Perhaps the Taaweh.”

This led to a lengthy explanation of who the Taaweh were and how Koreh knew of them. He thought it best to leave out the impending war between the Taaweh and the Stronni—assuming it was still impending—and what had happened to Harleh Valley. “I don’t know if they’re in charge here or not,” he concluded. “But I believe they guide people through the mist to wherever their families are.”

Seffni shook his head, frowning. “If I was taken anywhere, I don’t remember. And I must have wandered away to search for Tanum.”

“As did I to search for Sael,” Koreh said. “Though I don’t know if he’s still alive. So much time has passed…. It seems to move slower here than in Dasak, but it may still have been decades there—perhaps over a century.”

“If Tanum and Sael are dead now,” Seffni asked, “does that mean they’re here in Bashyeh?”

“They may be.”

“Then we may be going the wrong direction,” Seffni observed. “They may now be back where we came from.”

“Yes.”

“Should we turn around, then?”

Koreh had considered it often. It made sense, after all. But something was pulling him into this mist, and he had learned to heed his instincts. “I can’t explain why, but I sense this is the right way for me to go. You’re welcome to return, of course. It would seem the wiser choice.”

Seffni scrutinized him for a long moment, apparently sizing him up. Then he sighed and said, “You’ve restored some degree of sanity to me and eased my torment. I have no doubt that I am better with your companionship than without it. Therefore I shall follow you, wherever your ‘sense’ leads you.”

R
ELOCATING
Marik’s men to gü-Khemed took most of the night. Marik had located an abandoned shop in the market district near the palace, and Thuna transported them from Old Mat’zovya directly into the darkened building, along with the
vek
and Donegh. Donegh was still too inexperienced to traverse a distance that great. Marik remained in Old Mat’zovya.

After Thuna had delivered one more of Marik’s men to the shop and he’d joined his companions in the back room to steal what sleep could be had before morning, the old woman approached Donegh and Worlen. They were sitting in darkness in the front of the shop, not daring to light a candle, even with the wooden shutters closed.

“That’s the last of them,” Thuna said. “Thank the gods I’m dead already, or I’d be exhausted.”

“Your assistance is much appreciated,” Worlen replied, unfazed by the reminder that he was speaking to a dead woman.

“I’ll be going, then. I wish you luck.”

Before she disappeared, Donegh asked quickly, “Is that as far as the Taaweh will aid us?”

She smiled at him fondly. “Understand, Donegh, that this is not their war. They have no grievance with the emperor and no vested interest in the outcome of this coup. The
vek
asked for aid, and they worked to provide him with what he needed—an
ömem
of sorts, someone who can be guided through the castle by her, and a complement of soldiers. They did this out of obligation to his son—not to the
vek
himself. Their focus remains on the conflict with the Stronni.”

“I am grateful for their aid,” Worlen said. “I do not require more.”

But something was bothering Donegh. “When did you ask them to help you, Your Grace?”

“I spoke with one of the Taaweh tending Sael during his illness,” Worlen answered. “Five nights ago.”

“But Thuna rescued me from the dungeon of Harleh
weeks
ago,” Donegh said. “Was there some purpose for that, apart from my assistance in this coup?”

Thuna shook her head. “No. Your part in this—and Marik’s—was foreseen.”

“Is the outcome of the coup foreseen as well?”

She opened her mouth to speak, but before she could, Worlen interrupted her. “Stop! I want no prophecies. If you foretell my death or my capture and torture, it will change nothing. I will still go, and I will still need Donegh and Marik’s men to accompany me. I am too close to be stopped by murmurs of an ill fate.”

Donegh frowned at him, but Thuna merely smiled and bowed her head in acknowledgement. “My dear
vek
,” she said, “I have known you since you were a boy and could have foreseen that response, even when I was alive and could not glimpse the future. You are a stubborn man, but that may prove your greatest asset. Regardless of the Taaweh’s interest in this undertaking, my heart and my faith go with you.”

With that, she vanished.

“I would still have liked to know the outcome,” Donegh said darkly.

He was largely talking to himself, but the
vek
responded by asking him, “Would you have refused to accompany me, knowing that we were doomed to failure?”

“I already believe we’re doomed to failure, Your Grace,” Donegh said bluntly. “Yet I’m still here.”

“Then you don’t need dire prophecies to muddle your mind,” Worlen said. “Now get some sleep. I shall wake you when it’s time to move us into the palace. You will need to be rested and
focused
tomorrow, if we’re to have any hope of survival. Prophecies be damned.”

T
HE
city was impenetrable. Sheh had warned him, but Gonim still seethed with frustration as he circled it for the third time. Like Harleh, it was circular, and Gonim judged it to cover roughly the same amount of land mass. But there were no gates, and the “walls” were made up of trees and underbrush so thick and close together it was impossible to find an entrance. Even with his accentuated strength, Gonim had failed to tear his way through.

He’d been at it for hours. Morning had dawned, pale and bluish, with a heavy mist snaking its way among the trees in the surrounding forest, and still he plodded along, hoping to find an entrance that had been invisible in the night.

“Imen,” a clear, sweet voice called softly.

Gonim spun around to see a beautiful woman with long golden tresses standing in the mist, not twenty feet from him. She wore a dress of pale green silk that shimmered with countless jewels along the hems. Indeed, she herself seemed to shimmer with a faint iridescence.

He tried to speak to her, but suddenly he was no longer in control of his body. Imen said through him, “My Lady, I’m so pleased to see you unharmed.”

“And I you, Your Majesty.”

“A pity your companions did not fare so well.”

The lady smiled and came closer. Unlike Imen, she wasn’t extraordinarily large—her proportions were that of a tall human woman—but Gonim was awed by her presence nonetheless. It was as if she somehow radiated power like heat, and the nearer she came, the stronger he could sense it. She halted when they were near enough to touch each other. “One yet lives.”

“Oh?” Imen asked. Gonim felt his lips twist into something resembling a smile. “Sael or Koreh?”

“Sael.”

“How delightful! Saved by his pitiful skill at flying, no doubt.”

“Perhaps not so pitiful, since it
did
save him.”

“Just so.” Imen forced Gonim to move, and he feared for a moment she might cause him to reach out and caress this mysterious woman’s face—something he sensed could be extremely dangerous. But they merely circled her, while the lady stood calmly in the center of their orbit. He was learning that Imen disliked to remain still for long. “How sad, though, that his
nimen
did not survive.”

“It was necessary.”

Imen came to a stop in front of the woman. “Necessary? Was it part of your plan, then—that one of the humans had to die?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“So that they might all be saved.”

Imen quirked her head. “Might I ask how?”

“You pride yourselves on your ability to think rationally,” the lady said, turning to walk alongside the city wall. Gonim/Imen followed alongside her.

“That is true,” Imen conceded.

“Let us examine the current situation. Gyishya has returned to the valley, as have the Taaweh. I’m sure you realize now that we never truly left.”

“Of course.”

“And that we cannot be killed.”

Imen raised a hand in disagreement. “I concede that we were unable to kill
you
, My Lady. Perhaps our methods were inadequate, but it seems likely you cannot die. However, that doesn’t necessarily extend to all Taaweh. You are quite different from the rest of your people in many respects.”

The lady halted for a moment and smiled benignly at her. “I assure you, the Taaweh cannot be killed. None of them.”

“For the sake of argument, I will accept that as true.”

The woman began to walk again, drifting a bit away from the wall. Imen/Gonim followed her. “The Taaweh went into hiding so that the war might end before the humans were completely wiped out of existence. We waited and watched, as the land recovered and the humans rebuilt their civilization.”

“With our aid.”

The lady nodded graciously. “Now that the Taaweh have returned, the Stronni will resume the conflict which nearly destroyed the humans a thousand years ago.”

“You seem to have found a way to protect them,” Imen commented. She didn’t sound pleased, and Gonim found this disturbing. He had no idea what this conversation was referring to—though he suspected this last comment referred to the impenetrable cloud cover over the valley—but shouldn’t the goddess be concerned for her people?

“It would be better to prevent the conflict, so they would not need protecting.”

“Then disappear again,” Imen replied coldly. “You’ve done it before to protect them. If you are so concerned with their well-being, then continue to stay away. I see now that keeping you imprisoned was a mistake. Of course your people would persist in trying to set you free. Now they’ve succeeded. Well done!” she added, in a voice dripping with sarcasm. “But if you do not wish to see this kingdom reduced to a smoldering wasteland, your best option is to leave. We’ve cared for the humans here for a thousand years, and they’ve fared well under our dominion.”

The lady was silent as she led them to a small pond created by the merging of two streams. The water was shallow and clear, and still enough to reflect their faces as they peered down into it. Gonim was startled to see Imen’s face in the reflection instead of his own. If he’d had control over his hand, he might have reached up to verify that his face hadn’t actually changed.

“The relationship between the Taaweh and the humans is more complex than you imagine,” the woman said.

Imen clucked at her. “You’ve developed a sentimental attachment to them, and you watch over them. It is rather sweet, but hardly ‘complex.’”

The lady made a gesture toward the surface of the pond, and the reflection dissipated into mist. Gradually another face emerged from the mist—that of a beautiful young man with raven hair, bright blue eyes, and pale skin. He appeared to be walking or riding through a forest. “This is why the relationship is complex,” she said.

Imen squinted and leaned forward to better observe the image. “Koreh lives, then.”

“No. He is dead. But that may be about to change.”

Imen straightened and glared at her. “Are the Taaweh incapable of giving a sensible answer to any question?”

“Send your servant to the west, where the armies are encamped. There you will find the answers you seek.”

Gonim felt a wave of heat pass through his body, as if the goddess had flushed with anger. But the lady with the golden tresses seemed to melt away into the grass along the bank of the small pond, disappearing before Imen could respond.

In a fit of fury, Imen screamed and swept Gonim’s arm in an arc before him. Gonim watched in awe and horror as white-hot flame exploded out of the tips of his fingers, engulfing the trees and brush in the clearing and the “wall” of the city. A moment later, he found himself in control of his body again, his hand still outstretched as he watched the clearing burn. The flames appeared to have had no effect at all on the wall.