04c Dreams of Fire and Gods: Gods (4 page)

No doubt the Taaweh think of
me
as a child
, Koreh thought. Which might explain why they had assigned a child to guide him. But Chya was a pleasant enough companion, so Koreh had no complaints about that.

The woman brought them bowls of hot stew. It was delicious, and they ate in silence.

As the last of the daylight disappeared, men began to wander into the pub, sweaty and grimy from their labors. They seemed a happy lot, shouting out to one another and laughing boisterously with the air of camaraderie Koreh recalled from his youth—before the plague had brought death and misery to his family and their friends in the poor neighborhoods of gü-Khemed.

He began to wonder if he might be happy settling in a village like this. He didn’t need fancy accommodations, and he didn’t really mind working. Perhaps Chya had a point about people choosing this “life.” But could he ever be happy without Sael at his side? Eventually, Sael would have to die and come to this world, but how long would that be? If several months here amounted to no more than a few days in Harleh, Koreh could spend hundreds of years alone before they were reunited. And what if Sael had given in to his father’s wishes and married to preserve his legacy?

Koreh forcefully shoved those dark thoughts out of his mind. He couldn’t think about that, or he would sink into depression, as he had many times over the past several weeks. He concentrated on mopping up the last of his stew with a chunk of heavy sourdough bread, until a familiar voice forced him to look up.

“Master Koreh? Is that you?”

Koreh hadn’t expected to see Snut and Mak ever again. Not after he’d cried over their corpses on the battlefield at Harleh. Now he had to blink hard to keep tears from welling up in his eyes at the sight of them. He leapt to his feet, nearly overturning his chair in the process, and moved to grip the older boy by the arms. “Snut!” Koreh exclaimed. “Mak!”

He likewise clapped Mak on the arms, but then his voice faltered, and he was unable to think of anything else to say. Fortunately, Chya spoke up. “Won’t you join us?” he asked the two youths, his formal manners seeming incongruous with his childlike appearance.

When they’d all been seated, Snut smiled at Koreh and said, “Were ye killed in the battle then, Master Koreh?”

So they knew they were dead, at least. Koreh hadn’t been certain he should mention it.

“No,” he replied. “Not there. I… died in the mountains. Sael… the
dekan
and I were sent there.” He trailed off, not really wanting to go into detail about that night.

Mak looked crestfallen. “His Lordship is dead?”

“No,” Koreh hastened to assure him. “The
dekan
is still alive. And we won the battle.”

Both boys beamed at that news.

“I knew the
dekan
and the
vek
would win!” Snut said proudly. “’Cause we—all of us—we’re loyal, we are! We’ll fight t’ the death for ’em. The emperor may ’ave a bigger army, but ’e don’t ’ave
us
!”

Koreh laughed good-naturedly at his enthusiasm. “No, Snut. He sure doesn’t.”

“What about our da?” Mak asked anxiously.

Koreh hadn’t had a chance to track down Moghm since the battle. The Taaweh had whisked him away too quickly. He’d assumed the old man stayed out of the fight, but he had no way of knowing for certain—not with all the chaos on that day.

“Your father is alive and well,” Chya told the young man, and Koreh inwardly breathed a sigh of relief. But he felt a pang of guilt. He should have insisted upon at least relaying the news of his sons’ death to the miller. He’d deserved to find out about it from someone who cared.

But Mak was pleased. “That’s all right, then.”

“Hope ’e can find someone to work the mill,” Snut commented.

Was the mill even still in use? Koreh wondered. The forest had engulfed most of the farms surrounding Harleh. But he kept that information to himself. He simply smiled and said, “I’m sure he’ll do fine.”

“To our da!” Mak said, holding up a mug of ale Koreh had no recollection of being on the table a moment ago.

A mug had mysteriously appeared for Snut as well, so all four of them tapped the wooden mugs together and drank a toast to the miller. Then Snut decided to toast the
dekan
, so they all drank once more, and then Mak made a toast to the
vek
….

The ale was good and apparently it was possible to get drunk in this world—perhaps if one “chose” to, which Koreh more or less did. He felt a bit lightheaded after the third round. He’d already finished a mug earlier, but his was once again full of ale, though he didn’t recall the old woman coming back to fill it.

While he was contemplating this, Snut started rambling on about how the two young men had been led to this village by a mysterious woman. “Turns out,” he said excitedly, “we ’ave grandparents and aunts and uncles and cousins all o’er town! More in other towns, but these’re the ones we remember.”

Koreh smiled at him and took another sip of ale.

“What about you, Master Koreh?” Mak asked. “’Ave ye found your family yet?”

That stopped Koreh in midsip. He slowly lowered his mug to the table. “My family?”

They had all died so long ago—his mother and father and all his siblings. Well over seven years now. It hadn’t even crossed his mind to look for them, but of course they would be here. Wouldn’t they?

Koreh looked at Chya, who had a particularly mischievous smile on his face. The little bastard had been waiting for Koreh to figure it out. “Is my family here?” Koreh asked, his voice suddenly thick with emotion. “In this town?”

“Not in this town,” Chya answered, “but very near.”

D
ONEGH
had heard the stories about Marik. He’d heard that she had once been beautiful and that beauty had gained her the emperor’s favor. But the loyalty of an
ömem
was fleeting, regardless of any gifts and privileges bestowed upon her. When a nobleman had engaged the services of the
samöt
to kill the emperor, Marik had aided the assassin in entering his private chambers. Only a fluke had found the emperor still lying awake when the assassin entered, and alert enough to roll under his bed, where he could stay just out of reach long enough for his screams to alert the guards outside the door.

The
samöt
had been captured and tortured, despite the fact that torture had been forbidden by the
ömem
. It had accomplished little. The assassin had taken the name of his contractor to the grave. But the emperor accused Marik of aiding his enemies. Rather than deny his accusations, the woman had scorned him for challenging the Sisterhood. He hadn’t quite dared to execute her, but he was so enraged that he ordered one of his guards to sear her eyes out with the fireplace poker.

Now Marik was no longer beautiful. She had petitioned the Sisterhood to exact revenge against the emperor, but they had denied her request. The massive financial donation the emperor had paid the Sisterhood to ignore the incident had bought the man some time.

But it was no secret that Marik still longed for revenge. And Donegh had come to offer it to her.

The blind seeress was rarely alone. The type of men she had dealings with now in the ruins of Old Mat’zovya were thieves and murderers. She’d managed to acquire some power over the years, by using the Sight to guide her allies on lucrative raids, but she was no fool. Few of these “allies” could be trusted not to cut her throat for the bounty on her head. The denizens of the old town didn’t fear the consequences of killing an
ömem
the way the citizens in the cities did. So Marik had two trusted bodyguards to watch over her when she was indoors, unable to make use of the Sight.

These presented a problem to Donegh, but not an insurmountable one. The Taaweh had taught him how to hide in the shadows and slip unseen through the earth. So getting past them into Marik’s private bedchamber would have been possible. But Donegh had been raised to think of the
ömem
as something akin to mother figures, and the thought of sneaking into the bedroom of one and possibly catching her in a state of undress disturbed him. She might also cry out if he did so, bringing the guards into the room anyway. So he could pull the bodyguards down into the earth, effectively disabling them without killing them, and then confront her. But if she screamed, there were likely to be others outside the door who might hear and come to her rescue.

The simplest solution was to kidnap her.

Marik still screamed of course, but by the time she was able to, she was in the basement of an abandoned inn at the edge of the old town. If anyone heard the scream, they would most likely ignore it. Investigating things like that got people killed.

“That’s quite enough,” Thuna said sharply, her voice resounding in the enclosed space.

Marik whirled around, trying to identify the direction the voice had come from. It was probably difficult for her, since the small chamber bounced Thuna’s voice around in all directions. Marik had popped out of the ground in the center of the room, so the only thing she could feel was the damp earth floor underneath her. There were no walls within reach, but she must have sensed that the room was small.

“Who are you?” she demanded, her voice sounding fearful despite her anger.

“You knew me as Thuna, an
ömem
associated with the house of Menaük.”

“Thuna is dead!”

“Just so.”

“Where am I? How did I get here? And what’s happened to my
head
?”

Donegh recalled the odd, deathly quiet sensation in the back of his mind that had first struck him when he crossed the barrier and told her, “The dizziness shouldn’t last long. The silence will take a bit longer to adjust to.”

“I can’t hear the Sisterhood!”

Thuna was sitting in the corner on what had probably once been sacks of flour, though they’d disintegrated to the point of becoming compact earth with embedded, rotting fabric. The old woman sighed and leaned forward on her cane. “Allow me to elucidate.”

From where he was standing beside the old woman, Donegh saw Marik hesitate and then raise a trembling hand to her temple. “My eyes….” The hollow, burned-out sockets shimmered and seemed to catch fire in their depths, until they burned with a bright blue light.

Marik turned her head as if she were taking in the dimly lit cellar. When she lifted her hands in front of her face and turned them over, Donegh’s suspicion was confirmed. The blind seeress could now see.

Marik lowered her hands and directed her burning gaze at Thuna and the young assassin. “How have you done this?”

“Magic, of course. How else?”

Marik stood from where she sat on the floor. Now that she was no longer floundering in the dark, her panic was subsiding, leaving her anxious but cautious. “There is no magic that can restore sight to the blind.”

“That seems an odd thing to say, given the circumstances.” Thuna extended her arm and Donegh took it, helping the woman up from her seat. “But let’s just say I’ve been sent by mages who are very different from the
vönan
and
ömem
you know. I’m told one of them could restore your eyes completely—and perhaps later they shall—but alas, I can only grant you this spell for now.”

“You do
look
like Thuna,” Marik observed. Despite being physically blind, she had been able to “see” through the Eyes of Atnu and Druma under normal circumstances, just as any other
ömem
could. She was no doubt familiar with the old woman’s appearance.

“Because I am.”

Marik’s face hardened. “Which means you’re also dead. I felt Thuna die, and I don’t feel you now. So either you’re dead or you’re an imposter.”

“I’m no imposter,” Thuna responded patiently. “But I am beyond the reach of the Sisterhood. As are you, for the time being. I’ve insulated this room from the Sisterhood.”

Marik touched the side of her head, as though bewildered. “I’ve seen the undead things in the Dead Forest. You aren’t like them.”

“Thank the gods.”

Marik seemed far from satisfied with the answers she was receiving. But she turned her attentions on Donegh. “And you. You’re the assassin—Donegh.”

The young man bowed to her.

“Am I to be assassinated, then?”

The youth answered, “No.”

“I can’t feel you, either.”

“I’ve also been… disconnected from the Brotherhood and the Sisterhood,” Donegh said, knowing that would make little sense to her. But it was beyond his ability to explain. Thuna would have to sort it out.

“Let me tell you why I asked Donegh to bring you here,” Thuna said, walking toward Marik with no trace of fear. Had she still been alive, Marik would have been a serious threat to her. Not only was Thuna elderly and untrained in combat, but Marik had been studying weaponry from her cutthroat allies in her years since leaving the capital.

But the old woman was well beyond any harm Marik could do to her.

“How long will this spell last?” Marik demanded, touching her temple lightly with her fingers.

“That depends upon you, my dear.”

Marik snorted. “I see. You need my help for something, and as long as I cooperate, the spell will continue to work. Is that it?”

“I’m afraid that is how it works,” Thuna said with a nod. “More or less. The mages cannot sustain the spell unless you agree to remain in hiding for… well, I’m not sure how long.”

“Hiding!” Marik gasped, looking around at the dank cellar walls. “In
here?
”

“Oh no.” Thuna glanced around at the small space with distaste. “I’m afraid Donegh’s range is still a bit limited. But I can take us someplace more pleasant.”

All three of them fell so quickly there was no time to prepare for it. When they emerged, Marik let out a residual shriek and even Donegh gasped. They were now standing on a hill, overlooking leagues of forest in all directions, with the thin spires of Gyishya jutting up out of the treetops like shimmering needles in the distance. It was night, and the swirling clouds overhead seemed dark and ominous, while not far from where they stood, the warm orange-yellow lights of Harleh seemed to beckon them to come in out of the chilly night air.