04c Dreams of Fire and Gods: Gods (7 page)

“What about sweet rolls?”

“Is it Anya?”

“Yes!”

“No,” the woman replied with an affectionate laugh. “It’s Kova, and you know it. Tomorrow is Anya, and that’s when we bake sweets. You’ll have to wait until then.”

Koreh had frozen in place at the sound of the woman’s voice, though he wasn’t aware of it until Emik tugged him forward again. The younger boy practically dragged him to the threshold of the kitchen.

The room was dominated by an enormous brick oven with cast-iron doors, and Koreh felt a wave of heat against his face as they entered. But his attention was focused on the woman who slid steaming loaves of bread off a wooden oven peel onto a stone countertop. Despite being disheveled from being in a hot room while she worked, she was beautiful, with long raven-colored locks, braided to keep them out of her way, and flawless alabaster skin. Koreh had a sudden flash of memory of horrible blisters. But he forced it out of his mind. This was how he’d struggled to remember her. His mother noticed him and Emik standing at the threshold and turned her startling, sky-blue eyes upon him.

For a moment, mother and son looked into each other’s eyes, unable to move. Koreh tried to speak but found the lump in his throat had grown too large, and he knew he would burst into tears if he attempted to make a sound.

His mother slowly reached down to the little girl hovering near her and said in a quiet voice, “Rügind? Do you remember your brother Koreh?”

Rügind still looked four years old. Her little wooden doll, dressed in scraps of cloth, was somewhat different from the one Koreh remembered, but otherwise she looked exactly as she had before the plague took her. She didn’t appear to remember him. Instead, she stepped behind her mother’s skirt and peered at him cautiously without answering. Of course, Koreh reflected, she’d been so young and more time had passed since her death than the time she’d had with him for a brother.

Koreh could no longer handle the waves of grief and love that were choking him. He tore himself away from Emik and ran back through the cottage, bursting out into the small front yard. Only then did he realize that he’d lost track of Chya. The boy was no longer standing by the front gate.

“Chya!” he called, practically shouting for help, his voice cracking on the name. It wasn’t his mother and siblings he feared. They meant him no harm. It was something within himself, something he’d buried seven years ago.

The Taaweh didn’t reappear. Was this as far as Koreh had been meant to come, then? Had it been Chya’s task to escort him to where he was supposed to go—into the loving arms of his family? He couldn’t think clearly.

Koreh heard the soft steps on the flagstones behind him, but he couldn’t bring himself to turn around. A gentle hand found his shoulder, and the comforting scent of fresh-baked bread brushed his nose, mixed with a much subtler scent of lilacs—one of his mother’s favorite flowers.

“I knew you’d find us eventually,” his mother said, and then her voice broke, “but… it’s been so long….”

His tears broke through at last, with gasping sobs that threatened to tear him apart, as she drew him close and wrapped him in her warm embrace.

“H
OW
long do you intend to keep me prisoner?” Marik asked impatiently. “I’ve already agreed to help you.”

They’d moved to a location in the forest within Harleh Valley. Here Marik could move about freely, but she was still cut off from the Eyes and the Sisterhood. Nevertheless, Donegh sensed the
ömem
was contemplating possible escape routes, so he watched her closely, prepared to catch her, if necessary.

Thuna smiled at her from where she sat on a fallen log. A fire—hot, but oddly blue in color—burned in a fire pit Donegh had fashioned, and the old woman stretched her feet close to warm them. “My dear, you don’t fully understand. You have a decision to make.”

“What decision?”

“We need you to be Donegh’s eyes,” Thuna explained, “when he enters the palace.”

“I understand that.” Marik squatted on her haunches on the other side of the fire, years of living as an outlaw in the ruins having erased most of her courtly decorum. “But I can’t do that, if I have no access to the Eyes.”

Thuna laughed and shook her head. “You won’t be able to help him through the Eyes. He severed his connection to the Stronni—and to the Sisterhood—when he learned some Taaweh magic. Only an
ömem
who has broken her bond to Imen can aid him now.”

Marik turned her glowing eyes upon the old woman. Though her eye sockets were still hollow, the ugly scarring around them had begun to fade. “If I break my bond with Imen, I cease to be an
ömem
.”

“That is true.”

“I’ll be useless to him,” Marik said.

“No,” Thuna corrected her. “But you will have to learn a new way of seeing.
Ömem
see through the light. I can teach you to see through the darkness.”

Marik frowned. “If you already know how to do this, then why don’t
you
aid him in the palace?”

“I don’t have a band of loyal mercenaries to fight by my side.”

“The
vek
has an army. Certainly he can find a few loyal men to accompany Donegh on this mission.”

“Perhaps,” Thuna replied, “but the Taaweh have chosen you.” When Marik continued to look skeptical, Thuna spread her hands wide and added, “I don’t claim to understand why they wish it to be done this way. Perhaps they have another task for me. Perhaps they saw an opportunity to accomplish one of their own goals while aiding you at the same time. Why they should concern themselves with a bitter, dishonored woman seeking revenge, I don’t know, but they might.”

Marik bristled at Thuna’s summation of her. “Or perhaps they are just fools!”

“No,” Thuna said thoughtfully. “Insane, perhaps. But not fools.”

“Why would I ally myself with them if they’re insane?”

“You know why.”

Marik was silent for a long time, flexing her fingers as she watched them through her magical “eyes.” Then she glanced up at the fire and at the forest around them. “I suppose I have little choice.”

“You do have a choice, my dear,” Thuna said, smiling at her affectionately. “Yes, you will lose your eyesight if you go back to the Sisterhood. But we won’t kill you. I suppose we might have to take you to Harleh for a time, until after the assassination attempt, but despite all that’s happened, I’m still your friend. I won’t allow you to come to harm.”

“Unless the Taaweh order me put to death.”

Thuna scoffed at this. “Donegh tried to assassinate Sael, a young man critical to their plans. If they didn’t order
him
put to death, I can’t see them harming you.”

Donegh cringed inwardly at the reminder. But Thuna was right. He’d been treated with nothing but kindness by the Taaweh. And the advantages of allying himself with them were incalculable. He could now move soundlessly through the shadows in a way no assassin before him had ever been able to do.

Yet they had not granted him the ability to
see
through the shadows. According to Thuna, he would learn this in time, but there simply wasn’t enough time to do so before the attempt on the emperor’s life needed to occur.

Marik sighed and stood, looking resigned. “Very well. I’ve said I’ll help you, and I will. Do what must be done.”

“I’m afraid it’s somewhat painful,” Thuna warned her.

Donegh remembered the searing pain in his head, as if something were being pulled slowly and relentlessly out of the center of his brain.

Marik sneered and pointed to her eyes. “More painful than this was?”

“Perhaps not.”

“Then let’s get it over with.”

T
RAVELING
the ten leagues to Harleh with an overburdened horse-drawn cart and an elderly couple proved much slower than Gonim had anticipated. Not that he complained. He was in no particular hurry, and Seirit and Unid were pleasant company. They were still on the road by midday, when Gonim stopped them so he could perform
Cabbon
.

It was as he knelt to chant the
Paemnom
ad Atni
that the attack on Worlen came. Gonim hesitated in his prayer, shielding his eyes as the fireball illuminated the sky. He couldn’t resist turning to watch it strike the city. It was too far away now to be a threat to them, but the old couple turned away, touching their foreheads in silent supplication.

“Why have the gods turned on us?” Seirit asked him when it was over.

Gonim had no answer to that, though he knew it had something to do with Harleh. Why else would Imen send him there to investigate? “I don’t know” was all he said. “Perhaps it was our fault—the
caedan
’s, I mean. But if we did something wrong, I haven’t heard anyone speak of it.”

“Perhaps it was the
caedan
of Harleh,” the old man observed, looking toward the west, where the sky was continually raining fire over the valley. It was a terrifying sight and one that would have tempted Gonim to turn back if he wasn’t on a holy mission. He admired Seirit and Unid for moving doggedly forward in the face of it.

A short time later, they came across a caravan heading to Worlen. Gonim recognized the driver of the wagon as one of those camped at the west gate in Worlen the night before. “
Vek
or no,” the man called out to them as he passed, “I’ll take my chances in Sidaz. I’m not foolish enough to go headfirst into
that
!”

Gonim called out to him, “Imen’s blessings be with you!”

“And with you, priest!”

The man was followed by two more wagons, driven by a woman and a young man who might have been their son. It wasn’t long before they’d disappeared over the top of the hill Gonim and his party had just come down. Seirit and Unid watched them until they were out of sight and then began to walk forward again, silent and grim, Kotzod slowly following behind with the wagon. Gonim fell into step alongside them.

He couldn’t blame the other caravan for turning back. The closer he came to the valley, the more frightening it was. Even without the orange fire that flickered through the clouds as each fireball struck, the sea of swirling bluish-gray that blanketed the valley could not have been caused by anything natural. Had the
vönan
of Harleh cast some sort of protective spell over the valley? They might have done so with the emperor’s army camped at the edge of the valley. But why would they have cut themselves off from the
vönan
in Worlen? And why had the
caedan
and
ömem
of Harleh likewise stopped communicating with Worlen?

Clearly, not even the gods knew the answers to these questions, or Imen wouldn’t have sent Gonim on this mission. And if the gods didn’t know of it, it had to be something dark and sinister.

“Are you absolutely certain you want to continue?” Gonim asked his companions when they at last stood on the final hill before the road descended into the valley. Less than a few furlongs down, the road disappeared into a heavy mist.

Seirit looked at his wife and something seemed to pass silently between them. Unid nodded firmly, and Seirit nodded his agreement. “Döv—that’s Unid’s younger sister—is still down there.”

“She was widowed a few months ago, poor thing,” Unid added. “Her Inokh was thrown from a horse—may he find peace in the Great Hall—with their children not yet grown. We’ve been planning to come help her ever since, but you know how things can sometimes drag on….”

“We’re not afraid of a little mist,” Seirit asserted.

Gonim smiled at them and turned to lead the way down the road.

When they first entered the mist, Gonim felt a bit lightheaded. He worried that perhaps there was something toxic in the air, but both Seirit and Unid seemed fine and neither reported feeling dizzy when he asked them. Kotzod likewise seemed unperturbed. So Gonim kept going forward.

It wasn’t long before the mist thinned, and they came through into
a day that was clearer, if still misty
, though the light now had an odd bluish tinge to it. Overhead, the clouds hung low, as if a storm was brewing, but from this vantage point, they seemed to be glowing with a faint light, even while flashes of orange and yellow shot through them sporadically. Gonim assumed that was coming from the fireballs striking the upper layers. If so, the
vek
had been right about nothing reaching the ground. The valley was quiet and serene.

But the cloud cover wasn’t the only thing disturbing about the landscape that stretched before them. Harleh Valley was now a great forest with trees taller than any Gonim had ever seen. And beyond the walled city-keep of Harleh, which could be seen just a league or so in the distance, was… something else. It was difficult to see in the mist, but it appeared to be a castle or fortress with immense towers that shimmered with thousands of yellow-green lights.

Seirit gasped and asked in a low voice, “What’s become of this place? It’s nothing like the valley I remember.”

“I have no idea,” Gonim replied. “Do you still wish to go on?”

“Harleh is still there. We might as well continue. Maybe someone there can explain all of this.”

They moved down the road, which led in a fairly straight line to Harleh before curving around the keep. But as they walked, Gonim’s dizziness grew worse and brief, random stabbing pains shot through his head. Not so severe that he couldn’t continue, but after one of them made him wince involuntarily, Unid grew concerned.

“Are you ill?” she asked.

“Just a headache. I’ll be all right.”

“Why don’t we rest for a few moments? We’re in no hurry.”

Gonim hated to stop, but he could think of no reason to argue with her. They pulled the wagon off to the side of the road, and Seirit unhitched Kotzod. He led him off to graze in the grass while Unid directed Gonim to sit down. She brought him a canteen full of water, and he drank. Then he permitted the old woman to feel his forehead.

“By the gods!” Unid exclaimed. “You’re burning up!”