The Darkness Comes (The Second Book of the Small Gods Series) (10 page)

Enin took the pasty mixture from his mouth and leaned forward, allowed his dark saliva to drool from his mouth onto the sutured wound. The lad’s body tensed, his hand involuntarily clawing the air. Bieta pinned his arm under her knee.

The horse doctor took another mouthful from the clay jar and sloshed the liquid around inside his mouth. Satisfied he’d collected the residue, he spat it onto the wound.

“Arrrr.” The elongated sound spilled through the lad’s lips. “Nooooo.”

The fellow jerked in Bieta’s grip, but she held fast. His other arm slipped out of Stirk’s grasp, fingers slapping the floor.

“Hold him, Stirk,” she demanded.

Her son grabbed the lad by the wrist and pinned him the way his mother was. When his eyes fell on the stitched wound, now discolored to the hue of mud by Enin’s spit, his face blanched. Stirk jerked his gaze away.

“Don’t you pass out on me, boy,” she said.

“I won’t, Ma.” He belched, cheeks bulging.

“No honking, neither.”

He nodded but didn’t look at her as he swallowed with great effort.

“Make sure you hold him tight,” Enin said, his fingers caked with the pasty mixture hovering over the wound. “This will hurt him more than anything else, but it won’t last too long.”

Bieta shifted her weight again, ensuring his arm remained trapped beneath her knee. She looked to Enin again and nodded.

The horse doctor touched the tip of his fingers to the lad’s injury, smearing the near-black paste along its length. Nothing happened for a second, and Bieta thought maybe Enin had exaggerated for effect, but then the fellow’s body went rigid. His spine arched, lifting his back off the straw, and his face pinched up like a raisin, the veins in his neck standing out.

“Arrrr,” he cried again between clenched teeth. “Daannnyyaaaaa.”

Enin’s head snapped to the side, staring at the lad. Bieta watched him, but found nothing to say as she struggled to hold the young man while he thrashed.

“Trennnnannnnn.”

The fellow’s body went limp as quickly as it had tensed, but Bieta continued holding on in case he convulsed again. While she was holding him, Enin jumped to his feet, eyes wide enough they might have bugged out and bounced across the floor.

“Wh—what did he say?”

Bieta’s gaze darted from the horse doctor to the lad who saved her from Teth and back again. She shook her head and shrugged.

“Sounded like ‘trenan’ or something,” she said. “What’s a trenan?”

“And what did he say before that?” Enin asked, acting as if he hadn’t noticed Bieta asking him a question.

“Arrrr,” Stirk replied.

“Not that. He said another name. What did he say?”

Bieta rubbed the itch on her empty socket with the back of her hand, releasing her hold on the fellow—he’d played himself out and wouldn’t be moving again, in her estimation. Stirk continued holding on, face still toward the wall, eyes closed tight.

“Something with ‘ya’ at the end,” she said. She hadn’t heard clearly because she’d been concentrating on keeping the young man from moving, like Enin had asked. “Tranya? Sendya?”

“Danya,” Enin whispered and backed away. His thigh banged against the table, slopping cloudy water tinted brown with blood out of the bowl.

Bieta got to her feet with a wince, tongue rubbing the skin between her teeth. She squinted her one eye at the horse doctor, but he was too busy staring at the lad to notice the dirty look she had for him.

“Who’s Danya?” she asked. “Someone you know?”

With an effort, Enin dragged his gaze away from the fellow and met Bieta’s eye. She didn’t understand the expression on his face—he appeared fearful and worried. Why be scared of a practically dead man?

“He said Danya,” Enin confirmed.

“Guess so.”

“Don’t you know who that is?”

Bieta shook her head, a tingling of embarrassment in her gut at not recognizing this name the horse doctor so obviously thought she should. Her mind whirled through the faces and names she encountered in her daily life: the tanner, the men she serviced, the whores with whom she competed for coin. An examination of her mental list of acquaintances came up empty, so she continued shaking her head.

Enin’s gaze flitted to the lad’s face. “Danya.
Princess
Danya.”

Bieta didn’t understand for a moment, her mind grasping to find the meaning in the horse doctor’s words. He must have seen the struggle on her face, the lack of understanding.

“Don’t you see? You’ve kidnapped Prince Teryk. The heir to the throne.”

VIII Danya - Temple of the Goddess

“Where are you taking me?”

The girl didn’t respond—and Danya harbored no doubt she was indeed a girl. With the imminent threat looming at the Spokes, she hadn’t really observed her rescuer. Now, with more time, she saw the slightness of her stature, the smallness of her hands. She recognized the girlish nature of her voice on the rare occasions she urged the princess to keep pace. Though she had yet to see the face beneath the mask, she thought the girl had seen the seasons turn no more than ten times.

Despite the fearful reaction of the men at the market when they saw the girl, she appeared determined to skirt any potential confrontations. Rounding corners and cutting through alleys, she kept her pace steady as she led Danya by the hand. They followed a lane narrow enough it forced them to turn sideways to fit. In one particularly tight section, the wall scraped against both the princess’ chest and back before they emerged into a small courtyard created by the back walls of different buildings.

Danya planted her feet, nearly unbalancing the girl as she stopped.

The stench in the courtyard made the princess cover her mouth and nose with her free hand. She surveyed the tiny area, feeling the girl’s inquisitive eyes peering at her from behind the mask. The source of the malodorous fumes became quickly apparent: two moldering bodies lay against a wall, the skin dried and shriveled to the look of ancient parchment. Their eyes had been pecked out by birds or gnawed by vermin, and scabbards hung empty at their waists—taken by a different type of scavenger. Danya wondered if it was by the masked girl.

“Why do you take my through a place like this?” Danya demanded, refusing to continue despite the girl tugging on her hand.

“So no one will recognize you.”

Danya pulled the girl closer and raised a brow. “Do you know me?”

“You are Princess Danya.”

“And where are you taking me?”

The girl released her hold on Danya’s hand. “You are searching for a Mother, aren’t you?”

The princess’ mouth fell open, the putrid stench of the rotting bodies touching her tongue. “How do you—?”

Before she completed the question, the girl hurried off, squeezing through another narrow space at the far end of the courtyard. This time, Danya needed no prompting to follow.

She emerged into a section of the outer city that looked different again from the rest, with narrower streets and taller buildings. Many looked to have begun their existence with one or two stories, but they’d been added to as the seasons turned, growing toward the sky haphazardly until they resembled a pile of over-sized children’s blocks placed slightly askew. Above them, gray and white gulls wheeled, the upper levels of the buildings smeared with their droppings.

We’re close to the wharves.

Beyond these taller buildings, closer to the shore, they’d find squat warehouses. She’d seen them once when her father took her out upon the sea for the maiden voyage of a ship he’d named
Devil of the Deep
. Danya had been young at the time, and found the ship’s name frightening, but the network of docks and warehouses set against the backdrop of the city and the water’s salty scent had served to quell her fears. The memory was one of the few pleasant ones she could readily find in which she stood at her father’s side.

“Hide your face,” the girl said over her shoulder, then turned onto a busier street.

The princess pulled her collar up beside her cheeks, peering over the top at the people and wagons flowing along the avenue, ferrying workers and wares between Fishtown and the docks. A wagon heaped with fish, some still flopping, trundled past, three men armed with spears walking on either side, gazes fixed on the rest of the crowd.

Ahead, the girl slipped between a group of men and their wain and disappeared from Danya’s view. She hurried her pace, trying to get around the wagon stinking of sea water and scales, but one of the spear-bearers blocked her way.

“Step back,” the man commanded, scowling at her.

Does he think I’m here to steal his fish?

Danya frowned, but slowed as he’d asked. If she meant to discover why this girl said she’d been looking for her and how she knew about her search for the barren Mother, she’d best not get herself impaled on the man’s pike.

She stood on her toes and craned her neck, attempting to peer around the slow-moving obstruction and locate the dull green-robed girl before she got too far ahead. No color moved amongst the uniform drab browns and grays of the working class. Danya considered revealing her identity to them, demanding they let her by, but that would draw unwanted attention. Surely her mother and father had people searching for her by now.

The princess sighed, resolved to follow the wagon and hoping to find the girl once she could pass. The wagon rattled past an alley on the left and a figure called to Danya from the shadows.

“Psst.”

The princess stopped and peered into the dim space between a two story building with a roof sagging in the middle and another building that sprouted six stories high. Its top level leaned precariously—the reason the alley lay in shadow.

In the dimness, she made out a shape that may or may not have worn an olive robe, but there was no mistaking the white face adorned with red lips and black mustache. Danya glanced over her shoulder before zipping across the street and into the alley.

The girl reached for her hand and the princess allowed her to take it. They moved along the alley—wider than the one which had led to the courtyard, but narrow enough her shoulders brushed the sides at points. Danya raised her gaze to the edge of the building looming above, which nearly created a tunnel for them to pass beneath. Beyond the girl ahead of her, the alley lay empty—of people, of trash, of anything. No doors opened onto it from either of the buildings, no windows peered out over it. And the narrow lane stretched on as far as she could see.

“Where are we going?”

Danya stole a glimpse over her shoulder. The mouth of the alley seemed impossibly distant, the people and wagons traversing the street beyond blurred.

How have we come so far?

She turned back just as the girl halted in front of a brooding structure built of dull red brick that hadn’t been there a moment before. A black wooden door as wide as the lane broke the wall’s uniformity, no windows or decoration adorning the bricks. Danya stared.

“Is this…?”

“Our temple,” the girl said, stepping forward. “Come.”

The door swung open without benefit of her touch. She entered, still gripping Danya’s hand and, once they both crossed the threshold, the portal closed. The princess glanced back at who’d opened the door, but saw no one.

Flickering tapers set into sconces mounted on the wall at regular intervals illuminated the hallway. Danya examined them as they passed and noticed each candleholder was fashioned of wrought iron and shaped to resemble flowers. Some of them she recognized—roses, tulips, daffodils—others were less familiar. Between each set of sconces was a door, and every one of them the same—dark wood, brass handle, unnumbered, no signs. Nothing to indicate what lay behind them.

Danya followed in silence despite the feeling of foreboding weighing on her thoughts. What if the girl meant to bring her to people who intended her harm? To a nest of brigands set on making their fortune by ransoming her? It seemed unlikely, but couldn’t someone have recognized her and sent the girl to retrieve her? A sound explanation for the mask.

But it didn’t explain how she knew about the Mother.

No matter why she’d been brought here, she’d carry on; her brother’s death demanded it.

I will honor your name, Teryk. I promise.

As they walked, Danya counted her steps and kept track of each passage they traversed so she’d be able to find her way out. When they’d come upon the building, they’d been heading away from the docks—leeward, then. Through the door, eighty-six paces to the first turn—a left—thirty-two to the next—a right. Two more right turns and three more lefts combined with over five hundred paces and the princess had forgotten the first part of their trek. Realizing she’d be unable to escape the maze on her own, her hand found her dagger, its leather-wrapped hilt giving her a sense of composure.

After more turns and more paces Danya didn’t bother keeping track of, the masked girl stopped in front of a door identical to the others. The identical dark-stained wood, its brass handle mounted in the same place. The girl faced Danya and held one finger up to the painted lips on her mask before reaching for the handle.

A shiver coursed through the princess. She didn’t know what lay hidden behind the door, but as the hinges creaked, the air crackled and pulsed. The girl stepped through, her hand sliding out of Danya’s, and the princess remained standing in the hall, the hairs on the back of her neck prickling. Her heart beat fast, but it wasn’t fear that froze her step and increased her pulse—it was reverence.

Without seeing anything beyond the masked girl, she sensed what she’d find within the room would be capable of changing her life.

The girl wiggled her fingers, prompting Danya to follow, and the gesture released her hesitant feet from their spell. She crept forward three paces to carry her into the room and the young girl stepped aside.

The chamber was round instead of having four square walls like she’d expected. A dozen figures kneeled at regular intervals at the base of the curved wall, guttering tapers clenched between their hands. Each of them wore robes of deep purple and white wooden masks, every one painted with the same red lips, the same mustache and eyebrows. Despite the extraordinary scene, a bed set in the center of the room drew Danya’s attention.