The Darkness Comes (The Second Book of the Small Gods Series) (11 page)

A woman lay upon the bed, a thick layer of blankets tucked in around her and pulled up under her chin. Her wispy gray hair, recently brushed, lay fanned across her pillow. The skin upon her forehead and cheeks was wrinkled and pruned as if she’d spent too much time in water. Her pale lips were closed, her eyelids drawn like shutters.

By far the oldest person upon whom Danya had ever set her gaze.

Is she dead?

She glanced at the woman’s blanket-covered chest but saw no movement at first. When Danya faced the masked girl who’d guided her to the chamber, her escort waved her arm toward the bed. Danya swallowed and moved to the bedside, close enough to see the shallow motion of the woman’s breathing. A moment later, the masked girl stood beside her.

“This is N’th Sylla Re’a Shi,” she said, her voice a hushed and pious whisper. “The Mother of Death.”

IX Ailyssa - Jubha Kyna

The Matrons of Olvana had spoken of Jubha Kyna in hushed words, proclaiming it an affront to the Goddess and a shrine to greed suited more to the Small Gods. As the wheels of Creidra’s wagon rumbled along the rough track, Ailyssa longed to view the temple her Sisters had whispered of, the place capable of causing such a stir.

“We are close,” Creidra said raising her voice to be heard over the sound of hooves tromping the ground.

Beside her on the wagon’s bench, Ailyssa clasped her hands in her lap. Her chest ached with the emotions battling within her—nerves brought on by the rumors and hope at being brought back to the Goddess.

“Tell me about the temple, Sister.”

“Oh, it’s beautiful.” Creidra laid her hand on the woman’s forearm. “It sits outside the town of Farmland, surrounded by lush fields. Four floors rise above the plain, with Goddess sculptures watching over us from each corner.”

“Statues of the Goddess?” The thought brought a shiver along Ailyssa’s back. In Olvana, depictions of the Goddess were forbidden.

“Yes. Some are carved of marble, others of simple sandstone. In every one, she is triumphant and loving, though in each her face takes on a different aspect. Each sculptor shows her in a different light, with a different face, but they are all the Goddess.”

“It sounds…” Ailyssa swallowed, unsure whether it sounded wonderful—the word clinging to the end of her tongue—or sacrilegious, which her mind told her to say. She chose neither. “Tell me more.”

“The center of the temple opens into a courtyard, where the prayer gardens are kept. Every flower imaginable. The colors are breathtaking.”

Ailyssa said nothing, staring straight ahead at the blur of light disrupting her vision, but the mention of the garden eased her concern. She relished the idea of being somewhere that held some familiarity, even if blindness hid it from her.

“Oh, I’m sorry, N’th Ailyssa Ra,” Creidra said, squeezing her arm. “Am I being insensitive speaking of colors you cannot see?”

A smile crept across Ailyssa’s face. Though she’d had her titles stripped and no longer deserved them, it warmed her heart when the young woman used them. She chose not to correct her.

“No, Sister. Do not interpret my silence as sorrow. I’m glad to be returned to the Goddess. Glad you found me before…” Her voice trailed off. She didn’t want to imagine what she might have done if the young woman hadn’t discovered her. She cleared her throat and changed the subject. “Did you mention a town nearby? There were no towns near Olvana.”

“Your order is…extreme.”

Ailyssa’s smiled wavered and she sensed Creidra’s gaze on her. “What of this town?”

Creidra took her hand off Ailyssa’s arm and snapped the reins. Her horse whinnied and increased its gait, the faster pace enough to create a breeze against Ailyssa’s cheek.

“Farmland is small. A surgeon, a general store, a banker—the essentials necessary to serve the farmers. The area is peaceful and quiet and filled with hard-working men who enjoy the opportunity to support the Goddess when they’re not busy in the fields.”

“Support the Goddess?” Ailyssa repeated, though she read the implication in Creidra’s words and suppressed another shiver.

“Don’t worry, Ailyssa. There is room for you to do your part.”

They fell into silence for a while. Ailyssa concentrated on the jingle of the horse’s harness and clatter of the wagon’s boards to distract her from the bits and pieces of rumors she recalled about Jubha Kyna. Surely they couldn’t be true. How could the Goddess hold a place of honor and love for women who sold their services to become with children?

Maybe it’s a blessing my blood ceased.

Ailyssa’s blurred vision dimmed for an instant, then brightened again, making her breath catch in her throat.

“Are we here?”

“Yes,” Creidra said. “We’ve just passed under the gate into the outer courtyard. How did you know?”

“The light changed.” The thought sparked hope in her chest. Did this mean her vision was returning?

Creidra guided the wagon through the yard, angling left before yanking on the reins to halt the horse. They sat for a moment, the aroma of herbs the young woman had gathered reaching Ailyssa’s nose now they no longer moved. She detected mint and doll leaf, but the others were unfamiliar; no surprise as she’d received no education in herbology. Not recognizable, but their odors pleased her, warmed her heart.

“Wait. I’ll help you.”

Creidra climbed out of the driver’s seat, the wagon jouncing under her weight. Her sandals scraped the ground as she hurried around in front of the horse before skidding to a stop beside Ailyssa. An instant later, her hand rested on her passenger’s arm.

“Take my hand.”

Ailyssa nodded and groped in the foggy light of her vision until her fingers found the young woman’s. She bent and placed her other hand on the edge of the seat, then stepped down tentatively. Despite her care, the jolt of her foot finding the ground clicked her teeth together.

“I will take you to N’th Adnine Re’a. She is high Matron of Jubha Kyna, the Mother of Mothers.”

Creidra took her arm and led her away from the wagon, allowing her no time to respond. But what would she say? Her skin prickled with nerves at hearing the words Jubha Kyna, never mind being in the place. But if her choice was to wander alone and lost until death took her, it was no choice at all.

They paused and hinges creaked. New smells wafted to Ailyssa—incense, polished wood, the odors of a kitchen. Creidra tugged on her arm and pulled her across the threshold, then paused again as she closed the door with a solid thud of wood against stone and the thump of a metal ring.

The quality of the blurred light filling Ailyssa’s eyes dimmed. Without seeing, she knew they’d entered a building—the temperature dropped, the light faded, the sounds of the outside were muted. A few paces in, the stone floor ended and a thick rug began, silencing their passage.

Creidra led Ailyssa a dozen paces along what she assumed to be an entrance hall. They rounded a corner to the left, then continued around enough corners and bends, down passages and through sufficient doors for Ailyssa to lose any sense of orientation. Occasional whispers reached her ears—the hushed voices of women commenting on their passing or merely the rasp of their feet on thick rugs, she couldn’t tell which. Creidra didn’t speak, though, so Ailyssa chose silence, too.

As they walked, the scents of the building changed. The aroma of roses came and went as quickly as Ailyssa identified it, replaced by jasmine and lilac. The familiar smells fortified her; perhaps Creidra intended to take her to the prayer gardens, somewhere Ailyssa might feel less lost, less abandoned by the Goddess.

She hasn’t abandoned me. She sent sister Creidra to rescue me.

The thought sat well in her head, but didn’t fit in her heart. Ailyssa tried to force it, but found no room.

The garden scents disappeared and Creidra slowed their pace.

“Watch your step,” she said, and the two women mounted a flight of stairs.

They climbed twenty steps to a landing, then bent to the right, where there were twenty more. At the top, they hurried along another hallway and Ailyssa had the impression it was narrower than the others they’d traversed. Even without the benefit of sight, she sensed the ceiling hanging overhead, the walls closer on either side. And the odors of the passage were so different from the lower floor—thicker, musky.

For the first time during their trek, she detected noises she could be certain didn’t belong to the scuff of their feet on carpet, the rub of the fabric of their clothes. Voices spoke behind closed doors, muffled by thick wood so she couldn’t understand their words, but she understood their tone and timbre. Many of them belonged to women, but men’s voices rumbled amongst them. Recognizing this explained the odor.

These are coupling rooms.

“More stairs,” Creidra said and they climbed another twenty steps, bent left and ascended twenty more.

Another hall followed, this one shorter than the others, and they mounted a third set of stairs. By the time Ailyssa counted the thirty-fifth step—there had been no landing after the twentieth—her heart pounded hard in her chest like a caged animal attempting escape, and her breath struggled to reach her lungs.

“How much farther?” she panted.

“Almost there,” Creidra said with no hint of breathlessness in her voice. “Are you all right? Do you want to rest?”

“I’m fine. No need,” Ailyssa said shaking her head and feeling the dampness of perspiration on her brow. Five steps later, they reached the top.

Despite her dissent, they paused long enough for her to catch her breath. When her breathing eased, she noted the silence pervading the floor.

“This is the great hall,” Creidra whispered. Her voice echoed, providing evidence of her words. “The chambers of N’th Adnine Re’a are at the far end.”

Ailyssa swallowed hard and nodded, waiting for the young woman to lead her. They didn’t move, as though awaiting something, the silence pressing in around them. Ailyssa shifted from foot to foot, noted the small pain of the cut on her toe where she’d kicked the rock. Feeling it sent a shiver of relief along her spine—perhaps it was good to be alive, after all.

The emotion died when N’th Creidra let go of her arm.

“I am not yet Ra,” the young woman said. “I cannot cross the Goddess’ hall.”

“But I can’t see.”

Panic jumped in Ailyssa’s chest. A wave of vertigo gripped her mind and she groped blindly in front of her, reaching for Creidra to help steady her. An instant later, the young woman’s hand touched her shoulder and the dizziness passed.

“You’ll be fine,” she said, her tone hushed and breathy. “The Goddess will guide you.”

Ailyssa licked her lips, her mouth suddenly dry. She shook her head, remembering her stumbling journey after she’d awakened, the number of times she fell, scraping her knees and cutting her palms. Any of them could have been a tumble over a cliff, a fall that hit her head on a rock, a blind grope into the den of a bear.

But this is the Goddess’ hall.

No bears’ dens to wander into, no cliffs to plunge off, no rocks to stub on and stumble over. Judging by the way Creidra’s whispered words echoed, the floor lay bare ahead of her.

What if there is no floor?

A foolish thought. Why should this woman rescue her and go to the effort of bringing her here to watch her fall to her death? The Goddess wasn’t so cruel. Was she?

“It’s okay,” N’th Creidra said. “No harm will befall you. I’ll guide you with my voice.”

Ailyssa’s lips quivered and she ran her tongue back and forth on the inside of her teeth. After a hesitation, she nodded once, and the young woman took her hand away.

“Go ahead.”

Ailyssa lifted her right foot, extended it, and set it down again. A step the same as any other, like the thousands upon thousands she’d taken in her life. She panted a breath out through her nose and took another step, another. Her bare foot’s gentle slap on the smooth stone floor swirled around her like birds taking wing, fluttering past her head to alight on beams unseen in the ceiling high overhead. Ailyssa raised her head as if she might espy the wings of those echoes, but saw only the hazy light.

“Keep going,” Creidra encouraged.

After wiping her brow on her forearm, Ailyssa continued. She crept across the room, sure with each step she’d topple and fall, relieved when her foot rested safely on the floor. She lost track of the number of paces she took, but when Creidra called out for her to stop, the young woman’s voice seemed to come from a distance.

“What do I do now?” Ailyssa’s words fell flat against a wall or door directly in front of her. “N’th Creidra?”

The young woman didn’t answer. Ailyssa first thought to find out if she remained with her, but that would do her no good. Did it matter if the woman had left or fallen silent? It did—Ailyssa didn’t want to be alone.

“Creidra?”

The creak of old hinges answered her call. A waft of warmer air scented with cedar incense and the hint of medicinal herbs beneath washed over Ailyssa’s face. She tensed, expecting a hand laid upon her, but there was none.

“Enter, child,” spoke a voice tinted with the passage of years. “Be not afraid.”

She was, but Ailyssa extended her hand and took a step across the threshold despite the fear. The door swung shut behind her.

“You cannot see?”

“N—no.”

“You are safe in the chambers of N’th Adnine Re’a. Come forward five paces so I can see you.”

Ailyssa hesitated, the niggling feeling things weren’t what they seemed pressing at the back of her mind. But hadn’t N’th Creidra gotten her here safely? And guided her through hallways, up stairs, and across the Goddess’ hall without incident? Why should this be any different?

She gave in, her hand sweeping side to side in front of her as she counted off five steps in her head. After the fifth, Ailyssa stopped and lowered her arm, standing stiff and straight, waiting.

“You are of the Olvana temple, are you not?”

Ailyssa ran her hand over her short hair, assuming it identified her to Adnine as it had to Creidra.