The Darkness Comes (The Second Book of the Small Gods Series) (27 page)

The women walked away without another word, leaving Ailyssa feeling lost and alone in the middle of the prayer garden, birds twittering in the trees, water burbling close by. She carefully retraced her steps and slumped back on the bench, palm throbbing with pain unnoticed through her concern. She rubbed her hand on the front of her smock, nervousness growing as she wondered what a Reception was.

***

Other women milled about the reception hall, though Ailyssa couldn’t have guessed how many. She picked out four or five distinct voices, perhaps more, and there may have been Sisters like her who chose not to speak.

She rubbed her cut hand on the front of her smock, felt the bandage binding it. Creidra had collected her and took the time to wash blood from her arm and hand, then dressed it and helped her change into a clean outfit, but the young woman had spoken little. Ailyssa’s questions went unanswered as though they fell upon deaf ears. Creidra expressed concern about the cut on her hand, spoke of the lovely weather and the beauty of the gardens, but said not a word of this thing called a Reception.

But now Ailyssa sat in the hall, tense and worried as quiet conversations buzzed around her. Creidra had brought her, but left, so she knew no one else in the room, and they seemed happy enough to leave her on her own. Ailyssa wasn’t sure if she was glad of that, or wished for the company.

Soon after her arrival in the reception hall, the door swung open and the conversations ceased.

“Hello, Sisters,” N’th Adenine Re’a said from the doorway. “Is everyone ready?”

All around Ailyssa, disembodied voices confirmed they were, but she said nothing. Dread crept into her bones and she clasped her hands together tightly in her lap, shifting the bandage and causing pain in her palm. On the other side of the room, one of the other women squealed and clapped with excitement.

“Enter, gentlemen,” Adenine said.

Boot heels thumped the stone floor—many of them, by Ailyssa’s estimation—and the air in the room changed. It grew warmer and a musky odor crept in, usurping the pleasant aromas of scented oils wafting from the Sisters’ freshly-scrubbed bodies. Rose and jasmine and mint fell before the onslaught of dirt and sweat and lust.

This is my punishment.

The door closed again and the men’s footsteps made their way around the room. A few of the Sisters began speaking again, but not to each other, and their voices took on different tones—higher pitched, with flavors of desire and beckoning.

“Hello,” a woman to Ailyssa’s right said. “You are a handsome fellow, aren’t you? Big, too.”

The man chuckled, a rough, low sound like the burble of a brook. “You’re quite pretty yourself,” he replied.

Ailyssa gulped—the Reception displayed the women for the men, no better than cattle at an auction.

“Come on,” the man said and the woman’s skirts rustled as she stood.

“Where do you want to go?”

The man cleared his throat and when he spoke in a hushed voice, Ailyssa still heard his words. “Is there somewhere ye might tie me up?”

The Sister giggled. “Of course. Follow me.”

They left and Ailyssa gripped the arms of the chair in which she sat. This process seemed worse than having a man sent to her chamber—these visitors wanted more.

Around her, people spoke and laughed as the women did their best to tempt the men and the visitors picked the woman who’d suit their peculiar needs. She caught snippets of hushed conversations with mentions of feathers, masks, and something called a dildo. Ailyssa had no idea what that was.

She fidgeted in her chair as more of the Sisters paired off with the visitors and took their leave from the reception hall. The few remaining men’s boots scuffed on the floor as they made the circuit around the room from woman to woman. It didn’t disappoint Ailyssa that they passed her by.

“What’s wrong with this one?” a man she hadn’t realized stood directly in front of her asked.

“She’s blind.” Adenine’s voice.

“Blind, is she?”

Callused fingers gripped her chin, tilted her head back. Ailyssa gasped but didn’t struggle. She stared into the hazy glow, hoping the man would find her lack of vision unsatisfactory and move on.

“I likes her short hair,” he commented as he released her face. “Kinda makes her look like a man.”

“Well, she’s not, I assure you.”

“Hmm,” the man grunted. “Don’t know about fucking a blind woman.”

“It sounds as though you need an incentive,” Adenine said. A second later, her voice dropped to a whisper. Ailyssa leaned forward, straining to hear, but couldn’t.

“Really?” the man exclaimed, surprise in his tone. “You got yourself a deal.”

“Excellent. I know you will enjoy yourself.”

Ailyssa’s eyes widened and she pushed herself back in the chair, head shaking.

“No,” she said quietly. “Please, no.”

“She’s a feisty one, ain’t she? All the better.”

A hand gripped Ailyssa’s upper arm and yanked her up out of the chair. She scrambled to pull free, but the man’s grip was strong. Another hand touched her on the other arm; a mouth leaned close to her ear.

“Do not struggle,” Adenine whispered. “For Claris’ sake.”

Her quiet threat prickled along Ailyssa’s skin. She relented, allowing the man to lead her across the floor and out the door. Her heart beat heavy in her chest, its pounding echoing in her temples as they made their way along the hall and to a flight of stairs leading down from the temple’s main floor—stairs she hadn’t known existed. The odors of must and mold floated up from below.

“Where are you taking me?” she asked, fear making her voice flutter.

“The woman said I could take you for free,” the man said, his tone suggesting a smile on his lips, “if I put you through your paces in the dungeon. The dungeon usually costs extra, so I couldn’t say no to that.”

Ailyssa let out a yowl and tried to dig her feet in, but they slid on the stone floor. Supporting her by the arm, the man dragged her down the steps.

XXVII Kuneprius - Down by the Creek

“You shouldn’t have killed him.”

The trees had thinned, the thick-trunked jackpines giving way to slender birches with leaves waiting to change color and fall when third season arrived. One full turn and a quarter moon were yet to pass before third season came, and the twilight sun warmed Kuneprius through the clothes he wore against his will.

“It’s not what I taught you, Ves. Not how I raised you.”

The clay man plodded on ahead without in any way acting as though he heard or understood. Kuneprius wasn’t sure the thing could hear at all.

It’s not a thing. It’s Vesisdenperos.

Part of him clung to the notion, but he also wanted it not to be true. If the golem acted on its own, or if the thoughts of some priest controlled him, then his friend wasn’t responsible for the axe man’s death. And if Ves wasn’t responsible, neither was Kuneprius.

“Do you remember when you were in your twelfth turn of the seasons?” Kuneprius hurried his step to catch up. “The first day you modelled a man? You were so excited, you had trouble being still while I washed you.”

The clay man’s feet crunched through the undergrowth, unslowed by the creepers and twisted roots impeding Kuneprius. The living sculpture stepped over a fallen tree without adjusting his pace.

“That day, I guessed the destiny awaiting you. Certainly, other sculptors came before you, but none who moved so quickly beyond bowls and shapes to using their skills for molding a man.”

Kuneprius peered up through the leaves at the darkening sky. Soon, Ine’vesi—the evenstar—would appear, and the other Small Gods after that. Their appearance signaled time to stop for the night and offer vespers; since he’d missed his morning thanks, he couldn’t skip the evensong.

“Remember when you sculpted a statue of me?”

He glanced sideways, tilting his head back to watch for a flicker of recognition on the clay man’s brow. The unchanged expression left him disappointed. Kuneprius stared at his feet, carefully avoiding snags and ruts.

“I’m glad they allowed you to show me before they destroyed it.”

In the branches overhead, a nightjar sang, proclaiming the approach of sunset. The bird paused, the world holding its breath along with it, until another answered somewhere ahead. Wings beat, leaves fluttered, and the bird left Kuneprius alone with the living clay statue.

They continued in silence. Every ten paces, Kuneprius raised his eyes toward the sky, watching for Ine’vesi to show his twinkling face. Given they’d reached the eighth moon, the evenstar should show up overhead. Ten paces, glance up. Ten paces, glance up.

Between peering skyward through the branches and leaves in search of an excuse to stop for the night, Kuneprius rubbed his face with his hands. Each particle of dirt scraped on his flesh; his cheeks ached to be washed. With night so close to falling, it appeared he’d spend the night outdoors with the clay man for the first time since they left Murtikara—no roof over his head and no chance for a bowl full of water. He hoped they’d find a pond or stream nearby.

Two sunrises hadn’t passed without washing since the night he killed the girl, and still he couldn’t lave her blood from his cheeks.

His fingernails scraped along his jawbone, desperate to relieve the itch of her life dried on his skin. In doing so, he lost count of his steps. He stopped, let his arm fall to his side, and tilted his head back.

A smudge of gray crept across the sky from the direction of sunrise, but the leaves rustling in the gentle twilight wind obscured his view, and Ine’vesi remained hidden. The crackle and crunch of the clay man’s footsteps continued as Kuneprius stared up but, after a moment, they stopped, too, leaving only the whisper of the breeze to break the silence.

Kuneprius’ gaze flitted between the brief spaces that flashed when leaves shifted and allowed him a glimpse of the sky. He leaned one way, then the other, searching for the evenstar, when a thought occurred to him:

Why did Ves stop?

A finger of panic leaped into his chest and he tore his gaze away from the branches overhead to scan the sparse forest. He easily spied the clay man’s broad gray back fifteen paces ahead but, in the gathering dim, Kuneprius couldn’t see why he’d halted.

Unevenly heeled boots scuffing along the ground, he hurried to catch up. The living sculpture didn’t move and, for a moment, Kuneprius worried he might no longer be alive. Both sadness and relief flashed through him at the thought but, as he came up beside the golem, he saw this wasn’t the reason he’d halted.

Thirty paces ahead, at the bottom of the shallow rise on top of which they stood, a creak cut through the forest, its fast-running water burbling over stones worn smooth by time. With the dip in the ground and the wind in the trees, its gurgle had been hidden until they were nearly upon it.

The sight of the stream invigorated Kuneprius, sending energy coursing through his limbs. He might have rushed forward to plunge his face into the swift coolness, joyously counting how long he held his breath, but the same thing which halted the clay man froze his steps, too.

Beside the creek, two children kneeled, staring up the hill at the blank-eyed, clay-skinned man.

Neither of them moved and, were he closer, Kuneprius suspected he’d have found they held in their air, as did he. The entire forest went quiet, save for the burble of the stream. If he listened close enough, Kuneprius thought he might have counted the worms slithering through the dirt, detected the tiptoe steps of spiders, discovered whether the clay man possessed a heart.

One of the children—a girl who hadn’t seen the seasons turn more than seven times—stood, arms dangling at her sides, a short stick caked with mud on one end held in her hand.

At her movement, the clay man took a step toward them.

Kuneprius’ heart jumped against his ribs and he forgot about worms and spiders, water and ages-old blood. A chill crept across his cheeks and he clutched at the clay man’s arm.

“No,” he said, breathless.

The golem’s head twisted toward him, as though he heard his words for the first time since they’d departed Murtikara. Dull gray lids scarped across lifeless dun-colored eyes. For an instant, Kuneprius thought the clay man understood, then the boy, who had remained kneeling, stood.

The clay Vesisdenperos’ head jerked in the direction of the children and panic flared in Kuneprius again. He raised his hand toward the boy and girl staring up the hill at them.

“Get away! Run!”

He’d made the gesture before he realized what a mistake it was.

The girl dropped the mud-caked stick and grabbed the boy’s sleeve, pulling him away from the flattened bank where they’d been playing by the creek. Small feet beat the firm ground, leaping over rocks with the certainty of those who’d walked the same path many times.

The clay man hesitated one heartbeat before bounding down the hill after them.

“No!”

***

The stream burbled. Wind rustled the leaves. Overhead, darkness had overtaken the day and the Small Gods twinkled and winked from their prison in the sky.

Wet mud soaked the knees and backside of Kuneprius’ breeches, but he neither noticed nor cared. He felt no urge to dunk his face in the rushing water, nor did he notice the tightness of old, imagined blood drying on his cheeks.

Fresh blood on his hands usurped his attention.

The young girl’s head lay on his lap, eyes closed, broken body still and quiet. She was much younger than the woman he’d killed long ago. This time, it hadn’t been his hands that brought her death, but it did nothing to ease the pain in his heart. Responsibility still belonged to him.

Kuneprius brushed hair off her forehead, a few strands sticking in her crusted blood. The boy—her younger brother, he suspected—lay in the mud five paces away, his body twisted, his sightless eyes staring at Kuneprius, accusing.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered and brushed his fingers along her cheek. Her skin was already cold. “I’m so sorry.”

Kuneprius raised his head and glared at the clay man sitting on a log at the bottom of the rise. The statue stared straight ahead, his sleek skin glistening in the moonlight, and paying no attention to his companion sent to ensure he returned with a Small God of the Green. Kuneprius trembled—with anger, with hatred, with fear and despair.