The Darkness Comes (The Second Book of the Small Gods Series) (6 page)

The Small God smiled and Horace shuddered, wonderin’ why his mouth’d agreed to somethin’ so foolish.

IV Kuneprius - Murtikara

Kuneprius woke with a start, the young woman’s gaze haunting him as it did every morning when his sleeping ended.

He sat up and jammed the heels of his hands into his eyes hard enough to hurt, attempting to rub the vision away. Some nights, her eyes glistened with sadness and tears; others, they held an unfamiliar expression his dream-self knew to be desire. This night, hatred and a thirst for vengeance shone in their deep blue.

Kuneprius inhaled noisily through his nose and let a prolonged sigh escape his lips.

“Are you all right, Brother?”

“Everything’s fine, Ves.” He lowered his hands and glanced across the room at the empty bed. “A nightmare, that’s all.”

This marked the third sunrise since he and Vesisdenperos last engaged in their morning ritual, yet he carried it on, his friend’s voice heard only in his head. He swung his legs around and set the soles of his feet on the threadbare rug, flexed and released his toes four times to encourage the blood to flow. Another breath, filled with the scent of the room’s dirt floor and clay dust hanging in the air.

He stared at the other bunk, pretending Vesisdenperos had risen early, eager to get to the day’s tasks, though they were the same as every other day. Kuneprius wondered if his friend still performed his task, perhaps with someone else assisting him, replacing Kuneprius.

No. That wouldn’t be.

He stood, knees popping from over-use, not with age, he insisted to himself. A sliver of dim light squeezed through the crack around the shutters, indicating dawn crouched just below the horizon, waiting to creep into the sky at its usual languid pace. Everything about the day was the same as every other day, except for the absence of the man he’d raised as his son.

Kuneprius found his way across the room to the washing bowl. The water he’d filled it with the night before was clear, unlike most mornings. Normally, after filling it in the evening, Vesisdenperos would return from the cave, fingers curved into useless claws caked with clay. It fell to Kuneprius to wash him, unbending his gnarled hands and leaving the water silty and tinted gray, then change his clothes, feed him, and put him to bed. It had been this way every day since Ves came of age and began his training.

This was the third sunrise he’d woken to unclouded water, and the sight of it set his chest aching with loneliness.

He cupped his hands and submerged them in the cool water, splashed it on his face. Once. Twice. Three times, then stood leaning over the bowl, letting drops fall from his nose and chin. As tiny waves rolled across the surface, he wondered what had happened to his friend. None of the Brothers of Murtikara had uttered a word, and the priests who’d come from Teva Stavoklis had disappeared in the dark of the night, leaving behind no answers for Kuneprius.

Was he alive? Dead? Caught somewhere in between?

Hands gripping the table in either side of the bowl, Kuneprius leaned forward and plunged his face into the water. The chill touched his nose, his cheeks. He shut his eyes and counted.

One. Two. Three.

As happened every time he closed his lids, he saw the girl begging for her life, heard the cry of the baby Vesisdenperos, inhaled the coppery tang of her spilled blood.

Forty-nine. Fifty. Fifty-one.

He drew out each number as he counted, making them each a uniform duration. When he reached eighty, he opened his eyes and stared at the bowl’s flat, white surface. A single dark fleck sat in the crease where the bottom bent upward into the bowl’s sides—a tiny speck of clay. The last remaining sign of Vesisdenperos.

One hundred eight. One hundred nine. One hundred ten.

The air captured in his chest threatened to set his lungs on fire and bubbles spilled out of his mouth, rolling along his cheeks and up past his ears. He pressed his lips together, determined.

One hundred twenty-eight. One hundred twenty-nine.

He threw his head back, splashing water down his back and across the floor. Vesisdenperos’ voice laughed in his head.

“How many?”

“One hundred twenty-nine,” Kuneprius said as he wiped droplets off his face with his hand.

“That’s not many. Haven’t you done one hundred eighty before?”

“One hundred eighty-eight. Once. In my youth.”

He pushed his wet hair back from his forehead and peered over his shoulder at the other bed, its blankets and sheets tucked in around the edges as they’d been these last three sunrises. The emptiness and order of it made Kuneprius shake his head. He took a cloth from the stand, dunked it in the water. After wringing it out, he washed his body, anxious to get to the seed garden and commence his day, though it promised nothing more than waiting.

Alone with his thoughts.

Kuneprius donned his robe and went to the door, pausing to consider the empty room once more before he stepped across the threshold.

Sunrise hues of pink and orange smeared across the distant horizon and bled away into a still-dark sky where the Small Gods continued to reign. Kuneprius closed his eyes and bowed his head, saying a silent thanks to the gods for whom he lived—for giving him this day, this life. He didn’t thank them for taking away his friend.

With his morning thanks complete, Kuneprius made his way across the courtyard toward the seed garden, thankful to find it unoccupied. Many of the other Brothers did their seeding in groups, but Kuneprius preferred to offer his tribute alone.

Pebbles pressed into the soles of his bare feet, but they didn’t bother him. Unlike the priests and most of the Brothers, Kuneprius rarely wore sandals, for his job didn’t require foot protection. With the passage of seasons, he’d developed thick calluses on his heels, toes, and the pads of his feet. In fact, he rarely wore more than the simple robe.

A robin perched on a low branch in the tree beside the seed garden, the bird’s breast the same color as the arbutus tree’s trunk beneath its peeling bark. Kuneprius stood at the edge of the garden, watching the bird singing its morningsong, letting its melodic strains calm him. Upon noticing him, its twittering ceased and it hopped to a higher limb.

“You’re right. I best get to it before someone else comes.”

Kuneprius settled his feet and inserted his hand between the folds of his robe, taking his manhood in his fingers. He began manipulating it, closing his eyes and counting each short stroke. In his mind, he pictured the Small Gods—their struggle, their sacrifice—as he’d been taught from the time he became old enough to produce seed.

Nothing happened.

He opened one eye and peeked back over his shoulder at the courtyard. It remained deserted. At least he had time.

His eye closed again, Kuneprius increased the pace of his strokes and shortened his breathing. He abandoned counting to concentrate on his tribute, his stomach knotting at having done so. The images he’d been trained to hold in his mind faded and reshaped themselves until he saw the young girl’s face.

Her eyes gazed back at him, but they didn’t shine with hatred as in his most recent dream. They were soft and caring, filled with emotion he’d been taught since childhood that women didn’t possess.

In his hand, his manhood trembled and grew.

Kuneprius thought of her lying on the ground, staring up at him, but he didn’t see blood and death around her. Instead, he pictured a field of grass and flowers and her curves hidden beneath the plain gray smock. He imagined what the coarse, gray fabric might hide.

His staff hardened and Kuneprius stopped stroking, opened his eyes.

He couldn’t seed the garden of the Small Gods with such blaspheme in his mind; to do so would be sacrilege—an act he’d perpetrated too often. Now that his friend’s fate rested in the hands of the gods, he’d take no chance he might offend them.

The robin sang overhead. Kuneprius scanned the courtyard once more and, finding it still empty, snorted hard through his nose, drawing its contents into the back of his throat. He spat the wad of mucus into the garden where it spattered against the side of a rock, the viscous fluid sliding toward the dirt. Not exactly the right color, but it would pass a cursory inspection.

Kuneprius let his robe fall closed and tilted his head back to view the bird again, slowing his breathing while in wait for his erection to deflate. The robin twittered and sang, letting its brethren know it had survived another night, but this time its tune didn’t ease the man’s concern. He’d made it through the night like the robin, but what of Vesisdenperos?

The sun climbed above the horizon, sending the Small Gods fleeing to their dens to hide from the day, and Kuneprius felt the pressure of their gaze lift from his soul. Perhaps today would be the day he’d have news of his friend.

Before pivoting away from the seed garden, Kuneprius adjusted his robe, lining the seams up in a symmetrical pattern, then he made his way toward the meal shack.

It sat at the end of the compound and looked no different from the other buildings but for the near-constant column of gray smoke swirling skyward from the ovens and cook fires. As he approached, he detected the scent of the meal meant to break his fast and his stomach grumbled in anticipation.

“Probably gruel again this morning,” he said.

“Maybe fruit today,” Vesisdenperos’ voice responded. “Or berries.”

“Or maybe they’ve slaughtered a pig and they’ll have a rasher of bacon for all.”

He chuckled at the morning ritual, but his laughter burbled across his lips alone. It was always gruel, seldom fruit, and bacon touching a Brother’s plate was unheard of, but the repartee wasn’t amusing without Vesisdenperos walking beside him.

The meal shack’s door opened on creaking hinges and Kuneprius entered to a clatter of clay mugs and plates, the odor of milk and cereal boiling in great pots. He counted the Brothers in the room—eighteen, not including the cooks—and made his way to his accustomed place on the bench to the far left. His plate sat exactly the way he’d left it, chipped edge at the top, facing sunset, and his cup flipped upside-down to keep spiders out. He retrieved both, straightened the woven place mat that shifted as he picked up his plate, and started for the front of the room to await Brother Ytheriod to scoop a ladle full of porridge from the pot for him.

Halfway to the short line, he stopped.

A robed man he hadn’t counted stood at the serving table, a hood pulled low to hide his face. Kuneprius glanced at his own tan robe, then up at the man’s black one.

A priest of Teva Stavoklis.

He stared at the priest, unable to make his feet move any farther, but he didn’t need to. The black-robed man’s head tilted in his direction and he strode toward him. Kuneprius struggled to prevent his hands from shaking.

“You are Kuneprius,” the priest said—a statement, not a question, “keeper of Vesisdenperos, the sculptor.”

Normally, Kuneprius would have nodded his head three times to indicate agreement, but this time he struggled to move it once.

“You are to come with me.”

The priest glided past without awaiting a response, his sandals silent on the dirt floor of the meal shack. Kuneprius stood frozen for a moment, noticing the Brothers around him sneaking glimpses as they scooped spoonfuls of flavorless gruel into their mouths or sipped their juniper tea. Their gazes touched his soul like fingers poking him, coaxing him to follow the priest.

“Better go,” Vesisdenperos’ voice whispered in his ear. “This is your chance to see me. You might not recognize me.”

Kuneprius spun around and followed the priest. On his way past his seat, he set his plate and cup back on the table, the chipped edge left askew and the cup upright, inviting spiders to enter.

***

The color of the dirt beneath his bare feet faded from brown to gray as they approached the mouth of the cave.

Kuneprius had been here once, on the day Vesisdenperos saw the seasons turn for the sixteenth time—the day the priesthood revealed to the boy his calling. Season after season before that day, he’d knelt in other caves, manipulating clay into different shapes, building his skills until a priest came from Teva Stavoklis and showed him where he’d build the man who’d change the world. He’d been so excited, he couldn’t wait to show Kuneprius the cave. That day, they’d stood outside and peered into the darkness, not daring to step within.

The priest ducked his head and entered the cave, but Kuneprius halted after his three thousand, eight hundred and thirty-first step, stopping precisely in the same spot where he’d squinted into the cave with Vesisdenperos that day so long ago. Then, as now, he’d known the task meant for the boy, because wasn’t it he who’d condemned him to it? He’d liberated him from the Goddess’ caravan; he’d brought him before Kristeus; he’d taken care of him every day since.

The early morning sun peeked over the top of the cave’s mouth, its rays warming Kuneprius through his robe and making it impossible for him to see beyond the entrance. A bead of sweat rolled down his chest; he did nothing to stop it.

He knew what to expect inside the cave, but he didn’t want to enter. Was he supposed to? The priest had disappeared within and not beckoned him to follow. Kuneprius shuffled his feet, felt a pebble pressing against the arch of his foot, shifted away from it. He inhaled a breath filled with the scent of clay and nothing else, then released it through pursed lips, readying himself to discover his friend’s fate.

Before he took the first step, the priest reappeared. He strode out of the cave and into sunlight, his shadow stretching in front of him. Kuneprius looked at the front edge of the dark shape—the shadow of the priest’s hood—falling across his feet, the black outline connecting the two men.

Another shadow joined the first. It flowed across the gray ground like water, joining the priest’s at his feet, then continuing past. Without meaning to, Kuneprius let his mouth fall open and tasted clay on his tongue. He raised his head.

The biggest man Kuneprius had ever seen stood beside the priest. If he was a man at all. He didn’t move, and it was difficult to tell where the ground ended and the man began, for they were both of the same color, molded of the same substance.