Hall of Smoke

by H. M. Long

  Finally, I stepped through Iskir’s charred gate. There were too many bodies now, sunken into layers of rain-sealed earth and ash. Too many rites to perform. So I picked my way through debris, tufts of brave new grass and walls of charred stone, to what had been Iskir’s Hall of Vision, the second greatest Eangi Hall.

  The lines of its carved stone doorframe stood out against the cloud-studded sky. I ran a hand over intricate latticework and runes, the stylized owls and representations of Eang with helmet and her bearded axes, Galger and Gammler. Through the archway, I could see nothing but collapsed beams. I was sure there were bodies there, friends and comrades and distant relations, but they were long beyond recognition, and my grief remained obscure.

  Still, I leant my head against the stone and fought back a wave of despair. The smell of char and rot washed over me in waves, merging with my memories of Albor. I dragged in a few shallow breaths to keep my stomach down, but the wind gusted through the ruins. Fine ash rushed into my lungs, making me cough and twist away.

  “Eangi.”

  I raised my head and choked.

  Eang approached through flurries of dust and ash, setting her feet around stones, beside a corpse’s reaching hand, over a fallen beam. She wore helmet and armor of burnished bronze plates over a tunic of pure black. Her fitted trousers were muddied up to the knee and her upper arms were bare, revealing corded muscle and a web of bleeding scratches, as if she had been caught in brambles. Her head was framed by the blades of her two bearded axes, just like the carvings.

  My heart exploded into a panicked, joyous canter and I dropped to my knees. “Eang!”

  The goddess raised a hand to silence me. Stricken, I cast my eyes down and forced them to remain there as she strode forward. One step at a time, her muddy, blackened boots entered my line of sight.

  “They cannot rest,” Eang’s voice sounded hollow and disjointed. “Sing the rites, child.”

  With a shaking hand, I tugged up my flask and took a drink to clear the ash from my tongue, still not daring to look at her face. Eang, here, after all this time? After so much silence? Perhaps all my doubts had been wrong. Perhaps Eang had returned to the land, Shanich and her ilk would slumber again, and Eangen would be restored.

  I sketched the runes I needed in the ash and stood. I cleared my throat. Then, closing my eyes, I lifted my chin and began to sing a broad, sweeping version of the final rites.

  My voice quavered and rasped. It died at the end of the first line and agonized stillness descended upon the ruins. I clutched an arm across my chest and began again, singing more softly. The words were old, the oldest – like my name, like the stones, like my people’s memories of the boats that had brought us across the sea.

  All the while, Eang’s gaze bored into me. Once, when I cracked open an eye, I saw the weakness of her posture, the openness of her hands at her sides. Her own eyes were invisible behind her helmet, but blood clung to the line of her jaw, dripping and fresh. Blood running down from a concealed wound.

  The sight struck fear and helplessness into me, as if I were a child watching my parents weep. They had wept over my sister the day the Algatt threw her from the loft, and it had terrified me more than Hulda’s stillness. But even that paled in comparison to watching the Goddess of War bleed.

  I finished the first song, then the second. When I began to pray, Eang tilted her face up towards the night sky in relish.

  The ground beneath my feet eased. There was no other way I could describe it. All the blood, all the sorrow in the earth released like a sigh and was caught up in the wind with dirt and ash and dust.

  At the same time, something else departed. I had not sensed it until the void opened; the presence of a thousand souls, the souls of my people, clustered about me. And once they were gone, I stood alone.

  Eang laughed, shedding tension with every note. She rolled her shoulders and arched her back, drawing Galger and Gammler in a smooth, simultaneous movement. Their bearded blades caught the moonlight, legendary iron glinting with embossed golden patterns and runes.

  The relief welling up inside me soured as she took another step forward. Her footfalls made no sound. Why not, if Eang was truly here?

  Fear struck me like a stave in the chest. “Ogam?” I whispered, recoiling. Trustworthy or not, he was still the only one I could think to call upon. “Hear me. Please.”

  Eang’s head snapped down like a snake. “Who did you call?”

  My hands twitched towards the throwing axes at my hips. “Goddess, I mean no disrespect. May I see your face? My road has been long, and it would ease my soul.”

  She paused for one moment, then pulled the helmet free. Her black hair was shaved down to the scalp in a hundred ragged cuts, supplying the blood I had seen on her jaw. Her eyes were restless hollows, her lips dry and cracked, and the richness of her skin dulled by… illness? Once more, her face was wrong. This was not Eang’s mouth, Eang’s nose, or Eang’s cheekbones. They were crude and raw, like a half-finished carving.

  A cold pool of dread trickled into my gut. I reached for the shard of the goddess inside me. It lit, but not with the strength and ferocity it should have so close to Eang herself.

  Understanding struck me with far more grief than fear. This was not Eang at all. My goddess was still absent.

  As desperately as I wanted to break down or fly into a panic, one sheltered quarter of my mind retained its clarity. Sing, Ogam had told me, if I encountered anything like Shanich again – and for all I knew, this imposter was precisely that.

  I opened my quivering lips and began another song. It was still a funerary song, but it rolled and lilted like a lullaby.

  The creature that would be Eang loosened her shoulders. As she moved her body changed, waist thickening, hips thinning, shoulders broadening and breasts retreating. Her hair remained cropped, but the female lines of her face fell away; her jaw broadened and a beard unfurled.

  Last of all, the thing before me grew. It gained two feet in height and its clothes changed to match its new form – broadening, tightening and transitioning.

  The imposter stretched out his newly formed chest and unleashed a rivalrous battle cry to the stars.

  The ground beneath my feet trembled. I staggered back into the doorway of the Hall of Vision, still singing, battling to keep my voice level and my panic at bay as dust and ash dislodged from the lintel in a grey, choking veil. But it gave me no shelter. The creature’s gaze fastened on me and my throat closed over.

  He stalked forward and took up position just outside of the arch’s shadow, leaving me with a thin hope that he wouldn’t dare step on Eang’s sacred ground.

  I coughed, blinked ash from stinging eyes and started to sing again, louder this time, repeating the same song until my voice began to falter and crack with numbing, dull terror. He watched me, his face not so much aggressive as intent. With every passing moment, his skin became more radiant, his muscles harder and his stare sharper. He lifted his feet and tested his limbs, eyes still fixed on my face. They were an incredible blue now, dark as the sea and iridescent as the moon hanging over his shoulder.

  “Where is your mistress?” the being demanded.

  My voice died.

  All at once, one of his hands was free of an axe. It shot out with inhuman speed and seized me by the tunic, jerking me from the shadow of the doorframe. I bit off a scream as he slammed me back against the stone wall outside, shield and all.

  His fingers closed around my throat. I let out a whistling shriek and retracted my legs, trying to use my own weight to drop free and kicking him in the process.

  At the same time, my Fire flew. His hands contracted and his body bent under the force, but he did not fall. Whoever this was, my shard of Eang was not enough to deter him, and my frantic kicks might as well have been raindrops.

  His grip strengthened again, stronger than iron, stronger than anything I’d felt before. All I succeeded in doing was nearly popping off my head and scraping my shield against t
he stone with a frantic, grinding clatter.

  “Eang!” the man growled, directing his words into my eyes. “Come to me, usurper.”

  I fought my hatchets free, hurling one into his face and sinking the other under his arm.

  He avoided the first with a duck but the second bit deep. I lifted my feet again and drove them into his chest with all the force Eangi Fire could lend. He staggered backwards and I crashed to the ground in a stunned heap. I couldn’t breathe. I toppled to the side and twisted my head, trying in vain to find some narrow passage of my throat that wasn’t crushed. A thin strand of air whisked into my lungs and I pulled at my Fire, repairing some of the damage – but at a cost. My strength flickered and waned, and I barely managed to sit up against the charred wall.

  Through a blur of eyelashes, I saw Quentis stride into the space before the hall, beyond the interloper’s hulking form. There were more figures there too, legionaries with shields raised, swords and spears glinting in the moonlight. Another appeared at a run and fell into a bracing position, then another and another.

  Clutching his side, the being that was not Eang turned on the newcomers and screamed in rage. The sound cut through me, making me jump and scramble backwards. But I still could barely breathe.

  Arms slipped under mine and hauled me back into the shelter of the archway. I blinked at the newcomer, expecting to find Nisien, but it was Estavius instead. With remarkable calm, he unfastened the strap of my shield. I leant into his chest with a hand as he tugged the strap free.

  I let out a frightened gasp as his hands closed on both sides of my head, holding it straight.

  “Breathe?” he asked in accented Northman.

  I drew in a ragged breath and dragged my eyes sideways. Quentis stood in the center of the village now, facing the creature with one of his bowls in hand. I would have laughed – or wept – at the absurdity of the picture, but I hadn’t the strength.

  Quentis began to chant. He dipped his fingers into the bowl and held it out in a warding gesture.

  The wind picked up with sudden, unnatural force. The creature raised his axes – now dull, no longer Eang’s legendary weapons – and began to close the space between himself and the priest in a disgusted, menacing stride.

  I grabbed the collar of Estavius’s breastplate, fingers folding around warm steel and sweaty cloth. “No,” I wheezed. “Stop. Him.”

  Estavius shook his head and said something in Arpa.

  I leant my head back into the stone and stared at the scene before me, knowing deep in my soul that I was about to watch Quentis and his useless bowl be cut to pieces. Then the creature would turn on the legionaries and, lastly, back to Estavius and me.

  My eyes darted about for Nisien. His face was impossible to distinguish from every other helmeted head, but I thought I recognized him behind Quentis, legs braced, sword poised, eyes glaring.

  Again, Quentis dipped his fingers in the bowl. This time he flicked dark liquid at the creature. It shook its head, disgruntled, and for the space of two mad heartbeats, silence reigned over the village. Then our attacker charged Quentis.

  The priest did not move. He poured the remainder of the bowl on the ground before him in an arc, heedless of the fact that each pounding footstep brought his doom closer.

  The imposter raised his axes, two steps from Quentis. His body began to coil and turn, preparing for a lunge that would end the priest in two coordinated blows.

  But he never struck. As soon as his foot touched Quentis’s concoction in the ashes, he screamed and collapsed.

  I stared, heedless of the fact that I was clutching the top of Estavius’s armor. The legionary stared right along with me, his pale eyes fastened on the spasming being and the Arpa priest.

  Quentis stepped up to the creature as it roiled and bucked. He nudged one of the axes out of his path with the toe of a boot and crouched behind the attacker’s head. Then, with calm gravity, he placed his bloodied palm over the man’s forehead.

  The huge being stilled. I sensed something else in the village then, the presence of another god whom I had never met or tasted. The presence wrapped around our attacker like invisible bonds until his chest ceased to rise.

  Quentis remained crouched, murmuring and holding his palm to the man’s forehead.

  “Lathian?” I asked Estavius. “The power… Quentis used…”

  He nodded and looked at me sideways. “Breathe?”

  My lips cracked into a wan smile. I detached my fingers from his breastplate.

  “I can breathe,” I affirmed. In fact, breathing came a lot easier with Estavius nearby.

  After a few minutes, Quentis stood up and nodded in the direction of several legionaries. A form that I recognized as Polinus strode forward and they began to confer. At the commander’s word, several men jogged back towards the camp.

  Now that the threat was gone, Estavius left me. I pressed back into the stone of the arch and closed my eyes, focusing on my breaths. Somewhere in the back of my mind, I wished Nisien would come to me. But the more rational part of me was glad when he did not.

  No one came at all, not until the legionaries had dug a grave in the center of Iskir and lowered the limp form of the creature into it. Then they replaced the dirt, Quentis watching the proceedings with a calm, calculating eye.

  I sat up a little when the priest stopped before me.

  “Come, I’ll help you back to the camp,” he said, and offered me a hand. “You and I clearly need to speak.”

  TWENTY-SIX

  Quentis placed a cup of water in my hand and sat cross-legged before me. The healer, who until now had been scowling at my neck and applying a numbing salve, spoke to him in Arpa, picked up his small clay pot, and left us.

  “When did the creature appear?” Quentis asked without preamble.

  “As soon as I came to the Hall,” I told him in a raspy croak. There was no sense in holding anything back. As unsettling as the other priest was, he and his god had just saved my life. “It came to me as Eang.”

  Quentis’s eyes widened at that. “Really? As your goddess?”

  I gave a slight, wincing nod.

  “That is galling.” Quentis drew a knee up to his chest, under his robe. A note of caution entered his voice: “Where is Eang, Hessa?”

  “I don’t know,” I answered, flat and honest.

  Quentis was silent for a long minute. “Do you understand what a Vestige is?”

  I half-heard his question. My eyes had lifted to Nisien as he shouldered out of a tent and joined a knot of legionaries. My friend met my gaze momentarily and offered a small, relieved smile before he followed the others off on patrol.

  “Hessa?”

  I coerced my attention back to Quentis. “A what?”

  Irritation flickered through the Arpa priest’s eyes. “Where is Eang?” he asked again, emphasizing each word.

  “The High Hall. The mountains, hunting Gadr. I don’t know.” My own irritation flared, both at his tone and my own lack of knowledge. I couldn’t resist adding, “It’s not my place to know.”

  Quentis considered this. “And what of Ogam?”

  “He’s busy.”

  “Hessa,” the priest leant forward, “I know there is far more going on than you’re telling me. I may be able to help. Lathian may help.”

  “Your gods have no power here,” I ground out through gritted teeth, though I already knew that wasn’t true. “No right to be here.”

  Quentis fell silent. He glanced down at his hands, scrubbed clean of blood and ash but still stained. “You’re young, Hessa. Too young to carry whatever burden the goddess has put on you. I want to help.”

  I levelled a cold stare at him, still battling not to wince at the pain in my throat. “You want the north.”

  Quentis raised a hand and pointed down to the village. “An Eangi on sacred ground could not touch that creature, nor detect whatever Vestige it used to crawl out of the grave. Yet I subdued him without violence.”

  Vestige.
I still had no clue what that was, but I wasn’t about to admit it.

  “That was my weakness, not Eang’s,” I stated, though the words rankled me. Was it really my fault? Eang’s power should have been enough to dissuade that creature – and protect all Eangen from the horrors we now faced.

  “Hessa,” Quentis bit out my name. “Listen to me. Our lives could hinge on the information you refuse to share. I need to know what’s happening in the north. Nisien says you are on a quest from Eang to find someone in the mountains. Who? Why?”

  Nisien? I ground my teeth and swallowed a flicker of betrayal. Clearly, I had done well not to confide more in him.

  “What is a Vestige?” I finally asked in deflection.

  “You know gods die,” Quentis began. He watched my face carefully, searching for any reaction. “But when they do, it is possible for them to come back to life through an anchor, a piece of themselves that they infuse into an object blessed with human blood – a great deal of it – or a living person. That object, or that person, is a Vestige, and it can be used to crawl back out of the grave.”

  Grave. The word tugged at my memory. Ogam hadn’t just told me to sing if I came across something like Shanich. He’d warned me to stay away from graves. But as I’d mentioned to Polinus on the road days before, one of the gods that Eang had slain was buried beneath the hall in Iskir. A shape-shifting God of the New World, Ried, who’d refused to bow to Eang.

  Quentis continued, “That man in the village was the shadow of a dead god. If I am correct, the bindings over his grave must have failed – bindings Eang cast, like the matter with Shanich. Yet the weight of the souls there, of your fellow Eangi in particular, constrained him until tonight. But when you released them, this god was able to access a Vestige somewhere and begin to journey back into life.”

  I looked down at my hands to hide my unease. Moonlight traced the dark scabs and smooth, thin scars of my fingertips. “It was Ried.”

  Quentis cocked his head. “Who?”