by H. M. Long
Telios raised a hand to indicate his eyes, and he smiled a soft, nostalgic smile. “And we changed.”
“Lathian did this to you?” I clarified, meeting his grey eyes with what I hoped was a stalwart gaze. “And your men?”
Telios nodded. “It is a natural result, as I understand, of being so near the God of Gods. Those seven seals remained when we left, but we carried Lathian’s power with us, into the mountains and to the Algatt. They could not change like us, not while their god lived, but their suffering served our god just as well. Lathian’s strength grew. Styga and his cohort took up the hunt. And Lathian’s last chains began to break… They’re still breaking now.”
Dread pooled in my stomach and I wanted to run, to strike this man down and leave the camp as fast as my legs could carry me. But I found the will to ask, “When Polinus and his men arrive, will they… will they become Lathian’s, too?”
“Every knee in the Arpa Empire bows to Lathian, ultimately,” Telios reminded me. “Polinus and his men have been devoted to him since the day they were born.”
All except Nisien. I sent a compulsive prayer to Eang, to Esach, to whoever might listen, asking that Nisien had taken my advice and pledged himself to another northern deity.
Telios continued to speak, his gaze growing more and more distracted. “The Empire has always worshiped Lathian, and he has always spoken to us. We knew that one day he would re-enter our world in power but… never did I think that I would be the instrument of his return.”
Telios leant forward with all the earnestness of a man in love. Under the table, my hands clenched with nerves and Eangi Fire churned through my veins, begging to be used, begging to be released.
I dug my fingernails into my palms and pushed it down. We sat as allies, for now. No need to make an untimely enemy.
“The God-Killer, the power in the White Lake, seeks to stop us,” Telios continued, “so you will stop them. As, Styga assures me, you are destined to. Until then, you may remain in my camp, unharmed and welcome. A guest.”
“And after Lathian is free?” I inquired.
“Then, if you submit, you will live. And your new god, Lathian, God of Gods, will break over this land like water through a dam.” Telios’s hands rested on the tabletop, fingers splayed, demanding my attention with the timbre of his voice and the fervency of his faith. “He will occupy his temple in the capital, in the flesh, and harness its hidden powers. Then the world, the High Halls and all that is, will bow to the Arpa Empire.”
THIRTY-SIX
The next four days passed in hushed, strained solitude. I made my own camp on the northern edge of the forest and requested that Telios keep his men away – I’d no idea what range of human impulse might remain behind their tainted eyes, but I didn’t intend to find out.
Telios agreed with surprising ease. I saw only the occasional scout after the first day, when two legionaries arrived with a spare tent, a woodcutter’s axe and a day’s worth of food. After that I was left to my own devices, and even Styga was nowhere to be seen. Nonetheless, I laid my bedroll in a circle of warding runes each night, written with Eang’s Fire and rebellious wisps of honeyed magic, and only then I slept.
I passed the daylight hours in restless anticipation and soul-deep deliberations. I repaired my shield and tended my weapons and armor. I walked the valley, dipped my toes in the lake, and watched its milky surface ripple beneath the wind. By night I surveyed its hidden magic, dancing up into the sky in my subtle, amber-tinged sight. There was a mystery and inevitability to the lake and its power, and though it perturbed me, I found I did not fear it.
In the evenings, I sipped tea made from the pine needles of the High Halls and tugged at the two powers inside of me: Eang’s Fire, familiar and loud, and the muzzled magic I’d stolen from the gods. I missed Sixnit and Vistic, and thought of Ogam and Eang. I contemplated Omaskat and Nisien and Telios, Estavius and his blood and the history of the world – what I’d always thought it to be, and what I was beginning to understand now.
It was not until the fourth night, as I stared into my tea and felt the magic of the High Halls warming my lips, that all my ruminations coalesced into two stark conclusions.
I left the warmth of my fireside and picked my way to the edge of the trees. The surface of the lake came into view, silver and docile in the starless night. I touched my sleeping magic, softly so as not to disturb the Fire – a method that was nearly second nature now – and the lake’s strange, waxen lights appeared, rippling and shafting into the heavens.
The first realization I’d had was familiar. I still did not want to kill Omaskat. Yes, my personal reasons for obeying Eang’s command remained – a place in the High Halls and preventing the God-Killer from obliterating that sacred world – but there was so much more to the situation than I’d originally thought. All Omaskat had said against Eang back in the Algatt camp did not seem so blasphemous now, and it grew heavier by the day.
Secondly, Lathian had to be stopped. I knew that Eang could not quell him, not weakened as she was. And if our goddess could no longer protect us, where did that leave me and my people? Where did that leave the north?
Both Quentis and Telios had told me to submit to Lathian for the good of my people. As difficult as it was for me to admit, they had a point. But what if there was another option?
A dog barked, out in the night. I looked up slowly, my honeyed senses telling me that Omaskat was here long before I saw him.
The light on the surface of the lake rippled and swelled, growing brighter as a man and a hound entered its glow, rounding the flat western shore at a collected pace.
“Are you ready?” Styga coalesced from the shadows at a respectful distance, the starlit outlines of their features stark against the night.
Ready. What a hollow word that was, with my people murdered, the pillars of my faith fracturing and my goddess in flight. Nonetheless, I spoke the truth.
“I am.”
A weighty sense of destiny settled over me as I left the trees a few moments later, concealing the glistening head of my axe beneath my lynx-painted shield. The warped Eangi collar I’d found at Lada was secured to my belt. My shield boss was scrubbed with wax and charcoal, and the hatchets at my chest were hooded, leaving me nearly invisible in the night.
Omaskat had stopped at the southern edge of the lake. His silhouette was obscured by the oscillating light, but I could tell that he faced me. The hound sat at his heel, his hand resting on her head in a calming gesture. He knew I was here.
My concentration broke and a spark of fear shot through me. Was Eang here too, on this fateful night? Did she watch me from the trees like I knew Styga did, waiting for me to execute their greatest threat?
But no. I tasted no iron on the air, and the senses the High Hall had gifted me found only Styga, Omaskat, the lake and myself.
I crossed the remaining open ground, shield raised and axe extended loosely behind me, out of sight and ready to strike.
The dog charged. I dropped into a crouch, but the animal only barked and skirted me, her tail waving.
“No,” I growled. “Go away.”
Pebbles crunched as Omaskat approached my position, fearless and collected. His cloak flowed open, but I couldn’t see if he was armed.
At his approach, Eang’s Fire predictably waned. But this time, I knew Eang was not holding the Fire back in some twisted form of punishment.
Whatever protected Omaskat was simply more powerful than my goddess.
“How many Arpa are in the forest?” the man asked.
I could not read his face, backed by the lake’s light, but my stomach clenched at his voice. I thought of Eang and Svala, of that night when Omaskat had slept in the Hall of Smoke and I’d watched him by firelight. I thought of him snapping my wrist in the Algatt camp, and yet choosing not to kill me.
Old urgency stirred in my bones. I should ignore his question, ignore the riot of doubts in my own head. This was my chance. I should attack now, kill
him and run.
“A cohort,” I said instead.
“I see.” Omaskat looked from the tree line to me. “Who leads them?”
“A commander called Telios, and a God of the Old World. Styga.” I began to circle him, the questions I wanted to ask stinging like bile on my tongue. The dog ranged around us in turn, claws clattering on the loose rock, head low and muscles rippling. “But they serve Lathian.”
Omaskat nodded, turning to keep me in his sight.
“Who is your god?” I asked.
“They are called Thvynder.”
I recognized the name. “One of the Four Pillars.”
Omaskat nodded slowly. “You’ve learned since our last meeting.”
“A lot has changed,” I replied. “What will your god do, if they rise?”
The man blinked a little, then glanced to the forest over my shoulder. He knew the Arpa were there; did he sense Styga, too? How close would the Old-World god dare to come?
“When my god rises, they will set the world to right. Hessa, I’ve told you before, Eang is no goddess. Neither are Oulden or Gadr – even Lathian. Too long this world has been ruled by those who were never meant to be worshiped.”
“Eang is my goddess,” I said, though there was little emotion left in those words. It was a statement of practicality, of obligation, rather than inerrant truth. “I belong to her.”
“She’s using you.”
“I know.”
The lines of Omaskat’s silhouette shifted and, as we turned, the light from the lake broke across his face. The fine muscles beneath his eyes twitched between wariness and a subtle… relief.
“But there’s nothing else I can do,” I added. “Unless… you give me another choice.”
Omaskat smiled, but there was no triumph to it, no malevolence or self-satisfaction. It was a genuine, honest smile.
My own tension eased. But for the sake of the watching Styga, I kept my weapons raised.
“Very well,” Omaskat’s voice warmed. “Come with me to rescue Vistic, Sixnit and Svala. And you and I will treat. I will answer all your questions, once they’re safe, and we can strike a bargain.”
I hesitated, my confidence suddenly faltering. “Sixnit and Vistic are with Ogam,” I said, pronouncing the words slowly. “And Svala… I don’t know where she is, but Six and Vistic are safe.”
The man shook his head. “Ogam is a traitor, Hessa. Who hates Eang more than the son she tried to murder at birth? Who has spent more time beyond the mountains, where the banished Gods of the Old World slept in their tombs, than any other?”
My mouth dried and my resolve faltered. Omaskat had to be lying, and if he was, I had made a terrible mistake. Here I stood, negotiating with him, when all the gods and Fate had decreed he should die by my hand.
How could Ogam be a traitor? He had helped me – but then again, I remembered with cold clarity, so had Styga. Styga had helped me because I was destined to kill Omaskat and stop the rise of his forgotten deity, not out of any loyalty or compassion.
Omaskat, a mere two paces away now, reached out his hand. His mismatched eyes were open and unveiled, the most honest gaze I’d seen in months. “Come with me. Rescue your priestess, your friend and the child, and I will tell you everything you want to know.”
My thoughts scattered, unable to move past Ogam’s betrayal. But so much of what I’d believed had proved false – why not Eang’s son, too? And if Sixnit’s, Vistic’s and Svala’s lives hung in the balance, should I not at least investigate?
“You’ll answer my every question,” I reiterated. “And if I am not satisfied, I may still kill you.”
“So be it.” Omaskat’s hand remained outstretched, though his eyes flicked to the forest. “But the Arpa are on the move. We must run. Now.”
For a timeless moment, I hovered there between Omaskat, my questions and the Arpa.
Then my chin dropped, Omaskat whistled to the hound, and we ran.
Down. East and out of the lake’s high valley we plunged, over rockfalls and through shallow creeks. Before us our path descended, down the mountainside and towards the distant, flat expanse of the Headwaters. Meanwhile, up the slope to our back, I heard the Arpa shouting, rocks tumbling and the clink of steel.
We descended at least five hundred meters before Styga materialized before us. I stumbled to a halt, just managing to throw my weight back before I skidded off a ledge.
The dog came level with my shoulder on another ledge, a low grumble resonating through her chest. Omaskat drew up to my other side, weaponless and resolute.
Styga barely looked at the man. Instead, they fixed upon me and their face, modeled after my own, contorted in hatred. “You will die for this, Eangi,” they spat, and charged.
Omaskat was already between the God of the Old World and I, bearded chin and cloak-clad shoulders level. Styga came up short, the shadow-stuff of their body rippling as if Omaskat had thrown up a solid physical barrier.
Styga howled and charged again. At the same time the hound leapt down to our feet, pressing into the shelter of Omaskat’s legs as the god circled and battered, but Omaskat’s wards held. Time slowed and my eyes lingered on the man, watching him hold an ancient, spectral deity back as if they were a disgruntled child.
I watched him do what Eang should have had the strength, and the fidelity, to do. And as I did, tendrils of the High Hall’s dormant magic trickled up through my sight, amber and gold and sweet. My fingers twitched. Omaskat’s and my magic differed, to be sure, but I couldn’t help but wonder what those honeyed tendrils would be if Eang’s Fire was not in the way. It had resisted Rioux and broken Quentis’s curse – and Quentis’s power was sourced from Lathian himself. If it were free, would I, too, be able to hold a creature like Styga at bay?
Beyond Omaskat’s invisible defenses, the God of the Old World hissed and cursed in a language I couldn’t understand. Omaskat did not respond, and Styga hurtled away up the mountain in a stream of sable.
Omaskat kept his attention on Styga’s retreat, but I felt him watch me from the corner of his eye. “You’ve been stealing from the High Halls. I can see it. Around your eyes.”
I blinked the amber magic away and met his gaze over the rim of my shield. Would this realization change his offer?
“I doubt I’d still be alive if I hadn’t,” I said.
“Eang hasn’t noticed?”
“She’s not very attentive lately.”
Omaskat made an affirming sound. “Do you know what it means?”
I lowered my shield. Anxiety fluttered in my stomach – I didn’t know, not in any real sense of the word – but I returned levelly, “Why don’t you tell me?”
Something close to amusement etched around Omaskat’s eyes. “I will. But for now, let’s move.”
THIRTY-SEVEN
Dawn over the Headwaters was like nothing I had ever seen. I stood on the end of a peninsula, palms braced against my knees as I fought to catch my breath. Before me, shallow water stretched all the way to the eastern and southern horizons, while in the north mountains encroached like tentative feet into a pond. The reflection of delicate, puffy clouds drifted over the surface, filled with filtered tones of gold and rose.
An instant later, the Headwaters churned. The clouds vanished in a mass of underwater springs, destroying the gentle dawn hues with great belches of cold grey-blue.
“How long until the legionaries catch up?” I asked Omaskat. I still hadn’t found my breath, but the question was too urgent to wait.
The dog loped past us, cautiously nosing up to the churning water.
“They won’t.” Omaskat unclasped his cloak and threw it over a branch. Stepping around the dog, he crouched down on the shore to splash water on his face and drag more through his beard and hair. “They can’t touch me, and we have to go back, anyway. They’ll just wait.”
“We have to go back?” I clarified. “Because Thvynder is in the White Lake?”
Omaskat shook his hands dry and e
ased himself down onto a rock, gesturing for me to join him. “So you have been paying attention. Yes.”
Instead of sitting, I slung my shield down and leant it against a birch tree. Then I angled my axe out of the way and crouched. “Are you a priest?”
Omaskat shook his head. “No.”
“A Vestige?”
“No,” he said again. He watched as Ayo sniffed the water and took a tentative lap. Deeming it safe, the hound began to drink. “But Vistic is. In a way. Or rather, a Vestige is a faulty imitation of what Vistic is.”
I caught myself against the tree. Perhaps sitting was the better option for this conversation. “Vistic? The baby?”
“I need to tell you many things, Hessa.” Omaskat measured me, the gold and blue of his eyes filled with intent. “And I will, as I promised, but we need to move on as soon as you’ve recovered. Shall I start now, or wait?”
My eyes flicked to his brow. Sweat darkened his hairline and tunic, but he did not look as winded as I. I did need to rest. “Start now. Who are you? What are you?”
Omaskat glanced back up the mountains the way we had come. “For you to understand that, I need to start at the beginning.”
Slowly, I eased my taxed muscles onto the cool earth and crossed my legs. It felt odd to relax in his presence, but my weapons were close.
“Up there, in that lake,” the man began, “sleeps one of the Four Pillars of the World. They are a god, Eangi, and what you have been taught to call a god is not a god at all. They’re creations, just as you are. True gods have no beginning. True gods have no end.”
Instinct made my spine straighten and my jaw twitch with indignation, but I consciously fought the impulse. “Then what is Eang, if she’s not a goddess?”
Omaskat sat forward. “How many days did you spend in the High Halls?”
My eyes narrowed a fraction. “I don’t know. Time wasn’t… I couldn’t really count them. Five days? A week?”
“So you ate and drank?”
