“My name didn’t spare me from the Strait, nor did it find the shore. Luck is the more likely culprit.”
“So much luck makes for destiny, maybe. Or divine luck is fate? I didn’t witness your survival, so which and whether I do not know. It speaks of you and who you are, but I don’t know what it says.”
“I could lie, say I awoke in the arms of the captain’s daughter after striking ice, clung to a piece of the Resten while watching others freeze and sink into the strait. The currents carried me until I reached shore where the girls found me. A knot on my head explains my lack of memory. But, I know none of this, so they would be a lie. I do not lie.”
“So tell me then, he named after the king of gods, how is it you know your name, your family, and the ship you sailed upon?”
Solineus hesitated. Could it hurt a man claiming no memory to be labeled crazy? “A voice in my head told me. A woman’s voice. Before I awoke on shore.”
Ielu cocked her head and clucked. “A woman in your head. Mmmm. More men, maybe, could use a woman in their head. Warm your belly with the food of my family, but you sleep beside the night fire until you’ve proved your worth. Yes?”
“Thank you.”
Kinesee appeared from behind a fur wall with a wooden bowl and ladled soup as the Matron disappeared into a nearby alcove.
Kinesee smiled. “What was the dream woman’s name?”
“She didn’t say. Next time we speak I’ll be sure to ask.”
The girl giggled and handed him the bowl. He ate his first hot meal in what may as well have been forever, with one young girl staring at him with a child’s enthralled smile, the other rolling her eyes at her sister’s infatuation, and the father’s gaze full of suspicion. How many other eyes watched him sip from the bowl he didn’t know, but he felt them.
11
LESSER EVILS
I dreamed of tomorrow of yesterday,
As I slept in Eternal Wakefulness, needles beneath my nails to keep lucid.
Lucidity? Lucidity is brief and uninspired amidst the cries for answers.
Who are you? What have you done? Who is the meaning of you?
They demand answers for a sane world.
They do not realize there are either No answers, Or insane Answers, or answers not at All.
They believe I have answers.
Perhaps I do, but I do not know the truth within the visions of Madness.
The Truth, however, does know me. Nothing should terrify a sane man more.
—Tomes of the Touched
Twelve Days to the Eve of Snows
Tokodin regained consciousness blind and unable to move his arms. If this was the Road of Living Stars, it sure wasn’t what his elders told him to expect. For one thing, it hurt like the hells. Second, no stars.
Turning his head sent pain surging from his shoulders to crash into his skull like surf pounding a beach. He groaned at the head-splitting pain and tried to roll over, but bindings kept his arms pinned to his sides and his knees and ankles locked bone-to-bone.
“Best to move as little as possible, for your own good, son.”
The voice echoed as if in a cave and was so weak he felt it might be from a dream fading as he awakened.
Tokodin struggled to quell the agony assaulting his senses and waited for the roar of blood in his ears to fade. “Where am I? What day is it?”
A laugh sputtered into an ailing cough and wheeze. “The Twelfth of Yistole. I kept you sleeping the past several days to assist my prayers. As to where, high in the Estertok Range. Someplace very high and very cold.”
“The Colok left me? You saved me somehow?”
The voice skipped laughter and went straight to a lung-ripping hack. “No, son. We’re both their guests.”
Tokodin’s mind raced, pain making it difficult to piece together. “Colok don’t take prisoners.”
“Right, which is why we must be guests.” The mystery man damned near amused himself to death judging from the sounds of his coughing and wheezing as he laughed.
Tokodin wriggled, pressing against a rock, leaning to stare blind into the darkness where the man must be. “Am I blind?”
A fire ignited in a small cook pit, revealing a man either old or grizzled to the appearance of age by his hardships. A gray beard hung unkempt to his chest, and his hands bore scars and wrinkles.
“Who are you?” Tokodin asked.
“Mecum, or so I was once called.”
The name haunted his memory, but his head hurt too much to organize muddled thoughts. He looked around the best he could, the light of the tiny fire unable to reach the walls of what must be a cave. “Well, Mecum, could you cut my tethers?”
“I could feed you, maybe.” The man shuffled to him with a heavy limp in his gait. “If you’ve got the strength to eat, that is.”
“Water would be great.”
Mecum clapped his hands. “Water, yes. Of course. Water!” The man stepped from the light of the meager fire and into the pervasive dark. He returned moments later with a canteen and held it to Tokodin’s lips.
The icy water hit his parched throat; he coughed, swallowed, and choked.
“Sorry, so sorry.” Mecum withdrew the water and sat beside him. “Let me know if you’re thirsty again.”
When the realization struck him, Tokodin didn’t know whether it should make sense, or if he should be shocked. “Mecum? You were with the Yantin Party, ambushed north of Ervinhin, outside the Omindi Pass, right near where we were.”
“We were more northerly.”
“They thought you were dead. I went to your funeral.”
“Was it nice? The funeral, I mean.”
“It was…” His mind seized upon an incongruity. “Yantin and his people died near the Ninth Marker. We weren’t even out of the Omindi. And how would you know where the Colok attacked?”
Mecum sulked, staring at his meager fire. “I don’t know where they took you, I just know we were north of that.”
“That makes no—”
“You’re thinkin’ too hard.” The old man’s cheek twitched. “They took me in the Treaty Lands.”
Tokodin squirmed in his bindings. For over four hundred years, a treaty signed by the seven clans and the Church had designated the tundra north of the Estertok Range a free territory to which none laid claim. The frozen waste was barren and dangerous, but legend spoke of treasures.
“Why would you be so far north? And why would they lie?”
The old man’s gaze held a hint of mischief. “They’d lie because they didn’t want you to know the truth, and as for why we were there? The answer is something I was never privy to.”
“But the Treaty Lands—”
“Shush. I answered your questions, now answer mine.”
Tokodin scrunched his brows and stared at the man.
“My funeral. How was it? Lots of people? Was Nelu there?”
“It was nice. I suppose. As funerals go.” This man’s obsession with his own funeral puzzled him. “I’ve no idea who Nelu is.”
“No, I suppose you wouldn’t.” Mecum smiled. “A nice funeral, good. Yes, a man should know he’s to have a nice funeral when he goes. Comforting.”
“But you’re not dead.”
“A matter of time, a matter of time, as with us all. I fear I’ve little of that remaining. The funeral was early, but that’s fine so long as it was nice.” He looked Tokodin in the eye with a disturbing calm. “I’m dying, unable to travel, so they went to fetch you.”
Tokodin’s heart raced. “What?”
Mecum fumbled with a copper pot and filled it with water. “I will make us some tea. It’s terrible… but hot!”
“What did you mean, fetch me?” He struggled against his bindings, pain shooting through his shoulder until he figured his head or his heart would burst. He relaxed, surrendering to the rope.
Mecum’s next words were under his breath, as if he hated to admit them. “Not you in ’ticular, you see, they just needed someone. Th
ey’ll need a new speaker and a guide.” Mecum’s eyes sagged and went to the fire. “They’ve learned to speak with us.”
“Colok can’t talk!” He almost blurted out they were animals, but Mecum hushed him. Even as he fell silent, he recalled hearing the name “Choerkin” in the monster’s growl. A delusion. “This is madness.”
“They captured me, like they did you. I was a bearer.” He set his pot in the fire to bring it to a boil. “They nursed me back to health, best ways they could, anyhow. Their chieftain, Grolkan, is very smart.”
“Impossible, this is impossible.”
A low rumble sent Tokodin’s skin to ice. “Fire.”
Mecum bowed his head in a quick prayer and torches ignited throughout the cave. Tokodin blinked in the strength of new light, his eyes adjusting to a world with several Colok sitting around them. His heart raced, and he did his best to squirm free, but it ended in pain and frustration.
In one Colok’s hand was the long-handled glaive that Tokodin would never forget, the weapon that took Loepus’ head.
The creature strolled to loom over him, dipped the glaive until a notch at the tip hooked Tokodin’s bindings. Another growl, through which Tokodin struggled to understand the clan-speak. “Name.”
“Tokodin.”
The Colok lifted Tokodin by his ropes with a single hand on his weapon, but only a few fingers from the cold floor, as the glaive’s edge sliced the bindings with a razor’s ease. He sat to find he had only one good arm.
Mecum said, “It’ll take many prayers before your arm is serviceable again, I fear.”
Tokodin stared at the Colok, defiance rising within his soul. “You are Grolkan?”
“Grolkan. Yes.” In another place and time, the long growl would’ve fascinated him.
“Whatever it is you want from me, I will not do.”
The great mannish bear’s black snout wrinkled. “Respect.” His hand thumped his chest twice. Grolkan took a deep breath and the next growl was very long. “Own good. You talk. Respect.” He pointed at Tokodin, then himself. “Respect. Talk. Choerkin.”
Tokodin pieced it together the best he could. “You wish to speak with the Choerkins?”
Grolkan nodded. “Choerkin. Respect. Three day.”
“Why?”
“Talk. Choerkin.” With those words Grolkan turned and walked from the cave with his warriors falling in step behind him.
“Your people fed on Mecum’s people! Killed them and ate them. Now you want to talk?” The exertion of yelling spun the world, and he wobbled.
Grolkan turned, looked Tokodin dead in the eye. “Kill, yes. Eat, no.” He pointed his glaive to Mecum. “No eat.” From the disgusted curl on Grolkan’s lip, Tokodin decided to believe him.
The Colok lumbered from the cave with a single word hanging in the air. “Respect.”
Alone, or so he presumed, the two men stared at the pot, silent in their thoughts until it boiled.
“Why does he want to speak with the Choerkin?”
Mecum puffed steam from the pot’s spout. “Have you any Choerkin blood, wrong-eyed kin even?”
“A Choerkin bastard? No. Not that I know, anyhow.”
“Unfortunate. An introduction would’ve been easier that way.”
“Does this have something to do with the Treaty Lands?”
Mecum shrugged as he poured the foul-smelling tea into a dented cup. “I told you, I don’t know why we were there. So how could I possibly know if they’re connected?”
His elder avoided the question. He knew but wouldn’t say. Tokodin took the cup from the man’s outstretched hand, gazed at the murky, steaming liquid.
“He used the word respect several times.”
“He respects your decision and wants you to respect he’s giving you three days to decide. But don’t worry, if you stick to your word, your end will be clean and swift. Then they’ll find another.”
Clean and swift. How noble. The remainder troubled him more. “They’ll take another?”
Tokodin fumbled with his cup, trying hard not to burn his one good hand. He sniffed the tea, and his nose curled. To aid these creatures who had murdered so many of his people or to subject another to capture. He sipped and found the tea as vile as it smelled, but it wasn’t as distasteful as his decision.
12
CAUTION IN THE TEN WINDS
The compass Winds carve desperate lines
in the fury, for the leery, humble and dreary.
Gears locked grinding precise. Pattering sands in glass.
Granite marked by the passing shadow.
Lover. Killer. Giver. Thief.
This monstrosity we Create but cannot Defeat,
A Forgotten Wind more than Ten, so many, so much more.
—Tomes of the Touched
Twelve Days to the Eve of Snows
Eliles kneeled alone before the shrine of Elinwe, wife of Sol, fiddling with her sash and staring at the Goddess’ fanciful mural instead of praying. The wall was a curved plate of silver, twenty hands high and ten paces across, polished to a sheen and encrusted with precious stones to honor the Queen of Gods. Adorning the center was a lion’s paw, Elinwe’s most famous symbol, fashioned from hundreds of golden heliodor that shimmered in the eternal Light of this shrine.
A ten-pointed star surrounded the paw, each of the triangular points filled with powdered gems: Diamond, sapphire, ruby, pezzottaite, jeremejevite, zircon, aquamarine, topaz, kyanite, and phenakite, ten gems, ten colors, ten winds, representing the Elements of Power with which the Gods gifted men through prayer.
Life, Water, Fire, Air, Stone, Cold, Heat, Spirit, Light, and Dark. I am a child of ruby, the destroying Fire of Sol, and topaz, the replenishing Spirit of Elinwe. Am I the destroyer or the savior? I’ve never destroyed much more than a candle, and I’ve used Spirit to manipulate and eavesdrop, saving only my own skin. But no wonder her magic was different, her powers didn’t come from Sol nor Elinwe, they came from the Vanquished Gods and their feral magic.
Footsteps padded to her side and her gut tightened, she couldn’t bring herself to look. Adherents joining her at a shrine was common enough, but after her run-in with Rovol yesterday, somebody finding her alone made her queasy.
“You owe me ale. A travel keg, for sure.”
She relaxed with a sigh, then twisted her neck to stare Jinbin in the eye. “You didn’t clean a single chamber pot. Half, and I’ll get it to you before the Eve of Snows.”
He stepped in front of her, put his hands to his hips. “When did you make it back in? I never saw you.” A brow raised over a squinting brown eye.
“I took another route.” She hesitated, but she’d already trusted Jinbin with her secret exit. “There weren’t any guard drills.”
“There had to be, of some kind. Why else shut off upper Istinjoln?” The monk shifted his weight, but his eyes remained straight and steady, she didn’t think he lied.
But admitting this tidbit of what she learned through her tardiness was as far as she would trust him. She wanted to tell him about the wagon, the lord priest and his strange procession, and in particular wanted to mention the inquisitor, but her heart pounded at the mere thought, and she couldn’t. “I don’t know, but I didn’t see a thing. I was out there a long time, nothing at all happened.”
She kept her gaze strong as he stared until his eyes drifted to the floor. “Hells if I know. Canceled? But hey, I didn’t track you down for ale, word is an inquisitor is bringing a plucked falcon up through Petrin, could be reaching the gates any time.”
Plucked falcon was a derogatory name given to children defiled by the feral magic of the Vanquished Gods, for the leather hoods tied tight over their heads, much like a falconer’s bird without plumage. Jinbin had caught her watching the death march of feral children several times over the years and asked why. She concocted the fable of a defiled child setting the family home on fire, killing her parents, and it made her feel better to see the cursed herded to their deaths. It was a youthfu
l lie, and good enough to cover her tracks, but now he let her know every time he heard an inquisitor’s arrival.
He offered his hand, but she stood on her own. He was cute in his way, but she was tired of flirty men. They walked together through tunnels deep beneath the eastern edge of Istinjoln’s walls, and the shortest route to fresh air opened with a view of Jinbin’s favorite shrine: The brewhouse. The two-story brick and mortar building sat nestled with its back to the eastern wall, so esteemed that it had its own set of gates and four senior guardsmen on duty.
Jinbin planted his feet and stared, arms crossed. “I always imagine, when the guards have drills, that the brewhouse is their final redoubt.” He grinned. “If I’d made the priesthood, I’d have been a brewer for sure.”
Eliles snorted and walked toward the wall. Competition to work in the brewhouse was fierce, the most prestigious goal for any priest with modest talents, or as Dareun said, the best of the worst became brewmasters. “They may have let you strain the mash.”
“Aren’t you the hissing cat this morn.”
Her brows scrunched, irritated with herself. “I’m sorry, you would’ve made a fine brewer.”
“Godsdamned right, might not be much left! But it’d be good while it lasted.”
They climbed to the allure. “Just how much you think you can drink, anyhow?”
He hooped his arms in front of his gut. “Don’t underestimate me, girl, I swell like a tick. Swell. Like. A. Tick. And I don’t go falling off the hound when I get full.”
She giggled and shook her head. The man was foolish, but his humor was useful considering the torture she was about to put herself through. They rounded the wall’s walk to the north until they stood a dozen paces east of and overlooking the stables, and took a position between two guards, leaning on the parapet. The bells of the gates rang as they arrived and Eliles’ stomach tensed.
Over fifty years ago, in the four-hundred and fiftieth year of remembered time, Lord Priestess Sadevu decreed a reward of five-hundred songs for those who turned over any soul defiled by the Vanquished Gods. After attaining the mantle of lord priest, Ulrikt doubled this handsome bounty. The bounty her father thought to fetch upon discovering her powers.
Eve of Snows: Sundering the Gods Book One Page 11
