Eve of Snows: Sundering the Gods Book One

by L. James Rice

  The immortal Edan who never left the Eleris, their Mother Woods. A phrase came to mind. “Uvolum, lorebol kellis.” Not only did he know the words, he knew their meaning: Greetings, forest sister.

  Her smile fell. “You… Not one in ten thousand Silone could speak to me in the eler imosta. Who are you?”

  The mother language, he knew more than how to say hello. “Solineus Mikjehemlut of the Clan Emudar, just as she told me.” Voices grew close. “Can you help me?”

  She stared, and her eyes dropped. “I can’t help you kill a dead man.”

  Priests checking inventory rounded the corner, prattling about lost whiskey. “We’re done here, then.” He strode past the robed men, his mind ablaze. He knew so little, but knew too much. When he’d become convinced he at least knew who he was, fate gave his reality a spin.

  35

  BARRED FROM THE STARS

  Reality the rigid master with a million eyes,

  where no two pair may ever agree.

  Memory the feckless lover,

  often telling us only what we want to hear

  and forgetting the rest.

  —Tomes of the Touched

  One Day to the Eve of Snows

  Eliles stood among a throng of priests along Istinjoln’s northern wall with the sun igniting a cloudy red horizon, waiting for Ulrikt’s funeral procession to begin. The Eve of Snows was tomorrow, but the mood was bleak. It was a mood she shared with the monastery’s whole, even if they mourned different men.

  She kept her promise to Dareun by burying her nose in pious books or bowing in prayer for her master’s life and soul. She made one embarrassing trip outside to talk with Ilpen, running into the stranger called Solineus. She turned into a blubbering fool and would never forgive herself. A kind man, but he’d scurried like a chicken seeing a hawk’s shadow the first chance he got.

  A gong resounded from the Tower of Sol, a bass reverberation only heard during funerals, and the mourners marched in unison, ordered by rank. They passed the stables in a gradual arch before swinging into the main courtyard. Ilpen and the stranger, Solineus, leaned against the stable wall. She managed a smile Ilpen’s way, but neither of them saw her, and when Eliles realized the Trelelunin woman stood beside them she averted her eyes.

  The procession slowed as it reached the Dais of Etinbin. Priests climbed the stone in single file. Most days the granite slab was plain, but today it sat covered in brilliant silks and bore the weight of a golden sarcophagus. The Broldun lord priest, sixth in line behind the body—

  Eliles froze in stride and a priest bumped into her. She stumbled forward and cast a sheepish smile to those around her.

  The six wore the gold threaded robes of lord priests. Ulrikt made number seven. Every lord priest on the island of Kaludor was in Istinjoln. They couldn’t have traveled so fast.

  They were already here. Why?

  When she stepped onto the dais, not a single lord looked at her, a relief. She kept her eyes on the ornate sarcophagus. Every lord priest of Istinjoln rode to the crypts in this masterwork of art and death, the gold plating highlighting in relief imagery the gods and the Road of Living Stars.

  She took her turn to step to Ulrikt, she should say a prayer, instead she stared. Round, black cobaltite cabochons held Ulrikt’s blue eyes shut, the lustrous opaque stone treasured for fending off the forces of the Wakened Dead. Corpses never rose from the holy crypts, but tradition demanded the honor of these gems.

  She pitied him, despite being happy he was dead. Regal and handsome in death, the restoration of the color in his cheeks and lips from the pallor of death impressed her. A peculiar art, making the deceased look alive. She bit back disgust and mumbled a prayer to guide his soul to the heavens.

  She gazed across the courtyard as she descended; rows of high priests knelt with heads bowed, silent. Priests filed behind them, kneeling in rows precise as corn, and she followed suit, blessed to be done with her role, but she knew her knees would be sore before this ordeal finished. A couple hundred priests followed her, then monks and postulants; she didn’t bother to count, but the numbers surprised her. At least a thousand monks and half again postulants. Many had to be guests for the Eve.

  The gate chimes shattered the respectful silence, and every eye turned to the grind and clank of the portcullis rising.

  A guard shouted from the tower. “Rider!”

  It couldn’t just be an ordinary rider. They would’ve held the gates until after the ceremony. Even a bearer would be outside the gate waiting. Hooves echoed from the bridge and a lathered mountain pony, lungs surging and breaths billowing in the frosty air, slid to a stop. A priest— a high priestess—slid from the saddle, her long black hair tangled over her shoulders. Eliles didn’t recognize her from this distance, and she feared to reach out with her senses with lord priests and the Trelelunin woman so close.

  An animated discussion with a guard ensued, and the masses broke their polite silence, mumbling one to another. The woman shoved the guard from her path and stomped toward the dais with angry strides. As she passed, Eliles recognized her as Sedut, a high priestess sent to serve in Gebelis Monastery years ago.

  No one dared step in her path until she reached the base of the dais, where the Broldun lord priest and his black dog barred her way. When they stopped her, Eliles risked pushing her hearing, but with the mumbles of the crowd turning to a roar around her, she couldn’t make out a single word until Sedut did the unthinkable and screamed at a lord priest.

  “I swore on my life to bring him the star, and no man will stop me!” Sedut reached into a pouch at her side and withdrew a ball of white light, and Eliles’ senses recoiled, slamming into her skull.

  Her ears rang, pounding with every beat of her heart, and her consciousness wavered. She planted her hands to the ground and sucked a deep breath to stay conscious. Panting, she straightened, forcing herself to keep alert through tear-blurred eyes.

  Whatever the hells the star was, the Broldun and his inquisitor stood down and Sedut charged onto the catafalque without further hindrance. She went to Ulrikt and bent, it seemed she gave the dead man a kiss while placing the light within the sarcophagus. Sedut kneeled in prayer, hands planted on gold stars.

  Eliles’ head thrummed. Sedut called it a star, but it held power she’d never felt before, slamming her senses against her like a mace. People stood throughout the throngs, craning their necks to see, but when the six lord priests dropped prostrate to the ground, Eliles shut her eyes, whatever was about to happen she didn’t care to see.

  Murmurs turned to gasps, and her eyes crept open with unstoppable curiosity. She wiped tears and watched the star rise into the air. Her muscles knotted, fists clenched. The star’s power killed any notion of stretching her senses. She felt an evil.

  A shoulder appeared from within the golden casket as Ulrikt rose to hands and knees, arching his back, screaming in agony. No one else made a sound above their own breaths. The lord priest stood and faced the crowd with the white star floating above his head.

  His voice shook the ground. “For four days I stood at the foot of the Road of Living Stars, the hand of Etinbin himself preventing me from traveling further. I watched! I listened! I learned!” His gaze shifted to the high priests. “Bring me he who is accused of my murder.”

  Woxlin leaped to his feet and ran to the tower behind the dais, the Broldun dog on his heels.

  Hope crept into her pain. Ulrikt would know her master’s innocence. Dareun should be pardoned to meet his natural end. She prayed, but prayer left her with an empty sensation.

  Ulrikt raised his arms toward the heavens. “Sol, our Eternal Lord, has delivered upon an ancient promise, gifting us with the Sliver of Star foretold in prophecy.” His raised hands cupped the glow of the star above his head. “Sol’s hand reaches for us from the Conqueror Heaven, all we must do is grasp his immortal palm and welcome a new era of peace and power for the Pantheon in the mortal world.”

  Dareun stumbled from the to
wer, shoved by the Broldun inquisitor, and all of Eliles’ hope dissipated.

  Her skin chilled at the sight of her master painted in feces and blood, his wrists gnarled, fingers twisted, and dragging a limp, useless leg. The face was her master’s, but broken worse than last she saw. She chewed her lip, fingers digging into her thighs.

  Woxlin brought the confession to Ulrikt, who perused the words as the dog dragged Dareun to the dais.

  There wasn’t surprise in Dareun’s eyes when he saw Ulrikt. Maybe the torture distorted his features, but for a man seeing his reputed victim alive, his reaction left her flat. He should scream his innocence, proclaim his own virtue. Instead, he lowered his head and accepted defeat.

  Ulrikt raised the confession above his head. “This priest… this man I called friend killed me. He killed me in collusion with the Clan Choerkin! By their direct orders.”

  Eliles’ mind went numb with the accusation and the puzzle slid together.

  “This is why the gods would not let me die. This is why they made me turn my back on eternal peace in the heavens. The gods demand retribution! We will sunder this priest from the gods, and on the Eve of Snows, summon the Sword of Sol. By His hand will we rend every last Choerkin soul from their bodies and from the gods. Their spirits will fade and die in the lands of the mortal, never seeing the Living Stars.”

  Ulrikt snatched the star from above his head, its light casting a horrific pallor over elegant features. Beautiful, powerful, and malicious. He stepped from the sarcophagus and pointed the star at Dareun.

  Gusts swirled through the bailey blowing dust, hair, and robes in a disarray of direction until the wild air collected in streams, sparkling as if each carried flecks of gems. Diamond, sapphire, ruby, amethyst, emerald, citrine, peridot, topaz, aquamarine, and tourmaline. The Sundering of the Ten Winds.

  The horror set in and she screamed, but she couldn’t hear herself over the Sundering’s roar in her ears. Her throat burned raw.

  The winds coalesced and struck her master, lifting him into the air. His mouth gaped, body shaking in violent spasms as the colors thrashed his body.

  Instinct told her to run to him. Suicide. No, she’d made a promise. She wouldn’t try to save him. She tried to close her eyes, but the warbling cries demanded her eyes stay open.

  Reality quaked and shimmered where the man hung in suspension, the miraculous rainbow altering the universe until ten versions of her master stretched inches one from the other, each bearing the hue of a wind. No longer did one man scream, ten voices echoed across the bailey, each disjointed from the other in time.

  The bile in Eliles’ stomach rose, but she forced it back into her burning throat with anger and hatred. No more. She could take no more. She locked her stare on Ulrikt and tied every lord priest into a vision of a noose of fire and called her friends.

  Flickering heat engulfed her senses, like holding your finger close enough to a candle for tongues of hot air to lick the skin, only it was everywhere. The energy surrounding her swelled; she couldn’t see her friends, but they came from everywhere. Burning to her call, raging with her fury, soon there would be enough to burn them straight into the hells.

  She meant to stand, but gentle, chilled fingers held her shoulder down. She wanted to wail, she needed to see them burn, but a peace passed through her. She remained on her knees, her friends departing as silent as they arrived. A shiver coursed through her body, and tears slid down her cheeks. Anger faded into deep sorrow.

  She watched through blurred eyes, limbs and core shaking with sobs as her master dropped lifeless to the dais. The hand massaged her shoulder, but nobody stood beside her. She fought for control and wiped her tears. Smiled.

  HE’D SIGNED THE CONFESSION, and against sworn promises, he’d still suffered the Sundering of the Ten Winds. Ulrikt lied, why? He was more than a scapegoat.

  The Sundering of Ten Winds was a breath-taking display of power. He’d seen it before, a decade ago, it took Ulrikt and a dozen senior high priests half a day to perform the ceremony. Rising from the dead was not enough—Ulrikt had needed to prove his might and consolidate control over the Church if he was going to ascend to King Priest.

  Dareun stared at his hands, flexing his fingers. They were straight again, healed. There was a discomfort, a pressure in the joints, maybe the memory of pain. He heard himself scream. His body floated above the ground, wrenched to and fro by flowing auras of white light sprinkled and streaked with violets and turquoise. Northern lights, only focused, intense even beneath the sun. Beautiful, yet he knew the beauty killed him.

  He sighed from frustration, not sadness. At least the end came. Ulrikt, or whatever passed for the lord priest now, stood in a raging shower of sparkling energies, a range of colors he’d never imagined. His life made a spectacular end at least, and he found himself grateful for bearing witness.

  Eliles. He glanced to the crowd, over two thousand souls. She stood out as a fire in the dark. Hale and strong, surrounded by overwhelming energy. A ring of fire enveloped her. No. Flames, hundreds of tiny flames and more came, darts of energy streaking from the sky, the mountains, the stone beneath everybody’s feet, collecting around her. Eliles stared at his screaming body. No, no, no. She couldn’t—

  Dareun stood behind her.

  Startled by his travel, he followed her gaze. His body stopped screaming, but still shook and quaked with forces driving through flesh and bone. Power crackled around his girl. Her anger focused and the tiny flames flitting around her grew. She was going to do something horrible. Many would die, but the lord priest and the artifact he wielded were too powerful. He couldn’t allow her to confront him.

  She raised to a knee, and Dareun placed a hand on her shoulder. “Shhhh. All is well, my girl.” She relaxed under his touch; whether she heard him or not, she sensed his soul. She must have. Her anger faded beneath his fingers and shoulders sagged, he felt her tears pool and drip down her cheeks as if they were his own. Flames flickered and withdrew in streaking wisps. Her release was his, and he smiled.

  She was powerful, more powerful than he ever imagined. He didn’t understand her gift of feral magic anymore than when he lived, nor even its extent, but if he were still alive, he might have feared her for the first time.

  She bowed her head as Ulrikt let Dareun’s body collapse lifeless to the dais. With the Sundering of the Ten Winds completed the force drawing him to the Bridge of Living Stars disappeared. Ulrikt doomed Dareun to never lay eyes on the heavens, and it wasn’t as terrifying as he expected.

  He rubbed her shoulder and a peculiar tingle or twitch sizzled through his being. If he were alive, he’d swear somebody watched him. The sensation persisted. He looked to Ulrikt, but the lord priest stood with the star held above his head, praying.

  A chant rose in the courtyard, and filaments of energy connected the prayerful to Ulrikt, feeding his power. The tingle persisted.

  Dareun turned. A man with a sword watched him, near the stables. He and a woman stood out from the crowd, but in different ways. Dareun waded through the droning faithful, his eyes locked on the pair.

  The woman’s features became crisp as he grew close. She wasn’t human. By the gods! He’d lived his life dreaming of meeting a Trelelunin, and only after he died did he see one. Her sharp features, the high cheek bones, and an aura of sky blues fading into white. She didn’t see him, didn’t sense him.

  But this man? An indistinct face distinguished the swordsman, a charcoal drawing with a thumb dragged across his features. Wherever the man’s flesh showed from beneath clothing was a smudge on the world, unknowable, unreal. What sort of demon was he? A Trelelunin wouldn’t associate with a demon, at least if she was aware of the evil.

  “Hello, Dareun.” The demon spoke perfect Silone, but carried Emudar inflections to his words.

  The dead priest smiled. If still alive, he imagined his heart would be in his throat, but fear of this nature no longer concerned him. “Who are you?”

  The man sighed, shoo
k his head. “I can’t hear you.”

  The Trelelunin woman stared at the man. “Who’re you speaking to?” She followed the demon’s gaze and stared through Dareun.

  “I’m a friend of Ilpen’s. I will protect Eliles if I’m able. But I need to know something. I need to kill Ulrikt, can you help me?”

  Dareun stood stone still, he’d never done more than flirt with the notion of killing before. But now?

  Ulrikt’s voice thundered in the background. “We begin tomorrow with the sun at its zenith. Holy War! Together we shall avenge this affront to the gods. Together we will return the Pantheonate to power and eradicate the enemies of Sol.”

  It turned out being executed left a bitter taint to his soul. Dead and cursed from the heavens, nothing remained to deter him from protecting the girl he’d come to love as a daughter.

  Dareun mouthed the words and nodded to the demon-man. “I will try.

  36

  EVE OF SNOWS

  The Tower’s eye blind, fly, fly, my eye

  Flake Blind White into the Night.

  —Tomes of the Touched

  Dareun’s world radiated light. The rays of the sun weren’t so bright as when he was alive, but more colorful, and pitch-black tunnels for the living were lit like twilight. Even walking through doors and walls only turned his vision to muted grays and browns. He could travel the grounds of Istinjoln in an instant by focusing on a location, an enjoyable trick, but in the end these things meant nothing.

  He watched Eliles in her cell, but he couldn’t utter a reassuring word, nor tell her to run. He reached for a quill to dip in ink, but no matter how hard he focused, his fingers remained insubstantial.

  If Dareun were still alive, he’d walk up to Ulrikt and stab him in the throat, but being dead didn’t allow for suicidal heroics. His only hope was the demon-man, and a small hope it seemed unless the demon wielded miracles. Still, he had promised to try.