Eve of Snows: Sundering the Gods Book One

by L. James Rice

  Eliles wasn’t sure about the explanation for the presence, but it didn’t matter. How the thing could be used was what counted. “What use would this Life and Spirit be?”

  The woman closed her eyes, lips pursed in thought before rubbing her eyes open, looking Eliles straight in the eye. “This is an answer you will have to find. But I can say this: The Shadows of Man are corrupted creatures of Spirit. And all magic involving the Celestial, whether speaking to deities during the Age of God Wars or summoning a demon, involves Spirit. A reservoir of Spirit could empower a summoning, or end it.”

  “Even if… I’ve never… Fire, the Fire I know better.”

  They stared at each other until Lelishen shrugged and pointed: The living version of the Touched sat in the chair, his body merging with the skeleton. “The dead man has the right of it. Go, get some rest. Dream for the answers. We both will.”

  Eliles took a step but turned. “I think you should take the book with the Touched’s conversation with us in it for your gift?”

  Lelishen glanced to the book cradled on her lap, then glanced to the desk. “You’re probably right. I will consider it.”

  “Thank you, for everything.” Eliles turned and made a straight line to the monk. “How much did you hear?”

  The man shrugged. “It all makes sense now. Your not being a priestess, the fiery demons.” He took a drink and shoved the cork into his bottle before lying back down, turning his back on her. “What’s it matter anymore? Nothing matters anymore.”

  Just her secret didn’t matter anymore, the holy were taught to despise feral magic from the moment they entered Istinjoln. She stared at the back of his head a moment, then returned to Ivin’s side, lying down to sleep as she slipped her hand back into his, and found freedom from dark dreams for a few candles.

  40

  FREED FROM DARKNESS

  Questions, yours bud and leaf on the branches of the tree,

  No direction, no cause, no use, no care for where they grow.

  Questions better are Roots in dirt,

  Growing in direction with purpose to water, see.

  Slip the knot and stretch the tree,

  Dangle and dance with me.

  —Tomes of the Touched

  The world shook once or twice, and Meris awoke in abject blackness, neither a Heaven nor a Hell, nor without light could it be the Road of Living Stars. Her body ached and she couldn’t move, so she drifted back to dreams before deciding whether she was alive or dead.

  When she awakened to a room lit by Light, the man sitting in front of her was so impossible it convinced her she had died. Lord Priest Ulrikt smiled at her. Reality rallied in her mind, and she determined it must be his Face. Or maybe the dead Ulrikt was the Face.

  “It’s good to see you again, Meris. I apologize for yesterday, and the splinters that struck you instead of me, but you know how unpredictable bones can be.” He raised her head and dribbled water into her mouth.

  Her throat scratched out a few words, painful and awkward with a swollen tongue. “I saw you die.”

  “The Road of Living Stars is a wonder to behold, but I put my faith and my life in the hands of Sol. When the gods are unable to come to you, you must go to them for a conversation, and Sol saw fit to return my soul from the perfection of death to this flawed world.”

  Meris couldn’t raise her head on her own, and she wondered if they’d denied her the healing arts. “How?”

  “Not as I expected, I assure you. The Prophecy of the Twelfth Star—”

  “The Eye of the Fire Lion.” She admonished herself for not seeing it when the Face spoke to her at Skywatch. The whispers of the forbidden tomes she heard in her youth spoke of a prophet resurrected by a God Wars relic known as the Sliver of Star, and this prophet would lead the Silone people into a second era of the Panthenate, beginning the long journey to dominion over the world. “Resurrected by the Sliver of Star?”

  “Surprisingly, no.” He waggled his finger at her with a pleased grin on his face. “You are a bright woman, you should’ve served in Istinjoln instead of wasting your years in the stars. The gods saw fit to raise my flesh, but to deny me the Sliver, but it will come. Soon. And when it does, Sol’s fury over the loss of this world will be unleashed upon the unfaithful. The battle has begun, and we will find victory in a fortnight.”

  “A war fought and lost once before.”

  The man’s voice lost all semblance of calm, taking an edge she’d never heard from the lord priest before. “Imrok Girn was a fool who lingers still in the Hell of False Prophets.” With a grin and a swipe of his hair the silk tongue returned. “My words are perhaps harsh. Imrok was impatient, filled with ambition upon seeing an opportunity. He read the words of Sol, of the Prophecy of the Twelfth Star, of the Fire Lion, of the Dark Sword. He watched as the clans tore one another apart, how weak they’d become warring with each other even as they found peace. He saw an opening.

  “The Tome of Sol promised the lord priests rule of the Silone people, but the promise stretched centuries into the future. Why wait, when the clans were ripe for holy conquest now? He learned too late to save his soul from the hells, I fear, and his mistake brewed mistrust between church and clan that cost a great many lives. How things are today are not how they are supposed to be, and much blame falls on the shoulders of the venerated Imrok Girn, I fear.”

  In a century of stories, preaching, and honest debates on theology and history, never had she heard Lord Priest Imrok’s name bandied about with such disrespect from within the Church. It was shocking, and brought defensive bile burning to her gut. “And you, the new King Priest of the Panthenate?” The other night talking in his chambers, even now, it didn’t fit. Power suited the man, but he didn’t come across as obsessed with its trappings.

  “May I be honest? I don’t know the will of Sol, but no, I don’t believe so, although some call me such. Maybe it is with flawed pride that I allow their tongues to wag with flowery titles.” He bore a wistful smile. “I can’t be too honest with you, but neither will I lie. The gods play games framed by time in ways we mortals find difficult to conceive. The question is, are you ready to continue playing, to serve Sol, or are you content to walk the Road of Living Stars? If the latter, I will make sure your end is swift and painless, and you are sent on your way with prayers for your journey, but if you believe you can dedicate yourself for a time yet to the will of the Pantheon, you will journey back to your stars, safe and well. Sol has one more duty for you if you are willing. You have earned this choice through your decades of faith and service.”

  The lord priest offered her life or death, and her heart pounded in her breast. A prominent shadow in the back of her mind clamored for the Road, but the most base of desires shared by all things living still dominated her consciousness. “I will serve Sol and his Pantheon until such time as Etinbin comes for my soul.”

  Ulrikt smiled and passed a hand over her eyes, and a warm shiver quivered through her flesh and bones. “When the time comes, a boy will tell you who you need to assist, and who you need to kill.” Her aches faded and her fatigue disappeared, replaced by a vigor she hadn’t felt for decades, if ever, but she swallowed hard on word of another murder. He held her shoulders to the bed when she tried to sit, her eyes wide.

  “Your body is not as able as it feels. Rest still. Sleep.”

  Her next memory was of her eyes fluttering open in the light of day, muted by canvas arching over a wagon. She kept still for the first moments as wheels rattled on cobbles, then turned her head to either side. She was alone, so she propped herself on an elbow and pried open a flap, a half-inch crack to gain a glimpse of the outside world. Istinjoln’s outbuildings, walls, and stable rolled past. A hunched priest lumbered across the yard, but he was too young to be arched so. A back injury? She closed the flap and lay flat, staring at the maple hoop holding the canvas above her head.

  Something was wrong in Istinjoln, but decades of wisdom told her she didn’t want to know the answer
s to what or why. Istinjoln was Ulrikt’s problem, not hers. She didn’t need answers, she would return to her stars and follow their guidance, serve the will of the gods as she always had. What was one more murder on an already stained soul?

  DAREUN SAT beside Meris in her wagon as it clattered on worn pavestones toward Istinjoln’s gates. He couldn’t help but ponder how much this woman knew of the horrors and their cause, but the unsettled frown on her face when she rose to an elbow to look outside gave him hope that this aged soul wasn’t privy to Ulrikt’s plans.

  With a thought, Dareun returned to the prison cell where he’d been tortured, a morbid habit he’d developed since dying. He sat in the corner, staring at the bloodstains he’d left behind. The physical pain no longer lingered in his mind, not even the terror; he was at peace with these things. The humiliation of soiling himself as the inquisitor began his torture still haunted him, and there was a mystery aching to be solved: What had they done with his body?

  He’d sat in the solitude of this cell for candles considering possibilities, but they’d all proved wrong. They hadn’t thrown him to the thorns, not a single funeral pyre burned, nor were there fresh graves. A multitude of dead lay in the streets and tunnels of Istinjoln, rotting without a care, and he’d checked every face he’d thought might be his own.

  Where would they put him that he wouldn’t think to look? His mind went around and around, but always came back to this question. Perhaps he’d phrased the question wrong all along, where did he not know to look? When the notion struck him he smiled at the irony: The oubliette, where feral children were reputedly thrown to their deaths.

  Stories of this deep hole hidden in the bowels of Istinjoln persisted since the first day he’d walked through the monastery’s gates. He needed to find this place, to discover his body’s resting place, but he couldn’t put a finger on why finding his mortal form mattered so much. Perhaps for the reason he returned to this cell at least three times every day.

  The next moment he stood in the hall, his specter’s eyes having no trouble seeing without light. He wandered, taking every turn he’d never taken before, and when he met a loop or dead end, he spirit-traveled and started a new trail into the unknown.

  He lost track of time, a remarkably easy feat when dead. The monotony of the search would’ve grated on his living consciousness, but his soul he found to be patient beyond his expectations. He explored more than two hundred tunnels, fascinated by the nuances of their twists and turns and how they interconnected, as well as their rock formations and carvings. He became so absorbed in a statue carved high in a ceiling, a horned gargoyle swooping with bulbous eyes and razor talons, that he stood ten strides over open air before realizing he may have found his goal.

  His soul hovered over a gaping hole in the cavern, perfectly round and so deep his vision faded before reaching bottom. He stared. Dareun couldn’t say he was nervous, such an emotion didn’t seem to exist, but he questioned his need for answers, whether knowing the answer would be worse than a mystery.

  But he succumbed to curiosity and sank into the oubliette’s gray featureless depths. Until there was white below. At first it was a blur, but as he grew closer the white in his ghostly eyes took on the shapes of bones, old and fleshless, and in the middle, two black and broken figures in robes.

  Dareun descended to the twisted corpse lying on its back, but it was difficult to discern the face until within a few feet. The body stared at him, and he at it, until he drew close enough to recognize the eyes as his own.

  Lord Priest Ulrikt had him thrown into the hole Eliles would’ve been cast if her feral magic had been revealed. By Ulrikt’s own words, he knew the girl’s powers the moment she’d arrived—Ulrikt could’ve been lying, of course; it could all be part of the same game. Except…

  He gazed at the floor of bones, pristine white in his vision. They must’ve been dropped into this hole nude, as not a stitch of clothing remained, but it was the lack of flesh that triggered revelation: Three feral children had marched into Istinjoln a short time ago… where were their bodies? Where are the bodies of the others brought to Istinjoln hooded and bound by rope this past year? He wasn’t an expert on decay, but bones shouldn’t be so clean.

  The skeletons were all of a size he’d expect for the young and doomed. This must be the resting place of feral children, but without recent bones… What if Eliles wasn’t so unique? What if Ulrikt had spared every feral child since becoming lord priest?

  The potential answer rocked his conceptions of the Church and the lord priest to the core. If such a basic teaching of the Church, the evil of feral magic and the Vanquished Gods, could be subverted without a Council of Lord Priests and its findings announced, what then was sacrosanct?

  No, Ulrikt must have found another way to murder those children. There wasn’t a modicum of kindness in the man’s soul. But might it make sense if Ulrikt let Eliles live while knowing of her feral magic?

  The questions thundered in his thoughts as he stared into his dead eyes, and it took several moments to remember the second body that lay on its side. He stepped around the feet of his body and kneeled for a view of the dead man, and if he’d still had a heart, it might’ve stopped.

  Ulrikt.

  Shards of bone still protruded from his bloodied cheeks and neck, and the words spoke in the torture cell came to him: Dear, dear Dareun. How do you even know if the man you knew as Ulrikt was ever me at all?

  Dareun knew more now than when he was alive, but he understood nothing.

  41

  SHADOWS IN ISTINJOLN

  A fleeting bird is the Dove, but a Crow, not so,

  The Dove’s burning wings do not bring her haste in pace,

  While winds of calm lift feathers not, the Crow strives for speed not grace,

  Two birds who never will meet in destiny’s spiral,

  these tornadic winds of pretense,

  even when brought to this same venerable place.

  —Tomes of the Touched

  A skeleton garbed in red and black velvet awakened the party, but the Touched remained as he sat when they’d fallen asleep. The walking bones pointed and meandered to the exit to wait, dutiful as any servant in the halls of Istinjoln. Eliles stretched, finding Ivin’s hand still in hers, and they shared a smile. Her fingers slipped free as she stood.

  When he’d sat beside her last night and she’d felt the warmth of her hand in his, there was a niggling question resting pensive on her tongue. “Tell me something, and no games?”

  His brows scrunched. “Of course.”

  “What color are my eyes? Have they changed?”

  “Changed?” She’d flustered him. “Your eyes are blue, same as that night. Lighter than my own, with a dark ring.”

  He was right. “Nothing has changed? My hair, my nose… nothing?”

  He grinned, taking her hand. “The only thing that’s changed is you smile more since we met.” Her face flushed and she must’ve donned a goofy grin, as his eyes widened, and he slouched. “I’m so sorry, I sounded like my cousin right then.”

  She smiled a second time, so what he said may have been true. “Your cousin must be very sweet.”

  She stood on her toes and kissed a man on the lips for the first time in her life, but if she’d noticed their audience she would’ve waited. Solineus coughed and Lelishen leaned on the man’s shoulder, her lips pouting as if she’d gazed upon the world’s cutest kitten.

  Tokodin sauntered between them with a bloodshot glare, and she wondered if it was from opening his bottle last night. “About blessed time.” He burst open a loaf of bread and handed chunks to everyone. “We’ve slept on it, so what’s the plan?”

  Eliles said, “We need to stop the mother.”

  “It’s stopped, we have the Sliver,” the monk said.

  “Not good enough.” Eliles hated Istinjoln, but she didn’t want to leave it to the Shadows of Man.

  Lelishen said, “He has a point. But if Shadows are still coming throug
h the Celestial Gate, when do they stop?”

  Eliles’ stomach clenched. “We must destroy the Gate.”

  “Suicide,” Tokodin said, “and worse, the Shadows get the Sliver.”

  Solineus said, “I’m with the girl.”

  The skeleton clattered his metacarpals, pointing, proving the dead could grow impatient.

  Ivin said, “If we’re able, we destroy it, if not… The plan is to destroy it. Let’s go.”

  Eliles clutched the Sliver in her right hand, tucking it into her sleeve. It was warm to the touch, but was neither hard nor soft. The surface flexed when she squeezed, like grasping a finger to find bone.

  She followed Ivin into the hall, fearful, but there was no sign of Taken nor Shadows. She’d expected to find Taken mutilated by skeletons, but there were no signs of a fight. The skeletons parted, and they met nothing on their way out. They stepped into the haze of the Steaming Lakes, weapons bared and shields to the fore, but the demons from yesterday were nowhere in sight.

  Eliles couldn’t understand their good fortune and didn’t want to squander it. “Keep moving, they’ll be back any time.”

  Solineus asked, “Think they’re lying in wait?”

  Ivin kept his new shield in hand, eyes plying the fog for movement. “They waited for us at the Crack of Burdenis, so yeah, don’t underestimate the bastards. Keep quick but quiet.”

  They’d traveled a few hundred strides before Rinold cursed, holding a branch in his hand. “I broke this branch marking our trail yesterday, I swear it.”

  Eliles asked, “What do you mean, it healed?”

  “I mean it weren’t ever broke.” He grunted and lead them onward, snorting here and there before stopping to gawk at a patch of ground. “Priestess. Didn’t you damned near take a bath here?”