There were all just about done their nervous breakfast when Arolan appeared. The sea god nodded tersely to Ophidian, smiled at Avice, and bowed to Sybil who called from the counter, “Can I get you anything?”
Arolan shook his head. He stood by a wall, tapping his finger nervously on his leg and watching the humans impatiently.
“Why do I get the feeling that the gods are anxious?” Ford said to Annabelle as she took the last spoonful of her breakfast.
“Because we are,” Ophidian shot back.
“We haven’t much time,” Arolan said in agreement.
“They won’t do you any good until you tell them what you need, you know,” Wymarc told the two gods.
Ophidian smiled at her. “Daughter, you’re being irreverent.”
“And you’re being obtuse,” Wymarc snapped. She leaned Krea’s body back from her chair and glanced to the fire god and then to Arolan. “I’ve been around long enough to know when there’s trouble.”
“Perhaps not so much trouble as… opportunity,” Ophidian allowed with a twitch of his lips.
Wymarc snorted derisively.
“More like both, one after the other, providing the one is handled,” Arolan said, moving toward Ophidian. He looked at Ford and nodded solemnly. “The day of reckoning is at hand.”
Ford’s eyebrows shot up and he leaped up from his seat. He moved away from the table toward Arolan to whom he knelt, head bowed. “I made oath to you, my god,” he said firmly. He glanced up. “What is your will?”
“Oh, do get up!” Ophidian cried, waving a hand toward Ford while glaring at the sea god. Arolan gestured for Ford to rise. “The one thing I do know, is that nothing will work unless they undertake it willingly.”
“What have you two done now?” Wymarc asked, rising from her chair to better glower at the two gods. She looked at Ophidian, frowning thoughtfully, then to Arolan and then she groaned. “It’s another tear, isn’t it?”
“A tear?” Annabelle said, making a ripping gesture with her hands. “Like the world is sundered?”
“A tear, like a god crying,” Wymarc said in a strange tone, staring toward Ophidian with an unreadable expression.
Ophidian frowned then nodded to her. “Tell them, they’ll know soon enough anyway.”
Krea Wymarc moved to where the wyvern could address the group easily.
“I don’t know everything,” Wymarc said with a frown toward Ophidian. “The gods like to keep their secrets.”
“It’s better that way,” Arolan said in agreement. Wymarc cocked her head at him, then nodded.
“Long, long, long ago,” Wymarc began, “when the world was formed and the gods walked it, when men were created and the gods began to rejoice in them, something happened.” She paused. “I don’t know what, my father —” and she nodded at Ophidian “— was in a battle.” She frowned at him, an affectionate look on Krea’s face. “Or maybe something made him very sad —”
“Or maybe both,” Ophidian added cryptically. Wymarc waited a moment until he nodded to her to continue past his interruption.
“And he cried,” Wymarc said in a soft voice. She pursed her lips. “He didn’t cry much but his tears fell from the heavens.” She smiled at the dragon god. “He doesn’t like showing emotion, I think he feels that it makes him weak —”
Ophidian coughed warningly but Wymarc just smiled at him.
“— so when he cried, he let some of his emotions, and himself, fall to the ground,” Wymarc said.
“And where they landed, a wyvern was born,” Reedis finished softly. All heads turned to him and he flushed, embarrassed. Reedis gestured toward Krea Wymarc. “But the tears were so unhappy, they needed something more to make them whole. So they found a human who was willing to bond with them and became a twin soul.”
“How did you learn this?” Wymarc asked.
Reedis shrugged. “I didn’t, quite,” he admitted. “I’ve been thinking on it a long time. Something that Ibb said —”
“He says entirely too much!” Arolan growled.
Reedis nodded to him. “I think you’re very much correct in that,” the mage agreed. “In fact, I think he has been thinking deeply on matters for a very long time.”
“Since I was born at least,” Wymarc said, glancing toward Ophidian, her father. Ophidian gave her a look through half-lidded eyes and she smiled.
“So the serpent that attacked my ship,” Ford said to Arolan, “that’s another wyvern?”
“Indeed,” Arolan said. “Eveen Pallas was betrayed and the twin soul killed.” He frowned angrily. “Dark magic was used.”
“Like Lyric,” Krea guessed suddenly.
Arolan glanced at her. “I know nothing of this.”
Krea gestured to Hana and explained quickly how Lyric had tried to kill her to steal Wymarc, then succeeded in stealing Hana’s twin-souled kitsune.
“A hatpin?” Arolan said when she was done. “She used a hatpin? On a wyvern?”
“It was my mother’s,” Krea explained.
“It was a gift to her from your father,” Ophidian said. He sighed. “I told him how to use dragon fire to make steel.” His lips twitched and his eyes dimmed in some old memory. “It was his first piece.”
“Dragon steel, with dragon magic, couldn’t destroy a twin soul,” Wymarc said, turning Krea’s head toward Hana questioningly.
“It was your blood that finished the deed,” Ophidian said to Wymarc. He frowned, looking toward Avice. “How did the murderer — Lyric — learn that?”
“She was in the library a lot,” Krea said. To Avice, she added, “Could she have learned it there?”
“Or from Ibb,” Avice allowed. She shrugged as she took in the others’ expressions. “Or he could have told her something enough to make her curious, and she could have found the full answer here.”
“I think I should like a long talk with Ibb,” Arolan said with a menacing look on his face. He turned back to Ford. “Pallas, with her twin soul destroyed, went mad with the pain and grief of the loss.”
“The serpent attacked my ship, killed everyone aboard but myself, Knox, and Havenam,” Ford said, shuddering in recollection. He looked up to the sea god. “We prayed to you, swore our lives to your service —”
“And I took pity on you, and dragged Pallas to the shore,” Arolan said. He glared at Ophidian. “She was one of your get but she’d landed in my seas so I had some control.”
“Not enough,” Ophidian said with a smirk.
“You set me up!” Arolan growled.
“I had help,” Ophidian admitted. “Besides, I merely took advantage of the situation that presented itself.”
“Did Ametza arrange Eveen’s destruction?” Annabelle spoke up. The two gods turned their gaze on her but she met it with a shrug. She gestured to Ophidian. “You said you had help: she has been rejoicing these last two hundred years without her husband.”
“And how would you know?” Ophidian asked in a dangerous tone.
Annabelle snorted. “People talk, dragon god.”
“To subdue Pallas, I had to get it away from the sea, to someplace where I could calm it down,” Arolan said. “I brought it to the frozen north.”
“And you froze,” Ophidian said with a smirk.
Arolan nodded, turning his head slowly toward the other god. “Did you know what your pet tear could do?”
“What?” Ophidian taunted.
“I took Pallas to the frozen north because it was the only way to contain the serpent’s power,” Arolan told him coldly.
“I have so many children,” Ophidian said with a wave of his hand. “I don’t keep track of their powers.”
“Pallas, being shed into the cold waters of the north, learned the gift of freezing,” Arolan said. “If I hadn’t brought the serpent up here, it would have frozen all the seas.�
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“And that’s bad?” Ophidian asked snidely.
“Ophidian,” Avice said warningly. Ophidian gave the goddess a guarded look. “Think for once.”
“If she froze the seas, the land would not be long in following,” Annabelle said with dread. “And everyone would perish.”
“So you kept the serpent here, and allowed it to freeze you, too,” Ophidian guessed.
“And now it’s loose,” Reedis said, rising from his chair.
“And you want us to stop it,” Wymarc guessed. Krea could feel her dread.
“We’ve got a week,” Annabelle said, nodding toward Ophidian. “I know because that was our bargain.”
“Actually,” Ophidian said with a nod toward her, “we’ve got three days.”
“Less if the serpent finds any water leading to the sea,” Arolan corrected.
“How do we kill the serpent?” Angus asked with an apologetic look toward Krea. “It’s just a wyvern with no legs, right? Can we use your hatpin?”
“You can’t kill a wyvern,” Wymarc said testily. “Pallas needs a twin soul. One that can control the serpent’s rage and grief.”
Arolan nodded firmly and waved at Ophidian, throwing him the last word.
“You really want me to say it?” Ophidian said to him testily. Arolan nodded firmly. Ophidian let out a long sigh. Finally, he turned to the humans gathered around him. He muttered to Arolan, “You know, we’re going to regret this.”
“Your rules, old god,” Arolan said without any sympathy.
“Very well,” Ophidian said. He nodded to the humans in front of him, the nearest to a bow the arrogant god could make. He cleared his throat and said, “Annabelle, you are bound by your oath.”
“Get on with it,” Arolan prompted. “A little humility doesn’t hurt, you know.”
“Says the newly-thawed god,” Ophidian griped. Arolan merely shook his head sternly. Ophidian took a breath. “Very well.”
Silence.
“You want us to pledge to you that we’ll meet the snow serpent and give our lives to help it find a new twin soul,” Nestor said into the silence.
Ophidian shot him a sharp look but the crown prince didn’t flinch. Ophidian held his eyes for a moment longer then shrugged in grudging admission of the prince’s integrity.
“My lord Arolan, god Ophidian,” Nestor said carefully, rising from his chair and bowing deeply to each, “I accept.”
“I’ve got no choice,” Annabelle said, rising from her chair with a sigh.
“I will do what I can to help,” Hana said in a small voice, rising from her chair.
“My lord, you have but to ask,” Ford said, nodding to Arolan. “My life is yours.”
“I will do what I can, father,” Wymarc said to Ophidian.
“I agree,” Krea said. “We cannot allow Pallas to continue to suffer.”
Reedis looked around at the others standing above him and rose slowly from his chair, glancing first to Ophidian and then to Arolan. With a sigh, he stepped forward to join the others.
“We’re all going to die.”
Chapter Four
“Well, certainly, some day,” Terric, the god of Death, said to the mage. “It’s the way things are. Nothing to get upset about.” He glanced to his wife, Avice, the goddess of Life. “Do they complain to you when they get born?”
“Of course!” Avice told him emphatically. “All new babies cry! Why do you think that is?”
Terric thought about it and shrugged.
“It’s the time in between that’s important,” Ophidian said.
“And what you do with that time,” Nestor added.
The dragon god gave him a piercing look. “You know,” he said after a moment, “it’s possible that I may have misjudged you.”
Nestor’s lips twitched as he shrugged. “Don’t worry: I think I misjudged myself.”
“I’d certainly say so!” Ford cried loudly, turning to the crown prince. “You saved my life, your highness.”
“And I’ll gladly do it again,” Nestor told him. Ford reached out and grabbed his arm with his.
“So…,” Reedis said, glancing around the room, “all we have to do is find someone to bond with this snow serpent, pierce their heart with that ever-useful hatpin, and our problems are solved!”
Ophidian shook his head, his eyes dimming to near-normal.
“The way to a bond is different for every one of father’s tears — wyvern or serpent,” Wymarc said. She smiled bitterly and gestured to Krea’s body. “And sometimes the way is different for each soul mate.”
Reedis frowned, then brightened, turning to Avice, “My great goddess, did you not mention a library?” When Avice inclined her head in agreement, he continued, “And would not the answers be held there?”
“They would,” Avice agreed with a sour look, “if there had ever been anyone to record how Eveen Pallas was first twinned.”
Arolan glanced in surprise to Ophidian. “Eveen Pallas was that old?”
Ophidian nodded.
“I hadn’t known,” Arolan said in surprise. He glanced toward Krea Wymarc, addressing his question to the wyvern. “That’s a very long pairing, isn’t it?”
Wymarc nodded. “There were stories about Eveen Pallas going back thousands of years.”
“But wouldn’t there be something in the library?” Hana asked, glancing to the gods nervously.
“Lyric found something,” Krea noted.
“It’s possible that she only found something to confirm her guess,” Wymarc allowed, twisting Krea’s expression into a sour look. She glanced toward Ophidian. “We don’t know how much she learned from Ibb.”
“She left her caravan here,” Avice said, gesturing toward some place in the distance, beyond the walls of the dining hall, “perhaps there might be a clue.”
“I’ll take a look,” Annabelle said. “Where is it?”
“In the stables,” Avice replied as though it were obvious.
“Where are the animals? Is someone taking care of them?”
Avice smiled, shaking her head. “There were no animals, the contraption was driven by magic.” She smiled at Krea. “Some sort of steam engine. I smell your father’s hand in it.” She lidded her eyes as she glanced toward Ophidian but said nothing.
The dragon god chuckled. “I may have had a hand in it. Through Rabel.”
Krea was amazed at this news. Children rarely know their parents, Wymarc told her.
“Richard, come with me,” Annabelle ordered. She saw his consternation and added, “Reedis will go with the children —”
Children! Wymarc snorted bitterly. Shh, Krea thought, I want to hear. Wymarc subsided.
“— to the library and see what they can learn,” she glanced to Angus. “Can you read?”
“Yes, but not well,” the apprentice smith admitted. I knew that! Krea thought to Wymarc smugly.
Shh! I want to hear, Wymarc shot back to Krea, her amusement evident in her thought. Krea fumed but said nothing more.
“I’d be better with Lyric’s caravan,” Angus admitted. Annabelle accepted this with a shrug and gestured for him to follow her. Angus glanced toward Hana who smiled at him encouragingly.
“I’ll come with you,” Nestor said to Krea Wymarc, glancing nervously to Ophidian and Arolan, “if that’s all right.”
“We’ll stay here and confer,” Arolan said, gesturing for the humans to proceed.
“Wouldn’t you be able to read much faster than us?” Krea asked in surprise.
Arolan made a shushing gesture and Ophidian gave her a faint look of pain.
“Gods don’t read,” Ophidian said. “Our humans write thing in our praise, we don’t need to read them.”
“Knowledge is strength,” Sybil said, her eyes flashing, “some of us read.”
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br /> “Not the really important ones,” Ophidian said.
“But, while I read, I have great speed,” Sybil confessed. “Many eyes will find your answers quicker.” She glanced toward Krea Wymarc, adding with a crooked smile, “Besides, Wymarc is the fastest reader I know.”
Krea could feel the wyvern preen with pride. Hana grabbed her arm, tugging her out of the dining hall, “Come on, Krea Wymarc. We haven’t much time.”
#
They arrived at the library and went through the doors to find Ophidian waiting for them, an angry look on his face.
“Smoke!” Wymarc said with Krea’s lips. Ophidian, eyes hooded, pursed his lips tightly and nodded.
“And recent,” Ophidian said, stalking around the library briskly. He stopped in a corner at the far right back. “Ashes.”
Wymarc rushed Krea’s body to join him, the other three on their heels. She held up a hand and turned to Reedis. “What can you scry of this?”
Reedis closed his eyes, stretched his hands — and opened his eyes, shaking his head. “I’m good with hot and cold magic, not so much with detection.”
“Excuse me,” Hana said, pushing herself forward. She knelt down, put her head nearly to the ground and sniffed deeply. She put a hand over the pile of ashes for a long moment before pulling it back and standing up, saying to the others, “The ash is still warm, the book but newly burnt.”
“Not just one,” Reedis said grimly nodding toward the shelves above. “Almost the whole row.”
“It’s a wonder the whole library didn’t burn!” Nestor said.
“We put it out,” a pair of voices said in chorus. The others wheeled to find Vorg and Veva standing behind them. They smiled at Reedis in greeting, nodded to Krea Wymarc, gave Nestor a speculative look, and bowed to Hana.
“It started when you brought the witch here,” Veva continued.
“Did she —?” Ophidian began hotly.
“It was set for your presence, brother,” Vorg said. Veva frowned, shaking her head, “Perhaps not just his.”
“Who else?” Ophidian demanded, then guessed at the answer, “Arolan?”
“Only you two would know the dangers of the half-soul,” Vorg said.
Twin Soul Series Omnibus 2: Books 6-10 Page 8
