In the Shadow of the Gods

by Rachel Dunne

  The silence spun out once more, the thoughtful silence that every good story birthed, and within it Keiro sat dumbfounded. They should not have known the words, the words that were the anthem of the preachers. They lived here in the Plains, sheltered, primitive, unlearned. They should not have known.

  The silence broke as a hand touched his knee, and Yaket said, “You tell it well, fraro.”

  And then the children were begging for more, the story of Sororra and the golden flower, of Fratarro’s long sleep, of Straz, first of the mravigi. They knew all the old stories by name, it seemed. Each had their own favorite story. Keiro sat within their flurry of words, and had no words of his own. His heart broke, a very little bit.

  That night he lay on the grass mat they had given him, which was too small for his long body, and he stared up at the stars. Sororra’s Eyes were low to the horizon, hidden by the waving grass that surrounded him on all sides. He had had a hope of redemption, here among the rippling sea of grass, and it had been dashed as quickly as it had formed.

  Keiro was not a man given to reflection; he did not spend overmuch time considering the paths and circles of life. His feet took him where they willed, and if he happened to walk the same path twice, he supposed it was as it was meant to be. But his thoughts that night took an unfamiliar turn, raising questions he was unused to asking or answering. How did these isolated people, a whole race of small folk the wider world disregarded, know all the old stories? He couldn’t answer that on his own, and when he finally found the words to ask aloud, Yaket just smiled at the question and tapped a finger below her blind eye. “We two,” she said again, “we know.”

  CHAPTER 23

  Joros hadn’t thought there could be a person alive more obnoxious than those blasted twins. Anddyr, who was nearly as detestable in his own ways, at least had the grace to be obsequious about it.

  But the merra, the thrice-cursed priestess with her horror of a face—she may have been the worst person Joros had ever met, and that was an impressive feat, especially after only two days of traveling together. If she didn’t have to pause to breathe, he doubted she’d ever stop praying; as it was, she rode her horse directly behind Joros’s and chanted verse at his back. “And so shall the unfaithful be smote, and their souls denied a place among the eternal stars . . .” Someone so bloody ugly should have the sense to be quiet and let herself be forgotten.

  The throbbing pain that lived on his left side, face and neck and shoulder, made his tolerance shorter than usual. Anddyr had been blubbering apologies since the inn, weaving his healing spells every day over Joros, but to begin with, it was harder for the mage to knit the wounds of another—he had some explanation that Joros had no interest in hearing—and he claimed burned skin like Joros’s took time to mend, even at the accelerated pace Anddyr could provide. The short of it was that it hurt to move, but Joros wouldn’t let a weakness like that affect him. He nursed his aches silently, as a man should.

  When the merra wasn’t praying at Joros, she was likely to be found speaking to Anddyr. That itself was an insult, and troubling to boot: she talked to the mage like he talked to the horses, gentle and encouraging. She’d tried to take the skura from him, their first day traveling; Anddyr had bit her, and that still made Joros smile to think on. It didn’t stop her talking to him, though, likely whispering sedition into his impressionable ears.

  Still, if she was part of the price to pay for the hulking brute of a Northman, he could withstand her. Scal’s presence had already done wonders—with his stolen merchant garb too burned to wear, Joros had had to go back to a black robe, and there’d been many unwelcoming stares and unhappy mutters at the inns they’d stopped at. With the Northman sharing his table, though, it never went any further than staring and muttering. Joros would even allow that the burned merra made for an excellent deflection from his own wounds and the black robe. He’d rather not have the monster around, but there were worse things in the world than her, and there was no sense in fighting a losing battle.

  So he withstood the burned merra and her aggressive prayer, and took comfort instead in the imposing presence of the Northman. He, at least, knew how to keep his lips together.

  Near when the sun was at its highest, Joros turned his stolen horse toward a sad stand of trees off the road. The others followed, used by now to these occasional stops. It was growing harder to find places they wouldn’t be seen, places far enough from any of the villages and towns; they were not much farther than a day outside Mercetta, and traffic was growing thicker on the road. Still, it was important to Joros to at least remain out of sight for the seekings. It wouldn’t do to have villagers and travelers wondering why the evil preacher’s servant got all glass-eyed and hang-jawed when Joros handed him a certain pouch.

  Joros dismounted under the dappled shelter of the trees, letting the horse graze freely. It made Anddyr twitch when he did that; something about the reins or the bit, it couldn’t matter that much. Joros took the pouch from his hip and handed it to Anddyr, settling his back against a tree as he waited for the mage to finish his seeking.

  “What’s he doing?” the merra demanded, just as she did every time. She and the Northman remained on their horses, him watchful, and she as full of glares as ever. Joros took great delight in ignoring her.

  As had become his habit, Joros reached inside his robe and ran his fingers over the seekstones. Most showed him places on the far edges of Fiatera, scattered and distant; not exactly useless, but significantly less useful. Then there were the promising ones, the one at the center of Mercetta and the one at the city’s borders—wait. The latter was different, showing him new images for the first time in years. It had always been dirty stone walls and running water, grim faces swimming in and out of focus, grimy hands holding out a dagger with a blue stone in its hilt. Always some variation of the same, never leaving the safe, suffocating embrace of Mercetta.

  Until now. Now it was fields and trees and running feet, and a steady northwest pull.

  The back of Joros’s hand brought Anddyr out of his seeking, his mouth agape. There was no time. The mage was taller than any person had a right to be, but there was no weight on his bones; he was like a stick in shape and weight, and there was no resistance as Joros clambered astride the horse and hauled the mage up behind him. The horse would carry them both, or he would replace it with one that could.

  Joros set his heels into the horse harder than he needed to and the beast leaped forward, crashing out of the copse. Startled travelers dodged out of the way, spitting curses at his back.

  “What happens?” the Northman rumbled, his horse keeping pace easily. Dimly, Joros could hear the merra cursing as her nag faltered, but he couldn’t even enjoy that through the pounding of his heart.

  “They’ve left,” Joros said, as much to himself as the Northman. “Something may have happened.” He’d taken all the seekstones with him, ensuring the Fallen wouldn’t be able to track down any of the twins, but his shadowseekers were clever. There were some who wouldn’t need the help of a seekstone to monitor found twins.

  And so they rode hard, Joros’s fingers clamped around the seekstone, glimpses of another road swimming before his eyes, dirty and tattered shoes raising dust, the road before him blurred and indistinct, full of leaping bodies hurriedly fleeing his horse’s hooves. They rode at a gallop until the Northman tore the reins from Joros’s hands, pulling hard enough that the beast stumbled and reared. Anddyr tumbled to the ground, but Joros kept his legs clamped around the horse’s middle and took handfuls of its mane to keep his seat.

  “What in all the hells do you think you’re doing?” Joros near shouted.

  The Northman gave him a level stare, no emotions on his scarred face. “Wherever it is we are going,” he said slowly, like he was drawing the words one at a time from a bag, “we will not get there faster on dead horses.”

  Scal’s face grew more vague, overlaid with another man’s face, wide-eyed, mouth moving quickly. Joros’s finge
rs tightened around the seekstone, and the other face grew clearer. Young, still, but a man, with dirty hair past his shoulders and fear deep in his eyes. Joros had seen his face before.

  “They need to be walked,” Anddyr said blearily from the ground.

  Joros let his fingers slip from the seekstone and turned his horse to pull alongside Anddyr. The mage was dust-coated and vacant-eyed, sitting propped up on one arm; he was at the perfect height for Joros’s boot to connect easily with the side of his head.

  The merra shouted curses at him, coming on too slow on her hard-breathing old nag. Joros dismissed her utterly, turning back to face the Northman. “We’re wasting time,” Joros said, fighting to keep his tone level, fighting to keep his fingers from the seekstone, his mind from trying to solve the mystery. He itched to lash out, to vent his frustration and anger against something solid again. But Joros was no fool—the merra’s horse now shielded the mage from his reach, and something in Joros’s gut told him that striking at the merra would be the same as striking at the Northman. His fingers chafed, but he touched them to the seekstone once more. There was still the road, still running, but it was no farther away. He let the seekstone drop, and touched his fingers to the others instead. Still there, still where they always were, nothing changed. Joros still burned for an answer, one he would get even if he had to cut the Northman down where he stood . . . but there were always alternatives, should this one fail.

  Joros closed his eyes, drew in a deep breath. Dirrakara had always laid a hand on his chest, felt the rise and fall of his breathing until she deemed him calm enough to speak again. That spot over his heart felt cold, empty—only for a moment.

  He held out a hand, finger pointing down the road. Away from Mercetta, toward the running feet. He tried not to spit the word at the Northman: “Lead.”

  They had to wait for Anddyr, spitting out a mouthful of blood, to climb behind the Northman—the merra’s nag could barely carry her alone, and Anddyr wouldn’t meet Joros’s glaring eyes, so that left the Northman’s horse to carry him. Scal didn’t say anything to dissuade or encourage the mage, his face the same blank it always was.

  The pace the Northman set made Joros gnash his teeth, but with his fingers around the seekstone, he couldn’t deny the pull was growing stronger, closer, the distance between the path they traveled and the half-glimpsed road to the north growing smaller. Joros called a halt for the night only when he was satisfied his quarry had also stopped; he was tempted to push on through the dark, but the Northman rumbled a flat “no” when Joros voiced that thought. He and the merra built a fire before they did anything else, even leaving their horses saddled and grumbling while Anddyr fretted over them. It was strange, the way the followers of the Parents so feared the dark that they couldn’t let any bit of it brush against them. He had expected better from Scal, but he supposed the Northman had been in Fiatera long enough for southern suspicions to taint him.

  Joros sat before the fire while Anddyr and the merra tended to the horses, sweat-dark and tired-eyed. The Northman disappeared briefly, a shortbow in one hand and three arrows in the other; he returned just before the light had leached from the sky with all three arrows and a dead hare. He skinned it while the merra chopped up some roots Anddyr had dug up some days ago, given to her like a holy offering, while the mage went off to fill the dented cookpot with water from what amounted to little more than a puddle. It made for a poor stew. Joros hated traveling, he really did; he missed his bed, and warm meals delivered to him each night and day, and all the comforts of being a leader of the Fallen.

  “What have they sent you to do?”

  The voice seemed to come from the fire itself, but after a moment Joros picked out the eyes staring at him from the other side of it. Green eyes, amid skin warped with the patterns of flame.

  “I have not been sent anywhere,” Joros said stiffly. He couldn’t say what made him answer her. The preachers held that in the darkness, a man couldn’t hide anything; with no light, there were no lies, only truth. With only the fire holding back the dark, perhaps some of the truth was beginning to leak out of him.

  “Then what vileness have you chosen to wreak?”

  “Look closer into your flames,” Joros suggested. He’d seen her each night, trying to draw truth from the fire and muttering over it like Anddyr. “If you lean close enough, I’m sure you’ll find the answer. Right at the center . . .” Moving slowly, Joros stretched out his leg, and at the last word, he nudged a burning log with his boot. The fire jumped toward the merra, and she leaped back with a shout, and Joros’s laugh rang into the night.

  “You’re an evil man,” she said softly from beyond the fire.

  Joros smirked; the skin on the side of his face had begun to heal enough that smirking no longer hurt. “You don’t know the kind of man I am.”

  “I hope I never do.”

  “You’re welcome to leave any time you wish. I have no need of you.”

  “I go where Scal goes.”

  Joros shrugged, tilting his head back to look at the stars. Silence, sometimes, could do better work than any words could do. The stars stared down at him, bright against the black sky. Though the two sects couldn’t agree whether it had been Patharro or Fratarro who’d created them, all of Fiatera agreed that the souls of the dead went to live among the stars—one of the few things preachers and priests alike agreed on. Joros imagined it would make for an awkward afterlife, escaping the feuding divisions of the world only to have it carry on endlessly among the stars.

  “You know you can never win,” the merra whispered, her face dancing behind the flickering flames. “You have to know it’s hopeless.”

  Joros pulled his cloak around himself and, still smiling, rolled onto his side. Briefly he brushed his fingers against the seekstone; the twins were still and unmoving. From the ground he said, “I, for one, very much hope that you’re wrong.”

  It took the next day and most of another before they caught up to their prey, though they were too late. Approaching the village ahead, they could see the pinpoints of massing torches glowing against the dusk. Joros kicked his horse into a gallop, and this time no one gainsaid him.

  The shouting and the torches led him; he found his quarry cornered in what must have been the town square, walls on three sides and a swarm of humanity on the fourth. The villagers were waving their torches, working up their courage, waiting to see who would be the first to throw their flame. Usually, the Parents’ followers preferred to drown twins, but that was harder to do when the twins were more than mewling babes. Fire would do in a pinch.

  The man was tall, the woman short, but their faces were much too similar to be mistaken for mere siblings. It was a wonder they had gone undiscovered for so long, if they took no care to disguise themselves. That was a question to be answered later.

  “Twins,” the merra hissed, a lower echo of the angry shouts that filled the square. “Parents preserve us.” She made the sign of the sun over her heart and spat on the ground twice.

  The crowd hadn’t noticed the arrival of Joros and his companions yet—all to the better. “Scal,” Joros said, just loud enough for the Northman to hear him over the shouting, “it’s time to begin earning your keep. Keep them safe,” and he carefully pointed to the panicked twins so there could be no misunderstanding. “Do whatever you need to do.”

  To his credit, the Northman didn’t hesitate. His feet touched the ground in the same moment he drew his wicked-looking sword from over his shoulder. He picked his way quickly through the crowd, a stone forcing a river to part around it, his blade never touching flesh—more a promise to anyone who thought to stop him.

  “Shield them,” Joros murmured to Anddyr, behind him on the horse. The mage twisted to get enough space free for his hands to weave their patterns, but his muttered spells sounded thick, clumsy. The casting took him entirely too long, and Joros aimed an elbow into his chest to sharpen the mage’s focus. The merra had been whispering to him all week, still trying
to take the skura from him; Joros hadn’t been watching them carefully enough.

  The barely-seen shimmer settled over the twins and Scal, who turned to face the torches and the shouts, his sword angled across his body, waiting.

  “You’re a monster,” the merra spat. She, with her grotesque face, was so quick to accuse others of what she wore so openly.

  Ignoring her, Joros said to his mage, “Get me the mob’s attention.” This spell came almost too quickly, almost an instinctive reaction, like a gasp from a falling dream. A crash like thunder rent the air, and the shouts turned to terrified screams. Joros growled a curse and drove his elbow harder into the mage’s chest—but, granted, it had redirected the crowd’s attention.

  Joros lifted both arms into the air, standing in his stirrups, and tried to make his voice as loud as the spell: “Leave them.” All the eyes turned to him, and all the torches. Anddyr was frantically muttering another spell; which one, Joros couldn’t guess. “These two are now under my protection.” Past the crowd, the male twin was on his knees, clutching at his sister’s legs, eyes full of desperation. “Put away your weapons, and we will leave you in peace.”

  There was silence for a time, fear woven over the villagers like a spell, doubt creeping up their spines; and then, from somewhere, a laugh, hard and uncompromising. The fear popped like a bubble. A torch flew through the air, aimed not at the twins, but at Joros. It landed short, falling to the dirt road, but it was enough to make his horse rear, pawing the sky with panic. Anddyr scrabbled to get one arm around Joros, holding on as desperately as Joros clung to the horse. The crowd surged toward them, anger focused once more, fires bright against the dropping night. Anddyr’s arm thrust past Joros’s face, fingers bent like claws, and his shouted words were high with terror in Joros’s ear.

  And then, there was only fire. Screams, for one moment, but the fire swallowed them with everything else.

  It was like waking slowly from a dream, the line blurred between what’s real and what was dreamed. There was sobbing, and prayer, and neither seemed right. The glare faded from Joros’s eyes, white drawing away from the center, and he pushed himself to sitting to see what was real.