by Rain Oxford
“Oh. So if someone’s heart was heavier than the feather, they could still pass the trials by saving the girl?”
“Yes. However, no one’s trials are the same. Osiris was convinced your heart was not pure enough, so we added the girl.”
“Thank you… I think. So now what?”
“Now you must choose which god you want to be loyal to,” Isis said. “I am the goddess of magic, marriage, healing, and protection.”
“More importantly, you already know me,” the other woman said. She had black hair and green eyes. There was nothing unpleasant about her, but for some reason, I wanted to look at someone else.
“I don’t think so.”
She pouted. “I can’t believe you’d forget.” Then she smiled. “Oh, right.” Although nothing about her appearance changed, I no longer felt the need to look away. To my shock, I suddenly realized I had met her on multiple occasions.
“Keira?”
Her smile brightened. “Sometimes, but I don’t go by that name here.”
I recognized the self-satisfaction in her eyes and it all made sense… in a very twisted way. “You’re Bast; the cat goddess. You’re the jaguar that visited me and led me to Luca.”
“And saved your life. I am a protector of children, as are you. Unlike the other gods who take mortals as vessels, I created a body for myself that can be woman or feline.”
“In exchange, she cannot leave her body and join us in the Land of the Gods or the body would die,” another man said.
She didn’t dignify that with a response. “You would love me as your goddess.”
“I probably would.” I would probably love her too much.
“He needs a god, not a wife,” another man said. “I am Osiris, god of the underworld and the afterlife.”
“I am Thoth, the god of scribe and wisdom.” Like Anubis, he was also missing the animal head. He was muscular, yet there was something scholarly about him. His hair was short and medium brown and his eyes were dark brown. He was wearing the exact same thing as the other gods, but it looked more refined on him.
“I am Horus, the god of war, sky, and falcons.”
The last man grinned malevolently and I saw the Painter in him. “I am Set, and I need no introductions.” He was seven feet tall and thin, achieving both the creepiness of a mummy and the intimidation of an IRS agent. His black hair was long and shiny, giving the impression that someone had spilled ink down his black, satin robe. His skin was ashy gray and his yellow-orange eyes promised Hell would be a reprieve for anyone who crossed him.
“Yes, I know you. You’re the god of the desert, thunder, evil, pain, and suffering.”
His grin didn’t falter. “Your Earth does like to create stories. I am no crueler than my siblings. I am simply powerful enough to do what I desire to do. I could give you more power than anyone else here.”
“Set is a liar who will use you against your will,” Isis said.
“Everyone here will use you,” Bast said. “Do not align yourself to a weak god because you seek to overpower him. Choose a god or goddess who will use you the way you want to be used. Choose one who wants what you do.”
“I understand what you’re saying and I’m grateful for your advice. I know I could benefit from serving any of you. Isis, I don’t think I could get over the fact that you spent most of my mother’s life inside her. Bast, I don’t think I could keep you out of my bed, or want to for that matter, and that would be a bad mix.”
She pouted. Bottom lip out, sad eyes, fucking pouted. “I can tell you it does work. I know a goddess who married the protector of her world and she could not be happier about it.”
“Any power you get from her is probably control over cats,” Set said.
“You’re the Painter’s father and god, aren’t you?” I asked him.
“Yes, and you know how superior his power is.”
“I do, and having magic like him would be a great way to protect my loved ones,” I said. He grinned snidely at the other gods. “But I can’t draw worth shit and to be honest, you rub me the wrong way.”
“Perhaps you should choose him,” Isis said, humor lacing her tone even while her face remained serious. “It sounds like you could shut him up once in a while.”
Horus laughed, so I addressed him next. “I don’t really know what to say about you. I don’t know what you would want from me.”
“I understand.”
I looked to Osiris. “I have all the respect in the world for you, but I’m not quite ready to believe in anything past life.”
He nodded respectfully.
“Same exact thing for you,” I said to Anubis.
“That is a shame. You could use a friend on the other side.”
“He’ll have me as a friend,” Bast said. Anubis and Set rolled their eyes.
Luca was right; they were more human than other gods. I turned to Thoth and he smiled warmly. “You cannot reject me as well if you want power. If you do, you will have wasted the trials.”
“No, I’m not rejecting you. I chose wisdom from the very beginning.”
“I noticed. You chose the Ibis door.”
Well, it technically chose me, but that wasn’t the point. “Is that why so many of my trials were mind games and riddles instead of strenuous labor or displays of power?”
“Yes. You took the path of the mind. I had my eye on you since you returned to Syndrial, and I would be honored to share some of my power with you in exchange for your occasional service and loyalty.”
“I acc---”
“Does that mean I have to stay away?” Bast interrupted.
Thoth sighed. “That is up to Nathanial. As long as he is loyal to me, it does not matter to me if you entertain him.”
“I won’t do anything I find immoral,” I warned him.
“I know,” he said. “I would not expect you to.”
“Then I accept. What do I do now?”
Thoth approached me and gently touched my forehead, giving me time to pull away if I was afraid. I wasn’t. A moment later, I felt magic flowing into me. It was impossible to describe. It was pleasant, like walking into a store on a hot day and feeling a blast of the air conditioner. Too much of a good thing could be worse than nothing at all, though.
The magic was much stronger than what I had used before, and it worried me. What if I can’t control it?
“You will learn,” Thoth said in my mind. When he let me go, my body felt as if I had been doing strenuous exercise for a day straight. The other gods were gone.
“How long did that take?” I asked.
“Time means nothing to us.”
“What power did you give me?”
“When we give people some of our magic, it adapts to them. I could not give you what Set has because I am a god of wisdom, but if I had given the same magic to someone else, they would have developed a completely different ability.”
“You don’t know?”
“I do know. I just wanted you to understand that you are who you are and I did not choose this for you.”
“That sounds ominous.”
“You have the ability to write. If you use your magic correctly, anything you write will come true.”
“So, I could write that the moon was made of cheese?”
“No. That would be an incorrect use of your magic. You could, however, write that someone’s heart will explode in their chest, if you had their true name.”
I grimaced. “Why the hell would I want to do that?”
“Why would you want a moon to be made of cheese?” he countered.
“Okay, fine. So, I could write that Luca was free from the priests and back home?”
“You would have to have his full and true name, and you would need to write it a specific way. You will learn this technique with time.”
“Still, even if it takes practice, that’s a pretty awesome ability. I always enjoyed writing.”
“Which brings us to your new title. From now on, you are th
e Writer.”
Chapter 16
I emerged from the temple and made my way back to the statue room. It was there that I found the Painter already working on the trap. As he painted in his book, the portal formed on the ground. Our plan was to open a portal to Kradga. How we were supposed to fight the powerful priests was another matter, especially when my ability didn’t seem to be aggressive. Then again, neither was the Painter’s.
“What did you get?” he asked.
“The ability to make the things I write come true,” I said.
He stopped working to give me a look that I didn’t understand. He was surprised, but also not. He was the only one who I couldn’t figure out. “That’s a pretty good ability. I take it you chose Thoth?”
“Yes.”
He nodded, as if he had expected as much.
“What animal door did you choose?” I asked.
“The bull.”
“How was your heart lighter than a feather?”
He laughed again. “I was fourteen. I still believed in love back then.”
“And you don’t now?”
“I only believe in one thing now.” He refocused on his work. There was a sense of camaraderie now, as if he considered me an equal after passing my trials. His tone had changed. We were on the same side, no matter how temporary, and until the priests were dead, I didn’t have to worry about him turning on me.
“Why do you need me? Really?”
“You’re useful to me.”
“I don’t even know what I can do.”
“Your ability sounds similar to mine, even though we have different gods.”
“Does that mean I’m as powerful as you?”
He laughed. “I have been practicing magic since I was seven. No matter what abilities the gods give you, it means nothing if you don’t know how to use them.” He held up his paintbrush. “I have the proper tools, too. This paintbrush is like a wand for me; it fills in details I would otherwise have to take time on. In addition, it holds paint in an inner tube so that I don’t have to constantly dip it.”
“So you just paint in black?”
He pulled out a small glass bottle of black liquid. “This isn’t just black. Mid stroke, it can change to any color that has ever existed based on my thoughts.”
“Wow.”
He smirked. “You didn’t ask how I knew the portal to Kradga.”
“I assumed it was magic.”
“I’m not the Traveler. I’ve got a book that contains every portal known to man.”
“That’s pretty useful. Don’t you think the Book of Names is overkill?”
His expression grew serious. “I have people to protect just like you, so no, it’s not overkill. When you are dealing with gods, there is no such thing, because they’ll turn on you if they have any reason at all to.”
“Shouldn’t I have some special pen? Where did you get your paintbrush?”
“I had a servant who found a wizard. We have to obtain our tools ourselves. Until you find or make one that can bring out your best, any pen should do.”
“Can I write anything?”
“No. You’re going to have to figure out what works and what doesn’t. You still have to focus your mind on what you want. If I draw something I’m not strong enough to do, if I don’t mean it, or if I don’t focus enough, my picture will fade. The problem I have is that if I can’t see it in my mind, I can’t draw it.”
“So you can’t fight an invisible opponent?”
“Or stop time or read minds.”
“What about invisible shields?”
“That I can do, but I can’t fight one. You will have the same problem. Something you might be able to do that I can’t is freeze everyone. You’ll become more powerful the more you use it, but you can also overextend yourself too much and people have died that way. I could open a black hole that will swallow a planet, but it would kill me from exhaustion. Creating things out of thin air is a lot harder than it looks and it’s actually easier to transform things into what we want.”
“Okay. I’m going to let that percolate in my head. I get that you’re making a portal to Kradga, but how are we going to make the priests walk into it? Can I make them walk into it?”
“I like the way you think, but no. Not even the gods can control someone’s will without their true name. We could just push them in, but we’d be fighting for our lives. We have more effective powers, but they have a lot more years on us.”
“But you had them subdued so easily. You’re half god.”
“I had the upper hand because they thought I had the upper hand. They thought they were going to die, so they wanted to go out with the favor of the gods, by not fighting in the temple. This time, we’re going to separate the guilty from the so-called innocent. People face death every day, whether they know it or not. People of Syndrial do not fear death. Instead, they fear judgment.”
“You mean they fear sin.”
“No. They fear being judged at all. Once we separate them, our victims are going to fight. I still say we should kill them all. It’ll be much easier than---”
“No.”
“Fine. Be that way. I’m blaming you if one of them kills me.”
“You don’t fear death either, do you?”
“I do, but not in the way you think. There’s only one thing I’ve ever found worth living for and I haven’t gotten it yet. Duran has a very different view on death anyway.”
“What’s that?”
“We don’t talk about it. There’s the Land of the Dead, but it’s not peaceful or hellish. No one knows, no one asks, no one thinks about it. There are two things we do believe. If someone’s body is disfigured in life, they’ll be disfigured in death. Also, if someone looks away from their fate, they will relive it over and over in death. People don’t cover their faces if they’re about to die, because it’s better to be disfigured than to experience dying over and over.”
“There are so many rituals for death.”
The Painter nodded. “There are two ways you can learn everything you need to know about a society; the way they treat people and the way they treat their dead.”
“Politics and religion. Even the Ten Commandments can be wrapped up into one; don’t be an asshole. I have an idea how to get the information. You round them up. I’ll be back in a minute with what I need.”
I didn’t wait for his confirmation before heading back to my room. On my table, where I had left it, was the pen that Luca had given me. Even though it didn’t have any magic, it was perfect. I also grabbed the spell book Rilryn had given me out of the chest. I paused to consider taking Trickster’s staff, but I really didn’t want it exploding in my face.
By the time I returned to the statue room, Painter had all of the surviving priests in the same positions they had been in when I had interrupted him. The black dogs were back. “I thought you said creating things wasn’t easy.”
“I didn’t create them; I called them. They’re in my service.”
“How could you work with him?” Traveler asked me.
“He’s not the one who locked my brother up.”
“Luca broke the rules,” Reader sneered.
“You mean that he found out your secrets.”
“So, what’s your plan?” Painter asked. He stood over Keeper, invading the priest’s personal space and intimidating the hell out of him.
I opened the book to the first page and started writing.
The innocent blood
The words faded before I could even finish a sentence. “Crap.”
Painter didn’t have to ask or look to know what had happened. “Think about what you want exactly and picture it in your mind. The words will come to you,” he suggested. “The better you get with your magic, the better your writing will become.”
I did as he said and when I felt confident in my intention, the sentence became clear.
Blood will appear on the hands of the priests who have killed the innocent.
“That was clever,” Painter praised as the hands of four priests started dripping with blood as if someone had slit their wrists.
Whisperer, Reader, and Listener had blood on their hands, as well as Dowser. Dowser knew he was caught and hung his head in shame. “I didn’t want to do it.”
“But you did. What about Caretaker?”
Caretaker was sweating hard. “I dreamt of it every night. I wanted to do it, I wanted the power, but I couldn’t.
“It was whisperer making you do this,” I said.
“You’re lying!” Whisperer shouted.
“I’m the Liar now?” I asked. “I thought I was the Writer.”
“Actually, I’ve met the Liar,” Painter said. “Everyone would believe anything he said.”
“Now that is power. The rest of you can go,” I said. No one moved. “Painter, let them go.” He frowned at Keeper, clearly wanting nothing more than to kill them all. Nothing more except for the book. “Let them go or you’re on your own finding the Book of Names.”
With a sigh, he painted in his book. The traps under the innocent priests vanished. They stood, but none of them left. “The gods will not forgive you for killing their priests,” Traveler said.
“These four have killed children. If the gods care about their priests more than innocents, then I don’t care what they think.”
Traveler looked at them carefully before nodding slowly. “I always thought they were up to no good, but my hands were tied as a priest.”
“Was it the exiled children?” Healer asked, clearly hoping that I said otherwise.
“Yes, and several of the priests who found out, from what I heard.”
“What about Trickster?” Caretaker asked.
“He wouldn’t mind his own business,” Whisperer said.
“I liked him,” Keeper said sadly. With that, the innocent priests left. Keeper, the slowest to move, grabbed my shoulder gently as he passed. “I’m sorry for attacking you.”
“You weren’t in your right mind.”
Then he said the last thing I expected him to. “Make them suffer.”
