“Lucretia!” Kestrel called his knife as he threw his bow at the face of the Viathin and scrambled backwards, his hand reaching behind him to find his staff, while the creature swatted his bow aside and charged at him.
An arrow suddenly appeared in the Viathin’s chest, and Kestrel’s knife arrived in his hand at the same time. Kestrel flipped the knife at the monster, a moment before it crashed into him, bowling him over and down onto the hard stone floor of the cave, crushed by the weight of the dead monster that landed atop him.
“Kestrel!” Wren screamed. “Kestrel, by the names of the gods you better not be dead or I’ll kill you myself!” she threatened as she and Stuart heaved against the Viathin carcass and pushed it off him.
“It looks like the Viathin almost saved you the trouble of having to kill him,” Stuart said dryly as they looked down at where Kestrel lay on his back.
“What happened?” Wren asked, as the other members of the party came stumbling out of the sleeping chamber.
“There were a pair of Viathins on top of the canyon rim earlier, looking down, but they went away, I thought,” Kestrel answered, “except they didn’t.”
There was a scrambling noise outside the cave mouth, causing Kestrel to sit up and hastily pull his knife out of the dead monster beside him.
“There were just the two Viathins?” Stuart whispered.
“That’s all I saw earlier,” Kestrel confirmed. He stood up and held his knife in front of him as he stepped towards the entry, then he stopped just inside the shadows of the cave and hesitated, as he felt Wren and Stuart directly behind him.
“Let me go first,” Stillwater said softly then shot over Kestrel’s shoulder and out the door in a blue blur that seemed too swift to be ambushed. Kestrel watched, startled at first, then glad to see the imp fly freely through and then away from the cavern entrance, out into the open air beyond.
He watched as Stillwater swooped out of sight, then returned slowly, floating casually towards the entry and slowly surveying the area in the vicinity of the cave.
“Kestrel-friend, come out and look at this,” he called. “And bring Wren the talker too,” he added.
“Wren the talker – I like that title,” Kestrel said as he ducked his head to exit from the cave. He felt a violent thrust from behind as Wren followed and shoved him forcefully. As he stepped out, he lost his balance from her push, and he stepped wildly around on the narrow ledge in front of the cave, before he tiptoed off to the side with exaggerated motions and regained his balance.
“What are you clowning at?” Wren asked as she followed him out. “Oh, I see,” she added, as she stopped, then stepped in a peculiar fashion to the side, and was followed by Stuart.
“They were following the Viathins, I think,” Kestrel said as he squatted down and looked at the large black disks that were outside the cave. Some were sitting tightly against the ground, while others were scuttling about with great energy on their multiple sets of legs. Each was approximately a yard wide, and they made a chittering noise that Kestrel thought sounded like insects back on earth.
“Are they dangerous?” Stuart asked, his head poked out of the cave.
“Ask them if they’re dangerous,” Kestrel told his cousin, “since Kai’s gift makes you Wren-talker,” he grinned.
The woman made a rude gesture, then listened intently to the sounds of the black disks. “They say they feel free!” she said.
“They were under the influence of the Viathins, their minds controlled by the predators, just the way men in the Inner Seas were,” Kestrel said. “It was the same way in Albanun and with the Parstoles. When we killed the masters, we set them free.
“Tell them the Viathins are dead, and that we killed them,” Kestrel said.
Wren gave him an indecipherable look, then she too squatted down, and began to issue forth a strange stream of noises, pausing occasionally to find the shape of her mouth that would allow her to utter the proper statement. As she spoke, all the black disks began to move towards her, and surrounded her as they silently listened to her words.
Upon her finish, several of the beings began to answer, then stopped, and one took up the task of responding. Kestrel listened intently, as Wren conversed with the newly-freed creatures. She gave a short response, and listened to a long response. She looked at Kestrel momentarily, as if about to speak to him, then started talking to the black disks again, and as she spoke, the creatures began to jostle and move about, clicking quietly among themselves as her comments excited them.
“They want to help us!” she said, her eyes sparkling. “They welcome us as enemies of the Viathins.”
“How,” Stuart asked in a puzzled tone of voice, “how can these things help us?”
“I told them we came to rescue our captive gods, and they said they know where they are; they can take us right to them,” Wren answered.
There was a suddenly roaring scream from a distant Viathin, and the disks all hunkered down, shivering dismally.
The one who had spoken to Wren began to clatter at her urgently.
“We need to go now, before the evil masters come, it says. They will come to find their dead companions, and all will be lost,” she translated.
“What about the mist creature?” Kestrel asked. “Shouldn’t we wait for it to come join us?”
The disks began to move, a long line of them starting to move single-file down the trail towards the bottom of the canyon.
“I’d rather travel with these things than that mist monster,” Stuart said, and Kestrel saw Wren nod in agreement.
“I’ll tell them to wait a moment for us,” Wren spoke up, and she chittered and clacked her request, bringing the retreating column to a halt. The members of the group came pouring out of the cavern entrance, as Kestrel explained what was happening to Stillwater, and then to Woven, once they started descending down the trail.
There were a dozen of the black scuttling creatures, and they moved with surprisingly swift speed, as their legs paced rapidly and surely along the inclined path. The humans and the others walked rapidly to keep up with them while they hurried to the bottom of the canyon, then started following the slender pool of water forward. The water ended in a short distance, and one of the creatures spoke to Wren as they passed it by.
“There used to be water all over the surface of the land, rivers of water, it says, but the Viathins have dried the streams and the lakes up, and made many things die. The creatures are sad that there are not more places with water like this,” she told the others as they hurried along the dry waterway. They continued in the shady canyon bottom, as the sun started to set and the shadows grew darker, until the disks turned sharply and began to travel up a narrow arroyo that pointed them towards the green sunset.
As they walked rapidly in the increasing darkness, Wren gave a murmur of surprise.
“What is it?” Stuart asked.
“They’re going into that crack,” Wren answered, pointing low to the ground, where the disks were disappearing from sight in a very low cave.
She dropped to her hands and knees and chittered into the darkness, then moved back as one of the disks came shuffling back out, a patch of blackness against the less dark sandy soil. The creature spoke, and Wren responded. The creature spoke rapidly, and Wren gave a short reply, before a last exchange, and then the creature spoke.
“It said the ceiling in this cave is as high as the sky, but I don’t know how they would know,” wren explained. “It also said that the Viathins are coming, and they must get into the cave so they won’t be controlled by the monsters. And it finally said that this is the only way to sneak into the place where our gods are held captive.”
All the members of the party from the Inner Seas looked at one another, not sure how to respond, as Kestrel quietly explained to Woven.
“I’ll go first,” the gnome immediately said, as he dropped down and disappeared into the darkness.
“I presume we have to go down into that place,” St
illwater said with a heavy sigh.
“We do,” Kestrel agreed, as Wren began to belly crawl into the cave entrance as well.
There was the sound of a pair of Viathins roaring somewhere in the main canyon, and then a scream of Viathin pain. The humans instantly all dropped down and entered the cave, each immediately following the feet of the one before them as they hurried into the stony portal.
“After you,” Kestrel said politely to Stillwater, and he watched the imp fly down and disappear. With a deep breath, and a prayer that there were few caves left in the challenging adventure, he dropped down too, and began to tediously crawl at the tail end of the parade under the canyon walls.
Chapter 13
Kestrel listened for the sound of the crawlers in front of him, and steadily moved forward across the sandy floor of the cave. He stopped from time to time to reach upward, to see if there was a ceiling within reach, and every time he was disappointed to find that there was no more clearance than there had been at the entrance.
He heard the crawling sounds of his companions, the noises of weapons and supplies banging off stones and dragging through sand. He also heard occasional faint sounds of the black disks, chittering to one another at the front of the line.
The journey was painful. Kestrel felt sand chaffing him along the entire length of his body as grains of the sand penetrated his clothes and rubbed against his flesh. He longed for a chance to stand up, but there was no chance; the cave only went onward, never growing taller.
He felt relief when he heard Lark call suddenly and loudly, “Can we stop, please?”
All the humans did stop, as did Stillwater and Kestrel behind them. There was an exchange of chittering sounds, noises that Kestrel supposed were an exchange between Wren and the disks.
“What’s the problem?” Wren asked.
“I need a little time,” Lark said hesitantly.
“To rest?” Kestrel asked, immediately guessing what the girl needed.
“No,” she answered.
“To eat a snack?” he guessed purposefully wrongly again.
“No,” Lark snapped.
“To adjust your clothes?” he couldn’t help wanting to provoke her.
“Stop it!” she shouted. “You know why, now stop.” He heard her rustling sounds as she removed her various items that she carried, and then she rolled off to the side, it seemed.
Lark grunted and cried out once. “Stupid rock!” she said, and then was quiet for a long moment.
“Hey!” she said soon after that. “There’s no ceiling here; I can stand up!”
“Where are you, my lady?” both Gates and Stuart asked simultaneously.
“I rolled to my right. Come over here. This is the best thing in the world! Better than eating honey on toasted bread!” she said.
All of the off-world travelers immediately began moving right, as Kestrel told Woven and Stillwater about the discovery, and seconds later the whole group was exulting in the pleasure of being vertical once again. The cavern was filled with a set of new sounds, as the disks all moved over to the right, clacking and commenting to one another.
“There’s no telling how far we’ll be able to go upright,” Stuart said.
Kestrel had been wondering the same thing, as well as wondering if he had access to his energy at night, in the cave, without great strain. “Let me try something,” he grunted, as he focused internally, finding his power and grasping it with some difficulty, but not the terrible strain he had felt before.
The cave suddenly came alive as light poured forth from the hand Kestrel held over his head. The disks all began to clack and click wildly and to scurry for cover, while Lark shrieked and hastily pulled her pants up to her waist.
“You could have given some warning of this!” she shouted at Kestrel.
“My apologies, my lady,” he said mildly. He was looking up at the high ceiling overhead, an enormous space above a relatively narrow passage in which they stood.
Wren was kneeling and communicating with the guides, explaining things and calling them back to the scene. Several came crawling back, coming to circle around Kestrel, awed by the light he produced.
“They want to know how you do that,” Wren explained.
“Tell them that this is the power from our gods,” Kestrel answered. “Ask them,” he paused, thinking suddenly of Rabaske of Albanun, the goddess who had been so weakened by the loss of worshippers. “Ask them who their god is, or if they have many gods.”
Wren had an exchange with one of the disks.
“He says they had a god, but not many of them know their god. It was silly to pay attention to such things, they thought,” she reported.
“But gods can have powers to help. Tell them how our goddess has done so much to help us defeat the Viathins,” Kestrel urged. “And given us powers,” he added.
Wren conversed further.
“Tullamore,” Wren said, “the creatures say their god was Tullamore, but they think he’s dead now.”
“Did the Viathins tear down his temples?” Kestrel asked, prompting Wren to translate the question, after which the creatures discussed the issue among themselves.
“They aren’t really sure. Not many of them worshipped or went to temple; that was an old-fashioned thing to do,” Wren said.
“Ask them to pray to him now,” Kestrel suggested. “Tell them how important it is to speak to their god and ask for his help. We are fighting against the god of the Viathins, to help our own gods. Prayers can help.”
Wren nodded her head, then began to speak in the clicking language of the disks, a comment that stretched on and on and on and became a conversation. When it ended, Wren started to stand, just as the entire group of black animals began to raise a loud ruckus, all of them simultaneously conversing loudly, so that Lark placed her hands over her ears for several seconds, before the noise began to diminish, then quickly end.
One of them spoke to Wren, who grinned, the answered.
“He said they prayed loudly to help him hear better,” she explained.
I did hear, my friend, a voice whispered to Kestrel. I will help you if I can.
He felt a thrill of excitement at the communication from the otherworldly deity. They needed help desperately, and it was encouraging to find it coming from unexpected directions.
“Thank them; tell them their god is pleased,” Kestrel acknowledged. “Then find out how much longer we will travel.
There was another conversation, as Lark edged past the others in the narrow passage, then passed Kestrel to go into an isolated portion of the cave. “None of you look,” she said sternly as she retreated into the darkness behind Kestrel, giving him a particularly hard stare as she passed.
Minutes later there was a parade of the men into the empty cavern spaces as well, as Wren finished her conversation with the natives.
“They say we have another day to get to the prison where the gods are held. It will be about the middle of the day,” she said.
“They say we can go to the prison, then wait until nightfall tomorrow to attack,” she added.
“That sounds like a reasonable plan,” Kestrel said. He felt himself growing tired from the use of his powers as he strained to keep a light illuminating the cavern space.
“Except for the fact that we have little left in the way of supplies. You might ask them if they have supplies enough for themselves, or for us,” Stuart spoke up. “We’ve got hardly any water left.”
Wren began speaking to the creatures’ spokesman again, and at the end of the conversation she stood up shaking her head.
“We won’t eat what they eat, that’s all I’m going to say,” she told the others. “And they need water, but not as much as we do. They can get some from the air.”
“We should have filled water skins at that pool of water,” Stuart berated himself.
I will help you, the voice of the god of the disks, Tullamore, said. And then you will help my people.
Hold your water ski
n high over your head, the god spoke softly to Kestrel. He did as directed.
Use your powers – focus all of your energy on the water.
“It’s special water, my lord,” Kestrel said softly. “From a spring in my own world, with enchantments and powers.”
We will make it more special, the god told him. It will be special right away – it will defeat the Viathins now, and it will be special in the future, if we can succeed in your quest.
Kestrel took the skin of water from the healing spring, and raised it over his head.
“What are you doing, Kestrel?” asked Lark, who was standing closest to him.
Open the spout, let the water flow out, and focus your energy on the water, Tullamore said.
“There isn’t much water. We need it. I don’t want to waste it,” Kestrel said.
Call my children around, and tell them to touch you, then pour out the water as I have instructed, the god insisted. His voice was still weak, but there was a new resolve in it.
“Wren,” Kestrel called, still holding the water aloft, “tell the creatures to come around me, and to touch me.” He said it in a soft voice.
“What are you going to do Kestrel?” she asked.
“I am going to obey their god. He is talking to me,” Kestrel said. He felt his energy starting to dwindle, and he reduced the amount of light that glowed from his hand as he waited to carry out Tullamore’s command, while Wren spoke to the disks.
“There is a god, talking to you – right now?” Lark asked skeptically. “I didn’t hear it. Did you hear it?” she turned to Stuart.
As she did, the disks came crawling over to Kestrel, surrounding him and pressing up against him. He could feel their feet squirming across the tops of his boots, pressing against him.
Now, pour, the god commanded.
Kestrel tipped the water skin, and the water began to dribble out, falling in beads towards the floor. As it did, Kestrel focused his energy from his hand into the water within the skin. The light in the cavern altered, coming not from his hand any longer, but beaming out from the open spout of the water skin, and the water that poured out with it, a glowing cascade of watery drops which seemed to descend in slow motion as they wafted downward.
An Unexpected Deity (Book 7) Page 18
