Anna continued stacking wood around the small fire and it crackled and grew, taking on a proper life. The glow highlighted her face and gave her a warmth that was stolen by the darkness. Brogan made himself look away.
“All I know, Brogan, is that we are supposed to be here. We will find the source soon enough and we will do what we can to work magic. If all goes well, you will be able to meet with and face the gods.”
“I don’t care about meeting them. I want them done. I want them ended.”
Faceless spoke up, his words once again coming from nowhere. “Walthanadurn.”
“I have no idea what that means.”
“It is a name. Walthanadurn was the name of the god that died here. We stand in his remains.” Faceless looked down at his hands. “He is dead, of course, but I can hear him.”
“What do you mean you can hear him?” Brogan felt his skin crawl.
“He is still here. He is dead, but no god ever truly dies. They simply lose their connection to the world around them.”
Faceless stood and moved closer to the fire. For the first time there was a light within the sockets where eyes should have been. Brogan could not decide if that faint glimmer was a reflection of the fire or something else, but either way it unsettled him.
“What does he say?” Anna asked.
“I do not think the god appreciates our invasion.”
Brogan shook his head. “He wants us gone, he can tell us so himself, and if he gives us what we need we’ll likely be glad to leave.” There were no noises, no voices. Like as not Faceless was addled.
Faceless turned his way. “That is not the wisest course of action with a god.”
Brogan shook his head and stood up. “So far I’ve not done well with keeping gods happy. They’ve failed to appease me too, so we’re even.”
The sound was so low that Brogan felt it more than he heard it. His bones seemed to shiver deep inside his body and his guts churned. The feeling faded almost as quickly as it had come around. Anna felt it too, he could tell by the expression of discomfort on her face. If Faceless felt anything, he gave no sign.
Faceless looked his way. “That was Walthanadurn speaking.”
“What did he say?”
“He said you had questions and that I should answer them.”
Anna frowned. “Of course we have questions.”
“Why was he murdered?” Brogan asked. He couldn’t imagine why a god would fight another god.
“He was sacrificed. He was the last god left in the world that came before ours. The gods had fought to see who would control all of the world and toward the end, the battles had ruined almost everything that existed. The newer gods came to Walthanadurn, and Sepsumannahun, his oldest child, demanded that he surrender. Walthanadurn drew his weapon and was killed for his efforts. This is all that is left of him. He says the other gods used the rest of his body to rebuild the world.”
“If he’s dead how can he speak to us?”
“As I said, he cannot truly ever die. The world is built from his remains. He is everywhere.”
Anna said, “And the gods destroyed him as they destroy this world, is that correct?”
Faceless looked her way. “I suppose it is. That might be why he is now restless.”
“Restless?” Brogan frowned.
“He moved just the other day. Not much, but he moved.” Faceless looked at them and shrugged again. “He is the spine of this world. What they do to the world hurts him.”
Brogan considered those words carefully and did not like their implications. If a dead god felt pain long after dying, the possibility that his family still suffered was greater than he wanted to consider, and yet…
“He feels pain. Do all of the dead feel pain? Does my family suffer after being sacrificed to the gods?”
“There is no death for those sacrificed to the gods. They become one with the gods, a part of them.”
“Do they feel pain?” he asked the question again. His heart felt heavy. His blood thick. His stomach churned.
“That is part of the offering. Those sacrificed suffer that the gods can be free of their own agonies.”
Anna shook her head, horrified.
Brogan spoke calmly enough, though calm was the last thing he felt. “Does Walthanadurn still feel pain?”
“He feels what the land feels. The storms cut him. The winds caress him. The waters bathe him. He is the world and all that it suffers, he endures.”
“Ask him this. Would he be freed from that pain?”
“Yes.” Faceless nodded his head slowly. “He has suffered for as long as the land has been here and he would be free of that.”
Brogan nodded and then calmed himself. He wanted to rage. He wanted to scream and cut and kill. That he had lost his loved ones was a horror. That they still suffered for the cause of the gods was more than he wanted to know.
“Then tell him to show me what I need to kill the gods.”
Faceless stared long and hard at Brogan, his eyes once more nothing but pools of darkness.
“He has but waited for you to ask.”
Interlude: From the Sea
Past the place where Saramond had been, the waters surged and rose in a wave the likes of which had never been seen by a human being. There were no human witnesses, but the gulls in the air and the fish in the sea saw and understood. The single wave rose higher still and charged at the land, smashing itself against rocks, debris and the few remaining structures from Saramond. The waters tore across the land, and those foolish people who’d decided they could survive the changing face of the area were slaughtered for their folly, crushed beneath the waves, churned along with sodden earth and bashed into so much shredded pulp by the force of the wave.
Oftentimes a wave loses power as it collides with the land, but this wave defied that notion, surging larger, pulling more water from the ocean even as it shattered land and tore a trench several hundred feet deep across the crust of the earth.
Three hundred miles away the earth shuddered and rocked. Where Hollum stood, buildings collapsed, torn asunder by the vibrations and the surges of water slamming into buildings already weakened by the flood. There were always some who refused to abandon what was theirs, and this was no exception. None of the stragglers survived the surge that tore Hollum apart.
That very same surge started to falter after hitting the city. Even the largest wave must eventually lose power, and this wave was headed west. To the south the waters dispersed, and by the time they reached where Edinrun had been the waters were less than a foot deep. What came across Torema several hours later was merely a heavy trickle that soon rejoined the sea.
What rode beneath that wave, what had brought the water to shore, was a different story entirely. It drove hard toward the distant Broken Blades, eager to reach the area and end the conversation between mortal and dead god. The waters that had found an escape route through Harlea’s Pass rose to a height almost thirty feet above that passageway, and the force of the water surging through the opening in the mountains was enough to devastate anything on the other side. The waters blasted through the opening and washed away everything in their path, instantly raising the level of the newly formed river to well over the flood levels. The river had no choice but to once again widen and carve its way through the earth and down to bedrock.
As the behemoth surged along its course toward the Broken Swords it tore at the foundations of the land, shattering stone and breaking everything it encountered.
Saramond, already dead, was easily destroyed. The mountains were still distant, and they were much larger.
Inside the mountains Brogan continued with his plans.
On the mountain pathways soldiers and prisoners walked, and near the very top of the mountains Stennis Brae continued on, waiting for a king to return and for a sign that salvation was still a possibility.
Even the forces controlled by gods take time to reach their destinations.
Bron McNar
Bron McNar walked through the dark tunnels and did his best to understand what he was seeing. There was mostly darkness, with hints and promises of actual sights. There were scents that should not have been there. He had been to the ocean only once in his life but he knew what the waters there smelled like, and the breezes that blew across him sometimes smelled and tasted like those distant memories.
Somewhere ahead of him Parrish was walking, but he could neither see nor sense the man at all. Instead he was by himself, walking down twisting tunnels that should not have been possible within the Cauldron. Even if most of what lay within the walls of the building was hollow, he had traveled too far to be within the confines of the structure and the distances above his head were too high to be held by the monolithic structure.
Pardume was long gone, having entered the Cauldron before even Parrish. There had been no sound from the man, no sight of him since he’d stepped into the monolith.
The wind changed again and brought with it a staggering heat.
Bron stopped moving and looked around, annoyed. There was a possibility that he was supposed to be afraid, and perhaps he was on one level or another, but this was his world that needed saving – his family, his friends, his bloody kingdom.
“Enough games! Show yourself to me!” His voice cracked – the dry air was torturous and the heat left his skin feeling roasted. His hand gripped at the only security he’d ever needed, the hilt of his axe.
Everything changed. The winds became a howling wall that shoved at him, cast him backward into hot sand and nearly buried him alive. The skies opened even higher, showing him constellations that made no sense, which had never existed in the skies he knew from home. The walls were torn away, replaced by distant mountains and jagged towers that made the Cauldron seem ineffectual and insignificant.
Bron forced himself to stand. If this was a test of some kind he would either pass it or he would die in the effort.
Almost as soon as he thought it, the winds faded down to a gentle sigh.
Around him, beneath him, everything calmed.
And in the distance he felt more than saw the presence. There was something on the horizon, but it was too large to truly see. His mind refused to accept the possibility of anything that massive.
“Why are you here?” The words rippled through him. He was staggered by their force, but he did not fall.
“Parrish says we have the same enemies. He says I should work with you. I came to discuss that. Nothing more.” He found looking at the distant mountaintop was easier than staring at that impossible form, so vast and incomprehensible.
“I am a prisoner. I am kept here by the gods. I would be free.”
“The gods shatter the world. They end everything because one of their sacrifices was stopped. I would see that ended.”
“Then we do indeed have the same enemy.”
“I am not Parrish. I do not need to be marked. I do not need to prove myself. I have a kingdom. I have soldiers. I’ll join with you in a fight, but I am my own man. I am my own king and I do not need more gods.” Bron kept the tremble from his voice, but it was not easy. Whatever he faced had changed Parrish and his soldiers. Perhaps it was not a god, but he suspected that here, in this place, it came very close.
“The mark is not only to identify. It helps me move from my prison here and see the world beyond.”
“Do you not already do that with Parrish and his Marked Men?”
“They are not enough. I need more.”
“And what do I get in exchange? What do my people get in exchange?”
There was a long moment of silence.
“If you join with me, I will spare your people from their fate.”
“What fate?” His body felt cold. There was no doubt in his mind that Theragyn, the new god of Parrish’s people, was speaking a truth. There was nothing the creature could gain from lying. It was as simple a truth as the fact that he gained nothing from lying to a dog, or to a loaf of bread.
“Even now the gods seek to shatter the mountains. They seek Brogan McTyre, and he is hidden away within the Broken Swords, seeking power he should not reach for.”
“If I join you, my people will be spared from this fate?”
“Yes. But if you do not join me soon, it will be too late.”
Before he could say more Bron was assaulted by an image of the mountains where his kingdom stood crumbling, shattering. The castle he had built and called home broke into fragments as the mountain beneath it crumbled, split and collapsed upon itself. He saw the devastation, felt it tremble through his body, and heard the titanic roar of stone shattering as a great force hard enough to liquefy stone slammed into the mountains.
Bron fell down to his knees, terrified and humbled by the image that overwhelmed his senses. This, he knew, was the end of everything that mattered in his world. The family he loved, the kingdom he ruled, the life he had built for himself since he was old enough to walk, and to fight, and to stand on his own. The images faded. But the memory did not.
“You can stop that from happening?”
“I can save your people. The land may be impossible to protect.”
A man who is king must first follow the needs of his kingdom.
Bron looked past the mountain that held his attention and forced himself to see the vast presence in the distance.
Bron’s voice trembled and he no longer tried to hide it. The notion that his world was so fragile was always there, but now he understood the concept more readily and his pride seemed a trifling thing in comparison. “I will serve you in any way I must. You have only to tell me what I must do.”
The world he’d been taken to faded away and was replaced by the walls of the Cauldron once more. The scent of the ocean returned, and the dry heat of the area offered its own satisfaction.
“But come to me and kneel. Offer me all that you are and I will offer you back a world more to your liking.”
When Bron walked forward again it was with greater purpose.
Interlude: Jahda
Jahda walked the edge of the world, and took vast strides across the distances. Had he been truly in the Five Kingdoms he would have traveled much slower, but he walked the pathways offered by the Shimmer and each step he made was more like a hundred long strides.
There was no time.
The world was ending, after all, and he wanted to make sure his fellow Louron were well away before the gods finished their punishment.
Not that he needed to worry. There were other places for them to go.
Other worlds. He shook his head at the thought. He’d been happy here, but that was something that was changing. Peace was what he wanted. This? This was endless destruction.
He stepped away from the Shimmer and looked at the world he’d chosen to call home, settling his feet carefully in the heavy drifts of powdery white. The entire area was a wasteland of ice and snow. Where he stopped was the very easternmost edge of the Broken Swords, and he stared hard farther east. He could not see Edinrun, though he knew it should have been within his view. Distant, yes, and there was the snow to consider, but still, he should have seen it. Edinrun was a vast city with a wall that was constantly lit by torches lest anyone try to surprise the people there. It was missing.
Impossible, of course, but as a Louron he understood where it had probably gone. The walls between worlds were there, but with the right knowledge, or the help of the Shimmer, doorways could be opened and walls could be torn down.
Further away, impossible to see even from the height of the mountains. Torema stewed in its own air. He loved the city despite its many flaws.
Further still lay the Kaer-ru islands and home. It was time. He would be moving on. All the Louron would be moving on, or at least those who listened to his advice.
“You are a very difficult man to find.”
He was not easily startled, but Jahda jumped a bit and his hand gripped the walking staff he carried much harder. He was first and foremost an Inquisitor, t
hough he had not served in that capacity in years. He was capable of defending himself from most attacks.
The man Jahda found smiling at him was as short as he himself was tall. Dark hair, dark skin, a bright smile and fine clothes that should have seen him frozen to the ground rather than kept pleasantly warm. Up close those clothes were fraying at the edges. Closer still and one could see the stubble on the stranger’s face and the exhaustion he tried to hide with his grin. The cold seemed to have no impact on him and his hat kept the worst of the snow from brushing across his broad features.
“I am often on the move. And yet you have found me. How may I help you?” Jahda managed a smile of his own, but it was difficult. The man was Galean and oftentimes those people had their own agendas.
“I am Roskell Turn. I am a Galean and I must ask for your assistance.”
“Truly?” Jahda smiled more brightly. It was rare that a Galean asked for help.
“Indeed. I must reach the heart of the Broken Swords.” Roskell pointed his hand toward the north. “The very height of the mountains, and I must be there within the next few hours. There are only one people I know who can manage that feat and I am not numbered among the Louron.”
“What makes you think the Louron could help you?”
Roskell smiled. “In this world or the next, only the Louron can walk along the Shimmering Path.”
“Others can walk it with our help.”
“And now you understand why I have sought you.” That smile again, one part friendly and two parts mischief, but he found himself liking the Galean just the same and he always trusted his instincts.
“Why should I help you, Roskell Turn?”
“Because I want to see the world saved, and according to one of my disciples the man who is hiding inside the mountains is our best chance of that.”
“What is the man doing?”
“Trying to fight the gods.”
“Gods cannot be fought. That is their greatest gift. No mortal can reach the gods. No mortal can touch the gods. No mortal can harm the gods. Is that not so?”
Fallen Gods Page 28
