“The Imaziren say your people were created in the South.”
“Thousands of years ago,” he said. “But there is something in these forests, Tahvo, like a fever in the blood. It frightens me.”
She touched his arm. “It is not like the call of the red stones?”
“No.” He gave an uneasy laugh. “That’s the one thing I don’t hear.” He pressed a piece of dried root into her hand. “Eat while you can. Nyx said we’re soon to enter the cave.”
The dread in his voice confirmed Tahvo’s own fears, but she took a bite of the root and forced herself to chew. If she concentrated on each mouthful of the bitter plant, she could almost forget the anger that flowed from the mouth of the mountain—anger and hunger—as if half-mad spirits were held unwilling prisoner in perpetual darkness. As she was.
She remembered nothing of her possession by the god called Eshu—knew nothing of him save for what Rhenna and Cian had told her—but she would have welcomed his return. Such a powerful spirit would not be afraid. He would not tremble when Nyx announced that each man or woman must enter the cave alone.
Rhenna and Cian refused to leave her behind. They allowed Nyx, the village hunters and the Imaziren to go ahead, and guarded the cave mouth while Tahvo blundered her way past the drape of vines overhanging it. They shouted encouragement when a damp and heavy wall of air struck her face and flowed over her body like a second skin. She pushed forward, arms stretched before her, but not a single obstacle appeared in her path.
“Rhenna?” she called. “Cian?”
Her voice echoed, bouncing from wall to wall. She heard no footsteps, no breathing other than her own. She continued to feel her way, trying to ignore the increasingly crushing weight that bore down on her head and chest.
She knew the pressure was not physical, yet it was very real. Her legs moved as if through deep snow or the thick mud left after a flood at snowmelt, each step requiring all her strength and concentration.
Thirty paces beyond the cave entrance she could no longer sense the world outside. After another ten paces the spirits began to gather. At first they hovered, pacing her like starving wolves. And then they descended, alighting on her clothing and skin, brushing her face like cobwebs, skittering over puckered flesh, pricking like invisible gnats. Faint itching turned to stabs of pain as hundreds of spirits became thousands.
Had they been ordinary spirits like the benign dwellers of the forest, their assault would have been terrifying enough. Tahvo had long since acknowledged the danger of losing herself to the spirits who borrowed her body, as Eshu had done. But these beings threatened more than a simple loss of control or memory.
These were not true spirits at all. They did not have minds, not like even the tiniest creatures that dwelled in drops of water or particles of earth. They did not wish to speak to Tahvo or assume her shape. They had no message to impart.
Pneumata. The “bones” of gods destroyed in the Godwars, fragments that still contained enough power to be wielded in magic by those who understood how to command them. Most were neither good nor evil, lying neutral and dormant until they were made to serve some mortal or godborn purpose. But the pneumata of the cave were driven as surely as if they had desires of their own…driven by hatred and appetite that had only one purpose: to devour utterly.
Tahvo cried out. Darting, stinging motes burrowed into the roof of her mouth and coated her tongue. They tore her clothing from her body, leaving her naked to their foul assault. Soon they would consume every bit of flesh, face and belly and limbs, and then gnaw away at her bones until there was nothing left but dust.
And they laughed. Not the witless pneumata themselves, but the ghosts to whom they had once belonged: gods of evil, allies of the Exalted who had been defeated in the last and most brutal of the Godwars. She tasted their undead lust for power, their desperate search for a way back to life. The roar of their voiceless whispers pounded against the drums of her ears: She was made to carry the gods. Take her apart and create anew.
They would do worse than destroy her. They would turn her into a thing of pure evil, fit only to do their will.
Fight them. She thought the words were her own, though she had no tongue left to give them substance. But as she struggled with what remained of her body, writhing in agony on the cave floor, a new vision came to sightless eyes: the dog Eshu, crouched beside her, his warm tongue stroking the scalded flesh that still clung to her skull.
Fight. She clutched at Eshu’s short coat with fingers stripped to the bone. His divine strength flowed into her, mingling with her determination to survive. Or die free.
I will not become a thing of evil. If it ends here, then let my soul rejoin the waters and flow back to my people….
Eshu gave a wailing cry that silenced the evil spirits’ yammering. He leaped into Tahvo’s body, dancing in the cage of bones where her heart had been, and lifted her from the cave floor. Through his eyes she saw the whirling specks that sought to undo her very being. Hatred overwhelmed her fear. She shared Eshu’s laughter and delight as she crunched the evil pneumata between powerful jaws. She felt obscene joy in their obliteration.
Crush your enemies, little sister, Eshu whispered. Take what is yours by right.
Tahvo opened her hands and snatched pneumata from the air, consuming them with savage hunger. They became a part of her, feeding her strength, introducing her mind to a new world of possibility, a world she had never dared to see for what it was.
To destroy evil was glorious in itself, but to transform it, to force it to serve the good…was this not the purpose of true power?
Yes, Eshu said. Now you understand….
The empty sockets of Tahvo’s skull overflowed with light. She looked, and saw—not through Eshu’s eyes, but with her own—saw the cave walls glazed with an eldritch luminescence, saw each drop of water that slicked the stone, saw Eshu leaping and whirling in furious glee.
All this she saw with eyes made whole, the sweet prize of victory. And it was only the beginning. Pneumata beyond counting waited outside the cave, hers for the taking. This small, weak body could become stronger than any warrior’s, swifter than an Ailu, immortal as a god. She would be a true champion for the spirits, for the salvation of the earth. Never again need she suffer the burden of a timid healer’s soul, afraid to kill even her enemies….
A field of shining silver blocked her sight. A beast’s eyes gazed into hers—slanted eyes in a long-muzzled face.
“Slahtti!” she cried.
The wolf did not answer, but he drew her back…back to a small room in Karchedon, to the very day of her bargain.
You will forget your own name. You will be given that which you most desire, only to lose it. You will be tempted again and again, but if you falter…
Tahvo rubbed at her eyes, trying to dispel the vision. Her hands came away coated with ichor that dripped from her fingers and pooled at her feet—the life fluid of a thousand pneumata, transformed and reshaped to create the very organs she so coveted. Eshu’s laughing face replaced Slahtti’s noble countenance.
Take them, the god urged. Take this gift.
Take it, and deny the very spirits who had fought and died to rid the world of its greatest enemy. Admit that she had found joy in killing. Accept that her sight would forever be tainted by the burning memory of willful slaughter. For what she had done in this cave would never be forgotten, and the bitter glory of her pride and hatred would spread like a wasting disease, from eyes to nose and mouth and limbs, until it had swallowed her up just as the evil pneumata had intended.
Tahvo fell to her knees. She pushed her fingers into her eye sockets and screamed as the tissue gave way. Hard, round stones rolled into her hands, and then there was no more pain.
Fool, Eshu said, his voice fading away. Mortal fool.
Tahvo bent to the ground and wept tears of blood. The pneumata were silent, destroyed or fled. Tahvo crawled to the nearest wall, climbed to her feet and felt her way along the passage.<
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That was when she heard the scream.
Rhenna was flying.
Wind whipped hair across her face, obscuring her view of the world far below. Hills and valleys and forests passed in the blink of an eye; Rhenna’s head hung out over a blue nothingness laced with clouds. Sharp-edged feathers scraped her cheek. She flexed her hands and found them immobilized by ropes as thick as her thumb.
She closed her eyes against the impossible sight, struggling to remember how she had come to be in such a place. Her mind was as blank as her body was naked under the fur that covered her; she spread her fingers, feeling coarse hair and leather, the curve of a strap and the warm solidity of a human leg encased in high boots.
“So eager, pretty one?” a masculine voice said above her. She didn’t recognize the sounds that came out of his mouth, but they formed into words she understood. A rough hand came down on her head, pawing at her hair. “I’d be happy to accommodate you, but you’ve already been claimed, and he said to leave you untouched.” The hand wandered beneath Rhenna’s fur and stroked her bare back. “You’d be a fine ride, little filly.”
Rhenna choked on her own bile and tried to speak. Her mouth was so dry that her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth; her throat was raw as if from constant shouting. Only a grunt emerged.
“Not such a pretty voice,” her captor said, thrusting a gloved hand between her thighs. “Better save what you have left for him. He enjoys a little screaming when he’s served fresh meat.”
Rhenna tested the ropes at wrists and ankles and assessed her position. She hung belly-down over the shoulder of some rank-smelling beast, but all she could see of the creature was a crest of blue-sheened feathers and the curve of its shoulder. Below that was open sky. With difficulty she turned her head and caught the down-sweep of immense white wings.
There was nowhere to escape, even if she could work loose from her bindings. She could choose to fall, free for the few moments before she hit the ground. But she wasn’t yet sure if it was time to die.
Tahvo. Cian.
The image of her friends drove all thought of death from her mind. Where were they? By all the devas, what had happened to her?
No answers came, not even the shadow of memory. She couldn’t picture when she’d last seen their faces. Cian’s, so vulnerable and determined. Tahvo, with her blind silver eyes and enduring faith. And Nyx, who was so sure of finding the Hammer.
The Hammer. They had been in the forest, beginning the search. Seeking the little people who would guide them. And there had been a cave, and darkness….
Rhenna’s captor whistled, high and shrill. Answering cries rode on an upswept wind. The great-winged creature tilted its body and dived. Rhenna clutched at feathers that slipped through her fingers. They were falling, and there was nothing she could do except brace for the impact.
The winged beast touched down with scarcely a bump. Solid ground lay two arm’s lengths away under Rhenna’s head. The man stripped the fur from her body. He grabbed her hair and pulled her upright.
“Home, pretty one,” he said.
She gazed out at the vast bowl of a valley, a landscape almost as sere and bare as that of the Great Desert. The clifflike walls were riddled with caves. Little grew on the plateau above, but the floor of the valley was marked with the green tracery of a stream and clusters of hardy trees. Furtive cloaked figures bearing clay jars and other burdens negotiated the narrow tracks up and down the cliffsides.
Rhenna’s captor cut the ropes that bound her to the beast’s withers and hauled her from its back. The moment her feet touched earth, she moved to run. A huge beaked head sliced the air directly in front of her face, and she found herself staring into a baleful yellow eye as big as a clenched fist.
She stumbled back and would have fallen except for her captor’s grip at the nape of her neck. “You want to be griffin-bait, bitch?” he asked, spraying spittle onto her cheek. “Maybe if he gets tired of you, he’ll throw you into the pit for the nestlings.”
Rhenna stared as the immense bird’s neck stretched, feathers bristling, and the beak opened on a hoarse, rattling cry. Long ears twitched and flattened. The man shouted a command, and the beast crouched on eagle’s claws and a great cat’s hindquarters, tufted tail lashing. Wings folded, hiding the saddle and harness that had held its rider in place.
The griffin’s master looped a noose of rope around Rhenna’s neck and fastened it with a knot meant to strangle her at the least attempt to fight. He led her away from the griffin’s perch and down a path cut out of the cliff and worn by countless feet. Men emerged from the caves they passed, bearded faces that taunted and jeered and offered foul promises that Rhenna could not misunderstand. She was a female animal to be judged by length of limb and fullness of chest, color of hair and curve of rump, all in full view of her eager audience.
Her legs were trembling by the time they reached the turning in the path, halfway down the cliff. She was every bit as helpless as the griffin rider intended her to be…naked, weak, expertly bound. Humiliated. Defeated. She stared up to where the great beast waited, capable of such powerful flight and yet invisibly tethered to its roost as meekly as a caged wren. Its head snaked over the cliff’s edge as if it sensed her regard, and the yellow eyes grew hooded to hide an emotion Rhenna knew all too well: rage. Hatred of all that would hold it captive. Hatred and the seething lust to kill.
Free us.
Rhenna shook her head, and her captor shoved her into the mouth of a cave hung with intricate tapestries and capes woven of feathers and fur. Weapons of war stood ready on racks built of antler and bone. Torches lit the dim, twisting passage that opened into a chamber of impressive proportions. On a stone dais stood a chair of carved wood and gold, its back surmounted by the gaping beak of a griffin’s skull. The chair’s arms ended in fleshless talons. A simmering pot of meat hung over a fire to one side of the dais.
A pair of women, little more dressed than Rhenna, crept out of the shadows. Their hair hung loose and lank about their thin shoulders. Each of them wore a thin iron collar. They crawled on hands and knees, like beasts, and one slunk close to the pot and began to dip her dirty hand into the thick, steaming liquid. She shrieked as a tail of black leather curled about her wrist and jerked her over to lie in the dust of the cave floor, whimpering with pain and despair.
The owner of the whip strolled from the rear of the cave, lightly flicking the braided leather over his shoulder. On his face he wore a leather mask molded to the shape of a griffin’s head.
“Derinoe,” he said, his voice heavy with regret. “How many times have I warned you to await your master’s leave before you eat?” He walked up to the prone girl and nudged her side with the toe of his boot. She cringed away.
Derinoe. Rhenna remembered a half-wild girl on the steppe, defiant and discourteous and afraid of the vast responsibility laid upon her inexperienced shoulders. Derinoe, who had ridden free in the Shield’s Shadow…
Rhenna shivered, and the masked man’s head turned toward her. “Ah,” he said. “You’ve done well, Arshan. I am pleased.” He strode forward, stepping over the weeping girl. “Welcome to my Aerie, Rhenna.” His gaze swept over her. “It’s been much too long, but now we can properly renew our acquaintance.”
Rhenna jerked against the noose at her throat. “Who are you?”
But she knew. She knew even before he lifted the mask from his cruel, handsome face.
“There is so much for you to learn,” Farkas said. “And so much I am ready to teach.” He grabbed her leash and yanked her to him, grinding his lips into hers.
Rhenna screamed. She screamed like a weakling, like one of the Hellene’s beaten females, but she couldn’t stop. Blackness clouded her vision. She fell, tumbling down and down from a vast height into a bottomless chasm.
Someone caught her hand in a warm, firm grip, and she struck the ground without pain.
“Rhenna?”
She clung to the invisible hand and moved her body ca
refully, feeling for twisted muscle and broken bone. Nothing was damaged. The noose was no longer around her neck. She still wore the clothes she’d had on when she entered the cave….
The cave. She squeezed her unseen companion’s blunt fingers and laughed until the tears ran from her eyes.
“Tahvo,” she said when she could speak again. “You’re well?”
“Yes.” The little healer helped Rhenna to her feet. “We must get out and find the others.”
Rhenna rubbed her throat. “It was only a dream. I saw Farkas—”
“It is over now. Can you walk?”
“Of course.” Rhenna released Tahvo’s hand and searched the darkness. “Which way?”
Tahvo started forward without hesitation, and soon the cavern narrowed to a passage that ended in a sliver of blessed light. The thick, decaying smell of the forest had never seemed so welcome.
The others already waited in the clearing just outside the cave mouth. The villagers and Imaziren stood apart in their separate groups, hunched and silent. Cian crouched in the shadows of a broad-leafed bush, and Nyx stood at the opposite edge of the clearing, arms folded tightly across her chest.
“Rhenna,” Cian said when he saw her. He half rose, glanced at Tahvo, and sank back down.
“Is everyone all right?” Rhenna asked.
Immeghar opened his mouth, then closed it again. The villagers exchanged uneasy glances. Rhenna strode to confront Nyx.
“You said no evil could pass through these caves,” she said, “but the evil was already inside them.”
Nyx pressed her lips together and looked away. Rhenna turned to Tahvo. “You felt it, as well.”
“Yes.”
“What did you see, Cian?”
He lifted his hands and stared at them as if they belonged to someone else. “Blood,” he whispered.
Rhenna almost went to him then, but the bleakness in his face stopped her. Clearly she had not been alone in her ordeal. Perhaps each of them had passed through a similar trial of the spirit. And though they had come out alive, none of them was yet willing to speak of what they’d endured.
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