Gods of Nabban

by K V Johansen

  “Go to your road with the blessing of the god,” he told them hoarsely. Praitannec words, he realized after, but he did not suppose they minded. They had let go their will to remain; they were pulled, urgent to answer, no longer concerned with him, with what they left behind. He spread the first handfuls of earth by hand.

  Free. Gone. He felt it then, the pull, like standing on a clifftop, the call to leap into night, not to fall, but to fly, a weight drawing him in, the depth of the stars and what lay beyond. The Old Great Gods, calling. He was leaning on the mattock, eyes shut, shivering as sweat and tears dried on his skin.

  The god, he had said. Well. Still work here for the god’s priest. His assassin, his gravedigger, his stray dog.

  A spade was the tool he needed, but he had none. He made shift with the mattock again. The sun was low before he had the earth mounded over them, and then he began to pile the stones. A rough cairn to keep the scavengers off and mark the spot even once the forest took it back.

  Full dark before Ahjvar sought the path to the sanctuary, and he trusted to Niaul to find the way. He noticed, though, that they crossed no brook, not even when they came to where the rapids rang below the joining of the outflow of the springs. He stripped and washed again, scrubbed mud from his clothes, washed even the shirt he had not been wearing, and hung all on a branch to dry. Covered only by his blanket, he tended the horse, who got most of the cracked barley for his day’s work, and lay down fireless once more, on his back, watching the sky.

  Think on what you want, what you need from him. You are a weight on him, a burden . . . all Nabban falls on him and he needs either his champion at his back . . . or to be free of ghosts. Your ghosts. You.

  Find your way out of the fire, or go to find your road. Choose. For young Nabban’s sake.

  Three nights for a vigil. He had not thought of it so, till now. A vigil of sleep, not waking. Vigil by a grave-side that should be his own.

  You don’t dream of acorns. He clenched it in his hand, open-eyed. Remember Miara, living. Face that. Remember them, all he had killed as the hag’s hands. Remember . . . deaths. His own. Remember he had burned with Hyllau. He was murdered, and cursed, and it was over, her very soul destroyed, his goddess put sleeping in the earth, never to wake, his chains taken from her, and if he was bound still—he trusted where those bonds were held. He had been drowned and made a necromancer’s slave and he had destroyed a devil’s web of devoured souls from within and that, too, was over. They were not real, any of them, when they took him in the night. They were memories. They were dreams, scars on his mind. They were done with; he would have them done with. He would remember the waves on the shore below the cliff and a hawk plunging from the sky and the cool green shade of the oaks. He must. Or let all go, and be gone. No more harm in the night.

  He thought that after all he could not sleep, shivering and sick with cold and memory, but something stalked him and the body failed and let him fall. Something . . . reaching, to hold and destroy what was suddenly denied her. Hungry . . . Hyllau, reaching for him. The Lady of Marakand, but her face was burnt black, charred and flaking away like Hyllau’s and she closed her mouth over his, pressing down on him, tongue forcing—He caught her by the throat, to choke and throttle. She was burning under his hands, his hands were burning and there was some thing in the fire, in his hand, held hard enough to be a harsh near-pain amidst the burning, hard. Fingertips dug it into his fist and he could not bring both hands to grip on her because he held—he dreamed and he should dream of oaks instead. This was nightmare, this was over, this was done, and he opened the burning hand and shoved away, flung himself from her, crying out—

  “No!” He struck a hand against the ground and pulled himself to his knees, crouched gasping, fingers splayed, both hands digging into the deep litter of needles. Could hardly breathe. But he was awake. Wiped his mouth on his sleeve, shaking. He wanted to crawl to the water but did not think he would have the strength or the will to crawl out again. Crouched and shivered. His hands were empty, fingers spread to anchor him. He forced his breathing to slow, sat up, hands spread on his knees. Dream. Only nightmare.

  He had let go. He had remembered and he had let go.

  Bowed his head to his knees.

  The acorn he had held was lost somewhere as he had jerked awake, but some distant clear thought of sense said that was no bad thing. It was his mind, not his hand, that must learn to remember.

  But Old Great Gods have mercy, he did not want to sleep again. The nightmares still pressed thickly on him, smothering any will . . . that was fasting and exhaustion, fool. If he could not drag himself to his feet . . . then do not. Then fall.

  It was a night of years, the stars frozen in the sky, the birds, the owls and the silver singer and the barking foxes silent. He let himself fall, he drowned in dreams as he had once tried to drown himself in the sea. Let go, sink, don’t fight . . . The waves had rolled him up on the shore, the barren, sharp-toothed coast below Noble Cedar Harbour, even the sea refusing him. Nightmares drowned him, and he could . . . remember. No. One word. Not pleading, not crying out against the hag or the devil of Marakand or Catairanach his goddess. One word for himself. No. He did not fight them, did not strike, did not seize. No, he said, and shut his eyes within the dream and found his image of the cork-oak grove. He shaped this dream; he would not allow nightmares to raven unchecked. They were not his truth in this place: this pain, this fear, this rage, these enemies . . . they were not here with him, no hungry fire, no deep black devouring water. These hands, those dead eyes, deformed and defiled face—No. Remember her hawks and the blue sky. Horizons, Miara had said. The horizons were always too close and narrow, when I served in the royal dinaz.

  You would have liked him, he told her. He’s very strange. He’s all horizons.

  He dreamed she kissed him, holding his hands in hers. He dreamed she opened her hands and let him go, flung wide her arms as if she launched an eagle, and looked away, into the depths of the sky, fading to light herself as the old priestess had, and the light lost in the sun.

  Dawn. He had been lying awake since before the first paling of the sky gave the pines form. Birdsong had pushed into the last edges of the night and uncoiled like the ferns to fullness, echoing and re-echoing through the forest. Ahjvar pulled himself to his feet and went slowly, light-headed and unsteady, down to the pool below the rapids. He bathed yet again, for all cold water and no soap could do, washed even his hair, which was full of pine-needles, dressed in clothes still damp and mud-stained, and walked back, gathering twigs and cones, to make a fire. His hands shook so badly that he gave up on flint and firesteel and cut the signs of birch and of alder, and without considering, of rose, which was not for a cooking fire but a holy one, on a stripped green branch, and felt the fire warm and rushing life in his hands, waking easily in the kindling he had laid.

  Tea. He divided the broken barley with the horse and made porridge with the little that was left, walking like an old man as he gathered more wood; there was a wealth of winter-fallen branches when he looked, and they cracked and spat with the pine-pitch and scented the air.

  Warmth. Food. And more tea. It was good just to hold the cup in his hands and breathe the steam.

  He found the acorn he had dropped in the night, put it with the other two in his purse. Thought of the dead tree and the black stone in the shrine that had been the Mother’s and wondered if a cork-oak from the warm coast of the Gulf of Taren could grow on a Nabbani mountain of winter blizzards. There should be a tree again.

  The horse wandered off down the path, not quite out of sight, grazing the new-springing green along the brook.

  He fell into a state half-sleep, half-waking, dreaming not nightmares but waves and gulls. The fire died to embers, but the sun was warm and high. He ought to gather more wood, not let the fire die, if he was to wait another night. He ought to find his way to the mountain, to worry about more assassins, more servants of the empress hunting vision-led for the heir of th
e gods.

  Niaul raised his head, pricked his ears. Not the path but the forest drew his attention, away to the north and east. Open pines running there, a long rising and dip of the land and a steep climb behind it up a ridge. Flash of distant white.

  So, then.

  There were words to be spoken.

  CHAPTER XXVI

  The sound of Snow’s hooves was soft, near to silent on the thick cushion of fallen needles beneath the pines, rising to a muffled hollow thud like distant drums when Ghu set the white stallion to a canter through the pillars of the trees, impatient, dreading. Riding to have it over.

  The sanctuary of the Mother, the cold springs. The birth of the Wild Sister. He had never been to this place, and knew every tree, every stone, every singing bird. Evening Cloud whinnied to his stablemate. Ahjvar was sitting by a fire, leaning against one of the great pines, unsheathed sword within reach, shoved upright into the pine mould, dull silver in the sun. Not sleeping, but open-eyed. Waiting. He thrust himself to his feet as Ghu reined Snow back to his flowing walk again. Jui and Jiot coursed up to Ahjvar, tails wagging, and he gave them a hand to sniff, absent of attention. That welcome taken care of, they coursed on by to drink noisily from the nearest of the sacred springs, Jui wading right in to wallow, joyously irreverent.

  Ahjvar simply stood, waiting. He looked exhausted, gaunt, eyes hollow, dark-ringed, but there was a calm to him, a peace.

  What he had feared, when Ahjvar had said he would not follow to the mountain. What he had known. Ghu dismounted and looped the stallion’s reins up, left him loose to wander to the water or his fellow as he would, but stood still himself, to have a moment to watch Ahjvar, to hold him whole in sight. To not cross to him, not hear the words said.

  Ahjvar came to him instead and fell to his knees at his feet.

  “I’ve been wrestling dreams.” Head bowed, voice low, hoarse.

  “Ahjvar . . .”

  “I’ve found my way through them. I can wake myself. Wake myself up knowing I dream, not reaching for a weapon, not trying to choke—I’ve done it, three times, four, I don’t know, but one, one was very bad. I’m still dreaming, but I have broken them. I know them. I do not think—I do not think I will wake trying to kill long-dead enemies any longer. I do not sleep easy, or quiet, but . . . I wake and I can sleep again. Even—even when I dream I am burning, even when the Lady takes me in the well, I can make myself wake and know I am dreaming.” Almost a whisper.

  “Ah, Ahj.” Ghu hardly dared to touch him, to set a hand to that bowed head. But he did. The bright pale hair was finer than one would think from its unruly wildness, warmed in the bough-broken sun, golden light on gold. All his resolution—he held it firm. He could not deny and would not plead. He should take what warmth there was in knowing he had, after all, been able to give that gift of time, that Ahj did not die in flight from the haunting of his own mind, but went to his road, long though it might be with the murders he carried, with some small peace.

  “If I can sleep, even brokenly, I don’t think I’ll dream when I’m waking. I don’t think I need you sleeping by me for fear I’ll wake mad and trying to kill. Or that I need you there, to stop me killing.” Ahjvar dragged a deep breath. “But I think, I think there is no one I would want there by me, but you. I—would give you that.”

  Abrupt words, dropped heavy between them. Ahjvar would not look up. Shaken, Ghu went to his own knees in the needles and moss, hand on his shoulder, hand on his jaw, in the coarser hair of his beard, forcing Ahjvar to meet his eyes.

  “Ahj—Ahjvar—”

  “I want that. You.”

  “Not men, you said.”

  “No. No. A man.” A rush, words desperate to be spoken. “I—I find you are become my—exception.”

  And however much Ghu might have wanted that—to hear it chilled him.

  “Did I do this to you, wanting you? I change things. I know I do. Not intending, but—the dogs are not what they were, because they’ve come to follow me. Father, Mother forgive me, Ahjvar, I did not mean to—”

  A gaze so raw—naked, burning as flame. Blue should be cool as the sky overhead, not hold the sun’s hot heart. It took all words away. But the corner of the mouth turned in that faint, amused shadow that was not quite a smile.

  “Gods, don’t think that of yourself, Ghu. You wouldn’t change someone against their nature. I know you would not.”

  “Not knowingly. But unknowing—” Old Great Gods above, he feared it. And was kindled none the less to fire, to have Ahj look at him so.

  “No. No. If you could shape a person’s will all unknowing to what you wanted, to what served you, you would have had Zhung Musan at your feet swearing fealty like Daro Korat, so much bloodshed spared. Hah, you would have had me at your feet long before this. True?”

  He couldn’t help it. That made him laugh.

  “Ghu, love without desire, you know you have had that of me for years, but I have been—I have been seeing you all too unsettlingly in the body for—when I think—since before Deyandara came and we set out for Marakand. Last spring. Noticing you, since you grew up—in ways I would not have expected and could not let myself think on, could deny and bury, because—you know why. Because I couldn’t feel such things without seeing, feeling, Miara dead under my hands.” He swallowed. “And you had not begun to take on any touch of your godhead then. So don’t think that you’ve drawn me to you against my nature, ever. Two lovers only, in what, almost a century? That’s not any great history either way. Who’s to say whom I might not have loved in my natural life, woman or man, if I had not been thrown all into damnation by Hyllau? You haven’t forced me to this, not you. Never.” Another nerve-ragged breath. “And I would not care if you had.”

  “You should.” Ghu should. Ghu should care for both of them, if Ahj would not, and—and what could he know, but what Ahjvar said?

  He gives himself to you. How do we deny that? Father Nabban would not have left Ghu to hold the stolen curse, if he saw harm in it for Ahjvar. The Father would not condone, if Ghu witting or unwitting had through that bond shifted his friend’s love for him from one course to another he might not have chosen on his own. Surely not.

  “I am not always sane; I am not safe, even if I have broken my nightmares, and you are my safety, and my still centre, and all my trust. I am who I am now, where I have come to now, not who Catairlau was or might have been. I am yours, soul and body. Whatever you want of me. Take that. It’s all I have to give you.”

  “No. You’ve given me everything I needed, all these years. You gave me—a place to grow into myself. I would not be the man I am if you had driven that boy from your wall and your hearth.” He added, because it was true, “Nabban would not be—what it will be. What I will be.”

  “Damn your gods.” Ahjvar turned his mouth against Ghu’s fingers, eyes shut.

  “Don’t. They haven’t damned you.”

  Trust himself? He did not know. But Ghu slid his hand around to wind into the tangled fall of Ahjvar’s hair, kissed him, hesitantly, hardly more than a brushing of the lips, as he had kissed him in the burning tower of Dinaz Catairna.

  A moment. Ahjvar leaned in and opened his mouth to him.

  Daylight, still, and he did not think the Mother, had she been there, could have minded what they did in that sacred place beneath the pines. His place, this was, now. She was gone. What she had been in her strength was growing anew in himself. If he reached for it, it was there. The river. The rivers, the three great, the countless lesser, the lakes, all the waters of the land. The Father held on a little longer, withdrawn into himself on the mountain, waiting, but this, this was already become Ghu’s place, water and pines. So where better? The horses dozed, hip-shot and nose to fly-flicking tail. The dogs slept in a patch of sun. Sun found and lost and found them again, moving above the pines. Ahjvar . . . simply slept. Deep and still and beautiful. Ghu closed his eyes himself. Not to sleep. To listen, in this small place. To the wind in the pines, the springs and t
he streams that chimed over the rocks, through the ferns. Birds, spring birds in wild carolling. The man breathing slow beside him. That, most of all.

  “Did you find your god?” Ahjvar, woken, speaking out of long, easy silence.

  “I did.”

  “And?”

  “We—spoke. I see my road. That’s all. For now.” He rolled to his side, pulled closer yet to Ahjvar. “I thought—I thought you had come here to find some quiet.”

  “I did.”

  “I thought you would ask me to let you die.” Ghu traced the line of neck and shoulder, collarbone, the delicate hollow of his throat, awed anew. That solidly-muscled chest, that unsunned skin a palest brown no darker than his own hand, which showed a warmer sunlit tone against Ahj’s Praitan earthiness. The cold blanched silver of old scars, crossed and recrossed. Ahjvar had taken no care to avoid his enemies when he sought and dealt death in the Five Cities. Knives mostly, and the crossbows of house guards. Only the newest, from Marakand, were purpled still. Spears and swords, those. Ahj did not speak of what had happened when he went to murder the Voice of the Lady, but they had not taken him easily. Fingers combed through thick and curling golden hair, followed the narrowing line of it, flattened over those most livid scars, two of them crossing the last ribs and biting below, deep and knotted. Slid over to his hip. “I thought you had come here, to—wait, and ask for death.”

  Ahjvar turned to face him, arm over him, and it seemed a wonder again that they could lie pressed body to body and Ahj not be merely lost in desperate need to have an anchor in the night. A greater wonder that his hands could touch, careful and wondering, and find a way over Ghu’s own skin in turn, caress muscle and bone beneath, grip hard in urgency, demand and make and give a closeness that had no root in fear, that wanted Ghu for life and breath and heat of desire, not for a wall against terror in the dark.

  “If I hadn’t been able to fight the dreams at the last, I would have. You don’t need me to take Nabban.”