by E. S. Bell
The Other God
Connor Crane whipped his sword in a blinding series of arcs. The Vai’Ensai dodged them with minuscule turns and steps, and then hefted his immense sword to knock aside Connor’s slimmer blade. Connor felt the blow up to his elbow but held on. He countered and Kyre jerked his head back just enough to and let Connor’s sword tip whistle under his chin, then brought his own broadsword down in a chopping blow. The sword thrust was easy to avoid. Connor danced out of reach, then dodged the kicking boot that came at his midsection.
The Vai’Ensai nodded his horned head. “Good. Yesterday was not so good.”
Connor laughed. “That’s for certain! I still have the bruise on my rump to prove it.”
They squared off again; the empty yard rang with the sound of clanging steel. Connor met the Vai’Ensai blow for blow but he suspected Kyre was taking it easy on him now.
“Do you think,” Connor asked between parries, “we’ll need to leave Isle Lillomet?”
“It is not for me to say.”
Connor stepped back and held up a hand to stop their sparring. The afternoon sun was cloaked in clouds, its heat trapped in thick, wet air. He wiped his forearm across his brow. “Don’t start that again.” He grinned. “You came for me, remember?”
“Of course I remember,” Kyre said, his brow ridges furrowing. “It was only eleven sunsets ago that I found you.”
Connor shook his head and laughed. “I meant, seeing as how you sought me out, don’t you think you should know what for?”
Kyre rested his huge hands on the huge pommel of his huge broadsword. “I told you all I know. The stone and fire spoke your name and then it spoke mine. My threefold duty was clear: walk with you, protect you, die for you.”
His clawed hand went to the iron disc around his neck. He had shown the pendant to Connor the morning when Kyre had surprised them all by striding into the infirmary and declaring he wasn’t to leave Connor’s side. The iron disc bore strange markings that looked like small rents clawed into the metal. Kyre said it bore the name Connor Crane.
A strange thrill went through Connor each time he thought that he had some part in a strange Vai’Ensai ritual. He smiled now. Kyre came for me.
“Why do you give me so strange a look?” Kyre asked.
“What look?”
“Grateful. I have not yet fulfilled my duty.”
Connor shrugged and sat down on a bench. Kyre automatically moved to stand beside him. He did not sit.
“See up there?” Connor pointed to a window carved into an upper floor of the Moon Temple.
“Yes.”
“They’re up there right now, talking about you. About me. Us.”
“They ask many questions,” Kyre remarked.
“And they’ll ask more. Be warned.”
Kyre shrugged his massive shoulders; his wings shrugged with him. “Questions do not scare me.”
Connor smiled at that and then sighed. “I should consider Celestine, even in my thoughts, as the High Reverent. But she is a good friend of father’s, or like a sister to him, which makes her like an aunt to me. That’s how I think of her. And since the Two-Faced God doesn’t Hear me, I guess it’s all right to think of her as an aunt first and High Reverent after.” He waited for the old familiar ache that always came with the admission the god didn’t Hear him. He smiled. “Not this time.”
Kyre didn’t reply. He spoke little and listened more. Connor liked that.
“And my father…” Connor continued. “He worries. Because of my episodes. And he feels bad because I want to be a Paladin and that’s the one thing in all Lunos he can’t give to me. Well, that or my mother. She died having me and he thinks that’s his fault too.” He shielded his eyes from the muted glare of the sun. “Do you have a mother?”
“Yes,” Kyre said.
“What’s her name?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t know? Don’t you miss her? Or your father?”
“Miss?” Kyre pondered this for a moment. “My father was an outstrider—one who patrols the coasts of the Cloud Isles. He was gone for many turns of the moon at a time. That was his duty. My mother laid her eggs with other females during the season of regeneration. When my nestmates and I hatched, the females raised us while keeping guard over the isles.”
Connor’s eyes widened. “You were hatched from an egg?”
“Yes.”
“But you seem more human than…lizard.”
“Lizards,” Kyre said with mild distaste tinting his words, “do not form tribes, nor read fire and stone, nor fight, nor speak…”
“Aye, right then,” Connor held up his hands, laughing. “I meant no offense.”
“I take none,” Kyre said and Connor wondered what it would take to really rile his strange new friend.
A threat to me, he decided.
He looked up at the windows where he was sure his father and Celestine were also discussing his strange new friend. But he’s mine.
“I didn’t know my mother either,” Connor continued. “She wasn’t from here, but some other isle. I don’t even know which because my father doesn’t remember the name. A tiny little place, he said, with forests and lots of strange stones that were stood up in strange formations all over. My father met her while he was a Captain. He says he loved her and I guess he did since he brought her back to Isle Lillomet and married her.”
Kyre said nothing.
“On the night I was born, my father said there was a storm like he’d never seen. A storm that wasn’t common to the season. He said that the lightning crashed so often and so close that the sky was lit up like day.” Connor turned to Kyre. “That means something, don’t you think?”
“It is not for me to say.”
“It means something,” Connor decided, pleased. “It must. Anyway, my mother is gone and my father doesn’t talk about her anymore. All he talks about is Skye. Do you know Skye?”
“I have heard stories from the Zak’reth war,” Kyre said. “She is a great warrior.”
“She is more than that,” Connor said, ticking off the titles with his fingers. “Commander, war hero, Justarch of Lillomet, High Reverent... She married my father after the war. He was obsessed with her. And she was with him too, I guess. For a time. But she left him four years ago. Just sailed away. Not a word to anyone until real recently.”
Kyre remained silent.
“I don’t care where she is or what she’s doing, but she hurt my father. She left to unite Lunos they say, but he’s been devastated. I used to think she was spectacular. Now, I hate her.”
As soon as the words left his mouth, Connor glanced around, certain Reverent Taliah was listening and ready to pop out from hiding and chastise him.
“I don’t care if she never comes back. I hate that she hurt him, but when she’s around, nothing exists for my father but her. I don’t exist. The whole Alliance could fall apart and I don’t think he’d care so long as had Skye.”
Kyre snorted and spat onto the ground. Connor knew it was because he wanted to spit, not because he was moved by any emotion.
“But now my father’s distracted,” Connor went on. “He spends all his time worried about Skye and that makes him feel guilty about me. So then he tries to make up for it by meddling in my business. But it doesn’t last. Eventually, he just winds up pining for Skye again. Then I have an episode, and he’s back worrying about me again. It’s like the seasons.” He barked a short laugh. “You can always count on the same thing to happen again and again.”
Kyre flexed his wings and there was a silence. The young man regarded his friend again. “My last episode… The one where they said lightning was all over me? Father tried to quell that talk but I heard it anyway. Do you think that storm caused me to have that episode?”
“No.”
“Do you think I caused the storm?”
“Yes.”
Connor’s heart pounded with exhilaration. Or fear. Or both.
“
I think so too,” he said. “I made the storm. I made it.” He beamed and then scratched his head. “But what does that mean? Is it a god’s magic? Or from my mother?”
Kyre spat again. “I am what you would call in the Tradespeak a ‘foot soldier.’ It is not my place to know everything the fire and the stone tells the elders of my tribe.”
“Are we going to go to the Cloud Isles?”
“No. Humans are not permitted. No one is permitted but Vai’Ensai.”
“What are we supposed to do next?” Connor asked. Then he grinned. “I’m sure the Admiral and the High Reverent are dying to know.”
“I believe the time will come when you will know what to do.”
“I think so too. I have a feeling… Come on.” He stood up. “Let’s go the archery yard. My shooting needs work.”
Kyre didn’t agree or disagree; he didn’t try to reassure him or console him or encourage him or tell him what to do. He merely nodded and Connor’s smile split his face wide open as they walked in silence to the targets.
Celestine watched Archer watch his son from the window.
“What are they talking about?” Archer Crane demanded. “They spend all day every day together. For more than a week.”
“Whatever they speak of,” Celestine said, “I hope the Vai’Ensai is more forthcoming to Connor than he has been to us.”
Archer didn’t seem to have heard. “I talk to Connor all day long but he doesn’t listen. Not like that.”
Celestine smiled and joined her friend. “If you notice, Connor is doing all the talking and Kyre is doing all the listening.”
“That’s hardly the point.”
Celestine’s smile slipped. “He is going to leave us soon, Archer,” she told him quietly. “You must know this is true.”
“No, I don’t know that,” Archer said, finally turning away from the window. “We don’t know anything beyond that Kyre yammering about stones that can speak and how he is now Connor’s official—unofficial—body guard.” He tugged at his collar.
“There is some precedent here.”
“What precedent?”
“Selena Koren has been marked by the Two-Faced God and she’s guarded by a Vai’Ensai. She always maintained otherwise, but it’s clear to all that Ilior protects her.”
The horrified look on Archer’s face came and went as he dismissed the notion. “A coincidence. Connor has not been marked by any god. Selena has. She’s being punished. He is not. And we sent Selena away. We will not do the same to Connor. Kyre, however, is free to leave whenever he wishes,” he muttered under his breath.
Celestine sighed. “Connor is going to leave Lillomet.”
“Kyre is not taking Connor anywhere,” Archer snapped. “I won’t allow it.”
“I believe it will be Connor taking Kyre, not the other way around. Whatever Kyre’s role, it is second to Connor’s. The storm—”
“Was a common occurrence.”
“And the lightning that danced over your son’s body without burning him?”
“It was a figment of my imagination.”
“And mine? And the half dozen others who witnessed it before we arrived? To say nothing of Dorian, whose arm was singed.” Celestine moved around her desk and sat on the edge to look down at the admiral slumped in his chair. “Have you ever seen that before during one of his episodes?”
“Of course not,” Archer snapped. He cleared his throat and said in a quieter tone, “No, I have no idea what that could be. You’re the godly one, Cel. You tell me where it came from. Don’t Aluren weave light out of water?”
“Aye, but lightning is not in the purview of the Two-Faced God. Neither,” she added, “is the ability to call storms.”
“I’ll grant that the lightning was…strange, but whether Connor made that storm is still debatable.”
“There are other, lesser gods, of course,” Celestine said, “but I am not deeply schooled in their magic. Taliah would know better than I.” She softened her voice. “What about his mother? I know you don’t wish to speak of her, but we need to know. Connor needs to know.”
“The Deeps take me, Cel, I don’t even remember the name of the island where I met her. I was blinded by her and could hardly see anyone or anything else.” He smirked, thinking of Skye. “A habit of mine, apparently.”
“Any detail of the island might help.”
Archer’s gaze sought the window again, though from his chair he wouldn’t be able to see more than the cloud-filled sky. Celestine could see his thoughts go back twenty years.
“It’s in the Western Watch, this island, but remote. I believe we were stationed near Isle Juskara. I remember that desert land well enough. But the island where I met Elia was very small and very green. Gray stone and green forest, that’s what I remember. And there were pillars of that stone cut from the mountains and arranged in strange formations. Elia called them druid circles. Druids.” His dark eyes lit up with recognition. “That was their name for adherents. She said that the druids went to the circles to commune with nature; animals, wind, rain…” He looked at Celestine, his face very pale. “Elia…She never said she was one of these druids, but she seemed to know what she was talking about. Oh, gods, Cel.” He held his head in his hands.
“Don’t fret, Archer. Knowing is better than not knowing, even if the answer is unpleasant.”
“Says you,” Archer said without looking up.
Celestine smiled at her friend. She returned to her desk and withdrew a pile of scrolls from a drawer. “Would you please stop feeling sorry for yourself long enough to tell the page outside the door that I wish to see Taliah? I believe she is back now from her visit home.”
“Taliah?” Archer asked, rising. “What for?”
“Because she is well-versed in the deities and customs of other islands,” Celestine said. “Largely to prove that the Two-Faced God is superior in all ways, of course, but her knowledge will prove useful no matter her reasons for acquiring it.” She found the chart she was looking for and unrolled it over her desk as Archer returned from relaying the High Reverent’s orders to the page.
“I wasn’t aware that Taliah was so studied,” he said when he returned to his seat. “I had always thought her…”
Celestine gave him an arch look.
“A charming woman.”
Celestine sniffed. “She’s also a stickler for formality. Remember to use my title and to call her Reverent Taliah, if you please.” Celestine smoothed the map. “Now come and try to remember which island chain you were on when you met the mother of your child.”
Archer stared at her, and then they both burst out laughing. Celestine was glad to see the crease of worry erased from between his eyes, at least for a moment. He came around to her side of the desk and examined the map. The Western Watch, with each of its islands finely detailed with every port, city, and bay demarked exactly.
Celestine watched her friend as he studied the islands in the southern quadrant. He was still very handsome, she decided, despite the hardship of the last few years. He would turn forty-four this winter if her memory served, but his hair was thick and dark with no hint of gray yet. His eyes were also rich brown and very warm when he wasn’t worried about Connor or Skye, and he laughed easily and readily; less so now that Skye was gone. Because of the time Celestine and he spent together, there was talk of liaisons between them that they both found amusing. It was forbidden for the Aluren to copulate with anyone outside the faith and even if it were permitted, Celestine would not have sought anything other than friendship with Admiral Crane. His devotion to Skye was a part of his very being. Palpable. Tangible to those who knew him best. Like his scent or the color of his eyes.
Celestine wondered, though, if she would have found Archer attractive if they were two ordinary citizens meeting on the street. She thought not. He was rough around the edges, often temperamental, a masterful sailor, and a genius at tactics and strategy. But he wasn’t an intellectual and there wasn’t one thing myste
rious about him. And these two qualities, Celestine imagined, were the hallmarks of any man she might care for.
In the dark, lonely hours of the night, lying abed in her cell, she conjured a companion who was clever and thoughtful, sensitive and kind, but perhaps with a slight shadow slanting over him. A man with whom it would take long months, years perhaps, of delicious conversations and ruminations about life and history, and art and theology, before she could rightly say she understood him. Or he her.
But the Moon Temple was nearly empty. Only a handful of adherents and even fewer Paladins walked the halls now that Gerus and Selena were absent. Celestine’s loneliness warred with the duties that had been thrust upon her. At twenty-four, she was too young even in her own estimation to be High Reverent. But there was no one else. And duty to her Temple and her god came first. She vowed she would make the Temple busy again, fill its ranks, and then, when Skye returned victorious, Celestine would step down as High Reverent and perhaps be permitted to indulge in a creating a fuller life for herself.
But not yet, she sighed, and observed her friend. I pine for my love just as strongly as he does for his. The difference is that he knows her name, and my companion, whoever he may be, is as yet a stranger. She suspected this mutual condition was part of what made she and Archer such good friends. We are equally wretched and lonely.
“Cel? I think I have it,” he said, laying his finger to the map.
She gave herself a shake and looked to the chart. “Isle Devala.”
He nodded. “Keep in mind that twenty years ago, this island had hardly a real port and I don’t believe even that had a name. They were a strange people; very kind and beautiful, but reserved. Elia was very beautiful. She passed all her beauty to Connor when she died.”
“You are kind to a fault; Connor is you twenty-five years ago.”
“Yes, but his eyes. That impossibly dark blue color? The color of the night sky the moment before the sun sets? That’s her.” He looked up. “It’s Devala.”
“What about Devala?” came a voice at the door, thickly accented and with a growl beneath it.
