by Holly Lisle
“I didn’t kill Edrouss Delmuirie!” she shouted. “He’s Edrouss Delmuirie.”
“The records at the gate say he’s Geos Rull,” Thirk said.
“I’m Edrouss Delmuirie.”
Thirk smiled. “So you came into the city under false identity? Tsk, tsk. Normally, that would be a stoning offense—but the world needs Edrouss Delmuirie. If you are Edrouss Delmuirie, I’m sure you can prove it.”
“Of course I can prove it,” Edrouss shouted. “Ask me anything.”
“Fine. Edrouss, if you are Edrouss—put the Delmuirie Barrier back up. Give Arhel back its magic.”
“Let’s see some magic!” a man shouted.
“He can’t do magic! He’s a liar!”
“Stone him!”
“Stone her!”
And someone else yelled, “Stone them all.”
Thirk crossed his arms over his chest. “What, Edrouss, Faia—no magic? Can it be that you lied to all of us?” He waited.
Faia took Edrouss’s hand in her own. She could think of nothing that might save them. She looked into Thirk’s eyes, and saw her own fear reflected. In her brother’s face, she saw more of the same fear. She had no magic, no power—and no hope.
All around them, the people still called for their deaths.
“No magic for us—it must mean you lied to us after all. What a pity.” Thirk shook his head slowly, then turned mournful eyes on his followers, who cried out for stoning. As if saddened by the reactions of his followers, he said, “Children, children, I have taught you time and again that punishment must always fit the crime. Common heretics are stoned—but these are no common heretics. These people are a veritable wellspring of evil.” He smiled slowly. “They wanted you to burn the body of the monster you killed. I say we burn these three instead.”
“Burn them,” the mob replied.
“Yes, burn them!”
And the crowd moved in around Faia and her lover and her brother.
Chapter 37
THIRK transported everyone back to town—his three captives, the Servants, the townsfolk. They arrived in a billow of smoke, in the town square.
“Ring the bells,” Thirk shouted.
Men ran to do as he commanded, and within an instant, the town bells rang through the gathering night.
“Tie them to the pillars!”
In the center of the square, long ago, the Bontonards had erected a stone pavilion with graceful stone pillars that supported a delicately carved stone roof. The structure still stood, moss-etched and worn, testament to a better age.
Faia fought against the two men who held her—both brawny Servants—but she was no match for their strength or determination. They dragged her to one of the pillars, and within an instant, townsfolk ran up, offering rope to bind her. The Servants tied her tightly, with Edrouss on the pillar next to hers and Bytoris on the other side of him.
The bells rang on, and the square filled with more people; people who ran back home to bring bits of wood, who threw pieces of their furniture, bits of carts, and even the doors of their homes, smashed and reduced to kindling, at the feet of their victims.
The piles of wood grew until they reached waist-high around Bytoris, Faia, and Edrouss.
Then men lit torches, and brought them to the pyres.
“I love you,” Edrouss called to Faia.
“I love you, too.” Faia felt tears running down her cheeks. “And you, too, Bytoris. I’m glad I had a brother again, even just for a little while.”
Thirk floated into the air, and illuminated himself with magic. He magically amplified his voice, too, so that when he spoke to the crowd gathered beneath him, it was in gentle, kindly tones, and yet all could hear him.
“My beloved children,” he said “At last the causes of our many griefs are brought to justice. The men and woman you see before you destroyed Arhel’s magic. They summoned the murderous monsters who fly against our city, maiming and murdering those you love. These three have, by their every action, brought horror and pain to you who have done nothing to them. They are heretics, despisers of the One True God, and for their many evils, their sentence must be death.”
“Death!” the crowd shouted.
“Burn them!”
“Watch them burn!”
“Children. Oh, my children. We cannot rejoice in their deaths, for the three of them cannot repay you for the hundreds—nay, the thousands—who have died by their actions. There is no joy in this little justice.”
The crowd stilled.
I want my daughter, Faia thought. I want Edrouss. I want to live!
“But, joy or no joy, there will be justice.” Thirk waved a hand, and the people began to throw their burning brands against the bases of the pyres.
Some of the wood was green, and resisted the flames—but more of it caught. Smoke began to curl up into Faia’s eyes, and little tongues of flame licked along the wood at her feet; the flames grew, leaping from stick to board. Bytoris coughed. Edrouss struggled with his bonds, trying to the last to break free.
“Burn! Burn!” the mob screamed.
Faia felt a cool breeze blow against her cheek, and the roar of the crowd dulled to a whisper.
I’m dying already, she thought.
No. I don’t want you to die, Faia. You can set the men free, you can give Arhel back its magic—and you can live.
She saw a hazy shape form in the smoke in front of her. Gyels—Witte.
“What do you want from me, Witte?” she snarled. “What do you demand in exchange for your favors?”
I’m not Witte. I’ve never been Witte. I am that which you know as the Dreaming God—and all I want for my favors is you, Faia. I have been too long alone. If you will agree to come with me, I will save your friends. I will save your Arhel.
He wasn’t Witte? She was shaken—she had been so sure. Gyels was not Witte. He was the Dreaming God—and the Dreaming God was not, and had never been, Edrouss Delmuirie. She wished with her whole heart that he were, that she could give herself to the Dreaming God and by doing so have Edrouss, too.
Instead, she would have nothing. Not her daughter, not her lover, not her life.
But the people she loved would live.
At that instant, Bytoris’s clothing caught fire. The flames licked along his body, and caught his hair, and all the while he screamed, and screamed, the screams clear and loud in Faia’s ears. And Edrouss began to writhe as one tongue of flame danced along the tip of a board that touched his side, burning ever nearer his shirt.
Hurry, Faia, or they die.
Take me,” Faia said, “but save them. Not just from the fire—get them safely away from these madmen. And give Arhel back its magic.”
Gyels smiled at her, and suddenly she was far away, in a universe of light and the music of the infinite.
Chapter 38
FAIA was in the emeshest again—but this time she was all the way in; committed both body and soul. Her spirit would not be able to effect a careful retreat this time.
The presence of the Dreaming God surrounded her, pushing his unwanted love and happiness at her.
Let me see! she demanded. Let me see what happened to them.
Why must you see them? I told you I would send them to safety.
Let me see. Faia fought off his attempts to soothe her.
Very well. Look here—see whatever you would see.
In the light of the emeshest, a window opened onto Arhel, a flat circle of dullness and dreariness in the center of the infinite reaches of light and joyousness in which Faia was trapped. She stared hungrily into that plain little window. Show me Edrouss.
The flames touched his shirt, and his face contorted in agony. But at that instant, he began to glow brilliantly, illuminated from the inside as if he were a suddenly transparent magelight. Bytoris, tied to the pillar beside him, also lit up with that same radiant light—and Faia saw the same thing happen to her own body.
This was just before now, the Dreaming God told her.<
br />
And then the three bodies vanished from the pillars to which they were bound. Faia willed the window to focus on Edrouss Delmuirie; it followed him to the place where he reappeared, a little town nestled in the southern mountains. He fell to the ground, unharmed, and crawled into a barn, and found a place to sleep. Celebrations in the street woke him the next morning—Arhel’s magic had returned. Pure fresh water once again flowed from taps, airboxes flew in the skies above the village, mages and sajes practiced their trades.
Edrouss looked for a place where he could be of use—but he was far from the ruins and the scholars. Magicless, moneyless, without skills, without her, he fell into despair. He began taking whatever odd jobs he could find, and with the little money he earned, he bought cheap wine. He drank himself to sleep nights, and ate nothing. The first cold night of winter found him out, in thin clothes, too drunk to seek shelter.
And he died.
No! Faia wailed. She pulled back from the Dreaming God’s window, away from the world and the man she loved, and let the brightness of the emeshest wear away at the edges of her pain.
Time passes, my beloved, and you busy yourself with the world. We have all of eternity, but I desire your company now. I have waited so long.
Faia turned her attention to the Dreaming God. Another moment, she demanded. There are things I must see.
She looked through the window again, searching for Bytoris, and found him separated from Renina and their children. The Dreaming God had moved him to a safe place outside the city, but had left his wife and children behind. Bytoris went back to Bonton to rescue them, but the Servants caught him trying to smuggle them out of the city, and arrested him. Her brother was branded and given to Thirk as a personal slave, while the Servants branded Renina and all the children as heretics and kept them for their own uses. Thirk delighted in torturing Faia’s brother.
If she had been able to, Faia would have wept.
So magic had not freed Bonton of Thirk and his evil religion. Somehow the madman had managed to hang on to his power. Faia shifted her attention to Thirk, and followed him as he went about his life of luxury, waited on by multitudes—commanding them with a snap of his fingers. His religion had spread, until not only Bonton but much of Arhel was infected with it.
Why?
She searched from person to person through the believers, until she found the truth. Arhel’s magic had returned the instant she and Edrouss and Bytoris had vanished from the burning pyres—and Thirk, ever crafty, had claimed the magic’s return as his own doing. There was no one to naysay him—and he had taken the grateful adoration of the multitudes, and turned it into even more power.
She turned away from Thirk in disgust.
She found her own body, frozen in a pillar of light.
Why? she asked.
Only when I embrace the mind of one human can I touch all humans. That is the source of the world’s magic, beloved—the embrace of my mind and yours.
Then in a way, Edrouss was the source of Arhel’s magic.
He called upon me in a moment of dire need—and for that moment, his mind was open, and met mine. I thought he was the one I had waited so long to find, and I embraced him as I now embrace you—but he had no capacity for the easy speech you and I share. My touch over the many years changed him, but never enough that he could see me for what I am, or hear my voice. Never enough that he could be the companion I yearn for. He gave me a conduit to the rest of Arhel, and finally brought me you.
The Dreaming God paused, and when he resumed, his desire burned in the emeshest like the fires of a sun.
Time passes, heart of my heart. Come be with me. Rejoice with me in our togetherness. Take joy in the magic we make.
Faia ached—for her lover, for her brother, for her world. Wordless, she turned her back on the Dreaming God and stared into the window to the world.
She willed the window to show her Kirtha.
Her little girl had grown while she watched the others. Kirtha was tall and beautiful, already as old as Faia had been when Faia and Kirgen had conceived her. Kirtha had long red hair that blazed in the sunlight, a wonderful smile, beautiful brown eyes.
But she was unhappy. She fought with her father and stepmother, she hated her twin half-brothers and their younger sisters. She used her magic angrily—Faia came to discover that she blamed Kirgen, Medwind, Roba, and the twin boys with whom Roba had been pregnant for her mother’s disappearance and presumed death. She was sure Faia would have stayed behind and Kirgen would have gone if Roba had not been pregnant. She refused to train with Medwind, so her magic was wild and uncertain, and more dangerous than Faia’s had ever been; and she used it for any reason, at any time.
As Faia watched, she left Roba and Kirgen and went off on her own. She traveled around Arhel, looking for trouble and invariably finding it. She took lovers carelessly, and each one left her more unhappy than the one before. She grew old before her mother’s eyes—old and bitter and lonely and unloved, with no children or grandchildren, no real home, nothing she cared about. The magic borne of her mother’s body and a god’s desire she abused—and it in turn abused her, causing Kirtha nothing but pain and grief.
Distraught, Faia turned away for an instant, and when she looked back, it was to see her daughter as an old woman, sick and alone and dying. And then dead.
No! Faia wailed. Not my daughter! Not my beautiful daughter! This is not the way things should have been. I gave up my life so I could save them, but nothing good has come of this.
She turned her attention back to the Dreaming God.
Why? she demanded of him. Why have their lives been so terrible?
Life is short and full of pain, he told her. You have eternity with me. Forget about life. Forget the pain—there is no pain here. Rejoice with me. Love me.
Must things be as the window showed them to me? Faia railed against the horror and the despair she had seen. Must the future hold the endless pain I saw?
You did not see the future, beloved. You watched the present as it unfolded. You followed time; the things you saw happened not in a seeing, but in truth.
Then the people I loved are all dead?
Everyone dies, Faia. Everyone but you and me.
Faia pulled back from him. Neither the soothing brightness and warmth of the emeshest nor the glorious music of eternity could soothe her pain. At last she said, Then let me die.
You are my love, my soul, my heart. You are the embodiment of my only dream. I love you. I waited an eternity for you.
Inside of Faia, something snapped. Don’t you understand? I don’t love you! I love my daughter. I love my brother. I love Edrouss!
The Dreaming God did not react to Faia’s explosion. He maintained a calm, reasoning tone. Edrouss was mortal—human. Now he is dead, and his spirit is elsewhere, seeking another place. Whereas I am not mortal, not a man. I am the greatest of the gods; I am the Dreaming God. If a man is worthy of your love, how much more worthy am I?
Without a body, Faia could not weep physical tears. But her soul wept. I cannot make myself love you. Can you not understand that love is not something I can just make appear because you want it to be there? I will talk with you if you are lonely—because I must. I am here of my own choice, because I wanted to protect the people I loved—though I did them little good. But I cannot love you. I do not have whatever secret thing my heart would have to hold to make that love be there. And I can never forget that the people I loved with all my heart died unhappy and alone without me, because of you.
Then everything I have done has been in vain. I was wrong to lie to you, to trick you, to use my power to make you desire my human form, to use your enemy Thirk to bring you to me. Had I not done those things, would you love me?
Faia thought of Gyels as she first saw him, as she first knew him. When he was a simple hunter, she had thought she might come to love him. But he had become a jealous man, and a jealous god.
Perhaps, she told him. We cannot know that now.
Jealousy kills the thing it most desires; love not freely given is not love, but fear.
The Dreaming God was silent for a long time—so long that Faia could not help but wonder how many thousands were born, lived out their lives, and died in the faraway mortal world she yearned for.
At long last the Dreaming God stirred. Through you, I have discovered love—I loved you as a god before I was a man; I loved you as a man; and once again a god, I love you still. For all of eternity, I desired someone who could be my companion and my equal—someone who could share eternity with me. If my love was not free from jealousy, it was still the only love I knew. I will learn another love.
I moved worlds and shaped the lives of countless humans, as well as the lives of creatures of my own making and design, so that the day would come when someone who could talk with me would be born. There were others with your abilities, soul of my soul, but they never come to me. Only you came to me. Surely you were the one for whom I have waited.
My love is not the love of mortals; yet having once been mortal, I can feel within me the strong, hot stirrings of what you feel. Faia, I cannot make myself not love you. Yet I cannot bear to see you as you are, deep in your human misery, outside of the reach of my caring and my desire. You gave up everything to save the people you loved.
The god paused then added, Love accepts pain. I think, though, that love does not willingly cause pain. I will not keep you with me. In this way, I will love you without jealousy.
Faia felt hope flare inside of her, then gutter and die. Everyone I ever cared about is gone now. Dead. Your realization and your kindness come too late.
She felt amusement in his response. They are dead now. But what is now, Faia? What is time to me? I am eternal. I exist in all places and at all times, forever. Because I love you, I will set you free to live as a mortal with those you love. Remake the world as you would, Faia. Time is fluid, changeable—if you can bring joy to your daughter, your friends, and your lover, do so. I hope you find happiness.
