Reaper of Dreams (The Gods' Dream Trilogy)

by Debra Holland

  She unfolded her body and slid off the bed. She would go find her brothers, or Vol, or Kriss, or…. Her spirits lifted a little, although the ache for her parents didn’t go away.

  Outside her room, she trotted down the gray stone corridor. The lusters suctioned to the wall emitted enough light for her to see her way.

  Kriss, Pasinae’s favorite priestess, stuck her head out the door of her room.

  Before Pasinae could say anything, Kriss gave her a blank stare, then retreated into her room, closing the door.

  Pasinae stood rooted to the floor, her mouth open in shock. Kriss always had a welcoming smile for her, always.

  Will she ever talk to me again?

  The sadness in Pasinae’s heart pushed into her eyes, and she had to swallow hard to hold back her tears.

  The Trine do not cry.

  She’d been told that when they’d first arrived. Not that she’d wanted to cry…at least not once she’d connected with Ontarem. Her God had touched her with his energy and made everything wonderful. But now He’d gone away and left her lonely.

  Still bewildered by Kriss’s behavior, she headed for the men’s quarters, but before she arrived at that area, she saw Vol shepherding Kokam and Nabric down the hall. “Vol, wait,” she cried.

  Vol didn’t even glance her way, although she knew he’d heard her. Instead, he abruptly turned, leading the boys in the other direction. Kokam looked back, and Vol said something sharply to him, cuffing him on the shoulder.

  Pasinae watched them go. This time, she couldn’t hold back the tears. She turned and fled back to her room, flinging herself face down on her bed and bursting into sobs that rocked her whole body. “I’ll be good. I’ll be good, Ontarem,” she said over and over.

  But He didn’t respond.

  She cried for a long, long time, before falling asleep from exhaustion.

  Pasinae shook off the memory, disturbed that she’d even recalled that long ago event. She’d tried to keep such unpleasant times locked in a buried part of her mind, as if they didn’t exist.

  Desperate, she jostled Ontarem’s foot and called His name.

  This time, His familiar presence flooded her. But there was no warmth of greeting, no filling of her depleted energy. Instead, her God seemed preoccupied, absently acknowledging her before grabbing for her power with a desperation she’d never felt from Him before.

  The energy suctioned from her, and she cried out. “No, Ontarem, no. I’m already depleted. Don’t take any more.”

  Her words finally penetrated the God’s distant attention. Pasinae, I war with my brother.

  Still reeling from His invasion of her body, she couldn’t make sense of what He was saying. “Your brother? What do You mean?”

  My twin, Arvintor, whom I defeated and bound in chains years ago, has somehow freed Himself. The nomads of the plain do Him homage. I have sent my soldiers to fight them.

  “Why did you never tell me of this Arvintor?”

  I am your God. It is not for me to give you information. You exist to do my bidding and provide me with power.

  “Did my brothers know about Arvintor?”

  No. Although Kokam now does.

  “Tell me of Arvintor.” She tried not to sound demanding. “Why did You originally war with Him?”

  My brother would leave His people alone for long periods of time. They’d then be forced to come to me for their needs. I’d help them, but they continued to give Arvintor their homage, depleting the power I needed for my own followers. Finally, for the good of all, I resolved to banish Him, making our followers one people.

  Still bewildered from shock, she tried to assimilate His words.

  Some of Arvintor’s people, the most powerful ones, fled across the sea, rather than accept My rule.

  “The people of Seagem,” she breathed, beginning to understand. “That’s why You wanted to conquer them.” She looked around at the empty slabs. “Where are the prisoners who fed You?”

  His mental voice shaded with annoyance. When I battled Arvintor and Withea, they managed to free themselves. They must have escaped to the plain. My soldiers will recapture them.

  “Withea. Who’s Withea?”

  The Goddess of Binch-Alat. It was she who helped Princess Daria escape your trap.

  Pasinae had to suppress a scream of anger. One didn’t rage at one’s God. “Why didn’t You tell me about this Goddess?” She clipped each word.

  I disempowered her centuries ago. She was unimportant.

  “Apparently not.” Pasinae let her frustration slip out. “If I’d known about Her, perhaps I would have planned differently. Now, if Daria is giving Her energy, She will grow in power.”

  We cannot worry about Withea. I must defeat Arvintor. You are my Trine. You must give me energy.

  “I cannot, Ontarem.” She showed him a mental picture of her depletion. “If You take any energy from me, I won’t have any left. How can I be Your Trine if I possess no power?”

  With a mental slap of displeasure, He cut off contact, leaving her bereft. The abandoned feeling of a five-year-old threatened to spiral up inside, and she fought to keep it bottled. She didn’t want to revisit that time again. Never again! Somehow, she’d have to find a way to replenish her power without the help of her God.

  Numb, she turned and walked to the back of the temple, passing through the door leading to the living quarters. A long corridor ran across the width of the temple. The women’s quarters lay to the right. She turned toward her room, but stopped when her brother called her name.

  Kokam hurried up the hallway toward her, his gray robe flapping. He extended both hands.

  With a cry of joy, Pasinae placed her hands in his. Warmth flowed from his palms to hers, and she returned the greeting, feeling the synergy between them soothe some of the rawness caused by Ontarem’s rejection. Together, they were stronger than apart.

  He drew her toward him and kissed her forehead. “Sister, welcome home.”

  “Kokam, my heart fills to see you again.”

  He stepped back. “What’s this you’re wearing?” He fingered a fold of her scarlet silk skirt. “You look like a bright, beautiful bird. Are you planning to overturn Ontarem’s clothing rules?”

  She lifted her chin. “Do you think I should?”

  His face sobered. “A few weeks ago, I would have said yes. Set the me-are bird loose among the doves. Although Ontarem wouldn’t have liked to see you wearing a bright hue similar to the color of his kilt, I would have sat back and enjoyed watching the feathers fly.”

  “Kokam, what has happened to our God?”

  “I’m really not sure. I can barely get Him to speak to me.”

  “I thought He was angry with me, and that’s why He turned from me.”

  “No, He has been this way ever since…. Let me start from the beginning. About a week ago, Ontarem called upon us for a massive drain of power. Through our connection, I could feel him battling with another deity. A Goddess.”

  “Withea. He told me Her name.” Her anger rose again at Ontarem’s deception.

  “All His focus was on the battle. Then from another direction—here in Louat—came another attack.”

  “Arvintor, His twin.”

  “Yes, so I’ve learned.” The firming of his jaw told her he, also, was displeased about their God’s lack of communication. “Even Ontarem couldn’t withstand two Deities. Especially when He didn’t expect an attack from either of Them. The negative surges coming from the Others overpowered all of us. I blacked out for several hours. When I came to, Ontarem was lifeless. His arms had dropped to His sides; His head lolled forward. The sight of Him…” Kokam’s gaze turned inward.

  She waited, impatient.

  “I’ve never been so frightened. I thought He was dead.”

  “He’s a God,” she said sharply. “He can’t die.”

  “I know.” Kokam matched her tone. “But if you’d seen Him…experienced the utter emptiness of His absence….”

 
; “I felt that, too.” Her voice softened. “I still do. But not as bad.”

  “The recovery is slow. Some of our people—the young, the old—died during the attack.”

  “What about the people from Seagem?”

  “Many in the temple died. The rest escaped. We still have the less-gifted ones in the slave camps.”

  “Then send for them immediately. We need to refill the empty pektats in the temple.”

  “There is an illness in the camps. For now, we have quarantined them lest the illness spread through the city.”

  “The last thing we need is a plague. But as soon as they are well and this illness passes, they must be brought to the temple.”

  “I agree.”

  “What about the ones who were in the temple? I remember their prince was one of them. Was he still alive?”

  “Yes. The strongest of them all. Our God received much power from him. But we think the ones from the temple fled to Arvintor.”

  The impact of what he’d said slammed into her. “The othersense of those people is powerful. Now all that power will belong to the enemy.”

  “We have sent twenty halhores to recapture them and battle the Che-da-wah.”

  She nodded, relieved. “The people from Seagem should be weaker, women and children moving on foot. Our army should easily overtake them.”

  “They are Arvintor’s now. Nothing will be easy.”

  She lifted her chin. “Then I will join the army and lend them my aid. I’ll leave tomorrow.”

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  Mastin thrashed around in a nightmare full of shadows and bright crimson splashes of blood. A helmet pressed down on his head, the pressure so tight, a band of pain pulsed into his mind. Anger raced through his veins, fueling him in a tireless dance of death. He carried a spear, hefting the weight in his hand. He used the weapon both to stab and block in a blur of motion.

  Men fought him. He couldn’t see their race, only gray images. They reached through the smoky haze surrounding him.

  Swords sliced, only to be parried.

  Spears sang through the air. He batted them away.

  Bodies fell at his feet. A conqueror, he strode over the corpses.

  “Mastin. Mastin!” The call penetrated through his nightmare, jerking him into disoriented wakefulness. “Here,” he croaked. “I’m getting up.”

  “You missed the yah-dar-sae,” said the voice. “We take sustenance in a few minutes.”

  “I hear.” Mastin struggled into awareness, brushing away the remains of the dark dream. He passed his hand over his face, rubbing his temples to ease his headache. The foulness of the nightmare nauseated him. But he couldn’t forget the invincible feeling he’d possessed when he’d worn the helmet of Ontarem, carried the Evil God’s spear. The power still coursed through him.

  He glazed blankly up at the gray canvas he’d stretched over two straw bales, leaving a small sleeping space underneath. He shifted, feeling the dried seaweed crackle beneath him, and became more alert.

  Today, he was supposed to start teaching weapons classes. King Indaran had so commanded.

  Resentment spiked in his chest at the thought of his king. From the time they were young, he’d had a jealous, yet admiring, relationship with the crown prince. The golden prince, they’d called him—handsome, charming, fun-loving, a highly skilled warrior and adored by everyone.

  Mastin had envied Indaran his popularity and strove to be like him, but had never quite succeeded. Indaran had taken his friendship at surface value, never realizing the smoldering resentment Mastin carried inside. And Mastin had always been careful not to show that part of himself to anyone.

  Prince Indaran. Golden, carefree, so sure of his mission. So devastatingly wrong.

  I never should have followed him.

  Mastin stretched; his left foot clanked against the bundle wrapped at his feet—the helmet and spear they’d taken from the priest at the temple. After the Lady Jasmine recovered them, Indaran had given them into Mastin’s safekeeping. It was only to be for a short while, but their plan to destroy the evil weapons was thwarted by the quarantine.

  Now the evil reached out to him, growing stronger each night. His anger was a constant pulse in his chest, thumping in time to the rhythm of Ontarem’s beat. Sometimes, he wondered if the madness would overwhelm him. But then he’d spend time away from his sleeping place, and the compulsion would lift, only to descend again at night.

  He didn’t know how much longer he could withstand the lure of the weapons. But withstand he must. He couldn’t pass this burden onto anyone else. Certainly not to Indaran. Their leader was admired enough by his people…by Lady Elanath. They had no idea of the truth about their new king—that he was the reason they were all here.

  Mastin tapped the bundle with his foot.

  This is my chance to be a hero.

  ~ ~ ~

  In the few days since she’d arrived in the camp, after the morning meal, Jasmine held a clinic just outside the eating area. She’d requested more straw bales from Landers and had them stacked in the form of a large hollow square. A canvas roof and a partition down the middle provided partial privacy for her patients. She’d made pallets of dried seaweed spread with blankets in one room, and a few ill people lay on them. The other space was her “examination room.”

  In the outer room, Jasmine sat on a straw bale, a baby boy lying unswaddled on her lap. She examined the outside of the tiny body with her eyes and hands, and the inside with her othersense. The boy watched her with listless blue eyes, and his grip on one of Jasmine’s fingers seemed loose. Fear fluttered deep in her stomach. She didn’t like the flush of unhealthy color on the baby’s face.

  She shifted him, and he gave a little whimper.

  A fierce burst of maternal concern made her lean over to drop a kiss on his forehead. Babies were precious at any time. But in this camp, doubly so. “It’s all right, little one.”

  Standing in front of her, the baby’s mother, Chercheca, watched with haunted gray eyes. The woman had once been plump, but now hollows edged her cheeks and the flesh at her jawline sagged. “Can you help him, Lady Jasmine? Merrel’s all I have left. If something happens to him, too….” her voice broke.

  Jasmine frowned at the heat coming from the little body. “How long has he been feverish?”

  “Since yesterday.”

  “Has he eaten?”

  “Only nursed a bit. But he’s always been weak. A good baby, but not like my others.”

  Jasmine looked up and saw the sheen of tears in the woman’s eyes. “How has he been different?”

  “Merrel’s never been as active. When he does cry, it’s more of a whimper than a lusty sound. He’s not a greedy nurser. He doesn’t smile as much. But I thought…” the woman’s voice faltered. “I thought it’s because I don’t smile at him much, either.”

  “He’s running a fever. I should be able to heal that. But—” Jasmine frowned in thought. “There’s something else.”

  Chercheca twisted her hands in her worn brown skirt.

  “Timba,” Jasmine called to the girl she used as a page. “Fetch Archpriestess Anza.”

  The girl flashed her a wide grin. “Yes, Lady Jasmine.” She scampered off, her blond braids bouncing against her back.

  With a brief smile, Jasmine watched her go. Timba had managed to retain some of the resiliency of childhood, and the girl had blossomed after being selected to run Jasmine’s errands. She looked down. This little one wasn’t so lucky.

  She ran a hand over the petal-soft skin of the baby’s stomach, sending a light mesh of rose-colored energy throughout the tiny body. After several weeks of practice, her healing power came more easily, as if she’d accepted the healer’s mantle she’d been born to wear. Compressing the mesh, she compacted the fever into a tiny ball that pulsed with flickering orange sparks. Then she doused the ball in imaginary rain, dissolving the heat, cooling Merrel’s temperature.

  But still something was wrong. A finger of d
read plucked at the soulstrings of her othersense, sending ominous vibrations throughout her psychic body.

  Footsteps heralded the arrival of Anza. “You summoned me, Lady Jasmine.” The Archpriestess sounded worried.

  Jasmine looked up. “Yes. This baby had a fever, which I’ve just healed. However, I think something else is wrong. But I’m not an expert with othersense, and I thought I’d seek your opinion.”

  “Certainly. What do you suspect is the problem?”

  “I think Merrel is highly gifted with othersense, but the Evil God is draining him. That’s why he’s is so listless.”

  Anza’s brow furrowed. “All of the people of Seagem possess some level of othersense. The royal family has it in greatest strength, followed by those who become priests and priestesses. Possibly this boy is a future priest. However, without my connection to Yadarius, I can’t be sure.”

  Chercheca tightened her fists in her skirt. “A priest,” she whispered. “My grandmother was a priestess.”

  Anza lifted one eyebrow and pursed her lips. “The power often runs in families. Normally, we would have identified him and shielded his mind until he grew old enough to do it for himself.”

  Jasmine’s stomach tightened. “You need to shield against Yadarius?”

  Anza shook her head. “Our God has a light touch. We shield so the emotions of others don’t overwhelm the baby’s othersense.”

  Jasmine relaxed. “Yes, that would be important.”

  Anza tickled the baby’s foot.

  The tiny pink toes curled.

  Anza ran her forefinger over the top of Merrel’s foot. “Ontarem drains us all in a slow leakage, but we adults have a natural immunity built up by our years of association with Yadarius. This little one doesn’t.”

  Chercheca cupped a work-roughened hand over the downy head of her son. “What will happen to him?”

  Jasmine compressed her lips, not wanting to say the words. But honesty forced her to answer. “If the energy drain continues, we will lose him.”

  ~ ~ ~

  In the western side of Drayleth, Roe-al waited on Racer, Jora mounted on Sky Dancer at his side. A knot of fear and excitement tied his stomach into a tight ball. He tried to keep his breathing even and his muscles loose so he wouldn’t communicate his feelings to his horse.