by Rick Shelley
"Welcome to our home," he said calmly. "Will you have a bit of refreshment with us?"
Gioia stared at Silvas, not moving a muscle, for well over a minute without speaking. She glanced briefly at Maria then, before returning her attention to the wizard.
"You have nothing here that I want," she said.
"A seat?" Silvas gestured at a chair.
"I prefer to remain standing."
Silvas shrugged and took another drink. Maria also sipped at her wine, then took a small chunk of cheese and chewed on that while she studied Gioia. The hunter goddess looked as if she were in the bloom of young womanhood, perhaps only a few years older than Maria. Her garb showed off her firm figure as clearly as if she had been naked. Her skin was tanned but did not appear particularly dry or weathered. Her dark hair was confined by the peaked cap and by a gold band that collected the rest in back. Maria noted that Gioia's ears seemed unusually small, and as delicately formed as if they were made of porcelain.
"To what do we owe the pleasure of this visit?" Silvas asked, keeping his voice studiously polite, almost inviting.
"Curiosity," Gioia said. "I wanted a better look at you. I find myself unable to answer a simple question."
"Which question is that?" Silvas asked.
"What sort of mortal could possibly affect my sister so that she would give him such a foolish gift? How could she so lose awareness of her birthright to waste so much time on such as you?"
"That's two questions," Silvas said. "But the questions are related. I'm not certain that I have the answers you seek, though. Your questions are bound up with one I posed to myself while we were in your brother's house. 'How could Carillia have possibly managed to rise above the pettiness and bickering of her brothers and sisters to turn out so good and kind?' "
Gioia's cheeks rippled as she struggled to hold back an angry riposte.
"There is another thing that you seem to be forgetting," Silvas said. "Carillia didn't will her divinity merely to me, but to Maria as well, and she could hardly have been affected by Maria in any way that she might have been affected by me. They had barely met."
Gioia gave Maria a direct stare. Maria met it with serenity. Though she felt nervous enough inside, she would not let it show.
"The daughter of Sir Eustace Devry?" Gioia said, looking at Maria but clearly speaking to Silvas. "Surely you are not foolish enough to think that my sister planned this! This country girl?"
"I must differ with you, on many counts," Silvas said, his voice drawing Gioia's eyes back to his own. "She most clearly planned it. And my opinion on this has a much firmer basis of knowledge than your own. You did say that you came here because you couldn't understand why Carillia chose to spend so much of her life with me, or why she gave us the gift she did as she died."
"You prize that gift too highly, magician," Gioia said. "Other mortals have tasted of divinity. The squalid quarters of the Shining City are filled with demigods and their get. Some were awarded their status for favors rendered." Gioia looked back and forth between Silvas and Maria. "Most often sexual. Others are the children of gods and demigods, or of gods and mortal women." She stared again at Silvas, leaning forward for emphasis. "Gods and mortal women," she repeated. "After all, no mortal man could possibly be strong enough in his seed to impregnate a goddess. Did Carillia ever bear you a child?" The sweetness of her tones in that last question only added to its bitter cast.
"Children are a rare gift to any wizard, no matter who his consort, or how many of them he has. If there is any penalty involved, it is that of his calling, not his mate."
"It matters not to me how you deceive yourself," Gioia said. "Nor will it long matter to you. While other demigods are well tolerated among us-our children and our favorites-you two are bastards of a particularly low sort. Revolting mutant beasts. It will not be long before you join your Carillia and the others who fell in the recent battle. It depends on how badly my brethren want this new sport."
With another flash of emerald light, Gioia was gone.
CHAPTER TWELVE
"Another enemy declares herself," Maria said when she reached for her wine goblet again, her hand trembled slightly, a show of emotion she had not permitted herself while Gioia was in the room.
"Better a declared enemy than one who strikes without warning." Silvas replied. Behind the words, they shared their true appreciation of the event.
Satin and Velvet went to the spot where Gioia had stood and sniffed at the floor. The cats were tense, ready for a fight.
"Barreth and Gioia," Maria said. "How many more of the old gods, and the demigods who serve them?"
"If we have time, we may yet win over some of the old gods," Silvas said. "At least to a grudging tolerance for us. Until that day, we have to worry about staying alive."
"We're but two, with such few servants as we have in the Seven Towers." And we don't yet know the full scope or limits of our abilities.
I have my centuries of wizardry, and those talents are not inconsiderable, as Mikel himself realized long ago, Silvas reminded her. And there is the infusion of knowledge and power that Mikel gave me before the battle for Mecq reached its conclusion.
It seems that neither Mikel nor Gioia has any real appreciation of how closely we are linked, Maria added, still looking for anything that would help buoy her spirits.
"We're something they've never encountered before," Silvas said, returning to spoken words. "They must proceed with some measure of caution, against whatever surprises we hold for them."
"You are a deicide already," Maria said. "Their hatred for us must be tempered by that knowledge. And fueled by it."
"Contacting Mikel remains the logical next step in learning what may come, but I think we must postpone that now. We need to take more care for the defense of the Seven Towers and the village."
"Such as?" Maria asked.
"Many things. Firstly, we need to speak with Braf. This time, we'll go to him."
"Downstairs, in the great hall," Maria said, discerning Braf's location without effort. That was one facet of their new powers that Maria had taken to more readily than Silvas had. "It's nearly time for supper. Everyone will be gathering, especially now that there's been time for them to learn that we are going to take our meal there."
"Yes, yes, of course," Silvas said. "I had almost forgotten." Even the mind of a god could lose track of details.
The great hall of the Glade was filled when Silvas and Maria entered. The level of conversation was intense, but people spoke with lowered voices, and stopped when they saw Maria and Silvas.
Braf, a word with you, Silvas projected as he escorted Maria to the head table. Braf hurried over.
"For the time being, we'll dispense with attempts to break through the veil, Braf," Silvas said. "You may dismiss your men."
"As you wish, lord," Braf replied.
"Rather than try to break this magic, we'll strengthen it, make it our own," Silvas explained. "Until we know clearly how the winds blow from the land of the gods, we'll use that barrier as an added line of defense."
Braf nodded slowly. "The folk in the village…" he started, and stopped when he saw that Silvas knew where he was going.
"When they have need of commerce, I'll open a way for them. We'll send guards with them to the next village, or wherever they need to go. Send word to the reeve and tell him to arrange for everyone with needs beyond the valley to be ready at the same time."
"Aye, lord. When will it be convenient?"
"For now, let us say Tuesday next, though that may change. If this situation continues for any great time, we'll make more permanent arrangements."
"Aye, lord. I'll trot down to the village myself after the meal."
"That'll be fine, Braf. Thank you." Silvas turned to Maria. And we'll do our work after the meal as well.
– |The work that Silvas had in mind started in the pentagram. He and Maria worked through a lengthy series of spells-some so old that Silvas had learned them at th
e knee of Auroreus, others made new on the spot, combining Silvas's centuries of experience as a wizard with the godly powers that he and Maria had so recently gained. When the preparatory work was complete, they used a spell of passage to leave the pentagram safely.
"Now we ride," Silvas told Maria before they left the workroom. Satin and Velvet were with them.
When they reached the mews, Bay and Camiss were saddled and waiting. Camiss seemed fully recovered from her earlier exertions and stress. She had been fed and groomed, and showed no objection when Maria mounted her.
"We go first to the intersection in the village," Silvas told Bay, and during that ride, Silvas told the horse of Gioia's visit and what they planned to do now.
Full night had fallen, but it was a night such as they had never seen before. The moon and stars had a different cast through the peach-colored veil that hung over the valley. There was an unusual softness to the deep shadows. But there was sufficient light for horses and cats-and gods.
At the crossroads, they dismounted. Maria tied Camiss's reins to a post off to the side. Bay needed no restraint. Satin and Velvet moved out of the way and sat where they could watch the roads without being seen themselves.
After dark, there were no villagers out. Even without the strange veil over the sky, most villagers would have been inside long since. There were few lights visible in the cottages of the village. Most of the people would already be asleep. Even in the valley of the Seven Towers, most folk worked the land, and moved to the natural rhythms of day and night. There was little chance that Silvas and Maria would be disturbed at their work, or even spotted.
Silvas scribed a pentagram in the center of the crossroads, using the silver ferrule of his wizard's staff. There was no hesitation to his work, no lack of precision to the lines he drew. When the diagram was complete, Silvas and Maria moved to the center and stood back-to-back as they spoke the spells to empower this pentagram and link it to the one within the Seven Towers.
"We're ready to start the real work now," Silvas whispered.
Silvas stood facing north, Maria south. They paused before they started the next series of incantations. Their minds ranged out across the valley and up the slopes of the surrounding hills, touching the veil that closed the valley off from the rest of the world.
As they chanted, the veil became more visible in the darkness, glowing actively, orange and peach and pink, hiding the moon and stars beyond. Rays of pale light appeared to emanate from Silvas and Maria, connecting them to the veil-almost as if their bodies were being mapped to the lower screen. A second spell cast growing, luminous shadows of their bodies: shadows that expanded until they lost definition.
Silvas's concentration was entirely wrapped up in the business of weaving these new spells. Maria managed to find room for little-girl wonder at what they were doing. This was so much more than the easy communion between her mind and Silvas's, or any of the other evidences of Carillia's gift that she had seen since coming to the Seven Towers. Maria's awareness of the new state she had attained grew deeper tendrils, tightening their grip on her innermost being. This is what it is like to be one of the gods.
Silvas and Maria did not try to break the veil that hovered like a bubble over the valley, but they did touch it, repeatedly, infusing themselves into its fabric. They felt the power that had barricaded the valley, though they could not identify its source or unravel its intricacies. They did match the original creative power with their own, though, adding new layers inside and out, sealing off the original work and compressing it between their own, welding all together and making it theirs-as fully as they could. As they labored toward the nadir of the day, the color of the veil changed. It became a full rainbow of soft tints, ranging from violet and blue in the east through red in the west.
The rainbow was a promise to Noah that the Deluge would not be repeated, was a thought Silvas and Maria shared when the colors were at their most intense. For a few moments, they lingered, viewing their handiwork with satisfaction. Then they retreated to their bodies. As they withdrew from the veil that was now also a shield, the colors of the rainbow faded until the moon and stars could once more be seen through it-those celestial objects now tinted by whichever portion of the rainbow they shone through.
Maria felt suddenly very tiny when her awareness was once more confined by her physical body. Even the bubble over the valley seemed immense, and she found herself thinking of the unimaginable vastness of the universe beyond it. For a moment, she was caught up in those feelings, until Silvas's thought-words broke in.
We've done but half our work, love.
I know, she replied. It was the first time Silvas had used the word "love" to her. "Think," she said softly. "Each night, the moon will show each color of the rainbow as it flies across the sky."
"There will be a new beauty in the heavens," Silvas allowed.
They spoke the spells to deactivate the pentagram in which they stood. Together, they scuffed away the marks in the dirt road with their feet. It wouldn't do to leave the pentagram here for the villagers to wonder about in the morning, Silvas said.
"You go east, and I'll go west," he said then, speaking softly but aloud. "Now you'll get a chance to see what Camiss can really do."
They mounted and rode in opposite directions, following the road across the narrow diameter of the valley. The cats separated. Satin followed Maria, and Velvet went with Silvas. Maria urged Camiss to an easy canter, her mind touching the horse's mind, assuring Camiss that there were no dangerous obstacles in their path. It's a gentle road, with no ruts or holes to catch a hoof. The white mare stretched out and ran, satisfied with her task, unaware of the great magics that were being perpetrated. Satin kept pace easily, and when Maria glanced to the side, the great cat looked up with what seemed to be extreme pleasure.
They slowed down as the road steepened, and Maria reined Camiss back to a walk the last hundred yards. In the dark shade of the trees, the bubble was almost invisible, even to Maria, unless she made a special effort to see it.
Maria dismounted and walked to within inches of the barrier, then reached out and touched it with both hands, fingers spread wide. There was a slight warmth to the veil, and it felt somewhat stiffer than before. It also seemed to throb now, just barely, as if it had a life of its own.
After a moment, Maria turned her back to the veil, and stepped back until she felt it press against her. She spread her arms out to either side, against the veil. There was little sense of curvature to the barrier up close. For all the feel against her back, the veil might have been a perfectly flat wall.
Her mind leaped across the valley to touch Silvas's mind. He was arrayed against the far side of the barrier, just as she was. In concert, they started a new series of incantations. The rainbow bubble brightened again, and faded when they completed the spell. The vibrations that Maria could feel were somewhat stronger, and more rapid.
Maria mounted Camiss again, and they raced back to the crossroad, reaching it just as Silvas and Bay did. Neither dismounted.
"I'll take the north, and you take the south," Silvas said. "Afterward, we'll meet at the gate to the Glade. Bay can cover the greater distance faster than Camiss."
The cats changed places. Velvet went with Maria, and Satin went with Silvas.
With a longer run in front of him, Bay stretched out to almost the fastest pace he could manage, and that made Satin work to keep up. Silvas sat his saddle and let Bay worry about the business of getting to the north end of the valley. They had often ridden like this before, though rarely so late at night. Bay galloped almost to the barrier, stopping only a single length from it.
"I think I'll have to take an occasional night run even after this," Bay said while Silvas dismounted. "I find a perverse pleasure in it."
"Perverse?" Silvas asked.
"To run like a ghost in the night, the sound of my hooves perhaps troubling the dreams of sleeping peasants."
"That would have worked more easily in a p
lace like Mecq than here."
"Even here," Bay insisted.
Silvas went to the barrier and pressed his back against it, as before. He linked to Maria, and they repeated the spells they had used when they had stood at north and south. The bubble brightened and dimmed. Silvas mounted Bay again, and they raced back to the Glade.
Maria, Camiss, and Velvet had scarcely crossed the drawbridge when Silvas, Bay, and Satin reached it. Inside the gate, Maria dismounted. Bosc came trotting across the courtyard, reaching Maria just as the others did.
"We'll walk to the mews with you, Bosc," Maria said. "This night, I want to see Camiss to her stall."
"Aye, my lady," Bosc said, bobbing his head. "She's new to the Seven Towers."
"Even newer than I am," Maria said. Bosc did not respond to that.
"Our work isn't over yet," Silvas reminded Maria. "Even though it must be close to midnight."
"Close to or past," Bay commented. "I think a bit past."
"We have to close down the pentagram, and we have to contact Mikel," Silvas said.
"Tonight?" Maria asked. "Will we rouse him from sleep?"
"If needs be," Silvas said. "Though I fancy that Mikel will be sleeping little at present."
"I'll warn Braf," Bosc offered.
"Yes, do that," Silvas said. "It will be a short time yet before we make the attempt. He'll have time to alert his men, if they aren't already at full alert."
"He's doubled the guard, an' then some," Bosc said.
Maria unsaddled Camiss herself, and took the harness from her head, talking the whole time. She would have given the horse a rubdown also, but there was more pressing work, and Bosc had grooms ready to care for Camiss. Bosc would see to Bay himself, as he always did.
Silvas and Maria took the back way into the keep, going from the mews into the curtain wall, up through a corner tower and across to the keep. Satin and Velvet moved in front, prowling, watching for the dangers that were within their purview. The hours of the night were their primary watch. But they reached the private apartments on the second level of the keep without encountering anything more than sentries on patrol, gurnetz and human, all armed and tense. The battle for Mecq had touched the Seven Towers. The fighting had been horrifying. No one was anxious for a repeat.
