A Painted Goddess

by Victor Gischler

  OTHER NOVELS BY VICTOR GISCHLER

  Suicide Squeeze

  Gun Monkeys

  The Pistol Poets

  Shotgun Opera

  Go-Go Girls of the Apocalypse

  Vampire a Go-Go

  The Deputy

  Three on a Light

  Stay

  Gestapo Mars

  A FIRE BENEATH THE SKIN TRILOGY

  Ink Mage

  The Tattooed Duchess

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

  Text copyright © 2016 Victor Gischler

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.

  Published by 47North, Seattle

  www.apub.com

  Amazon, the Amazon logo, and 47North are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc., or its affiliates.

  ISBN-13: 9781503954762

  ISBN-10: 1503954765

  Cover design by Megan Haggerty

  Illustrated by Chase Stone

  Interior maps by Tazio Bettin

  CONTENTS

  MAP 1

  MAP 2

  MAP 3

  PROLOGUE

  CHAPTER ONE

  CHAPTER TWO

  CHAPTER THREE

  CHAPTER FOUR

  CHAPTER FIVE

  CHAPTER SIX

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  CHAPTER NINE

  CHAPTER TEN

  CHAPTER ELEVEN

  CHAPTER TWELVE

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

  CHAPTER NINETEEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  CHAPTER THIRTY

  CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SIX

  CHAPTER THIRTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER THIRTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FORTY

  CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FORTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FORTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FORTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FORTY-EIGHT

  CHAPTER FORTY-NINE

  CHAPTER FIFTY

  CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

  CHAPTER FIFTY-THREE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FOUR

  CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

  CHAPTER FIFTY-SEVEN

  CHAPTER FIFTY-EIGHT

  EPILOGUE

  ABOUT THE AUTHOR

  PROLOGUE

  Spread along the southern end of the western mountains, yet still north of the Nomad Lands, an ancient evergreen forest surrounded a large, calm, crystal-blue lake. On an island near the middle of the lake, a temple perched on a raised bank, overlooking the water. Centuries ago, the faithful had labored for years to construct it, using large gray stones. The structure was circular with arched doorways and fat columns all around. A gurgling spring fed a tranquil fountain in an open courtyard at the center of the temple. It was a place of quiet contemplation and prayer.

  Usually.

  It was not a temple in the typical fashion, not a branch temple serving a city’s parishioners, offering weekly services, nor was it like the conveniently placed roadside shrines where worshippers could pray or leave offerings. There was nothing convenient about this temple’s location, and that was by design. It was the mother temple of Zereen, goddess of clouds, mists, and fog. As such, it was distantly located and difficult to find. Pilgrimages would be fairly pointless if they were too easy.

  The pilgrim circled the entire lake, searching for a bridge or ferry landing. He found none.

  Of course. Six weeks walking here and now I have to swim the final few hundred yards? Thanks, Dad.

  The pilgrim’s family was a devout lot. Each child made the pilgrimage upon reaching adulthood at age twenty. The pilgrim was the last of six children. The send-off parties were the talk of the town. He suspected his parents had discussed having more children just to send them on pilgrimages and have an excuse for another party. Although there were always plenty of excuses. His older brothers and sisters were already providing grandchildren.

  He stood on the bank and looked across the water at the temple. The idea of coming all this way only to arrive soaking wet at the temple after a long swim didn’t appeal to him. He looked back into the depths of the forest behind him. He’d passed a number of fallen evergreens. Vines were plentiful also, and he had his hand axe. Fashioning a quick raft before nightfall was doable, and then he and his gear could arrive dry and presentable.

  It took longer than he thought to build the raft. He camped at the edge of the river, huddled over a small campfire, and the next morning dragged the little raft down to the water.

  He was glad he’d waited until morning. A thick fog lay over the water, the temple a vague shadow on the island. It was a fitting way to approach the Temple of Zereen. What was it his hometown priest was fond of saying? Zereen is about transition. You travel through the fog, faith leading you to the mystery on the other side.

  Or something.

  He stood on the raft and poled it out into the lake. It wasn’t exactly the most well-constructed craft, and water splashed over his ankles. No problem. His boots were good, watertight. The raft would get him there.

  Halfway across, he spotted the glow of a lantern, yellow light fuzzy in the fog. As he approached, a figure materialized on the far side, holding the lantern aloft as if expecting him. A short figure, though it was difficult to tell if it was a man or woman in the billowing robes and the hood pulled forward.

  “Welcome, pilgrim.” A light and airy voice.

  A woman’s voice.

  “Hello!” he called back.

  The shabby raft nudged against the bank, and the pilgrim hopped across with his gear slung over one shoulder. He bowed to the woman in the robe and introduced himself.

  “Welcome, pilgrim. You’re the first of the season to arrive.” She pulled her hood back. Pale and beautiful. Her hair was so blond it was almost white, eyes the color of the sky. She wasn’t any older than he was.

  “Hello.” He smiled so wide it almost hurt his face. He’d made it at last. “Hello.”

  “Please follow me,” she said. “You’ve come so far. Come and take refreshment.”

  She turned, walking slowly back toward the temple. He followed.

  “Who are you?”

  “Leena,” she said. “An acolyte.”

  “How did you know I was coming?”

  “Not me,” she said. “The high priestess. She knows when one of the faithful approaches. It is a gift of foreknowing. A gift from Zereen.”

  They passed beneath a wide archway and into an open stone room. Arched doorways and windows and a high ceiling. A constant light breeze passed through, cool, the sound of it soothing. The place had a holy feel to it.

  Which, th
e pilgrim supposed, was the point.

  “Follow me,” Leena said.

  They walked through the temple.

  “Do you know why this is the mother temple?” Leena asked.

  “Because it’s the first one?” said the pilgrim.

  “It is,” Leena said. “But it’s more than that. A mother temple is a special place for any religion. It is a window, a small place where our world intersects with the world of the gods. This is a place where we can actually feel the presence of Zereen herself.”

  Oh yeah. That sounded familiar to the pilgrim, something he’d heard the adults talk about as a child. It sounded made up.

  She led him through another arched doorway, and they found themselves in a wide green courtyard, roof open to the sky. Leafy vines twisted and crept up the stone walls. Lush grass and well-trimmed rosebushes. A magnificent fountain sat in the center of the courtyard. A thick column rose up from the center of a wide pool. The top of the column was ringed with stone dragons, and water sprayed from the mouth of each, creating a rain-shower effect down into the pool. The way the raindrops hit the stones below created a constant mist in the courtyard.

  The cool mist and the sound of the simulated rainfall gave the place a natural, holy feel. Maybe this was really all religion was, thought the pilgrim. Clever staging. Giving worshippers that vague feeling they were connecting to something larger.

  Leena gestured at a carved stone bench near the pool’s edge. “Please. Sit. We are preparing refreshment for you, and you will join us tonight at a welcoming banquet. But after such a long journey, many pilgrims elect to sit and contemplate, pondering the many life choices that have brought them so far.”

  So far, the pilgrim’s parents had made most of his life choices for him, but he was game to play along and seated himself on the bench.

  He stared at the trickling water and waited. It wasn’t unpleasant. Relaxing. A goblet of wine would have added something to the experience, in his opinion, but it wasn’t his place to point that out. Something to consider if he ever started his own religion.

  He stared into the shimmering pool and let his mind wander. When he returned, he would discuss with his father whether he’d come into the family business. Father was a merchant and knew trade like the priests in this temple knew their tenets. Father bought things, kept them in a warehouse for a while, then sold them again. Somehow a profit was the result. The pilgrim would have preferred to study at the university in Tul-Agnon, but that could be expensive, even for his father. Anyway, there was a girl from a good family back home of marrying age with a nice wide backside. His family had been talking to her family. If she were ready to start making babies, then maybe . . .

  He sat up straight, blinked at the pool.

  He leaned forward, squinting.

  A vibrant blue light played through the pool, jerking like lightning just below the surface of the water.

  The pilgrim turned back to the acolyte. “Uh . . . I think I saw something.”

  Leena picked her head up. She’d been standing with eyes closed in calm meditation. “Excuse me?”

  “I thought I saw something.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know,” the pilgrim said. “A light.”

  Leena smiled. “Often the pious are overcome with the joy of being at the mother temple and think they see things as the mind gropes to make a personal connection with Zereen.”

  The pilgrim frowned, looked back at the pool. The blue light pulsed and flared brighter.

  He turned back to Leena. “No,” he insisted. “Something’s going on in there.”

  Leena’s serene smile faltered. “I assure you that it’s not uncommon for—”

  The pool bubbled and churned, and blinding blue light erupted from the pool, filling the courtyard.

  Leena stepped back. “Oh.”

  There was a sudden sharp sound like fabric ripping, but ten thousand times louder. A jagged line grew up from the pool and opened wide.

  A roar and a blast of frigid air knocked the pilgrim back off the stone bench. He staggered to one knee, dazed, and looked to see Leena also struggling back to her feet.

  The temple shook, the ground beneath the pilgrim’s feet rumbling. There was an earsplitting racket like the world breaking in half, and a huge figure tumbled out of the blazing hole that opened in midair over the pool. She was ten feet tall, hair a golden, shimmering blond that seemed to taper way into the air like mist. Robes flowed around her more like fog than fabric. She held a gleaming silver sword in one hand. Her beauty was mesmerizing and terrible.

  Leena fell to her knees, prostrating herself. “Zereen!”

  The goddess? The pilgrim blinked at her. Looking at the goddess hurt, such was the power of her glorious appearance, but he couldn’t turn away.

  Zereen stumbled and fell across the stone bench, shattering it. She lifted her sword, turned back to the shimmering rent in the air.

  And another figure emerged.

  Taller and more fearsome than the goddess Zereen, a figure in spiked armor, holding a lethal-looking morningstar in one spiked gauntlet. A dark glow hung around him as if he were sapping the light from the world. Flames for eyes sizzled from the shadow beneath the spiked helm.

  The armored god swung the morningstar down at Zereen. She lifted the sword to block. When steel crossed steel, the ringing crack sent a pain through the pilgrim. He touched one of his ears. Blood on his fingers.

  The armored god brought the morningstar down again, but Zereen rolled to one side. The morningstar struck the ground, and the shock wave knocked the pilgrim off his feet. The god advanced on Zereen, stepped on the stonework surrounding the pool and crushed it. Water flooded the courtyard.

  The pilgrim splashed away, lurching to his feet. He turned and ran.

  Back in the cavernous halls of the temple, he paused, trying to remember which way he’d come in. He’d been following Leena and not really paying attention.

  What had happened to her? Never mind. Just run.

  The wall ahead of him exploded, the grappling deities crashing through, locked in combat. A flying stone block spun past scant inches from the pilgrim’s head. The armored god had an iron grip on Zereen’s throat. She no longer held her sword, pried uselessly at the mighty gauntleted hand choking her.

  The pilgrim ran for the first doorway available. He followed a narrow hallway, passing small wooden doorways, some of which were opening, frightened faces appearing and wondering what was happening. Priests and acolytes joined him as he fled down the hall. The temple shook. People screamed.

  A thunderous sound somewhere behind him, and the temple shook so violently, a thick roof beam fell, crushing a priest right in front of him. The pilgrim leapt over fallen beam and priest both and kept running.

  He found a door, threw it open, and mercifully found himself outside. He sprinted for the water’s edge. He was at a different part of the shoreline, and the little raft he’d built was nowhere in sight.

  He dove into the water.

  It was a cold shock, and he swam hard, looking ahead for the far bank but not able to see it through the fog. He stroked and kicked until his limbs ached. Finally he saw land, felt the bottom under his feet. He staggered up the back, dripping and shivering.

  The pilgrim looked back.

  An orange glow blazed through the fog. Something burned. The temple’s silhouette looked crumpled. A roar of pure rage rose from the island. The ground shook.

  The pilgrim ran deep into the forest and didn’t stop until the cataclysm of the temple was many miles behind him.

  CHAPTER ONE

  The scholars in the lower levels of the Great Library didn’t even glance at them. They’d seen expeditions come and go as a matter of routine. They were busy. They had many ancient books and scrolls to pore over. They didn’t have time for idiot dead men leading goat carts to certain doom.

  Brasley sighed and followed Olgen down the main walkway through the stacks. It was nearly as wide as a bo
ulevard in Merridan. Tables and chairs, rows and rows and rows of bookshelves on either side. Books were expensive things, and so many in one place was a marvel.

  And we’re only just on the first level, Brasley thought.

  Talbun followed closely behind him, leading the goat cart. She seemed pensive, possibly because she’d been on another expedition into the Great Library years ago and had barely come out again with her life. But she was a wizard, and who knew what worried wizards? She was so painfully gorgeous, it was hard to believe she was old enough to be Brasley’s great-something-grandmother.

  Well. The world is full of surprises.

  He thought suddenly of his wife, Fregga, which surprised him. If he were killed somewhere in the heights of the Great Library and never got back to her, it would upset him to no end.

  And that surprised him too.

  She loved him. Brasley was so obviously the most abhorrent cad, and yet Fregga loved him. And that made him love her back. Dumo help him, it was true. He vowed on the spot to return to her. He would survive the Great Library and return to her, whatever it took.

  Which, frankly, was a sort of easy vow for him since he’d really planned to do everything in his power to live anyway. The notion he might die was really the most unpleasant prospect he could think of. None of this shit was his idea after all. Rina had come to him—on his honeymoon—to say she’d needed him.

  Nobody had ever needed him before. How could he refuse? He couldn’t.

  Because you have mule dung for brains, you damn fool.

  The walkway led them under a twenty-foot-high archway and a raised portcullis. Guards on either side lazily waved them through.

  Olgen turned back to them, offering a gap-toothed grin. “This is it. Out of the library proper and into the danger zone. Don’t worry. The first five levels have been explored thoroughly, sort of a buffer zone.”

  Brasley forced a smile. “Excellent.”

  The walkway angled upward gently and curved gradually from right to left.

  “It’s not completely evident at first because the slope is so gradual,” Olgen said. “But this walkway actually circles the interior of a large tower. It takes us up ten levels with plenty of opportunities to hop off wherever you like. Most parties go straight up to the top and figure it out from there.”