A Painted Goddess

by Victor Gischler

  Thicko. Watch what you’re doing. You’ve come too far to break your own neck like some clumsy oaf.

  He trudged back up the hill and into the cave.

  Alem approached the corpse carefully. He stood off to the side so as not to block the sunlight. Quite a few years ago, this man had obviously had the same idea about using the cave for shelter. How many years ago, Alem could only guess. The corpse’s skin was dried out and shriveled tightly against his skull. Patches of skin coming off on the hands, and bone showing through. He was sitting on an upended bucket, back against the cave wall. His tunic was about to fall into dust but looked to have been fine material with intricate swirling patterns of gold and silver and copper. The man’s turban suggested he might be from Fyria. There was a sea chest next to him, along with the frayed coils of rope, rusted spears. A rusty woodman’s axe leaned against the cave wall. The survivor of some long-ago shipwreck, maybe? Perhaps he was a lone survivor who found his way to shore, took refuge in the cave, and never left again.

  Which is bad news for me. I’m guessing not a lot of ships pass this way.

  Alem opened the sea chest. Tools inside, crusted with rust.

  Something caught Alem’s eye, a glint of sunlight on bright metal.

  The corpse’s tunic was tucked into a cracked leather belt, the fabric billowing over and almost covering something but not quite. He pushed the tunic back, revealing the hilt of a sword. It was untouched by any blemish, unlike the man’s rusted belt buckle and buttons. Not ruined like the spears or the tools in the sea chest.

  Alem gripped the sword’s hilt, hesitated, then drew the blade from its scabbard.

  The cavern blazed with light, the straight blade glowing bright white like liquid flame. The sword was perfect, straight and without a nick or notch. It was longer than the short swords of the city guard but a bit shorter than a great knight’s long sword. It seemed simultaneously lighter than air and also indestructible.

  “Well, then.” Alem grinned at the corpse. “Seems even dead men have interesting tales to tell.”

  CHAPTER NINE

  Rina pulled the horses into a thick stand of bushes and spread the bishop on a bed of pine straw. Hark’s breathing was shallow, his skin clammy and cold, but she didn’t dare light a fire.

  She peeked through the bush’s thick foliage at the road, well lit by the moon. It had been a while since patrol, a dozen hard-riding Perranese warriors. There had been a moment of apprehension when they’d reined in their horses only forty yards from her hiding place. They’d conferred for a few seconds, and then half had ridden on up the road, the rest going back the other way.

  Rina was reluctant to tap into the spirit. She was already so fatigued, but she needed information. She tapped in and closed her eyes and instantly saw the world from the point of view of her familiar Zin, a green forest falcon. She flew above the trees, wheeling, the landscape spreading out before her. She ventured far from her hiding spot, turning a slow circle over several miles and back again.

  She released her hold of spirit and familiar both. She’d found out what she needed to know. There were a number of other Perranese patrols scouring the countryside, but none coming for her position. Zin had shown her there was a town about ten miles up the road. When the coast was clear, she’d make for it. Hopefully Hark would be fit to ride by then.

  She checked her gear. It was a fortunate thing the bishop had thought to bring her horse, all of her armor and weapons. But she didn’t put them on.

  She lay down. Someone should really have kept watch, but she was too exhausted to care. What would happen now? Where would they go from here? Rina knew these were important questions, but her thoughts were a senseless jumble. Her eyes slammed shut, and she was asleep in seconds.

  Yano approached Commander Tchi, who was frowning at a map he was attempting to read by moonlight.

  The ten men with Yano had been handpicked. This had been a long time coming, and Yano wanted it handled just right. Tchi conferred with one of his lieutenants, which was a shame, but they couldn’t wait forever to find the commander completely alone. It had to be now. They couldn’t count on a better opportunity.

  The men slowly moved into a loose circle around Tchi and the lieutenant, trying not to be obvious about it. They were understandably reluctant, and their swords hissed slowly from their scabbards. The lieutenant was slow to react, but Tchi sensed immediately what was happening, his hand going for his sword hilt.

  The men moved in quickly once they saw the commander go for his weapon. The lieutenant died quickly and surprised, three blades penetrating him various places through the torso.

  Tchi drew his sword and sliced across his opponent’s throat in one smooth motion. Blood sprayed, and the soldier dropped his weapon, staggering back, clutching at the wound.

  Two more crowded in at him from different sides, but Tchi spun, sword flashing out, parrying blades and striking again with savage speed. One of his attackers stepped back, a long bloody line down his forearm. The other tried a thrust to his belly, but Tchi came over his blade and jabbed him in the face, sending him away screaming.

  “All together, you cunts!” Yano shouted. “Gang pile the bastard.”

  The remaining warriors rushed Tchi all at once.

  Two grabbed his sword arm, but only after a third took a stab in the belly. They pulled Tchi down to the ground, blades entering him from every angle. The commander didn’t scream, just kept struggling to the end, until he finally went still. The soldiers got up, backed away from him, breathing hard. They shot anxious glances at one another.

  “Had to be done,” Yano said. “We agreed. Be strong and remember the story. Our patrol found the girl, but she killed the commander and the lieutenant. We barely got away. Right?”

  Nobody said anything. “The men saw what she could do back at the enemy camp. They’ll believe it. Now you men get your minds right. You hear me? Everyone square?”

  The men nodded, mumbled agreement.

  “Y-Yano.” A weak voice.

  Yano looked down and saw that Tchi was still alive. He drew a dagger and knelt next to him.

  “Y-you’re a traitor.” Tchi coughed flecks of blood over his bottom lip and chin. He was fading fast. “Your n-name will live on . . . in . . . disgrace.”

  “I am only a traitor in a technical sense,” Yano said. “You’re the one putting your men in danger. I told you she was dangerous. I told you to kill her while you had her in your power. I will return to camp and gather the men, and when the patrols return, we will go south. We already know the fleet is landing at Sherrik. We’ve done our part, Commander. They’ll rotate us home, or, if not, at least we’ll be with our own army. Either way, we’ll be better off without you leading us to death.”

  Yano stabbed him through the eye with the dagger.

  Rina heard the bishop stir just after first light.

  “How are you feeling?”

  Hark sat up and groaned. “It’s you. Thank Dumo. I had such dreams. What happened?”

  “What’s the last thing you remember?” Rina buckled her black breastplate as she spoke.

  “They had you in the back of some cart,” Hark said. “I killed the guards. And then . . . the wizard. I thought he had me.”

  “He did,” Rina said. “But you took his attention away just enough. It was close. Thank you for coming for me.”

  Hark stood slowly, taking in his surroundings. “Only too happy.”

  “Why you?”

  He blinked at her. “Your grace?”

  “I thought maybe Brasley.”

  “He wanted to,” Hark told her. “But Talbun said she needed him to go with her north to the Great Library. I was at hand and volunteered to effect your rescue.” Hark rubbed his neck and frowned. “Such as it was.”

  Rina strapped on her bracers, buckled her sword belt. She felt right in the armor. Maybe right wasn’t the correct word. Ready. She felt ready.

  “I asked how you felt. Can you ride?”
/>   “I feel weak, but yes. I won’t fall out of my saddle.”

  “I’ve sent Zin ahead and the road is clear,” Rina said. “There’s a town south. We can buy supplies.”

  “And then?”

  “And then we keep going south. We head for Sherrik.”

  “I thought you might want to catch up with your friends,” Hark said.

  She sighed, shook her head. “Their head start is too big. No, Talbun and Brasley are on their own. I trust them to get the job done. Our way is south. If you still want to help me, that is.”

  “Of course, your grace.”

  The old death priest’s words echoed in her mind. The southern path pays a debt.

  Rina still wasn’t sure what that meant. She didn’t know what waited for her in the south, but she could guess it involved danger on top of danger. For herself and anyone around her.

  “I won’t think ill of you if you want to return to Klaar,” Rina said. “You’ve done your part.”

  “With respect, your grace, serving you is only a small part of my consideration,” Hark said. “I sense that we’re living through a critical turning point of history, and the best view of it will be near you. If I’m to have some hand in it, if I can help in some way, then I think coming with you is most likely how that will happen.” He shrugged. “A wizard threw lightning at me, and by Dumo’s will I survived. I think I’m meant to go on.”

  Rina smiled. “Good. Truth is I didn’t really like the idea of going by myself.”

  They mounted and galloped the road south until they came to the small town Rina had seen through the falcon’s eyes. They refilled their water skins from the town well and stocked up on food in an open-air market. Rina noticed the prices were significantly higher than she’d expected, and few of the vendors responded to her haggling. She remarked on this to a man selling turnips.

  “The refugees, milady,” said the man selling turnips. “They come through in waves, buying up everything in sight. It drives the prices up.”

  “Refugees?”

  “From Sherrik,” he said.

  That didn’t sound encouraging.

  Hark munched an apple as they rode out of town. It looked like the color had come back into his face. When Rina had thrown the man unconscious over his own horse, she hadn’t been confident he would make it.

  An hour later, they met the first group of refugees.

  About two score of them, looking bedraggled and hollow eyed, men with young children on their backs, all carrying their worldly possessions in bundles and baskets.

  “Brother,” Bishop Hark hailed one of the men. “What word?”

  The man looked up, blinked at the bishop as if coming out of a daze. His clothes marked him as possibly some upper-class merchant, but he trudged through the mud with everyone else. “Me? Are you talking to me?”

  “Indeed, my good man,” the bishop said. “What news from the south?”

  “Sherrik is sealed,” he said. “Anyone inside is going to stay there. Anyone outside isn’t getting in. The Perranese fleet is on the way, might be there already.” He slogged on, shaking his head and muttering defeat.

  Hark turned to Rina. “Now what?”

  “We keep going,” she said. “And when we get to Sherrik, we knock on the front gate and ask to be let in. I’m told I can be very persuasive.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  The rough cavern walls gave way to carved stone. The floor smooth and even. They walked a wide hallway, the ceiling stretching high above them into the darkness.

  “What is this place?” Maurizan asked.

  “The hall of the ancient wizards,” said the Fish Man.

  That caught Maurizan’s attention. Had she come as far as the place marked on her map? If her mother were right, then there were secrets of ink magic somewhere in the depths of this place . . . if they’d survived the centuries.

  They were coming to a T intersection, and from around the corner Maurizan saw the flickering of firelight casting jagged shadows and heard echoing voices.

  Maurizan slowed her walk. “Who’s down here?”

  “The Moogari,” Kristos said.

  “Why do they want to see me?”

  “Maybe they don’t,” he said. “But you want to see them.”

  “Do I?”

  “Your map,” Kristos said. “The Moogari are the ones you want to see even if you don’t know it.”

  “Who are the Moogari?” She was still worried they might be cannibals. According to Miko, there was apparently a cannibal behind every palm tree on the Scattered Isles.

  “They belong to this place,” Kristos said. “They are those who served the ancient sorcerer.”

  “You mean their descendants still live here?”

  “No.” Kristos smiled enigmatically. “Not descendants, no.”

  Now she stopped walking altogether. “Okay, you need to explain what you’re talking about before I take another step.”

  “Do you want the Prime or not?” Kristos asked.

  Maurizan’s eyes widened. The directness of the question startled her. “Who says I do?”

  “Do not be foolish. The Moogari hold the secret.” Kristos turned so she could see his back. “Like me. They inked the Prime on my back many years ago. They served the old wizard and know his secrets. Your mother had the Prime and your grandmother. You wish it also.”

  She didn’t deny it. Why should she? Rina had robbed Maurizan of her chance for the Prime. Okay, that wasn’t quite true or fair, but it was how Maurizan felt about it. Weylan’s dying act had been to ink the Prime on Rina before Maurizan could make the trip up the mountain to the reclusive wizard’s cave. Rina herself might not have robbed her, but fate had.

  “I want the Prime,” Maurizan said. “Tell me what to do.”

  The Fish Man grinned. “Come with me and meet the Moogari.”

  He motioned for her to follow, and she did. When they rounded the corner, Maurizan stifled a gasp. She had been expecting to see some reclusive tribe of people.

  They weren’t quite people.

  The Moogari had arms and legs and eyes and moved around as people, but they were clearly not human. Their skin was a strange rubbery pink, hair a pale blue, straight and fine. They didn’t have proper noses, just nostril slits, and they were strangely thin, like they’d been stretched. Maurizan couldn’t tell male from female. They all wore the same loose gray robes. Or maybe there wasn’t a male or a female at all. Did they mate?

  But Kristos said they weren’t descendants. Dumo, could he mean these were the originals, that they were as old as the place itself?

  It didn’t seem possible.

  “They were a slave race,” Kristos said as if reading her thoughts. “Created by the master wizard of this place to carry out his whims. I have learned their language, and they have told me their stories.”

  She watched them a moment. They went about apparently normal business, mending clothes, tending a cookpot over a small fire in an enormous fireplace big enough for Maurizan to stand in. About a dozen of them.

  “Do they have children?”

  “No,” Kristos said. “There are only these you see here and a few more off tending errands. I don’t think it has ever occurred to them to have lives of their own or to leave this place. They were created to serve. They know nothing else.”

  One of them looked up and saw Maurizan and Kristos. He immediately began to jabber to his fellows in a language she’d never heard before, although it was now apparent where Kristos had picked up the odd accent.

  One of them broke off from the others and scurried to stand in front of the Fish Man, offering him a crisp bow and rattling off more syllables in his strange tongue.

  Kristos answered in the same language, then turned to Maurizan and said, “They ask if you have come for the tattoos. What shall I tell them?”

  “How did they know?”

  “It is what they do,” he said. “They would ask the same of anyone.”

  Maurizan hesitat
ed, swallowed hard, then said, “Tell them yes. I’ve come for the tattoos.”

  Kristos translated, and there was a sudden, excited exchange of talk among the Moogari. In seconds they surrounded the gypsy girl, attempting to gently take off her clothing.

  “Hey!” She pulled back from them, alarmed.

  “It is the way,” Kristos said. “You must be bathed. Your skin must be clean and perfect. Trust them. They have no designs on your virtue. They are not capable.”

  Maurizan frowned at the Fish Man. “And what about you?”

  A wan smile. “I have no interest in such things, but if it makes you feel better, I shall withdraw.”

  “Wait. Withdraw?” Her eyes darted to the Moogari eager to undress her. She didn’t want the Fish Man around watching her bathe, but the idea of being alone with these strange nonpeople was suddenly unsettling.

  Find some courage, okay? This is what you’ve wanted for as long as you can remember.

  “Leave me with them,” she said. “It’s okay.”

  He grinned, turned to leave without another word.

  The Moogari seemed to take this as some sort of signal and went about undressing her again. At least they weren’t rushed or rough about it. She imagined it was what it must be like to be a proper lady with handmaids in attendance.

  Sort of.

  Indeed they were quite polite, folding her clothes and setting them aside, hanging up her belt and weapons near the fireplace. From somewhere, they’d produced a large brass tub and were building a fire under it. Maurizan flashed on a memory, her mother and grandmother describing what it was like to get the Prime. The pride. The excitement.

  But each time it had started with a bath.

  When Maurizan was naked, they helped lower her into the tub. The water was the perfect temperature, and soon she felt her muscles ease. She wondered if maybe this wasn’t half the point. Her skin needed to be perfectly clean for what was to come, yes, but it couldn’t hurt if she were also relaxed. The Moogari began to scrub her with sponges. They were so polite and sexless that she felt no apprehension about this.