When the Goddess Wakes

by Howard Andrew Jones

  “Oh.” Ortok lowered his weapon. He called to his followers. “Do not break the egg boulders! The Oddsbreaker says that these are the glow crawlers!” He turned to Elenai. “Do you think they are ready to hatch?”

  “They look fully grown inside,” she said, not knowing how to judge.

  Ortok grunted.

  “Hey, I’ve got a question,” Kyrkenall said. “Whatever laid these eggs has to be pretty big, given the size of these things. Where is it?”

  “That is a good question,” Ortok said.

  “Did you and your army see any huge tracks?” Kyrkenall asked.

  “I saw none. My followers would have told me if they saw something worthy of challenge.”

  “There won’t be any tracks after the storm,” Elenai pointed out.

  Kyrkenall shot her a warning look. “You’re assuming the mother left before the storm.” He stepped away, Kalandra walking with him.

  “You’d better tell your sentries to watch for a really big glow crawler,” Elenai told Ortok.

  “I had thought of that.”

  As Ortok started to lift hands to make a speaking trumpet, she quickly added: “Maybe shouting’s not a good idea, if the mother’s close.”

  He turned and looked at her, then grunted assent. He called Urchok to him and quietly relayed orders. As Urchok jogged away, Ortok considered the kobalin laboring in the hole, then faced her. “Can you not magic glow crawlers away, as you did when they chased Kyrkenall and you and me?”

  “We’re not in the shifts, now,” Elenai reminded him. “I can’t poke a hole through an actual realm. It’s too magically solid.”

  “We will have to have a plan then, if the bigger one comes.”

  “The regular-sized ones are bad enough,” she said.

  “Maybe you will need this weapon for killing it.”

  If they found it. If she could figure out how to use it. And if using it against the monster didn’t feel like she was blasting herself with ancient goddess-destroying energies.

  Elenai moved to the edge of the depression as the kobalin labored at what looked an almost insurmountable challenge. Each time they scooped sand, more streamed in from higher upslope and Elenai was reminded of Kalandra’s analogy of chaos rushing in when there was a break in order.

  We’re close, she thought. She just wished she’d known that they’d have to contend with what Ortok called “glow crawlers” in the process. Her visions were certainly useful, but they were hardly flawless.

  Gradually, the kobalin made progress. Every now and then the diggers traded out with new workers.

  Kyrkenall returned to report he’d found no tracks, adding almost defensively that he hadn’t expected to. Kalandra lingered at his shoulder like a ghost, and it occurred to Elenai that she had haunted his mind and heart for years, but only now was her presence visible.

  After what must have been several hours, a squat, furry kobalin let out a cry of joy and pulled something free, lifting it high over his flop-eared head as it dripped sand upon him.

  “I found it,” he cried. “I, Othmar, Finder of God Weapons!”

  Other kobalin crowded forward to peer at the thing he brandished but didn’t wrestle it from him.

  Through their shifting bodies, Elenai drew the impression of a simple cylindrical staff, almost as long as a headless spear haft and a little thicker.

  She smiled tiredly as Othmar struggled up through the cascading sand, eschewing aid, then, in the moment from her vision, bounded up and down in excitement. He bowed to Ortok, who’d stepped to her side.

  The dark-furred general grumbled deep in his chest. “You are the God-Weapon Finder, Othmar,” he said, and a shudder passed through the smaller creature.

  “I will take it now,” Elenai declared with dignity. “Well done, Othmar.”

  Othmar blinked at her in surprise. “But I found the weapon,” he said. “I shall use it against our enemies!”

  “You will forever after be known as Othmar, God-Weapon Finder,” Ortok said. “But this weapon is for the enchantress, who does not just see magics, but makes them. She will need it when we fight a goddess.”

  Othmar clearly wasn’t convinced, but when Ortok extended a huge dark palm, he advanced to gently place it in his leader’s grasp.

  “There,” Ortok said, and turned to Elenai. “Half-Sword Oddsbreaker, I present this to you, on behalf of the kobalin of my command, this God-Weapon, found by Othmar God-Weapon Finder.”

  “Thank you, Ortok,” Elenai said. “Thank you, Othmar. I will never forget this.” She bowed her head to them both. At that, Othmar brightened, then regarded those around him, turning this way and that, as if to ensure they had seen his glory.

  Only then did Elenai take the staff from Ortok.

  26

  The Wielder of the Staff

  The weapon had appeared as if it were carved from marble. It was too light for that, though it felt perfectly smooth in her palm, and lacked the grain of wood.

  “Is this the thing you seek?” Ortok asked.

  “It looks like stone.” Kyrkenall reached out to stroke it with a finger. “It feels like marble,” he added.

  “It has that strange absence of magic inside, as you told us,” Ortok said.

  “There’s order surrounding chaos magic.” Kalandra had been silent for so long her airy voice startled Elenai. “A tiny bit of the chaos is leaking out.”

  “I see it.” Ortok tapped the far end with a blunt finger.

  If chaos were dripping it didn’t do so in any obvious way. Elenai was about to open her sight to the inner world when she saw a flare of light from beside Kyrkenall. Kalandra’s finger glowed as she herself touched the staff.

  Kalandra had suggested she had no way to interact with the physical world, and Elenai immediately wondered if the alten were endangering herself by the examination.

  The older woman seemed to breathe in—though she made no sound—then closed her eyes and ran her hand all along the far end of the staff.

  A moment later the glow about her finger subsided, and she stepped back, her eyes still closed.

  “How did you do that?” Elenai asked.

  “I tapped energy from my gem.”

  “You shouldn’t do that,” Kyrkenall objected with anger. “That’s what’s keeping you alive.”

  Elenai had the same sentiments.

  Kalandra flashed an easy smile at them both. “Don’t worry.” She descended into the pit. The kobalin scrambled out of her way with an odd mix of fear and courtesy, for once they were beyond arm’s length they bowed their heads to her.

  Though curious to see what Kalandra had discovered, Elenai examined the strange staff on her own. The tool proved free of blemish. It didn’t retain warmth from where anyone had held it. The end that had excited such interest didn’t reveal anything to visual inspection. In the inner world, however, that portion was faintly marred. Tiny threads of warped energy dripped free, slowly lengthening, reminding Elenai of a leaky old pump spigot on the training grounds near the stables. Here something far more interesting was taking place. Elenai was tempted to eye the staff’s end directly, but doing so seemed akin to examining an arrowhead point first while someone had the shaft nocked to a bow.

  The thread didn’t radiate energy in the same way as a hearthstone, nor did it behave in the way even threads of force in the Shifting Lands did, for it twisted as it grew. Finally part of it broke free and dropped to the sand. Instantly the surface changed. Where before there had been a rounded pebble now there were smaller ones with rough sides, as if the original had shattered.

  Alarmed, Elenai made sure to shift the end of the staff out of line with anyone nearby. “Keep away from that end of it,” she said. “Don’t even touch it.”

  “Elenai’s absolutely right.” Kalandra’s voice emanated from below, less tinnily and remote than usual, and Elenai looked down to see the woman standing in the sand, her hands glowing with golden energy again. “If you look at the connective threads of t
his mesa I think you’ll see ragged ends everywhere. Chaos has been leaking into the environment here for millennia.”

  “You’re using too much energy,” Kyrkenall told her.

  Kalandra winked out of existence, then appeared beside Kyrkenall a heartbeat later. “I don’t suppose I really have to walk,” she said, her voice once more sounding as though it was delivered from a well. Her sudden appearance started three nearby kobalin and Elenai herself.

  “If you pop around like that you’re going to frighten someone,” Kyrkenall told her.

  Kalandra chuckled.

  From somewhere off to their right came the rumble of moving earth. The ground shook. A distant kobalin shouted, but Elenai couldn’t make out his warning.

  The trembling drew closer. She pivoted to discover its source. An immense glow lizard had scrambled from beneath a nearby dune and was now headed straight for the mesa, trailing a plume of sand.

  Easily rivaling the size of one of the Naor dragons, the giant beast must have stretched on for more than hundred feet if its swaying tail was figured in. Its vertically hinged jaws, big around as a temple gate, opened in a roar like a cross between a sandstorm and a furious hawk. It charged on a multitude of clawed legs, now and then vanishing from view, for its colors shifted so that it blended with the sand around it.

  Even as Ortok shouted to his followers not to use their weapons, it was upon them, and his warriors struck out defensively. Those who attacked collapsed in rebounded pain. Others fell because they were too slow to evade its clawed feet, and were snapped up by the great jaws. It barely paused, and soon it barreled on for the mesa’s slope.

  Kyrkenall swore.

  “Fall back!” Elenai shouted. “It just wants its eggs!” At least that was what she hoped.

  Ortok shouted for his soldiers to retreat, and all of them reached the side of the mesa at about the same time the monster glow lizard climbed the slope to the far edge. It scurried toward its eggs, snuffling at them while a hideous tongue licked in and out of its strange mouth.

  Below, Ortok’s soldiers regrouped, weapons ready. Ortok, Kyrkenall, and Elenai still watched upon the rim, along with the ghostly Kalandra.

  “Maybe we’re fine,” Kyrkenall said softly.

  Elenai didn’t think so, and looked down at the weapon in her hands. Probably she was going to have to use it against the monster, and probably the moment the weapon struck the beast the pain would pass to her. Her lips thinned in determination. She might get just one shot, then, before she herself was incapacitated.

  Assuming she could figure out how to fire it.

  The mother lizard swung toward them, opened its mouth, and flicked out its bumpy black tongue. Its tread shook the ground as it padded toward them.

  “Make haste, friends,” Ortok called. He started down the mesa’s steep slope, and Elenai and Kyrkenall followed, sliding when not running. Kalandra flashed into existence ahead of them.

  They stopped at the mesa’s foot, and looked back to find the monster standing where they’d just been, moving its head back and forth.

  “It smells us,” Elenai said quietly.

  “I think it’s after the weapon,” Kalandra said.

  Elenai shot her a curious look.

  “It must be attracted to it,” the other woman insisted. “It built its nest over it.”

  “Ho,” Ortok said. “You may have truth there.”

  The thing’s head cocked as though it were looking down, although it didn’t appear to have eyes.

  They backed carefully away, Elenai considering the rod she held. Maybe the best way to work it would be to pull on the emerging threads and throw them toward the monster. Staff under her arm, she reached up to undo the sling, then shifted part of the staff’s meager weight to her bad hand. Light though it was, the pressure pained her.

  The beast roared so loud Elenai’s ears rang. And then it raced down the slope at them.

  Swearing silently, Elenai leveled the staff at its face, threw threads of intent, and pulled on the chaos at the weapon’s tip.

  The energy flowed forth like water from a broken nozzle and struck the beast along the right side of its mouth. It shrieked.

  Elenai’s own cry of pain erupted at the same moment. It felt as though her cheek, bone and muscle both, were being rearranged with a hot scrambling fork.

  The beast halted. Elenai, in such agony she could barely focus, had somehow retained hold of the staff, though her grip was weak.

  The weapon was yanked from her hands and she looked up in dismay to see Kalandra, hands glowing once more. The beast tore through the sloping sand for them, frighteningly fast and huge.

  The creature’s snout was only twenty feet off when the energies struck its opening jaw. Either Kalandra was lucky, or she had a much better idea how to manage the weapon, for her first attack reduced half the thing’s right jaw to dark ash that wafted away, then shifted to one of its front legs and blew through a leg joint.

  The beast tottered, keening. Ortok dragged Elenai back as Kalandra continued her remorseless assault. The rebounding pain link apparently had no effect upon someone without a physical presence.

  The mother glow lizard screamed in agony. Its tongue reached almost to Kalandra, who sprayed the chaos energies across its face, transforming the thing’s features into dripping haze and flaking bits of bluish fluff, borne upward in the chill air.

  The beast collapsed, although a back leg continued to twitch. Elenai felt certain it was dead, but Kalandra kept up the attack until nothing remained of the monster’s head but a bit of seared bone, and all the knee joints on its right side were destroyed. She then advanced up the mesa and wielded the weapon against the only egg Elenai could see. She moved out of sight.

  Elenai’s own pain had faded to a searing throb by then, and she straightened, hands to her jaw. It astounded her that it could hurt so much even though she’d endured no physical damage.

  A somber Kalandra returned. She passed off the staff to Elenai, and then her hands ceased their brighter glow. Beside her, Kyrkenall stared bleakly at the emerald that housed her real essence. Elenai opened herself to the inner world and saw Kalandra’s energies had faded by more than half. Always sensitive to magics, Kyrkenall had already known.

  Only Ortok failed to register the gravity of the moment, and let out a war whoop. “What a glorious weapon!” he cried. “Kalandra, spirit warrior and slayer of monsters!” He turned to his soldiers. “See the friends we have! See what they can do with the god-killing weapon!”

  A mighty if ragged cheer spread through the ranks.

  Kyrkenall’s voice was almost lost in the sound. “You’ve drained a lot of the energy keeping you alive.” His eyes were only for Kalandra.

  “I did what I had to do. And I’ve enough to keep me going for a while. Maybe that’s all any of us have, anyway.”

  Elenai couldn’t think of anything else they might have done, and nodded once in profound gratitude to the stalwart veteran.

  Kyrkenall started to object, then lowered the emerald and stood stock-still, his expression puzzled. Ortok, who’d turned again to his friends, stared at him, his ears stiffening. His fur bristled.

  The black-eyed archer faced them and smiled; not in his usual sly way, or even in his contented, almost self-conscious manner, but with an air of open wonderment, as though their regard was the most astonishing thing he’d ever beheld.

  “Something is with him,” Ortok warned.

  Kyrkenall laughed.

  Wearily, Elenai focused her view through the inner world and saw Ortok was absolutely right. Kyrkenall’s energies had gone completely awry. While his own structure remained, something shifted and fluctuated within him. It was almost a mirror to what had happened to N’lahr. Where ordered threads had overtaken the commander, chaotic fly-aways had sifted into his best friend.

  Kyrkenall pointed at them with his left hand. “Who are you?” he asked. “Are you children of hers?”

  “He-Who-Unmakes has him,�
� Kalandra said, voice low with dismay. “The God.”

  Elenai doubted her hearing. “How? I thought he was dead.”

  “It wasn’t a weapon,” Kalandra said, her voice sharpening as she reasoned it out. “It was a prison. She-Who-Makes didn’t kill him, she had him trapped in there so she could control his energies. Even our gods got that part of the story wrong.”

  “Give me the answers, little ones,” Kyrkenall said petulantly. “Are you her children?”

  “We are descended of your children,” Kalandra answered, voice surprisingly calm.

  “What’s happening to him?” Ortok asked.

  Kalandra explained. “A god’s energies were trapped in the staff. When we used it, some escaped, and now it’s in Kyrkenall.”

  “How do we get it out of him?” Elenai asked.

  Kalandra didn’t answer, and Kyrkenall continued beaming. He looked up at the stars and laughed. “I know this place, and yet it is new. It delights me.” He raised both hands and breathed in and out, then laughed joyously. “I know this man now, and he delights me.” He reached for his wineskin, popping its top and taking a long swig. He lowered it, smacking his lips. “Oh, the pleasure this brings him, and me!” He took another drink, wiped his mouth with the back of his hand, and then his eyes fixed upon Kalandra. “How he longs for you! Come, kiss me, and then we shall mate!”

  Kalandra remained calmly withdrawn. “I can’t do that without a physical form. And had I one, I still wouldn’t, because it’s him I love, not you, and we aren’t alone.”

  Kyrkenall and the God expressed dejection like an actor playing to the back seats. “Don’t you love me?”

  Once again Kalandra answered easily. “I don’t know you.”

  The archer laughed, his mood springing from consternation to joy in a heartbeat. “But surely you do know me, one called Kalandra! Look how the wind blows, and the sand forms anew with every breath. Look at the beings here, all cast from a similar mold but different. I am that difference! I am the subtle things, and the large things and in the end I am all things. Now I have access to his thoughts and I know he holds you in high regard.” Kyrkenall pointed to Ortok and Elenai. “How strange it is to be mortal. Why didn’t I try this before? There is so much love! And there are fears, too, for others he loves who are not here. It is like the love one has for one’s children. Where are mine?”