When the Goddess Wakes

by Howard Andrew Jones

  “They’re long dead,” Kalandra answered.

  The manic pace of Kyrkenall’s words subsided, and his expression fell. “I so enjoyed them, and the things they built, and the changes they made.”

  Finally Elenai could take no more. “Kyrkenall, are you still there?”

  “I am,” Kyrkenall answered. He sounded so much like himself Elenai stared. “And I’m fine, I think,” he added.

  “Is that you, or him?” she asked.

  “It’s both of us.” Kyrkenall spoke once more, and this time, Elenai sensed in his stance, and inflection that it was he, not his inhabitant. “His thoughts are scattered. They’re hard to hold in a channel. He wishes to communicate but is being torn apart by feelings about his children.” Kyrkenall’s voice grew flat, but strangely bright at the same time. “And I see, yes, I see what this one has learned. That my children stopped her because they thought I was dead, not knowing I was the thing they thought a weapon to use against her! And now they are gone. All of them.”

  “And now we must stop her,” Kalandra said. “Or she will destroy all of us, and all the places we live. She told your children she wished to start again. That this had been an experiment but it was time to do things properly.”

  “He’s not sure what he wants to do,” Kyrkenall said. “He wants the rest of his energy. Much of it’s trapped inside the weapon. But he can sense other pieces of it drifting out there. Some leaked out over the years, and of course some of it was used to blast her apart. Also, he loves her, even now. He thinks he can talk to her.”

  “What do you think?” Kalandra asked.

  “I’ve tried talking to a woman who’s done with my courting before. Oh, I see this surprises him. She’s not a woman, he says, but there’s some overlap.” Kyrkenall pointed at Elenai. “Release the rest of the energies, and I will be whole. Then I will speak to her.”

  “I don’t think we should release any more energy,” Elenai said.

  “It’s mine,” Kyrkenall asserted. “It’s me. Not yours. Or you.”

  “We have no other way to stop the Goddess,” Elenai said.

  Kyrkenall looked blankly at her.

  “Why don’t you stay with Kyrkenall for a while?” Kalandra suggested to him. “You’ll find it diverting.”

  Kalandra ignored Elenai’s stunned look.

  “You have no right to keep me from myself,” the God declared through her friend, and Elenai thought he was actually quite right. She shook her head no anyway.

  Kyrkenall staggered as white-gold mist sped from him and straight on for Elenai. She cried out in surprise. She didn’t have time to try anything magical. A force battered her consciousness, dizzying her, working to overcome her hold upon her body.

  She fought it, thinking of herself, beside her father, watching her little sister jumping up and down on the stage while her mother laughed. She was still Elenai, with her family, in the place that she remembered all of them best.

  Her mind flailed with the tumbling desires and fears and desperation of a being whose own mind was alight with a hundred ideas at once. It was more than an avalanche, it was like a wave that swept up to engulf her, each drop of water a world of ideas and possibilities.

  She thought of her mother’s smile, her sister’s joy, her father’s laugh. The ideas billowed uselessly, then fell away, and streamed back to Kyrkenall.

  Elenai sagged, gasping.

  “I guess he can’t endure for long without structure right now,” Kyrkenall said. “He’s back, but he’s weak. Since he’s not all here, he’s not reasoning as well, and he can’t extend himself for very long without growing weak. I guess you’re not as good a fit for him as I am.”

  “It figures he’d choose you,” Elenai said.

  “Because I’m so charming?” Kyrkenall said with a smile.

  “I can’t think of anyone standing here who’s more emblematic of chaos,” Kalandra said lightly.

  “The important thing is that we have the weapon,” Kyrkenall said. “I think I can handle him until it’s time to let him go.”

  “Are you sure?” Elenai asked. “Because it seemed like you were letting him control you.”

  “He wasn’t doing anything bad,” Kyrkenall said. “I don’t think he’s bad. And I know he doesn’t want to stay in me. This is all just temporary.”

  Ortok rumbled deep in his chest. Elenai had nearly forgotten he was there.

  “You Altenerai are never dull, I say you that! We have the weapon. When do we take it to fight the Goddess?”

  27

  Tunnel to Nowhere

  A blurry landscape flashed into existence beyond the white road, then faded before Vannek could fasten upon any details. The winds on either side of them howled. The lightning had yet to cease its flashing.

  “I think it’s getting worse,” Muragan said.

  This was so obvious an observation Vannek refrained from comment.

  Varama stopped her horse and peered to the void on the left side of the road. Vannek drew up beside her.

  Once more the landscape flitted into being, and this time it blurred for a moment, as if seen through drunken eyes, then sprang to life.

  Here, in the newborn land, they looked out upon a stretch of ale-colored sands under skies crushed beneath churning storm clouds. A lake so vast no shore could be glimpsed spread out beyond a beach only a few horselengths past the edge of the white road.

  Muragan said something Vannek couldn’t hear, for the wind was a roaring beast, blowing with such energy his horse sidestepped.

  Varama dug into her belt pack.

  “What are you doing?” Vannek asked.

  Typically, the alten didn’t answer.

  Muragan moved his horse right up to him, stirrups nearly touching. He held the lead lines to their pack horses with an outstretched arm.

  A distinctive white crest appeared on the horizon and the turquoise waters beyond the beach did a curious thing—they quietly pulled away, revealing a wider stretch of smooth gray sands.

  The roaring around them intensified and Muragan screamed to be heard: “We’ve got to go!”

  Varama had her hands in the pouch but had stopped her rummage. A spot of hazy air had appeared only a few feet beyond them, no larger than a shield.

  “Are you opening a portal?” Vannek demanded.

  Varama’s mouth moved, but Vannek couldn’t hear her.

  A dark line of white-topped water sped closer, and the horses danced in worry. Vannek fought to keep his beast still and grabbed one rein of Varama’s, as she seemed oblivious to its intent to flee.

  Rather than attending to the nearby dangers, Varama bent the fingers of one hand and used them to stir the air. The shield-sized haze parted and a shaking rift opened. The alten gasped in pain and pushed with her hand. The tear widened. Maybe it was tall enough to ride into.

  “Go!” Varama shouted, her sharp bark somehow piercing the din.

  Vannek needed no urging, for that fast moving line had grown into a wall of liquid finality. He shouted for Muragan to follow, dropped Varama’s reins, and kicked his eager mount into motion, ducking his head, and disappearing into a different world. Behind him the frightened pack animals whinnied as they were presumably pulled along by Muragan, but he couldn’t tell if Varama joined them. This tunnel differed from the first they’d traveled. It rattled visually with a kaleidoscope of colors, but was eerily quiet after the wave. Vannek struggled for breath in the thin air. Worse, the tunnel’s shining sides shook alarmingly. In vain he searched for a point of exit ahead, and saw nothing. Fury threatened to blind him. This blighted magical experiment would be their end. Varama had driven them to their deaths.

  28

  The Long Way Back

  The ko’aye flew on over the mottled red landscape, long white humanoid figures trailing after. The chaos spirits were borne effortlessly by the wind and reached with long white limbs, young women of chalky complexion draped in funeral white, their eyes naught but holes through which hungry e
mptiness stared.

  “I didn’t think they’d look like dragons,” Thelar said.

  “There aren’t any dragons,” Rylin said in confusion. “Just dead women.”

  “We’re seeing different things,” Thelar decided. “What are we going to do? We’ve nothing to capture them with, whatever they look like.”

  “I’m more worried about what they’re going to do when they get close to us.”

  “Turn on the shard,” Thelar said. “I have an idea.”

  Rylin would have liked to have known what the idea was, but there wasn’t time to ask, so he sent a thread into the stone. It hummed to life so easily it was almost as though it had awaited his coming. Alarmed, he scanned its depths, grateful he didn’t sense the Goddess. So far.

  As Drusa and Lelanc soared closer, the spirits chasing them slowed their pace.

  Someone spoke his name from out of the air on his left. “Rylin.”

  His senses already tuned to the inner world, he had no trouble recognizing Varama’s voice. He turned, starting in surprise at the ghostly image of his friend, suspended above the landscape in an only-partially realized saddle. No horse was visible.

  Thelar, meanwhile, pulled energy from the hearthstone and cast it as though he were throwing crumbs to chickens. He shouted for Rylin to help.

  “Leave the hearthstone active!” Varama shouted. “I’m opening a portal.”

  “Rylin!” Thelar cried.

  Varama disappeared, leaving Rylin no time to register wonder, worry, or relief, for the nearest of the chaos spirits drifted eerily only a few spearlengths beyond Thelar. Six more of the beings came close behind.

  Rylin looped energies deep in the hearthstone and pulled them free, then sent them arcing past the spirits. The closest pale specter and two others diverted toward it, like children chasing a ball. The other four held position farther out, as if indecisive.

  The ko’aye passed so close overhead Rylin felt the wind of their wings. He heard the distinctive, raspy war cry of Drusa shouting for him to work the trap, but could spare no time to tell them the traps were gone.

  His hair was already on end with so much magical energy in the air, but his skin prickled further with a surge from within the hearthstone. He groaned inwardly. The Goddess, probably come to reduce him to ash. Rylin dragged out as much energy as he could and sent it streaming into the sky—maybe Thelar could escape with the ko’aye in the confusion. At the same moment that the stone’s energy grew, as though a monster fish rose from the deeps of a great lake, a wobbly portal shimmered into existence to his right. The Naor general galloped from the narrow slash on a silvery mare. He immediately pulled up on the reins, but Thelar had to throw himself out of the way. The Naor blood mage came close behind, leading several panicking mounts of the Altenerai stables.

  All the activity proved of great interest to the chaos spirits. A great white hand stretched out from one phantom to pass through Muragan. He reeled, clutching his chest and dropping his lead lines.

  Rylin sent a steam of energy past the chaos spirit’s head before she could reach again. The phantom swiveled her whole body to swim through the sky after it.

  The riderless animals danced in a tight circle, shying from both the spirits and the ko’aye circling in the sky to the rear. Vannek interposed his restless mare to prevent a crush against the standing humans and his mage, still stricken but maintaining his seat. One horse, a bay, miscalculated its steps and abruptly slid down the steep side of their hill, squealing in fear.

  “Pour out more!” Rylin cried, and flung energies for the spirits to consume. Thelar, who’d climbed to one knee, did the same.

  At last, a final figure rode through the portal, followed a heartbeat later by what seemed a river’s worth of water. Varama turned the animal on the instant and closed the portal even as the waves struck her mount’s forelocks and knocked Thelar flat.

  Rylin quickly shut down the stone, glancing between the panting figure in the khalat, and the spirits, drifting aimlessly just beyond them. Thelar pushed himself up, shaking out his dripping sleeves.

  “They’re not going to delay long,” Varama said. And it was her, really her. Rylin stared for only a moment, noting how her frizzy hair was awry, and how strained and tired her eyes were. As she set her feet on the ground, he threw his arms about her and pressed her tight. She stiffened, then patted him on the back and gave him a single shoulder clasp.

  “I was afraid you were dead,” he told her quietly.

  “It is good to see you,” she said. “But there are things to do.”

  He stepped apart, then discovered Vannek and the blood mage watching curiously. Drusa glided in close. “Why do you not make to trap them?” she called.

  “We lost the traps,” Thelar shouted.

  “This little shard isn’t large enough to fend them off,” Varama said. “I’ll have to open another portal.”

  “I thought you said you only had enough energy for one portal, and barely,” Vannek said suspiciously. He climbed down from his own horse, which was nervously keeping one eye upon the ko’aye.

  “I’ll draw more energy from their hearthstone,” Varama said.

  Rylin raised a hand in greeting to the general, but he had already turned to check on his mage, wobbling in his saddle.

  “The Goddess is aware of this hearthstone,” Rylin told Varama. “She’s already killed M’vai through one, and I sensed an awareness in its depths.”

  “Then I shall have to work quickly.”

  Rylin had innumerable questions, but he held off. “Don’t take us to Cerai. She’s working on her own agenda.”

  “I’m not surprised.” Varama had already opened the stone and drawn upon its threads.

  The portal circle that flared into existence this time was more substantial, expanding from a small golden ring into a wide, glittering circle. All seven of the chaos entities snapped to face it, like fish in a bowl turning at the same moment.

  “Go,” Varama said.

  Rylin called to Drusa and Lelanc, gliding in their slow circle to the rear, remembering how little they’d liked the first portal journey. “Come on! We have to move fast!”

  “You want us to go through another?” Drusa replied.

  “Not to the betrayer again,” Lelanc said.

  “Darassus!” Varama shouted, voice strained. “Go!”

  Vannek motioned for the blood mage, pale and sagging, and he just managed to direct his reluctant horse inside. Vannek, who’d gathered the reins of two of their pack horses, briefly met Rylin’s eyes in an acknowledgment, then went after.

  “You next,” Rylin said to Thelar.

  “I’m fine.”

  “You’re wetter.”

  Thelar chuckled. “I don’t know why that’s funny,” he said, then headed in, guiding the remaining pack animals.

  The ko’aye were gabbling at one another. The spirits loomed close, their arms extended. And the hearthstone glowed fiercely, as though it might burst at any moment. The Goddess, Rylin knew, was near.

  “We’re going to Darassus!” Rylin shouted. “Hurry!”

  Drusa called something to Lelanc and then glided down and through, pulling her wings tight at the last moment. Lelanc eyed the portal with trepidation, then her head swung up to take in the chaos spirits. She cawed in alarm and followed her friend, whipping so close to the ground her wings brushed the grass tips. She vanished through the golden circle.

  Hearthstone in one hand, Varama pushed at Rylin, and they went through almost together, her horse on her heels.

  As they hurried forward Rylin sensed the hearthstone’s power ebbing and flowing.

  To right and left the walls shook, shimmering first with ebon energy, then with strands of blue and green, as though someone had painted a landscape and then poured water on it so the colors ran.

  Varama let out surprised exclamation, for the hearthstone burned brighter than ever.

  So distracted was he by it that Rylin nearly missed that they appr
oached the end of their journey. With relief, he ran clear and onto what he quickly saw was the wooden stage of the amphitheater in Darassus. He’d last stood here when he’d stabbed the queen.

  Varama came through, pulling on the lead line, though she had eyes only for the glowing shard. The moment the horse was through she turned and lobbed the stone back through the portal, then spiraled the hole closed.

  She stared at the place where the opening in reality had been.

  Though he was sad to have witnessed the loss of such a valuable tool, Rylin was impressed by Varama’s disposal. With luck, that meant the Goddess wouldn’t be coming here. The question was why they themselves had. “Did we come here for reinforcements?”

  “As well as for tools,” Varama answered. “And thanks to the queen, there was already a weak spot that made this place easy to reach.”

  Rylin turned to take in the shattered ruin of the amphitheater. Lelanc was in the air, circling, Drusa on the stage edge. Thelar, thoroughly wet and bedraggled, squished a foot into one boot as if to emphasize his condition. The two Naor had dismounted to stare back at the cleanup crew, scattered among the stands with mattocks.

  “I’ve many questions,” Varama said as she turned to Rylin. “Order your thoughts, and we’ll link.”

  She looked as though she meant to begin immediately, and Rylin held up a hand. “Wait a moment. I’ve got to get my thoughts together.” He couldn’t help grinning. “Damn, but it’s good to see you.”

  “Go on and kiss her already,” Vannek said softly.

  Varama ignored the Naor. “Yes,” Varama said. “It pleases me as well. Are you ready?”

  He smiled faintly, then counted to five and sorted his recent memories. Finally, he nodded assent.

  In a moment she was working her spell, and he thought back through the actions they’d taken since they’d fled through Cerai’s portal. How Kyrkenall and Elenai had departed and N’lahr had weakened. He remembered the attack the Goddess launched against Cerai’s fortress, and the renegade alten’s unleashing of the spirits. He shared Tesra speaking with him about Cerai’s betrayal and M’vai’s death. Though he strove for discipline, he couldn’t fully contain his worries and sorrow over Varama’s imagined death, and his fears that N’lahr had been wrong about her survival.