by Mike Shel
“Strange,” said her father. She turned to him. He was kneeling before a statue, examining its feet. “I think these idols are one with the floor of the cave. Perhaps they were carved from stalagmites that were once rooted here.”
Agnes faced the idol closest to her. Only a few remnants of pigment clung to it; the whites of its eyes, a bit of red on its dangling tongue. A prayer came to her own tongue, a queer thing. Her mother had been a devotee of Lalu, but never pushed Agnes to venerate the goddess. Her father met his religious obligations, but no more. Agnes herself had followed her father in that. She might utter a quick prayer to Vanic before a fight, sacrifice to Belu at the Blue Cathedral on high holy days. But she was no zealot. Somehow, though, a prayer felt right to her, and she spoke it aloud.
“Pember, Far-Seer, guide my steps.”
She caught sight of another idol, the eyes of which looked away from her, to the left, as though embarrassed by her sudden devotion. She followed its gaze. Another idol, this one boasting more remaining paint than the others. It stared straight ahead. She looked from statue to statue, following where the eyes of each idol eternally directed its attention. Pember, Far-Seer, guide my steps.
“The eyes,” said Agnes to her father and Sira. “The eyes are all leading us in the same direction.”
She walked through the stone sentinels, following the path created by their painted gazes, directing her as sure as an arrow’s flight to a single tunnel heading down into darkness. There was nothing about it that suggested it was any different than the others, save for the ancient attention of the toad idols.
“Here,” she proclaimed, pointing a finger like a prophetic herald. “This is the way.”
Her father’s smile grew as he nodded. “Well done, Syraeic sister,” he said, putting a hand on her shoulder like a comrade. “Well done.”
The smell of marshland grew more intense as they followed the winding tunnel. Sira gagged for a moment. “Oh Belu, that’s foul,” she said, wiping tears from the corners of her eyes.
Agnes sensed the way sloped down slightly, moving them deeper into the earth. Each of them had cracked an alchemist’s glowrod—no anonymously lit torches shed light for them this way. The tunnel was a natural one, narrowing, widening, making them crouch low to progress at some points along their walk, or lose the ceiling in the darkness above. They walked this way for a mile or more. Her father led the trio, Agnes brought up the rear, Sira walked between them. After a very long while, Auric stopped them.
“Hide your alchemy,” he whispered. Agnes slipped her glowrod up the vambrace on her right forearm, Sira in her tunic. After a moment he said, “There’s light up ahead. Ready yourselves.”
Agnes didn’t have to draw her sword—she wielded it already, as her scabbard wouldn’t accommodate Chalca’s short sword. It was less graceful than her thin-bladed rapier, stuck forever now in the metal guts of the construct she had destroyed. Part of her wished she had taken poor Kennah’s broad sword instead, to honor her fallen brother, but she would have been thrown off by its weight. Better she had the actor’s blade in her hand. It didn’t have a rapier’s reach or elegance, but it wasn’t much heavier.
The tunnel arrived at a threadbare curtain of gauzy material, the veil hung on a brass rod set in the rock of the walls. Her father moved it aside, revealing another excavated chamber, roughly oval and bare, save for a hole about five feet wide in the floor at its center. Before the hole, which seemed to glow with fire, was the corpse of a strange, naked creature: it looked like a sick amalgam of frog and man, skin of mottled yellows and greens, moist, its belly bloated, rising from it a reek of decaying vegetation and disgusting, luxuriant blooms of algae. It was sexless and had scrawny limbs, its fingers and toes webbed. A long pink tongue hung from its mouth. Bruising about the neck told a tale of strangulation.
Standing over the amphibian cadaver was a man Agnes recognized, wearing a boyish smile, blond hair down to his shoulders. He wiped mucus from his hands—hands that had so recently been wrapped around the skinny neck of the toad-thing.
“Welcome, pilgrims!” Bocca said with a cheerful grin. “If I’m being honest, I’ll admit that I wondered for a time if you would find your way!”
36
Behold a God
Here, said the sword, tingling in Auric’s hand. Here, now. The blade’s voice in Auric’s mind seemed to have lost its tranquility. He sensed Szaa’da’shaela’s enthusiasm. As it trembled in his hand, his own mouth filled with saliva, as though presented with the aroma of one of Pala’s plump roast chickens.
The presence of Bocca, their hired Candle, who had fled in horror and disgust at what Qeelb had done to the Videna, felt like a joke, a comical scene in a stage farce. How was he here? Then a sickening wave of recognition washed over Auric, fear mingling with revulsion. It must be.
“Timilis,” he said.
Yes, said Szaa’da’shaela, shuddering with pleasure in his hand.
The blond-haired man—though no man—made a theatrical gesture with his hands, again evoking the stage. “In the flesh,” the god answered, “or someone’s, anyway. My own rotted away ages ago. At any rate, you’ve arrived, Auric Manteo. At last.”
It felt like a cheat. What had he expected to feel, standing before a great god? Auric wasn’t sure. Overawed by that being’s majesty? Repulsed by a vile creature that reflected its malign and mercurial soul, something hideous like the avatar they found of the Aching God? Instead, Auric was annoyed and decidedly unimpressed with this divinity.
“Forgive me,” said Timilis, looking down at himself as though reading Auric’s thoughts. “After all the drama leading up to this, I really should have prepared a more remarkable climax for you, eh?” The leg of the prone frog-thing twitched, causing Auric and Agnes to step back, swords at the ready. Timilis smiled and gave the corpse a casual kick. “Say hello to the one you knew as Pember, mortals. Aesha-Laalac it was once called.”
“That is the god Pember?” asked Agnes, incredulous. “You killed Pember?”
“Yes, Agnes! And in his or her place of power, too. That should impress you! Though I’ll admit, the form Pember preferred to take—oooof—it lets the air out of that celebratory balloon. I never understood the affinity for toads, of all creatures. Of course, Pember was a lesser power compared to me, forced to sup on the ready tears of painters and poets. As a greater god in the pantheon, I have had much richer fare on which to feast. And I have you and Hanifax to thank for that felicity.”
“We do not venerate you, trickster,” said Sira, standing with Auric and Agnes flanking her. He hadn’t heard such contempt in her voice since they had questioned Wallach Bessemer in his quarters at Saint Besh. That seemed a long time ago now.
“Few do willingly, little priest Sira,” he said, smiling in a friendly way, apparently taking no offense. “But I require no formal sacrifice. I am nourished by human error and folly, and God forgive me, I eat well.”
God forgive me. What a strange thing for a divine being to say, thought Auric. Who was this…person before him?
It is Timilis, whispered Szaa’da’shaela, its voice eager. One of the Besh’oul. Cruel trickster, drinker of human hopes. Do not think for a moment that anyone else stands before you, Auric Manteo. He must die.
“Listen to the Ush’oul, Auric,” Timilis said, his smile all condescension. “How bloody-minded he has become. He wants nothing more than to taste my flesh. Well, soon enough I’ll oblige him.”
“What?”
The look on the god’s face grew serious, though he chose to seat himself on the swollen belly of Pember. He cupped his hands and bowed his head, shaking it from side to side. “Fifteen thousand,” he began. “Fifteen thousand years since I emerged from my birth mother, wailing, the both of us. I still remember her exhausted face, red and streaked with tears from the effort of bringing me into the world, her first and only child. Shan’a’shen was her nam
e. Isn’t that lovely? Isn’t that a lovely name? She’s long dead, millennia dead, from loss of blood and infection, taken less than a day after I was born. My lips never tasted my mother’s milk, you know. None of us did, of course, the Besh’oul. It’s one of the things that mark us.” He looked up at Auric then, his smile sad. Was that a tear at the corner of his eye?
“The scripture says you were born in a fiery furnace belonging to a great Djao demon lord, rescued by the god Marcator, no less,” said Sira. Auric had trouble understanding the intent of her statement. It seemed almost comically pedantic.
“The scripture says much that is twaddle, Sira Edjani. Eighty to ninety percent of it is pure hogwash.”
“You sound like Bocca again,” offered Agnes, arms crossed over her cuirass. “Rather than a god.”
The blond being grinned. “Well, what does a god sound like, Agnes, dear? Have you heard one speak before?”
“No,” she answered, looking down her nose at him, defiant. “Have you?”
Her irreverence didn’t feel out of place here, Auric thought. But Timilis’s answer was like a slap in the face.
“Not that I know of. Though I’ve heard many claim as much.”
“Are you a god?” asked Auric, breathless.
“I was born a mortal man, like you. I am no longer a mortal man, like you or any other. Agnes could drive that sharpened steel she borrowed from the actor through my heart and it would no more wound me than would a passing breeze. Does that make me a god? What is a god, truly? I can certainly perform wonders, miracles that would have throngs swooning in adoration or cowering in fear, following me to the ends of the earth. Is a man a god to the ants he treads upon without noticing? Know this: I am a sorcerer, Auric Manteo. A mighty one, by any reckoning, made immortal by great magics. Perhaps that makes me a god of sorts, but not in the sense that you mean the word.”
Sira grabbed hold of Auric’s sleeve. “Lies!” she hissed.
Timilis looked at her, amused. “Kind and devout Sira Edjani, this is hard for you, I know. But I assure you, I am the most honest member of Hanifax’s pantheon. I’ll speak no lies in this sacred place. Enlighten them, Ush’oul.”
He speaks the truth, said the sword to Auric.
“You are no god,” said Auric, a quiver in his voice. “And yet you have a priesthood, temples, a place of honor in the religious councils of the empire. You knew we were coming here. You know why we came here. This is no more than a game to you. You allowed us to take on the queen’s burden, to make this journey. You reveled in our pain, mocking us, knowing all along we would fail.”
“Oh, on the contrary,” said Timilis, eyes wide with sincerity, “I fervently pray for your success!” The being let Auric and his companions dangle there for a moment, dumbfounded, before continuing. “Your mission is my mission, Auric Manteo. I set you on this path, long before you stumbled into the prison of Aelishim. It was I who put the instrument of my release in your hand. You think it was happy accident that madman turned over so precious a family heirloom? You never would have slain Gaha’laat without it.”
“I do not know who—”
Timilis was impatient now. “Don’t be thick, Auric. Gaha’laat. The one you called the Aching God. The sword was sleeping, as we all had for millennia. I had to wake it, and that required the blood of a true sorcerer. It is almost ready now.”
“Ready for what?”
Timilis closed his eyes and shook his head, exasperation on his plain features. He let out a long sigh. “How many times must I tell you? I am weary of this existence. I have seen all I wish to see. I’ve danced on the surface of the sun, rode a comet. I’ve swum in shimmering lakes of molten silver, spoken to the hidden, secret spirits of time and space, witnessed the weave of the universe in infinitesimal detail. And now, after all of it, I am bored. There are no true surprises left in creation for me. I’m weary! After two hundred or more human lifetimes, Auric Manteo, I wish to die.”
Time seemed to stand still in that place. Auric felt the beating of his own heart, counted his breaths. He looked to Sira, her normally serene features clouded with confusion and fear. And Agnes, lovely Agnes, with Marta’s face, save for his nose, and the freckles which were entirely her own. Her eyes were fixed on the being who had called himself Bocca, but was Timilis, had always been Timilis, from the moment they met him on the road to Gnexes.
Szaa’da’shaela had grown quiet, though it continued to tremble, perhaps in anticipation. Auric sensed its desire to kill and found that desire infectious. Would it be as simple as that, then? Drive the Djao blade, which Timilis named the instrument of his release, into the false god’s heart? Szaa’da’shaela had contradicted nothing Timilis had said. Maybe it really was that simple.
“Alas,” said Timilis, reading Auric’s thoughts and breaking the silence in the chamber, “not that simple. The sword is not yet potent enough to end this existence of mine. It requires what all great magics require.”
“Blood,” said Agnes.
Blood, echoed Szaa’da’shaela in Auric’s mind.
“All of this is a great spell that I’ve wrought. It’s why your journey to me here was so fraught with death and suffering, Auric Manteo. I was weaving great magics, you see, enough to penetrate the protective sorceries that have allowed me to survive fifteen millennia. Each death—Ursula, Meric, Brenten, Del Ogara, Gnaeus, Belech—”
“My mother,” interrupted Agnes, “my brother.”
“Oh yes, them, too. Those pirates on the Corsair’s Run, the townsfolk of Boudun whom your broken sorcerer skinned alive, the bandits on the river, the Videna and her mutilated creature, Kennah and Ruben both. Yellow Hells! Even that dog of yours provided sweet grist for the mill of my grand design. All were necessary sacrifices, fueling this greatest of sorceries. The victims of Geneviva’s insane whims, the chaos that descends upon your empire, all of it needed for my purpose.”
“Needed, you say,” said Auric, who knew that he should be filled with fury at these revelations, but instead felt nauseous and emotionally numb. “Why do you require all this suffering? It’s not to make me worthy of killing you, is it?
Timilis rested his hands on his knees, shifted on the corpse’s belly, and stared at the ceiling. “I suppose I must tell it all,” he muttered to himself.
“Yes,” said Agnes, her jaw tight. Auric sensed her barely suppressed rage.
It’s what I should be feeling right now, he thought.
“Power, you see, comes from what we call the Kah.”
“And what is Kah?” Agnes asked.
“Ahhhhh, now that, Agnes Manteo,” he said, pointing a bobbing finger at her, “is a very good question. A piece of it lies deep in the earth, here below us, at the bottom of this glowing hole. More bits are buried across what you call the Barrowlands, and in other parts of the world. It is the font of life, it makes this globe spin on its axis, keeps it floating round the sun. There are theories, but many contend that the Kah is, in fact, pieces of God’s heart.”
“You speak of God now?” spat Sira with a sneer.
“It sounds more like a fairy tale,” said Agnes. Timilis seemed undeterred by their disdain.
“Whoever—or whatever—created all that there is. Some call it the Universal Spirit of Creation. It may not be an individual, as you understand it. But we can call it God, certainly. Whoever or whatever formed this world, who floated the continents and made the green growing things upon them…well, buried deep in his or her creation—let’s call her a ‘she,’ to spare me the tedium of pronouns—she left us bits of her heart, beating. Faintly, yes, but still imbued with power—the power of creation. True sorcerers like myself, not the whispers you call sorcerers, we can sense and draw on that power, can shape and control it. The very power of creation! You can hardly imagine it, mortals! It exhilarates! It terrifies! It is intoxicating. But to access the greatest heights of power, more is re
quired, you see. The Kah, God’s heart, must be fed to keep it beating, and to make it beat strongly. That is where you come in.”
“This is perverse,” said Sira. “You mean to shake our faith in the gods. I know. I have felt the love and power of—”
“Of Belu?” Timilis shouted, impatient, sardonic.
“Of Belu,” she answered. And Auric was alarmed, for he heard hate in her voice. He heard the gentle voice of Sira Edjani moving perilously close to murder.
“More on that later, priest of Belu,” said Timilis, still amused. “We sorcerers can sense the Kah, locate and tap into it, but it must be beating strong and proud to yield its greatest power. Only one thing makes that happen.”
“And what would that be?” asked Auric.
“Human suffering, Auric Manteo. It makes God’s heart sing.”
“You thrive on human suffering?” growled Agnes, her face reddening, white-knuckled fist clenching the grip of the short sword she held. “You sound no better than the Djao and the demon-gods they worshiped!”
Timilis let out a great laugh. It was cruel and without humor. “The Djao? The Djao? We are the Djao, foolish little girl!”
All of them were struck mute. It was as though Auric’s heart stopped beating in his chest.
“The looks on your faces,” Timilis said, shaking his head. “It’s always the same with you mortals when given true clarity. ‘Take it back! Please, take it back! Make us ignorant again!’ We Djao were the natural aristocracy of our people, mighty sorcerers who divined how power could be drawn from the Kah. We called ourselves the Besh’oul, the Learned Ones. With our power, we ruled over the people for five thousand years. We didn’t shrink from wisdom. We consumed it, no matter its form. Whatever black bile was vomited back from the depths of the cosmos, we swallowed it, greedily, and let it add to our knowledge and power. The word on our lips was always more, more, more! With the great potency we gained, we became explorers. We traveled about the wide universe of creation, to strange worlds beyond number. We met beings whose existence you could scarcely comprehend, witnessed mysteries and wonders a mortal heart could never contain! To do the things we Besh’oul dared, well, it required much from the Kah. Our subject peoples, we forced them to build what you thought our temples. In truth, they were manufactories, with agony the only product. We called up an industry of suffering, to enflame God’s heart. It was necessary, so that we might cross frontiers unimagined. Oh, the heights of glory we achieved!”
