Song of the Risen God

by R. A. Salvatore

  “I do not deny who I am,” the target of Thaddius’s ire said, standing. He looked around and then opened his overcoat, revealing a beautiful breastplate, silver, edged in gold, and set with a line of sparkling gemstones.

  Gasps arose throughout the room, with most leaping to their feet in surprise.

  “I am Aydrian, son of Elbryan and of Jilseponie, now of Andur’Blough Inninness, trained by the Touel’alfar in the ways of the ranger.”

  “You are Aydrian Boudabras, defeated and exiled king of Honce-the-Bear,” Thaddius corrected. “Do you deny?”

  “I deny nothing.”

  “Abbot Chesterfield, you have in your house heretics and traitors,” Thaddius insisted.

  “I would ask that you calm, Brother,” Aydrian said. “The news we bring is larger than your ire.”

  “You were exiled!”

  “I am not in Honce-the-Bear.”

  “They wear—”

  “Those are not Abellican gemstones,” Aydrian said, coming forward to stand immediately before the man, though he assumed no threatening posture. “They came from the west, not from the island of Pimaninicuit.”

  “You cannot speak that name,” Elysant said from the side, but Aydrian didn’t even turn to regard her.

  “Those gems were not blessed by any Abellican monk,” Aydrian continued. “Indeed, I expect that you, the good sister here, and Abbot Chesterfield are the first of your order who have ever looked upon these stones.”

  “That cannot be.”

  “Oh, but the world is wider than you’ll ever understand,” said Talmadge from across the room.

  Thaddius turned on him.

  “Do not be a fool,” Talmadge said. He held out his hand for his female companion, who took his hand and stood up beside him—and again, the way she moved reminded Thaddius of the magic.

  “Show them, my love Khotai,” Talmadge said to her. With a smile, Khotai lifted her long dress, pulling it up high enough to reveal her missing leg and the debilitating damage to the other. To further the display, the woman then lifted off the floor, just a bit.

  All seven of those who had not come in with the refugee caravan seemed to want to say something, but none seemed to have any words they could get past their shock at that moment.

  “Wondrous, is it not?” Aydrian asked them all. “This woman here, Aoleyn, no Abellican, who never met an Abellican or ever heard of Saint Abelle, created this belt for dear Khotai, returning her mobility to her.”

  “And dignity,” Khotai added.

  “You never lost your dignity,” Talmadge corrected.

  “How is this possible, Brother, Sister, Abbot?” Aydrian asked. “How is it possible that one who is not Abellican—who came from lands the Abellicans know nothing of, from wilderlands far to the west—how is it that she could craft such an item, and that she, yes, wearing magical gemstones all about her body, is possessed of power that would be the envy of all, or at least of most, of your sacred order?”

  Thaddius stumbled for a response. He looked to Elysant, to Chesterfield, and finally to the dark-eyed woman.

  “She is an Usgar witch,” said Catriona with a laugh. “One who learned your language through magic and taught it to me and all of my people through magic. One who gave a great gift to Khotai, who is our friend. One who healed us and helped us escape. One who destroyed the ship of our bright-faced enemies, the sidhe, when they pursued us. She is Aoleyn of Usgar, and she is good, I say.”

  Catriona and Aoleyn exchanged smiles then, and Thaddius could only stand, flummoxed, trying to digest all that had been thrown at him this evening. Through it all, one word above all struck him and stuck in his thoughts. “The sidhe?” he whispered.

  St. Belfour had gone south to find the people written about by Brother Gilbert of Annacuth. A race, a people, called the sidhe.

  “You came all this way to show us this new magic?” Abbot Chesterfield asked.

  “We came here to tell you that you must look west,” Aydrian answered. “With all eyes, all scouts. These people here are refugees, chased from their homes by a great army, one that we fear will continue their march. We came that you might help these refugees, but mostly we came to warn you.”

  “We warned Matinee,” Talmadge told them, mostly Redshanks. “Our friends there gave us the horses and wagons.”

  “Matinee is gone,” Aoleyn stated, drawing all eyes her way.

  “How do you know?” Talmadge asked.

  Aoleyn held up Talmadge’s lens. “I looked again just before we arrived this night,” she explained. “Matinee is gone.”

  * * *

  “You’re certain?” Redshanks asked Aoleyn later, after Abbot Chesterfield had cleared the chapel of all but the monks, Redshanks, Aydrian, and this strange young woman from far away.

  “No, not certain,” she replied. “I have been looking back to the west with the magic. Last time, I found a wall of golden light behind Matinee. I thought it the end of my vision. This time, I found that wall blocking my sight just before Matinee.”

  “But you’ve come farther, so…”

  “It is not the distance,” Aoleyn told him. “It is our enemies. They have magic, and they use it to hide from my vision.”

  “So you don’t know that Matinee is gone,” Thaddius said.

  “If they are all the way to Matinee, we must know,” Abbot Chesterfield remarked, his voice shaky.

  “We cannot risk—” Aydrian began, but Aoleyn cut him short.

  “I can find out,” she said. “There is a way.” When all eyes turned to regard her, she added, “I can send my spirit.”

  “What do you mean?” Thaddius asked, at the same time that Elysant said, “The soul stone.”

  “You will send your spirit out of your body and travel back?” Thaddius deduced, his voice growing sharp.

  “Spirit-walk?” asked a shocked Abbot Chesterfield.

  “That is not allowed,” Thaddius protested.

  “It is allowed when needed,” Aydrian corrected. “I would say that now it is needed.”

  “But—” Thaddius started to protest.

  “She is not Abellican,” Aydrian told him. “She is not bound by your rules.”

  “You use the magic?” Aoleyn asked Thaddius.

  He held up his hands incredulously, as if telling her that she had no right to even question him about this.

  “Then come with me,” Aoleyn challenged.

  “One does not simply spirit-walk,” Thaddius scolded. “The threat of possession…”

  “If you are afraid, I will go alone,” Aoleyn told him. She turned away from him, walked over to take a seat on a bench at the side of the room, and took a deep breath as she put her hand over the large wedstone, which the monks had called a soul stone, hanging from the chain she wore about her hips.

  “Wait!” Thaddius yelled at her. “You cannot do this.”

  “Come with me or do’no,” Aoleyn calmly replied.

  Thaddius stopped, obviously at a loss. He looked to Elysant for support but found Aydrian intercepting that gaze.

  “Go with her,” Aydrian told him. “You must see this to understand.”

  “Only the father abbot can permit such a thing,” Thaddius told him. “The risks are too great.”

  “Now is the time for courage.”

  Thaddius glanced over at Elysant, who nodded. After a few moments to take it all in, Thaddius went to the bench to sit beside Aoleyn. He lifted his staff. He had filled the sockets with his most important gemstones, including a soul stone of the highest quality.

  “You have done this before?” he asked Aoleyn, who nodded.

  “Then you know the temptation.”

  “It is not so great,” Aoleyn replied.

  “Many have succumbed to it and lost themselves in the mortal body of another, or lost their way back to their own bodies, and so have wandered the spirit world without anchor.”

  The woman’s responding gaze was one of incredulity. She paid him no more heed and inste
ad fell into her song, her hand clutching the large gray wedstone on her hip.

  Moments later, the spirits of Aoleyn and Brother Thaddius flew to the west, side by side, untethered by the restraints of the physical world. Propelled by thought, they moved across the miles with ease and soon enough saw the magical barrier, a wall of golden glow extending north and south as far as they could see.

  They came to the base tentatively.

  This is where my vision failed, Aoleyn warned, making a telepathic connection.

  Thaddius faltered, near panic. Do not! Go back!

  Do not do what?

  Possession is evil!

  There is no possession, the woman assured him, and he was truly caught off guard, for his magical training and history had never shown such communication between spirits unless within the corporeal form of one of them, which meant a fight for control of that body.

  I do’no know if we can safely pass through, Aoleyn imparted, and then, immediately, she added, Wait.

  And she went through, and Thaddius was certain that his corporeal form back in the chapel of Appleby-in-Wilderland gasped aloud! He could not believe her courage, the fearless way in which she had just plunged through the unknown.

  It is safe, he heard in his thoughts, and still it took him a few moments to find the courage to plunge through that magical barrier.

  Then he understood, and they both knew, for before them lay Matinee, fully captured by creatures Brother Thaddius had never before seen, with faces lined bright red and bright blue. Miserable human prisoners moved about at various tasks, often shying from the hiss of giant lizards—lizards the conquerors used as mounts, as the refugees had claimed.

  Aoleyn telepathically implored him to follow her farther to the west, and only then was the scope of the invasion revealed to them—rank upon rank, legion upon legion, soldiers uncounted stretching back to the horizon. The pair traveled many more miles, soaring up and to the side of the vast, unending columns, and saw one point, one pyramid, which had been newly constructed, for it had not been there in the weeks before, when Aoleyn and the others had passed this way.

  More bright-faced soldiers exited the doors of that structure, laden with great packs. Lizard riders came out, wagons pulled by horse teams came out! Too many exited—they could not all have fit in this place! How could this be?

  A golden mirror atop the structure flashed repeatedly, to a corresponding flicker of light many miles distant.

  Aoleyn led the way to that second light, to a second pyramid set within a large village—again, newly built. In this one, lines of soldiers, cavalry, and wagons streamed into the pyramid, too many to fit.

  Teleporting, Thaddius thought, but Aoleyn seemed to not understand, and he didn’t have the time then to look deeper or to explain it.

  On they went.

  They found several more of these magical relay points, and it became clear that this great army was marching across long stretches of ground to supply points, then transporting magically to the beginning of the next march, with frightening efficiency.

  On they went, coming to a river Aoleyn knew and had ridden in her flight from her conquered homeland, and soon the mountains came into view, still far to the west.

  Surgruag Monadh, Aoleyn’s spirit told him. The Snowhaired Mountains. That was my home.

  Thaddius’s corresponding thoughts were a jumble of confusion, following the realization that he and this strange witch had just spirit-walked nearly two thousand miles!

  Before he could respond coherently, though, and even as he realized the danger of being so far away from his corporeal form and noted the exhaustion that was beginning to creep through him, both he and Aoleyn discovered something new and quite confusing.

  They were not alone here as disembodied spirits.

  We must return! a panicking Thaddius imparted.

  But Aoleyn soared away from him, flying across the river to the southwestern side, and there she froze.

  Thaddius started to follow, but here his previous fears came into play, for he felt suddenly a great compulsion, a spiritual calling, a summons that he could barely resist. Across that river went a procession of spirit-walkers. Nay, he realized to his horror, not spirit-walkers but the dead—humans and these strange conquerors alike moving slowly, inexorably, to the west.

  An image of beauty filled Thaddius’s mind, of a huge and glorious being. Glorious Gold, he thought, and he knew it to be a title, a name. He saw an obelisk, a huge crystal sticking out of the ground at an angle. He didn’t understand it, he didn’t know the godlike being standing beside it, but he knew it to be good and kind.

  It was a call to heaven.

  A wave of pure revulsion hit the monk. This was not his god. This was not the promise of St. Abelle!

  Before he could hear the coercion once more, he was back across the river, and once there he understood the deception more completely.

  But the witch …

  Thaddius flew back across the miles, his spirit traveling like a bolt of lightning back into his body in the chapel. He blinked open his eyes and stumbled from the bench, to be caught and supported by Elysant and Aydrian.

  “What did you see?” Abbot Chesterfield asked, but Thaddius had no time to answer. Not then.

  Exhaustion flooded through him. He felt more weary than he had ever known, and he took up his staff and looked at the wedstone doubtfully. He wanted to get Elysant to do this, but she had no affinity for the Ring Stones and would never be strong enough. He looked to Abbot Chesterfield, but dismissed that out of hand. The man was a bumbling fool.

  Thaddius issued a series of short gasps, then dove back into the magic of the wedstone. He left his body but did not fly off. Instead, he flew into the corporeal form of the strange woman known as Aoleyn.

  * * *

  The beauty was undeniable. She had to go to it, to touch the crystal, to give herself to this god, Scathmizzane.

  How did she know that name?

  He called to her, and his voice was like the song of life, the harmony of celestial spheres, the truth of … everything. And he was offering himself to her, calling her to his side.

  Her and thousands of others. Aoleyn and all those who had died and whose souls had not yet departed.

  Scathmizzane called them. The crystal, the God Crystal, called them, and it was too beautiful to ignore.

  Images of souls being consumed flitted about the woman’s consciousness. She had been there. She had seen the procession of the dead, coming to a feast not as guests but as the meal.

  But those memories could not break through with any force against the beauty.

  She walked along, hearing the song.

  But then it hit her, a profound violation, an unwanted intrusion that sent Aoleyn’s thoughts careering back to that terrible day with Brayth, who had been named as her husband.

  Her sensibilities jolted, insulted, the woman did not think but simply reacted instinctually and defensively.

  In mere moments, she saw a speck of light in the dark distance and she flew for it, enraged. She arrived like a thunderstorm, assailing her attacker with a wall of defiance and an undeniable cry of Get out!

  * * *

  The body of Thaddius hung limp in the grasp of Aydrian and Elysant, as if the man had simply died.

  On the bench against the wall, the form of Aoleyn, sitting cross-legged and serene, eyes closed, hands at rest on her knees, suddenly stirred, just a bit.

  “Aoleyn?” Aydrian whispered.

  The woman thrashed suddenly and sprang from her seat with such force that she pitched right over to the floor.

  Thaddius, too, shuddered violently. The pair holding him felt the spirit reentering with brutal suddenness, his eyes popping open wide as he pulled away from them and stumbled.

  Aoleyn came up to face him, murderous intent clear in her eyes.

  “Aoleyn!” Aydrian cried, jumping in between the two and grabbing the woman even as Elysant took hold of Thaddius and tugged him back.
>
  “What did you do?” Aoleyn yelled at him.

  “Sister. Friend,” Thaddius blabbered. “I did not mean … I had to … You were … You were…”

  Aoleyn calmed suddenly, took a deep breath, and moved back from Aydrian, her hands uplifted to show that she was not a threat.

  “The compulsion,” Thaddius tried to explain. “I feared that you were—”

  “I was lost,” Aoleyn admitted, and she whispered, “Scathmizzane?” She shook her head, then lifted a hand to pull her long, thick black hair back from her face. It took her a long time to steady herself, unwind the shocking bits of information here, and finally look Brother Thaddius in the eye.

  “You saved me,” she said.

  “I had to try,” he replied. “The others…”

  “Others?” Aydrian and Elysant said together.

  “The dead,” Aoleyn explained. “Scathmizzane will eat the dead.”

  “Who?” Abbot Chesterfield asked. “What is she babbling about?”

  “The end of the world,” Brother Thaddius said seriously. “They are coming.”

  “What do you know?” Chesterfield demanded.

  “Run,” answered the shaken, exhausted monk. “Run east. Ever east.”

  PART 2

  THE WAKE OF GLORIOUS GOLD

  It did not surprise me to learn that the seven tribes about the lakeshore and the one on the mountain knew not the name Cizinfozza, or that their respective religions did not in any way resemble the xoconai knowledge of the children of Cizinfozza. They all recognized a creature they called the fossa, however, and this, it seems, was the vessel of the god.

  None of them worshipped the fossa. Quite the contrary—they feared and fled from the monster.

  Rightly so.

  Those tribes on the lakes named a multitude of gods and a course through a mystical barrier to the world beyond death. The tribe on the mountain worshipped a god called Usgar, manifested in the giant crystal that carried the magical power of Tzatzini to them. That crystal, the heat it generated, was the only way they could remain on the mountain through the winter months, after all.