The Godless (23 page)

“You're old today,” he said to himself quietly. “Your head is in the past, too much time thinking about things you cannot change.”

“Old,” the haunt whispered.

Slowly, he turned to her.

“Old,” she repeated. “You are very old.”

After a moment—in which all his senses rebelled against him—he said, “So we both are. Do you remember here?”

“Yes.” The red from the ceiling mixed with her, leaving splotches of color throughout her body, wounds that would not dry. “It was the first temple in the Spine of Ger. People would travel throughout the world to it. None of the other temples were as well attended as this one, but the priests would only allow people in on the holiest of days. They were allowed to see Ger here, to see the burns that did not stop blackening, the water that poured from his mouth and the soil that ground against him and the wind. The wind that tore at him.”

Zaifyr frowned. “When was it sealed?”

“When the soldiers came.” The haunt stepped past him, her pale feet touching the water, the shadows of her falling like roots that sank deeply. “They did not care for Ger, they did not honor the people who had built a life in the caverns. Economics, greed: that was what drove their army into the mountains and began the slaughter of peaceful men and women and their children.”

“You are much too lucid to be born here,” Zaifyr said quietly. “Much too young for this war you talk of.”

The haunt stood silently over the water.

“You overplayed your hand,” he said.

Finally, the haunt of the woman who had possessed the Quor'lo whispered, “I have never before been so hungry.”

“It will only get worse.”

“I have faith.”

“You cannot see it,” he said, “but all around you are the dead, the souls of all the people who ever lived in these caves. There are so many that I cannot tell where an arm ends, where a foot begins, where the individual remains. There is no reason for faith.”

The haunt shook her head, the lines from her feet deep, but broken in the water's reflection.

“If I could help you, I would,” he admitted, his voice not yet a whisper. “I would help all the dead if I could. I would continue their journey if I knew but how.”

“I
feel
him.”

“You do.” Zaifyr ran a hand through his wet hair. “I feel Ger too, but it is simply a trick of time. We do not share the same passing of it that they did.”

“Yours are the words of the faithless,” she said.

He did not reply.

“Faithless,” she repeated, her voice rising.

Still, he did not speak.

“I can pass to him.”

“You cannot.”

“Lies!”

Turning, the haunt ran to the temple. The water showed no ripple as she leaped up, her body awash in red, a scarred, tragic figure that threw herself at the smooth wall—

—and burst across it.

Heavy of heart, the man who had left his charms in his hotel room and felt suddenly naked without them, eased himself onto the hard ground. It would take a while for the haunt to return to shape, to step from the water to the shore, and by then he would be ready to talk to her again. To draw from her what she knew about the temple. It was possible that this—the smooth shell around the building—had been put up by Ger, but Zaifyr doubted it. For the most part, the defenses of the gods were servants, immortal beings who had been created for the purpose of standing guard for eternity. By and large they were violent, held by oaths that could not be broken, longing for escape as much as they longed for entertainment, for a break in their endless service.

Mostly, Zaifyr knew, they were mad.

Like him, once.

 

8.

 

Though in hindsight it was obvious, Ayae was surprised when Bau theorized aloud that her ability to set the coal on fire and her survival in the shop were due to her loss of emotional control. She did not like what he said, nor the way he stared at the burning coal, nor how he turned the conversation to what god or element curled inside her. “Ger's wards,” he said softly, stepping back from the fire before him. “The four elements—fire, earth, wind and water—that were chained to him, that were guided by his strength, his control.”

“I don't—”

“Please, just listen,” he said. “Tell me, are you uncomfortable in this city?”

She hesitated. “You mean, am I comfortable now?”

“Not with me.” His tone held a trace of contempt, a hint, nothing more. “In general, are you uncomfortable in the city?”

“No.”

“I am,” he admitted, leaning against the wooden beam opposite her. “I feel as if something is standing beside me, trying to shape my thoughts. What I feel is Ger, the last of Ger, struggling to announce himself and to continue the war that the gods were involved in. At least, that is my belief.”

“Your belief?”

“
Our
belief, I should say.” The contempt was gone, replaced with a serious yet excited tone. “Before the fall of the Five Kingdoms, Qian wrote a book that argued the gods were not dead, but dying. The presence that we felt when around one of their corpses was allowable because time moved differently there—but while we felt that, the gods, having experienced time in a different fashion, were already dead. They could not interact with us, even if they so desired. It was very controversial among us, though the publication of it in cities for mortals to read was more of one, and a great deal of what it said went unremarked for years. It is generally considered now that Qian was right, that our ability to feel the gods in their fashion revealed a connection between them and us, an unseen cord that tied us together. Qian argued it differently, of course—he argued that the power that bled from them was undefined, random, unpredictable, but his own state of mind refused to acknowledge anything but the most unhealthy conclusion.”

“I don't feel Ger at all.” Ayae stepped away from the coal, the flames fading through no work of her own. “Maybe that means I am not what you think I am?”

“No, you are. You have fire in you, I am sure of it. But as to feeling…” He shrugged. “To be honest, I would be surprised if you could. With everything you have experienced in the last few days, and the changes you are going through, your senses are probably in overload as we speak. I know I was.”

“Maybe I'm not like you. No one ever talks about the elements bound to Ger,” she argued. “They're not even on the pyres.”

“The elements were not worshipped individually.” He glanced at the cooling coals. “They were not considered gods by most people. Some old images show that Ger had them chained, as if they were animals. I suspect that they were more than that, that they were talismans, really, a way to focus and trap the wildness of the elements. It would explain why he broke his chains upon his death, freeing them.”

“Doesn't that make me right?”

His hands fell open before him. “I don't know.”

“You don't know?”

“No.” His smile was humorless. “And neither do you.”

Over the next hour, Ayae endured Bau talking about the elements, about Ger and about what he felt in Mireea. She was increasingly aware of his verbal slights, his comments that became more personal, more direct in trying to control her emotions and make her angry. She likened it to his attempt to get her to hold a hot coal in her hand: blatant, pointless and easy to ignore. Eventually she grew tired of him. After he tried to bring Illaan up, she said, “What happened to the people working here?”

“I told them I needed it for the day,” he said.

He had known she would come back. “I think they can have it back.”

“You do?”

She met his gaze.

“Your eyes flashed,” he said, quietly. “Like they were on fire.”

The gate was warm beneath her touch, and she looked down at her boots, half expecting to see sooty footprints left in the grass.

By the time Ayae entered the overrun gardens of the Keep's courtyard, she had regained her composure, though that earlier, frightened part of her that had stared at the empty leather pack threatened to return. She quietened the urge, though, focusing instead on the fact that she had walked away, that she could be in control, and the fact that he knew nothing. It was becoming clear that she would never get simple answers from Bau. To a degree, he was making it up as he went along, throwing out ideas to see what would stick. Bau would not be able to help her any more than Lady Wagan and Reila had been able to help Jaerc's brother.

There was only one person who could help her.

 

9.

 

Zaifyr was dry by the time the haunt rose from the water. With her gaze upon him, she drew closer, the splotches of red throughout her shrinking, diminishing to tiny points. “What is your name?” he said to her.

“What happened to me?” the haunt asked, instead.

He did not reply.

“Tell me,” she insisted.

For a moment he was silent, uncomfortable. He could not reply. He could stand and leave. It would be what Jae'le would want. It would— “You cannot leave here. This is where you died—where the Quor'lo died. Before today, I might have said that you would be where your body lay, but I would have been wrong. Your soul died here. This is where you will remain until the world is no more. As to what happened to you when you hit that wall?” He shrugged. “You can't pass through walls.”

“I'm cold,” she whispered.

“I know.”

“I'm hungry.”

She was not fully restored. It would take days, not hours, for every part of herself to thread back into her soul. It was as if parts of her immortal being was seeking a way to pass on to another existence, to find what the gods had promised at the creation of the world. “What is your name?” he asked.

The haunt hesitated, a troubled look stealing across her face. “Oyia,” she said finally.

Zaifyr had thought that her appearance would change as she pulled herself together, that the modest, dated dress she wore would disappear. His cynicism prompted an image of wealth, of a modernity that opposed the ideals of equality and humility that he knew priests spoke of with a rhetorical joy. He found instead that the dress remained reminiscent of an older culture, that its simple cut and modest angles were a truth.

“I feel as if I should not have said that,” the haunt said, her voice confused with regret. “My name is power to the likes of you.”

“It is.” His fingers touched the skin beneath his wrist, seeking out the absent charm as he reached out for her, not physically, but with a touch that, while unseen, was still tangible. Oyia would feel the weight in her mind, as if a solid object had pressed against her skull and was looking into her following the trail of memories back to her origins.

At first, he saw a room no larger than a cell: a bed stood along the left side with a table to the right. A basin of water sat on it, books next to it.

Applying pressure took him outside the room. A long hallway greeted him, rooms lining both sides. The doors made from white ash wood. Inside, the spartan living standards of the first room were repeated and men and women, each wearing simple robes of brown, were within. They knelt, stood, prayed, their faces turned away from the door and hidden from him. Zaifyr did not push against her resolve.

Yet, the stone hallway felt like it never ended and Zaifyr briefly considered turning around, returning to the rooms he had passed. But a sense of anticipation had begun to fill him, the emotion drawn from the haunt. He had loosened his pressure and she was lost in her memories, unaware that he was there, unaware that he felt not just her love but her respect for the person who stood in a long, high-roofed auditorium, surrounded by rows of benches.

A man. A single man, militarily attired.

He wore not leather, nor chain, but a uniform of white and red, the former color dominating while the latter ran in lines down the chest and connected to a long, flowing cloak. A peace knot was looped around the long sword at his side. He wore the weapon uneasily, as if he were unaccustomed to its weight. His bearing, the way his hands clasped behind his back and the tilt of his head, spoke neither of a military background nor a religious one. Yet he commanded the kind of respect that Zaifyr had connected with leaders, with kings and generals—but even as he thought that, he realized that while the man was respected he was not the object of love that Zaifyr had felt upon entering the room.

The true object of the haunt's love lay behind him, in a small room made from brick and empty of anything else.

A child. A girl, no older than seven.

She was pale-haired and pale-skinned and wore a robe of purest white. Her eyes were green, like his, but they held nothing of importance, nothing to suggest that the child was anything more than that—until she lifted her gaze and met his.

Zaifyr blinked.

In front of him, the haunt whispered, “Cold.”

There was a chill in him as well, born from what he had seen, what he had done. From the recognition that both, he knew, would have to be confessed to his brother.

“Can you…” She hesitated. “Can you stop the cold?”

“No,” he lied.

 

10.

 

After Bueralan organized for Elar's ashes to be shipped back to his children—he could not bear to send them his body—the job took another two months. As the morning's sun rose nearly five months after Bueralan had first ridden across the border, Dark rode out of Ille, leaving one hundred and twenty-three men and women to be executed, their pound of flesh bitter black.

Deanic had not ridden to the coast with them. He had parted from them two days after they left Ille, and the rest headed, tired and broke, to the small town of Asli. There, they would spend a single night in a cheap inn before finding a ship to take them to Yeflam. After that, they would ride up to Mireea, where the work offered by Captain Heast waited. The job had come in the final days of the revolution against Lord Alden and there was no mention of his cousin in the short note, but Bueralan had not expected there to be: Heast's letter alone said that he knew.