The Last Goddess

by C.E. Stalbaum

  ***

   

  Selaste scowled at the old man. “You better explain that.”

  “I plan to, but for now…” Bale gestured with his head, and the monks standing near him dropped into combat stances. “We have an imposter to deal with.”

  “Hold on a minute,” Rook said, stepping protectively in front of her and putting his hand on his holster. “We came here for your help, not to fight you.”

  “I know, and as I said, I plan on explaining everything to you,” Bale replied. “But you have been deceived, Mr. Rook. Whoever placed her in your path intends us both harm.”

  “Maybe,” Rook admitted, his eyes flicking to Tiel. The young monk looked horrified; the color had completely drained from his face. “But even if that’s true, then she is as much a victim here as anyone. She doesn’t remember anything.”

  Bale grunted and shifted his eyes back to Selaste. “Is that so? How very convenient for you.”

  “Convenient?” she hissed, pushing Rook out of her way. “I can’t even remember my own name!”

   “You could simply be a practiced liar,” Bale said, “but I imagine Rook here is quite adept at spotting those. Regardless, the question remains the same: who was it that put you in that coffin, and what did they hope to gain by it?”

  “That’s why we wanted your help,” Rynne told him. “We figured the experts on the Kirshal might know a spell to reverse the memory loss.”

  Bale’s eyes narrowed. “Possibly. Magic can both remove and suppress memories depending upon the skill and intent of the weaver. The latter can be lifted with relative ease, but if the memories are simply gone...well, there may be no way to restore them.”

  “Then we need your help,” Rook repeated, “but right now I’d appreciate it if you would back down. None of us have any interest in fighting.”

  Bale’s face remained cold for a long moment, and his eyes glimmered as he studied each of them in turn. Finally he gestured again to his followers, and they visibly relaxed. “My apologies, then. You’ll have to forgive us for being cautious. We have many enemies, and they are willing to go to great lengths to see us destroyed.”

  Rook nodded as he stepped up behind Selaste, placing a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “I understand that. I just need you to recognize that no matter who or what you think this woman is, she’s under my protection. If your people try anything, you’ll have to deal with all of us.”

  Rynne scoffed. “I’d be more worried about having to deal with her. Trust me: you don’t want to make her angry.”

  “No doubt,” Bale murmured, glancing to Selaste again. Something flickered across his face—recognition, perhaps? But then it was gone, and he turned back to Rook. “Please, come inside. We have many things to discuss, and I imagine you are weary from your travels. My men can take your horses to our stable in back and place your additional belongings in the quarters we have prepared for you.”

  “Thank you,” Rook said with a half bow. “Lead the way.”

  The old man turned and walked down towards the monastery entrance. Rook and the others fell in step behind him and handed their mounts over to the monks.

  Selaste, for her part, stood in place and tried to soothe the rage bubbling in her veins. She didn’t understand why she was angry in the first place. She had never wanted to be the Kirshal anyway, so if Bale was telling the truth, then wasn’t that good news? It should have been, but for some reason it made her feel…weak. It meant that instead of being this all-powerful Messiah, she was just a hapless woman who had lost her mind. It meant she was a victim.

  And that thought, more than anything else, made her blood boil.

  She eventually sighed and stepped forward to catch up with the others. Tiel’s face had yet to regain its color, and Van leaned over and clapped a hand on the younger man’s back.

  “Quite a welcome, kid. Any other surprises you want to tell us about?”

  “I…I had no idea,” Tiel muttered, shaking his head. “I’m sorry.”

  Van grunted but remained silent. Rynne tossed the monk a sympathetic glance, but Rook’s eyes didn’t leave Bale until they headed inside the monastery.

  Considering the building was stuck in the middle of a thick forest, it was in good shape. The stone walls were reasonably new and well-kept, and the decorations, mostly tapestries and statues, were impressive even if Selaste didn’t recognize the symbols or figures they represented. The building was quiet and well lit—the perfect place for study and meditation. 

  More importantly, however, she could feel the magic crackling in the air around them. Its power seeped through the very cracks in the walls, and it wrapped around the monastery like an invisible, protective blanket. She wondered idly how many of the monks were true magi. It must have taken a great deal of effort to conceal the monastery from view and maintain it in such a harsh place.

  “We don’t have much in the way of possessions,” Bale lamented as they walked down a long corridor, “but we do maintain the accumulated knowledge of our brethren over the past millennium. Most of our time is spent either reading or training.”

  “Tiel showed off some impressive skills,” Rook commented. “I assume he learned them here.”

  “All Edehans are peaceful by nature, but we believe that a strong body nurtures a strong mind.”

  Rook nodded. They passed what appeared to be a collective mess hall, and a few monks busily prepared a meal. Most of the other rooms appeared to be private quarters, storage areas, or small studies.

  They eventually reached a wide intersection where the monastery split off into several smaller corridors and passages. A finely cut statue of a lithe woman holding a snarling feline crowned a gorgeous fountain at the center of the junction.

  “Is that an original?” Rynne asked breathlessly.

  Bale nodded, the pride obvious in his smile. “Rethulo’s ‘The Goddess Eternal,’ sculpted in 187. It was given to us just before the Ebarans marched on Sandratha a century ago. The Emperor at the time believed Darenthi was doomed, and he wished for their most precious cultural relics to be preserved.”

  “Then the Balorites built the Faceless and the Darenthi ended up winning the war,” Rynne murmured. “Still, it’s probably good they got it out of there. Once the Balorites seized power in the Senate they might have destroyed any remaining Edehan treasures, even if they were Darenthi in origin.”

  “Very likely,” Bale agreed. “There’s a room just over here we can use to talk.”

  He led them into a small rectangular room with a table and chairs around it. Most of the others sat down, but Van remained standing and leaned against the wall, arms folded defiantly across his chest. Selaste decided to follow his lead and do the same on the opposite side. Right now she just didn’t feel like sitting. 

  “I’m sure you have many questions, and I’ll do what I can to answer them,” Bale said. “In the meantime, we’re preparing a late dinner for you. It should be ready in an hour or so.”

  “Thank you,” Rook replied. “It smells good.”

  “You said the Kirshal was dead,” Selaste prompted. “I think you better start there.”

  “It’s difficult to accept, I know,” Bale murmured, favoring Tiel with an apologetic glance. “Many of the Kirshane still deny it. Others lost faith and abandoned the order because of it. There are few of us left. Tiel, I’m afraid, wasn’t quite old enough to be given the entire story, so I hope you’ll forgive him for his unwitting deception.”

  Rynne glanced to Tiel, then back to Bale. “So you lie to your apprentices?”

  “It’s…complicated,” the old man said. “You see, we weren’t expecting to find her, not really. The Kirshane had been waiting for her return for a thousand years, and I’m not sure anyone truly believed she would be discovered on their watch.” He paused and cleared his throat. “I certainly didn’t, but then it happened. It was during the last war after the battle at Negrai about a hundred miles southeast of here. The Darenthi had b
een laying siege to the Ebaran garrison for almost a month when they finally grew impatient and attacked. Reports say nearly a thousand magi participated in the battle, and the results were expectedly….catastrophic.”

  “The garrison was completely destroyed,” Rook added. “Most of the Darenthi forces died too.”

  Bale nodded. “Publically, the Republic considered it a victory, of course, but they had nothing to show for it. We swept in quietly to assist any survivors once the main battle was over. We have no particular love for the Darenthi or Ebaran governments, but our faith compelled us to help those who were suffering. We found many wounded, but the battle had also unearthed a very ancient ruin beneath the garrison itself. We investigated…and that’s when we found her.”

  Rook frowned as he idly stroked his beard. “I never heard anything about that.”

  “Both your governments abandoned the battlefield,” Bale said with obvious contempt. “Neither bothered sending even a token force to check on their wounded. Other than scavengers, our efforts were completely uncontested. We found a coffin amidst the ruins, and she was inside.”

  The old man leaned back, his eyes glazing over. “You have to understand that it wasn’t at all what we expected. She was asleep, just as the scriptures said, but everything else was different. No markings, no ceremonial vestments—and she was so very normal many of us had trouble believing.”

  “You woke her up?” Selaste asked. “She remembered everything?”

  Bale eyed her curiously for a moment before nodding. “We brought her here and performed the waking ritual, just as it had been described in the scriptures. It broke the spell, but what she told us was…” He paused and his lip twitched. “Unsettling.”

  Rook’s eyes narrowed fractionally. Selaste could tell he wasn’t sure if he believed the Kirshane Master or not, but he was willing to humor him—at least for the moment. Tiel’s face, by contrast, was still pale and his mouth was even more agape than before. For the first time since they met, Selaste felt a twinge of pity for him. It seemed like they had both been lied to—and used.

  “It was clear that she was indeed the Kirshal,” Bale continued. “She just wasn’t precisely what we had all been hoping for. She had no miraculous power or insight into the Fane—she couldn’t even weave the simplest of spells. The world she spoke of was not the same as the one we had read about as children. She described her people as petty, bickering fools sharply divided by politics. She was almost amused by the legends we told her.”

  “What about Septuria?” Rynne asked. “What about the gods and their immortal servants?”

  Bale shook his head. “There was no Septuria—at least, not as we have come to know it. How the myth emerged in the first place I have no idea, but the actual city was merely the capital of a vast empire that stretched across Esharia and even beyond. And the gods…” He grunted and closed his eyes. “The gods were no more real to them than they are to us.”

  “That’s impossible,” Rynne growled, her face flushing. “Then how could she have survived that long? Who sent her in the first place?”

  “You misunderstand,” Bale said. “She believed in the gods as strongly as any of us. It was the Edehan priesthood that sealed her away so she could survive the Sundering, after all. She merely pointed out that the gods played no more of a role in her people’s day-to-day lives than they do in our time. A few believed then as more do now—that the gods were a concoction of scared and terrified mortals trying to explain the world around them. But while she pitied the faithless, she feared the disciples of Abalor.”

  “Edehan legend claims that Abalor betrayed Edeh, destroying Septuria and unwittingly imprisoning the gods in the Fane,” Rook replied. “What did she say?”

  “Her tale was similar. She blamed Abalor’s followers for the conflagration that was consuming Septuria, but she recognized the Edehans weren’t blameless themselves. It is an old story, undoubtedly told many times through the ages in one form or another. The factions became so utterly polarized that reason was the first casualty in their struggle.”

  The old man sighed wearily. “The Edehans believed, as we do now, that the Fane was a precious gift from the goddess, to be woven with responsibility and temperance. The Balorites believed in absolute freedom, that any with the power to weave its energies should do so without hesitation. When civil war finally struck the capital, she said they released a terrible spell unlike anything they had seen before. It wounded and tore at the Fane itself; I imagine that event is what we call the Sundering. Waves of death washed over the empire and left huge swaths of land completely barren. Tens of thousands died, and that was when the priesthood chose her to be their warning to the future.”

   “They didn’t think the war was over, then,” Rook reasoned. “They assumed they would all be wiped out.”

  Bale nodded. “As you might imagine, many in our order found this difficult to accept. Some became violently angry, while others simply thought her a fraud. A few even tried to harm her…” He swallowed heavily and his eyes shifted to Rook. “Eventually a handful of us accepted her for what she was, and we vowed to continue the traditions of the Kirshane. We set up this new monastery as much to hide from the others as from the Balorites. A few acolytes continued to join us over the years, and once they were ready we eventually revealed the truth to them.”

  “How nice of you,” Van replied snidely. “Let the kids believe they’re out to save the world and then hit them with a ‘oops, sorry, you’re too late’ after they’ve wasted years of their lives.”

  Bale scoffed. “Hardly a waste. We are an order of healers and teachers, and we have done more good over the years than most people realize.”

  “So what happened to the Kirshal?” Rook asked. “You said she was dead.”

  Bale’s eyes glimmered briefly, but then he took a deep breath and blinked it away. “She spent some time with us here, of course. I don’t think she actually expected to survive, and I can’t say I blame her. The very notion of sleeping through history, as it were…it’s ridiculous, really.” He grunted softly and shook his head. “It eventually became clear she wasn’t going to be content with a cloistered life in a monastery. She had just survived the impossible, and she wasn’t interested in wasting her youth around a bunch of dusty old monks.”

  Selaste glared at him. “She escaped, didn’t she?”

  “No,” Bale said. “She might have, had we attempted to keep her here, but as difficult as it was for us to cope with the idea of the Kirshal leading a normal life…well, we had no right to stop her. So she left.”

  “Where?” Rynne asked.

  “Ebara. Not so far from here, actually. I kept an eye on her, of course, and she occasionally returned to speak with us.” He sighed and again his face seemed to tighten. “She died a few years later, murdered by bandits. To think, the Kirshal struck down by petty criminals…”

  Selaste ground her teeth together. He was definitely lying about something, but she wasn’t sure which part. He seemed deflated enough, which was fitting for a man whose entire life’s work had been devalued so thoroughly, but she was certain there was more to it.

   “That’s very…difficult to believe,” Rynne said softly after a few moments. “How has no one else heard of this? What about those that left the Kirshane?”

  “Who would they tell?” Bale asked. “And more importantly, who would believe them? You’re a performer by trade—certainly you understand the power of perception. People believe what they want to believe and see what they want to see. To them, the Kirshal represents the hope of eternal salvation. They won’t give that up easily. The exiles have no evidence or proof of anything, either. Besides, they were so disheartened I can’t imagine they would even speak of it again.”

  “Assuming for the moment everything you’ve told us is true, that still leaves some important questions about what to do right now,” Rook said. “You think Selaste is an imposter, which would mean someone put her in that coffin and concoct
ed this ruse for a reason. I’m also assuming they’re responsible for taking her memories.”

  Bale nodded, his eyes fixing upon her. “No doubt. The question is what they hope to gain from it.”

  “Prince Kastrius is the one who initiated the expedition that found her in the first place,” Rynne said. “He’s also the one who has been hounding us trying to get her back.”

  “We’re not completely positive on that last part,” Rook added, “but it does fit all the facts. We’ve been attacked twice by Faceless and Darenthi soldiers.”

  “You must be incredibly resourceful to have made it this far, then.”

  “Tiel was a big help,” Rook said. His eyes flicked briefly to Selaste, but she noted he didn’t mention anything about her powers. “We haven’t seen them since we crossed the Wall, but it’s possible they could be following us.”

  “My people scout the surrounding area daily, and as you noticed, the Highland Forest is not exactly the most welcoming territory. Without a guide, they would be hard-pressed to find their way back out, let alone stumble across us. We have been safely concealed here for almost a decade now.”

  Rook nodded. “Of course. Hopefully if it was the prince, he’s given up by now. It’s also possible he’s not the only one involved. He could have fallen for this ruse just like the rest of us. There are dozens of factions within Haven with the resources to pull this off, but I’m not sure how many would have the gall to try.”

  “The prince was always my first suspect, in fact,” Bale mused. “The prodigal son who seeks his mother’s throne…if he found the Kirshal—and more importantly, if he could control her—then the Balorites would almost assuredly reclaim power in the Senate. I’ve no doubt he could also use the political momentum to defeat the Empress’s new treaty.”

  “Good to see you keeping up with current events all the way out here,” Van grumbled.

  “That’s one of the reasons I had Tiel in the city,” Bale explained. “In any event, we have plenty of time for speculation. I’m sure you’re weary from your journey, and I can have someone show you to your quarters and draw you a bath before dinner. In the meantime, I will get to work on seeing if I can find a way to help with your memory.”

  Selaste eyed him for a long moment before nodding faintly. “Thank you.”

  Bale stood. “If you have any questions or need anything, don’t hesitate to ask me or anyone else. I’ll have Tiel check up on you after dinner.”

  “Very well,” Rook said, his eyes flicking to each of the others in turn. “I’m sure we could all stand to clean up a bit.”

  “Definitely,” Rynne replied. “A real dinner sounds good, too. Even Van will agree with that.”

  “Yeah,” the big man murmured, his face hard as stone. “Sure.”