by H. M. Long
Our master is coming, and even the Goddess of War cannot stop them.
Rioux’s last words crept up in the back of my thoughts, forgotten amid shock, flight and fear. Eang herself, when she’d visited me after the defeat of Ashaklon, had mentioned Ashaklon was only a lesser god, a mere servant. So which God of the Old World did he and the others serve?
I swallowed tightly and scrubbed at my eyes. I had no answer for that, and no way to find one. For now, I had to think of Omaskat. I needed to find the white lake and the place where the sky bled into the mountain, and hope that somehow, his death could save my crumbling world, my people and me.
THIRTY-ONE
I came to an Algatt village at noon the next day. Worn trails in a conifer wood converged into a central road, passing hunters’ racks and a stinking, fly-ridden tanning hut before I came to the village proper.
The houses were like nothing I had ever seen. They were two-storied, built of rock and merged directly with the mountain. The ends of beams protruded a meter out from their walls, braced and stacked with V’s of wood, as they had at the shepherd’s hut. These beams supported rooves which, unlike those on Eangen homes – nearly flat and lain with sod – were built at steep angles to shed the snow.
I crept toward the nearest home. A quick survey found the bottom to be a barn and storage area – stripped clean – while the upper floor, accessed by a ladder, was for human habitation.
The floor creaked as I climbed, guided by light from small, shuttered windows. Bed racks stood at the back of the room, near the entrance of a genuine cave. The oven sat at the edge of this cave, large enough to sleep atop and with a wide, yawning mouth.
I glanced around and, noticing a hatch in the low ceiling, I opened it to a rush of light and alpine air. Sunlight poured across the worn planks and into the cave, where I spotted a water basin carved into the rock and a series of long workspaces. Rows of jars and vessels showed little sign of disturbance, though the rest of the home had been emptied of basic necessities.
I hovered beside the shaft of sunlight. This, I realized, was how the Algatt survived harsh mountain winters. With their flocks below, their oven before them and the beams of the ceiling packed with goods, the storms could berate their stone homes with minimal effect. It was, admittedly, impressive.
But the presence of so many supplies unnerved me. These Algatt had left in calculated haste, taking only what they needed for the summer. It almost looked as though they expected to come back.
I plucked at the strings of a forgotten loom with a single, muted thrum and turned about. I recognized Eangen-made cloth and barrels in the rafters, but the worst sight was a row of Eangen shields hung like trophies on the wall. One bore the two twisting whales of Addack, on the coast; another wore the Rioki’s moose antlers; another, the lynx head of East Meade, my birthplace.
I tore them down and set the one with the lynx near the stairs. I would take that with me.
The new light had also illuminated the rim of the cave. It was carved into an intricate arch with layer upon layer of stylized trees, animals and representations of Gadr. A bearskin about his shoulders, he looked up to the curve of the arch. There, mounted warriors progressed towards a great owl, perched in a forest.
I trailed a hand over the owl, momentarily lost in thought. Burgeoning hatred made my vision feel thick, like a finger drawn through oil. Algatt. Algatt had built this. Algatt had stolen my life away. Why was I standing here when I could be burning this village to the ground?
Then I heard it – a low hoot, echoing through the cave. The sound was like hearing Eidr’s voice after a battle; relief coiled with desperation and love. It was like Yske’s songs or Svala’s emphatic prayers – they drove through me, dredging up every spark of determination and will I had ever had. The sound was hope.
But though my heart responded in pure Eangi instinct, thundering against my ribs, my head remained cool. If Eang was coming to me now, I doubted it was out of kindness.
I tilted my good ear towards the sound and paused, waiting for a rustle of feathers or the voice of Eang. Neither came, but the owl hooted more insistently. She was in the cave, and I, it seemed, was to go to her.
I glanced around the house until I spotted a candle, burned so low it had been left behind. I cracked it off a polished clay platter and fumbled around the hearth with my tinderbox.
As soon as my candle was lit, I shouldered past a half-open door and into a tunnel. The owl hooted a third time. I started down a set of stairs, so worn that they bellied in the middle. The air was cool but pure and my candle flickered, lively in the draft.
The passage levelled out after a handful of steps. I slowed as more staircases joined, all coming from the right – the direction of the houses. They were all connected, back here under the skin of the mountain.
The owl’s steady hoots guided me down to what I guessed was ground level. I glimpsed a large, double door outlined with daylight, but the owl’s hoots came from the opposite direction. I walked on, following an even, well-maintained tunnel deeper into the mountain.
Except where I expected to find endless rock, I saw light, and where I expected cold, I encountered warm, humid steam. The air became sweet and heavy, prickling down into my lungs in a way that reminded me of the High Halls’ mists.
Pools covered the floor of the caves and stalactites and stalagmites had merged into pillars throughout. The steaming pools emptied out the far side, sliding into daylight over a sheet of smooth rock before merging with a pond under the summer sun.
I picked my way to the cave mouth and stared out. Brave pines clung to ledges, reaching towards a blue sky, while moss and ferns lined well-worn paths through a small forest before me. Carved, painted standing stones stood out among the trunks and layers of burnt-orange pine needles, quiet and unobtrusive.
The valley was so hidden, I wondered if it was a piece of another world – or a doorway between them. With that thought came a memory of amber and honey, coiled beneath Eang’s Fire, and I saw a division in the air among the standing stones. It was barely noticeable, like a fine crack in a clay pot, but it was there.
I had never seen such a thing before, and I doubted that, without that honeyed whisper, I would be able to see it now. The sleeping magic in my blood knew this place and that rift: a door between the High Halls and the Waking World. This must have been Gadr’s holy ground, like Oulden’s Feet and Eang’s Shrine on Mount Thyr.
An owl sat next to the door on a standing stone. She ruffled her feathers and watched me, full-moon eyes reflecting the muted forest light. And, like the door between worlds, for the first time I saw the owl for what she truly was.
She was no owl at all. She was a breath, a piece of golden, rushing life trapped in layers of feathers; a final breath of Geta, sister of Eang and Frir, whom Eang, legends said, had killed in retribution for a grave betrayal.
The owl’s gaze seemed to intensify, unblinking and fixed.
Do not let the gods see that you stole their magic.
Estavius’s warning rang through my ears – perhaps he and his own amber-tainted blood knew the dangers well. Keeping my expression calm and my steps even, I blinked the amber away, left the steam of the caves and approached the owl.
“I am listening,” I said, setting my candle atop a standing stone and taking up stance a few feet away. I dropped my small pack – little more than the blanket I’d salvaged from the herder’s hut, affixed with rope and leather strips – and added a habitual, “My goddess.”
The owl blinked once and a voice came to me.
“Hessa,” I sensed Eang, in and around the owl. “You must listen to me. There is much you must know.”
I held still.
“Esach’s child is dead, though the goddess lives.”
My mouth dried. I thought of the labouring goddess, alone in her pain, and momentarily mourned with her. But my mourning ran deeper than that – that child was the bounty of the harvest, one and the same. Their death meant t
he deaths of many Eangen in a long, hungry winter.
“She told me you were in the High Halls,” Eang’s voice held blatant warning. “Why? You are not a High Priestess, Hessa.”
“I was drugged by a priest of Lathian,” I answered, fighting to keep a flash of exasperation from my face. How could Eang not know what the priest of another god had done to me, let alone think that I’d gone to the Halls willingly?
Then again, I was a reprobate. Perhaps she shouldn’t have expected anything better from me. That thought, rather than fill me with guilt as it once had, made my heart feel stony.
“Where is that priest now?”
“I don’t know,” I replied. “Who attacked Rioux and the Archeress?”
“They fled,” Eang said, denying me an answer without admitting that she simply didn’t know. “But the gods of Ashaklon’s order are everywhere, and Ashaklon himself may soon break free again. The balance of power in the upper realms has tipped too far. You must kill Omaskat quickly.”
“Why me?” The question slipped out, charged by two months of suffering and struggle. Catching myself, I added, “Goddess… I need to understand. Please.”
I felt her anger, but it was tainted with frustration. “No one else can touch him. Not even I.”
I stared at the owl. “What?”
Eang’s voice became steadier and more deliberate, rising through me like the beat of a drum. “The Gods of the Old World are awakening, Hessa; some of the greatest forces the world has ever seen… gods I bound millennia ago, with the greatest of them at their head. But there’s something else coming, too. Two ancient forces are re-entering the world, head to head, one intent on stopping the other.”
I kept my expression flat. This sounded all too familiar.
“The Gods of the Old World are dangerous, Hessa, but they are an enemy I know. I’ve slain and bound all of them before.”
I shifted uncertainly at that. Eang had been able to bind the Gods of the Old World because of the Eangi’s worship strengthening her, anchoring her to life, and her alliance with other gods like Oulden. But Oulden and many others were dead now, as were nearly all my kind.
Eang’s next words made goosebumps race up my arms. “This other force… it is eating away the High Halls, stealing away our refuge. Did you see it? The white light in the north?”
I remembered the light that danced and swelled and had left the world below it faded. “I did.”
“It comes from a white lake, in the north. The Gods of the Old World I can fight,” Eang insisted, more to herself than to me. “But the power in this lake, so old it was nearly forgotten… it will obliterate us all. They are Omaskat’s god. That is why he must be stopped.”
Omaskat’s god. So, Omaskat truly did not serve Gadr, and he was bound for a white lake. Just as I’d seen in my vision.
“They’re one of the Four.” My conclusion came naturally, buoyed by the memory of Shanich’s ravings and Omaskat’s insistence he served a true god – or at least an older one. “Aren’t they? Deities that came before the Gods of the Old World. Thvynder and the Weaver, Eiohe and Imilidese.”
For a very, very long moment, Eang did not speak. When she did, she was resigned, sober: “Yes. I believe so. I am too young to remember. The Gods of the Old World did all that they could to extinguish memory of them… a vanity we will all suffer for, now.”
A great weight settled in my belly. However terrifying the thought of such an ancient, powerful deity was, at least I had a clearer understanding of what was going on, and why I should seek Omaskat by the white lake.
“But who they are is irrelevant right now,” Eang continued. “Fate showed me that you would stand before Omaskat in the Hall, and that you would be the one to take his life. One of my own Eangi. Human enough to pass through his unnatural defenses, yet divine enough to defeat him. That is why I sent the vision to Svala. That is why you must kill Omaskat before he can do whatever he intends to do.”
I stood there beneath the pines, mute and contemplative, until a question emerged, “Is that why my Fire dies around him? Your power cannot affect him?”
“Yes.” The reply came simply, unashamed.
My heart, already cold, chilled still more. So, Eang had not held back her Fire when I faced Omaskat, back in the Algatt camp. That had been an outright lie.
“Is Omaskat a Vestige of some kind?” I inquired tonelessly.
Even though I could not see her, I felt Eang still. “What do you know of Vestiges?”
“I know I’m yours.”
There was a fraction of silence, then Eang’s voice lowered. “Who told you that?”
“Rioux and the Archeress,” I said.
“Yes.” Eang’s response was flat. “And it is a blessing, Hessa. Do you not cherish your Eangi Fire? Do you not think it an honor to give your life for your goddess?”
My heart swelled at the same time as my mind took a cautious step back. True, Eang’s Fire was powerful, but it was also jealous, submerging the power of the High Halls and all its potential. And perhaps it was an honor to die so a goddess might live, but I knew very clearly that it was not a fate I wanted, not now. There was no gratitude in Eang, no compassion or comprehension of the loss of human life. She would use me and forget I had ever existed.
“Hessa, you must kill Omaskat.” Eang’s voice was still cold, but it softened somewhat. Perhaps she could see something of my thoughts in my face, for she added, “Do this and the High Halls will be yours. You will have a seat of your own in my Hall, and whenever you choose, you may lay yourself down next to Eidr for the long sleep. Yes, I remember him, Hessa. He was my Eangi, too. I mourn him, too.”
Her words struck me like stones, each one more painful than the last. There was regret in her voice, but it was hollow. She did not mourn Eidr, not truly.
“Hessa.” When Eang repeated my name, there was pleading in her voice. The sound reached into my heart, searching for the devotion and passion I’d once borne for my goddess. But if it found any, it was lean and wan.
“If you swear that you will acquit me, and that I will have a place with Eidr in the High Halls when I die,” I vowed, voice low, “then I will do everything in my power to kill Omaskat.”
“Good.” There was a change in Eang’s tone, as if my solemnity had surprised her. The direction of her voice shifted. “Two days north of here on the road, you will find a village the Arpa overran but did not sack. There are weapons and supplies there. But you must be cautious. Do not invite the attention of Ashaklon’s ilk. Where you can, shelter in Gadr’s temples. The echo of him will conceal you.”
I cocked my head at that. “What? Shelter in Gadr’s temples?”
“Use him, do not worship him,” Eang warned. “The God of the Mountain is not what he once was, in any case. You understand where Omaskat is going now? To the white lake?”
An eagle called from high overhead, its sharp cry bouncing from one side of the little valley to another. Eang’s owl ruffled its feathers, disgruntled by the sound, and the doorway between the worlds glinted and rippled.
I nodded, pulling my eyes from the rift. “I saw him there, in a vision. Svala told me it’s where the sky bled into the mountain.”
“You saw Svala?” Eang’s presence rushed forward, her words accusatory. “How? Where?”
I retreated a step. “In the High Hall. Ogam went to find her.”
A long hiss curled through the forest. “My son? My son has returned?”
Abruptly the owl took flight and Eang’s presence vanished. The bird plunged through the crack between worlds with a rustle of wings and a rush of heady, honeyed air.
Alone again, a knot formed in my throat. So, Eang had finally given me the answers I craved and assured me of a place in the High Halls. Yet she had also confirmed that I was her Vestige, her confidence in her ability to subdue the Gods of the Old World felt too blind, and her tone when she’d spoken of Ogam made my skin crawl. Did the goddess not trust him?
For all his fau
lts, Ogam had saved Sixnit and Vistic. He’d shown me the magic of the High Halls and given me the strength to break Quentis’s curse. It was his name that had made Rioux and the Archeress hesitate in the High Halls. Not Eang’s.
I leant against the rough bark of a tree, trying to sort my thoughts. I was a lone human in a war of the gods, a divine war that I’d never been prepared for and knew almost nothing about. But Eang didn’t expect me to think or understand; I had my charge. All I needed to do was accomplish it.
I approached the rift between worlds and eyed it for a long moment. As if in response to my presence, it widened from a crack into a shimmering, sunset divide. My last visit to the High Halls had been in spirit; I’d no idea what would happen if I stepped through it in physical form, like the owl had.
But if I was in a war of the gods, and if my goddess could not be relied upon to protect me – from others, let alone herself – then I needed to protect myself. I needed a weapon to wield when Eang’s fire failed.
“Do not let the gods see that you stole their magic.”
I waited a few more moments to ensure that the owl would not return, then took up my pack and stepped through the rift.
The world flickered. My stomach wrenched and I stumbled, reaching out to catch myself. My hand met cool stone, rough with lichen – a standing stone, in an identical valley to the one I’d just left, with the same amber crack between worlds. But it was night, and when I looked up towards the valley’s roof, I glimpsed the tell-tale division of the High Halls – the violet west, the snow-clouded south, the ominous white of the north and the rich dark of a midnight east.
A temerarious smile snatched at my lips. I’d done it. I’d passed into the High Halls, alive and whole. Now all I needed to do was gather supplies and slip back into the Waking World before anyone knew I was here.
Then I saw the mist. It surged towards me and wrapped around my ankles, rising to my waist and chest, my throat and the crown of my head like an inquisitive snake. I flinched as it pried into my nose and mouth, and down into my lungs. My heartbeat faltered and I held absolutely still, fingers poised to sketch a rune.