The Dread Goddess--Book of Icons--Volume Two

by Jillian Kuhlmann

  “I’d say you’re right on time.”

  A strange, brutal voice and an explosion of pain at the back of my skull eclipsed any further thought.

  Chapter Nine

  I woke with a start. Coarse cloth covered my face, knotted at my throat, and I felt suffocated by my own breath. Sweat pooled above my brow, threatening to blind me, and I strained against bindings on my legs and arms. I reached for Theba’s strength, but she was elusive, and I found only weariness instead. My head was throbbing, and I was for an instant grateful to be blinded by the cloth; the glare of the sun might’ve caused me to pass out again from the pain.

  It was very quiet. I felt unyielding soil beneath me, so perhaps I was in a tent or dwelling. I tried to sense anyone nearby, but my thoughts were scrambled, as though someone had taken a hold of my head and shaken it violently. Would they be back to finish what they’d started? Would I die as helpless as the babes who had preceded me?

  “Where is she?”

  The sound of heavy canvas flapping followed the muffled voice, a rich tenor I was sure I recognized. But it had none of the youthful whine I remembered. It couldn’t be.

  “Eiren? Where did you find her? What possessed you to leave her like this?”

  “We couldn’t be sure…”

  The bag was pulled off my head and the shock of cooler air, quickly deepening to a dry, familiar heat, left me blinking dumbly for a few seconds. I gasped, squeezing my eyes against the shock of light until the pain in my head subsided slightly. My wits returned slowly, but the face that confronted me was as incongruous as the voice. The narrow chin was decorated with a hastily trimmed beard, the frenzied dark eyes grown darker in their determination.

  “Eiren,” Jurnus whispered, unable to take his eyes from my face, not even to tend to my still-bound hands and feet. “You’ve changed.”

  He had no idea how much.

  “So have you, brother.”

  I shuffled, trying to hold my hands up so that he could see that I was still bound, but his men had done a very thorough job. Still, the gesture was enough, and Jurnus’s eyes snapped to my bonds. In an instant he was cutting me free, and a young man in piecemeal armor, looking sheepish, was doing the same. We were in a low structure, stone and rotted beams with a length of filthy canvas rigged up for cover. I didn’t see Gannet.

  “What were you doing out here? How did you escape?”

  For once I was spared unraveling every thought that populated his mind, the scenarios he imagined, his frenzied heart. My head hurt too much. I focused instead on his voice, the restraint I could observe in his dealings with the others who crowded into the makeshift tent. They were all armored and carrying weapons and so was he, I noted with surprise.

  “Why aren’t you in Jarl? How did you come to be in Re’Kether?”

  “This is the only place the Ambarians fear to tread. They won’t pursue us here, and so here we are. Fighting back, Ren. Finally.” His smile was wolfish, and I had seen that look before. He’d worn it when play fighting, and I had seen its twin on the faces of the heretics in the opera house in Jhosch.

  “Where is my companion? The man who was with me?” I asked, my voice gravely quiet. Jurnus’s expression darkened, and I liked that look even less. “The Ambarian? I remember him, you know. He was with the ones who took you.”

  “Where is he, Jurnus? Tell me now.”

  The strength Theba had denied me a moment before pressed forward with each word, the power to command him flooding my voice and my veins. My brother took a step back.

  “Bound, as you were. They brought you to me here, as soon as they guessed who you might be. Why do you care?”

  But I was pushing past him already, reaching out for Gannet’s mind even as my eyes fought to scan our surroundings.

  Jurnus grabbed my arm and pulled me to the ground, hard enough that my knees struck painfully against the stone.

  “Get down,” he hissed, and then he was yanking me back into the shadows of the tent. The soldiers with him hung back, uncertain, as Jurnus spun me to face him, eyes blazing with anger and confusion. “The Ambarians fear occupying the city, but they lay siege on all sides. Occasionally, there are some in their patrols who are bold enough to strike within the ruined walls. You will expose us.”

  I took a steadying breath, closing my eyes briefly against my panic and the pain.

  “I need you to take me to Gannet, the man you captured with me. And I need you to take me somewhere we can speak freely.”

  “What’s going on, Eiren?”

  “I will only tell this story once,” I insisted, my words made heavy with power once more. I could feel him fighting back against the compulsion, his memories of a gentle, pliable sister at war with the creature who commanded him now. “And I’m sure you’re not alone here. Mother and father, our sisters? Take me to them, after I have seen you free Gannet.”

  I thought he might resist, that the little pressure I had applied would not be enough. But he relented, stuffing the bonds he’d loosened from my limbs into a pack that he threw over his shoulders. He jerked his head at the others in the shelter, and they gathered their own things quietly, expertly, collapsing the canvas only once we were all ready to slip out from underneath it. One of them even hung back to sweep a cloak over the tracks we made in the sand, obscuring our passage. Perhaps the bulk of the Ambarian force would not enter the city, but clearly there were enough skirmishes to warrant such care.

  We hurried along a debris-strewn alley, not so fast that we made significant commotion, but fast enough, without speaking. We kept a low enough profile that I couldn’t even determine if we were going in the direction of the mammoth structure I had seen outside the bathhouse earlier, though I caught glimpses of it in between intact buildings. I hoped that none of those under Jurnus’s command took liberties with their prisoners, and that Gannet would have only a headache to worry over, as I did.

  My dark imaginings drove my heart into my throat before we reached a dark, squat structure. Jurnus put out a hand and his soldiers instantly ceased moving. I thought they would have stopped breathing for him, if they could have. From Jurnus’s lips issued a low whistle, the perfect imitation of the carrion birds that haunt the sands, and after a tense moment, the sound was repeated back to us, and he led the way within the ruin.

  They must’ve used this place for sanctuary before, since the floors were swept and the arched windows imperfectly blockaded with stone. Still, I was not at my ease and drew back like a viper ready to strike when I saw Gannet slumped against a far wall, face bloodied. Jurnus was quicker to reason than I was, though.

  “Untie him and wake him, if you can.”

  I didn’t wait for the order to be followed, spying a water bladder abandoned on the floor and snatching it up, crossing to press the spout to his lips. One of Jurnus’s soldiers, a young woman who could not have been more than ten and five years old, bent to loosen the ties from his ankles and knees. Up close, the wounds seemed superficial, likely the result of not having been taken by surprise, as I had been, and being rather more difficult to subdue.

  Gannet, I’m here.

  My touch was feather light on his cheek and mind both, and his eyelids fluttered. I sensed his pain but could do nothing about it. I blotted at a cut above his brow with the hem of my skirt, traced a thumb over the edge of the mask where it had dried.

  “We tried to take it off when we thought he’d passed out,” the girl murmured, catching my eye when she moved to unbind his wrists. “He wouldn’t let us.”

  “He doesn’t have to be conscious to be stubborn,” I said, allowing myself to feel a moment’s relief. Still I felt the growing concern of my brother’s attention on my back, and I turned to look at him.

  “He’s a friend. We came here together. You don’t have to be afraid of him.”

  “I’m not afraid.”

  And he wasn’t, not of Gannet. The fear in his eyes had a great deal more to do with me.

  I looked away from h
im, meeting Gannet’s eyes instead, which were now open and unreadable. He rubbed his wrists where they had been bound.

  Stubborn?

  I suppressed a smile, rising and brushing sand from my skirt.

  “Gannet, this is my brother, Jurnus.” I gestured between the two men as though they might exchange pleasantries but knowing instinctively that they would not. “He and his soldiers have escorted us some distance into the city. There is an Ambarian force laying siege to Re’Kether.”

  “And more on the way,” Jurnus said roughly, not looking at either of us. “Our scouts report several thousand moving in from the north. They should be here within days.”

  “Days?” I nearly choked on the exclamation, barely keeping my voice just above a whisper. “That’s impossible. The fire—it’s been less than two weeks since I left Jhosch.”

  Jurnus studied me, dubious. “We’ve had intelligence on their movements for almost as long but nothing on a solitary pair of travelers from that direction. Unless you sprouted wings and flew in, you couldn’t have covered the distance in that time.”

  I looked at Gannet, whose own eyes were cast down, calculating.

  “It seems we’ve arrived where we meant to be, but not when,” he said softly. I could’ve cursed.

  “There’s still time. There must be. Take us to mother and father,” I said, thinking better of the demand the moment I’d made it. “Please.”

  “I told you that we’re fighting back,” Jurnus muttered, making a poor attempt to maintain his composure. “Dozens of the loyal are smuggled within the ruins each week, and hundreds riot in Jarl.”

  Hundreds. Jurnus believed he could combat the fanaticism of the Ambarians with only hundreds to command. The dull throb of guilt joined my heart in beating. If I’d only better phrased my wish of the kr’oumae, if I’d found another way…

  But we could still win, if we could find what the imposter’s forces sought before they had the chance to storm the city. I assumed they would have none of the qualms about entering the city that the occupying force possessed, or was at least not willing to count on it.

  We exited the building in a line, keeping low. The soldiers spread out as soon as we were some distance from the sanctuary, nearly invisible in their pale clothes and sand-scrubbed armor under the blaze of the midday sun. We were in what I imagined must have been an open-air market, with little rubble for cover. The ruins here crackled with an energy I recognized—and feared. The city grew around us, a living thing. Though in ruins, the presence of my people here, alive and emboldened with a revolutionary spirit, seemed to resurrect the crumbled foundations, the broken facades, the centuries-still figures in the fountains. Though their features had been all but rubbed away by sand and time, they seemed to dance out of the corners of my eyes, the phantom laughter of water that no longer played at their feet in my ears. My vision blurred.

  “Wait here,” Jurnus hissed, the words for my benefit and Gannet’s, as his soldiers were stilled by a slight gesture of his hand. They were trained well.

  We had moved into a square that must once have been very grand, and Jurnus’s posture remained tense, his eyes fixed on a point ahead, where no doubt he waited for some signal.

  He didn’t elaborate on the command, and I didn’t ask. I felt myself drifting, surprised that my feet were still solid enough to carry me into the square. I looked around, attempting to fix myself in time. The stonework boasted elaborate mosaics of animals both real and imagined, the tiles faded, though they once had been vibrant with nameless colors. Great beds for trees and flowers had been flooded with sand, but I could see how they had once wound in circles toward the fountain at the center. There, six unnaturally lean figures with the tails of fish joined hands, their stone faces immutable, smoothed with age. The real thing had been far more frightening. I felt dizzy, without anchor.

  “Do you remember the fish-finned girl?” I was asking everyone and no one, drifting toward the fountain like a scrap of cloth on the breeze and as difficult to pin, for Jurnus reached out and failed to secure me. Was it Theba’s touch I felt, cool as a ghost against what skin I bared to the sun?

  I stopped before the fountain, transfixed. Minute bronze fittings were set into the faces of the figures, spouts where their mouths once had been. There was no water now, but I could see how it had been, the streams arching and intersecting in wild patterns.

  “Her mother didn’t like the feel of the babe’s webbed hands against her breast and demanded that her husband dump the infant in the well. He couldn’t do it,” I whispered softly, madly, seeing again the multi-lidded eyes of the kr’oumae. They had called me sister. “He put her in the sea instead.”

  As I spoke, I reached out and touched the fountain’s edge. It might once have been painted, too, for the faintest coral blush was visible on the stone. In the same instant, Jurnus had crossed to me, pulling me down into the shadow cast by the ancient sirens realized in stone. His hand on my arm was like a shackle.

  “What is wrong with you, Eiren?” Jurnus hissed. “Did they hurt you?”

  “No. I hurt them.”

  Jurnus couldn’t respond, because in that instant we were interrupted by a shout. And I felt them all. My mother and father. My sisters, Anise, Esbat, Lista. I felt all of them keenly and Jurnus, too, a dark edge to their delight in seeing me, wondering why, and how, and at what cost.

  How could I even begin to tell?

  But with the return of my senses came something else, too. They descended upon me but the colors of their simple clothes, so unlike the faded finery we had worn in the desert, began to blur and change. As I had imagined it, the fountain began to spew forth bright, cool water, splashing playfully onto the now immaculately kept square. The stones were newly dusted, and I saw my feet on them, bare, with delicate rings on each toe, not booted as they had been. Jurnus was gone. Gannet was gone. Where my family had been, courtiers gathered, gossiping, fringed scarves drawn across their faces or beaded low on their brows. The air was sweet and deliciously mild in my lungs, and as I looked around, expecting more figures, I saw instead the trees, pruned to shapes nature alone would not have crafted, casting shadows like embracing lovers on the ground. There was such beauty, such mundane peace, that I could have wept for the comfort of it.

  I anticipated Theba at any moment, already sure that no matter how lovely, this could only be one of her tricks. But she wasn’t there, not in any form that I could feel, and the courtiers paid me no attention, not even glancing my way. Was I here in body and mind? Was my family now holding my lifeless, dozing form, or had they seen me vanish before their eyes?

  I felt safe, at peace. I had the distinct feeling that leaving the square would not take me away from this, whatever it was. It felt real, as real as any mad thing I had experienced of late. This was like the test the icons had administered to me in Jhosch, though there was no cup of doctored wine to blame for this vision.

  I sat down on the fountain’s edge, the pearlescent rose of the stone catching and reflecting the sun’s light in every droplet of water that splashed and slid down the rounded edge. The water frothed so that in places a fine mist hung in the air, and I leaned my face forward into it, closing my eyes and feeling the dew settle in the humid folds about my eyes and nose. I wore a loose, flimsy gown that parted above my breasts and below my hips, and when the mist touched my skin, I felt chilled as though I had been tickled.

  “Why do you smile?”

  I started, and for a moment, wasn’t sure who was talking. The courtiers hadn’t moved, whispering still to each other behind the delicate silk of their scarves, and there was no one else in the square. There was a little splash, and this one didn’t spout from the stone sirens’ mouths. I looked down, and darting in the fountain were a trio of fish, their scales shining in one instant red, in the next, green, and so on through a whole host of colors in the moment it took me to note that one had his lips poised just above the water, a slight puckering as he repeated his question.


  “Why do you smile?”

  I didn’t think Theba was likely to take the form of a fish. It was condescension enough for her to assume human shape. Besides, there was nothing about the creature that felt of her darkness, her temptation. He made me think of a different mythology altogether, of the story of Jemae as a young woman with her fierce moods. It had been the story I had told my first night among the icons in Jhosch, at Jaken’s request.

  Jaken, who along with so many others, was now dead because of me.

  “Because it is peaceful here,” I replied, but I wasn’t smiling anymore. The fish whipped his tail and a fan of water soaked my skirt. The water was cold despite the sun that warmed it, and my flesh pimpled beneath the sodden fabric. It was so real, the fountain, the light, the layered, hushed voices of the courtiers, that I had no room to feel anything for long that wasn’t wonder.

  “And you crave peace,” the fish observed, he and his brothers and sister parting to create a reflective space between them, still as glass. I bent reflexively to see myself, but the world trembled and turned on its side, the horizon slipping like a silk hem, the city’s architecture a ragged edge of embroidery.

  Only, it hadn’t. I’d fallen, and even as I reached for the fountain’s edge to pull myself up again, arms were hooking under my arms, and there was grit under my nails. The shouts I had heard were turned to screams, the grunt and breath of battle, the clang of weapons. There was no sheen to the fountain, nothing but an empty, sandy basin where the cool water and the fish had been. My mother’s concerned eyes bored into mine, but she didn’t speak. My father was at her side, my sisters behind him, and towering behind were several heavily armored guards, urging us away from a fight I could hear but not see. My lips parted, but no words came out.

  “Get them out of here.”

  It was my brother, sword flashing as he gave the order. The clang of weapons echoed in my ears, and I heard Theba’s laughter in each skirmishing blow, chiming like funeral bells. I had brought her here, to my family. We were in this war now together.