The Godless

by Ben Peek

  The saboteur heard the sound of moving water, the noise emerging from the slow drip of moisture in the cavern. Soon enough a chill began to seep into Bueralan, and the smell of fresh water reached him, pushing back the noxious odor that had followed him out of the stagnant mining tunnel. He paused there, turning his gaze to the pale-lit river to where the light turned red.

  “The people in this city must have read omens into this,” Zaifyr said, standing beside him. “All manner of murder and betrayal.”

  “You sure know how to reassure a man you just met.”

  “They believed that Ger would rise again,” he said. “They wanted a god, and any god would do, I suspect, but Ger was one of the first to react against the killing of Linae, and the reprisals that followed. He spoke out against both sides, and when neither listened, he began to stride across the continents, placing himself into the battles, stopping them with his sheer size and strength. At least that is what the cultists here believed. To them, he was a figure of responsibility, a guardian who would keep them safe.”

  “And the light was for what the gods did?”

  “For themselves, too. After all, they were killed while as close to Ger as they could be. Surely a betrayal for them.”

  “Surely,” Bueralan echoed dryly.

  Half a smile slipped across Zaifyr’s face and began to follow the river. It was not strong, but soon the red light enveloped them both, lighting the tracks of the creature and its slow, injured walk. With each step along the path Bueralan’s muscles tensed, his back straightened as he waited for the burned, half dead figure of the Quor’lo to burst out of a narrow cut in the wall.

  Nothing.

  Nothing except the edge of the river disappearing into a collapsed wall.

  Zaifyr followed the water through the jagged rocks, so focused on the task that Bueralan believed himself forgotten. The saboteur began to believe that a personal desire had taken over the other man, had taken over any task of finding the Quor’lo for Heast—a notion that was only reinforced when he finally stepped through the collapsed wall and stared down off an almost sheer edge into a lake.

  There, in a still, red-lit lake sat a huge building. Spread out in the water as if it were a long leech that had latched onto the dirt and drew nutrients until it had grown monstrous, it was one of the longest buildings that Bueralan had ever seen. In terms of height, it appeared to have been made with a reverse in mind, as if its intention had been to dig through the rock of the mountain and push itself as deep as its design would allow. At the bottom of the wall Bueralan joined with Zaifyr, and they walked across the uneven rock toward the building and the slight shadow that knelt at the water’s edge.

  “Leave me,” the Quor’lo whispered harshly, not turning at their approach. “Your presence is only angering here.”

  Unmoved, Zaifyr said, “Who are you?”

  An ugly, bitter smile twisted the burned remains of its face. “I’m one of the faithful, not one of the faithless.”

  “I asked for a name.”

  “It is not important.” The dead man sighed, a ragged breath escaping the damaged chest. “I am dying. I am stuck in this body and I am dying. Who I am will be gone soon enough. I might as well take a name that is meaningless, a jumble of letters, and present it to you as truth.”

  “Dying men traditionally have no wit,” Zaifyr said, moving to stand next to it.

  A dry laugh escaped it. “I die before truth.”

  “You die before an old building.”

  The Quor’lo shook its head and turned, as much as it could, to Bueralan. Beneath the roof’s red light it was a ghastly figure: skin torn, lips split, one eye closed and broken bone exposed and fractured. Yet there was no fear, as there had been when it had run from them at the pyres, no look of desperation on its face as had been when it stamped on the wooden cover of a mineshaft. There was a serenity that, given the nature of the creature before him and the pain the man or woman controlling it was feeling, was not easily identifiable.

  “I can only imagine how I must look to you,” it said, its voice struggling to be heard over the crash of water. “I cannot see this body. I only know there is blood, I can feel it—not here, but where I truly am. My skin is stained with it. Yet here I know only what is before me.”

  It turned back to the submerged building, leaving the saboteur to follow its gaze. After the gods had died there had been temples, buildings erected to house the remains, relics and beliefs that were no longer in practice. Bueralan had never before seen one—they were, mostly, ruins now—and he felt a chill, as if a gaze had settled upon him. It enveloped him so fully that he did not know if he could step outside it.

  “Do you feel him?” The Quor’lo’s voice was barely audible.

  “Yes,” Zaifyr replied.

  Bueralan said nothing.

  “We cannot find the remains of his wards,” it whispered, not concerned with his response. “They are the air, the dirt, the fire, the ocean: Ger shattered their chains to him with what strength he had left. We are told that their remains are the anger in our weather, the floods, the droughts, the cyclones, the fires. They are lost to us.”

  “They are not lost. They are here. They live without him, just fine.”

  “No!”

  The cry was sudden, angry, a denial that snapped Bueralan’s attention away from the submerged building and forced him to take a step back, reaching for the cold dagger strapped to his leg. What started as a surge of the Quor’lo to its feet ended with a shudder. It fell to its knees. “You and your kind,” it whispered. “I will not listen to you and your kind.”

  And there, its voice stumbling in an inaudible whisper of defiance, it fell still.

  7.

  Away from the Spine of Ger, Ayae dug her nails into the palms of her hand and fought for control. Part of her urged returning to the stairs to confront them all, to strike out, scream at the injustice of it just once; while another part urged her to keep walking, ignore the warmth at the tips of her fingers and the heat that soaked into the palm of her hands as her anger threatened to overwhelm her.

  As the Spine fell behind her, Ayae found herself walking toward the Keep. Her first glance at the emerging structure saw her step falter, but as she drew closer and the gates that led to the empty gardens appeared, her step strengthened. Fo had not explained the curse enough to her—he had hidden everything behind his fanaticism, behind his dislike for Reila, and she had been in no condition to push him. Orlan was not entirely right that they were the only people to turn to about curses in Mireea, but they would certainly know the most, and she would press them for more information.

  She was led from the gate by an elderly guard, his beard slivered with silver and his eyes the color of wet stone. The warm, spice smells filled the Keep as the corridors twisted left and right, leading up flights of turning stairs cut into solid stone. With each step a series of doubts cracked beneath her, each one ending in the desire to turn around, to leave. To pave over what was broken. But the silence that she was treated to from the guard, and the way his back remained straight as if the muscles had frozen in place at her arrival, served to remind her of why she was making the trip. She knew that she could not walk away.

  There were four towers in the Spine’s Keep, each designed to mirror the towers that sat along the Spine, though without the practicality that those battlements actually had. The Keep’s towers were named after the directions that they faced and were symbolic before anything else. The West Tower offered no strategic advantage, unless an army managed to climb the sheer drop it faced—and it was to the door of that tower Ayae was led by the guard, who left without a nod.

  Alone, she stood before the door, her hands balled tight at her side. What would she say once she entered? Fo was a powerful man. He was a member of the Enclave, a Keeper who was, she had heard, over a thousand years old, and had a worldview unlike her own. Ayae did not hate anyone with a curse—in truth, before today, she had never met anyone cursed—and she
would not have raised her voice like Keallis, nor given into fear so easily, or at least she hoped; but she was not someone who enjoyed confrontation, or who saw it as a way to resolve her problems. How long she stood there lost in thought about how best to proceed, Ayae was not sure. It was entirely possible that she would have continued standing if a person had not emerged from the twisting halls of the Keep behind her and stopped at her side, his white robe stained in blood, his hands even more so.

  He was a handsome man. When he smiled, faintly and with a hint of mockery, she felt herself respond. “I believe you are the cartographer’s assistant, yes?”

  She said her name.

  “Ayae,” he repeated. “You are obviously not from Mireea, with that name.”

  “Sooia.” She felt awkward. “Some people struggle with pronouncing it. Few get it right the first time, unlike you.”

  “But then I am not from here, just like you.” His bloodstained hands spread out before him and he paused. “I’m Bau.”

  “The Healer.”

  “Most of the time,” he agreed. “Some days, a life is beyond mine to save.”

  “Today?”

  “No, not today. Despite my distaste for this city, not today. Come, let us find you a chair and me a change of clothes and some water to wash myself.”

  Bau pushed the door to the tower open with a touch of weariness, the smell of dried flowers and chemicals washing over them. The first thing that Ayae noticed was that beneath the windows were rows of cages, most no larger than what could be held in two hands—though three, sitting on the ground, would have required two people to lift them. Although the sunlight washed over the old wooden tables placed there, each cage had a cloth draped over it, plunging the inside into darkness and keeping its contents from her sight. Around the cages were glass tubes, burners, pipes and beakers, each connected in an elaborate skeleton that, at the end, in a small pot, was the cause of the chemical smell that was so strong in the room. It was there that the hairless figure of Fo stood with a steel rod in his hand, gently stirring what he had created.

  “You’re late,” he said, absently.

  “And you have a guest.” Bau turned to Ayae. “A moment, please. I need to clean myself up.”

  She nodded and was left alone with Fo, who regarded her intently with his scarred eyes, his right hand absently stirring. Finally, with a faint smile creasing his lips, he said, “It’s good to see you today. I thought that we may have to chase you, come the evening.”

  “I came here to talk.”

  “Good.” Lifting the metal rod out of the beaker, he tapped it on the side. “The God Ir knew every organ in every living creature. It was said that he had never had an original form, that he had shifted and changed to mirror whatever creature he came upon. He did this, or so his followers said, so that he could learn how better to kill the things he saw. It was this that made him so appealing to those who killed for a living, be they hunters of animals, or of men and women. It was said that they respected his knowledge and paid homage to it in their own work.”

  Gently, the Keeper lifted one of the black cloths off the cage next to him. In it, twisted upon itself in a coil of dark, earth brown, was a brown snake. Still—impossibly so, Ayae thought—the thick creature watched the hairless man as he pulled a small mouse out from beneath a table. He dropped it into his beaker, then lifted the soaking, squirming creature out and placed it through the bars of the snake’s cage.

  A moment later, it was gone.

  “Knowledge,” Fo said, as the snake settled back into stillness. “Awful things are done in its name.”

  Unsure what to say, Ayae was saved by the return of Bau who smiled slightly at her. “We might have a problem,” he said, changing the subject.

  “Did they find it?” Fo asked.

  “In a way.” In a fresh white robe, the handsome man lowered himself into a chair. “He was there.”

  Fo turned slowly from his snake, regarding the other man intently. “You didn’t try to fight him, did you?”

  “Do I look like a fool?”

  “You look like a man who moments ago was covered in blood.”

  “I know the laws as well as you do.”

  “And you know just as I do that he has no time for the laws.”

  Bau’s expression was sour. “A soldier was attacked by the Quor’lo. That was his blood you saw.”

  “And the Madman?”

  “Last I heard, he was chasing a Quor’lo down a hole.”

  Behind Fo, the snake began to move in discomfort. “What do you think he’s doing here, then?”

  “He sent him, obviously.”

  “What if he came of his own accord? It is difficult to tell with him these days.”

  “Aelyn would know,” Bau said, troubled. “She watches him, closely.”

  “And if she already knew?”

  Ayae—tearing her eyes from the shifting form of the snake, the mouse still visible in it—said, “Who are you talking about?”

  “Your savior,” Fo replied.

  Bau’s eyebrows rose. “Really?”

  She should leave. The thought was clear. She was out of her depth. She would gain nothing by being here, would learn nothing that they did not already think she should know. There were other ways, other people. Ayae took a step backward. As she took that first step Fo shook his head, his scarred eyes holding her. “If you have questions, ask, child. You need not fear the asking.”

  “You are scaring her, Fo,” the other man said, rising from his seat. Shaking his head, he closed his warm hand around her arm gently. “Ignore his tone. Fo has a history with the man who saved you, though he is probably not even aware of it.”

  “Zaifyr,” she whispered.

  “Is that the name he’s using?”

  “Who is he?”

  Bau guided her to a seat that was touched by the last of the morning’s sunlight. She could see the snake’s skin bulging, but worse, could see the outline of the soaked mouse. “A man, like you and me. But a man thousands of years old, older than either myself or Fo. A man who talks to the dead, as if they were his own.”

  “Which he once said they were,” Fo added, his tone heavy with dislike.

  “How do you know this?”

  Behind the hairless man, the sound of scratching began, the mouse’s frantic movements tearing through the snake’s skin. “Because,” he said, “a long time ago, my parents worshipped him as a god.”

  THE BOY WHO WAS DESTINED TO DIE

  The first god to die in my lifetime was Sei, the God of Light.

  Considered by many to be the Murderer, the first god to kill another, his death was not one seen, but one experienced. My family knew of it only when the sun fractured and plunged the world into darkness. For a week, no prayer or offering could abate it. When the sun did return, it did as you see it now, in three broken shards, a trio of emancipated prisoners pulling the corpse of their friend on a litter made from his or her bones. The moon, never seen before, was a new object, cold and dark and dead.

  It was a terrible sight, and many believed that we would have been better if darkness had never ended. If for nothing, we would have been blind to the famine that killed thousands, if not millions, in the decade that followed.

  —Qian, The Godless

  1.

  Meihir, the Witch of Kakar, pushed her long fingers across the palm of the boy Zaifyr. Her rough nail ran through dirt, following the lines on his skin. Pushing hard at the base of his palm, she said that he would die at the age of twenty-nine.

  He was not yet five.

  Meihir, in contrast, was an ancient woman, the tiny bones braided into her hair yellow with age, the remains of a family long gone. For her age and her fragility in size, the witch wore the thick hide of a white bear as if it weighed nothing and spoke clearly and strongly, even when announcing the death of a child. On that day, as she foresaw the deaths of nineteen children in tragedies, her voice did not stumble once.

  In Mireea, Zaif
yr watched the afternoon’s sun set before him, a brown bottle of beer slick with moisture in his hand. In the mountains of his childhood, the newly broken sun had resulted in cold, sleeting storms year round while stone bears—crafted by Hienka, the Feral God—roamed the valleys and roads. Hienka had made them before his hibernation, told Zaifyr’s ancestors that the bears would care for them. It was only because of them that the years after Sei’s death had taken less of a toll on them, and the villages thanked their god daily for his kindness until ten years after Meihir told the young they would die.

  “I’m going to report to Heast. You coming?”

  Bueralan. Earlier, after they had crawled out of the foul shaft.

  “No.” Zaifyr flicked dirty water off his hands, drawn out of his hair. “I’m not planning to go anywhere.”

  The saboteur eased to the ground next to him, dropping axes and leather jerkin as he did. The hole they had crawled out of lay behind the pair, the soldiers spread out wide around them, as if they were afraid to step closer. “You think we smell?”

  “I don’t smell a thing.”

  “Me neither.”

  With half a grin, Zaifyr pulled a copper chain from a pile of charms beside him and wound it around his left wrist. After Meihir’s prophecy his family had wrapped charms around him, each one painstakingly made and blessed with all of the small magic they had. His mother assembled the chain he tied around his wrist, his grandfather melted and beat the pieces through his hair, his father made the studs for his ears and his grandmother engraved tiny blessings on each, some no more than a letter, others a word. In this, he was no different than the other children of Kakar who had been promised an early death. Nineteen was the most any witch had proclaimed and soon the charmed children were friends, isolated by the other children who did not play with them, and by the men and women who refused to teach them skills that the village survived on. There was only one blacksmith in Kakar, and Zaifyr, though he had shown an interest in the trade early on, could not be that. His father’s pale green eyes had not blinked when he told him that. You can hunt and track and marry one of five girls, girls you know by charms threaded through their hair and on their body. But no, son, you cannot follow my footsteps.