Eve of Snows: Sundering the Gods Book One

by L. James Rice

  Wait. Sniffing around the wrong places.

  Woxlin was a high priest only ordained a few months back; Lord Priest Ulrikt would receive important messages worthy of ignoring her friend’s corpse. If true, archivists preserved it for history in the libraries, like transcripts of prayer sessions headed by the lord priest.

  She tucked her book under an arm and walked with a mission. The library. And in the library, Rovol. The hairs of her neck raised on goosebumps; she wanted nothing to do with the cretin after their last run-in, but as she’d heard many a time in the kitchens, a man with his brain dangling between his legs can be useful.

  Eliles couldn’t help the smile lighting her face. Snooping might be more fun than she ever imagined, in particular if heaped with an extra helping of payback.

  The first chamber she passed was the Hall of Scribes, which held rows of desks where monks buried their noses in tomes, copying texts all day so books from this library might travel to other holy sites. She didn’t envy these poor folks, but it wasn’t the worst task in Istinjoln. She figured that honor went to the muckrakers, who not only cleaned the dining halls, stalls, and privies, but turned the steaming compost piles. Scribes were bored, but fat and happy compared to those folks.

  Directly past the arching entry to the Scribes stood the library postulants browsed, a small chamber with a dozen rows of shelves filled with innocuous books, full of accepted teachings and histories, fables to instruct the young. She eased past the rows, glancing down each to make sure she was alone, then headed for a square-legged desk in the back of the library where Rovol stood alone.

  She sauntered to the archivist’s desk and leaned on the polished cedar, her hood pulled low, forcing Rovol to lean in to see who she was. The man’s brows were so bushy it was hard not to look at them instead of his dark eyes.

  At the sight of her, the caterpillar on his brow creased into an ugly “V” rising above a smirk. “Eliles. You come to say you’re sorry?”

  “I came to let you apologize.” She smiled, and as she did, she wondered what he saw. What changes to her features did the dweomer cause? When she allowed feral magic to flow, people saw in her a reflection of a woman for whom they bore a weakness: a daughter, a wife, a lost love, or whatever opened their emotions and pinched their vulnerabilities.

  The wicked in his grin softened with mirth more than kindness. “You’re a bold tease.”

  She leaned in and spoke in breathy tones to accentuate his vision while hoping it wasn’t his mother he saw. “I’ve got an itch of curiosity, one I’d like you to scratch.” She took a deep breath and went full kitchen banter on him. “Rub my belly and make me purr, and I’ll do more than forgive you.”

  He eyeballed her, uncertain what the hells she was up to. He wasn’t turned stupid yet, but he weakened. “I’m listening.”

  “I purr, you purr, we meow like cats in the stable until morning prayers.” And chase rats for breakfast? What is all this foolishness? She giggled to herself while keeping as sultry a look as she knew how.

  He licked his lips as he flushed. “Ah… hells… just what is this itch?”

  She giggled. Men. Where was the challenge? “Are important messages sent to Istinjoln archived here?”

  “Only the lord priest’s. You mean the lord priest’s?”

  “I’m a real naughty kitty.”

  His head rested in his hand and he slumped so low he looked up at her. Time spent in the kitchens paid off. Well, that and feral magic. She whispered, her intent to force him closer more than secrecy. “The message Guntar carried, is it here? I’d take a little peep, nothing more.”

  “Oh no, no. I can’t take you back there, they’d flog me or throw me to the thorns.”

  She recognized the trance fading and pulled out the verbal molasses. “Oh, sweetie, no. I wouldn’t ask that. Never.” Not that a few thorns in his ass would hurt her feelings any. “Just slip it out, a glance is all I need.”

  The look on his face said success, she thought, but no, she was wrong. “I’d have to slip through your chastity before I’d even consider it.”

  Tales from the kitchen had prepared her for this, but her stomach squirmed at his words even as she played it off. “You can slip anything you want if you copy it for me. Please?”

  His eyes glazed, and she swore he drooled before swiping his lip. “Okay, right, sure.” He searched beneath the desk until he came up with a stretch of parchment and a quill, stuffed them up the loose sleeve of his robes. “I’ll be right back, honey-cat.” He disappeared into the dark recesses of the library with a life to his step she’d not seen before.

  She giggled behind his back, and muttered, “Honey-cat? Goodness.” A part of her wanted to pity him a smidgen, but his vulgar behavior didn’t allow it. She pulled her hood over her face and skulked to the shadows. She wanted only Rovol to see her because he wouldn’t remember for long.

  The archivist returned, sliding the rolled scroll across the table with a lascivious wink and smack of the lips. “Not much to it.”

  “You’re positive it’s the right one and complete?”

  “As right and complete as you and me gonna be, honey-cat.”

  She wanted to set his nose on fire, but she smiled and pulled her hood so tight he wouldn’t see her face. “Mmm, perfect, sweetie. Now, forget my being here, our entire conversation, and everything on this scroll.”

  His face went pale and blank as she turned and walked away.

  He called out behind her. “Could I help find something for you?”

  She shook her head and kept walking, not stopping until she reached an alcove dedicated to Januel, one of Eliles’ favorites, with diamonds set in the ceiling to mimic the constellation of the Heart of Januel. It lay deep in the caves, yet was always well lit for the studious. Rovol’s hurried writing was atrocious and hard to decipher.

  YOUR EMINENCE, Lord Priest Ulrikt,

  This morning advanced our knowledge of the Fire-Lion Gate, but the results are less than hoped. We lack the Devotion to force our prayers through the Gate while the Shadows remain. They are dark and deadly, taking the killed to live and die again. Without the Power, true success could bring disastrous failure.

  The Codex spoke of knowledge from the Sunken Catacombs to achieve our goal, but time runs short. Another artifact arrived from the Ximfwa mausoleum while they explore the Cimdine as we speak. But word is the unnamed crypt, the last of those suspected to hold the Sliver, is blocked by the Wakened Dead. We will attempt the Gate again soon. Our numbers dwindle as we contain the Shadows, but we are hopeful the prophecy rings true, that this artifact will empower our prayers with knowledge and faith to reach Sol with our collective voice.

  We have failed. They’ve breached the Gate. Destroy this place. The Shrine of Burdenis is our tomb.

  ELILES READ IT A DOZEN TIMES, the words made sense, but what they spoke of eluded her. First, she suspected code within the passages, a common practice. The constellation known as the Fire Lion shown in the sky now as a symbol of Sol, but in hundreds of candles of studies, she’d never heard of a gate named after the constellation. A gate associated with Sol next to a shrine to Burdenis, the Patron of Snows, was nonsensical. Shrines often had gated entries, but never named for another god. It meant something else, she was sure.

  As for the Shrine of Burdenis, a rumored shrine stood near Istinjoln and spoken of in hushed tones. They studied the locations of one hundred and twenty-two major shrines to the Pantheon of Sol, but the Crack of Burdenis, which held the Fifth Shrine to this god, remained hidden. Some claimed it was a repository of forbidden lore involving foreign gods while others claimed it was the private retreat of the lord priests of Istinjoln. Either way, the location was a secret few knew.

  The Wakened Dead made sense, but Shadows? Nobody knew what power restored the dead to walk the world, whatever it was it wasn’t visible, not a shadow. Possession? Rare and frightful tomes spoke of this corruption, but if true, the Fire-Lion’s Gate was a celestial gate opened
into the heavens, or from the sounds of it, some place far worse. Celestial gates were forbidden by the Church, Master Dareun spoke of them as unintended for the mortal realm.

  The slap of leather shoes echoed in the hall so she rolled the parchment in haste, stuffed it in her cloak, threw her hood back, and opened her book. A cowled priestess walked past with a glance and nod, but didn’t take a second note of her.

  Did she dare show the scroll to her master? No, she should destroy it. The prudent choice, but she couldn’t force herself to do it. Hide the parchment, hold it safe, just in case. In case of what? she chided herself. In case they need more evidence to sunder my soul? No one knew, not even the fool who copied it. She was safe.

  16

  LESSER THEOLOGIANS

  Frozen toes burning low,

  Frostbit bone sling slung sing and sung,

  A desperate weapon, a rapier carved from your leg

  Lunged through the heart of your enemy,

  A stiletto from your rib plunged from your lover’s heart

  But you never die, at eternity’s infinity end,

  Your death a splintering into lives you’ll never remember.

  Forgotten.

  —Tomes of the Touched

  Eleven Days to the Eve of Snows

  The first day, Tokodin determined he’d die instead of helping the Colok. The searing pain radiating from his shoulder factored into the decision more than noble sacrifice.

  The second day he became convinced he’d live forever and soar above the mountains alongside the great eagles. He gnawed on too much Pimun Bark that day while trying to kill the pain, feeding hallucinations which didn’t fade until evening. He vomited for a couple candles after, black and greasy, and the pain returned with a vengeance.

  The next time he woke, he wasn’t sure what year it was, let alone which day. He coughed and belched when he sat up, and terrified, ran for a corner of the cave. Dry heaves.

  Mecum’s lips screwed tight. “I warned you not to chew so much.”

  “It hurt.”

  “Worse than now?”

  It was funny, hungover and miserable he often wished to die, now the opportunity was real, he wanted nothing more than to live. He spit in the chamber pot and sauntered back to the fire, trying his best to walk with a straight back. His head thrummed.

  “Third day, isn’t it? I’ll tell you what,”—he grabbed a cup of noxious tea, slurped the lukewarm concoction—“I’ll choose to live if you tell me what the Twelve Hells this is about.”

  “Choose to live, and you find out. Elsewise, ask your guide upon the Road.”

  A frustrating old man, that’s what Mecum was. “Dice for it?” He pulled the bones from his robe pocket, shifted them in his left hand and squeezed. The dice clacked as he exercised his grip and dexterity, rotating them in his palm.

  “Even a sucker fish needs better bait.”

  The night die slipped past his weak pinky and bounced across the rocky floor, coming up six. He swept it up with his right hand. “Damned to hells.” The hand showed improvement, but still had a long way to go.

  He considered throwing the dice again, to determine his fate, but reprimanded himself. He tried to let the dice decide a hundred times, but no matter their answer he wasn’t happy with it. Live. Die. Day. Night. Over. Under. The pips only teased him.

  His father had beat fear out of him as a boy, from the age of five he no longer feared the night or death. Istinjoln beat terror back into him. A bump in the night could be a cithrœl coming to feed on your flesh, to take your body while sending your soul to one of the Twelve Hells. He’d more than once witnessed the body of a villager whose spirit had traveled on, rise to take revenge upon the living, a sign the soul had fallen to the Malignant’s Hell while walking the Road.

  The Wakened Dead were a strong reminder that death wasn’t always an escape from the pain of living. And if he died here, in some dark cave, he’d doom another. What fate would await him while walking the Stars?

  “The Slave Fields? The Twelve Hells?” Mecum’s perplexed gaze assured Tokodin that the priest wasn’t a mind-reader. “If I choose to die, which do I deserve?”

  “Ah! I see. Not a bad theological debate.” He scratched his chin. “The Third Hell, I’d imagine.”

  The old priest had gone too far. “The Coward’s Hell! I—”

  “Cowards and those unwilling to sacrifice, you recall. Arguably you’d fit both.”

  Mecum’s tongue darted between his lips and he smiled, too satisfied with himself for Tokodin’s taste. The Coward’s Hell was a place of tortuous horrors to harden the soul before eventual atonement in the Slave Fields, his spirit rent and fed in pieces to the Nine-Faced Hound for a thousand years; the notion made him queasy.

  His father would look low on his fear of death, the more so the fear to live. If here he’d add more scars to his face.

  “I’d argue the path of conviction across the Stars. Dying to not aid the enemy.”

  Mecum smirked. “It might be argued, if the Colok are the enemy.”

  Tokodin bit the not-so-subtle bait. “If those threatening my life aren’t the enemy who is?”

  “Live and find out.”

  “There’s a hell for the curious, too.”

  Mecum coughed, struggled to speak through the phlegm. “Only if”—he spat—“the curiosity results in sin.”

  Tokodin stared at his dice and gave them a toss. The Four-eyed Snake, a gambler’s term for four ones, stared back at him. It had to mean something, didn’t it? That was the problem with signs from the gods, they relied upon mortal interpretation.

  “Life, it is.”

  The words echoed once before a Colok landed in front of him, damned near scaring his decision to a moot point. Tokodin stared into the darkness above. How many more Colok were up there?

  “Good.”

  The growl still unnerved him, but he tried to keep his calm in the face of Zjin, Grolkan’s son and apparent heir. He was at least nine and a half feet tall, with white fur patterned by gray swirls similar to a snow leopard. Tokodin mused that he would make an exquisite rug.

  Zjin handed him a scroll. The broken wax seal, a black six-pointed star, indicated it’d been intended for Lord Priest Ulrikt.

  “What’s this?”

  “The scroll I carried. Go ahead, read it. I won’t live long enough to tell anyone of your sin.” The old priest laughed.

  Tokodin’s heart quaked as he unfurled the aging vellum.

  YOUR EMINENCE, Lord Priest Ulrikt,

  Progress into the Lumhare crypt has been slow, while continued exploration of the Simdobwa Wing proved fruitless, despite discovery of false walls. We flooded this failed wing soon after, as Wakened swarmed from an open burial site. Entry to four additional crypts that fit the Codex’s description has been secured. How many dead we might encounter in each horrifies us. Swarms can count into the thousands when they rise from the waters. We’ve no option but to fall back until they recede and hope our dead aren’t already walking.

  The crypts are marked Ximfwa, Cimdine, Komdwom, and Extek. A fifth is unmarked by a name, and the dead are numerous and sentient. We’ll need additional priests and supplies to make headway in this quarter. The Golden Conch may be our best and only hope. If there is any chance of its retrieval, an agreement, perhaps? That might prove our success and victory.

  Our scholars grow confident the Sliver of Star is somewhere in the aforementioned crypts. If the city of the dead is calm, we hope to walk from here well before Year’s Turn of 501.

  This place is a favored piece of the Malignant’s Hell.

  THE MESSAGE WENT on to name deceased guards, monks, and priests, over fifty, then transitioned into a requisition list, including rope, lanterns, bolts of cloth, weapons, axes for hewing wood, and unusual quantities of oil.

  He recognized several names of the deceased; official word said they’d left Istinjoln to attend a variety of holy sites. Lies which kept those who cared for the deceased from praying
for their souls.

  Tokodin glared. “Plundering graves and hiding the deaths of the faithful? What the hells is this all about?”

  Mecum couldn’t look him in the eye. “I started running messages from the Steaming Lakes in the Spring of four-ninety-eight.” He coughed and spat. “There’ve been expeditions up there for decades looking for artifacts and treasure, but in four-ninety-eight they set up a permanent camp. I didn’t know it then, but they looked for this Sliver of Star, whatever the hells that is.”

  “You’re going to sit there and tell me you know nothing?”

  “Shut up and listen, boy. I don’t know much, but it’s more than you’re gonna find anywhere else. I caught snippets of conversations ’tween High Priest Bulsvon and his lessers. What I heard I kept to myself; it sounded exciting at the time, but after what I’ve seen? Anyhow, it all ties into the Ailing Stars Prophecy and the Codex of Sol.”

  Tokodin swallowed hard. He’d grown up believing the Ailing Stars Prophecy a legend, or a lie fabricated by Lord Priest Imrok Girn in the Fourth Year of Remembrance, four-hundred and ninety-eight years ago. The Prophecy spoke of the gods returning to the world in order to establish the Church as a theocracy destined to rule the world.

  “Nonsense.”

  “The Ailing Stars, the Dark Sword, two prophecies claiming the Church will establish a Pantheonate. You ask me, Ulrikt is working damned hard to make these come true.”

  Would it be so wrong? Shouldn’t the priests entrusted with the word of the gods be in charge of the lives of their faithful? But the cost in lives, a Holy War would bleed the island of a generation or more.

  “What’s all this to do with the Shadows from the Stone?”

  “Ah! You’ve heard of them, have you? Shadows don’t kill, they possess. They aren’t Wakened. Their hearts beat Shadow-blackened blood, they die much like men, but the Shadow returns to take another.”