“I did not abandon you,” he said softly.
*
Rhinne awoke in tears. She lay in a soft bed cradled in stone and surrounded by trees. Blinking, she dragged a hand over her face and pushed herself up weakly on one elbow. The flaming orb of the sun beamed through the boughs and trunks of a forest draped in a canopy of spring leaves, flowers, and moss. Silken bed curtains drifted on the breeze and dark green ivy spiraled around the carved stone posts. Atop one corner, a bird had built its nest in the folds of the fabric. It appeared abandoned.
Her body throbbing with pain, Rhinne drew back the covers. Someone had dressed her in a loose shift the color of mushrooms. It was stained with purple splotches. She gingerly peeled the fabric away from her belly. A smelly green-purple poultice covered the flesh over her womb. She pulled the gown back over her body with trembling hands.
She had no idea how the wound had come there.
Stricken by thirst, she leaned aside and inspected the table by the bed. It contained multi-colored glass jars of plants, some ugly little root, a black, stinking scale of a thing ground into powder, and a pyre faintly smoking. She lifted a half-empty teacup to her nose and caught her breath with a gag. It smelled like rotten water left too long in a vase of dead flowers.
On the floor, a clear glass pitcher glinted in a patch of ivy growing along the edge of the bed. With a small sound, Rhinne reached down, got the handle in her fist, and lifted it up. A sharp pain tore at her belly as she straightened, causing some of the water to slosh out. Slowly, she tilted it to her lips and drank in long gulps. Blessedly fresh and cold, it splashed past her lips and onto her breast. She lowered the pitcher as her head cleared a little. Then she slowly moved her legs around to hang over the edge of the bed.
How had she come here? Someone had brought her, cared for her, even bade her to drink that disgusting tea, if the taste in her mouth was any indication. But the last thing she remembered was talking to Lorth in an inn called the Shapeshifter. She moved her hand over her wounded belly, letting it hover there without touching.
Love, forsaken. At the inn, the voices that rose from the assassin’s carvings in her flesh had gathered in her sleep into a terrible dream she couldn’t now recall. The watery whispers had ceased. She sat there amid the trees beneath the empty bird nest as one clear word came forth like a fresh green plant striking up from a wasteland of isolation.
Ascarion.
Rhinne lowered her feet to the floor and stood on shaking legs, clutching the edge of the malodorous table. The poultice sagged away from her abdomen. She lifted up her shift and pulled it away, tossed it onto the bed. Her wounds griped with pain. She sat back down, lightheaded. Sadness swept through her, an irrational, crushing despair that broke the surface of her mind like ice jamming a river, heaving and splintering her to tears. Just a dream. But she knew it was more than that.
She had to find Lorth. He would know what had happened to her. She rose again and took a step. Moving carefully, she headed for the nearest tree, a slim maple with splotches of silvery green moss on the trunk. The sun descended through a forest stretching out in every direction. Rhinne had to assume that she and Lorth had come to the wizards’ citadel from the southeast. She turned and moved away from the maple tree, away from the sun.
She walked from tree to tree for some time. The forest was almost too beautiful, somehow. Light shone from everything. The glow of dusk, gold-white shadows, the whispers of leaves and the sigh of the wind were primeval, as if no mortal had ever perceived it.
She shook her head to return to the sane, clear air of consciousness. Finding Lorth had become both ridiculous and paramount at the same time. She glanced back through the trees in the direction of the setting sun, then continued east. There had to be something out here, a landmark to tell her where she was and how she could get out of this place. She shuffled along, using the trees for support, until the forest brightened in the distance. She continued on. But when she reached the wood’s end, her fragile hope shattered under a hammer blow.
A wilderness spread out as far as she could see; rows upon rolling rows of highlands undulating into peaks hidden in the mist-enshrouded vault of the sky. The sun’s last rays blanketed the land with golden light. The hills were purple in the afterglow, the forests black, and spring lay on the lower bellies and breasts of the hills amid patches of bare-tree gray. She saw no citadel, no cities, no sea. Nothing but wilderness as pure as the very first landscape ever conceived. Rhinne sank to her knees, feeling nauseous. This was impossible. She turned around and stared back at the woods, now dark and tenebrous in the waning light.
Driven by fear, she got up too quickly. A whirlwind of vertigo drove her back down. The blood left her face, the colors on the ground took on a gray and lonely hue, and her hands tingled with numbness, making them feel two sizes too big.
She emptied the contents of her stomach onto the stony ground. Her belly hurt so badly she thought it must be soaking her shift with blood by now. She started to crawl, but it was no use. She sank down and pressed her face onto the earth.
“Rhinne,” said a voice.
A man knelt by her side. Shining with the same weird light as the impossible wilderness, he wore leather, mail and wool the color of storms, and was flawlessly armed. His golden hair moved on the wind. Rhinne slammed her eyes shut and rasped, “Go away! You aren’t real.” She hesitated and then cried out, “Lorth!”
“The hunter cannot hear you,” the warrior said. A warm, feathery touch brushed her shoulder. “I did.”
“It’s your fault I’m here!” she accused.
“Well. Not entirely.”
She pushed herself up, gasping with pain. “Who are you?”
“Do you not know?”
As she looked into his eyes, as gray as winter, Rhinne remembered her dream from the inn as if the god had called it forth from the shadows of forgetting. It flooded her like knives: the sea, the scent of the air, her longing, and a prayer to Ascarion.
Then she remembered another man, a pale one, a deception as wicked as he was fair. Not my god. What he had come for—and what he had done to get it—caused her to break from her trance. “It wasn’t me,” she choked, her eyes flooding with tears. She scrambled away from the warrior kneeling by her side, rolled over and curled into a fetal position as the impression faded in her mind. “That was just a—”
“It was a memory,” Ascarion corrected her, rising to his feet. “There is more to you than the woman you know as Rhinne. You exist above time and space, and walk as a mortal in many times and places. In that timeline you are Eifin, Twenty-Second High Priestess of Ascarion, Guardian of the Circle and servant of the Mistress.”
Rhinne trembled as a chill swept up her spine. The Mistress. Rhinne didn’t have to ask if Ascarion referred to the same being she had seen at sea. Lorth, a high wizard unsurprised by anything, had taken great, startled interest in her account of the great serpent, hinting at some powerful connection that he sensed but knew nothing about.
“Most mortals are not aware of their other lives,” Ascarion continued. “Because those lives exist in another dimension, when they are perceived, they appear unreal.”
“If that really happened,” Rhinne concluded, “then you did abandon me. I called you for help and you didn’t come. You let him—”
“I did not,” he interrupted firmly. “In his jealousy, he prevented me.” He gazed afar at the impossible wilderness. “We were lovers, you and I. You do not remember this because he hid it from you. He made war on me, cast me down, and had his way with you in my absence. Then he altered the timeline to hide the deed. Your life as you know it now is that altered probability.”
Rhinne gulped as the enormity of that statement sank into her. “Who is he?”
“His name is Carmaenos. You know him as the Riven God.”
She made a sound of derision. “The Riven God is a scary tale created by my father to control the people of Tromb.”
His dark gaze glittere
d in the fading light. “You would do well to inspect that comforting belief more closely. For nine centuries your ancestors sired males to structurally maintain defiance of the Circle. Have you not wondered why you were born to the king instead of a son? Why Ragnvald and his minions lusted after you and condemned you to treason? They hunted you down and put a spell on you to discover the location of the book I told you to find. As Eifin, you wrote it after Carmaenos violated you. It tells the tale of what happened. Once you had done, you hid it away by the power of the Circle and then put a knife into your body to destroy yourself and your unborn child.”
Rhinne moved her hand to the wounds in her belly, feeling sick. “But it still didn’t happen to me,” she persisted. “I have never, would never fall on my face to a god, to anything.”
“You exist as the woman you know now because of it. We do not demand subservience; that is a mortal invention. Any entity who uses that will just as easily abuse it. Now Carmaenos is staking his claim, weakening you and setting you up to reveal where you hid the book. It is the only reason he came to this timeline. To remove it.”
“I went after it, as you asked. You said it was in the library. I don’t think it was.”
“Events happen in contexts beyond conscious knowledge,” the god said quietly. “You made it here, and there is a reason for that.”
“If the Riven God exists and sees everything, then wouldn’t he know where it is?”
“He doesn’t see everything. He is limited because he has to keep his presence in this dimension hidden. He cannot affect events from above time and space; he must do it by focusing here directly, like a mortal. To keep it subtle, he emerged from the sea; coming into physical focus in Tromblast would have changed too many things and attracted attention. This is also why the oborom are being trained in magic. The Riven God is using them as a conduit.”
“Can’t you stop him? Expose him?”
He turned to her with an inscrutable expression. “No more than can Ealiron himself. The Riven God is hiding beneath a treecloak, which puts him in Old One’s domain. She appears in our minds as dark places, much the way sunlight shining into a forest creates shadows. An entity can use the shadows. It is not enough for Ealiron to know that Carmaenos is on Tromb. To destroy him, he must either perceive him uncloaked or use the mortal world to find him.”
“But you know.”
He paused for so long that Rhinne feared he would vanish. Finally, he said, “I cannot act on it. This is why I didn’t intervene when the assassin attacked you. The one who did has the same gift you do, however.”
“You mean Lorth?”
He nodded. “You and Lorth are both able to perceive patterns in the Old One’s domain. While that brought you here, there is now a risk that Carmaenos will abandon the book and take more drastic measures to hide his secret. He will refocus the timeline of Ealiron again—and this time, he will not be subtle. He will recast this world into a wasteland to hide his true intentions.” He turned. “Only you can stop him.”
Rhinne stared. “Are you mad?”
“Do not overlook the obvious. Whom do you think Ragnvald is working for now, in this newly created probability? He is an aspect of Carmaenos and you are the only thing capable of exposing him to Ealiron. He hadn’t planned on that, you know. You must return.”
“You are mad!” she gasped. “You told me to leave and I barely got out alive! Besides,” she waved her hand around at the otherworldly surroundings, “you think these wizards will let me do that? I don’t even know where I am.”
“Ealiron put you here to protect you from Carmaenos until they removed the oborom spell,” the war god informed her. He glanced up at the heavy boughs of the tree line moving in the twilight. “You are in another dimension.”
“And you want me to leave.”
“How long do you think it will be before Ragnvald discovers where you are? He will not need to come after you. No armies, no hunters, nothing. One thought by Carmaenos will end this. Ealiron cannot penetrate his treecloak, but he can intervene by direct physical means, say, by sending an army to Tromb. Carmaenos will not take that chance. You must return to Tromb and expose him.”
He stepped close, gazing down at her like a hawk. “One thought, Rhinne. That is all it will take for him to undo everything. Once he does, he can stay hidden for millennia, in your terms. Time beyond your imagining. He could see this world devoured by the sun.”
Rhinne’s heart pounded rapidly in the pit of her belly. “Why can’t I just tell the wizards what you’ve told me? They would know how to deal with it.”
“If you tell the Keepers of the Eye what I have revealed to you, they will declare war and Carmaenos will know he has been discovered. You are hidden to him. Why do you think he had his assassin carve that portal on you? It is an eye. Ealiron removed it, rendering you invisible once more. Again: you see the Old One’s domain. Only you can see through Carmaenos’ cloak and expose him to Ealiron.” He moved close, leaned down and held out his hand. “Shall we?”
Rhinne gaped at his hand, her lips parted and her body trembling with terror. “You can’t be serious. Now? I’ll never make it. Wizards will stop me. And if I go to Tromb my father will kill me flat.”
She didn’t have the strength to fight him as he lifted her into his arms and moved in a powerful stride through the twilit forest. “You underestimate yourself. I’ll tell you a thing. On another world, I have an aspect, a warrior like you.”
“I’m no warrior,” she grumbled. “What is an ‘aspect’?”
“Immortal entities such as myself are too vast to express our natures in any one mortal being. We exist as many things: worlds, forests, animals, humans. Everything is an aspect of its greater source.”
“Are you my source?”
He glanced down at her. “No.” Then he resumed, “My warrior’s name is Scot. Once, while on a scouting mission, he was discovered by the enemy. As he fled, their archers released a volley of arrows. One struck him in the leg and another in the back. He traveled twenty miles, wounded and losing blood, to reach the boundaries of his land to save his people from invasion.”
“Did you help him?”
“I did not. We cannot take from mortals the things that make them what they are. He did it on his own, by the power in his heart. As will you. Do rest, now.” He spoke a strange word that caused her to drift to sleep despite all questions.
She awoke as he lowered her from his arms and set her on her feet. Night cloaked the forest beyond the orange light of a cresset burning on an iron staff. Rhinne leaned against a tree, her head light and her legs weak. Tucked into the side of a wooded rise stood a door covered in moss and carved with strange symbols. A solid crystal eye gazed out from the center.
“That is the way out,” Ascarion informed her. Then he held out a pile of clothes, her cloak, and her sword.
“Where did these come from?” she said, taking her things.
“Never mind. I must leave you now.” He took her face in his hands and brushed a tender kiss over her forehead. “Remember: Trust the water.”
She gathered a retort about cold rivers and tidal waves. But Ascarion had gone.
*
Rhinne didn’t know how long she stared at the door. This was absurd. Surely this way would be guarded, sealed or watched by magic. But she couldn’t stay here, and she didn’t know the way back to the bed. Ascarion had brought her a fresh shift, a long woolen tunic, and her boots. She tore the shift the wizards had put on her into strips and wrapped it around her belly to catch any blood that seeped from the knife wound there. Then she dressed, taking care to hide her sword beneath her cloak.
She pushed on the door. It didn’t move. She pushed on one side, then the other. An uncomfortable knot grew in the pit of her stomach as she sagged against the portal with a gasp of futility. No wonder there was no guard here. The door had a spell on it.
“Ascarion,” she whispered. But he wouldn’t help her with this; he had all but said so. She mi
ght as well have an arrow in her back.
She hovered there for a few moments longer...then stiffened as a muffled voice reached her ears. The door shivered beneath her touch. She backed away and then scampered into the brush on one side of the rise. Light glowed from the crystal in the center of the door as it swung open with a stony growl.
Rhinne ducked down as a man stepped through wearing a cloak like Lorth’s without the red trim. He was strangely fair and intent. His crow-black hair shone in the light of the cresset as he glanced at it with a furrowed brow. Rhinne gulped as he hesitated. Then he strode into the shadows, his cloak swirling around his feet.
The door started to close. Rhinne jumped up and ran for the opening. As she slipped through, it closed behind her with ponderous force, prompting her to snatch the hem of her cloak through the crack to avoid being caught.
A dimly lit stairwell descended from the landing. She knew where the wizard was headed. She fled down the steps like a panicked hare. At the bottom she reached a plain wooden door. Her heart sinking, she pushed on it, exhaling with relief as it opened. Cold wind hit her face. She slipped through, closed the door and leaned against it.
A cool, clear evening settled over the wizards’ citadel, which sprawled below in tiers of roofs, walls and woodlands. Snow-capped mountains rose up to the north and west; the sea glinted to the southeast. Rhinne turned around. No trees up there. No forest, no wilderness.
You are in another dimension, Ascarion had said. She hadn’t really believed him.
Behind her, a clear purple spire towered a hundred feet into the sky, shining in the setting sun, glowing with an incomprehensible force that raised the hairs on her flesh. It stood upon two concentric stone buildings, the lower of which had narrow windows around the rim. She guessed this to be the Oculus, which Lorth had described during their ride.
A steep, curved path fell off beneath her feet. Clutching at the rock wall on one side of the high stair, she started down. The precarious steps ended in a weird, deserted landscape of stone paths, glass buildings, and statues of powerful men dressed in beautiful clothes and flowing robes. Many of them bore weapons. Mosaics and geometric carvings covered the ground and walls around. Rhinne moved east beneath the statues’ empty gazes until she reached a courtyard. She pulled her cloak around her, tucked her hair beneath the hood and feigned normalcy.
The Riven God Page 17