The Godswar Saga (Omnibus)

by Jennifer Vale

  Jason squinted where she was pointing, but he didn’t see anything. He wasn’t a real channeler, of course. He didn’t draw upon the Aether to replicate the powers of the Immortals—he had a living Immortal trapped inside him. But he still should have been able to sense something…

  “I see it now,” Tam said as he leaned down next to Selvhara. “Yeah, that’s definitely not just a pile of enchanted weapons and armor. Something powerful moved through here.”

  “Which means that if the other scavengers are here, they haven’t found a way to extract the Eye yet,” Sarina reasoned. “I’m not sure if that’s good or bad.”

  “They could have already left, for all we know,” Jason suggested. “Maybe they couldn’t find a door.”

  Tam snorted. “If they had the power to excavate this statue, I’m sure they had the power to blast open a doorway somewhere. Besides, we’d never get that lucky.”

  “There is another option,” Gor said. “They could have been killed before they had the chance to remove the artifact.”

  “Now that’s a cheery thought,” Tam muttered. “We haven’t battled off any horrific tomb guardians in a few years. I suppose that means we’re due.”

  Jason started to turn away and search for a potential entrance point, but then a flicker of movement from the corner of his eye caught his attention. He stared at the spot where Sel and Tam had seen their echo, and slowly but surely a faint, misty trail of energy appeared in the area.

  “I think I see it,” he whispered. “It starts inside and then curls around here, right?”

  Selvhara smiled and nodded. “Very good. You become more attuned each and every day.”

  “That’s fantastic,” Sarina muttered, “but if the other scavengers are still lurking around, we need to be ready for them. They could have a whole squad for all we—”

  “There’s a second echo,” Jason interrupted. The misty wake continued twisting around the statue, but a second wake—a much stronger one, almost like a thick fog—gradually materialized in front of him. “It’s much more powerful than the first, but it’s also…different.”

  “Uh…what?” Tam asked. “I don’t see anything.”

  “Neither do I, Jason,” Selvhara said. “Are you certain?”

  He offered her a hand. She looked hesitant, but eventually she reached down and clasped his fingers. Using his telepathy, he shared his perceptions with her…and after a few seconds she inhaled sharply.

  “What is it?” Gor asked. “What do you see?”

  “He’s right—there is a second Aetheric echo,” Selvhara whispered, her voice oddly parched. “It leads directly up the statue and merges with the first, and then eventually the two of them spiral off to the north together.”

  “Wait, what?” Sarina asked, clearly confused. “You’re saying there’s a magic trail leading to this statue?”

  “And away from it. Someone powerful traveled to the statue, removed the Eye…and then presumably took it with him.”

  “So the Eye’s not actually inside?”

  “I don’t think so,” Jason said. “It might have been once, but it’s not anymore. Someone removed it, and as far as I can tell they left a few hours ago.”

  Gor swore under his breath. “Then we need to follow them.”

  “I still don’t see anything,” Tam muttered. “And I’ve never heard of a creature leaving behind a powerful enough Aetheric echo that another channeler could detect it several hours later. Either you two are crazy, or there was a second artifact here.”

  “There is one type of creature that stirs the Aether in its wake,” Selvhara whispered. She took in a deep breath before turning to face the others. “A demon.”

  A cold silence fell across the group. As usual, Sarina was the first to recover.

  “I thought only Knights of the Last Dawn could track demons,” she said softly.

  “They developed the technique, yes, but it can be taught like any other skill,” Selvhara said. “However, they are very cautious about sharing their knowledge for reasons I’ve never quite understood. Tam and I don’t know the technique…but Jason obviously does.”

  Sarina turned to face him. “How is that possible?”

  “Demons are creatures of the Aether,” Jason murmured, as much to himself as to the rest of the group. “They are echoes of fallen Immortals animated by mortal desire and emotion. Malacross must be able to sense them just like they were one of her own people.”

  “Good to know,” Tam muttered. “So why the hell didn’t you use that trick back in Celenest? Why didn’t you see all your father’s demons running around Lyebel?”

  “Why weren’t you conjuring fireballs when you were eight years old?” Jason countered. “I haven’t mastered every single power yet, not even remotely close. Remember, Malacross is controlling the flow of information into my head.”

  “Then you should tell her to hurry the hell up. If she would have shown you how to do this earlier, we could have skipped this trip altogether.”

  Jason pinched the bridge of his nose in frustration. “It doesn’t work like that. She’s trying to keep me from going insane, remember? Besides, I haven’t spoken to her in a long time. I get the feeling that the closer we get to merging, the less tangible she’ll become…”

  “Yeah, because a goddess living inside your head was really tangible to begin with,” Tam grumbled. “Anyway, if you can wave your hand and track demons now, then we don’t even need the bloody Eye. You can lead us to your dad yourself!”

  “I wouldn’t go that far,” Jason said. “I’m not even sure this is a demon. All I know is that there are two Aetheric echoes here.”

  “We can debate the details later,” Sarina put in as she yanked her bow off her back. “But if we’re going to catch up to whomever or whatever stole it, we need to get moving.”

  Jason pursed his lips. “The echo is strong and should linger for a little while yet. I still think we should peek around the statue.”

  “Why?” Gor asked sharply. “You just said that the Eye isn’t even here.”

  “I said that there are two echoes—we can’t be certain what they’re from,” Jason corrected. “We’ll feel pretty stupid if we start chasing this trail while the Eye was here all along. It shouldn’t take more than a few minutes to look around, assuming we can find an entrance.”

  “Let me search the area,” Selvhara said. Flicking out her wrists, she summoned a gust of wind that gradually built up strength until it lifted her slender frame off the ground. She levitated upwards and eventually perched atop the statue’s “scalp.”

  Anything interesting? Jason asked into her mind.

  Yes. Whoever was here clearly burst their way inside the statue. There is an opening near one of the eyes—we should be able to squeeze through.

  Even Gor?

  Probably, assuming he gets a bit of help.

  Well, that’s a start. Peek around a bit and see if you notice any signs of combat or traps or anything of the like. And be careful.

  I will.

  Jason nodded and turned to face the others. “It looks like our competitors punched a hole in one of the eyes and crawled inside. We might as well head in the same way.”

  “At least we can get out of this bloody sun for a while,” Tam muttered. “Do you think Sel can summon a strong enough gale to pull all of us up?”

  “Doubtful, especially not Gor. We’ll just have to climb.”

  “Anything to get out of this accursed heat,” the chagari grumbled. He removed a pack from his mount and pulled out a spool of rope. “For your sake, I just hope there’s something inside worth salvaging.”

  Chapter Five

  “The lightest sands keep the darkest secrets.”

  —ancient Talishite saying

  In the seven years Sarina had known Jason Moore, he had dragged her to over two dozen dig sites scattered across northern Torsia. They had plundered ancient tombs, ransacked forgotten temples, and occasionally even stolen valuable relics f
rom the living. They were used to competition; relic hunting had become something of a craze in the north in the aftermath of the Ash War.

  But there was a big difference between skirmishing with other mortal scavengers and chasing down a demon powerful enough to leave a magic footprint. Sarina had known this trip was a bad idea from the start, and every passing second proved her more and more right.

  “Can we get a light down there?” she asked. The whole group was perched atop the head of the statue now, and they were all peering in through the lone opening. “Not all of us can see in the dark.”

  “One of your species’ many failings,” Gor mumbled. “Lugging around a glow-stone will only make us easier targets.”

  “Feel free to jump down there and search the whole bloody statue yourself,” Sarina snapped back. “You can be our personal hunting cat.”

  Wedging herself between them, Selvhara leaned forward and conjured a glimmering sphere of soft blue light into her palm. She dropped it through the opening, and it gently wafted down into the statue like a snowflake caught in the breeze.

  “I will go down first,” the druid said. “The rest of you can use the rope.”

  “I’ll go,” Sarina insisted. “You’re too valuable and Gor is too cowardly.”

  Before anyone could argue, she tossed down the rope they’d tied off and quickly began her descent. Like most of her people, she was a practiced climber; Asgardia was littered with mountains, and she’d spent much of her childhood scaling the many cliffs outside Valheim. The rope made the descent so easy her boots were on the floor barely thirty seconds after she had started.

  The statue’s interior was segmented off into stacked sections, not unlike a normal spire or tower where one room was built atop the last. She noticed a single winding staircase along the south wall, but otherwise everything in the room appeared to have been destroyed by the passage of time. The tables were broken, the shelves were collapsed, and the floor was littered with the remnants of baubles and other decorations.

  “It looks clear,” she called up as she unhooked her crossbow from her belt. All things being equal, she vastly preferred her longbow, but the weapon simply wasn’t practical in close quarters. Her Ikaran-crafted repeating crossbow, on the other hand, was designed for precisely this situation.

  Jason climbed down the rope behind her, and his forehead creased in concentration as he studied the area. “The echoes are stronger here,” he whispered. “It’s almost blinding.”

  “The intensity is so great that the echoes blend together,” Selvhara added as she slowly floated down. The currents of air beneath her feet swept up some stray piles of dust and sand. “I can’t tell you exactly where they moved.”

  “And I can’t track footprints if you blow the sand everywhere,” Sarina growled. “You could climb down like a normal person for once.”

  Selvhara nodded. “You’re right, of course. I apologize.”

  “It’s fine,” Sarina muttered, returning her attention to the floor. She could yell at the others until her face turned blue, but for some reason she always felt bad snapping at Sel. “Anyway, there’s only one staircase—we know exactly where they went. Look over there at the footprint clusters along the edge of the wall. I can pick out at least four distinct boot-prints, possibly five. They searched this floor and then headed down below.”

  “And never came back up,” Selvhara added gravely. “The tracks are facing in one direction.”

  “Well, that’s not ominous or anything,” Tam muttered as he began his own climb. “Remind me why we’re searching this place again?”

  Jason sighed and leaned down over one of the broken tables. “Would it help if I told you that some of these vases are probably worth a small fortune?”

  “Yes,” Gor said, his orange eyes widening. He immediately leapt down into the opening and grabbed onto the rope. “Get out of the way.”

  The chagari crawled down with surprising speed before leaping over to the largest pile of rubble. He sifted through the debris with the borderline manic intensity of a raccoon pawing through garbage, and Sarina rolled her eyes and turned her attention back to the prints on the ground. “One of the trails actually does lead back up. Look over here.”

  “Interesting,” Tam commented. “So five people went down, but only one came back up. What are the odds they stumbled on some ancient trap and got themselves killed?”

  “Or one of them turned upon his fellows and stole the Eye for himself,” Gor suggested as he twirled an ancient bronze chalice between his claws. “Humans are a covetous lot.”

  Tam sighed and shook his head. “It seems more likely that this demon had possessed one of the scavengers, and then once he had what he wanted, he turned on the others.”

  “Demonic breeds that are capable of possessing mortals are generally weak without a host body,” Selvhara pointed out. “They certainly wouldn’t leave an Aetheric echo this strong.”

  Sarina scowled down at the footprint. “How about we look around instead of wasting time with pointless conjecture? I think this trail over here was left intentionally.”

  “Why do you say that?” Jason asked as he crept up beside her.

  “Because you can see this same exact boot here and here along with the others,” she explained, gesturing with her crossbow. “You’ll note how on the way in, he was very careful to mingle his prints with the rest of his men.”

  “And then on the way out, he suddenly takes a very explicit path around all the previous footprints,” Gor reasoned, his attention briefly shifting away from the shiny baubles. “Almost as if he wanted to ensure the next group that followed him knew he made it out.”

  “Exactly,” Sarina said, nodding. “This trail is intentional.”

  “I think you two are reading way too much into a few piles of sand,” Tam grunted. He wiped the sweat from his brow and shook his head. “He could have just randomly walked out a different way. Why would anyone want to leave an explicit trail?”

  “Random footprints would have intersected with the others at least a few times, but these don’t,” Sarina told him. “They’re also not hurried—look at the consistent gaps between his strides. This doesn’t paint the picture of a man running away from a slaughter on the lower levels.”

  “Which makes the ‘turned on his own men’ theory a lot more compelling,” Jason mused. “But Tam does have a point—why intentionally leave a trail?”

  “To be followed, obviously,” Gor said. “Whoever took the Eye—demon or otherwise—must have known we were on his trail. He wants us to chase him. The only question is why.”

  Tam bit down on his lip. “All right, now I’m definitely nervous. First some giant demon steals the Eye from us, and now he’s leaving a physical trail for us to follow? What the hell is going on, Jace?”

  Jason pursed his lips in that “thoughtful frown” expression he made so often. “I have no idea. This whole situation just feels wrong.”

  “Well, right now we have two choices,” Sarina said. “Either we keep looking around and explore this place, or we get the hell out of here and follow this magic trail of yours.”

  “It’s still possible that someone else is alive down there,” Selvhara put in. “We should check just to be certain.”

  Sarina bit down on her lip. “They could be waiting to ambush us.”

  “Then perhaps you should all stop blathering,” Gor grumbled. “At this point even a blind leper would know that someone else is here.”

  “If they want to come out and play, I say we let them,” Tam replied with a shrug. “We have three channelers here, not to mention a chagari and an Asgardian huntress—I think we’ll be fine.”

  “There’s no point in ambushes or traps if you’re intentionally leaving a trail for people to follow,” Jason pointed out. “I don’t think we’re going to find anything down there besides broken relics and dead bodies. But Sel is right—we’re already here, and we might as well have a look around just in case.”

 
“Fine,” Sarina said, standing from her crouch. Out of habit, she checked to make sure her bolt cartridge was properly loaded before shuffling towards the stairway. “Let’s go.”

  ***

  Just like Jason predicted, the statue/temple was mostly empty. The first four levels—which he estimated took them from the statue’s head all the way down to its waist—were filled with dusty furniture, shattered religious iconography, and heaping piles of sand. He pointed out a few potentially valuable decorations, mostly for Gor’s benefit, but if he had come here as part of a regular expedition he would have been incredibly disappointed. Despite the age and historical significance of the ruin, time had done a marvelous job destroying anything of interest. That, or the Talishite princes had pilfered everything interesting before they’d hidden the Eye inside and buried the whole thing.

  By the time the group reached the fifth and presumably final level, Jason’s second prediction also came true: scattered across the wide, spacious chamber were several fresh corpses.

  “Four of them, just like I thought,” Sarina announced. “But I don’t see any obvious wounds—”

  “Careful,” Selvhara interrupted, placing a warning hand on the other woman’s shoulder. “The Aetheric echo here is…strange. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anything like it.”

  “Definitely not,” Tam said with a whistle.

  “It’s beautiful,” Jason agreed. The Aether was a veritable kaleidoscope of color inside this chamber, especially surrounding the open reliquary on the far side of the room. “It looks less like a trail and more like a wake.”

  Sarina frowned at him. “What’s the difference?”

  “Your foot may leave a print behind in the sand, but the dunes don’t part before you. The water actually breaks before the size and power of a sailing ship.”

  “Truly, you missed your calling as a poet,” Gor muttered.

  Sarina chortled. “I’m just glad they’re all enjoying the show. Do you want us normal folk to give you three a moment alone?”