I can’t believe this is happening. Has happened. “I’m really conflicted about leaving you two alone here together.”
“Don’t worry.” Meridiana gives my cock a sharp tug as she struts away. “We’ll need you again…” She flicks her tongue and fans her tail, “eventually.”
The Garden may be the real test, after all.
Freya scrapes her gown from somewhere in the reeds and stays with me while I dress again.
“Where did you come from?” she asks softly while I buckle my chest piece.
“Literally or metaphorically?” I dodge, sort of hoping she won’t push the issue.
“Before here.”
“A kingdom on the Amaranth sea.”
Her eyes widen. “When I was new, there were no mortals along that coast. No men beyond the Reaches. Wildlings, magic beasts, and mythical creatures claimed the Westlands, all the way to the ocean.”
This boggles my mind. Loria’s chantry record is two-thousand years old; our written history nearly twice that. I can’t wrap my mind around the same lands but a completely different world.
“How did you come to be an aspirant?”
This is partly why I’ve spent a year moving from place to place – the questions. “In my kingdom it’s an honor, not a right that anyone can claim. I saved the king in a rare moment when his bodyguards were away.” So rare that it took some weeks of engineering.
“And if you succeed he’s rewarding you with this? With the artifacts?” She’s clearly dubious.
Alarm bells ring my head. I have to be careful, with my secrets, my mission. I won’t lie to her, but I have to measure how much I reveal.
“He sent me to gather you for him.”
Freya shakes her head. “Wait. He’s given you the honor of likely dying to acquire a treasure for him?”
“Yeah. That’s about as shallow and ridiculous as it the whole thing really is.”
“What do you get, that you agreed?”
“First, I didn’t exactly agree.” I can see the hint of betrayal on her face and I hate it. “And, what I get here is more valuable than any of the meaningless trash he’s promised.”
“It’s a woman.” Meridiana leans on a tree at the edge of the clearing, wearing a half-smirk, like she’s caught me.
“It’s true.”
“Oh.” Freya nods, eyes downcast. “Now it makes sense.”
“A woman he loves more than any other,” Meridiana drawls before I can explain.
I forgot how fucking mercurial succubi can be. “Also true. And my sister is worth whatever I have to do here to leave with an unstoppable army.”
“Sister?” they cry in unison.
I grab up my blade and spin it, sliding it home in its sheath. “Sister. What did you think? I’m a sonofabitch, but I’m not that black-hearted.”
Well, not quite.
The Gardner appears. From where? Where does she ever come from? Her hand is extended, and in it something glitters, catching the sunlight and sending shards reflecting back across the canopy and marble.
She comes to a rest in front of me, body still, but in the daylight it’s clearer that she’s changing, somehow. I can’t put my finger on it, but she seems more...human?
“You will benefit from this in the second half of the north wing.”
I take the object from her, examine it. It’s a timepiece, the size of my palm, and the craftsmanship is magnificent. Its circumference, wrapping from the back to the edge of the front, is a band of untarnished gold.
Its face is covered in symbols and letters, intricately wrought, in a language I don’t recognize. I spent years in university and studied plenty of languages. I’m not fluent in all of them, but I have a smattering of every tongue spoken in the Westlands. Either this timepiece is from beyond the known world, or so old that the people who made it are long dead.
My intuition is confirmed by the tiny golden arrow that sits in the center. Whoever carved it was a master, and though its smaller than a lockpick, it’s so perfect that I can imagine firing it from a tiny bow.
As I watch, it rotates, so slowly I wouldn’t have noticed if I wasn’t holding it close. I hold it up to my ear, can hear an almost inaudible whirring, and occasionally a tiny click.
The clockwork inside must be intricate beyond imagination, to be so tiny. Nothing like this exists in any place I’ve heard of. “This is an incredible gift.”
The Gardener hmm’s. “The astratempus is not a gift, and not the boon we spoke of. It will be returned when you succeed, or when you die.”
Ah. Got it. “What is its purpose?”
“Each day, you must complete the next two trials of the Temple. If you fail, your soul will –”
“Right, right, I remember. Consumed.” I squint at the symbols. Though I can’t understand the writing, some of them are clear. Around the face, just after the golden band, is a ring of subtle color, ranging from inky dark to golden light, with the pinks of sunset and amber of sunrise between. Right now, the head of the arrow points in a section indicating morning.
I remember how the places I visited yesterday seemed to be in different worlds than our own, realize why she’s given me this. “Is this attuned to our world? The Temple?”
“Yes.”
Well, that’s handy.
She backs away, sliding soundlessly. “Are you prepared for the third chamber?”
“Now or never.” I grab my pack. A small glass vial tinkles onto the pond stones. It fits in the palm of my hand when I scoop it up. The liquid inside is deep violet.”
“My boon?” I ask, tucking it away.
“Your boon.”
“Any hint as to what it does?”
She hums again, a sound I’ve begun to associate with my fate being decided. “It serves the wise man.”
“So, I may or may not benefit from it.”
The Gardener drifts away toward a door that’s appeared, making a hollow sound that might be laughter.
Mad god. Mad Gardener. This whole place is crazy.
Meridiana wishes me success and starts back for the terrace. Unlike Freya, she hasn’t put her clothes back on, and I watch the sway of her ass as she leaves, her flick of her tail as she disappears between the trees. I can’t help but notice that she doesn’t see me off, but I think I understand. As the first artifact, she’s probably just gotten used to disappointment.
Freya walks with me to the trial gate. “Keep your wits,” she warns softly.
Is there a deeper meaning? With the Gardener hovering I don’t dare ask.
I nod, hoping I’m not seeing her for the last time, and pass through the door.
-Tiste Bauernmoor-
Finna
Stepping through lands me on a moss-covered rock. My boots slip and I’m ankle deep in cool, pungent water before the doorway disappears.
This doesn’t bode well.
If there’s anything in the water with me, I’ll never be able to tell. There are places where the surface churns more rapidly, hinting at depth. But for as far as I can see, which isn’t far, the water is a tangle of leaves, algae, and the skeletal hands of mangrove. Their broken limbs float among the detritus, creating a tangle between flat stones poking above the murk.
With the passage gone, the swamp stretches off in all directions.
Excluding Meridiana’s chamber, it’s the first dark place I’ve been. It’s daytime above the spindly canopy, but sun filters through a blue-gray haze the color of plague. Mist drifts up from the water in a continuous smoky cloud.
The portal flickers into existence on my left, an ominous sign in a land so fetid and still. I don’t see anything I’d run from, and that fucking terrifies me.
There are no landmarks. Hardly any visibility. I check the astratempus. Time ticks away at its usual rate. Looking up through the bony canopy, I wonder if any of these trees can support my weight. I could get the lay of the land, maybe see something from that high.
The scratching noise at my feet doesn’t immediately sink i
n. It sounds like branch against stone. Pressure through the ankle of my boot changes this.
An arm extends from the coagulated water, grey-green and spongy, withered like the mangrove roots. It tapers to spindling claws with hardly a hand in between. Razor sharp nails almost as long as the fingers bite my boot leather. I tense, ready to fight for my life, but something is off. It’s slow, weak, and its grip isn’t overwhelming. One kick of my leg snaps the arm free.
A face bobs above the water; human, elfin, sickly. Slender pointed ears poke from a tangle of dark hair thick with scum and leaves. Black shriveled eyes fill the sockets like old fruit. They seem rotted and useless, but I feel like they see me. A woman, once. Now it’s a living corpse. Her thin lips peel back to reveal a ring of teeth sharp as bird beaks. She inhales, a supernatural screech, and air bubbles from the holes in her chest.
Cold steel makes short work of her before her shoulders clear the swamp. Before my blade’s arc has finished, she reduces to pale green goo that floats in a thick sheen atop the water. “That’s it?” I skim what little of the swamp I can see; nothing else moves, but I have a feeling. The sensation of more pairs of shrunken black eyes.
“The mara are weak…”
I nearly piss myself. Another shriek would have been less jarring than an actual voice. Tuning in a slow circle, I don’t see anything.
“...At first.”
“Where are you?” I ignore her words, soft and feminine. Nothing she has to say right now concerns me as much as not being able to see who’s saying it.
A double tap on my shoulder. I spin with blade at the ready. Still nothing.
Squinting. I finally catch a hint. A mirage-like ripple so close but so transparent that my head swims a second. Once my eyes adjust in the dim light, I can almost make out the hint of eyes, lips. What is she? A ghost? A water sprite? “I’m Lir,” I offer, hoping that’ll open the door for information.
“An aspirant,” she says. Her breath is cool on my face, damp like a rainy breeze. “A new cycle has begun?”
“A new cycle is ending.”
“But you’re the first I’ve seen this solstice... There were so many last time.” Her sing-song pitch drops on the last two words.
This doesn’t match up with what Freya and Meridiana told me about the temple. “I completed two rooms before reaching you.”
“Oh. I was the first of the six, once.”
“Six? You mean eight…”
“Eight!” Her image ripples. “There were only six of us. Cocidius has been working on his collection.” She makes a small gurgling sound. “Is it horrible to be relieved I’m no longer the first?”
“No.” Remembering Meridiana’s bitterness over it, I can empathize. Checking the astratempus, I can’t believe how much time has passed. “I’m on kind of a tight schedule; any ideas about how to get through here?”
“Well...I can try to guide you.”
“Try?”
“I should be completely truthful. Not a single aspirant has ever bested my realm. I’m not even sure what the point of my challenge is. I mean, we’re supposed to reach the Shrine of Nechtan, but that’s never happened.”
Oh boy. “What does happen?”
“They die! Somewhere around the submerged statue. Center island.”
“You sound almost...happy about that.”
“Relieved. By the time we get that far they’ve usually been shouting, swearing, and trying to use me as bait for the maras. I don’t know why, but they go mad.”
I hear the splash under her last word, spin, and decapitate the creature stalking out of the swamp.
“Once I hid under the surface until an aspirant perished, because he’d lost the will to do anything but chase me making animal sounds.”
“You let him die?”
I swear her transparent silhouette shrugs. “That’s a fair way of putting it.”
Maybe the challenge is surviving her.
“Well, my time is short. I’m happy to follow you since I have no damn idea where I’m going. We’ll improvise from there.”
She makes what might be a happy slooshing sound. “Off we go, then.”
“What do I call you?” A mara lurches out just off her shoulder. My blade sings through its sodden flesh before she’s answered.
“Oh! Oh. You’re fast!” She sounds surprised, maybe frightened, flickering when she turns to watch the mara dissipate.
“Impressed?”
“No. Worried.”
“Uh…”
“Finna. In mortal tongues I’m called Finna.”
That wasn’t the question I wanted her to answer.
“Jump from stone to stone. Don’t walk through the mire.” She passes by on a rush of cool air and skims a silver vee atop the swamp like a dragonfly.
In the time it takes for me to bend my knees on what’s probably a hopelessly long lunge, she’s disappeared. “Finna? Finna!”
A soft splash. “Yes, Lir.”
“Where did you go?”
“Ugh.” She huffs a sigh. “Can you see me?”
“No.” I jump to the next stone, flail like a crazed chicken for a second, and impossibly, stick the landing.
“Now can you see me?”
I squint, trying to pierce the mire. Nothing but oozing filth and misty darkness. “No.”
“Now?” She’s lost the hopeful note to her questions.
“Yes. A little.” In the mist and haze, the dim light, she’s invisible until almost an arm’s length away.
“Well, this was going better.”
“Was?” I ask, dividing another mara in half.
“You seemed faster and a little more...tenacious? But none of the others could see me, either.”
“Could you just stay close?”
“The mara don’t take notice of me, but their essence in the water weakens me, like an illness.”
“Aren’t they in the water with you now?”
“No, when you slaughter them. It releases the bitterness of their soul.”
“Huh. So they don’t attack you?”
“They don’t even seem to notice me. But they’ll notice you. They’ll-” She makes a bubbly, growling sound. “Just eat your guts out.”
“Uh…” We’re coming to these awkward intersections more and more.
“They can fashion their mouths into a straw and suck your entrails through their teeth. Ugh. It’s awful!”
“Finna!”
“Sorry!” Her ripple darts close and away again. “Anyway, you’ll be doing a lot of slaying, which means I can’t stay close. And you need to move quickly, so ideally I’d guide you from up ahead but…” She sighs. “No one ever moves quickly enough. I’m probably the worst of all the artifacts.”
“I think that’s not true. One of the artifacts is a bird that pecks aspirants’ eyes out.”
“Really?”
“No.”
“Lir. I’m tempted to leave you to your fate.”
“No good?” My brother Tagan used to tease me like that all the time. It worked. On second thought, it made Esmanth cry so...bad move.
“Well,” I jump two more stones, rock, and catch myself. Not all the platforms are anchored in the bog. “Tell me about this place and maybe I can figure out what we’re supposed to do.”
“On the far side is the Shrine of Nechtan.”
Four more mara rise, halting her words. They surge upward, breaching the water with wet belches of muck. But they’re so slow, and four quick cuts of my blade end them.
“You were saying…?” I pant, chasing Finna.
“It sits in sunlight on a rise above the bauernmoor, up a long stone staircase.” When she’s more than a few feet away her voice comes from everywhere. I can see why it’d be impossible to follow by sound alone.
“So, not affected by the swamp.”
“Not that I can tell. I can’t go inside. It’s sealed until the aspirant reaches it. But the air is clear and the mara don’t go onto the rise.”
&nbs
p; “Where do they come from?” Mara and alps aren’t natural creatures. They’re created. I didn’t read much about them when preparing for the temple, but I remember that much.
“Nechtan was a cambion.”
“Whoa! Those were terror stories we told at bedtime when I was a child.” Succubi and incubi having children was about as horrifying as it got in my child’s mind.
“Very real, here in Tiste. His mother was the succubus Gilea and his father the incubus sorcerer Hagge. They created him, and Hagge impregnated him into the human queen Falith. Falith knew what Nechtan was but chose to raise him with her husband Dormun.”
“Great! Cambion offspring. What could go wrong?”
The sound she makes is almost a giggle. “Seems like a blatantly poor move, doesn’t it?”
Six mara claw from the muck, shrieking like storm wind beneath an old door until cold steel sends them to the afterlife. Their smell...I breathe through my mouth a moment, and it’s not as bad, but the oily, thick taste of rotting meat and poison mushroom still hangs high in my throat.
Finna moves beyond their contamination and I lose sight of her entirely. I squint. My head pounds a little, and my blood pounds, feels thick in my flesh. The low light and haze kill me; I stop trying to see her.
“When Nechtan reached his sixteenth year, his true nature overwhelmed the efforts of the priests and court magisters. Legend says some believed Gilea, with or without the assistance of Hagge, provoked the demon soul inside Nechtan. He murdered his father and had his mother burned in the temple courtyard.”
Cold sonofabitch.
“Then Nechtan learned that Gilea and Hagge created him for their own devious purposes, and that, because he’d been born of a woman, he would die a mortal death. Gilea deceived him by telling him he could avert this by lying with a mortal woman and devouring the child she bore.”
“But a cambion can’t bear children.”
“No. Even if he weren’t the product of two undead, most creatures of the demi-pantheon cannot conceive by or with mortals.”
“So he was doubly damned.”
“Yes, but he didn’t know. Nechtan took an older bride. A beauty of eighteen, a daughter of his most powerful lord. It was...grotesque. Nechtan inflicted himself on her day and night for-”
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