“Your world is two days beyond the solstice. You have impressive longevity. And beneficial; the power offered to you by the temple grows with each passing day.”
“I don’t care. Not right now.” I’m focused on Esmanth. I’ve tried not to think about her because there are moments– I rub down the clench around my heart.
“Your sister is very dear to you.” Andraste says this with a kind of wonder I understand. Noble families are known for a lot of things; backbiting, treachery, ruthless politicizing, and jealousy. But not usually love.
I stare across the garden, “My mother was so ill, almost from the moment she fell pregnant with Esmanth. My father tried everything, every type of healing money could buy, herbs and sea air. He sold our estates in the Lakewood to pay for thaumaturgy and maybe something a shade darker.” I raise two fingers while I dig deep for my voice.
“Twice he called us in to tell my mother goodbye. Nothing was working. Then a man from the Barrigan Highlands came to our hall. At least, he said he was; I didn’t believe him then, and I don’t know now, though I’m grateful to him. At the time I thought he was just a schemer who knew my father’s desperation. I think my father thought so, too, but how could he say no to anything?” I shrug.
“All the man wanted was a horse, and in exchange he would tell us the location of an object sacred and powerful that he promised would heal my mother.”
I can see Tagan’s face, mouth hanging open, his first efforts at sad blond baby hairs clinging to his chin. “My brother thought we should give the stranger an old nag from the farm stables, in case we were being had. But my father said if the story were true, we’d always have guilt and regret for not doing right by the man.” I blink away a sting. “He was an honorable man in all things. So, my father brought his favorite palfrey since the man had far to go, and the traveler gave the location of his treasure. My father’s knights were over the moat before the stranger had mounted his new horse.”
“And the treasure was genuine,” Andraste guesses.
“It was. I don’t know why or how, when no other healing or magic worked, but my mother got better.”
She stares at me, expectant. I feel like she can read my thoughts, thoughts I’ve never admitted to anyone. “The baby made my mother so sick, and my father so terrified. Our whole kingdom fell into upheaval. I resented its existence. I mean, I was ten, but...my feelings weren’t entirely without malice. I think my mother knew; she gave the child my patron-name, Esmere for my grandfather. And with my father gone back to a mountain of obligations he’d neglected, and my brother being groomed for king, that just left me to keep my mother company and help with the babe.” I can see her feet paddling the air, tiny arms reaching eager from her cradle. “Esmanth was so beautiful, from the very start. The sort of beautiful that just breaks your fucking heart. Sometimes she made me crazy. Hold me, Lir. Ride me on your horse, ride me on your horse, ride me on–” I laugh. “She would ask and ask until I gave in. Sometimes she would run around me in a circle with her ribbon cane, shrieking while Tagan and I tried to have an important conversation. But if I snapped at her, she threw her arms around me and cried until I accepted her apology. Always gentle always the peacemaker.”
Andraste’s smile fades. We sit a long moment as I push down the pain of old memory. Finally, she looks up to me. “What was the treasure?”
“A ring. A common-looking one. Gold with a cabochon ruby set into a slit like an eye.”
She stares at me with the imploring, unblinking stare of an ancient statue. “Do you still have it?”
I look away. “I picked it from my mother’s corpse after Duke Iden dumped her in the potter’s field.”
She strokes cool knuckles over my fevered cheek. “May I see it?”
“It doesn’t do anything, “I shrug down my pack. “Whatever magic it held, I think it’s been used it up.” The ring leaps into my palm and I hold it out. “You can have it,” I offer.
“It brought you joy and sorrow,” Andraste whispers. She doesn’t take it at first, watching it wide-eyed. When she does, the band hangs on her slender finger, sized for someone much bigger. For a split second, when skin touches gold, the ruby is fire.
Maybe it’s not so empty.
Something about the way she’s holding it, her words, give me the impression there’s something she’s not saying. “Joy and sorrow? You know what this is; you know something about the ring…”
“It has importance to you,” she offers cryptically. She spins the band and slides her finger free again, leaving the ring in my palm, ruby still glinting, but comparatively dull.
“Keep this, for now. It may yet serve you.” Andraste reaches into my armor and removes the astratempus. She spins the gold arm to a lapis band between the moon and sun, and presses. Its gold arrow clicks. The whole world becomes a grinding sound. She flickers; the garden flickers. For a moment my thoughts exist without my body.
Everything flows together again.
She places it in my hand with the ring. “Mordenn and the Oryllix have violated the sanctity of this temple and rules Mordenn himself imposed. I won’t be bound by them where I can help it. The astratempus is suspended.”
A weight lifts from my shoulders. Maybe I have time, now, to finish this. “Will he punish you for it?”
Andraste smiles, lips turned in curve of capricious youth. “He can try. He already has.”
Realization lashes through me like the crack of a whip. “Ewanach said Esmanth.”
She nods. “He might have tried to breach the temple no matter what, simply because of your success. But he must have discovered your deception of Mynogin.”
Mynogin knows; Mordenn knows. And they have Esmanth.
“What do I do? How-” I’m trapped. I feel trapped inside this place and even one more trial, forget two, feels like eternity.
“You fight. You win.” She says this in something like my mother’s practical, even tones.
“They’ll kill her.” Maybe they already have.
“Think of all you’ve seen.” Andraste smiles and stands, offering me her hand. She pulls me to my feet with a strength I would never have guessed. “Death, of all things, is the least certain or final act in this world.”
This shouldn’t be reassuring. Lawlessness and absent rules sound like a recipe for nightmares to form. But she’s right; I have seen the impossible, and even been its agent once or twice.
I take a deep breath, nod.
“Rest and prepare yourself. Mordenn has done his best to shake you, to plant that seed of despair and doubt, and you need to overcome it before the seventh trial.”
“Tell me.” Before I can rest, I need to know what I’m getting into.
“There are many temples; this you already know. Some, Cocidius founded in an effort to break curses. Some were created as feats by other gods. Lysperia is a trial at the juncture of these. You will face not only the realm’s challenge, but the jealous hunger of aspirants from other worlds. Your only true ally will be the artifact you choose as your companion.”
Her words leave my muscles slack. Thoughts are swirls of color, and it’s so tempting to lay down on the grass and let time pass away. Weary doesn’t begin to describe how I feel inside. A glance around the garden makes me realize the outside world has faded in my mind. “I’m having trouble remembering life before the Garden.”
“It will begin to absorb your soul no matter what. That’s part of the temple’s nature. And you’ve made it further, faster than most. You have defeated challenges martial,” she pauses, glances to Meridiana, “and carnal. More have succumbed to madness than the trials, I think.”
This almost terrifies me from seeking rest. I glance to the others, waiting patiently, seated on a low knob near the pond. Etain stands a little apart, but they all look ready, willing to face whatever comes next. They’ll be here when it’s time to move on.
“Take the long way back to your chamber,” offers Andraste. “The path is gentle, and the grove peac
eful at this hour of the day.”
I can see my chamber from where we sit; almost no part of me wants to double back when my bed is right here. But my father’s face is still vivid; walking it off couldn’t hurt if I want to get some actual rest. With a parting wave to the Gardener and the women, I start toward the terrace and the copse entrance.
Its embrace is cool, filtered green light lush and befitting a damp herbal scent on a breeze that rustles the canopy. I’ve walked the path before, dimly aware of white marble through the towering trunks, the lap of water, or the voices of my companions. The copse is little more than a thick cluster of trees, its path a suggestion on where to go when really it has plenty of open space to wander.
Now as I walk, undergrowth tangles the path borders, hemming me in with tangled spirals of ivy and thick stems head-high, capped by clustered blossoms in shades of ember and flame. They emit a fruit-musk odor, a sweet green nectar of south-sea islands that leaves me feeling drunk. Does the garden have seasons? Maybe the trees are denser and the brush thicker this time of year. It’s exactly the sort of place that would bloom in the dead of winter.
My feet slow on the packed dirt. I don’t exactly stumble in the cool depths, but tangled roots – roots I don’t recall from before – cause me to take extra care. I’ve walked much further than usual to reach the grove, or maybe the flowers only make it feel that way.
The heaviness in my heart lifts; part of my mind claws for it. I shouldn’t let it go. I need to remember what it was that weighed on me before I entered. My chest pounds and I stop, turn a circle on the path, suddenly lost.
Esmanth.
Her name comes easily, and the faces of my family, but their memory doesn’t cut so deep as before. Inhale, exhale. Fear passes. I haven’t forgotten.
The path climbs a long rise. At the top two gnarled ancient alders with bark like brown charred bones form a gate, their spindly branch-tips woven with care and intent into a beautiful knotwork pattern.
In the grove’s center, where the low dais should be, is a mass of roots. Their tawny wood is polished to a shine, and what was once a stump has been carved into a chest still joined to the tree’s remains. It’s inlaid with finer metal than I’ve ever seen, silver draping lid and box like lace.
It calls me forward with a voice, whispers I feel but don’t hear. Soothing, or deceptive? I can’t interpret them. My fingers rest on the lid’s cool silver scrollwork. My fate has come to a fork in the road. The chest could as easily contain a demonic spirit or a poison as some great treasure. This I understand perfectly; the feeling in my gut is clear as I slide a hand over varnished blond wood.
What about me decides the outcome? I feel like the coin rests on its edge. The Gardener sent me here, and though there is still much about her I don’t understand, I think I trust her.
Its latch is ornamental, tongue laced with gold and set with tear-shaped rubies. The keyhole decorative with no mechanism inside. I can feel this in the lid’s weight as I pry it open. Whatever is inside must be unimaginable, and whoever it belonged to must be a legendary sonofbitch to not need a lock of any kind.
The rim grates free on a puff of air, not musty, but like the first hint of a spice caravan from Abydun. Leather, incense, red fruit and the apricot-hint of oleander.
The box itself is empty.
Maybe I wasn’t worthy of punishment or reward? I was at least hoping for a sword, being kind of swordless at the moment.
Something heavy thumps hardwood in the chest’s deep shadows.
Leather and metal fill my palm. The scabbard’s length is tawny gold, embossed with words I can’t decipher. Silver neck and tip gleam, but their scrolls are cut by black tarnish that speaks of age. The blade is wide, haft as elaborate as the scabbard, but it rests easy in my hands, perfectly balanced. I grip the handle; it hums eagerly against my flesh.
Armor. I want armor equal to this sword. Without a thought for greed or consequences, I send my wish along my body, through my arm and into the chest.
Its lid shuts with a slam that echoes through the glade. Maybe I asked too much, but I’m not giving up.
A man never gets if he never asks.
The chest is full when I open it again. A domed helm rests on top, hammered gold with beadwork on the cheek guards matching anchors decorating its peak. A crimson silk tunic, and beneath an exquisite cuirass of gold. Its breast is opposing ships set with a mounted warrior on a rearing horse, a gold and silver spear inlaid down the breastbone, dividing them. Its back, like the helm, is an anchor. Not an inlay, but an actual gold-plate anchor. Bracers, pauldrons, greaves all equal in craftsmanship and design. It’s the sort of armor I’ve only seen in drawings and painting of the ancient Syrenaens, the south Legions who became legend before Loria was anything but coastal hills. They were warriors bred to this kind of gear, not like the men of my lands who fight in leather and mail. I raise the helm, feel its weight. Its heft is a mental one; the object itself feels almost ornamental, light and insubstantial, though I have no doubt about its protection. That sense of fate sweeps over me again, and I smack it down on my head, enveloped for a moment by its plush velvet lining.
Power. Power flows into my skull like lightning fingers, and runs hot through my blood. I’m a poor conduit, and it fills me to burning in seconds. The helm muffles my strangled cries. I claw my skin, the searing pain in my arms and chest, claw the helm. It won’t come free. My vision is white and blinding as the sun. My flesh tears.
I don’t explode. Blood doesn’t pour from my veins. The tears become gussets in my body, my being. My joints stretch, and I expand until the energy is just barely contained within me, beating like waves against the walls of my skull and chest. The leaves feel a sharper green, the sun warmer on my face. Everything is magnified.
The gifts inside of me are more natural, powerful. I am perfect conduit, now, for what they offer.
I don the tunic, silk braes trimmed at the knees with gold floss. When it comes to the cuirass, I lose my nerve. Exhaustion has reached a breaking point despite the women’s gifts, and I don’t think I’ll survive another round of lightning.
Strapping on the rest of my new kit is blessedly uneventful, except that it fits like it was made for me, though the buckles and supple leather bands show signs of use. It occurs to me that I was made for the armor. Whatever happened when I stuck on the helm has changed me.
I close the chest and open it one more time, just in case. Come on, I’m not leaving gold on the table. It opens this time with a protesting creak and the box is empty. Still had to be sure.
As I leave my feet sit wider between fanning roots, boot steps echoing louder than before, and my limbs have an unfamiliar weight, heavy but easily wielded like a good weapon.
There’s no obvious transformation. The trail rises, lengthens away toward the other end of the pond. I can see the foot bridge’s arc through thinning trees.
I come out at the south wing doors, which makes no sense in relation to the path I walked but I know better than to question it. A wink from the alcove catches my eye.
The bust’s clasp is restored, gold leaf whole and polished to a shine. Its head is ringed with a crown of leaves, burnished metal detailed down to ribs and veins, and coarse stems. The words behind the statue have changed; it’s no longer just the arch that bears writing.
Not even the Pantheon had predicted Cocidius crossing the Tavia. Selenae had brought the moon across the night sky when the dream came to him, so that not even the goddess of night saw his intentions.
In Corinium Magnus, Cocidius found a foreign woman among the populace, a muse who had influence over time and the stars. The god Mordenn had wanted the muse for his collection and was angered by the interference of a mortal. He aided the Four Hundred of the Tribunum in rising up against Cocidius.
Cocidius’ boldness and cunning pleased the god of War, who conferred him with the powers and favors of the Pantheon.
Mordenn set his priests to formulating a curse.
/> Suddenly I’m not so tired anymore. A muse who could influence time, a foreign woman bonded to Cocidius, provoking the vengeance of Mordenn?
I won’t find the Gardener; I already know better. Andraste’s never here when I have questions. She knows so much more about what’s happening here than I ever suspected, but I’ll have to wait.
I want to tell the others about what happened in the grove, show them what I’ve been given, but this is the second time I’ve been this close to my bed.
-No Rest for the Wicked-
Callista is waiting, leaned against the door column. She looks me over appreciatively, and it’s not till she stands I realize I’m almost a head above a woman who was a hair taller, just a few hours ago. Her nails rake the dense-woven silk at my hip; I can fully appreciate the strength of the light fabric.
“This suits you.” Her fingers slip under the gold hem.
I’m about to lose some pride. “Callista, I’m flattered. And willing. Just not…” I wave a hand over myself.
Her soft round ears twitch. She shoves me to sit on the bed. “Not like before. You’ve more than proved yourself.” Callista unhooks her chest piece, jostling her breasts and revealing a silver-silk line of hair between them I missed before. “When artaois couple, the male needs strength to survive the female. But a female must be able to endure an able male. Freya says we can share our gifts, with you and each other through bonding. Take some of my strength.” She falls to her knees between my thighs and licks full pink lips with her black tongue. “A man like you? It’s an honor to pleasure you.”
The feeling is so mutual. There are moments I wonder if the temple’s greatest illusion is so many incredible women willingly fighting by my side.
I reach for the strap on my greaves.
“Don’t.” She stays my hand, pushes it away. “Leave it on. There’s something…” Callista shudders and pushes the tunic up my thighs. “Just lay back.” Her hand smacks my cuirass and she urges me to the bed.
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