The room was dark. The two windows had been covered with thick canvas sheets that allowed almost no light in. Mazu’s eyes adjusted quickly enough as she walked over to the bed where he lay. She let out a slight gasp as she saw him. For a second, she thought he had died. He lay on his back, staring at the ceiling, his eyes red and his dark hair ragged and greasy. He was pale and thin and fragile, not the vigorous Freeman explorer she had come to know. There was no indication that he even knew she had entered the room.
“D’Molay?” Mazu reached out and took his hand in hers. His hand seemed to have no strength in it. Leaning forward, she looked closely into his eyes. Though she was right in front of him, he did not seem to focus on her. She took her other hand and placed it on his forehead. It was quite hot. She feared he again had the fever from the pact they made with Glaucus, although she had attempted to forestall its effects over the last few days by making inquires about Circe or Scylla of some of the Greek troops and nearby creatures. She had even gotten a few leads. Mazu partially transformed the palm of her hand into water and slid it across his forehead and along the sides of his face. As she did so, she noticed he seemed to relax a bit and his breathing became deeper and steadier. “Can you hear me? Squeeze my hand if you can.”
She felt him hold her hand tighter. Mazu smiled slightly and sat on the side of the bed and ran her wet hand around his face and neck spoke to him. Hoping to regain his interest in the world, she decided to catch him up on how the great battle had ended. “You must try to recover. Your friends Kastor, Herikos and Tycho have been asking for you. Yes, they all survived, and the Greeks were victorious. The last of the battle was very bloody - I’m sure you would have enjoyed seeing that,” she said with a wry smile. The pained look that marked his face relaxed as she gave him the good news about his friends. Encouraged, Mazu told him more. “Some attackers escaped into the hills and skies, heading back to their own realms to nurse wounds and their bruised egos. There will be serious repercussions once the Council is ready to discuss the attack. I’ve already been told they want to hear from you, so we’ll have to get you cleaned up at some point. I’ll find you some fresh clothes when the time comes.”
Finally, D’Molay actually looked at her. She could see that he was comforted by her presence and it gladdened her heart as well. She gave his hand another squeeze. “I wondered if you were in there or if I was just talking to myself. Please, let me get you something to eat and drink.” Mazu gave him the caring look of a mother who seemed to understand the pains of her children better than they did themselves. Slowly, D’Molay nodded his head in the affirmative.
A short time later, Mazu ordered water, juices, fruits, nuts and berries be brought in. Then she sat there on the bed with him and slowly fed him small amounts of whatever he felt like he could eat. As she fed him a cashew, she smiled. “You are lucky that I am a semi-retired goddess and have the time for this. Few mortals are ever hand fed by a deity.”
He coughed, more from embarrassment than anything else. Then, after so many days of silence he finally spoke. “I - I am so sorry, Mazu. Just leave me. I didn’t mean this to happen. It’s just . . .”
Mazu placed her fingers over his lips as she smiled at him benignly. “Hush. I choose to help you because it would be a shame to lose you. Now sit up and drink some of this nectar.” She raised an expectant eyebrow to let him know she meant business. He sat up in the bed and took the bottle she handed him. It was in fact the same liquid from the very same bottle that she had given Aavi when the two of them had walked to Buddha’s Retreat. Slowly the color returned to his face and his thoughts began to gather force.
“Did you know that Aavi caused the same thing to happen to Set while he held her captive? Every person I found nearby her cell had been turned to sand. I mean salt,” he corrected himself as he finished.
“No, I didn’t, but there was little time for talk when I arrived in the midst of the battle.” A look of regret passed over her face as she recalled the carnage she had seen. Mazu knew her decision to release the beast had caused many deaths. Ultimately, however, it had led to the beast leaving their world. Mazu felt that result was the right one.
“When she died,” D’Molay pressed on, as if his words would dry up if he didn’t quickly spit them out, “Aavi said she knew what she was and where she came from, but she couldn’t tell me in time. I’ll never know.” He went silent again after mentioning her, the pain of her loss cutting deep.
Mazu sensed his difficulty and tried to soothe his troubled mind. “Perhaps with some help, you can piece it together,” she said invitingly.
He looked at her with a trace of suspicion. It would be just like Mazu to use his own curiosity to draw him out of his pain and sorrow. He had to admit that even in the midst of his grief, many questions about Aavi filled his mind with maddening persistence. Who or what was she? What was her power and where did she come from? He couldn’t stop asking himself what he could have done differently to avoid her dying on the battlefield.
“I never should have brought her to the fort,” D’Molay said.
“You did what you thought was best. That is all any man or god can do,” Mazu half admonished, half consoled him. “No one could have foreseen how it would all end. You must not carry guilt for circumstances beyond your control. I was the one who helped the beast escape, so it may be as much my fault as yours.”
He gave her a pained look. “You?”
“Yes. The creature was about to drown and I was worried how that might affect Aavi. So I helped the beast escape, that it might live. Perhaps I should have let it die in the water. I did what I thought was the best choice at the time, just like you did.”
“I see.”
“I still feel responsible for not being there when she was taken at Buddha’s Retreat. I should have stayed with her then, but I did not. The past cannot be changed, though, so here we are. Now we must make do with the cards that the Fates have dealt.” Satisfied that D’Molay had at least regained his connection to life, she stood up. “I will let you rest for now, but I shall return in a few hours and we can speak again. I would like to visit a few others who were hurt in the battle as well.”
For a second, he worried she would not return, but the feeling passed and he waved weakly to her. “Thank you, Mazu. You never cease to amaze with your empathy and care. I am very lucky to count you as a friend.”
She touched his shoulder and then walked over to the door. “Rest. I’ll be back to check on you in a while. Eat the food,” she ordered in parting. D’Molay swallowed some more dates and berries and then fell into the first restful sleep he had had in days.
* * *
The next day, D’Molay accepted that it was time to go back and face the world. He managed to find the will to get out of bed, wash, shave, and put on a fresh change of clothes. He pulled one of the canvas sheets away from a window, only to find it was night. Stars shone brightly down from the heavens above. Turning back to the room, he noted the messy state it was in and began to pick things up. He tried not to think too much about Aavi as he found and set her white robe aside, but of course that was impossible. She was all he could think of.
On the other side of the bed he found their knapsack. It had fallen on its side and many items had spilled out. Scooping everything up he dumped it on the bed, planning to repack the bag for his inevitable journey back to the City. D’Molay wasn’t sure what he still had, and what had been lost when he had been wounded and fleeing on the Mayan horse, so he sorted through everything. As he reached the bottom of the knapsack, he felt a small hard object. Pulling it out, D’Molay was shocked. It was the pewter he had melted in his fireplace weeks before.
The lump of metal still bore soot marks and there was no doubt in his mind that this was indeed the same melted lump that had only recently been sitting at the bottom of his hearth. Somehow, it had left the fireplace and traveled with him all the way to this battle. The only explanation he could come by was that Aavi had taken it from his h
ouse after her escape from Set. But why? There was no way she could have know of the importance of the metal he had discarded before he even met her. He held the metal lump in his open palm, hoping that it might reveal some hidden answer. He turned every fact about Aavi over and over in his mind as he stared at it. The metal grew warm in his hand as he began to put the pieces together.
Aavi had appeared the very day after he’d melted it. She didn’t understand worldly things. She couldn’t bear anyone to be killed. She was connected to unimaginable power. And the salt! Suddenly it hit him. It seemed so hard to accept, but he was certain he knew the truth at last. Then he fell to floor, sobbing. But they were not all tears of sorrow.
“I know what you were now. It all makes sense!” he cried aloud. A joy he had not felt in a very long time flooded him. “Thank you, Aavi. Thank you,” he whispered to the silence as the stars above him winked in the deep blue sky.
* * *
D’Molay stood on the ramparts, looking out at the battlefield and the huge blackened mark where the explosion occurred. Almost a week had passed since the end of the conflict and Ares’ engineers were busy rebuilding his stronghold. Kastor and his men, vitalized by victory, had gone to see their families for some well-earned time off. Apparently, the massive explosion had ended the conflict, leaving nothing to fight over once the beast and Aavi were gone.
Mazu approached him, her ever-present walking stick at her side. “So the rumor is true, you have emerged into the daylight,” she said, coming up beside him.
“Yes. I wanted to see where it happened once more before I left. It’s hard to believe it did, really,” he said.
Mazu also looked at the spot where Aavi had perished. “So many lost, but it ended what would have become an all out war of the gods. Aavi saved far more lives than were lost, D’Molay.” A stiff breeze swept across the ramparts and Mazu adjusted the ties of her hat. “Are you returning home now?”
He rested his hands on the stone ledge and looked out towards the distant hills to the east. “I don’t know when I’ll return home. Aavi and I promised we’d deliver a seed to the dryads. I’m going there to honor our agreement. I know that’s what Aavi would want me to do.”
“I see. Would you mind if I joined you on this journey? It’s been a long time since I have traveled these lands by foot.” Although D’Molay spoke with purpose, Mazu had no intention of letting him travel alone in his current state of mind. At least until she was certain that he had recovered his will to live. She planned to keep watch over him to make certain.
“I won’t stop you. I’m leaving tomorrow morning.”
“We’ll need to continue our search for Circe soon, or we’ll start to feel the pledge fever,” she gently reminded him.
“I know. I already feel its sting.”
The next day, Mazu met D’Molay outside the fort, wondering what new lands she would see on their upcoming journey. As she approached, he reached into his knapsack and opened his map.
“The hamadryads are in this area,” he showed her. “It will take several days to get there. Do you still want to go?”
“Of course. I wish to see these hamadryads for myself.”
They left the fort, travelling on horseback toward the dryads in the hills. Whenever they met someone or came to a village, Mazu made sure to ask about Circe or Scylla, hoping to get some new piece of information or at least make sure that the pledge they had made with Glaucus was honored. She had no luck, however, and learned nothing of any use.
Bit by bit, D’Molay slowly emerged from the guilt and loss he felt regarding Aavi. Once or twice he even managed a smile at Mazu’s attempts at subtle humor. However, she could see that he was deeply saddened and took Aavi’s death as a failure on his part. She could only hope that he would recover in time. There was one other thing he did twice a day that she had never seen him do before. D’Molay had started praying.
Mazu had been taken by surprise the first night they made camp. D’Molay got on his knees and prayed. She was not certain to which god or goddess he was praying, since he did so in silence. She wasn’t sure what to think of it, but hoped that this might be a sign that the scars and sadness that filled his heart were starting to heal. As they traveled, she never brought up the subject of his faith and neither did he. Likewise, she carefully avoided the subject of Aavi, despite her desire to ask him many more questions about her. Wisely, she knew that he would speak of Aavi when he was ready.
After three days travel, they reached the hills where the dryads lived.
“According to the directions I got from the hamadryads we should be fairly close now,” D’Molay said as they rounded a bend in the trail.
“The countryside here is lovely. I’m glad you let me join you on this journey.”
“I don’t think I would have been able to stop you if I sent Cerebus to bar your way. And don’t think I don’t know what you’ve been up to, Mazu.”
“Up to? I have asked the locals about Circe here and there.”
“You know what I mean. You’ve been keeping an eye on me to make sure I don’t do anything foolish.”
“Have I not always tried to keep you from doing foolish things from the first day we met? Ah. I see the Shrine of Hermes. Which way do we go from there?” Mazu asked, changing the subject.
“We go one league north,” he said, with a small smile and a long-suffering shake of his head. When they covered that distance, they found a ring of full, healthy trees much like the enclave where he’d obtained the seed. “This is the place.”
“I do sense something here,” Mazu replied, seeming to look beyond the trees.
D’Molay removed his weapons to leave them outside the ring, and Mazu went through her pockets to make sure nothing offensive was inadvertently carried inside. She laid her staff aside with great regret, feeling that without it she was hardly a goddess at all. D’Molay took the scrying seed out of his bag, carrying it before him as he and Mazu crossed into the ring.
“Dryads. I bring a gift from your sisters.” He looked around, waiting for a response, but the only reply was the sound of the wind blowing through the trees. “Now what do we do?” he finally said.
Mazu knelt on the ground. “We wait. They were not expecting us, after all.” D’Molay came over and sat cross-legged beside her, the seed in his lap. “May I hold the seed?” D’Molay passed it to her. Mazu felt a surge of energy quickly pass through her as she touched it. “I don’t think I’ve seen anything quite like it,” she said. Her hands cupped its smooth surface and her finger traced the wood-grain patterns as they sat quietly.
“I miss her so much, Mazu. She was so full of life and wonder.”
“Such a loss will take time to heal. You will always miss her. Try to remember all that you gave her and all she learned from you. And what you learned from her.”
“You’d be amazed at what I learned from Aavi. She showed me -”
Suddenly a voice with a touch of annoyance came from behind them. “Why are you here? This glade is not yours to dwell within.”
They turned and D’Molay immediately recognized a dryad. Like the others he had met, she was lithe and thin, wearing nothing save a swath of fabric around her waist. She had no shoes on her feet and her green-tinted hair was peppered with leaves and flowers. “We have something to present to your leader. It is a gift from your sister hamadryads to the southeast.”
“A gift? We have no leader here, but I will call my sisters.” She half-ran to a tree and disappeared into it without another word.
“So that’s a dryad. I understand why you wanted to see them again so badly,” Mazu teased.
D’Molay turned his gaze from the tree she had disappeared into. “I made a promise and I’m keeping it,” he said sharply. “Don’t turn this into something sordid, Mazu.”
Mazu merely shrugged at his reprimand. “The flower of my youth faded long before I even left Earth. Why would I know where your attractions for beautiful young maidens might lead you?”
/> For his part, D’Molay immediately felt wrong about snapping at his friend. “You’ve always been beautiful to me, in many ways,” he said earnestly. Before Mazu could reply, five dryads appeared out of the trees. They all looked very much like the first one. D’Molay stood to face them, while Mazu remained kneeling.
“Fallia has told us you were sent by the hamadryads with a gift?” one of the newcomers asked tentatively. She stayed about ten feet away, as if fearful of being attacked. The others were close behind her. While not the leader, she was apparently the dryad who spoke to outsiders.
“Yes. Ptelea entrusted me with a scrying seed. I promised her I would bring it to you.” D’Molay gestured at Mazu, who still held the seed.
“Really? I have heard of such a thing, but never seen one,” the dryad exclaimed with surprise.” She looked back to the others to see their reactions. One or two seemed to know what a scrying seed was, while others obviously had no idea.
“Well, you own one now. I hope you know what to do with it. Ptelea said you might be able to send messages and share knowledge with their group by using it.”
Mazu stood up and presented the item to them, holding it in both hands with her arms extended. The dryad in the front stepped forward to take the seed. She held it like a baby as the others surrounded her to see what it was. For a few minutes they touched it and softly spoke among themselves.
“Our thanks for your effort to bring it to us. Is there some favor we might grant you?”
Mazu spoke up before D’Molay had a chance. “Yes, actually. We are trying to find Circe or the cursed Scylla. Have you heard anything about where either of them may be?”
Only one of the dryads knew what Mazu was even talking about. Her hair was adorned with strings of nuts arranged like beads. “About six seasons ago, a traveler came through our grove and I exchanged food for news of other realms. He ate of my fruit trees and told me of his travels to the Lost Realm. The man had fought many dangers there, and I remember him talking about a cursed creature called Scylla that lived in the Anagar swamp. I don’t know if that is any help.”
CITY OF THE GODS: FORGOTTEN Page 52