And Ellie decided to deliver me a third, the most disturbing of all of them.
“We intend to move on Arken soon,” she said, “but we’ve lost the positioning of Lyria.”
“Lyri-who?”
“She’s the goddess of war. We’ve been tracking her movements for two years now, but she disappeared several weeks ago. Scouts have told me the rebellion’s eyes in Fragments Four, Six and Seven have confirmed she’s not there. And she’s not in Fragment One, Two, Three, Eight, or Nine either. It’s as if she’s vanished from this realm.”
The sudden crushing of my chest was indescribably uncomfortable. “What,” I said slowly as my breath laggardly returned, “does this goddess of war look like?”
Ellie nibbled at the inside of her cheek. “Oddly, like you. You, Vayle and that other one have a certain lack of… I’m not sure how to put this, but… you lack death. You’re brighter, livelier. So is Lyria. She has gray hair and—”
“A malformed eye,” I said.
Ellie cocked her head. “Yes. How do you know that?”
“I met her a few days ago. The reason you can’t find her is because she’s in the living realm.”
“But—” She looked at her feet, mouth moving, no words coming out.
“Arken’s not building an army to keep you brats under control,” I said. “He’s building an army to lay siege to my world.”
Chapter 11
It’s generally not recommended that you react to dreadful news by throwing your hands in the air and running around screaming, “We’re fucked! We’re fucked!” But dammit if the thought didn’t cross my mind.
Thankfully, sixteen years in the assassination business prepares you for unexpected moments and bumps in the road, or, in this case, a giant protruding mountain of jagged peaks in the road.
I told Ellie I had some ideas brewing on how to approach our little problem with gods, but that it’d be prudent to take some time and brood about it. She agreed, said she’d send scouts into Fragment Zero — which apparently was Arken’s base of operations — and requested we meet up and discuss plans of attack the following day.
I may have extended the truth slightly when I told her I had some ideas. Quite frankly, I outright lied. I had nothing. Not even a faint “Hey, this might work.”
Vayle and Rovid were awake when I returned the cottage.
“Lysa leave again?” I asked, shutting the door behind me.
“A few minutes ago,” Vayle said, tidying up the bed. “Have you slept? You look rough.”
“Huh. No, you’re right. I haven’t slept. Feel like I’m in that twilight stage. But anyhow” — I clapped my hands and put on a happy face — “I just received great news. I really can’t wait to share it with you.”
“Hold on a second there,” Rovid said, scurrying to his feet from the floor. “I think I’ve an idea on how to sneak past the Warden.”
“That isn’t a very large concern of mine anymore. I’m not sure how to say this, but are you two up for a war?”
I was greeted with the paling face of Rovid and the explain-yourself blinking of Vayle.
“Found a couple interesting passages in the book this morning,” I said. And then about thirty minutes later, “And that’s why the Warden isn’t topping my list of concerns anymore.”
Rovid had been slouched against the bed this entire time, head down, chin against his chest. He had the deceptive demeanor of a man who’d entered into a tranquil state. But with each passing second, a roiling anger bubbled up from his chest, reddening his face, clenching his fists.
“Fuuuck!” he screamed, and I jumped. “Fuuuck! Fuuuck!”
“Bloody hell,” I said, “calm—”
Rovid snatched the sheet that was his bed and ripped it across the floor, smashing it and his fist into the wall. “I’m fucking tired of this fucking bull-fucking-shit!” Spittle flew from his mouth and glazed his lips. He jumped to his feet, breathing heavily. “I just wanna fucking be, just goddamn fucking exist without this crazy, insane, diabolical fucking shit happening anymore.”
“Rovid,” Vayle said, a gentle touch to his arm.
He spun around, trembling. “Fuck you!” Then he spun the other way, facing me. “And fuck you too. I’m done. I’m fucking finished. I’m gone. Fuckin’ out of here. Goodbye and good goddamned day.”
He marched across the room, flung open the door, then slammed it so hard behind him the walls shuddered.
I scratched my head and whistled at Vayle. “Wow, huh?”
“In fairness,” Vayle said, “he’s been used for quite some time.”
My eyebrows almost jumped up onto my forehead in astonishment. “Used? I saved that bastard’s life.”
“And he’s repaid you many times over.”
“Your point? What do you want me to do, give him a reward? He’s never asked for anything.”
Vayle set her satchel of supplies on her lap. “Is that how you would treat a Rot?”
“He’s not a Rot.”
“He’s a friend,” she said, rummaging through the bag and pulling out a lemon. She sliced it in two with her dagger, then sucked the juice from one half.
“Is that what you do now?” I asked. “Just eat lemons straight?”
She spat a seed at me. “It’s good for your breath. Did you know Rovid has a wife and child here, in Amortis?”
“Well, since they died ninety years ago, yeah. I figured as much.”
“Did you know he would like to see them again?”
“Point made,” I said. I looked at the door, then at Vayle. “Think he’ll be back?”
She nodded confidently. “He wouldn’t be Rovid if he didn’t return after an emotional outburst. Are you certain about this war?”
I went over to the bed and sat beside my commander. “Are the pieces not adding up?”
“They are, but there could be another reason for Lyria — is that her name?”
“Yes.”
“There could be another reason for her involvement in the living realm. After all, wouldn’t Polinia and the others know of her presence?”
“They do know, given that they saved my ass from her. Remember?”
Vayle sucked on the second half of her lemon. The sourness puckered up her face. “You would think four gods and goddesses could handle one of their own.”
“What are you getting at?”
“Perhaps,” she suggested, “they require the assistance of a goddess of war and this book to remove Ripheneal from power.”
I chewed on the idea. Seemed plausible, with one minor hang-up. “What about Arken’s army?”
“I cannot say. Perhaps Elimori assumption is correct?”
“Or,” I said, lifting a finger, “there’s a little bit truth in it all, except Ellie’s assumption. Think about it. Let’s say you’re right. Polinia and the others secretly allied with Arken to take down Ripheneal, because… I don’t know, they have their reasons. They want power, they despise him, they’re truly afraid that this mysterious celestial council will replace him with another god. The reasons don’t matter. So Arken sends his goddess of war to help out, and he was going to deliver them the book as well, but his god of fragments rather buggered that.
“So Arken has to take matters into his own hands and sets out to find the book before Ripheneal gets to it. Polinia sends me to help out in that regard. Once the book is found and Ripheneal is out of the picture, Arken seizes the opportunity to control both realms and invokes war with the living realm and the very gods and goddesses he allied with. Ellie’s rebellion doesn’t even enter the picture. And why would it? You really think Arken is afraid of a little riot? He’ll crush them.”
Vayle considered this, holding half her drained lemon in her hand, bits of leftover juice running down her wrist.
“Then,” she said, “we’ll need to make sure he doesn’t.”
“Force him to fight on two fronts?”
“Indeed.”
I happily nodded along with this plan.
“I like it. We’ll need to sketch out a bigger, more involved plan, but it’s a good start.”
“I do hope this is the end,” she said. “You do not understand how much I was looking forward to rebuilding the Rots. It felt good to teach again and to be part of something small. This world’s problems are much too large for me.”
With a doleful smile, she got up, opened the door and tossed her lemon halves outside. Right into the chest of Rovid.
“Warden not let you out?” I asked. “Also, did you shit yourself? That smells horrendous.”
Rovid stepped inside and the smell worsened.
“Fell into a pile of horse droppings,” he said. “Sorry. Not about that, but… you know.”
“I would tell you to come here and have a seat, but, er, don’t do that.” I shook my head and laughed at the nut-brown butter smeared along his arms and chest and knees. “At least you didn’t chow down on it too, huh? So you here to stay?”
He shrugged. “Don’t have anywhere else to go.”
“We’ll change that,” I said. “Just gotta kick a couple gods to the curb first.”
“Oh, sure,” he said with a sigh.
I didn’t intend to sleep. I needed sleep, but I’d only wanted to rest my eyes for a few moments. Hours later I awoke, grimacing as a knife stabbed itself across my shoulders when I turned my neck.
“It’s unwise to sleep against a wall,” Vayle said. “Elimori came by. She wishes to meet tomorrow. I am going to find a fire and make some tea. Would you like some?”
“Yes, please,” said Lysa, who had returned from her mysterious excursion. She was lying on the bed, head propped up on a satchel, reading a thick book.
“Find me some wine while you’re out.”
Vayle grabbed a few lemons, a pouch of tea leaves, her infuser, and a small wooden cup before venturing out.
When the door closed, I stood up and stretched. Rovid had gone off somewhere, apparently, so it was only Lysa and me.
“What are you reading?”
“A book,” she said flatly, refusing to glance up from the pages.
“How insightful. A book about what?”
“History.” Again, no eye contact.
“The history of…?”
She swallowed and peered up from the page. “The fragments. And the old wars, that the rebellion lost.”
“Where’d you find a book like that?”
Having the foresight to suspect that this conversation would be turning south soon, she closed the book and gave me her undivided attention. “Ellie gave it to me.”
I chuckled and licked my teeth. I circled the room, trying to diffuse the rising anger in my chest. This right here, this was why I didn’t trust Ellie.
“You know,” I said, “I told her—”
“I know,” Lysa said. “She told me the conversations you two had. And she told me about the conjurers in the rebellion.”
“Did she tell you about the ones captured and used as slaves by Arken?”
“Yes. She told me everything good, bad and in between.”
“Well?”
“Well, what?”
I got to my feet and paced to the other side of the room, which is to say I took about three steps. “She told you for a reason. She wasn’t just giving you a history lesson.”
Lysa puffed her blond bangs out of her eyes and lay back, head thumping into the wall. “So… I’ve been thinking. I’ve always wanted to use my — I don’t know what to call it. My power? My skill? Whatever, it’s always been my aim to use it for good. To help people. How am I supposed to do that if I’m going to be living in a hell?”
Vayle could’ve come around with that wine anytime now. Head hung, because my skull felt like it was a heavy boulder resting atop my shoulders, I meandered over to Lysa and sat on the bed.
“Take it from me, will you? It’s better to sit back and watch someone else save the world.” I pulled at my knotted beard as consternation pulled at my knotted stomach. “Look. You feel sometimes like it’s worth it, but those moments, Lysa… they’re glimpses of a world otherwise fraught with horrors.”
She sat up, attentive, blue eyes brimming with curiosity. “Are you telling me if you had to do it all over, you wouldn’t? Fighting the conjurers, I mean, and facing Occrum?”
Lying came to me like clouds come to a bird. Except when I was in the presence of Lysa. The damn woman always brought out the modicum of honor stowed away inside me wherever it is honor hides.
“What do you think?” I asked.
Her little mouth fidgeted. “I think you would.”
A sorrowful smile — because I knew the outcome of what I was about to say — touched my lips. “You’re probably right. But I’ve lost a whole hell of a lot, Lysa. And every night I sleep, I ask myself if it’s worth it. I don’t want that for you.”
She reached over and touched my arm. “It’s too late for that, I think.”
“You already told Ellie you’d join her. Didn’t you?”
Lysa nodded.
I chuckled, then lifted her hand into mine, folded her fingers down. “You never cease to amaze.”
Lysa grinned. “Is that good or bad?”
“Both. Well, looks like we’ve a war to win, which means a war to plan.”
“You’re going to help the rebellion?”
“I see Ellie didn’t tell you everything. Yes, I’m going to help the rebellion, because if I don’t, I don’t think I’m going to have a world to live in anymore. Except this one. And I’d really prefer not to die quite yet.”
Lucid Reveries
There he was, but this time, I reached out to him. Or perhaps he willed me to initiate the conversation. Either way, he answered.
I asked him if he had been caught, if that was why he lingered here.
He said no.
I asked him if he was truly here, somewhere, in a physical manifestation.
He said yes. Hiding he claimed, nearby. He was being hunted. He told me we had a job to do, and it began with befriending the god of fragments.
The scheme was hatched in my mind, scrolling past in the form of lucid thoughts. Sometime later, I felt him release me.
And I awoke, in a cold sweat. Shivering, gasping, I drew in a few deep breaths, letting them pass slowly between trembling lips. I wiped an arm across my mouth, cleaning off the slobber.
The cottage was dark. Lots of snoring, whether from Vayle or Rovid or Lysa or all three, I couldn’t be sure.
Had the dreams… the nightmares… had they been real? I got to my feet and crept through the cottage, to the door. I needed some fresh air, a cool chill to clear my mind.
Staring at a black, oily sky, I tried convincing myself the visions were simply a product of an overactive mind. But a few moments later, the palisade edging the city of Scholl was behind me, and I was off to find the source of my dreams, of my nightmares. As if the damn things were more than illusions. Maybe I just wanted to prove my suspicions right, that the invader of my mind was simply a ghost forged from sleep deprivation. In my dreams, he wished to rendezvous in a cavern around the other side of the cliff Scholl was built into.
I had anticipated the Warden looking at me with those eyes of dead stars and a cold, black universe pooled within, and then shoving me away as I tried to exit the city. But he simply looked at me with those eyes of dead stars and a cold, black universe pooled within… and nodded.
Do you have any idea how unsettling and goddamn creepy it is to be the recipient of a Warden’s nod? It’s unnatural. It’s not right.
It took about a half hour to walk around the other side of the sheer cliff. Had it been my choice, we would have met behind a large boulder five minutes from the palisade, but the presence in my dreams thought it more discreet to convene far away from prying eyes, if any such eyes existed in Scholl.
A pair of eyes did exist inside a small cavern that chewed into the cliff. Cataclysmic red eyes that, at first glance, might give you pause as you consider if you’ve possibly
stepped into the lair of a deranged bat hungry for the flesh of man.
Those eyes bounced up as a figure stood.
A figure barely taller than a dwarf and with leathery skin. He met me halfway, grasping my shoulders with enough force to crush bones. Fortunately, he quickly relaxed his grip and no bones were broken on this day.
“You appear perturbed,” Ripheneal said.
I clicked my tongue, shaking my head. “You know, I shouldn’t be surprised. All the shit that’s happened to me, why wouldn’t the god of life be poking around in my head?”
“But you are surprised. Am I to assume that”— he nodded his stubby chin at the satchel slung over my shoulder — “is the book?”
I shouldered off the heavy tome, letting it thump onto the cavern floor. “Good assumption. So what’s with the dream business? Not very mannerly of you to sneak around in my mind while I sleep.”
Ripheneal hefted the satchel onto a seat of jutting rock. “I created you. Ownership of your mind is mine, if I wish it. But do not misunderstand me; I did not force you to come here. You did so of your own accord. I simply gave you a push, nothing more. After all, free will is paramount.”
He stuck a hand deep inside the satchel and produced the book with relative ease, as if it didn’t weigh more than a hundred pounds.
“The goddess of nature told me you were corrupt,” I said. “She’s the reason I’m here, you know.”
Ripheneal looked up from the book, eyes pinpoints of infectious red. “Your thoughts were mine, Astul. I know everything you do. You should take care in who you trust.”
“Never said I trusted her.”
“It would be wise you didn’t.” He rapped a nail against the book, swished some spit around in his mouth, then sighed. “My gods and goddesses have turned against me.”
“Vayle and I figured as much.”
“Their influence is normally limited, but—”
I snorted. “Given Polinia swallowed me up in a snowstorm and—”
“Shush, now. Sit, stand or lie down, I don’t care, but shush and listen. I know that is something you are rarely accustomed to doing, but you will do it. When I am finished, you may open your mouth, but not until then.
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