Hammer of the Earth

by Susan Krinard

  Cian backed away. “A panther?”

  “Does that shock you, after all the things you have learned in your travels?”

  He thought of Yseul, and the evening’s unfamiliar meal churned in his stomach. “What are you?”

  “I, too, have wondered, ever since I was old enough to understand my father’s stories about the Watchers. It was a question he could never answer, though he knew my mother’s nature when he married her.” She leaned against the wide trunk of a tree, stroking its smooth bark. “The legends of my clan say that because of her ties to the forest, my ancestress brought great good fortune to the village. She began a new House of her own, and her husband went to live with her. That is why Clan Amòtékùn has Mothers to lead us instead of Fathers, and why our gifts are passed through the female line.”

  “But you…cannot change,” Cian whispered.

  “It is said that the last of my clan who could take panther shape died three generations ago. But all of us are bound to the Earth. Like the Watchers.” She knelt at the base of the tree and laid her palm on the ground. A dozen tiny seedlings sprang from the soil, growing before Cian’s eyes.

  He circled around Nyx, heading for the faint trail that led back to the village. “Why do you tell me this now?” he asked. “Why not before?”

  “My answer to you is the same as it was to Rhenna. I told you what I thought was necessary for you to know.” She rose and brushed the dirt from her fingers. “My father’s prophecies speak only of male Watchers. In the North, I asked you what became of the females of your people. You claimed the Ailuri have none, and no legends of them.”

  Suddenly he saw what she was implying. “Are you suggesting that your ancestress was a female Ailu?”

  “Is it so impossible? The Imaziren claim that their women were chosen to bear the original Ailuri, but even they did not know how their godborn offspring reproduced after the first generation. Your people are not immortal, Cian. They must have required children after the Godwars. What if there were females who also guarded the Stone? What if they were separated from their mates long before your people went to the North, in a time lost even to legend?”

  He held his arms out in front of him, warding her off. “Of what use is such speculation, now that my people are dead?”

  “Perhaps not all.” She came no closer, recognizing that he was on the verge of flight. “My father believed that it was no mere coincidence that he found my mother. He believed there might be others like my clan’s distant ancestress still living in the forest, others who might hold some connection to the Hammer itself.”

  “He never looked for them?”

  “His injuries prevented it. But he knew that even if a clan of female shapeshifters did exist, they would not be the ones to bear the Hammer. That may only be done by a male of Watcher blood.” She held Cian’s gaze with fierce determination. “If females of your kind exist in the deep forest and hold some tie to the Hammer, as my father believed, they may either help or hinder us in our quest. You must be prepared for whatever may come. Above all else, you must never give in to temptation.”

  Chapter Fourteen

  Temptation.

  N yx spoke in ignorance, Cian told himself. She knew nothing of his meeting with Yseul in Karchedon, nothing of his self-contempt and loathing whenever he thought of the panther woman with her pliant body and voracious eyes. She couldn’t know that he would never find such a creature tempting again.

  Cian strode back for the village, not waiting to see if Nyx followed. Tahvo sat in the darkness at the edge of the forest. She got to her feet as he began to pass by, her face turning toward him.

  “Cian?”

  He sighed and went to her. “Tahvo.”

  “Rhenna was concerned when you left the village,” she said. “You are well?”

  He knew a lie would be pointless, and suddenly he was weary of secrets. He took Tahvo’s arm and led her away from the huts. “You remember the cat print we found at the dry amda?”

  “I remember.”

  “How did you think it came to be there?”

  She slowed, pulling Cian to a stop. “You know?”

  He glanced toward the forest as if a score of lust-crazed Ailu females might appear between one breath and the next. “I was afraid to accept it,” he said. “I didn’t believe, until Nyx…” He shuddered. “My people never saw a female of our kind. Such creatures did not exist, not even in legend. But I met one in Karchedon, Tahvo. It was because of her that Baalshillek captured me and delivered me to my brothers.”

  Tahvo patted his arm. “Tell me.”

  So he did, choking on his own shame as he spoke of Yseul and how he had let her take his body and his mind. “She made herself look like Rhenna,” he said, “but even when I knew she was not…even then—” He shook his head wildly. “She was a creature of Baalshillek’s making, shaped from the substance of my people. He intended that she and I should…begin a new race of Ailuri to serve the Stone. I didn’t see her again after Rhenna and I escaped from the temple. I thought she was the only one of her kind. I was wrong.”

  “Nyx?”

  Cian didn’t wonder how she knew. “She told me that her clan is descended from a panther woman who came out of the forest to mate with one of the villagers. Her father believed there must be others, that they may live in the forest even now.”

  “And these females cannot be Ailuri?”

  “I don’t know. It seems impossible, but…”

  “Surely Baalshillek could not have created them as he did Yseul.”

  “Even he isn’t that powerful. But if they are Ailuri, they were separated from my brothers in a time before memory.”

  “Then perhaps there was purpose in such a separation,” she said. “Your race still survives, beyond Baalshillek’s reach.”

  Cian tried to feel the hope in Tahvo’s words, but it eluded him. “The print in the amda,” he said. “I think it belonged to Yseul.”

  “She followed us from Karchedon?”

  “She is Baalshillek’s minion. What if she was at the Stone’s prison when the soldiers attacked us? What if she was responsible for drying up the waterholes?”

  “Does she have such abilities?”

  “I don’t know. I never even sensed her presence. If she possesses the ancient Ailuri powers of Earth…”

  “She is not alone,” Tahvo murmured. “Do you remember when I told you that I had seen a vision of my brother in the crater of bones?”

  “The brother you said was dead?”

  “He died at birth, only moments before I was born. But I have seen him before, Cian…in Karchedon. Now I know that his spirit walks the earth as a man, and he is somehow bound to the Stone.”

  “Are you saying that he was created, like Yseul?”

  She shivered, and Cian took her into his arms. She pressed her face against his shoulder. “They meant to stop us in the desert, Cian. They will try again. We must tell Rhenna.”

  “Yes. But not everything. Not about Yseul and me.”

  She peered into his face. “She would not hate you, Cian.”

  He winced and quickly changed the subject. “Can you feel anything from the devas in this place? Do they sense the ones who follow us?”

  “I have never walked in a land with so many spirits. They call to me in a thousand voices. I am afraid…” She bit hard on her lower lip. “If I open to them, I may not come back.”

  Her terror dwarfed his own. “Don’t risk it, Tahvo. If our enemies were all-powerful, we would already be dead. There will be other ways to fight them.” He smelled dawn in the air and stretched his cramped muscles. Beasts who walked and hunted by daylight were stirring in the forest, and soon the village would wake. “Go back to Rhenna. Tell her what you must and try to rest. We—”

  A flash of motion commanded his attention. A small, wheat-colored animal trotted around the corner of a hut and sat on its haunches, tongue lolling. It was the dog they had met at the crossroads, the one Nyx had so pointedly
warned them to avoid.

  Tahvo stiffened, clutching Cian’s hand. Her eyes rolled up in their sockets. Cian caught her as she began to convulse, her arms and legs flailing like the limbs of some helpless creature pinned at the end of a spear.

  Cian snatched her up and carried her to the village at a run. The dog didn’t follow. Just as he reached the women’s hut Rhenna came to meet him. She helped Cian ease Tahvo to the ground.

  “What happened?” she demanded, stuffing a piece of cloth between Tahvo’s chattering teeth.

  “Tahvo said there were too many spirits,” Cian said, “and then that dog appeared…”

  Tamallat ran out of the hut, and the men emerged from theirs. Nyx arrived with several of the villagers.

  “The Mothers are invoking the òrìshà,” she said, her voice strained and breathless. “Healer, do you hear me?”

  Tahvo opened her eyes and abruptly sat up, staring across the compound. The yellow dog trotted into the open space, yawned, and rolled onto its back, waving all four feet in the air. Nyx froze.

  “Eshu,” she whispered.

  “What is it, Nyx?” Rhenna asked. “What is this Eshu?”

  The dog vanished as if it were no more than a trick of the dawning light. Tahvo spat the cloth from her mouth and laughed. She shook Cian off and stood, turning slowly as she flexed her fingers one by one.

  “So long,” she said hoarsely. “So long since I have walked in the shape of man.” She ran her hands over her body. “Or woman.”

  Nyx fell to her knees. “Eshu,” she said, bowing low. The other villagers did the same.

  Tahvo looked down at the Southerners with a smile of indulgent amusement. “I know you, Daughter of Olayinka,” she said. “You have been away from the lands of your people.”

  “Olorun knows that I have been in the North, fighting the evil ones,” Nyx said humbly.

  “I have heard it said that you are very brave, child, and yet you tremble. Can it be that you hoped I, alone of the great òrìshà, would not come to your aid?”

  “We honor all the òrìshà,” Nyx protested.

  “Still, you would not look upon me at the crossroads. You warned your guests against me.” Tahvo sighed with mock regret. She stared at Cian. “Do you know why she fears me, Child of Shadows?”

  Cian searched Tahvo’s silver eyes and recognized the capricious, unpredictable power seething behind them. “What have you done with our friend?” he asked.

  “The one you call Tahvo is here, but she cannot speak.” Tahvo leered at him and glanced from Rhenna to Nyx, licking her lips. “Would you lend me your body instead, Bearer of the Hammer? I would find an excellent use for it.”

  Rhenna stepped forward. “What do you want of us?”

  “What do I want?” Tahvo gestured dismissively toward Nyx. “Did she not explain that her people have called upon the òrìshà to aid in your quest? Such ingratitude.” She yawned and scratched behind her ear. “Tell them who I am, Daughter of Olayinka.”

  Nyx straightened, averting her eyes from Tahvo’s mocking gaze. “He is Eshu,” she said slowly. “Servant of Olorun, Divine Messenger, Bringer of Accident and Chance.”

  “And all men fear Chance, do they not?” Tahvo said. “Especially those most certain of their destinies. Yet I knew you were coming, Hammer-Bearer, and perhaps I will choose to help you.”

  Nyx opened her mouth as if she would speak, then firmly shut it again. Two of the villagers scrambled to their feet and rushed away, disappearing among the huts. Tahvo ignored them. “You do wish to find what you seek?” she asked Cian.

  “That depends upon the price of your aid,” Rhenna said. “Let Tahvo go.”

  Tahvo’s eyes grew hooded as if in boredom, and she sat down with the loose-limbed carelessness of a willful child. “You have little fear of the gods, Rhenna of the Winds.”

  “You are not my god, and perhaps I’m not so certain of my destiny.”

  “Rhenna,” Cian said in warning. He crouched before Tahvo. “If you know about our quest, you must know of the Stone God.”

  “Olorun, Lord of the Sky, sees all things.”

  “You must have Tahvo’s knowledge, as well. Her memories. You see that the Exalted and their priests mean to destroy every deva in the world to feed their lust for power and dominion over the earth. Even these lands across the Great Desert are not safe.”

  “And you will save us, little man?”

  Cian shifted uncomfortably. “Tahvo has often said that devas and mortals must work together to defeat the Stone. If you know where the Hammer lies…”

  Tahvo traced a shape in the dirt with one blunt finger. “It lies deep in the forest, beyond many dangers. What will you give to obtain it?”

  “Whatever is necessary.”

  “No,” Rhenna said sharply. “We strike no bargains with devas who demand sacrifice.” She faced Tahvo. “You will help us to save yourself.”

  Tahvo sprang to her feet, her face twisted in fury. “You dare speak so to Eshu, mortal?” She stretched up and up, reaching for the sky until her feet dangled above the ground.

  Cian stepped in front of Rhenna and braced himself for a deva’s wrath. A deathly hush fell over the compound. A trio of Nyx’s clan Mothers rushed from the largest house, coming to a stop when they saw Tahvo. Tahvo began to spin, whirling round and round until her body was a blur. The wheat-colored dog sprang out of the spinning shape, gave a wailing cry and vanished.

  Tahvo collapsed to the ground, still shuddering with the remnants of Eshu’s power. Rhenna was at her side in an instant. Nyx and the clan Mothers drew near, debating softly among themselves with many uneasy glances toward the forest. Cian helped Rhenna carry Tahvo inside the hut. Rhenna bathed the healer’s face while Cian looked on, knowing there was nothing he could do but wait.

  “Perhaps it wasn’t wise to provoke a foreign deity,” he said.

  Rhenna’s hands trembled as she squeezed excess water from a cloth and laid it across Tahvo’s forehead. “I saw no reason to trust a deva of ‘chance and accident,’” she said. “Especially not when he had Tahvo in his power. We’ll find another way to the Hammer.”

  “Not if we anger every god the villagers bring to help us.”

  She rocked back on her knees and glared at him. “Tahvo can’t endure much more of this.”

  Cian offered no argument. Tahvo’s skin was pale, almost transparent, and she slept like the dead. Even her generous courage had its limits.

  He plucked at a twig caught in the weave of his shirt. “Tahvo and I have reason to believe that not only the Stone’s soldiers followed us from Karchedon,” he said. “There may be…creatures of Baalshillek’s making who have been sent to stop us.”

  Rhenna frowned at him. “What creatures?”

  He couldn’t yet bring himself to speak of Yseul. “They have human shape,” he said, avoiding her eyes, “and possibly powers we can’t predict. Tahvo wasn’t able to tell me everything before Eshu came, but she thinks that one of these minions dried up the desert springs.”

  Rhenna peered into his face. “Why do I feel that you’re keeping something from me, Cian?”

  The sorrow in her voice, the emotion Rhenna believed she concealed so well, twisted in Cian’s heart. If he could not reveal one truth, he might at least relieve her mind of another unacknowledged fear. “I…I was never with Madele, Rhenna.”

  Astonishment and something far more vulnerable crossed her face just before her expression hardened into a mask of stubborn pride. “Did I ever demand to know?”

  “No.” He laughed inwardly at his own stupidity. “You never asked.” He got to his feet. “I’ll speak to the villagers,” he said, and left the hut.

  Nyx and the Mothers waited outside, their dark faces creased with worry. The Imaziren crowded close.

  “How fares the little healer?” Immeghar asked.

  “She needs rest, but she should recover in time,” Cian said. He turned to Nyx. “Your Eshu has left her very weak. She may be in danger i
f other devas come to claim her.”

  Nyx translated for the Mothers, who put their heads together for several moments of intense discussion. “They did not understand Tahvo’s power to attract the spirits,” Nyx said. “The òrìshà sometimes possess the bodies of those who call upon them, but never with such force.” She bowed her head. “It is I who am at fault. I should have realized what might happen after Hat-T-Her’s appearance in the desert.” She paused to listen to the Mothers’ words. “It is always dangerous to anger an òrìshà as mighty as Eshu. He delights in disrupting the intentions of men and turning them against their purpose. But it is also dangerous to trust him, for he has his own desires that no man can understand.”

  “Could he be an ally of the Exalted?” Cian asked.

  Nyx gave him a startled look. “He is not an evil god, only unpredictable.”

  “Then it’s just as well he’s gone,” Cian said. “Is there another way to find the Hammer?”

  The Mothers consulted again. “If anyone knows where such a thing exists,” Nyx said, “it is the little people of the deep forest. They live very close to the òrìshà who inhabit the bush.”

  “Why should these little people help us?”

  “They are secretive and have few dealings with outsiders, but they have as much reason as any of us to fear the Stone God. We will send hunters of the clan to seek their help. Until then, our healers will do all they can to help Tahvo.”

  The Mothers returned to their house to make their arrangements, and Cian reported the conversation to Rhenna. Tahvo continued to sleep, untroubled by the comings and goings of villagers bringing food, or the solemn healers with their chants and herbal concoctions.

  Helpless to intervene, Cian sought the forest. Even by day, its shadows were dark and seductive, hinting at secrets only a wild beast—or an Ailu—could interpret. He lost himself amid the lush scents and mysterious calls, drowsing in soft hollows of fallen leaves and pungent earth, while tiny creatures skittered over his outstretched hands.