How to Talk to a Goddess and Other Lessons in Real Magic

by Emily Croy Barker

  Nora thought of the woman who had died the day before, the gray shadow in her flesh, as though she were already turning to dirt. She thought of how quietly EJ had lain in his hospital bed after they turned off the machines, when she kept thinking that she saw his chest rise and fall, because it was impossible that anyone could lie so still. The nurse had to hold a mirror over his mouth before she was truly convinced; the glass stayed clear.

  “I don’t think hope is foolish,” Nora said.

  “That is why you are my priestess,” Sisoaneer said fondly. “Beloved one, those you can’t heal—you will make their last days easier, until finally death comes as their friend.”

  Nora looked across the valley at the hooded black shapes of mountains against the starry sky. “How—?” She stopped, trying to find a way to ask the question she wanted to ask. “How much healing can we do? How far do we go?”

  She saw from a subtle shift in Sisoaneer’s expression that the goddess knew exactly what she meant, but Sisoaneer said nothing.

  “Aruendiel raised a little girl from the dead,” Nora said. “I saw him do it. She’d been murdered.”

  Very slowly Sisoaneer shook her head, her eyes bright.

  “And Aruendiel died once himself—he fell from one of those flying things—and his friends brought him back—”

  “He should have stayed dead. Yes, dead! I’ve shocked you.” Nora began to protest, but the goddess smiled tolerantly. “Just a little, I think. Listen, dear one, every pilgrim you heal will die one day, no matter how magnificently you restore them to health today. It’s the fate of all mortals. To escape death, as Aruendiel did, or even that little girl, is unnatural, blasphemous, wrong. Only gods are permitted to die and live again, and it is our will that makes it happen.

  “That’s how you know the true gods and goddesses. If they die, they can return themselves to life.”

  Nora cocked her head and asked the obvious follow-up: “Have you done that?”

  “Oh, yes!” The intensity in Sisoaneer’s tone suggested that she was talking about a particularly unpleasant final exam, but one that she had passed with high marks. “And now I love the work of healing even better, because I know what mortals can suffer.”

  But can she really know? Nora wondered. Sisoaneer had a privileged viewpoint; most mortals don’t get to come back from the dead. Not having died herself, however, Nora felt ill-equipped to argue the point. “Hmm,” she said. “With all due respect, I’m glad that the little girl—her name is Irseln—is alive, and that Aruendiel is alive. That is,” she added more quietly, “if he is alive.”

  One of the pilgrims Nora had treated that day was a woman with a twisted leg, whose jagged gait had reminded her of Aruendiel’s. The leg had had to be rebroken.

  “You are still worried about him,” Sisoaneer said.

  “Of course,” Nora said. “Every pilgrim I treat, I wonder if Aruendiel also needs my help.”

  “Why would Aruendiel need your help? Because of the Faitoren?”

  Nora stared hard at Sisoaneer. She was nearly sure that she had said nothing, or almost nothing, to the goddess about her encounter with Raclin. She preferred not to think about it, and some days she almost succeeded.

  “How do you know about that?”

  “You mistook me for a Faitoren the first night we met. I still think that’s funny.” Sisoaneer gave a quick, sidelong grin. “And there was a very dead Faitoren not so far away. He was no longer a danger to anyone, but you mentioned another one that night. Their little queen, I think.”

  “The dead Faitoren, that was self-defense,” Nora said quickly.

  “I know it was! Well, it would be hard to kill Aruendiel,” Sisoaneer said reflectively. “He’s crafty and resourceful, from everything I have heard. Whoever killed him that one time was lucky.”

  Nora made an indefinite sound of polite disagreement—“lucky” was not the word she would have chosen—and Sisoaneer touched Nora’s cheek with a light finger. “Let me try to put your mind at ease,” the goddess said. “I will seek out the traces of his magic, and we’ll get some news of him that way.”

  She moved away, pacing in a slow circle around the oak tree. A faint luminosity trailed after her. Nora rubbed her arms against the night breeze and looked distractedly at the wall of mountains that lay between her and Aruendiel.

  When Sisoaneer returned, her face was sharpened like an arrow. “He’s nowhere to be found.”

  Nora sucked in her breath. “Do you mean—”

  “I mean that he is not to be found. He is hiding.”

  “But he’s alive?”

  “Oh, yes. He couldn’t be dead and use so much magic to hide himself from me. It’s very odd. Why is he doing this, my priestess?”

  “I don’t know,” Nora said. Sisoaneer’s gaze was suddenly full of dark, glittering facets. It took an effort not to look away. “I don’t know what he’s hiding from. And how will we find him?” She did not want the goddess to forget her promise.

  Sisoaneer frowned, then grasped Nora’s forearms and rubbed them with hands as cool as green leaves. “I am sure we will find him. Perhaps he will find us. For your sake, I hope he is well. He is quite powerful enough to take care of himself, of course.

  “But not more powerful than you,” she added, “when I lend you my strength. You feel it when you heal pilgrims in my name, don’t you? How do you like it?”

  Nora flushed in the darkness. She had told no one what it was like to exist momentarily in that shining bubble of utter peace and power, but Sisoaneer knew. She lived there all the time. “Yes, I feel it,” Nora said as neutrally as she could. “It’s pure glory.” She was afraid that the goddess might hear greed or hunger in her voice, so she went on quickly: “But I wish that I could heal the patients with my own magic. It’s how Aruendiel trained me. I know I need to work on—”

  “Your own magic is still too weak,” Sisoaneer said. “You could never heal so many—or any—with your own power.”

  “But how will I get stronger if I never—”

  “You don’t need your own magic. I’ll lend you all that you need, and more.”

  Despite herself, Nora felt a secret thrill. She hesitated, then said simply, “Thank you.”

  “Well, do you believe in me now?” Sisoaneer asked. There was a silvery current of laughter in her voice, so bright that Nora almost missed the longing underneath. “Do you believe that I am your goddess, your Holy Queen of Power, and all the lovely things you say in the prayers?”

  She’s still not the God I don’t believe in, Nora thought. That God was older and more distant and much more implacable, and sometimes—it had to be admitted—he had a long white beard. But what other gods do I know? Sisoaneer has helped me help all those people. She has shown me what heaven is like.

  “Yes, most of it,” Nora said gently. She paused to sort through what she meant by her answer. “What I feel in my heart is true. Sometimes the prayers are very long.”

  The goddess threw back her head and laughed. “Yes, the prayers are very long. I hear them, always, but I listen to what is in your heart. I believe,” she said, “you are going to dance for me tonight?”

  “Apparently,” Nora said, sorry to be reminded of the next duty that awaited her below. “It may not look much like a dance, but that is the intention.”

  “I’ll watch the dance that you make in your heart.” Sisoaneer took Nora’s hand, the one with the brand-new pinkie finger, and squeezed it. “You will never disappoint me, if your faith is strong.”

  Torches had been set into sockets in the pavement of the larger courtyard, outlining a square. Their wavering yellow light washed over the faces of pilgrims in the front row, upturned to follow the movements of the dancers. As Nora swayed and circled, she recognized some of the pilgrims: the thin, bald man with the ulcerated leg, the young man from Tima with the bloody urine, the
Pernish woman with the tired smile and the sick headaches. All cured now. Behind the faces in the torchlight, the crowd filled most of the shadowy courtyard. Oasme had told her that all of the pilgrims who were not strictly bedbound would be there.

  Nora turned and turned again, feeling slightly dizzy, then followed the other dancers into a ring. Clasp hands, make a circuit. Reverse. The throbbing of drums, the quavering notes of goat-horn pipes filled her ears. The ganoi music told a story she could not understand, although it filled her bones with restlessness.

  Turn, twist. Pick up a line of the chant, throw it to the next dancer. Bend at the waist, sway, twist again without falling over or letting your maran come undone. Clasp hands again, another circle. A dancer passed her the hollow silver wand filled with incense, and Nora twirled, wrapping herself in a scented cloud, the crowd dissolving into a rosy blur.

  This wasn’t so bad. She had reached the point where her feet knew the steps and the rhythms better than her mind did, and she could let herself move freely within the confines of the dance.

  The beat of the drums pounded faster, louder. On Nora’s left, Yaioni swayed like a sapling lashed by the wind; on her right, a stocky ganoi woman rocked on her haunches. She caught Nora’s eye and her face creased into deep, gleeful lines. Nora grinned back and thrust her own hips harder.

  “All praise to the Mother of Power,” Oasme called. “She brings healing out of darkness, she feeds death to our enemies.” For a goddess of healing, Sisoaneer was remarkably famous for killing people, Nora thought. The dancers took up the chant. “All praise to the Mother of Power.” The words traveled through the crowd in a cresting wave.

  Nora stole another glance at Yaioni. It seemed to her that more of the male faces in the crowd were turned toward the First Deaconess—well, no wonder, Nora thought. Even the folds of Yaioni’s maran could not hide the extravagant swing of her breasts. And she was a better dancer. Her body undulated with flamboyant grace even while her face remained composed, severe, her eyes apparently fixed on mysteries that only she could see. She looks more like the High Priestess of Sisoaneer than I do, Nora thought.

  But I am the High Priestess, Nora reminded herself. I know magic that Yaioni doesn’t know, will never know. She flung herself deeper into the dance, and her heart matched the pulse of the drums. “Guard us, protect us, great goddess Sisoaneer, for we are as children before you, and no knife is as sharp as yours.” Twisting, stomping, she let her breasts bounce under her clothes and willed all the men who were undressing Yaioni with their eyes to look at her instead. “All praise to the Mother of Power,” she called.

  “All praise, all praise,” the pilgrims sang back to her.

  A man standing a few rows back seemed to be staring at her as intently as she could have wished. He was taller than the other spectators. A torch flared, casting a warm light deeper into the crowd. She saw the grave, scarred face, the angle of the shoulders, and understood why her eye had sought him out.

  “Aruendiel!”

  Chapter 19

  Nora ran into the crowd, almost stepping on some of the pilgrims sitting in the front row. A man squawked something indignant in Pernish.

  “Aruendiel?” She scanned the dark ranks of spectators outside the reach of the torches. Her glimpse of Aruendiel’s face burned as vividly in her mind as if she were looking at a snapshot, but now she could not reconcile it with any of the shadowy forms and silhouettes around her. “Aruendiel?”

  Whispers began to circulate in half a dozen different languages. From behind, Oasme plucked at her elbow.

  “Is anything wrong?” he asked in a low tone.

  “I saw Aruendiel. My—teacher. I saw him right here.” Nora pointed into the crowd.

  “That’s no reason to interrupt the Ieona observance, Blessed Lady.” Oasme looked over his shoulder and made a rapid gesture, presumably to the other dancers: keep going.

  “I’m sorry. But I saw him. He’s here.”

  “Then he’ll want to see you finish the dance.” Oasme’s arm had snaked around her shoulders. Somehow, pulling and pushing, he spun her around, away from the spectators.

  Nora twisted back, not freeing herself completely, but loosening his grip. “No! I have to find him.” She stared hard in one direction, then another, willing—commanding—Aruendiel to come into sight.

  Oasme’s voice hissed in her ear: “Her Holiness is watching. You must not dishonor Her Holiness.”

  “Who cares—” Nora began to say, but the angry words dissolved in her throat as she registered something in Oasme’s tone that sounded like fear. She remembered the empty seats in the refectory, and a reluctant composure settled over her, like a heavy coat.

  She was the High Priestess. She was responsible, in some sense, for everyone in the temple complex, everyone who accepted her authority, and it came to her that it was her duty to protect them from harm, or at least not to expose them to danger if she could avoid it.

  She let Oasme steer her back to where the others were still spinning and stamping in the rhythm of the dance. Her absence seemed to have caused little disruption; if anything, Nora thought sourly, the dancers moved faster and with more sureness than before. Only the chanting sounded a little ragged. Her own legs felt jittery, excited, ready to move, but they seemed to have forgotten the shape of the dance. What they wanted to do was run, to carry her away from here in search of Aruendiel. She took her place among the dancers, willing herself to copy them, hoping that her clumsiness was less obvious to everyone else than it was to her.

  The drums beat even faster than before, without making time pass any more quickly; it was as though the dance were an invisible cage, and when she tried to look outside it, her eyes only found Oasme, now standing almost where Aruendiel had stood.

  Abruptly, the music stopped. Nora, caught in the middle of a turn, staggered a little, then straightened. Oasme was already starting toward her with a purposeful look. Damn. He had said something about a procession to the temple after the dancing, hadn’t he?

  “Oh, great Sisoaneer!” Nora said, as loudly as she could without actually screaming. She raised her hands and bowed her head. Oasme stopped in his tracks. “You who give life, you who ease the pain of those who suffer, we praise you without ceasing for your power and your mercy. We thank you for all the blessings you shower upon us, O mighty goddess, great lady, wise healer.” She went on, stringing together phrases almost at random from the chants she had been learning. Her powers of impromptu prayer had improved in recent weeks. The mass of pilgrims before her swayed and bowed their heads.

  “Praise to Her Holiness!” Nora held her arms out to the crowd, inviting it to take up the chant. Her words came back to her in a great swell of sound. Louder, louder, she gestured, smiling. “Glory to Her Holiness, she who lives forever! Death to her enemies!” Again, she motioned, and the pilgrims obliged by shouting her words. The drummers picked up the rhythm; the wave of voices rose higher.

  There, Nora thought, as the chanting crested around her, that should do it. She can hear them on her mountaintop, no matter how high it is.

  The crowd, meanwhile, was distracted by its own roar. Nora pivoted, avoiding Oasme’s eye, and walked rapidly away from the other dancers, out of the courtyard. She plunged down an alley between two buildings, then another, until she was sure she was not being followed.

  Now the chant behind her was fraying, breaking down. Her footsteps sounded startlingly loud.

  “Aruendiel?” she called softly. She chose her path at random as she passed through the complex, scanning the shadows. “Aruendiel?” There was no answer, not even when she abandoned caution and raised her voice until it echoed off the quiet buildings around her. A ganoi woman, hurrying past, looked at her strangely.

  Nora closed her eyes, willing him to answer. She could not doubt that she had seen him. The snapshot in her mind was too clear.

  “Aruendiel?”
Was he hiding from her? Still angry, no doubt, and repenting of whatever impulse had led him to seek her out.

  Hiding—of course Aruendiel was hiding. Sisoaneer had said so. He had masked his power with some supercharged shield spell in order to come here, to Erchkaii.

  Which left open the question: whom was he hiding from? Aruendiel had no shortage of enemies, but the obvious answer was the most disturbing. It wouldn’t be Nora he was hiding from. Even if he didn’t want Nora to know he was nearby—and hadn’t he more or less deliberately shown himself just now?—he wouldn’t need a shield spell to conceal his presence from her. He’d only need the spell to disguise himself from another, more powerful, more dangerous magic-worker.

  “Aruendiel?” Nora whispered.

  She threaded her way among the buildings one more time. By now the pilgrims who had attended the Ieona ceremony were straggling back to the dormitories; Nora scanned the passersby, but none of them were Aruendiel. She crossed the empty courtyard, climbed the Stairs of Healing, and went up the streamside path. The flowing water winked and chuckled, full of its own secrets. He could be anywhere, really. She glanced up at the darkened sides of the ravine. By now she knew the path to the temple well enough that she didn’t really need a light to follow its twisting course, even at night, but she conjured one anyway in case Aruendiel might be waiting in some alcove in the rock.

  When she got to the bridge in front of the waterfall, someone came out of the temple, carrying a light that turned the curtain of water to dancing golden fire. Nora felt a surge of anticipation and discovered that she was trembling. She scooped up the skirt of her maran and strode across the bridge as quickly as she could.

  The person with the light came toward her. Too fat and too short to be Aruendiel. It was Uliverat.

  “Good night to you, Blessed Lady!” she said cheerfully. “If you’ve come to check on the temple, I’ve just closed it up for the evening. That ganoi wretch Olig spilled a flask of oil in the side aisle today and didn’t tell anyone, so I had to clean it up. I thought there was going to be a procession tonight! We always have one at Ieona.”