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

by Emily Croy Barker

  Nora turned to run. And instead slammed into something bigger than she was, heavy and muscled, covered with cool, silky fur. It gave a low growl. Nora recognized the topaz eyes and the spotted muzzle just as the Kavareen tilted its head sideways and its jaws closed around her waist.

  It felt like being jammed into a freezer. Nora twisted madly, thrusting her shoulders against its jaws, kicking to try to find the ground that was no longer beneath her feet. The Kavareen growled again, the roar filling her ears. The snake hissed, uncomfortably close.

  Were the two monsters working together? At the edge of her vision, the black reptilian head streaked toward her, just as the Kavareen’s leap jerked her upward. She shrieked.

  The Kavareen landed with a jolt, its claws ringing on stone. It bounded forward, carrying Nora through the darkness. She squirmed, but the icy points of the Kavareen’s teeth held her in a delicate, powerful grip, and she was afraid of what might happen if it bit harder.

  Abruptly the Kavareen halted. With a shake of its head, it let Nora drop to the cave floor. The hard, luminescent eyes looked down at her. It raised a paw, batting at her like any cat playing with a half-dead mouse. She rolled away and scrambled to her feet.

  Reaching out blindly, she found a cave wall, and scrabbled along it until suddenly her hand discovered an opening in the rock. She pushed herself through. The aperture was barely wide enough for her. The Kavareen would never fit. She wasn’t sure about the snake.

  The water light spell took less time now, the water in the cave responding more quickly to her call. The pale light told her that she was in a new passageway, rising in a different direction.

  A furious hissing seeped through the gap behind her. Actually, two different hisses, she decided after a moment, but she couldn’t tell which belonged to the snake and which belonged to the Kavareen. She edged away from the opening. A snarl. More sounds of muffled tumult. Then a loud cry, raw, deep, and piercing. Oddly, it seemed to be coming from deeper in the caves. Like a baby’s howl, it was almost physically painful to hear, full of vast anger and desolation.

  Nora clapped her hands over her ears. She felt herself quivering, then realized that the rock she stood on was also shaking.

  The long cry died away. The cave steadied. Nora took a deep breath, tried to prepare a couple of spells that might be useful—the vomiting spell, in case she was swallowed—and waited.

  A minute passed with no giant snake slithering through the gap in the rock. Another minute.

  Nora stepped closer to the opening. Her throat felt dry. She hoped that her voice would penetrate into the far chamber.

  “You’d better come through as Hirizjahkinis,” she called. “It’s too narrow for the Kavareen.”

  She wondered if her words would be understood. Hirizjahkinis used to speak to the Kavareen in some language other than Ors. It sounded rather lovely, Nora remembered. She waited.

  On the other side of the hole in the wall, there was a flutter of white linen. Then a brown hand gripped the side of the gap. Hirizjahkinis slipped through the opening, her beaded braids swinging, the Kavareen’s spotted hide draped neatly over her shoulders.

  She straightened and faced Nora, head balanced high with the ramrod posture that usually made her seem slightly taller than she was. Right now, Nora thought, it made her seem more fragile. But a smile played over Hirizjahkinis’s lips. “I am here,” she said.

  “Are you all right?” This time Nora’s inclination to greet Hirizjahkinis with a hug was more stilted. She folded her arms. “How do you feel?”

  “I am well indeed! I am no longer hungry. Well, not very hungry.” Her voice hardened slightly as her dark eyes searched Nora’s: “How did you know? About—us?”

  Nora gave a tight shrug. “The Kavareen came to my rescue. It picked me up in its mouth, and I didn’t even get scratched. Well, my clothes, maybe”—she plucked at her muddy, torn skirts—“but nothing else. That seemed strange.”

  Hirizjahkinis nodded. “But it could have been that I commanded the Kavareen to help you, to fight that very ill-mannered serpent.”

  “And then there was the magic,” Nora said, frowning. “You had me do the water magic. You didn’t do any yourself, even after spending days in this cave.” She wondered whether Hirizjahkinis would take offense at her next question, but asked it anyway: “Can you still do magic?”

  “I am Hirizjahkinis, but I am also the Kavareen, and he is a creature that is made up of magic, mostly. I am still learning all the things that he is capable of. More than I knew.” She smiled in a way that made her look both proud and chagrined. “But real magic, the kind of magic that Aruendiel taught me? I do not know. Whenever I try a spell, I am clumsy and slow-minded. It is like a tune that I cannot quite remember. No, it is a tune that I hear perfectly well in my head, but it will not come to my lips.”

  “I’m sorry,” Nora said.

  “It is better than freezing for a black eternity in the belly of the Kavareen,” Hirizjahkinis said. “I made a bargain, and so far I do not regret it. Well, and how are you, little one? What did you do in that evil room to bring that monster snake after us? I waited, wondering what I would say to Aruendiel if you did not come out—I knew exactly what he would say—and then I heard the ugly thing slithering about upstairs. So the Kavareen went to investigate. I do not mind snakes so much, myself, but they do not improve with size. I liked this one better when he was only bones.”

  “I’m not completely sure what happened there.” Nora was still turning over in her mind how much she could say to a Hirizjahkinis who was also the Kavareen. “But I think we should get out of here as soon as possible.”

  “I will not disagree. If it takes a giant serpent to keep you from dawdling in dark caves that smell of death and old angry magic—then I am pleased we met that snake.”

  “I didn’t notice any smell,” Nora said.

  “The Kavareen did,” said Hirizjahkinis.

  Chapter 28

  Through caverns measureless to man, Nora thought, not for the first time. They were walking again, after crawling, climbing, sliding along twisting passages that burrowed through the limestone with magnificent indecisiveness, leading only to more winding caves. Trudging behind Hirizjahkinis, Nora flexed her tired shoulders and tried to work the gritty taste of clay out of her mouth, not quite succeeding. Even Hirizjahkinis’s magically snowy linen was now streaked with yellow mud.

  Rounding a thick, waxy curtain of stalactites, Hirizjahkinis paused. “We are descending again. We should go back to that fork we just passed and try the other way.”

  Nora considered the corridor ahead, which indeed sloped abruptly downward. “Let’s try this one just a little farther.”

  “You wish to meet more giant snakes?”

  She shook her head. “No giant snakes, I swear. I just have a feeling there’s air and water moving down there—” She edged forward. The sloping rock was slick with moisture, but uneven enough to yield some footholds. Hirizjahkinis did not move until Nora looked back at her. “Please come. Does it smell bad?”

  Hirizjahkinis sighed. “Very damp.” Taking small, cautious steps, she followed Nora with no visible enthusiasm.

  When their path finally leveled, they were ankle-deep in water. “So, yes, it is damp,” Nora said, wading ahead.

  Hirizjahkinis gave an unexpectedly demure sneeze. Like a cat, Nora thought. “Just because I am part demon now does not mean I cannot catch cold, I believe.”

  “A little bit farther, all right? Just around this bend.” As Nora followed the curve of the passage, she kept an ear tuned for the slosh, slosh of Hirizjahkinis’s footsteps behind her own. If there were four paws moving through the water instead of Hirizjahkinis’s two human feet, Nora thought, would I be able to tell?

  “Careful, little one,” Hirizjahkinis called. “Do you hear that?”

  “Hear what?”

&n
bsp; Hirizjahkinis, not the Kavareen, came around the curve, her head lifted with focused attention. “I heard something ahead.”

  A small, flat, darkish something floated near Nora’s shin. Leaning down, she recognized the rounded lobes of an oak leaf. “Look, look, look!” she said triumphantly, plucking it from the water. “A leaf, and it’s still green. And there’s another.” She pointed.

  “Shh.” Hirizjahkinis lifted an imperious hand for silence. After a moment, she gave an impatient shrug. “Now I hear nothing. But you have found a leaf. I suppose you mean that this nasty wet hole leads somewhere where there are leaves, and even trees?”

  “It seems like a good sign.” Nora smiled archly.

  “And I was about to insist that we go back to the dry ground.” Hirizjahkinis blew a puff of air out of her lips, then cocked her head to listen for another minute. Nora waited, unmoving, hearing the patter of dripping water, the slurp of water against stone. Was that wind hissing somewhere far down the passage?

  “Go slowly,” Hirizjahkinis said finally. “Quietly. There is no sign of anyone, which is all the more suspicious, because the sweet moon knows I heard someone there a little while ago. I think we should see who it is, don’t you? I will not introduce them to the Kavareen, not unless I must—he is shy. Tell your kind water thank you, and no more light, please.”

  In the new darkness they waded forward. Nora tried the only silencing spell she knew, one intended to muffle the clinking of armor, and found that it worked surprisingly well to hide the splashing of their steps. The silence was disconcerting, though. And her feet were getting numb in the cold water. But yes, the air was definitely fresher in this tunnel than in any of the others she had passed through.

  Looking ahead, she thought she saw a patch of darkness that seemed less dense, almost silvery. At the same moment, pushing through a slick of leaves, Nora realized that the water was nearly up to her knees.

  “There is a current,” Hirizjahkinis said suddenly. “You feel it?”

  “Oh, yes.” The flow was suddenly pushing against Nora’s thighs, tugging at the torn ends of her maran. She turned sideways, trying to find better footing on the cave floor. The water was moving so quickly that it gave only passing acknowledgment to her magic. She sensed its rising excitement, a new, wanton strength, as the air filled with a heavy rumble, like approaching traffic.

  “Hold on to the walls,” Nora began to say, reaching out to find Hirizjahkinis in the dark, and then an onrushing wave lifted her off her feet and flung her backward.

  Nora twisted and kicked, choking, paddling with all her strength. The murky torrent was thick with a rolling, silty slurry of pebbles and sand. She thrashed upward in search of air and managed to suck in a couple of breaths as the current bullied her along. Then the crown of her head bumped against rock, and she had to go under the lightless water again. Her lungs burned.

  Enough of this, Nora thought. I need to breathe. Make way, make way. I said, make way.

  She tilted her head back and felt her mouth and chin emerge from the water. Nora let out her breath, then inhaled greedily. Raising an exploratory hand, she found she was in a small air pocket carved out of the flood. Water hung over her head—slightly aggrieved, she sensed, at the urgency of her demand, but also secretly proud of how quickly and neatly it had assumed this unusual form.

  Kicking to stay in place, Nora thanked the water profusely and told it how clever it was to divine her wishes so quickly. Then she asked for something else. You know the other one like me? she said to the water. The one that’s warm. Moving like me. Bring that one to me.

  Then she waited, flexing her limbs against the current and wondering if the element would understand what she meant.

  She felt very alone in the freezing dark. If Hirizjahkinis did not surface again, what would she do? Keep doing what we were doing, she thought. Try not to drown, try to get out of this cave. She tried not to dwell on the possibility that the water might return a cold, silent, unmoving Hirizjahkinis. If the Kavareen came back instead, that would be all right, probably.

  The current pushed hard against her numb limbs. She paddled harder, afraid of being ripped away from her small refuge. Suddenly bubbles erupted near her, and she felt the swirl of movement in the water. Something bumped her. Next to her ear, someone took a long, sputtering breath. Nora reached out instinctively.

  The shoulder she grabbed seemed too large, too solid to be Hirizjahkinis’s. Urgently, she asked the water for light again.

  “Nora? It is you?” She recognized Aruendiel’s deep burr, roughened, gasping.

  Was he real? In the gray light, his face appeared, pale and intent, looking oddly naked with his wet hair slick and streaming in long, dark fronds.

  Nora gave a cry and took in a mouthful of water, some of which got into her windpipe. She dug her fingers into Aruendiel’s shoulder, coughing.

  “You must not drown, nefle, not now,” Aruendiel said, taking hold of her arm and steadying her. Her voice was a hoarse fragment, but she choked out some words to ask if he was all right.

  He gave a dismissive nod, his gaze traveling methodically over her face, looking for something. She could not tell what. In the dimness, the water pressing high around them, it was hard to read his expression, but she thought she saw the thin, graven lines of his mouth quiver.

  “You’re alive,” he said.

  So are you, Nora thought. Her tongue felt as though it were locked inside her mouth. She nodded. “So far, so good,” she got out, but she was dissatisfied by her own flippancy.

  “Where did you come—?” she started to ask, then sputtered as a new rush of water nearly pulled them both under. Aruendiel grabbed at an overhang, curling his fingers tight against the rock as the current dragged them downstream.

  Holding fast to Aruendiel—she would not be separated from him again—Nora kicked against the surging water as hard as she could. Her little air pocket was almost spent. She craned her neck, trying to keep her nostrils in the air.

  “We have to swim,” he said.

  All those years of swimming lessons, all those badges, Nora thought, but they never taught you how to navigate fast-moving currents of black water underground. She nodded and tried to smile confidently.

  “Don’t be afraid,” he said as he pushed her underwater, harder than she would have expected.

  Her mind went blank with fear for a moment, as the current carried her away, and then she made a conscious decision to swim as hard as she could and not to panic until she ran out of air, probably thirty seconds from now.

  And in fact she was swimming easily, not feeling the cold. She nosed her way forward, riding the flow, almost enjoying herself. She could see very little in the murk, but tiny eddies and vibrations told her how to avoid the cave walls, and she steered her way through the flood with delicate motions. She tasted different scents as she swam, the dank tinge of algae and riverweed; the saltiness of human skin; the acrid, disturbing, unmistakable smell of blood.

  Aruendiel swam past her, a long, dim, swiftly moving shape, and then with a splash he leaped out of the water. Maybe he had spotted a fly or something else that was good to eat. Curious, she went closer.

  An instant later, light flared above, and a wavering silvery mirror overhead showed her the alarming border where the water ended. Beyond it, a looming dark creature with long appendages.

  Fear rippled through her body. With a flip of her tail, she darted downward.

  The water suddenly felt much colder. Nora’s hands and knees scraped rock. She pulled herself upward, her body feeling heavy, unusually clumsy, and then her head broke the surface. Blinking, she took a long breath of air. It felt rough and warm in her throat.

  Aruendiel was crouching at the water’s edge, his bent arms and legs looking incongruously long in the narrow cave. Taking her hand, he hauled her onto dry land. A pale, conjured flame burned at his si
de, weirdly bright after so much darkness.

  “I apologize, Nora, involuntary transformations are not pleasant,” he said, “and usually reserved for one’s enemies, not one’s friends.”

  Nora nodded, her teeth chattering. She looked down at her arms and legs, and for an instant she could see only an alien tangle of gawky extremities. Then she recognized the familiar shape of her own body.

  “I was a fish,” she said wonderingly. “I could breathe underwater. And I didn’t even really notice—” Abruptly she remembered: “Hirizjahkinis! I almost forgot.”

  Aruendiel raised his head with a grunt of surprise. “Hirizjahkinis?”

  “She was with me. Before the water rose.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Of course!”

  The black eyebrows knit in concentration. Aruendiel dabbled his hand in the water and stared into the depths from which they had just emerged. After half a minute, he shook his head. The flickering light drew stark lines on his face as he glanced at Nora. “There is no trace of her magic anywhere near here. No trace of her.”

  “Well, she was here.” It occurred to Nora that perhaps the Kavareen could survive underwater for some considerable time, and that perhaps it could hide from Aruendiel’s magic. The thought hovered on her lips, and then she said: “Maybe she found another way out.”

  “Maybe. She has had plenty of practice in escaping snares, having been caught so often. She escaped the Kavareen?”

  “Yes.” Nora was not sure what else she could safely say.

  He regarded her, frowning, and pushed the wet hair away from her face. His fingers were surprisingly warm against her forehead, considering that he had been a fish minutes ago. His frown deepened. “You are chilled,” he said, more gently than before.

  She remembered that she could at least dry their wet clothes. The water began to drip from her maran and Aruendiel’s tunic. “What kind of fish were we?”