“I think it a wonderful plan. Yes, it’s a good idea. While we wait for Captain Wilhelm to return, we have little else to do anyway.”
She leaned back, her burden at last released, and her eyelids drooped in fatigue.
He stood up. “Am I not to hear about what happened to you while you were gone?” He asked lightly, for he could tell she was too exhausted to speak anymore.
She smiled up appreciatively at his smiling face, so solid, strong, and steady. So forgiving and understanding. And she was grateful to have him for a friend. “Later, I promise. When I wake up, I’ll tell you everything.”
“I look forward to it. I will tell Faring you are asleep.”
With a backward glance at her as he left the room, he saw that her sleeping face was composed and still, more peaceful than he had ever seen it.
57
Knowledge Questions
When Knowledge departed the thicket of trees in South Drian, for it was she who had been visiting in the wilds with Lady Adrea, she returned to the palace of the gods and sought out Fate. She discovered him on the balcony where he had first approached her about bringing directions to a mere mortal; he was there now with Resolve, who paced back and forth before him, self-important and full of consequence.
“These are the stipulations Power demands, brother,” said the tight-lipped lady. “They are not too much, considering the way everything is bound to fall out.”
Fate did not seem perturbed that demands were being made upon his future misfortune, but stood tall and noble, his arms closed stolidly over his chest, his face resting in an amused expression. “I am not in the habit, tempting as it may be, to bet upon the future, sister.”
“Oh? When you already know the way everything falls out? Surely, you would make out the best, by far. You could have any advantage you desire in our new world.”
“What you do not seem to understand, Resolve, is that it is not my advantage I seek.”
“Don’t be naïve. You really think He will return, glance across the wasteland that was once Minecerva, and say to you, well done, my good and faithful servant? You really think this was what He wanted to happen? Even if He does return, He’ll take everything away from you, everything you ever worked for, and cast you out into the wild with the rest of us. Your best bet is to ally with us, and stop His return before it comes.”
Fate smiled. Her windy words ruffled no feathers. “Ah, Knowledge, my sister,” he said, instead of answering Resolve. “Do not stand in the shadows there – join us.”
Resolve wrinkled her nose at the beautiful goddess and shrugged her shoulders at her. “I have nothing to say to you. You are useless, never up to anything in this world but singing and looking fetching. Your beauty won’t save you!” With that, she jumped from the parapet and flew back to Karaka.
“What were her stipulations?” asked Knowledge, leaning, as her sister had described, fetchingly, against the balcony.
“Oh, they want me to exercise my powers of restraint to keep back any gods who choose to side with the mortals.”
Knowledge laughed, her face puckered in scorn. “Ha! They ask something against your nature. Power is becoming too arrogant for his own good.”
He smiled at her. “I saw you descend to the mortal realm yourself just now. Have you chosen to choose sides?”
“I told you…it’s up to them if they wish to listen to me.”
“Ah, but you give them a nudge now and again, is that your plan now?”
To his pleasant surprise, she grew serious and frowned. “I’ve begun to wonder – you know….Well, I’ve begun to wonder whether we shouldn’t have been more involved with humanity all this time. Have we not brought about this conflict from our neglect? Mankind is no match, on its own, against Power’s might.”
“It is a question worth asking, I grant you that.”
“I never did give any nudges before. Resolve was right. I counted on the beauty of my truth to be enough…but perhaps it’s not.”
Fate did not answer her. It was not his way, even if he had the answer, to give it directly, so he only said to her, “It’s your search for new answers, sister, that does you credit.” Then he strolled inside and left Knowledge to reflect with herself, looking out over the realm of man. Then she turned to seek out Solitude and tell her all she had learned.
58
To Build Up
The terrain in Mestraff had grown the most treacherous yet. The trees were constantly thinning, only scattered in groups here and there, and over the ground and rising up all around was a smooth rock face, rocky cliffs, and rocks forming caves and overhangs that almost blocked out the sun. It was dark overhead, and as Lavendier gazed at the cracks of gray sky, she yearned for the wide, blue expanse of Drian’s heavens, and the unending, undulating prairie plains. This stony face was far too barren.
Jacian’s voice piped up from where Viol walked ahead with him, reverberating in a high echo back and forth across the cliffs. “I remember a time when we weren’t always walking.”
“Do you?” Viol asked him. “What else do you remember?”
“I remember the nurse who got me up in the morning. I mean, well, I don’t really remember her, but I remember that she brought me toasted bread with jam. I miss jam.”
“What about your father? Do you remember him?”
He was quiet a moment. “Yes. He was big, and he used to pick me up. But he’s not as strong as Garrity.”
“Why would you say that?” she asked in surprise.
“Because if he was, he’d have come himself, instead of sending Garrity.”
Viol rushed to gainsay this. “My dear, your father is very strong. One of the best and strongest of men. But he must protect the kingdom, and so he found the best men he could to protect us, and he found two: Asbult and Garrity. And Merciec, of course,” she added, with a smile at the tall man walking behind her. “Your father loves you very much, and if he could, he would have come himself.”
Suddenly, a roar reverberated through the stony ravine: above their heads, behind their backs, before and around them. They all jumped in terror, looking about in vain to ascertain the origin of the unholy echo. Then they saw him, and he was terrifying. Out of a hole in the rock wall there stretched forth tentacles of massive size and towering strength, which in a blink of an eye, had ripped up two trees in the ground, and broke them like frail sticks, as if showing off. These tentacles of unholy strength stretched out toward them.
“Back! Back!” screamed Garrity, and pushed everyone around the corner. They pulled back into a small outcropping, and huddled in fear.
Garrity turned to Asbult, Asbult looked back at him, passing a look of desperation between them.
“He will return any moment,” Asbult said. “We must kill him quickly. Those tentacles are miles in length. If we try to flee, they’ll certainly overtake us.”
Garrity nodded once. “We will face him then.”
Asbult said to Merciec, “Distract him with your arrows, and we will get in close with our spears.” Then, as he turned to leave, he was face to face with Cila. He kissed her deeply a moment, and then pulled away and went to the corner. Merciec gripped his arrows, and readied himself for Asbult’s signal, but a hand clutched at his back.
It was Lavendier, her face pale with terror, and in her eyes, the vulnerability of a child. “Don’t go. You’ll die.”
Merciec looked at her, and for once his boyish eyes were serious. “Do you remember what I told you, that night outside Rarks?”
“You said my life was on probation,” she said faintly.
He smiled a little. “Yes, I did. But I also said that you are a builder. I saw, and I still see, something in you that you can’t. You do not care about my life for my sake, but because I have now become a part of you. Learn to look beyond yourself, to care for others, and you will be great. Build up, Laven, and do not tear apart. Do it for me.”
She reached for him again but he was gone; in a daze she heard the roar
of the beast. She saw the gaping jaws and the slashing steel, and she heard the cries of agony. Numb in body, mind, and soul, she only knew that he was gone.
* * *
When at last the fierce sounds of battle fell silent, she was the first to creep from hiding. With faltering steps she peered around the corner and beheld the carnage. First the monster: mighty and terrifying, even in death, with monstrous tentacles and teeth and claws strewn about, one lying like a hill in front of her, and she had to climb it to see beyond. There, in the midst of the wreckage, lay Garrity and Merciec. Asbult was ahead of her, climbing over another tentacle. He was bloody, but more than that, he was covered in slimy, yellow gunk that oozed across the ground. Viol pushed past her and dropped down beside Garrity’s prostrate form: the soldier had a nasty gash across his chest.
Asbult went to Merciec, but after a moment came over to Viol.
“Is he…?” the young girl asked, and Asbult nodded grimly.
Lavendier shook like a leaf in autumn, a roaring filling her ears. She saw Asbult kneel beside Garrity, but she did not care about him. The one she cared about was dead.
59
And Not Tear Apart
Garrity was neither dead nor incapacitated, for his wounds were not deep. Adlena wrapped up his chest with strips of Merciec’s cloak, which he no longer needed, and Garrity insisted he was well enough to travel. They could not bury Merciec – the ground was far too hard and rocky, and yet with no stones that could be collected for a cairn. Cila and Viol laid him out as best they could, spread his blanket over him, and laid his weapons at his feet. All except for his short-sword, which Asbult took up and handed to Lavendier without a word. Then they sadly set out, climbing over the giant, fleshy tentacles of the beast, heading for what they hoped were greener places ahead.
While coveted when withheld, freedom when gained is a weighty responsibility. While living, Lavendier feared Merciec as her arbiter, at the same time as she leaned upon him as her security. Now that he was gone, she felt lost and frightened. He had spoken the truth when he said she still cared more for herself than for him: he had become a part of her and now a part of her had died. Without him, her moral compass was gone, and she was left with a choice: either to develop that compass within her, or else to succumb to its deprivation. But while she longed to honor his memory, Lavendier had never practiced self-discipline or self-motivation; for this reason, and it alone, she failed to assume responsibility for herself.
* * *
Passion had been eagerly watching for just such an opportunity with the eldest princess, knowing that the weak girl would surely return to her old ways when removed from her guardian’s good influence. Now, the goddess, eager to play a part in Power’s schemes, began to air out old thoughts from the princess’s mind, reviving familiar thought patterns, and reawakening memories of luxury and pleasure.
“Wouldn’t it be nice to have a comfortable bed once again? To be beautiful and admired? No one admires me now, in these draggled rags. No one wants to see me. I could disappear in the undergrowth and no one would notice.”
Her eyes found Garrity, where he tramped in the center of the group, and her desire found him as pleasing as she had in the palace. Ah, the pleasure of being held by a man like that; of being safe, secure, and wanted; of being admired, comforted, and complimented.
She pressed ahead until she walked beside him, then stumbled and nearly fell against his strong arm, but he only side-stepped her, protecting the wound at his side and letting her fumble about clumsily.
She glared at him, but he made no eye contact and pressed on with the others. Everyone was tired, everyone was unsure of their footing, and no one stopped to ask if she was alright.
“Did they ask if I can go on? Do they care for my safety? I was sent away from Drian like a pesky child, and I am ignored here like I am less than a gnat! I’ll show them. I’ll show them all. I can be useful. I can have value.”
She spent the next several hours sweeping her eyes about as they travelled, keen to spy any small animals that she could fell with an arrow, and so prove her usefulness to the group. At last, as evening was almost upon them, she saw her chance and knocking an arrow to the bow, lifted her weapon and shot at a small thing on a shallow cliff. It flicked around just as she would have hit it, and the arrow only caught in its tail. The little thing shrieked in anger and pain and fled from them, calling and screaming as it went.
“Lavendier!” cried Asbult, “have you lost your senses? Do you want to alert every gorgan in Mestraff to our presence? Just shoot yourself next time, and save us the effort of protecting you.”
She said nothing, only glared off into the distance, and he passed his hand over his brow, weary from travel and short-tempered from their loss. “Never mind,” he said. “We’ll make camp here.”
Lavendier grabbed her share of dinner from the packs – dried fruit, crackers, and hard cheese – and cast herself down apart from the rest of the group. They wanted nothing with her, she reasoned, and she wanted nothing with them.
The soft pad of light feet approaching told her Viol had followed her. Her sister had been casting sympathetic glances at her all day, which she had chosen to ignore, and now she did not look over as Viol leaned against the boulder beside her.
“Asbult didn’t mean what he said,” the young princess said quietly. “He was only upset.”
“Do you think I don’t know that?” snapped her sister. “I’ve been ill-treated again, as usual.”
“I think you’ve been helpful lately. And selfless. It’s just very hard to be good when you’re so tired,” she sighed, stretching her aching legs, but Lavendier heard only accusation in Viol’s voice.
“I’m not any more tired than I have a right to be! After all, I’ve been cast from my homeland, forced to wander the wilderness with only indifferent men and helpless women, and my life is forfeit at every turn. It’s grueling, don’t you see, and how can I be expected to go on?”
Beneath her words, what she did not voice aloud, was her desire to be good – as Merciec had wanted. He had called on her to rise above her desires and passions. But he had expected too much of her. She was only a selfish, spoiled girl, and she wept with frustration at her utter uselessness, plunging each moment further and deeper into dark despair.
If only she had known that half her evil thoughts came from another source, and not her own breast. If only she had known that she was not nearly so far-gone as she thought herself. But she had no way to know, no way to search her heart, and so she believed herself to be truly and utterly wicked, and she hated herself for it.
IX
PASSION
“These violent delights have violent ends
And in their triumph die, like fire and powder
Which, as they kiss, consume”
― William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet
60
The Demi-God Is Smothered by the Princess
Passion felt the time was ripe. She could do now what Power had failed to accomplish: she could ensnare the princess of Drian.
The natural god of the rocky plains of Mestraff was a large, ugly brute who feasted on human flesh and resided deep in a cave; he, the goddess felt, would be the perfect vessel to carry the possession to Lavendier, and so she visited him in his lair.
“There are some humans coming though your lands, and I would like you to approach one of them and send the spirit of a god into her. I’ll make it worth your while.”
But she found him more disgusting than she had thought. He grinned at her with large, black lips and empty eyes, and she realized he was too far gone – too much a senseless creature of the earth now – to do the bidding of the gods, and she departed from his lair to think on a new plan.
However, the goddess had succeeded in one thing: she had alerted the hungry beast to the presence of tasty humans in his lands.
* * *
Lavendier was dragging behind the caravan as a wingless goose flags behind an arrow-driv
en gaggle. It was the seventh day since they left Merciec, and with each passing day, Asbult’s frustration with his sister-in-law mounted. Gritting his teeth, he tried to urge Lavendier on, but she only drooped more and more, like an un-watered tiger-lily, refusing to speak, eat, or pick up her pace. Thinking that he appreciated Merciec on a whole new level, Asbult finally bit his tongue and hoped she would get over her mourning before she did permanent harm to the rest of them.
Garrity plowed the way in front, his chest wound healing a little bit each day, but refusing to let it slack their pace across the roadless land. The Nian ladies followed him in single file, spread apart, defenseless, and all took turns carrying or urging Jacian along. With only two men remaining to defend them, they were like a brood of chicks walking blindfold through a den of foxes.
So preoccupied were they in looking for gorgans that they were wholly unprepared when a monster, standing taller than the tallest spire of Korem, suddenly reared its head above the rock hill beside them. With a clatter of boulders and a quake that shook the earth, with hunger in his empty eyes and a large, stupid grin on his lips, he reached down his arm to gather the humans for his lunch.
The princesses fled in all directions and the monster, pleased with the sport, watched them run with a snarl of un-intelligent glee. He wanted them to run. It was so long since mortals had entered his realm, and he was eager for sport before supper.
Asbult and Garrity held their ground and lifted bow and spear to fell the mountainous beast knowing, even as they did, that their weapons would do no more harm to its hide than the sting of a mosquito. But before they quite lost all hope, Lavendier took them all by surprise.
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