by Liv Savell
“There isn’t any door.”
Meirin shifted her weight, looking up the length of the tower. “Is it not supposed to be entered? Perhaps that is for the best… What would we do if the Old Gods were there? It’s not as if Etienne’s magic is ready, and while I’m a good fighter, three Gods versus you, me and Delyth?” She shook her head. “I wouldn’t bet on us.”
“They’re not here,” Delyth said without hesitation, though Etienne knew she had not done the tracking spell since that morning. Her impatience made him uneasy. Perhaps the run-in with the bandits that morning had disturbed her more than he had realized.
Perhaps she was just hurting.
“Are you sure?” he asked. “It wouldn’t be a bad idea to check.”
Delyth just shook her head. “They would have had to turn around. We haven’t covered enough distance to catch up with them.”
“Then how do we know they even went in there? And if they did go in, why should we? We just want to get Gethin and your friend back, correct?” Meirin gestured with a bit of irritation to the tower.
Etienne turned to Delyth. For all that his curiosity tugged him towards the old structure, he didn’t have a good answer to Meirin’s questions, and he expected that Delyth would agree with the clan warrior.
Instead, she gripped her forearm, over the place where she usually traced the tracking rune, seeming to consider the idea for a long moment. When she did answer, it was without bothering to turn to them. “My— Enyo’s blood was spilled here.”
Etienne stilled. That was the first sure sign of Enyo they had come across since leaving the Mynydd Gwyllt.
Delyth was still staring at the tower, her stoic face hardening into determined lines. “If getting inside will tell us what Enyo has been up to, then we need to enter.”
Looking between Delyth and Etienne, Meirin’s expression softened, and she nodded. “Very well. It doesn’t make much sense to have built a monument like this and not have a way in. Let’s check again; perhaps the door was sealed off with the departure of the Old Gods? If so, we might be able to reopen it and gain access.” Slowly Meirin started her own trek around the base of the tower.
Etienne followed the two women a little distractedly, his gaze tracing the line of the tower up instead of remaining on its base. How had they moved the granite here? How had they lifted it so high? It seemed to him that the thing could have only been built with the work of hundreds of bodies and copious magic.
There was a flicker of something at the base of the structure—white against dark stone. Movement perhaps? Etienne took a step closer, his brow furrowing beneath a messy lock of hair. There couldn’t be anyone outside the tower, could there? Delyth had checked its entire perimeter just moments before.
“Come here!” Meirin was at the opposite side of the tower, standing over a pile of shrubbery and pointing downwards. “It’s a plaque.”
Etienne blinked and shook his head. Maybe the months of travel were finally starting to get to him if he was seeing things in broad daylight. He stepped a little ways from the tower, staring down at the glint of metal Meirin pointed out. It was surrounded by gouges in the earth, the brush flung aside as though someone had ripped it up in a fury. He almost smiled.
Enyo.
The scholar leaned closer to peer at the inscription:
Alive as you but without breath
As cold alive as in death
Never a thirst, though I always drink
Dressed in mail, but never a clink.
More clues that this was a place of death, either of worship or otherwise. Etienne hummed, thinking. Perhaps the people of Rhosan had once worshipped death itself as a living thing—a God? Though it was interesting that they had chosen to portray the deity as being unable to breathe. Perhaps they worshipped an animated corpse? The mail was hardly surprising. Of course, even Thloegr’s Death God would be a war—
“It’s a fish.”
Etienne looked up at Meirin, blinking. “What?”
She shrugged, nodding towards the plaque. “Something cold, that drinks, doesn’t breathe, and wears armor? A fish.”
Etienne blinked, looking from her to the metal plague and seeing it suddenly for what it was: a riddle. He shifted. “Alright, but why?” His voice sounded defensive even to him.
“Death is odd sometimes. It often doesn’t make sense. I don’t know why there is a riddle, but there is, and the answer is a fish.” Meirin turned to watch as Delyth walked away, studying the tower more thoroughly this time.“There are balconies.” She pointed out the seemingly obvious. “Can you carry us up there, Delyth? Or take a line up there and tie it off? Then Etienne and I could climb up.” She glanced at the mage’s arms and then away with a wry smile.
Delyth didn’t look up at the tower’s top, but rather down, towards its base. She touched something there, then glanced at her hand. “I found the fish.”
Behind her, the tower was opening.
“I think this was an altar,” Etienne said, standing before a cylindrical pillar in the center of the tower’s main room. It was waist-high and lined with crude drawings of men and animals.
“An Altar? Like where Enyo had her—ugh— artifact?” Meirin stepped away from one of the balcony doors, looking decidedly green around the edges.
“Are you ill?” Etienne asked, suddenly intent on the clan woman. “Is it the height?”
“I’m just—a little—I don’t enjoy it up here.”
“If there is no artifact and this really is a temple—” Delyth turned slowly, taking in the room.
Etienne brushed dirt off the top of the altar. “Whose temple?”
“Does it matter?”
“Hrmph. No respect these days.” Etienne jerked around. Who had said that?
Meirin opened her eyes with a sigh. “At least we know why they came. To get another artifact so they can bring back another God. It seems—it seems like they want to bring back all the Old Gods.”
Etienne stepped away from the altar, examining the room around them more closely. There was another flash of white, just out of his line of sight. “Who’s there?”
The two women stopped speaking immediately, turning to watch Etienne. Meirin snorted. “Are you talking to walls now, Etienne?”
He ignored her, scanning the darkest corners of the room. “I know you’re there.”
“Etienne…” Delyth’s brow was furrowed, but he just shook his head.
“Of course I’m here! The tower needs tending. Somebody has to do it, and all the young Priests are lazy layabouts. It’s impossible to get anything done— Is that why you’re here? Looking for a hand out like the rest of ‘em?” The tone was accusatory and the voice a mere croak. It seemed to come from the very air itself, though neither women reacted to the complaints, instead staring at Etienne, wide-eyed.
“Who do you take me for?” Etienne feigned offense and began to dust the top of the altar.
༄
Delyth watched Etienne bustle around the room with a growing sense of failure. Alphonse had trusted her to get away, to take care of Etienne, and now she had brought him to a place that had completely broken his mind.
“Ah, yes, the pillars, of course,” Etienne was muttering, glancing over his shoulder as he vigorously cleaned the curves of a pillar with the hem of his tunic.
She shook her head, irresolute. Should she try to interrupt him? Would shaking him out of this delusion harm him more?
“Right you are. I’ll just wipe this down a bit and go find a broom.”
Delyth closed her eyes, pressing the heels of her hands against the lids until she saw stars. She couldn’t chase down the Gods and take care of a mad scholar. There wasn’t enough time. Frustration coiled in her belly. In all the time she had known the mage, why had he shown no signs of madness, only to break now?
“Who is he talking to?” Meirin whispered to Delyth.
How was she supposed to know? It could be some family member that plagued his vision or a teacher from
the school he and Alphonse had attended. Maybe even an old friend. Hadn’t he told a story about a friend back when they were waiting out the blizzard in the mountain cave?
A story about a friend no one else could see…
“Oh.” Delyth laughed out loud. “It's a spirit.” She had forgotten about Etienne and the clever friend no one else could see, about how Alphonse had met him. There were people that could talk to spirits, and Etienne was one of them.
“A spirit?” Meirin sounded less incredulous and more impressed. “Well, that’s handy.”
✶
A man-shaped glimmer stood in the center of the room. He was draped in white robes and hooded with a golden shawl. His face was creased with many lines, and his shoulders were hunched with age. He was nodding sagely as Etienne continued to clean, clearly pleased to have an acolyte after all these years. The ghost must have been a priest for the Death God some three hundred years ago when the Gods were banished. He had dutifully stayed on to look after the tower when all others had fled.
“Good, good—Don’t miss that spot there. Higher. Yes, higher. Really put your back into it.” He flapped his hands at Etienne, but his expression was turning from stern to one of pleasure. “You know, you’ve a strange accent, boy. You fleeing the southern border raids?”
“Yes,” Etienne said, letting his face somber. “I lost my best friend in the fighting.”
“It is always sad to lose a friend too soon. Still,” the priest straightened up, striking a pose of a teacher bestowing wisdom to his pupils. “You may take comfort that your friend is in the warm embrace of Aryus. They who shelter us all. Death.” He bowed his head ceremoniously.
Etienne only hesitated a moment. “It’s an honor to serve them.”
A long silence stretched between them as the priest continued his grave pose. He straightened up finally, a nostalgic tone coating his voice now. “I remember when I became an acolyte. First, you had to win a staring contest with Death. As you can imagine, it is challenging to look them in the face for long. They tend to cheat, too—blowing flower petals at my eyes. Still, they liked how I handled myself,” he brushed his white robes, preening. “Then! Oh ho, they don’t make you do this anymore, and I did have to seek out a particularly vixenish man to find one, but I had to catch—”
“Um, sorry, but what should I dust next?”
“Eh? Oh! Oh yes. Don’t forget the artifact. That’s very important. It must shine with your reflection when you’re done.”
“The artifact?” Etienne stammered. “But shouldn’t it be on the altar?”
“The altar? Pah! Don’t you know anything, boy?”
Etienne hunched his shoulders. “No one bothers to tell me anything.”
The priest eyed him but then muttered, hurrying forward. He passed through Meirin, who shuddered and looked around. “Look here, boy. What do you see?” He was pointing to something on the floor, below the altar. Etienne slipped past Meirin so that he could see it. Three simple lines of script had been etched into the floor, all but hidden in the shadow of the altar—another riddle.
“If I drink, I die
If I eat, I am alive
What am I?”
What ate but could not drink?
Etienne knew from what few healing classes he had been required to take that all creatures needed water. Everything drank. Birds, beasts, snakes. Fish were constantly submerged. No living thing died from drinking.
So then, it had to be something inanimate. Something that ate but could not drink.
“Fire,” he said softly. Then, louder, “It's fire! It has to be. Fire eats fuel but is doused by water!”
“I guess the standards for acolytes are lower these days. Hrmph.” His expression was decidedly unimpressed. “I assume you know what to do now, boy? Or should I spell it out?”
Etienne was already pulling his knife from his belt and pressing its blade into his palm. On the rough, stone surface of the altar, he painted one of the few runes Delyth had taught him, squinting his eyes against the sudden flare of flame. Then, nothing.
Meirin and Delyth watched on, silent and expectant.
And still, nothing.
Sagging, Etienne turned to the ghost, intending to ask for help, to see what he had done wrong.
And then, the altar split open with a crack like the first peal of thunder.
“Go on, it won’t clean itself. Just don’t say our lovely God’s name while you do. Don’t want to summon them here for a clumsy acolyte, do we?” The old priest chuckled at the thought.
“Is that the artifact?” Meirin asked, stepping forward and peering into the newly revealed hollow.
“Yes.” Carefully, Etienne wrapped his hands in his shirt and lifted the horn, making sure that it did not touch his skin. Inviting a God into his body might be a fitting recompense for summoning Enyo, but it would not help them now. He did not make any pretense of cleaning it. “The spirit of a priest led me to its location—thank you, by the way.”
“Spirit? What are you yammering on about, boy? Are you going to clean it or no? Lazy thing.” The priest was frowning now, perhaps catching on that not all was well.
“Sorry, but I can’t,” Etienne said. “We’re going to have to borrow it for a while.”
“Borrow? You can’t borrow it! It’s not some decoy like the one those fools took. It’s real! Now put that back, or I’ll have to have you removed from the priesthood.”
Etienne’s face lit up. “There were others here? And they took a fake artifact?”
“They always do. Now—Hey! Come back here!” Etienne moved towards Delyth, handing her the horn.
“Look, I’m sorry,” he told the ghost, “but I think that horn will help me get my friend back.”
Delyth was watching him with the still focus of a mountain lion. “What do you mean?”
“Enyo wanted the artifact, right? She’s up to something involving other Gods. The more she awakens, the harder it will be to stop them.”
Delyth nodded slowly, her shoulder seeming to relax a fraction. “We’re a little ahead, for once.”
“We’re catching up with Enyo. Finally. Let’s see if we can trap a Goddess.” Etienne turned to lead the way back out to the plains, the ghost protesting all the way.
⥣ ⥣ ⥣
* * *
Once more, Delyth stood at the entrance of the Mynydd Gwyllt Clan, its walls stretching impossibly high above her. Tanwen stood at the gate, one hand on a black bastard sword, her head thrown back, laughing.
“You can’t come in, Del,” she taunted, pointing the blade in the halfbreed’s direction. Only, Delyth didn’t have a sword of her own, and her wings would not unfurl to carry her. They were too heavy. Not fast enough.
“Why?” She growled the word, throat raw and full of anger. Alphonse was in there. She had to be. So close and still Delyth couldn’t reach her.
Agonizingly, as though her legs were mired in ooze, she struggled towards the clan leader until they were almost near enough to touch. A sword-stroke away, if she’d had a sword. Tanwen stopped laughing, her eyes growing wider, their bright green igniting into embers. “I know you enjoy hurting others, Ba’oto. I think perhaps you are the most vicious out of us all, Tristan included. Trickster that he is, he’s not a cunning, cruel creature such as you.”
And then it wasn’t Tanwen at all, but Enyo standing before her, hands dripping with the blood of a human heart, bulging with fat and frayed tissue but still beating, still thumping out spurts of crimson in an energetic tattoo. “Yuk, Ba’oto,” the Goddess crooned. “Eat the heart, and I’ll give Alphonse back to you.”
Her words warped, a strange song repeating over and over, bouncing until they became distorted. “Eat the heart, eat the heart, eat the heart, Ba’oto.”
Slowly, Delyth lowered her mouth towards the writhing organ, tears leaking from her eyes until finally, the hot thing was against her lips, filling her mouth with metallic gouts of ichor. She bit into soft flesh…
A
nd then it wasn’t a heart at all, but Alphonse’s hand that Delyth was drinking blood from, the healer’s skin becoming paler and more drawn by the second, only Delyth couldn’t stop, couldn’t pull away while thick liquid poured down her throat.
“Hush,” Alphonse whispered, stroking her hair as gently as she ever had, letting her fingers brush the warrior’s temples. “It's alright, Delyth. I always knew you were a monster.”
Consciousness came like a shock of freezing water, abrupt and cleansing. Delyth gasped for air. Her simple bedding was wrapped around her legs, binding them together, her wings catching the edge of the tent. She had to get free, get out.
Delyth wrenched herself loose, ignoring the groan of tearing fabric. She lurched forward, knocking a wing joint against the hard pole of the tent; spilled outside like so much viscera. The air was cool, and she gulped it down, chest heaving.
It was just a dream. Just a dream.
It wasn’t real.
Delyth pulled her knees into her chest and sobbed, air escaping her mouth in bursts while tears soaked her jerkin. She had lost so much in the last moons. Her faith. Her purpose. The woman she loved. Now, she’d come so close to losing herself too. Losing herself to the dark, to bloodlust and anger.
More monster than she ever had been.
Chapter X
Tenth Moon, Waxing Gibbous: Central Thloegr
Va’al tarried behind the two wilder Gods, more annoyed than he had been since before Etienne abandoned Alphonse. Enyo was too distracted by the world around them to pay him much attention, and Maoz was bounding beside her like it was the best thing he could imagine except fucking tavern wenches. Meanwhile, Va’al’s legs and ankles had been bramble-whipped even through his trousers.
At least, because it was reaching the height of fall, the gnats weren’t so bad, but, still, the humans had toiled away at the roads for a reason. He much preferred taking advantage of their labor. Of course, he had been outnumbered, so they traveled as the crow flew, not on roads but cutting through brush and thickets, over hills and down through glens—a straight line for Caerthleon where it lay almost directly east of the tower. Or it would be if Enyo and Maoz didn’t spend a quarter of each day veering off towards whatever branch or thrush enthralled them.