by Liv Savell
Meirin laughed, the sound not as bright or joyful as it once had been. “Maybe. You’ve inspired me, mage. I don’t think I’ll stay in Mynydd Gwyllt for long. I want to travel. I want to see more of Thloegr, Ingola. Esha’s tits, all of Illygad. I’m no longer happy in my tiny corner of the world.”
She held out her arms for a hug. She felt close to Etienne. They were friends and had shared a bed the night before she offered herself up as a Vassal. He’d been attentive with her survival even as he mourned the death of his dearest friend. She was happy to see him, and her heart felt warm, but she was equally as excited to start her own new life.
If Mascen didn’t destroy it first.
Maybe she was a fickle creature, or maybe whatever they had was precisely what it needed to be to get them through the terrors of their journey. Rather than feel ashamed, Meirin only held Etienne tighter, and when they pulled apart, she kissed him one last time.
Etienne just blushed a little darker. She felt sure that he had understood there would be nothing more between them. “Safe travels then. I hope you see all that you long to.”
He glanced over his shoulder, and Meirin followed his gaze. Already, Delyth was almost done packing her things. He’d have to get his as well if he didn’t want to be left behind. Any moment, Va'al would reappear to urge them along, evidently unsatisfied until he could put the whole affair behind him.
Etienne stepped away. “Goodbye, Meirin.”
“Goodbye, mage.” She smiled again and watched as Etienne squared his shoulders and hurried to pack up so he would not be left behind. Meirin fought the urge to sigh and instead came to stand by the Priest who Esha had inhabited. She never knew his name.
“I’m Meirin,” she murmured, and the man nodded politely.
“Priest Arawn. Of course, you can simply call me Arawn. I’m not sure I will be a priest much longer.” The admission startled Meirin. It must have shown on her face because he went on to explain. “To share my body with a Goddess, my Goddess. I don’t know if I can go back to a humble priest. Even high priest.” His voice held a note of rapture.
Meirin looked to Enyo, where she coaxed blooms onto a tree despite the approaching winter. She seemed more stable now, no longer trapped in a mortal body ill-suited to her powers and needs, but the relative calm did not fool Meirin. She had seen the Goddess fling clan warriors like dolls. Etienne still bore the print of her hand burned into his chest.
They all were that dangerous. She could see it in the way Va’al bent shadows to his will, in the way Arawn’s gaze followed Esha like someone dying of thirst.
“Yes,” she said. “The reality is very different than the fables we were told.”
“Indeed.” Arawn agreed. “I overheard you saying you will be taking your clansmen back home. Gwynhafan is not far from here. The temple would be happy to house you both while you recover.”
Meirin thought of the tavern she had danced in and the stalls with food vendors in the square.
“That would be very kind of you.” Truthfully it would be a relief as well. Traveling with Gethin still so weak would be dangerous, even without vengeful Gods on the loose. And if Mascen won, being in a city was surely better than some small village. She had seen what he did to settlements that didn’t impress him…
“It’s the least I can do. Because of your sacrifice, we were saved.”
Meirin’s dark eyes drifted to Alphonse and Tristan’s graves. There had been many sacrifices to stop Mascen. Hers felt the least important.
Shadows overhead caught her eye, and Meirin looked up to see Etienne held tight to Delyth soaring overhead. Aryus appeared from the clouds, and petals fluttered in their wake. Enyo looked up as well, and in a flash, she was gone, running. So much for goodbyes. Esha and Maoz followed suit.
Within a matter of seconds, they were all gone from sight, and just like that, Meirin was no longer part of the fight.
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* * *
In the end, Aryus did carry Etienne for much of the flight. They made a strange pair, both long and pale and slender. Perhaps Aryus’s face was softer, not quite feminine or masculine, but it seemed to Delyth that they shared at least as much in common as she and Maoz. Maybe more. And yet, none of the Gods seemed to consider Etienne kin to Aryus. No one else seemed as interested or apt at guessing the Death God’s riddles, and it saved Delyth the annoyance of flying in company with them. Alone, she was able to keep a comfortable distance from Aryus and his ceaseless giggling.
Unfortunately, the warrior did not much prefer her own company. There was too much time to think during the long days of travel. Incessantly, her thoughts replayed the pallor of Alphonse’s face as they laid her in the dirt, the coolness of her temples as Delyth braided her hair. In her dreams, she killed the child again and again. Only more often than not, it now wore Alphonse’s face.
She could not even cry. Not anymore. Not since they had filled in those graves with deep-smelling earth and hidden Alphonse’s tiny form forever. It was like the warrior had been hollowed out, emptied of all but regret.
Regret and anger.
She had been made a weapon by those who taught her to serve Enyo, so she would be a weapon in Enyo’s service one last time. Delyth was going to find Mascen and bury her restless, beating heart in fury. She could not best him but she would delay him, and aid the land that had raised her.
But she did not hope to survive the confrontation.
To go on a slave to the whims of the Goddess who had destroyed her faith, stolen her chance at a simple life of duty, and torn away her lover was unimaginable.
No. At least this way, she would be free.
And in her resolve, there was some measure of comfort, though, below it, the ache still raged.
⥣ ⥣ ⥣
* * *
“Maoz's daughter, raised for Enyo, wants to follow me,” Aryus told Etienne, their voice lowered confidentially, and the mage’s thoughts were jerked away from the riddle he’d been trying to solve.
Maoz’s daughter? Who—
Etienne followed Aryus’s gaze, locked on the small, dark figure above them. She was flying remarkably fast, outstripping their more comfortable pace with desperate beats of her wings.
“Delyth doesn’t consider herself a priestess any longer. She’s not following any of you,” he said, but doubtfully and Aryus gave him a sharp look.
“I'm rarely touched but often held. If you have wit, you'll use me well.”
“A tongue.” Etienne waved a hand. “Are you saying I need to hold mine? Or that I’m speaking without any wit?” He was silent for a moment, and, oddly enough, Aryus was too. “She just lost her lover. And she made an oath to Enyo to serve the rest of her life. All so that you and the others could come back.”
“All follow Aryus in the end.”
Etienne shifted in the Death God’s arms. It had taken a while to get over the humiliation of being carried this way: one of Aryus’s arms beneath his knees, the other behind his back, and pink petals bursting into existence every few wing beats. At least the conversation had been interesting. “I met one of your priests. In the tower. He helped us find the horn, though I’m afraid he took it poorly when we left with it.”
“The sheep are missing the crook,” Aryus hummed in a thoughtful sort of way. “Are you not a shepherd?”
“Wouldn’t you be the shepherd in that metaphor if the ghost of the old priest is one of your sheep?”
“Sometimes. Sometimes I’m the pasture.” Aryus giggled, evidently enjoying the idea of being a place rather than a person. “Once, there were many shepherds. All those that could see the sheep.”
“You’re talking about people with spiritsight,” Etienne said, his voice a little awed. He found himself wishing, suddenly, that he had not packed away his journal so carefully. “Is that why we exist? To aid you?”
Aryus just laughed again. Either they didn’t know or wouldn’t tell.
“What about Alphonse? Will I see her spirit?”
“Some find their way home without a guide.”
It was a straight answer, as far as Aryus was concerned. Alphonse had left Illygad entirely. It was a darker place for lack of her, but at least she had found somewhere safe. Somewhere she wouldn’t be in pain.
Below them, Caerthleon was fast approaching, a city with two walls ringed in fire so that from this height, it looked like the dartboards that hung in some taverns. Ahead, Delyth was already descending, and soon Aryus turned to follow so that gradually the insect-small forms of the other Gods became visible, loping easily across the earth.
They would have to find some way in, he supposed.
And he would have to find a way to keep Delyth from following Aryus. For Alphonse.
The fortifications around Caerthleon were even more intimidating on the ground. Rings of jagged stone splashed upward like waves frozen in time, each reaching hundreds of feet into the air. Further out, around the rock barriers lay the magma ring, a lava moat twenty yards wide and impossibly deep. The thinkers at Moxous had long since surmised that the interior of Illygad must be some form of liquid—did it reach down that far? Was the magma cooling at the base of the continent in whatever sea it floated in?
Aryus landed behind Esha, Maoz, and Enyo, jarring Etienne only slightly. Va’al materialized nearby, and Delyth had already come down a few paces away. As one, they looked over the red river, at the stone barriers and the tops of Caerthleon’s tallest buildings just visible above.
“We need to get him to a river.” Enyo spoke first. “He’s created a nice little cage for himself in there.”
Esha approached and laid a comforting hand on Va'al’s shoulder, but Enyo didn’t react as she would have before the ritual. The Gods were less prone to argue over petty jealousies now. Perhaps because they had never been meant to use human bodies.
Etienne looked away, skin tightening around his eyes and temples. He was so… fragile since Alphonse’s death, as though without her, he might shatter into pale fragments.
“Perhaps Va'al could slip through and bring him out?” Esha’s question brought him back to the present.
“Or someone could fly,” Enyo muttered. “My priestess could go.”
“I am not your priestess,” Delyth growled, but the protest was half-hearted. Her gaze was fixed, dark and brooding, on the distant wall. “Do you really think he will be so easily fooled? He has no reason to leave that warren.”
“Which is why I’m saying you swoop down like the overgrown bat you are and pluck him up. Just drop him over the wall. I can summon enough water for a pond.”
Maoz looked a little dubiously at the Goddess. “The wolf is harder to kill in his den. But perhaps some bait would work better?”
Delyth managed a humorless smile at that. “Well, we all know there isn’t anything he wants more than his mother.”
Enyo snarled. “Well, you would know about the effectiveness of bait, Ba’oto.”
“If we can’t convince him to leave the city, then we’ll have to attack him inside,” Etienne said, stepping in between Delyth and the Goddess. He was half afraid that Delyth intended to provoke Enyo. “There’ll be water inside.”
His mind turned for a second to the night he had spent with Meirin exploring Gwynhafan, and despite himself, he smiled. “Actually, I have a plan.”
⥣ ⥣ ⥣
* * *
Excerpt from the Journal of Etienne d’Etoiles
Eleventh Moon of the Year 1819, Near Caerthleon
I have written before in these pages of the Gods’ claim to be made of magic. However, I am uncertain whether I have made it clear just what that means, so I will endeavor to rectify that before we enter the city and attempt to banish Mascen. Should we fail, this will be my last entry, and I will have hidden this journal in the city of Caerthleon in the hopes that someone else will find it and take up the work of freeing Thloegr. If that happens to be you, take this to Moxous. You will likely find help there—the Masters did vanquish the Gods once before, centuries ago. If they fail to aid you, turn to the priests of Gwynhafan and Glynfford.
It is strange to speak of my death so casually, to admit that it has every likelihood of happening, and yet to face the tasks ahead anyway. The boy that left Moxous this past spring would not have done that, I think. Alphonse would be proud.
But now, I am rambling.
According to the Gods, the reason they needed at least five of their number to accomplish the ritual described in my previous entry was simply to meet a requirement of power. Think, if you would, of the major workings discussed in the pages of Arsment or Nareau. These magics often require multiple mages because the power needed to perform them is too great for a single human body to hold. In this case, the magic the Gods drew from the Wellspring (or the Cursed Realms, if they are to be believed) had to be enough to weave into being new physical forms—magic made solid.
Yes, I know what you must be thinking: Jacques Vent’s Theory of Transference distinctly states that magic cannot be used to create something that did not previously exist. Mages can summon objects across great distances or transform matter into other forms, but they cannot create something from nothing. The ceremony performed by the Gods did not disprove Vent. They pulled the magic from the Wellspring and then inhabited it, for lack of a better term. Whatever constitutes the God, be it soul, consciousness, or spirit, can live within magic more easily than flesh. Perhaps, one day, humans will discover the process in which this is done. We could save brilliant thinkers from decaying bodies, give ill-formed children painless lives. Perhaps we could even breach the secrets of eternal life. It is also possible that the human soul would not survive such exposure to raw energy, and thus it might be morally problematic to try such experiments.
Magic is energy in its rawest form—purer than heat or light. Can you imagine, then, a body made of nothing more and nothing less than power? It would take years to fully study, to fully understand the nature of the Gods’ forms, but just the observations I have made in the day since their ritual have been extraordinary. The Gods change the world around them by merely existing. Every thought or intention they have is made reality. Aryus wants to be here one moment and gone the next, and so it happens. Enyo wants the land to bloom on the eve of winter, and so suddenly, it is spring. Esha wants to be adored, to be beautiful, and so all those around her love, desire, and admire her. There is no pulling magic from the Wellspring, no preparation of ingredients or sacrifice of blood. They are magic. They feed their own spells, and they do it as naturally as you or I might lift an arm or twitch a finger. There is nothing between their will and the change they impose on the world around them.
That being said, the Gods do have limitations. They are not omniscient. If they cannot see you, if they are not in your presence, they can have no effect on you. They are limited by their own understanding, and they are not any more intelligent or any more enlightened than your average human. Sometimes, it feels as though they are less in control of themselves and their own desires than a petulant child, perhaps as a consequence of the ease in which they fulfill those desires. They have other limitations as well: Neither Esha nor Va’al can sway the thoughts of the other Gods, and Delyth likewise seems immune, probably due to her heritage as a descendant of both Maoz and humans. Their power is finite. They do not draw magic from the Wellspring and so need other means to gain power. I think this must tie into their desire to be seen as Gods by humans, but none of them will admit to using humans to access the Wellspring. I believe the ritual to gain their bodies was only possible because of the use of human Vassals. Lastly, they each have affinities for certain types of magic and cannot perform acts outside of those areas. Enyo cannot vanish into shadows. Maoz cannot charm others into adoration. Aryus cannot sing the trees into bloom.
If the Gods are flawed, then it stands to reason that they can be—
Etienne’s eyes lifted from his journal to the distant horizon, smoke-wreathed and shining gold in the last rays of the se
tting sun. They were camped far enough from Caerthleon’s defenses to escape notice, but close enough so that they would not exhaust themselves getting into the city the next morning. To his left, Delyth worked quietly, bent over her stiff, leather jerkin in nothing more than a loose shirt while she sewed closed a tear. The Gods likewise were hushed. Maoz was off hunting. Aryus was absent. Esha wove thread from the stamens of flowers, while Enyo and Va’al whispered together on the opposite side of the fire.
Into this silence, Etienne spoke. “How exactly does one banish a God?” He knew what the journal he had found at Moxous claimed, but he was becoming more and more suspicious that it was not correct. Perhaps it had even been planted there to draw a scholar into summoning Enyo and aiding her back to her artifact. Surely the Gods would know. “It would help to understand the process before we attempt to banish Mascen.”
Va’al’s eyes narrowed. “Why do you want to know? Will you go back to Ingola as soon as the fighting is finished and attempt to return us to the void?”
“More likely, I’ll die before the day is out.” Etienne’s voice was old parchment dry. “Besides, you refuse to send Mascen to the void in which you were banished after the Great War. This, then, must be something different?”
“It is. We would never send our son to the void. Death would be better.” Within her original form, Enyo’s voice was the same as it had been the night her shadow had been summoned. Shrieking winds and the rumble of a landslide and a babbling brook. Resolution was evident in her features, her belief that she would never send her son into the void. Death would be better? Etienne had not received any evidence that the Gods could die; perhaps they simply returned to the Cursed Realms. His mind flickered back to the present as Enyo spoke again. "We will send him to his island prison."