by Holly Lisle
Witte abruptly shot around a corner and dropped out of sight, chasing the faeriefire swarm that plunged ahead of him into a low, wide tunnel that twisted downward, spiraling into blackness. Faia dashed after him and nearly toppled; the tunnel was uncomfortably steep. Just more proof that the creators hadn’t been anything like humans—people would have built stairs. She found the sensation of chasing shadows in circles, with darkness riding hard on her heels, dizzying. Occasionally she’d catch a glimpse of Witte’s braid bouncing as he ran down the steep grade ahead of her, but she never had more than that tiny reassurance that he was still ahead of her before he raced out of her line of sight again.
She passed one exit—she assumed it led into another layer of connecting chambers, but had no time to peek out of the tunnel to see. Witte and the faeriefires raced downward.
Finally, the tunnel leveled out into a sand-floored chamber. The rooms and tunnels there did not curve in the winding stone web of the upper layers. Instead, corridors ran off in four directions, perfectly straight, with the dark arches of carved doorways lining the corridors at regular intervals that ran on to the vanishing point.
Faia no longer needed her faeriefire light. The corridor that led straight in front of her and the one that ran off to her left both gleamed with the same warm golden light she had seen from the promontory.
The cluster of faeriefires hung in the air at the periphery of this golden wall, swarming and flickering. Those individual fires that at any instant were closest to the barrier darted into it and back out again; it was obvious to Faia that the faeriefire swarm was waiting for Witte and her to move forward. Faia looked around for Witte; she found him sitting against the arching far wall, wearing an expression of intense concentration on his face. His breathing was steady, though Faia gasped for air after her run. She considered that fact for an instant and found she didn’t care for it. Witte had returned to remarkably good shape for someone who had been begging passage to Father Dark’s domain only weeks before.
The little man twisted absently at the tip of his braid. “We have a problem,” he said. “We can’t get through here. Our way out is blocked.”
“I noticed that, actually.” She couldn’t keep the edge from her voice. She tried to figure out why her spell had failed—and wondered why the faeriefires could go in and out of the barrier of light that she dared not touch. Even standing near Delmuirie’s light, Faia found the energy of the magic wall almost unbearable. It thrummed through her bones from her head to the soles of her feet, and pulsed in time with her blood. Her skin prickled and her breath came fast. She felt as if she were going to explode.
She slipped Kirtha off her back and crouched on the sand floor beside her. “Sit right here and don’t move. Mama has to find a way through this.”
Kirtha nodded solemnly, eyes round and lips pursed.
Faia formed the image of Medwind Song in her mind. The young, sharp-featured face, skin sun-darkened, hair white as light itself from a Timeride of heroic distance; eyes pale and cold as ice—warrior eyes. Faia held that image and recalled the feel of Medwind’s magic. While she struggled to clarify the image and the feel, the faeriefires flashed in front of her, dancing in and out of Delmuirie’s wall of magic and trying to lead her forward when she didn’t follow, they came back for her like well-trained sheepdogs trying to lead a recalcitrant shepherd to a missing lamb. She ignored them and focused, until her picture of Medwind Song was as clear as she could make it. Then she focused outward, using her magic to locate a match for her memories inside of Delmuirie’s wall.
She failed. That endlessly surging current swallowed every tendril of magic she sent forward until she started to feel feedback as the barrier magic followed her magical paths back to her, hungry for a new source of food. Faia broke off contact and stood, shivering and gasping, wondering what she could do next.
Witte said, “What’s wrong?”
“I can’t find Medwind in that mess, and I’m afraid to try again. The magic of that barrier acts like a living thing—and a hungry one. It tried to absorb me just now. I broke off contact before it could, but I don’t dare touch it again, or it will swallow me.” She wrapped her arms tightly around herself; tears welled in her eyes, and she swallowed hard, fighting the lump in her throat “My friends are in there, and I don’t know how I can get them out.”
He nodded. “Let me try. I don’t have the magic you do, but maybe that will just mean I won’t look as tasty.” Witte frowned and stared down at his hands. After a long, tense moment, he stood and gestured, muttering something Faia couldn’t quite hear. A shimmer of silver appeared in front of Faia, like a window into the golden light. At first she saw nothing in the window at all—then Medwind Song appeared, somehow even more beautiful than Faia had remembered her. The Hoos woman stared upward, her lips curved in a smile of unimaginable bliss. She sat at a table with First Folk tablets in front of her, frozen—Faia couldn’t even see a sign that she breathed. Golden light surrounded her.
“That’s Medwind,” Faia told Witte.
“Oh, dear,” he murmured. “She looks like she’s in a bit of trouble, wouldn’t you say?” He waved a hand at the magical mirror he’d created.
The scene in the mirror shifted. Medwind vanished, to be replaced by Roba Morgasdotte, who knelt in the burial chambers. A wax tablet and stylus lay in her lap, evidently dropped at the moment the golden light had overcome her. She was hugely pregnant, and frozen in place; her expression was identical to Medwind’s.
“Oh, Lady! That’s Roba Morgasdotte,” Faia said “She was supposed to have had her baby months ago.”
Witte frowned. “Tsk, tsk. This doesn’t look good. Not good at all.”
The view shifted again, this time to Thirk, toppled on the ground where Faia had last seen him. He’d fallen when Roba pushed him while saving Kirtha’s life—he’d been trapped in that wall of light ever since. His equally blissful expression grated on Faia’s nerves, but she was pleased that he, at least, remained frozen in place next to his idol, Edrouss Delmuirie. And Delmuirie—
Thirk’s image faded, replaced by Delmuirie’s. His was a face that would have looked at home in any back-country village—his heavy cheekbones and sharp nose should have made him homely. His eyes, staring upward with that same cowlike expression of contentment, didn’t improve his looks either. He had, however, the most perfect smile Faia had ever seen. She wished she could punch it off his face. She stared at him, glowering. The entire mess was his fault. “Idiot,” she snarled.
Witte looked up at her, his expression hurt “Me? An idiot?” he asked. She pointed to the form in the mirror. “No. Delmuirie.”
“Oh.” He nodded. “That almost goes without saying.” He waved a hand again and the view once more changed. Now the mirror showed Kirgen, who sat with a stack of drypress beside him and a scritoire in his hand, stopped in the middle of the translating work he had come to love so much. Faia bit her lip hard enough to taste blood—if she didn’t love Kirgen, he still remained one of her dearest friends, and the father of her daughter. Somehow, she had to save—
“My da!” Kirtha shrieked, and leapt to her feet before Faia could stop her. The child bolted across the floor of the chamber and leapt through Witte’s window, straight into the enveloping golden light.
“NO!” Faia screamed and lunged forward after her daughter. She, however, didn’t reach the light. Suddenly her feet seemed to grow to the floor. She couldn’t move—couldn’t take a single step.
Kirtha ran as if moving through deep water, one step, two steps, and then a third—and then she froze, just inside the wall of light, one foot still lifted as if she were going to complete her next step at any instant. As she came to a stop, the light of Delmuirie’s wall grew even brighter and more intense, and billowed out again, coming to rest after a moment only a few finger’s breadths from the place where Faia stood, trapped.
Behind her, Witte sighed. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, precisely so. Things proceed apace.”
“Well, of course you do,” he said. “But not just yet.” He walked over to Faia’s side, to where she could see him clearly, and he looked up at her—and when he did, he smiled, and his eyes glittered. “Right now you’re exactly where I need you, thanks to your lovely little daughter. Children are so useful sometimes.”
Faia felt her stomach lurch—she felt as if the floor were falling away beneath her. “What!?”
“Useful.” He winked at her. “I assumed that when Kirtha saw her daddy, she would charge right into the barrier. And so she has—and now you are committed to helping me. Even though I thought probably you would do what needed to be done when you saw your friends trapped in the emeshest—the god-aura—I couldn’t be sure. I knew, though, that you wouldn’t leave your daughter a captive without making your best attempt to go in and free her. With her trapped in the Dreaming God’s aura, you have no choice but to do what I want.”
Faia’s blood felt like it had frozen in her veins. Her heartbeat thudded in her ears. “You—you planned this?”
“From the moment I appeared on your doorstep, dear lady.” He hooked his thumbs into his belt. “Even a bit before that.”
The room pressed in on Faia from all sides, so that she felt she was running out of air. Bile burned in the back of her throat. She tried to keep calm, though she wanted to scream. “You conniving, dung-eating, sheep-futtering slime’s son!” she growled. She had to force the words out through her suddenly constricted throat; her rage made breathing an effort. “You’re no friend of Nokar’s, are you?”
His eyes widened in feigned surprise. “Such language. Naughty, naughty. Nokar… no, he never met me—though I, of course, knew him. And… no, I wouldn’t say we were friends—exactly. Let me introduce myself,” he said, “by the best known of my many names. Folks do call me Witte A’Winde, of course, and sometimes Witte the Mocker. I’m the Mocking God, too, and Ranchek the Trickster. I’m best known, however, as Hrogner, chief saje God of Mischief.” He bowed so deeply his braid flipped upside down and dragged along the floor. “I am one of the great gods, not one of the minor deities.”
A god, she thought, while her heart raced wildly. He was a god—the god Hrogner. She’d brought him into her house, and made him welcome. All the folktales said gods could not enter a home uninvited—but she’d brought him in. Welcomed him, cared for him… . His mocking words echoed in her mind.
“…you need equal measures of kindness and paranoia, dear girl. Otherwise, there’s no telling what you might invite into your house someday.”
She’d invited him in. And he’d tricked her.
“I want my daughter back,” she said She could hear her voice shaking—fear for her daughter mixing with murderous rage.
“We all want a lot of things,” Witte said agreeably, while his smile stretched wider.
Faia nodded slowly. He’d betrayed her. From the very first—from the moment she’d rescued him from the street, he’d planned to betray her. Worse, he’d planned to use Kirtha, who had adored him. That betrayal burned in her mind more than any other.
Fury devoured Faia; the very universe seemed to narrow into a tunnel that connected her to Witte. She stared at him, and felt the rage that sang through her body—felt the power of earth and sky draw into her staff, until her body seemed full to the bursting point with magic. “Yes, we do,” she said in a quiet voice. “We all want a lot of things.” Her magic fought her when she tried to use it to help herself—but perhaps it would still work if she turned it on him. She pointed her staff at Witte’s chest and willed the power of earth and sun to destroy him. “And I want you to die,” she whispered.
Rich green faeriefire flames boiled from the staff’s brass tip and blasted into Witte—and through him. Energy crackled around him; the wall of rock behind the little man melted, leaving a ragged opening into another chamber and a pool of glowing lava on the chamber floor. Faia poured magic steadily into her staff, drawing from the power of the earth and the sun, and from the emeshest—with an equivalent outburst, Faia had once turned a stone village to melted slag. But Witte simply stood there, watching her and grinning.
The wall on the far side of the chamber she’d just opened collapsed, and Faia heard the rumble of shifting stone over her head, and felt the earth shudder. Her fury withered in that instant. She could bring the mountain down on top of herself and her daughter, she realized. She could die, leaving Witte untouched. He was beyond her magic.
She should have known.
He chuckled. “That was a waste of effort, silly girl You haven’t the power to roast me. Not even you can kill a god.” He stepped into the wall of light—the emeshest—and danced and spun merrily through it. It didn’t affect the little god at all. He pranced around frozen Kirtha… and then right through her, and leapt back out again. “You can’t touch me,” he told her.
He sighed and flopped onto the stone floor again. “Of course,” he added, “because I am a god, I can’t touch that.” He pointed to the emeshest. “No god can reach inside another’s aura. So I needed a mortal to wake Delmuirie.”
She stared at him, and wondered how a mortal could kill a god. In her mind, she swore to the Lady that if it were possible, no matter what it took, she would destroy Hrogner.
He laughed out loud and clapped his hands. “You can’t kill me, silly girl.” He’d read her mind. He bounded onto a boulder, and turned to face her. “You can’t.” He grinned at her, his eyes for once level with hers. “That’s what being immortal means. You can’t destroy me. You can’t do anything to me.”
But she would, she thought. For what he’d done to her daughter, she’d find a way to make him pay. First though, she had to save Kirtha—and her friends.
Her mother had told her, You will have a test—a test of your courage and your will—and, too, of your love for your friends, and for all the people of Arhel.
This was worse than a test, though. This was torture.
She had one question for the Mocking God. “Why do you want me to wake Delmuirie?” she asked. “Since I’m sure you don’t care what happens to my friends or my daughter, and since I can’t imagine you caring about what happens to Arhel, either—what is in this for you?”
Witte chuckled and sat down on the rock. “I want to cause trouble. It’s what I do.” He crossed one leg over the other and swung his foot like a small, wicked child. “Delmuirie is no god. He’s a man—and I want to see him grow old like a man, and die like one. His presence among the eternals displeases me.”
“That’s evil,” Faia said.
“It’s funny.” Hrogner arched an eyebrow and his smile curled at one corner. He pressed the palms of his hands together and leaned forward. “Do you know what is even funnier? I don’t know what will happen when you wake him. Isn’t that delicious?” He laughed again—a high, mad, giggling laugh.
The laugh grated on Faia’s nerves, but she forced herself not to respond to it. She breathed in and out slowly, until she felt calm and centered. She had to think—had to find a way to free her daughter and her friends. “Fine, little fiend. You’ll get your wish. I’ll wake the idiot Delmuirie. Simply tell me what I must do.”
Witte shrugged and chuckled. His foot swung back and forth. “I haven’t the slightest idea.”
“What?” Faia’s voice dropped to a dangerous whisper.
The little god shrugged and tipped his hands palm up. “I can’t affect the emeshest, dear girl, any more than I can affect the Delmuirie barrier. If I knew what to do, I wouldn’t need you. Now, would I?” He smiled brightly. “I’d tell you if I could, of course.”
“My
daughter is in there.” Faia imagined ripping the diminutive god into tiny, bloody shreds; she liked the image.
Witte remained unconcerned, though. “Think of her as incentive.”
Her anger grew cold—and made her strong. She would find a way to free Kirtha, and when she had succeeded, she would find a way to obliterate a god. She didn’t care that no one had ever done it before. She would do it—she would make the vile Hrogner pay. She stared at the barrier of light, and at Kirtha, frozen in midstep on the other side—still looking as if she would spurt forward at any instant and race on to find her father.
She’s alive in there, Faia thought. And if there’s a way into the emeshest, there must be a way out. I can find it—if anyone in Arhel can find it, I can.
She clenched her jaws tight and squinted into the light.
I have to.
She reached out, and tentatively touched the wall of light. It shimmered and pulsed beneath her fingertip, and she felt a jolt of pure, wild energy sing through her veins. She pulled her hand back and pondered the wall again. It seemed alive, that glistening barrier—alive and waiting. Deep in her belly, she felt terror at what she faced; she kept that terror in check, though, and let the energy of her fear spur her thoughts. The only thing she needed to fear was failure; and because her daughter was in there, she could not fail. She could not. She lowered herself to the ground and crossed her legs, then pressed both her palms against her belly and concentrated on feeling her breath moving in and out.
Use the fear, she told herself. Let it fuel the magic.
Faia studied the pulsing wall of light with senses both physical and magical. She felt out its perimeters. It soared as far above the surface of the earth as it burrowed beneath it; it sat like a fat sphere buried to its middle in the mountainside. Not all of it was visible energy, she realized—from the promontory, the light had flowed like a blanket over the surface of the ancient ruins, though the actual reach of Delmuirie’s magic covered much more territory.