by Silas Post
“I dedicate this ground to the divine,” I said, setting Redelia’s crystal in the center of the circle. I bent my mind toward the meaning behind those words, to the heaviness of what I intended. I would force the earth to gape and yawn. I would draw holy essence from its depths.
That shallow circular perimeter began to glow with white light. A numbing force swelled in the back of my mind, but I fought against it. I must control this ritual, attend to its every nuance.
“I invoke the well of life,” I continued, “to sustain the divine and connect her with the source of all creation.” The dirt beneath her soul’s crystal sank, in a small divot at first that gradually deepened and widened. Her crystal floated upward, carried on forces unknown and unknowable while a well formed underneath her. Further and deeper it grew until a glowing mercurial liquid bubbled upward from the depths.
“This is where her soul will stay,” Rikki said. “If you build a home here, she will not travel to the mountain’s peak, ever.”
My heart panged at the truth of Rikki’s warning. This was not the location Redelia had chosen, and I was forced to make this choice without consultation. I set those misgivings aside, prepared to accept any admonition the goddess would aim at me when this was over. To endure her punishment would be to rejoice in her continued vitality.
“I beseech this hallowed earth to shelter and nourish Redelia’s light,” I said. The sound of the world around me dampened as my mind sank into the ritual’s depths. I pulled away, determined to mold every moment of this dedication with focus and intention.
The ground shook beneath us as the glowing ring rippled without wind. Short tendrils rose at four points, curling like ribbons of ice as they reached upward and tapered overhead toward the center of the circle and toward each other.
“Victor?” the goddess asked. Her crystal clarified as the gray within dissipated.
“I dedicate this ground to Redelia,” I said, the first of three. More tendrils rose now, adding their strands to the others and forming a tented shape above us.
“This is all wrong,” she said.
“I dedicate this ground to Redelia,” I said again, the second of three. Another series of ribbons closed the gaps around us, weaving together in a delicate tapestry of divine construction.
Redelia reached one arm downward, toward the chasm below her floating crystal and the shallow puddle of brilliant silvery energy that pooled at its base. Her crystal soul expanded, its surface reflecting back the light that emanated from the twisting tendrils of energy above. Already some of those tendrils cooled at their base, ceasing their eldritch glow and condensing into solid rock. Soon they would form the first rudimentary walls of the goddess’s nascent temple, awaiting the labor and devotion of servants and acolytes to build this ground into a site worthy of the goddess’s splendor.
The base of Redelia’s crystal hovered above the pit in the circle’s center. The gem had grown, and she along with it, until she stood at her full size once more.
“This is for you, goddess,” I said.
Her face bore no smile as she stepped forward, through the front panel of her gem, and set her feet onto the dirt. With her knees bent and one hand braced on the ground to steady her, she reached into the well that opened beneath the twisting canopy that formed above her.
Her body was flickering and translucent, like a reflection of the sun’s light on a glittering wind chime. She brought her hand to her mouth and drank a palmful of molten silver liquid. As she drank from the source of the world’s energy, her twinkling shape became more robust, less prone to vanish in those moments between the beats of my hastening heart.
“In the midst of a village,” she said, scanning the area. “This is no place for a goddess to meditate and grow. No room to expand, no vast territory to watch over.”
Again, I cleared my mind. I would save her life, even at the risk of disappointment. I began the third of three. “I dedicate this ground to—”
My final pronouncement was cut short by a raucous boom that shook the ground beneath us and a brilliant light that pulsed across the sky. I shielded my eyes, and when I looked back, another pulse erupted, brighter than the first. Like a series of bombs that produced light for shrapnel, each blast was an assault of blinding luminance and violent tremor.
Redelia’s body, still flickering like a campfire in a winter wind, lifted from the ground. I reached for her hand, a movement born of instinct and devotion, but an electric shock sparked up my arm and jolted me away. A bright blue light pulsed from her skin, turning the charcoal goddess a lighter shade than the brightest sky.
The glistening tendrils of holy power that had shaped the dome of her new temple cracked and shattered into pieces, evaporating in glittering shards before ever touching the ground. The stone walls that had begun to form around us crumbled to dust, stamping out the glowing ring of power at this site’s edge.
A blinding wave of blue light forced my eyes shut one last time. In the moment my eyes squinted closed, Redelia and her new temple had all but vanished. Her soul crystal lay on solid ground with the goddess encapsulated within, once again impossibly small. The well beneath her had sealed entirely, reverting the ground to a smooth layer of dirt, interrupted only by the occasional pockmarks from wooden stakes that once held beams of palm in place.
We rushed to her side, our eyes adjusting to the sudden darkness after the pulses of blue finally ceased.
“Redelia,” I said, staring at her dark gray body within that clear gem. “Have I failed you?”
“I was… rebuked,” she said. “This land has too strong a claim on it. What little energy I drew from the island’s tap will barely sustain my efforts another day.”
“Araine?” I asked. “How could her influence stretch so wide when she hesitated even to leave her sandy shore?”
“No matter,” Rikki said. “A day is time enough. The mountain’s peak awaits us, and our journey—”
“Is cancelled,” Redelia replied. “I will not risk your lives to travel further on a quest of diminishing propositions. The better course is to accept an early defeat. This island has rejected me soundly.”
“But goddess,” Rikki said. “I would risk myself freely. My gratitude runs deeper than my debt.”
“You owe me nothing, Rikki Silena,” Redelia said.
“We all owe you everything,” I said. “And we will owe you everything more once this is through.”
“Come home, Victor,” Redelia said. “When my end arrives, I would have you three by my side.”
“No,” Jarah said.
Rikki gasped. “She doesn’t mean that.”
“Yes,” Jarah said. “I do. I will not leave my island and my people to suffer at a slaver’s hands. You sent us here to build a temple to revive you, and to maintain the balance of light and order before darkness and chaos overtake it. That is what I intend to do.”
“Victor?” Redelia asked.
I walked to Jarah and took her hand. It was balled into a fist, so I pried her fingers loose and intertwined my own with hers. I peered into her large eye. It was weary, and bloodshot. The golden flecks that floated in her lavender iris had settled into a dusting of gold at her eye’s deepest point. She was resolute, but defeat loomed on her horizon. I could not allow the infliction of more pain on a woman that had already lost so much.
“I stand with Jarah,” I said. “There is too much at stake now. I will not consign your soul to its final day, nor will I abandon Jarah’s race to suffer until the end of time. There is no such thing as early defeat, only self-defeat, and I reject it with my entire heart.”
“You would choose Jarah over me?” Redelia said.
“I have chosen you both every time,” I said. “I do no less now, even at the risk of your ire. The mountain rejects you, but I do not. I will find a way to reinvigorate your sacred soul without turning my back on this island’s people.”
Redelia rested inside her crystal, no doubt contemplating how she might react to
servants so devoted and yet so defiant. At last, she spoke. “My siblings are weak, deprived their full ration of divine energy just as I am. They stand vigil against the war to come, peering into their own souls for a glimpse of a hopeful outcome.
“The wind whispers. The leaves scatter. Light shines and then it is gone. None have perfect augur, and those with clues as to the future’s musings are covetous of what they know, lest speaking the future’s words destroys its very cadence.
“Still, we share in small measure. If you wait until morning, an escort will arrive to lead you into the belly of Greenloft’s boats. I cannot ensure your success there. If you set out on this errand, my pendant will not shine its light on the captives’ salvation.”
“Why not?” I asked. “Are we doomed to fail?”
“I am doomed not to know,” Redelia said. “Now I shall rest. What energy I have, I must cling to. There will be demands on my life before this is over and I should decide whether to challenge them.
“I must also meditate. I have entrusted my soul to you three, and I have lost your unerring obedience. If there is meaning in this, I will seek to find it.”
16
Redelia’s crystal clouded over until it was entirely opaque, blocking any hope of reading her expression as she sank into holy meditation. Her pendant, still hanging from my neck, gleamed faintly into the night.
“She is disappointed,” Rikki said, bundling Redelia’s soul crystal within the silk that protected it.
“She is alive,” I replied. “In that we were successful.”
“My parents’ house is on the far end of the village,” Jarah said. “If the morning brings a prophesied escort, we might rest in my childhood home and wait till dawn.”
We trod slowly and quietly, pausing before houses whose doors were torn from their hinges to listen for any signs of life, any indication that someone had escaped the village’s routing at Greenloft’s hands. Each silent dwelling was another heartbreak, further proof that none in the village had evaded fate’s cruel turn.
Rikki paused to stare at the mountain’s top. The drastic tower that formed its highest peak was only evident where it blocked the stars, a sharp and probing spire of sheer stone. “It’s so high,” she said.
“It would have been perfect for her,” I said, “had the island not rejected her presence.” I nudged a door open with my foot, but the house inside was ransacked and dark.
“She needs this,” Rikki said. “She needs us. I walked away from a god I served once, I won’t do that again.”
“We’ll find a way,” I said.
“He would have enjoyed this festival,” she said. “He would drink deep of rhubarb wine only to spit it out in dramatic fashion and proclaim his own to be superior.” She smiled at the thought before leaning into an open window to look around. Her smile was gone when she pulled back, disappointed at the building’s disarray and emptiness.
“Where do you think he is now?” she asked. “Redelia said his throne was empty, but if Greenloft burnt down his temple where would he go?”
“You’re worried,” I said. “For Kirsis? He is a mighty and fearsome god.”
“I’m worried for all of us,” she said. “The gods are an integral component of the world’s flow. Without them drawing creative energies from the earth and dispersing them throughout the world, what will happen to my cousins?”
“This one is locked,” Jarah said, a doorknob held tight in her fist. “That is odd on a normal day, but especially unlikely now.”
“You think someone’s inside?” I asked. “A survivor of sorts?”
“Or someone the guards stationed here for any that hid well into the night,” Jarah replied. “I’ll kick down the door.”
“No,” I said. “I’ll go first.”
“This is my village,” she said. “If Greenloft left a warrior behind, I want to crack his head first.”
“And I want us all intact,” I said. “I will lead, to make sure it is safe.”
“Victor,” Jarah said. She shook her head and narrowed her lavender eye toward me. The frustration of our continual losses took a toll on all of us.
Just then the door handle creaked and the door swung inward, forcing all three of us to snap to attention and brace for an attack.
“Thank Okkor,” a woman said from within. “Please, hurry inside.”
“Merla?” Jarah asked.
“Yes,” the woman replied. “I thought the whole village up and left without me, but at least you’re here.”
“So you don’t know what happened?” Rikki asked, taking the first step inside Merla’s house with us close behind.
The woman’s home had small rooms and high ceilings. All of her furniture was in disarray after Greenloft’s intrusion, with a rocking chair leaning against the front window, a tall clock tipped face-down onto the floor, and books strewn haphazardly between the front door and the entry to Merla’s small kitchen. That room seemed to fare better, with a large shelf of brown glass bottles, canvas pouches, and fresh vegetables that were spared from an irreverent tossing.
“As the mountain darkened, I gave up my search for Ketson,” Merla said. “He does this, sleeping beneath the palms rather than face my frustration at his missing dinner and curfew all in one. He’ll come back in the morning on his own though, he always does. Then he’s in for it.” She wagged a finger at us as she spoke, then turned to lock the front door once we were all inside.
“So you really missed everything that happened here?” Jarah asked.
“Not everything,” Merla said. “As I crept into my house there was a blinding light from the center of town. In the flashes that followed I finally saw the destruction that tore a path through the village. I locked my door and blew out my candles after that.
“What happened while I was gone?” she continued. “This was no storm. Okkor protects us from storms. No, this was a mystery.”
“An invasion,” I said. “Your people were taken by force.”
Merla’s face fell at that news, but she recovered quickly, propping herself up on her walking staff.
“Whatever it was,” she said. “You’ll sleep here, obviously. Take Ketson’s room, he’s already decided he won’t use it tonight. I swear, little boys think they can just come and go as they please…”
I walked further into the house while Merla described her difficult son. Ketson’s room was in the rear of the single-story house. I sat on the child’s bed, though it was large enough for a human man. Merla clinked a kettle onto the stove to boil water for tea while Rikki and Jarah explained further what happened to the village. I pulled my boots off one at a time.
A fistful of sand had gathered in my left boot, and I tipped it onto the floor. It piled into a small dune on the palmwood slats.
Then, it moved. I blinked back my exhaustion and stared again, watching those grains begin to swirl of their own accord. No window sat open to let in a summer night breeze. Yet, the sand twirled with a life all its own, forming a small cylinder that swirled slow and constant.
Perhaps the settled walls of an old house admit a draft. I stomped on the small sand pile with my bare foot and spread it wide until the grains fell between the floor beams. I left Ketson’s room and joined the others in the kitchen, leaning against the wall beside Jarah’s chair for want of a vacant seat.
“… we tried to dedicate the temple to Redelia, right there in the plaza.” Rikki said.
“I’m not surprised the island rejected her,” Merla said. “This island belongs to Okkor.”
“You mentioned him when we first met,” I said. “Who is he, really?”
“He was the god of gods,” Merla said. “And he was good.”
“The head of a holy pantheon?” I asked.
She frowned. “He was not their father, or their ruler. He was their spiritual leader, their mentor, and their guide.
“The addition of gods to the pantheon is a rare and special occasion,” she continued. “Okkor ushered in many divine
souls during his time on our island, adding his energy to their own so they might learn and grow in healthy confidence.”
“The gods gain power from pleasure,” Rikki said. “What did he extract in exchange for his divine spark?”
“That’s what made him so good,” Merla said. “Nothing. There is pleasure in help freely given, and he gave it with a smile and an open hand. Their gratitude lifted him up, expanding his power greatly even as he expanded the power of others. He was charitable and wise.”
“But gone,” Jarah said. “In all my years on this island, I have never seen Okkor or evidence of his hand.”
“He cannot be gone,” Merla said. “He built this island from a single pebble on the ocean’s floor. He carved the mountain and its cliffs with his pinky nail. His mighty call drew the birds that brought the seeds that grew into the palms and ferns.
“Okkor was our patron,” she continued. “He has been quiet, yes, but he would not leave us or his creation. So long as he stays, this land is loyal to him alone.”
“He is a myth,” Jarah said. “A creation story to make our people believe our land holds a special place in the divine order. How could a single god wield so much power to grow an island from one small stone? Tonight’s tragedy proves it; this is an island like any other. Or worse than any other. This island is forsaken.”
Again, Merla frowned, but sadness fled her face quickly. “They’ll return. Okkor wouldn’t let his favorite people suffer long. You’ll see.”
When Merla turned her back, Rikki pulled a bottle from a nearby shelf. She grinned and twisted off its cork, pouring a generous amount of thick, brown liquor into every mug of hot tea before stowing the bottle away again. I smiled and lifted my tea from the table. Its floral base had hints of dark fruits, all sharpened by a brisk jolt of liquid fire thanks to my sticky-fingered satyress.
Jarah took a deep breath and pushed her cup across the table rather than drink it. “Thank you for your hospitality, Merla. I think I’ll sit for a while by the front door, just to be sure all stays quiet.”