by Fiona Patton
Almost hysterical with fear, Graize stumbled back against the younger boy, then, catching him by the back of the jacket, spun him into the street. Spar skidded on the slippery cobblestones and fell and, as the spirits raced toward him, Graize jerked the boat upright.
Spar screamed.
The world seemed to slow as Brax turned toward the sound. He saw Spar snap into a fetal position, arms wrapped about his head to protect his face from the hundreds of horrible creatures tearing at his hair and clothes, saw Graize duck under the upturned boat, and then he was running, his own face drawn into a grimace of rage and denial. Catching the pale-eyed boy around the middle, he lifted him into the air and, with a strength he didn’t know he possessed, he flung him headfirst into the arms of the attacking spirits. Graize’s knife scored across his cheek before he was snatched up, struggling and screaming, and then he was gone. Brax had barely enough time to react before the remaining spirits swarmed toward him.
Dozens made for the blood pouring down his face while a hundred more streaked toward Spar. Throwing himself over the younger boy, he wrapped his arms around him, trying to shield him with his own body. The spirits latched onto his back, driving their razor-sharp teeth into his head and neck. A numbing pain swept over him. He cried out, and as his body slowly grew cold, he thought he saw a reddish glow build all around them. Something silver flashed above his head; the midnight silhouette of a huge, ruby-eyed figure wavered in and out of the darkness and, as it reached for him, he realized what it must be. Almost incoherent with pain and fear, he threw one arm out toward it.
“Help us!”
In the shrine, Kemal lurched forward as Estavia suddenly sucked in a great gout of power. His chin cracked against the altar and, as the room flipped sideways, his sword went flying to clatter off the far wall. The Battle God slammed against the unfinished Invocation, knocking Kemal off his feet, and sending sprays of power shooting through the room like a thousand wicked little knives. As one, Cyan Company dove for cover.
The figure disappeared in a gust of wind, and Brax cried out in frustration. Holding Spar tightly against his chest, he struggled to his knees, his mouth and nose already coated with spirits. Calling up every ounce of strength he possessed, he flung his own words into the night like a challenge.
“I know who you are! I know what you want! Save us and you can have it!”
Blood pouring from a dozen tiny cuts on his face and neck, Kemal scrambled to find his weapon as Estavia fought to manifest in the physical world. She sucked in another great gout of power and Kemal nearly blacked out from the force of it, then his sword was stuffed into his hand and a pair of strong arms locked about his chest, hauling him to his feet. Yashar’s familiar voice shouted in his ear.
“Finish the Invocation, Kem!”
Raising the blade with both hands, Kemal spat a gob of blood from his mouth and gasped out the final words.
“God of Battles, I pledge you my life! Come into this world and use me as you will!”
The words slapped against Brax’s mind like a cyclone. Forcing himself to stand, he snarled at the surrounding spirits, then flung his knife hand, already slick with blood from the wound on his arm, toward the now familiar Deity, shouting out his promise as it spilled into his mind.
“Save us, God of Battles, and I will pledge you my life, my worship, AND MY LAST DROP OF BLOOD, FOREVER!”
The resulting explosion of manifested power flung both Kemal and Yashar against the far wall as Estavia burst fully into the physical world. Whirling Her great swords above Her head, She fell upon the attacking spirits. The nearest were shredded instantly, their fleeting energy devoured by the raging Battle God or taken by Havo manifesting above the city walls; the farthest fled into the sky, transformed by the blood and power they’d feasted upon and by the subtle will of Incasa. The God of Battles howled in triumph, then caught up Brax’s pledge in a savage, gluttonous embrace. He felt his spirit lifted into the air, felt it sucked dry and then filled up again as Her lien burned a new kind of life through his veins. Then he was slammed back into his body. His injuries blazing from Her touch, he dragged Spar under the fishing boat and blacked out.
High above the city, Estavia carved a great arch of protection around their hiding place. Then, as even the storm itself retreated before Her wards, She vanished as violently as She’d come.
There was silence across the dockyards.
In Her shrine, Yashar dabbed the blood from Kemal’s face as he shuddered in the throes of Estavia’s passing. Finally, he stilled. As Cyan Company began to pick themselves up, he opened his eyes and stared blearily about. Yashar smiled down at him.
“How do you feel?”
Kemal coughed weakly.
“I hurt... everywhere,” he whispered.
“I’m not surprised.”
“Did it ... work?”
“I imagine. She seemed ...” Yashar searched for the right words to describe the God’s response. “... pleased with the result, whatever it was. You, uh, didn’t happen to see anything about that while She was throwing you around the room, did you?”
“No.”
“Well, maybe someone in Sable Company did.”
“Maybe. Remind me ...” Kemal’s eyelids fluttered. “Remind me to thank them.”
“For what?”
“For not being one of them.”
Yashar chuckled. “All right, now you’re babbling. Time to stand up, Kemin,” he said, using the diminutive in a gentle but patronizing voice. “That is, if you can.”
“I’m not standing?”
“No, you’re lying on the floor.”
“Oh.”
Tucking one arm around Kemal’s waist, Yashar drew him to his feet. “Come on. There’s a nice, clean bed in the infirmary waiting for you.”
“I don’t need ... the infirmary.”
“Yes, you do.”
“I’m fine. I just ... need sleep ...” Kemal made a weak grab for one of the half a dozen Yashars spinning in front of his eyes. “And ... sex.”
“Not tonight. You’d get blood all over the blankets.”
“Oh. Point.”
“Yes, point,” Kaptin Julide agreed in a dry voice from behind them. “Enas, help him.”
The other warrior caught Kemal up and, together, he and Yashar half-supported, half-carried him from the shrine. The rest of Cyan Company stumbled out behind them. As the last delinkos took down the hanging lamp, she glanced over at the great onyx statue of Estavia, noting the sated gleam in Her ruby eyes. She grinned back at it. Ghazi-Priest Kemal wasn’t the only one wanting sex tonight. Calling out to another delinkos to wait for her, she hurried after the rest of her company.
In his bed of future possibilities, Incasa stared into the depths of Gol-Beyaz, watching the new streams of possibility snake off into the darkness. The spirits of the wild lands had chosen their champion and their sacrifice this night. Creation had been seen to, only destruction remained unquickened before they might become trade and expansion, prosperity and power, as the lake dwellers prayed they would. But the choice was a delicate one; each candidate brought a host of unpredictable possibility streams with him that might destroy the future if left to their own devices. It required a delicate touch to sort out the odds on which one of these candidates was the most valuable without being the most dangerous. And Gods were not known for delicacy.
Closing His fist around His ever present pair of mystical dice, the Patron Deity of Anavatan’s gamblers reached out for His First Oracle again.
At Incasa-Sarayi, Freyiz sat unmoving on a small woolen carpet in the center of her meditation room. She’d been there all night, feeling the shifting currents of the future’s many streams washing over her and waiting for the new vision she knew Incasa would send to her. The single lamp flame illuminating a square foot of polished walnut floor around it was nearly spent, but her outwardly blinded eyes continued to stare into the depths of the small bowl of water before her, regardless. She was patient. She had
waited many nights in the past and would wait a few more before her time was done. Taking in a deep breath, she tasted the faintest hint of incense in the room. The burner had long since dried out, but the years of divination smoke had pervaded the air with the permanent taste of oil, acacia, marigold, and wormwood. It was a comfortable, familiar scent, and she let it weave about her, calming her mind and soothing her stiffening joints. When the God’s icy presence finally touched her mind, she was ready to receive His vision-gift.
A hundred future streams bubbled up before her, each with its most critical moment fanning out from the events of that night. Some ended in blood, others in flowers, but most snaked off into a watery void, trailing reactions like fine strands of sea grass drifting in the ocean. She reached out, seeking clarity, but the futures slipped through her mind, refusing to be restrained. She bore down and finally, bit by bit, they steadied. Four hazy figures made of fire, features still unformed, appeared over the streets of Anavatan. They wavered in and out of being, first united and then apart, creating and destroying a hundred new streams with every turn, each one growing more tangled and more volatile with every passing moment. As she watched, one vanished into death while another transformed into a shaft of silver light, but the two who remained still battled across the currents, causing ripples of chaos in their wake.
Deep within her mind, she felt Incasa’s growing agitation, and reaching out, she ran her thoughts over each figure until she found the single moment of weakness that undermined their futures: a hitherto unseen tower by the sea that one day would force a choice from both of them. She flicked it aside impatiently, and once free of its influence the first figure became a frightened, injured child, held safe in the arms of the Battle God’s newest Champion. But as she reached for the other, the storm-tossed wild lands of the Berbat-Dunya appeared before her. She tasted madness, pain, and fear, and saw a thousand blood-splattered creatures of mist and power tearing at a boy-child of flesh and bone. Beyond his death, the futures lay like withered seaweed across the tower’s western face; beyond its life, they writhed like water snakes along the south.
“Not much of a choice,” she noted silently, offering the image and its fate to Incasa. “But either way, the odds favor this one. His future is more malleable.”
She felt the God of Prophecy raise one snow-white fist then, after a heartbeat’s pause, He nodded and flung the dice toward the second boy and his tormentors above the Berbat-Dunya. The newly created stream surged toward His chosen candidate and the unmasked tower vanished into the unfashioned future once again, delayed but undefeated.
Above the wild lands, Graize screamed out his defiance at his attackers. Engulfed by thousands of ravaging teeth and claws, he no longer knew where he ended and they began, he only knew that their savagery fueled his own rage and he clung to that, striking out at them as they tore at him. But he was growing weaker, his body drawing closer and closer to death with each attack. Just as he felt the final darkness poised to sweep over him, a crack of power, as icy as the Deniz-Siyah Sea in winter, slammed into his thoughts; some half-formed wall of both protection and restraint deep inside his mind cracked under the onslaught, releasing a surge of energy that flung him forward; and, without thinking, he sucked it back into his body. It tore its way through his mind, filling him with an overpowering sense of invincibility and, with a scream of renewed hatred, he caught up the largest of the spirits and drove his own teeth into its misty face. The ice-cold power of pure prophecy shot down his throat, freezing a path through his entire body even as he snatched up another.
His latent prophetic gifts merged with the spirit’s life force, creating a powerful, new future that shone in his mind like a beacon. It grew until it encompassed all the world, then shattered into a kaleidoscope of brilliant white lights, each with its own tiny shred of emerging consciousness. Images flew past his eyes: a vast legion of riders thundering across the plains, a tall tower on the sea perched above a stone cell that echoed with pain and despair, and a face both familiar and unknown that filled him with a conflicting sense of hatred and desire, all directed by an emerging consciousness that hammered at his own sense of self.
Sucking it into his body, Graize renewed his attack on the spirits with a savage concentration he’d never known before. As the night wore on, they fought, both now equally matched in strength and fury, until the eastern sky grew pale with the rising sun. The spirits made one last assault, then flung him aside and melted into the dawn as Graize fell heavily to the ground, cold and still, but alive.
At Incasa-Sarayi, the figures became three frightened and bloodied children, and in her meditation chamber, Freyiz blinked as the lamplight finally guttered out. The future streams had dug themselves a more stabilized channel to flow through for now with Incasa’s choice, but the passageway was still uncertain. One false move and that destabilizing tower would rise up again and they would silt up into chaos once more. They must be carefully watched and she was too old to maintain that kind of vigil for long, especially so far from the God’s source of power. Rising with a groan, she crossed to the southernmost window, frowning as the rising sun turned the distant power of Gol-Beyaz to rippling silvery orange and yellow satin in her prophetic gaze. It had been years since she’d been back to her childhood village of Adasi-Koy on the eastern shore, but only there, where the lake cupped about the jut of land on three sides, could she hope to call up enough strength to hold the futures intact against the tower’s influence.
“Gods,” she snorted inwardly, ignoring Incasa’s responding caress as a twinge of pain feathered up her right knee. “Can’t ever leave well enough alone. Or let an old woman retire in peace, for that matter.”
Both Incasa and Estavia had interfered with Havo’s Dance this night, she noted, choosing their champions in blood and in power—whether for good or ill, it was too early to tell—but one thing was certain, when one God stepped into the territory of another, the repercussions always touched the lives of their worshipers. With a resentful grumble, she crossed to her delinkos slumbering in the corner, and shook the bi-gender fifteen-year-old awake. It was time to choose a new First Oracle and then journey to Gol-Beyaz to try and save the future from two boys who slept, exhausted, beneath a decrepit fishing vessel and another who lay near death on the rocky plains of the Berbat-Dunya, surrounded by a swarm of shining, silvery lights that might lead them all to either creation or destruction.
As Freyiz hobbled painfully toward the small bedchamber off her meditation room, the image of the tower rose up in her mind again, suddenly strengthened by a new figure whose power shone like a golden beacon in the night, but she thrust it aside. One thing at a time, she snorted to herself, first sleep, then travel, then battle with towers, golden figures, or whatever else might rise up against her.
“I am far too old for this nonsense, you know,” she growled in the direction of the small white marble statue of Incasa, standing in its wall niche by the door.
The statue made no reply, and Freyiz acknowledged the wisdom of its silence with a sharp nod of her head; she was in no mood for lip from anyone, least of all a God that should know better. As she accepted the arm of her delinkos, the image of the golden figure winked into being once more. She narrowed her eyes.
“I said, from anyone,” she warned. With a burst of musical light, it disappeared again.
Far to the south on the island of Amatus, a golden-haired young woman smiled in her sleep. Lying in an open-air pavilion bedecked with early spring flowers and hung with fine curtains of green and yellow silk, she breathed in the warm, salty air of the Deniz-Hadi Sea, allowing it to color her dreams with prophecy.
An old woman stood in the center of a shining silver lake, barring passage to all but those who’d accepted her authority. Beyond her a tall stone tower beckoned, offering pleasures and power. Between them lay a swirling, chaotic mass of soldiers, riders, Gods, and priests.
She opened her eyes.
The rising sun shone down on the still
turquoise waters of the southern sea like a balm. Rising, she stepped lightly across the beach, enjoying the feel of the early morning breeze rippling through her shift and the cool sand spraying across her feet. They spoke to her of so many subtle variations in the future that she felt almost giddy with possibility, but when the water lapped against her toes with the cool reminder that the physical world was as important as the metaphysical, she brought herself back to the present.
Taking one careful step backward, she glanced over at the old man who stood a respectful distance away, a spear cradled easily in the crook of his arm.
“It was a long night for you, Hares,” she noted, a smile lighting up her unusually black eyes.
“It was, Panos,” he agreed, carefully avoiding her gaze—her mental powers were considerable even at so young an age. “But it was also a quiet and peaceful night. I drew maps in my mind while I waited for the dawn.”
She nodded, watching as the lines and colors of his artistry played across her mind like so many harp strings.
“So, you don’t resent accompanying me, then?”
“When the Oracle of Amatus asked for you personally, how could you feel anything but honored?”
“Quite easily,” she laughed. “Drawing imaginary maps on a beach can’t be half so pleasant as drawing real maps in the royal gardens of Skiros.”