Wine of the Gods 29: God of the Sun

by Pam Uphoff

  The Arbolian walked up to join him, watching the fires up in the tree tops, smoldering and shedding sparks. "I really hope those don't heat up enough to start a real crown fire."

  "I don't think it will spread unless the wind comes up. Damn good thing, because the Priests are doing their best to get lost in the forest."

  "Temple Priest Notcher declined your offer to fetch help . . . If I weren't worried about Farester, I'd say, let them burn."

  Lon blinked. "So this Warric was just a normal, ordinary student, once?"

  "No. Oh damn no. He was a brilliant scientist . . . and a very good friend. A year younger than either of us, and well, we graduated and went to work. He went on to the University in Lundun, got his doctorate in Astronomy . . . He studied magic too. Wrote the bloody textbook they use for beginning students, and, and . . . well in retrospect I guess there was a reason he tried to learn about magic. And I hope to Arbol's hell he can escape and find someone who can undo everything they've done to him." He gave Lon a challenging stare.

  "Have you heard about the woman he saved? My boss. Lovely young lady. There isn't anyone at Disco who isn't hoping your Warric escapes and recovers."

  Farester nodded. "Good. So we need to wait and see if the fires all die, before we go anywhere."

  Lon nodded. "In the meantime, perhaps we should catch loose horses and have a bite to eat. If it looks safe—and these fellows can ride—perhaps we can try to find the others, and Farester."

  "Yeah." Jack glanced over his shoulder. "Maybe two more hours of daylight."

  "Tomorrow morning, then." Lon grinned. "I do hope the priests find a nice place to camp tonight. Before it's too dark to do much but stay wherever they are when they can't see to ride any longer."

  A sudden gust of wind send embers flying from the tree tops.

  "Not that I expect our evening to be quiet and peaceful."

  ***

  Once they were deep into the woods, the underbrush thinned and the branches rose.

  Temple Priest Notcher ducked another branch and clutched the horse's mane as it tripped over yet another root. "I hate forests. Trees should stand alone in stately splendor."

  Collier cleared his throat. "It's getting dark. we should camp soon."

  "And give them even more time to escape? We'll ride all night if we must." Notcher eyed the irregular path he was trying to follow. He missed the scouts. They would have told him what made it. Deer perhaps.

  After the third time the horse tripped, he reached for inward strength and floated a ball of light ahead. A few minutes later he had to admit he was done. He'd thrown fireballs, the chain spell, stuns and slices. All without a single little god to draw on. It was something only a few priests could do. That little "something extra" the Testers could only dimly sense. That occasionally made a difference.

  He slumped wearily. An ordinary priest would have collapsed halfway through that battle. Then he turned his head and eyed Collier. He's not as tired as he ought to be, either. I'd better keep an eye on him. He may be more interested in my position than in acquiring a god.

  He frowned around the dark forest and shrugged. "We'll have to camp here for the rest of the night."

  Collier nodded, and turned to Bowers, the only full priest left conscious. "Set up camp. A tent for his glory, and a meal."

  Bowers looked blank, and then looked back at the initiates. "Well? Get to work."

  A search of saddle bags turned up a meager and very, very substandard meal, and a single sheet of oilcloth that they managed to tie between trees for shelter, and a stack of fragrant saddle blankets for a bed.

  Notcher looked on cynically and vowed silently to organize a bit better next time. Better yet, never have a next time that involves traveling on an uninhabited world.

  He laid down, careful to not show how exhausted he was. Just as well we didn't catch up to them this evening. Tomorrow I'll be recovered, and ready to face them again.

  Above the sounds of the men setting up camp, an eerie wailing howl rose to a shriek like a tortured soul.

  And if there are deer, I suppose there are things that eat deer around as well.

  "Collier? Start a fire."

  ***

  By midnight, Lon and Jack admitted defeat and helped the semi-conscious priests and scouts move west along the shore and then out onto a sandy peninsula, upwind of the fast-growing fire.

  Percy's saddle bags disgorged an impressive amount of camping gear and food. Lon sat up all night watching the forest burn.

  By daybreak half the shoreline was smoking charred trunks. Lon rode down to the new corridor and contemplated the smoke and burning grass on the other side.

  "Give it a couple of hours to cool and I'll pop through. If the forest is burning to the southeast, I'll go for help." Percy danced a little pricking his ears at the fire.

  Jack laughed. "I think he's game to go now. The grass fire's pretty spotty."

  Lon bit his lip. Nodded. "I'd better find out how bad it is. Watch. If I make a run for the gate, that means the fire's headed for Notcher and company. Watch for any changes in the wind."

  Jack nodded. "Good luck."

  Lon took aim at a barely seared patch of grass, and nothing was burning over there and he'd be ahead of the fire without having to do any jumping over flames or walking on glowing coals. Percy apparently agreed and took the coolest looking route with little urging. He squealed and jumped once, stepping on a hot ember. They galloped up to the crest of the hill—with Percy limping slightly—and slowed to look to the southeast.

  The fire was creeping downward, heading more south than southeast, but still . . .

  "We'd better go fetch Xen. And as soon as we're through the gate, we'll see if Xen sent some of that Joy Juice along. I don't know if it works on burned hooves, but if it does, it'll make the trip a lot nicer for you."

  Percy nodded agreement and galloped through the gate.

  Chapter Eighteen

  The Chase

  Farester huddled in his bedroll, trying to not whimper out loud.

  Crimson told me that wine caused the worse hangovers in the multiverse, but I didn't believe her.

  The clink of his horse's iron shoe against the rock as the animal shifted her weight sent him deeper into his blankets. But it was getting lighter out there . . . and the smoky smell from the little campfire was awfully strong.

  He peeked back out. In the smoke filtered light it looked like half the sky was solid smoke, faintly pink in the dawn.

  No sign of Crimson. Of course.

  He stood up carefully and walked across the wide rocky ledge to the edge.

  A steep forested drop to a deep canyon, a slope up from there, thickly forested, and very definitely on fire.

  He could see the flames to his left. Untouched forest ahead and to his right. The smoke whipped in a wind gust, the flames flared and reached for that untouched greenery.

  "Well . . . I guess the pursuit is over." He staggered over to his saddlebags and pulled out a canteen. Sipped at it. The horse perked her ears, so he walked over . . . her canvas bucket was empty, so he poured in the rest. She sucked it down while he looked around. He needed more water, pretty much right now. And a way out of here . . . The broad ledge was bounded by forest to either side, and lots of rock above the cliff face the ledge jutted out from. The north side wasn't quite straight down.

  They sure found an awkward place for this gate. He eyed it. "Surely they didn't make the ledge.

  The view through the gate was of rock and sand, even more stark than what he was standing on. He stepped through. Hot and dry, the desert stretched all around. The small mesa he'd stepped out of had two other, well, probably corridors, not gates. Crimson had said she'd be collapsing the corridors behind her. Were there three corridors here, before? He stepped back through to the ledge, and looked up above the gate. The rock turned from cliff to steep slope and was lost in thick forest. Above the trees, pale with distance, snow crowned mountains. He explored beyond the horse.
There was a small rivulet of water he could climb over to. He drank, fetched water for the horse . . . and watched the fire's inexorable march. He saddled up the horse, rolled up his bedding and strapped it down.

  If it crosses the river, I'll have to take the gate and just . . . wait it out, I suppose.

  He narrowed his eyes . . . a dark spot . . . widening . . .

  A tall muscular man stepped through. He nodded politely and grabbed the edge of his hole-in-thin-air and pulled it to the cliff face. Touched four spots to open it wide and gave a summoning wave. A big dark chestnut horse was the first thing through, then men. The priests, their red and yellow robes smoke stained and besmirched. Horses, spooked and unruly.

  Unfortunately the temple priest focused on Farester.

  "What happened to you?"

  "I . . . got a little too enthusiastic in my pursuit. I just woke . . . regained consciousness a couple of hours ago." He glanced across the group, pointed at the gate. "I stepped across, but I couldn't see them anywhere. There's two corridors."

  The tall man frowned. "There should be . . . " He lashed out suddenly behind him and flattened Senior Priest Collier.

  "Do not ever attack me. Or any other free citizen of any other world. Your polity's slavery, and especially the mental magical slavery of your pitiful gods is abhorrent to most of the multiverse. The wisdom of allowing you to pursue this escaped god is being discussed in the forum. Several polities—my own among them—thinks I overstepped my authority in allowing this posse of yours."

  The glaring priest staggered to his feet.

  "Next time I'll just kill the person who tries that. I'll leave this corridor in place and send the rest of your party through to you." He mounted the chestnut and trotted through the corridor.

  Notcher glared at Collier. "Arbol damn it all, man. I thought you had him for a second. What kind of an incompetent are you?"

  "He was so strong . . . I had no idea."

  Farester shuddered. "Should we explore further, through the gate?" He looked at the tired, distressed horses. "And perhaps water and feed the horses?"

  Multiple glares. "We have no grain. The pack horses were left at the lake."

  "Buckets? There's a small stream . . . " Arbol! And they think they can keep going?

  Among them, they had four buckets.

  It took a while for them to get all the horses a decent drink, and they were all wanting more. Then the rest of the priests and initiates, and better yet the scouts with the pack horses joined them. Jack waved as he reined his mount around and right through the gate. Farester mounted his own horse and joined them.

  The Disco fellow, Lone Hacker or something, had his map out. "Three corridors. They closed one. The three gates they go to are due north, due west, and due south."

  One of the scouts got up from kneeling on the ground. "The wagon tracks stop here, at the rock face. In between the other two corridors. The far sides of those two show no signs of any traffic at all, certainly not two wagons and fourteen horses."

  Notcher looked at Hackathorn.

  "Seventy-six kilometers."

  "Let's go." The Temple Priest climbed up on his horse and spurred it out into the desert.

  Farester and Jack looked at each other, and then at the Disco man.

  He shrugged. "No water in sight. Twenty one men, twenty-three horses setting out on a fifty mile ride already dead tired. Does it get any more fun than this?"

  Farester watched Lon aim his stout little horse after the priestly types and looked over at Jack. "Well. I see I'll be writing a report analyzing Earth humor. If we survive."

  Chapter Nineteen

  Where the Wild Gods Live

  Warric held the light warp around the first wagon, Marius and Trace sweated and managed the same. Fortunately it was only a few hundred feet from the gate to the road. At night, the guards who rode up to meet them on the road couldn't have seen where they came from. The waning gibbous moon was just rising, starting to shed a bit of light.

  The guards relaxed at Macaw's cheerful greeting.

  "Oh, it's you girls. Adding wagons now?"

  "Just for this trip. I'd rather ride." Crimson's voice.

  Warric kept his hood up and the scarf over his face. Don't notice the glowing guy.

  Crimson had been confident that that was the only place they'd need any concealment. She'd seemed to think the village they were going to go through wouldn't care how much he glowed. Warric planned to stay hidden anyway.

  Trill, driving, elbowed him. "Stop being gloomy, we're almost to someplace safe."

  A snort from Zodiac, one of the seven-year-old menaces, as his horse trotted past them. "We're safe now. Harry doesn't let bad things happen on the road. Especially right in front of the Tavern."

  The God of Travelers. Their god, who they claim is "good." They've been talking about gods, witches, wizards, genetics all week. Things I want to learn, things that . . . I will probably not live long enough to learn. I need to focus on now, on the near future. Like . . . is a good Comet Fall god going to be nice to a foreign god? And this wizard Nil. The mix of respect and caution they show toward him. Trust, but not liking.

  Trill sighed. "I suppose, since Warric's mostly sane, your gods may be too, but I'm still a little . . . wary."

  Warric nodded.

  And the most frightening thing is the possibility that he can't undo what the priests have done to me.

  They drove past a tidy high-roofed inn, and made a wide loop around into their courtyard and through an illusion covering a corridor.

  Warric could barely see that there was an illusion. Trill just braced herself and made the team run head on into the wall . . . and through into a dark field of grain. Rather battered and stunted, right here. Even in the moonlight he could see that it was obviously frequently trampled. They added to the damage as they turned onto a graveled road.

  The horses were fresh, and happy to trot for a bit. Then walk quietly through a sleeping village . . . Warric could feel a spell, something about low frequency . . . damping . . . ah. Sounds.

  No clatter of hooves as they passed through. Much hissing and arguing from the kids. They all wanted to see Nil meet the Fire God. They were not going to just go home.

  Warric suddenly remembered a childhood adventure. The four of us, not much older, all excited, sneaking out at night . . . I don't remember what we did. Sneaking out might have been the whole point. We were all so happy, then, like these boys. Before.

  I must, I must get back that happiness.

  He looked over at the three boys and grinned. They're going to have four tagalong little tomboys, instead of our one.

  Then he sobered as they cleared the village and the horses trotted on into the night.

  Am I insane? I could live out in the maze, hunting for food until the drain of the heat spells sucks out the last of my magic and kills me. It would be peaceful . . . lonely. I wonder if any of the spells will linger, after I've died. I could be the basis for a legend. The Burning Bones of the Maze. Now . . . now I have this tiny spark of hope . . . and terror that I'll be enslaved. Again.

  Macaw galloped ahead, and when they left the road he spotted her holding open an ordinary gate . . . and beyond it a dimensional gate. Last one.

  It was dawn here, rolling hills of grass shifting gradually to rolling sand dunes. The smell of the sea. A dirt track curved around a hill. A gleam of light shone off high roofs beyond.

  They followed the rider down the track around the curve. The dawn light showed two stately stone buildings, three floors each, he'd guess. Wide steps up to a columned porch, double doors. Beautiful, graceful architecture, the proportions just right.

  Warric swiveled around . . . nothing else. Zero, zip. Two buildings sitting in the middle of nowhere.

  A tall man walking out the doors. Pants, barefoot, buttoning up a dark shirt.

  "What do you mean you have a god for me?" The man's eyes left Crimson and narrowed as they spotted Warric.

  Warric
braced himself and climbed down. Shed coat and scarf.

  "That's a remarkable morph . . . a pointless drain on your power."

  Warric could only nod agreement.

  "Warric can't talk. They messed that up too." Trill dropped down beside him, as close as she dared.

  Up close the man was old. Thin and wiry, the eyes sharp. Stiffening and aggressive as Marius and Trace hustled up to stand with Warric.

  "He's my brother, and we're rescuing him." Marius sounded firm. Determined. "Trill got the Chain spell off of him. Crimson thought you might be able to help with the rest."

  Macaw bounced up. "He's the Arbolian god who rescued Q."

  Trill straightened. "Hi. I'm Trill of Breesdon, this is Warric Menchuro, his brother Marius Menchuro, and my brother Trace. We've come to petition you for help. We . . . don't actually have any money to pay you with, just now, but . . ."

  She broke off as the old man started laughing.

  "I'm what some people call the Archwizard. Nihility. Please call me Nil. And I'd work on your friend's very odd morphs just for the challenge and what I might learn from studying them. As for money, I don't charge the students here. Paying for the transformation?"

  Nil's attention swung back to Warric. "Son, Quail Quicksilver's recovering, thanks to your getting her out of there in time. Her mother is the best at both genetic and physical transformation. Since you lot are so prickly about not owing, I'll point out that you've got a lot of credit in that family's bank. And they are some of the most powerful and rich people on this world. You lot have no worries about money, and since Q's mother is one of this world's experts on transformations, I am absolutely certain that anything that can be done, will be done. I figure as soon as Rustle stops fluttering all over her chick, she'll be very pleased to help you with anything you want. Shall I tell her so?"