by Jenna Rhodes
He took a step back to draw her in retreat with him and felt the edge of the bridge crumble behind him. He stepped forward sharply at that, and then he slid a foot to the side. The brink fell off very close at hand. Where they stood/walked was so confined that the skin at the back of his neck crawled with every instinct he had. No quarter to run and damned little to fight in. “Grace?”
She said nothing he could hear but only a breathy word or two he couldn’t decipher. Neither did she move or look as if she’d heard him. They couldn’t stay in place, wherever they were, for the chances of attack were far too great. His nerves screamed with that warning.
He stood close enough to be spooning with her, his body outlining her slender one. He put his lips to the back of her ear. “Rivergrace.”
A quiver ran through her body. “Sevryn,” she answered softly.
“We need to move. We cannot stand like this.”
“They’re blocking the bridge.”
He squinted into the shroud of fog in front of her, seeing nothing, not even with Kobrir-sharpened perception. “Who is?”
“Can’t you see them?”
“No. Are they armed?”
“They are sitting . . . well, some of them are sitting . . . at a curved table . . . and the whole scene reminds me of one of Lara’s conferences. But that’s not what bothers me.” She paused for a long moment. “Each of them is Vaelinar, men and women, and each has a cage of souls like mine, only theirs are woven from many hundreds more strands than mine, and much finer. It’s like the difference between crude homespun and the finest, softest cloth you can imagine. And it’s far more translucent and lightweight, so much so that they seem almost unaware of it. And I’ve no idea who they are or what they want. They’ve deliberately blocked my path, but they have yet to acknowledge us.” She made a little noise of disgust. “Ild Fallyn arrogance.”
“Move forward, then. I’ve my daggers in hand. We cannot stay here; the bridge is giving out behind us.”
“Oh!” She stirred then, sliding one foot forward cautiously, following with the other. He could feel a tension in her body as though she faced an unseen obstacle or barrier that would deny her.
“Let me go first.”
She paused and turned sideways, barely moving, as if she felt the verge of the bridge even more strongly than he had. He slid past and immediately felt an oppression, a weight on him, telling him that it would deaden his limbs and press his breath out of his body if he moved onward. Sevryn chose not to believe it. He couldn’t see the cloud-sitting table with its occupants, but he had no doubt they were watching him as he strode forward, one deliberate step at a time, Rivergrace’s hands on his hips as he pulled her along with him. Slow progress, but they were making it.
Grace gasped softly behind him.
“What is it?”
“I cannot hold . . . everything . . . unraveling. Pulling me apart.”
He glanced over his shoulder. She’d paled, but looked fit. As fit as she could, both of them splattered with the crimson-and-copper blood splatter from the fighting on the other side. “You’re fine.”
“It’s from the inside.” Her hands tightened their hold on him, fingers curling in desperation. She freed one hand to pluck at the air. “They are trying to Unmake me. All that weaves me together . . . My River Goddess—”
“She is part of you and you her.” He could feel the desperation in her grasp. “Don’t let them. You are truly woven. Every part of you is hard won, and I love you. Fight to hold on. You have to.” He could feel her shudder, and as she did, the firmament under his boots also trembled. The fog wisped about him, thinning, giving him flashes of form and color ahead of them but nothing he could recognize. But if she said she saw Vaelinars, he held little doubt she did. That they could be both so powerful and cold sent fear deep into his own core.
He moved forward a bit, thinking they might get past. She shuffled in his wake, with a muffled groan. “A little more,” he encouraged. “Can you see how far we need to go to get through?”
“I can’t see beyond them, but . . . I can smell. Can’t you? Salt spray in the air.”
The smell of the salt marsh had come back. Did they traverse the world they were breaching in such a wide arc that even a slight movement meant massive gain below? Or were they merely stuck in a cesspool of smell and air and dead ground? He tried to pinpoint whatever views he could gain through the murk and saw very little, but something moved ahead of them. Several somethings. He saw enough to account for targets, and the palms of his hands itched. What forces backed them up? They had just left a war. What kind of war would he start if he attacked the unknown beings blocking their way on the bridge?
She had her hand on his back, between his shoulder blades. Sevryn narrowed his eyes, trying to pinpoint what he almost saw, and then he had a thought.
“Grace. You’re the lady of the Silverwing, its River Goddess. Disperse the mists. Let them know what it is they face.”
He heard her suck her breath in slowly. She murmured, “I can’t summon much power.”
“All you need is enough.”
Her fingers curled his shirt into a knot, holding onto him tightly.
Then she shoved him aside as the mists fled, and he could see what she had described, a curved table with figures about it, some sitting, a few standing, and a few pacing. Vaelinar, in all their regal bearings.
Her voice rang out and he hummed, sending his Talent of Voice just below it, underscoring her words.
“Let us pass. You have no right to hold us and you are unable to Unmake me. My God comes from a different land, and we are offended by the war and venom you are spilling into us. I have come to set matters aright.”
Seven faces turned to them, attentions fixed. He could feel the tension in Rivergrace’s body increase.
Seven Vaelinar Gods stood before them.
“Let us pass!” Rivergrace demanded a second time, her voice ringing across the span.
Sevryn could feel that maddening itch in his palms crawl out and over his wrists; he ached in containing the urge, the need, to react, gripping his weapons tightly.
She took a step forward. She raised her right hand, palm up, and raindrops from the now thin air fell to fill it. Deliberately, she raised her left hand palm up, and a flame danced there. “I am of Kerith and of Vaelinar, and I claim both rights.”
“Give us a name,” the Vaelinar standing at the table’s edge called out. He stood as tall as any they’d ever met, his shoulders wide, and even his neck thick with muscle. His leathers were scarred and patched, battle-worn, and he wore a baldric lashed about his barrel torso, filled with weaponry. Thick black hair curled about his skull, and echoed down each arm. His eyes blazed brown and gold at them, with flecks of obsidian in their hard gaze.
“Nar,” whispered Sevryn. “The God of War. He has to be.” He stayed on one knee beside her, attention rapt on the cadre but mentally counting up the weapons he had left on his body and their placement. Not enough to dispatch seven, not unless he closed with one or two.
Two stood hip to hip, the woman with silvery-soot skin and long, curling white hair, her eyes of softest gold and the man bonding with her, of coppery skin, his short and straight hair a blend of that same copper and streaks of ebony, his own eyes banded black and gray. He thought they might be the Gods of Light and Dark, but his involvement with Vaelinar religion was sparse. The one who commanded his attention most was the being both male and female, body alight with flame from the glowing coals of its bare feet to the streaks of blue-white that comprised its hands, and the trailing river of molten red running in a constant stream from its brow to its waist. None of the others stood near this being, Dhuriel of Fire, and he imagined they feared immolation as much as he did. Spikes of heat speared at him even across a distance.
The others he would sort out in his memory, when this moment passed—
if it did. Dhuriel struck fear in him that none of the others had, but the fiery being also seemed the least interested. Perhaps it had devolved into the more primal aspect of its constitution, and the petty grievances of the flesh disinterested it.
As if confirming his appraisal, Dhuriel made a diffident noise and strode away from the table, disappearing into the abyss beyond it, leaving the other six behind. His going left the background streaked with oranges, reds, and pinks like a glorious—or ominous—sunset.
Rivergrace spoke for his ears alone. “Vae, Nar, Daran, Lina, Rakkan, Dhuriel, and Banha.”
“And you know them how?”
“Rufus taught me. I believe he learned from Quendius and the others at the forges.”
That thought stopped him for a long moment: the idea that a Bolger of Kerith would know the Gods of the Vaelinar or that he would have learned them from the irreverent Quendius, for Bolgers were the most primitive of hominids. But they were deeply spiritual, on a level that Sevryn respected. Perhaps he’d held his knowledge of the slaver’s Gods like a shield about him, for whatever protection might be given.
“Give us a name,” repeated one of the women, stepping forward, a woman whose long, golden hair was streaked with a faint echo of red, her flowing gown of greens and golds embroidered with vines stretching ever upward to the suns she wore on each shoulder, epaulets of gold-and-silver light. Her skin glowed like the finest of porcelains, translucent and radiant as she looked upon them.
Rivergrace hesitated but a moment longer. She had a name, one given to her at birth and forgotten during her life, though being stored by a River Goddess. She never used it, and thought it didn’t delineate her or her memories and experiences but would satisfy those waiting. She whispered her reasoning to Sevryn before proclaiming, “Vahlinora.”
Sevryn put his shoulders back, wary even after her explanation. Names held power, especially to such as these.
The word dropped among the Vaelinar Gods like a pebble into a pond, sending rings of resonating power outward as it did. He was not as certain as Grace seemed to be that this name could not bind her. “Aderro,” he murmured. Beloved.
“What business have you here, amongst us?”
“Did you stop the others before us?”
The Gods drew back a step and bunched together. They might deny having seen Quendius and his Undead, but their body language would call them liars, and loudly. Sevryn immediately noted who each among them trusted, and who each did not. The God of War stood alone, confident and ready. His Kobrir-honed senses crawled up and down his body, warning Sevryn not so much of the man all too ready to pick up his sword and rush him but of the unknown wielder of that fine looking bow off to the side of the tableau. That weapon had range, and where they stood now, they were more than vulnerable to it. He let his muscles relax into a balanced stance as he tried to decide who among those facing him suited the bow best. He put his hand to the small of Rivergrace’s back.
“What business have you with us?”
“I am following those who passed before. If you stopped them, we are free to turn aside. If you did not, I’ve no choice but to follow.”
“The leader carries a strange power.”
“A power,” she said softly to Sevryn, “they both fear and covet. They let him pass while they decide what should, or could, be done.”
He read their expressions as she did. “I agree. They wonder if they can use him to their advantage.”
“Vaelinars do not change from world to world, it seems.”
Her upheld hands trembled barely perceptibly, but he caught it and wondered if those who blocked them did, as well. Rivergrace took a deep, shuddering breath. She had given much before they even entered this passage, and she wasn’t limitless. He ducked his face down, lest they catch his words. “Push them while they hesitate. Quendius has come and gone, and we can’t afford to be stopped.”
“As Gods, you’ve failed in your guardianship. I will pass!”
And she did. Taking a running step forward, with a deep, guttural shout of defiance, she threw what she held at them, a breaking wave of pounding water to one side and a bolt of blazing fire to the other. The Vaelinars scattered, retreating in a disorderly mob, their flesh tearing apart the unearthly clouds that framed them. Their power flared, untargeted, and yet its strength buffeted the two of them and nearly drove Sevryn to his knees. Rivergrace staggered back a step, bumping Sevryn. He could feel her trembling.
One alone stood. She, or mainly she, although she held some of the aspect that Dhuriel held of being both sexes and neither, raised a hand at Rivergrace. Mud-brown hair tumbled down to her shoulders, cloaking her lush figure wrapped in sun-warmed colors as she turned and stepped calmly away. The stone and earth churned in surrender beneath her feet at each step. He could feel the answering thrum in the bridge below him, and realized that she—whoever she was—frightened him almost as much as Dhuriel.
She paused, twisted about, and beckoned to them to cross. “Do you harm Trevalka, you will never leave, River Goddess and warrior. I, Banha, promise this.” And then she sank with each subsequent step, deeper into the earth until she disappeared.
The bridge began to break apart beneath them. Sevryn bounded to his feet, grabbed Grace by the forearm and hauled her after him before the others could gather their wits and stop them. He didn’t get them far before the structure collapsed and they fell, endlessly.
Chapter
Three
HE COULD FEEL RIVERGRACE tumbling above him, hear her startled gasps and chokes as she struggled for air, and he reached for her blindly. Mist roiled around them and he caught, in flashes, sights of booted feet, a dress or apron hem, a hand with fingers wildly outstretched, her pale face, auburn hair flying about it, her eyes wide in fright. He caught a pinch of cloth and reeled it in like a starving fisherman desperate to keep the fish on the line. He hugged her close, her heart beating wildly against his chest as he enclosed her, and then with a WHUMP! they landed. Water sprayed up about them, the awful salt and marsh water he’d smelled earlier, but thanked now as its icy cushion frothed about them. He rose to the surface, bringing Rivergrace with him in his arms as they both spat and choked and fought to get their feet under them. He plowed to the muddy shore, dragging her in his wake and they stumbled out, reeds and nettles bending every which way as they clambered onto land that was only a little more dry.
Rivergrace coughed harshly before wiping her mouth on the back of her hand. “If this is the old country everyone wanted so badly to come home to, I’m not impressed.”
Sevryn found a laugh as he reached out, slapping what looked to be leeches off her clothing and then off his. The sluglike creatures wriggled away in the mud and back to the water, looking as offended as Grace did.
“What were those?”
“Nothing pleasant, I imagine. Leeches, perhaps.”
“They’re freshwater.”
“This is not home.”
Rivergrace bent over, wringing her hair out. “I know,” she answered, her voice muffled. She combed her fingers through knotting curls and gave up with a muttered curse, standing back up to braid her hair, fingers flying, into some semblance of order. “We need drinking water.”
He looked at her. “And you need decent clothes and walking shoes.”
Rivergrace spread her hands out over what looked like an herbalist apron made of boiled leather and the rough cloth of an ancient blouse and skirt under it. Leather shoes curled about her feet. “The skeleton which owned them did not object to my borrowing them.” She met his glance. “Mist cannot carry clothes.”
“Mist?”
“The river took you away in one form, and me in another. It called to me, like the dew or the rain, and I . . .” She spread her hands beseechingly.
“Water like that has no soul, no memory. I could have lost you!”
She nodded, eyes downcast. �
��I know. It was an escape I’ll think long and hard about before I ever seek it again on purpose, yet it calls to me. Water will always call to me.” Her gaze came up then, and rested on his face. “What about you? I cast you upon the Andredia in full flood and prayed the river could take you far, far downstream ahead of Lariel’s anger.” On the banks of that river, Lariel with Bistane and her troop had cornered them, the Warrior Queen’s anger and fear that he had betrayed her ruling Lara’s heavy-handed actions.
He shifted. “Don’t ever do that to me again. I can fight for you, Grace, but not if you put me aside.”
“I heard the anger in her voice. She would have killed you. And I was afraid you’d hesitate, unwilling to answer her fury, hoping you could turn it aside. She wouldn’t have let you. She would have cut us both down.”
“Neither I nor Bistane would have let that happen.”
“I couldn’t risk it.”
“So you risked yourself and put me aside.”
She looked aside. “I couldn’t just stand there. I sought help of any kind, and the Andredia answered me. I didn’t go with you because it wanted more from me than I wanted to give it.”
“More?”
She lifted and dropped a shoulder. “It does nothing without sacrifice.”
“What did it ask of you?”
“It wanted to know love. So I gave you away, with the vow you’d be safe. I prayed you’d come back to me, knowing the river might take you down into its arms forever.” She looked up at him, worry and sorrow glistening in her eyes. “I did all I knew to do, hoping it would be enough. The Andredia is more than a river, more than wild water and the earth that holds its pathway, and its will is strong. In the end, I fled it as much as I fled Lariel.”