The Five

by Nhys Glover

  “I only saw it the once when I was brought before the Soothsayer hag. It was not a gilded and gaudy place, like the temples of the gods. There were no statues or images of the gods as I knew them.

  “The walls had symbols painted onto them. Ugly marks made by hands that had no artistic skill or patience. Painted in what seemed to be any material they could lay their hands on. Some red, some off-white, some murky green-brown. One symbol was a star like on my wrist. Another was a star surrounded by a circle of fire. Yet another was a curving wave and inside the wave was fire that followed the hollow created by the wave so that it looked like the wave was drowning out the fire, or the fire was rising up to destroy the water. ‘Water and fire, fire and water. The beginning and the end, the end and the beginning, locked forever in the dance of existence,’ the priests chanted.”

  “I don’t understand,” Airsha said thoughtfully. “The Goddess isn’t fire. She’s earth. Or that’s how she feels to me.”

  “I was thinking about that,” I ventured. “Landor told us about volcanoes. How the fiery underworld found a way to the surface. But as it was covered by water it cooled, forming rocks and earth that, over time, pushed closer and closer to the surface until it broke through and became land. It didn’t stop there. But air took over the cooling of the molten material after that, until it made mountains. So where fire met water or air there was earth. That’s when the story of the Goddess creating life from the earth in the water, and then moving it to land when The Jayger grew jealous comes in. Maybe life came from the fires of the underworld too. What is life but a spark, an inner flame that no one can see?”

  “That feels right, Flea. A more primal aspect of the Goddess, but no less her. I wonder how air fits with this though,” Airsha mused, her brows furrowed now.

  “Maybe air fed the fire of life as it does with a fire in the hearth,” Darkin suggested.

  “This is all well and good, but it doesn’t help us with our problem. Go on, traitor, what else did you see in that temple?” Rama said impatiently.

  “He was not a traitor. He just fought on a different side,” I said, surprising myself with my vehement defence of a man I’d considered a traitor and more for two long suns. Why would I suddenly jump to his defence like this?

  Rama scowled thoughtfully at me for a moment and then conceded. “Aye, I take your point. Go on... champion of the Goddess. Please.” He couldn’t keep the touch of sarcasm from his voice. But I was appeased.

  Laric had his eyes closed again, and sweat was beading on his forehead. This was hard for him. Whatever torture the Devourers exacted had damaged his soul. I think it was all the more horrible because it couldn’t be seen like Rama’s wounds.

  “One of the murals showed a monster that seemed to be made of water, but unlike any water I have seen, and I have seen some wild seas in my time. The monster was racing toward land and toward a mountain. A triangular mountain covered by white. Snow? Yes, I think it was supposed to be snow. Around the top of the mountain was a ring of fire that looked evil. It seemed to me the monster had done battle with something innately evil and had failed.

  “I heard the chants go on and on about fire and water, but it made no sense to me. Then the priests chanted, ‘When the Goddess rises again the end will be upon us, and the cycle will be complete.’ Words like that, anyway.

  “Huh,” he grunted, seeming to get some kind of insight at that point. “I wonder if that part is what the Godlings have been fighting against for so long. They knew that part of the prophecy, or whatever it is. When the Goddess rises to power once more the end will come, and the waters will overtake the earth and all will be as it was in the beginning. And the cycle begins again.”

  “So you think that way back at the beginning of mankind’s development this prediction was made” Darkin said thoughtfully. “Then later the Air Mistress predicted the rise of the Chosen One, and the Godlings and priests put the two together and decided the return of the Goddess would bring about the end of the world. So they needed to stop that at all costs?”

  “I think so. I was listening to the chanting, day in and day out. Weird stuff, as I said, about fire and water, endings and beginnings. The rise of the Goddess and the end of time.”

  “So these Devourers came into being as a branch of the priesthood determined to... what? ... see it happened? To make sure the Goddess returned? They were working secretly against the others of their kind?” Rama demanded in shock.

  “Are you saying we did the wrong thing following the Goddess?” Jaron asked, confused and a little alarmed.

  Everyone seemed to draw in a deep, panicked breath as the implications sank in. We had helped make this happen. By supporting the Goddess, we had possibly brought about the end of the world!

  “No!” Airsha declared into the terrible silence. “Whatever has been set into motion only uses the rise of the Goddess as its catalyst. The Godling would never choose to destroy the world if he was still in power. He had to lose power first before he would willingly do his part.”

  “But why do these Devourer priests need the Godling? Can’t they release The Jayger themselves?” Prior asked.

  “That is something we have to find out,” Airsha said less vehemently. “But I don’t think the Goddess likes being made a scapegoat in all this.”

  “But it all makes a kind of odd sort of sense. Why create false gods? Why keep women and the Goddess down, unless you’ve got it mixed up in your head that the rise of the Goddess means the end of the world. That She will bring it about, is the easy next step to take,” Zem said, as if he was putting pieces together in his head again, and this time they really were making sense to him.

  “Was there anything about these priests not being quite alive... not quite substantial?” I asked Laric, once we had all stepped back from the cliff-edge.

  He’d been listening intently to the discussion, but had contributed nothing more after his initial insight.

  “I don’t understand,” he said, his brows arrowing down in a way that was too attractive for my peace of mind.

  “You said I lost focus when I was fighting. And I did, because my blade passed through one of those priests way too easily. I’d killed a few of them up until then, but just with thrusts. I was hoping to cut this one man open when he came at me, but I cut him in two. I’m not that strong and my blade wasn’t sharp enough to do that. It was too easy. And then there was the way they just sort of started dissolving after they were dead.” I shivered at the memory.

  “Like they were more water than they were earth,” Landor said.

  “Man was made of the clay—water and earth combined, and air was blown into the forms to give them life,” I exclaimed with excitement. “That was one of the creation myths, right? So what if these Devourers have found some way to make more of their priests by adding more water to the mix, let’s say?”

  “I watched a potter make bowls in the harem,” Airsha said. “The more water she added, the thinner the walls of the bowl became.”

  “So you’re saying that you fought men who had somehow been watered down and split into more than one version of themselves?” Rama said incredulously.

  “Exactly!” I declared, my excitement growing as each piece was added to the puzzle. “It seemed like the ones we fought the second time were the same as the ones we fought the first time. But they were better prepared the second time. As if they’d somehow learned from the first battle. Yet we’d flown leagues from where we’d fought them in the initial battle. There should have been no way they could have had that knowledge that fast, even if that second group had been waiting nearby. I still don’t know how they could have been waiting there. We didn’t know we were coming down there until we did.”

  “The visions in the water. The Soothsayer could be one step ahead of us,” Laric said, catching my enthusiasm.

  “I think,” Moyna said into the pause. “We need a Prophetess of our own. There are several we have discovered among the lesser folk. One of them m
ay be able to tell us more.”

  “Lesser folk? Are we being called lesser folk now?” I couldn’t help spluttering indignantly.

  Moyna looked pained. “You cannot deny there is a division between people. Would commoner be a more acceptable term for you?”

  “I’m neither common nor less than you,” I argued.

  “Because both your parents had noble blood. Magic only runs in the blood of the upper classes,” Moyna shot back, clearly having researched this since we last argued this point back in the rebellion.

  “Let’s not get into that right now,” Airsha interrupted. “I have heard more than enough talk of magical blood lines at council meetings. But I think you have a good idea, Moyna. We need to use what we have, the same way these Devourers are. I am not a reliable source. No, I’m not a consistent source of predictive material, might be a better way of putting it. It comes when it will. Or when it suits the Goddess. Mayhap others are more in tune with her and can get... more.”

  “We need to know three things, it seems to me,” Zem said slowly. “Why it has to be the Godling who releases The Jayger, which, in essence, means how it will be done. Then we need to know when it will happen. And, for The Five... we need to find out where the key or this elemental circle is to be found, and to get to it before the Devourers find and destroy it. They know from the prophecies that we are their biggest stumbling block. They’ll be trying to stop us every step of the way.”

  I suddenly felt very overwhelmed. Somehow, I was supposed to make The Five powerful enough to succeed. And right now we were nothing close to powerful. We were a half-crazy lad with warrior magic, a runaway who gives people nightmares, a healer who won’t fight, a fire mage whose passions are to be feared by those closest to him and... me... a lass who reads minds, and can’t do that very well anymore. Gods Balls, we were sunk!

  Landor slid over to my side as the meeting came to some kind of end. Or had degenerated into individual discussions. He placed an arm around my shoulder and drew me down until my head rested against his pale neck. His comfort washed over me like a warm shower.

  Zem closed in on the other side, resting his head on my shoulder. It felt good. As did having Prior sitting behind us and tentatively stroking my hair—which had somehow escaped its harem knot.

  Laric plonked himself down in front of me, and used the tip of his finger to lift my chin so I faced him. I felt fear from the others at Laric’s touch but, oddly, I didn’t have a single concern that he would send me into a nightmare from which I wouldn’t awake. Because it seemed like I was already in that nightmare.

  “This is no nightmare, Flame. And for the first time I think we have a chance. For the first time in a sun I don’t feel like this is all on me. I didn’t know or want to know what this Five was they were talking about. I just wanted to escape. Now... I don’t want to be a runaway anymore.” He smiled, plucking my word for him from my previous thoughts.

  Gods, were they all doing it now? Was no thought safe from them?

  “None are safe from us. And I’m only a quarter crazy these days,” Zem said with humour.

  “And I will fight, mayhap not always in the way you will,” Landor told me, kissing my cheek.

  “And then there’s you. The spark of life that gives us life,” Prior said from behind me, his hand resting on my head. “A little over a quarter moon ago we were strangers at different ends of the world, with marks burned into our skins, not knowing what the frag was going on. You brought us together, Flame. Your dreams and your fire brought us together. And your fire will forge us into something more. It’s already happening.”

  I wasn’t sure I agreed with everything he said. But I fought down the urge to argue, and I heard Zem chuckle. ‘Always an argument, Flame.’

  ‘You too? I haven’t even agreed to this new name yet. You can’t all just decide to call me something else.”

  “You know it’s right. You know you aren’t Flea anymore,” Landor said, his smooth-as-velvet voice speaking less formally than ever before. And that informality, sliding over my senses, made me think of sex.

  All four of them tensed then.

  My face suddenly burned. I didn’t like this new development. I didn’t like being the one who could so easily be read.

  “Cold showers all around,” Laric declared jauntily, preparing to rise.

  I laughed. “Together?”

  Landor groaned into my ear. “Do not tease us, woman. We are not pet wadjas.”

  Zem jumped to his feet and pulled me up with him. Out of harm’s way. “We’re together, the bond is beginning to be forged. And we’ll all do our bit to make it happen. The Devourers are after us for a reason. We’re a threat to them. Them and their plans to end the world! Don’t write us off quite yet, fire-haired warrior woman.” Zem kissed me then, tenderly and with resignation.

  “You’re ready to let me go?” I asked, not sure I was getting his message clearly.

  “Not letting you go, just... letting you do what you need to do for... us all. I trust you Fle— Flame. I will always trust you.”

  “And love me?” I sounded pathetically needy, but I didn’t care.

  “Always and forever. And you were the bravest person in the world that day you dived into the battle after me. I will never forget that you did that for me. But you were still an idiot!”

  Laric came up behind me and kissed my neck, winking cheekily at Zem as he did so. “Glad you’re letting go a little, brother. I haven’t been laid in moons.”

  Oh, Gods’ Balls, were we never going to have a moment of accord?

  I sent my elbow backward and caught Laric in the ribs. “And you aren’t getting laid now. The cold shower is that way. Then we need to find our own Soothsayer. It seems we have a monster to keep from destroying the world.

  Laughing and groaning, Laric dropped another kiss on my neck and ducked away before Prior could grab him.

  I glanced over to see Airsha watching us with amusement in her eyes. And was that also smugness? I could almost hear her saying: They’re together. They’re becoming The Five. And they’re going to save the world. I just knew it!

  After a cold shower! I added, always having to have the last word, even when it wasn’t spoken aloud.