He went back in and got the fire going, sat across it from Aghmor, and stared at the man with hardly a blink, and with a warning scowl.
Bahdlahn had wondered if life was worth living after witnessing the sacrifice of his dear friend Aoleyn, but now, under the threat, when the possibility of his death had become so real, he had found his answer.
He would kill Aghmor if he had to. He probably would even eat dead Aghmor’s flesh if he had to.
He would live or he would not, but he would fight to live until he could not.
* * *
She felt herself growing healthier by the day, and the song of Usgar grew stronger in her mind. There was something about this place, this secret pool and waterfall, that seemed truly calming and magical to Aoleyn. For a while, it was enough for her to simply bask in the warmth and cleansing water, enjoy her meals, and hear the song, but as the days slipped past, her curiosity mounted as her wounds diminished.
Was she really under the God Crystal? She knew in her heart that she was, but in her mind, she kept trying to find other explanations for this possibly natural cave.
She used the moonstone in her belly ring one day—she had no idea if it was morning or night—to fly up to the top of the cavern. Exploring the ceiling, she found, very near the waterfall, the strongest song of Usgar, and a vein of quartz crystal within the rock. Indeed, it thrummed with the power of her god, so she fell into its song and found herself suddenly looking out on the surface world!
It took her many heartbeats to realize the truth of it: she was looking out from the sacred crystal itself. The day about it was bright and sunny. The wind blew the pines this way and that, and there was a bit of snow in the air, though whether it was falling from some unseen cloud or simply blowing about, she could not tell.
Aoleyn went back down to the floor to regather her strength and sort through this new puzzle. Was she truly looking through the eyes of her god? She thought of the quartz-flecked spear tips, of how the witches could use them to look far down the mountain for returning hunters, or escaped uamhas.
The song had never been this pure and strong, however. What else might she do through this vein of magic, she wondered?
She flew back up and fell through the inviting quartz magic once more. She studied her surroundings. Hardly even aware of her action, she called to her turquoise ear cuff, and sent that magic through the God Crystal.
A mouse. Several more. An owl.
An owl.
Aoleyn remembered that day, which seemed like years before now, though it was not, when she had entered the mind of an owl and flown about the mountain.
Could she?
She sent her thoughts out through the God Crystal, reaching for the mind of the owl. She became disoriented, then, and nearly banged her head on the stone, for she was suddenly looking back on the crystal from a nearby pine. The sound around her magnified intensely, as well, the howling wind, the crackle of a fire, the murmurs of human voices. The Usgar camp.
As she had on that long-ago day, Aoleyn easily took control of the bird and flew from the branch, gliding on rising winds to gain some height.
Fireach Speuer lay thick with snow. Deep snow. Midwinter snow. She had been down here not days, but weeks.
She glided down part of the way to the camp, taking care to stay out of range of any spears, then swooped back again, using the owl’s amazing hearing to eavesdrop on this conversation or that. The owl couldn’t understand the words, of course, but Aoleyn certainly could, so when she heard Tay Aillig referred to as the “Usgar-triath,” she understood that he had indeed taken full control of the tribe. She learned, too, that Mairen was now his wife, their hold on the tribe secure.
She wasn’t surprised nearly as much by the information as she was by how little she cared. She wasn’t even sure she considered herself Usgar anymore, although she certainly had come to hear the song of the tribe’s professed god more clearly.
She flew all about the camp, looking for one person in particular, and when she didn’t find him there, she swept up to the southeast, to th’Way, riding the winds all the way to Craos’a’diad.
She found no sign of Bahdlahn, no sign that he, or anyone, had been up there in some time, for the trail was deep with trackless snows.
Back down by the encampment, at the entryway to th’Way where lay the uamhas caves, Aoleyn settled the owl and listened, hoping.
She could hold this enchantment for a long, long while, she knew, but not so much the flying, or even levitating enchantments that had brought her up to the quartz vein. She tried to continue the connection to the bird as she floated away from the ceiling and was thrilled to learn that she could indeed maintain the telepathic bond from the floor.
There she sat, in the dark cave, but seeing the bright sunlight on the deep snow, and hearing the sound of the Usgar and the uamhas.
There, the owl sat when the sun had set and the uamhas had all returned to the caves, with no sight, or sound, of Bahdlahn.
Back in the cave, released from the owl’s sensibilities, Aoleyn feared for her dear friend. She was exhausted by then, though, and so she just curled up and went to sleep, determined to find the owl or some other animal host the next day.
The same owl was there on the pine, almost as if waiting for her.
Aoleyn took flight again, about the camp, up th’Way, then, frustrated, she just soared about Fireach Speuer. Through the keen eyes and ears of the owl, Aoleyn took in the sheer majesty of the mountain and its winter blanket, and heard the scurrying of the various animals, and heard the bark of a coyote far off, even heard a bear snoring in its winter cave.
Truly, she was enjoying this day, soaring from tree to tree to rocky ledge.
Unexpectedly, she saw another form, a human form, dark against the snowy backdrop, and what she saw more keenly was the spear the fur-wrapped man held, with its distinctive crystalline tip. Why would an Usgar, any Usgar, be out from the winter plateau and the protective warmth of the God Crystal?
Aoleyn moved her host closer, taking care, and settling in a tree. The man was hunting, or trying to, but he didn’t handle the spear very well, and seemed to be floundering about the snow more than purposefully stalking some prey.
At one point he stopped, and looked about, then threw back his heavy hood for a wider view.
Aoleyn was sure that her corporeal form back in the cave had gasped, and that her heart had skipped a beat.
Bahdlahn!
He moved more pointedly then, pushing back to a rocky ledge, and into a shallow cave. She watched him slide behind a slab of rock in the back, out of sight, and she flew in close and perched, tuning her owl ears.
She heard him talking, then heard someone else—it sounded like Aghmor—complaining that he had returned without food.
“I can’no go more than twenty strides,” Bahdlahn protested. “The wind covers my trail too fast and I’ll lose my way.”
“And we’ll both be starved if you do’no get some food!”
The owl flew away. Aoleyn wondered if there was some way she could use the turquoise right through this animal’s sensibilities, to sense other animals so that it could better hunt. Not now, though, she knew—if it was even possible, such a feat would have to be enacted at the beginning of the possession.
She had another idea.
She flew to the Usgar encampment, and there waited, watching. Some women brought out a slab of meat to the central fire, and there began cutting it into small chunks.
Through the eyes of her host owl, Aoleyn looked all about and saw her chance.
With a flurry of feathers and talons, the owl descended upon the cutting board, sending the Usgar women and a pair of uamhas diving away. Meat in hand, the owl flew off, gone before anyone could react.
* * *
“Today will be the day,” Bahdlahn promised later that morning, wrapping his heavy furs and hoisting the spear.
“It has to be. Every day has to be,” Aghmor growled at him.
&nbs
p; Bahdlahn couldn’t hold his optimism against that scowl, so he just shrugged and moved out of the inner cave, to find, strangely, two hefty slabs of meat and a pile of sticks on the ground in the shallow alcove of his cave.
He looked all about, even went out into the snow, clenching the spear in both hands, then carried the prize back to Aghmor.
“How can this be?” he asked.
“Someone knows we’re here,” Aghmor answered, shaking his head as he did, for it all seemed ridiculous. “The wood, too?”
Bahdlahn nodded.
“We have to leave,” Aghmor reasoned.
“There is no place to go.”
“The Usgar camp…”
“We can’no make it.”
“Carry me!”
“No, I can’no,” Bahdlahn yelled at him. “We’d not get halfway. It’s all ice and wind and blinding snow. Twenty strides and I can scarce see the rocks behind me. There’s nowhere to go.”
“Someone knows we’re here,” Aghmor repeated.
“Or someone’s thinking to make this their home.”
“Guard the front cave!”
“I can’no for long. It’s too cold.”
Aghmor spat into the fire and grumbled something undecipherable.
“Are you not wanting the food, then?” Bahdlahn asked, and he moved over and spitted the meat, placing it carefully on the flames.
Aghmor glared at him, but stopped complaining.
Bahdlahn did go back to the front cave often after that, spear in hand, ready to defend this shelter, or to share it, perhaps. And later that same day, he found another present, a dead rabbit, marked with what looked like the talons of a hunting bird.
And more small pieces of wood.
There was another prize the next morning, and the morning after that. On one occasion, he spotted an owl, watching him from a distant branch. On another a white fox watched his every move, even barked at him as he moved back into the cave.
He didn’t understand it, any of it, of course.
But none of the food went uneaten.
16
BODY AND SOUL
There was no place she had ever been that she’d rather be.
For Aoleyn, the music of this cavern, the feel of the divine song vibrating in the air, enchanted her, and more importantly, it made her feel as if she was growing in her understanding of the magic, the notes coming clearer to the point where she could anticipate them and predict them with great accuracy. And she felt as if that, in turn, was allowing her to grow personally, to better understand her place in the world, to better appreciate the bonds between her physical being and her spiritual, magical being.
Every now and then, she put all of her thoughts into the graphite bar set in her anklet, and with a stomp of her foot, released the thrumming energy in the form of a blinding shot of lightning. She had been able to do this for a long time, of course, had even sent her energies across great distances through her connection with Brayth that long-ago day to shoot lightning from his crystalline spear tip.
But nothing like this. Nothing of this power. She could imagine ranks of goblins falling dead under the strength of the strokes she was sending forth now, in this place. She had never imagined the thrill of having such energy coursing through her body, leaping out from her in such brilliant destructive beauty.
Yes, this was the place she wanted to stay forever. She had all the drinking water and food she could want, protection from the winter’s cold, and heated water, too, for relaxing and bathing. From here and through the God Crystal, she could go out into the wider world, possessing owls and foxes and coyotes, even a cloud leopard once (and she hoped it was the one that she had saved from the grip of the demon fossa, but she had not been able to tell). With this freedom and help from the animals, she caught food, or stole food from the Usgar, and delivered it and firewood to Bahdlahn in his snowbound cave.
He seemed to be doing quite well, appeared healthy and content, and indeed, more than once, he had called out thanks to the “spirit of Aoleyn.”
If only he knew the truth!
One day soon, he would, she had determined. One day, as winter let go of Fireach Speuer, she would leave this place and go to him in his cave.
She looked forward to that day very much.
But for now, she was content, she was warm and safe, and she was happy. And even more than that, Aoleyn was intrigued, for even above the greater power she was finding with the gemstones in this place, there resonated something else, some type of magic she had not known before, and so she spent hours each day trying to find the source.
When at last she determined the exact area, on this very level and not many corridor twists from her cavern, she understood why it had taken her so long to properly locate it. This power wasn’t coming from a visible gem, nor, as she was more accustomed to, from a crystal growing out of the floor or wall, as were prevalent in the tunnel complexes higher up. No, this power was within the wall itself, behind the mundane stone.
Aoleyn had no tools with which to mine, of course. But she did have the gray bar of graphite on her anklet.
She feared sending that first lightning bolt into the wall, thinking that she might be despoiling the gift of Usgar in some blasphemous way. But after that blast, where many flecks of stone flew aside and a crack appeared in the wall, Aoleyn felt the strange song more keenly.
It was in there, not too far away.
Again and again, she blasted the wall, until finally she slumped down in exhaustion. Catching her breath, she moved to the wall, and was surprised at how little damage she had actually done.
She ran her hands on the stone, and could feel the power behind it. Somewhere in that wall lay a treasure, she believed, a new and exciting magic. It tantalized her and taunted her because she could not get to it.
Over the next couple of weeks, Aoleyn returned to that spot many times, and even assaulted the wall again with blasts of lightning, to no avail. Thinking that perhaps there was another way to get behind that stone barrier—a secret passage, or one of the many corridors she had not yet explored, she set off more determinedly along these under-chambers of Fireach Speuer, her diamond light shining brightly.
On one such excursion, she found something truly remarkable. She came into a T-intersection, higher up than her cave, she believed, but not so far away. Stepping into that perpendicular passageway, she felt a noticeable increase in the warmth. She turned right and started down, but quickly reversed direction, letting the heat guide her.
The temperature around her rose with every step. Soon, she was sweating, even with the minimal exertion. She nodded, remembering her trial to see if she was capable of joining the Coven. She had been left in these very tunnels, though higher up the mountain maze, and she had found a room of crystals, huge crystals, alive with energy and generating enormous heat.
She called upon the milky white stone set in her ring and brought a translucent shield of white energy about her. She could still feel the warmth of the area, but now, at least, her bare feet weren’t stinging on the too-hot floor.
She went on eagerly, wondering what glorious and divine beauty she would find. Around the next corner, she had her answer, for down another long hallway, there shone a bright orange glow. Aoleyn sprinted ahead, but slowed and moved close to the wall, the glow just beyond, around a sharp corner.
Aoleyn was sweating again, and every breath pained her, despite her serpentine shield. She knew she had to hurry, that this heat would find ways to get through her shield and do her great harm. She poked her head around.
A large chamber lay before her, thick with gigantic crystals of an orange-white gemstone. They reminded her of the God Crystal, and she expected that these contained some of the same powers.
She moved in, quickly, for again, she could feel the warmth under her feet, right through the protective barrier. She glanced around, searching, left and right, looking for something, anything, that she could bring forth from this place to examine. She th
ought to strike at a crystal with a bolt of lightning, but dismissed that notion immediately, for it seemed wrong to her, disrespectful, blasphemous even.
She rushed about, to and fro, feet moving fast to keep them from any prolonged contact with the hot floor, eyes darting all about, searching. She could hear the thrumming in the air, as if the crystals themselves were singing aloud, and she stopped just briefly, to listen.
She heard, too, a tap-tapping sound, off to the side near a wall.
She had to go—her lungs were burning!
But she ran to the wall, and there saw a small tumbling stone in its last bounce into a pile of orange-white stones. She looked up and saw a red-glowing hole in the stone wall. At first, she thought it a red-colored gem, but then realized that it was not, that it was something different. She called upon her moonstone and flew from the ground, battling the overwhelming heat to get nearer.
It was a hole, not quite wide enough for her to crawl through, and she wouldn’t have, anyway, for the redness edging that hole wasn’t coloration. No, the stone itself glowed like the embers of a great bonfire, and the heat here burned at the woman’s eyes. She stayed as long as she could, peering in, trying to discern.
Far down the hole, for it was more a tunnel than a cubby, she saw a distant crystal, like those in the room, but there was no way for her to get to it.
And no way for her to stay here any longer, she realized, when she nearly swooned and almost lost control of her magical flight—and almost grabbed the edge of the hole for support.
She retracted her hand at the last moment, certain that her serpentine shield would protect her from that.
She went down fast to the pile of orange stones at the base of the wall. Using the power of the red gem on her earring, she saw the magic within them, all of them. A quick search guided her to the one shining brightest with magic, and she grabbed it, expecting it to burn her hand.
Reckoning of Fallen Gods Page 26