Reckoning of Fallen Gods

by R. A. Salvatore

  The crystal, the phallic crystal.

  Aoleyn did not feel a sense of sisterhood here, did not see this as a ritual of mutual pleasure, no. For all their energy and apparent pleasure, this was not a celebration of womanhood, no. This dance worshipped the men of the tribe. The men who thought nothing of beating them or spitting upon them. The men who told them what they could or could not do to their own bodies.

  The men who owned them.

  In that manner, perhaps this was a brief moment of freedom, but even in that, there was reverence, not to the female form, but to the men. Always and only, the men.

  She thought of Brayth again, and what he had done to her, and what any Usgar man who had been joined with a witch would do to her, and to what the Usgar men had routinely done to the uamhas women against their will.

  One after another, the witches went to the crystal to worship, to find their orgasm and to credit it, too, wholly to their masters.

  Even the witches, even the Usgar-righinn, even in their most personal moments, in a place where no man was allowed, served.

  Aoleyn focused on Moragh. She could see the young woman missing words in her song, stumbling now and then in her dance. She was scared—of course she was scared. Her time neared.

  Among the notes and subtle words of the song came whispers of encouragement, and even joy from the others in knowing that Moragh was about to become a woman, as well as a witch of their sacred Coven.

  The twelfth woman moved away from the God Crystal, stepped toward Moragh, motioning for her to go forward, to the glowing crystal member.

  Slowly she moved into the soft red light, fighting, Aoleyn could tell.

  Aoleyn was glad that it was not her. The spirit of the evening had flown from her, and she felt this ritual was not what the others apparently believed it to be. It was not freedom with their bodies—surely, Moragh had no freedom here.

  Moragh reached out to feel the thrum of the huge crystal, tentatively so, Aoleyn could tell.

  Twelve witches danced about her, but then a thirteenth joined the ring, and she was not dancing, and her arms were not uplifted.

  Almost bumping into her, the nearest approaching dancer looked at her curiously. The woman’s eyes widened with shock and she fell back and cried out loudly with recognition. Those behind her followed suit, and those across from her, as well. Across from Aoleyn, past the God Crystal, Mairen came forth, eyes wide with shock.

  “Ghost!” she cried. “What deamhan, you?”

  Aoleyn felt her anger rising. She stared hard at Mairen and thought of Innevah, poor, enslaved Innevah, cast into the pit to die by order of the Usgar-righinn. Aoleyn wasn’t even aware of the changes that were then coming over her body, wrought by her cascading emotions.

  She only became aware, in fact, when the witches nearest her cried out again, this time in obvious fear, and shrank away.

  Then Aoleyn knew. Her leopard tattoos were glowing, and it took all of her willpower to stop it there and prevent her arm from transforming.

  “Deamhan!” Mairen cried again, pointing accusingly at her. “And in this sacred place, you dare! Take her!”

  Aoleyn lifted her arms up before her and lifted one foot from the ground. Several witches came at her as if to tackle her. Others ran to the edge of the lea, to their more typical clothing and the crystals they had left there.

  In they came, grabbing at her, leaping at her.

  Aoleyn stamped her foot, throwing forth the magic of the gray bar upon her anklet, sending a ring of lightning power flowing out from her, crackling along the ground, sparking into the nearest attackers, tossing them and sending them to the ground in spasms.

  And the invoking witch, Aoleyn, never even looked at those attackers, her gaze locked with that of Mairen, who stood beside the God Crystal. The lightning energy rolled right up to her, too, and she snarled as it crackled into her bare feet. But the bulk of the energy was already spent and it did not shake her.

  “Ghost!” Mairen accused.

  “Quite alive,” Aoleyn answered. She surveyed those witches to her sides, a few of whom had gathered crystals now, and all of whom were moving behind and beside the Usgar-righinn, though more than a couple walked awkwardly, their muscles not yet fully responding after the lightning attack. “You didn’t kill me, Mairen, though you surely tried.”

  “You were given to Usgar,” Connebragh blurted.

  “He didn’t want me, then,” Aoleyn said with a shrug. “Because he didn’t take me.” She thought of explaining a bit more here, to taunt Mairen with the fact that the spirits of Elara and Seonagh, her mother and her aunt, had caught her in her fall and had saved her. But she held it back. There was no reason to tell this murderer anything.

  “Because here I am,” she stated defiantly, to Connebragh and particularly to Mairen.

  “What warrior has claimed you?” the Usgar-righinn demanded.

  Aoleyn snorted at her. “No man.”

  “You are marked and adorned,” Mairen argued. “What man…”

  “I did it,” Aoleyn admitted.

  “Who gave you such permission?” The Usgar-righinn’s voice rose, the whispers about the circle sounded less confused and more angry.

  “It is my flesh, to mark, to pierce, as I will,” Aoleyn declared. She brought her hand to her navel ring to clutch the gemstones more tightly, reached through them to the crystal, reached through them to her own life energy.

  “You belong to Usgar. You have no right!” Mairen roared.

  “My flesh!” Aoleyn shouted back, and slapped her empty hand against her chest. “Mine!”

  “You have no right!” the Usgar-righinn roared again. “You have no soul!”

  There it was, the damning curse, the worst that could be said to a woman of the tribe, a curse that would wilt the strongest and shame her to a life broken and despairing.

  And yet, in that terrible moment, this young woman Aoleyn found her strength and her heart.

  “I am a soul,” she growled back, as if the voice had come from the most primal place she could find—and indeed, it had.

  Mairen grabbed a crystal from the witch beside her and immediately began to empower it. Aoleyn caught a flash of blue, heard a hint of the song, and even as Mairen launched her attack, a burst of icy sleet falling over and all about her target, Aoleyn called upon her own gemstones, enacting that flame shield to counter the freezing assault.

  “Kill her!” Mairen cried to the others, many lifting crystals and beginning their chants.

  But Aoleyn was ahead of them, and faster on the draw because of her intimate wedstone connection to her magical gems. She brought the moonstone to its most powerful crescendo and reached into her ring simultaneously.

  “You have no soul!” Mairen shouted again.

  “I am a soul,” Aoleyn answered, her voice full of strength and conviction. “I have a body.” The sheer power of her voice brought forth the malachite, and Aoleyn floated up into the air, above the glowing God Crystal, as if proud to be on naked display before them all, her tattoos, her piercings.

  And so she was.

  “You will be…” Mairen started to threaten, but her words disappeared in the flash of a fiery wind, as both the moonstone of Aoleyn’s belly ring and the ruby of her finger ring released their magic, as a great burst, full of wispy, dancing flames, flowed forth from Aoleyn, rushing into Mairen and her dozen witches and throwing them backward, leaves in a gale, tumbling and skidding through the grass. One of the robes on the ground behind them lifted up into that wind and caught fire, fluttering and flaming, and so, too, did the grass ignite in places, flaring to life abruptly and flaming out quickly, wisps of smoke dancing circles on the wind.

  “I am a soul!” Aoleyn said again, accompanying each word with a feral growl. “I have a body.

  “My body!”

  PART 3

  THE UNSTOPPABLE ROLL OF LIGHT

  They are not masks. We thought them masks. The red, red nose, brilliant red, bloody red, with the b
rightest blue beside it. What beauty and elegance have I seen!

  We did not know what to expect when we found these deep graves in the dry desert west of the Wilderlands. We did not know what we had found when we removed the wrappings from the bodies. We believed these barbarian graves, the mortal remains of the tall men who live in the cold north. The bodies were thin. Drained of life fluids, we assumed, as is the practice seen in other parts of the world. But even if thicker in life, these were too thin.

  The sacred stones of Abelle alone revealed to us the truth: these were not barbarians of the north. None like we would know. They were not human, but neither goblin. Neither anything known to us.

  Our surprise was great to find the clues in the songs of Skald Djono’orsen, who traveled west from Vanguard in the days long before the birth of Abelle. His sagas, carried down in barbarian tradition, named this people. Little is known beyond the face coloring. They are tall and lean and stronger than they appear. They are not goblins and not human. They are something different, something lost to the world.

  Once they were mighty, so claim the poems. Once they built the greatest cities in all the lands, greater than the desert cities of Behren.

  They are lost to the world now. I feel a deep sense of regret. I would have enjoyed their golden temples and unusual ways.

  They were the Sidhe, who called themselves Xoconai.

  FIRST DIARY OF THE TOMB OF UNKNOWN ANCIENTS IN THE RUINS OF HERTEMSPAH

  BROTHER GILBERT OF ANNACUTH, GOD’S’YEAR 62

  (UNREAD IN THE CATACOMBS OF ST. MERE ABELLE IN MORE THAN TWO CENTURIES)

  The war is little recorded, but from my investigation, I believe it coincided with the dactyl wars of the 4th century before Abelle. It can be no coincidence, and so I fear these magnificent creatures, the Sidhe, were of the dactyl’s making.

  It is confusing, I must openly admit here, because they did battle, too, with the goblins of the demon dactyl. For those who will peruse my tomes, I humbly submit that you take care in assigning this race to those of the demons. A caveat to caveat, I admit my prejudice here, as every record I can find speaks in awesome terms with regard to the creations of the Sidhe, their beauty, and the grace of their movements, so unlike the goblins.

  In that war of BA4th Century, the Sidhe and the many kingdoms of Honce did furious battle, most particularly in those kingdoms about and west of the Masur Delaval. The demon goblins did furious battle with the many kingdoms of Honce east of Masur Delaval, and warred with the Sidhe west of the westernmost Honce kingdoms. Was it one war, or four? I do not know. I have seen evidence that some of those old Honce kingdoms did battle with each other at the same time.

  The chaos of the demon dactyl did infect the world, so it seems.

  The accounts are all vague, and few remain, but still, I conclude:

  a) The goblins and Sidhe were enemies alone and no alliance between them could I find.

  b) Goblins and the men of Honce did war about the Mantis Arm and from Entel all the way to the city we now call Ursal.

  c) The Sidhe and the men of Honce did battle for the lands about and west of the Masur Delaval. Here, there were battles of three armies—human, Sidhe, goblin—and none seem aligned.

  d) The Sidhe were driven west, beyond the Wilderlands, and there eliminated from the world.

  My conclusions are far from conclusive, I fear, and I will garner no more before I am called to my reward. Perhaps Brother Abelle will speak with me there and tell me the truth of these strange creatures, the Sidhe, the Xoconai. How I long to know!

  But if not, if their secrets remain beyond my ken for eternity, I do not consider my three decades of searching for the truth of them to be a waste. Nay! For as I have learned tiny hints of the Sidhe, I have so, too, learned more of myself, and of my brothers of Abelle, and of the wide world. A life of learning is not to be mourned.

  And so I go, soon I am sure, to explore the greatest mystery of all.

  My heart is full.

  FINAL AND SEVENTEENTH DIARY OF THE TOMB OF UNKNOWN ANCIENTS IN THE RUINS OF HERTEMSPAH

  BROTHER GILBERT OF ANNACUTH, GOD’S’YEAR 93

  (UNREAD IN THE CATACOMBS OF ST. MERE ABELLE IN MORE THAN TWO CENTURIES)

  17

  THE TRUST IN AOLEYN

  Aoleyn felt the cool air against her body, against her fur, and it was glorious.

  The cold snowy patches of ground she traversed did not sting her feet, because they were not her feet. Not as she had known them, at least.

  Leaving the sacred lea while the witches were all tumbled and disoriented from her powerful blast, Aoleyn had grabbed up a pile of clothing one of the witches had set outside the perimeter of their dance. She had taken, too, as many of the sacred crystals as she could manage, turning the clothes into a large pack before running off. Her magic had led her, leaping from a cliff, using the malachite to drift down slowly, far to the north and east of the Usgar.

  She had no plan, except to get away—and to not lead any pursuit anywhere in the direction of Bahdlahn, of course.

  She thought of flying with her moonstone, but feared such an obvious display of magic. She did it for a bit, just to get further afield of any who might be chasing her, to show no tracks.

  But then another thought had occurred to her. Instead of using the gems directly, which she feared Mairen might detect, Aoleyn had called upon something more intimate.

  She had fallen into the music of her tattoo, but not to turn her arm into the paw of a great cat, no. Instead, she had focused her thoughts lower, and her wince carried, too, a smile of satisfaction and wonderment as her legs had transformed.

  Now she ran easily about the snow, powerful hind legs, leopard legs, propelling her along. At first, it had been awkward, but Aoleyn had gradually come to realign her balance appropriately for these new, stronger and swifter legs. And there was, too, a teasing desire to fall ever deeper into the magic, to fully transform into the cloud leopard.

  Caution had held her back, both because of her horror that she would become as the fossa, her belief that perhaps she couldn’t bring forth the magic to that extent, and most of all, her very real fear that the bone-altering twisting and crunching of such a transformation would kill her.

  Now her gait was easy and swift, and her tracks were not those of a fleeing heretic witch, surely. She ran down and around the side of Fireach Speuer, crossing to the west far below the Usgar encampment. She looked back up the mountain as she did, to where the glow of the bonfire at the winter plateau lit the sky. Somewhere up there was Mairen, wounded, defeated. Aoleyn remembered the look on the Usgar-righinn’s face, one of abject shock, when the searing wind had swept over her and the others, tossing them back across the grass to tumble into and about the pines.

  Aoleyn took great satisfaction in the recollection. She had shown them, all of them. But she also knew that she had awakened a great enemy, and the Usgar were neither a forgiving nor merciful bunch.

  Strangely, though, Aoleyn did not care. “I will show to you the truth,” she whispered repeatedly, convincing herself that she would find some way to transform the Usgar, to reform the Usgar. Those who stood in her way, like Tay Aillig and Mairen, she decided, would learn a more forceful lesson than she had taught to the witches this night.

  She picked her way across and then back up, moving gracefully, carefully, feeling the hum of the magic flowing through her.

  Maintaining the magic was taking a toll on her, though, and she knew it could not hold.

  She needed to find shelter, and soon.

  Fortunately, she knew right where to go. She had flown there, in the borrowed form of an owl, a score of times already. She had traveled up these same trails in the borrowed body of a fox, and so she found her way well enough even as the night grew dark about her, for the cat’s eye gem on her turquoise ear cuff gave her that marvelous vision. As the moon reached its zenith, she came over the last ridge, and saw the cave entrance below, mostly hidden by a piled snowdrift.

&
nbsp; She slipped into the cave silently on padded paws and noted the two forms lying among some piled skins and woven blankets, which confused her. Had Bahdlahn taken a mate? Had he found a friend? Another uamhas escaping?

  She moved closer, trying to sort out which might be Bahdlahn.

  One of the mounds of furs stirred, the man under it rolling about to lift his head, sensing another presence, it seemed. He let out a cry and scrambled, tossing aside furs.

  Aoleyn backed away, recognizing the voice of Aghmor.

  Beside the man, the other form stirred, and the first, Aghmor, came clear of his bedding, awkwardly shifting to one knee, lifting a spear before him.

  “Where is Bahdlahn?” Aoleyn demanded.

  “What? Who?” Aghmor stuttered in reply. “Who are you?”

  “Aoleyn?” Bahdlahn cried out, for it was indeed Bahdlahn under the other pile of furs. He moved immediately to throw some wood on the fire, which flared to life, and with that distraction, Aoleyn dismissed her leopard magic, grimacing and stifling her growls of pain as her legs transformed back into those of a human woman.

  “It can’no be,” Aghmor breathed, lowering the spear.

  Bahdlahn started for her, but Aghmor threw out his arm to hold the man back. “She’s a ghost!”

  Aoleyn giggled. “Hardly,” she said.

  “We saw you thrown into the chasm,” Aghmor protested, but as he spoke, Bahdlahn burst through his blocking arm and rushed across the cave to fly against Aoleyn with a great bear hug.

  “Aoleyn! Aoleyn! Aoleyn!” he said repeatedly, tugging her back and forth, lifting her right off the ground in his strong arms, and he began to sob with joy.

  Aoleyn looked over his shoulder to Aghmor, who sat there shaking his head. She offered a smile.

  “How is it possible?” Aghmor asked. “We saw them drop you into the chasm.”

  “The place is filled with magic,” Aoleyn lied, as she wasn’t about to tell them about actual ghosts catching her. “I heard the song of Usgar, and found within its notes the magic to slow my fall. I was hurt, but, well…” As Bahdlahn let her go, she stepped back and held her arms out wide, showing them that she was whole and alive.