“Aoleyn … Aoleyn!”
She heard the call, but from far away, dulled by the blood pounding in her feline ears. Only then did the young witch realize that she was on the ground, that the being had disintegrated under her vicious rending. She spun around, taking in the scene, first noting a group of witches huddled together by the opening in the trees. Through that opening, too, she saw Brother Thaddius. Then, further around, Connebragh, who was calling to her, along with the two uamhas.
The leopard continued her turn, seeing the God Crystal and another group of witches, huddled on the ground at the far end of the lea behind it. She continued the turn to spy Mairen, gawking at her, on her knees. Aoleyn finally completed the turn to discover a pair of unexpected guests arriving at the sacred meadow.
Aoleyn instinctively leaped back to the God Crystal, and again she heard the tempting call, the promises that she could become so very powerful, that she could make of the world that which she wished.
In her head, the last epiphany of Scathmizzane echoed.
The notes of the tingling crystal sounded even more strongly when Aoleyn looked back to where Scathmizzane had been and viewed the newcomers, a xoconai man and woman astride their collared lizards.
The leopard curled her lip and snarled. Aoleyn could smell them, their blood, their trepidation.
“Kill them!” she heard from ahead and to the left, and she saw Mairen stumbling toward her—nay, toward the God Crystal.
Aoleyn didn’t consciously register why, but she instinctively realized that she had to keep the powerful witch away. She hunched her hind legs, stared at the approaching woman, and gave a threatening growl.
“Kill them!” Mairen told her. “What are you waiting for?”
It was so tempting! Aoleyn’s heightened primal instincts smelled the blood and the fear. She could do it so easily.
She fought the urge. She reminded herself of who she was, repeatedly calling to herself, interrupting the song of her powerful tattoo.
She felt her bones begin to crack, felt her flesh twisting and turning and tearing. One front paw became a hand once more, then the second. Her legs transformed.
Then she was kneeling on the grass beside the God Crystal, naked and trembling. She looked up, first to scowl at Mairen and warn her away and then to focus on the newcomers, her expression similarly threatening.
She came up to her knees, then shakily gained her feet.
Brother Thaddius ran up beside her and threw a robe over her shoulders, though Aoleyn hardly cared for her nakedness. There was no sense of vulnerability within the young witch at that moment, unless it was the weight of Scathmizzane’s last epiphany.
“Aydrian,” Thaddius said solemnly, and the woman didn’t need to glance back at the winter plateau to remember the horrible scene of the dead Aydrian in the dragon’s clamped maw.
“Be gone from this place,” Aoleyn warned the xoconai pair.
Both held up their empty hands unthreateningly.
“You saw that?” Aoleyn demanded in the xoconai language. “The death of your god?”
“And heard, every word,” the woman xoconai assured her.
“Kill them!” Mairen insisted. “The crystal is ours. I can feel its power. Kill them and destroy the sidhe city. Burn them from the mountain!”
“No!” Aoleyn shouted. “Do you not understand?”
“I feel the power,” Mairen insisted. “That is what I understand.”
“As do I. But do you not recognize where that power comes from? Do you not hear the silent screams of the souls trapped below?”
“What do you mean?” asked the xoconai woman, and only then, with the rhythm of the strange words coming from the mouth of this strange-looking humanoid, did Aoleyn realize that Mairen, too, had been speaking in the tongue of the xoconai, and perfectly.
“I speak of the lie of your god,” Aoleyn told her. “Your Glorious Gold. He trapped the souls of the dead—human and xoconai—and from those souls, and through this crystal, did he draw the power to cut the cliff out from under the priests’ fortress far in the east. Through those trapped souls do your divine throwers launch their stones, sucking the life energy, changing it to raw and destructive magic.”
“It will be worth it to rid the world of sidhe,” Mairen insisted.
“Mairen,” Aoleyn said to her, calmly. “The souls … gone into nothingness. Eternal oblivion.”
Aoleyn took note of the expressions on the faces of the xoconai. The woman appeared to be quite horrified; the man nodded.
“Your god is destroyed,” Aoleyn told them. “The dragon is dead. The great pyramid below lies in ruin.”
Then the woman, too, nodded.
“This is Tuolonatl,” said the man, dismounting and stepping forward just a bit. “The cochcal of Tonoloya. She who leads the xoconai mundunugu and macana. She is a great warrior.”
“Leads?” Mairen asked, her voice full of suspicion and judgment. To the side, Aoleyn translated to Thaddius.
“Then she would make a worthwhile prisoner,” Thaddius said to Aoleyn, and he grasped his staff set with empowered gemstones.
“A better ally,” the xoconai man unexpectedly answered—and, even more unexpectedly, he said this in the language of Honce, spoken naturally.
“Ally?” Aoleyn asked him. “You think we would trust her? Trust you?”
Thaddius looked to Aoleyn, then to the others about the lea. “Take them, now.”
Aoleyn stared at the two xoconai for a few moments longer, then gradually began to nod her head.
“Do not,” the xoconai man warned. “Do not fill this moment with blood. There is good to be found—”
“Good?” Thaddius yelled at him, and he presented his staff before him, the shaft suddenly sparkling with arcs of budding lightning.
“That is my spear in the eye of Kithkukulikhan!” the man shouted, stepping forward and pointing toward the dead dragon. “A spear thrown before the beast had died. A spear thrown in support of Aydrian. I am Ataquixt of Tonoloya and I threw my spear in support of Aydrian, against the mount of the xoconai god.”
His naming of Aydrian gave Aoleyn sudden pause and rocked Thaddius back on his heels. How could this strange-looking being know anything about Aydrian?
“Do not let his gallant death be in vain,” Ataquixt continued. “You think us enemies, and rightly so, but it needn’t be. Not now. No more. Scathmizzane is gone, Kithkukulikhan is dead, the temple is destroyed—may High Priest Pixquicauh lie buried beneath the rubble.”
The woman beside him slapped him on the arm, then, and demanded that he explain more clearly to her, for it seemed to Aoleyn that she was not fully comprehending the conversation in the language of Honce.
A moment later, she nodded and turned back to Aoleyn.
Ataquixt glanced about behind him. “There are likely thousands of xoconai warriors now climbing the slopes of Tzatzini,” he said. “Now is the time to speak, and that time is short. Let not this moment end in blood, I beg.”
“Let them come,” said Mairen. “We will lay waste to them, and then to the city below…”
“Mairen!” Aoleyn yelled, silencing her. Then, to the xoconai, she added, “What is there to say? If your warriors attack, we will fight them, and many will die.”
“You would use the crystal even after what you just claimed?” Tuolonatl asked. She took a step closer to Aoleyn.
“I do not need the power of the souls trapped within it,” Aoleyn replied. She turned about and swept her arm to include the others, the witches standing up at her summons and moving toward her. “We do not need it. If your warriors come, they will find fire, ice, and lightning.”
“From the crystal?”
Aoleyn stomped her foot, and a burst of wind struck Tuolonatl, strong enough to drive her back a step.
“No,” Aoleyn answered evenly.
“It should not be used, ever again,” Tuolonatl said. “It is an abomination.”
“You only speak so because we c
ontrol it now,” said Mairen.
“Would you use it, then?” Tuolonatl asked Mairen.
Mairen started to answer in the affirmative, but Tuolonatl pressed her. “Would you, truly?”
“Mairen?” Aoleyn added.
The older witch stuttered and seemed smaller suddenly, as if the weight of all of this had suddenly descended upon her.
“What did he do to us?” she asked, looking about at her sisters of the Coven.
Mairen began to sob, as did the others, and they rushed together and hugged, needing the strength.
“What did he do to us?” Mairen yelled, coming forward from that hug a moment later.
“He possessed you and dominated you,” Aoleyn said. “He tried to take everything from you. But you survived, Mairen. You found your way back.”
“You showed them the way back,” Connebragh said to Aoleyn.
Aoleyn and Mairen shared a long look then, Aoleyn seeing sincere gratitude there, among a bevy of other twisting and conflicting emotions. She understood. She knew what Scathmizzane had done to these poor women for all these months. Aoleyn thought of her own experiences with Brayth, her husband, on that last day of the man’s life. He had violated her physically, and oh, she had been glad indeed when he had been killed by the fossa—so glad, in fact, that she had frightened herself, never imagining that she could be so elated about anyone’s death.
Mairen felt that way now, as did the others who had been so horribly dominated, she knew.
“It wasn’t them, Mairen,” Aoleyn said, noting the two xoconai. “It was the god who deceived them, as the demon fossa so held the Usgar for so many years.”
Mairen walked over to stand directly before Aoleyn. She looked past the young witch to the God Crystal.
“I feel its power,” she said quietly. “Power that would cleanse the mountain of the vile sidhe.”
“Your words are echoed by the xoconai when they speak of the humans,” Ataquixt interrupted.
“Then the war must have a victor,” Mairen quickly countered.
“Is that the doom that Scathmizzane set for us all, then?” Ataquixt went on. “Endless war and misery?”
“You speak for the xoconai?” Aoleyn asked.
The man shook his head and deferred to Tuolonatl, who nodded to Aoleyn. “I speak for many,” she confirmed. “They will hear me.” She glanced back through the opening in the pines, to the chasm far below and the still-glowing rubble of the destroyed pyramid. “And they will hear me more clearly now, if Ataquixt is correct and Pixquicauh, high priest of Tonoloya, lies dead beneath the rubble of the temple, as I believe.”
“Then get the warriors off the mountain and keep them off the mountain,” said Aoleyn.
“I want it back!” Mairen said then.
“What do you mean?” Tuolonatl asked.
“Usgar,” said Mairen. “This is the home of the Usgar. I will have it back.”
“This meadow?”
“The meadow, the plateau, the mountain,” Mairen demanded. “It is for Usgar. It is ours. You do not belong here.”
“The city below is Otontotomi, ancient heart of the xoconai nation of Tonoloya,” Ataquixt replied. “It was never the domain of humans, even when the lakemen sailed the waters above it, oblivious to its presence. Perhaps there is common ground to be found here.” He looked to Tuolonatl and they shared a nod.
“A truce?” Tuolonatl asked, turning back to Mairen and Aoleyn. “A truce here between xoconai and human?”
“Do you have a choice?” Mairen growled at her.
Tuolonatl shrugged. “There is always a choice. I can bring fifty thousand mundunugu and macana here to do battle. They can assail you day and night without end. You will tire. You cannot win.”
“But you won’t win, either,” Aoleyn said in a leading tone.
Tuolonatl agreed. “The only possible outcome would be a tragedy on top of the tragedy.”
“There are humans in the city below?” Aoleyn asked.
“Thousands,” said Connebragh, before the xoconai could answer.
“Your slaves?”
“No more,” Tuolonatl agreed. “No more our prisoners. If we agree to peace here, they will be freed. To come up here, if they choose, or to live among us in Otontotomi, the city below.”
“Uamhas?” Mairen asked, and she didn’t seem thrilled at that idea.
“Usgar?” came a voice from the side, from the lakeman Asba. “You are a handful of women and no more. Would you deny us still?”
Aoleyn looked to the older witch standing before her. “Mairen,” she said quietly. “Now is our time. Now is your time. You are Usgar-righinn, but of a tribe that is no more. I hold no claim here. The choices are yours, but I advise you to consider the offer.”
Aoleyn stepped out of the way as she spoke, clearing Mairen’s path to the God Crystal. “And I accept your judgment here. I would not do this, I would not allow you the power within that crystal, if I thought you would choose wrongly. You can destroy many with the crystal, perhaps even the city below, but in doing so, you will condemn—”
“No,” said Mairen, stepping to the crystal and putting her hand upon it. She shook her head, tears streaming down her face. “I know what he did.” She turned sharply on the xoconai pair and shouted at them, “I know what your foul Glorious Gold did!”
Tuolonatl nodded.
“The souls. The horror. What will happen if we free them all?” Mairen asked Aoleyn. “Will our magic be gone?”
“I don’t know,” Aoleyn answered honestly.
“Then we will be doomed,” said Mairen, again turning a scowl upon the two xoconai.
“No,” Tuolonatl declared. “No, I have promised a truce here and I will hold to that, no matter the outcome.”
“What would you do?” Aoleyn asked her.
“Can you free them?”
Aoleyn shrugged, unsure.
“If I held the crystal and it were within my power, I would free the souls,” Tuolonatl replied. “Even at the cost of my own life.”
“She would,” said Ataquixt. “And Tuolonatl will hold to her word, as well.”
“The mountain is mine,” Mairen said to Tuolonatl. “I will rebuild the Usgar, here in this place.”
“Winter fast approaches,” Tuolonatl reminded.
“The God Crystal will keep us warm,” Mairen said, but her voice was weak with the claim, and she looked to Aoleyn and then to the crystal.
Aoleyn, too, wondered what would happen if they released the souls. Would that be the end of magic? The end of the magic of her precious jewelry? The end of the magic that sustained the winter plateau? For no one could survive up here in the winter without the warmth of the God Crystal.
“If the power of the crystal falters fully, Otontotomi will welcome you through the winter months,” Tuolonatl promised. “All of you. As equal citizens or valued guests. This, I promise.”
Her words hung in the morning breeze for a long while.
“Do it,” Mairen decided, looking to Aoleyn. “Do it.”
Aoleyn nodded, but she wasn’t even sure how she might accomplish the task. She turned to Brother Thaddius.
“How?”
The monk seemed at a loss, obviously so. He stammered for an answer for a moment, then pulled a large gem from his pouch. “Sunstone,” he explained. “It steals the magic of other gems while it is enacted.”
He handed it to Aoleyn.
The woman focused on it for a few heartbeats, closing her eyes, hearing the song—a most discordant and grumbling song! She opened her eyes and looked to Mairen.
“Do it,” Mairen said again.
Aoleyn took a deep breath and closed her eyes again. She fell into the sunstone, coaxing its song to a powerful crescendo, then placed her hand upon the God Crystal.
The teeming power of the slanted obelisk nearly overwhelmed her and seemed to growl in opposition to the discordant notes of the sunstone. Aoleyn nearly faltered, but then found her heart and pressed on, counterin
g the song of the God Crystal, blanking its every note with an opposite chime of antimagic.
But no, she was driven back.
“Dance,” she said to Mairen, holding out a hand.
Mairen called the witches of the Coven to her side, to join hands and form a circle around the God Crystal, around Aoleyn. As one, they started to dance, turning their circles within circles, lifting their voices in song, sung in the language of Usgar and the harmony of Usgar.
Aoleyn caught the waves of energy of that building spell and channeled it through herself, through the sunstone Thaddius had given her, determinedly placing her hand back upon the crystal obelisk. Then she called upon her wedstone, moving her spirit out from her body, taking the chance.
Through the crystal she went, through its veins, to the pool room below that had, at one dark time, served as her sanctuary. She felt the spirits there, hundreds and hundreds, and called to them and bade them to fly free, though she knew not what that meant.
Then she saw Aydrian. Aydrian! He came to her, and she felt his serenity, his acceptance of his fate, and his approval. He understood, and he who had once been possessed by a demonic being, who had once done great ill to the world because of that possession, approved.
The spirit of Aydrian led her now, showed her the way, the escape, and with the rising power of the Coven joined, the song of Scathmizzane was cleared from the God Crystal.
The struggle was not ended, though. It went on and on, like a great puzzle to Aoleyn. She hunted for the notes of the evil god and cancelled them, quieted them. Back she walked, through the crystal once more, as if cutting a trail for the dead to follow.
She was quick to her corporeal form.
A gasp, then a series of cries from around her nearly broke her concentration.
She opened one eye and perused the sacred lea. The witches danced and twirled, but she saw their sudden unease. She noted Thaddius and the two uamhas, ducking and covering, gasping and crying. She turned enough to see the xoconai pair. Tuolonatl was on her knees, seemingly in prayer, though for herself or for the dead—aye, the dead, for they were surely all about!—Aoleyn could not tell.
Standing beside the woman, the xoconai man stood perfectly straight, his arms uplifted, his eyes closed, singing. Aoleyn heard his song but didn’t know the language, for it was not of Honce, not of the plateau, not of the xoconai.
Song of the Risen God Page 43