Child of a Dead God

CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

Magiere explored the castle's near reaches with Leesil and Chap, while Wynn tended to Sgaile and Osha in the library. They had all agreed to wait out the night and return to camp after dawn, but their efforts quickly became pointless.

They found no beds, blankets, kitchens, or sculleries. Either no furnishings had been brought to fill this place, or they had long ago decayed and been cleared away. They gave up and returned to the library, finding Osha awake.

As they entered, Wynn went still for a moment as if listening. "Since you did not find anything, Chap says we should move to the study that he and I first occupied. Though small, there is a heat source there."

Magiere nodded and heaved up the orb. "All right."

Sgaile and Leesil supported Osha as Chap led them through the varied passages to a tiny room. Neither Chap nor Wynn understood anything about the floor brazier filled with glowing fist-sized crystals, but Magiere didn't care. Without fuel for a fire or a place to burn it, any heat was welcome. The castle had grown colder as the night stretched on, and they had all slept in worse places.

Then again…

Not with madness written upon walls in an undead's fluids. Not with an ancient undead, perhaps impossible to kill, locked in the depths beneath them.

Doubts nibbled at Magiere. More so as she set the orb with its deceptive spike in the study's back corner. Still far too close for her peace of mind.

"Will Osha be all right?" she asked.

"I believe so," Wynn answered. "And Chap's neck appears to be healing."

Magiere ran her hand over the dog's head. She hadn't forgotten Chap's claim that he'd sensed a Fay in the cavern. It was harder to dismiss than Leesil's claim from half-shadows glimpsed within the orb's glare. Then again, she'd seen coils in her dreams.

"Sgaile's wound is the worst," Leesil said. "He may have chipped his collarbone, but I dressed it as well as I can."

"At least we're all alive," Magiere said, but didn't add for now.

Whatever had led her here and toyed with Li'kan-and by whatever name anyone called it-their three separate perceptions of what had come to the cavern didn't match up.

Undead. Fay. Dragon.

Magiere didn't want to know the answer to that puzzle. She didn't like thinking that the voice Chap had heard in Li'kan's mind was the same one in her own dreams. And when she looked at the orb in the corner, she didn't even want to stay in this room.

In another life, another time, could she have been just like Li'kan?

"I need privacy," she muttered. With her dagger and falchion, she shoveled in the floor brazier, pincered a glowing crystal between the blades, and headed for the door. She paused there, looking to Leesil.

"Are you coming?" she asked.

He picked up their coats to follow.

"Stay within calling distance," Sgaile advised.

Magiere headed for the closest opening along the corridor's wall. The door was long gone, and she stepped into a bare room, dropping the hot crystal in the rear corner. Leesil laid out one coat near it and began stripping off his hauberk. Magiere considered stopping him.

She didn't want him dropping his guard in this place. But by the time she finished second-guessing, he'd already slumped tiredly against the wall and reached out for her.

Magiere knelt down and collapsed against his chest. Leesil pulled the other coat over both of them as she shivered, but not from the cold.

Many pieces of an ancient mystery had been unearthed in the last half year. The few that made any sense suggested that this "night voice"- il'Samar-had planned her birth. Welstiel hadn't seemed to know even that much, and certainly not that she'd been made to master a horde of undead and serve as general for the return of an ancient enemy.

But it didn't matter. She wouldn't be pushed onto any path but the one she chose.

And as to the rest, all the fragments of the Forgotten they'd stumbled onto, which Wynn's sages so desperately wanted…

"I know what I saw," Leesil whispered. "Maybe it wasn't real. I mean, wasn't really there… but I couldn't have come up with that out of pure fancy."

Magiere tilted her face up. "I believe you, but something isn't right, especially about Chap's claim."

"I'm sick of it all," he whispered and closed his arms tightly around her.

Magiere closed her eyes and just listened to Leesil's slow sigh, feeling his chest rise and fall beneath her cheek.

Leesil was a different story. His birth and training had been planned by dissidents among the Anmaglahk, so that he might fight this coming "enemy" that Most Aged Father feared. Even the an'Croan ancestor spirits had tried to enforce his destiny.

Unlike her, Leesil refused to even talk about it-but denial wouldn't help.

No one could avoid something they wouldn't acknowledge. That was no better than raising one's eyes to the sky and denying that a chasm lay but a few steps ahead in the path. Leesil had to recognize the forced destiny that others were trying to press on him. If not, it might take him anyway in his blindness. At some point, Magiere had to make him see this, if they were to have any chance at all in going their own way.

But for tonight, he'd been through enough-they all had.

The room was empty but for a high window barely within reach of the hot crystal's glow. The light of Leesil's amulet had faded the moment they barred the library doors to the tunnel. Li'kan's shadow animals never reappeared, as if their presence depended upon hers, or upon the white undead's awareness and focus.

Magiere wondered if some unnatural barrier existed between castle and cavern. How else could this place remain so cold resting above that misty chasm of heat?

How long had it been since she and Leesil had had a moment alone?

"I've been thinking," he said suddenly.

She tilted her head back. "About what?"

"Once we get home, we might add Wynn's herb and lentil stew to the menu… maybe her flatbread to serve with the fish chowder. We'll have to move the Faro table closer to the hearth by next autumn. It's too cold by the front window-"

"What?" Magiere grouched, playing along. "We're not blocking half the patrons from getting near the fire."

"They can sit down and play a hand," he countered. "How else am I going to earn any winnings come winter?"

Magiere closed her eyes, listening to him prattle and imagining home and hearth on nights where the most vexing question was what to offer patrons for dinner and why the latest ale shipment was late. She slipped an arm behind Leesil's waist beneath their cloaks.

The headless bodies of undead still lay in the stairway chamber. Below them in the depths, that ancient white thing still waited, though imprisoned in solitude. And its master had somehow wormed into Magiere's dreams.

But all Leesil wanted was to hold her and talk of their tavern-their home-as if nothing had happened at all.

And she let him.

Wynn finished checking Sgaile's dressing, though he grew impatient with her ministrations. The wound was clean, but she still suspected Welstiel's blade had chipped his collarbone.

"No lasting muscle damage… I would guess," she said, "but it will take some time to heal."

Osha leaned against the wall. She had cut off the hem of her elven tunic and used it to bandage his head, but she could do nothing for his pain. At least he was awake and alert, and this was a good sign. Chap's neck was healing, though she worried about infection, considering he had been deeply bitten by two walking corpses.

Sgaile looked directly into Wynn's face.

"I thank you," he said.

She rocked back from knees to her heels and sighed. "I wish I had salve. If we were back at the guild, I could make a poultice against infection."

Sgaile shook his head. "Do not be concerned. It is a clean wound."

She expected a harsh reprimand for running off and getting lost in the night, but Sgaile leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. Perhaps he was just too tired to bother.

Wynn got up and went to the doorway, peering along the dark hallway. A low orange glow spilled from the next doorway ten paces away. She glanced back to Osha.

"You rest," she told him. "I want to check on Magiere and Leesil."

He started to get up. "You cannot go alone."

Strangely, Sgaile did not even stir. Wynn went to push Osha back down. He did not resist but began to argue again.

"Wynn-"

"Chap will come with me-now rest!"

By the time she reached the door, her stomach rolled slightly.

We should leave Magiere and Leesil in peace.

She looked down to find Chap on her heels. "I know."

Where do you think you are going?

Wynn sighed in exasperation. "I cannot leave here without more answers."

She pulled out her cold lamp crystal, rubbed it sharply, and headed off the other way along the corridor. Chap trotted out ahead and stopped in her way.

"Do not tell me you have not thought the same," she whispered. "We cannot leave without knowing what might lie within reach in the library! Who else here, besides me, could find anything of importance in that place?"

Chap's jowls wrinkled, but he finally turned about and headed down the corridor.

We cannot spend all night searching… and you cannot carry much more when we leave, so be judicious in your choices.

"Domin Tilswith would never forgive me if I did not try to bring some of it back."

With what? You do not have your pack, and I doubt the others will want to return here again before we leave these mountains.

"We are not the only ones who came," she answered, "and others brought packs and gear as well."

Chap slowed but did not stop as he glanced back at her with narrowed eyes. By the time they reached the stairway chamber, Wynn knew he was fully aware of what she had in mind.

Black ichors covered the floor around four headless bodies. On their way to the study, Leesil and Sgaile had tossed the heads off down the columned corridor, thinking it best to separate the heads from the bodies. They had no lamp oil with which to cremate the corpses.

Wynn swallowed hard.

Well… get on with it.

She shot Chap a seething glare and swallowed again.

Wynn hooked her boot under the headless corpse of a small woman. The body was so heavy that she struggled to roll it over. A crude, half-flattened fold of canvas was strapped to the corpse's back with lengths of rope. She set aside her crystal as she knelt and pulled Magiere's old dagger.

She cut the canvas free, preserving as much rope as possible. Black fluids oozed from the stump of the woman's neck when she jostled the body. Wynn turned her eyes away, but her gaze fixed upon the dark robe and blue tabard. She tried not to imagine what had happened to these people when Welstiel and Chane first found them.

Wynn pulled cut rope from under the corpse, and oily black fluids smeared over her fingers. Her stomach rolled.

Finish up!

Bile and dried fish welled in Wynn's throat.

"Be quiet!" she gasped and then gagged. "This is bad enough without you in my head, making it worse!"

Chap grumbled and traipsed to another body, clawing it over onto its chest. He tore at its rope harness, trying to pull more canvas free. Wynn closed her eyes but still shuddered as she wiped off her hands on the body's robe.

When her eyes opened again, Chap stood before her with a mouthful of canvas. He turned away for the far passage in the chamber's corner. Wynn grabbed the crystal, rope, and canvas, and scurried after him. As they stepped out into the library, the crystal's light spilled over the ends of the tall stone casements.

Chap dropped his canvas by the corridor's arch, as did Wynn. But when she stepped between the nearest shelves, she could not help a shiver of thrilled anticipation. She and Chap were alone and unobserved in a place that would have taken years-or decades-for her guild to catalogue. But her awe passed quickly when she remembered how all this knowledge had come to be here.

She was surrounded by decaying texts penned by ancient undeads, like Li'kan.

Chap lifted his muzzle, turning as he scanned the upper shelves.

Wynn felt overwhelmed by the task she faced. There was so much here, and this was only one row among many, so how could she choose what was most important to take? Her stomach rolled again.

Look first for languages you can read. Second for those you at least recognize. Focus mainly on the books. Bound texts will be older, made with materials that later grew scarce.

"Yes," she said, nodding. "But books will be the weakest, worn down with time. Pages might fall apart if touched-unlike the scrolls that have been protected by their cases."

This thought raised uncertainty. All this should have been done by her betters-the most skilled of cathologers among her guild. She was barely a journeyer, let alone a master or domin among that order of sages. But she was the only one here.

And if you spot any mention of "night voice" in any language, take that text over any others… and those of tongues that appear to predate our current era, even if you cannot read them. Translation might be possible when-

"Could you make this any more daunting?" Wynn asked.

Chap glanced up at her. Sorry.

She followed him deeper into the row as they both peered among scroll cases, books, sheaves, and even small boxes by the light of her crystal.

And so, while Magiere, Leesil, Sgaile, and Osha rested unaware, Wynn hurried in her search, scanning for anything that hinted at secrets of a lost past.

Anything that might unlock the mystery of events that had shattered the world so long ago.

Magiere stood on the castle's front steps at dawn with large snowflakes drifting down from a white sky.

They had fashioned a makeshift hammock for the orb with cut-up canvas and rope, and scavenged leather as well from the baggage of a robed undead. With the latter, they rolled up two heated crystals from the floor brazier. Though the leather smoldered and smoked a bit, at least they needn't worry about dried dung for fires.

Wynn looked bleary-eyed and exhausted as she dragged out two canvas-wrapped bulks too heavy for her to lift.

Magiere turned a suspicious glance toward Chap, and the dog quickly looked away. It wasn't hard to guess what the two had been up to while the rest of them slept. Still, what else could she expect?

The library contained so much more than Wynn's selected burden. Who else might ever find this castle again, anytime soon? Perhaps what the sage had gathered would uncover something worthwhile.

Magiere looked out across the white courtyard to the iron gates. One still stood ajar where she'd left it. The prospect of another journey weighed her down, but it was better than staying here even one more day.

She and Leesil had whispered far into the night, turning from hopes for the future to planning their route home. They had no maps, but as long as they traveled due west, they should emerge somewhere over the Everfen, the vast swamplands south of Droevinka. From there, they could head northwest toward the coast, skirting the swampland's northern edge.

Leesil thought if they stayed along Droevinka's southern border, they could pass into southern Belaski without hindrance, but Magiere had her doubts. If Droevinka's noble houses were still warring over who would put their own on the throne of the Grand Prince, no corner of her homeland was safe. Outsiders might be cut down by any side as a potential threat-or just for convenience.

And though desperate for word of Aunt Bieja, Magiere knew her home village of Chemestuk was too far off any sure path.

Leesil had left Bieja money and a letter in the hope that she'd head for Miiska. Aunt Bieja was as stubborn as any woman in Magiere's line, but she was no fool.

Magiere sighed, tired of worrying. Once they reached Miiska, Wynn could send word to Domin Tilswith in Bela, and Magiere would find some way to track Bieja, if her aunt wasn't waiting there. Then they could all rest in peace while deciding how best to safely deliver the orb in the hands of the Guild of Sagecraft.

The wind picked up and snowflakes began to slant in their downward course.

"Another blizzard brewing," Leesil muttered.

"Yes," Sgaile agreed. "We must move quickly and reach camp."

The two crouched, and each pulled one of the orb's hammock loops over his shoulder. Leesil also grabbed the rope sling holding the leather-wrapped fire crystals.

"Wynn, put your hood up," Magiere said as she turned about to heave up one of the sage's bulky bundles.

Wynn scowled but did as she was told, then suddenly slipped back through the castle's cracked doors.

"What are you doing?" Magiere called.

Wynn emerged once again, stumbling awkwardly under the weight of a sheaf bound between mottled iron sheets. Magiere remembered it sitting on the study floor.

"Enough!" she said. "You can't bring every parchment in the place."

"This must come!" Wynn insisted. "It may be a journal… written by the others who were once here with Li'kan."

Magiere didn't care for that idea and wondered what had happened to those others. Why had they left Li'kan behind? And how had they managed to leave at all, when the white undead had remained leashed by her hidden master through the centuries?

"Oh, give it to me," Magiere grumbled, taking the iron sheaf.

She almost dropped the sudden weight, and Wynn gasped. Magiere managed to tuck it safely under one arm.

Osha heaved up Wynn's other bundle from the library. The young elf managed well for one who'd taken an iron bar to the head. He frowned and spoke softly in Elvish to Sgaile.

"I know," Sgaile answered.

"They have rites to perform," Wynn explained, "for the caste members that Li'kan killed."

Leesil frowned, glancing sidelong at her. "To camp first… then we'll see how bad the weather gets."

Sgaile looked beyond the gates to the open plateau. "Yes, our purpose comes first."

Magiere headed down the steps and through the crusted snow toward the iron gates.

Hkuan'duv could barely breathe by the time he heard voices. He and Danvarfij had sat vigils before in bad weather. But the thin air in temperatures well below freezing left him stiff, even with his training in controlling and conserving body heat. Snow was falling again, and the wind had picked up. He had difficulty moving his arms and legs as he crawled away from the wall for a better view of the gates.

"Sgailsheilleache and Osha."

Hkuan'duv glanced back at Danvarfij's whisper. Her face and lips were so pale. When he turned forward, someone stepped through the gates, and he flattened in the snow.

Magiere led with a square bundle under one arm and a larger canvas bulk strapped to her back with rope. Behind her came Leshil and Sgailsheilleache, and something heavy swung in a canvas sling swinging between them. The majay-hi ranged nearby, and Osha came last with another canvas bundle like Magiere's. When he took a long step, the small human female became visible, trudging beside him.

Hkuan'duv's gaze shifted quickly over the procession, skipping between the two canvas bundles and whatever swung between Leshil and Sgailsheilleache. More complications-he could not be certain who carried the artifact.

"It appears she was successful," he whispered.

"Do we take it?" Danvarfij asked in a weak voice, though she gripped her bow firmly in hand.

"Not here," he answered. "When they are farther from this place… and its guardian."

He did not see the white woman, but it was better to wait. He did not care to risk dealing with her again.

"We wait until they are out of sight," he said.

When the procession had passed halfway across the white plain, he crawled back to Danvarfij.

Her tan face was drawn and pale, and beneath the cloak's hood, strands of her hair had turned brittle with frost. Her pupils were small.

"Are you well?" he asked.

"Of course," she whispered.

He still opened his cloak and pulled her in against his body. She did not resist, and in truth he did not feel much better than she looked.

"Not long now," he said.

She leaned against him in silence. By the time the procession reached the distant rocky slope, the falling snow had thickened and the wind was blowing harder.

"They cannot travel far in this," he said. "They will remain at camp."

Danvarfij said nothing as he got up. When she tried to do the same, the bow slipped from her fingers. It sank in the fresh snow an instant before she fell.

Hkuan'duv quickly dropped, rolling her over, and brushed clinging snow from her face.

Danvarfij eyes were closed. Her breathing was shallow, barely leaking any vapor between her lips.

The wind sharpened as he disassembled her bow and stowed it behind his own back beneath his cloak. When he hoisted her over his shoulder and took his first step, his legs shook. The long night had taken more from him than he had realized. He stumbled across the white plain.

By the time he crested the rocky slope, he no longer heard Danvarfij's breaths over the harsh wind. He climbed down with one hand clawing for holds on the loose, cold stones.

With their purpose so close to an end, he should have left her behind and finished what they had started-but he could not. Perhaps he had grown too old in service, and his dedication now faltered. But she would never survive alone in the coming storm.

And Hkuan'duv could not survive the loss of Danvarfij.

He tilted his head down and pressed onward. Even when he passed through the chute, he barely glanced at Kurhkage's snow-dusted corpse. When he reached their campsite, the tent was half-buried. He laid Danvarfij down to knock off the caked snow, then quickly pulled her inside and found the bag of dung.

He built a smoldering fire at the tent's mouth, hoping it would keep going for a while, and then crawled beneath the layered cloaks beside Danvarfij. He pressed in against her, and between the smoky fire and her closeness, a hint of warmth grew between them.

Hkuan'duv closed his eyes for a moment, trying not to let exhaustion take him.

He opened them again and raised his head. He heard no wind, and it was dark inside the tent. Danvarfij shifted beside him.

"Where are we?" she murmured.

He crawled to the tent's opening. Snow pinned the tent's flap shut. He began digging to free it, and then emerged into a silent dark world covered in a fresh blanket of snow.

The blizzard had passed. In exhaustion and the welcome warmth of Danvarfij's body, he had fallen asleep. The day was gone.

Hkuan'duv crouched to find Danvarfij staring out of the tent. Her wide eyes mirrored his panic.

"Stay here!" he ordered, and he hurried out through the drifts.

When he reached a vantage point, and saw the canvas-covered depression, he knew he was too late. No light filtered out through the crusted fabric, and he closed quickly, not bothering with stealth. Why had they left the canvas behind?

He stepped forward, pulling the canvas back.

The bodies of Kurhkage and A'harhk'nis lay inside the stone depression. With their hands upon their chests, Hkuan'duv did not need to look further.

Sgailsheilleache had performed rites for their fallen brethren.

At least their spirits, if not their flesh, would return to their people and the ancestors. Without a way to bring home the bodies, the next choice would be to burn their remains and carry the ashes back. With no way to accomplish even that much, Sgailsheilleache had done the best he could for them.

Hkuan'duv crawled out of the depression to scan the craggy mountainside, but he found no hint of a trail in the pure unbroken snow. The storm must have weakened after he fell asleep. His quarry had moved on, their trail covered by the day's lighter snowfall. He hurried back to his own camp to find Danvarfij gathering their gear.

"I have lost their trail," he said flatly, crouching beside her.

She still looked pale and drawn. Her hood down, her thick hair fell around her shoulders. She leaned on her hands, close to his face.

"If they wish to deliver the artifact in Belaski, they will head straight across this range, trying to reach the western coast. Even if we cannot find them in these mountains, we can track them once they leave the snowy heights. They must come out above the Everfen, and I know that region well."

Hkuan'duv calmed at her words.

"Of course," he answered. "It is only a delay."