04c Dreams of Fire and Gods: Gods (21 page)

The camp was long, stretched out along the boundary, but not terribly wide. He reached the western edge quickly. Here the shadow caused by the clouds cut across the landscape, providing a sharp demarcation between the blue light of the valley and the bright yellow-gold light cast by the Eye of Atnu over the rest of the kingdom. To the south, the forest was unbroken, but here there was a narrow swath of field between the Taaweh forest and the forest that Sael remembered from his childhood, where the tents of the emperor’s army could be seen. Somewhere about halfway across this field—perhaps a furlong from the edge of the camp—lay the invisible boundary that caused men to fall unconscious if they tried to cross it.

Sael turned to find Koreh coming up alongside him, trailed by the two guards. “Where…?”

His voice trailed off as he noticed something off to his right, still near the center of the camp, but heading in their direction. It was a man, and he appeared to be flying. Or perhaps jumping, since he came down again as quickly as he went up. But the leaps were fantastic, reminding Sael of the technique he’d developed for hopping when he’d lived in the capital—the one that had saved his and Koreh’s life as they made a run for Harleh. No
vönan
within the boundaries of the camp should have had the power to do that, but there was little point in denying what he could see with his own eyes.

The man doing the jumping hadn’t yet reached the camp boundary, because he’d apparently been zigzagging to avoid the guards, and he’d turned northward where the camp tents thinned. But now he was drawing closer at an alarming speed. Sael and his companions had ended up directly in the intruder’s path.

He barely had time to shout “Get down!” before the man collided with Koreh and shoved him into Sael. He might have done it deliberately, thinking to incapacitate one or more of the few people who still stood in his path. If so, it worked. They both tumbled to the ground while the man leapt once more, bounding out into the field.

Sael gasped for air, the breath knocked out of him. He saw Koreh look down at him, his eyes wide with fear and then filling with rage.

“That stupid
ghet
!” Koreh snarled. Then without warning he was gone, dropping
through
Sael and into the ground. Sael rolled over onto his stomach to look out into the field, his heart seizing up with fear as he saw Koreh materialize out of the hillside directly in the path of the intruder—and outside the boundary.

As if he’d seen it all happen before, in a vision or a nightmare, Sael watched helplessly as the two young men collided again. This time, Koreh latched onto the intruder’s waist and threw him off balance. They rolled down the small hillock. But that wasn’t what made the terror rise up in Sael’s chest and drive a rasping scream from his dry throat.

It was the enormous fireball descending from the heavens.

The fireball exploded against the ground, white-hot flame shooting outward in all directions, incinerating everything it touched. The flame struck the boundary a few hundred feet from where Sael lay and formed an enormous wall of fire two or three hundred feet high. Sael clenched his eyes shut against the blinding brilliance. He felt no heat from it, but he knew nothing could have survived the inferno on the other side of that wall.

He cried out in anguish with his face pressed into the grass. Koreh had returned from death, had a moment of life in Sael’s arms… and now he’d lost it again.

K
OREH
hadn’t thought about giving chase to the intruder. It had been infuriating to be struck from behind, but it was the sight of Sael’s face contorted in pain beneath him that sent him into an unreasoning rage. With an amount of control he hadn’t known he possessed, Koreh fell into the earth and surfaced in front of the intruder at the precise moment his feet hit the ground. Koreh had no more than a moment to note that his quarry was a tall, handsome youth no older than himself, wearing the robes of a
tadu
, before tackling him and sending them both rolling down a grassy incline, arms and legs entangled.

Koreh heard Sael scream, and the
tadu
was yanked off him. The last thing Koreh saw, before he was engulfed in flame, was the intruder flying up into an incredibly bright sky, a look of astonishment on his face.

It took Koreh a moment to realize that he was on fire. Or more precisely, his clothing was. But he felt no pain as the wool and linen and leather of his garments and boots were consumed by the blaze and fell away as ash. He could see nothing but white-hot flames all around him, yet didn’t even feel the urge to close his eyes. He screamed one word, not from physical pain, but fear—“Sael!”

When the flames at last subsided, the landscape was obscured by a thick pall of smoke, the ground covered in fine ash that had only moments ago been lush, green grass. Koreh heard Sael shouting. “Let me go!”

“He’s gone, Your Lordship! You can’t help him by putting yourself in danger!”

“Let me go, or I’ll have you court-martialed for disobeying your superior!”

Koreh heard the sound of footsteps approaching and turned to see Sael running through the haze, coughing and rubbing his eyes with the sleeve of his tunic. He staggered to a stop when he saw Koreh lying naked but unharmed on the ground before him but then rushed to embrace him. “By the gods!” He was unable to say anything more coherent as his voice was choked off by a sob.

Koreh held him tight, too stunned to say anything.

Then he felt Sael tense and whisper in his ear, “It’s her.”

He broke the embrace, and Koreh craned his neck, fearing he might mean Imen had come to finish them off, once and for all. Instead, he saw the Iinu Shavi walking serenely toward them out of the smoke that still blanketed the field. Oddly, the smoke near Koreh and Sael had dissipated, so they were sitting in a bubble of clear air, though the sky over their heads was still obscured.

Koreh scrambled to his feet. He felt self-conscious to be standing naked before the Lady, but there was nothing he could do about it. And he knew the Taaweh had little concern for what one did or did not wear. Nevertheless, he bowed respectfully, and Sael followed suit.

“There is little time,
iinyana
,” the Lady said, “before the Stronni become suspicious of the lingering smoke and attack again. But the time has come to reveal some things to both of you. If we are to save the humans from another war, we must persuade the Stronni that a war is futile. You two are the key to that.”

“I thought we were simply meant to rescue you, my lady,” Sael said.

“The Taaweh are grateful to both of you for freeing me,” she replied with a gracious nod. “However, it was always about more than my rescue. Imen needed to confront you and acknowledge that you were both human. Then she needed to see
iinyeh
Koreh die.”

Sael gasped, and Koreh felt his temper flare up at the goddess for the first time since he’d begun to dream of the Taaweh. “I was
meant
to die?”

“Yes.”

“How could you do that to us?” Sael exploded. “After everything we did for you—putting my entire city at risk, and now Worlen as well, risking our lives to save you…. People have
died
! They’re still dying! And I lost… everything….” He trailed off, as if he no longer had the words to express the pain he was trying to convey.

Koreh said nothing. There was nothing to say. His sense of betrayal was too great. For years he’d dedicated himself to the service of the Taaweh, only to learn that they’d planned to sacrifice him in their battle against the Stronni.

He reached out and took Sael’s hand, two pitiful pawns in a game played by the gods, attempting to find some comfort in each other.

The Lady smiled tenderly at them both. “The Taaweh cannot die, and it is true that we do not understand the pain humans feel when they experience death and loss. But please understand that we do not wish you or your people to suffer.
Iinyeh
Koreh had to die, not because we wished it, but because journeying through Bashyeh and returning to the world of mortal men was the only way he could become Taaweh.”

Koreh stared back at her for a long moment, uncomprehending. Then a cold chill crept up his limbs into his chest, despite the warmth still radiating from the ground. “I’m… Taaweh?”

Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Sael turn to look at him, his mouth hanging open in shock, as if checking to see if Koreh were somehow different than he’d always been. But of course he was. He’d just survived a raging inferno unharmed.

Just as he’d seen the Lady do in his dreams.

“Thousands of years ago,” the Lady said, “long before the coming of the Stronni and the Great War, the dead resided in Bashyeh. But a young noblewoman and her champion could not forget their duty to those they’d left behind, and they discovered a way back to the land of the living. From that moment onward, they were free to come and go between Bashyeh and this land you now call Dasak whenever they wished. Death no longer had power over them. They existed in the shadows between light and darkness, and from there they watched over both kingdoms. In time, others also found the way back.”

“You were that noblewoman,” Sael said quietly. “And the Iinu Shaa….”

She smiled and nodded. “Most Taaweh forget their past over the centuries—a human lifetime eventually seems like the blink of an eye—but we were the first and it falls to us to remember our beginnings. Still, it has been a very, very long time. The millennia have changed us. We no longer remember our human names; we no longer truly remember what it was like to be human at all. We have watched over the human world for tens of thousands of years, and it is this that the Stronni must be made to understand. The Taaweh cannot be severed from the humans, because we
are
human. We are what you may one day become.”

Koreh felt Sael’s hand tighten around his. “Koreh… is a god?” Sael asked in a small voice.

“He is Taaweh.”

“But he doesn’t… he doesn’t
act
like one of the Taaweh.”

Koreh almost laughed at that. He wasn’t sure if he was even capable of the convoluted way most of the Taaweh spoke.

The lady did laugh gently, the first time Koreh had ever seen her do so. “Most of the humans who become Taaweh spend thousands of years in Bashyeh before they find their way back. They no longer recall much of themselves by then.
Iinyeh
Koreh is unusual in that he was able to pass through without losing himself. And he did that because of you,
iinyeh
Sael. You kept him whole, and you guided him back to this world.”

“But how can I be with Sael if I’m Taaweh?” Koreh asked.

“That is for you to determine.”

“What about Seffni?” Sael asked her. “Is he Taaweh now?”

The goddess shook her head, and her expression turned unusually grim. “No. He did not find his way back—he was led by
iinyeh
Koreh. This was… unexpected. And there will be consequences.”

Koreh felt something twist in his stomach at that, but before he could ask what she meant, the Iinu Shavi glanced skyward and said. “A second attack will come soon. You must retreat across the boundary,
iinyeh
Sael.”

“What about Koreh?” There was a note of panic in his voice, and Koreh squeezed his hand again to reassure him.

“
Iinyeh
Koreh must remain through this next attack to show Imen that he can no longer be killed. Then he may follow you. Now go!”

The Iinu Shavi vanished into the smoke as a final wave of it engulfed them.

“Do as she says!” Koreh ordered Sael and practically shoved him away. The smoke was dissipating.

For once, Sael obeyed. He turned and ran across the ash-covered wasteland as fast as he could, until he crossed the sharp line of green grass on the other side of the boundary. Koreh barely had time to see that he was safe before he heard a whistling noise high above him and glanced up to see a blazing ball of fire hurtling down upon him.

Standing naked upon the hillside, Koreh recalled that the Iinu Shavi’s gown was as immune to flame as her body was. If he was going to do much more of this, it might be nice to have a robe like that.

“W
ORLEN
!”
the emperor roared. “Only you would have the audacity…. I’ll have your head for this treason!”

Worlen laughed bitterly. “My dear emperor,” he replied smoothly, “this is not ‘treason’ but
vengeance
. Vengeance for the assassination of my eldest son, Seffni
dönz
Menaük, and for the
attempted
assassination of my youngest son—not once, but twice!”

“These baseless accusations only serve to further sully your name, Worlen,” Savön said with a contemptuous sneer. “There are hundreds of soldiers outside those doors. The moment you attempt to leave, you will be cut down. Your laughable attempt to seize my throne has failed. If you surrender now and throw yourself on my mercy, I may spare your family when I execute you. Guards! Arrest him!”

The palace guards hesitated a moment, knowing that any man who attempted to carry out the order would immediately be fallen upon by Worlen’s men. Then a man’s voice cried out, “Wait!”

It was Lord High Chancellor Djalleh. The gaunt, elderly man had stepped forward from his place beside the throne and now raised a hand that trembled either from age or fear. “Forgive me, Your Majesty, but… I feel I must raise a point of order here….”

Savön glared at the man. “Are you so anxious to join him at the chopping block, Djalleh? Consider your words carefully.”

Djalleh withered under his stare, but Worlen took another step forward and said, “Alas, Your Majesty, the Lord High Chancellor is quite correct. It was not I who drew first blood in this conflict. Your assassins cut down an
ömem
under the care of my house, as well as three loyal guards, and nearly murdered my son and his guardian.”

“If your son took an entourage out into the wilderness in the middle of the night, he has only himself to blame for any mishaps that might have befallen them. Bandit attacks are not uncommon along the roads.”