04c Dreams of Fire and Gods: Gods (25 page)

“To the Taaweh.”

“Yes, sire.”

King Caednu responded by slamming the pommel of his sword against the barrier, causing the blade to flare up and rain sparks down upon the ash-covered ground. Gonim felt Imen’s irritation at her husband’s inability to control his temper and sensed it took a great deal of restraint on her part not to roll her eyes at him.

The queen said through Gonim’s lips, “Why? Did they offer you so much more power than we’ve granted you?”

Geilin bowed to her. If he thought it strange to address her in this young
tadu
’s body, he showed no sign. “No, Your Majesty. The power is… different… but I would not say ‘greater.’”

“Then why?” she repeated impatiently.

“Expediency, Your Majesty.
Vönan
are powerless in this valley, and Harleh required mages who were functional.”

“You will pay for your treachery!” Caednu exploded.

But Koreh looked at the king with disdain. “Iinyo Geilin will die… eventually. But he will then go to Bashyeh, as all humans do—even
your
followers. Even—” He turned to Gonim, but suddenly he hesitated. A puzzled expression came over his face, and he took a couple of steps toward the
tadu
.

“His body is very warm,” Koreh observed. “I can feel the heat radiating off him. He’s sweating. And his breathing is rapid.”

It was true that Gonim had grown much hotter in the few moments since Geilin’s arrival. He was beginning to feel nauseous, and his hands were trembling. Without warning, his legs collapsed under his weight. He fell hard on his knees, sending a painful jolt through his body.
What’s happening to me?

Imen answered Koreh through Gonim, all arrogance gone from her voice now. “I found him on the edge of death. My servant healed his physical wounds, but his life force was fading. The only way to keep him alive was to give him a bit of my own life force. But it is too strong for a mortal body. I’m afraid it’s been consuming him from within, and we have reached the end of his tolerance for it.”

I am sorry, my warrior
, Gonim heard Imen say in his head, and she truly did sound sorry. He felt a wave of… almost affection… coming from her. She was selfish—this much he had learned in his dealings with her. The Stronni had little understanding of the sufferings of mortal men, and they seemed unconcerned with it. Yet Imen did have it within herself to feel compassion, if only in small doses.

I’ve been honored to serve you, Your Majesty
.

He toppled over as a wave of dizziness overtook him. But he didn’t hit the ground. Koreh darted forward and caught him in his arms, and then lowered him gently onto the grass. Gonim looked up at the odd blue-gray clouds that covered the valley, and at the boundary where they ended and clear blue sky and the warm light of Atnu took over. He longed to be out in that golden light again, to be out from under this accursed semidarkness one last time before he died. But there was a swath of ash between the boundary and the unburnt forest. He would be unable to walk it, and he doubted King Caednu would allow anyone to carry him there.

Will I go to Bashyeh?
he wondered. It was such an alien concept. A land of the dead that was
not
the Great Hall….

Perhaps
, Imen told him.
I do not know. If you will live on there, my warrior, and be happy… then I hope so.

It was perhaps the most unselfish thing he’d ever heard from her.

Gonim turned his head to look out across the fields in the direction of the forest and saw something that momentarily distracted him from his own death—a man was walking toward them through the burnt wasteland caused by Caednu’s fireball. He was tall for a man, though not quite on the same scale as Caednu, and wearing a full suit of armor. The armor itself was dented and blood-spattered and seemed to be taken from several mismatched suits of armor of different designs and styles—some bronze, some steel, some of simple design, and some ornately decorated. Inside his helmet, he had the face of a corpse, with black, hollow eye sockets. Blackened skin pulled back from elongated teeth, bared in a furious snarl.

As he walked, sword at the ready, the ground all around him erupted in horrifying quantities of worms that seemed to be feeding upon the ash.

S
AEL
’
S
attention had been focused on the dying young man before him, when something in the
tadu
’s eyes caused him to turn and look out across the boundary. He was barely aware of the Iinu Shaa’s arrival before King Caednu charged. Flaming sword swinging in an arc of flame over his head, the god roared in fury as he closed with his ancient enemy.

The Iinu Shaa brought his sword up to meet the charge. He deflected the blow, but Caednu swung his sword in a blur of fire to strike at him from the other side. Again the Iinu Shaa parried and again Caednu struck. The Stronni king moved faster than any man, attacking over and over, the blade of his sword impossible for Sael to follow, though it left trails like the torches of a fire juggler.

The Iinu Shaa kept pace with him, but he seemed somehow disinterested, as if he found the Stronni’s furious assault tiresome. He never attacked, but merely parried the king’s attacks. Indeed he hardly seemed to be trying. And the ease with which he deflected Caednu’s sword seemed to enrage the king even more.

“I don’t think he can last much longer,” Koreh said, and it took Sael a moment to realize he wasn’t referring to one of the combatants.

Sael looked down to see Koreh stroking the
tadu
’s hair gently. “There’s nothing you can do? If you’re Taaweh now….”

“That doesn’t mean I know what I’m doing,” Koreh replied. He placed his hand on the
tadu
’s chest and closed his eyes as if he were concentrating. A faint blue light began to appear around the edges of his fingers, but a sudden flash of gold flame licked up his arm and Koreh yanked his hand away with a cry. “He feels… like his insides are on fire!”

“He is mortal,” said a woman’s voice. Sael spun around to see Imen standing outside the barrier, looking as she had when she attacked them in the suspended Great Hall—beautiful, with long raven tresses and a gown of rich, diaphanous silk that barely concealed her shapely figure. “It saddens me, but it is the fate of men to die.”

“He doesn’t have to die
now
, Your Majesty,” Koreh told her coolly. “I don’t know for certain… but I may be able to bring him back.”

The queen gave him a long evaluating look, seemingly unconcerned with the battle that raged behind her. “In exchange for what?”

K
OREH
was insulted that she thought he would bargain with the
tadu
’s life, but he kept his temper in check. In his view, the Stronni were always plotting, always weighing loss and gain. Perhaps the idea of doing something purely out of compassion was alien to her. “I will ask nothing, Your Majesty. But I can’t help him unless you release your hold on him.”

Imen hesitated, her eyes fixed on the helpless young man. “The moment I do,” she said, “he will die.” Koreh was surprised by the softness in her voice.

“I know. And I don’t know if I’m… powerful enough to bring him back. But I might be.” He wasn’t sure. Some instinct had guided him to attempt it moments ago, and he’d sensed the resistance caused by Imen’s life force. It had felt that, if he could only remove that obstacle…. Now he worried about what Imen might do if he failed. He doubted she would be understanding if her servant died at his hands or upon his advice. But this would hardly be the first time he’d angered her, and he couldn’t simply turn his back on someone who was dying. Apart from knocking Sael down, the
tadu
had really done them no harm.

Imen lifted her gaze to meet Koreh eye to eye. “Bring him to me.”

He would have to pass through the barrier in order to do what she asked, and a chill went through him at the thought of it. But he wasted no time debating it. He told Sael, “Get his legs,” as he slipped his arms under the
tadu
’s armpits and lifted his torso. The young man was at least a head taller than Koreh and muscular, which made him very heavy.

Geilin interjected, “Perhaps our valiant guard could—”

But Sael held up a hand to cut him off and moved to lift the
tadu
’s legs himself. In order to avoid dragging the young man’s naked buttocks across the ground, he had to position himself between the
tadu
’s knees, which no doubt provided him with an intimate view of the youth’s anatomy. Koreh was amused to see that, even as
dekan
, Sael hadn’t lost the ability to blush.

They carried the
tadu
to the goddess, Koreh stepping through the barrier onto the warm ash that covered the earth on the other side. But he stopped at the point where Sael would have stepped across the barrier himself. This left the
tadu
half inside the protected space. Imen seemed satisfied. Koreh settled the youth gently on the ground and stepped aside as the goddess knelt and touched his head gently.

“You have served me well, my warrior,” she told him.

He was slipping away quickly, but he looked up into her face with an expression of sheer adoration, eyes glistening. “Your… Majesty….”

Imen placed her other hand on his naked chest, and he screamed in agony as his sternum exploded with fire. Koreh restrained himself from shoving her away. It would have done no good. When the goddess stood, she held a large jewel in her hand that flickered and pulsed with an inner flame. In its place was a gaping wound—the inside of the
tadu
’s chest was blackened and empty.

Koreh was horrified. The sight of that burned, gaping wound made his hair stand on end, and now he was even less certain he could heal the
tadu
. But he had no time to give in to panic. Amazingly, through some miracle, or perhaps the remnants of Imen’s life force still in his body, the tadu wasn’t quite dead yet. He thrashed around on the ground as much as his weakened limbs would allow, his eyes bulging as he made soundless gasping motions with his mouth. He couldn’t breathe—even his lungs had burned away.

Koreh shoved his hand inside the young man’s chest cavity. He had no idea what to do, but almost immediately he felt his hand growing hot as blue fire swirled around it, expanding to fill the hollow space. The light intensified and became so bright that Koreh had to squint. He could no longer see his hand in the midst of the flame, but he felt things… moving around it. It wasn’t pleasant. It felt as if soft, warm slimy things were crawling around his hand and wrist. Something seemed to be taking shape in his palm—something small and round, though it grew rapidly. Tendrils snaked out of it and slipped through Koreh’s fingers. When it suddenly spasmed in his hand, Koreh realized that he had, indeed, rebuilt a human heart. Or at least the Taaweh magic he was directing had. Suddenly, the flesh around the wound began to close up as if to trap his hand by the wrist. He pulled his hand out slowly, until the
tadu
’s chest sealed itself. The glow faded.

Koreh looked at his hand in disbelief, half expecting to find it covered in blood and bile, but it was clean. For a long moment, the young man lay still, his eyes unblinking. Then he gasped and took a deep, shuddering breath. His eyes blinked, and he looked around himself, confused.

“Gonim,” Queen Imen said softly.

Koreh asked Gonim, if that was his name, “How do you feel?”

“I feel… weak.”

“Well,” Koreh replied, “you’ve just had your heart and lungs—or whatever you were using in place of them—ripped out of your chest. You may feel a little… tender… for a while.”

The guard standing nearby stifled a laugh, but Gonim didn’t seem amused. If anything, he appeared sad. He brought a trembling hand up to feel his chest. “My heart… is beating.”

Imen was watching them, appearing to be puzzling something over, suspicion warring with something like gratitude in her face.

King Caednu bellowed in rage, and they all turned to see a fireball falling from the sky, aimed directly at the Iinu Shaa. Koreh and Sael both sprang forward to grab Gonim and drag him across the barrier as the hillside exploded in flame. Imen’s silk robe billowed outward as fire engulfed her body and spread itself out against the barrier. Koreh and his companions shielded their eyes with their arms.

When the flames had died down, Koreh took stock of his “patient.” Gonim was clearly in pain from being dragged in his condition, but he appeared to be in no danger. Koreh looked up to see King Caednu glaring at the Iinu Shaa, who had also survived the blast unscathed. Imen stood by the barrier as she had before, not a single thread of her gown or a hair on her head singed.

The goddess gave out an exasperated sigh and muttered, “Warriors.”

O
PENING
the doors to the throne room was an extremely dangerous move, and both the
vek
’s men and the royal guard placed hands on weapons as palace guards charged in from the outer halls. Donegh rushed to Worlen’s side and guided him up the steps of the dais with a hand on his elbow, while Djalleh and Captain Teleh strove to make their voices heard above the chaos of angry voices.