Goddess (16 page)

He didn’t hear anything further. Presumably the Grand Vizier had left. Within minutes, after being
heaved onto the shoulder of the paid thug, Pez felt himself falling. He was barely conscious now but just aware enough to realise he had obviously been tossed over the side of Lazar’s balcony. As he fell into the sea he had only a moment to send his undying faith to Lyana with his apology for failing her once again. Death had come sooner than expected.

Although the rug absorbed a lot of the impact, he felt the last of his intact bones sigh and give way just seconds before he began to drown and Lyana welcomed her most beloved disciple into her dark and icy depths.

As Pez’s drowning began, overhead the skies darkened with uncharacteristically heavy clouds, momentarily obliterating the sun and plunging the city into gloom. At the same moment many Percherese would swear an earthquake caused a series of tremors, adding yet more terror to the already besieged land. The initial vertical cracks which had curiously formed on the great giants who guarded the harbour, now widened alarmingly and some believed their precious icons were preparing to crumble and crash into the sea.

But the giants were not disintegrating. Instead they bellowed in anguish to the only person they knew would hear.

Lazar, sitting on a horse, awaiting the arrival of his Zar, seething that Pez was not present as they
had arranged, had looked up, surprised, as the heavens darkened without warning. A minute later he was overwhelmed by an outpouring of grief that hit his body so hard he had to dismount, half falling to the ground as Beloch and Ezram groaned into his mind:
Iridor dies!

Ana was leaning comfortably against Arafanz’s chest as he reached his arms around her to hold the reins, guiding the camel on its plodding journey across the sands.

She had fully lost track of how long she’d been at the fortress now but her taut, swollen belly told her that enough time had passed that she was nearing the end of her pregnancy. And although the passage of time had been vague for her, she was aware of the subtle change that had washed itself over her during her confinement. Curiously, for the first time in her life, she felt at peace. Since the day in the cave when the glittering pillars had welcomed her, Ana had felt as though she belonged—not to anyone in particular, but to this period in time, to this place, and especially to the desert. If not for the quiet pain of losing Lazar for the second time, Ana would say she was truly happy.

That horribly insistent nausea of her early pregnancy had passed and her baby had begun to move inside her a couple of moons earlier. Low in her body she had felt the faintest of flutterings. At
first she thought she was imagining it but it recurred, becoming stronger. Consciousness? Her baby had become a person! The fluttering that she had convinced herself was a tentative unfurling of a hand had now evolved into something more dramatic—akin to an awakening. This baby seemed to be constantly on the move, one moment low, the next high in her chest. She was explaining it now to Arafanz. ‘Feel here,’ she said, taking his hand and guiding it to her belly in what was a familiar gesture.

‘Ah, that feels decidedly like an elbow,’ he replied, genuine pleasure in his voice.

‘Very good. I forget you’re an old hand at this.’

She couldn’t see him shrugging but felt it. ‘I didn’t take enough notice of Razeen growing in my wife’s belly. I regret it deeply. Now that I share this baby’s growth with you, I realise it is something magical, something every father should participate in.’

Ana sighed. Even though she had quipped that she still felt like a child herself, this child coming into her life made her feel suddenly very grown up. And in truth she was thoroughly enjoying this maturity. It helped that the enforced separation from the harem and everything that had become so familiar to her gave her enormous pleasure as well. She felt at peace. ‘That’s a good way to describe it. My child seems to know precisely what to do and when. It’s a magic only it understands.’

‘The baby and your body are one, Ana. Don’t forget that your body also knows what to do. It possesses its own knowledge in how to nurture the babe, keep him safe, nourish him. I am sure he hears your voice and knows you already.’ He paused, adding a moment later, ‘To be a mother is to be closest of all to Lyana.’

She snuggled further back into the security of his chest, privately amazed by how comfortable the two of them had become when they were alone together. ‘Yes. I wish I understood what she wants from me.’

He leaned his chin on her head. ‘We shall see what your role is in due course, although I say again that it is the son you carry that is of most interest to Lyana.’

Ana didn’t think so but kept her own counsel as she wondered at which point over the past few moons she and Arafanz had become close friends. All animosity had disappeared. Now they ate together of an evening, took regular walks and especially enjoyed these rides alone. She watched from the rooftop of the fortress as he continued to train his men for the coming battle and he was always aware of her presence, acknowledging her with a glance, a brief wave, sometimes that rare smile. They were actually never long apart these days. But the knowledge of what Arafanz planned for the palace and all attached to it sat like a festering sore in her thoughts. She picked at it often, felt it bleed along with her sorrow for Boaz
and all his dreams for Percheron. Yet she hated herself for allowing it to scab over so easily when Arafanz permitted his caring side to shine through and charm her.

These quiet times alone with him away from the fortress were special; when it was like this she didn’t see him as Lyana’s zealot but simply as a man, with all the usual frailties and desires. She sensed he was allowing himself to cleave far closer to her than he knew he should. There had been moments when what was disguised as simple, polite gestures—a guiding hand, a helping arm, moving a wisp of hair from her face, or more recently, briefly massaging her back when she mentioned how much it ached—felt tender, meaningful. Right now, her leaning so carefree against his broad chest, his chin resting casually atop her head—anyone could be forgiven for thinking them lovers.

If she was honest, this shift in their relationship frightened Ana. She loved Lazar—that would never change—but it scared her that she could harbour such intense fondness for someone else. There! She’d allowed it out into her mind. She was attracted to Arafanz in spite of the darkness she saw in him; she would be lying to herself if she admitted anything else. The attraction, she knew, had a lot to do with her longing for Lazar; the two men were very similar. But Arafanz had his own qualities she found irresistible, especially his vulnerability. For all his arrogance and unswerving
faith in himself, Arafanz was mortal. He was prone to all the same temptations of his men, even though he had convinced himself he was impregnable to any attack, especially any weakness in his heart. She sensed, rather than knew, that Arafanz was in love with her. He had never voiced anything along such lines but her intuition told her he only barely controlled his feelings. She wanted to hate him as completely as she had when she had first met him but she had seen a different side to him that she enjoyed. And now, with the birth of her child almost upon her, Arafanz had become her closest confidant—the friend she trusted.

He gently squeezed her shoulders. ‘Are you all right? You’re very quiet.’

‘I was just thinking about us.’

‘Us?’

‘What is this relationship between us, Arafanz?’

His hands stopped working. ‘I don’t understand.’

‘You do. You’re being coy. And there’s no need to because there’s only us. You are my captor and yet you go to such lengths to give me freedom. You are my enemy but you are also my close friend. When we met you treated me with scorn and yet why do I feel something else blossoming between us? Is this a deliberate ploy or can you not help our bond either?’

His large hands returned to massaging her neck through the linens of her sand veil. It felt
wonderful and she wished she could ask him to pay attention to her lower back, which was particularly painful today. She hadn’t yet mentioned the soft bands of pressure that came now and then, moving up and down her belly. She had to assume these were early warnings of what was to come when her son was ready to enter the world.

His voice was thick with emotion when he finally replied. ‘I want to be impartial about you, Ana, but that is not as easy as it seemed to me before I’d met you. Ellyana should have warned me.’

‘Is that why you kept me locked up and remote?’

Again he didn’t answer immediately. ‘You are too insightful. Yes, I didn’t want to know you. I just wanted to follow my cause, keep to my set path. We have been building towards this for too many years, since the day you were born, even before.’

Again the mention of his knowing of her birth made her stagger inwardly. But she kept her poise. ‘Is that why you punished those men?’

‘Not entirely. I did need to show you how committed we are to Lyana.’

‘Not entirely?’

‘I was angry. Hurting you, threatening you, did help to make me feel immune to you.’

She gave a soft, anguished groan. ‘It’s so wrong. I wish we could give those men their lives back.’

‘They gave them willingly.’

‘To Lyana perhaps. But you made them sacrifice themselves for no gain in the cause to which they had pledged themselves.’

He held a long silence this time before clearing his throat. ‘You shame me.’

‘You didn’t need me to do it. You’ve felt the shame anyway.’

‘You know me too well.’

‘I hardly know you at all.’

‘That’s where you’re wrong, lovely Ana,’ he said, stroking her aching back.

She arched it, unsure whether her reaction was from pleasure or fright from enjoying it, an attempt to escape his touch.

He was about to say more when the skies deepened above them. ‘What—?’ Arafanz began.

And Ana shrieked as a sharp pain seared through her belly and her baby—she knew it was the child even though her head told her it was impossible—opened a passage into her mind and spoke to her in an ancient tongue.
Iridor dies. It is not his time
. The voice was beautiful but tortured and it tore at Ana’s heartstrings.

Disoriented, Ana overbalanced, while Arafanz, in an effort to prevent her injuring herself, slid off the beast with her, toppling below and breaking her fall as they hit the soft sand.

‘Ana…Ana!’ he shouted, terror infusing them both.

She hadn’t realised she had screamed Lyana’s
name just before they fell but she could hear it echoing off the rock face.

‘Please,’ Arafanz begged, scrabbling out from beneath her, ‘tell me what is happening. Have your pains begun?’

She didn’t know what to tell him. She shook her head in silent fear as tears leaked out of her eyes and dampened her hair.
Surely Pez was not dying?

Arafanz was hovering above her, his face a mask of worry. ‘Speak to me. What has occurred?’

‘It’s Iridor,’ she gulped. ‘I think he’s dead.’

As he sank, the rug unravelled about him and Pez finally found himself floating free in the depths of the Faranel. It was soundless and dark and it would not be long now, for he didn’t have the strength or ability to do anything but give himself over to the water. The burning in his lungs distracted him from the throb of his fingerless hands.

As he began a final prayer to Lyana, knowing he had but moments, for there was truly no more breath in his aching lungs and his chest was racked with pain from broken ribs, he saw a vision floating towards him. It began as a soft green light that strengthened into a shimmering brightness, so bright that it was almost unbearable by the time the figure was clear enough to make out.

Ellyana drifted fully into view and gave him a heartbreaking smile. Her lustre seemed to dim the
terrible pain and the exquisite desire to give up his last and most precious air. She was young and dazzlingly beautiful. He felt suddenly safe in her cocoon of luminescence.

‘I am dying,’ he said, shocked that he could speak.

‘Not yet, dear Pez. This is not your time.’

‘But how can I live?’

‘If you were going to drown, believe me, the Faranel would have claimed you by now. Maliz should have finished you off himself; if he had, we could not interfere. This is his mistake. He will rue this day.’ She smiled again. ‘You must trust me now.’

‘I always have,’ Pez replied, entranced by her bright beauty and the realisation that he was no longer struggling for breath, no longer cold or even frightened.

‘That’s not true. You privately question my motives.’

‘But I do obey you,’ he qualified.

‘Because you know in your heart that I am not your enemy.’

‘Then what are you?’

Her brilliance intensified. ‘You already know. I belong to Lyana—I am an extension of her. A messenger, you could say, a disciple, her servant. As are you. We must trust one another. There are too few of us to not believe.’

‘It’s not easy when none of the few you refer to know what is going on,’ he admonished softly. ‘Iridor, above all, should know.’

‘It is this factor that will help us prevail,’ she soothed, floating before him, her golden tresses stretching out in tendrils and waving gently in the water.

‘So I am saved? I know she commands the waters,’ he said, mesmerised.

Ellyana smiled. ‘Lyana
is
the water. She is the sky, the wind, the sun, the desert.’

‘I am to live, this is what you’re here to tell me?’ he clarified.

She nodded, her hair weaving patterns in the currents as fish darted amongst the silky strands. ‘There is a condition.’

Pez’s heart sank. ‘Why am I not surprised?’

‘It is not my doing. Maliz has destroyed your body, my friend. That is certainly dying. You must leave it behind and you must emerge from these depths as Iridor. You will be whole, but you must understand that you can never return to the being you were before. You are no longer Pez.’ Her tone was sorrowful and Pez appreciated that she grasped how deeply her news must hurt him. His body had been hardly attractive and his face had not been pretty but they were what his Goddess had given him; the dwarf’s body belonged to him and made him who he was. Iridor had chosen him, not the other way around.

She could read his mind, it seemed. ‘Surely you would not choose death over life?’

He didn’t answer straightaway; he needed to let the soft grief that her revelation provoked
dissipate slightly. She let his silence lengthen, happy to drift nearby, bathing him in her bright sea-green glow. ‘Not if by living I can serve Lyana longer,’ he finally spoke.

She smiled. ‘Iridor still has his role. There are lives to be saved and a battle to win.’

He fixed Ellyana with a baleful stare. ‘Then what are we waiting for?’

The sun re-emerged and the skies lightened instantly. Lazar looked back at the city and its return to its more usual sparkling landscape. He had no idea where those angry clouds had come from and, though they had seemed unnatural, he knew anything connected with the weather around Samazen time should not surprise him.

He realised his head hurt from the voices and from the dire revelation they had brought. His emotional thoughts about Ana, about Herezah’s behaviour and how easily he had been compromised by her, especially about his father’s potential presence, only made his confusion and pain worse. He looked out across the Faranel and wondered if the king was doing the same. Was he thinking about the son he despised and yet would honour by massacring another realm? When had it come to this? Had it been only such a short while ago that he had been wandering through the city he loved, looking forward to a spicy ratha at the famous emporium? It felt as though he had lived a
lifetime since that messenger had burst through its doors and interrupted his breakfast with the grim news of Zar Joreb’s death. The totally controlled and unemotional life that he had so carefully shaped over so many years had changed in that instant. And not just changed from the delivery of that news, he thought; his life had dramatically twisted and turned to leave him near death, forever scarred, deeply in love and more shattered than he had ever felt.