Chapter 20
Kaz sighed.
“I keep trying not to think about it, that I must be cursed to fulfil that damned prophecy,” she said. “It’s pretty disquieting, after all, even when reassured that I will not be separated from Alethos, and that all will be well. But it is frightening; that I will live forever and desire Death,” said Kaz. “The curse is necessary?”
“I think when you reflect upon it, it is the key to your herodom,” said Harkon. “It is virtually impossible for most gods to give eternal life as a gift; but to bestow it as a curse, that is something else. Sometimes, you know, you can interpret prophecies with a ridiculous level of simplicity and quite literally.”
“And I shall... oh, I have been silly, haven’t I?” said Kaz.
“You just realised?”
“I just realised,” said Kaz. “That damned chime is going to get on my nerves, though.”
“Am I missing something?” asked Protasion.
“Yes,” said Lelyn. “But we love you anyway, so don’t let it bother you.”
Protasion sighed.
“I am used to being cleverer and better read than most people, so it does not sit easily for me to miss a point,” he said.
“Look upon it as something you are looking at too closely and yet not closely enough; if you examine a leaf, you do not know what the bark of a tree is like; but when the tree is a promise of shade and succour, you do not examine the intricacies of the tree,” said Kaz.
“Somebody poke her for me,” said Protasion. “It does sound like the Riddler.”
“But if I destroy him, one day, I will have to take his place as part of his mythos, only in my case it will be to make people think more deeply, not to entrap them in falsehood and revealed lies that appear beautiful.”
“Like those poisonous fungi which look gorgeous and are deadly,” said Protasion.
“Exactly,” said Kaz. “I get these snippets of information in my head, and I think it’s Fate putting them there.”
“It can’t be easy, being the subject of a prophesy,” said Svargia. “I wasn’t along to hear it that time.”
“You didn’t miss much,” said Kaz. “I was relatively newly free, getting used to the idea of liberty and choices, and the batty old coot of a seeress only goes and tells me I’m not free, I’m chained to a prophecy which ordains the rest of my life, with certain tasks to perform, and everything laid out for me. Even my love life is not my own.”
“Do you resent that so much?” asked Harkon. “I thought you had made up your own mind.”
“Yes! No! Well, yes, but... it is inevitable how I should feel, but why would he return my feelings?” said Kaz, a tear trickling out of one eye. “I am nobody and nothing, but need to fulfill a curse and a prophesy. He says he cares for me, but sometimes I find it hard to believe that he would, or only, himself, at the behest of Fate, ruled by expedience.”
“We’re stopping here for a rest and for Kaz to take herself off to be private to pray for advice,” said Harkon.
“Do you think...” said Kaz, timidly.
“I think that truth is the key and needs to be in the open,” said Harkon. “Go, and find a place where you can pray, and discuss things; you need to be open about your fears, so they can be addressed.”
Kaz nodded, and moved off up the trail and found herself descending into a secluded hollow with a laughing rill bursting forth from the mountain. Propped up against the cliff face was the familiar figure of Alathan. Kaz gave a little cry on seeing him, and stopped, hovering.
“I worked it out, you know,” said Kaz.
“Of course you did; in your own good time, when you were ready to accept it,” said Alethos. “How would you have felt, had I been open from the first?”
“Terrified,” said Kaz, honestly. “I am still scared… of so much.”
He held out his arms, and she ran to him, burying her face against him, and breathing in his scent.
“I... I love you,” she said. “But how much is me and how much is Fate? And how can you feel the same?” she sniffed hard. “I… I am afraid that you have been forced to accept me for the sake of expedience, because someone has to, for the curse to be twisted.”
“Dear one,” said Alethos. “I love you. I love you for your bravery, for your cleverness, for your gaiety, for your sweetness. The moment you healed my leg, I knew we were tied by love, not gratitude. Fate requires things of us, but to be together is our reward for being her instrument. And you have trusted that it cannot yet be, to be together completely, not just because I fear to trammel you, but also, because there was a prophecy long ago about me. It ran something like this. ‘You will wait out ages to find love, and then you can seize it and end the world, or wait until the time is right and save the world. When you consummate your love, that which should not be will tremble, and be weakened, but if this is before the fall is imminent, then all will be lost, for the Illusion-maker will regroup, and his slaves will be sacrificed not saved, and thus will come to destroy you and your love.’ So, not much pressure on us, dear Kaz.”
Kaz managed a giggle.
“Why do they portray you as humourless?” she asked.
“Death and Truth are both serious businesses, and stern of face,” said Alethos. “But there is humour in all things, and partly it is you who have led me to realise this. I am not unchanging, I have the strength to adapt, and this you have given me. My Kaz, my Daykaz, for this is a part of the prophecy, that you bear an old name for the Dawning, for you will bring the world to a new dawn, as mother of the tróglings. I dub you with your new name, my love, though you are still my own Kaz to me as well.”
Kaz... Daykaz... knelt and buried her face against him again.
“Now my initiate, what gift will you ask of me?” he said, caressing her hair.
“What greater gift can there be than your love?” said Kaz, looking up at him, wonderingly. “I am your initiate, now? I… I feel the connection. But I have everything anyone could ever want, if you truly have come to love me as me.”
“Ah, then, I will gift you with the ability to sense an enemy in waiting, and I will geas you never to turn from a righteous fight, unless it is to find a way to win it more efficiently, or you are already committed to a more righteous quest. Rise.”
Kaz rose and he pressed a kiss on her forehead.
“That ruddy chime!” complained Kaz as it rang through her head.
“You find it as irritating as I do, do you, dear one?” said Alethos. “It is the way of mothers to be over-enthusiastic about their offspring and their offspring’s beloveds.”
“Fate is your mother? I must avoid mother-in-law jokes,” said Kaz.
Alethos laughed.
“I believe She is well pleased with you,” said Alethos. “As am I. Now, you must enter into a trance with me to open up your mind to find the clairvoyance for sensing assassins, ambush and enemies.”
“Oh! It is how you are able to give gifts sensing things, because your mother is Fate, and that suggests pre-knowledge. OW!”
The chime was loud and enthusiastic.
Alethos chuckled.
“Indeed, my dear one; now open up to me.”
Kaz opened her mind willingly, revelling in the mental touch of her lover, fascinated by the pathways he opened. And then she lay against him in his arms for an incalculable time, in pleasurable lassitude after so profound a touch. With his love, she knew she could brave anything, and face any foe, and take any pain.
Alethos was suffused with feelings of tenderness for his strong, yet vulnerable beloved. He wanted to take her safely to his domain, and make her his, and protect her; and yet, he could not, since paradoxically, that was the one thing which would make them fail.
He smiled a rueful smile.
The Knights of the Clear Starlight and their gods would once again rely on the Healing Trio, himself, and his sisters, Latrika, goddess of healing, and Phrodine, goddess of love. And a creature of darkness, technically speaking, in the form of Kaz, despised by the gods of light, and discounted by the gods of fertility, for their fecund, but weak nature. Phrodine smiled on her brother’s sudden, late discovery of romantic love, and enthusiastically endorsed it, whilst teasing him, as sisters do; and Latrika already loved Kaz for knowing and sharing the Toróg healing of cursed wounds, which had remained hidden behind cult secrecy.
With the ever-present evidence of Solos, the mighty sun, and the needs to propitiate the tempestuous Ombros, god of storms, and foremost amongst the Knights of the Clear Starlight, most people tended to forget that Death, Love, and Compassion, as Latrika might also be considered to represent, were universals for sentient beings, with, or without light, exposed to storm or sheltered from it.
What a delicious irony, thought Alethos, smirking to himself. He was fond of Pollonis, but the god he called ‘cousin’ could be pompous. And Ombros was loud, obnoxious, cynical, sometimes cruel, and obstreperous about sweeping aside the menace of the red moon, often forgetting that once, he had been caught in a maelstrom of madness from which Alethos and his sisters had rescued him. Yet he carped that Alethos would accept those with a chaotic taint if they could show the discipline to overcome its nature, and would heal them of this, even if that healing took place through death, before reaching initiation, if his protection was sought, in the Place of Shades, over the claim Daze might make. Ombros was often the god of choice of adventurers, who claimed to be as free as the winds. As if the winds were free! They were bound and driven by the rule of the turning of the earth, at the bidding of their grandmother, Zea. He brushed his lips over the sleeping lips of Kaz, who murmured against his light caress, and snuggled.
The looks on the faces of some of the gods was going to be priceless.
It was dark when Daykaz stumbled back into the camp.
“Welcome back, initiate,” said Harkon.
“I have a new name, but I’m not sure if it is supposed to be public yet,” said Daykaz. “I am Daykaz. I have the ability to sense enemies, and I am never to turn from a righteous fight save that there be a better way of winning by waiting, or if I am engaged on another more important quest.”
“That’s an important qualification,” said Harkon. “It would be as well that you only report the first part; if you have enemies... well, of course, you have enemies, this is inevitable... when your enemies try to divert you by reporting the need to respond to a righteous fight.”
“Good ideas,” said Daykaz.
“Are you happier?” asked Harkon.
“Much, thank you,” said Daykaz. “Sorry to delay the mission.”
“Oh, we have days in hand, in order to make sure of being in the temple when the moon is new,” said Harkon. “It’s another day’s travel, then we can rest, camped outside, and then storm it.”
“And take it back,” said Daykaz. “Fate is Alethos’s mother. Did you know?”
“No,” said Harkon.
“Well, that can’t have been easy,” said Lelyn. “Bad enough being told, ‘it’s high time to pick up your room,’ without the added, ‘It is your destiny to pick up your room.’”
The laugh cleared the air.
“He must have been an adorable little boy,” murmured Daykaz.
“I think the elder gods sprang forth in adult form, but of course, what I have been told might be incorrect,” said Harkon. Daykaz sniggered.
“You can’t see Solos letting anyone think he was once young, can you?” she said. “Far too pompous a being to have ever been spanked for wanting to rise in the West for a change.”
“Maybe we should shelve this conversation before it goes too far,” said Harkon. “Tempting as it may be, the gods are still the gods, and should be respected.”
“True,” said Protasion. “But we can’t control our unruly thoughts. And I doubt Solos is listening to people so insignificant to him.”
“Maybe; but we have been instrumental in achieving something his monks have been attempting for hundreds of years,” warned Harkon. “Don’t forget the sun in his jealous sky, who might be less pleased to have the result he wanted through an agency not his. Gods can be capricious.”
