Destiny's Queen 20

 

Chapter 20

 

Selen summoned all her surviving pantheon, including the hapless and somewhat ravaged Thanus. The two primary gods were Klerus, god of traders, son and apostate of Merkedes, and Librax, god of knowledge, apostate of Polos. In addition was Hippona, horse whisperer of the plains, called Blackmane, the greatest traitor, who brought the great horses who were used as heavy cavalry, from the breeding experiments of her own tribe; and Errilaz, daughter of Tor, who had betrayed her kin when rebelling against her father’s strictures. She had brought the knowledge of animating the dead, which Selen had worked on with Aima.

“You murdered toróg for nothing,” said Errilaz.

“I wasn’t to know there was a stinking goddess of trógling, now,” said Selen. “And why haven’t you been backing the bloodsuckers? You know about undead.”

“I know about animating dead bodies, but not about the way Aima animated them,” said Errilaz.

“Well, in that case, you’ve outlived your usefulness,” said Selen. She hurled rocks at Errilaz, who dodged most of them, but was hit on the head and fell off the moonsphere.

The other Selenite gods shuffled, nervously.

“What?” said Selen. “It’s an object lesson; don’t fail me. Thanus is also learning not to fail me whilst he recovers a body. Librax!  I need all your priests alerted; any prophecy about trógling, and about me, and... well, anything useful!”

“Yes, fair lady,” said Librax, with a bow.

“Klerus! Any prophecy your people can trade or steal!” said Selen.

“Yes, fair lady,” said Klerus.

“Hippona! More horses!”

“That cannot happen overnight; the barbarians ate my horses,” said Hippona, sorrowfully.

“I don’t want excuses! I want results!” screeched Selen.

 

oOoOo

 

Alethos felt a powerful soul on the brink of death, and called his sister, Latrika, to go with him to see what was happening. Kaz went too.

At the gates of dawn, the mighty body of the demi-goddess high toróg lay battered.

“Errilaz!” said Alethos.

“She has annoyed her mistress, the red moon,” said Latrika. “I can heal her, but it will be long that she lies in a coma.”

“Take her to Mesolimnos,” said Alethos. “I will speak with Tor.”

 

Tor had sensed his daughter’s soul wavering within its body, but he was too proud to seek her out. He felt the mental call of Alethos and steeled himself; he would contest Selen for his own daughter’s soul.

“Is she dead?” he asked, harshly.

“No, my sister is working on her,” said Alethos. “As far as we can determine, she annoyed the red bitch and was thrown to earth. She’s grievously hurt but I had her taken to Mesolimnos.”

“That’s a human city!”

“Yes, but a lot of powerful people are there who can protect her; including a heroine of Rogaz,” said Alethos.

“Why?”

“We have had many differences and grievances; and I don’t like even shells of bodies being used, but in light of what Selen and Aima did, I think I owe you an apology for assuming you intentionally bound souls.”

“I don’t bind souls at all!”

“Yet my people have reported souls released when your Nekrosti were killed.”

“The hell you say! That should not happen!”

“I think it was in the way Selen twisted the ritual which rebounded on you,” said Alethos. “Now Aima is dead, it may stop; and certainly will when Selen is dead.”

“When?”

“By prophesy it should be soon. No, you’re not involved and neither am I, not directly. It’s an all female affair.”

Tor grunted. Such was the way of his people.

“I... please keep me up to date on my daughter.”

“I will,” said Alethos. “My wife is with her.”

 

oOoOo

 

Errilaz groaned.

“Take it easy; you had a nasty fall,” said a soft voice. “You almost died. And it seems a shame to give the red moon so easy a victory.”

“She wanted me to take Aima’s place!” said Errilaz. “As if the rituals had not been tampered with enough!”

“You can atone by helping us understand the dynamics of Selen’s court.”

“I... yes. Wait! You are nothing but a trógling; how can you speak with apparent understanding?”

“Some trógling are mentally stunted but not all,” said Kaz. “And as a heroine of Alethos and newly goddess of trógling, we are equals, so don’t even think of getting sniffy about it. I didn’t have to help heal you, I chose to do so.”

“You are proud!”

“And why not? I have worked hard to be where I am.” Kaz stood tall. “I will ease you back into a healing coma, and you will be guarded day and night. I suggest you sacrifice in prayer to either your father or to Rogaz, in case you manage to die; you aren’t out of danger.”

Errilaz muttered a ritual prayer to Rogaz; she was not yet ready to face her father.

 

oOoOo

 

“What has happened to Errilaz?” demanded Selen. “I threw her to the earth but I have not been summoned to the place of souls for her. I was going to repudiate her soul, of course, but I cannot do so if I am not called. Can she have recanted and returned to worship of her father?”

“He’s too stubborn to accept her,” said Daze. “Perhaps Alethos took her? It could be taken that killing her meant that you repudiate her automatically.”

“Find out!” Selen demanded.

 

oOoOo

 

The battered and broken goddess would take time to heal, and remained unconscious, to allow her bruised brain a chance to repair itself. The large high toróg male who visited glared defensively at everyone.

He was confronted by a high toróg female with a trógling.

“Before I permit you to visit the patient, I need your word you mean her no harm,” said Hraazaz, crisply.

“Why would I mean her any harm?” the visitor demanded, truculently. 

“Because someone has already tried to kill her once,” said Hraazaz. “Please don’t be evasive but answer the question honestly.”

“Do you have any idea who I am?”

“You’re the fellow going to be thrown out of the hospital if you won’t let me do my job to protect the patient,” growled Hraazaz.

“I mean her no harm,” Tor growled back.

“He speaks truth,” said the trógling.

“Then you may be permitted to sit with her for a while,” said Hraazaz. “Latrika says that it is likely that she can hear even if she cannot respond and recommends chatting about things that will not cause her stress. Or reciting poetry or singing if you can think of nothing else.”

“Girl, have you ever heard me sing?”

“No, but even if it sounds like goats farting through a drainpipe, if it’s familiar to her, the rest of us will put up with it,” said Hraazaz, with an austere smile. “I assume you are her father; is there a mother?”

“She was a mortal,” said Tor. “She’s with Rogaz.”

“Ah,” said Hraazaz. “Well, I am sure Rogaz will let her know, if she is interested.”

“She dumped Errilaz in one of my temples,” grumped Tor.

“Oh,” said Hraazaz. “No wonder she was seeking attention and turned to Selen during a bad moment.”

“I could not believe it,” said Tor.

“You know, you don’t have to be afraid to admit to loving her,” said Hraazaz, waspishly. “Alethos admits to love; what are you, a sunling?”

“You are offensive!” he leaped up.

“Sit down and don’t shout in front of the patient,” said Hraazaz. “And thank you for the compliment.”

“You’re a pert chit of a girl,” he grumbled.

“And you’re grumpy.”

“Aren’t you even nervous of me?”

“No, of course not. Why should I be?”

“Most people find me fearsome.”

Hraazaz shrugged.

“When you’ve seen Alethos covered in porridge smeared on him by his daughter, you get a little blasé around gods,” she said. “His wife and I are close friends. Her friend has been truth checking visitors to Errilaz for me. I’ve learned to stop seeing humans, trógling, darklings, high toróg or gods and see people. I’m learning healing from Latrika because I’ll have a role helping to heal Rogaz and reforge the blue moon. By prophesy, I’ll be there. I might die on the mission, but I will be there, and nobody will stop that.”

“Can it really be done? Heal her, and heal our people?”

“Yes, it can. I believe it, and I believe in Kaz, the Daykaz, to do it. We have our tasks to perform, and we will perform them.”

“It’s a lot of faith to have in a trógling.”

“She’s not a trógling. She’s Kaz. And I’ve learned to put my trust in her. She put me into and got me out of the cocoon which brought out the high toróg within me. She rescued me from the Selenites. She does what she sets out to do.”

“And what does she set out to do with my daughter?”

“There’s a prophesy which suggests Errilaz might be going with us. ‘The daughter of destruction will ease the way,’ it says. Alethos is referred to as death.”

“Huh,” said Tor.

 

oOoOo

 

“She’s alive,” said Daze.

“Who’s alive?” asked Selen, hoping he meant Aima.

“Errilaz,” said Daze. “I got one of mine into Mesolimnos as a merchant; and there’s a big high toróg woman in the houses of healing that they have been guarding.”

“Send someone to kill her,” said Selen. “She knows too much about me; kill her as quickly as you can.”

“I’ll send one of my assassins,” said Daze. “Don’t worry. It will be done.”

“You said that about getting power from the sacrifice, too,” said Selen.

“Trust me,” said Daze.

“I’m not that besotted, brother dear,” said Selen.

 

oOoOo

 

Skulos knew he was one of the best. If not the best. He had studied people and he knew how they behaved. And confidence was the key. Skulking around was what got most assassins and spies caught; however tempting it was to lurk, striding out confidently was paradoxically more invisible.  He had to admire the pair of saboteurs named Fadabius and Aquilix, who had dismantled the bureaucracy of Selenopolis from within whilst being dismissed by all as a pair of more than usually outrageously camp secret police. Everyone looked in horror on their sartorial solecisms, and missed them building an army of rebels and quietly inserting impossible orders and work programs into the day-to-day running of the Imperial City. They might be enemies, but to Skulos, they were true professionals whose exploits were legendary, and should be written into any future manual for spies.  It was not in Skulos’s nature to hide in such flamboyance, but he appreciated it, and filed it away for possible use. He could pass as any one of a number of government officials or employees, from drain clearer to governor’s personal secretary; from argumentative guild member to quietly competent librarian.

This time, Skulos was being a high-ranking initiate of Latrika, a competent doctor who walked into the houses of healing in the distinctive red and white striped tunic of an accredited healer, nodding austerely to lay members, a bow across the room to a priest, making his way confidently to the room where he was to use his little cursed knife of cutting, whose wounds could not be healed, to open the veins of the unconscious toróg woman, and settle them on absorbant pads so nobody realised until it was too late.

A trógling was sitting with the female; presumably her slave, watching for any life-signs.

“You can go,” he said, giving the peremptory order to it.

“I beg your pardon?” said the slave.

“I said, get out, slave, and let me tend to my patient,” said Skulos.

The creature got up, and Skulos smirked.

He was not smirking when she cold-cocked him.

Kaz was infuriated.

And there was something wrong if he assumed her to be a slave in the free city of Mesolimnos. And her enemy sense was a little confused, although it gave her some idea that he was an enemy of Errilaz. Skulos was so very much the professional that he suborned his assassin’s nature under the part he was playing, which fooled many an Alethosi able to sense enemies until it was too late. Even so, he charged more, if Alethosi were involved. They had a nasty habit of seeing through him and being ridiculously fast to act and with extreme violence.

Kaz called for backup, and Skulos disappeared into a cell for later questioning. His cursed knife was discovered and sent to curse breakers to destroy, and he was stripped of a number of weapons.

Kaz told the unconscious Errilaz all about it.

She was relieved by Hraazaz, who seemed to take the watch before Tor, who had, to do him credit, turned up daily.

Kaz returned to the temple to see if her catch had regained consciousness.  He had; and was in a cell, dressed in a simple peasant’s tunic without a waist tie, as he had been found to have a wire in his own waist tie, his shoulder clasp was a shallow box  containing pills which were being analysed, and he had gold coins sewn into his seams.

 

Kaz swept into the room.

“Oh, you are in so much trouble, slave, when your mistress finds out you will be severely beaten,” said Skulos, hoping that the slave had acted under its own initiative.

“Don’t pretend to be stupid, it doesn’t become you,” said Kaz, crisply. “You know fine well that you are in the free city of Mesolimnos, where slavery is outlawed, and so pretending ignorance is no defence. Your method of avoiding the sensing of enemies we Alethosi use is almost effective, however, I suppose you immerse yourself in your role.”

“I don’t understand,” said Skulos.

Kaz partly drew her sword.

“Perhaps you understand what using iron means?” she said. “And oh, look, I can cast magic to fold you in your blanket as you are looking aggressive. Now, have we established that I’m powerful and you are currently helpless, perhaps we can begin your interrogation.”

“But... but you can’t be a glyph level! Troglings are slaves!”

“Trógling, you barbarian. And nobody stops free people from achieving glyph status if they have the willpower. This is why Mesolimnos has several heroes, and why the whole empire only ever had one, and she left. You are some kind of assassin sent to kill Tor’s daughter, Errilaz, but you can’t be very good if you don’t do your research beforehand.”

“I’m the best! One of the best, anyway! I study people, I know how to blend in!”

Kaz laughed.

“If you’re the best there must be a lot of truly inept assassins sneaking around the Empire,” she said, in genuine amusement. “And you did not study people nor blend in.”

“I... I did not know I was out of the Empire! I was moved by godly magic to the city, and told to kill the toróg woman in the houses of healing! What do you mean, Errilaz, daughter of Tor? She’s one of our pantheon. Lord Daze wouldn’t want me to kill her.”

“Oho, that’s the way of it, is it? And you’re caught in the middle of your pantheon trying to kill each other. Does that make you damned whatever you do?”

Skulos had never been so confused or terrified since before the terrifying but comforting certainty of Daze’s riddles had come over him. He felt trapped in a conundrum of the kind he found before his enlightenment.

“It cannot be Errilaz,” he said. “It must be someone pretending to be Errilaz, and the Lord Daze wants an imposter killed.”

“On my honour as a worshipper of Alethos, she is Errilaz. As I have sworn, so let it be seen as truth,” said Kaz, drawing an iron knife to cut her hand, and grasp the truth glyph she wore as a necklace alongside that of death. Both were made of iron, and Skulos knew that she had to be telling the truth. Otherwise she would be burned by the magical nature of the glyph.

He fell back in shock.