An Unexpected Deity (Book 7) (24 page)

“So I have watched you and admired you, and I’ve gone about my own life and duties too, of course,” his father said.

“But there’s no doubt that all you’ve achieved, all you’ve demonstrated, and most importantly the way, the way you’ve lived your life, show that if anything, you’re growing up very well;  you’d make a better god than I would, young Kestrel,” Morph laughed.  “Your mother was a good influence on you.

“Now, let’s go catch up with the others,” Morph said.  “Here, take my hand and you’ll have my speed.”

Kestrel stepped over, his mind swirling with reactions to the many things Morph had revealed, but those things drained away from his mind the second Morph grabbed his hand and the two of them started sprinting up the stairs.  Their speed was extraordinary; Kestrel had been jealous of the full-blooded elves in the Eastern Forest in the past, who had been able to sprint in an all-out state that had always beaten him in any race.  When he had managed to endure the long race from Oaktown to Center Trunk with Captain Lim, he had been inordinately proud of himself, though that had been a distance run, not a sprint.

Now though, as Morph took him and pulled him along, Kestrel felt an energy unlike any before.  It coursed through his legs, making them thrust and push and rise at a rate vastly in excess of anything he had ever experienced, far faster than he knew any living elf had ever run.  They bounded up the stairway in what seemed to Kestrel to only be a dozen steps, then entered a long corridor in which it seemed the tips of Kestrel’s toes barely touched the floor before he was twenty feet further down the dark hall.

Morph moved with an unerring sense of direction, and began to slow down abruptly, still in the nearly complete darkness, just as Kestrel recognized that the slight glow ahead was Krusima providing a bare amount of illumination to the rest of their party.  Kestrel felt his father’s finger loosen their grip on his hand, and a second later, as they separated, Morph was suddenly a dozen yards past him, as Kestrel momentarily stumbled upon the return to his own frame of traveling speed.

He hurried to catch up to the others, and found himself stepping carefully around the Skyes to catch up to the last person in the line, who was Wren.

“What was going on back there?” she asked as Kestrel arrived.

“There were several Viathins, and I trapped them in the prison chamber so that they won’t pursue us,” he answered.  “And then Morph pulled me up here at his speed!”

“Almost my speed,” the god’s voice echoed back to them from his spot at the front of the line with Krusima.  “Maybe when this is over and we’re back in the Eastern Forest and I have my full powers back we’ll see if you can handle my full speed.”

“Ssshh,” Krusima growled.  “We’re sneaking through enemy territory.”

“Do you have any idea of where we’re going?” Kestrel asked Wren in a whisper.

“No, he hasn’t said anything, other than he told Morph to go get you; he said we were going to need you,” Wren answered just as quietly.

Her report made Kestrel feel uneasy.

“Where is Stillwater?” he asked.

“Krusima sent the imp up ahead to scout and report back,” Wren answered.

“I’m going to go find out more,” Kestrel told his cousin, and he started moving past the others to reach the front.

He heard the humans murmur something as he passed them, but he continued on, and reached Krusima and Morph, just as they came to a stop at a cavern crossroads, where three passages led away from the chamber they stopped in.

“Which way to go?” Krusima asked, seeming to speak to himself more than the others.

“We could ask the Skyes,” Kestrel suggested.

“The who?  Oh the natives?  Those bugs?” the human god said dismissively.

“Without their help, we never would have been able to find a way to rescue you,” Kestrel stood up for the strange race.  He had been impressed by the steadiness they seemed to display, and he felt a loyalty to them after traveling with them on the trip.

“It can’t hurt to ask,” Morph pointed out.

“Go see what they say,” Krusima growled his consent, and Kestrel went jogging back to Wren, to ask her to question the Skyes about their location and route.

Wren and Kestrel and one of the Skyes went forward to where Krusima waited.

“Where is it you wish to go, my lord?” Wren asked.

There is a high tower, which provides a view over a great distance,” the god explained.  “From the chamber at the top of the tower, one can see a mighty temple, with a high steeple.  There is a great canyon before the temple, and a long bridge that stretches to the temple.”

“Are there insects?” Stuart asked.

Krusima looked at him in surprise.

“My lord, one of our men was killed by a swarm of insects.  We traveled by tunnel and cave to reach you in part to stay away from those murderous killers,” Stuart explained deferentially.

“You can surely have Kestrel do something about a few bugs,” Krusima brushed the issue aside.

“Not in the daylight, my lord,” Kestrel spoke up.  Morph and Krusima both turned their heads to examine him following his unexpected comment.

“This land has a blue sun, with blue sunlight, and we think that it perhaps suppresses my powers.  At night, and underground, I have some powers, but not so in the daylight here, at least not so far.  Even at best I have less than I had at home,” Kestrel tried to explain.

“”It may not be daylight outside,” he added.  “I might be able to do something.  When we get to a window we can tell.”

The Skye clattered inquisitively.

“Do you still want directions from them, my lord?” Wren asked respectfully.

“I suppose we better find the way to a window, to see if our reluctant hero has sunlight or starlight awaiting him,” Krusima replied.  “Find the nearest one.”

Wren and the Skye spoke quickly.  “Go to the right, then up more stairs and through a door,” she reported.

They set out once again, following the directions, while Kestrel found increasing resistance to the use of his power to maintain his illumination from his glowing hand.

“It must be daylight outside,” Kestrel finally said.  “I’m already losing the ability to reach my energy,” he told the others as they reached the top of the staircase.  His light was dim, sputtering, on the verge of extinguishing, and he knew he would soon have to let it go out.

So you’re telling us that if we need for you to use your powers, you’ll be unable to do so until nightfall?” Krusima asked.

“Yes,” Kestrel agreed.

“What good are you then?” the human god snapped.

“At this point, I’m still better than you,” Kestrel answered without thinking.

Krusima’s face was covered in an instant scowl. 

“My lord,” Stuart interjected, “you say there is a tower we could climb to see the surrounding terrain?  Perhaps we should go there and see what our route is going to be.”

Kestrel heard the last of the Skyes reach the place where the impromptu conference had occurred, as the small creatures finished their laborious climb up the long staircase they had ascended.

“Yes, let’s move there, and we’ll wait for the appropriate time to go on,” Krusima glanced briefly at Kestrel, then asked Wren to translate the new need for directions.

Chapter 16

Several minutes later, Kestrel stood at the foot of the stairs, holding his staff and his knife ready, as he, Lark, and the Skyes waited for the others to return.  The Skyes had led the group to the Tower, an unguarded edifice, where a circular staircase disappeared above their heads as it wound its way to the chamber that Krusima said was in the top of the structure.  The stairway was illuminated by a window that was just out of sight around a curve, providing both light by which Kestrel could see his surroundings, as well as evidence that the harsh blue sun was up in the sky, lighting the world and diminishing Kestrel’s powers.

Climbing the stairs had not seemed necessary for the Skyes, and Kestrel had volunteered to remain behind to guard the bottom of the stairs, and to keep the Skyes company, though he admitted that his conversation with them would be very limited.  Lark had surprised him – and Stuart – as she volunteered to stay at the base of the steps as well.

They listened to the rest of their companions climb the steps, as Lark sat a few treads above the floor where the Skyes were all quietly congregated, and where Kestrel stood, leaning on his staff.  He felt weary; he did not know how many hours had passed in their course of their adventure, but he had used his energy liberally, and the strain was playing on his body.  He longed for a chance to sleep, and he let his mind mentally wander as it considered the best places he could go – his own bed in Oaktown, the hot waters of the healing spring, even the bed in the guest room he had occupied while staying at Creata and Picco’s house in Graylee, where he had felt so comfortable in the guise of a human friend of the young nobles of the princedom.

He heard Lark’s steps as he vacantly stared at the Skyes, and then he flinched in surprise as he felt her hands on his shoulders, kneading his muscles.

“You look tense,” she said in a sympathetic tone, “my lord,” she added awkwardly.

“I imagine we all are tense, after all we’ve been through,” Kestrel responded.  He wasn’t sure he actually enjoyed the girl’s efforts to massage his back, but he didn’t want to offend her by stopping her.

“We had no idea you were the son of a god,” Lark told him.  “No wonder you’re able to do everything you want, and achieve the impossible.  You are the greatest hero of the Inner Seas.”

“You might say that, and I might even think it, but most others would disagree.  I’m sure Wren would laugh at the notion,” he replied.

“Your cousin says that you’re the greatest warrior and leader she’s ever seen or heard of,” the girl responded.  “When we talk about you, she is your biggest fan.”

Kestrel mulled over the unlikely notion that Wren would have complimented him.

Lark noisily took in a deep breath, just behind his head.  “If you would come to Uniontown with us, when this is over, and help my father, I would do anything you ask to repay you,” she spit the words out rapidly, in a rush of nervous energy.

“I’ve heard his men speak when they thought I wasn’t awake, or didn’t know I was around.  They say that Duke Fields has more men and is going to win eventually.  My father needs something to give him an advantage,” she spoke with great emotion, her attention no longer focused on her hands, so that her fingers were painfully digging into the muscles along Kestrel’s shoulders.  “If you don’t come help us, I’m afraid my father will be killed, and my brother too,” she began to cry, and her hands left their clutching of Kestrel’s shoulders to cover her face.

Before Kestrel could awkwardly turn around, the Skyes all began clacking wildly, and as he looked down, he saw them taking their positions to begin climbing the stairs.

“Go upstairs, Lark, and tell the others there’s trouble down here,” Kestrel stared at the passage in front of him as he craned his neck backwards to direct his words towards the girl behind him.

“What are you going to do?” she asked.

“I’m going to stay here to see what happens,” he began, before the sound of a distance Viathin bellow came echoing up the cavern passage, “and I need to give the Skyes time to start climbing the stairs,” he explained.  “You go now, and I’ll be up soon.”

“Be careful Kestrel,” she said, and he heard her boots climb up a half dozen steps, then turn, and come back down.  She wordlessly leaned over his shoulder and kissed his cheek, then ran back up the stairs and kept going.

Kestrel stood in astonishment, momentarily unaware of the sounds of the Skyes climbing atop one another to climb the stairs.

An arrow suddenly flew at him from the darkness of the passageway and nicked his hip, then struck the stone wall beside him, and ricocheted downward to weakly strike his booted foot.

Kestrel crouched and pulled his knife, waiting for some sign of the approaching attacker.  The Skyes were rapidly climbing, as the last of them reached the top of the first step, turned, and pulled up the two that had provided the steps for it to climb upon.  He saw a flash of some metal ornament gleam dimly down the hallway and he threw his knife at the target.

He had his staff held at an angle in front of him, hopeful that it might miraculously deflect other arrows that might appear out of the darkness, and he wished with all his soul that the Skyes would hurry so that he could start to retreat upwards around the curving staircase, out of the line of fire of the Viathins.

An anguished shout sounded from the darkness, and Kestrel called for his knife to return.  He rose one tread up the staircase, and caught his knife as it returned.

He heard the whisper of an arrow in the darkness, and instinctively threw himself to his left, in time to avoid another arrow that struck the steps and then clattered back down.  The Skyes climbed another step, giving Kestrel the chance to climb up one step too, almost to the point of starting to see the potential for some protection from the curvation of the thick column of stone in the center of the tower.

The next thing Kestrel knew, there was a screaming wall of Viathins charging at him from the darkness, five wide in the vanguard as they rushed at him with swords swinging wildly.  He flipped his knife forward at one, then began using his staff in a desperate battle to defend himself from the other blades that tried to take his life.

The Skyes squealed and seemed to find some way to quicken their pace, allowing Kestrel to begin to back his way up the steps one tread every few seconds, while he continually flipped the ends of his staff left and right, up and down, occasionally thrusting the end of the staff into the face of a Viathin to knock the monster back, which created a short-lived moment of relief as the falling creature pulled two or three fellows with it.

“Lucretia!” he shouted, and when the knife returned he flung it into the face of a Viathin that was so close Kestrel could feel its breath.  The staircase narrowed, cutting the number of enemies that he faced at any moment, but the battle continued to drag on, as he slowly retreated.

His arms began to grow weary, and the blades of the monsters began to find his flesh with regularity, nicking him in his thighs and ribs so that his shirt and pants grew red.  Kestrel knew that his advantage of being on the high ground of the stairs was slipping away in his growing weakness and tiredness.  The sun was setting, and he thought about the gloomy conditions he would suffer by falling in battle as night fell.   The weak beams of light that fell into the staircase through the window were a deep green, about to become black.

And then he realized that the darkness meant that his powers might be within reach.  He reached inside himself and found the power available, and a moment later he threw a shield up across the staircase, then let himself slump to the stony steps and lay in dazed pain, watching the enraged monsters foam and snarl at him from a distance of only a few feet.

“Kestrel friend!” Stillwater’s voice called abruptly, and the imp came zipping down to land next to Kestrel.  “Are you okay?  Oh, Stillwater, what a foolish question!” the imp chided himself.  “Can you hold your great magical protection while I go get help for you?” he asked Kestrel.

“You go, Stillwater, and I will be fine until you and the others return,” Kestrel gasped.

“I go!” the imp trumpeted, and he launched himself up the steps with a reckless abandon, while Kestrel was heartened and sat up straighter.

Within a minute Stillwater was back, holding the waterskin of enchanted protection that Tullamore had presented to them.

“Release the shield, and let me spray them away,” the imp shouted to Kestrel.

Kestrel looked up and saw that Stillwater had the spout open, and he was in position to begin his assault.  With relief, Kestrel released his use of the power to create the shield, and the Viathins began to roar in exultation as they prepared to rush forward, only to begin to scream as the water from the sacred skin started spraying out upon them, making them scream in pain and fall backwards, smoking holes in their hides evidence of the power of Stillwater’s weapon.

“Kestrel!” Stuart and Woven each called in their languages as they came running down the stairs to assist him.

“You’re a mess, my lord,” Stuart said, looking in shock at Kestrel’s bloody attire.

“Here,” Woven reached for and took Kestrel’s staff, then leaned it against the wall before he positioned himself behind Kestrel and lifted him beneath his arms.  He nodded to Stuart to grab Kestrel’s feet.

Stillwater was satisfied that he had chased the Viathins back far down the stairwell, and he turned his water skin towards Kestrel, then proceeded to spray a liberal amount up and down the elf’s body in hope of treating his cuts as well as rinsing some of the gruesome blood away, while the stymied Viathins howled and screamed from not far away.

“That’s a good idea; the duchess would have conniptions if she saw what a mess you’d made of yourself,” Stuart said as he grabbed Kestrel’s staff and then grabbed his feet.

It suddenly occurred to Kestrel that his three rescuers came from three different races with three different languages, and none of them knew how to talk to the others.  All things considered, he felt lucky to be receiving such effective treatment from them, he concluded.

Minutes later they reached the top chamber, just as the Skyes were also arriving.

“We found him lying down, ready to go to sleep, I think,” Stuart joked as they laid Kestrel flat on the floor of the room at the top of the tower.  The walls and the floor gave a sudden faint vibration as the others gathered around him.

“Good lord, Kestrel!” Wren said as she knelt next to him.  “Couldn’t you have just run away?  We could have helped you if you’d gotten up here.”

“The Skyes weren’t going to be so fast,” Kestrel answered.

“Ah,” she said softly, then turned and began to speak to the natives in their own language.  There was another faint vibration in the stone around them.

“What do we do now?” Stuart asked.

“We’ve seen what we needed to; we know where we have to go,” Krusima answered.  “It’s time to start on our way,” he said as he motioned out the window.

Kestrel stood up, then wobbled slightly as the tower vibrated again.

“What is that feeling?” he asked.

“I will go look,” Stillwater said, and he darted down the stairs.

Kestrel looked out the window, and saw the dark landscape that stretched out far below.  The shades of gray and black were illuminated only by dim hints of green from the last of the sunset, and by the few small points of light that were Viathins moving about in the landscape.  Off in the distance a collection of pinpoints of light were stationary.

“Is that the temple we have to get to?” he asked pointing, as the tower vibrated again, more vigorously.

“It is,” Morph agreed from where he stood next to Kestrel.

“They are knocking the tower down!” Stillwater shouted as he flew up the stairway and re-entered the chamber.  “They have great, giant Viathins with sledges, and they’re knocking stones out of the walls one by one.

“They shot arrows at me so that I couldn’t get close enough to spray the good water on them,” he told the others.

Kestrel and Wren began to translate the gist of the message to the humans and to Woven.

“We’ll have to fight our way down to stop them,” Krusima growled.

“No, there may be a better way,” Morph said, looking at the human god, then at Kestrel.

“What could be better than a battle?” Krusima asked scornfully.

“A clever escape that makes the Viathins think we are dead, so they will not harass us on our way through the temple,” Morph retorted.  The humans were hanging on to every word the two gods spoke, Kestrel suddenly noticed, as was Stillwater, and Woven too for that matter.  The races shared no language in common, yet they all seemed to understand the speech of the gods, and as he thought about it, he realized they had all understood the gods in the previous conversations as well.

“What do you have in mind?” Krusima asked, in a tone that indicated he could be persuaded.

“It will require a painful sacrifice from Kestrel,” Morph answered.

“What sacrifice?” Kestrel asked.

“You are my son, and your powers are a successor of my own powers.  I can take your energy from you, and use it to re-ignite a greater portion of my own, and with that, I can create a bridge in the sky that will allow us all to run from here to the temple,” Morph explained.