An Unexpected Deity (Book 7) (4 page)

“Be ready,” Kestrel called to the imps.  “You can come down now.  We have a truce, and I will release my shield,” he explained.

Kestrel ceased the straining effort of holding the protective dome over his companions and himself, then waited for three silent seconds in the forest, before a gnome suddenly stepped out into the open and dropped its stony arsenal.  Another and another also appeared and released their deadly projectiles.

“That is all of us,” the gnome leader said.  “We will not attack you.  We will walk in peace with you to the village, and confirm that you are who you say you are.”

The groups came together warily, and then began to travel together – but separately – along the trail for an hour, until they reached an approaching squad of more gnomes and leaders who had been sent from the village in response to the hurried messenger’s warning.

“This one claims to be Kestrel, the one who killed the evil god,” the patrol leader who accompanied Kestrel reported to the leader of the larger group of gnomes who blocked their way from traveling any further towards the gnome’s village.  The meeting was tense.  Kestrel observed how close Wren’s hand was to her knife, and he knew that Putty was ready to shift her shape in a fraction of a second.

“I have the eyes of the gnomes of the Water Mountains.  I have drunken the water of the springs at Amethysaquina, the village where I lived,” he stated.  The gnomes from the village did not respond, but stood silently.

The moment remained tense, and Kestrel was about to raise his protective dome of energy once more, when the leader of the waiting group spoke.

“We have heard of you.  You may pass through our territory on the way to the lands of Proetec’s people,” he referred to Hansen’s father, a leader of that village.

“I thought this was their area,” Kestrel said in confusion, remembering the journey he had made when he had last traveled through the region.

“They acquired much prestige and power because of their assistance to you in your great quest, and so they were granted permission to move to a further land, one that is more remote and bountiful.  They left us as the ones to watch over the elves, when we moved our clans into this area after they departed.  We’ve told the elves that they must learn to return to living off the land themselves, that we will not coddle them the way Proetec and the elders of his village did.  This is why we were trying to chase you away,” Kestrel’s escort spoke rapidly, seeming to explain to the other gnome leader as much as to Kestrel, and Kestrel wondered what cultural tensions were simmering below the surface in the encounter.  The gnomes were known to be an insular race, one that preferred to live in isolation.  Proetec’s interracial kindness to the elves had apparently not set well among some of his fellow gnomes.

Kestrel had experienced the gnomish insularity personally, but he had managed to break through the reserve of the Water Mountains gnomes by rescuing two young boys and killing a yeti.  His feats had been so extraordinary and kind-hearted that the gnomes of the north had taken him in, and let him virtually live as one of them.  The intervention of the god of the gnomes, Corrant, as well as his participation in the
Garrant Spark
, had likewise given him access to the isolated people of Proetec’s village.

With his familiarity with the gnomes, Kestrel knew that the kindness Proetec’s people had shown  to the southern elves was the more notable part of the issue, moreso than the fact that he was now not being automatically offered full hospitality.  This group of gnomes he had fallen in with was only acting as gnomes were expected to act, not in an overly hostile manner, though the initial stones thrown at his group had been more aggressive than he would have expected.

“We thank you for the right to pass through your lands,” he said after he considered the matter.  “If you will give us directions, we will move on, for we have urgent matters ahead of us.”

“What can be urgent to the killer of the evil god?” the gnome asked in a neutral voice.

“We fear,” Kestrel paused and sighed, “we fear that the evil god has stayed alive.  In the place beyond our lands, the place it and its evil monster came from, a part of the god remained alive, and now it may be coming back.  We wish to work with Proetec’s people to find if there is a way to stop it once again.”

There was a murmur of gasps and moans through the small crowd of gnomes.

“What’s wrong, Kestrel?” Putienne asked.

“I’ve just told them that the god of the Viathins is still alive,” he answered.

“We will send a guide to take you to Proetec’s village,” the gnome leader spoke.  “Come with us to our village, and we will make arrangements for your journey.”

“Is it a long journey?” Kestrel asked.

“The new lands they live in are two days away, over a high mountain range.  It may be better for us to send a messenger to them, telling them that you have arrived and are waiting for them,” the gnome replied, after a brief consultation with one of his comrades.

“Is everything alright with your parley, friend-Kestrel?” Stillwater called from overhead.

“These gnomes are not the gnomes I want to see, but they have said they will give us a guide to go to the village of the other gnomes,” Kestrel explained.

“What’s the difference?  Aren’t they all the same?” Odare asked sarcastically.

“Coming from the imp who gets mad at humans who call her a sprite, I think that is unnecessary,” Kestrel shouted up at her.

“Kestrel-confuser, there is a difference!” she shouted back.

“What is it?” he asked, as all the gnomes watched the interchange that they did not understand.

“We are different!  We just are!  They are all the same,” Odare answered.

“I know some of them very well, and other not so well; they are not all the same.  The gnomes of Proetec’s village were kind enough to help the southern elves when their forest was destroyed; perhaps these gnomes would not have been so kind,” Kestrel made his point.

“Not all elves are the same, Odare-dear,” Killcen joined the conversation.  “Kestrel-friend was kind to Queen Dewberry, while other elves might not have been so kind.”

“You make a good point, Killcen-beloved, though you did not have to say it where Kestrel-ears can hear,” Odare conceded.  “We will discuss this later,” she said pointedly, and Kestrel could imagine that if he had been able to see Killcen, he would have seen the imp wince in anticipation of that promised conversation.

“What words do your flying birds use?” the gnome asked.

There was no point in trying to translate the conversations from one group to another, Kestrel concluded.

“We wish to go to the village of Proetec ourselves,” he said instead.  “We will not mind climbing the high mountains to see our friends, including my friends who were in the
Garrant Spark
with me.  And then we will ask them to lead us to the lake across the river, where we fought the great battle last year.”

The eyes of the gnomes nearest Kestrel widened at his comment.

“We will send a guide to take you through the mountains, but be forewarned it may be treacherous for your companions.  Are you sure you wish to do this?” the gnome leader asked.

Kestrel didn’t hesitate.  After having just completed his journey through the Water Mountains, and with Wren and Putienne each being as rugged as they were, he had no doubt that the group was more capable than the gnome gave them credit for.  “We will certainly go, and the sooner, the better, for I wish to hurry,” he asserted.

“Then let us be off,” the gnome turned, raised his fists over his head and crossed them as a signal to the other gnomes in the group, and all were set in motion.

“So what is going to happen, Kestrel?” Wren demanded information.

“My friends, Hansen and Greta, live in a village with Hansen’s father, Proetec.  The whole village has moved to a new location that is farther away, apparently higher in the mountains.  These gnomes are going to set a guide to lead us to that village, which is a couple of days away,” he explained, as Stillwater came hovering down into close proximity to hear the details.

“We will journey with you friend-Kestrel, but we do not fly so well when the mountains are so very, very high.  The air is thin, the temperatures are so cold, and it makes us move slower,” Stillwater explained.  “Except for Killcen, who can cuddle with Odare, that is,” he raised his voice, and caused a smattering of impish giggles to float down from the imps who floated above the canopy of tree limbs overhead, as they began to walk along the trail.

“Kestrel,” Wren spoke to him.

“Yes?” he answered his cousin.

“They are speaking their language, correct?” she asked.

“Yes, obviously,” he answered, puzzled by the question.

“I can understand them, and I don’t understand the gnomish language,” Wren said, as Kestrel turned and stared at her.

“How can that be?  How much did you understand?  Which words?” he asked.

“Everything they said – I understood it all,” she replied.

“That’s crazy.  I haven’t heard of anything like that ever, at least not since,” he paused, as he recollected his journey to rescue Jonson and Dewberry from the Viathins, when he had been in the land of the Albanuns.  He had received a gift from Growelf, a ruby stud that had been placed in his ear to provide universal translation abilities.

“Since what?” Wren asked.

“Perhaps it’s your ring from Kai,” he said thoughtfully.  “It may make you understand all languages,” he ventured a guess.

“That’s impossible!  What an extraordinary gift!” Wren marveled.

“She’s an extraordinary goddess,” Kestrel replied with a smile.

They walked for two more hours, and arrived at a gnomish village in the early afternoon.  It looked familiar to Kestrel, who suspected it was the same village he had visited before – just occupied by a different set of inhabitants.

“We will arrange for you to leave us tomorrow,” the gnome leader said.  “In the meantime, our people will gather supplies for the trip. 

“We will place you in a cabin for your comfort,” he said and pointed down a path that Kestrel knew led to an isolated single cabin.

Just then the imps came swooping down towards Kestrel, Wren, and Putienne, as the tree canopy was disrupted by the village setting, and there was an outburst of shouts and a flock of pointed fingers that rose to indicate their arrival among the astonished residents of the village.

“We should have brought Creata along,” Kestrel said in a sly aside to Wren.

“Really?  Why?” she asked skeptically, as one who realistically knew the limitations of her fiancé’s ability to fight and battle.

“Because the cabin they’re sending us to is the honeymoon cabin,” he grinned, then stepped back as his cousin swung her fist in a half-hearted effort to punish him.

“I know the way there,” Kestrel told the gnomes.  “We’ll go and unpack and relax.  Thank you for your hospitality,” he told those who were close-by, though most of them continued to look upward at the low-flying imps.

“We will send a messenger for you when supper is ready,” the gnome leader said, then he turned his attention to a messenger who waited on him.

With a shrug, Kestrel motioned to Wren and Putty, and the three of them and the imps started down the narrow path that wound through the woods to the honeymoon cabin.

Chapter 3

They settled into the small cabin, whose door was unlocked, and whose interior was sparsely furnished.

“I’ll sleep in the bed,” Putienne volunteered.

“We were going to fight about it otherwise,” she spoke up in response to Kestrel’s startled glance, “so I just decided to take the bed and avoid the fight.”

Kestrel waggled his head in concurrence with the practicality of his friend, then sat on a stool and removed his boots.   His feet felt delighted to be free of the confinement, and he felt contented as he opened his pack and started to unpack some of the items he carried.  One of the first things he found was one of the sets of pipes he had prepared in Seafare; they were gnomish pipes, modeled after the musical instrument the gnomes in the Water Mountains had used so wonderfully to entertain themselves during the long cold winter in the mountains.

He experimentally placed the pipes to his mouth and blew an off-key note, then adjusted, and began to slowly pick out a tune he had learned from Greta, a different gnome maiden named Greta than the one he was on his way to meet.

“What in the name of the glades of the Eastern Forest has possessed you?” Wren asked from where she sat in a corner of the cabin, also unpacking her supplies and growing comfortable.

“I made these pipes while I was in Seafare, and I planned to give a set to the gnomes here as a gift,” he answered.  “These are like the pipes the gnomes in the Water Mountains use.”

“They sound nice,” Putienne said from where she lay back upon the bed, her feet hanging over the edge of the short mattress.

“You might think that because you’re from the Water Mountains,” Wren said, “so maybe it’s born into you to like them.”

“Is that true?” Putty asked Kestrel.

He smiled, and shook his head ‘no’, then resumed playing, trying to recall the tune that Greta had first taught him on the pipes when he had taken lessons from her.

“If you’re going to play, at least play something that we,” Wren started to speak, then glanced at Putienne, “or at least I, can recognize.”

Kestrel smiled.  “This is an elvish song, Putty,” he explained, and then he began to pick his way through the notes of a traditional elvish dancing song, a lively tune that was often danced to under the full moon of the summer skies.

The imps all settled down into positions around the interior of the cabin, Mulberry laying on the floor with her head in Kestrel’s lap, while others picked spots where they were comfortable.

“Do you know our music?” she asked, and she began to hum a tune.

“Hum it again,” Kestrel suggested, then slowly tried to recreate the song.

“Perhaps your many battles have harmed your ears?” Acanthus suggested, after wincing from a series of misplayed notes.

“No, I can do this,” Kestrel insisted.  “Hum the tune again, Mulberry.”

“Is this the village where you had that ceremony?  What did you call it?” Wren asked.

“It was the
Garrant Spark
,” Kestrel answered.  “And yes, this is the village where it happened.”

“Can you show us where it was?  I remember you made it sound dramatic,” his cousin said, standing up.

Kestrel looked at the pipes in his hand, then looked at his cousin, where he saw the ghost of a smile on her face, a hint of what her motive was.

“Yes, absolutely,” he answered.  “I can play these some more when we get back,” he said with a grin at Wren, who winced.

Mulberry’s head rose from his lap, and Kestrel stood up, as the others in the cabin also began to move about.

“Kestrel friend,” Stillwater spoke up as he floated in front of a window, “perhaps you should look at this.”

Kestrel ambled over, and saw to his surprise that a dozen gnome maidens were squatting around the small opening outside the cabin.  He opened the door and stepped out.

“Where did the music come from?” one of the gnomes asked.

“I played it.  I have a set of pipes,” Kestrel answered.

“It is much like our music, or some of it was,” another gnome said.  “We enjoyed it.”

“I will play more after we return from our walk,” Kestrel said, with a meaningful glance at Wren.  “We’re going to take a stroll, but I would like to play with you, if you would bring your pipes later.”

With agreement from the gnomes, Kestrel led Wren and Putienne back to the village, as the imps floated overhead.  They stopped in the center of the village, drawing stares, as Kestrel tried to recollect the location of the canyon he had entered for the Garrant Spark ceremony.  After a moment’s hesitation, he turned right, and they left the village again, following a path that soon descended into a shallow, narrow canyon, one that was darkened by the tree branches that spanned its width.

“What stinks?” Putienne asked, as the smell of sulfur assailed their senses.

A flame jetted out of a small hole in the dark shale walls of the canyon at that moment, and Wren swore in surprise.  “Tamson’s fists knock me down!” she shouted.

“What does that mean?” Putienne asked.

“She was scared,” Kestrel explained.

“Surprised, not scared.  Who wouldn’t be surprised by fire coming out of the ground?” Wren corrected Kestrel combatively.

“If you had properly enjoyed the soothing music of the pipes, you would be more relaxed and less jumpy,” he answered primly, drawing a threatening fist from his cousin as he continued to step downward along the sinking trail.

They reached the bottom of the canyon, and came to the round sinkhole in the bed of the canyon, where the dark water within reflected nothing from above as the visitors stood and looked down into the water.

“What happened here?” Putienne asked.

“Pain,” Kestrel whispered.  “Terrible pain.  It was a test.  There was pain, and then cooperation to end the pain, and a bond to overcome the challenge.

“The
Garrant Spark
made the two gnomes and I unified, and stronger, and able to feel one another.   We needed every advantage possible,” he added.  “And in the end we succeeded, because Corrant made it possible for us through the Garrant Spark.”

The stones around them suddenly glowed.

“What is this, Kestrel friend?  Shall we take you to safety?” Stillwater asked as the imps immediately descended and surrounded the elves, ready to take them to a different location.

“Gnome-friend,” a deep voice spoke.

“Wait,” Kestrel told the imps.  “It’s Corrant, the god of the gnomes.

“My lord,” he spoke loudly, raising his head and calling out to the canyon around them.

“Kestrel, beware,” the voice of the god sounded from all directions.  “You and your companions will enter a quest with great danger; protect my child who will journey with you.  I know that you are resourceful for one who is not of my people, but you must beware that all that you encounter will not be what it seems.”

The voice ended, and the walls grew dull.

“But my lord,” Kestrel called.  “What do you mean?”

“Your great sacrifice will take a toll on you, but it will also save you,” the voice echoed hollowly, as the last of the glow faded away, and the small group stood in solemn shock at the bottom of the canyon.  There was a splash and a ripple across the surface of the dark water, and no other sound.

“What do we do?” Putienne whispered.

“We go back up out of this canyon,” Kestrel answered just a decibel more loudly.  He revealed the words of the gnomes’ god to those in the group who did not speak the language, then, after the loose translation he led his party back to the surface above.  He wanted time to walk and to think and to overcome the sense of fearful dread that the god’s warning had planted within his soul.  Everything the god had said had been vague, useless for trying to avoid any specific threat or trouble; yet it all was troubling, a prophetic statement that challenging and threatening times were ahead, and that Kestrel would have to make some unhappy choice – sacrifice something that would be painful.

He shuddered involuntarily as he reached the top of the canyon trail, and he turned to look back down, as Wren and Putty came up beside him.

“We’ll be with you,” Wren said comfortingly, as Putty wrapped her arm around his back and laid her head on his shoulder; the two close friends comforted him, and he smiled gently.

“A god of the gnomes may be a god, but he is still only of the gnomes,” Killcen spoke up.  “There cannot be anything that your great abilities and ours cannot overcome,” the imp said.

The ground rattled and quaked, and the elves held onto one another for support as they swayed from the tremor.

“Perhaps we shall not say such things in the god’s own lands,” Stillwater said mildly once the movement had ended.

Kestrel led the troubled group back to the village, and when they arrived, they found a dozen gnomish maidens waiting for Kestrel, all holding their pipes.

“Will you teach us the music you played?” one of them, bolder than the others, asked.  “We ask for music only,” she clarified firmly.  Kestrel stifled a smile as he recollected the subtle meaning that a maiden’s pipe music implied in a courting relationship.

“Let’s go down to the cabin and we can play music there.  I left my pipes there,” Kestrel reported.

The gnomish girls began to giggle.

“You want to take all of us to the honeymoon cabin?” one of them laughed.

Kestrel blushed.  “I will go get my pipes and bring them back.  You wait here for me,” he changed his plan, then led his friends back to the cabin, as Wren translated the exchange for the others.

“So you’re going to go socialize with all the gnome girls, Kestrel-rogue?” Mulberry asked as they walked down to the cabin and he explained his plan.

“I’m only going to play music with them,” Kestrel replied firmly, as he picked up his musical instrument.  “The rest of you can wait here and relax, or come up to the village and listen to the beautiful music,” he told them, then opened the door, stood at the threshold, and saw no one move to join him.

“I’ll go up on my own,” he said in as dignified a voice as he could, then left the cabin and returned to the village.

He and the gnome musicians played their music for the next few hours, until the sun started to set.  Kestrel played the two tunes he could remember from the Water Mountain gnomes, songs that the southern gnomes enjoyed for their similarity of style and taste to the music they played in their southern homes.  Kestrel managed to slowly convert a few human and elven musical pieces to the pipes as well, but the gnomes only found them to be mildly interesting in an academic way.

The smell of savory cooking meat began to pervade the village, and Kestrel finally stopped the musical gathering to follow his nose.  He and a pair of gnome maidens who followed him found a whole deer being roasted over a deep stone basin full of glowing embers, as men and women prepared various other dishes for the evening feast.

Pleased to see the generous meal, Kestrel returned to the cabin, where only a pair of imps were present with Putienne and Wren.

“The others went home to visit,” Stillwater said abashedly, not anticipating Kestrel’s return.

“There’s no problem with that,” Kestrel said.  In the excitement of the arrival at the familiar village, he hadn’t considered the possibility of traveling away from the gnomes through the expedience of the imps’ abilities.  He could return to his own home at Oaktown later that night, he realized, and wondered if there were any issues he should address there.

“The food for the meal here is almost ready,” he added.  “We can go up soon and eat with our hosts.”

Putienne immediately rose from where she lay on the bed, and Wren put down the bow whose strings she had been tightening.

The imps who were away returned moments later, so that Kestrel led his full contingent back to the village.  Upon their arrival they were greeted with a rousing fanfare played on a dozen sets of maidens’ pipes.

“You arranged this, didn’t you?” Wren asked Kestrel in a low voice as they stood and listened to the pipes drone through the music.

“I wish that I did,” he grinned, and then the flourish ended, and they joined with the village inhabitants as they all went to the site of the roasted meat, and enjoyed a great community feast.

“In the morning,” the leader of the village elders addressed Kestrel as the last bites of food were consumed, “we will send a guide with you to make your way to the village of Proetec.  You will need to leave early, so I cannot advise you to spend the night with the maidens, practicing music,” he smiled indulgently at Kestrel.

“The maidens would wear me out with all their music, and my own friends would be tired of our efforts,” Kestrel agreed.  “We will make plans to make music some other time.”

“Perhaps when you return,” the elder said.

“Perhaps then,” Kestrel agreed with a smile, though he did not know if he would ever return to that village.

“Thank you all for your hospitality.  The imps and the elves are here as your friends and guests, and we appreciate the great kindness you have shown, especially for sharing your beautiful young maidens,” he spoke to the group.  “We hope that the things we do will make you proud,” he added to polite applause and nodding heads.