Call of the Goddess: A Bona Dea Novel (Stormflies Book 1) (22 page)

Axandra's shoulders slumped a little as she let out a sigh. “Humph. I hope that's all it is.”

“You have barely rested since you first arrived in Undun,” Eryn offered as an observation. She sat herself down on another stool facing her patient. “Due to the circumstances, I haven't yet made any orders for you to take a vacation. First of all, I know you wouldn't take one. And secondly, the people need you desperately right now. But if fatigue is beginning to affect you so detrimentally, I will make you spend a week with no councilors and no reports. Just food and rest.”

“That sounds like quite a wonderful idea,” Axandra breathed in agreement, tucking her loose curls behind her ear. “Eryn, I came down here because of the archivist's logs. He wrote in the report that we came upon a herd of bison.”

“Oh, weren't they marvelous! You could see them clear to the horizon,” Eryn recalled excitedly, green eyes flashing.

In a worried whisper, Axandra leaned close to her and stated, “I don't remember them. I don't remember the cars ever stopping on the way, except for a rest stop, and we arrived at North Compass the same day we left, not the next day. Why don't I remember what everyone else seems to?”

The Healer's gleeful smile disappeared immediately. She did not hide her concern at this unpleasant revelation. Her brows knit together as she peered seriously at her patient. “That is very strange. My first thoughts are fatigue, which does affect short-term memory recall, but you are not to that stage. There is also amnesia, but that usually accompanies severe injury or illness, of which you've had neither in the past several weeks.” Those green eyes studied Axandra's face, then moved about her body, looking for any other sign that might give a clue to the disorder.

“What about my headaches? And the lights flashing in my eyes?”

Eryn dismissed those symptoms with a shake of her head. “Typical symptoms of exhaustion and lack of proper nutrition.”

“And that isn't all. The archivist said that the notes don't match. Two said the bison were seen in the morning and one said the afternoon.”

“It was definitely afternoon,” Eryn said, indicating which of these note takers she represented. “We had already stopped for lunch.” She continued to visually study her patient without a single touch. Her eyes stopped below her head and to the right. “What is that mark?”

“What mark?” Axandra strained her eyes to try to see, but whatever the Healer saw was in a blind spot.

Eryn asked for permission to touch her skin and proceeded to brush aside her long hair and draw aside the neck of her blouse. “It looks like an abrasion,” she said, her cool fingers brushing over a spot just where the shoulder stretched away from the neck, toward the back, “Like your skin took a hard rub.”

“I did carry that heavy bag when we got home the other day, just before Miri grabbed it from me.”

Eryn narrowed her eyes, unconvinced. “Perhaps. May I offer to see inside your memories? Hopefully I can see what is causing them to hide.”

“I beg you to help, if you can. I don't like feeling this way. What if I've lost something important?” Axandra pleaded. Already worried about the lapses, Eryn's lack of answers and serious demeanor only deepened her anxiety. Her primary worry became that she was being stricken with a severe illness, possibly the one that afflicted the Believers. Would she wind up demented and bedridden like them?

The Healer took a cleansing breath, eyes closed. When she opened those eyes again, she looked straight into Axandra, pushing herself into her mind as she laid her fingers upon her face.

The greenness appeared before her, that loose blob of color that slowly clarified into a perfect circle. Gently, Eryn moved about the mind, brushing away the last few days, putting them behind her and searching for just the right moments. She settled upon a point where Sara's house, made of stone and rockwood beams, appeared.

Axandra did not close her eyes, but Quinn's face replaced Eryn's, handsomely adorned with his dimpled smile. He clutched a small hat to his chest as he said “I came to make certain you were feeling better.”

“I do,” Axandra replied in the memory, though her body did not feel well. She felt heavy, weighed down through to her core.

Then she felt a touch on her hand, his touch. His mind met hers for an instant.

In the depths of her consciousness, the Goddess stirred. It had been resting there, as it had for the past several days. The images of the bison were the first she had sensed of it since returning from the Northland.

Now, it lunged forward with a fury, disturbed by the intrusion. Hissing and snarling, the creature lashed with ghostly claws at the green orb.

Deftly, Eryn dodged the scrape, withdrawing to a safe area in the outer layers of consciousness, where only shallow and short-term thoughts flitted through. The Healer appeared unscathed, to Axandra's relief. Axandra could hear herself breathing heavily as adrenaline coursed through her blood, frightened by the unexpected act.
Stay back,
she hissed at the Goddess.

Treading softly, Eryn approached from another side, coming in from behind the hidden memory instead and disguising herself in the background. This tricked the Goddess briefly, giving Eryn a few precious moments to peer around at the details and stretch the time into the moments surrounding it.

But the Goddess realized that the intruder lingered and attacked once more, roaring angrily and leaping at the circle. Instead of allowing herself to be injured, the Healer quickly exited and released her hold.

Shaking, Axandra whispered fearfully, “I'm sorry!” The thing in her head growled and seethed, its claws scratching at where the Healer had been.

“No apology necessary. The entity and I have had our run-ins before.”

The Healer said this so casually, that Axandra almost missed the significance of the statement. She blinked and then stared. “I beg your pardon? You know about it? I-I thought—”

“I have been Healer at the Palace for ten years now and treated your mother on many occasions. The nature of my work allows me knowledge of the Goddess,” Eryn explained calmly. “Though I doubt those councilors responsible for the secret realize I know. In this case, it is protecting the buried memories. To what end, I'm not certain, but it's offended that I might see them. I managed just a glimpse.”

“Quinn,” Axandra breathed out, filling her mind with him in the memory Eryn had examined. “At Sara's house. But we were never alone together.”

“At first I thought it was a duplication—an echo of that night.” Eryn said, replaying the memory for herself as she looked toward the gray wall behind Axandra. “But the night was surrounded by different events and feelings. You were feeling quite ill when he came to see you.” She closed her eyes now, concentrating further. “You reached out for his hand at one point. No one else was nearby, though you heard laughing.” When she opened her eyes again, she allowed herself to smile. “You did meet him before that party. But that was hidden from all of us. My memories have been replaced to explain away what is missing, but yours were not.”

Axandra started to speak, but found her throat tight and her voice box locked. The right side of her face felt suddenly numb and her eyelid began to twitch uncontrollably. The Goddess scratched, digging into her brain, blocking her from speaking and pulling at her new deductions, dragging them back into that dark places where the other memories lay concealed. Axandra closed her eyes in pain.

Eryn must have noticed her struggle, for the woman grabbed her hands and leapt back into her mind, saturating everything green.

You cannot control her,
Eryn told it, blocking another swing of claws that would have slashed the present to pieces. The green oozed, cut to shreds by the razor-like talons.

Eryn?
Axandra thought after the Healer, afraid to see the damage.
Stop it! Stop!

Seething with ire, Axandra slammed a cage over the creature. The bars rattled as it banged against the trap, but the bars held. The Goddess hissed furiously and paced in its cat-like state.

You harm no one,
ordered the host.

The greenness of Eryn faded away.

Opening her eyes, Axandra found the Healer drooping backward, slipping from the stool. Eryn appeared catatonic, her eyes open yet unseeing, stupefied by the mental lacerations.

“Eryn!” Axandra tried to call back. The Healer only stared from where she lay sprawled on the floor

“Help!” Axandra called out for her guards to hear. They immediately opened the door and rushed in. “Eryn needs a Healer. Bring one! Quickly!”

Axandra crouched over the limp form, her hands hovering and shaking, afraid that her touch might cause further harm but wanting to offer help. One of the Elite left to get help while the other waited nearby, asking what else could be done.

Axandra could only shake her head. Tears sprang hotly from her eyes as she kept calling Eryn's name, hoping to bring her back. She touched Eryn's face and tried to reach in, finding only green ooze filling the wounded mind, spilling all around her like blood. When Axandra pulled away, her hands dripped with green. Startled, she shrieked and fell backward onto her rear. Looking again, the green disappeared.

Healer Phineas Gage arrived after several minutes. Quickly, he studied the patient and questioned the Protectress.

“Her mind,” she said through her sobs. “She's hurt. Please, you have to help her,” she begged.

“How did this happen?” Gage insisted.

Choking on her tears, she confessed, “I did it. It's all my fault.”

Gage barely touched Eryn's temple. The woman blinked and inhaled a sharp breath, her entire body trembling. Then she lay still once more. Within moments he withdrew his hand. “It is quite severe, but I patched the damage to her mind. It will hold until I summon assistance from the other Healers. We must take Eryn home and have the others meet us there.”

One of the Elite hurried off to collect the other city Healers. Another grabbed a stretcher from a nearby wall. At some point, several other Elite arrived to give aid. Soon they lifted Eryn onto the portable stretcher and carried her from the room. Axandra was left where she sat on the floor. She drowned in tears and in guilt and the green she saw everywhere, the essence of Eryn that spilled from her body.

It's not real,
Axandra told herself, closing her eyes to the pool of emerald liquid surrounding her.
It isn't really there.
When she opened her eyes again, she sat alone, and the green stain was gone.

3rd Octember, 307

Axandra waited
impatiently for an update of Eryn's condition. She paced her rooms, refusing to eat more than a few bites of any meal, and those only because Miri promised to remain in the bedroom until she put food in her mouth.

This was her fault. She should never have asked for Eryn's help. She should have let things be and taken her failed memory as part of her transition. Her choice to find answers left Eryn badly injured.

Each day for three days, Axandra went over and over the incident and each day her anger with herself grew ten-fold.

Right now, she wanted to take it all back, but she didn't possess the ability to turn back time. No one did.

Her body tense and seething, she turned on the ball of her foot to leave the balcony. A fly buzzed in front of her face. Angrily, she swept an arm through the air to shoo it away.

The table and chairs scraped across the stone and banged loudly against the railing. She stopped in her tracks and stared at the iron furniture in astonishment.

The release the energy felt renewing. Standing in the wind, she felt another surge building, and with a grunt, swept her arms aside again, pushing the table and chairs hard against the Palace wall without a touch. The metal bounced and toppled, clanging against the stones. Grooves marred the white limestone of the outer wall.

Panting, Axandra reviewed the mess. The urge to break something still seethed inside her, the need to transfer all of her frustration to an object that could not defend itself. And as she sought something—anything that would make a satisfying crash—she realized that no matter the circumstances, the necessity of solving the overall puzzle loomed more urgently than before. This wasn't just about her or Quinn. It couldn't be that shallow. Something more sinister loomed, and the effects would touch everyone living on this planet. Being angry at the furniture was pointless.

The surge of energy dissipated from her in that moment. Her hands, which had been clenched tightly at her sides, relaxed and hung open.

Closing her eyes, she let the cool autumn winds blow against her back. Long trails of her hair snaked around her head and face as the wind hit the side of the building and thrust back at her, creating eddies. Birds whistled overhead, flying in and out of their roosts in the decorative finials below the roof. The drying leaves of the trees rattled together below her in distant applause.

Lifting one hand, eyes still closed, Axandra summoned the force again. She practiced this talent in the evenings, when the day wound down and she found herself alone before going to sleep. Practice let her feel comfortable with the vibration which started in the space below her heart and rose up through her sternum. Gently, she lifted the chairs one at a time and righted them, then set the table back upon its base. The table was quite heavy, the heaviest item she had tried to lift so far with this mental muscle. She reminded herself that in her mind, the table could be as light as a feather. The effort eased and soon the arrangement appeared largely undisturbed. She lifted the last, small items, the broken pieces of the flowerpot that so recently decorated the table. She could not repair the damage to the pot, so she caught the pieces in her hands.

At that moment, a knock rattled the bedroom door. Miri entered without waiting for a response, stopped short and narrowed her gaze thinking that her eyes played tricks on her to see the broken pottery floating through the air.

Axandra said nothing. It felt best to leave the matter be, a path Miri agreed silently to take.

“I'm sorry to barge in, Madam, but Healer Gage sent information about Eryn. I knew you'd want to hear it right away.” Miri looked tired and frazzled, having spent the past three days constantly checking on the Protectress, worried like a sister that Axandra might do harm to herself out of guilt for Eryn. Axandra could not pretend that such thoughts did not cross her mind every time she closed her eyes and saw the green oozing all around her.

“I do,” Axandra replied, coming inside with the broken pieces, the moist soil cold on her hands. She dropped the fragments into a basket near the vanity to be collected for recycling. She stood with her head bowed, waiting for the news. She sensed that it was not pleasant.

“Gage enlisted the help of several Healers in the city to repair the injury, but they weren't able to return Eryn completely to her prior state,” Miri reported as unemotionally as possible. “The good news,” Miri tried to add a glimmer of hope to her high-pitched voice, “is that she is conscious and able to speak. They say she just doesn't seem to comprehend very well. But Gage assures us that the mind has an amazing ability to heal itself. With time, Eryn may return to her old self.”

Lifting her eyes to Miri's, Axandra said, “I'd like to see her.”

“That would be wonderful, Madam. Perhaps it will help her recover.”

But Axandra desired the visit for selfish reasons. She thought it might heal her own soul if she could see Eryn's green eyes with her essence behind them again, not the hollow eyes that stared up at her from the floor.

“I'll get you fresh clothes,” Miri stated, busying herself in the wardrobe to find a suitable outfit for the day's weather. She came back with slacks, a long, scoop-necked tunic with elbow-length sleeves and light wrap to guard against the wind.

In the meantime, Axandra washed and freshened her face, adding powder to her skin to conceal the dark circles under her eyes and the wrinkles that worry creased into her cheeks. The frown would not wash away, adding age to a once youthful face.

Dressed, Axandra stood ready to depart. Miri stepped outside a moment to let the Elite know where they were heading, and the two women exited the Residence and descended the main staircase. In the main entry of the Palace, staff members made themselves scarce as the women passed through. Axandra walked with her head straight, but her eyes cast down. She followed the seams of the marble in the floor, avoiding eye contact with anyone.

Long shadows cast across the floor from the wide doorway. Axandra glanced up momentarily, seeing a silhouette with the southern suns at its back. The double patches of shadow formed the shape of a man.

She looked away once more and thought, Do I know him? When she raised her eyes again, he had come inside where the sunslight from the high windows evened his color. Like being lifted from her feet, she felt pleasure rise up in her heart to find that she did know him.

“Quinn!” Axandra burst happily.

“Mr. Elgar!” said Miri at about the same time, who then glanced at the Protectress with a surprised smile.

“I couldn't have timed that better if I'd tried,” Quinn cheered with a boisterous guffaw. Then he bowed in respectful greeting. “Hello again, Protectress.”

“I'm so happy to see you,” Axandra greeted, hurrying up to him where he stood next to the welcoming fountain. “In fact, I don't think I've ever been so happy to see someone in my whole life.” She blushed even as she said the words, embarrassed that she gave it voice. She wanted to embrace him but held back knowing how many sets of eyes watched them at that moment, curious onlookers hiding in doorways and stairwells.

Quinn took great pleasure in hearing the words, grinning as he looked at her face. He felt his trip to be quite worthwhile. “You look as though you are on your way out somewhere,” he commented. “Am I interrupting an appointment?”

“Not an appointment,” she said. But the smile slid from her face. “I was on my way to see Eryn Gray.”

“The Healer? Are you ill?” he asked with concern.

“I'm not. Eryn is very ill, however. She was injured three days ago,” Axandra explained, still choking up over the incident. Eyes downcast again, she put her fingers to her lips to staunch the flow of sadness that welled up inside her. She looked to Quinn again, trying to keep her face composed. “I do need to see her. Do you mind waiting for me here?”

“I don't mind,” Quinn assured, his tone inflected with a willingness to wait for her any length of time, anywhere.

Turning to her aide, Axandra instructed Miri to take her guest up to the Library and tend to his needs. Miri appeared momentarily disappointed to miss the visit with Eryn, but quickly set her mind to her duties.

“I promise to be back in one hour,” Axandra told Quinn.

“Take your time,” he allowed, dismissing her self-imposed timeline. “Don't worry about me. I have nowhere to be.”

Nodding, she sent him with Miri, then turned and headed out the front doors.

Eryn lived in a house just at the bottom of the hill on which the Palace stood, a convenient location for the Healer of the Palace, accessible on foot and by car. Axandra walked quickly down the slope, eager to see about Eryn's condition and just as eager to get back to the Palace to her guest. On her tail, two Elite kept up easily and quietly. Their duties included being aware of everything around her and they used their eyes, ears and mental senses to do so. With so much peculiar activity going on with people and animals, they applied themselves to this duty more wholeheartedly than ever. Her entourage included Ben, for the first time since the garden attack. At least she could put that worry to rest.

The Healer's home was fashioned of stone blocks, like many of the houses in Undun. The stone had been quarried from the foothills of the mountains and cut into neat building blocks cemented together with pale colored mortar. This house consisted mostly of red-tinted granite, though lighter, grayer stone formed accents around the windows and doors and decorated the corners of the tile roof. Two levels made the house more vertical than houses had been on the islands, where typhoons necessitated low-profile structures.

After Axandra knocked on the wooden door, she was graciously welcomed by Eryn's husband, Marcus.

“Protectress, an honor for you to visit.” Marcus bowed deeply. “Come in and I'll take you up to see Eryn.” He turned quickly inside, not allowing her to ask any questions. He led her up the curving staircase to a room just to the right of the landing. The interior of the house consisted of long curves and arcs, giving the illusion of the stone as a fluid medium.

Marcus gestured her to the room. Axandra looked at him carefully before entering, sensing his worry and his disappointment with the Healers who had tried to heal his wife. Concern lined his brow and thin mouth. Marcus had darker skin, burnished a deep bronze by the suns. His dark hair looked stiff like wire.

“I am truly sorry for what happened,” Axandra apologized to him, hoping he would take some comfort in her words. She certainly didn't. His expression of grief refueled her anger, and her perception that this was her fault.

He tried to force an accepting smile, but it failed into a pained grimace. “Just go inside, please. I hope that your visit will help her. I know some people believe that the Protectress' touch conveys elements of healing.”

She wished that such was true. She turned from him and entered the sunlit room.

Eryn was awake, sitting up in a large bed looking at a picture book. She looked up with her green eyes and a simple smile. “Who?” she said. Her voice sounded childlike, high in pitch and soft in volume.

“It's me, Eryn,” Axandra said, moving carefully to a chair stationed next to the bed. Marcus must have spent much time in this seat keeping vigil over his wife. “It's the Protectress.”

“Who?” she asked again, as though she didn't recognize the woman seated next to her. “Book.” She pointed at the hard backed book that lay open on her lap.

“Yes, that is a book,” Axandra agreed. “Eryn, how do you feel?”

“Feel?” Eryn echoed, staring back at her. “Feel soft.” Her hand rubbed the sheets and mattress.

“No, I mean, how do you feel?” she repeated. “Do you feel well?”

“Feel,” Eryn said, then paused, looking around the room. “Sky.” She pointed up at the lights hanging from the ceiling.

Glancing out the doorway, Axandra detected that Marcus had left them alone. He must have gone down to keep an eye on the Elite. Slowly, Axandra reached out to touch the hand closest to her. Seeing this, Eryn pulled away. “No,” she denied.

“I just want to—to help you.”
I can't hurt you any worse,
she thought.

Eryn refused, those green eyes narrowed suspiciously. She kept watching Axandra, not looking away.

Backing away, Axandra gave up this tactic. Instead, she offered to read the book. To this, Eryn agreed. The red head listened intently as Axandra pronounced the words of the children's book and studied the colorful illustrations. Then they read another. After about a half-hour, Axandra rose to leave. She said goodbye and, when Eryn pleaded for her to stay like a girl might do with her mother, promised to come back for a another visit.

On the way out of the house, Axandra thanked Marcus for allowing her visit. He seemed eager to get her out, it seemed. His thoughts circled around the woman he loved and how she would never be the same now. He hated that he thought it would have been better if she had been killed in an accident, rather than turned into this.

Sadly, she began to walk home. She kept her pace slow as she climbed the gentle slope of the hill. While she walked, she stirred the pot of her thoughts, trying to reason out why events developed this way. She could not prevent the disaster that loomed with Soporus' approach, and she believed that she and the Council had done all they could do to ensure the safety of the people who lived on the coastlines of their continent.

On the other hand, everything to do with the Believers appeared to be centered around her, which was a complication she had not expected to have upon her return to Undun City. Her reappearance only fueled their conviction that the Protectress was a part of their theology, and that the divine being they prayed to was intimate with her, making the Protectress more of a priestess than a governmental leader. The Believers continued to make requests that she summon the Goddess to cure them. Short hand-written letters came to the Protectress each day requesting help. She had started to respond to each one, then realized the activity was pointless. The letters, all read, lay on her desk in her study, unanswered.