Gods of Earth (44 page)

Here on the island, in this forest, there were hundreds of smells, all of them mixing and changing and new. It was like a hundred forests, one on top of the other. He had now a glimmer of the dream of the cursed guild, the Lifweg. They hoped to fill the world with every kind of life, wild and close, the whole world a crowded den. The things Seth would tell his masters!

But first another matter. He could smell Thetis sweating. Afraid. Always afraid. At first he had pitied her. The Guardian was frightening to be near, with his smell of wet slate. But then why had she remained afraid? What scared her, after she knew the Guardian was not going to kill them all outright, after that first day in the Broken Hand that Reaches?

After they had left the valley and its too-small airship, Wadjet had pushed past Seth, impatient, and almost run down the trail. She smelled too of sweat, but a tight, thin sweat smell. Anger that.

Seth led the way down to the plateau, where the trail cut along the edge of the grasslands before turning into the forest. Wadjet was just visible ahead, as she entered the tall bush. Seth paused by a tall outcropping of smooth round boulders up against the steeply sloping hill.

Chance and Sarah passed him. They smelled alike now. Their smells blended. Mates.

As Thetis passed, he reached out and tugged her robe. The Mother of the Gotterdammerung looked down at him.

“Wait,” he whispered. They let the lovers walk on ahead, not noticing, eager to catch up with Wadjet.

“What is it, Hekademon apprentice?” Thetis asked him.

Sweating even more, Seth thought. She fears even me. And she uses the formal title.

“Junior Mother of the Ga-Ga-Gotterdammerung,” he said. “I would speak with you.”

“Please,” she said.

Seth looked down the trail. The lovers were gone. Wadjet was gone. Only the smell of grass now. And the watering hole.

“You a-a-alone of the Mothers in the Hand survived the god.”

And there, instantly, Seth smelled the heavy scent of her fear, a wave of perspiration as she flushed. But Thetis only looked at him.

“I know, know your true age,” Seth continued. “I know your age. Many, many years you’ve been in the Guild. Yet sti-still you are a Junior mother.”

Thetis smelled strong now, but remained silent.

“You knew who Chance was,” Seth added. “And you knew there was a watch upon him. Only Senior Mothers should know these things.”

Finally Thetis spoke. “What do you mean to say, apprentice?”

“I suspect you are Hieroni, spared by the god because you serve it.”

The wind shifted. A strange pungent smell came and went. Seth did not allow himself to be distracted. He focused on Thetis, looking, smelling for some sign. But she showed none.

“I serve Chance,” she said. “I serve Chance.”

“Then,” Seth said. “I-I-If you are not of the Hieroni, I can think of only one other re-reason why you would know of Chance. One reason you would be spared by the god. One re-reason the Mothers might punish you bu-but still keep you in their guild. One reason why the most senior Mothers might tell you of me.”

There, Seth thought. The stopping of her breath. The dilating of the iris. The heavy smell of the increase of her fear. The hammering of her heart. He had guessed rightly.

They stared at each other a long while.

“So you know my secret,” Thetis said. “Will you tell the Guardian? Will you tell… Chance?”

“Do-don’t know.”

Thetis leaned back against the boulder. “It would do nothing, help nothing, to tell them.”

Seth nodded. He could think of no good that would come of it either. He carefully prepared his next words—but before he could speak, Thetis pointed behind him, her eyes popping wide, and shouted—

“Seth!”

Too late the coyote turned. A beak as hard as stone snapped down at him, a crushing blow. He had twisted in instinctual caution, so though he did not escape the blow it only cut across his hind left leg, instead of breaking his spine as it would have.

Seth rolled and bounced to his feet, trailing blood from a deep cut.

Before them crouched two green birds, each as tall as a man, their black wedges of beak aimed like weapons at Seth and Thetis. Seth cursed himself: to have sat with his back to the prairie, facing into the wind that fell over the rocks. What a fool!

Thetis turned and began scrambling up the rock, her frantic clawing at the stone finding miraculous purchase; she dragged herself slowly up. Seth backed toward her, defending her as she climbed.

The birds watched, utterly silent. They were terrible, giant things. And hunting now, they would not make a sound, Seth realized.

“Ah!” he barked at them, trying to set them on edge. But he was too small, or too low to the ground, to scare them. They stepped forward.

He looked over his shoulder. Thetis had managed to mount the rock. She crawled up onto her hands and knees, on a flat spot, almost six feet above. Out of reach of these beasts, Seth concluded.

“Ah!” he screamed again. Then he turned and leapt up the stone, as far as he could jump, reaching with his front paws.

His stubby fingers caught, trembling, at a little crease in the stone. He began to slide back.

“The-The-Thetis,” he whispered.

The birds rushed forward.

Thetis, Junior Mother of the Gotterdammerung, reached down, grabbed Seth’s hand, and paused, hesitating.

Seth saw that she was thinking. His eyes narrowed, as if to say
I judge you, Junior Mother of the Gotterdammerung
.

Thetis twisted his paw, prying his fingers free of their grip on the rock. Seth fell. The terrorbirds set upon him.

The Guardian climbed. The forest and grassland fell far behind him. The bare pebbled ground and steep slopes were spotted with low shrubs of flowers. He followed the curve of the mountain, circling as he climbed, wanting both to get higher and to see out over the sea below as quickly as he could. He still had only a vexing sense that the god approached—shrouded somehow, inscrutable.

Then, as he came upon the hard packed soil of a goat trail, he felt it. Just a flicker, the last push of some power by the god, and then silence, nothing. The god had stopped using his power. But as the power stopped, the Guardian thought for a mere moment that he felt its distance. And the feel was close. Very, very close.

He shot around the trail, racing forward. First he saw, far below, the crumbling peak of Aegweard, like the broken tooth of some fossil jaw. Then the sea, the Sæwall, Wadjet’s boat—and there, on the beach: three airships.

Black shapes milled about them. Bears and wolves.

“Damn!” The Guardian shouted, furious with himself. He shot back down the hill, running now as fast as he could.

He exploded into the stream by Mimir’s side, throwing a wall of water out over the airship, more than half inflated now. The makina had tethered it, as it strove now to lift off the ground.

“If you can hurry this, hurry it.”

Mimir only stared at him.

“The god is here,” the Guardian added, before he disappeared in a gray blur.

CHAPTER

39

“W
ait,” Chance said. He put his hand on Sarah. They had come to a place in the forest where the hill on either side of the trail was steep, so that if you fell and did not fight for a handhold you could slide and roll far. They stepped carefully, watching the packed earth for sure footholds. “Where’s Seth? Where’s Thetis?”

Sarah looked back up the trail. “We let Wadjet get us moving too quickly. We left them behind.”

“Let’s back up,” Chance said. “I don’t like to have us separated. Not into three groups.”

Sarah nodded, and then stepped around Chance, leading the way. They walked back a few hundred paces. Chance called, “Seth! Thetis!”

No answer. They walked farther, to a place where the trail widened as it crossed a flat peak of the hill. Trees reached high above them, so that suddenly they were in shadow.

“Seth! Thetis!” Chance called again. They looked around, but heard and saw nothing.

Then Sarah looked back. And bounding up the trail toward them, far below still, was a black shape. She froze, staring.

“A bear,” she whispered. “A soulburdened bear.” The Guardian had told them there were none of the soulburdened on this island. That had to mean—

“The false god is here,” Chance whispered. “Run!”

They set off up the trail. Sarah insisted that Chance go first, which slowed her as he ran awkwardly, favoring his broken arm as it jostled in its sling. She resisted the temptation to draw her swords, knowing they could catch in passing brush, but she turned every minute to look back. She could see two bears now. They were gaining.

“Go,” she gasped at Chance. “Go!”

The trail narrowed, so that brush cut at their faces. A thorny branch caught at the stitches in Sarah’s cheek and tore open one of the cuts. Blood flowed freely down her chin and throat. Chance stumbled ahead of her, impaired by the need to run with one arm holding the other, but he did not fall.

The brush ended abruptly and they came out into a clear place, where a bit of the grassland protruded into the forest. To their left was an outcropping of rock surrounded by boulders. It was here, she realized, that they had last seen Thetis and Seth. Sarah cursed herself for not paying more attention to the land on their first way up and down the hill, for she was not sure but believed they were not far from the trail that turned up the hillside and into the mountain valley. The stream that ran by the airship crossed their path near this place.

“Chance!” a voice called. They looked up. Thetis emerged from the scrub at the top of the boulder. She was trembling all over.

“Where’s Seth?” Sarah asked.

“He’s.…”

“What?” Chance demanded.

She pointed at the rock on which she stood, a smooth outcropping as tall as Chance could reach with his arms over his head. And on it was a dark stain.

“The birds. The terrorbirds got him.”

“No!” Chance cried. “Oh, no!”

“We don’t have time,” Sarah told him. “We must hurry. Thetis, run on ahead. I think it’s not much farther. We can cut up the hill here, leave the trail. You hurry ahead, I’ll stay with Chance. Meet at the airship. Tell them the god is here. With bears. Go!”

Thetis started off.

“You first,” Sarah said to him. “I’ll help you up—”

Chance, looking at Sarah and so back down the trail, silenced her by pointing back, over her shoulder. Sarah turned.

A white blur tore through the brush, seeming to rend the forest air, and then exploded to a stop behind them. Hexus, in Paul’s body, stood there with his arm outstretched, the black eye festering in his swollen hand. The smell of rotting meat diffused through the clearing.

Without a word Sarah drew her swords and rushed the god.

“No,” Hexus said. “Not twice.”

Sarah was seized, lifted into the air, and shot backwards, over the stone outcropping, and then out, far into the stunted forest above.

“Sarah!” Chance called. He watched her fall into the scrub, arms flailing. He started to run after her. But in a blur Hexus appeared before him.

“She is likely alive, Potentiate,” the god said. “I merely set her aside. Which is better than she did for me when last we faced each other.”

“Filth!” Chance shouted. Rage started to boil in him. Rage for his dead father, his mutilated brother, his abused wife. Rage for Seth. “I’m going to.…”

He raised his fist and started forward. But before he could take three steps, Hexus bent space around Chance, locking him tight. The two bears clambered into the clearing now. Others were behind them: Chance could hear them huffing up the trail. After a struggle he managed to twist and look back. Wolves and more bears. And,
obscured behind them, a man clambered, bent over under the weight of a heavy pack.

“Where is the Atheos?” Hexus asked him.

Chance sneered. It was horrible to see his brother rotting like this, dying, possessed, lost. “Go to hell!” he said. “Go now—hell awaits you.”

Hexus nodded. “Very well. We shall see the Atheos soon, no doubt. Right now, Chance, I have someone here for you.” He turned Chance around, still bound.

The bears parted as they came into the clearing. They put their noses down to the ground, smelling about. And then there at the head of the clearing stood the man. He set the pack at his feet.

“Heya, Chance,” he said.

Chance stared, stunned. Here was a sight even more unreal, more unfathomable than Paul possessed by the ancient horror of a false god.

“Sirach,” Chance whispered.

“Yes, it is I.”

“You are.…” Chance looked around, trying to understand the situation. A prisoner of the god? Possessed by the god? Threatened by the god?

“I am one of the Hieroni, Chance. I am known among them as Vark.”

Chance could not speak. He stared, with his mouth open.

“Hear me, Chance. You know me. You know what I believe. Serving the god is the only path to the better world.”

“All lies,” Chance whispered. Tears welled in his eyes. “I based my whole life on what you told me. I… I made myself in the image you gave me. My father trusted you, trusted you more than any other Puriman. And now my father is dead—killed by this filth. How you have lied!”