Kalona’s Fall (12 page)

Erebus laughed. “No, she did not, though I will ask it of her when next she and I
visit.”

“So you visit her regularly?” Nyx asked as they made their way back to the ridge overlooking
the geyser.

“Yes. I enjoy her company, though I do not understand her obsession with the Fey.”

“I would warn you to get used to them, but they seem to prefer the mortal realm to
that of the Otherworld. Even my skeeaed has been temperamental lately.”

“Skeeaed. Is that the little pink-colored Fey who is so often in your shadow?”

“Yes, L’ota. Did you not speak with her today?”

“No, I haven’t seen the creature since the last test,” Erebus said. Then he stopped
and lifted her off her feet. “Goddess, there are brambles everywhere and the rocks
are sharply edged. The next time you visit me here, I would ask that you remember
to wear shoes.”

“I’ll do that,” she said. “But until then I will appreciate your gallantry.”

When they reached the ridge, Erebus put her gently down on a smooth-sided boulder
that made a perfect chair. He sat on the rocky ground beside her, and they faced the
geyser. Neither of them spoke, but the silence between them was not uncomfortable.
Nyx was thinking how pleasant and peaceful it was there, and how the rank smell hardly
reached the ridge, when the earth began to growl and then whooshing waves announced
the coming water and the column erupted into the air going up, up against the crimson-and-pink
sunset.

Nyx took Erebus’s hand. “It is so pretty! Thank you again for creating a thing of
such beauty for me.”

“Your smile is thanks enough,” Erebus said. Then he tilted his head and his golden
gaze caught hers, searching. “You should go to him.”

Nyx blinked in surprise. “Him?”

“Kalona. You should go to him. He needs you. With you, he is a better being than he
is without you.”

“I was giving him time to—” Nyx stopped herself, not wanting to appear uncaring of
Erebus’s feelings.

“You were giving him time to focus on the final test without the distraction of your
loveliness,” Erebus finished for her. “I am sure that that seemed a good idea, but
if I know my brother, and I have come to realize that I do know him, as he is really
just another version of myself, I can tell you that solitude does not bring him focus.
He needs you,” Erebus repeated.

“Do you never feel jealous of what he and I share?”

“No, my bright, beautiful Goddess. I am content with that destiny for which I was
created. I would not make a very good warrior.”

“I wasn’t speaking of the warrior part,” she said softly, meeting his sunlit eyes.

His smile was warm. “If you ever desire me to be your lover, I would most willingly
and happily return that desire—as frequently or as infrequently as you might want
me. But I have no wish to claim your body as mine and mine alone. My only wish is
for your happiness, and I believe my brother at your side, being your warrior
and
your lover is what would make you happiest. It would also make him happiest, which
is important to me, though I am sure it will take me eons to convince Kalona of that.”

Nyx slid from her rock stool onto Erebus’s lap, where she threw her arms around him
and hugged him tightly. “You do make me happy, so very happy!”

“Then I shall not interrupt that happiness.”

From Erebus’s embrace, Nyx looked up at the darkening sky to see Kalona hovering above
them, his voice as flat and emotionless as his expression.

“Brother! Come, join us,” Erebus said, standing and carefully helping Nyx back to
her rocky seat. “We were just speaking of you.”

“I heard only your Goddess’s voice,” Kalona said, not looking at Nyx. “And she spoke
of the great happiness you bring her. Nyx, with your permission, I will leave you
to that.”

“You have my permission,” Nyx said, her voice sounding very young.

With a flash of silver wings, Kalona disappeared into the horizon.

Erebus sighed. “For a warrior he seems awfully sensitive.”

“He loathes me,” Nyx said.

“He loves you,” Erebus corrected. “That is why he has flown away in a jealous fit.
All you need do is to find him and explain
why
you said that I make you very happy. Later I will mention to him that if he is going
to eavesdrop, he should learn to do a more thorough job of it.”

“Erebus, you are a good friend,” Nyx said, bending to kiss his cheek.

“And you are a kind and loving Goddess,” Erebus said. “Oh, and I am ready to complete
the final test.”

“Shall we summon Spirit to call Mother Earth?”

“There is time aplenty for that. I can wait a little while until you have made peace
with my brother.”

Nyx hugged him again and then she stood and, thinking of Kalona, called the magick
of Divinity to her. It lifted her and, leaving a trail of glittering starlight in
her wake, began to carry the Goddess toward the sea of grass that covered the center
of the wild continent.

10

FOR MY DAUGHTER, THIS CREATION OF MINE, I GIVE THE GIFT OF NIGHT DIVINE …

Nyx found his campsite easily,
though Kalona was absent from it. She meant to leave quickly, to follow the connection
she had with him and go directly to him, but the spot Kalona had made his own intrigued
her.

It was at the edge of the grassy prairie where it curved into the cross-timber section
of trees that lined a sandy creek, at the other end of which the Prairie People had
a large settlement. Nyx thought it was a nice spot for a camp, and Kalona had certainly
made it comfortable.

She looked through the piles of pelts, woven baskets, tools, and foodstuff, realizing
that her lover had obviously made friends with the Prairie People—or she hoped he
had. Nyx’s hand lingered on a particularly thick fur, much like the one he had lined
her boat with the day he had crafted it for her.

What was Kalona trading for such a rich array of gifts? Nyx knew the native mortals—knew
them well. They could be kind and generous, but they also rarely gave without purpose.

A small sliver of apprehension lodged with the Goddess as she remembered Kalona’s
first encounter with the Prairie People. They had named him a winged God and had been
ready to worship him.

“No! I will not think ill of Kalona. He is not responsible for the superstitions of
the Prairie People,” Nyx told herself firmly.

The Goddess turned her face from the pile of gifts and left the cozy little campsite.
She stood at the edge of the prairie and spread her arms wide, throwing back her head
and drinking in the rising light of a full, silver moon. The night was clear, and
the sky was filled with stars. The breeze was warm and gentle, and out into it Nyx
sent her magick.

“Lead me to my love, so that I might make right what has become wrong between us,”
Nyx commanded the night.

Wisps of magick, like the sparkling tail of shooting stars, flowed from the Goddess.
Gently but surely they pulled her forward. Nyx followed. Confident that Kalona was
nearby, she felt her heartbeat quicken in anticipation. He had been created for her;
he did love her. She need only to look into his amber eyes, to touch the smooth strength
of his body, and he would know as surely as she that there was nothing and nobody
standing between them, that there never would be.

Nyx saw the black birds before she saw Kalona. They pulled her gaze to a distant rolling
rise in the prairie that held a few small trees and some lichen-covered sandstone
ledges. She could see Kalona’s silhouette. He was sitting on a large, flat slab of
stone, head in his hands, shoulders bent. His wings glistened as if they were absorbing
the light of the full moon. Nyx stopped and stood silently, watching him from a distance.
He is so beautiful, so majestic, and so sad,
she thought.
I ache to ease his sadness.

Nyx had just begun to close the distance between herself and Kalona when a figure
moved in the upper corner of the Goddess’s vision, drawing her gaze from the winged
immortal. Above him, on an even larger outcropping of sandstone rock, a feather-bedecked
old man had appeared. He stood, slowly straightening his age-crooked body. As he straightened,
Nyx could see that he was not alone. A woman was with him—a girl, really. She was
wearing an elaborately decorated dress of tanned hide, which Nyx thought was quite
lovely. Actually, even from a distance the Goddess could tell that the maiden was
spectacularly beautiful.

Nyx’s brow raised and she felt a stab of jealousy. Was the old man offering the maid
to Kalona? What if he accepted her?

The Goddess was torn. Part of her wanted to fade into the night and to allow her love
to take his pleasure where he could find it.

Another part of her wanted to rush forward and demand Kalona choose none other but
her.

Nyx bowed her head and surrendered the knowing of what it felt to be jealous and vulnerable
and full of despair.

The old man began to chant a wordless, rhythmic melody. His voice was hypnotic, and
Nyx felt her own bare feet begin to move in time with it when Kalona spoke.

“Shaman, enough! I have endured too many miseries today. I do not need your unending
song added to them.” He raised his head, and Nyx could see his body jerk in surprise.
“Why have you brought a child here?”

“I do only as my dream commands.”

“About that dream, you could have told me that—”

The old man’s voice cut across Kalona’s. As he sang his song, the timbre of his voice
changed, magnified with a strange power that glowed from the center of his forehead
in a pure, white light the shape of a crescent moon.

What I do, I do for two

One for her

And one for you

Take this maid

Her blood runs true

Sacrifice for two

One for her

And one for you

Mesmerized, Nyx watched and listened, but as the Shaman’s song progressed, a terrible
sense of foreboding filled the Goddess and she began to move forward, slowly at first,
and then more quickly, until she was running.

Balance hold

New and old

Scale of two

One for her

And one for you!

With the last line of his song, the Shaman lifted his hand. Nyx saw that in it he
held a long, sharp obsidian blade.

“No!” the Goddess cried.

The Shaman’s blade did not waver. It slashed the maid’s throat, releasing a torrent
of blood. She fell to his feet, gasping her life’s breath and flooding the sandstone
with a crimson tide.

“Why have you done this?” Nyx rushed to the maid, pulling the dying girl into her
arms.

“The sacrifice was for two. One for him. One for you. Forgive me, Goddess. I did only
what I could do.” Then the old man’s eyes rolled white. He clutched his chest and
fell into the grasses, breathing no more.

Nyx looked up to see that Kalona’s face was as pale as moonlight. “What madness is
this?”

“I-I do not know. I thought the old man deluded, misguided even. I did not think him
capable of this.”

“Have he and his People been worshipping you?”

Nyx saw genuine surprise in Kalona’s expression. “They left me gifts, and the old
man often chanted and smudged around me. Is that worship?” Kalona shook his head,
staring at the dying maiden. “I am a fool. I am to blame for these two deaths.”

“No!” Nyx said sternly, not willing to allow Kalona to fall into despair and guilt.
“He was an old man. His heart failed him. That could not be changed and is not your
fault. But this girl, this child, he so mistakenly sacrificed to you, she still clings
to life. We can save her, you and I. Give me your borrowed gift of creation, and invoke
Spirit. What would please me most is that your final test save the life of this girl.”

“But Mother Earth—”

“I am Goddess! And I proclaim that I am willing to exchange my friendship with Earth
for this child’s life.”

Kalona bowed his head to her. “Yes, my Goddess.”

I call you, Spirit, Power Divine, and creation magick as well.

I have one more test to pass, one more tale to tell.

As the Goddess commands, so mote it be,

However she wishes to use you, with her I agree.

Kalona bent and kissed Nyx gently on the lips, and as the Goddess accepted his kiss,
she drew within her body Spirit, the magick of creation, and the power of the Divine.

Nyx lifted the obsidian knife from where the old man had dropped it, quickly slashing
the blade across her own wrist. Then she held the oozing line to the girl’s pale lips,
saying:

Blood of my blood, you shall ever after be.

Take, drink. From this night forth your new life is my decree.

The girl’s eyes remained closed, but her lips opened against the Goddess’s wound,
and she drank as Nyx commanded.