Mind of the Magic (Arhel Book 3) (8 page)

Behind her, Witte sighed. “Yes,” he said. “Yes, precisely so. Things proceed apace.”

Faia tried magic to free herself—but every time she attempted to ground and shield herself so that she could break away from the invisible bonds that held her, her use of magic served only to make the bonds stronger. Finally, despairing, staring at her trapped and frozen daughter, she begged Witte to do something. “Help me!” she pleaded. “Witte, help me. I can’t move! I have to go after her!”

“Well, of course you do,” he said. “But not just yet.” He walked over to Faia’s side, to where she could see him clearly, and he looked up at her—and when he did, he smiled, and his eyes glittered. “Right now you’re exactly where I need you, thanks to your lovely little daughter. Children are so useful sometimes.”

Faia felt her stomach lurch—she felt as if the floor were falling away beneath her. “What!?”

“Useful.” He winked at her. “I assumed that when Kirtha saw her daddy, she would charge right into the barrier. And so she has—and now you are committed to helping me. Even though I thought probably you would do what needed to be done when you saw your friends trapped in the emeshest—the god-aura—I couldn’t be sure. I
knew
, though, that you wouldn’t leave your daughter a captive without making your best attempt to go in and free her. With her trapped in the Dreaming God’s aura, you have no choice but to do what I want.”

Faia’s blood felt like it had frozen in her veins. Her heartbeat thudded in her ears. “You—you planned this?”

“From the moment I appeared on your doorstep, dear lady.” He hooked his thumbs into his belt. “Even a bit before that.”

The room pressed in on Faia from all sides, so that she felt she was running out of air. Bile burned in the back of her throat. She tried to keep calm, though she wanted to scream. “You conniving, dung-eating, sheep-futtering slime’s son!” she growled. She had to force the words out through her suddenly constricted throat; her rage made breathing an effort. “You’re no friend of Nokar’s, are you?”

His eyes widened in feigned surprise. “Such language. Naughty, naughty. Nokar… no, he never met me—though I, of course, knew him. And… no, I wouldn’t say we were friends—exactly. Let me introduce myself,” he said, “by the best known of my many names. Folks do call me Witte A’Winde, of course, and sometimes Witte the Mocker. I’m the Mocking God, too, and Ranchek the Trickster. I’m best known, however, as Hrogner, chief saje God of Mischief.” He bowed so deeply his braid flipped upside down and dragged along the floor. “I am one of the great gods,
not
one of the minor deities.”

A god, she thought, while her heart raced wildly. He was a god—the god Hrogner. She’d brought him into her house, and made him welcome. All the folktales said gods could not enter a home uninvited—but she’d
brought
him in. Welcomed him, cared for him… . His mocking words echoed in her mind.

“…you need equal measures of kindness and paranoia, dear girl. Otherwise, there’s no telling what you might invite into your house someday.”

She’d invited him in. And he’d tricked her.

“I want my daughter back,” she said She could hear her voice shaking—fear for her daughter mixing with murderous rage.

“We all want a lot of things,” Witte said agreeably, while his smile stretched wider.

Faia nodded slowly. He’d betrayed her. From the very first—from the moment she’d rescued him from the street, he’d planned to betray her. Worse, he’d planned to use Kirtha, who had adored him. That betrayal burned in her mind more than any other.

Fury devoured Faia; the very universe seemed to narrow into a tunnel that connected her to Witte. She stared at him, and felt the rage that sang through her body—felt the power of earth and sky draw into her staff, until her body seemed full to the bursting point with magic. “Yes, we do,” she said in a quiet voice. “We all want a
lot
of things.” Her magic fought her when she tried to use it to help herself—but perhaps it would still work if she turned it on him. She pointed her staff at Witte’s chest and willed the power of earth and sun to destroy him. “And I want you to die,” she whispered.

Rich green faeriefire flames boiled from the staff’s brass tip and blasted into Witte—and through him. Energy crackled around him; the wall of rock behind the little man melted, leaving a ragged opening into another chamber and a pool of glowing lava on the chamber floor. Faia poured magic steadily into her staff, drawing from the power of the earth and the sun, and from the emeshest—with an equivalent outburst, Faia had once turned a stone village to melted slag. But Witte simply stood there, watching her and grinning.

The wall on the far side of the chamber she’d just opened collapsed, and Faia heard the rumble of shifting stone over her head, and felt the earth shudder. Her fury withered in that instant. She could bring the mountain down on top of herself and her daughter, she realized. She could die, leaving Witte untouched. He was beyond her magic.

She should have known.

He chuckled. “That was a waste of effort, silly girl You haven’t the power to roast me. Not even you can kill a god.” He stepped into the wall of light—the emeshest—and danced and spun merrily through it. It didn’t affect the little god at all. He pranced around frozen Kirtha… and then right through her, and leapt back out again. “You can’t touch me,” he told her.

He sighed and flopped onto the stone floor again. “Of course,” he added, “because I am a god, I can’t touch that.” He pointed to the emeshest. “No god can reach inside another’s aura. So I needed a mortal to wake Delmuirie.”

She stared at him, and wondered how a mortal could kill a god. In her mind, she swore to the Lady that if it were possible, no matter what it took, she would destroy Hrogner.

He laughed out loud and clapped his hands. “You can’t kill me, silly girl.” He’d read her mind. He bounded onto a boulder, and turned to face her. “You can’t.” He grinned at her, his eyes for once level with hers. “That’s what being immortal means. You can’t destroy me. You can’t do
anything
to me.”

But she would, she thought. For what he’d done to her daughter, she’d find a way to make him pay. First though, she had to save Kirtha—and her friends.

Her mother had told her,
You will have a test—a test of your courage and your will—and, too, of your love for your friends, and for all the people of Arhel.

This was worse than a test, though. This was torture.

She had one question for the Mocking God. “Why do you want me to wake Delmuirie?” she asked. “Since I’m sure you don’t care what happens to my friends or my daughter, and since I can’t imagine you caring about what happens to Arhel, either—what is in this for you?”

Witte chuckled and sat down on the rock. “I want to cause trouble. It’s what I do.” He crossed one leg over the other and swung his foot like a small, wicked child. “Delmuirie is no god. He’s a man—and I want to see him grow old like a man, and die like one. His presence among the eternals displeases me.”

“That’s evil,” Faia said.

“It’s funny.” Hrogner arched an eyebrow and his smile curled at one corner. He pressed the palms of his hands together and leaned forward. “Do you know what is even funnier? I don’t know what will happen when you wake him. Isn’t that delicious?” He laughed again—a high, mad, giggling laugh.

The laugh grated on Faia’s nerves, but she forced herself not to respond to it. She breathed in and out slowly, until she felt calm and centered. She had to think—had to find a way to free her daughter and her friends. “Fine, little fiend. You’ll get your wish. I’ll wake the idiot Delmuirie. Simply tell me what I must do.”

Witte shrugged and chuckled. His foot swung back and forth. “I haven’t the slightest idea.”

“What?” Faia’s voice dropped to a dangerous whisper.

The little god shrugged and tipped his hands palm up. “I can’t affect the emeshest, dear girl, any more than I can affect the Delmuirie barrier. If I knew what to do, I wouldn’t need you. Now, would I?” He smiled brightly. “I’d tell you if I could, of course.”

“My daughter is in there.” Faia imagined ripping the diminutive god into tiny, bloody shreds; she liked the image.

Witte remained unconcerned, though. “Think of her as incentive.”

Her anger grew cold—and made her strong. She would find a way to free Kirtha, and when she had succeeded, she would find a way to obliterate a god. She didn’t care that no one had ever done it before. She would do it—she would make the vile Hrogner pay. She stared at the barrier of light, and at Kirtha, frozen in midstep on the other side—still looking as if she would spurt forward at any instant and race on to find her father.

She’s alive in there, Faia thought. And if there’s a way into the emeshest, there must be a way out. I can find it—if anyone in Arhel can find it, I can.

She clenched her jaws tight and squinted into the light.

I have to.

She reached out, and tentatively touched the wall of light. It shimmered and pulsed beneath her fingertip, and she felt a jolt of pure, wild energy sing through her veins. She pulled her hand back and pondered the wall again. It seemed alive, that glistening barrier—alive and waiting. Deep in her belly, she felt terror at what she faced; she kept that terror in check, though, and let the energy of her fear spur her thoughts. The only thing she needed to fear was failure; and because her daughter was in there, she could not fail. She could not. She lowered herself to the ground and crossed her legs, then pressed both her palms against her belly and concentrated on feeling her breath moving in and out.

Use the fear, she told herself. Let it fuel the magic.

Faia studied the pulsing wall of light with senses both physical and magical. She felt out its perimeters. It soared as far above the surface of the earth as it burrowed beneath it; it sat like a fat sphere buried to its middle in the mountainside. Not all of it was visible energy, she realized—from the promontory, the light had flowed like a blanket over the surface of the ancient ruins, though the actual reach of Delmuirie’s magic covered much more territory.

She could find neither a ley line power source, nor a link with earth or sun. The energy seemed truly to come from the heart of the emeshest—from the center, where Delmuirie sat like a fat, stupid spider in its web.

She could not break the emeshest’s ties with its source of power, then. She dared not physically enter it, or she would certainty end up in the same situation as her daughter and her friends—from the inside, she wouldn’t be able to help.

Yet what could she hope to do from the outside?

She struggled to ground the energy she controlled—the impossible amounts of power the emeshest generated had disturbed her when she and Witte had arrived in the city. Physical proximity to the wall of light made the effects much worse. She tightened the focus of her concentration, until the world around her ceased to intrude on her thoughts, and only the magic and the emeshest existed for her.

Inside and outside. That was her answer; she needed to be both inside and outside Delmuirie’s wall.

Hard discipline had taught her to pare away all of herself that was physical, and to break her spirit free—long practice gave her the strength to do what she needed to do in spite of her fear for her daughter, in spite of the distraction of the pulsing emeshest, in spite of her fury at the meddlesome, evil god that sat on the rock above her, swinging his leg. Slowly and cautiously, she separated her conscious self from her body. She floated above her flesh, so that for a moment she could see herself sitting on the floor, legs crossed, eyes closed. She turned away from her flesh-self, and as she did, she caught a quick glimpse of Witte sitting on his boulder, suddenly very still, watching her intently.

Forget him, she told herself. Think of Kirtha.

Then she moved her spirit-self into the wall of light. This time, there was no palpable thrill of pulsing energy—with her flesh left behind, the magic couldn’t touch her that way. For the first time, she embraced the mind of the magic.

AS her spirit-self melted into the glowing barrier, an immense outpouring of energy filled her; the wealth of magic was so vast every touch of power she had experienced to that moment seemed as nothing. Her spirit sang with joy, she heard the joy as music, incredible music, and knew that song as the sound of creation—the singing of the very atoms of the universe. I am, they sang. Everything is. And over that exultant, complex melody, a thread of awareness touched her and embraced her.

You have come,
it said.
I have been waiting since before the beginning of time for you. Welcome, heart of my heart and soul of my soul.

She did not hear the words as a voice. Instead, she felt emotion—an outpouring of love, immense and overwhelming.

For an instant she welcomed it, as a woman would welcome a lover’s embrace. There was about it a joy and a sense of fulfillment that was almost undeniable. But the more she opened herself to the touch of this other, the more the other surrounded her and engulfed her, until she felt smothered. Startled and bewildered, she tried to block off the source of that desperate, needy emotion. She couldn’t push it away entirely, but she did manage to damp it to the point where she no longer felt it would submerge her individuality in its all-encompassing embrace.

Why did you do that?
the source of magic asked. Again, Faia understood the hurt bafflement without actually hearing words.

Who are you?
she asked. She didn’t answer its question.
Are you Delmuirie?

She felt a quick flurry of emotions then. The first was delight and recognition at the name. The second, which attempted to hide that delight, followed almost immediately; that emotion was flat denial, mingled with disgust.
There is no Delmuirie.

Really?
Faia implied disbelief.

I am all—I am the whole of the universe. I have awaited the touch of your soul since the beginning of time.
The cloistering, too-sweet syrup of other-love flowed around her again.
You thought of me as the Dreaming God when you first arrived here, though that is not my name. You have always known me, Faia. And I have known you since before your birth. I created you to be with me.