The Black God's War (37 page)

Vine-covered Lord Oderigo loomed over his unaware patron with frozen posture, watching with black eyes like tunnels stretching into a starry nothingness.

“I am not afraid to kill him. I am no longer afraid to kill any of them. I pray that this pleases you.”

A mild breeze swept a dry leaf across the desert.

“Will you watch over me today, God of Prophecy? I seek to embody your word.” Caio looked around at the giant red cliffs to the east and the west.

“Would you show yourself to me now? I go to fight, perhaps to die. Might I see your tall shoulders once more?”

No? I take no offense, my Lord.

The god walked the remaining distance with Caio, waiting until Caio glimpsed Pawelon’s prince. The god halted and watched Caio walk to the west to meet his adversary. With no expression on his face, Lord Oderigo turned back toward the Rezzian army and walked away.

Chapter 57: The Line Between Men and Gods

REZZIA’S HAIZZEM APPEARED as a distant figure holding a spear in his right hand, waiting for Rao in the desert. Rao recognized the flowing hair and assumed the robe was a
cremos
, but he couldn’t make out his enemy’s face.

The spear
. A shiver of fear washed over him.
My karma returns to me?

He shifted his attention to his body, feeling the pulse and hum of his blood and organs. As he went deeper beyond the physical body, he felt an energetic disturbance throughout his muscles. As he probed deeper he recognized the congestion as a dark inner vision, an imagining—or was it a remembrance?—of his mother’s killing.

He returned his attention to the Rezzian’s form and thought about driving the same spear though the Haizzem’s heart.

Rao’s being filled with purpose. He willed himself to change, then followed an instinct arising from deep within to expand his spirit far beyond his physical constraints and senses.

He felt himself merging with the sky throughout the valley. With a quiet intention, he transformed into a state of being lighter than air.

He was ecstasy. Ecstasy expanded outward. Space posed no obstacles. Time ceased, a state of consciousness he had never before achieved. He recognized the fuel burning in him, pushing him there:

Passion.

Rao’s expanded being swept toward the Haizzem like an invincible gale force.

Caio watched the Pawelon’s form disperse into the air as if consumed by a great wind.

A moment later, Caio’s skull cracked against the earth.

He lay flat on his back, disoriented, pressed down by an irresistible weight. His fingers clenched; Mya’s rod remained in his left hand, Ilario’s spear in his right.

The invisible force dragged his body against the ground in a wide circle, scraping and punishing his skin. As his flesh grated against the hard earth, he watched Ilario’s spear scraping over the uneven ground. Caio recalled his friend’s death: Ilario lying on his back, killed by his own spear.

Caio clutched Mya’s rod with all his strength, begging it to save him. The wooden rod felt like a raging waterfall in his hand. His body slowed. His own grunts became louder than the chaotic rustling of the desert floor. Caio stood with pain searing him and raised the spear above his shoulders, squeezing it. The muscles of his arms soon burned from exertion. Heaving breaths flew from his dry mouth.

The Pawelon’s form coalesced before him like sands poured into a translucent hourglass. Caio brought Mya’s rod before his heart and focused its power, pressing it against his chest. As the Pawelon materialized, a watery prison manifested around him. The Pawelon yelled muffled words as Caio’s heart erupted with sorrow and rage. He focused his strength on the rod and spear to take his mind off his injuries and stormed forward.

“How many times have you attacked my sister?”

“How many Pawelon women would your people rape?”

“We’ll crush your soldiers and show your suffering people the way of light!”

The Pawelon closed his eyes, apparently drawing on another power.

Goddess of the Great Waters, destroy him!

Rao drew his attention inward again—

A chaotic racket roared into his ears. He found absolute blackness. Frigid cold submersion. Water pressed against his skull, threatening to crush him. The pressure escalated, casting pain all over. His skin and muscles caved inward, compressing. His lungs expelled every drop of air.

It barely registered that his body was at an inhospitable oceanic depth. His spirit detached, allowing him to witness his body’s end.

The desert spun around him, soft blue skies stretching into forever, red canyon walls soaring like giants. Below his incorporeal awareness, his shriveled body lay. His spirit retained the barest connection to his pummeled flesh. Though his mind and spirit remained agile, his body had been wrung to the brink of death.

Death.

It seemed so close.

Narayani, Aayu. My father, the rajah with no sons. How will they take the news?

Rezzia’s bruised Haizzem walked to him, holding the spear low in his slack arm.

Rao focused his mind past the veil of the physical world. His spirit diffused into everything within thirty paces of his body. Feeling that space as a single whole, he whipped the ether into a frenzy, scattering the building blocks of matter until nothing would be comprehensible by the senses.

He knew the Haizzem would be caught up in the effect. He hoped the man would be trapped as Rao tried to locate his body and renew his life force again.

But Rao couldn’t find his body. Instead, his subtle awareness was ejected from the space it had entered. The environment around him reverted to normalcy again. He could do nothing to stop it.

Rao remained a spirit without a body and could again see Rezzia’s Haizzem walking toward his physical form. Time extended slowly, warping and stretching the appearance of everything around him. A preternatural figure appeared, standing beside his abused body. He looked Rezzian, but impossibly tall, with vines covering his shoulders.

Their god Oderigo,
he realized. Rao sent his thoughts to the god, “Why do you come, phantom?”

“To witness history,” the god thought back to him. Oderigo’s words echoed with a deep and otherworldly timbre.

“Can a ghost do that? You are a children’s story, a Rezzian dream.”

“Your interpretation is equally subjective, though you do not comprehend the nature of belief.”

“I see things as they are,” Rao said.

“Pride fuels everything you do. To whom can you bow? What can you embrace that is greater than yourself?”

“I do not bow to myths. True seeing transcends such childish ideas.”

“And yet your body lies dying.”

“I admit myths have some power. But my people seek no crutches.”

“You are a master in a tiny field. The ultimate truth still lies far beyond you. There is no end to evolution, to the unshackling of chains.”

“Why do you favor them? Are you vain? Are you a creation enslaved to a self-absorbed master?”

“We arise together, the Rezzians and the gods of Lux Lucis. We do not always answer them, nor always give them what they seek. Though we always hear them. We assist them only as it suits their evolution. As they evolve, so do we. You would call this karma.”

“So you are looking for a promotion. How godlike.”

“We all play our parts in the divine play. Every being has its role.”

“Gods who are slaves to duality. How inspiring.”

“There is so much you do not understand, Prince.”

“I know they created you in their minds.”

“In fact, we arise together, interdependent. We were within them always.”

“And they could have created any number of divinities, given them any variety of qualities or names.”

“So it must seem to you. But man cannot create that which is not within him. You mistake them for being only that which they are aware of.”

“No, I don’t. We are much more than what we are conscious of. Sages know this.”

“Yet you draw a line between the Rezzians and their gods. This line does not exist.” A noise rang out like the slamming of a heavy tome. “Your vainglory is your end.”

Time resumed and Oderigo faded from sight. Rezzia’s Haizzem stood over Rao’s body, holding a wooden rod in the air and the spear of his deceased friend.

Rao remained dazed from the encounter with the god of Lux Lucis. His awareness floated, watching the boyish-looking man grit his teeth, arch his brows, and raise his spear.

Chapter 58: Silent Misunderstandings

EARLIER IN THE DAY, Narayani had invoked the mantras and felt its strange sensations again.

Now, she could only watch as Rao’s body convulsed and collapsed in the middle of the desert canyon, for no apparent reason.

My sweet Rao!

Everything supporting her was gone.

The Rezzian man—the same one she’d approached in the forest—walked painfully toward Rao’s disposed body with spear in hand. Rao’s body twitched.