The Demigod Proving (44 page)

“Good servants," the man said, "I must speak with you.”

The man had a shaved head and thick beard, wore rough clothes covered with patches, and carried a tall walking staff. Teirn glanced at Wrend as if to ask if he knew the man. Wrend shrugged. They maneuvered their horses between the paladins, to the side of the road, and stopped in front of the man.

“What is it?” Teirn said.

“I’ve come for your answer,” the man said, his eyes hard.

In that moment, Wrend recognized him as Wester. It came as a shock, and his heart leapt. He dropped his reigns and gripped the hilt of his dagger with one hand, and reached over to Teirn with the other.

“It’s Wester!”

He looked nothing like he’d looked a week before, but Wrend knew it for certain. He remembered those eyes.

Wester—apparently deciding Wrend’s exclamation was a rejection of his offer—didn’t hesitate. He dove toward Teirn, bringing one end of his staff up, thrusting it toward Teirn’s face.

But Teirn leapt off of the horse. He flipped up from the saddle and landed on the ground near Wester, sacrificial knife drawn. Wester brought the staff whistling back toward Teirn, swinging it for his torso. Teirn ducked beneath it and moved inside the blow, thrusting the knife into Wester’s belly with a squish.

It all happened before the paladins could even begin to close in and shout the alarm.

Wester hardly seemed to notice the injury, though blood spilled out as Teirn withdrew the knife. Wester stepped back and turned, moving with speed and grace born of Ichor. With his staff, he struck away a second blow from Teirn’s knife, and with the butt demolished an advancing paladin’s head. With a spiteful look at Wrend, Teirn, and the gathering commotion, he crouched for a leap and shot into the air.

Before he landed, Teirn also lifted into the air. Wrend watched, surrounded by paladins, as Wester landed on a large rock thirty feet above. He coiled for another leap and lifted upward. Teirn landed not far behind him, and pursued.

Up the canyon wall they went, jumping over the rocks like frantic grasshoppers, quickly growing small. To the right and left, other demigods also began to pursue, leaping scores of feet at a time. The paladins around Wrend strung their bows, although with Teirn in the way, they couldn’t fire arrows.

It only took a dozen seconds for Wester to near the top of the cliff. There, on an outcropping, he paused, leaning over and gripping his stomach like he needed to vomit.

Teirn caught up with him.

At that distance—several hundred feet—the struggle was indistinct and silent, yet fast and brutal. Teirn triumphed with his sacrificial knife in Wester’s neck and several more thrusts into his chest. Without hesitation, he dumped Wester’s limp body over the edge. He spread his hands wide, and released a scream of triumph as Wester’s body tumbled down the cliff.

Wrend almost couldn’t comprehend what he’d just seen. Two weeks before, he never would have guessed that Teirn could do that. He’d learned quickly.

Or he’d had practice, before.

Wrend shivered at the thought. What, indeed, was Teirn not telling him?

As Wester’s body bounced off of a rock about halfway down the cliff, Wrend understood what Wester had intended. He’d thought to quickly kill Wrend and Teirn if they didn’t join him, and escape. He probably would have succeeded, too, had he not underestimated Teirn’s skills with Ichor.

Even so, he must have been truly desperate to risk the attempt with so many demigods and paladins around. Clearly, the rebellion was ending, if not ended. Truly, one could not defy or fight the Master. He was god, after all.

As Teirn descended the cliff, Wrend's unease with the entire situation—and his role within it—only increased.

It wouldn’t take long for it to become even more uncomfortable.

Chapter 55: Deferring the Strengthening

The best thing about traveling is that you have time to think. The worst part about traveling is that you have time to think.

-Wrend

The next day, beneath glowering clouds that never unleashed their rain, the world reversed as they came out of the Valley of the Elder Gods and traveled along the lip of a cliff that dipped nearly two thousand feet to the bottom, where a river carved its way through the red rock and dirt. In places, the gorge narrowed to just a few thousand feet, but generally stretched several miles wide. Teirn commented that as he looked out across it, he felt like he looked into the very mouth of the world. Wrend agreed: it was quite a sight for those who, two weeks before, had never seen more than canyon walls.

The following day, the canyon narrowed and eventually disappeared, with the river entering a tunnel far below. After another mile or so, the ground on both sides of the road fell away, so that before long the caravan lumbered along the rocky ridge known as the Draegon’s Spine. It stretched a hundred feet wide. Golden-copper rocks the size of cattle littered its surface, along with tenacious sagebrush and poison sage. On both sides, the desert spread out to mountainous horizons; and after an initial upward slope of several hundred feet, the ridge turned downward, descending into the basin below. By evening, they reached Waran, a city of one-story adobe structures at the base of the spine, at the head of a long desert prairie.

There, the people wept as the Master passed through their streets, followed by the demigods that remained in the caravan. During the journey, many demigods had stayed in their cities or departed to other parts of the country, but nearly two hundred remained in the caravan, including the three that would stay in Waran.

One of them was a brand new Caretaker that Wrend had known back in the Seraglio. She accepted her responsibility with solemnity, even as the people wept because Athanaric could not perform the Strengthening on the demigod she replaced. That demigod had died back in the Seraglio, in the fight at the Courtyard of the Wall. Now, the people would suffer without seeds strengthened by his blood.

In the morning, after the battalion of servants and priests had packed up the camp, loaded it into the caravan wagons, and headed out across the plains, the Master summoned Wrend.

Chapter 56: The Task

It's very difficult to undo a lifetime of learning.

-Naresh

Wrend hoped he didn’t fall—especially with the entire caravan behind him, potentially watching him. He sat directly ahead of the Master, straddling Cuchorack’s neck—which was about as wide as the body of a horse, but much higher up. If he lost his balance, it would be a long tumble to the hard-packed dirt road below.

But for all Wrend knew, such a fall would be less painful than what the Master was about to tell him. Whatever it was.

In every direction, hills of sagebrush, rocks, and cacti spread to mountainous horizons. Off to the east, a bank of white clouds hovered over the mountain peaks. So far south, air hung still and hot in the late spring air.

Wrend had never ridden Cuchorack—he doubted many demigods had—and wasn’t used to such a huge shape lumbering beneath him. While it felt similar to a horse, it felt much more dangerous. The strangest thing was to consider that he’d once been Cuchorack. His soul had occupied this massive body, so much more powerful, vastly superior to his human body.

“Today is the day of your test,” the Master said.

He sat in a saddle and held the reins. They stretched up past Wrend and connected to a bridle around the draegon’s head. A leather strap ran over the Master’s shoulder, down to a bag at the opposite hip. He reached into the bag, pulled out a carrot, and began to chew.

“I’m ready for it,” Wrend said.

The Master looked down at him, his eyebrows lifting.

“What if the task was to kill Leenda?”

Wrend tried not to hesitate in giving his answer, and hoped the comment meant Leenda still lived.

“Then I’ll do as you ask.”

But the promise sounded hollow in his heart—which worried him. Since the Master’s confrontation with Naresh, things had changed. But it wasn’t just the confrontation and the things Naresh had said, it was the entire proving. It seemed so unreasonable that he or Teirn had to die. For the first time, Wrend questioned the wisdom of his god and father.

The Master seemed to sense Wrend’s change. His face drooped with a tinge of sadness. For an instant Wrend wondered if he could read thoughts. He’d wondered the same thing many times.

“Tell me,” the Master said. His eyes locked on Wrend’s. “Does it matter what kind of soul you have? Am I not still your father, and you my son? Haven’t I raised you and taught you from your cradle, and haven’t you always served and loved me?”

Wrend nodded. He couldn’t remember flying over the mountains, feeding on goats, or living in a cave filled with treasure. It seemed unreal, and therefore didn’t really matter. What mattered was what he could remember, the years spent in the Seraglio, learning trades and worshiping the Master.

“Being a draegon doesn’t feel real to me.”

He sat with his body and neck twisted, so he could look at the Master behind him. The Master took a deep breath. His voice became low. His eyebrows bunched over his eyes and his gaze intensified.

“And Wrend, does it matter who I am and how I became what I am? I’m god. I have power over all flesh in my kingdom, and the people worship me. I’ve lived for two thousand years, and have endured the hardships of the disobedience of my people. Usurpers have plotted against me a hundred times, and failed each time to defeat me. And yet, don’t the people bow down before me and worship me? Doesn’t this make me god?”

The rebuke cut Wrend to the very center. He felt ungrateful and petty, ashamed that in recent days he could not claim complete obedience to the Master.

“Of course. I know you are god.”

The Master raised his eyebrows and cocked his head to one side.

“And as god, haven’t I reigned in peace? Don’t my people thrive in great abundance? Doesn’t the desert land produce crops to feed them, due to the blood of my children? Don’t my children serve them in power and might, and ease their burdens? And don’t my priests administer the sacred rites to keep them pure and peaceful? Wrend, am I not god?”

He nodded, and tried to speak several times before the words actually came out.

“Of course you are god.”

“Then Wrend—given all of this, I ask only one thing: that you trust me.”

The feeling Wrend had first had back in the Seraglio, at the feast, and then later in the way station where he'd chopped off his hand, had returned. For a time, in his pride and hard-heartedness, in his doubting and temptation, that feeling faded in and out, weakened and strengthened.

But now, at the Master’s words, it had returned.

He wanted nothing more than to obey the Master. That was all he’d ever wanted, but in recent days, the prospect of him or Teirn dying had blinded him, led him to forget his dedication. That blindness had come because of his selfishness. If he had a pure heart, one unquestioningly dedicated to the Master, he would have trusted the Master, accepted his will.