The Broken (The Lost Words: Volume 2) (81 page)

The White Witch emptied his mug. Even his entire net of informants could not feed him all the news he wanted or needed. The problem with people was that they reported things they deemed useful or significant. Most of his spies would never bother telling him about the Parusites going back to ruined temples and rebuilding them, bringing their faith back to the Territories. Well, he could not really explain to them the importance of such news, either.

Most of the gods were dead now, but the people who believed in them did not know that. And there was always a risk that the magic of belief and religion would mix too much, and then he would have new or resurrected gods to deal with again. He looked at Elia. She was a terrible puzzle, and he could not put his doubts to rest.

She should have been dead forever. But she was not. Worse yet, she claimed she was not a goddess anymore. That made no sense. It could not make sense.

“Are you a man of faith?” Calemore asked the trap man, who still had not introduced himself.

“Oh yes, I am,” he said, not seeing the dangerous glint in the witch’s pale eyes.

“Who would be your favorite god?”

“I pray to Tanid to give me good weather and clear skies when I travel.”

Calemore nodded. The fool was praying to a dead god. One of the many who had perished in the Feoran uprising. Well, some had survived, but he had rectified that. Almost. He looked at Elia again. Her soft, forgiving expression angered him. For a moment, he wanted to draw his knife and bury it in the trap man’s liver, to have him gurgle to death as his blood seeped into the filthy clay floor. But killing the insect would accomplish nothing. He did not want to waste his magic on tricks covering up the murder. He was so close. He must remain calm and focused.

So, when the man was not paying attention, Calemore slipped something into his drink. And when the peddler drank next, he was soon asleep in his own spit, one cheek resting hard against the table’s pocked surface.

“You have no respect for humans,” Elia said quietly, accusingly.

The White Witch snorted. “Should I? Why? Respect for bugs?”

Elia smiled sadly. “You forget, Damian made you first and didn’t like you. So he made these inferior humans as your replacement. That must hurt.”

Calemore realized what she was doing. “My fool of a father was afraid of the greatness and perfection that I stood for. He could not bear the idea of being bested by his own creation.”

Elia did not blink. “Your arrogance is only matched by your stubbornness.”

The witch sighed appreciatively when Body came and laid down platters, blood sausages full of gristle and fat and a side dish of the famous potatoes, but Calemore didn’t care. He watched as Elia carefully nibbled on the food.

“I am not a goddess,” she repeated for the hundredth time.

“We will see,” he said simply. “We will see.” That seemed to shut her up, but he was in a talkative mood. “What do you expect Damian will do when he meets you?”

Elia shrugged. He was disappointed by her reaction. “Whatever he does, he will never be happy. He will never have what he needs or wants. And neither will you.”

Calemore picked up a whole potato and started chewing on it, like an apple. It was still rather raw. “How does it feel to know you’re the source of all evil and suffering? After all, Damian almost destroyed the world trying to forget the pain of your betrayal. And now, once again, you’re the core of all his troubles. He’s weak because of you. He could have completed this sorry mission eighteen years ago.”

“You will not get what you want. You just would not listen. I am not a goddess anymore.” Elia pushed the plate away.

“Then what are you doing in the world of the living?” he taunted.

Silence. She had no answer to that.

“You know, Mother,” he said, teasing, “if your death was not necessary, I would make you my queen after this is done. In time, you could grow to appreciate my style and humor. You could counterbalance my wrath, my sense of dramatics. I could be the whip, and you could be the salve they rub in the lash wounds afterward.”

“You are a lunatic,” Elia accused.

“Of course I am,” he said, frowning, looking almost melancholic, but it was all a farce. “The truth is, both you and Damian are relics of the past. As a matter of fact, all of you are. You do not belong in this world. Without me, Damian would still be weeping his sorrowful tears in the Abyss. I do not know how you got away from death, and it doesn’t matter now. You, Damian, Simon, Lar, Selena, Lilith, all of you are just ghosts. This world belongs to me now.”

Elia looked at him carefully. “So, what do you plan to do with Damian?”

Calemore made an innocent face. “I will have to convince him that he doesn’t want to spend another century or two in the Abyss or walk the realms pretending to be an old man with a fatherly, trusting face.”

“And then what?”

Calemore shrugged. “First, there’s the matter of my heritage to settle.” He grinned. “After that, Damian and I will have to discuss how we can rule this world, father and son, if possible. Or just son.”

Suddenly, Elia laughed. The somewhat inbred patrons of the inn raised their ugly, low-browed foreheads and stared stupidly. Calemore squeezed her wrist until she whimpered with pain.

“Don’t draw unnecessary attention, or I will butcher this village. By hand.”

She wiped away her tears. “I told you, Calemore, your arrogance will be the end of you. You would give up your immortality for a worthless dream of…what? I can just imagine how the two of you will get along. He will kill me,” she said, almost reciting. “He will then make your wish come true. You will then free him from the Abyss, is that it? And then, I wonder who will try to kill the other first?”

Calemore nodded, unfazed, utterly convinced in his millennia-old plan. “Something like that.”

Elia snorted passionately. “Damian is a fool to have ever listened to you.”

Calemore made a sad face. “My father had his heart broken by a woman. He does not think clearly. It’s so lonely in the Abyss, and all he wants is his revenge. It has driven him mad. He’s lost any sense of purpose. Like the rest of you, he’s an echo of an age long past.”

Elia would not back down. “Listen to yourself. You’ve spent the known human history hiding behind magical barriers in a faraway land, playing god to a secluded race, and you speak of ghosts and relics? His obsession is no crazier than yours.”

The White Witch grimaced. “I was destined to rule the human race. I will not be robbed of that privilege.”

Elia was silent for a moment. “You were born to indulge the whim of a god who couldn’t love. So he made you into what you are, a perfect killing machine without a soul. I pity you.”

Calemore raised his hand, and she blinked hard and turned her face away, to soften the clout. But he didn’t hit her. It would be pointless now. Doubt plagued him. Something was wrong. Elia was behaving too much like a human. She was a goddess still, but something in her behavior didn’t quite fit. Immortals took more…grand views of things. They did not linger on emotions and petty regrets.
No matter
, he thought. Soon, it would all be over, and he could focus on bringing righteous rage to the undeserving humans of this world.

In the morning, they got their milk. After they left the village, Calemore tossed it away. His dreams had grown more potent now that they were approaching the Womb. He had to focus; he had to concentrate. One small misstep, and he would ruin an age of planning. He had to be careful. And wary. Elia was definitely planning something vile. It wasn’t like her old self, but perhaps her years mingling with humans had taught her a trick or three.

He wasn’t sure if he’d dislike killing his father. Damian had been a companion to his hatred for so long, he almost felt like a twin soul. But the future had no place for a god burdened with remorse over lost love. You could not shape the destiny of civilization like that.

The village road quickly became the treacherous goat trail again, twisting everywhere, making their ascent slow. Everywhere, there were thorny bushes of plants that respected no frost or hail and just kept growing. Horses could not simply cut through the briar and climb straight for the top.

Elia rode in silence, her eternal face covered in a hood. Calemore watched her, waited to see if she had anything to say, but the goddess would not even look at him. She was absorbed in her thoughts. Might be the nearing death troubling her, might be the encounter with Damian.

After a while, he gave up and rode ahead, scanning for other humans. He would not put it past Damian to try some nasty trick this close to the goal.

With the wind making eerie noises as it bent the pines into the hill, they moved slowly toward the Womb.

CHAPTER 51

E
wan finished his prayer and walked away from the small altar. In the last several days, he had an urge to be close to Lar. He didn’t know quite why, but for a change, he felt better after praying.

That priest called Roman followed him. From what Ewan had heard, the man was in the king’s own service. While most clergymen spent their time apart, Brother Roman mingled with the troops, always waiting for a sin to present itself. He never wasted a moment trying to instill more zeal into people’s souls.

“Young master,” he called.

“Yes, Your Holiness?” Ewan said.

“I heard you pray,” Roman said. “You have very accurate inflections. You sing beautifully. Have you ever served in a temple?”

Ewan was somewhat reluctant to divulge pieces of his past. He had already told Count Bart more than he ought to. It would put Doris and Constance at risk if it turned out he wasn’t just an exiled Caytorean.

“I was an acolyte once,” he mumbled.

“Strange that. I heard the Caytorean elite does not think fondly of religion.”

“Some do,” Ewan said in the most vague fashion he could muster. “There’s solace in prayer.”

“Absolutely,” the brother chirped.

Ewan felt a sudden urge. “Tell me, Your Holiness, do you ever doubt your faith?”

Roman frowned, as if he had heard a paradox. “No, never.”

He envied the Parusites. For a long time, he had shared their fierce conviction, the absolute certainty in the unshakable truths of the gods. But now that he knew what his creators were like, the image of divinity was eroded. He still believed in the core principles of humanity they had shaped, but his prayers were no longer to the gods, they were
for
the gods.

Ewan shrugged. “Sometimes, I feel my god has abandoned me.”

The brother waved his hand dismissively, but it was obvious he was displeased. Ewan’s morose tone was putting down his cheerful mood. Whatever he had intended to say had evaporated.

“You must pray harder,” he suggested and headed away.

Ewan was relieved. He was in no mood for priestly company.

Snow whirled erratically around him. The flakes were falling slowly, but then, just before touching the earth, the wind would pick them up in a drunken dance. It was bone-deep cold for everyone except him. He walked like a stranger, sensing the world without feeling it. When you needed no food, nor shelter, nor sleep, your emotions seemed to die, too.

Day after day, he woke up in the siege camp and wondered why he was staying here still. Why didn’t he just leave? There was nothing else he could do to help Doris; there was nothing he could do to help Constance. The gut-wrenching urgency that pulled him west was still there, subdued, suppressed, but he could not ignore it. And still, somehow, he wouldn’t acknowledge it. Maybe he was afraid to discover the truth. The last time he had followed his instincts, he had spent close to twenty years locked in an ethereal prison with mad souls shrieking around him. This time, he might find himself lost forever.

Even if he stayed in the physical world, he’d made a promise. He would not be a free man. The Oth Danesh wanted him.
You must go, you must go
, his soul screamed.
What am I waiting for?
He got no answers.

Most of all, he felt lonely. He didn’t really have any friends. Except Ayrton, he had never had a friend. He wished he could talk to someone. But Constance avoided him lately, Doris was sliding away into remorse, and the Eracian count was too busy scheming. That left him with the common sort, soldiers and camp followers and blacksmiths, the same ilk who had shared their meals and stories with him in the ports. He liked the familiarity, but he yearned for intimacy.