The God King hotf-1 Page 5

  “That is enough,” Peropis said sharply.

  Varis barely heard the ruler of the Thousand Hells, and he was too enraptured with his own growing strength to heed her. He wanted to explore this gift, taste and feel it. He wanted to wield it. Although the strange knowledge Peropis had imparted in him explained much, the magnitude made his head spin. He simply could not conceive the whole potential of what was filling him, but what he did grasp was that no enemy, despite Peropis’s warning, would ever again stand against him.

  “Enough!”

  His eyes snapped open to a world that looked no different than it had when he closed them. But it was different, because he was changed, so much so. The strength of departed gods flooded through him, and where the life of the world had fled before at his attempt to grasp it, now it could not escape.

  “Fool!” Peropis shrieked, driving a spike of agony into his mind. “You will destroy yourself!”

  He winced away from the pain, angered. His thoughts raced with newfound knowledge. He could create life, and he could destroy it, on a whim. Nothing could stand before him. Not even Peropis!

  Confident in his growing might, Varis ignored her, glorying in his strength. He recklessly diverted the growing life force into the roots below him, recalling now what he had done before. Roots twined together at his silent command into a woven, woody seat that conformed to his every contour. As his creation lifted him upright, the weave became more elaborate, grander, until he was raised up on a throne sitting high upon a still growing dais.

  Darkness lay thick upon the swamp by now, but to Varis’s eyes all was lit by an otherworldly glow, the divine splendor of all life. It lay everywhere, was in everything … and it was his to take. He stood from his throne and threw his arms wide. Like a dry sponge doused with water, he soaked in the surrounding luminescence, drew it deep. Where life existed, he viciously ripped it away from its former possessor. By heartbeats, the swamp fell deathly still, quiet as the grave. In the death of many thousands of infinitesimal creatures, his own existence became greater, more vital and vibrant. He shone like the sun, like Pa’amadin himself.

  Varis’s laughter filled the clearing, richer than ever it had been, reverberating outward through the dead swamp in crushing waves. At a stray thought, flames the hue of a thousand rainbows surged from his fingers, and in the joy of its creation he swept them around in a wide arc, destroying already dead trees. Where he ruined, he created again, and destroyed again. Drunk with the bliss of so much power, his laughter became a roar that shook the ground-

  Then, without warning, the tide of life coursing through his veins became an uncontrollable flood. The elemental forces continued to pour into him, but the outflow became a mere trickle. He tried to sever the torrent, but it filled him further, bloating him like a carcass in the sun. One of his eyes burst and a wriggling surge of maggots cascaded down his cheek. Even as he frantically scraped them away, a tender green shoot tore through the skin of his palm, growing rapidly. The shoot became twining roots that burrowed through the meat of his arm and into his chest. A bulge grew on his belly, swelling and writhing, then erupted a wash of skittering beetles. They scurried madly over worms pushing out of his skin. He opened his mouth to scream, but a geyser of fire roared out of his throat and scorched a mile-long gouge through the tattered forest-

  Then Peropis was there, faint and hovering amidst the flames of his making, an ethereal vision. For a long moment, she let him suffer, even as she suffered herself in the realm not her own. When it became obvious he would not long survive, she drew close. Her eyes swam before his, opening, growing wider, blacker, pulling at him, as if trying to drag his soul from his body. As suddenly as it began, the inrushing flood cut off, leaving Varis limp, his torn flesh oozing black blood, yet free of unnatural growths.

  Pained though she was from taking her spirit from Geh’shinnom’atar, Peropis peered into his face. “Open yourself again.”

  Near death, Varis did as he was told, though he would rather have not. As a result of his fear and caution, it took a long while before his ravaged flesh mended enough for him to stand on his own.

  “Enough,” Peropis said, and Varis immediately strangled the inflow.

  After looking him over, by some force Varis did not understand, Peropis hurled him from his makeshift throne. He landed hard, knocking the breath from his chest. High above, shimmering like a vision, she gazed down on him with utter contempt.

  Varis rolled to his hands and knees, trying to get enough breath to demand to know why she had nearly let him perish, why she had kept from him the dangers of the powers of creation. Upon recognizing her fierce glare, however, his teeth clicked together. One day he might rise against her but, for now, he was little more than an acolyte, and she was the Eater of the Damned, a deity in her own right. Even as he finally caught his breath, he knew he would need to bide his time, and plan carefully his vengeance.

  “You foolish child,” she snarled, no longer beautiful, but hideous with rage. “You are yet mortal. Mere flesh cannot hope to hold long the barest fraction of the power of gods. I trust you have learned this lesson well?”

  Her berating shamed him and enraged him, but Varis could not help but cower from her wrath.

  “If you desire to be my counterpart, you will heed me-at all times. Now, stand!” she commanded.

  Varis gathered himself and stood, no part of his face betraying his emotions. If you desire to be my counterpart …. He had no intention of being her counterpart, or anyone else’s. He vowed to himself that he would rule all the world and all peoples under his own strength … in time.

  “Heed me,” Peropis said, “as you should have done from the beginning. Life, by its very nature, is the easiest power to manipulate, because it is already created. True creation, that of making something from nothing, is a thousand and a thousand times harder and more dangerous.”

  “I will succeed,” Varis boasted weakly.

  Peropis smirked. “Indeed? The life force you took-that from mere worms and beetles and twigs-even that was too much for your flesh to contain. That meager life recreated itself inside you and sought escape, as life always will when wielded by those who cannot control it.”

  “Did I not create fire?” Varis demanded.

  “A fluke,” Peropis said dismissively, “an accident that, fortunately for you, did not destroy you utterly.”

  Varis clenched his teeth and said what he knew she wanted to hear. “What would you have me do?”

  “You’ve an army to build, and there are leagues to go between you and where it waits. On this journey, it would seem that there is also much for you to relearn.”

  “Why would I need an army?” Varis asked without thinking.

  Her glower suggested that she had never been questioned, and would not tolerate it.

  After he was sufficiently cowed, she answered, “As yet, you are too weak to do alone what must be done. When I deem you are fully ready I, and I alone, will grace you with the ability to fully control the force of all life around you. In the meantime, you need the arms of men to protect your weak flesh. Even now, if you are not cautious with the gift I have given to you, you will die as easily as the next man.”

  “You promised me incorruptible flesh-”

  “Never think to make demands of me,” she interrupted. “I give what I will when and of my choosing. I made you what little you are … and I take what I will when I desire.”

  Loathing warred with yearning in Varis’s heart, as he came to understand that his initial mistrust of her had been well placed. Yet, too, he recognized that time was on his side. He would grovel before Peropis, as she obviously wished, but only until his own ends were met. I will grow powerful, more so than the Three ever were-mightier even than Pa’amadin!

  “Very well,” he said aloud, bowing his head with a convincing measure of meekness.

  Peropis seemed to accept his subservience. “I have means to deal with this man Kian, and so I will.” There was something
different in her voice when she spoke now of Kian, less concern, perhaps, and more curiosity. Before Varis could wonder about it, she added, “Your task, Prince of Aradan, is far more important. Heed me….”

  Varis absorbed her plan, and despite his growing distrust of her and her hidden intentions, he found Peropis’s words intriguing. He had much to learn, to understand, but one day, he silently vowed, he would wipe her from existence for her seductive lies … and for shaming him.

  Chapter 7

  The shuddering tower crumbled under Ellonlef’s feet. A scream tore from her throat when a massive sandstone block crushed her legs, pining her to the stairwell. Agony gripped her, yet focused her mind. She heaved against the rough stone grinding her legs to pulp, but the fall of masonry was increasing. Smaller chunks battered her head and shoulders, slowly beating her senseless. Dust billowed, clogging her throat, cutting off all cries. Through the yellowish-gray haze, a growing shadow suddenly blotted out the thin light. Ellonlef wrenched her head up and found another huge block tumbling end over end through the stairwell’s open center. Her jaw yawned wide in terror and-

  Ellonlef sat up, flinging aside twists of covers and a collection of pillows. Sweat beaded her brow, dripped down her neck to dampen her linen shift. She gulped a deep breath into sore lungs and sighed it out. The scouring dust in her dream had been very much real, and left her throat and lungs raw. The falling stones had been real as well, and she had the lumps and bruises covering her from head to heel to prove it. Her demise, however, had not occurred the day prior.

  Of her escape from the falling tower, she had run headlong down the twisting stairwell, knowing she was near the bottom, but not near enough. Then, like a ragged mouth gaping wide, an opening had appeared, a blessed escape, letting in a wash of hazed sunlight. It had been akin to looking into a wall of golden fog, giving no indication where it would take her.

  Ellonlef had not hesitated. There had been no time to consider what her choice might bring. She jumped through the gap into thin air. She did not fall far, however, though when she landed it was hardly on stable ground. Instead, she found herself rolling down the acutely listing base of the tower. Miraculously, she had come to a thudding stop on the wall walk, safely out of the way of the falling tower….

  She swallowed dryly, now considering something else-the destruction of the moons, the death of the Three. The event was so monumental that it defied deep consideration. There would be time to think on that later, after Lord Marshal Otaker and the people of Krevar no longer needed her. And maybe, just maybe, when that time came, and the skies had cleared of the persistent dust, she would look up and see that the Three were as they always had been, instead of a burning mass of fire and ash.

  Nothing will ever be as it was. This thought, which she knew was true, had been prevalent in her mind since the world had ceased shaking. Tremors still came, frightening even the hardened souls of Fortress Krevar to shouts of fear.

  All is changed, all is lost.

  Ellonlef shook away the dismal consideration and swung her legs out over the edge of the bed, scolding herself for behaving like terrified child. Tragedy had come, to be sure, but she was alive, and so were many others. While the faces of the Three had been destroyed, she still had purpose. The gods would take care of themselves.

  She stripped off her sweaty nightclothes and set to gently rubbing a wet washcloth over her scraped and bruised skin. She had almost finished when her door flew open and banged against the wall. She yelped in startlement, jerked a large towel off a nearby rack to cover herself as best she could, then turned a glare on the intruder.

  Lord Marshal Otaker stood gaping as if he had never seen a naked woman before, which would be difficult to believe, considering that his wife of over two decades had given him two sons and three daughters.

  “Ellonlef-ah-Sister Ellonlef, I never-” he cut off abruptly, blinked like a sand owl, then spun on his heel and showed her his back. He wore his customary long, closefitting robe of white linen, and over this a steel breastplate bearing the embossed Silver Fist of House Racote. Like all Aradaners, his skin was dark as an old root, seemingly made darker by an iron gray top-lock that fell from the back of his clean-shaven scalp. Usually he had a stately demeanor, but this day he seemed out-of-sorts and one step from total exhaustion. For him and the rest of the people of Krevar, a long day had been followed by a longer night since the massive quake had leveled half the buildings in the city.

  “You never what?” Ellonlef snapped, more out of embarrassment than anger. She tossed the towel away, hastily drew on a robe, and pulled it closed. He muttered some garbled response, and she immediately dismissed his chatter for the babble it was. Likely, he was just more humiliated than she was, and if she allowed him to keep spouting off, he would make an utter fool of himself.

  “Lord Marshal,” she said, interrupting him. “Tell me what is so urgent that you have seen fit to barge into my chambers without knocking.”

  “Are you …?” he started to look over his shoulder before deciding against it, and jerked his head back to the front.

  She had to bite back a dozen sharp comments before saying in pleasant, disarming tones, “Yes, I am covered. Be at peace.”

  Otaker turned, albeit cautiously, but would not look her in the eye. Instead, he stared somewhere just past her ear. “I came because, well-the short of it is, you are needed. Through the remainder of last night, my men have dug out scores more people. Most can be seen to by their families or Magus Uzzret. Others are closer to death than life, and need your care.”

  “Give me a moment,” Ellonlef said without rancor.

  Otaker nodded his way out the door, then closed it.

  Ellonlef quickly dressed in her order’s white robes. They would not be white by the end of the day. If she was to spend this day applying poultices, compresses, and bandages to bloody and battered victims, she would look nearly as bad as them by the time she returned to her chambers. There was nothing for it.

  She joined Otaker in the corridor, and they made their way through the keep’s dim corridors. More than once they had to step over a broad crack in the floor, or duck under hastily made support timbers jammed between floor and ceiling to prevent a collapse. Despite these gaps and cracks, the sturdy building seemed well enough intact. Doubtless it would have to be rebuilt, but for now it would serve, as it had for generations. The same could not be said for the rest of Krevar.

  After the first crevasse had appeared in the earth and raced across the desert to level the Sister’s Tower, more tremors, each successively worse, had flattened half the town and most of Krevar’s outer walls. While Otaker’s concern for his fortress was understandable-it had taken four generations of House Racote to construct the defenses-Ellonlef was more worried about the number of shattered families. Few if any of the folk of Krevar escaped untouched. Even Otaker had tasted misery when his eldest son had been pulled from a heap of rubble. Ellonlef had treated the boy herself and knew he would live, but only time would tell if he would heal completely from his injuries.

  With nowhere else to easily care for so many people, Ellonlef had advised Otaker to set up as many large tents as he could fit within the town square, which had a common well and usually served as an open market. Next she had suggested he gather as many healers, midwives, able mothers, and soldiers who had fought in past battles, to tend wounds. After that, it had been a matter of bringing washbasins, building fires to provide hot water, and collecting all available clean linens to serve as bandages.

  Outside, the day was blistering, but felt all the hotter due to the thick haze of dust still hanging in the air. Before they were in sight of the square the smell hit them, a mingling of wood smoke, sweat, and blood. If not for that last, it might have seemed like any other day at market.

  Ellonlef girded her mind for the coming rigors, both physical and emotional. Men and woman and children would no doubt die this day, while others would lose mangled limbs to sharp blades. Of all the things E
llonlef had been trained to do, healing was the most trying for her. She was adept, to be sure, but seeing the look in a once strong man’s eyes when he learned that some part of him would be lost forever, or telling a women that her child would never again awake, was trying beyond all reason.

  As two of the most distinguishable people in Krevar, Magus Uzzret had no trouble spotting Otaker and Ellonlef as they approached the teeming, tent-filled market area. He wore deep blue robes and a woven silver belt common to the Magi Order. Common as well to his order, Uzzret’s head was completely shaved, but he sported a small, pure white chin beard.

  As usual, he looked askance at Ellonlef. After nearly a decade, he still only trusted her and her order roughly half as much as she trusted him and his. From the beginning, the Magi Order had taken offence at the Ivory Throne using the Sisters of Najihar as spies-or relying on them at all, for that matter. All that aside, Ellonlef knew that he needed her help, and she was not so stubborn or proud as to make it a point of contention that she was, without question, the better healer.

  “Lord Marshal, Sister,” Uzzret said, inclining his head slightly to each. “The day has already grown too short for the work that lies ahead.”

  He led Ellonlef and Otaker to a tent marked out by the most moaning and weeping, and without a word, left them to see to another errand.

  “If you need anything,” Otaker said, “or if Uzzret proves to be too much of a nuisance, send a runner to me.” He gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze and turned away.

  After three steps, he turned and said, “Forgive me for this morning. I should have asked permission to enter your quarters. I forgot myself.”

  “It is understandable and forgiven,” Ellonlef said, already turning her mind to what needed to be done.

  “I hope one day soon you will seek out a good man and husband.”