An Unexpected Deity (Book 7) (30 page)

“Thank you, my lord,” Gates said to Krusima.

Thank you, my lord
, Lark prayed silently to Kestrel,
for your good intentions.

The journey resumed without further comment.

After a continued walk up the hills on the far side of the valley, the Skyes led them up a path to a low cave entrance.

“This is where you must go,” Tullamore said.

“Down there?  Are we going to have to crawl forever again?” Lark asked.

“The cave is larger inside,” Krusima answered.  “I’ll meet you in there,” he said, and then disappeared.

“That’s how a god works!” Wren told Kestrel, digging her elbow into his ribs as they stood side by side.  “No self-respecting god will get down on his knees and crawl around!”

Kestrel shrugged off her jibe, and when his turn came, he ducked down to crawl behind the others.  He noted that Morph also inconspicuously disappeared from the group as they began to crawl.  The cave was dark, and Kestrel instinctively began to glow.  After twenty yards the ceiling rose dramatically, and he saw his companions rising to their feet, as the height of the chamber was revealed by his illumination.

“Having a glowing god is so useful,” Woven spoke.  The gnome had been unusually quiet since the events in the Viathin temple had unfolded, and Kestrel was glad to hear him speak.

“Perhaps you should suggest that to Corrant, the next time you pray to him,” Kestrel answered.  The gnomish god was one with a gentle core, despite the rough exterior he projected, and Kestrel thought the divinity would find humor in a suggestion for such an improvement from one of his followers.  The two both grinned at the thought, then turned to follow, as Tullamore and the Skyes led the way deeper into the interior of the cavern.

Morph and Krusima suddenly appeared.

“Where will this take us in our own land?” Morph asked.

“It is a place near an ocean,” Tullamore replied.  “I remember smelling scents of salt water that sometimes wafted through the air of the passage.  It was back in the days when our own land had oceans and flowing water as well.

“But I do not know enough about your land to tell you where the water is,” he added.

“Once we’re back, we’re back!” Krusima crowed.  “My worshippers will be pleased!  I’ll reward them with gifts and blessings throughout the day and night, so that they know they can count on me and worship me.”

Will you make sure all my friends get to where they need to go, safely?
Kestrel silently asked Morph.

I will, of course.  What assistance do you imagine they need?
his father asked.

Woven comes from the southern gnomes, and knows no other languages to speak to the peoples he might encounter,
Kestrel explained. 
Stillwater and all the imps cannot travel between places, because there is a
Rishiare Estelle
, a bloody sun in the sky
.

“A bloody sun?” Morph asked aloud.  “We’ve not had one of those in a few years.  They’re a dratted nuisance.”

“A bloody sun?” Krusima asked, hearing the comment.  “Who says there’s a bloody sun?”

“We all saw it before we left,” Kestrel replied.  “It limits some of the abilities of the imps,” he nodded towards Stillwater.

“And of the gods as well, even,” Morph added.

“And if you don’t know where you’ll come out in the Inner Seas, the duchess and her men are in a hurry to return to Uniontown to fight for her father,” Kestrel completed his list of concerns.  “Wren will take care of herself, of course,” he added with a straight face.   He watched the surprise that was the first expression she showed, followed by outrage, and then humor.

“When we come out of this cave back home, we’ll be sure to tell everyone nearby that the next one they see coming through is a Viathin in disguise, to be hunted down immediately,” she warned him.

They walked on, and after a long stretch of a stony passage, the floor titled abruptly upward, like a ramp rising to a different floor.  The cave turned sharply to the left as well, and as the leaders of the group went through the curve, Krusima gave a triumphant shout.

“I feel it!  I feel the threshold!  We’ve reached the edge of our own land at last!  I’ll never go anywhere else looking for followers!” he crowed.

“You must stop here, if you are truly committed to holding onto your powers to help my people,” Tullamore told Kestrel.  “Beyond this you will return to the sphere of your own land, and your divine power will disappear.”

Kestrel halted in his position near the end of the procession.  He hadn’t expected such an abrupt ending to the journey together with his friends.  He had tried to prepare for it with his conversations, but he hadn’t thought that it would strike so quickly.

“Wren!” he called ahead.

His cousin stopped and turned to look at him inquiringly.

“I have to stop here,” he said.

The others in the group ceased to move forward as well, all except Krusima.

“He’ll be fine.  We’ll see him all too soon, back on his own schedule, making hay with Kai all over again,” the human god spoke in a belittling tone.

“Kestrel, right now?” Wren asked.  She walked back towards him.

“Is there anything you need?  Anything I can do before we part?” he asked.

She shook her head helplessly.  “I wouldn’t know what to say.  You’re sure you’ll be back soon?” she asked.  “The duchess is counting on seeing you.”

“Shall I stay here with you, Kestrel lord?” Stillwater asked.

“You, more than anyone, deserve a chance to finally be on the road back to your home,” Kestrel told the imp fondly.  “You’ve been on this entire journey with me, from the days when we traveled through the Water Mountains to the visit to Kiravee, to all of this.  Go home my friend, and tell the imps I’ll be back someday to share some mushrooms with them!”

“But leave the water skin behind, please,” Tullamore spoke up.  Stillwater held up the skin uncertainly.  Kestrel had not thought of the skin since Stillwater had retrieved it from the impromptu bath tub the night before.

“That water skin is the key to restoring life to our world,” the Skye god pronounced.  “Take it please, Kestrel,” he said as Stillwater held the skin towards Kestrel.

“My lord,” Lark approached him.   “Thank you for protecting us, and for promising to return to us.

“I want to apologize,” she said in a suddenly hurried speech pattern.  “I told you once that you were not a real human.  I know now that whether that was right or wrong isn’t important.  You’re a good person, period, to do all that you’ve done.  To have such power as you have, and to make the promises and commitments that you make, shows the goodness that you are.”

She leaned forward, placed her hands on his shoulders suddenly, and kissed him on the cheek, then backed away, blushing.

Kestrel felt his skin seemingly burn where her lips had touched him, and he wanted to seize the moment, to kiss her in return, but already the next member of the party was pressing forward to say farewell.

“My lord,” Stuart spoke next.  “You’re a great one.  If you return to us, it’ll be better than a score of new heroes coming to join the Duke.  I just want you to know I’d be honored to fight by your side, or for you, as the case may be.”

“This grows maudlin,” Krusima complained.  “Our world awaits us.”

“Farewell, my lord,” Woven grasped Kestrel’s hand and shook it firmly.

Morph stepped up to Kestrel and grasped both of his hands silently.  He said no words, but he projected his thoughts through their contact.  He was thankful, and appreciative, and not just for the act of being rescued.   There was an acknowledgement of his relationship to Kestrel, and a host of emotions – sympathy, understanding, still a portion of regret and anger, but now a sense of something that was not quite closeness, and not quite a feeling of familial love, but an affectionate acceptance that the two of them shared a bond.  With a smile, the god stepped away and rejoined the others who were edging down the passageway, eager to head home.

“I’ll wait here while you escort them,” Kestrel told Tullamore.

“I shall go no further either,” the Skye’s god told him.  “They have two healthy gods of their own for the short journey ahead.  They’ll not need us along.”

The humans, imp, gnome, and elvish travelers turned and began to walk away behind Morph and Krusima.

I will await your return, and we shall converse
, Morph told him silently.

I look forward to that
, Kestrel replied.  And then they were soon gone, out of sight down the passage, on their way back to the world where they belonged.

Chapter 18

Kestrel stood in place as the friends from his long journey disappeared, and he remained in place as the Skyes turned and began to travel back to the entryway that would return them to the surface of their parched land.  He felt extremely lonely, acutely away that he no longer had Wren or Stillwater, two very close friends and companions, to talk to or commiserate with.  He no longer had the sturdy presence of Woven, or the comradeship of Stuart and Gates, men who knew and excelled in battle.

Lark was no longer with him, the girl who was a nuisance and immature, but also passionate and wonderfully loyal to those she cared about.  And she was a pretty girl; her hair had been cut short when their groups had first encountered each other in the mountains south of Uniontown, making her look even younger than Kestrel believed she was, but during the extended period of their travels together her hair had grown longer, giving her an appearance of maturity.

He missed them all.

The Skyes were well on their way back to the cavern entrance, and so Kestrel took one last look into the empty passageway to the Inner Seas, then began walking in the middle of his own circle of illumination to catch up with his new companions.  Kestrel walked slowly as he let his mind wander and wool-gather, considering how the return to the Inner Seas would fare.  He knew it would depend on two crucial issues: the location of their portal, and the steadiness of Morph.

The location of the portal at the Inner Seas end was unpredictable.  The two portals Kestrel knew of were widely separated – the one at the lake in the mountains that was now blocked was hundreds of miles away from the portal in the Water Mountains that had led to the land of the Albanuns.  The third portal could be as widely distant from both, or it might be clustered near one of them.  The humans wanted, and would feel they needed, a location close to Uniontown, so that they might quickly return to the Duke Listay.  Kestrel’s mind detoured to wonder what the Duke would think when he was suddenly confronted with the return of his daughter and two trusted lieutenants; Kestrel had never considered how the duke must have felt during all the weeks that Lark and Stuart and Gates had disappeared from their domain.

The second issue that Kestrel paused to think about was the hope that Morph would lend his powers and support to make sure that all the companions had safe trips home from the portal.  Kestrel discounted any value that Krusima might provide – the human god clearly was going to focus immediately on his own selfish satisfaction, leaving no crumb of attention for the others.  Morph had promised to help them, but he was an elven god who would have to deal with humans, a gnome, and an imp, among others, in a time of the
Rishiare Estelle
.  And Kestrel was not convinced that Morph was a particularly steadfast divinity, despite the leadership and reliability he had shown in the land of the Skyes.

Please Kai and Kere, help them all
, he prayed, then laughed as he realized the ludicrousness of the idea that he was virtually a divine being himself, yet he was saying prayers to other goddesses, in another land, hoping they would cover the shortcomings of yet other gods.

He was far behind Tullamore and the Skyes, he suddenly realized as he awoke from his walking reverie.  He saw, not far ahead, the spot where the cavern ceiling dropped precipitously.  He was nearly out of the cavern, and this time, he told himself, he was going to use the same method of traveling that Morph and Krusima had used, rather than crawling and adding another layer of dusty filth to his already tattered clothing.

And that’s when the attack began.

Kestrel had a sudden sense of danger, and then of hatred.  He began to turn in alarm, when he felt pain and fear suddenly permeate his very being.  His legs became wooden and cold, losing all sensation and causing him to topple to the ground.  His energy began to drain away, and the glow that he emanated began to fade.

Kestrel rolled over and looked down at his feet, to see a darkness enveloping them.

“You left me, and you lied to me, and you are working for my enemies,” the black mist hissed.

It was the strange, frightening, dangerous mist that he and his fellow travelers had met before, the mist that had guided them, but been no friend.

The pain in his left foot grew intense, and Kestrel instinctively pointed at the mist as he released a bolt of his power.  The energy shot down at the mist, and passed through it with no seeming impact, as the bright streak of Kestrel’s power flew across the chamber and shattered the stony wall on the far side.

But despite its apparent harmless passage, the power did injure the mist, for it recoiled away from Kestrel, circling itself into a whirling cylinder of darkness that rotated and throbbed just a few feet away.

“You are different!” the mist shrieked.  “You should not have such power!”

Kestrel tried to stand, to prepare himself to face another attack, but his wounded foot would not bear his weight.  He rose to his knees, and as the mist launched itself at him, he waved his arms and threw up a shield around himself.  The mist struck the blue glow and moaned in pain as it withdrew to  heal itself.

“I am different,” Kestrel finally spoke, to agree with the creature.  He lifted his blue dome and flipped it quickly, trapping the mist with it, then sealing it off into an energy shell that enveloped the mist.

“You cannot maintain this for very long,” the mist said confidently.  “ And when you weaken and this puny shell falters, I will spring loose and I will overwhelm you.” Its voice had turned into a snarl.

“Not necessarily,” Kestrel replied, dropping back down into a sitting position as he rested and considered a way to defeat the misty entity.

He didn’t understand the mist as an entity, how it could live without a body.  But he could imagine a way to permanently defeat it.  He formed in his mind the image of a fiery explosion, then pulled the vision apart into two elemental causes.  They were the primordial elements of the universe’s origins; from them had come the combinations that had resulted in all energy and matter.  It was an abstract Exercise, yet it revealed lessons he hadn’t considered.

He studied his vision.  Satisfied that it was possible to re-create the long-lost material, he used his divine powers to turn his imaginary vision of the two floating balls of the raw energy elements into reality, then enclosed each with a cover, similar to the shield he relied on to encase the mist, though stronger, far stronger, than the casing around the mist.

He took a deep breath, paused and considered.  Despite his newly enhanced powers, doing so many things while feeling the pain in his foot was stretching his abilities beyond endurance, and the task he had in mind was going to make it even harder.

He studied the two balls of elemental energy, two containers with such volatile contents that he felt the impact of the churning, pure potential power.  The glow of the two containers was an alluring temptation; he felt the desire to open the two containers and allow the contents to flow into himself.

And maintaining the strength of the two small containers that held the elements was a tremendous use of his capacity.  He felt the untamed efforts of the elements seeking to break free, challenging the power he exerted to restrain them.  The energies sought freedom.

“What do you seek to do?” the mist asked suspiciously.

“You’re about to have company,” Kestrel grunted.  He felt his forehead starting to bead with sweat from his exertions.  He began to force the two balls to move towards the caged mist, keeping the two elements widely separated, so that there was no opportunity for an accidental mixing of the two in their current forms, not at too early a moment.

The containers floated as he intended, so that they came to stop at either end of the egg-shaped energy field that contained the dangerous mist.  Kestrel prepared to try his next trick, to momentarily open the mist’s cage simultaneously at each end to allow the two small packages of the elements to slip in, without allowing the mist to slip out.  Once all three were contained within the single sphere, he would release the two elements, and simultaneously strengthen the outer shield.

The result, he expected, would be a cataclysmic explosion inside the container, a reaction of the two pure elements meeting and counteracting one another in an encounter that would be so fierce it would destroy them both, and the mist with them, while staying safely entrapped in his energy shell.  Then, he expected, he could release his energies, and crawl and hobble on his wounded foot to exit from the cave and rejoin the Skyes.  They would be able to tell him about the mist, what it was, and where it came from, after it was destroyed.

Kestrel watched the container around the mist.  He needed to hurry, to engulf the elements of energy within the container quickly, as the stress of multiple actions continued to wear him down.  But he needed a moment when the mist would not be close to either end, so that he would be assured it would not escape through the opening he created for the entry of the elements.  To his annoyance, the mist did not cooperate, as it wildly gyrated and swirled within its cage, frantically testing for any weakness through which it could escape.

There was going to be no perfect time, he decided, and the next, best opportunity would have to suffice.  He saw the chance, and he opened small holes in the ends, as he simultaneously propelled the balls of elements inside the larger container.

To his horror, he saw a tendril of the mist shoot out of the opening on the left, then immediately turn and fly towards him, even as he shut the container and separated the fragment of vapor from the main body. 

Everything happened at once after that.  The mist struck him in the center of his chest, and it unleashed unbearable pain upon him.  He released the containers around the elements, partly according to plan, and partly in panic from the attack he suffered.  Kestrel felt his container around the main body of the mist start to collapse as his focus slipped away.

He felt the psychic foretelling of the mixing of the two elements, and in another hurriedly panicked moment, he projected his body out of the cave and towards the first safe place he could think of, the bottom of the wide, dry valley where Tullamore had rid Gates of the murderous insect infestation.  Kestrel sensed the explosion occurring at the spot he was fleeing, and the mighty power of the elemental annihilation ripping outward, destroying the cavern passage just as he left it behind. 

He sensed that he was still alive, and he thought he saw the blue sun overhead in the sky, just before he blacked out, unconscious from the trauma of the attack by the mist and the exhaustion of his powers and the explosion in the cave.