Gathering of the Chosen (20 page)

Whatever Carmaz's motives may have been,
Raya found that she liked the idea of him protecting her. Maybe
there wasn't much that Carmaz could do against the assassin, should
that assassin ever attack her again, but just the knowledge that he
was here with her made Raya feel much safer than she had since the
attack.

She considered going out and waking him
up, but then decided that Carmaz needed to sleep perhaps even more
so than she did. Even so, Raya stood there watching him for a few
minutes longer before closing the door and returning to her own
bed, having found that she was actually tired enough to rest after
all. And she slept well that night, in spite of all of that had
happened recently.

***

C
armaz awoke when he heard a loud
knocking at the door to Raya's apartment. It sounded like someone
was trying to bash down the door with a battering ram and Carmaz
was too tired at first to get up and answer it.

Go away,
Carmaz thought, closing
his eyes and hoping that whoever was knocking at the door at this
awful hour of the morning would give up and find someone else to
bother.
I'm sleeping.

Then he heard a familiar voice on the
other side of the door shout, “Hey, Carmaz, it's me! Open up.”

That was Saia's voice. Of that, there was
no doubt. That made Carmaz sit up, brush back his messy, curly
hair, yawn, and then stand up. His body ached all over and, despite
the warmth of the room, he shivered like he had come down with a
cold. His stomach growled and his throat was dry. Carmaz had
expected to feel the pain in his body when he awoke this morning,
so he didn't complain, especially when he remembered how awful he
used to feel upon waking up on the floor of his hut on Ruwa what
seemed like a lifetime ago now.

Still, Carmaz took his time crossing the
short gap between the sofa and the door, muttering, “Coming,
coming,” as he did so, though he doubted Saia heard him, because
his friend was still hammering on the door like his life depended
on it.

Then Carmaz grabbed the doorknob, took a
deep breath to ready himself for whatever Saia had come to talk
with him about, and then opened the door.

Saia stood in the doorway, but unlike
Carmaz, he looked like he had rested well and was up and raring to
go. Carmaz did not see any of the guards that had been placed
outside of Raya's apartment to protect him and her, but he was too
tired to ask where they might have gone.

“Hey, brother, what's up?” said Saia, his
tone too cheery and loud for this time of the morning. “How'd your
night with Raya go?”

Carmaz shook his head and looked at Saia
in confusion. “What?”

“You know, your night with her,” said
Saia. He leaned forward and whispered, probably to make sure that
Raya didn't hear this, “It's not every night you get to sleep with
the princess of one of the most powerful nations in the Northern
Isles, after all.”

“Sleep with—?” Carmaz repeated. His anger
woke him up better than any cup of coffee could. “I slept on the
sofa all night. Raya slept on her bed, in her room, with her door
closed. We only talked for a few minutes before she went to sleep.
Nothing happened between us.”

“It's okay, Carmaz, I won't judge,” said
Saia, putting a hand on Carmaz's shoulder like he always did when
he wanted to reassure Carmaz that he could trust him. “Sometimes
trauma brings people together and they do things they don't
always—”

Carmaz slammed the door shut and turned
away, intending to go back to the sofa and sleep in for the rest of
the morning, before Saia's insistent knocking on the door caught
his attention again, along with Saia's slightly muffled voice
saying, “Hey, man, it was just a joke. Sorry if I offended you.
Could you let me in? Please?”

Carmaz considered telling Saia to go away
and never come back, but he had forgiven Saia for far worse
offenses than this in the past. So he turned around and opened the
door to see Saia—who, he was pleased to see, looked far more
sheepish than he had a few seconds ago—standing there.

“Come in,” said Carmaz with a yawn,
stepping aside. “But don't you dare insinuate anything between me
and Raya while you are here. Understand?”

“Perfectly, sir,” said Saia, stepping
inside as he said the word
sir
with sarcasm. “But seriously,
if you and Raya got together—”

“Say one more word, and I'll drop kick you
off the top of this building,” said Carmaz as he closed the door
and glared at his friend. “Personally.”

Saia gulped and immediately changed the
subject. “So, brother, I just came by to see how you were doing.
Haven't heard from you or anyone else since that assassin's attack
last night. Any updates?”

Carmaz yawned again and shuffled toward
the sofa, trying to ignore the pain caused by every step. “No. I
just woke up. Haven't heard from the gods or anyone else.”

“Huh,” said Saia. “I don't like that. What
I heard is that some of the gods have actually been leading the
search for our mysterious assassin personally, though they haven't
found any clues yet as to his real identity, obviously.”

Carmaz did not respond to that. He just
sat down on the sofa again, stretched out on it, and pulled his
blanket up to his chin before looking at Saia again. “How did you
even get here? I thought we were all supposed to stay in our
apartments while the assassin was still at large.”

“Maybe you godlings are, but no one seems
to care about me,” said Saia with a shrug. “I just walked out of my
apartment, asked around and got directions to yours, and then came
here. I think the gods and katabans living here put less value on
my life than on yours because I'm not a godling. Why, I could
vanish off the face of Martir and I doubt any of them would
notice.”

“But what about the guards who are
supposed to stand guard outside the door?” said Carmaz, rubbing his
eyes to get the sleep out of them. “Where are they?”

“I told 'em that Alira sent me to pick you
two up,” said Saia. “I also told them that the hot bread cart down
the street was having a special discount for Soldiers of the Gods.
They must like hot bread, because they left almost as soon as I
told them about it.”

“Did you think about what they might do
when they reach the hot bread cart and find out that there
isn't
a special discount for Soldiers of the Gods?” asked
Carmaz.

Saia shook his head. “Nope. But I doubt
they'll get too angry. I mean, they must know that I'm your friend.
Obviously, they will just think that I wanted to see my best friend
in the world badly enough to lie to them.”

Carmaz didn't think so. The Soldiers of
the Gods seemed to take their job with the utmost seriousness. He
doubted they would be very happy to learn that a human had fooled
them, especially a human who technically shouldn't even be on
World's End at all. He dreaded having to convince the Soldiers to
not kick Saia into the Crystal Sea and force him to swim all the
way back to the Northern Isles himself.

Saia glanced toward the door to Raya's
room and opened his mouth, but Carmaz said, “What did I say about
talking about my relationship with Raya?”

Saia held up his hands defensively. “Hey,
I wasn't going to ask about that. I just wanted to know how Raya is
doing is all.”

“She's fine, as far as I know,” said
Carmaz. “Slept straight through the night and hasn't come out of
her room once. She probably isn't even aware that you're here or
that it's morning yet.”

“Okay,” said Saia. He scratched the back
of his neck. “That assassin sure was scary, wasn't it? Much scarier
than anything the Swamp of Light has. Makes me glad it's gone.”

“For now,” said Carmaz. “I imagine it will
attack again at some point, though when, I don't know.”

“But maybe it won't,” said Saia hopefully.
“Everyone is looking for it now, which means it will be harder for
it to attack again. Maybe it will even give up entirely.”

Carmaz shook his head. “Do you honestly
believe that? That thing clearly isn't like you or me, so it will
probably strike again soon, though when and who its next victim
will be, I don't know.”

“I sure hope it's not me,” said Saia with
a shudder. “I don't think there's anything I could do against
something like that if it wanted to kill me.”

“It probably won't,” said Carmaz, “since
you're not a godling, after all. Based on what Braim said, it
sounds like it is targeting godlings for some reason. If it kills
you, it will only be because you got in its way.”

“Yeah,” said Saia, “I know, but it still
freaks me out. If it kills you, then that will definitely destroy
any hopes of resurrecting Ruwa to its former glory.”

Carmaz frowned and looked away. “Don't
talk to me about Ruwa.”

“But why not?” said Saia. “Sure, you
aren't going to become the God of Martir, but surely you can still
do some good as the God of Humans, right? I mean, I don't exactly
know what a God of Humans even does, but that is still a ton of
power that you as a mortal don't even have.”

“Maybe, but …” Carmaz tried to put his
feelings into words. “I'm just disappointed. I don't see how I can
do all of the good that I want to do with such a massive decrease
in power and influence. It messes up my plans.”

“Look on the bright side,” said Saia. “You
can probably still do a lot of stuff. All of the gods are obscenely
powerful, after all, even if the God of Martir is more powerful
than all of them.”

“Yeah, but what if whoever becomes the God
of Martir tells me not to help Ruwa?” said Carmaz. “That is a
possibility, you know.”

“Well, what if the new God of Martir is
Braim?” said Saia. “Yeah, I know that neither of us really knows
him all that well, but Braim seems like a swell guy to me. I'm sure
he'd allow you to help Ruwa as much as you want if he became the
God of Martir.”

“You're assuming that he will,” said
Carmaz. “There are nineteen other godlings also competing for that
spot. If it went to any of them, and the winner turns out to have
different goals from mine, then we might as well give up.”

“Well, you can't give up anyway,” said
Saia. “Remember, Alira said that you only get out of the Tournament
if you win or lose or are disqualified because you broke one of the
rules.”

“When did I say I was giving up?” said
Carmaz, looking at Saia again. “I'm still going to participate in
the Tournament and I am still going to win. I will figure out how
to make this sudden turn of events work even if I didn't plan for
it.”

“Great,” said Saia. “For a moment there I
really
did
think you were going to give up, but I should
have known better. After all, you never give up on anything, no
matter how hard it gets.”

“Stubborn as a mule, Grandmother always
used to say about me,” said Carmaz with a smile. “Wonder what she
would say now if she could see me here, with a real chance at
becoming a god?”

“She'd probably just tell you to stop
moping and win the Tournament,” said Saia with a chuckle. “She'd
probably also tell that assassin not to kill her kids unless it
wanted to die an early and painful death at her hands.”

Carmaz chuckled also. Then he yawned and
said, “Okay, now I can't get back to sleep. Might as well get
up.”

He threw the blankets off his body, sat up
again, and stood up. Stretching his limbs, Carmaz said, “Saia,
could you check the pantry for any—”

Carmaz was interrupted by the door to
Raya's room bursting open and Raya herself staggering out. She
looked a lot better than she had last night. Her hair was done in
simple but attractive braids, her clothing was dry, and there were
no bags under her eyes at all.

Nonetheless, she stopped and then moaned
as if she was in extreme pain, prompting Saia to say, “Raya, what's
wrong?”

“Ooooh …” Raya moaned. She rubbed her arms
and shuddered. “So much pain … most pain I've ever felt in my whole
life …”

That did not surprise Carmaz in the
slightest. Raya was probably experiencing all of the pain her body
taken the night before. It was no shock to him that she was taking
it badly. As the prim and proper Princess of Carnag, Carmaz figured
that the worst pain Raya had ever felt was getting a paper cut from
turning the gilded pages of an expensive and heavy book.

Then, without warning, Raya staggered
forward toward Carmaz. She fell into his arms, forcing him to catch
her so she wouldn't fall onto the floor and hurt herself, and
moaned again. She looked up at Carmaz with a smile and said, “Oh,
thank you for catching me, Carmaz. You are a true gentleman,
despite your humble origins from such a backwards island.”

Carmaz looked at Saia, who shrugged as if
to say
I'm not a princess, don't look at me.

Then he looked back at Raya and said, “Er,
you're welcome, Raya, but perhaps you should go back to your bed
and rest a little while longer. You seem tired.”

“Perhaps you're right,” Raya sighed. Then
she grabbed Carmaz far more tightly than she had last night and
said, “And you can give me a massage to help get the pain out of my
bones. Your hands are the perfect size for the job. I should know,
since my personal massage therapist back on Carnag has
similar-sized hands to yours.”

Carmaz glanced at Saia again. This time,
Saia gave him the thumbs up, as if to say,
You just struck gold,
my friend. Keep up the good work.

Carmaz decided not to look to his friend
for advice in dealing with this situation any longer. Instead, he
raised Raya to a standing position and said, “Well, Raya, I don't
have any experience massaging anyone, so I doubt I'd do a good
job.”

“That's fine,” said Raya, whose pain
seemed to have magically disappeared all of a sudden. “I can teach
you where to touch me, you know. It's something I have a lot of
experience in. I think it will be fun.”