Mind of the Magic (Arhel Book 3) (32 page)

And he died.

No!
Faia wailed. She pulled back from the Dreaming God’s window, away from the world and the man she loved, and let the brightness of the emeshest wear away at the edges of her pain.

Time passes, my beloved, and you busy yourself with the world. We have all of eternity, but I desire your company now. I have waited so long.

Faia turned her attention to the Dreaming God.
Another moment,
she demanded.
There are things I must see.

She looked through the window again, searching for Bytoris, and found him separated from Renina and their children. The Dreaming God had moved him to a safe place outside the city, but had left his wife and children behind. Bytoris went back to Bonton to rescue them, but the Servants caught him trying to smuggle them out of the city, and arrested him. Her brother was branded and given to Thirk as a personal slave, while the Servants branded Renina and all the children as heretics and kept them for their own uses. Thirk delighted in torturing Faia’s brother.

If she had been able to, Faia would have wept.

So magic had not freed Bonton of Thirk and his evil religion. Somehow the madman had managed to hang on to his power. Faia shifted her attention to Thirk, and followed him as he went about his life of luxury, waited on by multitudes—commanding them with a snap of his fingers. His religion had spread, until not only Bonton but much of Arhel was infected with it.

Why?

She searched from person to person through the believers, until she found the truth. Arhel’s magic had returned the instant she and Edrouss and Bytoris had vanished from the burning pyres—and Thirk, ever crafty, had claimed the magic’s return as his own doing. There was no one to naysay him—and he had taken the grateful adoration of the multitudes, and turned it into even more power.

She turned away from Thirk in disgust.

She found her own body, frozen in a pillar of light.

Why?
she asked.

Only when I embrace the mind of one human can I touch all humans. That is the source of the world’s magic, beloved—the embrace of my mind and yours.

Then in a way, Edrouss was the source of Arhel’s magic.

He called upon me in a moment of dire need—and for that moment, his mind was open, and met mine. I thought he was the one I had waited so long to find, and I embraced him as I now embrace you—but he had no capacity for the easy speech you and I share. My touch over the many years changed him, but never enough that he could see me for what I am, or hear my voice. Never enough that he could be the companion I yearn for. He gave me a conduit to the rest of Arhel, and finally brought me you.

The Dreaming God paused, and when he resumed, his desire burned in the emeshest like the fires of a sun.

Time passes, heart of my heart. Come be with me. Rejoice with me in our togetherness. Take joy in the magic we make.

Faia ached—for her lover, for her brother, for her world. Wordless, she turned her back on the Dreaming God and stared into the window to the world.

She willed the window to show her Kirtha.

Her little girl had grown while she watched the others. Kirtha was tall and beautiful, already as old as Faia had been when Faia and Kirgen had conceived her. Kirtha had long red hair that blazed in the sunlight, a wonderful smile, beautiful brown eyes.

But she was unhappy. She fought with her father and stepmother, she hated her twin half-brothers and their younger sisters. She used her magic angrily—Faia came to discover that she blamed Kirgen, Medwind, Roba, and the twin boys with whom Roba had been pregnant for her mother’s disappearance and presumed death. She was sure Faia would have stayed behind and Kirgen would have gone if Roba had not been pregnant. She refused to train with Medwind, so her magic was wild and uncertain, and more dangerous than Faia’s had ever been; and she used it for any reason, at any time.

As Faia watched, she left Roba and Kirgen and went off on her own. She traveled around Arhel, looking for trouble and invariably finding it. She took lovers carelessly, and each one left her more unhappy than the one before. She grew old before her mother’s eyes—old and bitter and lonely and unloved, with no children or grandchildren, no real home, nothing she cared about. The magic borne of her mother’s body and a god’s desire she abused—and it in turn abused her, causing Kirtha nothing but pain and grief.

Distraught, Faia turned away for an instant, and when she looked back, it was to see her daughter as an old woman, sick and alone and dying. And then dead.

No!
Faia wailed.
Not my daughter! Not my beautiful daughter! This is not the way things should have been. I gave up my life so I could save them, but nothing good has come of this.

She turned her attention back to the Dreaming God.

Why?
she demanded of him.
Why have their lives been so terrible?

Life is short and full of pain,
he told her.
You have eternity with me. Forget about life. Forget the pain—there is no pain here. Rejoice with me. Love me.

Must things be as the window showed them to me?
Faia railed against the horror and the despair she had seen.
Must the future hold the endless pain I saw?

You did not see the future, beloved. You watched the present as it unfolded. You followed time; the things you saw happened not in a seeing, but in truth.

Then the people I loved are all dead?

Everyone dies, Faia. Everyone but you and me.

Faia pulled back from him. Neither the soothing brightness and warmth of the emeshest nor the glorious music of eternity could soothe her pain. At last she said,
Then let me die.

You are my love, my soul, my heart. You are the embodiment of my only dream. I love you. I waited an eternity for you.

Inside of Faia, something snapped.
Don’t you understand? I don’t love you! I love my daughter. I love my brother. I love Edrouss!

The Dreaming God did not react to Faia’s explosion. He maintained a calm, reasoning tone.
Edrouss was mortal—human. Now he is dead, and his spirit is elsewhere, seeking another place. Whereas I am not mortal, not a man. I am the greatest of the gods; I am the Dreaming God. If a man is worthy of your love, how much more worthy am I?

Without a body, Faia could not weep physical tears. But her soul wept.
I cannot make myself love you. Can you not understand that love is not something I can just make appear because you want it to be there? I will talk with you if you are lonely—because I must. I am here of my own choice, because I wanted to protect the people I loved—though I did them little good. But I cannot love you. I do not have whatever secret thing my heart would have to hold to make that love be there. And I can never forget that the people I loved with all my heart died unhappy and alone without me, because of you.

Then everything I have done has been in vain. I was wrong to lie to you, to trick you, to use my power to make you desire my human form, to use your enemy Thirk to bring you to me. Had I not done those things, would you love me?

Faia thought of Gyels as she first saw him, as she first knew him. When he was a simple hunter, she had thought she might come to love him. But he had become a jealous man, and a jealous god.

Perhaps,
she told him.
We cannot know that now. Jealousy kills the thing it most desires; love not freely given is not love, but fear.

The Dreaming God was silent for a long time—so long that Faia could not help but wonder how many thousands were born, lived out their lives, and died in the faraway mortal world she yearned for.

At long last the Dreaming God stirred.
Through you, I have discovered love—I loved you as a god before I was a man; I loved you as a man; and once again a god, I love you still. For all of eternity, I desired someone who could be my companion and my equal—someone who could share eternity with me. If my love was not free from jealousy, it was still the only love I knew. I will learn another love.

I moved worlds and shaped the lives of countless humans, as well as the lives of creatures of my own making and design, so that the day would come when someone who could talk with me would be born. There were others with your abilities, soul of my soul, but they never come to me. Only you came to me. Surely you were the one for whom I have waited.

My love is not the love of mortals; yet having once been mortal, I can feel within me the strong, hot stirrings of what you feel. Faia, I cannot make myself not love you. Yet I cannot bear to see you as you are, deep in your human misery, outside of the reach of my caring and my desire. You gave up everything to save the people you loved.

The god paused then added,
Love accepts pain. I think, though, that love does not willingly cause pain. I will not keep you with me. In this way, I will love you without jealousy.

Faia felt hope flare inside of her, then gutter and die.
Everyone I ever cared about is gone now. Dead. Your realization and your kindness come too late.

She felt amusement in his response.
They are dead now. But what is now, Faia? What is time to me? I am eternal. I exist in all places and at all times, forever. Because I love you, I will set you free to live as a mortal with those you love. Remake the world as you would, Faia. Time is fluid, changeable—if you can bring joy to your daughter, your friends, and your lover, do so. I hope you find happiness.

Faia felt both the Dreaming God’s pain and a tendril of his hope wash over her.

Maybe you will discover that mortality, with its pain and suffering and certain death, is not what you wish after all. If that happens, or if someday you discover that you can love me as I love you, ask, and I will bring you back to my side.

How shall I call you?
Faia asked.
I don’t know your name.

I have never had a name. But I will take one. When you call me
—The Dreaming God paused.

—
Call me Sorrow.

At that instant, Bytoris’s clothing caught fire. The flames licked along his body, and caught his hair, and all the while he screamed, and screamed, the screams clear and loud in Faia’s ears. And Edrouss began to writhe as one tongue of flame danced along the tip of a board that touched his side, burning ever nearer his shirt.

Then she felt it—the mind of the Dreaming God, of the god Sorrow.

Would you still have magic in Arhel?
he asked.

“Yes!” she shouted above the roar of the flames. Her own clothing caught fire, and she felt heat and searing pain. Smoke stung her eyes and filled her nostrils and burned her throat.

Then who shall I take? Who shall I make my own, to form the mind of the magic?

There was no hesitation. “Take Thirk!” Faia yelled.

Through the smoke, through the waves of heat that distorted her vision, she saw Thirk as he hung above the mob, suddenly bathed in radiance—and then her tormentor, her would-be killer, Thirk Huddsonne, vanished.

And the magic surged through her body again.

She drew the power to her, and with it blew out the flames that burned Bytoris and threatened to engulf Edrouss—and that licked at her flesh and left blisters and terrible pain.

She pulled in even more magic, and healed her wounds and the wounds of her loved ones. Then she walked free of the pillar and the still-smoking pyre, and beside her, Edrouss and Bytoris stepped out of their bonds. Their eyes were full of wonder—and their eyes were mirror images of the eyes of the mob, the silent mob, the mob that had seen their priest taken from them, and that saw those that priest had denounced set free.

Faia knew what she had to say—words that would heal, words that would set the people free.

“People of Bonton,” she shouted. “Thirk Huddsonne lied to you—about us, about the One God, about everything. The rules he gave you, the demands he made on you—they were all wrong, all evil. He was an evil man—but the god in whose name he worked has wearied of his evil and has taken him. That god—the Dreaming God, whose name is Sorrow—will change him and heal him and over time will make him whole again.

“That same god has set us free. And now that Thirk is gone, you must turn away from his lies, and the evil he demanded. You must go back to your lives. Go back to being the people you were before. Give the First Folk back their dead, and make peace. Rebuild your city, mend your walls and your families, worship the gods you choose to worship.”

“You could lead us,” someone shouted. “The One True God freed you. You must be his chosen one.”

Other people shouted agreement, and the roar of the mob grew again.

Faia winced. She raised her hands and shouted for silence, and they quieted. She shouted, “No one can lead you but you. Look inside yourself for your god. Don’t look to me—don’t look to anyone else. No path is right for every person.”

“You could show us Truth!” someone insisted.

“I don’t know Truth,” Faia told him. “I know only what is true for me, and I can speak only for myself.”

Faia shoved her hands into the pockets of her leather breeches and stared out at the milling horde of humanity. She would not make herself into their intercessor with Sorrow, nor would she tell them how they ought to live their lives. Shepherds were for sheep, not for people.

She turned away as the mob broke up and wandered toward its many homes; when the square was once again silent, she conjured three wingmounts—calling them from wherever they might have been. They answered her summons as quickly as they could; within minutes, three pale grey horses with wings and legs and manes tipped black appeared over the housetops, flying across the sky to her. They landed jarringly on the platform, and stood waiting.

Faia remembered the first time she’d ridden one—when Medwind Song came from Ariss to the little town of Willowlake to fetch Faia back to the University. Faia had been a child then, with everything to learn.

It’s been a long, hard, lonely road, she thought. She smiled to herself and looked at Edrouss, and thought of Kirtha. Even lonely roads could lead to happy destinations.