Mind of the Magic (Arhel Book 3) (6 page)

One of them said, “Faia—isn’t she the goddess portended to bring death to all the gods?”

“Or perhaps one of the goddesses of hearth and wisdom,” another whispered nervously.

“If you don’t know who I am, you aren’t important enough to know,” Faia told them coldly. “Go back to whatever holes you crawled out of, little gods, and infest my house no more.”

Then one of the gods glared at her, anger dark on his face. “But we were invited. All of us were invited.”

Faia hid her discomfiture as well as she could, and kept her response icy and superior. “
I
did not invite you.”

But the angry eyes were not fixed on her this time. Instead, they were focused on her guest—Witte A’Winde.

He was responsible for this? Don’t be ridiculous, she told herself. Of course he’s responsible for this. Gods don’t appear in gardens any more often than wings appear on cats. He’d called himself Witte the Mocker—but that did not seem to define the little man appropriately right at that instant. Witte the Troublesome would be closer, she thought darkly. Or Witte the Prankster. Or even Witte the Soon-to-be-Sleeping-in-the-Street. She glowered at him. He gave her a shrug and a weak smile.

“Did you do this? Invite this rabble into my home?”

Witte threw himself prostrate at her feet and wept “Oh, please, please don’t smite me!” he howled. “Please have mercy, O Benevolent Faia. Don’t blast me! Don’t rend me limb from limb! I meant no harm—truly.”

Faia pulled her ankles loose from his armlock and did not kick him in the head, though she was sorely tempted. She looked back to the gods, intending to ask them to leave—only to discover the last of them was at that instant creeping out through her front gate, his forked tail quite literally tucked between his legs. As she watched, the tiptoeing god reached back and quietly pulled the inner gate shut behind him.

She jammed her hands into the pockets of her breeches and studied the gate thoughtfully, then looked at the still prostrate and weeping Witte.

“You can get up now,” she said, her voice dry. “They’ve gone.” She looked back at the gate again, and tipped her head to one side. “Though I haven’t the slightest idea why.”

Witte jumped to his feet, all pretense of remorse gone as though it had never existed. He chuckled while he brushed the dirt off his silks. “They fell for that one?” He shook his head ruefully. “What a bunch of rubes. City gods would never have gone for that bit—” He looked up at her, a thoughtful expression on his face. “Though you did a nice turn as the great god Faia. Where did you come up with the haughty act?”

She was still pondering the mysterious and panic-tinged flight of the gods. She only half-heard his question at first. “Hmmmm?” she murmured. Then she thought back to what he asked her, and shrugged. “Well… I’ve dealt with snobs before.”

“Nice. Very nice. You could have fooled me if I hadn’t already known what you were.” He laughed.

Something about the way he said that grated on Faia, and she glared at him. “You know
what
I am? What?!” She snarled, “Let me tell you what I am, Witte A’Winde. I
am
the woman who owns this house. I
am
the woman who took care of you, who nursed you back to health, who invited you to stay in my home, who offered to take you to the First Folk ruins out of respect for the memory of my friend Nokar. Finally, I
am
not happy about this.”

Witte frowned, then turned and stalked away from her.

She strode after him and grabbed his shoulder. “
Why
did you invite the gods here? How did you find them, how did you call them? I want answers, and I want them now.”

Witte turned slowly and removed Faia’s hand from his shoulder. “I wanted to find out what they knew about the Dreaming God,” he said stiffly.

Faia frowned. “Some of them were arguing about the Dreaming God when I went out there.”

“Yes. Most of them agree the Dreaming God is real, but minor.”

“Some of them did not agree, I noticed.”

“Well, some. But Thessi Ravi is a hothead. She thinks with a bit more push, she can become one of Arhel’s majors—though I don’t think that’s too likely. None of the better gods took her attitude.”

Faia leaned against the wall and studied the little man. “Why does it matter, anyway?” she asked.

His eyes narrowed, and went cold and hard. “Because the oldest religions claim the Dreaming God is the god from whom all magic springs—and I’ve found evidence that he isn’t a god at all.”

“Not a god?” Faia arched an eyebrow. “It sounds like the sort of riddle my brothers and I used to ask each other; ‘When is a god not a god?’ And what is the answer to this riddle, Witte the Mocker?”

Witte smiled slowly. “When he’s Edrouss Delmuirie,” the little man said.

The silence seemed to crackle in the dark breezeway.
Edrouss Delmuirie.
Again. Edrouss Delmuirie, creator of the blasted barrier that trapped Arhelans on their little continent and denied them the endless seas beyond. Edrouss Delmuirie, false god. Edrouss Delmuirie, author of an infamous series of diaries, seducer of hundreds of willing women.

Edrouss Delmuirie
. She could see the man in her mind as clearly as if she still stood in the First Folk catacombs; he knelt on one knee inside a pillar of golden light, sword out, chalice lifted, with his plain face tilted upward and illuminated by a beatific expression. Every time she thought of him, her stomach tightened and twisted, and her heart raced. Thirk Huddsonne had worshiped Delmuirie—had almost sacrificed Kirtha to him. None of that was Delmuirie’s fault, but Faia, remembering both men, could not separate her justifiable anger with one from her linked anger with the other.

Witte did not seem to notice her silence. He paced in front of her, talking. “I have a great deal of proof, you see, that Delmuirie
is
the Dreaming God… or rather, that he became known as the Dreaming God after he disappeared. I have proof, too, that it is because of his dreaming that the magic of Arhel has begun to run rampant. My theory is that Arhel will return to normal when someone wakes him. But waking him will take an act of will and magic unlike anything that Arhel has ever seen.”

Faia’s ears caught that phrase, and she frowned thoughtfully.
An act of will and magic.
And her mother’s words came back to her.

You will have a test—a test of your courage and your will—and, too, of your love for your friends, and for all the people of Arhel. You alone have both the magic and the spirit to do what must be done.

“Of course,” she whispered. This act of will and magic—waking Delmuirie, setting right the wrong, wild magic overrunning Arhel—certainly this was the destiny about which her mother had spoken.

She smiled slowly. Her destiny was not just to lead Witte A’Winde to the First Folk ruins. She could feel the truth of the real need in her very blood. She closed her eyes; at last she would have a chance to be Arhel’s hero, to remove the stain on her name that the burning of Bright and the near-leveling of Ariss had left. She would wake Delmuirie, and return Arhel to its rightful state.

“Good,” she whispered. “When this is done, there will be none in Arhel who curse my name.”

Witte looked up at her and his bushy brows knit together. “You look awfully pleased by all of this,” he said. “I’d like to know why.”

“I’m looking forward to seeing my friends again,” Faia lied. “But I’ve decided we need to get ready and go to the ruins now.”

Kirtha wandered out into the hall. “It’s still dark, but I’m not sleepy anymore, Mama. Can I get up now?” The little girl rubbed her eyes with the backs of her hands. “Did Gramma come back?”

“You can get up.” Faia scooped her daughter up and hugged her; she was grateful for the interruption. “It is going to be dark for a long time. Gramma did not come back. I don’t think she will.” She swallowed the sudden lump in her throat and said, “I think she told me what I needed to know.”

Witte’s eyes narrowed. “Your mother stopped by?”

“Yes.” Faia did not wish to have her wonderful miracle questioned, so she said nothing else.

“Gramma is a ghost,” Kirtha said helpfully. “She’s very pretty.”

Leave it to Kirtha to blurt out Faia’s secret. “My mother appeared to me as I was lighting candles for the spirits of the dead. She told me something that confirmed much of what you say.”

“Your mother’s
ghost
confirmed…?” Witte frowned, and shook his head slowly. “I don’t like the sound of that—not at all.”

Faia shrugged. Odd that the little man would remark on what her mother said, but not the fact that her mother had been there in the first place. Then she considered… he’d summoned gods to her garden. The ghost of a lone mother must seem pretty unspectacular to him.

Witte gnawed on the tip of his braid and glowered into the darkness. “It doesn’t matter,” he said suddenly. “Are you ready to leave now?”

She had hoped to get a birthing present for Roba, who had surely delivered her baby by this time. She’d hoped to take gifts to Medwind and Kirgen, too. But this sign that her destiny awaited her was more important than finding gifts. She felt the thrill of anticipation, of waiting adventure, of the promise of a fulfillment she would never find in Omwimmee Trade. “I have to dress Kirtha and myself in warm clothes, and pack a few supplies. And talk to Matron Bendreed about feeding Hrogner.”

Witte smiled slowly. “Bring your cat, why don’t you? It will be a short trip—and I have to believe a cat named Hrogner would be lucky for me.”

Faia snorted. “Not for me. Hrogner is a four-legged disaster.”

“The best kind. I’ll watch him—I
like
that cat.”

“He will stay here,” Faia said firmly. “He’s too much trouble—and Kirtha and I will be gone a week or so. He would be hard to keep up with in the mountains for that long.”

When Faia met Witte back in the garden, she and Kirtha were already sweltering in the winter garb of the hill-folk—heavy boots, leather breeches, thick wool tunics, laced jerkins and sturdy hill-folk
erdas
, which were ugly square overwraps of waxed felt. Mother and daughter wore wide-brimmed leather hats, and Faia wore her waist kit-pack, and lugged her heavy supply pack over one shoulder. She carried a brass-tipped staff, while Kirtha had a simple wood walking stick. Faia almost felt silly wearing winter gear in the summer—but even in the lowlands the temperature had dropped with the absence of the sun, and in the mountains, bitter false winter would have already arrived, not to be banished until the sun crept out from behind the Tide Mother.

“I look like Mama, don’t I, Witte?” Kirtha asked.

“Yes,” the little man agreed, looking from child to mother and back to child again. He looked up at Faia in disbelief. “By my blessed bones, woman, what are you doing with all of that? We’re going to make a quick jaunt into the First Folk city. I’m sure your friends will be happy to entertain you for the few days you’ll be there.”

“Anyone who travels to the mountains and doesn’t anticipate trouble will be sure to find it,” Faia told him. “I know the mountains. I grew up in them.”

“Well, I can certainly see taking a few precautions… but you have a
sling
in your belt.”

“And spiked wolfshot in my waist pack.”

“You could melt any bedamned wolves we met with a flick of your fingers.”

Faia sniffed. “That is not the Lady’s way. With wolves, I prefer wolfshot. Magic has its uses—but so do the skills of hand and eye.”

Witte laughed and wrapped a fur-lined silk cloak around him. “How silly.” He held out a hand. “If you have magic, you don’t need anything else. Hold tight, and picture the place in your thoughts,” he said.

Faia swung Kirtha onto her hip, grabbed her pack, then took his hand with her free one. She pictured the ruins, the domed whitestone worn by untold years of wind and rain and snow. Her stomach twisted, she smelled the sudden tang of bitter smoke, and that was all. One instant, she was standing beneath the stars in her garden, with the black Tide Mother over her head; the next, wind screamed around her and whipped snow into her eyes and down the loose neck of her erda. The white walls of the First Folk city towered over her head, and the curiously built, carved stone domes of the First Folk nestled below her. The three of them had appeared in the center of the circle of arches and pillars, on the high promontory above the main part of the city. It was very near the place where Faia and Medwind and Nokar had landed when they flew into the city more than two years ago.

But everything about the place was different.

FAIA felt her heart begin to race as she stood on the narrow, rocky plateau and looked down into the lower ruins. Her skin and her nerves tingled with the charge of powerful, surging energy from somewhere nearby, and her heart raced. She could barely make out the forked shape of the library and the clusters of a few of the larger side-buildings through the darkness and the gusting snow. She was surprised she could even see those, so hideous was the weather; but below, the terrain gleamed with its own faintly golden glow.

The light was not from a campfire. It did not flicker at all. Nor was it mage-light, which was always palest white, with a cold sheen. It was a warm light, like the glow cast by a hearthfire, comforting to look at and oddly cheerful.

She studied that light and in the back of her mind, recent memories fell into place and she realized what she saw. She gasped, staring at the brilliant light. Horrified, she reached out tentatively with a thread of magic, and touched the light—then pulled back, her worst suspicions confirmed.

The golden light was the pillar of magic that had encased Delmuirie, now grown enormous in both size and strength. Faia stared over the bluff, trying to measure its spread; she realized it covered half the city that she could see, including all the areas where her friends lived and worked. The light was the source of the surging, prickling energy she’d sensed.

She remembered the way that pillar of light had rippled when she and Nokar, Medwind, and Roba had attacked Thirk with magic, and remembered as well that it had billowed out like a curtain blown by an invisible breeze when it swallowed Thirk at the end. The light had spread a short time after it swallowed Thirk, but then it had stopped, its boundaries larger but seemingly stable.