DOM

Eighth moon, first year of the reign of King Corvus

Vision house, Seer’s Tor, Krike

It took Dom almost an hour to walk from the small, heavily guarded house in the travellers’ quarter, his guards grumbling at the slowness of his pace and the sun high above by the time they arrived. They were lucky – if he hadn’t managed to sleep through the previous evening, night and morning, they’d be carrying him. Even so, he was sweat-slick and wobbling by the time he reached the vision house.

It was a small roundhouse with a low thatched roof and a central smoke hole, the structure nestled at the base of the tor in almost perpetual shadow. The lead warrior pointed. ‘In.’

Dom ducked his head and shuffled into the gloom of the interior. His eyes hadn’t begun to adjust when the door was shut behind him and the darkness grew, leavened only by dancing orange flames in the small fire pit. Someone sat in the shadows on the other side.

‘Calestar. That’s who you are – what you are – isn’t it?’

The roof beams were many and low and Dom lowered himself on to his knees opposite the figure. ‘Seer-Mother?’

She leant forward so the flames touched their colours upon her cheeks and swirled in the tattoos chasing around her eyes. ‘It is a joy and a privilege to meet one who shares the power to converse with the gods. There is much we can learn from each other.’

‘The honour is mine, Seer-Mother,’ he said and meant it. ‘I have never met anyone else who shares my gift. I’m eager to see how the experience of godsight affects you, and whether you have any particular rituals to help ease the pain of the communion. As you saw with me yesterday, it is unexpected and … difficult.’

The Seer-Mother watched him through the smoke. ‘So you do not summon it then?’ she asked. ‘I had thought you called it in order to deflect attention from the fraud whose side you haunt.’

Dom frowned. ‘Fraud? Crys is no fraud, Seer-Mother. It is difficult to believe, I know, but he is the Fox God in mortal form. I have seen him perform miracles; I have seen him do many things. The knowings sent to me by the … by the Dancer confirm it. If you would but speak to him instead …’

‘All in good time,’ Tanik said smoothly. ‘I spoke with the lover at dawn; I speak with you at noon. It may be I shall speak with Crys when the sun goes to rest. It will depend on your testimony, Calestar. I have my people to care for – I will not allow them to be coaxed into a war by a false god. You said it yourself, after all – someone here lies. There is nothing to say that that someone is not one of your companions.’

She waved her hands as if to bat away her words and the need for Dom to answer them. ‘But first, let us get to know each other. Your gift, Calestar. Have you had it long?’

He was thirsty, the smoke clinging to his throat. ‘Since I was a boy. There hadn’t been a calestar in a generation by the time I showed the gift, so my parents were unsure how to deal with it. When my mother – my adopted mother, that is, Gilda – when she understood what I was, my birth parents gifted me to her and the temple so that I could be raised as close to the gods as possible. It was a difficult time, but it was the right decision for all of us. Gilda Priestess loved me and raised me and helped me to understand what I was.’

‘Abandoned by your parents when your power manifested? Little wonder you forsook the Light. Oh yes, Calestar, tales of your betrayals reach even Krike, borne on the breath of the gods. But of course you would give yourself to Blood: you had learnt from a young age that the pursuit of power was to be honoured above all else, including family.’

Her words were a hammer blow to the chest and Dom gasped, shocked. ‘That’s not how it was. None of it. My parents made the right choice.’

‘For themselves, certainly. No doubt it was horrifying to watch you suffer so, and easier to give you away so that they did not have to witness it, while at the same time, I’m sure, thinking they made the right choice for you.’

There was absolutely no condescension in her tone, but her words prised the lid off a suspicion he’d buried twenty years before and Dom was light-headed with the realisation of it. Her power is great indeed.

She threw a bundle of herbs into the fire pit. They flared in a moment of incandescence and then faded, leaving a thick waft of smoke and scent to billow outwards. Dom coughed.

‘And now you return to the Light?’ the Seer-Mother asked. ‘Or just to the side of this man you believe to be a god? Having forsaken the Light for Blood, having ended the reign of the Dark Lady, you now seek yet another higher purpose to which you can dedicate yourself? Are you addicted to the power you gain from walking at the side of such beings?’

Dom’s head was swimming – anger, denial, guilt, delight, understanding all bundled together in a tangled mess, his sense of himself crumbling like the herbs in the flame. ‘Truly you see much,’ he croaked. ‘But that is not … that’s not who I am. In this you see false.’

Tanik smiled and waved away the comment. ‘Don’t worry, I won’t tell your companions. Your secret remains between us.’ Dom glanced over her shoulder at the man kneeling behind her. ‘My brother, Pesh Crow-dream. Don’t worry about him.’

‘You’re wrong about me,’ Dom said again. He was so thirsty.

‘Or perhaps you are darker still,’ she mused as though he hadn’t spoken, one finger stroking along her jaw and down her throat. ‘Perhaps your addiction is the ending of such creatures. Are you a god-slayer by trade, Dom Templeson? Does your friend Crys need to fear you?’

‘No!’

Perhaps. I don’t know.

The Seer-Mother smiled, as though the words inside Dom were as clear as the denial he’d voiced. ‘Perhaps if Crys is who he claims to be, his death would secure the Dark Lady’s return. Perhaps that is your ultimate aim. And if he is not, well, what’s one more death on your conscience? But it may be that the cards will tell us.’

There was a slow liquid thudding in Dom’s ears as her words insinuated themselves between the spaces in his mind, settling like oil into the darker crevices. Pregnant. Waiting. Not entirely unwelcome.

Tanik Horse-dream drew a stack of large, ornate cards from a small box that Pesh handed to her. There were more leaves in the bottom, glossy and dark, and Pesh tipped those into the fire too. ‘Bay leaves,’ Tanik said, ‘from the far, far south of Krike. They help us to see.’

The man retreated and Dom watched as Tanik laid out the cards, face up, one at a time. They were intricately painted with vivid natural scenes, some disturbing and some incomprehensible.

‘What are these?’ Dom asked, his heart still troubled by Tanik’s suggestions and eager to change the subject. The smoking leaves gave off a bright, heady scent.

‘They aid my understanding. This is how I learn the gods’ will, a way very different from yours, but no less powerful. Please, touch any of those you feel particularly attracted to. Don’t think about it, just place your fingers and then move on.’

Unease was crawling through Dom’s gut as he studied the images, his gaze flicking back and forth and back again, over and over.

This is her version of the knowings? Where is the deep connection, the godspace inside her? How does this work, exactly?

Can I learn this, a pain-free communion? Can she teach me?

Hesitantly, he touched four cards in quick succession and then sat back, his breathing ragged. Tanik and Pesh both leant forward, studying the four, and then removed the others from the layout. They glanced at each other and the knot in Dom’s stomach pulled tighter.

‘What? Have I done something wrong?’ he blurted.

Pesh snorted faintly.

‘Many things,’ Tanik said with a sharp smile, ‘but in the case of the cards, no. There are no wrong decisions, only those that reveal a person’s inner turmoil or worry.’

The bay leaves thickened the air so that it felt as if he was breathing water, and everything had a faint golden outline, like flame.

Like fire.

‘No,’ Dom said, ‘no, not now. Not again.’ His back arched in a spasm, arms flinging out to his sides as though he was trying to fly. ‘Help me,’ he slurred, his tongue thick in his mouth, crown of his head pushing up, fingers seeking as though he was being racked.

‘Interesting,’ he heard Tanik murmur. ‘Most interesting.’

Then all was fire and understanding and pain. Pain.

‘Ah, good. You’re back with us.’

Dom groaned and forced his eyes open against the spike of agony impaling the right side of his face. He was slumped in the gloom of the vision house, the Seer-Mother seated opposite, Pesh behind her. They didn’t appear to have tried to help him, or sent for Crys or Ash. His body was heavy, thick with exhaustion, but he forced himself upright.

Tanik leant forward eagerly, her eyes bright amid the tattoos, heavy brown plaits decorated with feathers and beads hanging either side of her face. ‘What did you see?’ she asked.

‘I need to go,’ Dom croaked. ‘The knowings tire me; I need to rest.’

Tanik shooed away the suggestion. ‘You can rest here. Just tell me what you saw.’

Without speaking, Pesh moved to sit between him and the door. Oh. So it’s going to be like that, is it?

‘I chose the cards first,’ he said with an effort. ‘Tell me about them, and then I’ll tell you what I saw.’

The Seer-Mother hesitated and then inclined her head. ‘Very well.’

Dom grimaced, mouth sour with blood, the thick air scouring his throat and rancid with the scent of vomit. Didn’t they have water?

‘You are sure you wish to know?’ Tanik said and the agony spiked in Dom’s head again, but he didn’t answer, just gestured with a shaking hand for her to proceed. He needed as much time as he could steal to gather some strength before he made a dash for the door.

‘We were discussing your childhood, your abandonment by your family and how you subsequently abandoned your gods – and then your adopted gods. The question was whether you would then abandon, or even hurt, Crys, who you mistakenly believe to be our Holy Trickster. Those were the thoughts uppermost in your mind when you chose these cards.’ She pointed to each in turn. ‘The knife; the child; the divine in man; and the harvest.’

The Seer-Mother paused, watching him as though her words would trigger another reaction. Dom held himself still, breathing steadily through the pain.

‘That was your interpretation of my situation, yes,’ he said with an effort. ‘Now please tell me what your cards say.’

‘They concur, of course,’ Tanik said as though that was obvious. ‘You have chosen a powerful combination, Calestar. The knife: both threat and protection, healing and killing. A double-edged sword or a two-faced man. Trust and betrayal.’

Dom concentrated on the itch in the stump of his arm, the flicker of ghostly fingers reaching for a ghostly knife.

‘The child: could be you as a boy, betrayed by your parents. Or it could be a child of your own; either the one who died with your wife so long ago, or the one not yet born.’ Dom licked his lips and swore under his breath. She couldn’t have known that. She couldn’t. ‘Taken together, you plan to betray your child as you were betrayed, perhaps even kill it.’

‘Or, by your own admission, it could relate to my deep-buried feelings about my parents,’ he pointed out. The Seer-Mother smiled and inclined her head.

‘The divine in man is interesting, and clearly relates to your beliefs about your friend. Or perhaps the divine spark each of us carries within ourselves. Is yours still lit, or is your spark red and liquid? And the harvest in this context would be the souls of the faithful that you hope to reap here.’ She paused and rubbed her fingertips against her lips, eyes dancing across the cards.

‘It may be the divine in man relates to the child as well?’ she murmured and Dom couldn’t help his intake of breath or the cough it triggered. Tanik nodded as though he’d confirmed her suspicions. ‘You will betray your child to the enemy. When it is born it will be special, with powerful magic or magic performed upon it. It has a great destiny and will draw all souls to itself. You know this, and so you harbour thoughts of killing it and so preventing the catastrophe.’

Dom had no words, could hear nothing more over the roaring in his ears. He hadn’t thought that, not once. He wouldn’t. Betray Rillirin and their babe? Never. Never. He’d die rather than think such horrors.

But Tanik’s words were chiming with something deep inside, something oily and putrescent, a lingering idea that had sparked almost as soon as he’d killed the Dark Lady and knew what an awful mistake it had been, how he needed to bring Her back.

‘This is horseshit,’ he said, as steadily as he could manage. ‘These cards are toys; you can interpret them any way you like. They’re not the gods’ words. We agree I likely have deep-seated feelings about my birth parents and of course I don’t want my own child to feel the same and so I’ll do right by it, and the harvest is the hope for peace! It’s not complicated. They’re just pictures that tell a story.’

Despite his words, he didn’t know what to believe, or what he’d been thinking when he’d selected the cards. She’d seeded the thought in his head, yes, but had it found fertile soil?

‘Now, we had a deal,’ the Seer-Mother said as though she hadn’t just carved a hole inside Dom. ‘What did you see during your rather theatrical vision?’

‘Is this it?’ Dom demanded, ignoring her question and sweeping the cards aside with the stump of his arm. ‘Is this the only way you see the future? You don’t speak directly with the gods?’

‘The gods speak directly through the cards,’ Tanik corrected him, a hint of impatience creeping into her voice.

‘And you decide what you think they mean by adding together the pictures into a story? That’s not knowing; that’s not real. It’s – it’s pretend. You could say anything that fits those images.’ He took a breath. ‘You’re trying to discredit me, and you’re trying to pretend Crys isn’t your god, but you’re the one who’s a fraud. These cards are meaningless. They can be interpreted in a thousand different ways – there’s no chance you could ever know for sure what the Dancer is telling you.’

He’d expected Tanik to erupt, but instead she sat serene before him, hands folded together, her many beads and amulets rattling softly as she tipped her head on to one side and watched him along the blade of her nose.

‘You are wasting time playing games with me, when you should be on your knees pledging to serve your gods, to serve Crys,’ he continued, heaving for breath in the dark, close confines of the smoky vision house. ‘What is it you want from me? Why have you led these people astray?’

Tanik gestured and Pesh slid past her to throw more herbs on to the brazier. A thick grey cloud rolled up to hang among the low roof beams. Dom’s head swam. ‘You’re going to give your child to the Red Gods.’

‘I am not,’ Dom snarled as images tickled at the corners of his eyes. He blinked them away.

‘Lies and falsity, the very things of which you accuse me,’ Tanik said, tapping a fingernail against the cards Dom himself had chosen. His head was reeling and the tattoos around her eyes seemed to draw him in so he couldn’t look away. ‘Fire,’ she murmured, ‘bright flags of fire in your eyes. In your head. Messages in the fire. Messages about your child, about Rillirin. Tell me of her. Rillirin. Tell me.’

‘How do you know that name?’ he managed but again it was too late. Dom’s jaws snapped together and he lurched sideways – and fell. Into the flames. Into the images and the pain and the knowing. He could hear screaming.

When it was over, when the world returned to him and he to his body, the ground was pressing into his back. The pain in his head was excruciating and tears were sliding down his cheeks into his hair. A familiar exhaustion, stinking as a corpse shroud, lay over his limbs. Heels and elbows and shoulder blades throbbed with bone-deep bruises from the convulsions.

The words were in his head and his throat was raw, but he had no idea if he’d told them anything. Everything. He forced open his eyes and Tanik and Pesh were there, silent, watching him.

‘You make quite the spectacle,’ Tanik Horse-dream said eventually, and that’s when Dom noticed the cards on the yellow silk square before her had changed. He grunted and held his hand to his right eye, trying to focus the left. Didn’t work; he couldn’t make out the images as they writhed like living things across the cards. Pesh threw more leaves on the fire and Dom suddenly realised what they were doing, how they were forcing the knowings out of him. He hadn’t even suspected such a thing was possible; he had no idea how they knew what to do or how he could stop it. A whimper slid from his throat and he tried holding his breath, but his body was so spent it demanded air. He sucked in smoke as well, felt it tingling in his throat, his lungs, into his brain.

‘Please don’t,’ he managed. ‘The Fox God will never forgive you. You’re His priestess, His and the Dancer’s. Please, no more.’

The Seer-Mother chuckled and wafted the smoke in his direction. She breathed deep of it herself, but he knew it wasn’t meant for her. ‘You can feel it, can’t you? The lure of the Blood? You can see the Dark Path once more beneath your feet, can’t you, Calestar? Serving Blood, always serving Blood.’

Dom tried to scrabble backwards but his body was as unresponsive as a sack of meat. And shining bright in the centre of him: memory and loss and love and devotion. Adoration. He tried to push it away but it coated his hands and arms and face and soul, drew him into its red-black vortex. Drew him back in. He wept and struggled and begged and then surrendered and embraced it. Felt it slip around him Blood-warm, Blood-soft. Wept some more.

‘Fire and knowledge, Calestar. Such knowledge; enough for us all to share. Where is General Mace Koridam and what are his plans?’ Tanik asked, her voice low and coaxing. ‘You can see him, can’t you? In the flames? Go to him, learn his intentions. And tell me.’

Teeth gritted, fist clenched at his side, Dom thought of Gilda’s face instead, wise and laughing and suffused with strength. Gilda and the Light. He reached for her but the image trembled, shifted, slid into another. A different woman, one beautiful, lustful, and lost. He choked.

The fire roared.

Time passed of which Dom knew nothing, and then someone was lifting his head and shoulders roughly, shoving a hard cushion under them and letting him drop with little care. The inside of his skull felt as though it had been scoured out with salt and rusty blades and his eyesight, if anything, was worse. Blood and saliva mixed thick and sticky in his mouth and he couldn’t spit it out. Couldn’t move. Could barely breathe.

Dom had lost count of the knowings, of the questions or the answers he’d given – if he’d given them any. Gods knew he’d tried not to, but his throat was raw with screams, stinging with bile and thick vision smoke, and, for all he knew, from shouting answers at them in response to the incessant questioning.

‘Go,’ the Seer-Mother said, though not to him, and a figure exited the vision house. She loomed over him and there was a sharp sting beneath his ear and then a fierce burning through the skin and into his head and neck. The light filtering in through the wattle walls was a rich golden summer afternoon. Hours, then. Hours in the fire, burning.

Numbness spread through Dom’s neck and tongue from the site of the stinging pain beneath his ear, stealing sensation from his skin, his mouth, his nose, creeping towards his eye.

Sound faded in and out and his vision steadily darkened. The numbness moved into his chest, down his arm.

The fire raged one last time inside him, and Dom flung himself towards it, seeking not knowledge but oblivion. An ending. The cushion did nothing to deaden the impact of convulsion, but Dom’s body was so drained that he did little more than twitch, weak as a drowning kitten.

He found the fire – the ending – with something like relief.

He fell.