5.

 

“I don’t understand,” Ayae said, hating the sound of the words for the weakness they implied.

“It’s human nature, really.” Bau sat across from her in a plush chair, his legs pushed out into the fading afternoon’s sunlight before him. They were in a small den divided by an empty table and dominated by an open window on the left. The strongest light in the room came from a single lamp burning over the stairwell, beneath which stood Fo, consumed by the now-still snake and his work. Unconcerned by the sounds of knives being moved, liquid bubbling and the hairless man’s undecipherable words, Bau continued: “After the gods killed each other, there were two reactions. The first was to create temples around the fallen bodies, believing that the gods had not died. There were seventy-eight gods and it was believed they would be back. The second was to look for new gods. Children, as it were. A century later, five had begun to establish themselves. Those we named the Immortals. Back then, Zaifyr was known as Qian, the name I assume he was born with.”

“That’s why I don’t understand.” She focused on the man before her, ignoring the sounds from beneath her feet. “Zaifyr must be over ten thousand years old.”

“Eleven, actually,” Bau said. “Jae’le, the First of the Immortals, claims that he was born a hundred and five years before the current calendar. Qian is said to be about the same age. The other three Immortals were born after the calendar began. That includes my lady, Aelyn Meah, who sits at the head of the Enclave.”

“Why don’t people know about the others? Most of us know about Aelyn Meah, after all.”

In response to her frustration, the Healer shrugged, his movement barely visible in the weak light. “Because they do not wish to be known. The first of us—those five—are the most pure, the closest to being gods at the outset. You and I, born and possessed by whatever way the remnants of the gods moves now, are shadows to them in terms of power. We have much further to go and our roads are much longer to walk than those.

“Those first men and women made the Five Kingdoms. It emerged two thousand years after the War of the Gods, a society of progression, restriction and, at times, genocide. The five who ruled did not believe they would one day be gods, but believed they were in fact gods. Any who rose with similar powers—like you or me—were given an ultimatum: to join or to die. Many were killed, but over the years, a number did join, and were sent out into the kingdoms, lords and ladies beneath the kings and queens of the pantheon. At its peak, the Five Kingdoms was the most powerful empire in the world, controlling just under half of it. It was poised to take the rest, and would have, had not that five turned on their creations. There are a number of theories about what brought about its end, but Aelyn claims that her brother’s madness put them in such a position that they could no longer claim to be divine, that they could not rule as gods when they had been exposed to be anything but … Still, such was their power that they burned continents of literature, turned cities to rubble and then disappeared. Only Aelyn dared to begin anew in Yeflam.”

Beneath the wooden floor was the sound of a sharp scrape, a stool pulled back harshly. “Fo believes he is a god,” Ayae said, finally.

“Fo believes he is on the evolutionary path to becoming a god,” Bau corrected. “All Keepers do. Aelyn is the closest to it, and when you meet her—”

“But you just said they were false gods!”

“I said the Immortals claimed to be false gods. In their youth, they claimed titles they were not ready to own. That affected us all and it is not until recently that we have sought to change that. We—the Keepers, that is—are here to do that. We are all that they were and more. We are the first evolutionary step toward omnipotence.”

“Is that what Fo is doing down there?” Ayae found it difficult to believe that both these men were gods, that they possessed any of the qualities that would be required to occupy such a state in the world. “Is he trying to prove his godhood?”

He leaned forward. “Fo is very dedicated to learning exactly what his power can do.”

“And you?”

“I’m dedicated.”

“Just like Aelyn Meah? Both of you are so dedicated that all you’re trying to do is take the place of men and women who once ruled this part of the world.”

“You do not know her.”

“No, I’ve just met you.”

“You met Qian before me.” He leaned back, shadows closing over his face like tiny hands. “Why did Qian pull you from a fire? Could it be he is looking to reclaim a part of this world, too? Is he jealous of the Enclave? That would explain why he thought the girl who smolders beneath her skin needs saving.”

“I don’t—”

“You do.” Even interrupting her, he did not raise his voice. “I feel it right now; Fo felt it when he saw you first. Qian—he would have felt it too.”

Ayae bit back her words. Her fingers curled into the palm of her hand and pressed deep. She found Bau to be a cold figure, his words clinical and his manner precise. It was as if he viewed the world about him as a series of connections, of veins and bones so that with the right incision or the right break, he could heal or hurt anyone before him.

“He can’t be trusted, you should know that,” Bau said. “No one trusts him any more, not even the Animal Lord, who is a brother to him. Until sixty years ago the man you know as Zaifyr, the man I know as Qian, was in a madhouse. Not just a madhouse, but the madhouse. One specially designed for him and built deep in the Broken Mountains. It was there that the other four Immortals used all their considerable power to lock him away. He had destroyed Asila, the kingdom he had created and ruled—no, more than that, he decimated an entire land. By the time the other four arrived to stop him, there was only destruction, and only further devastation followed when the others confronted him. It was of such a horror that in the aftermath, the Enclave made a law forbidding people like you and me from killing each other. All of us have agreed to it, bar Qian.”

“I have seen what the Innocent can do,” she said. “Do you expect me to believe it was worse than that?”

“You should ask him, not me.”

“Then what,” she said slowly, each word sounded clearly, “is the point of telling me?”

Bau chuckled, his smile a hint in the shadows. “You have quite the temper.”

“I’ve heard that before.”

Below her, a squeal burst out.

“Fo bought mice the other day.” Rising, Bau approached the open window, the sound beneath fading.

“It’s terrible.”

“Sacrifices must be made for knowledge.”

“I doubt—” Ayae’s voice cut off in a startled sound as a lamp flew toward her. It was unlit, and appeared suddenly. Twisting her body out of its way, she made no attempt to catch it and instead stared hard at Bau, who said, “Light it.”

“With what?”

“Your will.”

“I did not come here to be like you,” she said. “I came here to find out how I can live an ordinary life.”

“You cannot.” He spread his hands. “Why would you want to give this up?”

Ayae shook her head and nudged the lamp with her foot. “You have no help for me, do you?”

“I will help you learn control,” he said. “That is actually important.”

A second series of squeals erupted below her.

“Yes, such restraint must be,” she said, heading to the stairwell.

Behind her, she heard Bau call out that he would see her tomorrow.

No, he wouldn’t. A day with him and she regretted her decision not to leave Mireea, even as she realized how deeply she did not want to leave. But as more and more people learned that she was cursed, Ayae knew that she would be either pushed out of the city or into the companionship of the two men, and that either way her home would be gone.

Leaving the stairwell, she saw Fo hunched over his worktable, a cage holding three brown mice next to him. Inside, the animals were scurrying around frantically, while his voice murmured “Be still,” and “Don’t fight,” like a chant onto the table before him. As she drew closer, Ayae saw that his hands were stained in blood. He had pinned a white mouse to the table, a syringe lying next to it. As she reached the door, he said, “It looks awful, does it not, child?”

Before her, the empty, warm night beckoned. “It is,” she said.

“A decade ago, Bau and I cured a plague in a fishing village on Leviathan’s Throat,” he said, his attention never leaving the mouse. “We were the only people who answered the call of the magistrate there, the only people who were interested in descriptions of blood that seeped through eye ducts, nails and any opening the human body has. A quarantine had been put in place, no one allowed in or out. Any who tried to leave were shot by archers hundreds of yards away. By the time we had arrived, fifteen of the villagers had lost their lives to arrows, while another twenty had died from the disease. The village population was just over a hundred—those outside were planning to burn it to the ground when the last inhabitant died.”

“Why are you telling me this?”

“Do you think,” he said, his disease-scarred eyes meeting her own, “that we found a cure by prayer?”

“I’m sure you used all the books you own.”

They were quick, cutting words that Faise would have known, punctuated at the end by the door slamming shut behind her.