7.

 

The Temple of Ger had no door.

It sat as it had the day before, half submerged in the lake with the water moving slowly around it, the red light filtering over it and illuminating the smooth walls. Zaifyr contemplated the sight while he stood on the shore next to the cold remains of the Quor’lo, untouched by any insect or animal since he and Bueralan had left. That was not a surprise: what was left after possession was always shunned and ignored by scavengers.

In comparison to the scavengers, Zaifyr had little knowledge of the temple before him. Most priests had turned to sacrifices, had turned to a poor understanding of blood magic, and Ger’s priests had been no different.

Stepping into the cool water, Zaifyr waded out to the temple, swimming the last few meters as the rock and dirt floor dropped away. His hands touched the smooth building, feeling the cool stone that, he imagined, would be a sandy color, if not awash with the rude light from above. But as he swam around the building gently, his searches above water, then beneath, he only proved what it was that he had thought as he stood on the shore: complete and without a break.

When he emerged from the water the haunt awaited him, having finally made its way down the rocks.

“Cold,” she whispered. “I am cold.”

He faced the temple.

Perhaps, he thought, the reason that there was no door was due to magic. The people who lived in the City of Ger had reached a violent end at the hand of the first Mireean people, but the light in the ceiling lent itself easily to the idea that someone in their community had had power.

“You’re old today,” he said to himself quietly. “Your head is in the past, too much time thinking about things you cannot change.”

“Old,” the haunt whispered.

Slowly, he turned to her.

“Old,” she repeated. “You are very old.”

After a moment—in which all his senses rebelled against him—he said, “So we both are. Do you remember here?”

“Yes.” The red from the ceiling mixed with her, leaving splotches of color throughout her body, wounds that would not dry. “It was the first temple in the Spine of Ger. People would travel throughout the world to it. None of the other temples were as well attended as this one, but the priests would only allow people in on the holiest of days. They were allowed to see Ger here, to see the burns that did not stop blackening, the water that poured from his mouth and the soil that ground against him and the wind. The wind that tore at him.”

Zaifyr frowned. “When was it sealed?”

“When the soldiers came.” The haunt stepped past him, her pale feet touching the water, the shadows of her falling like roots that sank deeply. “They did not care for Ger, they did not honor the people who had built a life in the caverns. Economics, greed: that was what drove their army into the mountains and began the slaughter of peaceful men and women and their children.”

“You are much too lucid to be born here,” Zaifyr said quietly. “Much too young for this war you talk of.”

The haunt stood silently over the water.

“You overplayed your hand,” he said.

Finally, the haunt of the woman who had possessed the Quor’lo whispered, “I have never before been so hungry.”

“It will only get worse.”

“I have faith.”

“You cannot see it,” he said, “but all around you are the dead, the souls of all the people who ever lived in these caves. There are so many that I cannot tell where an arm ends, where a foot begins, where the individual remains. There is no reason for faith.”

The haunt shook her head, the lines from her feet deep, but broken in the water’s reflection.

“If I could help you, I would,” he admitted, his voice not yet a whisper. “I would help all the dead if I could. I would continue their journey if I knew but how.”

“I feel him.”

“You do.” Zaifyr ran a hand through his wet hair. “I feel Ger too, but it is simply a trick of time. We do not share the same passing of it that they did.”

“Yours are the words of the faithless,” she said.

He did not reply.

“Faithless,” she repeated, her voice rising.

Still, he did not speak.

“I can pass to him.”

“You cannot.”

“Lies!”

Turning, the haunt ran to the temple. The water showed no ripple as she leaped up, her body awash in red, a scarred, tragic figure that threw herself at the smooth wall—

—and burst across it.

Heavy of heart, the man who had left his charms in his hotel room and felt suddenly naked without them, eased himself onto the hard ground. It would take a while for the haunt to return to shape, to step from the water to the shore, and by then he would be ready to talk to her again. To draw from her what she knew about the temple. It was possible that this—the smooth shell around the building—had been put up by Ger, but Zaifyr doubted it. For the most part, the defenses of the gods were servants, immortal beings who had been created for the purpose of standing guard for eternity. By and large they were violent, held by oaths that could not be broken, longing for escape as much as they longed for entertainment, for a break in their endless service.

Mostly, Zaifyr knew, they were mad.

Like him, once.