61: GUARDIANS OF THE CAGE

(Kihrin’s story)

Relos Var looked the same as when I’d seen him last. Time had left no mark on him, even though years had passed since our last unfriendly meeting. He still dressed in plain garb, and looked like no one of any importance if you couldn’t see his aura.

Wait . . . little brother?

I was definitely not that. Maybe he meant it the way Darzin liked to call me “boy.”^*

“Raverí?” Relos Var looked at me curiously. “What are you doing in there?”

“Oh fuck. He can see—”

Relos Var waved two fingers. “Come out of there.”

I felt a ripping sensation and Tyentso stood by my side. She stared at her hands, then at the glittering strands of energy surrounding us, before muttering a curse that somehow didn’t melt the very stones, although it made a good attempt.

Relos Var’s smile was delighted. “I am so pleased you survived that unpleasantness in the Capital, Raverí. I hope you’re not still working with your father. The only thing worse than a power-hungry fool is a power-hungry fool who thinks he’s smarter than everyone else.”^*

Tyentso’s stare was ice. “I guess that confirms he really is still alive.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t call it ‘life,’” Relos Var replied.

“Tyentso, who are you talking about?” I’d have thought they meant Gadrith, except for the “father” bit.

“Gadrith,” Tyentso said. “He means Gadrith.”

“Uh . . . no? Gadrith’s your husband,” I said.

“Yeah, he was that too.” She scowled. “Don’t look at me like that, Scamp. I wouldn’t have married him if he had any interest in sleeping with me. Or anyone, really.”

“Don’t kid yourself, Raverí. Yes, you would have,” Relos Var said. “Now I admire a woman who’s willing to make any sacrifice to get what she wants. Perhaps you and I can come to some arrangement? Your life for service to me?”

“You can’t do that,” Tyentso said, shaking her head. “You can’t Return me back to life.”

Relos Var took her denial in stride. “You will find that there is little I cannot do.”

I looked to the side at Tyentso’s ghost. “Can you get us out of here?”

“Only by possessing you,” Tyentso said, “and I can’t do that right now. Look at your hands.”

I did. Both hands were covered in the same tracery patterns as the cage, and the ruins. It didn’t stop me from moving, but I assumed it would stop Tyentso from possessing me.

“If you’re going to kill me,” I spat at Relos Var, “get it over with.”

He chuckled. “Kill you? Why in all the heavens would I do that? You’re going to save us all. What have they been teaching you?”

I couldn’t tell if he was joking.

“I lament that while you are in the right place,” he said, “this is the wrong time, and my plans are not ready for you yet. Now why don’t we get you out of here and see about healing that wound, before those pesky morgage come back and make our lives difficult—”

A spear impacted the wall of energy and shattered. Another landed next to Relos Var’s feet.

“Too late,” he said. He waved a hand, and shards of wood flew backward toward their point of origin.

The morgage were ready. They raised shields and (in the case of the singular woman) a magical field of energy to stop the reversal of their attack.

“I hope you realize this can only end one way,” Relos Var called out. He clenched a fist, and one of the morgage warriors erupted in flames, screaming. “Let us go so you may return to your important duties.”

The woman spoke, and to my surprise she spoke Guarem. “No deal, traitor. You are not welcome here in the lands you destroyed, nor will you be allowed to take what belongs to us.”

I had a feeling that when she said “what belongs to us” she meant me.

I’ll be honest: I was growing a bit tired of being passed around like a favorite dish at dinner.

“Oh, rip the Veil,” Relos Var said. “One experiment goes awry, and people never let you hear the end of it.” He raised his fist again, squeezed, and another morgage went up in flames.

They didn’t retreat. Even if two of their members were almost certainly dead with more to follow, the morgage didn’t take a single step backward.

I cast about for something, anything, I could do. My leg hurt with a desperate pain and the stone around my neck chilled my flesh: I was a long way from being safe. Even though Relos Var was rapidly escalating a wizard duel with the morgage sorceress, the magical prison he’d crafted around me hadn’t lessened in strength. Tyentso couldn’t return to my body, where she might talk me through casting a spell.

If I was going to do something, I’d better do it fast.

“Dear Taja,” I whispered, hoping my words would go unnoticed in the commotion. “Hear my prayer. I’m in a lot of trouble right now and I need your help. Relos Var is here and—”

I lost my voice.

“Stop that,” Relos Var snapped. He gestured again, and my arms locked at my sides. “I am trying to help, but this is no place for such a discussion.”

“No, it is not,” a woman said. My heart leapt as I heard her voice, although I had only ever heard it before in a dream. “And the idea that you are trying to help is every bit as laughable.”

Taja appeared in the middle of the street.

I guess she’d been listening after all.

She didn’t look like a child this time, but her silver hair, her eyes, and her white skin remained the same. I knew her immediately.

Taja gestured; the prison surrounding me faded. Her attention, however, focused on the sorcerer. “Leave now, or I will force the issue.”

Relos Var tilted his head and regarded the goddess. “Here? In my sanctum? There is no place on this planet where I am stronger or you are weaker. You don’t dare have a true fight with me here.”

I blinked.

The plan had rather counted on the fact that a goddess—not just any goddess but one of the Three Sisters—would be someone no sorcerer would be so foolish as to fight. He’d backed down against Khaemezra, so it followed he’d back down when faced by a genuine goddess.

He would have to. Right?

Except he didn’t seem to be playing along. In fact, everything about Relos Var’s manner suggested that he didn’t think he was outmatched. He was prepared for a violent confrontation, even though he couldn’t be that powerful. And yet . . .

“You might beat one of us here, but not all of us,” said another woman’s voice, more familiar than Taja’s in many respects because I heard it so often.

Thaena appeared in the center of the street, but the Goddess of Death was not alone. With her was a third woman, whose appearance almost made me cry out—because I didn’t expect to recognize her. Yet I did.

The third goddess had chestnut-red skin and hair the color of flame, full lips, and high cheekbones: one of the most perfect faces I had ever seen. She wasn’t Joratese—she had the wrong kind of hair and no horse markings—but she still resembled the Jorat girl that Xaltorath had once shown me. The resemblance was too strong to be a coincidence. She wore a shifting shawl around her shoulders woven of red, green, and violet light.

So, this was Tya, Goddess of Magic.

All the morgage who weren’t busy putting out their kin fell prostrate to the ground. I suspected their reverence was saved for Thaena, but who knows? Maybe being a god, any god, was enough, as one could argue it should be. And these weren’t just any gods, after all: the appearance of the Three Sisters was the sort of omen capable of dooming emperors and cursing whole countries. It had happened before.

“All of you? Perhaps.” Relos Var shook his head. “But all of you are not here. Whereas all nine of us are.”

The three women exchanged looks.

“You’re bluffing,” Taja said.

“Maybe. Possibly. But even if I am, what are the odds that a fight with the four of us—here, in this place—wouldn’t wake him?” Relos Var sighed, long and suffering. “I made all of you. Do you think I cannot destroy you if I wish it?”

Thaena scoffed. “You’ve been trying for millennia. If we’re so easy to dispense with, what’s stopping you?”

Which, I noticed right away, was not a denial. Relos Var had made the gods? That was a ridiculous notion. How could that be possible? How would that even work?

My eyes fell back to one of the bas-reliefs covering the walls. Eight figures. Eight symbols. Thaena’s symbol was a skull. Taja’s symbol was a coin. Tya’s symbol was her rainbow veil . . . I knew I’d match each symbol to one of the Eight Immortals, the true gods who only tolerated all others. And that ninth figure . . .

I looked back at Relos Var.

Tya nodded in my direction. I knew, even without speaking, that the spell constricting my voice had been lifted as well. The pain in my leg faded.

“You’re not taking him,” Taja said. “We will not allow it.”

“You shouldn’t have brought him back,” Relos Var said. “It was cruel.”

“Far less so than what you did,” Thaena said.

“I’m not your enemy,” Relos Var replied.

“But you are,” said the Goddess of Magic, “and our sin is how long it took all of us to realize.”

They locked stares then, Tya and Relos Var, and something passed between them. Tya looked at him the way one might look at a person once loved, someone who had hurt them deeply: with regret and sadness and no small measure of hate. They were not friends, but maybe they had been once. Maybe even more than that.

So, because I’ve always been a bit of a fool, I interrupted. “All I want to know is who you’re keeping prisoner in the center of the city.”

Taja walked over to me, put her hand on my shoulder. “That’s not important. Let’s get you out of here.”

“I think it is important,” I said. “He opened his eyes.”

Everything stopped.

Every one stopped. Even Relos Var stared, blank faced. Some of the morgage warriors didn’t seem to speak Guarem, and they were too busy prostrating themselves before the divine to listen. But Relos Var, Tya, Taja, and Thaena all looked at me with the same expression.

Dread.

“He speaks true,” the morgage priestess said, rising to her feet. “The hungry one stirs, restless. It will not be long before he wakes once more.”

“The hungry one? Is that what you call it? What is that thing?” I repeated.

Relos Var tilted his head and regarded me. “They haven’t told you?”

“Haven’t told me what?”

He smirked. “I bet she thinks you don’t need to know.” He straightened his misha and tilted his head toward the three women in a way that was akin to a salute, before turning back to me. “When you grow tired of their evasions and their cleverly twisting truths that counterfeit better than lies, come find me. I will not deceive you.”

Taja snorted.

He glanced at her, his look both scolding and condescending.

I almost stabbed him then. I had the knife in my hand, the weight of the hilt resting lightly against my palm. In that moment of distraction, I almost went for him. I’d learned, you see, that talismans alone didn’t protect a sorcerer from steel. Catch a wizard in the right moment and he’s as vulnerable as anyone else.

But I didn’t. His words had been baited well; I couldn’t help but nibble. And I wasn’t so stupid that I couldn’t see the Three Sisters weren’t telling me even a fraction of the whole story.

I stayed my hand.

He turned back to me, and his eyes flickered down to the steel in my hand. “Until next time,” he said.

Without any further fanfare, Relos Var vanished.

Thaena turned to the morgage, speaking to them in their native tongue. Orders, from the sound of things, which they were quick to follow. Tya pulled the veil over her face and started walking slowly through the street, holding out her hands. The silvery strands outlining the memory of walls strengthened as she crossed over them.

“Who are you, Scamp?”

I turned back to Tyentso. “Come on, Ty. You know who I am.”

She shook her head. “No, I don’t. And I don’t think you know either.” She waved a hand around her. “This shit doesn’t happen to the runaway children of fourth-ranked Houses.”

Taja cleared her throat, and we both startled as we realized we had been standing there ignoring a goddess. “I think it would be best if I take you both out of here. It’s not safe.”

She glanced toward the center of the city, and I myself wondered just who exactly it wasn’t safe for.

“Taja, how did Relos Var find me? How did he know I was here? Why did he call me his little brother? And what did Relos Var mean about making you? He was going to fight you . . . how could he think he could fight a goddess—”

She set a finger against my lips. “Now is not the time.”

“Oh, you might want to make the time. Real soon.” Tyentso held out her hands as the goddess gave her a dirty look. “What are you going to do to me? I’m already dead.”

“No. You’re just catching your breath,” Taja replied as she moved her hand to my shoulder, and rested her other hand on one of Tyentso’s phantom arms. Despite her incorporeal nature, the Goddess of Luck touched her without difficulty.

The universe shifted.