Jorim looked at his sister. “They believe I am dead.”
“They saw you die.” She smiled easily. “Your death was truly spectacular. You accepted death so they would not know it. Grija was expecting to gorge on the Amentzutl and instead you gave him offal.”
“I gave him his own creations.”
“No.”
“But I saw him there. The Amentzutl Zoloa is Grija.”
“Oh, that’s true. He was stalking that killing ground, devouring souls.”
“And I would have devoured them all had our brother not interfered. I love how desperate people pray to me, begging me not to take them. So piquant.” Wearing a grey robe, Grija materialized on the other side of the hole, tall and slender, with short dark hair, black eyes, and sharpened teeth. “You know you would still be my plaything, except that those you saved prayed fervently for you.”
Jorim shook his head as Grija’s expression soured. “Prayers of thanks were never to your taste, were they?”
“No, but no matter. I would have allowed you to come home this time.”
“So gracious. What makes this time different from any other?”
The death god walked to the balcony’s edge and pointed down below the circle of palaces. “Look there.”
Jorim nodded. “The Dark Sea.”
“Deeper.”
Jorim moved to the balcony edge and studied its depths. The dark water did not so much clear as his vision just pierced fathoms. There, over a mile deep, a stone glowed with opalescent fury. Energy pulsed within it, at first slowly, then in a frenzy. He sensed it was a heartbeat, one which pounded without rhyme, reason, or purpose, but that this had not always been the case. Nor shall it be.
“I see.”
Grija snarled. “Let go your humanity, Wentiko; matters here are too critical for you to be trapped with small thinking. That is Nessagafel. He awakens.”
“Nessagafel is a Viruk word.” Jorim shook his head. “I don’t know it.”
“You once did. Everyone did.” Tsiwen hugged arms around herself and seemed to shrink. “The world knew it and trembled.”
Grija lifted his head and sniffed. “Nessagafel is the tenth god, or the first god, depending on how you wish to reckon things. He incarnated through the Viruk and built their empire. He grew powerful and sought to enslave all of us. We had to destroy him, and we did.”
“You killed him?”
Grija nodded. “Chado and Quun tore him apart. That’s why, in the human Zodiac, they share prey.”
“But if he’s dead, how is he coming back? Why did you let him out of your realm?”
“I didn’t.” Grija’s nostrils flared. “Something happened. Someone else defied me and escaped, and Nessagafel slipped out as well. Now he seeks to regain his power and when he does, he will kill all of us.”
Jorim nodded slowly. “How do we stop him?”
“Nessagafel is yet anchored in my realm, so the one who escaped me is the key. She is dead, but she is not dead. When she is mine again, the portal will close and he will be trapped. However, she is beyond my reach, but not yours.”
“Who is it?”
“Your human sister, Nirati.” The god of Death smiled coldly. “Kill her again, Wentiko, or everything that is known will perish.”
Chapter Fifty-eight
3rd day, Month of the Hawk, Year of the Rat
Last Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court
163rd Year of the Komyr Dynasty
737th year since the Cataclysm
Tsatol Deraelkun, County of Faeut
Erumvirine
The door to my chamber slid open. I barely heard the gasp, more because Pasuram Derael kept his voice politely hushed than a problem with the ear that had been sewn back on. I turned slowly toward the door and gave him and his father an abbreviated bow.
The count, whose pale and painfully slender body could have benefited from shadows to cloak it, regarded me carefully. “The physician said you would not be out of bed for days.”
Urardsa finished rewrapping a loop of bandage around my chest. “His thread is slender, but still strong.”
I glanced at the Gloon. “And still a tangle?”
“In places.”
I shook my head, then turned to my host. “You know what I am. Mystics are blessed or cursed with life beyond our years. We tend to heal more quickly than others.” I coughed and winced, but they were polite enough to let that escape notice.
Pasuram guided his father’s wheeled chair into my chamber. This task was not easy since the young man had taken an arrow through his thigh and his father had a long, thick, leather-wrapped package lying across his lap. I did not offer to help the son, as I would not have dishonored him in front of his father. All three of us men were locked in mutual denial of our weakness and, truth be told, Pasuram was the strongest of us.
The Gloon just crouched in a corner and watched.
The count waited in the center of the chamber while his son fetched both of us chairs. Pasuram sat beside his father, with his left leg stretched out, and I sat facing the older man. Pasuram had placed the chair close enough that I could hear, and I nodded thanks, since it would be my severed ear and not his father’s soft whisper which would make listening difficult.
“Jaecaiserr Moraven Tolo, I have known you since I was very young. I anticipated having this talk with you many times, for once I heard the story I will tell you, I knew it was for you that this package was meant. There could be no other, but my instructions were very specific, and until yesterday I could not be faithful to the duty charged me.”
I considered his words carefully, nodding slowly, and allowed him to catch his breath.
“What I will tell you now has been handed down through the Derael family for two hundred seventy years, parent to child, husband to wife, in a duty considered as sacred as warding this pass. What I have here in my lap has lain in the museum for that time, save twice when danger threatened and we could not chance it being taken as plunder.”
The count’s grey eyes flicked toward his son. “I recently told Pasuram what you will hear and he, too, thought immediately of you.”
I bowed my head toward the both of them. “What you are telling me is an honor. To be held in such high regard is more than most xidantzu can imagine.”
“But you are more than most xidantzu, Master Tolo.” The count smiled and the effort taxed him mightily. “Long ago a man came to Deraelkun. He appeared here, just appeared, without having been admitted, and he bore this package. He called himself Ryn Anturasi and begged of my ancestor a favor which, he promised, would be returned. ‘Grant this, and Tsatol Deraelkun will not fall.’ I believe the favor has been repaid through your action yesterday.”
I shook my head. “You know the kwajiin will be back, this time with far more warriors and a far smarter general. Deraelkun may yet fall.”
Jarys Derael coughed. “We have ever known it would, jaecaiserr. We merely sought to prolong the time until then.”
“For your enemies, the time to take it shall seem an eternity.”
The count hazarded a nod and I almost thought he would not be able to raise his head again. He did, but needed to rest. We waited and doubtless all benefited from the sweet scent of the healing unguents with which our various wounds had been slathered.
“I wish I had the strength to hand this package to you. We will tell many it is a gift from Deraelkun, from our history, for it has been here in the museum. It has been kept with an ancient suit of armor, one from before the Cataclysm. That armor was left here by an Imperial bastard who humiliated a Crown Prince in a military exercise, much as you did the kwajiin yesterday.”
Pasuram slid the package from beneath his father’s hands and brought it to me. I let it rest on my thighs. I could still feel the warmth of the count’s hands, but far too little of it to believe the man would live much longer.