The question confused me because no two godlings were alike. “No?”
I felt him look at me, like he didn’t quite believe me. But then he shook his head, almost to himself. “It has been so long since a new godling walked among us. I’d forgotten that you don’t see it. Not at first.”
Then there was a new voice behind us, and I jumped, but Ia only went very still and narrowed his eyes at the sound of it.
“He is a monster,” said the woman. Said the godling, I realized, even as I turned and looked up—and up—to take in all of her mortal shape. She was like seven feet tall! And wider than me and Ia put together! Her fists were great big, and her bones were great big, and her headkerchief was great big; everything was great big!
I inhaled, grinning, and stood to face her. “I want to get that big.” Her eyebrows lifted a little, I think in amusement.
“A monster even among our kind, like all the elontid,” she continued. “Nahadoth, for all her chaos, is something. Ia alone among us is the abyss: no god can stare into him long without losing themselves, in terror. So he lives here in the mortal realm, among beings who cannot grasp the horror of him. He never comes to our realm, where the facade would not last. He needs no enulai to keep him in check, for who would foul his only home?”
Ia, face so composed that I thought at once it was another kind of lie, finally stood and turned to her. “Zhakkarn,” he said, calmly. “To what do we owe the pleasure?”
She turned aside to reveal Mikna, walking up behind her. “I asked Lady Zhakkarn to come,” Mikna said. I bristled at once, but she held up a hand. “Please, Lady Shill. We’ve begun on the wrong foot, and for that I apologize. I ask, however, that you hear me out.”
I folded my arms. “I don’t want to. I don’t like you.”
“She didn’t ask you to like her,” Ia snapped. “I don’t like you, but I listen to you, don’t I?”
Because grown-up godlings listened, even if they did not always agree. I sighed very hard but unfolded my arms. I did not try to smile, though, because I was so mad that my bottom lip poked out instead.
“Stop sulking,” Ia said.
I stamped my foot at him. “Stop yelling at me!”
“I didn’t—” Ia’s teeth clamped shut with an audible click, and he looked away.
“You should have spent more time around Sieh, Sibling,” Zhakkarn said to him. Her voice was big, too, though most of it did not show its bigness. You could feel it, though, underneath the softness of her words. Inside her was a great big bloodthirsty roar. “He would have taught you patience.”
“Thank you, Zhakkarn, but I didn’t because I have little interest in children. Or rather, no interest.” He pushed his glasses up and put his hands behind his back.
Mikna grimaced. “I too have little experience with children, I’m afraid. But Shill—I do work with godlings, which is why I asked Lady Zhakkarn to join me in greeting you. She has… rather more experience of mortals than I do of godlings.” An odd, uncomfortable look passed over her face; beside her, Zhakkarn was still and calm as the cloudless sky, though of course we could all hear that huge awful roar. Ia sighed faintly. “I hoped that she might help to bridge the gap between us, if she was willing, and fortunately she is.”
“I told you I didn’t want you,” I said, getting a little mad again. I didn’t like that she sounded all reasonable. I didn’t feel like being polite. “Tell me what you want or go away.”
Nobody said anything, though Mikna raised an eyebrow—and Zhakkarn looked at me. Just that. But all at once I changed my mind about being rude to Mikna.
“What I want,” Mikna said after a moment, “is to show you something. Will you come with us?”
I was more polite this time, because Zhakkarn. “Um, where?”
“To the Proving Ground,” said Zhakkarn.
I frowned. “What’s that? Why?”
Mikna said, “Because, as I realized after you left, you are a girl of proving age—or you would be, if you were human and actually the age that you resemble.” She paused. “You’ve been trying to understand Eino, haven’t you? Eino is Darre. If you want to understand him better, you need to understand his people.”
I blinked. Oh. Ohhhh. “Um.” But she was right. I’d only met a handful of mortals so far, and I could see already that all their little strangenesses—what language they spoke and how they dressed and what they looked like and what they called themselves—were important to them. To Eino. So…“OK.”
With that, Zhakkarn took us somewhere else. I thought at first she would take Ia and me and Mikna, but when we appeared in a big dusty courtyard surrounded by high walls and a circle of wooden railings, Ia was nowhere to be seen. “Ia is male,” Mikna said, when she saw me looking around. “This place isn’t for them.”
“He’s not really a boy,” I said, folding my arms.
“He is as much male as you are female,” said Mikna. Which made me bristle, until… oh. Well, OK. “And there is… history, between him and Lady Zhakkarn, as you probably gathered. It’s probably for the best.”
Something to do with the Gods’ War, probably, I decided. Lots of my older siblings were still mad about that. “OK.”
She nodded and backed up, spreading her arms so I would look around, which I did. “In Darr, a girl’s ninth year is considered sacred. Three times three, you see, and we have always honored the Three and all their children, not merely Itempas or any single one. But that doesn’t mean we can’t have a special, hmm, affinity for any godling.” She glanced at Zhakkarn, who had pulled off her kerchief to reveal close-cropped curls of bright blue-white hair. Zhakkarn regarded her in stoic silence, which would have scared me, but Mikna just smiled again.
“Well, I’m not nine,” I said, folding my arms. Honestly, though, I was curious.
“I know. And by the time you are nine in truth you will understand more of creation than any mortal child—but for convenience’s sake, let’s treat you as nine years old now. At nine, a Darren girl—at least in the old days—” At this she faltered a little, her expression turning grim; I wondered why. Then she recovered. “A Darren girl would face her first foe in battle. Come.”
She beckoned, and I came forward to where she pointed: a square of black bricks set into the dusty ground, near the wooden railing. There was another black square across the circle from it. When I was standing on the square, Mikna nodded. “Good. Let’s get started.”
And then Zhakkarn got up and moved to stand on the black square opposite me.
My mouth fell open. “But I can’t beat you!” I could feel it: her very nature was fighting, blood, pain. I glared at Mikna. “I thought you wanted me to fight you.”
Mikna looked amused. “You’re still a god, Lady Shill, and one who as yet lacks a great deal of self-control. I have no wish to die. But more importantly, a nine-year-old Darren girl’s first foe would generally be an adult woman of the same clan. The goal of this contest is not to win; it is to learn how to face a foe who is larger, stronger, and more experienced.”
“And lose!”
“That is possible,” said Zhakkarn. She had taken a stance with her fists upraised and ready; suddenly I did not like that her fists were so great big. I was not really afraid of her body; that was just mortal stuff, like mine. What made me swallow and sweat was that—oh, no—I could feel how the great big roar inside her was quiet suddenly. Focused. On me.
I swallowed hard, then took a deep breath. OK. This was scary, but maybe it would be like when I had gone to talk to Ral the Dragon, who never did anything except roar so I’d had to roar with it. Zhakkarn was full of battle, so I would have to battle with her. And then maybe we could be friends! This made me be not scared anymore. And anyway, I had battled before with Eino, right? The dance had been a kind of fight. The moment I thought of that, I got excited. Maybe I would like this, too!