“Enough,” Peropis said, and Varis immediately strangled the inflow.
After looking him over, by some force Varis did not understand, Peropis hurled him from his makeshift throne. He landed hard, knocking the breath from his chest. High above, shimmering like a vision, she gazed down on him with utter contempt.
Varis rolled to his hands and knees, trying to get enough breath to demand to know why she had nearly let him perish, why she had kept from him the dangers of the powers of creation. Upon recognizing her fierce glare, however, his teeth clicked together. One day he might rise against her but, for now, he was little more than an acolyte, and she was the Eater of the Damned, a deity in her own right. Even as he finally caught his breath, he knew he would need to bide his time, and plan carefully his vengeance.
“You foolish child,” she snarled, no longer beautiful, but hideous with rage. “You are yet mortal. Mere flesh cannot hope to hold long the barest fraction of the power of gods. I trust you have learned this lesson well?”
Her berating shamed him and enraged him, but Varis could not help but cower from her wrath.
“If you desire to be my counterpart, you will heed me-at all times. Now, stand!” she commanded.
Varis gathered himself and stood, no part of his face betraying his emotions. If you desire to be my counterpart …. He had no intention of being her counterpart, or anyone else’s. He vowed to himself that he would rule all the world and all peoples under his own strength … in time.
“Heed me,” Peropis said, “as you should have done from the beginning. Life, by its very nature, is the easiest power to manipulate, because it is already created. True creation, that of making something from nothing, is a thousand and a thousand times harder and more dangerous.”
“I will succeed,” Varis boasted weakly.
Peropis smirked. “Indeed? The life force you took-that from mere worms and beetles and twigs-even that was too much for your flesh to contain. That meager life recreated itself inside you and sought escape, as life always will when wielded by those who cannot control it.”
“Did I not create fire?” Varis demanded.
“A fluke,” Peropis said dismissively, “an accident that, fortunately for you, did not destroy you utterly.”
Varis clenched his teeth and said what he knew she wanted to hear. “What would you have me do?”
“You’ve an army to build, and there are leagues to go between you and where it waits. On this journey, it would seem that there is also much for you to relearn.”
“Why would I need an army?” Varis asked without thinking.
Her glower suggested that she had never been questioned, and would not tolerate it.
After he was sufficiently cowed, she answered, “As yet, you are too weak to do alone what must be done. When I deem you are fully ready I, and I alone, will grace you with the ability to fully control the force of all life around you. In the meantime, you need the arms of men to protect your weak flesh. Even now, if you are not cautious with the gift I have given to you, you will die as easily as the next man.”
“You promised me incorruptible flesh-”
“Never think to make demands of me,” she interrupted. “I give what I will when and of my choosing. I made you what little you are … and I take what I will when I desire.”
Loathing warred with yearning in Varis’s heart, as he came to understand that his initial mistrust of her had been well placed. Yet, too, he recognized that time was on his side. He would grovel before Peropis, as she obviously wished, but only until his own ends were met. I will grow powerful, more so than the Three ever were-mightier even than Pa’amadin!
“Very well,” he said aloud, bowing his head with a convincing measure of meekness.
Peropis seemed to accept his subservience. “I have means to deal with this man Kian, and so I will.” There was something different in her voice when she spoke now of Kian, less concern, perhaps, and more curiosity. Before Varis could wonder about it, she added, “Your task, Prince of Aradan, is far more important. Heed me….”
Varis absorbed her plan, and despite his growing distrust of her and her hidden intentions, he found Peropis’s words intriguing. He had much to learn, to understand, but one day, he silently vowed, he would wipe her from existence for her seductive lies … and for shaming him.
Chapter 7
The shuddering tower crumbled under Ellonlef’s feet. A scream tore from her throat when a massive sandstone block crushed her legs, pining her to the stairwell. Agony gripped her, yet focused her mind. She heaved against the rough stone grinding her legs to pulp, but the fall of masonry was increasing. Smaller chunks battered her head and shoulders, slowly beating her senseless. Dust billowed, clogging her throat, cutting off all cries. Through the yellowish-gray haze, a growing shadow suddenly blotted out the thin light. Ellonlef wrenched her head up and found another huge block tumbling end over end through the stairwell’s open center. Her jaw yawned wide in terror and-
Ellonlef sat up, flinging aside twists of covers and a collection of pillows. Sweat beaded her brow, dripped down her neck to dampen her linen shift. She gulped a deep breath into sore lungs and sighed it out. The scouring dust in her dream had been very much real, and left her throat and lungs raw. The falling stones had been real as well, and she had the lumps and bruises covering her from head to heel to prove it. Her demise, however, had not occurred the day prior.
Of her escape from the falling tower, she had run headlong down the twisting stairwell, knowing she was near the bottom, but not near enough. Then, like a ragged mouth gaping wide, an opening had appeared, a blessed escape, letting in a wash of hazed sunlight. It had been akin to looking into a wall of golden fog, giving no indication where it would take her.
Ellonlef had not hesitated. There had been no time to consider what her choice might bring. She jumped through the gap into thin air. She did not fall far, however, though when she landed it was hardly on stable ground. Instead, she found herself rolling down the acutely listing base of the tower. Miraculously, she had come to a thudding stop on the wall walk, safely out of the way of the falling tower….
She swallowed dryly, now considering something else-the destruction of the moons, the death of the Three. The event was so monumental that it defied deep consideration. There would be time to think on that later, after Lord Marshal Otaker and the people of Krevar no longer needed her. And maybe, just maybe, when that time came, and the skies had cleared of the persistent dust, she would look up and see that the Three were as they always had been, instead of a burning mass of fire and ash.
Nothing will ever be as it was. This thought, which she knew was true, had been prevalent in her mind since the world had ceased shaking. Tremors still came, frightening even the hardened souls of Fortress Krevar to shouts of fear.
All is changed, all is lost.
Ellonlef shook away the dismal consideration and swung her legs out over the edge of the bed, scolding herself for behaving like terrified child. Tragedy had come, to be sure, but she was alive, and so were many others. While the faces of the Three had been destroyed, she still had purpose. The gods would take care of themselves.
She stripped off her sweaty nightclothes and set to gently rubbing a wet washcloth over her scraped and bruised skin. She had almost finished when her door flew open and banged against the wall. She yelped in startlement, jerked a large towel off a nearby rack to cover herself as best she could, then turned a glare on the intruder.
Lord Marshal Otaker stood gaping as if he had never seen a naked woman before, which would be difficult to believe, considering that his wife of over two decades had given him two sons and three daughters.