Kiravi's Travelogue Ch. 07

We set off back down the street towards the palace but not before I insisted Leotie gather up the fallen bronze swords and the staff in her free arm. I wanted to show Qusirlay that her suspicions had been correct, and I needed the proof. My thoughts went once more to Serina, but if the Old Nobles and their mob would be reluctant to attack anything, it would be the most sacred temple in the city. We stumbled on, hoping to reach the palace's sturdy walls before the madness caught us.

***

"No, priestess, Timal wasn't the first, and he didn't order the entire universe all alone, either," I said with the voice that wasn't my own. I waved my arm as she had — I moved it on my own, but at the suggestion of the sheen of golden light covering my mind — and the hazy vision shifted again. The priestess was still reeling away from me, the oily glamour faltering, but no matter how hard she pulled away, she never traveled more than an arm's length from me.

The infinite divine shapes swirled back together, but the dazzling spray of stars and glimmering dust remained, all still twisting around the point of impossible light. Silvery mist churned before separating into three different shapes, each once again humanoid. They seemed less human and more...other, their faces and proportions not quite right. Wrong, somehow. One was obviously Timal, the same divine shape as the priestess had shown me, with the silvery shadow and reddish-orange light surrounding him.

Another figure hovered in the void close beside Timal, roughly the same size, glimmering slightly brighter and warmer. Perhaps, maybe, in its strange and imperfectly formed way, it was feminine, where Timal was masculine. Before both of them, utterly dwarfing them — in this not-place somehow infinite, larger than reality itself, but still a single form with a single shape — was the third figure. It was even more alien than Timal and the female, its face terrifying and limbs bending in proportions that hurt my already throbbing mind.

"Timal was but one of three. You've seen that, haven't you? When you commune with the Ettuku? And you chose just to ignore it." My voice was mine, and not. The words were formed by my mind and spoken by my tongue but translated from pure light that came from somewhere else.

The priestess stuttered for a moment before her dominant, haughty demeanor returned. "There were others, at the very beginning, but Timal was the first! What could you possibly know about this, about the dawn of reality?! You're just a naive little girl, playing with power that you couldn't possibly understand!"

I turned away from her, the glow pushing out from my skin, bleeding into the hazy void around us. My voice whispered, turning light into thought, into sound. "He was not. There was another, before Timal, as a father comes before a son. But it was not the father, as a father must pass something along to a child, doesn't he?" I couldn't stop myself from speaking, nor did I want to. Even as I continued, my mind tried to understand what my goddess' whispered light meant.

"You're confused," the priestess's voice was like that of a stern matron scolding an unruly child, "It was Timal that came before all, that created and ordered all. This is the truth of the Ettuku, and the Ettuku have more power than all of the other gods combined, because of this truth."

Timal and the female flipped and flitted through the void around the impossible bulk of the other...thing. "Even the other, the progenitor, the first; it did not create all of this. Reality is, was, always will be. Even the gods can't change that. You see that, don't you?" My skull throbbed, my skin burned, but still, I couldn't refuse the presence of my goddess' light. Tears of golden fire pooled in my eyes, drifting away into the not-place. "And look, don't you see? Don't you see his mirror? His twin? His sister?"

I pointed, and the reality we didn't exist in swirled and changed again. The third, impossible god became both more finite and more horrific to look upon, grotesque and bloated as it still towered over Timal and his sister. As before, smaller and less perfect versions of the twinned gods filled our view, hurtling through the void in great flocks like starlings searching for a roost. These churning and divine mobs swooped at and around vague and huge shapes that all flung themselves at the three gods at the center of it all. The shapes, our dear readers, were ill-defined, existing more as the absence of something than the descriptive power of the thought translated through my imperfect flesh.

"You see? Do you see?" I shouted, coughing, bloody foam flicking from my lips to spin into the utter anarchy around us. My body shook, pulsed, and terror and pain welled in me, battling the ecstasy at feeling my goddess' touch. "Even after all the other gods were born, he still wasn't in control. He still wasn't alone!" My voice, her voice, our voice, was a visible thing, a shockwave of my pain and her forgotten anger rushing through the haze.

"Witch! Corrupter!" The priestess bellowed back, forcing her glamour to new strengths, pushing back against my control of the vision. "You deceived me, but I know your tricks now. It wasn't the Ettuku who blessed you, but the vicious Shedia, or the cowardly Akagi, or the insane Erishua!" She pushed, no longer trying to pull away but instead fighting to wrap strong fingers around my throat.

I screamed in her face, nearly stripping her entire spell away, and the bloody and golden tears poured from my eyes. Power bled through my skin until it felt like my goddess was flaying me alive and replacing my flesh with molten bronze. The pain was infinite, but the ecstasy was an infinity of infinities. How did I know these things? How had I ever not known them?

The aura of burning magic around me retreated for a moment, and everything in the vision was gone, except for the God-Before, and the twins. I recognized the place below the three hovering figures from my fevered vision with Yupanki. The blue-black clouds churned, swirling in an endless tornado of unreality, and green lightning cracked past the three.

They were speaking, I realized, in voices that made our ears weep blood, that grated against our bones, and turned our souls inside out. "You've forgotten! You've all forgotten!" I wailed against the vision. The twins attacked the God-Before, splitting its grotesque bulk again and again to spill rivers of glowing purple ichor, and it roared with timeless rage.

I. She. We lunged forward, grabbing the priestess's terrified, bleeding face. "You've forgotten! It was never just him!" My flesh was boiling — becoming — bloody steam and fire pulsing from my veins, "It was never just him! It was Timal and...Timal and...and..." An eternity of frustration exploded across the perfect golden light filling my mind.

The God-Before snatched the female twin with hands the size of a thousand worlds. She screamed.

I screamed.

Reality shuddered, and the God-Before broke her spine over his knee like an angry child would break a dry twig.

It all began to collapse. The impossible light and happiness inside me retreated, and equally impossible pain rushed in like the coming tide. Timal lanced forward, reaching with powerful hands into the God-Before's gut. He bellowed, muscles and sinews popping just as my flesh burned into molten ash. I would die here, I thought then, bereft of her light.

The God-Before split in two, Timal avenging his broken sister, and a sphere of molten power tore the vision to pieces.

But not before, as we were both blasted into charred skeletons and ragged scraps of flesh, I shrieked in the priestess' face, "You've forgotten her! YOU'VE FORGOTTEN ME!"

***

Foolishly, dear readers, I thought we'd cut the head off of the snake with our slaughter on the Temple Hill. But, as we limped — I limped, Leotie struggled uninjured under my bulk — back towards the palace, we passed through an ever-worsening trail of destruction. Tenements burned along one street after another, a handful spilling into the street as the mud-bricks cracked under the heat. Bodies and groaning, battered peasants were strewn in the gutters, with an outsized proportion of them being Enges or Bhakhuri.

Twice we hid in the dancing shadows, half-revealed by the flames, as mobs of rioters tore out of one house and picked another seemingly at random to storm into. Screams, near and far, keened through the air in an endless chorus. By the time we finally reached the riverfront district, I knew we couldn't go any further.

The palace was under siege by a howling, baying mob armed with every possible makeshift and manufactured weapon. At some point, it seemed, they'd tried to rush the clapper bridges and the gates, but the carpet of bodies on the flat stones and the rafts of corpses bunched against the river rocks told the story of their failure. Canoes and rafts turned and circled amongst the rapids, lit and glittering from the endless fires, but guards and mages on the walls kept them back with waves of darts and blasts of magic. Some of the craft were burning, out of control as they were carried downstream.

The great walls had been scarred here and there by the few mages the mob had brought along with them, but even my pain-hazed mind knew there was no way the horde would be able to breach the walls. I saw a chariot or three amongst them and bronze swords flashing in the firelight marking where Old Nobles were driving their traitors forward.

"We can't stay here," I groaned, looking down across the riverfront and back up at Temple Hill and seeing the fires sprouting up on every street. My heart ached, wondering if we should turn back for Serina, but the crest of Temple Hill was shrouded in the night's darkness and silent. The Old Nobles were focusing all of their rage on the new order of things and, despite their return to the old ways, were too cowardly to profane the homes of the gods. Besides, we were no use to her dead.

"Look at the other side," Leotie grunted, nodding at the far bank. Only a handful of fires burned around the edges of the poorer-looking neighborhoods.

I was in little position to argue or even offer any other option. The pain throbbed more and more intensely in my head and oozing wounds, and I could feel the strength slowly leaving my trembling legs. Somehow, dear readers, we managed to head across the riverfront, avoiding the worst of the madness or blending in with the wild looting and picks of fleeing refugees. The nearest clapper bridge that led across the river was draped with a handful of bodies. Piles of cast-off belongings and valuables marred the stone, but it was otherwise almost entirely empty.

More than once, I nearly slipped on water or tacky pools of blood puddled on the stones, almost pulling Leotie into the frothy water with me, but every time she steadied me, muscles bunching and teeth gritting. My pain-fogged mind wondered why she risked so much for me, especially after tearing me apart so utterly before the battle. Darkness, within and without, was creeping in at the edges of my vision and thoughts.

Leotie's inexorable pace slowed, stopped, and my drooping head snapped up, "Stop! Stop there!" A knot of armed silhouettes guarded the far end of the bridge, spears and Atlatl darts pointed menacingly towards us.

She snarled, "Let us through! Don't you see what's happening back there?"

The shapes resolved from the sharp contrast of fire and shadow; all of them were Bhakhuri or mixed like Leotie. One pointed with his spear at me, his voice quivering with fear or anger. "He's an Old Noble; why would you bring him here?!"

Leotie barked at them, teeth flashing, before brandishing the pile of swords we'd taken from the dead. "He's killed three of them by himself, and I've killed two more!" They shrank back, eyes wide and looking at the prize we'd taken, "Now are you going to let us through?!"

The decision was made for us by a dart hissing over our heads and clattering against the brick of a nearby building. I twisted, saw canoes slicing across the rapids to disgorge howling rioters, and more pounded across the bridge behind us. "Come on, come on," the leader of the little Bhakhuri band hissed while his companions gutted the nearest canoe with well-aimed darts.

"We need somewhere to hide," Leotie growled, "we can't go much further with him like this. And a healer, if you know of one."

The male Bhakhuri nodded, taking my other arm and ducking underneath to support the rest of my slackening weight. Half-walking, half-dragged, we descended into the twisting warren of poorly built stalls and houses, leaving the growing battle along the river behind us.

I blinked, shook my head, realizing I'd slipped into unconsciousness. For how long? Where were we? Why was this Bhakhuri stranger helping us?

"Here," he grunted, putting my weight back into Leotie to duck into a darkened tenement. I heard harsh whispers in the local dialect before he emerged once more. "She will hide you," he turned, looked at Leotie, "I don't know why you ever went over to that side of the river. They hate your kind worst of all."

"My kind?"

"Half-breeds." He said simply and turned to me. "Whoever you are, thank you. They all deserve death for what they've done to us." There was a crash of sound from the bridge, and he hefted his darts and spear-thrower. "Stay with her." He looked away into the fire-lit gloom.

A voice called from inside, and Leotie helped me past the heavy blanket and into the hovel. My eyes, already drooping and fluttering from just sheer exhaustion, struggled to adjust to the space, lit only by a single stone lamp. There was a rustle of cloth, and the oldest Bhakhuri — or any species — woman I'd ever seen moved into the weak light.

Her skin had once been a reddish ochre, like Leotie's, probably, but now was so riddled with dark liver spots she was as mottled as Niknik's coat. She waddled towards us, her frame stooped and bent, and she struggled to lift her head, but still managed to smile with a toothless mouth. A few wisps of white hair framed her otherwise bald pate. Her eyes, though, gleaned with sharp wit and curiosity and she studied both of us intently.

Leotie greeted her in Anghoreti, but the matron shook her head, not understanding. She rooted amongst the various pots and jugs in the gloom with wizened, claw-like fingers, mumbling to herself. Leotie sighed and said something in the native tongue that hadn't helped her all day. I wouldn't have understood what they were saying on a good day, with all of my blood still inside of me, but I noticed Leotie's head snap up.

Leotie greeted her in Anghoreti, but the matron shook her head, not understanding. She rooted amongst the various pots and jugs in the gloom with wizened, claw-like fingers, mumbling to herself. Leotie sighed and said something in the native tongue that hadn't helped her all day, and the matron chirped right back. I wouldn't have understood what they were saying on a good day, with all of my blood still inside of me, but I noticed Leotie's head snap up soon after.

They spoke in hushed tones, and I leaned hard against the mud bricks of the closest wall. "She says you look like you lost a fight," Leotie said, helping the matron look for something.

"We'll tell her she looks like she's older than the gods," I wheezed, "Why can she understand you?"

The matron chirped something, trembling hands coming back with a dusty clay pot stoppered with resin, "She says she prefers Bhakhuri to Man and wandered all over Anghoret before your petty empire ever existed." Her tone and lips made the verbal jab into a jest, but her eyes betrayed her desperate concern at my weakening state.

The two gabbled on while the matron found a worn hand ax to break the neck of the pot. She held it out to me, eyes and wheezing voice urging me to drink. I reached and nearly collapsed again, but Leotie propped me up with strong hands under my shoulders. Both women helped me, the once mighty and bloody Magus, bring the drink to my cracked and trembling lips, and I realized just how much the huntress cared for me.

The drink or potion —whatever it was — was thick and foul, clinging to my tongue and the inside of my throat. I coughed, barely able to swallow the bitter slime, but the great-grandmother chided me and tipped the pot back further. From the moment, the very moment my dear readers, the mixture hit my stomach, I felt the magic within it begin to fill my battered body. Ice flashed through my veins, my bones ached, and my guts coiled around themselves. The ice swirled through my overstretched conduit, feeding it but also pulling from it.

My academic curiosity was piqued but, whatever the potion was doing, it hadn't fixed the bone-numbing fatigue. They spoke a few more words to each other, Leotie sucking down the last dregs of the potion before the matron hobbled further into the gloom and beckoned for us to follow.

"She says we should be safe here, but there's a cellar where we can hide until morning," Leotie explained, helping me further back into the shack. The matron pulled back another hanging sheet, beckoning us towards a deeper pool of shadow in the already gloomy room. We stumbled down into the crudely dug cellar, feeling our way past stacked jugs and pots that held gods knew what. Before leaving us, she grinned a toothless smile, said something to Leotie, and handed us a pile of musty blankets and water skins.

"What did she say?" I groaned, easing myself down to the cool floor.

"Nothing you need to worry about." Without even seeing her, I could tell she was glowering to herself in the darkness. "How are you feeling?

"I don't know," I grunted with a dry chuckle, leaning back against the cool clay of the pots, and I truly didn't. The sour surge of fear and the molten, murderous fury had long since ebbed, the pain had surged to the fore, but the old Alchemist's magic had quieted that too. All that was left was exhaustion and the strange light-headed sensation from massively over-exerting my magical talent.

I heard water splashing somewhere, then felt cool and damp cloth gently scrubbing at my arm. She softly and methodically cleaned my gore-caked skin, and I could feel the pressure of her strong fingers through the rag. Her soft breath seemed amplified in that cramped place, and I was acutely aware of every brush of her skin and lithe body against mine. There was a charge there, something building, or something held over from before.

"I don't know," I repeated. "I don't know what to do. I don't know what you want me to do." My mind wandered, and my lips loosened.

"Don't put that on me," she whispered back, "this is your decision, and your problem."

A feeling, a mixture of exhausted apathy and truthfulness born of self-loathing, bubbled up and was translated into a dry and rattling chuckle. "I don't care about going home. I don't want to go home."

The gentle, slow movements of the cloth stopped for a moment before resuming, "And what about your precious honor?" She asked, her voice sneering in place of her gloom-hidden face. But there was a hollowness to it, a quaver in her voice.

I laughed at her, barely able to keep my eyes open, "Honor? Do you think I have any of that? I left that, I think, in the gutters in Anghu. Nothing I do will bring that back."

She stopped again, longer that time, before moving to my wounded right arm to clean the mat of charred blood. Moments stretched by in silence, our breaths sussurating through each other in the tiny space. "You're the most honorable man I've ever met."

I nearly laughed at her, but something in her voice told me that she was deadly serious. "You barely know me, Leotie. You're wrong about me. Kapak was too."