The 13th God (The Cycle of Galand Book 8), page 17
"I would think the look of us does most of the talking there," Blays said.
The woman ignored this. She had a swept-back face with a pointed chin and her hair was tied high up the back of her head.
She turned to Gladdic. Wisps of blue light swam past her face and dissolved. "What is Bressel?"
"In happier times, it was a magnificent city," Gladdic said. "The capital of the kingdom of Mallon."
She pointed her index and middle finger at Dante and Blays. "And you are from?"
"We were originally from Mallon as well," Dante said. "But we've spent the last half of our lives as the lords of Narashtovik in the north."
"Narashtovik of where?"
"Of itself. It used to be part of the Gaskan Empire, but we've been independent for most of our time there now."
She narrowed her eyes. Her lips moved soundlessly. Beads of blue light swirled around her head in strings. These were small and swift, but Dante thought they looked like text, though he wouldn't have been able to read it even if it weren't whipping around like that—for whatever reason, the gifts Carvahal gave them let them understand speech, but foreign script remained gibberish. Upon the table, Kelen's hands closed into fists.
"Do you know of Yatsat?" she asked Dante.
"I'm not…sure…"
"If you have the knowledge, you will answer."
"I don't think I've heard of it, no."
"Do you know of Dandanine?"
"No."
"Do you know of Kawadore?"
"No."
"You are lying to me." She stood, blue script disintegrating as her head crashed through it. "You are not from Narashtovik."
"I am its High Priest," Dante said, his outrage far from faked. "And I have been such ever since my mentor was killed when I was barely old enough to be fit to rule."
"Some would even say you're still not there," Blays said.
"You are lying to me." Soma sparked in her hands. "This is established. We will now determine why."
Dante motioned to the blue light. "Whatever manner of sorcery this is, it's misleading you. As I said, I grew up in Mallon, but—"
"You know nothing of what those from Narashtovik would know." More strings of writing flitted around her head. "You mean us ill. Spy? Assassin?"
"My lady," Gladdic said. "The last question you asked of him—the word was Kawadore?"
"Correct," she said.
"Then I believe it is a trio of lakes."
"Wait, she's saying Gallador?" Blays flicked the talisman hanging down his chest. "Are these things working?"
Dante blinked at their interlocutor. "Are you asking about Gallador? The riftlands? Whose capital is Wending?"
She watched him without speaking.
"We were just there a few weeks ago," he continued. "That's the very place I brought my people to try to get them away from the dangers that since brought us here. But I've never heard anyone call it Kawadore. The people who live there certainly don't."
"It is likely from an older tongue," Gladdic said. "One that died between when our world and theirs last shared contact."
The woman stayed on her feet. "You claim to know Kawadore. But not Yatsat or Dandanine."
"Dandanine? Is she talking about Tantonnen?" Blays raised his eyebrows at her. "The place with all the really good bread?"
"Who knows if they were growing wheat there in whatever age she's referring to," Dante said. "But it's east of Gallador. And much drier. Almost a desert."
"That is your answer?" the woman said.
"Yes."
"And what is Yatsat?"
"I…"
"Beats the hell out of me," Blays said.
Gladdic shook his head. "The word is unfamiliar to me."
She turned to Dante. "And you?"
His mind spun in circles. But for all its frantic activity, it turned up nothing. "I don't know. If it was another place near Narashtovik, then it no longer exists."
The woman closed her eyes. She swept her hand before her face, surrounding her head with the soma. It leapt into tangles of illegible script that floated slowly around her head. It held its general shape for several seconds, then pulsed irregularly as sections of it vanished and were replaced with new designs. Was she communing with someone? Dante thought that she was. And not in the way he did with the loons.
She opened her pale eyes. "You will tell me why you are here."
"Does that mean you believe us?" Dante said.
"Answer my question."
"Have you heard what's happening to Rale?"
"Answer my question."
"It's something of a long story," he said, hiding his irritation. "But the short of it is that Rale is being destroyed."
"How does one destroy a world?"
"Usually, they don't. Not if you're mortal, anyway. But Rale is being destroyed by the gods."
She smirked. "Again you lie. There are no gods."
Kelen had told them that the people of Olastar didn't believe in the gods, but that fact had fallen out of Dante's mind, as if unable to find purchase there. Hearing her speak the belief out loud—and with such complete certainty—he almost didn't know what to do.
"K—" He caught himself: he'd been about to call to Kelen, using his real name, an act that likely would have gotten them all killed (or else everyone else in the palace). He needed to settle the hell down before he caused a disaster. He placed his palms on the table and took a long breath through his nose.
"You're right. It isn't the gods," he said. "But it's a figure that's god-like in its power, and so we've been calling it one. It's an entity, known as Nolost. It's inflicting terrible plagues on us. Flooding our lands with horrific monsters. I have seen entire cities ruined by it, every single person within them slaughtered. It's impossible to know how many have died already. But it has to be many millions. More than could be counted."
Dante paused. Not for the effect that it might have on her, but because his mind was rushing through all of the dead that he'd so recently seen, most of them in places he'd never even heard of before. It was too much to think about. Enough to make him despair that they'd be able to defeat the forces from the Becoming that would still be left in their world even if they were able to close down all the portals.
"If it were just the attacks," he continued, "we might be able to fight them off. Maybe. But he's ripping our world apart at the seams. And he's far too powerful for us to stop. Rale is doomed."
"What does this have to do with Harasphont?" the woman said.
Dante had been cleaving very close to the truth. But she had just tossed him into much more turbulent waters. He decided to try to dodge the question. "We are seeking sanctuary. For as many of our people as we can. We seek permission to build a new home here, and must speak to the king to forge an agreement. It's our only hope."
"You want to speak to King Who?"
"The king of Harasphont."
"But you don't know his name."
"Ah…"
"Not to be rude," Blays said, "but we've been in something of a rush throughout all of this. Usually while being pursued by hordes of things that would give a lion nightmares. A friend of ours from another realm told us about this one, and sent us to Arkelen to act as our guide. He's the one that brought us here."
Her eyes shifted to Kelen. "Why?"
"There are only a handful of kingdoms with the strength to enact such a deal," Kelen answered. "Yours was the closest, and every minute counts."
"If you're telling the truth, securing this deal is a matter of your life and death. Do you believe you have enough of value to offer the king for the great troubles this would cause him?"
"I honestly don't know enough about you to guess," Dante said. "But we have great treasures and powers. I believe the arrangement could be of great benefit to us all."
The woman's eyes bored into him. She did one of their strange nods and stood. "That will be all."
"Hara Canthana," the severe-looking man said, the first time he'd moved since taking position behind her. "You forgot to ask one question."
She kept her eyes on the foreigners. "And what is that?"
"This task means everything to them. It can not be allowed to fail. If you were to put together such a mission, who would you send to complete it?"
The anger on her face froze solid. "Foreigners, are you sorcerers?"
Dante almost had to grab the sides of his own head to stop himself from looking at Kelen for guidance. "Of course. We couldn't risk failing in our purpose by sending any but our best."
Expression unchanging, Canthana took a step back to stand beside the severe man.
There was something strange about the man's voice. "Should we kill them?"
"They would send others. Seeking revenge."
"It sounds like their world doesn't have much time for that."
"This is true."
"Pardon me." Blays stood, crossing his wrists above his belt. "But if you're going to kill us, don't stand around debating it. Just do it."
The woman's lips parted. "What sorcery is this, that you understand the words of Elaphrim?"
"If we can do that, the next question you should ask yourself is what else we can do."
"Or what we can do for Harasphont," Dante said. "This isn't a matter you can decide for yourself. It must be brought before your king."
Anger flashed across Canthana's eyes. "Take them to the stones. With full sentinels."
With these words, one of the soldiers flung open the door they'd come in through, and ten men dressed in identical black tunics trimmed with red entered, surrounding the doorway. Local sorcerers, all but surely. Anywhere in his own world, Dante wouldn't have been greatly concerned about being outnumbered by a few court sorcerers. On Olastar, however, where he had great trouble fending off the soma of a single enemy, overcoming ten of them at once felt like an enormous threat.
One of them stepped forward and pointed his finger at the outlanders. "You will follow me." He turned on his heel and practically ran out into the hall.
A pair of left turns brought them to a staircase. Among those who had to deal with such considerations, there was a great deal of argument as to whether it was safer to try to hold sorcerers down in a dungeon, or up in a tower. Most preferred a dungeon, but that was only because none of the sorcerers they knew were able to manipulate the earth as Dante was, and so he was irritated when their captor led them upstairs instead of down.
The trek upwards was a long one. At last, they were delivered to a round, windowless room that could be considered either quite spacious for a jail cell or quite cramped for the lodgings of foreign dignitaries.
"Remain here." Like all the others of his kind that they'd seen, the court sorcerer was shorter than any of them, yet somehow he was able to look down on them. "Don't bother knocking. Or calling out."
"Just how long do you intend to keep us here?" Dante said. "As I told Hara Canthana—"
"No more talking." The man stepped out through the door and closed it in their faces.
Dante pressed his palm to his forehead. "Lyle's balls, are all your people so imperious?"
"Maybe it's not that my people are imperious," Kelen said. "Maybe your people are just passive and meek." He wandered into the room, coming to a stop in its middle. "But no. The dalaxa aren't this way."
"Just everyone who isn't soaked through with a potion that turns them into grinning idiots. Sounds like a wonderful place."
Dante reached his mind out into the walls, trying to find out how thick the stone was and how high above the ground they were, but he couldn't tell much more than that the answer to both questions was "very."
"Suppose they're going to kill us?" Blays said.
"I can't read their minds," Kelen said. "But it's quite possible."
"Suppose if they are going to kill us, that we should have a plan for how to not let them do that?"
"Normally I'd carve some stairs into the outer wall," Dante said. "But the rock here doesn't seem to care what I want from it. So I think the plan is you stab them with your spear while doing your best not to let them know that you're doing it."
"Then you better be ready with a distraction."
"I don't think they're going to try, though. Not until after the king has heard our offer, at least."
"That would be nice. Though if it were me, I would just tell us to get lost instead of deciding to turn us into pig food. Just seems like an overreaction. You know, I think I'm starting to side with Kelen about this place getting what it deserves."
"Maybe so. But let's do our best to not get in any fights with them. I want to hear what the king has to say."
"What? Who cares about whatever old snob runs this pit?"
"We do. Because if we fail to do what we're here to do, then moving our people here might be a much better option than moving to the Realm to be the slaves of the gods."
They gazed about the room, dwelling on this. The ceiling felt too tight and there were no objects or furniture aside from two low stone platforms that some jokester probably meant to be beds. A shallow trough ran across the middle of the room. At first blush, Dante took it for a way to funnel water out of the room, but when he looked closer, he saw that it hadn't been cut out of the stone. It had been worn into it.
"While it may be of use to secure that possibility as well," Gladdic said, "our first goal remains obvious. Kelen, I presume you do not know the location of the portal to Pholos."
"That's right," he said.
"But you are certain that it is within the grounds of this palace."
"You should know better than that by now."
"And we're stuck in here without even a window to look through," Dante said.
Blays gestured toward the curved wall. "What, you don't think you can carve a hole through that?"
"Not without our captors carving a hole in us in response."
"Well we can't stay in here forever."
"Now that you mention it, that doesn't sound like a great idea."
Dante made a circuit of the room, hunting for anything he could kill and reanimate as a scout, but their captors hadn't even had the courtesy to make their jail a pest-ridden hole. With no real hope of success, he moved to the wall opposite the door and tried to move the stone there—if he could open a hole, he could survey the grounds through it, then close it when he was done—but it hardly softened at all.
He stepped back and glared at it. "What was Hara Canthana doing in there with the soma, anyway? It looked like she was talking with someone."
"Correct but also wrong." Kelen lowered himself to one of the bed slabs and sat cross-legged. "It's called agantha. But she's not talking to any one person. She's talking to thousands and thousands of them."
"That sounds…unpleasant. Sometimes I find it impossible to deal with my mere eleven advisors."
"Well, these ones aren't like you and me. For one thing, they're not alive. They're more like a library. One that helps you search it. The agantha doesn't know everything, but there's not much it doesn't know something about."
"That's how she knew about Gallador and Tantonnen. And she used that to test if we really were who we claimed we were."
"Only the last knowledge the agantha has about that area is now many centuries old. Old enough that the names have changed."
"Which makes perfect sense. We don't think there's been much if any contact between our peoples in ages." Dante folded his arms. "But why did she have to go through these games to begin with? You made it sound like she would simply know if I was lying."
"Not immediately. All liars have a unique style to how they lie. It's like a signature. She can't always tell right away when you're lying. But the more lies you tell, the better she gets at telling, until she does simply know."
"By the end, do you think she still thought we were lying to her?"
"She was very suspicious that you were," Kelen said. "But as to whether—"
The door flew wide. A soldier had shoved it open for Canthana, who glowered in at them.
"Strangers," she said. "Get to your feet." She waited until Blays and Kelen obeyed before continuing. "Come with me. For you are to have dinner with the king."
10
Dante hadn't known what to expect from his request for an audience, but it certainly hadn't been this, and he scrambled to find something non-foolish to say.
"Thank you," he said blandly. "We are most honored."
Unimpressed, Canthana pivoted away and strode back down the hall, leaving the four of them to jog after her. A silent company of soldiers and sorcerers assembled behind them.
"You're not going to enjoy your meal," Kelen murmured to the others.
"What?" Blays said. "Don't tell me the food's bad!"
"It's wonderful. It's being served to the king. But it's not meant for your kind."
"It's not going to kill us, is it?"
"No. But I will warn you that it will pass out from your body in almost the exact same condition that it entered it."
"But we're going to have to eat it anyway. Or else we'll insult the king."
Kelen smiled and nodded.
"That is why you grew such strange-looking gardens at your home," Gladdic said. "It was food from Olastar."
"I would grow it even if I didn't have the same problem," Kelen said. "Olastarian food is better than anything you'll find in any other realm."
After descending the many landings of stairs down from their prison-tower, Canthana routed through a giant serving hall. The ceiling was high and domed and wealthy-looking people dined at big round tables piled with glistening morsels. The air should have smelled either heavenly or wretched, depending on whether the food was to their taste. Yet Dante caught only thin whiffs of smoke and an unfamiliar roasted meat.
There were servants everywhere, though no more than in some Ralish courts Dante had seen, but the ones here were all dalaxa. Their identical uniforms were elegant and clean, and the work of filling cups and bearing plates wasn't particularly taxing, but it was clear from the vacant smiles on their faces that they wouldn't have cared if they were out plucking potatoes naked in the high summer sun.
As they neared the back of the hall, a table of men and women burst into laughter. Before them, a pair of male dalaxa, who were in fact completely naked, were taking turns slapping each other across the face as hard as they could. Both were bleeding from their noses and mouths, but even after the latest slap knocked one of the men to the ground, he simply stood back up, smiling, and slapped the other man so hard that he fell down too.
