The 13th God (The Cycle of Galand Book 8), page 61
"I don't know."
"But you're the one that just said it."
"No, he did not," Gladdic said. "It was the lich."
"And he—I," Dante said, "believe it's the key to the entity's death."
"Wonderful," Blays said. "Nolost must be quivering in fear of our gibberish word that we know nothing about."
"It's more than we had a minute ago. Look, it's not like the lich is actually here. I can't ask him things, or stroll around his memories like a library. But even a fragment is a lot better than nothing."
"Repeat the words?" Gladdic said.
"Burdan rah Saylan?"
The old man murmured something to himself. "The words are not Tanarian. For that reason I do not believe them to be Inarian, either. If anything, they sound to my ear to be Quannish."
Dante jerked up his head. "They are."
"Let me guess," Blays said. "You don't know what that is, either."
"It's…a people. An old one. And if they're still alive, they're on the other side of those mountains."
"Is that where we're going, then? Because that'll take weeks."
"I think we've bought ourselves enough time," Dante said. "We know we can't kill the entity as it is. Which means that we have to stay hidden from it until we can."
"I suppose there's nowhere better to keep out of sight than a place we've never heard of that might not even exist anymore."
"I'll inquire with Nak and see if any of our monks know about Burdan rah Saylan or if the Quannish are still alive. I might even see about organizing another expedition to the Houkkallis to find whatever knowledge they might have preserved there. We'll need to send messengers to as many other kingdoms as we can to let them know how best to fight back now."
"Which is?"
"I'm not sure yet. But I don't think it will take long to learn how Nolost intends to do away with us now that we've robbed him of so many weapons. If we're very lucky, we've hurt him badly enough that he'll have to go into hiding until he recovers." He took a breath. "But it's hard not to be disappointed. This was supposed to be the end of it."
Blays shrugged. "But we still did it, didn't we? We weren't supposed to have any chance of stopping Nolost. Humans can't fight back against an entity, especially an entity that's been sent by the gods. But we beat fate. The war isn't over yet—but at least we're no longer doomed. From now on, our fate depends entirely on what we do next."
As ever, it felt good to have a plan, even one as tenuous as theirs. And it did feel thrilling to have overturned the fate that Carvahal had seen for them, a destiny that would have led, just a few days from now, into being tortured for a subjective eternity before their then-merciful annihilation. It wasn't over, no. But after being pushed to the edge of the cliff, they'd fought their way back from it.
Lightning tore through the sky. Red. Nolost's. Dante waited for a followup, but when it came, he couldn't tell if it was any weaker than the first, or if either of the bolts was weaker than the storms they'd seen in the past. What would it mean if what they'd done hadn't diminished Nolost as much as they thought it would? Or if, even with the entity so diminished, they still failed to stop it? Then two worlds would be lost, and it would all be their doing.
Kelen had been certain the dalaxa system was permanent, unkillable, as fixed as the stars, and so destroying Olastar not only wasn't a crime, it was a virtue. Dante wasn't so sure. It was true that it had already endured for thousands of years, and the power of the dalax looked unimpeachable—for those controlled by it loved being controlled by it, and would kill you if you tried to take it from them.
But when history ran long enough, both the most glorious and the most strangling of empires would fall in the end. He'd seen it in Rale, in their long looks into the past, along with the tales they'd unearthed. There were still Olastarians in Etis, sure. And with their enemies defeated, it was likely that they'd thrive, and become many over time.
But there was no more Olastar. And there was no knowing the future he'd helped take from it.
"Well," Dante said. "Shall we get moving?"
Blays' mouth fell open. "Really? After all that, you want us to do more paddling?"
"I just want to get a few miles away from this spot. I very much doubt Nolost himself wants to come back for us right now, but he may send something else to finish us while we're weak."
Blays nodded the most exhausted nod possible.
Though it felt like a small eternity since they'd left the swamps to kill Wessen, it in fact had been less than an hour. Somehow, though, their canoe had gone missing. Obliged to harvest a new one, Dante hunted around the island until he found a small tree right for the task, then set to work, summoning the nether and feeding it into the tree. The smell of fresh bark arose as the would-be canoe expanded across the ground.
About halfway through, the flow of nether slowed. Dante tugged at it, annoyed, but no matter how much he urged it to him, it remained a thin trickle. When he looked into the cracks in the earth and the leaves, he couldn't find any more there.
Puzzled, he reached further away from himself and found plenty. With it, he soon completed the canoe, though the shadows were growing thin again by the end. In the moment, he dismissed it as just him being tired after a long day.
But the world had changed far more than he knew—in ways that would doom their last venture before it began.
FROM THE AUTHOR
We are, at last, nearing the end. There's just one book left before this series is finished. If you'd like to make sure you hear when the final book is out, please sign up for my mailing list.
Also, if you're looking for more in the world in the meantime, I've started a prequel series about Cally as a young boy called The Cycle of the Scour. The first book in that series is titled The Sealed Citadel.
For more regular updates, or if you'd like to just hang around, check out my website at edwardwrobertson.com or my Facebook at facebook.com/edwardwrobertson
- Ed
Edward W. Robertson, The 13th God (The Cycle of Galand Book 8)
