The Realms of the Gods

‘I think I can manage that much,’ the king replied, and released Daine’s sleeve. ‘Unless they get reinforcements, we can hold them all summer if we must.’ He and Daine tapped their own skulls with closed fists, their version of knocking on wood. ‘Look at the bright side. It’s Midsummer’s Day – maybe the gods will throw some luck at us!’

‘Midsummer – do you know, I’d fair forgotten?’ Daine smiled wryly. ‘Maybe I’ll look in a pond along the way and find out who my true love will be.’

Jonathan laughed. Daine grinned, bowed, and trotted off, waiting until she knew he could no longer see her before she let her smile fade. With Numair’s magical Gift to hide their presence, there would be no problem in leaving the city – it was how they’d entered it in the first place. Her concern was for the king – and for the queen, commanding at the embattled capital; for Alanna the Lioness, the King’s Champion, in the Far North since the spring; for the many friends she had made all over Tortall.

We need Midsummer luck for the fair, she thought, returning to their rooms. All along, the enemy’s known what we’re about before we do it. We need luck to counter him, and luck to find his spies. I don’t know where it’s to come from, but we need it soon.

They left Port Legann separately. Numair rode his patient gelding, Spots, carrying his pack and Daine’s. While two of the three roads that led into the city were still open, they were unsafe; he cloaked himself and Spots magically, as he’d done on the way into Legann. Daine herself flew out in the shape of a golden eagle to see if she could find the Skinners and get an idea of what she and Numair were up against.

She soared on columns of warm air that rose from the land. From the upper reaches, the walled city and its surroundings looked much like a wonderfully detailed map. The enemy’s main camp lay a few miles off the north road. On the road itself, a mixed band of enemy soldiers and immortals was camped. On the eastern and southern roads, soldiers in Tortallan colours had dug in to keep the way open for help and supplies. From aloft, she also saw the motley fleet that waited outside Legann, thwarted from entering the harbour by the great chains stretched across its mouth.

In her years in Tortall she had lived among warriors and mages, and could read a battle situation like a book. What she read now gave Daine hope. The enemy army was about equal to Legann’s; if they had any magical surprises, they would have used them before. With armies that were matched, and neither side having the advantage in magic or weapons, the battle on land and at sea was a stalemate. The king was right: Legann might hold all summer, particularly if they could keep at least one road open.

She wheeled, turning her eyes east. Twenty miles from the city, a wide swathe of pale brown, black, and grey, naked of greenery, straddled the east road. Trees stripped of leaf and bark thrust into the air like toothpicks. As she approached, she saw, and smelled, corpses – most of them animals – bloated and stinking in the heat. They came in all sizes, from the smallest mice to cows and sheep. The closer Daine came to that dead zone, the fewer animal voices she heard. Most of the Beast-People who could do so had fled.

Gliding over the last bank of living trees, she found the Skinners. There were five in all: wet, flesh-coloured, two-legger things. They had no eyes, ears, noses, or mouths, but they didn’t seem to require such niceties. They forged ahead blindly, touching anything that lived. When they did, plants became dull instead of glossy. Tree bark vanished. Within seconds, vegetation went dark, brittle, dead. As the creatures touched things, parts of their own flesh changed colour – brown, green, reddish, like bark or leaves in texture. Those patches would grow, shrink, and vanish rapidly.

She had come upon the Skinners as they worked their way through a village. They ignored small obstacles, like tossed-aside buckets or sacks of food that had been left in the street. If the object was big – a well, or an abandoned wagon – they split up, walked around, and rejoined to walk abreast once more.

High overhead, Daine reached into the copper fire of her wild magic. Gripping it, she cast it out like a net, letting her power fall gently onto the Skinners. She didn’t expect it to stop them. Wild magic only helped her shape-shift and talk to the People. Still, if wild magic was something she had in common with these things, perhaps they could talk. Perhaps she could get them to break off their mindless, deadly ramble.

Her net touched something – and suddenly a hole yawned in the centre of her magic. She felt the closeness of things she couldn’t name; they shifted and rolled just at the corner of her mind’s eye. Creatures that should not exist wailed in voices that made her ears bleed; dreadful scents reached her nose and tore at the delicate tissues inside. She lost control over her eagle body and dropped.

In losing her form, she broke the magic’s grip. Frantically Daine shifted into the first shape that came to mind. Just before she hit the ground, crow wings grabbed the air and dragged her aloft. When she was safe in the new form and out of reach, she looked down.

The Skinners had formed a circle. Their eyeless heads were turned up, as if they could see her. She scolded with the excitement of fear, cursing them in a crow’s beautifully nasty vocabulary.

Her foes were not impressed. Spreading out in a line, they began to march forwards. Daine shuddered. What had she sensed? What were those things made of? She would have to ask Numair. For now, she slowly made herself an eagle again. A bird of prey was a better glider than a crow, and she needed the eagle’s sharp eyes.

Below, the monsters lumbered on. The leftmost Skinner was about to step over a small hutch when it stopped. Bending down, it grabbed at the small door, yanking it off its hinges. A rabbit streaked by on its way to freedom. Before Daine could even guess what was happening, the Skinner seized its prey and held its prize up by the ears.

The hare convulsed. Its fur and hide vanished, ripped off in an eye-blink. Patches of fur appeared all over the Skinner, dull against the gleaming stickiness that was its own flesh. The hare now dangled, motionless. The thing dropped it, and touched a patch of fur that had appeared on its belly. The patch grew, then shrank, and was gone.

Horrified, Daine called up her magic again while the Skinners walked on. She searched the village for more abandoned animals. There was a chicken coop on the edge of town. Its occupants could sense nearby monsters; they shrieked their alarm. She didn’t stop to remember that she despised chickens for their stupidity and their smell. Once more she dropped, taking on her true shape as soon as she touched the ground.

Fumbling at the rope latch on the coop, she glanced around. More than anything, she wanted to see the Skinners before they saw her. The rope gave. Chickens erupted from the coop, showering Daine with feathers, scratching her and squawking in her ears. ‘Stop it, you idiotic birds!’ she whispered. ‘Shut up, clear out, and get away from here!’

She used her magic to give them brief wisdom. The chickens raced into the forest, away from the approaching monsters. Daine took eagle shape for the third time, watching the Skinners from high above as she waited for Numair to arrive.

He threw off his cloaking-spell when he and Spots reached the dead zone, and Daine glided down to meet him. Taking her pack, she dressed behind a tree as she reported what she had seen. When he dismounted, she unsaddled Spots and sent the gelding into the still-living woods, out of the Skinners’ path.

Numair passed her crossbow and quiver to her. ‘Can we beat them?’ he asked.

Daine’s blue-grey eyes met his dark ones. ‘I don’t know,’ she said truthfully. ‘I’ve never seen the like of these things.’ Putting a foot in the crossbow’s stirrup, she drew the bowstring until it hooked over the release.

The man sighed and dropped his cloak over their packs. Black fire that sparkled with bits of white appeared around his body. ‘Give me that quarrel,’ he said, holding out a hand. She obeyed, passing over the bolt that she’d been about to load. He closed long fingers over it, lips moving, then handed it over.

Daine placed the quarrel in the clip, then led him to their quarry. The Skinners had finished with the village of Greenhall and had entered a nearby peach orchard. Half of the trees were stripped of their bark. Even the green fruit had lost its skin.

Numair looked ill. ‘Is it all like this?’ he asked.

‘Worse. There’s acres of it, clean back to the hills.’ She raised the bow to her shoulder, taking deliberate aim. The Skinners, in the middle of the orchard, turned to stare at them – if they could stare.

Daine shot. The quarrel flew straight, and buried itself in one Skinner’s head. Numair gestured; an explosion tore the air. The Skinner blew apart, showering its companions with pieces of itself. The others looked around in apparent confusion.

Daine started to grin, but stopped. Swiftly each of the Skinner chunks doubled, redoubled, and spread. Each sprouted a pair of stumps to stand on, and stretched. Now there were ten Skinners, five large and five smaller ones. Their attention fixed on her and Numair, they came at a run. Daine slipped another bolt into the clip of the bow.

The mage raised a hand. Black fire jumped away from him and swept over the monsters, pulling them into the air. The Skinners thrashed and broke through his control, hurtling to the ground. Slowly, they got up.

‘I hope the owner of this orchard forgives me,’ muttered Numair. Stretching out his hands, he shouted a phrase that Daine couldn’t understand. The ground before the advancing Skinners ripped open. They dropped into the crevasse.

Numair trotted towards it, Daine right behind him. ‘If I can seal them into the earth, that may be the end of it. I certainly hope so.’ Halting at the edge of the crack, they peered in. ‘I hate simply blasting them with raw power like this. There is always a spell to uncreate anything, though the consequences may be – oh, dear.’

The Skinners were climbing the sides. Numair jerked Daine back, shouting a word that made her ears pound. The earth rumbled, knocking them down; the crack sealed.

‘Please, Goddess, please, Mithros, let that stop them,’ whispered Numair. Sweat dripped from his face as Daine helped him to stand. ‘Grant a boon on Midsummer’s Day—’

Daine heard something behind them and whirled. Ten feet away, crude hands erupted through dirt. ‘Numair!’ she cried, and shot the emerging Skinner. Unmagicked, her bolt had no effect. The creature rose from the ground as if it climbed a stair.

Numair cried out in Old Thak. The creature that Daine had shot turned to water. The man whirled to do the same to another Skinner. Half out of the earth, it dissolved.

Five spots near them exploded as Skinners leaped free of the ground. Daine screamed. Numair reached to pull her closer, and discovered that someone else had the same idea. Two pairs of hands clutched the girl by the arms, dragging her into a patch of air that burned silvery white.

‘No!’ shouted the mage, wrapping both arms around Daine. The phantom hands continued to pull.

Sinking into white pain, Daine heard a man shriek, ‘Curse you, follow them! Follow, follow, FOLLOW!’

Unseen by her or Numair, an inky shadow leaped free of the grass to wrap itself around her feet. Girl, man, and shadow vanished into bright air.

Every inch of her throbbed. Hands gripped her; she fought. ‘The Skinners! They’ll kill Numair, they’ll kill the People, they’ll kill the crops! Let me go!’

A female voice, one that she knew, said, ‘If she doesn’t rest, she won’t heal. He’s just as bad. Both keep fretting about those monsters.’

‘I’d best take care of it, then.’ The second, gravelly voice was even more familiar.

‘Why?’ The speaker was an unknown male. ‘Leave mortal affairs to mortals.’

‘Nonsense,’ barked the gravel voice. Whiskers tickled her face; a musky scent that she knew well filled her nose. ‘Listen, Daine. Numair is here, with you. He’s safe. I’ll fix those Skinners. I can handle them. Now rest, and stop fussing!’

She sneezed. ‘All right, Badger.’ If her old friend the badger god said that things would be taken care of, she could believe him, even if all this was only a dream.

The woman’s voice was fading. ‘I’ll tell Numair.’

The next time Daine woke, the pain gnawing at her had turned to a dull, steady ache. Cloth rustled nearby; the faint odour of sweet pea and woods lily filled her nose. Like the female voice she’d heard, she knew that scent well. She opened her eyes.

A blurred face hung over her. Daine squinted, trying to see. The face became clearer: blue eyes, a dimple at the corner of that smiling mouth, creamy skin, straight nose, high cheekbones. The whole was topped with a braided crown of heavy golden hair.

In a second the girl forgot the last four years. She was twelve again, and in her bed in Galla. ‘Ma?’ she croaked. ‘I dreamed you was dead.’ With a frown, she corrected herself – she knew how to speak like cultured folk nowadays! ‘I dreamed you were dead.’

Sarra Beneksri – Daine’s mother – laughed. ‘Sweetling, it was no dream, I am dead.’

Some of Daine’s confusion faded. ‘Well, that’s all right, then.’ She tried to sit up. ‘Where am I?’

Sarra moved pillows to help her. ‘You’re in the Realms of the Gods.’

Moving dizzied the girl. ‘How’d I get here? And why do I hurt so?’

‘We brought you. Sadly, passage between realms was fair hard for you. Here’s something to drink against the pain.’

‘Talk about familiar,’ Daine grumbled, taking the offered cup. With each swallow, she felt an improvement; by the time she’d swallowed all of the liquid, her pain was nearly gone. ‘Your messes have got better,’ she remarked with a grin.

‘It’s the herbs here.’ Sarra pinched Daine’s nose gently. ‘They’re stronger. Open your eyes wide.’ She used her fingers to pull back Daine’s eyelids. ‘Where were you born?’

‘Snowsdale, in Galla. Why are you asking?’

‘To see if your mind’s unhurt – though it being you, I wonder if I’ll be able to tell.’

‘Ma!’ squeaked Daine with a laughing outrage.

‘How old are you?’

‘Sixteen.’ Memory returned in a rush. ‘Where’s Numair? The Skinners—’

Her mother stopped her from getting up. ‘Easy. Master Numair is here, and safe. The badger took care of those skinning monsters. He turned them to ice, and they melted. They won’t trouble anyone now.’

‘So I didn’t dream that.’ Daine sank back against her pillows gratefully, fingering the heavy silver badger’s claw that hung on a chain around her neck. ‘Where did they come from, do you suppose?’

‘You know as much as me,’ was the reply. ‘I’ve never seen the like of them.’

‘Sarra?’ The voice coming from the next room was deep, male, and unfamiliar.

The woman’s face lit up. ‘In here, my love. She’s awake.’

The door opened, and a man dressed in a loincloth entered. Although the doorway was unusually large, the crown of antlers firmly rooted in his brown, curly hair forced him to duck to pass through. He was tan and heavily muscled, with emerald eyes. Daine was unsettled to notice that there also were olive streaks in his reddish brown skin.

‘So.’ He touched his antlers uneasily as she stared at them. ‘We meet at last.’

‘This is your father,’ Sarra told Daine. ‘This is the god Weiryn.’

CHAPTER 2

MEETINGS WITH GODS

He looked so – odd. No one else’s father had antlers, or went half naked. What was she supposed to say? ‘Hullo, Da.’ She hid trembling hands under her blankets.

‘Daine!’ Sarra cried. ‘Is that the best you can do? He’s your da!’

The girl couldn’t begin to describe her feelings. Only months ago, she had learned that the horned man she saw in visions was her father, and that he was a god. She had tried not to think about it ever since. ‘It’s not like you ever told me who he was, or what he was,’ she reminded her mother. ‘Not even a hint.’

‘I thought we’d have time later,’ replied Sarra. ‘I never meant to be killed by bandits!’

‘Daine?’ Numair came to the door, looking pale and tired. ‘You know that the badger destroyed the Skinners, yes?’

‘Ma told me. You don’t look so good.’

He smiled. ‘I’ll survive. Are you all right?’

‘I hurt a little.’ She couldn’t help but note, with some amusement, that except for the tips of his horns, Weiryn was shorter than her friend.

Numair smiled twistedly. ‘I am informed that passage between the realms has an adverse effect on mortals.’ He clung to the doorframe.

Silver fire glimmered on the floor, and a large badger appeared. Daine smiled as her mentor waddled over. He looked up at her with black eyes that were bright in his vividly marked face. ‘Hullo,’ she told him. ‘So we’ve you to thank for handling those Skinners?’

‘You wouldn’t rest until you knew they were dealt with.’ Balancing on his hindquarters, the god rose to plant his forepaws on her covers. Her nose filled with his musky, heavy scent.

Gently she scratched him behind the ears. Since she had left her Gallan home, the badger had visited her, teaching her the use of her wild magic, and warning of danger to come. The claw she wore around her neck was his; he could always trace it to find her.

Sarra frowned at Numair. ‘You are supposed to sit, and stay sat.’ She made a tugging gesture at the wall beside the mage. That part of the room began to move; the floor buckled and rose. The wall stretched to meet it, then sagged to create a chair. ‘Down, Master Salmalín!’ ordered Sarra. Meekly, he did as ordered.

Daine’s jaw dropped. ‘But – Ma, you can’t— You never—’

‘Things are different here,’ the badger said. ‘In the Divine Realms, we gods can shape our surroundings to suit ourselves.’

‘Sometimes,’ added Weiryn.

‘Wonderful,’ the girl said weakly. She was not sure that she liked to see unliving things move about under their own power. ‘Tell me – how did we come here? The last thing I remember is the Skinners.’

Weiryn and Sarra traded glances. ‘You were in danger of your life, against a foe you could not fight,’ the god said. ‘We had meant to bring you only, but this – man’—he glared at the mage—‘refused to let go of you. We were forced to bring him as well.’

‘I just thank the Goddess that you met the Skinners on one of the great holidays, when we could pull you through to us,’ added Daine’s mother. ‘Otherwise you would have been killed. It fair troubles me that no one we’ve asked has ever heard of those creatures.’

Light bloomed through the curtains on a window that filled one of the walls, growing steadily brighter, then fading. Just as it was nearly gone, another slow flash came. ‘Oh, dear,’ remarked Sarra as Weiryn opened the curtains. ‘They’re still at it.’

‘What’s going on?’ Numair asked, lurching to his feet.

‘Will you sit?’ cried Daine’s mother. ‘Men! You’re so stubborn!’ Numair quickly sat, this time on the bed. Sulkily, the chair that Sarra had made for him sank into the wall.

Daine stared at the view. The ground here dropped away to meet a busy stream. There were no trees between stream and house, although the forest grew thickly on the far side of the water. In the oval of open sky overhead, waves of rippling pea green, orange, yellow, and grey fire shimmered and coursed.

‘What is it?’ she whispered. Numair took her hand and squeezed it gently. ‘I feel that it means something bad, but it’s so beautiful …’

‘It means that Uusoae, the Queen of Chaos, is fighting the Great Gods,’ said the badger. ‘That light is her magic and her soldiers, as they attack the barriers between our realm and hers.’

‘She has been at it since Midwinter.’ Weiryn put an arm around Sarra. ‘Normally the lights that burn in our sky reflect your mortal wars, but this is far more important.’

‘Thanks ever so,’ muttered Numair. Daine grinned at him.

Sarra looked at her daughter and said reproachfully, ‘Speaking of war, I never raised you to be always fighting and killing. That’s not woman’s work.’

‘It’s needful, Ma. You taught me a woman has to know how to defend herself.’

‘I never!’ gasped Sarra, indignant.

‘You taught me when you were murdered in your own house,’ Daine said quietly.

Sarra turned back into Weiryn’s hold, leaning on his chest, but not before the girl saw tears in her mother’s eyes. A hand patted her ankle; a broad head thrust itself under her elbow. Against her mother’s hurt, she set Numair’s smile and the badger’s approval.

‘Sarra, our war in Tortall may seem unimportant to the gods, but not to us,’ Numair said. ‘Daine and I must return to it. They need every fighter, and every mage.’

Daine nodded, and closed her eyes. She felt dizzy. Her bones were aching again.

Sarra glanced over and saw what was wrong. ‘We’ll talk of that later,’ she said crisply. ‘You both need to drink a posset, then sleep again. It will be a few days before the effects of your passage are over.’ She went to the hearth and ladled something from a pot into a pair of cups. One she gave to Numair, the other to Daine. ‘Drink.’

The liquid in the cup smelled vile, but Daine knew better than to argue. She gulped it down when Numair did, praying that her stomach wouldn’t reject it.

‘Back to bed, sir mage,’ ordered Sarra.

‘Good night, Daine,’ Numair said. The badger echoed him.

‘G’night,’ she murmured, eyes closing already. She sank back among pillows that smelled of sun-dried cotton. ‘Oh – I forgot. G’night – Da.’

She heard a deep chuckle; a hand smoothed her curls. ‘I am glad that you are here and safe, little one.’

Daine smiled, and slept.

Waking slowly, she heard familiar voices, and thought she dreamed them.

The speaker was a mage, Harailt of Aili. ‘—from Fiefs Seabeth and Seajen.’ He panted, as if he’d been running. ‘A Yamani fleet’s been sighted to the west. The bad news is, somehow the Scanrans knew they were coming. They fled overnight.’

‘Father Storm’s curses!’ That voice was Queen Thayet’s. ‘How does the enemy get his information? I’d swear on my children’s lives that there’s no way for a spy to report our plans – and yet the enemy continues to stay one step ahead!’

‘I’ll ask the mages to start using truth-spells and the Sight, and see if we can identify an enemy agent.’ Harailt sounded worn out.

‘Please do,’ replied the queen. ‘And when we find him – or her – I hope that person is good with his gods.’

Daine opened her eyes. The little room was silent, and bathed in sunlight.

What a strange dream, she thought, and sat up.

There was an even stranger animal on her bed.

At first she thought that someone had played a very bad joke on a young beaver; her visitor had that same dense brown fur. No beaver, though, had ever sported a duck’s bill. The tail was wrong, too. It was the proper shape, but it was covered with hair. As the creature, a little over two feet in length, toddled up the length of her bed, she saw that it had webbed feet. Reaching her belly, it cocked its head first one way, then the other, examining her with eyes deeply set into the skull, near that preposterous bill.

‘G’day, Weiryn’s daughter,’ the animal greeted her. ‘Glad to see you awake.’

Daine had stopped breathing – she made herself inhale. ‘Are you a – a god?’

‘We’re all gods here, except for the immortals,’ replied her visitor.

She sat up carefully. ‘Excuse me for asking, but what are you, exactly?’

‘I am Broad Foot, the male god of the duckmoles.’

‘Duckmoles? I never heard of them.’ His fleshy bill was the same shape as a duck’s, but with comblike ridges inside the bottom half. ‘May I pick you up?’