The Scarred God Read online

  Anya’s eyes widened a little as the penny dropped. Vedic enjoyed the small moment of personal horror as she realised the emotions the vizier had been suppressing during their audience with the king.

  ‘You must remember he is a god,’ she said. ‘Almost certainly still alive.’

  Akyar smiled sadly, his hand moving to cover Anya’s. ‘You are as sweet as you are fierce, Lady Anya,’ he said. ‘Yet I am forced to recall that all of the gods you saw up until Pan were dead and killed at the hands of Cernubus.’

  ‘They were weak compared to Pan or Danu,’ Vedic replied.

  Akyar nodded. ‘I understand. But as he would remind me, hope left these lands a long time ago.’

  Vedic had no answer to this. He looked away and blew smoke rings across the ceiling, taking great delight in sending smaller rings through the larger ones. His mind continued to shuffle escape scenarios. There was little point in trying anything while they were still in Tream land, and that would cost them in time lost. Still, to be resupplied could be the difference between survival and death.

  ‘You two also know each other well,’ said Anya, her voice sounding faintly accusing.

  Akyar laughed. ‘Tell me what you see that has led you to this conclusion.’

  The woodsman raised an eyebrow.

  ‘Vedic doesn’t play well with others,’ she said. ‘In fact, he’s never polite or pleasant to anyone, and yet with you he is. As for you … you seem to be the first person who’s met him and not wanted to kill him.’

  ‘Then he obviously doesn’t know me,’ said Vedic, a rare smirk on his lips. ‘To know me is to want to kill me.’

  Both Akyar and Anya laughed.

  Vedic stood, walked over to the window and looked out across the canopy. He took a draught of smoke from his pipe, the bowl a glowing amber light against the night sky. They were in the uppermost levels – being vizier had some advantages – and it was possible to look across the roof of the forest to the lands beyond. The distant home of the thain, Vikrain, the largest city in the clan territory, was a simple prick of light at the western edge of a sea of leaves. Vedic did not look at the stretching canopy. He’d had enough of forests for a lifetime. Instead, he focused on the sentinels’ slow plod through the skies. They would align soon. The Shaanti used to worship that. He closed his eyes to enjoy the draught from the window as he smoked.

  ‘Are you telling me fibs?’ asked Akyar.

  Anya sipped her wine before replying. ‘Truthfully? Yes. I knew he was acquainted with you, because when you appeared out of the canopy like a kind of flying wizard, he let you live.’

  ‘You don’t miss much,’ said Vedic, ‘do you?’

  ‘Ah,’ said Akyar, standing to clear the table. ‘So sure are you of the forestal’s martial prowess?’

  ‘Forestal, my arse!’ said Anya, pausing to take a larger sup of wine.

  This is not strictly wise, thought Vedic. She thinks the drink will help with her nerves, but wine will only make the shakes worse. Vedic tried to remember if there was ever a time when the kills had made him shake. He found he could not.

  She continued. ‘Vedic is a warrior, or I’m a—’

  ‘Charming lady who perhaps should slow down,’ said Akyar, attempting to take the glass from her.

  ‘I’m fine,’ she said, turning to the woodsman. ‘It’s true though, isn’t it, Vedic? You’re a warrior.’

  The woodsman turned towards her. He rested one arm on the window. He exchanged an amused look with Akyar. The bottle of wine on the table looked to be almost empty, and Anya swayed gently like grass in the wind.

  ‘It’s true, I know Akyar,’ said Vedic.

  ‘Stop teasing me. You’re a warrior.’

  ‘We have an early start,’ replied Vedic. He no longer felt like smiling. ‘You should get some sleep.’

  ‘I’m not tired.’

  ‘I am,’ said Vedic. He needed time to think, away from the others. He emptied his pipe into the fire and pulled himself up the ladder out of the living area in search of a bed.

  Vedic could hear Anya’s voice lose the pretence of drunkenness as she continued talking to Akyar. He paused.

  ‘I was sure he’d let something about himself slip if we were drunk,’ said Anya, ‘if he thought I wouldn’t remember.’

  ‘Ah, I see you can hold your liquor after all.’

  ‘I could drink most of the men in my village under the table. Not that I’m proud of that.’

  ‘You humans do like addling what little intelligence you have.’

  ‘My grandfather certainly did.’

  ‘I think there are lots of things you’re better at than your male brethren. Hence, you are here and they are not.’

  ‘Vedic manages not to see it,’ said Anya, saluting Akyar with the glass. ‘So, how do you know our charming woodsman?’

  Akyar laughed. ‘Oh, I’m not sure charming is a word I would use to describe him.’

  ‘How would you?’

  ‘Ah, Anya, you seek to draw me on secrets that are not mine to bandy about. You must ask Vedic these questions.’

  Anya’s disappointment was again obvious, prompting Akyar to add, ‘I have from time to time passed messages from the gods to Vedic, but unlike Pan, I have no quarrel with the woodsman.’

  ‘I thought the Tream hated the gods?’

  ‘Some do. Some simply distrust them, having studied them for decades. I am of neither opinion. They fascinate me.’

  ‘I can’t tell if Vedic was made a forestal as a reward or a punishment,’ said Anya. ‘He seems to think he did something awful in the past.’

  ‘Ah, to Pan it was,’ said Akyar, sighing. ‘Indeed, to you it might be as well, but to myself, a Tream, I’ve seen humans do worse, and I probably will see them do the like again. It is not your fault, it’s in your blood: you’re violent creatures. The monkeys that we see in the eastern reaches will tear apart interlopers if they get the better of them. Humans are no different.’

  ‘Aside from not being monkeys … I don’t know what he did,’ said Anya.

  Vedic thought she sounded frustrated, but he did not want her prying. He felt bad enough that he was lumbered with another when he needed to get to Danu.

  She continued. ‘No one will tell me. But it seems to me the crime couldn’t be that bad, not compared to what I have seen men do, or he would have found a way to leave me to die. No one truly evil could risk themselves again and again.’

  Akyar did not reply loud enough for him to hear. Vedic thought for a moment the vizier was laying out his story. Perhaps this might be better. What about your arm? he thought. If she behaves stupidly when she knows, and Pan is gone, how will you ever get free of this magic? He had a vague vision of himself following Anya like a poor man’s shadow until the end of time while Danu rotted in a cage. He shook his head. He did need to sleep.

  Akyar watched the weary and drunk Anya – whatever she claimed about her tolerance – stumble from the main living quarter of his home into the bedchamber. He had given the bed up willingly – he did not want to be scraping his new ally off the forest floor. He suspected she was the only reason Vedic had not attempted to fight his way free. Cursed woodsman.

  In the quiet of the empty living quarter, only the faint odour of stale smoke and fine wine to keep him company, Akyar pondered his failure. He had been so sure. Jiana’s description, her mental picture, had been as clear as any in the archive, as sharp as his own. He’d been talking to her ever since they were little; she was like an extension of his own mind.

  Why would the records not show the Morrigan as she was?

  You know why. It was his own mind’s voice answering. The truth was that neither god nor Tream really controlled the trees that kept both races’ archives. They only revealed what they wanted. Many were insane after so much abuse from the world of men. Others had grown bored, and a small few enjoyed playing games a bit too much. His head spun a little. He stood and opened the door.

  The night sky outside was clea
r enough to see the sentinels marching across – a slow-motion dance of light, like fireflies in a cosmological mating dance. Akyar stepped outside into the crisp night air.

  The vizier had always loved the sentinels, the three watchers in the night sky, who had kept him company when he could not sleep. In the older archives, and amongst the older gods, he had found tales of them bizarre enough to put him at risk of execution even with Hogarth on the throne. Once upon a time, he would have risked death to bring the knowledge back to his people. Pan had changed that.

  It hurt to think of the god as dead.

  ‘Why did you lie to me?’

  Hogarth stood a little way away on the same branch. He was cloaked. Akyar imagined he looked a lot like the wraith Vedic and Anya had described seeing in the Corden. Akyar acknowledged his old friend with a nod. Neither of them had much time for the pretensions of royalty in private. Hogarth had taken to seeking out his company and counsel more and more for this very reason.

  ‘I did not lie to you,’ said Akyar. ‘I thought the woman was Danu. I have told you how I saw her.’

  ‘I’m not talking about the goddess,’ said Hogarth, not lowering his hood. ‘I am talking about Pan.’

  There it was. Akyar felt his stomach lurch and his cheeks burn. He felt as if he had been spotted wearing human clothes and reading their absurd paper scrolls.

  ‘What?’ he replied.

  ‘I already suspected,’ said Hogarth. ‘The amount of time you were away. I thought the goddess had caught your eye, perhaps. You were so against confrontation, but the minute they mentioned Pan’s death …’

  ‘He is not dead,’ said Akyar, his voice quiet.

  Hogarth drew back his hood now. The king looked tired. He had aged a decade in a few days.

  ‘You’re keeping secrets from me, Akyar, and I do not understand why. What is this god that has come between us?’

  ‘You do not know everything just because you have a crown on your head,’ said Akyar, his temper rising. ‘You would not go into the deep archives; you would not listen to the lost boughs. You expect me to sift the truth from their broken lies, and you no longer listen when I warn you.’

  ‘You can make mistakes, Akyar,’ said Hogarth, his voice gentle. ‘It is not your fault that Meyr was taken.’

  ‘I was supposed to be with them.’

  ‘And if you had been, I might be mourning my fallen friend as well, might never have heard of the woodsman’s infraction and have no hope at all of anything but war with this scarred god.’

  Akyar did not answer. The truth was he blamed not himself but the king for the boy’s predicament. The king’s boyhood prejudices against the gods had likely provoked them into taking a hostage against the prospect of yet another war with the Tream. Even without this incident, the king’s attitude towards their neighbours was getting worse every year, driven by his anger at his brother’s fate so many years ago. Akyar had made a great deal of effort to secure the lives of Vedic and Anya to help in recovering the boy.

  ‘What is it?’ asked Hogarth, an edge coming to his voice.

  Akyar did not look away from his stare. ‘You, milord,’ he replied. ‘You do not listen to me any more. I think on my return this will be my last time as your vizier. I am no longer useful.’

  Hogarth folded his arms. ‘I am still king. I will take my own counsel on when my ministers resign.’

  Akyar shook his head. ‘No, not in this. I cannot guide you on the road to war, which is where you are headed, consciously or unconsciously. I will find the prince and bring him home, and then I will leave.’

  Hogarth stepped forward and placed his hands on Akyar’s shoulders. ‘Old friend, this is an overreaction …’

  ‘Is it? I told you not to send our forces through the Wound. Do you know whose land that is?’

  Hogarth shook his head.

  ‘The Morrigan’s,’ replied Akyar. ‘I checked after my mistake became apparent. You never listened. The Wound is a dark place in both our and the humans’ histories.’

  Hogarth looked like Akyar had struck him.

  ‘All those years ago,’ said Akyar, pushing the lesson home. ‘Did you forget what your father was trying to teach you when he sent me to negotiate for you?’

  ‘My father was too soft with them,’ said Hogarth. ‘The humans are violent and petty in whatever form they choose to take, god or mortal. You cannot be weak.’

  ‘Is it weakness that drives that girl to help you?’

  ‘Self-interest. She wants to save her people,’ said Hogarth.

  ‘No,’ said Akyar, slapping his fist into his palm. ‘She would help you even if you had not made it part of your bargain. She is the only reason Vedic is helping you – because she has shamed him.’

  Hogarth pulled his hood back up.

  ‘I will accept your resignation when Meyr is returned,’ he replied, his voice hoarse. ‘You may leave my lands thereafter and join the gods you have so come to cherish.’

  ‘Banishment?’

  Hogarth hesitated. ‘A gift.’

  ‘Jiana will not understand.’

  ‘Jiana is not as she was.’

  Hogarth slipped away into shadows. Akyar watched him go, hoping that there was still time to fix this terrible error that had led to the child being taken. Perhaps, if he were lucky, he could find a way to make the king see that only Cernubus was the enemy and not all the gods. The Kurah invasion put them all at risk. Hogarth could not see the danger.

  Akyar looked back up at the sentinels, hoping to see their soothing light once more, but was disappointed to see that the racing clouds had obscured them and brought about the full dark.

  Chapter Sixteen

  They left at dawn.

  The clouds still covered the sky above the trees, and everything appeared to be covered in a strange silver light, as if the world had been spun anew from cobwebs. Anya pulled the cloak the Tream had given her tight around her worn clothes. They had not been able to do much else for her, given they did not wear any clothing themselves. However, the sword Jiana had given her was strapped to her back, and there was a knapsack containing food, and full waterskins on her shoulder. Vedic had his pack thrown across both shoulders, his Tream sword wedged in on the right shoulder and his axe strapped to his hip. He had not bothered to replace his bow. There was no need, because Akyar was carrying one, along with his own sword and pack. Vedic led the way, followed by Akyar and Anya, who walked side by side.

  To Anya, it felt as if they were sneaking out.

  Jiana did not come to see them off, but Hogarth did. He stared at them from the Tream palace’s gates on the forest floor, and as they travelled out of the Tream lands into the gods’, Anya spotted the odd Tream face up in the trees, watching them with the intensity of a panther watching its prey.

  The companions did not talk. Their evening of drinking had left them comfortable enough in their company not to. Or are we all travelling with our own ghosts? thought Anya. Fin and her grandfather were back walking by her side, but she had not heard her mother’s voice in an age.

  ‘Where are we going?’ asked Akyar of Vedic. ‘The boy was taken due east of here.’

  Vedic did not look at the vizier, but he replied, ‘Where he was taken is irrelevant. We know the Morrigan took the boy, and so she is likely to have bound him at her palace. In the Wound.’

  Anya tilted her head at this. She had never heard of the Wound. ‘What’s that?’

  Vedic didn’t turn around to look at her either. ‘We’re making for the Raized, Anya, but in the Tream language, it is called the Wound.’

  Anya felt cold. She knew what the Raized was. Every Shaanti did, and she had little desire to go there. The thought of the frightened Tream prince carried her on.

  ‘I don’t think a frontal assault is a very good idea,’ said Akyar. ‘She’ll be expecting us. Is there not another, more hidden way to this creature’s lair?’

  Vedic did look at the Tream now. ‘What aren’t you telling me?’
r />   Akyar shook his head. ‘Nothing. I just think we should be wary. She’ll be expecting a response of one nature or another from Hogarth.’

  ‘I think Akyar is right,’ said Anya. She wanted no part of the Morrigan’s lands, and she knew enough of them to be very afraid.

  ‘What we want to do is irrelevant,’ said Vedic. ‘What we have chosen is the issue. If we must free the boy, then we must go into Golgotha.’

  ‘And I suppose it is just coincidence that none of our guards that are trailing us will follow us in there?’

  Vedic grinned at Akyar. ‘You’re getting the idea now.’

  The vizier looked at Anya with pleading eyes.

  Anya frowned. ‘No, the woodsman is right. In the legends of the Morrigan, you can only gain entry via a tunnel in the Raized.’

  ‘What if she hasn’t taken him there?’

  ‘The rest of the forest is under the control of Cernubus,’ said Vedic. ‘And before that, Danu. I don’t know about Cernubus, but Danu would never tolerate this kind of action. Who do you think has kept the peace on their side for the last thousand years?’

  ‘What if Cernubus ordered the kidnap?’

  Vedic stopped. The vizier had landed a point, and Anya certainly didn’t know the answer to the question. Vedic thought before he spoke.

  ‘We have to accept that possibility. We cannot know, but I would be surprised if the Morrigan has gone over to Cernubus – even for her that would be a step further than she has ever gone. Cernubus has Pan. I have a hard time imagining she would allow anyone to do harm to Pan, for example, who was always one of her favourites, and Cernubus has done him harm.’

  Akyar didn’t move. ‘But you can’t be sure.’

  ‘It doesn’t matter,’ said Anya, stepping forward. ‘If the Morrigan is doing it for Cernubus, then it is a deliberate trap for the Tream, to distract you while the Kurah do their work. She will have gone to Golgotha. You can’t hide the boy in the open forest – you would find him too easily.’

  Vedic nodded and resumed the march. Akyar hesitated for a moment before following Anya at a slow pace, his eyes darting back in the distance to where he knew the Tream scouts were following. For now.