Mercedes Lackey - Aerie

This was just too big. It had all gotten completely out of hand—

Except that wasn’t it already out of hand? If what Rakaten-te had said was true? If this was all about the Gods of Tia and Alta at war with the Gods of the Nameless Ones . . . and had been all along . . . then the only difference was that now the poor mortals caught up in this conflict knew about it.

It made him feel as if he was in the middle of an earthshake.

I don’t want to be in the middle of this.

But he was in the middle of it whether he liked it or not.

I’m not like Ari and Kaleth. I’m not royal, I’m not a priest, I’m just the son of a farmer. . . .

He lay there with his eyes closed, listening to the slow lapping of the water against the stone and sand of the verge, with the cool water covering all of him but his chin and face. This was insane. How could he be caught up in something this big?

Someone padded softly, with bare feet, down to the waterline and dove in, being careful to do so far enough from him so as to not splash him unduly. He opened his eyes and was not surprised to see Aket-ten’s head surfacing nearby.

She looked at him out of the shadows as if she knew his thoughts. “This changes nothing, you know,” she said calmly. “We’d still defend our land and our people. The Nameless Ones would still try and conquer us again. It’s just as valid to say that we are causing this ‘war in heaven’ as it is to say the other way around.”

He blinked. “It is?”

She smirked a little and pulled damp hair out of her eyes. “The Seft cult isn’t the only one to have its little secrets. As a Fledgling, I was taught that ‘as above, so below’ also works the other way. As we, the worshippers, tend, so tend the gods. That’s one reason why Kaleth is working so hard at reconciling the cults of Alta and Tia. Eventually in every Altan/Tian pairing, if the worshippers and the priests become reconciled . . . the two Gods will become one.”

He had a funny mental image of two gods melting together like two unbaked abshati figures left out in the rain, and started to laugh. But then he sobered. “So we affect the gods?”

She nodded. “This ‘war in heaven’ may only be a reflection of the war the Nameless Ones brought to us so long ago. There is no telling for certain.”

She swam over to him as he moved into the deeper water. “I just—don’t like the whole idea of the gods swooping in and using us as pieces in a game,” he replied, his stomach clenching.

She said nothing, for a very long time. “It’s not a game,” she said very quietly. “Not for us, certainly, but not for Them either. It’s more complicated than that. I’ve been told that if they lose their followers, Gods can even die.”

“Well, maybe the Gods ought to think twice about sticking people in wars where they can die, then,” he said, irritated. It still made him queasy to think about it. Life was complicated enough without the Gods mucking about with it. “How long do you think they’ll want us to stay here?” he asked, changing the subject. “The Chosen and Kaleth, I mean.”

“I don’t know.” She swam over to the side and climbed out on the rocks to dry herself off. “I’m anxious to get back.”

He felt a pang. So she would rather be with her new wing of dragons than with him for another day. . . .

The moment he had that thought, he knew it was unfair, but he couldn’t help it. She had her duty. And these young women—they were shaping up well. Of course she needed to be with them.

He just wished she needed to be with him as much.

And he suddenly realized, with a very sour feeling in his gut, that he did not want to go back to Mefis. Not at all.

“Do you think you and Re-eth-ke could manage Rakaten-te alone?” he asked. She pulled a clean tunic over her head and tugged it down in place before turning to look at him, a hurt expression in her eyes. “It’s not you!” he exclaimed quickly. “It’s . . . my mother.”

He clambered out beside her as she eyed him with a peculiar expression. He pulled his own clothing on without bothering to dry himself off. “She’s driving me mad,” he said pathetically. “She’s my own mother, and she’s driving me mad.”

“She might be your mother, but you have seen nothing of her since you were very small.” Aket-ten sat down on a rock, chin on her fist. “How can she possibly drive you mad? Now my mother—she knows exactly how to get me to do what she wants. She can make me feel guilty without saying a word, just using a look! She knows me too well. Your mother knows you not at all.”

He ducked his head a little, feeling guilty already. “I should be happy to see her. I should want to spend as much time as I can with her and my sister. But my sister sits in the corner and plays with toys like a child because of how badly hurt she was. And my mother . . . all she talks about, all she wants to talk about, is getting the farm back.”

He couldn’t bring himself to call it “our” farm. He didn’t belong there. He hardly remembered anything about living there, and he certainly didn’t want to go back.

Ever.

Aket-ten blinked. “What would she do with it if she had it?” she asked logically. “One woman and a feeble-minded girl could not possibly keep up with the work. Does she have a man interested in her? Could she marry again if she had the land?”

Kiron groaned. “No, she does not, and would that she did! I know what she wants me to do. She wants me to find some girl in our old village, marry her, and become a farmer myself.”

Somewhat to his indignation, Aket-ten burst into laughter.

“She does! And it is not funny! Even if I did not . . . love you . . .”

There, it was out. Words that hadn’t been said between them for too long.

Words that broke the unspoken tension that had been between them. She looked up at him, eyes wide. He reached for her.

And for a long while there were no words between them, nor any need for them.

Dawn brought another summons to Kaleth’s tiny temple. This time there were only the five of them there to confer; Kaleth and Marit, Kiron and Aket-ten, and the Chosen of Seft. Kaleth looked worn; Marit, worried.

And the word was not what Kiron had expected. “We’re going back to Aerie? All of us?” Kiron repeated what Kaleth had just told them with some incredulity. “But I thought—”

“The gods have not said much, Lord Kiron,” Rakaten-te said somewhat sardonically, “But they have said that Aerie is the place where we must all be.”

“The place where it began and where it all shall end to be precise,” Kaleth added, equally sardonic. “Though they were exceedingly vague on what it was supposed to be.” He sighed. “Sometimes even I grow weary of cryptic pronouncements.

“An end to bad poetry, perhaps?” Aket-ten suggested lightly. “Or the end to watered beer? Since no one has Foreseen the end of the world, I prefer to assume that the world will go on.” She helped herself to a honeyed cake and nibbled it.

“Well,” Kaleth said reluctantly, “we were given certain . . . directions. Seek at the source of the life giver, once gracious and free, choked by enmity, now free again but crippled. If that makes any sense to all of you—”

“Only that, as ever, the Gods are fond of bad poetry and—” began Aket-ten, shaking her head.

“—not as cryptic as you think,” Kiron said slowly, interrupting her.

They all turned to face him as he spoke, the picture of the debris-choked cavern of the main spring of Aerie vivid in his mind. “The spring that once supplied water for most of Aerie in its prime was blocked up by an earthshake in the distant past, the same one that did most of the damage to the buildings there. We think that is why the city was abandoned; without that water, they could never have supported all the people that once lived there. The water’s been working a way out toward the surface for—centuries at least. Before we found the city, the spring created another outlet, but we’d been planning to dig the entire area out when we had time—”