[djo]

Vanheim turn 15



In which Pherios sees the sights, and Vethru has dinner out.

Vethru

She sews up my skin with small, careful stitches. Every so often, she stops to smooth the skin so it doesn't bunch up where she's sewing. Her dead fingertips linger, caressing, when she does this. Once, she looks up while I watch her. She smiles, and her teeth are white.

She looks much better than that first rainy night I met her, deep in the tower. She is younger than she appeared then; I'd say she was between Belletennares and Pherios's father in age. Today, she's traded in her blacksmith's apron for a low cut black dress. It fits her well; in dim light, she might not even look like a cadaver. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

She's finished stitching now, and I say, "Thank you. That's a much better job than I could do one-handed. And Ji is hopeless with a needle."

"My pleasure," she says. "It's the least I can do after the surgery you performed on my neck. I do enjoy seeing the world straight again."

And now her silver hair flows properly over her shoulders, too.

"Can you read it?" she asks.

"Read what?"

She raises an eyebrow. Of course. Kor already told her what I brought back.

"I don't know yet," I admit. "It's the book I was looking for, but I can't tell how accurate the transcription is. If it even is a transcription of what I think it is."

"And the rod? Is it a key to a cipher? Perhaps to the Codex of Five?"

She wants very badly to look at them. She's a language nut herself. But I'll be damned if I let her look at them before I do.

"Something like that," I say. To call the thing a key is too limiting, and to call it a dictionary, too expansive. She doesn't have the concept of what it really is. I wonder, though, how long it would take to teach her?

She pouts. It makes her look alive. Not that there's anything wrong with that; we were all alive, once. And really, it's not a black-and-white thing. She's probably more alive than I am, by most popular standards. Should I think less of her because of that? I don't see why. What's the fuss? We're all going to be alive and dead at some time in our existence. Once you get to be my age, those kinds of details matter less and less.

"Well," she says, "Maybe you could explain it to me over dinner?"

* * *

Apparently, she's been giving the dwarves cooking lessons. Some of them are even passable servers. They manage to open a second bottle of wine without shattering it, unlike the first. We drink a fairly good pinot noir and sample the light repast set in front of us. Neither of us is a heavy eater, for the obvious reason that neither of us needs to eat.

"Have you heard from Belletennares lately?" she asks me.

"He is well," I say. "He performs his duties exceptionally."

"I knew he would," she says. "What about Pherios? I hear how well he is doing, but I never see him. Tell me how he is. Tell me something not in the reports. Tell me something about him."

The things we live for--they can't be hidden. She happily works day and night with her magic, but when she sits down with me, over wine and food, and asks about my prophet and my seer, she comes alive. Thus proving my thesis; life and death come in small pieces. She and I have more of the former than we lack.

I tell her a few stories, including one I heard from Ji. She hangs on every word. It's hard for her, staying in the tower all the time. We live--all right, exist--in the same world as the living. We walk the same earth, under the same sky. They accept us. The earth doesn't tremble when we pass. The trees don't bend to let us by. People are different. They push us away, and if you happen not to be a god, you're left on the fringes. In a dark tower, all alone with a handful of dwarves.

I visit with her for a couple hours before I take my leave.

"Thank you for a lovely evening, my lady of the tower," I tell her.

She curtsies deeply. I get a glimpse down the valley between her breasts, and I'm impressed that she's kept herself smooth and firm. Skin care is so difficult when you're dead. "I enjoyed your company," she says. "Please come back soon."

"Of course," I say, feeling unusually courtly. "Perhaps I will bring milady a small gift, or perhaps some magical gemstones."

Her face lights up. "You have been reading my memos!"

"Yes, my dear, and I have sent my seers to find you more gems. Some of our new...allies have exactly what you need."

"...and are so close to another thing I would like," she says demurely.

"And what is that?"

"It's the dwarves, you see," she says. "Their talents lie at the forge and the summoning circle, not in the library. And the scholars on the hill, they are focused on your search, whatever that is. Not that they know much magic of practical value anyway. That is my dilemma. I need better minds."

I smile. Women can be so demanding. It makes things a lot easier when a woman desires that which you already intend to purchase. Obtain? OK, conquer. Whatever.


Pherios

It was vast, and impersonal, and very, very old. The granite stones, each as big as a horse, rose tier after tier above the brilliant white sands below. We had climbed to the top, and I tried to imagine what it had been like to see this coliseum filled with people watching, what? Sport? Fights? Races?

"Was it built by giants?" I asked.

"No one knows," my uncle replied. "Certainly, giants have used it. So have we, in times we barely remember. I brought your father here once, and he maintained that the structure existed before the waters receded, constructed by some aquatic intelligence whose trace is barely left on our world. When we returned home, he showed me books in support of his theory. We could not agree on whether they were fact or fiction."

"It's magnificent," said Galameteia. "If I weren't here, I don't think I would believe it. I'm going to take a better look." She lifted into the air and began to circle the arena in lazy loops.

When she had risen out of earshot, I turned to Belletennares. "Can I ask you something, uncle? About your visions?"

"Of course."

"Do you ever...see things..." I wasn't sure I could ask him. I'd known him all my life, but now, he glowed with Vethru's power. I felt small. I didn't want to bother him. But there was no one else who would understand. He waited, patient, attentive. Serious. As he always was, always had been, just like in my memories. Still family. I finished. "...about Sennei?"

He thought for a moment. I was relieved that I hadn't offended him.

"Yes, of course I have. How could I not? She is my life, more than anything, even this war." He looked out over the quiet landscape. "You have had a premonition about Galameteia. A terrible one, if I'm not mistaken."

I would've answered him, but the words stuck in my throat.

He nodded. "Do you intend to marry her?"

Again, I hesitated. Belletennares was finding my questions even though I couldn't speak them.

"You aren't sure when the right time is, or even if you should do it at all," he said. "Pherios, I can't give you the advice you think you need to hear. I can't tell you that you will know the right moment, that your decision will coalesce out of the myriad possible futures that fate presents to you. I can't tell you that your feelings will guide you truly, because the heart is as fallible as the vision we share. I can only tell you this: it is possible. You may marry her, and find happiness you only imagined. In that, it is no different than love without the intrusion of the future in your mind. You know, of course, that she will understand you, and you, her, even better than Sennei understands me, something I can scarce believe possible. I have long thought that I married the most understanding woman in the universe." He was lost in memory for a breath. "You have not spoken to your father yet."

"No, sir."

"Don't be worried," he said. "He will surely approve. And, I have heard, House Lunnetellerion would welcome your marriage."

"How do you know? Do you know someone in that house?"

"Nothing so simple. It was hinted at in a letter from Sennei." He smiled. "There is a gentle conspiracy of females through which information flows with efficiency that would shame the spies of my army. You nor I will ever penetrate its workings, so be content with the knowledge that it works to our benefit."

"Thank you, uncle," I said, and we clasped hands.

"She's returning," he said, looking past my shoulder. "She's a fine warrior. You've chosen well for yourself."

Galameteia landed. "Fiery deserts, misty plains of ice, and this place, all within a few miles. Extraordinary!"

"These are the places Vethru seeks. We must watch for them in our portents," said Belletennares. "Their power will be mined and sent back to the tower to support our magic. Tomorrow, I will show you one more location of interest before I leave you for the front. Tonight, though, we stay in civilized quarters, in town, under a roof."

* * *

I woke to the sound of her sobbing. It was still night. "What's wrong?" I asked.

"Coyote dreams," she said. That is what we'd say to each other when we had dark visions that we didn't want to talk about. Coyote dreams are small, furtive things that slink in the shadows. They can be chased away. We pretended our dreams were coyotes, because we were afraid they were dragons.

I held her until she calmed. "Why am I an egret in your visions?" she asked. "Why not an eagle, or a hawk? I'm a warrior. I'm not prey."

"You are not an egret," I told her. "You are not a bird at all. My dreams can't encompass you. They only give me a sketch. Not even a portrait. Everything you are would fill my dreams a thousand times over."

"And I wish you were all my dreams gave me..." I whispered.

She rolled over to face me. "In your visions...do I die fighting?"

Her eyes were still wet. I could feel my own tears beginning. She wasn't supposed to ask me this. We agreed. It was too hard on both of us to hear the details of what we see.

"Please," she whispered.

I didn't know. The battles, the danger--they were always scattered, shadowy forms, poorly represented by clouds and birds. I never saw the event. I just felt the doom.

"Yes," I manage to say, before my voice broke. "Always."

We comforted each other until dawn.

* * *

"I feel it, too," said Galameteia. "There's something hidden here."

"But you don't sense it, uncle?" I said. "Then, how did you know to bring us here?"

"We had just taken control of the province when Gor's troops were hit by holy fire," said Belletennares. "We search for enemies, but there were none. The barbarians had no holy men. Later on, it happened again. The cause was clearly something in the environment."

"I don't understand. Holy fire? Don't you mean unholy?"

Belletennares said, "The troops were dead. That is why they were struck by holy fire."

"We have...undead troops? I thought..." Galameteia wouldn't meet my eyes. "You knew?"

"I suspected," she said. "About the troops. But Vethru--you see him every day! How could you not know?"

"Those are just rumors! Vethru is old, he's not dead." I looked to Belletennares. "Right?"

He regarded me tolerantly. "We do as Vethru commands. If he gives me troops long dead, I will use them. I serve. I'm sorry, Pherios, that the world is not what you expect. But it is the world." He seemed at a loss for words. Finally, he shook his head and said, "I must return to the army. I hope your journey back to Vanheim is pleasant and safe." Then he rode away.

Galameteia led me to a rock where I sat down. "Vethru's...what is he?" I mumbled.

"I thought you knew," she said tenderly. "It seemed like an open secret. Something everyone figured out, but decided would be impolite to talk about."

"This is our world? We raise the dead? In Vanheim?"

"You know our history. You know the magic they did even up to Alteion's time. The blood sacrifices. The demon summoning."

"It seems so long ago. So what is he? A vampire? A ghoul?"

"I don't know. Some say he is a revenant. No one really knows."

So many things were becoming clearer, and none of them for the better. I wondered about images I had seen in my visions, and what I might make of them, knowing what I now know. "And the woman in the tower?"

"They say she is just like him."

All of this in the castle I was living in. I don't know why I was so surprised, or why the surprise offended me so much. I know that as Galameteia and I made our way back to Vanheim, one thought would not leave my mind: if this is the world we live in, what other terrible things I once thought forbidden might now be possible?