Song of the Earth: Book Four of the Firebird's Daughter series Read online

  “Come on,” she said, suddenly standing up. “I can’t stand being around all these people. Let’s go for a walk on the beach where we can be alone for a little while and get some air.” She held out her hand.

  “Near the water?” he scoffed. “Who are you?” he chuckled. “When did you ever care for the sea?” He remembered well how often she had despaired over how thick and wet the air was the whole time they were here last time. Before. His smile fell, though, when he saw her tense.

  “I … I … don’t know,” she stammered, confused. “Oh Jonath, there’s so much I don’t understand. What if I lived a long time after you did? Why don’t I know what happened?” Alarmed there were real tears standing in her eyes, he took her gently by the elbow, guiding her out of the tavern, into the street.

  “It’s okay, Drena. The beach is probably the only place where at least there is some sand. Not nearly enough, of course. And certainly no camels …” He kept up a running monologue as they walked, teasing and talking until she covertly wiped the offending tears from her eyes. He turned his head when she did, knowing she would be embarrassed for having shed them. But inside, he wondered how they were going to survive this new life they were given if they didn’t find answers soon. And was it a real life, or would it be taken from them? Surely there had been magic involved and that always – always – meant one deity or another was involved. But which one? And why?

  * * * * * * * *

  While he’d seen it done before, Chared had never really watched as Oculis transformed from an owl into his human form, either because he’d been too busy doing something else, or because he’d, somehow, felt as though it was too private of a thing to be casually watching. But this time he watched carefully, as he landed on the beach beside him, fascinated at the amazing number of rapid changes every bit of his body went through. He wondered, too, if Nieva’s transformation was any different than her grandfather’s was. He thought he would probably never know, and almost laughed at himself for being embarrassed to think of watching her transform. It’s not as if either of them were ever unclothed! And so he found himself amused as Oculis walked across the sand towards him.

  “What’s so funny?” he asked, a kind of smirk forming on his own face.

  “Nothing, really,” Chared responded, shaking his head. “I’m just surprised to find you here. I would have thought you would be in Bila, helping with …” he paused, considering, then continued, “everything,” he shrugged, “going on there. If they’re still sorting out who is the emperor, or empress, I would have thought you would have been in the thick of it.”

  “And here I thought the same thing about you,” Oculis chuckled. “Especially with your kind of magic, I mean. You would be able to help them figure things out a lot faster than I would.”

  “Afraid they won’t trust you?” Chared ventured a guess.

  “Aidena’s there,” he responded, turning his head away, as if that explained everything.

  “You’ve already proven yourself to be an ally, Oculis,” Chared said, lifting his arm towards the other man, as if to lay a hand of friendship on his shoulder, then dropped it again without touching him. Neither of them were truly welcomed nor trusted, and may never be. “Don’t trust yourself?” he asked instead.

  Shrugging, Oculis turned towards the sea, looking out to the horizon. “If she comes to me, I will try again. If not, I’ll leave her be.”

  “No more dropping her to her death?” Chared tried a small jest, relieved when the corners of Oculis’ mouth turned up in a small smile while he shook his head.

  “I’ll be lucky if she doesn’t use her storm powers on me to tear me out of the sky in retaliation!” he laughed then, and Chared was sure it had been some time since he’d done so.

  “I have to admit I’m curious, and I was headed to Bila,” Chared told him. “But I … felt something and I still can’t explain it, so I came here.”

  “Here?”

  “To the City by the Sea. To the sea,” Chared shrugged, shaking his head. “I can’t explain it.” He paused for a moment, surprised to find himself willing to share his thoughts with Oculis. They had each evolved from who they’d been the first time they’d met. They’d been enemies then, each intent on bringing about very different futures for Jarles before he accepted his role as Amphedia’s heir. And while they weren’t what either one of them would probably consider a “friend,” neither did they have any reason to be enemies. Not anymore. Nor did they have many others who considered either of them friends.

  “At first, I thought it might be Jarles,” he said, wishing he could pace, feeling uneasy standing in one place. “I thought maybe he had come back here.”

  “I wouldn’t count on that,” Oculis interjected. “He was pretty clear that he wasn’t willing to give Giya what she wanted.”

  There was much Chared wanted to say about that particular arrangement, but he held his peace. That was a conversation for another day. “It wasn’t him though. It was something … that has to do with him, though, I think,” he finished, feeling the words were wholly inadequate to what he was feeling.

  “Amphedia?” Oculis asked, and Chared could feel the man’s whole body tense.

  “She’s here, all right, but she hasn’t interfered with anything. She’s probably still healing from her fight with Sov.”

  “She hasn’t interfered yet,” Oculis corrected.

  Chared sighed deeply, nodding his head in silent agreement. He’d spent so much of his life enthralled with her, he knew he would never be truly free of her influence, nor wishing he could go back to the simple life he’d lived at her cruel mercy. But he was his own man now, neither obliged nor in service to any of the deities. And he was more powerful now than he’d ever been. He shook his head at the thought. Now that he wielded such amazing, logical, magic, he discovered he was more careful in how he applied it. He’d once wanted to rule over others, to have them be at his mercy. Now, he wasn’t at all sure what he wanted. Still, a small part of his heart ached that he hadn’t found Amphedia waiting for him in the surf.

  “Do you have any idea what you’re looking for?” Oculis asked, picking up a handful of small stones, then tossing them into the water, one after the other.

  “No,” Chared replied flatly, automatically, unwilling to share his impressions with the other man. Then he reconsidered. No, they weren’t friends, and he wasn’t someone Chared thought he could trust, but neither were they enemies, and this … feeling he’d been tracking didn’t feel like it was something that anyone would be able to use against him, so maybe Oculis could actually help him. Trust was a funny thing though, and so he still hesitated.

  “Personally,” Oculis interrupted his internal musings, “I think it’s past time for Giya to make her presence known. I think there’s something wrong with her.”

  “What?” Chared was startled.

  “Do you think that might be what you’re feeling?” Oculis pressed.

  “Are you saying you know something has happened to her?” Chared felt the tone of his voice sharpen, instantly regretting it.

  “I’m not saying I know anything,” Oculis countered, wiping the sand on his hands off against the sides of his legs. “But Siri Ventus has expressed concern,” he finished, looking directly at Chared now.

  “Did you come here looking for me?” Oculis asked, tilting his head.

  “Yes,” Oculis told him, then laughed. “Why do you look so shocked? Are you surprised I told the truth, or that I came looking for you?”

  “Both,” Chared replied, unable to ease the frown he knew was on his face.

  “Relax,” Oculis chuckled again. “I’ve known you were in the city for the past couple of days, and when Siri mentioned her concerns, I thought of you immediately. I know you use a different kind of magic than most do around here, and I honestly thought you would be in Bila, so I sought you out to see if you have any insight into what might be happening with Giya, or if you know if she is all right.”

&nbs
p; “I don’t want us to be enemies, Oculis,” Chared said, inhaling deeply.

  “But neither of us can really trust the other either, I know,” Oculis agreed.

  “No, I came here because there is something here, and it doesn’t feel like Giya. And no,” he continued before the other man could ask the obvious question, “it’s not Amphedia either. It’s like there’s something that doesn’t belong here. That is out of time, or out of balance.”

  “Is it dangerous? Is it something like another crystal seed, or something else?” Oculis asked, intrigued.

  “If you want to know the truth, it feels like there is a person, or people here that don’t belong here. He, or they, are disrupting the grid lines.”

  “The grid lines? What’s that?” Oculis asked, already knowing.

  “They are like guidelines that circle the planet. We never really see them, but they have to do with the way energy flows. If you were walking in the sand, but it felt like you were walking in grass, you would feel it, yes?”

  “Yes,” Oculis agreed. “And I would look down to see what was wrong.”

  “Exactly,” Chared replied, “but in this case, you can’t see the difference, you can only feel it.”

  “So what are you going to do?” Oculis asked, curious.

  “I think I will go to the Temple of Life to see what I can feel there. So much has happened there in the past that there might be some kind of connection.” Chared shrugged. “I haven’t found anything here, so that’s my next stop. Care to come along?” He was surprised when he found himself asking, but then decided there was no reason not to have Oculis join him. Maybe he would see something differently than he did, now that they both knew to look for something out of order.

  “Sure,” he replied. “I’ll catch up with you there,” he said, turning to see a young man and woman coming towards them still some distance away. He watched as Chared turned, started walking, then disappeared in a brief flash of green light, then he transformed and flew out over the water before turning back to the city.

  * * * * * * * *

  “Did you see that?” Drena asked Jonath, breathless.

  “That was amazing!” he gushed, truly thrilled at having experienced such a sight.

  “One of them just walked away and disappeared,” she smiled, her heart beating quickly in her chest.

  “And the other one turned into a bird and flew away! What kind of place is this?” he wondered out loud.

  “And what else has changed since we were here?” she wanted to know, her smile fading.

  Chapter Three – Rot and Poison

  The pool, Jahari had to admit, was everything she’d hoped for when she’d asked for Borja’s help in creating a body of water near the city so those who lived there could enjoy the benefits of swimming. She’d thought Borja would be more willing to help with this project than any other because she had specifically requested a place where swimming was the primary function instead of fishing.

  She had to admit though, Borja herself had become something of a disappointment as she continued to isolate herself more and more. While they had been Ahadi together, guarding Giya for the last several centuries, she had never been reclusive. She had, in fact, been kind and generous, forthcoming and even somewhat gregarious. Jahari couldn’t imagine what had happened to have caused such an abrupt change in attitude and personality. She would have guessed tending to the waters of the desert in such a fashion as to encourage growth and life would have suited her perfectly. She had been delighted when Giya had given the task to Borja, especially considering that she had once been a sea goddess in her own right before she’d been scooped up by Lumas to undertake the role of keeping Giya safe from harm. She had tried on more than one occasion to draw her out; she wasn’t merely curious, she was concerned for her friend’s welfare. Instead, Borja had changed the conversation, or ignored it altogether. It was disconcerting and confusing.

  Nor was she the only one to have noticed Borja’s seclusion and inaccessibility; several of the Bahari had complained either directly to her, or in a way which they were sure their concerns would reach her, that Borja might not, after all, be the ideal candidate for the task given to her. Her heart, it seemed, simply wasn’t in her work.

  And yet, here was this magnificent pool that Jahari could see with her own two eyes. Nothing was lacking. The water was pure, and spring fed. In the middle of a desert. Generations of people from Nohoyo would enjoy this perfectly crafted work of art. And she knew that Borja had been the one to oversee every bit of the work that went into it, doing much of the rerouting of the waterways beneath the sands herself.

  Why then, did she have a sinking feeling that she was missing some critical piece of the puzzle? She’d thought of asking the other Ahadi for their thoughts, but decided against it. Rajesh was undoubtedly far too busy taking care of matters in Bila, and Ozahm had been missing for some time now. If ever there was someone she distrusted, it was the self-proclaimed Lord of Death. And yet the two of them were supposed to be working together to make Nohoyo more self-sustaining for all the people who lived here.

  Nor had Giya shown her face since she’d left after the fall of Sov and the rise of the new Sun Goddess, Denit. The Earth Goddess had taken pains to explain to her that she needed rest after all the events that had unfolded, including the elimination of the barrier Sov had once erected around Nohoyo. And she needed time to adjust to the very real fact that her “Other Self” – Lumas – was gone. The Goddess of Beauty had created Giya from herself so that the planet Sov had created would flourish and grow. Jahari had been there when they had breathed life into her. In time, undoubtedly as Lumas had intended, Giya had become independent from Lumas; a separate entity and a powerful goddess onto herself. And then Lumas had left her. As Giya had explained, Lumas was the first of them, able to move through time and space at will, whereas she was a part of the planet itself. She was the heart and soul of the planet. It would flourish or decay with her own health and wellbeing. And so had the Earth Goddess withdrawn to recuperate and, perhaps, to mourn. If someone knew where to find her, Jahari didn’t know who it would be.

  So it was up to her to find out what was wrong with Borja and then act on that information. It was critical they work together not just for this one, small part of the world, but for the health of the planet itself. If they were able to nourish this area, then surely they would be able to help in the larger world too. Nor did it help matters that the waters of the world were currently being neglected. The former Goddess of the Seas, Amphedia, had vanished after her battle with the Sun God, but not before Giya had taken the seas back from her. And now Giya, too, was gone. And he who would have been the Sea God had walked away. Unlike most of the human inhabitants of this world, she knew well the history of how Jarles had been selected (or created, as some of her fellow Ahadi had suggested) for that role, and it seemed to her that Giya was unwise in not having ensured balance would be maintained in her absence with his help. Except for the fact that Borja had vowed she would not allow Giya to give the seas to anyone else ever again.

  Jahari shook her head. It was a tangled mess, to be sure. And one she was determined to unravel right now. But first, she would have to find Borja. Thrusting her hands towards the ground at her feet, she allowed her senses to travel the waterways beneath the sand. Expecting to find the other goddess’ presence further east, she prepared herself to have to reach further than usual. Instead, she jerked back her hands in terror, abruptly terminating the contact, unconsciously rubbing her hands together as if to rid herself of some offending, or dangerous, matter.

  Rot. Decay. She’d felt it. Not in the water, so much as in the earth the liquid traveled through. Worse though, she knew, what she felt was weakness. She searched for the words to describe what it felt like and could only compare the sensation to that of a human dying. It wasn’t, though, a human dying she knew. It was the planet itself. And that meant Giya was not being restored as she’d thought. Would Lumas return then? Di
d Lumas even know this is what would happen when she’d left? Had she purposefully left them all to die? Had the Goddess of Beauty given them all a small spark of hope in replacing the dying Sun God with Denit, only to have it snatched cruelly away? Would the humans all die slowly, instead of in one, horrific cataclysm?

  Or was she mistaken? Perhaps it was just Nohoyo, and not the whole of the planet. Could it be that the barrier Sov had erected so long ago had poisoned the soil and that was what she had felt? It could even be that the removal of the barrier is what had caused the imbalance. She would have to reach out again to make a better assessment. Feeling foolish for having pulled back so quickly the first time, Jahari pushed harder this time, determined to thoroughly understand the threat and who, exactly, was in danger from the disease she’d felt creeping through the earth.

  Yes, it was, indeed, a disease. A poison. It was leeching throughout the soil everywhere the barrier had once been, and it was deep. The elimination of the boundary hadn’t triggered the “infection,” though, the void magic Sov had used in creating the barrier so Nohoyo would be hidden from the rest of the world had. She’d felt the difference in the magic when she’d come here the first time, but hadn’t had the time to study it, and since then, she had become accustomed to the effects without having noticed it. But there was more here too. Something else just beyond what she’d first encountered. It was something altogether different than the void magic. It was more … natural. Magic, yes, but hidden within the rot, akin to a worm hidden within a rotting fruit.

  * * * * * * * *

  Fighting against the growing weakness spreading throughout every fiber of her being, Borja lifted her head from the sand. Here, in her private cove, intrusion was forbidden, and not for the first time, she had cause to wish she had never invoked that edict. There would be no one here to help her rise. No one to care whether she survived or perished. She had known it was a mistake to push herself so hard when creating Jahari’s precious lake or “pool” as she was calling it for some strange reason. She had known she would have to pay for her folly, and now she was. She had been getting weaker for months now, despite her best efforts to shake off what Ozahm had done to her, but now she was failing. She truly thought she would be able to negate his poison, but she’d been wrong. Even when she’d known she was wrong, she had failed to reach out for help. She closed her eyes as she laid her head back down on the cool sand. She was tired of fighting. Tired of existing.