The Valley of the Gods Read online

  Jarek broke off his kiss with Kish, buried his face deep in her hair for a moment, and then turned to face Acharsis, arm around Kish’s shoulders. “So. That was a fine miracle. Now to the next. How do we reach Nekuul?”

  “You don’t,” said Acharsis. “Remember? We don’t journey to Nekuul’s realm. We bring it to us.”

  “How?” asked Kish, still staring up at Jarek in wonder.

  “That… I’m not quite sure of.” Acharsis rubbed at his jawline. By Ekillos’ yard-long staff, it was good to be young again. He wanted to dance, to drink seventeen pitchers of wine, to laugh and sing and leap for the sheer sake of defying gravity. “Controlling our own images is intuitive; we’re deeply connected to our own sense of self. Transporting ourselves to Nekuul’s realm? There’s only one traditional way to do that.”

  Sisu shook his head. “Nahkt was such a waste of time. Why’d he lead us like fools through that forest and down the cliff when there was no point in traveling anywhere?”

  “I think,” said Acharsis, figuring it out even as he spoke, “that he hoped the act of travel would teach us its futility. That we would learn through experience what we divined here. And perhaps he was right. I wouldn’t have been able to make the intuitive leaps that I just did had we not first undergone all that we experienced. A pity, however, that he did not live to see his lessons finally be learned.”

  “We envisioned ourselves young, and young we became,” said Jarek. It was so strange to hear his old voice once more. “Do we then just envision Nekuul’s realm?”

  “Perhaps,” said Acharsis. “I don’t know. I’ve never been there, so I don’t have a good grasp of its appearance.”

  “I do,” said Sisu. “I’ve dreamed of it many times. Sent too many souls to her waiting arms. Heard the deathless speak of their visions after being torn back from the land of the dead. I can take us there.”

  “All right,” said Acharsis. “Confidence! I like it. Perhaps we should all hold hands?”

  “Jarek can’t go,” said Kish.

  “True,” said Jarek. “But perhaps I can await you all just outside her realm.”

  “I don’t know what ‘just outside her realm’ looks like,” snapped Sisu.

  “Then leave me here,” said Jarek. “I’ll await your return.”

  “And fight off the spirits and demons all by yourself?” Kish shook her head. “No. I’ll stay with you.”

  Sisu rolled his eyes. “To defend him, or…?”

  Kish glared at him. Before she could retort, Acharsis stepped in. “Enough.”

  “Then,” Sisu crossed his arms angrily, “how do you propose we get there?”

  “Yours is the awareness, the intimacy with Nekuul. It’s in your very blood. We’ll use that. Let’s attempt the following. Everyone, sit.”

  After a moment’s hesitation, they did so, facing each other in a tight square.

  “Now. Sisu. Close your eyes. Focus on my voice, and my voice alone. I want you to think of the land of the dead. Envision it. Not just the images you’ve seen in murals or described by others, but what emerges from your own inner light. Focus on the beat of your heart, and allow that cadence to guide you inside. Deeper and deeper. Allow it to guide you to Nekuul’s blood. Her being is enmeshed in your own. Do you sense it? Mixed in with you like wine poured into water?”

  “Yes,” said Sisu softly.

  “Hold onto that. Her presence. Her power. Now. Raise it up within you. From the depths.” Acharsis hesitated. He wasn’t quite sure what he was saying, what to say next, but he couldn’t stop now. “Bring it closer. Her realm. Her power. Her essence. Envision its approach, like a bucket being pulled up from a very dark well. Rising higher, ever higher. Approaching you, growing more vivid, more clear.”

  Sisu furrowed his brow with effort, and the ground beneath them rumbled. His eyes snapped open in alarm, and Acharsis flung out his hand. “No! Close! Focus!”

  Sisu scrunched his eyes shut even as the trembling abated.

  Acharsis leaned forward. “You were almost there. Focus on her power. Her being. Her essence. Your goddess Nekuul. Think of her land, her realm, her might. Imagine it coming ever closer.”

  “Too vast,” said Sisu weakly. “It’s too much.”

  “Try.”

  The ground began to shiver again, the lanterns overhead swaying as the branches dipped and swung. Sisu pressed his fingers to his temples and hunched over, and the ground shook even more violently.

  “Acharsis?” Kish was holding onto Jarek’s arm. “Is this working?”

  A deep rumble filled the air, and they all suddenly lurched upward as the ground beneath them tore free of the black rock. The tree and perhaps five yards of rock in all directions from its base ripped free of the black plain, to sail ever higher into the void.

  “Acharsis?” Sisu was staring in wonder at the tree, then the sky beyond. “What did I do?”

  Acharsis laughed. “I have no idea. But whatever it is, don’t stop.”

  Jarek climbed slowly to his feet, one hand on the tree’s twisted trunk. “Are we flying toward Nekuul?”

  “Perhaps,” said Sisu, closing his eyes again. “I can feel her presence like a distant cloud. For a moment I almost took us into it, but then - no. So instead, I moved us toward it. It’s growing larger by the moment.”

  Acharsis strained, peering into the dark. There was no point in correcting Sisu’s language. The end result was the same. But he didn’t see anything in the darkness beyond. The line of lantern-lit trees was falling away beneath them, its path extending in a different direction. They were floating out into absolute nothingness.

  “Well.” He rubbed at his head furiously with both hands and then grinned. “You did it! We’re on our way. We just have to hold on tight till we ‘get’ there.”

  Sisu’s smile was strangely tentative. “We did it. I did it. We’re going to do this. I can feel her realm manifesting just beyond us. We’re going to make it!”

  “What was that?” Kish drew back from the edge, drawing her hammer as she did so.

  “What was what?” asked Acharsis.

  “Something just moved out there, close by. Something black. Massive.”

  Acharsis carefully stepped around the tree to join her. “Out where?”

  “There,” said Kish, and Acharsis saw it. A black-scaled coil, as wide as a cart, sliding past like a snake undulating into the depths. The gleam of lantern light on its hide caused it to appear for but a moment, and then it fell away into the void and was gone from sight.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  “What is that?” asked Jarek, one hand resting on the tree trunk for balance.

  “I don’t know,” said Acharsis, trying to quell the pang of terror that had flashed through him. He’d felt so confident, so assured of their victory. “Nahkt mentioned something called Chorios, did he not? The world serpent?”

  “He also said his spell would help us pass it without any danger,” said Sisu. “So much for that.”

  “Steady now,” said Acharsis, as much for his own benefit as theirs. “We’re still moving forward. Perhaps his spell protects us still.”

  “Perhaps,” said Sisu reluctantly.

  As one they peered into the void. The air was filled with a subtle hissing sound, akin to sand pouring through a large hourglass. The darkness itself seemed to tremble. Nobody spoke, but then a vast head swept before them, and Acharsis caught a glimpse of crocodilian features, fangs as long as he was tall, writhing tendrils, an eye like a pool of water and bifurcated by a depthless slit.

  Then it was gone, and in its place were the endlessly flowing coils of its serpentine body, massive and rushing by, the scales blurring into each other, easily ten yards tall and completely blocking their passage.

  “Around it!” said Acharsis, stepping up alongside Sisu. “Can you guide us down?”

  “This is no pleasure craft on the Leonis,” snarled Sisu. “I can’t just swing a rudder and hope for wind.”

  “Do somethin
g,” said Kish. They were drifting ever closer to the snake’s passing body. Acharsis ran his hands through his wonderfully thick and full hair. How massive was this world snake if it was still flowing by them at such speed?

  With a lurch their small island dropped, lanterns and branches swaying wildly, and Sisu let out a cry of surprise and accomplishment both. As their only frame of reference, it looked as if the coils were rising up into the sky. Down they drifted, until Jarek let out a startled curse.

  “Alok crush it, below us!”

  Acharsis dropped to his knees at the edge of the island and peered down just in time to see Chorios fly past, drawing his impossible length behind and cutting off their descent.

  “Stop!” cried Kish. “Stop!”

  Sisu let out a shout of frustration and the island began to slow, but not quickly enough. Down they drifted, ever slower, but Acharsis saw that they’d not stop in time.

  “Hold on!” he cried. “Grab onto the tree!” He lunged for the trunk just as the others did, and then they hit the serpent’s back. Immediately the island shook violently, bounced and whipped away alongside the serpent’s trajectory. The tree creaked violently, lanterns spinning about, a half-dozen flying clear off the branches altogether to fall in tangential arcs into the night below.

  “Up!” screamed Acharsis, holding tight and glad for the return of his second hand. His legs lifted off the ground as their island spun and hopped violently, chunks of the black earth breaking off altogether. “Up!”

  Sisu roared with supreme effort. His eyes were squeezed tightly shut, and as his cry grew ever more desperate the tree finally lifted back up into the air, settling down, the four of them crashing to the ground, branches and lanterns still swaying.

  They’d lost about half of the island, great pieces having torn themselves away from the base of the tree, so that now they were forced to stand with their backs nearly pressed to the bark.

  “What now?” asked Sisu, gasping as if he’d run a mile. “Back?”

  As if in response, Chorios dove down at a diagonal behind them, and then looped overhead. Within moments they were trapped within an ever-flowing tangle of coils, escape in each direction cut off by the serpent’s massive body that seemed to flow by without end.

  “What do you think, Acharsis?” Jarek’s calm helped ground his own thoughts; Acharsis took a deep breath and fought to center himself.

  “I’m not sure. Sisu, can you sense Nekuul’s realm still?”

  Once more Sisu closed his eyes, and then he grimaced. “Dimly. But the damn snake’s cutting me off from it. Like bars in a cage.”

  “Then we’ve no choice,” said Acharsis. “Let’s try and parley.”

  “Parley?” asked Jarek, eyebrow lifting.

  “Of course. Excuse me.” Acharsis edged forward and then cupped his hands around his mouth. “Hello! Chorios? Chorios! I am Acharsis, son of Ekillos, god of wisdom and male sexuality, native of the River Cities and traveler through these realms. Chorios! I bid you attend me!”

  The knot of flowing coils was almost complete around them; wherever Acharsis looked he saw only blurred scales, an interweaving of serpentine flesh whose complexity foiled his every attempt to even guess which part might be at the fore and which behind.

  He cupped his hands to yell once more when the coils directly before him parted, and the monstrous serpent thrust its head slowly between its own gliding body. It was awesome, terrifying, a vision worthy of a god, a hallucination such as might drive a fevered man mad. Acharsis took a deep, steadying breath again and tried for a light, convivial smile.

  “Hello! You heard me. I’m relieved. Chorios? The world snake? A pleasure to meet you.”

  It turned its head to one side so as to regard him with one baleful eye. The vertical black slit was somehow even darker than the void in which they hung, and the great iris was marbled with a faint, necrotic blue, as if it was in and of itself a portal to the truest of netherworlds.

  “You have strayed too far,” said the vast snake, its voice surprisingly intimate as if whispered from behind Acharsis’ shoulder. He saw the others jump. They must all be hearing it just as closely. “You have pushed past the boundaries, and are now in my realm. Foolish souls.”

  “Well, I won’t deny that I’ve been accused of being a fool,” said Acharsis, convivial smile turning a little desperate. “And perhaps this time warrants the name. But! This straying was by design. The lamassu of Magan gave us permission to journey to the edges of this realm, and there pass over into Nekuul’s domain. So, in a way, this is all approved by the higher powers. As such, ah, could you open one of those coils there just enough for us to slide on by?”

  Chorios the world snake betrayed no emotion, but continued to simply regard Acharsis with its vast eye. “When the world was birthed and the skies did steam, when the ground ran like honey and the souls of man and animal tore themselves free of Amubastis’ dream, then was I charged with my eternal task.”

  “This is starting to sound like a no,” said Acharsis.

  “I was set to girdle the land of night, to protect and embrace it, to press the darkness upon Amubastis’ endless light, counterpoint to her glory. This is my realm. My charge. The words of the lamassu carry no weight here. You are mine to do with as I see fit.”

  “Also, ah, we had a spell cast on us by a spirit guide not too long ago. It was meant to safeguard our passage?” Acharsis gave an apologetic smile. “I can recite it if you desire? It went something like this: Oh you Great Soul, greatly majestic, behold, we have come but shall not see you; open the netherworld and afford us your protection, o Amubastis—”

  Now Chorios did react, its endless coils spasming and constricting so that the space in which the tree floated suddenly grew far tighter, its uppermost branches brushing against the rushing body and causing the island to turn even as the leaves were flensed and the branches broken.

  Acharsis cut off the prayer as the world snake’s eye lit up with blue flame.

  “You profane that prayer,” hissed the voice in his ear. “Sacrilege. I shall consume you, and when in time I swallow the sun its rays shall shrivel you, and only then shall you know a final sleep!”

  Chorios opened its maw, revealing a startling crimson tongue, massive milk-white fangs pushing forth, and fetid air blasting over them like the exhalation of a charnel pit.

  Jarek stepped forward, blazing Sky Hammer in hand, arm cocked back to hurl it, but Acharsis beat him to the punch. On instinct he tore free the amulet the lamassu had gifted him so that he might help Elu through the Quickening, its white flame shining through his clenched fingers, and hurled it straight into the world snake’s gullet.

  The amulet spun over and over and then disappeared down Chorios’ throat, its white fire briefly illuminating its interior before vanishing altogether. The effect was instantaneous: Chorios wailed and reared back, its tight cage of coils falling into disarray as it whipped its head from side to side.

  “Fly us through!” Jarek bellowed, shaking Sisu so hard the youth’s head snapped back and forth. “Go!”

  Sisu tore himself free, raked his hair back and pointed at a large gap, the tendons standing out in his neck from the sheer effort, his jaw clenched, eyes bulging.

  The tree soared forward. Chorios’ coils fell about them as if the sky itself were collapsing, vast segments dropping past, each of which would have shattered them without difficulty. On they flew, faster and faster, the gap in the coils disappearing and then reappearing here and there. Sisu caused the island to veer, to duck down, and then they were sailing between two great coils. The wind was howling around them, or perhaps it was Chorios’ own keening wail, and then they were through.

  “It comes!” roared Jarek, turning to point with his hammer, and Acharsis whipped around and looked up to see Chorios diving down at them, maw open to swallow them whole. Acharsis could only gape, but Jarek took up his hammer, let out a cry and pounded it upon the black rock amongst the roots.

  The isl
and jerked down half a dozen yards, and then the tree ruptured into an explosion of falling leaves, broken branches and splinters as Chorios closed its jaws upon the upper half where they’d been but moments ago. The impact sheared away the top of the trunk and sent their island spinning like a bauble across the night.

  Acharsis yelled and leaped, catching hold of Jarek’s arm just before his friend flew free into the void. Eternity itself seemed to whirl around them as they fell, Kish’s screams a counterpoint to Sisu’s wail, and then green flames burst out over the remnants of the tree, a ghostly glow that faded just as quickly. They hit something hard, slid along some invisible surface and came to a stop.

  Acharsis let go of Jarek’s arm and fell to his knees. He couldn’t catch his breath, and remained on all fours gasping until he realized on some level he was choosing to pant and forced himself to stop. He rose up, pulled his hair from his eyes, and gazed into the sky.

  Chorios was gone. A vast and desolate emptiness was all around, devoid of wind and screams of rage.

  “What happened?” he asked weakly, turning to his friends. “Where are we?”

  Sisu lay on the ground between the great roots, an arm thrown over his eyes. “We’re here. I pulled us through as soon as we were free of the snake’s prison. We left it behind, I think. Over there. Nekuul’s realm.”

  Acharsis turned to follow his finger and saw a second battered tree complete with four strangers at its base. It rested on a much-abused base of black rock that caused it to lean at an angle, its last lanterns finally stilling.

  “That - what?” He hopped down from their island and landed in an inch of water. Startled, he hopped back, and saw that one of the distant strangers had done the same.

  “That stranger over there,” he said, the other man repeating his words, “is remarkably, perhaps even stunningly, attractive.”

  Kish and Jarek were whispering to each other, heads pressed together, and Sisu was showing no signs of getting up, so Acharsis crossed over to his other self, who also approached. When they were perhaps a foot apart, he stopped and examined his face. It was like seeing a ghost, a figure out of the dimmest memory. His youthful self. Unbowed by age, lithe and muscled and with the same roguish good looks that had disarmed a thousand very willing temple priestesses, servants, noblewomen, acolytes, cooks, messenger girls, royal maids, goatherds - or was that goat herdesses?