A Universe of Stories

To save the Island will take the blood of six innocents. Only that will wake the Quiet God and destroy the enemy fleet. It worked once. Will it work again?

Presenting a snippet from:

“You’re certain about this, Dir Agnon,” this from Rathe, the priest-warrior from the Hinter Islands. His fleet lay in safety in the cove whose calm waters defined the near edge of the children’s playground. Safety won too late, Skalda thought sadly, looking out over the sun-sparkled water at those handful of ships, masts split by spells of lightening, crews decimated by sendings of thirst and wasting disease.

They’d come here to huddle behind the great, untested fleet of the Circle Cove, to be nurse-maided and told it wasn’t their fault, that nothing anyone could do would succeed against the Enemy. Which might well be true.

“Certain? When are any of us certain these days, Dir Rathe?”

* * *

For this voyage, priests crewed the Pride: novices and warrior, in rank from sedir to dir, selected from scanty enough ranks not for their knowledge of the sea — they all, even the sleeping children, had that — but for the accuracy of their magic. The battle magic they would attempt tomorrow was twofold, containing both summoning and aiming. There could be no margin for error, no chance to hesitate, fear failure, and stop. Skalda had not needed the ancient parchments’ warnings or the worries of her fellow dir-priests to make that plain.

Besides, what good would a second try be? The massive fleet of the Enemy was moving inexorably closer. Why should it stop now, when nothing they had sent against it had made the slightest difference?

* * *

Captain Lienthe’s eyes met and held hers with unexpected directness. She realized Rathe’s rudeness hadn’t bothered him after all. He reached out as if to touch her arm. “Dir Skalda. I confess I’m not — comfortable –,” words seemed to fail him, and his face paled suddenly, as if seeing a whirlpool ahead into which he was about to plunge. “Forgive my impertinence, Dir Skalda. But I worry about the children. The hazards of this journey. They looked so young when you brought them on board. And they sleep.”

Skalda found she had no comfort to offer him. His eyes went dull as he looked into hers and understood. “Like that, is it,” Lienthe said in a voice oddly free of bitterness. “As well they sleep, then. Would we all could.”

* * *

“What is it?” breathed Clefta, his hand still tight on her shoulder.

Skalda shook her head, then realized she did know just as what looked like a promontory to one end of the floating reef turned to regard her through a gleaming black and yellow eye easily as tall as the Pride’s mast.

“It’s the Quiet God himself,” she whispered, “roused to war.”