I stared at her. My mouth went quite dry. I didn’t really know how to respond to that. I certainly didn’t want to jump to the conclusion that she seemed to be suggesting. “You—” I cleared my throat. “Are you suggesting that—”
“Yes?” A flicker of amusement, brief and bitter, returned to her eyes.
“Okay, so if anyone accuses me of hubris, uh, I guess they’ll have a point, but are you implying that I have held that job? I used to be one of the Eight?” I laughed nervously. “I mean, that would be impossible. Because, for one, you don’t have a missing member of your group. All eight of the Eight Immortals are accounted for. And for two, surely, I would remember if I was a god! That whole problem with Darzin and Dead Man would have been easier, although I guess Relos Var would still have been a thorn. And also, because, uh, you just said the Eight can’t be killed. I mean, unless you were being hypothetical there too.”
“None of the Eight has ever been killed,” Thaena said. “We’re tied to elemental forces. You’d have to destroy the force—luck or death, magic or nature—to destroy us.”
I exhaled. “Okay then.”
“However,” Thaena continued, “lest Relos Var claim I’m being deceptive—” Her voice dripped with bitter venom. “—you should know that we have not been eight in number for many years.”
“What?”
“In the Capital, if you ask someone who the eighth member of the Eight is, they will say Grizzst. In Eamithon, they will think you a fool for not knowing the eighth member is Dina. In Jorat, he is called the Nameless, his statue blank and covered by a shroud. The Vishai worship him as Selanol, the sun god, and claim that he is dead. None of these is right, but the Vishai are perhaps closest to the truth, even if the name they worship has drifted over the years. What they don’t understand is that S’arric never technically died.”
“So where is he?”
“You met him tonight, locked away in the center of Kharas Gulgoth. He opened his eyes as you approached.”
I drew a shaky breath to restart the beating of my heart. I felt my gorge rise. “So that was a god?” I must admit a part of me was relieved, consoled. You see if that figure was the eighth, well, then it meant that Thaena had been speaking hypothetically after all.
I’m not sure why I thought that was better, really.
“Yes,” Thaena said. She looked haunted. “The demons renamed him Vol Karoth.”
I tried not to think about how the very name sent shudders through me. “But why did I go there? I had no idea that place even existed.”
“Do you really want to know?” Her glance was scathing.
“I just asked. I’m tired of being lied to.”
Thaena’s nostrils flared. “I have never lied to you.”
“But you sure as hell aren’t telling me everything. What about the prophecies? Are those even real—or are they just a propaganda game played by one side against the other?”
She walked behind me and gathered my hair, pulling it over one of my shoulders. “For a very long time we assumed they were a long-term mind game being played by the demons. Then more and more of the prophecies began to be fulfilled, in very specific ways. Now we are mostly trying to discover if they are a prediction of unavoidable events given by a race that does not perceive time the same way we do, or if they are instructions on how to derive a specific outcome. Are they colorful future histories or recipes couched in symbolism?”
“Which way are you leaning?”
“Toward the recipes,” Thaena admitted. “Plus, Relos Var seems to be interpreting it that way, so we can’t afford not to as well.”
“So, you’re trying to stack the deck. Just like they are. You’ll have all the trumps in your hand when you figure it out.” I tried looking back at her, but she was standing directly behind me, so close I could feel the glittery coldness of her dress against my skin.
“Yes. And since it is difficult to repeat certain variables, it may be that we will never have this chance again. Even now, we do not control certain important cards. Before Xaltorath found you, he did worse damage elsewhere, and you have seen for yourself what Gadrith has twisted his adoped ‘son’ Thurvishar into. He may well be beyond our aid.”*
I remembered the Lord Heir of House D’Lorus and shivered, in spite of myself.
“He’s part of this too?”
She nodded. “Sadly.”
“And here I was hoping he could be someone else’s problem.”
“No, I’m afraid he is yours. Someday.”
I flinched as I felt her fingers on the back of my neck, her nails picking at the chain of my gaesh. “I still feel like you’re not telling me everything.”
“That’s because I’m not,” she agreed as she untied the necklace clasp. “You’re young and what you are not yet ready to know would fill the Great Library back in Quur. I have my reasons. I think they’re good reasons. Obviously, you’re in no position to judge, but knowing you, you’ll keep pushing until you find out. Maybe Relos Var will attempt to make it a wedge between us, which I will not tolerate. So, remember that you asked for this.” She sighed. “I don’t know for certain why you appeared in Kharas Gulgoth tonight, but I don’t think any outside force was responsible. You did it, and you did it as a primal response to being possessed by Tyentso.”
I could hear her voice but couldn’t see her, and it made me all kinds of nervous. “Yes. I guess that’s possible. I just … kind of panicked.”
“That is on me. It didn’t occur to me that given your past, it would be perfectly understandable for you to have a response to that sort of stimulation. I should have also expected the sympathetic response that transported you to the middle of the Korthaen Blight.”
I frowned. I didn’t know of anything in my past that qualified as justification for my reaction. And I knew enough about magic to know that a “sympathetic response” was flowery language for a common magical technique: like calls to like. I really didn’t know of any reason I’d have any sort of sympathy with a fallen, imprisoned god.
I closed my eyes. I did know. I could lie to myself for a thousand years, but on some level, I knew. I just couldn’t say it. I couldn’t make that leap, admit that truth out loud.
“I have a cousin named Saric,” I mused. Then I shook my head. “So S’arric was the one in the drawings I saw on the walls of Kharas Gulgoth. A man—I’m assuming Relos Var—led one of the Eight away from the others, and performed some sort of ritual. And afterward, everything was a mess and S’arric was just a dark outline. So that must be the morgage telling the story of how S’arric became Vol Karoth, yes?”
“Yes.”
“Okay, so why S’arric? I assumed Relos Var lied about what would happen back then. You all acted like he betrayed you and killed your favorite puppy. I’m guessing S’arric was that puppy: brave, loyal, not too bright. I saw the looks Tya and Relos Var were giving each other too. You all knew Relos Var. He could have lured any of you into that ritual. Why did he pick S’arric?”
“Kihrin…” Her tone was placating, faintly scolding.