“Don’t touch it!” a voice behind her warned.
She fought to yank her eyes away in vain. There was something terrible in those moving colors, something that she rebelled against as it drew her in. Pain flared on her ankle; it broke the pool’s grip. She stumbled back a few steps.
“Careful!” Clinging to her foot was a lizard, a striped skink. “I’m sorry I hurt you, but I thought you needed help.” Green with white and black stripes and a yellow muzzle, she was large for her kind, a foot in length. Her black eyes glinted with intelligence.
Daine bent to pick up the lizard. “So I did.” She crossed to the far side of the bluff, putting yards of stone between her and the shifting pool. There she sat, placing the skink beside her. An inspection of her ankle showed that it bled a little. “Thank you.”
“You’re welcome.” The skink jumped on top of a nearby rock to put herself at eye level with the girl. “The next time you find a Chaos vent, don’t look into it,” the lizard advised. “It’ll pull first your mind, and then the rest of you, into the realms of Chaos.”
“Chaos vents?” She licked her finger and dabbed at the bite, cleaning it off.
“You’ll find them all over the Divine Realms,” replied the skink. “They serve as the gods’ windows into the home of Uusoae, the Queen of Chaos.”
“You’d think they’d put warning markers on such things,” grumbled Daine. “And why are the gods keeping these windows open if they’re fighting this Uusoae?”
“The vents have always been in both the divine and chaos realms, whether they’re at war or not,” explained the skink. “Father Universe and Mother Flame ordered things that way. Are you over your scare?”
“I think so.” Daine leaned back, bracing herself with her arms as she looked at the view. “Why didn’t I sense you?” she asked. “I should’ve known you were here the moment I got in range.” In the distance, a hawk wheeled over an opening in the trees. Her finely tuned ears picked out the distant calls of crows, jays, and starlings. “I never felt any of the People. I can’t hear you in my mind.”
“Nor will you,” the skink replied calmly. “We are not mortal animals, Veralidaine Sarrasri—we are gods. If we are killed, we are instantly reborn in new bodies. We have our own magic, powerful magic. Mortals cannot hear us, or know us.”
Daine rubbed her ears. “I feel deaf. I feel—separate from everything.”
“It’s all right,” said her companion. “Bask awhile. The sun will do you good.”
Daine smiled to think that sunning would help, but she obeyed. The rock warmed her and banished the fear caused by the Chaos vent. Below, woodpeckers tapped trees; squirrels called alarms. Nearby a pika chirped. From the mountains behind them, first one, then another, then more wolf voices rose in pack-song. She grinned, hearing the feeble, shaky notes of wolf pups joining their elders, perhaps for the first time.
The wind shifted, and brought with it a hint of wood smoke. Looking for the source, she found her parents’ house and garden, cradled in the bend of the stream that ran past her window. A white plume of smoke trailed from the chimney.
“Look,” said the skink. “To the west.”
A large, dark bird of some kind flew up from the tree canopy in a twisting pattern. Daine couldn’t see it clearly; one moment it was shadowy, the next almost transparent. It was larger than any bird of prey, though not as big as a griffin. She would guess that it was four or five feet long, with a seven-foot wingspan. Up it flew, its spiral tightening. When it seemed as though it spun like a top in midair, the bird opened its wings to their widest, spread its tail, and faced the sun.
Daine gasped as spears of orange, yellow, red, white, and even scraps of blue light flared from the creature’s feathers, turning it into airborne flame. It flashed its blazing wings three times, then folded, shedding its fire, or covering it. Once more it was simply a nondescript bird, now flying downward in a spiral.
The skink sighed with pleasure. “Sunbirds,” she said. “They do this from noon until sunset. I never get tired of watching it.”
For a while they sat in quiet comfort, enjoying the vast scene before them. In the distance an eagle screamed. The breeze changed, to come out of the south, carrying with it the scent of water from still pools and busy streams.
The skink’s head shifted. Daine looked and saw three bird forms rise from the trees in that distinctive corkscrew flight pattern. Eagerly she watched the sunbirds climb far above the leafy canopy. At last the three faced the sun, spreading wings and tails in an explosion of color. Daine gasped at the brilliance of the hues: There were more dabs of blue and green light among these birds, even a strong hint of purple under the flame.
There was also something like a picture. Startled, she closed her eyes; the image was clear on the insides of her lids. Queen Thayet and Onua, Horsemistress of the Queen’s Riders, stood back to back on the wall before the royal palace in Tortall. Stormwings fell on them, filthy and open-clawed, mouths wide in silent shrieks. Grimly the two women, armed with small, recurved bows, shot arrow after arrow into the flock overhead, hitting Stormwings almost every time. A mage raced along the wall to join them, raising both hands. Something glittered like crystal in his palms.
The image faded. Opening her eyes, Daine got up. “I have to go,” she told the reptile, who watched her curiously. “It was very nice meeting you.”
“Come back when you can visit longer,” the god replied.
Daine frowned at the skink. “Why are you being so nice?” she asked. “I’d have thought a god would be more, well, aloof.”
The skink couldn’t smile, but Daine heard amusement in her voice. “When you were a little girl, you once saved a nest of young skinks from two-leggers who wished to torture them. For my children, I thank you—and I hope to see you again.”
Daine bowed to her, then began her descent. She had to stop more often to rest this time. A drink from the spring helped, but her legs were trembling by the time she reached the bottom.
Weiryn was there, waiting, strung bow in one hand, a dead hare in the other, quiver of arrows on his back. “Your mother is worried about you.” His tree-colored eyes were unreadable. “It’s not always a good idea to wander here, these days.”
Daine wiped her sweaty face on her sleeve. “I know what I’m doing,” she said shortly. “And what is that?” She pointed to his kill. “Surely a god doesn’t need to hunt.”
“Don’t vex that tender heart of yours,” he replied. “As gods themselves, my prey are reborn into new bodies instantly, or there would be no game anywhere in these realms. And a hunt god must hunt.” He turned and walked toward the cottage. Daine fell in beside him. “Didn’t those mortals teach you anything? The tasks of gods bind us to our mortal followers.”
“But you don’t need to eat. You’re gods.”
“We don’t need to, but it’s fun. Which reminds me—I don’t like how you’ve been eating lately. What kind of hunter’s daughter won’t touch game?”
Daine sighed. “One that’s been hunted, in deer shape and in goose shape.” She tried to smile. “I’m down to mutton, chicken, and fish, Da. I’m just too close to the rest of the People to be eating them.”
Weiryn shook his antlered head. “To think that—” He whirled, dropping the hare. “I thought so.”
“What?” she asked.
In a single, fluid movement, he put an arrow to his string and shot. His arrow struck, quivering, in a patch of shadow under a bush.
Daine frowned. Something keened there, in a tiny voice she heard as much in her mind as in her ears. Trotting over, she saw that the shaft pinned an ink blot. What had Ma called it? A darking? “What did you do that for?” she demanded, cross. Gripping the arrow, she yanked it out of the creature. It continued to flutter, crying, a hole in its center. “You don’t even know what it is!” She tried to push the blot in on the hole in its middle.
“I don’t have to,” was the retort. “It came into my territory without leave, sneaking
about, following us. Now,
don’t go coddling it—”
Sitting, she picked up the darking and carefully pinched the hole in its body, holding the edges together. “It’s fair foolish to shoot something when you don’t even know what it is.” The darking ceased its cries; when she let go, the hole was sealed.
The god picked up the hare. “When you are my age, you may question what I do. Now, come along. Leave that thing.” He set off down the trail.
Daine looked at the darking. “Do you want to come with me?” she asked, wondering if it could understand. “I won’t let him hurt—”
The darking fell through her hands to the ground and raced under the bush. That’s a clear enough answer, thought Daine. “Don’t let him see you again,” she called. “For all I know, he’ll keep shooting you.” She trotted to catch up to her sire.
“I never thought a daughter of mine would have these sentimental attachments,” he remarked. “Pain and suffering trouble gods, but they don’t burden us as they do mortals.”
Daine thought of the two-legger goddess that she had met the previous fall, the Graveyard Hag. Certainly she hadn’t been troubled by the ruction that she had caused. “Maybe that explains more than it doesn’t,” she replied grimly. “Though I believe gods would be kinder if things hurt them more.”
Her father turned to look at her. “What makes you think our first duty is to be kind?” he wanted to know. “Too much tenderness is bad for mortals. They improve themselves only by struggling. Everyone knows that.”
She blinked. He sounded like those humans who claimed that poverty made the poor into nobler souls. “Of course, Da. Whatever you say.”
Sarra met them on the other side of the log bridge. She kissed her mate, then ordered, “Go skin and dress that hare, and not in the house.” He left, and she looked at Daine. “You shouldn’t wander off like that, sweet. You’re not well yet—”
“Ma, if I’m well enough to climb that”— she pointed to the bluff that thrust out of the forest— “then I’m well enough to go home. Me ’n’ Numair can’t be lingering here.”
Sarra blinked, her mouth trembling. “Are you so eager to get away from me? After not even a full day awake in my house?”
Daine’s throat tightened. “I don’t want to leave you. Don’t think it!” She hugged her mother. “I missed you,” she whispered. “Four years—I never stopped missing you.”