Argoth looked down. “I am not myself. The roots of the thrall still work in me.”
“That will pass,” said Matiga.
So said the books, but he still felt a compulsion and prying. A door somewhere was still open. A door to another being like the one they’d faced in the cave.
They’d discussed what had happened in the cave, and they’d realized that every Glory in every land was ruled by such a creature. Every Glory was cultivating a field and delivering its harvest.
“We don’t have the knowledge to fix this open door in me,” he said. “We don’t know their powers. It is better to just eliminate the threat.”
“No,” said Matiga. “We don’t have the knowledge. But we will. We have the gifts of Hismayas: the victor’s crown and the Book.”
“The Book has always resisted us. And the crown-well, we obviously don’t know all we should about it.”
“No,” she said, “we don’t. But I think I understand a few things I did not before. I think we should try to open the Book again.”
“And if we fail?” asked Serah.
“We have the seafire,” said Matiga. “We have our lore. We might know less than we’d like, but we know enough. If we cannot unlock the secrets of the Book, then we shall prepare with the knowledge we do have.”
All this talk of the enemy didn’t seem to matter at the moment. Argoth thought of Nettle again. Of the trust and pain that had shone in his eyes as Argoth drew forth his Fire.
He looked up at Serah. “Nettle was a man. He made the choice of a man.”
“I’m not angry with Nettle,” she said, pain and frustration and anger flashing in her eyes.
Argoth waited.
“You said you’d tell me a story about a woman who married a monster. You’ve told me that story. And it was all true. Now you need to wait for me to tell you the end.”
Argoth nodded. He would wait. He’d wait, if he had to, until the Creators raveled the earth.
49
In the days following the battle in the caves, Uncle Argoth and Lord Shim began raising dreadmen. The Creek Widow and River began teaching Talen the first things about using Fire and soul and the history of the earth. But Talen found he couldn’t focus. The monster had saved them all. Talen needed to honor its last wishes.
Talen was able to convince River and the Creek Widow to join him. He went back and stood on the hill above the refuge and looked down at the valley where the Divine had battled. The damage was clear to see-great erratic swathes and loops of dead grass and trees. Off to one side of the meadow a boar staggered and sounded out its pain.
Talen suspected he knew why. By the time he descended the hill, the boar was on its side kicking weakly. There was a wound on its side-that was probably the spot where the raveler had wriggled in. The boar might have been sleeping or eating. It could have been doing any number of things when the weave had found it. But Talen was sure it was the cause of the boar’s throes. Then the boar ceased its struggling.
Talen waited, and not long after his suspicions were confirmed: the raveler worked its way out from underneath the animal and snaked into the grass.
Wearing the white, gold-studded gauntlets, Talen quickly plucked it up. The raveler immediately stilled, and he placed it in the case.
After obtaining the raveler, he searched for the monster’s stomachs.
Uncle Argoth and the Creek Widow had taken the remains of the original monster and opened it up to discover its lore. They’d also search their books for any record of the sons of Lamash.
They did not unlock its mysteries. In fact, the mysteries seemed only to multiply. But Talen was able to identify what he might be looking for. Inside the creature’s chest had been a row of identical organs, black as coal, woven of willow withies, and merged into the flesh of stone. One, Uncle Argoth said, contained soul.
The monster had spoken of the stomachs the woman had already taken. And so Talen went back into the cave with Sugar and two loyal dreadmen.
They searched the chamber of battle. They searched the passageways leading in and out. They found many rooms, but they never saw a nest.
They were about to descend the broad path that led to the belly of the mountain, when Sugar asked if they’d been looking in the wrong place. Perhaps, she suggested, they should look up.
It took less than an hour to find the woman’s roost. In one room with a sulfur pool there were a scattering of her dead eel creatures lying on the floor. When the group held their torches aloft, they saw an opening to a small chamber above. It contained silk clothing that Lumen, the former Divine of the clans, wore, an ancient, cankered sword, and a handful of abominable weaves, including two of the monster’s stomachs.
And so it happened that on the morning of a cool autumn day, Talen placed the monster’s stomachs on a large slab of granite on their farmstead. The survivors of the battle in the cave gathered around.
Talen donned the fine, white, gold-studded gauntlets and removed the last hag’s tooth from its silver case. He held it up.
“This,” he said, “is to honor the bravery of Barg, Larther, and all the many other things that composed the servant of our enemy. May they find the safe path in the world of souls.”
Then he lowered the tooth to the stomachs. When its sharp tip touched the first stomach, it came to life and wriggled out of his hand.
All stood around the stone, watching the tooth weave its way in, around, and through the stomachs that lay on the rock. The blackness of the withies leached away, leaving behind simple wood.
A small breeze gusted through, and then, for the briefest moment, Talen thought he heard singing.
The tooth wriggled out of the pile of spent stomachs and rolled off the rock into the dust.
Talen picked it up. It had yet one more task to perform.
That evening Talen stood on the hill above the farmstead. At his feet lay three graves: one for Mother, a new one for Da’s body, and another for that of Sugar’s mother.
When Sugar had said she had no home, River and Talen had insisted she did. It was too risky for her to go back to her village and gather up any of her father’s bones that might remain. But that didn’t mean they couldn’t make a small monument for the time when they could retrieve the bones. Nor did it mean they couldn’t bury Sugar’s mother here.
Talen had expected someone to desecrate the graves, for the Fir-Noy were causing more troubles than ever. But that had not happened yet. Instead, they’d found gifts left on the graves in respect. Some were gifts of apples, others were bunches of late summer flowers. There weren’t many. But it surprised Talen. Once they even found a bowl of blood from a small sacrifice. It was believed by some that the ancestors could drink the Fire of a newly killed animal as it poured forth.
But there were no gifts this evening. Instead, Nettle crawled in circles below the graves as if searching for something in the grass. Uncle Argoth had told them all what he’d done, and it pained Talen to see Nettle so. Half mad, the other half lost. Legs, River, and Sugar were with Talen on the hill.
There were reports of something in the woods, something killing the deer and sheep. Legs said he’d heard it one night in the yard. They had found footprints the next morning, and the evening after that Talen had seen its face in the shadows staring at him. They’d tried to track it, but lost the trail, and the dead bodies of animals began to mount.
“Let us hope it isn’t the woman seeking revenge,” said River.