Lisiya levered herself off the edge of the altar and dropped to the ground; Briony almost cringed, afraid the demigoddess’ bony old legs would snap like twigs. It was strange to feel so awake and yet to know she was dreaming! Other than a light-headed feeling such as came upon her when she had more wine than she should, she felt quite ordinary.
“Come along, child. I suppose it doesn’t matter why you summoned me. In your heart you must have known you needed my help.” Briony followed the demigoddess past the altar, out of the clearing, and into the trees. Thunder boomed again and a faint shimmer of lightning lit the sky overhead. “Restless,” Lisiya commented, but did not explain.
In many ways the journey through the forest was as dreamlike to Briony as the pursuit of Barrick through the crumbling earth, but it was maddeningly ordinary as well. She could feel every step, every breath, even a moment of discomfort when she scraped her arm against the trunk of an oak tree.
“Where are we?” she asked at last.
“At the moment? Or in some larger sense?” Lisiya was laboring along at a good pace and Briony had to hurry to keep up. “We are very close here to the lands of the dreaming gods—all the old gods that Crooked sent to sleep. Your kind call him Kupilas, of course. Even we didn’t always call him Crooked—that came after the three brothers and their clan tortured him. When Crooked was born he was named Brightshine—a son made by the dawn and the moonlight—you can guess why he was thought a beautiful child. No wonder he hated his uncles so much for what they did to him, let alone the tricks and cruelties and even murder they performed on the rest of his family.”
There was a brief pause as lightning whitewashed the sky for a moment, but before Briony could ask any more questions, Lisiya began again as though she had.
“We are not on Crooked’s roads here—a mortal cannot pass through them safely—but we are traveling in some of the lands that those roads traverse—do you see? Such roads belong to his great-grandmother Emptiness, of course, but she gave him safe conduct to travel them, and he made much of that freedom.”
Before Briony could ask Lisiya to start over because she hadn’t understood a word, the demigoddess abruptly stopped.
“So here we are,” Lisiya said. “Now you can tell me what you need.”
They stood before a small, rough house made of unfinished logs, its roof thatched with leafy branches. A crash of thunder shook the air and for a moment turned the house as flat and pale as one of Makewell’s Men’s painted backgrounds. Shoots of green grass grew between the dead leaves on the ground, but the house itself looked old and long deserted.
“Don’t just stand there gawking, child. Follow me.” Lisiya bent and clambered through the low door.
The rain was coming down now like arrows, but the hut was dry and surprisingly warm inside. Briony settled onto a fur rug, one of many that covered the dirt floor. Still, though, for all its homely comforts, it did not quite seem naturaclass="underline" every time Briony stared at anything very long it seemed to grow farther away in a way that made her feel a bit dizzy. She jumped as the thunder crashed again, rattling the walls.
“Not just restless,” Lisiya said with a disapproving frown. “More like a sleeping bear smelling spring. Quick, girl, we may not have much time. Tell me what’s troubling you.”
Briony told her of the dreams, first those of her brother Barrick, especially the most recent and most frightening one. She still could not remember the way his eyes had looked without a chill on her heart.
“I can give you scant help there, I fear,” Lisiya said after a long moment’s silent thought. “Your brother is hidden to me—whether because of where he is or the company he keeps, I cannot say. Still, something tells me he is not dead.”
“Praise the gods! As long as he is alive, there’s hope,” Briony said—and meant it. Her heart already felt lighter. “Thank you.”
“You thank a goddess with a sacrifice,” Lisiya said. “Honey would be nice—clover or apple blossom make my favorites—but a pretty stone will also do. You can leave it on one of my altars…” She looked up, suddenly distracted.
Briony did not want to tell the demigoddess that she had never heard of an actual altar to Lisiya—not in the waking world, anyway. “I will. May I ask you another question?”
Lisiya slowly returned her attention to Briony. “I suppose. But swiftly, child. The weather is growing strange.”
Briony quickly told her of the dilemma—how her kindly feelings toward Eneas seemed likely to destroy her plan to enlist his aid. “He’s a good man! A truly good man. How can I do such a thing to him? Even for a good cause?”
The demigoddess cocked a draggled eyebrow. “But he is a man, for all the things you say—a grown man and a prince. He will make his own choices—to be with you or not, to do what you wish or not. Have you promised him, ‘Help me and I will marry you’—or even, ‘Help me and I will take you to my bed’?”
“Of course not!”
Lisiya laughed sourly. “You needn’t act so disturbed, child. You are a woman in all but name now, I see, and if it were so terrible an act I think there would be a parcel fewer of mortals in the world.”
“No, I didn’t mean… well, I did, but… in any case, I am a virgin!”
“It’s a common enough condition, child. Nothing to brag about.”
“But that’s…” Briony took a breath as a flash of lightning made light burst in through every crack in the hut walls and ceiling. A few moments later thunder boomed again, so close it seemed right overhead. “That’s not what I mean! I mean that I would give anything, even my maidenhood, if it would save my family. I would even give it falsely! But I don’t want to give it falsely to… to a man who is truly kind. Whom in other circumstances I could truly care for.” She shook her head. “Is there any kind of sense to that at all?”
Lisiya’s expression softened. “Yes, child. But I do not think you tell me all the truth.”
“I did… !”
“I think you already care for him. What is his name?”
“Eneas, the prince of Syan. But… but it is really another that I care for. At least I did—I am no longer certain.” Briony started to laugh, then suddenly felt like weeping, but the laugh bubbled out anyway. “He and Eneas could not be more different, except that they are both kind men. He has no connections, no expectations—he is a commoner! And I do not even think he still lives. He went away a long time ago and almost everyone who went with him is dead.”
“Your problem is like an apple on a high, thin branch,” the demigoddess said, “—a branch that is too high to reach from the ground, but too thin to climb out on to reach the apple. But sometimes such an apple can be plucked anyway—with help. You can climb up to stand on the base of the branch, and thus lower the apple enough that someone on the ground can jump up and pluck it…”
Briony was about to ask her what in the name of Zoria’s mercy she was talking about with all this apples and branches nonsense when the brightest blaze of lightning yet burst in through the cracks, accompanied almost simultaneously by a peal of thunder so loud that Briony and Lisiya bounced like dried peas in a bowl.
Except it wasn’t thunder, Briony realized in terror as she rolled on the floor, trying to regain her balance: what she heard was a voice, too loud and low to understand, raging and bellowing as if a giant stood just above the house, shouting from the depths of the biggest lungs in the world.
“Get out, child!” shouted Lisiya. “Now!” She grabbed at Briony’s arm and yanked her toward the door. Now the dream turned completely nightmarish: no matter how Briony struggled and stumbled forward, the door that should only have been a step or two away remained out of her reach. Lisiya had vanished and the hut had become an immense black space cracked like a broken pot, lit only by flashes of jagged light.