The Inheritance Trilogy Omnibus(446)

So I looked again, really hard, and then I looked some more, and then I got bored and started thinking about whether power had anything to do with being a trickster like I wanted, I mean what if I ended up being something weird like the godling of lizards or something, I didn’t want to be weird, and then all of a sudden I saw all the realms and all the paths and all the lines of meaning that mortals could not.

“Oh!” I dropped to the ground and trotted over to one of the boys standing frozen around us. There it was: a little bloorp of intention, of devotion, running from him to Eino. “And oh!” I ran over to another boy; another bloorp, like a thread made of bubbles, or maybe heat haze. A tie. A web. They were all of them, every boy at that camp, fixed on Eino. Every one of them had given him something of themselves, making him stronger; every one of them would die for him. Because of the dance? I did not know. But even I had a little, thin link to him. Mine, however, glowed gold-white, and it ran in both directions. I was making him stronger, but he was making me stronger at the same time. I didn’t know what that meant.

“We make them in our image,” Nahadoth breathed, “and they replicate us endlessly in their own.”

I didn’t understand at all, but that was pretty normal when talking to Naha. I just shrugged.

When Naha stepped out from behind Eino, I finally noticed how the little city Yukur was shivering, the very bricks of it radiating awe and fear at her presence. It did not protest her being there, though the shape she wore was female now, because she was even less a she than I was the he I seemed to be. It would not have mattered much if Yukur had protested, though; Nahadoth was Nahadoth. Rules meant nothing to the god of chaos and change.

I trotted over to stand before her; at once the tendrils of her swept round me, possessive. “I know you didn’t want me to come here, Naha,” I said, earnestly. “I… I hope you’re not mad.”

She looked amused, cupping my face in her hands. “I have no interest in obedient children.” Then the light of her face dimmed, and for some reason she looked away, southward. There was nothing south except that other continent of the planet; what was she thinking about, looking that way? “But beware, Shill. Never underestimate mortals—especially not where power is involved. Not even when they have power of their own already.” She looked at Eino again, and this time the look was cold. “They always crave more.”

I nodded solemnly, even though I did not understand this, either. I was more now, smarter maybe, but some things were not about smarts.

Naha left off glaring at Eino to look up at the moon, which echoed her face, quick-switch as always. “ ‘Comes the moondown,’ ” she said, thoughtful. It could have meant lots of things. “You should warn them, by the way.”

And then, because that was how Naha said good-bye, she faded away.

A moment later time snapped back into place. The chanting boys resumed and then faltered, startled; the leaping blur that was Eino landed and stumbled; the boys nearest the fire gasped and jerked in surprise when they found it suddenly extinguished and icy-cold.

And suddenly Eino stared at me, recognizing me at last through the boy-flesh and the dance-haze. “You.”

Whoops. “Oh. Um. Hello.” Everyone stared at me; for the first time, this was really uncomfortable. To distract them, I added, “I’m, um, supposed to warn you about something.”

Everything was quiet for long enough to make me squirm. Then Eino suddenly flinched and inhaled and looked away, toward the entrance to Yukur. His eyes widened. “Oh, slippy-dicked hells.”

Everyone looked where he was looking. There was nothing to see—but I didn’t need eyes to see, and clearly Eino didn’t, either. Along the half-hidden road that led to Yukur came a bunch of women, all skintight and teeth-bared and cruel-cold. I could not hear their thoughts because they weren’t thinking very loud, but I could taste their intent anyway, because that was not a thought but a feeling: anticipation. Hunting-lust, and maybe other kinds, too. For… for… I inhaled. They were coming for all the boys here!

Right in that moment, one of the boys near the edge of the terrace saw the women’s torches through the trees. We all heard his broken-voiced shout, though I couldn’t make out the words, and suddenly boys in that direction cried out and began to scatter—some down another set of steps toward the trees on Yukur’s other side, some toward us and away from the women, some down the main terrace steps and right toward them.

“No!” Eino’s voice had the deepness of a near man; most of them heard him. “No, don’t run! We have to stand together—face them—demonshit!”