The cave faded. There was no other word for it, not really. The stone he rested upon, the walls, the roof of it, all that became as mist. The light streaming in from outside faded as well, not darkening but simply becoming a faint tracery against the dark stone. Even the shadows themselves faded, shimmering with that not-light that Rotgoriel saw when he closed his eye to sleep at night, that play of darkness and color that was no color behind his eyelid... eyelids now, he thought absently, and blinked.
He couldn't.
He was frozen. Sleep paralysis, came the thought drifting up from Richard's memories. Frozen between the seconds, frozen in a way that he could no more fight than he could will himself out of existence.
“There you are,” a voice whispered, from everywhere and nowhere all at once. Part of the air in front of him filmed over, as if the frost of Fimble had gotten cold enough to freeze the very air. “How you've grown,” the voice whispered again.
“Konol?” Rotgoriel said, well aware his mouth wasn't moving but he was speaking anyway.
“Yes.”
“I... I need you. Things are... bad,” Rotgoriel finished, not knowing how to sum it up, or even how to start.
There was a wry chuckle, and for a fleeting second, Rotgoriel thought he was being mocked. But the god's next words put his rising hackles at ease.
“Funny. That is what I was going to say.”
“You need me?”
“I do. Very much so. And I am sorry that I do not think I can help you as you want me to.”
“I... I haven't asked for your help yet. I just...” Rotgoriel looked down. “I am too much alone.”
“You keep saying the things I mean to say to you, Rotgoriel. But you are not alone, you know. It is simply that you are very distant from some of your friends. Literally worlds apart.”
“I feel like I am alone. All the time. That even those that like me do not understand me. It hurts. And my brother, the one I trust with my life, lets me die and leaves me to the realm of death. And Aunarox wants to leave now too, because she finds the players odious! And Geebo doesn't love me, not really. It's the... it's the system that makes him do it.”
“Is it? Is it truly?”
“Well yes! He told Agnezsharron's minion that he needed that job, to turn his fear into love!”
“Yes. But is all of his love born of fear? Is there no part of him that loves you, that would not be there if he did not fear you?”
“I... I don't know. But I have made him afraid before, so obviously some part of that love comes from fear!”
“But is there some part of him that loves you without the fear?”
“What does it matter if most of it comes from fear?” He was beginning to wonder if the god understood! That seemed entirely unfair. Gods were supposed to understand. If they didn't, then what was the point of worshiping them anyway?
If he could hear Rotgoriel's thoughts, Konol gave no sign of it. His voice remained calm. “Because if any part of Geebo's feelings toward you come from honest love, then it is still love. That is no small thing. And moreover, it makes it easy to test.”
“Test...”
“Yes. Stop making him fear you, and see if his love for you grows or shrinks.”
Rotgoriel's frustration fled.
That wasn't a bad idea.
“What about my brother? What about Aunarox?” he asked, still feeling worry. Feeling petty and hating it. He just had so few real friends, that they all mattered so very much to him.
“What about them? Do you worry about their love as well? From what I have seen, I am reasonably sure they do not have the Minion job.”
“No! I mean...” Rotgoriel gathered his thoughts. “Richard left me alone in the dead place. I hate that.”
“He is of two worlds. You know what happens when he moves between them.”
“I do. I move the opposite way.”
“And what happened in his world, right before you ended up in the well?”
“The well?”
“What you call the realm of death.”
“Ah. Well... he was late. I was not supposed to be in his body, still. I rose, and pondered breakfast. And then someone tried to kill me.”
“Did they?”
“No! They failed.”
“That is not the question I asked.”
“Yes it is. You asked if they killed me.”
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“No. I asked if they tried to kill you.”
Rotgoriel blinked.
“No,” he said quietly. “They tried to kill my brother.”
“It would seem so.”
“He still left me in the death— in the well. With no warning.”
“It is my opinion that he is probably rather busy right now, in his world. That perhaps events move him to act without giving your feelings prioritization.”
“But—” Rotgoriel cut himself off.
It was annoying, but entirely possible. His brother lived in a very bad place, full of stupid and wicked people. He may very well have too much to deal with at home to help Rotgoriel right now.
It was a very undragon-like thing to acknowledge that he wasn't the main concern of all who knew him.
“Now that's a silly notion,” Konol said.
“What?”
“You are a dragon, are you not?”
“Yes.”
“Then whatever you do is dragonlike, is it not?”
“Yes, but the ancestors say otherwise...”
Konol was laughing. Eventually he stopped. “What did you call them, again?”
“Bitches, all.”
“Bitches, all. Heh heh heh... it fits. It does. Sad shadows. The ancestors are all that remains after they slew my brothers and sisters and bound me. They had to put them in place, you see. They couldn't let there be just... nothing. Otherwise dragons would make new gods, and then their plan would fail. So who cares what they say? You are the dragon here. Anything you do is dragonlike.”
There were many questions to be asked here, and if his brother were the one in charge right now, Rotgoriel knew Rich would be asking all of them. But Richard wasn't here, and Rotgoriel was finding comfort in his god's words. And there was one more matter that gnawed at him. “And Aunarox wants to leave.”
“Does she?”
“Well yes, she said so herself.”
“Is it a bad thing if she does?”
“Yes! She is a powerful ally.”
“She is powerful. Is she an ally?”
“Yes, she—” and Rotgoriel remembered when he'd found her, three weeks ago. Using his mirror, to talk with someone on another plane. She'd never spoken of that.
He glanced behind him, at the mirror. Even through the distorted and crackling air, he could see it. In a way, it looked more real than anything else in here. “She is an ally,” Rotgoriel said, slowly. “But perhaps not a friend. She is using me, and I am using her. And I think it is best if I keep a very, very watchful eye on that mirror before those three days she gave me are done.”
“Now don't you have a skill for that?” Konol's voice held a wry note.
“I do. Hoarder.”
He touched the mirror, and it felt... solid. Weighty. He got the impression that for all his strength, he could no more lift or shift the thing than he could bench press the mountain.
“Very dragon-like,” Konol said, approvingly.
“Thank you.” And this time it felt natural to say it. “I wish I could see you again.”
“You saw me not long ago, after you pulled yourself from death. I sent you here.”
He had. Rotgoriel hadn't paused to contemplate Konol for long. Now he remembered the great black form, filled with white stars, and bound with chains beyond number. “I should have stayed longer,” he said.
“I cannot say much in that place,” Konol sighed. “This is better. Though the things I cannot say here are a problem, too.”
“Why?” Rotgoriel asked.
“I am isolated. I am where my enemies put me, far beyond all that is. The only things I truly know about this world, are those that my faithful know. And right now, I have very few faithful. Very few indeed.” The god's voice sharpened. “You are not the only one to know loneliness, Rotgoriel who named himself. Though your pain is no less valid, your anguish no less hurtful, I am overly familiar with it myself.”
“I swore to free you.”
“I know. And I love you for it. I do find it fitting that the dark power you finally chose champions freedom. She is a good fit for you.”
Memories swirled in Rotgoriel's mind. His brother standing before Konol, confessing his desire. “You set Richard upon that path. He wanted power, and you gave him his future path. And my body, for that matter.”
“You needed each other. You still do,” Konol said.
“Why a Cultist, though? Their skills are... strange. Hard to use. They always come with a price.”
“I did that for a number of reasons. One of them is in the valley below you right now.”
“The city. You know of it? It is important?”
“It is.”
He waited for Konol to say something more. He waited in vain.
“I do not think the Cultist job is very powerful.”
“It certainly does not appear so,” Konol said. “Most of these new sacrifices would agree with you.”
“Sacrifices?”
“You call them players.”
That was ominous. “Players are sacrifices? To what?”
“And here is the part I cannot speak upon. Not now. Not until you fulfill your vow.”
“Who will sacrifice them?”
“I have spoken, and may speak no further on the matter.”
“Then why bring it up at all?” Rotgoriel let frustration bleed into his voice.
“Oh little one. Be thankful that your path led you to me. The current gods are bound in their own way, even more than I. The secrets that they whisper to their worshipers in prayer are sparing, and hidden in riddles by necessity, for their rivals gain the power to whisper equally potent secrets. It is a constant game of give and take. But I? I have no rivals left. And so I may speak as I will, save for those matters on which I am bound.”
Rotgoriel lowered his head. “Sorry, god. I meant no offense.”
“I take no offense. Is your heart at ease now? Have you heard my words and thought upon them?”
“I have. Though... do you know how I died?”
“Yes.”
“How?”
“This is your brother's story to tell. But not now, perhaps. He is... busy.”
“You can see him right now?”
“I told you, Rotgoriel. The only things I truly know, are those that my faithful know. And he is among them.”
“How? He thinks this is a game. He does not truly believe in you.”
“At first he did not. But you joined yourself to him, mind and heart, did you not?”
“The mirror...”
“Indeed. And it is a sad state of affairs that the gods of his world have allowed themselves to be so abused and misrepresented, that his belief in them is weaker than a second-hand belief passed on through his brother. But then, that is ever the way of the sacrifices.”
“Why do you keep calling them sacrifices?”
“That is what they are. They were something else, at first. But their purpose has been twisted by my enemies.”
“Let me guess. You cannot—”
“Speak plainly on this matter? No, I cannot.”
“It is what it is, I suppose.” Rotgoriel did feel better. The situation wasn't perfect, but he no longer felt like it was spiraling out of his control. “I need to speak with Richard. I expect he will have his own questions for you, when he prays.”
“Doubtlessly,” Konol's voice was warm. “I am glad to have helped you.”
“Thank you for that.”
“Do not thank me. Gods are supposed to help their faithful. If they are not, then they are not worthy of being gods in the first place.”
And with a blink, Konol was gone. Rotgoriel exhaled. The air was... oddly thick. The cave was the cave once more, no longer a collection of translucent and immaterial angles and curves.
He felt better. It was that simple. He had prayed to his god, and now he felt better.
Still, he couldn't escape a sense of urgency. He felt that there was much to do, and time was short. His brother would need to know of Aunarox's restlessness, at the very least.
“And he needs to pray,” Rotgoriel rumbled, as he took wing out of the cave. It smelled of tears and self-pity in there, and he was done with that.
He would go down to the town, and find Geebo, and tell him what to say to his brother. And then he would track down Cole, wherever he might be hiding. It hadn't missed Rotgoriel's notice that he had flown off with the halven and died. The little man owed him some answers for that.