Long ago, D’Argen had the beginnings of a question flutter through his mind and then disappear before it even fully formed. Now, he knew it was because of Darania that the question never stayed. It was because of Darania that he, like all other gods, never wondered about where they came from or why they fell for more than a passing moment.
It was because of Darania that they fell.
D’Argen should have been angry. He knew it. He wanted to be. And as the heat of it coursed through him as he ran, he knew that he could be angry with her. He could be angry enough to see her fall even further, to lose her powers, probably even her life. His muscles trembled as he ran, from trying to hold the anger in.
Now, he knew that it was Darania’s will as well that had kept that anger from consuming him in the past. But he also knew that he could feel it now – whatever compulsion Darania had cast over all the gods when they fell to keep them from questioning and hating, D’Argen had broken it.
And he knew that as much as he wanted to, he was not actually angry with her.
Not when his mind was filled with thousands upon thousands of questions.
Not when the first one was that same beginning of a question that now fully formed.
Why did their scents not represent their powers?
There were some among them who were alike, Cana’s scent of hemp when she used her magic was similar to her power to intoxicate, Darania’s scent of freshly toiled soil and earth linked to her creation magic, and there were many among them that had some sort of string between their scent and power.
But not D’Argen.
And the same was true for many more.
Why was D’Argen’s scent of the ocean and his power speed?
Yet, even as the question fully formed and stuck and he wanted to examine it, he found himself answering it as he ran. Leaving the Rube Islands and Darania behind, and the shadow of Thar approaching ever closer, had been such an easy thing to do. As his feet barely touched the white caps of the waves under him, then struck deeper and splashed salt behind him, he felt his speed increase more than it ever had before.
D’Argen was the fastest thing in all of Trace. He could outrun Lilian’s strongest winds, Nocipel’s fastest currents, and even a cheetah at full speed with magic in its lungs. He had even learned, over the years, how to outrun his own thoughts. Yet this speed was something new. This… he had learned to be fast enough to run on water, but crossing the strait between the Rube Islands and the mainland had been an impossible task for him in the past.
Yet now, he did not even question himself as he ran atop the waves to the point where he could not see land at all, even with his mahee working to enhance his eyes and see further.
The white space that had always surrounded him before, the emptiness that he now had an inkling of fear for, did not appear when his hair whipped behind him and the pressure tried to steal the air from his lungs. He pushed harder. He felt solid ground under his feet but his strides were so long that in one step it was grass and in the next, he jumped to step on the leaves of a tree, and the next still he was soaring over a valley covered in sand.
He moved faster than he ever had before in his existence, and yet he saw it all. It was a blur, it was confusing, the blend of it all was trying to make him nauseous and his eyes could not keep up, but the white space was not threatening even in the far distance. Not until he saw the peak of a tall mountain at the end of a long chain.
He would not let his fear slow him. He felt like he could go even faster.
He did.
And then he arrived.
It was too fast.
He slid to a stop that dug two deep furrows through the snow. He lost his balance and his mahee tried to compensate. He tumbled and rolled twice before he was back on his feet and finally still. The first breath of air he took was so cold that it burned. The next one soothed the ache. His lungs demanded even more and his legs were screaming at him. Yet he knew, somehow, that he could have pushed himself even more.
His arms continued to tremble from trying to hold in the long-forgotten anger and his jaw hurt from having clenched it so tight.
This new speed was incredible. A glance at the sky revealed that the sun had moved, but it was definitely still the same day. He had crossed more than half the known lands of Trace and the sun was still high above him.
Now, it was his time to laugh at it for once.
Yet, it still beat him in reaching the top of Sky Mountain before he did. He could not laugh. He squinted into the bright sky and then gave up trying to see its outline and closed his eyes instead.
He questioned if their realm, their old one, the one high above that they fell from, was actually above them at all. Was it among the stars? Did he ever run beside the sun instead of under its light? Did he dance with the moon and send messages back and forth between the two when they were too far apart?
Or was it like that dream space – overlaid with the mortal realm and no different in size at all?
Had he ever touched the sun? Had he caressed it and comforted it the way it did to him now?
The many questions swirling through his mind had him wanting to run back to Darania for more answers. He had left too quickly, he knew it, but he also had an inkling of an answer to one of his many questions. As he opened his eyes and scanned the snow-covered crater of Sky Mountain, he thought that maybe his scent was of the ocean not because of his speed, but because of his mind. It could be calm and still one moment, it could be raging and dangerous the next, it could send him down a fall so dangerous he wanted to close his eyes, or bury him deep and surround him in comfort.
D’Argen wanted to go back to Darania and he could, and he would, only that one stream of his thoughts was still focused on that dream world that was not real.
It was not, he had to keep reminding himself. He had to clench his fists even tighter, let the trembles run up to his shoulders and down his spine, shake his legs, and centre him into the world as the sun shone so bright and reflected off the snow around him and made it impossible to see anything else at all. Just the white snow and the bright blue sky.
It was too similar to that white space.
Was that the gods’ old realm?
He knew the answer to that one, Lilian had told him it was not. But was Lilian real? They were… Lilian was gone. The trembles came not from anger, this time, but from sorrow. And then he knew they were not from sorrow either, but from fear. He decided to blame it on the cold, even if the wind’s bite felt more like a caress against his skin than it did the last time he was here. It was probably the heat from the sun, not a single cloud above his head, that made it feel more comforting than usual.
He knew it was not.
He told himself that anyway.
The same way how he told himself his sword was there. The same way he told himself that he was here to look for his sword.
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He knew it was not. He knew that he was not here for that.
There was no way to explain the feeling or even trust it, but he just knew that the spot he fell to, the one buried for thousands of years under snow, was empty of sword and scabbard and vambraces, and chest plate, and…
Why had he been dressed for war when he fell?
Were they fighting in the gods’ realm?
More importantly, who were they fighting against? What could hurt them to the point of them needing armour to protect themselves? Were the demons there as well?
Those questions terrified him and the shudder that ran down his spine turned into an uncomfortable churning in his stomach. He pressed there, as hard as he could, and it only made him more uncomfortable. His eyes watered in the white space and he tried to shove away all the questions trying to drown him so he could focus.
How did he know his sword was not there?
Why was it not there?
Where was it?
Why did he even need it?
That last question stuck and erased all the others. He did not need it. He came to this mountain for a different reason and he knew it. His knuckles hurt as they dug up under his ribs. He twisted his fist and almost gagged at the pressure. When he dropped his fist, he breathed in the cold air that soothed everything down. The question of why it calmed him instead of freezing him had D’Argen turn around so fast that he brought up a small flurry of snow with him.
He walked away.
D’Argen wanted to run but forced himself to be slow and calm about it. Varuba’s staff and her wrinkled face, the anger of the people in her village, all made him step carefully and make sure no snow dislodged as he descended the mountain once more.
She could have been fake. She most likely was.
Yet the thought alone was enough to have him watch every step as he approached the small village of Ambi where he and his companions had gathered not that—
Almost a decade ago.
The closer he got to the village, the more he realized that time had truly passed.
For the gods, a decade was nothing. Yet for mortals, time had a different meaning.
The small village D’Argen and his company had left behind had already doubled in size. The houses on the edges were newer and bigger, the fields that were previously covered in snow were wide and filled with workers, and the children that ran around the well in the centre were so many that D’Argen lost track of a few of them.
When the first of the villagers noticed him walking through the alleys of their crops, the woman yelled at him. Then she realized who he was when he came closer. Then she realized who he was. When she dropped to her knees and touched her forehead to the ground, D’Argen rushed at her. She had fallen so fast into the bow that he thought she had collapsed.
“Liege D’Argen,” the woman whispered, her eyes still lowered, when he helped her up.
“No need for titles. Time has barely touched you,” he smiled at her, recognizing the lines of her face even though they were deeper. He could not recall her name.
“You are too kind,” she said and smiled back. “I am an old woman now. Four children and another on the way.” She patted her slightly protruding stomach.
D’Argen grimaced but quickly hid it behind a wide smile. “I hope your husband has been of better help than I was during your trying times.”
“Ah, that fool? I sent him away long ago.” She waved through the air as if shooing away a gnat. “What brings you here? We have not seen you in so long! Oh, if you have a moment to stay, you must meet Hastess. He has heard so many stories of you. You are his hero.”
Hastess. That name, D’Argen remembered. He recalled the small baby that had barely filled his hands and the woman’s screams. He remembered the pain she had caused when she gripped his hand so tight. He wondered, for a moment, if she had discarded the magic of the gods and Darania’s spells as well and that was why she had been able to hurt him at the time.
He wondered if she knew Varuba.
The thought disappeared before it could be examined, but this time it was not due to the compulsion that kept him from thinking it. It was because a young boy ran through the fields right at the two of them with a grin that had gaps in it and dirty black hair tied back in a short ponytail. The moment the boy realized who he was, his feet stumbled and he tripped. D’Argen caught him before he face-planted in the soil.
And then the child grinned at him so wide. He threw his hands around D’Argen’s neck as if they belonged there and hugged him tight enough to steal his breath.
“I knew you’d come!” Hastess practically screamed in his ear.
Seven years and the baby had grown so much already.
D’Argen was cautious when he wrapped his arms around that tiny back and even more so when he stood up, raising the child in his arms. Hastess wrapped his legs around D’Argen’s waist as quickly as he had wrapped his arms around the god’s neck, and he leaned back far enough that D’Argen had to put a large palm on his back to keep him from falling.
“You are D’Argen! I knew you’d come!” the boy repeated with a lisp through his gapped teeth.
D’Argen was at a loss for words.
Hastess’s mother, however, was not. She immediately scolded the boy and started apologizing. D’Argen, however, ignored her and kept hold of the boy as he stared into his black eyes. So dark and deep that he could not find a line between the pupil and the iris. So fathomless that, for a moment, D’Argen felt his feet sink deeper into the earth under him and that cold breeze at his back disappeared completely.
He looked away at his mother. Marsha. That had been her name.
“I can’t stay, long. I was only passing by,” he said. To where? “I do, however, have a question before I go. Are your elders still…” he trailed off.
“Amastas, sadly, has already left us. Shabir is soon to follow, her grief is too strong and keeps her in bed,” Marsha answered. D’Argen recalled the two older women that had greeted him and his party in the past. “I can take you—”
“Maybe you can answer me then,” D’Argen interrupted her. He did not need to see Shabir, frail and old in her bed. “Is there… hmm…” he wondered how to ask the question even as a thousand of them bounced through his head. “Does the word Varuba mean anything to you?” he finally asked.
“Va-ru-ba,” Hastess repeated, elongating each syllable. His small hands started playing with the hem of D’Argen’s robes at his neck.
Marsha ignored her son and her smile dropped like a stone.
“I… it is an old custom,” Marsha finally answered, her voice wary. “We haven’t used it in generations, but it was the name used by the elders in our community,” she quickly tacked on, her words blurring together to get them out so fast.
“Va-ru-ba.” It echoed between his ears.
D’Argen tightened his hold on the child in his arms. So it was true. Varuba was real. More importantly, her staff probably was. Possibly, so was her culture, somewhere north of here. Or east. Or south. D’Argen needed to find out.
“And this old custom—” D’Argen started, unsure of how to ask his question but decided to try anyway, “—are there any artifacts around or writings of it?”
“Oh no. No, no. The village elder at the time, he banned the use of the name and erased it all. It was…” she trailed off.
“Va-ru-ba!” It pierced through his mind, like a drum beating against the inside of his skull.
D’Argen tried to smile but it felt more like a grimace. “It was to go against the gods?” he asked.
Marsha startled but then nodded softly, her eyes downcast.
“Va-ru-ba!” It was like a shout without a voice.
“Not to worry. We have caused you quite a bit of harm,” D’Argen tried to placate her.
“Not to me,” Marsha said, her stand firm and chin jutting out. “Not to anybody here. Not to my parents or their parents or their parents before that. You have been here for us when we needed you most. You have—”
“Alright, alright,” D’Argen interrupted her with a casual smile. “No need to praise me, I already love this place.”
Marsha let out a huff of a laugh but nodded and silenced.
“Va-ru-ba.” It was like a whisper, scratching at his entire being from the inside.
D’Argen found himself looking at Hastess. The boy’s face was scrunched up in concentration as he played with a loose thread on D’Argen’s robes.
“Va-ru-ba.”
The words echoed.
The boy did not open his mouth.
When Hastess realized he was being looked at, he faced D’Argen once more and smiled wide. His black eyes grew. The darkness filled to the edges, like some of the demons had in the past. It reflected the light as if a thin sheen overtop them that allowed the boy to see in the dark. It spread further, like wisps of smoke or strands of ink in water.
“Va-ru-ba.”
It reached for D’Argen.
Black ink spilled from the gaps of the boy’s teeth. It gripped at the neck of his robes. It tangled through his long hair. It wrapped around his waist so tight that he could barely breathe.
“Va-ru-ba.”
D’Argen needed to get the strands off him. He practically ripped them off in his haste to get away. Then he heard a scream. A cry. A swear. If he was in his right mind, he would not have stopped. But he did. Only to see Hastess on the ground, crying and clutching one of his legs. His mother was bent over him, trying to console him.
D’Argen panicked.
No.
“Va-ru-ba.” It laughed at him.
Marsha’s face was creased with fear. D’Argen shook his head and closed his eyes. When he looked back at Hastess, the boy’s dark eyes were black but they were normal. The strings of black that seemed to pour off him and make him fade away were gone.
Hastess’s tears, however, were enough to make D’Argen’s stomach drop to his feet. He heard shouts from other villagers. He saw Marsha struggling to lift her boy. He watched them take the boy to one of the larger houses, probably to the healer. And he saw the stares from those who noticed him.
He ran away.
D’Argen still felt the cold touch from the mahee’s strands, slipping under his robes and through his ears and nose, shoving itself down his throat and compressing his lungs. He did not stop running until he saw the white walls of Evadia in the distance. The sun had barely kissed the horizon, Hastess’s tears were probably still pouring, but all he could focus on was that echo…
“Va-ru-ba.”
If Varuba was real, if her culture lived on, if that horrible staff once existed, and if his sword had ever been moved – it would be in Vain’s records. Good thing he was already so close to Evadia.