"Saia?"
"I know, I know," she murmured, face buried in the pillow. "I'm up."
She sat up with a groan. Barely any light entered from the two windows at the sides of the door. She looked past the table at the center of the room, towards the tank of seawater under one of the windows. Two sea snakes were resting on the mound of earth at the center of the tank.
"I thought you got up early to fish,” Koidan said.
Saia yawned.
“Only if I didn’t go fishing the night before.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“See you at the temple.”
The only room of the house was cut in half by a white line painted on the floor. She crossed it to take her bag from a chair, then again to feed the snakes in the tank with dried meat. She knew it wasn't good for them, but she didn't have time to buy fresh seafood.
She left the house, ignoring her rumbling stomach, and started her ascent towards the temple. The doors opened while she approached, just enough to let her through. Inside, the candles were all flickering. The sun had just begun to rise, after all.
She was alone with the giant statue of Koidan. Her heart beat faster as the memories tried to resurface, but she pushed them down with a resolute step forward.
“So much secrecy,” she commented, letting the doors close behind her.
“Stay near the window, please,” Koidan said. “I’ll tell you when to get closer.”
Saia quickly changed direction and stood next to the window on the right, the one that faced the mountain.
“Thank you. I know it's a weird request, but the situation is quite dire.”
“Are you referring to the tremor or something else?”
“Something else, but it’s related. I need your help to fix a problem. It'll be complicated and it’ll take up a bit of your time. In exchange, I'll answer your questions.”
Saia raised her eyebrows.
“Even about the gods?”
“Especially about them. I'll go as far as saying that you'll learn everything you need to know just by helping me.”
“Why? What do I have to do?”
He kept the silence for an instant.
“There isn't an easy way to say this, but... I'm dying.”
Saia narrowed her eyes in confusion.
“You what?”
“Every deity has a limited amount of energy. We use it to do everything: talk to people, heal them, move things around, even just existing. Once the energy is finished, we die.”
“So... so you're been around for thousands of years, and your energy is finishing right now?”
“Yes. Well, no. It's a bit more complicated than that, but you got the main idea.”
“That's why the earth trembled? Because you're dying?”
“The less energy I have, the more difficult it is to handle multiple things at once. I have to constantly be on the lookout for dangers, answer to people’s prayers, and put my part of the effort into keeping the mountain from crumbling.” He paced on his pedestal, a habit he displayed often during speeches. “Yesterday I was already taking care of three separate problems at once, when some cloud raiders decided to attack. I fended them off, but that meant letting go of the task I was paying less attention to: keeping the mountain whole.”
Saia crossed her arms and leaned back against the wall.
“It was the mountain, then? Does it happen often?"
“Oh, you have no idea. The only reason the mountain hasn't fallen to pieces on our heads is because us deities are constantly using our energies to keep it together. It’s not as stable as it looks.”
Saia glanced at the portion of the mountain she could see through the window.
“So if you die…”
“The mountain will start to tremble just like yesterday.”
“We need to tell everyone, then,” Saia said, stepping forward. “And keep the boats ready to leave."
“It won't be necessary: the monks will replace me before we get to that point. And if you'll help me, we won't have to worry about that for at least five years.”
“Wait, stop. The monks?”
She pondered the word for a second. She was pretty sure she’d never heard it before.
“They... First of all, monks are people who live and pray together. They live on the mountain and observe us deities. As soon as they realize that one of us is dying, they replace them.”
“They live on the mountain?”
“Yes. They’re well hidden.”
Saia wanted to know more about that, but there were more pressing questions.
“What do you mean, ‘replace’? With another god?”
“Sort of, yes. My goal right now is to preserve my energies. This way, they won't find out about me and I'll survive a bit longer. And this is where you come in.”
Saia straightened her back.
“What do I need to do?”
“Deactivate me.”
“What? That sounds like the opposite of what we're trying to do.”
“The monks took measures to stop us gods in case we started abusing our powers or decided to rebel against them. Best I can describe it, they force us to fall asleep.”
“And wouldn't that make the mountain tremble?”
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“No. We're conditioned to always use some energy for that, even when we're asleep. It's like breathing: you do it in your sleep and during the day, you can alter it consciously when you're awake…”
"And you might stop breathing for a second if you're too overwhelmed. That’s what happened, right?”
The statue nodded.
“Being aware of my surroundings and of what’s happening in the village requires a bit of energy that I would preserve if you deactivated me. We could decide together when I should be active or asleep, so that I can still take care of the village.”
Saia nodded, lowering her eyes on the blue carpet in the center of the temple.
“Will you help me?” Koidan asked.
“Why are you asking me? Most people here would do anything for you without even questioning it.”
Koidan stopped pacing and looked up at the ceiling, as if considering her question.
“I see them more as children I have to protect. I was there when each of them was born. They trust me completely, as if I couldn't make mistakes.”
“So it's just because I was born in another village? I'm not the only one here.”
“I know, but the others have the same blind trust towards me. Everyone is overly respectful, because they fear my anger. You treat me more like a person. You know how to survive on your own outside the village, you don't call my name every time you have to fix something. You're the closest thing to a friend I have here.”
Saia couldn't help but smile at that.
“You're getting sentimental, old man.”
“So what do you think of my offer?”
Saia untangled her arms and joined the hands behind her back, leaning against the wall.
“I consider you a sort of friend, too. Which is a weird thing to say of a god, but here I am.”
“Is that a yes?”
“I'll do my best to help you. Having more information about the gods would be nice too, I guess.”
“Weird,” Koidan said. “You were more determined about getting answers, in the past. You asked me something about gods and our powers every week after the ceremony. I couldn't help but notice that you stopped in the last year or so.”
Saia nodded.
“Some things changed for me too.”
Koidan was quiet, a question implicit in his silence. Saia traced with a finger the rough texture of the wall. It would have been nice to tell the truth to someone, after more than two years. But she couldn’t reveal any details until she knew more about Koidan’s relationship with the other gods.
“When I first got here, I wanted to fix a... mistake?” She pondered the word for a moment. “It's an understatement for what I did, but let's go with that.”
“And now you don't want to fix it anymore?”
“Now I'm resigned to the idea that it might not be possible. And I have a new life here. As much as I'd like to have my old one back, I don't really need it.”
The statue nodded.
“So,” Saia said, desperate not to dwell on her past, “how do I deactivate you?”
The statue gently turned towards her.
“This body is only a small part of me. I need to show you what's inside, but the monks don't want us to reveal who we are. They're observing us, right now.”
Saia looked sideways at the mountain behind the window.
“They're hidden,” Koidan said. “There's another village up there. They're very careful about keeping their secrets.”
He leaned forward a bit.
“I imagine they're wondering which deity caused the mountain to tremble. They probably saw you entering the temple. I want them to think that you're distressed and came here to look for reassurance. So come forward slowly, lower your head, pretend to be sad and scared.”
He extended one arm towards her, inviting her to approach. Saia stepped forward, doing her best to follow his instructions despite her heart sprinting at the idea of being observed. Once she was close enough to the statue, Koidan knelt with a knee on the pedestal and delicately lowered a hand on her shoulder. It was at least three times bigger than her head and made of very solid basalt. He just needed to apply a bit of pressure to crush her whole body.
“Open your bag.”
Saia slid the bag to the front of her body and opened it. She wondered what the monks would have thought of that gesture, then realized they couldn't see it: the sleeve of Koidan’s golden dress was long enough to shield her, shoulders to knees, from any glance cast through the window.
Koidan’s chest started glowing with a golden light. He undid the first two buttons of the robe and pulled it down a bit, allowing Saia to see the cavity that was opening at the center of his chest. A blinding light came from within, forcing her to lower her eyes.
“Usually they could see this,” Koidan said, “but with this light, at dawn, it's a bit more subdued.”
Saia felt something fall inside her bag.
“Close it.”
She obeyed, trapping the golden light inside. The round cavity was now empty and rapidly closing.
She let the bag fall casually at her side while Koidan stood again, his hand leaving her shoulder.
“Nod, then sit on the bench next to the door. I'll explain what to do.”
Saia obeyed. If she kept her back against the wall, they couldn't see her from the window.
“You can look at it. Just be careful.”
Saia opened a bit the flap that closed her bag. Anything more and the golden light would have blinded her.
“This is my real appearance,” Koidan said.
“The light? Because if there's something else, I can't see it.”
“Oh, sorry.”
The light dimmed. There was a sphere of glass inside her bag, filled with a floating liquid, golden and bright.
“So this is you?”
“Yes. I'm the energy inside the sphere.”
“It doesn't look like it's fading.”
“Trust me, it is. You can pick it up if you want.”
Saia touched the sphere with the tip of her index, expecting it to be hot. It wasn't, so she balanced it in her palm. The light inside was slowly rotating.
“Well?” Koidan said. “You're silent.”
“It's a lot to take in. Are the statues in the other villages like you?”
“Yes.”
“So they're losing their powers too.”
“I don't know for sure. We don't really contact each other, unless there's some serious emergency going on. But I don't think they are. Not all of them, at least. We were created at different times, some territories are bigger, in others there's a lot more to manage. We don't expend the same amounts of energy.”
Saia nodded.
“You have this kind of energy in your body too, even if it's not visible. Every living creature produces it, albeit in modest quantity. You can use it to make me sleep.”
“I didn't know about any of that."
“The monks kept that a secret too. Now I'll make you feel a specific sensation. Try to remember it as best as you can.”
Saia felt as if she'd jumped in a pool of water, not as cold as the ones in the cave, not as warm as she'd like it to be. She could feel waves against her skin, inside her body, as if she was part of the water too.
“This is your energy. You can calm it down with your breath.”
Saia breathed deeply. After a while the waves became slower and wider.
“Now push this feeling forward, towards me.”
“I don't know what it means.”
“Try to make the waves flow from your body, to your hands, to me. It helps if you visualize it as a push.”
Saia tried.
“Push with your mind, not your fingers.”
She eased her grip. After what felt like one whole minute of visualization, she opened her eyes.
“I can't.”
“Don't worry, we'll practice.”
She glanced at the statue.
“Do I have to put you back?”
“No, that would be too risky. I was thinking... I know your privacy is very important to you, but you could keep me somewhere in your house. Once you've learned how to use this technique, I’ll be asleep most of the time.”
Saia retracted her hand, leaving the sphere inside the bag.
“It makes sense. There's just one thing I don't understand.”
“Just one? I'm lucky. This would be confusing for anyone.”
“What if you were evil and the monks wanted to stop you? You wouldn't let them come close enough to touch the sphere and make you sleep.”
“This magic can be done from a distance. You just need to touch something that comes from the body of whoever you want to put to sleep. It works best if the creature is small and you're using a tough material, like teeth or bones. Or glass, in my case.”
“Wait, creature? You mean it can be used on people too?”
“Yes, if the person who uses the magic is experienced enough. But it takes years to get to that point. It's actually easier to put to sleep something like me than a living creature.”
“Why?”
“I genuinely don't know.”
Saia thought about his words.
“It still doesn’t make sense. I can't touch you against your will, so I can't take a piece of glass from the sphere. Breaking you with a hammer would be more effective.”
“They already have a shard from each of us. If you look closely you can see the point where they removed it.”
“If I look any closer, I'll burn my eyes,” Saia said, but examined the surface of the sphere anyway.
A small portion of glass was missing, thin like a nail.
She closed the bag.
“Good to know. Anything else?”
“Keep everything secret, obviously. Hide me well, don't show me to anyone. We'll discuss the details together, but you should absolutely wake me up if you hear of any problems or if you see suspicious clouds in the sky. Oh, and if you catch word of a foreigner walking around and asking questions, bring me back here immediately.”
Saia nodded, rubbing a hand on her eyes. It was a lot to remember.
At least, she reflected while returning home with a god in her bag, now she knew that deities weren't as powerful as they seemed. If it was true for Koidan, it had to be true for Vizena too.
She felt her anger stir, as hot as two years before. Maybe she couldn't fix her mistakes, but she could get revenge. She didn't know how to reach it yet, but it was possible, and for the moment that was all she needed to know.