Zeles woke up for the second time. The first thing he noticed, besides his sitting statue and the mess of melted wax on the floor, was Rabam sprinting towards the door, as if hiding from the statue was sufficient to elude the god.
“I don't blame you,” he said in his ears, and the man stopped just outside of Vizena’s temple.
He looked back, face hidden in the darkness outside, even if his fear was evident in the buzzing of his viss.
“I’m sorry for allowing Milvia's death with my actions,” Zeles said. "I don't expect yours or anyone's forgiveness when I say this: if you'll ever need help or protection, come here without hesitation.”
He only nodded once, then ran away.
Zeles took in the new shapes of Vizena's territory. It was deep in the night, but the goddess had been killed just the day before and there were still people around, talking and celebrating. It was a more quiet kind of celebration, made of words and tears, all of the conversations that had died inside their minds flowing out freely.
Zeles knew it would only have lasted until they realized that there was another god. He explored the streets with his mind while the rest of his powers was intent on cleaning the floor and walls from the wax that stained them. He repositioned the surviving candles to light the whole room in a way that made it welcoming. He didn't listen to the conversations, of course, but as the biggest part of his focus drifted along the roads he couldn't help but notice how much the people of the place gesticulated when they spoke. They had to be the gestures Saia had talked about; he was glad the inhabitants felt safe enough to use them again.
He couldn't entertain his curiosity any longer, because the next thing he noticed was the behavior of their viss.
He was looking at two people in particular, an old woman and a younger one, sitting next to each other in front of the respective houses. The older woman's viss was scarred with sorrow. Fear was sprinkled everywhere, and a more recent layer of regrets was expanding against the thin veil of joy for the goddess’ disappearance.
The younger woman was scared too. It was both old fear and new fear, piled up together until every word she said was shaking.
He realized he was spying on them and retreated to a higher height, focusing again on the village at large. Every single person had deeper traces of some sort of suffering in their viss, be it grief or loneliness or fear, the kind of traces that could only be left by years of tension and pressure.
He retreated into the temple, leaving only a small part of his perception hovering above his territory, in case cloud people decided to attack or the celebrations went too far. He decided to just wait. These people didn't need a deity, but time to heal. He would have protected them, of course, but he wouldn't have interacted with them unless they wanted to. No more fake celebrations about fake deities, no more sermons that only meant to consolidate his or the monks' power.
He looked down at his new statue, blue with stripes of beige and gold. He decided to keep it that way instead of changing it to a basalt-looking texture, not to introduce too many changes. It felt weird to think that now his statue belonged to someone else. Even weirder, that the one he was using had been inhabited by the person who had caused all of the suffering he'd seen outside.
He waited, content to watch over people until they returned to their houses.
The hour before dawn was completely silent. Then, the inhabitants started leaving in small groups. Some of them went to work, some to school, some started to cook and take care of the houses.
Some took the path that led to the temple.
Zeles stood, then changed his mind and sat down again, to look less menacing. He waited for them to enter, but they lingered outside instead, looking through the windows but staying away from the doors as if they were the entrance of a dark cave. He waited, without even moving his statue not to scare them. If they wanted him to be a silent presence in their lives, a force that could protect them without manifesting anything stronger than a wind, he would oblige them without question.
Then, a group of six people entered the temple. There was a woman with Saia's round eyes and a man with her relaxed demeanor; a younger woman with arms wrapped tight against her torso, and a young man dressed impeccably well. Then the youngest of them all, Lassem if he remembered right, holding a young woman's hand. They stepped into the light of the candles, mingled with the soft hues of dawn.
“Who are you?” Saia's mom said, and he remembered that her name was Lada.
The people outside were entering now, taking their spots next to the walls.
“I’m not Vizena,” he said, moving the statue's lips for the first time. “She disappeared forever. You won't experience that hurt again as long as I'm here.”
“You're not Vizena,” Lada repeated slowly, as if deciding how much she should believe him. “Do you have a name?”
He considered lying by looking inside his memories of the ancient texts and finding a plausible godlike figure. But lying to protect himself had led to Milvia's death.
“Zeles,” he said.
They looked at each other.
“I never heard of that name,” Saia's sister said. “Are you new?”
“I was Lausune's god, before. They called me Koidan, but Koidan now is someone else, so I've decided to use my real name.”
He could see and feel the confusion all around the room. He waited for further questions, but they didn't come. Maybe they thought him insane.
He decided to move on.
“I know what Vizena did to you. I won't spy on your conversations. I won’t force you to do anything you don't want to. Ask Lausune's people if you don’t believe my words.”
Lassem raised his head.
“That means we can leave?”
“Of course you can.”
He hugged the young woman next to him, Ceila if he remembered right. All around the temple, people were exchanging incredulous glances and excited hugs, but a part of them seemed to remember that they were in front of a deity, because they didn't cheer out loud.
“That's all,” Zeles said, smiling. “I’ll only talk to you when you request it or in situations of danger. I don't require you to come to the temple, nor to pray.”
This time, some timid cheer broke out from the crowd. Lada nodded and took her husband's hand.
“And Saia?” she asked, the question barely a whisper.
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Zeles answered to her whole family, talking in their ears so that nobody else could listen.
“She's far away from here, but as safe as anyone can be,” he said, thinking about her powers. “If I get any news from her, I’ll tell you immediately.”
They looked like they wanted to ask more. Their viss was brimming with worry, but eventually they all left with the rest of the inhabitants.
Zeles observed as people screamed the good news to their neighbors, that they could finally leave their village after a life of isolation. They were saying his name, and he briefly wondered whether he should have told them not to mention it outside of the village. But it would have meant explaining why, finding an excuse, involving them, which would have taken away a piece of the serenity they had just obtained.
Besides, there was no point in that anymore: there was a group of monks inside the forest, just outside of his territory. All of them were sentinels, except for a woman.
“Vizena,” she called. “Do you hear me?”
Zeles made the air in front of them thick as a wall. The woman squinted and extended a hand to touch it.
“I see,” she said. “I need you to answer my questions. But first, let me enter your temple.”
Zeles just waited.
“We're not here to remove more of your energy or evaluate your conduct, if this is what you fear. I'll enter your temple alone.”
She tried to step forward, but stopped when the barrier's wind made her hair flutter.
“This is my last warning, Vizena. Then we'll consider you a traitor and a danger to our cause and act accordingly.”
“Let me give you a warning too, then.”
The woman's unreadable expression widened with surprise. She probably didn't expect his voice.
“Don't ever try to enter this place again while I'm alive. You don't have any more say on these people and this land.”
The woman looked straight ahead, frowning a bit.
“You'll lose a lot more than just two or three years every once in a while. But if you're so determined to go down this road, I'll let the abbot decide your fate.”
She slowly turned to leave, as if to give him time to call her back. He just watched as she and the sentinels went up the slope, into the forest and out of his sight.
He wished Rabam would come back, so he could tell Aili what had just happened. She deserved to be informed, in case his choices would affect her too.
He felt a nudge at the border of his conscience. He divided his focus again, the biggest part turning to the leftmost border of his territory.
“Yes?” he asked to the air.
“Hi, I'm Lorin,” it answered. “You're new, right?”
He recognized the deity of the neighboring village of Kivari.
“New?” he asked.
Then he realized she could probably feel the difference between his viss and Vizena's.
“Yes, I guess I'm new.”
“So the Vizena before you is dead?”
“Yes. My name's Zeles, by the way.”
“My name’s Diba. I'm kind of new too, just fifty years as a deity.”
“Congratulations on the anniversary.”
“Thank you. Excuse my bluntness but I'm glad you're so nice, the old Vizena was so passive-aggressive. She never told me her real name.”
“She wasn't loved by her people either.”
“Yeah, I've heard something about that. Well, it was a pleasure to know you. Let's talk again sometimes.”
“Sure,” he answered, non-committally.
He wasn't sure she’d want to talk to him again after word spread of how he'd treated the monks.
The rest of the day was fairly uneventful. He was on the lookout for the monks’ return, but they didn't show up. That probably meant they were discussing how to get rid of him. He was surprised at how little they scared him. Maybe it was the effect of having enough viss to last him a hundred years. Maybe he had finally made peace with the fact he would need to die, eventually.
That night, Rabam returned. He stopped just one step inside the border, despite his repeated invitations to come to the temple.
“Aili wants to know if you have a plan for kicking out the monks the way you did or it was just a whim of the moment. I have different things to tell you based on the answer.”
Zeles couldn't keep out the amusement from his voice.
“I don't have a plan.”
“Then she wants you to know that she's extremely disappointed, because Saia did all she could to make both of you seem innocent and you just ruined her work. And that now she has to plan around what you did to fix this situation. She asks whether you want to collaborate from now on or she has to work by herself.”
Zeles sent a wind forward to blow a letter into his hands.
“I won't lie anymore about who I am and I'll protect these people until my viss ends. Apart from this, I don't want to cause her any harm or weaken her position, and I'll listen to her plans. The letter contains everything I did up to this point. I figured it would be better…”
… to have it in writing instead of relying on Rabam to remember every single detail. Word will probably spread soon about my name and the fact that Vizena is dead, considering I have no intention of preventing my people from leaving. I'm proud of what I did, even if I do recognize I could probably have handled everything better.
“The understatement of the century,” Aili commented, making the air in the temple tremble. Not even pacing on the pedestal was enough to dispel the nervous energy of her viss.
Rabam, sitting on a chair in Mili’s home, folded Zeles's letter.
“No, please, read it too,” Aili told him. “I need to know your opinion on what the monks would do in this case.”
He set out to read. Aili forced herself to divert her attention to the rest of the village. The sun was disappearing and the people were returning home, except for some fishers who readied to go out at sea again. She healed a temperature and a troubled stomach before Rabam could answer.
“Nothing even remotely similar happened when I was a sentinel, but we were taught that the last resort against a rebel god is to attack him from three sides and deactivate him.”
He moved aside some of the half-carved statuettes on the table to make space, then took one picturing a heron and put it in the center.
“First, they contact the two other gods that border with him.” He positioned a snake and a crab on opposite sides of the heron. “Then they send some sentinels at the border, far enough that the god can't see them.” He pushed a swallow forward. “Then give the signal. The two gods attack together, and once the rebel god is busy enough, the sentinels go in and deactivate him.”
He toppled over the heron with the swallow.
“The statuettes weren't really necessary,” Aili commented. “You are just showing off.”
He smiled, then returned serious with an embarrassed cough.
“It’s a huge waste of viss, both from the gods who have to stop the rebel and the rebel himself, who will either run out of viss or be deactivated and then destroyed.”
“And how long do we have before the attack?”
“I guess they have to discuss it, first. They hate wasting viss.”
Aili thought back to when Saia had tried to convince them to have Vizena replaced.
“Don't I know it. How many days do you think it will take?”
“I don't know. Two, maybe. Probably more, but I really have no idea.”
Aili stopped and gathered as much of her attention as possible without leaving the village without protection.
Her first idea was using the shards to deactivate Dore and that other deity, Lorin, even if that would have required finding out which shard was hers. But the monks would have known that the shards were nearby, and she was an obvious candidate. They still had the other half-shards, so they could reactivate them as many times as needed and go on with their plans.
If she couldn't deactivate them, maybe she could convince the gods not to attack, either through threats or in exchange for something they really wanted. Except she had no idea of what that could be. She could maybe guess Dore’s wishes, after talking to him a bit more, but Lorin was outside of her range.
In addition to that, she needed to think of a plan of action for the monks to defeat Zeles, as Riena had advised her to do. It wouldn't have worked, of course, but it had to be convincing enough for the monks to act on it. That way, she'd have complete control over the situation, knowing their moves in advance, and clear her reputation while saving Zeles and proving to the monks that he was basically invincible, thus discouraging further attacks.
Problem was, she had no idea what that plan could be.
She focused on Rabam again.
“I’m about to ask you something extremely dangerous, and I will completely understand if you refuse. Please don’t feel pressured to accept just because I’m the one asking.”
He sat straighter, as if ready to spring into action.
“Tell me what you want.”
“I need you to go up the mountain and get some information for me.”
He gave her a quick nod, looking up as if encouraging her to continue.
“I need to know when the attack will be, with as much precision as possible. I also need to know who the current gods were before being transformed. There’s a book entirely on that.”
He stood and started to gather his stuff into his backpackof leather covered in fur.
“You don’t need to go now. You can rest for tonight.”
“That’s a bad idea, if we only have two days.”
“But…”
“Anything else?” he asked.
“Yes, but only if you get the chance to do this and it doesn’t jeopardize everything: get a book on the ancient history of the monks and the mountain.”
He nodded again, more hesitantly this time.
“Sorry,” Aili added. “I know I'm asking you a lot.”
“It's not a big deal. I’m good at hiding and I have someone on the inside that can give me that information.”
Aili observed him getting ready for the hike with growing nervousness. In a few minutes, he was out of the house and at the village's northern border.
“Please, don't get caught,” she told him.
He gave the air a reassuring smile and kept on walking, beyond the line of white stones and towards the village that once was his house.