The first time Aili tried to send Saia the code, she had to stop and double-check she hadn't made any mistakes before she felt sure enough to try again. The expenditure of energy was huge, an entire month of her future life gone in an instant, which meant that Saia was extremely far from the mountain. At least the viss hadn't remained on the shard, so she was still alive.
She reviewed the code one last time, then started sending the alphabet letters one after the other, hoping she would understand what they meant. She added the code inside the letter, leaving viss of various intensities in little squares: it was best Zeles knew it too, in case something happened to her.
Hours passed without a sign of acknowledgement, to the point she began worrying that Saia couldn’t figure out how to answer. Or worse, that she found herself in such dire circumstances that she didn't have the time to even think about that. Then again, maybe she was overreacting and she simply needed time to formulate an answer that wouldn’t waste her viss.
She reluctantly set the problem aside to face the biggest one: Rabam’s absence. She needed to save him, and she could only do that by sending someone on the mountain. Someone capable to deal with the monks.
There wasn't anyone like that in Lausune; she couldn't even think of a person brave enough to deliver the letter. The best she could come up with was the Lauhas brothers, especially Morìc. She'd been hesitant to contact him due to his apparent hatred toward Koidan, but there was no one else as involved as he already was.
She found him sitting at the loom as usual, weaving a carpet with geometric figures that resembled birds flying over the sea. She waited for him to take a break, but he kept going for two hours straight without giving signs of slowing down.
“Can I have a moment of your time?” she asked softly with Zeles’s voice.
He tensed and stopped.
“We had an agreement not to talk to each other,” he said.
“I know,” she lied. “But it's a very important request. Crucial for the security of the village. I'd never break our pact if it wasn’t.”
“My request had been important too, but you have refused it, so I won't help you.”
“Which request? I'll see what I can do, but…”
Morìc produced a bitter laugh.
“No, thank you. I think I can manage alone, my god.”
He pronounced the last words in a derisive tone, as if he knew she wasn’t a true deity, after all.
“Besides, I’m making progress,” he continued. He resumed his weaving, albeit with slower movements. “Soon we won't be a problem anymore.”
‘We’ could only mean that Dan was involved in whatever had happened between Zeles and Morìc. That could explain his anger.
“I just need you to deliver a letter without Dore noticing. If you don’t want me to help with your request, whatever it was, is there something else I can do for you in exchange for this favor?”
“The new letter carrier is Kadam,” Morìc said. “And don't you dare ask my brother. He won't listen to you anyways.”
Aili didn't know what else to say, so she withdrew all of her attention back at the temple. She needed at least to know what had happened between Koidan and Morìc, what their pact entailed and why they had deemed it necessary. There was only one place where she could get that information.
She focused on the library. It hadn’t been her intention to look for it, but one day she had decided to check each of the books in the vain hope of finding information on the history of the mountain. She had found it in the middle of an ancient series of volumes about botanic species of the mountain. Zeles or one of his predecessors had bound it with a cover that made it as old and boring as the other twelve tomes it was pressed against, placed on top of a tall shelf. She probably wouldn't have even glanced at it in her quest to find the truth about the mountain, when she was still an unsuspecting letter carrier and carelessly curious about everything.
There wasn’t anyone in any of the three small rooms of the library, so she locked the doors and made the book float down to one of the tables. She left it closed, as if that could prevent her from reading it. She wondered whether what she was about to do was the right thing.
She had read dozens of letters in the past, telling herself that it wasn’t out of morbid curiosity, but a vital need to know what was actually happening on the mountain. The truth was that she would have done the same even if she didn’t suspect there was something hidden to find, uncaring of what the inhabitants would think of her spying.
She still didn't care as much as she should. Her curiosity pulled her toward the book, and also toward every single house of the village and the actions of their inhabitants. The only reason she'd been able to hold back up to that point was knowing that Saia would never forgive her if she knew. Not when keeping secrets was such an integral part of her upbringing, not after all the suffering Vizena had caused her and her family through her controlling tendencies.
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At the same time, keeping what she'd done a secret to Saia was another thing she couldn't forgive herself for. But she couldn't risk losing her, not when she was even more alone than ever.
Her viss was flowing in waves of distress as she observed the book from above. She needed to establish ground rules for herself. Even if there was no one who could punish her or even hold her accountable.
She rejected that thought, deciding that there wouldn't be any need to, because she wasn’t going to fail. She would only read Morìc’s page and no one else's, not even his brother's, not Liraira’s.
She opened the book: there was an index organized by topic, with the names of every single inhabitant that had lived during Zeles's godhood, most of them accompanied by the date of death in addition to the one of their birth. She easily found Dan and Morìc’s names, since the date of their birth was left blank.
She was about to open the book to their page, when she saw a session titled ‘medical conditions’. She immediately checked it, feeling her guilt increasing; in order to hold back her curiosity, she had potentially put people in danger of mortal conditions. She hadn’t strengthened the weak hearts with an extra dose of viss, she hadn’t made sure old people’s bones wouldn’t deteriorate with age. She decided she'd have read those pages and learned them by heart as soon as the problem of the letter was settled.
She went back to Morìc’s page. His entry, like the majority of the other ones, was short: Zeles had clearly wanted to respect the privacy of his village's inhabitants.
She read the text, and found it talked about Dan too:
Dear successor,
there are two very important things that you need to know about Dan and Morìc Lauhas. First, do not ask about their past: they lost their parents in tragic circumstances and lived in Izgos’s orphanage until Morìc was old enough to take care of his brother alone. That's all you need to know.
Second, remove any trace of viss you find inside their house. Don't let them leave viss on any surface for more than an instant. Don't waste time wondering why: it was the abbot's order, and we must obey.
Aili turned the page, but that was it. No mention of Morìc’s pact with Koidan, unless it had something to do with the second instruction: ‘remove any trace of viss’.
She focused on the brothers' house: the viss was on everything they'd touched, as expected. Every surface, table, notebook and carpet was covered with a thin layer of viss. But the same thing was happening in every other house, and it didn't look like it was causing any problems. She decided to trust Zeles, at least for the moment, and removed the boys' viss by flooding their house with her own.
She hadn't learned anything new that she could use to convince Morìc to help her. She considered telling him the truth, but he seemed to distrust Koidan enough that he might not believe her. She needed to find someone else to deliver the letter for her.
She focused on the village as a whole, singling out the people who had the resources to leave it. The first candidate was Kadam, the new letter carrier. She tried not to compare him to herself as she observed him struggle to find the herbalist's house, stopping in front of his shop instead. She didn't judge him smart enough to deliver the letter without Dore finding out about it, nor he seemed brave enough to cross the forest between Lausune and Suimer without touching Tilau's borders.
To be fair, she knew there wasn’t a single person in the village that would dare the forest just to deliver a letter. But there was another way to reach Suimer without stepping into Dore’s territory: the sea.
She focused on the fishers: they were mostly sleeping in the cozy afternoon or taking care of their equipment in anticipation of a night of work. She recognized the father of one of her childhood friends, sitting on a dock as he mended a net.
“Sorry to interrupt, can I ask you something?”
He turned as if to search for whoever was calling him, then looked up and smiled.
“Of course, my god.”
“I need you to make me a favor. It's extremely important, you’re one of the few people I trust enough to fulfill it.”
His viss beamed with the same pride she'd felt when Koidan had made her administrator of resources, back when she didn't know about the monks.
“I’ll do everything I can, my god.”
“I have to deliver a letter to Vizena. I need you to go to Suimer with your boat and hand it directly to her.”
“That's easy. Even if it seems more like something Kadam would do.”
“There's something else: I need you to navigate outside of the villages' borders. You won't enter Tilau’s territory, you'll have to go past the four white stones, cross the forest, and only get closer to the shore once you've reached Suimer. You won’t go alone, of course, I trust you to find trustworthy companions for the trip.”
He looked confused at first, then his viss started buzzing with worry the longer she elaborated on her request. By the end, it was clear he didn't want to do what she asked, but couldn’t find a way to refuse.
“Out of the borders? Through the external forest?” he said. “But there are sea snakes in the water, and if something happens to me…”
“Nevermind,” Aili cut him off, feeling guilty for his distress. “It was foolish of me, I'll just ask Kadam. Thank you anyways.”
He produced a relieved smile. She left him to his work, focusing again on the village.
The inhabitants had been told through all of their lives, by sacred texts, sermons and old legends, that stepping out of the borders meant putting themselves in huge danger. The only way she could possibly convince them otherwise was by telling the truth, but that also meant explaining why the gods had been misleading them for all of that time.
She didn’t think any of the people she knew would be able to handle that truth, either because they would panic or straight up not believe her. In the end, she decided that not choosing anyone would be worse than risking an overreaction on their part. She might as well start with Kadam, since he must have gotten used to crossing the godless lands between one village and the next.
“Can you come to the temple, please?” she asked him. “As soon as you finish with your turn.”
He nodded quickly, mumbling a formal ‘yes, mighty Koidan’. He finished shortly after, despite still having some letters inside his bag. While she waited for him to arrive, Aili reflected on how to best approach the situation, and most importantly, how much to reveal.
“Have you ever noticed something weird about the mountain, Kadam?” she asked him as soon as he was inside the temple, doors closed.
“Nothing I can think of,” he mumbled.
He was already tense, and it could only get worse from there. Aili fished for the vague memories she had of him: a few years older than her, working since a young age in his father’s orchard, at least up to that point. She was tempted to check his page in the register, but managed to hold back.
“What if I told you that gods are actually common people?”
His lips trembled.
“I… Didn’t understand the joke, I fear.”
Aili masked her frustration with a reassuring smile. She could already feel the weight of the long day ahead.