Zeles was forced to give up a bit more ground under the pressure of the remaining two gods. Dore and Lorin had been deactivated and brought away, probably to be questioned later. He needed to protect less territory in order not to waste viss, even if it meant surrendering the dock area to the monks pouring in from the sides. The boats advanced as one, bringing the spheres closer so that they didn’t need to further expand their domains to reach him.
He saw the monks enter the buildings and find them empty. Almost everyone had gathered around the temple, confused about what was happening. Even the groups who had gone away to talk to the monks came back.
“They took the baker,” someone said.
That prompted an alarming list of people who had been grabbed by the monks and taken away into the nearby villages every time Zeles’s barriers had faltered.
“What are their intentions?” Saia’s father asked, trying to comfort a furious Lada.
Zeles had suspicions, but he didn’t voice them, certain that they would be confirmed only once the siege was over. The monks had gone all out, attacking with ballistae, temporarily removing gods from their villages, entering from Tilau and Kivari’s borders, fighting past sunset. It wasn’t difficult to imagine that they were ready to use their whole stock of cloud water to remove from the inhabitants’ minds the memories of the attack and the brief period Zeles had been their god.
It wasn’t going well. Even setting aside his worry for Aili, that the monks were still trying to fish out of the water, he couldn’t see himself resisting for a whole day, let alone all the time it would need for the monks to give up on the assault or the other gods to exhaust most of their viss. With all the people surrounding the temple, scared and confused just as if Vizena was still ruling over them, he was starting to wonder whether the monks’ victory was preferable. They did care about keeping the inhabitants safe, at least, even if their methods relied on deceptiveness and obedience to their rules above everything else.
Most importantly, he couldn’t stop thinking about the book Rabam had brought him. It had shown how a similar attack had played out in the past, so maybe the piece about the explosion was true too. Maybe the monks had made a change he wasn’t aware of or didn’t remember just before creating him. They were breaking so many rules only to rein him in that it didn’t seem a far-off possibility.
He wondered how far the explosion could reach. The temple was mostly covered in debris and chunks of ceiling, which could slow down the explosion, as well as make it more dangerous if it was strong enough to throw them around.
He couldn’t tell anymore whether the buzzing of his energies was just fear and apprehension or something more dangerous brewing under the surface.
“Is it true?” he asked impulsively to the monks that were entering from Tilau’s border.
They were startled by his voice. They looked back, focusing on one specific figure.
“Are you about to surrender, Zeles?” they asked.
He could immediately tell they were a prior. They stood alone, surrounded by sentinels, overlooking the monks that tried to advance by pressing their spears against the barrier of wind.
“I could, if you promise me you won’t hurt Ailima.”
The prior tightened their crossed arms.
“She betrayed us. We will crack both of you.”
“Then at least don’t hurt Suimer’s people. Don’t erase their memories, let them return to their houses as if nothing ever happened.”
“We only took them to interrogate them, but they fought back with magic, so we don’t have any choice. You only have yourself to blame.”
“I could just keep fighting and make your gods waste all of their viss.”
“It won’t be necessary. We just need to wait.”
“Why?”
They smiled a bit, but didn’t answer.
Zeles was used to not having a body. The chilling sensation he felt was probably just a distant memory of two hundred years prior, but it had an effect all the same. He looked at the people gathered around his temple.
“I’m almost completely sure the explosion is just a bluff.”
The prior kept staring at the spot of the barrier from which his voice was irradiating, without giving a sign of emotion or understanding.
“But it’s a risk I can’t take,” Zeles concluded.
He retreated his attention from the conversation and made his statue step down from the pedestal. Suimer’s inhabitants noticed the movement and crowded around the entrance to watch the giant of blue rock step over the rubble and toward the door.
“Don’t stand so close to me, please.”
“You’re not abandoning us, are you?” Lada asked.
“I won’t leave you without protection,” he said. “From the monks, at least. From the gods… I can do something. I have faith my friends will do the rest. Don’t follow me,” he warned them, seeing they were trailing behind him as he stepped down the road that led away from the temple.
He could feel his domain moving with him, leaving some bits of land unprotected, inglobating others. He pushed away the monks as his barrier followed his movements. To his relief, the inhabitants stayed behind, clustered around the temple. He put as much distance as he could between them and himself, making sure his domain still included most of the village.
He had ninety years of viss left, after the attack had drained a decade in just one hour. It was clear the siege would have dissipated the rest quickly enough, killing him and leaving Suimer’s inhabitants without protection. Saia had given him half of her energy because she wanted him to keep them safe, and he wished the same. Any other use of his viss was a senseless waste. Above everything else, he could never forgive himself if he were to hurt them, no matter how flimsy the story of the explosion seemed.
He stopped in the middle of the road and focused on the terrain. He’d erected enough houses during his lifetime to know where to build and where to shore up the ground to avoid landslides. As its ancient buildings had suggested, Suimer’s terrain was particularly solid.
He let his powers bite deep into the rock and started gathering materials.
“Go to the temple,” Rabam said, kneeling on the carpet right beside Morìc.
The boy gave him an irritated glance over his shoulder.
“I know. Don’t give me orders or I’ll drop you.”
Rabam didn’t answer, looking back at the monks who were running toward them with spears ready to be thrown. Morìc turned the carpet sharply to the right, leading it out of their range. Lausune’s line of white stones started to get visible here and there, among the vegetation.
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“Wait, fly lower,” Rabam said.
“I said don’t give me orders!”
“If they see us enter while Aili’s there, they’ll think she’s on their side.”
Morìc didn’t answer for a few instants, then sighed.
“It’s a bit too late for that.”
Rabam listened in horror as he relayed Zeles’s message.
“They want to break her?”
“Yes.”
“And where is she now?”
Morìc shrugged.
“I don’t know.”
They entered Koidan’s territory. Rabam realized he was expecting to hear her voice, but they were only greeted by silence. He realized they were tracing a wider path than necessary.
“Where are we going?”
“To the temple.” He could feel the eyeroll in Morìc’s voice. “I can’t go straight ahead because half of the village is under Mivion now, and I don’t want to explain anything.”
They didn’t speak anymore while the boy steered the carpet toward the temple. Morìc made it land between the trees at the back of the building.
“I’ll dig up the shards,” Rabam said. “Since I know where they are. You take care of the letter. Do you know where it is?”
“Zeles told me.”
“Good. Let me know what’s written there as soon…”
He saw his annoyed face and trailed off.
“Sorry. Thank you for saving me.”
He ran toward the trees. He found the shovel he had hidden behind a trunk and the seven different symbols with which he had marked the plants that hid the shards. He removed the first layer of earth, taking care not to hit too deep, then set the shovel aside and dug out with bare hands the pouch that contained the first shard. He deactivated the first god, then reached the second one. Since Morìc didn’t know which gods were involved in the attack and he didn’t know their imprint, he’d have to deactivate all of them.
“I’ve found the letter,” Morìc yelled, running toward him.
Rabam was digging out the third shard.
“What does it say?”
Morìc read it out loud. The first part was a summary of how the attack on Suimer should have gone, if the monks had followed Aili’s plan. Morìc looked at Rabam for reassurance before moving on.
“Yes, she planned it,” he explained, deactivating the god and moving on to the next tree. “They would have tried something else on their own, at least this way we could have been prepared.”
The second part of the letter was more interesting.
“Contact Saia in case you need to deactivate all of the gods,” Morìc read. “She has my shard, so she can deactivate me too. It’s better if I’m not the only one awake, or the monks will immediately understand I betrayed them. She has my shard, and I have her shard too. It’s hidden in a cavity under my sphere, in the belly of the statue. I made the outward layer thin so it can be broken easily.”
Rabam let go of the shovel and stood to look at the letter. He saw the squares drawn at the bottom and touched their corners with the tip of a finger, to feel the viss they contained.
“An intensity code,” he hissed. “I’m not good with those. Do you know how to use them?”
Morìc shook his head.
“We have to try before they break Aili,” Rabam added.
He entered the temple and took the scalpel that Morìc had left on the statue’s pedestal. He hesitated, seeing the hole the monks had torn in Aili’s chest to take out the sphere. He checked it first, looking for a fragment of glass from either her sphere or Saia’s, but only found rock debris.
He positioned the point of the scalpel against the statue’s belly and hit it gently with the small hammer that came with it. It broke easily, revealing a small round cavity. Saia’s shard was resting at the bottom.
He took it carefully, paying attention not to leave his own viss on it. When Morìc reached him, he took the letter too and laid it flat on the pedestal. He readied himself to send the message, balancing the shard on his palm. He sent a bit of viss out, buzzing with his own agitation, to both gauge how much energy it would take to reach Saia and alert her that there was a message arriving.
His knees gave out and he found himself on the floor.
“Rabam?” Morìc called out.
“It’s fine, it’s just… I didn’t expect her to be that far.”
He forced himself to breathe slowly to calm down his racing heart. He wasn’t sure he could go through an entire word without passing out, after all the viss he’d used during the escape and the hunger he had to endure. There were still four shards to deactivate. There was still Aili out there, surrounded by monks who wanted to kill her.
“How did you do that?” he asked as he climbed back to his feet.
Morìc frowned.
“Do what?”
“Fly that carpet. It looks exhausting. I don’t think anyone would have enough viss to do that for more than a few minutes.”
Morìc shrugged.
“Guess I’m a magic genius.”
“I need to send a message to Saia,” Rabam said, showing him the shard.
Morìc looked at it.
“Saia,” he repeated. “I don’t understand.”
Rabam realized he was an inhabitant of the mountain, albeit one that was strangely proficient with magic.
“If you have a way to send this message without wasting too much viss, this is the moment to share.”
“I can’t share it. I won’t.”
Rabam gestured to grab his shoulders, but stopped when Morìc stepped back.
“Then Aili will die,” he said, letting the arms fall at his sides. “Zeles too, probably. Do you know them, at least?”
Morìc held his gaze.
“Yes.”
“What’s happening in Suimer will happen to Lausune too after the monks finish there. They’ll give you another god that doesn’t know you at all.”
For some reason, that had an effect on him, even if Rabam wasn’t sure it was for the reasons he expected.
“Wait here.”
Morìc ran out of the temple. He came back shortly after with the carpet rolled under his arm. He threw it down onto the floor and took out a pair of scissors from his backpack.
Rabam gently put a hand on his shoulder.
“Don’t destroy it completely, I’ll need it.”
Morìc glared at him, but nodded.
“It won’t last that much, though,” he said, turning the carpet upside down.
He started cutting away the rough cloth that was sewn at the bottom, where the carpet was supposed to rest against the floor, revealing the chaos of strings beneath. Rabam looked at it in fascination, wondering whether the underside of a carpet was supposed to be so different from the result that could be seen at the front.
Morìc looked up sharply.
“Didn’t you have some shards to dig up?”
Rabam left him to his work. He resumed digging outside, gathering the pouches once he had finished. He knew deactivating the gods was just a temporary solution to slow down the attack, since the monks could just reactivate them as soon as they realized something was wrong. But it was the best he could do, so he kept the pouches inside the pockets of his tunic, hoping to find a better hiding spot later that would make them easier to use.
He returned to the temple once he was finished. Morìc had cut away three circles of thread, knotting the end in a way that preserved their shapes. He started cutting some pieces, adding others with the help of a thick needle.
“I’ve never seen a pattern this intricate,” Rabam said, pointing at the strings crisscrossing at the center of each circle. “What are they?”
“Holders,” Morìc answered, as if it explained everything. “What pattern do you need to send a message?”
“Nothing. I have to send a bit of viss with different intensities, based on an established code. I don’t understand, how can you do all of this,” he gestured at the carpet. “And not know something this basic?”
Morìc’s hands faltered.
“If you only need to send viss, maybe it’s easier than anticipated,” he mumbled.
Rabam noticed that he had avoided the topic, but decided not to press it. Morìc detached a purple string from the tangle, created a flat circle on one extremity, then sew the middle to the three holders. He held up a hand.
“Give me the shard,” he said.
Rabam hesitated.
“If you stain it with your viss, it’s as good as a piece of glass from that window,” he said, nodding toward one of the decorated glass panels.
Morìc seemed to reflect for a moment, then gave him the free extremity of the purple string.
“Tie it around it.”
Rabam did. He brushed one of the holders while he worked, and he had to stop for an instant.
“They contain… So much viss,” he commented.
Morìc nodded, closing his eyes for a moment as if in defeat.
“Keep going.”
Rabam finished the knot and put down the pattern onto the floor. He reached out to take the letter from the pedestal. With a hand on the code and one on the activation point, he sent the message to Saia.
Awaken Aili now. Emergency.
He felt the viss leave his body, but not nearly as much as before. If he had to guess what was happening, his viss had only activated the pattern, while the holders provided the energy needed to carry out the task. Only one of the three was completely depleted.
“Can I bring them with me?” he asked.
Morìc visibly tensed.
“Why?”
“I might need to send more messages. Or power other patterns,” he added, thinking about his improvised magnet amplifier.
Morìc touched the holders, looking as if he wanted to snatch them and run away.
“Usually I never make them like this,” he said. “The pattern changes based on what you need to do, on the material or object you need to power. These are a generalized version. The least efficient, but the most adaptable.”
He grabbed Rabam’s sleeve.
“Don’t share them with the monks. Don’t use them lightly. If someone asks about them, you don’t know anything. They’re my family’s biggest secret.”
The boy’s gaze was so intense Rabam couldn’t think of an answer that would reassure him. He only nodded.
Morìc slowly let him go, the usual apathy falling back in place.
“Can I take your carpet too?” Rabam dared to ask.
Morìc shrugged.
“I don’t know how much flight it has left. It only has two holders now.”
“I’ll be careful.”
Rabam took the rolled-up carpet under his arm and stood.
“Hide somewhere,” he added, “I fear the next person to enter that door will be a monk.”
He unfurled the carpet right out of the entrance and hopped on.