Song of Ashes

31: Gods Among Men

Sarka sat alone on the cobbled street encircling the statue of Deyna, her back against the plinth supporting the figure. Now that the sun had gone down, the crowds had diminished and the street was largely empty. Here and there, a lone worshiper entered or left one of the temples lining the Opal Road, but no one took notice of the stranger in their midst.

It was all too overwhelming to handle in a day. Sarka had fled the Temple of Deyna, feeling the eyes of the so-called goddess upon her back as she stumbled out of the audience chamber.

The goddess. In the flesh. What delusion was that? Gods lived apart from their worshipers in the Opal Realm.

Didn't they?

Kogoren did not walk among her people...but had she once? Had she walked among men before she had destroyed the world?

Sarka's stomach clenched with hunger. The dregs of the day had slipped through her fingers as she sat there on the ground, thinking. Now she had nowhere to go, and she found herself almost missing the home she had left behind. Things there had been hard, but at least they had been simple in their difficulty. Each day had been a familiar litany of tasks: wake, draw water, work, eat what there is to eat. Now, she was a stranger with no allies and no direction, navigating an intricate web of social interactions and new complications of a spiritual nature.

It was the definition of loneliness.

She felt the chill of Tayo's presence before she saw him, but she ignored the Beloved at first. After a while, when he failed to leave her in peace and the weight of his gaze grew too heavy, Sarka turned her head to look at him. He was crouched on the cobblestones next to her, looking at her with eyes as eternal and dispassionate as the moon.

"I don't know where to go," Sarka said.

"So you sit here in the middle of the street and weep."

"I'm not weeping. Just thinking."

"Considering whether to pledge your fealty to this foreign goddess?"

"No." Sarka fell back against the plinth again, putting a hand over her face. "Believe me, Tayo, I am not here to find religion."

Tayo was silent.

"I didn't expect it to be like this. I don't know what I expected. I'm looking for work, that's all. But she-their goddess, Deyna-she sits on a golden throne in the temple. In the flesh. A goddess with her feet on the earth."

Still, he said nothing. Sarka looked at him. "In the flesh," she reiterated. "A woman. A woman like me."

Tayo raised his brows. "How else is she to rule her people but as a woman in the flesh? But she is not a woman like you." His expression changed for an instant, little more than a flicker: was it a fragment of a cold smile? "You have no power."

Sarka pressed her lips together, brushing aside his derision. "You should show more confidence in the woman who's going to set you free."

"When." It was more demand than question, flat and hard.

"Give me time."

"You know nothing," Tayo said. His dark eyes sparked, and for an instant Sarka could see the burning pit that had seemed to consume him from within the first time she saw him. "You stare in wonder at a deity. You ask questions a child could answer."

"Stop looking at me like that, like I'm a fool!" Sarka snapped. "How could I have known? No one speaks of Kogoren, Tayo. She's a cloud over our history-an evil-"

Before she had finished speaking, Tayo hissed, bristling in defense of his goddess-wife. "They are ungrateful. All of them are ungrateful. Her blessings fed them, clothed them, gave unto them all the makings and trappings of life, and they betrayed her. They made her quit the mortal realm. Their sssin caused her to leave the Beloved behind-"

"Be silent," Sarka said. She should have been afraid of him, but anger made her bold. "She betrayed us. She killed us in the thousands, and if there are thousands of us left in that place, she kills us still. If you are only here to preach to me, Tayo, leave me alone. I thought you had broken your allegiance to her. If not, you are no help to me."

Tayo's gaze smoldered. He had the look of a cat with its ears back; had he had a tail, it would have been twitching. He was silent for a long time, so long that she did not expect him to respond at all. When he did, he surprised her by changing the course of their conversation.

"There are many gods in this land. You were overambitious when you sought to serve the grandest and most beloved of them all."

Sarka laughed without humor. "So now you are some kind of priest."

He narrowed his eyes. "My memories serve me, mortal. When I served as the Queen's consort, I met the gods in the Opal Realm. Will you listen, or are you content in your ignorance?"

Sarka let her breath out, depleted. "I would be grateful for your help, if it's free of any evangelizing."

Dislike crackled in the air between them. The light flared in Tayo's eyes again, then died. "Deyna is the goddess of prosperity and abundance. You see why she is the most honored in this city." He pointed across the cobblestone road to one of the other temples; it had wave-shaped spires, and in place of a lawn or a garden, there were clear pools of water framing the walk. "Soros, god of the sea; he is honored here in a city of merchant-sailors and traders, and the consort of Deyna-when he has her fickle favor."

Tayo continued to point, naming the denizens of the temples he could see. "Jerest, the Galdrenite goddess of love and passion. Kasta, goddess of the rainbow and gladness. Warien of the Tower, the goddess of wisdom and prudence." He paused, considering her, and a rare expression crossed his face, one of deep thought. In those moments, recalling the names and dominions of the gods as if it were all nothing more than a history lesson, he seemed nearly human. "You will not be at home under their roofs."

"Thank you for your encouragement," Sarka muttered. "Tell me-upon whose holy toes do you propose I throw myself and my needlework, Tayo?"

"Essara. Tarsen." He pointed far down the street, where Sarka could barely make out a pair of matched temples in the gloom. "They are divine sisters. Or, perhaps, Atai...his temple lies at the end of the Opal Road."

"Right. The gods of foreigners? Heathens? Ugly, rude women?"

Tayo's expression was one of feline amusement: a slow blink, a slow smile. "Affliction, death, and misfortune."

Sarka frowned and glanced down the street at these unlucky havens. When she looked back again, she was alone.