Chapter 21 – Final Resting
Winter swam close by under the grey waves. He could see the wind above tearing at them and pulling foam from their crests. He refrained from surfacing to avoid the stinging spray. It was so familiar to the dream that it gave him a deep foreboding. Better to stay underwater, which he felt more comfortable in.
He understood Cindarina's caution now. This was a desolate place, both above and below the waves. Despite the surface agitation, the water was still, churned by no currents. The land was cleft with sudden valleys, sharp promontories, and boulder fields. There was no coral, no kelp, and even a minimum of sand and mud. It wasn't surprising no one ever came here.
He knew, from his studies, that outside the known world, the outer waste stretched on all sides. When the Grey Elves created the world, he supposed they only created so much of it. The rest was a blank, empty slate. He never thought to ask if the bleak landscape continued into the ocean or not. If it did, he thought this was a good example of what it would look like.
Beneath him he saw a great mesa. The land fell away on all sides of it. The surface of it was broken, but relatively flat. What caught his eye was a straight line. In all this chaos, there was something that had the look of artifice about it. He swam down deeper and details became clearer.
There was, indeed, a line. A pile of stones organized into a row. It was broken in several places where the land shifted, but it was clearly intentionally built.
He followed it a short distance and found what looked like a cairn. After swimming around it though, it was clear it wasn't just a random pile of rocks. All those years of studying Triton ruins came to him. The stones were the same sizes as used in the wall, implying a similar mode of construction. Mentally he traced back the pattern of subsidence and the result was more straight walls. Four of them, and a collapsed roof. It was a building.
His first thought was how proud Penny would be that he had applied his studies. But then the rest sank in. Roofs? Walls? No one in the Underwater built like this. It had to be surface work. There was no question now. The sender of the dreams, the one who had lead him here, was definitely connected with his father. Othr, god of some wiped out people of the North. These were their bones.
Winter surfaced, and through the squall he saw a rocky promontory ahead of him. The silhouette of it was just like in his dreams. He let the surf carry him in to the narrow shingle beach, and then stepped ashore.
The wind was calmer here, but cold. Not that it bothered him much. The same magic that let him breathe underwater protected him from the damp and the chill. He just noted the temperature as the wind dried his body.
Some clefts between the rocks afforded a narrow space that let him scramble above the beachhead. It was difficult going for Winter, unused as he was to moving about on the surface, let alone climbing. By the time he reached the top he was winded and had several stinging cuts on his hands.
The land rose steeply before him to a pinnacle, but he barely had to look at that. It was one of the more memorable parts of his dreams. Instead he turned to look at what the dream had not shown him, the view over the ocean.
It was spectacular.
Grey swells heaved up and down, windblown whitecaps skittering their crests. Squalls of rain textured the surface of the sea in patches. Islands lay dotted in all directions. None very large. All barren. The sun filtered down through rain heavy clouds lighting the whole scene in low contrasts.
Reluctantly he turned from the waves. He put one foot in front of the other and slowly climbed the lands. There were either the remains of a path, or an occasional watercourse. It was hard to tell the difference. It was easier going, so he took it.
Turning a bend, there was a ramshackle structure half collapsed against the cliff. A chill went up and down Winter's spine. He walked past it slowly, studied its state of disrepair and the odd bits of worked driftwood that protruded from its tumbled surface like shark's teeth. He had no way of knowing for sure, but given how nothing so far was a coincidence, this was likely the place where he was conceived.
His mother had told him the tale several times. She had come here investigating the lost land. On this rocky road she met Othr, large and wiry. A battle god of a fierce people. Only his people were no more, and his two hundred year amnesia meant he didn't know where, why or that he even had a people. He was a lost, lonely, pathetic creature.
But he had his charm. And Devonshire shared his bed for the night. She really didn't know what to do with him, but at dawn, he got up, found some battle gear amongst the ruin, put it on, and insisted she fight. The way his mother put it, she did so out of a reluctant kindness. It seemed obscene to let him live as he had, and only fitting to let a battle god go down fighting. So she fought him. And she killed him. And she buried him at the crest of the hill.
Winter kept his eyes fixed on that. The cairn he had seen in his dreams. It was there as he crested the hill. Right on top of the island with a wide view of his drowned kingdom. His spear still stood, fixed upright from the center. Winter touched it gently. His mother didn't say, but he was pretty sure Othr had been buried holding it, ready to strike, in his hands. It was the closest he was ever going to get to his Father.
Suddenly there was a cracking noise from behind him. He whipped around, heart suddenly pounding. He stared back and forth, breathing deeply, trying to calm down. It was irrational. There could be nothing up here. The place was barren. It was probably a rock he had disturbed.
Then he saw a rock move. Bits of it flaked away and fell to the side. Winter furrowed his brow in curiosity. It shuddered and shrugged and more of the surface fell away. Winter realized it was not a rock at all, but, strangely, a bird. Thickly encrusted with mud and dust as if it had been sitting there for years. It shook itself and hopped from foot to foot and clouds of dust cascaded from it. It was not a type Winter had ever seen. Under the dirt it looked to be black on the head, neck and breast, with lighter shoulders and wingtips.
The bird hopped into the air, and beat its wings, letting out great plumes of dust. It flew the few feet and landed on the cairn and looked directly at Winter. “Caw” it coughed out, hoarsely. Then, “The spear is yours now, you know” came directly into his mind.
Winter started and took two steps back. There was no question about it. The bird had spoken to him. Directly to him. But it seemed somehow familiar. Not in sound, but in feeling.
“You!” said Winter, accusingly. “You're the one who sent the dreams!”
The bird shrugged. “Not like I could come to you. Birds don't do underwater well.”
“This is about him, isn't it?” said Winter, pointing his finger at the cairn. “Have you come to bring him back?”
“Do you want him back?” asked the bird, leaning forward intently.
“I want to know if that's what you want”, said Winter, folding his hands over his chest.
“Oh, I have no wants myself”, said the bird. “I wasn't made to have a personal opinion.”
“What were you made for then?” asked Winter.
“I'm your conscience”, said the bird, and Winter felt like it was smiling sardonically at him.
“My conscience?” said Winter. “You mean his conscience?” He pointed again at the cairn. “He made you?”
“Yes”, said the bird, and shook more dust off of itself. “He made me to be his conscience. Now you have his soul, so I'm your conscience.”
“You know about souls?” asked Winter.
“I know a great many things”, said the bird. “I was made to remember. I never forget anything.”
“You never forget anything”, repeated Winter, slowly. Then he pointed his finger at the bird. “You never forget anything. He made you to remember everything. So when he forgot it, he could ask you!”
“Yes”, confirmed the bird.
“He cheated!” exclaimed Winter.
The bird shrugged. “Not my place to cast judgement.”
Winter stepped forward again.
“So you belong to me now? Will you tell me anything I ask?”
“Of course”, said the bird. “Everything I know is yours. So long as you ask the right question.”
“OK”, said Winter, challengingly. “You say the spear is mine now. Tell me how to use it.”
“Sure”, said the bird. It flapped its wings and Winter felt something like a cold tentacle burrow into his mind. He cried out and put his hands up. But by then, the sensation had gone away.
Winter stood bold upright. He stared unbelievingly at the spear. “Gungande!” he cried. The spear leapt from the mound and flew straight to his hands. “I don't believe it”, Winter whispered. He ran his hands over the shaft and traceries came to light in the weathered grey wood. The flat parts of the tip were covered in small stick-like writing. He knew what it could do. How to invoke magic so it would never miss, to extrude barbs up and down its length, to call lightning. Everything he would expect of a weapon of the gods.
He looked back to the bird. “Do you know how to bring him back?” he asked levelly.
“Sure”, said the bird again. “It's easy. But you didn't ask me to tell you. You have to ask the question right. Just ask me how to do it.”
“No”, said Winter. “I just wanted to know if you knew.” He spun the spear in a certain way and it shrank and vanished from sight. But he still felt its presence. It was hovering around him, following him, in some sort of magical pocket.
“What do I call you?” asked Winter.
“He always called me Conscience”, said the bird.
“I see”, said Winter, twisting his mouth to one side. “OK, Conscience, answer me this. If you knew everything and Othr here could ask you about it all, why didn't he use that knowledge to build back his kingdom?”
“I know things”, said Conscience, “Not necessarily motives.”
“Don't evade the question”, said Winter.
“I wasn't”, said Conscience, defensively. “I was just getting to it. He did go on about it a lot. He was a god. His power came from his worshipers. Without any worshipers, he had no power to do anything. So he was kind of stuck. Over time he asked less and less questions, and eventually I think he forgot he could.”
“What happened to his worshipers?” asked Winter.
“Look around”, said Conscience. “There was a war. Three other pantheons ganged up on him. Fire and brimstone everywhere. Smashed the whole place up. Everyone got wiped out.”
“But what about their souls?” asked Winter. “I'm not a mage but I know a thing or two about this. The souls of his worshipers must have resided in the divine realm. They should have still been able to provide mana for him.”
“Hmm”, said Conscience. “You do seem to have a brain. Yes. Most of them were taken as war spoils by the winning gods. To add to their own mana creating collection.”
“Most”, said Winter. “That implies not all. What happened to the rest?”
“Ah, that's where things got awkward for those pantheons”, said Conscience, almost with glee. “You see, the rest of the gods didn't like the implications of those three ganging up and wiping another pantheon out. So they all ganged up on them to get an agreement hammered out so that no one would ever do that again.”
“Yeah”, said Winter. “I've seen firsthand how touchy the gods get about one of their own being taken down.”
“Really?” said Conscience. “Do tell!”
“Some other time”, said Winter. “You were telling me about the remaining souls.”
“Well, it's like this”, said Conscience. “The souls that were happily brewing mead up in heaven just got transferred. A bit of adjustment, but nothing big after that. But all those who actually fought in the war, that was something else. You couldn't exactly have them hanging about the place retelling the tale of how naughty the gods had been in wiping out another pantheon. So they took them, and even those who had fought for them, bottled them up, and rammed a cork in. No one left to generate mana for poor Othr.”
“Wait”, said Winter, going cold. “These other gods bottled them up. When exactly did this happen?”
“Seventeen thousand years ago”, said Conscience. Winter was silent. “Do you need a more exact figure?”
“That'll do”, said Winter, dry mouthed. “You see, they aren't bottled up anymore.”