Chapter 35 Blessed
Chapter thirty-five
Blessed
I pull her close, and she growls in warning, but we’re already moving through frozen time until I drop us both at the foot of the mountain, hidden from view behind a rock outcropping. As we emerge with the time released from my spell, I see the people coming up the winding road—hundreds of them.
“This is why he didn’t bother attacking us again,” I say, mad laughter bubbling in my throat. “We’re done for, Jaga. Whatever this is, it’s the end. He’s won. Please, let’s go somewhere else. I’ll make another world for you. We’ll hide together, you and I. I beg you. Let’s go right now.”
She gives me a look of pure, undiluted scorn. “You’re raving. Gather your wits.”
When a group of pilgrims comes closer, two children sitting on top of a donkey led by a man and two women, she goes over with a wide smile.
“Hello! Excuse me, I just wanted to ask when you heard about the blessings? We only found out yesterday!”
The man stops the donkey, wiping his forehead. “Yesterday, too. Perun’s messenger came by our village, and we live nearby. Have you been up already? What’s he like?”
Jaga shakes her head. “Not yet. We’re resting, since it’s a long wait up there. Thank you, and blessings be!”
The man lifts his hand in farewell and clicks his tongue at the donkey, setting out into a slow walk. Jaga asks another group as they approach, then another.
“All of them found out yesterday,” she says, sitting by my side in the grass. “I think Perun must have kept this hidden and only revealed it then. It would explain why you weren’t able to find out anything earlier.”
I stay silent, because the only thing I have to offer is more raving.
I’m convinced I’m right, though. This is the end.
I can’t face Perun here. I can’t stop him.
And I’m not strong enough to make the mortals turn back.
This is hopeless, and Jaga is the mad one for trying to learn more. What’s the point?
We’ll both end up chained together, and I’ll watch her be raped day after day for all eternity. I bite back a sob. Oh, there is no end to my humiliation.
“Whatever you’re thinking, please, stop,” Jaga says through clenched teeth. “This is pathetic. Where is the great Woland who thought I’d be his if he only beckoned his fingers?”
“You taught him a lesson,” I say with a wry smile. “Don’t you see, Jaga? We can’t fight this.”
“We don’t even know what ‘this’ is yet. Have a little faith.”
“In whom?” I ask, laughing. “My only choices are Perun and myself, and love, I haven’t believed in Weles in centuries.”
“Maybe that’s your problem,” she mutters, standing up, because the boisterous group going down the slope is approaching.
“Hello! Oh, what’s that? Is that the blessing? I can’t believe you were so lucky to get it already! I cannot wait to get mine. Can I see it?”
I rise, too, intrigued despite myself. The man shows Jaga his forearm, on which glitters a round, gold mark.
As I come closer, I realize it’s one of Perun’s sigils, the solar one.
It’s a circle with smoothly interchanging, symmetrical lines within, painting something akin to a flower with even petals.
“Don’t touch it,” I warn her, and she pulls her hand away, giving the man a pleasant smile that transforms her plain face into something friendly and inviting.
“How did it go? Can you tell us? I’m so sorry to bother you, everyone up there has probably asked you already.”
“That’s fine,” the man says, going off the road onto the grass.
He sits down with a huff, and his companions, a few men and women, follow.
“We stood for a long time waiting for an audience, and then we went all the way down the mountain, so we need a rest. It was magnificent, I tell you. He sat up on an enormous gold throne, basking in divine light, a true god!”
“He was handsome,” one of the women says, a dreamy look on her face. “Stern and powerful, and so masculine.”
A man sitting by her side knocks her playfully with his elbow. “I’d be jealous if you weren’t talking about a god.”
“And what did he say when he gave you the blessing?” Jaga asks, her tone of eager curiosity utterly perfect.
“Nothing,” the man says with a shrug. “He beckoned us closer, and we’d already seen the others get the blessings before us, so we offered him our arms. He gave us the marks, and we went along, because those behind us were impatient for their turn.”
“What does it do?” I ask quietly. “Do you feel any different?”
The man looks at me with a frown. “What should it do? It’s a blessing! I imagine it will protect us from bieses, from hunger, from poverty… Don’t you know how blessings work?”
I smile to myself, because that confirms what I already know. None of those people know what the blessings do, and they still went like docile sheep to be marked, and probably wept in gratitude at Perun’s feet.
“All right.”
My shadows explode around us, stopping time. Our group is partly hidden in the tall grass, and no one’s too close on the road to see. Jaga shoots me a questioning look, and I grab her hand, taking us all to Nawie. The mortals are tied and gagged with my shadows.
We land on one of the middle levels that’s built like a dungeon, which is perfect. I quickly add individual cells with heavy doors, and push each of my captives inside, storing them separately. Each door has a small window allowing us to see them.
“Did you have to do that?” Jaga asks, watching the struggling, yet silent, mortals with an unhappy expression.
“How else will we find out what it does?”
She shakes her head but doesn’t protest. I call for Nyja and explain what we’ve seen, and at first, she’s afraid, then angry, then determined.
Unlike me, she doesn’t fall into despair, and I feel a flicker of gratitude for the women in my life.
If I were alone, I wouldn’t have tried to fight Perun’s scheme.
“All right,” Nyja says, tying back her hair. “I’ll take one and see if we can remove it. You take another and check what it does.”
I grab that first man, the one who was so proud about his mark. His eyes are filled with tears, and he shakes his head, pleading against the gag of my shadows. I pull him by the brown hair and sit him in a chair, tying him up.
Where to start?
“We already know it doesn’t protect anyone against misfortune, but let’s be thorough and check if it repels bieses. Can I borrow your friend, Jaga?”
She folds her arms. “Rada’s delicate.”
“I won’t spill any blood in her presence, I promise.”
“Oh, fine.”
Rada is brought, and it turns out Perun’s mark does nothing against wilas. No surprise there. I burn the man with fire, infect him with a disease, and forcibly empty his stomach and guts of all food and water to see if it will prevent starvation, but it doesn’t.
Jaga paces, watching my proceedings with unease. Meanwhile, Nyja’s subject screams through her gag as my goddess treats her mark with acid, fire, ice, and finally cuts it off.
“Look at this.”
I go over to see. The raw, bleeding wound on the woman’s forearm is healing, the mark still glimmering on her skin.
“Cutting it off doesn’t work?” I mutter. “Oh, this is something bad. I still don’t know what. Fuck, Nyja. What could this be? If you were him, what would you do to ensure an absolute victory?”
“Against you or everyone?”
I think for a moment. “Me. I definitely made him think I’m a threat again by taking Jaga and forming the alliance. What could he do to thwart me for good?”
Jaga shakes her head, uncertain, but I look into Nyja’s eyes, and they are grim, just like I know mine are. In unison, each of us goes to our respective subjects. I strangle mine with shadows, and Nyja stops the other’s heart with one well-aimed spell.
They die easily. We wait.
“No,” Nyja whispers after a minute. “He didn’t.”
I lean closer, putting my hand on the man’s chest. I frown.
There is something here, a cry of a thing trapped, suffering, trying to leave.
It flutters and struggles like a wild bird put in a cage for the first time.
My hands grow hot, and my skin tingles, sensing it.
A soul. A soul that wants to leave, but can’t.
I stumble back, dry-heaving, and stare at the man’s body. Even a few steps away, I still hear its cries. His soul whimpers and begs in wordless pleas, and as his body around it cools, it goes utterly frantic with pain and terror. I close my eyes and turn away, tasting bile.
“What happened?” Jaga asks, fear lacing her words. “Please. I can tell it’s something horrid. What did he do?”
I swallow and swallow, and it’s so telling that I’m this nauseous, more than I’ve ever been before. I’ve seen many atrocities, had many done to me, and yet, this is the most horrible thing I’ve witnessed. I can’t even say it. It’s beyond repugnant.
“He’s made it impossible for the souls to leave,” Nyja says in a dull, dead voice. “They are trapped. They can’t go home.”
“Could it be because you killed them in Nawie?” Jaga asks uncertainly. “Since they are already here…”
I stride over to another prisoner without saying a word, a man. I grab him and go up to Devil’s Cauldron, where I slit his throat, giving him a quick, merciful death.
What happens after is a horrendous atrocity. The man falls dead, and his soul clearly hears the call of Nawie, being so close to the Well of Souls. It chitters and squeaks in pain, thrashing against its prison.
Gripped by horror and rage, I make myself a long blade and hack off the man’s arm with the mark. It rolls away, clearly detached from his body, and yet, the soul is still trapped.
Perun’s curse, which was never a blessing, goes deeper than just the body. It’s magic of a kind I’ve never seen before, and it will ruin me. Soul by soul, mark by mark, Perun will starve me, until Nawie has no more souls, and I have no more magic.
He won. And all it took was debasing my creation so completely, it can never be saved. I leave the body there to rot and walk through shadows into one of the forgotten, only half-finished levels of Nawie, where I curl up on the ground and weep.
Nothing can rouse me from this stupor. It’s over. I don’t want to think anymore. I don’t want to be.
Time passes, measured out by the frantic, terrified beats of my heart.
It’s funny how mine and Jaga’s roles reverse.
Only a few weeks ago, I was the one pummeling her with pleas and threats through our bond, begging for a crumb of attention.
Now, I am hiding, and Jaga hisses and screams, and none of her words affect me.
Two days pass since I learned what Perun did, and all I do is sink lower and lower into despair.
I am done for. Maybe it will take centuries for all mortals to be branded, but it will happen sooner or later. I can’t fight this.
“Come out! You damned fool and coward, you… You excuse for a man! Come out and talk to me! We have ideas, things to try! Weles, Woland, you bastard!”
I don’t reply. It’s endearing that she thinks something can be done, but I know better. My brother is devious, constantly one step ahead, and he was always meant to crush me.
“I’ll fuck you if you come out. Talk to me. In the Hall of Fires.”
I pause at that. Will she really? But do I even want to? One thought about Perun will be enough to thwart whatever erection I can muster.
But what if she was in charge? I so badly need to forget, even just for a moment.
Grudgingly, I pick myself up off the ground where I spent the last two days, and sniff my clothes.
Sour. I’ve drunk a lot of poisoned wine.
I clean myself with magic and push through shadows to the Hall of Fires, but what awaits me is not Jaga seductively spread on the table, but all of my allies sitting there, with her fully dressed.
“You lied to me.” I glare at her, and I know I’m behaving like a grumpy brat, but at this point, it’s impossible to control. We’re doomed.
“Stay and listen, and it won’t be a lie.”
I sigh with ostentatious reluctance and trudge to my seat at the head of the table. Jaga stands opposite me, clapping her hands once.
“Since everyone’s aware of the situation, you know how dire things are. We must act fast. Perun’s blessing people as we speak, depriving thousands of an afterlife, and it cannot go on. The obvious way to stop him is destroying the temple.”
Nyja sighs dejectedly, and Rod looks at the table in front of him with a morose slump of his shoulders. Strzybog shakes his head. Even he seems subdued today. I guess he regrets betting on me when Perun is so clearly the winner.
“Since no one will say it, I will,” Jaga speaks up again after the silence stretches.
“We can’t destroy the temple while Perun is in there, that is clear.
We must first find out what protections he has in place, so we can counteract them swiftly, and then lure him out.
Like Rod once said, Weles and I make excellent bait. ”
I snort, but my laughter is born out of sheer helplessness rather than mirth. “Yes. Good one. I agree.”
I keep laughing, and Jaga huffs, stomping her foot. “Will you be serious, please? This could work! All we need is a good plan and an escape strategy.”
“Sure,” I choke out among chuckles. “Yes. Let’s do this.”
When I look up, her nostrils flare cutely as she levels me with a deadly glare. I give her a wide, insolent grin, and Jaga looks away with a hiss.
“You should turn the tide,” Dola says quietly, and I swallow my laughter to listen. “Make people realize he gives out curses, not blessings.”
I wait for her to say more, but of course, she doesn’t. I clear my throat, tamping down on the last tickles of my hysteria.
“You mean that he will just start again, even if his temple is destroyed. What we need to do is make mortals wary of his marks and blessings. But how?”
Dola only watches me, not saying another word. Jaga paces in front of the table, her hands clenching and unclenching as she thinks.
“Yes, good point. So, we’ll have three goals: lure out Perun, destroy the temple, and discourage people from taking his marks. Could we do it in a way that will elevate Weles? That’s our main goal, after all.”
And that, somehow, gets them going. Chors and Nyja chime in with ideas, and even the King of Bees susurrates a sentence here and there. The rodzanicas stay quiet, and Rod seems to be lost in thought, pulling on his beard from time to time.
Finally, after everyone falls silent again, my son speaks up.
“I think I know what to do.”