Chapter VII
VII.
She needn’t have bothered trying to avoid him.
She did not see him or converse with his disembodied voice for another sennight.
By that point, her exasperation almost inspired her to call him out and tell him to put an end to this charade, god or not.
She refrained only because not having him present meant she would receive yet another unexpected reprieve from the endurance of his company.
She could almost pretend that she was alone again.
Almost. Her focus, however, was on the concoction in the pot that hung from the swing bracket in the kitchens, far too absorbed in how she was going to obtain the animal fat for her balms to hear the faltering gait of the Fir’Darl coming up the path to the open kitchen door.
She only noticed the change when something swallowed the sunlight and plunged the room into shadow.
She jumped and cursed herself for not having anticipated it.
Her heart raced as she directed her attention to the doorway and the immense figure that took up the whole of it.
She could not see his face nor, indeed, any part of his front due to the radiant light shining from behind him like a golden halo, blinding her with the dazzling brightness that cast the most monstrous and ugly of the Rivan gods in divine silhouette.
On all fours, he had been nearly her height already, but upright, he stood taller than any person she had ever encountered, dwarfing her even though she was of good stature herself.
His shoulders spanned the breadth of the doorway and the spiraled horns forced him to bow his head to enter the room.
He stopped just inside the kitchen, more light filtering around him and allowing her to glimpse the rest of his aspect.
She remembered emptying the contents of her stomach when she had first beheld him and so she expected the horror of him.
Yet her memory softened her recollections.
The wave of nausea returned. She managed to keep her meal even as she held her breath.
She could not even say that it was ugliness that caused her reaction.
Although she could not deny that he was ugly, the wrongness of him revived her terrors.
The Fir’Darl’s face most resembled that of a bull, but not one she had ever met.
She had always thought bovids lovely creatures — placid, liquid-eyed, velvet-muzzled.
While the Fir’Darl had similar, enormous, soulful eyes and the furred muzzle of the more commonplace creatures, he better resembled a caricature of one.
Skin pulled taut over his cheeks, teeth sharp and threatening, his eyes displayed far too much intelligence.
His furred skin shone like burnished bronze and masses of black curls draped over his shoulders, the like of which would have been the envy of any woman.
The sculpted contours of his chest and torso spoke of hard labor while displaying the lean grace of a feral animal.
He bore scars over his entire body, the most prominent of which resided along his side and abdomen, pinched and puckered wounds repeated many times over.
His hips appeared unusually wide but she did not get any further in her study.
The coarse, loose breaches hid anything lower from view.
She blushed and swallowed down an awkward lump in her throat. She hoped she did not betray where her mind had wandered.
“Y bid thee goode morrow, Rivani,” he said. He gestured to the pot. “Woldest thou seke to poisonne me so soone?”
She had forgotten the unearthly quality of his voice and shuddered.
Deep, dark, and textured, the voice emanated from somewhere not of his throat.
Perhaps the sound came from his chest and the words from his throat instead of his teeth or his tongue where a man’s would form.
The eerie precision of words betrayed the practiced nature of them, as if words did not exist for a being such as he, and he had adopted them for the plebeian communication of mortals.
“No poison yet,” she said, struggling with his archaic speech. “Although I cannot promise that such a thing will not find its way in the stew pot before long.”
“Yf thy brew mayeth wayt, Y woldest command thy attentionne for but a few moments.”
She sighed, forgetting in her dismay that this was one of her gods requesting her presence. She stood and brushed off.
“Only a few moments, Fir’Darl,” she said as if she had any authority here, “but no more.”
“As thou desyrest.” He held his hand out to indicate the doorway. “That whyche Y brought, Y thought myght bryngeth thee comfortte.”
Oh gods, his hands, gnarled and furry and tipped with claws, presented no comfort.
She had no desire to get near them or to follow the bearer of such hands.
If he observed her trepidation for what it was, he gave no indication of it.
She gathered up her dignity and her courage and marched past him out into the overgrown herb garden, fighting the urge to flee.
“Presents already? A bit soon in our acquaintance, do you not think?” She hoped her voice did not quaver. She preferred to sound scornful than frightened.
“‘Tis no gyft, only that whyche ys thine by ryght.”
He followed her out of the kitchens and led her through another deer path, this time one that circled the other side of the keep.
His gait, slow and careful, did not match up with the rest of his physique. She could only imagine that he had greater speed than their current slow plodding through the undergrowth and could therefore only assume that such a god slowed his pace for his pet human. The idea nettled her.
She did not have long to be nettled, however, startled as she was by the sight to which he led her.
Her vyardin, looking better than she had seen it in years, had been brought to a small clearing not far from the inner curtain wall entrance.
The wheel had been mended, the mud cleaned from it, the empty harness for her horse tucked out of sight.
She started for it and then stopped. She turned back to the creature who had led her here. If roses cost years, then any true debt had to cost dearly. She could not accept it without knowing what she might pay.
“Fir’Darl, what is the price of accepting this?”
“Thy cartte belongeth to thee. Thy home wilt accorden so.”
This had to be some kind of trap or test or trial.
“I know better, Fir’Darl. What will I owe you if I accept this?”
“Twill be no debt, Rivani, no cost, no pryce.” His broad shoulders fell a little although his face remained impassive.
“You mended the wheel. You cleaned her. You brought her here. What do I owe you?”
“Such Y gyveth freely.” He hesitated a moment as if he would say more but then he withdrew. “Y shall leave thee to enjoy thy cartte.”
“Is that all you wanted of me?”
“Aye, ‘tis all. Dost thou requyre else?”
She hated herself for wishing she had a pretense to keep him there.
She had been here for the better part of a fortnight already since their encounter at the rose bush and until today, she had only exchanged disembodied words.
She had almost begun to question her own senses, wondering if in the haunted silence she had imagined a vision and a sound for her worst fears.
“My horse,” she said, aware of the empty harness and the pains he had taken to hide it. “What of her?”
“Y attended her.”
She nodded and turned her face away so that she could banish the threatening tears without an audience to them.
She did not want to know anything more about what “attended” meant.
She could only imagine it meant something nefarious and horrible, but at least it meant that her beloved companion would not be left on the road, abandoned as if she had never meant anything to anyone.
Her throat closed over. How she would have loved the comfort of a familiar companion now.
“Thank you,” she whispered in spite of herself, in spite of her determination not to be grateful or indebted, and in spite of the fact that she believed the ultimate fate of her horse was not one she wished to know.
She could not have done anything for her horse by herself.
She did not know if he heard her express her gratitude because by the time she had taken control of her emotions, cleared her throat, and possessed enough self-command to look back at him, he had gone.
She set herself back to work later that day after going through her vyardin and ensuring everything she had left behind remained with her cart.
Everything appeared intact and untouched and she gave thanks to the gods although they had appeared to abandon her just days before.
However, when she left her vyardin to resume her toils in the kitchens, her mind wandered to the point where she threw her hands up and settled on the bench of the central kitchen work table, resigning herself to the disagreeable fact that she would be useless today due to the contemplation inspired by the unexpected turn of events.
The Fir’Darl, according to the stories, embodied the ugliness and hatred of the world and took form during the Great Persecution as a result of the mass suffering, becoming a divine corporeal entity.
The Rivani left blood offerings to him before entering unknown forests lest he kill them instead.
And at the mid-year festivals, many caravans constructed monstrous effigies before which they gave sacrifices and then set ablaze that they might appease the Fir’Darl for another year.