Chapter 21
The Irfut I remember was a small, simple village: rows of brightly painted wooden cottages with straw roofs, a temple on the hill in the center, and, just beyond it, the forest, yet more cottages scattered around its edges. The one I grew up in stood a little way from the rest, a humble wooden building with a small stable next to it. It should be dusted in snow now, as should the entire village and the wall surrounding it, the wall that was built just last year by the jatu, supposedly to protect the villagers from the dastardly forces of the Gilded Ones.
When I add its shoddily built ramparts to the memory of Irfut I’m building in my mind, I grimace. It’s just another of the thousand things I hate about the village of my birth, and yet I have to put that hatred aside now. I have a door to open.
“That’s it,” Myter encourages behind me as I slowly, steadily inhale, attempting to breathe in enough of the Greater Divinity’s power to fill the remaining bits of emptiness inside me left by my now-depleted kelai.
A tear in the space in front of us immediately appears, a thin line, barely visible against the crystalline trees and foliage. A door.
After what’s felt like days of training, I’ve finally mastered opening the pathways, which is why it’s now time to return to Irfut and search for the location of my kelai.
“Go on, Deka,” Britta whispers encouragingly from beside me when the tear stalls, reacting to my uncertainty about once again entering the village of my birth. “Ye can do it.”
I nod, concentrating on bending the edges of space farther and farther apart. I will not let my awful memories of Irfut stand in the way of finding my kelai. I continue pushing. Then, finally, the door is fully open. And there it is: Irfut.
Or, rather, the remains of it.
I stare, stunned to silence, as I take in the charred husks of cottages, the misshapen ruin of what was once the wall. Bright red gleams in the corner—not blood but a broken door. It’s the only spot of brightness in the village, which is now uniformly gray from the ash that covers everything. Wind whistles in the distance. Its sharp refrain echoes around the temple, the only structure that remains relatively upright, although its once-proud rooftop is collapsed and the statues that once lined its facade have been worn away, as if a sandstorm blistered over them.
As I stare at it, the temple seems to jolt. The door I opened has moved closer to it in response to my curiosity. That’s the tricky thing about doors: they’re easily influenced, especially by emotions. And mine are extremely heightened now. My stomach is in knots, as I think of my time in Irfut’s cellar. Elder Durkas, the village priest, and the other village leaders spent weeks attempting to kill me for the sin of being an alaki. Nine times they tried. By nine different methods. And the entire while, I wished for death to come—prayed for it—because I believed I was wicked, inherently sinful.
Only later did I understand how deeply false this assumption was.
“Deka…” A warm hand massages my shoulder. Keita, worry in his eyes.
I put my hand over his. “It’s all right,” I say. “I’m all right.”
I will no longer fall into despair when old memories rise inside me. I have power over them now. Power over myself.
To prove this, I step through the door, which has finally reached its full size. The acrid smell of ash and flame assaults my nostrils. The fire that consumed the village must have been recent. But not so recent it left any embers or warmth behind. I shiver as wind gusts over me. Ayo’s armor may be sturdy, but it certainly isn’t warm.
As I take in the full force of the devastation, Britta steps through the door after me. “Wha happened here?” she asks, eyes wide.
I glance around, searching for the answer. Before, this place would be ablaze with lights and music.
Now, there is nothing.
Then I take a step forward, and ash crunches under my feet. Another shiver rolls over me. There’s a wrongness to it, a wrongness I’ve felt only twice before.
“Vale sand,” Keita says as he kneels down and rubs a sampling between his fingers. “A vale opened here.”
Britta frowns. “I thought vale sand was red.”
Keita shrugs. “Maybe each vale is different. But the sand feels the same.”
“How is it here?” I ask, unnerved. “Across the entire village?”
“It’s as Lord Bala warned. The vales are no longer contained in their own realms; they are bleeding into this one.” We all turn when Myter explains this from inside the pathways. “Soon there’ll be no difference between the two. If you do not hurry, all of Otera will become a vale.”
Suddenly, I can scarcely breathe, scarcely think. All of Otera will become a vale.
Beside me, Britta seems equally devastated. “But we’ve only been gone a few seconds, right?”
Myter promised to arrange it so that my friends and I would enter Irfut almost immediately after leaving Maiwuri.
They nod in affirmation. “But a few seconds is all the Oterans needed. There are more vales now. More wraiths. The deities here will try their best to gain as much power as they can.”
Just as the Maiwurian gods warned.
Myter stares at me, the implication clear. I nod. “I understand,” I say. “Thank you for all your help.”
“Let us hope it will bring you success,” the godsworn replies, bowing to me.
And then they’re gone, leaving us alone at the door of the village temple. A familiar voice sounds from inside it: Elder Durkas.
“And so Oyomo in his divine wisdom wrought punishment on the land of Otera. For its wayward women had forgotten their place. They had demanded knowledge forbidden to them, defied their helpmeets and the natural order. Chaos did Oyomo rain upon the One Kingdom. Chaos for the arrogance of women. For their refusal to submit.”
The words filter through the door, each one a bitter but familiar poison. All my life, I heard words such as these. Listened to them, obeyed them, believed them to the point of hating myself. Hating everything that I was.
Emotion overcomes me, a familiar deluge. Fear, agitation, horror. And underneath all that, another feeling: rage. Sheer and overwhelming rage. All those years I sat there, listening to that filth. Letting it shape me, poison me. And now who knows how many other people are doing the same. How many girls…
I listen as Elder Durkas continues in that deep, authoritative voice. “But you, the chosen of Otera, can redeem yourselves, redeem your mothers…. Cast yourself into the vale. Give yourself to the Infinite Father, and you and yours shall be honored for this Infinity and the next.”
Cast yourself into the vale….My fists clench so tightly, I’m surprised they don’t split once more. Already, he’s sacrificing more girls, leading them to their deaths.
Britta turns to me, her expression grim. “Is that him? That rat-snibbler, Elder Durkas?”
“The very same,” I reply past gritted teeth.
“Am I hearing right what he’s saying?” Li says. “Telling the girls to sacrifice themselves?”
“That is what priests do,” Belcalis reminds.
“And this priest enjoys it. Sacrificing girls,” I say. No doubt he treasures the name of every girl he’s caused to lose her life.
Keita turns to me. “What do you want to do?”
“What we always do,” I return. “Intervene.” I turn to Britta. “The door, if you please.”
Britta’s reply is a grim smile. “Me pleasure,” she says. She gives the door a fierce kick.
It goes flying straight down the aisle.
I don’t know who’s more surprised, Elder Durkas or Ionas, the faithless blond boy I once loved, when my friends and I enter the temple. Elder Durkas is, as usual, at the altar, but Ionas is sitting in the front row, reserved for elders of the temple. I see no sign of his mother or father or, indeed, most of the other people I once knew. Half the temple’s congregants are gone, especially the older women. Only the youngest girls and men just past marrying age remain.
It makes sense. If what happened here is anything like what happened on Gar Nasim, the elders likely tried sacrificing the older women to the shadow vales first. But that would not have been enough to satisfy the gods.
It never is.
Elder Durkas’s mouth is so busy gasping open and shut like a fish, it takes him some moments to gather himself. “Deka?” he sputters, shocked. But only for a few moments.
He swiftly pulls himself up to his full height, which, I am amused to see, is not half as imposing as I once thought it was. But then, he himself is not half as imposing as I thought he was, his gaunt features now wizened by age and stress, what remains of his hair in straggles around his head.
“Vile demon, you’ve brought this calamity upon us!” he snarls. He whirls to the villagers. “See, it’s as I warned! The demon, the cause of all our strife, has returned to—”
Before he can finish his words, both Britta and Belcalis rush down the aisle with inhuman speed. They grab him at the same time and force him to his knees.
Keita and Li remain where they are, glowering at the crowd. Daring anyone to move. Ionas, I’m amused to see, shrinks back into his seat, as if he’ll become invisible if he makes himself small enough.
“Want me to shut his mouth permanently for ye, Deka?” Britta offers, her hand gripping Elder Durkas’s gaunt shoulders.
I shake my head. “No, I have better plans for him.” I walk slowly down the gray stone floor, so intent on the aged priest, his eyes now bulging in rage and fear, that I barely notice the villagers hurrying from their seats to flee the temple.
A few of the more foolish ones rush at me, but they’re batted aside by Ixa, who’s in his ox-sized adolescent form.
Then Ionas finally regains his courage. “Foul demon!” he cries, barreling toward me.
He hasn’t taken even a few steps before Ixa slams into him. I smirk when I hear the familiar crunch of breaking bones.
Those would be Ionas’s legs shattering against the stone floor. Barely adequate punishment, given that he ran me through the belly on this very temple’s front steps two years ago. Still, it’ll have to do. I have more important things to attend to.
I stop just in front of Elder Durkas. The elderly priest is now glaring at me, defiance in his rheumy gray eyes.
“Do what you will, foul demon,” he hisses. “I will never bend to you. You and your kind have brought destruction upon Otera and—”
“Shh.” I put a hand to his mouth.
I’ve had enough of his ramblings to last a lifetime. So has everyone else, I imagine. As he struggles against my grasp, I picture the lake that lies at the edge of the village. The one where he drowned me all those years ago. I can never forget the smirk on his face when he did so, the look of sheer victory in his eyes.
He has always liked control, but much more than that, he always liked eliciting terror from others, while pretending that he was helping them. I wonder how he’ll react when the sandal is on the other foot.
When I turn, a door has appeared in the air behind me, the lake’s waters gleaming prominently behind it. I glance back at Elder Durkas. “You told me once that water was purifying to the soul. Do you still believe that to be the case?”
The elder glances at the lake, at the water now rapidly spilling through the door. When he looks back at me, his eyes are so wide now, the whites gleam in the temple’s gloom. “Surely you don’t mean to—”
“Throw you into the lake? Indeed. I assume you’d prefer that to the vale you want to send these children to.” I glance at the girls, still huddled behind the altar, fear shining in their eyes. “And wait, didn’t you drown me in this lake before? Was it my third death or fourth, I can’t remember. Those days in the cellar, they all blended together.”
The elder nervously licks his lips. “I was trying to save you. To purify you.”
I turn back to the girls. They still haven’t moved, but they’re listening to our conversation with the intensity only those scheduled for execution can maintain. Looking at them more closely, I realize that the oldest can’t be more than six years old. Children. Babies, truth be told.
“And what about them?” I ask Elder Durkas, grim. “What wrongs did they need to purify?”
“They are female. It’s their existence that created all this. Your existence.” He snarls, spittle flecking his lips. “I should have ended you when I had the chance. I should have buried you so deeply—”
I toss him through the door.
“Swim,” I say, turning my back to him as he flails in the water. “And perhaps if the Infinite Father favors you the way you so often proclaim, he’ll intervene and save your life.”
I close the door without another thought, a strange feeling washing over me. Not quite happiness, not quite relief. All those years I spent fearing that man, believing his every word. And he was nothing more than a charlatan.
But he’ll never again use his voice to oppress others, never again use his power to kill.
Finally, Elder Durkas is gone. The demon that wreaked havoc on so much of my life has finally been defeated.
Britta walks over to me. “Think he’ll make it back to shore?”
“Doubtful. If his robes don’t do him in, the cold will. And that’s assuming he can even swim.” I shrug. “He always did say it was an unnatural act.”
Britta puts her hands on my shoulder. “Feel better?” she asks, grinning.
“Like I could save the world.”