Chapter Seventeen
How could any other island be more impressive than the one with the towering statues of the gods?
And yet the one we reach next is glorious, formed by ten arches that together make a kind of cupola with a round circle open to the moon above in the very center.
It shines down directly onto an altar formed of the round dish of the earth herself perched on the backs of ten miniature forms of the gods.
I wonder if those figures change with the change of the gods and if next time it will only have nine figures and El’Dorian’s will simply disappear.
We all gather around the strange earth altar in a loose circle and proceedings begin—a string of sacrifices and pronouncements that would mesmerize even the most jaded of mortals.
I ask Okeanos to tell me who this King of Heaven is, but he shakes his head minutely and keeps his lips pressed close together. There is no idle chatter in this sacred place.
Markanos makes his obeisances first, moving up to the altar.
I have to look away. Each time I see one of the gods, it is a renewed struggle not to bend beneath the glory of the divine.
I hate it. And I hate how unrelenting it is, like the line of a song repeating again and again in my head until I am sick to death of it.
He declares, “This I lay on your altar, King of Heaven, my icy lands are yours. My mountains bow. I am your servant.”
He does as he says, laying an offering on the altar—a sword made of crystal, I think.
It’s gorgeously wrought, though I doubt it would stand up to any true abuse.
It’s hard not to wonder at the strangeness of the gods worshipping someone higher still.
Is he real, or have they invented him? Must even a god have someone to worship?
The view between the open-walled pillars of this temple shifts from the view of the sea to an eagle’s-eye view of the territories of Markanos as he lays his treasure down.
His lands are vast and gorgeous. His armies are assembled in ranks, his cities mighty, his crenellated towers a powerful defense of his people, his fields of wheat growing, swelling, harvested, fallow again, his herds rushing across the land as the seasons ebb and flow behind them.
I have the strangest sense that he lays all that—the year, the harvests, the people and their lives—along with the crystal sword upon the altar.
They are all one—his very identity and all his treasure represented in that one gift.
And when the sword goes up in a bright white pillar of fire and is no more, I can feel the power surge back into him, feel how it enlivens his otherworldly glory to such a degree that I must look away.
For a bare moment, I glimpse a golden corona around his head.
I cannot stand to even look at his face for a full breath as he states very calmly, as if this is something that has happened so frequently it barely needs noting, “I have no declarations of lands won or lost, of new allegiances or progeny.”
I’m breathless. Made so by his decadent majesty and by my consciousness of my own unworthy position here.
And yet.
And yet, I am undaunted in my goal.
These ten who I have known all my life as gods are not what I imagine a god to be.
They offer their sacrifices to this King of Heaven and his power is granted back to them to use as they manage his world—like lords stewarding fiefdoms. That much Okeanos whispers to me and I am reminded of the story he told me earlier of how he’d railed against Vesuvius and been given his revenge by some great benefactor. Did he mean this shadowy deity?
Okeanos’s attention is intent upon the proceedings, as devout as any priest I’ve ever seen—far more so than Turbote, who I have seen secretly wipe a dripping nose on his vestments.
This Resurgence is not meant for mortal eyes.
It leaves me gasping and small, my mind dizzy and struggling before these magnificent gods for all that they pretend to abase themselves with their sacrifices.
I’m ashamed to say I am too… temporally limited…
to fully grasp all that is taking place.
I’m grateful when Okeanos grips my upper arm as if to steady me, no matter how foolish it may seem. It is the only thing grounding me.
The gods parade one after another, offering spectacular gifts on this altar of theirs to this lord they claim.
Each time we see the swooping view of their worshippers and wealth, and I get the sense that I am seeing only the tiniest breath of what they are showing.
There are conversations and nuances and exchanges going on around me all the while and my mortal eyes are too dim, my mortal ears too dull, my mortal reflexes far too slow to see them all.
Of them all, I adore Heskatan’s offering the most. She gave the horse she brought with her, and to my delight, her horse fledged, displaying great wings of golden feathers the moment before he was placed, trembling, upon that altar.
For a bare instant I felt as though anything might be possible—and then he was gone and she was glorified, and I could taste the loss of him in the air I inhaled like the smell of the earth after a strong rain.
I am catching only the barest edge of what is so elaborately woven before me. And each time, when they are through, the sudden glory descends on them that I cannot bear to see and the same golden corona rings their blessed heads.
I am mortal. My flesh is temporary. I feel hatred deep in my bones for the disparity. I am small before it. The only thing worthy in me is this desire to hold my people together.
But entranced as I may be, I have not lost my head. I have counted the weapons I might use—Markanos’s heavy sword, Alexandros’s hammer, Aurelius’s blade, and Heskatan’s double-headed axe. I see no possibility of stealing any of them.
With a sinking feeling deep in my core, I note that my husband is still carrying his fishing spear strapped to his back, though he has no cause to fish here.
The meaning slaps me in the face. It is his god weapon and it has been there the whole time, leaning against the wall of our little cottage when he was asleep in bed.
At any time I could have taken it up and slain Okeanos.
What a fool I am. I need not have come here at all.
Did Vesuvius realize this when he asked me if I’d been recently married?
And if he did, what motive had he for sending me here?
There’s nothing I can do about the dead god’s potential betrayal.
I must be sensible. I am here now and the fishing spear may yet be the easiest weapon to take, for perhaps I can convince my husband to trust me.
After all, I have slept at his side so innocently all these many nights.
Mayhap I can put him at his ease and lead him to believe this night is no different from the rest.
I school my expression to mild interest, desperately keeping all my emotions deep inside where they will be unreadable to these great beings who care no more for me than a buzzing gnat.
Okeanos shifts and I know he is next. To my surprise he draws me with him. I want to protest, but my tongue cleaves to the roof of my mouth.
“All that is mine I give to honor the King of Heaven,” he says a little awkwardly.
I am beginning to realize that while powerful among the gods, Okeanos is shy. This attention makes him reticent. What he lays on the altar is a single pearl, pure white. It seems lowly and terribly mortal compared to the offerings of the others. I frown, concerned.
But Okeanos’s offering is accepted, and with it, I gasp, for I see my kingdom and all the kingdoms of the sea through the view between the pillars of the white temple of Okeanos.
They make me feel an almost physical thirst as I gaze down on their glories.
But just as I am beginning to smile with the joy of teeming seas, prosperous cities, and hearty ships, the view we are offered sweeps across the green waves to watch the great storm swell over my island and my people fall beneath the waves, drown, and die.
My hand moves to my throat in horror. I can’t quite breathe.
My ears roar with loss to where I can hear nothing of the murmurs of the other gods.
I am lashed to the sight of this. This is the betrayal that has gutted me reenacted, and if I had any qualm that I may have misjudged, may have overreacted, it is extinguished.
We are betrayed at the hands of our god.
Invaders sweep over not just the one island I witnessed, but three more, and with them fire consumes whole cities.
My whole body tightens as my people are herded onto ships and stolen away.
And it’s only a glimpse, only a glimpse, but we sweep out to the Andalappo Isles, and they, too, are torn apart by raiders and fire and sword.
We sweep still farther to where the sea has risen up and swelled in one great wave over the Pentalumus Peninsula.
Men and women wash away like particles of sand along the shore, just as insignificant, just as tumbled under the waves to rise no more.
Betrayed. Utterly.
I am gasping as I hear Okeanos declare, “I declare a loss of eight cities, three islands, and the nation of Ghant Eliore.”
Lost or ruined by his own hand? I turn my face to his that he might see in my baleful eyes the judgment he deserves, but he does not look at me. His expression is stony and unmoving. And it only fuels what roars in my heart.
I’ve watched him clean fish while cities burned. I’ve watched him sleep while lives were lost. We spent an evening watching jellyfish. I feel not a shred of pity for him. My resolve hardens like his face and my blood burns with every pulse of my racing heart.
I will manage this godhood much better than he does. He has been wasting time speaking sweetly to his new wife and all the while his kingdom has been ravaged and swept from his grasp.