Chapter 32 Lithuas
Lithuas
Unterra – a home in the second territory
When a Langzuan inventor was close to creating a movable-type printing press, it was Lithuas who came to visit him in the guise of a hopeful assistant.
She advised him, took care of the tasks that might otherwise hinder him, and when he’d finally completed the first press, she took him to her bed.
The Bringer of Change had always found pivotal times to be particularly exciting.
She disappeared shortly after and returned two years later with a baby son in tow, whom she left with the inventor.
All accounts say he was a devoted and doting father, though the movable-type printing press was the last thing he ever invented.
Around her, glasses lifted, cheeks a polished pink even beneath a layer of bark or fur.
Kluehnn stood at the end of the room, his own glass raised to the sky painted on the ceiling above them.
“You’ve all done well,” he said. He looked larger than Lithuas remembered, although that was perhaps just the steps he stood on, the spiraling horns on his head grown a little longer in the interim years.
He wore a voluminous gray robe, eyes stitched into the trim lining the opening.
A black satin sash held it shut, overlaid with a black leather belt.
A knife hung from each hip. “To justice served.” His voice echoed through the cavernous room, repeated in a gentle murmur from the lips of so many gods.
Lithuas said the words with them, putting her glass to her lips and letting the wine slide down her throat.
She’d helped in the final execution of the plan, joining an expedition to Aqqil, impersonating the Emperor’s husband and murdering the leader himself.
Every country above had been thrown into chaos.
It had been a long time since she’d felt so alive.
She wished she could dig into her mind and pluck the memory of that night free, capturing it in some place where she could observe it whenever she wanted.
The surprise in the Emperor’s eyes, the blood spurting from his chest, the shouts, the confusion.
Sometimes the changes she brought into the world were slowly gestated, birthed over a span of decades.
And sometimes they happened all at once.
Lithuas slipped through the crowd, searching for the faces she knew best. It took her some time to find the other elder gods – not because they were scattered throughout the palace, but because they were all in one place. All of them except her.
She found them in the gardens, voices alternately hushed and raised, hands cutting through the air, Nioanen’s golden wings ruffling and settling, twitching and pulling close.
A cat greeted her at the arbor that led into the roses – a mortal world import – winding its orange form around her ankles, its purr a soft rumble against her leg.
Cats were one of the few creatures that existed both in Unterra and the surface world, but Lithuas knew this was not a real one. “Hello, Irael,” she said.
He pranced a little in place, paws kneading the grass beneath his feet. “Lithuas.” His whiskers trembled. “It’s good to see you.”
She peered at the group in front of her – Ayaz, with his golden scales and cutting gold eyes; Velenor, her dark skin contrasted against the white petals of her dress; Barexi, his black nose as wet as his eyes, his antlers rising toward the moon; Rumenesca with her long brown fingers and tufted black ears, her hair the color of autumn leaves; and Nioanen, his countenance as stormy and threatening as the looming clouds on the horizon.
“I wasn’t invited.”
“It wasn’t a formal meeting.” Irael licked a paw before springing back to join the others. “No invitations were sent.”
She followed him toward the elder gods, their heads close, their words quick as the rush of a snow-melted stream.
“He has the support of all the younger gods,” Barexi was saying. “They want to believe that this will keep us safe. But the roots of the Numinars are still dying. The mortals above may be disorganized, they may be scrambling, but that won’t stop them from cutting the remaining trees down.”
“So we were supposed to do nothing?” Ayaz hissed. His tail moved like a snake in the grass. “I’m not saying Kluehnn was justified, but he did do something.”
Velenor let out a soft snort. “Ayaz, have you thought that perhaps you’re a bit biased? Cutting down the mortal leaders seems like something you might have suggested.”
The scales on his cheeks lifted. “I won’t apologize for who I am, but don’t insult me. I think things through.”
Rumenesca noticed her first, the furrow between her brows deepening, a crack in the bark of a tree. “Lithuas.”
They all turned to look at her. Their stances shifted, shoulders turned toward one another.
She felt, suddenly, as though she were being shut out, like they no longer thought she belonged.
She’d taken Kluehnn’s side when the rest of them had declined to get involved, and now that she and Kluehnn had successfully carried out the assassinations, they weren’t quite sure what to make of this shift in power.
In a few steps, Irael changed from a cat into a young man, red hair ticked with black at the ends. Nioanen moved a wing aside to allow him space, and Lithuas saw the way his gaze lingered on Irael’s face. Not that Irael noticed.
“Recklessness is sometimes the only way to institute change,” she said. “If you spend too long on calculations, often the moment passes and you are left lingering in the same spot. We’ve punished the mortals. We’ve demolished their leadership. It’s more than the six of you would have done.”
Nioanen crossed his arms, a movement that might have intimidated any of the younger gods, but Lithuas stood tall, staring him straight in the face.
She watched his fingers clench and unclench and knew he wanted to summon his blade, Zayyel.
He was always more comfortable fighting than he was navigating politics or interpersonal relationships.
Probably why he’d made a life out of standing up for the downtrodden.
There was always a fight to be had there.
“You have something to say to me, Nioanen?”
He pressed his lips together, and for a moment Lithuas didn’t think he’d speak. When he did, his voice was a low rumble, barely loud enough for her to hear. “Where did Kluehnn come from? What does he really want?”
Irael chimed in. “As far as we know, he popped up out of nowhere, ingratiated himself with you, and, using your power and connections, started a war with the mortal world.”
Lithuas scoffed. “It’s not a war.”
“Isn’t it?” Velenor spoke up. “What else would you call it? You and Kluehnn have led the gods to assassinate their leaders. What is this if not an act of war?”
She couldn’t believe she was hearing this.
They were not elder gods, they were old, past their prime and their time, moving so slowly as to be completely ineffective.
They said what she did was wrong yet offered no solutions of their own.
How easy it was to criticize! “It’s not war.
It’s punishment. If this was ever a war, it was started by the mortals when they cut down the living Numinars.
They’re not just changing the world above, they’re changing ours too. ”
Velenor reached out and touched Lithuas’s arm, her fingers soft and warm. “We have our role in this too. Remember the pact we made, that we bound all the gods to. We have to accept some blame.”
Lithuas pulled her arm out of the goddess’s reach. “No. I won’t be guilted into sacrificing myself. Guilt is useless. It does nothing.”
Rumenesca stepped into the center of the circle, confronting her. “What will you do now? You’ve wrought your change. What’s next?”
“Let the mortals stew in the world they’ve made.
Let them think about what they’ve done to deserve the wrath of the gods.
Maybe the next time they go to cut down a Numinar, to burn the living branches, they’ll reconsider.
” They wouldn’t. She knew they wouldn’t.
The change she’d wrought was enormous, but it was temporary.
Others would fill the vacuum of power. Why the urge, then, to pretend this punishment had more meaning than it did?
To prove that she’d done the right thing?
Frustrated, she wheeled about and marched back down the path through the roses. If they wanted to exclude her from their little meetings, then so be it.
Velenor called after her, but Lithuas ignored her, finding the main hall again, letting herself be absorbed in the celebration.
The younger gods gave way before her, smiling at her presence.
They didn’t worry about the far future. They didn’t think she’d perhaps made a mistake.
They felt this victory keenly, living in the moment.
She took another glass from one of the servers, trying to drown the bitter words of the other elder gods in wine and elation.
Two glasses later found her in an alcove, resting her head against a stone pillar, her silver hair pillowing her scalp.
No matter how much she drank, how many heads inclined at her passing, she felt the hollowness of what she’d done.
But she’d chosen. She’d set her feet on this path and had seen it to the end.
She didn’t want to be like Nioanen, brooding on each action, dwelling on the consequences rather than what had been accomplished.
Yet here she was. And this was how Kluehnn found her – unkempt, dissatisfied, and restless.
He slid onto the cushioned bench next to her, his hands empty. For a moment, he just sat there, watching the others as they danced and drank. “This isn’t the end,” he said finally.
She lifted her head at that, loose strands of hair brushing against her cheeks. The comb at the back of her head had nearly come free. “What do you mean?”
“We’re not done. We’ve punished the mortals, but they’re not the only ones to blame for the way the world is now, are they?”
Icy tendrils crept across her heart, crystals stabbing into tender flesh. The gods. They’d failed to fulfill their duties, to propagate more Numinars. Why spend so much, though, when the mortals would only cut them down? “It’s not our fault,” she managed, her whisper echoing off stone.
“We have to break the cycle,” Kluehnn said. He took her hand in his. She could have sworn, in that moment, when his arm reached out, that she’d seen something move beneath his robe – the slither of something alive across his ribs. And then it was gone. “I need your help.”
She cast her gaze, desperately, over the crowd of younger gods and knew that Kluehnn saw the same thing she did.
She’d brought them to him. They respected her, but he was the one who led them now.
They were his, they would do his bidding.
He’d grown too powerful for her to stop.
Yet still, beneath all her apprehension, there pulsed the need to make things different.
He was right – they were caught in a terrible cycle that could only end with everyone dead, mortal and god alike.
Dread and hope filled her, mingling. She felt she spoke from the lips of a corpse.
“Tell me what you want me to do. Tell me how to help you.”
He lowered his head close to hers, his warm breath filling the air between them. “We punish them. We punish the gods.”