Chapter 48 Lithuas
Lithuas
Unterra – Irael’s Path
Velenor spent years teaching the Aqqilans how to fight, but she always also lingered in Isegin, known for its beautiful flower gardens containing plants imported from many different realms. Although Isegin’s integration into the empire was a peaceful one, when the Iseginians eventually rebelled, generations later, the empire burned their flower gardens to the ground.
Perhaps, Ayaz said to Velenor when he caught her weeping, if she’d wanted to protect her flowers, she should have taught them to fight.
Lithuas’s silver hair floated around her shoulders, buoyant in the aether of the third aerocline. Other, younger gods stood at her sides and behind her, weapons in hand, their auras glowing more faintly than the bioluminescent algae that dotted the tunnel walls.
She thought she could still feel the warmth from the inner sun at her back, smell the large, lush blooms that covered the cave Irael often took to the surface.
She’d not walked his path before. She had her own path, in her own territory, but hers required shifting shapes several times, and Irael’s was large enough to accommodate an army.
That was what they were. An army. It was time she admitted that to herself.
It was time she admitted other things as well.
She heard his footfalls before she saw him. Kluehnn approached, his army giving way as he arrived at her side. She caught a glimpse of his antlers from the corner of her eye. If she stood just so, and looked steadfastly to where the tunnel rose into a cavern, she could pretend he hadn’t changed.
It was strange to pretend. Comforting, but strange.
She was the Bringer of Change, shouldn’t she relish this?
Shouldn’t she relish all of this? When Nioanen had refused to come to her side, to support Kluehnn, the gods had split into factions.
They’d had their petty skirmishes – who didn’t remember the way Ayaz had cut Barexi into a thousand pieces?
– but this was different. This wasn’t one god against another.
Always the elder gods had kept the peace, refusing to drag others into petty squabbles.
But now, at Kluehnn’s behest, she’d done so deliberately.
“We keep harrying them,” Kluehnn said from next to her. “We drove them from their homes and now we will drive them forth onto the surface.”
“Where they will rally,” Lithuas reminded him. “They are slow now, with their children in tow. When they get to the surface, they will find support with the mortals, they will find a place to keep their children safe, and then they will meet us.” Forgetting herself, she turned her head.
There was another eye below his right one, blinking in time with the other two.
A third antler had grown from the center of his forehead, joining with the others, forming a cage of thorns atop his head.
He was taller, and when he thought she wasn’t looking, and he moved quickly, she saw the outline of other hands beneath his voluminous robe.
She’d never asked him what kind of god he was, where his strength lay – was he an augmenter, a shapeshifter, a maker, or a changer?
It wasn’t the sort of question someone just asked at parties.
But she’d caught him with the shimmer of blood at the corner of his mouth, and it was then that she began to understand – she had made terrible mistakes.
Nioanen had been right, not that she would ever admit it.
“You think they will find support with the mortals?” Kluehnn’s voice was thick with amusement. “Walk ahead with me, Lithuas.”
She obeyed, even though each move he made filled her with a strange sort of dread. She’d gotten used to obeying. These gods she’d gathered, who she’d convinced to take up Kluehnn’s cause? That was just the thing – it was his cause, and that was who they followed.
When they were out of earshot of the rest of the army, he spoke again.
“Not all the mortals above relish cutting the Numinars, using their magic. Some of them never see the results of that magic. Some of them only suffer the consequences. Suffering is a weakness, you see. Those who are suffering are looking for someone to blame. Right now, they blame those who are doing the cutting. But how easy would it be to turn that blame on the gods? They prayed and the gods never helped them.”
She remembered the mortal who’d traveled all the way to Unterra. He’d been desperate, half delirious, asking the gods to grant him a boon. He needed them to fix the surface world.
Of course, that had been right before they’d all made the blood pact.
They could not continue to sacrifice for a world above that thought nothing of the intertwined relationship between the surface world and the one below.
If the gods let the knowledge of the seeds die, let them become merely strange and powerful stones, they effectively cut the mortals off.
An imperfect plan, she saw now.
They’d turned the mortal away. There was nothing they could do without breaking the pact.
The mortals had made terrible mistakes and the gods could not fix them.
She wondered now – what if they’d tried?
Bah, they’d be caught in the same cycle they’d once all been trapped in. Nothing would get better.
Yet by initiating this change, everything had become stagnant.
“Is that truly the responsibility of the gods?” Lithuas ventured.
The eye on his cheek moved independently of the other two, rolling around to look at her. It blinked. “Is that what you believe? That the gods held no responsibility to the mortals?”
She could feel herself changing. It was easier to yield to him. She gritted her teeth. “We hold responsibility to one another. We may live above and below but we all exist in the same place.”
All three of his eyes lifted to the stalactites overhead; he gave a small, annoyed shake of his head.
“This won’t help anyone. Once we reach the surface, go to the mortals in disguise.
Whisper in their ears. Tell them the gods have come to take their lands.
Tell them that we have followed to stop them, that we need their help. ”
“That won’t be enough.”
Kluehnn shrugged. “That’s not all I’m asking you to do.”
She waited for the rest of his plan, a sick feeling in her stomach, knowing that she would help him execute it. If she killed Kluehnn, his followers would kill her. She wasn’t Nioanen, who found purpose in protecting others. Once she was dead, then what? They’d continue on this mad quest.
“I spoke with Barexi before he turned against me. It’s so easy to get someone like him to talk if they think you’re interested in every gritty detail. I asked him about manipulating time.”
“It’s difficult, and not something the gods have done often.” She knew whatever words she said wouldn’t dissuade him; he was simply explaining things, yet she couldn’t stop herself from the feeble attempt.
Kluehnn tapped a clawed finger to his chin. “Yes, but what caught my curiosity was that the stories always speak of the gods sending mortals back in time, undoing injuries, making them younger, making them forget. Why do they not send objects back in time?”
Lithuas shrugged. “It’s never been quite as useful. Sending something non-living back in time doesn’t change its current properties.”
“And that’s exactly what Barexi told me. But look at you all, stagnating, so few fresh minds among you. I’m younger, I can see possibilities you cannot. The immutability of objects is an opportunity, not an impediment.”
He waited, and she knew he wanted her to ask – what did he want her to do?
But she had some pride left. She wouldn’t play the part of a sycophant so wholeheartedly.
And the younger gods were always more impatient.
She pressed her lips together, determined to wait him out.
When he finally spoke again, without her prompting, her triumph was short-lived.
“Bring me back books. Steal them from libraries, from the homes of the nobility. We will not simply whisper into their ears. We will whisper into their minds.”
Her scoff was part derision, part surprise. “You cannot possibly change all the books.”
His gaze settled over her shoulder, to where his army rested, ready to advance and to drive their brethren to the surface.
“I don’t have to. Spin me a pretty enough tale, and there will be plenty of mortals who want to believe the gods are solely to blame for the mess of the surface world.
Who wishes to believe their own people are at fault?
The purpose is not to obliterate all mention of the truth.
I give them two different truths, and they will choose the one they find more comfortable.
All I must do, my dear Lithuas, Bringer of Change, is to sow doubt.
“And that will bring me the rest of my army.”