The child ran to Valerik, wrapping her hand around his neck where she dangled till he held her. If the child had screamed any louder he would have needed to check his ears.
"Be quiet!" Okola chided the girl. "Your voice very loud!"
Valerik settled the girl on the floor where she let him go. He looked down at the girl and she beamed back. It was strangely prideful to see how much she'd grown in the time he'd last seen her. She had only been seven when he'd met her.
"Dimma," he said. "How are you?"
"I'm fine. I've missed you." She spoke the realm tongue more fluently than Okola, and Valerik had a feeling that though he spent the better part of eleven months teaching it to her, her retained fluency in it was credited to the elder.
Dimma had been the reason he'd crossed paths with the chief priest. He had met the girl in his last visit, a touched, which was rare in the village. They often became the chief priests, but a female touched was rarer in the village. No one had known she was touched until the chief priest had pointed it out.
The man had wanted to have her killed but, knowing of her touch, Valerik had stormed the shrine the morning she was to be sacrificed after being dragged from her parents' hands in the dark of night. The elders had chided him to leave. Outsiders had no place in the shrine save the sake of judgement being passed upon them.
Ignoring them, he had warned the man not to lay a hand on the girl. He had been teaching her for more than a week before it happened, and as he'd stood before the priest her eyes had begged him to save her.
The chief priest had chanted words in their language but Valerik, having no time for the man's spoken nonsense, preyed upon him, drawing on the primitive fear that lay dormant in all men. It was what helped people survive, but it could also be the death of them. The man had choked on his nonsense, fighting against his fear, and had eventually succumbed.
After, Valerik had warned the elders of the visits he would make to the village to check on the child, and they knew what he would do if he came and did not find her safe. After all, who would dare to stand against a man who'd faced off against a man backed by their gods and won. They knew he would bring down his wrath upon the village.
He commended their loyalty to the village. It was greater than most lords of the realm. They had feared him then. And they feared him now. He had seen it in their eyes earlier. As evident as a jilted lover hiding their pain. It was when he had taken her from the shrine that he'd learned her parents, refusing to give her to the shrine, had been butchered. Suffice it to say, he had found the men responsible for the action and committed them to Ayla.
He'd left her with Okola and his wife when he left. Okola had been the only man he had trusted with the task, and he'd felt a child would've done their marriage good.
He'd been wrong. It had done the marriage no good.
"Tell me a story," Dimma demanded in all her childlike fervor as they lay in her dark room in the dark of the night when the moon was surely at its peak.
"I will," he said with a smile. "But first, how is your vrail? Stop frowning."
"I'm not frowning. Besides, you don't know. It's too dark to tell."
"I do too," he teased. He couldn't see her in the darkness, his eyesight wasn't what it used to be in the dark, but he had known the question would make her frown. The parchment that had scattered the floor of the house had writings of the realm tongue scribbled on them with ash mixed with water for ink, and bird feather for writing. Very few had vrail scribbled on them.
"I know it's hard," he said. "But it is important." Now he knew she was pouting. At twelve years she was behaving very much like a normal girl.
"Ok," she conceded, her enthusiasm deeming.
"Now, do you want to hear the story of Arnun?"
And like that, all the life came back to her. He could almost see the brown of her eyes twinkle in the darkness. And so he told it.
"Long ago," he began, "a man travelled the expanse of Ayla. Made of flesh and blood like every other, he travelled to her reaches, seeking her secret. His search proving futile, he labored and toiled, choosing never to succumb, believing he had time on his side, for this man was young and had begun his search at a tender age. An age perhaps too tender.
"In time even his labor and toils succumbed to themselves, and, eventually, so did he. So he found a cave, moist and cold, to live out the rest of his days till his bones grow brittle and old. For among the animals he found solace, but in his fellow men of flesh and blood he felt naught but contempt. In the dark of night where he lay begging for sleep a face appeared begging he take heed. Her face was a beauty he was meant to never have seen, and her visage shone brighter than the brightest of stars. Yet, he thought her familiar.
"She told him a tale of a god, not so brittle, but ancient and old, even to her, and the cruelty he bore on whomever he saw. A god so old he had dined when time woke and 'twas from him that time continued to run. And this god now walked Ayla, tainting her soil. He was called Arnun. Where he was, was unknown andif he wasn't stopped Ayla would grow, too, to be brittle and old. The man implored why he was chosen. And why the woman did not seek another. She told him of how she watched him labor and toil for what he sought against all odds. His expression twisting in confusion, he reminded her of his defeat and she told him his journey had granted him sight.
"It was truth that she spoke, for surely there were men, but none could see her, not even the blessed. They needed a power to see what she showed, for even the blessed would crumble at what he was about to know. The man was no blessed, this he knew. But unlike other men, he was touched, and his touch was superior, abounding upon itself multiple folds. And he required more than all men to behold Rin, the goddess of death.
"He took up her quest, following a trail the souls of the dead lit for him. He focused his will and labored and toiled. He had a new goal in mind, one at the behest of a goddess. She had promised him a secret, Ayla's to behold. For only the dead saw the end and they were her own. He focused his search for a god he was not supposed to know and soon it would be known that this was not a god he was supposed to find.
"All through his search he avoided men for he had grown bored of them at an earlier age. He spoke to the dead, or rather, they spoke to him. Sometimes Rin would grace him with her presence, telling him tales of the gods. Of Tarr the old who took only the aged, living her the souls of men who died in war. Tarr was older but not old as Arnun. Berlak was younger, the youngest of them all. A few gods she told of, but not all she spoke of, for Arnun was her goal not any other, no matter how old.
"Soon he covered Ayla, total and whole, but he found no old god as the goddess had him seek. Something was wrong, and he showed Rin his thoughts on a night when there was no moon, when her visits, like plagues, was brought.
"'Maybe this god is playing you,' he said. 'Maybe he's warping your souls, manipulating them to tell you what he chooses.'
"The goddess of death pondered and spoke of the impossibility, but he had seen it in her eyes, the goddess had known there was truth in what he spoke, and one thing he learned was how much she sought the god she sent him after. If a goddess feared him, what did she expect of a human, even if the human was not blessed but greater than most.
"She sent him on his way, and he followed the road she showed. He would find her god as long as she showed him Ayla's secret. In time his search proved futile and he found himself giving up. The goddess of death, taking pity on him, conjured her dead and sought what she promised, giving him a clue to the secret he sought.
"He went on his search as the goddess pondered. The god she sought might not have been on Ayla. She had searched Ayla because she had found the god nowhere else, but upon Ayla the gods were banished, unable to walk, but this god was old, older than all and, she suspected, older than man. Giving up on her thoughts, she took to a passing fancy.
"She had promised the man the secrets of Ayla but he had shown so much greatness. So much so that she wanted his soul. She plunged him into wars whispering to the blessed and unknown, for only through war could she have his soul.
"Wars fell upon him. But determined, he rose. Where his blood spilled, Ayla burned. Her skin, hair and bones sizzled and scorched. Winning each battle by a breath he pushed for his goal. At the entrance to Ayla's secret Rin closed in on her prey. But something was wrong. As the men surrounded him, he laughed something sinister, putrid and old. Rin knew in her being the man had found the god she sought, but what deal had he made that he would look down on a goddess as she presented her visage, heralding a war.
"In anger and fury, she summoned her war. Crazed in laughter and content, he slaughtered them all. There was a reason he held men in contempt, for even in their gifts they were weak. Watching the goddess, he let his fury leak. He bellowed an anger, announcing himself to Ayla and, plunging his hand in the dirt, he told of his tale. His words were so few; two lines at the most. But at the end of it all, Rin, the goddess of death, paled.
"'I have been man long enough, in weak flesh and blood,' he said. 'Now surrender the secret you hold. I am done waiting.' Grinning at the goddess, he uttered his words, and thus, he spoke, 'I have waited long enough, and I will wait no longer.'
"Rin trembled at what she had wrought, and calling on her souls, she focused all that she was into a fight the man had once won. This time the blessed and those touched by his blood ignored her call, living their lives. But soon they fought unending. Each raised from the dead. The blessed and those not. The gifts that they held, twisted in death, their gifts unsouled in body and mind, they became a stain on Ayla's dirt.... For ages abounding.... For time immemorial."
Valerik's tale ended, the room fell into a silence, the kind that followed just after a climax is told.
"What happened after that?" Dimma asked, bright eyed, breaking the silence as though it hadn't even existed. Valerik had intended to put her to bed. Apparently, he had failed.
"Rin won," he answered.
"And...?"
"She became very weak after her victory."
"So now she's a weak goddess?"
Valerik sighed. "Yes. But she's still alive. So don't make her angry."
"Is Arnun dead?"
Now he found himself wondering why he had decided to tell her the story. "No, he's actually still alive."
"What?!" Dimma sounded annoyed. "So the goddess couldn't clean up her mess."
Valerik chuckled. Do goddesses get angry at little girls? He didn't know. "Dimma."
"Yes, father." She always called it like a child called their father, not a priest.
"The goddess of death will be angry with you."
The girl grew so quiet Valerik taught she had stopped breathing for fear of the goddess. The silence only lasted a few minutes before she broke it again. "Let her get angry. I'll beat her up if she comes."
Of course you will. He smiled. "Dimma."
"Yes, father."
"Go to bed," he begged. "The night is old."
"Ok, ok... but what about Arnun? If he's alive do people like the village worship him?"
"...Yes," he replied. The thought of it saddened him but there was a reason there were so many gods. It was only normal there were those who still worshipped Arnun. "Unfortunately, they do, but not by the name Arnun..." He let his words trail off, closing his eyes. Maybe if he pretended to be asleep, she would let him be.
"What's he called now?"
No response. She asked once more, and when he did not answer, she stopped. He smiled, proud of himself and drifted asleep.
Then she whispered, "I know you haven't slept yet."
She might be the only child he had ever liked, but she was still as annoying as all of them.