A/N: Chap 30 review responses are in my forums as normal.
Chapter Thirty-One: The Gods for Counsel
The room they gave Taylor that night was larger than the house she spent most of her life in. They were on the second level of the palace and had balconies that looked down on the reflecting pool.
She was surprised to find a servant waiting for her within, prostrating herself on a fine cotton rug. She was dressed in the standard revealing silks, though without any adorning gems. The girl's soul throbbed with past slights and abuse. The name that floated upon her soul explained much.
"You are Zho-Min?"
Golden eyes blinked up at her from a relatively pale, Yi-Tish face. The tone of her skin fell evenly between the Yi-Tish Taylor had seen in Turrani, and the dark, Teak color of the Lengii.
"I am for you," the girl said. "If you should hunger or desire drink; should you require more clothes or anything at all, it shall be my honor to fetch it for you."
A slave. Except…not. Not a slave, just an outcast. "Are there many like you, Zho-Min?"
The girl shook her head. "No, Honored One."
"Please stand, Zho-Min. Walk with me."
The girl unfolded with the same native grace as a full-blooded Lengii, but when she stood Taylor saw that she was an inch or two shorter than Taylor herself. Though she would still be accounted tall among any women from the world, among the Lengii she was positively short. It made her Yi-Tish face and Lengi-gold eyes stand out that much more.
The girl fell in beside Taylor as she stepped to a stone balustrade to look over the open columns. The moon by then had traveled the sky, but its silver glow still cast magical hues over everything. The Lengii people within the palace were still awake and moving about, unheeding of the late hour. The night clung to her skin, made thick with humidity and warmth.
"You are educated?"
"My father taught me much." In the word father Taylor could sense the girl's loss, anguish and resentment.
"He was YiTish?"
"A minister. I never knew my mother. He raised me in secret. When the Governor-General found he had a Lengii cross-breed, and worse, that he taught me men's knowledge, father was beheaded. I fled into the island. The late God-Empress showed me mercy and allowed me to serve."
The Lengii language was nearly as expressive as a First Tongue. Just as she communicated her loss and sadness over her father's death, the girl expressed her anguish and dissatisfaction with the 'mercy' shown her. Her very existence was an affront to the sensibilities of both peoples, and she was rejected by both.
But Taylor quickly realized this girl also had a unique perspective. "Tell me about YiTi and Leng."
Zho-Min considered her words carefully. "I know what my father told me. He has met Western travelers who think their cities or kingdoms are special. Or powerful. Yet the Empire of YiTi has stood in one form or another since before the first Ghiscari cities began to spread their influence."
She paused, as if to seek permission to continue. Taylor smiled at her encouragingly. "You have insight into both cultures I do not. I would like to hear your thoughts."
At first Zho-Min didn't seem to believe her, as if she were being led into a trap, but soon that hopeful honesty Taylor sensed within the girl compelled her to speak once again. "Father told me that the first YiTish emperor was a god, and that the treason which felled that first dynasty brought about the Long Night. He was unsure. But he told me that there are more ruins than living cities in the Empire. He said what cities remain are larger than any in the West. YiTi is fallen from where they were, and are splintered among at least three rival emperors. But if they were to ever unite, they could easily conquer the world."
"What about Leng? Could YiTi conquer Leng?"
Zho-Min looked down; her knuckles were white from the strength with which she gripped the balustrade. "She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed is obliged by treaty to marry two men-a Lengii spouse, and a Yitish spouse. The YiTish man is always chosen by the Emperor, and always controls the fleet. I think, when this was first done, the Emperors did not understand that no Empress would bear a YiTish offspring. But the YiTi control the sea. I was raised in the YiTi colony of Leng Yi, which controls the north of the island. They don't need to conquer Leng, they already control it."
Taylor regarded the girl. "If you were pure YiTish, where do you think you would be right now?"
"I would be married to a court functionary of the Governor-general," she said. "Likely with two or more children."
"And if you were of pure Lengii stock?"
"I would be courting, I think," she said. Her golden eyes gazed off into the night. "They don't let me join, but I have seen the courting dances. The spear dance and the fire dance. I would…"
She stopped speaking as the words failed in her throat. A single tear fell. Eighteen years, caught between opposing cultures, and she still longed so powerfully to be a part of either that it caused her pain.
The air whispered of another nearby, listening. "You have been very helpful, Zho-Min. I am thirsty. Could you get me something to drink?"
The girl wiped her tear and bowed. "Yes, honored guest."
She turned and walked quickly from Taylor's suite.
Like a ghost, golden eyes opened and a tall, elegant shape emerged from the shadows of the balustrade, in the suite next door. It was the sick handmaiden who helped bathe her.
It took only a glance at the much older woman's soul to understand. "There are things that your people are not allowed to speak of?"
The woman bowed her head. "I am Hailia, cousin to She-Who-Must-Be-Obeyed. When I was younger than Zho-Min, I witnessed the marriage of the last Empress to her Small Husband. He demanded as tribute one hundred Lengii women to serve his ministers. My cousin's mother was going to strike him down for his insolence, but that was exactly what the small Emperor wanted. An excuse. And so I and others volunteered to keep the peace. Few of my sisters ever returned."
"And you returned with an impossible child." Taylor drifted closer to the woman. Hailia actually had an inch on Taylor, with a slim, elegant shape. "What would you have of me, Hailia?"
"The child can never find happiness here. She is ugly to my brothers, and so no Lengii man shall ever desire her for a wife. She is an abomination to the YiTi, and would be put to death if she tried to become one of them. The Milk-Men of Qarth would take her only as a slave. But the land you come from…I hear that there are no slaves there."
Taylor suddenly found herself thinking of Gerion Lannister, and the man's insane desire to take a Lengii woman to wife. She couldn't help but grin. "She would have safe passage on the ship that brought me here. If I have ink and parchment or paper, I will write a note to my followers to receive Zho-Min and let her accompany us. She could have a place with us, if she wished it."
"You would do this for her?"
"I would do it for anyone. I can't save everyone, Hailia. But I will always try. As proof?"
Taylor stepped into the woman's personal space and placed her hand on the flat, exposed stomach. "I can feel the pain you have. You hide it well, because you are strong and determined. But this illness is your death. On your word, it will be healed."
Golden eyes widened; Taylor could feel the taller woman trembling. "For my beloved Empress, I would live."
"Then you shall."
The magic flowed easily, where before in her days back on Earth she would require an item to enchant. She learned much from her time in Ashai. When she stepped back, Hailia bowed from her waist. "I shall have ink and paper brought to you, Holy One."
By the time Zho-Min returned with watered down juice, her mother had disappeared once more into the shadows.
"Thank you," Taylor told the girl. "I have another task for you, one that may take you from the palace. I have an important message that needs to be delivered to my followers. I have no doubt the God-Empress will permit you to leave on my behest. Will you deliver it?"
Zho-Min looked confused, but bowed her head. "It is my duty to assist you in all your needs, Honored Guest."
"Good."
~~Voluspa~~
~~Voluspa~~
Taylor had to bite back an almost childish exuberance when she saw the expedition waiting for her at the large, dark wooden doors of the southern gate.
On the one hand, the diaphanous silks were gone. On the other hand, so was most everything else. The ten handmaidens wore loincloths woven from fibers taken from the underside of the scale tree's bark and spun into a sturdy but flexible fabric. Their bodies were painted with black stripes over their teak-colored skin, like the zebras that pulled their carriages. The God Empress herself was no different, having eschewed the blouse she wore in the palace. The only thing that made her stand out was her relatively short status compared to the older women, and a delicate coronet of black stone with rubies she wore in her braided hair. Her hair was fashioned in such a way to firmly secure the headpiece.
The men, led by Khatoom, wore no more than the women. In fact, their loincloths were more revealing by the nature of what they held. Taylor fought hard not to look or her cheeks would blaze. Instead of swords, the men carried their bronzed spears.
"You are too pale to move about the forest as the gods intended," Hailia told her before they left. "We shall cloth you differently." She made no mention of how her daughter left before the sun rose with a message in hand.
Taylor got clothes that consisted of more culottes, dyed in black and brown stripes, and a tight-fitting vest that left her arms and sides bare. They painted her pale sides in stripes like they themselves wore, but left the runes on her arms alone.
Including herself, the God Empress and Khatoom, twenty-three people left the palace. Moments into their journey, Taylor realized they didn't make a single sound in their passage. It seemed almost as if the forest cushioned their steps as gently as Taylor's. For all their great size, the Lengii moved with such innate grace and balance that even the child among them seemed to dance around the undergrowth.
When they spoke, it was not with words, but clicks, whistles and hand motions.
'The forest welcomes her steps,' Khatoom said. In the gloom his golden eyes seemed almost to shine.
Ahead, the young empress clicked back. "Pray the gods do as well."
Taylor chose not to let them know she could understand this war language. She'd told them she understood all human languages; perhaps the Lengii felt the clicking language was something else. Instead, she let herself be bathed in the sheer power of the spirits around her. The forest bristled with life so intensely that she could almost feel the power of it straddling that line between spirit and divine. The air was so richly oxygenated it made her feel almost light-headed, while the ground didn't just cushion her steps, but caressed them.
With Khatoom's comment, she saw that the forest floor really was softening the steps of those around her as well. She'd thought the Lengii had no magic, but out in the forest she realized that they did, it was just symbiotic with the forest itself.
Though she didn't know for sure, she suspected that to an outside perspective, they were all invisible.
They traveled far faster than the carriage the day before. With long legs and magically buoyed steps, the column moved through the forest at what most people would consider a run. Even so, they moved for hours through the morning without breaking for food or water. The entire time, the spiritual energy of the forest washed over Taylor as thoroughly as the sounds.
The buzz of insects beyond counting; the howls of monkeys and the singing of the birds formed a constant cacophony that disguised the sound of the clicking speech of the Lengii around her. They were probably moving fifteen to twenty miles an hour as they slid deeper and deeper into the forest, far from any of the settlements or farms.
Sometime before noon, Taylor saw movement ahead between the scaled bark trees. She focused beyond the gloom and speckled shade, and felt her breath catch in the back of her throat as she beheld two massive, orange-furred creatures sitting amidst the trees. Though they were hunch-backed with short legs and long, powerful arms, each of the orangutan-like creatures still stood twelve feet tall at the least. They moved through the forest as silently as the Lengii did.
Jhaniara led the column right toward the two massive creatures. She began a half-singing, half-clicking a prayer. She called them holy and begged for their wisdom as she walked right toward them before she prostrated herself amidst the fallen needle-like leaves of the forest floor. All of the handmaidens did the same, while the men knelt with their heads bowed.
Taylor remained standing as she stared at what looked like a twelve-foot-tall orangutan. His face flared out into a hood of thick, rubbery flesh, and thick red fur formed a beard around its mouth. Wise gold eyes the exact same color as the Lengii regarded the visitors, focusing eventually on Taylor.
Wind blew through the pine-like leaves of the scale trees high above, and in the sound Taylor heard a First Tongue.
This place is sacred, godling. Who are you to enter it?
"I am Telos of the Trees." She spoke Lengii, but she knew the guardian would understand any language, just as she could.
An ancient name, the ape-like guardian said through the wind in the trees. The ponderous majesty of its language made the whole forest whisper and sing. The trees know you. The land knows you. Your name was spoken by the first of your kind to walk this land. And who are you, godling, to wield such a name? What wonders have you done? What peoples worship you?
The words rang in her mind, deep and ancient. It was a challenge from one divine creature to another. Just like the Three-Eyed Raven. Just like Lung, back in Brockton Bay.
"I am Telos," she called. "Daughter of Freya, goddess of magic, wisdom and fertility, Queen of Asgard and the Valkyrie. Daughter of Kratos, Mars the Warbringer, God of War and slayer of Olympus. I was once Telos, goddess of hope and man's final purpose. I was Queen of the gods of America, and for my people and my land I fought and defeated the Destroyer of All things. By my sword all worlds of man were saved. This and more have I done."
The giant ape used its odd hand to scratch at its jaw. Around them, the forest spoke. And what did your victory cost you, godling?
"Everything," Taylor admitted. "I am reduced to a mere shard of my true self. But even knowing all this, I would do the same as I did before if it meant saving my people."
The creature rolled forward without warning. Despite its massive size, it made no sound at all as it moved to stand just a foot from the young, prostrate god-empress. One of those long, retractable fingers reached forward and Taylor saw something glistening on its tip.
It touched her on her chest with a finger tip that had the surface area of her face. It drew the finger down the length of her tunic, between her breasts to her navel, as if tracing her rune work. When it lifted its finger away, Taylor looked down to see some type of red ochre on her tunic. It was darker than blood, and thick like a heavy grease.
The guardian said no more as it turned and moved into the forest, with its slightly smaller companion following. Where they passed, the air shimmered and Taylor's breath caught as a true godly domain suddenly appeared within the forest. It presented itself as ruins of black stone, just like in Asshai, but the truth of this place spoke of eons that surpassed not only man's presence on the world, but man's existence in the Universe.
This ruin was millions of years old.
Jhaniara stood. She trembled as she rushed between her handmaidens until she gripped Taylor's arms. "They spoke to you! What did they say? What did the gods say?"
Jhaniara didn't see. Taylor looked around at the others, and realized that the truth of the place had been lost to the Lengii in the centuries since the YiTi Empire closed off the normal passages.
"Those were not your gods, Jhaniara," Taylor said. "Those were the guardians of the gods' domain. They challenged me, and with this mark they have accepted me. Do you see the ruins?"
Frowning, the girl turned and stared. "I see only forest."
The ochre.
Taylor took the younger girl's arms and gently spun her back around until they faced each other again. She ran her finger down the line of ocher that stained her tunic until she had a good amount of the thick substance gathered on her finger. She then used it to paint a line of red down the center of the god-empresses' own chest.
"Now look."
Jhaniara turned, and then cried out. Her golden eye shimmered with tears as she stared. "My dreams. I've seen this in my dreams."
The guardians did not mark any of the other mortals, just Taylor. Her sharing it with the god-empress was a risk. "If they intended all to come, they would have marked you all," Taylor said to the handmaidens and Khatoom. "The guardians were wise and powerful, almost unto gods themselves. The god-empress and I must go alone. You have my promise I will protect her."
The eldest handmaiden shook her head. "I must go as well."
"Mortals who enter the domains of gods without welcome are cursed at best, killed at worst," Taylor warned. "Your gods are real, and powerful. I wasn't sure before how powerful, but I am now. Your gods are powerful, and you do not want to court their wrath."
"It is well, Hailia," the young empress said. She didn't bother wiping the tears from her cheeks. "It is right, and good. I will go with Telos. I will speak to our gods and know their will. Wait for me here."
The handmaiden bowed down. "Until the trees wither, I would wait, my great-sister."
Khatoom and the other men knelt down as well. With her escort handled, the young empress turned back to Taylor. "Lead me, sister. Lead me to my gods!"
Taylor took the younger girl's hand. It dawned on her then that, despite her height and bearing, Jhaniara was the same age as Vista was back in Brockton Bay. It made her wonder if Vista and the other Wards survived that last, desperate battle.
They stepped among the ruins, and Taylor felt an intense, ancient magic unlike anything she'd ever imagined sweep over her. More powerful than her mother's domain; more powerful than Brigid's, or her own. It took almost a minute to cross the threshold. Jhaniara whimpered with the stress of crossing. Taylor gripped her hand more tightly, until finally they emerged beyond it into a small circle of stone at the edge of the ruins. Beyond it, in all its naked glory, hung the vastness of open space.
Stars shimmered and nebula glowed. Beside her, the young empress fell to her knees with a startled cry. Her golden eyes glowed as she bowed her head to the floor. Taylor remained standing and looked about the vast space until something in the stars seemed to move.
No, not among the stars. The stars themselves began to move, flying through space to form the rough outline of a face. It looked distinctly Lengii. "Look upon your gods, child."
Jhaniara did as the booming voice commanded. She glanced up, and cried a moment before the golden glow in her eyes flashed and she slumped down to the stone circle.
"The child will sleep for now."
The stars flickered out, fading into darkness. The darkness itself faded to reveal…
"Heya, squirt. Let me guess. You want the fried shrimp and corn chowder, right?"
Taylor blinked up at Josie, the owner and lead waitress of the best restaurant in Brockton Bay, New Hampshire. She could only nod, overcome with the powerful memory.
"And the Danny Special, 20oz sirloin, still bleeding, and a baked potato with all the fixings."
Danny Hebert nodded. Captain and Tennile were singing in the background, and the Patriots were playing Chicago on the television in an empty stadium–no professional sporting events allowed live attendance after the infamous Astrodome parahuman attack. Taylor looked around at the familiar family-run place that came closer to her mom's cooking than any other restaurant she'd ever seen.
Then she turned and saw the empty seat at the table, and a small plate with three herbs laid across it–motherwort, Frigg's grass and Thyme. Herbs all sacred to Freya. It was the morning after the cremation ceremony, Taylor realized. Danny Hebert sat with a stony face, unspeaking. Unmoving. Taylor remembered that he brought her here because there was no food in the house; and ostensibly to help her feel better.
It didn't work.
Josie brought the food, and then to Taylor's surprise sat at the table with her own plate. Dad didn't even seem to notice her. The thin, hard-smoking 50-something woman took a bite of her own corn chowder.
When she spoke, the voice of Taylor's memory was accompanied by a strange, bass chorus just under the edge or mortal hearing. "Taste has always fascinated me. For my kind, several billion years ago, taste was simply a means of choosing a mate. We evolved to be able to eat anything available without consequence, so there was no biologically advantageous reason to develop taste with food. But the younger species, even with our guidance, did not have the biology to eat anything available. So, you have taste. An organic sensor mechanism to determine the viability of nutrients."
Josie took another bite, and then smiled at Taylor. "It is a strangely satisfying coincidence that food can bring pleasure. The corn chowder in your memory is, indeed, very good."
Taylor felt herself stiffen. She glanced at her dad but he was staring down at the table with his hands clasped so tightly his vast knuckles were white. He was still under her mother's glamor–beardless, with a normal human complexion. Only his vast size and muscular arms hinted at the god beneath.
Taylor was too wrapped up in her own loss and pain at the time to ever realize how badly her father was hurting. But now, after a lifetime spent among others, she saw it as clearly as day. She turned to Josie.
"I can't feel your intrusion at all," she admitted. "But you're obviously in my thoughts. How are you here? Why speak to me this way, and not directly?"
"If you were whole, Telos of the Trees, you could hear my true voice without pain. But in your current form, it would harm you. This way is safer."
"You're the god of Leng."
Josie snagged one of Taylor's fried shrimp. "We never considered ourselves gods. What did that even mean? A god? We were what we were. Alone. First."
The simulacrum regarded Taylor intently. "You cannot imagine, child. The dread. The despair. We asked the cosmos, 'Are we alone?' And the answer was that yes, we were. We searched throughout the Universe as it then existed, but we were the very first to form thoughts. To speak. To know ourselves and our surroundings. There were other beings, yes, but not as we were. And for trillions of years, child, we remained so."
"So you meddled," Taylor guessed.
Josie laughed, and ate more corn chowder. "Did we ever! There's not a sentient species in this galaxy that we didn't seed or nudge. Save one. But you'd know about that one."
Golden eyes stared at her from an emotionless, golden face. "Scion."
Josie just nodded. "They were older even than us. Older than the galaxies themselves. They were formed from the protomatter just gigaseconds after the birth of this universe. But they were natural forces–they fed on stars. Ancient, massive. More like what your ancestors would call gods. Without direction or sentience. They did not even see planets, much less lower species. Not until one of our failed projects chose to meddle as well."
The being that wore Josie's face put her spoon down. "There is a difference between knowledge, and wisdom. Sometimes it can be difficult to discern between them. We had vast knowledge, gained by lifetimes that spanned eons. We knew the lifecycles of stars because we witnessed those lifetimes. We survived our own star by untold eons. But in our desperation to not be alone, I cannot say we were wise. We took an eden of dimensional energy, and through our own actions and the actions of those we guided, turned it into a maelstrom of darkness and despair. By our own hands, demons came into existence. Gods of chaos and hatred were born. We sowed the seeds of our own destruction."
The ancient god with Josie's face glanced back at the still, brooding Danny Hebert. "The greatest of our champions fought with us, but just the fighting of the war itself doomed the galaxy. We turned the domain you call magic into hell, Taylor. As we died or were killed off by our own creations, we cast our hopes into the youngest of the uplifted. In humanity, we hoped our legacy of life could thrive."
She pointed to Danny. "Beings like him, who were as far above mortals as I am to you in your current form, helped raise mankind into the heights of existence after your first death; a dream to shepherd your race beyond the mere physical into something greater. But just like us, in his quest to unify and guide, the Emperor of Mankind sowed the seeds of his own destruction. He traded his future for the power of the chaos realm. It was inevitable, perhaps. All things end, it is the nature of existence. But he, too, had a vision of the future. A vision of hope. Even as we speak, the savior of humanity burns his soul away in a desperate bid to save humanity. Penance for his sins, all just to buy time for hope to come again. See Him, and know His Truth."
Taylor frowned at the odd phrasing. She turned to the front door of the restaurant and went very still when a man walked in. Just like the Three-Eyed Raven, this figure bore no single set of features. Instead, his face blurred with tens of thousands of other faces moving so quickly in and out of existence it formed almost a gestalt face of humanity itself. But when she viewed the truth of this newcomer, she felt overcome by a chorus of hundreds of millions of screams of agony.
Taylor cried out and nearly fell from the table as she felt a golden throne burning away the newcomer's soul, only to have the soul restored by the cruel sacrifice of a thousand more. Day after day. She wept when she saw entire worlds reduced to ash at the words and weapons of monstrous giants like Sennecherib, fighting against each other across the cosmos. She saw ten thousand magic-touched humans scream as they were torn asunder, their souls harvested by nightmarish machines to feed the very throne that devoured him–all to provide a beacon of light against the eternal darkness that tried to devour humanity.
The gestalt being sat at her mother's place. "What have you done?" she gasped at the newcomer.
+WHAT I HAD TO DO+ Each word was a chorus composed of the whole of humanity, just like his very face. A composite core soul, kept alive solely through the deaths of others.
Opposite Taylor and her unmoving father, the ancient being in Josie's form clucked her tongue.
"A being who hated himself almost as much as he loved his people," Josie said to her. "For if He did not sit on that throne, humanity would be lost. That is, until hope is returned to the hearts of Man."
Josie stood and moved to Taylor's side and took her hand. "You've been hurt and torn asunder, child, but in time the other parts of you will come together. Three of you, with the same face, but different facets of your divinity. The plan was for the three aspects of yourself to stand under the golden bough, where you would be made whole. But the forces of chaos did not stand idly by. Your rebirth, my dear, was a terrible sin. For when the mortal sorcerer called forth the Frejadottir, he wove the essence of the Norse goddess into this world. The fool did his god's bidding, all so Telos of the Trees could not easily leave this world. And without Telos of the Trees, Telos of Hope can never be whole."
"Whose plan?"
Josie looked to the newcomer with the blurring face. +IT WAS THE ONLY WAY+
Taylor winced as the powerful multitude of voices crashed into her mind. "Why? What could possibly drive you to destroy yourself over eons?"
+I LOST HOPE. BUT NOW A PART OF IT SITS BEFORE ME. KNOW THIS, CHILD. YOUR STEPS ON THIS WORLD HAVE NOT GONE UNNOTICED. A BEACON HAS BEEN SENT. IT WILL BE HEARD, AND WITHIN A HUMAN LIFETIME MY CHILDREN WILL COME IN FORCE. IF THEY FIND A WORLD TAINTED, THE WORLD WILL BURN. IF YOU CHERISH THE PEOPLE OF THIS PLANET, PREPARE THEM FOR MY COMING.+
Josie backed away. Around them, the diner began to shimmer as the newcomer brightened into a flash of white light before disappearing entirely. Taylor looked at her hurting, broken father, but he too began to fade away.
"Well, it's been fun," the god with Josei's face said. "But as much as I do love my Lengii children, they can't be in my presence long. They were meant to be my guardians in these last eons of my existence as I waited for you. I brought them here thousands of years before your followers colonized this world. They carry within them the genetic command to defend Leng against all invaders. Which means every time one of those beautiful children find their way down here, the genetic memory I gave them activates, and they go and murder everyone who isn't as tall and beautiful as they are."
"Why did you do that?"
Josie shrugged, then laughed at her. "What can I say? It seemed like a good idea at the time. Wisdom and knowledge, child. One doesn't mean the other. Besides, your mother's people were far worse."
The diner faded away. Taylor found herself in an ancient stone ruin—a low-ceiling room lined with black stone columns carved in broad, reptilian faces. The circle of stone she stood on spread out into a floor filled with carvings of stars and what looked like star systems. The center of the stone roof stood open to the sky above.
And on a dais opposite her lay a reptilian creature. Her bifrost eyes pierced the gloom of the room easily enough, and as she moved she realized that the creature was reptilian, but had two legs and two arms. If it had a tail, the tail was long gone. It appeared to be at least twice the height of an average man, with a barrel-shaped body. However, it was withered and desiccated with ancient age and did not move as she approached.
As she drew closer, she realized the creature was not breathing. It was, in fact, mummified. And yet she could still feel a vast, ancient power residing within it. As if even the memory of the being held power.
"Is there anything I can do for you?"
She felt a warmth, as if from a hug or gentle sunlight, and then even that was gone.
~~Voluspa~~
~~Voluspa~~
Taylor blinked her eyes. She stood on the stone circle in an empty, circular room overgrown with roots and littered with animal remains and dung. The domain was gone; only the ruins remained. She had the strangest feeling that the ancient god had just played a huge prank on her. She turned, only to feel something different about herself. She turned her own bifrost eyes to her stomach, and saw that the corruption she'd carried since Asshai was one. The Ancient God had healed her, just like she healed Hailia.
On the floor beside her, Jhaniara began convulsing.
Taylor knelt down and held the tall girl. Her wide eyes snapped open, gleaming gold in the dim light of the ruin, until finally she went still. Tears streamed down the long, flat plains of her cheeks. "The Old Ones spoke to me," she whispered in Lengii. "I am worthy! Did you hear, Telos?"
"I did," Taylor said. "Come, sister. Let's get you back to the others."
She lifted the girl to her unstable feet, knowing that she was carrying someone out of the ruin who was likely going to start a genocidal campaign as soon as she could.