“And I hope that day is far away,” said the Quicksilver Magister, striding up. “Quicklime Pewter has forgotten more about this town and the stone it’s built with than I’ll ever know.”

As they began to walk toward the chamber door, Chaven at last looked up, as if wakening from a dream. “I’m sorry, I…” He blinked. “That veiled figure,” he said, pointing at the fabled ceiling. “Who is that? Is it…?”

“That is the Lord of…that is Kernios, of course, god of the earth,” Chert told him. “He is our special patron, as you must know.”

“And on his shoulder, an owl.” The physician was staring down again.

“It is his sacred bird, after all.”

“Kernios…” Chaven shook his head. “Of course.”

He said no more, but seemed far more troubled than a man should who had just been granted his life and safety by the venerable Stone-Cutter’s Guild.

23

The Dreams of Gods

The war raged for years before the walls of the Moonlord’s keep. Countless gods died, Onyenai and Surazemai alike.

Urekh the Wolf King perished howling in a storm of arrows. Azinor of the Oneyenai defeated the Windlord Strivos in combat, but before he could slay him, Azinor was himself butchered by Immon, the squire of great Kernios. Birin of the Evening Mists was shot by the hundred arrows of the brothers Kulin and Hiliolin, though brave Birin destroyed those murderous twins before he died.

—from The Beginnings of Things
The Book of the Trigon

“IT…IT SOUNDED LIKE you said…that you were there.” Briony didn’t want to offend her hostess (especially not before she’d shared whatever food the crone had to spare) but even in the throes of fever and starvation, the habits of a princess died hard: she didn’t like being teased, especially by grimy old women. “When the gods went to war.”

“I was. Here, I’ll put a few more marigold roots in the pot for you—you’d be surprised how nicely they cook up once you boil the poison out. I’ve been in flesh so long I can scarcely remember anything else, but one thing I don’t miss about the old days—all that bloody, smoking meat! I don’t know what they thought they were doing.”

“Who? Wait, poison? What?” Briony was trying to keep still and avoid sudden movements. It had only just occurred to her that an old woman who lived by herself in the middle of the Whitewood was likely to be quite mad. She felt sure that even as weak and sick as she was, she could defend herself against this tiny creature, bony as a starveling cat—but how could she protect herself when she slept? She didn’t think she could survive another night on her own in the rainy wood.

“I’m talking about those bloody men and their bloody sacrifices!” the old woman said, which explained very little. “They used to be everywhere in this part of the forest, chopping wood, hunting my deer, generally making a nuisance of themselves. Some of them were handsome, though.” She smiled, a contraction of wrinkles that made her face look even more like a knot in the grain of a very old tree. “I let some of them stay with me, bloody-handed or not. I was not so particular then, when my youth was on me.”