“Right, let us venture forth into the night, I’ve a wicked thirst that needs quenching.” He took another bottle and stuffed it beneath his arm before striding purposely out of the shop.
The Shadojak shook his head but followed him out all the same and Elora noticed that he still held the cognac. She gripped tight to her loot and hastily went after them.
An hour later saw them on the edge of the city, a small park that sat beside the old city wall, dark and empty. Otholo led them to an empty bench that sat beneath a large oak, its thick branches filtering the amber glow of a street lamp, casting them in a patchy shadow that swayed in the breeze.
Wood creaked as the bard sat down sideways on the bench, crossing his legs and placing them atop the worn arm, making himself comfortable. He took a swig of cognac then placed the half empty bottle on the ground, replacing the drink for his lute. Slender fingers began to pluck at the strings.
“A fine young buxom maid was she...”
Diagus kicked Otholo’s boots from the bench arm, making him pluck the wrong strings and stop singing.
“‘The farmer’s seven daughters’ is not to your liking Diagus? Then maybe...The Old Sea Goat?” Otholo began to play a different tune.
“Do you really think, I dragged your skinny arse half way across York, only to hear your wind filled bladder bleed upon the night? No, I want you to read this.” He flung the journal at the bard. It bounced off his lute and landed in his lap.
Otholo raised an eyebrow. “My wind filled bladder has filled palaces; had people crushing into colosseums to hear me sing. My voice has been handpicked by king...” He stopped when he saw the Shadojak’s grim expression. “I suppose my voice sounds just as good when reciting from books.” He picked up the journal and began to skim through the first few pages.
“What is it I’m looking for?” he asked.
Elora, sat beside him, staring down at her uncle’s swirling writing. “Anything to indicate who my father is. It would be in the first few pages,” she said, forcing herself to stop fretting with the scab on her finger from where Grendel cut her for the smuggler’s pouch. Instead, concentrating on Otholo’s face, his mouth moving as he read the words to himself, a frown increasing upon his brow, growing deeper with every page until he stopped.
His eyes suddenly locked on hers and she thought she saw fear in them.
“What is it?” she asked, biting her lip. “Does it say who my father is?”
Otholo nodded and took a long slug of the cognac before turning the journal back a page.
“Athena hid her pregnancy well,” Otholo began to recite, “I, her own brother, never knew the truth until the day she gave birth. And only then because the babe came screaming into the world.
Shock, like none I felt before, took me as I ran to her chamber and saw the tiny pink creature swaddled up in her arms. Shock was soon replaced by fear as I noticed the knife in her other hand, poised above the new babe’s neck.
Had I not taken it from her that instant, I’m sure she would have ended that life before it began. I took the child, a girl, in my own arms, demanding the father’s name. My sister became hysterical and through sobs told me of how she, several months ago, had felt a dizziness take her while praying in a quiet sanctum within the High Church. She had collapsed and fell into a dream state, neither awake nor asleep. Visions had played in her mind, lustful wants releasing as she felt another’s presence holding her, touching her - using her.
When she finally awoke, it was dark and so she hurried home. Whilst bathing that night, she found scratches and bruising on her body where she had no injury before. She told nobody of her dream state in the church and only when she missed her third moon’s blood did she realise that she was with child.
Nightmares had plagued the nights ever since. Terrible dreams of the demon that took her in the church, a dark creature with eyes like the burning embers of coal, fire kissed blood that ran through his veins. An evil so strong that it could ravish a woman without ever being present. I didn’t want to believe her, but the facts were wriggling in my arms.
Solarius, God of Chaos and the prisoner in the Well of Redemption had brought a daughter into the world.
I found the child to have eyes the colour of burning coals and the fine veins under her thin skin were as red as the fire in the smith’s forge. I took the knife from my sister and made a small cut on the back of the baby’s fleshy hand and the moment the blood was exposed to the air it caught aflame, scorching the knife I held and forcing me to let it go. The cut healed before my eyes. Further proof of the father’s claims.
But for all the evil that child should have been, I felt only a babe’s innocence. I could no sooner kill her than kill my dear sister.”
Elora felt icy fingers working through her chest as she struggled with what she was being told. Could it be true? Was she the daughter of a god?
She caught movement beside her, then felt the cold taste of metal against her neck. Whilst listening intently to Otholo she hadn’t noticed Diagus slip silently behind the bench, now his sword was drawn and pressing against her neck.
“Do you yield?” he breathed.
“It’s not like I can go anywhere,” she replied, careful not to move her neck as she spoke; having seen first-hand the sharpness of the Shadojak’s blade.
Somehow, unknowingly - maybe on a subconscious level - she had slipped the dagger Grendel had given her from its sheath within the smuggler’s pouch and concealed it beneath her forearm.
“Does the journal speak true, Otholo, does Solarius live?” Diagus asked.
“Solarius never died. How can you truly kill a god? The founding Shadojak’s broke him, destroyed the physical form and left it for the crows. It was his sister Minu who took his remains and hid them in the mountains.”
“That impossible. The Shadojaks would have known.”
“Would they? She was as powerful as her brother although she devoted her energy for the greater good. She was the bringer of light, not a child of darkness like Solarius. Minu healed his body and brought breath once again to his lips. Or so the legend goes.
When the dark Lord recovered enough to speak, his first words were of vengeance. Swearing by the Mother that he would tear the Shadojaks apart and using his armies would crush mankind from the world. Minu had taken precautions against this and cleverly placed her brother deep inside a cavern within a mountain.
There, while his body lacked the strength to oppose her, she buried him within rocks too big to be moved by mortal man. She lulled him into a deep sleep by singing him a lullaby, taught to her by the blessed Mother herself. Singing while she buried him deeper and leaving only enough space for her song to echo down to him. That’s the reason it’s called God’s Peak. Years passed as she worked, hollowing out the mountain and turning it into an echo chamber, not once ending the song, for to do so would wake her brother. When she finished her work, Malou, her daughter, took up the song, allowing Minu to build the High Church above a deep well that sank to the bottom of the mountain. This became the Well of Redemption. Once finished, Malou’s daughters also took up the song, leaving their mother and grandmother to build a town for the High Church, for what is a church without people? It was named Aslania and populated with followers of Minu. Malou’s daughters were also blessed with daughters and took their mother’s places, singing the verses that held Solarius. And on it went for thousands of years, daughter replacing daughter, the song never stopping.”
“Eversong.” The words whispered past Elora’s lips before she could hold them back.
“If this is true, then how did Solarius get free to put his seed in this Athena?” asked Diagus.
“The singing has never stopped but the bloodline grows weaker with every generation, the potency of the song with it. They keep it as pure as they can, hence the reason I was banished - no room for impurities. But the blood still gets watered down with each generation.”
Elora felt the sword at her neck bite a little deeper.
“And his spawn will end the song and break his bonds,” Diagus spat.
Elora instinctively rolled her neck to the side and leapt from the bench, using it as a barrier between her and the Shadojak. She never actually said she would yield.
“I am not Solarius’ s daughter,” she yelled at him, trying to stop the rising tide of anger that pulsed through her, quenching her fear.
