Bones of the Dragon - Margaret Weis [39]
“Listen to me,” said Garn, gripping Treia’s arms and giving her a shake. “That statue was older than the hills. It’s been out in the rain and the snow and the freezing cold. The wood rotted, as it was bound to do eventually, and the statue broke.”
The statue of Vindrash was present at the launching of the dragonship, where she was doused with seawater. She attended weddings and funerals in sunshine and rain. She presided over the harvest festival and came out of her warm Hall into the fierce wind and cold to celebrate the winter solstice.
“The true miracle is that the old wooden statue has survived this long,” said Garn.
He was being logical, as always. Still, looking down at the broken statue, Aylaen wasn’t certain logic made her feel any better. She remembered being afraid of the statue when she was little. The dragon seemed to glare down at her as she stood in the Hall beside her mother, and she had nightmares about the teeth snapping at her, the claws reaching out to tear her apart.
Her mother had sought to reassure her, telling her that Vindrash loved her people. Her fangs and claws were used to protect the Torgun, not harm them. Aylaen tried hard to believe that was true, but the childhood fear never truly left her. She had always felt a little tremor pass through her when she looked upon the statue of Vindrash.
Now, as she stared down at the two halves of the broken statue, she was reminded of her dead father. She remembered seeing his corpse laid out in the funeral boat, and she remembered feeling bewildered and confused. That wasn’t her father, lying there, any more than these broken pieces were Vindrash. Her father had been a hale and hearty man with a ready laugh. She had worshipped him, adored him. The disease-ravaged corpse with its frozen grimace of pain and its wasted, shrunken limbs was a stranger. Someone she didn’t know.
She had refused to believe her father was dead, and she had run away to hide in the woods until the funeral had ended and the blazing boat carrying his body had been shoved out to sea. And though she knew in the bleak empty darkness of her heart that her father was dead, she kept stubbornly insisting he was merely gone on a raid and would someday return. That was one reason she had been so furious with her mother when she had married Uncle Sigurd.
Aylaen felt the same now, bewildered and confused. This was not Vindrash. This was a stranger.
“We will build a new statue,” Garn was telling Treia. “A better statue, adorned with jewels to honor the goddess. This is what you will tell our people. This is what you will tell them tomorrow”—Garn emphasized—“after we defeat the ogres. You will say nothing about this to anyone tonight.”
Treia’s eyes flashed. “I am the Bone Priestess! How dare you give me orders? I will say what I must say. The ogres are right. Our gods are dead—”
“If you tell the people that, you will send our warriors to battle tomorrow with dread and fear in their hearts instead of courage and pride,” Garn said. “And if we are defeated, the fault will be yours. Not the gods’!”
Treia glared at him, but she did not refute his words. Aylaen could not guess what her sister was thinking. Treia hid her thoughts behind a cold, pale mask. At last she stirred and rubbed her thin arms.
“You claim the statue broke because the wood rotted.” Treia gazed up at Garn and smiled a thin, bitter smile. “Is that what you would have me say to the people? That our goddess rotted?”
Garn made an impatient gesture. “It’s a piece of wood shaped like the goddess, Treia, not the goddess herself. If the lintel above the door split, would you read in that the end of the world? Don’t say anything to anyone, Treia. Not until after tomorrow’s battle.”
Treia gestured to Aylaen. “Bring me my robes.”
Aylaen was quick to respond. Catching up the embroidered robe that marked her a Bone Priestess, Aylaen draped it around Treia’s spare shoulders. Aylaen put her arm protectively around her sister, for, though the night was warm, she could feel her shivering.
The two walked out of the Hall. Garn shut the