The Dark Remains - Mark Anthony [50]
“I still don’t understand,” Durge said, stroking his mustaches repeatedly. “To be sure, I know scant of the ways of gods, and what I do know holds little logic. Yet I have heard the gods are immortal. So how then can a god die?”
Falken opened his mouth, but it was another who answered.
“Because he was murdered.”
As one, they turned and stared. Melia stretched her legs downward, until her small, bare feet touched the carpet. Her coppery cheeks were still stained by tears, and her hair was wild with snarls, but her eyes shone with a fierce light.
“I have spoken with my brothers and sisters in the south,” she said. “And they tell me that Ondo was murdered. More than murdered. There is no trace left of him. He has been utterly destroyed.” Now sorrow returned to her visage, mingled with fury. “Poor Ondo. He was far from perfection, but he harmed no one. He wished only to play with his gold.”
Aryn still struggled to comprehend. “But who would have the power to murder a god?”
Melia clenched a hand. “That is what I intend to find out. Ever has there been competition and plotting among the gods of Tarras. Some gain in position, others lose—that has always been the way. But never, in all the eons since the founding of Tarras, has one god directly harmed another. And it is not just the gods. Worshipers have been murdered as well, and not only those of Ondo. Blood flows in the temples of Tarras.” Melia hugged her fist to her chest, her eyes growing distant with thought. “Yet if there is a pattern to it all, none of us can see it. All my brothers and sisters are afraid.”
Aryn had never imagined that a god could be afraid. But then, she had never imagined that a god could be killed, either.
Lirith tightened her arms over the bodice of her gown. “None of this makes sense. How can everything just unravel like this?”
Aryn glanced at her. There seemed more to the witch’s words than just a comment on Melia’s news. Was there something else Lirith knew?
Melia smoothed her hair back over her shoulders. “One thing is certain—something has changed in Tarras. And I intend to find out what it is.”
“What do you mean?” Falken said, raising an eyebrow.
Melia regarded the bard, her expression resolute. “I leave for Tarras at once. If you would come with me, Falken, I should be glad.”
The bard opened his mouth to answer, but at that moment a shrill scream sounded—muffled but distinct—through the chamber’s door.
The five exchanged startled glances, then they were moving. Durge led the way, flinging open the door and charging down the corridor even as a second scream rang out. The others ran after, hard pressed to keep up with the Embarran’s sturdy legs. The corridor widened into a larger space—the castle’s lesser hall, where some of the smaller feasts and revels were held.
The source of the screams was plain to see. Elthre the serving maid crouched in the center of the hall, hands to her cheeks, a tray of smashed crockery on the floor. She gazed up, her eyes circles of horror. A gasp escaped Lirith, and Falken let out a low oath.
A gangly form clad in green dangled from one of the hall’s high galleries, bells jangling dissonantly as he swung back and forth.
Lirith moved to the serving maid to comfort her. Aryn clamped a hand to her mouth, lest she scream like Elthre had. A length of cloth had been wrapped around Master Tharkis’s neck—one of the dozen green-and-yellow banners of Toloria that hung from the hall’s galleries—and it was by this he had been hanged. His bony limbs jutted at odd angles, and his teeth were bared in what seemed a mad grin, as if he had been frozen in the act of one last jest. However, the illusion was dispelled by the crimson streams that still seeped from the two empty pits where his crossed eyes had been.
A sigh escaped Melia. “Poor Tharkis. This was not the end he deserved. But how can this be?”
“It is clear enough from the evidence,” Durge rumbled. “The fool could stand his madness no longer. He gouged out his own eyes and hanged himself from the gallery.”
Aryn shuddered. She remembered what Tharkis had