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  Meliu

  Sundering the Gods Book 1.5

  L. James Rice

  Meliu and Hiding Fire are works of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living, dead, undead, possessed, or anywhere in between is purely coincidental.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or magical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, mind melds and other psychic means, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review or seance.

  Copyright © 2018 L. James Rice.

  All rights reserved.

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  Created with Vellum

  Contents

  Foreword to “Meliu”

  1. A Scar Lost

  2. The Risen Lord

  3. Pretty Bird Flying

  4. Crown and Moons

  5. Sisterly Love

  6. Swarming Maggots

  7. Ugly Bird’s Tears

  8. Person, Place, or Thing?

  9. The Helping Hand

  BONUS CONTENT

  Foreword to “Hiding Fire”

  Hiding Fire

  Foreword to “Meliu”

  The Evolution of Meliu

  Meliu started Eve of Snows as a minor character, her destiny to retrieve a book and return it to Istinjoln, never to be seen again. Heck, we weren’t even supposed to meet her in Chapter One! But as the book came together, Meliu kept inserting herself into the future of the story. She’s kind of pushy that way. With her growing importance, I decided to bump the girl Tokodin originally gambled with in order to replace her with Meliu, so we’d meet this beautiful priestess right up front.

  About the same time as this change was made, an epiphany struck: She would be a major player in book two, a Point of View character. This felt a little odd, since she disappears in Chapter 25/26 and we have no idea how she reaches Book Two, Trail of Pyres, when it starts.

  No big deal, right? Just plug in a bunch of exposition and be on your way. That’s how it started, and it probably would’ve worked, but the deeper I got into Trail, the more fleshing out her journey made sense. And the more cool tidbits I could bring out.

  Another big factor in writing 1.5 is that Meliu takes off like a shot in Trail of Pyres, at least in respect to her character arc. Yes, we met Meliu in Eve of Snows, but we weren’t in her head, and didn’t really get to know her. Therefore, it made sense to give the reader a chance to get to know her like I do, before she begins her transformation, and to do that without slowing down Trail of Pyres’ story.

  So, prepare to travel back in time, so we may again move forward.

  I hope you enjoy getting to know Meliu as much as I have.

  1

  A Scar Lost

  Talons plunge, unfurled wings, storm clouds blow,

  slow, the flow, the fall of the reign amidst the rain,

  strike the eye and emblazon the beak,

  death first takes the timid and weak.

  Feed and fed, the eagle leaves you dead,

  be thankful to never know the vulture’s breath.

  —Tomes of the Touched

  Seven Days to the Eve of Snows

  Meliu handed the Codex of Sol to Woxlin with profound pride and loss. For days she’d dreamed of a glance into the relic’s pages, but its lock confounded her. She’d learned from her mother how to slip past a lock on the Raging Dragon’s liquor stores at an inappropriate age, only months before being shipped to Istinjoln on her fifth birthday. Locks abounded in Istinjoln, guarding famous brew or forbidden libraries, but not one she dared defied her.

  The tiny tumblers on an invaluable manuscript thwarted her efforts.

  And now it sat in a high priest’s hands, his knuckles whitening with an iron grip. She smiled at his crooked teeth set in a crooked grin, unable to look him in the eye. A priest with their face buried in a bowed cowl stood to his side holding a lantern, and Woxlin held out the tome for this other to take, and whispered: “For Lord Priest Ulrikt, immediately.”

  The other nodded. A feminine hand with fingers long enough to grasp the thick tome with confidence snatched its bindings and shoved it beneath the folds of her robes. This priestess disappeared with long strides as Woxlin held Meliu’s cheeks with both hands and kissed her forehead, his lips forming into a smirk after. “Get yourself to the healers, my girl.”

  Meliu trotted after the other priestess without so much as a glance back at the Choerkin and Wardens, catching a door to a small outbuilding before it closed. But the room was already empty. She glanced into the hollow shadows and set her gaze on the trapdoor in the floor. “What in the hells?” The priestess must’ve passed straight through the next door and closed it behind her, or she was shittin’ quick. And in a hurry. If she knows what she carries, I don’t blame her.

  She tugged the rope on the trapdoor and eased down the ladder, nodding to a young monk’s bow before realizing she didn’t know where she was going. The Hall of Erginle, where healers practiced their arts during the day, would be empty after sundown. Any young priest dedicated to Life might improve the mending of her scalp, but with Little Sister’s herbs and her own half-baked healing already having built layers of scars, she needed experienced prayer.

  Meliu’d always been pretty, beautiful some said. The notion of folks looking at her ugly scar didn’t wrench her gut, or so she tried to convince herself, it was the pity she expected to see in their eyes for what she’d lost.

  She recalled her bloody-fisted pa standing above a man groggy on his hands and knees, streams of blood from his nose and mouth: “If you pity a man ya’d might as well be pissin’ on ‘im.” Trime kicked the beleaguered man in the face and drug him out of the inn to lie in the dirt street where local miners laughed and urinated on the poor bastard. Insulting Trime’s cooking was one thing, if done with a smile, but taking pity on all the miners who had to eat his cooking wasn’t a trifle her pa took as a joke.

  Meliu didn’t have a lot of memories of her father before she moved to Istinjoln, but every one left their mark on her attitude, good or bad.

  She huffed as she tromped down the hall. Pity was only good when it was a tool, and even then hard to stomach. She fought angry tears by the time she reached the Hall of Erginle and screamed when the lanterns hanging from the walls revealed no one. The echoes of her voice faded, and she wandered crestfallen to the Goddess’ shrine, staring at the stone beneath her feet. Her eyes rose to gaze upon the Tree of Life, the constellation of Erginle, here depicted by polished oak inlaid into the granite wall and set with twenty round diamonds, all bigger than her eyes.

  “You’ve done well, my child.”

  The voice came from behind and she recognized the tones. She didn’t turn to face her Lord Priest, she knelt, eyes pinned on the highest diamond in the tree. “Have I? I wonder.”

  Ulrikt strode in front of her and turned so she stared into his eyes. Soft blue, caring, but without pity. “A frightful wound.” His fingers brushed the bulge of her scar.

  “There’re Shadows at the Shrine.” But he knew already; she felt foolish.

  He leaned like a tree in a strong breeze, his palm covering the side of her head. “We shan’t worry about Shadows this evening, shall we, my girl?” He smiled, and tingles wove into the scars hugging her skull, wiggling through the muscles of her face so close to her nose she fought the urge to sneeze. “We will contain the Shadows as before, destroy them if need be.”

  If need be? You shittin’ me? “As you say, my Lord Priest.”
r />   “You have questions. I understand. But you must trust in me, and trust in Sol, and in his Codex.”

  Heat flared through every creeping tingle in her head, but she forced herself calm until the threat of a pain that never quite came faded. He stood straight, a cocksure grin on his face. As the beat of her heart turned to a whisper through her veins, she realized that all her aches faded into pleasant warmth, and the sense of bulged scars unhealed and promising to remain forever… disappeared.

  “Lovely as you ever were. Lucky for you I am an old man whose flirtatious days are passed.”

  The flirty smile spoke otherwise, but she didn’t care a wit. Her hand shot to her scalp. The skin was smooth, the hairline even, and there wasn’t a hint of heat from infection. “Holy heavens.”

  “Indeed. Erginle smiles upon she who returns the codex of her father. No man will pity you, they’ll simper at your feet. Every woman will still wish she looked like you.”

  Meliu blushed. Too old to flirt, the hells. “I’ve no words to thank you.”

  “No words are necessary for me, my child. Pray to Erginle to give thanks, and to Tulule for making her kindness possible.” The twinkle in his blue eyes made her wish he wasn’t too old to flirt with, but he pulled his gold-threaded cowl over his head and strolled from her. She turned to watch him saunter away. “We will speak again, my child. Soon.”

  A few days later he was dead, without her having heard his voice again. She prayed then, too, and thanked his soul for the kindness he’d done for her.

  2

  The Risen Lord

  Be strong when your enemy believes you weak. Be fast when your enemy believes you slow. Be alive when your enemy believes you dead. All these things are true and more, but you will be most deadly when your enemy believes you a friend.

  —Codex of Sol

  One Day to the Eve of Snows

  Meliu dozed in a cell a half-candle’s walk from where she’d lived her days in Istinjoln. She felt she was awake, but in her mind she relived the day over and over: Dareun’s soul sundered, Ulrikt rising from the dead, and his fiery declaration of war on the clans. It felt at once an unbelievable glory and a horrifying revelation. She figured she should be awed. She figured she should be terrified. Instead she was confused, numb. Even her scholar’s curiosity had left her.

  Or at least she tried to make it go away.

  The dream residing behind her eyelids always lead to Dareun’s Sundering, and from the brilliant rainbows of the Ten Winds a Shadow fell. The thing stared at her without eyes, hating her as much as she hated it. All the while, Dareun screamed in ten discordant voices.

  What does any of this have to do with Shadows? The Codex of Sol; I held the answers.

  Her eyes opened every time the question and response came, and her conscious mind scuttled the enquiry. She’d held the book, and its lock defeated her, there was little point in dwelling on what it concealed.

  She dozed again, and she reentered Istinjoln’s courtyard on a day the sun burned white and pure. This time she kneeled alone before the sarcophagus of Ulrikt, and cast no shadow in Erginle’s perfect Light. Everything was wrong, she recognized and dismissed this truth in the way of all dreamers, and when instead of Lord Priest Ulrikt rising from the dead, a serpent slunk over the rim of the golden box, her thoughts remained steady. Unconcerned. Unafraid. Unthinking.

  The beast slithered closer, its body curling and unwinding, its forked tongue tasting the air, its glistening black eyes locked with her own. It grew as it approached, first as big around as a man’s arm, then a leg, then the waist of a tiny girl such as herself. By the time it stopped in front of her, curling and rising into the air, the creature could’ve swallowed the Broldun lord priest whole.

  She didn’t breathe nor swallow, she just stared at the massive tongue flickering through the thin slit of its mouth. Its breath was of roses and garlic as it hissed. The tongue retracted, and the body froze as the great maw opened to reveal fangs dripping brown poison that smoked upon hitting the ground, and the air around suffered the reek of sulfur.

  When the thing spoke, she was little surprised. “When the eye of the Fire Lion burns, a New Age begins.”

  The Fire Lion was the symbol of Sol; its eye burning seemed nothing unusual. “Into which hell have I fallen?”

  The serpent’s mouth closed but laughter echoed all around. Her head swiveled, lazy and unworried; Istinjoln was still empty to her eye, but someone was out there. Instinct told her it was so; a tingle on the back of her neck followed.

  The snake’s head ducked and rose and its mouth opened again. Black wings flapped from its jaws; a huge green-eyed raven who laughed so loud she covered her ears. From the empty sky a book dropped in her lap, and the great bird swooped towards its pages.

  The Codex of Sol. The raven’s claws ricocheted from the book’s cover, wings beating her face as it ascended with an empty grip. The bird’s laughter trailed into the distance, following the bird who sped beyond the eastern horizon. Not until it was a disappearing dot in the sky, did she dare to touch the tome. And it faded into nothingness. “Into which hell have I fallen, serpent?”

  “To which heaven have you risen?”

  “There are no snakes in the heavens.”

  “And there is no Meliu in the hells.”

  Was this beast so sure? After all, how many Melius had lived and died before her? “If this isn’t a hell, where am I?”

  The voice changed into that of her father, deep and foreboding, with a gravel born of whiskey and smoke. “Within your own mind, whelp. Yer the same dumb little bitch who always thought she was so godsdamned smart.”

  Her heart pounded; she’d taken this man’s shit for too many years with an open mouth. Her fury built and her tongue burned to match her kin’s loathing, but a voice interrupted.

  “Meliu.” The snake disappeared and the pound of her heart eased in an instant. The tone was gentle, smooth, so unlike her father. But she was struggling to recognize something so familiar. “Meliu.”

  Her eyes flitted open. Lord Priest Ulrikt smiled as he leaned over her, a hand nudging her shoulder. “Meliu.”

  She must’ve awakened into another dream: Ulrikt’s dead. No, not dead no more. Is he real? “My Lord Priest?” The cobwebs of sleep were thick in her brain and her tongue dry.

  “Yes, my child. I apologize for waking you at such an awkward time.”

  “My will is yours to command.” And besides, she’d crawled into her covers early, overwhelmed by the strangeness of the day.

  “Good. Good. I have need of a devoted soul, and I know the priestess who brought me the Codex of Sol may be trusted with all things.” His hand reached into his robes, and for a moment she wondered if her dream hadn’t been prophecy. But he didn’t hand her the Codex of Sol, just a scroll sealed by his own ring.

  “What is it?”

  He smiled, and she half expected some smart-assed quip. “It is a missive intended for High Priestess Adelin.”

  Meliu knew the name: Adelin headed the temple of Erginle in Choerkin Fost. She took the scroll. “You’ve Bearers for this job.”

  His grin made her feel a fool. “A Bearer draws attention, and can’t talk their way out of trouble like a pretty girl.” The twinkle in his eye reminded her how much a flirt the old man was. “In five days Adelin will meet you at the Burning Rock. At dawn.”

  Where the Choerkin executed Lord Priest Imrok of Girn.

  “If you should arrive late, or she doesn’t meet you that morning, open the scroll and follow its instructions. Do not fail me.”

  Authorized to open a scroll sealed by the lord priest was an honor more frightening than carrying the damned thing. “I won’t.” She sat up in bed, aware of his stare at her bare shoulder. “When do I leave?”

  He stood and turned to the door. “Grab whatever you might need. Songs, extra gear, whatever is at hand. Peasant’s clothes, even. A monk waits for you at the stables. He will be your escort south. Follow the main road and follo
w it fast. The seal on that scroll will get you fresh ponies in every village along the way. Sleep little, time is of the essence.” He turned with his hand on the frame of the door. “We will speak again, my child. Soon.”

  He disappeared into the hall.

  “The last time you said that you died.”

  His voice came distant, but strong and clear. “But I was not wrong, was I?”

  She ducked, blushing, embarrassed that he’d heard her. She kept her next thoughts to herself: The man has good ears and a wandering eye.

  The monk who greeted her at the stables, with two ponies saddled and ready to ride, was a fellow named Jinbin. She knew his name but scarce else. He was a couple years younger than her, and not a bad-looking man, but she took an immediate liking to him when she spotted a third pony with a travel cask of ale draping over either side.

  Meliu grinned and cocked her head. “Did you steal those or are you bedding one of the brewmasters?”

  “Neither! But I wasn’t going to take a ride at night with some priestess without motivation.” He stared at her face, holding up a lantern for a better look. “I’d heard your scalp was damned near taken off.”

  “We’ve fine healers in Istinjoln.” She figured he wouldn’t believe who’d healed her. “And the gods are kind so long as we hurry.” She put foot to stirrup and slung herself into the saddle. Stared at the monk.