Episode 8: Offerings
Written by: Auraboo
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The woodlands were dressed in the merry golds and reds that heralded the approach of another cold, damp season. It made for a dizzying sight – treetops as far as the eye could see, and the winding path took them ever higher, away from the marshlands that were so common on both sides of the border.
It was past noon already, yet the air carried a distinct mid-autumn chill to it that did not fully abate even in sunlight. They felt it biting their cheeks; the air ahead turned foggy whenever someone exhaled. They were all out of breath once they reached the summit, and Luzem felt the shirt sticking to his back with sweat.
Behind him the frosty soil shifted and the white wolf vanished. Her form was strangely fluid, like molten silver glass or liquid smoke in the seconds it took for Tariya to materialise where the beast had just stood. It came to her naturally, almost an instinct of its own, but Luzem still found it hypnotising to watch even after all that time.
”Water,” Tariya answered his unvoiced question, snatching the waterskin out of his hands at once. It had been some hours since they had last found a stream, and her colouration stood out too much in the woods for her to stray from the others.
Kae had doubled over, hands on his knees as he laboured to catch his breath, sweat dripping down his chin. Even his horns gleamed from the humidity. Next to him Lily and Tamrus looked slightly less affected, but even they were panting from the long, arduous climb.
”A breather, I think,” Tamrus said. He wiped off a bead of sweat threatening to fall on his beard.
”Oh, but that’s funny,” Lily breathed, eyeing Kae meaningfully as he emptied most of his waterskin in one. ”With all that boasting about endurance I would have expected a little more from you.”
”Enough with the sniping, you two,” Tamrus intervened before Kae had had the chance to do more than part his lips in retort. ”You’ve been at it since we left and I’m not listening to it any longer.”
”I’m just saying!”
”Can it, Lily.”
Kae pulled out a handkerchief and mopped the sweat off his face. The unruly curls had turned even more unruly during the hours on the road, but there was no fatigue in his sharp eyes as he stole a glance at his travelling companions.
It had been a tiring journey to the Highlands. When autumn came on the northern continent it came fast, and the conditions had turned less agreeable in the weeks they had been on the road. The terrain close to the border varied between treacherous marshes and little valleys nestled in the embrace of neverending hills, far away from inhabitation and the villages they could often spy in the distance before fog swallowed them whole. There was no helping it, he knew. They stood out a little too much in most places to risk any bigger towns on this side of the border; just the sight of a Highlander travelling in the company of a Woodlander was generally enough to attract curious glances.
His attention strayed elsewhere. At the edge of a small copse, half-buried under fallen leaves and moss from years of neglect was a roadside shrine, free of any markings associated with any particular deities. Such shrines were common all over the known world – a place for any and all worshippers to honour whichsoever god they answered to. Judging by its condition no one was maintaining it.
It had been weeks since there had been any contact between him and his god, yet Kae found his hand reaching his pocket almost automatically. Old habits died hard, no matter how foolish or useless.
”While we’re here,” he said. ”I’d like to pay my respects, if we have a moment.”
”Suit yourself,” Tamrus replied.
To Kae, his kind of worship was a thing best practised in private, and what gifts his patron demanded were ill suited for altars, but it had been a long time since he had last laid eyes on them in person. For once there was no mischief in the warlock’s eyes. The look on his face was one of subdued longing as he stepped under the shelter of the shrine’s canopy, bowed once with his arms outstretched, and touched two fingers to his lips as he straightened.
He always seemed to have candles upon him, and he did this time as well. The others watched from afar as he set one upon the altar, conjured a flame out of thin air, and lit it. Kae knelt, lips moving fervently.
”Aamunkajo, Morning Star, Dawnbringer.” The candle burned with a bright red flame at his words. ”Your servant comes to you in reverence.”
His voice had taken a softer, mellower edge. He clapped his hands together four times and let his eyes slip shut.
”Never quite struck me as the devout type, that one,” Lily murmured, keeping her voice low in an act of rare thoughtfulness.
”Warlocks are a strange bunch,” Tamrus replied, shrugging. ”Their gods can be particular about the blessings they’ve bestowed.”
As though on instinct Lily found the shape of a gemstone at the bottom of her pocket. It was too little, too late, but better than nothing, she supposed. It was not only warlocks and their patron-gods who demanded that bargains be honoured, and she was long overdue an offering.
Tariya had plopped down on the leaf-strewn ground unceremoniously, back against a moss-covered tree stump. Luzem plucked leaves and pine needles off her braided hair while she watched Kae bowing his head yet again.
She asked, ”did he ever say which god he serves?”
None of them had an answer for that, and so they lapsed into silence once more.
Luzem took to patrolling the perimeter idly, hand resting on the hilt of his sword. The only sounds were the distant birdsong in the surrounding woodlands and the occasional faint susurrus of the warlock’s voice rising and falling like tides, until he, too, fell silent. Kae pulled back his left sleeve, which revealed a puckered scar on his underarm, its shape too regular to be from an accident. A circular mark with a four-pointed star in the centre, still raised as though it had not healed properly. He lifted the candle and carefully poured molten wax on the scar, his expression never changing.
He felt a warm shiver travel up his spine like a lingering touch, followed by familiar laughter that only he could hear.
Soon, soon, Kae thought. Let there be enough time for them to feel his absence; let them be the one to wait this time. There was no crossing the border without an offering, even if he had wanted to make the journey, and his luck had run thin of late.
The daylight had turned golden as the afternoon hours dragged on, signalling that the short day would soon be coming to an end. The woodlands seemed to glow, deceptively radiant despite the hour, and Luzem and Tariya exchanged a look. Light never lasted as long as one thought at this time of the year, and they had been on the road enough to know when time was running out.
Clearly Tamrus knew this too, for he said, ”we’d best make tracks, boy, if we want to be off the road by nightfall. Let’s get going.”
”A moment, pops. I’m nearly done here,” Kae replied airily. If he minded being called ’boy’ at the age of 38, he did not let it show in any form or manner.
He peeled the dried wax off as the others picked up their belongings, readying themselves for the final stretch before making camp for the night. He had only just doused the candle as the rustle of gravel alerted him, and from the corner of his eye he saw the two elves hovering behind him. Tariya had extracted an animal bone from her satchel, which she placed at the other end of the altar, a fair distance away from Kae’s candle, muttering something indistinct as she did so.
Luzem’s attention was on Kae, however, instead of his sister.
”I’ve never seen an offering like yours before,” Luzem said, brows furrowed. Kae saw his eyes flicker on the burn on his arm. ”You never said who your patron was.”
Kae shook down his sleeve, standing up. ”They prefer ’operator’, actually.”
”They… what?”
”Operator. A patron-god’s magic operates through those they bond, hence the name.” He smirked. ”A warlock doesn’t worship the way commoners do. The gods willing to bargain with mortals are the ascended ones – immortal, yes, powerful, yes, but closer to us than the Great Ones residing in the deepest reaches of the Beyond. ’Patron’ is a misleading word. A pact is a two-way contract, an equal exchange, with both parties gaining something out of it.”
”That’s not really answering my question.”
”Yours was a statement, not a question. None of you have asked, therefore I’ve not given a name.”
”Hey, you three,” Tamrus interrupted the conversation. He had hefted the enormous rucksack on his shoulders once more. ”Walking doesn’t prevent you from talking, does it?”
”I sometimes wonder if my folks are somehow possessing him from the afterlife just to chaperone me,” Kae replied dryly, rolling his eyes, but set off after Tamrus and Lily regardless.
He was not surprised when Luzem caught up with him, sitting astride the great wolf as one would upon a saddled horse. He could not help the reluctant admiration as Tariya turned her golden eyes at him. The shapeshifter’s magic didn’t make so much as a whisper, her transformations smooth and controlled.
Kae was the opposite. They both liked their magic with a touch more pizzazz, he and his god.
”Shoot,” Kae said. ”I’m sure you’re just bursting with questions.”
Luzem sounded hesitant when he said, ”about your patron-god. Operator. Who are they?”
”I doubt an elf would have heard of them. Kajo is reclusive and very choosy when it comes to dealing with mortals.” A smile tugged at his lips at the name. ”They have not set foot in the mortal realm for centuries.”
”You said it was an equal exchange, the pact. What could a god possibly want from a mortal?”
”Besides the soul your sister mentioned before, friend? Not much else. Mortal souls are potent – their life force itself is full of the same magic that forms all creation. Don’t look so appalled,” Kae said when both Luzem and Tariya stared at him. ”I know exactly where mine goes once I die, which is more than what most folks can say for themselves.”
Luzem was scratching at the wolf’s neck absent-mindedly, fingers buried in fur. ”It seems a heavy trade to make, no matter the boons.”
”Depends on what you want from it. I wanted magic, I got magic – I might be the first among the Hellfolk since the sealing of the Hells to wield any.” Kae rolled his shoulders. ”Warlock magic is different from other sorcerers’. They need rituals and spells to cast theirs; we do not. Ours comes directly from our gods. It’s the only way a patron-god can directly work their magic within the mortal realm, to influence, to meddle. That is why offering pacts is so lucrative to them. They need a conduit to open a window to this plane. Warlocks are flesh made into a conduit; we die to be reborn, our mortal forms remade by our gods.”
”The Deathless Death,” Luzem said with a shudder. ”So it’s true what they say about the ritual exchange?”
”So you have heard of it, huh?”
”Elven study of magic in concentrated in Llavarron. I heard lecturers speak briefly of divine magic and its principles when I was little.”
Kae snorted. ”A highly coloured version, I’m sure, knowing Highlanders. No offense, friend,” he added. ”And yes, it’s true in a sense. Divine magic is too much for a mortal body to withstand, it would burn you to a crisp in an instance. Calling it ’death’ is a bit dramatic, if you ask me. It’s over so quickly that your brain doesn’t really have the time to realise it has already happened.”
Tariya let out an incomprehensible noise somewhere between a growl and a whine.
”I agree. It still sounds painful,” Luzem said.
”Quite the opposite, actually. Quite the opposite.” Kae’s face broke into a smile that was almost dreamy, gaze somewhere in the distance. If there had been pain, the rest had overridden it; it had felt like eons, yet over in an instant. Kajo began where he ended, and in every molecule in-between. It was the most ultimate form of intimacy, and there had been safety in it. ”Euphoria beyond pleasure. I will never forget it in this life or the next.”
He pet Tariya briefly before hitching the rucksack more firmly on his shoulders. There was a new spring to his steps as he caught up with Lily, a casual insult already on his lips.
Tariya made another noise, too low for anyone but Luzem to hear.
”I know, I know. Teaches me to pry into other people’s business, I suppose,” he sighed. ”And I do regret asking, thank you very much.”
They spent the rest of the journey watching Lily and Kae slowly driving Tamrus insane as dusk fell and dressed the woods in darkness.
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