The Forgotten (The Lost Words: Volume 3) Read online

  THE

  FORGOTTEN

  by

  IGOR LJUBUNCIC

  Book Three of The Lost Words

  Copyright © 2014 Igor Ljubuncic

  All rights reserved.

  ISBN: 1496191021

  ISBN 13: 9781496191021

  Library of Congress Control Number: 2014904961

  CreateSpace Independent Publishing Platform

  North Charleston, South Carolina

  For me brother, who is just as talented as I

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  All right, I will keep it short this time. Thanks go to: Erin, the CreateSpace editor, who polished my English into a presentable product; Anton Kokarev of kanartist.ru for the kickass cover art; you readers for the endless stream of useful suggestions; and finally, my wife, a sharp and ruthless critic, who slays boring chapters without mercy.

  PROLOGUE

  Tanid approached the village with apprehension. He was well aware that, despite his divine, all-encompassing strength, he was still vulnerable to knives and pitchforks and arrows wielded by humans. Strange, how gods were just as easily killed as their own creations. But it was their own fault. Having created humans from their own essence, they had given them the key to their own vulnerabilities.

  Tanid wondered how he might imbue himself with invincibility, how he might render sword blades or even simple natural disasters impotent to his skin and bones. He would need that. In the coming days and months and years, as these humans counted them, he would need that.

  He needed invincibility so he could defeat Calemore.

  Now that Tanid was the god of everything, the one god left in this world, the reality had changed. All the power of belief was his, infusing him like hot red lava, making his blood pulse with new energy, torrents of it, a wild, raw, almost unbridled power that threatened to bring him to his knees in tears of joy and agony. But he would learn to contain and master all that strength.

  Tanid looked at the village, its two dozen houses clustered together for warmth and protection, thatched, steep rooftops to keep the snow from caving them in during wintertime, spindly chimneys made of old mud and straw, the mill wheel paddling in the creek, the herd of goats grazing in the pasture. He stared at the statue erected in the tiny square, a monument to the gods and goddesses. He could feel a tendril of warmth coiling away from that granite slab and drifting toward him, like a loose thread of a cobweb. The belief of people was his. All of it was his.

  Well, not all. The far north was a dark place, a dead place. And away from the Old Land—the realms they called it now—there were other domains of humans, places created and inhabited long after the Great Court, where belief had transmuted and degenerated and evolved into new shapes and forms. In those distant lands, belief existed, but it was an alien form, a different kind of power that Tanid could not harness and use.

  No matter. The lives and fates of the gods and goddesses had always been about the Old Land, about Gale Ropan, Padam, and the Broken Islands, and this was where it would all be decided. He had to grow strong enough to defeat Calemore and stop his conquest of destruction.

  Before he could do that, he needed help.

  Human help.

  Invincibility might not have to be about physical strength to stop hammer blows and the punch of steel-headed arrows. It might only be the ability to remain one step ahead of his foe at all times. The ability to glimpse the future ahead of everyone else. To know what the world would offer and be the first to act.

  That privilege was denied of even the gods and goddesses themselves. Such was the world.

  But not for the Special Children, the gods’ best weapons.

  Tanid let his palms caress the hip-high stalks of the mid-spring grass, green and lush and full of hope. The winter was gone, replaced by vivid colors of rebirth and renewed faith. In the Safe Territories, you could feel it more than anywhere else. These people still loved the gods and goddesses.

  He saw one of the goatherds point toward him. He saw the few women beating their clothes in the creek gather the wet bundles and walk back to their homes. He saw a farmer let drop his plow and pick up his large staff instead. A man went into a house and came back holding a sword, a real weapon of war.

  Tanid tried to suppress the feeling of moderate fear as he slowly walked down the gravel path toward the village, knowing all too well the risks of his endeavor. But he knew he could not let these people know who he was. They probably would not believe him anyway. And he did not dare squander his strength on magical protection. He could not afford it yet. He needed every ounce of power to fight Calemore. There was just no knowing when his paid killers might show up. The witch would not dare kill him personally, but there was nothing stopping a human from plunging a blade through his chest and ending all hope for humanity.

  The god wondered how he appeared to these people. He tried to be as nondescript as possible, wearing a common man’s clothes, assuming average, boring professions, names, and titles. It would not be wise to claim skills and crafts he could not demonstrate if asked. So, he never was a warrior or a goldsmith or a famed horseman. But he could get along being a merchant, a hide seller, a pilgrim. Simple characters that would not alarm simple people.

  “Who goes there?” a youthful villager shouted, standing on the gravel path leading into the square, holding a short sword in his right arm. He bore like a soldier. Tanid remembered seeing the people of Gale Ropan—Parus—populate this land after the great destruction nineteen human summers ago. He liked these Parusites. They still held to the faith.

  A dog barked, a small black thing with stunted legs, keeping to the side of a small field of hops. It would not approach him; the animals knew better.

  Tanid stopped and raised his hands in what he hoped was a benign gesture of greeting. “My name is Kapper,” he called. He refrained from using any words in ancient dialects. There was always a small chance someone might recognize them. Especially the clergy. “I come in peace. I mean you no harm. I am a merchant, looking for an apprentice.”

  “Look somewhere else. We ain’t got no one here what wants to be a ‘prentice,” the youth challenged. “Go.”

  Go. Tanid had often met with reluctance, fear, sometimes outright hatred going into small places, seeking for what he needed. There was war in the realms, and the memory of the Feoran uprising was still fresh in the Territories. The local population did not trust strangers.

  It would be wise to retreat. He had to accept the risk, though, knowing all too well that a single fatal blow to his human avatar would undo everything good and noble he had in store for the human race. In a way, it would not be much different from one of Calemore’s killers catching up with him and murdering his body. However, while the latter was certainty postponed and maybe eluded, the former was just a chance, balanced against human goodwill—if he searched for Special Children among humans, he might die; if he did not, he would die. A chance. He had to take it.

  “I will pay money,” Tanid said. Another risk. Claiming you had coin could cost your life in this human world. Life was so cheap, especially in war. But he must do it. He could not let this village go unexplored. His death, by human hands or the witch, meant the world would be doomed. The only way Tanid could survive and best Damian’s monster was to find Special Children and use their powers in his favor.

  Not all men were evil. Not all men resorted to violence. If you acted calmly, politely, most of the time, they would not let Damian’s curse come to bear. They might swear and threaten and spit, but they would not lift their arms in violence.

  “What do you need?” the youth asked. Another man had joined him, the farmer with the staff.

/>   Tanid smiled. Progress, good. He could not be a coward, not now. “I just need to take a look at your children. See if there’s anyone with a talent. That’s all. Nothing more. Please.” He could not walk away.

  The two villagers looked at one another. Tanid remembered that look from dozens of other villages he had visited since Damian’s death. The look of hope and goodwill mixed with greed and fear.

  Tanid waited. The sun beat from the sky. The air was cool and warm at the same time. If he ignored the reality, it was a perfect spring day, clean and beautiful.

  “All right, Kapper. You take one look, and if one of them kids has a mind to it, then maybe we can talk about it.”

  “Thank you, kind sir,” the god offered, truly glad. He hated the possibility of having to abandon a place for the fear of death.

  “Merchant?” the farmer asked, wearing a scowl. “Where’s your tools? Where’s your cart?”

  Here was the risky part of his work. Every village had its one skeptic. Each time, Tanid had to prove his lie. Sometimes, he managed without magic. Sometimes, he had to use it. A tiny amount, just a flake. It wouldn’t be sufficient to stop a gnat bite, but it was good enough to pass as an illusion from a hundred paces away.

  “There.” He pointed toward the crest of the gravel road. He made the image of a cart appear there. The two men looked confused, feeling they had not seen the wagon there before, but the mind did everything it could to convince itself it was sane.

  The farmer deflated a little. But his callused, dirty hand rubbed the staff nervously.

  Soon the tiny square filled with children. Not many of them, mostly younger ones, just as Tanid had hoped. Normally, when people discovered their special abilities, mostly as they grew up, they tended to flee their homes, terrified of their strange, wicked powers. They felt that if they ran away, they would leave them behind. With younger children, it was the opposite. They kept their abilities secret.

  There were five male adults and a scattering of women present now, all looking rather hostile and afraid, every one of them armed. The Parusite settlers were a tough breed, he knew. Leaving their kingdom and coming here to build temples for the gods and goddesses. It was a noble call, and a dangerous one, in an abandoned land without law.

  Tanid looked at the children, searching for telltale clues of dark secrets. But most of the kids had bright, bold eyes, like their parents. He knew what he had to do next. He stiffened. Oh, it would be so easy to give up, search elsewhere, but he could not bet the fate of humanity against cowardice.

  “Do you have any…special children?”

  The swordsman craned his neck. “Say what?”

  Tanid spread his arms wide in a pacifying gesture. “Any kids with…problems. Anyone who doesn’t speak well or has bad dreams.”

  “Take your filthy curse elsewhere!” one of the other men roared. “We got healthy children here.”

  “Yes, yes, I mean no offense. Of course. The gods and goddesses bless your children.”

  That seemed to work. The palpable thread of violence dissipated. Tanid breathed deeply. He hated his vulnerability. But that was the grim legacy of the lone god left in the world. To defeat Calemore, he must grovel before humans, begging for help.

  No children with weird ailments, then. This village was empty. It did not have any Special Children. Tanid had hoped for a blind child who could foretell rain or one who would not meet anyone’s eyes and could tell when people would die. He desperately needed them.

  “Does any one of you wish to become a merchant?” He asked the obvious question.

  Silence. The children stared at him. Their glares shouted ordinary things like bread and toys, wild dreams of glory he could not offer them.

  “There. No one wants it. You done here,” the swordsman declared.

  Tanid nodded, slightly disappointed. “Yes. Sure.” He reached into his pocket and produced a handful of silvers. “For your trouble, kind people.” He handed the money to the youth. “The gods and goddesses bless you.”

  “You, too, merchant.”

  The village watched him depart without any waves or shouts of good-bye. Tanid crested the rise, and the village vanished from his view. He let the illusion of the cart vanish. Such a risky thing, he knew. But he did it, for the sake of humanity.

  He went south.

  CHAPTER 1

  Sonya was lying on her bed, thinking. Well, it was not her bed. Not really. It was a bed in one of the guest rooms in Leopold’s palace. Not the lavish room she had stayed in just before the ill-fated alliance with the nomads. Neither was it Leopold’s anymore. The idiot was dead, and now, the rooms, all of them, belonged to General Pacmad.

  Her master now.

  An ordinary woman would spend her time in captivity as a concubine to a wild, savage, ruthless tribesman wallowing in pain and regret, cursing her bad luck, the beatings, the rapes. An ordinary woman would think how she might end her misery, if only they let her grab a knife or some poison. A lesser lady would choose to accept her pitiful destiny as a meat mattress for some primitive.

  Countess Sonya was not an ordinary woman.

  But to say she wasn’t afraid would have been a lie.

  Upon reflection, Sonya valued her insistence on the alliance with the nomads to be a poor choice, one that disregarded history and past wars. But you could not ascend in a society of vultures by nipping daintily at the leftovers; you stuck your head deep into the innards and gorged.

  She wondered what her useless husband would do if faced with the same predicament. Would he cry and beg? Would he try to weasel his way out? Where was he, anyway, she wondered. Still only a count, in a realm that no longer had a monarch, no longer had its aristocratic ladder. That made her plans to become a margravine that much harder. But she would find a way.

  Sonya didn’t have much to do. General Pacmad kept her locked in the room and only came around when he felt like fucking. Some old, bent woman that served him brought her food and water twice a day and would sometimes give her new clothes or change the blood-spattered linen. Not much to do. Well, she could at least open the windows and enjoy some fresh air.

  In the first days, it had smelled like soot and ash and fire. Then, for weeks, the stench of rotten meat was all she could breathe. Sonya did not much appreciate the reek of decomposing bodies of her fellow countrymen and the small folk, no more than she had sympathy for their fate. To invest in pity and sorrow for other people would be to undermine her own survival.

  She remembered all too well the coup. That ax spinning, Leopold sagging where he sat on his throne, big, meaty hands with chewed, earth-lined fingernails gripping her, tearing her expensive dress and her jewelry, pressing their goat-stinking bodies against hers. The cold pain of dull punches in her stomach and legs, the smothering clench on her mouth and throat as they tried to silence her screams of indignation at the feverish humiliation of their acts.

  After Pacmad’s warriors had claimed her, the chieftain himself had appropriated all of the noble ladies and had them locked up in various rooms around the palace. Sonya did not quite know who else might have lived through that first night, but she knew that Queen Diana was dead. And they had burned that cretin of a prince. The Kataji had no use for the mad or crippled.

  Her windows looked into the city, toward the zigzagging lines of narrow streets and tall buildings, away from the luxury and opulence of the palace grounds and nearby villas. She had watched the riots simmer for almost a week, first the resistance of the standing army, then the pillage. The tribesmen had almost broken into a war among themselves as they set about looting the city, trying to cope with the enormity of their plunder, the entire city of Somar.

  With eyes closed almost shut from the initial beating, she had stood by that window and watched the nomads drag women and small children through the alleys, taking them away. Then, the bodies of men. Killed to the last, every one of them, soldiers, craftsmen, old people, anyone with a penis between his legs.

  Sonya had stoo
d, a chill spring rain cleansing the filth of the Kataji from her bruised limbs, a cold wind trying to cool down her rage. She had stood and watched the nomads turn Somar into a charred skeleton. They burned the parks, tore down anything they couldn’t steal or use.

  And closer, much closer, they had given stage to eleven generations of postponed vengeance.

  Countess Sonya had a clear view of the cobbled courtyard in front of the palace, a huge triangular space with cream-colored buildings on the far two sides. There was an ancient temple turned into a theater, a four-story villa turned into a tax house, the administrative offices of the Eracian army, a shameful institution of nostalgia and the more recent failures, the elegant marketplace that served those who ate off porcelain platters with real gold forks.

  The cobbles were pale red now, the blood soaked into the stone.

  After securing the city’s outer perimeter, the nomads had retreated toward the palace and its defensible higher ground, barricading streets, setting up in buildings as temporary shelter. For people used to rutting in hide tents, they had very quickly taken to enjoying the best of Somar’s architecture and the dozens of rooms that each building offered. But then, savages were savages, so they took their horses and goats and dogs inside and used the exquisite furniture for cook fire.

  And then, most leisurely, but in a very planned manner, the nomads had started the executions of Somar’s elite. Sonya had watched them march shackled men into that courtyard and kill them in all kinds of ways. Pacmad presided the grisly ceremonies, in the rain and under the hot sun, which came as the spring aged. There seemed to be some kind of justice scale to his judgment, because he seemed to allot different shares of killings to different tribes. Some got to exact their vengeance against only a few noble Eracians, others against dozens.

  So she got to watch how they killed Konrad, Master of Coin Quade, Master of Trade Ital, Count Markus. Then, they executed Commander Raymond of the Northern Army, but she dismissed him as a commoner, unimportant in her scheme. With each death, Sonya sketched the map of the Eracian aristocracy afresh, trying to find her place in the narrowing pyramid of names and titles. Each death brought her that much closer to the top. Unfortunately, too many members of Leopold’s Privy Council, senior consultants and highest-ranking nobility had been detained by that Athesian whore, escaping their executions. She could only hope they had died in the war against the Parusites.