Gods of Earth by Craig DeLancey Page B

Guardian hesitated. “I do not ken the words in Common Speech. But the god closed them… in another space. I could have opened it, but I might have killed them if the god thwarted me.”
    Chance nodded, though nothing that the Guardian said had any clear meaning for him.
    “And you believe she… they will be safe?”
    “For a short while, Puriman. It seems the god wants you. They are a way to get you. Dead, or harmed beyond hope, the god won’t have this use for them.”
    “I have to help Sarah. And my brother. As soon as I can.”
    The Guardian nodded. “We will speak with the Guild Mothers of the Gotterdammerung. If we bind this god, or if you are no longer useful to it, then you may go back to your hearth. But you need know, Puriman, that you, this woman, your brother—these are not the only lives in danger.”
    Chance frowned at the fire. The right sense of all this heretical talk eluded him. It was all blasphemous, the kind of evil that the Elders often cautioned thrived among the lost men. The worstwarnings of The Book were coming true before his eyes. Part of him felt reassured, even comforted in his faith, because he saw that the Purimen were right in their cautions. But these evils also seemed to reaffirm his people’s creed that a Puriman should play no part in these things. He should turn his back. He should refuse to hear or speak of these things.
    But for Sarah and Paul. To do nothing would be to abandon them, if the Guardian told the truth.
    “And are you a.…” Chance hesitated, not wanting to say “false god.” “Were you made with their powers, by men?”
    “I was not made by men.”
    “Then are you,” and Chance almost whispered now. “Are you an Erthengle? A fallen angel, one of God’s fallen host?”
    “No. I was a man like you once. And that is all I will say of this.”
    Chance stared at the fire a long time before he spoke again. “If helping you will help Sarah and Paul, then I will help you. I have responsibilities. Things that I must do. The burial of my father. And mother. A croft that may now depend on me. Vines that need constant tending. But I will help you. To save Sarah, and to save Paul, and so that I can return to the vincroft and try to take back my life there.”
    The fire crackled. The night had cooled, even though there was no wind. The scratch on his arm, which he had cleaned and wrapped with a scrap of his ruined coat, stung as he shifted closer to the flames. But the wholesome smell of the hardwood smoke heartened him. He drew the Guardian’s cloak tighter around himself and breathed deeply the homely scent.
    Seth pushed himself closer to Chance.
    “Let us hurry, then,” Chance added. “We have to hurry. For Sarah’s sake.”
    “We will come where this river falls closest to Disthea in another two days. Then we must walk, or find another means, over land. That will take another three days, perhaps. Now sleep, if you can.”
    “I’ll need to eat,” Chance said.
    Seth yipped. “Food,” he said.
    “We’ll find food tomorrow,” the Guardian told them.
    Chance got up onto his knees. He turned his back and bowed his head to pray. His lips moved but he was silent as he thought, “Oh God, please watch over Sarah and Paul and keep them safe from this false god. God, please grant grace to my mother and father who were good and kind people who took a poor orphan boy into their home and raised him as their own and got nothing for it in this world but instead suffered and.…” This caused a heavy lump to rise in his throat, and quickly he closed down that thought and repeated to himself, “God, please keep Sarah and Paul safe. Amen. Amen.”
    Then he lay down, folding the hood under his head as a pillow. Seth curled against him. He watched the firelight play on the immobile gray hands of the Guardian.
    When he felt calm again, Chance said, quietly, as he petted the back of Seth’s head, “There’s one other thing. One other reason I want to help. I want to