The Dark Ferryman by Jenna Rhodes Page B

but stayed a finger’s breadth from touching him. Dewdrops as bright as jewels dappled over his sweat-stained skin and clothes. Behind him, the wood stayed as dry and dusty as it had been although he had the sense it would have gulped her down if it could have, wood that had once lived and ached to do so again. She beckoned. The mists about her rippled. Her face stayed smooth and her godly beauty did not change its mask, but Narskap thought a mortal disappointment might have lanced through her eyes for a moment. “Which are you?”
    “One might as well be the other. Both are tools.”
    “Does a tool live? Does it feel, inhale, stretch its soul toward the unknown? Does it talk with a God? Does it know worry and fear?”
    “I exist. As for the rest determining what a man is, even the smallest animal in the field goes to sleep at night, worrying that it will hunger when it awakens in the morning.”
    She looked down on him. “You hunger.”
    “In a way that no Goddess can fulfill.” His fingers tightened momentarily on the empty jug he held.
    “There is nothing I can offer you.” Neither a statement nor a question, bordering on both.
    “Nothing that I would want from you, no. You do not exist to me.”
    “It is not wise to disbelieve in the Gods. Or to argue with them.”
    He cut the air between them with the side of his hand. “You can always leave.”
    “I came to look at the being which caused me distress.”
    “Both your observance and revenge could have come from on high if you are as you believe yourself. The omnipotent do not need to visit their targets.” He seemed unperturbed.
    “But not as satisfying.”
    Narskap grunted softly. “Nothing gets satisfaction from me.”
    “I will.”
    “To do that, you would have to exist.”
    “Do you think existence depends upon you and your recognition?” The Goddess made a scoffing sound. “You don’t have to will it, for it to be so.” Her image gathered a bit, becoming more solid, her eyes growing icy and her face sharper. She almost looked as if she were a Vaelinar herself with her expression so planed. “You wait for your partner, but I tell you the Souldrinker is blocked from leaving the nether planes again. You wait fruitlessly for Cerat. Even your years will not extend long enough for such a thing to happen.”
    He blinked. “A concerted effort. The world must be ending if the Gods align.”
    “We often agree on the important things,” she said in a cold fury. The winged cloak about her unfurled and rippled as if in a distressed wind, a wind that howled both inside and outside the tower. The clapboards rattled around him, although the floor he sat upon seemed solid enough. Dewdrops and condensation ran off him in chilled rivulets.
    “You will wander the earth as lifeless and soulless as you profess to be. That of you and yours will not be satisfied until quenched by the blood of destiny.” The voice of the River Goddess rose strongly as she spoke, and when she ceased, the room fell into an absolute quiet broken only by the sound of droplets hitting the floor.
    The wind began to howl again. “You have cursed me,” Narskap observed mildly. “Even worse, with nonsense.”
    “Or blessed you. As for the nonsense, time will give you proof.” A ripple like that which moved across water ran through her. The wind growled louder, a storm moving across the land. The apparition spoke again. “I know that which can destroy you.” She shrank yet again, growing more solid, more mortal-sized, and ever more threatening. She loomed in front of his face, her cloak-wings wrapping about him, and she leaned down to whisper a word or two in his ear. His pale skin grayed further. Then she drew back and flung her arms out, her presence once again billowing forth and claiming all of the tower that she could. “You will never touch one of us again,” she told him.
    “I should never have been able to touch one of you before,” he said dryly, reminding her of his