Chapter 31

Katarina stood in the heart of a limitless plain of rolling hills carpeted with the rich bounty of wheat right before the harvest, great, golden, shimmering and wavering in a light spring breeze. The sky overhead was a vault of eye-wateringly brilliant blue without a single cloud to be seen in any direction. She squinted with the sudden change.

The heavy stalks of grain tickled her fingers as she turned, goggling at the expanse of emptiness. The world was tranquility itself, filled with the soft susurration of wind through the wheat.

There was a toneless feeling of impact in the ground beneath her feet, and she whirled around, searching for the source.

A monstrous cloud, a towering pillar of black and gray, lanced through with streaks of white loomed on the horizon. It was gigantic, megalithic, a churning shaft of furious winds and racing streamers of cloud, and as it advanced, lightning struck the ground over and over again, violently flinging divots of earth and grain into the air and dashing them down again. Onward it marched, relentless, a thousand lances of flickering lightning hammering the ground over and over.

Katarina cast about, twisting this way and that, looking for shelter. Her instincts screamed at her to run from the terror of inevitability.

That storm was heading straight for her and if she didn’t do anything to avoid it, she’d be drenched, or perhaps blasted to a smoking ruin by the thick forest of lightning.

There were no trees, no buildings in any direction. She moved to run then, but somehow the wheat had tangled around her boots, holding her fast. She jerked her legs free and took a few running steps, only to be tangled up in them again. She stumbled and fell, and now the wind was rushing faster, several degrees cooler than before. The sun had gone away and the storm blotted out everything.

Almost instantly, rain slashed down in a deluge that soaked her instantly, seemingly ignoring the waterproofing of her coat and hat. The stalks of wheat slashed at her as the wind tore at them.

Sheets of rain drenched her as she crawled through the wracking blasts of thunder, shivering and shuddering in terror as the storm rode over her. The wind screamed and howled, the ground rumbled and thrummed beneath her hands and feet as she scrambled, the thunder growled and cracked and roared, the cacophony smashing against her eardrums until she was nearly insensate with fear.

Katarina screamed, an insignificant noise of negation against the fury of the storm, and like that, the lightnings ceased, the rain stopped, the thunder died by regretful degrees. Katarina jerked upright; the churning tower of clouds hung directly overhead. The clouds boiled and whirled, streaks and streams of black and silver and steel, but no rain fell, no lightning flickered, no thunder rumbled.

"...what?" She observed stupidly, and the deluge resumed instantly, everything returned in a blast that shook the ground. Just like that, the rain and thunders quit again, and Katarina shook her head, baffled, and then as if someone had pulled a lever, the rains flashed down, the lightning nearly blinded her, the thunders buffeted her. She shook her head and shuddered with terror as the freakish storm overhead pulsed with lightning and thunder and rain.

Awareness suddenly seemed to spring from the murky depths of her mind. The cracks of thunder, the roaring of the shifting winds, punctuated with the peals of lightning, had a basal beat, a tone, a rhythm.

OL NIIS APETA A CAOSGA AZIAZOR A PUIM APETA A AZODIAJIERE BOLAPE ELASA ARP A EN ODIPVRAN ZORGE LAP ZIRDO NOCO MAD AMAYO DE MADRIAX

Her mouth sagged open as realization drenched her heart in ice. This was the true Divine Language. Words spoken by those who had the throats and mouths to speak them correctly. The realization that to truly speak the words was to invoke the forces of creation, and the feeble mutterings of humans were like the babblings of insensate children, the comprehensible yapping of dogs.

"I come before the world like the sickle before the harvest. Be trampled in my indifference. Be friendly unto me, for I am the servant of your goddess, lady of heaven." she whispered, the approximate translation slipping through numb lips. After the last word slipped out, the storm throbbed again, and the words slammed into her with physical force, bowling her under with their relentless, unstoppable force, hammering her insignificant form into the soil.

EN OOA BOLAPE MIRC ELASA EN OZODIEN BOLAPE A ZOMDV MONONUSA

Katarina’s mind tottered, threatening to free itself from its moorings. She shrieked mindlessly, over and over as the awful portents slammed into her heart, to the depths of her soul, rending her with the terrors of realization.

Everything that was she was, everything she had said, everything she had done, all of the things that Katarina had done in her life and was proud for accomplishing, all of it rose up and were revealed dim imaginings of relevance, a bug beneath a rock, a toad crouching by a pond, the whole of her life, of her world merely hollow dreams as the gears of the universe ground on. All of the things of which she was not proud, all the things she wished she had done, done differently, or left undone, came at her then in a swirling storm of guilt and regret and shame, and she had nowhere to hide from them. All her faults, all her failings, all her weaknesses taunted and mocked her as the Celestial of the Storm drove her body through the soil with the weight of its words.

She was insensate, screaming, shrieking as her body broke apart, shredding and splintering and fragmenting into infinitesimal particles that winked out, one by one.

Katarina drowsily opened her eyes into the night-gloom of the dorm. Something had woken her, what was it?

She listened carefully, but could hear nothing, aside from her own breathing. She blinked, confused. Hadn’t she been somewhere else? There was a feeling of disorientation, a groggy sense of disconnection. A bolt of fear went through her; who was she? Where was she? What was she doing?

After a moment she realized that it wasn’t her breathing, and she could feel the pressure of someone in her bed with her. She threw back the covers in a flash, revealing the half-curled figure of Frederika. Suddenly, realization flooded through her and she let out an audible sigh of relief. She was Katarina Pavlenko, she was ten years old, and these were the dorms she shared with Frederika and the other children.

How had Frederika managed to crawl into bed with her without waking her up? Katarina wondered. She’d developed a keenly honed sense of awareness since Gordon and Irving had decided to make Katarina their target for abuse. It only took the sound of someone touching the latch to the door for her to instantly wake, adrenaline in her veins, ready to defend herself, and yet Frederika had somehow managed to come into her room, crawl into the same bed as she, and fall asleep before Katarina had awakened.

After a long moment of silent consideration, Katarina drew the covers back over them and she lay back down.

Katarina caught her breath as a wave of disorientation washed over her. She was no longer a girl of eleven. Who was she? How old was she? She squeezed her eyes tight and tried to catch her thoughts.

Frederika Edelweiss was a noble girl that had come from faraway Nauders to Darnell to learn to be a priest, and Katarina had saved her from an unruly group of boys. The experience traumatized the girl, who crawled into bed with Katarina every night, complaining of nightmares.

The covers were yanked back and Katarina bolted upright, fist cocked and ready. Her disorientation was forgotten; right now there was only the desire to strike, to protect herself, but more importantly, to protect Frederika.

"That is the correct path." A voice murmured approvingly from where the covers had been jerked, and Katarina peered intently into the dark of the room. There was a shadowy figure that stood in the deepening gloom, features shrouded. Even the voice was indistinct.

"Who are you?" Katarina asked warily.

"You should know, you called me here." The voice replied.

"Oh, stop the mysterious bullshit." Katarina snarled, and the figure stepped closer, a taunting smirk appearing on their face as the darkness faded in the featureless light of early dawn. As the light grew, the features of the mysterious figure came into view. Long black hair that shimmered, eyes that were cold and hard, a dress of murky gray and black that seemed to roil in perpetual motion, like clouds.

"You should know, I called you here." The woman replied mockingly.

Katarina firmed her mouth. "You’re the Guardian." She tried, and the woman let out a chuckle like a rumble of thunder. Sudden realization hit her like the breaking of a dam. Her gun. The closet. The visions.

"It was I who watched over you as you slept." The woman murmured. "You sang to me every day, and at your command I loosed the thunder in my throat and shouted my song of death at your foes." the woman added. "But we were talking about you, Katarina." She finished, and gestured to the little girl in the bed.

"You were on the right path. Now you aren’t." She observed. "No ‘round the bush’ sophistry, Katarina." She warned. "Here we speak plainly."

Katarina nodded. "All right." She replied easily. Inside however, her gut churned uneasily.

"You know who I am, what I am, and what I represent." The woman stated plainly. "Just the same as I know who and what you are."

Katarina was beside herself with terror and panic. An Angelic Spirit. Not an Angel in the classical sense; all of the Goddesses’ Angels came from the pure and noble Blessed Saints of history, but a fragment of the Golden Lady’s own divine power. They were indifferent and chaotic with mercurial tempers and furious rages. They were the sudden thunderstorm, the whirlwind, the volcanic eruption. They were raw, passionate emotion and unbridled power bound together. When a warpriest prayed to the Goddess on the field of battle to open the skies and bring lightning to strike down his enemies, it was the Angelic Spirits who answered with searing, unrelenting might. They recognized no master but only the Goddess.

"Katarina, you must never stop wishing, hoping, thinking, and working." The woman explained, seating herself carefully. "Listen: With her miracles, the Goddess brought humanity out of the Long Dark Night. With the earth's blessings, she brought you wealth. And with her love, she brought you freedom. The freedom to do better than you do now. To be better than you are now. The Goddess did not create you as perfectly good. She gave you the freedom to keep trying to be better, every day. Because that brings joy... So don't relinquish your freedom and love, just to make things easier." She finished.

"You make it seem as though the Church is my enemy." Katarina offered, and the woman raised an eyebrow.

"The finite cannot grasp the infinite. The mundane cannot conceive the Divine." The woman replied archly. "You were there with me on the wheaten field. You spoke the Words of Creation, and you heard the Words of Creation spoken to you." She offered by way of explanation. "The Goddess has a grand vision for the world, and your Church is only the limited understanding of that vision." She added.

Katarina nodded. There was simply no way for her to speak the words correctly, as they should be spoken. "The Goddess’ gifts are holy treasures. The church can’t take them from you, but you can throw them away."

"So why are you killing me?" Katarina asked, and suddenly, it was if speaking became knowing. She was dying. Slowly, by inches, but she was dying. Her innards writhed furiously, as if in denial. "You know better than anyone, that we are- that I am weak and flawed, just like everyone else!" She complained. "You should leave me to my mistakes and let me learn through them!" She shouted petulantly.

The woman stood, and as she stood, the dorm faded away and the Angelic Spirit rose over her. As she rose, she grew until she towered over the woman, a megalithic statue, a tower. Clouds parted around her forehead. Eyes the size of moons glared at Katarina with divine fury.

"Temeritous insect!" The Angel shouted down at her, her voice a crack of thunder, the wind of her breath blasting Katarina, bowling her over and over. A foot the size of Higgenfal slammed down scant inches from her, blasting Katarina into the air. She windmilled her arms, legs kicking as gravity caught her and slammed her into the ground with sickening force.

The crawling, awful horror was back in her guts. Katarina still had the child’s vision of what the Goddess of the Dawn was like- strong, yes. Wise, certainly. Powerful, undoubtedly. But somehow fundamentally human. This Angelic Spirit, a mere fraction of the Goddess’ own power revealed the lie. The Goddess wasn’t human. Her Divine Spirits weren’t human.

"The Goddess’ gifts are for humans! But if you would cast away those gifts because someone else has ordered it, then you are an insect! You are an insect, without a will of your own, who has given the Goddess’ precious gifts to another, and has ceased to think! No matter how much peace that brings you, anyone who abandons those treasures becomes an insect! I despise insects!"

The voice cracked down at her with the weight of ten thousand storms furiously tossing her about. Everything she’d relied upon vanished. She couldn’t tell up from down. There was no light, it was blinding. If she screamed, she couldn’t hear it. She was blind and deaf. She couldn’t feel anything around her. Obscenely, disgustingly, she could feel something squirming in her guts.

Slowly, her senses returned to her. She was laying on a hilltop, a low rise that looked over endless fields of wheat. Overhead, the sky was illuminated with the delicate caul of stars that stretched across the night sky.

"I am human. I will never surrender those treasures again! I won't return to being an insect! No matter how much pain they bring, I won't return to that haze of darkness... Because there is light!" She heard herself sobbing, over and over again.

==========================

There was a shadowy figure that stood at her feet in the deepening gloom, features shrouded. Even the voice was indistinct.

"Who are you?" Katarina asked warily.

"You should know, you called me." The voice replied.

"Oh, stop the mysterious bullshit." Katarina complained, and the figure stepped closer, a taunting smirk appearing on their face as the darkness faded in the featureless light of early dawn.

"You called me." The figure repeated, and the murky figure resolved to a woman’s shape, dressed similarly to Katarina. Her hair was a shifting mix of black and silvery streaks, her eyes were the gray of stormclouds. She slowly reached out to Katarina as if to embrace her, but paused expectantly.

"You’re... my gun." Katarina offered, and the woman gave an ambiguous smile.

"Donald called me the Eagle’s Talon, but that isn’t me, that is merely where I reside." She spoke calmly, easily. There was a rumble of thunder in the distance.

She gestured with her hands, but Katarina hesitated.

The woman raised an eyebrow in challenge, "You once said that you trusted your gun, Katarina. Will you not trust me now?" She offered again.

Katarina cautiously stepped into the other woman’s embrace. The woman’s arms went around Katarina’s waist, and she laid her head on Katarina’s chest. The woman pressed herself against Katarina, embracing her tightly. As the sun broke the morning sky, the woman looked up at Katarina.

"You know my name, Katarina, just as I know yours." She murmured up at the taller woman.

Katarina’s eyes narrowed with realization, and the woman nodded. "Yes. To name me is to invoke the Divine. I know your heart, and you should know mine." She smiled craftily. "If you have not fallen too far from my path, you should be able to name me without fear, Katarina."

Katarina was beside herself with terror and panic. An Angelic Spirit. A Celestial of the Storm. This woman that embraced her urged Katarina to name her was most definitely one of those powers.

The risk was much too great. She had Katarina in a tight embrace, like a lover, a sister. Frederika had frequently embraced her like this as they slept together in the same bed in the dorms at school.

If Katarina guessed wrong, she would obliterate Katarina as if she were nothing. Katarina was nothing compared to her. The woman nuzzled Katrina’s neck, lightly kissing her there. Katarina wanted to break the embrace, but she knew if she did then the spirit would annihilate her.

"Shhh." The woman urged, her hand gently moving across Katarina’s chest. "Don’t let fear cloud your veins with terror. How can you listen to your heart if all you know is fear?" She asked curiously. "Calm your breathing." She urged, and there was a rumble of thunder, closer now. The sun stood high in the sky, and the woman’s grip was implacable, one arm wrapped around Katarina, fingertips pressing into her back through the plates of her vest, while the other caressed her breast where her heart thundered painfully, madly as Katarina felt high panic dump into her veins. She could feel the woman’s night-black nails scraping her skin, and they were the cold, hard edges of brutal hailstones.

Suddenly, and without thinking, Katarina blurted in the Divine Tongue:

"SACH DE AUAUAGO, ZIZ!"

She cried, and the woman reached up with her hand and captured Katarina’s face in her hand and pulled her into a kiss. As the kiss broke, the woman licked her lips and smiled.

"You have spoken truly. That is my name in the language of the Goddess." She kissed Katarina again, hands greedily raking Katarina’s face and plunging into her hair. Katarina moved instinctively, turning her face to return the kiss, pulling the woman closer. After a long, passionate kiss, the woman stepped back, breathing heavily. "There were other ways to do this, and you have tasted those ways, but I wanted to try this." She said by way of explanation.

Katarina let out a shaky breath. "I can’t- I can’t call you-" She began, struggling to find the words.

"You can’t call me by name anywhere but here anyway." She replied with a sardonic smile and graceful curtsey.

"There’s always a price to pay to speak the Divine Tongue." Katarina worried.

"Yes there is." The woman agreed solemnly. "And you have done so more than once. The price will be high indeed." She added. "But I will stand with you when it comes time to pay." She finished.

The spirit smiled impishly. "You know my True Name, the name that commands and binds me to you. Do you know the other? The one that I am called in the books and songs and stories?"

Katarina closed her eyes and tried to listen to her feelings as she once had. She opened her eyes and shook her head.

The woman nodded. "I am Simurgh. I am the wrath of the storm, the bringer of thunder." She looked up at the night sky, and Katarina followed her gaze.

"I will follow you once more." She whispered. "OL BOLAPE A AUAUAGO DE ZOMDV ULS." She added with a low bow.

"How did you come to be in the Eagle’s Talon?" Katarina asked. The woman rolled her eyes ostentatiously at this. Her Master had told her already.

She reached out and placed her hand on Katarina’s stomach, just below her breastbone. Something in her guts writhed and wriggled and Katarina stumbled back in horror, hands reaching but not quite touching her stomach.

"You have a poison inside you, human." Simurgh warned. "A sickness. It writhes in your guts and twists your heart in knotted strings." She caught Katarina’s eyes with her own. "You are sick."

Katarina gaped at her in abject horror. "What- what can I do?" She whispered, ice sliding down her spine.

"Oh, you mortals are always doing those disgusting excretions." Simurgh replied mockingly, hands spread wide. "Surely you can find some way of spewing this thing up." She looked up at the sky. "Whatever you do, do it quickly." She advised.

Katarina rammed her fingers down her throat so hard at first there was only pain, but then her gorge heaved, heaved so hard her knees buckled and she fell. She vomited, only bringing up thick ropes of mucous. The thing inside her writhed and wriggled, grimly Katarina stuck her fingers down her throat again. Her guts heaved, and she felt the thing shift in her belly.

She did it again and again, her stomach began to feel as if it had been liberally beaten with a warhammer, but suddenly the thing, she could feel it slide from her stomach and up her throat.

Katarina gagged, and her hand blindly sought her mouth, and then it was there, thick and lumpy, gelatinous and gristly, furiously writhing, desperately trying to find its way into her guts again. She grabbed the slippery, slimy thing savagely, digging in with her nails for purchase, and with her strength failing, she tore it out of her with a horrid popping sound.

It seemed like an eternity before she could open her eyes again. Some dimly remembered sense of herself wondered at the feeling of her heart vainly struggling in her chest.

"Is it... is it over?" Katarina croaked, and looked up at Simurgh. The Angelic Spirit squatted carefully next to Katarina’s head.

"Do you hear it, Human?" She urged quietly, and Katarina glanced around.

"Hear what?" She whispered back.

"If you cannot hear it, then you may be lost, and all of this was for naught." Simurgh replied in a low voice. "Listen." she commanded in a hushed whisper and then hummed a few tones in her throat. Katarina closed her eyes, listening to the woman’s humming, trying to place the song. Suddenly Katarina could hear it, the sound of a piano. She knew the piece, had once or twice played it herself as a child.

Whoever was playing it was skipping a note as the melody played over and over. The sound of the piano chased her, washed over her. Over and over the piece played with that missing note until it jangled, grated on her nerves. She opened her eyes, brows lowering in anger.

"By the Goddess, do you have to keep missing that same note, over and over again?" She complained, struggling to sit upright, and froze with shock.

She wasn’t in a closet in the Chapel of the Sword. She was in the central cathedral, on a low funereal bier behind the pulpit, beneath the triptych statues of the Golden Lady. The young man playing the piano’s eyes bulged and his mouth was open in shock. The pastor himself stared at her from the pulpit, jaw slack. She glanced around, and saw Gared in the pews, staring at her with the same wall-eyed wonder. She glanced down at herself and grimaced. She wore a simple rough linen robe that hung loose on her body.

"What the fuck happened?" She croaked, and the pastor pitched forward in a dead faint. His head smacked the pulpit with a dull thud.

She tried to sit up and somehow her feet tangled up beneath her and she fell off the altar in an ungainly sprawl. She struggled to rise to her feet, but for some reason she was so exhausted and weak that she could only paw at the edge of the table feebly.

"What the bloody fuck?" She complained, struggling to get her feet under her. Nothing seemed to work right.

She blinked at her arms, little more than scrawny sticks. She blinked, and hiked up the robe to look at her feet. Her legs were likewise atrophied. She grimaced and forced herself to stand, pushing with her trembling legs and pulling with her hands, pouring her will into her body grimly.

"Don’t just fucking stand there, get the damned Healers!" Gared yelled at someone, and ran up the steps of the dias to her side.

"What the bloody fuck." Katarina gasped as his arms went around her.

"You were out a long time." Gared replied. "I’m so sorry, " he added. "I’ve been taking a penance every day for this. I’ve sworn to the Goddess; I’ll never do this again." he advised.

"How... long?" Katarina wheezed as he eased her to a sitting position on the table.

"Eleven days." He replied after a moment.

"Fuck." She spat angrily. He chuckled a little. "We thought you were done for." he advised, and she nodded grimly. "Hence the funeral robe." She whispered, and he nodded reluctantly.

"Fuck." She spat again.

He nodded apologetically. "Don’t worry, though. The Healers are coming. We’ll get some food in you, too." He offered.

She laughed. "Care to take a lady dancing, Gared?" She offered lamely, and he barked a laugh. "I can’t believe you. You’ve wasted away to sticks and twigs and you want to go dancing." He chuckled.

"So this is my funeral." Katarina mused thoughtfully.

He nodded. "We were going through the rites. We were going to commit you to the crematory after the pastor finished his words."

She twisted around; there were only a small handful of people in the cathedral.

"So... few." She observed, and he shrugged. "I hear there was to be a State procession for your remains in Darnell." he offered. "My guess is they were going to interr you with high honors." he let out another short chuckle. "I’ll bet the Hall of the Sanctioned is going to be in a flurry as all sorts of people send frantic messages about your... frankly, your miraculous... awakening."

Katarina let out a sigh.

The Diviner suddenly appeared, cradling Katarina’s hands in her own. "I prayed, Katarina!" She sobbed. "I prayed every day for your return!"

Katarina smiled exhaustedly at the smaller woman, and focused on the pastor on the floor.

"What a pussy." She complained. "Fainting like that." She rolled her eyes, and the Diviner barked a laugh through her relieved tears.

"Where’s my gun?" She asked, and Gared nodded briskly. "With the rest of your effects, I’d imagine. I’ll go get them." He offered, and stepped over the prone figure of the preacher.

"Have them sent to my quarters, Gared." The Diviner instructed, and then eyed Katarina. "Can you stand?" she asked, and Katarina nodded. "I can damn well try." she replied grimly.

She eased herself off the table and planted her feet carefully. "How long have I been... out?" She asked, and Araya clasped her hands together.

"Your heart stopped beating and you breathed your last around this time three days hence." She replied.

"Didn’t waste much time at all with the funeral, then." Katarina replied, and Araya sighed. "The pastor’s idea." She replied, looking down at the collapsed form of the man in question.

"Can you make it to my room, Katarina?" She asked, and Katarina laughed weakly. "I can barely keep to my feet and you want to know if I can climb stairs?" She asked with a smile that trembled. Araya nodded at that apologetically.