“I don’t think the old gods are as ‘dead’ as you believe they are,” she said to Elyse. “And they’re certainly not mere figures of superstition. Their powers are as real now as they were 5,000 years ago. Your Church of Light may have come to dominate Prand, but elsewhere in this world, many people are still devoted to the old gods.”
“Is that why you’re after Bishop Nabu?” I asked. From the way Rami had been talking, I had a hunch that the mysterious item she was seeking, the thing that Nabu had stolen, had something to do with the old gods.
“Yes,” she answered. “Nabu stole a most valuable relic from Yeng: an amulet that once belonged to the God of Wind. When I take it back, I will be able to unleash the power of the Eastern Gale. It will be of great value to the hieromonk of my monastery. And to myself. I have studied and trained for years so that I might wield the power of the amulet.”
“Well, don’t get your hopes up,” said Elyse with a tinge of spite in her voice. “Those gods died a long time ago, and whatever relics of theirs are still in existence belong in museums. There is no power left in such things.”
The sudden vibration of Grave Oath in its sheath said otherwise. It was almost like it was trying to make a point, reminding me that Elyse’s words betrayed her ignorance. I wasn’t about to bring this up, though; Elyse wasn’t ready to hear that I had a part of the very-much-living Goddess of Death strapped around my waist, and she definitely wasn’t ready to hear that I was feeding said goddess a healthy diet of human souls in order to gain ever more potent magical powers.
The dagger began vibrating with increasing intensity, and I glanced down and saw that the demon’s head pommel was glowing. I could sense Isu’s presence in our immediate vicinity, and I figured that she wanted to talk to me but didn’t want to show herself in front of the others.
“Hey, Grast,” I said, “that Yorish brandy is running straight through me. I’m gonna jump off the wagon and take a piss in the woods real quick.”
“Go right ahead, Soul—Vance,” he said, before taking another swig from his wineskin. “It seems that my bladder is more accustomed to this Yorish delicacy than yours is!” he said with a laugh.
I hopped off the wagon and walked briskly into the cover of the trees, which hid banks of thick fog, glowing white blankets infused with silvery light from the full moon above. The ox wagon was rumbling so slowly along the road that I probably would have had the time to take a leisurely dump and read a couple of news scrolls before they got too far ahead. That wasn’t the reason I had come here, though, and the real reason showed itself—herself—soon enough.
A chilly breeze whipped through the trees and started swirling like a little tornado in the middle of a dense shred of fog. As if there were invisible hands manipulating this potter’s wheel of air and fog, the spinning, glowing white vapor began to take on the form of a woman.
I recognized her body immediately, of course; just the night before, I’d had it in my arms, deliciously warm in her human form and shuddering with raw lust. Even now, looking at her gloriously perky fog-tits and that generous round ass, I began to feel a familiar throbbing between my legs.
The fog finally added to the body a beautiful face with a cascade of silky hair, and Isu’s hypnotic eyes opened to stare at me, glowing fiercely with the silver light of the moon, concentrated and amplified.
“Thank you for all the new souls you delivered to me, Vance,” she purred.
She drifted silently toward me across the carpet of leaves. Though the wind had been icy when it had rushed past before, it now emitted a radiant heat.
“You have served me well,” she said when she was close enough to whisper.
I chuckled dryly and folded my arms across my chest. “I’m not serving you. And I’m not worshipping you. We’re working together. I told you, there’s only one person I truly serve.”
“Yourself, yes, I know.” She rolled her eyes and pouted. “Regardless, as you have learned by now, the more souls you give me, the more powers I am able to give you. And now, I’m ready to give you a new one, which will allow you to—”
“Hold up,” I interrupted her. “Listen, don’t get me wrong, I really appreciate what you’ve done; this whole exchange is working out really well for me. But instead of you giving me random ones, how about I choose what powers I’d like to get from you?”
Anger flashed across her face, as clear as lightning against a dark sky. She suppressed it quickly, though, and gave me a tight-lipped smile.
“I do like you, mortal,” she said, her tone icy, “but I think you may be forgetting your place. It is not for mortal men to make demands of goddesses.”
“I’m not making demands, just putting forward a suggestion that I think will be beneficial to both of us. I mean, if I get powers that I really want, that I know will be more useful to me in terms of increasing my kill count, then you get more souls, and your own power increases much more rapidly. See? It’s a win-win situation. That is your goal, isn’t it—to get more souls, more power, as quickly as you can?”
Again, her eyes lit up with quick, hot wrath, but this time, it was because she knew I was right. And Isu, Goddess of Death, was someone who hated being wrong. But she was pragmatic, too, at least when it came to decisions that would lead to her being
