“R-r-right here, Lord Chauzec.” He pointed at a dusty burlap sack.
“That’s what my uncle kept Xayon’s bones in?” I stared at the grimy sack in disbelief. I glanced across at Rami and saw a cold, intense rage burning in her eyes at this blatant disrespect for the remains of her chosen deity.
“Y-yes Lord Chauzec,” was all Symmin could say.
“I guess I might as well get straight to it,” I said. “Rami, the hands please, and the gauntlets.”
Chapter Thirty-Eight
Rami had stored the gauntlets and the skeletal hands of Xayon in a leather bag she kept on her person at all times, and she now handed it over to me. I placed the bag on the shelf before I grabbed the sack side it. I squatted and emptied the sack’s contents on the floor. When the cloud of dust settled, I saw that Symmin had been telling the truth. In front of me was a pile of bones, which, when put together, would form a complete skeleton minus the hands.
I put the gauntlets on, dropped the skeletal hands down onto the pile of bones, closed my eyes, and gripped Grave Oath in my left hand and my kusarigama—another of Xayon’s items—in my right. As soon as I did this, I felt the presence of Xayon. Her spirit was as weak as a single beam of sunlight on the coldest northern winter day, much weaker than when I’d first spoken to her. It was more a ghostly hint of her presence than anything else, a slow breeze that barely moves the air.
“Vance,” her voice murmured in my head, as soft as if she’d been whispering across a windy plane from a mile away. I could barely make out what she was saying. “It’s too late. Neither my spirit nor my body can be resurrected. I appreciate you coming this far and finding the rest of me, but all I can do now is thank you and go the way of so many of the other old deities as I fade quietly into oblivion. All of my power has now left me. I’m nothing now but a shadow of a shadow’s shadow. I’m sorry Vance, but you were too late. . . goodbye.”
“No!” I yelled. “No, I can’t have come this far only for things to end like this!”
“What’s happening?” asked Rami frantically, unable to hear what the Wind Goddess was saying inside my head. “What’s she saying? What’s wrong?”
“Xayon!” I yelled. “Xayon, come back! Xayon!”
There was no reply, and I felt not even the slightest trace of her presence. She really was gone, and there would be no resurrecting her.
“What did she tell you?” Isu asked. For once, her attitude was neither prickly nor snarky, and the usual lash of biting sarcasm that flavored her voice was absent. Instead, it seemed, she was genuinely concerned.
“She said,” I answered with a sigh, slumping my shoulders with disappointment, “that I was too late. That she cannot be resurrected. That all of her power is now gone and that she’s faded into oblivion, like so many of the other old gods.”
“Not necessarily,” Isu said, her voice urgent. “Not if you act quickly, very quickly.”
“Just tell me what to do, and I’ll do it.”
“The only way to bring her back now,” Isu said, “is to merge what’s left of her soul with a body and soul that is already alive.” She blazed a piercing look into Rami’s eyes. “You are the Wind Goddess’ devotee, but are you willing to make this kind of sacrifice for your chosen deity?”
“Yes.”
Rami’s answer was simple and resolute. She had no qualms about doing this and didn’t even ask what would be involved.
“Hold on,” I said. “If I resurrect Xayon into Rami’s body, and merge their souls together, what happens to Rami?”
“She will still be there, in a sense,” Isu answered. “But she will not be the same as she was. You will not be killing Rami, if that’s what you’re asking, but you will be irrevocably changing who she is and what she is.”
“What she is?”
“Well, she will be a living goddess, just as you are a living god. And Rami’s mind and memories will be fused with those of a goddess who is thousands of years old. Beyond this, I cannot say what other changes will occur. I can only tell you that she will never be the same.”
“Are you sure you want to do this?” I asked Rami.
“If it means saving Xayon, then yes. I’ve always been ready to lay down my life for her, and I still am.”
“No more questions,” Isu said, her tone urgent. “You need to act right now, Vance. Every second that passes makes Xayon’s fade into oblivion more irreversible.”
“Shit,” I muttered. “Here goes nothing.”
I dropped my kusarigama—it wasn’t important for the time being—and picked up Xayon’s skull in my right hand. I focused my thoughts and will on finding Xayon’s soul, and Grave Oath jumped and danced in my hand, spinning like an out of control compass needle. The dagger went on spinning for a lot longer than it ever had before, and I got the sense that even Grave Oath was having trouble finding Xayon’s soul. I hoped that these last few minutes of talking hadn’t made it too late.
Hope began fading, trickling like sand through my fingers as Grave Oath kept spinning. Every second that passed brought a greater sense of despair into my mind. This was taking forever, and it was beginning to seem as if it wouldn’t work at all. Fuck, we’d come all this way and expended all this effort for nothing. And I’d had the chance to resurrect a goddess but had frittered it away by talking. Now, she really was gone for—
Suddenly, Grave Oath stopped spinning and jumped up onto the palm of my hand, pointing directly upward. I saw a terribly faint but perfectly straight line of light stretching from the point of the dagger up into what I now
