Total pages in book: 169
Estimated words: 161535 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 808(@200wpm)___ 646(@250wpm)___ 538(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 161535 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 808(@200wpm)___ 646(@250wpm)___ 538(@300wpm)
“You are at my family’s farm. I hope that it’s all right that we took you with us. We only travel to the temple to say prayers.”
As if I’d be mad that I’m out of the bug-and-leech-filled swamp? I’m relieved. But at the same time, that’s probably where I was sent for a reason. “How far are we from the temple? In case I have to go back?”
“Just an hour or two by woale-back.” She beams at me. “We can take you back at any time.”
“Okay.” That sounds all right to me, provided a woale is a horse or something. I can rest up, get my bearings, and return to the temple just in time for the god to show up and I can begin my babysitting career. “Can you tell me more about where we are? What is this land?”
Her eyes widen and she nods. “We are on the edges of the Ghosthollow Murk, north of Sunswallow. You truly do not know where you are?”
I shake my head. “I was sent here from far away.”
“Because of the gods,” Kina whispers. “Of course. Are you thirsty, Mistress Elsie?” She gets up and dips a wooden cup into a bucket of water in the corner and brings it over to me.
I’m so thirsty that I drain the whole thing and hold it out for a refill before I even think about parasites or giardia. Hopefully Lachesis will save my innards from rebellion considering she wants me here. As I drink, Kina tells me about the cities that we’re close to, but that her people live in the plains called Farneath, near the edge of the enormous swamp. All the names she tells me are a blur, but I should have known better than to ask. All I need to know is where the god is and when he’s showing up.
“This is great, thank you, Kina,” I say after my third cup. “I think I know where I am now. Your family goes to the temple in the swamp? To pray? Do others? It looked very…old.”
She nods, her hands delicately clasped in her lap. I notice she’s dressed the same way I am, in a simple sheath. Her skin is tanned and warm. She wears a thin silver armband high on her upper arm, and a comb pulls her thick blonde hair back from her face.
“Oh, that temple has not been in use since the last Anticipation. We go there for prayers, as the lord of disease is one of the few gods that returns to the same place every time. He never changes where he arrives, and so we send prayers to him and ask that if he returns, that he be merciful to us, his faithful.”
Merciful? “He sounds fun.”
Her eyes widen in horror. “Oh no, Mistress. He’s dreadful!”
Clearly Kina missed my sarcasm. “I see. But you pray to him?”
“We pray to all the gods, but because Lord Kalos chooses to return here every Anticipation, we pray for his mercy and benevolence.” She hesitates and adds, “The signs and portents say he will return to this world soon.”
That matches what Lachesis said, so I simply nod. “Very soon. Like today or tomorrow. And… then what happens to the world when the gods appear?”
Her expression is solemn. “We pray for them to have mercy upon us.”
Greaaaat.
Chapter
Five
Ispend the rest of the day at Kina’s family’s farm. They’re really nice people, all of them with bushy blonde hair and bright smiles. They wear simple clothing and thick sandals on their feet, and I wander behind Kina through the day, since I don’t know what to do with myself. She says I should rest, but resting feels like the last thing I need to do when I’m supposed to be doing Important Stuff.
God-related important stuff.
So I trail after her, watching as she feeds the animals in their crude barn. It’s got an open face to one side, with more of the stucco walls under a thatched roof. There are wooden stall doors with hay trailing over the floor, and inside are not horses but big, fat creatures with enormous heads and even bigger bellies and dun hides. They remind me of a hippo. She calls them woales. One of the woales drags a plow through the field with Kina’s father holding it steady, and her mother works in their vegetable garden and shoots me nervous looks, as if the gods are going to smite her if she makes eye contact with me for too long. I probably do seem a little strange to them. My hair is an unassuming brown, my skin pale compared to their sunny bronze, and I’m tall and a little on the thick side compared to their wiry frames. My hands are soft and my nails clean and rounded, unlike Kina’s work-chapped hands and broken, square nails that have a line of grime under the beds. It’s clear my days of “hard work” are very different than theirs.