The rise of the goddess, p.1
The Rise of the Goddess, page 1
part #3 of Transcendence Series
Table of Contents
The Rise of the Goddess
Books by E A Carter
Copyright
Dedication
Map of Elati
PROLOGUE
Prologue
PART I
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
PART II
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
EPILOGUE
Acknowledgments
Author's Note
About the Author
THE RISE OF THE GODDESS
E A CARTER
by E A CARTER
Transcendence Series
The Lost Valor of Love
The Call of Eternity
The Rise of the Goddess
Copyright © 2019 by E A CARTER
The moral right of the author is hereby asserted in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988
All characters and events in this publication,
other than those clearly in the public domain,
are fictitious and any resemblance to actual persons,
living or dead, is purely coincidental.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced,
stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by
any means without the prior written permission of the publisher,
nor be otherwise circulated in any form of binding or cover
other than that in which it is published and without a similar
condition being imposed on the subsequent buyer.
First Edition
Printed in the United States of America
First Printing, 2019
ISBN 978-1-64184-173-3
Arundel House Press
www.arundelhousepress.com
Interior Print Design Jetlaunch LLC
Cover Art ©Michał Karcz www.michalkarcz.com
Cover Design & Map ©Debbie O’Byrne
For you, the goddesses who surrounded me with your light
I will never forget you, in this life, or any other
PROLOGUE
PROLOGUE
* * *
Sethi slammed his way through a glut of warriors, his arms and chest bloody, his double-bladed jihn thrumming, hungry for the essence of the living. He looked up, breathing hard, the burning air searing his lungs.
There. He had her. Istara stood alone and undefended, surrounded by smoke and fire. In the heated updrafts, her star-clad, tangled hair whipped around her face. Her golden eyes raked over the scores of Elati's dead and dying, her healing light pulsing across the battlefield, brilliant haloes of gold. He stood still. Waited until she found him. Caught the parting of her lips. The tremor of her heart. The quiet hope. He smiled at her, cold, the god of war, and tread over the carpet of her fallen warriors, never taking his eyes from her, his soul scorched with hate. No one could stop him now. Not even the one who called himself her protector—
A blade, from behind, delved into his heart, the pain brutal, agonizing. He turned. Urhi-Teshub twisted the weapon, his eyes hard, hatred bleeding from him. With a roar, Sethi yanked himself free and slammed his fist into Urhi-Teshub's skull, once, twice, three times. Istara's protector collapsed, senseless. Sethi staggered, blinded by pain. His left pectoral lay torn open, muscle and bone sundered, his heart riven in two. The jihn slid from his grip. He cursed as his light ignited, slow, unsteady, working to heal him. He sank into a crouch, blackened by fury. By the time he was strong enough to stand, his quarry would have fled.
Hands came to his face and cradled his jaw, tender. He looked up. Istara's golden eyes, bright with tears, met his. She spoke, her words stolen by the thunder of an explosion. Light exploded out of her heart into his, brilliant, a nova, blinding. In its wake, tendrils of her healing light wove around him, a multitude, closing the rent in his heart, making him whole again.
His nemesis—the one who had rallied the armies of men and gods against him—granted him her healing light, the stars limning her hair dimming as she brought him back to his full power: Sethi, god of war, Commander of Elati, second only to Marduk, Lord of All, Giver of Life, Taker of Life.
Rejuvenated, he rose and hefted the jihn, the heat of battle still hot in his veins. In his grip, the jihn's curved blades awakened. Its lethal hunger coursed through him, hardening him. He looked down at his once-consort, filled with abhorrence for her weakness, scorning her gift to him. He would never have done the same for her. She remained on her knees, her eyes on his. A tear slid free and tracked a path through the fine coating of soot dusting her face.
Her lips moved again. He couldn't hear anything over the scream of the ships as they tore across the burning sky, but he read her lips, words enslaved queens had whispered as he rode them, desperate for his favor.
I love you.
He lifted his weapon. The jihn's black blades glinted, blue-white, slavering for her light, her annihiliation. She was a fool. Love meant nothing. And soon she would be nothing, her light consumed by the jihn. He smiled, cold, triumphant. At last. Victory.
He thrust the glowing blades toward her heart.
Sethi sat up, abrupt, panting. He touched the back of his neck, the agony of the device Marduk had driven into the base of his skull unforgettable, the shear of its bite hot and sharp as it dug its way through flesh and bone and burrowed deep into his brain. Its malevolent presence had poisoned his thoughts, corrupted his memories—had made him into a weapon.
It hadn't taken long for the device to betray Sethi's awareness of Istara's presence in Elati. Marduk had listened, impassive, then showed Sethi images of Istara with Urhi-Teshub in the Etemen'anki. The once-king of Hatti had taken her, willing, to his bed. Sethi had destroyed everything in the suite. It hadn't been enough.
Blinded by the hateful thing controlling his mind, Sethi dined on his rage, his hunger for revenge. And yet, despite his descent into evil, his god-light remained. Each morning, during the ephemeral heartbeats of dawn, golden tendrils of his light would overcome the device's control. Fragments of his true self would slip from their bond, would force him to face the horror of what he had become, of the crimes he had committed, and of the lie he believed against the one he loved—and his helplessness to stop it.
He carved messages into his flesh: It is a lie. Istara was not unfaithful. Protect her at all costs. But no matter how deep he cut, his warnings would last no more than a few hours, his light erasing every desperate, bloody symbol. He clenched his fists, the dream returning, haunting him. To think he might do it, might drive his blade into the heart of the one he loved beyond all reason—
He caught a glimpse of his bleak reflection in the enormous mirror facing the bed. The tyranny of his acts seared his mind, damned him for his brutality. Everything he had once stood for had become perverted, his power used to oppress those who dared resist Marduk’s conquest of Elati .
The air in the room oppressed him. He lunged from the bed and shoved aside the shutters leading to the terrace. The lavendar hue of dawn sliced its way along the mountain's ridge to the east. At the edge of the terrace, he eyed the sheer drop into an enormous lake, more than half a short iter distant.
From an outcropping in the mountains, a waterfall thundered into the lake, shrouded in pre-dawn mist. The night before, he had flung a king from this terrace—for entertainment—then dragged the dead king's queen to his bed before throwing her to her death after him. Anguished, he clawed at the back of his head, desperate to dig the vile device out, to end what he had become. How many times had tried to cut it out with his dagger before the device reignited? More than he could count. There was never enough time.
The warmth of the sun's rays slid over him. He glanced at the golden disk as it ascended, fast, recalling a smaller, statelier sun which had risen over the desert sands of an empire that had been his home. The memories of his mortal life had almost vanished. Soon there would be nothing left of the commander he used to be, or of the princess he loved beyond all reason.
His fingers bloody, he pressed his palm over his heart, sensing the his light reawakening his bond with Istara. For a beat, joy. Then, the agony of her grief for his crimes slammed into him, followed by her yearning, her loneliness; her determination to free him from Marduk's grip. Shame engulfed him. Somewhere out there, beyond the mountains, beyond the sea, beyond the desert, she gathered allies—to save him from himself. His goddess. His consort. His everything.
A shear of blue-white light tore through his mind, washed her presence away. He sank to his knees and gripped the edge of the terrace, his muscles straining, resisting the device as it dragged him back, unwilling, to its filth, its lies. Nausea boiled, rancid and bitter. Hate sawed through the him, ugly and familiar.
He clung, stubborn, to the last images he had of Istara, of when he had lived with her in another world, his love for her endless, overwhelming. The device’s light screamed through the images, scoured his mind, its heat blistering, blinding. He fought its brutal onslaught, vomiting over the edge of the terrace, his
The god of war fell back on his haunches. He blinked, disoriented, unable to recall when he had come to the terrace from his bed. The images of his dream crept into the corridors of his mind, of the mysterious weapon which could consume a god's light, a weapon which had called to him. With such a powerful artifact, none could stand against him, not even the gods. He would search for this weapon, and once he possessed it . . . he smiled, cold, as he considered his faithless consort and the agonies he would inflict on her for betraying him. Yes. He glared at the sun as it soared into the sky. For what she had done with Urhi-Teshub, he would make her suffer. Forever.
PART I
JIHN
CHAPTER 1
* * *
The thunderous downpour ended, abrupt. In its wake, a rush of rich, rain-cleansed air. The quiet ripple of potted bamboo. A shear of silence. The plaintive cry of a night heron, far-off. Thoth picked up his wine and left the chaos of his desk and pushed past the silken hangings separating his apartment from the terrace. Barefoot, he went to its edge, skirting the pots overflowing with geraniums, their soft leaves laden with water droplets.
He sipped his wine, once more turning over Istara's request to create a sanctuary for the gods when none of his powers remained. Her words, said so quiet almost a month earlier, still kept him awake at night: We cannot remain in Imaru. We must find a location separate from the kingdoms where we can gather allies and prepare to face our enemy. There must be way you can grant us the protection we need.
A warm breeze slid past, languid and damp. Below his apartment, the golden lights of the city of Imaru skirted the shore of a vast lake. The clouds parted. Two crescent moons hovered just over the horizon—one pink, one white, both breathtaking. Across the lake's dark surface, the moons' light danced and shimmered, a starry canopy to match the profusion of glittering lights spanning the heavens.
A sweet, earthy scent swept over the terrace. Thoth inhaled, deep, savoring the fresh air denied to him after almost two years of captivity, buried deep beneath the Etemen'anki of Babylon—the enormous stepped pyramid Thoth's presence had destroyed, along with half of Istara's world. If Istara and Baalat's sacrifice hadn't ensured his escape through the portal at Surru to Elati—the world he now called home—nothing would have been left of Istara's world on the other side of the portal's ephemeral, churning wall.
Surru. His greatest achievement. A portal which traversed the distance between two universes. The amount of energy it had taken to power it up had been immense, had required the building of—
He caught his breath.
Of course. It was so simple.
He turned and hurried back to his desk, uncaring of the wine sloshing over the rim of his cup and onto his hand. The answer he had been seeking for weeks had come in the blink of an eye. How had he not thought of it before? Surru held the answer. It always had. But—his hands stilled against his notes—Surru led to not one but two worlds, neither of them safe. He sank onto his chair. When he last traversed Surru from Elati to Istara's world how long had he had before her world robbed him of his powers as a god and rendered him mortal? Hours, at most.
But they would still be there—the pyramids he had created in the long distant past, their cores once used to power up the portals, later modified to protect themselves from destruction—he had given up a fair portion of his own light to ensure they would never fail. They would have stood against the worst of the unraveling in Egypt while the rest of the world succumbed, torn apart by his presence. They had also granted an unexpected barrier against Marduk's devices, although he had discovered that advantage far too late. He would not make the same mistake twice.
Could it be done in time? A trip to Istara's world, all the way to Egypt and back? He exhaled. Of course not. He was mad to even consider it. It was too far and would take too long, even with a fast ship—and what of the instability he would bring back to her world? No. He had no choice. He would have to return to the parallel world he and Arinna had fled, the one still caught in the other Marduk's brutal grip.
Thoth sighed, so many worlds, so many outcomes, yet all with one constant—Marduk and the endless worlds-spanning war to overcome him. A fight which, right now, the gods were losing as one kingdom of Elati after another pledged allegiance to Marduk, their unwilling submission forced upon them by the brutality of the god of war, no longer Horus, but another, the once-commander of Egypt, Sethi, Istara's consort.
Thoth dried his wine-soaked hand against his kilt, his usual pleasure at considering the complex abandoning him. From among the piles of pages and scrolls, a map protruded. He pulled it out and followed the familiar lines and contours of the world he had fled with Arinna more than two years before. His gaze came to rest on the delta of Egypt, long made into a barren wasteland, its boundaries guarded by Marduk's malevolent, patrolling devices.
Beyond the open doors of the terrace, a white star fell from the heavens. Thoth eyed its descent, grim, thinking of the price three of the gods from his world had paid to free the others from Marduk's tyranny. In a final, desperate act, they had evaded the patrols and entered the hearts of the pyramids where, as one, they had sacrificed their light to the pyramids' cores in the hopes of increasing the radius of the pyramids' defenses. It had worked. Their combined energies had, for a brief time, forced Marduk to flee to the heavens, his devices and weapons useless to him while the others escaped.
A red star slid from the sky's indigo canopy, followed by another, haloed in a brilliant blue. Thoth's heart clenched. Remorse, raw and jagged, cut deep. His portals had caused more harm than he could ever have anticipated. He looked down into his cup, morose. The trio of gods from his pantheon who had sacrificed their light would have suffered unimaginable anguish. The cores would have burned them from the inside out. Though the gods of Istara’s world had lived on, the gods of his world—Teshub, Horus, and Baalat—were gone. Obliterated.
His grip tightened on his cup. No. Their sacrifice would not be for nothing. If the survivors in Elati from his and Istara's worlds were to have any chance against Marduk, Thoth needed the cores. With them he could construct the pyramids again and grant the gods an impenetrable refuge from Marduk. He might have gained immortality by traversing the portal with Istara, but his godly powers—just like Teshub's and Arinna's—were long gone. He would never be able to make such powerful artifacts again.
A rustle of material. He looked up.
"Lady Istara." He rose. "I did not hear you come in."
"You were deep in thought," Istara said. her golden eyes met his, shrouded with grief. "I did not wish to disturb you."
Thoth moved around his desk and took her hands in his. "I might have a plan."
The stars in her hair brightened, a shear of hope against her sorrow.
"I have to go back," he said.
"Back?" Istara’s brow furrowed. "Where?"
"To the world Arinna and I left. I must retrieve artifacts of great power which could save us all."
"A dangerous decision," Istara murmured. "The enemy of your world still controls it. If he finds you, he will enslave you again."
Thoth smiled, dry. "Then I had best ensure I am not found." A cool wind sliced through the apartment. The silken hangings of the terrace billowed inward. A profusion of geranium petals skidded across the damp terrace. "However, I cannot go alone since I am no longer a god—the portal will not open for me."
Istara’s grip tightened against his fingers. "I will come with you."
"As will I."
An immortal, his powerful body clad in a gold-gilt leather tunic and kilt stepped from the shadows of the doorway. A pair of Marduk's appropriated weapons hung from his belt. From over his shoulders, two more of the once-god of Babylon’s stolen weapons reared up.
