Blackdog by K. V. Johansen Read Free Book Online Page B

rooster.”
    “That's about all we had then, too. I said old. Come on, help me.” The dog slipped a growl, too much, too much fear and anger and the world falling around him.
    With his shoulder and those of several sisters against it, the altar slid, grating, over the floor, pivoting on one corner. It was wood sheathed in beaten brass, and time he replaced the rotting corner posts of its frame again, before it collapsed in on itself and spilled the bowl of sacred water that sat there.
    No one had reached to move the bowl, which was carved of some coarse, dull-black stone and was always beaded with moisture, no matter the temperature of the air around it. No one ever touched it but the goddess herself, and the water in it never needed refilling. The bowl's lip curved in like the petals of some night-curled flower, but that was not enough to keep it from evaporating. An ancient mystery of Attalissa, and one that even the Blackdog, an ancient mystery himself, preferred not to pry into. The bowl gave off a chill of its own, left you feeling cold, and lost. Women called it the dampness of the chapel that made them uncomfortable there, and built a new one, but in their unseen hearts they knew it was the stone bowl on the altar they avoided.
    ’Lissa—
    Yes. Don't leave it here for him. Take it down to the lake. It's too heavy for me to carry.
    That was not right; the lake was not the place for it. The dog was reluctant. But the Blackdog would not argue with the goddess, when it was her own mysteries she dealt with.
    But for a moment, with almost a sense of relief, he saw the bowl slipping in his grasp, shattering on the stones, spilling out its water…
    That hit him in his very bones. He shook his head, confused at his own imaginings. No. I shouldn't touch it.
    “You'll have to, Oto,” Attalissa said simply. “I trust you. Don't drop it. It's important.”
    “If you say so.”
    The hole beneath the altar was narrow, lightless, and a damp, chilly air rose from it. Meeray crouched to peer down.
    “That explains why the altar's always so cold and sticky,” she said, with false cheer. “I always thought it strange, that mildew would grow on brass. Where does it go?”
    “To the southern shore, under the overhang where the split pine grows. You know that deep crack there, that we're always telling the novices to watch they don't break a leg in? It runs under that, where it comes out to the lake. It was meant as a way for the dog to come and go unseen from the temple.”
    And the dog had killed the priests of Narva, who were strangling Lissavakail's trade, sending fighters to kill traders on the road down to the desert. It had been a ruthless age, and Attalissa…harder. The god Narva kept to his mountaintop, now. His folk still sent a tithe of their turquoise to the temple every year, and Attalissa's priestesses kept the slopes of the Narvabarkash free from bandits and raiders, protecting Narva's folk like their own, even the priests, who had dwindled away to a family of half-mad farmers.
    Narva himself would be no help to them; his great vision that had once spanned the mountains almost to the foothills had been long since destroyed, for Lissavakail's safety. He kept disembodied to his cave, and spoke in oracles, when he spoke at all; most believed him dead and gone.
    Meeray frowned at the dank hole. “Should we follow?”
    Otokas shook his head. “You'd drown. It drops below the level of the lake for longer than you could hold your breath, before it rises again. It's meant as a trap. I'm sorry. Once we're gone, slide the altar back. Then go.”
    “Go where?” Meeray asked. “The main gates?”
    Otokas hesitated. But the women at the main gates were lost and from the report Meeray had, those at the water-gate as well. Sending a handful more to die with them would not slow Tamghat any, even if the wizard were temporarily exhausted of magic. He should have sent his niece away before the attack began. They should have