“A god has come to Ravanur,” Elder Perwik repeated, and I could tell, just from the tone of his voice, that he was unconvinced. “A metal god, which rode down in a pillar of fire and smote a burug in its descent, somehow, spared you.”

“Yes, Elder, that is what I saw.” I knelt before the seated elders, my forehead pressed to the wooly rugs that coated the floor of the tribe longhouse, gritting my teeth and struggling to control my temper. I had been kneeling there for more an interminable amount of time, and the tribe’s elders had been grilling me with questions, repeating the same skeptical interrogations over and over again.

Another voice, deeper than Perwik’s, but just as laced with scorn, spoke from the opposite side of the room. “A metal god. I know not of any metal god.” Of course, the priest would respond so. If it wasn’t in his precious High Epic, it might as well not exist to those sunken, staring eyes.

I dared a sideways glance over at the Deepseeker, and to my shock, he was staring back at me, his face a mask. He bore an expression somewhere between fathomless boredom and searing fury, and the effect it had on his face was altogether both alien and terrifying to behold. I returned my gaze to my close up view of the rug. A moment of silence passed, and then the Deepseeker spoke, surprising me again. Judging by the coughs and disgruntled murmurs that passed around the room, he’d surprised everyone else too. They were used to his utter disinterest in their business, and his input wasn’t entirely welcomed by the rest of the Elder Council, which thought he was insane. “The list of things for which you have only ignorance, Vassa, is far longer a tale than the list of things for which you have names.”

I stifled a laugh. Vassa, the priest, sputtered feebly and then went on, not daring to challenge the Deepseeker directly. "The gods are not ones to descend from the firmament. We all know this." There was a pause, presumably during which he looked each of his fellow elders in their eyes, one at a time. "Only the senile or the foolish could forget the Eater-King, which descended to Ravanur in a similar way, no more than fifty full cycles ago. " If the Deepseeker took any offense to the subtle barb, he did not respond. Vassa continued, his practiced speaker's voice filling the longhouse with his resonant tones. "The Eater-King destroyed the Erin-Caval completely, as well as the Maccanda, the Hove People, and the burug-riders. We are fortunate indeed that the demon has not returned to our lands." Falling into his usual, didactic rhythm, Vassa drove his point home. "If a god were to come down, surely the Great Father would have sent it down to us, the elders of the Erin-Vulur, the chosen children of Mother Ravanur. Why would a god only show itself to a lone ranger, and a middling warrior at that?" I grounded my teeth at the casual insult, seeing in my mind the image of an iron spear smashing the smug expression off Vassa's face. He'd always hated me. It rankled in him that I had been made a ranger when his son hadn't even lived through the trials. He would take any opportunity to humiliate and discredit me. "Either the ranger is lying, in a misguided attempt to gain notoriety or the thing that came down from the Firmament is another demon, one which has easily turned the mind of a mere warrior and made him think it to be divine."

A fourth voice spoke, this one high-pitched and sibilant, each word like the note in an eerie, swaying melody that filled the thoughts of all who heard it with thoughts of biting cold, rushing wind, driving snow. “Peace Vasssssa.” Elder Lot, the master of all the tribe's Stormcallers, spoke soothingly, unconsciously dragging out random sounds in some of its words in one of his strange tics. Stormcallers were all strange, but he was by far the strangest. "Perrrrhaps young Volistad is not lying for attention. Perhaps the young rrrrrranger did see a god descend to Ravanur.” There was a pause, in which I could practically hear Vassa’s scowl. “I am sommmewhat inclined to believe, however, that he may have been tricked. Surely no agent of the Great Father would be unknown to the High Priest of His chosen people?” There were mutters of assent. “I sssssuggest that we take action. I will send one of my Stormcallers to destroy this innnnnterloper. If it is a messenger from the Great Father, surely it will identify itself to us. If not, we will dessssstroy it before it becomes too strong to deal with.”

“Agreed,” said Elder Perwik.

"Imprison the ranger," Vassa added, offhandedly. "At least until the false god is destroyed. We cannot risk him wandering free if his mind has been taken by a demon." There was a long silence as the elders waiting for the Deepseeker to speak, but he maintained his silence. After a time, Vassa grunted uncomfortably and said. "So be it. Lot, deal with the false god. Perwik, please secure young Volistad." The meeting ended, and just like that, death had been passed upon the strange, metal god I'd seen. Despite myself, I wondered if it was a demon like Vassa said. It couldn't have gotten into my head, could it? It hadn't seen me! ...Had it? Three of Elder Perwik's guards lifted me to my feet, their grips gentle, but firm. They shot me apologetic glances as they led me away to the prison pit. They didn't like this any more than I did, but they had their orders. The elders had spoken. I didn't resist; I merely allowed myself to be taken away.

* * *