When Ravens Call: The Fourth Book in the Small Gods Epic Fantasy Series (The Books of the Small Gods by Bruce Blake (ebook reader with highlight function TXT) 📕

We did it.

He wasn't yet able to experience joy—at least not the fulfilling, physical side of it—but his consciousness swelled with pride.

But why does Kuneprius not appear overjoyed?

He possessed no control over the clay body and couldn't redirect his gaze to his friend to assess why this might be the case. Instead, the dun eyes watched the Small God's blood seep out of its corpse. It collected in cracks and channels in the altar's surface invisible until they brimmed with the bright red fluid. They directed it to a short trough cut in the altar before the golem. It filled slowly, steadily. The mythical being reached out, dipped its fingertips into the liquid.

A shock ran through the unnatural body, and it tensed around Vesisdenperos as though the muscles in this creature that didn't truly have such things tightened. The sculpture lifted its hands, touched the smooth tips of its fingers to its face and drew four lines along each cheek. This accomplished, it returned to the trough, this time cupping its palms, allowing them to fill. It raised them again, tilted them so the thickening fluid cascaded onto its chest, flowed down its abdomen. The golem placed its hands on the splash of red, dragged them across its torso, mixing the blood with its mud flesh.

A tremor shook through the monster, a jolt of energy Vesisdenperos' own detached consciousness recognized. Then the living statue did something he'd designed it not to need: it drew breath.

The incantation swirled around the sculptor and his clay vessel, filling the night air as droplets of rain pattered on priest's robes, on tiled floor, on the Small God's cooling flesh. Hidden beneath these sounds, he heard the strained sobs of his mentor, the sorrow Kuneprius struggled to hide but failed. With no power to influence the living statue's actions and observe his friend, the creature instead tilted its head back, raised its gaze skyward.

As Vesisdenperos might have expected, a layer of cloud obscured the night and trapped souls of the Small Gods. How he wished to see them. It had been so long since he gazed upon the evenstar and the others, offered his prayers. If only the sky above provided a glimpse, the faintest glimmer, the shallowest glow.

As if in answer to his thoughts, a light broke through the cloud cover. It appeared tiny at first but grew and expanded as it hurtled through the firmament. Vesisdenperos stared along with the golem, seeing through the creature's eyes, hearing the priests' chant grow and change through the living statue's ears. The High Priest's voice stood out amongst them, his tone excited, bordering on manic as he led his followers to the moment for which they'd waited so long.

The glow rushed toward them, aimed at the temple of Teva Stavoklis, and the sculptor experienced the unexpected notion he should flee. Not by himself—he'd gather his mentor in the golem's powerful limbs and carry him from danger as Kuneprius had kept him safe for so many seasons turning. But as he considered scooping his friend up in his arms, the living statue instead raised them skyward, as if welcoming the onrushing light with an embrace.

For the first time since his awakening, Vesisdenperos experienced a palpable sensation, physical rather than simply a thought. The mouth he didn't possess went dry; muscles not attached to his bones tightened; a heart not his own sped. Fear gripped him, made him wish to be anywhere but here, prompted him to want to be anyone but himself.

The light grew to the point of blinding. The sculptor screamed a scream no one but he heard, and then the luminescence touched him.

It didn't strike the golem with great impact but enveloped him, spreading buoyancy and sensation over, through, around the living statue, penetrating it so Vesisdenperos himself experienced its warmth. The clay man's vision clouded. The priests gathered near him disappeared, swallowed by yellowish-white light overtaking everything. It leeched color from the tiles underfoot, the blood on the golem's hands, melted sky and walls and altar to the wax of a candle made of the world.

And then Vesisdenperos wasn't alone.

Kristeus, Kuneprius, and the other men remained beside him, hidden in the overpowering glow, but the sculptor realized he no longer had the inside of his creation to himself. The clay vessel holding his essence now contained that of another, too.

A figure stepped out of the light, emerging naked and shaking like a bather might do when stepping from the mist of a waterfall. It started out a silhouette, a dark outline against the bright background. Its hunched shoulders and lowered head gave it the appearance and demeanor of a man who'd seen the seasons turn many times. But as the thought crossed the sculptor's mind, the form raised its chin, inhaled a deep breath that seemed to inflate it. Then he drew upward, straightened, appeared to grow.

It stepped forward, and the light that had swallowed everything gathered around him, revealing the robed priests, the altar, the temple, the sky.

All but Kuneprius had fallen to their knees. He continued standing beside the golem, sagging, arms dangling at his side as his head tilted down far enough his chin touched his chest. The others either didn't notice or paid him no attention. The Small God's body lay upon the shrine in the same place as before the light came to overtake everything. Vesisdenperos hadn't detected the smile tilting the dead man's ashen lips, but it sat his features as if he welcomed death.

"He doesn't welcome it, but he understood its inevitability."

The now-glowing figure stepped around the table and the corpse upon it without a sideward glance, approached the golem. His features appeared clear and visible and, though it wasn't a face the sculptor had ever seen before, he realized who stood before him.

"Lord, Ine'vesi," he said,