The Realms of the Gods. Tamora Pierce

oddly formal. ‘You seek aid for a breech birth? Who is the mother?’ She listened, then sighed. ‘Nonia. I see.’

      Daine frowned. They had known an Isa and a Nonia in Snowsdale. Her mother had always claimed that Isa would be a good midwife, if she could ever stop having children of her own. Nonia was barely a year older than Daine herself.

      ‘Harken, Isa. You must turn the babe before it comes. No – listen to me, and I will help.’ Absently, Sarra walked into the cottage, looking at something very far away.

      Daine was the only one who saw the darking – whatever it was – drop to the ground through a hole in its pocket prison. She thought, just like Ma to fix the opening with magic and forget there’s a hole in the bottom. She said nothing as the darking vanished into the shadows by the cottage wall. If Queenclaw and Broad Foot hadn’t seen its escape, she wasn’t going to tell them. After all, the darking hadn’t done any harm.

      ‘She’s not the same as she was back home,’ she whispered, more to herself than to the cat or the duckmole.

      ‘Of course not.’ Queenclaw stretched. ‘Only gods or immortals may dwell here.’

      ‘You’re telling me that Ma – my ma – is a god.’

      ‘There was a need,’ Broad Foot explained. ‘The northern forests had no one to watch over village gardens and childbearing – the Great Mother Goddess can’t be everywhere. It wouldn’t have worked if your mother hadn’t liked such things already. Since she does, she became the Green Lady.’

      ‘Is she my ma, then?’ demanded the girl. ‘Is she who she was, Sarra Beneksri?’

      ‘Are you who you were?’ asked the cat.

      About to say that of course she was, Daine stopped herself. Daine of Snowsdale could no more heal animals – or turn into one – than the sun could rise in the west. She got up, ignoring a slight dizziness that overtook her. ‘Please excuse me. I need a walk.’

      ‘Be careful,’ both gods chorused.

      ‘Do you wish a guide?’ added Broad Foot, concern in his voice. ‘Some mortals find the Divine Realms overwhelming—’

      ‘No company, thank you,’ Daine said, heading towards the gate.

      Outside the wall lay a well-marked path. To her right it curved around the house. To her left it crossed a log bridge over a stream and led into the forest. Near the trees a rocky bluff rose in tumbles of earth and stone until it breached the leafy canopy. Anyone who climbed it should have a view that would stretch for miles.

      Crossing the bridge, she found that her head had cleared; strength was returning to her legs and arms. She left the path at the foot of the bluff, taking a track that wound through piles of stone, leading her gently upwards. When she stopped for a breath after steady climbing, a nearby chuckling sound drew her to a spring hidden in the rocks. A couple of sips of water were all that she needed: her veins seemed to fill with a green and sparkling energy that carried her on upwards.

      There was plenty to think about as she climbed. Her ma, a god? She loved her mother, but there was no denying that Sarra needed looking after. Without it, she would seek plants on a cloudy day without taking a hat. Gods were dignified, all-knowing, all-powerful creatures, weren’t they?

      She knew that lesser gods entered the Mortal Realms only on the equinoxes and solstices, and her mother had said it was good they met the Skinners on Midsummer Day. There were degrees of strength among gods, then. If this was so, then perhaps lesser gods weren’t all-anything, and Sarra could now be a divine being.

      ‘There would be worse goddesses than Ma, I suppose,’ she remarked, then sighed.

      She left her thin, pretty slippers under a bush when they began to pinch. Thickening the soles of her feet by changing them to elephant hide, she climbed on in comfort. The way was rocky and steep. By the time she reached the rocky summit, she was gasping.

      Below was the forest roof, an expanse of countless shades of green, pierced by clearings, streams, and ponds. Turning, she found mountains that stabbed into the sky, their heads wrapped in cloud, their shoulders white with snow.

      ‘Oh, glory,’ she whispered, and went to see what lay below on that side. Passing a dip in the rock, she halted. A pool of some eerie substance was cupped there. It shimmered with green, yellow, grey, and blue lights, much like the colours that she’d seen in the sky the night before. They moved over its surface in globes, waves, or strips. Watching the pool made her giddy. She swayed, and put out a hand.

      ‘Don’t touch it!’ a voice behind her warned.

      She fought to yank her eyes away in vain. There was something terrible in those moving colours, something that she rebelled against as it drew her in. Pain flared on her ankle; it broke the pool’s grip. She stumbled back a few steps.

      ‘Careful!’ Clinging to her foot was a lizard, a striped skink. ‘I’m sorry I hurt you, but I thought you needed help.’ Green with white and black stripes and a yellow muzzle, she was large for her kind, a foot in length. Her black eyes glinted with intelligence.

      Daine bent to pick up the lizard. ‘So I did.’ She crossed to the far side of the bluff, putting yards of stone between her and the shifting pool. There she sat, placing the skink beside her. An inspection of her ankle showed that it bled a little. ‘Thank you.’

      ‘You’re welcome.’ The skink jumped on top of a nearby rock to put herself at eye level with the girl. ‘The next time you find a Chaos vent, don’t look into it,’ the lizard advised. ‘It’ll pull first your mind, and then the rest of you, into the Realms of Chaos.’

      ‘Chaos vents?’ She licked her finger and dabbed at the bite, cleaning it off.

      ‘You’ll find them all over the Divine Realms,’ replied the skink. ‘They serve as gods’ windows into the home of Uusoae, the Queen of Chaos.’

      ‘You’d think they’d put warning markers on such things,’ grumbled Daine. ‘And why are the gods keeping these windows open if they’re fighting this Uusoae?’

      ‘The vents have always been in both the Divine and Chaos Realms, whether they’re at war or not,’ explained the skink. ‘Father Universe and Mother Flame ordered things that way. Are you over your scare?’

      ‘I think so.’ Daine leaned back, bracing herself with her arms as she looked at the view. ‘Why didn’t I sense you?’ she asked. ‘I should’ve known you were here the moment I got in range.’ In the distance, a hawk wheeled over an opening in the trees. Her finely tuned ears picked out the distant call of crows, jays, and starlings. ‘I never felt any of the People. I can’t hear you in my mind.’

      ‘Nor will you,’ the skink replied calmly. ‘We are not mortal animals, Veralidaine Sarrasri – we are gods. If we are killed, we are instantly reborn in new bodies. We have our own magic, powerful magic. Mortals cannot hear us, or know us.’

      Daine rubbed her ears. ‘I feel deaf. I feel – separate from everything.’

      ‘It’s all right,’ said her companion. ‘Bask awhile. The sun will do you good.’

      Daine smiled to think that sunning would help, but she obeyed. The rock warmed her and banished the fear caused by the Chaos vent. Below, woodpeckers tapped trees; squirrels called alarms. Nearby a pika chirped. From the mountains behind them, first one, then another, then more wolf voices rose in pack-song. She grinned, hearing the feeble, shaky notes of wolf pups joining their elders, perhaps for the first time.

      The wind shifted, and brought with it a hint of wood smoke. Looking for the source, she found her parents’ house and garden, cradled in the bend of the stream that ran past her window. A white plume of smoke trailed from the chimney.

      ‘Look,’ said the skink. ‘To the west.’

      A large, dark bird of some kind flew up from the tree canopy in a twisting pattern. Daine couldn’t