by Jay Lake
“No god will strike you down, I think.”
“We are not struck,” Osi said. Something in his tone plucked at my thoughts, but I could not place it, and so dropped the subject as I already seemed to be pushing beyond the edges of their comfort.
* * *
Afternoon passed in shafts of dusty light that walked slowly across the warehouse’s cavernous interior from narrow windows set high in the walls. First these battens gleamed, then those grates, and for a while a pile of brass binnacles flashed like gold. I spoke more to the brothers, and spent time in my own silences as they attended to their meditations. Though they were mendicant, and seemed to possess little, what they did own unpacked and opened and refined and subdivided into smaller and more manifold belongings. For example, a small satchel revealed a collection of tools. The handles of each opened to smaller tools and firestarters and tiny blades.
It was a very efficient sort of asceticism. I recognized some of their implements as having violent use. A corkscrew can open a wine bottle, but it can also stab an eye or breach a throat. Osi and Iso moved with the practiced ease of old professionals in any field. It was so simple for me to see the Blade mothers in these two men, for all their differences.
I wondered if I would ever be free of the shadows of my past. Was anyone in truth ever liberated from the bondage of memory? A question that dogs me still, all these years later.
But we did talk. Some of our discussion was of Copper Downs. I explained the Temple Quarter as best I could, and the clever architecture that made the Street of Horizons, a mere eleven blocks long, seem to be endless when looked at from either margin of the quarter. The gods, how they’d slept under the old Duke and been awoken at his mysterious death—omitting my central role in that event—and how they had since pushed for power. I’d been away in Kalimpura for much of that awakening, but my own encounters with Blackblood, the past attempt to assassinate Marya, and the very presence of Endurance alongside the traditional pantheon were taken together more than sufficient to upset the established order.
The brothers in turn talked about the doctrine of theogenic dispersion. This I knew of from my readings in the Factor’s house, how the titanics who were the greater gods at the beginning of the world had fallen away and sundered into their children and their children’s children, just as a shattered jar will birth generations of splinters on a tiled floor. Much along the lines of my own recent meditations.
“Just as Father Sunbones and Mother Mooneyes,” I said at one point, recalling a pair of theogenic tales that spoke of the birthing of Desire’s daughter-goddesses, but from a very different perspective.
“Yes,” Osi said. “We listen to the rituals, and we learn the tales told in each place we visit.”
Iso added, “By marking the differences in the traditions over time and distance, we can chart something of the spread of the story.”
“Likewise the gods themselves.” Osi, again. “Every city has a sailor’s god, and one who watches over farmers. We believe these to be aspects of the same facet lost in the Splintering of the Gods.”
“Your Endurance is an exception,” Iso told me. “We find that ilk of gods most interesting, for they can tell us what aspects of godhead arise independently, and what must descend from the earliest times.”
His brother spoke again. “Someday our devotional charts will give us a map of the theogenic dispersion. From that we can trace our way back to the site of Father Sunbones’ garden. Eventually we can learn of both the miracles and the errors which occurred there.”
“All thinking creatures were grown to flesh and ensouled in that garden,” I mused, remembering my own reading. “I assume it for a metaphor of the richness of the world.”
“Some metaphors are as real as the world itself,” said Iso. “Never dismiss something simply because it is used to make a point.”
I sighed, a long, slow exhalation that caught their attention. “The world is a bit too real for me right now. My troubles are very much not metaphorical.”
Osi made that small sign with his right hand again. “We are not of this city, and know little of its people and their cares, but we can hear you out, if you wish.”
So I explained, as much for my own benefit as theirs, about my exile from Kalimpura, more of the fall of Choybalsan, and my time away. Then I touched on the arrival of the Selistani embassy, and Mother Vajpai’s attempt to kidnap me. I told them of Surali, the Bittern Court woman, and how her thirst for vengeance in the matter of Michael Curry’s gems fit into the appearance of the Dancing Mistress and the pardine Revanchists, drawn by their own interest in those same gems. They liked my thought that the problems of the embassy and the Revanchists might be turned toward one another. Then I began explaining my complex relationship to Blackblood. That quieted the twins to a deep and thoughtful silence.
In time, my words ran out. They stared like a pair of cats on a fence. We watched one another awhile. Finally, I said softly, “Thus I run from one problem to another, and solve none of them.”
“By your own statements,” Osi said, “we take you to be a fighter.”
“Yes.”
Iso: “You do not run from opponent to opponent, slapping first one then another, only to leave them to cut at you from behind.”
“No.…”
His brother, again. “It is not our way to fight. Our rites are strict.” I should have known that for a lie then, by the way they moved. “But as your path is that of the application of force, you might consider applying force.”
“Just as we would apply our rites and meditations,” said Iso.
“Force does not mean a fight,” I answered. “Force can be so many other things.”
“Precisely,” they replied in unison.
Osi glanced at the deepening orange light now flooding almost vertical across the upper part of the warehouse. Outside the sun was setting. “Time comes for our deeper observances. Perhaps we shall encounter you again soon?”
I stood, bowed, and thanked them. “You gentlemen have granted me a needed respite, and given me time to consider my situation. Thank you.”
Each pressed his palms together as if praying. “Of this, think nothing,” said Osi.
Walking away, I mused that they had given me no useful advice at all concerning Blackblood. Another time, perhaps. Or just as likely, their unwillingness to speak to the question was advice in and of itself.
* * *
I passed slowly through the streets, pretending to be a tired lad at the end of his workday. That was not far wrong, and hunger called. The baby wanted food and so did I.
The endless errand these twins pursued in life was poetic enough to fascinate. It reminded me of the Dancing Mistress’ words not so long ago about how far one might flee in the world, when I’d wondered if taking a fast ship and sailing away truly was the wisest option. She’d said, “Until you reached a desert or a mountain spine your hull could not cross. There you would not speak the language, or know the money. You would wind up begging beside some purple dock amid people who speak with feathers and curse one another with flowers.”
Even then, that had seemed an almost desirable fate. Wandering the world, witnessing legends of the fall of the titanics so that the splatter of collapsing godhead could be rendered across a map of the world—such an errand that would be. A quest for the ages.
Much better than breaking oneself over and over to rescue ungrateful cities from their self-created oppressors. The Interim Council could go hang.
I never would do it, though. My daughter needed me here, in a place that could be made safe. For good or ill, this city was for me. And Copper Downs had its own needs. Not to mention all the children who continued to be lost every year in that distant homeland of mine. Someday I would have to return for the little girls and boys who daily saw fates worse than mine.
Amid the wandering of my mind, I realized my feet had carried me once more to the Velviere District. That suggested that some part of me felt safer under Endurance’s prot
ection than otherwise. I could not argue too much with this wisdom, though I feared to bring the same peril that had slain Amitra and Nitsa on to their fellow acolytes.
Still, I called at the temple. The gatekeeper I had met the very first time was yet absent, but I entered the grounds to discover most of the acolytes at prayer inside of the wooden hutch of the temple.
The ox god might be my creation, but I did not feel any overwhelming need to bow to him. Instead I wandered to the cooking area, outside the ruined kitchen tent. There I found a pair of grumpy Selistani men in traditional dress stir-frying spinach and then mixing the resultant crispy leaves with some Hanchu sauce.
“A dish for a countryman?” I asked in Seliu.
One of the cooks, a tallish fellow with a small scar on his cheek, looked up at me. “Take a bowl, but be quick, before the little preachers return.”
I followed his advice and apportioned myself a goodly serving of the crunchy spinach. “Are you not followers of the ox god?”
The other cook, a much smaller fellow with narrow eyes and a mournful cast to his face, answered as he tossed spinach in his hot pan. “What does it mean to follow a god, boy? There are no Selistani temples in this cold stone place. A Bhopuri ox is what we have, if we wish to pray.” He nodded toward the temporary wooden temple. “Their view of prayer is much different than ours.”
That was fascinating to me. “What of the priest, Chowdry? He is one of us.”
“He spends all his time with the whitebellies.”
“Excuse me?” I did not know the word.
“The pale folk here,” the other cook said. “And the browns who try to act like them. Not good, honest children of the sun like us.”
They both laughed. I became very conscious of their kurtas and my own corduroy breeches and canvas shirt. If anyone of my people was a whitebelly, it would be me. Raised here, speaking Petraean better than Seliu.
That was when I realized they’d meant to insult me. I looked into their snickering faces and for a sharp moment considered hurling my bowl at them, and following it up with my fists and blades. These two combined would not stand three blows against me.
Instead I placed my mostly full bowl down on the edge of the rickety table where they’d been prepping their cookery. “I thank you for the time,” I said stiffly.
I stalked off into the twilit field beyond the tents, on the far side of the foundation work around the gaping minehead. The brambles had been cleared here, too, but the ground had not been stamped down or graveled over as out front, so they were coming back in sharp, green shoots. A dangerous place, like walking on spikes. Not where one would wish to take a fall.
Skinning out of my shirt and pants, I squatted to put the blocky workboots back on. Now I wore only them and a pair of linen drawers. The bulge of my belly seemed much more pronounced than the last time I’d stood considering myself naked. I took up my short knives and began to spar with an imaginary opponent. Mother Argai, perhaps. The sight of my breasts swaying as I moved would distract her slightly. And while I was swifter than she, the woman fought like a snake, always just a little to the side and curved off from where you expected her to be.
I began to work faster and faster, dashing back and forth across my claimed area. The wall loomed not so far behind me, so I incorporated jumps and climbs. The imaginary Mother Argai chased me, I chased her. I avoided only falls, for taking a roll in my bare skin across these new brambles amid the cut-down stalks of their elders would have been beyond foolish.
This was not a real sparring match, far from it. But I had not in truth sparred since leaving the Temple of the Silver Lily. Fought in earnest, yes. Run for my life. Lain lazy in bed. All of those things. Here in Copper Downs, only two mortals could match me, and those two overmatched me. Mother Argai, over at the Haito mansion with the Selistani embassy, was probably the only fighter I could meet face-to-face and make the workout count without embarrassment to one or the other of us.
Still, I slammed myself about, used the wall as both an enemy and a friend, swung my short knives till my wrists ached, and leapt till I had worn myself to shivering exhaustion. Finally I stopped, worried about weakness and balance, and realized this was an autumn night and the air had grown cold and damp.
I looked up to see a solitary girl watching from a short distance. After a long moment of trembling silence, she called out in Petraean, “Are you finished?”
“Yes,” I said shortly, then mopped my face with my shirt before tugging it over my head.
“Chowdry sent all the men to their tents and told the women to mind their own business until you were done. I was ordered to watch for you.”
That I had to laugh at. “He was concerned about my corrupting the men with my breasts? If any of these boys haven’t seen a nipple by now, they have larger problems than me.” It wasn’t as if anyone here could take anything from me I didn’t care to offer. I tucked the short knives into my sleeves, more to make the point to myself than for any other reason.
“I cannot say, Mistress.” She approached slowly. A Stone Coast woman, a few years older than me. Not a Selistani whitebelly. It was hard to tell in the gathering dark, but I thought her eyes might be blue. Her hair was some pale color that silvered oddly in the faint light.
“Do not call me ‘mistress.’” Sweating and thinking of Mother Argai had put me in a fey mood. My loins were stirring, for no one in particular. I was curious to see her close enough to tell if she would catch my eye. Or I would catch hers. To that end, I said, “Here. Balance me so I can get these boots off and the trousers on.”
The woman hurried toward me and grasped my elbow. I stank, I knew I stank, but it was the sweat of good, honest work. Building up my body to defend the god Endurance. I hopped from one foot to the other, standing in the loosed boots to tug the pants on while she clutched at my elbow.
“So what is your name?” I gasped.
“Lucia,” she said, releasing my arm to reach down and help me with my waistband.
That was more like it. I stood straight and raised my arms out of her way. Lucia bent around me to fasten my pants.
Surely she would not have done that without some interest in me.
“Tell me, Lucia, do you think I might have another bath?”
She giggled faintly. “They would deny you nothing now.”
I decided to be blunt. “Then scrub me. I shall do the same for you.”
“Mistr—” Lucia stared a moment at her feet. “Green. I am not supposed—”
Touching her lips, I hushed her. “Do what you wish, but I am having a bath and would be glad of the company.”
Soon enough, Lucia brought me hot water in the tent with the large copper tub. The air was buttery warm now in the light of two oil lamps and a squat-bellied stove, and smelled pleasantly of the burning. Then she brought me soap and a sponge. Then she brought me a long-handled brush. Finally, she brought me herself. The light made her skin yellow, but her hair flowed downward and her breasts gathered firm as she slipped into the water with me.
We were a long time coming out again, and quite chilled when we finally did, but I fancied her smile was just as large as mine.
* * *
Chowdry was not pleased with me the next morning. “This is not your temple of harridans back in Kalimpura,” he grumbled in Seliu. “Everyone in the camp knows about you and Lucia. It will be a scandal when her parents hear.”
“What?” I laughed at him. We sat with our breakfast bowls on the steps at the front of the wooden temple, ignoring the morning’s chill. By the Wheel, I was no whitebelly. “You were a pirate cook when I first met you. What do you care now what some parents think?”
“This project…” He waved around him to indicate everything within the walls of the old minehead grounds. “It costs money. A great deal of money. Young people like Lucia are blessed with older parents who are having a great deal of money to give.”
“Utavi would have your head.” Chowdry’s old captain aboard Ch
ittachai, and as unpleasant a small-time pirate as ever skulked along a waterfront.
“Utavi is not here.”
“He might be,” I said. “I saw Little Baji when I first returned to town almost a week ago.”
That got Chowdry’s attention. “Where!?”
His surprise seemed genuine enough, which served to further lessen my distrust. “The Tavernkeep’s place. Where you cook. Which is full of Selistani men. It would not be so great a trick to hide one or another there. And the opportunity to learn too much about you, and me, is great.”
“Ah.” His face was a study in misery. “This is why I am needing people like Lucia’s parents. Their money will be keeping this temple and the god Endurance safe. That safety is my safety.”
I punched Chowdry in the shoulder hard enough to make him flinch. His foolishness would not ruin my good mood. “Just think of them all as wallowing coastal ships carrying payroll. You know how to make a raid.”
“This temple will do a poor job of sailing to the next port to escape retribution,” he complained.
“Then learn more, sir priest.” I leaned close. “And listen to Endurance. He’s rarely wrong, I am certain of it.” I stood, whistling.
“Green,” said Chowdry. Something sharp lay in his voice.
I leaned forward, hands on my knees, and let him pretend not to think about my breasts. “Yes?”
“Twice now a girl has called in the name of the Prince of the City. One of your Blades, but being younger and softer than you.”
Samma, of course. Though in fact she was my elder, she was one of those girls who always looked as if she’d been raised on warm milk with a good blanket. Whereas I knew perfectly well that I was a walking battlefield. “Did she present herself with swords at her back?”
Though even Samma alone would be quite dangerous to anyone in this group. She might be among the weakest of the Blades, but a Blade she was.
“No. Just nerves. And always looking over her shoulder.”
“Interesting.” My cocky mood deserted me with the news as I was once more caught up in figuring odds and probabilities. Why would Mother Vajpai send Samma to me? Few of the answers that presented themselves seemed sensible. And surely Samma had not sent herself. “What did she say she wanted?”
