Working God's Mischief
Page 54
It continued to emerge from the earth, ever more spastic, while trying to face the roaring that presaged its pain. Moonlight splashed an ugly, apish face drawn in both amazement and agony.
Gods were beyond challenge. Gods were the source of pain, not its object. That was the supernatural order. That was the Tyranny of the Night.
Crews stricken shaky by the magnitude of the demon nevertheless adjusted their aim. Another falcon bellowed. Shot hit the rising form with a wet, resounding splat! The demon swayed, groaned louder than any falcon’s shout. It freed a seven-clawed hand, reached for one of the nasty mortal engines. The soil around the devil, though hard to see in the moonlight, shivered, danced, boiled.
Every falcon with a clear sight line fired during the next twenty seconds. The Asher revenant was too close to miss. One blast tore the reaching hand off between wrist and elbow.
* * *
Nassim was ashamed. He suffered from a terror so deep that he clung to Old Az in a ferocious, moments-from-death hug. His faith had been murdered. The demon shrieked like a mortally wounded war elephant. It leaned toward its attackers, head lolling as though it was about to come loose altogether. The severed hand hit the ground with the impact of a man-size tombstone. The demon bellowed again, then grew a new hand equipped with even more daddy-longlegs fingers. It snatched up a falcon, pulled it in for examination.
Pella’s falcon spoke again. Silver-plated grapeshot hit the monster in the face. The meaty splat! was plain even to ears that had been near a falcon. Gangrenous pocks spotted that face. Parts melted, dripped away. The monster began to subside. The falcon it had meant to study dropped from its hand. A brace of unfortunate gunners fell with it.
Then the great face resumed rising and regaining its ugly original form.
Falcon doctrine was set. It was fixed, established, and acknowledged by the men who served the weapons. They pursued doctrine ruthlessly, now. Every weapon able to bear fired as briskly as it could. Those without a clear sight line moved to find one. Once godshot charges ran out crews used what they had. No Instrumentality had yet shown itself fully immune to physical law.
Every hit weakened the monster. That was the design. But it kept pulling itself together. Its enemies grew weaker each time it did.
Several invaders collapsed, too weak to go on. Rates of fire declined. The falconeers worked slower and slower.
A timely salvo melted more godstuff. The emerging Instrumentality stopped moving.
And the night filled with shrieks.
* * *
In Asher’s salad days the Choosers of the Slain would have been hornets to his tiger. Asher revenant was a shadow of the horror that had been. Its strange flesh sagged under the weight of the godshot it had absorbed. The poison of all that never stopped poisoning.
The flow of stolen life energy ceased.
And the Choosers, fattened in the Wells of Ihrian, went for the devil’s eyes. Other Shining Ones, equally well fed, followed on, wielding weapons gleaned from the Great Sky Fortress. They hammered, stabbed, slashed, and strangled. Seldom before had Instrumentalities ever joined in so malevolent, deliberate a plan to destroy another major Instrumentality for all time and ever, in all the worlds.
* * *
Lord Arnmigal and Hourli each lost their footing twice because the earth would not lie quiet. Both were down, facing a Rascal trying to get to his feet, when Hope and the Widow arrived. The latter tripped. She fell forward onto Hourli’s back. Hope had no trouble staying upright. She charged the bug-eyed sorcerer, who recognized her as a serious Instrumentality targeting him for some extremely special attention.
Er-Rashal squealed the first word of some prayer, invocation, or spell. Hope blurred. Her hands clamped on his throat.
The gale generated by Hope’s sudden movement extinguished Lord Arnmigal’s time candle. Almost anticlimactically, from his point of view, er-Rashal’s head popped off.
What?
The pretty girl had a grip that savage?
A man might ought to keep that in mind and not get on her bad side.
Reality wavered. Lord Arnmigal heard the roar of falcons. He had not, before. Their bellowing lasted a short while, then was replaced by the shrieks of Fastthal and Sprenghul. Other Shining Ones added their own ferocious commentary.
* * *
The confrontation between Instrumentalities ended before Lord Arnmigal and the Widow climbed back high enough to see the slag heap that had wanted to become Asher renewed. Aldi and Hourli had gone ahead, joining the assault by skipping the space between.
The Instrumentality carcass resembled newly excreted magma. Heat boiled off. Scarlet winked through cracks in its crispy black crust. Nearly invisible little Instrumentalities cavorted around the heap, jubilant. The monster would never claim dominion.
Lord Arnmigal settled on a broken block as close as the heat would allow, ignored the celebrating demons. He tapped the earth with the end of a broken Ansa spear, lost in thought.
Hourli, still in Helspeth guise, settled beside him, nearer than what was appropriate for the Empress’s reputation. “She knows I’m not her.” Meaning the Widow had seen more than she should.
He shrugged. Aldi would handle it. An errant bit of curiosity: how come nobody ever asked why Lady Hilda stayed in Vantrad instead of sticking with her Empress?
“That was some all-time weird shit,” Pinkus Ghort mused, from behind Lord Arnmigal. He took a long pull off a fresh wineskin.
Before Lord Arnmigal could reply, Pella said, “Totally weird.” He stepped out of shadow into the moonlight, which had grown thin. “The weirdest.” Then, “Dad, the girls are here. As usual, after all the heavy lifting is over. They claim they need to see you.”
Startled, Lord Arnmigal turned, stared past Pinkus and his liquid companion. Vali and Lila looked embarrassed, put out with their brother, more grown-up than he remembered, and worried. Heris stood behind them. She eyed Hourli grimly. He figured that none of those three, schooled by the Ninth Unknown, would be deceived.
Heris looked like she had survived some hard times recently.
He sighed. Likely sooner than later he would pay for his latest poor choice involving an Ege sister—though it was not a choice he would unmake even if the magic candle had the power to turn back time.
He might show more care about avoiding the natural consequences, however.
“What is it, ladies?” Resigned and ignoring the baffled, fearful looks of people who knew those three could not possibly be out here, half a world away from home.
Lila and Vali glowered at Hourli. Heris talked about Hourlr, Asgrimmur Grimmsson, the Ninth Unknown, Korban Iron Eyes, the road to Eucereme, spicing all of it with targeted snippets from the life of Anna Mozilla, waiting quietly in Brothe.
Humming a Connecten rondelet celebrating romantic love, Aldi seated herself beside Lord Arnmigal, to his left, opposite Hourli, and leaned against him. She showed no consciousness whatsoever of the ferocious disapproval steaming darkly off every woman in sight, Hourli preeminent. She held er-Rashal al-Dhulquarnen’s head in her lap, stroking its hairless scalp as though petting a cat. Song sung, she whispered to the dead sorcerer, issuing prophecies for a journey into Twilight. She finished with, “He’ll find his shadow again. I will make that happen.”
About the Author
Glen Cook is the author of many novels of science fiction and fantasy, including the bestselling Black Company series. He lives in St. Louis, Missouri.
Tor Books by Glen Cook
THE INSTRUMENTALITIES OF THE NIGHT
The Tyranny of the Night
Lord of the Silent Kingdom
Surrender to the Will of the Night
Working God’s Mischief
An Ill Fate Marshalling
Reap the East Wind
The Swordbearer
The Tower of Fear
THE BLACK COMPANY
The Black Company (The First Chronicle)
Shadows Linger (The Second Chronicle)
The White Rose (The Third Chronicle)
Shadow Games (The First Book of the South)
Dreams of Steel (The Second Book of the South)
Chronicles of the Black Company
(comprising The Black Company, Shadows Linger, and The White Rose)
The Books of the South
(comprising Shadow Games, Dreams of Steel, and The Silver Spike)
Return of the Black Company
(comprising Bleak Seasons and She Is the Darkness)
The Silver Spike
Bleak Seasons (Book One of Glittering Stone)
She Is the Darkness (Book Two of Glittering Stone)
Water Sleeps (Book Three of Glittering Stone)
Soldiers Live (Book Four of Glittering Stone)
This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
WORKING GOD’S MISCHIEF
Copyright © 2014 by Glen Cook
All rights reserved.
Cover art by Raymond Swanland
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
The Library of Congress has cataloged the print edition as follows:
Cook, Glen.
Working God’s mischief / Glen Cook.—First Edition.
p. cm.—(Instrumentalities of the night; 4)
“A Tom Doherty Associates book.”
ISBN 978-0-7653-3420-6 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4668-0907-9 (e-book)
1. Imaginary wars and battles—Fiction. 2. Brothers and sisters—Fiction. 3. Good and evil—Fiction. 4. Fantasy fiction, American. I. Title.
PS3553.O5536I57 2014
813'.54—dc23
2013028356
e-ISBN 9781466809079
First Edition: March 2014