“Why waste our time? There are no Judges here.”
Ramp sipped wine. “Because I’ve worked against people like you before,” she said.
“Like me.”
“Jumped-up junior Craftswomen with a swollen sense of their superiority to the morally compromised elder generation. You mistake the ability to walk without a parent’s aid for competence. In your world everything has an explanation, an ultimate motive, and all you have to do is dissect and diagram these for a Judge, as if the court were a nanny who could ease your pain. I wouldn’t put it past you to have witnesses on the other end of this link, though it runs against common decency.”
“Decency.” Her fingers tightened on the skull. “As if you have a right to talk. Daphne—”
“Ms. Mains,” she said, “was a tragic loss, but don’t dare talk to me about her as if you understand. Did you seek her out? I did, after Alexander’s death. She lay in a bed, dreaming horrors. Her family kept her in a tower room, surrounded by the stuffed toys of her childhood, tended by a live-in nurse. Unable to care for herself in the most basic ways, at twenty-two. And she was still inside that wasted meat, do you understand? Suffering. Broken. A mind in pieces. I fixed her. I offered her a path out, and I made her take it. The pieces of her that were gone, I rebuilt. I filled her hollows with demonglass. I summoned and bound beings into her body. In the end she was almost herself again.”
“And you talk about the man who broke her as if he was some kind of saint.”
“He was a genius, which is something other than a saint. And in his genius he left many projects, including Ms. Mains, and I daresay you, unfinished. I have always been more of a theorist than a Technician, but we can’t afford to abandon his work.”
“His evil work.”
“And there you show your true colors. You, student of the Hidden Schools, child of centuries of struggle, fall back on that old pathetic word fools and idiots chanted at the first Craftswomen they bound in the stocks, while they warmed the branding irons.”
“We fought the God Wars for freedom, and you throw that struggle in my face to endorse the work of a madman developing better tools of slavery.”
“We fought the God Wars for power, child. That’s what freedom is. No one fights for any other reason.”
“You’re wrong.”
“Which of us do you think has the surer truth?” She spread her arms. “The one who believes continents are shattered in the name of high-minded ideals, or the one who believes contents are shattered because two people who can shatter continents want different things?”
Abernathy clutched the skull in her hands as if to crush it.
Ramp took her silence as license to continue. “The world is breaking. The Wars made cracks, and we have broken it further. Our work turns soil to ash and water to poison. Even as we push ourselves to the brink of doom, beings of a size you cannot comprehend watch us with many eyes across vast gulfs of space. The universe is larger than this petty island of rock. As if we needed an external threat: this planet will not last forever, and when it dies we must be elsewhere. We have not done the work we need. Gods slow us with compromise. Small minds see only small context: local politics and squabbles of history. It takes genius to see large enough to build the tools to break the world, not like a man breaks a mirror, but like a chick breaks an eggshell. And great minds keep their secrets close.”
“Here.” Abernathy traced the skull’s glyphs with one finger and cocked her head as if hearing voices far away. “That’s why you wanted it. Access to his networks, his students, all those unfinished projects. Me.”
“And again you invite me to support your demented conspiracy theory. Alexander’s intellectual property assets were professional secrets, not registered with any patent authority, and many of his resources operated on a trusted pair model—the keys reside within his body. As such, his body represents incalculable value.”
“I won’t sell it to you.”
Ramp swished wine and watched its legs roll down the inside of the glass. “Then why not help me strip the secrets from that skull, and save the world?”
“No.”
She sighed. “This, in the end, was always Alexander’s flaw.” She removed a piece of folded parchment from the pocket of her dressing gown. “He leapt to command. Better to ask first, and hold the power to command in reserve until it’s needed.” She unfolded the parchment. “Do you recognize this paper? Specifically, the signature at the bottom?”
Abernathy did not need to squint. “That’s a student loan contract. Mine.”
“Thank you.” Ramp set the parchment on the table beside the empty box. “I expected acquiring this to be more difficult, but the Hidden Schools were surprisingly cooperative. Education is not cheap; a shame, really, you haven’t made more progress paying it back. Working for gods is, alas, less lucrative than private practice. You owe me ninety-eight souls.” She set power into those words; the contract bound Ms. Abernathy, for all the distance that divided them. Ninety-eight souls of debt represented a great deal of leverage, and Madeline Ramp knew how to exploit leverage. “Bring me the skull, Tara.”
Her will closed around Abernathy like a hand. The woman stiffened. Her fingers tightened on the skull, until Ramp feared she might damage the bone. Her lips curved into an empty smile—
And kept curving into an expression decidedly more self-satisfied. Her eyes snapped into focus, and Ramp’s grip melted. “You might want to check that contract.” Ramp looked down, and as she watched, a silver-ink stamp took shape. Paid in full. “Work with gods isn’t lucrative from a salary standpoint, no. Especially not work with goddesses in incubation phase. That’s why our forebears invented contingency fees and performance bonuses.” She checked her watch. “I’m late for a meeting. We’ll have to skip the parting-threats phase of the conversation, which is a shame—I’ve never done one of those before. Still have to figure out what to do with this skull, though. Paperweight? Raz mentioned this Old World game with a ball and a flat wooden bat. The kind you hit stuff with, I mean, not the kind with wings. Anyway. Bye.”
Ramp stood in her tower, angry and alone.
* * *
The delegation climbed the Godmountain: Ms. Batan from the Two Serpents Group, a few CenConAg emissaries, bodies grown through with vines, a golem bearing the King in Red’s vision-gem. At the rear of the trail, escorted by a Craftsman with a gold watch and skin darker than Tara’s own, strode a thing that looked human, though made from shadow. Lines of darkness trailed fingers that walked a featureless silver disk down and up.
The two-page summary bios the delegations had sent around in advance did not include a first name for this person, or a pronoun of preference, or any other information for that matter.
Tara matched the shadow’s pace as she decided what to say.
“M. Grimwald,” she said. “I have a few questions, if you don’t mind.”
The shadow’s head inclined. The disk flashed. Was it silver after all?
“I don’t expect you have full knowledge of your, ah, firm’s operations. But I believe you recently supplied a shipment of indentured laborers for delivery to Alt Coulumb. You sourced them by early foreclosure on the credit lines of a divine refuge in Agdel Lex. The indenture’s purpose was to smuggle demons into Kos’s city—but the persons smuggled were instrumental in disrupting the smuggler’s plans. Which is a bit neat, if you ask me. Almost as if the person Ramp approached for help meant her to fail.”
The shadow’s footsteps sounded exactly as heavy as a normal person’s. An odd patina marred the surface of the coin.
“I’m pretty far out in my speculation,” she said. “Paranoid, even. But it never hurts to say thank you.” They had almost reached the summit. “So, thank you.”
Grimwald turned to her. Within the nothing of its face, its teeth were pure white and sharp. It offered her the coin, and she accepted. The coin was not silver at all, but cool, and rocky, and rough. The shadows on its surface were the same as
the shadows on the moon.
She passed the coin from hand to hand, and offered it back.
The moon-coin vanished up a white sleeve, and still the shadow smiled.
* * *
The Godmountain’s peak was flat, as if long prepared for this purpose. A stone table and chairs grew from living rock.
They sat and waited.
Shale emerged from the mountain like a bather from a pool.
The Keeper spoke through him.
Ninety percent of Craftwork was talking, so they talked. The conversation lasted three days and three nights. Tara realized as the first day stretched on that she and Ms. Batan were the only people present who needed to eat or sleep. She ordered takeout. Delivery was expensive, so she expensed it.
Sleep, she did without. That was why the Glebland gods made coffee.
On the third day, they built the body. The King in Red forged bones of steel with tools he produced from the pockets of his robe. The Grimwalds spun a nerve lattice from gold and necromantic earth. Tara made rock clay-pliant to shape the mountain’s legs and belly, back and chest and arms and head, scribed all around with glyphs and grooves. She placed a small clock spring where the heart should go, then sealed the chest and stepped back.
Shale examined the body with clinical precision and some disdain. Then the Keeper kissed the form of stone, and poured out through his lips. Red crystal grew in the grooves Tara carved.
The Keeper staggered back, and looked up for the first time in several thousand years at the stars.
Shale collapsed. Tara ran to him, professionalism be damned.
His eyes were green again.
“I came back,” she said.
He held out his hand, and she helped him rise.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Writing this book felt like coming home—and homecomings take work. You have to hang crepe paper, bribe the band, roll out the carpets, sneak up on the fatted calf … Well, anyway. Profuse thanks to my editor, Marco Palmieri, and to Irene Gallo and Chris McGrath, for a cover I can make star eyes at (though I didn’t mind the Spock-riding-a-unicorn mock-up, either). Gratitude and praise also to the usual band of readers, friends, and rock stars, including but in no respects limited to Alana Abbott, Vladimir Barash, John Chu, Amy Eastment, and Stephanie Neely. And, as I brooded on the manuscript, Amal El-Mohtar swung in through a window like Robin Hood to suggest a critical last-minute fix. Totally worth the broken glass on the carpet.
Every time I think I have charted the full bestness of Steph, I find whole other unmapped continents of best. If this goes on, um, well, I’d be totally fine with that.
David Hartwell published Three Parts Dead, and read every one of my novels after, and offered advice on each of them—and on each publication day, I sent him a nice bottle of whiskey. This year I have one fewer friend to send whiskey. I feel the loss.
OTHER BOOKS IN THE CRAFT SEQUENCE
Last First Snow
Two Serpents Rise
Three Parts Dead
Full Fathom Five
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
MAX GLADSTONE is a fencer, a fiddler, and a two-time finalist for the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer. He is fluent in Mandarin and has taught English in China. Max lives and writes in Massachusetts. Visit him on the Web at www.maxgladstone.com. Or sign up for email updates here.
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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
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Acknowledgments
Also by Max Gladstone
About the Author
Copyright
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.
FOUR ROADS CROSS
Copyright © 2016 by Max Gladstone
All rights reserved.
Cover art by Chris McGrath
A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
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New York, NY 10010
www.tor-forge.com
Tor® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.
The Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available upon request.
ISBN 978-0-7653-7942-9 (hardcover)
ISBN 978-1-4668-6841-0 (e-book)
e-ISBN 9781466868410
Our e-books may be purchased in bulk for promotional, educational, or business use. Please contact the Macmillan Corporate and Premium Sales Department at 1-800-221-7945, extension 5442, or by e-mail at [email protected].
First Edition: July 2016
Four Roads Cross Page 42
