A Rope of Thorns

by Gemma Files

  “Perhaps,” he said quietly. “But that might be why they get caught so easy, too. Not to mention how witches bear witch-children, eventually—and more than half the time, both drink each other dry. We men are spared that bargain, at least.”

  “Except,” Fennig countered, “here, we don’t need t’be.” He looked at the people beginning to gather along both street-sides, watching them pass: a hodgepodge of male and female, old and young, black and brown, red and pale, even a sprinkling of true Chinee-yellow, the sort Miss Songbird’s pig-pale skin would never support. Plus various children, owl-blinking at their parents’ elbows; Fennig nodded their way. “Some of those might be hexes-in-waiting already, but that don’t mean we gotta be fearful. I could raise up a son, here, Reverend . . . you, too.”

  The truth of that shook him, twisting Rook’s gut in a way he could never have expected. With numb dread, he thought: What we do here has changed things already. Won’t stop, either, just ’cause she don’t see it happening.

  “A man wants to change his circumstances might do better to have no kin in tow, though,” Rook observed, voice deceptively even. “One thing I’ve learned in this vocation, Henry . . . trust comes easier, when there’s less to lose.”

  The three-fingered hand danced lightly up, making some mock-casual adjustment—and Rook felt the icy touch of Fennig’s regard fix on him, peering inwards. For answer, he drew on his own mojo, like a lawman clearing his guns; force pressed ’gainst force a moment, as the air seemed to hush. Then Fennig let his breath out, dropping hand to belt, and Rook showed his appreciation for the gesture by returning the favour.

  “Don’t dream too big, son, is all I suggest,” he told Fennig, without rancour. “’Cause Christ knows, this ain’t no democracy, and it ain’t our dreams take pride of place. That’s the kind’a mistake leads a man to the Machine.”

  Fennig’s jaw tightened. “There’s some might be thinkin’ to make that mistake, sure. But I ain’t one of ’em.”

  “Just as well. Those risin’ against me might have some chance. Those risin’ against her? None at all.”

  “Well, laying any talk of ‘rising’ by . . .” Fennig waved his hand, dismissing all thoughts of conflict. “Don’t see no reason we can’t make some improvements, nonetheless. For all our benefits.”

  “Laudable goal, Henry. Others feel the same, you know of?”

  “Not all of ’em, no. But we don’t need all—some’s bound for that Machine of yours, just like you said, no matter what they do.”

  “And more arriving every day,” Rook agreed, echoing Fennig’s earlier remark. Then, having reached the processional’s penultimate length, “Temple Square” itself, he paused, then asked: “Care to help me welcome some more of ’em, Mister Fennig?”

  “Rev . . . I’d count myself honoured.”

  With no tangible walls to defend, travellers to New Aztectlan could simply make their way in from any compass point over the newly be-greened plain, straight for the city’s heart—but only if they were a hex, or in a hex’s company. Any Call-deaf mundane stranger got within a thousand paces was sent on his way, memory glamour-blotted. And when a hex found his way in at last, he was drawn to the square before the Blood Engine’s ziggurat like iron to a magnet, knowing in his bowels to wait ’til the Rainbow Lady or her consort appeared to administer the Oath.

  Ixchel had first taught Rook the Oath as a long invocation in her native speech, its meaning only made clear through shared hexation; Rook hadn’t stumbled through it more than twice before substituting a shorter, English version, rightly sensing that the words mattered not nearly so much as the fundamental consent they articulated—a permanent locking in of souls.

  Service I pledge to the Suicide Moon,

  Obedience to Her High Priest;

  Fellowship to the City’s children—

  This I swear, on my own power’s pain;

  This I swear, to loss of blood and life,

  That the Engine fail not to bring another World.

  Once voiced, the Oath branded itself scar-black on the brain, unforgettable, yet almost never truly understood. All its adherents knew was that on the Oath’s last word, as they let their blood fall upon the Temple’s soil with whatever was nearest to hand, both the aching pull of the Call itself and that maddening lifelong hunger they’d all carried simply broke, like a fever . . . washed away, its last remnants retreating deep within. And suddenly, they were free.

  But that “freedom’s” truth lay hid in the Oath itself, for those wise enough to parse it proper; the hunger was not gone, just transmogrified. Which left their pledge a hook sunk deep into every heart, key to an ever-leaking sluice gate that could be flung wide at any moment, emptying them of hexation and life both in one bright, fatal flood.

  Might be that was why some balked at the last second, sensing the trap, and fought rather than submit—much good though it did them against Rook, let alone Ixchel. The Oath, once broke, drunk them up altogether, leaving their blank-eyed bodies to be bent backwards over an altar stone.

  In New Aztectlan, blood was the key to every door: those leading in, and out.

  Inside the square, Rook was met by a small crowd of petitioners, all of them murmuring requests while offering up small gewgaws, which straightaway disappeared into the many pockets of Rook’s capacious black coat. He could never give as much help as he might wish, but he always accepted the gifts; taking someone’s tribute meant you took ’em serious, and ofttimes that simple feeling of having been heard, acknowledged, was help enough. Priesthood was priesthood.

  Fennig, meanwhile, was met by his own little knot of followers: three young women—two brunettes, one blonde, and none of them, Rook guessed, past twenty summers—who bestowed looks on him which ranged the full spectrum from worshipful-affectionate to outright exasperated. Shrewd face lit up by their approach, Fennig bussed them all with impartial enthusiasm, then turned back to Rook, beaming.

  “Rev, it’s my right and honest pleasure to introduce you to my ladies.” Fennig spread his three fingers and twitched each in turn toward a girl, a mountebank’s flourish. “Miss Berta Schemerhorne”—the first brunette, tall and willowy in dark green—“Miss Clodagh Killeen”—the blonde, a pert, freckle-faced miss—“and Miss Eulalia . . . Eulie . . . Parr.” The second brunette was dark-complected enough to make Rook suspect some hopped bedsheets lay behind her distinctly English surname. “All of courage uncommon, and toughness unmatched by any dockside bingo-boy you could name.”

  Berta glowed; Eulie coloured yet darker; buxom little Clodagh scowled.

  “Fine words, ye flimmery Nativist fancy-man,” she snapped, “given how little the choice we any of us had in coming here.”

  “Aw, Clo—”

  “Don’t you ‘aw, Clo’ me!”

  He raised his hands, but she slapped them away. And as she did—Rook glimpsed a spark pass between, skin to skin: Blue-white, bending the air, leaving an ozone whiff behind. The other two saw it, cutting eyes at each other; the Schemerhorne gal laid a calming palm on the small of Clo’s back, sending some sort of shimmer pulsing forward to outline the restive heart beneath in light.

  While Eulie, in turn, made a cat’s cradle flicker with both hands, casting threads fine as spider’s silk to pull Clo closer, hug her tight. Saying, as she did: “Can’t take on so at every little thing, sissy, and you know it—now, don’t you? Ain’t good for the baby.”

  Rook straightened slowly, breathing suddenly difficult; those corset-stays of hers were loose-laced, now he looked closer. And set damnable high, to boot.

  “You’re—all hexes,” he said, at last. “And . . .”

  Fennig nodded. “Clo’s caught short, yeah. So’s you can understand my investment in makin’ this place a true home, stead’a just once more room in Herself’s house.”

  Miss Berta turned Rook’s way, dropping a polite curtsey, to add—“We didn’t suspect, not at first. Back in the Points, it was only Henry, and when he said he had to go, well . . .
I wasn’t too minded to stay behind, without him; thankfully, the others agreed. Then, on the road, it came to us each one by one: dreams at night, tricks and spells by morning, and then—” She looked down at her feet, which were bare but white, soles soft, as though she’d worn shoes most of the rest of her life. “It was hard to stay together, for a while. But we didn’t want to leave Henry, no matter what Clo might say. None of us.”

  Sound familiar, Reverend? his own mind whispered, mockingly.

  True, it didn’t seem reasonable to think he and Chess had been something wholly unique in the annals of all hexation, but still . . . it hurt, more than Rook would’ve guessed, to see his own story played out again, threefold.

  Three women, each equal-powerful. Three chances to speak plain, be heard and understood, be forgave your trespasses. A three-fold marriage without any of ’em harried by the thought of mutual damnation, or love turned to murder in a nightmare-swift eye-flick.

  In that one instant, he envied Fennig and his pimp’s roster of lovelies so intensely, it made him sick—so much so that were he a far worse man, assuming that was even possible, he would’ve gladly killed ’em all, and walked away whistling.

  Fennig almost seemed to see it, too—the beginnings of it, at any rate. He angled himself subtly to nudge Clo back behind him, just in case Rook saw fit to strike.

  Don’t want it to come to that, if it don’t have to, Rook was surprised to realize. I’d rather by far have this one with me than against me—and his womenfolk, too.

  A moment only—less, perhaps.

  ’Til one second was split headlong from the next by a shout, somewhere by the southernmost intake gate—“Reverend Rook! I need words with you, gringo!”

  And this, too, reminded him of Chess: the glad relief of imminent threat, distraction through destruction. So, shrouding himself in a tarry halo, Rook turned to defend Hex City and his lady’s dubious honour against this latest challenger.

  “Here I am,” he said.

  Chapter Ten

  The group set dead-centre in front of him stood together, some fourteen strong, and only now did Rook see how their stance differed from the usual supplicants’: shoulder to shoulder, braced and spread-footed, intently focused. Strangely, the clear leader—a leathery man in buckskins whose grey hair still showed streaks of south-of-the-Border black—was the one man Rook didn’t recognize. All others had been Oathed weeks previous; a passel of young male hexes, most of ’em likewise Mex or part-Mex, with glyphs, fresh-smeared in red, shining from their worn serapes and dusty shirts.

  A compact, then: some sort of coup in the making. And since Ixchel wasn’t to hand, it would fall to him to crush it ’fore it got the chance to take root, let alone spread.

  Not that the Mother of Hanged Men ever deigned to do much of her own hunting—even in those first days, when the City comprised no more than a few dozen citizens, she’d more often than not been content to name the offender to Rook, and stand back. But the few times she had taken a hand herself still loomed large. One offender—some white-bearded old English gaffer, strong as Rook and twice as crafty, who’d styled himself a true wizard—was lofted up by invisible talons into the air and boiled away to a cloud of shreds while Ixchel stood rock-still beneath, not even looking at the man as he died; just set her jaw and smiled, as the precious blood fell like sticky rain. Another, some N’Orleans voodooist who claimed to channel spirits more powerful than the Ball-Court’s denizens, was shown her error when every fetish she wore exploded simultaneously, unravelling her from the ankles up.

  Compared to further complicity in that sort of wanton slaughter, Rook was glad to assume the role of judge, jury and (unflinching, yet fairly humane) executioner—but intervene to slap down both challengers if a brawl not designed to oust the Lady broke out, just to make sure they didn’t lose anyone too potentially useful. The best way to tame wolves, Rook had always believed, was to make them your sheepdogs. And though he doubted so soft an option would satisfy this particular shaman’s honour, he probably owed it to the more peaceful New Aztectlanites—like Fennig, and his Missuses—to at least try.

  “Some say mercy is nothin’ but folly gussied up nice,” Rook began, adding a touch of skull-echo to his best preacher’s boom. “And while I’m not amongst ’em, necessarily, the law I enforce proceeds from far beyond me, admitting no quarter for defiance. So here’s all the clemency you’re likely to get, gentlemen: one warning. Stop, or be stopped.”

  The Mexican mage snarled, lips lifting back, and spat. Where it fell the earth turned to quartz, lifting free from the dirt with a sound like cracking glass.

  “Squawk on, carrion crow,’” he replied, scornfully. “This is Mexica business, only—so bring forth our goddess, whose throne you have usurped. We would have what she owes.”

  Rook kept his rope-burnt voice placid, even as his temper began to rise. “’Fraid you’ve been misinformed, Señor—there’s nobody talks to the Lady just for the asking, ancestry notwithstanding. You talk to me, I talk to her; maybe then, if you’re lucky. But probably not.”

  “’Cause that’s how you want it, huh?” one of the younger hexes called out, his coppery skin and broad cheekbones marking him more Diné than Mex. Rook thought of “Grandma,” whose true name he still didn’t know, and never would—that grim old shamaness who’d meant to educate him out of Ixchel’s clutches, only to lose her own life for the offer’s foolish softness—and felt his stomach twist with wary guilt, as the boy went on. “You get the Lady’s ear, Reverend, and the rest of us just have to knee it?”

  “’Cause that’s how she wants it, fool,” Rook snapped back. “I don’t have any more damn choice in the matter than you do: gods don’t bargain, as I’ve learned full well. So if you truly want her attention, do how she likes it best—throw yourself in now, and save me the bother.”

  The old mage snorted. “Think you’re the only Way-walker’s seen gods, gringo?” Something opened behind his anger like a second set of eyes, dreadful and hollow. “There’s more moving out there than her, Rook, or that skinless bed-boy of yours. Something else is coming too, and soon—something you’ve got no measure of, not in your darkest nightmares.”

  “Yeah? Well, that ain’t much of a surprise.” Rook made his voice like a wall, massive, impenetrable. “I’ve seen things’d turn the rest of your hair white, old man—and we’ll all see a whole lot more of such, before we’re through.”

  “But you don’t care to know what-all we got to say about it?” the Diné youth challenged.

  “Nope. And since you still don’t seem to understand, I’ll elucidate.” Without warning, Rook stomped down hard. A burst of black power detonated beneath his boot heel, shuddering the entire square in outward-arcing ripples; coupsters and citizenry alike grabbed at each other, just to stay upright. Only the great ziggurat stood unmoved. “See what I mean? Foregone conclusion. This place’ll keep on growing, be New Aztectlan ’til it isn’t anymore. Which is when them as ain’t in on this will wish to Christ Almighty that they were.

  “Now, you already drew your line in the sand just by comin’ here, so your only real choice is to take the Oath, spill blood and keep to the right side of it, from now on. Or . . .”

  “Or?” The chief mage said, expressionless.

  “. . . into the Machine you go. Like this.”

  Rook swung a backhand strike, lashing invisible tendrils ’round his opponent with casual ease. In his mind’s eye, he’d plotted an arc ending with this interloper slammed down atop the Temple’s highest altar, broken and bleeding. But when he hauled hard on the web of force, he staggered, as if he’d tried to lift the entire group at once. The snare fell away.

  Too surprised for fear, Rook stared, while the younger contingent exchanged looks of shock and glee admixed—same as any greenhorn who’d just seen some long-loathed rival laid out with a single punch.

  “You,” the stranger told Rook, “are not the only one who knows what can come of making a vow.”

 
; As he swooped both hands up, Rook saw the shaman’s co-rebels close their eyes, let their own hands go jerking skywards too, like marionettes. The old man clapped both fists together, sending a low thoom Rook’s way that seemed to pull the air after; their impact was thunder turned inside-out, all but silent.

  Then a tidal wave smashed into him, sent him flying back ’til he smacked the ground all stunned and aching, his shields shattering same as the spit-glass gone to dust under his feet. Rook fought to raise his head, fear beginning to push its way past shock at last—marked how the stranger stood watching, coiling the power his coterie had apparently willed through him ’round one arm, like a bullwhip. Behind, the younger hexes swayed in place, too discomfited anymore to grin; their faces drew tight, wincing, as Rook felt their broken Oaths suck at their sorcerously allied strength.

  The Mex, however, had sworn nothing, as yet. His strength was untouched, though hardly strong enough on its own merits to do such damage.

  Rook knew the feel of the Oath by now, could sense its constant shape: a green-black line heart-rooted in every sworn witch or warlock, then run down into the ground, to the Temple’s Mictlan-Xibalba-sounding depths. Yet even through pain-blurred eyes, inchoate nerve-ends sizzling with frustrated power, he perceived now how each rebel bore another set of binding cords: a cat’s cradle connecting comrade to comrade, ’til all spun finally back upon their leader, galvanizing him in a concentric circuit.

  Together, Rook thought. Working together. Lending each other their strength—or he’s taking it, at the least, and they’re letting him. How can that be?

  Here Grandma entered his brain, yet once more—had the bitch ever truly quit it? Reminding him of that black marriage she’d dangled in front of him, back when he’d still dreamed he could have his Chess without eating him: mutual cancellation, self-sacrifice. They may live, but not as Hataalii. . . .

  They swore to him, Rook realized, numbly. Another Oath, to share their power, so he could use it to break free of hers.