by K. Eason
Veiko watched from the rim of his eye as she stalked another handful of paces into the tunnel. Watched her call witchfire into her hands and peel the shadows off the walls, the ceiling. A huge tunnel, to a skraeling’s eyes. But Veiko had spent too much time in Illharek, among the conjured vastness. This was the width of an Illhari road. The ceiling hung an armslength over his head, enough that a tall legion soldier could carry her bow and javelins easily.
“This tunnel’s been blocked up since—hell, I don’t know. Not long after the Purge, my guess. Everyone comes and goes from Cardik on the roads Above. I’ve never heard of a Below route. It’s probably longer and less efficient.” Snow sober, quiet—angry, as he had not seen her since the night the old God had come to bargain with her. “What I want to know is, how’d anyone even know this was there?”
“Tal’Shik would know.”
“Tal-fucking-Shik.”
Veiko expected Snow to demand how, how she would know. Then he intended to remind her what happened when one spirit destroyed another, how the winner absorbed the loser into itself and was changed. Thus, the new Laughing God, born of Tsabrak’s murder of his old master. But it worked for godsworn, too, even among the Dvergiri: those godsworn went to their gods, who were only greedy spirits, who absorbed what their followers knew. Thus, Tal’Shik’s terrible power, made of all the spirits given to her in sacrifice or devotion. She might have learned about this tunnel from one of them, any and many across the generations, and passed that knowledge on to her godsworn.
His mind skated sideways. That would happen to Snowdenaelikk when she died. The God would take her knowledge, everything that she was, and know what she knew. Just as well she refused all Veiko’s teaching. The Laughing God did not need a noidghe’s knowledge.
But neither did Tal’Shik. She’d been after him since she’d realized what he could do. And if he kept on this path, kept coming at her, she would have him. She would kill him and take what he knew, all of who he was, all his songs.
“Veiko?”
Snow peered at him, witchfire raised like a candle, equal parts concerned and impatient and fully prepared to disbelieve whatever excuse he gave her for his lapse.
All right. He would skip past the fine, it is nothing, and her toadshit, tell me. He would also skip the truth. He stepped over the root of the problem and picked up the next plausible thread.
“Where will this tunnel come out?”
“I’m betting the Suburba. That’s where the rivers all end up. Eventually. Assuming that end isn’t blocked. And also assuming these people don’t die along the way, that’s where they’ll come out. What kind of a mess do you think that’ll cause? Bunch of starving people come spilling into the streets. The Senate will send the legions into the Suburba, and then we’ll have Cardik all over again.”
“We are at least ten days away, moving overland. These firepits are far older. They should have been in Illharek long since. We would have seen them before we ever left.”
“Or not. The S’Ranna can’t come straight from the Jaarvi, yeah? Rivers don’t flow uphill, even Below. There might be a network, maybe natural, maybe conjured. Since this tunnel was blocked up, I’d guess it’s not an efficient path. Hell. It might not go all the way through at all. Those people might be dead down a blocked tunnel.”
Veiko squatted. Peered to the witchfire’s limits. “Perhaps some Taliri went with them, and they are searching the paths, using the citizens as scouts. Or as sacrifices for their own success.”
“There’s a thought.” Snow grimaced. “Got to warn Dek, yeah? Only, we can’t go back yet. There’s a fucking dragon out there.”
“You could send Briel.”
“Sure. There’s a Taliri army hiding between here and Illharek. Lots of archers.”
“I can open the ghost roads for her.”
Snow looked even less happy. “Right. Fine. I can write a message. Got a scrap of leather in here someplace, I think.” She slid the pack off her shoulder. Crouched beside it and rummaged through its guts. Pulled a strip of fine, fragile leather out and waved it at him. “And I do.”
Snow pulled a needle from her kit. Held it a moment, staring at it. Then she passed it through the witchfire. Murmured something too low for Veiko’s ears, and passed it through the flame a second time. This time, the needle came out glowing, as if the witchfire had gotten trapped in the steel. She stabbed her fingertip. A tendril of witchfire ran off the needle and into the wound, into the blood, so that it glowed like blue embers. When she touched the leather, blood and blue remained.
She had tried to teach him letters. Enough, at least, that he could scratch the Illhari sigils from memory, assemble simple words and speak them back if he encountered them. But it was a laborious process, dragging the stylus through the wax. Futile and foolish. Words were fragile. Easily destroyed. He had watched her heat the tablets and smooth his scratching blank. Candlemarks of labor, gone in a brace of heartbeats.
Ink was for permanent work, she said, which Veiko thought foolish, too. Ink faded. Smeared. Washed away. Blood as ink, though—that was a very Illhari solution. They tattooed their House sigils into their flesh, their citizenship, status marked in blood and ink, as if flesh itself were permanent.
They understood the power, yes, but not how to properly use it.
Veiko took himself back outside, where the sun still held the clouds at bay. The wurm was not in evidence. He looked back and up, over the mountains where she had gone. The afternoon storm was already building, piling clouds the color of pewter over the mountains.
He narrowed his eyes against the glare. Stared down over Cardik’s remaining roofs. At the forest beyond, green and solid, and the mountain ridges. Turned his face south and pretended he could see all the way to Illharek. It was a long way for a lone svartjagr to fly. Dangerous even without the Taliri or the wurm. The message was important, yes, but Briel was more so.
A noidghe had his own tricks that would buy a svartjagr passage on roads no Talir would watch, where no godmagicked storm would touch. Taru would not approve it; but he was not asking her permission.
He drew the small knife at his belt. Dragged the metal across the meat of his hand and squeezed. Whispered as the blood dripped. It never struck stone.
He felt the ghosts gathering, whispering. Felt the mist rising, invisible and cold and curious.
“Passage,” he whispered. He held out his hand, dripping with coin.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Snow stopped partway up the tunnel. Her left hand clenched around the note, wadding the leather into her palm. Just as well she’d used conjured ink. Proof against rain and smudges. Proof against a sudden cold sweat in her palms. Proof, one hoped, against ghosts.
Because there was her partner, singing to a hole filled with mist that hung in the middle of honest stone and air, leaking a cold deeper than cave-chill. Veiko sang, and the hole whispered back. Ghost voices. There were shapes in that mist, so many, like a crowd on the Riverwalk, all gathered and waiting for him.
Veiko turned then and noticed her. Held out his own hand. He wasn’t looking at her, not really. Looking past her. Through her. Into those toadfucking ghost roads.
“This will be safer for Briel,” he said, “than going over the forests.”
Snow set her jaw. Held her breath and walked forward, toward that hole in the world.
Briel arrived then, in a flap and gust of warm summer air. She landed on Veiko’s shoulder, twined her tail around his torso. Snaked her head toward Snow and chrripped a greeting. She wasn’t worried about ghosts or dragons or dead people.
So you’re braver than me, yeah?
Snow patted the svartjagr’s nose. Briel twisted her head around to watch, one-eyed, as Snow tied the message to her neck with a leather thong.
“You let Dekklis get this off, yeah? Only Dekklis.”
Briel hissed. She had an opinion of Dekklis that was not completely positive, that was entirely mutual, that didn’t matter.
; “Dekklis,” Snow said again. She checked the knots. Smoothed her hand over Briel’s neck and shoulder, over the complicated architecture of bone and muscle at the base of her wing.
Careful, she wished at Briel. You fly safe.
Veiko turned that unfocused, looking-somewhere-else stare at her. “Briel will be fine. The ghosts will watch over her.”
Because that was such a comfort. Snow pointed. “I’ll be back there, yeah? Come find me when you’re done ripping holes in the world.”
Then she turned and walked back down the tunnel. Logi went with her. Smart dog.
That was what Veiko wanted her to be. Noidghe. Fuck and damn, she didn’t want that. She hadn’t asked to die, yeah, hadn’t asked to see ghosts. She curled her fingers around the godmark. She hadn’t wanted to be godsworn, either, and here she was. But at least she’d chosen that. Chosen
Tsabrak
the power she understood. It was too late to play noidghe now.
Tell yourself that.
What her choice meant for this partnership, hell if she knew. Godsworn and noidghe. It sounded like the beginning of one of those tavern songs, the ones that always ended badly.
Her witchfire came easily here, in the caves. Cast a gentle blue navigation through the chaos of the abandoned campsite so that Snow did not step into a shit pile or a firepit. Poor idiots. The place smelled like fear, like desperation—like people huddled and clueless. Not angry, like the mobs in the Warren. Not focused, like the Taliri invaders. Terrified.
Let those people survive all the way to Illharek, they’d be sick and panicked. They’d be full of stories, too, about what happened here. The fall of the Republic’s biggest border city, swept aside by the Taliri as easily as cobwebs before a broom. Let those stories loose in the Suburba, and Illharek would break from the bottom up, bondies and servants and panic, while the highborn hid on the far side of their bridges and their Tiers. Or worse, fuck and damn: let Taliri raiders into the city through the Suburba, and there’d be blood in all the streets, just like Cardik. Or. Hell. Angry dead coming out in the Suburba. Think of that.
Dek would figure some way to stop it. Dek and Bel.
But not me? You don’t think I’ll help?
The God stepped out of the shadows. Fell in beside her, opposite Logi. Dog on one side, god on the other. Enough to make a woman laugh, only a little hysterically.
“You, help. That’s funny. I remember when you wanted this to happen. What did you say? Riot and revolution. Blood and fire.”
Her voice came out too loud. The tunnel took the words and sent them ahead, behind, bounced them off floor and ceiling and made Logi start. She patted apology, smoothed the surprise along his spine.
That was the old God. He thought the way to do that was to take down the Republic. I know better.
“Yeah? I reckoned you’d like all the panic of a good invasion. I think you’d feed on it. Use it. Let it take down the Tiers for you. Then Illharek falls.”
I might, if I thought the Taliri would tolerate me better than the highborn.
“So you’ll help the highborn now, is that it?”
The God’s eyes flared. The bones of his face melted and reformed. It was Istel looking back at her now, shredded and translucent. I’ll help Dekklis.
“That’s Istel talking.”
Maybe.
Maybe, hell. Save Istel from the ghost roads; give Tsabrak a conscience. She knew how Istel felt about it. The God, though. “Are you sorry you saved him?”
The God considered. Istel’s features flickered, sliding into Tsabrak’s, sliding back. Maybe. Are you sorry that you begged for his life?
“I didn’t beg. And no.”
No. You bargained. And for that, I’m not sorry.
“Of course you aren’t. Your godsworn now, aren’t I. Your right hand.”
The God shimmered back to Tsabrak’s beauty. You always were that.
“Toadshit.”
His eyes glowed like coals, all the fire banked and sullen. Believe what you want, yeah?
Right hand wasn’t partner. Right hand was a weapon, a tool. Did knives mind what they cut? She hadn’t. Didn’t.
“Illharek might not need your help. Tal’Shik helped build the Republic. I don’t think she’ll let Taliri destroy it.”
The Republic threw her out. Tal’Shik loves conflict, yeah? But she loves revenge, too. Don’t trust her loyalty. The God’s face was Tsabrak’s again, beautiful and cold. She’s the enemy now. That’s all.
“That’s what Belaery says.”
So Belaery’s right. A laugh, finally, dry and soft as dust. Don’t tell her I said so.
“But you changed, yeah? I mean, the God did.” She flapped hands at him. “You. Tsabrak killed you, and now you’re not the same God I remember. Sure as toadshit you’re not plain old Tsabrak anymore, either.”
A spasm like pain. Like grief. The God looked at the tunnel wall. Traced a translucent hand across the stone. I remember—being Tsabrak. And the old God.
“Busy place in your head, yeah? Oh hell, don’t look at me like that. You want blind adoration, you go talk to Ari. You say you want to help end Tal’Shik, fine. Then go help Dekklis. Though what you can do, I don’t know. The Illhari highborn are turning all devout. They’ll at least be united. Kellehn says the Taliri are tearing themselves apart.”
Kellehn. The God sneered. Taliri bootlicker.
“You’re just mad that he called you Usurper.”
Cold, dry, the worst of Tsabrak’s temper: No. I’m mad because he wants you dead, yeah? And you seem inclined to go along with it. He took you to that garrison and left you to die. Don’t let him try again. The Republic needs you alive, Snow, or it will fall. Go home.
The mark on her palm tingled. So that was what it felt like, getting godsworn directives. She made a fist. Dug her nails into the palm. Sometimes, a knife turned on its wielder.
“I fucking know all that. Or I guessed it. But that dragon’s still a problem, and Veiko’s got a plan to kill it. Some noidghe rot about ‘learning the wurm-shape,’ fighting her that way.” She shrugged, suddenly guilty. “It’s not really rot. It’ll work. His noidghe stuff does.”
The witchfire found a bend in the tunnel. Snow stopped and looked back. The main cavern was nearly invisible from here, a dark grey smudge in the black that had swallowed her partner. Her gut twisted. Veiko might’ve gone through the ghost roads, for all she could see, except she knew he wouldn’t just leave her. Partners didn’t.
The God said nothing for several steps. Then: Veiko will die if he fights Tal’Shik’s avatar alone, whatever secrets he’s learned.
The God’s certainty sank claws into her chest. Tugged at her breath. “He won’t be alone. I’ll be there.”
Then you both die. But she wants him, and she’ll get him.
“Toadshit. She’s tried to get him before. Didn’t do so well. He hurt her. And he knows more things now. Songs.”
Snowdenaelikk. Smoke curled out of his eyes, nose, mouth. She will devour him, yeah? That may allow him to change her a little bit, from the inside, for a time. Or it may end him entirely. But he’ll be gone. And even if he does defeat her, there’s a price for it. He’ll take her power into himself, like I took the old God’s. He won’t be just Veiko anymore. He’ll be a little bit her. Or a lot.
She counted ten in slow breaths. Didn’t help the knife in her chest. Twist, with every heartbeat. “Veiko’s not that kind of idiot. And his ancestor won’t let him do something that stupid. He’s got no godsfucked reason.”
Oh, temper. Of course he does. He made a promise to you, didn’t he? Kill Tal’Shik and clear your debt from your bargain with the old God.
“The old God killed me. I’d say that cleared the debt.”
Peace, Snow. The God grimaced, and it was Istel’s face again, plain and honest. I don’t hold you to any debts, and Veiko hasn’t bargained with me for your freedom. I tell you what I see, that’s all. He still holds to that promise.
; She wanted to call him liar. The Laughing God, Tsabrak—they had a history of it. But this sounded like truth. Like Veiko’s version of sense. Fight a battle he couldn’t win, make Tal’Shik devour him. Maybe he’d count that victory enough, being Veiko. Tear his enemy apart from within.
Exactly what they needed, wasn’t it? Someone to break Tal’Shik from the inside. But it didn’t need to be Veiko.
And if Illharek falls, Snow, then what?
Then let it fall. The Republic had other cities. The Republic had two toadshit gods. She had one partner. Hell if she’d lose him that way.
Her eyes burned. Blurred. Blame the headache for that, twin daggers behind both eyes. Briel was gone, out of range, no longer sending. There was a hole in her head where the svartjagr had been. Where Veiko had been. Fuck and damn, felt like losing an eye. Feel worse than that, wouldn’t it, if she lost him altogether.
But there was nothing wrong with her ears. Bootscuff on stone from behind her, and Logi unalarmed at her side and that meant:
“Veiko.”
He solidified out of the gloom. “Briel is away. Dekklis will have your message by tonight.”
“Good.”
A breath, then: “I heard your voice.”
“Just talking to the God, yeah?”
Veiko’s voice flattened. “I did not intend to interrupt.”
“You didn’t. We were done.” She reached for his left wrist. The cut on his palm still oozed. Dark streaks trailed between his fingers, onto his wrist. “Thought you weren’t supposed to use blood. Wasn’t that what you told me? Too much power in it?”
“There was not time for other bargains. Blood is quickest, and the message was urgent.”
“You shouldn’t do stupid toadshit just because I ask for it.”
He blew out a breath, amusement and exasperation together. “I did not. I do not.” He looked down at her hand on his arm. “The God said something that upset you. What?”
All the bones in her hand ached. Her arm did, along the scar, every tendon hot and stiff as wire. Tell him nothing, he wouldn’t believe it. And she wasn’t in the habit of lying to him. She drew breath and looked at his face again, into those witchfire eyes.
