It had by now dawned on Jame that she was confronting Abbotir of the Gold Court, Bane’s foster-father and Men-dalis’ first advisor.
“I last saw him in the Guild Palace,” she said, uncomfortably aware that this was dicing with the truth.
“Ha. That was when you assassinated the Sirdan. A chit like you, to bring down such a man . . . obscene.”
Jame had to try. “I didn’t kill Theocandi. My word of honor on it.”
“You.” Abbotir rounded on Harth. “Kencyr aren’t supposed to lie. Is she lying?”
The young lord was still regaining control of himself. “The death of honor, we call it. How can a thief be honorable?”
“You see?” Abbotir panted in Jame’s face, spraying her with spittle. His breath stank of whatever was killing him. “Liar.”
“I never lied to Bane.”
“Ha.” He had her by the throat now, bending her over backward. Yes, smoke, and a stench as if of smoldering flesh. How strong he was, given his wasted condition. “Then he lied to you. ‘Bane’ is only what he chose to call himself. His mother left a note: ‘You are the bane of my existence.’ I couldn’t beat that name out of him.”
“But . . . but then who is he?”
He threw her to the floor. “As if I would tell you. Now run, you filthy little whore. The guild is coming after you.”
“That went well,” said the Archiem, helping her to her feet. Abbotir was already at the door, shouting for his guard. “You had better leave now.”
“Thank you for breakfast,” said Jame, and fled.
III
OUT ON THE STREET, on the south bank of the river, she again took to the roofs to avoid pursuit, although she didn’t expect the brunt of that until the next night. Just the same, it was good that Rue wasn’t with her, she thought, clambering up a drainpipe. Like many Kendar, the cadet suffered from severe height-sickness. And she might well agree with Lord Harth’s attitude toward thieves.
At the top, Jame swung up over the eave. It had rained while she had been in Abbotir’s palace and the tiles were slick. Worse, they started to slide under her weight. The wood beneath groaned. She scrambled up to the peak and perched there, clutching the chimney pot, as the roof below her sloughed off like scaly, dead skin into the void. A moment later, out of sight, slate crashed to earth. The exposed timbers swarmed with woodlice. When sunlight struck them, they curled up and died. Jame gingerly stirred their husks with a gloved fingertip, finding them light, fragile, and quite wooden, like so many tiny, intricate carvings.
Was this a sign of the rot that Sparrow had deplored?
The roof peak sagged a bit, but didn’t seem to be going anywhere. Jame paused on it to catch her breath and to think.
Abbotir had said much that puzzled her. Did the guild lord know that Bane in fact was not his son?
“Mother says that I am a prince, but Father is no king.”
Bane had come to believe that that honor belonged to the priest Ishtier, which was also false.
“Didn’t I show him how best to direct his passions?”
Sweet Trinity, what had that meant?
Most of all, though, what was Bane’s true name? If she hadn’t given that to Dalis-sar, no wonder the Lower Town Monster had survived to this day, not to mention Bane’s other shattered aspects.
Beyond all of that, she was collecting clues, but what did they mean? The dead gods, mostly Old Pantheon, had come back. Tai-tastigon’s New Pantheon had simultaneously been diminished. Both had something to do with the Kencyr temple, but what? Then too, those poor folk in the Lower Town had lost their shadows and presumably the souls that cast them. According to Loogan, more of the bereft wandered the streets. And what did happen if they died in such a state?
The dead did seem to be returning, or at least some of them.
Had she really seen Dally’s reflection in his brother’s quarters? Yes, judging from Men-dalis’ reaction, if that was to be trusted. Had Dally really been in the garden, though, or was he reflected as he had stood behind his brother? The latter would have put him also, unobserved, beside her, a thought which made the short hairs on the back of her neck rise. Dally was the adopted son of Dalis-sar. Was that divine connection enough to bring him back, or was his brother’s presumed guilt, or were both in combination?
Then too, Men-dalis was adept at casting illusions. Had he fooled even himself this time? Her glimpse of what appeared to be Dally’s d’hen made her wonder. Was Men-dalis really wearing it or did he only think that he was?
Somehow, though, Dally’s return didn’t seem to fit in with that of the dead gods. It was more . . . personal, at least to her and to Men-dalis. But there must be some connection.
Eh. She truly had too little information and had guessed wrong before, many times.
So many questions. Where to find answers?
Time to talk to some gods, if she could find any.
IV
THE TEMPLE DISTRICT was built along lines unique in the city. Each structure fitted into its older neighbors any which way, creating a puzzle box approach to architecture. Walls were not shared, unless one cantilevering over another collapsed. More had fallen in this way than Jame remembered, most of them revealing dark, apparently deserted spaces within. Whatever was happening to the New Pantheon gods of Tai-tastigon, it was having a widespread effect.
Somewhere, a wall collapsed. Tick, tick, tick went dust in narrow back alleys.
In counterpoint, rainwater dripped from overhangs.
Jame paused outside the closed door of Gorgo’s sanctuary. Were his followers inside, keeping vigil for his safety and their own, or had they all fled? Where was Loogan?
Once, she had effectively killed the little deity by destroying his priest’s faith in him. At the time, she had been experimenting on the gods of the city under the impression that they were false. Monotheism breeds such cruelty. Then she had helped to resurrect Gorgo by restoring his congregation and, eventually, Loogan’s belief in his existence. Trinity, she had been thoughtless in those days. Was she any wiser now?
Loogan clearly didn’t know what was going on. Did anyone? Now that she was here, whom could she ask?
As she walked on, she passed other temples that pulsed with worship. Chants, groans, and the occasional shriek echoed in the streets. Clouds of incense billowed out of open doors. Celebrants sat on the front steps getting a breath of fresh air before plunging back inside. A troop of initiates trotted past, splashing through puddles, whacking their penitent superiors on the back of the head with hymnals as they ran.
Here was a street that looked familiar. Surely Dalis-sar’s temple lay down this way, and so it did. Its doors stood open and light spilled down the steps—not the blinding glare of the sun god that she remembered, but bright enough to make her wince. Serious worship was going on within.
A large figure sat on the curb, looking disconsolate. Jame settled cautiously beside him, noting his clothes—old-fashioned plate armor with an embroidered surcoat slung over it. His long hair was drawn back in an archaic braid. His features were hard to make out in the shimmer of heat that rose between the joints of his panoply, especially from the neck of his breastplate.
“What’s going on?” she asked.
“They’ve desanctified the temple for repairs.” He had a deep, hollow voice, as mournful as she had ever heard. The puddles at his feet steamed. “Maybe that will help.”
“Help what?”
“The temple is faltering, as so many are at present. What will we do if it fails?”
“Find a different god?”
“Some are already looking.”
Jame regarded him askance. From this angle, she could distinguish a big, square face, mature but unlined, like that of an overgrown boy who has not yet lost his innocence.
“What will you do?” she asked, delicately testing the situation.
“I? Stay here as long as I am needed, then . . . go home, I suppose. How long have I been gone? It feels like an age.�
��
“Where did you come from?”
“Oh, from the temple guard to the south, in Tai-than, of course. I was a soldier . . . still am, I suppose, although I am not often called on to fight these days. Heliot was king, then, the last that Tai-tastigon knew. What a cruel man. He wanted to be a god, and not just that: the king of gods. All must worship him, even He of the Three Faces.”
“I can’t see that going well.”
“No. Heliot besieged our temple, here in Tai-tastigon. It called out for help. Tai-than sent its guards, us, although it was having problems of its own. This was a time when the natives first noticed our existence and strength. I sometimes wonder what we would have done if they had all converted. Panicked, maybe. But no: it went the other way.
“Anyway, we met outside the city on the eastern plain. Heliot brought fire to the battle. The earth burned. So did my friends. So did I. Then the rain came. My mates were dead by then, and I was dying. The citizens kept me alive to fight him and I did. Beat him, too. The irony was that the sacrifice of his worshippers had indeed made Heliot a god, but with his defeat they lost faith in him and he died. I don’t remember much for a long time after that, until I woke up in this temple. I like these people. I owe them my life. But sometimes I do long to be among my own kind.”
Jame had edged away from him as he spoke, as a precaution. “Your name was Sar Dalis, wasn’t it?” she said. “You were a randon sargent.”
He gave a rueful snort. “My mates called me ‘Salad.’ I never understood why.”
Something . . . someone, was coming down the street.
The overlapping temples cast afternoon shadows. So did lingering rain clouds, so that the street alternately dimmed and brightened, but never with a direct ray. Then, stabbing through this gloom, came blades of light. At first they emerged from around a corner, striking upward through jagged layers of architecture and downward aslant across wet cobblestones. Celebrants scattered off the road. Temple doors slammed.
Then a figure strolled into sight.
Dalis-sar rose. He was huge, much bigger than Marc, but his outline wavered against the surrounding rooflines.
“Heliot,” he said.
The other bared crooked teeth in a grin. Framing it, under the bald dome of a head, was a bushy red beard that stirred in an updraft of hot air. He wore golden armor dimmed by the overcast, yet still intermittently brilliant. The gleam that emerged from its joints showed best against shadows; when the street briefly brightened, it faded like flames in sunlight, although heat still rolled off of it. His figure, thus, seemed to shrink and swell as he advanced, in and out of the steam that erupted from puddles under his feet. Briefly, his form coalesced around that of a haughty man in heavy, rich robes who appeared oddly familiar. Then he swelled again until he had to bend under the overlapping roofs.
Jame drew back. Dalis-sar did not.
“Hello, boy,” boomed the former king. “Didn’t expect to see me again, did you?”
“My people told me that you had returned. That you can walk by daylight surprises me somewhat.”
“Ha, ha, ha. Yet here you are too, while others hide. We are not of the common run, you and I. That comes, I think, of us both having once been mortal. Mind you, I see no other advantage to that state, and escaped it as soon as my followers’ sacrifice allowed me to.”
“I remember your warriors facing ours in battle. They thought it an honor to die in your name.”
“So it was, boy. How else? My councilors thought the same, when I asked for their wives and daughters.”
“Did they also expect their kin to die?”
“Now, would it have been a sacrifice if they had not? As to what the dear ladies expected, what does that matter? I will yet find my queen, but not among such paltry cattle. Your people, now, you say. Rather, your little pets. So you still place faith in them.”
“They believe in me. That creates an obligation, even an affection.”
Heliot loomed. His eyes were hot brown, small in his square face but huge as they bent down. His smile became a sneer.
“After all of this time, you haven’t learned. Common folk are what we make of them. They live to serve us. What else are their tiny lives worth? What, for that matter, are you to your vaulted god of the three faces?”
“As faithful as it lies within me to be. I am a simple soldier, not a king.”
“Simple you are, at least. Oh, sit back down, boy. Let’s be comfortable. You too, girl.” He peered at Jame, his eyes descending to a foot or so above her head as he shrank. He must have been a bantam of a man in mortal life, she thought, given his attitude, but no doubt he had worn stilted boots if he had felt that he needed a boost. “I can smell one of his precious kind a league away. By courtesy, you are safe from me. Unless I change my mind.”
He and Dalis-sar sat on the curb, the latter warily. Jame was trapped between them. The heat radiating off both made her feel parboiled almost at once.
“Why fight me at all, boy?” Heliot wheedled, leaning over Jame’s head. Her damp jacket steamed. “We have so much in common, and you have so much to gain.”
“What are your plans here?”
“Why, to take over this city, of course, and then this world. The night is already ours, or will be soon.”
“But most of your kind can’t walk by day.”
Heliot grinned. “He who rules the dark also rules the light. Think about it. Day will pay tribute to us because we hold sway when the sun has set. What are sealed doors and hearth fires to us? Oh, so much less than they now, in their arrogance, suppose. Dark is stronger, if only because it rules the imagination. Willing sacrifices are always the sweetest. Harness that and all falls before it. I saw the truth of that, in this city of ancient days. It was mine. More would have been except . . . except . . .”
“Except that people stood up to you.”
“Except that they found such misguided champions as you, a traitor to your own divinity.”
The tips of his beard burnt into indignant fire. Jame swatted at sparks as they fell.
“No matter! Our time has come again. You are already diminished. Soon you will all be gone. Oh, I foresee a time when the temples will be ours again. Then worshippers will swarm to us, some drawn by fear, others by greed or vengeance or grievance. Believe me, those are the levers that move mere mortals. Our people will have the best of everything and power over all except us. To please us will become their pleasure. Sons and daughters, husbands and wives . . . we will be dearer to them than all such mortal chattel. They will come to see sacrifice to us for the honor that it is. What do you think of that, eh?”
Dalis-sar shivered. “I would rather die first.”
Heliot had been leaning on Jame’s shoulder until she thought that she felt blisters rise at his touch under her d’hen. Now to her relief, he reared back and clapped his big, square hands on his knees. With veiled satisfaction? While he didn’t want to fight Dalis-sar, neither did he apparently relish an equal.
“‘Simple,’ I said, and ‘simple’ you are. So be it. Lady, come here.”
He spoke to a woman hovering within the temple’s door, holding a spangled veil across her face.
How much had she heard, Jame wondered. How much could this demon-god sweeten with the sudden honey in his voice?
“I am what you seek. This clod is no longer worthy of your worship, if he ever was.”
Dalis-sar rose and turned, pain cracking his expression. “Aden. Please don’t.”
“I-I have to go. He says that he can resurrect my beloved foster son Dally, who may yet save his half brother, Men-dalis. Can you do as much?”
“No. Nor, I suspect, can Heliot, or not in any way that would please you.”
“But people say that the dead are returning.” She held out her hands to him, pleading. The veil dropped. She was middle-aged, with the remnants of a great, if simple, beauty. “Lord, can’t you . . . ?”
He turned aside. “I have always told you: I am no lord.
Only your humble servant.”
“Then good-bye, for the sake of our sons. Once I was young, and loved you. I always will.”
She departed. Heliot went with her, stooping to drape an arm possessively around her shoulders. At the corner, he turned to leer back at Dalis-sar. Then they were gone.
Dalis-sar sank onto the curb and held his head in his hands.
“Was that . . .”
“Yes. The mother of both Men-dalis and Dallen, once a temple concubine and my love. It was so lonely before I met her, and again after she left to marry Dally’s father. When her husband died, she came back, bringing her little son. Dally grew up in this sanctuary. I miss that boy, more than my own blood. Even after he moved on to live with his brother, he used to visit me. He brought you once, did he not? His half-brother never comes. He is jealous, I think. Perhaps I and his mother did favor little Dally, but Men-dalis was still our true-born son. It broke Aden’s heart when they became estranged. Ah well.”
He drew himself up, a soldier facing hard facts as he understood them.
“People and times change. I never quite got the knack of that. It comes, I suppose, of always being a stranger here. But I can’t go home while these people depend on me, as unworthy as I am.”
Jame left him still sitting on the curb, waiting for his temple to be resanctified. There were worse things, she supposed, than simplehearted faith in one’s followers.
V
IT WAS LATE AFTERNOON by now, with the sun sliding down behind the Ebonbane. More clouds had gathered to the north, a slow churn of them stirred by fidgeting winds. Perhaps rain was coming again. That smell she had noticed last night was growing almost strong enough to identify. Something about it made her uneasy.
Here was a stand selling spits of roast lamb and pearl onions, dusted with almonds. Had she thought to bring any money with her? Yes, a few coins scooped up from her unspent allowance.
“What’s this?” demanded the vendor, turning over a small piece.
By Demons Possessed Page 9
