by Jay Lake
He rushed for a feet-down leap, as I had with Choybalsan in the tent. The dropped spear poked against my side. I rolled and grabbed it. The Rectifier overran where I had been, then spun on his heel to come back at me. I rolled again and turned the spear point-up.
He veered off once more.
Water dripped on my face. I scrambled to my feet, swatting it away. A sending from the Goddess. I circled back around the bodies of the Dancing Mistress and Federo.
The Rectifier wasn’t going to let me take the time I needed. He came back again with a wide-handed swipe as he danced past me. No more crushing leaps to the chest. His claws took furrows of flesh out of my upper right arm.
The rush of pain nearly made me drop the spear.
Like Septio and the rest of Blackblood’s priests, I knew what to do with pain. Shifting more of the weight of the weapon to my off hand, I used my right for balance. I thought I was about where I needed to be.
I was moving slowly. Too terribly slow. The Rectifier continued to dance like a leaf on a wind. He blurred in and out of my peripheral vision, moving behind me faster than I could turn, appearing on one side then the other.
“I take back what your people stole from mine,” he said calmly.
Another open-handed attack. I parried with the spear and nearly lost the weapon once more.
He spun past me. His voice boomed behind me. “What the Dancing Mistress swore to help bring me to.”
I snapped the spear butt backwards and ducked low. He sailed over my head, cursing as he struck the shaft and set it spinning loose from my grip. The Rectifier lost control of his leap in the same blow and landed hard on his belly. I jumped on his back, feet between his shoulders, and forced his jaw to the stone.
The crack was like the breaking of a tree.
His fur slipped beneath my feet, and I rolled forward onto my freshly wounded arm. I bellowed with my pain and came back to find myself in the street of wounded and their weapons.
The Rectifier rose, shaking off the blow, but he was not moving correctly now. I crabbed sideways, leery of my own pain, grabbing again for a weapon. The spear was gone, but I nearly tripped over a sword. The handle was big, the blade was too heavy, but I heaved it into my grip.
He wasn’t in front of me. Instead, the big pardine charged toward Endurance. The Rectifier’s pace wove as he ran. Skinless stepped in to block him, but he knocked the pain god’s avatar aside with a mighty blow.
The ox did not even lower his horns. He stared at his attacker, lightning circling in those deep brown eyes, as the Rectifier leapt onto Endurance’s shoulders like a hunting panther onto a kill.
I realized I was running, dragging the too-heavy sword behind. At the ox’s bellow, I dropped the weapon and sprinted the last few steps to grab at the Rectifier’s tail.
“Help me stop him!” I shouted. “Before he kills our new god!”
The Factor was at my side. Two of the city guards. Chowdry. A man in the plain suit of a clerk, marred by soot and burns. The Tavernkeep. A pardine I did not know. Mother Iron.
Our little mob clawed and clutched at the Rectifier. The knucklebones woven into his chest were toggles. His skin stretched. Hair tore, some popped free, others crackled with the last energies of their former owners.
Finally the Rectifier tumbled loose from Endurance. The ox bellowed again, then charged away into the darkness followed by his train of guardians. Little flowers bloomed where his blood dropped to the cobbles.
I stood aside as a dozen others bore the Rectifier to the ground. My lungs gasped for air so hard, I feared I would spew. My body shook as I placed my hands above my knees and leaned forward.
Finally I straightened and looked around.
The Rectifier was still down, blades and crossbows and pistols now keeping him there. The ox was gone, as were the rest of the divines and the ghosts. A small crowd of people surrounded us, the circle drawing closer as more and more streamed into Lyme Street.
“Anyone else?” I asked wearily.
The Tavernkeep stepped forward and took my arm. “I believe it is done.”
“Good.” I had no idea what he was talking about.
People pushed closer, except in a little lane where the tracks of the fleeing god left a stream of lilies blooming tall in the moonlight. These were not the survivors of the Interim Council. These were not priests and bankers. They were just people.
Questions flowed. Amid the buzz, I realized they were asking themselves, each other, me, what happened. Not fear, now, though there were dead and wounded aplenty already being borne off.
“Let me tell you a story,” I said quietly. Somehow my voice echoed loud, pushing a ring of silence away from me. When I opened my mouth again, I spoke to a thousand listening ears. Swallows chirped as they circled overhead.
“Let me tell you a story,” I repeated, “about a people who gave up their power long ago. A city man took it from them. Some agreed to this, but not all.”
The silence held. I continued: “This man made himself prince of his city. He ruled for generations. There was peace, prosperity, a time of quiet. The gods fell silent, for the power was like a blanket to them. This took the soul of the people, for what are gods if not the sum of everyone who follows them? Choices fell away, as the power cared only for itself. Even so, the bargain was good for most.
“In time, some of the first people conspired with some of the city people to wrest the power back from the prince. The city would be free to be ruled and grow as it chose, to have gods once more. The people would have their souls restored and rediscover their might.”
I paused again, but still the street was filled with listening ears.
“This theft went awry, or perhaps the power was stolen yet again. It came to rest in another. After centuries of replacing the habits of the gods of the city, the power thought itself a god. It rode the man it wore as worms might ride the heart of a dog. This new god would be feared in every land between the city center and the boundaries of the plate of the world.
“It wished to be a titanic reborn. It lacked only a last shard of the old power, a final measure of grace.
“Tonight this god has passed from the world, and taken the luckless man with it. In its place has been reborn a god of patience. The first god of this city come anew in more centuries than I know to count. This god is the ox Endurance. Voiceless, that the city might listen. Handless, that the city might not be quick to fight. Capable of drawing a plow deep in the soil, that the city might grow.
“Give a prayer to Endurance, for the soul of the man Federo. Give a prayer to Endurance, for the sake of the city in this tale. Give a prayer to Endurance, that he might bear you in your journey beyond death as he bore my grandmother so long ago.”
I bowed my head. The crowd slowly dispersed without responding. No cheer. No catcalling. Just people talking quietly.
The wounded and the dead went with them, for tending. So did most of the mess in the street-souvenir-takers or just civic pride. Torches were set in front of the ruins of the Textile Bourse as some went in and others came out.
Eventually the Tavernkeep leaned close. “Come to my place,” he said. “You must eat, and be warm awhile.”
Chowdry held my arm as we followed the pardine through the city. The tavern was crowded to overflowing with the Tavernkeep’s people-they held a remembrance for those lost, and discussions concerning those being cared for in the upstairs rooms.
A place was cleared, and some good Selistani curry set before me. The Tavernkeep sat with me a moment.
“Why are they not rising in anger?” I waved my spoon at the room.
“They followed the Dancing Mistress here to stop Choybalsan. Very few knew of her deeper purpose with the Rectifier.”
“The conspiracy within the conspiracy,” I muttered. Conspire to rid the city of the Duke and then conspire to reclaim his power.
“I do not think she had always intended that.”
“I will miss her,” I told him. �
�I would have loved to hear it from her lips.”
“Are you leaving?” He seemed surprised.
“I… I don’t know.”
“Well, she is not dead. She lies in one of my rooms upstairs.”
Shoving the curry aside, I nearly knocked over my chair in my haste to rise. “I will go see her.”
A bustle erupted at the door. Two of the city guards pushed in, looking haggard. One had a bruise mottling his face. They brought Mr. Nast with them.
“Where is Mistress Green?” the clerk asked in his thin, severe voice.
“Here,” I said. The Dancing Mistress waited upstairs while this piece of business bedeviled me.
His eyes caught mine across the room. “Begging your pardon, Mistress,” he said, “but Captain Jeschonek would like to know what you plan to do about the army camped on the Barley Road. They’ve raised some bloody great fires out there.”
“For the love of all that’s holy,” I began, then stopped myself. “What does Jeschonek want from me?”
“The captain says it was you that mislaid their god, it should be you that explains to them.”
A thousand armed men on the verge of riot. I strongly considered telling him no. The Interim Council would have a difficult time winkling me out of this place where I was surrounded by dozens of the Dancing Mistress’ people.
Still, I’d gone to a great deal of trouble to stop them from fighting. Starting it all over again seemed deeply pointless.
“Bring me Chowdry,” I said to the Tavernkeep. “He’s getting a promotion.”
By the time I stumbled back across the room, the Selistani was at the door, looking worried.
“I have a new job for you,” I told him. “The god Endurance has an army of worshippers outside the city. They will need a priest who speaks Seliu.”
We went to calm a fractious force of farmers and hillmen and their bandit cousins, and tell them that their god had become an ox.
Anticipation
Some weeks later I rode up the Barley Road into the hills. Somehow I was once more upon a horse. Autumn was hard in the air, carrying a frosty edge that had me longing for the warm nights of Kalimpura. I wore many layers, but the cold contrived to bother me intensely.
I had no fear of bandits. The few still haunting the area were very afraid of me. Most of the countrymen had been listening to Chowdry. Endurance was already having an effect on both the Petraeans of Copper Downs and their rural cousins.
This day, I was bound for the high tombs and the half-wild orchards that spread out on the slopes below them. In one saddlebag, I carried spices and cookware for the cottage holder who had sheltered me. In the other, I had brought a few books and some warm winter clothing for Mistress Danae, should I be lucky enough to find her. Otherwise, I would leave them at the cottage. Paper and charcoals as well, for me to take up sketching again if time and energy permitted.
I held certain hopes for this day, of course. To learn more of anyone else who might have survived the Factor’s house. To spread well-deserved thanks. To be away from Copper Downs for a while. Despite my destination, the dead did not interest me, not even those chattersome ancients in the high tombs.
The Rectifier was gone. None of his people would say exactly how he’d slipped their net, which meant they’d let him go. Which was too bad, in a way-I’d come to appreciate the old rogue. His purposes and mine had been somewhat in opposition at the end, but even I understood that our soulpaths were aligned.
The pain god’s temple was shut for a time. A few half-trained acolytes and long-retired priests worked to restore substance to Blackblood.
Endurance had no temple yet, but the mineheads leading Below seemed a likely location. Chowdry was very busy. So were the priests recruited from the former army. I had sent letters to Kalimpura, to certain Courts and temples, and most especially to the Temple of the Silver Lily.
Nast paid me my bond, but I told him I had reasons to winter over. Instead of taking ship, I placed the money with the Tavernkeep. Him I trusted more than any bank, and I needed to stay awhile. Whoever my child was to be, her story would begin here in the shadow of my father’s ox.
I vowed her first memory would not be, like mine, the celebration of a death. The silk the Dancing Mistress had worn into battle covered me quite nicely, and had nearly the right number of bells upon it. I did not know where she had gotten it, or why. There had been a sufficiency of sendings and divine manifestations that night for me to believe almost anything.
In the days since, I’d sewn a new bell at each dawn. The ancients here did not bury their dead in the sky as we had at home, but they were high in the hills, which seemed much the same to me. I patted my belly and the child hidden within as I rode into the day, the sum of my years singing a quiet song of death and life upon my shoulders.
My grandmother would have been proud of me.
I knew Endurance was.
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