by Gemma Files
Which was, if harsh, only true. And sounded all too familiar, to boot.
Restore the Balance, Grandma’d told him, which sounded like status quo regained. But where would going back to the way it’d always been leave Chess and him, anyways — or the rest of every other witch or wizard, inside Hex City or out, for that matter? Rook’s mind went straight to the Council next, tallying his allies, and found he admired even the shakiest of them far more than he’d ever trusted himself. Might almost risk making the further error of thinking his own mistakes were worth it, to bring them all together. For what had been built in Hex City had to be preserved, even at the cost of his own power, of Chess, of himself.
So it wasn’t really so much he might have to reconcile himself with dying, which at least was over quick enough, as it was that he might have to give away his own hexation, that very thing which made him him, and be fine with that. The same sacrifice he’d never yet been able to make, even for Chess’s sweet-and-sour sake.
Finally do what I always should’ve, and trust a god to make it so, much as I know better: trust, hope, have faith, or at least pretend to. Do I really have a choice, either way?
He’d been silent a long time, he supposed, at this point. That would have to end.
“Fool me once,” Rook said, out loud, to no one in particular. And gathered his strength.
Now everything was reduced to snatches, nothing more. He didn’t even recall agreeing to this particular bargain, though he knew he must’ve, since next thing he knew, he had his hand wrist-deep in the Enemy’s swinging rib-slats, feeling a hard, small something force itself into his palm. Rook drew out a jade ball, bright green on red, forearm suddenly bloody to the elbow; Tezcatlipoca folded Rook’s fingers inward, smiling, and sealed the whole with a kiss that bloodied Chess’s blue lips.
Swallow this, it told him. It will act as an anchor, so that I may speak to you unheard, without my sister’s eavesdropping.
Thing was the size of a horse pastille, but Rook had no heart to complain — just choked the jade ball down, hoping it’d strangle him. And was unsurprised, when it didn’t.
The Enemy nodded, and bent inward again, shifting into his lap. Told him, without moving that bloody mouth: And now . . . what small reward I can give, to tide you over? Indulge yourself, Reverend — you know you want to.
“Don’t mind if I do,” the Rev replied, hoarsely.
When I tried this with Ed Morrow, the red boy’s soldier, he sent me on my way. Then I thought of you.
“How flattered should I be by that, exactly?”
Not at all. But you do wish me to stay, nevertheless.
Rook looked at it, carefully. This close, the thing he held looked less like Chess than it ever had . . . and yet. If this really was as good as he was likely to get, why stint himself?
“Been a bad year,” he said, at last. And kissed the god of Night, Death and Magic, deeply.
Later still, skewered, Rook would feel his eyes roll back, borne away on a pain-pleasure flood centred in entirely unfamiliar regions; an only too-fitting crucifixion, offered up to seal the deal as half apology, half penance, with those too-calm eyes staring down at him, now gone all-black, amused to their impenetrable cores by the depths of his own self-hatred.
Ridiculous, really. Chess’d never required such of him, and wouldn’t wanted it, if he’d offered. Ride all damn day, he’d said, once, in a flirtatious mood; night comes, it’s your turn in the saddle, and don’t you think to spare me the whip, neither. And how they’d driven each other, after that — right into the mattress, up against the wall, on every surface that’d bear the weight, and some that didn’t. Had to pay extra for damages, after, but it was well worth the fee.
If you want it so badly, I have no objections, the Enemy would say, as he assumed position. But in truth, no matter how I try, I will never understand you creatures. Why do you torment yourselves so, when life alone will do it for you, if you only wait long enough?
While Rook bit his lip ’til it bled, huffed out a groan like Chess’s nice-sized piece had cat-barbs going in and braced himself in vain ’gainst the even sharper backstroke, praying hurtful joy might soon turn to numbness, if not release. Oh Jesus, hell if I know. Like the Roman Church and their confessional, putting absolution’s sacrament in the hands of petty men — it’s hubris pure and simple, sheerest impossibility. How can we possibly forgive each other? We can’t even forgive ourselves.
No hope for him, he knew that now. There never had been. Only the fall itself, the sheer and simple way one fell down — straight to Hell, no detours. And the dubious comfort of sharing your pain with whoever you might be able to grab tight enough hold of to drag there with you, along the way.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“‘Thank you’ seems . . . markedly inadequate, in the face of what you just gave me,” Sophy Love told Yancey Kloves, as they sat atop the butte, watching Grandma, Yiska and the braves preparing for their task: drawing Navaho signs on the rock, smudging a wide circle with aromatic smoke, singing atonal phrases into the wind. Torches on long poles surrounded a central fire in a ragged ring of flickering light. Though Gabriel had since managed — how like a man, or at least a baby! — to go back to sleep, Sophy could sense his dreaming thoughts yet, on the outermost edges of her brain; a not unpleasant mix of pressure and shadow-play, similar to being constantly aware of a nearby lantern’s heat, even when its flue was shuttered.
“Least I could do,” Yancey replied, looking wrung out. “Considering.”
“Yes. But . . . it’s a beginning.”
“And I meant it, you know,” she went on, not looking at Sophy or Gabe. “About surrendering.”
Sophy drew a long breath, gathering her thoughts. The pain did seem more distant now, though that might well be due only to fatigue. But nevertheless, such an admission deserved honesty; she set herself to address it, if she could.
“Mesach . . .” she began, at last. “When he was in his right mind, I’m sure he knew — had to’ve known — that vengeance was the Lord’s alone to take, not his. ‘I will repay,’ saieth our Creator.”
“I’ve heard that.”
“Romans, 12:19. It is a central tenet of our faith, and must be acknowledged, no matter the circumstances. So — in the end, just as Rook’s and Pargeter’s punishment was never truly his to administer — neither is yours mine. And while I appreciate the offer, I won’t require it of you.”
“Justice isn’t vengeance, though, nor vice versa; forsaking one can’t give you a free pass on the other. Can it?”
“No, Missus Kloves. Yet, to my mind . . . it’s always the quick who stand in far more urgent need of justice than the dead.”
For what did you accomplish, after all, she wondered, by making Mesach pay the price he’d incurred — did you bring your loved ones back to life, the way Pargeter did mine? And what would I reap, exactly, were I to sow whole fields with your blood, madam — ’sides from dragon’s teeth and damnation, immediate regret in the short-term, risk to my eternal soul in the long — ?
Sophy sighed again. “All of which is to say . . . I won’t honour Mesach’s legacy by despairing of the Lord’s Word and trying to substitute my own, elsewise the bloody wheel will never stop rolling. For though God is just, He is also merciful; another thing we too often forget, to our shame.” She looked down at Gabe, frowning a bit in his sleep, and chucked him beneath the chin, gently. “Might be you’ll answer for Mesach yet, Missus Kloves — but it won’t be by my hand. There has to be forgiveness, somewhere.”
As though urged to try and figure out where such a place might lie, they contemplated the star-bedecked horizon together awhile, ’til Yancey bowed her forehead against her knotted fists. With a start, Sophy realized the younger woman’s shoulders were shaking. Uncertain what she might do to help, however, she carefully kept her gaze fixed outward, misdoubting Yancey could accept comfort from her just now — even had she had any in her to give, which she wasn’t at all sure she did.
Silen
t moments passed, and presently Yancey’s spine relaxed, her breath easing.
“Missus Love,” she murmured, “if Reverend Rook had had half the faith you do, then . . .” Abruptly, she snorted. “But then, if my aunt had nuts she’d be my uncle, as Chess might’ve said . . . and did, on at least one occasion.”
Sophy felt caught between shocked giggle and discomfited blush, to be reminded just how close Yancey was — in spirit, if not carnally — to that dangerous little man. “Back in Bewelcome, the Reverend promised me he’d keep Gabriel safe, if I surrendered to him,” she said, for lack of any other response. “Even offered an oath to that effect. I thought it mere duplicity, at the time, but . . . could he have known Gabe was — what he was? Somehow?”
Yancey frowned, considering. “Seems unlikely,” she said at last. “Not ’til after, I think, though he saw it in Chess before Chess turned; one could easily overlook in a child what seems obvious, in an adult.” She spread her hands. “From what little I’ve seen, Asher Rook isn’t to be trusted one inch, let alone further.”
Sophy nodded slowly. “I suppose so . . . yet he did say something else to me. That ‘When a hex breaks an oath, it means more than you know.’ And Doctor Asbury claims it’s an oath of some kind lets the Hex City folk work and live together — something they swear to that Lady of theirs, or the City, or each other.”
“The Spinner once told the bilagaana blackrobe Rook of a binding of that kind.”
Both women started; Yiska had come up behind them as they spoke, stealthy as ever, with Songbird in barefoot tow, blanket-wrap slid down to her shoulders to guard against the chill and her white hair seething in the cold wind.
“If two Hataalii wish to live together safely,” Yiska continued, “there is a song by which they may bind their power into perfect balance, each feeding off each — but only if both agree to give up the Hataalii path completely, for fear of turning Anaye. And afterward, their power can never be divided. Break that oath, and one of the two must take it all, leaving the other dead.”
Sophy grimaced. “I believe I can see why that arrangement held no appeal for Reverend Rook, prompting him to cobble together his own.” Then, glancing from Yancey back to Yiska: “Still, whatever the strictures of Hex City’s Oath, it clearly requires no sacrifice of power, and yet will work for any hex who swears it.”
“Like that story of ‘English’ Oona’s,” said Yancey thoughtfully. At Sophy’s blank look, she explained. “Chess’s mother; I’ve been using her to reach Chess, down in Mictlan-Xibalba. She said somebody worked a binding on her which was kin to that ‘song’ of Grandma’s, albeit more grotesque. He used it to trick his victims into giving up their power to him — sucked them dry, like the wampyr in my Ma’s old folktales, then somehow fixed that link in place, so it stayed forever open but left them alive and leaking, a bucket with no bottom.” Yancey scraped up a handful of sand in one fist, then spread her fingers and let it sift down into her other cupped hand. “Whatever they gathered, ever after, trickled instantly away. They couldn’t hold any magic long enough to work even the simplest spell.”
Songbird scoffed. “Impossible. Once fully flowered, no magician’s reservoir of ch’i is so fragile as to be permanently punctured thus, short of death — ” She stopped, mouth open. “ — but when was this magic worked upon that red-haired whore, the man-killer’s dam?”
“When she was giving birth to Chess,” said Yancey steadily. “And — not coincidentally, I’m sure — right when her own hexation was coming awake, for good. Expression, Asbury calls it. The man who did it to her was Chess’s own father, too.”
“Ai-yaaah.” Songbird gripped her own elbows, shivering. “Three workers all linked by blood, with the mother in mid-bloom, fighting to survive her own babe’s hunger . . . yes, perhaps only then could it be done. Devour the magic so forcefully as to destroy what holds it, without killing the holder, while the ch’i channels are open but not yet fully rooted. With but a little more skill, one might even make the transference permanent — the victim’s power would flow perpetually to the thief, allowing him to draw on her ch’i as well as his own. The sorcerer who worked such a binding upon even a few victims, therefore, would be near-invincible. . . .”
“Might well be what he was trying for,” said Yancey. “Though I didn’t hear everything Oona said to Chess, this hex — ‘Columcille’ — was some piece of work. Guess we can be thankful he either didn’t succeed, or got killed ’fore he could do so more than once.” Dismissing the matter with a shudder, she looked back to Yiska. “Whichever, what does seem so is that the common element here’s consent, no matter the arrangement — that everyone has to swear to it willingly, make some sort of union.”
“Like marriage,” said Sophy. “A man shall leave his father and mother and cleave unto his wife, and they become one flesh: Ephesians, 5:31. What if — ” She stopped, thunderstruck. “What if that’s what the Oath does for the Hex City hexes? Makes all their separate power into one common pool, so they don’t have to prey hexaciously on each other, ’cause once they swear the Oath, they are each other — spiritually united?”
Yancey and Yiska exchanged a startled look, as Songbird shook her head again. “I do not think any simple vow would suffice, a mere clerk’s contract, even were it possible. Say a group of mo-shu-shi could, and would, bind all their ch’i freely into a shared reserve; certainly, they would feel no call to feed on any of their own. But neither would any of the circle be able to work any spell without the consent of all the rest, and how likely is that?”
Songbird turned to Yiska “Say you and two of your braves quarrelled over who would own a horse; would you consider it an acceptable solution to share the beast, but only so long as all three of you rode at once, all held the reins at once, so any disagreement over direction would send it in circles as you all pulled on those reins ’til the strongest won, or they snapped?”
“That would be one mightily large horse,” Yiska noted, dryly.
“I understand the argument,” Yancey replied. “Still, the New Aztectlan Hataalii don’t seem quite so constricted, at least with regard to one another.”
“But they are ‘so constricted’ with any regard to her — the Lady,” Sophy broke in. “In Mister Ludlow’s articles, his sources say not only does she feed freely on those hexes sacrificed to her in their usual devil-rites, but also upon those who break their laws, or defy her — that, by Hex City’s reckoning, to do the latter is to risk the former.” Unable to sit still, she rose and paced, adjusting Gabe to a more comfortable position as she worked her way through the idea. “If they’re all bound primarily to her, and only secondarily to each other, that would make her the cornerstone of the whole City, hexaciously speaking. So were she to be destroyed, the entirety of the Oath would collapse, and . . .”
She trailed off, abruptly excited and sickened, as she saw where thorough pursuit of that logic-chain must — inevitably — lead.
“And hundreds of Hataalii in unnaturally close company, many already given up to the Witchery Way, would turn upon each other in an instant.” For something so massive, Grandma could move with amazing quiet when she exerted herself; all eyes turned her way as the words rumbled through that motionless crack which served for her mouth, finishing Sophy’s thought. “So this must be the Enemy’s plan. For his cat’s-paw Allan Pinkerton to tear her loose from this world, inevitably causing his own destruction, along with that of thousands more.” The petrified bone-mask face grated as it turned, pinning Yiska now. “Well, then, granddaughter. If you still believe that Balance can and should be achieved for this City, then we must seek some other way to deal with her . . . and have only hours in which to find it.”
“Yes,” Sophy agreed — then stiffened, as something struck her. “Wait just a minute, uh . . . ma’am . . . how is it I can understand you, now? Has someone bespelled me after all, without my knowledge?”
The thing’s huge head tilted, then gave a scrape of laughter. “Ask the dead-speaker �
�� she who bound your thoughts together with your son’s,” it said, indicating Yancey. “Did you think such a communion would leave no marks? You hear what he hears, only that.”
“Are our preparations then complete, Spinner?” asked Yiska.
“If the dead-speaker is ready to attempt another Call, then yes. Yet from what I gather, you may have already devised something to augment our efforts even further. . . .”
Yancey shot them a glance, like: Didn’t tell me, if so.
Yiska gestured, dismissive. “A thought, no more — that it may be possible to alter the peace-binding, so Hataalii might swear to share their power rather than merely balance it away. It would have strictures of its own, but it would allow a far safer conjunction, and could be dissolved without requiring death.”
“Not necessarily, anyhow,” Yancey chimed in. “God knows, if the plan’s to boost my Call with hexation, I’d just as soon nobody be fighting to keep from killing each other while you’re doing it.”
Songbird backed away, upright and bristling. “Wait — do you truly consider attempting such a thing? Here, now? With me? I will not!” She glared at Grandma. “You, who so recently fed upon my ch’i, how long has it been since you were weak enough to be so taken — especially at the hands of some puling old man, who claimed to torture out of kindness?” She whirled to Sophy, who blinked, startled. “You have known this Professor, Joachim Asbury; perhaps you think him gentle, well-meaning, in his doddering foolishness? He tore away everything I am, and did it as a gift!” Her voice cracked. “‘You are so young,’ he said, when we lay there in the sand, my leg broken; ‘I thought you might accept it, change more gently, become . . .’
What? Some pitying gweilo’s maid-of-all-work?” Songbird shook her head, eyes wet with rage. “Idiot! I will not diminish, or allow myself to be diminished, let alone by one such as he. Or by you, either — any of you, however urgent your purpose.”
“Calm yourself, White Shell Girl.” Yiska told her, soothingly. “None here intend you harm.”
