Two tables over, a handful of Freemen excitedly relived the events of the battle for the dozenth time. Already stories were beginning to grow in the participants' imaginations—whole squads of angels defending Caramine's manor with flames and spells—but the basic facts were there, if only one side of them.
Salim's smile faded. He felt again the loss of the psychic link as Roshad let go of the machine, the Caulborn's connection between Salim and his friends cutting off with the abruptness of a bowstring snapping. The backlash had left Salim reeling, barely able to keep his feet. Eventually he'd fallen and blacked out, but not before he'd seen the flood of souls. Released by the engine's destruction, they'd soared across the sky over the Spire like hundreds of comets, racing inland to rejoin the River of Souls at Pharasma's Court and find whatever judgment was theirs by right. His last memory of that endless day was of the few remaining angels offering their surrender to Maedora and Arathuziel, then being shepherded back to Heaven by a phalanx of vulture-skulled psychopomps.
When he woke, he was back in Kaer Maga, at his room in Canary House. Gav, who'd been waiting by his bedside, informed him that Maedora had brought him back unconscious, and that he'd slept for a full day. "For a hero capable of going toe to toe with fallen angels, gov, you sure do seem to sleep a lot."
He'd immediately asked about Bors and Roshad, which had taken some of the wind out of his guide's sails. Gav shook his head. "Bors woke before you did, but he ain't said anything to anyone yet. He won't come out of his room."
"And Roshad?"
Gav had insisted on taking Salim to see for himself. When they reached the site of Caramine's manor, Salim understood why. Where the brick house had stood, there was now only a pile of rubble and dust, barely contained by the surrounding curtain wall.
"Everyone got out," Gav said. "All our people, anyway. Vera said Bors got control of his body back somewhere in that alley over there, and it took five Freemen to hold him down and keep him from going back in—one on each limb and Vera clinging to his back. Even so, they say he got halfway across the street before the place blew. You could see it from anywhere in the Core districts—a huge plume of dust and smoke, and then this thing like a waterfall in reverse, a bunch of glowing shapes shooting up into the sky, howling like banshees." Gav paused, then went on in a quieter tone. "Vera says he held it all in—all that energy—so that they could have time to get out. That he was a hero."
"He was," Salim said simply.
Gav considered this for a moment, then went on. "When the place exploded, Bors passed out, just like you. We carried him back here, but..." He shrugged, helplessly. "Sometimes when people lose someone they love, they just ain't the same afterward."
"I know," Salim said, thinking of a life long ago, in a house overlooking the sea. "Believe me, I know."
And so Salim had helped the Freemen celebrate, had told his story and allowed it to be retold, and joined them at the bar when they'd pressed. Yet there were still things that needed to be done.
He stood and moved away from the bar. The face he wanted wouldn't be here, in the press of people. Instead he made his way to the back of the common room, through one of the doors and into the hallway. He found the door he wanted and knocked. When there was no reply, he pressed the latch and entered anyway.
Bors sat facing away from him at a table, elbows on the smooth wood, chin rested on folded hands. He wore his armor, as always, the lamellar reflecting the lamplight. Salim noted with a guilty pang that the chains Bors and Roshad had always worn rested in a pile on the bed. The big warrior didn't turn as Salim closed the door behind him.
"Bors," Salim began, then stopped. What to say? What could he say? That Roshad had been a hero? That his martyrdom had likely saved Salim's life? Bors had sacrificed his love—his whole life—for a petty bit of planar politics. What thanks from gods or men could possibly matter in the face of that?
Salim put his hand on Bors's shoulder. "I'm sorry." It sounded small in the silence of the room. He squeezed again. "I'm so sorry. Your szerikwas a great man."
"Was?" Bors's voice sounded high and strangled, rough with disuse.
"I know how you feel," Salim said. "You may not believe it, but I do. When you lose someone—"
"Who's lost?" Bors turned toward Salim now, spearing him with his ice-blue eyes.
Dead gods, had the man snapped completely? Salim felt the guilt rise in his throat, choking him. Bad enough that he'd cost one friend his life, but—
"Look at me, Salim." Bors stared into Salim's eyes, those blue orbs hard and searching.
"Bors..." Salim began.
And stopped.
Blue eyes? Bors's eyes had always been dark brown. The one with blue eyes had been—
His jaw fell open. "Roshad?"
Bors's face twisted into a smile—one that Salim had only ever seen in the eyes, as the rest was always hidden behind a veil. "Hello, Salim."
Salim's knees gave way, and he sat down hard on the nearby bed, rattling the Iridian Fold men's chains. "But how—?"
Bors blinked, and suddenly his eyes were brown again. He shook his head. "We don't know. Something about the link your Caulborn made between our minds. When the machine exploded, the link between us and you snapped immediately. But Roshad...I felt him die, Salim. His body disintegrated in the space of a heartbeat. I passed out from the shock. Yet when I woke...he was still here."
Salim stared. It sounded impossible—but then, what about the machine did sound possible? He looked into Bors's eyes, wondering if perhaps he'd imagined the change, and the man really had lost his mind with grief.
Bors blinked again. Blue. "I'm here, Salim."
"So you are." Salim slumped backward against the wall, still staring. "It's a miracle."
"No," Bors/Roshad said, smiling again. "It's szerik. Shared mind, shared heart, remember?"
Salim thought back to his first conversation with the Iridian Fold men about their strange philosophy. "One person in two bodies."
"Or in our case, two people in one body." The two men who were one man shook their head. "Not exactly how I would have chosen it," Roshad said, "but I suppose I can't complain." His grin turned salacious. "After all, I enjoyed this body enough from the outside. Now I get to enjoy it from the inside as well."
Salim had no idea what to say, so he went with the obvious. "Roshad. I'm so glad you're not dead."
"You and us both," Roshad agreed. "And hey, look at this!" He snapped his fingers and a tiny dancing flame sprang to life above them. "My magic still works. Looks like we've got the best of both worlds."
"Amazing," Salim said, and meant it. He felt like a cloak of lead had been lifted from his shoulders. "So what will you do now?"
"Now?" Blink. Brown. "We're not sure. First we'll stay here until your tab runs out, learning how to share control of my—I mean our—body. With practice, we think we should be able to both control it together, rather than trading off."
Salim nodded. "And then?"
"Then? Maybe return to Karazh. Few men of the Iridian Fold have ever achieved this level of szerik. Perhaps we'll teach." Blink. Blue. A smile. "Or maybe we'll celebrate my new lease on life by doing whatever we damn well feel like."
"Sounds like a good plan." Salim stood and extended his hand. "You should know that I'm leaving tomorrow. I can't thank you enough for what you've done."
Brown. Bors reached out and shook. "You helped Roshad save my life, and he gave his for you. Our debt is paid."
"Of course," Salim said.
The big man yanked hard on Salim's hand, pulling him in for a fierce bear hug.
"But you will always be our machorei."
∗ ∗ ∗
After the revelation of Roshad's survival—whatever form it took—Salim couldn't bring himself to simply go back into the party. Instead, he nodded to Karus the half-orc bouncer and stepped outside, into the cool of the night. In the wake of all the excitement, the city was surprisingly quiet, with only the low buzz of distant revelr
y. Salim walked around the corner of the inn and stared up past the ring of the city's walls, into the patch of twinkling stars above.
"Salim."
He turned and found two figures behind him: one a short, severely pretty woman in a black dress uniform, the other a black-winged angel that floated motionless a foot above the cobbles.
Salim touched the back of his hand to his nose. It came away spotted with a single drop of crimson blood. "I was wondering when I'd see you two again."
Maedora inclined her head. "Ceyanan asked that I come along."
"After the glowing report she gave," Ceyanan said dryly, "I had to make sure we were talking about the same person."
Salim smiled. "Jealous, Ceyanan?"
"Like a jilted lover."
Maedora frowned, and Salim took pity on her. "Has Heaven found the plans for the machine? The ones that corrupted Nemeniah and Malchion?"
"Not yet," Maedora said. "Or if they have, they're not telling us. Hopefully if the two hid them well enough to stymie Heaven's internal investigators, we won't have to worry about them turning up again anytime soon."
"Hopefully," Salim agreed.
There was an awkward pause, and then Maedora stepped forward and extended her hand. "You did well on this mission, Salim. I was wrong to doubt you based solely on your species."
"Likewise." Salim clasped her wrist.
Maedora smiled, and suddenly her assumed face didn't seem quite so stern. "You know, if you ever gave up your ridiculous resistance toward the Lady, you might join us one day as a psychopomp."
Salim laughed. "Don't hold your breath."
"I don't breathe," Maedora reminded him. "See you around, Salim."
Then she was gone, and it was just Salim and Ceyanan. A familiar enough scene.
"So," Salim said at last. "Are you going to give me answers, or are you going to make me ask the questions?"
Ceyanan smiled. "Whatever do you mean?"
"Fine. I'll start: If the planes were really in such danger from Nemeniah and Malchion's little rebellion, why didn't the gods get involved?"
"But they did," Ceyanan said. "They sent you, remember?"
"Not that again. This isn't just Pharasma and her oh-so-mysterious ways we're talking about. Heaven's run by folks who like their people to toe the line, and I don't see Iomedae and Erastil and the rest gambling all their coins on me the way you and the Lady seem determined to. So why didn't they do something directly?"
Ceyanan shrugged delicate shoulders. "Maybe they weren't sure the angels were wrong. Not everyone's pleased with Pharasma's role as the judge of souls, Salim. Or maybe it served their ends to shake things up a little and remind their servitors that even angels can be led astray. Maybe there was even genuine dissension in the divine ranks. As you've seen, Heaven isn't as unified as it seems, and morality is inevitably defined by a conflict's victors. ‘Good' and ‘evil' have been redefined many times over the span of existence, and will be many times again. This might have been one of those turning points."
"As usual, an answer that's not really an answer," Salim noted.
"Of course."
"Let's try a different question, then." Salim took a breath. "Did Pharasma kill my wife?"
Ceyanan's smile fell away. It put a hand on Salim's shoulder. "Oh, Salim..."
Salim shook off the touch. "Answer me, Ceyanan. Has my whole life been a setup? Did my wife die just so that I could do your dirty work?"
Ceyanan looked down at Salim, eyes sad. "People die, Salim. Bad things happen. You know that better than most."
"And Pharasma's part in that?"
"She knows what's coming. That's not the same as making it happen." The psychopomp shook its head. "You called to us, Salim. You offered and she accepted. The choice was yours."
"I know." The words burned, yet they were also a relief. Hezechor was wrong. The fault had always been Salim's, and Salim's alone. He'd had a century to make his peace with that fact. The wound was worse, but it was old and scarred over.
"Now my turn," Ceyanan said. "Having completed this mission—do you believe it was necessary?"
"What?" Salim stared. "Since when do you care about my opinion?"
"Indulge me."
Salim thought it over. "I can think of a hundred better ways it could have been handled," he said at last, "but—yes, it was necessary. The gods don't leave mortals a lot of choices, but how to live is one of them. By taking out the element of judgment and granting their souls to whichever planar predator reaches them first, it robs them of that choice. The mortal plane would become a feeding frenzy for every extraplanar race. And the balance needs to be maintained at the planar level, too—the last thing the multiverse needs is constant war between the planes."
Ceyanan nodded. "And knowing what you know now, if you were asked—not commanded, but asked—to undertake a similar task again, would you?"
Salim's stomach lurched. Was the psychopomp really suggesting that they wanted him to start volunteering to be their cat's-paw? Or was this simply some new game? Still...
He gritted his teeth. "Yes, damn it. But only because you'd screw it up without me."
"Interesting," Ceyanan said. "I'll be sure to remember that."
"Is this what happens to all your slaves?" Salim asked, heat rising to his face. "You work them so long that they forget it's not their choice?"
"You have many choices, Salim. Including how you choose to see our relationship. Which reminds me..." The angel produced two dark objects out of the empty air and tossed them to Salim, who caught them reflexively.
The first was his plane-shifting amulet, with its inlaid spiral and leather thong. He was surprised at what a relief it was to slip it over his head and feel the familiar weight around his neck.
The other was the lintel stone. Salim hefted it, then slid it into an interior pocket.
"Thanks," he said. "Though now that I'm done with the Caulborn, I figured you'd take the lintel stone back."
"Back?"
"Yeah, back. These things aren't cheap, even by the Spire's standards." Salim looked at the psychopomp's unreadable expression. "What?"
"Nothing," Ceyanan said, face smoothing back into its usual good-natured serenity. "My mind was just elsewhere for a moment." A smile. "I'm glad that you enjoyed this particular job."
"I said it was necessary," Salim growled. "Not that I enjoyed it. Somebody needed to do it."
"And so you begin to understand," the angel said. "You're growing, Salim."
"I'm growing angry, if that's what you—"
Salim cut off, realizing he was arguing with an empty street. As usual.
He wiped his nose again and let his gaze creep back up to the stars. So cold and distant, each one hanging in space a million miles from the others.
He'd thought of himself like that, once. Cold and distant. If you never got close to anyone, you couldn't hurt them. But people did get hurt, whether you let them in or not. The world didn't care who you loved, it just rolled its dice and took its toll.
He was used to making a difference on the grand stage—Pharasma's stage. But this time he'd failed to keep his distance, and what had happened? Maedora gained new respect for mortals. Bors and Roshad achieved their perfect union. Arathuziel took one more step toward redemption. And he—
He had enjoyed it.
Salim reached down to the amulet around his neck and lifted it in his palm. He turned it this way and that, watching the starlight catch on Pharasma's iridescent spiral, winding down perpetually into its center.
Worming its way into the stone's heart.
Salim chuckled. "Tricky, you old witch. Very tricky."
He stuffed the amulet back inside his robes, the stone cool against the bare skin of his chest, then turned and walked back through the door into laughter and light.
About the Author
James Lafond Sutter is a writer, game designer, and musician, as well as the Managing Editor and Fiction Editor for Paizo Publishing and a co-creator o
f the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game campaign setting. His first novel, Death's Heretic—also starring Salim—was ranked #3 on Barnes & Noble's list of the Best Fantasy Releases of 2011, and was a finalist for an Origins Award and the Compton Crook Award for Best First Novel. His short fiction has appeared in such publications as Escape Pod, Apex Magazine, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Geek Love, and the #1 Amazon bestseller Machine of Death. Of his many Pathfinder game books, he's best known for Distant Worlds, his guide to Golarion's solar system, and City of Strangers, which details the city of Kaer Maga. James also edited the anthology Before They Were Giants, which pairs the first published stories of speculative fiction luminaries with new interviews and writing advice.
James and his wife live in Seattle with a bevy of roommates and a functional death ray. For free stories, music, and more, visit jameslsutter.comor follow him on Twitter at @jameslsutter.
Acknowledgments
As my friend Arya would say, no man is a fabulous island. In that same vein, no book is written in isolation, and many people deserve thanks for being midwives in this book's two-year-long birth.
First kudos go to my illustrious editors, F. Wesley Schneider and Christopher Paul Carey. However much you as a reader liked this book, I can guarantee that you would have liked it significantly less without their efforts. (As the initial architect of Hell, Wes also gets bonus thanks for letting me steal his best material.) Publisher Erik Mona gets credit for being the person who invited me to write a Pathfinder Tales novel in the first place. Similarly, the rest of the Paizo staff has been invaluable in encouraging me, helping me with research, and building all of these fabulous toys that we get to play with together.
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