by Jay Lake
“That’s enough,” said Nast quietly behind me. “Get along, Mistress Green, before you are pinned like a butterfly.”
I turned back and gave him a steady look. “You will let all that he has done come to pass?”
“Before I permit the ruin of a war in my city?” Nast’s words were brave, but his eyes were defeated. “Yes.”
I faced the crowd once more. My shoulders itched worse now. “Do you want a war?”
“No!” Their voice was one, multiplied.
“We have not had a conflict in centuries. Why would Choybalsan bring us one now?” I glanced at the sun, which was already behind buildings, though it must yet be a finger above the horizon. “Why would Councilor Federo betray us to war?”
A pistol barked behind me. I dropped, though the ball had already whizzed past me and caught a man in advocate’s robes straight in his chest. Another shot raised splinters of stone next to my head.
The mob rushed the stairs. I heaved myself over the side into the tangled, abandoned garden there, landing amid a thorny nest of roses.
This I would endure as well.
I clawed to my feet. A guardsman screamed as he flew over my head. Skinless loomed above me. I heard Nast’s voice shouting, before the old clerk was cut off with a wet, breaking noise.
Down the street, more screaming began. The Factor and whomever he had summoned must be coming out of the cistern, I realized. Then lightning struck the peak of the Textile Bourse and began to dance there, and I knew the end of our plans had come.
We had hoped to take the man Federo without the god Choybalsan riding him. He was now greater than all of us.
The roof exploded. I saw him jump to the ruined peak almost directly over my head. Every window on Lyme Street shattered in a spray of glass as deadly as any pistol volley. His laughter must have echoed for furlongs.
So much for hope, I thought, and clutched at my belly to protect my baby from the fog of splinters shining orange in the sunset.
Skinless swept me up once more. The map of musculature and tendons that made up its body wept from a thousand small punctures. I tried to figure what that might mean, but it carried me away from the Textile Bourse so quickly, I could not catch up to the thought before the avatar set me down next to the Factor in the mouth of an alley.
The ghost was looking decidedly watery in the evening light. His apparent solidity underground did not hold up so well on the surface. He was also very angry. “So it has come to this.”
I stood and tried to call the threads together. “There will never be a better chance than now.” I spoke quickly, shouting over the rippling thunder. “We have as many forces as we can hope to summon, and Choybalsan is not surrounded by his army.”
The Factor turned round slowly to look at his little group. Mother Iron, her cloak drawn tight around her face. The Thin Woodman of whom I’d been told. Three other corporeals I did not know, each demihuman and oddly shaped as the first two.
“You would kill this shark with five dolphins?” I demanded.
“And your naked wonder there.”
I reached up to pat Skinless’ thigh. “This is not mine, any more than they are yours.”
“You have me.” That was the Rectifier, bleeding from a dozen wounds.
The Tavernkeep stepped beside him. “Us as well.” He was followed by Chowdry and the tan woman of his people whom I had met before.
I should have been warmed by this display, but mostly I was angry. Temper bubbled inside me, rising to color my thoughts and push reason aside. Choybalsan was defeating us merely by standing on a rooftop.
“We will join together in the Hunt,” the Rectifier said behind me.
“Take up your spears.” I looked around. “Do we have any pistols or crossbows? I want to get him off that high place so we can reach him.”
“You won’t hurt him with ranged weapons,” said the Factor.
“I don’t plan to hurt him. Let’s make him angry enough to be stupid.” Angry enough to match me, stupidity for stupidity. “I have faced him in a fight before, and beaten him down.” With the aid of the Dancing Mistress. “If I distract him sufficiently now, draw him away from the height of his power, Skinless and Mother Iron and the rest can slay him.” I took a deep breath, shaking. “But we need to get him off the roof!”
The pardines scattered, calling for the weapons I’d requested. The Rectifier and the tan woman bounded across Lyme Street and ran along the front of the line of buildings, out of Choybalsan’s view. The Tavernkeep sprinted down the middle of the road, shoving past the fleeing crowd of citizens that were the remains of the earlier mob, along with whatever locals had had enough.
I sighted my finger at Choybalsan and wished that the Lily Goddess had granted me something more powerful than obligation.
Choybalsan turned and looked at me. His smile was visible even at my distance. I tasted metal in my mouth, and my hair began to prickle.
“Move, now!” I shouted, and ran for the street.
Light immediately behind me etched shadows in my vision. It came with a sizzling noise, like oil boiling, and was followed by a thunderclap that drove me painfully to my knees. My little wooden bell spun slowly on a cobble.
I could hear nothing. The shadows refused to be blinked away. Shaking my head, I rose to my feet. Someone pressed something into my hand. The Tavernkeep, I realized. I looked stupidly at the pistol he’d given me.
“I do not know how to use it,” he said apologetically, though I could barely hear him.
I felt that metal taste again. “Get away! He’s throwing lightning at anyone who comes near me.” My best armor right now was the fact that Choybalsan still wanted something—the shred of the Duke’s old power he believed I still held, that he required to complete his transformation.
How to turn that against him?
Lightning struck beside me again as the Tavernkeep sprinted away. This time, I had my eyes closed and my head bowed. My entire body felt as if it were smoldering, but I was neither blinded nor driven off my feet.
When I looked again, the Tavernkeep was picking himself up and staggering farther away. Skinless stood beside me once more, staring up at Choybalsan. Mother Iron stepped up to my other side.
The challenge would be clear enough. Now to bring him down.
I raised the clumsy pistol and aimed it at the god’s feet, where he stood on a smoldering peak of the Textile Bourse’s roof. The weapon barked and spat when I pulled the trigger. Stone spalled away from the facing well below him.
So much for accuracy. I was too far—pistols were never much good past a few dozen feet anyway. I threw the weapon aside.
Lightning continued to arc around Choybalsan. The roof smoked, and the thunder was deafening. Even in the face of such eye-bright violence, we had been wrong to flee the Textile Bourse before. I walked down the street. I would approach the god Choybalsan with upturned face and weaponless hands rather than cowering among the untended roses below his feet. My escort of avatars and sendings came with me.
I saw a crossbow bolt soar upward from near the foot of the building. It was a magnificent shot. Had Choybalsan been a man, he would have fallen with a wounded foot. As it was, he aimed lightning into the little garden of the building next door. Whichever of my allies had taken that shot did not fire again.
He had still not struck me down. Likewise he did not spend lightning on my escort. I stood in the street before the Textile Bourse, amid dropped weapons, pools of blood, charred wood, and the debris of a fleeing crowd. Spreading my arms wide, I called up to him.
“You wish to take your missing measure of grace from me!” I shouted. “Come down here and do so!”
Choybalsan jumped forty feet off the building to land flat on his heels in front of me. My escort was tense, ready to leap at him, but awaiting the word from me.
I held it back. The lightning had stopped.
“So you are ready to give up the last of my power.” I could still see Federo, but he was fi
lled with the overwhelming largeness of the god. His voice echoed in the bones of my chest, though to my ears he spoke as an ordinary man.
“You may try to take it from me.”
“You must give it.” His voice grew lower, as if rumbling through stones.
“No.” So this was the point of contention. He had somehow hoped to use the Dancing Mistress to persuade me to this, back at the camp before we escaped. “I will not give you the last key to the locks of your power. Any more than I will give you my life.”
Beside me, Skinless quivered. I nodded.
My allies fell upon the god. The Factor swept in, acting for the first time like a gibbering ghost of legend, followed by his trail of servant-shades.
Though I stood so close to their violence I could have reached a hand in like a trainer stopping a dog fight, I did not move back. I needed to see what happened next.
Lightning arced once more, but now it leapt from roofpeak to roofpeak down the length of Lyme Street. Sheets of sparks jumped across the width of the street. Balls of fire sizzled and rolled along the cobbles. The thunder became one rippling roar that faded as my hearing gave out.
This was like watching a pack of curs. These tulpas of the city hated the new god. They tore at him, butted him, grabbed him. Mother Iron’s hands glowed red as she scored Choybalsan’s skin with scorched furrows. The Thin Woodman rained blows upon him that would have cracked the bones of a mortal. One of their fellows, a shambling green mound that might have been the avatar of rot, extended a film of slime over Choybalsan’s head. Skinless simply pounded him with giant naked fists.
The god subsided. He dropped to the pavement, first on his knees, then curled on his side. The lightning sizzled to a stop. Cool evening air blew across me in a sudden breeze. I thought the fight was over.
Skinless reached down to tear Choybalsan’s arms off when the god rolled onto his back and opened his eyes. Now he showed wounds—not of this fight, though. Horrible burns that wept red and pale fluid.
I realized this damage had been inflicted when the Dancing Mistress and I had blown his tent apart. They seemed fresh even now, which made me pity Federo’s agony, wherever he was beneath the wrappings of the god. He showed his true aspect.
We were winning. The god was down, and his powers were sloughing away. I actually smiled at the Factor, who stood on the other side of the fight with a grim expression on his spectral face.
When Skinless began to tug Choybalsan apart, the god flexed his muscles to shatter the avatar’s forearms. It screamed, a thin, high keening like a frightened rabbit, and fell back. Choybalsan tucked forward and leapt to his feet. He grabbed at the shambling green thing and shredded it, scattering the bits. He broke the Thin Woodman in half and threw him over the rooftops toward the next block. He bore Mother Iron into a hug that made her wheeze like an overworked ship’s kettle, then slammed her to the pavement so hard the cobbles shattered.
Finally, he turned to me. Lightning returned, dancing on the rooftops, setting the iron fences of the little garden beds aglow.
Despite my brave words earlier, I knew I could not fight him again. His divine aspect was full upon him.
How do I defeat a god? No priests were here to kill, and he had an army of worshippers outside the city. That was what they were here for—not to overrun the city, but to maintain the fervor of their newfound faith in Choybalsan.
He had prayer. I had anger. But my anger drove only me and those close by me to battle. The god had just struck down the most powerful beings I knew to throw at him.
What would Endurance do? What would my grandmother do?
Patience. They each in their way would have counseled patience.
His hand reached toward me. The fingers were smashed, I saw, held together by the main force of his will.
A series of questions flashed through my mind.
Why had the explosion hurt him? That was not a thing of my hands.
Why had the glass hurt Skinless, who could not be touched by weapons? Because the glass had been hurled by a god.
What god had set the fire and storm in Choybalsan’s tent? The god that was him, his sliver of grace within me.
I dropped heavily to sit on the cobbles. “Stay your hand, Choybalsan. I shall release what you seek.”
Even through the rolling thunder, he heard me. His hand drew back and a smile that was something of Federo crossed his ruined face.
A long, narrow shard of cobalt blue glass lay near me. I picked it up, moving with the deliberate pace of ritual while I tried to think past the next few seconds.
Such power as made Choybalsan a god now had first been stolen, or taken, from the Dancing Mistress’ people. That was a power of woodlands and meadows and the turning of the world’s life.
The Duke had held the power next. To hear the Factor speak, the Duke had thought himself a force for preservation, even renewal. He had never called lightnings or made war the way Choybalsan seemed all too ready to do.
Then I had snatched the power away and set it free. It was a cruel strength—the pardines hunted and had once made war; the Duke in turn had been ruthless in his rule—but that was the cruelty of the natural world. Not the deliberate goading and betrayals of Choybalsan. Even the Duke had been more like a farmer extinguishing weeds and scavengers among his crop.
Patience. The world was patient.
I slit my left forearm again with the glass, careful not to cut the vein. As the blood began to flow, I cast the glistening shard aside and took up my little wooden bell. I held it from the top this time and let the clappers swing as the blood fell on the stones. The bell echoed with its wooden clop as it had underground.
Goddess, I prayed, send the least of Your servants to me. I offer up my own blood, and through me a part of the blood of the child within me, to carry the last measure of this grace which was never mine, out of my body and into Your servant.
The gods in this place were silent, or were barely roused, but I knew that the Lily Goddess was fully clothed in Her power across the sea. However great or small She might be measured against Choybalsan, She attended me.
I rang the bell awhile, but nothing happened. No flash of light, no creaking of the Wheel, no manifestation in the street. Just me, a foolish girl with a little wooden bell, which I finally dropped.
“Thank you for your offering,” Choybalsan said. Even gods could be sarcastic. He bent down to stroke his burned fingers in the blood.
That was when I realized the bell still echoed.
The god heard it, too. He glanced at my own bell, cast aside. He looked past me. Something changed in the set of his body.
Clutching closed the wound on my arm, I stood and turned.
Endurance walked slowly down Lyme Street. Though I knew him to be dead and gone, he approached with the steady pace I remembered from the first days of my life. His bell, his real bell, clopped in time with the fall of his feet.
My grandmother sat astride his back. She was wrapped in her cloak of bells. Except my grandmother was never so tall.
I looked carefully and saw a tail sweeping away from the hem of the cloak.
The Dancing Mistress.
I opened my mouth to cry gladly, then shut it again. A stream of pardines came out of alleys and side streets, so that in moments a crowd of her people followed behind—far more than I had ever seen. Dozens. Scores.
The three who had fought with me—the Rectifier, the Tavernkeep, and the tan woman—rose from their hiding places and stepped quickly to stand beside the ox. Chowdry followed them, drawn perhaps by the familiar costume my teacher wore.
What had she done?
What had I done?
The lightning died. Choybalsan stood tall, beside me now as the two of us stood together to meet the coming challenge.
The Dancing Mistress slipped off her cloak of bells. I saw this was not my grandmother’s belled silk, that I had mistaken it so only because she was astride the ox. Endurance’s eyes gleamed as he pitched his head t
oward me, ringing his bell again, but he did not seek to call me back.
She handed the silk to Chowdry. Though it seemed he could move only one arm, he took the cloth and gathered it close as best he could, before giving me a long look of mute appeal.
“Federo,” the Dancing Mistress said.
“Choybalsan,” the god corrected her.
She slid from the back of the ox and walked toward us. “You have something that does not belong to you. Something that was never meant for men.”
“Whoever this power might once have belonged to, it is mine now.” He flexed his ruined fingers, then pointed to a building down the street. A single bolt of lightning struck the roof, breaking off shattered bricks and smoldering splinters.
“That trick grows old,” I found myself saying.
He looked at me with a set of his eyes that chilled my blood once again. “You are both here. Together you are the keys.”
“No.” The Dancing Mistress was at arm’s length now. Her people had followed close behind, the ox Endurance with them.
I did not hear the wheezing bellows of his breath as I had always known them. That was when I understood that I had succeeded in reaching out to the divine. My measure of grace had spoken, my piece of the Duke’s power. Endurance was not a sending so much as he was a calling.
A quiet, voiceless god of patience, if he survived long enough to grow as I understood that gods could do.
The Dancing Mistress went on: “There are no keys. You are a flawed vessel. Like a water crock into which someone has poured the red iron of the forge. You were never meant to hold this power.”
The Factor stepped close. His shade flickered. I could see the pardines disturbed him. “Release the power, Federo,” he said. “This has mastered you rather than you mastering it.”
“No.” Choybalsan began to quiver. I could taste metal in my mouth once more. “No, I will not let go!”
The Dancing Mistress’ claws came out. “You cannot be touched by weapons, but I have a hundred of my kindred behind me. I assure you that we can lay claws on you until you are nothing but a ribbon of blood in the street.”
