by Jay Lake
He set a loping pace I was willing to follow, for the effort would only benefit me, whatever the pain in my chest. I let the pavement absorb the pounding of my feet. The distresses of my spirit slipped free in each glancing step. The air had enough of an edge to hurt my lungs, which made a fine counterpoint to the jarring of my ribs. Ilona’s house must be so cold, I thought. She would have made a fire, but even amid an entire forest of feral apple trees and neglected lumber tracts, the woman was parsimonious with her fuel.
There were times when living in Selistan seemed like much the better option, regardless of my station there. I wondered how sincere Samma had been in saying she’d meant to find me and bring me home. Warm, those streets were warm, even when they were filled with enemies.
As if Copper Downs were not.
We skidded around a corner and I went sprawling on the cobbles. That multiplied the pain in my ribs, and struck me a hard blow to the jaw that made my teeth and skull ache. I managed to guard the baby, but the sheltering made the rest of my fall worse. The Rectifier spun and scooped me up before I could recover myself. At his hands, I was back on my feet.
“You are in litter,” he said, sniffing at me. “You should not fight.”
I was still trying to sort out how to respond to that when we fetched up before a bakery. This was a commercial establishment, turning out racks and racks of loaves for taverns, inns, chandlers’ carts; whoever would purchase by the dozen or the twentyweight. It smelled like a bakery, all yeast and wheat. That was surely what had drawn the Rectifier. The scent was sufficient to distract my own attention from the fresh hurts of my body.
The thing was, he had the right of it.
Grumbling, I went inside and bargained for a basket of butterflake rolls. The two women behind the counter didn’t want to sell such a small quantity to me. I pointed out that the Rectifier and I could make a day of loitering in front of their bakery discouraging customers while we waited for minds to be changed.
They relented quickly enough at that threat, though I was gouged on the price. I judged little point in overplaying my hand for that. Instead I took my rolls and left.
The smell was luscious. Still, these were not cardamom rolls. They tasted well enough and went down all right. I nonetheless wished for the others. Or possibly some pickled cabbage.
That last had to be the baby talking through my appetite.
When the two of us had finished gobbling down my acquisition—the Rectifier ate two of them, possibly out of some misplaced politeness—I took the lead in walking us toward the warehouse where Iso and Osi waited. The Rectifier followed along with studied patience, as if he were indulging me. Which might even have been true.
“Why do they call you the Rectifier?” I asked.
“Because it is my name,” he replied in his rumbling voice. Nothing of his answer invited further inquiry, but I was feeling a childish rebellion against his obvious indulgence.
“I know something of pardine names. What do you rectify, that they should call you so?”
His claws flexed. “Troublesome humans for the most part.”
“None so troublesome as me,” I announced cheerfully.
“Few, to be sure,” the Rectifier admitted.
I decided I’d won my point. Whatever that trivial victory might mean. We approached the warehouse, so I pulled him aside to lean against a wall in conversation.
“Now we shall visit a pair of human … well … ascetics.”
“Priests?” A delight bloomed in his eyes. I realized this was surely as much to tweak my sensibilities as anything.
“Monks, more like,” I told him. “And you will behave.”
“What order?”
“Excuse me?”
The look he gave me was far less indulgent. I was thankful for all my years with the Dancing Mistress—most humans found pardines next to impossible to read, I’d been told.
This time his voice rumbled. “Of what god are they priests or followers?”
“I don’t know.” In that moment I realized how curious an omission this truly was. “They speak of their ancient rite, one which excludes women, but they have never named it. Surely because I am a woman.”
“Surely.” Doubt rang heavy in his voice.
“In any case, they are twins. Iso and Osi. These two are strange, even by the standards of the religious. But they know a great deal. And they are helping me to overset Blackblood, that he might cease hunting my trail.”
The Rectifier shrugged, a dangerous, slow ripple of muscle and attention that meant he was focusing if anything too closely. “Even my help is dangerous to you. Simply because we are of different kinds, without respect to our regard for one another. The aid of those with an unknown purpose is likely to be a far greater trap.”
“I know, I know.…” Everyone had to warn me of something, it seemed. The world never stopped trying to teach me. Maybe I needed to keep trying to learn? That lesson about lessons continues even now, years later. “I am willing to trust them, based on their own self-interest. I do not know their character or their history except for what they have chosen to display. These two brothers are among the few in this city without some hidden purpose for me.”
“You know that, do you?” The sarcasm in his voice was downright human. “Who you choose to trust is your business. I pledged you my aid. Aid you I will.”
The balance of his unsaid words echoed quite clearly in the chill morning air between us. I shrugged off a surge of frustration. The Rectifier would help me as he saw best. Surely he had even less agenda than the twins, unless he were in secret league with the Revanchists. The idea of the Rectifier doing anything in secret coaxed a reluctant smile to my lips.
“I trust you,” I said. “For reasons stronger and older than anything offered by these two mystics from the deep east.”
“Neither of us died when we fought.” He chuckled, that slow grinding laugh of his. “That is rare. And trust-making.”
The implications of that sank in. “I am glad I did not train in your school.”
One great paw enclosed my shoulder. “If you had, the school would have been bettered.”
I ducked my head to hide the foolish grin that tried to seize my face, and mumbled a thanks. Then I led him through a small side door into the dusty country where I’d left the ministers of my ambitions.
* * *
Iso and Osi rose to their feet at the sight of the Rectifier, once more reminding me of a pair of fighters ready for the sparring ring. How had they ever fooled me in the Dockmarket with the supposed threat of the local thugs? I had only needed look at their stance to know better, but I’d been blinded by their age and my willingness to believe in these two men who so reminded me of Lao Jia.
The great pardine settled his weight as if about to leap into a fray. Whether he was reading their stance or their saffron robes I could not say. Priest killer that he was, the Rectifier might well recognize the order or temple from which their rite stemmed.
For now, though, it was on me to speak, and quickly. “Revereds,” I said sharply. “I bring friends together today, to pursue the matter that troubles me most.” I bowed toward the twins. “Iso and Osi, I present the Rectifier. He is a warrior among the pardines, one who has stalked the shadows of the divine through the human world.” Then I turned and nodded at the Rectifier. “These are Iso and Osi. They also stalk the shadows of the divine along a somewhat different path than yours. Each of you has given me wise counsel, and all of you have said you would grant me aid in this matter I now seek to resolve.”
“Blackblood,” rumbled the Rectifier. His ears were laid back but not flat, and his claws flexed. That could be a lie, or it could be readiness to do battle.
The twins stared back at the Rectifier impassively. No fear flickered on their faces, no doubt danced in their eyes. I had expected nothing else of these two old men, and was proud of them. The Rectifier was not easy to stand before even when he was in the best of humors.
“
A god of this city,” Iso said. “Who troubles Mistress Green without cause or purpose.”
“I do not debate the purposes of gods,” the Rectifier responded. “Only the intentions of their faithless priests.”
The twins stirred at that. Osi spoke up. “You have the air of one who has broken a few altars.”
The last broken altar I had seen was the Temple of Air, in the Eirigene Pass, and that from a distance. Still, the smoke and bodies had been terrible. Choybalsan had no altar so far as I knew. Just the temple of his ambition, wherein I had slain him.
Besides, I had not truly broken him either, so much as remade his power into Endurance.
The Rectifier shrugged again. This time it was definitely an act, the elaborate, showy ripple of his shoulders intended to impress with his might. “Altars are made for breaking. Are we proposing to do so here in Copper Downs?”
Iso: “Not as such. Just place limits on a fractious god.”
“Erm.” That noise was somewhere between a growl and a purr.
Osi spoke again. “If you can stand against the force of a temple ward, or a shielding prayer, we could make use of your powers in pursuit of Mistress Green’s project.”
The three of them grew close and began to speak of the mechanics of blocking a god’s will, of invisibility and boundaries and how to hold the edges against an eruption. I listened closely, for of course this touched much on me. Their vocabulary and common experience passed quickly outside my knowledge. They descended into a deep discussion of threaded souls and power flows and ritual boundaries. The Rectifier had no trouble at all with the twins’ strange style of conversation, and seemed quite comfortable addressing them both as one.
The worth of my strategy of neutralizing Blackblood continued to nag at me, especially in the light of the Rectifier’s words about human gods for human needs. Was I making the right choices? Wisdom was slowly returning to me.
I cradled my belly—and truly, it had grown larger, as if my tumble outside was not evidence enough—and thought on how best to approach the problem of setting the Selistani embassy against the pardine Revanchists. Could I simply buy the attentions of the Dancing Mistress’ new sect with the Eyes of the Hills?
No. She would not play that game with me.
I considered an appeal to her loyalty, but our bond was strained almost beyond credibility, let alone the passion we’d shared not so long ago. Choybalsan had damaged my old teacher badly. She was not the woman who’d spent years training me; neither the one who had passed a few hot, strange weeks being my silken-furred lover.
The baby fluttered at that thought as well, as if she could read my memories. “Hush, child,” I whispered. “Your day is far, far away.”
Even if I could turn the Dancing Mistress toward me, that said nothing of the intentions of her followers. I doubted she could bind the Revanchists to my needs.
What if I took the Eyes of the Hills back to Mother Vajpai? I dismissed that idea as well. Whatever game Mother Vajpai was caught up in served as an extension of Kalimpuri politics. That she’d fought to lose in our contest at the Tavernkeep’s place was enough for me. I knew I should accept her passive support, but could not lean upon her given her active and official betrayal of me.
What had the embassy hoped to buy from the Revanchists with those gems? That was the true price and prize, and I simply could not see it yet. Neither group held anything in common with the other, except a very tenuous thread winding through me and my experiences in both Kalimpura and Copper Downs. Well, and whatever Endurance might symbolize to each of them. The pardines had played a hand in the birthing of the god. Their long-stolen power had been embodied in the ox.
Which implied that the Revanchists wanted to cast down Endurance and restore that pent-up power to their own people. The Dancing Mistress had all but said as much. She had not called for such a violent vengeance, though, only asked for their idol’s gems to be restored.
Likewise, the Selistani embassy was here for me. Or so they alleged. Plausible enough that someone might send Samma or even Mother Vajpai across the Storm Sea on such an errand, if the need were large enough or the call sufficiently urgent.
But Surali? And the Prince of the City?
Not for me, not as their sole end. Even Surali’s anger with me could not justify this expedition of theirs. Some greater game was afoot, that the entire Temple of the Silver Lily was enmeshed in, or Surali would not have whatever hold she already kept on Mother Vajpai.
It was up to me to free my Blade sisters.
This whole affair coiled round and round, though I could not see the center. I had forced Samma to give me the Eyes of the Hills. I did not yet know what purpose the gems filled for the pardines, nor did I comprehend what deeper thing might be guarded beyond that purpose.
Something essential was hidden from me.
And did that matter?
What if I just forced the two groups to open conflict? They would fight until even the Interim Council could not ignore the trouble. Let the twins and the Rectifier neutralize Blackblood, then bring my real enemies to force of arms. Copper Downs possessed no army as such, and no real law enforcement since the disbanding of the Ducal Guard, but the Interim Council now had Lampet’s Lads. If motivated, the guilds here could muster quite a few men under arms even without a renewed effort to raise the vacant regiments. Chowdry quite possibly could conjure up elements of Federo’s old bandit army just by trolling taverns and chophouses and dockside flops with the right words in his mouth.
If Jeschonek and the others wanted the Selistani and the Revanchists gone, they had the power to force the issue. All I really needed to do was create enough of a ruckus to call down that official wrath.
Creating a ruckus happened to be something I was very, very good at. Yesterday’s fight in the Tavernkeep’s place wasn’t a bad start. I would continue the effort by sending a note to the Selistani embassy and informing them anonymously that the Revanchists had taken possession of the Eyes of the Hills. Whatever bargain Surali had meant to make with the gems was already overset with my seizure of them from Samma. This would make public what only she and I knew.
As for that, I was certain Samma had not yet betrayed herself. If she had, the affair yesterday would have run quite differently. Surali still played like a woman who controlled the highest cards. It was time she knew her hand had been stolen away.
I discarded the reflection and turned back to my allies at their work.
They squatted on their heels, drawing diagrams upon the blackened floorboards with dust and an old stub of chalk. Squinting close, I recognized a version of Ashton’s Ladder of the Divine, a classic theological illustration I’d encountered during my time of enforced education in the Factor’s house. They worked together to annotate it with notes that looked as if the Rectifier were propounding his notion of the utility of godhead.
Pardine theology meeting with, well, whatever rite the saffron-robed twins practiced. With a nod, I left them to it and slipped back out into the city’s burgeoning day.
* * *
It was my intention to head for a scrivener’s and procure the needed letter to the Selistani embassy. I did not want the missive written out in my own hand, for surely Samma and Mother Vajpai would recognize my script. It was possible that Surali would as well, depending on whether or not she had made a study of me in pursuit of her vengeance. With a small grin, I wished her ill of her injuries. I hoped that her own writing would always have a shiver in it to remind the vicious woman of the cost of crossing me.
The morning was still bright and quite cold. I found myself drawn toward the Temple Quarter. That impulse I followed despite my earlier plan, though I had no intention of marching up the steps of the Algeficic Temple. Blackblood would be fine without me, until he wasn’t. That thought made me check my backtrail for signs of Skinless, whom I thought I’d spied the previous day. There were no nine-foot-tall flayed corpses rambling the streets behind me.
I could not wait to
be well and truly shut of these gods.
Soon enough I was standing before the ruined Temple of Marya. The site was a jumble of joists and fractured bricks, just as I recalled. Whatever activity the recent rescue had stimulated was long gone. Scavengers had not yet crept in to clear the rubble for salvage or fill. Offerings had been left behind, too. A few flowers—in winter?—scraps of food, a little girl’s smock.
I sat on a lump of masonry and stared up at the brick looming beyond. It was the back of some other temple’s refectory or priory. What had been an interior wall of Marya’s temple stood exposed, the last surviving piece of what was otherwise utterly destroyed. I saw a row of hooks, as if to hang pots, and a discolored square where some icon or image had long been displayed. Small chalk marks around the edges of the wall looked fresher, and oddly familiar.
Hadn’t I seen chalk marks on the shattered bricks here before? On my first visit … I craned my neck to look about. They were familiar, too familiar. And not just from this wreckage.
The air thickened. I tasted metal again. My thoughts interrupted, I tried to gather myself close, as Iso and Osi had taught me, to render myself small as a mustard seed before divine regard. It was already too late. Two birds wheeling in the sky above slowed to a halt in place, their wings trapped between one beat and the next.
Desire, I was certain of it. Blackblood spoke to me in the flesh, so to speak, while the Lily Goddess manifested by different paths.
“You may as well show Yourself,” I called out, my words braver than my heart. “My attention has been captured.”
She stepped out of nothingness, and was indeed Desire. I imagined any woman would know this goddess simply by Her aspect. I tried to look close, but again She was of all shapes and sizes and colors in one body, so it was like staring at a crowd and trying to make them into a single person.