The Gods of Vice

by Devin Madson

  “My father was a duke, and I have a pretty face. Conceit’s father was a merchant. Ire’s, a blacksmith.”

  “And you’re useful.”

  Hope bowed ironically. “Yes. I heal the minds of new Vices, which is why the Master takes me everywhere with him.”

  “You are your name—Hope, to be given and taken. That’s a formidable power.”

  “And the breath of a beetle compared to you.”

  He went out on the words, leaving me to follow along the upper gallery. Distant voices echoed below, but though it sounded like a meal was in progress, Hope led the way up a creaky flight of stairs instead of down. At the top, a second gallery continued around the building, at some places little more than a walkway hanging precariously over the lower hall. Hope strode fearlessly across these, but I found my steps slowing, shuffling as I tried not to look down.

  “Where are we going?” I said as he mounted the first of a series of ladders.

  “Up. You’ll see.”

  Breathing deeply and forcing myself not to look down, I followed him up until the final ladder spat us out on the roof. Wind rippled my half robe as I straightened, and I gripped Hope’s arm for fear it would blow me over the edge.

  “There’s no parapet,” I said, still holding his arm.

  “No, but you won’t fall. Are you afraid of heights? Do you want to go back down?”

  I did want to go back down, but the middle of the flat roof had been cleared of rubble and a spread of food lay waiting on a cloth. “Did you bring all that up here?”

  “I like it up here,” Hope said. “It’s peaceful and the view reminds me of home, just with less ocean. We can go down though if you prefer. I just thought you might not want to eat with the others after…” He let out a huff of breath. “I wanted to apologise for what I said earlier too. I know you didn’t have a choice. It was use my ability or let us all die, and despite how often I think we deserve to die, I don’t really want to, so thank you. And I’m sorry. Not only for what I said but because you had to… feel it. The hopelessness. It’s awful.”

  Having let out all those words, he deflated, his shoulders hunching like a dog expecting trouble. And even had I been desperately afraid of heights, I could not have climbed down. “I’m… I’m sorry too,” I said. “For using it. For making you use it.”

  He nodded at the weathered stone beneath our feet, and long seconds passed in awkward silence before I realised I was still holding his arm. I let go, steadying myself as the wind went on gusting around us.

  “There’s nothing too exciting to eat, but you must be hungry,” Hope said, walking over to sit before the spread of dishes. “The wine spilled a bit, but Rancour was already going to be mad at me for stealing it, so it doesn’t matter.”

  I joined him, trying not to think about how close the edge of the roof was. “Do you get along with any of the Vices?”

  “Only Ire. Most of the others dislike me for one reason or another. Though I suspect in Rancour’s case it’s because I helped him heal when he was marked.”

  I looked a question and Hope shrugged. “Some people hate anyone who has seen their vulnerabilities. Hate anyone who even knows they have vulnerabilities.”

  “Don’t we all have them?”

  “I’ve always thought so. Surely you know so.” He took an egg-and-millet fritter from the spread and began tearing it into small pieces. Jian would have slapped my hand for so childish an eating habit, but I just watched Hope’s deft fingers work, honoured that he was comfortable being so honestly himself in my presence. Unable to say so, I picked one up and began doing the same. When he noticed, he grinned. “What’s it like being an Empath? The Master never talks about it, he just… disappears sometimes. Mentally, not physically.”

  I shrugged one shoulder. “I don’t know what it’s like not being an Empath. The world has just always been loud.”

  “Do you feel everyone?”

  Another shrug, and able to feel him clearer than ever up here away from the other Vices, I couldn’t meet his gaze. “Yes, but some more than others. Katashi, for example, is very loud. For someone who has suffered as much as he has, he doesn’t hide away from his feelings.”

  “Is anyone quiet?”

  “Avarice.”

  Hope had been holding a piece of fritter while he listened, but he laughed and popped it in his mouth at that. “Oh, no one understands Avarice. He’s not marked, did you know that? I mean, he must have been once, I guess, because he can do the whole stone skin thing, but he could disobey the Master if he wanted. He could walk away and the Master wouldn’t be able to stop him. But he doesn’t.”

  “Really? I assumed you were all…” I grimaced rather than finish my words.

  “Oh, the rest of us are. Stuck here against our will for all eternity.” He put another piece of fritter in his mouth and spoke around it. “Or at least until some injury or illness puts the Master out of his misery.”

  Misery. Despite Malice’s façade of calm, predatory confidence, no word had ever suited him more. Hope, who had no special Sight to draw upon, had seen more even than I had, and for the first time, I wondered what he saw when he looked at me. Another question I could not ask added to the pile of words I could not say, and for a few minutes, we ate in silence, both staring out at the far horizon.

  The wind had not abated and it went on blustering around us as we ate. Every now and then we would fall into short bursts of conversation only to be silent as long. It wasn’t an awkward silence but a companionable one, something of the seeds of understanding having been sown in blood that night upon the road.

  “How long do you think we’re staying here?” I asked as Hope finished off the last slice of dried plum. “Just tonight or until there’s news of Darius?”

  Darius, his soul had drawn no nearer since we arrived. If anything, he felt smaller, quieter, farther away.

  “I don’t know.” Hope began gathering the remains of the meal into the centre of the cloth. “Whatever it may appear, the Master doesn’t tell me things. What I know, I guess or overhear, just like everyone else. He’ll be waiting for you though.”

  “What, now?”

  A mischievous smile lifted the corner of Hope’s mouth. “He didn’t tell me to make sure you ate. He told me to fetch you to him.”

  “Doesn’t it hurt to disobey?”

  “Proper orders, yes, not lazy requests with no immediacy. It might start hurting if he begins to worry though, so we probably shouldn’t keep him waiting much longer.”

  I reluctantly agreed and helped him pack the dishes into a bundle he could sling over his shoulder. Together we climbed down, leaving the sense of companionship behind with the tumultuous wind. Away from the solitude of the rooftop, Hope tensed into his usual melancholy self, speaking not another word until we reached Malice’s room. I thought of a dozen things I could say to bring him out of himself, but discarded them all, his gloom contagious.

  “Thank you for eating with me,” he said as he stopped outside Malice’s door. “It was very kind of you.”

  “Kind? I—”

  Hope tapped twice on the door and pushed it open. “Endymion is here, Master.”

  At the far end of the room, Malice stood at a narrow window looking out over the forest. With one hand resting lightly on the sill, he stroked the old stone, his thoughts far away.

  “Do come in, Endymion,” he said, not looking around. “Sit down, yes?”

  Able to do nothing but grimace at Hope, I went in, leaving him to close the door behind me. It was a small room, airless and bright with lantern light. Outside, the sun still reigned, but here, a multitude of lanterns staved off the castle’s artificial night.

  I did not sit but hovered inside the doorway. Malice ran a hand through his long hair. “Do you believe in the gods, Endymion?”

  “Yes.” Jian would have been proud at the speed of my answer.

  “Do you believe that they exist? Or that they do everything they are said to do? They are t
wo different things, yes? Do you believe the gods watch over us? That they hear our prayers? That they receive our sacrifices?”

  Beginning to wonder where his line of questioning was leading, I said, “I suppose so.”

  “You suppose? That is certainly not the answer of a devout man, yes?”

  “Your point?”

  “I have not yet made one. Do the gods judge us when we die? Do they decide whether our souls deserve the hells?”

  “If they don’t, they should.”

  Malice nodded slowly, still looking out the window rather than at me. “Do you believe that Emperor Kin is a god?”

  “No.”

  He chuckled in his odd, humourless way. “The speed with which you answered gives me joy, yes? How about Emperor Tianto, was he a god?”

  “His head was cut off.”

  “Does that preclude him being a deity?”

  “He was a man.”

  “And Emperor Lan?”

  I nodded.

  Malice finally turned from the window, lifting one of his immaculate brows. “Not a god?”

  “No.”

  “And did they do well by our beloved Kisia?”

  “Where are all these questions leading?”

  He pressed a finger to his lips and hushed me gently. “Do not ruin it now; you are doing so very well, yes? Just answer the question.”

  “How should I know?” I said. “I was a child when Emperor Lan died and a child when Emperor Tianto died. I have only one emperor on whom to base my opinion.”

  “Then do so.”

  “The answer is still that I don’t know. It seems to function.”

  Another dry chuckle. “It functions, yes? How well put. Our glorious empire… functions. There was a time when Darius had a dream for this empire, to return it to glory—Kisia, the centre of the world. It was once, but time moves on and we fall away. We fight amongst ourselves, we fight for tradition, when all the time the outside world presses in upon us, and it is all due to one cause, yes? No longer are we ruled by gods.”

  It was hard to mistake his meaning, but I asked the question all the same. “What gods?”

  “Us, Endymion. We are the gods, yes?”

  “No.”

  “Think a little. Can you feel another’s pain?”

  “Yes.”

  “Can you feel their hatred and their love?”

  I paused, wishing I could speak a different answer. “Yes.”

  “Can you reach inside the heart of a man and see him for what he truly is?”

  Letting out a long breath, I nodded.

  “What are these abilities but those of a god?”

  “But gods are infallible.”

  “So you are infallible, more so than any court, than any jury of men. You know what is right and what is wrong and you can read it, black and white, in the hearts of men.”

  I could, but like I had told Katashi, it was not that simple—not without touch. And even then, could I ever really see all there was to see, understand all there was to understand?

  “I’m not a god,” I said aloud, trying to silence the part of me that liked the sound of the title. The part of me that revelled in my power. “I’m not.”

  Malice moved from the window, the worn floor scuffing beneath his step. The incense had burned itself out and, in no hurry, he took a fresh stick from a narrow wooden box and set it in the spider-shaped burner, its eight legs gathered to pinch the stick in place.

  “In fact you are, in every sense of the word,” he said, lighting the incense from one of his many lanterns. “Come, look at this.”

  Motioning for me to join him, Malice knelt at the low table. A number of scrolls sat in a jumble at one end, each with a crimson ribbon and the Otako crest, signed and dated. “I believe our father burned your papers to protect your identity, but there are other copies, yes? And this.”

  He held a scroll out to me, sharp eyes watching from beneath heavy lids. I took it and unrolled it upon the table. Inky pikes stared back, and below the Otako crest, the heavily formed characters of an official court document.

  In the eyes of the gods, I, Emperor Lan Otako, second of my name, Lord Protector of the Imperial Expanse of Kisia, hereby lay claim to the parentage of one Prince Takehiko Otako, my fourth son and heir, by the womb of my wife, Empress Li Otako. Any who speaks otherwise errs in the face of their God and Emperor and will henceforth be treated as traitors to Emperor, truth, and Empire.

  It was signed and dated with a heavy brush, the Imperial Seal unmistakable in glossy crimson.

  “When Emperor Lan signed that, he sealed your future, yes? You are Takehiko Otako, god emperor of Kisia, and when the people learn of your return, few will be able to deny your right to the throne. Lord Nyraek Laroth may have been your father, but you are Emperor Lan’s heir. Not Grace Tianto, not Katashi, not Kin. Not even Hana. You.”

  I let the scroll go and it rolled up, once again hiding its words from the world. Every breath seemed harder to draw. “And if they knew it, I’d be dead. Even more dead than I would have been without this piece of paper.”

  “In your delightful cousin’s hands, perhaps,” he said, slowly re-rolling the scroll more neatly. “But I think you underestimate Emperor Kin’s desire to appear honourable. Honour is wealth.”

  “The Ts’ai motto?”

  He smiled in the way Jian sometimes had when my academic aptitude surprised him. “Indeed. He wrote it himself, you know. Common families have no mottos, but an Imperial family needs one, yes? Honour is wealth. He swore an oath to Emperor Lan, to your father, and to you. And while he can claim Katashi is the son of a traitor and therefore cannot be heir to the throne, you, my dear Takehiko, are no such thing. According to this”—he tapped the scroll—“you are not even the bastard we all know you are.”

  I thought of the fierce Emperor Kin from the meeting with Katashi, the pair of them glaring at one another through time itself. “If I showed up at the palace demanding my throne, he would still kill me.”

  “If you went alone and no one knew you existed, then of course he would. He’s not a fool, yes? That is why tomorrow, you will be dressed as befits your station, and once preparations are complete, we will travel to Mei’lian, the official retainers of Emperor Takehiko, fourth of his name, Emperor of Kisia.”

  He made his bow while kneeling, long hair falling to brush the tabletop.

  The thrill of such an image shivered through me. The position. The power. The chance to belong, to go back home, to be what I had been born to be. But whatever the piece of paper said, I was not an Otako.

  Those soldiers had died in the dark, choked by the night that poured into their hearts. And worse than the pain, worse than the sound of slicing flesh had been the silence—no cries, no keening agony. Those men had wanted to die so much they welcomed the opportunity to bleed out slowly, lying face down in the dirt.

  “You enjoyed it, yes?” he said as though he had read my thoughts.

  I thought of Hope. “No.”

  He chuckled. “You can’t lie to me, Brother. I know. And soon you won’t even lie to yourself.”

  You are a monster.

  The words were there, sounding in his silky whisper.

  Monster.

  People had said the same of Darius, but I had seen beneath his skin and knew there was more to him than the darkness at his core. He had tried to save me the only way he could.

  “No,” I said again, swallowing the memory of his soul at my fingertips, his emotions almost as fruitful as Hope’s ability had been. “I don’t want to be an emperor and I don’t want to be your puppet.”

  “A poor choice of word, Takehiko. I see no strings. I see no hand thrust inside you to turn your head and make you speak, yes?”

  “Not yet. So I’ll leave now, while I can.”

  Eleven. Twenty-one. Sixty-two. And back down the hillside, one hundred and fifty-one Pikes lying dead in their own blood, shreds of their souls left to float on the air like so much dust.
/>   Malice started to laugh, beginning as a snigger and rising to a belly laugh full of genuine amusement. “Oh, you think you can just walk away. Surely even you are not so naive, Endymion. You’re losing yourself, yes?”

  Seventy. Thirty-two. Six. One hundred and four.

  “You don’t need to answer,” Malice said, taking my hand in his and beginning to trace the lines of the Empathic Mark born onto my skin. “I told you about our father. Empathy has driven many men mad. You think you won’t go so far, yes? You think you aren’t naturally so cruel, yes? No.” He dropped my hand. “You will need to be chained down before the end. If you want to take Kisia to the grave with you, then by all means, walk away now.”

  His words were an echo of my dark thoughts, but he was enjoying my pain. I had no doubt he would chain me rather than help me, able only to see a future in which my body clad in crimson furthered his cause.

  “Why me?” I said. “Why can I do things that you can’t?”

  “Whisperers are different.”

  “Whisperers?”

  Malice made a face. “What boring conversations you force on me, yes? Another day, another day, when I am not so weary of your company that I can almost understand Darius’s desire to send you, branded, into Chiltae.”

  “He did that because he had to.”

  “And I do what I do because I must. We are all servants of necessity. “

  “He’s not coming.”

  Malice froze in the act of rising, the loose end of his bone ribbon tapping on the table. “Say that again.”

  “Darius. He’s not coming.”

  “How do you know?”

  “I don’t know how I know. I can just… feel him…” I pressed my fist to my heart, a gesture that sent a flash of anger across Malice’s face. “You said that connections leave a piece of us inside each other. I almost took so much of him in Koi that he died, so…”

  His expression darkened, his whole body stiffening, and a laugh bubbled to my lips. “You hate that. You hate that someone else could have anything of him when he should be all yours. Well console yourself that he is alive, but he’s trying to put as much distance between you and him as he can.”

  I rose from the table. “I’m done,” I said. “I’m leaving. If I’m going to be anyone’s puppet, I would far rather be his than yours.”