“I have a solution.” Amber’s voice crackled with amusement. “Formulate your request again.”
She frowned at the projection of the god. “Make me your Arbiter.”
Crimson sounded almost amused as well. “Interestingly, I can no longer contact Azure or our Arbiter. Amber has interdicted communications in that area and cut off his own access to the interdictor system in orbit by initiating an automated maintenance cycle. Without the ability to verify our Arbiter’s status, there are emergency protocols we can invoke whereby we must assume he is dead, and seek a replacement immediately. You will do nicely, Isavel Valdéz.”
Isavel’s head spun at the fact that such transparent trickery and self-deception could have any kind of impact, but she wasn’t about to question the logic of gods. Suddenly she had things to do, things that didn’t involve getting yelled at, and her heart was racing faster. “Well - do it, then!”
“Very well.” For once, the voices of the two gods joined into the rainbow polyphony she knew from the gods of Earth, though within it she could still pick out individual threads of crimson and amber interwoven. “Isavel Valdéz, we hereby appoint you Arbiter of Mars, and shall hereafter consult with you in key matters of our guardianship over the people of Mars.”
She felt nothing, but if the gods said it… “Good. Okay.”
“You suggested you could solve our first Arbiter’s continued demands for violent population control. Or perhaps his quest for the Red Sword.” Crimson’s voice didn't sound any more deferential than before. “Please explain how exactly you will negotiate this with him.”
“I won’t.” She smiled, glancing at her companions scattered around the room, feeling the tension and uncertainty in each of them. Two more things to do. She squared her shoulders, and reached inside and grabbed and wrangled herself together, and to her ears her voice became a chorus of her.
“Gods of Mars, before you stands Saint Isavel Valdéz , Dragoneater, Herald of the Gods of Earth, White Lady Witch, Angel of Glass, Arbiter of Mars . Pathfinder, hunter, warrior, dragon, medic. Daughter of Sefina Valdéz, daughter of Fyol Tairn, daughter of whatever grand stupid fates birthed me anew after death. I am many things. More than I should be; more than any god or mortal understands. And amongst it all I became a weapon, and now I am the wielder too.
“So taste the bloods in my veins, hear the titles round my name, and know that I will be the first blade to gut a god. Azure will die, his Arbiter will be cut down, and you two will have helped me kill your brother.”
Chapter 17
She smiled into the silence beyond her words, though her smile began to strain across the moments it took the gods to respond. But then they did, Amber first between them.
“So you will destroy them both? Interesting approach. I do not see an issue with this.”
Kelena gaped at her. “Kill a god? How? What happens when he is gone?”
“Azure was chosen to house the Arbiter because he was assigned planetary defence and governance.” Crimson’s words were curt and quick. “In a world with no organized threat to Mars from the outside and no critical civil unrest within, Azure’s role is far less important to the functioning of martian civilization than my role in managing the biosphere, or Amber’s role in maintaining a stable technology network. We can do without Azure.”
“The Red Sword has a point, though.” Amber seemed to turn their head towards Kelena and nod gently. “ How will you kill a god? It has never been done. Unlike Crimson or I, Azure was instantiated in a single facility, for military information security reasons, so it is certainly possible. But the reason he isn’t instantiated across multiple locations is that between his control of most military hardware, the production facilities to build more, and his heavily shielded fortress, nothing short of orbital bombardment could even render him vulnerable in the first place. He has also amassed a city’s worth of soldiers to fight for him, who he spares from cullings in turn. What are you, Isavel, supposed to do about that?”
Isavel crossed her arms and thought about those words, frowning a little. “Let’s start with that shield. Orbital bombardment. You mean godfire, don’t you? There are cannons in the sky that can break his shields?”
“Theoretically, yes. There are four ancient battleships in orbit around Mars that are still able to deliver that kind of firepower, but they are all firmly under Azure’s control. That is part of his assignment - managing the planetary fleet.”
“You’re a god, Amber. Can’t you take one?”
“If we are going to destroy him, violating his jurisdiction is a minor concern.” Still, Amber’s body language was not confident. “But for all that I am the god of such things, a battleship’s information defense matrix is a hard nut to crack, and my computational resources are limited considering the active processes I must maintain on Mars. I may be able to mount an attack on one of the battleships and take control of it, but no more than that, and Azure will likely use the remaining three to destroy it in short order if he can.”
“Can you get one of these battleships for long enough to bring godfire down and crack that shell? That’s all we need.”
“It should be possible.”
She started pacing around the column of red light, hands fidgeting behind her back. This - this was a better conversation to be having. This made her feel like she was doing something, something other than making everything worse. “His followers can be killed. I’ve done that before. The real problem is the fleet - the war barges.”
“Unfortunately, data on those isn’t complete.” Amber was shaking their head. “I have orbital observations, but only Azure would have exact inventory of what he has in storage. Although, for what it is worth, Sulakaz’ detonation wiped out most of the ones in this region, so he will need to reposition his forces.”
She blinked. The words, glued together, sounded like Azure’s Bruise, but it had clearly been used as a name. “I’m sorry - who? What?”
“I named it.” She turned and found Kelena pointing into the ceiling. “Tharson kept saying it needed a name, so I named it, while you were gone. It seems to accept the name. Don’t you, Sulakaz?”
The wraith warbled back down at her, flitting between crevasses in the ceiling. It was a mildly positive sound, little more. Isavel stared - of course, she had left them alone for a while now, and the gods heard everything here. “Sulakaz. Okay. Well - Red Rise had a fleet. Kelena, do you think they could be convinced to attack?”
The swordswoman gaped at her. “I do not know. They may well want revenge, but you will have difficulty convincing them to attack a god.”
“Crimson? You could help.” She scowled at the light. “If you actually spoke to your damned people, they might listen.”
“I cannot predict human political action, and neither can you.” Crimson sounded more than a little annoyed at that. “But I can certainly speak to them if you suggest it, Arbiter. It is the only fleet within range that could reach Azure’s stronghold before he gathers his ships and sends punitive forces after Amber and myself. There are not many cities within reach.”
“And for all the terror the fall of Red Rise may cause, it is still just one city.” Kelena looked at her doubtfully. “Others may not see how it affects them, unless we bring Azure’s anger with us. You would not find many martians eager to attack the strongest of the gods simply to secure passage off of Mars.”
She nodded, pacing still, and the thought struck her. “Actually, I will.” She glanced at Kelena. “There is another city nearby.”
Kelena frowned at her, clearly not following. “Hundred Steps? That is where Red Rise’ refugees surely went, but -”
“Deep Tharsis.”
It was Tanos who got it first, tossing in the martian word that widened Kelena’s eyes. “Aliy. She wants to ask the aliy for help.”
She nodded. “Can it be done? Do they ever help?”
Kelena’s hand gripped the hilt of the Red Sword now, squeezing harder as though whatever lay inside it
was particularly difficult to get out. “They have fought in wars both against and alongside us before, but it is never a sure thing, trying to anticipate what any given aliy will want. When we last passed through Deep Tharsis they tried to kill us. Though… They say the gods do not favour them. I cannot say for certain, but it is not enough to plan for.”
She nodded along; she could ask them. “The night after the rokh attacked, one of them found me. Her language wasn’t much better than mine, but we didn’t fight.”
Zoa shot her a look, but Kelena simply hummed and considered it. “They sometimes tame rokh they raise from eggs, and fly them. They would take interest if you killed one, I imagine, even if it wasn’t theirs.”
“She did ask me to give them any eggs I found.” She pursed her lips, thinking. “I can ask them. It can’t hurt.”
“They could kill you.”
“They could try.”
Kelena smirked. “They also can’t be relied on.”
She nodded, racking her brain for other options, and her mind returned to the spider tanks Erran had found for her back near Campus. “What about ancient weapons? Earth seems riddled with buried weapon caches.”
Amber’s silhouette nodded. “They exist here as well, yes. Not many that I know of, but you will not be able to assemble a large army anyway.”
“I have to try.” She turned around and looked at the others, and found skeptical eyes staring back at her.
Zoa asked the thing she didn’t want to hear. “And if you can’t get the fleet, the outers - what exactly is your plan?”
Isavel took a deep breath, trying to shake off the feeling that if she thought too hard about that particular future it might actually come to pass. “If we don’t have any help, I learn what I can about the city and the people who follow Azure. I can still shift my skin and fly - I might be able to get in quickly or without being noticed. But if he decides to turn an army against me...” She tightened her fist. She had taken down barges one at a time, but if several of them came at her from all sides? “I’ll want to make sure he doesn’t do that. It’s hard to say without knowing more about the place.”
“Are you sure sending a fleet is the best idea if we don’t know much about it?”
“No, but I know a fleet can’t be stealthy. If his losses here actually mattered, we need to strike as soon as possible to make the most of Red Rise’s fleet. He’ll recover; they may never outnumber him again.”
Zoa leaned back against the wall. “Sounds like you don’t need me. Far as I’m concerned you’re dead without a fleet, so if they don’t come I’m leaving.” Yarger, still the man of the fewest words Isavel had ever known, simply nodded along with her.
Isavel narrowed her eyes at the coder. “You’re not getting home any other way.”
“I’m not getting home dead either.” A stroke of the coder’s blue hair fell across her face as she tilted her head. “Or do you think Ren is getting home? No. You know what the martians do to their dead.”
She tensed and nodded. Kelena did not give her reassuring looks either. “I can’t risk bringing the Red Sword so close to Azure if I will be severely outnumbered. I am sorry, Isavel, but without that fleet I don’t see how you could hope to take down Azure.”
She bit down and nodded. The swift crumbling of what she had thought of as her party, for better or worse, almost took her by surprise. It shouldn’t have, of course. She continued pacing, back and forth. She obviously couldn’t ask any of them to try to kill a god if they had anything less than an army and godfire at their backs. How could she ask such a thing of anyone?
She looked at Hail, and saw in the hunter’s face that there was no answer to be found there. Sam and Tanos looked at her sadly as well, and of all of them, they were perhaps the ones most at risk. She sighed. “Well - Sam? Remember what you told me? This is that time.”
Tanos glanced at Sam, and they exchanged a look Isavel couldn’t read much into, before the young man shook his head. “Try, first. If you can get a fleet together -”
“But if I can’t, you shouldn’t follow me.” She tried to force a brave smile, not sure if it was working. “If I succeed anyway, I’ll try to come find you all before I leave.”
She was alone, if there wasn’t an army waiting to be rallied. That was fair. She could only ask people to do what they were willing to do.
She felt certain she had an army enough inside her to do the job - but who else would see it that way? And the idea of an impenetrable shield around the body of a god… that was something she had not yet learned to pummel her way through. She reached for the locator stone, its comforting shape cool in her hand, and tried to convince herself she could actually do what her gut seemed to know she could.
A flicker of moment caught her attention, and her eyes went up. “Sulakaz?” She stepped forward. “Do you like that name? Can you come down here?”
The creature cooed and warbled and slid down onto the ground after a moment, assuming the triangular figure it had before, vaguely in the image of a tall person wearing a thick cloak. It had no eyes to look at her, but she looked where its face should be in that configuration. It sounded… not upset, at least.
“I saw what you did, by the First Tree. I know you… understand things about the barges.” She shuddered at the memory, the dying thoughts of the martian man Sulakaz had eaten, then forced on her as she triggered a smokescreen in Red Rise. “If there are any left outside, can you help me fly one? We need to find whatever’s left of Red Rise’s fleet.”
It seemed to stare, or at least not respond for a time, and she started feeling increasingly stupid for speaking to a thing that refused to speak back.
“I don’t know what you did back there, but it probably saved thousands of lives.” She paused, looking at its gentle movements. “Did it hurt you, somehow? But you did it anyway. Thank you, for that, if nothing else.”
Its response was tentative and staccato, a bit more positive than before. She glanced at Kelena, wondering how much the martian had been speaking to it in her absence. If they had been locked in here two days, and Yarger didn’t speak, even the Red Sword may have become starved for conversation.
“I do not like that creature, Isavel.” The voice was Crimson’s, and she saw the concern reflected in Amber’s body language as well. “It is conscious - not a simulacra of a mind, but a true conscious being in the quantum sense. Yet while its conscious mind should be human-like, given its structure, it seems feral.”
Isavel looked back at the gods, and it occurred to her they might actually be afraid of the wraith, for all that she herself had been the one to promise to slay a god. She smiled, finally, feeling this might be a good sign. “If you don’t like or understand it, then neither will Azure. That’s good for us.”
Amber crossed their arms. “I will not dispute that.”
She took a deep breath. “Crimson - can you give me anything that will speak to your faithful, in the red fleet? Something they’ll trust?”
“Certainly.” Something clunked in the distance. “While I will defer to your suggestions in this matter, I would recommend you refrain from abusing the opportunities this may present you with. It may prove counter-productive in the long run.”
“Why?” She grinned, knowing full well why. “Because someone might get fed up of unfulfilled promises, rebel, and decide to kill you?”
“Among other possibilities.” The voice, this time, came from lower to the ground, and she saw another one of the metallic hexapods skittering towards her. This one’s joints, however, underglowed with red. “Carry this along with you. I can make no promises it will be enough.”
“I know.” When the hexapod reached her, she knelt down, and it crawled awkwardly up her arm and clamped its legs around her left bicep, like some sort of armband. It was not heavy, and remained quiet. She looked at the others, again, and saw the uncertainty on all their faces. The martians had things easiest - this was their world, after all. But what were the rest of them supposed
to do? “If they want to, let the others stay here, where it’s safe.”
“Very well.”
She looked at them all, unsure of what to say to them. Nothing she said, in the end, would matter as much as what she did or didn’t do. She met their gazes all one last time, nodding, and keeping it short. “Do what you want. I’ll be back, and one way or another I’ll kill that god.” She glanced at the wraith, and made for the hallway. “Sulakaz? Are you -”
The wraith didn’t even wait for her to finish, collapsing into a rush of smoky dark that whorled ahead of her down the tunnel. A strange companion for a lonely journey, but part of her was quietly relieved she wouldn’t need to make conversation. Nobody stopped her or moved to follow as she strode down the halls, as Crimson heaved open the door out onto Olympus, as she stepped out against under the skies of Mars. Alone, but for a god and a castoff whorl of magic. And all the bloods in her blood.
“Crimson.” She paused, knowing there was little more to say to the old gardener, but wanting to reassure nonetheless. “You’ve done more than enough for Mars. I hope I can make it all worth it.”
The god’s response chirped from the hexapod, quiet and flat. “It will be worth it when my children no longer need to die, Isavel.”
They hadn’t needed to for a long time, she knew. But perhaps it was still difficult for the god, torn between two Arbiters, to say so. “Of course.”
“And you do not need to emotionally bond with me.”
She grimaced. “Right.”
The hexapod suddenly flickered yellow, and Amber’s androgynous voice fluttered through. “I will also remain utterly unmoved by your distressed-sounding attempts at emotional warmth.”
“Great. Perfect. Wildly encouraging.” She glanced at the wraith. “How about you, Sulakaz? You don’t seem like the bonding type either. Unless you’re eating someone.” Her frown deepened. “Gods, we have that in common now, don’t we?”
Fourth Under Sol (Digitesque Book 5) Page 29