by M. K. Hobson
Bow, she commanded.
Stanton lowered himself in a deep, slow bow. He let his forehead rest against the stone at her feet for a long time. She did not command him to rise, but after a while he did, kneeling stiffly, staring straight ahead, his jaw clenched.
“Why did you come?” Emily moaned, despair washing over her.
“Because I love you,” he said very softly. “And because I have to save the world.”
“You could have saved the world if you’d stayed away!”
Nothing could have saved your world, the Goddess said. This is destiny. This is fate. She paused, gently running her fingers through Stanton’s hair. This is true love conquering all.
Then, in a movement of dark smoke and obsidian sheen too quick for the eye to comprehend, the Goddess flayed the shirt from Stanton’s body. Strips of cloth fluttered to the ground around him; he was not even scratched. Emily sucked in air involuntarily. On Stanton’s slender white chest, over the place where his heart was, blazed a garish red birthmark. A birthmark in the shape of a woman’s outstretched hand.
The mark of our claim. Did you never see it? The Goddess traced a glass-knife finger over the birthmark. How did this truth escape you? The truth that he could never be yours? He was always ours. From the time he was born and from all the times he died before.
“I am not yours!” Stanton’s face twisted with angry confusion. “I am not Xiuhunel, or even a piece of him! I’m nobody … I ran from you!”
“Would she have let you come back if you were nobody?” Emily said softly, the words catching in pain as Utisz twisted her arm harder.
“Let her up, you sadistic bastard,” Stanton hissed.
Utisz made no move to comply. Instead, he twisted Emily’s arm further—slowly.
“Stop it!” Stanton shouted. “Please!”
Emily clenched her jaw to refuse Utisz the satisfaction of her pain, but it was no use. First she whimpered, then she begged. Then she screamed.
Stop.
The word resounded through the Temple, ringing off the walls of black glass, making the ground shake and the braziers clatter. But this time, it was not the Goddess who spoke. It was Stanton.
Breathing hard, Utisz released Emily’s arm, staggering to his feet. Emily pushed herself to kneel, arm limp and throbbing. She looked for Stanton … but when her eyes found him, she could not believe what she saw.
He was standing waist-deep in the Calendar’s widest channel of Black Exunge. Tendrils of the black tarry substance slithered up his body like baby adders, plunging into his flesh—but he did not expand as he should have, as an Aberrancy would have. Instead, the Exunge spread itself out over his skin in a black shining film.
“My body is in contact with all the Black Exunge you have collected,” Stanton said. He was trembling as if bearing a great weight. “Every drop of it.”
Is this how you hope to destroy us? The Goddess was circling him, head tilted with fascination. We know that your body can filter Exunge, it is the gift of the burned—but even with a hundred years and a hundred lifetimes you could not hope to work a magic large enough.
“I don’t need to work a large magic,” Stanton whispered, ligatures of Black Exunge strangling the sound in his throat. “Sometimes smaller weapons serve better.”
Then Emily saw him move the hand that hung at his side. He pressed his thumb and forefinger together.
She had seen him do it a hundred times. Snap his fingers. Summon flame.
“No!” Emily screamed. She threw herself across the few feet of distance that separated them.
“After I left the Academy, I told Zeno I would give my own life to destroy her.” Stanton’s eyes, glossy black, shone with oily tears as he looked down at her. “But you, too, Emily? Why does it have to be you, too?”
Stop, Thirteenth! It was clear that the Goddess suddenly understood what Stanton intended. Relinquish this foolishness, and we will spare her life. She will live forever in the world remade. We swear it to you.
“I’m sorry, Emily,” he whispered. “I can’t save you and the world, too. I have to choose the world.”
It was a horrible choice. But it was the choice of a decent man. He was decent, she realized. With that truth to bolster her, Emily felt others flooding in behind it. It was why he hadn’t taken the cure … why Zeno had wanted him to leave her … why they had exiled him to Lost Pine, treated with hatred and scorn and contempt … because he was something bad to be used against something worse. He was the desperatus. He was their weapon.
I can give him one last chance …
Zeno had cursed the Liver because it was the only way Stanton would be allowed back into the Temple. Zeno knew the Goddess would need Stanton’s blood to cure the Liver they had taken from him, and that would give him one last chance to deploy the desperatus. Stanton would snap his fingers, cleanse the Temple in flame—the Temple, and all the other places around the earth where the Goddess had collected Exunge in preparation for temamauhti: San Francisco, Arkansas, Tennessee, and Kentucky. Japan and China and Java and all the other places Emily had read about in the newspapers … exploding in a vast unimaginable conflagration …
A smaller apocalypse to forestall a larger one.
Fire to fight fire.
Now she understood. Now Ososolyeh understood.
“No,” Emily said. “This is not the right way.”
Grabbing his hand, Emily threaded her living fingers through Stanton’s Exunge-slimed ones. He gave an agonized cry, tried to pull his hand away, but she held on to it tightly. She felt the funguslike tendrils of Exunge burrowing into her skin. Ososolyeh turned them back.
“It’s all right, love,” Emily whispered to him. “Trust us.”
There was a ferocious rumble that made the ground shake. It was the scream of the Goddess of Black Glass. She flew at Stanton, a blur of black and smoke.
Razor-edged fingers slashed his flesh in a hundred different directions. Blood blossomed all over his body. Stanton sagged, gory streams bright against the slimy black that covered him.
Utisz had Emily by the throat again, was yanking her backward. She tried to hold on to Stanton, but his fingers slackened in her grasp.
The Goddess gathered Stanton’s bleeding form in her arms. She picked him up as easily as if he were a hollow shell of paper. Turning, she carried him toward the sickened Liver, one white foot sliding before the other, her steps making the ground shake.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR
The Goddess’ Triumph
Utisz laid his blade of black glass along Emily’s throat, cold and sharp.
“Do you wish the honor of watching him die?” he croaked furiously. “Or shall I kill you now and spare you the misery?”
Emily spun beneath his grasp, knowing that the glass blade would cut her. She let it. She sank her teeth into his bare arm. He bellowed with surprise and pain as blood gushed warm between her lips. Words were forming in her mind—bitter, furious, guttural words.
She spat blood between her hand and the stump of her amputated arm, rubbing them together, the words forming on her lips at the same moment they were forming in her mind. She let them stream out in a foul ancient whisper.
“No!” Utisz wrapped an arm around her throat, reaching for his alembic with his other hand. Emily clutched at the arm around her throat, repeating the sangrimantic incantations as Ososolyeh spoke them to her, clutching Utisz’ arm between her good hand and her severed stump. Fierce red magic surrounded her and burned through him.
Behind her, she felt Utisz’ body began to jerk and spasm. There was the sound of something sizzling, like a steak on a hot griddle. She felt magic flowing through her body and smashing into his, charring muscle and bone. Utisz made a horrible sound like a rusting gate being torn from its hinges. His arm fell away. The black glass knife at her throat fell to the floor. Turning, she saw that he was dead—body charred beyond recognition, his arms extended as if he were still trying to restrain her. Emily reached down for the bla
ck glass knife. She knew she would need it.
Nothing knotted or tied.
Be skyclad.
Emily brought the knife to her throat and cut the cord that bound her. Then she let cord and knife drop together to the floor, similarly useless.
The Goddess had carried Stanton’s bleeding body to the very center of the Liver, and was laying him carefully atop the quivering mound of gray flesh. She removed the necklace from around her neck and placed it around his. Each of the twelve golden cages began to glow. She laid one hand on his chest, tenderly. Then, with one blade-edged finger of black glass, she slashed his throat.
Emily screamed. Stanton’s blood fountained. It bathed the gray flesh beneath him, rejuvenating it, and within moments the organ looked as healthy as it had before, slick and strong.
The Goddess lifted her hands and the Liver began to glow, pierced with shafts of orange brilliance, and all the Black Exunge in all the channels of the great Calendar Chamber began to glow with midday brightness.
Be reborn! She screamed, her voice high and wild as waves of brilliant golden power rose around her. Tendrils of glowing chrysohaeme slid up to encase the Liver in a fine mesh, wreathing Stanton’s body in a delicate, shimmering web.
And Stanton’s body began to change.
The Black Exunge that had coated his flesh burned away like a paper shell, revealing smooth dark-tanned skin, adorned with black tattoos and paint of many colors. Ornaments of jade and feathers and gold swirled around him in a glittering cloud, and the red handprint glowed on his chest. Only his eyes remained black—black as wells of tar, black as the darkness of the world he would rule.
Xiuhunel! The Goddess breathed, her voice rich with the joy of reunion. She reached for him, sharp-edged arms outstretched. Our true love.
Emily squeezed her eyes shut, took a deep breath, and gave a command with Ososolyeh’s voice. Her voice. The voice of a Goddess.
The earth rumbled in immediate answer. Roots shot out from all directions, through the walls, up from the floor, down from the ceiling. Thick, hairy, tough roots, intertwined with hunks of masonry and obsidian. They seized the Black Glass Goddess, tangling her in their grip.
Xiuhunel! The Goddess screamed as the roots pulled her up, high up above the pit, suspending her in the light that shone down from the ceiling like an insect under a magnifying glass. Rise! Rise and defend us!
Emily ran for him, jumping from churned stone to overturned obsidian boulder as if she were wending her way along a steep, melt-rushing creek. The Liver was glowing with blinding brilliance now. Squeezing her eyes shut against it, she began to climb. She had to feel her way up the side of the disgusting slimy flesh against the tornado of power that tried to push her back. Blood and slime covered her as she inched her way up, the earth tumbling all around her, helping her gain purchase. And as she climbed, she summoned Ososolyeh’s power, pulling it from stone and earth and root, driving it deep into the unholy flesh just as Zeno had.
“May good triumph over evil,” said Emily.
Below her, the Liver squealed and cringed. The brightness of it subsided, and then she saw him, stretched out motionless, throat gaping like a silent scream. In the fading brightness, he didn’t look like Xiuhunel anymore. The feathers and jade and gold were gone. His skin was corpse white, and his face was painted only with blood. He looked like the man she had fallen in love with. He looked dead.
Emily gathered his body in her arms, finding that it was as easy as if he were a hollow paper shell. She carried him to a place where good dark earth, untainted by Exunge, had tumbled up from the cracked floor. She laid his body down gently, directing Ososolyeh to slide its loving fingers over him, burying him deep within the rich black loam. Before the earth covered him completely, she put her hands around his throat, smearing her hands with his gritty blood. She would need it.
He is ours! The Goddess writhed in her prison of grasping roots, her blood-soaked feet kicking in the harsh light. Our true love! We swore an oath on the blood of those who murdered him … we pursued him life after life … for love of him, we would remake the world!
“And for love of him, I will save it,” Emily said. She felt Stanton’s life, his blood, singing along her fingers. She kissed each one of her fingertips, whispered good-bye.
Then Emily lifted her bloody arms. She let herself fall. She cast herself heedlessly into Ososolyeh’s eternity, its mystery, its complete understanding. She knew that she was pouring herself into an ocean without shores, without bottom, without bounds. She knew that she would never find her way back. She knew that she would die.
And she began speaking in all languages at once—in Latin, in the foul guttural language of blood, in the words of earth and water and stone.
We are more ancient than you. Emily’s voice was like the crash of planets. The ceiling began to disintegrate. Huge chunks of obsidian crashed to the floor. This is our world, and it has been since before men existed to conjure you from their nightmares.
No! The Black Glass Goddess screamed.
With all the powers we possess, Emily continued, her voice rising as huge boulders crashed around her and power rose to wreathe her, with the faith that good will triumph over evil, and the blood of the man who was yours for twelve lifetimes but is yours no longer, and all the power of the ancient consciousness of the earth who despises you, false Goddess, ruined woman, misery of humankind …
“No!” Alcmene screamed.
We command that you die.
Now.
Emily tightened her fist, feeling Stanton’s blood singing triumphantly within the embrace. And the roots around the Goddess tensed like a thousand edged wires. Brilliance surrounded her as she screamed, the roots flaying her into bloody strips.
* * *
Pieces of flesh fell to the ground like filthy soaked bandages, making wet slapping sounds on the glassy boulders of obsidian. Then Emily, too, was falling, collapsing to the sundered ground beneath her feet. The roof had collapsed, and bright sunlight streamed down through the wide, ragged-edged hole. Emily could smell good growing things, the smell of water and leaves pouring down, displacing the stench of rot and blood and incense. In the silence, she could hear exotic birds calling to one another.
Full of life, she thought. All around.
An eternity later, she felt arms around her once again, pulling her up, brushing dirt from her face tenderly.
“Emily.” Stanton looked down at her, his eyes searching her face. He was covered in dirt and blood. His throat was seamed with a thin white scar. “It’s me.”
“Xiuhunel?”
“No,” Stanton said again. “It’s me, Emily.”
She smiled at him.
“Dreadnought,” she breathed, her voice a stream of joy.
He clasped her tightly, his arms strong and hot. But even they were not enough. Her eyelids fluttered. Again, she felt herself falling. Ososolyeh was all around her now, around her and in her and of her, and it sang of memories she could only now understand, only now comprehend. The memories were pulling her back, and she was spreading out to greet them.
“No, don’t go,” a voice far, far away was pleading. “Please don’t go. I’ll get you out of here. I’ll get you home …”
I am home, Emily thought, Ososolyeh swallowing her up with all the blackness of the places in between the stars.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
Lyakhov’s Anodyne
“Wake up, Miss Edwards. Don’t you know what day it is?”
Emily stirred groggily. Stanton was sitting by her bed, smiling down at her, holding her hand. As her eyes focused on his face, and she blinked at him, his smile became much wider.
“What day is it?” she asked, her voice a sleep-choked rasp.
“It’s the happiest day of my life,” Stanton said, thumb stroking her palm. “How are you feeling?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “Am I alive?”
“It would seem so,” he said. The feeling of his hand holding hers was
wonderful. The skin of her hand was exquisitely sensitive, as if she’d never felt anything with it before. With her fingers, she could see Stanton—see him clearer than with her eyes. He was well. He was whole and strong, and the power of the Institute—the power of faith—sang in his blood. The joy she felt pulsing through her fingers, from his hand holding it, made her blush furiously.
Then she noticed something.
She noticed that he was holding her right hand. The hand that should have been ivory. But it was not ivory anymore.
“What the hell is this?” she demanded, snatching her hand out of his and looking at the smooth new flesh with astonishment. She wiggled her fingers. She looked up at Stanton. “If you tell me this was all a dream, I swear I’ll kill you.”
Stanton laughed.
“I don’t know how it happened either. I can only imagine it was Ososolyeh’s doing. It has an astonishing capacity for healing.” His hand went to his throat, to the faint white scar seamed there. His voice became softer. “I wasn’t entirely sure you were coming back. You’ve been unconscious for days. The only hope I had was that little hand. It started growing back as soon as we got to the Institute. I watched it every day, and I thought that if it could come back, you could come back, too.” He puckered his brow, remembering. “It was quite a strange process, actually. At one point it looked just like a peeled turnip. Disgusting.”
“Well, I think it’s quite pretty now,” Emily said, turning it to and fro. “I can’t tell you how glad I am to have it back.”
“I’d say you’d earned it,” Stanton said. Emily lifted an eyebrow at him.
“Earned it?” she said. “Hell yes, I earned it! And you lying there dead during the best part. We beat her. We beat her with every kind of magic all at once. Animancy and credomancy and …” She paused.
“Sangrimancy?” Stanton looked at her.
“I don’t know sangrimancy,” Emily said. “But Ososolyeh knows everything. We muddled through.”