God Stalk

by P. C. Hodgell

  Inside Kithra—formerly of the Skyrrman—was struggling to hold down the lid of a pot from which a score of naked chicken wings protruded, flapping madly, while Cleppetty pursued an escaped quail about the kitchen with a broom, and Ghillie, huddled in a corner, frantically read names out loud from a book of household exorcisms.

  "Look under fowls, not fantods," gasped the widow, flailing away determinedly. "You brought it home, you get rid of it!"

  Ghillie flipped over several pages and began to read again, even faster than before: ". . . Afanci-Ainsel-Allisoun-Assgingel. . . ah!"

  A wind full of chittering sounds rushed through the kitchen and up the three chimneys. Cleppetty's bird plopped to the floor. Kithra's kettle stopped jumping. And the goose suddenly went limp in Jame's arms.

  "Ah, indeed," said the widow with satisfaction. "But, oh, what a mess!" She ruefully surveyed her once immaculate kitchen, spattered now with fragments of pastry, goose, and bits of stuffing.

  "So this is how you amuse yourselves when I'm not around," said Jame, dropping her now inert captive on the table. "What happened?"

  "Bogles," said Cleppetty succinctly. "And this is nothing: you should have been here when the pigeon pie decamped. Now upstairs and off with that shirt, missy; you're better basted than that damned bird."

  The gods of Tai-tastigon were for the most part properly templed; but now and then, presumably when they slept, wisps of power escaped. These sometimes attached themselves to passers-by and were carried out of the District to become the dreaded bogles—malignant, mischievous, or simply mindless impulses that would wreak havoc until the speaking of their proper name dispelled them. Nothing had ever followed Jame home—nothing would have dared—but Ghillie, clearly, had been less fortunate.

  As she changed clothes up in the loft, Jame heard clapping and cheers from across the square. Though still not completely furnished, the ground floor of the Skyrrman blazed with light. The uproar receded, leaving behind the sound of a harp running thoughtfully through its trills. Jane listened, hardly breathing. The master harpist was playing well tonight, more than living up both to his reputation and to the staggering sum that Marplet sen Tenko must have paid to bring him upriver from his home in Endiscar to perform here. With such competition, it was hardly surprising that the Res aB'tyrr was almost deserted tonight and had been for the last two weeks. The music ended, its last note dying away into silence before the storm of applause began again.

  In a dark, third story window of the Skyrrman, a shadowy figure raised its hand to Jame in a mocking salute. She returned it, one palm down in the Kencyr fashion to show appreciation, and then descended to the kitchen.

  "We're still being watched," she said, reentering the room. "This time by Marplet himself, I think. Why do you suppose they do it?"

  "The gods only know," said Cleppetty, scraping food off the wall. "Why, for that matter, have they been making a list of our patrons this past fortnight, and what business has our precious Bortis at the Skyrrman?"

  "Bortis?" It took Jame a moment to remember Taniscent's former lover.

  "That's right," said Ghillie, coming in from the courtyard with a bucket of water, which he poured into the scullery cauldron as Kithra stoked the fire under it. "In case you haven't noticed he practically lives there now."

  "Something's up, all right," said the widow, sitting back on her heels. "But what? Marplet's well on his way to ruining us as it is, what with all his grand, imported talent. Of course, he can't keep it up forever, even with his brother-in-law's support; but if we lose enough business long enough, Tubain won't be able to renew our charter when it falls due come Spring's Eve . . . and if he can't, Marplet will snatch it up as fast as hot bricks in a blizzard. Without that bit of paper, the Res aB'tyrr has no legal protection. It will be the end of us. Surely that should satisfy him."

  "But it won't," said Kithra suddenly, her voice hardening. "He played cat-and-mouse with you, and the mouse drew first blood. After what happened to Niggen, his pride is at stake now too. No, he won't be so easily satisfied."

  Jame was inclined to believe her. If anyone knew the workings of Marplet's mind, it was his former servant. Kithra had come from her home in Tenzi canton a year ago to work at his inn, and by dint of some very skillful seduction had finally ended up in his bed. This should have greatly improved her social position, but she had reckoned without Marplet's intense misogyny. Her ploy had only earned his contempt. The girl's hatred for him now, after the way he had expelled her, was frightening in its intensity. Just the same, it had not taken the edge off her natural ambition. Jame believe she was currently trying to decide if it would be more advantageous to marry Rothan, become Tubain's mistress, or take on both roles simultaneously. She looked at Kithra askance, wondering just what her attack on Niggen had unleashed on this normally tranquil household.

  And then there was Marplet sen Tenko. Slowly she was beginning to understand him better—the love of perfection that had led him to construct his inn so slowly, using only the finest materials; the almost feline quality of mind that allowed him to take such pleasure in his many schemes; his shame at having to call that lump of flesh Niggen his son. She could almost feel the sense of anger and betrayal that gripped him each time he saw that ungainly boy in his perfect house. What she did not feel, strangely enough, was any sort of personal animosity toward her whenever their eyes met across the square.

  "Female or not," Cleppetty had said in grim amusement when she mentioned this one day, "now that he's taken your measure, I think he's rather come to like you. You'd look better sitting on his hearth next to that mangy torn cat of his than Niggen does, and more natural than you do here, for that matter. A tiger cub in a field full of tabbies, that's you."

  "Meow!" Jame had said, and rolled Boo over on his back.

  Now she folded up her sleeves and helped the others scrub down the kitchen, half listening to their talk, thinking her own thoughts. Finally the inn closed its doors for the night.

  Up in the loft, on the edge of sleep, a sudden coldness jolted her awake, made her throw back the blanket and stand staring out. The Skyrrman was dark. She was alone and yet, somehow, as beside the Serpent Fountain earlier that evening and a dozen times before that, she was being watched.

  "Are you thinking of me, butcher of children?" she asked the night. "I am of you. "Thought crosses thought, like steel in the dark. "Why can't you leave me alone . . . and why am I afraid that you will?"

  The rain had turned to snow. White crystals fell on her black hair, on bare arms and breasts. Shivering she lay down again, wrapped in her blanket, but did not sleep until the eastern sky was tinged with light and cocks had begun to crow at the edge of the city.

  Chapter 6

  Water Flow, Fire Leap

  MID-WINTER'S DAY arrived, cool and clear. Jame, Dally, and Canden went to Judgment Square to see the apotheosis of the Frost King, but were driven to the rooftops when fighting broke out between two factions in a temple war and the crowd panicked. Up on the tiles, Jame first had the pleasure of preventing her friends from being thrown off and then of presenting them to Prince Dandello, who had come with his retinue to see the rites. The bloodshed below, however, made the prince ill, and he soon left. The other three soon followed.

  They were becoming a common trio, one the Guild had trouble understanding. But then they understood little when Jame was in question. By now, she could open any lock in the city, go anywhere like a shadow in the night, and reach anyone from a guild lord in his hall to the meanest beggar in hiding for his life. But still her new talents made her uneasy. The closer she came to actual stealing, the more she wondered how it would be possible to abscond honorably with someone else's property, despite what Ishtier had told her. And so she hedged. The apple vendor missed the rottenest of his wares from the bottom of the pile; the nobleman, surrounded by his retainers, discovered that the smallest button on his trousers was inexplicably missing. And now a rich merchant went his way, unaware that deft fingers ha
d slipped into his pocket, found the least valuable coin there by touch alone, and triumphantly carried it off. Surely not much honor was risked by such trifling thefts as these.

  "Just the same," said Dally, looking doubtfully at the tin coin that she had just dropped into his hand, "they'll never understand it at the Moon."

  Jame smiled ruefully. She knew only too well what her reputation was now that she had gone for weeks without matching the exploit of the Cloud King's britches, which had brought her into the Guild with such fanfare. The other young thieves conveniently forgot that none of them had accomplished much during their first six months or, for that matter, in their first year. For Penari's pupil, however, things were different. With such a master, she must command respect or deserve contempt; her peers had left her no middle ground.

  But that trial would soon be over. Winter would now be sliding down toward spring, and it was time that she make plans to leave Tai-tastigon. Her smile faded. She had suddenly realized that she didn't want to go.

  There were several reasons for this, she realized later. For one thing, she hated to leave without somehow having proved herself worthy of Penari's instructions. For another, she was hardly closer to solving the mystery of the gods than she had been when she first came. And then there was the Res aB'tyrr. The business of the charter must be settled by Spring's Eve, so come what may, she would be on hand for that. But if Marplet failed in his current scheme, he would simply launch another, and another, and another, until one succeeded or he, somehow, was stopped. It was impossible to see how this business would end. Moreover, if Kithra was right, Tubain would have her (Jame) indirectly to thank for anything unpleasant that befell him from now on. It was hardly honorable to desert him now and yet how could she commit herself to a campaign that might drag on for years if Marplet found it sufficiently entertaining?

  But there was more to her hesitation even than this. She was no longer sure that she should rejoin the Kencyrath. She was remembering more and more of life at the keep: her father's ill-will, her brother's disapproval, all for something she couldn't help, for a cruel trick of heredity. It was said that there was no greater punishment for a Kencyr than to be cast out, denied any place among his people. But was that really worse than a shadow existence, permitted on sufferance alone to sit at some stranger's hearth? She didn't know. What had been true at the isolated keep might not be so in the Riverland. Still, as she sat on the loft's window ledge that night, more and more the face of the Kencyrath bore the features of Tori, her twin brother, whose love for her, however strong, had shone but feebly beneath the weight of his prejudices.

  There was a burst of applause from the inn across the way, which quickly settled down into rhythmic clapping. Harpists were popular in Tai-tastigon, but a good dancer even more so. Jame thought of Taniscent in her lonely room below, hiding that wrinkled face and prematurely aged body from even the kindest of eyes. Once her talent might have saved the inn. How much that thought must prey on the former dancer's mind now God alone knew.

  Cruel, cruel city with its gleaming snares and velvety paws, its eyes that shone up steadily at her even now, watching, waiting. And this was the place she thought to call her home? Yes. Its temper suited her. She could make her own way here and never think of the past again.

  But was that possible? Perhaps . . . if she really knew what she was turning her back on. However, not only had several years fallen out of her own life, but she had learned not long ago that she didn't even know any recent Kencyr history. It seemed, for example, that the host of the Kencyrath had suffered a major defeat some thirty years ago, which had resulted in the exile of Ganth Gray Lord, its greatest Highborn. Dally knew this much, but little more. It had been a long time since news had moved freely across the Ebonbane—which probably, Jame thought, was why her own people had never learned of these events. Nonetheless, hearing of them now, she felt more cut off from her heritage than ever and even less inclined to abandon it without knowing what she was giving up.

  But was the knowledge worth the pain that gaining it might cost?

  And what about the ring and broken sword? They must be gotten to her brother somehow, if only by messenger. Maybe Tori would even prefer it that way. But who could she trust with such a mission . . . assuming she could bring herself to delegate it at all.

  Round and round her thoughts went—to go, to stay— and to make matters worse, she must decide soon. The passes usually cleared soon after the Feast of Fools, which took place just after Spring's Eve, and remained open until the Feast of Dead Gods at the end of the summer. This year, however, the readers of bones had predicted a remarkably short season, lasting perhaps a matter of weeks or less. When the high passes unlocked, she must go quickly or not at all.

  Dawn surprised Jame, with no decision made. The widow, coming down early on a baking day, found her already up to her elbows in dough and pummeling away at it with all the frustrated energy of a mind at war with itself.

  Wise Cleppetty set to work without a word, and between them they soon plunged the kitchen deep into a floury fog that did not lift until late morning. Then came the baking, then the scrubbing, all in silence, all at a pace that even the tireless widow began to regret. She was just beginning to wonder, rather desperately, if she was about to be launched into spring cleaning two months early when Jame suddenly put aside her apron and left the inn.

  The widow collapsed into a chair. "Don't ask!" she told a startled Kithra.

  Jame found herself walking eastward with no clear idea of where she was going. On Armorer's Row, a display of daggers laid out on black velvet caught her eye, reminding her of her aversion to knives. That was another mystery rooted in the past. Was she never to understand the reason for that either? On impulse, she picked up a knife, closed her eyes, and tried to remember.

  Nothing came.

  Sudden anger rose in her. Dammit, she wouldn't go through life without a past, forever a stranger to herself. Fiercely, she summoned all her will and threw it against the barrier in her mind. The ornate hilt bit into her hand. The sounds of the market fused into a dull roar. For a long moment she was alone in the red-shot darkness behind her trembling eyelids, and then she saw the room.

  It was huge, its upper regions lost in shadows. Figures moved about her, indistinct, all eyes and gleaming teeth. One of them held up something. A cloak made of black serpent skins sewn together with silver thread. They put it on her bare shoulders . . . heavy, heavy, and the tails, coiled together beneath her chin, twitched. She was climbing a stair. The snake heads thumped on each step at her heels. He was waiting in an alcove, the shadows a mask over his ravaged face. A white-bladed knife slipped from one cold hand to another. She went on, clutching it, up toward the doorway barred with red ribbons, toward the darkness beyond . . .

  "Hey!"

  Her eyes snapped open. A shop boy was standing in front of her, scowling pugnaciously.

  "You wanta buy that?" he demanded.

  She dropped the dagger and walked blindly away. Her head throbbed. The hall, the man on the stair! Red ribbons, she vaguely remembered, were usually for a lord's wedding chamber, but the Serpent Skin Cloak and the Ivory Knife, surely they were things of legend. She thought of her mother, that strange, beautiful woman whom her father had brought back one day to the keep out of the Haunted Lands, out of nowhere. The others had thought her mute, for by day she never spoke, but at night her daughter had often awakened to the sound of her voice, reciting the ancient stories or singing songs that had been old when the Kencyrath was but new-founded. That was how Jame had first heard of the cloak, the knife, and the Book Bound in Pale Leather.

  It was no use, she thought: fact would not separate from legend. But still, where had that hall been and who, in all the names of God, had she been climbing to meet, knife in hand?

  The parapet of the Old Wall stretched out before her. Below, beyond it and the curtain walls, the caravans were gathering on the southern plain for their dash across the Ebonbane in the spri
ng. To leave Tai-tastigon, to remain— either way, it couldn't hurt to make some inquiries.

  The rest of the afternoon did little to ease either her growing headache or her mind. The first caravan-master she spoke to told her that the fee for anyone joining his convoy at Tai-tastigon was thirty-five golden altars. "If the price were any lower," he said, giving her a shrewd look, "we'd be overrun with thieves joined up for the pickings. It's no good trying to cross on your own, either; those hills will be thick with bandits come the thaws. No, without my help or that of my colleagues, you'll never see the other side."

  "What about the sea routes?" Jame asked, stung by his smug air.

  "These days, that's for those who don't care what they pay, or if they arrive. You've heard of dead water? Hit a patch of that some dark night and you sink like a brick—ship, cargo, and all. The straits are rotten with it. You don't believe me? Go ask in any port and check the fares too, while you're at it. Mine will look like a bargain after that."