This woman was in her sixties, or at least, appeared to be. Her hair was silver, and her face was lined by years spent in the sun; her jowls sagged, and her body, under her loose, colorfully striped clothing, was matronly. But Kanmi received a sense of power from her, nonetheless. A sense of moving tides, of gravity, water. And rather than having the haunting dark brown eyes that were the hallmark of so many Tawantinsuyu beauties, her eyes were inhuman. The schlera were the black of the night sky, and the irises, seemingly without pupils, were a luminous white. God-born, Kanmi thought. An old one, too. Damn. Well, they don’t all live forever.
The woman stood, and offered her hands to Trennus. “I am Cocohuay,” she said, quietly. “High priestess of Mamaquilla, and in her line of descent.” The woman’s voice was surprisingly soft, and soothing, for all the baleful stare of those strange eyes. She turned, and actually half-bowed to Lassair, in clear respect. “My goddess’ voice has been lost to me for almost two years, since the Emperor sought to honor her with a place among the Lines. I had thought her angered. Distracted. Something. The priests and men who cut the crescent into the earth, asked me to come and consecrate the image. To sprinkle the earth of Nazca with water from the sea, once a month, to honor the goddess at the full moon. And in two years, nothing. Until yesterday, when she screamed in my mind that she was released.” She again bowed her head to Lassair. “I have you two, to thank for this. I do not know your name, goddess, and I only know the name of your priest from having asked the workers at the Lines . . . but I would honor you both.”
Kanmi stole a look at Matrugena’s face. He rather wished he had a camera. The expression there was a priceless mix of embarrassment, discomfort, and determination. “I am not a priest,” he said, rapidly. “Asha? You want to explain matters?”
I am not a goddess, Lassair said, her mental tones uneasy. I do not ask for honor or reverence. She had actually stepped a little behind Trennus, and was peeking out around his shoulder, almost as she would have, years ago, ducked her phoenix head into his long hair. How did you find us?
Cocohuay pointed to the planter on which she’d been seated, which, Kanmi suddenly realized, was filled with budding flowers . . . in spite of the flecks of frozen rain spitting down from the sky. “It was not hard to find you. I asked the workers for the name of the one who attends on you, as I said. They gave what information they had, and I traveled here. After that, I needed only to follow spring and warmth. I read signs. As others may.”
Trennus cleared his throat, in clear discomfort. “Your note said you wished to ask us for help?”
“Yes. But we should not speak here. Not for long. Too many eyes watch here.”
Yes, Lassair confirmed, after a moment. We are watched, even now, by eyes that have been bound to be here.
Human? Kanmi thought, shaping the word distinctly.
Yes. No spirits. This city is . . . quiet. There are almost no house-spirits, unlike Rome. No mountain-dwellers or woods-dwellers, as there should be. Lassair bit her lower lip. The one who watches us is bored.
Where? Show me.
Lassair did, and Kanmi winced as his vision distorted. Showed him the winding, stone-cobbled street, the gray shapes that were the majority of the people in the cityscape. Kanmi’s mind reeled; the spirit had rarely joined her mind to his, and he disliked it, intensely. No one had faces. It was a street full of dolls, or mannequins. On a third-floor balcony across the street and to his right, a brighter speck. Eyes actually visible in the gray, smooth, otherwise featureless face. Eyes that were focused on them, a coil of attention strung between them like a line.
Curious, Kanmi turned his attention to the others standing with him, and sucked in his breath in awe. Trennus was, in the spirit’s eyes, vastly tall, seemingly ten feet in height, brown and green bands running along the length of his frame. His face was clear and distinct, and his eyes were still blue, and a cord of . . . himself . . . had pulled out of his side, and coiled over to Lassair, who was all fire in this version of reality. Her flames seethed back along that cord, a two-way binding between the pair. The god-born woman in front of them was barely substantial, a shaft of pale moonlight trapped in flesh. And Minori . . . Minori was the sky over the sea on a sunny day. Pale blue above meeting indigo below, endless and eternal, and Kanmi couldn’t stop looking at her for at least half a minute. Then he shook his head, hard, wondered what the hell Lassair saw when she looked at him—probably nothing at all, idiot—and noted, “Yes. I see him. Let’s get out of sight.”
“I know his face from somewhere,” Minori muttered. “I want to say a conference, maybe? Maybe the one in Lutetia a month ago?”
Kanmi looked back, trying to make it look casual. The problem was, he couldn’t place the face at all, though he appeared to be a Tawantinsuyu native. “There’s a coffee place around the corner,” he muttered. “Let’s go in there.”
All food production in Tawantinsuyu was technically state-controlled. Every animal hunted, every potato produced, was slaughtered or farmed by peasants under the control of their local lords, and then moved to state-held warehouses. Peasants had once been more or less slaves, bound to their lords and unable to leave their lands. The lords were supposed to provide the peasants with food, water, shelter, and tools enough to do their jobs. It was a damned odd system, in Kanmi’s opinion, and it meant that commercial enterprises, such as inns and restaurants and taverns, had all originated from nobles just low enough in social status who’d seen a market in catering to the needs of foreigners, centuries ago . . . and had branched out to serving locals once the economy had adopted the solidus and non-slave peasants had been required, under Imperial law, to be paid for their labor.
Thus, the local cafes were all vaguely cosmopolitan in feel. They offered local foods as well as foreign ones, served locally-grown coffee and, for locals, coca leaves to chew. Kanmi couldn’t quite wrap his head around walking around with a wad of leaves shoved in his mouth, or spitting the residue out onto the ground, so he was just as happy to stick with coffee. It wasn’t presented Nubian-style, but that was fine. In his opinion, when he wanted a cup, it was nice that it didn’t take an hour to prepare. Minori accepted a cup, made a face, and muttered, “No one offers tea on this side of the world, I see.”
The god-born woman leaned across the table now, as Trennus asked her, quietly, “So what do you need our help for, precisely?”
“Your lady,” a glance at Lassair, “is correct. Our land has been going silent in the past eight years. Fewer and fewer voices whisper on the winds. I go to the high places, the holy shrines, and I feel no presences there. There is a sickness in this land. I have tried to speak to others here about it . . . and I have been met with walls of silence.” She shook her head. “I go to young priests, whose mothers I helped to birth them? They say, no, no, nothing is wrong. You misunderstand. We hear the gods. They are with us. But I see lies all around me. They show me new temples being built at ancient holy sites. Tell me one is reserved for Mamaquilla . . . but I must keep coming to the Lines, every month.” She shrugged. “It is a long trip, for these old bones, but I go.” She paused, as the waiter brought a second round of coffee around, and Kanmi ensured that sound was deadened around their table once the waiter left again. “My goddess told me, last night, as I looked up to the moon . . . that every month, when I came to the Lines? Those who had imprisoned her there, bade her take my body for her own. Told her that if she assumed me, as an avatar, subsumed me to her will, they would take her, in me, to a far place. Where she would dwell in comfort, not incorporeal, as the Lines prevent her from fully manifesting. That she would give of herself, and offerings would be brought to her.” Cocohuay shuddered. “That it would be, as it had been in the old days. My goddess refused. She said that she would not sacrifice me, her beloved granddaughter, for a false freedom.” A tear trickled down that worn cheek. “They told her that if she accepted, and went to dwell in the temple that they had built for her, she would continue to exist. And if she didn’
t . . . that they would sacrifice her.”
Kanmi froze. “That’s not possible,” Minori said, her voice horrified. “Kami cannot . . . well, they can die . . . but a human cannot sacrifice them . . . .” Her eyes flicked to Kanmi’s face.
Trennus sounded dazed. “A mortal can kill a god. Under the right circumstances. History tells us that, though no one truly knows how Akhenaten did it. Any records were obliterated millennia ago.”
More than history, Kanmi thought, grimly. Tlaloc died at Adam ben Maor’s hands. Well, all of ours, but his, more than the rest of us. “But sacrifice,” Minori whispered. “That suggests that there is some . . . being . . . to whom the sacrifice would be made.”
“The word,” Kanmi replied, with a bitterly bright smile, “is entity, Minori. Entity.”
Cocohuay raised an age-spotted hand, which trembled visibly. “Yes. I know, it sounds . . . impossible. But I know what Mamaquilla spoke to me in the silences of my soul. And I heard fear in the voice of a goddess. Some things are too horrible to be permitted.” She exhaled, shudderingly. “She told me that almost all the gods are silent. She went to where they dwelled, and they are gone. Some few spirits are left. The demons that dwell in caves rustle in excitement. They believe they are coming to power, soon. Handfuls of the others who have fled, responded to her voice. Told her that the gods are all bound. Helpless.” She twisted her hands. “You must help free them. Please. I beg of you. You have the power. You are not from here. You are not subject to our laws. To him.” She glanced around rapidly, her face crinkling in distress.
“To whom?” Kanmi pounced on the word, immediately.
She leaned further forward, covering her wrinkled lips with her fingers. “To the Sapa Inca. The emperor. Sayri Cusi has held power for fifteen years. Everyone had hope when he took the throne.” She cleared her throat. “His brother, the original heir, had died before his time. Sayri Cusi was young. Not a god-born, in a family full of them. He had studied summoning and sorcery in Rome. He told us all that he wanted to make the Land of the Four Quarters bloom. To bring in natural philosophy and technology and new jobs. But all of that requires money, or at least . . . something to trade.” She sighed. “And for seven years, little changed, other than that the emperor closeted himself with sorcerers and summoners and ley-mages. Some Roman, some native.”
“And then?” Trennus prompted.
“They began the public works projects. Building the new temples in the mountains. Building the new Lines. To re-awaken the people’s pride in their heritage, they said.” Cocohuay grimaced, half-closing her gleaming eyes. “Foolishness. I have lived for two hundred years. I have seen the reigns of eight Sapa Incas. In the main, they have tried to preserve the old ways. The economy, in the control of the nobles, the way each person is born to a role.” She shrugged. “None of his predecessors thought that pride was necessary. Only that people should do as they were told, contribute to the whole, and live quiet, peaceful lives. Pride is for the Nahautl and the Quecha, and their warlike, blustering gods.” She sighed. “But while it was unthinkable to speak against his predecessors, because they were the hand of Inti, the sun, on earth . . . every one of them god-born . . . the people have murmured about Sayri Cusi and his changes. He has permitted peasants to leave the lands of the nobles to whom they have always owed loyalty. That is a good thing. But then they come to cities like Cuzco, in search of a bright new future.”
“And there are no jobs for them,” Kanmi said, his tone cynical.
“Yes,” Cocohuay replied, tiredly. “Except for the public works projects. The building of the towers. The new ley-facilities. There’s power to areas that have never had it before, it’s true . . . but no one has seen the country bloom.” The lines around her eyes crinkled as the lids lowered. “My goddess tells me that she senses power being drawn from the Lines, to each of the towers. And the towers send some of the energy back. The power is such that . . . it can only be the work of a god, or gods, she says.” The god-born woman closed her luminous eyes for a moment, and then opened them again to look at Trennus. “She asks that you open the Lines. Release those prisoned within, as she was imprisoned. That will, she believes, sever power to the towers.”
“Wait,” Minori objected. “We don’t even know what those towers are for. What disrupting the power leading to them could do.” She glanced nervously at Trennus, Kanmi, and Lassair.
“We have been cautioned against unilateral action,” Kanmi said, ben Maor’s words ringing in his head.
“And,” Trennus added, quietly, “the entire area isn’t precisely geologically stable. We weren’t sure if the power from the towers was going to contain what’s in the Lines, or if the power from the Lines area was being used to power the towers, but either way, it’s all being funneled through highly resonant ley-lines in the earth. If I go in there tripping everything without studying it carefully . . . the results could be catastrophic.”
And yet, if there are spirits captived there—ones who have done nothing against humans—then we must do something for them, Lassair objected.
“Last I checked, there were no laws on the books that talked about equal rights for spirits,” Kanmi muttered, and caught Trennus’ irate stare. “Hey! You want to talk to the Senate and the Imperator about legislation for denizens of the Veil, go right ahead. In the meantime, I’m going to worry about this world.” He exhaled. “I don’t like the idea of sapients being trapped and used like slaves, no. Even the empire is . . . slowly . . . moving towards abolishing human slavery. I’m just saying, we have no idea what we’re getting into here, so let’s not go running till the others get here, all right?”
“You actually want to wait for orders, Esh?” Trennus’ voice was amused, but held irritation, too. “You picked a gods-be-damned odd time to start playing by the rules.”
“You’re the one who said that jumping in and releasing spirits could set off earthquakes,” Kanmi snapped back. “Yes, I want someone else to give me that order before I do anything that could kill ten thousand people.”
Trennus grimaced. “There is that. It’s just . . .” He balled up a fist and smacked it into his opposing palm. “It goes against the grain.”
They made arrangements to meet with Cocohuay again once Livorus and the other lictors had arrived; she was frantic for them to take action, here and now, but they were steadfast in their reasons for holding off. “There is also,” Minori murmured, “the question of what might happen to her in the meantime.” She gave the god-born woman a concerned look. “Does the Sapa Inca have many watchers?”
A tight, unhappy nod from the older woman. “Yes. The more unrest there has been, the more gardia he has created, from those who were once peasants.”
Kanmi grimaced. On the one hand, he liked the social turmoil. He liked the notion that people who’d been downtrodden for generations were getting away from the dirt, if that’s what they wanted to do. On the other hand . . . it just seemed that there were new ways of holding people down being created. Always fear. Always checks and constraints, always the people at the top, be they nobles or the wealthy or the god-born . . . he exhaled. And yet, here he was. Working with a god-born on his team, and assisting, apparently, this god-born woman, too. “Do you have a safe place to stay?” he asked, reluctantly. They were probably going to need her. To provide sworn testimony to Livorus, and to interface with her goddess and . . .the gods only knew what else. She couldn’t do any of that from inside a prison cell.
“I have been looking after myself for longer than you, your parents, and your grandparents have lived,” Cocohuay informed him, with a hint of hauteur. “I will contact you. Do not look for me. You will not find me. My goddess will hide me.”
Sure she will, Kanmi thought, cynically. She’s done a great job of protecting herself so far. All your gods have.
They headed back to their hotel, and Minori caught his elbow at the front doors. “Same man as before?” Kanmi asked, lowering his head down to her ear, as if to whisper secre
ts. “The one who looks like a local?”
“Yes. I . . . really think he was at the conference in Lutetia. I think he was one of those in the hall when you and Master Matrugena asked your questions.” Her voice was a taut whisper. “Why is he here, and watching us?”
“Excellent question.” Kanmi’s mind raced. Someone was in Lutetia. Someone did kill the professor. Coincidence, maybe, but . . . . “Best to give him something to see, then. I apologize in advance, doctor.”
“Wha—?” She didn’t have time to get the whole word out as he caught her face in his hands and kissed her. It had definitely been a while since he’d actually kissed a woman; the soft feel of lips under his was fairly distracting. Kanmi had mostly hoped she didn’t flinch or try to slap him; he was very much aware that Nipponese culture frowned on public displays of affection like this. She did stiffen for a moment, and internally, he winced and prepared to shift in case she reflexively tried to knee him in the groin or anything else unpleasant . . . and then, miraculously, she relaxed. Her lips opened under his, and Kanmi reminded himself, firmly, that it was part of the damned disguise, kept the kiss light, and asked, silently, Lassair?
Shouldn’t you be giving that kiss the attention it deserves? Her tone was arch, from where she and Trennus were already inside the hotel. Kanmi was horribly certain she was speaking to both of them at the same time.
Stow it. Is the man still watching? This, as Minori’s hands crept up around his neck and she began to kiss him back, hesitantly. She tasted . . . entirely too good. Baal’s teeth, I’m not good at this undercover shit. Kanmi’s rather dazed thought overlapped with Lassair’s reply: Yes.
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