Bell’s chest was tight. “What do you mean?”
She sagged into her hand, once more leaning against the table. “If there is justice in this world, it is not him. If there is still mercy, he has not been reacquainted…” This time, her eyes were not alone in their sorrow. Her whole face had succumb. Her mouth hung ajar, hopeless, the lips shaking and her cheeks flushed. “Your gods are dead, Bell. Even the best of us, we are cowards, fools, or corpses, and the corpses are the least trouble.”
“So then…?” Bell let the question linger.
“So, the best I can offer is advice. And perhaps an explanation…” Her gaze dropped to the table, seemingly in thought. “It has always been my goal to reunite Trel, to remake of it the paradise we once had. It was each of our goal. Me. Dydal. Tyrena. Even Just. We had almost done it. Lock, Settin, Trellahn, they were all stable, the whole peninsula was, all except for Atherahn. The Butcher’s Cult had taken it, but we were ready, and our armies were gathered for the final push.
“And then a child was found…” Tepa met Null’s gaze. The young woman had been so silent, Bell had nearly forgotten her. When Tepa continued, she was no longer speaking to Bell, but to her ward. “It was a little boy, about four years old, with no memories, no connections, no caretaker or teacher, but the aura, the aspect, and the power of a god. He had no name, no past, no family, and yet, with the wave of his hand, he could level the mountains and boil the seas.
“Entaras Null,” Tepa said. “That is what we called him. The Priest of Nothing. A god with the aspect of Emptiness.”
The young woman stared at Tepa, her gaze transfixed and her face pale.
“Dydal took him in,” Tepa said. “He and his daughter Tyrena. They took him in to protect him from the world, and the world from him. You see, the boy could not be taught. The aspect of Nothing is featureless… it has no characteristics… thus, the boy was an empty slate. Everything you told him, eventually it would drip away like chalk in the rain. Every memory, every skill, even his name. He would forget them all.
“One day the Mother returned, said the boy was hers, said he was the ‘creature’ she had waited for. Ever since Silt’s death, Just had blamed her for everything. For the Fall, for the deaths, even for my father’s madness. He hated her, and I imagine he still does. And when she said that, when she claimed the boy as her own, Just killed him. Broke his neck… in front of all of us, as if the boy were a ragdoll. He simply killed the boy, rather than let the Mother take him… and Dydal never forgave him for it. Like father and son were those two, Dydal and Just, and in an instant, their friendship was over forever.
“Just tried to explain, said he’d done it to keep us all safe. He said he had done it to keep the world whole, claimed the Whore would never rest so long as the boy lived, that she would use him to… make a god of Death, whatever such foolishness means. Use him to break the world. And such claims were not unfounded… After all, the child could not be tamed, could not be taught, or tempered… and he had the power to do exactly as Just feared.”
Bell’s mouth was dry. Make a god of Death… he’d heard the words, but he could not muster the strength to speak.
“But Entaras was only a child,” the queen continued. “A little boy who didn’t know any better. I do not think it was an easy choice for him, but Just never once questioned what he had done. Dydal scorned him for that. A lifelong friendship, ended in a single moment. Just is not Just. Just is not anything. He is a murderer. A psychopath, Dydal called him.
“And so, we lost it all. Dydal would not speak to Just, and Just could not bear it, and so he left. Went across the ocean to reunite with his brother Nikom, claiming that he would wander the world until Dydal forgave him. Soon after, Tyrena and Dydal gave up as well. The boy’s death had broken their hopes and they no longer cared if Trel survived.
“I think maybe he regrets it, now. I think that is why he took pity on you, Null. Why he called you a slave, and his first concession from me was… well, you know what he asked… It’s because of your name, and because of what he had done. But that pity hasn’t tempered him. It hasn’t cautioned him, or slowed his quick judgment.”
Tepa glanced at Bell. “Think back to whatever you know of Just, back to any words you’ve had with his Grand. If she has ever given you an option, any at all that might save your life and that of your friends, take it. Just will kill you. He will burn your cities. He will murder your children. And when it is all done, he will not care, because he will believe that he has done the right thing. That he has acted in justice. And then, after all that, he will kill me for helping you. If I could fight him, I would help, but… but a pantheon is not an equal structure. I am no fighter. I could not kill him if I wanted, gods I could barely fend off Slayer, let alone one as strong as Just. I am sorry, Bell.”
Bell’s voice was hoarse. “What… what do you mean, a god of Death?”
Rin Tepa frowned at him. “What?”
“You said… you said the Mother was trying to make a god of Death. What… what do mean?”
The queen blinked. “I mean exactly that… the Mother was trying to make of a god of Death. I do not know all the details, but that was the reason she gave for her interest in the boy. Why? What’s wrong?”
Bell stared at her a moment. No, it couldn’t be. It just couldn’t be. “Queen Tepa… is there a…” he paused and swallowed; the words were difficult, “…is there a god named Fate?”
“Where…” She stared at him with a blank look, her mouth hanging ajar, her eyes looking defeated. “Where did you hear that name?”
“I…” What could Bell say? What could he say that would not endanger Trin? The gods were real and they were at each other’s throats. Rin Tepa seemed an honest and decent woman, but if he brought up Trin’s name in relation to another god, if he said that Trin had been cursed, would that put her into danger? Just had killed a boy because he’d thought the boy might become Death. And Trin believed entirely, with all her being, that she would become Death. Gods, he couldn’t say anything. Even if Trin was wrong, he couldn’t say anything.
“Bell, what is it?” the queen’s words were compassionate, but they didn’t soothe him. “Bell?”
Bell shook his head and turned for the door. “No,” he said. “No, sorry. Forget I said anything.”
“Bell, wait!”
He stopped, his hand on the door.
“Bell, have you made a bargain with Fate?”
“N-no,” Bell managed.
“How do you know the name? Tell me, please. How do you know the name?”
“I… I can’t.”
“Bell, if you have made a bargain with that woman, you need to tell me.”
Bell turned toward the queen slowly, his hand dropping reluctantly from the doorknob. “She isn’t real,” Bell said. “She’s not.”
“Have you done something foolish?”
“She isn’t real,” Bell repeated.
“Bell…” the queen’s glare was stern, almost hateful. “Did you make a bargain with her?”
Bell crumbled. “No. No I didn’t.” Please, do not ask me another question. Don’t ask about Trin… “Who… who is she? What would it mean if I had made a bargain?”
Rin Tepa watched him for several, grueling moments of silence with one brow raised and a fist clenched in her lap. Bell hardly noticed, his breathing tight and his heart heavy. She wouldn’t answer, Bell hoped. She wouldn’t answer him, because it wasn’t real. The silence stretched, Rin Tepa still watching, but still silent.
He wanted to deny it, but the longer the silence stretched, the more it grated. He had to ask. He had to know. “Who is Fate?” Bell demanded.
“She is a god, Bell.”
Bell blinked. It wasn’t Rin Tepa who had answered. It was Null. Bell glared at her.
“Are… are you sure?” Bell asked, not wanting to believe it.
The queen’s ward was staring wide, her mouth ajar. “I… it was in Mycah’s spellbook… Remember, Queen? It was
in that passage I read to you… It said that Fate was a god, that the Butcher’s Cult serves her. Right?”
Bell’s hand trembled. His mouth was dry as he tried to speak. “What…” he paused, then wet his lips. “What…” He looked to the queen. “Is this true?”
Rin Tepa was looking at the floor. “Yes, what Null says is true. The Scryer Fate is an ancient god. One older than the Mother… she once ruled everything, until Just and the Mother overthrew her.”
“And Death?”
“Death was another god. One who Just killed. Fate wishes to bring her back, and she uses the Butcher’s Cult to do it. She… she is responsible for all that has happened.”
Bell looked between them. He had no words. All this time, Trin had been right. He had dismissed her, time and again, he had called her insane… how could he have thought he loved her, and not believed her? What am I going to do?
“Bell, are you all right?”
Bell blinked as he looked at the queen. “I… how do I fight her?”
Rin Tepa shrugged. “If I knew that, I would not be in the position I am.”
“But… but you must know some way… some way to stop her.”
Rin Tepa’s look was pitying. “If you have made a deal with her, Bell, then I do not know how I can help you.”
“I didn’t make a deal with her!”
“But you know someone who has… it’s the merchant, isn’t it? It’s Trin Cavahl.”
Bell paled. “What?”
“I’ve guessed right, haven’t I? You know her… You knew the merchant that came here.”
Bell didn’t answer.
“I’ve heard her theories. I know that she thinks she will be the next god of Death. I know that is why she stole the page from Teachings of a Whore. It’s because she’s fated, isn’t it?”
Again, Bell didn’t answer.
Rin Tepa nodded. “That’s okay. You don’t need to say it aloud. But… but what I need to know, is why? Why does the High Cleric want that page? Why would he have come here on the night of my son’s death, to steal it?”
“I… I…” The Cleric had been in Dekahn? Here? Bell’s mind was in a million places at once. She knew about Trin. Gods, she knew about Trin. “Please, don’t say anything.”
“What?”
“You said that Just killed that boy, because he thought he would become Death. What about Trin? What will he do to Trin?”
Rin Tepa looked away. “I don’t know.”
The Cleric knew all of this. What did he want and which side was he working for? How could Bell know who to trust?
“What do I do?” Bell said aloud.
The queen responded slowly. “I… I can offer advice, but that is all… Keep this knowledge to yourself. Do not tell anyone. Do anything you can to appease Just, but do not let him know that your friend is a danger to his interests.”
“A danger to his interests?”
“He does not want a god of Death.”
“How do I stop him?”
“I don’t know.”
“Can’t you offer more than that?”
Rin Tepa glared at him. “Don’t you think I would offer it if I could? Fate is my enemy as much as she is yours.”
“But there must be something you can do.”
“I can’t.”
“Please, there must be something!”
“If I could fight Fate there would have been no Butcher!”
The outburst halted him. He fell quiet, his breathing stopped. Null was huddled in her chair near the fire, her expression one of blank shock.
The queen shook her head, staring at her feet, the beads in her hair draping down her cheek. “I am as much a victim as you, Bell.” Her voice was barely above a whisper. “When I say that Fate has caused all of this, I mean that she has caused all of it. She is the reason for the Butcher. She is the reason my father fell to madness. Her and her cult. Bell… I can’t fight her. The only people who can are far above me, the only people who can are those I learned not to trust, a long, long time ago. Those like Just. Those like the Cleric, or the Mother, or that bastard Rathervian. Please, I fight to hold on in a game I barely understand, and that game has lost me nearly everything. Do not ask me to give you something I cannot.”
At last, Bell understood what he saw when he gazed upon Atep Rin. The queen of Lock was not a god. She was not strong. She was a broken thing, clinging to the husk of a lost paradise, hoping against reason, that one day she might find all the things her fellows had destroyed. That one day, she might be able to resist the gods above her, the gods of Death and Fate and Justice, who had ruined her life as equally as they had ruined Trin’s.
Gods. He was a fool.
Bell must have carried his expression on his face, for as the queen climbed off her stool and stepped forward, her face was filled with a mixture of compassion and worry. She grabbed his wrist with both hands. A soft touch, an empathetic touch, but also demanding. He glanced down at her fingers squeezing – with light pressure – the soft underside of his wrist, and realized why she had climbed down from her perch. The worry was not for him. His hand had tensed, crinkling the rolled parchment in his grip. Her compassion was for her work, the worry for the hours she must have spent devising those lists.
It took the last of his courage to speak. “I’ll… I’ll make sure the Grand gets this.” He turned to walk away, but Tepa’s grip hadn’t loosened. It forced him back, demanding that he look into her eyes.
There was anger in them, a rolling fury, calmed only by her gentle touch. “One day, things will be different,” she said. “They always are. But until then, take whatever chance Just gives you. Take whatever mercy there is. Your life is more valuable than your pride, and besides, you cannot fight back from the grave. Once you’ve appeased Just, go back to your friend. Help her fight Fate, and if you need to, bring her here to me.”
It was like she knew him. Her words were so… knowing. And for a moment, he hated her for it, not because the advice was bad, but because it was the exact thing he had not wanted to hear. He wanted to believe there was always hope, that a right way, a moral way, was always a conceivable option. And yet, here she was, a living god, a font of belief, refuting it; telling him that the best thing to do was the one thing he truly knew was wrong. How could he appease Just, knowing what he knew? How could he serve those he knew were doing wrong?
Perhaps Trin had been right. Maybe he was sheltered. Maybe this was the real world she had been talking about.
He didn’t say anything more to Rin Tepa, or to Null. When the queen let go of his wrist, he simply left, two feet of rolled parchment in his hand and at his mercy. Bell didn’t stop to speak with his friends as he left the room. Instead, he marched toward what he could only imagine to be the gallows. Planner was right. His morals were not worth his life, nor the lives of his friends. It was time to confront the Grand, even if it meant doing the wrong thing.
CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE
Wilt was enjoying the lavish perks of what could only be described as bribery. The apartment he had been given was extravagant, the king’s own he was fairly certain, judging by the sheer size of the place, and also a portrait labeled Inauguration which sat across from the bed, depicting a young man wearing a crown and the royal sash.
Two busty whores – courtesans he guessed, though neither wore the masks or robes – had come with the room, as well as three casks of a delightful, high-end Settish wine, and new courtesan robes made of every elegant fabric and purpose he could have imagined. Servants brought him and his ladies food on the hour. Not on request, but on the hour exact, from eight in the morning to eleven at night, bringing every dish he knew and many he didn’t, each of them spectacular, stirring sensations he had not felt since before his death beneath that damnable tree.
There had been many pleasures among the Vandu, but not many in the physical realm compared to what Just’s slaves had brought him. The world might have been bleaker since his near death, but it seemed that Just was
using the opportunity to try and make up for it. And it was working.
If this was what Just could offer him, then Wilt was beginning to understand why fools willingly followed the god. Of course, Wilt knew this kind of pampering would not last – at least not under the patronage of that rotted bastard Just – however, his two days to decide if he would serve had rolled into three without any comment from either Just or his Grand.
Wilt could not fathom why the god would try to buy him off like this, and yet, at this point, he truly didn’t care. Most likely, the god would kill him when he found out that Wilt had betrayed his interests to Beda Stills; obviously, she had not wanted the queen’s location so that she could throw the woman a birthday party. There would be trouble when the god learned what Wilt had done, but until then, Wilt figured he might as well enjoy the debauchery.
And you are even wearing your mask like a good little boy.
Wilt lifted his head from his pillow and glared through the slits of his new mask at the skinny-wasted harlot in the chair across from his four-post, curtained bed. With her soft tits and hard, lean face, she was exactly what a woman should be, not like the other one. The other whore, curled in the blankets at the foot of the bed, was not so nice as the first, he’d decided. There was too much meat on her, and not in the right places. Plus, she was mopey, and only ever spoke to complain, or to blame the other whore for some frivolous thing. In earlier years, he would not have thought anything of it, but these were his final days, and why should he spend them with a dour whore?
“What did you say?” Wilt asked the friendly whore.
She lifted her head from the round, two-person breakfast table with a yawn, followed by a drug addled grin. “I didn’t say anything, luv.”
Her smile spread, revealing a neat row of wine stained teeth. He really did like her, for unlike the fat one who had spent the evening before critiquing the furnishings – as if the trefoil gold leaf adorned armoire and the satin sheets were not good enough for her esteemed tastes – the skinny whore was one who could enjoy the finer things, like plenty of wine, sex, and the fine variety of Northlands mushrooms she had brought with her.
Death's Merchant: Common Among Gods - Book One Page 98