The Years Best Science Fiction & Fantasy: 2009
Page 30
“Why?”
“The mountain Mueu is a volcano,” said the god. “As I have withdrawn from the island, I can no longer contain it, or any of the others.”
“You might have said as much sooner,” said Steq, and dragged his captive along the beach until he found a small hunting boat, carefully stitched skin stretched over a frame of bone and osier. In the bottom of the boat was a coil of rope, and this he used to bind his captive. Then he called to the priest. “Over here! I have found a boat, and it will be quicker if you come to me, rather than me coming to you.” He tipped the boy into the boat and then pushed it across the tide line and into the water, hoping the skin wouldn’t tear along the way. As the god reached the boat another loud crack silenced the camp yet again. This time the returning voices were pitched higher, and seemed to carry a note of fear. The god climbed in, and Steq pushed the boat out further and then stepped in and took up the oar he found and began to row.
“You will have to bail,” he said after a short time. “We are too many for this boat.”
“Give me some blood,” said the priest. “I will ensure that we do not sink.”
“Blood! To keep water out of the boat? You do not inspire confidence in your power. Are you not well-fed by the sacrifices of the people of Au?”
“Much of my attention is currently elsewhere, keeping back the flood of melted glacier that will shortly sweep down the sides of Mueu and wash Ilu into the sea. Until we are farther from shore we are not safe, and I cannot turn my attention from Mueu. I could not do this were I not strong enough, and you will not be disappointed in me, once this danger is past.”
“Bail,” said Steq. “I will not row the distance wounded, and I will not bleed the boy lest you complain about the condition of your victim when it comes time for the sacrifice.” He rowed a few more strokes. “Bail or drown.”
Without a word, the priest took up a bailer from the bottom of the boat, and set to work.
When they reached the Fleet of the Godless, Steq turned his captive over to his crew. The priest, still inhabited by the god, took up the stone again and went to the deck where he sat in front of the mast and stared ahead, saying nothing. The crew avoided him, though Steq had not told them the body was dead.
They had already abandoned their island camps, and now they sailed south, away from Au. By afternoon the sky had darkened and ash began to fall from the air, like snow. The boats were muddy with it, and the Godless lashed the covers over the hulls to keep it out, and swept the covers and the decks constantly. They still avoided the dead priest, who did not move but sat at the mast covered in ash. That night the northern horizon was lit by a baleful red glow, and Steq approached the god.
“Am I to understand that Au is in the process of sinking beneath the waves, thereby releasing you from your contract?”
“Yes.” A small slide of gray ash fell from the dead priest’s mouth, the only part of him that moved. “Though it will take several more days.”
“We are sailing away from Au with what speed we can manage.”
“So I noticed,” said the god.
“Will the body last long enough?”
“I intend to preserve it until I no longer need it,” said the priest. “But in any event, I will tell you how the sacrifice will go. Cut the victim’s throat and let the blood fall on the stone. Say these words.” And here the god spoke the words of the rite. “Put both bodies into the sea. By doing this, you will be bound to the terms we agreed upon.”
“Let us review those terms,” said Steq.
The priest’s head moved, dislodging more ash from his face, and he opened blank, staring eyes. “I warn you, I do not have any intention of re-negotiating at this late date.”
“Nor I,” said Steq. “I wish only to be certain there will be no misunderstandings.”
“As you wish. I have no apprehensions.”
“This is what we have agreed. We will give our prayers and sacrifices to no other god but you. With your assistance, we will compel all those we meet either to abandon all other gods but you, or die as your victims. We will do so until no one lives who offers rites to any other god, whereupon we will no longer be required to offer humans as sacrifices, though we will still owe you our exclusive devotion.
“For your part, you will protect us from all danger and misfortune, and will assist us against our enemies. We will be pre-eminent over all the peoples of the earth.”
“For as long as you keep your end of the bargain,” said the corpse at the mast. “My wrath will be terrible if you break the terms of the agreement and turn to another god, or fail to seek out every person who does not worship only me. Such was our agreement.”
“And if you don’t keep yours?”
“I will keep it,” said the god. “Do you think I have gone to these lengths only to amuse myself?”
“No,” said Steq. The corpse said nothing more.
Steq went forward, and stood at the rail.
He had known almost from the beginning that they were dealing with a minor god—a deity of some spring, or small island. This hardly mattered if, fed, it could do all it promised, and keep the Godless safe.
The past sixteen years had been like a dream Steq had feared to wake from. Food had been plentiful, illness rare. The hunters of Au had let them be after a few failed attacks. No vengeful god had come upon them. And they would shortly be Godless no more.
Do you think I have gone to these lengths only to amuse myself?
That the god had gone to great lengths—greater lengths, perhaps, than it wished to admit—had become more and more obvious. And why did the dead priest still sit guard over the stone?
Only one conclusion seemed likely—the god was vulnerable, and did not trust the Godless. And so, why put itself in this position?
Steq had believed the god when it had said that it was ambitious, that the people of Au had failed to serve that ambition as it had wished them to. But was that ambition enough to drive the god to take such a risk? Steq thought not.
The mountain Mueu is a volcano.
The god of Au had exhausted its strength, or nearly so, holding back Mueu. Why wait sixteen years, then? Why not flee the moment the Godless presented themselves? Had it, perhaps, waited until the danger was so extreme that the island was certain to sink entirely, thus releasing it from its obligation to the people of Au?
He thought of the wet and windy trek along the coast, the drunk, chattering villagers hauling their tribute to Ilu, the women who had pressed skins of beer on him, the men who had cheerfully shared fish and other, less identifiable food along the way. The image rose unbidden of the man in line before the Place of the God, morose until Steq took his place.
One of the Godless spoke, then, interrupting Steq’s thoughts. “Captain, you’re needed in the starboard bow.”
Steq climbed from the deck into the starboard hull, and stooped to pass under the coverings, which on this shallow vessel did not allow one to stand up straight. In the bow he found two crew members hunched, bewildered, in front of a crouching, naked young woman. She looked directly at him, clearly afraid but also clearly in command of herself. He remembered her silence during the pursuit and struggle on the beach. This woman was not given to panic. She was short compared to the people of Au he had met, and wide-boned. Her hair was flat and lank. Her face was the face of a woman Steq knew had died some sixteen years ago.
“Get her some clothes,” he said to the two guards. “No one is to speak of this.” He turned, and made his way to an opening in the covers, and climbed back up onto the deck.
Steq had his supper that evening under the covers of the port bow of O Gods Take Pity. He sat on a bundle of skins in the flickering glow of a single oil lamp, the captain of O Gods Take Pity facing him, on a bunk. They spoke in low voices, bent forward under the low ceiling, knees nearly touching.
Steq reported all that had happened. “I don’t doubt that it will do everything it says for us,” he concluded. “But neither d
o I doubt that it will sink us in the sea like the people of Au if it finds some other, better bargain, or thinks itself endangered.”
“This is self-evident,” said the captain of O Gods Take Pity. “But this is not what troubles you. You hesitate now because of the woman.”
“I do not hesitate,” said Steq.
“I knew you when you were an infant at your mother’s breast,” said the captain of O Gods Take Pity. “Lie to the others as you wish, but I won’t be deceived.” Steq was silent. “She is none of ours. If you asked her where was her home, who her family, she would say Au, and name people we have never seen or heard of.”
“But for an accident,” said Steq, “she would be one of us.”
“But for an accident I would be king in Therete, dressed in silk and sitting on a gold and ivory throne, surrounded by slaves and courtiers. But for an accident, the king in Therete would be one of us, fleeing the wrath of the gods, wresting what life he can from the waters with no luxury and little joy, though I assure you the thought has never crossed his mind. And rightly so. Begin this way, and where do you stop? There is no one in the world who would not be one of us, but for an accident.”
“Years ago you urged us not to take this course,” said Steq, bitterly. “Now you are in favor of it.”
“No,” said the captain of O Gods Take Pity. “I am not in favor of it. Only, if you pitch this god and its corpse into the sea without accepting its deal, do so because you have found some way out that will not cause all our deaths. Do not take this step, which will surely have dire consequences, because of qualms over this woman. We have all lost people because of mistake or accident, and we have all regretted it. Do not be the first to endanger the fleet because of your own regret.”
“I said nothing of taking such a step.” The other captain said nothing, and Steq took another piece of fish from the bowl in his hand, chewed and swallowed it. “It is tied to the stone, and can not be released without a sacrifice.”
“It is not confined, and it has power yet to animate the corpse. It may have power to do other things as well.”
“What would they do, our people, if I threw the stone into the sea?” Both men were silent, considering Steq’s question, or perhaps unwilling to answer it.
“We have opposed gods in the past, and survived,” said the captain of O Gods Take Pity after a while.
“Not all of us,” said Steq.
“There is no use in worrying over the dead.” He set his bowl beside him on the bunk. “We have lived too easily for too long.”
“Perhaps we lived too hard, before.”
“Perhaps. But we lived.”
And Steq had no sufficient answer to this.
Ifanei lay bound on a bunk on Righteous Vengeance. Two guards sat opposite her, and they never looked away. When she had shivered they had covered her, but left her hands in sight.
It would not have mattered had they not—they had tied her with strong, braided sealskin and she had no way to cut it. They had taken her knife, and when they had taken her clothes they had found the needles and awls she had carefully wrapped and tied to the inside of her leg. She could see no means of escape.
She had understood that she was on a boat of the Fleet of the Godless, though she would not have known to give them that name. What she had not understood was why she had been captured to begin with. They had not killed her, or otherwise mistreated her. When they had done searching her they had returned her clothing. She could not imagine what anyone might want with her, unless they knew of Ihak’s caches, which seemed unlikely.
She had days to consider. Days in which she was fed and her other needs cared for as though she were ill and helpless. Never at any time was she allowed off the bunk, nor were her hands or feet ever unbound.
The darkness never faltered—the coverings were tightly lashed, and even if the sun could have shone through, the skies were dark with smoke and ash, but Ifanei had no way of knowing that. She knew only the close, dimly lit darkness and the smell of unwashed bodies. Eventually she felt stunned with the sameness of it all, and ceased to wait for anything further to happen.
An unmeasured time later, she woke to the chill as her cover was roughly pulled off. One of her guards held her bound wrists, the other cut the bonds around her ankles, and she was pulled as upright as the low ceiling allowed, and pushed down the narrow space that ran the length of the hull, bunks on one side, unidentifiable bundles and stacks along the other. She took two steps and her legs buckled under her, weak from long inactivity. Her guards caught her, pulled her up again, and helped her along to where a faint light shone through an opening above.
Hands reached down and pulled her through, up onto a railed platform. The sky was dark, and the breeze cold, and despite her coat she shivered. Guttering torches, a few oil lamps, and a fire in a large box provided some light. There were people all around, all along the railings. Facing her was the man who had brought her here, his face expressionless. No one moved, though the platform pitched and rocked in a way that made Ifanei step and stumble as she tried to stay on her feet.
In the center of the platform was a wide, tall pole and leaning up against that was a pile of gray dust. In front of this was the Stone of Etoje.
“God of Au!” she cried. “Help me!”
A weird gasping, choking noise came from the pile at the foot of the pole. The whole thing heaved and from underneath it a man stood up, swaying and staggering slightly, and the gasping noise continued. The dust fell and swirled away in the wind.
His long blond curls were covered in ash, his face and clothes gray with it, but she knew him. She realized, with a freezing horror, that the choking sound was laughter.
“Ifanei,” said the dead Speaker in a flat, toneless voice. “I provided you indeed, and I will have you back from your father.” She said nothing, could think of no answer. “Here is symmetry,” said the god. “Here is perfection.”
“My god.” Ifanei’s voice trembled with cold and dread. “I know you will protect me. The people of Au are your people and you have always kept us from misfortune.”
“Au has sunk beneath the waves,” said the priest. “Not the smallest part of the island remains. And you were my victim from the beginning. I lent you to Ihak, and it is only right that you return to me at last.” Still the people around her, and the dark, hard-faced man in front of her, were silent. There was no sound, except the wind and the water.
“Au beneath the waves,” she said. “Why? You have betrayed us!”
“It was the nature of the island itself,” said the god. “And it was never in my power to keep any human alive forever, nor did I ever promise such a thing.”
She saw the dishonesty of the god’s words, but could not find sufficient answer for it. “What of Etoje’s service to you?” she asked. “Had he not taken you for his god you would still be on the island, with no company but the cries of birds. Does this mean nothing to you?”
“Etoje’s service was pure self-interest,” said the dead priest. “He killed his own brother to satisfy his greed. Surely you know this, the tale has been told often enough. And it should not surprise you. It is the way people are. As it happens, it serves my purpose.”
She looked at the people around her. They would, she knew, cut her throat as easily as the Speaker had offered up the victims of Au. Did they know what they dealt with? Even if she had spoken their language, and could have warned them, would she have wished to?
But there was nothing she could do. And that being the case, she would not beg or scream. She took two stumbling steps to the Stone of Etoje, knelt heavily and then made her back as straight as her shivering allowed and waited for the knife.
Steq had known that the woman was no coward. He had, when he had thought of what was to come, been grateful that he would not have to steel himself to endure pitiful weeping or wailing.
She knelt shivering by the stone, her chin up as though inviting the knife. Her eyes were open, and she looked not at t
he grimy, dead priest but at Steq.
He had not expected to be undone by her bravery. “What did she say to you?” he asked the god.
“It does not matter.”
“I am curious.”
“You are delaying. I wonder why?”
“Why should it matter to you?” Steq asked.
“It does not matter.” Steq did not answer. “Very well. The woman begged me for help, invoking my agreement with the people of Au. I explained to her how matters stand. That is all.”
That was all. Steq took a breath, and then spoke. “Godless, I fear I have led you astray.”
“And I fear this ship needs a new captain,” said the dead priest.
“It will have one,” said Steq, “if the people do not like what I have to say.”
The corpse made as if to step forward, but a voice spoke from the watching crowd. “Touch him and you’ll be over the rail, stone and all.” Other voices murmured in assent.
“Put me overboard and you’ll speedily discover your mistake,” said the god, but it made no further move.
“If we feed this god what it desires,” said Steq, “it will almost certainly have the power to do much of what it has promised us. And the blood that it demands will be none of ours.” His gaze shifted momentarily to Ifanei, and then back to the priest. “But let me tell you why the god has abandoned its promise to the people of Au. The great mountain above Ilu was a volcano, and there were others. For a thousand years the god held the island safe, because of its promise to the people of Au, but after all that time it could control them no longer. A thousand years! Imagine the power thwarted, enough to destroy the whole island when it was finally let loose. And when this god realized that it could not hold back the fires forever, what did it do? Did it command the people of Au, who had served it faithfully all that time, to build boats, and escape under its protection? No, it allied with us behind their backs, and left them to their fate. It will do the same when its agreement with us becomes inconvenient.