The God-Touched Man

by Melissa McShane

  “Where is Dolobeka?”

  “Still in the cell. They’re getting him a crutch. Is that Miss Tedoratis?”

  “Mr. Faranter, attend. The Lady High Chamberlain?” Tedoratis switched from Dalanese to Santerran without a stammer.

  Piercy pinched the bridge of his nose, trying to remember when last he’d spoken to Tedoratis and what he’d told her. “Her life is in great danger,” he said, and recounted what they had learned from Hodestis in the judgment hall. “Hodestis is convinced she is the…I suppose ‘host’ is the best word for it, however chilling that may sound. I fear he intends to kill her when he has reached his destination.”

  “And what destination is that?”

  “Miss Tedoratis, we do not know.” But everything they’d learned was beginning to slot into place in his head like a bizarre three-dimensional puzzle that defined an unearthly figure. “I believe he now has everything he needs to rescue the Witch from the Underworld,” he said, feeling his way along the puzzle’s shape. “He cannot afford to continue paralyzing Lady Gelventer to keep her under control, and were he to kill her immediately, before being fully prepared to enter the Underworld, her body would decay too quickly to be of use to him. We know he has the leash; I conclude he either has the other items or has put them where he can collect them easily. So wherever he is going, it will contain the entrance to the Underworld.”

  “That’s quite a guess,” Ayane said. “He was lucky the Lady High Chamberlain was so close to the monastery, or where the monastery was.”

  “It is only luck because we learned of his plan,” Piercy said. “Had we continued ignorant, he could have taken his time traveling anywhere in Dalanine Lady Gelventer was.”

  “Gelventer’s movements are well-publicized,” Tedoratis said. “She makes the same circuit every year. Hodestis might have chosen her above other women not just because she’s who she is, but because he could guarantee her location at the right time.”

  “I see,” said Ayane. “Then it’s not so much of a guess. So where is the Underworld?”

  They all three went silent. In the distance, an irregular tapping sound turned into Dolobeka, hopping along with the aid of a crutch and muttering to himself. “If we are free, I wish to go,” he said, “and I wish to break their heads as I do so.”

  “Who is that?” Tedoratis said.

  “He is…a Santerran who joined us along the way,” Piercy said, not wanting to send the conversation spinning in an irrelevant direction. “According to legend, the gate to the Underworld is located in a place of power.”

  “No one’s ever discovered such a place, Mr. Faranter.”

  “True, but there are many places of power that remain not only unexplored but undiscovered. It would have to be near Kemelen…no, this is impossible, there are far too many coincidences for this reasoning to hold.”

  “I think not,” Ayane said. “I think your first guess was correct. Look, Hodestis could gather all the other things whenever he wanted, right? But he had to get the leash at just one time and place. And he was in a hurry to reach ‘Dalessa.’ Miss Tedoratis, where would the Lady High Chamberlain have gone after Kemelen?”

  “To Rainoth, and then back to Matra until next year,” Tedoratis said. “You’re suggesting he knew he would have to kidnap Gelventer in Kemelen or wait another year. There’s simply no way he could have reached her in Rainoth. Too many people to dispose of.”

  “Yes, and I don’t think he wanted to wait. So coincidence or not, I think Hodestis had this all planned. Which means the place of power can’t be too far off, or he’d risk Lady Gelventer getting free of the paralysis and escaping.”

  “Your logic is undeniable,” Piercy said, bowing to her. “But it still leaves us none the wiser as to the location of the gates of the Underworld.”

  “Leave that to us,” Tedoratis said. “I want you to catch Hodestis. If you can reach him quickly, it may not matter where the Underworld is.”

  “Miss Tedoratis, you know I have the highest respect for you, but surely even you cannot declare to the Foreign Office at large that you are on the trail of a place almost everyone believes to be metaphorical? They will believe you mad.”

  “And they’d be right, if I were so ham-fisted about it as you imply. Move along. And try not to get in any retribution, as well-deserved as I’m sure it is for some of those fellows. There’s no time.”

  “Understood, Miss Tedoratis.” The mirror silvered over again, and Piercy couldn’t help seeing his face: there was a dark bruise along one cheekbone, another over his eye, and he looked haggard from ten days’ beard growth and general scruffiness. He shuddered and set the mirror down. “Let us retrieve our things and obey Miss Tedoratis’s instructions. Though I will regret not repaying the guards something in kind for their treatment of us.”

  They exited the interrogation room only to bump into Leuwenter, who recoiled from more than the impact. “Where are our possessions?” Ayane said, taking a few steps to follow her.

  “I hope you understand…your story was so absurd…”

  “We do not care about your excuses. You may have caused the death of the Lady High Chamberlain by your stupidness.” Ayane had her backed into the corridor wall and her face was inches from the captain’s. “You are lucky we are in a hurry or I would make you suffer.”

  “We’re bringing everything. We have a fast carriage for you, too.” The captain swallowed hard. “Please accept my apology.”

  “No,” Ayane said, and turned away. “Lord Dolobeka, show us the way out.”

  “I think that might have been unnecessary,” Piercy murmured to her as they followed Dolobeka’s halting steps.

  “You didn’t see her face while they were beating you,” she said. “I think this constabulary’s been corrupt for a long time. She enjoyed it, Piercy.”

  “Ah.” Unfortunate he couldn’t bring himself to hit a woman who wasn’t actively trying to kill him. “I suppose we could look at our experience as doing a service to the rest of Kemelen.”

  “Or we could look at it as a painful, horrible delay.”

  “You are correct. I was simply trying not to fall into despair.”

  “We’re not too late yet.”

  “Now you’re the one being unnaturally optimistic.”

  Piercy had to help Dolobeka climb the stairs, which were steep and as narrow as the prison corridor. He pretended not to hear Dolobeka’s quiet swearing; the man’s pride had to be as injured as his body, to be so helpless. He still had no idea what to do with him. The carriage would help, but suppose they had to strike out across country? He would slow them unbearably, yet they couldn’t abandon him, displaced in time, in a foreign country where he didn’t speak the language. Piercy did some swearing of his own and felt better. Possibly their situation was hopeless, but Ayane wasn’t going to give up despite this really not being her problem, so he couldn’t give up either.

  The two guards who waited in the tiny room at the top of the stairs were all too familiar. They also looked afraid. Good. Piercy ignored them and sorted through the small pile atop the table in the middle of the room. Mirror, boot knife, money—

  “Where is my money?” he said.

  The guards looked at each other furtively. “This is what we took off you,” one of them said.

  The God’s sword lay atop the pile, the sword belt coiled around it loosely. Piercy snatched it out of its scabbard and swiftly brought the weapon up to rest against the side of the man’s throat. “I think you can imagine my stores of patience are draining quickly,” he snarled. “Do you suppose there is any chance, at this point, that I will suffer repercussions for shedding your blood?”

  He could feel the sword straining against his grip, trying to turn away from the killing stroke. Do not fight me, he told it, but it was becoming more difficult to maintain his stance. “You will return everything, or I will carve my name on your kidneys,” he said, lowering the sword to point at the man’s stomach. It still fought him, and he closed h
is hand so tightly that it started to become numb.

  The guards began digging in their trouser pockets, desperately. “This is all we have,” the guard said, “we didn’t do it, just take it all.”

  The pile of coin and bills they tossed onto the table exceeded the money he’d lost. Piercy lowered the sword and the powerful force opposing him lessened immediately. “Is anything else missing?” he asked Ayane.

  “It does not seem so,” she said, holding her knife up to examine it for damage. “I would like to test my blade on these men, but we should hurry.” Both guards backed away from her fierce expression. Dolobeka growled at them, but made no further threat, and Piercy observed the ashen tint to his dark skin and realized the man was close to collapse. Well, whatever else, they couldn’t leave him in Kemelen.

  The guards led them out of the city hall and across the courtyard, glancing back occasionally as if fleeing an enemy. Piercy considered Dolobeka’s halting gait and thought about taking the crutch away, seeing if his support might make the man move faster, but decided it wasn’t worth fighting with the prickly Santerran over.

  The guards at the outer gate saluted them with no trace of fear. He hoped that meant they were innocent, but more likely they’d only escaped Tedoratis’s wrath by not being present, not that they wouldn’t have eagerly joined in if they had been. Piercy ignored them and climbed up to the seat of the waiting carriage. Tedoratis really had put the fear of the Gods into Leuwenter; it was a newer model, small and light but spacious enough to accommodate Dolobeka, well-sprung, and harnessed to a pair of horses that looked as impatient to be off as Piercy felt. It was also painted cherry-red and bore the seal of the constabulary on its door. He hoped it was the captain’s personal carriage. “Are we ready?” he called down.

  The carriage swayed. “We are now,” Ayane said, taking a seat next to him.

  “You wouldn’t rather ride inside?”

  “With Lord Dolobeka in the mood he’s in? Drive, Piercy!”

  Piercy cracked the reins and the horses set off smartly, almost too fast for the traffic thronging the streets. He weaved past carriages whose drivers cursed at him for cutting them off and horses who had to dance out of the way with equal invective from their riders.

  Piercy urged more speed out of the horses and made the turn onto the main street too quickly, tilting the carriage. Dolobeka shouted something Piercy couldn’t make out over the sound of the wheels rattling along. “I am afraid our friend does not appreciate my skills,” he said.

  “You’re driving like a lunatic, but I promise I appreciate it,” Ayane said, letting go of his arm where she’d clutched it as they went around the corner. “Do you know where you’re going?”

  “West,” Piercy said. At that moment they had to slow to pass through the marketplace, and Piercy cursed again. “I realize it is foolishness,” he said, “but at the moment I resent anything that impedes our progress, including the small child in our path and its inattentive mother.”

  “I think the Gods wouldn’t smile on us if we ran them over, and we need all the divine help we can get.”

  “True.” His ribs jabbed him, and he looked down to see the hilt of the sword poking him in the side. “Though I think we may have been given more divine help than we realized.”

  “What makes you say that?”

  The crowd opened up in front of him, and thankfully he urged the horses on again, through the gate and onto the open road. He snapped the reins, and the horses set a faster pace until they were skimming the ground, passing other carriages and wagons with ease. “I mean,” he said when he was satisfied with their speed, “I believe this sword is truly touched by the God Cath.”

  Ayane reached out to touch the pommel, but withdrew her hand. “Why is that?”

  “It seems…reluctant to shed blood at times and eager for its taste at others. It killed the Welkennish readily, but forced me to spare Dolobeka’s companions. And just now it fought me when I would have injured, possibly killed that guard.” The memory of the sword quivering in his hand with fierce power made him sick, now, to think that in his anger he might have killed the man.

  “That sounds to me as if it’s deciding who should live and die,” Ayane said. “Isn’t Cath the Great Judge of the Underworld? Maybe his sword has some measure of his knowledge of justice.”

  “I think that likely, yes. The Welkennish, for example, would definitely have killed us, but while Lord Dolobeka’s companions might have done the same, it was under the misapprehension that we were villains of the worst order, not out of evil. But why spare the guard? That was not his first time participating in such brutality.”

  “I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to try to fathom the mind of a God, Piercy.”

  “You may be correct. At any rate, I will be more careful in future. The Gods alone know what might happen if I succeeded in exerting my will in opposition to the sword’s.”

  They rode on toward the setting sun, slowing occasionally to let the horses rest but only stopping once at a nearby village. No one there had seen anyone matching Hodestis’s appearance. “We should have asked the captain what sort of conveyance Hodestis escaped in,” Piercy said as they left the village. “Unfortunately I was rather preoccupied.”

  “I wanted to kill them all for that. Though you don’t seem badly injured—are you just hiding it well?” Ayane sounded irritated at the thought.

  “I should have these ribs bound up when we stop for the night,” Piercy said, then shifted his position and realized his ribs hadn’t hurt him for several miles. “Odd,” he said, prodding his side. Still no pain. “And I ought to be a mass of bruises now, but I feel nothing but a little sore, and even that is fading.”

  They both looked at the sword, which lay between them on the seat. “The bruises on your face have faded,” Ayane said, reaching up to touch his forehead. Her gentle hand brushed his hair back. “They look like they’re days old.”

  “Odd,” Piercy repeated, and took the reins in his right hand to put his left hand on the sword’s hilt. A thread of invisible fire shot through his hand and up his arm, vanishing in a second. In that instant the rest of his pains vanished, leaving him feeling refreshed—as refreshed as he’d felt wielding the sword in the monastery against the Welkennish.

  Ayane drew in a startled breath. “They’re gone,” she said, “just as if someone erased them. Piercy, what is that thing?”

  Piercy removed his hand from the sword and took up the reins again. “Something I no doubt have no right to,” he murmured. “It should go to the temple in Belicath, but we have no time.”

  “If Cath were going to strike you down for using it, I think he’d have done so immediately.” Ayane reached out and grasped the sword’s hilt, faster than Piercy could stop her.

  “Ayane!”

  “It doesn’t hurt. And I don’t feel any more healed. I don’t think it cares about me at all. Just you.”

  “What were you thinking? Suppose it had killed you?”

  “But it didn’t, and now we know it responds to you.” Ayane released it and dusted her hands off as if the hilt had been covered with dirt. “I think Cath wanted you to have it.”

  “I think I would prefer not to be the recipient of the God’s favor. In all the stories, that never ends well. Ayane, must you always be so foolhardy?”

  “During the Despot’s rule and the years of the satraps, indecision got men and women killed. I learned to assess danger and make quick decisions. And I knew it wouldn’t hurt me because those guards handled it and it didn’t strike them down. You’re not normally this slow, Faranter. I blame the beating.”

  Embarrassment stopped his tongue. “True,” he said finally. “I’m afraid my concern for your safety overrode my reason for a moment.”

  “You know I can take care of myself.”

  He spared a moment’s attention from the road to look at her. The light from the setting sun made her golden eyes glow, and he caught his breath at how beautiful she wa
s, even with her hair disordered and her clothing dirty from the cell and from sleeping rough on the ground. “I know,” he said, “but I suffer from misplaced chivalry on occasion, and I hope you will forgive me for wishing to make that unnecessary.”

  He had to return his attention to the road then, and was grateful for it, so she wouldn’t see his embarrassment at having been so open with her. She really didn’t need him to defend her, it probably annoyed her that he kept trying to, likely she took it as an insult—

  “I appreciate it,” she said quietly. “I think…we work well together. I’m sorry I couldn’t stop them hurting you.”

  “Yes, I feel resentment that Ayane Sethemba, unarmed and bound, was unable to overpower a mere half-dozen constables who have no more formal training than a few bouts with a practice dummy,” Piercy said, and to his relief she laughed, and the mood became much lighter. “But are you well? You fell—”

  “I took a few blows, and I landed on my shoulder when I fell, but there’s nothing more serious than bruises. Though there are a lot of those. I’m more worried about our Santerran friend. He won’t be able to keep up with us.”

  “That was my assessment as well. But we cannot abandon him. The carriage will help, but…”

  “Too bad the sword doesn’t work on everyone.”

  “We can certainly try.”

  They traveled until the sun lingered on the western horizon without seeing a sign of Hodestis or of any other towns. The road unspooled before them, light against the darker grasses marking its verge, cutting straight across the moors with no end in sight. After passing the village, they saw very little road traffic, and it was easy to believe they were the only people left in a desolate world. “We have to stop soon,” Piercy said. “The light of the moon will not be enough to travel by, and the Gods alone know what kind of banditry roams this country.”

  “I don’t—no, look there.” Ayane pointed at a scattering of lights some two miles in the distance. “Maybe the Gods are looking out for us, after all.”