The God-Touched Man

by Melissa McShane

She snapped her fingers in his face, and fiery agony burst over Piercy, blinding him. He screamed, and swung in the direction he remembered seeing her, felt the stick strike something hard but yielding, and a silent explosion picked him up off the ground and sent him flying.

  He had enough time to think of how he must look, a shooting star burning low across the ground, then he landed in something cold and he rolled, burying his face in the snow like a dog hunting a pheasant. He heard himself whimpering, thought So much for my face, and then the burst of terror wore off, and he collapsed, breathless, in the snowbank where he’d landed.

  Again, the clearing was silent. No screams, no spells, nothing but the still, unbroken night. Then he heard footsteps, and a hand rolled him over to lie on his back. “Are you alive, Lord Faranter?” Dolobeka said. There was not a trace of his earlier fury in his voice, nothing but quiet curiosity.

  “Just Mr. Faranter will do,” Piercy said. His mouth and cheeks felt stiff, and he sounded like he was talking through a mouthful of marbles. He opened his eyes and saw Dolobeka’s dark face regarding him upside-down. “Is the Witch…”

  “She is dead,” Dolobeka said. “I am sorry I named you traitor. I did not see your plan. What weapon was that?”

  “The God’s hand,” Piercy said. His arms were shaking badly enough it took him a few tries to push himself up to a sitting position. “You’re certain?”

  “Come and see,” Dolobeka said, and helped him rise and totter across the clearing—the blast had flung him nearly out of it—to where the Witch lay. She was unmarked, her face startled as if someone had jumped out at her, her body limp. The leash glimmered across her fair skin, pure black and oily without a trace of gray. Piercy reached out to remove it and flinched at the sight of his hands, which were blackened and blistered. His coat smelled of burnt hair, and a thin layer of char covered it where the outer layer had not been burned completely away. He didn’t want to think about how the rest of him looked.

  He took the leash and held it coiled in his hand. It felt warm from the Witch’s body, but the moments of coldness he remembered were gone. It was nothing more than an unusual necklace now. Was that all it would ever be? He couldn’t remember what Cath had said, aside from how it shouldn’t touch the hilt—he snatched his hand away from his pocket, where he’d been about to drop the thing on top of what was left of the sword. Broken or not, that was not an experiment he wanted to try.

  A stripe of black against the snow drew his eye. The hawk head of the walking stick was now a lump of featureless metal, but it was otherwise completely unharmed by the magical energies that had flowed through it. Piercy picked it up and thrust it through his belt. Was it now a religious artifact? Probably he should take it to Belicath, to the temple there, along with the hilt. The broken sword, the twisted stick, his own burned face—all warnings to the unwary that the touch of a God left scars.

  “She fought like the wind,” Dolobeka said.

  “If by that you mean a screaming terror incapable of distinguishing between friend and foe, I am inclined to agree with you,” Piercy said.

  “I was referring to Lady Sethemba,” Dolobeka said.

  Ayane. Piercy turned toward the other motionless body in the clearing. The cold had numbed him past feeling anything but dull horror. He went to kneel by her side and straightened her limbs, then gently closed her eyelids so she appeared merely to be asleep. Where was her spirit now? Had he damned her to wander the living world for an eternity, denied Cath’s judgment and mercy and a final resting place in his realm?

  Suddenly furious, he grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her, making her head loll awkwardly back and forth. “Wake up, damn you for a stubborn Santerran!” he screamed.

  Dolobeka pried his fingers off Ayane’s body and dragged him a few steps away. “She fought like a warrior,” he said. “Do not disrespect her body.”

  “Cath lied,” Piercy shouted. “I retrieved her soul, I brought her back, and he swore she would be restored! Where is she?”

  “If her spirit is free of the Underworld, cannot the leash unite it with her body?”

  Piercy let the leash dangle free from his fingers. “Its magic is gone. That is how the Witch was able to die. I have failed her.”

  “Use it anyway. It cannot hurt her body, and….” Dolobeka’s voice trailed away. Piercy shrugged and fastened the chain around Ayane’s neck.

  Nothing happened.

  Piercy knelt, staring at her lovely face—he didn’t think he could bear it if she’d been dead and crushed by frigo too—until his legs were numb with cold and cramping, wishing he remembered how to cry. Finally, Dolobeka laid a gentle hand on his shoulder and said, “We must return to our own place or die here, and I choose not to die.”

  Piercy nodded. He picked Ayane up—she was unexpectedly heavy—and began walking at random, not caring where his path took him. Possibly it was the weight of failure that made her seem such a burden. He hoped she’d found a way back to the Underworld, that she wasn’t lost and trapped in the place of power. How he was going to explain all of this to Princess Jendaya, he had no idea, but he was fairly certain she would blame him as surely as he blamed himself. At least there was no Kinfe Sethemba in a position to come north and tear him apart.

  They left the forest behind them and kept walking. Snow covered what should have been a grassy field, crunching underfoot and faintly luminous in the darkness. Then, between one step and the next, Piercy entered a Dalanese spring. The noon sun hurt his burned face, and again he wondered how bad it was. Not too bad, or his eyes would have been destroyed, and he could still see, though not as clearly as he wished.

  He stopped to get his bearings. In the distance, a red speck he thought might be the carriage gleamed. Tedoratis hadn’t said if this was one of those places of power where time passed differently; the Gods only knew how long they’d been inside. It felt like it had taken a lifetime.

  Behind him, Dolobeka said, “I cannot see horses. We should move on.” He carried the Witch’s body—the Lady High Chamberlain’s body—as gently as if she were a sleeping child.

  Piercy nodded and headed in the direction of the carriage. The plains were as still as the place of power had been, with only the grass rustling in the breeze that cooled Piercy’s face and their footsteps breaking the silence. Piercy tried to make plans. They’d put the bodies in the carriage, then he would call Tedoratis and ask for instructions. That would be an interesting conversation, if by “interesting” one meant “soul-harrowing.” Would defeating the Witch, a feat which could not be made known generally, outweigh losing the daughter of Santerre’s greatest hero, which would necessarily be extremely public? It might mean Piercy losing his job, losing the prospects of ever finding another. He found he didn’t care.

  He stumbled slightly, shifted his burden to keep it from falling, and plodded onward. There were the horses, standing roughly where he’d left them. That was something, anyway. They would be able to make good time in the direction of his doom.

  Ayane’s body slipped again. He rearranged his grip, then stopped, caught by the peaceful beauty of her face. Without thinking, he bent to kiss her forehead. They could never have made a life together, but that didn’t make him love her less, and it didn’t ease the frozen grief that gripped him now. The leash was barely visible against her dark skin, shimmering gray where the sun touched it. It didn’t suit her at all. Would they bury her with that gold necklace she’d been wearing the night they met? He knew so little of modern Santerran customs—

  Wait. Gray, not black, catching the sun’s rays. He awkwardly shifted his burden so he could touch the leash. A flash of cold shot through his fingers.

  Ayane opened her eyes.

  It startled him so much he nearly dropped her. Ayane blinked rapidly, as if coming out of a deep pool. Then her eyes fixed on him, and she shrieked. This time he did drop her, or at least let go of her legs, and had to make a grab to keep her from falling. “Piercy, your face!” she exclaimed. “What
happened?”

  He couldn’t remember how to speak. He crushed her close to his chest, making her squeak, and sent up a silent prayer of apology and thanks more fervent than any he’d managed in his entire life. “Piercy, you’re hurting me,” Ayane said, and he gently put her down, then had to support her when her legs wobbled.

  “I said it would work,” Dolobeka said, coming up behind them. “Santerrans are not overcome by something as small as death, when their spirits are free.”

  “I don’t remember anything,” Ayane said. She had a firm grip on Piercy’s arm that made him wish he dared sweep her into his arms again. “No. I remember some things. I was dead, I remember that. The Witch—what happened to the Witch?”

  “She is dead,” Piercy said, “it is over, and except for the sad fact of the Lady High Chamberlain’s demise, all is well.”

  “But—Piercy, she burned you terribly—”

  “I will heal,” Piercy said, though his words were far more confident than he was. “I count it no sacrifice.”

  Ayane looked skeptical, but said, “Then…it is over.” She opened her mouth to say more, glanced at Dolobeka, and was silent.

  “It is,” Piercy repeated, “and we must return the Lady High Chamberlain’s body, and you must explain yourself to Princess Jendaya.”

  She nodded, avoiding his eyes. Piercy’s heart iced over again. They’d barely spoken, but it felt as if they’d already said goodbye.

  The constabulary in Tarrus, where Tedoratis had told them the Foreign Office agents would meet them, was considerably more understanding than the one in Kemelen. The arrival of the Lady High Chamberlain’s body nearly got Piercy a bed in a cell, but the captain accepted Piercy’s story of a rogue magician and their near-fatal encounter with him, and got Piercy a doctor instead.

  Half an hour after their arrival, Piercy sat across the captain’s desk from Tedoratis, who had arrived in a rapid whirl of magicians and Foreign Office agents and commandeered the constabulary. “You look the worse for wear,” she said. “I trust those burns aren’t severe?”

  “They are, unfortunately, but the doctor says a good healer should be able to minimize the damage. Whether I will ever look the same is uncertain.”

  “I’m sorry to hear that. The government is grateful for your sacrifice, though I doubt that’s much comfort.”

  “It is not, Miss Tedoratis.” The idea of being permanently disfigured hadn’t settled in yet. He was choosing not to think about it, which was easy when one considered how many other miseries he could dwell on.

  “Even so. Good work. We’re giving out that the Lady High Chamberlain was kidnapped by a mad magician obsessed with her, who killed her when she refused him and was killed in turn by government agents. No one needs to know that none of the three of you are magicians. Home Defense is furious that a Foreign Office agent and two Santerrans were able to do what they failed at, but there’s not much they can do about it except pretend it was what they wanted all along.”

  “Yes, Miss Tedoratis.”

  “And the Santerran government is pleased with you for returning Lady Sethemba, though they’re not all that pleased with her disobedience. Still, that’s nothing to do with us, eh?”

  “No, Miss Tedoratis.”

  Tedoratis leaned forward and eyed him. “Mr. Faranter, are you well?”

  “As well as might be expected, given these injuries.”

  “Hmmm. Well, we’ve arranged for lodging for you here in Tarrus, and tomorrow you can return to Matra, or anywhere else you’d like to go. You’re to take one month’s holiday, no argument. You have the look of a man who needs a good long time somewhere no one’s making any demands of him.”

  “Thank you, Miss Tedoratis.”

  Tedoratis gave him that calculating look again. “Thank you, Mr. Faranter,” she said. Piercy stood, bowed, and left the room.

  He found the inn where Tedoratis had paid for his room, went upstairs, and flopped backward onto the bed. He’d been honest with Tedoratis, he wasn’t even in much pain after the doctor’s treatment, but he was so tired he could barely stand. The physical exhaustion wasn’t the worst of it; emotionally, he felt as if he’d been trodden on, rolled up like a mat and beaten. But sleep would help.

  Someone knocked at the door, tentatively. Piercy closed his eyes and pretended to be asleep. Another knock, firmer this time. He groaned and pushed himself off the bed. “I need nothing, pray do not trouble yourself,” he said, and opened the door.

  Ayane stood there, her hands clasped before her. She wore a Dalanese gown and bonnet which looked so out of place on her it left him even more disoriented. “Can I come in?”

  It took a moment for Piercy’s fogged brain to register what she wanted. Then he gestured for her to enter.

  “I wanted to ask what the doctor said,” she continued.

  “That I was lucky to be alive, that my eyes are undamaged, and that some scarring is to be expected.”

  Ayane’s eyes grew wide, and she put her hand on the back of the room’s chair as if she wanted to sit but didn’t like to without an invitation that Piercy wasn’t going to give. “I’m sorry,” she said.

  “It was a small sacrifice for the world’s sake.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  He hadn’t told her anything about his meeting with Cath—hadn’t told Tedoratis either. He had a sudden longing to see Evon, to tell him everything and hear what he had to say. To pour out his miserable heart before his best friend and take what comfort he could give. “The Witch’s plan was to open the Underworld and release its spirits,” he said. “It would have devastated all of creation.”

  Now her mouth was as wide as her eyes. “You saved the world,” she said, and smiled ruefully. “I wish I’d seen it.”

  “It was anticlimactic.” At least, from his perspective it had been. The perspective of a man trying not to burn to death.

  “Even so.” She ducked her head and looked at the floorboards. “I’m returning to Matra in the morning,” she said. “Jendaya will be furious with me, but it’s not as if she can do anything about it. I was wondering…if you wanted to travel together—”

  “I’m going to Inveros,” Piercy said. “But I hope your journey is pleasant.”

  “Piercy—”

  “Is there anything you and I have left to say to each other?”

  “I thought you understood.”

  “So did I.” He turned and walked to the window, where he looked out over the street three stories below. “You have an obligation to your people as Kinfe Sethemba’s daughter. I understand that much.”

  “If I could change—Piercy, you know I love—”

  “Ayane,” Piercy said in a level tone, “you are breaking my heart.”

  She went silent. Then she left the room, closing the door behind her.

  Chapter Thirty-One

  Piercy stepped off the carriage and took a deep breath. Inveros was a beautiful city, but Matra was home. He tipped the driver, then the footman who carried his trunk into his townhouse, and went upstairs to the drawing room. His valet Mather would unpack, then help him dress for supper at the club. Just like old times.

  He sat in the armchair, stood up and paced to the bookshelf and ran his fingers along the spines, but nothing looked appealing. He checked his pocket watch; four hours before supper. He was too restless to stay home, despite the fatigue of the journey and how ill he’d been that morning. He’d always been a terrible traveler. So he put on his hat and left the house. Evon would be home, and he hadn’t seen his friend except by mirror in over a month—hadn’t ever seen his infant namesake. A few hours’ visit sounded perfect.

  He was uncomfortable without the stick, but he hadn’t been able to bring himself to carry it since the Witch’s death, and of course he couldn’t throw it away, even if it no longer had the God’s power bound up in it. Right now it was in the bottom of his trunk. Mather would put it somewhere. Maybe he should take it to the temple in Belicath, along with the hi
lt, which he was never without despite how awkward it was. He kept finding reasons not to travel there that all came down to a reluctance to let go of his contact with the God. Not for the first time, he wondered what Ayane had done with the leash. If she removed it, would she die? Surely not. But he wouldn’t blame her for not wanting to try the experiment.

  He knocked on the red door and waited for an answer. No one came. He tried the knob and found the door locked. Feeling put out, he turned and went back the way he’d come.

  Sun radiated off the pavement, making him feel limp after the cool sea breezes of Inveros. He crossed the street so he could walk beneath the lindens’ shade; they smelled green and fresh, a breath of spring lingering into summer. Two young women passing gave him shy, giggling glances, and he tipped his hat to them without really seeing them. They might have been laughing at his scars, but after a month in Inveros he’d learned most women still responded to the Faranter charm despite his disfigurement, which was minor compared to what it might have been. A few patches of scar tissue on his forehead and temples, a larger area of burned skin on his left cheek—he really was fortunate to have faced the Witch of Marhalindor and come away relatively unscathed.

  Now he was home, he ought to look up Marina Smittis—no, he’d heard in Inveros that she was betrothed now. Raylena Borenter, then, or…he couldn’t think of any other names. Well, he would be attending a concert at the palace in three days, he could make new connections there. He was looking forward to resuming work. Holidays were all very well, but there was only so much relaxing a man could do before he grew bored.

  He glanced through a plate glass window at a selection of hats. His was at least two months old; he should get a new one. He looked at his reflection and was stunned at how haggard he looked for someone who’d just had a month’s holiday at a seaside resort. The scars were less visible in the makeshift mirror, but still so noticeable—a flash of self-pity went through him before he could stop it. Really very fortunate. Piercy Faranter, Cath’s chosen servant, with the marks to prove it.