*
Abelard clutched at Tara’s arm. “Do you actually think a priest did this?”
“I do.”
“We couldn’t, I mean, nobody would have…” Both sentences withered to ash in his lungs. “Who?”
“I don’t know,” she answered. “But I have a suspicion.”
Suspicion, Justice boomed, is insufficient.
The waiting Blacksuits leaned forward, birds of prey prepared to launch themselves at the accused. Justice looked on, merciless.
Time ran down like an unwound clock, and was shattered by a deep, familiar voice. “I have evidence to introduce in Ms. Abernathy’s support.”
Many heads turned in the Temple of Justice, but none so fast as Tara’s. The ground beneath her feet shook, and rage sped her beating heart.
Through the doors of the grand hall, thumbs thrust into his belt loops, black eyes blazing and chin held high, strode Alexander Denovo. Elayne Kevarian followed him.
19
“Professor,” Tara said coldly as he advanced. “Why are you here?”
“Tara.” He saluted her. His smile was wide and white as a deep wound. “I’d like you to remember this in the future. Me riding in out of the night to save your ass.”
“I’m doing fine.”
“If it hadn’t sounded like Justice was about to confine you to her deepest, darkest dungeons, I would not have stepped in to help.”
Ms. Kevarian said nothing. Perhaps she supported Professor Denovo, though it was outlandish to think so. Or—was her step more wooden than usual, her expression more stiff? Tara blinked and looked on the world with a Craftswoman’s eyes, but the hall was too crowded with interlacing weaves to identify the cobweb strands that would have bound Ms. Kevarian’s mind to the Professor’s, had he suborned her. Tara thought back frantically. Had her boss been in step with Denovo as they entered the chamber?
“Well?” the Professor asked. “No ‘Thank you, Professor’? Fortunate for you that I’m a generous man.” He addressed the goddess he had blinded. “I can prove the truth of Tara’s allegations. A senior official within Kos’s Church hired me four months ago to investigate a power failure. In my research, I learned of the god’s desire to aid our stone companions.” The nearest gargoyle lunged for his legs; a blinding flash erupted from the floor, and when Tara blinked the spots from her eyes, the Guardian lay in a fetal position, clutching his smoldering abdomen and surrounded by chips of broken stone. Denovo had not looked away from Justice, nor allowed the attack to interrupt the flow of his speech. Tara felt his voice more than heard it, familiar as a bad habit and every bit as compelling.
“A rift between god and clergy is dangerous at the best of times, and, Lady, these are not the best of times. Knowing my services as a specialist in deific reconstruction might be required, I sought a position as counselor to Kos’s creditors, having a personal inclination to represent their side in such engagements. I first learned of Judge Cabot’s death this afternoon, and was understandably horrified.”
Denovo raised one finger. “Thus far my testimony consists of my word against the Church, but I can prove that Shale,” pointing with his full hand, “did not kill Judge Cabot. In fact, he has nearly completed his mission unawares.”
“He doesn’t have any part of the Concern,” Tara objected. “I would have seen it.”
“Would you indeed, if it had been camouflaged by a paranoid god and a Judge made wise by decades of service?” Denovo raised one eyebrow. “I have a great deal of experience with such things. I can see. As can Lady Kevarian.”
“It’s true,” Tara’s boss said, voice steady and sharp. “I can see it within him.” No sign of stress, but she agreed so readily. Had she and the Professor inhaled at the same time? The hair on the back of Tara’s neck rose. Against either of them, she was outmatched. Against both, she would be a child set against an avalanche.
“Constructs of Craft,” Denovo said, “cannot be taken from a person without his consent. An untrained individual may be tortured, or tricked, into relinquishing one, but Judge Cabot spent too long in the shadows to be fooled, or swayed by torture. Pain was just one more sensation for him.” Revolving on his heels, he took three measured steps and came to rest in front of Shale, immobilized in iron. “Shale does not know what he carries. There was time only for the Judge to pass on his burden, not explain it. Allow me to produce this evidence for the court.”
Shale was tense with terror. He shook his head, but could not protest through his iron gag.
“He is,” the Professor noted, “distracted and fearful, thus uncooperative. But if he does not know how to help himself, I will have to take on the burden of assisting him.”
Denovo extended one hand, fingers splayed, and closed his eyes.
Every light in the grand hall flickered and grew dim. Denovo shook with tension. A silver mist rose from the slick stone of Shale’s body and hung around him like a halo. The gargoyle began to scream.
Tara closed her eyes, too. The Professor was a spider of thorn and wire, limbs innumerable and barbed. His claws struck into the tangle of Shale’s soul and began to pry.
He pierced knots of empathy and love and compassion, and seized something beneath them, a core of absence in Shale’s heart, a tightly wound ball of invisible threads. Opening her eyes, Tara saw the mist tinged with reddish gold. Denovo’s face was a sweat-slick mask, his lips peeled to bare white teeth. He was not enjoying his work. However Kos and the dead Judge had protected the key to their Concern, Denovo was straining even to see, let alone to extract, it.
He stood vulnerable before her. Her fingers flexed, preparing to summon her knife. She could strike him down, and be slain by Blacksuits. Who would subsequently consider her case a fabric of lies, and find the gargoyles guilty. The Church would never benefit from her discoveries. Abelard would lose his god. But she would have her revenge.
Was that enough?
She forced her fingers to relax.
Besides, Blacksuits were fast. She might not be able to kill him in time.
Torn free of Shale’s body, the mist rose and coalesced into a rotating sphere made from interlocking rings of fire and ruby-orange light. The cold hall felt suddenly warm, its immensity confining.
Denovo smiled in cold triumph. He looked as she remembered him on the day he threw her from the Hidden Schools. Reflected in his eyes, that fiery sphere was every horror in the world. He reached out to grasp it.
With a silent apology to Abelard, Tara clenched her hand into a fist and gathered her power to strike. She undid her bonds with a charm and a whispered word. Iron slipped from her, and unburdened, she raised her knife.
Then the skylight shattered, and shards of glass and fire rained down.
*
Roiling flame scored the rough marble floor, and a column of coherent fire engulfed Alexander Denovo. Crying out, the bound gargoyles rolled back from the blast, their iron restraints clattering on stone. Tara threw up her arm and hardened the air above her into a dome to block falling shards. Ms. Kevarian did not duck, did not call upon her power, did not betray any sign of shock. Which settled the question for Tara: Denovo must have gotten to her somehow.
Bastard.
A wave of fire scattered Blacksuits and prisoners both. Raz fell, screaming, and rolled to extinguish the flames caught on his jacket.
The sphere of ruby-orange light revolved in midair, unperturbed by the chaos.
A robed figure descended through the broken skylight.
A deep bass rumble shook the hall, and the pillar of fire about Denovo broke like morning mist to reveal him, scorched but shimmering with protective Craft. His right hand rose to the glyph above his heart, and a knife of lightning flashed in his grip, ascending through the mystic and deadly curve of Kethek Loes, blade bearing shadow and swift death.
Before he could complete the motion, flame struck again, surgically precise. Denovo’s shield muted the heat of the blow, but its impact tossed him across the hall like a twig
in a tornado. He slammed into the floor twenty feet back and skidded.
The figure hovered above the marble and debris, wreathed in fire. Its robe was brilliant crimson, its hood pulled back. The face thus revealed, contorted in the throes of righteous anger, belonged to Cardinal Gustave.
*
Abelard took cover beneath his robe when the skylight caved in. The clustered stone bodies of the Guardians shielded him from the fire. Heat seared his face, scalded his nostrils. His clothes were burning. His cigarette, at least, remained undamaged, and with hasty handwork he preserved it as he rolled over broken glass to extinguish the smoldering rest of him.
Recovering, he glanced about himself, and took stock. Denovo stood pinioned by a spear of flame, unharmed but immobile, forearms crossed before his face. The arrayed Blacksuits did not move; the Guardians struggled in futility against their chains to rise, to fight. Captain Pelham flailed, but could not extinguish the flames devouring his flesh and his clothing. Tara stood near Denovo, alert and ready to ward off attack. Abelard’s gaze rose to the figure in midair.
“Father!” he cried, but his voice did not carry.
Professor Denovo’s, on the other hand, overruled all other sound. “Cardinal,” he said, sly and stable, betraying no sign of strain. “Pleasure as always. Have you joined us for some evening conversation? A spot of theological discourse perhaps?”
Rage filled Gustave’s face and form. “You have poisoned this assembly with your lies.”
“What lies? You must have heard Tara as you lurked up there: Judge Cabot was killed by a cleric of Kos, with the god’s own stolen power. I wonder if you can help us compile a list of suspects. We’re looking for someone who can fly and call upon the fire of a dead god. About your height and build, I’d say.”
“Traitor!” Gustave cried. A second line of flame struck Denovo with the force of divine judgment. Smoke rose from the Professor’s jacket. His defenses trembled, but held. “I name you traitor, Alexander Denovo. You gave me this blasphemous power to ward against a greater blasphemy. I will use your own gift to destroy you.”
“You’re not improving your predicament, my Lord Cardinal,” Denovo replied. “What do you hope to gain by attacking a man in the presence of Justice herself?”
Gustave’s lips twisted in a sneer. “Justice cannot move while I press the attack. My every strike against you drains her. My God will be avenged.”
Abelard smelled smoke. Was his robe still burning? Glancing over his shoulder, he jumped to see Ms. Kevarian five feet behind him, apparently unperturbed, though her skin and suit had been torn by falling glass, and her black jacket was on fire. She betrayed no sign of pain.
Her lips moved. He could not hear her words. Abelard looked from her to the Cardinal and back. Flares of color surrounded the man as if he were a saint in stained glass, lit from behind by a setting sun.
Abelard encircled Ms. Kevarian in his cloak and bore her to the ground. She lay unresisting amid the debris as he smothered the flames under heavy folds of cloth. Blinking, she seemed to recognize him. When he laid the back of his hand on her forehead, he found it cold and damp, like a stone wall after a long night—feverish compared to the ice of her earlier touch.
“Lady Kevarian,” he shouted over the clash. “Are you okay?”
Her body was stiff, almost lifeless, but her mouth moved. The same movements, over and over again. A single word.
“Lady?” He bent forward. “I can’t hear you.” He lowered his ear to her lips, and understood.
“Dagger,” she repeated, over and over.
He turned, not to Professor Denovo, nor to Cardinal Gustave, nor to the Guardians nor Tara, but to Cat, wrapped, trapped, in her Blacksuit. She held the crystal knife Abelard had discovered in the Sanctum’s boiler room.
The drop of blood within its transparent blade glowed more brilliantly with every blast that issued from Cardinal Gustave.
Abelard had forced himself to accept the thought of a priest as traitor, but the Cardinal? There had to be some reason, some explanation.
Abelard shot a worried glance at Ms. Kevarian. Dread command glinted in her eye.
Striking against Gustave was tantamount to heresy. Could stopping a murderer be heretical?
You may have to choose between the city you believe you inhabit, and Alt Coulumb as it exists in truth.
With an urgency born of fear, he left Ms. Kevarian and sprinted toward Cat. Behind him, the embers of the Craftswoman’s jacket burgeoned again into flame.
*
Tara heard Raz Pelham scream, and with a wave of her hand she quenched the fire that consumed him. He slumped, unconscious, but mostly intact. As her mind extinguished the flames, she felt within them inhuman power melded to malevolent human will.
This fire was not born of mortal Craft. Subtle, divine workings gave form and strength to Gustave’s rage: millions of strands of spider silk vibrating like bowed violin strings, their friction creating insatiable flames.
You gave me this power, Cardinal Gustave had said. Of course. Who else would Gustave have asked to build the Craft circle, other than the man he trusted to maintain Justice? What other Craftsman would have done such a thing, in violation of all professional ethics?
“Help me, Tara!” Sweat slicked Denovo’s pale skin and wet the curls of his beard. His arms shook as he blunted Gustave’s attack with power stolen from students and teachers and distant gods. When Tara saw him with closed eyes, he glowed like a neon prayer wheel. She could not have resisted the Cardinal’s fury for more than a few seconds. For all Denovo’s power, he could barely manage it. “He murdered Judge Cabot.”
Yes, Tara thought. With tools you gave him. This would be a neat revenge, and all she had to do was watch.
“I do not murder.” Gustave’s voice was low and dangerous, a hiss of snow in a mountain pass, the omen of an avalanche. “I am an agent of my Lord’s wrath.”
Looking at Gustave was like staring into the heart of the sun. One instant he possessed all colors, the next none, fading to a bruised gray in Tara’s vision.
She could sit back and observe the battle, but Gustave had not yet admitted to the Judge’s murder. Justice was present, though she could not intervene. His confession would save the gargoyles, if any of them survived. “Cardinal,” she shouted, “did you kill Judge Cabot?”
“I killed him. I would kill all who dare plot against Lord Kos.”
Yes. Keep him talking. The more he said, the safer the gargoyles would be. “He wasn’t plotting. He served your god!”
“Gods go mad, as do men. My Lord was sick at heart. When He recovered, He would have known my deeds for true faith. I prevented His desecration.”
“Like you’re doing now? Seizing his power this way—you’ve damaged his corpse more than Seril could have at Her greediest.”
“Tara,” Denovo cried. “Help me. We can defeat him together.”
She ignored him. “Stop, Cardinal. Don’t hurt Kos any more than you have already. He wanted peace between the city and the Guardians.”
“They are vermin!” The word echoed like clashing thunder, but beneath a god’s wrath she heard the weak and railing anger of a very old man. “Flying rats, lurking in the forgotten heights of our city. Should I let them sully my Lord with their claws?”
“You plotted Cabot’s murder for months, ever since you learned what Kos asked him to do. Installing that Craft circle, learning the soul-binding technique. Did you ever ask your god for an explanation, in all that time?”
Tears glimmered in bright wet lines on Gustave’s face. “Why would my Lord give so much to a pack of monsters?”
“He would have told you. You should have trusted him.”
“He would have pitied me for not understanding! My Lord, my Master, my Friend would have pitied me for being unable to love these.” He spat that word down on the Guardians.
“If you really feel that way,” Tara shouted back, “maybe you never loved him in the first place.”
&
nbsp; Her heart froze as that sentence left her lips, and she realized it had been exactly the wrong thing to say. Gustave’s ferocity turned upon her. She braced her legs and raised her arms. Fire struck her from on high, and she almost fell.
Almost.
*
Cat was lost. The cosmic high of union with Justice had ebbed, drawing her with it into depths where the world spun in contrary directions and no air reached her lungs when she breathed. Justice’s song twisted her through itself, and she was a note tossed on its immensity like flotsam on a tidal wave. She lay beneath the surface, a drowned woman, and through the shifting black water she saw distorted Abelard approach, backlit by rosy flame.
“Cat!”
His voice fell on ears that did not belong to her, and though she tried to reply, a wall of stone closed up her mouth. Her body was not her own, lent away and the lessee absent.
His face was caught in the writhing shadows of the firefight.
“Cat! The Cardinal’s gone mad!”
She had heard, but memory was such a fragile thing, ephemeral and unreliable as breath.
“That dagger in your hand.” His mouth wide, a gaping pit, yet his eyes were wider. “He draws power through it, from Kos.”
What did he expect her to do? A Blacksuit’s will belonged to Justice, and Justice was silent.
Which, she realized dreamily, was unusual.
Her attention drifted down, and she saw the dagger clutched in fingers that once belonged to her. Abelard wrapped his arm in his robe and struck the crystal blade, but it held and he fell back, a sharp red cut on his forearm where the dagger had sliced through his coarse robe.
“Are you going to let the Cardinal kill Tara? The Guardians? You think he’ll let them live with what they’ve seen, what they know?” He gripped her shoulders, but she did not feel the pressure of his hands. “Help us, Cat.”
*
Fire crisped and consumed Tara’s world, endless, hungry, insensate. She had never fought a god before. If Kos Everburning raised himself against her, she would have perished in an instant. Flush with divine power, Cardinal Gustave still lacked a god’s mastery of the energies he invoked. Even so, Tara buckled beneath the ferocity of his flames.
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