by Jon Hollins
Will tried to work out if he had time for all the social undercurrents and personal politics whirling around in the aftermath of the gods’ visit, and decided he didn’t. A plan was forming in the back of his head, and for the first time in a long time he felt like maybe, just maybe he was in control. He wasn’t going to let go of that.
“Think about it,” he said. “All this time we’ve been trying to save the gods. Because of the two shitty options available to us, they’re the ones that stink just a little bit less. But when we met them last night … were they really worth saving? Or were they just another set of arseholes? Little people with a lot of power. Just like every other arsehole in charge we’ve found. What if there’s another way? What if there’s a way so that no one is in charge? No one is forcing—”
“You are meaning anarchy?” said Balur. “Right?”
“Well …” Will had been in midflow and he felt a little like Balur had just shoved his foot out and tripped him.
“Fucking anarchy.” Lette rolled her eyes.
“I’m not talking about anarchy.” Will managed to elbow his way back into the conversation.
“It was sounding a lot like anarchy,” said Balur. “Wasn’t it sounding a lot like anarchy?” he said to Lette.
“Let’s give him the benefit of the doubt, shall we?” Lette was being oddly reasonable.
“Everyone has power,” Balur rumbled on even as Will opened his mouth. “No one in charge. Chaos, murder, rape, pillaging. Bully warlords rising to power. What else was it sounding like?”
“I didn’t say anything about warlords,” Will protested.
“What were you imagining would happen?” Balur looked amused.
“Look,” said Will, “I haven’t figured out the third step of the plan yet. But I’m not advocating anarchy.”
“Then your word choice is being very poor,” huffed Balur.
“I don’t think anarchy is necessarily as bad as you are making it sound,” said Quirk. “Afrit, wasn’t there that example from Teppu?”
“Do not drag me into this. I’m entirely opposed to it.”
“I,” Will tried again. “Am not. Advocating. Anarchy.” He looked around. There seemed to be a momentary gap in the idiocy of his friends. “I am advocating us being a little bit hesitant handing back the reins of power to the arseholes who traipsed through our lives last night. We have more power than any other mortals have ever had on this planet. And our plan is just to give it up? Think about all the good we could do first.”
“Okay,” Afrit said. “You know what, on second thought, I am getting involved because that is basically Dictator 101. You get given a little bit of power and you plan to do just a little bit of good with it. And then a little bit more. But then someone objects to what you’ve done, because while it’s good and fair in your eyes, it’s not in theirs. But, you think, that’s okay, once they really see your grand design, then they’ll stop complaining. After all, you’re just trying to help them.
“Except they don’t stop complaining. Instead more people join them. And a lot of them don’t even have legitimate complaints. They’re just there because perhaps there’s some power to be had. And unlike you, all their plans are self-serving and foolish. So you have to crack down, just so you can make things better for everyone.
“But then these jackals start demanding you share power. And yes, that’s your plan eventually, but that plan is going to be derailed if you just give power away to all these self-serving imbeciles. And so on and so forth, and then you’re sitting on a throne made of your enemy’s gold-plated bones while the populace crawls through squalor to do your bidding. Because that is the oldest fucking pattern in history.” She actually spat at him.
“See,” said Quirk mildly. “I told you she would know about all of this.”
“Gods.” Will shook his head. And he briefly wished he was the sort of strong-arm thug that Afrit was accusing him of being, because that would certainly make shit like this easier. “I am not talking about anarchy. I am not talking about dictatorship. I am talking about buying time to make a better decision than the one we’ve felt we’ve been stuck with. I am talking about”—he pointed at Afrit—“involving you in a decision to put into place whatever power structure you think might be best.”
“I have not,” said Barph, commenting for the first time, and Will braced himself, “actually heard a plan in all of this. Just the threat to break a promise.”
“It’s simple,” said Will. “It’s easy.”
Barph arched an eyebrow.
Will shrugged. “It’s your plan. We rob the people of their belief in the dragons. We take away that power. We undermine it. And then when the dragons are weak and unprotected, we make them nothing more than a footnote in history.”
“And there is being no anarchy?” Balur asked.
“Not unless we decide that’s how life should be.”
And then they sat with that for a while. They all sat as the sun mounted to the sky, and wondered about taking power for themselves. And no one suggested making for the Hallows now. No one said anything. Afrit did wear her judgmental face, but Lette seemed to have misplaced hers for once. Balur mostly spent a lot of time looking at the crater where the cow had been.
The day got late. Barph stood up. “It’s going to begin soon,” he said. He was looking out at Vinter.
They all turned to stare. Will was so involved in his own thoughts, he wasn’t sure what he was looking for. Then something moved in the skyline of Vinter. Lette squinted. And then one of the city’s few remaining towers—silhouetted by the distance—spread its wings and flapped up into the sky.
“Gods,” Quirk breathed.
“I thought that was—” Will started.
“Yes,” said Lette, cutting him off. “We all did.”
Another dragon flapped up into the sky. Then the third. Will tried to see if he could figure out which was which from this distance. He thought he caught the gleam of gold on Gorrax’s scale but he couldn’t be sure from this distance.
“It’s happening,” Barph said softly. “I honestly didn’t think they’d go through with it.”
“They’re desperate,” said Quirk.
“Yes.” And Barph’s voice was almost emotionless, but Will thought perhaps, just maybe he heard a smile. He looked over at him. Lette was looking too. Their eyes met. She looked away before she could tell what was written in them.
“You hate them,” he said, as much to distract himself from the unexpected images of Cois’s athleticism that had risen unbidden in his mind as anything else. “You hate the other gods, for what they did to you.”
For a while Barph said nothing. The dragons flew in an ever-tightening circle around the center of the city. Their roars were audible even from the copse of trees.
“Yes,” Barph said after a while. “I do.”
The dragons had stopped circling. They thrashed their wings, hovering in the air.
Barph held Will’s eye for a moment, then looked away. Will stayed looking at Barph’s profile. The set of his jaw. The tension at the corners of his eyes. And he knew that if he wanted to hold on to power, Barph would not stop him.
Above a city, three dragons bathed the world in fire. Below them, gods died.
60
Make War, Not Love
In the face of a bold new world, there didn’t seem to be much to do except make supper. Barph summoned dishes and food from nowhere. Lette made a fire.
Quirk sat back and watched. So many things seemed different since last night. So many things that had been unclear now lay bare. Barph’s false glibness, for example. Even Will had seen the hurt lying clearly beneath it, yet still the god persisted with the lie. Why?
“You want us to keep the gods in Hallows, don’t you?” she said to him. “That was Lawl’s punishment for you. You think it’s poetic.”
He ignored her. She found she wasn’t surprised. She turned to Will. “That doesn’t bother you?”
He at
least had the grace to think about it. “If we want the same things,” he said, “even if it’s for different reasons, I can live with it.”
“From a professional standpoint,” said Afrit, her voice full of an acid that Quirk truly didn’t understand, “I suppose I should be glad to see a dictator in this embryonic stage, rather than just reading about it.”
“Hey,” Will snapped, his temper fraying, “I did not ask for this power. I have never asked for power. But I have had it thrust on me again and again. And I’ve tried giving it up, but that never seems to work out. So this time I’m going to use it. I am going to try to do the responsible fucking thing. And I am going to do it regardless of whether Quirk was a shitty lay or not.”
And that caused Quirk to blink several times. Because she had not … Knole had not … She looked at Afrit. “I was …?” she asked. Then she regretted asking.
And then Afrit let out a sound that made her realize Will had landed a barb far closer to Afrit’s heart than anyone seemed to have expected. Balur was actually face-palming.
“Oh,” Will said. “Oh, I didn’t … I’m sorry. I got … Shit.”
But Afrit was running away, stumbling into the night.
“I was …?” Quirk said again. And of all the things that had become clear, that was not one of them at all. She looked to Lette, who was for better or worse the only other woman here. “She’s … Because …?”
“I should go after her,” said Will. “I feel like an ass.”
“No.” Lette caught his shoulder. “You shouldn’t.”
Which Quirk was pretty sure she disagreed with.
“Quirk should.” Lette spoke as if dealing with particularly obtuse children.
“I should?” All of Quirk’s sanguine calm was fleeing her. All her reassurance about the world, about her newfound insights … She was floundering wildly. She felt a little bit like she was drowning.
“She loves you,” said Lette.
And Lette couldn’t have hit her more solidly if she had used the hilt of a sword. Because … Because … No. But yes. Oh gods. Suddenly everything played out again in front of Quirk’s eyes. Everything. Her whole history. And suddenly so much made sense. And so little did. “She …” Quirk felt as if her eyes were as round as saucers.
Lette shook her head. “And you think you’re so smart.”
Quirk stood. She stared around, looking for an escape route. There wasn’t one. “I’ll go after her?” she said. She hadn’t meant to make it into a question.
“Yes,” said Lette. “You will.”
Quirk took a few steps after Afrit, hesitated. Lette nodded encouragingly. Quirk didn’t feel encouraged. But she went anyway.
She had rationalized things by the time she caught up with Afrit at the far side of the copse. Lette had exaggerated. It wasn’t love. It couldn’t be love. She put a hand on Afrit’s shoulder.
“Hey,” she said. She wasn’t sure if she was trying to calm Afrit or lecture her. She wasn’t sure about anything. “Don’t … Don’t run away from me.”
Afrit wheeled on her. “I am not running away!” she yelled. “I am storming off in a rage.”
Quirk stared at her. The moon was rising behind her, full, and yellow as Barph’s teeth. And Quirk had been feeling so serene. She and Knole had talked for hours the previous night. They had discussed many of the intricacies of the act of love. They had spoken of its historical and political importance. Knole had revealed secrets of chemistry and alchemy. They had talked about its cultural relevance and variations. Knole had been a constant fount of minor revelations. There had been so much to process. So many new ways to look at the world.
And now this. Unseen. Another way of seeing that she’d still been blind to.
“How was I supposed to know?” she said. She sounded more plaintive and less forceful than she’d hoped.
“Oh,” said Afrit, voice so laden with sarcasm, Quirk was surprised it could make it all the way through the air to her, “I don’t know. Maybe it was the way I made love to you last night?”
“But …” Quirk tried to process all of this. “That was about …”
“What?” Afrit stared at her. “Look, I know … trust me, I really, really do know how hard this is for you. I am intimately aware of that. But I would still really love for you to tell me what you thought I was doing there last night. What could it have possibly been about?”
And the truth was of course that she had barely thought about Afrit at all. She had thought about Knole. And about herself.
“I just … I thought you were my friend,” Quirk said. And it sounded so very pathetic. And also just a little like an accusation. Which was unfortunately exactly how Afrit took it.
“Oh,” she said. “I am sorry for having emotions. I’m sorry that they’re an inconvenience to you.”
“They’re not inconvenient!” Quirk said, but apparently exasperation wasn’t the way to go either.
“Just this conversation?” asked Afrit. “Am I imposing on your important time sitting around enabling Will becoming a dictator?”
“He’s …” Quirk started. She closed her eyes. She was reacting. She wasn’t thinking. This was why Barph was so wrong with his heart-over-head thing. Too much heart led to nonsense like this.
“This isn’t about Will,” she said. “This is about me taking you for granted.”
And finally, finally that was the right thing to say. Or at least she thought it was. Afrit was glowering at her now, instead of biting her head off.
But Afrit was expecting something in addition to that, of course. Some follow-up thought that made a cease-fire possible. Quirk flailed around for ideas.
“I …” she managed, waving a hand in the space between herself and Afrit. “I am not good at this.” She shook her head as something flared in Afrit’s eyes. “You know that. I know you know that. You said that. But … it means that I think I have missed some obvious signals. Or maybe I’ve ignored them. Or not allowed myself to be conscious of them. Or maybe I’m just a self-centered arse. I don’t know. I don’t. And I … You have been a better friend to me than I ever deserved. And that should be repaid, rewarded. In the epics … that’s how it is, isn’t it? There’s a moment of revelation and reward.”
She hung her head. “I can’t stop being me. I can’t make a piece of myself appear.”
Afrit licked her lips.
“I …” Quirk started.
“You don’t love me.”
And there it was. That was the truth of it.
“I like you a lot,” Quirk said, and then wished she hadn’t. It was the worst of consolation prizes.
“I know,” said Afrit. She looked away.
“You …” said Quirk. She hadn’t expected that.
“Shut up,” said Afrit, but without the anger of a moment before. “You are terrible at this.”
“Okay.”
“I had hoped,” Afrit said carefully, as if picking her way along a treacherous ledge, “that after last night I might change your mind. But I didn’t. I know I didn’t. And, yes, part of me is upset because I didn’t. Because I don’t think I ever can change your mind. And that hurts.” She made sure Quirk met her eye when she said that. “That really hurts. I want you to understand that. Not all the time. But often.”
Quirk wanted to look away but she didn’t truly dare.
“But that’s okay,” Afrit said. “I can live with that. If I couldn’t, I would have left a long time ago. But I would ask … in the name of friendship if nothing else, please just acknowledge that the pain is there. Be just a little sensitive. And I know I don’t have much right to ask that. It is my love, after all, not yours. But, please … for friendship.”
There was something desperate in her eyes. And Quirk wanted to tell Afrit that what she was describing didn’t sound like a healthy lifestyle. She wanted to say it was too much to ask of her. She wanted to say that she wasn’t sure that a friendship with so much at stake would really survive. But Afrit was, in
the end, her closest friend.
“I can try,” she said.
Afrit sighed. “That’s probably the best I can hope for, isn’t it?”
Quirk shrugged. “I’m sorry.”
Afrit laid a hand on her shoulder. It didn’t feel quite so unwanted now. “Also,” she said, “if you ever fall in love with anyone else, I’m going to kill you both. Just so you know.”
61
Lette and Will Sitting in a Tree
The next few days were spent in preparation.
Barph refused to help them when they asked him for it. “I’m no drill sergeant,” he told them. “And I do not think that I endorse your plan to betray my fellow divinities.” But he made no move to stop them. Instead he lay back, drinking from his enormous wineskin and eating grapes that had appeared from nowhere.
And then, when Will made a hash of trying to command the plants to grow beneath his feed, and when Lette could not command the birds to wheel in the sky, and when Balur struggled to make the weather bend to his dictates, and when Knole could not force a whisper to crawl through the camps outside Vinter … Barph was there. He may have chastised, or mocked, but there was information hidden in his words. And the four of them got better.
And five days became four. And then four became three.
More and more people streamed toward the smashed ruin of Vinter. A second city of wagons and tents gathered around the Vinland capital’s tumbledown walls. Lette could hear singing at night. There was a sense of defiant joy among those coming here. Even the sanctimonious Vinlanders had fallen to the dragons. Even a nation that had the rapt attention and sworn protection of one of the old pantheon. The dragons were triumphant.
And there were not just three dragons roosting in Vinter now.
Each night as the sun fell, and each morning as it rose, Will could see the shapes of their slumbering bodies dominating the city skyline. Horned, ridged, covered in spikes the way a Saleran noblewoman would cover herself in jewelry; wings draping like cloaks, bunched up in tumorous knots, slicked back along their bodies; gold and gray, brown and blue, shades of green from grass to mud, they came crawling, and flapping, and roaring into Vinter. The city heaved with serpentine bodies.