by Fiona Patton
“Hisar said it to me. Those exact words. He’s afraid the temple’s piling too much responsibility on you.”
“And He think I’m too weak to handle it? What does He know about it?”
“Nothing. But don’t get pissy. Hisar’s young, but He’s a God and prophecy’s part of His makeup.”
“So you figure He’s had a prophecy that I’ll crumble? And you believe him?”
“No. I believe you’ll accept all the responsibility they’ll pile onto you and more. And that you’re afraid you’ll crumble.”
Brax closed his eyes, breathing carefully through his mouth until the throbbing in his right temple eased again. “What?”
“You heard the words in a vision. And it’s no secret that you’re afraid you won’t be able to serve Estavia with your injuries. Everyone knows it; just no one except me’ll tell you to your face. Are you afraid She’ll dump you off someplace?”
Brax just glared at him.
“You know that’s a pile of shite, right?” Spar continued, his voice dripping with crafted disdain. “Warriors get injured all the time; that’s what happens when you fart around chasing other people with pointy weapons. So, maybe you can’t do that so much anymore. Is that all you are? Is that all you figure you are to Her?”
When Brax didn’t answer, he snorted. “And I thought all of our abayon taught you better than that.”
Brax scowled at him. “What do you mean?” he demanded.
Spar shrugged one shoulder dismissively. “Cindar taught you a dozen ways to lift someone’s shine—curbing, cubbing, lifting, marking, whatever worked best. Kemal and Yashar taught you a hundred different tactics and strategies and a half dozen weapons. Even Kaptin Liel’s shown you how to use your mind in battle.”
“You know,” Brax noted dryly, “for someone who never used to talk at all, you sure use a lot of words now.”
“Shut up.” Spar leaned forward. “You were raised to be a thief, not a fighter, Brax,” he continued with an intense expression. “Estavia’s got thousands of warriors who could use both arms in battle better than you ever could when they were half your age. She didn’t take your oaths for your physical ability. You used to know that.”
“She may not have taken my oaths for it, but that’s the job,” Brax replied tightly. “If I can’t do the job, what good am I?”
“You mean what kind of a protector can you be? I don’t know, you should ask Her.”
Brax just looked away.
“You used to talk to Her all the time,” Spar pointed out. “That was your answer to everything, ask Estavia, ask Estavia, until I wanted to drop a chimney on your head just to shut you up.”
Rubbing absently at his elbow, Brax just shrugged. “Maybe I will,” he hedged. “Later, when I’ve healed up some more.”
“Do it sooner rather than later, yeah?” Spar shook his head in disgust. “I can’t believe I have to tell you all this.”
Brax forced himself to chuckle. “Looks like I’m not the only one with a new title. I guess you’re finally taking this whole First Priest thing seriously.”
Spar made a sour face. “Yeah, I’m taking it seriously. My own prophecy’s driving me right at it whether I like it or not.” He stroked Jaq’s ears absently for a moment. “You heard about First Cultivar Adrian’s words about the aqueduct at Assembly,” he asked.
“I heard.”
“Well, I need to go there to see for myself what’s going on. And I need you to come with me.” He took a deep breath. “To cross Dockside.”
Brax gave him a quizzical look and Spar just shrugged. “Confident and like we’re meant to be there, yeah? That’s what you said to me once. Except you were talking about here at the temple because we aren’t meant to be there, not anymore.”
“No.”
“And I don’t want go there at all,” Spar continued. “Not that far west anyway, but I have to, so I’m gonna take your advice. An’ I’m gonna take you.”
“Fair enough.”
Spar looked away. “You don’t think I’m being stupid?” he asked with a scowl.
“No.” Brax straightened. “I think it’s a good idea that we both see how far we’ve come. And how far we didn’t fall.”
“Well, all right, then.” Spar fell silent, one arm wrapped so tightly about Jaq’s neck that the dog finally gave a short wriggle of protest. “Confident,” he whispered. “And like we weren’t meant to be there.”
The next day dawned warm and bright. Spar, Brax, and Hisar, with the ever-faithful Jaq trotting along beside them, headed out just after Morning Invocation. Spar was wearing his new mustard-yellow tunic hidden under a blue cloak, and he glowered at Brax when his kardos laughed at him.
“If I show it in here, everyone’ll talk,” he said stiffly.
“About what, how . . . unique it looks?”
“No dung-head, about how unique it means.”
“That you’re color-blind? Joking.” Brax raised his hands hastily as Spar rounded on him. “I know what it means. It means you’re moving on the oaths you swore to Hisar last year.”
“Right, and every gossiping tongue in the temple’ll be wagging about it within minutes.”
“And you don’t want that?” Hisar asked. She was wearing Her Rayne-seeming today, with a pair of hide breeches, kidskin boots, and a Yuruk-style sheepskin jacket, all colored in gold. “Why not?”
“I don’t like people taking about me. It makes them think they can make decisions about me, too.”
“Oh. I guess that makes sense,” Hisar agreed.
“Just promise me you’ll choose a better color when you start wearing it more openly,” Brax asked, unwilling to stop teasing the youth.
Spar’s eyes narrowed. “Maybe that’ll be what it takes to prove you really want to be part of our temple,” he retorted.
“In that case, you’ll have a very small number of very dedicated followers.”
Hisar looked worried. “Maybe we should get another color,” She said anxiously. “I’d kind of like to have lots of followers.”
“Maybe we should just toss Brax into the strait,” Spar growled in response. “That should be enough to get a flock of followers.”
Brax laughed. He’d awakened that morning with the dawn sun bathing his body in warmth and his elbow much less stiff and painful than usual. Painting Estavia’s symbols on his body had been easier than it had been for months; the ink had seemed to flow off the brush. That alone had lifted his spirits immensely, and once he’d shifted the day’s responsibilities onto Brin, he’d found himself actively looking forward to their outing. Now he returned the salute of the guards on the main gate, and the suggestive smile of a porter carrying a load of vegetables beyond it, and set off across the public square at a swift pace, as much to annoy Spar as to reach their destination. But Spar matched him step for step, and finally it was Hisar who protested, demanding that they slow down so She could take in the sights.
They passed through the residential streets where many of Estavia’s retired warriors made their homes, then crossed into the southern part of the western market. The streets there were already crowded with people buying and selling the myriad of goods that came through Anavatan’s docks: fish and oil and cloth and spices and furs and sweetmeats and a hundred other wares. Many called out greetings to them as they passed, but as they continued north, the stalls grew smaller and in greater need of repair, and the crowds grew less affluent and less welcoming. However, it wasn’t until they passed the heavy, wrought iron gates of Oristo-Cami that Spar realized with a start that they’d crossed into Dockside proper. His steps faltered for just a moment, then he squared his shoulders and carried on, one hand wrapped in Jaq’s braided collar. Here and there, he thought he spotted a young lifter or two slipping through the crowd, but the black leather cuirass Brax wore over his blue tunic and the sword at his side meant that most of those who still plied their old trade melted into the shadows at the first sight of them. Nobody lifted from the Warriors o
f Estavia or anywhere near them. It was a lesson he and Brax had known all too well in the old days.
A moment of unwilling nostalgia for those desperate but simpler times came and went, but always sensitive to his moods, Brax glanced over at once.
“Seem smaller to you?” he asked, watching two men, both holding small jugs of raki like weapons, arguing outside a tavern much like the one where Cindar’d been killed. One of the men glanced his way, and the argument ceased at once. As the two men moved quickly apart, Spar just shook his head, unable to put his feelings into words here where he’d spent so many silent days.
Brax bumped his shoulder gently.
“C’mon. Confident and like we’re meant to be someplace else, remember?”
Spar nodded.
They crossed into the Tannery Precinct an hour later. The streets were more narrow and irregular here, with many of the cobblestones broken or missing. The buildings, too, were in greater need of repair and built much closer together than in Dockside. There was no one to be seen, despite the presence of Hisar, who usually drew a host of curious onlookers and, as they passed the first cluttered alleyway, She glanced over at Spar.
“I can feel people watching,” She said, the silence making Her drop Her voice instinctively. “Unsworn people like those three youths at the shed.”
“A lot of people in the Tannery Precinct are unsworn,” he agreed somberly. “They can’t see any use in giving their oaths to some God who doesn’t seem to care about them.”
“Do the Gods care about them?”
“I don’t know.”
“Should I care about them?”
“If You want them, yeah, You should care about them.”
“Don’t the other Gods want them?”
“Like I said, I don’t know. Gods are big. Maybe people have to want Them first before the Gods even notice they’re there at all.”
Hisar’s eyes narrowed. “All They have to do is look,” She said in an unconvinced tone. “It’s not like they’re hidden. They’re right here in Their city.”
“Yeah, well, maybe They’re busy. Look, don’t ask me, all right? I’m no priest, I don’t know anything about Gods.”
“You’re my priest.”
“So ask me about You. Yes, You should care, yes, You should notice, yes, you should help people if they ask for Your help, maybe even ask first if they want Your help. Happy?”
Spar stomped off, an anxious Jaq at his heels, leaving Hisar and Brax standing in the middle of the street.
The young God turned an aggrieved look on Spar’s kardos. “What’s wrong with him?” She demanded.
Brax sighed. “He doesn’t want to defend people he doesn’t like,” he said simply.
“Ah. And he’s never liked the Gods,” She agreed.
“Right. He thinks They don’t care.”
“Do you think They don’t care?”
Brax headed up the street behind Spar. “I think Estavia cares,” he answered, “And,” he added reluctantly, “like Spar, I think You should. The rest aren’t my problem. C’mon.”
They caught up with Spar and Jaq at the mouth of Duvar Caddessi a few moments later. The street was wider here, with rows of workshops to the east and warehouses to the west. And looming over the warehouses like the colossus it was, stood the God-Wall.
All four rocked to a halt, staring up at it in undisguised awe.
Made of rough-cut marble drawn from Gol-Beyaz, the Wall at its most northerly end reached a full thirty feet in height, with the Power of the Gods, glimmering a pale yellow at this time of day, stretching it another forty until it disappeared into the bright blue sky above.
“It’s so huge here,” Hisar breathed. “And so . . . sparkly. There’s silver lights flickering all over it.”
“That’s the Power of the Gods,” Brax answered.
Hisar turned to look down Her nose at him. “I know,” she replied haughtily. “I can feel that.”
“What does it feel like?” Spar asked, his earlier mood forgotten.
Hisar frowned in concentration. “Tingly. And empty. Like I want to suck power right out of it and pour power right into it at the same time.” She turned away. “I don’t like it. Can we go now?” She asked almost petulantly. “I thought we came here to see the aqueduct.”
As Spar had before, She turned and stomped down the street without waiting to see if the others were coming. After a moment, Spar and Jaq followed, leaving Brax to stare up at the Wall, feeling its symbol on his wrist burning in time with his heartbeat. The warning words of his vision whispered in his mind, and he narrowed his eyes.
“Nothing’s falling and no one’s crumbling,” he snarled inwardly. “Do your worst. You’ll dash yourself to pieces against us both.”
Turning his back on the golden laughter his bravado had invoked, he followed after the others with a dark expression.
Duvar Caddessi opened up at the edge of the Halic-Salmanak, ending at a steep flight of stone stairs that led to a number of small, wooden wharfs on the pebbled ground below. The others were already standing on the bank, staring up at the aqueduct arching across the water and over their heads, and disappearing into the maze of closely packed buildings behind them.
Brax blinked. “I had no idea anything that big could cross the water like that,” he said in shock. He twisted his head to stare along its length. “And they’re afraid that could be in danger? How? How could you possibly damage that? It’s as big as the God-Wall.”
Spar frowned. “Maybe there’s a way to block off the water or something.”
“Could a force even climb up it to get to the water?”
“Someone has to climb it to service it, don’t they?”
“The priests of Havo service it,” Hisar stated. “They have a Cami on the northern shore. They said so at Assembly.” Dropping the Rayne-seeming suddenly, the young God leaped into the air in a flash of metallic whirling, drawing gasps from a dozen people fishing nearby. It soared up and over the aqueduct, passing back and forth over it several times before streaking across the water toward the Northern Trisect. It returned a few moments later, taking on Its golden-seeming and hovering a few inches off the ground in excitement.
“It comes out from the hills to the north and the water flows all along the top in a huge, deep trough,” He said triumphantly. “Just like I dreamed, Spar. You should come and see. Havo-Cami is built right up against it. I’ll bet there’s stairs going up inside, too, ’cause there’s a door. We should go.” He twisted His head to one side in a gesture more reminiscent of His dragonfly-seeming to regard the sparkling water with suspicion. “How do you get across?” He demanded.
“People hire boats like that one over there,” Brax said, pointing down the bank. “For one or two aspers you can cross over to buy things at the farmer’s market and for a couple more you can hire a porter’s delinkos to carry your parcels back for you.”
“Have you ever been there before?”
Spar snorted. “Not hardly. They say there’s good lifting there, but Cindar’d never drop his shine on anything but drink, never mind a boat. But I always wanted to go,” he added in an uncharacteristically wistful voice. “They say there’s piles of cheese curds so high, you need a step stool to reach the top, and the jars of honey that smell so sweet, they scent the air for miles.”
“I served at Gerek-Hisar for a couple of months,” Brax added. “But I never went as far as the farmer’s market either.”
Hisar gave him a questioning look. “Why not?”
“There wasn’t any need to. The servers of Oristo brought our supplies to us.”
“You lot are so spoiled,” Spar muttered.
Brax ignored him. Reaching into his pouch, he drew out a fingerful of small coins. “So, did you want to pay for the boat, then?” he asked pointedly.
Spar just grinned at him. “Nope.” He laughed as Hisar began to vibrate up and down, causing Jaq to begin barking excitedly.
“So we’re going?” the young Go
d demanded.
Brax nodded. “I guess it’s about time, yeah?”
Spar nodded. “Yeah. C’mon Jaq.”
Together, the four of them headed down the beach toward the nearest wharf.
7
The Northern Trisect
IT COST THREE SILVER aspers to hire a boat big enough to take them all across, after Brax had charmed the boat-master’s price down from five. Even though Hisar could fly, He insisted on accompanying them in His golden-seeming, hanging over the side so far that His nose almost touched the water.
When they reached the northern shore, He and Jaq scrambled out at once, the dog sending up a spray of pebbles in his wake that drew a disgusted glance from a white cat padding about in the shallows. It glared disdainfully at them both, raised one back paw to shake the water droplets away, then returned its attention to the bubbles rising at its feet. Beside it, a small girl dug into the sand where it stared, flinging tiny, burrowing crabs into a bag at her side with an expert flick of her wrist. Both Spar and Brax gave her a respectful nod as they exited the boat behind Jaq and Hisar, and she gave them a nod of her own in reply.
Before them, the farmer’s market took up most of the Northern Trisect with livestock pens to the north, dairy and vegetable stalls in the center, and the honey and fish markets lining the shore. They wandered about for over an hour, testing the wares of the many sweetmeat sellers and arguing over which market had the better scallop and shrimp kabobs. High above, dozens of swifts made their acrobatic way past the many stork nests dotting the tops of every domed rooftop in the market. Hisar watched them fly with a wondering expression.
“Ihsan says that when the Northern Trisect was first built, the priests of Havo drove stakes into the domes so the stork nests wouldn’t fall off,” Spar explained, biting greedily into a piece of honeycomb. “And they’ve been there ever since; the same storks year after year, and their delon, and their delon after them. He says Havo promised that if the market was ever in danger, the storks would give warning and Havo would come and protect them.” He regarded the graceful black-and-white creatures, standing like sentinels on the edges of their nests. “I guess we’ve got time yet,” he observed, tossing the last of the honeycomb to Jaq before wiping his hand on his tunic.