by Jay Lake
Did I?
That answer came to me as I mounted the steps: Endurance had been Papa’s ox. Not mine. Somehow I was returning to the presence of my father, who’d sold me as a girl, and must have died long since of whatever rotting of the mind had already claimed him when I’d found him once more these four years past.
The image of Shar, his second wife, sprang unbidden to my mind. So ragged, so afraid of me.
With that thought, I passed within, the music of my birthplace jingling with each stride. The doorway was obscured by a curtain of beads. The room beyond could have held thirty or forty close-packed worshippers at most, and smelled of incense and people’s feet. This was the whole of it-there was no space for priestly chambers or tiring rooms or secret dungeons. A life-sized marble statue of an ox kneeling on the ground occupied the far end, opposite the door. Straw scattered about the ox and the rough beams over my head finally cued me to the nature of this temple.
It was a stable.
Endurance’s followers had put him in a stable.
I had to laugh at that as I approached the statue. Back in the half-remembered days of my youth, Endurance had lived outside. By the time of my ill-fated visit four years ago, someone had built the ox a small hut to shelter in. But a stable?
Ribbons had been tied to the ox horns. Some had slips of paper dangling from them, others curls of ash. I leaned forward and turned a scrap in my hands. help aunt jem for her crab disese
Prayers, then. Given most directly to the god. Some sped on their way with a little offering of flame. Narrow, long trays of sand held dozens of burnt incense sticks just below the statue’s nose. That struck me as a bit odd-I did not think that Copper Downs worshipped so. This was a Selistani god. Plates of fruit and dried-up bread were scattered among the incense holders, around the god’s knees.
I settled into a comfortable tailor’s seat. The belled silk gathered around my thighs and flowed to the floor at my back. In this place I did not even have my short knives, but Endurance was not the Lily Goddess. My offerings to him were drawn neither from strength nor violence.
This god I had seen in direct manifestation, the day we had brought down Choybalsan and poor Federo. I knew Endurance. He had risen unbidden from my own memories to take form in a numinous moment of theogeny.
Closing my eyes, I leaned forward until the top of my head rested against the nose of the ox. I let the smell of incense and feet-and this close to the fane, rotting fruit-wash around me.
The heat came first. Those halcyon days of my earliest youth, when the sunlight was a hammer to smash flat anyone’s ambitions. I felt it pass through me like fire through a hay barn.
I strained for the smells that went with that heat. Scorched air. The dank water of the rice paddies. Clay banks at the edges. Plantains and bougainvillea. Ox dung. My father’s musky sweat.
When I found those I began to weep. Pinarjee, Shar had said his name was Pinarjee, but my father had sold me away, sold away my name and turned his face from me. He’d never even told his second wife of my existence.
A shadow fell upon me. Once again I was small enough to fit beneath the standing ox. The white hair of his flanks met in a troubled gray line like a storm cloud down the center of his belly. I could have reached up and grasped onto it as monkey infants cling to their mother’s fur.
I let the shade protect me from the heat. I let the ox’s earthworn smell protect me from the memories of my father. His solid presence shielded me from all that had passed before and all that was yet to come. Surely he saw better than I, but Endurance did not warn me of the future. Looking back now after all that happened, I suppose I would not have turned away even if he had.
In time-short or long, I could not say-a sense of need began to fill me. Not my need, for I was safe and happy returned for a little while to the last carefree days of my life. The god’s need. The calling that had descended first upon Chowdry, then me.
Without words I knew I was Endurance’s champion. The god was not jealous of my oaths to the Lily Goddess across the Storm Sea. They simply did not signify to him here in this place. He had warded me, and I would ward him.
“From what?” I asked, the words escaping my lips.
The tropical sun blazed even hotter, fire in the sky fit to blister my skin.
From what comes, I thought. No, Endurance thought, and gave the idea to me.
I knew enough of gods to understand that their lot was not easy. Neither was my own.
The shade of his belly grew cooler, deeper. Though the world around me threatened to catch fire, I was safe. For now.
“So you ward me yet.”
With those words, I opened my eyes. The silk was heavy on my shoulders. Smoke curled before me. All the prayers had been blackened to ash. The fruit on the plates was desiccated, the breads curled and hard. Even the incense sticks had been reduced to worm-gnawed dust, already collapsing. Time had been stolen from around me to feed the vision I had just been granted.
“You wanted me back in Copper Downs,” I told the statue of the god. Rising, I rubbed his forehead for luck, right between the horns. “I suppose you have me. Whatever it is you fear.”
Thoughtful now, I doffed the belled silk, carefully folded it, and placed the tinkling bundle between the ox statue’s forelegs. My inheritance would be more safe here with Endurance than under my own arms in the days to come, and I had missed sewing the bells before. Always, I caught up. Besides, this would be another binding between me and the ox god.
When I walked back outside, the young acolytes were gathered before the entrance. Many carried their tools of construction or survey, so for a brief moment I thought I saw a mob. Then I realized that no, they simply awaited me.
“I have prayed to the god,” I said.
“We know,” replied the grinning young man who had served me sausage. His expression was serious now, though the humor never seemed far from him.
I realized that my face itched. When I touched my scarred left cheek, my finger came away bloodied.
***
A while later I sat at the now-empty eating tables with the young man, whose name proved to be Ponce. He served as a factotum to Chowdry in the management of the temple building project. Ponce’s enthusiasm for the work of Endurance bubbled, even as a light, gusty rain pattered off the canvas stretched above us and quested in from the open sides.
“How does this god call to you?” I was quite curious. My own connection to the god was clear enough, but also deeply personal. Uniquely so.
“Endurance is, well, new.” A seriousness flashed across his face. “More concerned with peace, or a calm center, than most gods. Here in Copper Downs we have a god for fishermen and a god for death and a god for women and a god for the rules of fate. The Temple Quarter is like a market full of stalls. Each sells some shade or scent of prayer, some form of protection or enlightenment or passion or redemption. Endurance just… exists. His purpose is a gentle wholeness.”
“There is something to the muteness, is there not?”
“Exactly! You understand.” Then his cheeks flushed, that red which only Stone Coasters can find in their embarrassment. “Of course you would understand. You birthed the god.”
My hand touched my belly. All the morning’s food lay heavy upon me, but not hard, and the baby still didn’t seem to mind. “I birthed nothing,” I told him. “At most I was midwife. Endurance is a vessel for a much older power that needed a place of safety to abide.”
The long-lost heart of the pardines, stolen by the late, immortal Duke, released by me to settle into Federo and twist him beyond recognition, then once more released by me into the god Endurance. From forest to field, by way of the stone streets of Copper Downs.
I prayed in that moment that I should never have to touch such power again. Another contact would twist me more than it already had, and I did not want to think of the effect on my child. Would that my prayer had been granted.
Finally Ponce spoke again. “Endurance is p
eaceful. The city needs peace. Some of my Selistani brothers and sisters see the god differently, but for those of us from Copper Downs, that is enough.”
“A god who does not demand so much,” I said absently.
“Oh, no. Endurance demands everything.”
After that, I went to help them with their foundations.
***
Chowdry remained absent through the morning, as did anyone else more senior than Ponce. I wondered what they might be about, but did not trouble myself too much. Instead I helped measure foundation courses around the hole of the mine opening, and even took my shift wielding a spade to turn what earth could be turned until someone with stouter tools and longer arms was available to break the rock beneath.
I wondered what the plan was for the permanent temple. I hadn’t the heart to tell Ponce how misplaced their stable-altar was. Endurance had been a creature of open fields and sunny skies, not confined to a dank, straw-floored enclosure. Surely Chowdry knew the truth.
But then, here in Copper Downs, maybe they understood a stable better than they understood a rice paddy. This cold, meager northern sun encouraged no one to remain outdoors overlong.
To each people their own meanings.
As I levered some good-sized stones away, Ponce approached me. A black-robed lad followed, younger than me, with a badly shaven scalp and a look of incipient panic about him.
I paused from my labors, holding my mattock tight in lieu of a real weapon. It could smash a skull better than my bare fist. “Greetings again.”
“This boy is Nunzio,” Ponce said with little of his usual good humor. “He is from the Algeficic Temple.”
That gave me pause. My baby’s father had been a priest of that temple and its patron, Blackblood. I did not want my daughter anywhere near the pain god.
Nunzio refused to meet my eye. Instead he seemed to find his own feet very interesting. Still, he blurted out his message. “Y-your p-presence is requ-quested at the temple.”
“By whom?” I asked, amazed. “I killed off most of your priesthood myself. Surely the survivors have no use for me now.” The late Pater Primus, Stefan Mohanda, had nearly done for me. In both of his roles, as Blackblood’s high priest and as a member of the Interim Council. Though I did not resent the pain god personally, I had no love for his people. I was forced to concentrate on not slapping the mattock against my free hand. This poor acolyte could see that as nothing but a threat.
And rightly so.
Ponce paled at my words, but said nothing. Nunzio made a visible effort not to run away. “They-he-it wishes to speak to you.” He quailed. “By name.”
I almost refused him then and there. Little good could arise from such a visit, while I could imagine a number of disasters ranging from priestly vengeance to a renewal of the erratic attentions of a rather dangerous god. Blackblood took up pain from his male followers and their sons by way of sacrifice. In return, he prepared them for an easier path to the halls of the dead. I recalled what Septio had told me about how the god’s priesthood was recruited-from those suffering boys and men not yet worthy to be taken up.
What had befallen Nunzio that he served as an acolyte of this most difficult of gods at such a young age? I could almost pity this boy.
To my surprise, I found that I did.
“Return to your temple.” My voice was gentle. “I will be along in time. Your duty is faithfully discharged.”
After Blackblood’s acolyte left, Ponce looked at me with a clearly unaccustomed seriousness. “He is not the only one to have called here searching for you.”
Curious, I asked, “Why did you let him find me, and not others?”
“Chowdry left instructions as to who could see you, and who could not. The Interim Council has sent messengers, and once Councilor Kohlmann in person. We have said we do not know where you are.” His grin returned. “Which was true. You might have been sleeping, or bathing, or eating. How did I know, from out front? Likewise, several Selistani have been asking after you.”
I wondered how they kept my countrymen among the acolytes from speaking to Surali and the embassy. That, I decided, was the god’s problem. It would only become mine at need. In any case, these young people seemed frightened of me, or at least my reputation.
“But you were to admit the servants of another god?”
Ponce shook his head. “Not as such. I asked Endurance for guidance.”
Since my experience in the temple this morning with the ox god’s wordless will, I could better understand how Chowdry and this young man were so willing and able to take direction from their mute deity. “I would visit Blackblood soon, I think.” It seemed the right path now, and action was better than hiding in this temple. “The visit will be better made in full daylight. Will Chowdry return this morning?”
The young man shrugged. “I should depart whenever I was ready, were I you.”
“Yes. I will.”
He paused, something else clearly on his mind. “A worry, for you, if you please, Mother Green.”
“Just Green,” I said firmly, my free hand straying to my belly.
“It is long past now, but there have been… attacks… in the Temple Quarter.”
That seemed almost silly. “I am hardly concerned about street thugs.”
“Not on women. On their gods.” He withdrew from my attitude. Later I regretted that I had spoken so dismissively, for I might have learned more sooner.
***
Dressed as a boy, I went forth, keeping my chin tucked down and my hat tilted forward. The Street of Horizons was familiar enough. Odd, clever architecture and a sense of vanishing perspective. Whatever long-dead architect had first laid out the Temple Quarter had been inspired, at the least.
The area was busy, though with a liveliness that took me some time to unravel. The great iron pots that lined the street were in better repair than on my last visit here. People seemed to throng rather than scurry. Choybalsan’s fall had lent renewed, healthy energy to this place that had been little more than an open-air tomb during the days of the Duke.
Gods had not been so popular in a city ruled by an immortal with stolen magic.
Yet there was a tension in the air. Not the furtiveness of the old days. More like nervousness. As if a thousand people on the street at once could be mugged together. Ponce had mentioned attacks, but on the gods themselves? Who would dare? Who could dare?
It was a staggering thought, even to one such as I, who had brought down a god on the streets of this very city.
In any event, something poisoned the air just enough for discomfort, like water from a well in which a dog has drowned long ago. The city worried, through the collective fears of its people.
The Algeficic Temple was familiar as ever. Faced in black tile, its tall metal doors were still bent where the god’s avatar Skinless had forced them closed, trapping the last of Blackblood’s previous generation of scheming priests within. Clearly they had been opened since, but not repaired. On the right rose a very old building, blocky and tan fronted by squat pillars. On the left, a white stucco temple topped with a gold-colored pediment. Though I knew the names and histories of most of the gods here, much as with the families of wealth and power, I did not know their houses.
Even while I worried a bit about how Blackblood’s renewed priesthood would welcome me, this was not a day for skulking caution. I had been bidden, I was arrived.
I marched up the uncomfortable steps and pushed into the darkness beyond.
***
The hall within was as silent and dusty as I remembered, though there seemed to be new stains on the floor besides the ones I’d caused on my last pass through this place. Perhaps a crisis of succession, argued in the most pointed manner? Dark banners still hung from the clerestory thirty feet above. The mercury pool quivered in the center of the space. A living scrying mirror, though such things had never spoken to me.
I had slain here, and nearly been slain myself. Death and healing, and the touch o
f Skinless, that horrific avatar of the pain god, had all taken place in this hall.
Five men in familiar dark robes stepped out of the shadows toward me. Each wore a woven leather mask. Ambush! I thought, and palmed one of my short knives. Then the priest at the center raised his hands cautiously.
“Please, Mistress Green, we beg you not to strike us down.”
Straightening from the fighting crouch into which I’d dropped unthinking, I declared loudly, “I intend to strike no one. And come only at invitation.” I couldn’t stop myself from adding, “I believe I have meddled enough already in your priestly affairs. Don’t you?”
From the way their robes shuffled and their masks were cast down, these priests did not find my little joke to be so funny.
“The god has spoken for you,” the leader continued. “I am Pater Primus.” At the expression that crossed my face, he swiftly amended himself. “The new Pater Primus. It is as much a title as a name.”
“An ill-favored title, if you ask me,” I grumbled, but I understood that I was being graceless. This awkward banter covered a bad case of nerves on both our parts.
“As may b-be.” The priest turned to his fellows. “She is exempt from our practices.”
“We will not challenge,” muttered one of them.
“And I will not challenge you,” I replied. “But where shall I approach the god? I have been down in his basements before, and do not long for another visit.”
“Best you stand before our altar at the back of this hall.”
“I will not be taken up,” I warned him.
The Pater Primus’ voice was pained. “No one here would be foolish enough to try to make a sacrifice of you, Mistress.”
Not now, at any rate.
I took that as all the permission I needed, and pushed past them toward the god’s fane.
Much of my prior experience here had been confused or worse. I’d passed through this temple twice, for different reasons, but never by simply walking in the front door and looking around. Once through the basements and once by dropping in from the roof. As I walked among the narrow pillars toward the recessed sanctuary at the back of the great hall, I wondered what kind of god abided without worshippers. There were no benches or pews, no prayer rugs, no stalls.