by Jay Lake
“The Temple of Air will be visible from beyond the crest of this pass,” I told him. I’d read many maps in the Pomegranate Court. “This is the Giant’s Wallow. It lets into a high valley that runs toward the east to join the Eirigene Pass.”
“How far?”
“That I am not so sure.” I looked at him, a pale blur in the starlight with the old moon yet unrisen. “I have never walked this land. Only seen it on a map as a bird soaring above a paper world.”
“Well,” said Septio, “either we will meet some of Choybalsan’s men there, or we will find his trail.” I could hear the pretense of confidence in his voice. “We shall approach from behind his line, a pair of unarmed religious wanderers, and ask for parley.”
“Let us hope he gives it to us,” I muttered.
Septio looked at me strangely. “We each have the protection of a god. You are marked by some southern power strange to me. I am Blackblood’s man from the beginning to the end. We will don those brown robes tomorrow and style ourselves Brothers of the Empty Hilt.”
“Who are they?” I liked something of the name.
“A jest, in truth.” His voice was turned in embarrassment. “The acolytes of the Temple Quarter used to claim to be Brothers of the Empty Hilt, in the days before the Duke fell. That became a sort of password among us.”
What would befall if this Choybalsan knew of the jest, I wondered, but that seemed to rank small among the sum of my fears.
After we had drawn off our boots, Septio preceded me into the rock cleft. We were to sleep close, both for warmth at this higher altitude, and because of the small space. He seemed so hot, and flinched when I moved to hug him.
“What is the matter?” I asked.
He would not answer, but I realized he was trembling. I ran my hands down his chest, and his trembling became nearly a fit. I do not know what possessed me-impishness, slyness, or a stirring of the love of the heart-but I touched his trousers and found him straining fit to burst his buttons.
“We should not-,” he began, but I shushed him with a kiss.
I began to stroke him. “I am not accustomed to lying with men, but you delighted my heart and challenged my thoughts today.”
“You for me as well,” he whispered hoarsely, though by then his mind was elsewhere. We soon both reached that place.
Lying with a man did not hurt so much as I might have thought. The feeling of being filled with flesh was so different from the glass and leather and metal toys. So I rode him hard until we both were well spent.
Finally I lay wedged beside Septio. “You are my first b-man,” I whispered.
“You are my first woman.” Something in his voice grew very shy. “My first entry, in truth. I have only been the vessel, not the seed, within the temple rites.”
We curled close then, wrapped ourselves in blankets, and slept through the hours of the night.
I awoke aching and sticky. Pretending not to see the way he strained for me anew, I slipped out of our little cave, threw a blanket over my shoulders, and wandered to the stream. The water was cold enough for pain, but it served to scrub me clean.
What was the point of that? I wondered, but I caught myself. Back at the Lily Temple after Samma and I had parted ways, I did not pretend so much at love of the heart with the older women. Instead I had treated the whole business as being of no consequence. Sex with Septio had been clumsy, to say the least, but also possessed of a sweetness I had not felt since Samma and I first began to slide our hands across one another in the dormitory.
“I do not need to push him aside,” I told the fish in their pool. “There is also no need to cleave to him.” The matter would play itself out.
Standing with the blanket open wide to fold around me, I turned to meet half a dozen grinning men. Three held crossbows.
It is very difficult to attack a man with a crossbow. Even an archer can be rushed, if you have the nerve. Men with blades may be met a dozen different ways. A crossbowman will have only one shot in a fight, but at arm’s distance, that can well be fatal.
When one of the men began to open the laces of his trousers, I took my risk in hand. With a shriek, I leapt straight for the would-be rapist. I hurled my blanket at the two crossbowmen standing close to one another. Their shots were caught in the cloth as I had hoped. I took my first target down with a shoulder to the gut and a punch into his testicles.
The third bolt, however, tore a line of fire through the muscles of my bare ass.
I rolled forward to find myself unable to spring back to my feet. Another roll lent me the momentum to be up and moving toward our horses and my knife even as blades slipped free of their scabbards behind me.
Forty paces, uphill. I could easily outrun all those men, but the crossbowmen would have time to reset their cranks. I sprinted barefooted over gravel and raw, stubbled grass as Septio stumbled out of the cleft where we had been sleeping. His eyes widened, and he dived back into the shadows.
You’d better have a weapon in there, boy, I thought savagely.
I reached the horses and snatched free their hobbles. I would not fight from the back of one of those horrid beasts, even if my butt were not bleeding, but having the nasty animals stumbling about in ill-tempered panic served me better than it served the bandits.
Our saddles and gear were tucked in a cleft just beyond. I recovered my knife and turned to meet my attackers.
They were smarter than I’d hoped. The group had hung back to let the crossbowmen reset their weapons, and to laugh at their fallen comrade. When they saw that I had not taken up a bow of my own, the six spread out. Five trudged up the slope toward me. The last staggered groaning behind.
That was fine with me. I could catch my breath and climb a boulder or two. The height would slow them down. Well, if they bothered to climb. They could always shoot me off like a heron on a post.
I was forced to work with what was to hand.
Unfortunately, the muscles of my ass were giving up. I couldn’t tell how large the wound was, but the backs of my thighs were sticky with blood. Climbing was far more difficult than it should have been.
Septio’s head popped up from a gap in the rock. “Green.”
“Get up here and fight.” I turned so their clearest shot wouldn’t be a second bolt in my butt.
That was a mistake, as I’d sat down unthinking. Very bad idea. I managed not to howl in pain, but was forced up into a very unstable crouch.
“I think these men are with Choybalsan,” he said. “We should ask for him.”
I could not believe my ears. “After the six of them have split me like a melon with their pustulent cocks, they might take you to him.”
“Not if we make them respect us.”
“A naked, bloody girl and a naked, sticky boy?”
He passed me a small paper packet. “Hold this, I’ll light it. Then throw it at them.”
I clutched his packet as a lucifer match flared. He touched it to the corner of the paper, which began to hiss and spark.
“ Throw it,” Septio said urgently. “Now!”
In midair, the packet burst in coiling red smoke, shot through with black veins.
Ah, I thought. Fire powder.
The sparking missile landed amid a stand of dried-out thistles, which resisted only moments before curling into fire themselves. The oncoming bandits yelped and scattered. A bolt whistled high to spang off the cliff face before rattling to a stop a few feet away on my boulder. The attackers regrouped about ten paces below me, just in front of the little flare-fire. Their grins were back.
“That didn’t work,” I said.
“I have more.” Septio frowned and passed me a larger packet.
“We’re going to amuse them to death?”
“Just throw it.”
That packet sparked as the last one had. I tossed it right at the bandits. One of the bowmen grinned and caught it with his free hand, cocking his arm to throw it back at me.
This one went off like a granary
explosion. A blinding flash erupted, followed by a solid thump, which I felt inside my chest more than heard. I closed my eyes, blinking away the glare just as a crossbow, hand and arm still attached, smacked into the stone above me. It slithered to rest nearby.
I grabbed up the bow, tugged the former owner’s hand free, and set myself madly to cocking it. I happened to know where there was a bolt handy.
When I looked up again, four of them were down hard. One was on his knees throwing up. My would-be rapist staggered toward my boulder with murder in his eye. I sent him a crossbow bolt for his trouble. Not being practiced with the weapon, I missed his neck, but the shot to his cheek seemed to discourage him.
“They can have the damned fires out there for their funerary offering,” I said, sliding down on my belly to where Septio had been hiding. I was in no way prepared to set my ass against the stone again. When I found my feet, I snapped at him, “We must go, now. That was enough noise and smoke to summon everyone within miles.”
“You are welcome for saving your life.”
I grabbed his face and kissed him. “Not now, foolish boy.”
Septio had to wrap me around the hips in a sling of torn muslin before I could manage to tug on my blacks and riding trousers. My breasts ached a bit, but I bound them with more of the muslin. Over them I slipped into the robes we’d brought to wear as Brothers of the Empty Hilt. The horses had fled from the fire and the fighting, so we carried only water, our satchels, and my blade.
Two remained alive-the vomiting man and one who’d taken the brunt of the explosion. His eyelids were burnt off and his lips black. I gave him mercy as kindly as I could. The vomiting man had finished his business, but he had the shivers and would not talk. I gave him the mercy as well, but I let it hurt a bit. I wiped my blade on his cloak, then walked to the stream and cleaned it again there among the little fish.
When I stood again, I found Septio watching me. His face was drawn and pale.
“What?” I snapped.
“You killed them.”
“Well, yes. They tried to kill me first.” He was such an idiot. “Besides, you were the one carrying bombards in your satchel. What did you intend them for? Festival crackers?”
“No-I…” Septio’s voice trailed off. “You made it so personal.”
I began walking uphill, toward the crest of the pass. The muscles in my ass burned terribly, pulling me off my stride, but I kept moving. Out here I could scarcely retire to a couch and call for mulled wine until my body had healed itself.
I shouted over my shoulder at Septio, who trailed me by a dozen paces. “Death is always personal. How can you worship that bloodthirsty god and not understand that?”
He trotted to catch me. Presumably I seemed safer now. “People come to us already in pain. They ask to die, or be taken up.”
“While these men were merely minding their business.” I snorted. “I can see your point.”
The Eirigene Pass was about fifty furlongs ahead of us, across the next valley. Except for the last of the fumes rising from before it, the morning was clear enough to see the alabaster ruins of the Temple of Air. A great dome had collapsed with the fire, and bodies were scattered down the stairs before it.
Then a dozen men on horseback pounded from behind the rocks immediately below. They shouted at us to lie flat or be slain.
The bandits were angry about the fate of their fellows. Not quite angry enough to kill us out of hand, but we took some good, solid kicks. When they began to strip off my robes and saw the blacks I wore beneath, a great discussion ensued.
Clearly they’d been set to search for me.
They were angry all over again when I would not sit astride one of the horses. Then they laughed at me once they understood why.
I wound up with my boots stripped off, making the ride slung over someone’s saddlebags, which smelled of old cheese and moldering cloth. By craning my neck, I could see Septio. He seemed dazed as he swayed upright behind another bandit. The worst insult, in its own small way, was that our two faithless nags had come seeking the company of other horses, and now were being led riderless behind the column.
Our band took a trail that went downward through a ravine, rather than across to the ruins of the Temple of Air as I’d expected. That meant we would be joining the upper reaches of the Barley Road.
The ride was long and painful. I had not imagined I would be wishing so soon for my old saddle, but I did. Eventually, we passed through a series of camps, at first quite ragged and sparse, then in time more kempt and crowded together.
I heard thunder, too. A lightning storm seemed strange, given that my upside-down view of the sky showed clear blue troubled only by wisps of smoke.
The horse sidestepped to a halt. Rough hands dumped me over. I narrowly avoided striking my head on the ground. A redheaded man pulled me to my feet amid another echoing carronade of thunder as someone else led the panicked horses away.
Lightning sizzled down out of the clear sky to strike the ground about a hundred yards before me. It struck again and again, always in a circle that ringed a large tent of furs. After a moment, I recognized them as skins from the Dancing Mistress’ people. My gut churned at that, and I found sympathy for Septio’s reaction to my mercies of the blade.
It was a fence. A wall of electrick fire and deafening sound from the heavens. The cleared space extended around the circle in all directions, as Choybalsan’s followers kept their distance.
“A god indeed,” I said.
“Very good, for a priest,” my fire-haired bandit growled. His Petraean was accented, but as a hillman’s speech rather than a foreigner’s.
“It takes no talent to see a miracle like this.” No faith, either. This was godhood for the unbelieving. And a very expensive sort of magic. No wonder the Lily Goddess had been worried. Could a titanic come into the world again? Or were all divine births so explosive?
“In you go.” I was pushed toward the lightning ring. Between my crossbow wound, the worn muscles, and the long ride, I could barely keep my feet. Septio staggered up beside me.
“Hey.” I gave him a sidelong glance.
His eyes were unfocused. Blood trickled from his mouth.
I tried again. “What happened to you?”
Septio’s lips moved, but he just popped a few carmine bubbles.
By the breaking of the Wheel, something was very wrong.
“Come on,” I said. “To the tent. Either he’ll kill us, or he’ll let us off our feet.”
My poor friend grunted, but he followed.
I did not even try to avoid the lightning. To what end? It belonged to Choybalsan; he could lift it or not as he pleased. Approaching the ring was a very strange thing even so. My mouth began to taste of metal. The hairs of my skin stood stiff. My head felt dull, while the air had a strange, empty, ringing quality.
We stumbled through the line, our strides so shortened by the ropes binding our ankles that we were almost hopping. Neither of us was struck down, though the thunder robbed me of my hearing. The tent was perched in the center of the circle, round with no ridge to speak of and a roof like a cap.
I pushed through the flap. Septio came so close behind me, he nearly knocked us both down.
A large black rock stood at the center of the space within, flanked by two poles. The rock appeared bubbled and burned-a fallen star. I’d never seen one, but one of Mistress Danae’s books had contained a lengthy disquisition on the stones of heaven and how the gods must live in an iron house.
The walls were hung with horse blankets and a few ripped tapestries looted from some manor house. Likewise the floor of blankets and carpets with rushes strewn over them. A low backless seat was set before the stone.
We were alone in the house of the king who would be god. Or possibly the god who would be king.
Goddess, I prayed. I do not ask You to deliver me, for that is my test. Nor for courage, as that is my test as well. Lend me what strength and wisdom You have to give. Tears
welled in my eyes. Spare a measure of grace and mercy for Septio, if his god has not already cared for him.
Federo stepped around me and looked me over carefully. For one strange moment, I imagined a rescue had come. Then I realized he was not wearing a suit, nor a decent set of robes, but the leather trews and thick felt vest of the bandits who rode in Choybalsan’s train. Unlike them, he was unarmed.
He also appeared far less strained than he had back at the Textile Bourse.
I sagged in the face of such betrayal.
Then he took my chin in his hands and tipped my face up for inspection. That old, old insult brought me back to myself.
I snarled: “So you stand midwife at the birth of godhood?”
“Do not presume, Green,” Federo said softly.
“Then where is he?”
Federo sat on the chair with his back to the skystone and spread his arms. “Choybalsan, the bandit chieftain.”
Bound hand and foot, they had still left me the good, hard bones of my head. I hopped toward him with an angry roar and tried to butt him in the face. His moment of poise spoiled, Federo leapt up and tripped me. I fell forehead first into his plain little throne and smacked myself so hard I saw lightning all over again.
He bellowed incoherently as I rolled onto my back. My vision was doubled, but that was still enough to see Septio lurching toward Federo. The traitor sidestepped the priest, who staggered slowly around the altar, circling the tent and crying. Blood ran freely from his mouth now.
Federo began to laugh.
Enraged, I managed to bend nearly double, then lash a kick that took Federo off his feet. Bound and stunned, I had no follow-through. If my head had been more clear, I would have cursed every god ever born. Instead, I lay gasping while Septio waddled up to Federo and tried to lean over him.
The bandit-king held up a knife as my boy lover toppled. The point took Septio in the belly. A killing wound, but painful and slow. In the worst cases, the wounded might live for days while their belly dissolved into burning stench.
Federo pushed Septio away, then climbed to his feet. He took up a corner of carpet to wipe the blood and bile off his blade, his arm, and his vest. Septio began to retch.