As A God

by T. G. Shepherd

  Her thumb ring was gone.

  He had taken her ring, the ring braided from Jesan’s hair, the thing that connected them still across the Measures and distance.

  Her old friend, bottomless rage, scoured her skin clean of the ice though nothing could take the taste of him from her mouth, the smell from the back of her throat. Galvanized, she collected her meager belongings, covered herself in her armor and her last, tattered veils.

  Sequa abandoned the room in that instant, knowing she would never return. She left the blood-stained bedding behind in a perverse parting gift to the landlord.

  Everything she owned now fit on her body, the pack hanging limp from her belt. She staggered to the window, meaning to take her usual route but she could not even catch the lip of the sill without clawing at it, once, twice. If she tried to Run the Roof today, she would die.

  Down the stairs, silent even as she stumbled and careened off the walls, Sequa fled the building and burst wildly into the street. This area of the city contained mostly multi-family dwellings and accommodation for travellers. Most of the sparse traffic flowed downward, from the Temple close to Under Roof, the morning worshipers headed to their occupations: the gates, the southern market.

  It felt unreal, unnatural to be awake and on the streets as the God rose; normally she had long sought her bed by now. Despite the rage that had gotten her moving, she had no direction. She wished devoutly to be quit of Ressen forever, wanted nothing more than to flee to one of the gates and run until her feet were as bloody as the bedding.

  Where the thin rushes had compressed, squeaking, with the rhythm of a man with a woman…

  Weaving clumsily down the block, she staggered, coughing bile into her veils. She managed to push them up to vomit in the gutter in the middle of the street. She could not leave. She still owed Anem, Cur, the Avatars themselves. Most of all she could not leave her ring.

  If he had not simply tossed it onto a midden pile on his way back to wherever he laired.

  “Drunken bravo.” The mutters sprang up on all sides. She felt warm, slimy liquid hit the back of her neck, then another slap of spit against her right hand.

  Her left hand came up, snagged one of her gorgeous sticks and slashed out at the nearest person. It went wild in her agonized blindness, but the palpable menace forced the people away. Abruptly, Sequa knelt alone in the street. She heaved her stomach dry, her mouth coated with bitter scum, tears burning her eyes.

  When she rose two Iron Guardsmen waited nearby, cold-eyed behind their men’s veils.

  “Come. You can sleep it off in the lockup,” one of them snapped.

  Sequa, swaying on her feet, laughed wildly. Sleep? As though she would ever sleep again, to wake with him once more. Her throat caught and distorted the sound into madness as her head came up, face uncovered. Both men started back, and then one drew his short sword. She recognized him. She had sparred with him the last time she had been at the training center.

  He had “died” in the first exchange between them.

  It took every fiber of her being, every ounce of will not battered and filthy to hold in that instant. If she had been herself, she would have run and they would have been left behind in a blink.

  Instead, she ripped out a sentence. “I cannot sleep this off. I have tried.”

  They both cringed away but recovered quickly. A low, sharp conversation flew between them, most of which she heard easily.

  “What does it matter? She’s barefaced and drunk.”

  “I’m not arresting a friend of the Commander.”

  “I tell you they’re not friends—”

  “You go lay hands on her then.”

  Sequa laughed again, coughing more bile now pink with blood. It occurred to her they wanted to take her to the one place in the city she might safely sleep.

  “Enough. Take me in.”

  The taller of the two, blue eyes wary, took a step forward. “You will come?”

  “I relish the thought,” she muttered.

  “Cover your face, then.”

  She wound the filthy remnants of her veils into the man’s style, leaving her eyes uncovered. They did not to protest.

  Three abreast, more like comrades out for a stroll than prisoner and captors, they fetched up at the Guardhouse in very little time. As they both hesitated on the street, uncertain even what entrance to take her through, Sequa pushed open the door to the common jail block.

  The windowless, underground jail block. Where he could not find her and she could sleep.

  They did not even have the courage to take her sticks before locking the door behind her. She balled up her loathsome veils and dropped them into the slop bucket then curled up on the thin blanket and the hard, wooden pallet and tried to forget that she existed.

  When she woke up, Anem sat on a stool by the closed door, a coldlight at her feet. She leaned back against the wall with her eyes closed. Sequa sat up silently and met a clear gaze in the next instant.

  “Thank you for not killing my men,” Anem said quietly.

  “I would thank them for arresting me.”

  “Is there the slightest chance you will tell me why?”

  Sequa’s soul shivered and splintered and the words nearly poured out of her. Because last night I lay with a man who called me sister and while it was happening I did not want it to stop.

  “No.”

  Anem looked startled. “Are you quite well? You aren’t even trying to enrage me.”

  “I am…profoundly unwell.”

  “Is there the slightest—”

  “No.”

  They both looked away, Sequa staring at her own hands without seeing them, Anem closing her eyes and leaning back again. “On the block over from where my men found you vomiting in the street and waving those quite beautiful objects at the innocent denizens of my city a landlord reported this morning a murder…without a body. Found one of his room hastily abandoned and the mattress covered in blood. Loudly convinced the silent young man he had rented it to had been slaughtered in his sleep.” Anem shifted the stool back onto all its feet. “One of my sergeants viewed the room and told me it wasn’t enough blood for the lurid tale to be true but something violent must have occurred there. You would know nothing about this?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Sequa.” Anem’s voice grew quiet, almost gentle. “Your hands and neck? The scratches are still bleeding.”

  They looked each other directly in the face. In Home looking someone in the eye became an aggressive gesture, tantamount to throwing a knife. Amongst the nobility a subtler contest of power and influence. Here and now it was just…honesty. For all she would not speak, Sequa found she did not want to hide her emotions either.

  Anem cocked her head a little and nodded, just a sharp dip of her chin. She had faced down a victim in the time after their violation many times before and would again. She knew the signs.

  “I had a tussle with an alley cat,” Sequa lied bluntly and badly. Almost comically so, if humor still existed in the world.

  “Would you like to see a physician? Cats are not clean animals,” Anem offered.

  “I… yes… but later… I would just like to sleep, now.” Her broken voice in a whisper sounded almost normal.

  “No, I don’t think so.”

  Sequa straightened and remembered for the first time that she had her sticks with her. “Pardon?”

  “I don’t think you’re going to cower in the dark like a broken doll, bleeding and afraid. I don’t think you will be alone.”

  “I’m always alone,” Sequa shot back, audibly, visibly angry for the first time in what seemed half her life. It felt glorious.

  “No. You’re not.” Anem shook her head lightly. “You persist and persist in this fantasy that you Run in the world with nothing but enemies at your back.”

  “The longest I have gone without an attempt on my life was the three Measures I spent out of the kingdom,” she grated, her throat clenched and aching.

&
nbsp; The older woman leaned forward and slowly, deliberately placed her hands on the platform next to Sequa’s feet, bracketing them. “The Avatars of the Great Gods welcome you to their private rooms. You risk death to clear the name of a man you claim to not even like. I endure public recriminations and attacks to protect you. Born a slave, you are Noble by marriage. Do you honestly reject the idea that you have…friends?”

  The naked emotion on Sequa’s face transmuted from anger to grief, her breath huffing out into something that neared a sob. “I have nothing. Nothing left. This wretched city…” She wrapped her arms around her knees, smelling the fresh blood oozing from her skin. “Everything gone—winnowed down to blood and bone now. I have not even clothes to put upon my back, nothing but metal and leather and wood like some automaton. I should have let you execute him.”

  She rested her burning forehead against her legs and wept bitterly for the first time since her family, her love, had been stolen from her. Anem sat quietly on her stool until the racking gasps slowed and calmed a little.

  “Come.” An order, but kindly. “Wipe your face and come.”

  Sequa sniffled into rough fabric of her shirt and rose to follow Anem, docile as a child. They made their way up the private back staircase to Anem’s office and from there into a small suite of rooms.

  Clean and spare, but comfortable with simple furnishings. No windows. Sequa breathed deep, tasting stale air and safety.

  “You can stay here for some time if you like. We keep these rooms for visitors who are not technically under arrest. For now, sit, and I will summon my physician.”

  ~ * ~

  When Anem returned to her office, the Voice of the God stood by the window, bathing in the light of his God. She studied him a long moment before speaking.

  “Holy, I am honored to receive you but why have you come unannounced? And, uh, unattended?”

  He opened those sky-blue eyes and looked at her silently. She could make out no details of his face, with the bright light behind him. When he spoke it almost made her jump.

  “What has happened to Sequa?”

  Anem rested against the edge of her desk, feeling every Measure of her age suddenly. “If I had a choice, Holy, I would lie to you.”

  “Well, you can try. Of late it seems easier than it should be.”

  They shared a bleak laugh. “I am hardly her. For which I am profoundly grateful at the moment.”

  He walked out of the Godslight and sat down in her chair.

  She turned in place, nudging a scroll out of the way. It took her many heartbeats to decide how to tell him the truth, and in the end she stated it plain.

  “She was raped.”

  His breath caught. “In how many pieces is his corpse?”

  “None. One. He departed unharmed, given her fear to be in a place with windows or unlocked doors.”

  “Fear? She has never shown an ounce of fear. Of anything, not even the Gods.”

  “I think if I had not seen her in peril of her life before, I would not know she feared now. I do not know for certain there was a…violation, but she bears no significant wounds, as from losing a duel. She is scratched and bruised. Sick at heart. Skittish. She willingly let my men arrest her so that she could sleep in a locked room.” Anem touched her hand to the desktop. “How, Holy, did you know something had gone wrong with her?”

  He rubbed his face, transparently stalling.

  Anem leaned forward. “I have seen the bond between your own Holy self and the Shadow of the Great Good Goddess. Have you now formed something similar with our delightfully savage young visitor?”

  “And who are you to question me?” His tone had no sting in it; he sounded almost amused.

  “A woman who stood guard at the gate you walked through in rags when the God made Himself known in you.”

  The Voice of the God smiled. “Longer ago than most people would think. In all honesty, I do not know how I know. I sat meditating on the roof of the Temple, thinking on my next actions in our current difficulties, and it came to me that I should come here.”

  “So.”

  “So.”

  “What are our next actions?”

  “The Shadow of the Goddess, as my theological… hmm… superior has called a conclave of the highest clerics who can travel here in half a Turn. Since I am come to trust the Champion’s timetable, we have time to indulge the notion after yesterday’s vile discoveries. It may be that we can solve this all in one swoop, bring enough holy weight to bear on this monster that he simply crumples under the strain.”

  Anem stretched and popped her shoulders, feeling crabbed and cramped by the very air itself. “I am still half-mad with the implications of her words yesterday, Holy. And wary beyond enough sense to think that she could share such a mind with such a—”

  Her throat seized. Words became poisoned claws ripping past the obstruction to blurt out the truth. “It was him.” The air became sparkling jewels, blinding, too sharp to breath.

  So, this was what the close passage of divinity felt like.

  The Voice collapsed into the chair, shaking and drooling. The God took his mind. His aura struck her like a lead weight in the gut.

  Anem doubled over, weeping and retching. “It was him,” she moaned, tears thick on her face. “It was him.”

  “Father of All, I beg you to release me,” the Voice gasped over top of her words then sobbed. The horrible pressure of divinity flashed away in the next breath. The Godslight still streaming in the window moved some distance before either of them could speak again.

  “If you ever feel that happening again, Holy, be free to hurl yourself from my window first,” Anem said in a pained voice.

  “I think that I might, if I did. I have never felt… when the God first came upon me it did not feel like that.” He stopped and stared at her a moment, then continued in a tentative manner. “Did I hear you right, then? The truth you spoke?”

  “Yes,” Anem walked over to a cupboard and withdrew a clay jug and two cups, slapping it all down on her desk and pouring a full measure of thick, dark wine before continuing. “The monster we hunt adds rape to his crimes, if he had not before. And perhaps some strange form of blood magic, for her skin is covered in scratches. Deep and clean as though made with a knife.”

  The Voice drank his own cup dry and refilled it. “Blood magic is unreliable save for small things and acts of war,” he said absently.

  “How do you know…” She stopped and shook her head. “One would think I know not to ask you that question, and yet I still ask.”

  “Everyone does.”

  “Does she?”

  “Ah. No. I am ever perturbed by this phenomenon. When the Shadow first spoke to me of her, I dismissed her words. What a fool.”

  “From what I have learned, nearly everyone treats her so. Briefly.”

  “Not…Curran. Ah. Yes.” The Voice drank his cup dry again and cocked his head to Anem. “Are you convinced of his innocence?”

  “Yes. The problem is convincing anyone else.”

  “But his cell is solitary. If it stood empty but still guarded, who would know? Could you bid them to silence?”

  “Yes, especially if I spoke with your voice.”

  “Do you agree that Sequa is some key to this puzzle, a crucial component of whatever solution we might obtain?”

  “Yes. Oh. We must keep her safe. Yes, I think—him she might trust.”

  The Voice nodded in approval. “Cover his face and he is nothing more than another tall, young guard. None here know his voice well enough to mark him.”

  Anem tapped her fingers on her desk, deep in thought.

  ~ * ~

  Sequa woke to the sound of voices in the outside chamber of her gifted rooms. The clever little traps and grates that let air flow through the building carried two male voices and a low female voice. She sat up and left her cot, creeping to the door.

  “… wear the mask and helmet if you can. Even less likely to be noticed.” Anem sa
id, sounding worried but determined.

  “Yes, my lady.” Cur. Humble, simple, ferociously unstoppable Cur.

  Horrified, she found her heart soaring to have him free and so near. He would keep her safe.

  I do not need him to keep me safe. If she said the words firmly enough to herself, she would believe them.

  Going to push the wicker door open, Sequa realized she was naked, that she had discarded her fouled clothing in the outer room hoping it would have disappeared when she came back out. Scuffing around on the floor, she found a pile of soft fabric. It smelled of lavender and proved to be a long tunic that scraped the floor on her. She had to hold up the hem or shuffle like a toddler. She could sense the Shadow’s hand in it, especially since the last voice she heard was the Voice.

  Gritting her teeth at how ridiculous she must look, Sequa slipped out into the main room, bright with a handful of cold lights. The Voice sat with his back to her; Anem on the other chair in the door and Cur standing dressed in Guardsman’s armor with a sword at his side between them. Under one arm he had a full-face mask and helmet of plain, battered wood and metal.

  When he saw her, his face contracted in something like joy.

  Sequa just managed not to grimace or cry out, seeing for an instant the unholy pleasure lighting the face of her…partner from the night before.

  “Curran,” she said shortly, to conceal her sudden weakness. “So, Commander, finally you believe me?”

  The Voice turned around in his chair to look at her, and knowing only she could see him indulged in a slight smile. “You look…innocent…in that color, Sequa. You should wear it more.

  The tunic was cream-colored, crumpled and spotlessly clean. She could remember wearing things like this at home, remember Jesan slipping his hands up her flanks under the thin fabric…

  She jerked and gulped, throat working not to vomit as the old, good memory fetched up against the new horror in her heart.

  Cur actually stepped forward with his hand out stretched.