by Jeff Deck
A spray of blood and brains showers the outer-edge spectators. Immediately the griffin takes a nosedive into the mud, skidding and splashing to a halt before the finish line. Ulrich and his dragon press grimly on and they’re the first to cross.
Winner.
Ulrich manages to draw the dragon to a stop before reaching us. Before I can shout out to him—or even think of what to say to him, after what I witnessed—the crowd erupts in outrage.
“Run,” Sol whispers. I can barely hear him over the cacophony.
“What?” I say.
“We broke their game, and they’re not going to forgive us,” Sol says, louder this time, picking himself up and summoning his scant remaining energy. “Run!”
The Avariccians spill from the spectator areas and onto the track. Ulrich’s twisted, triumphant smile fades, to be replaced by a look of panic. He opens his mouth and shouts—probably a command to the dragon to launch itself into the air, away from the coming onslaught. That’s what I would do.
Instead, the dragon arches its back and tumbles him off. Ulrich lands painfully in the mud of the track. Avariccians press in all around him. Brown suits, silver suits, blue suits, gold suits are all united in their rage at the detective. I want to help him, but Sol digs his fingers into my arm.
“Leave him alone!” I shout at the mob. “Let go, goddammit, Sol! We won!”
But Sol’s right. We didn’t win the right away. Ulrich killing his competitor—with an off-world weapon, no less—robbed it of the chance at victory. That takes agency away from the Hand That Never Closes, doesn’t it?
Doors in the metal suits of the Avariccians nearest Ulrich fly open. Toothy extrusions of flesh pop out. They are mouths, as we saw at the Feast, and they fly toward the crumpled human to feed.
“ALLARD!!”
Ulrich’s anguished scream of my name turns into a wordless warble of agony as the needle teeth of the Avariccians plunge into his flesh. They are consuming him alive, and I’m over here like a coward, and when the blood and gore geyser, I know I can do nothing for him.
I yank Sol into a run away from the scene. We pelt down the muddy track toward the gates to escape the Campo. The Avariccians are casting uncertain glances at the two of us too. Sol and I are from the hated planet Earth, like the griffin murderer Ulrich, like Ilana the sorcerer who corrupted the Soldier Lord’s mind. We have no reason to expect mercy.
We don’t get far until we run into an implacable wall of red. I stumble as I come to face Priest Lord Guhnach and several of his acolytes. It clutches its Relic tightly, and its mask is as sorrowful as ever.
“I don’t want to fight you,” I shout at it, “but I will. Let us pass!”
It lets out a mirthless chuckle and says, “Letting you by would be akin to murder. They have all forgotten the Hand; they will digest you next. Come—your time in this world is done.”
10
No. We can’t leave now. Not without Milly. Not after Ulrich died screaming—died screaming my name—trying to save her.
“We won,” I say urgently. “We won the fucking race.”
“Divya,” Sol says, his voice growing weaker. His head is still bleeding.
“We must go,” Priest Lord Guhnach says. “Look what’s happening in the crowd. Look!”
And I look, really look, for the first time since Ulrich got torn apart and consumed by these monsters. The mob is fighting itself. Specifically the silver suits are attacking the blue and gold suits and the occasional red suit, while the brown suits affect neutrality, attempting to flee. The silver suits swing giant hammers and clubs, the better to bash armor with, my dear. Everywhere they hit their opponents, metal twists and doors wrench off and tender flesh and stray teeth fly out. Those who hide out in cans should beware can openers.
“This betrayal has too convenient timing,” says Guhnach. “There was no loyal faction of soldiers, it seems. They serve Chaum—all of them. And now rumors fly that the Soldier Lord’s army breaches the Dragon Gate. Doxe Ungam and his nobles are lost. We must flee. Hurry!”
I can hear the advancement of Chaum’s army, too, thanks to the curse of my upgraded ears: far-off boots marching, screams and wails as the exiles cut a path into the city. But I holler at Guhnach, “We haven’t gotten our friend back.”
“Your friend too is lost.” Guhnach gives a signal to his red acolytes.
I brace for a fight, ready to beat my fists into bloody pulps on the unyielding metals, but the priests have a different strategy than blocking us. One of them scoops me up like I’m a naughty kid, heedless of the blows I rain on its armor. Another does the same for Sol, who in his battered state offers much less resistance. Then Guhnach and its acolytes charge through the crowd.
Silver suits make for us, shoving other Avariccians aside, and from my incapacitated position in a red acolyte’s arms I can do nothing about it. Will it be a maul or a club that bashes my brains out, or the sheer force of a plated arm crashing into my head?
Guhnach shoves to the front of our group and holds up its Relic. The object blazes with a sudden greyish light that physically repels the oncoming soldiers, knocking them on their tin asses. The next wave hesitates at the sight.
“The Hand condemns you!” Guhnach roars at the soldiers.
This, more than anything, keeps them at bay as we dash to the exit. It’s one thing to get into a theological debate about whom one’s god favors and whom it doesn’t. It’s quite another to see the vessel of the god’s power, wielded by the top religious authority in the city, blast attackers backwards.
The city streets are in near as much chaos as the Campo itself. A number of brown suits have retreated here, but now some hesitate. Rethinking their allegiances. Some strike out at their fellow citizens in gold and blue that run past, and skirmishes break out. The Peasant Lord—whatever his name was—is dead, and the Soldier Lord is on the rise. Better to side with the winning team than to perish under the soldiers’ hammers.
The red-suited Avariccians are by no means safe either. Their religious importance seems to matter as much as the high social status of the blues, a few of whom lie beaten and unmoving in the streets, vile flesh hanging out of open suit doors and pooling around them. Two soldiers with wicked hammers rush at us, but Guhnach’s free-handed acolytes block the way. The reds and silvers tussle. The acolytes fall to the hammers, but by then we’re some distance away.
We head up twisting streets to the hill of the Five-Petaled Temple. And there Guhnach swears: “May the Hand… close upon them!”
The evening light, still an intense violet though darker than before, illuminates the small silver army surrounding the temple on all sides. Scattered red bodies lie at their merciless feet.
“Stop,” Guhnach commands his acolytes. “Stop! There’s no way we’ll get past those soldiers. We will all die.”
The silver soldiers haven’t yet caught sight of us, so we duck into an abandoned alley and peer up at the temple. Priest Lord Guhnach mutters to Sol and me, “I—never expected Soldier Lord Chaum to recover so quickly from his lost Wager.”
“He must have already had plans laid out before the Wager,” I say. “He wouldn’t need to do much if everyone already had their marching orders. You and Ungam have been betrayed.”
The sorrowful mask inclines. “I trusted in the grace of the Hand. But it has let us slip through its fingers. You will not reach your Port.”
“Let’s not talk in absolutes yet,” I say. “Put me down. I’m going to go talk to them.”
“To the soldiers?” Guhnach says. “I would not advise it.”
“Put me down,” I say, “and lend me your shield—Relic-thing.”
At the Priest Lord’s nod, the acolytes lower Sol and me gently to the cobblestones. But Guhnach clutches its Relic protectively to its chestplate. “My life is charged with protecting the Relic.”
“You’ll get it back,” I say. “I promise.”
“Your promise will mean nothing when Chaum’s soldiers pry the Re
lic from your corpse!”
“They’ll find you sooner or later, and do the same to you,” I point out.
Guhnach finally gives in and holds the Relic out to me. As soon as my fingers make contact, the whispering and unintelligible voice that I managed to shove to the back of my mind comes to the front.
My children. My foolish children. My children…
“You okay?” asks pale Sol. I should be the one asking him. “Looks like you hear a ghost.”
“Maybe something more substantial than that. Guhnach, you and your people follow behind me, but let me lead. It’d help if you looked afraid of Sol and me.”
Guhnach makes a noise of protest and then swallows it. Its mask nods. Then I march out into the open, with Sol following closely, and Guhnach and his companions falling in behind us.
The company of silver soldiers comes to attention. One of them, a fellow with a mask expressing disgust, steps forward and says, “In the name of Soldier Lord Chaum, I demand—”
“Hold up,” I interrupt. “You don’t know who you’re fucking with.”
The soldier is startled into silence. I go on, quickly: “Do you remember who caused the change in Chaum? That’s right: the ‘sorcerer’ from my world. She used her powers to tunnel into Chaum’s brain. Well, I got news for you, pal. Where I come, we’re all sorcerers. Sol and me here, we’ll mess you up if you don’t clear a path for us tout de suite.”
The soldier says, “You can’t possibly—”
I push on. “I warped Guhnach’s mind and got him to bring me from the Campo to here. I got him to give me this Relic. I can erase your will and replace it with my own—all of you! But kneel to me now and I’ll let your minds remain at peace. Kneel!”
I raise the shield to show them. At that moment, the Relic glows brightly, as it had done for Guhnach himself when he repelled the soldiers in the street. The army ripples at the sight. Some soldiers drop their weapons in a clatter.
The whisper in my head is now a shout. Children! My foolish children!
“Children!” I scream. “My foolish children! KNEEL!”
Every silver soldier in the square drops to its knees.
“Go,” Sol gabbles in my ear. “Go go go go.”
He’s right. This Connecticut Yankee act won’t last for long. I shoulder my way between two of the soldiers, and the rest of the ones behind them nudge aside to clear a path for us. Kneeling, the Avariccians are about my height; it’s not reassuring. Impassive masks stare or leer or scream at me as I wend my way to the Five-Petaled Temple’s front doors, which stand open.
Guhnach sucks in its breath at the sight of so many of its acolytes lying on the temple steps, their bodily mush spilling from them. Its face looks the same as ever—only now the mask’s deep sorrow is finally appropriate.
Inside, dozens more lie dead, including Guhnach’s second-in-command, the Sublord, though a few living red suits miserably acknowledge us. No silver soldiers remain inside the temple, so we shut the great doors behind us. I slump to the tiled floor, dropping the Priest Relic.
“Don’t rest now,” Guhnach says harshly. “Your way home is not yet open.”
And that dreadful fact returns, something I forgot during the terror of our escape from the Campo. The Port needs a blood sacrifice to open.
Which one of us gets to go home? Which one’s blood will the Port swallow?
“Oh, no,” I say. I accept Sol’s hand and struggle to my feet. “No. There has to be another way.”
“There is none,” Guhnach says. “Someone must give its life to the Port.”
Sol says, in a rush: “I’ll do it. There’s, there’s so much more I wanted to see—but—Divya, you’re the one who’s tough enough to fight off Ilana once you cross back to Earth. I’d just get a bullet in the head. This way I’ll have a choice about how I die… and you’ll get to bring Councilor Stone to justice. Hannah would want this.”
He walks toward the altar with trembling legs, but I catch up with him and grab his shirt collar.
“No fucking way,” I snap. “First off, don’t tell me what Hannah would want. Second, you’re young. You’ve got decades and decades of life ahead of you. I didn’t save your life twice so you could throw it away on me.”
“And you’re not young? What are you, thirty, you old crone? You’ve got more years ahead of you, you never put your body through hell like I did with—”
“I got to love someone, with all my heart,” I argue. “Have you ever had that, Sol? Have you ever had a serious boyfriend? No? Let me give you a chance to experience that. It’ll mean more to you than any world you’ll ever visit.”
He tries to wrest my hand from his collar, and we struggle. Then someone roars:
“ENOUGH!”
Priest Lord Guhnach pulls us apart. “This—battle of selflessness is unseemly,” it says. “Both of you are overlooking the obvious.”
It scoops up a spear discarded by a silver soldier and tosses it to me. I manage to catch it without bumbling. Then a door in Guhnach’s suit opens, in the middle of its “belly.” Inside I see at least the dim shape of writhing flesh.
“Wait a minute,” I say. “I’m not gonna just stick you after everything you’ve done for us.”
“You will,” Guhnach says. “I’m done for. In the space of hours, if not minutes, Chaum’s forces will breach those doors, kill me, and take the Relic from me. You must not let them have it. Take it to Earth and keep it safe.”
I frown at him. “You’d rather not take it to Earth yourself?”
The Avariccian gives a shake of its mask. “I would not survive long in your world, without my people to feed on. Human flesh… does not satiate. Fortunately for you.”
“What are we supposed to do with the Relic?” I say. “Wouldn’t Chaum’s soldiers follow us through the Port to get it back?”
“Close the Port, and they will not be able to open it again,” Guhnach says. “They don’t know the ritual that must go along with the sacrifice. Find blood to spill and close the Port behind you. I suggest the sorcerer’s.”
That I’m not about to do, but I’ll figure that part out later. If Sol and I could both get home alive—well, I’d appreciate Guhnach’s sacrifice, as long as it’s willing to make it.
“Divya,” Sol says. “You’re not going to do this, are you?”
“Yes,” I say.
I gin up my resolve and thrust the spear into the Priest Lord’s exposed biomass: the real Guhnach, I suppose, underneath the borrowed shape of a human. A cry escapes from the hole, followed by a groan or sigh. The acolytes shout in dismay, but none dare approach us.
Then Guhnach, bleeding hot dark blood profusely from his wound, mutters the words of his people while walking in a tight five-petal-shaped path in front of the altar.
This time, I can understand the words of the ritual.
O Master of Quintessence, we lay this sacrifice before you, open the gate and breach the skin between worlds, drink the blood and consume the flesh, May Your Hand Never Close…
I make an effort to tune out the syllables. Because I hear an unseen someone responding to them.
Slowly the tiny flowers blossom in the air, whirling, and the Port shimmers into being. Guhnach’s blood floats into the air and streams toward the Port. As its flesh follows, the Priest Lord screams. A ropy mass extrudes from the open door in its suit and flaps in the sudden rush of air coming from our pathway home. It dissolves bit by bit into the flowers spinning around the Port, and finally Guhnach’s suit of armor clatters to the floor.
The Port is open.
Someone bangs on the doors to the temple.
“Go,” says one of Guhnach’s acolytes. “Take the Relic to safety.”
I pick up the Relic and gesture to Sol. “You first.”
He nods bravely, and he steps through the Port. The hammering on the temple doors becomes louder. The acolytes shuffle around in jerky, panicked movements. Two of them position themselves at the doors, for whatever good that’ll
do.
Then I’m next through the Port. I hope I don’t drop the Relic in the space between.
I’ll never get used to it. That twisting, tingling feeling from head to toe, in my brain and in my chest and in my most private parts. But it feels less unpleasant than before, at least. I keep my eyes squeezed shut, unwilling to glimpse anything between the City of Games and Earth.
Then I open them. Sol’s at my side in the attic. We’ve been gone for hours by Avariccian reckoning, but here we’re right back where we started. Ilana blocks the exit, and she’s still got her old revolver pointed at us. The corpse of the poor cultist lies at our feet. The only clue that any time has passed at all is the darkness outside the skylights.
“I don’t recall inviting you back,” Ilana says. Then her eyes light on the Relic in my hands. “What are you doing with that thing?”
“If we rush her at the same time,” Sol suggests, “she can’t shoot both of us.”
“Wanna bet?” Ilana asks, and fires. At me.
It’s only instinct that makes me lift the Relic like a shield, just before the bullet leaves Ilana’s gun. If I’d had time to think about it, I wouldn’t have bothered. The Relic is made of some chitinous material, not metal like the Avariccians’ suits, and couldn’t be expected to stop a bullet any more than, say, a plaster wall would.
But the bullet fails to strike me. Only a quick whap, like someone tweaked the Relic with their fingers, lets me know the bullet struck it and reflected from it. I lower my shield to see Ilana clutching her neck, attempting to dam the blood exiting her carotid artery. The revolver lies on the wooden boards, forgotten, as Ilana shudders toward a horrible death.
“What are the odds?” Sol asks.
I grimace. “Significantly better than usual. Given that this thing was involved.”
I register the wind whipping at my back and remember the peril of our situation: Chaum’s soldiers. The temple doors won’t stop them for long. They’ll march right through to Round Island. Giving them their stupid Relic back won’t make them go home, either, not after they’ve discovered a world with lots of unarmed, squishy people to conquer… and pizza…