Green

by Jay Lake

  Patience. Every time this dispute came to blows, somehow affairs grew worse. I had the habit of killing people, but this was both more and less than that.

  We did not need to kill this god. We needed to persuade him to lay himself down.

  “Please,” I told the Dancing Mistress. “Please let me try.”

  I took Federo’s hand as the god within him raised his other arm to call down more wrath. He tried to snatch it away, but somehow could not. Instead he turned to look at me.

  “You came to claim me, thirteen years ago.” I gripped his fingers close, as if he were Papa and holding tight could have saved me back then.

  “That was the man Federo,” he rumbled in the voice that made my ribs ache.

  Ignoring him, I went on. “I hated you for it. You were kind enough, and spared me good words, and fed me better than I had ever eaten in my life. Sometimes, for a child, that can be enough.”

  His eyes held a distant, almost lopsided look. “You were a wise girl.” I heard the man inside the god.

  “Now I have come to claim you back. Whatever love you hold for her,” and with that word I cast my eyes toward the Dancing Mistress, “whatever love you hold for me, let that be enough for you to follow me as I once followed you.”

  “I do not know how to let go,” Federo whispered. Sparks crackled within the god’s eyes. He shoved me away. I owe my life now to the fact that it was the man who pushed me and not the god, for I merely fell to the stones of the street instead of skittering half a block to the sound of shattering bones.

  A stampede erupted. I curled tight as dozens of clawed feet pelted past me in a sudden burst of movement. For a panicked moment, I closed my eyes. I was too cowardly to face my death.

  What came was not the shredding of my body, but the tearing noise of lightning slashing the air. I tasted metal yet again. All the hairs on my skin stood like spikes. Thunder clawed at my ears until only a heavy, smothering silence remained, though the stones beneath me carried the sound to my bones, echoing much as the god’s voice had.

  Goddess, I prayed, a mercy on us all.

  I opened my eyes to see the divine Endurance standing over me, much as the ox had once done in my father’s fields. Just beyond his front legs was a terrible roil of spark and flame and fur and claw. Pardines exploded under the stabbing bolts of lightning, flesh and blood and pelt shredding in arcs leading away from the violence.

  My eyes were driven toward blindness from the glare, much as my ears had been from the noise. I capped my hand over my brows and tried to look only at feet.

  That was bad enough. They clawed, fought, climbed. Skinless’ great muscled legs passed my view. Lightning flashed and glared off the blood slicks on the cobbles. My whole body felt a bruising from the ripping electrick bolt, the buffeting of the wounded air.

  Then there was no more. The lightning had stopped, along with everything else. Even in my deafness, I could sense that a hush had descended. I crawled out from beneath the ox, and with my right hand on his flank, got to my feet.

  Carnage. Dead pardines everywhere. Skinless lay shattered, still as any anatomist’s worktable project. Only Endurance and I stood.

  The Dancing Mistress lay before me, coiled with Federo. She’d managed to bang his head into the cobbles sufficiently for reason to leave him. With his thoughts fled, the lightning had ceased.

  It was indeed Federo. The aspect of the god had drained away.

  The Rectifier loped up to me. He had a slender stone knife in his hand. I saw his triangular mouth flex as he said something to me that I could not yet hear; then he bent over to slice off Federo’s fingers.

  I launched myself at him, slipping on a slick of blood. Though my attack was wild, and he far, far larger, I took the Rectifier in the side of the leg and staggered him two paces away from Federo with the corpse yet unmutilated.

  He whirled on me with the knife held low, then pulled his blow when he realized who his attacker was. The Rectifier bent, the knucklebones in his fur jiggling. He asked me a question. This time I heard his voice as if from a long, hollow tube.

  Pointing at my ears, I tried to say, “Leave them be. I will see to them.”

  The Rectifier stood his ground, then tossed his head toward Federo. The meaning was clear enough. You go first, then, and good luck to you.

  I looked to Endurance, then stepped over to my two fallen. The Dancing Mistress still breathed, though her ears were torn off and her face was a burned mess. I could not see that Federo still breathed.

  The god had definitely left him. Where was Choybalsan? For a moment, I did not care.

  Kneeling beside them, I wept to see their wounds. All of us seemed set one against the other as a matter of bloody, violent course.

  The shake of Endurance’s head, the clop-clop of his bell, brought me back. I turned to look up at my first friend in life, and I knew where the god had gone.

  The ox was surrounded by the avatars and sendings from Below. Lightning danced in Endurance’s eyes, illuminating a knowing squint I had never before seen.

  Patience. I had called a god of patience. Who had no voice to rally armies and suborn priests. Who had no hands to direct the lightnings he might pull down from heaven. Who could stand quietly and watch over the angry spirit within him, centuries of human power and pardine loss compressed to the rumble of a ruminant’s complex gut.

  I had placed the greatest threat seen for generations into the tulpa born of my father’s ox.

  Even better, I had slain no gods.

  Laughter bubbled up inside me. It roiled like the tide through rocks, spilling out through every part of my body, my soul, my voice. I fell beside the Dancing Mistress and Federo as the waves broke into tears. This could not be what the Goddess had meant for me, for all of us.

  I slumped to a seat on the cobbles of the road and cried. My heart flooded into the world, tear by tear, sob by sob, and left nothing within my chest except a hollow beating. Finally I looked at the Dancing Mistress. Her eyes were open now. The left was filmy with the lightning burns that had scarred her face. The right looked at me with a tired curiosity.

  I stared back at her and smiled, mouthing, I think we won.

  The Rectifier knelt beside me again. “Can I take his fingers now?” the big pardine asked, tugging at my shoulder. “He is no longer using them.”

  “No!” I shouted. “Let Federo die decently.”

  “Death is never decent, human. We reclaim what is ours.”

  The Dancing Mistress’ burned hand shot up to grasp the Rectifier’s wrist. Her fingers were tight in his fur, shaking the stone knife he still held.

  The Rectifier said something in the sibilant language of their people. She spat an answer, then turned to me. “I was . . . wrong. Do not . . . allow him . . .”

  “Do not allow him what?”

  “Do not let him . . . take it . . . back . . .”

  Her eyes closed again as her hand fell to her side. I reached out to touch her lips—still breathing.

  Thank you, Goddess.

  When I looked up again, the Rectifier was slicing off Federo’s fingers. “No!” I shouted. I scrambled to my feet and tried to hit him, but he knocked me away and continued cutting. I scrambled around in the street among the bodies until I found a dropped spear. Hefting it, I ran toward the Rectifier.

  This time he jumped up and grabbed the head as I rushed him. He was fast. I knew that, often as I’d sparred with the Dancing Mistress.

  The Rectifier snapped the weapon out of my hands. I had to let go to avoid breaking my wrists. Then he came for me claws out. This time he was fighting for real.

  “What are you taking back?” I shouted. I needed to change this game, for sparring with him would surely kill me.

  He circled. His legs were nearly twice as long as mine, so matching me step for step, he covered twice as much ground. I received no answer.

  I looked around for another weapon as I backed farther away. The Rectifier moved faster than I could t
rack him, and launched a disemboweling kick. Sliding sideways to avoid the blow, I tripped and lost my balance. I went sprawling.

  He rushed for a feet-down leap, as I had with Choybalsan in the tent. The dropped spear poked against my side. I rolled and grabbed it. The Rectifier overran where I had been, then spun on his heel to come back at me. I rolled again and turned the spear point-up.

  He veered off once more.

  Water dripped on my face. I scrambled to my feet, swatting it away. A sending from the Goddess. I circled back around the bodies of the Dancing Mistress and Federo.

  The Rectifier wasn’t going to let me take the time I needed. He came back again with a wide-handed swipe as he danced past me. No more crushing leaps to the chest. His claws took furrows of flesh out of my upper right arm.

  The rush of pain nearly made me drop the spear.

  Like Septio and the rest of Blackblood’s priests, I knew what to do with pain. Shifting more of the weight of the weapon to my off hand, I used my right for balance. I thought I was about where I needed to be.

  I was moving slowly. Too terribly slow. The Rectifier continued to dance like a leaf on a wind. He blurred in and out of my peripheral vision, moving behind me faster than I could turn, appearing on one side then the other.

  “I take back what your people stole from mine,” he said calmly.

  Another open-handed attack. I parried with the spear and nearly lost the weapon once more.

  He spun past me. His voice boomed behind me. “What the Dancing Mistress swore to help bring me to.”

  I snapped the spear butt backwards and ducked low. He sailed over my head, cursing as he struck the shaft and set it spinning loose from my grip. The Rectifier lost control of his leap in the same blow and landed hard on his belly. I jumped on his back, feet between his shoulders, and forced his jaw to the stone.

  The crack was like the breaking of a tree.

  His fur slipped beneath my feet, and I rolled forward onto my freshly wounded arm. I bellowed with my pain and came back to find myself in the street of wounded and their weapons.

  The Rectifier rose, shaking off the blow, but he was not moving correctly now. I crabbed sideways, leery of my own pain, grabbing again for a weapon. The spear was gone, but I nearly tripped over a sword. The handle was big, the blade was too heavy, but I heaved it into my grip.

  He wasn’t in front of me. Instead, the big pardine charged toward Endurance. The Rectifier’s pace wove as he ran. Skinless stepped in to block him, but he knocked the pain god’s avatar aside with a mighty blow.

  The ox did not even lower his horns. He stared at his attacker, lightning circling in those deep brown eyes, as the Rectifier leapt onto Endurance’s shoulders like a hunting panther onto a kill.

  I realized I was running, dragging the too-heavy sword behind. At the ox’s bellow, I dropped the weapon and sprinted the last few steps to grab at the Rectifier’s tail.

  “Help me stop him!” I shouted. “Before he kills our new god!”

  The Factor was at my side. Two of the city guards. Chowdry. A man in the plain suit of a clerk, marred by soot and burns. The Tavernkeep. A pardine I did not know. Mother Iron.

  Our little mob clawed and clutched at the Rectifier. The knucklebones woven into his chest were toggles. His skin stretched. Hair tore, some popped free, others crackled with the last energies of their former owners.

  Finally the Rectifier tumbled loose from Endurance. The ox bellowed again, then charged away into the darkness followed by his train of guardians. Little flowers bloomed where his blood dropped to the cobbles.

  I stood aside as a dozen others bore the Rectifier to the ground. My lungs gasped for air so hard, I feared I would spew. My body shook as I placed my hands above my knees and leaned forward.

  Finally I straightened and looked around.

  The Rectifier was still down, blades and crossbows and pistols now keeping him there. The ox was gone, as were the rest of the divines and the ghosts. A small crowd of people surrounded us, the circle drawing closer as more and more streamed into Lyme Street.

  “Anyone else?” I asked wearily.

  The Tavernkeep stepped forward and took my arm. “I believe it is done.”

  “Good.” I had no idea what he was talking about.

  People pushed closer, except in a little lane where the tracks of the fleeing god left a stream of lilies blooming tall in the moonlight. These were not the survivors of the Interim Council. These were not priests and bankers. They were just people.

  Questions flowed. Amid the buzz, I realized they were asking themselves, each other, me, what happened. Not fear, now, though there were dead and wounded aplenty already being borne off.

  “Let me tell you a story,” I said quietly. Somehow my voice echoed loud, pushing a ring of silence away from me. When I opened my mouth again, I spoke to a thousand listening ears. Swallows chirped as they circled overhead.

  “Let me tell you a story,” I repeated, “about a people who gave up their power long ago. A city man took it from them. Some agreed to this, but not all.”

  The silence held. I continued: “This man made himself prince of his city. He ruled for generations. There was peace, prosperity, a time of quiet. The gods fell silent, for the power was like a blanket to them. This took the soul of the people, for what are gods if not the sum of everyone who follows them? Choices fell away, as the power cared only for itself. Even so, the bargain was good for most.

  “In time, some of the first people conspired with some of the city people to wrest the power back from the prince. The city would be free to be ruled and grow as it chose, to have gods once more. The people would have their souls restored and rediscover their might.”

  I paused again, but still the street was filled with listening ears.

  “This theft went awry, or perhaps the power was stolen yet again. It came to rest in another. After centuries of replacing the habits of the gods of the city, the power thought itself a god. It rode the man it wore as worms might ride the heart of a dog. This new god would be feared in every land between the city center and the boundaries of the plate of the world.

  “It wished to be a titanic reborn. It lacked only a last shard of the old power, a final measure of grace.

  “Tonight this god has passed from the world, and taken the luckless man with it. In its place has been reborn a god of patience. The first god of this city come anew in more centuries than I know to count. This god is the ox Endurance. Voiceless, that the city might listen. Handless, that the city might not be quick to fight. Capable of drawing a plow deep in the soil, that the city might grow.

  “Give a prayer to Endurance, for the soul of the man Federo. Give a prayer to Endurance, for the sake of the city in this tale. Give a prayer to Endurance, that he might bear you in your journey beyond death as he bore my grandmother so long ago.”

  I bowed my head. The crowd slowly dispersed without responding. No cheer. No catcalling. Just people talking quietly.

  The wounded and the dead went with them, for tending. So did most of the mess in the street—souvenir-takers or just civic pride. Torches were set in front of the ruins of the Textile Bourse as some went in and others came out.

  Eventually the Tavernkeep leaned close. “Come to my place,” he said. “You must eat, and be warm awhile.”

  Chowdry held my arm as we followed the pardine through the city. The tavern was crowded to overflowing with the Tavernkeep’s people—they held a remembrance for those lost, and discussions concerning those being cared for in the upstairs rooms.

  A place was cleared, and some good Selistani curry set before me. The Tavernkeep sat with me a moment.

  “Why are they not rising in anger?” I waved my spoon at the room.

  “They followed the Dancing Mistress here to stop Choybalsan. Very few knew of her deeper purpose with the Rectifier.”

  “The conspiracy within the conspiracy,” I muttered. Conspire to rid the city of the Duke and then conspire to reclaim his
power.

  “I do not think she had always intended that.”

  “I will miss her,” I told him. “I would have loved to hear it from her lips.”

  “Are you leaving?” He seemed surprised.

  “I . . . I don’t know.”

  “Well, she is not dead. She lies in one of my rooms upstairs.”

  Shoving the curry aside, I nearly knocked over my chair in my haste to rise. “I will go see her.”

  A bustle erupted at the door. Two of the city guards pushed in, looking haggard. One had a bruise mottling his face. They brought Mr. Nast with them.

  “Where is Mistress Green?” the clerk asked in his thin, severe voice.

  “Here,” I said. The Dancing Mistress waited upstairs while this piece of business bedeviled me.

  His eyes caught mine across the room. “Begging your pardon, Mistress,” he said, “but Captain Jeschonek would like to know what you plan to do about the army camped on the Barley Road. They’ve raised some bloody great fires out there.”

  “For the love of all that’s holy,” I began, then stopped myself. “What does Jeschonek want from me?”

  “The captain says it was you that mislaid their god, it should be you that explains to them.”

  A thousand armed men on the verge of riot. I strongly considered telling him no. The Interim Council would have a difficult time winkling me out of this place where I was surrounded by dozens of the Dancing Mistress’ people.

  Still, I’d gone to a great deal of trouble to stop them from fighting. Starting it all over again seemed deeply pointless.

  “Bring me Chowdry,” I said to the Tavernkeep. “He’s getting a promotion.”

  By the time I stumbled back across the room, the Selistani was at the door, looking worried.

  “I have a new job for you,” I told him. “The god Endurance has an army of worshippers outside the city. They will need a priest who speaks Seliu.”

  We went to calm a fractious force of farmers and hillmen and their bandit cousins, and tell them that their god had become an ox.