Endurance (32 page)

“I do not debate the purposes of gods,” the Rectifier responded. “Only the intentions of their faithless priests.”

The twins stirred at that. Osi spoke up. “You have the air of one who has broken a few altars.”

The last broken altar I had seen was the Temple of Air, in the Eirigene Pass, and that from a distance. Still, the smoke and bodies had been terrible. Choybalsan had no altar so far as I knew. Just the temple of his ambition, wherein I had slain him.

Besides, I had not truly broken
him
either, so much as remade his power into Endurance.

The Rectifier shrugged again. This time it was definitely an act, the elaborate, showy ripple of his shoulders intended to impress with his might. “Altars are made for breaking. Are we proposing to do so here in Copper Downs?”

Iso: “Not as such. Just place limits on a fractious god.”

“Erm.” That noise was somewhere between a growl and a purr.

Osi spoke again. “If you can stand against the force of a temple ward, or a shielding prayer, we could make use of your powers in pursuit of Mistress Green's project.”

The three of them grew close and began to speak of the mechanics of blocking a god's will, of invisibility and boundaries and how to hold the edges against an eruption. I listened closely, for of course this touched much on me. Their vocabulary and common experience passed quickly outside my knowledge. They descended into a deep discussion of threaded souls and power flows and ritual boundaries. The Rectifier had no trouble at all with the twins' strange style of conversation, and seemed quite comfortable addressing them both as one.

The worth of my strategy of neutralizing Blackblood continued to nag at me, especially in the light of the Rectifier's words about human gods for human needs. Was I making the right choices? Wisdom was slowly returning to me.

I cradled my belly—and truly, it had grown larger, as if my tumble outside was not evidence enough—and thought on how best to approach the problem of setting the Selistani embassy against the pardine Revanchists. Could I simply buy the attentions of the Dancing Mistress' new sect with the Eyes of the Hills?

No. She would not play that game with me.

I considered an appeal to her loyalty, but our bond was strained almost beyond credibility, let alone the passion we'd shared not so long ago. Choybalsan had damaged my old teacher badly. She was not the woman who'd spent years training me; neither the one who had passed a few hot, strange weeks being my silken-furred lover.

The baby fluttered at that thought as well, as if she could read my memories. “Hush, child,” I whispered. “Your day is far, far away.”

Even if I could turn the Dancing Mistress toward me, that said nothing of the intentions of
her
followers. I doubted she could bind the Revanchists to my needs.

What if I took the Eyes of the Hills back to Mother Vajpai? I dismissed that idea as well. Whatever game Mother Vajpai was caught up in served as an extension of Kalimpuri politics. That she'd fought to lose in our contest at the Tavernkeep's place was enough for me. I knew I should accept her passive support, but could not lean upon her given her active and official betrayal of me.

What had the embassy hoped to buy from the Revanchists with those gems?
That
was the true price and prize, and I simply could not see it yet. Neither group held anything in common with the other, except a very tenuous thread winding through me and my experiences in both Kalimpura and Copper Downs. Well, and whatever Endurance might symbolize to each of them. The pardines had played a hand in the birthing of the god. Their long-stolen power had been embodied in the ox.

Which implied that the Revanchists wanted to cast down Endurance and restore that pent-up power to their own people. The Dancing Mistress had all but said as much. She had not called for such a violent vengeance, though, only asked for their idol's gems to be restored.

Likewise, the Selistani embassy was here for me. Or so they alleged. Plausible enough that someone might send Samma or even Mother Vajpai across the Storm Sea on such an errand, if the need were large enough or the call sufficiently urgent.

But Surali? And the Prince of the City?

Not for me, not as their sole end. Even Surali's anger with me could not justify this expedition of theirs. Some greater game was afoot, that the entire Temple of the Silver Lily was enmeshed in, or Surali would not have whatever hold she already kept on Mother Vajpai.

It was up to
me
to free my Blade sisters.

This whole affair coiled round and round, though I could not see the center. I had forced Samma to give me the Eyes of the Hills. I did not yet know what purpose the gems filled for the pardines, nor did I comprehend what deeper thing might be guarded beyond that purpose.

Something essential was hidden from me.

And did that matter?

What if I just forced the two groups to open conflict? They would fight until even the Interim Council could not ignore the trouble. Let the twins and the Rectifier neutralize Blackblood, then bring my real enemies to force of arms. Copper Downs possessed no army as such, and no real law enforcement since the disbanding of the Ducal Guard, but the Interim Council now had Lampet's Lads. If motivated, the guilds here could muster quite a few men under arms even without a renewed effort to raise the vacant regiments. Chowdry quite possibly could conjure up elements of Federo's old bandit army just by trolling taverns and chophouses and dockside flops with the right words in his mouth.

If Jeschonek and the others wanted the Selistani and the Revanchists gone, they had the power to force the issue. All I really needed to do was create enough of a ruckus to call down that official wrath.

Creating a ruckus happened to be something I was very, very good at. Yesterday's fight in the Tavernkeep's place wasn't a bad start. I would continue the effort by sending a note to the Selistani embassy and informing them anonymously that the Revanchists had taken possession of the Eyes of the Hills. Whatever bargain Surali had meant to make with the gems was already overset with my seizure of them from Samma. This would make public what only she and I knew.

As for that, I was certain Samma had not yet betrayed herself. If she had, the affair yesterday would have run quite differently. Surali still played like a woman who controlled the highest cards. It was time she knew her hand had been stolen away.

I discarded the reflection and turned back to my allies at their work.

They squatted on their heels, drawing diagrams upon the blackened floorboards with dust and an old stub of chalk. Squinting close, I recognized a version of Ashton's Ladder of the Divine, a classic theological illustration I'd encountered during my time of enforced education in the Factor's house. They worked together to annotate it with notes that looked as if the Rectifier were propounding his notion of the utility of godhead.

Pardine theology meeting with, well, whatever rite the saffron-robed twins practiced. With a nod, I left them to it and slipped back out into the city's burgeoning day.

*   *   *

It was my intention to head for a scrivener's and procure the needed letter to the Selistani embassy. I did not want the missive written out in my own hand, for surely Samma and Mother Vajpai would recognize my script. It was possible that Surali would as well, depending on whether or not she had made a study of me in pursuit of her vengeance. With a small grin, I wished her ill of her injuries. I hoped that her own writing would always have a shiver in it to remind the vicious woman of the cost of crossing me.

The morning was still bright and quite cold. I found myself drawn toward the Temple Quarter. That impulse I followed despite my earlier plan, though I had no intention of marching up the steps of the Algeficic Temple. Blackblood would be fine without me, until he wasn't. That thought made me check my backtrail for signs of Skinless, whom I thought I'd spied the previous day. There were no nine-foot-tall flayed corpses rambling the streets behind me.

I could not
wait
to be well and truly shut of these gods.

Soon enough I was standing before the ruined Temple of Marya. The site was a jumble of joists and fractured bricks, just as I recalled. Whatever activity the recent rescue had stimulated was long gone. Scavengers had not yet crept in to clear the rubble for salvage or fill. Offerings had been left behind, too. A few flowers—in winter?—scraps of food, a little girl's smock.

I sat on a lump of masonry and stared up at the brick looming beyond. It was the back of some other temple's refectory or priory. What had been an interior wall of Marya's temple stood exposed, the last surviving piece of what was otherwise utterly destroyed. I saw a row of hooks, as if to hang pots, and a discolored square where some icon or image had long been displayed. Small chalk marks around the edges of the wall looked fresher, and oddly familiar.

Hadn't I seen chalk marks on the shattered bricks here before? On my first visit … I craned my neck to look about. They were familiar, too familiar. And not just from this wreckage.

The air thickened. I tasted metal again. My thoughts interrupted, I tried to gather myself close, as Iso and Osi had taught me, to render myself small as a mustard seed before divine regard. It was already too late. Two birds wheeling in the sky above slowed to a halt in place, their wings trapped between one beat and the next.

Desire, I was certain of it. Blackblood spoke to me in the flesh, so to speak, while the Lily Goddess manifested by different paths.

“You may as well show Yourself,” I called out, my words braver than my heart. “My attention has been captured.”

She stepped out of nothingness, and was indeed Desire. I imagined any woman would know this goddess simply by Her aspect. I tried to look close, but again She was of all shapes and sizes and colors in one body, so it was like staring at a crowd and trying to make them into a single person.

You were drawn to My temple.
Desire's voice was a thousand women whispering on the threshold of their greatest passion.

“I followed where my feet led me.” I would not admit to being Her creature, even temporarily. My purpose was to shut myself of gods. Not to accept more.

No,
She said.
Your purpose is much greater than that.

This time, the titanic was not driving me so close to the edge of reason. Had I grown stronger, or was She grown gentler with me? “You cheat by heeding my thoughts,” I told Her. Defiance was ever my way, even in the face of all good sense. Or perhaps especially then.

Laughter now, a storm off the sea.
You would stand protesting before Father Sunbones himself.

Having already raised the argument, there was no reason not to follow where it led. “I would sooner steal his spoons and find my way home again.”

Your fierce will is what draws the divine to you, Green.
Now Desire spoke in a voice I could swear was my mother's, for all that I had no memory of her.
You are a candle amid the vague shadows of so many other souls.

“I am not Your candle,” I said, struggling against the gentle temptation enfolded in Her tone.
Not my mother, You do not play fair,
I thought with a desperate urgency.

Fairness is such a human idea,
She said, Her vasty power almost gentle now.
But I bring you something far greater than fairness.

“What?” I let myself grow sullen, for that, too, is a kind of armor against temptation. Whatever came next was surely intended to woo my unwary heart.

I bring you magnificent opportunity.
Though Her multiplicitous body did not move, I had the impression Desire knelt before me, to reach me on my level as an adult might bend down to address a small child.
This city will need another in Marya's stead. In time the women of Copper Downs would find their own goddess, and she will come together. If I might raise such a one now, much needless privation would be spared.

My words failed me for a moment, two, three; a long gap of thought unrealized. Finally, I spat out a protest. “You do not mean to elevate
me
to godhood!”

You have experience of theogeny, Green. You have touched and been touched by more of the divine than almost any priest or eremite. Marya's passing was no accident. A newly raised goddess with your powers and experience could do much to block another such effort at casting down.

“No!” I tried not to shout, but I was offended, frightened. “I c-cannot do this. I harbor no hopes of ever reaching such an estate. I can't even stand the thought of being a priestess of my own goddess. C-caring for myself and my child is t-too much. How could I look to the needs of generations of women?”

And their children,
Desire reminded me.

I reined my voice in. “I have held too much fate in my hands already. I will not grasp more. Find Yourself another girl. Luck to you both when you do.”

This offer will not be repeated,
the goddess warned me. I felt the pressure of scolding, of deeds ill done, of poorly considered choices and the impulsive shame of youth.

“Do not do that,” I growled. My knives were close, though none of them long enough for
this
target. “I will not be pressed even by You.”

Those rebellions arise from within, Green.
Desire's face came into focus, long with regret and sadness.
I am not here, in truth. You have only the least focus of My attention. Most of what you see and hear is your own words and feelings. That is how I know your thoughts.

I wondered if She had just given me some great secret of godhood that I was too dense to comprehend. No matter. I would not play this game for anyone else; I certainly was not intending to play it for Her.

Besides all that, I was certain that I would be a
terrible
goddess.