Melissa McShane (10 page)

Rovalt came past them, holding a stemmed silver cup inscribed with spirals. He and

Genedirou both wore their ritual robes, crazy patchworks of different fabrics and different shapes, but nevertheless invested with a mad dignity. Genedirou took the cup and held it while Rovalt searched in his robes, finally coming up with a pair of copper tubes stopped with wax.

Rovalt peeled the wax away with his fingernails and poured first one, then the other into the cup.

Genedirou held it to his nose and inhaled deeply, then drank the mixture down and flung the cup aside.

They all waited. Nothing happened. Genedirou’s eyes were closed and his breathing heavy.

They waited a few minutes more. Zerafine found herself holding her breath. The perfumed air was heavy with a new, unidentifiable scent. Then Genedirou opened his eyes. His pupils were pinpoints, almost invisible in the dark brown of his eyes. He began to stretch, arms over head, one leg lifted until his foot reached his chest. His body seemed to move independently of his mind’s control. His fingers fumbled with the catches on his robe, undoing them at random, and then he threw his robe to the ground.

He was completely naked underneath.

Zerafine wanted to laugh, but something about his movements made him seem dignified,

even though the outline of his ribs was clearly visible in his concave chest and his potbelly hung over his manhood like a ripe melon. At that moment, Zerafine actually respected Genedirou; any man who could so thoroughly expose himself (in every sense) could not be acting entirely out of self-interest.

Genedirou began to wander through the garden, oblivious to his audience, who were

sometimes forced to step out of his way. He stood on his head. He took positions out of classical and modern dance. He made obscene gestures that Zerafine simply could not look away from, however unsettling they were. He looked ridiculous and he looked like a man touching the face of the Divine. Zerafine was so caught up in his movements that it wasn’t until he had nearly reached the illusory child that she realized his random movements were actually tracing out a sigil: the spiral of Sukman. Genedirou was invoking the presence of his god. She felt an unusual pressure behind her eyes, began to taste colors, hear impossible sounds. Sukman was there. She felt sure that if she could see Him, she would go mad. She wondered what the others sensed.

She closed her eyes and drew three cleansing breaths, opening her heart’s eye. What she was trying might be dangerous, but she wanted to see what Genedirou’s banishment actually did.

From this perspective, the child tossing the ball vanished. In its place was a tangle of hair-thin threads, a knot about the size of a walnut that glowed with the same light a spirit did. She couldn’t see where the threads began; they faded into invisibility only a few inches from the tangle. But she was certain they were attached to
something
.

Genedirou was entreating Sukman for a boon. She could sense his mind, chaotic and

unformed, merging with the god’s, for the moment completely insane. He wanted Sukman to

touch the world, just
here
, just
now
, fill this one spot with his madness. And Sukman agreed.

She felt Sukman’s attention turn to the little knot. It broke apart under His touch, the threads unwinding in a chaotic dance that ended with their ends waving free like the fronds of an undersea plant. Sukman’s presence withdrew and the pressure behind her eyes dropped to

nothing. Free from the restraint of His presence, she looked more closely. The fine threads were nearly invisible, but as she watched, she saw two of them entwine again, and the glow grew infinitesimally stronger.

Gerrard said, “What’s wrong?” She looked up at him, further up than normal, and realized

she had sat down on one of the benches. She felt dizzy. So that was what it was like to be in the presence of a god. “Did you feel any of that?” she asked him.

“I felt as though my ears needed to pop.”

“I want to talk to Genedirou.”

“Genedirou? He’s not going to be in a position to talk to anyone for a while. Still

lightheaded from those drugs, I’d guess.”

“Sukman was there, part of Him anyway. It was...indescribable.” She shook her head. “I

think the apparitions are spirits, or partly spirit, but I’ve never seen anything like it before. The important thing is that Genedirou’s not doing what he thinks he’s doing. I don’t think his banishments are a permanent cure.”

“Does he not know, or not care?”

“I’d...rather give him the benefit of the doubt. Either way, he’s got to be stopped. Refine his ritual, whatever. Who knows what could happen if an apparition he supposedly banished

returned?”

“Panic, if that mob outside the temple is any indication.”

“I’m afraid you’re right.”

With Gerrard’s help, Zerafine stood and approached Genedirou. Someone had brought him

his robe and he leaned heavily on Rovalt’s arm. He looked as if he’d wrestled ten men the size of Gerrard. “Genedirou,” she said, and when she had his attention, she saluted him. “That was impressive. It was certainly not what I expected.”

“I live to serve our city,” he replied. “I hope you understand that.” There seemed to be a double meaning to his words that Zerafine couldn’t understand. Did he know she’d been

watching?

“I understand many things now,” she said. “We will speak more later. You clearly need time to recover.”

She turned away before he could respond. It was possible he didn’t know what he was

doing, but by the look in his eye, he knew more about the apparitions than he was willing to admit.

But Genedirou wasn’t available later that day; he was out performing another banishment.

He was also gone the next morning. When they returned in the afternoon, Rovalt told them

Genedirou wasn’t in the temple. He was lying.

“I don’t know why, but he’s avoiding me,” Zerafine said. They stood in the shade of a booth across from the temple, enjoying a cool drink. “I assume that means he knows his banishments are temporary and is afraid I’ll intervene.”

“Maybe he just doesn’t want to discuss his sacred ritual with you. It
did
summon a god, after all.”

“He knows he’s doing something wrong, and I intend to find out what.”

“You’ll worry away at him like a terrier is what you’ll do. Though I don’t like the man, so I don’t know why you shouldn’t.”

“I have to catch him first.” Zerafine finished her drink and handed the cup back to the stall keeper, who took it warily, but at least didn’t throw it away to prevent her contaminating his next customer. “I’m tired of trying to wait him out. There’s another approach I want to try.”

“What’s that?”

“Baz. I want to see if I can learn anything more from him—it—now that I’ve seen what to

look for. And if Baz doesn’t show up, we can talk to Solina again and see if he’s appearing on a schedule.”

“You’re not going to recreate that ritual, are you?” Gerrard looked horrified.

“I’m not quite brave enough to dance naked in front of a hundred sailors, so no,” she said.

“Besides, it would be blasphemous to try to reach the apparition with some other god’s ritual.

No, I’m going to try approaching it like a consolation. The symbolic part, anyway.”

“And
that’s
not blasphemous?”

“I’m not going to invoke the god, I’m just going to see if it responds to symbols that aren’t invested with a god’s presence. You suggested that Genedirou might have just stumbled on

something that works. I’m wondering if what he stumbled on was the secret of getting an

apparition’s attention, the symbolic part, and Sukman’s involvement was something he came up with later.”

“That doesn’t explain how Sukman, through Genedirou, was able to affect the apparition.”

“One mystery at a time. If I can learn something through Baz, that’s one more piece of

information I can use on Genedirou.”

“Or against him.”

Zerafine remembered the exhausted, half-naked
thelos
in the garden. “I’d like to avoid being his antagonist. If we’re going to fight, let it be his fault. I almost feel sorry for him.”

It was a good day for a long walk. The sky was partly overcast, dimming the sun’s rays, and a cool breeze found its way between buildings now and again. Their route took them through a residential neighborhood raucous with children’s shouts and the sound of men and women

calling out greetings to one another from their doorsteps. The noise was enough that the sounds of real, terrified shouting didn’t register with Zerafine until a woman’s scream shattered the air.

They ran toward the sound of the screaming, pushing through increasing numbers of people, until they burst into a part of the street that was completely clear. Clear, except for a woman screaming and wringing her hands, and a man curled on the street, pelted repeatedly by
seicorum
the size of a man’s doubled fist flung about by a ghost. An enormous, enraged ghost.
Right, my
actual job
, Zerafine thought, disoriented.

Gerrard cursed and pounded toward the ghost, sliding across the cobbles for the last few feet and using his weight and momentum to push the man out of the thing’s range. Zerafine ran after him, pulling her hood over her head and saying a few curses herself; he was completely

unarmored, hadn’t so much as worn his
seicorum
helmet since they’d arrived in Portena. Gerrard had landed on his knees and had his arms over his head, but held his ground. As long as the ghost had a target, it wouldn’t try to attack anyone else. She leaped over him and reached out to embrace the ghost with her arms.

It was furious. She’d never seen such anger, such passion, from a ghost before. It fought her, its body of gigantic
seicorum
stones flying past with such force she had a moment’s fear, against all reason, that her cloak would not be enough to protect her. That momentary lapse sent it flailing wildly in all directions, and she had to breathe deeply, once, twice, a third time, to regain her control.

Its memories were so fragmented that at first they made no sense: flashes of color and sound only, nothing coherent. It was like trying to reassemble one of Sukman’s windows, all irregular pieces, none of them seeming to match. Sukman. Intuitively, but counter to logic, she drew the silver spiral in her mind and turned it gold. She would never, never have used this symbol, which should have driven a ghost mad, or madder. Yet in her mind she held it out, willing the ghost to see it as an acknowledgement of its pain and fury. The storm abated just enough for her heart’s eye to catch hold of a memory more solid than the others, a memory of satin sheets—but nothing more. Carefully, she used the spiral to seek out memories that connected to the first: guilt, fear, anger, pain. The woman had died in agony, some illness her people couldn’t afford to ease, or an illness with no possible relief. She had been mistress to many different men over the years, a woman kept in luxury, discarded when sickness began to show itself on her body. Her name was Zenia.

Zerafine could not bind all Zenia’s shattered pieces together, but what she could do was

enough. She gave her Kalindi’s peace, Kandra’s blessing, and the triple arch that would take her to Atenas’s court. She imagined the woman’s relief; the consolation had been as much a promise of merciful judgment as the offer of a path home, and it was Zenia’s irrational fear of what awaited her at Atenas’s hands as much as the pain of her death that had created a ghost.

Chunks of
seicorum
struck the cobblestones in a sharp, rattling rain. She let out a sigh and calmed herself, wiped her eyes; her hands were trembling. Then she pushed back her hood,

wondering why Gerrard didn’t move, and found him lying at her feet, blood running down the side of his face, unconscious. Nacalia darted in and wrapped herself around his waist, sobbing.

“Somebody find me a healer!” Zerafine shouted, dropping to her knees and checking his

pulse, her own pulse hammering in her ears. Yes, unconscious but alive, thank Atenas. The stone had caught him just behind the ear. She saw that the ghost’s victim was in even worse shape; the screaming woman had flung herself over him and was keening a different note now. Zerafine left Gerrard and pushed the woman aside, checking the man’s head and body, feeling his wrist. Alive

—injured, a few bones probably broken, but alive. No new ghosts would be created this day—at least, not if the healer came quickly.

“Quickly!” she shouted at Nacalia, because it looked as though every onlooker in that crowd had been turned to stone. Nacalia started, then leaped to her feet and ran off. Zerafine cradled Gerrard’s head in her lap and willed him to wake up. He looked white under the sunburn and she could barely see his chest rise and fall with his breathing.
He’ll be fine,
she told herself,
this is
nothing
, but her hand ached and when she looked at it, she realized she was gripping the front of his tunic so tightly the blood had stopped flowing to her fingers.

It felt like forever before Nacalia pushed her way back through the crowd, leading a man

and a woman in green and blue tunics. Two healers. What a stroke of luck. They conferred

quickly, and then the man, who bore Kalindi’s sun on the back and front of his tunic, laid his hands on the ghost’s victim’s head and threw his head back in prayer. Zerafine had never wished so hard for the sun to come out just then, blessing his work, but he seemed capable of managing on his own.

The woman, whose robe was unmarked, felt Gerrard’s pulse, turned his head to see where

the
seicorum
stone had struck him, lifted his eyelids to look at his pupils. Just then he groaned and twitched away from her hand. Zerafine felt an enormous weight lift from her chest. “Did you get it?” he asked hoarsely.

“I did, no thanks—no thanks to your big dumb ox body getting in my way,” she said, feeling a tear slide down her cheek, quickly wiping it away before it could fall on his face.