Blood of the Gods Page 4

  A line of men and women poured through the doors, shuffling steps as they gawked at the high-arched ceiling, the dazzling rays of yellow, red, and blue spilling through the windows. She held the door, though it would have stayed on its own, offering welcome and muted blessings as they passed through. Old and young, wrinkled graybeards and crones, mothers with babes in their arms, working men with soot-stained hands, and young men and women with fight still lingering in their eyes. Her uncle called out greetings from the head of the pews, gesturing for all to find a place, to sit tight together and pack every bench.

  Zi appeared halfway through the procession, wrapped around her forearm, keeping himself invisible to all eyes but hers. His scales flushed gold, with flashes of crimson, as bright as she’d seen him since the battle.

  “A beautiful sight,” she whispered for his benefit.

  It is, he thought back to her. A rare thing, for your kind to allow it. Preoccupation with rule blinds you to the rights that uphold any regime, from tribe to city to state.

  She smiled. Zi rarely turned philosopher, but she relished his insights when he did.

  “I wish Donatien were here to see it.”

  Zi made no reply to that, leaving her alone with the thought of her former paramour. A stolen summer, a glimpse into a world that was leaving the colonies, if it wasn’t already gone. She’d been the one to break things off between them, seeing Lord Revellion safely on a ship among his peers, bound for the shores of the Old World. Given the madness that had taken hold in the city, she’d probably saved his life. Certainly she’d saved the nobles who had comprised the Lords’ Council, on the night of Reyne d’Agarre’s coup. She still longed to know what Donatien would have thought, watching two hundred denizens of the Maw pack into her uncle’s church, ready to wield their power as part of a burgeoning republic. And she missed his arms around her, the light in his eyes when he first saw her dressed in a noble’s finery, and again when he saw her in nothing at all.

  She blushed at that thought, checking to be sure the last of the line was inside the chapel before she closed the doors.

  “Welcome, sons and daughters of New Sarresant,” her uncle’s voice intoned. His usual manner, practiced from decades of service to the Gods. “We gather here as citizens of the Maw’s District Council. I cede the dais to Assemblyman Gregoine for the news of the day.”

  Her uncle bowed, backing away from the pulpit. A calculated gesture, she knew from discussion beforehand. The symbol of the priesthood bowing in service to the Republic.

  She cut across the rear wall of the chamber, angling toward the ladder leading into the lofts above the chapel nave. Zi scowled, tightening his coil around her arm, but she paid him no mind. He would make do with whatever angle she chose to watch the proceedings. A new voice boomed above the murmurs of the crowd, reciting some philosophical tenets as she climbed the ladder’s rungs. The spirit of égalité, an affirmation of the principles of freedom and justice, of the power and duty of every man and woman to be vigilant against the sort of corruption and decadence that had ruled the colonies before Reyne d’Agarre put a knife through Louis-Sallet’s back. Difficult to take such pronouncements seriously, when they’d been used to justify guillotinings and worse.

  She hadn’t come to this meeting to listen to men such as Gregoine, the sort that sought power enough to speak and lead, whatever their politics. She rummaged through her old leather pack, withdrawing a sheaf of paper and her charcoals, settling in against the edge of the divide between her loft and the chapel floor below. No, she came for the brightness in the eyes of the women in the crowd, for the old mothers who had lived to see the day they could cast a vote for their sons’ and daughters’ futures, for the men and women who longed to see their families fed for the price of an honest day’s wage.

  “Reconstruction progresses apace in the Gardens,” the Councilman was saying. “But the parks we reseed there will be open to all; I report with pleasure I have secured the right of tearing down the old district wall for the work crews of the Maw. No longer are the poor to be trodden upon, ignored by the well-fed and wealthy.”

  She made the Councilman a speck in the background of her first sketch, angling the perspective to show a young mother seated at the end of an aisle, struggling to keep her son seated on her knee while she watched the speaker give his news. Narrow lines for her hair, tied back in a bonnet, and ribbons for the boy, dangling from the sleeves of his dress. Echoes of the parishioners seated around them, the rapt attention held by most, and a few disgusted looks for the boy’s tantrums. A simple piece, meant to capture the struggles of the young woman’s life, unchanging in spite of the momentous events around her. The nobility fallen, the battle survived, and her son wanted no more than to pluck at the collar of the man seated ahead of them.

  A fresh sheet of paper, and a new subject. A ruffian, standing against the back wall. Black dirt crusted his jaw, and his knuckles; she imagined it might be mixed with blood. The sort of man who made his coin delivering beatings on behalf of men owed money by his victims. Even he seemed mollified by the aura of the meeting, looking toward the dais with a mix of hope and disbelief. She tried to capture it in his pose, quick strokes to suggest the—

  Light flashed in her eyes. A ray of red and blue, shining through the central relief above the altar, and just as it had in the barkeep’s office, the world lurched.

  She was in another place. The same chamber of stone she’d seen before, but this time with no glass surrounding her. She stood at the center of the room, as a figure emerged from the mouth of a hallway. A titan of a man, clad head to toe in steel.

  “Come forward,” she heard herself say. Her voice, though she hadn’t tried to speak. “Do not be afraid. This is a place of warmth, lit by the fire of the Soul of the World.”

  The steel-clad man pushed back his visor, eyeing her with cautious wonder.

  “Is it over?” he asked. Somehow she knew him. Somehow she knew his name. Paendurion.

  “It hasn’t yet begun,” she heard herself reply. “But you have earned succor. Come. Bind yourself to me, my champion of Order.”

  The man stepped forward, and the chamber shimmered. A whisper sounded in her ear, the fading memory of a song.

  Stop. Enough.

  Zi’s voice, and hearing it snapped her vision back to the Sacre-Lin. The world seemed to spin, hard enough to catch herself on the edge of the rail. Her stomach kept turning, and bile stung the back of her throat. A few eyes turned toward her from the crowd, including her uncle, seated atop the dais. She took a breath, holding to the divide until her vision steadied.

  “What of the assassin!” an angry voice called from the back of the hall.

  “Reyne d’Agarre was a patriot,” shouted another man. “If he’s returned and struck at the army’s commanders, it was in service to the causes of revolution, and égalité.”

  The rest was swallowed in a tide of angry shouts.

  “Order,” the Councilman shouted from the dais. “Order!”

  Her breath came shallow, with a lightness in her head. The images had felt real, as though she stood in the chamber of stone, saw and spoke to the man she’d seen there. Zi still clung to her forearm, but he’d gone rigid, trembling as though he was in pain.

  “Zi,” she whispered. “What happened? Are you okay?”

  He stared through her, his gemstone eyes as clear as black slate.

  “Zi!” she hissed.

  “A full inquiry will be made,” Gregoine was shouting above the din. “If it is true, and Reyne d’Agarre has returned, even he must face justice. No man or woman is above the law.”

  “They say he scattered the officers at high command, same as he did with the Gandsmen during the battle,” a voice shouted.

  “Monster!” another cried.

  “Patriot!”

  “Zi, you’re frightening me,” she said. “Move. Do something. Show me you’re all right.”

  He seemed to hear her this time, turning to look at he
r, and suddenly her heart raced, thundering in her ears, accompanied by a red haze at the edge of her vision.

  Red. He’d given her Red. So he was at least well enough to hear, but he still seemed frozen, quivering and unable to speak.

  “We must have consensus,” Gregoine said, pounding a fist against the pulpit. “The representatives we send to the Assembly carry the will of the denizens of the Maw. But I cannot in good conscience stomach any motion other than to condemn a criminal act. The time for revolution and lawlessness is behind us. We must be ruled by justice, not emotion. I move for the Maw to voice our support for the Republic, to censure Reyne d’Agarre for his violence, if he has indeed returned.”

  Axerian, Zi thought to her.

  “What?” she asked. “Where?”

  She leaned forward, looking down into the chapel. The Councilman’s words carried above the roar of the crowd, but only just. As soon as he’d finished, mutters and shouts filled the hall. She scanned the crowd for sign of Axerian’s black leathers, but saw nothing; if he was there, he was hidden in the throng.

  No, Zi thought. Need … Axerian.

  Clearly something was wrong, and she’d understood enough without forcing Zi to exert himself any further. Her last vision had happened with Axerian there; perhaps he’d caused it, or done something to Zi. And if anyone in the world knew what might be ailing her kaas, Axerian would. He knew more of the kaas’ nature than any living soul, as far as she knew.

  “If d’Agarre has returned,” someone in the crowd shouted, “he’s here to sort the corruption at the Revolution’s head! The generals, and all the nobles that’s left.”

  Only then did she take note of the proceedings. An assassin, armed with magic similar enough to d’Agarre’s to be mistaken for the same. But that was impossible; d’Agarre was ascended, waiting at the Gods’ Seat. It had to be another kaas-mage, a devotee of d’Agarre’s secret cabal. Or it could be Axerian himself.

  “It wasn’t d’Agarre,” she heard herself say. A green flash at the edge of her vision swept through the chamber, and suddenly the din quieted, her words echoing through the hall.

  “What was that?” the Councilman said.

  He’d turned to direct his attention to her loft, along with half the eyes in the hall. A knot tightened in her stomach. Zi had used Green to pacify them, and so her words carried through the silence, drawing a hundred more eyes than she’d ever wanted watching her.

  She swallowed and began again. “It wasn’t d’Agarre,” she said again.

  Gregoine gave her a perplexed look from the dais, then turned to her uncle. “Do you mean to say you admit to having some knowledge of a conspiracy? Father Thibeaux?”

  Her uncle rose at once. “Sarine had no part in this.”

  “No,” she said. “I didn’t. But I think I know who did.”

  Murmurs rose again from the crowd.

  Gregoine gestured for silence, and this time he got it. “I trust you will come forward to work with the authorities? It will reflect well on the Maw, as proof we have nothing to hide.”

  She glanced down, looking Zi over as he clung to her forearm, and nodded, finding her throat too dry for more than a simple “I will.”

  It served to pacify the hall again, though her heart thrummed from nerves. She retreated from the edge of her loft, thankful when the crowd’s attention returned to the dais, and grabbed her pack, retrieving her paper and charcoals. If Axerian had struck at high command, there might be witnesses, with some insight into where he’d gone or why he’d done it. Good enough for a start at finding him, for Zi’s sake. And with her pack, and her charcoals, she could give them a fair likeness of the Nameless to begin the search.

  5

  TIGAI

  The Kregiaw Wastes

  Vimar Province, the Jun Empire

  The scent of ice stung his nose, a sign they’d journeyed farther north than men had rights to live. In Yanjin lands the seasons would have turned. His brother would be smoking kanju pipes, watching children swim in the streams, eating candied plums and hunting duck. And his path led him here. A place no road traversed, behind passes buried in snow ten months of each year.

  He was a fool. His own men said so.

  “You’re a bloody fool,” Remarin said, offering a hand to help him jump the crevasse, a deep crack in the shelf of ice layered over the plain.

  He grinned, catching Remarin’s grip to steady himself. “I am,” he replied. “But I am a rich fool. And so will you be, if you can suffer my poor wits another season or two.”

  Remarin grunted, offering a scowl none save a fellow Ujibari could match. The people of the steppes had a certain flair for angry scowls, especially when it came to disapproving the actions of Jun lordlings.

  “Steady on,” he called back to the rest of them, angling his hand as he squinted into the sun. “It’s this way, another hour, no more.”

  Eighteen men, for this raid. A clear blue sky looked down on them as they traversed the ice, with a stiff wind at their backs. Tigai’s head still swam from the exertion of the journey, but his feet were steady enough, given a few hours to rest. Once or twice a man slipped, nearly falling into fissures in the ice, but his raiders knew their shares doubled if every man made it back alive. Whatever had possessed the Imperial bureaucracy to build a prison encampment in the middle of the wastes was well beyond his reasoning. It seemed as much a punishment to the officers forced to guard the place as the prisoners sent for those men to torment.

  Halfway through the hour Remarin gave hand signals to spread out, and their movements changed. Skulking replaced the menacing stride most of his men were used to. They fanned across the ice in a wide arc, spanning a half mile around the southern part of the camp. They could see it now; smoke rose from the fires that would be required to stave off hoarfrost, behind a wooden palisade silhouetted on the horizon. Kregiaw. The camp bore the name of the tundra around it, the only settlement for a hundred leagues in any direction. If he were a cautious man he’d have had Remarin order them to dig into the ice, to approach under cover of nightfall and learn the pattern of their sentries before they struck. For a palace raid he would have done the scouting himself. But one didn’t become rich by cowering from the slightest risks. Speed and surprise could trump caution; he’d proved it enough to know by instinct which tool suited the moment, and his instincts hadn’t killed him yet.

  Remarin grunted, dropping into a shallow crevasse and going to one knee, bringing up his longbore arquebus to brace against the edge of the ice.

  “Are you certain we’re close enough?” Tigai asked. “I don’t want any excuses when you miss the shot.”

  The Ujibari scowled. “You leave the distance to me.”

  “I shall, and the excuses, too. An extra twenty qian if you put one through a guardsman’s eye.”

  “Twenty per shot?”

  Tigai grinned. “Only the first.”

  Remarin nodded, kneeling to peer through the sight on his weapon before he nodded again.

  “Good luck, my friend,” Tigai said.

  “You’re a bloody fool.”

  He unslung his pack from one shoulder, slipping open a button to withdraw the banner he’d had sewn for this sort of occasion, making sure Remarin saw the flourish when he unfolded it in his hands.

  “Can you see your own nose?” he asked. “So it is with all men, and what hides where they never think to look.”

  He sprang up from the crevasse, leaving Remarin frowning as the Ujibari tried to look down at his lip. As it happened, a man could certainly see his own nose with a little effort, but that was the point. Without cause to look closer, they wouldn’t bother to try.

  The banner unfurled in the icy wind, flapping behind him as he hefted it above his head. Red, the red of the Great and Noble Houses, adorned with two diagonally crossed golden stars, to signify to those with knowledge of such things that he was sworn to serve the Great and Noble House of the Fox. This far north, few would recognize the audacity of the claim
, though sensible folk knew better than to involve themselves in magi business. He was counting on that hesitation; with luck, they’d be back at the Yanjin estates before the guardsmen could wonder as to the value of what he’d taken.

  The rest of his raiders had vanished, skulking forward through the crevasses, staying low and moving slowly when terrain forced them into view. A good illusion; if he hadn’t known they were there, he’d have seen no more than snow and rocks. Remarin had more than earned his commission as their teacher. In less than a season he had this lot moving like crag panthers, not that he’d admit it where the Ujibari could hear. Flattering him would only sour an already sour mood, and cost a hundred more qian when it came time for his brother to renegotiate his wage.

  “Succor,” Tigai called across the ice when he was in plain view of the camp. “Succor, for a traveler on a long road.”

  Movement atop the walls, but only from one shape, while four more stood menacing—and frozen—in their places. Either the guards were disciplined beyond the training of ordinary soldiers, or they were empty suits of armor strung up to deter whoever the commandant supposed might attack a prison camp in the middle of an ice field. Or perhaps they actually had frozen to death. Always a possibility, in the North.

  A second figure joined the first, and Tigai raised his banner, letting it catch the wind.

  “Who approaches?” the second figure called down from the wall. A woman’s voice.

  “Courier,” he shouted back. “Bound for Gantar Baat.”