"Greg?" he says, looking up at the young man who kneels before the altar. From fifty yards away, his voice comes faintly. "Greg, what's going on? What are you doing? Why am I tied up?" He's still more puzzled than he is frightened.
That'll change.
He speaks in English. I'm sure that's significant, but right now I can't remember why.
Five tall oil torches blaze around the scaffolding, set on iron poles in a ring about midway between the crater's rim and the pit of glowing coals. Between the poles is strung a network of thick wire cable, bare strands gleaming in the torchlight. The wire crosses from one pole to another, suspended above the barren, blackened earth, and then around the circumference of all five. From where I sit in my sedan chair, at the crater's rim, the wire and the five torch holders that suspend it clearly form a specific design, scaffold at its center.
A pentagram.
Alone on the top platform, naked to the indifferent moon, lies the corpse of Berne. The wig that had covered his naked skull is gone; his chest and groin have been shaved. Intricate swirling designs spider across his bare dead flesh, painted stripes that shimmer like metal in the moonlight.
The guy on the lower platform cuts the throat of a squalling cat, turning its screech into a hacking parody of coughing out a furball—and tosses it, still alive, into the coals below. A couple of the friars who carried my chair here have to turn away; animal lovers, I guess.
All four of the secmen around me—the Artan Guard, I mean—face the crater, watching. Their faces are invisible behind their smoked face shields with the silver antimagick inlays—this reminds me with sharp discomfort of the Social Police. I can't say exactly why this bothers me so much.
Something about the Social Police—that's part of what I can't seem to remember.
At my shoulder, Raithe stares down avidly into the crater, licking a thin sheen of sweat off his upper lip. Garrette, on my opposite flank, just looks impatient. He's carrying Berne's sword, Kosall, strapped across his back—probably so much magick bound up in the blade that it would fuck up the ritual if it were down in the crater. The scabbard harness looks ridiculous over his Artan Viceroy getup, and he keeps running his fingers along beneath its straps like it's chafing him pretty badly.
Christ, I hope so.
Down in the crater: "Greg, don't—what are you doing?" the tied-up kid asks. His eyes are so wide I can see the whites of them from here.
Many, many years ago, when I was first starting out in the business, I took a job doing collections for the Working Dead in Ankhana; the job turned a little ugly, and I got the chance to see a couple of my recently deceased accounts settle their debts by having their corpses put out to work. This does not look like any Animate spell I've ever seen, and I say so.
Garrette nods, and he consults his little stack of cards. "This is not, strictly speaking, a spell," he says, in an odd tone that struggles uncomfortably to be clinical. He looks into my eyes briefly, then coughs into his hand and adjusts his cravat like a nervous victim of an ambush interview on the nets.
"The, ah, er, metals content of the rock in this crater acts rather like a Flow reflector," he reads. "An, er, Outside Power is attracted by a combination of the chanting, the magickal resonances of the Flow field within the cable pentagram, and, of course, the, ah, er, emanations of pain and terror that young Prohovtsi elicits from his sacrificial subjects. When it—the Outside Power—comes close to feed, the crater acts to concentrate it, and to direct its concentrated energies at the focal point; that is, er, the young fellow doing the ritual. So Prohovtsi effects the transfer of consciousness—a, mmm, kiss of life, you might say, to the corpse of, ah, Saint Berne on the upper platform."
"A demon ..." I say slowly, weighing the word in my mouth, feeling its shape. "You're going to feed my wife to a demon. I'm not sure how I feel about this."
"Hush," Raithe murmurs. "You're interrupting his exposition." He uses the English term with a small thin smile, as though he's faintly pleased with himself for knowing it.
"Hmp," Garrette grunts, reading ahead. "Interesting."
Down in the crater, Greg Prohovtsi stabs the goat below the ribs, rakes his blade down to part hide and flesh all the way to its pelvic girdle, and tosses it into the coals. Its guts trail behind, looping across the platform, leaving a broad swath of bloody slime. It worries me a little that I know his name—where do I know him from? And the other guy, the kid tied up beside him on the platform, his voice sounds familiar
Garrette looks up from his cards. "You might find this interesting, Michaelson. It says here that Outside Powers—demons, as you call them—aren't actually strictly sentient. Like Chambaraya itself, they are really rather inchoate; merely, mm, `energy fields of roughly confluent tropisms, that acquire sentience and will only through interaction with a living nervous system: Mmm, quite a phrase, that. Berne's corpse will thus be roughly analogous to Pallas Ril herself: an avatar of a greater power---a `focal node of consciousness,' as it says here. The, er, demon, though, is power of an entirely different order, to which Pallas—Chambaraya, both of them—will be entirely blind."
"Yeah," I tell him heavily. "Interesting. Y'know what? You talk just like fucking Tan'elKoth."
"Do I?" Garrette says with a little smile. He squares the notecards against his palm. "Well, well."
Down on the platform, Prohovtsi chants louder as he drags the other guy toward the edge of the platform. "Greg, please ..." the tied-up kid begs. He's sobbing now, crying his guts out. "Please, Greg, Jesus Christ, you can't do this! Greg, for God's sake, we went through school together, through the Conservatory, Jesus Christ, you never would have passed Westerling—"
"Students," I mutter. "They're both magick students."
Yeah, that's it: that's Nick Dvorak, out of Tan'elKoth's Applied Ma gick seminar. The other guy, Greg Prohovtsi, was in the same class--the one I interrupted, just the other day, when I first found out about all this .. .
Is that significant? Why can't I pull shit together in my head? Why do I have this feeling that I'm still forgetting something?
Prohovtsi doesn't seem to hear Dvorak's plea; his eyes are rolled backward, up into his head, and he keeps on chanting as he drags Dvorak right to the edge. I wince—this is a little cold-blooded, even for me. "Human sacrifice?" I ask.
Raithe nods clinically. "Student thaumaturges are ideal for these operations: their Shells are well developed, powerful enough to attract a greater Outside Power, but they don't yet have the necessary skills to defend themselves."
"Besides," Garrette adds, "it's great theater."
Prohovtsi doesn't stick the kid; he just steps over him and shoves him off the platform with his foot. Dvorak tumbles screaming into the pit of coals. It's only about a ten-foot drop, not even enough to really stun him; it knocks the breath out of his lungs for a few seconds, but pretty soon he gets enough air to start screaming again. He rolls around in the coals, flopping and bucking and trying to throw himself out of the pit, but he doesn't really have a chance, not with wrists and ankles tied together. He's already so badly burned he'd die anyway, even if he could get out.
His skeletal muscles shut down pretty soon, leaving him helplessly twitching. His flesh goes loose and brown as he roasts, the subcutaneous fat boiling out through cracks in his skin, through. the wire cuts on his wrists and ankles; the liquids in his abdominal cavity boil to a high enough pressure that his belly finally bursts.
Now Prohovtsi stiffens. Cords stand out in his neck, drawing down the corners of his mouth. Moving slowly, stiffly, kind of jerkily, like a marionette operated by a clumsy child, he begins to climb up to the upper platform to join Berne's naked corpse.
I can't quite shake this frown—it's giving my forehead a cramp. Something's been bugging me ever since I woke up on the train, and finally I decide to just go ahead and ask. "Y'know," I say, casual, noncommittal, "this all feels a little weird to me. Ever have one of those dreams where you're doing things and you just can't remember why? I to
ok a knock or two on the head—I don't know, I could have a little concussion or something—and I can't make things make sense. You think you can help me out?"
"Of course," Raithe says. "That's why I'm here. To put your mind at ease."
"All right, good. Now, just let me go through this. So: Pallas did the HRVP thing herself, right?"
"Yes."
"To embarrass the, ah, the Artans. Make them look bad, so they'll have to stop digging up the mountains and shit like that, right?"
He nods. "Exactly."
"Where do you come into this?"
"Me?"
"Yeah. The Monasteries. How does a Monastic Ambassador end up as an Overworld Company—" I avoid saying flunky; I don't want to hurt his feelings. "—insider?"
He exchanges a brief glance with Garrette, who is frowning and coming a little closer. "Your company approached us directly, asking for our help," Raithe says smoothly. "You're aware of Monastic expertise in dealing with fractious gods—as you yourself must know, Jhantho the Founder fought in his brother Jereth Godslaughterer's Revolt. The Monasteries were originally founded upon a principle of opposing the willful interference of deities in human affairs, since it is so often to the detriment of the race as a whole."
He spreads his hands, and does his best to look wise and benign—not easy for a twenty-five-year-old with the face of a fanatic mujahedeen warrior, all leather skin and pale sun-bleached eyes. "We of the Monasteries are educated men, Caine. We are not swayed by the superstition of the masses. In the past, we might have resisted the Company, since it is so closely linked with the Aktiri—but not because we ever actually believed Aktiri to be demons. Demons—" He nods down into the bowl. Prohovtsi now lies on the upper platform, his naked limbs entangled with those of Berne's corpse; he kisses its cold dead lips. "—are something quite different, indeed. And now, the Monasteries and the Company share a common goal, a common interest: to save humanity—and the world—from the depredation of an insane goddess."
"Yeah, okay, I get it," I say. "I guess I'm just having trouble remembering how you talked me into helping you."
Garrette turns wide eyes upon Raithe. "You swore there was no way—"
My best friend stops him with a gesture like a bladehand chop to the throat, and smiles down on me. "I'm not sure what you mean, Caine," he says neutrally.
I shrug. "It's kind of embarrassing, really. Can you run down the logic for me, one more time? Why did I decide to help you kill my wife?"
"Logic?" Garrette bleats incredulously. "What logic? What choice do you have?"
"Well, y'know," I say, spreading my hands, a little sheepish at being so obvious, "there's always a choice--"
"This is ridiculous! Raithe, make him—"
That chopping bladehand becomes a warning finger pointed at Garrette's eye; Raithe isn't smiling anymore. He stares at me with chilly interest, as though I'm some kind of unusual and possibly dangerous bug. "It's the only way to save the world," he says.
"Save the world from what?"
"From Pallas Ril. From HRVP."
"See, I can't quite figure out what sense that makes."
Raithe's eyes seem to retreat into his face, and his voice becomes blankly cautious. "You can't?"
"Well, it seems to me, if she's threatening the whole world to stop the OC from mining," I say reasonably, "all you have to do is stop mining and she'll stop threatening. Doesn't that make more sense?"
"Stop mining?" Garrette is so astonished he can barely even sputter. "Do you have any idea how much that would cost?"
"Shut up, you idiot!" Raithe snaps, but it's too late.
"You're telling me that I decided your profits are more important than Shanna's life? Don't you think that's a little, mmm—" I say mildly, "—unlikely?"
For a long second or two, the only sounds are the distant lover's moans from the platform in the crater, and the tiny snaps and zips from the Artan Guard—the look on Garrette's face has them checking their weapons. "Uh—" His panicked eyes appeal to Raithe.
"No, no, no, that's not it at all," my best friend says smoothly. "She's mad, Caine. Stopping these operations wouldn't have any effect; she's gone completely insane, remember?"
"Yeah. Doesn't seem like a very good reason to kill her."
For a moment, Raithe appears entirely at a loss; he looks at Garrette, Garrette looks at him, and neither of them says anything.
I put out a hand and touch Raithe's arm. "Relax, kid. I'm not saying you did anything wrong. This just might be a little ... hasty, don't you think? Maybe I should try talking to her, first."
"No—no, it's too dangerous, Caine," Raithe says firmly. "She's too dangerous. She must be destroyed—now, while we still can. It's the only way to be sure."
"To be sure of what?"
"To be sure," he says with thinly concealed impatience, as though he's tired of explaining the obvious but doesn't want to insult me, "that she never again threatens the Future of Humanity."
The way he pronounces the capitals deepens my frown. "Okay, I get it. You're saying that I agreed to help you kill her, because it was the only way to save the human race. Is that it?"
"Well . . . yes," he says thinly, sounding a little uncertain, but he must like the way it came out, because he says it again; this time, as though he means it. "Yes. The Future of Humanity depends on you, Caine."
And for a second or two I can feel it: I can feel all those lives piled onto my back. I can feel the weight of the future cracking my spine like the lower rim of a glacier, crumbling under the billion tons above.
But
I sigh, and shake my head, and my shoulders straighten, and then they twitch in a tiny involuntary shrug. "The Future of Humanity," I say to Raithe apologetically, "is gonna have to fuck off."
Together, in perfectly blank unison, Raithe and Garrette say, "What?"
"It's too abstract," I say uncomfortably. My hands turn over, supplicating comprehension, if not sympathy. "It's ... impersonal, y'know? The `generations yet unborn' shit doesn't swing any weight with me. I'm supposed to murder my wife for the sake of people I probably wouldn't even like?"
"But but—"
I wiggle a thumb at the Viceroy. "What if I save these people, and most of them turn out to be just like Garrette?" I say, and shudder. "Eeugh. Better we all die."
"You can't do this," Raithe says.
"That's exactly what I'm saying: I can't do this. I won't."
"No—no, I mean you can't—"
"Sure I can. Why can't I?"
"Because—because ..." He struggles with the words, as though he's trying to find a way around something that he knows he shouldn't say. "Because you promised," he says finally. "You swore it to me, Caine."
"Sorry," I say simply, and mean it. "I hate to disappoint you, kid, but you're gonna have to find a way to do it without me."
Garrette snorts. "So much for your damned magick powers," he says to Raithe.
"This is impossible," Raithe says, his brow furrowed. He leans over me, staring fixedly, as though he can compel me with his bleached eyes. "I'm asking you, Caine. Me, Raithe. Do this for me."
"Hey, kid, friend or not, you don't really want to push me on this." Raithe's mouth works speechlessly, then he simply shakes his head. "Amazing," he says, sighing a surrender that seems to be inexplicably mixed with some sort of reluctant admiration. And now, as I look at him, I feel like I'm awakening from a dream—my burns are starting to howl, and some vague recollections of a conversation back in a hotel in Palatine begin to organize themselves behind my eyes.
My heart smokes, but I smile.
No reason to give them any more warning than I have already.
6
"This is useless, Raithe," Garrette says. "Now we do it my way." "Your way?" I ask him.
"Your cooperation," Garrette says thinly, "would be appreciated, but it is not precisely necessary. We'll simply tie you up and throw you into the stream. I'm sure your wife will arrive in time to save your life."
r /> Raithe looks grim. "Perhaps not directly in the stream, but on its bank. Should he drown before she arrives, she may not come at all. His value as bait is tied to his life; dead, he's useless.".
"On the bank, then." Garrette adjusts the straps of Kosall's harness yet again and looks down into the crater impatiently. "What's taking them so damned long? This harness is killing me."
Dead, I'm useless?
The decision doesn't even take a full second. I don't mind dying. I've had a long time to get used to the idea. Coming up with a plan takes even less time.
It's not that hard to make someone kill you.
I turn a gentle smile up toward Garrette. "Did you ever follow my Acting career, Vinse?" I ask in a friendly sort of way.
"I ... am familiar with your work," Garrette says stiffly, looking a bit puzzled. "Never a fan; I don't care for violence."
"Maybe you can answer a trivia question anyway. What do you say? A little Caine trivia, to pass the time while you're waiting for your demon."
"I hardly—"
"What," I ask, finger lifted pedantically, "is the average lifespan of assholes who threaten Pallas Ril?"
"Are you threatening me?" Garrette says, taking a step closer to my right side. "You? The cripple? Are you mad? You can't even stand up!"
"Okay, I admit it: trick question," I tell him as I lean toward him, twisting to take his wrist with my left hand. Before he quite realizes how much trouble he's in, I yank his wrist to straighten his elbow into an arm bar and pull him across me, levering his face down toward my lap, then I snake my left around his throat and grab hold of the strap of Kosall's harness; the blade of my left wrist makes a judo choke across his larynx, levering against the pressure of my right elbow on the back of his shoulder. "Tell you one thing, though. You're gonna lower the curve."
The Artan Guards all yell things about stopping and letting him go and shit like that, and I hear a bunch of ratcheting clicks as they prime their assault rifles and point them at me. For one second I tense, expecting the world to vanish in a blaze of muzzle flashes and hammering slugs.