“And this man?” She twitched a shoulder at Tucker. “What is he to stand at Skinwalker’s side?”
“He’s nothing. If you see him again, kill him.”
“Hey now,” Tucker said. “That’s not friendly.”
“If you got orders to put a bullet in the back of my head, you wouldn’t even hesitate.”
“But I’d feel bad after. Doesn’t that count for something?”
“No.”
He turned back to Kaiggez. “The whole city is gonna know what happened here by sundown, and it’s likely to cause a bit of a stir. Keep the clan calm but ready to move. All of you. I know a lot, but I don’t know what’s gonna happen at the Justice. We might need to fight. We might need to run. We might need to hold shit together and wait. That’s gonna be your call.”
“Mine.” She looked thoughtful, though still wary. “I can do this.”
“You’ve been fighting to give our clan power. To give us freedom, and a future here in Our Place. Now it’s less complicated. Your job now is only to protect us. Do you understand me?”
She didn’t answer.
“This is my word. This is your law. Do you understand? Say it.”
Softly. “I understand.”
“You and your bitches—your priesthood, whatever the fuck you call yourselves—your duty now is to care for the Black Knife Nation as a bitch cares for her cubs. The rest isn’t your problem anymore.”
“Bitches fight.”
“I know,” he said. “But Black Knife bitches fight only to defend the cubs. To defend the family. This is law. From now till forever.”
“Then who destroys our enemies? Who bitches the world to keep it down scared? Who?”
He gave her half a self-deprecating smile. “When Orbek adopted me, he said I had put dishonor on the Black Knives. He said now that I am Black Knife, I share dishonor. And I do. He also said that what honor I win, Black Knives share. And you will.”
“You say …” A fierce yellow light kindled in her eyes. “You say Skinwalker fights for us now.”
“You have seen me make war against Black Knives. Now see me make war as Black Knife.”
She whispered with something resembling reverence, “Nazutakkaarik terkallaz keptarroll ymik kaz tash …”
She ducked her head, then whirled, scrambled up the rings, and sprinted out into the tunnel toward BlackStone. He watched her go, reflecting that he really would have to learn Etk Dag someday, then turned to Tucker. “So?”
“Sounded like a proverb.” Tucker looked singularly thoughtful. “She said ‘The Skinwalker becomes his kill.’ ”
“Huh.” He couldn’t decide whether the coincidence was significant or not. “Funny how shit comes together.”
“Funny?”
“You speak Lipkan. Ever read their poetry? There’s a traditional metaphoric reference, especially in epodes—they refer to Tyshalle with imagery about night, unlit caverns, inside the tomb, y’know, all that shit. In older works—especially in the early epics where Tyshalle is used as a character—He’s often tagged with an epithet that translates roughly as ‘the permanent dark.’ Sometimes just with a capital-D Dark, right?”
“Holy shit.”
“Yeah. The Blade of Tyshalle,” he said heavily, “is basically a poetic usage for the black knife.”
“That’s what you call funny?” Tucker looked appalled. “You have a peculiar sense of humor.”
“I get that a lot.” He went over to the lowest ring and sat. “Time for you to go.”
“How many times do we have to have this conversation?”
“Not that kind of go.”
Tucker went still. “Hey, y’know,” he said slowly, “if this is about the Hand—”
“This is about you,” he said. “I’d let you walk out of here if I could make myself believe you’d actually do it.”
Tucker sighed. “Well, if you’re gonna be that way about it—”
“You’ve done me a lot of good,” he said. He leaned back on his elbows, then scooted farther back so he could draw up his knees. “You helped me get with the horse-witch, and you helped me get with myself. You helped me get down here today. I know you didn’t do any of it for me, but I owe you anyway. That’s why I don’t kill you where you stand.”
“Well, I’m plain damn sad you feel like that, Jonnie. You think maybe we could come to some flavor of accommodation?” He scratched absently at his arm, and a lance of scarlet power blasted through the air—
And exactly at the perimeter of the bull’s-eye, it evaporated as if it had never been.
“Don’t insult me.”
“I had sort of thought to arrange a surprise,” Tucker said.
“Nifty Firebolt. How’d you grave the enchantment? A tattoo?”
“If you really want to know,” Tucker said, “maybe you’d like to step on in here and have a look for yourself.”
“I should kill you. I know I should. If our positions were reversed—”
“Never happen.” He sat down on the crystal. He sounded tired. “I’m a professional. You’re not. You never were.”
“That’s true enough, I guess.”
“A pro would have finished me at the bluffs.”
He shrugged. “The thing is, I admire you.”
“Skip the blow job.”
“Not just your skill. Your commitment. Devotion to your craft. And I like you.”
“Not enough to let me walk out of here.”
“Because getting people to like you is part of your job. And you’re just as good at it as you are at everything else.”
“We done yet?”
“How about you answer one question? Just one, for no reason but to satisfy my curiosity, since you’ll never see this world again.”
“Hate to leave you unsatisfied.” Tucker shrugged. “How about we trade? Since I’ll never see this world again.”
“Sure.”
“What do you figure to do with the Hand? Take it for yourself?”
“Oh, hell no.”
“It’s a lot of power.”
“Not any kind I want.”
“Then what? Must be extreme. Since you’re about to smoke a guy you like just in case he might get in your way.”
“Extreme enough,” he said. “I’m gonna give it back to Khryl.”
Tucker stared.
And stared.
And stared some more.
And finally said, “You’re right to kill me.”
“I’m not gonna kill you.”
“Does t’Passe know about this?”
“Of course not. Jesus Christ. She’d have blown my head off before I finished the sentence.”
“She’s not as sentimental as you.”
“You might say.”
Tucker sighed. “All right. Ask.”
“Your name.”
“Come again?”
“Your name. That’s all. Your real name. For when I tell people this story.”
He seemed to think this over for some few seconds, then he sighed a nod and shrugged. “All right,” he said reluctantly. “No harm, I guess. You can call me Heywood, Lord Jablohmie, Marquess of—”
The rest vanished into the blinding yellow flare of power. When the power was gone, so was Tucker.
The chamber was quiet then, so quiet that he could hear the synchronized breathing of the thousands of immobile fetch-blanks that still crowded the topmost level of floor. He looked up. Well … not quite immobile …
Their eyes were open.
All of them.
And all of those eyes were fixed on him.
“Yeah, all right. I can take a fucking hint.”
He pushed himself to the edge of the ring and stood up. Out in the center of the crystal there was no trace Tucker had ever been there. No trace any of them had been there.
Except for the shadow in the crystal below. A bug in amber.
He took a knee in the center of the bull’s-eye, and laid his palm flat upon it. “Hey,” he said s
oftly. “You ready?”
A reply came—not in voice, nor even language—but in silent understanding.
Since before either of us was born.
“This is not what I wanted for you. Not even close. I wanted to hurt you. I wanted to hurt you so badly you’d remember me every hour of every day for the rest of your life. But not like this.”
You swore that when I woke up in Hell, you would already be killing me again.
“I wasn’t talking about this Hell. Or how you woke up. Or even this kind of killing.”
Does your meaning exist? Your words still do. I can hear them now. Forever.
“Not forever. I’m taking care of forever right here.”
Forever, my beloved, does not mean what you think it means.
“Yeah, okay, I should have known better than to talk to you anyway.”
He reached out with his mind and found Reality, and he put his will upon it. “Skaikkak Neruch’khaitan, come forth! Or, y’know, rise and walk. Whatever.”
In the depths of the crystal, the shadow moved.
It grew, gathering solidity as it did, coalescing in the soft yellow glow, and the clearer it became, the less human it appeared. The crystal’s surface parted and from it like a goddess from the sea foam rose an ancient and withered ogrillo bitch, wholly hairless, only crumpled stumps where her legs should be, a knot of scar where her right eye and cheekbone had been, and her remaining eye burned with ferocious madness that was yellow as the crystal below.
“Hey there, you shit-crazy old bat. Been awhile.”
It has been forever, little rabbit. But in forever, I see you always.
Where her right hand had once been—where her hand had been blasted to smoldering shreds by her once-borrowed power—was instead a mailed fist, its steel chromed like curves of mirror, flawless and pristine. It was this she extended toward him as though offering to shake his hand.
Care for our people, little rabbit.
“You know I will.”
He clasped the mailed fist with his hand of flesh. “Good night, Crowmane. Sleep well.”
I will dream of you, my beloved.
“And in that dream I’ll be skull-fucking your eye socket with a barbwire cock.”
I’ll miss you too.
“You’re still a festering slab of rat cunt,” he said. “Ch’syavallanaig Khryllan’tai.”
When the flame of Khryl’s Authority from his hand met the Flesh of His Fist, white fire incinerated the universe.
When he became aware once more of his surroundings, the Hand of Khryl was gone, and the only light in the chamber came from the flames licking up from Crowmane’s corpse. He lay on the smooth cold crystal and tried to figure out how to get to his feet, because he couldn’t exactly remember how to move his arms and legs. His hand hurt. So did his arm, his shoulder, chest, ear, face—even after taking some time to think about it and really search, he couldn’t find a single part of his body that was not shivering with pain.
“Oh, sure,” he muttered. “Forgot to mention this part, huh?”
His leathers weren’t in much better shape than he was. He reached once more with his mind to touch Reality, to repair his body and restore his clothing … but he found no Reality he could touch. He couldn’t even register the fetch-blanks, who lay lifeless in jumbles like a mass grave.
He sighed. Sure, this was how it was supposed to work … but somehow that didn’t make any of him hurt any less.
He managed to push himself up to hands and knees. Then he had to stop and catch his breath. His nose was bleeding. His blood dropped to the crystal and in the firelight it was black.
Black?
Blood doesn’t look black in firelight. He touched his face, and his hand came away blackened with oil that dripped from within his nose. He stared at his reflection in its iridescent obsidian, and like the ball of Reality in which he’d sought a glimpse of his future, what he saw was power.
But in the oil, he saw his future too.
He nodded to himself. “Showtime.”
“Nel mezzo del cammin di nostra vita
mi ritrovai per una selva oscura,
ché la diritta via era smarrita.”
— DANTE ALIGHIERI
Inferno
She is not seen, nor is She heard or felt, smelled or tasted, but She is here, for Here is She Everlasting.
“And amen,” Duncan murmurs, acutely grateful to be pinned to the ground, as it relieves him of an unconquerable necessity to kneel. And within his head whirls a vertiginous existential dread: that he is only a figment of Her Imagination, a passing fancy that at Her slightest distraction would evaporate into nothing that had ever existed at all.
Kris Hansen, Deliann Mithondionne, Emperor of Ankhana and human king of the elves rests on his knees with lowered head. Even Angvasse Khlaylock, Lord of Battle, has taken a respectful knee. Only the horse-witch has not moved; still she sits at Duncan’s side, now idly braiding wildflowers into a garland.
Caine walks out into the center of the glade and says, “Fucking cut it out.”
The Presence replies, not in words, or even sound at all, but in meaning.
As ever, you demand I be less than I Am.
“If I could demand, I’d demand you take a fucking hike. How’s Faith?”
She worries for you. As do I.
“And I’m just fine. See? Now the hike.”
A shimmer of power gathers in the air beside Duncan. The power becomes light, which shapes itself into a figure resembling his son’s wife. “Shanna.”
Pallas Ril. I am glad to meet you again, Duncan. Let me help you.
“Help me?”
I can ease your pain.
“It doesn’t hurt.”
Not the pain of your flesh, Duncan.
He feels Her Power upon him, warm as a kitchen on winter’s day, safe and comforting as the memory of his mother’s arms.
Caine says, “Remember what I told you.”
“I haven’t forgotten.” He turns a regretful half-smile upon the goddess’s shimmering form. “Thank You for Your concern, Pallas Ril,” he says with deliberate formality. “But without that pain, I wouldn’t know who I am.”
Is that a dreadful fate? I tell you now: forgetting is calm, and quiet, without suffering, without fear, without desire. Only rest.
He finds tears gathering at the corners of his eyes. “You are very kind. But no. I can’t. Not yet.” He opens his hands toward her. “Hari still needs me.”
Hari is dead. That man is not your son.
“He’s somebody’s son. He’s the son of a father who loved him without reservation. The son of a mother whose fondest dream in life was to see her son become a man.” Now his tears spill over. “That’s son enough for me.”
Then in respect for the memory of love we share for Hari, let me at least free you from this prison. The shimmer gains substance as it reaches for the hilt of the black sword.
Angvasse Khlaylock says, “Stay.”
Without transition, Angvasse’s kneeling form has translated from across the glade to between the Sword and the goddess’s Hand. Still on one knee, still without weapon, head still inclined in reverence, she says, “One touches the Sword by invitation only. You are not invited.”
You would oppose Me, little godling? I am as far beyond you as you are beyond these mortals you hope to defend.
“I know full well the depth of Your Might. My duty remains.” She lifts her head to regard the shape of power that was the goddess’s face. “I do not set Myself beyond mortals, Wild Queen, but beside them. My Shield is and always shall be faced against all who would do them harm.”
Mortal harm from mortal hand.
“Not this time.”
You forget to whom you speak.
“There are two ways only to resolve a threat ’gainst any who bide in shadow of My Shield. One of these ways is that you withdraw.” Angvasse stands and faces square the Power. “That is the way without violence.”
Had I th
e power to stop you all while harming none, please believe I would.
“I believe what I am shown. If you would neither do harm nor suffer it, withdraw.”
I can see why Caine admires you so. Good-bye, little godling.
The Hand of the Power stretches forth to touch the armored chest; a silent blinding flash wipes the god who took the form of Angvasse Khlaylock from the glade as though neither had ever existed.
Now I will have the Sword, and this will end with its destruction.
“No.” It was Kris Hansen who had knelt; it is Deliann Mithondionne who rises. “Now I see why Caine doesn’t trust You.”
You, creature? You pathetic created thing—you would seek to defy My Will? You are not a fraction of what Khryl is, and I banished Him with a thought. A flick of my eyelash would destroy you forever.
“Good luck explaining to Ma’elKoth.” He looks over his shoulder at Caine. “You know my answer.”
A blast of thunder darkens the sky and forking branches of lightning converge on Deliann; when vision returns, the earth where he had stood is burned to the rock.
Caine says, “I always did.”
The Power reaches again for the Sword.
Duncan grimaces, finding himself aghast at what he was about to say, but he says it anyway. “No.”
You dare?
“Save the You dare shit for the tourists,” Caine says.
You would set your will against Mine?
“Caine says you can’t take the Sword unless I give it to you.”
Then give it to Me.
“I already said no.” He sets his jaw. “I don’t like the way you ask.”
It was not a request.
“That’s what I don’t like.”
I can make of this pretty glade a hell beyond imagination—
“It is a hell, you silly bitch,” the horse-witch says, still absently weaving her wildflower garland. “Haven’t you been paying attention?”
The Attention of the Power wheels on her.
You. What are you? So insignificant I can barely see you. A gnat buzzing around matters beyond your comprehension. Less.
“I’m the horse-witch.” She sighs, lays the garland in her lap, and folds her hands over it. “Do you know why he hasn’t killed you yet?”