“As may b-be.” The priest turned to his fellows. “She is exempt from our practices.”
“We will not challenge,” muttered one of them.
“And I will not challenge you,” I replied. “But where shall I approach the god? I have been down in his basements before, and do not long for another visit.”
“Best you stand before our altar at the back of this hall.”
“I will not be taken up,” I warned him.
The Pater Primus’ voice was pained. “No one here would be foolish enough to try to make a sacrifice of you, Mistress.”
Not now, at any rate.
I took that as all the permission I needed, and pushed past them toward the god’s fane.
Much of my prior experience here had been confused or worse. I’d passed through this temple twice, for different reasons, but never by simply walking in the front door and looking around. Once through the basements and once by dropping in from the roof. As I walked among the narrow pillars toward the recessed sanctuary at the back of the great hall, I wondered what kind of god abided without worshippers. There were no benches or pews, no prayer rugs, no stalls.
Just empty, silent space draped in deepest shadow.
Except, of course, Blackblood was a pain god. He had worshippers everywhere, in every moment. He didn’t need them to gather together and sing praises.
At the rear of the great hall three doorways granted access to the altar in the next room. I had no notion of the ritual use of each, and the priests were so frightened of me that there seemed little point in asking them. I strode through the central door and stood before the altar.
In a room of grave dust and death shadows, a slab of black marble drank up what little light there was. A table, really, made of a stony darkness. Here the suffering was taken up from the most desperate of Blackblood’s appellants. Behind the table rose a carved wooden screen that appeared to be ebony, as best I could judge. Above them both loomed an empty throne with shackles at the arms and pediment, as if to bind the god close. Restraint in devotion?
For the first time, it occurred to me to wonder what price the pain god paid for his role in the lives of his followers. Did taking the pain up cost him pain of his own? Was that sort of balance required of all gods? The Lily Goddess had been worshipped through prayer, song, observance—all the trappings of a service—but mostly through the dedication of the lives of hundreds of women. Blackblood was worshipped through the dedication of the suffering of boys and men.
Women were not so welcome in this temple. Not even me.
“I am here.” My voice fell flat, curiously without echo. The darkness seemed ready to grow teeth and devour me. I stood firm. “You asked and I came. Do not expect such consideration routinely.”
Something large and invisible moved nearby. Skinless, I devoutly hoped. The avatar in its dim way had proven to count me as a friend. Were it some other servant of the god, I would have to give in to the gibbering fear that did not threaten me at all. Not one bit.
“There are no women like you.” The voice was smooth and rich as heartsblood.
The god was upon his seat, had always been there, I realized, only my poor eyes had failed to see him before this moment. Where the manifestation I’d last witnessed had been a pudgy child on the point of petulance, now Blackblood appeared as a languid youth. Dissolute, louche, dangerous in his detached passions. Even so, power shone through. The chains that bound him to the chair did not seem fit to hold him back.
Still, I faced him. It was not courage I summoned, but foolishness, and the worn edge of familiarity. My words were brave, nonetheless—always that has been my strength and downfall. “Whereas gods such as you might be found in every city of the world.”
“You have no concept.” The hopeless despair of centuries threatened in his tone.
I peered closely at his face. Blackblood’s expression seemed a study in indifference. At the least, I had expected the god to be angry with me, given my dealings with his late priesthood.
“There are many things I have no concept of,” I told him. I was much better at arguing than at obeisance. “You surprise me.” Nohow would I call him lord. “I might have thought to meet more anger from you.”
“If I were capable of gratitude, I might have shown you that.” His face remained eerily slack.
I spoke with a puppet, I realized. The body before me was not Blackblood, any more than the statue of the ox was Endurance. I knew what it was to be close to a god. Standing before divine regard was like standing before a racing tide. It was possible—with luck, strength, and some good bracing. But the struggle was never simple, and always bordered on the fatally overwhelming.
“What keeps your attention from me?” I asked, going on the attack.
This time Blackblood’s focus did sweep to me, and I regretted the question. Those eyes opened wide, to become dark, swirling pools. That languid face transformed into a cruel, predatory leer. Weeping sores and suppurating wounds chased themselves across his body like roaches in a filthy kitchen.
When he spoke again, his voice was the hollow, rust-showered tolling of neglected iron bells. “You bear my child.”
Calling on both the Lily Goddess and Endurance, I braced myself from dropping to my knees. His aspect was unfolding to push me down. Still, I continued to pretend to bravery. “So you have claimed.”
“You will bear me a son, and he will be presented unto me.”
“No!” I shouted, unthinking. “My daughter will not be stolen away.”
His next words echoed like a dropped iron kettle. “You will have no choice.” The laughter that followed threatened to flense me.
I faced him with murder in my eye. No one threatened to steal my baby. No one, in no way, ever. I might not be able to stop the child selling in Kalimpura, but by all the gods I could keep it from starting here in Copper Downs. Looking back, I realize now how blind I was to what was so clearly to come. Only my youth and my anger can excuse the foolishness that came next.
“I will not pimp my own daughter for you,” I screamed into the continuing storm of his laughter. Then I was alone in the little room.
That utter bastard of a god. He had all but threatened me. Skinless might be a friend of sorts, if I were lucky, but his master had just set a course that promised ill will between us. I wished Blackblood every plague the divine could endure, then stalked back through the temple. The new Pater Primus stood near the scrying pool, but retreated after one glance in my direction.
It was nice to have someone’s respect.
Blinking back tears of rage, I returned to the street. I was sick of sunlight and people and crowds and simply being looked at. I heartily desired to head to the quiet of Below. That was a place of dubious safety, but the threats there were ancient and indifferent to me personally. Even Below, I could not hope to evade Skinless, but at least the human servants of Blackblood would be hard-pressed to follow me there.
I sought out an entry point. The Prince of the City’s embassy could not reach me there. Neither could the Interim Council. All I had to worry about were the ghosts and avatars that always haunted the lower reaches of this city.
* * *
Once I was safely out of the cold sunlight amid the dank stone and moldering air of Below, I found my mind settling. Blackblood could not take my child. Though I was certain she was a daughter, that did not matter. Boy or girl, the baby was mine. I had been afraid of returning to Kalimpura for the sake of not losing her, but now Copper Downs might prove as unsafe.
One stolen childhood in a lifetime was enough for me.
This mixture of sewers and tunnels and mines older than the city slumped in the open air above were as familiar to me as my own hands. At least, my usual paths were. I seriously doubted anyone had a true idea of the extents of Below. Copper Downs was thoroughly undermined as any anthill, saved from collapse into a great, deep hole only by the solidity of the bedrock and the dubious wisdom of engineering down the centuries. Mill
ennia, rather.
The sewers were the easiest to comprehend. Tunnels shored by bricked or stone archways, inspection walks, ladders up and down. But they cross-connected with private diggings, some of which were ritualistic—I knew of an entire labyrinth, not so far from the Dockmarket, only a few rods beneath the streets. Others were smugglers’ hideaways, or underground warrens from different ages of the city when the surface was more dangerous. Ossuaries, cold storage, prison cells; every manner of use one could think of for windowless, cool spaces.
Around and beneath the diggings were the mines, far more ancient than the city to which they lent their name. Played out, so far as anyone knew. Certainly there were no headings bringing out metal for the markets, and the ruins of the Ore Docks were barely identifiable just east of the current boundaries of the city, they were so old. Some of those galleries were strangely smooth, as if carved by the rush of waters. Others featured frenetic details that bespoke lifetimes of craftsmanship beneath the skin of the world. Caryatid pillars, battle scenes stretching for a quarter mile, footprints chiseled into floors to mark out the steps of a complex pavane for two dozen dancers who had probably never trod a single measure in the deep dark.
All these wonders, and far more that I’d likely never see. Each haunted by furtive figures and angry ghosts and the tulpas that seemed to compose the city’s literal and spiritual undermind. The place had an aesthetic and an etiquette of its own, one hard-learned by me over careful months and years. During my time in the Factor’s house, the Dancing Mistress had used Below as my primary training ground for subverting my transformation into a great lady of the courts of Copper Downs.
Here amid the endless shadows and the strange creatures that haunted the dreams of the city, she had taught me to run, to fight, to leap into the void, how to land, how to climb, how to survive. My time down here had prepared me to encounter the Lily Blades of Kalimpura without being cut to ribbons at the first. My time down here had readied me for so much. Even my earliest killings, of Mistress Tirelle, and the ancient, ageless Duke of Copper Downs.
So now I walked past timeless carvings of demon-haunted men and humans with demonic faces. Pillars; raw rock walls; long, gleaming forests of slime; strange little creeks that reeked of elements I could not name; skeletons in armor frosted with mold and fungi; great, damp footprints longer than the height of my waist.
Below. It was home, of a sort. And for the first time in a long while, I found myself willing to contemplate leaving Copper Downs for good. Most likely I should have stayed in the High Hills. I could tend graves as well—or poorly—as anyone. The unquiet dead were merely that. Unquiet, not dangerous. Even Erio with his strong opinions and ready words was not so difficult to bear. And none of them would try to take my baby.
I ranged quietly through Below, carrying a swath of coldfire as I made progress toward the minehead and the site of Endurance’s temple. The cold, oil-and-rust smell of ancient machines was strong, as it always was near that point. I’d never found enough light down here to properly judge what I sensed around me. Old stone and older pathways sweated their long, slow memories. These places were far more ancient than the city above, extending back through time as deep as the abandoned galleries of the copper mines that wound beneath my feet.
In any case, Below comforted me; pattering bodiless footsteps and all. This was the heart of Copper Downs. Blackblood or no, this city was as much my home as Kalimpura ever would be. All I needed to do was find some way to unseat the embassy, and deter Surali with her prideful anger.
If I killed her, that would solve some of my problems. The Death Right case would be complex and expensive back in Kalimpura, at meaningful risk to my own neck. But if I never returned, well, I did not care much, did I?
Getting past Mother Vajpai and Mother Argai to reach Surali would be a trick. I wondered how thoroughly Samma had betrayed me. To trust her now was foolish.
No matter, I thought as I approached the central gallery of the minehead. I would just—
Then Skinless was before me.
Imagine a man almost a rod tall, completely flayed. The muscles and tendons of its widespread arms gleamed in the faint light of the coldfire. As always, it just barely sweated blood, slick, crimson sheets covering its body. Its great round eyes rolled amid their pads of fat, glistening.
“Hello,” I said to this sending of my unfriend.
Skinless nodded. I saw a hard light in its expression.
“Is it your god’s will that I be returned to his temple?” I asked.
The avatar nodded again. I thought perhaps I saw slow regret. Those great fists, each larger than a ham, opened and closed very deliberately.
I reached for the right words. This creature had carried me through the streets when I was wounded, had tended me awhile. We had a bond, I knew it, if I could only touch that point within its dim consciousness. “You stood with me on Lyme Street, when we brought down Choybalsan.”
Silence. But no action.
“It was me who ended the corruption among Blackblood’s priests.”
More silence. More inaction.
Below carried as always its sense of arrested breathing. As if the city had filled great, stone lungs, and waited for a time when it could exhale once more. I smelled the blood-and-meat reek of Skinless, the sewer rot of the sludge gathered in corners, the nearby metal and oil of machines.
A moment, poised. Much as the Dancing Mistress had taught me when we first began to run Below. My earliest escapes from the Factor’s house had all been about these poised moments. Body, mind, heart, soul.
Danger, balanced on the tip of a knife.
Like all such balance points, it could be pushed one way or another with the slightest effort. I stepped close to Skinless, inside the reach of its arms, and stretched on my toes to whisper near its dripping ear. “I am mother to this child. She will not be taken up in pain.” The lie, then, for in the god’s sending of Skinless to find me, I thought I knew who my enemy was. Or one of them, at the least. “Neither will I work against Blackblood, for he has spared my life and made me whole.” And once more the truth, to bring the lie round again. “But you are my friend, and I will never harm you.”
Skinless stared a long while. Its eyes—no, his eyes—glistened until they ran wet down the pulsing horror of his cheeks. Then he turned and shambled away into the deeper darkness that was the rightful state of this place.
I stood, breathing hard as the meat reek vanished with the avatar’s departure. My hands cradled my belly, smearing coldfire across my shirt, though the child had not stirred. Strangely, I was not even ill from the smell. Perhaps because it was familiar?
Skinless I could no more defeat in a fight than Mother Vajpai. But I had not been certain that I could talk him out of a course once he was set upon it. He was an avatar of the god Blackblood. A tulpa. He was a part of the god. If he could be softspoken away, then that meant Blackblood himself was not fully resolute.
The chilling, indifferent power of that languid youth still haunted me.
I turned, suddenly hungry, which seemed very odd, to find myself being watched from the open gallery ahead. Mother Iron stared from beneath her cowl. The Factor’s ghost stood beside her. She had no face to read, just a deep pool of shadow with a hint of red glow guttering within; but he appeared both sorrowful and thoughtful.
I had not expected to see either again. Which was foolish, of course. They both dwelt Below. Proto-gods and ghosts of this city.
With a flush of mixed embarrassment and fear, I snapped at them. “Were you intending to restage our fight with Choybalsan? All we would need now are some pardines.”
The Factor seemed as if he would say something. Mother Iron, so very often mute, stood unmoving. Whatever they wanted, I would have no part of it. Not now. Sick of this city and all its plotting powers, I circled around the wider space and headed for the upper gallery that lay beneath the building site of the Temple of Endurance.
* * *
; I climbed the rickety ladder to hear a great racket above me. Shouting and crying. A fight?
Just below the bright-lit opening at the top I paused. It still stood unguarded—which still seemed odd to me. Just because I had an understanding with the dark places and their restless haunts didn’t mean anyone else was safe.
I listened for several moments. The shouting continued, and several dull thumps echoed. I smelled smoke. Something serious was afoot. Wary, I eased my long knife into my hand and scrambled the last half-dozen rungs as if my own clothes were afire.
No one was working on the temple foundations when I leapt up into their midst. To my right one of the tents was burning—the kitchen, I thought—with a handful of Endurance’s acolytes working to beat out the flames. People screamed by the gate, and I saw a flash of blades. More folk tended several fallen alongside the wooden temple.
Wishing I’d moved a little swifter at the first, I raced toward the battle. Chowdry’s people saw me coming, weapon in hand, and scattered until only half a dozen toughs with knives and staves remained to face me.
Reckless with anger, I did not falter in my charge. The attackers took to their heels. Feet pounding, I chased them out into Durand Avenue, screaming for their blood.
I only gave off when I realized their numbers, and turned back before they did the same. That I had not even laid a blow upon them felt shameful.
* * *
Within the temple grounds, Chowdry and Ponce awaited me.
“What has happened?” I demanded, feeling unaccountably winded for such a short sprint.
Chowdry shook his head. “One of my people is dead. More are being wounded.”
“We didn’t even fight,” said Ponce. I realized he was crying. “It is not permitted.”
“You do not defend?” I realized then I had no notion of the theology of the god I had created. Somehow I’d assumed anyone who took me as a wellspring would know their way around a blade. But of course, all these happy, well-fed young acolytes did not have the look of hard training, or even rough-and-tumble play.