Bad Gods, page 26
“Ranay, if I asked you, could you help me do something?”
“Anything,” he said.
“It’s dangerous. They mustn’t know.”
“Danger? Who can threaten you?” he said.
“The others. The other Avatars. I’ve seen... I’ve seen them do terrible things, Ranay.” The thought of his sweet warm body turned to stone finally wrenched a tear from me; I could feel it, burning against my cheek.
“It’s you they’ll hurt,” I said. “I couldn’t bear it.”
“Let me help you,” he said. “Please. Seeing you cry, it’s like darkness on my heart. Please.”
He was crying, too.
I thought, if I can stop being an Avatar, we can escape. We can run away together.
“I have to tell you something,” I said. “But if anyone finds out you know this, they will kill you. You understand? You mustn’t ever speak of it. Ever.”
“I will take an oath, if you want me to.”
“No. There’s no need.” Even now, it was hard to say; fear and the habit of obedience closed my throat, until I could only whisper. “Ranay, I’m human. Or I was. All the Avatars were, once.”
I held out my hand, and looked at it; it cast a faint golden light, not enough to read by.
“You’re...”
“My name was Ebi, and I was a servant. There was another Avatar of Babaska before me, but she’s gone. Disappeared. They chose me to take her place.”
He believed me, immediately. Perhaps some part of him had already suspected. Or perhaps it was just because he trusted me.
“How?” he said.
I told him about the altar-stone.
There was a silence. His eyes were on me, but I didn’t dare look at them; fearing I’d see contempt, or hatred, or just the end of love.
“Ebi,” he said.
It was so strange, to hear that name again. “Yes.”
“Why did you tell me?”
“Because I want to be human again. I want to find out how to stop. Will you help me?”
“You want to stop being an Avatar.”
“Yes. Ranay...”
For the first time, without asking permission, he reached out, and touched my face. “Ebi,” he said. “Tell me what you want me to do.”
So I took him in my arms and kissed him, and it felt like coming home. But there was a darkness on my heart, too.
Chapter Twenty-Five
I headed back towards King of Stone. I needed somewhere big and crowded, where no Avatar would be likely to lower themselves to venture, where I could have a drink and get my thoughts together.
I had to stoop a little to get through the door of The Sideways Road, but once I was inside there was room enough and more. It’s a big old barn of a place, goes back further than it looks like it should from the street. It smells of burned meat and old beer and smoke, and could do with a cat or six to keep down the healthy population of vermin who thrive on its leavings. Of which there are plenty; the food’s terrible. But they keep surprisingly decent wine, and right now, I needed some.
It was fairly crowded; must be due for another scouring out by the militia. They don’t bother until enough passing trade complains loudly enough about being scammed. Most of the locals know better than to get into any kind of game in the Sideways and most of Scalentine’s important visitors don’t venture down to King of Stone. I pushed my way through the press of bodies, after making sure my pouch was well hidden. There were a few card games, there always were, but there were more than a few other scams going on, old and new. “This ring was my mother’s, it’s worth more than I’m asking, but I have to get through Portal Bealach tonight and the captain won’t take it as surety, he wants forty silver...”
“The coin’s under this cup... or is it this one?”
“I’ll give you one silver, that makes it proper, see? Makes you a real poet, that does. We’ll print up your book of poems pretty as you like, then you just have to sell it, you see, to all the fine folks....”
“One silver?”
Whoa, I knew that voice. Right enough, it was young Antheranis – last seen in the afterglow of his first bedding – looking with wide eyes at a grease-nailed slime crawler I knew of old. Pettifer Crewe; well-known talent vulture.
“Pettifer, get your claws out of this boy. Lord Antheranis, this is no place for a young man like yourself, and this is no-one you should be talking to.”
Antheranis looked from me to Pettifer, and clutched his sheaf of poems to his chest.
Pettifer swelled like a boil. “I was about to give this fine poet the chance he deserved! I’m a respectable businessman, and you’re...”
“I’m an honest whore. Whereas you’re a vile, envy-ridden dream-thief who wouldn’t recognise fine verse if you stepped in it.”
He looked towards Antheranis and spread his palms. “Don’t listen, my lord. She’s trying to crush your hopes! I can....”
But Antheranis was already tucking his poems away in his coat, and if there were tears trembling on the ends of his lashes, I for one was prepared to pretend I hadn’t seen them.
Pettifer looked as though he were about to burst with fury and frustrated greed. Sadly, he didn’t. “You... you... I shall...”
“Sharp with language as ever, ain’t you?” I said.
He actually shook his fist at me. “You’ll regret this, Babylon Steel!”
The man even talked in clichés. “Oh, get in line,” I said. “But right now, get your arse out the door, Crewe, before I slice myself some pork.” Finally, he went, leaving the air a little fresher, in my opinion.
I turned back to Antheranis, who was looking bemused. “My lord, what in the All’s name are you doing here? And alone? You don’t have an escort?”
He poked his lower lip out. “I am not prevennis – a child.”
“No, but you don’t know Scalentine. There are places I don’t go without an escort.” Okay, it wasn’t true, but I was trying to save what face the poor lad had left. And I had to get him back to his father before anything worse than his dignity got damaged.
“I am wishing to see the real life,” he said. “Not just the pretty.”
I didn’t want to knock him out and carry him – that would do nothing for his dignity. And even in here, someone might think it suspicious.
All save us, a young boy on a runner from his father’s care and innocent as an egg was not what I needed. Sometimes this town was just too damn small, but now I’d seen him, I had to do something. I looked regretfully at the bottles behind the bar. So much for my drink.
A skinny rat of a creature tried to sell Antheranis some cloud. I’d have intervened, but the boy knew enough to give a very firm no. The rat-like dealer disappeared sharpish before I could make my displeasure known. He looked pretty similar to the creature I’d seen below ground, but then, a rat’s a rat.
“Good lad,” I said to Antheranis.
“My father, he take me to the street where many beggars, all beg for cloud, even when they have only skin over bones.” He made a face. “I do not want to be like that.”
“Your father is a sharp man.”
“Yes, but he does not understand. I wrote about the beggars. They were...” he waved his hands. “I do not have the Lithan. But in my tongue, I write about them. People should know, yes?”
“Well, yes, but lots of people only want to hear about... what did you call it? The pretty.”
“That is what my father says.”
“He’s not wrong, you know.”
“Sometimes the ugly is more important.” I didn’t have an answer for that, since I couldn’t help but agree with him.
“Tell me about this man Pettifer,” he said.
“Oh, he’s the ugly, all right. If you want to hear, I’ll tell you, but we’ll have to do it while we walk, my lord. I need to go to the Exchange hall.” Fortunately it was near the good hotels – money tends to pool together, I’ve noticed – and I knew which one his father was staying in.
Antheranis sighed, and looked around. “I have seen this place now. And I do not think they appreciate poetry here. Will you show me another place?”
“Maybe,” I said. “Your father ever taken you to Nederan? Beyond Throat portal. Icy place. Inhabitants tend to the hairy.”
“No, but I would like to go very much. They have a great respect for poets.”
“Good poets, yes. If you please them you can fatten for a year on what they’ll pay you. Pettifer Crewe tried to make it as a court poet. Did one recital and barely got out with his life. They threatened to nail his tongue to the wall if he ever crossed their border again. They take the phrase ‘murdering the language’ fairly literally, the Nederans.”
“Indeed?” He looked thoughtful. “Perhaps I will practice some more.”
“Anyway after that, Crewe decided to leech off other people’s talents instead of attempting to improve his own. He’ll take someone’s work with all manner of fine promises, but all they get is lots of excuses and empty pockets.”
We turned towards the square. As soon as he saw the cluster of fine hotels, dominated by the Riverside Palace with its soaring white marble frontage, the boy’s face grew sulky again. I only just managed to grab his collar before he made off down a side-street. “Oh, no, you don’t,” I said. “What do you think your father would do to me if he knew I’d let you go wandering off by yourself?”
“You make me a fath, a trick!”
Then I saw who was coming out of the Blue Sun. It’s only two doors from the Riverside Palace, and the most expensive place in Scalentine. Cold sick fear dropped through me all the way to my boots. I put my hand over the kid’s mouth and hauled him into an alleyway. He was struggling madly, reaching for the little dagger in his belt. I whispered in his ear: “My lord, if you value your life, be still and shut up. No trick. I’ve just spotted someone who wants my hide and they won’t have any compunction about taking yours to go with it.” He stilled. “Are you going to stay quiet and do as I say? Please, my lord. I don’t want either of us dead.”
He must have felt me trembling. I felt him nod against my palm, and let him go – though I kept one hand on his shoulder.
My heart was pounding so hard I could feel it in my throat. I had to sneak a look around the corner again, just to be sure.
There was no mistaking Hap-Canae. I would have known him anywhere, and he’d always looked his best by torchlight. Draped in the gold and amber silks he adored, he still had that unmistakeable swagger. And the charisma, too. No applied magic, this, but a part of what he was. Even from where I stood it tugged at me, trying to curve my mouth into a smile, whispering in my flesh.
Lucky that my first instinct had been to hide. Luckier, perhaps, that the boy Antheranis was with me. Lucky for me, if not for him. I kept my hand tight on his shoulder.
“Oh!” he said, his eyes huge and the same smile I was suppressing bending his mouth.
He was watching Shakanti, of course. She drifted down the steps, her gossamer blue and silver robes billowing around her like smoke, like clouds lit by moonlight. It was hard to tell, but I thought that beneath them she was thinner than ever, scoured to the bone. Her face was veiled. Her charisma felt cold as well-water; the attraction of mystery and the night hunt.
Of course, her charisma had never had the same effect on me as Hap-Canae’s, but it was pretty devastating nonetheless. I wondered if being so close to two full moons was increasing her powers. It wasn’t a pleasant thought; she was one dangerous bitch without any extra help.
A litter glowed at the foot of the steps, crusted with gold paint, and jewels, and more gold, and a few more jewels, not to mention bronze bells polished to a glare and hanging from every available projection.
That had to be Hap-Canae’s choice. Shakanti, at least, had some taste.
Yellow-robed acolytes and general attendants swarmed like ants, bowing their backs to help the Avatars into the glittering monstrosity of a litter. Seeing them supported on those straining shoulders helped dampen the dual effects of fear and charisma and get some good healthy anger burning in my gut.
And guilt, of course. Those people with their narrow-nosed, slim faces and long eyes; I knew them. The deep bronze skin, black hair bound with beads and glowing with the occasional flash of hennaed red. The lithe, graceful bodies, some already twisting under the weight of their work.
My people, once.
The litter finally moved off, with the trumpet-blowers going ahead, blaring the presence of godhead through the streets.
A few of the fame-hungry still clustering around the steps waved and cheered, but (bless the Scalentines for their short attention-span) these demigods were already old news, and there were nothing like the crowds there must have been when they arrived.
Their departure took them past the front of the alley, and I pressed myself and Antheranis back into the shadows, but they never paused.
Dark flowers bloomed in front of my eyes and I gulped air. The boy shifted his shoulder under my hand and I realised I’d been gripping too hard. I managed to let go. “Sorry, my lord.”
Antheranis rubbed his shoulder, peering out of the alley in the wake of the procession. “Who are they?”
“Do you have gods?”
“Of course! But... they were gods?”
“Demigods. Avatars.”
“Our gods do not walk about,” he said, sounding offended.
I thought of those sweating backs, bent to the weight of the litter. “Nor do they, it seems. Forgive me, my lord, but I need to get you back to your father.”
He scowled. “Madam Steel? Why do you hide from them?”
“That’s nothing you need to know.”
“Really, they would...” he drew a hand across his throat.
“Yes.”
“My father, perhaps, can help,” he said, looking up at me.
“I appreciate the thought, but he’s best out of it.” And besides, though I enjoyed Antheran’s company, when all was done he was only a client. He had no reason to get involved.
Besides, I liked the man. I didn’t want him drawing their attention.
I looked at the boy. “How about a bargain? I won’t tell your father what sort of dive I found you in, and you won’t mention what just happened.”
He pondered for a moment. “What you will tell him?”
“That you came to visit Essie and I decided to escort you back.”
He blushed, all the way to the top of his bald head, bless him. “Madam Steel? If I ask Father, he would pay, would you take me, to see the things that are not pretty? The real?”
Ouch. I hadn’t bargained for that. “Just now, my lord...”
“Please to call me Antheranis.”
“As you wish. But just now, having me as an escort... well, let’s just say it might not make you as safe as your father would wish. Why not ask Essie?”
“I could not take her to such places!”
I grinned. Essie was born in King of Stone, a rat’s scuttle from Ropemakers Row. A brave rat. She could use her knee like a fist and her fist like a siege-weapon, and if there was anything that could make her blush I’d yet to hear of it. But let him cherish his illusions a bit longer. “Perhaps we can get one of the others to do it. In the meantime, my lor... Antheranis, if you please...” I gestured him towards the Moons in Splendour, where his father was staying.
He pouted, but obeyed.
Tiresana
I went to the ceremonies, and to Hap-Canae’s bed when I couldn’t avoid it. When I rose from it I smelled like him, of cardamom and myrrh; I bathed for hours, trying to scrub it from me.
I seduced my way into the locked sections of the libraries, pretending I thought them a good place for assignations. Leaving my conquest exhausted and comatose, I stuffed ancient scrolls up my sleeves, shuffling things about so it wouldn’t be noticed that anything was missing.
That didn’t last. Neglected as the libraries appeared to me, it was soon apparent that the librarians kept a careful check on the scrolls, even those they weren’t allowed to read themselves. They didn’t question me, of course; I was an Avatar. But their anxiety was obvious. I dared not take a scroll out for more than a few hours.
I knew there was a danger that the Avatars might notice, but I hoped they would not. After all, I was not looking for the same thing they were. I was looking for a way to become less, not more. The minute Ranay could bear to let go of the scrolls I took them back and thrust them in among the others.
I met Ranay in unused corners, in empty temples thick with incense-scented dust, in windowless rooms buried at the heart of the temple where the faded wall-paintings looked down on us with flat gilded eyes. The more he found, the more fascinated he became; the more eager for knowledge.
The legend said that the gods had created the Avatars before they left this plane, to do their will and stand for them before the people. And yet it seemed, from the older texts, that perhaps this was not quite how things had happened. That the gods had gone, and then, some uncertain time later, there were the Avatars.
Ranay said that what he had found suggested that the gods had not wanted or desired such creatures. That perhaps the Avatars had been only High Priests and Priestesses who had, somehow, found a way to gain power that maybe the gods had never meant them to have.
It made sense to me. What sane gods would have given so much power to creatures like them?
Of course, that assumed the gods were sane to start with.
One day he pulled out a scroll and held it up to the window. “There were others before you, you said. Other Avatars of Babaska?”
“Yes,” I said.
“Look.”
The ink was old and faded, the words almost gone. A lot of stuff about loosening chains, and cutting bonds, ‘and the jewel of the gods shall open the gate.’ Ranay tapped the scroll. Scratched next to the words were two faint marks. A sort of crossbar, and a thing like a fat bird’s claw.
“Turn it the other way up,” Ranay said.
And there they were: a lotus, and a sword.
Babaska’s mark, made by a human hand. What did it mean?
