When morning came, he was still mostly himself, though his throat ached and he was not hungry anymore.

  <><><>

  I awoke to a gloomy half-light and rain dripping through the trees, splashing in heavy cold drops against my face. Dawn must have come, but for a second day, dark clouds had come with it.

  A thrill of fear touched me. Today! Today I would know.

  Urban must have been awake already, because he got up as soon as I stirred. I expected questions, but none came. He seemed withdrawn, worried. I felt the same, so I said nothing either.

  I nudged Jolly awake and we ate quickly while a light rain fell. Urban didn’t eat at all. Perhaps he’d breakfasted earlier. We packed our things, and set out.

  The rain didn’t last long, but it left everything wet. Very soon I was soaked and cold, but we made steady progress, and after an hour, Jolly began to recognize landmarks. A rock outcrop, a ravine, a stream that we could follow to a sweet spring—which we did. We filled our water cells.

  Jolly was brighter that day, more himself, but Urban looked tired, his face gaunt. He still did not eat.

  We went on.

  Late in the morning, Jolly called out, “It’s just ahead.”

  We reached the edge of the forest. A broad meadow lay beyond. On the north side of the meadow, perched on the edge of a deep canyon, stood the temple, its massive outer wall looming dark beneath gray clouds.

  The wall stood some forty feet high, built from huge blocks of precisely cut stone. Several young trees grew between the blocks.

  No one appeared on the wall to greet us.

  Chapter

  19

  We had come out of the forest to one side of the temple compound. The great canyon formed a precipice to our left. The front wall of the compound, with its great gate, would be around to the right. I could not see the gate from where I was, so I sent my bike speeding across the meadow, crushing a path through waist-high grass and delicate flowers until I had the gate in sight—double doors, three times my height, set into the wall.

  The gate was closed.

  I jerked my bike to a stop, heart thundering. A shiver ran through me. When Jolly and I had left that place four years ago, we’d left no one behind us—and the gate had stood open on purpose to invite the silver in.

  Now the gate was closed. Someone must have been there to close it. It might be that someone was still there.

  Though I’d resisted hope, I’d harbored it nonetheless. It blossomed as I raced the rest of the distance to the gate. But when I took in the sight of a fresh crop of weeds growing between the threshold’s paving stones, doubt assailed me. None of the weeds appeared bent or crushed by traffic in and out. Probably, whoever had visited the site was now long gone. I swallowed hard and dropped my kickstand. Then I stepped up to the latch.

  In modern temples, travelers are always welcome and gates are rarely locked. But this temple was ancient. It had endured through times of war. I feared I would not be able to open the gate. But to my surprise, the latch moved easily under my hand.

  I hesitated, then went back to my bike and pulled my rifle from its scabbard. Jolly caught up, with Urban right behind him. I held my hand to my lips, commanding silence. Jolly nodded and got his rifle out.

  I gestured Urban to the side. He went reluctantly, moving with an old man’s stiff caution, worn and tired from our long ride.

  I stepped up again to the gate, worked the latch, and pushed the massive door. It was well-balanced and swung easily, though it emitted a tired groan.

  One of Urban’s mechanics emerged from the meadow grass. It startled me badly as it scrambled past me on its spiderlike legs, to enter first. Moki tried to follow it, but I hissed at him to “Stay!”

  I shot Urban a dark look. He shrugged as if to say the behavior of his device was not entirely under his control. Holding the rifle across my body, I followed the mechanic in, with Moki at my heels.

  Within the walls was an immense courtyard paved with gray and blue brick laid in a herringbone pattern. It encircled the central temple like a skirt. When I had been there before, the grounds had been kept clean by small and clever mantis-like mechanics. Now there were patches of weeds and moss, drifts of dead leaves, and pine tree seedlings growing in pockets of collected soil and in the joints of the stone stairways that climbed to the top of the wall.

  No one was in sight. There were no bikes. But as I stepped around the gate, I glanced back over my shoulder, and there in the wall I saw a niche, with the carapace of a temple kobold set within it.

  Temple kobolds last only one night, so when I picked it up it did not surprise me that it was dead, but its petals were not yet fully dried and there was a whiff of sweet vapor about it. That told me it was fresh. Someone had to have placed it in the niche and it must have been put there just last night.

  Jolly’s eyes went wide when he saw what I had found.

  I turned to gaze at the temple, wondering who was there, and if they were looking down at me. Moki whined softly.

  The temple building was very much as I remembered it: A large, brooding structure made of gray stone like the surrounding walls, three stories in height, with each successive story smaller than the one below. The peaked roof was clad in charcoal-gray ceramic tiles, with lovely upswept eaves at every level. Also at every level, an abundance of windows shaped as pointed arches. In all the windows that I could see, the glass was intact, reflecting the dark clouds and revealing nothing of what was inside.

  From where I stood, there was no sign of fire damage, unless it was that the window glass had been smoke-darkened on the inside.

  I kept my gaze fixed on the windows, searching for any hint of movement as I rounded the building to the formal entrance, where wide steps mounted to tall double doors. Had we left those doors open or closed? I could not remember, but they were closed now.

  Moki bounded up the stairs and clawed at the door.

  This side of the temple showed the ravages of the fire. The doors that had once been polished to a pale gray sheen were now blackened with smoke stains. Wooden rafters in the eave above had burned, along with the wooden frames of the second-story windows. The library was on the second story. Shattered glass lay strewn across the brick.

  Jolly came to stand beside me. “I thought to see more damage to the building,” he whispered.

  I shrugged, keeping my own voice low. “The damage is to the heart—the library, the well room.”

  In a hoarse voice Urban whispered, “You’re expecting trouble.” It was not a question.

  I shrugged. “Someone is here. I don’t know who.”

  He said, “I can send in the scout-bot.”

  His mechanic was now behind us, coming around the building just as we had. It must have already circled the courtyard. I considered his offer, but then decided against it. “No,” I said. “I want to see for myself.”

  I went up the wide steps, Jolly right beside me. “Stay,” I warned Moki. He whined in protest but obeyed as the door opened with a pained creak.

  Cold air wafted out. I expected it to smell like burnt wood. It did, but it also carried a scent of fresh soil that I associated with a thriving kobold well, confirming for me that the temple’s well had survived. That astonished me, because the life of an untended well is short. Had someone come here immediately after the fire? Or had the well’s great age allowed it to survive until a more recent visitor arrived? No doubt I would have my answer soon.

  I shivered and stepped inside.

  The great room was darker than I remembered, but then it was a dark day, and the windows were indeed soot-stained. The lighting panels in the far reaches of the room that had used to glow even in the daytime no longer shed any light.

  Still, there was light enough to see that the fire’s reach had been limited. The damage was all to one side. A couch and a table had burned to charred hulks, though they remained recognizable. A tapestry that had hung above them was gone, and a rug at their feet was partly consumed. But on the other side of the room were two more couches, several upholstered chairs, and a few low tables. They were darkened by smoke and dirty with ash, but none had burned.

  Opposite the doors was the grand stairway to the second story—an intimidating flight of gray stone. A well-worn path of crushed ash crossed the room to those stairs, with a side path into a passage that led variously to the well room and workshop, and to kitchen and bedrooms.

  I heard a soft but constant noise from that passage—the faintest hum of an electric engine and a gurgling of liquid, barely discernible. Holding my breath to listen, I caught a brief clink of metal against metal.

  Jolly gestured to draw my attention. He looked grim and worried as he mouthed the words, call out. I shook my head. I did not want to call out a warning. It could be anyone in there, and not all players have good intentions.

  I entered the side passage with a hunter’s silent steps, my rifle ready, though I did not think I could bring myself to use it against another player—not as anything more than a threat. Moki came with me, mimicking my caution.

  A decorative arch marked the entrance to the chamber holding the temple’s kobold well. I glanced inside. The room had no windows, but to my surprise the ceiling panels, made of paper-thin slices of translucent beige stone, glowed with a modest light above the dark pit of an ancient well twelve feet across. The scritching and scrabbling of kobolds could be heard from beyond a stone curbing designed to confine their wanderings. No player was in the chamber, so I moved on.

  The workshop was just ahead, its wide door standing open. Against the electric hum and the liquid gurgle I heard another slight clink and the creak of a chair. I edged forward. Peered inside.

  Here the windows were clean, allowing in the day’s dull light. Glowing ceiling panels supplemented the natural illumination. Twelve vats of modest size—the largest a vertical cylinder six feet high and the same across—stood in two parallel rows along a side wall. Along the opposite wall, a large kobold cabinet with hundreds of drawers to store the kobolds in airless hibernation. Fire had discolored its metal face, and had left black stains on the tall metal cabinets beyond it. The outside wall held wide double doors that would open onto the courtyard. The large windows on either side had new wooden frames.

  I remembered there had been workbenches made of wood. All those were gone, likely consumed in the fire. They had been replaced by three heavy stone tables that must have been dragged from other rooms and pushed together to make a work surface of good size. Lamps had been placed at each corner of this mosaic table. Many mechanical parts were arranged across its surface in neat, if inexplicable, order. And seated at this table, clearly engaged in the task of assembling those parts—though distracted now by my appearance—was Yaphet. My Yaphet.

  He looked at me with a gaze that was at first hostile, then astonished, and then he dropped the steel fitting he’d been holding. He shoved back his chair so hard it fell over with a clatter, and then he scrambled around the table to get to me.

  I dropped my rifle and met him halfway.

  Chapter

  20

  Urban’s throat hurt and he felt tired, more tired than he could remember. Tired and irritable. He knew he needed to eat, but he didn’t want to eat. He didn’t want to rest. He wanted proof that this venture into the mountains had been worthwhile. So he followed Jubilee and Jolly into the fire-damaged building.

  Urban had seen fire only in dramas, never in life. He’d never before smelled the lingering scent of carbonized building materials. He didn’t like the smell. He didn’t like the situation. He’d wanted to send the scout-bot in first. It only made sense to send it in first. But Jubilee had asked him not to.

  She crept ahead down a dimly lit passage, weapon in hand as if expecting to meet a hostile entity instead of her long-gone lover. Jolly stayed close to her, carrying a weapon too. Urban had never gone armed, not on a personal level. In the world he knew, violence was waged either on a molecular scale or with weapons so powerful they could vaporize a planet’s biosphere.

  Jubilee paused at an open doorway. And then without a word, she ducked into the room. Jolly jumped after her and Moki followed. A clatter of sound—Urban envisioned her rifle, knocked to the floor. The dog barking, and an incoherent shout from Jolly, incongruously triumphant, joyous. Urban scrambled to catch up. He reached the room, looked inside. Horror washed through him.

  By the Unknown God.

  From what he saw, Urban surmised that Jubilee had found her lover. She embraced him. He was a man of moderate height, moderate complexion, with long black hair in a heavy braid down his back. He embraced her, gazing at her with deep warmth, his smile conveying relief and an overwhelming joy. Jolly capered beside them, laughing, for once living up to his name, and Moki kept barking and leaping about in excitement.

  Urban had to conclude this was Yaphet—but Urban knew him under a different name. Instinct demanded that he strike first. Before he quite knew what he was doing, he found himself crouched, seizing Jubilee’s rifle from the floor.

  The motion drew her lover’s gaze. As Urban rose, rifle in hand, Yaphet’s smile disappeared. Gently, he guided Jubilee aside while regarding Urban with a dark-eyed all-too-familiar gaze.

  Urban felt flushed and hot. Even so, he hesitated long enough for rationality to catch up, for caution to kick in. Between the swift beats of his heart, he reconsidered what he was doing. He ran the facts: this entity was known to Jubilee; it had sufficient command of the silver to create toys; it had devised a means to erase the last fragment of the goddess; and it had returned inexplicably from what constitutes death in this world.

  A roster of facts still insufficient to determine if this entity was a threat or a potential ally.

  Jolly had turned to follow Yaphet’s gaze. Jubilee too, glancing briefly at the rifle in Urban’s hands before meeting his gaze in puzzlement.

  “He is an avatar of Lezuri,” Urban said, his throat dry, his voice hoarse.

  Jubilee’s response was not what he expected. “Oh,” she said. “Yes. Yes, of course he is. I should have remembered that and told you.”

  She turned to Yaphet, and in her first language she said, “It’s all right.” Urban’s atrium interpreted this for him, though he’d already understood it in context.

  Jubilee stepped toward him, her hand shaking a little as she held it out. Speaking again in the ancient language, she said, “Please don’t be afraid. Yaphet is an avatar of the god, but he is not the god. He is just a player.” She nodded at the rifle. “I’ll take that.”

  He gave it up without resistance, though his gaze remained fixed on Yaphet. “Why?” he asked hoarsely. “This can’t be coincidence.”

  Jolly had been murmuring a translation of their words so Yaphet could understand, but now he spoke to Urban. “It is not coincidence. Jubilee and Yaphet are both avatars, created as a means for the goddess and the god to visit the game . . . though I don’t think they ever did.”

  “We are just players,” Jubilee insisted.

  “And you, Jolly?” Urban asked. “Whose avatar are you?”

  “No one I know,” Jolly answered, before turning to Yaphet with a welcoming smile. They clasped hands, the sparks of their ha mingling and brightening.

  Yaphet spoke and Urban’s atrium dutifully translated: “You have grown.”

  Jolly shrugged. “In size, not in knowledge.” Then he asked, “How did you come to be here?”

  “That is a long story.”

  Jolly started to provide an interpretation of this exchange, but Urban cut him off. “I understand it.”

  Jolly looked impressed and full of questions, but Yaphet spoke first, eyeing Urban with a cold gaze. “And who are you?”

  Jubilee answered. “His name is Urban. He is a stranger from the void between stars, come to warn us the god is returning home.”

  Urban heard this in translation and decided Yaphet was justified in the skeptical, questioning look he turned on Jubilee—but she did not feel that way.

  Her eyes narrowed. She held the rifle in one hand and with the other, she cupped Yaphet’s cheek. They were the same height—a fact made obvious when she looked him in the eyes.

  She said, “Would I joke about such a thing, Yaphet? And in these first minutes when I have found you again? And we have just seen evidence that Urban speaks the truth. He recognized you and feared what he saw. How could that be, unless he has seen the god?”

  Yaphet scowled. “That’s evidence, but it’s not proof. How did you come to meet him?”

  “That is the real coincidence. And it makes me fear some fragment of the goddess still exists within the silver.”

  Urban did not like the direction of this conjecture. He started to speak, but Jolly caught his eye, crooked his fingers, and said, “Come. Let’s bring the bikes in and close the gate. Give them time—”

  “We have only a little time,” Urban growled.

  “We’ll be just a few minutes,” Jolly said soothingly. Shifting languages, he said, “Yaphet, when we return, we’ll want to hear your story.”

  Urban conceded, but he sent the scout-bot to explore and map the remainder of the building. No more surprises.

  An empty promise, if there ever was one.

  <><><>

  They met in the great room after Jolly had heated water to make a pot of tea. Yaphet came in with his arm around Jubilee. Both looked flushed and still aglow from the joy of their reunion. It made Urban flash back on his own reunion with Clemantine—a bitter memory now, that only made his mood more brittle.

  Yaphet apologized for the dimness of the room, explaining that the fire had destroyed the electrical circuit. “I made repairs in the hallway, the workshop, the kitchen, but not here.”

  Urban considered this, considered the disrepair of the building, and as Yaphet sat with Jubilee on one of the couches, he said, in a voice gone low and scratchy, “You haven’t learned how to use the silver, have you?”

 

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