As A God Page 4

  The Voice of the God had come to Ressen. She had forgotten what the Shadow had said earlier. Two living avatars held service here tonight. Now it became clear why the room stood packed to overflowing.

  Sequa turned to flee.

  The Shadow and the Voice turned their heads as one and pinned her with their eyes and his voice. She could not have moved from where she stood, flat palmed and horrified against the wall, had the building burst into flames around her.

  In fact, she never shifted position for the rest of the short service, the daily thanks to the God as He bowed to His Lady, the daily welcoming of the Goddess whether She shone visibly in the sky or not. She was always there, even on a Darkest Night when even the Feathers of the Great Hawk were covered in clouds. Gazing down or at Her rest, the Goddess never deserted Her people. Sequa stood unmoving as the Voice of the God finished his gentle hymn of thanksgiving and praise; the collective sigh when the last note faded became half appreciative and half carnal.

  The Shadow spoke a few words she could not hear in her song-deafened ears, and the service ended. The crowd filed out, women sighing and giggling, the men quiet. They streamed past Sequa as though she were a statue or immaterial.

  Above, the Goddess-breath flowers had fully opened, drifts of sparkling pollen making lazy streams in the air. It shifted down onto Sequa’s frozen shoulders like Ladylight itself. Sequa closed her eyes and breathed deep, pulling the scent into her lungs along with the tickling pollen. Memories swirled for a moment behind her eyes.

  The scent of Goddess-breath and peach blossoms baked onto the bricks of the garden wall as Jesan leaned down for the first time to lay his lips against hers; the sharp, green taste of vines slashed by an errant blade fighting the blood in her mouth as she backed and backed again, outnumbered. The dry grass tickling her nose as she rose from a bed of miracles on shaky legs, her skull no longer bearing that slick spongy place. Alive, by the hands of the Gods.

  When her eyes opened, the room had emptied of all but the avatars and herself. They both stood in the center of the ritual space, talking quietly. Waiting for her to compose herself in memories of flesh and death and blessings. Sequa pushed off from the wall and hesitated on her heel a moment. If she turned the other way, would they chase her? Let them try, she was the Champion. She could run.

  She had probably committed enough blasphemies of late. Sprinting headlong from the presence of the divine figureheads would be a little far from acceptable. Shoulders hunched under her cloak, Sequa slouched like an errant child into their presence.

  The Voice of the God rested one long, bare arm against the cool marble of the altar, next to the fire bowl holding his symbol. Around the base of the container spilled an artlessly perfect clutch of feathers, representing The Great Hawk. As she drew close, she could see the fire burned in a cup set inside the larger bowl, which seethed gently with clear water. Flowers in bright array covered the rest of the space. In a few Turns, the flowers would be fruit, then dried leaves, then grains to represent the various bounties of the Measure. The water of the Goddess, ever-burning flame of the God, the symbol of Their Son.

  On an altar of the Circle, it would have all been laid upon scattered earth, to honor the Empty.

  As she stepped over the double-incised lines of gold and silver that marked the inner holy space, the Voice of the God turned his shockingly blue eyes to hers and smiled.

  Sequa checked back as though he’d swung a weapon, hands jerking up into a defensive posture. Shame and irritation at her own blatant display drew a furious obscenity from her mouth; probably the first time in history anyone had greeted an avatar with that particular phrase.

  He had a noble’s facial control. He blinked.

  The Shadow burst out laughing and spoke in the tone of one continuing an old conversation, “Unusual was the word I used.”

  “Indeed.” In calm speech, his voice intoxicated as it did in song, mellow, rich, vibrant. “Women are not usually so… discomfited by my humble self.” Only the barest edge of pique reached his tone, and from the sparkle in his eyes, it was likely feigned.

  “It is the God, not you, that… discomfits me, Holiness.” Sequa muttered sullenly. “He and I are not on the best of terms.”

  “Truly? I would say instead that he has been profligate in his favor. I know what happened to you when you danced as the Summer Dancer.” He opened with a decisive blow, taking the dominant position from the first moment.

  At Goddess-High, the holiest summer festival, in every community women and girls danced the night through to honor the Great Good Goddess. Very seldom did only one woman dance the whole shift by herself; it brought the best fortune on any household that managed the feat. Sequa, her first Measure as a Runner, had danced the Goddess that summer. Alone.

  It was told that across the continent, all the Dancers moved to the same steps. To her steps. A scarred, bloody-handed slave had driven the worship of the whole nation for that night. Clerics still debated, three Measures later, what it all meant.

  She met his gaze full on then, and the silence that stretched between them had the quality of the sparring floor just after the call to fight.

  The Shadow’s will broke first, and so her voice ended the silence. “To the roof. In the eyes of the Goddess, perhaps our shy flower may be willing to open up.”

  “It’s undignified to mock your guests, Holiness,” Sequa said softly.

  “It’s undignified to curse like a muleteer before the avatars of the Gods,” came the return shot.

  Sequa subsided, following meekly to a door tucked in behind a tapestry in the far corner. Up a steep and narrow stairway, they emerged onto the flat roof of the temple. Groups of benches and containers filled with hardy plants littered the space.

  The temple centered the city physically as well as spiritually. The courtyard stretched out around it in mirrored shape to the truncated oval of Ressen’s walls. Huge statues of the Gods rose up at random intervals—the Hawk rampant, the Lady dancing, the Lord standing in stern judgment. All old and weathered but still sturdy, made of the same hard, shimmering stone as the temple itself. Two thirds of the city were wood and brick for the most part, bound by the wicker-lattice web covering over the roadways and Peasant’s Quarter—Under Roof. Noble houses to the north became costly stone again, and stood proud and tall bowered by green lawns and open air.

  She had lived in a house like that once, cool and warm at the same time, high walls to climb, fruit trees to pluck, sparkling pools to wade barefoot. Family. Pleasure. Love. A life not hemmed in by the eye slit of a mask.

  Moments without fear or anger or hate.

  As a slave, whispered her deep heart. You were property. Now at least, you own yourself whole.

  She would have given almost anything to be that beloved slave again.

  The avatars had taken seats together on a high-backed, stone bench set with a straw mat and patiently waited for her to pay attention to them. Sequa shook her head sharply. What was wrong with her? Since she’d returned to Ressen, she had been as distracted as a kitten with a ball of string.

  The city made her feel too safe. The city made her feel too afraid.

  “Will you take off your veils, child?” The Shadow asked as she settled gingerly onto the edge of a stone planter. She felt like a bird touching down tremulously, ready to leap away at the first mischance.

  “Why does every wretched person in this city want to see my face?” Sequa blurted out. Hopping to her feet she made an angry gesture at the Voice. “Will you stop doing that?”

  He started laughing in a startled and helpless manner. All that stopped Sequa from storming away was the gorgeous tenor of his voice. The Shadow chortled along with him after a moment, though her eyes never left Sequa’s.

  Who after a moment shrugged and laughed a little herself. “My apologies, Holiness. I do have manners, much of the time. I think I must claim to have been unsettled by this very long day.”

  “Let the Goddess on your skin sooth
e you, Sequa. I give you permission to show Her your true face.” The Shadow, clever woman, phrased her request so it became a benediction and Sequa obeyed.

  The silver light of the Goddess did feel like water on her skin when the cloth of her veil finally slipped away. Her chest rose sharply as her breath filled it; it was ever thus, that the first breath bare-faced felt like the first she had ever taken. She closed her eyes and tilted her chin upward. The air lay so still and heavy on her head she imagined she could hear the wings of the Great Hawk beating above. The pinpoint lights of His Feathers winked and shimmered against the black of His Mother’s robes.

  The Voice of the God had the honesty to make a small shocked noise. “How is it that you are not dead from that injury?”

  “Save for the bloodshed, it is nearly superficial in all.” Then she swallowed convulsively as her mouth tried to form the words, There were broken teeth as well, till the miracle. It took an act of will as intense as the moment she had risen half-dead from the blood-soaked dirt in Seahome to face down that final opponent in the Run. Her tongue balked at forming the next syllables and somehow stuttered them out as though spitting broken glass. “Nuh-nuh-nothing more.” Drool actually formed on her bottom lip.

  The Voice nodded gravely, but the muscles at the corners of his eyes contracted. He knew she had lied to him.

  She could sense it now, the divine pressure flowing from him like perfume before a breeze. Either her mild deception had broken the envelope of power to let her step outside it, or she grew more accustomed to the weight. He was weakest here, in the light of the Goddess, but the effect still profoundly unsettled her. The God gave truth to His Voice, as the Goddess gave tranquility to Her Shadow.

  Sequa had never felt particularly tranquil in the Shadow’s presence, a feeling clearly mutual. Now she had managed to conceal a truth from the Voice of the God. The implications left her breathless.

  She wished devoutly, intensely, that she had never returned to Ressen. At every wretched turn some new revelation etched away at her certainties. The sudden need to flee rose in her again, powerful enough that she came up onto the balls of her feet, her armor shifting as her body trembled.

  The solid weight of her swords in their harness centered her, pulled her back down to the ground. The gifts of the Son, the Great Hawk; the gifts of blood and conflict.

  How very appropriate that they would bring her peace.

  The avatars both smiled at her silently as she fought her little internal skirmish.

  “I know of you from the common knowledge for the most part. The Shadow refused to…prejudice…me, and so I assume most of what I know is false,” The Voice said eventually. “Would you share a little truth?”

  She did not sit, energy and emotion coiling around to make her pace just a little. Light and shadow flickered with her steps as though she painted in the air. “I must be brief, Lord. My throat—”

  “Rest when you must. We have time.”

  “Less than we all think.” She spoke without thinking and without knowing she intended to speak those words then glared at him again.

  “I cannot control it.”

  The Shadow made a noise that might have been a snort but remained silent otherwise.

  “I have heard what they say of me. It is not…substantively untrue. Though there is more to the narrative than anyone on the streets can know."

  “Hmm?”

  “I was a slave of House Kimerian’s heir, raised up in the home with him like a sibling. We became more to each other in time, and he intended to free me. The King promoted the House to rule the northern provinces—a transparent ruse to exile a rival and gain control of the family’s estate. I was sold like the rest of the slaves into the hands of House Michelian. I was intended to serve them as a body-slave for their Stable but…well, violence is never far from my hand. I railed against that fate and won my place to train as a Runner, to honor the Mother of All with my skill and speed in Her holy race.”

  She turned and looked out over the city, bathed in the light of the Goddess and looking tranquil. For a moment her ears filled with the sound of breaking bone, the smell of blood and hot dirt, the feel of metal slicing into her face.

  “During my training I was mutilated by accident by an opponent who intended to kill me. I crippled him in response. When the time came, I joined the ranks of the Runners. I ran. I am now the Champion—for two more Measures, until they Run again—and a freewoman.”

  Her breath puffed out of her lungs in surprise. Perhaps the Voice’s aura had more effect on her than she thought. She had never seen fit to tell anyone those truths before.

  “Your blades?”

  “There is a ceremony…” She trailed off for a moment, marching in place a few steps. “In training we had wooden weapons until chosen for the Run itself. The clerics come and bless the Stablemaster’s choices and burn the wooden weapons in a sacred fire, with the Runner’s blood and tears marking them. Then they give the Runners metal. Until then a slave fighter may not bear steel on pain of death.”

  Jesan had bypassed the law by teaching her to fight with wood. Two sticks are two swords, he had said. The truth of that had saved her life more than once. There was a lethal elegance to stick fighting that soothed her soul.

  She stopped and coughed, wiping a little blood from her bottom lip. The Shadow reached down to some shelf behind her seat and withdrew a little jug, which she passed over. It held a thick, sweet wine that soothed Sequa’s burning throat.

  “Thank you, Blessed. My blades…they did not burn. The fire took them and…changed them.”

  Spoken baldly in her harsh voice words that would have seemed insane took on a flat veracity. The Shadow pressed her fingers to her lips and then her heart; The Voice mirrored her a moment later.

  “I saw… I fell insensible, they told me and it seemed… I saw the Hawk, His wings burning with His Father’s fires, His eyes His Mother’s silver light, hanging in the Empty dark. He…spoke to me. I think. Struck to my soul with terror, I remember no words. Only fear and purpose, horror and hope.”

  Sequa gasped to a halt, her stomach convulsing, her lungs dry and empty. The intolerable weight of the attention of a God, even in memory, drove her down and down, to one knee, to both, hands flat on the rapidly cooling stone of the rooftop as she cowered before His memory. Her muscles locked and trembled at the same time. She could not breathe. She could not see. Everything warped, grew dark, and twisted with despair.

  A gentle, soft hand touched her sweat-slick brow and silver light, cool as clean water, flooded her memory. “Be at peace, my wayward daughter. You are loved.”

  “I was. I was beloved. Now I am blood and fire.” Truth dripped in wet red from her lips, helplessly. She could cough out her soul onto the flagstones and feel less naked.

  “They called me Princess, in the bowels of Home. The Rat’s Princess.” Words dripped from her tongue again. “His favorites took titles, to mock and mark. Princess, Cleric, Hunter, Tracker. He sent us out to live two lives, to report back to him of the doings of Nobles, the Merchants. I had entry to the palace, if only as a Noble’s bed slave. He would have favored me for that alone, but I sometimes think he saw a soul’s daughter in me as well. He would not have wasted me on the streets Under Roof once I had been trained.”

  The air thickened around them, still and cold even as a warm wind brushed the heads of the statues nearby.

  “Freedom of a sort, you see, and it satiated in its own way. When I first came to the Rat, I was nothing more than the bastard daughter of the nursery-slave, left to run wild with neglect. Or so it was known by those who know nothing. I was not yet, though, what I became… I was not…loved.”

  “And who loved you, dancer afire?” A different hand replaced the first, larger and rougher. The world burned in those fingers, upon his words, warm and bright, the embrace of a loving father. Had she truly been loved? He had loved her, Jesan had, and his father had been surrogate father to her as well. Perhaps through the
m the Great Mysteries that they shadowed could see how to love a creature of shadow and darkness. The son and the Hawk, the father and the Great Good God grew intertwined in her memory as they had in her worship.

  “My hu—” Husband. She had been about to say ‘husband’. Nerve shredded, Sequa rose and fled in a swirl of cloak and an icy draft.

  ~ * ~

  To the Voice and the Shadow, she disappeared so smoothly and silently she seemed turned to smoke. The only sign she had even been there was the puddle of discarded veils on the ground.

  After a length of silence, the Shadow remarked quietly “I think she vaulted the retaining wall. No thud afterward. I would guess she made it down the side safely.”

  “There are statues not that far from there. It would be like a stair to her.”

  The Voice rose and paced gravely from one side of the roof to the other. When he was certain the Champion had indeed slipped away from them, he returned to his seat next to the Shadow.

  “You saw?” He murmured without pre-amble.

  When Sequa had turned her face to the Lady, in the silver light and for the beat of a heart, she had been unblemished.

  “Yes.”

  “Is that what happened before?”

  “From the reports of the witnesses—one of whom she saved from a hanging today—yes. The light of the God touched her face, and she was clean again. A fairly…dramatic moment. The symbolic weight of a Joined Summer Dance, every worshipping dance moving as one across the whole kingdom, behind it. This? But a flash instant.”

  “Observed by the avatars of the Gods.”

  “Yeessss,” drawled the Shadow. “All three of us.”

  He glowered at her a moment. “Very amusing. I wonder about the symbology—”

  “I don’t,” the Shadow interrupted. “It is clear. This is how We see her.”

  “What does it mean though?”

  “You deal in meanings and purposes, brother. I deal in change. In phases. In obscurities… “

  “And?”

  “Like a flash flood, laced with lightening and bounded by shadows. I can just see where it came from, but where it ends? There is fire and blood and death. But there is never only anything.”