Back | Next
Contents

Chapter 10
The Feast of the Dead Gods

THE RABBIT'S HEAD jerked up, green shoots dangling from its lips. Jame froze. A stealthy movement seen past the quarry's alert ears helped her to spot Jorin, crouching behind a clump of late daisies. It had taken them over an hour of patient stalking to reach their respective positions, all for one stupid rabbit, which, it seemed, was not even going to let them get within striking range. Would it bolt? Yes, dammit, it was—away from them both.

Jame sprang up. The rabbit had broken to the left, but her wild dash set it jinking back toward the daisies. Jorin erupted from the heart of the clump, narrowly missing a perfect pounce. The rabbit was doubling back now toward Jame's original position. She pivoted. Sprinting to turn it, her foot hit something in the grass, and she fell, fingertips almost grazing the white tail as it flashed past.

She was lying flat on the ground with most of the breath knocked out of her when Jorin gave the top of her left ear a tentative lick. "Has it ever occurred to you," she said in exasperation, rolling over to look up into his face, "that you might just once go on without me?"

Apparently, it never had.

The ounce gave a conciliatory little chirp and flopped down beside her. Relenting, Jame ran her hand down the length of his back, feeling muscles flex under the richness of his late summer coat, now tinged with gold where that odious brown dye had worn off. Jorin stretched, purring, and rolled over on his back in a most Boo-like fashion to have his stomach rubbed. Jame sat up with a laugh and obliged. Then she groped back through the grass for the thing that had tripped her.

It was a helmet, rust-pitted, ancient. They had been stumbling over similar armorial remains all afternoon, and once over the top half of a skull in which a family of grass snakes had made their nest. Despite the depredations of scavengers, such things were fairly common here on the Plain of Bones, where the last and most vicious battle of the Skyrr-Metalondrian war had been fought. Jame felt fortunate not to have landed on someone's sword or spiked mace, quietly rusting in the grass. In her opinion, she had tried her luck quite enough for one day. She and the ounce both rose and set off westward into the shadow of the mountains.

It was late afternoon on the last day of summer.

Three nights had passed since they had come up into the hills, escaping the city's heat and bustle. No rain had fallen there all summer to lay the dust or ease the citizens' minds. Here too the land was parched, the leaves brittle on the bough; but a fitful wind off the Ebonbane rustled through the grass, and the evenings were cool. They had set up camp in a shallow cave on the banks of the Tynnet. Despite increasing skill, however, their hunting luck in the foothills had been uniformly bad. So, in the little time left, Jame had decided to see if the game to the east was any better. It wasn't. Now she must take the ounce back to their camp and return to the city, leaving him in the wilds.

This had not been an easy decision to make. She had watched his restless pacing in the loft too long, however, not to realize that he must have more freedom. She would visit him, bringing food, as often as possible, but how much better it would be if he could learn to fend for himself. One kill, just one, might be enough to start him out.

"Well, we'll make do, whatever happens, won't we, kitten?" she said, looking down at the young ounce.

His ears pricked sharply, but not to the sound of her voice. She stopped, surprised, then also listened, wishing for the vanished mind link to let her hear what he heard. Crickets sang in the long grass, a solitary thrush whistled once, and then, from far away to the southeast, came the sound of horns blowing for a hunt gone astray.

The stag seemed to explode over the crest of the next hill, all foam-lathered muzzle and wild eyes. It was in the hollow before it saw them. Jame saw it leap sideways, then stagger as Jorin's weight struck its hindquarters. The needle-pointed tines, the sharp hooves—if the ounce lost his hold. . .

She plunged down the slope after him. Her hands closed on the antlers, and all three—girl, ounce, and deer—fell. God, if she should land on the points . . . twisting in midair, Jame saw earth, then sky between the branching horns. For the second time in an hour, the ground slammed into her.

Something cracked loudly.

For a long moment she lay there, afraid to move, and then realized that the stag was also motionless. The angle of its head told the tale.

Jame eased herself out from under the dead beast. By morning, there should be some spectacular bruises from the feel of things, but nothing seemed to be broken. Jorin was crouching over the stag's haunches, looking vaguely amazed at himself and uncertain of what to do next. Then, abruptly, he tensed and began to growl. Jame got quickly to her feet. A moment later the grass on the crest of the opposite hill parted as two hunting leopards slipped through it in quest of their prey. They were magnificent beasts, with sleekly groomed coats and collars that glowed with gold. It did not please them to find others already on the kill.

The horns sounded again, nearer this time.

Jame slipped her knife out of its boot sheath, wondering how much good it would do.

Someone was clambering up the far side of the hill, whistling and calling hoarsely. Then he was on the crest, a thin, harassed-looking man carrying two leashes coiled in one hand and a short whip in the other.

"Away from that stag, you!" he shouted wrathfully down at Jame. "This is my lord's land and his kill."

All four below snarled at him.

A man on a tall gray mare pulled up beside the cat-handler. "What's this?" he demanded, regarding the scene below. The answer was long, impassioned, and apparently reached back to the beginning of the chase hours ago. Meanwhile, another rider appeared on the rise, and another and another until the hollow was ringed with them. Jame, still watching the leopards warily as they circled her, began to feel very conspicuous.

"All right, all right," said the first horseman suddenly, cutting short the other's tirade. "I'll grant it wasn't your fault . . . this time. You down there, the hunt is yours. Will you be so good as to grant my cats a cup of blood? They'll never settle down without it."

"My lord," said Jame, thinking quickly, "let me present you with the whole deer. I didn't know we were trespassing-"

"Well! That's most kind of you," said the other. From his tone, which was light and waspish, she couldn't tell if he was being sarcastic or not. "Such generosity should be rewarded. Come back to my camp and share a cup of wine with me." Without waiting for an answer, he turned and rode away.

Jame saw that his followers had no intention of letting her decline this invitation. She retrieved her cap, dislodged by her fall, then stripped off her gloves and gathered as much stag's blood as her cupped hands would hold. Jorin lapped it up, rough tongue rasping her fingers clean, while the cat-handler sullenly rewarded his own charges nearby. Then one of the riders impatiently gave her a hand up, and they all galloped off after the man on the gray mare.

The camp was small but heavily guarded, blood-feud and kin-strife being the major social conventions in Skyrr. Recent years had seen some lulls in the violence, mostly due to the new Archiem, Arribek sen Tenzi, but things never stayed quiet in the hill cantons for long.

Seated on a low stool in her host's tent, Jame watched the man as he moved restlessly about the room, discoursing on various hunting trophies in it. She wondered who he was. From his clothes, which were of good quality but much patched, she decided that he must be the impoverished head of the local ruling family. His sharp, covert glances were beginning to make her fidget. Obviously she had not been invited—no, ordered—here simply to listen to a monologue on local hunting conditions. The guards had taken her knife at the door. She dropped her hand onto Jorin's head as he leaned against her knee, drawing confidence from his presence.

The man abruptly pivoted to face her. "Enough of this," he snapped. "Confess! It's the link, isn't it?"

Jame stared at him.

"No matter where I go or what I point at, if your eyes follow me, so do your cat's, and any fool can see that he's blind as a brick."

"Well, I'll be damned," said Jame, looking down at the ounce in amazement. "Do you mean to tell me, you young imp, that all this time. . . . No wonder our hunts have always ended when I've fallen behind! You can't chase what I can't see."

"One way only, is it?" the man said, at last perching on the stool opposite her. "That may change. I've heard that these links can take years to form properly, or sometimes only seconds. I envy you the experience. But one thing still puzzles me. Why would anyone stain a Royal Gold that ugly stain of brown? One might almost suppose," his voice went on, almost purring now, "that you didn't come by this valuable beast legally."

Jame swallowed, remembering her promise to the man at the cattery. "I'm afraid I can't explain, but I didn't steal this cub," she said carefully. "I give you my word on that."

"And if I won't accept it?"

"Then I must defend my honor with my life. . . although I'd just as soon you didn't make it necessary."

"Indeed," he said drily. "The race best known in Rathillien for a certain—ah—inflexibility in matters concerning honor is also the only one that can form mind-links. Check and double-check. Therefore, having established your veracity, tell me how things go in Tai-tastigon, Kencyr."

This was a formidable request, but Jame did her best, thinking that news must be at a premium here in the hills. In time, her summary came to the doings of the Five. Here as elsewhere, he plied her with shrewd questions, mostly about his countryman, Harr, Thane sen Tenko.

"Would you say," he asked suddenly, "that the man is honest?"

Jame hesitated. For all she knew, her host might be related both to Harr and Marplet sen Tenko. "Well, there are rumors," she said cautiously, "I don't know if anything could be proved, though, even in the Skyrrman-Res aB'tyrr clash."

"Ah, I've heard of that affair," the lord said, adding pettishly, "you needn't look so surprised: some news filters into this back country, especially when it has to do with our own people. It's an undeclared trade war, from the sound of it. A boy has been beaten and a servant blinded, I understand; also some of the Skyrrman's property has been destroyed—some puncheons of wine contaminated with salt, a pile of bricks smashed, and so forth."

"Bricks?"

Oh, that must have been when Niggen dropped the beam. Jame described the incident to him, likewise the events that had led up to Niggen's thrashing and the mutilation of Bortis. There was no explanation she could offer, however, for the spoiled wine, which had come to light recently in a rash of petty vandalisms at the rival inn. In connection with these, she could only protest the Res aB'tyrr's innocence.

"And Harr sen Tenko—according to rumor—has let all this happen? Why?"

"You didn't know, my lord? His brother-in-law is proprietor of the Skyrrman."

"Ah!," said the other, and promptly changed the topic.

Soon after that, the interview ended. Jame accepted some cuts of venison and set out with Jorin for their own camp to the west. It was early evening when they arrived. She put most of the meat in the cave and slipped away, leaving Jorin to his feast. She tried not to think how he would react when he discovered she was gone.

* * *

TAI-TASTIGON was in a state of subdued bustle. Last minute shopping was being done, children called in from the streets and pets secured within doors. Many houses already presented sealed faces to late passers-by, betraying no glimmer of light in the growing dusk. Silence gathered, flowing down the narrow lanes into the thoroughfares. Summer had ended. Autumn's Eve, that benign and neglected festival, sank under the shadow of the year's darkest night. Soon, soon the Feast of Dead Gods would begin.

Jame found Canden and Dally waiting for her at the inn. While the inn staff scurried around them, preparing for the host of old customers who traditionally spent this night at the Res aB'tyrr, she described her experiences in the hills.

"M'lord Harr seems much in the light these days," said Dally when she had finished. "I wonder why your ragged noble was so interested in him."

"Politics," said Kithra, sweeping down on them armed with a damp sponge just in time to hear this last remark. "Up glasses, all. Everyone in the high country knows that if that miserable Harr can buy enough support, he may well become a serious threat to the Archiem. Yes, madam . . . coming!"

"So it's money he'll be after now," said Dally thoughtfully as the servant girl darted away. "At the moment, he has access to the city treasury, but that will end when his appointment does."

"Mightn't he dip out enough before he leaves to do the job?" Jame asked.

"I expect he'll take all he can without getting caught, but a backer or two later wouldn't hurt him either. Yet, it looks as if he's doing the backing now, while he can," Dally went on. "Or at least everyone will think so after the way he embarrassed Theocandi by trying to get Mistress Silver's son executed. I don't think anyone knows how she's going to vote now that the Sirdan has only managed to get the boy exiled, not acquitted."

"And when Men-dalis is elected and pays Harr back from the Guild treasury seven-fold," said Canden suddenly, with unusual violence, "what will happen to Grandfather?"

Jame and Dally looked at each other, startled. They had been playing a political guessing game not unlike a hundred others in the past and had actually forgotten for a moment how personal their own involvement was.

"Why, then he'll be able to retire and live out the rest of his life in peace," said Dally kindly. "After all, he's an old man. The Sirdanate must be a terrible strain on him, however much he clings to it."

"And do you really think he will—live, I mean? They say it isn't like it used to be in the Guild—all the violence, the assassinations, the intrigues—we're more civilized now. But neither you nor your brother were here at the last election. Ask Master Tane's family—what's left of it—about that."

"My dear Can!" Dally protested. "Beg pardon, but even if that shadow-thief rot is true, that was when your grandfather won. Things will be very different when it's Men-dalis's turn." Something in Canden's face made him stop, badly flustered. His idealism had never had to cope with the things that this boy had seen, growing up in the Palace of Thieves' Guild itself. "At any rate," he said rather desperately, trying to evoke a lighter mood, "whatever happens, I'll see that you don't end up bobbing in the Tone—not, at least, without a few more swimming lessons."

"You might be able to do that," said Canden miserably. "But if your brother doesn't win, I won't be able to return the favor. I've no influence in the Palace or the Guild to help friends, family or myself. There'll be nothing I can do . . . nothing."

"Well, I'm sure it won't come to that," said Dally awkwardly, embarrassed by the other's distress. "Mendy will carry the election, Silver's vote or no, and then everything will be all right. You'll see. In the meantime, it's getting late. C'mon Can; I'll walk you back to the Palace."

"No . . . go on, Dally, please. I'd like to talk to Jame for a minute."

"Oh. Well then, good night, all—Dalis-sar's blessings on you." And he was gone.

"Would you mind talking on the move?" Jame asked Canden. "I have an errand across town."

"Tonight? Is that wise?",

"No, but when has wisdom ever stopped me?"

He laughed, and they went out into the night together.

The two walked in silence almost as far as the Tone, their footsteps ringing hollowly in the deserted streets. Though the Feast proper would not begin for another two hours, few residents were taking any chances of being caught out in it. It must have been about this time a year ago when Jame had first stumbled into the city.

Canden cleared his throat, startling her. "The expedition for Tai-Than leaves in two weeks," he said. "Master Quipun has asked me to go with him."

"Splendid! Have you told your grandfather yet?"

"I tried to. He wouldn't listen. Jame . . . I-I think I may go anyway."

For a moment, her step faltered, then she went on without speaking. He was not a Kencyr. He had not been taught how unforgivable it was to desert one's lord in time of peril. On the other hand, supposing Canden stayed and the worst came to pass, what could he do about it? As he himself said, nothing. She had heard stories about the violence, supernatural and otherwise, that followed most Guild Councils, when the loser was no longer protected by Guild law. For the first time, she faced the possibility that if they both stayed in Tai-tastigon through the election, at least one of her friends might very well die.

They neared the Tone. Canden was darting anxious, sidelong looks at her, and Jame suddenly realized, with alarm, that whatever she said next would probably decide the whole matter for him.

How in all the names of God was she, a Kencyr, supposed to solve such a dilemma? Among her own people, the question itself would never have arisen. All such flexibility had very nearly gone out of Kencyrath with the withdrawal of the Arrin-ken, whose function it had been to unravel such moral conundrums. Yes, and think of the havoc that had wrought over the last two millennia in the lives of those, like Bane, who lacked her own dubious talent for finding chinks in the Law. And what was this boy asking for now but a way to adapt his own code of honor to survival, as she had tried to do with hers? It was not simply an escape from death that either of them wanted, but life: she, somehow, among her own people, and he in his chosen work. How her own quest would end, she had no idea, but as for his . . .

Canden started as she suddenly turned on him and said, with a vehemence that surprised even her, "Go! Don't think of your grandfather or the Guild or Tai-tastigon again. I take responsibility for the consequences, if there are any. Just get out while you can—and be happy."

A few minutes later, Jame watched the boy walk briskly away, homeward bound, and wondered what had possessed her to speak as she had. To make oneself accountable for something before the fact was about as intelligent as agreeing to carry an unknown soul, and yet she felt she had done the right thing. He would do well, that boy, if the past would leave him alone. She envied him his future and wondered if she would ever learn what he had done with it.

Meanwhile, it was getting late. She looked once more after Canden's retreating back, noting with satisfaction a lightness in his stride that had not been there before, and then turned and crossed the Tone in pursuit of her own fate, which waited for her in the Temple District.

* * *

SOON AFTER their somewhat hectic evening in the house of the lugubrious god, Jame had thought it only fair to tell Marc why Gorge's high priest had been so eager to see them both dead. It was the first time she had spoken to the big Kendar about either her experiments or her doubts, and it irked her that he listened to the account of both so calmly.

"Don't you see," she had finally said in exasperation, "if I'm right about faith creating reality in this city, what is the truth about our own god? Do we believe in him because he's real, or is he real because we believe in him; and what about all the other deities? If even one of them is genuine, then our own holy terror is a fraud, and we as Kencyrs can't honor a lie. How can you be so calm when the foundation of our whole culture may crumble out from under us at any minute? Living here all these months hasn't your faith been shaken even once?"

Marc had considered this for a minute, then said slowly, "No, I can't say that it has. I never thought we Kencyrs had much choice in the matter, not, at least, since old Three-Face got us by the short hairs. An acolyte did tell me once, though, that some people can decide whether to believe or not. Free will, he called it, and said that faith could be even stronger with it than without, not that I quite see how. You're clever, though; perhaps you understand."

"Clever!"

Moving through the silent streets, Jame remembered her bark of laughter and winced. That afternoon, she had been to the Lower Town to see Taniscent, and the former dancer had hidden from her under the covers, sobbing wildly.

"If I were even halfway intelligent, would I act the way I do? Is there one thing I've done since coming here that hasn't had disastrous consequences? Marc, despite all the time we've spent together, you don't know me. You don't even know my name."

He had looked at her, perplexed. "Why, Jame, short for Jameth."

"No. For Jamethiel."

"Oh." For a moment, it was as if he had just eaten something of a suspicious nature and was not sure how it would agree with him. "Oh!" he said again, stiffening. "What could your sponsors have been thinking of? Better to curse a child outright at birth than to give it such a name!"

"They may have done that too, for all I know," Jame had said wryly, beginning to be ashamed of herself for snapping at him. "Still, there's some distinction of being probably the first to bear that name since Jamethiel of Knorth turned renegade to follow the Master nearly three thousand years ago."

"Snare-of-Souls, Dream-Weaver, Storm's Eye. . ." he had run through the epithets thoughtfully, checking them off on his fingers. "Priest's-Bane. The name is an omen in itself. Servants of God, any god, will be bad luck to you, and you to them. I should have as little to do with them as possible, if I were you, especially with such a one as Loogan. He's too vulnerable."

And she had promised to try.

* * *

THAT HAD BEEN weeks ago. Now here she was in the Temple District again, preparing for another raid on Gorgo's house. Somewhat reassured by Marc's refusal to be alarmed, she had given up testing Loogan; but the matter of Anthrobar's Scroll still haunted her. It was perhaps legitimate to say that the copy as well as the original of the Book had, for some obscure reason, been destined for her hands, but that didn't explain the mechanics of the thing. How in all the worlds had that long-lost manuscript come to be in Gorgo's temple? That was the question that drew her back now, on the one night of the year when she thought she could count on a minimum of interference from both god and priest.

However, the District was not as quiet as she had expected it to be. A murmur filled the air, seeming to rise from all directions and none; low, wordless, urgent. Rapid footsteps coming up from behind made her start. A man slipped hurriedly past and in at the door of a humble temple just ahead, letting the sound roll out around him for a second before the portal closed. The faithful held their vigils, praying for the safety of man and god alike, while the dead prowled outside the gate.

Jame had expected none of this. A year ago, she had entered the District later at night and had supposed, incorrectly, that it was deserted. This time she was spared the feverish power that would soon throb through these streets, but could her errand succeed in the face of so much hidden activity?

At any rate, here was Gorgo's temple. She tried the door and found it unlocked. The hinges protested piercingly. She froze, listening. Cool air slid past her face from the dim interior, bearing no sound. Had no one come to keep watch here through the long night? The outer chamber was empty. She crossed it and listened at the inner door. Nothing. Pushing it open a crack, she slipped through into the sanctuary.

It was cool and dark inside, as she remembered it, but no longer with the feeling of a woodland cave. The moss was brittle on the stones and the walls were dry. A fine patina of dust lay on the ranked benches. It had not occurred to her before what a difference the draining of the temple's reservoir would make.

The image of Gorgo loomed at the far end of the chamber, its shoulders hunched against the upper darkness. Some loving but clumsy hand had mortared together the ruined face. One had the impression that if there had been any water, the lopsided mouth would have drooled. Jame approached it, drawn by the sight of something in the idol's hands. It was another scroll. Wondering what on earth she had stumbled on this time, she carefully lifted it out and unrolled it. The writing was Kessic, the substance, a single column of unrelated objects. It appeared to be someone's shopping list.

She was still staring at it when the sanctuary door opened. Loogan stood on the threshold.

* * *

THE HIGH PRIEST had been in his quarters above the outer chamber, darning his best under-tunic. His acolyte should have tended to it that afternoon but had clearly been too unnerved by the approaching Feast to wield a needle, so Loogan had sent him home. It wasn't likely that there would be work enough to justify keeping him around tonight anyway. There hadn't been, to tell the truth, for several weeks. Soon the boy's father would probably be after him to terminate his son's contract. Well, let him go, let them all go . . . no, no, he didn't mean that. What was a priest without his people—and who would follow him now, with his personal demon, that willow of a girl (or was it a boy?) popping up every few days to sow chaos? Dear Lord of Tears, what had he done to deserve such a fate? It was just as the Reader of Bones had prophesied the very day that gray-eyed imp had first come into his life; but even the Reader had not been able to foresee the end of the matter. Would some of the faithful come tonight? They must. He wasn't sure that his god could survive the Feast without them.

What was that? The hinges of the front door. Someone had come after all.

Hastily, Loogan snapped short the thread and donned the tunic, then a neck cloth, the alb with its embroidered cuffs (merciful god, would he ever get the thing right-side-out on the first try?), the stole, the wool chasuble with its elevated shoulders and contingent of moths like a fitful nimbus, and finally the whole collection of rings, chains, and clinking amulets to which every one of his hieratic ancestors had made a contribution. Quick now, anything else? Ah yes, the diadem. He snatched it up and hurried down the stairs, threw open the inner chamber door—and found his nemesis standing by the altar.

For a moment, astonishment fixed Loogan to the spot, then rising anger broke the trance. He snatched up the tall candle stand near the door, ignoring the clatter as half the candles fell on the floor, and said, "Now I've got you, you thieving blasphemer."

"Why do you always call me that?"

The voice was quiet, even polite. Loogan stopped, blinking. It was his special curse that he could never ignore a question.

"Because you and all your kind profess the Anti-God Heresy."

"What is that?" '

" 'The belief that all the beings we know to be divine are in fact but the shadows of some greater power that regards them not,' " he heard himself say, automatically quoting the New Pantheon catechism.

"How do you know that this belief is false?"

"Because the gods do exist."

"Prove it."

The priest stared at her. Then, with an almost convulsive gesture, he threw aside the candelabrum and said shrilly, "All right, I will!"

Few preparations were needed, and Loogan went about them hurriedly, trying not to think what a rare and dangerous thing it was that he meant to attempt. So the congregation would stay away tonight of all nights, would it, and this artful tempter come in its place? Well, he would show them, he would show them all. . . but merciful god, how long was it since this ritual had last been performed? Not since Hierarach Bilgore's day at least. He lugged the benches aside, too distracted to notice that another pair of hands helped him. The space before the idol was now clear, and the two basins of water set on their tripods on either side. Loogan gave the small area one last, despairing look, then sank to his knees, took a deep breath, and began to chant.

At first, nothing happened. The singsong voice rushed on, gaining speed as it went like that of a reciting child who hurries lest he forget the words. Then bit by bit the air above the right basin and then the left seemed to thicken as a haze formed. Wisps of mist were reaching out from both sides toward each other. They met before the idol, merging into a slow, vaporish swirl. A form was taking shape. It seemed to move fitfully, and more mist wrapped itself around the half-gesture. Loogan chanted on, eyes closed, the sweat running down his plump face. Once he faltered, and the ghostlike thing before him appeared to flinch. Then he was done, suddenly, on a rising note as if he had not realized until the last second that the end was so near. Cautiously, the priest opened his eyes.

The figure that cowered before him at the feet of the great idol was about his own size and just as pale. Elaborate vestments and length after length of neck chain bowed it halfway to the ground. Webbed fingers, their upper joints encrusted with rings, fumbled helplessly at the enormous diadem that had slipped down over one bulging eye and apparently stuck there. Its wide mouth, drooling a bit, opened . . .

"No!" Loogan heard himself shriek. "No, no, no!"

Gorgo, with a stricken look at his priest, gave a thin, piping wail, sank to the floor, and dissolved.

Loogan was not aware that he had fainted until water from one of the basins hit him in the face. He lashed out wildly at the hand that had thrown it, at the face beyond, drawing blood with one of his heavy rings. Then his wrists were caught and, with difficulty, pinned to the floor. His rage died as suddenly as it had been born.

"I killed him," he said in bewilderment, looking up into those odd, silver-gray eyes. "I killed my god."

"No . . . we did. But don't think about that now. You need a drink, and I'm going to find you one. C'mon."

* * *

NEAR THE TEMPLE district was an inn which, like the Res aB'tyrr, stayed open at least until midnight on Autumn's Eve. Within minutes Jame had secured her charge in a private room with two glasses of neat wine already in him and a third waiting at his elbow.

As the little priest emerged from his daze, he began to talk—rapidly, without a pause, as though afraid of silence. Jame quickly learned that he was not the imbecile she had always taken him for. In fact, there was an excellent brain in that round, balding head; but years of bondage to the often ludicrous rituals of his god had taught him that his only possible dignity lay in unthinking obedience. Now all that effort and self-denial seemed to have been wasted.

"I've let them all down, my god, my ancestors, myself," he said, and then startled Jame by suddenly shouting, "Let them go, let them all go!"

"Quiet!" hissed the innkeeper, sticking his head through the curtains. "D'you want to bring every dead god in town down on us?"

"No, just one of them," said the priest.

Noting that the hour candle on the table had almost burned down to the twelfth ring, Jame hastily paid the reckoning. Loogan tried to break away from her at the door. He wanted to search the streets for Gorgo. She finally managed to get the priest back to his temple and forcibly put him to bed. He was snoring almost before she turned her back.

The front door snicked shut behind her, locking, and she stood at the head of the stairs, shivering slightly, staring at nothing. Somewhere up in the night above the District's architectural tangle, a bell struck, its single, deep note echoing down the corridors of the sky. Another, farther away joined it, then another and another until all were in full voice. The boom of their combined tolling made the stones beneath shake. Then the lead bell subsided, its course rung through at last, the others following it as their turn came. At last only a treble was left, its silvery note shivering against the dark, faltering, dying away.

The Feast of Dead Gods had begun.

Jame left the District and took to the rooftops. Dry thunder grumbled in the mountain passes to the west, lightning edged the ragged clouds with tarnished silver as they came scudding over the peaks. The wind hunted where it pleased. Below, indistinct forms were wandering through the streets, sometimes pausing to scratch softly on this door or that, sometimes fumbling at a key hole, whispering in the dry, worm-gnawed voices of the dead. Corpse lights flickered in ghostly procession through the crossroads, over the roof-beams. Wisps of song and lament rose to mingle with the wind's rushing.

Jame went on. Cloudies in hiding who saw her pass thought she must be mad to walk so slowly on such a night. She didn't even bother to take the shortest route home. Once a water pipe down-roof gave way with a screech, as though something too heavy had tried to climb it. Once a great, misshapen shadow swept over the gables after her, barely missing, and a nightbird, caught under it, tumbled down dead at her heels. She paid no attention. It was long past midnight, nearer to dawn, when she at last came to the back roof of the Res aB'tyrr.

As Jame swung a leg over the loft's sill, she happened to look back and saw a muffled figure standing on the roof below her, looking up. Thinking it was some old woman of the Cloud Kingdom who had been caught away from home by nightfall, Jame signaled her to climb up to the dubious safety of the open loft. Then she crossed to her own pallet, sat down, and was quickly lost again in her own dark thoughts.

Sometime later she looked up. The shrouded figure was sitting opposite her. This surprised Jame because she had not heard the other's ascent. Regarding the stranger more closely, she realized with a sudden tightening of stomach muscles that she was not so much looking at her guest as through her. It was the night of dead gods, and death, at her invitation, had just entered the loft.

Seconds passed, then a full minute. The other still had not moved. The face, tilted downward, was hidden in the shadow of the cowl. The shoulders slumped. Even in this short time, the gnarled hands, hanging limply over the peak of shrouded knees, had become thinner and more transparent. Mortar began to rattle down behind the motionless figure. The poor creature was dying even out of death, and she was taking part of the inn with her.

How far would this go? Jame saw faint lines of erosion begin to furrow the opposite wall. She sensed that the stranger hadn't the strength to leave unassisted and knew that she dared not touch her. For a long moment Jame sat there, watching and thoughtfully gnawing her lower lip. Then she rose slowly and edged past her peculiar guest to the head of the spiral stairs.

The guest rooms on the third floor were empty, their lodgers undoubtedly below in the hall with the rest of the company. Jame descended to the second floor and slipped out onto the gallery. From there, she went down by the far stair to the court and crossed it stealthily to the kitchen door. When Cleppetty left the room for a minute, she quickly entered and took what she required. Actually, the widow would have begrudged her none of it, but it seemed best not to let anyone know who was in the loft or what, with luck, was about to be done about it. Clutching the ends of the large napkin in which her booty was wrapped, Jame retreated to the upper regions.

The drooping figure had not moved. The stones behind it were more visible than before, and more decayed. Dry rot was well advanced in the floor boards, with tendrils of it reaching out into the room.

There was no proper fireplace in the loft, so Marc had built a small one out of bricks against the north wall to be used for warmth. Jame soon had a blaze going in it. Then she unwrapped the napkin and began to separate its contents. By the time she was done, lined up in front of her were morsels of raw venison, beef, and pork, brie tart, two oysters, fried artichokes, a pear coffin filled with cooked lentils, spiced capon, marzipan toads, and finally the soggy piece of trencher bread (colored green with parsley) on which the whole mess had rested. The trick, of course, was to find out if any of these assorted fragments would make an acceptable sacrifice. Jame took the nearest at hand—a ragged chunk of pork—and put it on the grate. Then she withdrew to watch.

The meat began to sizzle over the leaping flames, the odor of its cooking reminding Jame forcefully that she had had nothing but a cup of wine in the hill lord's tent since early that morning. Then it began to burn. The hands of the spectre twitched once, but it made no further move. Several stones fell out of the wall and through the rotting floor. Eventually the bit of pork, reduced to a cinder, fell through the grate and was gone. Jame put the venison in its place.

This process seemed to go on for hours. It must be almost dawn, Jame thought, but she doubted if either the loft or her guest would last that long. The roof groaned and began to sag over the silent, nearly invisible figure. Dust drifted down. The beams overhead had started to disintegrate. Fighting an impulse to bolt below to safety, Jame tried to figure out what she was doing wrong.

"Of course!" she said suddenly. "You idiot, you've got the whole thing backward."

True, most of the dead gods craved sacrifices, but it was lack of faith, not food, that had killed them in the first place. Poor Gorgo's sudden demise proved that. Therefore, offerings were valuable to such beings only for the sake of the devotion that prompted them. That was why it did those out prowling the streets tonight so little good to devour whatever they could find or catch, and why her guest did not prosper now.

This presented a new difficulty.

"Goddess," said Jame to the figure, after a moment's hard thought. "I think I know now what you need, but not if I can provide it. I'm a Kencyr, a monotheist, it seems, whether I want to be one or not. If that wasn't true, I would have been able to accept this city on its own terms long ago. As it is, your kind, living and dead, have been a nightmare to me. I still think that in the end I'll find a way to explain you all away, but not entirely. In some quite alien way, you do exist. I believe that now. So, to a certain extent, I suppose I believe in you too, goddess. That's the best I can do. I hope it's good enough."

And with this, she broke the last of her provisions, the soggy piece of trencher bread, over the fire.

It blazed up in her face. Half-blinded, choking, she threw herself back from it. The loft stank of burned hair. Through the after-image of flames, she saw the shrouded figure bending over the fire. It opened its hood and the smoke billowed up into it. The hands stopped trembling as the veins sank on them and the flesh returned. The outline of the stones beyond showed only faintly through the figure when it at last turned toward Jame. She shrank from it, wondering belatedly if she had outsmarted herself again. But no. It merely sketched what might have been an obeisance and drifted past her. Somewhere beyond the Old Wall, a cock shut within doors began to crow and was stifled in mid-note. Facing the sun that still swam in seas of mist below the horizon, the goddess raised her hands in welcome to the gray light of dawn and vanished.

Jame sat very still for a long moment, then sprang to her feet and practically threw herself over the north parapet. She could never remember afterward if she had used the B'tyrr in her descent at all. It was the beginning of a cross-town rooftop sprint that was spoken of with awe for years to come by the few early rising Cloudies who witnessed it. Jame only remembered its start and finish when she fetched up gasping in front of Gorgo's temple, suddenly jarred out of her haze of plans by the solid reality of a locked door.

Fifteen seconds later the lock was picked and she was tearing up the stairs to Loogan's quarters. Here she pounced on the unfortunate priest and began to shake him vigorously.

Loogan woke suddenly with all that had happened the night before clear in his mind, a roaring headache, and someone shouting in his ear "Get up, you lie-a-bed. We've work to do!"

"Please stop that," he said plaintively. "My head is about to fall off . . . what work?"

"Break out the jubilee wine, old man," cried Jame, doing a double backward somersault that made him wonder if he was still dreaming. "We're going to resurrect your god!"

Back | Next
Framed