Jay Lake - Endurance

“This boy is Nunzio,” Ponce said with little of his usual good humor. “He is from the Algeficic Temple.”

That gave me pause. My baby’s father had been a priest of that temple and its patron, Blackblood. I did not want my daughter anywhere near the pain god.

Nunzio refused to meet my eye. Instead he seemed to find his own feet very interesting. Still, he blurted out his message. “Y-your p-presence is requ-quested at the temple.”

“By whom?” I asked, amazed. “I killed off most of your priesthood myself. Surely the survivors have no use for me now.” The late Pater Primus, Stefan Mohanda, had nearly done for me. In both of his roles, as Blackblood’s high priest and as a member of the Interim Council. Though I did not resent the pain god personally, I had no love for his people. I was forced to concentrate on not slapping the mattock against my free hand. This poor acolyte could see that as nothing but a threat.

And rightly so.

Ponce paled at my words, but said nothing. Nunzio made a visible effort not to run away. “They-he-it wishes to speak to you.” He quailed. “By name.”

I almost refused him then and there. Little good could arise from such a visit, while I could imagine a number of disasters ranging from priestly vengeance to a renewal of the erratic attentions of a rather dangerous god. Blackblood took up pain from his male followers and their sons by way of sacrifice. In return, he prepared them for an easier path to the halls of the dead. I recalled what Septio had told me about how the god’s priesthood was recruited-from those suffering boys and men not yet worthy to be taken up.

What had befallen Nunzio that he served as an acolyte of this most difficult of gods at such a young age? I could almost pity this boy.

To my surprise, I found that I did.

“Return to your temple.” My voice was gentle. “I will be along in time. Your duty is faithfully discharged.”

After Blackblood’s acolyte left, Ponce looked at me with a clearly unaccustomed seriousness. “He is not the only one to have called here searching for you.”

Curious, I asked, “Why did you let him find me, and not others?”

“Chowdry left instructions as to who could see you, and who could not. The Interim Council has sent messengers, and once Councilor Kohlmann in person. We have said we do not know where you are.” His grin returned. “Which was true. You might have been sleeping, or bathing, or eating. How did I know, from out front? Likewise, several Selistani have been asking after you.”

I wondered how they kept my countrymen among the acolytes from speaking to Surali and the embassy. That, I decided, was the god’s problem. It would only become mine at need. In any case, these young people seemed frightened of me, or at least my reputation.

“But you were to admit the servants of another god?”

Ponce shook his head. “Not as such. I asked Endurance for guidance.”

Since my experience in the temple this morning with the ox god’s wordless will, I could better understand how Chowdry and this young man were so willing and able to take direction from their mute deity. “I would visit Blackblood soon, I think.” It seemed the right path now, and action was better than hiding in this temple. “The visit will be better made in full daylight. Will Chowdry return this morning?”

The young man shrugged. “I should depart whenever I was ready, were I you.”

“Yes. I will.”

He paused, something else clearly on his mind. “A worry, for you, if you please, Mother Green.”

“Just Green,” I said firmly, my free hand straying to my belly.

“It is long past now, but there have been… attacks… in the Temple Quarter.”

That seemed almost silly. “I am hardly concerned about street thugs.”

“Not on women. On their gods.” He withdrew from my attitude. Later I regretted that I had spoken so dismissively, for I might have learned more sooner.

Dressed as a boy, I went forth, keeping my chin tucked down and my hat tilted forward. The Street of Horizons was familiar enough. Odd, clever architecture and a sense of vanishing perspective. Whatever long-dead architect had first laid out the Temple Quarter had been inspired, at the least.

The area was busy, though with a liveliness that took me some time to unravel. The great iron pots that lined the street were in better repair than on my last visit here. People seemed to throng rather than scurry. Choybalsan’s fall had lent renewed, healthy energy to this place that had been little more than an open-air tomb during the days of the Duke.

Gods had not been so popular in a city ruled by an immortal with stolen magic.

Yet there was a tension in the air. Not the furtiveness of the old days. More like nervousness. As if a thousand people on the street at once could be mugged together. Ponce had mentioned attacks, but on the gods themselves? Who would dare? Who could dare?

It was a staggering thought, even to one such as I, who had brought down a god on the streets of this very city.

In any event, something poisoned the air just enough for discomfort, like water from a well in which a dog has drowned long ago. The city worried, through the collective fears of its people.

The Algeficic Temple was familiar as ever. Faced in black tile, its tall metal doors were still bent where the god’s avatar Skinless had forced them closed, trapping the last of Blackblood’s previous generation of scheming priests within. Clearly they had been opened since, but not repaired. On the right rose a very old building, blocky and tan fronted by squat pillars. On the left, a white stucco temple topped with a gold-colored pediment. Though I knew the names and histories of most of the gods here, much as with the families of wealth and power, I did not know their houses.

Even while I worried a bit about how Blackblood’s renewed priesthood would welcome me, this was not a day for skulking caution. I had been bidden, I was arrived.

I marched up the uncomfortable steps and pushed into the darkness beyond.

The hall within was as silent and dusty as I remembered, though there seemed to be new stains on the floor besides the ones I’d caused on my last pass through this place. Perhaps a crisis of succession, argued in the most pointed manner? Dark banners still hung from the clerestory thirty feet above. The mercury pool quivered in the center of the space. A living scrying mirror, though such things had never spoken to me.

I had slain here, and nearly been slain myself. Death and healing, and the touch of Skinless, that horrific avatar of the pain god, had all taken place in this hall.

Five men in familiar dark robes stepped out of the shadows toward me. Each wore a woven leather mask. Ambush! I thought, and palmed one of my short knives. Then the priest at the center raised his hands cautiously.

“Please, Mistress Green, we beg you not to strike us down.”

Straightening from the fighting crouch into which I’d dropped unthinking, I declared loudly, “I intend to strike no one. And come only at invitation.” I couldn’t stop myself from adding, “I believe I have meddled enough already in your priestly affairs. Don’t you?”

From the way their robes shuffled and their masks were cast down, these priests did not find my little joke to be so funny.

“The god has spoken for you,” the leader continued. “I am Pater Primus.” At the expression that crossed my face, he swiftly amended himself. “The new Pater Primus. It is as much a title as a name.”

“An ill-favored title, if you ask me,” I grumbled, but I understood that I was being graceless. This awkward banter covered a bad case of nerves on both our parts.