Jay Lake - Endurance

“We have lost our way to Theobalde Avenue,” said the first brother.

“Your docks and market caught our eye too well,” added the second. “As did the louts who can be found here.”

Louts, indeed. I’d run into thugs a time or two. “I believe I know the way. Are you in haste?”

The first brother shook his head. A sly wit sparkled in his gaze. “Not now that we have your delightful company.”

The other caught the moment again. “You speak fairly. We shall play the old traveler’s game and offer you a trade. My name is Iso, and this is my brother Osi.”

Osi smiled, as clever and secretive as his brother. “We are traveling mendicants.”

The words slipped back into his brother’s mouth. “Our pilgrimage is longer than our lives will last, but we carry onward.”

The traveler’s game was something I had only read of in old stories, though I understood that prisoners played it much the same way even now.

“I am Green,” I told them. “A girl-no, a woman-of Selistan, lately resident here in Copper Downs. In time I should think to return across the Storm Sea.”

Osi dipped his head. “I will give you this next thing. We confess that we knew who you were, though it was only chance that brought us to you in the market.”

He had given me a new piece of information, and now it was my turn to give him more if I would come to understand why they knew me. I did not feel under threat, but it was still a bit odd to realize that these two had been looking for me. “I was born in Selistan,” I said, “in the region of Bhopura.” How do I get them to answer the question I want to ask?

Iso answered this time. They always spoke this way, I was to learn, like a volley between two shuttlecock players. He had to raise his voice above the whoop of several children nearby, but this did not seem to distress him. “We are on a journey to visit all the temples of the world, but we have not yet crossed the Storm Sea.”

That was an easy response. Perhaps I could drive this conversation back to my purposes. “I have crossed the sea three times, and so I am here today.”

Osi, quite promptly: “We have crossed many seas since we left the country of birth as well, along the Sunward Sea.”

That was far to the east, beyond the usual reach of Stone Coast shipping. Also nowhere near the Hanchu lands, which lay westward of here. The steam-kettle vessels that plied the ocean between the Stone Coast and Selistan were built along the Sunward Sea, though, where the arts of metallurgy and naval architecture and the mysteries of bottled lightning were much better understood. “I am no one to be known in this city,” I said. “For though I was largely raised here, I have never lived among its people.”

Iso replied, “You are known even to us, you who are a priestess of both a foreign god and a new one raised here in this place.”

Osi: “New gods are rare enough that the word spreads quickly to those who study such things.”

Maybe these men can help me find some wisdom to deal with Blackblood’s ever more pressing claims. “I have been within a few temples,” I said cautiously. “And spoken to more than one god directly. For all the good it’s done me. But I am no priestess.”

“And we are no priests,” Iso said. “Still we have knelt before a hundred altars, and recited prayers in more languages than a man should be able to count.”

The market noise rose and fell around us like waves at the shore, but I was completely drawn in to these men and their traveler’s game. “You have gone much farther than I. Home is all but lost to me, even here.” Especially after Kohlmann and Jeschonek had turned me away.

“Home is wherever we lay down our bowls and take our rest.” That was Osi, who laid a loving hand on his brother’s arm.

“Home is wherever I can put aside my knives and sleep in peace,” I told them.

“That is a rare home indeed for one of your formidable talents,” said Iso.

I broke the game then, in a sense, for a rush of frustrated generosity overwhelmed me. “Would that I could offer you a place to stay and set your bowls, but my own position in this city is tenuous. I am sorry.”

“We know this,” Osi said, “for what you say is true of everyone to some degree. Even the wealthy man in his house with a firm count of all his coins considers his position tenuous.”

Iso picked up the thought without a gap in their speech. “You are just more honest with yourself and with us.”

Back to Osi: “We would beg your indulgence, though, Mistress Green.”

Iso: “Priestess or no, you are said to be a consort of gods and a friend to goddesses. You may be able to tell us much to support our pilgrimage.”

“The work of our lives,” Osi added.

As they asked this of me, the spell of the conversation was broken. I did not feel an urge to reject these men. Whatever problems they had were not my own. I possessed too many troubles already.

On the other hand, these two must have great experience with gods and their affairs. And as foreigners, they had no stake in the events unfolding about this city. Everything coming to boil around me concerned pardines, Selistani, or the Stone Coast natives and their petty gods. These men were from a distant place, and had no stakes in the nascent battles.

Could I trust them?

Of course not. Strangers were never to be trusted. But perhaps I could be confident in not counting them as enemies.

“I will make a bargain with you,” I said. “A version of the traveler’s game, in its way.”

“What bargain?” asked Iso.

Did they ever mistake their rhythm and speak over one another, or leave a quiet gap in error? I would guess not, and indeed, never did catch them out so.

“I will tell you what I can of temples and gods here, and the history of this place that I do know well, if from a narrow angle of view. In return, you will tell me what you can of how the gods treat with one another, what deeds they do among themselves. I fear the politics and jealousies that pass among them have already touched my life. I would know more of that with which I am afflicted.”

“Divine favor is ever an affliction,” Osi replied with a small smile. “Though all the priests deny it, who could truly prosper under the fire of such attention?”

In that moment, my sense of affinity with these two blossomed. They understood me in a way that no one here had or would likely be able to. All three of us were strange in a stranger land. I could see how communities such as the Temple of the Silver Lily came into being-people of like mind and allied intent who shared interests. To the grave and beyond, if all went well. Much as what a family was said to be, though I had never known such.

Best of all, these twins were the first people I had met since leaving Ilona’s side who did not place demands on me. All they wanted to do was talk.

“I have seen enough of divine favor to last me a lifetime.” I was surprised at the bitterness that crept into my voice with those words. “A bit more secular favor would not be at all misplaced.”

Iso and Osi exchanged a long glance. It was as if they were conferring, which perhaps they were. What did I know of the bond between twins? Or siblings, even. I had been the only child of my parents. On my one visit back to my father’s farm, I had seen no evidence of Shar, his second wife, bearing him more children.

“We would retire from this market,” Iso told me. “Will you help us find our way back?”

Perhaps this was not a ruse. “Yes.” I needed somewhere to rest that did not involve sleeping with my face pressed against a tavern table. Or bringing on more of Blackblood’s attacks. “I may be a danger to you. There are those who hunt me.”