Jay Lake - Endurance

How it must break a priest’s heart when their god dies. Worse than the agony of a lover perishing of the crab disease, or even a child being taken by the flux. “I am sorry,” I whispered. “Do you know what just happened?”

“She rode me.” Laris’ chin dropped, as if she were falling asleep just then and there.

“Desire, not Marya.”

“Desire?” Laris sounded drunk, almost.

“Where were you?”

“In the lazaret on Bustle Street.”

I’d heard of that place. Girls went there sometimes to lose babies, either before or after they were born. “A place where women can doctor women.”

A faint smile ghosted across Laris’ face. “Men will kill us all.”

Perhaps they already have. I pushed the thought away. “Do you know what Desire spoke to me of?”

“Wh-when She rode me, I became light.” Laris shivered and pulled herself back deeper into the fouled straw. “I-I’m cold. Can you take me home?”

“No,” I said softly. My fingertips brushed her face, and I felt an upwelling of sympathy and pity for this broken woman. “But I can take you back to Bustle Street.”

“They tried before, you know,” Laris said as I hoisted her to her feet. I considered hiring a horse, but the remainder of my haul from the theft earlier this day wasn’t in coin. Not yet. And I didn’t feel like trying to bargain a jeweled brooch for brief use of a mount worth a fraction of its value.

“I’m sure they did.” I had to return her to where she needed to be. Time was slipping away. At least it was not snowing now.

“Last time we stopped them.” She took a deep, shuddering gasp, then clung on to me. “My sister and me, we stopped them.”

“Stopped who?” I looked out of the alley mouth along the Street of Horizons. Where was Skinless when I needed him, anyway? The Temple of the Frog God rose to my right, faced with slick green tiles and vaguely disturbing sculptures along the roofline. To my left was the Sailor’s House, a generic sanctuary dedicated to a dozen gods and goddesses of the sea-from the Hanchu ports, the Smagadine cities, Selistan, and farther beyond the endless horizons of the world’s oceans.

The street had traffic, but nowhere near a crowd. I eyed a dung cart that presented some possibilities. A swift getaway didn’t seem likely considering the two shaggy mules dispirited between its poles.

Off we went. Laris had found her feet, and stumbled along beside me. She the drunk, I the friend carrying her home to sleep off her misfortune. It was a simple enough guise, all too ordinary for the city. “The Saffron Tower,” Laris breathed in my ear, returning my earlier semblance of affection.

And by the Wheel, my sweetpocket stirred at the warmth of her. What a terribly foolish moment to be thinking of the solace of skin. “Tell me about them,” I said, to keep her talking. I knew a little-the Saffron Tower was both a place and a monastic order headquartered in that place. It was located somewhere along the channel connecting the Storm Sea to the Sunward Sea, well east of the Stone Coast. Religious contemplatives on some rocky headland, looking for their gods in the toss of waves and the glare of distant sunsets.

Or pilgrims, I realized, searching the world for the pattern of the fall of the titanics.

“Monks,” she slurred. “In yellow robes. Except the last ones weren’t monks, they were servants.”

“Servants sent to kill a god.” My mouth was running ahead of my thoughts.

“A Selistani red man and a sprite woman.” She giggled. “He was… something to behold. Something more to fuck. A sturdy giant.”

Selistani? Red man? Mythical beings of the Fire Lakes well south and west of Kalimpura. “What did you do with them? Where did they go next?”

“My sister and I took them carnally as a rite of the goddess.” Her voice caught. “I believe they departed south across the Storm Sea after.”

To Selistan. Had the plot been moving before this most recent surge of events? I tried to keep the desperation out of my voice. “How long ago?”

“Years…” Her voice slurred. “Years, and tears ago. Not long after the Duke fell.”

I felt a brief surge of despair. Once again, the whole business seemed to trace back to me.

She stumbled again, and began muttering. I all but carried her through the slush and cold water of the streets. Together we wended toward Bustle Street and the lazaret there. My thoughts dwelled on old men in saffron brocade, whose wiles were generations beyond my own. How much like a god would a man become if he’d lived hundreds of years in health and sound mind? How different were these twins from the Duke?

Magic, divinity, the life of people and cities. It all played together. And I knew what to do about powerful immortals.

Of all people, I knew. Some lessons truly did last a lifetime.

A pale, heavy woman with a face scarred by pox and old violence peered at me through a narrow gap in the lazaret’s front door. The place had obviously been built for a counting house or something of the sort, and was still fortified as it had been during its heyday. “What is she doing out there?” the doorkeeper asked with a gasp of recognition.

“The goddess brought her to the temple. Laris was not fit to return on her own.”

“Come in, come in…” The door creaked open and I stepped into the shadows to face a pair of crossbows.

Crossbows?

I almost dropped Laris to reach for my blades when I realized the weapons were mounted on swivels, but untended.

“From earlier days,” the heavy woman said. “Though they’ve been fired a time or two since. Not many here with the strength to string or cock them.”

The winding gears were locked back with pawls, but those weapons should have been manageable even for a fairly small person, assuming the cranks were the right size. Probably no one in this women’s house understood that. “You find yourselves under siege often?”

“Sometimes.” A slow sigh escaped her. “A man has every right to his wife,” she added cryptically.

I wasn’t sure what to say to that, but something in her tone stirred my unease about stolen children. “Please,” I said. “Take Laris and care for her. Again.”

The woman reached for the priestess in my arms. “You’re a killer, aren’t you?” She grunted as I shifted Laris’ weight over.

“Is that so clear to you?”

“Yes,” she said, over the unconscious priestess’ shoulder. “Return if you need shelter. We’ll see to you, or give you a safe enough bed. Can’t hurt to have a woman like you around.”

If there were a Lily Blade handle to be raised in this city, I now knew of a candidate Blade house. “I will remember you,” I said truthfully. “And I may have a few women to send here.” Mother Vajpai. Samma. Corinthia Anastasia. I made a mental note to inform Mother Argai of this place, its location, and her likely welcome. “Some of those I send may not speak Petraean. They would be dark like me, and have my same manners.”

“Marya help them if so,” she said. “Go, go, woman. And be welcome on your return.”

I slipped back out into the street and puzzled on what I’d just learned.

Wrapped in my stolen robe, I was not so conspicuous as I might otherwise have been. My feet were tired, and I would swear my ankles were swelling inside my boots. In fact, my whole body was exhausted in a way I didn’t recall it ever being before.

Pregnancy.

I had never asked for a child. I had also never considered seeking out some place such as the lazaret to rid myself of the baby. She was mine.

Mine. Not Blackblood’s, nor the Lily Goddess’.

Mine.

Thinking about Desire, I could not say if She’d heeded my warning. I’d certainly failed to enlist Her. Most probably, I’d endangered Her anew. Iso and Osi were distracted from Desire for the moment by my co-opting them in an attempt to control Blackblood, but I could hardly hope they’d take him down.