Jay Lake - Green

I sighted my finger at Choybalsan and wished that the Lily Goddess had granted me something more powerful than obligation.

Choybalsan turned and looked at me. His smile was visible even at my distance. I tasted metal in my mouth, and my hair began to prickle.

“Move, now!” I shouted, and ran for the street.

Light immediately behind me etched shadows in my vision. It came with a sizzling noise, like oil boiling, and was followed by a thunderclap that drove me painfully to my knees. My little wooden bell spun slowly on a cobble.

I could hear nothing. The shadows refused to be blinked away. Shaking my head, I rose to my feet. Someone pressed something into my hand. The Tavernkeep, I realized. I looked stupidly at the pistol he’d given me.

“I do not know how to use it,” he said apologetically, though I could barely hear him.

I felt that metal taste again. “Get away! He’s throwing lightning at anyone who comes near me.” My best armor right now was the fact that Choybalsan still wanted something-the shred of the Duke’s old power he believed I still held, that he required to complete his transformation.

How to turn that against him?

Lightning struck beside me again as the Tavernkeep sprinted away. This time, I had my eyes closed and my head bowed. My entire body felt as if it were smoldering, but I was neither blinded nor driven off my feet.

When I looked again, the Tavernkeep was picking himself up and staggering farther away. Skinless stood beside me once more, staring up at Choybalsan. Mother Iron stepped up to my other side.

The challenge would be clear enough. Now to bring him down.

I raised the clumsy pistol and aimed it at the god’s feet, where he stood on a smoldering peak of the Textile Bourse’s roof. The weapon barked and spat when I pulled the trigger. Stone spalled away from the facing well below him.

So much for accuracy. I was too far-pistols were never much good past a few dozen feet anyway. I threw the weapon aside.

Lightning continued to arc around Choybalsan. The roof smoked, and the thunder was deafening. Even in the face of such eye-bright violence, we had been wrong to flee the Textile Bourse before. I walked down the street. I would approach the god Choybalsan with upturned face and weaponless hands rather than cowering among the untended roses below his feet. My escort of avatars and sendings came with me.

I saw a crossbow bolt soar upward from near the foot of the building. It was a magnificent shot. Had Choybalsan been a man, he would have fallen with a wounded foot. As it was, he aimed lightning into the little garden of the building next door. Whichever of my allies had taken that shot did not fire again.

He had still not struck me down. Likewise he did not spend lightning on my escort. I stood in the street before the Textile Bourse, amid dropped weapons, pools of blood, charred wood, and the debris of a fleeing crowd. Spreading my arms wide, I called up to him.

“You wish to take your missing measure of grace from me!” I shouted. “Come down here and do so!”

Choybalsan jumped forty feet off the building to land flat on his heels in front of me. My escort was tense, ready to leap at him, but awaiting the word from me.

I held it back. The lightning had stopped.

“So you are ready to give up the last of my power.” I could still see Federo, but he was filled with the overwhelming largeness of the god. His voice echoed in the bones of my chest, though to my ears he spoke as an ordinary man.

“You may try to take it from me.”

“You must give it.” His voice grew lower, as if rumbling through stones.

“No.” So this was the point of contention. He had somehow hoped to use the Dancing Mistress to persuade me to this, back at the camp before we escaped. “I will not give you the last key to the locks of your power. Any more than I will give you my life.”

Beside me, Skinless quivered. I nodded.

My allies fell upon the god. The Factor swept in, acting for the first time like a gibbering ghost of legend, followed by his trail of servant-shades.

Though I stood so close to their violence I could have reached a hand in like a trainer stopping a dog fight, I did not move back. I needed to see what happened next.

Lightning arced once more, but now it leapt from roofpeak to roofpeak down the length of Lyme Street. Sheets of sparks jumped across the width of the street. Balls of fire sizzled and rolled along the cobbles. The thunder became one rippling roar that faded as my hearing gave out.

This was like watching a pack of curs. These tulpas of the city hated the new god. They tore at him, butted him, grabbed him. Mother Iron’s hands glowed red as she scored Choybalsan’s skin with scorched furrows. The Thin Woodman rained blows upon him that would have cracked the bones of a mortal. One of their fellows, a shambling green mound that might have been the avatar of rot, extended a film of slime over Choybalsan’s head. Skinless simply pounded him with giant naked fists.

The god subsided. He dropped to the pavement, first on his knees, then curled on his side. The lightning sizzled to a stop. Cool evening air blew across me in a sudden breeze. I thought the fight was over.

Skinless reached down to tear Choybalsan’s arms off when the god rolled onto his back and opened his eyes. Now he showed wounds-not of this fight, though. Horrible burns that wept red and pale fluid.

I realized this damage had been inflicted when the Dancing Mistress and I had blown his tent apart. They seemed fresh even now, which made me pity Federo’s agony, wherever he was beneath the wrappings of the god. He showed his true aspect.

We were winning. The god was down, and his powers were sloughing away. I actually smiled at the Factor, who stood on the other side of the fight with a grim expression on his spectral face.

When Skinless began to tug Choybalsan apart, the god flexed his muscles to shatter the avatar’s forearms. It screamed, a thin, high keening like a frightened rabbit, and fell back. Choybalsan tucked forward and leapt to his feet. He grabbed at the shambling green thing and shredded it, scattering the bits. He broke the Thin Woodman in half and threw him over the rooftops toward the next block. He bore Mother Iron into a hug that made her wheeze like an overworked ship’s kettle, then slammed her to the pavement so hard the cobbles shattered.

Finally, he turned to me. Lightning returned, dancing on the rooftops, setting the iron fences of the little garden beds aglow.

Despite my brave words earlier, I knew I could not fight him again. His divine aspect was full upon him.

How do I defeat a god? No priests were here to kill, and he had an army of worshippers outside the city. That was what they were here for-not to overrun the city, but to maintain the fervor of their newfound faith in Choybalsan.

He had prayer. I had anger. But my anger drove only me and those close by me to battle. The god had just struck down the most powerful beings I knew to throw at him.

What would Endurance do? What would my grandmother do?

Patience. They each in their way would have counseled patience.

His hand reached toward me. The fingers were smashed, I saw, held together by the main force of his will.

A series of questions flashed through my mind.

Why had the explosion hurt him? That was not a thing of my hands.

Why had the glass hurt Skinless, who could not be touched by weapons? Because the glass had been hurled by a god.

What god had set the fire and storm in Choybalsan’s tent? The god that was him, his sliver of grace within me.

I dropped heavily to sit on the cobbles. “Stay your hand, Choybalsan. I shall release what you seek.”

Even through the rolling thunder, he heard me. His hand drew back and a smile that was something of Federo crossed his ruined face.