Jay Lake - Green

I would have described her as maternal, but I knew that in the young woman she had been then, maternal was not the desired impression. “Here you are.”

“Here I am. And I’m lucky they didn’t ship me somewhere I’d never return from.”

What happened at the manor? I wanted to ask, but this was her story. She would tell it as she saw fit. Or not. “I’ve been on a ship or two.”

“Of course you have.” She smoothed the covers over me. “You’ve been hurt bad. I’ve put what fluid in you I could, and dressed your wounds.”

Wrapped in blankets, I hadn’t thought how I was clothed. A simple cotton gown, from the feel of it. “Thank you.”

“An army roams out there. Before, they were troublesome. Now they’re angry.”

“I didn’t manage to kill their god.”

A smile quirked her face. “That you even tried says much.”

“Th-thank you.” Catching her hand, I clasped it close. “I must get back to Copper Downs. I know Choybalsan’s secret, or part of it.” And he knows some secret of mine that I do not. Within whose heart had the Lily Goddess truly seen the danger?

It all made sense, if I believed the first principles. Federo had captured the Duke’s magic. Or quite possibly the other way around. Perhaps the original conspiracy had contained a layer deeper than I’d ever known. Whatever, however, he was missing something. I was a part of it, key for a lock he hadn’t yet found, rooted in the pardines from whom the power had originally been stolen. Which was why Choybalsan had been killing them indiscriminately.

In hopes they held the missing piece.

I knew his secret. More to the point, I knew he could be fought. If not killed, at least ground down. At least, I hoped so. The boundaries in that strange territory between man and god were unclear to me.

“I can show you the road right now if you wish,” she told me. “You’re not fit to walk. There’s scouts and raiders up and down it already. The city’s even sent out a few riders.”

“Under what command?” Half a dozen major forces of guards and watchmen roamed the city, but Copper Downs had not maintained a standing army in centuries. There wasn’t really anyone to fight.

Hadn’t been, until now.

“They’re raising the regiments. Old banners dangle in empty halls all over that city from other times.”

“An army of grocer’s boys and clerks is not likely to strike fear in anyone but themselves,” I said. There was the problem, of course. How to defend the city.

Is it my problem?

“Give your body a few days.” She squeezed my hands. “At the very least, wait until you can eat decently. Even healed of your wounds, you won’t have any energy until you do.”

“Might I have soup?” I asked, suddenly feeling shy. “Without fish, if possible?”

“I will make you some.”

She rose from the bed and set an iron kettle near the fire. I let myself be eased by the bustle of her cooking and tried to think what I should do.

Go home to Selistan, of course. But I had not done what the Lily Goddess had set me to do. Choybalsan was loose, free. Whatever danger she saw had to be bound up in him. Certainly he had some tie to the coils of the Dancing Mistress’ heart. He’d all but confessed to an old love for her. Besides that, his current rampage had written fear large across her.

There had been no major theogenies in recent history that I knew of. Gods and goddesses were a conservative lot. Jealous of one another’s followers, craving prayer and sacrifice. They tended to prefer not to have new competition.

Some moved, coming with waves of migrants or travelers. Some were born, from time to time. Some died, even, of neglect or abuse or assassination. Wars among the gods were stuff of legend out of the deepest shadows of time. In many tales, such infighting was given as the reason for the fall of the titanics.

Did She fear the rising of a new god here, or did She fear one who would go to Her with sword in hand?

Federo had been a traveled man. Choybalsan knew the way to Kalimpura. And he’d known I was there, somewhere, carrying the missing fragment of his powers. I had stolen his measure of grace.

The Goddess had sent me to Copper Downs to keep him away from Kalimpura.

The only way I could go home was to end this threat. Stop the god-birth of Choybalsan, or slay him outright. Except killing a god did not seem a path back into the good graces of my own divine patron.

Thinking was giving me a headache. The woman brought me a simple corn soup with a few flecks of cress floating in it.

“Try this. If you want something with a bit more substance, I’ll bring you bread.”

“N-no. Thank you.” I sipped at it. The smell was divine, but the taste was difficult in my mouth. A few swallows, and my gut felt full to bursting, as if I’d just eaten an entire solstice goose by myself.

“You are right,” I told her. “I cannot leave yet.”

“The city will not fall today, nor tomorrow,” she answered. “They are not even trying to bring an army to the gates yet.”

“Am I safe here? Are you safe with me here?”

“Yes, yes. I am not a fool.”

“No. You have not given me your name, or asked for mine.”

She answered with humor in her voice: “Your name is not needed. There cannot be two women on the Stone Coast with your face. My name does not matter.”

I mulled that awhile, until sleep claimed me.

Awake but still weak, I had Corinthia Anastasia find me a piece of wood about the size of a good ham. “A whittling knife as well, please,” I told her.

“I ain’t allowed big knives.”

“For me.”

She went away awhile. In time, she came back with a chunk of softwood and a decent-sized blade.

I set to carving. I was bored, and still fuzzy in my thinking, and wanted to do something with my hands. Something specific.

It took me two days of working through most of the sunlit hours, but I created a crude version of Endurance’s bell. I had to twist some scraps to make the rope for the clappers that hung on each side of the sounding cup. This one did not have nearly the tone of the bell Papa’s ox had worn, but even this echo of my childhood reached into my soul and fed some hunger there.

The day after that, I was able to pull myself out of the bed and go walk through the orchards. Corinthia Anastasia trailed behind me, seemingly unconcerned, eating a green apple.

“I need to go to Copper Downs,” I told her again.

“South of here.”

“I know.” This child was so very irritating. “I meant I shall set out.”

“You ain’t never been no prisoner in Mama’s house.”

“Here, let me explain this a different way.” I resisted the urge to grab the girl by her curly hair and shake her. “Please tell your mother I would speak with her about my leaving very soon.”

“All right.” She grinned and tossed her half-eaten apple away. “All’s you had to do was ask.”

I was a bit weak when I returned to the cottage. Even so, I sat in one of the three chairs around the small rough-hewn table. I had spent far too much time abed. Especially given who-and what-was afoot out there.

Corinthia Anastasia’s mother returned in time. This day she wore a well-patched dress, which had once been dark green velvet. She carried a bundle with her as she entered the cottage, and deposited it before me.

“You will need these soon.”

I tugged at the folded cloth, a cheap print of trees in a reversing pattern. Inside were my blacks, repaired. “Oh.” I looked back up at her. “Thank you.”

“There was help,” she said shortly. “Some in these hills are far more interested in speeding you on your way.”

That implied there had been other options. I wondered who had been debating me, but as I did not expect an answer, I did not bother with the question. Instead I unfolded the clothing.