Robert Asprin - Aftermath

They weren't the revolution, they were the sustaining force behind the injustice that had created them.

When he'd said that-shouted it, actually-to Crit in fury, the cynical Stepson had flashed white teeth and said, "The more things change, pud, the more they stay the same. What's your problem? Not having fun now that you're legal? It's all your type knows how to do, and this way you won't end up handiess or headless because of it. You're talent, and we're the talent scouts. Thank your slime gods you've been discovered and put to work before you ended up greasing some slaver's wagon wheels."

That was another thing that bothered Zip: Critias seemed to know more about Zip's affairs than anybody could. "Slime gods" was an obvi- ous reference to the altar. And as for the slavers ... Zip had sold more than one soul down that river of sighs, to finance the revolution. But then it had been a matter of conscience. Now it was a godsdamned state business, for pork's sake.

Gayle, the 3rd commando liaison man, had told him not to mind it, just make his list of expendables. He hated himself these days, as much as he hated Kama, the twit who had gotten him mixed up in all this, and her damned 3rd Commando ethos that excused the foulest misdeeds as exigencies. "Whatever works" might work for the Riddler's daughter and her lot of death dealers, but it didn't work for Zip.

Especially when, if he wasn't careful, he was going to become just like them. So here he had this altar, this god or whatever it was, this eater of sacrifices that never exactly said it could expiate his sins, wipe him clean, but surely must mean it. It was the thing in the altar with its red eyes that was making him believe there was some method to all his madness. It had a plan. It wanted Zip to infiltrate the Rankans and the Beysibs, to leam how to command and the weaknesses of their joint enemies. It was a living thing in there-or at least a real thing, which other gods weren't, as far as Zip could tell. It had wants and needs.

It wanted flesh and it needed blood and it wanted to move uptown and it needed Zip to be the militia commander to serve it.'He had to serve something. He couldn't justify what he and his little band of rebels were doing otherwise. He had to have a Cause and the red eyes in the altar, the slurping sound of fresh blood being drunk and the godlike belches after- wards, these were his Cause.

And only the river god knew what it wanted of Zip, but it did want him. Nobody had ever wanted him before. Then came, all at once, Kama and the Riddler and the river god and ... No, Kama had come before the god, but that didn't matter.

It mattered that he got the stones uptown. With a quill he marked each stone as he lifted it from the pile into his wheelbarrow. When the barrow was full, he could almost see into the heart of the altar.

But then he had to wheel the barrow up the slope, no easy task, and when he'd done that and given the stones to his boys to load on their ass- drawn wagon, someone came out of the gloom and hailed him.

"Yo," he called back, while motioning his boys to cover the stones in the wagon. "Who comes?"

One horse, out of the gloom; a single rider. He walked toward it, hand on his beltknife, his neck aprickle, back stiff.

Finally the rider answered, "Zip, it's me."

"Frog," Zip cursed under his breath. "Kama, stay there. The footing's tricky. I'll come up." He turned his head and said to his rebels, "Get down there, load the rest of the stones, take 'em where I told you. Careful to mark them and put them back just like they were. I'll catch up."

But he knew he wouldn't. And he knew the god was going to be angry, augh he didn't know what form the god's wrath might take. But then he thought he did: Kama was beautiful, sliding off her horse the diffuse light of a hidden moon. She always hit him that way, no atter how he told himself he didn't need the kind of trouble she repre- nted.

And she was trouble, in doeskin boots and leggings, smelling like new- own hay with trail dust in her hair. And all about her person, as clear her velvet thighs and firm breasts as in her face or her sweet breath, ere the indications of her class: her speech, her bearing, the gulf that as between them and never could be bridged, no matter how he tried. And he tried then again, wordlessly and desperately, as if laying her on her back in the mud was somehow going to do it. But it didn't. It never had, never would.

She laughed softly and accommodated him until urgency overtook her, but it was always the high-born girl with the velvet skin who was humming, who found him exciting for all the wrong reasons, who played with him casually when touching her was probably worth his life if Crit Molin found them.

So when she said, as she quivered, her mouth to his ear, "Strat's here with me, somewhere back there. Don't panic, just be quick," all his passion threatened to ebb, then exploded when her nails ran down his back.

"Damn you," he said, rolling over and off her, the best rejection he could manage and far too late.

"Stand in line for that," she chuckled, her fingers reaching for him, railing along him, tapping him intrusively with unspeakable truths. "It's been too long since we've done this."

He was staring up at the clouds which hid the moon like a translucent city wall. "Not long enough by half. Not when you're sleeping in with priests and commanders-in-chief. I'm a lowly watch officer, remember? I'm gettin' over you. Got something of my own now."

Like he hadn't, before. He bit his lip and almost looked away from her. But he couldn't. It was her damned body that did this to them both, every time. Riddler's daughter, enemy of the blood, twice his experience ind probably twice his brains. What did he think he was doing?

Then he thought he knew what she was doing: "Zip," she said in a ieductive tone he wished he'd heard long minutes earlier, "don't move that pile of stones. You don't know what you're disturbing. None of us to."

He sat bolt upright. "Now I get it. You ask nice, and Strat's along to ask nasty if I don't agree, right? Well, it's none of your business, Rankan whore." He jerked to his feet, fumbling with his pants. He couldn't see his fingers clearly and blinked fiercely, trying to lace himself together. "Don't come around me no more, hear? Not on your father's business or because one of your boyfriends thinks I need it. I don't. And I never will, not this way."

She was up, too, calling his name. He couldn't run from her, not from a woman where some of his boys might see. He remembered the time she'd nursed him back from the grave's edge, and the way she'd started all this, kissing him when he was too weak to do the sensible thing and bolt.

She liked 'em helpless, hurt, battle-scarred and war-weary, he knew. He couldn't figure what Molin had, but power was a legendary aphrodis- iac. And like her father, she spread it around.

He couldn't handle her. He kept wanting to treat her like a Ratfall girl -claim her, claim exclusivity with her. He had a comical vision of him- self sitting at some strategy table with her, all silked and leathered and shiny brass-plated in Ranke where her kind moved jade pieces represent- ing armies on marble mapboards. And jammed his hands in his pockets, walking hurriedly away.

"Zip," she called, catching up, reaching out, and he couldn't seem to jerk his elbow away. "We need you. /need you. And you owe me this-"

He stopped. He should have known it would come to that- "Right, we're all working together now and anyway, one time you saved my ass so I'm yours to command? No chance, lady. These're Ilsig matters, and you ain't one. Understand, or do I have to say it in Rankene?"

"I understand that you found some sort of talisman on the beach and that if you give it to that ... thing ... you've been feeding human flesh to, you might not be able to finish what you start. If you've got to move the stones, I'll make a deal with you."