The Kingdom of Gods

  “Time has never been as straightforward as Itempas wished,” she said, stroking my cheek. “It is a web, and we all dance along its threads. You know that.”

  I nodded, settling cross-legged in front of her. “No one dances like you, Sister. Tell me what you can.”

  She nodded and fell silent for a moment. “A plains fire has been lit.” For an instant as she spoke, I glimpsed fingerlike palps wiggling behind her human teeth. She used magic to speak when she was in this state, or else she would have lisped badly. She had always been vain.

  “A fire?” I prompted when she fell silent. Her eyes flickered, searching realms I had never been able to visit, even as a god. This was what I had come for. It was difficult to convince Spider to scry the past or future, because she didn’t like dancing those paths. They made her strange and dangerous, when all she really wanted to do was spin and mate and eat. She was like me; once, we had both had other shapes and explored our natures in other ways. We liked the new ways better, but one could never leave the past entirely behind.

  “The Darre’s new ennu, I think, is the kindling. But this fire will burn far, far beyond this realm.”

  I frowned at this. “How can mortal machinations affect anything more than mortal life?” But that was a foolish question. I had spent two thousand years suffering because of one mortal’s evil.

  She shivered, her eyes glazing, though she never once lost her balance on that single toe. The clam boy frowned from where he knelt on the sand, his bucket set before him. When this was done, I knew, Spider would demand a dance with him. If he pleased her, and was lucky, she would make love with him for a few hours and then send him on his way. If he was not lucky … well. The clams would make a fine appetizer. Those mortals who choose to love us know the risks.

  “A seashell.” Her voice dropped to a murmur, flat and inflectionless. “It floats on green wood and shining white bones. Inside is betrayal, love, years, and more betrayal. Ah, Sieh. All your old mistakes are coming back to haunt you.”

  I sighed, thinking of Shahar and Deka and Itempas, to name a few. “I know.”

  “No. You don’t. Or rather, you do, but the knowledge is buried deep. Or rather, it was.” She cocked her head, and all her dozen pupils expanded at once. Her eyes, speckled with holes, pulled at me. I looked into them and glimpsed deep chasms bridged by gossamer webs. Quickly I leaned back, averting my eyes. Anyone drawn into Spider’s world became hers, and she did not always let them go. Not even if she loved them.

  “The wind blows louder by the moment,” she whispered. “Sieh, Sieh, Sieh, it whispers, in the halls of the unknowable. Something stirs in those halls, for the first time since Enefa’s birth. It is alive. It thinks. It considers you.”

  This nonsense was not at all what I had expected, and not really what I wanted to hear. I frowned and licked my lips, wondering how to steer her back toward the knowledge I needed. “What of Kahl, Sister? The Arameri’s enemy?”

  She shook her head suddenly, vehemently, closing her eyes. “He is your enemy, Sieh, not theirs. They are irrelevant. Innocent — ha! — bystanders.” She shuddered, and to my surprise she abruptly tottered on her toe, nearly losing her balance. The clam boy looked up suddenly, his face taut with fervor; I heard him utter a low, intent prayer. We have never needed prayers, but we do like them. They feel much like … hmm. Like a push, or a supporting hand on the back. Even gods need encouragement sometimes. After a moment, Spider steadied.

  “Itempas,” she said at last, sounding abruptly weary. “He is the key. Stop being stubborn, Sieh; just talk to him.”

  “But —” I clamped my teeth down on what I would have said. This was what I’d asked her to give me. I had no right to complain just because it wasn’t what I wanted to hear. “Fine.”

  With a sigh she opened her eyes, which were human again. When she straightened and stepped off the pattern, carefully removing her toe from its center without disturbing it, I saw the lingering sheen of magic within its lines.

  “Go away now, Brother,” she said. “Come back in a million years, or whenever you think of me again.”

  “I won’t be able to,” I said softly. In a million years I would be less than dust.

  She glanced at me, and for just an instant her eyes flickered strange again. “No. I suppose you won’t, will you? But don’t forget me, Brother, amid all the new mysteries you’ll have to explore. I’ll miss you.”

  With that, she turned to her clam boy and offered him her hand. He came and took it, rising, his face alight even as she suddenly grew four additional arms and wrapped all six of them about him tightly. She would probably let him live, given that he had helped her. Probably.

  I turned and headed back over the dunes, leaving my sister to her dance.

  It had been a busy month since my trip to see Deka. A week later had come the expected announcement: Remath Arameri was bringing her beloved son home at last. Dekarta had begun his journey toward Sky amid great fanfare and three whole legions of soldier escorts. They would make a tour of the procession, visiting a dozen of the southern Senm kingdoms before reaching Sky-in-Shadow on the auspicious summer solstice. I had laughed on hearing about the tour. Three legions? That went beyond any need to protect Deka. Remath was showing off. Her message was clear: if she could spare three legions just to protect a less-favored son, imagine how many she could bring to bear for something that mattered?

  So Ahad had kept me on the move visiting this noble or that merchant, spending a night on the streets in a few cities to hear what the commonfolk thought, sowing rumors and then listening to see what truths sprang up as a result. There had been more meetings, too, though Ahad invited me only when he had to. Nemmer and Kitr had complained after I loosened the legs of their chairs one time. I couldn’t see what they were so upset about; neither had actually fallen. That would have been worth the broken collarbone Kitr gave me in recompense. (Ahad sent me to a bonebender for healing and told me not to speak to him for a week.)

  So, left to my own devices, I’d spent the last few days tooling about Tema. Beyond the beach dunes stood a city, shimmering through the heat haze: Antema, capital city of the Protectorate. It had been the greatest city in the world before the Gods’ War and was one of the few cities that had managed to survive that horror mostly unscathed. These days it was not quite as impressive as Sky — the World Tree and the palace were just too stunning for any other city to top — but what it lacked in grandeur it made up in character.

  I admired the view again, then sighed and finally fished in my pocket for the messaging sphere Ahad had given me.

  “What,” he said, when the sphere’s soft thrum had finally gotten his attention. He knew exactly how long to keep me waiting; an instant longer and I would’ve stilled the activation.

  I had already decided not to tell him about my visit with Spider, and I was still considering whether to request a meeting with Itempas. So I said, “It’s been a week. I’m getting bored. Send me somewhere.”

  “All right,” he said. “Go to Sky and talk to the Arameri.”

  I stiffened, furious. He knew full well that I didn’t want to go there, and why. “Talk to them about what, for demons’ sake?”

  “Wedding gifts,” he said. “Shahar Arameri is getting married.”

  It was the talk of the town, I discovered, when I got to Antema and found a tavern in which to get very, very drunk.

  Teman taverns are not made for solitary drunkenness. The Teman people are one of the oldest mortal races, and they have dealt with the peculiar isolation of life in cities for longer than the Amn have even had permanent houses. Thus the walls of the tavern I’d fallen into were covered in murals of people paying attention to me — or so it seemed, as each painted figure sat facing strategic points where viewers might sit. They leaned forward and stared as if intent upon anything I might say. One got used to this.

  One also got used to the carefully rude way in which the taverns were furnished, so as to force strangers together
. As I sat on a long couch nursing a hornlike cup of honey beer, two men joined me because there were only couches to sit on and I was not churl enough to claim one alone. Naturally they began talking to me, because the tavern’s musician — an elderly twin-ojo-player — kept taking long breaks to nap. Talking filled the silence. And then two women joined us, because I was young and handsome and the other two men weren’t bad-looking themselves. Before long, I was sitting among a laughing, raucous group of utter strangers who treated me like their best friend.

  “She doesn’t love him,” said one of the men, who was well into his own honey horn and growing progressively more slurred in his speech because of it. Temans mixed it with something, aromatic sea grass seed I thought, that made it a fearsomely strong drink. “Probably doesn’t even like him. An Amn, Arameri no less, marrying a Temaboy? You just know she looks down her pointy white nose at all of us.”

  “I heard they were childhood friends,” said a woman, whose name was Reck or Rook or possibly Rock. Ruck? “Datennay Canru passed all the exams with top marks; the Triadice wouldn’t have confirmed him as a pymexe if he wasn’t brilliant. It’s an honor to the Protectorate, the Arameri wanting him.” She lifted her Amn-style glass, which contained something bright green, and out of custom, all of us raised our drinks to answer her toast.

  But as soon as our arms came down, her female companion scowled and leaned forward, her locks swinging for emphasis. “It’s an insult, not an honor. If the damned Arameri thought so much of our Triadice, they would’ve deigned to marry in before now. All they want’s our navy to guard against the crazy High Northers —”

  “It’s an insult only if you make it one,” said one of the men, who spoke rather hotly because there were three men and two women and he was the homeliest of the group, and he knew that he was most likely to go home alone. “They’re still Arameri. They don’t need us. And she genuinely likes him!”

  This triggered a chorus of agreement and protest from the whole group, during which I alternated my attention between them and a set of peculiar masks hanging on one of the tavern’s walls. They reminded me a bit of the masks I’d seen in Darr, though these were more elaborately styled and decorated, in the Teman fashion. They all had hair locks and jolly faces, yet somehow they were even more distracting than the staring mural people. Or perhaps I was just drunk.

  After the argument had gone back and forth a few times, one of the women noticed that I had been quiet. “What do you think?” she asked, smiling at me. She was a bit older, relatively speaking, and seemed to think I needed the encouragement.

  I finished the last of my horn, gave a discreet nod to the waiter for more, and sat back, grinning at the woman. She was pretty, small and dark and wiry as Teman women tended to be, with the most beautiful black eyes. I wondered if I was still god enough to make her faint.

  “Me?” I asked, and licked spoiled honey from my lips. “I think Shahar Arameri is a whore.”

  There was a collective gasp — and not just from my couch, because my voice had carried. I looked around and saw shocked stares from half the tavern. I laughed at all of them, then focused on my own group.

  “You shouldn’t say that,” said one of the men, who had also been giving me the eye — though now, I suspected, he was rethinking that. “The Order doesn’t care what you say about the gods anymore, except Itempas, but the Arameri …” He darted a look around, as if afraid Order-Keepers would appear out of nowhere to beat me senseless. In the old days they would have. Lazy sots. “You shouldn’t say that.”

  I shrugged. “It’s true. Not her fault, of course. Her mother’s the problem, see. She gave the girl to a god once, as a brood-mare, hoping to make a demon-child. Probably let your pymexe have a free ride, too, to seal the deal. You say he’s a smart man. I’m sure he wouldn’t mind treading in the footsteps of gods.”

  The waiter, who had been on his way to me with another horn, stopped just beyond the couch, his eyes wide and horrified. The man who had been thinking about me stood up, quickly, almost but not quite before his third companion, who’d ignored me entirely up to that point, leapt to his feet. “Canru is my second cousin, you green-eyed half-breed nobody —”

  “Who’s a half-breed?” I drew myself up to my full sitting height, which made me nowhere near as tall as he was. “There’s not a drop of mortal in me, damn it, no matter how old I look!”

  The man, already opening his mouth to roar at me, faltered to silence, staring at me in confusion. One of the women leaned away, the other closer; both had wide, wondering eyes. “What did you say?” asked the closer-leaner. “Are you a godling?”

  “I am,” I said gravely, and belched. “Pardon me.”

  “You’re as godly as my left testicle,” snapped the furious man.

  “Is that very godly?” I laughed again, feeling full of mischief and rage and joy. The rage was strongest, so before the man could react, I shot out my free hand and grabbed at his crotch, correctly guessing precisely where his left testicle would be. It was child’s play — for a mean child, anyway — to grasp the thing and give it a sharp, expert twist. He screamed and doubled over, his face purpling with shock and agony as he grabbed at my arm, but dislodging me would’ve necessitated a harder pull on his tender bits. With his face inches from mine, I flashed my teeth and hissed at him, tightening my fingers just enough for warning. His eyes went wide and terrified for some reason, which I could tell had nothing to do with the threat to his manhood. I doubted that my eyes had changed; there wasn’t enough magic left in me for that. Something else, maybe.

  “These don’t seem very godly to me,” I said, giving his balls another jiggle. “What do you think?”

  He gaped like a fish. I laughed again, loving the flavor of his terror, the thrill of even this paltry, pointless sort of power —

  “Let him go.”

  The voice was familiar, and female. I craned my neck back, blinking in surprise to see that Glee Shoth stood behind my couch. She stood with her hands on her hips, tall and imposing and so very Maroneh in that room full of Temans. The look on her face was somehow disapproving and serene at once. If I hadn’t spent several billion years trying to provoke that precise expression on another’s face, I would have found it wholly disconcerting.

  I beamed at her upside down and let the man go. “Oh, you are so his child.”

  She lifted an eyebrow, proving my point. “Would you care to join me outside?” Without waiting to see if I agreed, she turned and walked out.

  Pouting, I got to my feet and swayed a bit. My companions were still there, to my surprise, but they were silent, all of them regarding me with a mixture of fear and distaste. Ah, well.

  “May both my fathers smile upon you,” I said to them, gesturing expansively and making a genuine effort to bless them, though nothing happened. “If you can manage to get a smile out of them, anyway, the ill-tempered bastards. And may my mother kill you all gently in your sleep, at the end of a long and healthy span. Farewell!”

  The whole tavern was silent as I stumbled out after Glee.

  She turned to walk with me as I reached the foot of the steps. I had not drunk so much that I couldn’t walk, but steadiness was another matter. As I had expected, Glee made no compensation for my weaving and stumbling, and for the first block or so, I lagged about three paces behind her. “Your legs are very long,” I complained. She was almost a foot taller than me.

  “Make yours longer.”

  “I can’t. My magic is gone.”

  “Then move them faster.”

  I sighed and did so. Gradually I drew alongside her. “Did you inherit anything from your mother? Or are you just him done over with breasts?”

  “I have my mother’s sense of humor.” She glanced at me, contempt clear in her face. “I expected rather more of you, though.”

  I sighed. “I’ve had a hard day.”

  “Yes. When you cut off the messaging sphere, Ahad asked me to find you. He suggested I search the gutters. I suppose
I should be glad he was wrong about that.”

  I laughed, though a moment later my laughter faltered silent and I glared at her, affronted. “Why are you doing his bidding? Aren’t you his boss? And what does it matter if I relax a little? I’ve spent the past two years running that bastard’s errands, trying to help that pathetic little group of his keep this world from falling apart. Don’t I deserve a night off?”

  She stopped. By this point we stood on a quiet street corner in a residential neighborhood. It was late enough that no one was about. Which is perhaps why, for just an instant, her eyes seemed to flare red-gold like a struck match. I started, but then they were brown again, and more than a little angry.

  “I have spent nearly this past century trying to keep this world from falling apart,” she snapped. I blinked in surprise; she looked no older than thirty. I had forgotten that demons usually lived longer than humans, though both were mortal. “I’m not a god. I have no choice but to live in this realm, unlike you. I will do whatever I must to save it — including working with godlings like you who claim to despise Itempas, though in reality you’re just as selfish and arrogant as him at his worst!”

  She resumed walking, leaving me behind because I was too stunned to follow. By the time I recovered, she had disappeared around a corner. Furious, I ran after her, only to nearly trip when I rounded the corner and found her there, waiting.

  “How dare you!” I hissed the words. “I am nothing like him!”

  She sighed, shaking her head, and to my greater fury she decided not to argue with me. That sort of thing has always driven me mad. “Has it even occurred to you to ask why I came? Or are you too inebriated to think that far?”

  “I don’t —” I blinked. “Why are you here?”

  “Because, as Ahad would have told you if you’d given him the chance to finish, we have work to do. Dekarta Arameri is altering and accelerating his route to proceed directly to Shadow in light of the engagement. When he and his escort arrive at Shadow — tomorrow, to foil potential troublemakers — there will be a grand procession through the city. Shahar Arameri is scheduled to appear publicly, on the steps of the Salon, for the first time since she gained her majority. The official announcement of the engagement will be made then, before the Nobles’ Consortium and half the city, and Dekarta will be officially welcomed home at the same time. It should be quite the event.”