A Rope of Thorns (5 page)

Chess snorted.
Uh huh. This where you and her are supposed to be rulin’ all America from, one of these days?

That’s the plan . . . part of it, anyhow. How’s Agent Morrow, by the by?

We have our fun.
Chess shot him another look.
Jealous?

With a tiny tilt of the head:
Should I be?

Just another mask, smirk and all—another prepared face, be it Good Man Gone Wrong, High Priest of Darkness or Unflappable Mastermind with a plot for every contingency, surprised by nothing. Might’ve even fooled Chess, he hadn’t already seen its like so damn often. And maybe it was just the smoky gloom around them—the dream-sick unreality of everything that green light touched—but for a moment, Rook’s face really
did
seem bone-hard, frozen in something more grimace than smile, its eyes dark as glass.

You’re not lookin’ too good, Ash.
The words came out flat and quiet, wiping Rook’s visage further, a scrubbed slate.

And after a moment, the answer came back—his mouth’s utter stillness betraying this whole illusion, almost absently:
Probably not. But . . . I made my bed.

Sure did,
Chess thought, whip-quick—not
at
Rook per se, the way he had thus far. But not caring all too much if he happened to overhear, either.

Turning away, he saw the city’s black blur immediately resolve, as though it felt his attention—ripen all over with squirmy detail, like a dead dog bred maggots. A raw smell struck him, all gunpowder, vomit and hot blood, like Chinee New Year in a San Fran slaughterhouse. Crowds reeled through the streets, their ruckus peculiarly muted, even as magic spilled brilliantly off them. Shapes blurred in flux; power arced from open mouth to open mouth; men and women danced and fought on empty air, easy as though it were solid ground.

Around them, meanwhile, buildings even larger than the front line could now be observed overhanging in unnaturally rock-smooth drapes, and it took Chess a moment to figure why: not a one of them bore the lines of brick and mortar, or even daub-sealed log palisades. Instead, every structure was a single seamless piece, some of granite, some marble or sandstone, some of wood still lined with bark and dripping with sap—as if they’d been raised up like clay out of living rock, or force-grown from tortured tree roots. And the tallest of all reared high directly opposite them, a step-pyramid temple with a great bonfire blaze at its peak, black column of smoke pouring upwards into the green clouds, an unending river of night.

What you got on the grill over there, exactly, makes it go so hot and bright?
Chess demanded.

Oh, this ’n’ that. Care to see?

Chess gave an angry sigh. He felt Rook work on him un-ceasingly—a pull like falling, the inexorability of sheer mass—and fought it, the only way he knew how: dirty.

I’m thinkin’ it don’t matter much to you, whether I do or don’t,
he snapped back.
But let me take a guess—that’s your Moloch, ain’t it? The Satan-hole you throw your own children down, on her command, and watch ’em as they burn to flinders.

He’d known it soon as he laid eyes on it, from the very stink of the smoke. Tasted the power in the back of his throat, burnt and burning, the way that last drink you guzzled before puking left behind a taste you couldn’t quite seem to part with.

The lure of it pulled at him like fish-hooks, so horrid, so profane. So . . . delicious.

And you did
that
to me too, you big bastard,
Chess thought, dizzily nauseous with rage.
Gave me your disease, like you were dolin’ out the clap; made me into just another hop-head. Put
your
jones into me and let it fester, knowing once I’d took my first jolt, I’d never be able to pull it back out.

But Rook just shrugged.
Oh, it’s only the stupid who go to feed the Machine. Those as can’t keep control long enough to be useful.

Chess felt that space under his ribs clutch again.
You doing them same’s you did me?

Hell, no. Think the Lady and me want more little gods runnin’ ’round? No, they kill ’emselves, mainly—jump in the cistern, or throw ten-at-a-time necktie parties in the
yaxche
forest, down where the big roots grow. Seems they somehow got the idea it’ll complete their ‘transition.’

’Cause
you
told ’em so.

Well, we sure don’t tell ’em any different.

Chess clenched his hands on the iron rail and he felt its edges press into both palms, vaguely flaky, as with rust or rotting paint. So
real
, and yet . . .

A dream,
he told himself.
That’s all this is. He can’t touch me, not really.

Not him. And not
her
, either.

Yet even as he formed the thought, he knew it in error. Because now he could feel the darkness clotting all around him, swallowing him whole. Shadow like mist to his waist and a disembodied mouth nuzzling at his parts, sweet-dreadful, rousing him like no other woman’s ever could; wrong, Jesus, so damn
wrong
. A rising buzz. A rustling of papery wings.

Look down, risk just the quickest glance, and that black at his belt became her swirling hair—she looked up, smiled in welcome, her jade-chip teeth sharp.

I have waited
so
long to greet you again properly, my husband’s husband. Poor, angry little warrior . . .

Oh God, get the hell AWAY—

Rainbow Lady Ixchel taking shape, summoned the faster by his fear, in all her awful glory. To wrap herself ’round him just like she’d done that endless night at Splitfoot Joe’s, screwing down onto him and riding him for her pleasure. When he’d been at her mercy, and Rook hadn’t done a damn thing to help—just pushed them closer together with one hand on Chess’s sick-sweaty back, so she could have her will.

Watch how our holy city comes to life,
she murmured, almost fondly, licking at his ear.
This is what was meant to be, what
must
be—and you should be here to see it, so they can lie prostrate before you, do you due worship. So they see for themselves the God for whom all this was made.

Chess shrugged himself free of her, well aware he only had the juice to do so because of what she—and Rook—had wrought him into, and bitterly resenting it. But damn, it felt fine to do so, anyhow. Far too fine to stop.

And here he felt it again, all over, unwilling but undeniable: that
power
, Glossing’s and otherwise, torrenting down into him from every direction. Making him fume and spark out every pore at once, as though his whole body were a fuse lit by some unknown hand.

Don’t want none of your . . . tribute, damnit!
He snarled, lips fletched back to the canines.

Yet it comes to you nevertheless,
she pointed out.
It
all
goes to you, so you can do what you must. Intent does not matter; your blood cries out, and theirs answers. The river flows in only one direction.

Chess tried to spit in her mocking face, but the dragonfly cloak she wore whisked her away, depositing her neatly out of range. So he did the next best thing, and drew on her instead—cocked back the hammer, snarl sliding straight to grin.

Uh huh. Well, stand still a while, bitch—’cause for all I ain’t much of a debater, I think I maybe got you a suitable rebuttal right here.

Ixchel considered him, her chill gaze moon-calm. The venom-green sky behind her gave her olive skin the tint of verdigris, made her face a tarnished copper mask.
There is nothing you could do to me, little killer, even were your weapons real. As we all three of us know.

Goin’ by history alone, I could probably at least perforate that carcass you’re wearin’—just like Ed Morrow did, down in Hell’s half-acre. Or did you forget about that?

She clicked her tongue.
Unruly! You should have been beaten with nettle switches.
Throwing her eyes Rook’s way:
Must he always be so difficult, husband?

Rook’s mouth twitched, fond and rueful.
Must, I don’t know about. Is, though, usually.

You’d know,
Chess thought.

But Rook was already talking at him again—voice affectionate, a laudable parody thereof—
Listen, darlin’—remember back when I first woke up, after they swung me? How I was stuck working from the Bible, as though if I didn’t quote Verse on what I had in mind, then nothing was like to happen? Well, that was my mistake. What I knew best, so I wouldn’t let it go . . . assumed
I
needed
it, when really . . .

. . . he does not. And never did.

Magic ain’t a gun, Chess; you can’t treat it as such, or it’ll blow up in your hand. And I know that eventually, you’ll outgrow thinking life’s a problem best solved with a bullet . . . but we can’t wait for that.

Chess guffawed, nastily.
Oh, spare me. Think all you got to do is feel on me some in a
dream
, and I’ll do your damn will from then on? That’s some cheap ride you ’spect to take on me, Reverend; thought I taught you better that-a-ways, at least ’bout how my Ma told me to reckon myself.

Rook contemplated him a heartbeat, with what almost looked like—sorrow? Insult?

I’ll never love anyone like I loved you, Chess,
he said.
Believe it or don’t.

That’d be ‘don’t.’

Ixchel gave a laugh of her own, eking up slow as if it came from deep down under-earth, where all Mictlan-Xibalba’s horrors lurked. The cogs of some ’quake-engine cut from stone and greased with bone-dust, grating against each other.

Your prerogative,
Rook allowed.
Consider this, though.
For all Ed’s a decent sort, he ain’t like you or I. The longer you stick with people like him, whether it’s for fancy or to pay us back, or just to stick your thumb in God’s eye awhile—the more you’ll bring down on their heads. You’re a plague to normal citizenry now, Chess,
even more so than you ever were. Hexes will come and dash ’emselves against you, go up like rockets, and catch everyone else around in the back-blast.

Unable to stop himself, Chess saw Glossing’s dying face
—
those rabbit-eyes closing, lids twitching dimly, like he was almost
glad
to bid farewell to any world held Chess in it. Heard those townsfolk yelling trash at him, and felt his free hand fist, itching to blast ’em where they stood.

Which is why,
Ixchel put in,
you must accept what you are: our Flayed Lord, red god of red Weed, Opener of our Way. Fight this, and you only fight yourself.

Chess bristled.
So now you come at me both together, I’m s’posed to just roll over? Screw that, and screw all them other motherfuckers, likewise!
You
put this shit on me—hoodooed me into sayin’ yes, then went on and did it anyways, even when I stopped. Which is where you both fucked up, or so your Enemy tells me. . . .

Oh, be silent!
Even Rook took a step back as the air around Ixchel blazed, stone thrumming beneath her bare feet; the city itself seemed to shimmer and recede.
Do you think yourself special? We were all of us
ixiptla
, once upon a time—

(even me, even)

(HE)

A flood of images behind his eyes—or did that work, seeing his eyes were closed already? Chess saw blood and bone and stone knives tearing, heard alien words and
knew
their meanings before she was done speaking them, before their vowel sounds had scratched his ears’ drums.
Tlacacaliztli
, piercing with arrows.
Tlahuahuanaliztli
, gladiatorial combat.
Tlacamictiliztli
, extraction of the heart . . .

(His breastbone aching in sympathy, cleft and barely re-sewn, each no-beat of his own missing organ a hammer-blow echoing from the
inside
out.)

Cold crush of drowning. Dirt in your lungs, from burial alive. A drawn mouthful of searing heat, as skin-girt priests swung you over the sacrificial fire. Crunch and
chunk
of separation as your head was wrenched free, placed high in pride on the
tzompantli
, before your body was thrown down an endless flight of steps to slam square at the apex of a far smaller pyramid made from limp, cooling human meat.

(And that was worse, somehow. To feel even a moment’s sympathy—not for
her
, so much. But for the girl she’d once been.)

And now the city was gone again, the sky once more a starless but honest black, leaving he, Rook, and the Lady alone on a flat grey plain. Chess reholstered his guns, lifted his hands up between him and his tormentors, palm-out, half shield, half absolute refusal.

Get outta my dream,
he told them, hard as he could.
You ain’t makin’ me do nothin’—I won’t be rode, let alone broken.
Goddamn you both! I will
not
do what I won’t!

Rook was a towering, fading silhouette, recognizable only to one who knew the shape of his features in the dark.
Okay, darlin’. But, see—problem is—

—you
will
, Chess Pargeter.
As we all must, eventually.

It was a moment before Chess realized he was finally awake, for good and true; the smoky smell of campfire embers rose in the desert chill, unblurred by furnace-reek or magic’s stinging tang. He held his breath, and waited.

The world stayed as it was, unchanging.

Chess let out a huge sigh, and was struck abruptly with an almighty need to piss, which drew a laugh. Cheered immeasurably, he rolled to his left, away from the campfire, hit something rough, then looked up—and up, and up.

Twelve feet tall, black as tar and shiny as glass, head and shoulders blazing with blue fire, the Enemy—Ixchel’s, Rook’s, his, the whole wide world’s—grinned back down at him, its teeth like knives.