Caine's Law (57 page)

“I said for Black Knives, this place is HELL
.

“Some of you heard me on that day. Many more know some who did. Did I LIE? Was I MISTAKEN? Was I JOKING?”

The answering roar made the Ring shudder like a drumhead.

“What is my WORD? Is it FALSE? Is it EMPTY?”

This time the answer had words, a rhythm, becoming a chant.

Skinwalker’s word is LAW

Skinwalker’s word is LAW

He couldn’t help smiling. Kaiggez, all over the job. Nice.

The Lords Legendary seemed to have come to some kind of decision, as every one of them was now on his feet, unlimbering weapons and affixing helms.

He held up a hand, and the chanting fell away.

“Then, I warned Black Knives
.

“Now I warn SOLDIERS OF KHRYL
.

“This place is NOT THE BATTLEGROUND. This place is NOT PURTHIN’S FORD

“This place is MINE.”

He gave them half a breath for effect.

“Whose PLACE is this?”

The answer from two hundred thousand throats:

YOUR PLACE

“Who AM I?”

SKINWALKER

“What is my name?”

CAINE

“What is my NAME?”

CAINE

“WHAT IS MY NAME?”

And now the roar did seem as though it might break the world.

CAINE BLACK KNIFE

“I am CAINE BLACK KNIFE!”

CAINE BLACK KNIFE

“I am BLACK KNIFE, and I say—this is OUR PLACE!”

Hell erupted in a hurricane of rage and triumph.

Angvasse caught his eye and nodded. She mouthed,
Good one
.

Into the hurricane of rage leaped all six Lords Legendary. Their simultaneous landing on the Ring sounded like the continent had exploded. It blasted the city into silence.

One of the Lords stepped forward. “This … 
monstrosity
 … ends now! You both will surrender yourselves. Until we decide how best to undo this horror.”

“Horror. Huh. Y’know, when Black Knives talk about meeting me, that’s exactly the word they use. The Horror.” He bared his teeth. “Maybe it’ll work out better for you.”

The other Lords Legendary began to spread out around the circle. The spokeslord said, “A thousand rifles are on you as we speak. One word from me and Khryl Himself won’t recognize your bodies.”

“Khryl knows His Own,” Angvasse said sadly. “You are not among them.”

The Lord raised a mailed fist. “Armsmen! Take aim!”

“It is as you have said, my Lord Champion. Holding the Battleground has broken our honor, and stained the name of Our Lord of Battle forever.”

He smiled. “Our Lord of
Battle’s
a fucking punk. Make of Him instead the Lord of Light and Love and that kind of shit, you might get an Order who’d use the Might of Khryl for something better than holding slaves and killing people.”

“As you said: to have better gods, be better people.”

“Yeah.” He looked at the spokeslord. “You want to shoot us, punk ass? Go ahead. Let me just say one thing first.”

“And that is?”

He spread his hands. “You were warned. All of you. Warned.”

“That’s all?”

“That’s all.”

“Then yield. Take a knee, and live.”

He exchanged a look with Angvasse. She said, “Brothers together. To the end.”

“Oh, sisters too,” he said with a smile. “And this isn’t the end.”

“Yield!”

“Fuck yourself.”

The Lord’s mailed fist came down.
“Fire!”

And fire is exactly what he got.

A thundering blast of white flame leaped up from the whole Ring. Armsmen on the galleries of the Spire above poured volley after volley into the fire, and several Lords Legendary managed to reel out of the flames in red-hot armor, and at the instant of the Lord’s command, Angvasse Khlaylock shouted
Tashonall
and gathered Caine Black Knife into her arms as she streaked for the dangling cabled chain she had ridden down into the Ring, leaping high to burst out from the flames in a blue streak of witch-fire.

She caught the chain. Far above, a counterweight plunged, and the two flashed upward through the storm of bullets as though they’d been shot from a cannon. On Angvasse, the splattering impacts of rifle rounds made no impression beyond causing her to fix a loop of the chain to her wrist, so they wouldn’t fall if she lost consciousness; the Love of Khryl sustained her and restored her shredded flesh. Every time one hit Caine, he snarled a curse—largely from force of habit—as power from the oil in his arteries flashed each slug into nonexistence, because the burns hurt more than the bullets would have, and his leathers were on fire everywhere they had not been blown off.

Angvasse shouted into the wind,
“There must have been easier ways!”

His arms tightened around her, and he put his lips against her ear. “What’s the matter? Aren’t you having fun?”

“Y
ou might as well come on down in person,” Caine says to the sky full of Face. “I mean, seriously. You know me. The harm I intend to do you is already done.”

HOW CAN WE POSSIBLY BELIEVE ANYTHING YOU SAY?

“Jesus Christ, how can you
not?
Besides, the entire sky thing is not a good look for you. Nose hair. And, holy shit—try flossing sometime, man. Yikes.”

AND HAVE YOU LURED US HERE FOR JUVENILE ABUSE?

“Oh, hell no. The juvenile abuse is strictly for my personal entertainment. I have a real reason. Remember the afternoon of the day we slagged Kosall?”

VIVIDLY
.

“Remember what I told you?”

WE CONVERSED AT SOME LENGTH, ON A VARIETY OF SUBJECTS
.

“Y’know, if I wanted, I could summon it up so we could all watch it together. But it’s not that important. You were talking about being my friend.”

AND I AM
.

“Swell. Remember what I told you? I told you I’m not
your
friend. You killed my wife, fucker. You hurt my
daughter
.”

AND FROM THOSE CRIMES, WE SAVED THE WORLD
.

“See? You do remember. I said, ‘I don’t care if you save the motherfucking
universe
, it won’t get you off the hook with me. I don’t care if you are God. Someday, somehow, I’m gonna fuck you up.’ Remember?”

OF COURSE
.

“Well, this is the day.”

YOU’RE MAD
.

“Crazy too. I unhappened your discarnate ass. Welcome to the rest of your fucking afterlife.”

WHAT?

“Funny thing is, I didn’t even do it on purpose. But once I figured out what I’d done, I ran with it. It’s kind of my style.”

ANYTHING YOU’VE DONE CAN BE UNDONE. WITH A SHRUG OF INTENTION, WE CAN REHAPPEN ANYTHING YOU CAN UNHAPPEN
.

“Yeah, maybe. If you weren’t kind of tied up here right now. The instant I pull that Sword—the instant Duncan
decides
I can pull the Sword—you’ll blow away like a bird fart.”

AND YET YOU STAY YOUR HAND
.

GLOATING HAS NEVER BEEN YOUR STYLE
.

Caine nods. “This isn’t nearly as much fun as I thought it would be.”

WHY DO YOU POSTPONE THE INEVITABLE?

“Because I’m sorry.”

The Face that is the sky falls silent.

“Ma’elKoth, goddammit, come down here and be a man again. Just for a while. I want to apologize face-to-face. Please. Out of respect for the friendship we could have had.”

“Then I am with you, Caine.”

And He is.

Wreathed in majesty like the sun, God cannot be regarded with mortal eyes. Even with his arm thrown across his face, the figure of God scalds Duncan’s eyes and crushes breath from his lungs.

“Fucking cut it out.”

There follows some byplay that Duncan does not clearly hear—some words of the Sword, of the horse-witch, and of Duncan himself—and then at length the furious majesty passes through and beyond him, and Duncan can breathe again. He takes his arm from his face, squinting cautiously, to find seated on the grass some distance away a figure he knows well: Tan’elKoth, dressed as he had appeared on Earth, in his formal Artisan shirt and tie, clean-shaven, his lush curls gathered back into a conservative
ponytail. Caine stands by his side, and the two men stare gravely into the middle distance, and though they are well away and speak together only softly, Duncan is aware of their words.

“I wish shit could have been different,” Caine is saying. “I wish
I
could have been different.”

Ma’elKoth doesn’t seem to hear. “What changed?”

“What, about me? About me and you?”

Ma’elKoth shrugs diffidently, and looks away.

Caine sighs and lowers himself to the grass beside him. “I just got thinking, that’s all. Like you said that day in the Cathedral, we both did what we had to do to protect what we most loved.”

“You weren’t impressed by the sentiment at the time.”

“I was angry.”

“Now you’re not?”

“You know I am. I just—I don’t know. Most of the really shitty things you did were at least partly because of shitty stuff I did. But that’s not really it either. It’s not easy to talk about.”

“I have never known you to be inarticulate—though I frequently wished you so.”

“Yeah, okay, fair enough. Look, in the Vault of Binding in Thorncleft, they have at least one History of Caine where I really was the son of a blacksmith in Pathqua—where my fake background was real. Somehow it got unhappened, and became only fiction. I don’t know how or why, but it doesn’t really matter. It just got me thinking about how my life would have been different if I hadn’t been an Actor, you know? If I really was who I’ve been pretending to be.”

“And you suspect your life would be so very different?”

“I don’t know. But I’m fucking positive
your
life would be different.”

Ma’elKoth goes thoughtful.

“Seriously. You never get kidnapped to Earth. The history of both worlds looks different. And it’s more than that … if I weren’t an Actor, if I really was Dominic Smith, really was Caine, when you went looking for me you would have found me. Then I could have been your loyal leg-breaker instead of Berne. Imagine how much shit
that
might have saved. If I’d been more dependable—and easier to find—Hannto might not have felt like he had to hire Berne for the Dal’kannith thing in the first place.”

“And do you imagine this hypothetical life to be greater than the one we have shared?”

“Greater? Probably not. Calmer? Happier? Less cataclysmic? Seems a safe bet.”

Ma’elKoth greets this with a solemn nod. “That it does.”

“And …” Now Caine looks away. “And something happened that made me understand you. Really understand you. Understand why you made yourself what you are.”

“Were.”

“Yeah. I get it now. I get you.”

“I can’t imagine why you felt a need to tell me this.”

“Let me show you. Let me show all of you.” Caine rises, and moves back among the others. “What you’re about to see is what this is all about. Not why it started, or when—but why
I
started. The fights, the killings, the double-crosses, my career—hell, my whole life, all that shit—none of it means anything without this.

“I used to say
why
is bullshit. Well, y’know, live and learn. This right here …

“This is why.”