Fool's Gold (31 page)

Exhausted, limbs shaking from exertion, Lette dragged herself up onto the dock of Athril's Lake. She flopped onto her back, tried to get her breath back, failed, waited to gather the energy necessary to try again.

Balur came next, rising, dripping out of the water like some protean beast leftover from a mythic age. He dragged Quirk in one hand, Will in the other. He dumped them unceremoniously. They collapsed, shivering and gasping, on the cold cobblestones. They had almost drowned a hundred yards from shore and Balur had dragged them bodily through the water from there. The lizard man managed to keep his feet, but even he was hunched over, breathing hard. The gash in his forehead was still dripping blood onto the edge of the dock.

They were miserable, they were exhausted, but they were alive. The attention of the Leviathan fish had been wholly focused on Dathrax's bloated corpse. They had been left unmolested in the waters.

Lette's mind went back to those final moments. The pivoting boat, everything collapsing, tumbling away. Balur pitching down toward death and dismemberment. And then Will. Why had she asked him to help? Why hadn't she done it herself?

She remembered again how it had felt to be hanging there. Dathrax and the Leviathan fish below her. Everything burning. Being able to smell the smoke as the rails burned in Quirk's grip, only a few feet away.

She had been afraid. She had asked Will because she had been struck with a moment of weakness. There was no other way to put it.

Lette did not like that memory. She was a warrior, a rogue, a scoundrel, a pirate. She had a gods-hexed reputation to maintain.

But Will had not hesitated. He had leapt out, had careened toward death. And he had done it for Balur.

What was Balur to Will? The lizard man was tribe to her. Family. Partner. Home in some messed-up kind of way. But to Will? To Will he was probably just some giant, some barbarian. Which, she supposed, was what Balur was. He was a simple creature. A war hammer smashing without apology into the face of life.

Who would risk their life for that?

In the end, of course, the answer was simple, but she waited for a while before she faced it. Will had saved Balur because of what the lizard man meant to her.

It was an act of… what? Love? A shudder mixed with the shivering. She was not someone to love. Not unless love meant a bottle of spirits and a tavern bed rented by the hour. And yet replacing the word with
lust
left something hollow in her gut.

Infatuation
perhaps? She thought she could live with that word.

Such a fucking stupid thing to do. And yet impressive in its boldness. In the grandiosity of its dumbness.
I will be this stupid for you,
it said. And there was something very flattering in that.

She dragged herself that much closer to Will, reached out and squeezed his hand. He looked over at her. A smile started to form. Then it turned into a gagging sound. He turned away just in time to miss her.

“The sound of victory?” she managed.

He looked up at her, grinned queasily, wiped his chin with the back of his free arm.
There have,
Lette thought,
been more romantic moments charted in the annals of history.

“Well,” he said, “we're alive. I guess that counts for something.”

She nodded. “Something.”

He hesitated. “I quite want to kiss you again,” he said. “But I just…” He nodded in the vague direction of the vomit.

“We can hold hands,” she said.

“Could you just, please…” Quirk's voice was no stronger than Will's. “Shut up,” she said. “I'm begging you.”

Lette looked at the woman. Part of her was still calculating the angle to drive the blade into Quirk's ribs, so the thaumatobiologist's heart would empty its contents into her lungs. But bedraggled and exhausted, Quirk didn't look much like a threat. She looked instead like the mast of the boat that now lay at the bottom of the lake. Shattered and broken.

“I am being with Quirk on this one.” Balur nodded.

“You too,” Quirk told Balur. The academic seemed to have drowned much of her stoic calm in the lake.

It was a sign of his exhaustion that Balur complied. They all just drooped there, panting, waiting for someone else to break the moment, to force them into the next decision, into the next step of whatever fresh hell they had just created. Lette just didn't have the energy to focus on anything other than the next moment.

She should have predicted that Will wouldn't have the good sense to keep his mouth shut.

“Wasn't there fighting going on when we left here?” he said. “Where is everybody?”

Reluctantly Lette raised her head. The stubborn fragment of her will to live refused to give in. The city was quiet. Dying fires still crackled. The occasional bit of building frontage collapsed. But no one was mounting anyone else's head on a pike. It made for a much quieter scene compared to her last visit to Athril.

“Should probably check it out,” Will said.

“How hard did you get hit on the head?” she asked him. “The last thing we should be doing is seeking out other people.” She pulled her hand out of his. “What we should be doing is running quietly into the night before anyone notices we're here. We just killed
another
member of the Consortium.”

“And buried every coin we had at the bottom of that lake,” Quirk added.

The silence that followed that statement was briefer than the one before, but so much more profound. When Lette broke it, there was an almost tangible sensation of rending.

“We did what?” Her voice reached for an octave it couldn't reach and scraped along its breaking point.

But she knew. Of course she knew. She just hadn't allowed the information to make it to shore with her. But now it came clambering out of the lake like a dragon's diseased zombie corpse come to pursue her forever.

Dathrax had taken the bait, their wealth, and he had put it on his tax boat. And they had put his tax boat at the bottom of a lake.

A lake infested with giant mutant fish who would soon be very hungry indeed.

“No,” she said to herself. “No. No.”

They were back to square one. Except now square one held an entire Consortium of incredibly powerful, incredibly motivated dragons all looking to kill her.

She looked at Will.

This was him. His fault. It had been his plan. And she had…

Gods…

He was the only way out of this she could think of.

“What do we do?” She hated herself for asking it. Hated him for holding the only hope she had.

“Run,” he said, echoing her own advice back to her. “We have to run.”

“Too late.” There was fatalism in Balur's voice. “I am hearing footsteps. Many of them.” He stood straight, reached back, hesitated as his hand closed on nothing.

“Where the fuck is being my hammer?” he said quietly.

Oh shit. As if they didn't have enough problems.

Will wouldn't know a warning sign if it chatted him up at a tavern, took him up to its room, drugged him, and robbed him blind. “The bottom of the lake,” he said.

Lette watched as reality ruptured somewhere in Balur's stomach and all the bile and hatred of the Hallows poured into him, puffing him up. He towered over Will, apocalyptic.

The serendipitous arrival of a large crowd broke the moment. Balur didn't deflate but he was frozen as, from a cross street at the top of the docks, Firkin appeared. He was at the head of a much battered, bleeding, bedraggled, but undeniably triumphant crowd.

“Prophet!” Firkin cried.

Will winced.

“Lord! Master! Utterer of the words that fall upon the ears of the people who have ears! We have come to utter words to you! To deliver to your ears the words of the people with ears! Words and ears are very much involved. They are being of critical importance! Thus you have spaken, and thus I spake again. And thus it was spaked.”

Firkin seemed to be struggling with his oratory. He tugged angrily at his beard.

“Firkin,” Will said wearily. “I don't—”

“Prophet!” Firkin screamed over him. “The people of Athril come bearing you a great gift.”

A great cheer arose at this. Firkin beamed. Lette didn't see why. Unless they were giving Will a crap ton of sweat and grime, they had come remarkably empty-handed.

“I don't want—” Will started again, just as ineffectually as before.

“The people of Athril,” Firkin screeched on. “The people with words and ears for your ears. Except for the ears part. Their ears. Your ears are still definitely a part of this. They come with a great gift for your ears.” Here he hesitated. “And eyes. And legs. Pretty much all of your body.” He hesitated again. “Definitely all of your body. The people of Athril bring you a great gift for your body, even the bits of it that might cause you shame, and you generally find unappealing to the eyes of others. Because we do not care about their eyes. Just their mouths. And their words. And the gift that the people of Athril have for you. In their hands. So their hands too. Except the hands are metaphorical.”

There was a rumbling behind Firkin. He finally, finally seemed to be losing the crowd. Lette settled back. After a long evening, watching Firkin torn limb from limb by an angry mob might make for quite a pleasant distraction.

And then Will went and saved him by asking, “What is it?”

Lette clawed at her face.

Firkin smiled as the crowd cheered once more.

“The people of Athril,” he said, still grinning, “present to you: Athril!”

The sun seemed reluctant to rise over the devastation that had once been the town of Athril. When it did so, it stared down sullenly upon events, half-hidden by a slowly dissipating scrim of smoke.

Judgmental bastard,
thought Will.

He had found a building that was at least two-thirds intact. Its stairs had let him up to a third floor. The roof had collapsed into the street below, and torn away a good chunk of the wall along with it, affording him a good view of the city and the fields beyond.

He could see the crowds coming.

The sun was barely up and already the crowds came; came to see what the prophet had done.

And when they found out? He had no idea. He would need to tell them something probably. Have some words of wisdom.

“Hello, everybody,” he rehearsed in his head. “Welcome to what used to be a bustling, functional town. Don't mind the dead bodies. That's just because of everybody going insane once my name was mentioned. And don't worry about the shit storm of dragons that is almost certainly descending upon this place. From what I've seen so far, the ensuing death, while violent, is pretty quick. There's not much of that flailing around in agony involved. You may shit yourself in terror, of course, but everyone else will be dead in a few moments so there won't be much for you to be embarrassed about. Any questions?”

No. That probably wouldn't do.
Still, he was hard-pressed to think of anything else to tell them. He missed the days when his biggest problem was whether or not to kill his father's old pig.

What had happened to Bessie? He hoped she had escaped the guards. She likely had. She was a wily old thing. Smarter than he was, that was for sure. Lette, Balur, Quirk, even Firkin—they'd have done better if they'd had her lead their merry band. Maybe they should track Bessie down, find out if she would lead them to safety.

Except Bessie was probably smart enough to turn the offer down at face value.

He chuckled to himself.

“Oh,” said a voice behind him. “You're here.”

He flinched around. Quirk was standing at the top of the stairs that had brought him up here. He hadn't heard her approach.

“Sorry.” Will found himself apologizing.

Quirk shook her head. She had found a clean dress from somewhere. Something silvery-white, made of linen. She looked almost priestly. “I was just looking for somewhere quiet,” she mumbled. “Away from it all.”

Will let a smile ghost across his face. “So was I,” he said. “It doesn't help as much as you'd think.”

“You were laughing,” Quirk said. She looked suspicious. It was a very different look from the one she had worn when she had wandered into a cave in the middle of a rainy night. Will had the impression that the events of the past two weeks had cracked the veneer of professional reserve. Something more feral was peeking through those cracks.

“You know who sits alone, laughing to themselves?” Will asked her.

Quirk nodded slowly. “You have a point.”

“I think I'd like company,” he told her. It seemed a sensible step considering how solitude was working out.

Quirk considered that. “I'm not sure I do.”

He shrugged. “If it doesn't work for you, I'll clear off. I'm not making much progress up here.”

“Progress on what?” She seemed to regret the question almost as soon as it was out of her mouth. But he wasn't willing to let the opening go.

“What to do next.”

At first he thought she was smiling. But perhaps, upon closer inspection, it was more just a baring of teeth. “Trying to come up with a plan?”

He shook his head. “Trying to come up with whether I should come up with a plan.”

Some of the tension seemed to go out of Quirk's shoulders. She sagged a little, stepped off the stairs, and walked toward him. She sat down on the creaking wooden floorboards. This place had been an attic once, he thought. Battered old possessions—the sort that nobody actually wanted, but didn't want to throw away either; the ambivalent detritus of living—were scattered about them. Poorly executed oil paintings of people with buck teeth and mismatching eyes. Religious texts everyone owned but that no one read. Chests of clothes that were providing a good home for moths.

“They've really got you all twisted up, haven't they?” she said.

“Who?”

“Lette.” Quirk looked at him flatly. “Balur too. And Firkin. All of them.”

He wasn't sure how he felt about that. Balur and Firkin didn't seem like the most adept schemers. He wasn't sure how he felt about being called their patsy. And as for Lette…

“What about you?” he said, a touch defensively. “You have no interest in what I do next?”

The look she gave him was utterly unguarded. Utterly desolate. “Fuck you,” she said, and abruptly stood up.

Will didn't know what had just happened. He stared up at her. “What?” he asked. “What happened? What in the name of the Hallows did I just say?”

“What happened? What
happened
?” Quirk's eyes were wild as she looked down at him. The wind wafting through the town made her long dress billow around her. Her mouth became a rictus, not quite a smile, not quite a cry of anguish. “I chose, Will,” she said. “I made a decision.”

Will remembered the events of the night before once more. Quirk standing there, just staring at Dathrax. The words “he's magnificent” on her lips.

“A good one?” he asked hopefully.

He didn't really feel hopeful.

“A long time ago,” Quirk said, “I told myself I wouldn't use my magic anymore. I had been used by a… He was called Hethren. He was… a bandit. Worse, I suppose. But he looked at me and all he saw was my magic. And when he looked at my magic, all he saw was a weapon. So that's what he made me into: his weapon. He made me hurt a lot of people. He made me like to hurt people. With my magic.

“But I was rescued, Will. I was saved. Not by any of the gods. Not by Lawl, sitting on high. Not by absent Barph, dancing and drinking his way in merriment. Not by Cois, fucking her way through immortality. Not by Knole, even though all the other academics I know worship her for her learning. Not by Klink, with all his wealth and treasure. Not by Toil, bringing life to our fields. Not even by Betra, mother to us all, who promises to hold us to her bosom even as Lawl judges us, each and every one. None of them took an interest in me.

“No, it was a few good women and men. It was people who looked at me and didn't see a weapon, who didn't see my magic at all. It was people who just saw a damaged child. And they helped me find my way to be a better person. They helped me reach a point where I could promise to myself, ‘No more. I'm done with magic.'”

She had a far-off look in her eyes. The wind billowed.

“I loved being that person. I loved how happy it made them. My discoveries. My theories. I wanted to be the best thaumatobiologist in all the world. For them. And I had come so far. I hadn't lost control in so long. So I came out here into the world. To achieve that dream. And, you know what?”

She finally looked at him. There was a genuine smile on her face. He didn't dare answer, dare break whatever spell this was.

“I was awful,” she said. “I couldn't even find a dragon. I didn't really even know what I was looking for. But then I met you. And Lette. And Balur. And even Firkin. And stealing from a dragon wasn't exactly what I'd had in mind, but I thought it would get me close. And it did. I got so close. Close enough to touch a dragon.”

She shook her head. “But I lost control. It had happened before. But this time I hurt so many people. And I was so upset with myself. With all of you. For putting me in that situation. But at least it was an accident. It just slipped out. An old trauma rising to the surface. I can understand that. I can excuse that.”

All the mirth was falling away now—just more junk in the room. “But last night… Last night I chose. I made a decision. I didn't panic. I had control. And I reached for my magic anyway. I… I…” She was struggling to get the words out now. “I chose to set fire to the world.” She shook her head. Let her eyes settle on him. They were as heavy as Balur's war hammer.

“You want to know what I think you should do next?” she asked. “I think you should go fuck yourself, Willett Fallows, and you should leave me alone to work out what to do with all the pieces of the person I thought I was.”

She sat back down. Both of them stared off into space. The crowds were drawing closer, Will could see. Some were almost at the town gates now. The fact that they hung askew on their hinges didn't seem to be dissuading anyone.

“Sorry,” Quirk said after a while. “That probably wasn't fair.”

Will shrugged. “No,” he said, “I think it was.”

Quirk nodded. “I know, but I was trying to be nice.”

“Given how many people are dead because of me,” he said, “I'm not sure there's much need to be nice to me.”

She nodded again. Will had rather been hoping that she wouldn't.

“Do you worship the gods, Will?” she said apropos of nothing.

“Erm,” he said, caught off guard. Then he said, “Yes,” because that was what you said. Then, “I mean, not religiously…” but that wasn't right either. “Well, yes, religiously. Obviously. Sort of the definition of worshipping them. But, well, I don't follow all their dictates to the letter. No one does really. Well, not many people anyway. I celebrate the major feast days. I offer up a few libations now and again. That sort of thing. Regular worship, I suppose.”

Something in her look made him feel like he needed to defend himself, though he wasn't sure why. “I mean,” he said, “they're up there, aren't they? Unless they're down here, screwing your wife anyway.” That seemed to be most of what the gods did when they involved themselves with their creations. Quite often when disguised as an animal, which, he now thought, was a rather weird kink to be shared across the entire Pantheon. But he was wandering off topic. “It doesn't seem to be worth pissing them off,” he finished. Not, perhaps, the most theocratically sound argument, but it was one that worked for him.

“And how,” asked Quirk, “is all that worship working out for you?”

The stink of blood and ash was thick in Will's nostrils. “It's had its ups and downs,” he said. Then a thought occurred to him. “Don't you worship the gods?” That she might not seemed absurd. Dangerous in fact. Could all that have happened to him be because he'd fallen in with a heathen that the gods wished to smite?

But Quirk said, “Yes, I do. Knole mostly. Goddess of wisdom, and all of that. She's important to the university. There are a lot of statues of her saints watching over the libraries and laboratories. There's a lot of beautiful architecture back there.” For a moment she had a wistful look on her face. “But that's not really why I asked.”

“So why?” Will was unsure about this whole line of questioning.

“You're a god,” Quirk said to him.

Will considered that. “Perhaps you should lie down,” he said.

A small exhalation of amusement escaped her nostrils. “Not literally. I don't mean that. Because I have not literally gone insane. I mean you're a god to these people.” She nodded her head toward the open wall space before them; the ruined city and its ruined population beyond. “They think of you just the same way they think of their gods.”

“Erm,” said Will. He was back to monosyllables.

“When you pray to Lawl,” Quirk said, “when you pour a libation to Cois or Barph before a night down at the tavern, do you truly expect them to step down out of the heavens and intercede? Do you expect them to manifest at your beck and call? Do you expect them to truly consider you and your needs? Do they ever? Or do they come and go as they please, at their own selfish whims?”

“Well,” Will said. This seemed like it was skirting very close to heresy and he had pissed off enough incredibly powerful beings that he didn't feel the need to add the entire Pantheon to the list.

“You don't expect them to answer,” she answered for him. “You just hope. You just think,
Well, maybe that will nudge them in the direction of doing something that will work out for me.
”

Will hesitated, then grudgingly nodded. That was, he supposed, completely accurate.

“It's the same with you,” Quirk said. “To them, you are a force in the world. Someone who can change things. And they are desperate for change. They don't believe they can truly influence you, but they hope that when you change things it will work out in their favor. They're desperate. It seems to them that any change at all will help them.”

When he heard things like that, it was very hard for Will to regret the deaths of Mattrax and Dathrax, imminent death of his own or no.

“So you're saying,” he said, finally putting it all together, “that I'm like you. I have to make a decision.” Though he wasn't sure if he knew what he was meant to be deciding anymore.

Quirk was looking at him as if he had started to become blurry and had to be held in the clarity of sanity.

“You're not saying that?” Will checked.

“There's nothing even vaguely similar about our situations,” she said. “I'm having a moral and existential crisis. You're trying to work out a way to dodge feeling responsible for the murder of thousands.”

Well, when she put it like that… All the nascent hope that had been building in his chest went out of him in a single sighing breath.

He put his head in his hands. “I just… I need to work it out. But you're right, I'm a god. I can push them how I need them. I can… do… something…”

He looked up at Quirk's scoffing sound. “What?” he asked.

She shook her head sadly. “You're not a god,” she said, as if addressing a toddler trying to pick up his father's sword and shouting that he was Lawl's son upon the earth.