Last First Snow (44 page)

“Your son,” she said, “needs a father.”

“He needs a world less broken than this. All the sons need that. And the daughters, too.”

“Is there such a world?”

“There must be.”

“I don't know,” she said. “Perhaps.” And: “I kept, and broke, a lot of promises today. To save you. I don't know if I saved the right person.”

“Neither do I.”

“I should go.”

“Elayne,” he said to her retreating back. “Thank you.”

“You're welcome,” she replied, and left the alley for the sunlit streets. Gods gathered in her wake.

*   *   *

Mina stayed by Caleb's bed for days. The papers announced the Skittersill Rising's end, published detailed comments from key players on the council and a brief interview with the King in Red—so class was back on schedule. She went to the campus for department meetings, for journal review; sat on a lush, watered lawn beneath a blue sky as she adjusted her syllabus for the next semester. The campus was the same as ever, but her papers and sources had changed when she wasn't looking. Etchings of High Quechal glyphs bled with her son's blood.

Most of her colleagues had never met her husband. Those who had, did not ask after him. Their house was far enough from the riot that she did not have to lie much.

At sunset she returned to the hospital, sat in the chair, and watched her son sleep with needles in his arms and a tube down his nose. They had a bed for her at the hospital—she did not know whether the university insurance paid for it, or Elayne Kevarian, and she did not ask—but she could not sleep there through the night. Around two or three, without fail, she woke and went to his room, sat in the old familiar chair, and drowsed off to the ticks that timed his heart.

One night she woke in his room, cold, with a crick in her neck. The machines ticked, and Caleb breathed. Must have been the breeze through the half-open window that woke her.

The window had not been open when she went to sleep.

A shadow moved on the other side of her son's bed, a thing of darkness without contour or dimension. She recognized the silhouette.

“Get away from him,” she said.

The shadow drew back. It walked toward her, stiff and silent. The black opened, acquired the contour of familiar muscles, familiar scars.

“Mina.” Her husband held out his arms to embrace or supplicate.

“No.”

He stopped.

“Get out of here.”

“I had no choice,” he said. “He saved your life.”

“You thought you had no choice. You didn't talk to me. You didn't trust me. Or him. You left us.”

“He will be well. Three more days. That's all he needs.”

“We'll see.”

“I. Gods. I wish I could take it back. I wish I could make this up to you. How?”

“Leave,” she said. She turned from him, and crossed her arms.

In a breath of wind, he was gone.

She sat, and remained in the chair for a long time without crying. Then she did, and then she slept.

On the third day Caleb woke, asking for his mother.

*   *   *

When Elayne next saw the King in Red, in the hospital, he looked smaller: still tall and thin, but reduced in a dimension she could not name. He toasted her with his coffee mug as she emerged from the elevators. She nodded in reply. He grinned, but his heart wasn't in it.

“Are we okay?”

“No,” she said. “But we can be professional, at least.”

Dr. Venkat ushered them into the room, which looked like all the hospital chambers Elayne had ever seen, only more expensive. Slick cushions on the plush seats, every surface polished chrome, the bedsheets silk. Perhaps the occupant's family had refurnished to their taste; perhaps the hospital reserved such rooms for a particular clientele.

Others had arrived already. Professional nods from a Craftsman and a Craftswoman she vaguely remembered meeting at a seminar a few years back. Batac's wife, who Elayne had never bothered to imagine, was everything she would have pictured if she had: round-faced Quechal beauty, heavy lashes and a slight curl to the hair. The daughter stood beside her, uncomfortable in a purple dress with lace, ten years old maybe or eleven, face framed by thorny black curls.

Tan Batac lay in the bed, white-robed, beatific, and, as Dr. Venkat adjusted the mix of his intravenous drip, awake. His eyelids fluttered, pupils dilated, shrank, focused.

“I'm alive,” he said, and smiled.

His wife and child went to him first. He hugged them both, and kissed the girl; then the various Craftsmen and colleagues closed in, offering reports and memos, summaries of missed business. They, too, left: no one wanted to linger near the King in Red.

And then they were three, as they'd been on that carriage ride from the judge's office.

Someone had to talk, and that was Tan Batac. “No one's told me the details.”

“It was bad,” Kopil said. “It started bad, and got worse.”

“But the agreement stands.”

“The agreement stands,” Elayne said. “As does the Skittersill. You'll be glad to know that almost all your property, and that of your colleagues, escaped unharmed.”

She'd practiced the words in the mirror, so she could say them with nonchalance, and as she spoke she watched him, lying in the bed, curious what a man looked like who had damned himself and received nothing in exchange.

She knew how it would have looked were he an actor on stage: the extended pause, the exaggerated jerk of the eyes to the upper left. In reality the signs were smaller. Batac smiled, but there was a hitch before his smile, a dart of tongue against upper lip. Did his hands tighten on the sheets? Did he lie unnaturally still? Did he flinch from visions of the deaths he caused?

“Ah,” he said. “Good.”

They discussed the deal, caught up on the suits the city faced, on the expense of the operation, on the need for repairs and the newspaper editorial remonstrations calling for justice of one kind or another. Shoptalk. Batac lasted for a quarter of an hour before he paled and sank back to the pillow and said, “I'm sorry, friends, but I need rest.”

“We'll get the doctor.” Kopil patted Batac's shoulder, and turned to leave the room. “Feel better.” It sounded like an order.

“Well?” Kopil asked when they reached the street.

“I think so,” Elayne said.

He bowed his head. They stood by the road for minutes, silent. Then the skeleton raised his hand, and called for a cab.

*   *   *

In the heart of Kelethras, Albrecht, and Ao's office pyramid, a golem worked in a cork-lined room. A steel brook trickled as newsprint pages turned. A dragon of smoke curled against the ceiling. Lenses telescoped out and back, filters clicked closed and irised open.

Zack did not look up when Elayne sat down. His torso twisted around and spidery arms flickered out to pin a picture to the wall: the faceless god of Chakal Square wept above his cracked, burned fountain. Zack's neck gimbaled to keep his head bent over the desk.

“If you want to ask a question,” Elayne said, “do so.”

Voicebox gears ground. “I have insufficient data to frame my query. You came to me; you have your own opinions as to what I should ask.”

“I heard a voice in the Square,” she said.

His torso snapped back into place. He raised his head. Light flickered behind the lenses of his eyes.

“Explain.”

She did. He listened, and took notes, and asked some clarifying questions. The steel brook stilled, and the lens light shrank to a point.

“I do not understand,” he said.

“Neither do I. But someday I will.”

*   *   *

When Alaxic returned to his balcony that night, he found Temoc waiting. The big man had tripped no wards, set off no alarms. He was an edifice against the city lights.

Alaxic swore, and dropped his tea. The mug broke, and a black stain spread over his balcony tile.

“Something wrong?” Temoc asked.

“You startled me.” Alaxic pressed one hand against his chest, counted heartbeats, counted breaths, tried without much success to slow them both. “You owe me a teacup.”

“I'll pay it back.” And, after an interval in which neither of them moved or spoke: “You've had a busy few weeks.”

“My connection with the Skittersill broadsheets came out. The King in Red has pressed me from all sides, with some success. Fortunately his own principles forbid him from doing much—speech is free in Dresediel Lex. Our dread lord and his supporters claim their suppression of the rising was a response to open armed conflict; the jury of public opinion has rendered no verdict, but I think they will agree. Since I never openly encouraged armed rebellion, they'll have a hard time making charges stick.” Heart rate down. Breath not yet normalized, but deeper. He smiled, weakly.

“I wonder how they discovered your connection.”

“Doesn't matter, much.” He set the papers he carried down on a side table, and approached Temoc. “Your friend the Craftswoman, perhaps. No matter. How do you like being public enemy number one?”

“Life is simpler now,” Temoc said. “Especially with the gods awake. Much becomes clear that once was clouded.”

“For example?”

“My purpose. My role in this war.”

Alaxic sighed. “I'm glad to hear that. So much needs to be done. If we are to change the world, we need all the help we can get.”

“I'm not finished,” Temoc said.

“Fair enough, fair enough.” Alaxic raised one hand. “I did not mean to interrupt.”

“Much becomes clear,” Temoc said, “but not all.”

“For example?”

“For example. After I … left my family. They were attacked by demon creatures. Chased across Dresediel Lex, through the skies, on the earth. I wonder what purpose that served.”

Alaxic shrugged. “The King in Red takes revenge in strange ways.”

“Did he think my family's death would break me, rather than fan my anger?”

“If so, he didn't know you very well. Not as well as I do.”

“Why not arrest us all in that case? Or take them hostage?”

“Maybe he didn't think so far ahead.”

“And why not use Wardens for the purpose?”

“Wardens are a funny breed,” Alaxic said. “They think themselves peacekeepers. They establish order. It's a hard job, fighting criminals and monsters. But an innocent woman and a child—I wouldn't want to convince anyone they were enemies of the state. Golems are expensive, but they don't talk back, and he has the resources. One of the few who does.”

“So you think he knew I would leave?”

“Perhaps they had orders to attack whether you left or not. Might have been timed—you're a holy terror when you're on your guard, Temoc, but even you sleep sometimes.”

“Interesting,” he said.

“The man's bloody-minded. He wanted a war, and you're an old enemy. It's vicious, but it makes sense.”

“That's not what I find interesting,” Temoc said. “I find it interesting that you mentioned golems, when I did not.”

“Did I?”

The big man nodded.

“Must have been in the papers.”

“I have an alternate theory,” Temoc said. “Let us suppose someone wanted me in the fight. Someone who saw me on the sidelines as Chakal Square bloomed into a riot, and did not want to leave me there. Say this person thought my family held me back. And so they thought, remove the family and Temoc will charge to battle—especially if he thinks a Craftsman is responsible. If he thinks the King in Red challenged him. So he sends agents of his choosing, faceless creatures, no threat to me, but fatal to those I love. Caleb and Mina die while I am out. Or, even better, while I'm there to fail in their defense.”

“That's a hell of a theory,” Alaxic said, or tried to say.

Temoc moved.

The old man tried to guard himself, but Temoc caught him around the neck one-handed, and lifted. Alaxic twisted in Temoc's grip but the hand might as well have been iron forged around his throat. Scars shone on Temoc's arm, across his bare chest, on his scalp and brow. He swung Alaxic over the balcony's edge, over twenty-seven stories' drop. Wind slapped Alaxic's clothes and roared in his ears, but the wind was not so loud as Temoc's voice.

“You tried to kill my son. You tried to kill my wife. Because you thought to guide me back to the gods' way.” Temoc's grip tightened. Black and brown spots swam through Alaxic's vision, haloed by the light of Temoc's scars. Breath came in trickles when it came at all. “You are proud, oh so proud. So sure in your faith. But if I opened my hand, do you think the gods would catch you?”

Alaxic could not move to shake his head. His skin was paper and about to tear.

“Do you?”

His voice was thunder, his voice the tide.

“No,” Alaxic said, which took all the air his lungs still held. He pulled for more, chest aching, but no breath came.

“The gods have let you age, priest. They will let you die.” Temoc's grip tightened. So close, so close to death. He knew, as Alaxic knew, the precise pressure needed to snap a man's spine. One twist, and that was all. “They have kept me strong.”

Then it was over.

Alaxic crumpled, panting, on his balcony. Air all around him, and he could breathe none of it. He vomited, and again.

When he recovered, Temoc stood above him, lit still by shadow and stars and divine wrath. “But I have need of you.”

Hot, wet needles jabbed into the corners of Alaxic's eyes. He tried to speak, but could not.

“I will stop the King in Red. I will fight his people, who crush ours. I will be our sword in the dark. But I need resources. A base of operations. Soulstuff to acquire tools and contacts, and to build. Do you understand?”

Alaxic nodded.

“You will give these things to me. You will help me do the gods' work, at first. When I am satisfied, you will be free to pursue your own goals. But if you betray me, I will kill you. If any harm comes to my family, no matter the cause, I will kill you. You have been drafted into the gods' service. Do you understand?”