The Horns of Ruin (28 page)

I bought a half-cape that buttoned down the front. It had a
hood that hid my face without looking too much like I was trying to hide my
face. And it let me keep a hand on my revolver without drawing attention. I had
left the tower with no plan in mind, but as soon as I was on the street my
boots turned toward the inner horn, and home. Toward the Strength.

It amazed me how life kept going in the wake of my apocalypse.
Vendors were selling food, pedigears cluttered the roads, civilians went to
jobs and came home. The streets were alive. Just like any other day. I felt as
if a barrier had come down between me and the city of Ash. They had their lives
and their futures and their plans. And I was just this hunted creature, alive
only to run. I didn't like that. It didn't feel natural.

Of course, there were signs of change in the life of the
city. There were more guards, especially anywhere there was open water. The
canals looked like they'd been closed down. Patrol boats drifted lazily off the
coast, and this was a city of many coasts. There were even valkyn in the air.
There couldn't be more than, what, fifty of those beasts all told? It seemed
crazy to have them on patrol. Then again, the city had been attacked. We had
been attacked.

I approached the Strength from on high. There were elevated
walkways that brushed up against the monastery's round plaza, public routes
that were usually crowded with tourists from the collar countries. Today they
were more crowded than usual. Almost impassable. I climbed higher, thinking the
extra stairs might thin out the crowds, but no luck. Even on the top tier it
was shoulder to chest. I kept my arms under my cloak, crossed over the cold
weight of the bully. Wouldn't be good to have someone brush up against that.

It was a cloudy day, last night's clear skies betrayed by a
low mass of pewter thunderheads that rumbled at the tips of the city's towers.
My raised hood brought no comment as the first heavy drops of rain spattered
down on the crowd. Even in the growing torrent, the crowds didn't thin. I
worked my way forward slowly, listening to the gossip.

And of course, they were talking about me. I had gained
quite a reputation. By my hand, the Chanter's Isle had split, and at my command
the dead had flooded the hidden heart of that strange sect of the Alexian Cult.
It was whispered that I was apostate, that I (along with my Elders of Morgan)
had declared for Amon the Betrayer, and was leading a secret war against the
godking.

None of it made sense. The whiteshirts had been helping us
search for the Fratriarch, had lent us an Amonite, had guarded us against the
attacks of the Betrayer and stormed out only at our command. We stood together
against the Rethari. Why would we betray them? Why would they abandon us?

When finally I reached sight of the Strength, I was
horrified. They had great spotlights thrown up against its side, and armed
barricades all around the plaza. Smoke stained the windows and doors, and all
the glass was broken. The front door hung intact but open.

"What in hell happened?" I whispered. But of
course, in a crowd a whisper is a conversation. The man in front of me turned
and answered.

"They had to break on in, did the Alexians. Thank the
Brother they did, too. That whole Cult had gone bad in the soul. After the
Chanters' bloody sacrifice, trying to hold one of them at bay, Alexander sent
his boys up. Tried to talk, but those damned sons of Morgan suck ered 'em in
and killed a whole platoon. Whiteshirts had to go in in force. Burn the whole
place out." He nodded to the wagons that were lining the promenade.
"Still counting the bodies, they are."

I felt sick in my stomach. I looked at the stacks of
blackened bundles, bleeding ash in the rain. My brothers of Morgan, my sisters
of the Warrior. Murdered, and now burned and accused of murder. Of rebellion.
Apostate.

A tinny voice echoed over the crowd, and I squinted in the
direction of the main door. The voice was coming from a loudspeaker, erected on
a stage. There were three platforms above it, hastily erected against the side
of the Strength, and three spotlights on them. At first I had taken them for
siege engines, but now I saw they were nothing but stationary wooden platforms.
On the stage, a man was reading a list of accusations in a very proper, very
precise voice. A familiar voice, distorted by the loudspeaker. I focused on
him, and saw. And understood. Nathaniel, the man from the abandoned shrine of
Alexander, the man Simeon had met with, the Betrayer. Hidden in the arms of
Alexander. He was speaking accusations against the Cult of Morgan, gesturing
widely up at the platforms above.

And on each platform, an Elder. And on each Elder, a
sentence of death.

They stood chained, arms spread, their robes torn and heads
shorn, blood on their faces and chests. A metal plaque had been struck with the
ancient symbols of apostasy, the sigil of the godking as a blessing and a
condemnation. Each of them stared down at the crowds in slack disbelief.
Simeon. Isabel. Tomas.

"They're going to kill them," I said.

"Oh, they'll try them first. Then they'll kill
them."

I fell back into the crowd, shoving people out of my way as
I ran. I had the bully in my hand, and damn it to hell if anyone tried to stop
me.

"We're out of time," I said as I rushed onto the
hidden platform. "I need answers now."

The girl was facing away from me, her hands loose in her
lap, her eyes closed. The screen reflected her face in pale green brilliance.
She didn't move when I entered, didn't show any sign of caring when I strode
over and shook her shoulder.

When she woke up, it was as if I hadn't been gone at all.
Like a machine turning back on.

"You're back?" she asked.

"What the hell was that? I thought you were
dead!"

"Yeah, pretty much. The forms of these machines can be
tricky. Easy to get lost inside." She stood up and stretched, then noticed
the look on my face and the revolver in my hand. "What's wrong? What's
happened?"

"They've burned the Strength and declared the Cult
apostate."

"We knew that-"

"They have the Elders. They're going to kill them.
They say we, that I ... that we're trying to overthrow the godking."

"Again, that's nothing new. We-"

I grabbed her by the collar and pulled her toward me.
"Listen. To. Me. The man who tried to kill Simeon, the damned
Betrayer-he's there. He's in charge of the operation. Right now he's reading
the accusations against the Elders. He means to kill them."

She held my gaze with hers, trying to burrow into my head
with her stare.

"That sounded an awful lot like an accusation."

"The Betrayer has infiltrated Alexander. He knew. He's
the one who knew that the Fratriarch was at the Library Desolate. That I was
his only guard. Where he was going. He stood guard while Elias was killed. Had
Owen follow me around, keeping tabs on the Paladin. Gods know what else he
learned, what Simeon or Tomas was telling the Alexians behind our backs. And
now he has us falsely accused and on the run. And the people believe him!
They're anxious for the trial, anxious to see the Cult of Morgan put down. They
believe him!"

She peeled my hand off her cloak, one finger at a time,
then pushed the bully away from her belly.

"Are you ready to trust an Amonite now?"

"I'm not ready to trust anyone, anywhere. Tell me what
you've found, or get out."

She sighed and sat down by her damned machine. "Where
did this thing come from?" she asked.

"We don't know. Just appeared in the Strength one
day."

"That's what your Elders told you, at least. Fair
enough. And you don't know who sent it to you?"

"I said as much."

She nodded. "Someone is trying to send you a message.
A warning, really. They could have been more direct about it, but I don't think
you would have trusted them if they had been."

"Who? And what message?"

"I don't know who. And I'm not sure of the
message."

I spat. "You're being a hell of a lot of help here. Do
you have anything that will help me prove the Elders are innocent? Anything
that will save their lives?"

She turned and powered down the archive, then folded her
arms and leaned back against the machine.

"It's a matter of belief, Eva. You're being led on a
path, by some hidden agency. I don't know if they're the ones killing your
friends, or if someone is doing that to drive you away. I don't know why I was
the one chosen to interpret this device, why Barnabas gave his life to protect
me. I think he knew what the device meant, but couldn't decipher it. Couldn't
bear the message."

"Yeah, I'm going to barrel out of here and start
shooting whiteshirts if you don't hurry the hell up."

She smiled and nodded. "Okay, okay. Let me explain,
and then you can decide who needs shooting. I get the feeling it's going to be
more people than even you're comfortable with."

"You'd be surprised."

She stood and fished out the cylinder of cigarettes. I
hadn't seen her smoke since we'd left the Strength. When she was lit, she paced
in a slow arc across the platform, trailing a blue haze.

"Amon discovered the Feyr device that we think of as
the impellor, in the days after this city had been taken from the Feyr. Like I
said, it appeared that the Feyr were just shooting them up into the sky. No
real apparent purpose. Most of the devices were destroyed, or had shot down
into the lake when their towers collapsed in the fighting. Amon retrieved what
he could, and began to study them." She paused and toked a couple times,
her hands shaking with the nicotine rush. "What do you know about
godhood?"

"That there were three gods, and that we're down to
one."

"And before us, before the Brothers Immortal rose up
from their humble childhoods and led the tribes of man against the Feyr-who was
god then?"

"There was no god. Just stories of gods, from ancient
days."

"Yes and no. The ancient gods were from the race of
the Titans. In their time, the Titans were just people, and a few among them
ascended to godhood. Just like the Brothers, in their own way. They had more
than three gods, so many in fact that most people don't realize there were
regular Titans as well. Only the names of the gods come to us through history,
and the mythologies of the Feyr."

"How do you know all this?" I asked.

"The archives of Amon. He studied such things.
Especially in the early days of the Brothers, when they were just ... becoming.
He wanted to understand what was happening to them, in a very rational sense.
And, of course, it wasn't a very rational thing. But he tried."

"Okay. So, many Titan gods, and then no gods, and then
the Brothers. What's your point?"

"I didn't say no gods. The Feyr rose up against the
Titans and overthrew them. Right here, in fact, in the city of Ash. They burned
the city, and then they drowned the city. And in time, they tried to atone for
that. I don't think they ever stopped trying to atone for it, actually. One of
the reasons they fell to us so easily."

"Easily? Hundreds of thousands died in those
wars."

"Yes. But how many would you expect to die in a battle
with the gods?"

"Gods? They weren't gods, they were just ... just the
Feyr. Just funny little people."

She leaned against a steel spar and peered out between the
slats of the cladding. The rain had passed, at least here, and the sun shone on
her face, and on the aura of smoke that hung around her.

"They were more than that, I think. It's not clearly
defined, but godhood seems to be ... some kind of power. Power in the air, in
the earth, in us. The Brothers assumed godhood by their actions, and by their
actions we honor them. The Titans were the same way, raising gods from among
their own, elevating them to godhood by their actions and their deeds. The Feyr
did not take that route. They had no individual gods. They were a race of
little gods."

"What?"

She shook her head and grimaced. "It's hard to
explain. Godhood is a power that settles in people. It builds up in great
people, making it easier for them to build up even more power. Someone becomes
famous, and the power of god gathers in them, and then they are able to do more
marvelous things, becoming more legendary, gathering more power. It's a cycle.
But like any power, there are limits. There are capacities that can be
exceeded."

"You make this all sound very rational. Are these
Amon's theories?"

"No. These are the things he learned from the Feyr.
While studying the impellors." She moved away from the sun and stubbed out
her cigarette. "If you take a battery and keep charging it, it holds more
and more power until it can't hold any more. And then what? Either you
discharge some of that power or it explodes. The Titans had many gods, so they
were able to hold the power for a long time. Their divinity was distributed
across many people. Maybe it wasn't enough. Maybe they were losing control of
it, and that's why the Feyr rebelled against them. Either way, when the Feyr
assumed the mantle of godhood, they realized you couldn't just hold it in a
couple people. You had to spread it out. And they figured, hey, why not spread
it out across all of us?"