Authors: Max Gladstone
“And you’ve been operating for?”
“About three years now. Founded four years ago, but it took us a while to get rolling. You know the drill. Paperwork, demons, more paperwork because of the demons.”
“You’ve mostly worked in Northern Kath, it says here.”
“So far. We’re looking to expand to the Old World, though. The Shining Empire first, natural since they’re closer to DL, but also Koschei’s kingdom and the Northern Gleb.” She paced the room, hands in pockets. A ship must have felt like death to this woman. She liked to move. “That leaves us in an odd position. Most of our board members are serious God Wars vets—Craftsmen. To say they don’t like gods puts it mildly. Operating on the ground in the Old World means sacrificing to local deities, and they want to avoid that. And please understand, when I say ’want to avoid’ I’m being professionally euphemistic, the actual terms our sponsors used were more…” She trailed off.
“Flowery?” Kai suggested.
“‘Bloody,’ I think, is more fitting.”
Okay. Needs assessed, offer a solution. “Well, Kavekana is well positioned to help with sacrifice planning. The maintenance fee for your idol supports priests up the mountain”— and she actually managed to say that without a self-pitying wince, not exactly a victory worthy of triumphant song but not bad, either—“who worship the idol in your stead. The same priests help construct and manage the idol’s investments, and ensure grace is dispensed where and when you need it.”
“That’s just what the pro-faction on the board says.”
“You’re not convinced.”
“Well, here’s the thing. You know how I said I don’t like gods?”
“Sure.”
“My sponsors are worse. And when I say ‘worse’—”
“Another professional euphemism?”
“Basically. I’ve had a few bad experiences. Most of our sponsors, they have a history. The King in Red broke the Quechal gods on his altar, and killed the moon in single combat; Ilyana Rakesblight and the Blade Queen seared the sky over Kho Katang. You don’t even want to know the outline of half the stories I’ve heard about Belladonna Albrecht.”
“What are you saying?”
“I’m saying my bosses want to be sure they aren’t supporting gods when they deposit their soulstuff here.”
Was that a lure to her anger, or an honest question? If this woman wanted to sabotage her board’s plans to build an idol on Kavekana, she would see a fight with Kai as a win. “Our idols are not gods, Ms. Batan.”
“You have priests, and altars, and prayers. What’s different?”
Kai closed her eyes, and breathed her anger away. Unfortunately, it was still there when she opened her eyes again. “Do you know anything about Kavekana’s history?”
“A bit, from the brochures.”
“Our gods rowed off to fight your sponsors in the Wars,” Kai said. “The greatest warriors and priests of the Archipelago went with them. They never came back. But people stayed, and kept faith. The priests of Kavekana took that faith and made new images, idols to watch over us with the gods gone. They weren’t alive, these idols, not like the gods were—they couldn’t speak, or guide, or love, or correct. Didn’t have the history, the complexity. But they helped, and later we learned that mainlanders found them useful.”
“That doesn’t answer my question,” Teo said.
“No one who has seen a real god would confuse the idols we build with one.”
She nodded, still skeptical. “I’m not used to this sort of thing, to be honest. I’m no Craftswoman, nor, obviously, a theologian Applied or otherwise. We don’t have much truck with gods and spirits and idols and the like back home in Dresediel Lex. At least, we don’t if everything goes according to plan. If it’s a question of seeing, could I see these idols of yours myself? The whole Two Serpents board knows how I feel about gods; if I go back and tell them there’s no trouble, they’ll believe me.”
So close, Kai thought. She could hear Teo teeter on the brink, changing her mind, ready to work with her. It hurt to say, “I’m sorry.”
“Why not?”
“Privacy. We have to protect our pilgrims.”
“If I can convince my board to work with you,” Teo said, “we might be talking about a big investment here. Could you make an exception?”
Kai shook her head. “There are too many secrets in the pool. I can tell you about idols we’ve built. I can describe common structures of faith and myth. But I can’t show you specifics. Gods and Deathless Kings the world over would kill children for a chance at the knowledge you just asked me to give you. We host idols worth millions of souls, and we take our pilgrims’ privacy very seriously.” She trailed off, remembering Seven Alpha. Not, for once, the idol’s death, not the words, but what came after. The room of glass and edges. Ms. Kevarian’s questions, probing, piercing, endless. “Very seriously,” she repeated.
“I get it,” Teo said. “I can keep secrets. I’ll sign a nondisclosure agreement if you want—you can lock my memories of your idols away except when I’m in the same room as Two Serpents board members.”
“All of whom are major players on the soul-markets themselves. I’m sorry. I can put you in touch with other pilgrims who have volunteered to discuss their experiences. Their successes.” She keeps digging, Mara had said. I don’t even know what she’s looking for. The Grimwalds had signed off on the Shining Empire trade. They knew the risks—might they have known the trade would go south? Did they approve it expecting their idol to fail?
“I’m sorry,” Teo said. “That would help, but I don’t think it will push us over the line. I hope you appreciate my position.”
Kai was barely listening anymore.
I seek the truth.
Ms. Kevarian’s own words, in their meeting, in the nightmare.
What truth?
Teo continued: “I don’t mean to be difficult. But if we’re to work together, I have to see.”
“I understand,” Kai said. “I’m sorry you traveled so far, for so little.” She closed the folder, and walked out of the conference room.
She felt Teo’s eyes follow her. She ignored them.
19
“What do you know about poets?” Izza asked that afternoon, as Cat did handstand push-ups on a stretch of bare floor.
The woman’s back and shoulders rippled with muscle; her toes pointed straight at the sky and the sagging roof. Six weeks give or take since her injury, one of those shaking from withdrawal, and already so strong. As if pain hurt her differently from normal people. “Lots of questions today.”
“Just curious.”
“Poets in general or”—Cat growled as she pressed herself back up into handstand posture—“specific?”
“I’ve been thinking about the man who saved me from the watch,” Izza said. “He was a poet. Or he said he was.”
“Saving”—through clenched teeth as she descended into another rep—“isn’t a poetish”—and up again—“thing to do.” She paused for breath this time in her handstand, but her arms did not shake.
“He called himself a bard,” Izza said, remembering the coat proudly worn and the pedigree proudly proclaimed. “What’s that mean?”
“Could mean a lot of things.” Cat bent her legs, set the balls of her feet on the floor, and stood, swooping her arms up and back like wings. She grabbed a jug of water and drank half in three long swigs. “‘Bard’s’ one of those words, like ‘cop,’ that shift depending on who says it. Iskari have this old bardic tradition, dates back to the Devirajic Age, you know, courtly love and all that. Truth and honor and beauty and ladies’ handkerchiefs. Then there are Camlaan bards. Tale-twisting, curse-spreading, cheats at cards and politics and marriage. Back in Alt Coulumb most of the bards have some kind of relationship with the Crier’s Guild, spreading the day’s news, so they end up kind of like spies, or reporters I guess. They hear news, pass it along. You know where this guy’s from?”
“Iskar.”
Cat set down the jug. Water sloshed inside. She sat still. When she spoke again, she sounded more serious. “Do you know his name?”
“Margot, he said. Edmond Margot.”
“An Iskari poet named Edmond Margot.” Her face and voice had closed like doors.
“You know him?”
“I’ve read his work.” She crossed her arms over her knees and frowned. “And he knows about this Blue Lady of yours?”
“He claimed to.”
“Would anyone have told him?”
Izza shook her head. “Nobody I know. The Blue Lady was our story. Secret.”
“Mind if I ask you a question? It’s a little personal.”
“Go ahead.”
“Tell me about the Blue Lady.”
“You heard the stories I told Ivy and the others,” Izza said.
“Stories, yes. I’m more interested in a description.”
Izza wandered around the warehouse, looking for something to kick. She found a suitable rock and with one sweep of her sandal sent it skittering off among broken crates to shock a fat scuttling beetle from its den. “A description.”
“A few details, that’s all. What she’s like.”
“What she was like.”
Cat blinked. “That’s right. You mentioned that she was gone.”
“She died. Happens to gods a lot around here.”
For some reason that seemed to set Cat at ease. “She wasn’t the first.”
“No. But she was nice. And I told her stories, so she was more mine than the rest.”
“Keep going.”
The beetle retreated into the shadow of a piece of broken masonry. Izza knelt, grabbed another stone, and judged the distance. “She was a bird, and a shadow, and a friend.” She tossed the stone in the air and caught it twice, testing weight. “The noise to make a rich man look the other way while you reach for his pocket. The hand that catches you when your grip slips and you’re about to fall. Speed and silence.” She threw the rock as hard as she could. Crack. The beetle’s guts smeared black through the dust. “You wouldn’t have liked her very much, I guess.”
“A goddess of thieves,” Cat said, as if the thought was funny.
“I don’t know about thieves. She was ours.”
Cat nodded. “My goddess back onshore, she was moonlight and order and water and stone. A lantern in dark places.” For the first time, she didn’t sound angry at her old life. Sad, instead, and distant.
“I guess they wouldn’t have got along.”
“No,” she said, though she didn’t sound as if she saw the humor. “There is one thing about bards you should know.”
“What’s that?”
“They attract stories. They’re sensitive to them, pick them up out of the air, out of dreams. If Margot knows about the Blue Lady, it doesn’t mean much more than that he’s good at his job.”
“He doesn’t just know the story,” Izza said. “He believes it. He thought the Blue Lady led him to me, even though she’s dead. That’s why I asked you what happens when gods die.”
Light glistened off the sweat that slicked Cat’s arms and face, outlined contours of muscle. Izza remembered her as a silver statue, breaking Penitents bare-handed.
“What’s wrong?”
“I don’t know,” Cat said. “If I were you, I would keep away from this guy. Dead gods are trouble, and so are men who’re mad for them.”
“He could help the kids after I’m gone. They can take care of themselves mostly, but it’s always nice to have a friend. Besides, I feel like I owe him something. He got me out of jail, and I ran because I was scared.”
“You don’t owe him.”
“What does it matter to you?”
She laughed, hollowly, into the floor, and shook her head. “That’s a good question.”
Izza felt something sharp and small break inside her.
Cat looked up. “I care about you, kid. I won’t say I know what you’ve been through, but I understand why you want to get away from this life. I want to help you before you hurt yourself, or someone else does the hurting for you. You need to let all this go. The island, your kids, the Blue Lady, the poet. They can take care of themselves.”
“You’re scared,” Izza said.
“Yes.”
“Don’t worry.” Izza did not bother keeping the scorn from her voice. “I’ll make sure no one finds you.”
And she left, before Cat could say anything more.
20
The rest of the day Kai pretended to be productive: reviewing intake forms and trade requests, directing each to the relevant priest. Her thoughts throbbed with conspiracy. When time came to write up her meeting with Teo, she scrawled “theological differences” in the form’s comment box and stuck it amid the others, hoping it would be overlooked. She had more important things to do than a postmortem with Twilling.
At sundown she strolled down Epiphyte, east first, then south, to Makawe’s Rest. The club wouldn’t open for hours; poets slept late on weekdays. The stage stood empty, and the tables with upended chairs looked like pictures she’d seen of Shining Empire tombs. Penitents watched the water, their prisoners asleep. She heard no screams.
Mako stood on the beach between two Penitents, hitting golf balls into the ocean. He’d spread a carpet of fake grass at his feet, stood the clubs in the sand beside him, and placed a tee upright on the carpet. Kai watched him swing three times, and miss. His fourth swing connected, and the ball arced twenty degrees to the swing’s right. Kai squinted, and thought she saw a splash fifty yards out on the still blue bay.
She shouted from up the beach, reluctant to approach. “If Eve catches you doing that, she’ll tan your hide.”
“A man’s still allowed to play golf on this island.”
“You could hurt someone.”
“This time of day? Anyone who works for a living’s back in port, and anyone who doesn’t could use a golf ball to the head once in a while.”
“Wait until they stick you in a Penitent for killing a tourist.”
He groped into his golf bag, found a ball, and knelt to the mat. He placed the ball on the tee, but as he stood, it fell. With an exaggerated sigh he knelt again, replaced it, and rose slowly to his feet. The ball rocked left and right, but stayed. “Nothing they could do to me someone else hasn’t done already.”
She approached, keeping well clear of his arc of fire. She stopped beside the Penitent to his left, sat down, and leaned against its calf. The stone was warm. “I hear it hurts the mind more than the body. These things make you move the way they want, think the way they think. And the way they think isn’t human.”