Last to Rise(76)

He opened his mouth to say something, probably some little adage about the Goddess would provide, but shut it before he could say anything that would incur my sarcasm. He may have been a priest, and we held very different views on things, but he wasn’t stupid.



Finally he said, “It would be a busy day for Namrat if the Storad get in. But the Goddess —”



“Will reward you all in heaven with a pat on the head and a biscuit, yes, yes. But don’t you think she’d rather you didn’t all turn up at once? Did you ever listen to the Downsiders, what they think the Goddess means? The reward isn’t for dying, it’s for fighting against it every damned step of the way. That’s what the Goddess used to mean, before the Ministry sucked her dry.”



Guinto sat back and stared at me for a long time, and while he thought I kept my peace and drank the pink stuff, which tasted as vile as it smelled.



“What precisely are you suggesting?” he said at last. “Because I can’t go against what I feel the Goddess means to me. I can’t condone violence, except in self-defence. And even then it’s only a perhaps.”



Goddess preserve me from idiots and holy men. I’d have said that if I’d thought it would have helped, or the Goddess was listening. Instead I made an attempt at tact, which, as noted, is not something that came easily. “Perish the thought, Father. And I’m not wanting to press-gang anyone into doing something they don’t want to or can’t. I just want you to present people with the choice, and a few pertinent facts. Surely, after that, it’s up to them?”



“And what are you going to do?”



“Me? If you find me some willing bodies, I’m going to get them the means to defend themselves.”



And when they’d done that, when they’d found out they were strong… who knew? Maybe we could fend off the Storad, and then take down Top of the World like the black was always tempting me to do, make the Ministry fall, rip open Over and let the sunlight fall on Under. Perak might even help – he loathed the cardinals and all the rest about as much as I did and I was pretty sure he’d give up archdeaconry just the second an alternative presented itself.



Rojan Dizon, defeater of the Storad, leader of the Glorious Rebellion. Got a nice ring to it, hasn’t it?



The thing about priests, I’ve often found, is that they can be right sneaky bastards when it suits them.



Because although Guinto never tired of telling me what good, simple people his flock were, devout worshippers of the most benign Goddess, two hours later the doors to the temple shut behind a group of men who between them had probably mugged, embezzled, scammed, stabbed or otherwise fought their way through half of No-Hope. Well, some of them didn’t look too threatening, more disgruntled factory workers, but that covers quite a lot of disgruntled when their workday consisted of twelve hours’ humping around a lot of heavy stuff, leaving them with shoulders like battering-rams. Even after a month or more of starvation rations, they were still bigger than me, and intimidating as hell in the wavering shadows of a hundred candles perched along the statues and on the backs of pews.



Good simple people, my backside. They’d been suspiciously quick too, almost like Guinto had them on standby.



All in all, they looked pretty incongruous in front of the nice sparkly Ministry picture of the Goddess with her pet fluffy tiger. They looked right at home before the Downside mural of her, in front of Namrat and his death-dealing teeth.



Guinto seemed nervous as hell, and I wasn’t much better but I put on a bold front, kept my mangled hand out of sight in one pocket, and the other on the pulse pistol, just in case.



Guinto started, but it soon became clear he wasn’t too sure about getting it all into words, or perhaps just not sure how much he should say, whether it might hinder more than help. The men here probably knew crap all. Most of the news-sheets had been keeping it all as quiet and calm as they could, calling for stoic forbearance in the face of this little minor trouble that would soon blow over. The men here knew that for the bunch of shit it was, but they didn’t know much else except what the rest of the news-sheets were saying, such as we were all doomed when the baby-eating and defeated-opponent-buggering Storad made it through the gates. What they thought they knew was mostly bollocks, and I couldn’t decide which lot of bollocks was worse.



Guinto stumbled to a halt and looked at me. So did all the hulking bruisers. Not a nice feeling. I decided to say, Screw tact. It’d be lost on them.



So I got up on the little dais next to Guinto and said, “We’re fucked, well and truly.”