bench and sit by him. He made no movement. Next to him, I looked like a toddler.
«This is the original form?» I said softly.
«This is the form of my birth.» His voice was a deep, contained bellow.
«And the golden dancer on the roof?»
«He's what I could have been. What I should have been. There is enough of him in my blood to
let me assume his shape with infinite ease, but I don't delude myself. This is the true me. One can't
deny blood.»
On that we were in agreement.
Above us something thumped. The noise of the spectators swelled. Saiman raised his monstrous
head to the ceiling. «I'm frightened. I find it richly ironic. What a ridiculous notion.»
He raised his massive arm, the forearm sheathed in silver-blue hair. His fingers shook.
«It's natural,» I said. «Only the insane aren't scared before the fight. They can't imagine dying.»
«Do you feel fear, Kate?»
«Always.»
«Why do you do it, then?»
I sighed. «Fear is pain. It hurts. I sink into it and use it like a sharpening stone gliding against a
sword. It makes me better, more aware. But I can't be scared for too long, or it will wear me out.»
«How do you make it stop?»
«I kill.»
The blue eyes regarded me with a strange look, half-terror, half-surprise. «That's it? No noble
purpose?»
«There isn't always a noble purpose. There is usually a reason. The need to save someone or
something. Your friend, your lover, an innocent who doesn't deserve to be hurt. Sometimes it's a
purely selfish reason. One might fight for their body, their good name, or their sanity. Sometimes
it's just a job. But deciding to fight and doing it are two different things.»
«How can you live like that? It seems unbearable.»
I shrugged. «Like you, I harbor no illusions. I was conceived, born, raised, and trained with one
purpose in mind: to become the best killer I could be. It's what I do.» So eventually I can kill
Roland, the most powerful man on Earth.
«It's time,» Jim's voice said from beyond the door.
A long, deep sigh issued from Saiman. He rose. His head nearly brushed the ceiling. Eight and a
half feet tall. Wow.
«Do you prefer the Aesir?»
The word hit me like a bolt of lightning. Pieces fell into place in my head: Saiman, golden and
high on magic, dancing on the roof and celebrating «the time of the gods,» his fluid changes of
shape, his self-interest, his ego, and him now, an enormous monster, a giant of a man. I gaped at
him. He wasn't supposed to exist.
«My other shape, Kate. Do you like it?»
«Yes,» I said, managing to make my voice even. «So are you all god or did one of your divine
relatives get fresh with a human?»
For the first time Saiman smiled, displaying white teeth that would've been at home in the mouth
of a polar bear. «A quarter. It's enough. The rest is frost and human.»
He scooped the canvas bundle off the floor. The fabric fluttered down, revealing a four-foot-long
club studded with metal spikes thicker than my fingers. Saiman bent and stepped through the
doorway. I heard a startled growl from Jim.
Saiman kept going, out of the room, into the hallway, each step like two of mine. Jim's teeth
were bared in a snarl.
«Come on.» I swiped Slayer and chased Saiman into the hallway. The Red Guards hugged the
walls as he passed by.
Jim caught up with me. «What the fuck is he?»
«Vikings,» I managed, breaking into an outright run.
«What about Vikings?»
«Vikings called their gods Aesir.»
«That tells me nothing.»
The Gold Gate loomed before us, and through its lit rectangle I saw the Pit and the sea of
spectators. Saiman paused in the gloom, his club resting on his shoulder.
«He said he is a quarter Aesir, which probably means his grandmother was a Viking god. But
there is only one Norse deity who can change shape the way he does and he wasn't Aesir. He was
Loki, the trickster, a giant who became a god. Saiman is the grandson of two Norse deities, Jim.»
Saiman swung the club off his shoulder with the ease of a child with a toy baseball bat and
stepped through the gate into the light. The crowd fell silent. The silence stretched as the audience
tried to come to terms with an eight-and-a-half-foot-tall humanoid. Saiman didn't wait for them. His
club in hand, he strode to the Pit.
CHAPTER 17
THE REAPER WAITED AT THE FAR END OF THE sand. Inhumanly tall and packed with
thick muscle, he had the build of a champion weight lifter, his body so overdeveloped it resembled
an action figure. If I went up against him, I'd have to strike at a joint-if he clenched up, the sword