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The Tyrant's Law(84)

By:Daniel Abraham


“We should probably have this conversation someplace else, Kit. If your old friends come and find us here, they’re not likely to thank us for pointing all this out.”

“Why?” Kit said, and Marcus recognized the despair in his voice.

“Why won’t they thank us, or why should we leave?”

“We came to kill a goddess and break her power, but there’s nothing here to break. Nothing here to die. She can’t be stopped if she doesn’t exist. What’s happening out there is only men lost in a terrible sort of dream. I don’t know how to stop that. What sword kills a bad idea, Marcus? How can we win against a mistaken belief?”

“I don’t know,” Marcus said. He rubbed his hands together, the soft hissing of his palms a counterpoint to the deep rumble of the false breath. “But someone did.”

“What do you mean?”

Marcus spoke slowly, the thoughts forming as he spoke them.

“This temple is a hiding place. The men like you have been out of the world for centuries at least. Maybe all of history. Something put you in here. Something scared your however-many-generations-back predecessors so badly that they crawled off to the ass end of nowhere and pulled the desert up over their heads. Something drove them here.”

“Can you think what?”

“No. And I can’t think how we’d find out. And if we did, I don’t have any reason to think it’s the sort of thing we could manage. I’m only saying it’s been done before, so it can be done. And we should find out how.”

Kit pushed his fingers back through his wiry hair. His tears had dried, but the salt tracks still marked his cheeks.

“Where do we start?” he asked.

Marcus rose to his feet and put a hand on the spider goddess. The stone was warm and hard and dead. There was a vast world outside. Nations and races tearing themselves apart, blood and war and tragedy. He didn’t have any idea where to start looking for the way to stop it. And then he did.

“Suddapal,” he said.





Clara




Flor and Daskellin, I understand, but I can’t imagine him getting on with Mecilli at all. And of course Emming will fit right in,” Clara said. “The man is full of argument and bluster, but only so no one will notice he never has an opinion of his own. Could you pass the butter, dear?”

Sabiha handed across the jar. The butter was white and fresh, without the waxy cap or echo of the rancid that Abatha Coe’s had. The bread was soft and pale, the eggs and pickles served in a fashion that reminded her of mornings in her own solarium, back in some previous lifetime. At these occasional and treasured breakfasts with her family, her first impulse was to wolf everything down and eat enough that she wouldn’t have to put another bite past her lips for a day. Her second was to pull back, to take only what she would have taken and leave what she would have left. The first would have been rude to Jorey, and the second would have been untrue to herself, so she usually managed a middle path.

“Well, the line to the Lord Regent’s council chamber got a bit shorter after last year. It would have been Father and Lord Bannien at the table,” Jorey said, and then, changing the subject, “I heard from Vicarian. I have letter for you from him as well.”

“Oh good. How is he, poor thing?”

“There was a call for men to study under Minister Basrahip,” Jorey said, his voice intentionally casual the way it always was when he was trying not to have an opinion. “He’s thinking of volunteering.”

“I’m surprised,” Clara said.

“He thought it might help show that his allegiance is to the throne,” Jorey said. “And it would bring him back to the city. They’re rededicating Minister Basrahip’s temple. They’re actually going to put it inside the Kingspire. He’d be able to come for lunch whenever he had an open day.”

“Besides,” Sabiha said, “it’s Palliako’s pet cult, and anything to do with the Lord Regent is astoundingly fashionable.”

“Even that dreadful leather cloak of his,” Clara said, hoisting an eyebrow. “I’ve seen it everywhere, and really, it doesn’t suit anyone well. Jorey, dear. I was meaning to ask. Whatever became of Alston?

“The guardsman? He’s here. Lord Skestinin took him on when the household …”

“I thought I remembered that,” Clara said, smiling to herself. “I must look in on him and pay my respects. It takes so little, you know, to maintain those relationships, and good servants are so rare. Now, Sabiha, dear, tell me all about that dinner at Lady Ternigan’s. I haven’t seen any of the new dresses, so you must describe everything.”