Babylon Steel (48 page)

Hap-Canae held up a hand. “Wait. We have a little time. How did you get in?” he asked me. He hadn’t recognised me, but he looked as though some memory was tugging at him.

“Obviously, she fooled those idiot women,” Shakanti said. “They will be punished. So will she. Don’t kill her yet.”

I was panting, now; the pain was getting unpleasant, but it would be worse if Shakanti had her way. Much worse.
Don’t think about that. Don’t think about it
.

“She got past the Messehwhy
,
too,” Hap-Canae said. He shook me, which hurt. “How did you know about the ring? Who are you?”

“Does it matter?” Aka-Tete said. “Kill her or hold her. Once the ceremony is done, Shakanti can do as she pleases with her, and we’ll soon know whatever she has to tell.”

I told myself it didn’t matter, it didn’t matter – Shakanti wouldn’t get to me. All I had to do was stay quiet, and wait. I could see little sparks of light in the altar-stone, beginning to whirl and congregate.

“Perhaps you’re right.” Hap-Canae said, and let me drop.

Shakanti looked at the crew, and actually clapped her hands, like a delighted child. “Why, what sort of creature is that?” she drifted up to Flower, and stroked his arm. “I shall think of something quite special, just for you.”

He couldn’t understand the words, but he knew who she was. He tried to stare straight ahead, but his lip lifted a fraction, and Shakanti laughed. “What an angry beast. And
what
is it carrying?” She stared at Laney.

Then I saw what was on Laney’s hand; not one of her own jewels, too big and clumsy. I realised Flower had put the false ring on Laney’s finger, presumably for safekeeping, his own hands being too big.

What if Shakanti noticed it?

She ran one of Laney’s tumbling curls through her fingers. Blonde hair is rare on Tiresana; Shakanti’s own bone-white veil of it was the closest most people ever saw. Her mouth tightened with distaste, and she dropped the silky strand as though it were filthy. “It has pointed ears,” she said. “How... animal.”

Laney’s limp hand, with the false ring, was almost brushing Shakanti’s thigh.

I had to distract her. If it was to work, if we were to have any chance, I had to distract her.

Previous, bleeding.
Don’t think of that.

“Hap-Canae,” I said. “Don’t you know me?”

“What?”

“It’s me, Hap-Canae. I was an Avatar, once.” I clutched at his robe with the hand that still worked. He backed away, startled, and I crumpled at his feet. “Hap-Canae, please! I only wanted to be with you again, to have you love me as you once did! Don’t you recognise me? I know, I’ve got old, and ugly, but I thought if I came to the altar, I could be an Avatar again, you could love me again.”

“You... oh. You were one of Babaska’s Avatars!” he said. “The last one, weren’t you? So it wasn’t a tomb-robbery, at all. You actually escaped. And then, you realised what you’d thrown away, and came back.
Silly
child.”

“Why, I remember
her,”
Shakanti said, turning – thank the All – towards me. “She was Chosen instead of my poor little Renavir, who would have been
so
much better. But
you
chose to run away, didn’t you?” She was looking at me, now, far too closely. “You chose the peasants instead of us. And now you have chosen these.” She waved a hand at my crew. Previous was white as bone, dying. “You know,” she said, “I don’t think I believe you.”

“What do you mean?” Hap-Canae said.

“She said she wanted to be an Avatar again. But she
never
wanted to be an Avatar, not really.” She walked across the room to me, and bent down, and cupped her cold hand under my chin, forcing me to look at her.

I stared into her eyes, trying to lie with my whole face, trying to convince her that I wanted, I
longed
to be an Avatar, to be like her.

I think my hatred must have shown. She shoved me away. “She’s lying.”

“It doesn’t matter,” Hap-Canae said. “Kill her later.” He put the ring on his finger.

I could hear a humming, now, coming from the altar. It was low, just on the edge of hearing, but with a suggestion of melody, a sense of complexity; as though a long way away, thousands, millions, of voices and instruments were all harmonising together.

“It is time!” Greedy as a child reaching for the honey-jar, Hap-Canae moved forward.
Do it,
I thought.
Do it now, damn you, and maybe we can still save Previous.

Then I heard, “Flower? What happened?” I looked to the doorway, and there was Laney, opening her eyes, raising her hand to brush the hair out of her face, and Shakanti saw the ring.

“Hap-Canae! Stop!” Shakanti shrieked. “It’s a trick, some kind of trick!”

“But...” Hap-Canae said, and stopped, looking at the ring on Laney’s hand, looking at me.

“But it was all understood,” Aka-Tete said, in his voice of metal and dust. “We will not have such a chance again for many years; it must be done now.”

“But
what
must be done?” Shakanti hissed. “Why is she really here? You know how much damage she did!”

“Well, ask her!”

“She will lie!”

They began to argue, as the altar heated and hummed. The two wind-goddesses, obviously having come to what few senses they had, reappeared, looking flustered, and joined in.

Ignored, crouched against the foot of the altar, I heard a voice, in my head. A husky voice, used to yelling across a battlefield, to whispering in a lover’s ear. A voice of immense depth and power, attenuated by distance.
Listen to me now, Babylon. Listen to your Goddess.

Babaska? Now you decide to talk to me?
Now?
All the times I cried out to you and you didn’t answer?

I couldn’t. Only at the syzygy. Didn’t you wonder, when my mark appeared on you?

I had a few other things on my mind.

Yes. You do what you do because of who you are; but, because of who you are, you are my representative. You bear my scar. You are still mine, Babylon Steel, Ebi that was. And only an Avatar can use the ring.

But if they realise, they won’t do it!

They won’t. You can. Only an Avatar can use the ring.

You mean I have to...

Yes.

What will happen? When it works?

The power will go where it was meant to.

Babaska?

But there was silence. The voice was gone. No-one was looking at me. If I was going to do it...

I looked down at my hands, human hands, callused here and there from using a sword. I thought of Enthemmerlee, her little cold fingers in mine. Of the Chief, Hargur Bitternut, who’d risked everything to save this life of mine. For what?

The Avatars argued, oblivious to everything around them. Just as usual. I thought of the girls whose bones lay in the room not far from me. Of Previous, bleeding on the cold stone.

No more dead,
I thought.
No more girls, no more soldiers, no more dead for you.
Except maybe me.

And I can live with that.

I jumped up, and slapped my hands into the dents in the altar. Hot pain shrieked up my arm from my wrist.

Hap-Canae turned, and howled with fury. He grabbed me, trying to pull me away, but the hold of the altar was too strong.

The power blasted into me, with a roar of light and voices. It split me into a million sparkling golden pieces, spinning through space and time, and rammed me back together.

I was...

The Avatar of Babaska. Flesh and fire. The taste of power in my mouth like metal and blood...

I heard screaming around me.

The desire for battle, to slaughter the enemy, to protect those I fought alongside...

Hands on my waist. Desire rising, ranting:
I could make him mine, any of them mine, with a word, with a thought, with a look. I could seduce the universe...

I am not a goddess. I am Babylon Steel, and I run the best whorehouse in Scalentine.

You are Babylon Steel, and you are my Avatar.

I am Babylon Steel. I am neither Goddess nor Avatar, I am myself.

The coin-sized dent in the altar was blazing with spinning light, a window into some unknowable plane. I took hold of Hap-Canae’s where it clasped my waist, and ran my fingers along his. I felt him shudder and gasp, and his grip slackened.

Before he could realise what I was doing, I slid the ring from his finger, and onto mine, and slammed the seal down where it belonged.

The humming stopped. The silence was huge.

Suddenly I was terrified, that I’d got it wrong, that Mokraine had got it wrong, that I’d made a total, blind, idiot miscalculation.

Purple-white light exploded out of the altar. I was flung backwards, knocking Hap-Canae over. The floor bucked. I could hear shrieks and groaning stone and the Messehwhyhissing and yawping and somebody wailing and a roaring like the sea.

My hands, ringless now, glowed with light, surrounded by dancing motes of dust. The light of an Avatar.
No, please... I don’t want it!

And then it hit me, the tearing, the feeling of something withdrawing, that had been knit tight to human soul and human flesh, ripping away.

The break in my wrist reappeared with a snap and a hot jab.

Gasping with pain and relief, I scrambled up, looking for my crew. They were huddled against the wall of the corridor, Cruel crouching over Previous to protect her. The air was full of dust, tasting of stone and metal.

Then there was nothing but a room full of people, ageing, groaning, human.

The altar was a silent lump of rock. A great drift of silver hair lay scattered about it; Shakanti’s.

“No!” Hap-Canae looked at his hands, veined and big-knuckled. “No...” he pushed himself to his feet.

I ran to Previous. Cruel, rigid-faced, was holding her hand. “It’s all right,” she said. “All right.” Previous was so pale, so dreadfully pale.

“Flower,” I said. “Keep them here. If anyone moves, crock them. Cruel, Unusual, you too.”

“Right,” he said. They ranged themselves across the doorway, blocking it.

I took Previous’s hand. “Hey,” I said.

Laney dropped beside her, put her hands on Previous’s stomach, and said tearfully, “Please. A little. Please. I have some left. I must have some left.” But there was no light, no glow and crackle of magic.

“Previous?” I said.

“Hey, Babylon.” So quiet I could hardly hear. Her breath smelled like yeast and blood.

“How’d you get your name?” I said.

“Not... drunk enough.”

I dug the hip-flask out of my pocket, and tilted it to her mouth; she sipped a little, most of it running down her cheek.

“How about now?” I said.

She managed something that was almost a smile. “Thought you’da guessed. Too eager. Ran in, ahead of the line. Got me in trouble.”

“I’ll send you to the Chief for training with the militia, how’s that?” I said. Her hand was going cold, and I was crying.

“Wouldn’t... wouldn’t...”

“Hey, sshh, it’s all right.”

But it wasn’t.

M
EISHETÉ WAS SITTING
with her veiny legs splayed in front of her, staring at nothing. She looked like any middle-aged woman, except for her richly embroidered gown. The butterfly mask colouration around her eyes had gone. I took her by her greying hair and yanked her up, dragged her on her knees to where Previous lay.

Someone was saying my name. Someone was putting their hand on my arm. I shook it off.

“Look at this,” I said. “You murdered my friend. A better woman than you will ever be, you evil, useless, vain, cruel
bitch
.
”
I threw her down, and she crouched, shaking, her hair in her face, her hands in Previous’s blood. “Stay there.”

I saw Cruel start towards me, and Unusual grab her arm and hold her back.

One by one I took them, and dragged them out. Aka-Tete, hollow-cheeked, liver-spotted. The skulls at his waist had gone brown and lost half their teeth. Rohikanta, wispy greying beard still smelling of river mud. Lohiria and Mihiria, skinny middle aged women with lank locks and protuberant eyes. Shakanti, utterly silent, thin as a bone, her long silver hair all gone, bald as rock. Now,
I
was stronger, and anger was raging in me like sickness. I cast them around the body of my friend like offerings.

Hap-Canae was the last. He was clutching the altar, digging his hands into the hollows until they bled. “Where is it?” He whimpered. “Where is it?”

I wasn’t sure if he meant the ring, or the power. Both were gone, the ring evaporated as though it had never been.

He had gone pouched and doughy. When I took him by the collar and hauled him to his feet, he clutched at my shirt, leaving wet red marks. “Help me. Bring it back. You and I, we can be gods, Babaska, gods. We
deserve
it.” Yellowy rheum clouded those leopard eyes.

“Deserve it? After what you’ve done? I know what you deserve,” I said. I flung him against the others.

They stood or knelt, hardly looking at me and the crew, staring instead at each other, at their own too-human hands.

Aka-Tete managed to drag his chin up, and stare at me. “What right have you?” He said. “Let us go. We are the Avatars of the gods, and we rule this land.”

“And a great job you made of it,” I said.

“This is nonsense. Get out of the way.”

He tried to push past me and I shoved him back, hard. “Don’t try that again, or I’ll kill you.”

“We can get past them,” Shakanti said. “Come.” She raised her chin ridiculously high, and started to walk towards me.

Flower stepped in front of her, and showed his teeth.

Laney said, “Don’t even try it, bitch.” Shakanti couldn’t have understood her, but the meaning was clear enough. Laney was crackling with anger. Sparks were jumping from her fingers and snapping off the ends of her hair.

“Cruel, Unusual. Rope them together, so they can walk. Laney? You all right?”

“Yes. It’s come back. Strong. Too late, Babylon. It’s come back too late.” She was weeping scarlet, started to say something in the Fey tongue, the air around her shimmering.