Endurance (31 page)

“Might?” He snorted, an almost human laugh. I had never heard the Dancing Mistress do so. “I can stand to fight against a dozen men and walk away intact. I can scale cliffs, swim rivers, and bear down against the weapons of prayer like a warm spoon through cold grease. But I am not mighty. And certainly not against your human gods.”

“You chop logic.” I struggled to keep my voice from becoming sullen. It would serve me no purpose at all to whine at my hoped-for ally. “I know your reputation among priests is infamous. I have seen you stand before the wrath divine unconcerned.”

He rumbled a low noise I could not parse. Then: “Do not confuse foolish bravery with might and power.”

“Still, these gods do not touch you as they touch me.”

“Of course not. You have a soul.”

“And you have a soulpath.” I stared at him in the glimmering darkness of the grain wagon, though all I could see was the flash of his eyes and the folded shape of his power. The soulpath was an aspect of pardine theology and spirituality of which I had only a tenuous grasp, even with the Dancing Mistress' various patient efforts at explanation. Their kind were born into a family or tribe or grouping—I did not even know
that
word in Petraean, translation for whatever they called themselves in their own tongue. Each new pardine was feasted into the soulpath of their people. A collective soul, perhaps. Or a herd soul, every individual contributing what was needful and taking what was required, while the whole never lost its collective identity.

Pardines shared a connection with one another and among their people that flowed much deeper than anything humans could lay claim to. Twins, perhaps, such as Iso and Osi, could touch something of the sort. Not the greater run of us.

“I walk a soulpath.” His agreement was almost grudging. “Some among my people would tell you I have strayed.”

“The Revanchists?” I paused, tasting my next thought before I laid it out for him. “They seem concerned with purity. I have known humans of their sort. It's a petty philosophy.”

“They think me lost,” the Rectifier admitted. “Too long I have hunted among your kind. Any longtime hunter takes on an aspect of their prey.”

I tried to imagine the Rectifier as a human priest. The necessary focus and dedication to a god seemed so terribly unlike him. He did not have that strange gift for embracing contradiction that every priest I knew seemed to contain. To follow a god was to follow improbabilities. How could such a thing as Skinless walk the earth? Of what fabric did the Lily Goddess wreak the miracle of her appearances? How did Endurance manifest, even at my call and with the power I'd harnessed in that moment?

This was the true point of Iso and Osi's stories, of the Rectifier's strange ideas about godhood and need, of Desire's grief as She passed through the world of Her daughter-goddesses. The concerns of gods were beyond me.

All I really wanted now was to be beyond
them
, and to take my growing daughter safely with me into that refuge. “I have been hunted by gods,” I told him. “I doubt they have much taken on my aspect. It is from their predations I would remove myself.”

“You still struggle with Blackblood.”

“Yes,” I said, somewhat surprised that he understood this.

“Your gods mean little to me, Green.” The Rectifier's voice was grave. “You risk being a great fool in acting so against your nature. But I will stand beside you against Blackblood if you ask it of me.”

“I shall not stop you from your knucklebone harvest,” I said.

He rumbled another almost-laugh. “No, that you shall not do.”

With that we sank into a quiet that in turn descended into troubled sleep, at least for me, under the staccato rain on our temporary wooden roof.

*   *   *

Morning brought chilly air that recalled all too well winter's frosts. My hand was a bit swollen, but the fingers had retained their flexibility. The less said of my ribs, the better, though I doubted they were actually broken. I could breathe without screaming. My belly felt bigger, as if my child had grown overnight. Also, I was hungry beyond the point of ravenous. No food would be safe from me until I was sated.

The Rectifier roused as soon as I began to stir. “Do you have a plan to fight the gods?” he asked quietly. “Or will you simply continue to move faster than everyone else and trust your weapons as always?”

“I cannot carry a blade large enough to slit the throat of a god,” I replied. “And besides, I must eat first.”

“I have cured meat.”

He sounded oddly diffident, which I realized was the Rectifier's way of being polite. “No, thank you. I feel an urgent hunger for cardamom rolls, actually.”

Though I would not risk heading over to Lyme Street with him in tow. We would be too easily recognized—there were not two like the Rectifier, at least not in Copper Downs. Nor me, either. Surely I could find a bakery here somewhere in the brewery district where so much yeast was used that the air always smelled like spoiled dough, and secure some warm treat or another to carry me through my hunger. Once more I longed for a kitchen of my own.

“As you please.” He began shredding long-shanked strips of meat with his fangs. I found myself curiously unwilling to ask what animal had been slaughtered and cured to make his snack. I was afraid the answer would be too unpleasant for even me.

When the Rectifier seemed to have taken his fill, at least for the moment, I told him I was ready to venture forth and find a bakery. We crawled from our shelter through the jumbled junk of the yard outside. No one noted our appearance on the street under the stark, clear sky. Faint clouds scribed frosted glyphs at the very top of the heavens, but I was not wise enough to read them.

He set a loping pace I was willing to follow, for the effort would only benefit me, whatever the pain in my chest. I let the pavement absorb the pounding of my feet. The distresses of my spirit slipped free in each glancing step. The air had enough of an edge to hurt my lungs, which made a fine counterpoint to the jarring of my ribs.
Ilona's house must be so cold,
I thought. She would have made a fire, but even amid an entire forest of feral apple trees and neglected lumber tracts, the woman was parsimonious with her fuel.

There were times when living in Selistan seemed like much the better option, regardless of my station there. I wondered how sincere Samma had been in saying she'd meant to find me and bring me home. Warm, those streets were warm, even when they were filled with enemies.

As if Copper Downs were not.

We skidded around a corner and I went sprawling on the cobbles. That multiplied the pain in my ribs, and struck me a hard blow to the jaw that made my teeth and skull ache. I managed to guard the baby, but the sheltering made the rest of my fall worse. The Rectifier spun and scooped me up before I could recover myself. At his hands, I was back on my feet.

“You are in litter,” he said, sniffing at me. “You should not fight.”

I was still trying to sort out how to respond to that when we fetched up before a bakery. This was a commercial establishment, turning out racks and racks of loaves for taverns, inns, chandlers' carts; whoever would purchase by the dozen or the twentyweight. It
smelled
like a bakery, all yeast and wheat. That was surely what had drawn the Rectifier. The scent was sufficient to distract my own attention from the fresh hurts of my body.

The thing was, he had the right of it.

Grumbling, I went inside and bargained for a basket of butterflake rolls. The two women behind the counter didn't want to sell such a small quantity to me. I pointed out that the Rectifier and I could make a day of loitering in front of their bakery discouraging customers while we waited for minds to be changed.

They relented quickly enough at that threat, though I was gouged on the price. I judged little point in overplaying my hand for that. Instead I took my rolls and left.

The smell was luscious. Still, these were not cardamom rolls. They tasted well enough and went down all right. I nonetheless wished for the others. Or possibly some pickled cabbage.

That last had to be the baby talking through my appetite.

When the two of us had finished gobbling down my acquisition—the Rectifier ate two of them, possibly out of some misplaced politeness—I took the lead in walking us toward the warehouse where Iso and Osi waited. The Rectifier followed along with studied patience, as if he were indulging me. Which might even have been true.

“Why do they call you the Rectifier?” I asked.

“Because it is my name,” he replied in his rumbling voice. Nothing of his answer invited further inquiry, but I was feeling a childish rebellion against his obvious indulgence.

“I know something of pardine names. What do you rectify, that they should call you so?”

His claws flexed. “Troublesome humans for the most part.”

“None so troublesome as me,” I announced cheerfully.

“Few, to be sure,” the Rectifier admitted.

I decided I'd won my point. Whatever that trivial victory might mean. We approached the warehouse, so I pulled him aside to lean against a wall in conversation.

“Now we shall visit a pair of human … well … ascetics.”

“Priests?” A delight bloomed in his eyes. I realized this was surely as much to tweak my sensibilities as anything.

“Monks, more like,” I told him. “And you
will
behave.”

“What order?”

“Excuse me?”

The look he gave me was far less indulgent. I was thankful for all my years with the Dancing Mistress—most humans found pardines next to impossible to read, I'd been told.

This time his voice rumbled. “Of what god are they priests or followers?”

“I don't know.” In that moment I realized how curious an omission this truly was. “They speak of their ancient rite, one which excludes women, but they have never named it. Surely because I am a woman.”

“Surely.” Doubt rang heavy in his voice.

“In any case, they are twins. Iso and Osi. These two are strange, even by the standards of the religious. But they know a great deal. And they are helping me to overset Blackblood, that he might cease hunting my trail.”

The Rectifier shrugged, a dangerous, slow ripple of muscle and attention that meant he was focusing if anything too closely. “Even my help is dangerous to you. Simply because we are of different kinds, without respect to our regard for one another. The aid of those with an unknown purpose is likely to be a far greater trap.”

“I know, I know.…” Everyone had to warn me of something, it seemed. The world never stopped trying to teach me. Maybe I needed to keep trying to learn? That lesson about lessons continues even now, years later. “I am willing to trust them, based on their own self-interest. I do not know their character or their history except for what they have chosen to display. These two brothers are among the few in this city without some hidden purpose for me.”

“You know that, do you?” The sarcasm in his voice was downright human. “Who you choose to trust is your business. I pledged you my aid. Aid you I will.”

The balance of his unsaid words echoed quite clearly in the chill morning air between us. I shrugged off a surge of frustration. The Rectifier would help me as he saw best. Surely he had even less agenda than the twins, unless he were in secret league with the Revanchists. The idea of the Rectifier doing anything in secret coaxed a reluctant smile to my lips.

“I trust you,” I said. “For reasons stronger and older than anything offered by these two mystics from the deep east.”

“Neither of us died when we fought.” He chuckled, that slow grinding laugh of his. “That is rare. And trust-making.”

The implications of that sank in. “I am glad I did not train in your school.”

One great paw enclosed my shoulder. “If you had, the school would have been bettered.”

I ducked my head to hide the foolish grin that tried to seize my face, and mumbled a thanks. Then I led him through a small side door into the dusty country where I'd left the ministers of my ambitions.

*   *   *

Iso and Osi rose to their feet at the sight of the Rectifier, once more reminding me of a pair of fighters ready for the sparring ring. How had they ever fooled me in the Dockmarket with the supposed threat of the local thugs? I had only needed look at their stance to know better, but I'd been blinded by their age and my willingness to believe in these two men who so reminded me of Lao Jia.

The great pardine settled his weight as if about to leap into a fray. Whether he was reading their stance or their saffron robes I could not say. Priest killer that he was, the Rectifier might well recognize the order or temple from which their rite stemmed.

For now, though, it was on me to speak, and quickly. “Revereds,” I said sharply. “I bring friends together today, to pursue the matter that troubles me most.” I bowed toward the twins. “Iso and Osi, I present the Rectifier. He is a warrior among the pardines, one who has stalked the shadows of the divine through the human world.” Then I turned and nodded at the Rectifier. “These are Iso and Osi. They also stalk the shadows of the divine along a somewhat different path than yours. Each of you has given me wise counsel, and all of you have said you would grant me aid in this matter I now seek to resolve.”

“Blackblood,” rumbled the Rectifier. His ears were laid back but not flat, and his claws flexed. That could be a lie, or it could be readiness to do battle.

The twins stared back at the Rectifier impassively. No fear flickered on their faces, no doubt danced in their eyes. I had expected nothing else of these two old men, and was proud of them. The Rectifier was not easy to stand before even when he was in the best of humors.

“A god of this city,” Iso said. “Who troubles Mistress Green without cause or purpose.”