The Artifact of Foex (34 page)

She was asleep. Drugged. The girl was tiny
and—despite her famine-rounded belly—wonderfully perfect. She was
at that phase in life when she looked more like a fairy-tale
creature than a human being. He checked her eyes beneath her
eyelids, mostly out of curiosity than any real need—yes, they were
dark eyes. Not the honey yellow of a reincarnating Magician’s soul.
He’d killed colleagues before, of course, trapped in minute female
bodies; best to release them into their next life as Foex decreed.
Chet sighed, knowing he needed to do this. It was necessary. He was
a responsible and respected individual who did what needed to be
done. Chet recited the correct incantation. He took up the ritual
knife, tightened his grip, and—

No!
Chet cried out as the person—not
himself,
not himself
—cut her throat, a swift mercy stroke.
More ritual cuts. The body bled into purposeful grooves on the
table, dripping into a pan at the end of the table.

Chet lost his grip on the dream reality,
panicked and screaming inside.

There was something cool and wet on his
forehead. A washcloth? But... but there were no washcloths in
Crimson-Era Eicha. As if by naming the reality he’d experienced,
the remainder dissolved around him. Chet felt as if he was rushing
back into his body.

Yet he'd been in his body all along.

His confusion palpable, Chet opened his eyes.
He was lying in a stranger’s bed in a thoroughly modern space.
There was a high roof with exposed pipes and blocky walls of
concrete. The bed itself was large and airy with a white comforter;
it was set on a platform, raised above a living space below.
Everything around him was pewter grey or white, with geometric,
burgandy-and-green prints thrown in for good measure. A loft
apartment? It was in an urban area to judge by the traffic noises
and honking outside the frosted, sheet-glass windows.

Chet licked his lips. They were crusty... so
were his eyes for that matter. Something wet fell off his head. It
was
a washcloth. So that hadn’t been his imagination. He
was naked below the comforter except for a pair of underwear, not
his own.

“Oh, you’re awake.”

Chet looked over his shoulder, his neck
aching as if he’d slept on it wrong. A Flame was descending stairs
from a higher platform. Her skin tone was light bisque and she wore
blue scrubs. Her manner was brusque and professional as she took
his hand, her fingers touching his wrist. She paused, looking at
the clock on the wall. Chet relaxed after a minute. She wasn’t
seducing him—not that he wouldn’t mind being seduced by her, at
least in her current face and figure—she was checking his
pulse.

“Who are you?” he said, his voice raspy.

“My name is Doyen Quor. As you are not a god
affiliate, you may call me by my given name, Quor, and not my
title," she said, reaching over to grab something from the bedside
table—a blood pressure cuff and stethoscope. Quor fastened the cuff
around his upper arm and began pumping, handling the stethoscope
with practiced professionalism.

“Are you a doctor?”

“Used to be. It’s too hard to get a license
these days, and I have no money at the moment. Therefore I’m a
registered nurse. Just got off graveyard at the hospital.”

Chet glanced around the loft apartment; they
seemed to be alone. “Where are the others?”

“Gone. You’ve been delirious almost two days.
They left early this morning when I got home from work to catch a
train to Allistair. They seemed to feel their errand was more
important than seeing you well.” Quor frowned. “If you ask me,
they’re acting a little strange. I’ve rarely known Journey to be so
uncaring. It made me wonder if you’ve done something to offend her,
and, of course, now I’m stuck with you.”

“Abyss,” Chet whispered. Fenimore had to be
in control. He grabbed Quor’s arm as she removed the blood-pressure
cuff, upset beyond measure. “Why didn’t you say anything? Why did
you let them go?”

Quor blinked. “Journey and Knife? They know
what they’re doing. Why should I stop them?”

“...Never mind.” He wanted to tell her about
the Raptus but
couldn’t
. Fenimore’s order of silence was
apparently still in effect. Such a powerful tool.

He blinked tears. Fenimore had told him to
grow up, to be a man. He’d faced similar criticism all his life.
Now his friends were gone, and he was alone in a foreign city-state
under the care of this cold stranger. He still felt sick and weak,
his body wrung out. Undone, Chet rolled over and sniffed into the
pillow. To his relief, Doyen Quor set a box of new-style paper
tissues on the bed and left him be. Chet snuffled into tissues,
gulping sobs until they were nearly inaudible whimpers.

Journey and Knife had
left
him.
They’d left with Fenimore. Did they know they were the only people
standing between Fenimore and full control over the Raptus, and
therefore control over the people of Uos? It was too late for him
to say something: Chet was sundered, rejected, left behind. He had
no value. What could he do? Go home? Follow them? How could he do
anything when the Raptus still controlled him?

Quor puttered around the apartment, in
earshot if not sight. He felt unwelcome, an annoyance for her.
I should go.

Though it made his head spin, Chet was
attempting to climb out of the bed just as Quor popped up the
stairs, a big tray in hand. “What are you doing?”

“You didn’t ask for me to stay here. I should
go find a hotel or something...”
And, er, my clothes.
Did
he even have money? Had Journey and Knife left him
anything?
They were sort of being funded by Chet’s father,
after all.

“You stay put. You had a fever of a hundred
and five at one point. You’re lucky your brain isn’t fried. I was
all set to take you to the emergency room at my hospital when you
started cooling off.”

“Oh, wow. That explains the dream. It seemed
so real.”

“Mmm.” Quor set down the tray. It held dry
toast and a big glass of lychee juice—an invalid’s breakfast.
“Here, you need to rehydrate.”

Chet sipped, eyes half closed as he tried to
recall more of the dream. “It was like... I was in Eicha during the
Crimson Era. There were all these little historically accurate
details.” He could even remember a few that he hadn’t noticed
during the dream proper: the woven rush mats on the floor, for
example, sprinkled with herbs for cleanliness and good humors. The
curved blade the other guy had worn, slung across his chest like
Fenimore wore his hunting blade. The man had had honey eyes and had
spoken to him like he was—

“I was a Magician!”

“What?” Quor cried out, startled.

Chet smiled apologetically. “Sorry, didn’t
mean to yell. I mean I was a Magician in my dream. This other
Magician was talking to me. I, um, I killed a little girl.
Pantheon, she was little: only three and a half years old. That’s
what made me wake up. I couldn’t... I mean, I’ve never hurt anyone
in my life, yet it was so clear. The person I was in my dream—he
didn’t do it out of malice. He didn’t even
like
doing it,
but he felt like he had to, as if it were just another chore to get
out of the way.”

“Abyss.” Quor’s eyes narrowed, and she
regarded him curiously. “I understand you’re wrapped up in this
business with the Raptus. Knife and Journey are both confused as to
why you and the other guy, LaDaven, became bound to the
Raptus.”

“I wish I knew,” Chet sighed. Aureate hadn’t
been able to answer the mystery for him. Now he’d never know why
he’d been chosen.

She raised an eyebrow. “Chet, has it ever
occurred to you that you really were a Magician?”

“What?” Chet cried, staring at Doyen Quor in
shock. She sounded so certain; it was less a question and more a
statement of fact.

Quor sat and folded her hand. “You need to
keep drinking.”

Chet glared at her. “I’m not doing
anything
until you explain what you just said.”

“Very well. Tell me, where do human souls
come from before we’re born? Where do we go after we die?”

He couldn’t fathom why she was bringing up
these sorts of irrelevant doctrine questions now. “Is this a trick?
We come from the black ether between the stars. We return there
when we die.” The rote answer rose readily to his dry lips. He was
thirsty at that. He self-consciously gulped lychee juice, and Quor
nodded approval.

“That’s an answer any Literati might have
given me. I’m grateful you’ve not pledged to Philapo yet—” She held
up a restraining hand as he opened his mouth. “Yes, yes, I know,
you’re not at all interested in becoming Literati, Journey told me.
In any case, I’m grateful you’re not because they’d argue about
this
forever
with me.”

“Argue about what?”

“If human souls come to and from the ether,
how do you explain gods like Foex and Pelin engendering
reincarnation?”

“Obviously, they catch you before you go and
push you back to Uos again.” Chet licked his lips. He wanted more
juice but didn’t want to end the conversation.

Though he hadn’t asked, Quor picked up the
glass and walked downstairs. Her voice called back, “Has it ever
occurred to you to question how they do that? I mean, it seems a
huge expenditure of energy, even for a god. There are about twelve
hundred Flame who reincarnate on a regular or semi-regular basis,
yet Pelin still needs to take care of other business in her life.
How can she be on the lookout for dying Flame all the time?”

“You couldn’t possibly think I know the
answer to that.”

Quor reappeared with both a glass of juice
and the bottle in hand.“You’re such a good scholar. I like the way
you don’t assume you know the answer when you don’t.”

He ducked his head shyly. “Thank you.”

“Look, I’ve been around a while. You start to
notice patterns. There are plenty—plenty!—of people walking Uos
who’ve been here before. People who are not Flame and never have
been. Some were Flame once or twice but chose not to initiate
again. We call them loopers. Privately, of course, as it’s not
ethical to tell people this sort of personal information. Journey
and Knife would never share with you what I just said. They told me
they have no doubt whatsoever that you’re a persistent and
voracious looper.”

“They said
what?
” Chet recoiled,
wishing he could pull the covers over his head. “No, wait, back up.
How can there be such a thing as randomly reincarnating
people?”

“Yes, exactly. How
can
there be
unless the gods have nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with it?
Listen, you’ve studied the works of Magicians in detail, yes? You
know something of Foex’s style. He never consciously wasted energy.
He was like a card player who used every single card in his hand
and wasted no moves, counting and tracking every card in the deck.
What if instead of expending gregarious amounts of time and effort
grabbing people before they returned to the ether, he simply
utilized a natural phenomenon? Twisted it around to meet his needs.
What if, instead of instigating reincarnation, he simply made his
human affiliates aware of their past-life memories?”

Chet frowned thoughtfully. “So he didn’t have
to keep teaching the same people the same information.”

“You got it.” Quor smiled approvingly at him.
“Pelin does the same thing, mostly because she feels we have a
right to know and enjoys deepening relationships over time. We
remember our past lives upon initiation.”

Chet lay back in bed. “So I’m a looper?”

Quor sighed. “Don’t take my word for it.”

“But—but you said...”

“What possible good could come of knowing
about your past? You’re in this body now. This life.”

“I think I have a right to know.” He glared.
Hadn’t she just said her goddess believed in freedom of this sort
of information? “Why do
you
get to have automatic access
to this knowledge, yet
I
can’t? Don’t trot out that old
garbage about how you’re a god affiliate and I’m not. That’s an
answer I’ve never accepted as anything but begging the question,
worse than when a parent says, ‘Because I told you so.’”

Quor quirked a smile. “Bear with me, Chet.
Why
do you need to know?”

“Because... because the past is impacting my
current life. My current body.” She’d been leading him on.

Quor spread her hands. “Obviously, I can’t
tell you who you were. Only you can answer that question. Eat your
toast. I should go out and do some errands, then I’ll need to
sleep.
You
are to stay in bed. Bathroom’s through that
door. If you feel cold, there’s clothing in the closet on the upper
level, and I have male clothing almost your size. I like a longer
inseam and narrower waist, personally, but the fit will be close
enough for practical purposes.”

“Thank you,” he muttered, annoyed. Why had
she led him on if she hadn’t intended to answer his questions? It
was almost as frustrating as if she hadn’t said anything, letting
him stew forever in his ignorance.

“I’ll be back in a bit.”

He lay flat in bed as she left the apartment.
Was it true? Had he been a reincarnating Magician before Foex died?
That would explain an awful lot in his life. His psychological
block from wanting to become a god affiliate, for one thing. Next
to Foex all the other gods did seem pale and measly. Aureate had
been drawn into Foex’s service out of passion, at first, anyway.
Had Chet felt the same?

He remembered that moment when he’d accused
Aureate of being an affiliate turncoat. “Who
are
you?”
she’d asked, her voice strained. She’d gazed at him as if she’d
wanted to drill him open and see what was inside. He’d run on
instinct when flirting with Aureate, and everything had been so
easy with her. Maybe they’d known each other in the past. In the
dream, Chet had remembered killing girls who’d been his colleagues
born in female form. Like Aureate had been.