The Silver Lake (13 page)

Tossing his dice into the depths, Incasa spoke his name like a whisper of wind on the waves.

Unaware of the God’s attention, Graize crouched beside two large stag beetles battling in a ring of sand on the Western Trisect dockyards. Around him, half a dozen youths watched silently, each one intent on the combat, until a sudden gust of wind caused the largest of them to glance up uneasily.

Drove frowned at the cloudy sky, sensing the approaching storm’s growing nexus of power above his head. Fourteen years of experiencing Havo’s Dance on the streets as one of the unsworn had made him acutely aware of the passage of time, but now it seemed that they’d somehow, inexplicably, lost track of the hour. Chewing uncertainly on a ragged hangnail, he tried to remember the afternoon’s events.

They’d dined at Kedi-Meyhane, then made their way along docks still crowded with people finishing up the afternoon’s trade until they’d met up with a party of vintners’ and brewers’ delinkon. With plenty of time, Graize had directed him to build the sand ring. That had been less than an hour ago. He narrowed his eyes. Hadn’t it been?

A faint crack of thunder in the distance made him jump, but as a tinker’s cart trundled past them, he relaxed, feeling foolish. It would be all right, he told himself firmly. Graize knew what he was doing; he
always
knew when to cut and run. Always.

A skip of lightning across the skies made him flinch.

Always until now.

He glanced nervously up at the darkening sky again, then down at the other boy. He coughed gruffly. Graize ignored him. He coughed again, and finally Graize glanced up with a studied frown, his eyes as pale as mirrored glass.

Graize had calculated the afternoon’s game precisely, so much time for so many gamblers to add so many coins to the pile neatly stacked to one side before Havo’s Second Night called the game. The combatants’ weariness and Drove’s nervousness was right on schedule. Now, narrowing his eyes, he fixed the larger boy with an appropriately impatient glare.

“What?” he demanded.

Drove bit his lower lip. “Um ...” He jerked his head at the sky.

As one, the other youths looked up, suddenly realizing how late it had become. They glanced at Graize, who showed no sign of calling the game, then to the owner of the other beetle, who began to gnaw uncertainly at her lower lip, her eyes straying longingly to the pile of coins. Torn between their own greed and their fear of Havo’s Dance, they hesitated for one moment longer; then, as the sky suddenly crackled with thunder again, they scattered. The rising wind whipping through his ragged, light brown hair, Graize turned a challenging stare on the other combatant, who finally caught up her beetle and made off as well. Graize smiled coldly, tucking his own insect into a pouch at his side, then began to pick up the money with a satisfied air.

Drove fidgeted impatiently as rain began to splatter against the docks.

“We should go, Graize,” he urged, his voice tinged with panic.

“Yeah, in a moment.”

Across the city, the priests of Havo began the first notes of the day’s farewell.

“No, really, we should go
now.”

Graize glanced up with an annoyed expression, then frowned. The sky had grown unrepentantly dark in the last few moments and for the first time the pale-eyed boy felt a thrill of uncertainty. Was it really as late as it seemed? It couldn’t be. Could it? He stood.

“All right, come on,” he decided. “We can just make the Sakin Hostel.”

Together, they took off running through a faint snow-white mist that began to swirl almost imperceptibly about their feet.

In Gol-Beyaz, Incasa nodded, then reached out for his second candidate, the one more likely to choose creation perhaps, but the one more likely to wield destruction nonetheless.

Two streets down, Brax and Spar were also running for shelter.

They’d spent the afternoon hovering about the docks as well, and had made enough shine to feed themselves but not enough to buy a place to sleep and, like Graize and Drove, the dusk had somehow come upon them more quickly than they’d expected. Realizing with a start that they’d also strayed too far to reach any dockyard safe house, Brax glanced about uncertainly, clenching and unclenching his fists as it began to rain.

“All right.” He took a deep breath. “All right, you remember that place under the docks where we saw that really big, dead rat?” he asked.

His eyes wide with fear, Spar nodded.

“Well, just past it, you know where that street, what’s it called ... Liman-Caddesi starts up, there’s an old, upturned fishing boat. It’s small, but it should hide both of us if we can get underneath it. We can make it if we run. You game?”

Spar nodded again.

“All right, then, c‘mon.”

Together, the two boys pelted down the docks. At the end of the final wharf, they hesitated for just an instant, then jumped. Spar hit the sand hard, but Brax caught him up by the jacket and half dragged, half carried him beneath the pier. The light was already gone when they reached the first broken cobblestones of Liman-Caddesi.

“We’ll never make it!”

Shouting to be heard above the rising wind, Drove’s panic-filled voice rocked Graize to a halt. He glanced about wildly. The buildings around them were already locked tight and he snapped his head back and forth in frustration, feeling more and more like a cornered rat.

“Shit, shit, shit.” Banging his knuckles against his teeth, he racked his mind for the memory for some, for any, bolt-hole. “C‘mon, Graize, c’mon, you wanna die tonight? Think, think, think,” he chanted to himself, using the words to try and clear his mind gone suddenly, frighteningly, cloudy. “Where you gonna go? Find somewhere, find
anywhere.”
His eyes wide and unfocused, he raked his gaze across the docks, then gave a sharp nod as a sudden breath of icy wind cleared his mind. “All right, I know a place. It’s not much, but it’ll be safe. C‘mon.”

Together they raced down the pier.

Across the city, four of the Gods’ six main temples were preparing to meet the Second Night of Havo’s Dance in the same manner as the rest of Anavatan, with fastened shutters and bolted doors, while at Havo-Sarayi the festivities were already in full swing, the revelry invoking their God as surely as any ritual, and at Estavia-Sarayi the Battle God’s warriors prepared to obey Her command.

In the seer’s shrine, Cyan Company held its collective breath as Kemal drew his sword. Dropping to one knee, he held the weapon out across his palms, offering his worship and his service to the God of Battles. As the rest of his company followed his lead a heartbeat later, he felt Estavia’s presence within him begin to stir. At his signal, Bazmin tolled the shrine’s wide, bronze bell once.

The sound echoed across the temple’s empty courtyards. To the east, the great bell of Lazim-Hisar responded, then one by one, each stronghold from the smallest of the city gates to the largest of the village watchtowers signaled their readiness. With a deep breath taken to still the sudden pounding in his chest, Kemal began the Invocation.

“God of Battles, I pledge you my strength!”

On Liman-Caddesi, Incasa’s four boys reached the fishing boat at the same time. Brax immediately pushed Spar behind him and drew his knife. With a snarl, Drove did the same and, as the rain turned to hail, he attacked.