I walked, noting landmarks such as a great skeleton covered in moss and mold, some eldritch creature that could have served as a mount for Skinless. My thoughts continued to range through the issues bedeviling me. I wondered what the Rectifier would have me do about Endurance, if he could. He’d certainly intervened at the death of Federo and the casting down of Choybalsan. Had the wily pardine rethought his desires? Or perhaps the realities of the situation had simply passed the old rogue by.
Power moved in circles, in circuits. Like a rooftop tank of water released, it had to go somewhere. Bleeding it off would be as slow and cautious a problem as draining the tank through the smallest pipe.
Endurance was a safety valve on the ambitions of the pardine Revanchists and the rogue twins alike. The ox god was a safety valve on me also, in truth. He had already served this city well.
Soon I found myself among the machines of the great gallery beneath the temple at the old minehead. They were colder now, leaching what little warmth might be in this room to leave behind only the chill. Seen glittering in my coldfire, they looked as if frost had settled upon them.
Winter. That curse of cities and people alike. A blanket of quiet, white death to put us all to sleep.
I touched one of the old machines and thought of Archimandrix. The metal was so cold my fingers threatened to stick. My warmth would pour from me, I realized, to be absorbed within those brass and copper and iron angles. Time seemed to congeal here in the chill beneath the world. The ancient men in their leather masks who’d built this thing were waiting just beyond the line of shadows for their chance at trying yet again for whatever aims had first driven them.
“What purpose?” I asked the machine. It was large and inscrutable, with bolted hatches long since corroded to a single mass. Multijointed arms folded against the higher reaches of its body, where once they might have swung free to service some distant, unknowable need.
“What purpose ever the past?” asked Archimandrix from behind me.
I swung about, startled, short knife in my right hand. “Who’s with you?”
“You are,” he said reasonably. “I knew you’d be back.”
Again, the young man-or to be more accurate, the man with young voice-had wrapped his head in leather bandages except for the brass oculars. His robes covered the rest of him.
“I am back,” I responded. “And I do need your help.”
“As Mother Iron foretold.” He tipped his head toward me. A nod? A bow?
“Foretold or not, the moment is here. I have caused a problem you may be able to sort out.”
“Explain, please.”
I got the impression he didn’t very often remember to say “please.”
We squatted on our heels in the cold presence of the machines while I told him about Blackblood, about Iso and Osi, about Corinthia Anastasia and the Selistani embassy, about the pardine Revanchists. I left out nothing, and did little to alleviate my own sorry role. I had gotten the entire affair wrong almost from the beginning. As a result of my own poor judgment I’d placed two deicides on a god’s tail.
When I was done, Archimandrix remained quiet for a while. From the set of his head, I surmised he was squinting thoughtfully, as very smart persons will do when confronted with an idea outside their notions. Intelligence could be so limiting at times.
“You want my sorcerer-engineers to oppose these divine twins.”
“I do not think them divine,” I replied quietly. “Very old and very powerful, yes.”
“The fall of Marya is being spoken about the city,” he said. “Her loss troubles Below, and imperils women everywhere. That these ones should claim another god from Copper Downs is unacceptable.”
“You will block them from Blackblood?”
“I can do better than that.” Now I could hear the grin in his voice. “Much better.”
“Then I leave you with this problem. I have more to do, and time is terribly precious for me right now.”
Archimandrix touched my shoulder. His heavy leather glove was as cold as the machine beside us. “See to your people and the missing child. My sorcerer-engineers will see to the gods of our city.”
It was all I could do in this moment. “Thank you.”
I knew who my next contact would be. Blackblood needed another line of defense. Arranging chessmen on the board, Skinless was my next play.
The best way to find the avatar was to head for Blackblood’s temple from Below. Unfortunately, I knew that path all too well. Following it reminded me overmuch of Septio, who had brought me here, and up through the labyrinth that joined Below with the sacred precincts. I passed into a familiar corridor of carved, screaming faces-homage to the pain god, or an ossuary of souls, I could not say.
As I walked, I whispered the avatar’s name. “Skinless… Skinless…” In the unquiet tunnels, that sound carried to blend in with the drips, the rivulets, the groaning of the earth, the occasional distant knocking and banging. I felt as if I were calling a lost goat. “Skinless… Skinless…”
I continued to suspect that the avatar had been following me for days. Surely he would be found now, here, close to his home.
At one point I stopped and turned to look behind me. A great, gelid eye peered back from a muscled face. He was so close I could have touched him with my tongue. A shock of surprised fear coursed through my veins before quickly settling.
“I bear a message for your god,” I told Skinless.
Great hands flexed, tendons sliding over fat, along muscle, as veins throbbed. I had fought this one too-was that true of all my friends?-and knew how difficult he was to even check for a brief moment. Never to be defeated, not by me.
“I have wronged Blackblood, grievously. A pair of hunters are on his trail now.” Slowly, carefully, I detailed my missteps with Iso and Osi, and my fears for what they planned.
Skinless listened, nodding, with as thoughtful an expression as that great, flayed face could manage. When I had spun my entire tale, I finished by saying, “I have asked Archimandrix and his sorcerer-engineers to deal with the twins before they ever reach your temple. But the god must make ready.”
Another long, slow nod. Then one great hand reached out, finger extended, to delicately brush against the not-so-gentle bulge of my belly.
“Yes, I’ll be careful.” I tried not to think of my missed leap to the warehouse roof this afternoon. I needed to stop acting as if I were a Blade in prime condition, and start behaving like a pregnant woman.
If only everyone else would let me do so.
He mimed picking me up, carrying me, as he had once done when I was wounded.
“No,” I replied. “I shall make my own way. But thank you.”
We parted then Below, uneasy friends, he to his god of bitter dregs, me to my plotting.
My next step would conveniently bring me to a resting place for the night. I had need to raise a great noise against the Selistani embassy but it would do me no good to run through the streets decrying a stolen child. Who would believe me? More to the point, who would care?
Children were essentially disposable, unless they happened to be heirs to a great fortune or the objects of great love. My own life was sad testament to that truth.
And in the scheme of the fate of cities, well, the Rectifier was right. The matter of one child was irrelevant. Even counterproductive. It was up to me to save Corinthia Anastasia. By saving her, I could make things a little safer for my own daughter-to-be. By saving her, I could do what no one had ever done for me.
Not even the Dancing Mistress or Federo had saved me. They had only used me for another purpose. No more.