I had to look away then. The pain in my eyes had grown too great. I saw only red now, and it was not anger. I heard it, though, when Dateh began to scream. I felt reverberations in the air as bones cracked and ground together, as Dateh flailed and struggled and finally just twitched. I smelled fire, smoke, and the greasy acridity of burned flesh.
I tasted satisfaction then. It was not sweet, or filling, but it would do.
Then the Empty was gone, shattering around us, but I was barely aware of it. There was only the red, red pain. I thought I saw Sky’s glowing floor beneath me, and I tried to push myself up, but the pain was too great. I fell, curling in on myself, too sick to retch.
Warm hands lifted me, so familiar. They touched my face, brushing away the strange thick tears that issued from my eyes. I worried, irrationally, about staining His perfect white garments with blood.
“You have given me back myself, Oree,” said that shining, knowing voice. I wept harder and loved it helplessly. “To be whole again, after all these centuries… I had forgotten the feeling. But you must stop now. I would not add your death to my crimes.”
It hurt so much. I had believed, and belief had become magic, but I was only mortal. The magic had limits. Yet how could I stop myself from believing? How did one find a god, and love Him, and let Him go?
The voice changed, becoming softer. Human. Familiar. “Please, Oree.”
My heart called him Shiny even though my mind insisted on something else. That was enough to stop me doing whatever I was doing, and I felt the change in my eyes. Suddenly I could no longer see the glowing floor, or anything else, but the pain in my head immediately diminished from a shriek to a chronic moan. My whole body went limp with relief.
“Rest now.” The disordered bed beneath me. Sheets came up to my chin. I began to shiver violently—shock. A big hand stroked the soft mass of my hair. I whimpered because this made my head hurt worse. “Shhh. I will care for you.”
I did not plan what I said then. I was in too much pain, half delirious. But I asked through chattering teeth, “Are you my friend now?”
“Yes,” he replied. “As you are mine.”
I could not help smiling all the way into dreams.
20
“Life”
(oil study)
More than a year it took me to heal.
The first two weeks of that I spent in Sky, comatose. The Lord Arameri, summoned to my room to find a barely alive demon, an exhausted fallen god, several dead and nearly dead godlings, and a human-shaped pile of ash, reacted remarkably well. He sent for Sieh again and apparently spun a magnificent tale of Dateh attacking Sky only to be repelled and ultimately destroyed by Shiny, the latter acting to defend mortal lives. Which was more or less true, as the Lord Arameri had learned long ago that it was difficult to lie to gods. (Not for nothing was he ruler of the world.)
I slept right through the restoration of the sun. I’m told the whole city celebrated for days. Wish I could have been there.
Later, when I regained consciousness and the scriveners at last pronounced me well enough to travel, I was quietly relocated to the city of Strafe, in a small barony called Ripa on the northeastern coast of the Senm continent. There I became Desola Mokh, a tragically blind young Maroneh woman who had been fortunate enough to come into money after the death of her only remaining relative. Strafe was a midsized city, really a large small town, best known for cheap fishskin leather and mediocre wine. I had a modest town house near the ocean, with—I am told—a lovely view of both the placid town center and the churning Repentance Sea. I liked the sea, at least; the smell reminded me of good days in Nimaro.
With me traveled Enmitan Zobindi, a taciturn Maro man who was neither my husband nor a relative. (This was the talk of the town for weeks.) He earned the not-unfriendly nickname of Shadow, as in Desola’s Shadow, because he was most often seen running errands around town for me. The town ladies, who eventually overcame their nervousness about approaching us, dropped polite hints during their weekly visits that I should just go ahead and marry the man, since he was doing the work of a husband, anyhow. I merely smiled, and eventually they got over it.
If they had asked, I might have felt contrary enough to tell them: Shiny wasn’t doing all the work of a husband. At night we shared a bed, as we had done since the House of the Risen Sun. It was convenient, since the town house was drafty; I saved a lot of money on firewood. It was comforting, too, since more often than not, I awoke crying or screaming in the night. Shiny held me, and often caressed me, and occasionally kissed me. That was all I needed to regain my emotional equilibrium, so it was all I asked of him, and all he offered. He could not be Madding for me. I could not be Nahadoth or Enefa. Still, each of us managed to fulfill the other’s basic needs.
He talked more, I should note. In fact, he told me many things about his former life, some of which I’ve now told you. Some of what he told me I’ll never tell.
And—oh, yes. I had become blind, fully and truly.
My ability to see magic never returned after the battle with Dateh. My paintings were just paint now, nothing special. I still enjoyed creating them, but I could not see them. When I went for walks in the evening, I went slower, because there was no Tree glimmer or godling leavings to see by. Even if I’d still been able to perceive such things, there would have been nothing to see. Strafe was not Shadow. It was a very unmagical town.
It took me a long while to get used to this.
But I was human, and Shiny was more or less the same, so it was inevitable that things would change.
I had been in the garden planting, since it was finally full springtime. I had some winter onions cradled in my skirt, and my hands and clothes were stained with soil and grass. I’d put a kerchief on my head to hold back my hair and was thinking about anything but Shadow and old times. This was a good thing. A new thing.
So I was less than pleased to walk into my toolshed and find a godling waiting for me.
“Don’t you look good,” said Nemmer. I recognized her voice, but it still startled me. I dropped the onions. They thumped to the floor and rolled around for what sounded like an obscene amount of time.
Not bothering to pick them up, I stared in her direction. She may have thought I was astonished. I wasn’t. It was just that I remembered the last time I’d seen her, at Madding’s house. With Madding. It took me a moment to master my feelings.
Finally I said, “I thought godlings weren’t allowed to leave Shadow.”
“I’m the goddess of stealth, Oree Shoth. I do a lot of things that I’m not supposed to.” She paused in surprise. “You can’t see me, can you?”
“No,” I said, and left it at that.
So did she, thankfully. “Wasn’t easy to find you. The Arameri did a good job of covering your tracks. I honestly thought you were dead for a while. Lovely funeral, by the way.”
“Thank you,” I said. I hadn’t attended. “Why are you here?”
She whistled at my tone. “You certainly aren’t happy to see me. What’s wrong?” I heard her push aside some of the tools and pots on my workbench and sit down. “Afraid I’ll out you as the last living demon?”
I had lived without fear for more than a year, so it was slow to awaken in me. I only sighed and knelt to begin collecting the spilled onions. “I suppose it was inevitable you would find out why the Arameri ‘killed’ me.”
“Mmm, yes. Nummy secrets.” I heard her kick her feet idly, like a little girl nibbling a cookie. “I promised Mad, after all, that I’d find out who was killing our siblings.”