Caine Black Knife

EYES OF GOD

I must say, Freeman Shade, I am, ha-ha, hrm, favorably impressed by your piety-”

Ule-Tourann, the Family Bishop of Purthin’s Ford, moved up one of the sanctum’s ramped aisles in a loose-jointed shamble. From under the Bishop’s biretta straggled curls of oiled hair the same color as the grease spot on his surplice. He moved like a man who’d heard of exercise but had never actually seen it done. And he yapped. Ruthlessly. Yap yap yap yap: a stupefyingly endless river of content-free noise.

“. . if only more Beloved Children would make Atonement their first order of business when they arrive in a new city. If only. Though the final boat came in, er, well, I would suppose-that is to say, usually the last of the steamers arrives no later than the end of fourth watch-”

“I got held up in customs.”

“Ah.” He blinked and nodded like he actually understood. “Well then, it’s as it may be, eh? If it is Willed, it Shall be So. Ma’elKoth is Supreme, yes?”

“So they tell me.”

The sanctum resembled that of the Cathedral of the Assumption in Ankhana: a bowl of benches surrounding a walled expanse of floor, like stadium seating around an arena. But here the sanctum was floored with rose-veined marble, and lovely runners of scarlet and gold led from each radial aisle to the broad altar in the center. Astride the altar stood a colossal bronze nude of God Himself, resembling the one that stood in the Great Hall of the Colhari Palace-double-sided, so that the face of Ma’elKoth looked out before and behind, and bearing stylized representations of both male and female genitals-though where the original stood with arms akimbo, this Ma’elKoth had arms outstretched above, forming pillars that supported a domed ceiling of colored glass. All the dazzling blues of a clear noonday sky at its apex, the dome shaded into cloud-swirls of sunset reds and golds near its base.

The Bishop continued to chatter in an amiably mindless way as we threaded among the acolytes and underpriests who roamed the sanctum brushing carpets, polishing the altar, clambering up and down the cunning collapsible scaffold that let them burnish the bronze Ma’elKoth. The current of his yap-river carried us beyond the sanctum, through the administrative wing, and all the way to his office.

The Bishop installed himself in an immense cowhide swivel chair that he spun away from a writing hutch the size of a meat locker. He added some wrist-size logs to the grate and waved them alight, then gestured toward a horseshoe chair upholstered in knobby green brocade. “Please, Freeman Shade, be comfortable, ha-ha-hrm, yes. Before we proceed to the, er, the Atonement cells, there was that small matter. . ? That is, I was informed that you, ha-ha, wish to make an offering, yes?”

I barely heard him. The shutters were open. I drifted across the room to stand at the window, and I looked up into Hell.

Watchfires on the battlements cast orange smears up the sides of the Spire, pocked with yellow crosses where lamplight shone through arbalestinas. The light on the face of Hell was redder, just enough to make out ghosts of structure; cookfires and lamps and window-leaked hearth glow scattered sparks across its face. There, off to the right, just above the third bridge-hung now with age-greyed blankets and stained tunics, a sloppy-fat ogrillo bitch dozing beside a fire can on the ledge, while a couple pups sat naked, giving each other the occasional listless punch on the arm, near a gap where the retaining wall had collapsed-that was it.

That was the parapet. Right there. Where I had stood with the partners half my life ago, watching Black Knives run the badlands. Now it was ogrilloi in the vertical city and humanity below. I wondered if any of them had looked out over the river today. If any of them had watched the riverboat.

If any of them had seen me coming.

“Erm, ha-ha, Freeman Shade-? There was, erm, an amount discussed, yes? A hundred-?”

Hell above me. Hell behind and Hell ahead.

I turned aside from the window. “The vessel with the pestle,” I said in English, heavily, because this was Ma’elKoth’s sense of fucking humor and frankly it was just goddamn embarrassing, “has the brew that is true.”

The bishop’s face went blank and slack, shapeless as a mask carved in pudding.

I snapped my fingers. Bone structure developed within the bishop’s cheeks like a telescopic image being twisted into focus; his jaw firmed, and keen purpose drove the genial glaze from his eyes. He sat forward in the swivel chair and pushed his face sideways with one hand until a string of audible joint pops shot down his spine.

“Knowing how to do that buys you ten seconds to explain why I shouldn’t have you killed.”

I said, “You know me.”

A wave of clarity passed over the bishop’s face.

“Lord Caine.” He rose and extended a hand. “You’re expected. I have your equipment right here.”

I took the offered hand. “Caine.”

“Pardon?”

“Just Caine. Freeman Caine, if you want. I’m not Lord anything. Better you just call me Dominic Shade.”

The bishop shrugged. “I’d be honored if you’d call me Tourann.”

He dug a ring of keys out of his robe and unlocked one of the cupboards on his writing hutch, then muttered briefly under his breath and made a series of circular gestures with his left hand while with his right he reached in farther than the hutch was deep, and began briskly pulling out more objects than could have fit within it. “Sorry I can’t show you the rest of the station. Security. You understand.”

“Yeah, whatever. Are you the secondary or the primary?”

His eyebrows lifted. “You mean: Which came first, the bishop or the spy?”

“Something like that.”

“It’s more like we’re both secondary. He’s dominant unless I’m triggered-but I get all his memories, and he doesn’t have a clue I exist.”

“Huh. Creepy.”

“It’s not so bad. They say they can reintegrate me when I rotate out. Besides, I’m used to it by now.”

“Seems a little extreme.”

“You think it’s easy running an Eyes of God post where the unfriendlies have truthsense?” He pulled a mournful face. “The Knights of Khryl don’t do diplomatic immunity, and they are not to be fucked with.”

“I’ve heard rumors.”

“Rumors. Right.” He grimaced and shook his head. “Our last undoubled station chief got his arms pulled off.”

He finished laying out the items from the hutch: a flat leather pack the size of his palm, four matte-black knives-two guardless diamond-blade throwers and two of the Cold Steel Peacekeeper XXs that had been brought to Home by the Social Police Expeditionary Force that had invaded Ankhana three years before-a spring-loaded telescopic baton, a garrotte of thin black cable wrapped around grip-molded steel skeleton handles fixed to either end, and a huge stainless 12mm Automag with a custom barrel screw-fitted to receive the large black silencer beside it.

I checked the edge of each knife and scanned the garrotte’s cable for any signs of raveling. I picked up the Automag, popped the clip to eyeball the case-less tristack shatter slug rounds, then dropped the two spare clips into my purse before I tucked the gun into the leather holster patch sewn inside the rear waistband of my pants.

Tourann picked up the silencer. “What about this?”

“Keep it. Then when I miss, at least they duck.”

“We can blue the finish for you-”

“I like it bright. Nobody has to squint to figure out I’ve got a handful of Big Fucking Gun. Who else knows I was coming here?”

“I’m sorry?”

I picked up the throwing knives, rechecked the edges briefly, and slipped them into their holsters in my boots. “How do you make reports? Artan Mirror to Ankhana, right?”

“That’s need-to-know information-”

“So on this end, there’s you and the Mirror Speaker, at least; anybody else?”

“No-no, no, of course not-”

“Then there’s the Speaker on the other end. Reports with my name on them go straight to the Duke of Public Safety, right?”

“I, ah, I’m not allowed-”

“Don’t worry about it. So at least somebody’s told Deliann by now, I’m guessing.”

Tourann licked sweat off his upper lip. “I-what the Emperor may or may not know is beyond my-”

“Look, it’s all right. It’s not exactly a secret. Except from the Khryllians.”

“Purthin Khlaylock. Sure.” The bishop nodded wisely. “Want to bet he still remembers you?”

“Only when he looks in the mirror.”

“Um, yeah. Um. No wonder you’re incognito.” He coughed. “What about that non recognition magick of yours? It worked on me, and I am far from undefended-”

“It’s called the Eternal Forgetting, and it’s-complicated. It doesn’t erase personal experience. He’ll remember me, and what I did to him. And maybe to the Black Knives. He just won’t be able to put that Caine together with, say, the hero of Ceraeno-”

Tourann nodded. “Or the Prince of Chaos, or the Hand of Ma’elKoth-”

“Yeah, yeah. Drop it.”

“Nice.”

“Mostly useful in places where I don’t run into old friends.”

“Friends?”

“Or whatever.”

“What’d you get on Orbek?”

“Not a lot.” He looked like his stomach hurt. “Uh, I have some bad news about that-”

“I heard.”

“You did?”

“I guess it was some size of deal.”

“You could say that.” Tourann pulled some pages of handwritten notes from a hutch drawer, and passed them over. “Orbek Black Knife: Taykarget. Hit town three months ago, give or take. Maybe two or two and a half.”

“You’re not sure?”

“He came in illegally. No customs records, no employment documents, nothing. Nothing official until the, uh, incident.”

“You let these cock-knockers detain an Ankhanan freeman? What the fuck are you doing?”

“My job. Gathering information. Filing reports.”

“Shit.”

Tourann spread his hands. “No diplomatic relations, Caine.”

“Shade.”

“Yes. The Knights recognize no government beyond the Laws of Khryl. Break their Law and nobody cares if you’re the queen of Lipke. They were going to question him on another matter, but he refused submission. Then he just berserked and opened up.”

“Another matter?”

“A murder. A grill, up in Hell. Shot.”

I only grunted, reading ahead.

“You don’t look surprised.”

“You’re not my only source,” I muttered, still reading. “The Knight Accusor-Angvasse Khlaylock-”

“Niece.”

“I heard. What do you have on her?”

Tourann lowered himself back into the swivel chair. “I’d stay clear if I were you.”

“It’s not up to me.”

“No?”

I didn’t explain.

The bishop shrugged. “She’s the old man all over again. Doubled. Only twenty-seven, and Khryl’s Champion for three years now.”

“First since Pintelle, right?”

“Odds-on to be the first female Justiciar since Pintelle, too, when the old man cashes out. The grills call her Vasse Khrylget, and it’s only half a joke.”

“Any leverage?”

“Leverage. Sure.” The bishop snorted. “She’s so clean you have to brush your teeth before you kiss her ass. Incorruptible. Which I know because we’ve been trying for about ten years.”

“Yeah?”

“Each new chief takes a swing at her. It’s like a rite of passage. I wouldn’t mind landing one on her myself.”

“You better have long fucking arms. What’s Orbek doing up here in the first place?”

Tourann shrugged again. “At a guess? He might have been in with Freedom’s Face-they smuggle the worst kinds of Ankhanan thugs over the mountains-”

“Thug, shit. He’s just a kid.”

“A kid who managed to compost two Knights of Khryl. You have any idea how hard it is to kill a Knight of Khryl?”

I looked up from the page. Just looked.

“Oh, right.” The bishop reddened. “Right. Sorry.”

“What the fuck is Freedom’s Face, really?”

“Officially? Renegade Folk terrorists. Ruthless, bloodthirsty psychotics out to destroy the worship of Khryl.”

“I said really.”

He shrugged. “They’re mostly Ankhanan kids who thought it’d be a thrill to ride over the mountains and Strike a Blow for Ogrillo Freedom. Mixed in with a few pretty hard-core Warrens and Alientown operatives supplied by an old friend of yours from the safety of her-”

“We’re not friends,” I muttered. “Why haven’t you stepped on these idiots?”

“It’s not exactly our job. And the Empire isn’t exactly anti-Ogrillo-Freedom, either, when you get to the bone.”

“What’s this got to do with Orbek?”

“Maybe nothing. It’s also possible he was in with the Smoke Hunt.”

I nodded. “Talk to me about the Smoke Hunt.”

Tourann gave me a sidelong look. “What’s your interest?”

“It was the reason for a major ass-whipping I took today,” I said evenly, “and might be the reason for a couple I might deliver.”

Tourann flinched, just a little. “Bad news is what it is. Every so often some ogrilloi get cracked on booze and rith and go wilding. Just fist and claw stuff, but that’s serious enough.”

“I remember.”

“People get hurt; a lot of them die. Including the grills. The Knights see to that. That’s the official story.”

“All right, sure. And unofficially?”

“They’re organized. And it’s getting out of hand. The activity jumped roughly the same time Orbek hit town. The Knights are trying to keep a lid on it, but they’re starting to see Smoke Hunters once or twice a week. Even a solo can do serious damage before he’s put down, and often it’s a pack. Sometimes more than one. And there’s a handful of Knights Attendant-nine so far-who have supposedly been promoted and gone On Venture-”

“Supposedly.”

“Two confirmed kills, three more probable. Maybe all of them.”

“Nine dead? Nine? Without firearms? Shit, even with guns. .” I shook my head blankly. “The name?”

“They shout, ‘Dizhrati golzinn Ekk.’ It’s like their motto or something.”

“Sure. A fucking hint, huh?”

“You don’t speak Etk Dag?”

“In my day nobody did. Nobody human.”

“Huh. I suppose not.” Tourann rolled a hand a couple times. “Translates as ‘I am the Smoke Hunt.’ ”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“How should I know?”

“You could try maybe asking a grill.”

“Caine, come on; you know what it’s like with slave culture.” The bishop affected a thick Boedecken accent. “N’buddy know nudd’n. Nevva do.”

“Slave culture,” I echoed, chewing the inside of my lip. Again. “Great.”

“You say that like you disapprove.”

“Not my business.” I bit down hard enough to make an eyelid flicker. “What’s the connection to Orbek?”

“More than the coincidence of timing? We’re looking into it, but I can’t make any promises. This past month or so, all my tame sources have dried up and blown away. And I might not have gotten much regardless; the Smoke Hunters all seem to be intacts.”

“Intacts-?”

“You know, unaltered.” The bishop rolled that hand a couple more times. “Ungelded.”

I tasted blood.

“Don’t look like that.” Tourann shifted as though the swivel chair hurt his ass. “It’s not what you think. The Knights don’t just go around clipping balls. It’s voluntary.”

“Voluntary.”

“Sure. Geldings and fem neuters are eligible for better jobs down here in the city. Jobs with human contact. Jobs that require social skills, a little education, learning to read, that kind of stuff. Intacts are pretty much stuck with stoop labor on the estates, maybe some dock work or light hauling if they’re lucky. Or in the mines. You’d be surprised how many volunteer.”

“No, I wouldn’t.” The smart ones. The ambitious ones. Negative selection: breeding out dangerous traits.

I bit down and swallowed. “So?”

“So my sources were all eligibles. Intacts and eligibles are almost like separate cultures. Like, I don’t know, castes-”

“I get how it works.” I looked back out the window, up at the fat bitch lolling in the sunset, high on the parapet. “That’s what they’re all whipped up about, huh? These Freedom’s Face cocksmokes?”

“In the Empire, grills’re full citizens.” Tourann turned a hand toward the view. “Here, they’re-”

“Tame.” I stared toward the fat bitch on the parapet, but it was other bitches I was really seeing. Dancing in firelight below my cross. Again.

I’ll be seeing that for the rest of my life.

“Ask me if it breaks my fucking heart.”

“Hey, I’m not political. I gather information and I write reports, and a year and a half from now I’ll be one person again. In Ankhana. Where Knights of Khryl are the ones who are tame.”

“Sure they are.” I tossed the papers back on the desk and started gathering up the rest of my equipment. The spring-loaded baton came in a small holster; I pushed up my left sleeve and laid it along the outside of my forearm. “What about Disciples?”

“You mean Cainists?”

I made a face. “Whatever.”

“Outlawed. You can probably understand why.”

“I can guess.”

“The Khryllians wouldn’t tolerate the Church itself if Ma’elKoth hadn’t reaffirmed Toa-Phelathon’s land grant after the First Succession War. And, y’know, there’s the Spire-”

“Yeah.”

“So, y’know, they like elKothans here. But even so, we have to play by their rules, if you see what I mean. The Cainists, though-they have, ahh, what you might call a, ah, complex relationship, I suppose, with the whole concept of rules. .”

“Tell me about it,” I said, fastening the last buckle on the baton’s holster straps.

“Frankly speaking, they’re a major embarrassment.”

“Huh.” I shook out my sleeve and squinted down at its drape along my arm. “You should try it from my side.”

“If you don’t mind my asking-” Tourann wheeled the chair over to the grate and fed the papers one at a time to the flames. “-what’s the Emperor’s interest in this Orbek?”

I slid the knives, one at a time, each into its own sheath sewn within my clothing. “I don’t work for the Emperor.”

“You don’t? But-I, uh-I mean, everybody knows-”

“We’re friends. Maybe even family. That’s all.” I untied the thong on the leather pouch and inspected its contents: an array of spring-steel lockpicks and tension bars. “He doesn’t tell me what to do.”

“This is personal?”

“Everything’s personal.” I retied the pack and slid it into the same purse with the spare clips, then tucked the wrapped-up garrotte into the top of my boot.

Tourann’s frown gathered toward a scowl. “I would not be happy to risk exposure of this post just because somebody owes you a favor.”

“This is plenty official. Your better half’d think so, anyway.” I made one last check, seating knives and gun securely in their places, shifting and twisting to make sure the tunic draped without binding.

“He would?”

“Yeah. I’m on a mission from God.”

“Oh, sure. Very funny.”

“Not to me.”

“You-” The bishop blinked, and blinked again. “You’re serious? You’re working for-” He rolled his eyes significantly. “What does He want you to do?”

“If you find out, be sure you let me know.”

Tourann cocked his head. “I don’t get it.”

“He doesn’t tell people what to do. He might as well take on an Aspect and do it Himself, which starts the kinds of problems the Covenant of Pirichanthe was designed to prevent. And He sure as screaming fuck wouldn’t tell me anyway.”

“No?”

“We have history. Some of which your better half would call gospel.” I scratched at the lattice of scar and callus that padded my knuckles. “So I make my own plans, and if He doesn’t like them, He should stay the fuck out of my head.”

“Uh.”

I flexed my hands to flush the scars white and then red again. Here I was, being an asshole. Again. As usual. It wasn’t Tourann’s fault that the god he served had murdered my wife, and my father, mind-raped my daughter, and made my best friend into His immortal zombie meatpuppet. Gods are like that.

And what the hell: He’s my god too.

I sighed. “He told me once I have a gift for breaking things in useful ways. So sometimes He pushes me toward things He thinks need breaking.”

“What needs breaking here?”

“Shit, what doesn’t?” I waved us toward a new subject. “What do you have on the Artans?”

“Please, my lor-er, Caine-”

“Shade.”

“We really don’t need any of your kind of-are you certain that Our Beloved Father has sent you here-?”

“I’ll find out soon enough anyway.”

Tourann sighed. “Does the name Simon Faller strike any sparks?”

A shake of my head. “Sounds Artan, though.”

“Transdeian papers. Rolled into town about ten months after the Assumption. Rolled literally: on his own private train.”

“You have rail?”

“We do now. Faller came complete with two hundred stonebenders and a pair of rockmagi laying track ahead of him.”

“Money.”

“Plenty. He bought BlackStone Mining, and he could afford to operate at a loss for almost two years.”

“Knights soft on him?”

“They’d bear his children. Faller’s connected in Transdeia. Where do you think the Khryllians get those fancy guns?”

I frowned. “Diamondwell?”

“Show a stonebender a machine and he’ll come back the next day with one that works twice as well and is ten times as pretty.”

“They don’t do autoloaders? All I saw was pump-lever stuff.”

“They’re Khryllians. They’re not interested in a gun unless it can double as a mace in hand-to-hand. Anyway, Faller made the deal for them. He’s a sharp operator.”

“All he’s got going is this mining company?”

“BlackStone’s not just mining. Some precious metals, but primarily it’s a griffinstone producer. These past few months they’ve moved serious weight. Low-end stuff-mostly bled out-but a lot of it, and he seems to be making money now. Uses grills for the labor, but his managers and overseers are human. Probably Artan. Forty-two, all told.”

“Forty-two? Holy crap. What’re they really after?”

Tourann shrugged. “Besides money and power? You tell me.”

I rubbed my eyes. The headache was coming back. “Let me give it to you in small words. This whole bloody continent-shit, probably the world-is lousy with Aktiri and Overworld Company goons stranded here on Assumption Day. Most of them are kind of like me: we don’t play well with others. Now you’re telling me there’s more than forty of them, all together in one place at one time. Something fucking serious is going on here, and I don’t feel like getting my ass shot off while I’m trying to figure out what.”

“Well-” Tourann shifted his weight uncomfortably. “-this is strictly conjectural, based on an. . unreliable resource we have inside Freedom’s Face. This resource is, well, Folk-you know how they are; might be true, and it might just be a funny story-”

“Yeah, spare me. Give.”

“There’s supposed to be a dil to the Quiet Land here in the Battleground. In Hell, actually-somewhere back inside the bluff. The story is that Black-Stone’s looking for it.”

My eyes drifted closed. One hand came up, fell again, reached for the edge of the desk, and missed. I lurched drunkenly.

“Caine? Caine, are you unwell?”

By the time I opened my eyes again, Tourann was half out of his chair. I waved him back into it. “I’m all right. I’m all right, I just-wow. Just-this has been a kinda rough day. Shit, I gotta sit down.”

I took a faltering step and half fell into the horseshoe chair in front of the fire.

“Caine-seriously, I don’t wield the full range of Ule-Tourann’s powers, but if you’re sick, Our Beloved Father does grant me-”

“Nothing that’ll help.”

I shoved myself forward and from somewhere found the strength to hold my head up and look the bishop in the eye. “That story’s not a story, that’s all. You need to get on your Artan Mirror tonight. Now. You need to tell Ankhana. There really is a dil, and BlackStone’s not just looking for it. They’ve found it.”

“Really? Well, that’s certainly interesting, if true, but it’s hardly urgent, is it? It’s not like they’ll ever be able to open it, after all.”

“They have. More than once.”

“Impossible. Even the power of Our Beloved Father-”

“You need to get a message to the Duke right now. The Emperor needs to know the dil T’llan has been breached again, probably from our side.”

“But it’s not possible-”

“Fuck not possible.”

“Please-you must understand-communications of this type are out of policy, and without a very good reason. . I mean, you didn’t even know about the dil until I brought it up-”

The headache chiseled gouges along the inside of my temple. My hand went to my eyes again. “Know about it?”

— darkness stinking of shit and fear and human breath, naked and hot and cold and slime-wet until shivers ripple like shockwaves from flesh to clinging flesh, rune-carved rose quartz shimmering in the blue nonlight of the blade-wand-

My hand came away from my eyes and my mind leaped twenty-five years in a single bound. “Know about it?” I said again. “I’ve been there.”

“Caine-”

“Tell them I saw it in a fucking dream.”

“What?”

“Just do it, huh?”

“Really, Caine, consider: the Emperor is also the Mithondionne, after all. Adopted grandson of the bloody elf-king who magicked up the dil T’llan and closed them all however many centuries ago. If there were a dil in Purthin’s Ford, don’t you think he’d have mentioned it?”

“Unless he had good reason not to.”

I looked down at my hands. I spend a lot of time staring at my hands.

“You know why I was up here in the first place? I was covert for the Monasteries, working an exoteric identity as a Boedecken scout and ogrillo expert for a half-private expedition. They were after a magickal artifact-this giant fucking runecut blush diamond, big as my head. A Legendary artifact, ramping up on True Relic. If they found it, my job was to backdoor an Esoteric strike team. If it was what the partners thought it was, the Monasteries were fucking sure gonna swallow it at one bite no matter who got chewed up.”

“So?”

“So it was the Tear of Panchasell.”

“Panchasell-?”

I nodded. “That bloody elf-king you were talking about.”

“But-but-the Tear of Panchasell-that’s just a legend-”

“Or something.”

“It was never found-”

“It was never recovered.” My lips curled under. I couldn’t fit that many teeth into a smile.

“Well, I-still, I wouldn’t give it too much thought. Even if these Artans manage to find a dil, it’s not like they can open it; even the power of Our Beloved Father is barely-”

“Will you shut up about Our Beloved Fucking Father? What do you have on the BlackStone compound and operations?”

“Not much. Just what we’ve been able to bribe out of a couple ellie delivery grills.”

“No scry on them, either? You’ve never even had an Eye inside?”

“Caine, BlackStone’s a griffinstone producer. They don’t want us to know what’s going on in there, and they have power to burn.”

“Yeah, whatever. Write another fucking report, will you?” I lurched to my feet and dragged my sorry butt back over to the window.

Hell stared back at me. “Son of a fuck-my-ass bitch. They already know I’m here, too.”

“They do?” Tourann sounded more surprised than skeptical.

“Faller will have had somebody over in Riverdock, watching the steamers unload.”

“How do you figure?”

“It’s what I’d do. Not that he’s expecting me-though he might be, shit, I hadn’t even thought of that-but on general principle. He’ll want to know who’s coming and going.” I shook my head and tried to unclench my jaw. “Any Artan would recognize me. Any. I’m amazed the fucker didn’t buttonhole me for an autograph.”

I swung back around toward Tourann. “What do you have for resources on the ground here?”

“I don’t have authority to talk to you about that.” He shifted uncomfortably again. “I will tell you it’s not a lot.”

I waved a hand. “Never mind. I haven’t even been here a day and I know more than you mopes already.”

“More of what?”

“Don’t bother mirroring the Duke. It’s a waste of time.”

Tourann blinked. “I-what?”

“Forget about it. They already know. Deliann does, anyway. Son of a bitch.”

“He does?”

“Listen, this Khlaylock girl-three years is a long damn time to be Champion, isn’t it?”

“That’s part of why they call her Khrylget.”

“Three years, though. . She stand for Champion before the Assumption? Or after?”

Tourann coughed, frowning. “You mean the Assumption, right?”

“Yeah. The one your better half doesn’t like to talk about much. The one where I cut Our Beloved Fucking Father in half and jammed a foot of sword through His Beloved Fucking Brain.”

Tourann coughed hard enough that he had to wipe spit off his chin. “I don’t actually know-I could look it up for you, but I don’t have the records handy-”

“Make a note to check it out. Because if she never stepped up till after the Assumption, well. . it might be significant.”

“I don’t see it.”

“It has to do with the Covenant of Pirichanthe, and Ma’elKoth and Assumption Day, and it’s. . complicated.”

I found myself staring at the scars on my hands again. “Just find out.”

It was all I could say.

“There’s a cold-post board in Weaver’s Square. The date’ll be posted in numerics on a note that says, ‘Rod, here’s your box number.’ You have that?”

“Yeah. Rod here’s your box.” I rubbed my eyes. “Yeah, I got it. All right, last thing before I get out of your station. I need some eyeball with the Monastic agent-in-place.”

“I don’t have any official-”

“But you know who it is. You have to. Give.”

Tourann took a deep breath. “You know the Monasteries are decidedly unwelcome on the Battleground.”

“Yeah, I heard. And there’s no way in any given variety of Hell the Council of Brothers would let a whole nation of Khryllians go unmonitored.”

“Well, yes. So-” The bishop tilted his head with a sort of preparatory flinch. “-sometimes the best way to hide a really illegal activity is inside a mildly illegal activity, you follow?”

“Why do I get the feeling you’re warming me up for something I’m not gonna like?”

“Remember what I told you about the Cainists?”

“Oh.” I rubbed my eyes again; this couldn’t be good. “Oh, for fuck’s sake.”

“It gets worse.”

“Worse than that?”

“I’m afraid so.” Tourann nodded sympathetically. “You know her.”

I stopped rubbing my eyes; if I kept going, I just might jam my fingers into the sockets up to the second knuckle. “You have got to be motherfucking kidding me-”

“If only I were. I’ve had to deal with her myself once or twice.”

He wrote an address on a scrap of paper and passed it to me. I crumpled it in my fist. “Fuck me inside out.”

“I’m sorry. I truly am.”

“Not as sorry as I am.” I sighed and let my fist fall. Out the window, the fat bitch lolled in the firelight on the ledge. I took a deep breath, sighed it out, then turned back to Tourann and began, “The chalice with the palace-”

He held up a hand. “I’ll put myself away, if you don’t mind. I’m usually out only after midnight.” He made a half-apologetic wave toward the window. “It’s been a year since I could have a brandy and watch the evenfires.”

“What about the Bishop?”

“He’ll remember a perfectly ordinary Rite of Atonement.” He produced an earthenware jug and a pair of cordials. “Care to join me? It’s Tinnaran.”

“Another time.”

As I turned to go, Tourann said, “It must be a, erm, peculiar feeling. .”

I stopped. “Yeah?”

Tourann waved the jug in a little circle. “This. All this. Being here.”

“Peculiar is one word for it.”

“I mean, you did this. If not for you, none of this would be here.”

“It wasn’t just me.

Lots of people-”

“Lots of people, sure.” Tourann splashed a cordial full of brandy. “Any of them still alive?”

I took that without a blink. “Purthin Khlaylock.”

“Sure, sure. The city’s called Purthin’s Ford, but it’s the river that makes all this possible; it changed this whole corner of the continent into a garden. You know what they call the river, up here?”

I looked down at my hands while I tried to breathe past the brick in my guts. “The Caineway.”

“That’s right. The Caineway. I can’t imagine how that must feel.”

“Me neither,” I said, and left.

Night had swallowed the vertical city.

By the time I dragged my exhausted ass down the steps of the cathedral, the streets of Purthin’s Ford were buried already in the horizon’s shadow; the sinking sun had levered darkness upward to erase each tier of Hell in turn. The cliffs and the city reflected enough firelight that the street I walked shimmered with blood-colored gloom.

if not for you, none of this would be here

I sagged into a polished stone bench and let my head hang.

Slave culture. Intacts and eligibles.

turned this whole corner of the continent into a garden

I had to look sometime. I was fresh out of excuses to wait.

black knives don’t kneel

I lifted my head and opened the eye of my mind.

Twists of night knotted around me: vast braided cables of interstellar black frayed into strands that tied me to the river, to the Spire, to Hell above and every breath of the damned and their masters: a fractal arterial network pumping shadow from all this place had been to all I was, from all I had been to what it was.

The night smeared and writhed and wrapped itself around me, swallowing me, entering me, oozing like oil into eyes and mouth and nose and ears. I shook my head. A humorless chuckle rattled in my throat. This was what I’d been avoiding? This had had me running scared? It didn’t seem possible.

Since when am I afraid of the dark?