Lady Silver’s quarters were on another floor of the palace, and Shane was perilously close to lost by the time he got there. The page took him up two flights, then down another one, apparently to save time, but then they plunged into a labyrinth of corridors, some of them clearly older, the walls covered in threadbare tapestries when they were covered at all. A sign of disfavor? Shane wondered. Is Lady Silver disliked? Or does it have something to do with her people—perhaps they are at loggerheads with high-ranked members of the court?
The Bishop would probably know, but it was the Bishop’s job to know. Shane just stood around and listened and looked menacing. Still he made a mental note to ask her, when they finally returned to Archenhold.
It finally occurred to him, as they turned down yet another corridor, just who Lady Silver reminded him of: Judith. Strange, enigmatic Judith, oddest of the seven surviving paladins, yet no less loved for all that. Something about the way that both of them moved, just a hairsbreadth too considered, as if, though fluent, human body language was not their native tongue.
Which, for Lady Silver, it wasn’t. For Judith, the explanation was doubtless deeper, but Judith never ever talked about her past, and no one was cruel enough or fool enough to dig for it. It didn’t matter. She’d saved his life any number of times, and he’d saved hers, often enough that neither of them bothered keeping score.
When she’d left after Piper’s revelation of the Saint’s death, Shane hadn’t been surprised, or even particularly worried. It was like her to simply go, with neither explanations nor farewells. Whatever she was looking for, he hoped that she found it. If she did, she’d probably turn up again at the temple as if no time had passed, and look vaguely surprised that anyone had missed her.
He was startled out of his woolgathering when the page stopped at a door, rapped sharply three times, then opened it without waiting. Shane went in.
This suite of rooms was substantially larger than the one that Marguerite had secured, though the ceilings were lower. Bookshelves lined the walls of the main room, while a small brazier provided heat and a strong, pungent scent that reminded Shane vaguely of creosote. A large oak desk dominated the room, covered in papers, but a long side table held a forest of glassware that Shane recognized, surprised, as distillation equipment.
“Ah, Lorrrd Shane,” said Lady Silver, straightening from where she bent over the equipment. She nodded to the page, who retreated from the room. “A pleasurrre to see you again.”
“And you, madam,” said Shane, bowing slightly. “Though I fear that I am not actually a lord. Merely a knight.”
“Serrr Shane, then.” She smiled, canines just visible, and came toward him. “I must beg yourrr pardon,” she said. “I was rrrude earlierr, when you deliverrred your message. It was interrresting, you see, and I have learrrned not to appearr too interrested in things in this place.” She lifted a blunt-clawed hand and gestured toward the walls and ceiling, as if encompassing the entire Court of Smoke.
“I can well believe it,” said Shane. “I took no offense.”
“Good, good.” Another toothy smile. “I am a diplomatic guest herrre, and thus am allowed a cerrrtain leeway, but I do not fool myself that I am immune to all that goes on arrround me.” Her ears, Shane noted, were eased slightly back as she spoke.
“That seems wise,” he offered. “I know that I’m missing most of the undercurrents here, and I don’t have diplomatic relations riding on what I do.”
“Exactly.” Silver nodded to him, her ears coming forward again.
It occurred to Shane, somewhat belatedly, that relations between the White Rat and the city of Morstone might actually be affected by what he did here. But that is Marguerite and Beartongue’s concern, not mine.
“One moment,” Lady Silver said, turning off the heat under a flask. “Let me just finish up herrre…”
Shane glanced at the distillation equipment again with interest. It looked very much like the sort found in his friend Grace’s workshop. “Forgive my curiosity, but is this for perfume-making?”
Lady Silver’s eyebrow patches shot up. “It is, indeed.”
“My current employer is selling perfumes. If you are interested in them, I am sure I could arrange an introduction.”
Lady Silver laughed softly. “I apprrreciate the spirrrit of the offerrr, but alas, most human scents do not appeal to me. And I fearrr the rreverrrse is also trrrue.” She took a slip of paper from a drawer and dipped the very edge in the contents of the flask. “Forrr example…”
Shane took the proffered sample and took a sniff that nearly staggered him. His eyes started to water. The cynocephalic laughed again. “You see? I have learrrned to tolerrrate the scents that humans wearrr, of necessity, but I do not see these imprrroving my status at Courrrt.”
“No,” said Shane weakly. The smell had been an unholy mating of fermented manure and burnt hair, with a pungent and startling overtone of pumpkin. He wondered what Grace would think of it.
Probably wonder how she was doing it. I suspect they’d have a lot to talk about.
“I make them forrr my own amusement,” his hostess said. “Some I ship back home. Therre arrre ingrredients found herrre that do not exist in my homeland.” She made a sweeping gesture. “At any rrrate, you did not come to discuss smells, I think.”
Lady Silver waved him to a chair and sat down at the oak desk, tapping a note on the table before her. Shane guessed that it was the one from Beartongue, although he could not read the words at this distance without his glasses. “The good Bishop asks about the death of gods. A most fascinating topic.”
Shane inclined his head, wondering if he was about to be plunged into the depths of applied theology. You don’t have to understand it, you just have to remember it so that you can repeat it to Beartongue and Piper.
“My people’s gods die rrregularly. It surrrprised me to learrn that yourrs do not.”
Shane’s eyebrows shot up. “They do? How? Of what?”
Lady Silver laughed. “Of old age, I suppose you would say. The yearrrs are our gods. Each one is borrrn on the spring equinox and stands between us and the calamities of the seasons. Each one lives long enough to see theirr successorrr borrrn, and then passes away.”
It took him a moment to get his head around this. “The year? As a god? You mean, your god was born a few months ago, and you pray to them?”
Lady Silver nodded. “My people mark the calendar differently than yours. We dwell now in the house of Sixth Rising, and next will be Seventh Rising. Then Eighth Waiting, and so forth, on until Twelfth Sleeping, after which a new cycle will begin with First Waking. Twelve year-gods to a cycle, twelve cycles to a Great Year, and so on.” She flicked her ears. “Sixth Rising is not quite old enough to say what kind of god He will be yet.”
Shane rubbed the bridge of his nose. The notion of worshipping something only a few months old seemed bizarre, but it would be rude to say so. And unwise to insult a god, in any event. “Huh,” he said. “I’ve never heard of anything like that.”
“And your people’s method of keeping gods about, on and on, seems equally peculiar to me,” said Silver. “Though we have our ancestors, and the great beasts, who live on and on. We invoke them sometimes as well, in need. But for the little things, the day-to-day things, we call upon the year-gods.” She laughed again. “I would be embarrassed to constantly plague my ancestors with requests, calling upon them when I misplace my keys or crack a claw. And to call upon a great beast for such a thing would be most unwise.”
Shane’s brain was a whirl of gods and beasts. He shook his head to clear it. “Do you have paladins of your gods? Or priests?”
“Priests, yes,” Silver said. “And warriors dedicated to the year-god, which I think are the closest we come to your paladins. Some simply dedicate themselves to the next god, year after year, but there are many who find that they are called at the beginning of a year to serve that god only, and not Their successor. But this is all neither here nor there.” She leaned forward, tapping her claws on the desk again, her eyes bright and interested. And I notice that she is no longer growling her words, and her speech is flowing much more eloquently. Is the growling part of her act to seem more dog-like, and thus more harmless, in this palace full of knives?
“Our gods die in their appointed times. Not like you, my paladin friend, and your Saint of Steel.”
Shane knew he didn’t quite conceal his surprise. “Did the note tell you?” he asked.
“No.” She flattened her ears apologetically. “I guessed. You bear a sword and a note asking for information about gods dying. You ask specifically about paladins. And I have read of a human god dying an untimely death, and what became of His champions.”
“Yes, of course,” Shane said. One hand rose involuntarily to his sternum, rubbing absently at the spot that had once held a god’s fire. “I suppose it was obvious.”
“Not so obvious,” Lady Silver assured him. “Not unless one had reason to suspect.” She made a wavering gesture with one hand that he could not quite interpret. “Still, I would be wary of talking about paladins, if you wish to keep it secret.”
“It’s not exactly a secret,” he said, “so much as just easier.” After the Saint had died, the place just under Shane’s heart had felt as if it were full of broken glass, slicing him whenever he breathed. Time did not heal all wounds, no matter what the proverb said, but it had scarred over at last. Now it was simply a numb place in his chest that ached occasionally, and a memory of glory—until the black tide rose and swept him away.
The black tide was the reason that the surviving paladins were treated like barely tame animals, as if they might turn and bite at any moment. In Shane’s case, that was unlikely, but still, it was easier if people did not know. “It grows wearisome,” he said, half to himself, “to always be treated like a wild animal.”
Lady Silver laughed. It took him a moment to recognize it as laughter and not as a sneezing fit, but something about the position of her ears gave it away. “Oh yes,” she said, “it grows wearisome indeed!”
The tips of his own ears grew hot with embarrassment. “Forgive me,” he said, “that was very rude of me. I did not mean to imply—”
“Bah.” She cut him off with a waved hand. “You had the right of it. And it is not so hard these days. I am like a tame bear to many of your people, a beast that walks upright and dances and does clever tricks. No one fears the dancing bear. In the early days, when I was not such a fixture here, there was much fear, as if I might suddenly drop to all fours and devour the servants without sauce.”
Shane nodded. “The paladins—my brothers and sisters who survived the Saint’s death—so many people watched us as if we might run mad and kill everything that moved.” Honesty compelled him to add, “Though they had reason, unlike with you. Many of us did, when the Saint died.” Shane himself, with his brother Stephen, had attacked the paladins of the Dreaming God that they had been escorting, and only the fact that they had been half-blind with pain and confusion had allowed the others to survive. And if Istvhan had not simply passed out, I suspect that tale would have a very different ending.
“That was a hard year,” said Lady Silver gently.
“Perhaps the god of that year was cruel.”
He was half joking, but she took him seriously. “No, no. The year-god did not do that, friend Shane. The world did it, and Second Waking put herself between us and the world.” She studied him intently, her great golden eyes unblinking as a cat’s. “There were many hard things that year, and she turned aside as many as she could, and blunted the rest. Our gods are a little like you paladins, I think. The ones who fight for us.”
Shane bowed his head, feeling oddly humbled.
Lady Silver took up a pen and began to write. Shane waited, listening to the scratch of pen on parchment. “I do not know how your god was killed,” she said, when she had finished and sat waiting for the ink to dry. “Or what did so, or why.”
“Killed?” Shane asked, startled. “What do you mean, killed?”
Lady Silver’s nostrils flared. “But of course, killed. Your god did not simply die, paladin, or none of you would be as you are. I have been the servant of a year, and when She died, She slipped out of my soul as kindly as She had come. She did not tear a bloody wound as your god did to you.”
“Perhaps your god was less cruel,” said Shane, and stopped, shocked by the bitterness in his voice.
“There are many gods that seem cruel to us, who cannot know what They know, and no doubt a few who truly are. But I cannot believe that a god who loved His followers as your Saint must have loved you would have chosen to leave you as He did. No, this was as shocking to Him as it was to you, I expect. And since gods do not fall down the stairs or choke on fishbones…” She spread her hands.
Shane hardly knew what to say in response. Could this be true? In the first days, I know we lashed out because we thought that our god was taken from us, but that was just the pain, wasn’t it? And I know the Temple did their best, but they couldn’t turn up anything. We were so busy surviving afterwards that we didn’t think about it until Piper laid hands on the altar and felt…something.
“You seem surprised,” said Lady Silver gently.
“I think we’d somehow all agreed that we’d probably never know what happened,” Shane admitted. “It was too big and it didn’t seem to involve mortals at all. If another god had killed the Saint, we couldn’t do anything about it.”
But Lady Silver was already shaking her head. “For a god to kill another god is a natural death, of sorts. At least, if one is a god. There are many legends of such things. This was something else. There are stories of heroes with weapons that could slay a god, but that sends a shockwave around the earth, and this did not.”
The shockwave it sent through us was quite enough, I suppose. And what would I do if I found out that it was another god? Take up one of these god-slaying weapons in revenge?
He was very afraid that the answer was yes. Not for the Saint of Steel, precisely, but for His chosen, who had suffered and died alongside their god.
“How could a mortal kill a god, without a god-slaying weapon?” he asked.
Lady Silver’s eyebrows—or the patches of fur that served as eyebrows—went up. “You think like a warrior,” she said. “Think like a courtier instead. How would you kill someone, if you had no blade? If you were weak and they were strong?”
Shane frowned. “Poison,” he said finally. “Accident. You say that gods don’t fall down the stairs, but can you push a god off a cliff?”
Lady Silver flicked her ears, amused. “I don’t believe that’s ever been tried.” She looked down at the letter before her, then folded it and handed it to him. “For your Bishop. I do not know exactly how it was done, but someone or something killed your Saint. My own meager archives—” she waved her hand at the shelves of books “—contain nothing but hints. You will require a more specialized library for that.” She nodded to the letter. “I have listed those that I believe might contain more.”
Shane tucked the letter away, and Lady Silver rose to escort him out. “It is an interrresting puzzle,” she said, and he guessed by the growling trill that she had remembered to reassume her accent. No one fears the dancing bear. He wondered if she realized that he’d noticed. Probably. I do not think Lady Silver misses many things. I wonder how old she is? He had no way of knowing. She might have been half his age or a dozen years his senior, even assuming that her race lived the same span as a human would.
“One thing…” Shane paused, one hand on the door. “The weapons that could kill a god. Has anyone ever slain a year-god that way?”
A shiver ran through Lady Silver’s great ears. “Once, long ago. The year outside a year.”
“What happened?”
“For seven months, there was no one to stand between us and the world. Floods came, and famine. Many, many died. It broke the great cycle, and the next god was declared First Enduring and began a new one.”
“Oh.” I’m sorry I asked.
The cynocephalic’s eyes were brooding. “That is why it is important to learn these things. If someone can go about killing gods, what hope is there for mortals?”
She shut the door before Shane could think of an answer for that, assuming one existed at all.
Wren was still awake when he returned. Part of him noticed this in a detached fashion—of course she stayed awake, someone should be on guard when one of us is out—but the rest of his brain was a whirl of dead gods, dead priests, and dead years. He dropped into his chair and stared blindly at the ceiling.
“You look like you just took a board to the back of the head.”
“That’s about how I feel.”
Wren considered this, then said, cautiously, “Romantic evening go badly?”
It was such a completely wrong guess that it startled a crack of laughter out of him. “Oh gods and saints! I only wish!” Haltingly, he spelled out the details about Lady Silver, Beartongue’s message, and what the scholar had said. Wren’s eyes got rounder and rounder as he talked, until she looked like a small, muscular owl.
He finally ran out of words. A minute later, Wren said, in a small voice, “Whoa.”
Shane wanted to laugh again, or weep, or both. He put his face in his hands. “What do we do if it’s true?”
Fabric rustled and he felt Wren put an arm around his shoulders in a tight hug. “Do we need to do anything? Isn’t this all…I don’t know…god stuff?”
His laugh wasn’t entirely humorless. “God stuff. I don’t know. Maybe. Wouldn’t we want revenge?”
Wren was silent for so long that he wasn’t sure that she was going to answer at all. “I don’t know,” she said finally. “Are humans supposed to avenge gods? That seems like something a priest would know better than I would.”
“All our priests are dead,” said Shane wearily, dropping his hands. “Maybe they’re the ones we need to avenge.”
Since she was sitting on the arm of the chair, he couldn’t see her face, but he felt Wren go very still. He recognized the flavor of that stillness all too well. The black tide inside him tried to rise in response, and he pushed it back. “Wren.”
“I’d avenge you,” said Wren, her voice too cold and calm. “All of you who had your god torn away.”
He wanted to point out that she’d lost the god as well, but he understood too clearly what she meant. It was not in either of their natures to avenge a slight against themselves, only against others. Besides, at the moment, that was not what was important.
“Wren,” he said again, and put some steel into it. “Wren, step back from it.”
She inhaled slowly, let it out again. The air around her was as charged and prickly as a thunderstorm.
“Wren.”
“Right,” she said. He felt the tension ease and then she drew away. “It’s okay. I’m okay. Sorry. Didn’t mean to…well. Sorry.”
“It’s all right.”
Wren rubbed her fingertips together, looking vaguely embarrassed. “I guess maybe we should ask a priest. Maybe Beartongue.”
Shane snorted. “Beartongue’s probably got three contingency plans in place already.”
“Probably. We just swing the swords.” She stared into the fire. “Thanks.”
“Of course.”
Orange firelight licked the side of her face when she smiled ruefully. “I’m glad you’re here,” she admitted. “You specifically, I mean. Not just one of us.”
“I keep thinking someone else would do it better. Istvhan, maybe.”
Wren rolled her eyes. “Oh sure, but what if they’d sent Galen along? Can you imagine? He’d make the wrong joke to the wrong person and then pull it all down around their ears.”
Shane chuckled. “It’d be spectacular, though.”
“Oh yes. We’d all stand on the sidelines and applaud the style with which the battlements came crashing down.” Wren shook her head. “Right. I’m going to bed. Some things are above my paygrade.”
Shane banked the fire and sought his own bed. His head still felt uncomfortably full, but Wren was right. Some things were simply too large for a single paladin to deal with. I’ll put it to the priests, he told himself, and whatever they tell us to do, we’ll do. It’s just easier that way for everybody.