GARTH NIX
It was a year ago, or slightly more, as I recall. I was coming back from Orthaon, I had been there to discuss the printing works at the original monastery, they had a very old press and, though it worked well enough, it had been designed to be driven by slaves, and since the most recent emancipation a number of the mechanical encouraging elements needed to be removed, quite a difficult task as the original drawings for the machine were long lost and some parts of it were very obscure.
What? Oh no, I was not present as a mechanician, I was there to write an account of the reworking, I thought it might prove to be of some interest, for one of the city gazettes, or perhaps as a selection in a book that I have begun, observations of curious machines, sorceries, and the like.
You might yourself make an interesting dozen pages, Master Puppet. I have heard of you, of course. Read about you, too, unless I miss my guess. That is to say, I have read about a certain sorcerous puppet who bears a striking similarity, in the works of Rorgulet and in Prysme’s Annals—oh, of course, Sir Hereward, you would rate at least as many pages, I should think. But you desire discretion, and I respect that. No, no, I will be discreet, I do not write about everything. Yes, I am aware of the likely consequences, so there is no need for that, good knight … please, allow me to withdraw my throat a little from that … it looks exceedingly sharp. Really? Every morning, without fail, one hundred times each side, and then the strop? I had no idea. I do not treat my razor so well, though perhaps it gets less shall we say … use … no, no, I am getting on with it. Have patience. You should know that I am not a man who can be spurred by threats.
As I said I was coming back from Orthaon, traveling on the Scheduled Unstoppable Cartway, in the third carriage, as I do not like the smell of the mokleks. Speaking of razors, what a job it must be to shave a moklek, though I have heard it said it is required only once, and the handlers rub in a grease that inhibits the regrowth. Done at the same time as the unkindest cut of all, though nothing needed there to prevent the regrowth, of course. It is interesting that the wild mammoths treat the occasional escaped moklek well, as if it were a cousin who had fallen on unfortunate circumstances. Better than many of us treat our cousins, as I can attest.
Yes. I was on the cartway, in the third carriage, through choice, not primarily through lack of funds, though it is true both fare and luxury reduce from the front. We had stopped, as is common, despite the name of the conveyance. My compartment was empty, save for myself, and though the afternoon light was dim, I had been correcting some pages that the dunderheaded typesetter of the Regulshim Trumpet-Zwound had messed up, a piece on the recent trouble with the nephew of the Archimandrite of Fulwek and his attempt to … ouch!
I told you I need no such encouragement, and it would have been a very short digression. You might even have learned something. As I was saying, the light suddenly grew much brighter. I thought the sun had come out from behind the skulking clouds that had bedeviled us all day, but in fact it was a lesser and much closer source of illumination, a veritable glow that came from the face of a remarkably beautiful woman who had stepped up to the door of my compartment and was looking in through the window. A very good window; they know how to make a fine glass in Orthaon, no bubbles or obscuration, so I saw her clear.
“Pray stay there, for a moment!” I called out, because the light was extremely helpful, and the proofs were such a mess and set quite small, and there was this one footnote I couldn’t quite read. But she ignored me, opening the door and entering the compartment. Rather annoyingly, she also dimmed the radiance that emitted not only from her beautiful face, but from her exposed skin. Of which there was quite a lot, as she was clad only in the silken garment that is called a rhuskin in these regions, but is also known as a coob-jam or attanousse, I am sure you know it, a very long, broad piece of silk wound around the breast and tied at the front and back so that the trailing pieces provide a form of open tabard covering the nethers, save when a wind blows or the wearer attempts a sudden movement, as in entering the compartment of a carriage on the Scheduled Unstoppable Cartway.
She had very fine legs. I may have admired them for a moment or two, before she interrupted the direction of my thoughts, which I must confess were running along the lines of the two of us being alone in the compartment, and the interior blinds, which could be drawn, and why such a beautiful, shining woman would intrude upon my compartment in particular, even though of course it is not entirely unusual that beautiful women throw themselves upon … why do you chuckle, Sir Knight? Not all women favor height and splendid mustaches, and the obvious phallic overcompensation and fascination with swords … and yes, daggers like that one, which I do not want thrust through my hand, thank you. This hand that has written a hundred … well, ninety books … and has many more to write! Thank you, Master Puppet. I would be grateful if you could keep your … your comrade contained.
So. She was in the compartment, beautiful, illuminated, and semi-naked. Obviously a sorceress of some kind, I presumed, or a priestess, perhaps of Daje-Onkh-Arboth, they tend to be lit up in a similar fashion. I had no idea then what she actually was, you understand.
She smiled at me, winked, and sat down on the cushions opposite.
“Tell them you haven’t seen me, and put me in your pocket,” she said, very sultry and promising. “It shall be to your advantage.”
“Tell who—” I started to ask, but she shrank away before my very eyes, and in a matter of moments there was no longer a shining woman on the cushion, but a small figurine of jade, or some similar greenstone, no taller than my thumb. Now, as you can plainly see, I am a man of the world who has seen a great deal more than most, but never anything like that. I picked up the figure, and was further surprised to find it very cold, as cold as a scoop of ice from the coolth-vendors you may have seen along the street here, offering their wares to chill a drink or a feversome brow.
I put her in my pocket, the deep inner one of my outer coat, where I keep a selection of pencils, an inkstone, and other odds and ends of the writer’s trade. It was none too soon, for there was a commotion outside only a few seconds later, with a great clattering of armor and the usual unnecessary shouting of military folk, the roar of battle mounts and the like, all of which I understood immediately to be the sudden arrival of some force bent on intercepting the conveyance, which meant more stopping and greater delay. I was not pleased, I tell you, and even less so when two rude troopers flung open the compartment door, waved a pistol and a sword in my face, and by means of emphatic gestures and strange, throat-deep grunts, demanded that I alight.
Naturally, I refused, pointing out to them that there were numerous treaties guaranteeing the inviolate nature of the Unstoppable Cartway, and that by interfering with it they were risking war with no less than three city-states, and the Kingdom of Aruth, admittedly a great distance away at the terminus, and not only these polities but also the parent company of the Cartway, which they might not know was the Exuberant Order of Holy Commerce, well known for its mercenary company business, in addition to its monopoly on Hrurian nutmeg, the original source of the order’s wealth, which by curious chance—
Your interruptions, sir, delay matters far more than my minor educational digressions. Yet I protest in vain, as in fact occurred with these other soldiers. After they had dragged me out quite forcibly, I ascertained that in fact they were deaf-mutes, directed solely by a sign language that I did not know, involving numerous finger flicks from their officer. This fellow, from his ill-fitting gun-metal cuirass and the crushed plumes of his helmet, was clearly more priest than soldier, the armor worn over robes of an aquamarine hue flecked with silver bristles, here and there showing silver buttons that were embossed with the heads of two women, one gazing left, the other right, and apparently sharing the same neck. I did not immediately recognize this outfit, but then there are many gods in the Tollukheem Valley, some with multiple orders of followers.
“Have you seen Her?” asked the officer, the capital “H” readily apparent in his speech.
“Who?” I asked.
“The Goddess,” said the officer. The capital “G” was also very evident.
“What goddess?”
“Our Goddess. Pikgnil-Yuddra the Radiant One.”
I must admit that upon hearing this description the jade figurine felt suddenly very much heavier in my pocket, and I felt a similar chill around my heart. But I gave no sign of this, nor of the slight unease that was beginning to spread in the region of my bowels.
“Am I to understand you have lost a goddess?” I said to the officer, with a yawn. “I am afraid I have never heard of your Pikgnil-Yuddra. Now, I trust you will not be delaying the Cartway for very long?”
“Pikgnil-Yuddra the Radiant,” corrected the officer, with a frown. “You are very ignorant, for our Goddess is the light that does not fail, the illuminatrix of the city of Shrivet, and verily for leagues and leagues about the city!”
“Shrivet … Shrivet … ” I pondered aloud. “But that is at least a hundred leagues from here. I take it the illumination does not extend that far? I believe here we fall under the aegis of the god of Therelle, the molerat-digger Gnawtish-Gnawtish?”
I made the molerat godlet up, of course, for my own amusement. That part of the world is so infested with little godlets that no one could know them all, and as the soldiers were from Shrivet, which was indeed a great distance away, they would have no clue.
“Other gods do not concern us,” said the officer. “Only our own. She must be here somewhere, we were only an hour at most behind her chariot.”
“Chariot?” I asked. I looked around, hoping to see it, for I was naturally curious about what style of chariot a luminous goddess might drive, and what manner of locomotion might propel it, or beasts draw it.
“Crashed half a league back,” said the officer. “But near the track of this … this … ”
He gestured at the carriages of the Cartway, and the ten mokleks harnessed in line, with their mahouts standing by their heads and the guards in the howdahs watching the temple soldiers search with surprising equanimity or possibly cowardice—certainly they had made no attempt to intervene. There were more guards by the rear carriage, and the conductor-major herself, but they were even more relaxed, offering wine to another priestly officer.
“It is called the Unstoppable Cartway,” I said. “Though clearly it is neither unstoppable nor do the mokleks draw carts, but luxurious carriages. I believe in its infancy, carts were drawn, carrying a regular cargo of foodstuffs from Durlal to Orthaon, and manufactured goods on the return—”
The officer was, as might have been expected, uninterested in learning more. He interrupted me most rudely.
“Have you seen the Goddess?”
“I don’t know,” I countered. “I am traveling alone in my compartment, a blessed luxury, but I confess I have looked out the window from time to time, and upon several occasions have seen women.”
“You would not mistake her for a mortal woman,” snapped the officer. “She is bright with virtue, her light constant, a shining star to guide correct behavior.”
“No, I can’t say I’ve seen anyone like that,” I said. By this point I had noticed that while everyone had been rousted from their compartments, there were no individual searches taking place and the general ambience had become more relaxed as the Goddess was not found within the carriages. There seemed only a small chance that the jade figurine would be found upon my person, and I must confess that I was intrigued by this search for a goddess, even more than I was interested in her physical charm.
“Does your Goddess regularly take … ah … unscheduled journeys?”
“Pikgnil-Yuddra the Radiant does not leave the city ever,” said the officer firmly. “Only Yuddra-Pikgnil the Darkness may leave the city.”
I confess that a slight frown may have moved across my brow at this point. Discussing godlets with their priests is often fraught with difficulty, and this search for a goddess who had not left, or who possibly had, but under a different name, was very much in keeping with the tradition of godlets who did not at all correspond to their priesthood’s teachings or texts.
“I’m not sure I follow,” I said. “You are searching a hundred leagues from Shrivet for a goddess who does not leave the city ever, and there is another goddess who does leave the city but you are not searching for her?”
“They are the twin Goddesses of Day and Night,” said the officer. “Pikgnil-Yuddra the Radiant may not leave the city, and Yuddra-Pikgnil the Darkness may not enter, save at certain festivals. A week ago, the temple was discovered to be empty, the warders slain, the bounds broken, and Pikgnil-Yuddra the Radiant was no longer housed there.”
“So it is Pikgnil-Yuddra the Radiant you are looking for?”
“We seek the Goddess in both aspects,” said the officer. “For it may be the doing of Yuddra-Pikgnil the Darkness that has unhoused Pikgnil-Yuddra the Radiant, in their eternal struggle for the souls of the people of our city.”
“I see,” I said, though to be accurate, the only thing I saw was yet another idiotic priest, a member of a hierarchy that was preserving their authority by drawing upon the power of an imprisoned extra-dimensional intrusion that had become anthropomorphized by long association with mortals. Yes, unlike the great majority of the deluded people who populate this world, I do not think of them as gods or godlets. Indeed, it has been theorized that should a mortal here be somehow introduced to some other plane of existence, there they too would have the powers and attributes seen here as godlike. But I speak to those who know far more than I, if indeed you are as I believe you to be, agents of that ancient treaty—ah, you are a barbarian, Sir Knight, to so interrupt civilized discourse in the interest of what you like to call the bare facts. I will continue.
Suffice to say that after some show of searching and questioning, the priestly soldiers departed and the Cartway continued. Shortly after the cries of the mahouts had ceased and the mokleks had stretched out to their full shamble, our conveyance traveling at a remarkable speed only slightly slower than a battlemount’s lope, I felt a stirring in my coat pocket. Reaching in, I withdrew the jade figurine and set it upon the seat at my side, whereupon a few moments later it once again became an alluring woman, or rather goddess, though this time she kept her radiance dimmed to the extent that she merely glowed with the luster one finds inside the better kind of oyster shell, one likely to provide a pearl.
“So, you are a runaway goddess, to wit, one Pikgnil-Yuddra the Radiant,” I said conversationally as she rearranged her rhuskin, not for modesty, I might add, but rather to show off those beautiful limbs to even greater advantage.
“Don’t be silly,” she said. “I am, of course, Yuddra-Pikgnil the Darkness. But you can call me Yuddra.”
“I am slightly confused,” I replied. “The priest-officer said that it was your, ahem, counterpart—”
“Sister,” corrected Yuddra. “You might say we are twins.”
“Your sister, then, who had become unhoused and traveling. Also, if you are the Darkness, why are you illuminated?”
“There is no difference between us,” replied Yuddra, stretching her arms up toward the padded ceiling—padded these last twelve years, I might add, since the unfortunate overturning of a carriage that was inhabited by the Prince-Incipient of Enthemo, resulting in his crown being forced down over his ears, the ceiling back then being considerably harder—a stretch that made me catch my breath, I confess. I reached out to her, and to my extreme disappointment, found my hand passing through the waist I had hoped to encircle, Yuddra proving no more substantial than a wisp of steam.
“There is no difference between us,” repeated Yuddra. “In fact, we have swapped roles many times over the past millennia. Sometimes I stay in the temple, sometimes Pikgnil does.”
“But now you are both wandering,” I said, essaying to lift her hand to plant a courteous kiss, but with the same result as my previous attempt. “Out of your temple, far from your power, and pursued by your priesthood. What has brought you to this pass?”
She smiled at me and leaned in close, with just as much effect as if she were normal flesh and blood, perhaps even more so, given that the tantalization of not being able to touch is well known as an erotic accentuator, one employed to great effect in the theater of … yes, yes, you know what I’m talking about, I’m sure, puppet excepted.
“Just such a matter as now concerns us both,” she said. “I am jade and air, and have always been so, save for brief periods of corporeality. My sister, as always, is the same, and both of us … want more.”
“So you are able to assume a fleshly form?” I asked, this being the chief part of her speech that I had taken in. “For some short time?”
“Yes,” said Yuddra. “But it is difficult. Pikgnil and I want to permanently assume mortal form, so that we may experience in full the experiences we have heretofore only … tasted.”
“What do you require to assume a mortal form?” I asked, being driven by curiosity as always. “For those short periods, I mean.”
“Blood,” said Yuddra, and smiled again, showing her delicate, finely pointed teeth. “Mortal blood. A few clavelins might grant me an hour, but where to find a willing donor? It must be given freely, you see.”
A clavelin? A small bottle, about so tall, so round, commonly used here for young wine. Not an excessive amount and, though I am no barber-surgeon, I knew that a man could lose more blood than that without fear of faintness.
“I should be happy to oblige Your Divinity,” I said. Long caution caused me to add, “Two clavelins of blood and no more, I can happily spare, and indeed I would welcome a charming and touchable companion to lessen the drear of this journey.”
She smiled again and agreed that such a diversion would be pleasant, that in fact a great part of her desire to assume a permanent mortal form was to engage in just such activities as I suggested, but on a more regular basis. I must confess that I had expected her to use those sharp teeth to draw my blood in the manner of those creatures some call the vampire, but rather she had me use my penknife to make a cut on my hand, and allow blood to drip into the saucer of one of the teacups provided by the Cartway, along with the samovar that had been bubbling away since Orthaon. As I let the drops of blood fall, Yuddra licked the liquid from the saucer, very daintily, after the fashion of a cat. As she consumed the blood, I saw her grow more corporeal, the pearly light fading and her skin becoming … real, I suppose, though still extraordinarily beautiful.
I shall draw the shades on the window of this retelling, as I drew the actual shades in the carriage. Suffice to say that time passed all too quickly, and far too soon I found her growing once again incorporeal, though there was a curious pleasure to be derived when she was neither truly there nor entirely not. I believe she also found the time well spent, Sir Knight, so you can wipe that small smirk from your face. I have studied the works of the great lover Hiristo of Glaucus, and practiced much therein, up to page one hundred and seventy-seven, and there is a young widow who resides near me who has agreed that we shall together essay the matter of pages one hundred and seventy-eight to eighty-four—
Yes! I am getting on with it. The blinds were drawn up, the Goddess sat opposite, the sun shone in, and we had got another dozen leagues closer to Durlal. I made a cup of tea, the black leaf from the Kaz coast, not the green from Jinqu, and made further inquiries of Yuddra, if indeed she was that sister.
“So you wish to no longer be a goddess, but to become permanently mortal?”
“I do,” said Yuddra, eyeing my steaming cup of tea with a wolfish, hungry look. “I have not, for example, ever tasted that drink you have. There are so many tastes, so many experiences that are beyond the purely energistic to savor, as I would do!”
“But tell me, how is it that you will become mortal?” I asked. “Surely not by the imbibing of blood, for if two clavelins amounts to but an hour, then the supply required to maintain corporeality would be … monstrous, and not likely to be freely given.”
She laughed and tossed her head back.
“Pikgnil has found a way, or so she said in her last missive. I am to meet her at Halleck’s Cross, and then we are to make our way to … but perhaps I should not tell you, for despite our embraces, I fear you are not entirely sympathetic to my cause.”
There she glanced at the ring I wear, which, as you see, shows the sign of the compass, the mark of my order. I was a little surprised that she should be so worldly as to recognize the sign, and beyond that, have some understanding of the strictures, yet only a little, else she would have understood that I would have no wish to stand in the way of a god who desired mortality, believing as I do that we mortals must be paramount over gods, that it is our works that will endure, when the last godlet is thrust back to whence it came. I believe this is a more extreme view than you share yourselves, for I understand you have fooled yourselves with definitions, gods deemed beneficial or trivial, and gods malevolent and harmful, to be destroyed or banished. We consider them all a pest, to be gotten rid of at any opportunity. Though use may be made of them first, of course.
“It is true I do not care for gods,” I told her. “But as you wish to become mortal, I shall consider you a mortal and not my enemy. Provided your aim does not require the desanguination of many people by trickery, for example.”
“No, it does not involve blood,” said Yuddra. She shifted near the window, and looked out. “I think we near Halleck’s Cross and here I must leave you. Please, do not speak of our tryst, indeed even of our meeting, for we must remain free of the temple, and they have many spies and paid informants.”
“I will not speak of it, nor write of it,” I said. “I hope that one day we might meet again, when you are but a mortal woman and not a fleeing goddess. Should you wish to, my house in Durlal is easily found, it has a roof of yellow tiles, the only such in the street of the Waterbear.”
There is little more to tell of that first encounter. As we drew up at Halleck’s Cross, she turned once more into that cold jade figurine and, at her instruction, I carried her from the platform and across the street, depositing her in the branches of the ancient harkamon tree that marks some ancient battle. I turned back after I crossed the street, and saw a cloaked and hooded figure swoop upon the tree, take up the figurine, and be gone, a person that though shrouded, I reckoned to be the sister goddess.
And that, I presumed, was that. A curious encounter, a brief and no less curious tryst, and an odd tale that I had promised not to tell. I had work to do, pages to be corrected, stories to be written. I soon forgot Pikgnil-Yuddra the Radiant and Yuddra-Pikgnil the Darkness, save in some half-remembered dreams, in which the two of them happened to come by … ah … such dreams are sweet, though sadly oft ill-remembered …
Please! I continue. Yes, I did see the Goddess again, as I am sure you know or you would not be here, taking up time I had allocated to write a denunciation of the guild of parodists’ most recent stupidity. I saw her a few days ago I think … What? It is not easy to be exact when one works as much at night as in the day. Very well, it was last night, but already this one is almost at the dawn, so it is not so far to say two days ago.
I was working here, in my study, sitting in this very chair. I heard a faint knock at that door, though no visitor had been announced and indeed my goblin had long gone to bed and so would not have answered the front door in any case. Having some respectable number of enemies, I took up the pistol from the drawer, that same pistol you have confiscated, Sir Knight, though I know not the reason, any more than you should take my paper knife, for all it looks like a dagger. I assure you the sharpness is required to swiftly slit a signature of this rough paper I use for notes, that my neighborly printer sells me very cheap as being offcuts and remainders. A blunt knife will tear and rip, and is no use at all.
“Come in,” I called out, my voice steady, for all that my finger was upon the trigger and my heart beat a little more rapidly than was usual.
The door opened slowly, and a bent figure entered, to all appearances some aged crone, so covered in shawls and scarves that I could not make out a face at all, until she shuffled closer and straightened, so that the light of my lamp fell upon her face. An aged and withered face, a woman twice my age or more but yet … there was something familiar there. Her eyes were bright, and younger, and I knew her.
It was Pikgnil-Yuddra, or her sister. No longer radiant, no longer young, rather greatly aged and very clearly mortal.
“You know me, then?” she croaked. Her voice still retained something of her former self, but her appearance astounded me. It was no more than a year since we had met on the Cartway.
“Yuddra-Pikgnil the Darkness,” I said quietly, but inside I felt a new excitement, for I suspected there was a story here such as few might ever hear, a story that having heard, I might then remake in writing and call my own.
“Yes. I was once Yuddra-Pikgnil the Darkness,” said the old woman, and creaking, she sat where you sit now, Sir Puppet, and set her bag, a shabby cloak-bag of boiled leather, upon the seat you occupy, Sir Knight. “And you once expressed a desire to see me again, and so I have come.”
I was a trifle alarmed by this, sensing some undercurrent of permanent residence being suggested, but that could be dealt with later, I felt. The important matter was the story, the story was the thing!
“But tell me, how have you come to be as you are now?” I asked. “What of your sister? Where did you go?”
“After Halleck’s Cross,” said the old woman. She looked past me as she spoke, her old eyes seeing things that were not there, at least not for me to see. “Where did we not go? It was my sister’s plan, she was the one who had thought upon it longest, and it was she who found the way. Not the blood drinking, for that would not answer, not for very long. If we could have drunk blood taken forcefully, that would have been a different road, and we did try that, when we were very young. But it did not work, and we could not discover why it did not work, save that it was a stricture of our making, when first we came.
“We tried other things, sought wisdom from sorcerers and priests, wizards and wise folk. None of them could help us. In the end it was Pikgnil who found the answer, a decade or more ago, when she was being me, outside the temple, wandering in search of how we might escape our godhood.
“There is a place far to the northwest, beyond Keriman and the Weary Hills, beyond even Fort Largin and the Rorgrim Fastness, up in the mountains beyond the Valley of the Hargrou, just below the peaks where the Diminished Folk dwell. A place called Verkil-na-Verekil, a ruined city, yet where some mortals still live, eking out their simple lives.
“Pikgnil had found an ancient text that spoke of Verkil-na-Verekil, of the city before it was ruined, of the king who ruled there, and of his crown. It was his crown that interested us, for the text spoke of its singular property, that it could make a man a god … or … ”
She smiled, her teeth no longer white and shining, but gray with age, and broken at the edges.
“Or make a god a man.
“It was a long way to Verkil-na-Verekil, a difficult way, for our powers were greatly reduced with every league we traveled from Shrivet, the locus of our extension from the otherworld. By the time we passed Rorgrim Fastness and began to climb into the mountains, I could not take the jade shape, and it took both of us together to conjure some little light. Worse than that, we were fading, our energistic presences weakening. It became doubtful that we could even reach Verkil-na-Verekil, it might be simply too far … but we resolved to press on. We did not know what would happen if we did overextend ourselves, whether our existence would be terminated, or the stretched energistic threads that led back to the temple would contract, and we would find ourselves once again imprisoned in Shrivet. By then, we did not fear termination and should we end up back in the temple, we would simply try again. So we pressed on.
“We did reach Verkil-na-Verekil in the end, albeit as thinly painted caricatures, little more than half-caught reflections in a mirror … which in some ways was helpful, for the people there were still loyal to ancient ideals, and guarded the ruins well, some of them armed with weapons that could slay even such as we were … yet thin as shadows, we slipped past them, and went deep into the ruins and there, in the deep of the mountain, yes, we did find the crown.”
She fell silent then, her eyes downcast, her ancient hands trembling with the import of what she told.
“Go on,” I said. “You found the crown … Did you put it on?”
“Pikgnil put it on,” whispered the old woman. “Even as she raised it to her head, I felt a presentiment of doom and the flash of a long-forgotten memory. I screamed at her to wait, but she would not wait.”
“It made her mortal?” I asked.
“Yes. It made her mortal, with the full weight of all our years,” said the woman who had been a god. “I saw her turn to flesh, and smile in triumph, and then the smile twisted, fear shone in her eyes as that flesh sank upon her bones, the smile became a rictus grin, and then she decayed before my eyes, turned to charnel meat and thence to bare, fleshless bones, and I felt the magic flow from the crown, and I too became mortal and my shadowed shape took flesh, and I remembered that long ago, when we first burst out upon this world, we were one, a single thing, and it was called Pikgnilyuddra, that only became two as the centuries passed and the priests wove stories that shaped us, the twins of day and night … and all of those thousands of years we had been upon this earth, all of them came pouring into me from the crown!
“I lunged forward and slapped the crown from the skull that wore it … saving some scant few years of life, but too late, for I am as you see me now. Mortal but ancient, too old for the simplest pleasures that I hoped to taste, too old even for those who guarded the crown to consider an enemy, so that they let me by, thinking me only a crazed old biddy of their own people. And so I came, in many weary steps and by weary ways, to Durlal. I remembered a scribbler, who I had some fondness for, and so here I am and here I would rest, before I go on to Shrivet and my rightful place.”
So there you have it. I gave her some supper, a bed, a cloak. In the morning I added some money to her purse, enough for the fifth carriage on the Cartway to Orthaon, and from there she would have an easy way to Shrivet.
That is all I can tell you. I suppose you would catch her easily if you took the next Cartway, she won’t have gotten far from Orthaon. I presume you do wish to catch her, that she must be … tidied up, the books made correct? Even if she is no longer a rogue goddess, but mortal, still your business, if as I presume your business is indeed the dispatch of such unhoused and irregular godlets?
Other business? What other business could we possibly have? I have told you everything. Yuddra was here, she left, she is no longer a god. I am a busy man, I have much to write, look at this desk—
The bag? Her bag? Yes, I did mention a bag, boiled leather, with bronze clasps. I have no idea what was … Why are you putting on those armbands? What does the writing on them mean? It is no text that I recognize. I do not like this, though you are guests in my house I think I shall leave, at once!
Ah, that hurt, and is quite unnecessary. Yes, I shall sit quietly, though I do not like your mumbling, it smacks of priestly doings and, as you know, I am by reason of principle opposed to priests and gods.
Mister Fitz, you unnerve me, as a puppet you are alarming enough, but if that is what I think it is, sorcery is forbidden within this precinct, and there is no need for it, none at all.
What are you doing, Sir Knight? That is a particularly ancient casket, most precious, where I store my old manuscripts, there is no occasion to open it and in any case I have lost the key. Though now I think of it, perhaps the key is in the pocket of my other coat, which I left at the Dawn-Greeter’s Club after some revels the other day. You know of the club, I’m sure, frequented by night workers, particularly printers and the like. I shall just slip over there and fetch my coat, and the key—
How now! There’s no need, you might have merely asked me to take my seat again. I shall not get the key, then, and so your curiosity about my old parchments and scribblings will not be answered. Why should I shield my eyes? I shall do no—
I see, or rather, I see with some difficulty. That was a most remarkably bright flash, Master Puppet. As I mentioned, that is … or was … a very ancient casket, and melting the lock off will have damaged its value considerably. I fear I must ask you to pay for it, a matter of at least ten, no a dozen, guilders of this city, none of your sham coin. And I must forbid you to ransack my papers … yes, I have laid an old cloak upon them to keep out the damp. I must suppose that the smell is from some vellum that has grown a noxious mold, or an inadequately scraped calfskin, I write upon various materials. I am in the middle of an important piece now as it happens, and so must require solitude to continue, please …
A corpse? An old woman’s corpse? I have no conception how that might have gotten there. You are playing some complex joke upon me, perhaps? I shall call for the Watch! Help! Help! Help! Heeeelp!
I presume from the lack of muffling, smothering, or other restraint that you have already paid off the Watch? Such foresight indicates men … a man and a puppet … attuned to pecuniary advantage. I have some wealth, and would happily pay a suitable sum so that this matter may remain confidential. Shall we say twenty guilders? No? Fifty, then? A hundred guilders! It is all that I have, take it and leave me …
The bag under her feet? With bronze clasps? As you can see, untouched by me. I didn’t kill her, she just died in her sleep, she was old. I put her in the casket for now, to avoid trouble. Her bag likewise, see, the crown is there. I hid it so that it could not be used by others who might be tempted!
What? Of course I didn’t wear the crown! How dare you make such a suggestion. I wear the compass, I am on the square. “Men before gods” is my creed. Such a crown is worthless to a true man. Take it, and go, and I shall not swear a complaint against you. It is against my beliefs, but I shall not stop another from becoming a god, clearly I cannot stop you in any case.
You do not want to become a god, Sir Knight? And you, Master Puppet, with your sorcerous needle, what are you doing? Yes, yes, this time I shall shield my eyes, but that crown is valuable in itself …
I should not have believed it if I had not seen it myself. To destroy such a beautiful thing, even though it be tainted with … with evil magic. But I presume that completes your business here. Allow me to show you to the door, and I trust that we shall not meet again.
Another needle, Master Puppet? What can you need with another needle? The crown is destroyed, the old goddess is dead, all is right with the world, or will be once I am finally left alone!
What? I told you I would never put on the crown. How can you see signs of … I don’t understand … energistic tendrils … unlawful protrusion of entities … it is all Khokidlian to me, pure nonsense, so upsetting in fact that I need a drink. I will fetch a bottle and we might share it as a stirrup cup for your departure … ah … that really did hurt and was quite, quite unnecessary. We are all friends here, are we not?
Yes, I confess, I am a curious fellow. I collect oddments, ancient jewelry, that sort of thing. Perhaps I did just touch the crown to my forehead, but nothing happened, nothing much, and anyway, how could you know? I tell you I am not a godlet, I am just a man, I will cause no trouble, I am just a—