Full Fathom Five (45 page)

But once the furor faded, Kai still stayed away. One morning, after a long meeting with their defense team, she searched her reflection in the mirror and realized she was looking for excuses. There had been enough of those already.

So she descended Southern, walking easily now without her cane. Sea wind blew in her face and smelled, for the first time in a long while, fresh. The ocean lay like a blue razor against the throat of the sky. She tried to enjoy the walk.

The Rest was deserted as usual come morning, empty chairs on empty tables, the bar cabinet locked and warded. She climbed onto a table and pulled down the ladder that led to Mako’s loft.

Sunlight shafted through the thatch roof to dapple the bare wood floor. The low cramped space smelled of dust and paper and palm. She’d not been up here in years, since the old man invited her as a teenager to read. Shelves still lined the loft’s mountain-facing gable, packed with university press chapbooks and other, older volumes—bark-covered codices with slats of wood for pages, oracle bones from the Shining Empire, books chisel-etched on the pates of skulls, Kormish mercenaries’ battle-poems notched in the sticks they wove into their beards.

Mako slept in a nest of blankets on a straw bed by the open seaward gable.

Kai sat, and watched him.

The old man stirred. Groaned. He mumbled to himself in a language Kai barely recognized as Old Skeld, with strange overtones that raised the thin hairs on the back of her arm. He twisted on the bed. Joints cracked and popped.

Then he lay still.

“Who’s there?” he said after a while.

“That,” Kai responded, “is what I want to know.”

“Kai.”

“Yes.”

He sat up, and turned toward her voice. Her memory tried to paint his silhouette with details, the cragged scarred face and broken fingers and slumped shoulders and slight hunch. She did not let it. She saw only an outline, and a shadow, and within that shadow, maybe, deep down, a fire.

“I thought you’d come sooner,” he said, “or not at all.”

“How did you free me from that Penitent, Mako?”

“I helped build them,” he said. “Before we left, back in the Wars. I didn’t know I could open them. I’d never tried. But when the girl told me you’d been captured, I thought, might as well.”

“And why did they let you go?”

He shrugged. “They recognize me. They know what I gave for this island. They know I’m no threat.”

“That’s a fine story,” she said.

He nodded.

“But it doesn’t explain the beetle.”

He waited.

“You remember. The beetle, from when we were talking on the shore. Little sand-colored monster. Seven legs. Climbed out of the beach where you spit. Tons of them now, all over. They’re calling it an invasive species. I went to the library; I wrote to the Hidden Schools. Turns out the species isn’t invading from anywhere. It’s new. Just showed up one afternoon. And I think I know which one.”

“What are you asking?” His voice didn’t sound old at all. Not young, either: timeless, like a rock speaking.

“What happened to you?”

“War.” The word cut in his mouth, and in her ears. “What do you think?”

“Tell me.”

“We fought south of the Shining Empire, in the islands off Kho Khatang. They needed gods and priests who knew boats and islands and water. I took to the skies as a bird of flame, and our warriors clogged the channels. Craftsmen rode in on dragonback, and demon chariots that trailed lightning. Clinging fire fell. They poisoned the land and sea. They poisoned time. The Carrion Queen and the Blade Child caught me in the sky, and our battle burned. Unlucky travelers who visit the delta at night see echoes of our struggle, and go mad.” He breathed, ragged. “We died. All of us but me. And I woke blind and broken.”

“The fleet.”

“Lost. Except for this body.” He raised his hands, and let them fall. They struck his legs with a sound at once soft and thunderous. “And that was my war. Our war. It took me two decades to dare return, and when I did, I found the island changed. The pool filled with foreign idols. The streets patrolled by Penitents with people trapped inside them, when I had meant them as a tool for priests to use in our defense.”

“And you did nothing.”

“No.” A sudden breath of wind, like a storm front breaking, shoved her back. The wind stopped, and he sagged. “Not nothing. But less.”

“You could have stopped us. Helped us.”

“It wasn’t my place to speak, to claim to know what was best. I tried that before. You see? My sisters and I, we knew that if the Craftsmen won, they’d destroy the world—next century, if not this one. The power they wield’s too great, and human minds are weak, and hungry. Sensible decisions lead to sensible decisions and before long the land lies barren. So we did what we thought was right, and we died for it, and we dragged our children along to die with us. A generation sacrificed in a single battle. That was our legacy. Mine. Can you blame me for thinking the island deserved a new path?”

She didn’t answer.

“I tried to help, much as I could. To point you in the right direction. To nurture art, and care for artists, and tell the truth to those that hear.”

“Does Eve know?”

“She understands.”

“You left us. And while you were gone, we did horrible things.”

“You’re talking about the Penitents.”

“Yes.”

“You think there was a time where we didn’t do horrible things?” He shook his head. “It’s always happened. And not everyone inside those statues is innocent.”

“People are poor or sick or angry or desperate and they do things we don’t like, and then we hurt them for it until they agree with us, with all our bad choices.”

“What would you have had me do?”

“I don’t know. Fix it.”

“Fix what?”

“Everything.”

“Even gods can’t fix everything. And I’m not a god anymore. A ghost stuck in dying flesh, that’s all.”

“You could have helped us.”

“I did. I saved you. And I helped you save Kavekana. Guiding it through a difficult future—that’s not my place anymore.”

“You abandoned us.”

A weight settled on her: the pressure of his mind, or his sorrow. “I let you grow,” he said. “In the end, that’s all a father can do.”

She stood. “I need to think.”

“I’ve always been proud of you, Kai,” he said as she retreated to the hole in the floor, to the light. “More proud than of myself.”

“I’ll see you later,” was all she could say in response, and “I’m sorry.”

She descended the ladder, and stood in the empty bar, blinking something sharp out of her eyes and telling herself it was only sunlight.

She walked home, alone.

*   *   *

Mara waited on Kai’s front porch swing. She wore a dress the color of sunrise before a storm. She’d picked one of the sunflowers that grew outside the fence, and stared into its black core the way Kai’d seen actors stare into skulls’ faces onstage. She looked up as Kai approached, and smiled.

“Hi.” The gate hinge creaked, and the latch didn’t shut at first attempt. Kai had to turn back and force it closed.

“Hi.”

“I have to buy better wards for this house. People keep coming and going without my say-so.”

“You left it open, I think.”

“Yeah,” she said. “Probably.” And: “It’s good to see you.”

“And you.”

“I didn’t think they’d let you out of the hospital yet.”

“I’m done with people who want to keep me in a box.”

“I hear that,” Kai said, and walked up to the porch and sat beside her on the swing. The chain creaked under her weight. They rocked, together. Kai kept her feet on the floor. Mara kicked hers out and let them sway with each rock, forward and back. “I’m sorry,” Kai said at last. “I stumbled into your plan and fucked it up.” She said nothing. “If not for me, you would have given Ms. Kevarian what she needed, Jace wouldn’t have found out, and neither of us would have been stuck inside those things. If it wasn’t for me, Claude wouldn’t have told Jace about the poet, and you wouldn’t have been forced to kill him. Everything I tried to do hurt someone. Even in the end, I almost killed us all.”

“If not for you, I wouldn’t have learned what Jace was doing. He convinced me the first time around. Made me forget myself. Talked me into a corner. I wouldn’t have changed my mind if you hadn’t jumped, if I hadn’t seen what jumping cost. If I didn’t ask myself why I wasn’t as brave as you. You pushed me. You always have.”

“I wasn’t brave. I didn’t know what was going on. Sometimes I almost wish I hadn’t tried to save her.”

“Don’t say that.”

“I’m sorry, is all.”

“That you said already. And you didn’t need to say it in the first place.” There was a kind of music to her voice, Kai realized, that she’d never heard before, from gods or anyone.

“I was thinking about what happens now,” Kai said.

Mara didn’t respond.

“I look around and I see nothing but problems. That goddess’s growing inside the pool. What happens when she learns to speak, not just to the kids dockside, but to everyone? And the Penitents.”

“What about them?”

“I don’t know anymore,” Kai said. “This is a strange world, and we’re alone in it.”

“It is strange.” Mara smiled, and took her hand. “Worse than strange. But we’re not alone.”

*   *   *

Izza met Kai at sunset, on a barren stretch of eastern shore. The island ended here in a sharp twenty-meter cliff, and a lava arch leapt smooth as a diver’s arc from that cliff into the crashing sea.

The coastal road ran long and straight and lonely north. Kai’s carriage stopped, and Izza watched her pay the horse and pick her way downhill over jagged rocks. She stumbled, and swore, and Izza laughed. “Watch your step!”

Even in the fast-fading twilight she had no trouble reading Kai’s murderous stare.

“Never thought I’d miss the damn cane,” Kai said when she reached Izza. She slid her foot from her shoe, picked up the shoe, and dug out a piece of gravel with her finger. “You’ve been well?”

“Yes,” she said. “Busy.”

“Tell me about it. The Craftsmen alone in the last few weeks have been murderous.”

“Not really.”

“No,” she said, suddenly sober.

“We’re telling the stories,” Izza said. “Quietly for now. But people listen. And the kids know our gods won’t go away again. Smiling Jack is dead.”

“What happens next?”

“Next?” She shrugged. “I guess it depends on what we do here.”

Kai stared out into the ocean, then turned back to Kavekana’ai. Sunset clad the mountain’s lower slopes in red and gold, and the peak bristled with lightning and aurora as Craftsmen continued their dark work within. “This is the easy part,” she said. “Working with people on the margins. The priests will take longer. And, gods, imagine what will happen when the rest of the world finds out the market’s come alive—even our little piece of it. I haven’t found an edge to the Lady yet, you know. She’s wound all around the world. They’ll try to burn us off the map.”

“Maybe,” Izza said. “Maybe not. The mainland gods and Deathless Kings won’t mind that their subjects have one less place to hide. Alt Coulumb’s on our side, because of Seril. Iskar will want to help us, because they think we’re more useful to them as a god-fearing island than as a protectorate of the Deathless Kings. I hope. Though, yeah, maybe they’ll just kill us all.” She glanced over at Kai. “Why are you smiling?”

“You said ’us.’ Meaning Kavekana.”

Izza stuffed her hands in her pockets. “Anyway, what’s the worst your clients could do? The Lady already owns their souls.” She grinned. “You could look at this as the biggest theft in history. We stole an entire island.”

“If we can keep it.”

“Right.”

Waves crashed against the cliffs beneath. The sun sank, and stars emerged. Over the swell of East Claw, the city glowed; off to the north, on the long barren coast, the lights of leeward golf resorts blinked on. And still the Craftwork beacon burned on Kavekana’ai.

Kai laughed.

“What’s so funny?”

“There were all these prophecies,” she said, “about the gods’ return. Unnatural ships would come over the sea, bearing the world’s wealth. Our greatest poets would sing on the seashore before Makawe. Kavekana’ai would be crowned with light. And they’ve all come true, and nobody realized.”

“Guess that’s the way with prophecies,” Izza said.

“Guess so.”

Neither of them spoke for a long time.

“You’re sure this is the right one?” Izza said, and pointed to the Penitent by their side. It stood alone on the cliff’s edge, staring impassively into the night and ocean.

“Sure as I can be,” Kai said. “The Watch keeps good records, and I asked nicely.”

“They sent her out here, to the end of the earth.”

“Not at first,” Kai said. “She was on patrol in the city for a while. New catches spend their first few nights on the Ridge, then a season on patrol. If they don’t take to police work, they stand sentinel again—time to stare at the ocean and think as the voice sets in.”

Izza walked to the Penitent. She tensed as she drew close, old terrors engrained on muscle and bone. When she was near enough, she touched the statue. The stone was warm. She thought she felt a tremor there.

“Hi, Sophie,” she said.

The wind whistled and the waves rolled and no birds sang.

Kai approached behind her. “How long has she been in there?”

“A year.”

“Gods.” Kai let the word out on a breath. “She’s not herself anymore.”

“Not yet,” Izza said. “That’s why I’m here.”

And she opened her eyes, and let go.

When Cat took on the mantle of her goddess, she shone with the ecstasy of light, a leaf borne on a torrent. Izza’d expected the same sensation, and was surprised at how gentle the goddess felt. She was that same leaf trembling dead on a branch as a strong steady wind blew—and when she released her tenuous hold, the wind bore her up, and she flew into night on the strength of a single yes.

She did not shine. The world did: became a web of webs, interlaced and ever changing. Even the mountain spoke, even the stone, though slowly.

The statue before her was a web, too: an orb woven around and through the girl at its center, touching nothing but her, complete in itself, scornful of surrounding transformations.