The Kingdom of Gods (15 page)

“Nothing like it has been observed in the mortal realm, at least not within recorded history. The Litaria’s best scholars have confirmed this. We even consulted several of the friendlier godlings of the city; they weren’t able to explain it, either. If
you
don’t know —” He shut his mouth with an audible snap, in palpable frustration. He had plainly hoped I would have more answers.

I understood entirely. Sighing, I straightened. “I didn’t intend to hurt them. Nothing that happened makes any sense.”

“The children’s hands were bloody,” Shevir said, his tone neutral. “Both hands, cut in the same way, inflicted on each other to judge by the angles and depth. Some of my colleagues believed they may have attempted some sort of ritual. …”

I scowled. “The only ritual involved was one that children the world over have enacted to seal promises.” I lifted my hand, gazing at my own smooth, unscarred palms. “If
that
could cause what happened, there would be a great many dead children lying about.”

He spread his hands in that apologetic gesture again. “You must understand, we were desperate to come up with some explanation.”

I considered this and hoisted myself up onto the railing, reveling in the ability to kick my feet at last. This seemed to make Shevir very uncomfortable, probably because the drop into the atrium was far enough to kill a mortal. Then I remembered that I was becoming mortal, and with a heavy sigh, I dropped back to the floor.

“So you decided one of the children — Deka — had summoned me, annoyed me, and I blew them to the hells in retaliation.”

“
I
didn’t believe that.” Shevir grew sober. “But certain parties would not be put off, and ultimately Dekarta was sent to the Litaria. To learn better control of his innate talents, his mother announced.”

“Exile,” I said softly. “A punishment for getting Shahar hurt.”

“Yes.”

“What’s he like now? Deka.”

Shevir shook his head. “No one here has seen him since he
left, Lord Sieh. He doesn’t come home at holidays or vacation breaks. I’m told he’s doing well at the Litaria; ironically, he turned out to have a genuine talent for the art. But … well … rumor has it that he and Lady Shahar hate each other now.” I frowned, and Shevir shrugged. “I can’t say I blame him, really. Children don’t see things the way we do.”

I glanced at Shevir; he was lost in thought and hadn’t noticed the irony of talking about childhood to me. He was right, though. The gentle Deka I’d known would not have understood that he was being sent away for reasons that had very little to do with Shahar being injured. He would have drawn his own conclusions about why the friendship oath had gone wrong and why he’d been separated from his beloved sister. Self-blame would have been only the beginning.

But why had Remath even bothered exiling him? In the old days, the family had been quick to kill any member who’d transgressed in some way or another. They should have been even quicker with Deka, who broke the Arameri mold in so many ways.

Sighing heavily, I straightened and turned away from the atrium railing. “Nothing in Sky has ever made sense. I don’t know why I keep coming here, really. You’d think being trapped in this hell for centuries would’ve been enough for me.”

Shevir shrugged. “I can’t speak for gods, but any mortal who spends enough time in a place grows … acclimated. One’s sense of what is normal shifts, even if that place is filled with unpleasantness, until separation feels wrong.”

I frowned at this. Shevir caught my look and smiled. “Married seventeen years. Happily, I might add.”

“Oh.” This reminded me, perversely, of the previous night’s conversation with Shahar. “Tell me more about her,” I said.

I hadn’t specified the “her,” but of course Shevir was as good at parsing language as any scrivener. “Lady Shahar is very bright, very mature for her age, and very dedicated to her duties. I’ve heard most of the other fullbloods express confidence in her ability to rule after her mother —”

“No, no,” I said, scowling. “None of that. I want to know …” Suddenly I was uncertain. Why was I asking him about this? But I had to know. “About
her
. Who are her friends? How did she handle Deka’s exile? What do you think of her?”

At this flood of questions, Shevir raised his eyebrows. Suddenly I realized two horrifying things: first, that I was developing a dangerous attraction to Shahar, and second, that I had just revealed it.

“Ah … well … she’s very private,” Shevir began awkwardly.

It was too late, but I waved a hand and tried to repair the damage I’d done. “Never mind,” I said, grimacing. “These are mortal affairs, irrelevant. All I should concentrate on now is finding the cure for whatever’s happened to me.”

“Yes.” Shevir seemed relieved to change the subject. “Er, to that end … the reason I sought you out was to ask if you might be willing to provide some samples for us. My fellow scriveners — that is, of the palace contingent — thought we might share this information with the previts in Shadow and the Litaria.”

I frowned at this, unpleasantly recalling other First Scriveners and other examinations and other samples over the centuries. “To try and figure out what’s changed in me?”

“Yes. We have information on your, ah, prior tenure. …” He shook his head and finally stopped trying to be tactful. “When you were a slave here, immortal but trapped in mortal flesh. Your present state appears to be very different. I’d like to compare the two.”

I scowled. “Why? To tell me that I’m going to die? I know that already.”

“Determining
how
you’re turning mortal may give us some insight into what caused it,” he said, speaking briskly now that he was in his element. “And perhaps how to reverse it. I would never presume that mortal arts can surpass godly power, but every bit of knowledge we can gather might be useful.”

I sighed. “Very well. You’ll want my blood, I presume?” Mortals were forever after our blood.

“And anything else you would be willing to give. Hair, nail parings, a bit of flesh, saliva. I’ll want to record your current measurements, too — height and weight and so forth.”

I could not help growing curious at this. “How could that possibly matter?”

“Well, for one thing, you appear to be no more than sixteen years old to my eye. The same age as Lady Shahar and Lord Dekarta, now — but initially, I understand, you looked significantly older than both of them. Approximately ten years to their eight. If you had merely aged eight years in the intervening time —”

I caught my breath, understanding at last. I had grown up before, hundreds of times; I knew the pattern that my body normally followed. I should have been heavier, taller, more finished,
with a deeper voice. Eighteen years old, not sixteen. “Shahar and Dekarta,” I breathed. “My aging has slowed to match theirs.”

Shevir nodded, looking pleased at my reaction. “You do seem rather thin, so perhaps you lacked nourishment while you were … away … and this stunted your growth. More likely, however —”

I nodded absently, quickly, because he was right. How had such a crucial detail escaped me?

Because it is the sort of thing only a mortal would notice.

I had suspected that my condition was somehow linked to the friendship oath I’d taken with Shahar and Dekarta. Now I knew: their mortality had infected me, like a disease. But what kind of disease slowed its progress to match that of other victims? There was something
purposeful
about that sort of change. Something intentional.

But whose intent, and for what purpose?

“Let’s go to your laboratory, Scrivener Shevir,” I said, speaking softly as my mind raced with inferences and implications. “I believe I can give you those samples right now.”

I was getting hungry by the time I left Shevir’s laboratory, just after dawn. It wasn’t bad yet — not the sort of raw, precarious ache I’d known a few times during my slave years, whenever my masters had starved me — but it made me irritable, because it was more proof of my oncoming mortality. Would I starve to death if I ignored it now? Could I still sustain myself with games and disobedience, as I normally did? I was tempted to find out. Then again, I considered as I rubbed my upper arm, where a
bandage and healing script concealed the divot of flesh Shevir had taken from me, there was no point in making myself suffer unnecessarily. As a mortal, there would be pain enough in my life, whether I sought it out or not.

Noise and commotion distracted me from grimness. I stepped quickly to the side of a corridor as six guardsmen ran by, hands on their weapons. One of them carried a messaging sphere, and through this I heard the speaker — their captain, I assumed — issuing rapid commands in a low tone. Something about “clear the north-seven corridors” and “forecourt,” and most clearly, “Tell Morad’s people to bring something for the smell.”

I could no more resist such temptation than I could Shahar’s summons — maybe less so. So I hummed a little ditty and slid my hands into my pockets and skipped as I headed down a different corridor. When the guards were out of sight, I opened a wall and tore off running.

I was almost thwarted by the Tree, which had grown through one of the most useful junctures in the dead spaces, and by my stupid, infuriatingly lanky body, which could no longer squeeze through the tighter passages. I knew plenty of alternate routes but still arrived at the courtyard late and out of breath. (That annoyed me, too. I was going to have to make my mortal body stronger, or it would be completely useless at this rate.)

It was worth it, however, for what I saw.

Sky’s forecourt had been designed by my late sister, Kurue, who had understood two key elements of the mortal psyche: they hate being reminded of their own insignificance, yet they simultaneously and instinctively expect their leaders to be overwhelmingly dominant. This was why visitors were confronted
with magnificence at four cardinal points as they arrived on the Vertical Gate. To the north was Sky’s vaulted, cavernous entryway, taller than many buildings in the city below. To the east and west lay the twin lobes of the Garden of the Hundred Thousand, a mosaic of ordered flower beds each crowned by an exotic tree. Beyond these one could see a branch of the World Tree, wild and miles vast, spreading a million leaves against the blue sky. Kurue had never planned for the Tree, but it was a testament to her skill that it looked like she had. For those who dared to look south, there was nothing. Only the lonely Pier and an otherwise unimpeded view of the landscape and very, very distant horizon.

Now the forecourt had been defiled by something hideous. As I emerged from the garden via the servants’ ground entrance, no one noticed me. Soldiers were all over the place, disorganized, in a panic. I saw the captain of the guard on one side of the gate mosaic, shouting at the coach driver to take the coach away, away, away for the Father’s sake, take it to the ground station at the cargo gate and let no one touch it.

I ignored all this as I walked forward through the hubbub, my eyes on twin lumps on the ground. Someone had had the sense to lay them on a square of cloth, but that barely contained the mess. Pieces of the lumps spilled and scattered every which way, not helped at all by soldiers who stumbled around retching even as they tried to scrape everything back onto the cloth. As I got close enough to get a good look at the mess — flesh gone gelatinous, so rotten the only thing solid in it was spongy bone — the captain turned and spotted me. He was warrior enough to drop his hand to the sword at his side, but sensible enough to avoid
drawing it as he realized who I must be. He cursed swiftly, then caught himself and threw a quick glance to be sure his men weren’t looking before he bowed quickly. Not a subtle man.

“Sir,” he said carefully, though I could see he would rather have used
my lord
. He was no Itempan, either, though his forehead bore an Arameri mark. He held up a hand, and I stopped a few feet from the outermost edges of the foulness. “Please, it’s dangerous.”

“I don’t think the maggots are likely to attack, do you?” My joke fell flat because there were no maggots. It was easy to see that what lay on the blanket were the remains of two very, very dead mortals, but that peculiarity did puzzle me. And the smell was wrong. I stepped closer, opening my mouth a little, though the last thing I wanted was a better taste of it. I had never liked carrion. But that taste gave me nothing but ammonia and sulfur and all the usual flavors of death.

“Arameri, I take it?” I crouched for a better look. I could not make out marks on their foreheads, or their faces at all for that matter, which were oddly blackened and featureless. Almost flat. “Who were they? These look long-enough dead that I might’ve known them.”