Moon's Artifice (54 page)

Enchei patted her on the shoulder. ‘Not really something you can plan for, hey ? Best we just roll with the punches if that’s what happens – do what seems sensible under the circumstances.’

They fell into silence at that idea, Kesh staring anxiously out over the black water as she thought. The light of the stars cut slender slivers on the crests of the bay’s waves, a blank landscape that extended featureless for miles into the distance.

When it came, the double-twitch on the rope made both Narin and Kesh jump with fright. Enchei chuckled and gave the return signal and soon the bulky shape of Irato was smoothly descending the rope. At the bottom, he crouched and regarded the other three with a suspicious set to his shoulders – face hidden by his black goshe mask.

‘All good ?’ Enchei asked.

‘All has gone to plan,’ Irato replied in a hollow voice that made Narin realise it was the demons speaking for him.

The big goshe then shook himself like a dog and his voice returned to a mortal timbre. ‘Your trick worked perfectly, all the minds connected and all of ’em relying on altered eyesight they stole off the demons in the first place.’

Kesh scrambled forward to help him out of his cloak and the harness of straps that held his weapons in place, bundling the lot at her feet.

‘Even the ones who realised something was up,’ he continued, ‘couldn’t figure it out and still trusted what the demons made them see. Was like some shadow-painting held over the real world, one that moved and changed with every second. I think a couple would have sworn they cut Narin’s head off only to watch him walk away.’

‘Aye, was quite a show,’ Enchei said, keen to be out over open water as fast as possible. ‘Let’s shift before anyone starts wondering exactly what happened.’

He cast off and Kesh slipped back fully inside the boat, letting Enchei and Irato push them away with the oars while she manned the tiller.

Once they were away from the rocks, the two men pulled hard on the oars to put some distance between them and the island. Narin just sat in front of them, too tired to care that he was doing nothing to help now, until Kesh went forward to hoist the small mast back up. Together they raised it and Kesh secured the main support rope before gathering up the wrapped artefact and heat lance.

‘I’ll stow these in the prow lockers and tie the other supports,’ she said, ‘you start freeing the sail.’

Narin nodded and left her to it as he fumbled with the ties that kept the sail furled. Once it was all done they headed out towards open sea rather than retrace their route with the tide against them. It was a longer route, but with a number of divine constellations now visible and beacons on the city cliffs, Kesh was certain she could navigate the sand flats easily enough.

Narin slumped beside Kesh at the tiller and watched the receding island with an apprehension that didn’t fade when he could no longer be sure where the land and sky were divided. Even the light of the Gods was lessened to his city-born eyes, the darkness of the open sea something he’d always found to be intimidating and humbling. Before long he lifted his gaze to the heavens, seeking out the diamond constellation of Shield.

Only Shield and Pity, the Ascendants who led the way across the heavens at the end of the month, were properly visible past the streaks of cloud that overlaid the sky. Appropriately, in the Order of Empress that preceded Knight across the night sky, it was the constellation of Lord Thief that was most visible. Narin smiled at that, hoping one Ascendant would be looking favourably on them this night, but even as he thought that he sensed a change in the water around them.

‘What’s happening ?’ he asked as Enchei and Irato began to grunt with the effort of hauling their oars back. Similarly, Kesh yanked hard on the tiller and hissed as it refused to move under the pressure.

‘We’re dead in the water,’ she said, looking around. ‘Snagged on something maybe ?’

‘Worse,’ Enchei replied, giving up his efforts and indicating that Irato should too. ‘We’re over deep water now ; this isn’t a sandbar or weeds.’

‘So what ?’

‘Don’t think we’re alone out here.’

Narin felt his hand reach for his sword on instinct, then felt foolish as he realised what Enchei meant. ‘Where ?’

His question wasn’t answered as they all stared out at the water around them. Starlight still caressed the low peaks of waves in the distances, but the water for a good ten yards all around them had calmed. It wasn’t that the surface was freezing, Narin realised, but simply that the wind and current wasn’t affecting it – the sea surrounding them falling still and flat in seconds.

Once all was motionless, he realised there was a faint glow on the surface just a few dozen yards from where he sat. He kicked Enchei’s boot and pointed, all four of them staring over the starboard side of the boat towards where Narin guessed the island was, somewhere in the inky distance.

‘What’s that ?’

‘The demon,’ Enchei guessed, his voice a whisper now.

As he spoke, Narin realised the glow was moving slowly towards them, picking up speed as it snaked its way forward before it was at the edge of the stilled water. There it diffused into the glassy section of sea until a faint glow filled the water all around them. Narin exchanged a glance with Kesh and saw his own apprehension reflected in her face.

‘What now ?’

‘Now we wait,’ Enchei replied, motioning for them all to stay where they were. ‘Sit and wait for our betters.’ Ignoring his own advice, Enchei went and fetched the quiver from the prow and put it under the rower’s bench with one foot resting gently on top as though worried it would escape.

‘Guess the cloth might hide the artefact, but not the rest of us,’ he said with a wry smile at Narin and Kesh.

Nothing happened immediately, but after half a minute a shape broke the surface of the water on Enchei’s side of the boat and rose ten or twelve feet in the air. It was hard to make out exactly. Comprised entirely of curves that folded in on themselves, it was not a solid shape but the outline of one – tiny streaks of white describing the shape of something that had no physical form.

Narin squinted forward, trying to impose some sort of order on what he saw. He heard Kesh give a tiny gasp just as it finally resolved into a smooth, spiralled column that tapered then abruptly flowered into an oval overlaid by layers of horn-like curves. In the heart of that was a trio of almond shapes he imagined to be eyes, set above a circle of a mouth behind which a tapering funnel ran down like a gullet before spreading again to join the edges of the column.

‘A dangerous game you play. Gods and demons as pieces on a board.’

Narin flinched at the sound of the demon’s voice, deep and echoing as though also folded back in on itself, like its light-traced body. It sent a tremble down his limbs, resonating through him as though the voice had a physical presence in a way the body failed to.

‘The game was not ours,’ Enchei declared in a loud voice – apparently familiar enough with the demon that he refused to be cowed. ‘We could only play to the rules of others.’

‘A game spoiled is a game won. Spoils lost can prove a prize yet.’

If Enchei had a response for that, he didn’t get the chance to voice it. A clap of thunder broke the air and all four flinched away from a blinding flash of light that emanated from the other side of the boat. Blinking and biting back a curse, Narin turned to see a more familiar figure standing on the water opposite the strange, insubstantial demon.

Tall and bearded with rusty-brown skin and white clothes that shone in the darkness, a skein of starlight glinted like the ghost of a shield to announce the Ascendant God’s identity to all present.

‘A messenger receives no spoils of war, Apkai,’ Lord Shield declared in a booming voice – without antagonism or belligerence, Narin noted, but in the assured expectation the demon would not challenge him.

‘No war was fought here, Ascendant,’
the demon replied. ‘
Thieves were hunted, thieves were robbed.’

‘Mortal souls are bound here,’ the Ascendant God replied, ‘the theft is two-fold.’

‘Death comes to all mortals. The fleeting may not overshadow the eternal.’

‘You would fight me for this relic of your kin – here under the stars ?’

‘Only a fool starts an uncertain war. Only mortals age and diminish.’

‘Investigator Narin,’ Lord Shield said, shifting his focus. ‘I charged you with a holy mission. An answer I required of you and you have done your job well.’

I have ?
Narin wondered.
I never got that answer … but I suppose it was the investigation Shield wanted, the rooting out of this prize rather than the names of the men and women who wanted to become a God.

‘I, ah, I thank you, Lord Shield.’

‘And what do you suggest now ? Both demon and God have a claim on that artefact you have hidden away beneath you.’

Narin blinked at the Ascendant God in confusion. He knew Shield wasn’t really asking his opinion, but surely the Gods had the advantage of any fight ? With the whole Order of Knight looking down on them ? Or was Shield actually trying to work out his next move – how to win the artefact without calling on his brethren, at least one of whom had to be stronger than he.

‘I don’t know, my Lord,’ Narin admitted, trying to give himself time to think. ‘Does it really come down to claims ?’

‘You sit between us, our prize hidden beneath you – would you prefer us to fight ?’

‘No, Lord,’ he said hurriedly, all too easily imagining how long he’d survive stuck in the middle of such a battle. Narin couldn’t help but check the object at his feet and felt a touch of relief as he saw it safely nestled there.

‘But there is no law here,’ he continued hesitantly. ‘No right or wrong that can be enforced. One of you will take it or the other will – my choice doesn’t figure. Either you strike a bargain or you fight, what else is there ?’

He glanced over at Enchei and noticed the former Astaren was keeping well out of the conversation.
Trying to keep away from Shield’s notice, or does he just have more to lose ?

Without warning, the light from Lord Shield’s starlit arm intensified, prompting a ripple of infolding movement from the demon. There was a groan from the stilled circle of water as darts of light rushed down from the stars above and impacted deep into the water around them, while a dozen spinning funnels of mist sprang up.

Narin fought the urge to cringe, realising they were preparing to fight, but found himself shoved to one side as Kesh grabbed at the quiver beneath Enchei’s seat.

‘Enough of this !’ the woman growled over a building rush of water and wind all around. ‘There you go, there’s your prize !’

She grabbed the contents of the quiver and hurled it up into the sky with all her strength. The air seemed to shudder then freeze above them as both entities reached out towards it. The wrapped object reached its zenith and stopped – turning slowly, as though time had slowed for it.

‘Look at what you’re willing to fight for,’ Kesh yelled, standing up and turning from one immortal to the other.

The object continued its gradual spin and at last a corner of the cloth fell away, slipping down and pulling the rest of it away from the pair of wooden clubs bound together with twine.

‘Still want your war in heaven ?’ Kesh roared defiantly. ‘Which of you wants it most ? Ready to kill for it ?’

The light around them dimmed, the air quietened.

‘The artefact is still on the island ?’ Lord Shield demanded. ‘It is not on your boat, that I can sense. There is … there is a second cloth.’ The Ascendant God stepped closer, anger brimming from his every word. ‘What have you done with it ?’

‘Put it out of your reach,’ Kesh replied, her own anger matching the awful majesty of an enraged God.

In his mind, Narin pictured a small, limp body – barely breathing on the stairs of her home. He saw the aching ball of loss Kesh had been carrying for all these days, the fear and pain she had shared with her mother only this morning, intensified by her need to walk away again and see this through.

Now she seemed to unveil it like starlight and wore her loss as armour against the majesty and terror of their presence. In the face of that, Narin’s own confusion and alarm seemed to fade. Kesh faced both the God and the demon down, unafraid of their wrath and uncaring of their claims.

‘The artefact has linked thousands of minds – human minds that no demon has a right to. Enough minds for the goshe to almost create a God of their own. Power like that I think no God needs, so I deny you both.’

‘
Where does it lie ?’
the demon intoned – less obviously enraged, but the threads of light composing it continued to surge and twist. ‘
What can be hidden from land and sky ?’

Kesh took a composing breath. ‘Enough, I reckon. I’ve been on boats my whole life, but suddenly all those stupid superstitions and tales you hear sailors tell don’t seem so fanciful. You want to know where it is ? It’s in the deep – sunk without a trace and far from your grasping hands.’

‘You serve
them
?’ Lord Shield roared.

‘No, my life’s my own,’ Kesh said with a shake of the head. ‘Each of you had a pawn here ; someone you’d got your hooks into and hoped would do your dirty work. But neither of you has a claim on me and no bloody demon of the deep sea does either.’

The young woman sounded weary to Narin now, disappointed at a world more imperfect than she’d expected. Still there was no fear in her face, not even as she paused and took a long breath. It was time enough for Narin to reflect on what they were doing, but unlike him Kesh remained fearless.

The moments stretched out to the thump of his heartbeat, loud in Narin’s ears, and only when the tense hush was almost unbearable to him did Kesh speak again.

‘Until a few days past I’d never have believed there was such a thing as a Kraken God – or any of the other dozen daft stories that get whispered by your watch-mate or a drunk old-timer. If the priests ignored whatever sailors whispered it had to be a lie, right ? But now I see each of you here and I’m wondering if there’s not something to the stories.’