Moon's Artifice (55 page)
‘You trust in the dwellers in the deep ?’ Shield growled. ‘Child, you cannot know how foolish you are. Powerful they may be, they are no Gods and they bear no love for mortal life.’
‘Trust ’em ? Oh I don’t trust ’em – but the stories are few and far between. If I can’t trust a demon or a God with the souls of all these goshe, mebbe best the artefact ends up somewhere neither will dare fetch it.
‘Your dwellers might be monsters, but all that matters to me is that they don’t give a damn about us either. It’s not that they just don’t care, they’re not interested either – not in Gods or demons, mortals or anything in between. They’ve got their realm in the blackest deeps and rarely leave them ; that’s something the stories all agree on.’
She paused and took a long breath, taking a moment to look one then the other in the face before she spoke again.
‘You know what I realise now ? I’ve been to temple all my life, prayed for health and a better world – for the soul of my da and all the other sailors who don’t come back. But what’s that done for me ? What’s prayer done for anyone ? Do you really care ? Do you even know our names and ever intercede ? I doubt it.’
‘Your frustrated prayers are at the heart of this ?’ Shield asked with contempt.
‘No. I don’t mind that you don’t answer prayers – just that you pretend to care for those who worship you, for those who might devote their whole lives to your name.’
There was a tear on her cheek now, her voice wavering for just a moment. ‘What’s at the heart of this ? A little girl who deserved better. Her name was Emari and she was my sister. She was caught up in all this and was killed as an afterthought, disposed of quietly and none of you Gods or demons cared.’
She shook her head, bowed under the weight of grief. ‘None of you even knew her name and so I’m done with the lot of you.’
The silence and stillness around them became a palpable cold on Narin’s skin. He fought the urge to look up, to see more arrows of light fall from Shield’s constellation. The wrath of Gods fell from the heavens, that much he remembered from temple scripture. It was all too easy to imagine the darts that had crashed down become searing flashes of fury, but nothing came.
The demon Apkai did not speak further, but the threads of light that composed it slowed, its form gently unravelling and fading into the dark. In moments it was a mere impression in the air then nothing and the water around them began to move once more. Narin found himself letting out a breath he hadn’t even realised he’d been holding in, and all eyes turned to Lord Shield.
‘You play a dangerous game, mortal.’
‘It’s no game,’ Kesh said with sadness in her voice. ‘I wouldn’t expect a God to understand that.’
‘I have not entirely forgotten mortal life. I remember grief still, I remember loss.’
Lord Shield looked up at his stars above for a moment before returning his attention to Kesh.
‘You are right that we cannot know the names of all those lost, but we are Gods still. Perhaps it is easy to forget that. For all those who died at the hands of the goshe, for all those who had their souls and minds stolen – your sister’s name shall be written in the lesser stars on the last night of my ascendancy for ever more. That I offer, to honour their memories – a memorial in the night sky to the innocent.’
With that the God turned and walked away across the quickening sea, the light receding with every step until he vanished entirely and they were all alone. The boat rocked gently with the movement of the tide, the slap of water against its side the only sound above the thump of Narin’s heart.
Kesh lowered her head for a long moment, the pain still raw in her heart. And then it was conquered and she looked up with a familiar glare at the men staring aghast at her.
‘Well ? What are you all waiting for ? Get rowing.’
‘Aye, captain,’ Enchei laughed, pulling hard on his oar. ‘When even Gods submit to honest words, man can only obey.’
The Stormcaller
The Twilight Herald
The Grave Thief
The Ragged Man
The Dusk Watchman
The God Tattoo
A Gollancz eBook
Copyright © Tom Lloyd-Williams 2013
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The right of Tom Lloyd-Williams to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
First published in Great Britain in 2013 by Gollancz
The Orion Publishing Group Ltd
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This eBook first published in 2013 by Gollancz.
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ISBN 978 0 575 13119 4
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