The tropical sun blazed even hotter, fire in the sky fit to blister my skin.
From what comes, I thought. No, Endurance thought, and gave the idea to me.
I knew enough of gods to understand that their lot was not easy. Neither was my own.
The shade of his belly grew cooler, deeper. Though the world around me threatened to catch fire, I was safe. For now.
“So you ward me yet.”
With those words, I opened my eyes. The silk was heavy on my shoulders. Smoke curled before me. All the prayers had been blackened to ash. The fruit on the plates was desiccated, the breads curled and hard. Even the incense sticks had been reduced to worm-gnawed dust, already collapsing. Time had been stolen from around me to feed the vision I had just been granted.
“You wanted me back in Copper Downs,” I told the statue of the god. Rising, I rubbed his forehead for luck, right between the horns. “I suppose you have me. Whatever it is you fear.”
Thoughtful now, I doffed the belled silk, carefully folded it, and placed the tinkling bundle between the ox statue’s forelegs. My inheritance would be more safe here with Endurance than under my own arms in the days to come, and I had missed sewing the bells before. Always, I caught up. Besides, this would be another binding between me and the ox god.
When I walked back outside, the young acolytes were gathered before the entrance. Many carried their tools of construction or survey, so for a brief moment I thought I saw a mob. Then I realized that no, they simply awaited me.
“I have prayed to the god,” I said.
“We know,” replied the grinning young man who had served me sausage. His expression was serious now, though the humor never seemed far from him.
I realized that my face itched. When I touched my scarred left cheek, my finger came away bloodied.
A while later I sat at the now-empty eating tables with the young man, whose name proved to be Ponce. He served as a factotum to Chowdry in the management of the temple building project. Ponce’s enthusiasm for the work of Endurance bubbled, even as a light, gusty rain pattered off the canvas stretched above us and quested in from the open sides.
“How does this god call to you?” I was quite curious. My own connection to the god was clear enough, but also deeply personal. Uniquely so.
“Endurance is, well, new.” A seriousness flashed across his face. “More concerned with peace, or a calm center, than most gods. Here in Copper Downs we have a god for fishermen and a god for death and a god for women and a god for the rules of fate. The Temple Quarter is like a market full of stalls. Each sells some shade or scent of prayer, some form of protection or enlightenment or passion or redemption. Endurance just… exists. His purpose is a gentle wholeness.”
“There is something to the muteness, is there not?”
“Exactly! You understand.” Then his cheeks flushed, that red which only Stone Coasters can find in their embarrassment. “Of course you would understand. You birthed the god.”
My hand touched my belly. All the morning’s food lay heavy upon me, but not hard, and the baby still didn’t seem to mind. “I birthed nothing,” I told him. “At most I was midwife. Endurance is a vessel for a much older power that needed a place of safety to abide.”
The long-lost heart of the pardines, stolen by the late, immortal Duke, released by me to settle into Federo and twist him beyond recognition, then once more released by me into the god Endurance. From forest to field, by way of the stone streets of Copper Downs.
I prayed in that moment that I should never have to touch such power again. Another contact would twist me more than it already had, and I did not want to think of the effect on my child. Would that my prayer had been granted.
Finally Ponce spoke again. “Endurance is peaceful. The city needs peace. Some of my Selistani brothers and sisters see the god differently, but for those of us from Copper Downs, that is enough.”
“A god who does not demand so much,” I said absently.
“Oh, no. Endurance demands everything.”
After that, I went to help them with their foundations.
Chowdry remained absent through the morning, as did anyone else more senior than Ponce. I wondered what they might be about, but did not trouble myself too much. Instead I helped measure foundation courses around the hole of the mine opening, and even took my shift wielding a spade to turn what earth could be turned until someone with stouter tools and longer arms was available to break the rock beneath.
I wondered what the plan was for the permanent temple. I hadn’t the heart to tell Ponce how misplaced their stable-altar was. Endurance had been a creature of open fields and sunny skies, not confined to a dank, straw-floored enclosure. Surely Chowdry knew the truth.
But then, here in Copper Downs, maybe they understood a stable better than they understood a rice paddy. This cold, meager northern sun encouraged no one to remain outdoors overlong.
To each people their own meanings.
As I levered some good-sized stones away, Ponce approached me. A black-robed lad followed, younger than me, with a badly shaven scalp and a look of incipient panic about him.
I paused from my labors, holding my mattock tight in lieu of a real weapon. It could smash a skull better than my bare fist. “Greetings again.”
“This boy is Nunzio,” Ponce said with little of his usual good humor. “He is from the Algeficic Temple.”
That gave me pause. My baby’s father had been a priest of that temple and its patron, Blackblood. I did not want my daughter anywhere near the pain god.
Nunzio refused to meet my eye. Instead he seemed to find his own feet very interesting. Still, he blurted out his message. “Y-your p-presence is requ-quested at the temple.”
“By whom?” I asked, amazed. “I killed off most of your priesthood myself. Surely the survivors have no use for me now.” The late Pater Primus, Stefan Mohanda, had nearly done for me. In both of his roles, as Blackblood’s high priest and as a member of the Interim Council. Though I did not resent the pain god personally, I had no love for his people. I was forced to concentrate on not slapping the mattock against my free hand. This poor acolyte could see that as nothing but a threat.
And rightly so.
Ponce paled at my words, but said nothing. Nunzio made a visible effort not to run away. “They-he-it wishes to speak to you.” He quailed. “By name.”
I almost refused him then and there. Little good could arise from such a visit, while I could imagine a number of disasters ranging from priestly vengeance to a renewal of the erratic attentions of a rather dangerous god. Blackblood took up pain from his male followers and their sons by way of sacrifice. In return, he prepared them for an easier path to the halls of the dead. I recalled what Septio had told me about how the god’s priesthood was recruited-from those suffering boys and men not yet worthy to be taken up.
What had befallen Nunzio that he served as an acolyte of this most difficult of gods at such a young age? I could almost pity this boy.
To my surprise, I found that I did.
“Return to your temple.” My voice was gentle. “I will be along in time. Your duty is faithfully discharged.”
After Blackblood’s acolyte left, Ponce looked at me with a clearly unaccustomed seriousness. “He is not the only one to have called here searching for you.”
Curious, I asked, “Why did you let him find me, and not others?”
“Chowdry left instructions as to who could see you, and who could not. The Interim Council has sent messengers, and once Councilor Kohlmann in person. We have said we do not know where you are.” His grin returned. “Which was true. You might have been sleeping, or bathing, or eating. How did I know, from out front? Likewise, several Selistani have been asking after you.”
I wondered how they kept my countrymen among the acolytes from speaking to Surali and the embassy. That, I decided, was the god’s problem. It would only become mine at need. In any case, these young people seemed frightened of me, or at least my reputation.