“Then you are the Goddess’s already, and need no further blessing of her.”
The Dead Man bit his lip and hid the hand that would have made the Sign of the Pen. “Nevertheless... my friend believes we need her help. Perhaps we can explain to the Eidolon?”
“Walk with me,” said the priestess.
Further along the corridor, the walls were mirrored. The priestess strode beside them, the front of her robe gathered in her hands. The mirrors were faintly distorted, whether by design or flaw, and they reflected the priestess, the Gage, and the Dead Man as warped caricatures—rippled, attenuated, bulged into near-spheres. Especially in conjunction with the mirrored masks, the reflections within reflections were dizzying.
When they left the corridor of mirrors and entered the large open atrium into which it emptied, the priestess was gone. The Dead Man whirled, his hand on the hilt of his sword, his battered red coat swinging wide to display all the stains and shiny patches the folds of its skirts hid.
“Ysmat Her Word,” he swore. “I hate these heathen magics. Did you see her go? You see everything.”
The Gage walked straight ahead and did not stop until he reached the middle of the short side of the atrium. “I did not see that.”
“A heathen magic you seek, Dead Man.” A masked priestess spoke from atop the dais at the other end of the long room.
It was unclear whether this priestess was the same one. Her voice was identical, or nearly so. But she seemed taller and she walked with a limp. Of course, it would be easy to twist an ankle in that trailing raiment, and the click of wooden pattens as she descended the stair said the truth of her height was a subject for conjecture.
She came to them through shafts of sunlight angled from high windows, stray gleams catching on her featureless visage.
“Forgive me.” The Dead Man inclined his head and dropped one knee before her. “I spoke in haste. I meant no disrespect, Child of the Moon.”
“Rise,” said the priestess. “If Kaalha of the Ruins wants you humbled, she will lay you low. The Merciful One has no need of playacted obeisance.”
She offered a hand. It was gloved, silk pulled unevenly over long fingers. She lifted the Dead Man to his feet. She was strong. She squeezed his fingers briefly, like a mother reassuring a child, and let her grip fall. She withdrew a few steps. “Explain to me your problem, masterless ones.”
“Are you the Eidolon?” the Gage asked.
“She will hear what you speak to me.”
The Gage nodded—a movement as calculated and intentional as if he had spoken aloud. He said, “We seek justice for the poet Anah, mutilated and murdered nine—now ten—days past at the Blue Stone. We seek justice also for the wood-sculptor Abbas, similarly mutilated and murdered in his village of Bajishe, and for uncounted other victims of this same murderer.”
The priestess stood motionless, her hands hanging beside her and spread slightly as if to receive a gift. “For vengeance, you wish the blessing of Rakasha,” she said. “For justice, seek Vajhir the warrior. Not the Queen the of Cold Moon.”
“I do not seek vengeance,” said the Gage.
“Really?”
“No.” It was an open question which of them was more immovable. More unmoving. “I seek mercy for all those this murderer, this ghost-maker, may yet torture and kill. I seek Kaalha’s benediction on those who will come to her eventually, one way or another, if their ghosts are freed. As you say: the Goddess of Death does not need to hurry.”
The priestess’s oval mask tilted. On her pattens, she was taller than both supplicants.
The Gage inclined his head.
“A ghost-maker, you say.”
“A soulless killer. A Wizard. One who murders for the joy of it. Young men, men in their prime. Men with great gifts and great... beauty.”
Surely that could not have been a catch of breath, a concealed sob. What has no eyes cannot cry.
The Gage continued, “We cannot face a Wizard without help. Your help. Please tell us, Child of the Moon: what do you do against a killer with no soul?”
Her laughter broke the stillness that followed—but it was sweet laughter, glass bells, not sardonic cruelty. She stepped down from her pattens and now both men topped her by a head. She left them lying on the flagstones, one tipped on its side, and came close. She still limped, though.
“Let me tell you a secret, one mask to another.” She leaned close and whispered. Their mirrored visages reflected one another into infinity, bronze and silver echoing. When she drew back, the Gage’s head swiveled in place and tilted to acknowledge her.
She extended a hand to the Dead Man, something folded in her fist. He offered his palm. She laid an amethyst globe, cloudy with flaws and fracture, in the hollow. “Do you know what that is?”
“I’ve seen it done,” said the Gage. “My mistress used one to create me.”
The priestess nodded. “Go with Kaalha’s blessing. Yours is a mission of mercy, masterless ones.”
She turned to go. Her slippered feet padded on stone. She left the pattens lying. She was nearly to the dais again when the Dead Man called out after her—
“Wait!”
She paused and turned.
“Why would you help us?” the Dead Man asked.
“Masterless ones?” She touched her mask with both hands, fingertips flat to mirrored cheeks. The Dead Man shuddered at the prospect of her face revealed, but she lifted them empty again. She touched two fingers to her mask and brushed away as if blowing a kiss, then let her arms fall. Her sleeves covered her gloved hands.
The priestess said, “She is also the Goddess of Orphans. Masterless Man.”
THE DEAD MAN started to slip the amethyst sphere into his sash opposite the sword as he and the Gage threaded through the crowd back to the Street of Temples. Before he had quite secured it, though, he paused and drew it forth again, holding it up to catch the sunlight along its smoky, icy flaws and planes.
“You know what this is for?”
“Give it here.”
Reluctantly, the Dead Man did so. The Gage made it vanish into his robe.
“If you know how to use that, and it’s important, it might be for the best if you demonstrated for me.”
“You have a point,” the Gage said, and—shielded in the rush of the crowd—he did so. Then he made it vanish again and said, “Well. Lead me to the lair of Attar.”
“This way.”
They walked. The Gage dropped his cowl, improving the speed of their passage. The Dead Man lowered his voice. “Tell me what you know about Messaline Wizards. I am more experienced with the Uthman sort. Who are rather different.”
“Cog used to say that a Wizard was a manifestation of the true desires, the true obsessions of an age. That they were the essence of a time refined, like opium drawn from poppy juice.”
“That’s pretty. Does it mean anything?”
The Gage shrugged. “I took service with Cog because she was Attar’s enemy.”
“Gages have lives before their service. Of course they do.”
“It’s just that you never think of it.”
The Dead Man shrugged.
“And Dead Men don’t have prior lives.”
“None worth speaking of.” Dead Men were raised to their service, orphans who would otherwise beg, whore, starve, and steal. The Caliph gave them everything—home, family, wives. Educated their children. They were said to be the most loyal guards the world knew. “We have no purpose but to guard our Caliph.”
“Huh,” said the Gage. “I guess you’d better find one.”
The Dead Man directed them down a side street in a neighborhood that lined the left bank of the river Dijlè. A narrow paved path separated the facades of houses from the stone-lined canal. In this dry season, the water ran far down in the channel.
The Gage said, “I told you I chose service with Cog because she was Attar’s enemy. Attar took something that was important to me.”
“Something? Or someone?”