"Come again, shining Ista," he breathed with a fading sigh. "Bring Catti ..."
Gone. It was like watching him die, every day. She did not desire the practice.
ISTA TURNED ASIDE AT THE STAIRS DOWN TO THE STONE COURT.
"Learned, please attend upon me. We must talk."
"And I, Royina?" said Liss hopefully.
"You may... make yourself comfortable within call."
Taking the hint, Liss strolled away to a bench on the court's far end. After an uncertain moment, Foix followed after her, looking not displeased. They put their heads together the moment they sat down.
Ista led dy Cabon back to the bench in the cloister walk's shade and gestured him to a seat. He settled himself with a tired grunt. The days of riding and anxiety had told on him; his stained white robes hung loosely, and his belt was cinched in a few new notches. Ista, remembering the god's immense girth and overflowing abundance in dy Cabon's dream-borrowed body, could not, on the whole, regard this shrinking as an improvement.
She sat beside him, and began, "You say you witnessed the banishing of an elemental, when the ferret's rider was discharged from the world. How exactly was it accomplished? What did you see?"
He shrugged his thick shoulders. "There was not a great deal to see with my poor eyes. The archdivine of Taryoon led me into the presence of the divine who had volunteered for the task. A very elderly woman, she was, frail as paper in the temple hospital bed. She seemed three-fourths detached from the world already. There is so much to delight us in the world of matter—to tire of it seems ungrateful to me, but she told me she'd had all the pain she could eat and would pass from this banquet to a better one. She genuinely desired her god, as a weary sojourner desires his own bed."
Ista said, "A man I know who had a mystic vision, under the most extraordinary circumstances, once told me he saw the dying souls rising up like flowers in the goddess's garden. But he was a devotee of the Lady of Spring. I think each god may have some different metaphor—
fine animals for the Son of Autumn, I have heard, strong men and beautiful women for the Father and the Mother. For the Bastard—what?"
"He takes us as we are. I hope."
"Hm."
"But no," dy Cabon continued, "there were no special tricks or even prayers. The divine said she did not need them. As she was the one doing the dying, I didn't argue. I asked her what it was like, dying. She gave me such a look out of the corner of her eye, and told me, pretty tartly, that when she found out she'd be sure to let me know. The arch-divine signed me to cut the ferret's throat then, which I did, into a basin. The old woman sighed, and snorted, as if at some other foolish remark like mine, which we could not hear. And then she stopped. It took her only a moment to pass from life to death, but it was unmistakable. Not a sleep. An emptying out. And that was that. Except for the cleaning up after."
"That... is not especially helpful," sighed Ista.
"It was what I saw. I suspect she saw more. But I can scarcely imagine what."
"In my dream—the dream you entered into—the god kissed me twice. The first time on the brow"—she touched the spot—"as His Mother once did, and so I recognized it as the gift of second sight, of seeing the world of spirit directly as the gods do, for I had received it so before. But then he kissed me a second time, on—in—my mouth. More deeply and disturbingly. Learned, tell me, what was the meaning of that second kiss? You must know—you were right there."
He gulped and blushed. "Royina, I cannot guess. The mouth is the Bastard's own theological sign and signifier upon our bodies, as the thumbs are upon our hands. Did He give you no other clues but me?"
She shook her head. "The next day, Goram, with some very confused notion about a royina—even if only a dowager royina—being able to undo what a princess had done, invited me in to kiss his master. And for an elated moment, I thought I'd solved the riddle—that it was to be a kiss of life, as in the children's story. But it didn't work. Nor on Lord Arhys, when I attempted him, later. I did not take the trial further afield, fortunately for my reputation in this castle. The kiss was clearly something else, some other gift or burden."
Ista drew breath. "I face a three-way knot. Two parts may be loosed together; if I could find some way to banish Cattilara's demon, Illvin would be freed, and the marchess saved. But what hope may be found for Arhys? I saw his soul, Learned. He is surely sundered, or my inner eyes are blind. It would be bad enough to complete his death, and lose him to his god. It would be worse to secure his damnation, and lose him to nothingness."
"I ... um... know that some souls, suffering especially disrupted deaths, have lingered for a few days, to be helped on their way by the prayers and ceremonies of their funerals. Slipped through the doors of their deaths before they quite shut."
"Might the rites of the Temple help him find his way to his god, then?" It was a bizarre image; would Arhys walk to his own funeral, lie down on his bier?
He grimaced. "Three months seems very late. Choice is the trial of all who are trapped in time; and that choice is the last one time imposes. If his moment for decision still lingered, through some habit of the body, could your second sight tell?"
"Yes," said Ista lowly. "It can. But I want another answer. I do not like this one. I had hopes of that kiss, but it failed."
He scratched his nose in puzzlement. "You said the god spoke to you. What did He say?"
"That I was sent here, in answer to prayers, Illvin's among others, probably. The Bastard dared me, by my own son's god-neglected death, not to turn aside." She frowned fiercely in memory, and dy Cabon edged a little back from her. "I asked Him what the gods, having taken Teidez, could give me that I would trade spit for. He answered, Work. His blandishments were all decorated about with annoying endear merits that would have bought a human suitor a short trip to the nearest mud puddle by the hands of my servants. His kiss on my brow burned like a brand. His kiss on my mouth"—she hesitated, went on doggedly—"aroused me like a lover, which I most certainly am not."
Dy Cabon edged farther back, smiling in anxious placation, and made little agreeing-denying motions, his hands like flippers. "Indeed not, Royina. No one could mistake you for such."
She glowered at him, then went on. "Then He disappeared, leaving you holding the sack. So to speak. If this was prophecy, it bodes you ill, Learned."
He signed himself. "Right, right. Um. If the first kiss was a spiritual gift, so ought the second to be. Yes, I quite see that."
"Yes, but He didn't say what it was. Bastard. One of his little jokes, it seems."
Dy Cabon glanced up as if trying to decide if that were prayer or expletive, guessed correctly, and took a breath, marshaling his thoughts. "All right. But He did say. He said, Work. If it sounds like a joke, it was probably quite serious." He added more cautiously, "It seems you are made saint again, will or nil."
"Oh, I can still nil." She scowled. "That's what we all are, you know. Hybrids, of both matter and spirit. The gods' agents in the world of matter, to which they have no other entree. Doorways. He knocks on my door, demanding entry. He probes with his tongue like a lover, mimicking above what is desired below. Nothing so simple as a lover, he, yet he desires that I open myself and surrender as if to one. And let me tell you, I despise his choice of metaphors!"