“Yes, that’s right.”
“Well, doesn’t that mean you’re supposed to attend the Knitting?”
“Yes,” said Leen, making a sour face. “One of those obligations of office. I - wait a minute - that’s still tonight, isn’t it? That’s now.”
“I, ah, I think so.”
“Come along, then. We’ll have to continue this later.” The Knitting ... the Scapula! Wouldn’t he be there? Of course he would. Perhaps it would be better not to go...
Well, of course it would be better not to go. But if he was there she could probably elude him, in the press of thousands, and she might still be able to learn something of use. And it was the Knitting. Even the Scapula wouldn’t be bold enough to try something nefarious there.
Would he?
“How the hell much longer we supposed to stay out here diggin’ through the trash?”
“Didn’t you hear her Godship? Until we find him, or we might as well not bother coming back.”
The first man, a grizzled campaigner and veteran of more god-squads than he cared to contemplate, set his feet and truculently crossed his arms. “This is it,” he declared. “This is it for me, and if she wants to turn me into an axolotl she can go the hell ahead. Be a damn improvement.”
“Hey, c’mon, sarge,” said the second, fingering his neck. “If she does for you she’ll do more for me too; probably the whole lot of us by the time she’s through. You want that on your conscience, even if you are a newt?”
The older man glared up at his partner, then down the next alley in front of them. The alley was little more than a squeeze-crawl gap between two buildings that snaked off away from the street; garbage-choked and offal-strewn in the same style they’d waded through in, oh, the last fifty sites. “There’s nothing in there alive except things we’d have to kill,” he growled.
“The guy’s got to be out here somewhere,” protested the trooper. “He can’t have been eaten.”
“Why the hell not? You remember the size of those rats? Or dropped in a sewer or slung in the Tongue, or -”
Considering a prayer, or better yet some way of unambiguously distancing himself, the younger man took a deep breath and eased himself sideways into the alley, probing ahead of himself with his sword. They had rousted a few live scum-denizens already in their search, and had uncovered two bodies as well, but all of them, living and dead, had possessed their full complement of fingers. They had also dealt with the city’s thriving population of urban beasts, mostly rats and dogs and feral cats, but also a few less classifiable things. The sword, therefore, was clearly more than a formality.
It was getting well on into twilight too. Here in this warren, where midday sun would be an unaccustomed surprise, it might as well have been the middle of the night. The trooper lifted his lantern and peered ahead. Had he heard something? Something rather like a weak groan? And that long mound? No different from any of the others they’d examined, surely, but what was that gnarled silhouette lying on top? Could it be a hand?
A hand missing one finger?
“Sarge, got something here you’re gonna want to look at.”
CHAPTER 14
The Scapula had pulled another one, all right. He’d started off by proclaiming that he had made the entire assembly of gods at the pre-Knitting conclave his prisoners, and as I’d discovered myself that was clearly true, but there was more to it than that. A lot more. The traditional uses for prisoners - as hostages for ransom, say - did not interest him in the least.
No, he was holding us so he could drink our power.
How he’d managed it I had no idea. It was obviously so tricky a move that no one had ever thought of it before. Something - obviously leakage from Iskendarian, my local expert in everything sorcerous - was trying to tell me about a software virus in the virtual conferencing code that kept participants from disengaging, with an auto-locking vampire tap to drain individual power into the captive net, but I didn’t know what he was talking about. It was all just word soup to me.
What was self-evident as anything, though, was that the Scapula had declared war on the community of gods, had conducted his own preemptive strike against the majority of the gods extant - and had already won. He was the god among gods. This had not come about under the scenario Protector of Nature and Vladimir had planned, of course, and since they had been present too they were just as caught as everyone else, but then who should be surprised? The Scapula’s favorite tactic was clearly to make friends with someone and then stab them as quickly as possible in the back.
I could see folks around the volcano-rim ballroom struggling and muttering and squirming as they tried with complete lack of success to work themselves out of the Scapula’s trap. The Scapula himself, after his brief manifesto, had disappeared to wreak who knew what new devilment, not that I could blame him for not wanting to hang around and field the imprecations of his victims. And me? Well, I was thinking.
My thoughts were not very pleasant.
I didn’t know how many of the others around me had considered this yet, but as long as their consciousnesses were tied up here, their unsuperintended bodies back in their hidden rooms and easy chairs were not going to be getting the care they needed. For one thing, if this went on long enough they were going to start dehydrating and might even last long enough to starve. And why wouldn’t this go on that long? If the Scapula let these folks loose you knew the first thing they would head for would be his throat.
I wasn’t sure I liked the alternative to that scenario any better. If the Scapula could immobilize this many gods, why couldn’t he backtrack down the communication links to reveal the location of their bodies, too? Then, if he wanted, he could have his minions force-feed them.
Them? Us. Although to be precise I was something of an innocent bystander. I wasn’t a god, which is to say Iskendarian wasn’t a god, but then it was also now clear that not much differentiated gods from anyone else with enough power, the right resources, and the bloody-mindedness to deploy them at will. Resources? If you could use the gods’ conferencing system, well, you’d just be counted as a god when the hammer came down.
I was also wondering who else among my circle of acquaintances was trapped here along with me. I hadn’t spotted anyone obvious, and I didn’t particularly feel like strolling around the plain peering into faces and trying to divine who might be hiding behind which facade. Beyond that, I suppose I was still waiting for another shoe to drop. I didn’t know whether folks would start metamorphosing into horrid tortured writhing shapes, or whether they’d start popping out like burst balloons, or whether the entire environment would warp or explode or fade, leaving each of us individually in the Scapula’s private little hell. On the other hand, however, I didn’t think we were just going to sit here indefinitely with nothing happening.
As it was, I would just have to wait. I didn’t know what else to do. Whatever his other hazards, if Iskendarian was awake he might at least have some ideas, but –
Wait a minute. Iskendarian probably could be awake. I’d been trying so hard to make sure he stayed asleep I’d almost forgotten I could try the alternative. And if he were awake...
Well, what did I have to lose?
“Hey, Iskendarian!” I thought. “Isky! You in there?”
For a moment I lost my train of thought. I didn’t lose consciousness the way I had earlier when Iskendarian had begun to emerge, but my thoughts were suddenly... muddled, unclear. Then I remembered what I was doing.