"Goddess-"
Strat met the shockwave of his own forces that had kept the way open: a moment of confusion while they swept about and followed him in a clatter on the pavings. The burning barricade was ahead, a sleet of stones. An uneven pair of figures blocked his path, dark against the light-
Strat swept his sword in an arc that ended in the skull of the taller and took a good part of it away: he rode through. The rider behind him faltered as his horse hit the bodies and recovered; then the rest of the troop went over them, crushing bone under steel-shod hooves, and swords swung as they met Jubal's men at the barricade, on their way back through.
There was a decided interest on the childrens' part. One boy kept climbing up to the window and gazing out, less talkative than his wont. The other never left it, and stared when Niko came and took both in his arms.
He saw the circling of something sorcerous that could not get in. Saw something dark stream up to fight it off, and that something was torn ragged and streamed on the winds. But what it had turned was dimmer fire now. He heard a forlorn cry, like a great hunting bird. Like a damned soul. A lost lover.
The wards about the place glowed blinding bright. And held.
Sanctuary was beset with fires, barricades, looting. The armed priests of the Storm God were no inconsiderable barrier themselves.
But they were ineffectual finally against a torn, bloody thing that haunted the halls and that tried the partnership that had been between them. He knew what had come streaking in to find him; he knew what faithful, vengeful wraith had held the line again. It pleaded with him in his dreams, forgetting that it was dead. He wept at such times, because he could not explain to it and it was not interested in listening.
"Get me out of here," he yelled down the hall, startling the children. A priest showed up in the hallway, spear in hand, eyes wide. "Dammit, get me out of this city!"
The priest kept staring. Niko kicked the door shut and sank down against it, child in either arm.
They crawled into his lap, hugged him round the neck. One wiped his face, and he stared past, longing for the dawn and the boat they promised would come.
A barge went down the White Foal, an uncommonly sturdy one by Sanctuary standards. Ischade watched it, arms about her, the hood of her black cloak back. Her faithful were there: chastened Haught, smug Stilcho. The usual birds sat in the tree. Breath frosted on the wind-a cold morning, but that hardly stopped the looting and the sniping. There was a smoky taint to the air.
"They want war," Ischade said, "let them have war. Let them have it till they're full of it. Till this town's so confounded no force can hold it. Have you heard the fable of Shipri's ring? The goddess was set on by three demons who plainly had rape in mind; she had a golden armlet, and she flung it to the first if he would fight off the other two and let her go. But the second snatched at it and so did the third; the goddess walked away and there they stand to this day. No one devil can get it; and the other two won't let go till the world ends." She turned a dazzling smile on them both, in a merry humor quite unlike herself.
The barge passed beneath the White Foal bridge. A black bird flew after it, sending forlorn cries down the wind.
The bay horse was dead. Strat limped when he walked, and persisted in walking, pacing the floor in the temporary headquarters the Band had set up deep within the mage quarter. A clutter of maps lay on the table. Plans that the ever changing character of the streets changed hourly. He wanted sleep. He wanted a bath. He reeked of smoke and sweat and blood, and he gave orders and drew lines and listened to the reports that began to come in.
He had not wanted this. He had no wish to be in command. He was, somehow. Somehow it had fallen on him. The Band fought phantoms, confounded them with the living and mage-illusions. Sync was missing. Lyncaeos was dead. Kama had not been heard from. The bay horse had damn near broken his leg when an arrow found it. He had had to kill it. Stepsons and commandos killed with terrible efficiency and the Ilsigi guerrillas who thought they knew what side they were on and thought they knew all about war might see things differently this morning. And change alliances again. In a situation like this alliances might change twice in a morning.
And Kadakithis sat in his palace and the Guard and the mercs held it. Strat limped to the window and entertained treasonous thoughts, hating thoughts, staring up toward the palace through the pall of smoke.
DOWN BY THE RIVERSIDE by Diane Duane
... But who could ever tell of all the daring
in the stubborn hearts of women, the hard will,
how the female force crams its resisted way
through night, through death, taking no "no" for answer?
Yet still Right's anvil stands staunch on the ground,
and there smith Destiny hammers out the sword.
Should that force, that fierce gift, be used for ill,
delayed in glory, pensive through the murk,
Vengeance comes home. Yet odd the way of life,
for if the power's used for good, then still
She comes; though in far other form, and strange ...
In Sanctuary that day the smoke rose up to heaven, a sooty sideways-blowing banner against the blue of early winter. Some of that smoke rose up from altars to attract the attention of one god or another, and failed. Most of the immortals were too busy looking on in horror or delight or divine remoteness as their votaries went to war against one another, tearing the town into pieces and setting the pieces afire. A god or two even left town. Many non-gods tried to: some few succeeded. Of those who remained, many non-immortals died, slaughtered in the riots or burned in the firestorms that swept through the city. No one tried or bothered to count them all, not even the gods.
One died in Sanctuary that day who was not mortal (quite), and not a god (quite). His death was unusual in that it was noticed-not just once but three times.
He noticed it himself, of course. Harran had worked close to death much of his life, both as apprentice healer-priest of Siveni Gray-Eyes and as the barber and leech to the ersatz Stepsons. He knew the inevitable results of the kind of swordcut that the great dark shape a-horseback swung at him. No hope, he thought clinically, while he ducked staggering away with a boy's weight slung over his shoulder. That's an expert handling that sword, that is. Past that mere thought, and a flash of pained concern for the arrow-shot boy he'd been trying to save, there was no time for anything but confusion.
The confusion had been a fixture in his mind lately. For one thing, the real Stepsons had come back, and Harran was not finding their return as funny as he'd once thought he would. He hadn't reckoned on being counted a traitor for supporting the false Stepsons in the true ones' absence. But he also hadn't reckoned on having so much trouble with his lost goddess Siveni when he summoned her up. Her manifestation, and her attempt to level Sanctuary-foiled by the clubfooted beggar-girl he'd been using as idiot labor and "mattress"-had left him confused to a standstill. Now Mriga the idiot was Mriga the goddess, made so by the same spell that had brought Siveni into the streets of Sanctuary. And, involved in the spell himself, Harran had briefly become a god too.