Harran said nothing. This entire encounter was misfiring. "We'll go down to Savankala's high-and-mighty temple," Siveni said, "and have a word with him. A temple bigger than my father's-!" She was indignant, but in a pleased way-like someone looking forward to a good fight. "And after that, we'll stop into Vashanka's place and just kill off that godchild he's got squirreled away in there. Then, af-terward-this much talked-about Bey. Two pantheons in one night save ourselves a lot of trouble later. Come on, Harran! The night's a-wasting, and we need to do the second Opening before dawn." And she swept across the barren inner precinct of the temple and smote the great brazen doors with her spear.
They promptly fell outward and down the steps with a sound that Harran reckoned would wake all Sanctuary- though he much doubted that anyone would be crazy enough to stir out of doors and see what made it. Down the stairs and down the Avenue of Temples they went, the immortal goddess and the mortal man, the goddess leading, peering about her with some interest, and the one-handed man behind, suffering more and more from terrible misgivings. No question that Siveni was all Harran had imagined, and more. It was the "more" that was bothering him. Siveni's wisdom was usually tempered by compassion. Where was that tonight? Had he done something'wrong in the spell? Certainly Siveni was an impetuous goddess, resolute, swift when she decided to act. But somehow I didn't expect this kind of action....
Harran shivered. There was something wrong with him too. He was seeing much more clearly than he should have been able to at this time of night. And he felt entirely too fit for a man who had gone digging in a graveyard, screwed himself blind, worked a sorcery, and lost a hand, all in one night. Was this more of what Siveni had mentioned as side effects of the sorcery, the uprising of his godhead in him? It was a distressing thought. Men should not be gods. That was what gods were for....
Harran glanced over at the goddess and found her aspect somewhat easier to bear than it had been before. She was looking over toward the Maze and Downwind in a way that suggested she had no trouble seeing through things. "This place is a mess," she said, turning as she went to look at Harran in reproof.
"We've had some hard times," Harran said, feeling a little defensive. "Wars, invasions..."
"We'll mend that soon enough," said Siveni. "Starting with invasions." They came to a stop in front of the great temple of Savankala. Siveni glared at it, drew herself up to her full height-which somehow managed to be both about three cubits, and about fifty-and shouted in a voice loud enough to rival the thunderstroke, "Savankala, come out!"
The echoes repeated the challenge all over the city. Siveni's brows knitted as long moments passed and there was no response. "Come forth, Savankala!" she shouted again. "Or I will tear this ill-built pile of stone down around your ears and reduce your statue to cobbles and stick my spear into an interesting place in the statue of your darling wife!"
There was a long, long silence-followed by a soft rumble of thunder that was more contemplative than threatening. "Siveni," the great voice came from the temple before them - or seemed to, "what do you want?"
"Best two falls out of three with you, Sungod," Siveni shouted triumphantly, as if she had already won the match. "And then you and yours get out of my father's city!"
"Your father. Yes. And where is your father, Siveni?"
Harran held quite still, trying to understand what was going on inside him. He hated the Rankan gods, he knew he did. But the sheer slow weight of power stirring around Savankala's voice somehow terrified him much less than the slightly ragged defiance of Siveni's. And there, too, was a problem. How am I hearing anything but perfection in a goddess's voice? Five minutes ago, ten, she was all beauty, all power, unsurpassable. Now-
"My father!" Siveni cried. "You leave him out of this! I don't need his permission to use the thunderbolt! I can handle you by myself. I can handle the whole lot of you! For Vashanka Loudmouth is without a grown avatar. You're short a wargod. Father of the Rankans. I shall ruin your temples one by one, if you don't come out and face me, and meet the defeat you've got coming to you!"
The silence might have been long, but Harran was past noticing. What has happened to my lady? In eternity she should be as she always has been-a calm power, not this cocksure violence. And anyway-why did I call her up, after all? Anger at Ranke and the Beysib? Really? Or something else?
Love? I-
He dared take that thought no further. Yet, if what she had said to him was true, then he was himself in the process of becoming a god. The thought gave him a moment's wild jubilation. If he could dissuade her from this silliness and get her to do the spell the second time, it would be forever. The very thought of eternity spent in company with this blasting beauty, this wild, daring power-
The memory of soft laughter and of Ischade's voice gently mocking a man who did not know his own heart brought Harran back to his senses, hard. Impulse, impetuousness- that had brought him to this spot, this night, just as it had brought him to the Stepsons long ago. And impulse was blind. Though his body was screaming at its transformation at being dragged into godhead, his mind was now seeing more clearly. He had described the situation to Ischade even better than he knew. Siveni the impetuous, the lightning-swift, had accepted time and its bitterness more thoroughly than any of the other gods. Here in the mortal world, where time was at its strongest, so was her bitterness and rage. She would have no wisdom, no time, no love for him here. And elsewhere-
Siveni was a maiden-goddess. Elsewhere would not work either.
"Come out!" Siveni was shouting into Savankala's silence. "Coward god, come out and fight me, or I will smite your temple to rubble, and kill every Rankan in this city! Does that mean nothing; are your worshippers so little to you?"
"I hear your challenge," he heard Savankala saying. "Do you not understand that I may not honor it? Destiny has determined that these conflicts among us will be settled by mortals, not by gods. Are you not at all afraid of destiny- of the Power of Many Names that sits in darkness above the houses of all the gods, Rankan and Ilsig and Beysib alike? Will you defy that power?"
"Yes!"
"That is sad. You as a goddess, and supposedly a wise one, should know that you cannot...."
"Wisdom! Wisdom has gotten me nowhere!"
"Yes," Savankala remarked drily, "I can see that...."
Harran was trapped in a terrible serenity, a clarity that refused to admit fear. He knew he would have to sacrifice that clarity shortly. But in the meantime Savankala and Siveni sounded exactly like any two people arguing in the Bazaar, and Harran could tell that Savankala was stalling for time, waiting for Harran to do something. The message had been clear enough. These conflicts among us will be settled by mortals....
His hand, or the loss of it, had taught him well and quickly. No hatred was worth pain-not so much as a cut finger's worth. And certainly no hatred was worth death. Not his hatred... not Siveni's.
"Then, hide in your hole, old god," Siveni said bitterly. "There's no honor in winning this way, but I can put honor aside for winning's sake. Your temple first. Then your precious people."