"You make a good argument, James. But not good enough. Longarm's certainly ambitious, but he's not stupid enough to trust promises from Hardcastle."
"Who said anything about trust? For the moment they need each other, but all kinds of things could happen once the election is safely over. After all, Hardcastle maintains his position through armed force. Forces that in the future would be exclusively controlled by General Longarm; But you're missing the point, Jeremiah. The point is, can you afford to bet that Longarm won't make an alliance with Hardcastle?"
"No," said Rukker. "I can't. All right. James. I'll have to consult with the High Commander, but I'm pretty sure he'll say <em>yes</em>. We can't allow Longarm to win this election. You'll have your men in a few hours. And we should be able to call off most of Hardcastle's mercenaries. A large proportion of them belong to the Brotherhood. You've got your support, James. But you'd better make damned sure I don't have reason to regret it."
Out on the Street of Gods, three different clocks were striking fifteen, although it was still barely midday. Given some of the Street's earlier excesses, Hawk felt only a mild relief that nothing worse was happening. He looked carefully about him, and then stopped as a commotion broke out further down the Street. Fisher noticed his reaction, and her hand dropped to her sword. "Trouble, Hawk?"
"Could be. Take a look."
Halfway down, on the other side of the Street, a very tall woman dressed in bright yellow and battered leathers was beating up half a dozen nuns from the Convent of the Bright Lady. The nuns were armed with wooden staves and lengths of steel chain, but the tall woman was wiping the floor with them, using only her bare hands.
"Who the hell is that?" said Hawk.
"That is Roxanne," said Medley. "I'm surprised you haven't heard of her." He winced as Roxanne lifted a nun bodily into the air and slammed her face first into the nearest wall.
"So that's Roxanne," said Hawk. "I always thought she'd be taller."
"There's a good price on her head," said Fisher.
"With her reputation as a fighter, there'd have to be. I'm not tackling her without being paid extra."
"She's probably overrated. No one's that good."
"Bets?" said Hawk, as Roxanne head-butted one nun and punched out another.
"All right," said Fisher. "Who goes first?"
"Toss you for it."
Fisher fumbled for a coin.
"Wait a minute," said Dannielle. "Look."
Hawk and Fisher looked back just in time to see two new figures dragging Roxanne away from her latest victims, just as she was about to start putting the boot in. She shrugged them off easily, but made no move to attack them. Hawk whistled softly as he realized one of them was Councilor Hardcastle. The other man, dressed in ill-fitting chain mail, was the sorcerer Wulf. Hawk studied him thoughtfully. He'd heard about Wulf.
"Now, that is interesting," said Adamant. "I didn't know Roxanne was working for Hardcastle."
"She won't be much longer," said Hawk. "She's about to be arrested."
"I'd rather you didn't," said Medley quickly. "We don't want to draw attention to ourselves. Officially, we were never here. Our agreement with the Brotherhood will last only as long as we can keep it quiet. In fact, we'd better get out of here now, before Hardcastle spots us. Right, James?"
"I'm afraid so," said Adamant. "If it's a question of the bounty money, Captain Hawk;"
"It isn't," said Hawk shortly. "She's wanted on a dozen warrants, most of them for murder and arson. But she can wait. Protecting you has top priority until I receive fresh orders. Let's go."
Fisher nodded reluctantly, and the party moved quickly off down the Street of Gods, keeping to the shadows.
"It's probably just as well," said Medley. "Roxanne's supposed to be unbeatable with a sword."
Fisher sniffed. "I could take her."
"I'm sure you could," said Adamant. "After the election."
"Well, at least now we've got something to look forward to," said Hawk.
Roxanne liked the Street of Gods. Its constantly shifting realities appealed to her own mercurial nature. She almost felt at home. Of course, not everyone felt the same. The Street had terrorized Jillian to the point that not even Hardcastle's threats could make her accompany them. He'd had to send her home, along with all his followers and mercenaries. The Grey Veil had insisted on that. Apparently his God didn't like large audiences when it came to hard bargaining. Roxanne kept a close watch on Veil. She didn't trust him any further than she could spit into the wind.
Veil led them past churches and temples decorated with imps and gargoyles and demons. None of them looked particularly healthy places. Veil passed them all by, and Roxanne pouted disappointedly. Finally they came to the Temple of the Abomination, and Veil smiled sardonically as he took in their reactions. It wasn't much to look at, just a plain stone building with no windows, the stonework scarred and pitted by long years of neglect, but something about it put Roxanne's teeth on edge.
Veil gestured for his guests to enter. Hardcastle and Wulf looked at the rough wooden door hanging slightly ajar, and then looked at Roxanne. She grinned broadly, drew her sword, and moved forward to kick the door open. At the last moment, the door swung open before her. Roxanne stopped and waited a moment, but there was no one there. The gloom beyond the door was still and quiet. She looked back at Veil. He was watching her mockingly with his disquieting eyes. Roxanne turned her back on him and swaggered into the Temple of the Abomination.
A dim crimson glow filled the huge stone hall, radiating in some obscure fashion from a broken stone altar. The hall stretched away into the distance, and the ceiling towered impossibly high above her. She moved slowly forward, her sword held out before her. There was a sluggish movement of shadows, but nothing came out of the gloom to challenge her. Roxanne curled her lip disappointedly. Faint scuffing sounds behind her spun her round, but it was only Veil, leading Hardcastle and Wulf into the Temple. Roxanne went back to join them.
Hardcastle looked briefly about him, and did his best to look unimpressed. "All right," he growled finally. "We're here. Now tell me why I've come all this way to a deserted Temple when I could be talking with Beings of real Power."
"Gently, Cameron," murmured Wulf. "You don't know what you're dealing with here."
"And you do?" said Veil.
"I think so, yes," said Wulf. "You're one of the Transient Beings, aren't you?"
Veil laughed delightedly. It wasn't a healthy sound. The echoes seemed to go on forever in the great hall.
"What the hell's a Transient Being?" said Roxanne.
"An abstraction given shape and form," said Wulf. "A concept clothed in flesh and blood and bone. They have Power beyond reason, for their birth lies in the Wild Magic, and once summoned into the world of men they cannot easily be dismissed."
Roxanne frowned at the slender figure wrapped in grey before her. "You mean he's a God?"
Veil laughed, but when he spoke his voice was subtly different, as though something else spoke through him. "The Lord of the Gulfs has been asleep for centuries, and it will be some time before he can physically manifest him-self in this world again. For now, he needs a host to walk in the world of men."
Hardcastle scowled unhappily. "What kind of Being are you?"
The light around them grew subtly darker, like sunset fading into night. Here and there in the gloom, pale sparks of light appeared, growing quickly into transparent human shapes. Soon there were hundreds of ghosts glowing palely in the great hall, drifting endlessly back and forth as though in search of something they could no longer remember. All of them were hideously shrivelled and emaciated, reduced by some awful hunger to nothing more than flesh-covered skeletons with distended bellies and wide, agonized eyes. More and more appeared until they filled the hall from end to end, and then without warning they turned upon each other, tearing ravenously at their ghostly flesh with frenzied hands and teeth. They ate each other with desperate haste, screaming silently at the horror of what they did, but the broken bones and ripped flesh brought no end to their hunger.