I spent what was left in my pockets on a coach to Dr. Hawkins’ clinic. He pointed out with grim cheer that I was going to have a much larger scar on my leg now than I would have had I simply rested, as he’d directed. He ruthlessly cleaned and re-stitched my partially healed wound, made dire predictions about the chance I’d limp the rest of my life, and assured me that I was a long way away from giving up crutches yet. Fortunately, he had another, although he also handed me a bill to give to Nobilis Aronson for the one I’d lost. I crammed the slip of paper in my pocket. I’d pay it myself. I was a little proud that I could.
Although Hawkins warned me in no uncertain terms to go home and get the hell off my leg, I had a promise to fulfill. I slowly, carefully, began the long trek through the snow-slick streets from his clinic to The Hill.
I was deep in thought as I walked, but surprisingly little of it was about what to do about Carignan Carel. Instead, my thoughts kept circling their way back around to Jonathan Ivory. I hadn’t thought about Jon in years, but now his memory was haunting me. After a while I gave my head a sharp shake. This was useless. He was dead, and I had work to do.
I’d promised Arlin that I’d put my report into Captain Lorencz’s hands today. The Vigilance Orderhouse was in Northgate, and my report was still at Nobilis Aronson’s house. The walk would take me through Parkside, where Droit lived. I hesitated, then firmed my resolve.
Droit left his front gate unguarded and unlatched, which I assumed was a deliberate invitation to would-be assassins. I cautiously pushed it open and took the well-swept walkway to his front porch. Then I stopped again, wondering what I was doing. He might be dangerous, in the privacy of his own house. He might misunderstand my intentions … or simply ignore them.
Although, to be sure, I wasn’t entirely certain I understood my intentions, either. Violence, and how to avoid it, was about the only thing I did understand. Everything I did circled back around to that.
After a long moment, I raised a fist and knocked. Nobody answered. The villa windows remained dark.
Nodding quietly to myself, I left and continued to The Hill. Maybe it was for the best, I thought as I walked. I was still shaken by my conversation with Carel, and I was in physical pain, as well. I shouldn’t trust my sudden desire for Droit’s company. Was I just indulging in self-destructive tendencies? Was this some kind of childish desire to return to the brutal simplicity of life in Hellsgate, where freedom of choice was meaningless and survival was the only imperative? Was it a craving for the kind of close companionship that I’d once had with Jon? Hearing his name and seeing his handwriting had brought back too many old memories. I needed time to sort them out. To sort everything out. Too many things were happening at once, and I was terrified that something important might be slipping through my fingers.
Nobilis Aronson’s butler let me in, took my coat, and led me to the library, where I found the nobilis sitting with Droit and Lorencz. I stared, confused. They were both out of their guard uniforms; apparently this was their day off, as well.
I swallowed. Perhaps Black Tate hadn’t given Droit my message. Well, I hadn’t expected him to. But I hadn’t expected to find all three of them in here together, either, enjoying themselves without me. I felt my heart tighten as I hovered in the doorway, abruptly afflicted with the acute embarrassment of the uninvited guest. Why shouldn’t they be here without me? I wasn’t a sentinel and I wasn’t a member of the family.
“Axton!” Aronson waved me in. “The whiskey’s on the bar; help yourself.”
“I — I’m sorry, my liege,” I stammered, my face burning. “I didn’t mean to intrude —“
“What do you mean?” Aronson looked puzzled. “We’ve been wondering where you were.”
“Was I … was I supposed to be here?” My heart sped up again. Had I forgotten a previous arrangement? Lost track of a conversation?
Mad, simple, or scarred?
“I sent a message to your new flat around noon. I expected you ages ago.”
I sagged, bracing myself against the doorway. Not mad. And not uninvited. It took a moment before I could reply.
“I was out,” I replied. “I never received it.”
“Well, then it’s good luck that you stopped by. Come in and sit down. We were discussing what to do about Far.”
“Or if we need to do anything at all,” Droit said sourly. He looked good, sitting in his cousin’s library. I liked seeing him in his Watch uniform, but he was equally as attractive in the simple black-and-white clothes he prefered when he was off duty.
“I see.” I dragged my eyes away and limped to the makeshift bar, then hesitated with my hand on the decanter. I’d vomited up everything I’d eaten that morning. I’d already taken laudanum; twice, really, because Dr. Hawkins had insisted on “topping me up.” And I was still feeling weak from blood loss and the exertion of the day’s walking. I was losing track of things. I had too much I needed to say, but saying any of it was going to raise questions I didn’t want to answer. I cast about for something, anything, I could say that would delay the inevitable.
“Did you go out with Angie and Kay today, my liege?”
“I did! We went to the menagerie, like you suggested, and then I took them to lunch.” He made a face. “And then I had to bring them back because they were starting to whine.”
“That’s normal. You must have tired them out.” I poured the drink, lecturing myself on self-destructive methods of coping, and limped across the room to one of the leather armchairs. Sitting and setting my crutch aside was an immense relief. “Did you buy them anything?”
“Just lunch.” He frowned. “Why? Should I have?”
“No.” I took a drink, leaned back, and gingerly touched my leg.
“Are you all right?” Droit asked, frowing as he studied me.
“I lost my crutches.” I didn’t expect I’d get them back. By now they’d be long gone, broken up as firewood or spirited off to a pawnshop. “Dr. Hawkins gave me another. He says I still need it. I’m sorry I interrupted. What are you going to do about Far?”
They began talking again, but as I sat and sipped my drink, I found I couldn’t concentrate on what they were saying. Carel had surprised me with Jon’s old manuscript. I’d thought our records had all been destroyed. I’d thought that time of my life was a closed book.
While all of it had been happening, while my world had been shattering around me, I’d fallen asleep in jail every night wondering how I could possibly survive the next day. The shock I’d felt when they’d told me about Jon’s death had been fresh and raw and painful, and I was certain I’d never recover from the anguish I was feeling. It had felt like the end of the world, or at least the end of any normality in my life. And then I’d been sentenced to Hellsgate, where I’d discovered how much I still had to lose.
Yet here I was, ten years later, sitting in an aristocrat’s library with a glass of good whiskey in my hand. I seldom thought about my days at the university anymore. I seldom thought about Jon anymore. How strange time and memory can be. Staying alive had taken up so much of my attention in prison that I’d all but forgotten why I’d been sent there in the first place.
I took a long sip from my glass, staring blankly into the flames.
I’d met Jonathan Ivory in Dr. Kincaid Hawkins’ anatomy class, where I’d worked as an assistant. Like me, Jon had been finishing his studies and searching for a thesis topic. One day he’d asked me about a lecture he’d missed, and we’d started talking — a conversation that had eventually moved us into a bar and onto the subject of studying the strange creatures that dwelled across the Line. Jon was a sentinel, but unlike so many in the Vigilance, he was willing to ask questions.
Were transients alive? Did they exist independently of this world, or did they only coalesce into shape when they crossed into it, summoned by a sentinel or somebody’s pain? Could transients be vivisected, since they turned back into bale as soon as they died? Were they sentient? Did ethical and moral considerations apply to our interactions with them?
We’d talked late into the night, closing down the bar and moving to his flat and continuing our discussion until we’d both fallen asleep, sprawled together on his narrow bed with our empty bottles scattered around us. Over the next two years our conversation had never stopped; it had only paused for classes and work, and even then we’d jotted down notes to remind us of what we wanted to say to each other the next time we met.
Kyrchye, we’d been young and brilliant and oblivious to everything but ourselves. Jon had been everything to me, his gold hair and blue eyes the sun to my shadow as we’d leaned over our makeshift anatomization table together. Any worries that we might be committing a mortal sin had been swept away by intellectual fascination as our scalpels sliced open a bound transient’s carapace. Our research had been so delicate, so painstaking. Each cut had been carefully documented until at last the transient expired, its bale-flesh dissipating back across the Line. Then we’d talk and compare notes until, exhausted, we’d fall into bed together, breathless with the knowledge that we were poised on the edge of a momentous breakthrough.
They told me he hanged himself in his cell. I was certain they’d lied. I’d believed then, as I believed now, that someone had murdered him. The Vigilance or the Reverence; it could have been either one. Jon had been too full of life and curiosity to kill himself. He would have fought until the end. He probably had fought until the end. I hoped he’d killed some of his captors before they’d killed him.
“Axton.”
I lifted my head. Everyone was looking at me. I tried to recall what they’d been talking about, a trick that usually worked when my mind wandered, but this time I’d been too lost in thought to even subconsciously follow their conversation.
“I’m sorry,” I said. I set the whiskey aside, reminded that it was a bad combination with laudanum. “I wasn’t paying attention.”
“Have you heard a word we’ve said?” Aronson asked, his tone a combination of exasperation and concern.
“No. But I don’t need to. You’re worried about Far, but there’s nothing you can do to control him. He can’t be imprisoned or dissuaded from his mission. At best, you might be able to destroy him.”
“Do you think it can be destroyed?”
“Everything can be destroyed.” I hesitated, then drained my glass. Everything.
“I don’t want to destroy him,” Lorencz objected. “Far saved my bacon at least three times, by my count. Even if that don’t mean a damn thing to him, it means something to me!”
“It may not mean us any harm,” Aronson reluctantly allowed, “but we can’t sit back and let it keep killing people. Think of what will happen when everyone learns what it can do. Parents will be terrified of their children. Unscrupulous adults will coerce little boys and girls into calling Far to kill at their bidding. The city will become a slaughterhouse. And what if Far’s reach isn’t limited to Cislunar? What if children all around the world learn how to summon it?”
Droit stood and took my glass from me. His fingers were warm as they brushed mine.
“Ever wonder what people thought when the cult of Kyrchye was just starting out?” he asked the room as he walked over to pour more whiskey. “I bet they were thinking the same things. ‘What’s going to happen if everyone starts to worship this new thing?’ Kyrchye was a war god at first, you know. The justice and guardianship part of its religion came later. ‘Kyrchye and its followers are bloodthirsty killers! If we let its worship spread, the whole world will be engulfed in war!’”
“Behold the great theological scholar,” Aronson scoffed. “Since when have you been an expert on Kyrchye?”
“A good general studies his enemy.” Droit returned and handed me the glass with a conspiratorial smile. I took it, glancing sideways at him. He didn’t look anything like Jon. He was taller, older, and more muscular. He dressed differently. His eyes were a different color. Even his hair was a darker shade of blond, and he wore it longer than Jon ever had. “I sacked a lot of sanctums and was preached at by a lot of communicants. I began studying religion just so I could rebut their nonsense.”
“I’m surprised you bothered. Wouldn’t cutting their throats have been easier?” Aronson’s voice was strained.
“You forget the boredom factor. Live enemies are more entertaining than dead ones.” Droit sat down again.
He was crueler than Jon, too. Jon had been sensitive, like Aronson. I’d been the hard one in that relationship; I’d been the experienced and cynical half of our partnership. But that old, self-confident Axton had been broken in Hellsgate.
“You kept the communicants you captured alive?” Aronson asked, with disgust.
“For a while.” Droit blew him a kiss.
“What if you’re right, Droit?” Lorencz pressed. “What if Far really does become a new god? The Reverence ain’t gonna sit still for it, you know.”
“What do you think they’ll will do — start burning kids at the stake?” Droit shrugged. “That would be one way to get Far’s attention.”
“What happens if I annoy Angie or Kay — send them to their room without supper — and they call Far on me?” Aronson asked, only half-listening. “Will it kill me for disciplining them?”
“Maybe spanking will become a thing of the past,” Droit mused. “At least, when it’s not between consenting adults.”
“What do you think, Axton?” Aronson turned to me. “You know Far better than anyone here.”
I pulled my drifting thoughts back again.
“You shouldn’t withold food as a punishment. And so far Far’s vengeance has been restricted to people who’ve physically harmed a child. I can ask h… I can ask Milka, if you like.” I needed to stand up. I had things to do.
“What about when we have to hurt a kid for their own good?” Lorencz asked, her eyes narrowed over her cigar. “Like setting a broken arm. Hurts like hell, but it’s gotta be done.”
I fidgeted. My leg hurt, too, but it was for my own good. A reminder that I was weak, a coward, unable to save Jonathan, and avoiding my promise to Arlin.
“A child who’s old enough to summon Far should be old enough to understand the difference between abuse and medical treatment,” Droit argued.
“Better hope so,” Lorencz muttered, “or a hell of a lot of chiurgeons are gonna get themselves gutted.”
“Why children? Why here and now?” Aronson leaned back in his chair, his silk jacket rustling. “Is it a coincidence that Far showed up around the same time that five child sentinels were kidnapped and nixed? Do you think they summoned him, somehow?”
It was hopeless, really. I couldn’t escape the past. I dropped my hand on the whiskey glass, slowly turning it. Everything repeated itself. Same damn pattern, as Arlin had growled. Heresy to heresy to heresy.
“They created him,” I said at last. The others looked up. “Five frightened, senseless children with their minds wide open to the bale: they created Far out of their own nightmares and gave him form.”
“Far told us he was born from Yzyrchye,” Droit objected. “He called Yzyrchye a ‘she.’”
“Finn was captured the longest,” I said, lifting the glass. “He said it was spring when he was taken, so the kidnappers began collecting and nixing children six months before we found them.” I took another sip. Self-destructive, perhaps, but it helped to kill the pain.
“Six months with their minds open and howling across the Line,” Aronson murmured, following my line of argumentation. “Transients should have been breaking through on a daily basis.”
Lorencz shook her head.
“Nah, remember, they were drugged most of the time, right? But they had to be awake sometimes, to eat and drink. So when they were, they sent a call across the Line, and Yzyrchye heard it, and — what? Created Far for them?”
“Or Far was yanked out of her,” I said, dreamily. “Or maybe he arose independently of Yzyrchye. I don’t think Far really understands concepts like birth or gender yet; he might have had something else in mind when he called Yzyrchye a ‘she.’”
“No, no, stop,” Aronson said, shaking his head. “Wait a minute. Think about what you’re saying.”
I smiled, cynically, at my glass.
“He’s saying there’s a recipe for creating gods.” Droit gave the other two a cool look. “All you need is a bunch of nixed sentinels, pain, and time.”