hands into his robe. 'I don't care how talented an Amonite she was, looking into that archive without the proper training will have broken her.'
'It's sure as hell done something to her,' I said. I brushed a flake of ash from Cassandra's cheek. She didn't seem to be in any pain, but neither did she seem herself. I was starting to lean toward Malcolm's interpretation of her condition. She was sitting against the curve of the dome, her hands limp by her sides, looking around the room. Even though she didn't have any eyes.
'The archive is… How to explain it?' Malcolm sputtered. 'That man who was just here, Barnabas. Who was he?'
I turned to the old guy. He did like the tangents. 'Fratriarch of Morgan. He died at the hand of the Betrayer. I was supposed to be guarding him at the time.'
'Then it wasn't him. Not really. The dead don't walk, or reason, or argue. But Alexander has a trick that lets him capture the essence of a man, and put it back in the body later on.'
'The coldmen?'
'Oh, yes. What a name for it. The coldmen. That's exactly what they are. Anyway, to the point, the archive is like that. A bit of Amon's soul was saved. Bottled up, and kept in there. Just the thinking parts, mind you. Not the… Betraying things.'
I sighed. 'None of that matters, you realize. Alexander was really the Betrayer all along. What should we do with the girl?'
'Oh. Oh, I don't know. I'm not a Healer, am I?'
'The bottle doesn't hold the soul,' Cassandra said. 'And that soul hasn't been bottled, anyway.'
'Elephants like penguins, but penguins aren't really elephants,' Malcolm answered. 'Gibberish.'
'I can't imagine why you didn't go into the healing arts, sir. You have such a Healer's manner about you.'
'Really? I never thought it would suit me, honestly.'
The power of whatever I had invoked was long gone from my body. I was tired. Despite the surety of my words earlier, I really had no idea where I was going from here. Barnabas had been right, just as right as he had been dead. So what if Alexander killed his brothers two hundred years ago? From the looks of things, he was all that was holding the Fraterdom together. Even if I could challenge a god, killing him would get me nothing but an empire of ruin, followed shortly by an invasion from the Rethari. Which is probably what they were after. Probably why they gave us the archive in the first place.
On the other hand. He had killed Morgan, his brother. He had framed Amon, his blood. And he had used the Scholar's research to learn about the divine cycle, and to harness as much of the power as he could hold. He had tortured and oppressed the scions of Amon to perfect whatever process he was using to hold back the cycle. And now that the scions of Morgan had discovered the truth of it, he was hunting us and killing us. Had killed all of us, assuming the mock trials and authentic executions had taken place in the shadow of the Strength. Had killed all of us but one. And what was I supposed to do? Forgive that? Forget that?
So this is what I was left with. Bring down the Fraterdom, or let a murderer of gods off the hook. There was no winning. And when there is no win condition, all you can do is fight, as best you can, as long as you can. May the warrior never die.
Malcolm had his hands around Cassandra's wrists, and was peering at her face. 'I think she'll live,' he said. 'Though her mind… Who knows?'
I looked at the girl's face, and wondered what she had done to deserve this. What any of us had done. That she would be so… maimed, just as Amon was being justified. Not that it would do the old, dead god much good. But it would have done her some good, I think. Something was boiling in my mind. I looked up at Malcolm.
'His name be praised,' I said. 'His body held tight.'
Malcolm startled, but covered it quickly.
'I'm sorry, what?' he said.
'You said that. You or your friend. In the hallway, when you were going to the other room. We overheard you. It's how we knew where the archive was to be found.' I stood up and crowded the old man's space. 'What did you mean by that?'
'It's just… It's a ritual that we have. A blessing.' He blinked rapidly and looked up at me. 'May the warrior never die. That sort of thing.'
'When I say that, I mean that we are all warriors, those of us in the line of Morgan. That he and I and every blade-wielding, bully-toting fool who has bled out on some gore-smeared battlefield far from home are of one blood. One spirit. That the warrior is all of us, and will always live. So.' I poked him in the chest. 'When you say that thing about Amon's body-what are you talking about?'
'Nothing, nothing. Forget you heard it.'
'You have his body. Don't you? That bull about the archive being a bit of his mind, held in a bottle-'
'Bullshit,' Cassandra sang, like a child.
'Bullshit,' I repeated. 'You have him in there, don't you? Amon, bloody Scholar of the Brothers Immortal, founder of the city of Ash. He really is alive, isn't he?' I stabbed my finger at the dome. 'He's right in there!'
'Well,' Malcolm said. 'Not… right… in there.'
* * *
This is the story of Amon's death. After the united forces of Morgan and Alexander punched through the Rethari homelands and dragged the Scholar back to Ash, there was a trial. A brief trial. When the sentence was read, Amon was bound in chain and placed in his famous boat. The boat was set on fire and then pushed out into the bay. The whole city gathered on the docks and watched the bastard burn, cheering as he screamed and cheering even louder when the boat failed and sank, and his screams were cut off by the black, cold water of the lake. Burned and drowned, and at the time we all felt that was too good for him, but it was the sentence Alexander, newly crowned godking of all the Fraterdom, handed down.
This was before we knew he was innocent. This was before we knew that Alexander was our Betrayer, and all Amon had done was be a little too smart for his brother's comfort. Burned and drowned. But not, apparently, killed.
* * *
How do you kill a god? I had been giving this a lot of thought. Admittedly, I only started thinking about it when I learned that perhaps it was Alexander who had put a knife in Morgan's back. And my thoughts mostly involved ways in which I'd like to shoot him in the face. But these were unrealistic and, honestly, insufficient. Morgan had suffered grievous wounds in his life, wounds that would kill the strongest of mortal men. There was something special about the Betrayer's blade that killed the Warrior, probably something to do with the fact that it was held by someone he trusted so deeply, that the hand that pushed the knife into him was that of his brother.
I was no god's sister, and no scion of the Betrayer, either way. I had always assumed that, because Alexander bound the chains and kindled the fire, there was something special about it that could kill a god. But what if it had only been simple flame? Simple water? Surely these things wouldn't kill Amon. So what then? He sank to the bottom of the lake, undying? Eternal?
Apparently. Because, as I strapped on the suit that Malcolm handed me, a lot of what he was saying involved water.
'We don't know what's at the end of it. They monitor the chains, so we don't get near the pool. But the cable should lead the whole way. I've made the appropriate modifications, here,' he said, tapping the new helmet, the tank that clipped on my belt, 'that should let you make the descent. After that, I'm no help.'
'How long have you known?' I asked.
'Since I came here. It's openly known, among the scions who are brought from the Library. It's why we work so hard to please Alexander. To preserve the body. As long as we're useful to him, he keeps Amon alive.'
'And when you're not?'
'Then? I would not want to be in the Library Desolate on that day. I would not want to be wearing the chains
