“The riots should stop now,” he said, but the King in Red waved the subject away.
“They were barely worth the name of riot. A tussle with the Wardens. Someone knocked over a few fire barrels, and the coals ignited a line of Sansilva shops. We couldn’t use tainted water on the fire—some Tzimet might survive the heat—so we flew saltwater in from the ocean.”
“The Vale looked quiet when we passed over.”
“Not much trouble there. Wardens arrested a few agitators, prophets proclaiming the Twin Serpents’ return, that sort of thing.”
“Do you think,” Caleb said, but stopped himself.
“What?”
“Do you think they knew we’re drawing the Serpents’ power? Do we have an information leak?”
“One of the men we arrested was a salesman from Centervale with three children and a pending divorce; another, a minor landowner; the third, a junior league ullamal coach. Their wives, husbands, children claim none had any religious history, not even the coach. They dreamed of the Hungry Serpents, and when they woke, they prophesied in tongues of flame.”
“A thousand people must go mad in Dresediel Lex every day.”
“Three thousand. But the visions here were all the same. They saw Aquel and Achal, waking.”
“We only have six weeks to the next eclipse.”
Kopil sighed. “I know. RKC has already volunteered to pay for the fireworks. Fifteen thousand souls for simple merriment. We could buy everyone in the city a cup of decent coffee for that. And yet the revelers must revel.”
“The Serpents are on peoples’ minds as the eclipse nears, is my point. When they go crazy, their madness takes a form to fit their fears. It’s just dream stuff. Nothing serious.”
“Have you ever read Maistre Schatten?”
“Who?”
“Schatten wrote about dreams and myths and the unconscious:
“No.”
“I knew the man,” Kopil said. “Old in his fifties, shaken and shattered by a life of delving under the placid surface of his clients’ minds. Do not ignore dreams. They are a line from the past to the future. All nightmares are real.”
“You’re worried.”
“I’m worried,” the King in Red replied. He crooked one finger, and a brown paper envelope floated from his desk to Caleb’s hand. Caleb opened the envelope, and slid Mal’s shark’s-tooth pendant into his palm. The closed- eye glyph and the tracking pattern were cracked and blackened. “Yesterday, the sigils and enchantments on this pendant burned themselves out—around noon, when you struck down Alaxic’s aide.”
Caleb pursed his lips. Allesandre had spouted no True Quechal rhetoric, no promises of the gods’ return. Then again, she had been all but a goddess herself, at the end. And when she usurped Seven Leaf, she had let Tzimet into the water. She would have been a logical poisoner’s agent—she knew Mal was sneaking into Bright Mirror and North Station. As Alaxic’s aide, as Mal’s friend, Allesandre could have set Mal up, pointed her toward a dealer in Quechal artifacts who would give her the tracking amulet. Only the faintest strands of the deal would lead back to Allesandre herself. “Interesting,” he said.
“Are you still in contact with the cliff runner from whom you took this amulet?”
He blinked. “I could try to track her down. I don’t know if she’ll talk to me.” Both statements were true.
“The talisman is dead. Even the tracking signals have ceased. Only broken glyphs remain. My people copied the glyphs, studied the tooth down to its component atoms, and found nothing. This supposed link between your cliff runner and Alaxic’s aide is our only lead. Find the runner. Ask her if she recognizes a woman of Allesandre’s description. You may offer to return the talisman, if she requests it in exchange. Report back to me on your success.”
Caleb slid the tooth into his jacket pocket. “I’ll try.” No need to say more than that.
“Do.” Kopil clicked his teeth together three times, and rested his skull back against the pillow. “Weak, I feel something like fear again.”
“I don’t understand,” Caleb said.
“We’ve built a world in the last six decades, but it has not endured the test of time. We inhabit the gods’ abandoned buildings like spiders in an old house. Madmen flock to worship departed lords and dead ladies, to tear down all we have built. They seem to hate me. Perhaps they’re right to do so.”
“No.”
“Gods perished at my hand half a century ago. Was that for any purpose, beyond satisfying my vanity, my lust for vengeance?”
“Yes.”
“Yes?”
Caleb pointed to the altar stone. “It’s been sixty years since the last death on that altar.” He saw Mal again, blood black against her dusky skin. “Our city is cruel. It exploits its children. But it does not corral those it fears and hates, does not kill them to appease bogeymen. There’s a lot wrong with this world you’ve made, sir, but that much is right.”
Kopil lay still beneath blood-colored sheets and blood-colored robes.
“I take it your time with Ms. Kekapania did not go well,” said the King in Red, after a time.
“No,” Caleb replied. “It did not.”
“I’m sorry to hear that.”
“Thank you.”
“You are right, of course. About the sacrifice, and the value of our creation. But do not underestimate the power of dreams.” The red sparks in his eye sockets blinked out. “I see the Serpents when I sleep, too.”
Caleb said nothing.
“You may leave.”
A Warden flew him home over the Drakspine. Dry heat sucked his blood and spirit. Yet, standing for the first time in days outside his own house, in full sunlight, he could not shake the chill from his bones.
30
Zolin, the finest ullamal player in the world, tore down the narrow court. She dodged defenders, juggling the heavy rubber ball from knee to knee. It struck her flesh with a thick sound. Ten thousand onlookers watched from the stands, and did not breathe.
For two hours Zolin’s squad had lagged behind, but in the last thirty minutes, through a haze of exhaustion, the Dresediel Lex Sea-Lords had closed the gap in score through luck and grim determination. In ordinary games, the audience laughed, cried, shouted obscenities at the stripe-robed, monstrously masked referees; tonight, they waited and hoped for a moment of magic.
Zolin spun clear of the last blocker and struck the ball with the crown of her head. It flew over the opposing team toward the gaping mouth of the serpent statue at the arena’s far end. That serpent was Aquel, the Creeping Hunger; across the field coiled Achal, the Kindled Flame.
For two thousand years, this game had been a cornerstone of Quechal religion. Play mimicked the Hero Sisters’ sacrifice to the Serpents, at the beginning of the world. Modern fans cared little for mythology. Neither did Zolin. But if there was an afterlife, and she met ancient players there, she would play circles around them all.
The ball soared, a blur of black and bone, struck the inside of the serpent’s mouth, and disappeared down its gullet. A bell rang.
Roars of triumph filled the arena. Beer and wine showered like rain onto the sand; torn programs and strips of cloth joined the deluge. Zolin raised her arms and leapt into the air. Sweat flew from her skin. Her teeth gleamed like pearls. She was immortal.
