Caine Black Knife

PART TWO
PRINCE OF LIES

I sat on that bench outside the Cathedral for a long time.

I sat while night took the city. I sat while Khryllian lamplighters tromped by, kindling the hurricane lanterns that hung from tall wrought-iron hook-poles to mark each street corner: faint candles in the vast Boedecken dark. I sat while the night clogged up with rain again and barely visible people hurried past me with lowered heads and shoulders hunched against the chill, carrying shuttered lanterns that leaked strips of flickering yellow light. I sat long enough that my ass either warmed the bench’s polished stone or went dead numb.

Finally I got up. “Fuck this for a joke; I’m freezing my balls off. I’m leaving.”

Don’t. I feel safer here.

I spun and the Automag found my hand.

Around me: rain and empty darkened streets, featureless looming bulk of the Cathedral and the face of Hell. I was entirely alone.

No surprise: that whisper had been a Whisper. Not an actual voice at all, but a minor TK variant directly manipulating my eardrums. Makes the slithery breathy nondescript almost-voice sound like it’s coming from everywhere at once.

I safetied the Automag and put it away. “Come on out. If I meant you harm, I would’ve come looking.”

You have been known to change your mind.

I didn’t deny it. “At least tell me which direction I should face.”

It matters not. I’m well out of range of your pistol, and I can hear what you say no matter where you say it.

“Yeah?” I settled back onto the bench. It had been my ass going numb after all; the stone was cold as a bitch. “How long have you been watching?”

Since you walked out of the Cathedral. Straight to the Eyes post; you’re so predictable.

“Sure.” Doing my dark-adaption trick, I scanned the sightlines of ghostly windows in buildings around the little plaza, checking for ones that overlooked both my bench and the Cathedral steps. There were only two: one on the face of a third-floor gable, and the other a picture window at the front of a one-story shop. “And it tickles the fuck out of you to sit up there in your little garret room and watch me shiver.”

Caine, please. You insult me. Nor am I in the bootmaker’s. Unlike you, I’m not that easy to locate.

“Whatever.” It wasn’t worth pushing. “All right, I’m listening.”

You were the one who wanted to see me.

“That’d be nice.”

Oh, ha. You see? I pretend to appreciate your wit. You pretend not to hate me. Can we do business now? This must be important-or, I imagine, poor dim Tyrkilld would be dead already.

She’d been smack on about me changing my mind; right then I’d have cheerfully slapped the points off her ears for being a condescending elvish cunt. There’s only so much talking-down-to I can take, and I’ve had about five lives’ worth from Kierendal.

“I guess he told you I took a job for the Champion.”

I had hoped Tyrkilld’s welcome might leave you disinclined to help the Khryllians. You were supposed to come into this on our side.

“Whose side is that?”

Ours. The good guys. You know: truth, justice and the Ankhanan Way.

I made a face. “Since when do truth and justice have anything to do with the Ankhanan Way?”

She laughed at me: that elfin titter that sounds like somebody dropped a handful of glass bells off a cliff. Since Assumption Day, of course. You arranged it so yourself, didn’t you?

“Sure, funny. Now let’s talk about side of what, and why you dragged Orbek into it.”

Dragged? Me?

“Orbek went to Ankhana to visit friends-friends who are half-made Faces, just like he used to be. Three months later he’s shooting Knights of Khryl and playing Black Knife kwatcharr.”

Not playing, Caine. I could hear a shrug in her Whisper. A clever little feral like you shouldn’t have much difficulty figuring it out.

“I just want to hear you say it.”

Deliann doesn’t want you involved. Our Sainted Emperor feels you’ve done enough.

“He’s sentimental that way.”

Not sentimental, Caine. Squeamish. Our Sainted Emperor knows what happens when you get busy. Three years later we’re still rebuilding Ankhana.

“I’ve heard. So Orbek was just bait after all. Because you knew I’d come.”

I’m not squeamish.

“I remember. Tyrkilld will too.”

Oh?

“Must have come as a bit of a surprise that he lived long enough to report in this afternoon.”

It’s not the first time you’ve disappointed me.

“You sure he’s outlived his usefulness? He’s smarter than he plays, and he’s got a good heart.”

A fatal virtue, in this place and these times.

A tilt of my head: not quite ready to agree. “You were willing enough to use his heart when it suited you.”

So are you, I think.

“I quit playing good guy a long time ago.”

Her Whisper chipped sharp as an obsidian scalpel. Have you seen how you feral scum treat Folk here? They’re slavers, Caine.

“Some of them.”

No one ordered you here. No one even asked you. Especially not me. Let Deliann flash on me all year long. This is your choice. Nobody else’s.

“That’s what people keep telling me.”

How much do you know about what’s really going on?

“It’s what you know that worries me. What you don’t.”

This is your war I’m fighting, Caine. Don’t you understand that yet? Do you know what this place is?

“Yeah.”

We are the First Folk, Caine. I stood in this place when Panchasell Mithondionne carved it from the gutrock of this escarpment more than a thousand years ago. Do you know what your Artans have here? This is not just a dil-not just a gate to your hellworld-

“I told you: I know.”

Then you know why I need you here, Caine. This is the task I have been given by our Emperor. By your Emperor. To defend the dil T’llan against your people-

“Yeah, I get it.”

They’re your enemies too.

“Uh-huh. I say again: So? What’s your offer?”

Silence.

Hush of rain and the beat of my heart.

“Come on, Kier. What do you want me to do about it?”

Without hesitation: Kill the Champion. Kill Angvasse Khlaylock.

I laughed at her. It wasn’t easy; she’s not exactly funny. But I could fake it.

I can make it worth your while.

“No, you can’t.”

You don’t think you can do it?

“For starters.”

And the rest?

“I don’t want to.”

Silence.

She said, Really.

“Really.”

Silence.

Eventually: Why not?

“Reasons are for peasants.”

Silence.

I’d settle for Purthin.

“Oh, right. He knows me-”

So did Ma’elKoth.

My turn to fall silent. Eventually: “I thought you said you were fighting my war. Sounds like you want me to fight yours.”

BlackStone is under Khryllian protection. Before I can touch the Artans, we have to-

“Yeah, yeah, sure. Keep it up, Kier.”

A hush like a breath of wind: a sigh, maybe. What does the Champion want you to do?

“Is that your business?”

If I say it is.

“Leave the Artans to me. When I’m done, they won’t be a problem.”

How does that get me what I want?

“Didn’t say it would.” I let air leak out between my teeth. “Does Deliann know you don’t give a shit about this supposed mission of yours?”

Our Sainted Emperor and I have an understanding.

“He wants the dil T’llan protected. You want ogrilloi free in the Boedecken.”

Like I said.

“Because that’s what the Black Knives were in the first place. Part of Panchasell’s defense of the dil T’llan. I mean, ogrilloi were your dogs, right? Hunting dogs. Guard dogs. Isn’t that what you bred them for?”

We did better with them than we did with you.

“You are sentimental.”

There is no way in which ogrilloi are not superior to humanity. Stronger. Faster. More loyal, more faithful. More honest and more courageous. True always to their own nature-

“Yeah, so are horses. Except horses don’t eat people.”

Nor do ogrilloi. Not anymore.

“Tell that to the Smoke Hunt.”

If only I had the chance.

My teeth found that raw spot on the inside of my lip. “The Smoke Hunt isn’t yours?”

Mine? How would you think it mine? Random slaughter is your style.

I couldn’t argue. If shit were gonna be simple, God would’ve called somebody else.

The Smoke Hunt is the worst thing that has happened to our operation. Pointless, useless, wasteful bloodshed. They accomplish only the spread of terror; they keep the Khryllians on the highest alert, and ensure the constant vigilance and militarization of the entire population. They are the enemy of the ogrilloi as much as they are of the Khryllians-the Smoke Hunt justifies the oppression of Hell. Not that they wouldn’t have their uses, if properly directed-

That spot on the inside of my lip was getting way too goddamn sore. “Orbek.”

Yes.

“It wasn’t just about me-Smoke Hunters carry the Black Knife clan sign-”

He was my best hope to get inside. After all, you trained him.

“Since you sicced Orbek on the Smoke Hunt, are Hunts up or down?”

Why?

“Just answer.”

Up.

“Nine Knights down-how many were yours? Or sympathizers?”

Four. Where are you going with this?

It was my turn to laugh. It didn’t come out sounding real humorous. “They’re Black Knives, you dumb cunt. You were using him. You think he wasn’t using you? Like you said: I trained him.”

We’re not going to get along until you start telling me what you know.

“Sometimes shit isn’t complicated,” I said. “You just have to be willing to accept the absolute fucking corruption of everybody involved.”

Silence.

Eventually: So where does this leave us?

I shrugged. “Let’s deal.”

Deal how?

“Play Cainist for a minute. Talk about what you want. Not what you told Deliann you’d do. What you really want.”

Why would I do that?

“You ever read Deliann’s book on me?”

I’m not literary.

“He has Ma’elKoth say that the only way to beat me is to keep me running in so many different directions I can’t focus. That to give me a clear view of my enemy is to hand me victory.”

So why would I give you a clear view?

“Because we’re not enemies.”

It warms me to hear you say so.

“Play straight with me and you maybe get something for it. Take the chance, Kier.”

I have trusted you before.

“And the truth of it is you came out pretty good. It’s not my fault shit went bad in the middle.” Which truth might have been stretched around a corner or two, but she let it go.

Slowly, like it hurt her to say: I want the Knights of Khryl and the rest of your vile feral slavers broken like you broke the Black Knives.

I nodded. “And you don’t care what happens to anybody else around here.”

Do any of them care about Folk?

“Some do. Some don’t. That’s not what we’re talking about.”

What are we talking about?

“I can help you. But you have to help me.”

There are limits to what I am willing to do.

“I’m not asking a lot.”

I’m listening.

“I know shit’s about to blow up here; what do we have, a week?”

Less. A revolution is an avalanche. Once you crack the crust, you can only ride it out or let it roll you under.

“Yeah. It’s more than just the grills and your local agents, right?”

Caine, please. However much we may pretend to trust each other, you can’t expect me to give you anything you can take to the Champion.

“Fair enough. But let me play clever little feral for a minute, huh? Your people have something going that’ll trigger a major crackdown on Hell-maybe even a minor massacre-which will make a really swell excuse for the full-scale invasion by, say, several divisions of the Ankhanan Army that Deliann has in concealed positions on the border, because he’s already been talking with the Lipkan Court about the Poor Oppressed Ogrilloi and the Nasty Oppressing Khryllians and how the Ankhanans Have No Territorial Ambitions, and after all Lipke’s still moderately cheesed with the Order for bailing on the Plains War, which means that Deliann can have this place fully invested on maybe two weeks’ notice.” I spread my hands. “How am I doing?”

Two weeks? You forget we have rail now. And steamboats.

“Yeah. I’m still not used to that. I bet the Khryllians aren’t, either.”

We’re counting on it. What price your help?

“Lay off the Smoke Hunt.”

The Whisper ratcheted down tighter. Ask for something else.

“That’s what I want.”

Aren’t you the man who used to say you can’t make a revolution without breaking heads?

“No,” I said. “I’m not. And I didn’t come here for your revolution.”

I thought freedom was a kind of religion with you-

“That’s the Cainists. Don’t confuse gospel with reality.”

What is the reality?

“A lot of people ask me that.”

I want you on my side, Caine. I have gone to considerable trouble-

“My heart’s pumping pisswater for your fucking trouble.”

Frustration twisted the Whisper into a hiss. Why is this so important to you?

I shrugged. “Orbek’s my brother. The Black Knives are my clan.”

Oh, please. Since when?

“I was adopted.”

You are the most preposterous, self-aggrandizing excuse for a-

“I’m serious about this, Kier. Remember what happens to people who hurt my family.”

A whole river of glass bells cascaded off that cliff. Your adopted ogrillo family!

“Kier.”

Glass kept tinkling. What?

“Faith is adopted.”

The river of bells flash-froze in midair.

When she finally spoke, her Whisper was very soft, and very slow, and very, very flat, soothing, the way a cautious trainer might speak to an escaped bear. A big, hungry, angry bear.

Let’s say I agree. Let’s say I change my plans, shift my resources, and take the risk. What do I get?

I stood up. “Exactly what you asked for.”

The discreetly fist-shaped brass knocker on the reinforced door produced no results, but a knuckle-size rock against the shutter of the lone lamplit window on the second floor produced a voice that was clearly female though in no way recognizably feminine. “Don’t do that again. You won’t like it if I have to come down.”

“You’ll like it even less if I have to come up.”

The shutter swung open. The silhouette of a squarish head on squarish shoulders appeared just long enough to deliver a nod and a hand-wave toward a black shoulder-breadth archway three steps down from street level. “I’ve been expecting you. Use the kitchen door.”

The sunken walkway led between the townhouses to the garden alley behind. The garden gate was reinforced as well, but I heard the clack-chank of a heavy bolt being drawn. The gate swung open.

Nobody there. Nobody visible, anyway.

A head-high panel in the kitchen door stood open, spilling pale lamplight into the back garden’s clutter: random weeds dying among rocks, from pea gravel to fragments of boulders the size of chairs. I picked my way through the gloom, nodding thoughtfully at the unavoidable crunch of my footsteps.

The kitchen door swung open. I said to the squarish silhouette, “I thought you quit.”

“I resigned my Exoteric post, for which I was cast forth in disgrace into the outer darkness. Disgrace, as you well know, is often useful to the Esoteric Service.” The silhouette retreated from the doorway. “Come in. I have a chair for you by the stove.”

The kitchen was modest, barely large enough to fit the small coal-fired stove, iron washbasin, and tiny breakfast table with its two leather-upholstered chairs. Another chair, of plain wood, stood near the stove, and it was to this one that she pointed her thick straight cane.

“Sit there until you dry. My front room holds a variety of valuable documents, and I will not have them damaged. Take off your boots if you like.”

Instead I stood just inside the doorway. “I’m surprised the Esoterics took you.”

“Took me?” T’Passe of Narnen Hill, one-time vice-Ambassador to the Infinite Court, lately the self-appointed apostle of the gospel of Cainism and queen of that permanent hornet’s nest in my buttcrack, leaned heavily on her cane for the step or two it took her to reach the table. “It was not a matter of taking me. It was a matter of getting the best use from me.”

“You were always-?”

She pointed at a lamp. Its wick flared to life. “Chief of post for Ankhana. Oh, yes-Toa-Sytell’s men chose well when they arrested me.”

I nodded, frowning, remembering. “I guess. . you never were afraid. Not even in the Pit. Facing down Serpents. Facing down Orbek.”

She shrugged. “Neither were you.”

“That’s different. I was looking to die.”

“Die in the manner of your own choosing. I, conversely, sought to live. . in the manner of my own choosing. The results were identical because the fact of choice was identical; the commitment to absolute freedom. As we Cainists say: My Will, or I Won’t.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, don’t start, huh?”

She chuckled and waved another lamp alight. “Our Abbey schools do a terrible thing when they teach us to think, eh?”

Her hair had been shaved to a salted stubble over the rumple of scar that swept up and back from her cheekbone across the ruin of her right ear. She lowered herself into the breakfast chair with care that bespoke chronic pain, and sat with her right leg extended while she stripped a sheet of bleached paper from a stack on the table in front of her, then found a pen, an inkwell, and a small sand shaker.

I said, “You’ve looked better.”

She grunted. “You, of course, haven’t. Sit.”

I shook my head, shrugged, and did as I was told. “That all from Assumption Day?”

She gave me a sidelong look. “And I am so grateful for your concern-though one might be forgiven for wondering, given such concern, why you did not, say, visit me in the embassy’s infirmary.”

“I did. Before you woke up. You’re a lot easier to take when I don’t have to listen to you yap.”

“We have that in common, then.” She dipped the pen and began scratching on the paper. Her head down, not looking at me, she said softly, “The hip is Assumption Day. The ear. . my most recently previous assignment was. . difficult. Not everything is about you, my friend.”

I made a face. “Since when are we friends?”

“My last assignment was likely the reason Ambassador Raithe was amenable to my request to be transferred here: in the expectation that it would be a quiet posting, where I might recuperate in peace.”

“You can give that shit up right now.”

“I never held that illusion.” Her doughy face came up. I had forgotten how bright and hard her eyes could be. “I knew exactly what I was getting into.”

“You’re a genius.”

“What I am,” she said, “is the world’s leading authority on you.”

I scowled at her. “You said you’ve been expecting me.”

“Yes. Ever since I arrived. What name are you using?”

“Huh?”

“You had been going by Jonathan Fist, yes?” She shuffled through the pages in front of her, frowning, squinting at the rows of close-crabbed writing on them. “At least, that is the name I have for you when you went south, when you instigated that border war along with Orbek and the horse-witch-”

“We didn’t instigate anything, we-and how do you know that?”

“The name. Some reference to an Artan legend, isn’t it?”

I shrugged. “He made a deal he couldn’t get out of.”

“Ah.” She tapped the pen to the end of her nose, smiling. “I should very much like to meet the horse-witch. Did you bring her with you?”

“Will you stop?”

“No, of course you wouldn’t-primitive masculine-warrior complex-you’d never willingly bring her into danger. You rarely even fight women, let alone kill them-it’s clear you’ve always found it distasteful at best, if not outright intolerable. . unless they’re a different species, of course, which doesn’t exactly count, does it? In fact, I believe of all your murders, women account for only-”

“I might add one more if you don’t shut up a minute.”

She turned a raised eyebrow toward me. “Oh, please. Now: What name are you using?”

“I am very tired,” I said. “I am dripping fucking wet and the last meal I managed to eat got spewed all over a cell floor while a Khryllian Knight played handball with my head. You’ve got a serious problem in this town. All I want to do is dump it on you so I can go get a hot meal and some goddamn sleep, all right?”

“And I am very interested in what you have to say. But we will do this in an organized fashion, or we will not do it at all. The name?”

I sighed. “Dominic Shade.”

“Ah.” She held the pen folded between her hands, but I could glimpse movement on the tabletop: letters scratching themselves into view upon the paper. “Both names by which you have been actually known-during your novitiate and in Kirisch-Nar. You don’t think that’s a risk?”

I shrugged. “It seemed like less of a risk than lying to Knights of Khryl, magick or not.”

“And you are using magickal nonrecognition?”

“A variant on the Eternal Forgetting.”

“That was the magick devised by Konnos the Artificer, yes? Used by your late wife in her Simon Jester identity?”

I nodded. “It’s supposed to make people unable to connect separate facts about me. That’s why I figured to use real names. But I’m not sure it’s working very fucking well.” I waved a hand at her. “You’re evidence of that.”

“As you should have expected; thaumaturgic magick is uncertain through out the Battleground, the more so in closer proximity to Hell. However-” She checked her papers again. “As I recall. . yes, here it is. The Eternal Forgetting is vulnerable to those whose core image of the subject transcends operant identity.”

“What the fuck does that mean?”

“It’s not important. Let’s continue. Why did you abandon the Jonathan Fist identity?”

I’m not going to belt her, I told myself. I’m not. “What are you, writing a fucking book?”

“Why, yes.” She gave me a smile so warmly smug I almost changed my mind. “Yes, I am.”

I dropped my face into my hands instead. “Oh, sweet shivering fuck. I hate you. Do you have any idea how much I hate you?”

I heard her chuckle. “Stop. You’ll hurt my feelings.”

“There’s already a goddamn book on me-”

“I’ve read it. But it’s not really about you; to my reading, it’s more about the damage you inflict on the lives of those around you. My book is to be far more than his; no mere history, no simple-minded biography, but instead the definitive treatise on your phenomenon, rather than your life: you as more than merely you.”

“Oh, god.”

“The essence of what makes you you: the quintessential spirit of the Caine in us all. Which is, after all, my sole interest. Cainism will never be a pure philosophy, a truly useful and universal moral compass, until that essence can be carved free of your unfortunately messy reality.”

“It’d be a better moral compass if you fuckers had named it after somebody else.”

She didn’t seem to hear. “Why do you think I requested Purthin’s Ford? This was the site, after all, of your functional apotheosis. This was where you-”

“How much have you got on this book?”

“Well-I’m still compiling my notes-”

“So I don’t have to kill you tonight.”

“Oh, please. You don’t kill-nor harm, nor even hurt-merely to protect your vanity. You never have.”

“I’m trying to outgrow that. What the hell is a ‘functional apotheosis’?-ah, forget I asked. I don’t want to know.” I jerked myself upright and tracked wet footprints across the kitchen floor. I picked up one of the lamps and weighed it in my hand.

When I drifted behind her toward the inner door, her cane thumped horizontally into the wall across my path. A subtle spin of her forefinger-and the wick wheel of the lamp in my hand turned exactly the same amount. Down. The lamp went out.

“My mistake,” she said. “I should never have mentioned the documents in my front room-though you see I can anticipate, and easily thwart, your attempt to dominate our conversation by threatening my work.”

I sighed down at the curl of smoke rising up the lamp’s glass chimney. “I ought to just crack your goddamn skull with it.”

“And how, exactly, will that persuade me to use Monastic resources to help you rescue Orbek?”

I stared at her.

“That is why you’re here tonight. Don’t trouble to deny it.”

“I’m talking to you,” I said heavily, “because the Council of Brothers needs to know what’s going on in this fucking town.”

“Horseshit.”

“What?”

“Horse,” she repeated precisely. “Shit. I repeat: I am the world’s leading authority on you. I know Orbek-know him well, as you’ll recall. I know you. And I know that there is nothing you will not say or do to save the life of someone you care about. It’s a matter of principle, isn’t it?”

“Which is why the Council needs to hear this from you. Because nobody believes a sonofabitching word I say anymore.”

“And why will I believe you?”

“Because,” I said, “you’re the world’s leading authority on me.”

She frowned. I could see gears clicking behind her face.

I had her. I just needed to set the hook.

“So I’m a liar,” I said. “You’re the expert: Talk to me about my lies.”

“Ah. .” She sat up, her eyes brightening. “Ah, yes. . the lies you fed the King of Cant to trigger the riots that led to the Second Ankhanan Succession War-that you would show Ma’elKoth to be an Aktir before the entire city. .”

“Yeah.”

“The lies you told us in the Pit, to build the morale of the condemned before Assumption Day. . even as you were being taken to your death in the Shaft, still you lied. . and yet. . and yet-”

“Yeah. And yet.”

“And Ambassador Raithe-his account of your accord with the Ascended Ma’elKoth is in the Embassy Archives in Ankhana-when you agreed, falsely agreed to surrender. .”

“Yeah.”

“And in every case,” she murmured, her eyes alight with distant awe, “your lies became truth. .”

“It makes me a little careful about what I say to people, you know what I mean?”

“Caine, I-” Her brittle voice had gone breathless. She sounded very, very young, and I caught a glimpse of the girl she must have been forty years ago, before the world had crushed the best of her dreams. “Caine. .”

It sounded like a prayer.

I had to turn away. “Look, don’t get on your knees or anything. Just keep your goddamn magick ink thing going so you can read this back when you make your report. You know how I got jobbed here in the first place?”

Her brows contracted. “You approached the Abbot of-I could look up the exact details in only a moment-ah, Tremaine Vale, yes, with intelligence on a semi-private expedition out of Prethrainnaig. Partially funded by the Kannithan Legion. In search of some primal Relic-something to do with Panchasell Mithondionne-”

“It was this big-ass gem called the Tear of Panchasell. According to the Lay of the Twilight King, it was formed of Panchasell’s weeping for the Folk trapped behind in the Quiet Land when he sealed the dil T’llan against the Blind God.”

“The oral histories of the First Folk are notoriously-”

“Yeah, I know. Call it a metaphor.”

“Yes. A pity we cannot examine the Tear itself.” She coughed delicately. “I do recall, now, reading your report. .”

I waved that off. “You know what the dil T’llan is?”

She shrugged. “Primal is a tricky tongue; nearly every word has a variety of related meanings, depending on context. Dil can mean path, or maze, or gate, or wall. T’llan is the Primal for the moon. It’s also a proper name for the moon, which they consider a person. It’s also the name of their goddess who takes the moon as Her Aspect. It’s also a descriptive modifier for anything that undergoes regular phase changes, or that is seen mostly but not always at night, or is related to tidal effects, or-”

“Yeah, yeah. In simple terms: the dillin are gateways to the Quiet Land. What the Primals call the Quiet Land is what you call Arta.”

Her eyes widened. “Your world. The Aktiri world. Yes: as I said, I’ve read Deliann’s book.”

“In my home language it’s called Earth. The Khryllians call it the True Hell, and that’s as good a name for it as any. You might remember the last time my people decided to show up in force. We call it Assumption Day.”

She lifted her cane and grimaced. “I was there.”

“Yeah, well, sometime around a thousand years ago, this Panchasell started to understand what my people were going to be capable of. That’s when he decided to close the dillin. That’s what he did with the dil T’llan. Shut them. Shut them all.”

“Impossible.”

“No, it isn’t.”

“The primals may be the greatest spellcasters of Home, but no mortal could wield power of that magnitude-not even Ma’elKoth, prior to His Assumption. Across the world? Overload would have incinerated even Him like one of His own Firebolts. To close the dillin for even a moment, let alone a thousand years-eight hundred years after Panchasell’s death-”

“You said it. No one mortal.”

“Ah.” Her eyes narrowed, then widened again. “A Power?”

“Yeah. An Outside Power.” Knots that I hadn’t noticed tying themselves in my guts started to wrench tighter. “The Outside Power. The god of the Black Knives.”

“But even so-were It Bound to the Tear, to channel so much-”

“No. The Tear was. . just a device. The Tear gave It control over the river. Let It control the local weather, start the odd wildfire, whatever. The Tear was what let It make the Boedecken into the Boedecken Waste.”

She was looking off into the distance, now, far beyond the walls.

“Outside Powers feed on anguish,” I said. “Not just human anguish. Panchasell made It master of the Waste, letting things grow here just enough to suffer. And when the Black Knives would offer it, well, snacks-extra power-it could pay them with power in return.”

I looked out the kitchen window, out over the garden toward the face of Hell. “It still does.”

“You’re saying it’s still here.”

“I’m saying here is what it is.” I waved a hand out her window into the darkness. “This is it. That’s it. The dil T’llan. Right there.”

“How do you know all this?” Her voice was hushed, but with awe, not disbelief.

“You said you read my report.”

“But-but for all these years-”

“Shit, t’Passe, I was a kid. I didn’t know what I knew. It wasn’t until three years ago that anybody other than Ma’elKoth and my dad knew that the Quiet Land was Earth-y’know, Arta-and my dad was fucking crazy. It’s not like the Outside Power understands what it’s doing; it’s not even really sentient, as near as I could or can comprehend. It’s just a bundle of bizarre fucking tropisms that exists on the far side of reality. That’s how the Black Knife bitches could use It without Binding It: It was already Bound here. With the right kind of attunement, the part of It that made contact with a bitch’s mind would automatically resonate with her intention. Goddamn reverse theurgy.”

“But even so-how is this the concern of the Monasteries?”

“It’s not. Not directly. It’s the concern of the Empire. Because BlackStone Mining is an Artan operation-run, most likely, by Aktiri and Overworld Company goons trapped here on Assumption Day-that has found a way to control the dil T’llan.”

“How do you know this?”

“Not important. The point is: there’s an Ankhanan insurgency already operating in Purthin’s Ford.”

“This Smoke Hunt?”

“Freedom’s Face.”

“Oh, please, Caine-we know all about-”

“You think you do. Among all those idealistic starry-eyed middle-class Ankhanan kids are hard-core covert operatives-most of them probably primal, concealed under different types of Illusion, but maybe humans too. Thaumaturgic Corps adepts, Grey Cats, I don’t even know what. They’re here to take out the Artans and regain control of the dil T’llan, but the Artans are under Khryllian protection. And nobody knows how much the Khryllians know about what the Artans are up to. One thing I know for sure is that this whole city’s about to go up in flames.”

“And how do you know this?”

I looked her right in the eye. “Because I’m here.”

Her answering stare went thoughtful.

“You need to get this in a report to the Council of Brothers right away, and they need to get-at the very least-a reinforced strike team inserted into Purthin’s Ford just as fast as the fuckers can friarpace. This may be the our only opportunity.”

“Opportunity?”

I took a deep breath. “The Order of Khryl has at least one, probably two, True Relics.”

The pen in her hands snapped with a sound like a breaking finger. “You cannot be serious.”

“I could be wrong. But I don’t think so.”

“Caine, it’s impossible. We would know.”

“Sure you would. They’re here, in Purthin’s Ford, and they’re in use. Regular, everyday ritual practice.”

“But they-” She let the fragments of her pen drop to the floor and passed a hand over her eyes. After a moment, she said softly, “What sort of ritual?”

“Some kind of Atonement. It seems to be something that is a guaranteed privilege of any ordained Knight. Beyond that, I’m not sure.”

I held out my right hand, opening and closing my fingers meditatively.

With just the faintest breath of mindview, I could see the power of Khryl’s Blood shining there. “The True Relic I think they have-one I can’t confirm, but I’m pretty sure-is Khryl’s Hand.”

Her face was white as the bleached sheet on the table beside her. “The Butcher’s Fist. .”

“They call it the Hand of Peace.”

“They would.”

“I think they’ve had it all along; I think Ma’elKoth built it into the Spire for them. I think it’s the only reason the Spire can stand at all.”

“You think?”

I shrugged. “Ma’elKoth and I are not on speaking terms these days. There’s some source of power holding that fucking monstrosity up. I can’t imagine anything less than a True Relic would be reliable.”

“The fortress of their faith,” t’Passe murmured. Her bloodless lips quirked toward a smile but missed it on the twitchy side. “That would suit Ma’elKoth’s, mmm, I suppose one might call it His sense of humor. Or artistic irony, perhaps: to build the Order of Khryl an impregnable keep founded upon a True Relic of their god-their worship itself upholding their Eternal Vaunt. .”

“Yeah. Look at me laughing. The other True Relic is one the Council’s gonna be even more interested in. You better tell Ambassador Raithe too. This one I can personally confirm; I was close enough to touch it. They’ve got the hilt to what they call the Accursed Blade.”

I dropped back into the chair by the stove and tried to swallow the sick twist in my stomach. “It’s the Sword of Man.”

T’Passe’s cane thumped on the floor. Both hands on its head, she shoved herself upright. “This-this would not be a Relic-Jereth was no god-”

“It’s a Relic. Whatever the Godslaughterer might have been-whatever his sword might have been-it’s for motherfucking sure a True Relic now.”

“How-?”

“How should I know? Let the giant brains at the Monasteries figure it out; what the hell else are you good for?”

“Well. . I suppose,” she murmured, frowning, “having struck the defining wound to their god would Fetishize it for them considerably. .”

“They’re not the only ones who Fetishize the goddamn thing. We call it the Sword of fucking Man, for shit’s sake.”

She stopped and turned to squint at me. “This is more than your reflexive hostility. You are angry. What has you angry about this?”

I found myself panting through clenched teeth. “Here’s another one for you giant brains,” I said. “This is what I think you better share with Raithe. I’m telling you: I was this close to that fucking thing. It’s old. It’s easily the five-hundred-plus years old it’d have to be. And it’s been in the Knights’ possession a long damned time, maybe all five hundred years. And they don’t show it to Incommunicants. But I’ve seen it before. I’ve held it in my hand. So has Raithe.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Me neither.” I stared into the flames within the stove. “I had that fucking thing sticking out of my guts eleven years ago. Three years ago I jammed it through Ma’elKoth’s face.”

“Caine, what are you talking about?”

“The Sword of Man, the Accursed Blade, whateverthefuck you want to call it.” I met her eyes, and my voice emptied out.

I said, “I’m pretty sure it’s Kosall.”