A Tree of Bones (32 page)

Yes, priest-king; yes. Now say it, so I know you know.

“Them that took the Oath don’t see things like she does, though, not in their hearts, where true hexation comes from. Which means . . .
what they swore to never was
her
, per se, or me either. They swore to each other, to this place — Hex City. Only real power she has in this arrangement is as the City’s protector, its occupying spirit. But she don’t care about that, and she’s shown it a hundred times over — by killing Hank over what she wreaked on Clo and her baby, most recently. Which means . . . they’re freed from serving her at all, though they still gotta do what I say. Because — ”

“ —
you
care for them, for this place, and have proven it. Absolutely,
mi conquistador
. Much as you may wish otherwise, you have bound yourself to these people, their future. It has become a — religion of sorts, to you. Is that not the best of jokes?”

“They finally get wise and throw her out, though, then I go, too. Can’t be High Priest for a goddess no one worships.”

“Ah, true. But . . . would that not be best, really? For with both of you gone, alive or otherwise, the City could live still, every one of its citizens protected in their own mutual embrace; untroubled by hunger, no longer set to roam and rage across this world. You would have helped birth a paradise for your people, something unseen in
all
worlds, ever. A race of hexes neither outcasts nor victims nor gods, but men, women, children of great power, all bound willingly together for the common good.”

America
, Rook thought,
way it’s s’posed to be, but ain’t. Like what the War was fought for, but real. And all I have to do, to make it come true — is die for it.

Or, at the very least . . . be willing to.

The Enemy clapped Chess’s palms together. “
Yes
. Now say the rest, before you persuade yourself you have misunderstood.”

Oh, for the Devil really is a lawyer, just like they say . . . and you really ain’t Chess, no matter the resemblance, since Chess never would’ve had the perspicacity to notice the Oath’s discrepancy —

But no, Chess would’ve seized fast on any escape clause he could, on his own behalf and Rook’s too, without even consulting Rook first. Because he always
had
been the truly practical one, in their arrangement.

Pretty little red-headed Satan of a man. My sin and my salvation, just like I always wanted to be, for you. Just like I never could’ve managed to, even if I hadn’t lied to myself at every step of the way, and you too, darlin’. You, too.

“Nothin’ in the Oath that says that ‘other world’ the Engine brings on has to be the same one Ixchel dreams on, either,” Rook said, at last, staring down at his empty hands like he thought he could read their creases.

“Not at all, no.”

“It could be anything.”

“It could.”

“So, again, and having finally talked myself through all of this, ’til I’m ’bout to lose my Goddamn voice: what is it you want from me, that you can’t get elsewhere?
Specify
.”

Once more, it turned those eyes on him, and
Christ
if he didn’t rouse in reply, shamefacedly.

“Were you a different man, Asher Rook, then I would tell you what I told this red boy’s soldier, earlier tonight,” the Enemy said. “To ‘trust yourself and do as your conscience dictates, when the time comes.’ But since you and I both know how unlikely it is you will listen to
that
most flaccid and decayed of organs, perhaps it is better for me to simply make you a promise, and take one in return: that if you agree to say what I tell you to whoever I tell you to say it to at the proper moment, then you will get what you want most.”

“Chess back, I take it?”

“Once things are in their proper places, I will have no need of this body. I can feel your lover on the rise already, clawing his way up through the earth; should he reach me in time, I will be glad to step aside.”

“And if he
don’t
get here by then?”

“He has
you
on his side, does he not? You, the soldier and the soldier’s woman, whose gift works best in graveyards, along with his own, not inconsiderable powers. So long as none of you allow this flesh to lie empty long enough to rot, I trust you to find some way.”

“The hell kind of god
are
you?” Rook asked it, amazed.

“Not yours, obviously. Which is just as well, seeing you owe him so very much, and have paid him so very little.”

Which was, if harsh, only true. And sounded all too familiar, to boot.

Restore the Balance
, Grandma’d told him, which sounded like status quo regained. But where would going back to the way it’d always been leave Chess and him, anyways — or the rest of every other witch or wizard, inside Hex City or out, for that matter? Rook’s mind went straight to the Council next, tallying his allies, and found he admired even the shakiest of them far more than he’d ever trusted himself. Might almost risk making the further error of thinking his own mistakes were worth it, to bring them all together. For what had been built in Hex City
had
to be preserved, even at the cost of his own power, of Chess, of himself.

So it wasn’t really so much he might have to reconcile himself with dying, which at least was over quick enough, as it was that he might have to give away his own hexation, that very thing which made him
him
, and be fine with that. The same sacrifice he’d never yet been able to make, even for Chess’s sweet-and-sour sake.

Finally do what I always should’ve, and trust a god to make it so, much as I know better: trust, hope, have faith, or at least pretend to. Do I really have a choice, either way?

He’d been silent a long time, he supposed, at this point. That would have to end.

“Fool me once,” Rook said, out loud, to no one in particular. And gathered his strength.

Now everything was reduced to snatches, nothing more. He didn’t even recall agreeing to this particular bargain, though he knew he must’ve, since next thing he knew, he had his hand wrist-deep in the Enemy’s swinging rib-slats, feeling a hard, small something force itself into his palm. Rook drew out a jade ball, bright green on red, forearm suddenly bloody to the elbow; Tezcatlipoca folded Rook’s fingers inward, smiling, and sealed the whole with a kiss that bloodied Chess’s blue lips.

Swallow this,
it told him.
It will act as an anchor, so that I may speak to you unheard, without my sister’s eavesdropping.

Thing was the size of a horse pastille, but Rook had no heart to complain — just choked the jade ball down, hoping it’d strangle him. And was unsurprised, when it didn’t.

The Enemy nodded, and bent inward again, shifting into his lap. Told him, without moving that bloody mouth:
And now . . . what small reward I can give, to tide you over? Indulge yourself, Reverend — you know you want to.

“Don’t mind if I do,” the Rev replied, hoarsely.

When I tried this with Ed Morrow, the red boy’s soldier, he sent me on my way. Then I thought of you.

“How flattered should I be by that, exactly?”

Not at all. But you do wish me to stay, nevertheless.

Rook looked at it, carefully. This close, the thing he held looked less like Chess than it ever had . . . and yet. If this really
was
as good as he was likely to get, why stint himself?

“Been a bad year,” he said, at last. And kissed the god of Night, Death and Magic, deeply.

Later still, skewered, Rook would feel his eyes roll back, borne away on a pain-pleasure flood centred in entirely unfamiliar regions; an only too-fitting crucifixion, offered up to seal the deal as half apology, half penance, with those too-calm eyes staring down at him, now gone all-black, amused to their impenetrable cores by the depths of his own self-hatred.

Ridiculous, really. Chess’d never required such of him, and wouldn’t wanted it, if he’d offered.
Ride all damn day
, he’d said, once, in a flirtatious mood;
night comes, it’s your turn in the saddle, and don’t you think to spare me the whip, neither.
And how they’d driven each other, after that — right into the mattress, up against the wall, on every surface that’d bear the weight, and some that didn’t. Had to pay extra for damages, after, but it was well worth the fee.

If you want it so badly, I have no objections,
the Enemy would say, as he assumed position.
But in truth, no matter how I try, I will never understand you creatures. Why do you torment yourselves so, when life alone will do it for you, if you only wait long enough?

While Rook bit his lip ’til it bled, huffed out a groan like Chess’s nice-sized piece had cat-barbs going in and braced himself in vain ’gainst the even sharper backstroke, praying hurtful joy might soon turn to numbness, if not release.
Oh Jesus, hell if I know. Like the Roman Church and their confessional, putting absolution’s sacrament in the hands of petty men — it’s hubris pure and simple, sheerest impossibility. How can we possibly forgive each other? We can’t even forgive ourselves.

No hope for him, he knew that now. There never had been. Only the fall itself, the sheer and simple way one fell down — straight to Hell, no detours. And the dubious comfort of sharing your pain with whoever you might be able to grab tight enough hold of to drag there with you, along the way.

“‘Thank you’ seems . . . markedly inadequate, in the face of what you just gave me,” Sophy Love told Yancey Kloves, as they sat atop the butte, watching Grandma, Yiska and the braves preparing for their task: drawing Navaho signs on the rock, smudging a wide circle with aromatic smoke, singing atonal phrases into the wind. Torches on long poles surrounded a central fire in a ragged ring of flickering light. Though Gabriel had since managed — how like a man, or at least a baby! — to go back to sleep, Sophy could sense his dreaming thoughts yet, on the outermost edges of her brain; a not unpleasant mix of pressure and shadow-play, similar to being constantly aware of a nearby lantern’s heat, even when its flue was shuttered.

“Least I could do,” Yancey replied, looking wrung out. “Considering.”

“Yes. But . . . it’s a beginning.”

“And I meant it, you know,” she went on, not looking at Sophy or Gabe. “About surrendering.”

Sophy drew a long breath, gathering her thoughts. The pain did seem more distant now, though that might well be due only to fatigue. But nevertheless, such an admission deserved honesty; she set herself to address it, if she could.

“Mesach . . .” she began, at last. “When he was in his right mind, I’m sure he knew — had to’ve known — that vengeance was the Lord’s alone to take, not his. ‘I will repay,’ saieth our Creator.”

“I’ve heard that.”

“
Romans
, 12:19. It is a central tenet of our faith, and must be acknowledged, no matter the circumstances. So — in the end, just as Rook’s and Pargeter’s punishment was never truly his to administer — neither is yours mine. And while I appreciate the offer, I won’t require it of you.”

“Justice isn’t vengeance, though, nor vice versa; forsaking one can’t give you a free pass on the other. Can it?”

“No, Missus Kloves. Yet, to my mind . . . it’s always the quick who stand in far more urgent need of justice than the dead.”

For what did you accomplish, after all
, she wondered,
by making Mesach pay the price he’d incurred — did you bring your loved ones back to life, the way Pargeter did mine? And what would
I
reap, exactly, were
I
to sow whole fields with your blood, madam — ’sides from dragon’s teeth and damnation, immediate regret in the short-term, risk to my eternal soul in the long — ?

Sophy sighed again. “All of which is to say . . . I won’t honour Mesach’s legacy by despairing of the Lord’s Word and trying to substitute my own, elsewise the bloody wheel will never stop rolling. For though God
is
just, He is also merciful; another thing we too often forget, to our shame.” She looked down at Gabe, frowning a bit in his sleep, and chucked him beneath the chin, gently. “Might be you’ll answer for Mesach yet, Missus Kloves — but it won’t be by my hand. There has to be forgiveness, somewhere.”

As though urged to try and figure out where such a place might lie, they contemplated the star-bedecked horizon together awhile, ’til Yancey bowed her forehead against her knotted fists. With a start, Sophy realized the younger woman’s shoulders were shaking. Uncertain what she might do to help, however, she carefully kept her gaze fixed outward, misdoubting Yancey could accept comfort from her just now — even had she had any in her to give, which she wasn’t at all sure she did.

Silent moments passed, and presently Yancey’s spine relaxed, her breath easing.

“Missus Love,” she murmured, “if Reverend Rook had had half the faith you do, then . . .” Abruptly, she snorted. “But then, if my aunt had nuts she’d be my uncle, as Chess might’ve said . . . and did, on at least one occasion.”

Sophy felt caught between shocked giggle and discomfited blush, to be reminded just how close Yancey was — in spirit, if not carnally — to that dangerous little man. “Back in Bewelcome, the Reverend promised me he’d keep Gabriel safe, if I surrendered to him,” she said, for lack of any other response. “Even offered an oath to that effect. I thought it mere duplicity, at the time, but . . . could he have known Gabe was — what he was? Somehow?”

Yancey frowned, considering. “Seems unlikely,” she said at last. “Not ’til after, I think, though he saw it in Chess before Chess turned; one could easily overlook in a child what seems obvious, in an adult.” She spread her hands. “From what little I’ve seen, Asher Rook isn’t to be trusted one inch, let alone further.”

Sophy nodded slowly. “I suppose so . . . yet he did say something else to me. That ‘When a hex breaks an oath, it means more than you know.’ And Doctor Asbury claims it’s an oath of some kind lets the Hex City folk work and live together — something they swear to that Lady of theirs, or the City, or each other.”