The Silver Lake (7 page)

The other boy opened eyes still dull and lifeless.

“They’re gonna split us up, Spar,” he said urgently. “So if we’re gonna run, we gotta run now.”

Spar blinked, his face twisted in uncertainty.

“I’m not asking you if it’s safe,” Brax continued, “ ‘cause it probably isn’t. In fact, it’s probably the dumb est thing we’ve ever done.” He took the younger boy’s hand, looking earnestly into his face. “And it’s all right if you want to stay. You’ll be safe and fed, and they’ll give you a warm place to sleep. It’ll be at the Tannery Precinct Cami for now, but they’re gonna try and find you abayon.” He swallowed. “Real abayon, not like Cindar or me. They might even teach you to read and write more than just a few words.” He paused, glancing down the hall with a nervous expression, then turned back. “I won’t make you come with me,” he said quietly. “Not now, not after ... what happened. But I can’t stay here.” He squared his shoulders. “I
won’t
stay here. And if I’m gonna find a place to hole up before Havo’s Dance, I gotta go now.” He took a deep breath. “So, will you come with me?”

Spar looked up. His blue eyes were shadowy and blank, but there was an intensity in his face that Brax had never seen before.

“Did you let Cindar die?” he asked bluntly.

The older boy took a deep breath. “Yes.”

He made no excuses and no apologies and after a moment, Spar nodded almost to himself, then stood.

Together, they broke for the main doors just as the priest came around the corner with a heavyset delinkos in tow. She gave a shout of alarm, but by that time they were already pelting down the steps and across the courtyard. Brax flung himself to the left away from the reaching arms of one gate guard while Spar dove under the legs of the other and then they were past the gates and disappearing into the crowded market street beyond. Ignoring the sprinkles of rain that were beginning to fall all around them, Brax allowed himself a sigh of relief as they slowed. For good or for ill, they were on their own now, but at least they were together.

In the city’s growing shadows, the spirits stirred in gleeful anticipation. The decision had been made. They had fed from the big man’s death, just a little, but enough to grow stronger. It was almost time.

Deep within Gol-Beyaz, Incasa flung His prophetic dice into the current, reading the streams of possibility as they fell. The spirits were naive if they thought He had no knowledge of their little spark. Like them, He’d watched it grow, flashing back and forth between four boys, each one with a different talent for creation and destruction. The next few hours would tell which would be the most useful to the spirits and to the Gods.

THE FIRST MORNING of Havo’s Dance dawned wet and gray. The rain and hail that had begun in earnest just before dusk had beaten down on the city with such a fury that even the bravest of the sworn had fled indoors before the priest of Havo had finished singing the Evening Invocation. Not daring to return home in case the priests of Oristo had set a guard to wait for them, Brax and Spar had broken into a dilapidated rope maker’s stall in the western market, huddling together under the counter for warmth. It had been damp and cold, but it had been enough shelter to protect them throughout the night.

Now, as a dry, rustling sound caused Spar to stir uneasily in his sleep, Brax’s eyes snapped open. The stall’s owner was a drunkard, unlikely to return until well past dawn, and no shadowy immortal danger could reach them here, but there were wharf rats on the docks that ran in packs of a hundred, feral dogs, and even people driven mad by the storm beating on their shutters all night who might choose this spot for their own refuge.

Tucking Spar more firmly behind him, Brax worked his knife free as he stared into the darkness, but nothing moved. As the younger boy whimpered in his sleep, Brax worked one arm around him, his mind returning to their situation as it had for most of the night. They had no shine, no food, nowhere to live, and no one to protect them.

Should have thought of that before you let Cindar die,
his mind supplied coldly.

He ignored it. What’s done was done and if the know-it-all hindsight part of his brain couldn’t come up with a solution on its own, it could just shut up and get over it.

Scratching absently at a tiny, red bite on his ankle, he brought his mind back to the problem at hand. He could petition the local factor to allow them to work, but the factor had hated Cindar because their larger and far more dangerous abayos had always sneered at his demands. He’d be expensive and they had nothing to bargain with. He would want the bulk of their take and they would still be vulnerable to anyone stronger than themselves.

“Which is everyone,” Brax muttered. Hissing at a pair of tiny eyes glowing in the faint dawn light, he drew Spar closer.

You could always go to Graize,
his mind suggested.

Brax
gave
an audible sneer. I’d rather go back to Oristo-Cami.

Brax scowled as Cindar’s voice sounded overloud in his memory.

No self-respecting abayos would get himself killed by
one either, he shot back, ignoring the lump in his throat.
What are we supposed to do now, starve?

There was no answer and Brax hadn’t expected one. Cindar was dead. Even if he could have spoken with his delinkon, he wouldn’t have bothered. They were on their own.

And whose fault is that?
his mind demanded again.

Outside the stall, the winds died down as the first, wavering notes of Havo’s Morning Invocation song filled the air. The sun had risen. Brax squared his shoulders. Whatever else he did, he had to find them someplace more secure than this to sleep; the Second Night was more dangerous than the First and Brax would rather indenture them both to the docks’ shine-grubbing factor than face the shadows that came out in the rain and hail to suck the life from the unsworn on Havo’s Dance; the shadows that were growing stronger with each passing year. No, he would find them a place, whatever it took, a place where they would be safe, protected, and never have to fear the streets again, that he would swear, but for now he had to find them something to eat. As the dawn sun cast a dimpling of light across the stall’s wooden sides, he reached over and gently shook the younger boy awake.

Far to the south, the waters of Gol-Beyaz stirred as Incasa rose from the depths, drawn to the future formed about the young thief’s peril. The spirits had found a way to coalesce about the boy’s desperation. They would feed on it and grow until they could take on some murky, physical form like half-curdled milk, and with that form they would be able to reach the waters of Gol-Beyaz and the shining power that gave the Gods Their strength. Incasa did not doubt that they would do it any more than He doubted that it would be His hand that drew them in and fashioned them to a form that most suited His desires when they did.

Narrowing His snow-white eyes, the God of All Possible Futures considered the most important element necessary to bring this into being: the lake dwellers, mortal creatures of flesh and unclaimed power who had come to the shores of Gol-Beyaz so many centuries ago. The lake dwellers whose dreams and prayers had pattered down upon the waves like a constantly falling rain. As they’d built their homes, tilled their fields, and lifted the fish from the waters into their boats, the lake dwellers had prayed for knowledge that their crops would grow and that their children would flourish. From those prayers Incasa, the God of Probability, had been born, forming Havo, the God of Crops, and Oristo, the God of Children, in His wake.

More centuries had passed and, as the lives of the lake dwellers had grown more sophisticated, so had their prayers. Medicine, Learning, and Martial Prowess had soon joined Prophecy, Food, and Family in their pantheon and now it was time to bring yet another aspect of those prayers into being: Conquest and Expansion would join Prosperity, Culture, and Protection in the lake of power, but only under Prophecy’s very tight control.

Rising from the waters like a shining star, Incasa drew Estavia and Oristo up beside Him. As They broke the surface without so much as a ripple to mark their passage, He gestured, and the image of Anavatan appeared around them like a ghostly mirage. The three Deities danced along the dawn-lit streets, Incasa’s long white hair swirling half a heartbeat beyond Estavia’s flashing swords, and Oristo twirling along behind Them.

Standing poised above the golden dome of Anavatan’s Derneke-Mahalle Citadel, the seat of the lake dwellers’ physical power, the God of Prophecy held His dice high above His head. The new deity needed a champion and a sacrifice to come into being, and Incasa Himself needed an agent of His will, a single loaded die, in case this new deity somehow managed to slip from the net of His control. It was time to see which one this boy was most likely to become. With a snap of His wrist, Incasa flung the dice into the air and Brax’s future rose up before Them.

The young thief stood in the center of a broiling sea of blood-flecked mist, the body of another lying dead at his feet. As he fought to keep his balance, the waves crashed against him, trying to drive him down into the clutches of a hundred sharp-clawed creatures of power and need hovering just below the surface. Finally, they knocked him off his feet. As the creatures closed over his head, he managed one choked-off cry for help. His call shot through the mist like a blazing arrow and, drawn by the violence of his desperation, Estavia leaped forward as Incasa’d known She would, only to have him disappear before She could reach him.

The streets of Anavatan grew still.

Her red eyes glowing hotly, Estavia sheathed Her swords, then turned toward Her temple-fortress just visible in the dawn light. As the sun crested the Degisken-Dag Mountains to the east, She reached out.

Behind Her, Incasa cast a mantle of obscuring mist across the darkened streets so fine that even the Battle God did not notice it, directing Her touch toward the mind of one of Her favorites, a mind receptive enough to help build the future Incasa Himself desired. Then, catching His dice back up in His fist, He, too, reached out for one of His favorites, Freyiz, First Oracle of Incasa-Sarayi, and fashioned His desire in the form of a cryptic and subtle prophecy. It wouldn’t do to give His seers too much knowledge all at once any more than it would do to give the other Gods knowledge of Their own birthing. Knowledge was power, and the God of Chance did not like to share power, even with His own temple.