He said, “Ah, Leodora. You tell the world of your genius but you doubt it to yourself.”
“You know my name.”
“I’m a god, girl. I have to do something to warrant it besides killing a few mouth-breathing Jatos. Add that to your tale when you speak of those demons: Jatos is what they were, straight out of a sewer.”
She took note of the name but was more curious about something else. “You haven’t heard your wife’s name in a long time? Isn’t she with you?” Even as she spoke she sought among the eikons for the figure of Kyai. The goddess was not represented in the statues nearby.
Shumyzin replied, “Death doesn’t work like that. You tell the stories—I know you know about Death, Jax.” When she looked surprised, he added, “Just as I know the identity you travel under.” He made to shake his head, and a look of alarm strained his features. He glanced down at his torso. The shadow of night had reached his collarbone. “Quick now, Leodora, come here. I must tell you something.”
She got to her feet and took a reluctant step toward the frightening god.
“Closer!” he snapped.
She edged nearer.
“Listen,” said Shumyzin. “I know the one you travel with. We’re old acquaintances, he and I.”
“Soter?” she asked.
“Pah! Not the lush. The other one. The deathless one. The one who visits you in your sleep.”
She stared at him in awe.
The tiny black pupils fixed her. “I know the riddle of your coral friend.” The shadows touched his throat, and his voice shrank to a whisper. “And a warning. Jax rattles the darkness where he travels. A piece of it is sure to come calling.” His neck was now in shadow. His intense goggle-eyes regarded her in a way that imparted both his regard and his great concern for her. She had to look away from such intensity. He wheezed, “One more thing, and the most important.” He fell silent abruptly, and that drew her gaze to him again. Shumyzin’s head had turned back into stone. He faced the gorgon, a statue, as she had found him. She realized that a purple cloud masked the sun.
“The most important thing,” she muttered.
For an eternity she stared at the streaks of water on the polished cheeks—the only evidence to convince her that she hadn’t dreamed the conversation with him. She waited, hesitant, hopeful, but when the cloud passed and the dying sunlight touched him again, he did not return to life.
The overhead sky, a crepuscular blue, now twinkled with stars as if it were an inverted sea reflecting the lights of Vijnagar. Before the dusk disappeared altogether she must make the climb back to the ground. She hastily rebraided her hair, curled the braid around her fist, and then tied it up and stuffed it inside the collar of her tunic. She pulled the hood up on the back of her head. Across the horizon only a magenta swath remained, as if the sun had bled out upon the sky.
She turned and knelt, placing her fingers in the handholds. With her left foot she felt for the first of the rungs carved in the side of the bridge, then pushed herself over the edge. At the last moment she gave a final glance up, but Shumyzin remained gray and still.
The way down she took much more slowly and carefully than she had the climb up.
By the time she reached the pier, night owned the sky. All illumination now came from torches and lamps and the crescent of bold Saphon shining over the massive tower. Gyjio still hid behind it.
She easily replaced her mask as she circled the pier and then set off along the street paralleling the tower wall.
People paid her no mind. No one could tell that she among them all had just conversed with a god.
TWO
She was going to be late, but she didn’t care. She picked an outdoor café and sat down, her legs gone weak. The aftershock had caught up with her—the stupefaction of what had happened on the spire. She tried to dismiss its effect upon her, telling herself that because she hadn’t eaten since morning, this was just hunger making her feeble.
She had ample money to pay for a feast but asked only for a single dish of strongly spiced scallops and vegetables stewed over kelp, with some fermented rice wine to steady her nerves. She sat quietly awhile, watching people pass by, sipping her wine. It tingled