Spellbreaker: Book 3 of the Spellwright Trilogy. Blake Charlton
Dhrun and Holokai, quite the pair Leandra had found. She began to march up the steps trying to keep her eyes on the step in front of her. When passing Baruvalman she adjusted her headdress to hide her face. But just as she feared, the pitiful deity began calling louder.
“Blessed is the Halcyon, who will protect us from the demons crossing the ocean!” Baru said in a resonant male voice. “Blessed is his daughter,” he called, this time a shrill child’s voice, “who protects the humblest citizens of Chandralu from the neodemons.” His voice was now that of a quavering old crone’s. “Blessed is that bane of neodemons, that maker of circles. Blessed is that generous, that pious, that virtuous woman!”
Well, Leandra thought, at least I know he isn’t talking about me.
She walked faster, but from the corner of her eye she saw the pitiful divinity complex was struggling to his feet. He was naked as usual, his flabby body androgynous. One of his eight arms had been amputated below the elbow and his sallow aura sputtered. That was new and troubling. His head was an ever-rotating cylinder from which projected the faces of his most dominant incarnations. Presently, he was looking at Leandra with the face of an old woman, but she could also see the head of a praying mantis, a child, a scarred warrior.
“And more blessed by the Creator would be the Warden of Ixos if she prayed, ever so briefly, to the humblest of deities, to the deity who knows the city!” he said in the buzzing voice of the praying mantis.
Holokai stepped toward the pitiful complex, who shambled back, two of his hands brought up to shield his rotating face, two pressed palms together in supplication.
“My apologies, Baru,” Leandra said while marching faster up the steps, “we are on urgent business.”
“Of course, of course,” Baru said from a child’s face. The effect was eerie. “Of course such a mighty woman, a maker of circles could not spare any consideration for the humble Baruvalman. She bears on her shoulders the weight of all society … and undivided society.”
Leandra turned to look at the divinity complex, who was now on his knees, all possible hands pressed together in supplication. Leandra spoke with a lowered voice. “Baru, my time is short. What is your meaning?”
He bowed. “Oh, nothing, nothing. If only I could assist the mighty lady, for surely she shall be called upon to investigate last night’s unfortunate violence on Cowry Street. And surely, she will want to know about how all the humblest denizens of the city, divine and human, are living in fear.”
“Baru, what do you know of what happened last night?”
“The simple Baruvalman wishes he could help the great circle maker, but he is so weak. There are so few prayerful in this city. If only he had enough prayers to look after the starving children and the disabled old men.”
More like opium addicts and petty thugs, Leandra thought; there were already official patron deities for both destitute children and elderly.
“Tell me something useful,” Leandra said, “and I will have one of my servants pray for you tonight.” She would have prayed herself, but doing so might worsen her disease flare.
“Oh, Baruvalman wishes he could, honored warden, honored circle maker. But he is so weak … so weak …” he bowed his head, now that of a crone, and pressed it to the step.
Leandra grimaced. “Get up. Why are you calling me a circle maker? And what are you alluding to? Are people talking about the Cult of the Undivided Society again?”
“So weak … so weak …” Baru muttered and bumped his forehead against the stone step.
Leandra sighed. “What requisite must I pray for?”
Baru sat up and spoke in a rush. “For the making better of the discomfort of the poor, sickly, and constantly itching in the lower eastern docks, second terrace.”
Leandra sighed. Baru had to make the prayer so specific to ensure that an ark stone would not divert it to another deity with requisites better suited to the resolution of the prayer.
Leandra supposed that it wouldn’t be such a bad thing if one miserable soul received succor, no matter how small, from Baru. So she pressed her palms together and brought them to her forehead, in the style of the Lotus Culture, and she prayed for what she had been asked for.
She felt a fraction of the strength in her muscles being converted into divine text by one of the city’s ark stones. That prayer would now sit in that ark until a deity satisfied its requisite, at which point it would be distributed to that deity.
When Leandra looked, she saw Baruvalman scrabbling away from her; no doubt making for a known beggar in the lower eastern docks who had a rash Baru could scratch and so gain the prayer.
“Kai,” Leandra said, “please remind our divine friend here of his promise.” But even as she spoke, Holokai had blocked Baruvalman’s retreat.
The pitiful divinity complex looked back and up at Leandra, now with the child’s face and an addict’s expression of need. “People say there’s a Lornish neodemon in the Bay of Standing Islands. That is it, isn’t it?”
“We knew that already.”
“Some say also that the neodemon is killing off the weaker deities in the city. Other people say it’s the Cult of the Undivided Society, that they are taking divinity complexes apart and feeding them to their new neodemon. But everyone agrees, oh yes, that humble souls like me need to be safe. Someone might snap us up.”
Leandra thought about this for a moment. For the past ten years there had been wild rumors about the Cult of the Undivided Society trying to instigate the Disjunction or to serve the demons once they crossed the ocean. Normally Leandra would have ignored such nonsense. But last night the smuggler from Trillinon had inquired about the cult. “Any more rumors?” she asked.
Baru shook a praying mantis head. “Oh no! No, no. Well, yes. There is talk that the Silent Blight is worse in the empire. Crop failures. The rich merchants are very much excited about becoming rich when they—”
“I’ve heard,” Leandra interrupted. “But, tell me, why did you call me a maker of circles?”
Baru looked at her with confusion. “Everyone is calling the great lady that. And her father.”
“No one calls my family that. Are you sure? Or are you just making all this up?”
“Oh, yes, great lady. I mean, no, no. I would never make anything up? May humble Baruvalman go now, great lady? I can tell you whatever you like. May he go, humble Baru?”
Leandra studied him for a moment longer and then nodded to Holokai, who stepped aside. Baruvalman scurried off into a narrow alley between two whitewashed walls.
“Damned waste,” Leandra grumbled as she turned back up the steps.
“Hey Lea, you sure that prayer won’t make your flare worse?” Holokai asked beside her. “You said it could do that.”
“I don’t think so,” she said while pressing her hand to her belly. “Though according to the godspell about my head, I’ll have more belly pain in an hour. And now that I think about it, about an hour ago there were a few future selves who were confused and distressed about something.”
“Baruvalman always makes me feel confused and distressed,” Dhrun said. He was smiling as if it were amusing.
They continued up the steps and Leandra adjusted her headwrap. The sun was rising high. Then Leandra glanced back toward the bay, intending to check if her mother’s ship had sailed into view. By chance, she glanced down a muddy alleyway in the Naukaa district. Lines of laundry were hung between two buildings, and the ragged forms of two sleeping beggars were huddled under an eave. But what caught her eye was an image of what Chandralu most precisely meant to her.
Lying maybe five feet from her, at the opening of the alleyway, was a discarded mango rind. Suddenly Leandra’s ability to