“What makes you think that?” he said. His hand was stiff on her now.
“I met him,” she said, very softly. “He was rather abrupt, but he wanted the same thing you do: he wanted us gone.” She paused, and stepped around a suddenly flung ribbon favor. This one was gold. “And it struck me that he showed up right about the time you and I ran out of options.”
The silence that reigned between them was filled with horn and trumpet and cymbal. Voices called out to one another, oblivious to the small drama happening just beneath their noses. Finally, the Archon broke.
“Well, yes. Let us say, hypothetically, that I called in a favor. That favor may backfire on you if you are not careful.”
“He’s ‘not a tame lion?’” Hawk asked, thinking of brief moments of happiness reading Narnia with her mother.
“I have no clue about lions,” the Archon said, “But I met my…friend…when I was tapped to become Archon of Light. For a while, I did not know who he was. Then I did. It was a most…unfortunate experience. One that became quite rewarding, after a time.” A pause. “What will you do?”
“You’re the only goddamn helpful, kind person in this whole mess. I’m not afraid of Shadow,” she said, and then paused. “Okay, I am afraid of him.”
“That is because you are not stupid,” the Archon said.
Yes, but he has my Alex’s face! She wanted to howl. “How much does he want us gone?” She asked. A casual change of subject, there.
“An hour ago? Before he set the beasts on us? It was my request that drove it. But now you are openly defying him by returning to the procession. So now you may do me a favor, and give me an answer: Why did you come back?”
“Because I don’t have any light, and there’s no fucking sunrise or daylight in this place, and I haven’t the first idea how to make my way back to the Nexus in the dark.” She said, and found that it was true enough to work on most people.
But the Archon wasn’t “most people”. He watched her for a few sly minutes, as the noise about them rose and the songs of the main procession began to swell. “I’ll ask again, and given how heavily I protect you, Hawk, I expect a straight answer: Why did you come back to the procession?”
“I told you. I’m looking for my husband. Either the man himself or…” she could get over the hump here. Saying it out loud wouldn’t make it any more or less true. “Or evidence he’s dead.”
“You’re going about it in an odd way.”
“Let’s just say your creation myth suggested something to me. Something I don’t want to talk about because I do not want to risk deception or someone trying to manipulate me. I think that either your Gods or your Shadow have more information…and if they don’t, I’m screwed. Because it’s been too long.”
“What do you mean, too long?” The Archon asked.
“Time works differently in our world. Don’t call it the God-world please, I can’t stand that idea. None of us are Gods. Gods aren’t born in that world. I’m pretty sure they don’t even exist there. Kaiser Willheim’s company accidently tore a hole in reality—”
“—and made our hole to the God-World.” He said this like repeating a catechism. “But how? That way has always been. The Nexus blocked it off, cut the majority of the Gods’ powers. But the way to the God-World has always remained, high and out of reach.”
They were almost to the main procession. The faces around them were getting less joyful, more stern and frightened, or stoic and soulless. Hawk was running out of time. She dumped a lot of useless information, and said, “Okay. For you, it’s always been there. For me, it’s existed for almost a week. But here’s the important part: Years, here, can pass in minutes, there. Time works faster inside of what we’re calling Rifts. And that’s what this place is, to us. It’s just a dark, magic hole.” She swallowed. “Your ancestors—the first humans in this world—were the six hundred missing children. But Alex—my husband—”
“Must be dead after so long,” the Archon said.
“Right,” she said, while her heart screamed No, and a part of her brain responded with the image of the Shadowmaster with Alex’s face. “But I want to find out how, and why. Both for him, and as many of those missing kids as I can. Your Gods might also be living people from my world. They might know what happened to Alex.” And she wanted to grab the Archon by the robes and start shaking him until his mask fell off and his teeth rattled. She wanted to scream, It’s my only chance! At his face, naked and maskless, so she could see understanding in his eyes. “Do you understand? They might know.”
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
He sighed. “I think we are out of time. But I will tell you this, Hawk-of-the-West. You are a newly minted, grieving widow. Do not underestimate how desperate your grief will become…especially if the Gods know they have something they can use against you. Your love for your Alex will become a tool in their hands.”
“What do you mean?” she said.
“You will see when the God arrives. Pray it will not be with your own heart. But if you love, it will be used against you.”
***
The Earth Archon had ordered the pavilion be pitched for rest and sleep, and to better assess the situation. That situation being the arrival of the Firemaster, Argos, and his fire-red palanquin. The Light Archon explained it to Hawk. Argos was not with the Fire Pavillion, but His Archon was, and as soon as the three of them (his gesture included himself) had come to an agreement about who would become the head of the procession—which would be Fire, as they were both the patron of war, and the only God present. The Light Archon insisted Hawk not be there for the invocation ritual. “Go, get your people situated and keep them as quiet as possible. I do not suppose this Willheim can be curbed?”
“If Alex were here, he would be. He’d be so irritable that Kaiser would have to focus on him, and not the Archon.” She cringed at her next thought. “I could—”
“No.” Her archon said. “I don’t want you doing anything. You’ve made enough trouble for yourself—not entirely of your own making—and I’ll not add to it.” His expression softened. “If you were there for the Invocation, you would catch Argon’s eye immediately. I recommend—strongly—that you avoid that as much as possible.”
“What? Catching his eye?” She said.
“He’s lusty, and I know his type. Fortunately, he likes the willing and respects the avowed celibate. Of your group, only you are female, and you have the look he likes. Can you pretend to be distinctly uninterested in a handsome man?”
“I’m basically a widow in mourning. I’d rather have a migraine than an orgasm.”
Thus, when Hawk arrived to her little sitting area with the Archon of Light, she found it populated with pillows and a divan, with Kaiser sprawled across it with a glass of the sweet honey wine they kept giving everyone. He was not yet drunk, but he was certainly having the time of his life. Em and Dyson stood nearby. On the opposite side of the Earth Archon’s fancy chair there was, quite literally, a throne. It was made of gold and red, covered in rubies and panels of scarlet silk. Beside this was a chair that matched the Earth Archon’s. It, too, was made of gold with red silk, but was smaller and meaner. Opulence was tiered, apparently, with some grades of beauty reserved for the God.
“Do we…sit?” Henry Dyson asked Hawk.
She looked around. The Archons were doing whatever an Invocation required, and there was no one else to see, or care. “As long as you avoid the thrones, you should be fine. Sit with me?” She patted the pillows. Em and Dyson did, and she grabbed the first acolyte to pass by and begged them for water—“Water.” She emphasized to the poor thing—and whatever they could bring her without incurring the Earth Archon’s wrath. Then she began to describe the things she had seen since her arrival here.
She didn’t get past the first sacrifice.
“Wait. Back the fuck up, Hawk. You stood there and let them kill someone?”
“Em. Keep your voice down.” She said.
“I speak fucking English. They don’t.”
“It’s considered the holy, sacred tongue around here. They learn it the way Catholic Bishops learn Latin. Half the people around you understand enough.” She let her words carry, let Em see how many people turned in their direction. Let her see the comprehension in too many pairs of eyes. Then, in a bare hiss, she added, “Please, tell me what I was supposed to do.”
“Get up and stop them!” Em said.
“And die,” Henry Dyson said.
Both Hawk and Em turned on him. “What?”
“It’s the only thing she could do is stand up, fight, and die. The guy’s fucked either way. Like…we can’t get out of this, right now. If these people decide we’re dead, we’re dead. They worship the murders they call sacrifice. They consider it a right, and a choice they get to make. So when you or I or Hawk stands up and says, you know, ‘don’t kill the poor bastard’, we’re giving their god the middle finger. It’s not just themselves, it’s everything they stand for. You try to stop anything in this place, you’re gonna die.”
“I’d be dead in the name of…of…” they trailed off.
“Just like they’d die in the name of their god, you’d die in the name of your cause. But you would die, Em. Or, rather, Hawk would be dead. Right now. If she tried to save that man, she’d be dead.”
“But…but…but…he was a person.”
“And so is Hawk.” Henry said, softly. “And her survival instincts went TILT instead of Rambo, and that is probably the only reason she was in that forest back there, and not ashes in the bottom of this Archon’s altar.” He paused. “Or are we going to blame the victim, here.”
“They’re all victims,” Hawk said, softly. “Every single one of them have been told that Edgar and Naomi Studdard are their hope, are their Joy. They worship them the way Christians do the Cross.”
“She’s basically the Holian equivalent to you standing up at a meeting of the Southern Baptist Convention in your favorite bondage gear and committing glossolalia. She’d be dead. Best case scenario is burned alive.”
“And that really is the best case scenario.” Hawk said.
And then the Archons were upon them.