This loneliness didn’t last for long. A few moments before her panic peaked, a green-robe came for Hawk. This one seemed like a timid child, who looked at the treats Hawk had gleaned from her Archon with some envy. Somehow, a great deal of these spilled, to the glee of at least one round-eyed girl. Several others appeared and joined the first, and their laughter made her feel better.

She felt a different, dancing sort of emotion here, on the fringes of all that hot, lethal holiness. There was no risk of the Earth-Archon seeing anyone here, because there was little beauty out here. The finest cloth was in her pavilion. Here was a girl with one leg, dancing with a golden ribbon. Hawk gave her a sweet because it felt like the thing to do, and the poor thing scampered off singing a song to the goddess. There were four more hurt and broken people within reach, a woman and child in rags, an elderly creature rendered genderless by starvation, reaching with a bowl tied to a stick. Hawk gave them a double portion of bread.

Holiness. That word had shifted in these last few hours. It had grown teeth, and horns. What amazed her wasn’t the neglect of the priests. The archons and their acolytes. That was to be expected—was, in fact, a requirement of this phenomenon, that the face of God’s representatives be turned away and blinded by their own avarice. But Hawk had always known these so-called men of God were full of it. The difference was, back home, disagreeing no longer meant you died.

The pavilion grew as Hawk watched. The beasts of burden were struck by this master, by that one, and groans of pain echoed through their field. Another banner would be raised towards the God, another wall erected in Her service. And beneath it danced a girl with one leg, singing off-key prayers in the hope of a miracle. One of the workers got too close to her. She tripped and fell into the mud and got back up, this bright little child with her golden ribbon, and kept to dancing and laughing. And inside the pavilion would be a thousand perfect bodies with a thousand perfect, practiced dances. Could they equal the movements of this one precious child? Could they rival the beauty of her golden ribbon?

What was the purpose of a temple that could not see its most precious treasure was dancing outside of its walls?

What was the point of a God who could not see them?

“Ah. There you are,” Her Archon said, and crossed over. “Well. I bent the knee well enough to find her good side. We’ll be seated near enough to her to see the show, but not so near that she’ll remember us when she’s wrathful. What are you looking at?”

Hawk wiped at her face. She must have been crying, for some reason. “I’m looking at the children. There’s a lot of them and they look sick.”

“Ah. Yes. There always are. Beggers for alms, or for a want of better chores. And some…well, some will for more and won’t get it. Our Gods value perfection, and that’s not for such at these. Did you give them bread?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Then you’ve granted the prayer they had today. Perhaps they will stay sated until after we’ve left tomorrow. Then they’ll be taking the pavilion down. It is because the Temples don’t care for the work, but it will change the lives of the people around us. Is that not good?” and the Archon looked to her as if it were a real question one could ask, and as if the answer could be anything other than yes. A poison coated yes is still yes.

And now it was back inside the pavilion of green and gold, on the Archon’s arm. They were greeted with a shower of flowers and strips of ribbon. The Archon collected a few of these with his free hand, so Hawk did the same, catching and coiling them up for favors. Probably valuable in this society. There were huge columns of flowers, rose facsimiles, cala lilies, something like geraniums. All close to the real plant, but not really. It was a daisy if you had drawn a daisy a thousand times from reference, each painting referencing the last, a copy a thousand times removed from its original. Wreaths of these Not-Daisies were given to Hawk and the Archon, and the Archon wore his, so Hawk did too. The Archon walked to an array of food and made a few motions blessing it, so Hawk collected gifts aimed in his direction and kept him from being interrupted. She watched the Earth-Archon do the same, pouring blessings of her God on the food, while her own lackey fielded all interlopers. Finally, at some signal Hawk did not see or understand, all the musicians began to play with harp and horn and decorated drum, and the rest of the tent fell on the feast while the holy ones—the Archons and their lackies, which Hawk supposed included herself—fell back to a place of repose. Hawk and her Archon made their way towards a pair of white upholstered divans, with a white silk blanket each and nothing else.

Beside them was the Earth-Archon’s seat. It was a throne of gold and emerald fire, with great carved birds across its back, jewels in beaks and feathers and talons. There were emerald velvet throws made of silk, pillows of even heavier brocade, tapestries specifically made to cover the Archon’s person, with embroidered scenes featuring the Earth-Archon specifically, at the elbow of some greater green presence. Even in silk brocade, you could feel the awe, the sort of reverence that denied representation. A green blob was better than getting Her Face totally wrong. And beside her chair were many pillows for many small and furred things. Rabbits, yes, but rabbits that looked like the lost center of dandelions, they were buried in so much fur. There must have been a dozen of them, each of them carefully laid out upon their pillow and brushed to white intensity. They sat as if they were lifeless, but their eyes gleamed and, occasionally, a pink nose would twitch. Each rabbit had a pillow and a minder, exquisitely dressed in green with a gold mask covering the upper half of each face. And high above all of this glowed a small sun. It must have been the cold-light that the Archon had created for her in his garden, only blown up a million times brighter, to the size of a large beach ball. Everything was clean lines and elegant stitchery, whispering silks, brightness and light…except.

The altar sat between Earth and Light. Its wrought iron belly ran deep, kissing soil despite it being held up by four thick, well-shaped legs. Coals had already been lit inside, and gusts of steam rose around it as the moss beneath was burned away. Flowers were flung into this hungry maw by willing female fingers. Men paused in their work to throw fistfuls of resins or wood chips within. There was a lightness here, without either Archon. This was unwitnessed by the hands of man; it was expected that their god would see them.

Where would such a god be? What place was left for them in all of this? But maybe Hawk should be glad that there was no such empty place, no divine cup and plate set out in expectation. That would imply that the divine would be using it. She wasn’t ready for that.

For what?

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For killing on that level. Not yet.

She walked slowly and silently to her chair. Okay, her pile of pillows. Brocade and samite and every shade of white greeted her; the pillows themselves felt stuffed with straw. Better than nothing, but she strongly missed her office chair back home. She lowered herself into the pile and sat back to watch.

It was, she felt, rather the same as last night—if you could call it a night. She’d noticed that the Archon and his people referred to time by the things you did with it—like sleep, or eat—than by what the sun did. Well…they didn’t have a sun. It might not matter when they rose or went to sleep. Or, more likely, one of the Gods had said sleep happens here, and so it was enforced.

Suddenly, Hawk understood Em completely. To be forced into a pattern you didn’t understand and didn’t fit…no wonder they blew straight through “somewhat liberal” and dove straight into anarchic communism. She could feel the structures of this religion winding up above her like bars being welded in place. Things made to keep people in, not the love of a god, but in the manipulation of that gods’ spokespeople. “Love” didn’t enter the picture. Hell, god didn’t enter the picture until the God actually showed up. Put Him in His Temple, let Him sit at whatever throne or mercy seat or silk-strewn divan humanity managed to scrape out of its opulence, and then one could judge the acts of a god cleanly. But Hawk hadn’t met either God, not the Master of Light nor the Master of Earth. She’d just met their representatives. She viewed the Master of Light as both good and dead, based on what the Light Archon had told her, but if she were Alex-grade honest with herself, he’d been setting her up to love him since the moment she woke up in his room. It wouldn’t have been hard to discern her values—Alex had always told her he could read her like an open book—and mold himself accordingly. She only had his word for a lot of things.

For a long time she was left alone. The Archon would come and check on her, as would two green robes who were suddenly sporting white silk bands in their hair or on their clothes. So giving favors was approved even between divisions of the Gods. Good to know. The two green robes were very young, probably still under eighteen, not that she expected that to hold a lot of meaning in this medieval hellscape, and they first brought her a pitcher and a cup of very good fruit juice. Then they bought her a set of nuts and a silver cracker to break them with, and then they brought her a plate of cakes.

And then she got an idea. It was straight from Alex, a game he called “Teach the con”. It worked best if you had two people, which she had, and a competitive system where dishonesty was expected. Given that outright murder was expected she figured she was—well, leagues away from safe, so she’d better learn everything she could.

“Come here,” she commanded each of her helpers in the living tongue of English, which they regarded as both dead and sacred. “I’m going to test your knowledge. I will not answer questions. You will answer mine.”

The commanding tone brought a mixture of terror and excitement into these young eyes. Terror because she was an assumed authority figure in their religion, albeit a different branch. And excitement because they were getting attention (and sugary cakes) from someone they viewed as important. Good god, Alex could fleece these people for everything they were worth and they’d just thank him and offer him another roll of silk.

So she asked every question she couldn’t ask the Archon right now. Nothing about the altar or the Gift of Blood, which was their phrase for outright murder. But she asked about the food. Where it came from. How it grew. She asked about cities, where the nearest ones were. She asked about the Nexus, and about the other Gods (Nasheth, Illyris, Argon, Kali’mar. Did they pick those names by pulling scrabble tiles out of a bag? Well, minus Argon, who clearly plundered the periodic table of elements for his most holy name.) She asked about farming and beasts of burden. And then she asked about ants.

Oh, my, did she ask about ants.

Ants, her two pilgrims said, were the best and most holy of Nasheth’s creatures. They were the size of your hand and were most fearful warriors. They were delicious for meat but the best of all for sugars. (And here two hands were subtly outstretched. Hawk would have just put a whole tray of cakes in front of them and let them gorge, but she suspected that would shut them down; some people are intimidated by strength or speed, but most are unmade by generosity.)

Giant honeypots, Hawk thought, either the ones from the Bronx Zoo Event (despite there only being one known Queen in captivity; they should be killing the rest with flamethrowers) or a similar evolution. And now her fingers were itching, even moreso when the children—they really could not be older than fifteen, sixteen at the oldest—began describing the husbandry practice of keeping them. Suddenly this transitioned from Hawk learning about a culture to Hawk talking shop with fellow antkeepers. Even here, where there were gods and miracles, Honeypots were hard keepers.

Eventually she realized that the fruit “juice” was anything but, only it was several drinks too late for moderation. She hadn’t been able to taste the alcohol at all.

She let her two helpers go, largely because she wouldn’t be able to watch her mouth around them, with a couple extra handfuls of candied cakes for their trouble. At some point in their conversation about ants, the Archons had arrived. There’d been little to no fanfare. One moment she was the only person at the head of the room and was safely ignored. And then she heard the Earth Archon’s voice barking orders, making demands for this drink or that one, this cut of meat and that collection of fruit, and a dozen young people in green robes were running everywhere to meet her demands. She wore a light silk gown with only two outer robes, also airy silk, all of it either green or yellow-gold. There were ribbons sewn into flowers, silk sculptures of near-roses and philodendron leaf facsimiles. There were gold chains swinging with tiny crystal honeysuckle blooms.

“The wine!” She shouted. “The wine! The honey wine! Bring it out, so we may all imbibe!”

And that was when Hawk realized this murderous woman who had sacrificed multiple people the night before was drunk. And when the woman could barely make it to her chair, Hawk amended that to plastered.

“You have already had much, my Sister,” Said the Light Archon.

“And I will have much more. Or do you not know? Today is the anniversary of my Service. Today is the one day of the year I may show my face without shame.”

Her voice turned that last sentence into an archipelago of pain, and when she was done speaking her chest rose and fell, causing her thousands of crystal flowers to glitter.

“May? My sister, do you not mean must?” the Archon said.

“It is my gift,” and there was a drunken sob. “My gift from my God.”

The Light Archon drew closer to Earth. “Listen to me, Sister. You may avoid it, if you choose. Of all your lady’s gracious commands—”

“This one is to be followed, the same as any other. She touched my face, do you not understand? My mouth, that I might see clearly. My eyes, that I may speak without flaw. These are the gifts of our Gods, and we do not refute them.”

“I am not asking for a refutation. I am asking for a delay. You are not in your right mind.”

“And what other mind am I to use?” Her voice changed from self-pitying to one full of venom. “I have the one I was born with. I have sworn that one to my God. Should I have had a different mind in my pocket? Should I have stored an extra version of myself in a shoe? The Gods ask for all of us, Brother. In your case, it’s for you to lie fallow from the crown of your head to the tip of your dick. But a living God asks for all of you.” And there was a long, sodden pause. “Hell with it.”

She lurched to her feet then, hands spread wide. Her robes fluttered around her like the wings of birds or butterflies. The silk shimmered with the natural chatoyance of sunlight through leaves. She was a vision of flora, a promise of fauna, and absolutely the most demented person Hawk had ever met.

“Behold the gifts of a living God!” the Archon of Earth shouted, and with a singular gesture, she ripped off her mask and threw it into the crowd, then turned her face up to the pavilion’s Light.