Most of what they passed through was farmland. There was a modern temptation to call these “mean little fields”, but they weren’t that. Small, yes, and obviously family tended, with low walls built by hand from the gray stone, walls that had been there long enough for a thick crusting of moss to erupt around every facet, all of it on the Light side of the stones. But there was no meanness about this; it was too well tended, too cared for. Despair had yet to wrap fingers around hearts and minds. Were the crops failing? Hawk wouldn’t know to tell. What she could recognize was that as they passed through, food was brought to Earth’s palanquin, baskets of it, mountains of it, held by grim-faced farmers and taken by grim-faced green-robes without a word. There was no humor. No laughing. But then they would see the Light Archon, with his two Fleet-Hares and odd-looking stranger, and faces would light up. A new basket of food would be brought forth, sometimes the mean black bread Hawk remembered from her first morning, sometimes breads so full of fruit and nuts you could break your teeth off on them. Sometimes they were even cakes, or candies, or a tray of fruit cut so fresh, the peels still wept. And to each of these offerings, Light reacted by laughing. Laughing, and he’d take a slice of black bread, or one of the candied fruit, and toss her one as well, and then wave away the rest of the basket with a smile.

Hawk wanted to yell at him at first. They were going to need food beyond hardtack and oranges. But screeching at him wasn’t going to do her any good, and she focused on grabbing bits and pieces from the trays that wouldn’t spoil quickly. So the black bread and dried fruit, and…and cheeses would keep, wouldn’t they? But no one was offering any cheeses. And then she began to realize that the Archon was handing her mostly the travel-ready foods, though enough of the sweets made their way back to get her sick. Soon both her knapsacks were stuffed, her saddle bags were stuffed, and she was balancing loaves of bread in her lap.

“I don’t have enough room!” She finally had to shout, when he handed her an absolutely lovely, crusty loaf of white bread. (It spoke of some sophistication in their grain industry. She would have liked to follow the bread back to the bakery) It would have been welcome twenty minutes ago, but this was the fifth beautiful loaf of white bread she’d seen.

“Start throwing it. I’ll take the whole baskets now, and you’ll distribute them. We’ve enough for our journey, and they’ve given Earth’s portion freely. The Temple of Light decrees that what we do not need, we give back to the givers, as need requires.”

So she began flinging the bread back into the crowd, trying to aim it for the rear where the least mobile, least healthy petitioners would be. And this brought up a new great cry, and more songs to Gods she had yet to meet. That made her angry. But she couldn’t get angry at starving people who didn’t have the words to fully express gratitude…and she suspected a paen to the giver would have been greeted very poorly by the Earth Archon. No. She couldn’t protest. Couldn’t scream. Instead, she’d add it up to the gods’ tally. They’d taken Alex. Now they’d taken these people’s joy. A god worth following wouldn’t. Yes. Another justification for her little game. It was called “Kill the gods”, and this was just the warm-up number.

“Is there a reason you won’t tell me about the Shadow?” She said. “It’s the one part of your pantheon I don’t understand.”

“Pantheon?” the Archon said.

“Your particular group of Gods. Like, back home we have a people called ‘Greeks’ who had quite a few gods, back before Christianity happened. We call a group of gods a Panethon.”

He nodded, absorbing the new word. “And what is Christianity?” the Archon asked.

“Um. Yeah. So probably let’s not talk about that.” Hawk said.

“There, you see? A thing you think I should not know.”

“More like…I don’t know enough about the theology—the study of God—to do it justice. I’m not Christian, I kind of oppose the thing, so…” She sighed. “So you’ve made your point.”

“The best theologian I’ve ever known is a servant of Earth at Her Temple at Hirech…which, fortunately for us, is where we are heading. I’ve sent a note ahead telling her to prepare to teach a neophyte, as quickly and quietly as possible. I won’t send you into battle unarmed, Hawk of the West.”

She was starting to grit her teeth at that, but it was much better meant than Kaiser forgetting her “doctor” every five minutes. She recognized the difference between culture clash and pure cussedness. Kaiser was the latter.

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Then she heard a loud hoot of horn, brassy and irritable. She’d heard it yesterday, too, but she’d assumed it was just a part of the ceremony dumping the Archon of Earth out on Light’s mossy lawn. “What do the horns mean?”

“Either ‘make camp’ or ‘break camp.’ We shall take our rest here. Earth will build her pavilion and take gifts for the next one in return for leaving this one behind. Oh, don’t look so horrified. She knows all she’ll get is honeysilk and rabbit skins, spun and plied by simple girls who worry about more than a Temple’s largesse. She’ll use good silk in the pavilion because if she does not, word will return to the God that Her Temple made a poor showing, and that will earn her displeasure. So she’ll take what offerings she can get and use them to clothe and house her poorest acolytes. Meanwhile her precious green and gold silks will go to the wedding and fair-day gowns of most of the girls around here, and the metal ornaments her people can’t pack fast enough will fall into dowery chests and mantle-pieces from here to the Outer Dark. The food is the only bitter gift here, as they will not easily replace it.”

“You said the food and…” she trailed off, not wanting to risk it.

“And?” Prompted the Archon.

Fuck it. “The food and the Gods’ power began shrinking when the Nexus formed, yes? I’m understanding that much, right?”

“Yes.”

“When did that form?” She asked.

“Oh, two hundred years ago.” And the Archon casually waved a hand as her whole world came crashing down once more. “And it wasn’t as great a catastrophe, I hear, then as it is now. We had more reserves, back then. And the Gods gifts were made for the world-that-was, not this dim and dying place. But don’t worry about it. The Gods will find a solution. That’s what the conclave we will soon reach is about. I will tell them how little light we’ve gotten this year, they will find ways around the problem, and we will all go home.”

“Not all of us,” Hawk said. “Not the man she killed last night.”

The Archon was silent a long time. Then he reached out and grabbed her Fleet-Hare’s reigns. This should have been frightening, but she trusted the Archon. His motion drew her Hare apace with his. “I know that bothered you.”

“Bothered. He was a man and now he’s dead. That’s a lot more than bothered.”

“There were seven sacrifices last night. Three of willing people, but mostly…” he trailed off. “I can’t even say that they were willing. They began willing. They volunteered. But I think they hoped for a quick death. They should have been granted that, at least. And it will be worse at the conclave. We Archons will go mad, trying to please our god. How fortunate am I, my God is dead? Fortunate indeed. There is no pleasure to seek. No higher name to offer than my own. Certainly, no ambition left to me save to keep the Temple for a God who is profoundly flown.”

Hawk had no clue what to say to that.

She caught a glimpse of sly eyes behind the mask. “I suppose you also don’t know how to handle such blasphemy.”

“You show me orthodox thought, sir, and I won’t be able to poor juice out of it if you put instructions on the bottom,” She said.

The Archon laughed. He had a good laugh. Gentle. He even had to reach up under his mask to dry tears. “Ah, you are the very breath of Illyris.”

“Don’t,” she said.

“Don’t what?” He said.

“Don’t bring your Gods between us. They’re…they’re not…” She didn’t have the words. Would the Archon understand abuse? For him, this was normal, fear a part of life’s tapestry and not something to rip out of it like a fateful Penelope. She was reduced to a child’s vocabulary. “I don’t like them. Not any of them. I’d rather not be compared to anyone or anything that isn’t…” she wanted to say ‘real’, but that was the rub: She was pretty sure these gods were real. Or at least, were Naomi Studdard plus three teachers.

“Clean?” The Archon said.

She shook her head. “No. Because clean doesn’t always mean good. We’re supposed to have a certain amount of beneficial bacteria.” And, because those words probably hadn’t been included in catechism, she said, “Good dirt. Beneficial bacteria means good dirt. Clean isn’t a thing, it’s an absence of things.”

“Well, if you wish to be clean of gods, there you are. An absence of Divinity.” He paused. “What a remarkable—and blasphemous—thought.”

She hadn’t thought about it like that. She licked her lips, then looked around. The Earth pavilion was taking shape, great pillars freshly placed into the soil, the huge beasts of burden—thug rabbits, she thought. If the Hares were fleet, these things were thugs—strapped to pulleys that drew the panels of gold and green silk up. There should have been sunlight raining down on it all, but there was only the same unchanging dim, brightened only by phosphorescent flowers.

She turned back to the Archon. “Shadows—”

“Ah, fie, girl. When I say I don’t want to speak—” the Archon said.

“Then you can listen, alright? Shadows aren’t things, any more than being clean is a thing. A Shadow is just the absence of light. Your hand passing in front of a flame. That’s all it is. There’s nothing to be afraid of, in the dark.”

The Archon of light looked at her, and then dropped his masked head in a gesture of submission. “Well. You see, you have uncovered my greatest flaw: I am a coward. I will always fear the dark.”

“And you can always choose to change that.” She said.

“Fie,” he said again. Then sighed. “We’d best get our animals and take our place inside.”

“Inside? With her?” Hawk sounded more than a little frantic.

“If we make an attempt to please her, she may be kind. If I we do not, I can guarantee she will not be. Propitiation, Hawk, isn’t just about getting the Gods off your back.”

And with that sage advice, he vanished into the growing swirls of gold and green silk, leaving Hawk to fend for herself.