Two thousand miles to the south, the Altar of the Thirteen gleamed atop a ziggurat carved from moon onyx, which rose from a mangrave swamp in which basilisk larvae hunted the whispers of the lesser gods.

But here?

Here on a weedy hillock, an hour’s donkey ride from a village where the residents had nothing to brag about beyond a clunky old mill?

Here the Altar of the Thirteen was a flat circle of stone embedded in the ground, half-covered by windblown dirt and fallen leaves.

Five townsfolk swept the altar clean. Ordinary people. Three women past the age of childbirth, and two men young enough to be their sons.

The youngest woman spoke the ritual works as a sliver of light appeared over the horizon. "We must act during moonrise," she said, for the tenth time. "Not before, not after. Once a decade the gods may choose a servant during the rising of the full moon. That's our chance but ... "

"It's barely a chance." The oldest woman sighed. "One in a thousand-thousand. As you keep telling us."

"As long as we all understand. The gods may answer a prayer in return for a lifetime of service. In return for everything you now are. But more likely--far, far more likely--they will not."

"We understand," one of the men told her.

"Aye," the other said.

"Then step into the altar," the youngest woman said. "One after the other, in whatever order you feel the call."

One of the men immediately strode into the center of the circle. Runes blazed to life around the edges, glowing mist wrapped the man--and he collapsed.

Dead ... then rotting in a heartbeat to a skeleton.

The oldest women didn't hesitate. She joined him--and she, too, died and withered. Then the second man stepped forward, the youngest woman, and finally the sole remaining villager.

Until nothing remained but a pile of bones already crumbling into windblown dirt ...

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"What is your wish?" the voice boomed inside my mind.

"The plague is coming to my town," I said. "To kill my family. My friends, my children. I beg you to spare us."

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"What is your offering?"

"Myself."

"You are not worthy."

"Er. Does that matter?"

The voice echoed with silent amusement. "No. You will forget who you are. Your family, your children, your friends, everyone you love will know only that you died on a fool's errand, trying to save them. They may curse your name--but they will survive this plague."

"Then please, I beg you, let me serve you."

"You will serve us," the voice said.

"Us? None of the gods are multiple or--"

"You will not serve a god. You will serve ten thousand tiny idols."

I didn't know what that meant. I didn't know what to think. Fear wrapped me in coils like a snake and squeezed. My breath stopped, my heartbeat fell silent. I wanted to scream, to cry, but when I opened my mouth--

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--pain burst in my stomach.

My vision cleared and I saw the person in front of me. The child. A filthy boy of fourteen or fifteen, with a bloody lip.

He punched me again and that time I reeled backward until rough hands caught me and kept me on my feet.

I was standing in a circle of teenagers. So young to look so cruel, except--except I was a teenager, too. Young? What a strange thought.

No. No, I remembered something. Not a single detail of my previous life, but that I'd had one. I'd lived before. I'd pledged myself to a god, one of the Thirteen. I didn't know which, but that didn't matter, Id' still--no. The idols. The ten thousand idols. I'd never even heard of them, but I'd serve them. Well. I didn't have a choice. That's what the ceremony ensured, that I'd obey without--

"You ain't so hard now," the boy sneered at me.

I straightened up instead of answering. Feeling the pain in my stomach and my knuckles. My hands as filthy as his, and as rough. Though not as big. Now that I stood to my full height I realized that he was a full hand taller than me, and half-again as wide.

I was ... I was male. I wasn't sure if that was new. But I wasn't fifteen, not where it mattered. I didn't know much about fighting but I knew a little.

Enough to stagger toward him, my arms drooping as I said, "That's not what your mother said."

His face darkened and he lunged toward me swinging. Faster than I expected, and he almost tagged me with one of his flailing fists. But I stepped sideways, bringing my hand up and grabbing his arm then pivoting like someone must've taught me in a previous lift and he flung to the side and lost his footing. 

He sprawled on the ground and I kicked him twice in the side with my bare feet and once in the face with my heel and the other kids yelled:

"Belt him one! Get him!"

"Stop! The Watch is coming!"

"It's a press gang! Run!"

"Kick him again!"

"Go back where you came from. Go on before we crack your head!"

"Beat him!"

As I stood over the boy, panting for breath, I finally took note of my surroundings. A clearing in a city slum. Maybe a square, except nothing so grand as a proper town square. Just a sad-looking well in the middle, surrounded by mud. A handful of vendors around the edges, utterly uninterested in the fight. Selling salted eel and roast rat and turnips, and heaps of patched cloth, sewn together from discards from the better city districts.

A big city.

A muffled part of me knew the name: Lorint.

A muffled part of me knew that I'd wandered too far from my home neighborhood--or I'd fled, maybe--and found myself here. Fighting other street kids, because that's how we greeted a new face.

Run from the Watch? Throw stones at a press gang? Hit the kid again or leave him there groaning? Or--or something else entirely? Didn't matter what I thought; the choice wasn't in my hands.

No. I'd pledged myself to the idols and I'd obey ...