Four Roads Cross (Craft Sequence #5)(115)

No answer. Battle raged behind Tara, and below, demon coils grated against the diamond floor. Elementals piled on Shale, dragging him down. He ripped at their arms with his fangs and claws, but they were too many. He knelt. They pressed his face into the flame.

How/

“Let Mr. Altemoc and his people go. Then we broker a settlement with the mining Concern and CenConAg. If you play your cards right, there’s freedom at the end of the tunnel. You’ve missed a lot in the last few thousand years.”

Without/mouth/how/speak/

“There are ways. We could make you a golem. Mr. Altemoc might even volunteer for the task. But I need him now.”

He/leaves/we/feel/no/time/why/trust/you/

Because I need you to. “Because we’re going to make a deal,” she said.

Performance/clear/what/consideration/you/offer/

She licked her lips.

What would the Keeper accept? Tara didn’t have the time or resources to build a vessel for the mountain-mind. No promises of future payment would satisfy, since without Altemoc’s mind the Keeper had no sense of time.

She needed a body.

Terror welled from a pit within Tara, filling her stomach, heart, lungs. Blood rushed in her ears. Doors long locked inside her mind swung open, memories of shadowed days, the feeling of herself bent by another’s hands. But she could do this. Her glyphs would offer the goddess purchase on her mind, and keep her intact—for a while, at least.

Shale could make their case for Altemoc. If he faltered, the goddess could speak through him. It was a long shot, but what other chance did they have, outfought in the mountain’s depths, surrounded by flame? Without Altemoc, they had nothing. Without Tara, they had a chance.

Nothing was worth losing herself again, feeling another wear her.

Nothing?

Moonrise over Alt Coulumb seen from the ruined orrery. From the air, gargoyle-borne, the city’s rampant streets made sense the way some abstract paintings did, the ones mad drunks made by throwing cans of paint onto canvas. Dancers twirled at the Club Xiltanda. These were beautiful and broad, too large to hold in the mind. But she remembered Cat, and Abelard that night in the tower: I don’t trust God anymore. And, later, in the airport, an awkward embrace.

Nothing, no thing, was worth what she was about to do.

Maybe some people were.

She opened her mouth. “I—”

“I’ll do it.”

She turned, too shocked to speak.

Shale stood beside her, bleeding silver through his cracks. Carbon scores crisscrossed his chest. One arm had burned black to the elbow. Fire dripped from him. The elementals were gone. He must have beaten them back while she wasn’t looking.

Acceptable/vessel/

“No,” she said. “No, dammit.”

“It’s the right choice,” he said.

“It’s not any kind of choice. We are not doing this. I won’t let you.”

“We need you to finish the negotiation. To get back to the city.”

“If Seril loses you, She’ll—”

His laugh was shallow and sad. “Without me,” he said, “She may weaken. Without you, She will fall.”

“There has to be another way.”

“You were about to give yourself up. If there was another option, you would have taken it.”

She said nothing.

“I will stand in his place,” Shale said. “You will return, and save me.”

“If we win.”

“If we lose, I would have been dead anyway. And you will not lose.”

“It could take years to get you out. You’ll be in pain the whole time. You’ll barely even be you.”

He shrugged. His right arm hung at a wrong angle. “I have endured worse. My wounds will help: if the Keeper forces too much of herself through me, I will shatter and she will return to timelessness.”

“That is a stupid definition of ‘help.’ You’ll be in pain down here until—”

“Until you rescue me,” he said, and to the goddess: “What do you say, Lady?”

Yes/

“It’s the right choice, Tara.”

It was. That was the worst part.

You can’t outsmart everything.

There was a heat in her eyes she did not want to name. She looked from the goddess to the gargoyle, and back. “Shale,” she said, “is my,” and there was only the slightest pause before she said “friend. If you hurt him in any way, I will carve your bones into his monument. You have slept too long to know that you should fear me, but I am a Craftswoman of the Hidden Schools, and my people have slain the hosts of heaven and bound continents in iron chains. I will snap your spine and drink ichor from your skull, I will break you and the demon downstairs alike and send you wailing together to the stars as a feast for the beings that lurk there, if you give me cause. Do not f*ck with me.”

Lightning quivered. Tara did not breathe. Neither did Shale, which was to be expected. He took her hand.

Understood/

Shale touched her shoulder. “Finish this,” he said.

“I will.”

He approached the lightning, and with a wingbeat rose level with Altemoc in the air. He leaned into the red and brought his muzzle to the other man’s lips.

He screamed. A tower fell.

The lightning took him by pieces, darting forks tonguing stone skin before they approved the taste and pierced. His head rocked, his wings draped, his teeth flashed. A hundred ropes or spears of light bound him to the chamber walls. The brilliant central column vibrated like a plucked string, a thunderous cascade that went on and on.