Four Roads Cross (Craft Sequence #5)(139)
“I won’t sell it to you.”
Ramp swished wine and watched its legs roll down the inside of the glass. “Then why not help me strip the secrets from that skull, and save the world?”
“No.”
She sighed. “This, in the end, was always Alexander’s flaw.” She removed a piece of folded parchment from the pocket of her dressing gown. “He leapt to command. Better to ask first, and hold the power to command in reserve until it’s needed.” She unfolded the parchment. “Do you recognize this paper? Specifically, the signature at the bottom?”
Abernathy did not need to squint. “That’s a student loan contract. Mine.”
“Thank you.” Ramp set the parchment on the table beside the empty box. “I expected acquiring this to be more difficult, but the Hidden Schools were surprisingly cooperative. Education is not cheap; a shame, really, you haven’t made more progress paying it back. Working for gods is, alas, less lucrative than private practice. You owe me ninety-eight souls.” She set power into those words; the contract bound Ms. Abernathy, for all the distance that divided them. Ninety-eight souls of debt represented a great deal of leverage, and Madeline Ramp knew how to exploit leverage. “Bring me the skull, Tara.”
Her will closed around Abernathy like a hand. The woman stiffened. Her fingers tightened on the skull, until Ramp feared she might damage the bone. Her lips curved into an empty smile—
And kept curving into an expression decidedly more self-satisfied. Her eyes snapped into focus, and Ramp’s grip melted. “You might want to check that contract.” Ramp looked down, and as she watched, a silver-ink stamp took shape. Paid in full. “Work with gods isn’t lucrative from a salary standpoint, no. Especially not work with goddesses in incubation phase. That’s why our forebears invented contingency fees and performance bonuses.” She checked her watch. “I’m late for a meeting. We’ll have to skip the parting-threats phase of the conversation, which is a shame—I’ve never done one of those before. Still have to figure out what to do with this skull, though. Paperweight? Raz mentioned this Old World game with a ball and a flat wooden bat. The kind you hit stuff with, I mean, not the kind with wings. Anyway. Bye.”
Ramp stood in her tower, angry and alone.
*
The delegation climbed the Godmountain: Ms. Batan from the Two Serpents Group, a few CenConAg emissaries, bodies grown through with vines, a golem bearing the King in Red’s vision-gem. At the rear of the trail, escorted by a Craftsman with a gold watch and skin darker than Tara’s own, strode a thing that looked human, though made from shadow. Lines of darkness trailed fingers that walked a featureless silver disk down and up.
The two-page summary bios the delegations had sent around in advance did not include a first name for this person, or a pronoun of preference, or any other information for that matter.
Tara matched the shadow’s pace as she decided what to say.
“M. Grimwald,” she said. “I have a few questions, if you don’t mind.”
The shadow’s head inclined. The disk flashed. Was it silver after all?
“I don’t expect you have full knowledge of your, ah, firm’s operations. But I believe you recently supplied a shipment of indentured laborers for delivery to Alt Coulumb. You sourced them by early foreclosure on the credit lines of a divine refuge in Agdel Lex. The indenture’s purpose was to smuggle demons into Kos’s city—but the persons smuggled were instrumental in disrupting the smuggler’s plans. Which is a bit neat, if you ask me. Almost as if the person Ramp approached for help meant her to fail.”
The shadow’s footsteps sounded exactly as heavy as a normal person’s. An odd patina marred the surface of the coin.
“I’m pretty far out in my speculation,” she said. “Paranoid, even. But it never hurts to say thank you.” They had almost reached the summit. “So, thank you.”
Grimwald turned to her. Within the nothing of its face, its teeth were pure white and sharp. It offered her the coin, and she accepted. The coin was not silver at all, but cool, and rocky, and rough. The shadows on its surface were the same as the shadows on the moon.
She passed the coin from hand to hand, and offered it back.
The moon-coin vanished up a white sleeve, and still the shadow smiled.
*
The Godmountain’s peak was flat, as if long prepared for this purpose. A stone table and chairs grew from living rock.
They sat and waited.
Shale emerged from the mountain like a bather from a pool.
The Keeper spoke through him.
Ninety percent of Craftwork was talking, so they talked. The conversation lasted three days and three nights. Tara realized as the first day stretched on that she and Ms. Batan were the only people present who needed to eat or sleep. She ordered takeout. Delivery was expensive, so she expensed it.
Sleep, she did without. That was why the Glebland gods made coffee.
On the third day, they built the body. The King in Red forged bones of steel with tools he produced from the pockets of his robe. The Grimwalds spun a nerve lattice from gold and necromantic earth. Tara made rock clay-pliant to shape the mountain’s legs and belly, back and chest and arms and head, scribed all around with glyphs and grooves. She placed a small clock spring where the heart should go, then sealed the chest and stepped back.