Four Roads Cross (Craft Sequence #5)(19)

They watched her.

“You all have heard the news by now: for a year, Seril’s children have been offering, let’s call them neighborhood watch services, throughout Alt Coulumb. Pray, shed a little blood, and the gargoyles will aid you.”

“We should have been told,” Michaels said. “We should be working together.”

“We would have told you,” Aev shot back, “if your people hadn’t stoked hatred of Seril for four decades. We have to build love for Our Lady—not for Justice, but for the Goddess in Her own aspect.”

Cardinal Evangelist Bede withdrew his pipe. Smoke wreathed his round face. “The church could have supported your mission. Subtly.”

“Our Lady is not your Lord. The Church of Kos has done good to redress the evil its priests wrought. But unless you mean to schism—no?—you cannot create worshippers for Seril. We must do that ourselves.”

“These are all good points,” Tara said. “But they aren’t why I called you here. The problem we face tonight is thaumaturgical, not strategic.” Stares around the table, ranging from blank to knowing to (in Abelard’s case) worried. “Aev’s actions did not matter so long as they were secret. Now the gargoyles have revealed themselves, questions will follow. Their answers invite more questions. And at the end of the chain, Alt Coulumb will face a crisis of faith like none we’ve ever seen.”

Nestor tapped a long thin finger on the table. “Our God died last year.”

“Briefly,” Tara said. “Due to bad actors misusing privileged information. Last year we dealt with a few traitors. I’m worried about a systemic attack. About war.”

“Explain.”

She opened her mouth, but Bede spoke first. “She’s talking,” he said, “about a credit crisis.”

Confused silence around the table. Gazes shifted back to Tara.

“Kos the Everburning is one of the most stable gods in the world,” she said. “Alt Coulumb didn’t fight in the Wars, so it wasn’t razed; its confirmed neutrality back then indicates it will stay neutral in future conflicts. As a result, this city is one of the few places gods and Craftsmen coexist. Kos capitalized on his position. Your God’s credit rating is impeccable—even his death and rebirth didn’t shake it, though Cardinal Evangelist Bede and I had to do some rapid footwork to ensure that. Kosite debt is a storehouse of value around the world. Gods and Concerns and Deathless Kings on six continents buy church bonds, which brings the city a regular flow of liquid souls. Kos has leveraged himself well, thanks to the work of the Cardinal Evangelist and his team.”

Bede dipped his pipe in gracious acknowledgment.

“But Kos’s position depends on the market’s faith in his stability. How many souls does he possess? What are his liabilities? How risky is his behavior? For forty years the answers to these questions have been clear. But suppose the math changed. Suppose, say, Kos Everburning was found to have immense undisclosed liabilities.”

“Craftsmen wouldn’t have the same faith in him,” Abelard said, clearly uncomfortable with the use of “faith” in this context.

“And if that happens, Kos’s risk of default rises. Firms holding church stock will claim we lied to them. Our creditors might argue that, given the undisclosed risks, we sold them debt under false pretenses—so we owe them more soulstuff. A lot more. Which, of course, makes our debt even riskier to hold. And the spiral continues. Craft firms gather, smelling blood. The world’s trust in Kos collapses, while his need for the funds guaranteed by that trust balloons.” She brought her hands together. “Which is only the first problem.”

“That sounds bad enough,” Cat said.

Bede nodded, and took up the thread from Tara. “It is, for us. But the trouble cascades. Because Kosite debt’s been safe for decades, thaumaturgical markets use it as a baseline. Whole economies in the Vinelands between Dhisthra and the Shining Empire depend on church bonds. If our bond prices collapse, many thaumaturgical instruments will become impossible to value—and uncertainty in high-energy magic is, to put it mildly, not good.”

“Not good?”

“Imagine demons pouring out of rifts in reality the size of continents. Cities compressed to one-dimensional points. For starters.”

“Which means,” Tara said into the silence, “the Craftwork world can’t afford to let Kos’s value collapse. If they lose confidence in him and in the priesthood, they’ll attack. Rather than allowing him to die, they’ll kill him and rebuild him to save themselves. Skyspires encroaching on Coulumbite airspace, dragons in the heavens, demons creeping out of downtown shadows. They have to save the world, you see.”

She let the silence stretch. They sat in the center of the God’s power, in a great and prosperous city, and she had to make them feel uncertain. She thought she’d succeeded.

Hooray.

“But all this,” Abelard said, “happens only if Kos has undisclosed liabilities. Which he doesn’t.”

Bede’s chair creaked.

“Not by your standards,” Tara replied. “But Seril complicates things.”

“Complicates doesn’t sound good. I don’t like complicates.”

“Even though they don’t share explicit contractual bonds, Kos and Seril are linked by, let’s call it sentiment. Kos died last year because he tried to support Seril in her exile. To a Craftsman, that looks like an under-the-table guarantee that Kos will bail Seril out if she’s in trouble. And this is a goddess who makes trouble for herself—remember, she ran off to the Wars and left Him.”