ark.
One devotee made a brief speech, praising the high sky goddess, Celeste, and her canon of demigods. Then the devotees led all in a song of prayer.
As they sang, a modicum of Nicodemus’s strength ebbed away as Cala’s godspell withdrew it. The tall topaz stone shone brighter as it gained strength from those assembled.
Nicodemus had spent his childhood in the wizardly academy of Starhaven. The patron god of wizards, Hakeem, rarely required devotion from his followers. As such, wizards lived an almost atheistic life, infrequently offering their strength to a deity and even more infrequently receiving that deity’s protection.
When Nicodemus had arrived in Avel, he had been shocked by the devotions Cala demanded and outraged that the needy citizens should make devotions twice as often as the rich. The hungry had no other choice; flatbread was handed to the poor after devotions.
However, Nicodemus’s disquiet about Cala had dissipated when his companion, Boann—herself a nearly vanquished river goddess—had explained how much Cala did for her citizens.
It was only the canonist’s godspell that kept the city walls standing despite the earthquakes, grassfires, lycanthrope attacks. It was only Cala who held the water in the reservoir during the long dry season. If the people of Avel stopped praying for the walls to hold, they would end up in lycanthrope throats. If they stopped praying for the dam to stand, they would die of thirst.
Similar arrangements between deities and humans existed throughout the six human kingdoms. Did the poor and powerless bear most of the burden of empowering the deities? Certainly. It had always been so and was likely to remain so. But, as Boann pointed out, the inequity of divine governance was a small matter compared with Typhon’s quest to bring the rest of the demonic host across the ocean.
Nicodemus had begun to realize how sheltered he had been in the academy.
As the devotional song ended and the impoverished lined up for flatbread, Nicodemus felt hollow. He had to hide his false lepers until nightfall. He had to quell Shannon’s anger and despair at losing his ghost or the hopelessness would kill the old man before the canker curse growing in his gut. Nicodemus had to recover the emerald to cure Shannon, free Deirdre, defeat Typhon. In all these tasks, there was no earthly deity to whom he could pray for help.
So, when the song ended, Nicodemus led his school out of the courtyard and silently prayed to a deity who took no part in the world because he was the world.
Nicodemus prayed to the Creator.
Chapter Fourteen
When consciousness returned, Deirdre found her eyes filled with tears. It was always like this after repossession. At least she’d learned not to sob.
She was lying on a thick carpet, her head resting on a pillow, her body covered by a blanket. Beside her a low hexagonal table held a kettle and a small metal cup of steaming mint tea. Other pillows lay around the table.
She rubbed the tear tracks from her cheeks and sat up. The wide room was bright and airy. Beyond the furniture stood ornate redwood screens. Late afternoon sunlight spilled through the screens in the shape of their geometric latticework. A cold breeze brought the scent of redwoods and the distant ocean.
The Savanna Walker had brought her to the top of the sanctuary, to what had been the canonist’s quarters but now was Typhon’s. Deirdre’s last clear memory was of shoving Francesca from the kite. After that, everything was blurry sky and an ecstatic heat.
After catching her breath, Deirdre noticed a break in the screens that revealed a wide balcony and a view of Avel’s winding avenues and the wind-tossed savanna. Gingerly, she stood and discovered that she now wore a blue silk blouse and a white longvest threaded with gold. Once again Typhon had dressed her up as a Spirish noble, an officer of the canonist’s court.
At times Deirdre enjoyed this outfit; the white longvest contrasted nicely with her dark skin. More often she was vexed that Typhon insisted on costuming her like a doll. The demon had planted his worshipers within Cala’s court and compelled her to help them play the nobility’s political games … games Deirdre had once played for Boann a lifetime ago, when she had been a Dralish noble in the city of Highland.
For the past decade, Typhon had compelled her to become his Regent of Spies, to help renew the network of demon worshipers that Fellwroth had devastated when he usurped the demon’s control of the Disjunction. Presently, most of Avel’s powerful citizens—military commanders, merchants, bankers, even clergy—were sworn to Typhon. Without their help, he would never have enslaved Cala. The demon made Deirdre use her political savvy to manipulate Avel’s pliable nobles and her strength to assassinate the resistant.
But after years of preparation, Deirdre had put a plan in motion to escape the demon. A bloom of hope made her smile until she wondered if she’d pushed her luck too far.
She’d convinced the demon that she had been converted, that she was devoted to the Disjunction. As such, the demon had ceased to search her memories, which he could only do when in her physical presence. The process also left her debilitated for two or three days and so interfered with her role as Regent of Spies. It had been two years since he had read her thoughts. But now that Deirdre was freed, could she continue to fool him? Could she keep him from reading her mind?
She paused and prayed for strength and a chance to see Boann again. When finished, she balled her hands into fists and walked out onto the balcony. To the west, clouds were rolling in from the ocean, darkening the air with giant columns of rain, but overhead the late afternoon sky shone a fresh blue.
Deirdre walked along the balcony and found Typhon in a white alabaster body, his usual seven feet of bulging muscle. His mane of silky red hair hung down his shoulders. From his back grew wings of checkered red and black feathers. He was facing away from Deirdre.
Near him stood a large cube of blindness. It was not a cube of blackness. Black was a shade. Deirdre’s eye could have perceived and her mind could have experienced blackness. When she looked at the cube, she did not see blackness; she simply did not see.
The cube was how she perceived the Savanna Walker. She could resist most effects the beast had on a mind. This close, most anyone else would have been aphasic and delirious.
“Demon,” Deirdre announced, “I’ve returned.”
Typhon turned. His eyes were now black onyx, but his features were the same as ever: snub nose, thin lips, high cheekbones. His expression of supercilious amusement filled Deirdre with a hatred so hot it nearly made her jump. It took every ounce of her control to keep her face blank.
“My troublemaking daughter,” Typhon said in his rumbling tone. “Was it worth it? I thought you were done with childish suicide. It’s been years.”
She bowed. “This was not the same. This was for the Disjunction.”
It was hard to tell, his features being so white, but Deirdre thought the demon had raised his eyebrows. “Convince me, daughter. Why did you need to escape my possession to advance the Disjunction?”
“I had to protect our work from that reckless beast you’ve taken into your confidence.” She glared at the Savanna Walker. It was difficult; her impulse was to look away from blindness.
“Daughter, you are under my compulsion not to oppose—” Deirdre went momentarily deaf as the demon spoke the Savanna Walker’s true name.
To better control the monster, Typhon had altered the Savanna Walker’s mind so that the beast had less influence over someone speaking or even thinking his true name. As a result, the Walker deafened anyone hearing his name’s sounds, blinded anyone seeing its letters.
Deirdre’s hearing returned. “If you persist in defying me,” Typhon said, “I will reinvest more of my soul in you. Haven’t I proven that you are no longer capable of resisting the Disjunction? You cannot help but advance our cause.”
“I am convinced, my lord. I will do anything to advance our cause and