ONE thing you had to say lor Ferras Vansen, Barrick decided. The guard captain never stopped… trying. If his stolid normality and his rude health hail not: already been sufficient reasons to hate him, then his relentless will¬ingness to keep pushing and fighting-as if life were a game and there would be some ultimate tally, some adding-up of accounts-would have more than sufficed. Barrick had always thought optimism was another name for stupidity.

But the dark-eyed girl would admire him, he realized with a pang.

"So what do we do?" Vansen asked Gyir quietly, speaking aloud so the prince could hear. The man was also thoughtful. Barrick wanted to hit him with something. "Surely we cannot simply wait for them to… to burn us on some barbarous altar."

"You might want to consider the small matter of a mad demigod and all the demons and beasts who serve him and who would happily tear us to shreds," Barrick pointed out with more pleasure than one would normally expect to accompany such a sentence. He was tempted to help Gyir and the soldier anyway, just so they could discover the futility of all such schem¬ing. He supposed it wasn't entirely their fault. They had not felt, as he had, the true strength of this place, the horrific, overwhelming power that re¬mained in Greatdeeps even if the god himself was gone-if he was truly gone. Whatever made Barrick sensitive also clearly made him wise: he alone seemed to understand the pointlessness of all this discussion.

But would she think it was pointless? Barrick knew she wouldn't, and that made him feel ashamed again. Shame or certain death, he thought — what splendid choices I am always given.

Of course, said Gyir. We would befools if we thought our chances anything but bad. However, we have no choice. As I told you, I have something here which must be carried to the House of the People at any cost, so we must resist Jikuyin and his plans.

"It's all very well to talk," Barrick said. "But what can actually be done? What hope do we have?"

There must be no more talking in spoken words, Gyir told him, even if it causes you pain. I will speak to both of you, and I will translate what each of you say to me, back and forth. It will be slow, but even though I do not feel anyone spying on us, if we are going to talk about what we might do, I can no longer risk being wrong.

Very well, Barrick said. But what point is there in talking about fighting Jikuyin, anyway? He's a giant-a kind of god!

Gyir slowly nodded. Pointless? Likely. It will take preparation and luck, and

even so we will probably gain nothing but a violent death-but at least the death will be of our own choosing, and that is worth more than a little. However, first I must find the serpentine, and think of a way to lay my hands on it.

The what? Barrick did not recognize the idea that went with the snaky word-picture-a trail of fire, a sudden expansion like a pig's bladder loo full of air. What do you mean?

Gyir paused for a moment as if listening. / spoke of it before. The burning black sand, the Fire of Kupilas.Ah, Ferras Vansen reminds me that your people call it "gun-flour."

Gun-flour? How would we get our hands on such stuff, locked in this cell? de¬manded Barrick. Might as well ask for a bombard or a troop of musketeers while we're at it-we won't get any of them.

They are using the swift-burning serpentine in the earth below us every day, Gyir told him. They pack it into the cracks and speed their digging that way, by smashing apart the stones. It is here in Greatdeeps, somewhere. We have only to find it, and steal some.

And then fly away like birds, said Barrick. How will we do any of those things? We are prisoners, don't you realize? Prisoners!

Gyir shook his head. No, child. You are only a prisoner when you surrender.

32

Remembering Simmikin

The renegade gods Zmeos the Horned One and Zuriyal the Merciless (who

was his sister and wife) were banished to the same Unbeing which had

swallowed Sveros, father of all, and for a while peace reigned on heavenly

Xandos. Mesiya, the wife of Kernios, left him to shepherd the moon in the

place of dead Khors, and Kernios generously took Zoria to be his wife,

caring little what dishonor she had suffered.

— from The Beginnings of Things The Book of the Trigon

IT WAS ODD, BRIONY REFLECTED, how much traveling with a troop of players was like going on a royal progress. In each town you stopped for a night and entertained the locals to keep them sweet, pre¬tending as though you had never been in a more delightful place until they were safely behind you, then complaining about the take and the poor quality of local food and lodgings.

The main difference between this journey and her father's occasional jaunts through the March Kingdoms was that as part of the king's progress you stood a smaller chance of having stale vegetables thrown at you if the local citizens didn't like the way you spoke your piece. That, and the royal faction brought along enough armed guards that no one cheated anyone too obviously.

Tonight, this thought occurred to her with some force. Although the hour was long past midnight, instead of sharing a comfortable hayloft or even a

spare tavern room, they were making their way along a rutted roadway through southernmost Kertewall in a drenching rain. It had turned out that the keeper of Hallia Fair's biggest tavern, which they had just left, was also the brother of the local reeve, and when he had claimed that the Makewell troop had cheated him on the takings from the night's performance-al¬though Pedder Makewell s sister Estir swore it was the other way around-they got no support from the reeve and his men, and in fact were stripped of an even larger pile of coin than the innkeeper had claimed in the first place. Thus, here they were, poor and hungry again despite an evening's hard work, soaking wet in the middle of the night as they trudged off in search of a town more congenial to the playmaking arts.

Briony was walking in the cold rain because the giant Dowan Birch was unwell and she had given him her place in the wagon. She did not mind doing so-he was a kind person, and even when he wasn't ill walking made his oversized feet ache-but she wished this adventure could have begun in a friendlier month of the year, like Heptamene or Oktaniene, with their bonny, balmy nights.

"Zoria, give me strength," she murmured under her breath.

Finn Teodoros lifted the shutter and leaned his head out the tiny win¬dow of the wagon. "How are you faring, young Tim?" It amused the poet to call her by her boy's name, and he did so as often as possible.

"Miserable. Miserable and wet."

"Ah, well. The price we must pay for the gifts the gods grant us."

"What gifts are those?"

"Art. Freedom. Masculine virtue. Those sorts of things."

Pleased with himself beyond any reason, the fat playwright pulled the shutter down just before she could hit him with a gob of mud.

In this most extraordinary of times, traveling with the players had begun to seem almost ordinary. It had been almost half a month since Briony had come upon them, and possibly longer-it was hard to keep track without the machineries of court etiquette to remind her of things like what day it was. Eimene, the year's first month, had become Dimene, although it was hard to tell the difference: there had been little snow in this dark, muddy year, which was a small blessing, but the rains continued to fall and the wind continued to blow, frigid and unkind. Despite all that had happened since Orphanstide, Briony was not used to living out of doors and doubted she ever would be.

They had made their way roughly south, following the CJreat Kertish Road along the Silverside border, back and forth across the edge of Kerte-wall, stopping in every town big enough to have a place to perform and enough money in the citizen's pockets to make it worthwhile. That said, on every stop some people paid with vegetables or other foodstuffs, and in many of the smaller villages there were no coins at all in the box at the end of the night, but a few small loaves set on Estir Makewell's wooden trunk (which served as the company's turnstile gate) along with enough dried peas and parsnips to provide the players with a meal of soup and bread after they had finished performing. Although the spiritual instruction of The Or¬phan Boy in Heaven was popular, and scenes from the Theomachy (the war of Perin and his brothers against the bad, old gods) were always a favorite, what the villagers liked best were the violent history plays, especially The Bandit-King of Torvio and Hewney's infamous Xarpedon, where Pedder Makewell always provided such a monstrous, entertaining death for the title character. Briony, who had seen too much of the true heart's essence of late, was still not entirely comfortable with watching Makewell or Nevin Hewney staggering about spouting pig's blood from a hidden bladder, but the spec¬tators could not seem to get enough of it. Although they reacted with anger and outrage over the death of a hero or an innocent, especially if it was well-staged, they yelped with glee when the wicked, horned god Zmeos was pierced with Kernios' spear, and they laughed uproariously as Milios the Bandit-King coughed out his life after having been mauled by a bear, moaning, "What claws! What foul, treacherous claws!"