They were walking down a narrow ledge, roped off in places to form a path. These ropes were well worn, frayed, festooned with mold. A few pale varieties of moss were trying to grow beneath each blue cold-light. And now Hawk felt the urge to ask a question.

  “Why is the cold-light always so different? Mattias’s was almost pure white, like yours—”

  “Well, I taught him,” he said.

  “I know,” Hawk said, smiling. “He told me. But Argon’s is red, and now this is blue.”

  “I’m…not entirely sure. I think it has to do with what part of me each of them ate. They took with it an understanding of light, but only so much. Argon knows the heat of it, Illyris knows the sorrow. Nasheth knows the growth and the life. Kali’mar had the nearest to a full understanding, and his would be yellow and gracious. If they had ever combined it all, I think they could have made true light and their strength would make the Temple of Light superfluous. But they never did, and now they never shall.”

  Hawk was starting to get a picture. “Which was how you gained your followers. You knew how to make true light.”

  He was silent for a while, then whispered, “Yes. My people and their families lived well, and ate of good harvests. If we’d had more time, we could have outgrown the gods themselves…which, I suppose, is why they struck and obliterated what we had built. I was too great of a risk to their rule.” Silence, as they walked. And then, in a kind of arterial spray, “But I don’t know what that risk was. I gave of abundance. I never demanded fealty. I only accepted the people they had abandoned. There was never a risk to them.”

  “Your abundance was the risk. It showed the whole world there was another way. One without the whips and chains and cruelty the gods need to keep themselves satisfied. It showed that their only purpose was their own satisfaction, and that if anything good happened, it was an accident. You showed them what purposeful compassion can look like, and that’s all it takes to break empires.” She sighed. “It’s all about control. And nobody can control you.”

  And the silence between them reigned for three more lights, paced like electrical streetlights so it was clearly intentional. A kind of magical municipal system. Weak strains of moss were struggling to grow beneath each lamp, but most of the damp earth around them was bare. A small stream trickled past the main path, crystal clear and filled with cave pearls.

  “My hands were not clean,” He said, at last. “No leader’s can be. And I do not ask for or seek forgiveness. Some things cannot and should not be forgiven. Don’t let pity stir on this account. Spend compassion on better things.”

  “Better things than you?” She said.

  “The better parts of me, then. But as I said, my hands are not clean. The only thing I can say for myself is that I never demanded or accepted sacrifice…and I stopped it when I had the power. But authority is a drug, and it destroys the soul that imbibes. You cannot be honest, love mortals, and hold power.”

  “But—”

  “This lesson was written in other people’s blood. Don’t cheapen it.”

  Silence again. This time it lasted.

  ***

  Illyris’s realm was as far from the Temple as Light as one could reasonably get. Hawk supposed she hadn’t gone further only because she was afraid of what else might be in this sterile darkness. The blue lights grew stronger, and the number of plants and animals (small ones; springtails, cave crickets, and the occasional blind, flying insect, life’s harbingers and apocalyptic horsemen, as it were) increased. The plants came in blues and whites, lavender hues. It reminded Hawk quite a bit of a coral reef slowly recovering its health.

  This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

  They were in sight of the walls when the wild growth stopped. These man-built edifices were made of limestone. It was relatively fresh with little sign of wear, though the carvings were muted. She tried to guess at what was carved here; it was definitely a very poor imitation of the Temple of Light. She looked to the Shadow.

  “Welcome to the Seven-Walled City. Illyris lives here, weeping for her sins—or her own self-righteousness, depending on whom you speak to. These are the oldest walls. They date back to…well, events that would not matter. Here is what is important: The first three walls were her choice, because she felt a walled city was necessary. They have never fallen. The fourth was mine—that is, built in response to me. Because I did attack their strongholds, back when I held power too. I breached the heart of Kali’Mar’s realm and tore his wind-tossed city to the ground. I did the same against Argon, and put out the fire that burns eternal at his heart. But Illyris stocked her city well. Do you know what wealth means to an invasion?”

  Hawk swallowed. An invitation to loot and rapine came to mind. The prosperity of her people would shine against the hungered, desperate masses. And by the time anything of significance made it here, it’d be hungry. She hadn’t seen a single food-bearing crop between here and the Temple of Light. Hungry, angry, desperate men and a prosperous city ruled by a so-far benevolent Goddess. “I take it things did not end well.”

  “Actually, it did, but not of my doing. She pulled her people back behind her walls, drained the fourth wall of people and filled it instead with treasures. She knew I would get the message, watching my armies swarm across her homes. Watching what they’d do with comfort and largesse at hand. And she managed to make it a threat; her people would suffer, as did Argon’s and Kali’Mar and Nasheth’s, but it would be at my hand, and on my command. It slowed me down long enough to truly see what I was doing. I’d been drunk on my own rage. I didn’t see…” He looked around, sighed. “Power corrupts. I was corrupted until she held a mirror up to my face.

  “So that is the fourth wall. The other three were made necessary by her brother Gods, and mother. When I left the stage with the dregs of my armies, they had armies of their own to play with, and they’ve never been such to let such toys lay fallow in their sheaths. They fought with each other, and Illyris tried the same game she played with me, only with more walls, as if she thought they only needed more time to stop themselves.” He laughed, bitterly. “I rebuilt the fourth wall for her, and when her brothers attacked they could go no further. So they set to a siege and starved her out. I don’t remember what they were fighting over. I think it was a girl fled from Argon’s temple. It was something blasphemous enough to keep Nasheth from intervention.”

  They were nearly at the gates, made of wood and well ornamented. These were newer than the old walls they sat in. Gold gleamed from every corner. It was a diorama showing humans coming to worship Illryis, walking a path that routed through each of her seven walls.

  “The gates are bait too, I take it?” Hawk said.

  “Yes,” Shadow said. “Though outsiders may prize off as much as they can manage before a guard appears.” A horn sounded from within. He made a face. “She comes. Listen—her world is not like the others’, and her ideas are peculiar. They seem good on the surface, like a great many things. But watch yourself that you are neither confused nor taken in.”

  “You’ll be with me, won’t you?” She said. She hadn’t been afraid until he implied she’d be facing the god alone.

  “Of course, but she will manage to separate us, unless we are deliberate about not being separated. That will put her on edge. We may want her on edge, but in the immediate now, we need her trust. She will allow me in, and tell her brother and mother where to find me with her very next breath, because that is the game we are bound to play. You, she will test. Especially when she realizes whose wife you were. Unless we are both very clever—and we will need to be—we will be separated. If we start together, we will have to defend our position from the moment we arrive. Whereas if we allow ourselves to be separated at her first will—”

  “We can come back together, stronger than before. I’m the weak link here.”

  “Only as far as you allow. She will not harm you.” And he had a long pause, as footsteps rushed from within the gates, and a brassy cacophony promised a future of caroling descants. Then he added, “She feels guilty.”

  And the gates were opened, and all other chance to speak were lost against a human tide.