That indicated the influence of one god in particular: Yixos, the god of Renderings. He had always collected fine works. Some of the things here were surely his own creations. What better way to see this trove preserved and maintained but to leave it in place, tended by the descendants of those who had been the caretakers when the gods were still local?

  They came to a library. Thousands upon thousands of books lined the shelves all around, some of them accessible only by climbing up four levels and then standing on a ladder. Sitting at the great center table was a gaunt, pasty man, his cloak embroidered in gold thread and pinned with a clasp of platinum and sapphire. Beside him sat an elderly woman wearing only a simple wrap, but the fabric was so compellingly live in aspect it made her figure seem decades younger.

  “Gracious High Curator. Revered High Scholar,” said the officer. “Here are the prisoners.”

  The High Curator rose, came around the table, and looked his “guests” up and down. “You are not of this world. The gods say people are much the same no matter what world they come from. I see now what they mean.”

  “Ask them why they’ve come,” the High Scholar said petulantly.

  The High Curator sighed. “If it had been up to me, you would have been killed in the town. But my cherished peer has more curiosity than I. Very well. Why are you here?”

  He addressed the query toward Coil, who opened his mouth and would have replied despite his lack of fluency, but Zephyr spoke first.

  “We come from the world where the gods dwelled before this one. The Twelfth of their number, Schrae, has been restored.”

  “Impossible,” said the High Curator.

  “My companions have seen Schrae with their own eyes,” Zephyr said. “They can describe her appearance, the pitch of her voice, the way she moves. None of those things is written in the old scrolls.”

  “Of course it’s written,” argued the High Curator.

  “No,” countered the High Scholar. “When she was unmade, so was her chronicle.”

  “We must speak with the gods,” Zephyr reiterated. “If they go on thinking Schrae is dead, they will be unprepared when she attempts her revenge upon them.”

  “The gods are mighty,” the High Curator said. “They’re not in danger.”

  “You haven’t seen Schrae,” Coil interjected.

  The gaunt man narrowed his eyes at him.

  “It’s almost the hour of The Viewing,” the Blessed Scholar said. “Perhaps that’s a sign.”

  The High Curator’s frown did not go away, but eventually he threw up his hands. “Take them to the barracks,” he told the guards. “Cut off those bindings. Feed them a meal. Clean them up a bit. Bring them to the Viewing Hall just before the visitation is to start.”

  To Coil, Azure, and Zephyr he said, “Even if you’re telling the truth, you’re fools to want the attention of the gods.”

  Things had switched from promising to dreadful to promising so rapidly in the past twelve hours that Coil didn’t trust their luck, but he was almost trembling with hope as the guards did as their master commanded. The remaining wait passed excruciatingly slowly, but in due course they found themselves in the Viewing Hall.

  The place proved to be one of the highest chambers in the entire edifice. All along the north side much of the wall was open, displaying the lake to beautiful effect. But it was the large panel of dark glass embedded in the west wall that caught Coil’s attention. And seemed to have the attention of everyone in attendance.

  The High Curator spared the captives only a brief inspection. “We call it the Window of Their Regard.”

  He gestured to the officer, whose men moved Coil, Azure, and Zephyr over near the open wall, away from any of the doors. Coil estimated the potential fall over the edge to be two hundred feet or more to a shoreline of jagged rocks. There was barely any rail.

  Gags were thrust in their mouths and fastened tightly in place with cords behind their necks.

  Silence fell over the chamber. And all at once, the dark glass panel was no longer dark. It was as if it had become a window in truth. Coil saw an exquisite courtyard with a rectangular pool, a banquet laid out upon a table in the background, servants standing near the entrances. He distinctly heard the sound of a breeze ruffling through palm fronds and the muted cacophony of distant, unseen gulls.

  Coil did not feel the breeze, though, nor smell salt air. That and the light reflecting off the glass confirmed the rectangle was not an opening to this other world, but only a depiction of its sights and sounds.

  On a divan in the foreground reclined a man of striking proportions and a countenance so attractive Coil’s mouth might have fallen open were he not gagged.

  Yixos. Unlike Schrae, images of him had not been purged from the old scrolls. As expected, he had not aged in the slightest in the thousands of years since those portraits had been created.

  “Your requests, Great One,” the High Curator said. Two stewards in white livery placed a large painting immediately in front of the window.

  Yixos studied the painting intently. He took his time. The High Curator and all the others simply waited where they were. Finally Yixos gestured. The painting was moved away, and a steward stood in its place, holding an urn that appeared to have somehow been fashioned out of a single huge agate.

  Yixos smiled. “Spit in it,” he said. His voice proved to be as mellifluous as his face was handsome.

  The steward spat. And out of the urn came a bloodcurdling human cry that dribbled off into a whimper.

  Yixos chuckled. Then he lifted his hand, “Save the rest for the next time.”

  “Great One,” the High Curator called out politely. “A moment, if you will.”

  Yixos lowered his hand. Blinked. “Yes?”

  “Three strangers are here. They say that have urgent news from the place you occupied before you came to live among us on this world.”

  “News? From the Godsblight? We are done with that place, Curator. Kill them. Trouble me no more with this.”

  And with that, the window went dark.

  Coil had been prepared for a challenge in presenting their case, but he was stunned to have no opportunity at all.

  Suddenly Zephyr was pulling him in the one direction where guards were not blocking their way.

  “Jump!” she cried.

  Burnish had taught Coil not to hesitate when his life was on the line. Even though his instincts told him he was committing suicide, he followed Zephyr’s example and launched himself over the low railing into space.

  ~o0o~

  If Azure had been given any proper chance to guess what Zephyr was up to, she would have leaped as well. But two large, strong guards seized her before she had completed her first step toward the open wall.

  Just before her companions plunged out of sight, she saw Zephyr fling a compact bundle of silk.

  The carpet. How had she even had it? It had been hidden away in a secret pocket in the back of Coil’s pants, right beneath his belt. He had put it there before coming down to the common room of the tavern for the performance, not wanting to risk leaving it in the room. Later their ambushers had been far too interested in confiscating the purse full of tips than in exhaustively searching Coil’s person.

  An assortment of guards and stewards rushed to the rail. Several cried out in astonishment. Soon Azure could see what they saw: The carpet, bearing Coil and Zephyr, was gently rising upward. It paused at the same height as the Viewing Hall.

  A young, spry-looking guard shucked off his breastplate and greaves and evaluated the distance to the carpet. He chose not to jump. The carpet was floating a little too far away.

  “Fetch the archers!” roared the High Curator.

  Azure could only stand there, held tight, and gaze at Coil, who gazed back at her wide-eyed.

  Zephyr reached for the cuff of Coil’s pants, retrieving the tiny fold knife he’d hidden there. She cut loose her gag. She touched the woven roc. Azure of course could not hear the destination she uttered, but the carpet began moving, carrying Coil and Zephyr away over the lake.

  As always, the magical conveyance moved slowly at first. Azure heard the archers burst into the room. She counted their steps to the rail. Her mouth went dry.

  The arrows sailed upward. “Hah!” one of the bowmen cried in satisfaction.

  But the carpet was speeding up. As the arrows came down, every one of them fell short.

  They were safe. Azure laughed. They were safe.

  The High Curator shook his fist as the carpet and its passengers as they receded toward the narrows of the lake and turned up the river canyon, vanishing from view. His hand was still over his head when the carpet reappeared in the distance, climbing skyward.

  And disappeared in a shimmer.

  Azure blinked. Her smile died.

  The High Curator stalked over to where she stood trapped by the guards. “We have you at least.”

  The officer unsheathed his dagger and offered it. The High Curator started to reach for it, then shook his head.

  “No. Too quick. We’ll follow the ritual.”

  He made a dismissive gesture remarkably like the one Yixos had displayed. Azure was handed over to a squad of female guards who hauled her down to the dungeons, pulling her along more roughly, she decided, than the men would have done.

  The one on her right, a stout woman with positively fishlike eyes, was in a talkative mood. “A ritual execution! You know how we do that here? If you were a man, you’d be hung at dawn from the great plank over the lake, body left there until the carrion birds have picked the flesh from your bones. A woman? She goes off the plank, too, but right into the lake with weights tied to her ankles. At sunset. Won’t be long until you’re at the bottom, knowing your lungs won’t hold out. And only the fish to witness it.”

  Her escort took such delight in the description Azure was surprised by a glimmer of what might have been kindness once they reached the cell. The woman took out her fingernail knife and severed the cord holding Azure’s gag in place.

  “Say your prayers,” she murmured. “But be careful which god you pray to.”

  The woman locked the dungeon door and marched away. Two of the squad remained to stand guard in the corridor.

  The walls crowded close, made of unpolished stone and foul with the traces of the prisoners incarcerated there over the ages. Aside from a slop bucket on the floor and a tin cup of water on a ledge, the only feature was the tiny window, heavily barred. It provided a view of the lake, an example of punitive architecture, confronting Azure with a vantage of her grave to be.

  She had always prided herself on being the sort of person who only wept at the suffering of others. Nevertheless her throat grew raw, her body trembled spine deep, and she began to blink uncontrollably. Out of anger, not self-pity. Betrayed by a witch’s whelp. Left in the stronghold of enemies with no weapons and nothing with which to bargain. And so very, very abandoned. For thirteen years, Coil had always been there, but he could not help her this time. The shimmering disappearance meant he and Zephyr were committed to a journey between the worlds. They couldn’t turn around until they got to where they were going. Just the outbound transit would take longer than Azure had left to live.

  The anger was toward herself. Her instincts had told her not to go along with the plan. Why had she not fought for her position?

  Because she wanted to kill Schrae, and there had been at least a small chance the plan would lead to that goal. She’d let herself be outvoted, because her need for revenge had overcome her wits.

  There was no comfort to be had. Azure found it a relief when the jailors opened the door and she was hauled back up and marched out onto a long, wide plank.

  The High Curator didn’t even bother to attend. Perhaps to do so would dignify the event more than he wished. The only resident of the monastery who seemed to view the occasion as exceptional was the small man who tied the weights to her ankles. He knotted the leather in intricate ways. It was clearly his art. Azure had no doubt she would be unable to untie his workings in the meager time she would have before she drowned, even if they had left her hands in front of her. Which they had not. They were tied behind her, and the little man had taken just as long with those knots.

  But they did not re-gag her. That might be enough to save her.

  Finally all others retreated back behind the railing. When the last glint of the gentle sun flashed along the horizon, the landward end of the plank was lifted, and she tumbled off the distal end.

  She didn’t give them the satisfaction of a scream. She did gasp at the speed with which she dropped. Twenty body lengths—whoosh. And she hit. The gasp helped her, though. Her lungs filled to capacity just before she reached the water.

  Hard as she entered it, the water slowed her momentum and she struck bottom softly. When she opened her eyes, she saw what good luck that had been. She had landed on the decayed corpse of a previous victim, but so gently the rib cage had not been shattered, leaving her feet uninjured and better still, propped above the mud. Nearby lay other skeletons, some of their broken bones jutting upward like spikes on a rampart.

  Her bonds were tight, but her captors had not understood how supple she was, and how much she had trained her body. She bent herself over as few people would be able to do and began chewing at the cords connecting her ankles to the weights.

  Somehow she managed to keep most of her air from escaping around her teeth, but even as the first ankle came free, she didn’t know how she was going to last long enough to free the second.

  Suddenly something began blocking the light filtering down from above.

  ~o0o~

  While floating there outside the Viewing Hall, staring at the guards holding Azure, all Coil could think about were ways to attempt to free her. When Zephyr began pawing at his pant cuff, he realized she was going after the hidden fold knife, and he was awash with hope. Yes. They could travel to a spot not far away and come back to rescue Azure—though that made him worry the monks would kill her right away, and that in turn overwhelmed all other thoughts for as long as it took Zephyr to cut off her gag and say, “Take us to Yixos.”

  If he hadn’t been gagged, he would have screamed at her. He didn’t even get ready to dodge should the archers get in place in time to threaten them.

  What had she done?!

  She handed him the little knife, but did not wait for him to speak. She reached into her blouse and pulled out a tiny bottle of what he had always thought was one of her perfumes. Certainly he had seen her dab a bit of its contents on her neck from time to time, and it had smelled wonderful upon her. Now she poured it all out. The glistening track of fluid spread down from her collarbone to her sternum. As soon as he had thrown away the gag, she pressed his face between her breasts. The aroma, as compelling as ever, washed over him.

  “All will be well,” she murmured. “All will be well. When the Eleven Gods see us arrive they will be so intrigued they will have to listen to our story.”

  “Azure...” he murmured.

  “All will be well,” Zephyr repeated. “You don’t need anyone but me. I will help you kill Schrae. We don’t need Azure. I am enough. It’s what’s meant to be.”

  She lifted his head back and gazed intently into his eyes. For the first time since he had known her, he saw the forgeglow that was so much an aspect of her mother’s eyes.

  The potion was fogging his mind worse than any liquor he’d ever had. The things she was saying actually sounded reasonable.

  So he removed himself from their reach. He shoved her away from him and somersaulted backward....

  Off the carpet.

  He didn’t actually know whether the lake was still below or not, but he was glad to see it was. The height from which he was falling, though—that was alarming. He had grown up diving from the village bridge, and put his best skill into the plunge, but even so, the impact nearly knocked him unconscious. Pure animal craving to live made his arms and legs work, bringing him back to the surface.

  He cleared the water from his eyes just in time to witness the speeding carpet, and the tiny figure of Zephyr upon it, shimmer and vanish from the sky.

  Yixos would kill her, of course. She’d earned that, he supposed.

  ~o0o~

  When Azure realized what was blocking the light was Coil, swimming for her with all his vigor, she stopped chewing and held on to what little air she had left.

  His fold knife was already in his hand when he reached her. He went right to work upon the tethers holding her ankles to the weights.

  Her chest was aching worse than it had when Schrae’s great spider carried away her mother. It took very little time for the blade to cut the leather, but it seemed like more. As soon as she was loose, Coil gripped her beneath an arm and kicked like an otter. As did she.

  All she cared about was reaching the surface, but he still had his wits about him. He guided them toward the underpinnings of the monastery. When their heads finally popped up, they were close against the cliff in its shadow, out of easy view of anyone above.

  Her lungs filled so abruptly they hurt in a whole new way. Somehow she managed not to cough so loudly the noise would echo up to her executioners’ ears. Coil let her concentrate on her recovery. Meanwhile he carefully sawed through the bonds on her wrists.

  When her arms were free, she threw them around him, even though the action nearly dunked them both.

  “Now do you admit I was right?” she whispered in his ear.

  “Haven’t had time to think about that. I’ve spent the past few hours diving off a flying carpet, infiltrating a fortress, finding out what they were going to do with you, and arranging to be close enough to reach you when they dropped you off the plank.”

  “Think about it now.”

  “Very well. Yes. You were right.”

  He grinned. She grinned.

  He let the moment have its weight, then he added, “I think we’re out of view here, but over there would be better.” He helped her swim over to a place where the rock hung over them more completely. When they got there, they discovered a natural shelf ample enough that they could sit on it, side by side, their heads and shoulders out of the water.