They came for him in the stillness of shadow and artificial moonlight. It could not even be called midnight: there were no nights in the Citadel but those requested by the Stewards. Pillan barely remembered the sensation of weather and seasons after nine years in training. Memory hinted at summer siroccos and maiden snowstorms, but those had been forgotten with the knowledge that the gods had vanished long ago, and only furtive humans walked their home plane.
Seven knocks on his door, each resounding.
“Who is it?” Pillan did not need to ask, but training kept him rooted.
“A voice of the Stewards comes to guide you, Ascended, to look into the heart of yourself and see your destiny.”
Destiny, assignment, purpose. Tonight would determine his divine role.
Pillan fumbled to the closet. Somewhere inside was a long black tunic. He hadn’t expected to need it so soon: his work was not up to his own standards. The nightmare followed him, bleary –that they would leave if he didn’t hurry. His fingers closed on dark fabric.
A hundred worlds needed their gods, or people who seemed to be. He would pretend to be the god he was assigned, answer prayers, bestow blessings–and a hundred worlds would go on, oblivious.
He yanked the tunic over his head, the fabric catching wispy blond hair and fraying it into a static bulb. He batted it with half-hearted hands.
The problem with knowing the gods had gone was that he had no one to pray to. It was for that reason–among others–that the Stewards kept the Citadel hearth warm. Understudies waiting for the leads to return.
Two Stewards waited outside, a sallow woman and a rapier-thin man he recognized as teachers. He drew himself up for a formal apology, but her hand on his shoulder silenced him.
Bells chimed. In voiceless kind, students poured out of their dorms and followed.
The Citadel was built of twists and curves, passages connected in ways that seemed impossible, doors that led miles away and windows that changed view at a thought. The path the Stewards led him down was unfamiliar: simple, undeviating, straight to the Observatory dome.
Pillan shivered. He had only been in the Observatory twice, during astronomy classes when the instructors chose to show their students the universal star-field. From there, one could see every star in every sky. He knew it often inspired awe. He had only felt detached and alone.
The circular room, crafted of milky glass, had no fixtures save one. The walls seemed opaque out of the corner of the eye, but a direct look saw through them into the Citadel beyond. There was nothing that could not be seen here…
…but Pillan’s attention was fixed on the center.
The device was an orb of liquid silver, reflecting every pinprick of light. The surface seemed to cascade like water, pooling at the base and then drawn up from within. Five loops of opal rotated around the pedestal. As air and light reverberated between the rings, three-dimensional images fled through the spaces, changing with each turn
“Pillan.”
“Steward?” His voice quavered as he sought the safety of formality, but there were no rules here. He fidgeted for their lack.
“Touch the device.” They had never found its name in the divine libraries, and had given up trying. “It will show what is in your soul, Pillan.”
He took a deep breath and stepped forward. He flinched instinctively as the loops spun, but their curvature moved aside for his hand.
Smooth as water, hard as stone, cool to the touch–neither metal nor wood. Pillan tensed when no image clouded the surface. What if there was nothing?
His breath fogged the surface. His fingers hastened to rub it away, but the misty speckles remained, trickling outwards. He shot a look at the Stewards and just as quickly pulled his eyes back. Fear of being blamed for damaging the device overruled the need to know what had happened.
The foggy grey billowed across the surface as cloudbanks would. It grew by fractals, swirled patterns with predictable growth. Flashes of gold cut perfect diagonals under the shadow, and Pillan realized with a tremor of relief that this was the device at work.
Illusory lightning cracked, the lines growing closer until they started to form letters. He strained to see them…
They vanished, the clouds breaking into a flock of birds, yellow on grey, grey on yellow, one fading into the next. His eyes ached trying to figure out which were birds and which were background before they flew away, vanishing around the circumference.
He was so intent that he almost missed the sphere within the sphere, a rounded earth that rose to meet him. Seasons turned as he had almost forgotten they did–he could see details when he squinted, though the scale was such it should have been impossible.
Then, with a rumble, the earthquakes began. Pillan couldn’t help but notice that, against all nature, the fissures from the quake were perfectly proportioned.
The world folded, drawing with it the silvery stuff of the device. It shrank until it was a speck…and vanished.
Pillan stood tensed, unbreathing, but there was nothing more, and his fellow pupils whispered, guessing. He stumble-turned away, dazed. They were supposed to interpret that? It was just natural phenomena. He had seen the assignments before, but none as subdued.
“You have seen, Pillan, into the echoes of reality,” said the female Instructor. “Listen to my account, so I may carry the tale to the Pantheon. They will interpret what you have seen.”
Pillan nodded numbly. The narration was for form; it was rare that the details differed. Two young women nudged each other and snickered, and even though he would be a Steward soon, he wanted to melt into the floor.
He frowned as the description continued. The Instructor made no mention of the patterns in the weather.
“Is there something wrong, Pillan?”
He hesitated, but an Instructor knew best what was needed to assign him. “Nothing, Steward. It matches my recollection.”
“So will it be.” She marched away. Would he be denied a post, told to gaze again? Could the device not only divine the soul, but decide it was unfit?
A classmate waved her fingers in a soothing gesture. He cranked out a mechanical smile and did not relax.
He tried to think of positive things. He might be assigned a role as one of the elements, or perhaps an abstract. Monotheist posts were too rare.
“Ascended Pillan Tathuri?”
His heart jumped. It would be the last time he heard that title. “I hear, Instructor.” He wasn’t ready. He needed to be more trained, more poised…he wished he had his essays in front of him for reference.
She offered him the scroll she held, his prayer ledger. “You are now a Steward of Tavassin, god of the winds and weather, sailor of the heavens, bringer of storms…deity of the world of Manara.”
A weather god? He had hardly thought about the vagaries of natural climes since…since staring into the device, and not for months before.
Still, his response was expected. He took the scroll and felt it tingle. “I accept the task assigned to me, and will play the role in good faith.”
She smiled. “Then welcome, Steward Tathuri, to our company.”
To somewhere between his chagrin and alarm, the room exploded in enthusiasm, and he couldn’t hang back, murmur the platitudes and return to his studies. For the first time, he was the eye of the storm. He evaded an unfamiliar hug and let them lead him to a feast hall.
There, divine mead and ambrosia were passed amongst pupils usually content with mortal fare. The taste made one giddy, and Pillan tried not to swallow too much. His first day as a Steward, he was conscious of the need to act like one.
As celebrations did, this one wandered from its purpose until he was alone in their midst. He smiled and acted jubilant–and he was, though he had no idea how to deal with revelry–until he could reach the edge of the crowd and slip away unnoticed.
The time did not matter: there were always Loresmiths at work in the massive library that surrounded the Observatory. He found one who could show him where the records for Manara were located and sought out the living pages.
Tavassin was a major god, but not the chief of his pantheon, one worry Pillan conscientiously crossed off his mental list. He was known for his fits of temper and frequent liaisons with mortal women, both of which gave his new Steward a decided qualm. Well, there were ways of spreading rumors without doing anything untoward. He might even be able to simulate temper by omitting tea in the morning.
The Manara pantheon was completed by several senior Stewards. He scanned the number of temples, shrines, statues, areas of influence, already working up mnemonics to commit the data to memory. It wasn’t required, might not be needed, but the quantified rows soothed him.
The next pages included a summary of the actions of preceding Stewards, a detailed log of each blessing, miracle, intervention and so forth, interactions with mortals, incarnations. Pillan read the highlights, then reached for the next book.
Personnel. Every prophet, holy man and priest from the first years of the Stewards. He felt a bit nauseated as he saw the length of the current roster, then comforted himself with the reminder that the majority of decisions were made by the temple heads without divine reply. He could handle this.
In the back was another class of devotees, the invokers: people, untrained, who derived their powers from a god’s portfolio, even though the Stewards had no ability to bestow permanent blessings. No one had ever explained how.
One name caught his eye. His predecessor had bracketed it with two gold tildes: Jua Narrowwind. The page expanded at his thought, her place of birth, her age, her first—
Pillan shut the book with a snap, shocked at the intrusion. Was there another book in the library detailing the minutiae of new Stewards?
He brought the books to the Loresmith. “Tavassin, world Manara–welcome,” the Loresmith said. “You have your prayer ledger?”
Pillan nodded, opened it to inspect the scrolling printwork. The words changed as he looked.
“Don’t have to answer any now,” the man said. “The ledger will keep important ones close to the top.”
“I…thank you,” Pillan managed. He had chosen his residence in the Citadel a while ago, planned how he would change it to match his specifications. He had only to bend his will to the fabric of the Citadel to alter it and focus to lock the structure in place…
Then introduce himself to his new Steward-siblings…
Make a visit to Manara to gauge the surroundings, come up with a plan for playing the role, research, record, read…
Pillan woke up later–when had he fallen asleep?–to a searing pain under his thumb. He jerked his hand away and oozed upright on the couch. He blinked in dismay at the thin patches in space around him, places where he had not finished defining his new chambers and primordial chaos leaked in.
The source of the heat would not abate. He found the prayer ledger dropped between the cushions. A complex equation, somewhat understood, combined the urgency of the prayer with its scale, the rank of the supplicant, and their willpower. Pillan fumbled for it. It could be an earthquake or pestilence…
He turned the ledger over and read. A request for storms, and not an urgent one. Whoever was making the request must have a mind of diamond.
He recognized the name: Jua Narrowwind, the invoker. Well, he could meet her, but it would have to wait until he finished studying his persona.
The ledger flared insistently. Pillan frowned, tucking it back under the cushion. He set about repairing the cobwebs of blank space. The room continued to take shape.
Just as he finished establishing a window overlooking the Everwinter Gardens, something fell off the top sill and nearly struck him. He danced back, catching it with one hand…and then fought a cry as it burned. He thrust the ledger onto the sill and blinked.
How… ?
Well, things were known to follow the mind here, even if it wasn’t physically possible. He must have been thinking about the ledger and its contents despite himself. With a thought, he focused the essence of the Citadel and lifted the book with a breeze. It floated to his bookshelf and inserted itself where it would no longer be a bother.
Still, his fingers smarted in memory as he worked. He opened a window that faced his actual surroundings. A morbid fog floated over moorlands, pale, monotone. Most would have done anything to avoid the sight. Pillan found it soothing.
Then the world went tipsy.
Three gods arrived in succession, athletic, handsome, hearty, each with a booming voice and rousing tales of the antics of his predecessor. The last Steward had loved his mead and liked to teach his followers dances from across the worlds–the more intense, more erotic, the better. Pillan declined the fourth visitor and said he was sick.
It wasn’t far wrong.
To steady his nerves, he turned to research. He suspected that the patterns in the Device had been more important than the fleeting weather, but he couldn’t be sure. Best to try before he accused the Instructor of mistakes. The first business was affixing Tavassin’s traditional appearance in his mind. Not that he intended to manifest as the god any time soon.
The prayer ledger materialized under his fingers, fiery hot, and this time he knew it wasn’t him.
He stopped, staring. Still her, and somehow, she had sent her prayers with such force that the ledger had flown to him. But no matter what was going on, he was not prepared to appear as Tavassin. It would be foolish.
He kept staring. Jua Narrowwind. A prayer for storms. She was somewhere in the country far from any kingdom border, and she was not giving up. People were supposed to trust their gods. To give them time…
He dropped onto the couch, turning his thoughts to the silver silence inside his mind. It took seconds to clear his thoughts and sink into the blank sea of meditation.
As he shed physical reality–and how real had it ever been?–the darkness of the space between worlds welled up around him. Once there had been a shock, the instinctive panic of a mind that knew where it did not belong. Pillan held himself in a single point of light, sounding it out.
Not too fast. He let his essence resonate, imprinting on the shadows. Then he stretched out with a single thought.
I become Tavassin. I am Tavassin…
His sudden uncertainty almost shattered him.
But then there was light, dazzling gold shot through with opalescent fire. It wreathed him, suffused him in a cloak of divinity–borrowed, false, but undeniable. He came back to his body on the sense of flight, the air whistling in his ears as a brittle plain stretched out below.
He could see why the invoker had called him: the ground was ochre, the grass the color of bleached flax, and even the air refused the moisture on his breath. What he couldn’t see was what good it would do. One storm, and a few weeks later the area would be in the same state.
A village sheltered against cliffs. It was bounded by fields of hardy grains, almost white in the sun. And there on the heights was the woman he sought, autumnal, russet, dancing with the winds as if they were a human partner she could take by the hand.
Pillan thought of flying her way, and felt his body turn. He looked down at himself: rough golden hands, a thick barrel chest, arms like the funnel of a tornado. It nearly startled him out of the sky.
He would have hovered dramatically at the edge of the cliff, but he didn’t trust his balance. Instead, he landed in a flurry of dust.
She pivoted towards him. Her face was made of lines–a square jaw, high cheeks, a thrust brow–but warmly fleshed, with eyes the color of ink and copper skin. Her hair was staccato, lightning streaks of red layered to the nape of her neck and then feathered. The force of her appearance almost knocked him over, and he was dizzy enough to forget which one of them was the supplicant.
“You finally decided to stop by,” she said with a grin. “What held you up, trouble with a nymph?”
Her voice, hard as summer rain and as sultry, finished him. “Err.” The sound seemed to come from far away.
“Don’t have to make something up,” she assured him. “I’m not possessive, remember.”
Not…his brain tried to shut down. In hindsight, he should have looked closer at her information, but he hadn’t realized his predecessor had taken the archetype that far.
“What err, did you need that you called so insistently?” He was thankful that the act of incarnating deepened his normal voice, though it couldn’t disguise the squeak.
Jua frowned, a powerful turn of her jaw. “That’s not the Tavassin I know.”
Pillan’s heart nearly stopped before he realized she spoke figuratively. “I’ve been distracted,” he said. “Quarrels on the Mount. You understand how it is. Ah, in a manner of speaking.”
Her expression turned even more peculiar; she squinted. Then she nodded. “You’ve said it’s a nightmare. It’s not a rush, though.”
He blinked, but after meeting her, he could believe her mind was that strong–and she had no idea. He wondered just what, precisely, his predecessor’s relationship with her had been before he retired. Who would leave a woman like this?
“What do you need?” he asked, trying to stand thrust-chested and imperious.
Jua waved a hand over the plains. “Make it rain.”
“Done,” he said, raising a hand. In his mind, he recited the formula that coalesced Citadel essence into a workable form. It was only a shadow of true divine powers, but enough for this. Then the invocation of storms, which brought silver clouds from the north…
She slapped his hand down.
“If I just wanted a storm, I could have done it myself. I want it to rain—” her eyes lightened to the color of shadow “—and keep raining whenever it needs to.”
“I can’t—” he started, then cut himself off as she looked skeptical. He was, to her, the master of storms. He could do anything, when it came to weather.
He waved it off with an airy gesture. It looked ridiculous from a man his current size. “Give me a minute,” he said. He retracted his consciousness enough to feel the expanse between worlds. Stewards created their magics by pulling Citadel essence through the void and manifesting it, but that only worked for static effects. He moved through exceptions with encyclopedic ease. Enchantment–impractical. Infusion–too much ground to cover. He could see no easy way.
He was thinking too much by type. What did he need to do? Form a continuous bond between here and the space between. Loresmiths did it when they scried.
“Well, that looks promising,” she said, and until then he hadn’t realized the grin that crossed his face, “I knew you weren’t just a wall of muscle.”
Pillan choked and nearly lost his concentration. She spoke like that to someone she thought was a god?
He drew a thread through the darkness as if to see into the heart of the Citadel. His inner eye started to cloud, then clear into patches of vision. He strengthened the tie until it remained as a luminous chord.
He came back to himself and lifted his hand. The clouds rushed to answer him, and a bone-jarring crack heralded the first fat drops. He jumped as one pinched his arm with the force of the plop, but it was followed by so many of its fellows he couldn’t feel each one.
Jua turned her face to the storm, licking up drops with a flick of her tongue and laughing. “You’ve done it. I can taste it.” He had no time to wipe the poleaxed look off his face as she bounded over and took his hands in hers. “Come on, have a drink with the people you’ve saved.”
“No,” he said, “I really don’t think…”
“Shed the sparkles and the aura. You always enjoy yourself,” she said. “They’re wonderful people, real earthblood.”
“Well—” Pillan stopped himself. From all he could tell, this was normal behavior for Tavassin. If he kept acting out of character, he would arouse suspicion in an influential and intelligent follower. He had to maintain appearances, for the penalties of revealing–even hinting at–the Stewards were high. Ironically, the most prudent course was also the most hazardous.
He concentrated until the visible signs of incarnation faded, and he was left only a man…a man with eye-popping musculature, but a man. “Lead on,” he said with what he hoped was appropriate enthusiasm.
Jua smirked and led the way. The village lay scattered like children’s blocks in the mud, buildings patched and improved by any number of eager hands. There were no streets and no order to the houses, only a winding lace of paths surrounding the village. Pillan hurried after, trying to stay out of the mud.
The Blackberry Strand Inn was the largest building, outpacing the mayor’s estate. It was quiet when they entered, sweet with the smell of ripening fruit. Everyone hailed Jua, from the kitchenboy to the old men playing chess by the fire. Pillan had to dance to one side to avoid one of—he counted—thirty-four cats.
She led him to the bar. “Think you could pull us some hard cider?” she said.
“On the house,” the barkeep replied. “Always is, when it rains. Tradition.”
Jua beamed and flashed Pillan a sideways look. Despite himself, he returned it with a grin, feeling a certain amount of cockiness.
“Beat you to the bottom,” she said when the barkeep slid the tankards over to them.
“Well—” He was talking to the tin, and there was nothing for it but to follow suit. He knocked the tankard back and almost choked at the potent sensation that tore through his throat. “Faugh!”
“Good stuff, isn’t it?” she asked, mistaking his shock for enthusiasm. “It must be weak compared to divine mead.”
Probably, but he had made a point of avoiding mead and all other possible sources of inebriation. “Oh, but the stuff of mortals is more natural,” he wheezed. “It has its own charm.”
He found himself drawn into a second round before he could protest. He weathered better, but couldn’t catch up to her. Her eyes crinkled, dancing with the obvious thought that he was humoring her.
He was saved a third by the arrival of hunters carrying cinnamon-hued furs. She exclaimed over the pelts. “Feel this,” she said.
It was softer than cloud-stuff. “Astonishing,” he said. “Are the creatures dangerous?”
They laughed, a smoky sound. “Harmless as kittens–and as stubborn. The hunt requires cleverness over brawn.”
The conversation wandered and gained new faces as villagers came in from the storm. High spirits and resounding voices soon packed the room to capacity, the sweetness enhanced by the warmth of human bodies. Jua was a fire in the center, vivid, compelling–the pivot on which everything turned. Fascinated, Pillan lost track of his third and fourth mugs.
Two local lads and an enterprising minstrel picked up the thread of a tune with whistle, drum and dragon-lute. With one part experience versus two parts enthusiasm, the tunes ran away with the trio, tempo toppling into musical melee.
“Ay, Tav,” Jua said, one hand on his, the other on the small of his back. The casual touch sent a jolt through him. “Dance?”
Panic rose through the buzz of alcohol. This was supposed to be something he was good at. “Let the locals have their fun,” he said. “I, ah, wouldn’t presume to interfere.”
“You wouldn’t presume?” Her eyes were laughing. “Since when do you talk like that? Someone has to lead the set.” She wrapped one ankle around his and yanked. The motion threw him off the stool, and she turned them towards the floor.
He couldn’t turn her down without attracting attention and her suspicion, and her hand was warm. She grinned and tapped her foot to internalize the tempo. The opening strains sounded, and they were off to the plucking of lute and rain, the piercing notes of flute and wind. He discovered to his surprise that he knew the dance she had chosen. She flowed around him, gyrations light and even; he could have been an ox and not disturbed her.
Flushed heat overcame him. The dance loosened, grew more easy, and evolved into others, which he did not know but somehow followed with Jua’s partnership. They spun out of the set, had another tankard, jostled elbows, traded laughter, stole smiles.
Pillan turned his head and noticed an older woman, thoroughly drenched, trying to reach the fireplace. The sea of people washed her back. He moved to her side and offered his arm and bulk. He got sneezed on for his troubles.
She crinkled her nose in apology. “Sorry, young man. It’s spitting up like a newborn babe out there.”
He considered, then risked a thought into the ethers. A drying breeze funneled out of nowhere and spiraled around her. She looked at him sharply, knew he had done something, but cracked a toothy smile that promised secrets kept.
“There you are,” Jua breathed, her voice cool but cloying in his ear.
He thought he might faint. “I think perhaps…”
She never listened, and somehow the next dance became another, the saccharine air became a draught like the bite of the cider, and the world shrunk until they were the only ones there…and then nothing.
Gods, Pillan discovered the hard way, did get hangovers.
He allowed himself a few seconds of pure, undiluted misery before, methodically, he started to put together the pieces of the previous day. His work at the Citadel, the summons, Jua, the storm, the revelry that followed—
“Morning, sailor,” Jua said in a voice as slow as summer mist.
It was one of his epithets. He jerked upright, wits scattered in all directions. He was stunned into submission by the sight of her, half-clothed and completely unconcerned as she lounged.
“Ah.” Guilt got the better of panic. She was under a false impression, and he had taken advantage of her. Never mind that he couldn’t clearly reconstruct the sequence of events. “Good morning.” It was, under the circumstances, the best he could do.
She rose, coiling like a willow branch as she stretched. Sunlight from the Inn window turned her skin incandescent amber and made the draped cloth like mist. “You’re not Tavassin,” she said calmly.
He sucked in a breath. “Just because—”
“The proper response,” she cut him off, spinning about, “is, ‘You dare defy me?’ The fact that it didn’t come right out of your mouth…who are you, pretender?”
She was furious, and the sky darkened outside with her mood. The earth rumbled, the room swaying.
Pillan realized she was trying to defend the god she knew, and hastened to repair it. “You don’t understand the trials of the divine.”
“Don’t I!” She threw the words at him. “Maybe not, but I know Tavassin’s warmth, his passions, the wandering of his hands—”
He found himself blushing and hoped it didn’t show, but hoped just as frantically that she would stop before he couldn’t contain it.
“—and he would never wear that look on his face,” she finished, eyes flashing void. “Answer me.”
There was no question of telling her the truth. His mind found a substitute. “I didn’t want to burden you,” he said, “but I’m not the same Tavassin I was. The All-Father, in his dubious wisdom—” he sent a mental apology to the appropriate Steward “—punished me by wiping my mind clean. I’m a blank slate.” In a fit of inspiration, he added, “I would much welcome your wisdom.”
“My…wisdom…” Jua snorted. “Now I know you don’t remember me.” She studied him through narrowed eyes, then nodded. “I’ve heard legends. What did you do…no, I suppose you don’t remember. Can’t say I’d put anything past you. I can put you straight.”
Her briskness hurt, as if he were a problem to be fixed. “How do I begin?”
“Don’t think,” she said. “Do. Act on impulse. Don’t apologize for anything. Let the world be your toy.”
Was that bitterness in her voice? “How exactly do I manage that?”
“You’re thinking again,” she pointed out. “Stop. We’re storms, Tavassin. We aren’t bound by pattern or precedent.” Something about the words bothered him, but she continued before he could identify it. “But don’t forget this, either.”
“What?” Pillan turned his head to the softness in her voice.
“Yesterday, you were gentle, polite, thoughtful.” Her expression was pensive, a light touch about the eyes. “You walked with a sense of where you were, and the knowledge that it could change you as easily as you could change it.”
“I don’t know how a master of weather could be blind to it,” he said, then flushed. He hadn’t meant to criticize his predecessor.
She flashed him a grin. “That’s what I like about this…new you. You planning on coming back?”
“Of course.” He needed to escape before his head spun off. “I have business to take care of—”
“Business, eh?” Jua curtsied, using one corner of the sheet for a skirt. “Come back and see me?”
There was something painful in her face, expecting a denial. How devoted had she been to his predecessor? And how often had he ignored it? “As soon as I can,” he promised her–and the last thing he saw before he reached into the void and drew himself out of incarnation was the luminous, impossible smile on her face.
Pillan shivered as he came back. His mind hummed with the after-effects of the night before, a buzz more potent than the alcohol. He had never imagined a woman like Jua existed, much less that they might cross paths…
He reminded himself that everything that had happened was under the mask, and the moment faded. She was carrying a torch for the last Steward of Tavassin, and it was that man she wanted. He went to look up the name and location of his predecessor.
The Loresmiths had it on file, and saw nothing strange in his asking. With Tavassin being his tenth assignment in a long life, the prior Steward was four months dead. An old man, with no intentions of planning for the future. Pillan was sure now that he had been assigned the wrong role, but he could no longer imagine surrendering it.
He settled into routine. He made the expected appearance in his chief temple with a memorized script. Jua would have laughed, told him he had missed the point, but he could not risk anything else. Time in her company was dangerous enough, but that was one thing he had no will to avoid.
He held fast to her advice, reveled in her company, did her every courtesy that seemed proper. She, already brilliant, seemed to burn brighter with the attention. It was unseasonable summer, without reason, restrained by the memory of Citadel winter.
To him, time of day had been irrevocably stamped with Manara’s mark. He changed the atmosphere around his demesne to match its weather and hour. He came back from incarnation one afternoon almost late for a meeting of Stewards. He brushed his hair, straightened his tunic, and tried not to feel like a pupil.
Irritable knocking. “Steward Tathuri! Steward!”
“I’m only two and a quarter minutes late,” he protested with a glance to his clock, “it can’t be that…”
The door swung wide, and a Steward enforcer stood there scowling. “I am an official representative of the Pantheon,” he said, “and you are honor-bound to the Citadel until tried.”
He stared, backing up until he realized there was no fleeing his own quarters. “Tried? For what?”
The enforcer seemed taken aback, but the hard visage remained. “Revealing us to the worlds below.”
Pillan’s stomach sidled to the left. He had the terrible idea he knew what this was about. “To who?” He bit down on cries of innocence.
“An invoker priestess. She, of course…”
He was no longer listening. The world closed in, and he heard only the ringing of his own thoughts. Surely the fact she did not know anything would protect her. But why was he assuming she hadn’t figured it out? And wasn’t suspicion dangerous enough?
“How do you know?” he asked.
“A disciple prayed to one of your fellow Stewards,” the enforcer said. “He was having a crisis of faith.”
“What did—”
“It’s not my place to discuss this, or yours to ask.” He frowned. “You are to come to the Summons Hall at the eleventh hour tomorrow, by Citadel reckoning. Do not fail.”
Pillan was left alone with his thoughts, and no restraint but a barrier that kept him from incarnating. He knew it would be there, knew better than to try. The Citadel never confined any but the worst offenders, for there was nowhere to go. Even traveling by gate to a world would mean a poor life, confined to one reality, without any of the powers or wonders of the Citadel. A Steward could leave without repercussion, as long as he said nothing about his prior life–punishment enough.
But Jua…they would silence her by whatever means necessary. He had to defend her, but knew he had no legal recourse. Only if he stood by her in person could he do anything at all. When they did come for her, it would set in motion a chain of events he could not stop.
He found it no longer mattered. He moved through the Citadel half-conscious and planning. A lie to the Loresmiths, a gate to Manara, a Steward’s sense of his followers to guide him, and then…
He had no idea.
It held him up for a matter of seconds, but her voice in his memory put him back in motion. We are storms, she had said. We aren’t bound by pattern or precedent.
“Can I help you?” the Loresmith at the nexus asked when he entered.
Pillan’s smile was sickly, green. “I need to get to Manara. The isthmus on the western continent.”
“Cold there,” came the reply. “You might want—”
“I’ll be fine.” He knew if he went back for anything, he would lose his nerve.
“You know that if you don’t incarnate—”
“Yes. I understand. I know all the risks.” Pillan’s tongue cottoned with the lie. He hadn’t walked on any world–not with his real body–for almost a decade.
The Loresmith ambled towards the silver arches. “Right then, let me send you on your way.”
It seemed to take forever to prepare the gate, the image of Manara filtering in by particles. Pillan plunged through. A shock like freezing water ripped through him, followed promptly by another icy shock that was, in fact, freezing water.
He pulled himself out of the puddle and oriented on the distant fire in his mind that told him where she was. Light snow flurried around him, the rocky ground dormant under the hand of winter. Emaciated trees held out their garish limbs for inspection.
The tug pulled him towards what he thought was the north. The trees parted around a road, little more than a rut in the slumbering earth. Despite the situation, Pillan could not resist tilting his head to catch snowflakes on his tongue.
Approaching twilight turned the snow translucent and the ground lavender. He quickened his pace; he had no way to tell how far he had to go. He frowned. The landscape dipped and the shroud of snow made it hard to see.
The lake went on forever, waters the color of seaweed churning with the winds. A film of ice stretched into the water, but did not go far. Pillan stood bewildered, for the pull of Jua’s presence was directly across the lake.
He turned his eyes upwards and touched the storm with a thought. He called the words that brought arctic winds and a blast of bone-numbing cold. He stumbled with the response, but forged a single, focused line of power across the ice.
The storm moved to the command, rushing down the lake and dancing ice in its path. The gales laid down another layer, then a third. Pillan took a deep breath and started to move, his shoes sliding on the ice. Inches, painstaking, before he closed his eyes and trusted the path.
He dared not release the blizzard, and it howled, growing more furious with every step. His head ached with the effort, his body with the impact of cold through thin clothes made for Citadel blandness. He resented it suddenly, fiercely, that a place that could be all things had somehow ended up being nothing. Was that because they were poor imitations of the gods? Or was that what divinity did to a person?
All he saw was white, all he heard a keening wail. He stumbled and realized dimly that he had hit earth. The spell tumbled out of his thoughts as he lay on the ground, gasping what seemed to be icicles into his lungs.
Without his control, the storm dispersed, thundering outwards with a crack of lightning. He pulled up to his knees and tried to knock feeling into his hands.
“Ay, lads!” A roughened voice cut through his thoughts. “Looks as if some poor traveler has stumbled upon our camp.”
Thank…well, whoever someone who knew there were no gods was supposed to thank. Pillan could beg them for a drop of something hot and be on his way.
The hands that picked him up were rough, shaking him. They seemed massive, snow monsters, as hands pawed at his tunic.
They jarred him against a tree. “Where’s your money?”
“I … da …” Pillan had confused thoughts of his account ledgers, which recorded the amount of essence he was allowed to manipulate.
They cracked his head on the wood so hard he was sure the branch had broken. He gulped in a breath and steeled his mind for a spell, but he was so exhausted from crossing the lake that mere concentration brought him to shuddering. Blind and panicked, he cried for help in his head and tried not to think of the woman he had abandoned. God, indeed!
The lead man released him, and he sank to the snow. “He isn’t carrying anything, unless he swallowed it.”
Pillan didn’t care if that was rhetorical. He started shaking his head.
A boot thumped his knee. “Scrawny runt, isn’t he?”
“He’s my scrawny runt,” said a familiar voice, “so why don’t you boys push off before I thread your spines out through your noses?”
His head jerked up, and he saw her there, in a fur cloak with a blur of warm wind surrounding her. He heard an inhalation from the three toughs.
Jua spread her hands, a game smile on her face. There was confusion there, too, but she tucked it away. “Think fate is in your favor?”
They knew he had no money, and there was no point in challenging an invoker of unknown strength for a bit of sport. “Think that’s a stupid question, woman,” the leader growled, but backed off. “Have him, then.”
Pillan rolled upright and dropped his aching head against the tree. “Jua?”
She took a few steps towards him. “I heard your thoughts … you’re not Tavassin.” She knelt, ebon eyes scanning his face. “And you are. I can see it in the lines …”
It no longer mattered, he realized. He cracked a painful smile. “Know somewhere warmer?”
Jua slid an arm under his. She helped him to the sheltered side of a rock outcropping and summoned warm winds. The feeling started to come back to his limbs.
“Talk to me,” she said.
He sighed. “I don’t want to put you in danger …”
“I know you’re playing the role of a god,” she said. “How much more is there?”
If she was smart enough to realize that, she was capable of extrapolating. Trembling at first, stumbling over his words, he told her everything, from the existence of other Stewards–he didn’t dare say how many–to his ascension and the danger they were now in.
“What would have happened if you hadn’t come?” Behind the dark eyes was shock, but she blew with the truth as leaves did.
“I suppose they would have removed me, put me on probation, and given me another assignment,” he said. “Not so bad, because I can’t do this, Jua. You’ve seen for yourself how I’m not Tavassin—”
“Stop there,” she cut him off. “You came here the first time before common sense said you were ready.” He blushed, but she continued. “And now? You threw everything to the winds, and those winds are yours to command. You can do this, and better than the last one.”
Pillan felt a chill even through a flush of pleasure. “But when they come looking for you, we’re going to lose.”
She reached out and squeezed his hand. “Couldn’t I keep your secret?”
“There is precedent–I think,” he said, then hastened on, “I could research it, and I’m sure I could make a case.” His enthusiasm died as the problem returned. “Except that you’ve already betrayed the secret. They couldn’t trust you. I would—”
Her fingers tightened. “Say that again?”
So he explained, and she burst out laughing. “I never said anything to that priest,” she said, “not about my guesses, your odd behavior, anything. I only said that even gods could improve themselves, become better. He thought that was proof they were less than divine.” Her smile was one part irony, one part impish. “So maybe it’s him you should be worried about.”
That simple answer opened floodgates. “It could work,” he said. “I can draw appropriate cases from the Loresmiths.”
She hit him upside the head. “You’re doing it again,” she said. “Fretting doesn’t suit a god.”
He blinked. ”But I’m not. I never was.”
“You came to me with the power, the personality and the will. What else does a god need?” she asked.
To that, he had no answer. ”This still can’t be stormed through,” he said. “It has to be done very deliberately according to the code.”
Jua rolled her eyes. “No, it doesn’t,” she said. “You are Tavassin now. Your Steward bureaucracy can’t change that, powers or no powers.” With that, she scooped her hand around the back of his head and kissed him soundly. When she did, the winds faded.
Pillan tried to answer her, then realized nothing needed to be said. He surrendered to the kiss and stopped thinking as his blizzard poured in around them.