Read Online Three Parts Dead by Max Gladstone - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Max Gladstone
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You mean gargoyles?”
He didn’t respond, but it was an affirmative silence.
“Some of the … scars … look like writing.”
“Some are. Marking territory. Blasphemous prayers written by mad beasts. The rest are battle scars.”
“Are the gargoyles still around?”
The man glanced back at her and she saw that his face had closed like a door. “No Stone Men here.” He said those words as if they were a curse. “Not since my father’s time.”
“What happened?”
“They left.”
He turned the cab down a broad road leading into the temple compound. Seen from above, the path they traced over white gravel would follow the outer curves of a massive binding circle, large as the Holy Precinct. Tara wondered if the design served a purpose beyond decoration. Without an army of Craftsmen to manage it, not even a circle this size could contain a god as strong as Kos.
“Why’d they leave? Religious differences?”
He didn’t answer, and Tara didn’t ask for further clarification. Arguing war-era politics with a fanatic in a god-benighted city could be trouble. She wasn’t concerned for her own safety, but arriving on her client’s doorstep in a burning taxi with an injured driver would make a horrible first impression.
They approached the black tower of the Sanctum of Kos, tall and polished, an abstract vision of flame trapped in dark and unscarred stone. The same echoed warmth she had felt while falling washed over her again. Was it always like this here? And if the divine radiance was this strong when Kos was dead, what must it have been like when he was alive?
Their road dead-ended in a broad semicircle of white gravel where a double handful of other vehicles lingered, awaiting their masters: a couple ordinary taxis like Tara’s own, five or six fancier models, and even a few driverless carriages.
A young man in brown and orange robes sat at the base of the steps leading into the Sanctum. He was tonsured, smoking a cigarette, and represented the only non-carriage-related life in the vicinity.
“That’s funny,” her driver said.
“There’s usually a crowd?”
“Place is generally packed with folks, you know, come to pray for this or that or the other thing. Monsters from Northtown come when they’ve got business. If you dream about fire, you visit to pay your respects.” The cabbie frowned. “Fewer than usual today.”
She slid from the cab to the ground, fished a small metal disc out of her purse, and passed it to the driver. A piece of Tara’s soul flowed from her to him through the token. The soulstuff mattered, not the token; metals were just an easy focus. Soon after she paid him, all traces of her would fade from the payment, and only raw power remain, for the driver to trade with others in exchange for food or shelter, goods or services, or pleasure. If he were a Craftsman, and gained enough of this power from others, from the stars, or from the earth, he could use it to resurrect the dead and rain doom upon a nation. If the power remained in Alt Coulumb, on the other hand, some faithful citizen would inevitably sacrifice it to Kos, who kept the city protected and commerce secure and the whole damn system functioning.
Until, that is, a few days ago.
“Be well,” she said to the cabbie, but his frown deepened. With a flick of the reins and a swipe of the crop he goaded his horse into a sloppy canter and left Tara alone in the shadow of the fire god’s tower.
The Sanctum of Kos was a surprisingly modern building, she thought as she approached the broad, black steps. A few architectural peculiarities marked it as a product of a prior era: unnecessary columns around the base, and structurally superfluous buttresses added no doubt by nervous designers when the Sanctum was first conceived, back when twenty-story buildings had been the precinct of the ambitious, and eighty-story plans the product of fevered imaginations.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
The speaker’s voice cracked and
He didn’t respond, but it was an affirmative silence.
“Some of the … scars … look like writing.”
“Some are. Marking territory. Blasphemous prayers written by mad beasts. The rest are battle scars.”
“Are the gargoyles still around?”
The man glanced back at her and she saw that his face had closed like a door. “No Stone Men here.” He said those words as if they were a curse. “Not since my father’s time.”
“What happened?”
“They left.”
He turned the cab down a broad road leading into the temple compound. Seen from above, the path they traced over white gravel would follow the outer curves of a massive binding circle, large as the Holy Precinct. Tara wondered if the design served a purpose beyond decoration. Without an army of Craftsmen to manage it, not even a circle this size could contain a god as strong as Kos.
“Why’d they leave? Religious differences?”
He didn’t answer, and Tara didn’t ask for further clarification. Arguing war-era politics with a fanatic in a god-benighted city could be trouble. She wasn’t concerned for her own safety, but arriving on her client’s doorstep in a burning taxi with an injured driver would make a horrible first impression.
They approached the black tower of the Sanctum of Kos, tall and polished, an abstract vision of flame trapped in dark and unscarred stone. The same echoed warmth she had felt while falling washed over her again. Was it always like this here? And if the divine radiance was this strong when Kos was dead, what must it have been like when he was alive?
Their road dead-ended in a broad semicircle of white gravel where a double handful of other vehicles lingered, awaiting their masters: a couple ordinary taxis like Tara’s own, five or six fancier models, and even a few driverless carriages.
A young man in brown and orange robes sat at the base of the steps leading into the Sanctum. He was tonsured, smoking a cigarette, and represented the only non-carriage-related life in the vicinity.
“That’s funny,” her driver said.
“There’s usually a crowd?”
“Place is generally packed with folks, you know, come to pray for this or that or the other thing. Monsters from Northtown come when they’ve got business. If you dream about fire, you visit to pay your respects.” The cabbie frowned. “Fewer than usual today.”
She slid from the cab to the ground, fished a small metal disc out of her purse, and passed it to the driver. A piece of Tara’s soul flowed from her to him through the token. The soulstuff mattered, not the token; metals were just an easy focus. Soon after she paid him, all traces of her would fade from the payment, and only raw power remain, for the driver to trade with others in exchange for food or shelter, goods or services, or pleasure. If he were a Craftsman, and gained enough of this power from others, from the stars, or from the earth, he could use it to resurrect the dead and rain doom upon a nation. If the power remained in Alt Coulumb, on the other hand, some faithful citizen would inevitably sacrifice it to Kos, who kept the city protected and commerce secure and the whole damn system functioning.
Until, that is, a few days ago.
“Be well,” she said to the cabbie, but his frown deepened. With a flick of the reins and a swipe of the crop he goaded his horse into a sloppy canter and left Tara alone in the shadow of the fire god’s tower.
The Sanctum of Kos was a surprisingly modern building, she thought as she approached the broad, black steps. A few architectural peculiarities marked it as a product of a prior era: unnecessary columns around the base, and structurally superfluous buttresses added no doubt by nervous designers when the Sanctum was first conceived, back when twenty-story buildings had been the precinct of the ambitious, and eighty-story plans the product of fevered imaginations.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?”
The speaker’s voice cracked and
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