She pokes the skin of a bird, and sucks her thumb. ‘Think of it this way. All my little leavings and choppings and marrow renderings? All of them sit together and the thing they make is finer than it ever should be. Same idea for these gods they build.’
Rope watches as she licks the last bits of nail clean.
Cog takes a thin knife and slips the birds off the skewers onto the plates.
‘Except, you make a thing that big, that powerful? The weight of it distorts the world.’ She pairs the birds with another round of soft bread and some oil flecked with spice.
‘So the weavers outlawed it. Told themselves it was too far, and that they were too good and kind and just to ever do it. And then almost all of them had the grace to die before the world found how much their promises were worth.’
She snorts. ‘So now there’s only one left, with his back to the wall, and what do powerful people with their backs to the wall do? What did Crowkisser do?’
‘Desperate things,’ Rope says, holding a chair out for her.
She sits and pats his hand as it rests on her back. Her grip is strong, the knuckles stark against the skin.
‘Aye, my boy. Desperate things.’
She sighs, follows it with a smile. ‘Which is why we do what we do.’ She glances at the carcass lying in its bed of peelings and clippings. ‘Removing the stuff that’s not good for us. Leaving something finer behind.’
He sits opposite her, and they clink bottles.
She holds his gaze after, her eyes bright as a surgeon.
‘Eat up lad. You’ll need every scrap of strength for what comes next.’
25
the world initiates you in its rituals
the short ones; the breath, the sleep
the longer; the death, the birth
—Aestering Knotsong, No. 35
‘Be you free men and unnamed?’
She stands tall atop one of the boundary cairns, her chin jutting down the tip of a flat-bladed spear which hovers warningly in front of Quickfish’s widening eyes. Her hair is drawn high on her head, shaved short at the sides. The geometrics on her face meansomething– he forgets.
Behind her a few of Thell’s other border guards are equally direct, equally wary.
The spear-point flicks at his face like a snake.
‘Are you slow, pup? Answer the question!’
Quickfish feels Roofkeeper shift beside him, muscles tensing, and the words pour out of him in a hurried mess.
‘Free, yes, and unnamed. I’m Quickfish. This is Roofkeeper.’
Her eyes narrow and her lips twist like wire. The spear doesn’t move.
‘I don’t know you. And I wasn’t expecting you. Where have you stumbled up from?’
The crowd behind her mutters, and a ripple of laughter passes through them.
Quickfish feels their eyes on him, and his cheeks flush hot.
‘What I mean is. I’m Quickfish. Quickfish of Hesper. Of the Grey Towers.’
