A Rope of Thorns (Hexslinger 2)

“And more arriving every day,” Rook agreed, echoing Fennig’s earlier remark. Then, having reached the processional’s penultimate length, “Temple Square” itself, he paused, then asked: “Care to help me welcome some more of ’em, Mister Fennig?”

“Rev . . . I’d count myself honoured.”

With no tangible walls to defend, travellers to New Aztectlan could simply make their way in from any compass point over the newly be-greened plain, straight for the city’s heart—but only if they were a hex, or in a hex’s company. Any Call-deaf mundane stranger got within a thousand paces was sent on his way, memory glamour-blotted. And when a hex found his way in at last, he was drawn to the square before the Blood Engine’s ziggurat like iron to a magnet, knowing in his bowels to wait ’til the Rainbow Lady or her consort appeared to administer the Oath.

Ixchel had first taught Rook the Oath as a long invocation in her native speech, its meaning only made clear through shared hexation; Rook hadn’t stumbled through it more than twice before substituting a shorter, English version, rightly sensing that the words mattered not nearly so much as the fundamental consent they articulated—a permanent locking in of souls.

Service I pledge to the Suicide Moon,

Obedience to Her High Priest;

Fellowship to the City’s children—

This I swear, on my own power’s pain;

This I swear, to loss of blood and life,

That the Engine fail not to bring another World.

Once voiced, the Oath branded itself scar-black on the brain, unforgettable, yet almost never truly understood. All its adherents knew was that on the Oath’s last word, as they let their blood fall upon the Temple’s soil with whatever was nearest to hand, both the aching pull of the Call itself and that maddening lifelong hunger they’d all carried simply broke, like a fever . . . washed away, its last remnants retreating deep within. And suddenly, they were free.

But that “freedom’s” truth lay hid in the Oath itself, for those wise enough to parse it proper; the hunger was not gone, just transmogrified. Which left their pledge a hook sunk deep into every heart, key to an ever-leaking sluice gate that could be flung wide at any moment, emptying them of hexation and life both in one bright, fatal flood.

Might be that was why some balked at the last second, sensing the trap, and fought rather than submit—much good though it did them against Rook, let alone Ixchel. The Oath, once broke, drunk them up altogether, leaving their blank-eyed bodies to be bent backwards over an altar stone.

In New Aztectlan, blood was the key to every door: those leading in, and out.

Inside the square, Rook was met by a small crowd of petitioners, all of them murmuring requests while offering up small gewgaws, which straightaway disappeared into the many pockets of Rook’s capacious black coat. He could never give as much help as he might wish, but he always accepted the gifts; taking someone’s tribute meant you took ’em serious, and ofttimes that simple feeling of having been heard, acknowledged, was help enough. Priesthood was priesthood.

Fennig, meanwhile, was met by his own little knot of followers: three young women—two brunettes, one blonde, and none of them, Rook guessed, past twenty summers—who bestowed looks on him which ranged the full spectrum from worshipful-affectionate to outright exasperated. Shrewd face lit up by their approach, Fennig bussed them all with impartial enthusiasm, then turned back to Rook, beaming.

“Rev, it’s my right and honest pleasure to introduce you to my ladies.” Fennig spread his three fingers and twitched each in turn toward a girl, a mountebank’s flourish. “Miss Berta Schemerhorne”—the first brunette, tall and willowy in dark green—“Miss Clodagh Killeen”—the blonde, a pert, freckle-faced miss—“and Miss Eulalia . . . Eulie . . . Parr.” The second brunette was dark-complected enough to make Rook suspect some hopped bedsheets lay behind her distinctly English surname. “All of courage uncommon, and toughness unmatched by any dockside bingo-boy you could name.”

Berta glowed; Eulie coloured yet darker; buxom little Clodagh scowled.

“Fine words, ye flimmery Nativist fancy-man,” she snapped, “given how little the choice we any of us had in coming here.”

“Aw, Clo—”

“Don’t you ‘aw, Clo’ me!”

He raised his hands, but she slapped them away. And as she did—Rook glimpsed a spark pass between, skin to skin: Blue-white, bending the air, leaving an ozone whiff behind. The other two saw it, cutting eyes at each other; the Schemerhorne gal laid a calming palm on the small of Clo’s back, sending some sort of shimmer pulsing forward to outline the restive heart beneath in light.

While Eulie, in turn, made a cat’s cradle flicker with both hands, casting threads fine as spider’s silk to pull Clo closer, hug her tight. Saying, as she did: “Can’t take on so at every little thing, sissy, and you know it—now, don’t you? Ain’t good for the baby.”

Rook straightened slowly, breathing suddenly difficult; those corset-stays of hers were loose-laced, now he looked closer. And set damnable high, to boot.

“You’re—all hexes,” he said, at last. “And . . .”

Fennig nodded. “Clo’s caught short, yeah. So’s you can understand my investment in makin’ this place a true home, stead’a just once more room in Herself’s house.”

Miss Berta turned Rook’s way, dropping a polite curtsey, to add—“We didn’t suspect, not at first. Back in the Points, it was only Henry, and when he said he had to go, well . . .

I wasn’t too minded to stay behind, without him; thankfully, the others agreed. Then, on the road, it came to us each one by one: dreams at night, tricks and spells by morning, and then—” She looked down at her feet, which were bare but white, soles soft, as though she’d worn shoes most of the rest of her life. “It was hard to stay together, for a while. But we didn’t want to leave Henry, no matter what Clo might say. None of us.”

Sound familiar, Reverend? his own mind whispered, mockingly.

True, it didn’t seem reasonable to think he and Chess had been something wholly unique in the annals of all hexation, but still . . . it hurt, more than Rook would’ve guessed, to see his own story played out again, threefold.