But the pain
was not alone with Deliann. With the pain, threading among and
through its every splinter, came terror and panic, despair and the
bleak surrender that is the bottomless abyss of death.
Some small portion of this pain and terror and despair and death was
Deliann’s; the rest came from outside. It rode the river’s
pulse into his heart from the brilliant sunlit morning, in the crisp
autumn air, where assault cars swooped and spun and spat fire.
Deliann had less than nine minutes to live.
2
THOSE SUN-TEARS BLOSSOM in four petal-perfect wingovers, and
laser-straight lines of tracers from their gatling cannon stitch
geometric gouts of exploding stone into the streets below. They claw
pyrotechnically along Gods’ Way toward us, and the air hums
with shrapnel, and I—
I can only sit and watch.
The assault cars sweep overhead, spraying missiles and HEAP rounds.
The western curve of the Sen-Dannalin Wall shrugs like it’s
tired after standing five hundred years; it decides to sit down in a
landslide of masonry and limestone dust. The cannon rounds hit the
street like grenades with splintered flagstones for shrapnel. They
shred the army, the primals, the soapies indiscriminately: shrapnel
has no friends.
I still don’t move.
I am paralyzed by how badly I have miscalculated.
Up on the Address Deck, Toa-Sytell stretches his hands toward the
assault cars. He could be ecstatic at the power of his returning god,
or begging for mercy, or panicked and crapping his robe. Nobody will
ever know, because a missile takes him right through the chest—an
eyeblink of astonishment at the gape of his guts to the morning
sky—before it detonates against the wall at his back. The
Patriarch, the soapy brigadier, the Household Knights, and most of
the wall of the Temple of Prorithun vanish in a fireball that spits
blood and bone fragments and chunks of stone into the sky.
And that’s it, right there: that’s what Raithe was
talking about. Tan’elKoth wouldn’t do this. He loves this
city more than the world.
He would never do this.
Pieces of the Patriarch and the Temple and the rest rain over us in
clatters and liquid plops, and I can’t really hear anything
anymore except a general roaring in my ears and I know the assault
cars are banking around for another pass, and now some riot vans
swing into view over Six Tower and settle toward the middle of the
far end of Gods’ Way, seeking solid earth beneath them to
absorb the recoil of the heavy artillery that sprouts from their
turrets.
The riot vans open up with their twin forward-mount fifties, taking
chunks out of the stonework along the whole street, enfilading the
fuck out of us—the heavy slugs popping through plate mail sound
like God’s shaking a tin can full of rocks—and somehow
that finally gets my attention. I twist around so my shackled hands
can grab the lip of the Fountain of Prorithun behind me, and I drag
myself over into the bowl, leaving skin behind on the smog-corroded
limestone. I fall into the shallow fountain water that’s now
turbid with dirt and blood, and—
Oh—
Oh, my good and gracious motherfucking god .
I get it now.
He can make the cars work, he can fucking well make anything work—
The Courthouse—maybe Deliann—maybe if I can—
Christ, my legs, I’ll never make it—
I could be wrong. I have to be wrong.
Jesus—Tyshalle—anybody who’s listening: Please,
please, please let me be wrong.
3
FROM DEEP WITHIN the oceanic boil of pain and fear, using the whole
of the river for his senses, Deliann watched the slaughter. It became
for him an ebb and flow and tangle of conflicting energies, an
abstract action-painting come to life. The sky erupted incarnadine
and amethyst that swept against the sunflower, azure, and viridian of
the lives in the city below. The colors met and mixed,
was not alone with Deliann. With the pain, threading among and
through its every splinter, came terror and panic, despair and the
bleak surrender that is the bottomless abyss of death.
Some small portion of this pain and terror and despair and death was
Deliann’s; the rest came from outside. It rode the river’s
pulse into his heart from the brilliant sunlit morning, in the crisp
autumn air, where assault cars swooped and spun and spat fire.
Deliann had less than nine minutes to live.
2
THOSE SUN-TEARS BLOSSOM in four petal-perfect wingovers, and
laser-straight lines of tracers from their gatling cannon stitch
geometric gouts of exploding stone into the streets below. They claw
pyrotechnically along Gods’ Way toward us, and the air hums
with shrapnel, and I—
I can only sit and watch.
The assault cars sweep overhead, spraying missiles and HEAP rounds.
The western curve of the Sen-Dannalin Wall shrugs like it’s
tired after standing five hundred years; it decides to sit down in a
landslide of masonry and limestone dust. The cannon rounds hit the
street like grenades with splintered flagstones for shrapnel. They
shred the army, the primals, the soapies indiscriminately: shrapnel
has no friends.
I still don’t move.
I am paralyzed by how badly I have miscalculated.
Up on the Address Deck, Toa-Sytell stretches his hands toward the
assault cars. He could be ecstatic at the power of his returning god,
or begging for mercy, or panicked and crapping his robe. Nobody will
ever know, because a missile takes him right through the chest—an
eyeblink of astonishment at the gape of his guts to the morning
sky—before it detonates against the wall at his back. The
Patriarch, the soapy brigadier, the Household Knights, and most of
the wall of the Temple of Prorithun vanish in a fireball that spits
blood and bone fragments and chunks of stone into the sky.
And that’s it, right there: that’s what Raithe was
talking about. Tan’elKoth wouldn’t do this. He loves this
city more than the world.
He would never do this.
Pieces of the Patriarch and the Temple and the rest rain over us in
clatters and liquid plops, and I can’t really hear anything
anymore except a general roaring in my ears and I know the assault
cars are banking around for another pass, and now some riot vans
swing into view over Six Tower and settle toward the middle of the
far end of Gods’ Way, seeking solid earth beneath them to
absorb the recoil of the heavy artillery that sprouts from their
turrets.
The riot vans open up with their twin forward-mount fifties, taking
chunks out of the stonework along the whole street, enfilading the
fuck out of us—the heavy slugs popping through plate mail sound
like God’s shaking a tin can full of rocks—and somehow
that finally gets my attention. I twist around so my shackled hands
can grab the lip of the Fountain of Prorithun behind me, and I drag
myself over into the bowl, leaving skin behind on the smog-corroded
limestone. I fall into the shallow fountain water that’s now
turbid with dirt and blood, and—
Oh—
Oh, my good and gracious motherfucking god .
I get it now.
He can make the cars work, he can fucking well make anything work—
The Courthouse—maybe Deliann—maybe if I can—
Christ, my legs, I’ll never make it—
I could be wrong. I have to be wrong.
Jesus—Tyshalle—anybody who’s listening: Please,
please, please let me be wrong.
3
FROM DEEP WITHIN the oceanic boil of pain and fear, using the whole
of the river for his senses, Deliann watched the slaughter. It became
for him an ebb and flow and tangle of conflicting energies, an
abstract action-painting come to life. The sky erupted incarnadine
and amethyst that swept against the sunflower, azure, and viridian of
the lives in the city below. The colors met and mixed,
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