Journey?
“Wh-what are you—”
“Rescuing you,” said the matriarch abruptly. “You have no idea what’s going on up there, do you? Allow me to illuminate the situation.”
“Free me,” demanded Séverin, raising his chained hands.
“After you see this,” said the matriarch.
She gestured to the Mnemo-like screen above the podium and pressed her Babel Ring into the thicket and twist of stone thorns. The silver ceiling above flickered to life.
Séverin shot to his feet, only for the metal leviathan to lurch, listing heavily to the right and throwing off his balance. He staggered toward the Mnemo screen, which showed the ice grotto above. Enrique and Zofia were bound tightly, cloth stuffed into their mouths to keep them from screaming. Two pairs of Fallen House Sphinx stood on either side of them. But every sight was eclipsed by Laila. When he looked at her, he felt as if someone had grabbed his heart in a tight fist.
Ruslan gripped her arm, forcing an instrument into her hands.
Ruslan looked unaltered and unrecognizable in the same instant. An eccentric tilt to his mouth. Laugh lines around his eyes. And yet, his hand was puregold. Gold as ichor. Gold as godhood.
Beside him, Eva looked stone-faced. She kept raising her eyes from the floor and staring at the others, her face inscrutable.
“Read it, my dear,” demanded Ruslan. His smile cracked a little.“Find the right strings that are to be played, and we might all pretend at being gods.”
Laila’s eyes darted back and forth between Enrique and Zofia.
“I—don’t—know—how,” she bit out.
Ruslan’s smile hovered on his lips for an instant… and then he threw her against the ice. Séverin heard her skull thud against the wall. He wanted to rush to his feet, but he couldn’t stand with his hands bound.
“Don’tlieto me!” roared Ruslan. “I hate that. Do I look like a fool to you?” He paused, taking a deep breath and stretching his neck from side to side. “My father thought so… I’m sure the real patriarch of House Dazbog thought so too, but I killed him, so I can’t ask.Ithink I’m clever, though. Look what I did! I became the patriarch. I released all his staff and brought in my own. I made sure yourtroikaexploded in Moscow and almost finished the job before I realized that perhaps you could be of more use than I imagined… and, oh, how I imagined.” Ruslan turned to Laila, smiling slowly. “Roux-Joubert whispered of you, my girl. He spoke of a girl who seemed toknowthings with just a touch. And he was right.”
Ruslan rubbed his head with his gold hand, then he lowered it, turning it this way and that.
“So you see, I’m not a fool. Not yet, at least,” he said quietly. “That is the cost of godhood, yes? Your Séverin was quick to recognize the ichor on the floor of the dining room… what I did not tell him was that there is a price to it all. I did not know, then, what it would cost to wield such a thing as the Midas Knife, to change the matter of humans entirely… to make usdifferent.”
He laughed.
“The hair goes first!” he said. “An annoying side effect. Butthe sanity quickly follows, and that’s rather less easy to endure. Unless, of course, one has a permanent solution.”
Ruslan spun the lyre in his hand, and in the space of a second, he was once more the mild-tempered patriarch of House Dazbog that he had pretended to be.
“Listen—hush, hush, I apologize for that outburst,” he said, raising Laila to a stand. He stroked her cheek with the back of his golden hand. “It’s important, you understand? I just want the world to be a better place. And I can do that if I had just atouchof God’s power. Remake the world by remakingus. Don’t you wish the world would be different? Don’t you yearn for a day when you might walk freely through the world? Don’t you, Zofia, wish to live without persecution? And you, Enrique, my sweet revolutionary historian… I know you dream what I dream… a world where people like us are not kept under foot, but restored to a place of equality.” He turned Laila’s chin toward Enrique and Zofia. “So, please. Don’t make me hurt them. I hate doing that. For one, blood gets everywhere, which is so gruesome, positively uncouth”—he flashed a charming smile—“and for a second reason, I like them. I likeyou.”
Tears streamed down Laila’s face as she turned her face up to him.
“Don’t you think I want to read it?” she demanded. Her eyes went to the glowing harp on the floor. “Don’t you think that if I knew what strings to play, I would?” She flailed a hand at the instrument. “That is the only thing that could keep mealive, and it’s useless to me. I can’t move even a single string.”
Ruslan let go of her face with a sound of disgust. “Again with this story of being”—he fluttered his hands, like waving away a swarm of flies—“made. You’re lying. You’re lying to protect your lineage, and I hate liars.”
Séverin felt sick as Ruslan paced the floor, gently tapping a knife against the flat of his palm.
“The instruments of the divine… they have personalities. Like any of us!” said Ruslan. “And the personality of this one enjoys the company of ancient bloodlines rather exclusively. Now. This can be very simple. Play the instrument, and tell me theplacethat you see.”
“Place?” repeated Laila wearily.
Ruslan itched his nose with his golden hand. “Of course there’s a place, my dear! One doesn’t merely strum a harp and become a god. No, no.Thismust be played somewhere special… in a temple. Played in the right temple—or theatre, if you will—and that lyre unlocks the power of God. Played anywhere else, and the lyre is very vindictive and destructive. Rude little object.”
Laila’s shoulders sank, and she looked up, not at Ruslan, but Eva.
“I don’t know what’s happening,” she said. “I don’tknowwhat you’re talking about, and I don’tseeanything—”
