The Fecund's Melancholy Daughter - Brent Hayward [64]
The next part of the climb was more challenging. Tully made sure his bag was securely strapped across his back before attempting it. He spit on his hands and rubbed them together. Over his head, the wall of an old temple had shifted so it leaned overhead; he was forced to hang, suspended by the strength in his hands, hauling himself from lintel to gargoyle to steel flagpole, finally to another lintel, until his legs gained enough momentum to hook over the head of a great grey god. Pulling himself up, panting, he rolled onto this clay roof. The mists had made this climb more treacherous; surfaces were wet and slick. His cargo had banged against the stone several times. Grunts came from within the sack.
At some point, Tully had cut his forearm. He sucked deep red blood from the wound.
“Sorry,” he said, insincerely addressing the sack, “for the hard knocks.”
Muted protests.
Tully looked over and down. Already Kirk Gate Alley was miniscule, the people there no bigger than those damned cobali that were so fucking hard to trap. Well, not today. No frustrated efforts today.
He could not see the shed where the kholic and child had been. Maybe on the way back, he told himself, if the girl was still there—
Nowy Solum was a mess of chimneys and roofs, extending as far as the low clouds would allow Tully to see. He discerned South Gate, and the smudge of the Crane, as it left the city. He saw big houses on the hill, barely visible, and the markets at Hangman’s Alley.
Turning, he noticed the approaching light coming at him from above before he heard the sound, the growing roar. With his mouth hanging open, he watched two shapes come down from the clouds, white and travelling fast, their arms swept back, their wings blurred. He caught a glimpse of long, taciturn faces, the dull gleam of light off smooth flanks. Wide, knowing eyes that seemed to look right at him.
Then the goddesses were gone, leaving spiralling contrails, and a clap of thunder.
The bag thrummed and thumped against his back.
Tully went down on his knees.
Gods had returned!
He stayed in that position, kneeling for a long while, as people in the city below exclaimed faintly and shouted and eventually subsided to a state of less audible shock.
Gods had returned to Nowy Solum.
But as Tully stared at his own knuckles, and the sac writhed between his knees, and he wondered what to do next, he thought: gods have returned and vanished again and I’m still hungry.
Short, sharp jabs of Tully’s elbow stopped the activity in the bag.
He got to his feet, grumbling. “Come on. A fucking miracle.”
The city and the clouds appeared, once again, as they always did from up here. There was no reason Tully should not continue with his plan. Had he really seen the gods—goddesses, more likely? Had he seen them? They had not lingered or even slowed. Now Tully chuckled. There would be turmoil in the streets this evening. Maybe rubes, ripe for the picking. Nutters would come out.
From the temple roof, the remainder of the ascent was vertical, heading past—sometimes through—the makeshift hanging homes and hammocks of the people who lived on the lower reaches of the tower. He saw the heads of a few citizens now, gawping from their abodes. Above them, the tower continued through a zone where no structures were permitted, toward the dungeon where the castellan had sought refuge many years past. Distant windows were visible, almost obscured by the mist. Low clouds blew past.
“Friend,” Tully said to the sack, which was moving again, “you’ve made this day one to remember. An omen, I would say.” He laughed again. “Fucking gods have come back. Did you hear them?”
Then he reached up and took hold of a plank, anchored in place, to be used by tower residents as a first step.
“End of the world,” he bellowed, grinning up at them all. At the sound