Chapter 14

As the progression climbed the trail to the home of the god Bronze, the large plain-faced woman who answered McAllister earlier joined Minera and Agata by McAllister's side. "What is that brooch you wear?" she asked. "It's oddly compelling to me. It seems to almost sing to me whenever I think of it."

McAllister and Minera looked at each other in surprise. "It's the symbol of the Mother," McAllister said, and at the same time Minera spoke, saying, "It's his badge of office."

Frowning, McAllister gestured for Minera to continue. "It shows him to be the officer of the goddess known as the Child, the Mother, and the Crone. She's sometimes known as the Mother of Denaria, since her paladin Raphael established her Church on that continent."

McAllister added, "It's more. Its also a shield from distant prying eyes, those who would mark my movements from Hell. When this god Bronze forced me to take it off, the response was twelve men sent within a day and by means arcane to try to kill me, since they found me. You buried eleven of them yesterday. More will come to this place, now, hoping to find my trail. For this, and other reasons, I go to confront Bronze."

"There is much I can teach you of the Mother," Minera said to her then, "though I am new-come to her service. Would you like to learn?"

Though the great, bronze-sheathed doors were shut, they slowed McAllister not at all. The doors swung open to McAllister's purposeful shove. Quickly, the courtyard filled, and McAllister stopped before the archway into a garden, to the left of the dais. The god Bronze filled the archway, the expression on his tanned face stony.

"Why do you invade my home, mortal?"

"You err," McAllister replied, nonchalant.

"I err?" the god thundered, as if incredulous. "I err?"

"You ordered me to retrieve an apple," McAllister replied. Behind the god in the doorway, McAllister could see the apple tree. In the center of the path between flower and nut-tree beds, lay the Jade horse statuette.

"I did," the partially mollified god answered. "What of these?" and he waved at the crowd of women.

"They are vexed with their god," McAllister stated, as if it were nothing to him. Behind the god, McAllister was surprised to see himself tiptoe exaggeratedly across the courtyard. Stopping, the copy of himself made a comically-overdone 'shush' gesture, finger to the lips, and then picked an apple from the tree. McAllister could not see what was held in his copy's left hand.

McAllister kept his features steady as he cut through the other's building anger. "I offered them a chance to switch allegiance," he said, and Bronze's face gathered in an angry storm. "But I thought their god should have a chance to listen to their complaints," he continued. "It's been coming for a while, Bronze, and now is the time."

As the word 'time' was spoken, McAllister asked the wooden stick carving, in the manner without speech, "Now?" And, as before, the colors of the world became gray, the ground somehow harder, and the objects McAllister could see were again emanating that sense of deep cold.

He removed the baton from his blouse, and addressed it. "Can we move backward three minutes?" McAllister knew it was possible, for he had seen himself pick the apple.

A brief bow, and McAllister was certain the figure exquisitely carved on the bright ivory baton the stick became in this ... bubble, this space out of time, smiled at him.

The world blurred, and McAllister was abruptly in an empty archway between the courtyard and the garden. Losing no time, he stepped through, and to the shadows cast by the sun to the right of the arch. Moments later, Bronze strode angrily to the archway, leaving a corner of the garden McAllister hadn't marked.

When he saw himself confront the god, McAllister made the exaggerated tiptoe out to the apple tree. Struggling not to laugh, he made the 'shush' gesture, and picked the apple from the tree, placing it in his pocket.

"We should return," he said silently, to the ivory baton. That it was still ivory, though not bathed in golden light, was notable. He refixed it to his breast with the twine he'd used before, and when he completed the knot, the world blurred again.

The god Bronze was angry, and working himself up to a tirade, McAllister saw from his position in front of the doorway. "Apple?" he asked the god, drawing it from his pocket. "I think you'd said you wanted one..."

The god spun around, to look at his apple tree. Slowly, his shoulders sagged. "You've done it," he sighed, "and I am bound by my word. The other, the women, they were but a distraction, I can see now. You've met my test," he said over his shoulder.

"And what of mine?" McAllister asked, roughly. "You no longer have it all. One man, and two statuettes of horses."

The god turned to him slowly. "My shame is deepened. Your jade horse is there, and it's a fine charm you put upon him. Had I seen that before, I'd never have decided you should be tested. I would that I had not tried."

"Who took the other horse, and the man?" McAllister asked, and there was nothing soft in the question.

"I don't know, though I felt the taint of foul sorcery," the god made reply.

"Know the Agents of Hell were able to track me, and have stolen my true companion," McAllister said, "and all because you removed my shield. For that you shall owe me."

The god seemed surprised. "The man was your companion? I'd thought you were a lover of women?"

"He was a traveling companion," McAllister ground out from behind clenched teeth, "one I shall escort off this plane when I leave, as he knew the secret of black powder."

"Oh," the god said, then. "You were the one sent to interdict him."

"You owe me much," McAllister said tightly. "For my true companion, I speak of the horse of steel. Let us discuss repayment."

The god Bronze looked over McAllister's shoulder at the massed women in his courtyard. McAllister turned with him, and could not find the blacksmith in the crowd.

"Do we have to have an audience?" the god complained.

"Before you listen to these women, I will tell you a few things," McAllister said, there on the top step before the god on his dais.

One step below, Minera and the larger, plain-faced woman from earlier were on the second step. Beside them, looking unhappy, but there of his own volition, was the blacksmith. The other women and girls of the village were spread throughout the courtyard, standing or sitting where they would, some nursing small babes, others scolding young children of both sexes.

"Know that I wasn't of this world," McAllister declaimed, sweeping an arm indicating the world. McAllister saw that all were watching, even the children. "I was young, and had signed onto Milord Duke's retinue, to fight a silly little battle in a silly country, one with great pretensions of nobility and piety.

"It was a warm, lazy winter we spent, having arrived at our destination early, and I soon forsook my quarters for the brothel down the street, where I fell in love with an older woman."

Seeing every person in the court hanging onto his words, McAllister paused and grinned. "She taught me much, that how, in the giving of joy I might find my own, and that such love, enthusiastically given, comes back to the giver in great multiples. I learned much of skill from her, and for the rest of my life upon that world, I never found another who had more to teach."