Erastian gave a bitter laugh. 'You fool. Our ancestors were full of hate and rage at the world. They sat there night after bitter night, praying for someone to come and kill their enemies. Our Gods are little more than devils cloaked in deceit.'

Of course, I thought, because this is Tristia, where even the Gods we worship turn out to be petty and cheap.

'And what are Saints, then,' the Blacksmith asked, 'but petty thieves seeking their own glory?'

'We show people they can aspire to something greater,' Erastian replied. Then he turned to me and grinned. 'Of course, that wasn't our original purpose.' He turned back to face the God. 'When the people of Tristia crafted their own laws to live by, the Gods became enraged: they sought to make us kneel before them, to swear on our souls to obey their commands. Some of us didn't; some of us stood firm. That is our purpose: the Saints exist to stand against the tyranny of Gods who would make their worshippers into slaves.'

The God smiled then, and spoke for the second time. 'You. Exist. To. Serve.'

The sentence was a mountain falling on our shoulders and we all sank to our knees, even Erastian and Ethalia. There was no way for us to resist. Nothing I'd felt before, not even Birgid's Awe, could compare to this. This wasn't mere command; it was revelation: we were tiny, insignificant things, born to serve, fulfilled only in genuflection.

Beside me I could hear Kest, grunting like a pig struggling to escape a mudpit that was slowly sucking him inexorably into its depths. I could almost feel the vibrations in the air from his trembling body, from his desperate desire to stand. He made me so ashamed of myself, for not being able even to try, and I hated him then, for having so much more strength in whatever passes for a soul in our miserable flesh than I ever had.

Someone spoke, and it took me a moment to realise who it was until Erastian-who-plucks-the-rose, Saint of Romantic Love, said, 'Right, well then, I guess the time for talk is over.'

With all the effort I could muster, I brought my chin up enough that I could see him as he rose to his feet, dusted himself off and extended a hand to Ethalia. 'Remember when I told you that Mercy wasn't the same thing as passivity? It's time to fight now, sister. Even the Gods are bound to trial by combat.'

Ethalia looked at me, her eyes wide with pain, as she slowly pushed herself to her feet, and I tried desperately to rise, to join her, to fight by her side.

I couldn't.

I guess we aren't all meant to be Saints.

CHAPTER FIFTY-FIVE.

The Apostate

If you've never seen two Saints fighting for their lives against an incarnate God, it looks like well, nothing, really.

'Are they doing anything?' Brasti asked. The three of us were still on our knees, still unable to rise. 'Because right now it looks an awful lot like they're all trying to stare each other to death.'

Kest's laboured breathing told me he too was fighting against the force that held us to the ground. 'You . . . aren't seeing it,' he tried to explain. 'The battle's happening beyond this place.'

I tried to see what Kest saw, to bear witness to the war between God and Saints unfolding before us, and for a long time it was just as Brasti had said: the almost comical vision of the three of them facing each other, staring intently into each other's eyes then my vision blurred, as if I'd stared at a flame too long, I felt a stabbing pain in my temples, forcing me to close my eyes, and at last I saw the way such duels are fought. There's no fire, no lightning, no giant serpents swallowing their victims whole. This was something different. This was much, much worse.

'You . . . see?' Kest asked.

I see a big man with a back made strong and shoulders made broad from long days working the mill, baring his teeth as he brings his fist down upon his child's jaw, again and again: a brutal, endless rhythm as he punishes the boy over and over . . .

Two young women hold an old mother down while a third kicks her in the stomach, the leg a swinging pendulum keeping time, once, twice, thrice . . .

A bird lands on a windowsill, drawn to a small pile of seed, but before it can eat a hand comes crashing down to grab it and squeezes until the tiny bones of its ribcage crack and give.

'Hells,' I whispered. I had seen all that, and a hundred hundred more such horrors; worse, I knew every one was real and happening right now somewhere in the vast distances of this country. This is who we are as a people. This is what we do when no one is watching.

Erastian's glib voice pulled me out of the blood-soaked visions. 'Is that really all you've got, you dumb son of a bitch?' The old man's brow furrowed in concentration and I closed my own eyes and saw- -a girl, young, her cheeks alight with the first bloom of womanhood. She climbs up the mountainside, although it's dangerous; everyone knows it, and she's always been afraid of heights. But not today, because there's a blue rose that grows there and she plans to pluck it. She'll hold it between her teeth by the stem and smiling confidently, she'll stride into town, to the young travelling musician who'd played the song for her on his violin, the song about a rose that couldn't be found. But she knew where it was, and she would find it: a gift. A promise . . .

'Fascinating,' the Blacksmith said, standing apart from the conflict, apparently quite unaffected by his God's terrible will. 'Such remarkable intensity from a man whose Sainthood is little more than a childish fantasy.'

'Kneel,' the God said, and a rushing filled my ears -a thousand moans escaping the lips of a hundred terrified men, hanging onto the sides of a boat even as the storm tears it apart, begging for the lightning to stop.

'See, this is the problem with Gods,' Erastian said, and when I turned, I saw him grinning, his jaw set tight. 'The only thing they understand is whatever single-minded, half-witted emotion bound itself into their form.'

Suddenly, the moans disappeared, replaced by whispers- -two lovers, their breath warmed by the early morning sunlight. They make promises together, tell each other tales of the improbable life they will share, full of adventures and embraces . . .

'Stop,' the God said, smothering the lovers' song.

'You laugh at romantic love,' Erastian said, 'but it is the path that leads us beyond mere survival and greed. Mercy is the healer, but also the protector. She is the blessing and the sanctifier, the sword and the shield. What we bear is seven hells more powerful than your petty nightmares.'

'What do you know of nightmares?' the Blacksmith shouted, pacing back and forth in front of his God, then he stopped, and screamed, 'Show them what a true nightmare looks like!'

-a man walks through the fields on the way home from a long day at the forge. He comes upon a patch of beautiful yellow flowers growing behind the old church. He hasn't seen their like before. He brings them home to brighten his family's evening in these hard times . . .

'What is this?' Erastian asked. 'What are you-?'

-the man watches as his eldest boy screams, suffering such terrors, such insanity, that even after he binds him with heavy ropes, the child bites off his own tongue so he can choke on it- 'You . . .' I was barely able to summon breath. 'You were the one Obladias talked about the man who lost Faith after his family died. The flowers you found were Adoracia. That's what caused-'

-the second child has it now; her suffering is even worse. She clacks her teeth together, over and over, until they shatter, and with the remaining shards she chews herself until- 'Give them more,' the Blacksmith shouted.

'No,' Ethalia cried out, 'don't-'

-the man watches his wife cradling their smallest child, not even a month old and too tiny to be able to hurt herself, but the pain never stops. The mother prays over and over to every God and every Saint ever known, and none listen- 'All save one,' the Blacksmith spat, his eyes on Ethalia. 'She came and she did nothing. She gave us nothing. Her Mercy was as useless as a breeze against a raging fever.'

The God opened his mouth wide and let forth his next words: 'No Mercy.'

-the wife looks up at her husband, feeling the illness come upon her at last. She's so grateful that she won't have to watch her man suffer first- 'You survived,' I said. 'The toxin-'

'I prayed to the Gods to grant me my own death, and even that was refused. I thought I would go mad with grief. I suppose I did.' He looked down on me. 'We are all mad in this fallen country, Falcio. The only question is what shape that madness will take.'

'You became like her . . . like the Tailor.'

'That's what it means to be Inlaudati,' he said. 'When my mind shattered, I didn't find the peace of oblivion or even the purity of endless agony . . . instead, I began to see the deep patterns of the world around me I saw how that world might be changed. We Unrecognised, like your Tailor, like me, we do not become Kings or Queens or Saints instead, we shape events. We decide who will rule and who will die.'

'Such power,' Ethalia said. 'You could honour your family's loss with this skill; you could use it to help save this country and instead you bring us ruin!'

'Have you not listened to a word I have said?' the Blacksmith scolded her. He looked upon the God he had made. 'Not ruin but order, not tyranny but efficiency. This country has been tested over and over again, and it has been found wanting. It is tired, enfeebled: a country of women in a world that demands the strength of men.'

'He takes an unnecessarily dim view of women,' Brasti muttered.

'And of the country,' Kest added.

The Blacksmith wandered beneath one of the gibbets and reached up a hand to set the corpse of the dead God of War swinging. 'War is coming, Falcio. Your King knew this; you know it. Avares will cross those mountains one day soon, and this time they'll destroy us. And what good will all your petty little laws do us then?'

'No laws save mine,' the God declared, his words transforming into a wild dog made rabid by pure rage, tearing at our minds piece by piece. It appeared the time for talk really was over: now the God brought forth his nightmares and set them on us one after another- -the boy can't see, his eyes too swollen. He smells his own urine as it runs down his leg and pools on the floor. His hand slips in it as he tries to crawl away, sobbing, 'Please, Father, please. I'll do anything you want, I promise. Anything!'- -the old woman coughs, and blood fills her mouth. The scent of bile fills her nostrils as the two girls holding her cheer for the third to kick harder. 'Please,' the old mother says, 'please, I'll give you anything you want. Anything'- -the bird's hollow bones crack under the crush of the mighty hand. It smells the morbid scent released into the air as its internal organs split apart under the pressure. It has no words, no song with which even to beg- Erastian coughed, and the thin, wrinkled skin on his face started splitting from the strain of holding back the foul images. Blood began to trickle from his nose, then his mouth, then his eyes.

The Blacksmith sounded almost disappointed. 'Your Saint has failed his test, Falcio.'

'No!' Ethalia cried, and she took Erastian's hand. 'Tell me how to help.'

Despite the intense pain he must have felt, the old Saint smiled at her. He winked, and the blood clung to his eyelashes. 'It . . . gives me strength just to be near you, my dear, but if you could summon a little love in your heart, that would be of great help.'

She turned her gaze on me, and I realised she was searching to find that brief moment we had shared, when we'd truly been in love; it was like watching someone try to break apart stone with their fingernails. I have never felt more pathetic.

'Erastian can't hold on much longer,' Kest said, growling; he was still pushing against the ground, trying to rise. 'I do not have the strength to break free,' he added.

'Then what are you doing?' Brasti asked. His own attempts were obviously just as weak and useless as mine.

'I am . . . searching inside myself for the strength to do so.'

'And if you do? What good is a sword going to be against a God?'

'The man I see wears armour.'

Brasti managed to move his head barely an inch, but it was enough. 'So what? Trin's wearing armour too.'

Then I realised what Kest meant: though we saw different versions of the God, there was one similarity . . . Why would a God need armour unless he had some vulnerability to the physical world . . .

'Kest,' I said slowly, 'as First Cantor of the Greatcoats, I am ordering you to get on your feet and kill that son of a bitch.'

The Blacksmith chuckled as if we were sharing a joke. 'I would have expected such an experienced duellist to know the difference between strength and false hope.'

Erastian appeared to have redoubled his efforts, for the blood was now dripping constantly down his face. 'We fight with dreams,' he pointed out. 'There's a difference.'

Ethalia turned away from me, trying to fight back against the God with her own strength.

-a mother comforts her child, 'It will be all right, my dearest, just-'

The vision faltered, like a kite without enough wind to let it fly. A bead of sweat trickled down her forehead.

-a soldier saves the life of a defeated enemy. He wraps the wound- 'I can't do it!' Ethalia cried.

'You can, and you will,' Erastian said, gritting his teeth. 'Don't just make things up: find something real. It's out there somewhere.'

She closed her eyes, and then . . .

-a girl steps out from behind the table where she's been hiding. Her father yells at her, tells her to get to her room, even as he reaches down to grab the boy by the neck. The girl starts to leave, but then stops, turns and steps in front of the father, keeping him from her brother- 'That's the stuff,' Erastian said, 'give me more of that.'

The Blacksmith's God countered, bringing his own foul visions down like an axe upon them, and Erastian and Ethalia leaned against each other, struggling to withstand the onslaught. The sights, sounds and smells swirled around us: a war fought on a hundred different planes against the endless power of a God, while all I could do was to kneel on the rough ground, a spectator.

Then something odd happened: the visions slowly began to turn; the sounds of gloating started fading beneath music, sweet and daring, the stench of despair began to flee in front of clean ocean air.

'Stop,' the God commanded.

'Fight, damn you,' the Blacksmith shouted at his deity.

'He's weakening, I think,' I said quietly, but Kest didn't reply. I could see his arms shivering as he fought to push back the earth itself so that he could rise.

'Stop!' the God repeated: a wave crashing down on us, tearing our flesh and our souls.

Erastian, bloody as he was, showed no signed of relenting. 'Your God isn't as strong as you hoped. I guess your faith isn't-'

The old man's voice was cut off, replaced by a groan of pain, and I dragged my head around to see the Blacksmith, standing over the Saint of Romantic love with his blade deep inside the Saint's belly. 'Here is your faith,' he spat, and Erastian fell to the ground.

The God regained his footing and I watched him smile at me, first as Fost, then Trin, then Caveil, and now his features were shifting back and forth between theirs and the faces of every other monster I'd met in my life.

'No!' Ethalia screamed, and in that battlefield that was a thousand places and none at all, I could see she was pushing back with a ferocity and strength I couldn't have imagined.

It wasn't nearly enough.

'I'm sorry, my Lady,' the Blacksmith said, pulling the dagger from Erastian's body and turning to her. 'You did nothing to deserve this.'

She set her Awe upon him and for just a moment, he stopped but now the God was focusing his will entirely on her, and in my mind I saw- -a child, trapped in the narrow confines of a well, water covering his chin, still rising, over his mouth, and now his nose- Now, I told myself, it's time to get on your damned feet before he kills her. I had my own vision then, of a young and foolish husband who knelt on the ground of his own farm while his wife sacrificed herself for him. No, not again. Never again.

But I couldn't stand, however badly I wanted too; my flesh was too weak. I lacked whatever spirit lets a man face his Gods. In desperation, I begged Kest, 'Please! You have to save her.'

My oldest friend looked at me with eyes forced so wide from pain and inexhaustible effort that I didn't think he could possibly have heard me until I saw the almost indistinguishable dip of his head, though the muscles in his neck were so taut they looked as though they might snap.

'Now!' the God exulted, and suddenly the Blacksmith was free from Ethalia's Awe. He drew the dagger back and I saw the still-bloody tip of the blade that was about to bury itself into Ethalia's heart.

A cry of anguish filled my ears, and for a brief instant I thought it another vision in the battle between God and Saint but then I saw a miracle happen: Kest leaped into the air, and in that same fluid motion, drew his sword from its scabbard. The blade crashed down on the Blacksmith's wrist and I heard the bones break. The heavy gauntlet held, though, and the Blacksmith switched the dagger to his uninjured hand and went to stab again, but Kest knocked the blade out of his hand even as he brought his own weapon back in a swing to strike at the God.

'Cease,' the God commanded, and Kest fell back.

The Blacksmith scrambled for his dagger and snatched it up from the ground. He lifted it back up, preparing to strike at Ethalia, but the old Saint of Romantic Love wasn't done, not quite. He had one hand pressing down on the wound in his belly, but with the other he reached out and touched the Blacksmith's leg.

The big man stumbled back as if he'd stepped in fire.

'Your God isn't looking too good,' Erastian said, spitting blood and rising to his feet.

The Blacksmith saw his creation struggling to stay standing. Kest was finding his balance again. We might even be winning.

'You should be proud,' the Blacksmith said to Kest. 'You renounced your own Sainthood and stood in defiance of a God's will. It is a remarkable thing to do. Take comfort from that thought.' He looked back at the God he had created; it was obvious that he was severely weakened, thanks to the strength of Erastian and Ethalia and Kest.