A small part of me thought about intervening, but I quickly lost the will to do anything. Children torturing cats how many times a week did some nasty little wretch come to this very bridge to drown the kittens they'd found starving in some back alley? How many boys in other cities were, even at this very moment, repeating this same cruelty, this odd, almost ritualistic act of devotion to their own desire to watch things struggle and die. What purpose would it serve for me to stop them when they were acting in accordance with the natural order of this world?

Creating fear was, it appeared, the only way any of us knew how to cope.

Finally the bag stopped moving. One of the bigger boys kicked it and got a few more laughs when the cat inside struggled once more, but they'd grown bored. One of them picked it up and tossed it in the canal and it bobbed along on the surface for a few moments as the boys shouted angrily and threw rocks at it, trying to drive it down. It was the currents running along the canal that finally dragged the bag down, taking the cat to its final destination.

I turned away, disgusted by my inaction. Piece by piece the Blacksmith had been working to destroy our faith in justice, and he'd succeeded.

A shout caused me to turn just in time to see the smaller boy kick his captor in the shin. One of the others clubbed him across the face, a massive blow that sent the boy reeling, but he managed to wriggle free. Before anyone could stop him, he'd dived into the canal.

You're wasting your time, kid. Even if he did manage to bring the bag back up, the other boys would simply take it from him and toss it back in the canal. If anything, his attempt at valour was only prolonging the creature's suffering.

The other boys shouted insults at him, promising retribution on an almost mythical scale, but they too were wasting their time. The boy couldn't hear them under the water.

I was transfixed by the scene: it was as if the Blacksmith's God had staged the perfect performance for me: a metaphor of my life, of the futility of the Greatcoats and everything we'd striven to do.

Suddenly the boys on the bridge stopped their shouting. One of them saw me and shouted to the others and they all pelted across the bridge and scattered into the mean little streets. It took me a moment to understand why: the smaller boy hadn't resurfaced. He was drowning, and they weren't going to be caught at the scene.

My feet pounded against the cobblestones as I raced for the bridge. My hands reached up of their own accord and tore off my coat, discarding it on the street even as my eyes searched for some indication of where the boy had ended up.

The currents in these parts didn't travel especially fast, but the water was deep. I sucked in air as I leapt over the stone railing, realising too late that I probably should have removed my boots before diving into the canal.

Cold water far colder than I would have expected for this time of year embraced me, pulling me down under the surface. I forced my eyes open and the world became a blurry haze of green and brown mist, dirtied by silt and the filth of the waste dumped into the canal. I could barely make out their yellow tendrils but the water-whips rising up from the river bottom were stinging my cheeks. I let myself sink down a little further, wondering if I might even now be mistaking the boy's filthy clothes for the grimy bottom of the canal bed.

I felt the first stirring of my lungs wanting air as a discarded piece of fruit drifted by me. Damn it the currents! He'll be further down the canal by now.

I swam out, following the flow of the water, searching for any sign of the boy, cursing my poor vision underwater, but after the third return to the surface to take in air I was beginning to tire. I had to let the current carry me for a few moments before trying again. I passed a heavy stone pillion that had to be one of the supports for the next bridge. Heavy rocks covered the bottom, covered in some kind of brown plant that shifted and waved in the current.

There, I realised, that one's not a rock- A few feet ahead of me was the boy, on the floor of the canal, struggling to lift something. I kicked harder, pushing myself lower, until my feet were touching the ground. The boy's clothing must be stuck between the rocks, I suddenly realised. How long has he been without air? I reached out and grabbed his hand and started to pull him up, but he tried to yank his hand free: he was still pulling something from under the heavy rock it wasn't his trouser leg after all. His wrist slipped from my grip as I recognised the sack: he was trying to pull up the bag with the cat inside.

You're going to die, you fool leave the damned cat! But he wouldn't; I could see that. Then suddenly the boy turned to me and nodded, I grabbed his arm and pushed off from the bottom as hard as I could. My own lungs were trying to force me to suck in the canal water, but I managed to hold back the need, though the burning in my chest was moving up to my eyes and I could no longer see.

A moment later, we broke the surface, I tried to breathe too quickly and ended up swallowing a great mouthful of water, which set me to coughing so badly I began to slip back under the water, pulled down by the weight of my sodden clothes and boots. The boy had already grabbed onto the stones lining the canal and heaved the bag onto the bank and was now hoisting himself up, but he reached out a hand for me and kept me from sinking back under until I could anchor myself on the side of the canal.

After several minutes of hard coughing I finally had enough strength back to pull myself out of the water. The air tasted crisp and sweet. It appears it doesn't matter how little the mind thinks it cares about life the body is going to fight to hold onto it.

'You bloody fool,' I shouted at the boy, trying to wipe my eyes. 'Were you trying to die?'

'Of course not, Falcio,' he said. 'That would be silly, don't you think?'

I looked at him, seeing his face clearly for the first time.

It was Tommer.

CHAPTER SIXTY-THREE.

The Prayer Stone

I scrambled backwards, scraping my palms against the rough cobblestones. I reached first for my rapiers, then my throwing knives, but all my weapons were with my coat, lying discarded several hundred yards upstream.

'That's a bit of an overreaction, don't you think?' said the boy who looked exactly like Tommer as he busied himself untying the bag.

Can I really have lost my mind so easily?

'You'd think someone who's been around insanity as much as you have would have developed a more refined sense of it by now,' the boy added. 'But hey, if you want to see something really mad . . .' He opened the bag and the cat leaped out, soaked fur flying in the air, and hissed at me with a fury that would have sent a bear running for its cave.

The boy with Tommer's face grinned at her. 'She's a beauty, isn't she?'

I had no idea how to respond to that, so I answered honestly, 'She is quite possibly the ugliest cat I've ever seen.'

The boy ignored the slight and pointed behind me into the streets. 'There was a little puppy in the alley back there yesterday. Those other boys were throwing rocks at it for fun, trying to see who could get it to bleed first. Suddenly she was there, growling at them, forcing them back.' He reached out to pet the cat, who promptly swatted his hand. He pulled it back: a line of red blood was appearing on his palm, and it apparently set him to grinning.

'You're hurt,' I said, quite possibly the stupidest thing I've ever said.

'It's funny, don't you think?' the boy asked, 'a cat protecting a dog? But there she was, like a mountain lion protecting her own cub.' He looked over at the bridge and sighed. 'The boys came back today and trapped her. She could have run if she'd wanted, but she wouldn't leave the puppy.'

The cat, satisfied that she'd removed any question as to who was in charge, ambled towards me. She gave me a perfunctory hiss and then sat on my lap and went to sleep. 'She's . . . very brave,' I said.

The boy looked surprised at that. 'Brave? No, no don't you get it, Falcio? Those weren't her kittens she was defending. It was a dog: a completely different kind of animal, completely unrelated to her. It was something she had no need to protect.'

'I don't understand isn't that bravery?'

He threw his hands up in the air. 'That's not mere bravery, Falcio; that's valour.' He smiled in wonder. 'Who would have thought that that would be the last missing piece I needed?'

'Needed for what?'

'To be, Falcio. Come on, I know we've never met well, to be fair, there was no way we could have met before today, but still, don't you recognise me?'

In the past weeks I'd been stabbed, beaten and tormented, and I had watched as everything I cared for slowly disappeared. So I really wasn't at my best. But I wasn't stupid, either.

What if the Blacksmith deceived us . . . what if the Gods aren't dead . . . if those bodies we found hanging outside the chapel were just . . . bodies.

'You . . . you're a God?' And when he grinned, I asked, 'Which one? You aren't War, and I can't imagine you're Coin or Death or even Craft.'

'I am none of those,' he said.

I though about his story of the cat protecting the puppy. 'Are you Love?'

He shook his head. 'Nope. You're running out of guesses, Falcio.'

'Regret?' Even as I said the word it sounded odd to me; I'd always pictured Regret as an old man, weary of the world.

'Nope, wrong again. Regret died with all the rest of them.'

'But-' The implications of what he'd just said were beyond my mind's ability to comprehend. For a moment I couldn't bear to look at him, so I looked down at the cat instead. The creature was purring as it slept, as normal and natural a sight as you could imagine. 'I'm hallucinating this,' I started. 'I drowned down in the canal and now I'm imagining all of this.'

'That's a bit melodramatic, don't you think?' The boy was starting to sound a little bored. 'Come on, Falcio. Has the Blacksmith really got you so twisted around that you believe Faith can't lead to anything but darkness?'

'Then how?' I asked, my voice breaking. 'How can anything good come from a place where all I can see are cruel, petty men ruling the world?'

He shrugged as if the question were irrelevant. 'A grouchy old cat leaps to the defence of a frightened pup. A boy faces down a God to protect a woman he knows isn't his sister.' He reached over and tapped me on the forehead. 'A broken-hearted man rushes into every fight, every duel, still trying to save a woman who died years ago.'

I felt the tears trickling down my cheeks. 'That easy, is it?'

'It's the hardest thing in the world, Falcio, and that's why it matters so much. Now come on, finish the game. Who am I?'

I understood now why it was Tommer's face I saw, but it took me a long time before I could say out loud, 'You're the God of Valour.'

I'm not sure how long we sat there, drying out in the sun, while the cat alternated between purring and growling on my lap, before I heard voices calling out for me.

'There he is!' Brasti shouted, running towards me with my coat and scabbards in hand, Kest hard on his heels. The cat, evidently deciding that it was now sufficiently dry and that five was a crowd, leaped off my lap and went loping towards the alley.

Kest's eyes narrowed as he approached. 'How can she be here?' he asked.

At first I thought Kest was referring to the cat, but then Brasti said, 'What do you mean "she"?' He nocked an arrow, then shifted his aim between me and the boy. 'Which one is real?'

'Wait,' I said, rising, 'this isn't what you think.'

Brasti turned his arrow towards me, though his eyes were still on the boy. 'Kest . . . which one is Falcio?'

'Fascinating,' Kest said.

It took me a moment to understand what Brasti was seeing.

Saints . . . whoever would have believed it? He always acts like I'm such an arse. Eventually, he figured it out, too, though he didn't lower his bow. Finally he said, 'Oh . . . well, this is all sorts of embarrassing.'

'Who do you see?' Kest asked me.

I turned to look at the God of Valour. 'I see Tommer.'

'Ah. That makes sense.'

'You?' I asked.

'Valiana. Without the mask.'

Brasti put down his bow. 'Yeah. I see Valiana, too.'

I walked over and hugged him, knowing it would only make things worse for him. I don't get that many chances to torture Brasti.

He pushed me away. 'Will you stop grabbing at me every time you see me? And will someone please tell me what in all the hells is going on?'

Kest walked over to stare at the God of Valour. 'Apparently the world isn't limited to the Gods we knew.'

'Don't get your hopes up,' I said. 'This particular God was busy trying to drown himself saving a cat when I found him.'

Brasti looked at first at the God and then at me, then he burst out laughing. 'But that's exactly the kind of thing you would do, Falcio!'

I turned to Kest for support but then he too had started laughing.

'All right,' the God of Valour said, gesturing for us to sit. 'We should get to business.'

'Are you sure?' Brasti asked, still giggling. 'There may be pigeons in need of rescue!'

'You do recall that the world is falling apart?' I asked.

'Good point.' He turned to Valour. 'Okay, God of Drowning Cats, what are we doing here?'

The God stared at Brasti for a moment, looking annoyed. 'Evidently my Awe isn't very powerful yet.'

'Have you tried it out on kittens? Or maybe start with something smaller mice, perhaps?' Brasti turned to me. 'I think I like this one: he's exactly as inconsequential as I'd expect a God of Valour to be.'

'It's not about me,' Valour said testily. 'It's never been about the Gods. When you saw me down by the stones, it was because I was trying to reach this.'

He reached into his pocket and pulled something out which he held out to me. I leaned forward and saw a small piece of stone, a few inches long and an inch around. Flecks of rust marred the smooth grey surface.

'That's an unusual shape,' Kest said, looking interested.

'It's a prayer-stone,' the God said.

Brasti leaned over to peer at it too. 'Looks more like iron ore.'

'It is.' The God of Valour held it up and rubbed it between the palms of his hands. 'When the first Tristians came here as slaves, they had no religion, no Gods. They sat together in the night doing this for hours, sometimes days on end. They'd take a rough piece of ore and slowly work it in their hands until it was perfectly smooth, praying all the while. They passed it from person to person within the tribe, each uttering the same prayer, over and over, as they rubbed the stone into this shape.' He handed the stone to Brasti. 'Here. You're going to need this.'

'For what?'

'For later.'

'What did they pray for?' Kest asked.

'For the Gods to come and save them, of course.'