found, the Coral Man had told him in his dream on Hyakiyako as a tentacle gripped his arm, and he suspected that statement would come back to haunt him wherever they went, no matter how many times he put them in a boat and sailed to another strand of spans, until he’d sailed them around the world and back again. It wouldn’t matter. It was Fate the Coral Man had warned of. Inescapable Fate.
He looked at the fading mark on his wrist, the round red suction scar that told him it had been no dream, no illusion. It was a reminder ensuring that he didn’t change his mind.
Soter hardly dared drink more than a cup anymore, certain that if he did that damned coral monster would return to gloat as it twisted his entrails with terror. If it was Bardsham’s shade, then that shade was far crueler than its corporeal self had ever been. He mustn’t lose control, because if he did that Destroyer would strike again. Destroyer—it certainly suited. Soter’s whole life and livelihood had been destroyed.
He glanced out the door. “If he finds you, you’ll wish those fishing folk in Tenikemac had drowned you,” he said to the long-gone Leodora. “And so will I.”
From there, Soter wandered through the darkened theater like a lost man, along the halls and then out onto the stage, where he strode boldy into the booth. He lifted the puppets out of one undaya case, pulled up the false bottom, and stood the case on end. Then he dragged Leodora’s stool before it and sat down.
“Go on, then,” he told the Coral Man. “Come out, emerge, manifest right here. Stride out of your box and scare me. Threaten me with doom.” The figure did nothing, lifeless, all but faceless. Soter finally let go of his lingering terror. “No, I thought not, not when I’m watching, you can’t. You know you can’t scare me now, not compared with the fate that looms out there across the water. Why, you bastard? Why did she have to inherit your skill? Why could she not have been clumsy and stupid? Want me to admit that I thought I could minimize the attention she would get? Fine, I admit it. And it’s not even enough that she’s skillful, she has to be the favorite of the gods. Does nobody want her to live a long life? They’ll come, you fool, the same as they did for you and that red-haired witch of yours. And this time, he’ll obliterate this span, turn it into one of his sterile palaces, and she’ll end up joining her mother in whatever abyss she’s been consigned to. So come on, burst into being again and terrorize me, if you’ve anything left at all.”
The Coral Man didn’t move. It was as lifeless as rock, and nothing took shape in the darkness of the booth. Soter got up. “I’ll go and sleep now, I think. Come and invade there, if you like, show up when I’m helpless to resist you. I’m tired of the burden of guilt. I’m tired of being responsible for your absence, and for the witch, too. It was me you should have confided in. Who’d been with you longer? Who cared for you? If you’d just given her up . . .”
There was no more to say. He could not make history revise itself. And anyway, the coral figure wasn’t going to do anything, was it? He’d jettisoned Leandra’s ghost on Bouyan, and now he would deny this one, too, its assaults upon him. The threats it had leveled in the past would not have a hold any longer. It was a piece of detritus, a shape fashioned by dead sea creatures. If anything of Bardsham lingered beneath that crusted surface, it didn’t matter. Bardsham wasn’t the danger to him. Bardsham had done his damage already, long ago, to himself, to them all.
“And you stop haunting your daughter at night, too,” he added. “It’s enough that you inveigled your way into her life just so you could travel the spans one more time on her back. Leave the living alone, you chalky wretch. You hear me? Leave us alone!”
The figure stood as if at attention as Soter exited the booth. He glanced at it once more, then drew the cloth closed and stormed into the wings.
THREE
At first Diverus walked slightly ahead, and neither of them spoke nor knew if the other’s thoughts tracked anywhere near his or her own.