made one mistake. His allegiance is no longer to Lord Karkarn, it appears, or any of the Gods, it’s to himself. However much they fear to walk the Land and risk death, the Gods do not favour the greatest of their creations.’
— Can you exploit it?
‘Would that I could,’ he said. ‘It’s a mistake I’ve also made. Even it were possible, I don’t know how . . .’ He tailed off, then asked, ‘Is that what Larat meant?’ There was a pause and the king straightened in his chair a moment, then relaxed back down. ‘No, it doesn’t fit.’
— What?
Emin looked at her, unable to discern anything from the expression on her face. Curiously, it was one of the reasons why he liked the fierce Mortal-Aspect; she was beyond his abilities, both as a man and a king. Not even the intellectuals he welcomed to the Brotherhood-protected private club in Narkang could hide their thoughts from his scrutiny. He enjoyed feeling in the presence of an equal.
‘Did you not sense it, a week or so after you first arrived?’
She hesitated, then scribbled quickly on the slate. - Once I dreamed of laughter, and a face that shifted, yours to a young woman’s.
Emin nodded. ‘Larat came to speak to me that morning, he warned me to heed the lessons of the Great War.’
— One favours you then.
‘True, but direct action is not his way - and having lost Death’s favour, none of the rest will intervene. What do you know of the Crystal Skulls?’
Legana gestured to the blackened handprint on her throat and the cane she now walked with. - I know one did this.
‘But the nature of them? I’ve read a number of Verliq’s works - the great man mentions the Skulls several times, but he never studied them directly. Larat mentioned something, and I wonder about the significance.’
He fell silent again, and Legana waited patiently. Allies they had become, but neither expected undying loyalty of the other, and asking too much would invite questions in return.
At last he went on, ‘He told me that the twelve Skulls corresponded to the Gods of the Upper Circle, and the bearer of a Skull had the right to ask a question of that God.’
Legana didn’t move for a long while, her porcelain features crinkled in thought until her emerald eyes flashed and she opened her mouth to speak before remembering herself and writing on the slate.
— Why ask?
‘Why ask?’ Emin echoed, realising she was prompting him just as he had done so often with his pet intellectuals in Narkang, nudging their thoughts down new paths, harnessing their knowledge to a particular need.
‘Why ask? You ask to secure an answer - expecting an answer. Larat said that some knowledge should not be shared, that there were some questions that might upset the balance of the Land.’
— He is a God.
‘And a tricky one at that,’ Emin added, feeling a spark of insight; he was getting close. ‘What he told me was no doubt correct, but not the entire story. One asks a question to get an answer, to be so foolish as to do that with a God of the Upper Circle - well, you would have to be certain that an answer would be forthcoming. To have a God smite you for impertinence is the outcome one would expect for idle pestering, or seeking knowledge the Gods would not wish to share.
‘So perhaps it isn’t just a right, but a compulsion; something binding the God to answer truthfully - perhaps even something stopping them from simply reaching out and crushing the head of whoever has presumed to question them.’
He took a long draw on his cigar and cocked his head at Legana. ‘Covenant theory: the idea that a contract of sorts must exist in magical actions - no spell so powerful it does not have a flaw; no great incantation that cannot be undone by something innocuous - and no dealing with Gods or daemons that does not have rules to frame it.’
Legana nodded encouragingly, and Emin, looking calmer, continued his exploration. ‘This right to ask a question of a God, it confers a right to get an answer too. Perhaps that means there is a contract of sorts, and they’re creatures of magic so they must be bound by the rules - and if they’re bound in whatever way, that implies there’s some power of compulsion over the God.’
Emin took a slow breath, ordering his thoughts as he extended the principle