The Book of Koli (Rampart Trilogy #1) - M. R. Carey Page 0,151
said. Only his voice was halfway between saying it and asking it, so you couldn’t tell which.
“I got to be pure!” I shouted. I grabbed hold of his hand and pressed it on top of my head like he was blessing me. Like I was hungry for his blessing and had got to have it. And all the while his next word was hanging in the air, ready to come down like a lit torch and burn me up.
Only it didn’t. “This boy is my bird of fire!” Senlas yells out, his voice filling the whole cave and coming back from every corner of it. “Lay him down to rest now, and don’t none of you disturb him. See there’s no food brung to him neither, for food is of this world and he’s of the other world now. He got to get himself pure so he can fly.”
The hand women reached out for me, but I had got the sense of it by this time and I was leaning in hard to how I thought it had got to go. It was like I was the messianic now instead of Senlas, but as soon as I said one wrong word or did one wrong thing I was like to lose it all.
So I shrugged myself away from the women and didn’t let them touch me. “His hand is on me,” I cried. “Senlas’s hand is on me, and there’s a oneness there. Don’t let no other hand break that touch.”
The hand women stopped where they was and waited for further orders. I looked to Senlas. “Who was sent first?” I asked him.
“The dead god was first,” he says. His eyes was opened so wide I could see where they was now in among all the other eyes that was just painted on.
“Who was sent second?”
“Dandrake come second.”
“And who was sent last?”
“I was.”
“Why was you sent, Senlas?” I yelled.
“To lead the righteous home,” he bellows back at me, “to the world that was lost, to live in glory for aye and ever!”
“And who’s gonna light your way?”
“You are, Koli Faceless.”
“Make me fit for it then!” I was all but screaming now. “What bird’s gonna fly with a broken wing? Make me whole, so I can fly for you.”
He set both hands to the sides of my head, squeezing it like he meant to break it open. His face twisted up with effortful struggle.
I stood up, slow as anything, his hands still on me. Then I stood up further so they fell away.
It was a good thing I had watched all them times when Ursala put the splints back on me after she checked how my leg was doing. I knowed her knots, and they dropped out under my fingers quick enough so it looked like I just touched them.
I held up the splints in my two hands. I walked a little circle so everyone could see. Then I broke the splints over my knee and flung the broken pieces to the ground.
“Senlas!” I shouted.
Everyone shouted it back. “Senlas!”
“Senlas!”
“Senlas!”
“Senlas!”
“Senlas!”The hand women fell in on the two sides of me as I walked through the crowd. There was a few who tried to touch me as I come by, for the blessing and the power, but the hand women fended them off and there was not a finger’s tip put on me. I seen their faces, one by one by one, and they was all mad with Senlas’s madness. It made me sick that I helped to bring that to a boil in them, though in truth it was simmering strong already.
There was only one in that crowd who give me a different look. It was Sky. Her eyes was hooded and her mouth was set in a tight line. She held onto my gaze till I turned my head away.
50
So now we had got to go, just as soon as we could, and there would not be no second chances.
Ursala was somewhat reluctant, even though we had our plan worked out. “It’s not likely they’ll sleep much after the show you put on,” she said. “We might only have seconds to get to the train.”
“I can’t help that,” I said. “Maybe we’ll have to leave the train alone and go straight on our way. But it’s tonight or it’s never, Ursala. I’ll be burned up alive and you’ll be cooked more careful, with some carrot and maybe a gather of tore-up bay leaves.”