The Kingdom of Gods

I grinned, taking the lead and turning us in a looping circle, toward the water and away. “I can always dance for you.”

“Not so well anymore. You have no rhythm.” We were in northern Tema, the land whose people we had both watched over long ago. She had taken the shape of a local girl, small and lithe, though her hair was bound up in a bun at the back of her head as no self-respecting Teman would have done. “You can’t hear the music at all?”

“Not a note.” I pulled her hand close and kissed the back of it. “But I can hear my heart beating, andvereight T the waves coming in, and the wind blowing. I may not be exactly on the beat, but you know, I don’t have to be a good dancer to love dancing.”

She beamed, delighted, and then spun us both, taking control of the dance so deftly that I could not mind. “I’ve missed you, Sieh. None of the others ever loved to move like you do.”

I twirled her once more so that my arms could settle around her from behind. She smelled of sweat and salt and joy. I pressed my face into her soft hair and felt a whisper of the old magic. She was not a child, but she had never forgotten how to play.

“Oh —” She stopped, her whole body going taut with attention, and I looked up to see what had interested her so. A few dozen feet away on the beach, lurking near a dune as if ready to duck back behind it: a young man, slim and brown and handsome, fascinating in his shy eagerness. He wore no shirt or shoes, and his pants were rolled up to his knees. In one hand he carried a bucket full of sandy clams.

“One of your worshippers?” I murmured in her ear, and then I kissed it.

Spider giggled, though her expression was greedy. “Perhaps. Move away from me, Brother. He’s shy enough as it is, and you’re not a little boy anymore.”

“They’re so beautiful when they love us,” I whispered. I pressed against her, hungry, and thought for the umpteenth time of Deka.

“Yes,” she said, reaching back to cup my cheek. “But I don’t share, Sieh, and I’m not the one you want anyway. Let go now.”

Reluctantly I did so and stepped back, bowing extravagantly to the young man so that he would know he was welcome. He blushed and ducked his head, the long cabled locks of his hair falling forward. Because he was poor, he had wrapped the locks with some sort of threadlike seaweed and ornamented them with seashells and bits of bright coral, rather than the metal bands and gemstones most Temans preferred. He did begin to walk closer at our tacit invitation, holding the bucket in both hands with an air of offering. His whole day’s income, most likely — a sincere mark of devotion.

While he approached, Spider glanced back at me, her eyes gleaming. “You want to know about Kahl, don’t you?”

I blinked in surprise. “How did you know?”

She smiled. “I can hear the world just fine, Brother. The wind says you’re playing errand boy for Ahad, the new one. Everyone knows who he works for.”

“I didn’t.” I could not keep the sourness out of my voice.

“That’s because you’re selfish and flighty. Anyhow, of course that’s why you came. There’s nothing else in Tema that could be of interest to you.”

“Maybe I just wanted to see you.”

She laughed, high and bright, and I grinned, too. We had always understood each other, she and I.

“For the past, then,” she said. “Only fororand brigh you, Sieh.”

Then, turning a little pirouette that marked a strange and powerful pattern into the sand, Spider stopped on one toe and dipped toward me, her other leg extending gracefully above her in a perfect arabesque. Her eyes, which had been brown and ordinary until then, suddenly glimmered and became different. Six additional tiny-pupilled irises swirled out of nowhere and settled into place around her existing irises, which shrank a bit to make room for them. The clam boy stopped where he was a few feet away, his eyes widening at the sight. I didn’t blame him; she was magnificent.

“Time has never been as straightforward as Itempas wished,” she said, stroking my cheek. “It is a web, and we all dance along its threads. You know that.”

I nodded, settling cross-legged in front of her. “No one dances like you, Sister. Tell me what you can.”

She nodded and fell silent for a moment. “A plains fire has been lit.” For an instant as she spoke, I glimpsed fingerlike palps wiggling behind her human teeth. She used magic to speak when she was in this state, or else she would have lisped badly. She had always been vain.

“A fire?” I prompted when she fell silent. Her eyes flickered, searching realms I had never been able to visit, even as a god. This was what I had come for. It was difficult to convince Spider to scry the past or future, because she didn’t like dancing those paths. They made her strange and dangerous, when all she really wanted to do was spin and mate and eat. She was like me; once, we had both had other shapes and explored our natures in other ways. We liked the new ways better, but one could never leave the past entirely behind.