Free Three Parts Dead by Max Gladstone Page B

their client. He sat behind the oak desk, clad in deep red robes and his own authority. Physically, he was unremarkable, silver-haired and thin with age, but his posture suggested that he often spoke while others listened. Never before had Tara seen someone with such presence who was not a Craftsman.
    But Kos’s death must have strained him beyond endurance. His shoulders bent as if they bore a heavy weight, and his face looked drawn and robbed of sleep. Accustomed to power, he was scrambling for purchase on events beyond his control.
    Abelard announced her. “Technical Cardinal Gustave, Lady Kevarian, this is Tara Abernathy.” He closed his eyes, opened them again, shifted his feet. “I, uh, assume. She never showed me any identification.”
    Ms. Kevarian’s expression darkened, but before she said anything Cardinal Gustave extended a firm, reassuring hand. He had a preacher’s deep voice, quiet at the moment, though Tara did not doubt it could fill a cathedral. “Novice Abelard must have recognized Ms. Abernathy from your description. He’s usually prudent, but the current … situation has shaken him, as it has shaken us all.”
    “I’m sorry.” Abelard bowed his head, and with shaking fingers raised his cigarette to his lips. Finding it nearly exhausted, he dug frantically into the pockets of his robe for a fresh pack. “I’m sorry. I wasn’t thinking. It won’t happen again.”
    “See that it does not,” Ms. Kevarian said. “If we are to succeed in this case, we must control the flow of information. The future of your faith depends on your ability to keep secrets.”
    Abelard froze, and Tara felt a spark of pity for him. He was terrified to the brink of endurance by his god’s death, and neither Ms. Kevarian nor his own boss were being much help.
    So she lied. “He checked my name. I should have remembered to show him some ID. Security only works if both sides are on board, after all.”
    Gratitude beamed from Abelard’s face as he produced a new cigarette and lit it from the embers of the old. Ms. Kevarian’s gaze flicked from Abelard, to the cigarette, and back. She watched and weighed him for a silent moment before continuing the introductions. “Tara, meet His Excellency Cardinal Gustave. He contacted Kelethras, Albrecht, and Ao via nightmare courier two days ago.”
    “A pleasure, Your Excellency,” Tara said with a slight bow. “Happy to serve.”
    “You may,” Cardinal Gustave said, “address me as Cardinal, or Father. Anything more presumes that, at the end of this process, I will still have a Church to lead.” He laughed without a trace of humor. “Have Lady Kevarian and Novice Abelard told you the basics?”
    “The basics.” Judge Cabot is dead, she wanted to shout at Ms. Kevarian across the room. Someone’s trying to kill us. Business can wait.
    But of course it couldn’t.
    Cardinal Gustave stood in a creaking of leather. He was a battered edifice, deep lines on his face and dark circles under his eyes. She recognized the look; the events of the few days had worn joy and certainty from him, like a flood scouring away topsoil to reveal the bedrock beneath. “What do you know, Ms. Abernathy,” he said, “about the death of gods?”
    *
    Tara knew quite a lot, actually. Her grasp of the underlying theory was probably more profound than Cardinal Gustave’s, but she did not interrupt the lecture that followed. The Cardinal looked to have frayed without the fire of his Lord to shelter him. He was desperate, and lecturing Lady Kevarian’s junior associate (and whence that title “Lady” anyway?) was a chance to establish his knowledge and authority.
    “Gods, like humans,” he said, “are order imposed on chaos. With humans, the imposition is easy to see. Millions of cells, long twisted chains of atoms, so much bone and blood and juice , every piece performing its function. When one of those numberless pumps refuses to beat, when one of those infinitesimal pipes gets blocked,