A Rope of Thorns by Gemma Files Read Free Book Online

down under-earth, where all Mictlan-Xibalba’s horrors lurked. The cogs of some ’quake-engine cut from stone and greased with bone-dust, grating against each other.
    Your prerogative,
Rook allowed.
Consider this, though.
For all Ed’s a decent sort, he ain’t like you or I. The longer you stick with people like him, whether it’s for fancy or to pay us back, or just to stick your thumb in God’s eye awhile—the more you’ll bring down on their heads. You’re a plague to normal citizenry now, Chess,
even more so than you ever were. Hexes will come and dash ’emselves against you, go up like rockets, and catch everyone else around in the back-blast.
    Unable to stop himself, Chess saw Glossing’s dying face
—
those rabbit-eyes closing, lids twitching dimly, like he was almost
glad
to bid farewell to any world held Chess in it. Heard those townsfolk yelling trash at him, and felt his free hand fist, itching to blast ’em where they stood.
    Which is why, Ixchel put in, you must accept what you are: our Flayed Lord, red god of red Weed, Opener of our Way. Fight this, and you only fight yourself.
    Chess bristled.
So now you come at me both together, I’m s’posed to just roll over? Screw that, and screw all them other motherfuckers, likewise!
You
put this shit on me—hoodooed me into sayin’ yes, then went on and did it anyways, even when I stopped. Which is where you both fucked up, or so your Enemy tells me. . . .
    Oh, be silent! Even Rook took a step back as the air around Ixchel blazed, stone thrumming beneath her bare feet; the city itself seemed to shimmer and recede. Do you think yourself special? We were all of us ixiptla , once upon a time—
    (even me, even)
    (HE)
    A flood of images behind his eyes—or did that work, seeing his eyes were closed already? Chess saw blood and bone and stone knives tearing, heard alien words and
knew
their meanings before she was done speaking them, before their vowel sounds had scratched his ears’ drums.
Tlacacaliztli
, piercing with arrows.
Tlahuahuanaliztli
, gladiatorial combat.
Tlacamictiliztli
, extraction of the heart . . .
    (His breastbone aching in sympathy, cleft and barely re-sewn, each no-beat of his own missing organ a hammer-blow echoing from the
inside
out.)
    Cold crush of drowning. Dirt in your lungs, from burial alive. A drawn mouthful of searing heat, as skin-girt priests swung you over the sacrificial fire. Crunch and
chunk
of separation as your head was wrenched free, placed high in pride on the
tzompantli
, before your body was thrown down an endless flight of steps to slam square at the apex of a far smaller pyramid made from limp, cooling human meat.
    (And that was worse, somehow. To feel even a moment’s sympathy—not for
her
, so much. But for the girl she’d once been.)
    And now the city was gone again, the sky once more a starless but honest black, leaving he, Rook, and the Lady alone on a flat grey plain. Chess reholstered his guns, lifted his hands up between him and his tormentors, palm-out, half shield, half absolute refusal.
    Get outta my dream,
he told them, hard as he could.
You ain’t makin’ me do nothin’—I won’t be rode, let alone broken.
Goddamn you both! I will
not
do what I won’t!
    Rook was a towering, fading silhouette, recognizable only to one who knew the shape of his features in the dark.
Okay, darlin’. But, see—problem is—
    —you will , Chess Pargeter. As we all must, eventually.
    It was a moment before Chess realized he was finally awake, for good and true; the smoky smell of campfire embers rose in the desert chill, unblurred by furnace-reek or magic’s stinging tang. He held his breath, and waited.
    The world stayed as it was, unchanging.
    Chess let out a huge sigh, and was struck abruptly with an almighty need to piss, which drew a laugh. Cheered immeasurably, he rolled to his left, away from the campfire, hit something rough, then looked up—and up, and up.
    Twelve feet tall, black as tar and shiny as