Page 46 of Deathless
“So I take it you didn’t get much out of him?”
“Nothing.” Bitterness hardened Santos’ voice. “He kept saying I’m asking the wrong questions, asking for the wrong thing. Tried going to Astarte and got the same shit. Now I know why Rori was so annoyed with that bird.”
I sat up from the bench, narrowly missing getting hit in the forehead by the barbell. What Santos had said alerted me to something, ringing some kind of bell. I just didn’t know what exactly.
“What did you say?” I demanded. “Tell me exactly what you asked Tezca.”
Santos frowned, confused. “Everything I could think of, really. Why this was allowed to happen. Why Rori, of all people. What did we need to do to get her back. How are we supposed to fight a god without hurting her. I mean, I kept going until I was literally out of questions to ask.”
“And he said you were asking the wrong questions?”
“Yeah. I can’t even imagine what that would be, though.”
“So hedidwant you to ask something specific.” I rubbed my temples. I was too sleep-deprived and hungry to be thinking about this, but I was ontosomething. I just didn’t know what it was. “Did he say anything else to you?”
Santos scratched his head. “No, but Astarte said something like, ‘To ask, you must also give’. What the hell, right?”
“To ask, you must also give,” I repeated, thinking on it hard. “We need to ask some specific question, and in doing so, give them something in return.”
“Like what?” Santos asked. “A sacrifice? An eye for an eye kind of thing?”
“No, that’s not it. They’ve never asked us to do anything like that before. That’s what sets them apart from the cult goddess. We’ve never needed to prove our devotion to them.”
“Because they’re much older,” Santos said. “Tezca was worshiped by the Aztecs. Rori told me Astarte is even older than that.”
“Yes, but they also weren’t born out of ideas like revenge or hatred.” I felt like we were straying from the original point, so I tried to refocus, despite a headache building in my temples. “I feel like the answer is right in front of our faces. What are we missing?”
Santos unsheathed his machetes and rolled out his wrists, making the twin blades dance in the air. I got the sense that he leaned on those blades like I did on weights. They kept him honed, focused.
“What’s something that you give when you ask for something?” he said, more to himself than to me.
“I keep thinking of that expression, better to ask for forgiveness than permission.” I shook my head. “I’m not sure if that’s the right train of thought, though.”
“Asking for forgiveness is also giving...what?” Santos began juggling his machetes, and I was forced to look away. “Giving someone another chance to trust you?”
“That’s not yours to give, though,” I pointed out. “The other person has to decide whether or not to trust you again. That’s their gift when you ask forgiveness.”
“Okay, what about permission, then?” He stopped juggling, and I breathed a sigh of relief. “Same thing, right? You ask permission and someone else has to give it.”
“Yeah...” Something about that nagged at me. The answer was right in front of us and we were dancing blindly around it. “Permission is another word for consent,” I mused.
“Uh-huh.” Santos went back to twirling his blades, the sharp metal becoming a silver blur.
“What if you’re not asking for permission todosomething, but asking for something to be donetoyou?”
Santos’ blades stopped abruptly, then he turned to me. “So by asking for this thing to be done, you’re giving consent.”
“Yes!” I jumped up from the bench. “That’s it! The asking and giving at that same time.”
“I still don’t get it,” he admitted. “What are we asking for? And giving consent to?”
I looked him squarely in the eye. “We’re becoming vessels for the gods.”
15
RORI
It was such a weird sensation, being unable to use my own body. I felt like I was floating through space, weightless and adrift. I would have preferred to have felt bound by rope or even chains. At least then I would have felt something.
