The truck was obviously a makeshift affair, consisting of flat cargo bed and a covered bench behind a large steering wheel.  Muddy cloths covered the mounds of cargo that, by the sharp tang in the air, Alakina guessed was citrus.  The young driver, a wiry youth with wild hair and tidy clothes, noticed her and waved a greeting. “Salutations!”

She nodded, offered a guarded, “Hello.”

He wiped his hands on a rag.  He seemed to quiver with energy, even standing still.  “You any good with gods?”

She tried to parse this sentence in a more logical fashion than the obvious.  “What?”

“Are you handy with gods?  I’ve got one trammeled in the engine and I can’t hex the thing out.”

Alakina had never dealt with either gods or engines.  “No.  I don’t think so.”

“Oh.”  He banged a pipe against the side of the truck.  “Don’t deal much with gods, do you.”

“No.”

He nodded once.  “Smart woman.  If you ask me, you should keep it that way.”  He went back to banging around in the engine and told her over the din, “You’d think I’d be smart enough to get a good dependable horse and wagon, but it’s just not my style.”  He held out his free hand.  “I’m Nico, by the way.”

She put her palm to his in greeting.  “Alakina.”

“Pleasure.”  He stopped banging.  “Well, that’s not doing any good.”  He beckoned her closer and pointed at the engine.  “Look here.  See that coil? The little bugger’s lodged in between that thing and the radiator.  Keeps overheating when it’s not just conking out for no apparent reason.  I’m mad about it, too.  I made it all the way to Traviata without a single problem and then picked up this guy outside of La Cittá.”

She stepped closer and peered into the engine, emboldened by curiosity. “Are, uh, are gods a common problem in engines?”

“Oh sure.  That’s why you don’t see much in the way of engineering technology down here.  Gods love anything mechanical.  The fancier the contraption, the more they like it.  My cousin tried to open a clock shop in Faraway once.  The place was so infested with gods he had to close down after a week.  He ended up charging people admission.  Made a good chunk o’ coins for a while there.”

On impulse, Alakina reached out and put her hand against the coil Nico had pointed out.

“Don’t touch it’s hot–”  Nico stopped when the engine shivered to life.

He stared at the engine, then at Alakina.  “What did you do?”

She stepped away.  “Nothing.  I just touched it.”

He took her hand and tried to examine her finger.  She jerked back.

“You’re not burnt?” he asked.

“No.”

He pursed his lips.  “You’ve got a knack.”  The way he said it invited her to explain.  She said nothing.

He dropped the panel back down over the engine.  “Where are you headed?”

She wanted to start walking again.  “North.”

“Listen, how about I give you a ride?  I have to go north another ten, twelve days before I swing west again.”

She hefted her pack and turned to consider the long stretch of road before her.  Another ten days.

He clapped a hand on her shoulder.  “I’ll take you as far as I can, even feed you, if you’ll just get on friendly terms with that engine and keep it running.”  He looked at least ten years her junior, but his confident air made her feel graceless and awkward.  Her will bent to his.

“All right.”  She hesitated.  “But I don’t know if I can help with this god of yours.”

“Oh, don’t get confused.  The little bugger’s not mine.  Gods don’t belong to anyone.”  He climbed up the side of the truck and reached down to help her up.  She ignored his hand and swung up beside him to the bench.  “And don’t worry,” he said.  “You’ve got a knack with the spirits.  My grandmother will love you.”

They began moving north again, jostling along the bumpy road as they picked up speed.  Nico reached up to adjust the canopy that shielded them from the afternoon sun.  Alakina wrapped her arms around her pack and inhabited the smallest space she could on the far end of the bench.

“Scootch over some,” he told her.  “One good bump and you’ll go flying into the sugar cane.  Won’t be much help then, will you?”

She gripped the bench with one hand but did not move.  She felt Nico studying her, but he said nothing more, merely started to sing in a language she did not recognize.  She watched the fields pass and the sun sink and let her mind float free of all thought.

She wrapped her mask around her head, tied it, unsheathed her knife.  She stilled her body and began to wait.  It would not come until near nightfall, probably; but she disliked staking her success on “probably.”  It had thwarted Francesca’s skill; Francesca had died because of her failure.

She eased into a corner and watched the ragged rectangle of light around the door.

A hand appeared in her peripheral vision.  She spun, thrusting her knife, then checked the motion and stood frozen, every muscle quivering with tension, when she saw who it was.

Francesca stood not two feet away, glowing — yes, glowing: Alakina stared and saw it was true.  Francesca smiled and reached out again and touched Alakina’s hair (so her eyes informed her; she felt nothing).  Alakina reached for her, heedless of the impossibility of this moment, starved for comfort, for Francesca’s aliveness.  But Francesca folded in on herself and became a tangle of jagged metal and wire, from which unfolded a tall clock.

A scythe swung in place of its pendulum.  Ominous creatures peered out from its inner workings: a round-bodied spider, a hawk, a piranha, a grim-faced owl.  The scythe made a ticking sound as it swung, and the sound said: words. words. words.

The clock face had horizontal lines in place of numbers, and one of them opened and blinked.  The eye regarded her steadily as the grim-faced owl spoke.

“You do not know the deeper powers.  Words must be our bridge.  I know you.”

For an instant the clock face became Francesca’s head, lolling back behind a slit throat.  Terror wrapped Alakina’s neck, squeezing off her voice and breath.

The clock face reappeared and all twelve eyes opened.  The owl said, “You misplace your revenge.  Who killed her?”  The spider crawled up the clock and began weaving across the clock face.  “You do not admit to yourself what you truly desire.”  Twelve eyes blinked at her from behind a thickening web.  “If you do not release yourself, when you leave here you will only release destruction.”

The clock exploded with a jangling of chimes.  The owl flapped away and the spider spun down into eternity.  Alakina, whose eyes were open, opened them again, and again, and again.

Then she closed her eyes and sank to the floor in a dreamless sleep.