The Tyrant's Law (Dagger and the Coin)

of low, smoky flame. The beast stood perfectly still in the center of the room, a massive spider twice the height of a man. A low stone altar squatted before it. The light glittered from eight massive eyes and mandibles long as a man’s forearm.
    Marcus leaped forward, vaulting over the altar, and swung the blade at the closest leg. The impact numbed his finger, and he let the force of his charge carry him forward, under the massive body. Both hands on the hilt, he thrust up into the vast belly. The blade rang with the force of the blow and skittered off the spider’s carapace. With a cry of despair, Marcus pulled back for another strike, ready to feel the hooked claws grabbing at him, the knives of its mouth ripping his flesh.
    The spider goddess hadn’t moved. Marcus swung again twice, before the oddness of it sank through, and he stopped. Tentatively, he reached out the sword, poking at the joint of the nearest leg. The clack was of metal against stone. He lowered the blade. The rushing of air filled the room, but the beast’s abdomen didn’t shift. Carefully, sword at the ready, Marcus stepped to the great, many-eyed head. The fire of the braziers reflected in each eye.
    “Kit?” Marcus called.
    For a long moment, there was no answer.
    “Marcus?”
    “This isn’t going quite as I’d pictured it.”
    Kit stepped through the door, his eyes wide and filled with barely controlled terror. Marcus pointed to the spider’s great leg and hit it with the flat of the blade.
    “This is a statue.”
    “Be on your guard,” Kit said. “It may come to life.”
    “It also may not,” Marcus said, but a twinge of anxiety passed through him all the same. He moved away from the vicious mouth. Kit stepped closer. He was trembling so badly Marcus could see it.
    “She’s petrified? Turned to stone?”
    “I don’t think so. Look here, where the feet meet the floor. You can see the chisel marks.”
    “Where … where is the goddess? There must be a deeper chamber. A secret path. She must be close. Her breath—”
    “That’s not breath, Kit. That’s air moving. There’s been wind running through these caves since we got here, or all the fires would have suffocated all these priests years ago and saved us the trouble. No offense.”
    “None taken,” Kit said by reflex. He put his hand on the spider’s leg where Marcus’s first strike had chipped it. The fresh stone was white and grey. The actor licked his lips, his gaze flickering over the massive beast as if searching for some hidden meaning. When he spoke, his voice was weaker. “They may have taken her. Moved her to some—”
    “Kit, has it occurred to you that this goddess might not be real?”
    “But her gifts, the power she gives. You’ve seen it.”
    “Have. And those little bastards in your blood too. Those I won’t deny. But that’s all I’ve seen. I don’t know what’s giving it power.”
    “There must be a central force. A will to direct it. There has to be—”
    “Why? Why does there have to be?”
    Kit sat on the empty altar, staring up at the many-eyed face. Tears welled up in his eyes, streaked down his cheek to disappear into the thick grey brush of his beard. He coughed out a single, painful laugh. Marcus sheathed the blade and sat at his side. The statue looked down on them, motionless and blind.
    “There is no goddess, is there?”
    “Might be, but no. Probably not.”
    “It seems I’m an idiot,” Kit said. “I thought I had overcome her madness. I thought I had questioned everything , but …”
    “Well, there may have been madness to overcome. Just maybe it wasn’t a goddess. Plenty of crazy to go around if all you have are priests.”
    The fires in the braziers fluttered in the breeze. Marcus thought he saw, high up along the walls, where the air shafts were hidden by curves in the stone. Whoever had built the chamber, however many centuries ago, they’d been brilliant. Controlling the air flow alone would have been impressive.
    “It’s what I feared, isn’t it?” Kit said. “All of it. All the tales and histories. All the sermons. I think they were all just children whispering to each other down through generations, each believing and repeating what the one before had said, all the misunderstandings building on each other, until anything became plausible. Not a mad goddess, but human dreams and fears given the reins.”
    “We should probably have this conversation someplace else, Kit. If your old friends