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tidy, and the simple furniture glowed from recent polishing. Sister Anna shut the door, and slid home four
heavy bolts. She caught Hawk looking at her, and smiled self-consciously.
"Our God has been dead barely a week, and already the vultures are gathering on the Street. If sir Tomb
hadn't put protective wards round the house on his first visit, they'd have torn the place apart by now,
searching for objects of power and whatever loot they could lay their hands on. Not that they'd have
found much of either. We were never a rich or powerful Order. We had our God, and his teachings, and
that was all. It was enough. As it is, the memory of the wards keep most of them away, and the locks
and bolts take care of the rest. This way, please."
She led them into a pleasant little drawing room, and saw them all comfortably seated before departing
for the kitchen to get them some tea. Hawk slipped his hand inside his shirt and felt for the bone amulet
that hung from his neck. It was still and quiet to his touch. If there was any magic left inside the house, it
was so small the amulet couldn't detect it. Hawk took his hand away from the amulet and looked round
the drawing room. It was comfortably appointed, but nothing special. Cups and saucers had been
carefully laid out on the table, along with milk and sugar and paper-lace doilies. Hawk looked hard at
Tomb.
"What the hell is going on here, sir sorcerer?"
Tomb smiled slightly. "You'll find all kinds on the Street of Gods, Captain Hawk. Allow me to tell you
the story of the Sundered Man. It's really very interesting. His life until his twenty-fourth year was quiet,
comfortable, and quite uninteresting to anyone save himself. He was a junior clerk in the shipping offices.
A little dull, but good prospects. And then the miracle happened. For reasons we still don't understand,
he took it into his head to visit the Street of Gods. And whilst there he started to perform wonders and
speak prophecy. For twenty-four hours he walked the Street of Gods, wrapped in Power and dispensing
miracles. And then& something happened. His followers called it the final miracle. He levitated into the
air, smiled at something only he could see, and never moved again. He had somehow become sundered
from Time; frozen in a single moment of eternity. Unmoving, unchanging, never aging. Nothing could
reach him, or harm him, or affect him in any way.
"It was never a very big religion, but those who'd been with him on that day, and saw his wonders and
heard him preach, proved very loyal. They believed their man had become more than human, a God who
had stepped outside of Time to commune with realities beyond our own. One day, he would return and
share his knowledge with the faithful. That was twenty-two years ago. They waited all that time, and then
somebody killed their God."
"But why build a house like this on the Street of Gods?" said Hawk. "Why not a church or temple, like
everyone else?"
"This was his house," said Sister Anna. "Or as near as we could get to duplicating it. We built it around
him, room by room. We wanted him to feel at home when he returned." She put her tray down on the
table, picked up the china teapot and silver tea-strainer, and poured tea for all of them. She finally sat
down facing them, and they all sipped their tea in silence for a while. Hawk studied her over his cup.
There were deep lines in her face, and her eyes had a bruised, puffy look, as though she'd been crying
recently. Her shoulders were slumped, and her gaze was polite but unfocused.Delayed shock, thought
Hawk.The longer you stave it off, the harder it finally hits. He looked at Tomb and raised an eyebrow,
but the sorcerer seemed content to leave the questioning to him. Hawk looked at Sister Anna and
cleared his throat.
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"When did you first discover your God was dead?" he asked carefully, trying not to sound too officious.
"Four o'clock in the morning, six days ago," said Sister Anna. Her voice was calm and even. "One of our
people was always with him, so that he wouldn't be alone when he finally returned to us. Brother John
was on duty. He went to sleep. He didn't know why. It wasn't like him. When he awoke, the God was
no longer standing by the altar we made for him. He was lying crumpled on the floor, a knife in his heart.
The blood was everywhere. Brother John spread the alarm, but there was no trace of the killer. We still
don't know how he got in or out."
"Can we speak to this Brother John?" said Hawk.
"I'm afraid not. He took poison, later that day. He wasn't the only one. We all went a little crazy for a
while."
"I understand."
"No you don't, Captain." Sister Anna looked at him squarely. "For twenty-two years we'd waited,
devoting our lives to the Sundered Man, only to find it was all a lie. He wasn't a God after all. Gods don't
bleed and die. He was just a man; a man with power perhaps, but nothing more. I'm the only one left
now. The others are all gone. Some killed themselves. Some went home, to the families they'd given up
for their God. Some went to look for a new God to worship. Some went mad. They all left, as the days
passed and our God stayed dead."
For a while, nobody said anything.
"Is the body still there?" said Fisher finally.
"Oh, yes," said Sister Anna. "None of us wanted to move him. We didn't even want to touch him."
She led the way up the narrow stairs to the next floor and ushered them into a small, cosy bedroom. The
Sundered Man was lying on the floor, curled around the knife that had killed him. There was dried blood
all around the body, but no sign of any struggle. Hawk knelt down beside the dead man. There was only
the one wound; no cuts to the hands or arms to suggest he'd tried to fend off his attacker. It was a
standard-looking knife hilt; the kind you could buy anywhere in Haven. The dead man's face was calm
and peaceful. Hawk got to his feet again, and shook his head slowly.
"There's nothing here tohelp us. Nothing I can see, anyway. Sister Anna, do you have any objections to
our calling in the forensic sorcerers?"
"No," said Sister Anna. "Do as you wish. Captain. It really doesn't matter."
"Why did you stay?" said Fisher. "All the others left, but you stayed. What keeps you here?"
Sister Anna looked down at the body, and smiled slightly. "I was there, on the Street of Gods,
twenty-two years ago, when it all began. I was just passing through, but he looked at me and smiled, and
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