He gestured curtly upwards. “Were there lights in the sky at night?”

She started to answer, thinking in a confused way that he meant city lights, and realized all at once what he really meant. “Stars? Yeah, we had stars. But you couldn’t see them in the city even when the smog was down. The other lights were just too bright. I never saw them myself, except on TV. But they were there. Haven’t…” She hesitated, but he was finally looking at her, so she went ahead and asked. “Haven’t you ever seen the sky? The real sky, I mean.”

“The Age of the Ancients ended,” he said by way of answer. “For His wrath was great. And the blight covered every land, and poison bled into every cup, and madness into every heart, until the shadow of His wrath gloved all the world.”

Amber sighed and rubbed at her face. “That’s a direct quote, isn’t it? I asked you a question and you’re quoting your Bible at me.”

“The Age of the Warrior awakened, which the Prophet called the Hour of Gann’s Dominion, but there is nothing eternal, save His love and the promise of His forgiveness.”

“What a remarkably roundabout way of not answering me.”

“When God’s faith in His children is renewed at last, the Hour of Gann will end, and with it, the shadow of His wrath. We are in the last days, Soft-Skin.”

“Uh huh. And you know this because…?”

“Other men have seen the storms clearing.”

“But have you?”

“It was not my time to see.”

“Oh for Christ’s sake.”

He watched her rub her face (with both hands now; some nights he drove her crazy). His own expression was a lot like hers had to be: resigned and frustrated and amused all together.

“I have never seen the sun,” he said, “but I have seen its light. Is that what you want to hear?”

“Be nice if I could hear it without listening to Gospel Hour for Lizardfolk first,” Amber muttered.

“I didn’t mark that.”

“I’m not repeating it.”

“Ah.” Meoraq’s head cocked. “Tell me about your human god.”

Amber looked up, startled, to meet red eyes glinting with challenge. “Why?”

He snorted, as if his point had been made. “I have often thought that you argue with me solely because you enjoy argument. Now I know it.”

“I do not!”

“I have been twelve years in God’s service. I have been His Sword in hundreds of trials and felt His hand upon my shoulder a thousand times more. Before that, I studied His laws and read His true Word and in every possible manner learned to see His mark where He left one. I have been my entire life in His sight, and even before, when He chose to have me born under the sign of the Blade. And yet you argue with me each time His name is invoked, when you know nothing.”

“What were you hoping for?” she asked. “What, if I tell you about my god and you tell me about yours, they’d pop up and fight it out?”

“Don’t be blasphemous.” He thought about it and snorted. “Sheul would win.”

“Your god could beat up my god. Seriously?”

“You have no confidence in him,” said Meoraq with a derisive flick of his spines, making sure she could hear his lower-case h. “Why should I?”

“I bet if I looked, I could find plenty of people on this planet who don’t care as much about your god as you do,” she countered. “Besides, it doesn’t matter how much you believe in something. Believing doesn’t make something true.”

Meoraq snorted again.

“Scott believes there’s a skyport at Xi’Matezh,” she snapped, and he frowned. “He got fifty other people to believe it with him. They all believe they’re going to hop on and fly home and, I don’t know, eat star farts and Hershey bars the whole way there. Nothing you ever said after twelve years as God’s foot made a damn bit of difference to any of them. That’s what belief does to people, Meoraq. Blind faith has got nothing to do with truth.”

He just sat there, frowning.

“I decided a long time ago that all religions are pretty much the same horseshit and I didn’t need it to feel better, so if you call that a win, you won.” She rolled over, yanking her blanket up around her ears.

The wind lapped at the side of the tent. Somewhere in the world, a lone corroki let out one of those moose-like bellows, but only one and it was very far away. Inside, it was quiet.

Amber took it for a long, long time. Then she peeked back over her shoulder.

Meoraq was still sitting there, frowning exactly the same way.

She pushed herself up on her elbows. “Why do you want me to talk about God?”

“I want to see if you can.”

She sat all the way up. “Or if I’ll what? Burst into flames?”

His red eyes narrowed. “I want to see if you can talk about your god in the rational way you claim I do not, or if you’ll just call it shit and stop talking for the night.”

“Okay,” she said. “There is no God.”

“Ha!” He thrust his hand at her, grimacing hugely in lizardish triumph. “And you can’t do it!”

“You can’t get more rational than that!”

“I asked you to tell me about your god,” he shot back. “And you gave me your opinion. And if that’s all you can do, I fail to see how that is so much more sensible than what you call my ‘blind’ faith.”

He had a point. Scaly son of a bitch.

“I can’t quote the Bible at you,” she said finally. “But I could maybe tell a story.”

“Do so.”

“Not a true story, just the sort of thing people say to make a point.”

“I will judge whether it is true or not,” he declared.

“Yeah, right.” She took another moment to collect her thoughts and began, “So…There once was a very religious man who considered himself very devoted to God and faithful and righteous and all that.”

“All that nonsense, you mean,” Meoraq muttered.

“You want to tell the story?”

He grunted and gestured for her to continue.

“One day, it began to storm really hard and someone came to this man’s house and warned him to leave because it was going to flood. But the man refused to leave his home, saying he had served God faithfully and felt certain God would protect him now. Kind of like saying that he walked in God’s sight so storms don’t matter,” she added.

“Is that part of the story?” asked Meoraq. “Or is it just your opinion?”

“It rained and rained and suddenly the river overflowed and the whole valley flooded, including this man’s yard. So he was inside praying and watching his basement fill up with water when another man came by in a boat and shouted for the man to come with him to high ground. But the man refused, saying God would save him.”

Meoraq snorted disdainfully, but that was all.

“And it rained and rained and finally the man was forced to climb up on his roof. But he wasn’t there long before a third man came by in a helicopter and shouted for him to climb aboard and he’d take him to the rescue station. But the man refused, saying he had chosen the righteous path all his life and now God would surely save him. And it rained and rained and the water came up over the roof and washed the man into the raging floodwaters. He knew he was going to die and with his last breath, he cried out to God, saying, ‘All these years I have served you! Why did you do nothing to save me?’ And God said—”

For the first time, the sneer left Meoraq’s face. “He spoke?”

“Yeah, in the story. Anyway, God said, ‘What do you mean I did nothing? I sent a warning, a boat and a helicopter! Why didn’t you listen?”

Meoraq leaned back, frowning.

“That’s it,” said Amber. “That’s the whole story. It isn’t true.”

“Perhaps not,” he said slowly. “But I will not be certain until I have meditated on its meaning.”

“Oh for…I can tell you right now that it never happened. Isn’t that enough?”

He focused sharply in on her, his spines flaring forward in surprise. “Just because a man saw the story in his mind instead of on the street doesn’t necessarily make it less true.”