by Karen Miller
“You will take your godbraids into the wilderness,” Nagarak told him. “You will burn them for the god, you will breathe deep of that sacrificial smoke, and the god shall work its will on you.”
The godpool was almost full of water. Nagarak turned off the flow with his godstone and pointed. “Cleanse yourself, Vortka. Your novice robes and amulets are forever discarded, other clothing will be brought to you here. If it is the god’s desire, you and I will meet again in this godhouse after your testing in the wilderness.”
He left the chamber. Vortka eased himself into the water, it was bitterly cold, it stole his breath and pained him to the bone. As he sloshed the cold water over his skin, sluicing away the tacky blood, exploring the strange shape of his stubbled skull, a godspeaker entered with a pile of clothing and a folded rough towel.
“Dry and dress yourself,” he said. “Brikin novice-master awaits you in the novices’ sacrifice chamber.”
Clothing and towel were dropped on the floor. Without a backwards glance the godspeaker picked up Vortka’s discarded belongings and left the chamber.
My amulets , thought Vortka, but he did not protest. Dripping, he trod the stone steps out of the godpool.
His testing time had come at last.
“Kneel, Vortka,” said Brikin, standing before the plain black novices’ altar. His face was stern and self-contained, sacrifice was a solemn business.
Vortka knelt and bowed his head. After so long in godspeaker robes, to be kneeling barefoot in leggings and tunic felt strange, almost as strange as the lack of godbraids down his back. His shoulders felt cold without them, his ears were bereft of their amulet piercings, his chest naked without its snake-eye charm. He held his godbraids in the linen bag, clinging to the past like a child to its mother’s hand.
Three doves waited in a wicker cage. One by one Brikin gave them to the god, he plucked out their small hearts and read the blood patterns on the altar. On the floor beside him was a pile of goatskin satchels. After the third divination Brikin hesitated, frowning, then selected a satchel from the pile and held it out.
“Here is food and here is water. Enough to last you till you reach the wilderness. A strikestone, that you might make a fire. Here too is a godstone decided for you by the god, that will guide you to where it desires you to go. Place the godstone round your neck. While it is warm you tread the proper path. If the godstone cools, you face the wrong direction. If it grows completely cold you are lost, and the god no longer sees you in its eye. When the godstone drops to the ground of its own accord, there you must wait for the god to instruct you.”
Vortka took the offered satchel and rummaged within. Hard cheese, dried goat meat, four flat rounds of bread and a stoppered flask. Greed would see him hollow with hunger long before he reached the wilderness. The sliver of strikestone was sharp, it cut him. The lump of godstone, small as a peach pit and threaded on a leather thong, felt warm in his hand. He tugged it over his head, then stuffed his blood-damp linen bag of godbraids into the satchel.
Brikin looked at him, unsmiling. “Go now, Vortka. Be guided by the god, may it see you in its eye.”
On the steps outside Et-Raklion’s godhouse Vortka took a moment to breathe deeply of the unbloodied air. Standing so high he could see into the distant barracks, where the warriors seethed and teemed. A rising breeze carried the faint sounds of voices shouting, of horses calling, of bleating goats and bellowing cattle. Smoke flavored the air, and the ripe scents of many animals gathered close. He could see into the palace gardens, too, but no-one stirred there. He could not see Hekat, or their son.
Godhouse business roiled around him. He was not part of it. He had to go.
Tightening his grasp on the satchel he struck out on the road down the Pinnacle. As he passed the entrance to the warlord’s palace he prayed.
See them in your eye, god. While I am gone and learning your secrets, see Hekat and my small son in your omniscient eye.
He kept on walking, marched past the barracks, where the din was much louder and the mixed smells much stronger. At the place where the Pinnacle Road ended and the city began, between the two towering godposts, he stopped, hesitant. There were many directions he could take from here, many streets that would lead him out of the city. It was not a decision that he could make.
From here, the godstone must guide his feet.
There was some shuffling then, false steps taken and taken back, as he sought the path the god wanted him to follow. In the end he discovered the godstone warmed him if he faced to the west, along the street leading to and through Et-Raklion’s Livestock district. Beyond that district lay the city’s boundary . . . and beyond the godposted city gate, a narrow track leading through farmland to Et-Raklion’s wilderness.
Slinging the satchel over his shoulder, Vortka went to meet the god.
CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
A godspeaker was waiting at the barracks gates when Raklion led his warriors home, Hanochek dirty and tired by his side. It was a finger past highsun, the sky was blue and bright. Hanochek saw her first.
“Warlord, it seems we are expected.”
“I see that,” said Raklion, and held his stallion to its slow jog. In his breast, his heart was beating.
Is it Hekat? Has she fallen on the border? Let it not be Hekat, god, I am lost without her.
When they reached the gates he drew rein and stared down from his horse at the patient godspeaker. “You wait for me?”
“Warlord,” she said, wrapped throat to ankle in a soft wool robe. “Nagarak high godspeaker sends for you to join him.”
“Sends for me?” he echoed. These past seasons, as Zandakar grew tall and beautiful, the high godspeaker had chosen his summoning words more carefully, he had no whip of failure for beating his warlord now. “How sends for me?”
The godspeaker bent her head, so all her godbells chimed in contrition. “Warlord, his purpose is not for me to know.”
“My son thrives? His mother?”
“Warlord, your son sits in the god’s eye. His mother is returned triumphant from war.”
Relief was a pain, sharp in his side. “Returned when?”
“Eight highsuns ago,” said the godspeaker. “She was cleansed in the godhouse, sacrifice was made and accepted. Warlord, Nagarak high godspeaker waits.”
Raklion sighed and slid from his saddle. His bones creaked, his muscles groaned in chorus. Twenty-two suns hard riding from Et-Raklion’s far border took its toll on a man, even if he was a warlord. Tossing his reins to Hano he said, “See my warriors praised on the warhost field, warleader. Tell the barracks godspeakers I wish two hundred bull-calves sacrificed to the god in thanks for our victory, then have the meat roasted for a feast. Ale and sadsa for all, without measure.”
“It shall be done, warlord,” said Hano, tactfully sympathetic for the groaning muscles and the summons, and led the warhost into the barracks proper.
No mere man might approach the godhouse on horseback, his feet must tread upon the ground. Bruised and aching, longing keenly for a bath, Raklion trudged up the winding Pinnacle Road to meet with Nagarak, the messenger godspeaker toiling in his wake. He passed a handful of city supplicants walking up, walking down, they stopped and bowed their heads to see him, he noticed them with a swift “the god see you’ but said nothing further, Nagarak was waiting and he wanted this done. After three godmoons away, patrolling, fighting, he yearned to see Zandakar, his loins burned for Hekat, but they would have to wait. Hiding his reluctance, he kept on walking.
He and the godspeaker reached the godhouse. “I will tell the high godspeaker you are come,” she said, hands meekly hidden inside her wool sleeves. “Please wait for me, warlord.”
She disappeared into the godhouse, he remained outside. The godhouse stank of old, cold blood. Releasing a sigh, Raklion clasped his hands behind his back and let the stirring air caress his face and coax his godbells to whispered song. The business of the godhouse continued around and behind him, godspeakers a
nd novices flitting by, never paying him attention, he was merely a warlord, they served the god. He saw no more supplicants, warlords did not enter the godhouse by the supplicants‘ door.
So high above his city Et-Raklion he felt a little like the god, the roofs of homes and businesses winking in the sunlight, fields and pastures and crops and grapevines covering the fertile lands beyond the city’s boundary. Horses grazing, and fine fat cattle. The godhouse pastures full of breathing sacrifice. His fertile lands, while the rest of Mijak still was failing . . .
From up here he could see over the walls of his barracks, he could see his returned warriors and their brethren rejoice. Warriors of the god, every last one of them, no warlord could be better served by snakeblade and spear and arrow and slingshot. They were his people, in a way Et-Raklion’s citizens would never be. It was not something he often considered, of course every man, woman and child of Et-Raklion was his . . . but oh, his warriors. Every last one the son and daughter of his heart.
“Warlord,” said the godspeaker, returning. “Nagarak desires to see you now.”
Did he, indeed. And there would be a separate conversation. I am no longer cursed Raklion without a son. Nagarak must be reminded of that .
She led him through the shadowed halls of the godhouse, past all the rooms with their secret doors and godspeaker mysteries, more rooms around him, below him, and above him than he had ever seen, would ever see before he died, until they reached a room with which he was uneasily familiar. The Divination chamber, which reeked of blood and death even after novices had worn their knees raw scrubbing it.
Naked but for his scorpion pectoral, Nagarak was up to his elbows in gore, knee-deep in entrails and slaughtered beasts. The severed heads of black goats stared blindly, yellow and orange eyes clouded in death. Flocks of doves littered the stone floor. Gutted white lambs slumped in scarlet piles. A mound of bulls’ hearts glistened in the torchlight.
“Strip,” said Nagarak, not turning from the altar as his godspeaker sealed the chamber door behind her. “The god requires your hand in this.”
The air was rank with blood, shit and pish. The last living animal, a young white goatkid, lay panting and terrified beneath the high godspeaker’s hand, a knife across its pulsing throat. Raklion tried not to breathe deeply, the chamber’s stench was offensive. He had seen less bloody battlefields.
“ Strip ,” said Nagarak, and the god was in his thundering voice. “But keep your snakeblade, you will need it.”
Raklion pulled off his boots, peeled off his leggings, slid out of his tunic. There was nowhere to put them where they would not get ruined.
He did not think it wise to mention that.
With his knife held in his freshly calloused fingers he joined his high godspeaker at the altar. Picking his way across the chamber floor was a test in itself, the stone flags were slickly dangerous underfoot.
“Is it permitted to ask what purpose this divination serves?”
The scorpion-marks from Nagarak’s last testing in the pit had never faded. Every part of the high godspeaker’s flesh remained blotched, painted with blood the god’s fingerprints gleamed and glowed. Not answering the question, Nagarak stabbed the white goatkid to the heart with his sacrificial blade, then thrust its body at his warlord.
Warlords took no part in divinations, Raklion had only ever entered this place to hear the god’s desires, not coax them from the blood and guts of sacrifices. Clumsy and uncertain he clutched the goatkid’s small warm carcass and struggled to remember what he’d seen other godspeakers do.
Nagarak waved his knife at him. “ Tcha ! Hold it high, warlord! Let the blood fall where it will upon the sacred altar!”
Raklion swung the sacrifice above the white marble carved in the shape of a sleeping scorpion.
“While you fought on the border, warlord, the god sent me difficult dreams,” said Nagarak, eyes slitted as blood dripped and splotched and dribbled, a message from the god to those who could read such things. “Mijak is stirring, war is in the air.”
“I know it is stirring, Nagarak, I have been fighting warlords and their warriors for godmoons now!” he retorted, as the hot blood splashed and sprayed. “You keep me from my son and woman to tell me things I already know?”
Nagarak bared his teeth, he thrust his face close. “Do not sharpen your tongue on me , warlord. This is the god’s house, I am warlord in this place. You are here to learn the god’s desires, you are here, a man of bloodshed, to see what the blood says in the god’s name!”
Raklion felt his heart constrict and his mouth suck dry. The god was raging in Nagarak’s eyes. “High godspeaker.”
“You prayed in the wilderness, you thought to come home and tell me , the high godspeaker, what the god desires of you! Foolish sinning warlord, did you think I would not know ? I hear all prayers to the god, it whispers to me all men’s petty wantings. It whispers to me what it desires of you, that I might tell you. I am telling you now. War is stirring, your time is come.”
Dumbfounded, Raklion stared at him. Aieee, god. What a terrible man. “High godspeaker.”
Nagarak stepped back. “That is enough blood. I will divine the god’s message now.”
Raklion tossed the dead goatkid aside and retreated, that he might not interfere in Nagarak’s sacred work.
Round and round the altar his godspeaker trod, stepping nimbly over discarded entrails, hearts and heads, his dark eyes rolled to crescents of white, his fingers outstretched above the mysterious blood spatters on the white marble. A low keening moan built in his throat, his breath rasped and rattled like a man dying from war wounds, his godbells sang in discordant counterpoint.
Chilled, still aching, Raklion stood in the midst of sacred death and waited.
At last Nagarak stopped walking and his labored moaning ceased. Intent as a falcon striking its prey he leapt to the pile of bull’s hearts, seized one in each hand and threw them onto the only clear space remaining in the chamber, the sacred sand circle at its center. Four more bulls’ hearts joined the first two. Then two goats’ heads. Next, slippery piles of animal entrails, there and there and there. The pure white sand stained swiftly scarlet. Nagarak snatched up armfuls of slaughtered doves, and threw them into the air. They fluttered to the ground, a sad parody of flight, to thud without grace on the wet red sand. Last of all he flung the dead goatkid into the circle, where it lay so quietly, as though it were asleep.
“Your snakeblade,” said Nagarak, and held out his hand.
Raklion gave it to him. “What does the god say?”
Nagarak’s answer was to cut him with his own knife, more swiftly than a striking snake, a stinging scorpion, the wrath of the god. Before he had cried out even once his flesh was opened in eight separate places, his blood was flowing like a woman‘s tears. Nagarak thrust him into the circle, and he fell to the floor among goat’s heads and bulls’ hearts, his hands tangled in entrails, his blood weeping on dead doves.
Blue flames leapt to life around him. He felt their heat but his skin stayed cool. He did not catch fire, though he breathed fire in and breathed it out, he was made of fire, his blood was light. In his mind he heard the god singing.
The bulls’ hearts were beating, throbbing with life. The sound was in his ears, his bones, thrumming through him like the voice of the god. The eyes in the goats’ heads watched him, blinking. The ropes of entrails were burned away, burned to black glass, burned to diamond. The doves’ wings fluttered, they fanned the blue flames.
Raklion fumbled to his knees, his wounds in cheek and breast and thighs and arms gaping open, healing to silver even as they burned. Outside the circle Nagarak was dancing, his godbells rang louder than the birth of the world. Pain was pleasure and pleasure was pain, he watched the dead goatkid return to life and gambol round the circle of sand, bleating his name as it hopped and skipped.
Raklion! Raklion! Warlord of Mijak! Raklion, Raklion, praise his name!
He tried to touch it, the goatkid crum
bled to ash.
Raklion warlord! the fluttering doves cooed. Then sighing, weeping: Zandakar . . . Zandakar . . . Zandakar . . .
He slumped to the stained sand, his mind a maelstrom.
What does this mean, god? Give me an answer! Is my son threatened? Will he not follow me? Is this a divining or a curse? Tell me, I beg you! What does this mean?
The god told him nothing, its singing sank to silence. The blue flames died, the bulls’ hearts stopped beating, the goats’ heads went blind. Of the doves there was nothing left but beaks and clawed feet, a drifting of feathers.
“Warlord,” said Nagarak, kneeling beside him. “Raklion. Open your eyes.”
Reluctantly, Raklion obeyed him.
Nagarak was smiling, his blotched face fierce. “The god has spoken. Your time is come. Mijak’s suffering is at an end.”
Raklion felt his eyes fill with tears. “If I were a novice you would beat me, Nagarak. I doubted on the battlefield, I railed at the god for its long harsh silence.”
Nagarak struck him twice across the face, brutal blows. “You sinned, you are smitten. Look forward now, not back. Raklion, we are tasked by the god to bring peace to Mijak. You the warlord, I the high godspeaker. We will journey to Mijak’s Heart, we will stand at the center of the god’s seeing eye. The lesser warlords will kneel before you, their high godspeakers will kneel to me. If they defy us demons will claim them, the snake will devour them, the scorpion sting them until their bodies burst. Hell will refuse them, they will die in the dark.”
Raklion lowered his hand from his aching face. “This is certain?”
“It is certain.”
“In my vision, in the sacred circle . . .” He closed his eyes, remembering. As with all dreams it was fading, vanishing like smoke. “My name was called, and then was called Zandakar. What of my son, Nagarak? What does the god say? I could not understand its meaning.”
