Maura was shaking now. She had never been particularly devout, but to think the temple and maybe even the goddess herself were so base and twisted was hard to accept. These priests had helped the king govern the city; they had tended to the wounded and the sick. And everything anyone ever thought they knew about them was a lie.
Thinking about the assassin’s last words to her, Maura realized she’d been looking for Harrow’s sword since she entered the temple. The assassin said he would leave it in the heart of darkness within the temple. . . . That meant down the stairs, in the dark. She was sure of it. She backtracked into one of the previous rooms, and with an intense feeling of guilt that she couldn’t quite shake off, she took a thick candle from one of the altars and went back to the throne room.
“Come on, Maura. You can do this,” she whispered. She took a deep breath and stepped down into darkness. The steps were broad and even. They had been cut into the rock that lay under the temple itself. The candle she carried did little to illuminate the stairwell, but the little spark of light gave her the courage to continue. At first she counted the steps, but her mind soon wandered and she lost count. She tried several more times, but eventually the fear and the shocks the day had brought pushed back into her mind and chased the numbers away. When her foot finally met flat ground, she stumbled and almost dropped her candle. A hallway led off into the darkness.
Maura hesitated. She had no idea how long she’d been gone, but surely she’d be missed by now. Her legs ached from the stairs. Jerik must be close behind her. If not Jerik, then one of the others. She started walking again. The hallway wasn’t long. After a hundred paces, it ended in a small room of bare stone. An altar dominated the far wall. Dried bloodstains covered everything. The smell of rot and corruption was thick in the closed air. The temple’s preserving magic doesn’t seem to reach down here. A body lay wrapped in a black robe on the altar, its face bloated and unrecognizable, a familiar blade driven through its chest. She reached for the sword, meaning to pull it out and take it back up for Harrow. But as she stepped closer, her candlelight brought out more detail on the altar, and the symbols carved into the wall behind it. Maura recognized it instantly. They were all taught that symbol in their first visits to the temple. It was the main component of every cautionary tale the priests ever told. The symbol of the Deceiver.
What did it all mean? Had the Deceiver corrupted the cult of the White Mother? Had he defeated her? Or more terrible still, was the White Mother the Deceiver? Could every part of their religion be a lie? Could the Deceiver have lived up to its name and misled all of Sacral for more than fifty generations? She knew then who the wrapped corpse must be. Yeltos Rogayen, high priest of the White Mother. The assassin had spoken the truth. He had left his sword in the heart of the darkness. With numb fingers, she reached for the sword and tried to pull it out of the dead priest. But it would not move. It had been driven clear through his body and deep into the stone beneath.
Holding her candle tightly in her hand, Maura walked back the way she had come. She walked all the way back to the temple entrance in a daze. It wasn’t until she stepped outside and a cool breeze hit her that she returned to herself fully. Several of her people were standing around her, concern evident on their faces. Dozens of bodies had been carried out of the temple and had been lain out in neat rows, each one wrapped in thick white cloth leaving only the face exposed. People walked down the rows in small knots hoping and dreading to see a friend or a loved one.
All around the temple entrance were statues and murals of the White Mother. Seeing them made Maura feel sick. But everywhere she looked there were more. It made her want to scream. She only managed to hold herself together for the benefit of those watching. She stood for hours outside the temple, a silent witness to the continuing task of clearing out the dead. The faces of the men and women on corpse detail were increasingly troubled as they came out with bodies from deeper and deeper parts of the building. As they assembled more and more pieces of the puzzle they looked to Maura for understanding and guidance. A look from Maura was all they needed. Each would look into her eyes, nod, and walk back in to continue their work. No one spoke now. The lives of the people of Sacral had been supported by unshakable sureties. They all knew their places in the city and in the universe. Little or nothing had changed in Sacral in living memory. All that had been swept away. They were floating lost now. Each of them clinging mentally to Maura for support and for purpose.
Maura felt the weight of their expectations, their needs, heavily. She didn’t buckle under the weight. In that dependency she found her own purpose, her own escape from despair. By morning, stories and rumors of what was in the temple were running through the streets. Many of them were horribly exaggerated. But the doors to the temple were not barred. Hundreds of curious citizens braved the building to see for themselves if the stories were true. No one could fail to remember that the king had sent Jenus and a third of their fighters away on the word of Yeltos Rogayen. It was enough to change the despair and shock of the past days into hate.
Images of the White Mother were being vandalized across the city. Maura witnessed people who had remained calm and composed during the battle scream like animals while they smeared excrement on paintings or threw holy relics into bonfires. Maura tried to stop them. She hated seeing her people reduced to this. But Harrow stopped her. He put a hand on her shoulder, the only time he had made physical contact with her.
“This is an enemy they can strike against. This is a battle they can win without losses. I’ll send out enough dependable people to watch and make sure they don’t get too carried away.”
Maura looked at him for a moment, searching his eyes. She nodded once and he was gone. And so the wave of destruction swept across the city. Only days after the invasion, the people of Sacral did more damage than the attacking army had. But Maura could see the wisdom of Harrow’s words. The riot was a cleansing of sorts. The people woke ashamed, but feeling more in control of their lives. The reconstruction efforts were redoubled. Though the Great Temple resisted every attempt at destruction, it was looted thoroughly and every burnable scrap that could be found within was fed to the flames. Materials were pillaged from shrines and lesser temples and were put to use repairing homes and shops.
Though repairs were still her priority, Maura decided she needed to show her people some support. She detailed one of her work teams to start removing every trace of the goddess from the city. Anything that could not be reused was thrown into the open fault that served as the city’s refuse pit. The Deceiver’s cracked altar joined the rest in the pit, as did the bodies of all the priests who had been found in the temple. People who had been proud of their family members’ calling were busy trying to disassociate themselves from them now.
Maura had to put her foot down when a group came forward asking to purge the catacombs of every past priest and champion. “We don’t know for sure what happened to our priesthood or how far back their perversions reach. I will not allow the bones of the dead to be disturbed.” They reluctantly agreed, and the subject was never broached again. No one in the city was willing to speak out against Maura. Her supporters were too numerous and zealous. Some people had been heard calling her their champion. Others were calling for her to take the crown of Sacral and become queen. The question came up the next morning when she was speaking to her group of advisers.
“It’s not such an outrageous suggestion,” said Jerik. “You already rule the city in fact if not in name.”
Maura blushed. “I’m not a queen. I’m just doing what needs to be done.”
“Sounds to me that would make you the best ruler we’ve ever had,” he answered. There was a chorus of agreements from around the room.
Only Beren stayed quiet, as he so often did these days. Maura was worried about him. He didn’t speak much, and his attention often drifted off. He still blames himself for Gerald’s death. She shook herself and pulled her mind away from Gerald. Though she thought of little
else during the night when she lay in the dark and cried, she couldn’t allow herself to think of him during the day. She wouldn’t allow herself to. She had to be strong and make sure the people who had killed him didn’t win.
Beren had come through his ordeal a changed man. He didn’t shy away from plying his trade per se. He worked like a man possessed, but he refused to carve runes into either weapons or armor. Instead he carved them into shovels, into picks and plows. He also created dozens of small objects with healing runes carved into them every day. Healing runes were in high demand with the disappearance of the priesthood. The city’s herbalists did what they could, but some things simply could not be done without magic. The runes themselves were a poor substitute, but they helped. When Maura had asked him about his ordeal or his insistence in working himself so hard, he just answered that the city had enough weapons already, that he wanted to help with the rebuilding.
Many of the city’s mages had come forward to offer what help they could for the sick and wounded. But they were working in the dark. The secrets of the healing arts had been jealously guarded by the priests. It occurred to Maura that the priests must have kept some tomes on the subject. But the idea came too late—anything that might reasonably be made to catch fire in the temple had long since been destroyed.
She realized that Corwin had been speaking. “I’m sorry, Corwin. I missed what you were saying. I’m not feeling well this morning.”
Corwin gave her a half bow with a sad look on his face.
“Of course, Commander. I was just saying that taking the crown might be a good idea. The people need stability, and you don’t actually have an official position within the city. Besides, I’ve heard people are worrying about who will take the crown if you don’t. . . .”
CHAPTER 13
The Gling’Ar mage took a firm hold of Jenus and guided him through the forest, often holding him up as he lost his footing on the thick roots.
“You are a victim of your own success, human. Had you failed in protecting the priests days ago, my hunting party would have simply melted away into the trees and you would have been left to return to your homes. Even then we were prepared to wait a little longer. Had you not attacked the trees . . .”
“Why would you care about the priests? I can’t say I think too highly of the lot of them myself, but they do no real harm. Certainly they’ve never done anything that could affect your people.”
The Gling’Ar looked down at him impassively, ignoring his questions. The weight of his failure settled onto Jenus’s shoulders. He had led his people into their first real confrontation with the outside world in a thousand years. His leadership had only brought his proud people to shame and death. Dejected, lost, they walked with heads bowed, humiliated at having been taken without a fight.
At least they’re alive. He had followed the only course open to him from the start. There had been no chance of success on this mission; from the very beginning he had been doomed to fail. But he couldn’t silence a voice in the back of his head that still blamed him for everything, that said that he was the leader. It was his responsibility to find a way to win, or at least to return. If he hadn’t seen it and couldn’t imagine it even now, then he really wasn’t deserving of the position he’d been given. Though he couldn’t see them from where he walked at the front of the procession, Jenus suspected the noncombatants among his army were having an even harder time. Many of them hadn’t volunteered for a life of danger. Most had simply been chosen to accompany the army.
The forest was vast and ancient, but the Gling’Ar walked through the shadowy woods as if born to them. Which they likely were, Jenus realized. Despite their insistence on disarming and binding the arms of all the humans, the Gling’Ar were not cruel captors. Each prisoner had one of the four armed giants walking at their side, keeping them from falling and making sure they did not stray. Jenus even saw several giants pick up and carry soldiers who were wounded or were unable to continue walking on their own. They made much better time moving through the forests than they had with the carts. Jenus idly wondered what had become of the pack animals that pulled them and decided he’d rather not know. The idea of the mild-tempered oxen he’d been tending ending up as a meal made him feel inexplicably sad in a way the loss of the priests and their supporters among his men hadn’t. They arrived at the first Gling’Ar village after several hours of walking. The mage urged him along.
“We’ll stop here for the night; some of your people are having difficulties keeping up.”
Jenus nodded glumly. A thick wooden palisade was set around what turned out to be a surprisingly large village. It meandered in an odd way as the houses and the outer wall itself were all set so as to accommodate the great trees. They brought the wood for the construction from elsewhere. The thick canopy extended unbroken over the village. They must not like light too much either. The prisoners were settled on the ground around the village. About two hundred Gling’Ar seemed to live there. Jenus was stunned to see four-armed children playing and laughing, then shying away as they caught sight of the humans. The houses were very well built, clean, and well kept. Every villager wore well-made clothing in a variety of muted shades that was at least the equal of what was worn on the streets of Sacral—there was nothing savage about these people at all. So far only the mage who walked beside him looked the part.
“Just wait till you reach the capital and meet the king,” the mage said, as if reading Jenus’ thoughts.
The humans were given food and water, a thick soup that was mostly green vegetables and fresh baked bread. As he sat and ate in silence, Jenus watched the Gling’Ar in fascination. Each dwelling seemed to house a family of at least four children and their parents. Either the male or the female of each family wore heavy armor and weapons. The other seemed to be tasked with the upkeep of the house and tending to the family. Jenus watched one huge Gling’Ar male gently cradle a sleeping child in one set of arms while it made repairs to its family’s home with its free hands.
Days passed and each night they stopped at another village. How many thousands of these creatures live in this forest? Jenus had thought his army was the greatest the world had ever seen. He’d been raised to know it was the best. But he shuddered to think what would happen if these so-called savages ever attacked his homeland. Better the king think us lost. Better that he renew the great wards and keep Sacral apart from the world for all time.
Jenus wasn’t sure when they started to climb. He’d been too lost in self-loathing to notice much since the first day of the forced march. Since then he’d been moving without any real awareness of what he did or where he was.
The captive army was led into the foothills of a mountain range where the great trees finally started to thin. Jenus caught sight of snowy peaks through the thinning canopy. The sight of an open sky was a welcome one. All the Sacral prisoners recovered some semblance of hope.
“You return to us,” said the mage still walking at his side. Jenus didn’t bother answering. “If the sight of the sky is what has made the difference, then hold to its memory, human. Soon we will enter the caves.”
Jenus shuddered at the thought. Caves. As if the endless dark forest hadn’t been enough. The mage led them to an opening in the rock face at the foot of a stone cliff. The Gling’Ar picked up glass lamps that had been left inside the cave mouth and led the prisoners inside. Jenus knew every one of his people was experiencing the fear he felt at leaving the bright sunlight behind. He had noticed them starting to talk to one another during the last day. They whispered before sleeping or talked of simple things as they walked. Their captors didn’t seem to mind. He would have liked to call out encouragement to them before they left the light, but that part of his life was done. He was a failure. He had led his people to their doom. They would not welcome his words. All he could do was face his own end with as much dignity as he could. They walked into the cave and Jenus felt like he was being swallowed up by a great beast. The strange lamps the Gling’A
r carried did little to lessen his discomfort. They gleamed with such a cold light that the caves and those passing through them took on a ghostly appearance. All talking among the captives stopped. Whenever words had to be exchanged, voices were never raised above the faintest of whispers, while the Gling’Ar themselves seemed content to travel in silence.
The tunnel they walked through split again and again. Each time they encountered only darkness and stone, but the mage guided them through the maze with easy confidence. Jenus thought that hours had passed already, though it was hard to tell underground. A rumble started growing in the distance and Jenus could hear strange echoes bouncing off the walls around him. They were blinded when they stepped out of the tunnel onto a wide stone shelf that overlooked a vast, brightly lit cavern. The prisoners cried out in surprise and wonder as their eyes started to adjust. A great city, one easily the equal of Sacral itself, filled the cavern.
Jenus couldn’t believe what he was seeing. The city mirrored his home in many ways. The pattern of the streets, the style of the buildings. Only the color of the stone was different here—gray granite instead of black basalt, all of it left bare. The prisoners were led down large avenues toward the heart of the city. Toward where the Great Temple sits in Sacral if I’m not mistaken. Gling’Ar of every age moved around the streets shopping or going about their business. Jenus noticed a few humans moving among the Gling’Ar. Not only moving among them, he noticed, but doing most of the menial tasks. Many were dressed identically in long gray robes and featureless iron masks. Slaves, thought Jenus. So this is to be our lot. Jenus caught sight of the temple and for a moment hope filled him. He’d never been overly fond of the priesthood he supposedly championed, but the temple was identical to the one at the heart of Sacral. This must be a temple to the White Mother. We’ll sort out this whole mess soon and be on our way home. Cheerful thoughts, but not ones that Jenus could make himself believe. Soon his people were settled onto the ground in the square. The Gling’Ar rounded up the officers and surviving mages and led them into the building.
The Bones of the Past (Books of Dust and Bone) Page 26
