“We were fortunate,” he said, following her gaze outward. Only a few torches were lit now, leaving only the moonlight to illuminate the vast stretches of land. Sparks of light kissed the high points of tents and banners as moonbeams fixed upon them, shivering slightly as a few stray clouds passed overhead. “There was rain nearly every day, a rare thing in summer. Plants can grow quickly if Nature is accommodating.”
“Ah, see now, if you had not told me that, I would not have assigned Nature the credit. I would have said to you that your witches were skilled, and that their offerings spoke well for your throne.”
A shadow passed over Salvator’s face. “I would not order any witch to expend his life-essence for so trivial a thing. Nor would I accept such a gift, if it were offered.”
“You are an unusual man, then. Most kings welcome power however it is offered.”
“Most kings are not Penitents,” he said quietly.
She turned back to look at him. For the first time, he sensed hesitation in her. Was it a genuine emotion or simply another serving of polished artifice? She moistened her full lips with her tongue as she considered, then said, “I hope it would not be . . . out of line . . . to ask a question of you? Regarding your faith?”
“Not at all.” He smiled faintly. “Many have done so this day. Many more will in days to come.” He did not add that few of the questions had been respectful, though they had all been voiced respectfully. His faith was an alien thing to most of his guests, and the presence of monks wandering among the gaily-clad peacocks of his court, watching silently as vain young nobles proudly fluffed their tails before their fellows, was a sober reminder of that. Not that it had stopped the peacocks from staging their displays over and over again. Or kept them from asking about Salvator’s years in the monastery, with the same distaste as one might ask a prisoner from a dungeon how many maggots were in his daily bread. “Please speak freely.”
She smiled at him. “You are most gracious, Your Majesty.” A slender hand moved forward as if to touch him lightly upon the arm, but then paused, and fell gracefully down by her side once more. It was far from the first time today that a woman had hesitated before touching him, but unlike the other incidents, this one seemed to be born of respect for his faith, rather than fear of it. A refreshing change, even if the move was as likely to be carefully staged as all the others.
“Please,” he said. “Call me Salvator.”
She inclined her head ever so slightly, acknowledging the offer. “Only if you will call me Siderea in turn.”
He nodded. “So be it.” With a sigh, he leaned back against the parapet. The gesture appeared casual, but it had as much to do with physical exhaustion as any social statement. “So what do you wish to know about my faith, Siderea? Since it seems for once we will not be interrupted.”
She leaned against the parapet beside him; the soft silk of her gown lay fluid along the curves of her figure. “It cannot have escaped your notice that we are the only two monarchs on this continent that eschew any formal contract with Magisters. Certainly it is common wisdom that no man can claim a throne without them.” She circled one finger slowly about a stray tendril of her hair as she spoke.
“There are those who have questioned my judgment for my own choice, though it is no secret that I maintain social ties with various Magisters so that they tolerate my eccentricity. Yet you do not seem the type to flatter and fête the Magisters in order to remain in their favor. You simply . . . reject them. I must admit that I am curious about why you would choose such a high-risk course.” She smiled. “You understand . . . I thought I was quite alone in my prejudices, until you came along.”
Salvator nodded. Aye, we are kin in that much, whatever other differences there may be between us. “The Magisters represent power without price. As such they are a corrupting influence that disturbs the natural order of things. The Penitents believe they were sent to mankind as a temptation after the last of the Souleaters were gone, to see if we had learned the proper lessons from that invasion. Apparently not, for the world was then subjected to another century of darkness.” Salvator’s expression grew solemn as he remembered the details of that darkness. Far too disturbing to be shared in such a casual exchange.
“It is said that during the latter half of the Dark Times the Magisters destroyed all of Man’s greatest works, and killed all the leaders who would have led him back into the light. But for sorcery, the Second Age of Kings would have begun much earlier than it did.”
“And do you believe that is what truly happened?”
He shrugged. “History tells us that our ancestors lived in darkness for generations after the Great War, long after the last of the Souleaters were gone. Have you ever heard a better explanation for it?”
“No,” Her voice was soft, her tone thoughtful. “No, I have not.”
“I believe there is not a night that goes by that they do not hunger to be restored to the kind of unfettered power they once enjoyed. If not to wield it openly, then by virtue of their influence over mortal kings. And if we become corrupt enough to allow them that influence . . .” He drew in a deep breath and held it for a moment, trying to settle his spirit; if he became so strident that he drove her away, that served no one’s purpose. “Perhaps that is why the Souleaters have returned now. Perhaps it is a warning. At any rate, I for one will not serve the Magisters’ agenda.”
“That is a very brave stance,” she said quietly.
He shrugged stiffly. “It takes no great courage to risk one’s life in service to one’s god. I would be more afraid of a life lived without faith, that had as little direction as the life of an insect.” He shook his head. “But forgive me, your words inspire darker reflections than I think you anticipated—”
“It is your passion,” she said softly. This time she did put a hand upon his arm: a light touch, like the wing of a butterfly. “You need never apologize for passion. Not to me.”
He forced himself not to look in her eyes. There were too many secrets there, swimming in the shadows; a man could get lost in them. “So what about you?” he asked “Why do you take such a risk?”
She laughed gently; the jewelry hidden under her skirts tinkled softly as she shifted her position. “Oh, I am afraid I have not nearly so compelling a tale to offer. Nor so exalted a cause. I simply find them insufferably arrogant. When I first came to my throne they tried to tell me how to run my country, and it did not sit well with me. Now they offer the same words to me as ‘friendly counsel,’ but I am not beholden to them as other princes are, so I do not have to listen. Or obey.”
A faint smile spread across Salvator’s face. “Now you see, that is true courage.” He bowed his head ever so slightly. “I salute your spirit, my lady.”
On sudden impulse, he reached out and took her hand in his. Raising it to his lips he kissed it, his eyes never leaving hers. A subtle perfume rose from her fingers, warm and pleasing. Her skin was like silk.
She did not move closer to build upon the moment. That intrigued him. A common seductress would surely have done so, taking his gesture at face value, pressing the moment’s advantage. This one was playing a much more complex game.
Or perhaps it is not the game I thought it was.
Somewhere in the distance a bell sounded, tolling the hour. Midnight. The sound seemed to disperse the moment’s magic. He held her hand a moment longer, and then reluctantly released it. Her fingertips stroked his palm as they withdrew, leaving streamers of fire in their wake.
“So much to do in the morning,” she said softly. Regretfully.
He chuckled. “Now you see, that is where a retired monk has the advantage over a lady of the court. My day’s work has always begun at dawn. To sleep even an hour longer than that would be . . . unimaginable decadence.”
“Well, then.” She reached up to his face, her index finger tracing the line of his cheekbone, feather-light. Despite his best intentions, it made his loins tighten in response. “Shall I wish you decade
nce, then? Or would that offend against your faith?”
Using a silent prayer to settle his spirit, he managed to keep his voice steady. “Only if I may wish you the same,” he said, hoping the words sounded more natural than they felt. Suddenly he was out of his element, and no longer sure of . . . anything.
But she did not press the moment’s advantage. Or perhaps she did not notice it? He offered her his arm and she took it, and together they walked to the narrow door that led back downstairs, into the tower. Her walk was poetry in motion. How many months had she practiced it—how many years—before it became that fluid, effortless glide? It was impossible not to watch. Impossible not to feel his blood stirred by watching.
She paused at the door, as if considering something. Her finger stroked the weathered oak thoughtfully.
“Corialanus will be trouble,” she said at last. “You have won them over by your manner, at least for today, but they will surely test you in the future. It would be good for you to have a friend in the south, who might learn of trouble when it was still in the planning stages and give you fair warning of it.”
He nodded solemnly. “Such a friend would have my eternal gratitude. And such favors as I might render in return.”
She did not say more, but glanced back at him with a silent, secret smile, then slipped through the door and was gone. Her perfume took a few minutes longer to dissipate, and he did not move again until the midnight breeze had carried the last of it away, cooling his flesh as it did so. As much as his flesh could be cooled.
You have passed your first test of temptation, he told himself. Take strength from that knowledge. Build upon it.
But it was a long, long while before he could stop thinking about her.
Quickening
The passion of the beast is in man’s heart; let no man give it sovereignty
Lest his soul turn aside from all things human, and the music of the angels be forgotten.
Book of Penitence
Meditations 24:1,2
Chapter 11
NYUKU REMEMBERS:
Cold. Knife-edged white sheets of pain: wind-driven, flesh-scoring. They lanced through the boy’s soft flesh and sliced to the center of him until his heart felt like a jagged icy mass, threatening to shatter with each and every heartbeat.
He could see the broken body of one of the sacrifices dangling from the talons of the god flying right ahead of him. She had struggled briefly when the god had first grabbed hold of her, but terror and cold had finally robbed her of life; now she dangled like a shattered doll from her captor’s claws, her hair dusted with frost, her eyes glazed and lifeless.
That would be his fate soon enough if they did not bring him to some kind of shelter, the boy thought, shivering violently. But at least he still felt cold. He was savvy enough to understand how important that was. It was when you stopped feeling cold that you knew you were about to die. Supposedly the gods had designed Man thus so that he would have a warning sign when he overstepped his bounds, and a chance to retreat to safety before the frigid wrath of the gods snuffed out his life.
The problem was that in this situation, there was no retreat possible.
The priests taught that the world had been created out of ice and snow; both land and sky were originally frozen solid. But the gods had discovered that such a place could not sustain life, and every attempt they made to populate it failed miserably. Finally a god named Kuta had stolen a piece of the Sun and buried it deep within the earth, so that the land directly above the Sun Stone thawed and water ran freely there. Then Man was created, along with all the plants and animals that required sunlight and flowing water, and they were given that place as a home. And so the world was created.
The boy had always been skeptical of such tales. But now, looking down upon his world from the vantage point of the gods themselves, seeing with his own eyes how the Land of the Sun gave way to endless fields of glittering whiteness in every direction, he could believe that the entire world had indeed been dead once, and that if mankind’s precious fragment of the Sun ever expired, it would become dead once again.
It should have been a humbling thought, but it wasn’t. There were gods who tended to the sacred fires of the Sun and men who served those gods. It was whispered that those men carried sparks of the Sun with them so that they might brave forbidden places where the heavenly light never shone, and that they even rode on the backs of the gods as if they were true companions to them, rather than humble servants. The boy had never been sure those tales were true until today, but now that he had seen it for himself at the caldera he could think of nothing else.
Some men rose above the normal status of men to share in the freedom and the power of gods.
He was determined to be one of them.
A sudden gust of frigid wind burned his eyes and he shut them for a moment, struggling to blink away the pain. When he opened them again the world below him had changed. A thin line of jagged gray protrusions now jutted up from the whiteness, like the half-buried bones of some long dead animal. But then his captor dropped down toward them—so suddenly that he thought for one heart-stopping moment that he had been released and was falling—and he realized the “bones” were in fact a line of jagged hills, robbed of scale by the featurelessness of the white plain surrounding them. Clearly that was their destination.
He saw another god swoop low, carrying a man upon its back. Or at least he thought it was a man. A set of small wings from the god’s shoulders had folded back over the figure, encasing it in a glossy, blue-black cocoon. At first glance it did not look like a man at all, but rather like a part of the god’s own body. Only when he kept staring at it could he make out enough features to figure out the truth.
The boy shivered.
Below him now he thought he could make out the faint throbbing glow of a sacred pool nestled between two of the hills. Warmth. That meant warmth. Then a black vein of open water came into view, not unlike the narrow channels that surrounded his homeland, when the ice began to crack in the spring. A piece of the Sun has been buried here as well, he thought in awe. Who would have imagined that there was another such place in the world? Certainly the priests had never hinted at it. Did they know about it? Or was he the first of his people to learn of this secret place?
He watched in amazement, the cold forgotten, as the ice and snow beneath him gave way to naked earth, and then to sparse patches of vegetation surrounding a steaming lake. He could see no herd beasts, but surely they were there. And wild beasts, hungry to feed upon those herds.
And men?
In a rush of blue-and-violet wings, one of the great creatures landed by the edge of the lake. Others followed. Each kept apart from its fellows, roaring belligerently if another god came too close, baring razor-sharp teeth in warning. The boy had heard killer seals roar like that when rivals crossed their paths in the mating season; it was a sound of mindless rage, primal and terrifying. He shivered with fear at the thought of being set down in the midst of such a scene, even as he hungered for the warmth of a Sun Stone beneath his feet again.
But his captor had other plans. Though his god banked down low toward the lake at first, he pulled up suddenly before reaching it, and veered sharply to one side. The movement was so sudden and unexpected that it drove the breath from the boy’s body. Even as he struggled to take in a lungful of frozen air, the sky about him suddenly went dark; in his weakened and distracted state it took him a minute to realize that his captor had flown into a gap in the hillside, broad enough in its entrance to accommodate the great wings. They passed into the depths of a vast cavern, its floor covered with patches of mud and loose gravel. Then the great talons opened at last and the boy fell roughly to the floor. Sharp pumice bits scored his shoulder and arm as he landed on them. For a moment he lay there, breathless, feeling the dull heat of his blood seeping out through dozens of lacerations. Dimly he was aware of his god bellowing as it left the cavern, no doubt some sort of challenge to the gods below. How
like beasts they sounded! He would have expected gods to have a language that was more harmonious, more . . . civilized.
Then he realized suddenly that the ground beneath him was warm. Likewise the air was no longer painful to his lungs, but robbed of its wintry chill by what seemed a fragile, tentative heat. He drew in a deep breath, feeling precious warmth seep into his flesh. His fingers and toes throbbed in pain as they buried themselves reflexively in the warm pumice grit beneath him, almost as if they were creatures independent of his will, seeking the Sun Stone buried far below. For a moment he was aware of nothing save a purely animal hunger for warmth. In that moment he would have buried himself in the gravel from head to toe if it had been deep enough, and been happy to bleed for it. He lowered his face to the ground, eyes closed, oblivious to anything but the life-giving heat beneath his cheek.
“What is this?”
It was a male voice that broke his reverie, in an accent so thick the boy could hardly understand the words. “Are they sacrificing boys now?”
“Does it matter?” a second voice challenged him. “Food is food.”
“Food stays out there,” the first man said gruffly. “This one has been brought in here. Why?”
The boy blinked and looked up, trying to focus his wind-burned eyes on the men that suddenly surrounded him. There were maybe a half a dozen of them in all, and as he watched, still more stepped forward from the shadows of the great cavern. They were not like the men of his own people in appearance, nor even like each other, but a mismatched group of individuals, as foreign to one another as different species of animals. One was tall and thin and pale of skin, with yellow hair falling in long, tangled locks about his anemic features. Another was almost black of face, with eyes that stood out like white stars in a midnight sky, and a thick layer of black fleece in the place of hair. Another had eyes without lids, only slits in his face through which black pupils shone. The boy blinked as he twisted around to see them all, trying to absorb their strangeness. Yet though they were all different in size, shape, and coloring, they had one thing in common that chilled the boy to his very core. Their eyes. Different shapes and different colors and sizes, some of them human in form and some more lizardlike, but all of them without exception were haunted, hollow things. As if their owners had gazed upon something so terrible that their very spirits had been sucked out of them, and what was left was not quite human. The eyes of living men did not look like that, the boy thought, shivering. Were these men ghosts? Was this the place of eternal warmth where the spirits of the dead were said to reside? If so, was he being allowed to see it as a living man, or had he died in the cold skies during his journey here, so that his spirit truly belonged in this realm?
Wings of Wrath Page 15
