by Martha Wells
"All right." Rastim nodded, his round face worried. He wiped his palms off on his shirt, glancing back at the box warily. "We can't really burn it, you know, unless this thing that's in it now is different from the original curse. Maskelle said destroying it would just release the curse and make it more powerful."
"That's good to know." Rian swore under his breath as he started away. Behind him, he heard Gisar begin to laugh, a painful wrenching sound that conveyed a fiendish amusement.
***
Rian found Maskelle in the central court. The place had begun to divide up into separate camps, which wasn't an encouraging development. The royal party was in the east side of the gallery, behind the central tower. The priests, assorted monks and temple servants, and the Ariaden were in the south side of the gallery and the court around the tower itself. The Voices were in the chamber of the Rite, repairing the portion that had been disturbed during the change, but so far they seemed to be able to cross back and forth between the two camps with impunity. Rian hoped it stayed that way, since it was Vigar who was the key to Maskelle's authority here.
The rest of the great temple was empty, except for the sentries posted in the towers and along the outer wall; everyone's instinct seemed to be to stay as close to the central tower and the heart of the temple as possible.
As Rian came through the passage into the court, he saw most of the priests were up on the second level of the gallery, heads bowed in a meditation position, chanting in that low, rhythmic way he had heard the night before. He couldn't understand the words; they must be from that special Koshan variant of Kushorit, but he still thought it sounded different from the chants last night. Last night, before the world ended. He shook his head and started down the steps. Last night seemed like years in the past.
Firac and Gardick caught him halfway across the court. Gardick had his customary suspicious scowl, but Firac just looked worried. "Any news?" he asked anxiously.
"Well, yes," Rian admitted reluctantly. He didn't want the word about Gisar to spread, but these two already knew most of it and he couldn't risk leaving Rastim alone with the thing for long. "Not good. Rastim's keeping an eye on something in the north side of the third gallery. Can you go and help him?"
Firac looked puzzled. "On the north side of the..." He had helped deliver Gisar to the temple and recognition lit his face. "Oh, no."
"Oh, yes."
"What?" Gardick demanded. Firac caught his friend's arm and hauled him toward the passage, saying grimly, "I'll tell you on the way."
Rian crossed the court and stepped up into the south gallery. They had closed off one of the side passages by draping some of the white festival banners over the openings and made a bed there for the Celestial One. He picked his way past the little circle of nuns who were gathered around the entrance, murmuring to themselves in meditation, and lifted the drape to step inside.
The makeshift room was kept warm with a couple of braziers, though their supply of wood was limited. Rian had enjoyed ordering the temple servants to break up one of the royal litters for its wooden poles and supports, but he knew just how hollow a victory it was. There were two libraries in the second court and two in the third court, if they got desperate for firewood, but no one wanted to talk about that. It would mean admitting there was no way back. And Rian knew anyway there was no point to it; the supply of food would run out long before the supply of fuel.
The Celestial One lay on a pallet, his attendant priest and Old Mali sitting on the ground next to him. The old man was utterly still and looked as dead as the Voice Igarin had when Rian had persuaded the Temple Master to let him examine him. The young priest was deep in prayer or meditation, but Old Mali glanced up as Rian stepped in. She grimaced at him, an expression that might be either a welcome or a warning to keep his voice low, then wrung out a cloth over a bowl of water and placed it on the old man's forehead.
Maskelle sat nearby in the meditation position he had seen her use before, her eyes closed. Her face looked hard in the muted light and Rian knew the Celestial One's condition frightened her, though he was probably one of the few who could tell. And if he knew Court factions and intrigue, then on the other side of the gallery it was already being said that she wanted the Celestial One to stay dead. In the next few days, if things continued to go badly, the story would change to suggest that she had killed the old man herself. Back against the wall, wrapped up in a piece of sacking, was Marada's white stone ball. Maskelle had retrieved it from the Temple Master's keeping to examine it again, hoping that in this strange place it would provide some clue to their enemy's identity or location, but as far as he knew it had told her nothing yet.
The air was heavy with incense and Rian sneezed. Old Mali glared at him. Without opening her eyes, Maskelle said, "Come here."
He stepped across to sit on his heels in front of her. She was doing that spirit-walking thing again, the way she had last night, when the bird-demon had killed Marada. When she held out her hand, he took it.
As soon as Rian closed his eyes he was outside the Marai, in the alien city, feeling the unbelievably strange sensation of the wind tearing through his insubstantial body. He had expected to be high up in the air, but they were only a few feet off the ground.
Taking up his entire field of vision was a dark grey stone wall. After a moment he got the trick of moving and rolled backward to get a better view. The wall arched up and away and he realized it was the side of a dome. About midway up was a carved roundel, like the bands of decoration he had seen on the building to the north. The design was of concentric rounds of raised or sunken squares, with other geometric figures woven between them. In the ears of his real body Maskelle's voice said, "It doesn't look like writing. It's not complicated enough. Unless it's one or two symbols repeated over and over again."
Rian tried swinging around, noting that he couldn't see Maskelle's spirit body. After a couple of tries he managed to face the right direction to get a view of the Marai from a distance. It looked odd, framed against the nightmare storm sky and the strange city, ripped away from the other temples that should surround it. The wind carried a curtain of sandy dust across the stone between their position and the temple, but nothing else moved. He swung around to eye the strange building again, trying to estimate scale. If he was judging it aright, this was the squat, bowl-shaped one to the east. "What about the inside?"
"This is as close as I can get, and it was hard going to make it this far. The power pathways are all gone, no canals, no rivers, no roads, no croplines, no footpaths, no game trails, nothing. Not even any residue of where they were."
Rian felt a sick feeling settle in his stomach at more confirmation that this was their world. He couldn't afford to think about it now. He said, "I've got something to tell you."
She dropped his hand and abruptly he was back in the incense-heavy air of the Celestial One's sickroom. He sat back with a thump, startled at the sudden change, and Maskelle smiled apologetically at him. "Sorry." She stretched and shook out her hair. "Let me guess. Trouble with Karuda?"
Rian leaned back on his hands, waiting for the room to stop spinning. "No, trouble with somebody else. Gisar."
"Gisar?" Maskelle frowned. "Who the—Oh, him." She was puzzled. "What can he do? The curse should be almost gone now."
"It might not be the curse. It could be something else, or at least," he added ruefully, "that's what it said."
Old Mali shook her head and muttered under her breath. Maskelle's brows rose. "It said?" At his confirming nod, she gazed up at the ceiling the way she did when she was cursing the Ancestors. She told Old Mali, "I'll be back soon."
***
Out in the open gallery, Rian thought the scent of impending storm in the air was stronger. Maybe it would rain. He stopped in the gallery to tell one of the temple servants to make sure that anything that could possibly catch and hold water was set out in the open. As the man hurried off to organize help, Rian caught up with Maskelle, who stood out in the court, sq
uinting up at the sky.
She said, "So it is getting darker. I thought my eyes were going."
Rian nodded. "It'll be...interesting to see what happens then."
"That's one way of putting it."
"Is the Celestial One any better?" Rian asked her as they went up the steps to the passage. The man looked dead to him, but all the Koshans were so determined that he wasn't, or that at least it wasn't a permanent condition, it seemed easier to fall in with their belief. And he really didn't want the old man to be dead. Rian wasn't sure what it would signify if the old man did come back, but the Celestial One was like the Marai itself, and his continued existence would somehow mean that not everything was as bad as it seemed.
"The same." She shook her head. "There's really nothing we can do except wait and watch. When he comes back, it will be sudden."
They passed under the second gallery and out into the second court. The chanting of the priests sounded louder and was beginning to take on that low reverberation that had echoed all the way to the palace last night. "What are they chanting for? The Rite?" Rian asked her.
"No, it's something different. They're trying to make the Marai a little less vulnerable. It's a very ancient ritual the Temple Master knew of." She pushed a stray lock of hair back behind her ear. "We won't know if it works until...well, it works."
"What will it do?"
"It will make a wall around the temple. A wall we can't see, but that we can feel."
He supposed he had seen stranger things, especially recently. "All right."
She grinned unexpectedly. "Wait and see."
Rastim, Firac and Gardick were gathered in a tight little knot in the doorway, nervously watching the box that lay down the hall in the shadow of the pillars. Rastim glanced toward them as they crossed the court and the relief was evident on his face. He hurried to them and reported in a low tone, "It keeps asking to be let out."
"Of course it wants out," Maskelle said. She ran her hands through her tangled braids and sighed. "It can't kill anyone while it's inside that box."
"I hope not," the Ariaden muttered. Rian followed Maskelle past Firac and Gardick. He could hear Gisar making little wooden chuckling noises to itself. She paced cautiously toward the box, stopping a short distance away and sitting on her heels to eye it thoughtfully. Rian circled around the box to stand opposite her.
Before Maskelle could speak, Gisar said, "Did you come to let me out?"
Maskelle lifted a brow, exchanging an ironic look with Rian. She said, "And why should I do that?"
"My curse is gone," it said, and the coy note was back. "I can help you."
"I don't think your curse is gone. But I think your curse may be finding it a little crowded in that wooden body right now." Her expression thoughtful, she added, "Help us how?"
"Help you destroy your enemies."
"I don't think so." Maskelle stood, starting to turn away. She added to the others, "These demons have no imagination."
"You don't even know who your enemies are."
Its voice was subtly different. Deeper, less coy, more sure. Maskelle paused, watching it carefully. Skepticism evident in her tone, she said, "And you can tell us?"
"They journeyed here from a dying place, to take this place for their own."
Maskelle's face went still. "This place...The Celestial Empire?"
"The Celestial Empire, the Sintane, the Ariad, and beyond."
Rian heard Rastim draw a sharp breath. He thought, It knows who it’s talking to. He wasn't sure why the thought should give him such a chill of foreboding. Maybe because the demon had seemed more like something that was just reacting to them, randomly and maliciously. A knowledge of who they were and where they came from seemed to imply a more thoughtful intelligence. Maskelle was right, it’s not the same demon anymore.
"They did this? They constructed a Wheel of the Infinite to transform our world into theirs? Their dying world?" Maskelle said slowly.
"What's the sense of it?" Rastim burst out. Maskelle squeezed the Ariaden's shoulder, signaling him to be silent, and Rastim jumped as if he had forgotten anyone else was there and muttered, "Sorry."
Ignoring the interruption, it said, "They miscalculated." It sounded balefully pleased, as if it delighted in the mistake. "They meant to bring their city here, to take the place of Kushor-At and Kushor-An, and from there to take the rest. Instead they brought all their dead world."
"But what can be done can be undone." Maskelle eyed the box, her expression thoughtful and a little predatory.
"And done again, while they have the second Wheel."
"We had thought of that," she said dryly.
"Well for you."
"Tell us where the Wheel is."
It didn't answer. They waited, and Maskelle asked more questions, but that was all it would say.
***
Gisar with a new demon, Maskelle thought wearily. And a demon that seemed to know far more about their enemies than they did. "I'm afraid Gisar may be a lost cause," she said to Rastim as they walked back through the gallery.
They had left Gardick to watch the thing, and Rian, not wanting to take any chances, had called in a couple of Karuda's men from the outer court to help him.
"That's all right," Rastim answered with a little shudder. "I really don't think we'd want him in the company anymore." He gestured helplessly. "But what are we going to do with it?"
"I'll talk to the priests. We'll put a guard on it, one of you," Maskelle nodded to the Ariaden, "and a Koshan, to make sure it doesn't play any tricks."
Rian folded his arms. "What do you think it is? Something like Marada?"
"Possibly. But why did it tell us about them?"
"To frighten us?" Rastim said with a grimace. "I think the less I know of what's going on, the better."
Maskelle smiled, shaking her head as she stepped back out into the court. "Maybe you can hide under a blanket and I'll wake you when it's over?"
Before Rastim could reply, Firac spoke, his voice rough, "So you think it will be over, then? Sometime?"
It was the question no one else had quite dared to ask. Rastim watched Maskelle nervously, waiting for the answer. She paused, standing down in the court, looking ahead toward the central tower where it rose over the galleries. Finally she said, "Oh, I think it'll be over. Whether we'll still be here when it is, I can't say." She glanced back up at them. "I'll tell you when I know."
Firac nodded. "Well enough."
The Temple Master met them as soon as they came through the gallery into the inner court. His face was drawn and worried, and he said, "The Throne wants to speak to you."
***
They gathered in the court outside the portico of the central tower. The Emperor had sent all his guards to help watch the gates and the outer wall. The courtiers who had accompanied him stood between the pillars or sat on the balustrades of the gallery, grim faces hiding confusion and fear. Raith himself sat under the portico on one of the padded seats taken from the royal litters. Maskelle was startled at how old he looked. His office had already etched fine lines of care around his mouth and his eyes were deeply shadowed.
Vigar paced impatiently near the portico, obviously anxious to return to the Wheel, where the other Voices still worked. Chancellor Mirak stood with Karuda on the gallery steps. The other Koshans, the temple servants, and the Ariaden were an anxious audience in the opposite gallery. The chanting of the priests in the upper levels rose and fell like the howl of the wind.
Maskelle moved to a position directly opposite the Throne's, with Rian and the Temple Master following her. Rastim and Firac moved to join the other Ariaden. A few people were talking, but all the voices fell away as Maskelle took her place.
Mirak started to speak, but Raith held up his hand for silence. The Emperor met Maskelle's eyes, and said only, "Well?"
Maskelle smiled tightly, admiring his calm and the way he had shifted the burden onto her. It was a gesture that said, If you are the chief religiou
s of what’s left of this Empire, then act like it. She folded her arms and said, "We've discovered something new, but the source is, at best, dubious."
There was a faint stirring of curiosity and unease through the crowd, as she repeated the gist of what the demon had said. Even Vigar stopped pacing. When she had finished, Raith shook his head a little. "Why would this creature betray its own people, if it is one of them?"
"That's the question," Vigar said.
Raith glanced over at him, frowning. "Do the libraries tell of anything like this happening before?"
A very Koshan question, Maskelle thought. Echoing her own words to Rian last night, Vigar said, "There are many places that touch the Infinite." He waved a hand, gesturing at the strange city beyond the walls and galleries. "We have the evidence of our own eyes that it's possible. If these people the demon speaks of learned the power to travel from place to place, in search of a new home to replace this one..."
Maskelle took a deep breath. "Believe it or not, the situation is the same as it was before this happened," she said. "We need to search for the second Wheel."
"Why? Why not simply begin the Rite, if you believe it will restore things to what they were?" Mirak protested.
Maskelle saw the flicker of annoyance on Raith's face and surprised herself with a small surge of pride. He realizes it, too. As Vigar drew breath to answer, the Throne said, "Our enemies have proved that they can create a Wheel of the Infinite similar to our own. If the demon didn't lie, they made a mistake in using it. Presumably they won't make that same mistake again. All they have to do is rebuild their Wheel and we will have no second chance." He leaned forward. "We must destroy their ability to use the Rite against us."
"Exactly," Vigar said before Mirak could speak. "It takes the combined power of Kushor-At and Kushor-An, and every other temple center in the Empire, to initiate our Rite. That power is stored now, in the Wheel and the Infinite, ready to be expended. It will take another year for us to rebuild our Wheel, and then it won't have the force of a Hundred Year Rite. We have no second chance."
