The Leopard

by K V Johansen

  Ashir, puffing, fell behind, into the crowd of priests trying to follow close on the stairs, but not too close. None, she was certain, would dare to look back at the body of the Mistress of the Dance.

  Her champion did. He turned a moment on the stairs, looking back.

  She frowned again, quickly smoothed it out, pushed him on with her will and almost thought she felt . . . anger, from him, quickly stifled. She touched the surface of his mind. Faint echoes, grief and anger, bright splashes of joy. That was what the mind always held. Nothing to alarm her. Perhaps he had heard some mutter she did not; his function was to guard her. He, none of them, were entirely puppets. They had some freedom to act within her will. So many senses she did not quite yet understand, that she, that Zora had not yet grown into. So many threads to hold. She would learn; she would grow into herself.

  Some urgency tugged at her, but no, it was a lack of tugging, an emptiness. There were Red Masks, dead, in the city. A Red Mask slain at the Eastern Wall, the past morning; she remembered that. What could kill a Red Mask? What, in her city, could tear them from her? Fire? The ones she had sent to the Doves had burned. The Doves had burned. Oh, Hadidu. He should have had the sense to flee the city, he and all his family, years ago. She felt a sort of tired sorrow for the loss of him, the loss of all her father’s friends, but it was necessary. If she were opposed, Marakand would be nothing, a rabble ruled by a bickering council of old men and old women, who would fall over themselves in their haste to crawl to her brother’s feet when he came. The Doves burned. They were all dead, the last of Ilbialla and the Red Masks together, but the Red Masks should not have waited to be burnt to ash and bone, they should have retreated and brought their prisoners with them, they should . . . that whisper of wind, of cold, of mountain air around the walls of the city, yes, did she remember that or was it a dream of the well? A memory of her champion’s, a trailing gossamer thought, a halfling god, was it? A ghost who haunted him. No, the memory was gone. A forgotten dream. Hers? Hers-Zora’s, hers-Tu’usha’s, a dream-terror of mad Sien-Mor, a shadow of fear, of her brother grown great . . . The well held many fragments of dream.

  Zora hesitated at the top of the stairs. The light from the dome’s eye was dawn-pale. How long had she floated, suspended without thought, without time, in the Lady’s waters, while Hadidu burned? An age, an age of ice, of . . . nonsense. It had been minutes, at the most, a quarter-hour. Surely the priests would have grown restive, begun to talk of dragging the sacred well for her corpse, if she had been drowned an hour or more. Surely. But they were very devout.

  “The priest of the Doves is dead,” she said sadly. “Dead and lost to me. The priest of Ilbialla burned. I’m sorry for him. But the city will be safer, stronger, for it. Rahel, Ashir—today will be a day of peace, of celebration. Tomorrow . . . we shall see what comes tomorrow.”

  “Yes, Lady. Lady, what of the Praitans? They’ve murdered your Voice. Your Red Masks killed the assassin, but if they go unpunished—we’ve had word the high king is gathering the tribes to march against Ketsim, your captain-general. This murder was undoubtedly done to his order. If words gets out in the city, if the folk learn that the Praitans have dared . . . And when we have only tonight put down an uprising of the loyalists of Ilbialla . . .”

  Two children, taught to revere dreams, taught to wait in secret, forever and forever and forever, as she had been, later on, and they grew into fools and dreamed their parents’ dreams, never daring, because without their gods, what were they?

  “When I,” she corrected gently, “have only tonight revealed a conspiracy, yes, of apostates, loyalists of the weak and forgotten gods. It was hardly an uprising against the Lady. Don’t give it more weight than it deserves.”

  “You must not allow the temple to appear weak, Lady,” Rahel persevered. “They murdered your blessed Voice! Word of this will give the Praitans heart, and it will be in the suburb by tomorrow, and flowing the length of the caravan road, growing with every mile. A faithful captain could be sent with reinforcements. Captain Ketsim has clearly failed in his rule of the Catairnans, for this to have happened.”

  “Do you suggest Ketsim is not a faithful captain, Revered Beholder? You don’t expect him to know what every lone Praitan plots in the night, do you?”

  “He has been very lax about submitting the tribute due. As you no doubt are aware, Lady, in your wisdom and knowledge. He has not sent any message at all in a month.”

  “He dreams he will be king,” Zora said sadly. Strange, how the knowledge came to her, not as vision, which she might have imagined, but just the knowing, upwelling in her heart. “Poor fool, he is only a pilotfish, feeding on the scraps.”

  “I beg your pardon?”

  Zora waved her away. “You will of course suggest a captain, Rahel?”

  “I thought perhaps—”

  “The captain of my Red Masks will ride to settle the Praitan rebellion, with a company of the Red Masks. That is all I will need.”

  “The captain—” Rahel swallowed and bowed. “As you say, Revered Lady. We didn’t know there was a captain.”

  She brought him forward to her side, out of the shadows. The priests moved back. As they should.

  “My champion,” she said fondly, and put a hand on his arm. She felt his muscles bunch. “He will avenge the death of my beloved Voice. He will bring not only the Duina Catairna but all Praitan to kneel at Marakand’s feet. My high king will rule all Praitan Over-Malagru. Understand, Ketsim was a tool, and he has served. The Duina Catairna is taken, and that the Praitannec high king Durandau cannot possibly endure. He lingers only to gather his kings about him before he makes war on us in the Duina Catairna. Marakand will defeat him, and my champion will be crowned king of the seven tribes. The cities of the coast and their vassal tribes—” she waved a hand, “—can be dealt with another year. Do the kings of Praitan wear crowns? No matter, we will find the proper form, and he will be—” She shook her head, wet hair flying, and ordered her thoughts again. She must make Marakand great, and safe, and strong, yes. Enough. They did not need to know more. She understood the danger, and it sickened her; she understood what drove Tu’usha now.

  “Come with me, all of you,” she ordered.

  Rahel bowed, then scurried to catch up as Zora strode off again. Ashir grimly elbowed his way through the priests overtaking them, put himself at her other side. She smiled, turned to him, ignoring Rahel now.

  “I’ll be a guest in your house, Revered Ashir, until the senate palace, yes, that seems fitting, can be rebuilt to provide your goddess with a suitable dwelling. And I need clothes. Not a priestess’s robes, or a dancer’s. White, I think, will be my colour now. The priests of Gurhan wore white when they walked in the festival procession.” And saffron for the Lady, and blue for Ilbialla, all the senior priests together, her father had told her.

  She saw, out of the corner of her eye, Rahel’s lips move soundlessly, shaping, “Priests of—?” and pinching together again. Had she spoken that thought aloud?

  “And order a meal for me, Ashir,” she said firmly, “as well as for yourself, your wife, and those senior priests and priestesses you think most deserving of the honour.”

  Most useful, most loyal, most loving, least likely to dig in their heels at change and require messy decapitations in the dining hall. Zora Tu’usha trusted Ashir understood that. It would be a useful test, at any rate, to see if he did.

  “Except for the under-master of the dance. He will be arranging the procession.” He was not among those who had come to find a new Voice. “Send to tell him so.”

  That of her that was still Sien-Mor thought a few more priests and priestesses would have to die, before they learned to obey their Lady, but Sien-Mor had a taste for the dramatic. Sien-Mor, Zora Tu’usha thought, had always enjoyed it a little too much, when the need to hurt others arose.

  “You honour us, Lady,” Revered Ashir said.

  “Yes,” Zora agreed. “See you earn that honouring, if you plea
se.”

  But there was one Red Mask, one still living—she called it that—of those she had sent to the Doves. He had gone circling through the maze of alleys, watching, lest the priest flee. A wise man, he had been, and a cunning. He had that quality still. They were not utterly puppets such as Ghatai had liked to make, once upon a time. They had, if not will, if not memory, still some shape of themselves, some remnant of what she thought most valuable in them. And their wizardry, of course. Her servant brought her prisoners, now.

  Wizards.

  Nour.

  “I will see the captain of the guard company that went to the Doves, first. And the prisoners.”

  The priests looked at one another. They had not known the guards were returned, how could they?

  “The prisoners have been taken to the Hall of the Dome to await the Voice,” Zora said. “But the Voice is no longer necessary. I will see them.”

  Strange, to walk between the black marble pillars where she had so often danced, across the circling black-and-white mosaics of the floor that had measured her paces. The high pulpit of white marble, carved into a festival procession with priests and priestesses and offerings of fruit and grain, was for a moment a loathsome thing, the throne of Lilace’s degradation and shame.

  Nonsense.

  A throne. The Lady should have a throne. Here or in the palace, once it was rebuilt for her?

  “The Lady,” said Rahel loudly, “has chosen to walk among us in the body of her new Voice. Show her honour.”

  The guard captain, who had been following her with his eyes since she entered the hall, gaped, bowed, and flushed, looking down at his sandalled feet. She should kill him for looking at her so, her nipples dark against damp white cotton. But he, to be fair, could hardly have helped it.

  Her champion, prompted by her thought, offered his scarlet cloak. That was better. She adjusted it serenely around her shoulders.

  “The Red Masks I sent with you burned,” she told the captain, as she climbed the tight spiral of the stairs. No, that was not right . . . But she could not see, something slid aside . . . they burned. Yes. “Your lieutenant was burnt with them. A faithful woman. And you bring me two wizards, when I sent you for a priest and a leader of rebellion.”

  The captain went down on his knees. “Lady,” he said uncertainly. She smiled encouragement. “Lady, the wizards laid a trap, and the Doves was burnt, as you say, but nobody escaped. We—the Revered Red Mask—took these two fleeing in the alleys behind the house. There were no others.”

  “How do you know?”

  “The street guard of the ward know Master Hadidu of the Doves, Lady. I ordered them—the fools sounded the bells for fire and stirred the neighbourhood up, but some I sent back indoors and some I arrested and had sent to the lock-up at Sunset Gate—I ordered the street-guard captain, Jugurthos Barraya is his name, and I will note his resistance to my orders in my report—to have the all-in curfew rung again, and I set street guard searching house to house, all around the market, for this Hadidu and his household.”

  He had taken longer than he would have liked her to think to assert himself over the street-guard captain. Silly rivalries. Why did the temple guard have to play such games? They ought to have more confidence in themselves as the chosen of the Lady, superior to any mere thief-taker, ward-captain, gate-captain, or even a warden of the walls, for that matter.

  “You shouldn’t have allowed street guard to have anything to do with the matter.”

  “My Lady, I didn’t mean to. They just showed up.”

  “I see.”

  Grudgingly, he added, “They were helpful, in a small way. They did organize the folk of the neighbourhood to keep the fire from spreading.”

  “I see,” she said again.

  “I permitted it.” He flushed again. “But the captain nonetheless disobeyed my orders.”

  “You did not permit it,” she said. “You went along with it. You failed to keep control of the situation. You allowed a street guard to defy you. You failed to use the power and protection of my name to assert your right to command, and you failed likewise to clear the gawking rabble from the streets.”

  Would he argue that there were mothers and children among them, and devout householders whose only thought was to prevent the fire from spreading to their own homes? It was not an argument she wanted to hear from her officers. They needed to be strong. The city needed to be strong, and discipline was necessary for strength. A few beaten back would have sent the others indoors of their own will and won more respect for the temple guard than allowing them to witness his reluctance to clash with the street guard. That was what he had feared: riot breaking out and himself blamed for it, for fighting with street guard. Fool.

  He bowed his head to the floor. “Forgive me, Lady.”

  Was it useful to do so? Should she make an example of him? She shuddered at the thought of blood staining that polished floor where she had danced. She had not liked how he looked at her, not at all. But he was afraid, honestly afraid, devoutly so. He recognized her godhead, and he feared it. He thought she was beautiful. He wanted to worship her. But discipline was necessary, as well, and he was weak and foolish.

  “You’ve been captain of the second company only two months, is that not so?”

  “As the Lady says.”

  “Yes. And you are the nephew of our beloved Beholder of the Face?”

  Rahel made no protest, no plea. Her heart did not even leap in apprehension. Cold-blooded snake.

  “You’ll return to the rank of common guardsman. I’ll appoint a new captain myself. A new lieutenant, as well.”

  Silence. Then, “I only want to serve you, my Lady, however you think best.”

  He seemed to think he meant it, but it was the Red Masks who were the shape of his fear.

  “You’re dismissed,” she said, and waved a hand. “Revered Beholder of My Face, you will invite the commander of the temple guard—” who had sent this company captain rather than going himself as she had intended, and perhaps he had earned a term as a mere company captain himself, “—to dine with me. Now, these wizards, these enemies of my peace, these enemies of the peace of Marakand, these schemers . . .” Babbling. Stop it. Yes. She smiled. “Let me see them.”

  Those standing near the prisoners drew back, leaving only guards by them. The woman was feigning unconsciousness still. Nour was only half aware, weak with loss of blood, with exhaustion. He had escaped the Red Masks once inside the Doves. She remembered. Someone had slain them, freed them. How? Ilbialla had no way to reach into that house. Ilbialla was sealed in her tomb.

  How? Pay attention. Ask him. Reach inside and rip the knowledge from him. He saw. He knows. Wake him. We need to know, I need to know.

  But it didn’t matter. Once he was hers, once he was Red Mask, she would know. She would take him apart, then, as she killed him.

  But he’s Nour. He gave me a silver bangle for my birthday, when I was five, was it, or six? In her father’s last year she had sold it for the rent, but he had been kind to a little girl who had few treasures.

  He was my father’s friend.

  She saw him, saw herself, arms about him, pulling him into the well, pulling his soul from him, like ripping out a heart. Less mess, less blood, no need for the stink and the shrieking and the—Great Gods, but Sien-Mor was insane. She felt sick at the thought of embracing him, kissing him, flesh to flesh as he died, as he drowned.

  There were other ways to kill him and take what she needed, make what she needed, of him. Cleaner ways. The end result would be the same. She had lost five Red Masks this night and one during the day past. She had a war to fight and no wizardry of her own. Moreover, though a living wizard might be deceived for a time, a wise wizard would know she was no goddess. A wizard, a scholar, would puzzle over words and bindings and maybe, maybe—no, the very tongues were lost, no scribes recalled, all gone to dust long ago and she had burned the books, the ancient books of the east, they would not find any trace, any mem
ory, that could puzzle out those bindings and prise the gods from their slow decline to death.

  No one could hear, no one could know the Lady was not the Lady was she was the Lady, Nour would not know, he would not see, he would love her and trust her and serve her, his friend’s dear daughter—

  Stop that.

  No wizards in Marakand. She needed them. She needed servants, wizards to be the extension of her will, needed their thin, weak-watered power of the divinity of the earth, lest she break the earth and leave it burnt and dead, releasing her full strength in the world. She remembered the dead lands, the wastelands, the abomination they had made . . . Wizardry, they needed, to temper themselves. They had not come to destroy the earth. Wizardry to be controlled, wizardry that could not seek to control her, not taint her, corrupt her . . . strange that she felt so reluctant to be wizard herself again, when she had had so many, over the years, she could have chosen from. Some among them would have agreed, though few had been great enough to be worthwhile. Her champion, maybe . . . to be a man? Her stomach turned. She felt an almost physical fear, not of him in specific, but of taking another such strong soul into her own—or was it deception, was it Sien-Mor’s jealousy, not wanting to share Tu’usha’s soul . . . but Sien-Mor was dead. It was her own wisdom had prevented her joining with a new wizardly soul. It was better to control, to rule, than to risk the taint of another will. Zora could be ruled. She was Zora. She did not need to be wizard. She had more wizardry at her command now than Sien-Mor had ever wielded.

  Zora’s fingers circled her wrist, remembering that child’s slim hoop of silver, how sorry she had been when it would no longer fit. Her father said, “Put it away for your own daughter, someday,” and she had, thinking, smiling, of Nour, who had brought her other things, later, a carved and lacquered cat, a tambourine. But that bangle had been the first pretty thing she had ever had of her own, because they were poor and Mama didn’t like charity from her father’s friends. Nour had been kind. They had been like family, like uncles, he and Hadidu. Sharp-tongued Beccan who owned the coffeehouse had been an auntie who fed her sweetmeats. She thought of Beccan roasting, twisting in fire, but she had seen no wife when she was the Voice, when she said when she saw the Doves would burn. Dead already, yes, she saw that now, saw infants dead and babies lost before they were ever born, and finally one who would live, had lived, and Beccan bleeding white in a white bed . . . So she hadn’t killed Beccan, at least. Not her fault.