‘Oh. I … I see. I … thank you.’ He paused a long time, perhaps gathering courage to ask the next question. ‘Where are Vordanna and Jinn now? Were they in Smiler’s Fair when—’
‘They’re dead.’ He hung his head and she trembled in silence for a moment. ‘Go now,’ she said when she could say it calmly. ‘Your questions are answered.’
When the boy was gone, she looked back down at her ruined experiment. It didn’t really matter. It would have been the third time of trying, and she couldn’t believe she’d get a different result now than she’d seen before.
It was one of the simplest of all conjurations: a breathing of life back into a plant many months dead. The brown, wilted thing sat on a bench inside a bath of water, sugar and warmleaf sap, which Morayo Abiola’s 900-year-old notes suggested was the perfect nourishment. Olufemi had formed the glyphs of being, Hoy and May and Hähes, Blood and Leaf and Spirit, and linked them with two glyphs of becoming: Yag for growth and Yaw for joining. The rune she’d built from them and held in her mind had been perfect.
And it had accomplished nothing. The plant was as dead as it had ever been. The glass she’d marked for strength had shattered when she dropped it and remained clear even when she graved it with Yi, the glyph of obscurity. For three days she’d tried every rune she’d ever found in her years of research and not a single one had worked.
Whatever had happened back in Smiler’s Fair, when Yron’s rune had seemed to eat the flames, it was unrepeatable. Krish was here, right by her and growing in power, and yet the runes remained as dead as they had ever been, her rituals incapable of wakening them.
The discipline required was hard, not just to hold the shape of the rune in her mind but to call on the powers needed to quicken it: the sun and the moon, which was both a rock in the sky and the poor and ignorant goatherd she’d hunted for so long. Only the priests of sun and moon were permitted use of their powers, and so that was what she’d made herself, over all her long and lonely years of travel. She’d preached Yron’s worship to a thousand strangers and now she asked just this in return.
But perhaps the fault wasn’t in her; perhaps it was in him. If he was Yron returned, then it seemed the moon had come back without any of his virtue.
That evening, they invited Krish to another feast. In this humid land the air didn’t cool as the light faded and so it was again held outdoors. Huge insects emerged to flutter round the guests in a knot of gangly limbs and smaller ones darted in to bite. At a sharp gesture from Uin, slaves moved to stand at each corner of the table, holding candles whose scent seemed irresistible to the insects.
Krish took his place at the long table’s head, with Uin at his right and Asook at his left. She darted looks between him and her father, perhaps wondering what they’d said to each other. Uin in his turn looked probingly between Asook and Krish, and then between Krish and Dinesh.
Everyone was talking about war. The man who owned the second largest loomworks after Uin suggested a winter campaign. Another man, round-faced and narrow-eyed, wanted to challenge the Ahn for mastery of the inland waterways. Uin preferred to head north and wrest back their ancient grazing lands from the Four Together.
The fact of war was never in question; only the details were discussed. Olufemi sat silent further down the table, Dae Hyo drank and drank at its base, and no one suggested that Krish should be asked for his opinion. He hadn’t thought being a ruler would be like this, but perhaps it was his fault. If a ruler wanted to be obeyed, he must issue commands. And if there was a deal to be made – if Uin wanted this war, then he must offer Krish something in return.
‘Listen,’ Krish said, and said it again, louder, when it didn’t seem that anyone would.
‘Great Lord?’ Uin asked.
‘I rule here, is that right?’ Krish asked Uin and beyond him all the men at the table.
‘You are our god.’
‘I am,’ Krish said, with a certainty he didn’t feel. He looked around the table, at the slaves holding the candles, swarmed with insects and mottled red where they’d already been bitten. ‘Keeping these slaves – all slaves – it’s wrong, and I want you to end it.’
There was shocked silence and then the rumble of a growing wave of protest.
‘End it,’ Krish said again, loud enough to drown the other voices. ‘You want me to be your god? You want me to lead you to war? Then obey me and free your slaves.’
13
For the first time in her life, she was unsure of what to do. The sunlight shone pure through the ice, illuminating the white, unadorned cube of her room, and she wished her mind had the same clarity.
There were so few lacunae in the Perfect Law. Mizhara had told her Servants all they needed to know but, imperfect as they were, they had failed to record every word. They had failed to record what was to be done on this night of her oroboros, when she should be with her husband, although her husband’s services were no longer required.
The Perfect Law didn’t say but her sisters decreed that, when pregnant, a Servant would abstain from congress with her husband. The act was for procreation, and as procreation had already occurred it was needless. ‘Do nothing that has no purpose,’ Mizhara had said. But did it have no purpose?
She was too restless to remain still. Her sisters suggested the time be used for meditation on her coming child. Mizhara said, ‘Think on what will be done so that it may be better done.’ She would meditate while she moved, an active body being the best home for a quiescent mind.
She let her body guide her, and it took her to the chamber of statues. Her own was here among the thousands, an icy image of their mistress as imperfect as all the rest and yet, she hoped, acceptable in its striving towards perfection. She passed other such strivings and tried to regard them with an uncritical eye.
It was difficult. Surely Mizhara’s nose had not been so narrow as that one suggested. She knew the Servant who had sculpted it was younger than she. And the eyes on the statue ahead were crooked, though its creator was only one generation removed from the time of Mizhara herself.
But none of them had met their goddess. Only one Servant still lived who had, and she was lost in sacrilege so profound it was dangerous even to think of her. For the very first time, she wondered if it was truly possible for any of them to know Mizhara. A word spoken might have a dozen meanings, a word written a thousand. ‘Do not stray,’ Mizhara had commanded them, but how could they obey when none of them could see the path?
She walked on, threading between the cold, silent forms. It was too warm. The high domed ceiling was melting. Water dripped everywhere and the thousand faces of Mizhara were slick with it. Could they be melting too? It shouldn’t be possible, but each one she passed seemed a little less defined. The sculptures were deforming into a perfect sameness very different from the one their creators had intended.
The meltwater fell on her like rain until she came to a sculpture she knew had been created by one of her sister wives. The warmth hadn’t yet penetrated to this corner of the vast chamber and the sculptures were still pristine. This one seemed to her to more closely resemble her sister wife than their goddess. It was very like her, to see a reflection of herself in what was most good.
And at this moment her sister wife was with Eric. All of her sister wives were with him. She realised with shock that this thought, this image had lurked in the back of her meditations all along. Now she could think of nothing else. She pictured Eric smiling as he coupled with them. She could see every curve of his face, every downy hair on his cheek. Mizhara had gifted her Servants with excellent memories, but it didn’t feel like such a blessing now. She could see Eric’s hands running over flesh that wasn’t hers. He had called her Drut: beloved. He had said it as if he meant it just for her, forbidden as that was. At this moment, was he calling her sisters by the same name?
‘You’re angry,’ a voice said at her side.
She turned, startled, to see one of her sisters beside her. It was troubling that
she’d failed to hear the footsteps approaching. ‘Mizhara told us that anger is the fourth least desirable of the emotions,’ she said.
‘Nevertheless.’
She studied the face studying hers so intently. It was almost a mirror of her own. It had occurred to her before that this might be the sister who had given birth to her. She’d never cared before; now it seemed very important.
‘I am … I have lost control of myself,’ she confessed.
‘You’re pregnant.’
‘Yes.’
Her sister smiled and touched her own stomach. ‘I remember when I was in the same state. The body is a curious thing. Blessed Mizhara didn’t make us, has anyone ever told you this? She used her power to transform the first Servants in their own mothers’ wombs. It is why we were imperfect and must remain so. During pregnancy our bodies concern themselves only with the nurturing of the child: our minds become subordinate to them.’
She touched herself in the same place her sister had. Was it possible the child was the cause of all this unsafe thought? ‘And if I still feel the same after the birth?’ she asked.
‘Then you must take the long walk into the ice, but it’s a vain question. You can’t know now how you’ll feel then.’
‘Thank you, sister,’ she said, and watched the other Servant walk away. It was true, she supposed, that she couldn’t know how she’d feel once the child was born. But she knew how she felt now. And as she stood in the great domed chamber surrounded by a thousand melting figures of her goddess, she knew what she’d do about it.
Drut found Eric at midnight in the pear orchard. The boiling orange sun was touching the horizon so that the limbs and leaves of the trees were as golden as their fruit.
Eric’s skin looked golden too and his hair bright. She knew that he often came here after the seventh night of his oroboros, when the Tears of Mizhara still slid through his veins and he couldn’t yet sleep. Her sisters would be abed, though, as the Perfect Law dictated. There would be no one to witness this.
He didn’t seem entirely surprised to see her. Drut felt the curious sensation of her heart speeding at his warm smile.
‘Missed you earlier,’ he said.
‘There … there was no need for me there. I am already with child.’
‘Yeah.’ He ran his hand over the swell of her belly. The feeling was entirely different from when Drut had touched it herself. ‘But that ain’t the only reason for a bit of slap and tickle. If we weren’t meant to do it so often, why was it made so fun?’
‘Would you like to do it now?’ She flushed the moment she asked, shocked at the impulse that had pulled the words from her.
‘Feeling a bit randy, are we? That’s all right – I’m a boy who’s always happy to oblige.’ He reached out with his hands to take hers. Encased in furs as his were, it felt a little like being held by a bear.
‘I shouldn’t,’ she said, but they both knew that she nevertheless would. ‘And anyway,’ she added, more sincerely, ‘it’s far too cold out here. And …’
‘And a bit public inside. Well, don’t blame me. It weren’t my idea to build the whole bloody place out of ice. But I know somewhere more private – better suited to our needs. I ain’t saying it’s romantic, but your sisters don’t never go there.’
His gloved hand kept hold of hers as he drew her back towards Salvation, over the sparkling, sun-stained snow. She couldn’t guess where he was leading her and was afraid to ask. If she started to speak, she wasn’t sure what she would say.
He pulled her through the grand entrance arch and along deeper corridors, quiet always and silent at this time of night. Their feet pattered softly on the ice and they could have been the only people in the world.
When they came to the staircase leading down, she pulled back, but he just took her hand in both of his and drew her downward. They passed the floor holding her own cell and then the great machine that kept Salvation always in sunlight. Drut was sure he’d halt then, perhaps thinking the bone-deep thrumming of the device would hide the sound of their own activities, but he only walked deeper, until suddenly there was rock and not ice beneath her feet.
At that she finally did stop. He pulled against her, but he was no match for her strength when she chose to use it. ‘You can’t come here,’ she told him.
He pulled off his gloves so that he could rest the bare, pale skin of his hands against hers. ‘But I already have.’
‘This is an evil place. His place. The moon’s.’
‘Yeah, I know. But he’s dead, ain’t he? Mizhara killed him before she left you lot all on your lonesome. And she made you build your city here, right on top of his. She can’t have thought it was too bad, right? Or else she’d just have, I don’t know, whatever it is gods do. Burned it into ash, probably.’
He walked down a dozen of the steps and turned to face her, holding out his hand. This time when she took it, it was warm and soft, flesh against flesh. He drew her down into the darkness, until only a glimmer of her mistress’s light remained to guide their way.
She felt when they reached the bottom. The air was heavy and she knew the chamber they’d entered was vast, but she could see none of it. She could barely see Eric as he turned to her and smiled and shrugged his shoulders to allow his sealskin jacket to slip to the floor. Underneath he wore a shirt sewn with seed pearls. She felt their texture beneath her fingers as she reached for the buttons, and then that too was gone, and his trousers with it.
When he was naked, he went to work on her clothes. She watched the floor as his mutilated fingers slipped beneath her robe and slid it from her shoulders. She shivered whenever his bare skin touched hers, although his fingers weren’t cold.
Then they were both naked and he took her hand and guided it on to his penis. ‘Give it a stroke, then,’ he said. ‘Get it good and hard.’
She’d never had to do this before. The Tears of Mizhara ensured continuous arousal from anyone who took them, and the act wasn’t meant to be about his pleasure. But she caressed him as he’d instructed, softly at first and then much more firmly when he wrapped his hand round hers and showed her how.
His eyelids drooped and he grunted a little with each thrust into her palm. ‘Enough now, gorgeous,’ he said, finally pushing her hand away. ‘Don’t want to waste it, do you?’
She didn’t. She desired it. Mizhara had commanded them to treasure every piece of their husbands, and she wanted the feeling that came when it was inside her.
‘You ready for me?’ He looked for the first time a little uncertain of himself. ‘Want me to give you a tonguing first?’
She wasn’t sure what that meant but it sounded like a delay and she didn’t want to wait. She felt as if she was walking along the edge of an ice cliff that, if she ever stopped, would crumble beneath her and send her plummeting down. She laid herself on their shed clothing, and he eased himself down on top of her, resting his slight weight on his elbows. His penis prodded her thigh and he looked down at it.
‘Go on then,’ he said. ‘Show him where to go.’
She reached more confidently for it this time. He closed his eyes as she held it against herself.
‘Ready?’ he asked and he must have felt her hair brush against his arms as she nodded, because he pressed in.
It didn’t hurt. That surprised her. Usually during the coupling there was pain, but now there was only pressure, building into pleasure as he moved. He kept his eyes closed. She watched him the whole time. His mouth worked, muttering words she couldn’t hear. She reached up a finger to trace his lips and he sucked it into his mouth and ran his tongue round it. She gasped at the sensation and he began to move faster and faster until she felt an intense clenching and then an intense release. He carried on, the stimulation now too much, too intense, until he reached his climax too.
He collapsed on top of her and then muttered an apology and rolled to the side, but kept an arm flung round her. It rested, warm and sweaty, across her breasts.
Now the ac
t was over, every thought she hadn’t allowed herself to think before filled her head. This was wrong. Mizhara might not have spoken on the issue, but Drut knew it. She knew it from the guilt gnawing at her. His semen felt sticky and unpleasant on her thighs, his sweat was smeared across her skin and she didn’t want anyone to know what they’d done.
He must have felt her tensing, because he turned to face her, propping himself on an elbow and studying her face.
‘Ah, you got the guilts,’ he said. ‘Don’t you worry – it ain’t unusual. Don’t mean nothing.’
‘I shouldn’t have done this.’
‘Give me one good reason why not.’
‘It was not what Mizhara intended. It mustn’t happen again.’
He was silent for a long moment. She knew she should pull away, but she didn’t. She watched as emotions she didn’t understand, as fleeting as a mortal’s life, flickered across his face. He seemed at war with himself but finally he smiled and lowered his forehead until it was pressed against hers.
‘All right then, Drut. I’ll give you one good reason why it should. Because I … I love you. I love you, Drut.’
And then she knew that it would happen again. It would keep on happening, because she had never been taught what love was, but she knew that she loved him too.
14
The slave pounded on the door to Krish’s room, as he had every day for a week. Krish suspected Uin had given him this room deliberately so that the slaves he’d freed could have easy access to him. He lay in his bed a moment longer, still tangled in nightmares of the Brotherband, not the men he’d ordered Dae Hyo to kill but others like them. In his dream they’d been so angry. Krish could feel their anger trying to pull him back down into sleep, but the pounding on the door continued and he threw aside the sheet and went to open it, careless of his nudity.
The Hunter's Kind: Book II of The Hollow Gods Page 14
