Divine Torment

by Janine Ashbless

  Veraine rolled over onto his back and raked his fingers through his scalp. The dream of ecstasy, so vivid at the time, was an ebbing tide that had washed him up on the shores of reality with nothing but a spent cock as proof of the pleasure he had taken. He pressed his hands against his eyeballs, but it did not dispel the harsh truth.

  For a long time he could do little but stare at the ceiling and the little green geckos stitching their way across its shadowed expanse.

  4 Jilaya

  ‘The library, General,’ Rasa Belit said, waving one hand at the room before them. ‘For whatever use it may be to you. I don’t suppose that you can read?’

  ‘He can,’ Veraine answered, jerking his head at the third man.

  Rumayn was rigid with excitement, like a leashed hound shown a deer. ‘What have you got in here?’ he asked in a husky voice.

  ‘Temple records; the annals of the Yamani kings; architecture; geometry; astrology; poetry. Gifts from every corner of the world, in twenty different languages. Copies of the sacred scriptures and legends of our people. Medical texts. A thousand years of history; that’s what’s in this room.’ The priest’s litany seemed to rise in the dim chamber like smoke. From every one of the shelves that covered the walls, palm-leaf books and parchment scrolls peered out from under their patina of dust at the men standing below.

  Rumayn made a small incoherent noise and lurched forward among the stacks, as if unable to articulate any meaningful request. The priest and the soldier watched him with matched airs of cynical detachment as he took down book after book and concertinaed them out to read the arabesques within.

  ‘This is the not the greatest of the temple archives, but it is one of the oldest,’ Rasa Belit remarked. ‘Of course you Irolians burned the great collections at Margaybi and Halghat.’

  ‘That was a long time ago.’

  Rasa Belit snorted. ‘That was barely yesterday! You can’t imagine the depths of history, any more than you can imagine the wastes of time stretching before us. You hardly remember your own past. How could you? Your people couldn’t even read and write before we taught them, General. Did you know that?’

  ‘I knew it.’ Veraine was not going to be riled.

  Rasa Belit kept his voice low and even, but he did not soften the stinging edge as he said, ‘It was like giving language to apes. Do you know what the Irolian people were, General, before they stole civilisation from the bloodied remnants of the people they butchered? Before they learned to write, and build, and farm? They were Horse-eaters. They lived in tents and ate their meat raw and slept with their animals. Those are your brothers out there in the desert.’ He sniggered.

  ‘Would you like us to let them in?’ Veraine asked.

  The priest sucked his teeth. The derision did not leave his eyes. He clapped his hands, and a yellow-robed acolyte scurried in from the corridor.

  ‘Fetch Muth,’ instructed Rasa Belit.

  Veraine walked slowly through the library, pausing only to look out of the windows for possible access. It was not a large room, compared to others in the temple, but it certainly held more books than he had ever contemplated existing.

  ‘I’ve called the priestess Muth to show you the remaining rooms of the Inner Temple,’ Rasa Belit said, reappearing at his elbow. ‘She’s responsible for overseeing the upkeep of the chambers. She’s well qualified to guide you on your tour, General; whereas I have duties elsewhere, you understand, of a ritual nature. Our sacred task cannot falter even at times such as these.’

  ‘The gods forfend. You’ve been doing this for a thousand years, high priest; don’t let me get in the way.’ Veraine’s willingness to let the other man go was entirely sincere.

  Again those lips narrowed. ‘Far longer than a thousand years, General. That’s only as far back as our writings go. There was worship here before the first letter was ever scratched in clay – before there ever was a temple in Mulhanabin. On the bare rock, when man was first created, he kneeled here to pray and make sacrifice.’

  Veraine raised his eyes to the ceiling, saying, ‘I know; I was told. You believe that the human race was created here.’

  Rasa Belit shook his head coldly. ‘Not the human race, Irolian. You’ve been misinformed. The universe.’

  Veraine decided that remaining silent would be politest.

  ‘Before man, before the world, before the gods, there was only the divine essence, and it chose to dance. To dance is to take form, to step, and to step requires that there must be a firm place to set the foot. Thus the earth came into being. The hill of Mulhanabin is the first footfall of God.’

  The soldier blinked, trying to take it in. ‘I see.’

  ‘That’s why this place is sacred. All matter was spun from nothingness at this place. It is the centre of the universe. And this is where the last of the earth will stand when the dance of destruction is danced and the world is unmade. Everything will end here too. That’s why the pious send their ashes here to be scattered upon the hill. That’s why the Malia Shai is born here every lifetime.’

  ‘You’ve lost me now. What has it to do with her?’

  Rasa Belit made an impatient gesture. ‘Doesn’t your councillor talk to you? I’ve wasted my breath upon him. What are the gods, Irolian?’

  He shook his head. ‘The gods are the gods. How can I say more than that?’

  ‘The gods are pieces of the divine essence. They are facets of the ultimate reality, that’s all. When the world came into being the gods took form with it. They are manifestations of finite parts of the godhead. They can be named and described; yet the divine itself is beyond name and form. They are tied to the world. They are separated from their true nature, which is the totality of existence. You follow, General?’

  ‘Perhaps.’

  ‘The goddess Malia craves to return to the godhead, so she must sever her links with the world. She must become sunyata; void, emptiness. So she has chosen to undergo three hundred and thirty-three fleshly incarnations, to purge and to prove herself. In these lives she must not give in to passion, because it’s the chains of passion that tie us to the world. If she can achieve this then she will be reunited with the infinite, and for the earth there will be no more famine or flood or drought, because Malia ceases to be a part of the world.’

  ‘I see,’ said Veraine, with the expression of someone presented with a novel and potentially indigestible dish at dinner. ‘Has she a long way to go?’

  ‘Don’t hold your breath,’ said the priest, with a thin smile.

  A woman walked into the library, and it was like the entry of a small sun into the twilit space. She was broad shouldered and fat with it, and the ample swathes of her yellow robes seemed to glow. Only her face detracted from the solar impression. The expression on it was sour, and her cheek was marred by two large and hairy moles. She bowed to Rasa Belit, and from the grunt she made this cost her some discomfort.

  ‘This is the priestess Muth,’ he said, ‘highest among the priestesses, who. will show you the rest of the rooms. You will excuse me, General.’

  Muth looked at the younger man coldly, with no pretence of politeness.

  ‘You can stay here, Rumayn, if you want,’ Veraine sighed. Rumayn, who had not even looked up from the documents, nodded enthusiastically.

  ‘What can I show you?’ asked Muth, when they had left the room.

  ‘I need to see the layout of the Inner Temple, and I need to look in any room with any access to the outside walls.’

  Muth shrugged massively and led the way. They did not linger, nor did it take too long. The main corridor of the building was an inverted U-shape with the Garbhagria nestled in the cup. The rooms on the outside of the curve backed right on to the edge of the cliff, and the windows were mostly too narrow for anyone to climb through. The sense of age in this part of the temple complex was palpable; everything from the raw rock floor worn smooth in the doorways to the blistered plaster behind which colonies of bats nestled and squeaked, spoke of the dead weight o
f centuries. There were no domestic or comfortable rooms. The priests’ own chambers were in the Outer Temple; this was a place set apart for the gods. Shrines to the deities associated with Malia – or perhaps deities who were themselves aspects of that great goddess; Veraine had only a vague grasp of the vast and labyrinthine hierarchy of Yamani spirituality and could not tell – predominated; most other rooms seemed empty. The wind at this end of the building moaned constantly at the unshuttered windows.

  Eventually they came to a curtained doorway. Muth stopped outside and seemed to hesitate.

  ‘What’s this one?’ Veraine asked.

  ‘The Malia Shai’s chamber,’ she growled. She had a deep voice for a woman.

  Veraine felt a prick of curiosity. ‘Is she in?’

  Muth swung her head. ‘Not at the moment. She is asperging the gateways.’

  ‘Then there’s no reason I shouldn’t look,’ he said, and lifted the curtain.

  He was not sure what he had expected, but the actuality stopped him dead in his tracks. The room was large and high ceilinged, and it totally dwarfed the contents. Just under the central window was a narrow straw pallet with one sheet, and next to that on the floor a single lamp and a wooden platter. There was nothing else in the room. Veraine looked around at the walls. They were grey with the indefinable grime of years, and completely featureless. He walked across and looked at the platter. It held a loaf of bread, a frond of some herb, and a clay cup of water. The meal did not look like enough to feed a child. He thought about the Malia Shai lying on that thin mattress and whatever it was that had knotted up his guts gave them a sharp tug.

  He went to the window and stared out. The view was as he had expected from here; a sheer fall to the scrub-speckled desert plain hundreds of feet below. Birds flew past beneath him. Not too far distant was another dusty cliff face; the main plateau of which Mulhanabin formed the lone outpost. It was only a few hours’ walk away, but separated from his window by an immeasurable gulf of. air. That plateau was his bane because at the base, so his scouts informed him, slow springs leaked from the cliff face and fed pockets of vegetation.

  He should be thinking about these things, about strategy and resources, not about some half-crazy Yamani priestess. He had glimpsed her only once since the night of his dream. He had been riding out past the tank of sacred water in the middle of the Citadel. It was a large pool and had been surrounded by pilgrims all jostling for position. The Malia Shai had been wading into the pool, chanting, with arms upraised. He didn’t know what it had been about, but he had seen the way the wet cloth of her skirt clung to her thighs and it had brought back the force of his dream with dizzying power. He’d had to hurry away.

  ‘Why do you make her live like this?’ he asked, turning back into the room.

  ‘What?’ Muth said.

  ‘You priests live in plenty. You eat, you drink . . .’ He gestured at the pitiful accoutrements on the floor. ‘But she . . .’

  ‘She’s the Malia Shai. Not a priestess.’

  ‘I wouldn’t keep a kennel slave like this.’

  Muth grinned slowly, revealing stained teeth. ‘Your compassion is touching, General. I wonder if you would care so much if she were old and ugly.’

  ‘Do they get to grow old?’ he said sharply.

  Amusement glittered in Muth’s eyes. ‘Sometimes. She might, this time round. Or maybe not. She’s still young enough to give into temptation. There’s a lot of it about, even for the Malia Shai.’

  For a moment Veraine was silent. Then he asked, ‘And what happens if she fails?’

  She smiled poisonously. ‘You know, I bet you were thinking, “I wonder if her cunt-lips have been sealed.” I bet you thought that the first time you set eyes on her. Well, they haven’t. Doesn’t that please you?’

  ‘You have a filthy mind, for a priestess,’ he said coldly.

  ‘Oh, wrong again, General. When they sew you up, it doesn’t change the way you think. It just means you can’t do much about the feelings you have.’ She looked him up and down lingeringly, as if to prove her point. ‘Now the Malia Shai, she’s different. Unlike us poor priestesses, she doesn’t have a dirty impulse in her bones. Or any other kind, come to that.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  ‘I mean, she doesn’t feel anything, soldier. You could plant the imperial standard in her slit and she’d just blink at you.’

  The hair crawled on Veraine’s spine. ‘What are you talking about? Belit said she had to stay a virgin all her life.’

  Muth laughed out loud at that. ‘A virgin? I’ll bet he didn’t. The Malia Shai has to reject passion if she is to ascend, that’s what the Rasa will have told you. Not just lechery, soldier – there you go, thinking about sex again what’s wrong with you? Any passion, General; greed, fear, pain, anger – and pity, and affection, and joy. All are types of desire that can attach you to the world. They’re traps and illusions. You have to let them go if you want to escape the bonds of Earth. Very hard for most of us, but she has an advantage, being a goddess. Her will is greater than ours ever could be.’

  He did not bother to hide his derision. ‘You think I’m going to believe that?’

  ‘You think you know everything, don’t you? You’re not a priest of the Malia Shai, soldier; you haven’t seen what we have seen. I was there the last time she died and the priests went looking for her new incarnation down in the city. She didn’t cry, even when they took her from her mother. She has never cried, or been afraid, or lost her temper. That was how they knew who she was.’

  ‘I find that impossible to believe.’

  ‘Well, you might,’ she said smugly.

  ‘There’s no such thing as a child who doesn’t cry. Not unless it’s witless.’

  ‘No natural child. The Malia Shai is not a human being. She’s a goddess on a spiritual journey.’ She smirked. ‘We assist where we can.’

  ‘Oh yes? How?’

  ‘We teach her the illusory nature of pain and self-Pity.’

  ‘I see.’ The urge to strike the gloating cruelty from Muth’s face was rising in him like a tide.

  ‘It’s our holy calling.’

  Veraine had to turn his face away.

  ‘Does it trouble you, General?’

  ‘It disgusts me,’ he told her, his voice flat.

  ‘You do surprise me. I thought that an Irolian soldier would be on familiar terms with the many causes of pain.’

  He didn’t reply.

  ‘The Malia Shai isn’t like you and me,’ Muth said serenely. ‘You can’t treat her like a normal girl.’

  ‘And what happens if she doesn’t keep the standards you’ve set?’ he repeated. ‘What if she acts like a human woman?’

  ‘What is it to you?’

  ‘Indulge me,’ Veraine said, his throat tight. ‘I’m searching for enlightenment too.’

  ‘Well, if she’s failed then in that incarnation she has no further purpose on the earth. She must complete the allotted number of lifetimes in a state of purity and detachment, and if she’s wasted her chance, then it’s better for her to die and be reborn. She’s walled up alive, usually. It only takes a few days for her to die, but she has time to meditate on her next attempt.’

  Veraine decided it was a good thing that years in the army had instilled in him the self-discipline to refrain from striking the woman. Just the sound of her voice, gloating and thick, made his skin crawl. ‘I’ve seen enough,’ he said flatly. ‘Let me take up no more of your time.’

  The Malia Shai pulled her dress over her head and handed it to the priest waiting at her side. He bowed low over the garment, folded it carefully and then backed into his place in the circle as she, naked, stepped carefully over the lip of the bronze basin and kneeled down in the tepid water.

  The circle of twenty priests began to intone, in a soft murmur, the prescribed prayer for the ablutions of the living goddess. She listened to the rising and falling cadences without interest, as she had listened to them at sunset every d
ay of her life. The water was pleasantly cool after the heat of the day, but she hardly noticed the pleasurable sensation of its touch on her thighs and sex, any more than she had noticed the burning of the sun on her skin, or the ache of her muscles as she had stood for an hour, completely motionless, before the altar. She looked at the faces that ringed her. They were as blank as masks, only the men’s lips moving in the chant.

  She looked down at her knees in the clear water, and slowly began to sluice the liquid up over her belly and breasts. A small cloth of white silk aided her in her cleansing. Her dark skin was gleaming in the light of the lamps all around her bath, and when wet it reflected the golden flames. She was in no hurry. This was a time of day when she was able to let her thoughts run idly free. There was no hymn for her to sing, no god to invoke. Only the ceaseless watching of the men around her, and the cool caress of the water.

  Her nipples hardened as she wet them. There was no break in the murmured praises, no flicker of interest on their faces as she rubbed the cloth over each firm orb. She had no way of telling whether they had noticed, or whether they cared. She wondered about that. The priests were all eunuchs, but they had been emasculated after they had reached manhood, as no children of any sort were permitted within the Temple. So they had presumably known all the pangs of adolescent desire, and perhaps some of them had known what it was like to satiate that desire in a woman’s body. What did they feel now, watching her bathe? Did they remember what it was to lust?

  She slopped the water over her shoulder, feeling it run down her back. The silk clung to her skin. Perhaps long familiarity with the rite had bred indifference in them, she thought. Perhaps they had seen her tits and arse so often that it meant no more to them than some carving on a wall, passed every day with such regularity that it became invisible. Her body was not that of a normal woman; not a private thing of mystery and potential. It was holy, and a public object of veneration. It was a tool of temple ritual.