by Anne Perry
All Shinabar believing the Book! Even Tugomir. Peace, not enforced by armies or laws, but sprung from the heart! A whole nation who loved honor, compassion, and purity! A race walking in the light!
An echo sounded in her spirit: “I will bring back every soul as perfect as I received it—let me have the dominion over them, and the glory.” And then another voice, like music in the soul. “Let man choose. Prove to him that he may work his own salvation and inherit glory and dominion and everlasting joy, for this is indeed why he was born.”
“No!” Her voice was low and fierce. She kicked the dust roughly with her feet. “No! That is the denial of everything! Get out! I know who you are ...” Without understanding why, she held her hand high, palm towards him. “In the name of God, leave here!”
His lips drew back from his stumps of teeth. His yellow eyes glittered with a hundred thousand years of hate. “And I know who you are, woman. I know your name from eternity past through all time to come, and I shall not forget you. You were offered all. Now you shall have nothing! I will fight you over every soul, and those you lose will become the armies of hell forever. I curse the ground you walk on, that it perishes at your touch!” And he spat onto the sand, his saliva spawning maggots in the dust and a stench which caught in her throat.
She fought to overcome the giddiness which engulfed her, and the sickening revulsion. She was swaying. She hit the ground hard and found herself on her hands and knees. She looked up at him, her voice choking in her throat. “You cannot curse the earth God made. You have no power over the innocent.” She stretched out her hands in the air, over the writhing maggots, and as she watched them they shriveled up and disappeared in smoke, and where they had been the stone floor shone opal with a fire of blue and green and pearl.
The dwarf let out his breath in a hiss between his flat, worn teeth, turned on his heel, and left.
Tathea staggered to her feet, clinging to her horse to hold herself up. Her body was shaking, her legs so weak that without the animal she would have fallen.
When the groom came he found her still like that, and he walked on the opal in the floor without seeing it, unknowingly covering it with straw.
It was spring when Ra-Nufis brought her the final information about the coup. She was in the room where she did most of her work. It was full of tables and papers. Scribes came and went regularly. The sun was sharp on the marble patterns on the floor. He was dressed formally in blue and white. She stared at him in disbelief.
“Tiyo-Mah? Afterwards, of course ... but ...”
“No,” Ra-Nufis said levelly, his eyes unwavering. “Before also. It was she who planned it, she who bribed and corrupted the Household Guard, who found the ones who hated Camassia as much as she did and persuaded them that in making an alliance with the ancient enemy the Isarch was betraying his country ...” His lips curled in a bitter smile. “Which is a marvelous irony, if you think of it! She colluded with the Great Enemy, and in so doing drove you to seek the Book.”
She could feel the anger, the black laughter, and the amazement in him as if he had touched her. Or perhaps it was because she felt the same vortex of emotions tearing at her.
“But Mon-Allat was her son!” she protested. “Her own child ...” She tried to force the pictures of Habi out of her mind and could not. They crowded in on her. She could feel the warmth of him as a baby lying in her arms. She remembered his first wobbly steps, the sound of his laughter, the smell of his skin. And Tiyo-Mah had murdered him as well as her own son!
Ra-Nufis was holding her arms. She realized it suddenly and with a sense of shock. His grip was strong, iron-fingered. He was staring into her face.
“Ta-Thea!” There was fear in him; fear for her.
“Yes ...”
“She has already destroyed herself. Don’t let her destroy you too.” His voice was urgent, pleading.
She knew what he meant. She was rigid, every muscle clenched. Deliberately she made herself relax, and at last he let go of her.
“I will face her,” she said. “I will have her arrested and imprisoned, not here in Thoth-Moara but out in one of the far desert fortresses, and with no more than she needs to survive, no servants she can corrupt. Let the desert princes guard her—my father’s people. They won’t forgive her my son’s death.”
Ra-Nufis stepped back, satisfied.
“Come with me.” It was a request, not an order. “We’ll take Yattu-Shia and the best of the Guard in case she has men and tries to resist.”
They posted twenty men discreetly in the streets around Tiyo-Mah’s ancient palace, and Tathea, Ra-Nufis, and Yattu-Shia went in alone. Tathea carried a dagger from habit. For past Isarchs it had been symbolic only. Hers was razor sharp and not at all symbolic.
She found Tiyo-Mah alone in the same incense-filled room as before, sitting in the same high-backed ebony chair. Her face was more deeply sunken, and her clawlike hands gripped the arms. But it was her eyes which shocked. They were now totally sightless, milk-white across the pupils, like stones.
“Returned to savor victory, Ta-Thea?” she said, leaning forward a little, her ears straining to catch the slap of sandals on marble.
Tathea shivered. She had permitted no servant to warn Tiyo-Mah, and yet the old woman knew who stood in the room. She could not have remembered the step after so long.
Tiyo-Mah smiled mirthlessly. “Drink it deep,” she whispered, her voice dry with disuse, her sightless eyes fixed on Tathea’s face. “It will not last; a few weeks, a few months, no more. Long before you are my age it will be dust in your mouth. Nothing you build will last. Believe me, I know.” There was no rage in her, no squeal of hysteria, just the quiet jubilation of certainty. It was sickening, like laughter in a graveyard, infinitely malicious.
Tathea summoned all her strength, every memory of goodness she could recall, the gleaming Book, the feel of its warmth under her fingers, the white radiance of peace that settled in her heart when she caught memories of a voice that was sublime, and hands upon her head.
“The future is not predestined that anyone could know it.” She found it hard to clear her throat and form the words. “We have it in our own power. You may wish, or guess, but you don’t know.”
Tiyo-Mah broke into a dry laugh, a sound like the rustle of rags falling from old bones. She lifted her arm, and out of the shadowed hangings of cloth of gold and black and bronze silks behind her slid the dwarf Azrub, his yellow eyes gleaming in the candlelight.
Tathea froze, horror crawling on her skin.
“Do you still believe I cannot see the future?” Tiyo-Mah said softly. “And the past! Remember, Ta-Thea, what it will cost you if you lie!”
Tathea looked into the blind, milk-opaque eyes, and then at the dwarf beyond her.
“The future is not yet cast ...” she repeated, but her voice faltered. There was a vast power in the chamber, and it filled the air like a giant pulse, beating against her, seeking a way inside.
“No prophecy?” Tiyo-Mah raised her arched eyebrows. “No seers, no revelators of God?”
“Of God, yes—”
“Then if God knows the future, it must be certain, at least in part!” Tiyo-Mah reasoned.
Tathea drew in her breath to argue, and the weight of the evil in the room all but crushed her.
“Tell her, Azrub,” Tiyo-Mah said gently, smiling with inward pleasure.
The dwarf faced Tathea, and his goat eyes seemed to look into her mind. His voice when he spoke was whispering soft and as pervasive as the sound of the sea, and yet every word fell clearly in her head like rung crystal.
“God knows the future because he knows your heart.” His white fingers wove in the air, and the light from the candles glittered on his arms. “He knows what you will do, where you will fail, and where you will succeed. Nothing is predestined. But if you know enough, as God knows enough, then you can prophesy.” His fearful mouth widened in a smile. “And of course there are others who know you also, know your dreams and your
sins.” He rolled his tongue over the words. “Knows the things you would hide from God, the places in your soul where even you do not tread: the passions, the hatreds, and the desires you dare not name. And the fears that haunt you in the darkness when you meet yourself in the night, and at last you are alone ... we know those also.”
Tathea was paralyzed. She tried to move, but her limbs would not obey her.
“Yes, there is a life before this one,” Azrub went on. “Just as there is a life after. I saw you there. I know you, as in your soul you know me!”
It was a shock so violent it was as if the whole room had turned over, buffeting her from floor to ceiling, wall to wall, before it righted her and cast her up, grasping for support. This fearful creature beside Tiyo-Mah knew the truth she had only half recollected in bursts of light from deep in the mind: a great concourse of people, a numberless host awaiting the plan of life, a promise of everlasting joy, a knowledge that superseded all.
She stared from the dwarf to the old woman. How could they know? It was not possible.
Tiyo-Mah laughed, a low, gurgling sound, as if relishing some obscene appetite. It came as a surprise that she did not lick her dry, soft lips.
“Not so clever, Ta-Thea!” She leaned far forward. “Did you think you were the only one with knowledge? When you brought light into the world, you brought darkness also. I know what is in your heart infinitely better than you do, child, and you will never escape me.”
Tathea stared into the sightless eyes. “You can’t!”
“Oh, but I can,” Tiyo-Mah assured her. “Through the arts Azrub has taught me, the secrets of the dead are mine.” She stopped speaking suddenly, her head to one side, listening, as if her ears, pulled out of shape by the gems suspended from them, would read Tathea’s face for her. She strained to hear the slightest movement, the sigh of a breath.
“There are many powers, Ta-Thea.” Now it was the hissing voice of Azrub intruding in her mind. “If you are with the Man of Holiness and His angels, then you are against Asmodeus and all we who serve him. And we are many against you. Far more than you know. A third part of all the hosts of heaven.”
“I know.” It was a whisper through her stiff lips. “But however strong you are, I don’t want to be part of you.” She breathed in and out shakily. “Your rewards are misery and the eternal loneliness of those who cannot love.”
“And what is yours, Ta-Thea?” Tiyo-Mah asked, clutching the armrests of her chair, the light glistening on the rings on her thin fingers. “Power? The time when you can tell all Shinabar what to believe and they will tell the world?” Her voice dropped even lower. “You will take our rewards in the end. Believe me, I conjure the dead, and they tell me secrets you cannot conceive.”
Necromancy!
Tathea was suffocated, as if the dead thronged the room with her. The sweet smell of decay filled her nose and throat.
It could only be imagination! She must control it!
Yet the evil was real. To deny it was also to deny the good. She was not strong enough. She despised her cowardice, but she knew her own vulnerability. She wanted to flee the chamber with its candles and silks and odors, the old woman with her smiling lips and the glittering dwarf beside her. But she felt crowded in on every side, as though hot bodies were pressing against her, taking the air she would breathe, holding her down, draining her strength so her feet would not move.
The candles burned lower, and the incense grew thicker in her nose, sweeter, till she could taste it.
I will not!
But the words were in her mind, not on her tongue. The silence in the room was unbroken.
She stared into Azrub’s goat eyes and heard his voice in her mind. “Ah, but you will! You will pay my price in the end. You will want the power, and you will take it!”
I will not!
The smiling eyes seemed to grow brighter, and his voice was as clear in her head as speech. “You may not think so, but in the end you will.”
“Prove me! Let me choose, and I will not!”
The eyes wavered. She drew in her breath and there was strength in it, the sickly sweetness was less. She moved her hands, then one foot, and then the other.
She turned and walked heavily, as though she dragged herself through water, and made her way across the terrible chamber, through the doors, and back to where Ra-Nufis and Yattu-Shia waited. They saw her face and Ra-Nufis started towards her. Yattu-Shia’s hand went to his sword.
The sweat stood out on Tathea’s skin and she was cold, as if a fever had broken. The power of the Great Enemy had touched her like a sheet of ice from an eternal chaos, a darkness beyond the reach of the furthest stars, where all light is consumed and lost.
“What is it?” Ra-Nufis demanded. “What happened? Did she deny her part in the assassinations?”
Tathea realized with surprise that she had not even mentioned it. It was no longer any act of Tiyo-Mah’s that appalled her, it was what she had become.
“We must take her,” she said huskily, her lips dry. “I need all your power to help me. She is not alone. She has an emissary of the dark with her. We shall need all the spiritual power we have, but I will not let her get away!” Tathea looked at their white faces, the sheen of fear on their skins. They too had felt the power.
“We must pray,” she whispered. “Pray together. Give me your hands.”
Yattu-Shia hesitated, unwilling to sheath his sword.
“Your hand!” she commanded. “We are not fighting men, only God can help us in this.”
Reluctantly he put the sword back and took her hand. They stood together, gripping each other, heads bent.
“Father of eternity,” Tathea said softly, “we have no weapons against the darkness except those you give us. Azrub’s power is very great. Please walk with us.”
“So be it,” Ra-Nufis and Yattu-Shia murmured together.
Tathea let go of their hands. “Remain here,” she said to Yattu-Shia.
He started forward.
“That is an order!” she snapped.
He stood still, his face flushed, but he obeyed.
Ra-Nufis followed Tathea back down the passage. The air was motionless and heavy. Nothing moved. The silence swallowed their footsteps, and the cloying smell thickened the air. No servant was visible.
They reached the room where Tiyo-Mah had been and it was deserted. Sunlight filtered in from the high, narrow windows. The heavy curtains were illusory in the light and shadow.
They stared at one another for a moment, then turned to leave. But their way was barred by the squat, powerful figure of the dwarf. His arms were folded, his diamond-paned sleeves hanging, and his eyes were brilliant with malevolence.
“She has gone to see her treasures.” Again, his voice was soft and sibilant, like rain on dead leaves, but every word was hideously clear. “For the last time,” he added. “At least, for the last time as they are.” There was a moment’s silence, thick as water. “She is ready to depart.” He moved past them and disappeared into a high-ceilinged passage behind the ebony chair, as if he knew they would follow, his tunic glittering even in the dim light from the high windows.
He led the way further downward, at first shallow steps in the black basalt, then narrower and steeper stairs lit by low, burning torches. Hidden vents took the smoke away and kept the air sweet, but they were below the earth, and the weight of the building seemed to press down on them.
Ra-Nufis followed close behind Tathea, almost touching her. If he also felt the oppression and the choking fear, he gave no sign of it, and not once did he hesitate.
Azrub’s golden feet made no sound whatever on the floor, as though his massive body had no substance, and not once did he look round to see if they were with him.
He led them through chamber after chamber, each with one entrance and, at the far end, one exit. In all of them the floor was thick with dust, and there was one set of footprints across it ahead of him, two after he had passed. The first were narrow, sha
rp-toed, and the left foot dragged a little. Tiyo-Mah. His were broad and smooth, with no arch to the foot, as if he were so heavy his own weight flattened his flesh.
In the last room, a rounded place like a cave, its walls hewn from the desert rock beneath the city, the old woman stood facing them, surrounded by ornaments of gold, jasper, beryl, chrysolite, and alabaster, workmanship stretching back three thousand years, the greatest and most exquisite pieces Shinabar had produced. It was a world’s ransom of treasure.
She ignored Ra-Nufis as if he were not there and faced Tathea.
“There are those who say you are like me,” she said, leaning forward a little. Her adorned black tabard made her look like some scrawny bird of prey, beak-nosed beneath her high forehead. “They are fools! You have a surface strength, but it is shallow. You have not the courage to grasp the real power. You will always give it up in the end because you want to be loved!”
“I don’t want power,” Tathea said.
Tiyo-Mah laughed, not the dry cackle one would have expected, but a soft, ugly sound which penetrated the ears and was totally human.
“Yes, you do, daughter-in-law. Oh yes, you do! Perhaps you will realize it too late. I shall know. I shall taste it on my tongue with pleasure.” She took a step back. “I must go. You have left me no alternative.” Her blind eyes flickered to the dwarf, then back to Tathea. “But Azrub will wait here and watch for me. He will guard my interests, and you will never defeat him.” She bent her thin shoulders a little. “But you know that. I have no need to tell you. You understand eternity, and the times of all things.” And she turned and walked away from them towards the far wall. When she reached it she hesitated a moment, then continued forward. The solid rock seemed to waver, melt, then close around her, and she was gone. The chamber was empty but for Ra-Nufis and Tathea and Azrub, standing in the entrance, his goat eyes golden in the torchlight.
“She was wrong,” he said with a gurgle of dry mirth. “You don’t understand time at all. There are doorways, places where we have weakened the fabric ...”
