They set off east, and made two days’ clear travel before catching up with Quiet When Loud’s mate. Approaching the fire, they found the Coyote sitting with the ancient Serpent priest, debating theology.
The wizened old man looked up at them, eyes glinting with mischief.
‘Who is this that rides in on the back of the Snake?’ he asked them with a crooked smile. ‘Come, share our fire.’
Quiet When Loud sat herself down next to her mate. Wordlessly she took his hand in hers and held it a while.
‘You’ve made good time, Messenger,’ Asmander remarked carefully.
Hesprec’s gaze was narrow, perhaps wondering what business had delayed the Champion at the Stones. ‘And your path here has been solely to reunite these two children of Coyote? An act of benevolence that the cold gods of this land will, no doubt, entirely ignore.’
Asmander found a place across the fire from the old man, then glanced up at the others. ‘You should bed down. No doubt we two will be talking a while.’
Venater grunted, cast a suspicious look at Hesprec, and then threw a blanket down on the ground. It was not his blanket – or had not been until recently. Asmander assumed he had made off with it during the confusion at the Stone Place. After a moment’s consideration, Shyri laid herself beside him, tucking in close for warmth, as they had learned to do.
‘How long is it since you saw the banks of the Tsotec, Messenger?’ Asmander asked.
‘The best part of two years.’ Hesprec’s wondering tone made it sound a great age. ‘I guested with the Horse at Where the Fords Meet before I came north. But news finds me still. I know the clan of the Bluegreen Reach yet.’
‘Do you know Asman, my father?’
‘Not the man, though others of his line.’
Asmander smiled bleakly. ‘If you do not know him, you do not truly know my clan, for he is a man alone – a singular creature.’
‘And you, being his son, love and honour him,’ Hesprec concluded.
‘I am dutiful.’ Not quite a confirmation, not quite a denial.
‘And your father is no doubt a dutiful servant of the Kasra, as any clan head should be.’
‘The Kasra is dead,’ replied Asmander flatly.
The old man sat silently, watching him across the flames, digesting the news. What he knew of what occurred at Atahlan – of the division between Tecuma and Tecuman, the old Kasra’s children – was hidden behind his veiled stare. Perhaps he already guessed at the need that had dispatched Asmander to this forsaken country, but the Champion only hoped he would not ask. To speak with a priest of the Serpent was like trying to navigate the shifting channels of the estuary itself. To lie to one would be far worse.
‘Tell me of your own purpose here, Messenger,’ Asmander fished.
‘I came for word from the wise men and women of the north. And, thanks to the gathering at the Stone Place, I have it.’
‘And what word did you find?’ Asmander asked.
Hesprec sighed: just a simple sound but it sent a shiver down Asmander’s spine that all the fires in the world could not have dispelled. That sound spoke of ages, great stone volumes of history that had come and gone, filled with the lives of men who thought that their ‘now’ was the only now that mattered.
‘Do you know what it is like to try and see what the future holds?’ the old man asked him. ‘It is like looking into choppy waters at night, and trying to read the march of the stars reflected there, save that you can see only one wave’s worth of them, just so small a span of the sky. How, then, can any man know with any certainty what is to come? You look, and you think, “Can it be? No, surely I am mistaken. That fragment I glimpsed, that looked all fire and broken things, that could have meant anything.”’ He was smiling but it was a skull’s smile, especially on that near fleshless, parchment-skinned head. ‘But if a wise man were to travel to many lands, and speak to the wise men of those lands – and avoid being sacrificed to the Wolf, which is always a danger, apparently – then a man might hear many views of the future, view many different handfuls of stars seen in the waters. And, from those tales and divinations and half-understood glimpses, a truly wise man might stitch together the whole cloth.’
Asmander was sitting very still, feeling inside him a deep cold that had nothing to do with the north. ‘And what might such a wise man see?’ he whispered. In truth, he wanted the Serpent priest to do what his kind normally did, snatching the revelations back at the last moment. He did not expect Hesprec to just speak on.
‘When all those little fragments of tomorrow show fire and ruin, Champion, what then?’
‘Tecuma and Tecuman . . . will it come to war, then? In truth, is that what it means?’
‘And what would a river war mean to the Crown of the World?’ Hesprec asked him. ‘And, anyway, wars . . . there are always wars, especially here. Is it the war the Wolf now want to bring against the Tiger, then? Is it both these wars and more besides? What question must we ask of these signs, to put them in perspective?’
‘What has gone before, that was prefigured by such omens?’ Asmander asked promptly, earning an approving nod.
‘The Fall of the Stone Kingdoms to the Rats,’ came a voice from an unexpected direction. Shyri, who had been lying still and breathing easily as if asleep, now sat up without warning.
‘What have you heard?’ Asmander demanded.
‘You think I could sleep with all this yattering?’ she asked lazily. ‘This one,’ with a nod at the snoring mound that was Venater, ‘could sleep through the world breaking, but not me. Besides, what are you saying? That the end of the world is a secret just for you?’
Asmander threw Hesprec an exasperated look, but the old man was smiling.
‘Daughter of the Laughing Men, welcome to our counsels. The fall of the Stone Kingdoms, is it? You’ve been there? You’ve seen their ruins?’
Asmander nodded along with Shyri, remembering.
‘Then think on this: if I read these futures right, the doom they speak of is at least as grand and final as that. And wars on the River, or the spitting and yowling of wolves and tigers, all these disputes mean only that the people of all our lands will be at each other’s throats when the axe falls on them, instead of standing together. The great enemies of history always thrive on chaos and rivalry: the Rat cult, the Pale Shadow, even the Plague People back in the very beginning – they could never have gained a victory if we were not forever turning against each other.’ His tone had become bitter, bitter and old, a man whose withered hands are no longer strong enough to put things right.
‘So if this axe must fall, who wields it?’ Shyri asked. Even she seemed impressed, shorn briefly of the irreverence that was practically the air she breathed.
‘Oh, I don’t know. You think visions ever told anyone anything useful,’ Hesprec hissed exasperatedly. ‘You think there was a face of some warlord or sorcerer, and a map to where he lived, so that I could just go and poison his well or strangle him while he was still a child?’ He laughed quietly. ‘I cannot point the finger, Laughing Girl. I cannot say this leader of the Wolf will become the doom of the world. I cannot say that the rift between the royal twins in the Riverlands will be the spark to set the grass ablaze. I cannot say that it will not be the Horse, or a great union of the Plains peoples, or . . .’ He waved a hand. ‘I am like the god’s offering: I see the knife and not the priest.’
‘And your journey now,’ Asmander said softly. ‘The road east, that is because of these visions? You go to prevent this doom?’
‘Wouldn’t it be grand if that were the case? You’d be honoured to come, of course. You, the Champion, would have your part to play. Perhaps the fate of the world would rest in single combat between you and the enemy of all the peoples?’
Asmander felt a curious sensation inside him, a lifting, reaching feeling. Yes, it seemed to say. ‘And can it be so?’
Hesprec laughed again. ‘Oh, no, no. I have no idea what can be done – or if anything can be done
. I have heard the wisdom of these lands. My place is back home, not haring off into the cold wilds like a fool. And yet here I am.’
‘So why?’
‘Because there is a girl . . . a young girl,’ Hesprec said simply. ‘She is fleeing the Wolf, and it is possible she has found safety, or perhaps she has found only danger wearing a different mask. And I want to know. I find I do not wish to return to the south without that knowledge, even though it is not part of the wisdom I came here to gather.’
‘A girl,’ said Asmander flatly. ‘A girl of talents, of significance? Has she magical powers? Or she is so beautiful that men would give their all for her? Or a great warrior, perhaps? Or beloved of the gods?’
‘None of that. Just a girl,’ the old priest replied softly. ‘But she saved my life – for her own selfish reasons, but nonetheless – and I find I do not wish to abandon her now. I am old. These fond foolishnesses are permitted me.’
Shyri made a derisive noise, and Asmander found himself perilously close to agreeing with her. ‘This does not sound a fit task for a Messenger of the Serpent,’ he said as strongly as he dared.
‘Set not your foot upon the Serpent, lest it bite.’ For a moment the old man seemed about to summon up a great aura of presence and power from somewhere, but then he smiled. It made him look older than ever for he had no teeth, not one. The soft lisping that prowled at the corners of his speech was more than just age. And he was mocking himself, because it was better to mock oneself than have the rest of the world do it.
‘You are a long way from home, Messenger,’ the Champion said softly.
‘How observant you are.’
‘And set to go further, you say?’
‘It seems inevitable. And you will come with me, will you not? If I ask?’
‘This one?’ Shyri chuckled with a deep and earthy sound. ‘He wears duty like a belt.’
Asmander nodded. ‘I am tasked . . .’ and then he caught the meaning behind her words: how a belt held in a man’s desires; that he was trapped by his duty.
And there was Hesprec Essen Skese pinning him with a gaze full of pent-up years.
‘You went to the temple when you were young, I’m sure. Your father, he’s a man who remembers Serpent in his prayers, because it is the done thing. But you . . . what must it have been like to feel the mantle of Champion fall upon you, to know that other within your soul, that ancient shape scratching to be free? That it was you so chosen – not your father, not the votaries of Old Crocodile? It was the Serpent who showed you the path through the darkness in those days, am I right?’
Asmander nodded convulsively. ‘You are, Messenger.’
‘And now the Serpent calls to you in his hour of trial. Here is one of the Serpent’s poor servants in need of your strong arm.’
‘You said yourself, this is just some errand of your own.’
‘And you were not listening. I said this is no part of my mission here in the north, but there is no breath I take, no thought that comes into my head, that is not the Serpent’s business. If I owe a debt, it is the Serpent’s debt to repay. Now, will you travel with me to the east, Champion?’
‘He won’t,’ Shyri said derisively. ‘You argue like a sick man, priest, all begging and wind and no strength. These words sway no one.’
‘No doubt you’re right,’ Hesprec said. ‘But here is the difference between the Sun River Nation and the peoples of the Plains, Laughing Girl. Our words are not just solitary stones thrown into the night. With our words, we build. What sways the heart is the sum of all the words that went before.’
Asmander sighed. ‘You’re right, of course. Messenger, it would be an honour.’ He could hear it plain in those words that he thought it anything but, and yet the old man had played him, read him, moved him like a game piece. ‘For I have walked the Serpent’s back to escape the darkness. So now will I follow it one more time.’
28
The stronghold of the Tiger, that they called the Shining Halls, rose up a steep hillside, tier on tier, and all of it built from stone. Maniye had never seen so much worked stone in one place. There were towers three or four storeys high, and many of them intact. In places, a high wall ran intermittently. Even the lowest and plainest of the dwellings were of stone, and even they were carved, their faces boasting panels depicting human and animal figures intertwined, fighting one another, embracing one another. The upper corners of every building projected into the shapes of gargoyles, louring out over the broad thoroughfares that ran between.
Higher up the slope, the buildings became grander as well. Below were the homes of the lowly, the dens of the thralls, Aritchaka explained. Status and station was important to the Tiger: where one was born and what one could rise to. The higher dwellings were for warriors, for the priesthood, for the rulers.
Maniye had witnessed nothing in her life that might have prepared her for the great temple of the Tiger. It rose in leaps and bounds from a squat, square base, spiralling into towers that lifted claws to the skies above, the stonework coursing fluidly with the bodies of a thousand effigies. It should have been a chaos of mingling, contradictory shapes, but there had been a single mind behind it, so that the eye was led across this intricate fretted surface with a sure hand, images and scenes leaping into the mind.
The Shining Halls were certainly far grander than the village of the Winter Runners, and yet, as their tired horses passed beneath a gateless arch and under the eyes of a dozen armed Tigers, Maniye noted that there were fewer people here than the sprawling size of the place would suggest. As they made their way between the buildings, ever on upwards, she saw that much of the stonework had seen better days too. Some had been damaged and not repaired. In a few places there were signs of fire blackening. She was left with the impression of a culture defined by what it had come to lack, that once had been plentiful. She kept these thoughts to herself.
‘You are taking me to your temple?’ She knew the answer.
Aritchaka just nodded.
‘And what will you do with me there?’
‘Bring you before the Tiger,’ came the short answer.
It had not escaped Maniye that some of the scenes that had leapt at her eyes from the stonework were of sacrifice, and intricately so: whole gatherings of Tiger priests officiating at the dismembering of those they would feed to their god. The Shadow Eaters, she thought. The Wolves believed they consumed more than mere flesh.
To the temple they took her, which Aritchaka said was also the seat of their ruler, the heart of their world. She felt many eyes upon her as she stepped under the great stone weight of it. They did not look kindly on her. They saw a Wolf.
Within the temple, there was a room of screens and fires. She had expected an icon, a carven tiger in mid-leap perhaps. Instead there was just an altar, a block of stone that was scored and cut. Behind it, a wall was carved over and over with repetitive shapes, and she saw the outlines of running cats there, each interlocking with the rest so that there was no part of the stone not coursing with a limitless cascade of them. Either side of her, the walls were fretted with a thousand holes, so that what remained was almost a lacework of stone, and fires were lit behind, throwing their light through that maze of gaps.
‘What now?’ Maniye could only whisper.
‘Now the Tiger will come,’ Aritchaka told her, already retreating. ‘Now you will see what it is to be of the Fire Shadow People, the Tiger’s chosen.’
Maniye heard the fires being banked, their light leaping higher. Shadows leapt and danced about her, running up and down the wall so that the constant progress of the cats seemed to falter, to change direction, their illusory movement chasing back and forth across the face of the carvings as though some terrified quarry was rushing amongst them.
Around her, the piecemeal shadows cast by the twin flames seemed to thicken and coalesce, and yet she was still waiting for some effigy to rise up, something like the iron jaws of the Wolf that she remembered from her home.
N
ot my home, she told herself fiercely. I am of the Tiger now. The traitor Wolf within her walked the lonely reaches of her soul and bayed at her, but she stopped her ears to it. Only now, here with her mother’s people, could she admit to herself how alone she had felt since leaving the Winter Runners. Hesprec, Loud Thunder, these were not her people. She wanted to be with her own kind.
The shadows scurried and swayed about her. Although the fires were higher still, yet somehow the room was darker, until all those weaving spots and slashes of orange light seemed like embers on the very point of guttering out. As she watched, her eyes took in the circular dance of the shadows in her peripheral vision, and built shapes from it, so that the complex game of dark and light became abruptly the smouldering striped flanks of the Tiger – there in the room with her.
She fell to her knees, not through reverence but fear. Yes, the Wolf had touched her during her life, but that was a distant, dispassionate totem, a patient stalker always watching to see what she would do, what she could endure. The Tiger was immediate, fierce, predatory in another way entirely. Not for the Tiger the long hunt, the patient grinding down of fleeing prey. To be a tiger was to leap, to ambush, to strike suddenly and sure.
And can you? In her head, the voice was vast and purring, mingled with the low thunder of the fires. What are you? But you do not know yourself.
I am of the Tiger! she protested. I am your own! But the wolf was still howling deep inside her, and she lacked the means to drive it out into the cold night, and to sever it from her.
We shall see what my people call you, but I suspect it shall be ‘prey’.
She wanted to beg, but that would be weak. She wanted to demand, but that would be presumptuous. She did not know what she wanted. She wanted to belong. Somewhere, she wanted to belong.
The red-lit shadows bunched and gathered, and in her mind the great beast sat up and regarded her indolently. Do you think possessing my blood will save you?
I have the blood of your queen! It was Akrit’s own argument, but now she clung to it because she had nothing else.
The Tiger and the Wolf (Echoes of the Fall Book 1) Page 33
