by Tad Williams
From behind the Perikalese mercenaries, one of the Leopard soldiers was staring at her—an important soldier, judging by the long black tail on his helmet. He had a frown like a gash, and his elaborate armor only emphasized his own broad shoulders. Terrified she had already done something wrong, Qinnitan dropped her eyes.
When she looked up again, the knot of courtiers was moving away from the Falcon Throne, shuffling backward with many bows and flutterings of hands, and she could see the autarch once more. The young god-on-earth leaned back and gazed up at the stretching beak above his head as if the room was empty but for himself, and briefly scratched his long nose. His gold finger-stalls glittered, tiny guardians of the safety of all creation: it was a truth as powerful as the blueness of the sky that the autarch must not accidentally touch something impure.
Qinnitan’s mother was weeping again. Qinnitan was frightened, too, but she still couldn’t understand such behavior. She bumped her mother’s side with an elbow, a piece of impertinence that would have been unthinkable in most families. “Hush!” she whispered, which would have been thought even more inexplicable.
“We are so lucky!” her mother said, sniffling.
We? Even through the terror at being singled out, the overwhelming strangeness of it all, and even an unavoidable tingle of pride at having somehow caught the eye of the most powerful man in the world, Qinnitan knew one thing: she didn’t want to marry the autarch. There was something about him that frightened her very much, and it was not simply his matchless power or the things she had heard about his cruel whims. There was something in his eyes, something she had never seen in another person, but might have seen once in the eyes of a horse that had bounced its rider off his saddle and then, when the man’s foot caught in the stirrup, dragged him to his death through the crowded marketplace, smashing the rider’s head against the cobbles for a hundred paces before a soldier brought the beast down with an arrow. As the horse lay gasping out its last bubbling red breaths, she had seen its eye rolling in the socket, the eye of something that was not seeing what was really there.
The autarch, although calm and apparently amused by what he observed around him, had such an eye. She did not— did not —want to be given to such a man, to go to his bed, to undress for him and be touched and entered by him, even if he truly was a god upon the earth. The very idea made her shudder as if she had a fever.
Not that she had any other choice. To refuse would be to die, and to see her father and mother and sisters and brothers die before her—and none of the deaths, she felt sure, would be swift.
“Where are the bee-girl’s parents?” the autarch asked suddenly. The room fell silent at his voice. Someone let out a little nervous cough.
“They stand there, Golden One,” said an older man wearing what looked like ceremonial armor made out of silver cloth, pointing a finger toward the place where Qinnitan’s mother and father huddled facedown on the stone floor. Qinnitan suddenly realized she had not abased herself, and put her head down. She imagined the man in silver cloth must be Pin-lmmon Vash, the paramount minister.
“Bring them up,” commanded the autarch in his strong, high voice. Someone coughed again. It sounded loud in the silence that followed the autarch’s words and she was terribly glad it wasn’t either of her parents.
“Do you give her up to be the bride of the god?” the minister asked her mother and father, who still cowered, unable to look up at the autarch. Even through her own misery, Qinnitan was ashamed of her father. Cheshret was a priest, able to stand before the altar of Nushash himself, so why should he be unable to face the autarch’
“Of course,” her father said. “We are honored… so… we are…”
“Yes, you are.” The autarch flicked his glittering finger at a wooden casket. “Give the money to them Jeddin, send some of your men to help them carry it home.” The Leopard soldier who had been staring at her earlier murmured a few words and two of the autarch’s riflemen stepped forward and lifted the chest. It was clearly heavy.
“Ten horses worth of silver,” the autarch said. “Generous payment for the honor of bringing your daughter into my house, is it not?”
The men with the money chest had already started back across the throne room. Qinnitan’s parents scrambled awkwardly after it, trying to keep it in sight but not daring to turn their backs even slightly on the autarch.
“You are too kind, Master of the Great Tent,” her father called, bowing and bowing. “You bring too much honor on our house.” Qinnitan’s mother was crying again. A moment later, they were gone.
“Now,” said the autarch, then somebody coughed again. The autarch’s lean face writhed in annoyance. “Who is that? Bring him up here.”
Three more Leopards sprang down from the dais and out into the room, their polished, decorated guns held high. The crowd shrank back from them. A moment later they returned to the dais, dragging a frail young man. The crowd drew even farther back, as though he might be carrying a fatal illness, which in fact he probably was, since he had drawn the angry attention of the god-on-earth.
“Do you hate me so much, that you must interrupt me with your braying?” the autarch demanded. The young man, who had fallen onto his knees when the Leopard soldiers let go of him, could only shake his head, weeping with terror. He was so terrified his face had turned the color of saffron. “Who are you?”
The youth was clearly too frightened to answer. At last the paramount minister cleared his throat. “He is an accounting scribe from my ministry of the Treasury. He is good with sums.”
“So are a thousand merchants in Bird Snare Market. Can you tell me any reason I should not have him killed, Vash? He has wasted too much of my time already.”
“Of course he has, Golden One,” said the paramount minister with a gesture of infinite regret. “All I can offer in his favor is that I am told he is a hard worker and very well liked among the other scribes.”
“Is that so?” The autarch stared up at the famous tiled ceiling for a moment, scratched his long nose with a long finger. He already seemed bored with the subject. “Very well, here is my sentence. Leopards, take him away. Beat him and break his bones with the iron bar. Then, if he is to survive, these so-called friends of his in the Treasury may take care of him, feed him, so on. We shall see how far their friendship truly extends.”
The large crowd murmured approvingly at the wisdom of the autarch’s sentence, even as Qinnitan suppressed a shriek of horrified fury. The young man was taken away, his feet dragging on the floor, leaving a wet track like a snail. He had fainted, but not before emptying his bladder. A trio of servitors scurried to wipe the flagstones clean again.
“As for you, girl,” the autarch said, still angry, and Qinnitan s heart suddenly began to beat even more swiftly Had he tired of her already? Was he going to have her killed? He had just bought her like a market chicken from her parents and no one would raise a finger to save her. “Stand before me.”
Somehow she made her legs work just well enough to carry her up the steps and onto the dais. She was grateful to reach the spot before the Falcon Throne, grateful to be able to slump down onto her knees and not have to feel them quivering. She put her forehead against the cool stone and wished that time would stop, that she would never have to leave this spot and find out what else was in store for her. A powerful, sweet scent filled her nostrils, threatening to make her sneeze. She peered from half-opened lids. A group of priests had surrounded her like ants on a crumb of cake, blowing incense on her out of bronze bowls, perfuming her for the presence of the autarch.
“You are very lucky, little daughter,” said Pimmmon Vash. “You are favored above almost all women on the earth. Do you know that?”
“Yes, Lord. Of course, Lord.” She pushed her forehead harder against the stone, felt the area of cold spread on her skin. Her parents had sold her to the autarch without even a question as to what might become of her. She wondered if she could hit her head against the tiles hard enough to ki
ll herself before someone stopped her. She didn’t want to marry the lord of the world. Just looking at his long face and strange, birdlike eyes made her heart feel as though it would stop beating. This close, she almost thought she could sense the heat of his body coming off him, as though he were a metal statue that had sat all day in the sun. The idea of those thin-fingered hands touching her, the gold stalls scraping her skin as that face came down onto her own…
“Stand up.” It was the autarch himself. She got to her feet, so wobbly that the paramount minister had to put his dry old hand under her elbow. The living god’s pale, pale eyes moved over her body, up to her face, back down over her body. There was no lechery in it, nothing really human: it felt as though she hung on a butcher’s hook.
“She’s thin but not ugly,” said the autarch. “She must go to the Seclusion, of course. Give her to old Cusy and tell her that this one must have special and very careful treatment. Panhyssir will tell her what is expected.”
To her astonishment, Qinnitan found herself raising her eyes to meet the autarch’s, heard herself say, “Lord, Master, I don’t know why you’ve chosen me, but I will do my best to serve you.”
“You will serve me well,” he said with an odd, childlike laugh. “May I ask one favor, Great Master?”
“You will address the Autarch Sulepis as ‘Living God on Earth’ or as ‘Golden One,’ “ the paramount minister said sternly, even as the assembled throng murmured at her forwardness.
“Golden One, may I ask a favor?”
“You may ask.”
“May I say good-bye to my sisters in the Hive, my friends? They were very kind to me.”
He looked at her for a moment, then nodded. “Jeddin, send some of your Leopards to take her back for her farewells and to bring with her anything she needs from her old life.Then she will enter the Seclusion.” His pallid eyes narrowed a little. “You do not seem happy with the honor I have given you, girl?”
“I am . . overwhelmed, Golden One.” Fear had gripped her now. She could barely make her voice loud enough for him to hear a few paces away; she knew that to the rest of those assembled in the vast room she would be unheard, not even a murmur. “Please believe that I do not have the words to describe my happiness.”
* * *
The contingent of Leopards marched her through the long passages of the Orchard Palace, a labyrinth that she had only heard about but which, it seemed, would now be her home for the rest of her life. Thoughts swirled in her head like choking incense.
Why does he want me? He had scarcely even looked at me before today. “Not ugly,” he said. That is what one says about an arranged marriage. But I bring nothing. My parents —nobodies! Why on earth should he choose me, even as one new wife among hundreds . . ?
The Leopard band’s captain, the muscular, serious-faced soldier called Jeddin, was watching her again. He seemed as if he had been doing it for more than a moment, but she had only just noticed. “Mistress, I apologize,” he said, “but I cannot give you long for your farewells. We are expected at the Seclusion in a short time.”
She nodded. He had fierce eyes, but his glint seemed decidedly more human than the animating force behind the autarch’s bottomless stare.
When they came to the Hive, all the girls seemed somehow to have known Qinnitan was coming. Perhaps the oracle predicted it, she thought, sour and miserable. She was about to pass beyond the reach of even the golden bees and the thought frightened her. From the feminine deeps of the Hive to the female prison of the Seclusion. It did not seem like a good trade, however astonishing the honor of being chosen.
High Priestess Rugan bade her farewell with pride but little sentiment.
“You have brought great honor to us,” she said, and kissed Qinnitan on each cheek before returning to her chambers and her accounts. Chief Acolyte.
Chryssa, on the other hand, seemed genuinely sorry to see her go, although there was a powerful pride in her face as well. “No one has ever gone from the Hive into the Seclusion,” she said, eyes glowing with the same light of religiosity that filled her when the bees spoke. Qinnitan could believe that Chryssa might be dreaming of how wonderful it would have been if she instead of Qinnitan had been chosen.
Qinnitan was doing the same.
“Do you really have to go?” Duny was crying, but she seemed almost as excited and pleased as Chryssa. “Why can’t you live here until it happens?”
“Don’t be foolish, Dunyaza,” the chief acolyte told her. “Someone who is to be the autarch’s wife cannot live in the Hive. What if someone… what if she… ?” Chryssa frowned. “It just would not be right. He is the Living God on Earth!”
When the chief acolyte had gone, Qinnitan had begun putting her few personal articles into a bag—the carved bone comb her mother had given her when she had first been called to the sacred bees, a necklace of polished stones from her brothers, a tiny metal mirror from her sisters, the festival dress she had never worn since becoming a Hive Sister. As she packed these things up, trying to answer Duny’s excited questions as best she could— after all, how much could she tell when she had no idea what was to happen to her, why she had been chosen, or how she had been noticed?—she realized that from now on she was not going to be a person any more, at least for her Hive Sisters, but a Story.
I’m going to be Qinnitan, the girl the autarch noticed and plucked out of their midst. They’re going to talk about me at night. They’ll wonder if it ever might happen again, to one of them. They’re going to think it’s a wonderful, romantic tale, like Dasmet and the Girl With No Shadow.
“Don’t forget about me,” she said suddenly.
Duny stared at her in amazment. “Forget about you? Qin-ya, how could we ever… ?”
“No, I mean don’t forget about the real Qinnitan. Don’t make up silly stories about me.” She stared at her friend, who for once was shocked into silence. “I’m scared, Duny.”
“Getting married isn’t so bad,” her friend said. “My older sister told me…” She broke off, eyes wide. “I wonder if gods do it the same way people do… ?”
Qinnitan shook her head. Duny would never understand. “Do you think you could come visit me?” “What? You mean… in the Seclusion?”
“Of course. It’s only men who aren’t allowed in. Please say you will.” “Qin, I’ll… yes! Yes, I’ll come, as soon as the Sisters will let me.”
She threw her arms around Duny. Mistress Chryssa was standing in the doorway of the acolytes’ hall, letting her know that the soldiers were growing impatient outside the temple. “Don’t forget about me,” Qinnitan whispered in her friend’s ear. “Don’t make me into some… princess.”
Duny could only shake her head in confusion as Qinnitan took the sack with her pitiful array of possessions and followed the chief acolyte.
“One more thing,” Chryssa said. “Mother Mudry wishes a word with you before you go.”
“The… oracle? With me?” Mudry could hardly know Qinnitan at all. They had never been any nearer to each other than a dozen paces since Qinnitan had come to the Hive. Did even that august old woman desire to curry a little favor with the autarch? Qinnitan supposed she must. But the nicest thing he said about me was that I wasn’t ugly. Doesn’t give me much power to get favors done, now does it?
They walked through the darkest part of the Hive. The sleepy murmuring of the bees washed in through the air shafts high in the walls—there was nowhere in the Hive their song could not be heard. If the bees noticed the departure of one of the younger acolytes, it didn’t seem to bother them.
The oracle’s room smelled of lavender water and sandalwood incense. Oracle Mudry sat in her high-backed chair, her face lifted expectantly toward the door, blind eyes moving behind the lids. She reached out her hands. Qinnitan hesitated: they looked like claws.
“Is that the child? The girl?”
Qinnitan looked around but Chryssa had left her at the doorway to the inner chamber. “It’s me, Mother Mudry,” she said.
“Take my hands.”
“It’s very kind of you…”
“Hush!” She said it harshly, but without anger, a warning to a child not to touch a naked flame. Her cold hands closed on Qinnitan’s ringers. “We have never sent one to the Seclusion before, but Rugan tells me she thought you… unusual.” She shook her head. “Did you know that it was all ours, once, girl? Surigali was the Mistress of the Hive, and Nushash her cowering consort.”
Qinnitan had no idea what this meant, and it had been a long and confusing day. She stood silent as Mudry squeezed her fingers. The old woman paused as if listening, face lifted to the ceiling, much as earlier that day the autarch had stared at nothing while deciding to have a man’s bones shattered because he had coughed. The old woman’s hands seemed to grow warmer, almost hot, and Qinnitan had to force herself not to pull away. The oracle’s lined face seemed to grow slack, then the toothless mouth fell open in a gape of dismay.
“It is as I feared,” Mother Mudry said, letting go of Qmnitan’s hands. “It is bad. Very bad.”
“What? What do you mean?” Did the oracle have some knowledge of her fate? Was she to be slain by her husband-to-be, as so many others had been slain?
“A bird will fly before the storm.” Mudry spoke so quietly Qinnitan could barely hear her. “Yet it is hurt, and can scarcely keep wing. Still, that is all the hope that remains when the sleeper awakens. Still, the old blood is strong Not much hope at all…” She swayed for a moment, then stopped, her face turned straight toward Qinnitan s. If she had been sighted, she might have stared. “I am tired, forgive me. There is little we can do and it is of no use to frighten you. You must remember who you are, girl, that is all.”
