Blackdog

by K V Johansen

  She was naked. Something lay on her throat. It wasn’t her amulet pouch with the stone from the lakeshore and the other from the Sayanbarkash; it didn’t slide down to the familiar touch on her chest. Hands on her throat, silk sliding, Bikkim’s scarf being drawn away—

  —Bikkim. Oh, Bikkim. Tears started in her eyes, rolled down her face.

  The girls twittered and scurried for towels, washing their traces away, soothing her. It would be all right. She was ill. Lord Tamghat had rescued her. She was safe now. The demon could never come at her again. She would soon grow well and strong again, now that she was home, safe in the Lake-Lord’s protection.

  Did they really believe that? Shut away inside herself, she could not tell truth from dissembling in their chittering minds.

  They dressed her, bending knees and elbows, heaving her up and back and around like a jointed wooden doll, and she burned with angry shame at so many hands on her nakedness.

  “What about that?” one girl asked, touching her neck.

  “That’s part of the spell protecting her,” another girl said. “Weren’t you listening? Don’t touch it.” The first girl snatched her hand away.

  Something Ivah tied there. The Blackdog might have killed Ivah by now. Part of her hoped for it, part pitied her, cast off so brutally. That was not what a father should be. She had been so much happier in her life than poor Ivah.

  “Come now, Holiness.” They walked her over to a carrying-chair, a throne with long lacquered poles for the shoulders of bearers, sat her in it and discretely fastened sashes around her waist and chest, tying her in like a baby. Delicate satin slippers, pearl-sewn, were put on her feet. Too tight, pinching her toes. Silk gloves for her hands, hiding scars and calluses and bitten nails, hiding the glimpses of tattooing that might show at wrists. The silk caught on the roughness of her skin. Then they brought out pots of paint, oily cosmetics, and began to colour her face. She groaned and tried to tilt away.

  “She wants to see,” said one. “Let her see. We’re just making you pretty, Holiness,” she explained. “The Lake-Lord will find a way to get rid of those ugly desert tattoos, don’t worry. He can do anything.”

  “These came all the way from the Nabbani Empire,” another girl said, waving a carmine-tipped brush in the air. “I’d hate to think what they cost.”

  They were old and stinkingly rancid. But a girl brought a mirror in a mother-of-pearl frame and tipped it to show Pakdhala her face.

  “See?” she asked. “You probably don’t recognize yourself, Holiness. You’re so pretty now.”

  She did not recognize herself. Gold crown, though not any of the ones the avatars traditionally wore, something new with…what were they? Skulls? Animal skulls? Yes, bear skulls, worked in among filigree flowers with turquoise petals. What did bears have to do with the lake? Silky hair, tiny red mouth, rice-powder face, arching black brows, black outlines to her eyes…a temple dancer in Marakand, maybe. Not her. Red and indigo silk, sewn with turquoise and gold beads, heavy on her shoulders. Rope of turquoise wound round and round her throat and there, just a glimpse of a plain, ugly cord, spun of what looked like hair, lumpy with knots, tight against her skin under the turquoise.

  She needed to get that off. If she could get a knife—and hands to use it, hah. Well, if she fell, if she scraped herself over some edge…not much chance of that.

  Pakdhala slumped, not even able to scowl as she brooded ways and means. Hefty Grasslanders came to carry the chair on their shoulders. Down many stairs and outside, and she continued to slump, not meeting anyone’s eyes, traitors all, as she was paraded swaying and jouncing past a courtyard of new stonework, a courtyard filled with silent sisters. Many she knew. Too many were missing. Many Tamghati were interspersed among them, watchful, women and men alike, Grasslanders and Northrons and Serakallashi. Only the foreigners were armed.

  Tamghat paced at her side, splendid in gold and white silk. She lowered her eyelids, not to see him. His hunger burned her. Even not looking, she felt him like a fire, his desire pulling at her, drawing her in.

  “Look on your people, Great Attalissa,” Tamghat murmured. “See how they welcome you home.”

  Eyelids fluttered open.

  Sisters bowed. Old Lady bowed, and looked up smiling, triumphant. “My lord,” she said to Tamghat. “My lady.”

  Pakdhala writhed, in her heart. She managed a twitch.

  “My dear,” said Tamghat, and he leaned in towards her, a hand on the back of the throne. Now it was clear he did not want to touch her. Not yet, she thought. “What is it? Does your illness pain you?”

  Her gaze met his eyes. Pretty eyes, golden-brown, long-lashed, earnestly concerned. Did he think she could not see through him to what the Blackdog had seen? Flesh and bone were a husk encasing a creature of fire. She turned her eyes away and surprised on Old Lady’s face a look of bitter…jealousy? A glimpse, then, just a glimpse, and emotions she had not understood on the surface of her child’s mind fell into place. Luli had desired this, Luli had brought Tamghat here. Luli had told him of the secret tunnel, and Otokas had died.

  Her mouth worked, throat on fire.

  “Did you want to say something to your servants, dear heart?” Tamghat purred. “Don’t fear. Your illness will pass; your voice will return. Here, whisper it to me.”

  He bent nearer still, so she felt his breath on her cheek. She would have spat if she were not so dry, desert dry. She would have screamed “traitor” at the priestesses, but that was not true of all, and she knew Tamghat would not let that word out.

  “Water,” she croaked. Tea was what she craved to soothe her throat, smoky-thick and sweet-salt with camel’s milk and sugar, but…water. Water was what she needed, water was what they kept from her. Water was what she lacked, woman that she was and not yet come into her divine power.

  She was severed from her lake, from herself, from her water.

  “Her Holiness wishes water,” Tamghat translated, and she repeated it, louder, a flaring agony, desperate to be understood.

  “Water. Please. Water.”

  “Fetch Great Attalissa a cup of water from the well,” he ordered, pointing to one of the young sisters, and the girl bowed and scurried away. “From the well, mind you—pure and fresh.” She was carried back and forth some more, women reaching, hesitantly, towards her, never touching. The girl returned from her trip to the well-court with a blue glass goblet.

  Tamghat put the cup to her lips, tender, solicitous, tipped it gently and gradually and she gulped the water with greed. Her throat ached with it, but it did ease the pain.

  “Thank you,” she said, voice still a breath, but not so croaking. She meant the thanks for the girl who had brought the cup.

  “You’re very welcome, dearest,” Tamghat said. “Is there anything else you wish?”

  Had any of them truly heard? “Rest,” she said, another breath.

  “Her Holiness will rest now,” Tamghat declared. A gesture of his hand sent the bearers sweeping about. She saw him suddenly fling up his head, turn on his heel, staring into the sky, his eyes gone a murky red. His servants hesitated; even the ranks of priestesses looked up and around, wondering what he had seen. He wheeled back to the chair, struck the nearest bearer in the face. “Get Her Holiness inside, fools,” he snarled. “Do you think the monsters that desire her have given up? Spear Lady!”

  A girl Pakdhala’s own age bowed.

  “I want archers on the walls. Shoot anything that flies over, even a pigeon. Her Holiness is in greater danger than you know.”

  “My lord,” the girl said, unquestioning.

  “Get her inside!” Tamghat snarled.

  He was afraid, she thought, as he strode past her chair to the doorway—no, not afraid. Fiercely, savagely excited, like a hound about to be loosed on its quarry.

  Monsters. She had felt something, some flicker of presence not the Blackdog.

  Once they were inside Tamghat strode away among a guard of Tamghati, leaving bearers and gir
ls to take her back to bed, with two noekar-women to watch over them.

  They washed her face, undressed her, chattering the while of how lovely the gown for her wedding would be, and propped her on pillows, so that she had to stare at the opposite wall.

  Could she even speak without Tamghat’s will allowing it?

  “Food,” she tried, and it took great effort, much mumbling and fumbling of her lips and tongue, to shape the word.

  “But you must fast, Holiness,” a novice said, with a nervous glance around to check on the two warriors, who lounged one on the balcony, one sprawled in a chair by the door. They ignored the girl. “The Lake Lord says you must fast, to prepare for the ritual that will free you from the demon’s thrall.”

  “To prepare you for your wedding,” another girl said, sickeningly jolly. “You may have well-water, and millet beer with honey and spices, but that is all. To purify you from the corruption forced on you by the demon dog.”

  Her voice dropped away at the end. Most of the others looked shocked.

  “You shouldn’t speak of such things.”

  The girl cringed, again glanced at the noekar. “I beg your Holiness’s pardon.”

  Pakdhala blinked. It wasn’t worth wasting her strength, demanding to know more. She could imagine what they had been told, and seethed with shame and rage on her father’s behalf, on her own. How could they, they were not such babies when Tamghat came that they would have known nothing of the Blackdog.

  “Bring Holy Attalissa a draught of the beer,” the oldest of the girls declared.

  “It doesn’t seem much to live on for a week, though,” another muttered, crossing to a table where a pitcher and goblet stood covered with a white napkin.

  A week? A week of this. They meant to starve her to make her too feeble for whatever Tamghat planned.

  No, that was good news. She had a week, a week to find a way to the lake. If she could gain just a little strength, could she crawl by night…?

  The Blackdog would come before then. The Blackdog would be here by this very night, travelling as swiftly as it could. But Tamghat knew that as well as she. Otokas had said he could not fight the warlord; Holla-Sayan had a far more erratic and troubled bond with the dog. Sometimes she feared the dog would devour him altogether. He was less likely to be able to force reason on it. He would be killed and Tamghat would become the dog’s host as he had threatened Otokas, as Otokas had thought he kept her from knowing. She had to act, if her father was going to see tomorrow. Somehow. Pakdhala shut her eyes, feigning sleep. She did not trust their honeyed beer. She needed strength, yes, but not anything that might further weaken her or cloud her thoughts, and beer alone on an empty stomach would be enough, even if it were not drugged.

  “Her Holiness is asleep,” one whispered, when footsteps returned from the far corner of the room.

  “Oh. Would the lady noekar like a drink? Should I offer…?”

  “No! Fool! It’s medicine for Her Holiness alone. It has herbs to help her rest. Get the sewing basket. We can finish the Lake-Lord’s red robe while we watch her.”

  Ah, so Luli had had her way, and the temple of warriors was reduced to a workshop of dressmakers.

  Pakdhala let herself float on the hollowness of her hunger, tried to drift, slowly and casually, beyond the barriers that caged her. The Blackdog, a priestess…someone. Could she touch anyone at all? There was that flicker of presence again. And then Tamghat.

  Sleep, Attalissa. You do not need to wander. You do not need to search for others. You have come to where you belong, and you are mine.

  No! But she slept.

  There had been some slaughter of conscripts in the market square. Rumour told it all over Serakallash, though no one had seen the bodies or knew who—or what—had done it. No one knew if their own sons or daughters had survived. The Tamghati were pretending it had not happened, but there was blood beneath the new drifts of sand the brief storm had left snaking through the streets. Everyone, somehow, knew it, as everyone knew Governor Ketsim had ridden out of town in the night, taking his bodyguard with him. The barracks of the troop of Serakallashi conscripts—called a militia as though they were free and willing guardians of hearth and home—was locked. Those fortunate enough not to have been posted in the market that night were now viewed as some danger themselves, or not trusted, if they ever had been. The Tamghati mercenaries and the mountain-conscripts prowled in bands of five or six, turning indoors anyone who could not give a reason for being out, breaking up any meeting of neighbours at a gate, any pause for conversation between passersby.

  All the day following the night that saw murder in her father’s caravanserai and the vanishing of Gaguush’s gang, Jerusha, hollow-eyed from lack of sleep, burning with an urgency that would not let her sleep even if she had not been all night drinking glass after glass of precious coffee, went about town on quiet errands, carrying a scroll full of annotations on fodder and pasturage, a basket of closely written slips of paper, accounts, bills, letters begging deferral of payment of bills. Everyone knew Master Mooshka was on the brink of ruin; little wonder he tried to call in favours and renegotiate old deals. She was stopped six times and passed on, told to get herself home quickly.

  Come dusk, there were no people on the streets of Serakallash except the caravan-mercenaries, who always tried the patience of the curfew-watch, when they were not drinking with them.

  Come nightfall, there were furtive shadows, gathering at the sand-drifted sacred spring. The sept-chiefs were all dead or they grovelled to Tamghat, like Siyd Rostvadim, who held the title of Deputy to the Governor, but that did not mean there was no one to speak for the scattered septs, no one to stand up and declare they spoke for Serakallash. When the time came. And the place.

  “This is madness, ‘Rusha,” her uncle declared. They were few, only a couple of dozen. “This many folk together—this many out dodging the watch.”

  “And probably more coming,” she growled. “I didn’t summon all these.” People had come with servants, with family, with neighbours. “One fool trusting the wrong person, one clumsy idiot—”

  “Get on with it,” one of the new, secret sept-chiefs of the Zaranim said. “We’re risking our lives here.” She eyed the weathered pile of skulls, nearly buried in sand now, only a few curves of white bone to catch the moonlight. “Sera has returned, the message said. But we all know the Lake-Lord killed her.”

  “Dig out the spring,” Jerusha said. “Dig out the spring and then you’ll see.”

  “But it’s buried—it’s—”

  “The heads,” her uncle said.

  “Attalissa has returned to Lissavakail,” Mooshka said. “The Blackdog has brought her back, and Tamghat will be destroyed. And listen, when Sera fought Tamghat and was defeated—she wasn’t destroyed. There were sisters of Attalissa here, in Serakallash, fighting alongside us. Did you know that?”

  “I didn’t see ‘em,” someone muttered. “I saw Lissavakaili archers shoot my father.”

  “A sister of Attalissa bought my life with her own,” Jerusha said, and found her voice shaking. “She died in our house. She’s buried in our yard. She’s…you don’t call them allies of Tamghat in my hearing.” Mooshka shook her gently by the shoulder. “Sera knew she would be destroyed by Tamghat. She went into hiding in the mountains, she had a sister of Attalissa take her there. But now she is coming back.”

  “In the mountains?” They didn’t believe her. She hardly believed it.

  “Dig out Sera’s well,” Elsinna said at her side. “She needs to be back in her own place.”

  “Who in the cold hells is that? One of the sisters?”

  “A daughter of Narva,” Elsinna said.

  “Who?”

  Elsinna sighed, lapsed into what seemed to be her normal style, more sarcastic than priestly, honest as vinegar on salad. “A god. In the mountains. He’s quite mad and very unpleasant, but he’s kept your goddess hidden from Tamghat all these years, so don’t argue. Dig out the damn
spring. Because I’m not going home to tell him I’m sorry, but they didn’t want her back after all.”

  “That’ll take all night!”

  “Then go home!” Jerusha snarled. “Go home and hide, and never come back. Attalissa has gone back to Lissavakail—” gone back a drugged captive, it seemed, but if what her father had seen with his own eyes was true, then Tamghat was going to be facing the Blackdog very shortly, not to mention Gaguush in a temper, and Attavaia was only awaiting the return of Attalissa to launch her folk…“It’s now or never, don’t you understand? Sera has come back to us! Dig out the spring!”

  Her uncle led the way, taking the first of the skulls from the sand. People had been executed for trying to take the skulls away. How it had been found out though, no one knew—some wizardry? It wouldn’t matter. Tamghat couldn’t get down to Serakallash in a night, and by dawn it wouldn’t matter, everyone would know that Sera was taking back her town.

  Or they would all be dead.

  “Keep them at it,” Jerusha whispered to her father. She squeezed Elsinna’s shoulder. “I’ll be back, Sera and the Old Great Gods willing.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “We can’t risk a patrol coming down here. There’s something I have to do. With luck, it will make a distraction. I have a plan.”

  “To do what?” Mooshka demanded.

  “You don’t want to know what. It’ll be obvious. I hope. Just keep them digging until the spring is clear. Don’t let them all go running off, no matter what happens in town.”

  “Don’t be a fool.”

  “I hope I’m not. We’ll see. Kiss me, for luck? And look after Elsinna, all right? Remember she’s a stranger here?” If they ended up fleeing, if there was fighting in the streets, she meant.

  Mooshka kissed her forehead. “Sera and the Great Gods go with you, ‘Rusha.”

  “They’d better,” she muttered, and hoped her father hadn’t heard.