Idol of Bone

by Jane Kindred

  The chanting of slogans carried up to Jak’s window from the courtyard later, meaningless sounds that nevertheless needed no translation. No matter what Merit believed about their intentions and no matter what orders Ra had given him, they had to get her out. Regardless of her power—and the demonstration of it against the prelate was beyond anything Jak had ever guessed at—the people of Rhyman had killed her once, and they would do it again.

  “Jak.” Ahr stood at the archway. “I’ve spoken to Geffn. He’s in agreement with me. After the crowd thins tonight, you and he are to take Ra and leave Rhyman.”

  “Geffn and I? What about you?”

  “My place is here right now, with Merit.”

  Jak came to the archway, searching the midnight-blue eyes. “I thought you hated Rhyman.”

  Ahr shrugged. “I thought I did too.”

  “If this is because of what happened between us—”

  “It isn’t. This is where I want to be, so long as Merit needs me.” There was something different about him, something in his demeanor that was unfamiliar. Something…peaceful. It was an aspect Jak would never have ascribed to him.

  “And if things settle down here, if they accept Merit as prelate—will you come back to Haethfalt?”

  Ahr sighed. “If I could put you out of my mind, I would never set foot near Ra again.” A half smile slipped out, as if he hadn’t meant it to. “But you are tenacious, my friend. When Merit no longer has need of me, I’ll come.”

  “Thank you. For calling me your friend. I wasn’t sure you would again.”

  The deep blue eyes blinked at Jak. “I wasn’t sure I would either.”

  “It meant a lot to me. When you introduced me to Merit—” The rest of the carefully rehearsed monologue died on Jak’s tongue as Ahr silenced it with a kiss Jak felt to the loins. With his firm hands cupping Jak’s face, Ahr’s mouth said without words all the things neither of them could. His lips tasted like Deltan honey. Jak swayed, knees a little weak, when he let go and stepped back.

  “I’ll see you,” he said, and disappeared into the cool shadows of Temple Ra.

  When evening fell, Jak tried to catch a few winks. Geffn and Jak had worked out a plan, agreeing they wouldn’t make the attempt until after midnight, and once they made their escape, they’d be on the move for hours before they’d be at a safe enough distance to rest. But too many thoughts put off until now came to the fore, and Jak lay staring at the ceiling, head resting in a web of clasped fingers on the pillow.

  Ra was returning to Haethfalt, but what did it mean? It was obvious from her demeanor that something had changed between them, but exactly what, Jak wasn’t sure. It seemed foolish to try to play coy, but it didn’t seem settled enough between them to presume upon anything more. Yet there was something more.

  At last, Jak gave up on sleeping and rose, pulling on a robe over the cotton undershirt and shorts. It was so much warmer here in Rhyman, Jak had taken to sleeping in nothing else. The guard at the foot of Ra’s stairs made no move to stop Jak. According to Geffn, Ahr had made certain the officer on duty wouldn’t give them any trouble when they attempted to leave either. Not all of Merit’s loyal guards were happy with Ra’s presence here.

  Ra roused as Jak stood in the archway. “Couldn’t sleep?”

  “No.” Jak raked unsteady fingers through disheveled hair. “I tried.”

  Ra smiled. “I couldn’t either.” She moved over to make room, curling her arms slightly around Jak’s elbow in a pose of girlish charm. Jak pulled the meager body closer. She seemed as slight as the reeds of the Anamnesis and, like them, might be blown through by the wind and easily crushed.

  It was absurd to feel Ra must be protected after what Jak had witnessed, but the protective urge was there just the same. It was difficult to believe this ghost of a woman could even walk about and hold her head up on such a seemingly frail neck. How she’d summoned what she had in tearing open the doors of the prison and committing the unspeakable destruction was a mystery. At moments like this, it was easy to believe she was delicate and defenseless, and temporal as a doll made of sugar.

  Jak held her cautiously, at emotional arms’ length. So much had transpired since that heady fumbling at Mound RemPeta that had ended in Ra’s alarming tears, and except for the near kiss yesterday morning, there’d been no real intimacy between them since. Did Ra want intimacy? Did Jak?

  Ra snuggled closer, stroking her fingers along the arm she held, and despite these reservations, Jak relaxed into the soothing touch. “Jak.” Her murmured voice held a note of hesitation. “When I touched you before, I didn’t ask. I’m sorry.”

  Jak’s pulse skipped a beat. “Don’t be sorry. I told you, you didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “But I did. I presumed that I could take what I desired. As I took Ahr when she was barely a woman.” Jak shifted uncomfortably. This was dangerous territory. “My presumption destroyed a race. But the Meer were never taught to desire, and so I had no context for how to express it. I don’t mean that as an excuse. I just want you to understand how it was.”

  Jak stopped Ra’s fingers, twining theirs together. “Ahr told me what happened between you. She may have been young, but she consented, and she was old enough to be married under Deltan law. The rest is none of my business.”

  Ra nodded, quiet for a moment before going on. “But I would have it be different this time.” The little pulse at Jak’s throat was beating erratically once more. “If you desire me.”

  “Gods.” Jak exhaled the word with a kind of giddy relief. “Of course I desire you.”

  Ra rolled over onto her belly, dark eyes glittering as if she commanded what little light there was. “Kiss me, Jak,” she whispered.

  Propped on one elbow, Jak gladly granted this petition. Like Ahr, Ra tasted of the Delta—of tart winter berries, and dark, salted sweets—both of them more suited to this place, more themselves. It seemed no coincidence both had become bolder in their affections since coming to Rhyman. And perhaps the place was acting on Jak as well, because despite all wisdom and practical intent, when Ra deepened the kiss, rolling onto her back and pulling Jak on top of her, caution and sense and any pretension at celibacy went out the open temple window.

  Their hips rocked and rippled in unison as they explored each other’s mouths, while fingers explored elsewhere. Jak made a sharp noise of surprise that deepened into a more contralto moan as one of Ra’s hands slid under the cotton shirt and stroked upward, her thumb rubbing over a taut nipple. Even before the decision to identify without gender, Jak had kept lovers at a symbolic distance, keeping as much clothing between them as possible, and always being the aggressor in bed. Jak was the one who touched, not the one who was touched.

  But Ra was having none of that, and Jak was wholeheartedly un-objecting. As Jak came up for air from the kiss, Ra shimmied downward and closed her damp mouth over the other nipple through the fabric of the shirt. Moaning, Jak straddled Ra’s broad hips, knees digging into the bed and hands braced against the mattress, delightfully helpless against Ra’s devouring mouth.

  Between Jak’s legs, Ra shifted one thigh strategically, the firm but sensual thrust of her hip creating just the right friction, until all the blood seemed to rush from the tingling extremities of fingers and toes to the core of Jak’s sex. Breath escaping in gasps tangled in moans, Jak surrendered to a thundering climax that rose and crashed like wild waves in a tempest, until Ra at last relented and Jak melted against her, and they collapsed into the soft down of the bed in a pile of sighs.

  Gradually, the sounds of the night around them seeped into Jak’s consciousness. The temple was so quiet that the croaking of toads carried clearly from the river below the hill. Jak looked at the open arch of the room with dawning dismay, cheeks flooding with prickling heat.

  Ra’s mouth curved against Jak’s quickening pulse. “Don’t worry, mené Jak. I deepened th
eir sleep. I’m not cruel.”

  Twenty-Three: Divination

  Ra let the sound of Jak’s deep breathing lull her, unaware she was sleeping until she began to dream. Her dreams had been strange before her memories returned, but now they were full of wild images from the Meeric flow. The unconscious mind was an excellent medium for the unformed matter from which the Meer created.

  She stood in a room of mirrors, like the hall in which MeerRa had once shattered them with a word, unable to shatter himself. But the mirrors were closing in, forming a tightening shape around her that made her heart race with claustrophobic dread. It reminded her of the grave.

  There was no light in this room, but images began to take shape in the darkened glass. Instead of her own reflection in the glass, a boy crouched on the floor where her reflection ought to be, drawing on the tile. He had no ink or paint, and no implement to draw with. He was drawing pictures in blood, and the blood came from his eyes.

  He studied her as if she were the subject of his art, pale blue irises intent and wide, but his face passive. An untidy braid of platinum hair fell down his back to his heels, dull, as if it were not often washed. He had a lovely face, streaked as it was with Meeric tears.

  As he sketched the curves and lines of his drawing in the blood, he began to realize his subject was watching him back, and he slowly came to a halt. He looked up at her and reached out a hand to touch his side of the glass, leaving a bloody smear.

  “Ra,” he said, in the breathiest, smallest voice she’d ever heard.

  She crouched down in front of him, and he looked as if he might jump away. “Who are you?” This did make him jump, but he stayed where he was.

  He hesitated. “Pearl.” She might not have heard the whisper if she hadn’t seen his lips move.

  Ra smiled. He looked like a pearl. She touched the glass where his hand still rested, and he grabbed for her as if he could reach her, striking his wrist and making a wordless gasp of pain. The dark tears began to flow anew.

  “It’s all right, Pearl,” she said, though of course it wasn’t. This wasn’t a dream. It was a vision they shared. He was trapped in this place, and it was real.

  At the sound of his name, he slipped forward onto his knees, his face alight with wonder and fear, as if he’d never heard it before from anyone else. He pressed his cheek against the glass, stroking the smooth surface with both hands.

  “Pearl,” he whispered again. “Pearl!”

  A perfect pearl took shape in Ra’s hand. She closed her palm around it. “Where are you, Pearl? Where is this place?”

  Pearl sat back, looking thoughtful. He closed his eyes and immediately sank into a trance state. She’d never seen any Meer do it so seamlessly or completely—though, of course, she hadn’t known many Meer. After a moment, he emerged from it just as smoothly. He dipped his finger in the blood and began to paint upon the glass, and a temple of domes and spires took shape beneath his finger in such fantastic, fine detail there was no mistaking it. It was Ludtaht Alya, temple of the former Meer of Soth In’La.

  Ra’s lips parted to name it, but a door in the mirrored glass opened on Pearl’s side, and Pearl scrambled into the far corner in fear. Ra was puzzled. Whom could he fear so? Why did he not speak to protect himself? A golden-robed prelate—like Vithius, well fed—stepped in and closed the door, and smiled at Ra as if he too could see her. This was a strange vision.

  “Here you are at last,” he said. “Allow me to introduce myself. I am Prelate Nesre of In’La.” He gave her a slight bow of his head, hand on his chest, as if he were acknowledging some obeisance to himself. “You may not know my name now, but it will soon be famous throughout the Delta as the man who wrote the final chapter of the Expurgation when he captured the fugitive MeerRa.”

  She raised an eyebrow as she stood to meet him eye to eye. “I believe you are overconfident, Prelate Nesre. You have not captured me. I am not in Soth In’La.”

  “I know very well where you are. My men are waiting on the riverbank outside the Court of Rhyman to bring you to me.”

  Ra laughed, but her laughter was cut short when Nesre grabbed Pearl by the base of his braid and yanked him forward on his knees, holding a knife beneath his chin.

  “And you will come,” said Nesre. “Without protest. Without harming my men. Without speaking a Meeric word. Or I will cut the child’s throat.”

  Ra’s blood was swelling with an urge to be released through her tongue, a word of power spoken, to burst this oily toad’s head like a melon, but the blade was sharp enough that he might take the boy with him, and she wasn’t sure her word would carry through a vision.

  “Who is he?” she asked instead. “How do you come to have him in your power?”

  “It’s not a ‘he’, it’s an it,” he said contemptuously. He pulled the dirty shift up to expose the boy, revealing he had no genitalia, only a thin scar as evidence that he once had.

  The blood was pounding in Ra’s chest.

  “It belongs to me,” said Nesre. “I had it bred.”

  Ra slapped her hands against the glass in fury. “Why?”

  “For divination, of course. It found you, after all. I have known since the disappearance of your body from Rhyman that the world was not rid of you. I’ve kept an eye out for you. My little Meeric pearl saw you and brought you to me as a projection of its vision—with a little help from the Meeric relics I retain of its predecessor.” The latter declaration made Ra’s stomach churn, and she didn’t bother to ask for elaboration. Nesre dropped Pearl’s shift back down to cover him, wrapping his fingers once more in the braid. “It has been a most effective tool.”

  “And what do you want of me?”

  The prelate laughed, loosening his hold on the boy’s hair, though the knife stayed firmly against his skin. “What does anyone want of a Meer? Vetmaaimeerra. Beyond that, I want you eradicated.” He stroked Pearl’s head absently, like a pet. Or livestock. “And I know what you’re thinking, of course; one doesn’t need to be a Meer to divine it. You think you’ll come here pretending to acquiesce to my demands until you’re within range of a word.” He smiled. “Don’t imagine I’m a fool. I will ask one vetma of you now, and in giving it, you will be powerless. And you’ll give it, because you’re a softhearted woman who doesn’t wish to watch the blood pour out of a child’s throat as it dies on her behalf.”

  Ra tried to still the rapid breathing of her anger. “What vetma?”

  “Give your word that you will speak no harm to me or to any of my men, nor raise a hand against us—or send anyone to do it for you or even breathe a word of our arrangement—and I will spare the child.”

  Ra had to acknowledge that he was indeed no fool. A vile worm, perhaps, but not a fool. If she spoke, her word couldn’t be taken back, and it would carry the absolute power of her Meeric will. What he didn’t know, however, was that dying was of no consequence to her. He was really asking little. To save Pearl from such a man, from such a life, was well worth the sacrifice. Prelate Nesre was right. She couldn’t refuse. But she was no fool either.

  “I will give you my word,” she said. “With one condition.” A frown of mistrust creased the prelate’s forehead. “I will deliver myself to you, and I will speak no harm nor raise a hand to you or your men, but you will give the boy his freedom and send no one after him to harm him or take him back. You will let him live in peace.” She had spoken, and there was no way Nesre could change the terms of her surrender. He either accepted them, or the agreement dissolved.

  She saw him consider it, working other means of reaching his desired end in his head. At last, he nodded, a practical man. “Done. The child is an imbecile and can only speak one word. The word that brought you here, in fact—your name. It is inconsequential.”

  Ra looked at Pearl’s eyes watching her, like pieces of pale blue topaz set in his alabaster face. He was not inconsequential. He was somet
hing precious to be cherished. Meer or not, he was an expression of the divine.

  The vision dissolved, and Ra found herself standing at her window, staring at the dark Anamnesis. She turned to look at Jak, supine and satisfied. Her cheeks warmed pleasantly as she thought of what had given Jak such satisfaction. It was a pity there wouldn’t be time for more.

  The corner of Ra’s mouth turned up as she realized she’d left Jak bare above the covers, the shirt still drawn up to expose the delicate teacup breasts. She sighed and covered them, placing a kiss on the sleep-warm forehead. The rest of the temple still slept its deepened sleep, and she lowered Jak into it also.

  But there was one person she must wake.

  “Ahr.”

  A voice disturbed his sleep, and he breathed in deeply and stretched as he opened his eyes, thinking for a moment he was still a girl in the teahouse. And then he saw her. Ahr sat up with a frown. He hadn’t had any intention of saying good-bye to her. If she was waking him to see her off—

  “I need you to do something for me.”

  Ahr pulled his knees up under the covers, hooking his arms around them. “What now?”

  “There’s something I must do. I have to leave. I wasn’t expecting to.”

  “What do you mean? You’re leaving with Jak.”

  Ra shook her head. “I have to go alone.”

  “Oh, for pity’s sake, Ra! Stop toying with Jak.”

  “I told you, I wasn’t expecting to. I’m very sorry to go, but this is important. More important than Jak’s feelings. And Jak’s feelings are very important to me, make no mistake.”

  Ahr swung his legs over the bed on the opposite side from her, pacing away. “You’re not making any sense.”

  “I’m going to kill the Prelate of In’La.” She said it as if she were merely speaking of taking a walk in the moonlight. “And I’m afraid it means going down with him.”