Ever

by Gail Carson Levine

  Kezi’s aunt Fedo stops by often to lean on her cane and gossip while her sister and niece work. Even Senat joins them now and then. I want to be in the room too. I long to be in Kezi’s presence when she dances across the courtyard and when she fingers her goat’s-wool thread, choosing a color.

  I even wish I could join the family’s morning and evening prayers. The mood is serene in the reception room when Senat recites from the holy text of Admat, the god of Hyte. Senat looks to the side of the altar flame, never directly at it. Merem holds her daughter’s hand. Kezi sways as if she is longing to dance the prayer. A few servants fidget. The servant Nia, most devout of all, prostrates herself.

  Curious, I read the holy text, which astounds me. Admat is believed to be everywhere at once and to be invisible to the living, visible only in Wadir, the land of the dead.

  No Akkan god is invisible, and none of us can be in more than one spot at the same time. I wonder how Admat can be everywhere. Is he in my sandal? Or is he my sandal itself? Why would a god bother to be a sandal? Does he wear shoes or sandals himself, invisible ones?

  Admat is supposed to know everything, and yet, according to the sacred text, mortals keep surprising him by disobeying his commands. He’s forever getting angry at them or forgiving them.

  I consider a trip to Akka to ask Ursag, the god of wisdom, about Admat. I want to know if Ursag has ever met Admat or heard reports of him from anyone who has. Chiefly I want to know if there is an Admat at all.

  But I don’t leave. My god’s vision isn’t farsighted enough to see Hyte from Akka, and I don’t want to miss even a day of watching.

  Nonetheless, when something happens, I’m asleep under a tamarind tree. When I awaken, Merem is ill. I jump up, my body straining southward. If I could cure her, I would fly to her bedside on my fast wind, but I have no power over disease.

  4

  KEZI

  MY BONES HUM WITH FEAR. Mati didn’t rise from her bed this morning. Pado and I are with her. She’s shivering with fever and sweating at the same time. She presses one hand into her belly.

  Pado paces, which frightens me almost as much as Mati’s fever. He’s always the calm one. An hour ago he sent for an asupu—a physician. Asupus are called when there isn’t much hope.

  Admat, the one, the all, pity my pado and me. Let Mati stay with us a little longer. As you wish, so it will be.

  There is no sign from Admat. The altar flame is steady. My prayer pulses through my mind, under my other thoughts.

  Mati licks her chapped lips. A pitcher of water and a cup rest on a low bronze table next to the bed. The pitcher isn’t heavy, but my arm trembles as I pour. I kneel and hold the cup to Mati’s lips.

  She is trembling more than I am. Although she puts her hand on mine to guide the cup, water sloshes on the floor. She takes a sip or two, then waves me away.

  “I don’t want to die, Senat. No, I do. I wish I could die. Even the pain hurts, pain on top of pain.” She’s shaking so hard, her voice rumbles like a cart on broken bricks.

  “Hush, Merem,” Pado says. “You make it worse.”

  Beads of sweat stand out on her forehead.

  “If only it weren’t so hot in here,” I say.

  Instantly I feel a whisper of a breeze. Startled, I look at the altar flame, which flutters. Does this mean Admat will help us?

  Pado sits on the bed and dries Mati’s face with his own sweat cloth.

  “When I die . . .” She stops to catch her breath. “. . . take a new wife. You need a woman. You need—”

  “Hush!” Pado’s voice is both pained and amused.

  No one but my mati would be bawdy now. Who has such a mati? Let her live!

  Pado stands, paces, sits. “I want no one but you.”

  “I wish Fedo were here. She’d save me”—Mati laughs jerkily—“or she’d give me something to die quickly.”

  I too wish Aunt Fedo were here. Except for an asupu, only Aunt Fedo would brave a sick house. She knows remedies for a hundred ailments, and she never treats illness with a knife.

  But Aunt Fedo is inspecting her dead husband’s land. We don’t expect her back for weeks.

  Nia appears in the doorway and announces that the asupu has come.

  “Bring him in,” Pado says.

  Nia nods and backs out of the room, her eyes on the altar flame.

  “The asupu will make you well,” I say with a certainty I don’t feel. “Admat, the one, the all, will make you well.”

  But I’m not sure of this either. Admat himself decreed that everyone dies. I hope he isn’t angry with us—or with me. I sin often, although I usually don’t mean to.

  The holy text says:

  Admat’s anger, easy to arouse,

  Hard to placate.

  Beware the wrath of Admat.

  Nia returns with an elderly man whose head curls are clearly a wig. He carries a rolled-up mat and a leather sack. Nia kneels at the altar and waits.

  The asupu stands on the threshold. “Who is ill?”

  No one but Mati is in bed, feverish and shaking. This asupu is too much of a fool to cure anyone.

  She laughs. The bed rattles with the force of her laughter.

  “Merem . . .” Pado says warningly. He tells the asupu, “The patient is my wife. The illness began suddenly last night and has grown steadily worse.”

  “Bring candles,” he tells Pado. “Fetch a lamb for Admat and bring it here.”

  Pado nods to Nia, who hurries out. I watch the asupu put his sack on the rug next to the bed and unroll his straw mat. On the mat he arranges the sack’s contents: a blue mask, a branch with leaves still clinging, a square of stained wool, the skeleton of a mouse.

  I don’t mean to, but I picture a tiny asupu, a year from now, carrying his sack into the hole of a sick mouse. From the sack he produces Mati’s skeleton, which he will use to cure the mouse.

  I squeeze my eyes shut until the frightful vision changes into velvet colors behind my eyelids. When I open my eyes, the asupu is placing a knife next to the mouse’s bones. There is a nick in the blade. A nick! A nick will cause a jagged wound. I want to snatch the knife and run out of the house with it.

  Pado says, “Merem is an obedient wife. She has the constitution of an ox. She—”

  “—a dying ox,” Merem breaks in, her voice hoarse.

  The asupu frowns. I would smile if I could. Obedient wives don’t interrupt their husbands.

  Nia comes back with Pazur, another servant. Nia has the lamb, which bucks in her arms. The lamb’s legs are tied together, front and back. Pazur has the candles. He puts them down by the asupu’s mat and leaves. Nia lays the lamb across Admat’s altar. Admat’s flame is steady again, although I still feel the faint breeze.

  The asupu waves two fingers back and forth in front of the lamb’s blinking eyes.

  Poor creature! I think, although I shouldn’t. Sacrifices are treasured by Admat.

  The lamb’s eyes close. The asupu guts it, and it makes not a sound.

  So that was the purpose of the knife! I am relieved down to my toes.

  The asupu reaches into the sacrifice and lifts out the quivering liver. He frowns over it, poking it here and there with his finger.

  Meanwhile, Nia lights the candles and arranges them on the floor around the bed. I hear her whispered prayer, repeated again and again. “As you wish, so it will be.”

  The asupu finishes with the liver. He sets it on the altar and goes to Mati. With his square of wool he wipes the blood from the knife and from his hands. A bead of blood drips onto the mat. The blood is almost black.

  Mati has stopped shaking and is lying as still as the sacrificial lamb was. The asupu rubs a strand of her wet hair between his fingers. When he tells her to, she opens her mouth. He peers inside, holding a candle so close, I’m certain he will burn her lips or his wig will catch fire. He touches Mati’s abdomen, and she cries out in pain.

  I chew on the inside of my cheek until I’m in pain too. I look away, at
our mural of the cockroach and the scorpion, which are painted the same size. They are climbing next to each other as if they were friends—to bring good luck. Between the mural and the altar, Nia continues to pray. Her eyes are fixed on Mati and the asupu. I wonder if Nia cares whether or not Mati gets well. Nia exists to watch Admat work his will. But she must care. She was Mati’s servant before Mati and Pado married.

  I turn back to see the asupu straighten. I hold my breath, waiting for his pronouncement.

  But no pronouncement comes. He picks up the mouse skeleton and the branch and ties them together with string. Then he hangs the two in the doorway.

  He returns to his mat for the knife, which he holds flat against Mati’s jaw, just below her ear.

  “This is where I must cut,” he says.

  I squeak in fright.

  “Senat!” Mati cries. “Don’t let him—”

  Pado is at the asupu’s side, his arm around the man’s shoulders. “No knife, asupu.”

  I breathe again.

  “You requested my services.” The asupu lowers the knife and packs up his sack.

  “Isn’t there something else?” Pado says.

  Mati moans.

  “Nothing else.” He takes down the mouse skeleton.

  I gather my courage. “Can’t . . .” My voice is too soft. The asupu is leaving. I speak louder. “Can’t it stay?” I want to keep something that may help Mati.

  “Did the girl address me?” The asupu sounds astonished.

  “Leave the skeleton,” Pado says. “Kezi, pay him double. Four barleys.”

  The asupu rehangs the skeleton and follows me to the dried-foods storage room. I pull aside the curtain. We both have to duck to enter. In the small room I smell him. His scent is gamey, because of his animal sacrifices or because of the human blood he spills.

  I give him four pound-weights of barley, each tied in coarse cloth. He accepts them and leaves.

  In the bedroom, Nia is still praying. Pado sits on the bed. Mati’s face is less flushed than before, but I don’t know if this is good or bad. I go to the window. A wisp of cool air whisks across my cheek.

  “Now who will cure me? I’ll die, Senat.”

  Pado lowers his head onto her chest. She lifts a hand, perhaps to smooth his hair, but her hand vibrates in the air instead. He reaches up and brings her hand down to the nape of his neck.

  Mati smiles at me, a stiff smile. “Kezi, set an example when you’re dying. Better than I can.”

  “I will, Mati. Don’t die.”

  Pado goes to the altar and stops a foot from the cedar platform. He gazes to the side of Admat’s flame, as he must.

  Nia goes on praying, her words a singsong mumble.

  Pado’s voice is broken and pitched higher than I’ve ever heard it. “Admat, the one, the all, god of the children of Hyte, god of everywhere, god of everything, heal my wife. Bless me with your mercy.”

  Pado, pray longer, I think. Beg Admat. Implore him. Praise him.

  Mati cries, “Admat, kill me now.”

  Nia gasps. I do too. I half expect Admat’s flame to set the house afire.

  “Admat, kill me now.”

  I’m surprised at the power in Mati’s voice. Some health must remain in her. Admat, forgive her words!

  Pado sinks to his knees. “Admat, the one, the all, this worm follows your ways. Pity this worm and heal my wife. As you wish, so it will be.”

  Mati and Nia and I echo, “As you wish, so it will be.”

  Pado rises. He turns to the bed, then back to the altar. “Admat,” he intones, “god of oaths, hear my vow.” His voice grows deep and resonant, his ordinary voice. “Save my wife, and I will sacrifice to you whoever first congratulates me on her recovery.”

  The room brightens. The walls glow red.

  Nia’s prayer rises, “As you wish, so it will be.”

  I feel the room spin and don’t know whether Admat is spinning it or my own worn nerves. I grip the windowsill to keep from falling. How could Pado have sworn such a terrible oath?

  His voice sounds glad. “Thank you, Admat, merciful one.” He strides to Mati and smiles down at her.

  Mati raises her head. “You may leave, Nia.”

  Nia glides from the room.

  “It’s a dangerous bargain, Senat,” Mati says.

  “For three days,” he answers. “I’ll take care. You’ll live, and no one else will die.”

  The oath laws! Pado is using Admat’s oath laws. An oath to him is void after three days. If Mati lives and Pado receives no congratulations for three days, no one need be sacrificed.

  The holy text says:

  Swear on Admat and be blessed.

  Admat, protector of oaths.

  I’m reassured, until I remember another line of text:

  Make not an instrument of Admat.

  Use him at your peril.

  5

  OLUS

  I SINK ONTO THE DRY GRASS. I didn’t know they practice human sacrifice here. In Akka it is not tolerated. Hannu sent earthquakes until people stopped.

  Apparently Admat doesn’t object or hasn’t objected in a way his followers understand. Or there is no Admat.

  When Senat swore his awful oath, I didn’t make the altar flame flare, but I don’t control my winds all the time. When they’re not needed, I let them go where they will. The flare might have been the result of wind or Admat or an impurity in the lamp oil.

  I am overcome by a craving for Enshi Rock, where my fellow gods may be thoughtless but never malevolent. My collecting wind gathers the goats. I untie my donkey from its tether behind the hut and mount it.

  “You haven’t tasted the grass on Enshi Rock,” I tell the goats as they rise, bleating pitifully, on my north wind. The donkey hee-haws and bucks in fright, and I have trouble keeping my seat. “You’ll be glad I took you,” I tell the animals. My strong wind blows a cloud our way. We are enveloped in fog, which calms them as they grow accustomed to flight. The goats cease their bleating. The donkey stops braying.

  When we are too high to be seen by mortal eyes, I dismiss the cloud and arrange the goats in single file behind me. My tunic billows in the wind. I am the kite and the goats are my tail.

  Ha! Admat probably doesn’t travel trailed by goats.

  I sweep over Enshi Rock. After six months’ absence I see it with fresh eyes. The white temple is stark against the cloudless sky. On the roof my canopy ceiling remains in place.

  The temple is ringed by terraced gardens, farms, a lake, and workshops for the gods’ purposes. A peninsula of land, like an open palm, supports the amphitheater.

  What strikes me most, after my time in Hyte, is the absence of mud bricks. Here in Akka, where we have mountains and forests, we build with stone and wood.

  I bring the goats and my donkey down in an empty paddock near the stables. Then I muster my courage and start for Puru’s hut, which lies between the temple and the workshop of the goddess of love and beauty. I want to see my parents, but first I have questions for the god of destiny.

  I’ve never visited him before. The hut, a single room lit by an oil lamp, is small and windowless. My heart hammers. I must leave!

  “Welcome . . . Olus. . . . Sit . . . and stay with me awhile.” A chuckle emanates from his orange wrappings. He is seated on a painted chest, holding a tumbler of therka.

  With my fresh wind whirling I feel less shut in. I lower myself onto a stool.

  Puru lifts a flap of linen to drink, exposing a fringe of mustache. I imagined him clean shaven, as Arduk and I are.

  “Greetings, Puru. I’ve come from the city of Hyte with questions.” I tell him about Senat and his family. “Will my landlord’s wife recover? Will anyone be sacrificed?”

  He’s silent.

  “Please tell me.”

  He shakes his head and his linens rustle. “I . . . will . . . not . . . reveal your fate or the fates of these foreign mortals.”

  “I didn’t ask about my fate.” I wait.

&nbs
p; He adds nothing.

  I’d like to shake him. His hut has made my head ache, but I try one more question. “Where does the god Admat live?”

  “I . . . have . . . not . . . heard of such a god.”

  Outside Puru’s hut I breathe deeply and wonder how Merem is faring.

  Hannu and Arduk are in Hannu’s workshop. When I come in, they embrace me. Hannu’s hug is so fierce, I feel trapped. Finally she lets me go and returns to her pottery wheel.

  Arduk sits by the long window. He picks up his knife and the block of cedar he was whittling. The shape of a pear is emerging from the wood. “Are you home to stay, Turnip?”

  I shake my head, embarrassed.

  “He is still the pretend mortal,” Hannu says.

  “Have you ever met a god named Admat?”

  “You’re the traveler, Turnip.”

  As far as I know, no other Akkan god has sojourned in a foreign land or lived among mortals.

  I tell them about Admat.

  “There are terrible, vengeful gods in the world,” Arduk says. “We’re not like them.”

  I explain Senat’s oath. “Can we prevent a sacrifice?”

  “Of a foreign mortal?” Hannu says.

  I’m too angry to mince words. “You don’t care what happens to mortals, not even our own. Arduk doesn’t either.”

  “Turnip”—he puts aside his whittling—“we attend their festivals for us. We—”

  “Once a year we let them see us and we answer a few prayers.”

  “I give them pottery designs.” Hannu holds up a double-lipped ewer. “Look at this one.”

  “But you don’t make any new animals for them, and you’re not interested in them.”