Empire of Grass

by Tad Williams

  The prince-templar pursed his lips and considered, but Kikiti was again struggling against open, unhidden rage. “It matters little to me that you are the high magister of your order, Lord Viyeki—this is war, and those slaves belong to the Sacrifices! They are ours to do with as the queen bids us, and no one else. You cannot tell me what to do with them.”

  “I only state what is necessary to achieve the queen’s desires, General. For every Builder who is scraping through stone, I need two more folk to carry away the rubble.” He turned back to Pratiki. “But I think our esteemed general is wrong, Serenity, at least in part. I suspect that the queen would not have sent one of her own family unless it was with a mandate to make sure things went smoothly and swiftly here before she came. Am I right?”

  Sogeyu suddenly bowed. “This conversation does not concern me or my Singers. We are even less fit for heavy labor than Kikiti’s Sacrifices. If you will excuse me, Your Serene Highness, I will return to my order now.”

  Pratiki nodded. Sogeyu turned and headed back to the ring of her kneeling, dark-robed underlings, but not before giving Kikiti a swift look that Viyeki could not entirely read, though he thought he saw a shadow of annoyance on her face.

  Whatever Pratiki decides, Viyeki thought, if I have created a little disagreement between my enemies then I have accomplished at least one useful thing today.

  “Ride with me a little way while I think,” the prince-templar told Viyeki. “General, the queen and the Hamakha are pleased with you. Your Sacrifices have made the Mother of All proud.”

  “Thank you, Your Highness,” said Kikiti.

  Pratiki guided his horse toward the far wall and reined up a few dozen paces away from the vast carcass of the borer. It did not smell like any ordinary dead thing but had a tang all its own, a stiflingly acrid, almost metallic scent.

  The prince-templar stared at the great, mud-colored monstrosity. “There is nothing so big that something else cannot kill it,” he said.

  Viyeki sensed that no reply was necessary. He waited through the long silence that followed as the prince-templar considered the dead creature.

  “Do not create discord between the orders, High Magister,” Pratiki said at last. “That will not please me, and it will certainly not please the queen.”

  “I apologize if I seemed to be doing so, Highness. It was not my intention.”

  “Of that I am not so sure. And in other circumstances I would not entirely blame you—the Sacrifices and the Singers have long held themselves superior to other orders, and that is sometimes hard to live with. But although I do not agree with your methods, I agree with your conclusion—there is nothing to be gained by killing the rest of the slaves when we need workers. I will tell Kikiti to round up those who live. But I put the responsibility on you, High Magister. You want them, you must feed them and keep them alive and docile. Do you understand?”

  “Of course, Highness.” But he also understood that he had crossed a line, not just with Pratiki and Kikiti, but in his own heart as well. It would be a long time until he would be able to see all that would come from today’s actions. “I hear the queen in your voice.”

  “Soon enough you will hear the queen’s own voice, from the Mother of All herself.” Pratiki’s face had again become as unrevealing as any of the masks worn by the Eldest.

  Viyeki felt a sudden fear at the gamble he was undertaking, bringing mortal prisoners to a task that had not just the queen’s eye but the queen’s full attention—prisoners who might try to thwart her will even at the expense of their own lives. And he had placed himself in this danger simply because he had felt a moment of pity for the wretched, suffering creatures. For mortal men, the animals who wanted to destroy his people.

  “Your mind and attention seem to be wandering, Viyeki Seyt-Enduya,” the prince-templar said sternly. “But I urge you to hear me now. If Utuk’ku is not pleased with what you do here, then may the Garden protect you—because nothing else will.”

  * * *

  “Why must I come?” Jarnulf did not feel comfortable refusing, but the last thing he wanted was to be marched across the Hikeda’ya campsite by Saomeji.

  “Because all during our trip into the eastern mountains you wondered why such honors had been given to me,” said the Singer, his unusual golden eyes alight with what looked like fierce joy. “Why one as young as I had been chosen to do the queen’s great work. Now you will see and understand.”

  “You mistake my thoughts,” was all he said, but he might as well have been talking to the wind that whistled along the ridgetop.

  Saomeji went on as though Jarnulf had not spoken. “Yes, now you will see, mortal. I brought Makho back with us in the hope that my master could do something great with his ruined body. And now you will see it!”

  More than ever, Jarnulf wished he could be rid of the Norns and their strange ambitions and treacherous infighting once and for all. But I have been given a holy task by the Lord my God, he reminded himself. Not only will I likely not live past its completion, but it will almost certainly be these Hikeda’ya who take my life when I succeed. He had done his best to resign himself to that, to put everything in God’s hands.

  “And soon the queen will be here,” said Saomeji. “Utuk’ku herself, praise her name, will see what I have done. She will see what I have helped make for her!”

  It was the middle of the night and the camp was largely quiet. The Hikeda’ya seldom slept, but when there was nothing to do—and the Hikeda’ya here had no other task, as far as Jarnulf knew, but to wait for their monarch—they fell into silence and stillness. Only a few sentries watched, expressionless as birds, as Saomeji led him toward the edge of camp.

  Akhenabi, the Lord of Song, stood by as three of his hooded underlings excavated the pit where they had buried Makho. Jarnulf had stayed away from the spot during the three days since they had consigned the chieftain’s shrouded body to the ground, and had thought about it as little as possible, but it appeared he would be able to avoid their ghastly handiwork no longer.

  “Do not stand any closer,” Saomeji whispered, though the warning was hardly necessary; as the Singers dug down into the soil, a stench arose that made Jarnulf want to turn and retch. The distinct smell of putrefaction was combined with other, less expected scents—the harsh, salty odor of natron as well as rose petals, beeswax, and the bitter stink of urine.

  After a short while they uncovered the shrouded body, now stained with dirt and mold, and heaved it up onto the edge of the pit. Akhenabi, who had watched without speaking, gestured. One of his Singers unwrapped Makho’s head.

  Jarnulf’s first thought when he saw the chieftain’s face was that something had gone terribly wrong. Instead of being mended, or at least gifted with some magical improvement of health, the Hikeda’ya chieftain now looked thoroughly dead. His mouth was still sewed shut, and his skin had turned a horrible, hard, wrinkled gray, like the hide of a hairless boar or even a southern cockindrill.

  Then Makho’s lone eye suddenly opened. It was no longer Hikeda’ya-dark, but bright amber, like a bird’s eye. Jarnulf gasped in surprise and took a step backward.

  “Did I not tell you?” Even whispering, Saomeji sounded as pleased as a child on St. Tunath’s Day.

  “Stand him on his feet,” Akhenabi ordered. “Cut the threads that seal his mouth.”

  Makho was dragged upright; he swayed in place like a tree in a gale, held up by two of the Singers. The other Singer reached forward with a knife and grabbed Makho’s leathery gray cheek to hold his head steady, then split the threads so that the chieftain’s mouth sagged open and crushed herbs dribbled out onto his chin. His orange eye ranged wildly from side to side, as though newly-awakened Makho was eager to find out where he was and who surrounded him, but it never fixed on anything for more than a heartbeat.

  “He will not be able to speak for some time,” said Akhenabi. “But he can alre
ady understand my words, and soon all his strength will return, and more—a might greater than he ever had before. He will bring horror and destruction to our queen’s enemies.”

  “My master is truly great!” cried Saomeji, clapping his hands in pleasure.

  Jarnulf turned and stumbled away, unable to bear the sight of Makho’s gleaming, deranged stare a moment longer.

  Help me to destroy these abominations, my blessed Lord, he prayed, over and over, fighting against the need to be sick. Let me be your strong right arm. Let me be your cleansing fire.

  * * *

  When she was taken back to the dark cell, Tzoja sat on the floor and did her best not to weep, but she could not stop herself trembling. Her hands were shaking so badly she had to intertwine her fingers and hold them on her lap. She knew she should pray, knew she should thank all the gods for sparing her eyes, the Aedon and the Grass Thunderer and all of them, but all she wanted to do was stop shaking.

  It had been such a near thing. After all the years of living in half-light, of being buried beneath stone like a dead person and only seeing the sun a few times a year, the idea of losing her sight had been too terrible to contemplate. When she heard the dreadful words her bowels had turned to water inside her, and it had been all she could do not to fall down onto the floor before the High Anchoress and weep for mercy. But in the twenty years that she had been a prisoner in Nakkiga she had learned many things, and one of them was that tears meant less than nothing to the Hikeda’ya. They thought of them as a mortal oddity, like the noises that animals make. Even Viyeki, the kindest of his race she had ever met, had never been moved by weeping, although he had at least tried not to be angry with her when she succumbed. Tzoja had known even as fear gripped her and shook her that the High Anchoress would feel no pity for a distraught slave. So she had used her wits instead.

  “But please, High Anchoress,” she had said, doing her best to keep her voice steady and respectful, though it felt mad to do so. “Without sight, I will be useless to the Mother of All.”

  The gray-masked figure stared at her. “Why do you say that, mortal?”

  “Because the arts I was taught require gathering herbs and other plants. They must be found before they are prepared. If I am blind I cannot do that.”

  “There will be Sacrifices and servants who could do it for you.”

  She tried to make her voice strong, certain, though she felt as if she could not get enough breath into her chest to keep her heart beating. “I cannot teach someone in the time of a turning moon to recognize things it took me years to learn myself. Would you truly risk the queen’s health on how well a soldier had learned to recognize the difference between agrimony and meadowsweet? When they are not flowering, they look much alike.” Her mind was full of distracting thoughts that flapped and shrieked like birds trying to escape a burning grove, but she did her best to hold down the terror and remember what Valada Roskva had taught her. “Wood agrimony is good for heaviness of the chest and breath. Meadowsweet is not—it can even make breathing more difficult.” She struggled with her words, which kept threatening to escape her control, to turn desperate. “Please, High Anchoress, let me keep my eyes so that I can serve the queen to the best of my training.”

  The stony mask had surveyed her for a moment longer, then the eyes of the Anchoress closed. At first Tzoja thought that perhaps the queen’s priestess was merely summoning the energy to have her dragged away by the guards still waiting just inside the door. At last, Tzoja had realized that the Anchoress must be in silent conversation with the queen herself.

  The dark eyes had opened again, though the rest of the Anchoress remained as motionless as a statue. “It will be allowed,” she pronounced. “But you will be blindfolded and hooded whenever you attend the queen. If you flout this rule you will receive harsh punishment. And if the Mother of the People is displeased in any way by your ministrations, you will be sent to the Cold Slow Halls. By Her hand and Her words this decision is made, and as High Anchoress I witness it.”

  * * *

  • • •

  Tzoja had finally managed to quiet her nerves in the lightless cell. She smoothed herself a place to lie down on what felt like a thin mattress stuffed with straw, damp but not disgusting.

  “It’s very frightening at first,” said a small voice.

  Tzoja had thought herself alone, and her heart leapt in fear so suddenly that she thought she could feel it bang against her breastbone.

  “Don’t be afraid.” The voice was female, and though it spoke the Hikeda’ya tongue perfectly, there was something unusual about it. “I am like you—mortal. That is why they put you in my chamber.”

  “Your chamber?” Tzoja could still feel her pulse beating like a drum. “I did not know. I did not mean to intrude . . .”

  “Do not apologize. It is good to have company. May I come nearer? I mean you no harm.”

  Tzoja heard movement, the sound of soft footfalls, then a moment later someone sat down on the mattress beside her. “My name is Vordis. Who are you?”

  “Tzoja.”

  “That is a Hikeda’ya name, but you are not of their kind.”

  “My . . . my master gave me that name. Are you truly another mortal? Like me?”

  Vordis laughed. She sounded young. Tzoja had not expected to hear the sound of merriment ever again and it cheered her. The stranger took Tzoja’s hand in her cool fingers and squeezed it gently before letting go. “May I touch your face?” she asked.

  It surprised Tzoja a little, but she could smell the other woman now, ordinary scents of skin and clean hair, a sour tang of clothing that needed to be washed. “If you wish.”

  “I want to see you.” Tzoja felt small hands touch her cheeks. The fingers spread gently across her cheekbones, light as a breeze, and then traced her brows, the arch of her forehead, her nose, her mouth.

  “You are pretty,” the one called Vordis said, then took Tzoja’s hand again. “You may use your hands to see me, too.”

  Tzoja did, but could make out little more from her exploration than that Vordis was not an old woman—her skin was firm, her jaw taut. She might have been Tzoja’s age but she was certainly no older. Tzoja could even feel the other woman’s eyes beneath the silky thinness of her eyelids, but no scars, no sign of injury. Why had she not been blinded by the Anchoresses? “How did you come here?”

  Vordis laughed again. “I scarcely remember, it seems so long ago. My mother served in the house of the Yansu Clan. When I was very small, one of the female Hikeda’ya picked me up and carried me back to my mother, angry that I had been wandering. While she carried me, I suddenly knew—I could feel it, with my hands—that she had something growing inside her, something ugly and hurtful. I told my mother, who told her mistress. I was right, though nothing could be done, and the one with the bad thing inside her died a few months later. The Hikeda’ya soon discovered that I could feel such things in a way others could not.”

  “You are a healer.”

  “No, I cannot heal anything,” said Vordis sadly. “I can feel when something is wrong, and often where and how badly. While I was still a child I was brought here to the palace and became one of the queen’s Anchoresses. You are only the second mortal that has come to these halls. I am glad. It is . . . sometimes it is lonely.”

  “But your eyes . . . you still have your eyes.” The thought of being blinded, so recently and narrowly avoided, still terrified her.

  This time the woman’s laugh was quieter. “Yes. That is because my eyes were never of any use. I was born unable to see. Perhaps that is why I can feel things others cannot.”

  “And do you really wait on the queen herself?”

  “Of course. There is no more important task in all of Nakkiga. You should feel honored.” But something in her voice, some tiny, discordant note, made Tzoja wonder.

  “And what do you do? What will I do h
ere? Is the queen in good health?”

  “Oh, yes,” said Vordis. “The queen is strong. The queen is very well.” But even as she said it, the woman squeezed Tzoja’s hand—squeezed it hard. The message was unmistakable: What I said is not true.

  “That is good,” Tzoja said, trying to hide her surprise. “I am pleased to hear that. We owe our lives to her, and it will make my work easier.” For a long moment she sat thinking. “And is this place, this cell—are we alone here?”

  “The other Anchoresses have their own chambers, their own places. But we are mortals—it is strange to say ‘we’!” For a moment the other woman seemed genuinely caught up in the novelty of it. “We are kept to ourselves.”

  “Does anyone listen to what we say? Can we speak freely here?”

  “Oh, of course,” said Vordis lightly, but again her hand gripped Tzoja’s and squeezed it tight. “Why would anyone bother to listen to two mortal women?”

  * * *

  • • •

  It was nearly impossible to determine the passage of time in the lightless place where they were kept, but the guards had come in four times to bring them meals and a clean chamber pot, and she and Vordis had slept twice, so Tzoja guessed that two days had passed since she had first been brought to the cell. During that time she and Vordis continued to talk quietly to each other, taking care not to say anything that might alarm anyone listening. Vordis was full of wistful questions about life in Nakkiga, and Tzoja realized that what had been an endless, dull confinement to her must seem like a dream of freedom and excitement to the blind woman. Tzoja was selective with the history she shared, going no further back than her time in Rimmersgard with the Astalines, since it was clear that the Hikeda’ya must already know about that, but she left out any mention of her childhood in Kwanitupul with her father and mother and brother, or the terrible years in her grandfather’s camp in the High Thrithings.