IT WAS EARLY SPRING in northern Oshaar. Snow still covered the little town in great heaps, as though the sky had decided a mercy killing was the only thing for it, and was trying to smother the place with a pillow.
“What is this place?” said Shuthmili, pulling down the hood of her coat.
“This is my hometown.” The streets were glossy with ice, and a sharp wind was blowing down from the mountain. It was three o’clock in the afternoon and already starting to get dark. The two moons of Oshaar loomed toward each other across the sky. “You ever heard of the Followers of the Unspoken One?” she said.
“The Unspoken is a god of prophecy, I think,” said Shuthmili. “It’s one of the major cults of northern Oshaar. The Church classifies it as a low-priority threat. We don’t approve of their sacrificial practices but they’re relatively stable and content to stay in their own little— Csorwe, do you mean they’re here? And you grew up here?”
“Yes.”
“So you were—you subscribed to the heresy?” Shuthmili’s hands were buried in her coat, but Csorwe suspected she was twisting them together anxiously.
“Wouldn’t say I actually sent off for anything,” said Csorwe. “I was a child. Don’t worry. It was a long time ago. I don’t worship anything these days.”
“I’m in no position to judge anyone,” said Shuthmili. “I’m just trying to work out whether—whether Dr. Lagri and the Warden would be more upset to learn I’d run away with a heretic or an atheist. It’s sort of funny. Poor Aritsa. Poor Malkhaya.”
“They would have got on just fine in the cult of the Unspoken,” said Csorwe. “We had a lot of sticklers.”
“Oh no,” said Shuthmili. She could have been laughing or crying or just breathless in the cold. “Oh, no, those poor men. Both of them. They didn’t deserve it.”
They trudged on up the glassy streets and out onto the high road. Csorwe told Shuthmili about the House of Silence and the rites of the Unspoken, leaving out anything that pertained to Csorwe’s own actual history. She liked Shuthmili. She hoped Shuthmili might like her, as long as she believed Csorwe was competent and successful. All that old stuff, everything about being the Bride of the Unspoken, it was both too private and—because Sethennai and Talasseres both knew—too public. It was nice to talk to someone who didn’t automatically know about Csorwe’s first and worst betrayal.
From the House of Silence, they came on to the subject of Oranna. “I think she must have broken with the Followers of the Unspoken Name,” said Csorwe. “The ritual of oblation—everything we saw in the Hollow Monument—it’s too extreme. They would never have given her authorisation to leave Oshaar and chase the Reliquary.”
“But you think she might come back here now that she has it?” said Shuthmili.
Csorwe had done her best not to think too hard about it, but it was only fair for Shuthmili to know what she was getting into. Reluctantly, she explained what Sethennai had told them about Oranna’s aspirations to union with the Unspoken.
“That’s deeply blasphemous,” said Shuthmili, sounding almost impressed. “Qarsazhi mages have spent hundreds of years learning to limit the connection between practitioner and divinity—to make it safer—the idea of opening up like that . . .” She shivered, no longer sounding impressed at all. “But I don’t think it can be done. It would take too much power. It would shred you from the inside out. But if she thinks there’s some secret technique in the Reliquary . . .”
“Yeah. I just hope she hasn’t managed to open it,” said Csorwe. “If she was really asking Tal, she must be desperate.”
Csorwe looked up ahead, above the trees. It was too dark to see the sacred mountain, but by day the steps to the Shrine would be dimly visible from here.
“This is where her power is. She may have come back here. And if not . . . there is another way to find her.” Csorwe disliked the idea so much that she’d delayed explaining it to Shuthmili, but it was time. “If we have to, we can claim the pilgrim’s boon of prophecy. We can ask the Chosen Bride.”
The great doors of the House of Silence were always shut, and these words were inscribed above the lintel:
Hail the Commander of Legions! Hail the Knight of Abyss! Hail the Overseer of the Eaten Worlds! Hail the Unspoken Name!
The breaking of all worlds is foretold, and the ending of time. May we bear witness, for desolation is its watchword.
A young lay-sister was waiting at the side gate with a lantern. She was surprised to see Csorwe and Shuthmili, and then delighted when she learned that they were pilgrims. “The Lady Prioress will want to meet with you,” she said, ushering them inside.
The House of Silence was just as it had always been. This shouldn’t have been a surprise. It had been exactly the same for a thousand years or more. Incense and ashes of lotus, beeswax and woodsmoke. A bone-deep chill, rising up from the crypt. Soft footsteps on the stairs, and at every corner of every hallway, the flutter of yellow hems disappearing.
Csorwe’s throat tightened as they waited to be shown into the Prioress’ study. She had hoped it would feel smaller and easier to understand. Your childhood fears were supposed to shrink away and become laughable. The House of Silence was still as dark, still as grand, still a spreading, intricate void of mystery and doubt.
She steeled herself. She had nothing to fear from the Unspoken anymore. Her gold tusk, her scarred face, and all the training and tempering of the past eight years had marked her beyond recognition, and in any case none would remember the child she had been. The Prioress’ study was an enormous vaulted room that the small fire could never warm. It seemed to take an eternity to cross the expanse of cold flagstones to the desk. When they reached it, Csorwe didn’t recognise the Prioress, and it took her a second to realise that this wasn’t just the effect of time. She was looking at a completely different woman.
The new Prioress raised an eyebrow, marking Csorwe’s surprise.
“I—ah—I hadn’t heard that Prioress Sangrai had retired,” said Csorwe, trying to cover it.
“Prioress Sangrai lies among the eminent dead,” she said. “I am Prioress Cweren.”
Now Csorwe remembered her. Cweren had been the choir-mistress in Csorwe’s day—a small, plump, pale woman, now a touch greyer and a touch thinner. It was the way of the House of Silence that things became greyer and thinner over time.
“I was hoping to meet with Oranna,” said Csorwe, feeling out what Cweren might or might not know about what Oranna was up to. “She was the librarian in Prioress Sangrai’s time, or—or so I’ve heard.”
“I know who she is,” said Cweren, after a moment. “Oranna left us. I am sorry to disappoint, but she is not here.”
Csorwe probably ought to have been disappointed, and did her best to look like it, but she could only feel relieved. At least when she did have to face Oranna, it wouldn’t be here, in the heart of her power.
“When Sangrai announced her retirement, there were those who felt Oranna should succeed,” said Cweren. “Sangrai announced her selection—that is to say, me—and Oranna was terribly angry, I think. She had never expressed overt interest, but she had amassed a little following of acolytes, some of the younger priestesses, who made her case for her . . . for a time I thought she might challenge me.”
“To a duel?” said Csorwe.
“It would have been an honourable death for me, but a certain one. Oranna is an outstanding practitioner. On a good day, I can convince a handful of knucklebones to dance. She would have cut me down on the mountainside and made a martial sacrifice of me.” Cweren reached carefully for her cup of wine and took a long sip. “I could have enforced her loyalty. I could have demanded that she pledge oaths in blood. I did not. I let her go. Alas, she did not go empty-handed. She took several lay-brothers and -sisters. Most of the promising acolytes. All the best young priestesses. Every important book from the library, and an entire case of silver candlesticks. We have not seen her since.”
“I see,” said Csorwe.
It was just as she’d expected, then. Oranna had gone, and convinced her favourites to go with her, and—
The realisation hit Csorwe like a handful of ice down the back of her neck. By now, most of those who had gone with her were dead.
They had died in the Hollow Monument, bleeding into the sacrificial pool on Oranna’s orders. If Csorwe had looked at their faces, she would have recognised some of them, could have put names and histories to those anonymous bodies.
There was a knock at the door, and Cweren got up to answer it, conducting an inaudible conversation with whoever had arrived.
Csorwe stood there, numb, staring out of the window. It was utterly dark outside. Beneath the windows of the House were lakes of illumination, in which you could see the snow falling again, the flakes scattering with frantic urgency.
Shuthmili nudged Csorwe’s elbow and whispered. “They don’t know where Oranna went?”
“Don’t seem to,” said Csorwe.
“Are they lying?”
Did Cweren know what had become of her promising acolytes? Better for her to imagine that they were off rampaging with Oranna, not mangled corpses under the ruins of the Monument.
“No,” said Csorwe. She ran a hand back through her hair, trying to clear her thoughts as they spiralled. This whole place is withering on the vine, she thought. They’re halfway slid into the grave already. “No, I—”
We ought to go, she wanted to say. I’ve seen enough, I want to leave. In that moment it seemed that nothing could be worth staying in the House of Silence a second longer.
Before she could say anything, Cweren returned, accompanied by a round-faced child in a novice’s habit.
Cweren took her seat again behind her desk, and the child stood behind her, shifting her weight restlessly from one foot to the other and clearly waiting for some kind of cue. The girl was young enough to stare openly at Csorwe’s scars, but too old to say anything about it. Csorwe wondered whether this could be Cweren’s own child; it would be unusual but not impossible.
“So,” said Cweren. “If we are finished with the preamble, I take it you are here to ask the boon of prophecy.”
Cweren said it so plainly that Csorwe was blindsided. She swallowed, then nodded. “I’d hoped Oranna might be able to help us. But since she’s not here, then, yes, I suppose so.”
“Very well,” said Cweren. “I see no reason to delay. Evening prayers take place in one hour. Will it suit you to pose your questions to the Unspoken then?”
Csorwe nodded again. They couldn’t avoid it, so it did seem best to get it over with.
“Good. Tsurai, dear, have you had your dinner?”
“Yes, miss,” said the girl. Csorwe noticed she had a gap in her front teeth.
Cweren smiled. “Tsurai is our Chosen Bride. She’s been prophesying for two years now. We all value her guidance.”
Csorwe felt colder still. Of course. Just as there was another Prioress, here was another Chosen Bride, hunting alone round the House of Silence, just as Csorwe had done. She’d known it, on some level. It had been at the edge of her mind as soon as she’d contemplated asking the boon of prophecy. But she hadn’t thought far enough to remember that the Chosen Bride these days would be a child.
“How old are you, Tsurai?” she said.
“I’m eight, miss,” said Tsurai.
Eight years since Csorwe had left. Of course. The wheel turned slower and slower but it still drove them down into the Shrine.
Csorwe took a deep breath, conscious of all the eyes on her—not least Shuthmili’s—and forced herself to be calm. She was still going to ask for the prophecy, even though it meant demanding that this child channel the Unspoken for her benefit. Csorwe had prophesied so many times—she could almost believe it was not so bad. It was survivable, at least. She herself was the proof of that.
Either way, it was no good having scruples now. They could find Oranna, and recover the Reliquary before she could work out how to open it, and win back Sethennai’s trust—or they could give up, and let her inflict the will of the Unspoken on a world that had not yet learned to fear it.
“We’ll be glad of your help,” she said to Tsurai. “Thank you.”
Tsurai just stared at her, and Csorwe remembered with a bitter pang how she had felt when Sethennai had thanked her for the prophecy, all those years ago.
“Excellent,” said Cweren. “We will convene in the great hall in an hour, then. Is there anything else you wished to ask, before we go to ready ourselves for the prophecy?”
She had been all too ready to leave, but there was one last thing she owed to the past. “My, er, cousin is a lay-sister here. I’d like to speak to her if I can. Angwennad.”
“Oh, dear,” said Cweren. “Yes, I knew Angwennad. I’m afraid to say that she died last year. She is interred in the crypt if you wish to pay your respects.”
Long ago, Csorwe had entertained a dark fantasy that if she ever saw Angwennad again, Angwennad would know her, and forgive her. She had never seriously believed in the daydream, never actually fed it and given it room to sleep, but it was nice to imagine that Angwennad had hoped in secret for Csorwe’s survival, even knowing that if Angwennad had actually recognised her, she would have been horrified and then outraged. Anyway, now she would never know, and Csorwe would never know, and that was that.
Candlelight banked and subsided in the great hall of the House of Silence, like a gleaming at the crest of a wave. The smell of lotus was thick in the air, dizzying, choking. Even once Csorwe steadied herself she could feel it softening up her senses. She had been gone so long now, it was hitting her twice as hard as she remembered.
“Chosen Bride, I most humbly ask a boon of the Unspoken One,” said Csorwe. Even half drunk on the fumes of black lotus, there were some formulae you never forgot.
The Chosen Bride sat on her throne in the robes of yellow brocade that had once belonged to Csorwe, and looked out at the assembly through the swirling clouds.
“What is it that you desire?” she said. It was the voice of an eight-year-old in pitch and timbre, but cold as the grave and about as welcoming.
The Unspoken One had not changed. It was not in its nature to do so.
“Knowledge,” said Csorwe.
“Knowledge of that which has passed away, or that which is to come?” said the Unspoken One.
The moment stretched itself out dizzily as Csorwe tried to convince herself this was going to work.
“Knowledge of that which lives in the present moment,” said Csorwe.
There was a sharp intake of breath from the crowd. Every eye in the room was fixed upon her. It had been eight years since Sethennai’s visit to the House of Silence. She had hoped they might have forgotten him.
“Speak, then,” said the Unspoken One.
“Unspoken and Unspeakable One, where is Oranna, once your priestess?”
She had talked this through with Shuthmili. The Unspoken Name was usually prepared to answer two questions, possibly three.
Tsurai fidgeted, just as if she were a real child trying to think of the answer, and not the vessel of a god.
At last: “She seeks the key to the Reliquary of Pentravesse.”
“And what is that key?” said Csorwe.
“The key is not an object but a place,” said Tsurai. Csorwe ought to have seen that coming. The Unspoken did not lie, but gods had a strange way of thinking about things. Tsurai was watching Csorwe through the smoke with hard, attentive eyes. Even when she tilted her head, those eyes did not seem to move. She seemed to be trying to place Csorwe, to work out how she recognised her.
Still, this gave them almost nothing to go on. She had to dare another question.
“Where is that place, Unspeakable One?”
“In the domain of the Lignite Spire. Before the earthly throne and mansion of the Lady of the Thousand Eyes.”
“And where—” said Csorwe, but Tsurai cut her off.
“The one called Oranna is my priestess yet. She is loyal. She serves in devotion. But you—” Tsurai rose up from the throne. Her whole body was shaking, but her eyes stayed on Csorwe. “You I know, faithless child. Why have you returned to me now?”
Prioress Cweren swooped up onto the dais. Whether she was trying to calm Tsurai down or planning to order her acolytes to set upon the traitor, Csorwe did not wait to find out. The wrath of the Unspoken began to sound in the hollows under the mountain; soon it would overflow into the hall. The last thing she saw was Tsurai, crumpling to the floor like a paper doll. Csorwe took Shuthmili’s arm and, once again, they ran.
They grabbed their bags from the outbuilding where they’d stashed them, and they fled down the road to the town below. The stolen barge was waiting where they had hidden it. The forest sank away beneath them and they rose into the starless sky of Oshaar.
“Your god is more powerful than I expected,” said Shuthmili, settling into her seat and rubbing her hands together to warm them.
“Yeah,” said Csorwe. “The Unspoken is as old as hell and everything here has been the same for six millennia or however long. It’s a dumb piece of shit and it just wants to sleep in the mountain and eat a child every fourteen years. And that’s all I’ve got to say about it.”
“I see,” said Shuthmili. “But of course, it can’t hear anything you say up here.”
“Mm,” said Csorwe. “You’re right.” She slowed the barge and leant over the edge. A thousand feet below, the pine forest was as black as the sky. “You can’t hear me, can you, you old bastard?” She laughed, bitterly, the cold air catching in her throat like a mouthful of ice water. “We got away again. How does that feel, friend? You’re ten million years old and see and hear everything but I guess you’re slipping in your old age because you didn’t fucking watch me close enough.”
She fell back in the bottom of the boat and laughed with sheer, idiot relief, until she thought she might be going mad. In the cold air her laughter came out of her in great wheezes, like a leaky bellows.
Eventually she could open her eyes again, and saw Shuthmili leaning over her, holding the lantern. She blinked away tears of laughter, expecting Shuthmili to look either arch or disapproving. Actually, she was smiling, the same unhappy, unconvincing smile Csorwe had seen before.
Csorwe realised, now—and in fact she must have been pretty dense not to see it before—that Shuthmili was unspeakably beautiful. That everything about her was perfect and that it would be worth doing almost anything to coax a genuine smile out of her. Csorwe lay still where she had fallen, lightly stunned.
“Is something wrong?” said Shuthmili. She brushed her hair back out of her eyes in a way that made Csorwe want to take her face in both hands and kiss her.
“No,” said Csorwe, pleased with herself for how impressively normal her voice still sounded. “I was just thinking.”
“Oh, do tell me how that goes,” said Shuthmili. “I’ve heard it’s not as good as people make it out to be.”
“I don’t recommend it,” said Csorwe. She swallowed, sat up, took her place, and started the engine again. Her cheeks were hot despite the cold wind. She had never been so grateful that it was dark.
Shuthmili peered over the side, looking down at the shadow-woods below. “I’m sorry that we didn’t get much we could use.”
“What d’you mean?” said Csorwe.
“The Unspoken One was just laughing at us, don’t you think?” said Shuthmili. “The Domain of the Lignite Spire.”
“Before the earthly throne and mansion of the Lady of Fuck Knows, yep,” said Csorwe, though her skin prickled as she remembered the statues of Iriskavaal that she had seen in Echentyr.
“It’s a myth, isn’t it?” said Shuthmili. “Iriskavaal is gone. Her throne was shattered three thousand years ago, and her earthly mansion was in Ormary, and that’s been gone since Pentravesse’s time—it must be—or half swallowed by the Maze . . .”
“The Unspoken One doesn’t lie. If it says this place is the key to opening the Reliquary, then it exists.”
“I suppose it makes about as much sense as anything else I’ve seen this week,” said Shuthmili.
“You heard what the Unspoken said,” said Csorwe, raking the fingers of both hands back through her hair. “Oranna is still loyal. We have to assume she knows as much as we do, or more. I’ll bet she’s already on her way to the Lignite Spire.”
They might already be too late, Csorwe thought. She might already be there. How would it look, when Oranna became the incarnation of the Unspoken? What would it do? Living, walking, immortal, and unconquerable. Ready to devour new worlds. The possibilities whirled like falling snowflakes.
“In that case, I don’t believe the plan has fundamentally changed,” said Shuthmili, wonderfully matter-of-fact. Her voice called Csorwe back from the edge of another panic. “We will find her, and if we are very lucky she will destroy herself in an attempt to commit this appalling blasphemy, and if not, we will stop her ourselves. Someone told me you do this kind of thing all the time.”
“Someone may have been getting ahead of herself,” said Csorwe.
“In any case, it seems to me the real question now is how we’re going to find this imaginary place,” said Shuthmili, evidently in no mood for objections. She sounded almost enthusiastic. “I’ve never seen it marked on any map, and our education in geography at the School of Aptitude was just as rigorous as the rest.”
Csorwe was grateful, at last, to have a question she could really answer. “The refuelling station at the Peacock Gate. A friend of mine from back in the day runs a shop there, selling charts. If the Lignite Spire is a real place, she’ll have the map. It’s two Gates away, so you’ll probably want to get some sleep.”
The night was still. The barge’s engine hummed, a thin icy wind made Csorwe grateful for her winter coat and gloves, and Shuthmili breathed softly in her sleep. There was no other sound.
Once their course was set for the nearest Gate, she allowed herself to look back at Shuthmili, and let the terrible new realisation that she’d felt earlier settle over her like a thin snowfall.
The Gate was visible from miles off, casting its light across a network of frozen rivers. They passed into the Maze, where a golden false dawn bloomed, and Csorwe narrowed her eyes against the light.
Shuthmili was the most beautiful and interesting person she had ever met. That didn’t mean she needed to do anything with this information—not yet, or ever. It was just something nice to hide away and think about from time to time.
For now there wasn’t anything to do but keep moving. She didn’t have time to reckon with this along with the rest—Sethennai doubting his faith in her, the Unspoken One still clawing its way after her out of the past—and Shuthmili seemed to have plenty going on too. Gods knew they were both going to need their wits about them for this next part.
She hadn’t lied to Shuthmili about the Peacock Gate. There was a refuelling station. A woman who lived there really did sell rare charts of the Maze—charts with a reputation for accuracy, no less—and Csorwe really had known her, back in the day.
Calling Big Morga a friend was a bit of a stretch, though.
Last time Csorwe had seen Morga, she’d cut Csorwe’s face open and thrown her into the snake pit. Once Olthaaros was out of the way, Morga and Sethennai had struck a deal, in which he would give her a huge amount of money and she would go away forever, just in case anyone decided to start making trouble about the counter-usurpation.
Well, she’d decide how to handle that particular awkwardness when they got there.
The hours wore on. Shuthmili stayed fast asleep. At first Csorwe planned how she’d convince Morga to give them the map. Then she just daydreamed about the possibility of getting a hot meal at the station. She had a deep weakness for station food, even the seaweed candies they kept in suspicious vats.
They were already so far from the House of Silence, and its chill had faded. That place had nothing to do with who she was anymore. This was her real life: the boat, the wind, the lonely inner reaches of the Maze, and a certain quarry to chase.
Three white canopies moved under an arch of ancient stone, like seabirds returning. The shadow of the mazeship Ejarwa rippled across the blanket of fog below as she passed.
Ushmai was at the wheel. Oranna stood on the ship’s viewing deck. The air of this world was chilly and full of dust. It tasted like salt on the tongue.
She should really have been used to the cold by now, but she kept thinking about her library, back in the House of Silence. That had been the last time she had really been warm.
Mortification of the flesh is an offering to the divine, adding salt to the meat of sacrifice. It sharpens a practitioner’s ability. Oranna had no desire to sew up her lips or put out her eyes, but she was far from the Shrine of the Unspoken and she needed to squeeze out as much power as she could. Constant, low-grade cold and hunger seemed to be doing it so far.
It helped that they had run out of money a month earlier, shortly before they travelled to the Hollow Monument. Oranna tended naturally toward a pleasant roundness, but in recent weeks her cheeks had hollowed as their supplies had run low. The last of the House of Silence candlesticks had gone to fuel for Ejarwa, and that was almost all used up. The last of the lay-brothers was dead, sacrificed in the Maze to fuel Oranna’s navigation spell. She was burning through the dregs. Only Ushmai was left, and even she would find her ultimate use in time.
Everything was rushing toward its end. The only solid object was the Reliquary, safely tucked into an inner pocket of her robe. Its hard edge bumped against her thigh whenever she moved.
The rush of the end wasn’t as exhilarating as Oranna had hoped. She was exhausted in body and soul. There was no joy in her work anymore, and no spark of dark elation when the Unspoken answered her call. There was just more to do, and more danger to guard against.
It would be worth it, she told herself. She had spent such long years in the House of Silence, cold, bored, and deprived of any worthwhile company. She knew how to bear the hard slog. Belthandros’ visit had provided the spark that she needed—a taste of the bright world outside—and since then she had gone so far beyond what he’d been prepared to teach her.
The mage’s death lies always just ahead of her, as if she stands with the sun behind her and looks upon her shadow. Another principle she had learned in the House of Silence, where they were always so keen on your acquiescence to death, and so fearful of any challenge. When the Unspoken One accepted her as its incarnation, she would no longer know weariness or weakness or doubt. She would have its power and its knowledge, and she would have life. So many years of life. A whole future, to write and rewrite the world.
Early on, she had thought of taking back the House of Silence—making her library whole, teaching Cweren the consequences of usurpation, and turning the place she had hated for so long into her own fortress—but it was almost beneath her now. If she was going to build a citadel for the Unspoken, there were other places. She had heard, for instance, that Belthandros Sethennai had a city that was dear to him, and it might be amusing to make him give it up.
At last, they rounded a corner, and she saw the tower. It bit the fog like a single jagged tooth, cutting with its serrated edges into the sky itself. It was a broken bone, a shattered spur, a claw.
It was real. The earthly mansion of Iriskavaal had survived. It was within her grasp. Everything she had worked for, everything she had suffered and struggled and killed for. The Lignite Spire was still standing, and it held the key to the Reliquary.
Oranna clung to the rail and laughed. The wind carried the sound away.
“Ushmai,” she called. “Take her in. We’re here.”