THE CROWDS BACKED away to the edges of the throne room, pressing themselves against the walls of fossil-stone. The room rippled and flexed as Belthandros and the God-Empress faced one another, fighting for control of the space. The air itself iridesced, flickering bright-dark-bright like oil on water as one divine aura refracted through another.
Shuthmili crouched on the floor of the throne room, holding Keleiros together through determination alone as the world around her went all to chaos.
LEAVE HIM! Zinandour insisted. THIS EFFORT IS WORTHLESS. BELTHANDROS KNOWS YOUR PITIABLE SOFTHEARTEDNESS. YOU ARE TO BE DISTRACTED WHILE HE ACCOMPLISHES HIS ENDS.
The God-Empress will kill him, said Shuthmili. Give me a moment, my lady, please—
She kept her grip on Keleiros’ heart and did not relinquish it, though it was like clutching a living eel, feeling it thrashing in her grip, slippery and desperate to destroy itself. He had to live, or else she might as well have killed him, like all the rest.
IF THE EMPRESS DEFEATS BELTHANDROS, YOU CANNOT IMAGINE SHE WILL BE MERCIFUL IN VICTORY, said Zinandour. SHE WILL DISCOVER OUR PART IN THIS, AND SHE WILL DESTROY US. SHE WILL KILL YOU AND SEND ME BACK TO THE VOID, AND YOUR BELOVED WILL BE HERS FOREVER.
At last Keleiros sighed and stilled, his heart beating by itself. He was no longer twitching and staring, so perhaps she had managed to purge the worst of the poison.
AND IF BELTHANDROS WINS, said Zinandour, without mercy, DO YOU THINK HE WILL SPARE HER VESSEL?
Shuthmili’s breath caught. Of course he would not. Whatever the bargain they had made, if killing Csorwe was what it took to get what he wanted, he wouldn’t even hesitate.
She laid Keleiros to one side and looked about her.
Two throne rooms now overlaid each other, architecture ghosting in and out of existence. Neither Belthandros nor the God-Empress could force the other out. Walls flexed, columns bent, clouds seethed, and here and there fragments of the night sky shone through.
The floor of the throne room had become a labyrinth of pits and spikes, with the two combatants facing each other at its centre and the guests clustered in terrified rows around the far edges.
We can make it through, said Shuthmili. I can shield us.
YES. Zinandour sounded almost proud.
Shuthmili disintegrated her ball gown and grew herself an exoskeleton. It was a complicated magic but not really so much harder than growing out her hair or nails. Petals of hard keratin scaled themselves over her whole soft body, leaving only her face and her gauntlets exposed.
Zinandour admired the exoskeleton as Shuthmili flexed her fingers. The armour plates had the texture of tortoiseshell, hard and dark but somehow luminous, flecked and veined with brightness. Finally Shuthmili raised a shield, as bright and vicious as she could make it, imagining herself as a hot needle, and walked into the labyrinth.
“Tsereg!” called Tal, scanning the crowds of guests for any sign of them, without success. The bright colours of their party clothes were incongruous against the blackened and broken stone of the ruined throne room. Tal grabbed the nearest guest, an old Tlaanthothei man.
“Have you seen a kid? Oshaaru, pretty short—”
The old man ignored him, and Tal noticed that behind him a group of people was cradling someone in a blue suit stained with wine and blood.
“Oh, shit,” said Tal. “It’s Keleiros. What happened?”
Dazed and wounded, Keleiros looked very young, closer to Tsereg’s age than Tal’s, but at least he seemed to be alive.
“Where is Tsereg?” he said, elbowing past the old man, ignoring the objections of the rest of the crowd. “What did you do?”
“Who are you?” said Keleiros, in a whisper roughened by pain, so soft that Tal had to lean closer to hear him. His eyes had the dull blankness of someone who had been hit in the face too many times.
“What are you talking about, I’m Tal, we—”
“Talasseres?” said a voice above him.
It was his mother. Niranthe had cast off the outer layer of her gown—he saw now that Keleiros had been laid down upon it—and she looked almost how Tal remembered her, in the last years of Olthaaros’ reign: anxiety sharpened and tempered to a hard shell.
“Mother,” he said. “You recognised me,” he added, uselessly.
“I think Keleiros has a concussion,” said his mother. “You won’t get any sense out of him.”
The hard shell was opaque. If she was surprised or moved to see Tal, she didn’t show it. Tal couldn’t say what kind of reaction he would have looked for, anyway. How you’ve grown, are you hurt, where have you been would all have been frighteningly out of character.
“He doesn’t remember anything. For the best, I think, since he has been in the clutches of that awful creature for only the Exalted Sages know how long. You’re working with Chancellor Sethennai, I assume?”
“What?” said Tal. “No, I…”
He trailed off. He wanted to be flattered by the assumption. It was nice that anyone could imagine he’d been by Sethennai’s side all this time, that he knew what was going on or had done any of this on purpose.
“Keleiros was carrying a package for you,” said his mother, which seemed so incongruous it took Tal a moment to understand the sense of the words. She held it out to him, a slim paper packet, flat and squashy. Scrawled on the paper was Talasseres. Bring this with you. Keleiros. The handwriting was familiar but unplaceable, in a way that made Tal feel queasy.
Well, Keleiros was down, and the plan was well and truly fucked. Tal tore the package open. Inside was a folded length of slithery jade-green silk, patterned in gold thread, beaded with tiny fragments of ivory. Among the embroideries was a gold cup borne up by two fish-tailed horses. Tal recognised the crest of Tlaanthothe before he realised what it was he was holding, though he had seen it many, many times.
“That’s the Chancellor’s sash,” said his mother. “If you’re not here with Sethennai, why do you have that?”
He looked from his mother to the sash to Keleiros’ body, crumpled like a discarded wrapper, and he knew how he recognised that handwriting.
“No idea,” he lied. He knew it all, every miserable fact of it, the kind of hard, sharp knowledge that made you long for the soft fog of ignorance.
There had been no reason for Sethennai to trick him. If he’d asked, Tal would have helped him anyway, because he was one of the world’s biggest idiots.
He thought of the things he had said to Keleiros and wanted to die. Sethennai had enjoyed it, obviously. Having that kind of power over him. Giving Tal his cryptic instructions, holding back as much as he could, presumably just for the pleasure of knowing that Tal would do whatever he asked without question, because it was hardly as though Tal was an important part of the plan. He was unarmed, and even with his sword there was nothing he could do against a goddess, so Sethennai must have done this just for fun, unless—
He froze, crushing the sash in his hands, looking at nothing.
I know what I’m doing. Don’t trust Keleiros.
“Oh, fuck,” he said. “No, it was never about me.”
Tsereg was a mage. Knowing their parents, they were probably a disgustingly powerful mage. And Sethennai had always liked getting other people to fight his battles for him. Sethennai had recognised Tsereg—perhaps not as his child, but certainly as something he could use. And even if Tsereg had seen Keleiros for what he was, Tal knew from bitter experience that the knowledge was no defence. Tsereg would have followed him out there, into the labyrinth.
“Talasseres?” said his mother, but Tal shoved the sash into his pocket and was gone.
Zinandour’s power gave Shuthmili access to all kinds of hidden things. She knew in intimate detail the function of every speck of meat that made a living person; she could kill or mend with a thought, all language and mathematics opened to her, and so did every kind of lock and seal and cipher—but Iriskavaal swayed space and time. This was not a fight she could win. All the same, as Shuthmili approached the centre of the labyrinth, she reached for the glass sword, and felt it shimmer into reality at her side.
THAT WAS MINE. IT HAS BEEN SO LONG. WHERE DID YOU FIND IT? said Zinandour, with barely masked pleasure.
When I killed my aunt, said Shuthmili. She remembered it very clearly, half a lifetime ago. The weight of it, the wicked edge glittering, as though it had been waiting for her just out of sight. Clearly you and I were always written in the stars.
THE STARS ARE INSENSIBLE FIRES, said Zinandour. I CHOSE YOU.
“Shuthmili!” came a familiar voice, hoarse with pain, and Tal stumbled round a corner. “Tsereg’s out there—we have to get to them before he does—”
Tal’s eyes were milky, his eyelashes mostly gone, his lips cracked and bleeding, but Shuthmili couldn’t fail to recognise him now. He had made it this far into the labyrinth with what had to be the last of his strength. His face was streaked with mud and blood, his clothes were ragged, and given what the spatial distortion had done to his organs, he should not still be conscious.
Not for the first time, Shuthmili wondered who had made mortals so fragile and so persistent, and who had made Talasseres the flimsiest and most bloody-minded of them all.
THE MOTH THAT BEATS ENDLESSLY AGAINST THE LANTERN, said Zinandour.
Shuthmili ignored her. “Tal, why didn’t you run?”
“Ha ha,” said Tal, in barely more than a whisper. “Listen, we have to get Tsereg, Belthandros is planning something, I think he’s planning to drain them or something—”
They pressed themselves against the grey wall of the labyrinth, peering through the opening. The stone of the duelling ground was scarred and cracked all over, rippled with damage.
Belthandros and the God-Empress fought in a blooming cloud of dust. The cloud reformed itself and burst again as though tugged back and forth in time. The Empress’ long hair hung loose over her shoulders, her robes were shredded, the Mantle hung about her like a loose wing case, but she showed no sign of relenting.
Belthandros dodged to one side, making too ambitious a feint—his foot slipped, his ankle turned, and he went down. His head hit a chunk of loose rock, and he did not get up again. The God-Empress reared above him, a spark of rage in her yellow eyes.
Tal pushed forward, as though—even now, after all this—he couldn’t watch Belthandros die. The God-Empress bared her teeth, tusks curving up like scythes, meaning to tear out Sethennai’s throat. Csorwe’s face twisted with rage, and Shuthmili winced.
“Stop,” said a voice. Not very loud, but somehow still perfectly audible.
Beyond the combatants the dust cleared, revealing a small figure with one fist raised.
“Tsereg—” said Tal.
In one grubby hand Tsereg clasped a small, battered book. The other hand was wreathed in a distorting haze. Even at this distance Shuthmili recognised raw magic when she saw it.
The God-Empress hesitated.
Shuthmili resisted the urge to run to intervene, and she had to wrestle Tal back to stop him bursting on the scene himself. It was horribly easy. Tal could hardly hold himself upright, and every breath felt like a shudder of pain through his whole body.
“God-Empress,” said Tsereg. They folded their arms and stood their ground, looking like nothing so much as a small cairn of stones. “Inheritor of Iriskavaal.”
“What manner of thing art thou, little one?” said the God-Empress.
“I am the last Chosen Bride of the Unspoken,” said Tsereg, “and my name is forsaken.”
The God-Empress smiled. “Nameless slave of a nameless god. Is that all thou art? We would make thee great. Thy allies are all defeated. We are a kinder master than the Unspoken.”
“Ha ha! Fuck you!” they said. “No. I don’t think so. My name is Tsereg. You work for me now.”
The God-Empress only laughed at this coldly, with tolerance but no real amusement.
“This is some scheme of Belthandros’ invention,” she said.
“Nope. He doesn’t know about this. Listen to me,” said Tsereg. “You made a promise. I demand three days’ service.”
The God-Empress froze. Her eyes widened. To Shuthmili this was a shock as sharp as an unexpected fall.
“Three days’—ah!” She twitched, and clutched at her left hand as if it burnt her. “No!” The word was drawn out into a shriek of pain, and she clenched her bare hand to her chest.
It had been a long time since Shuthmili had remembered the scar on the back of Csorwe’s hand. It was still there, intricate as a nest of earthworms, except that now it was glowing with a flickering phosphorescence, beads of light moving over the whole sigil, pulsing and wriggling. The God-Empress screamed.
Shuthmili dropped Tal, abandoned any pretence at stealth, and ran toward her.
“How?” The Empress gasped for breath. “We have never made thee any promise.” She doubled up, falling forward on her knees in the black mud. She stared down at her hand, now glowing brighter than the dim light above, squirming and twitching.
“Your vessel owes a debt,” said Tsereg. “A pledge in blood is binding beyond life and death. You know what that means?”
The God-Empress pressed her forehead against the cold earth and groaned.
“What have you done?” said Shuthmili, trying to lift her.
The child ignored her, poking the Empress with one sandalled toe. “It means that my mother made a deal with your vessel. It means we both got what they left us. It means you owe me three days’ service.”
“No,” said the God-Empress, without conviction. Shuthmili had never heard her sound defeated before. It tore at her heart to hear Csorwe in pain, although—if Tsereg was right—if this could really work …
“Not that hard to understand,” said Tsereg. “I don’t even want the whole three days. There’s only one thing I want. Take off the Mantle.”
The God-Empress raised a hand and lowered it jerkily, with obvious effort, her fingers clenching and unclenching. “I—will—not,” she said, her voice ragged with pain. “I will kill you all first.”
“Take off the Mantle,” said Tsereg again. Their jaw was clenched. The scars and grazes on their face and arms glowed faintly, as though a light burnt within them.
Slowly, and then with convulsive speed, the God-Empress tore off the Mantle of Divinity.
Even on her knees and in pain, the God-Empress had been defiantly alive. Falling, she was a candle snuffed out, just a limp mortal body, lying on its side in the mud.
As she fell, her pale hand flew up, almost accidentally, and brushed against the child’s arm.
Tsereg gave a strange little yelp, a very mortal cry of shock and pain, and then their resistance failed, and they fell to the ground, utterly limp. Far away, Shuthmili heard Tal cry out.
The Mantle of Iriskavaal floated to earth and landed in a shallow puddle of water, a drift of translucent snakeskin. Shuthmili reached for it. Before she could touch it, another hand plucked it out of the water: an elegant, long-fingered hand, bearing a gold signet.
“Ah, Shuthmili,” said Belthandros. “I told you all would come right in the end.”
He smiled to himself, a private and triumphant smile, and lifted the Mantle to his mouth and ate it. The Mantle crumpled and shrank like rice paper in water, but it still took a horribly long time, chewing up mouthfuls of lacy snakeskin and swallowing them down.
When it was done, Belthandros looked just as he always had, but brighter, happier, no longer tired or ruffled in any way.
“It’s done,” he said. “You were right, you know. Between you and me, one of us is the greatest magician of the age.”
He smiled. It was clearly meant to be a smile of warmth, brilliance, welcoming magnificence. Shuthmili saw the teeth behind it. Belthandros had absorbed the Mantle. All the God-Empress’ presence was in him now. It made for a kind of luminous vitality, all that power charged in him like a taut bowstring.
The throne room was already contracting. The labyrinth was gone. They were in a wintry garden, surrounded by colonnades. The God-Empress’ body—Csorwe’s body—lay now in a kind of sunken bed. She looked like a carving on a tombstone: grey marble, swirled dull with black bloodstains.
“Will she wake?” said Shuthmili, not quite daring to voice it. She had been so deep in defeat. She couldn’t believe that it might have come good at last.
“Yes. As we arranged,” he said. “Just as she was, if you are very lucky.”
Shuthmili knelt beside the grave, brushing aside the wards. Csorwe looked as though she was sleeping. Just as she was. After so very long dealing with the God-Empress, Shuthmili couldn’t quite bring herself to touch her.
“You should come and work for me,” said Belthandros. “There is much to do.”
“Just as she was,” said Shuthmili, hardly hearing him. Cautiously she reached out, leafed back her exoskeleton, and brushed her fingertips against the back of Csorwe’s hand, feeling strangely furtive, and not only because Belthandros was watching.
“You understand how things are managed here,” he was saying. “I need a second-in-command. At least consider it.”
He didn’t know about her bargain with Zinandour. She wasn’t going to be the one to tell him. If he thought he’d get a helpful little sidekick out of this, let him think it.
She retrieved the gold tusk from beneath the armour plate that covered her collarbone. It was warm from resting next to her skin. She pressed it to her lips and held it up to show him.
“I want to put this back first,” she said.
“How gruesome,” he said. “Very well.”
He took the tusk from her. She resisted the irrational urge to snatch it back from him. It was worse when he pulled out the diamond tusk, with no more effort than it took to uncork a bottle. Pinched between two fingers and plucked neatly from her jaw, with a crack like an icicle snapping. Shuthmili had to drive her claws into her palms to keep from doing something she would regret.
She replaced the gold tusk herself, telling herself that this was a medical procedure, that there was nothing strange about touching Csorwe’s mouth for the first time in so many years, and nothing terrible about the fact that she was still lying there, near dead, and nothing awful about the fact that Belthandros would speak to Csorwe again, when Shuthmili never would. If she focused on sterilising the site, bonding the living root to the bone, she could almost believe it.
When it was done, Csorwe really did look just the way she had. Shuthmili lay down on the ground—let Belthandros stare, she hoped he would die from staring—and curled up against Csorwe’s body, on that cold bed of broken stone.
SO, WE COME TO AN END, said Zinandour. Softly, and oddly without triumph.
Funny, really, that after all Shuthmili’s striving, the endless days and years of frantic activity, she had accomplished almost nothing, and all her efforts had been outdone by a child.
Still, when Csorwe lived again, Zinandour would have her full incarnation, never mind the circumstances. That was the bargain they had made, and Shuthmili could not even claim it was a bad one.
She hadn’t been sure how it would feel, to surrender control altogether. She’d thought it might be like falling, tumbling away into darkness, as in a nightmare. In fact it was more like lying on the shore of a warm sea, as the waves crept up bit by bit, dissolving her away. It wasn’t so bad.
Will you remember me? I hope you might, if only as a speck of dust in your eye.
The goddess showed her a picture or a memory—bright sunshine through blossoms, pink and white, familiar-unfamiliar all over again. Petals falling in the courtyard of the Qanwa townhouse.
I CHOSE WELL. HAD YOU BEEN LESS THAN WHAT YOU ARE, I WOULD BE IMPRISONED STILL. I WILL NOT FORGET.
Will you do something for me, my lady? I’m out of leverage. I can only ask.
ASK.
Don’t let her get hurt.
With the last of her control, she propped herself up on one elbow, looking at Csorwe’s face, serenely still and perfect, and thought, Well, here we are, it’s been a long time, my love, I have missed waking next to you.
Csorwe opened her eyes.
As the waves of oblivion closed over Shuthmili’s head, she thought, No! Wait! Let me back! I made a mistake—and then no more.
TOO LATE, MY SPECK OF DUST. TOO LATE.