CHAPTER 22

RAKEL

Until I lost the perfume trials, I never thought I’d enter a temple complex. Until I healed Nisai – when he was laid out on it in the Ekasyan temple like it was his deathbed and he was about to be sent to the sky – I never thought I’d live to see a great altar. All I knew about these places was that they were where the firebirds lit up your hard-earned prayer incense. You’d stand here, watching your money burn, hoping the scented smoke grabbed the attention of whichever magical sky friend you wanted a favour from.

It’s also where naming ceremonies are conducted. At least that’s what everyone told me. I never had one. Growing up, it was just Father and me, so I wasn’t about to see any other big family events. And just like most others in my village, I wasn’t able to afford to go as a guest: you attend the ceremony, you pay for a prayer offering. No exceptions.

Still, I know there’s one thing Ash and I will be doing very differently from a naming ceremony. Tonight we’ll be closing the top level of the temple off from the sky. Part of me is always going to find it hard to take the idea of gods in the sky at face value, but the last thing I want is for Doskai to catch a whiff of what we’re going to be trying to do to one of his so-called “children”.

No short cuts. It finally sinks in how true the talk of this place was. How ancient and grand the space is, with its five-sided walls rising thirty feet or more, the parts of the ceiling not open to the sky held up by strangely carved stone columns, like bunches of river reeds tied together. I’ve never seen anything like them before in Aphorai. It’s almost as if the inside of the building doesn’t match the outside. No matter. From what was recorded in Sephine’s notes, there’s no better place to generate enough smoke in an enclosed area.

Standing in the centre of the chamber, below the sky, thinking of all the things that have been prayed for from this space, all the people who believed their nearest and dearest were being sent to some kind of beautiful next life, all the babies that were loved and fortunate enough to have their lives blessed, I feel small.

Ash beckons me closer. “Look,” he says, pointing to the square of night above us. “It’s Esmolkrai.”

“What?”

He draws me in, my back to his chest, and points over my shoulder so I can follow the line of sight. “The serpent, remember. The bright star – there – his eye, blessed by Kaismap. Perhaps it’ll afford us better luck this time. It’s travelled a long way since we last saw it.”

“So have we,” I whisper.

Ash doesn’t reply, only tightens his arms for a moment. Then he drops them and steps to the side, regarding me with a smile that’s at least part forced.

“Are we ready for this?” I ask, trying to return it.

“I’m not sure I’ll ever be truly ready.”

“Guess we should make a start then.”

“Indeed.”

I light the first of the five main braziers that stand at each corner of the room. It catches easily, already pre-laden with kindling and charcoal for the firebirds to greet the dawn in a couple of hours. I wonder if my mother was the one to do it.

Ash crosses to the next huge copper dish and does the same. We work our way around until they’re all burning, lighting up the chamber.

Already feeling the heat emanating, I roll the sleeves of my robe to the shoulder. “We have to close the roof. I’ll get this side, you take the other.”

He nods agreement and we set ourselves to the long metal handles on opposite sides of the room, cranking them round. It seems little effort to Ash, but I have to throw my weight behind each turn, stretching up on tiptoes at the highest part and almost hanging my entire body from the handle to bring it back down. Guess this is how the firebirds keep in shape.

We keep turning. And turning.

Nothing happens.

Sweat begins to bead on my forehead with the mix of heat and strain.

Still, nothing.

I push worry away. I’ve heard stories about how this works. That deep beneath the baked clay bricks of the stepped pyramid there’s a mechanical skeleton, rigged so that the roof can be opened and closed, so that the huge vents along the side of the chamber can be sealed or aired.

A deep grating sound begins, setting my teeth on edge. The next breath, the huge roof begins to close in from each side, inch by inch, until the last stars of the night are blocked from view by twin stone slabs that meet each other with a dull thud. I hope it wasn’t loud enough for the acolytes sleeping two tiers down to hear, and that the higher ranked priestesses are still fast asleep.

I drop my hands from the lever, panting. Red patches of skin have appeared where my fingers meet my palms, one of them raised into a blister. The firebirds who normally do this must have hands of leather. Or maybe the lever is just that stiff because it’s rarely used. Maybe it hasn’t been closed since Sephine went to the sky.

I turn to Ash, ready to empty the first of the five packets of powder I put together in Sephine’s lab on to the brazier coals.

He doesn’t say anything, just gives me a grim nod.

I dump the powder into each of the braziers, careful not to extinguish the flames just starting to take hold as embers. Then I mix the precise amount of Scent Keeper elixir with water, diluting it to the measurements in Sephine’s notes. The dark liquid hisses and spits, bubbling with the sickly yellow powder until the embers are coated with the stuff.

The stench is overpowering.

Some kind of sickly sweet overripeness, like every plant that ever bloomed or fruited was mixed in a vat and left to rot in the sun.

That would have been bearable, but there’s more, too. The sulphur-like powder Ash carried in a sack from the old Scent Keeper’s quarters and up the hundreds of steps to the top of the temple is rotten eggs and rust, sewers and verdigris, damp caves and rain falling on hot rocks.

I swallow down the urge to gag.

Well, Asmudtag, I say inwardly in that way I’ve come to think of as my own version of praying. You are all, as they say. So if you’re around, I could really use some help with this next bit. Even just a whiff?