“I’ve had a letter from the Celestial One,” Barime said, pouring tea from the heavy pottery jug, “but he didn’t tell me about sending for you.”
“He hasn’t become less cagy in his dotage. He didn’t tell me why he sent for me, either,” Maskelle said. She felt a little lightheaded, as she always did the third sleepless night in a row, but they would be in the city by late this afternoon and she could sleep in the wagon on the way.
They were sitting under a vine arbor on a little terrace off the monastic quarters, on braided grass mats and soft faded cushions. The sun was just rising and the Ariaden were still asleep in their wagons, though the temple attendants had been awake for the past hour. It was cool and the air was fresh, birds and monkeys chattered in the greenery just past the low wall, and the day promised more sun than rain.
Barime had made them as free of the temple’s quarters as if Maskelle had still had the governance of this and all the other temples of the Adversary and had a real right to be here. This had included the use of the bathing room, and even though the water was pumped cold from the canal and there was no hypocaust, it had been quite civilized compared to the arrangements possible on the road. Rian had already managed to shed the dressing she had put on the bori club–cut on his arm, and she had replaced it with materials supplied by the temple’s infirmarian.
“I can see why he didn’t want to spread the word of your return, but I would have thought he could have trusted you with the reason for it,” Barime agreed. Besides the tea, one of the young monks had brought fruit, warm flatbread baked in the temple’s ovens, and spiced fish paste. It was a welcome change from taro and dried pork.
Rian was trying not to eat like a starving man, but Barime was hardly fooled and kept passing the bowls to him. He was sitting behind Maskelle and to the side, where he could watch the gates and much of the compound, and the door into the quarters. He had hardly gotten within three feet of Maskelle since Barime had come out, but she didn’t think Barime was fooled by that, either. It did give her an idea of the circumspection required by a Sitanese Lord’s personal guard, though.
“Maybe ‘trusted’ is the wrong word,” Maskelle pointed out.
“It must be the Hundred Year Rite,” Barime said, ignoring that serenely. “He wants your help with it.”
“There are so many others he can go to—the provincial Voices, the seventh-level priests. And he sent for me over five months ago, before the rite started.” She shook her head, watching the leaves settle to the bottom of her cup. The Celestial One had been her friend when she had left Duvalpore seven years ago, the only friend remaining to her in the city. But she wasn’t sure if that was still the case. So much had happened since then and the Koshan temples had suffered from the lack of the Adversary’s council. And everyone knows whose fault that is.
“Perhaps he simply wants to see you.” Barime watched her thoughtfully.
Maskelle looked away. It was a possibility, she supposed. She smiled a little wryly. You were hoping for something more interesting, weren’t you? She knew Rian was watching her, too. “How have things been at Court? Is Chancellor Mirak still our best enemy?”
Barime made a gesture of annoyance. “He is as always, if not worse. I’ve never met the man, but I feel as though I know him from the descriptions I receive in my letters, and it isn’t pleasant knowledge. Kiasha wrote me of a new presence at Court, some foreign emissary, who seems to have an undue amount of influence.” She regarded Maskelle seriously. “You know Mirak won’t welcome your return.”
“I would be disappointed if he did welcome it. Much of the attraction of it comes from the trouble it will cause Mirak. And the others.” Maskelle glanced at Rian in time to see him look away, his jaw muscles tightening to suppress a smile.
Barime didn’t bother to conceal her expression of amusement. “You haven’t changed.”
Maskelle made a warding gesture, only half in jest. “Don’t say that.”
“You know what I mean.”
Some hours later, Maskelle climbed out of the dim interior of the wagon and into the brilliant sunlight. She stood on the seat next to Old Mali and surveyed the road. Rain had come and gone throughout the morning, but the heat had set in with afternoon. The road had grown more crowded as the day had advanced and she had not been able to sleep much. She was covered with sweat and after being jolted in the wagon her head felt as if it was stuffed with straw. It hadn’t helped that Rian evidently slept in increments, waking up when no more than half an hour could have passed and getting out of the wagon, then coming back in not much later. He was a few wagons down the line now, walking beside Rastim at the side of the road. She couldn’t fault him for wanting to stay alert, or for the driving need to do so, but she knew they were already well within the active influence of the temples in Kushor-At and there was no chance of attack. Or at least, she amended, no chance of attack from restless water spirits. Even strangely powerful ones.
She let out her breath and sat down on the wagon bench, resigned to being awake. Old Mali grunted at her and she grunted back. The road rolled on, hot and bright under the sun, the mud hardening in spots and wet and stinking still in others. There were more and more travelers, and they even had to stop several times and wait for the road to clear. They passed merchants, farm wagons, an Imperial courier, and a party of Imperial guardsmen escorting an embassy from Kutura-clane.
“I thought we were close,” Rastim said, for perhaps the third time. He had jumped down off his wagon and run up to hang off the running board of Maskelle’s.
“We are,” Maskelle said, not patiently. They were skirting the edge of Duvalpore now and had been for some time. To the west, past the rice fields and hidden by the band of trees, was a scattering of temples, canals, and a residential and merchants’ quarter bordering the giant western baray. They could have gotten into the city proper faster by taking any one of the several turn-offs they had passed, but Maskelle wanted to go directly to the Temple City.
Perversely, she said nothing when the road dipped down through stands of palms and fruit trees and they passed over the second dike. Past it the trees fell away to a stretch of open fields that led up to a belt of sago palms at the base of towering stone walls. They glowed golden in the sunlight, stretching for miles on either side. Someone in one of the wagons behind theirs shouted with excitement and Maskelle smiled tightly.
Rian swung up onto the wagon suddenly. Maskelle flinched so violently she almost fell into Old Mali’s lap. She ignored the quizzical look the old woman gave her; she hadn’t realized how tense she was. Rian settled onto the perch at Maskelle’s feet and didn’t appear to notice her nervous start.
I love this city, she thought. Maybe she had forgotten how much. The huge gates stood open, heavy logs reinforced with metal cladding, and traffic swarmed through. There were five gates in this section of the city wall; this one was called the Gate of Reunion. Well, there were many reunions soon to come. Maskelle wasn’t sure what was unnerving her. There were no enemies within these gates that she feared. Except yourself, she thought, watching the walls loom larger. Except yourself.
Rian’s gaze was on the gate guards. “Will there be trouble getting in?”
“No, they won’t stop us,” Maskelle said. There were only two guards dressed in the livery of the Imperial Constabulary: high buskins, loose trousers, and short red jackets open in the afternoon heat. One swung a bori club idly, but they appeared to be more interested in gossip with the travelers and traders gathered at the side of the gate than with stopping any wagons. The Hundred Year Rite would culminate at the Equinox, coinciding with the secular Water Festival and also this year with the annual lunar holiday. The celebrations would be huge and people were streaming into the city for it. She said, “This is civilization now, remember?”
Rian leaned back against her legs and tilted his head up, cocking an eyebrow. “Does that mean they’ll let us leave, too?”
She ran a hand through his hair. The dampness in the air was making the ends curl. “It’s an open city.”
He looked unconvinced, but no one gave them any notice as the wagons trundled through the gate onto a broad paved plaza. Ahead the view opened up to the western approach to the Temple City.
Maskelle heard a loud startled exclamation from one of the wagons behind her. At the edge of the pavement a few hundred yards away was a wide moat. The afternoon heat shivered off the calm water, which was separated from the river by a system of canals. There were a few boats, some flat cargo barges, but most were pleasure craft, with people in white gauzy robes shaded by colorful awnings or parasols.
At first, in the light and heat, the gray shapes beyond the water looked like a mountain range in small scale. Then the eyes resolved the mountains into giant stepped domes covered with carvings and statues, some topped with slender spires. The temples. Maskelle’s heart started to pound.
Past the moat, a long terrace with three gates formed the formal entrance to the Temple City. Beyond that was a vast open space of paved court, dotted with groups of brightly dressed people. Past that, dominating the view on a rising mound of stone, were the five giant conical towers and the long pillared galleries of the Marai, the Temple of the Mountain.
The road dipped down toward a broad stone causeway lined with guardian stone lions that bridged the first moat. Old Mali halted their oxen for a moment as the wagons in front of them slowed in rolling out onto the causeway. Travelers new to the city and inexperienced jostled other wagons and lost each other, and peddlers hawked their wares at the top of their lungs, anxious to separate the newcomers from their money before they saw the greater markets farther ahead. Maskelle glanced down at Rian. He was shading his eyes, studying the view.
Rastim took advantage of the stop to come up and climb onto the running board on Old Mali’s side. His round face was shiny with sweat, but he looked more excited than anything else. “Is that the Palace?” he asked.
“What?” Maskelle realized he meant the temple. “No, that’s the Marai, the Temple of the Mountain. This is Kushor-At, the First City, the Temple City. The Palace is in the Principle City, Kushor-An, over that way.” She pointed to where another great stone causeway led off to the west, bridging ground, canals, and another moat to reach the city’s second heart.
“The Celestial One lives in the temple?” Rastim persisted. He must be having visions of vast audiences. This was undoubtedly the largest city the Ariaden had ever seen.
“Close enough,” Maskelle told him. There were hundreds of temples spread throughout the First City and the Principle City, each with a precise role in the system that made up a network as complex as the canals and barays that provided water and transport, and she was in no mood to give a lesson in either architecture or history. “Just calm down. We’ll get there, all right?”
“I know that, but what’s—” The farm wagon just ahead jolted into motion and Rastim was forced to run back to his own wagon.
They rolled onto the causeway, a breeze lifting the warm, damp air. The odor coming off the water was as fresh as that of the wild river, heavy with nothing but the scents of the heavy green vegetation creeping along the banks and the spices and incenses on the boats. It was often a source of amazement to foreign visitors that water carried in man-made channels remained so clean, and they attributed the phenomenon to the holy nature of the barays and canals. It had more to do with the skill of the original builders of Kushor-At and Kushor-An, who had learned everything there was to know about moving water from one place to another in building the dry-season irrigation ditches for the rice fields.
The boats near the causeway were all pleasure craft, wide and flat-bottomed, guided by poles fore and aft, the passengers protected from the sun by the awnings. Watching the closest glide by, Maskelle was struck by a memory with almost the tangibility of a vision: a long-ago afternoon on one of those boats, drifting in the heat of the sun down the canal that led past the palace complex to the western baray, the prow filled with flowers and a breeze playing through the bells. Annoyed, she shook her head, banishing the image.
The wagon rolled off the causeway and onto the plaza in front of the raised stone terraces. It was even more crowded with other wagons, milling people, oxen, horses. Old Mali made worried grumbling noises.
“We need to get the wagons out of here,” Rian said, standing up on the perch to get a better vantage point.
Maskelle dragged herself out of the past and said, “That way.” There was a walled post house to the far right of the plaza, a huge one with room for dozens of wagons. They made their way to its gate without running over anyone and Maskelle climbed down to do the bargaining. Rastim hovered worriedly at her elbow while she spoke to the attendant at the gate.
“We can only afford one night,” he said after she had finished and handed over a couple of coins to secure their entrance.
“We’ll only need one night,” she told him, and thought, One way or the other.
As large as it was, the post compound was still crowded. Wagons of all shapes and sizes, from a light two-wheeled peddler’s cart to huge two-storied wheeled houses with shuttered windows and roof platforms, crowded the enclosure. Oxen, onagers, and horses were tethered everywhere. The noise of the animals combined with the babble of voices speaking in dozens of languages to make a bewildering din. Rian seemed to take it in stride, though with him it was hard to tell. The Ariaden were in a state of bewildered excitement; the city was everything that had been promised and the variety of the people could only mean that some of them might want to see theater. Maskelle’s presence as an apparent traveling nun gained them polite attention from the attendants, and with a little help from them they found a spot to draw the wagons up.
The others ran around setting up camp and Maskelle stepped back out of the way. The Marai’s towers, easily visible over the wall of the compound, drew her like a lodestone. Better get it over with, she thought sourly. Now that she was here, her nerves were making her stomach jump. The attendants were already bringing fodder for the oxen, and Rian and Firac were trying to figure out the system that filled the troughs with water from the channels crossing the compound. She caught Rastim’s arm as he bustled past, and said, “I’m going to the Marai.”
“Oh. To pray?” he asked, nonplussed.
“You could call it that.” One of her braids chose that moment to fall in a lank length over her face. She pushed it back, thinking sourly, You can be sure no one will recognize you. “I won’t be gone long.” She turned away.
“Ah, well, take care!” he called after her.
She hadn’t reached the gate of the compound when she realized that the person behind her was not another traveler on his way out. Rian was following her.
She said, “I didn’t ask you to come with me.”
“I know that.”
She stopped and faced him, giving him the gaze that had frozen the blood of lower-ranking priests and made her the terror of the Court, even before she had given them real reasons to fear her. She said, carefully, “I don’t want company.”
He folded his arms and gave her a look right back, the expression of someone long accustomed to the powerful and who had become somewhat bored by their idiosyncrasies. He said, “After last night I’m not going to be easy to convince.”
Maskelle started to make a sharp reply, but took a deep breath instead. Well, that’s a point. “None of this is going to be easy. We’re here now. There will be plenty of people needing to hire guardsmen. You don’t have to throw in your lot with me.”
He looked away, nothing but annoyance in his face. “Are you done?”
Maskelle knew that in the Sintane this was probably all some terrible insult, but she didn’t care. She said, “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” he said impatiently. “Are we going?”
“Yes, yes. Ancestors help me,” Maskelle snapped, “we’re going.”
They left the compound. She had chosen the road and this gate because it would bring them into the city at the point most convenient for reaching the Marai; she had gauged the day as well, knowing the Celestial One would be spending this phase of the moon in the Marai for the Hundred Year Rite. But as she crossed the plaza toward the second set of inner gates, she found herself wishing that the Celestial One was in the Baran Dir and she still had half the city to cross.
There were quicker ways, but she found herself lingering in the market that had sprung up at the inner gates. It was a small affair of carts and awnings, here to take advantage of the travelers entering the city, but even so it boasted bolts of colored silks and cottons, incense and spices and trade goods from provinces half the world away. There was food too—fruit, sweet confections, river shellfish, and roast pork with honey, kept warm over braziers set up on the paving stones of the plaza, the odors thick in the air. She found her steps slowing almost involuntarily.
Rian’s attention had been caught by a display of metalwork, wary and watchful, though no one in the cosmopolitan crowd seemed to have more than a second glance for a Sitanese swordsman. She looked at the trader’s wares, spread out on woven mats under an awning. Her eyes passed over the copper cooking pots and fancy knives and on to the goldsmith’s work, beads, rings, and ear and belt ornaments.
She knelt down for a closer look. Much of it was Sitanese, little figures of stags and mountain panthers, animals strange to the heart of the Empire, and winged figures and sea beasts and other creatures from foreign myths. She nudged an ear stud out of the glittering array. It was small, exactingly shaped into a hunting cat’s head. She remembered that the Sitanese believed that decorated objects contained all the powers of the subjects represented. “How much?”
The trader was seated cross-legged on the mat. A wizened old man with very bad teeth, he bowed his head to her and said, “For the nun, two five-foil pieces, no more.”
“That’s far too much.” She had no idea of the proper price for gold or any other precious metal or stone; when she had last lived here, purchasing such things had been the province of servants. But the time on the road had taught her how to bargain. She flicked another ear stud, a plain gold bead, out of the pile. “For the nun, both these at one five-foil piece, no more.” It was the most she could afford.
He grinned and bowed to her again. “My apologies, I thought you a traveling nun, lady, newly come to the city.”
Maskelle grinned back, feeling that luck, and possibly the Ancestors, were with her just this once. “I’m traveling, but I’ve come”—home—“back.” She handed over the coin.
Getting to her feet, she found Rian watching the crowd. She handed him the ear studs. “I noticed you were missing some.”
He stared at her like she had suddenly grown another head, or a third eye. “Don’t look at me like that,” she said, pushing on through the crowd.
Maskelle came out of the forest of awnings near the bridge across the Marai’s moat and started up the wide flight of stone stairs to the next causeway. From the top, the view of the temple was better, the multiple levels of pillared galleries clearly definable beneath the five stepped domes. More of the city was visible from this angle, a sight that would have probably made Rastim swoon. Small tile-roofed wooden buildings standing on high pilings filled the gaps between the causeways and bridges and the bright silver surfaces of canals. Green belts of foliage and tamed plots of jungle wove in and out among the major temples, which towered above the other structures, some atop large platforms or stepped pyramids, some with graceful domed pinnacles. She could see the towers of the Baran Dir from here, though at this distance the details of the carving were lost.
The small market had whetted her appetite for the city and she had the strong urge to postpone the visit to the Celestial One and go over to the far side of the eastern baray, where there were markets and pleasure gardens and every other imaginable form of entertainment. Then she remembered she had only one or two coins left, and of all the things she needed from the Celestial One, a loan was not the least. She let out her breath and started across the bridge toward the Marai. She glanced back to see if Rian was still following her. He was. He had also stopped to put on the ear studs and the gold looked good against his skin.
It was distracting, and she needed distraction. The entrance to the Marai was very near, and Maskelle was forced to admit that the disturbance in her stomach was pure nerves and not a desire for dinner sparked by the odors of the market. The Temple of the Sare had reacted to her presence, but this was the Marai, one of the two pivotal temples in the Kushor-At and the Celestial Empire. Surely in a place teeming with life, at the center of so many lines of earthly power, she would go unnoticed.
The broad bridge crossed the Marai’s moat, a span of almost four hundred feet. It was a common spot for people to gather on their way to or from the temple, and they passed priests and temple servants or workers, and a few groups of wealthy nobles dressed in silk robes and shading themselves with parchment parasols. Against the balustrades carved into the forms of guardian snake spirits there were even a few peddlers, selling plaques with temple dancer drawings for foreign visitors. They had passed the center point, where stairs watched over by stone lions led down to the water on each side, and were almost to the gate in the outer wall when Rian said, “Are they going to just let us in?”
“Of course. The temples are open to everyone; what would be the point, otherwise?” Maskelle stopped at the bottom of the steps that led up to the first gate and bowed a greeting to the blue-robed doorkeeper priest, who returned the bow and went back to his discussion with two tonsured students. From the doorkeeper’s mildly preoccupied expression, she doubted he recognized her, not unless he was a better actor than Rastim. Maskelle knew someone would recognize her soon enough, but she wanted it to be after she had seen the Celestial One. She wanted this quiet reacquaintance with the Marai first, before she dealt with its people.
Through the gate was the Marai’s outer court. The temple seemed like a confusing maze from any distance, but the layout was really very simple: a series of squares, one inside the other. The innermost square had the giant mountain towers at its four corners and in the center. The outer court was as wide as the moat they had just crossed, but covered with soft green grass, still wet from the last rain so that Maskelle could feel the damp heat rising from it. A walkway crossed it, elevated some twenty feet above the ground, dividing the lunar court on the left from the solar on the right, and leading between the first two library buildings and the two reflecting pools, then reaching a terrace that bordered the outer pillared gallery. The court was mostly empty at this time of day, though she could see a few Koshans of different ranks scattered about in the shade of the library porticos, giving lessons to acolytes and whoever else wanted to listen.
She reached the terrace and the shade of the tall pillars of the gallery and paused for a moment. The inner court just beyond was smaller, paved with white stone. Several sets of stairs in the walkway that crossed it led them higher and higher above ground level. There were a great many steps; to keep its bond with the Infinite, the temple’s resemblance to the Mountain had to be more than symbolic.
Rian was uncharacteristically silent. Maskelle started across the walkway, feeling the sun burn into the back of her neck. To distract herself, she asked him, “Are priests so feared in the Sintane?”
He glanced at her. “They aren’t feared. But they’re powerful and they keep their secrets.”
“Secrets?” They reached the flight of steps up to the second gallery. So far so good, Maskelle thought. Her awareness of the temple grew more intense. She could sense the diminishing of the solstice alignment with the end gateways, the growing nearness of the Equinox alignment with the great domed tower in the center. “What secrets?”
Rian shrugged, though his wary surveillance of their surroundings didn’t falter. “Secrets about the sanctuaries. If too many people saw the inside of one, they might start to realize there’s nothing there worth paying tribute coin to.”
They had started up the last flight of steps and the words of the meditation ring were passing through Maskelle’s mind, drilled there by years of habit. There was a different meditation for each step in every temple. It was part of the Celestial One’s duties to complete a meditation ring in every temple in the city, and the Marai was always done during the Year Rites. She said, “Why should that be a surprise? There’s nothing in the Marai, or any of the other temples. Nothing of note, anyway. People, dust, bats, crickets, mosquitoes. The temples are just symbols of the different faces of the Infinite. It makes more sense to look at them from the outside than in. In fact, the farther away you are, the easier the Infinite is to understand.”
Rian made a noncommittal noise. Maskelle smiled to herself. She knew his wits were too lively for him not to realize the Koshan were different, but he wanted more proof first, and behaving as the ultimate skeptic was probably a good way to elicit information. It was eliciting information from her. She asked, “Does no one believe in the Sitanese priests, then?”
“No one with any sense,” Rian said, his voice dry.
She laughed, surprising herself. They reached the top of the steps and the second pillared gallery. A breeze swept a little dust past the pillars and she could hear a sistrum somewhere inside. There was a priestess, a young one, coming along the gallery, and when they had passed the ritual of bows, Maskelle asked where the Celestial One was.
The young woman gestured back toward the first solar tower, the one that sat in the upper right-hand corner of the square. “He’s on the Sky Bridge, Sister.”
Maskelle thanked her and the priestess passed on, managing to be too serene and reserved to glance curiously at Rian, but only just. They came to the end of the gallery and Maskelle took a deep breath and stepped into the first solar tower.
Carvings of mountain spirits spiraled up the inside of the dome, which was honeycombed with narrow bridges and balconies. It was thankfully dark, daylight coming in only through the entrances at the different levels, and empty.
Empty of everything—the past, the future, the Infinite, like a hollow shell. Maskelle hesitated, really fearful for the first time in years. If such a powerful temple as the Marai was dead to her …
Up on one narrow walkway a shadow passed. The shape was that of an older priest, a common enough sight in the temple, but his sandals made no sound on the stone. Maskelle breathed out in relief. She could feel the stirring of life in the Marai now, its link to the Infinite.
She moved farther into the tower. A passage led off from the opposite wall, becoming an open gallery washed in sunlight as it left the dome. Another shadow crossed it as she watched, this one a woman, dressed in an elaborate style of court dress a few decades out of date.
Maskelle glanced back at Rian. He stood in the doorway, looking around curiously. He hadn’t seen the shadows; to see them one had to be fairly well along on the path of understanding the Infinite. She crossed the mosaicked floor to the interior spiral stairs, saying, “The parts of the temple are named after the corresponding parts of the Mountain. Sky Bridge is a pass on the eastern side.”
He followed her up the stairs. “Is this a real mountain or a Koshan mountain?”
Maskelle smiled. “A real mountain, much farther west. It’s the symbol of power for the spirits of earth and stone.”
The stairs wound upward to an open gallery facing the east and looking out over the outer court, the outer gallery, and the moat. She stopped to stand against the railing, the warm wind tearing at her braids. The view was painfully familiar and glorious at the same time. The spires of Alamein Kitar, impossibly light and insubstantial, more like a dream or vision than solid stone. Arkad, with its green copper dome. The towers of the Baran Dir, the second hub of the city, with the dark waters of the western baray behind it.
Rian stepped up beside her. She thought he was looking toward the Baran Dir, which was always what caught the attention of those newly come to Duvalpore. It was a forest of massive towers, larger than the Marai, all surmounted by carved stone faces, so large they were visible even at this distance. The Baran Dir was a symbolic map of the heartland of the Empire, with each tower representing a temple or a Koshan hospital. But he said, “I didn’t realize how big it was.”
He meant the sprawl of the buildings, canals, gardens, causeways, and tree-lined avenues that seemed to stretch to the horizon. Maskelle said, “It’s been a city for a long time. Our records go back over seven hundred years, when the irrigation canals were first built, but there were people living here even before then. The records of the Rite go back longer.” She glanced at him. “Why did you decide to come here?”
He shook his head. “When I ran, this was the only way I could go, and I had to get far enough away that they wouldn’t bother to follow me. Then there wasn’t much point in not going on.”
“Now I know why you wanted to come with me. You’re almost as rootless as I am.” Shadows crossed the stone faces of the Baran Dir. “You know we might be leaving here today with an angry mob at our heels.”
“Mobs are easy to get away from. No organization.” Rian leaned back against the pillar and studied her thoughtfully.
That was an interesting way to look at it. “I suppose attempts on the Throne happen more often in the Sintane?”
“The Holder Lord executed two brothers, a sister, and a cousin for trying to take the Markand Hold, just in the time I was there, and that was a slow year.”
Maskelle said dryly, “I keep forgetting what savages you all are over there.”
Rian looked down at the city again, but a smile tugged at his lips.
Maskelle let out her breath. The temple was the world and the Mountain and the world was the temple. So little had changed. That’s what I’m afraid of, she thought again. She pushed away from the railing. “Let’s get this over with.”
She turned back into the tower and followed the stairs all the way up to the top of the dome. The round chamber had windows looking out over the city in every direction. Framed in one was the Illsat Sidar, the only Temple of the Adversary within the city. Caught by the image, she didn’t see the ancient little man, seated cross-legged on the far side of the room just below the window facing the western baray, until he turned his head.
He was a very old man, with a once-strong frame emaciated by age, wrapped in a blue Koshan robe. The rank tattoos on his scalp were faded and obscured by wrinkles, but his dark eyes were still bright. He said, “My daughter.”
To anyone else the mask of his beneficent expression would have been impenetrable, but Maskelle knew him better than that. She thought she had surprised him, and she wondered if he had not expected her to come after all. “My father.”
“Your journey was arduous?”
She stepped farther into the room. He wasn’t alone; seated on grass mats nearby was another old priest and a young woman in dark green court robes, with strings of amethyst and opals braided through her hair. Maskelle said, “It was agreeable enough, once we passed the boundary.”
His brow lifted, and the Celestial One turned to the others. “I must ask your indulgence while I greet my friend who has traveled a great distance to meet with me.”
“Of course.” The priest stood immediately and reached down to help the courtier to her feet. The upper rank of priests were all considered equals, so they used no honorific with the Celestial One. And since the Celestial One always gave up his names when he assumed the office, the priests called him nothing at all. “We will return at some later day, at your convenience.”
The woman stood a little awkwardly, obviously not used to the spare comforts of the temple, and obviously not as anxious to leave as her escort. But she bowed her head and said only, “Celestial One.” The priest escorted her to another doorway, and Maskelle felt her glance rake them.
When they had gone, the Celestial One smiled wryly and gestured for her to sit.
Maskelle settled on a mat, laying her staff down behind her, fighting down that sense of too-powerful familiarity again. Most of all she was conscious of an overwhelming sense of relief. She had dreaded this meeting and now, at least, she would be free of that anticipation. She noted Rian, correctly guessing that to remain standing while they sat would be judged rude, had taken a seat on the floor a few feet behind her and to the side. She hid a smile. The number of doors in the cupola had given him an instant’s pause, but he had still managed to pick the spot where he could see all of them at once.
The Celestial One, she thought, had noted it, too. He said, “Who is your companion?”
“He’s Rian, from the Sintane. They’re mostly agnostics.” She felt Rian glaring daggers at her back.
The Celestial One smiled at Rian. “Then why does he wear the sigil of Taprot?”
Maskelle turned to look at Rian. His expression was wary. Considering that the amulet was currently tucked inside his shirt, it must have at least some presence in the Infinite for the Celestial One to be able to sense the traces of its presence. Resigned, she turned back to the Celestial One and asked, “And what is Taprot?”
“A spirit of protection, who casts favor on those whose duty is to protect others, to lay bare falsehood, or to pursue criminals. The Sitanese depict it in the form of a hunting cat, the Gildane as a monkey, and the Versatin as a crocodile. There are other forms, but those are the main ones of interest.”
That was enough of that. The polite conversation, as if she had gone off on a retreat or a meditation ring and had just now returned to the city, had to stop. “Well, you’ve got me here. Now tell me what you want.”
His eyes narrowed. “The Voices have spoken of danger to the Hundred Year Rite since the beginning of this year, but there was nothing specific, only vague warnings. I wanted your help with an interpretation of their words.”
He’s not telling me everything, Maskelle thought. She widened her eyes ingenuously and said, “The other Voices and the seventh-level priests have all gone incompetent? The ones that weren’t already, I mean.”
“No.” The Celestial One frowned. “But I suspected there would be interference with the Rite.”
The silence stretched. Maskelle gave in and said, “What do you mean, ‘interference’?”
He betrayed a moment’s exasperation. “If I knew the source of the interference, I should have related it in my letter.”
“Oh, I doubt that. Then you would lose the upper hand.” Maskelle propped an elbow on her knee and rested her chin in her hand. “I suppose you realize what it cost me to come here.”
His gaze softened. She wished she could tell if it was sincerity or acting. He said, “That I realized. I would not have asked you if I had not thought it serious.” He sighed. “But I wish I had asked you sooner.”
She frowned and said slowly, “I believe you think it’s serious, but that’s all.”
The Celestial One let out his breath, and stared grimly into the distance. This she knew wasn’t acting. He said, “Then I will show you, and let you judge for yourself.”
Rian wondered how the Celestial One would negotiate the way through the Marai and for that matter, how he had got up into it in the first place. The steps were too steep and some of the passages too narrow for a palanquin or a litter. It turned out to be a simple solution: a large young priest came in at a summons and picked the fragile old man up to carry him easily down the stairs.
Rian wasn’t sure what to think of the Celestial One. He had never met such an exalted religious before, but he had the feeling that in this case even prior experience wouldn’t have helped. The Koshans weren’t like anybody else, and the Celestial One even more so. The sigil of Taprot, which he had only kept because it wasn’t worth selling, thumped him in the chest as he started down the stairs after the others, and he wondered why the Celestial One had mentioned it.
Following Maskelle and the priests through these narrow halls that opened unexpectedly into galleries with sweeping views of the city, Rian thought again how strange this place was, built not for human convenience but to some other design. It was a design alien to the fortresses of the Sintane, which were built for defense and to withstand long harsh cold seasons, but the overall affect was not unpleasant. There was no surface that wasn’t carved and not all the subjects were religious. Just in the stairwell there were rows of lotus buds, sinuous dancers, a forest hermit being chased up a tree by a tiger, a market scene.
They passed several men waiting in a wide pillared hall, some dressed in elaborately draped and colored silk robes, two with the swordbelts of guardsmen, though they had the bearing of high rank. They all made gestures of respect as the Celestial One passed. Rian wished he had bothered to learn more about the Empire—he wasn’t even sure of the Celestial One’s real status, if he was a secular as well as a religious power. But this place had always seemed more than half myth, even in the more cosmopolitan Markand. And he had had other things to worry about.
They entered an inner courtyard that must be raised some thirty or forty feet from actual ground level, considering all the stairs they had climbed in crossing the two outer courts. In the center was the fifth tower, an even larger imitation mountain than the ones that stood at each corner. Rian gave up even looking at the carvings; the detail was too much to absorb and he didn’t want to be distracted. Four covered passages crossed the court, wide pillared corridors each extending from one of the long galleries to the base of the middle tower.
Clouds had covered the sun, and though the reflection off the polished stone was muted, it was still temporarily blinding after the murky dimness of the tower. The young priest set the Celestial One on his feet as soon as they reached the bottom of the stairs. The old man crossed the wide paved court under his own power, leaning on his staff, his fragile body bent forward determinedly. There were several other priests standing in the shade of one of the porticos, who bowed to the old man as he passed.
He was going toward an open archway in the portico around the base of the central mountain-tower. Maskelle made no move to follow him, muttering, “What does he think he’s doing…?”
“Trouble?” Rian asked her.
She shook her head impatiently. “That’s where the Year Rites take place. I’m not supposed to … Oh, damn it.”
Rian glanced at the watching priests. He read more curiosity than hostility in their bearing, but perhaps they didn’t realize who Maskelle was. Yet. He wished he knew enough to sort the truth from the self-deprecating exaggeration in everything she had told him, but that would come later. The only sensible course now was to look on everyone as a potential threat. That shouldn’t be difficult, he thought grimly. It was a habit that he should have no trouble falling back into.
Maskelle hesitated another moment, apparently oblivious to the curious eyes of the other priests. Then she shook her head at herself in annoyance and followed the Celestial One. Rian trailed after her, cursing his fate. If she had qualms about entering the place, then he should stop her, but doing the thinking was not usually the place of a kjardin, no matter how witless or stubborn the person to be guarded. Not that Maskelle was witless. But he had seen enough of her to know that her idea of what was dangerous was different from that of sensible people; it didn’t mean she couldn’t be killed by a dagger between the ribs from some determined and lucky enemy.
They entered the tower through an archway that led into welcome shade. Like the other towers, spiral stairs curved up the inside walls to reach the other levels, but at first it looked as if there was nowhere else to go on this floor, though he knew from the size of the place this couldn’t be the only chamber. There seemed to be nothing except for a massive carving on the far wall, a stylized ocean populated by strange creatures. Then Rian’s eyes adjusted to the sudden dimness and he realized there were two walls, one in front of the other, their designs interlocking, so the smaller barrier seemed to fade into the larger one behind it. The Celestial One crossed the room and went around the edge of the smaller wall. His attendant priest stayed behind in the archway, apparently ready to wait patiently, but Rian followed Maskelle.
Once around the wall there was a wide doorway, framed by more of the large carved snakes. Rian knew they were guardian spirits like the lions, but their resemblance to demons was hardly reassuring. As Maskelle started to step through the doorway, she stopped abruptly and whispered something under her breath. Then she stepped inside.
Rian started after her, but found he had stopped in the doorway, too. The air in the large chamber was hot and still and something in it made the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He forced himself to move forward.
The floor was carved of one very large, very flat stone, its gray surface almost as smooth and soft as pearl. The reason for this extravagance was apparent when he saw what lay in the center. It was a round, complex, colorful design, about twenty feet across, obviously incomplete. At first he thought it was being painted onto the stone, but then he saw it was three-dimensional, raised as much as an inch off the floor. Colored sand, he thought. Or powdered shell or glass. The only break to the floor’s seamless stone surface was a raised lip that enclosed the section where the design lay.
Maskelle circled it to the right, still swearing under her breath, and Rian followed her automatically, hanging back a few steps to keep out of her way. It’s a map, he thought, though he had never seen a map that wasn’t flat lines drawn on parchment or hide. But in the ridges and depressions and flat stretches marked with tiny dark green protrusions he was sure he could see mountains and lakes and the jungle on the lowland plains. It was a more complete map than any he had ever seen, showing things that in the Sintane were only traders’ tales. Then a closer look showed him these weren’t lakes and forests but complex designs, like the carved arabesques and patterns of lotus buds on the temple walls outside.
He shook his head, a little dazed. There was something strange about being in the same room with the thing. Or maybe breathing the same air as it; there was something about it that seemed alive. It gave the impression of taking up all available space in the large chamber, as if walls, any walls, were too small to contain it. Rian realized a moment later that it was a map again. He could see the mountain borders of the Sintane, a deep-blue ridged depression that must represent the waters of the Inland Sea.
The waters were moving, waves crawling up the white sand beach …
Rian rubbed his eyes. It was just meaningless shapes now, nothing but complicated patterns in sand.
He swore softly. He didn’t need to be told this was a powerful magic. Frustrated by the elusiveness of the thing, he tried to follow the pattern with his eyes, starting at the incomplete areas and following the spiral of several layers of built-up colored powders, all with intricately sculpted symbols. He resisted the urge to make them into towns and valleys and roads and hills. He made it past several turns, ignoring the branches that led off to more complex arrangements toward the center, but as the spiral neared another incomplete section, it dissolved into dark sand, the designs ceasing to resemble those on the temple walls and becoming something ugly and dark. Rian looked away, a sudden constriction in his chest. When he looked back at it, it was a map again, and the section of dark sand was a living storm, worse than any rainy season monsoon, tearing up the terrain that lay helplessly under it. With a sudden, bone-deep certainty, he knew that whatever this magic was, something was terribly wrong with it.
Maskelle stepped carefully back from the edge of the design, taking Rian’s elbow and drawing him after her. Even a step or two away from the thing, the air was a little easier to breathe. Her voice shaking just a little, Maskelle said, “How did it happen?”
The Celestial One’s voice sounded resigned. “We don’t know.”
Rian started guiltily. He had had no awareness that there was anyone else in the chamber at all. He looked around and saw there were three other priests in the room, all older men, the complexity of their scalp tattoos denoting high rank. They carried carved staffs like Maskelle and they didn’t look pleased to see her. “You don’t know,” Maskelle repeated, sounding as if she was hovering in some state between utter stupefaction and disgust. “Haven’t you tried to remove it?”
The Celestial One sighed and leaned on his staff. One of the other priests said, “We have removed it every time.”
She turned to stare at him.
The man, a grim-faced priest with hard eyes, nodded. “Since the twentieth night of the Rite when it was first placed there. Every day we remove it, every day it forms again. Sometimes in the same area, sometimes elsewhere.”
Maskelle shook her head. Then she turned and strode away, almost fleeing the chamber. Rian gathered his scattered wits and went after her.
The Celestial One’s attendant stared worriedly as Maskelle stormed past. They came out into the relief of outside air and bright light, stopping in the inner court between two of the covered passages. The sun had appeared again and the reflection and heat off the white stone was temporarily blinding, but at least the air was free in his lungs. “So what happened?” Rian asked impatiently. “What is it?”
“It’s supposed to be the Wheel of the Infinite, the most important part of the Hundred Year Rite.” Maskelle ran her hands through her hair, completely undoing her braids, and stopped with double handfuls of hair, as if she was contemplating pulling it out. “What it is now, I don’t know.” She shook her head, biting her lip. “The End of Year Rites … Each year the highest Koshan priests, the Voices, make a … a model of the world. Through it the world is remade in its own image. The culmination takes place at the rainy season Equinox, and the sand that was used to make the model is collected and dispersed to wind and water, which strengthens the bonds that hold everything together.”
Rian looked at the tower. Everything? The utter stillness of the air in that chamber, so different from the wind-cooled passages in the rest of the place, the raised lip of stone around the center portion of the room, made sense now. “That design—that was the model?”
“Was, yes.”
“The black storm-looking … thing. It comes back all by itself?”
She nodded grimly. “What I want to know is how it got there in the first place.”
The Celestial One hobbled out of the covered walk and over to them, raising his hand to shade his eyes against the glare. He said, “That was why I wanted your advice.”
“How did this happen?” Maskelle demanded again.
“On the twentieth night of the Rite, Master Igarin fell suddenly ill.” He looked at Rian and added, “The Rite must end on a certain day and delay can’t be allowed, so if one of the Voices can’t continue, someone must take his place. A young priest called Veran, who was training to be elevated to Voice, took over the duty while the others present carried the sick man out to the court and summoned healers. Veran was alone in the chamber for perhaps a quarter hour, no more. When the others came back to return to their task, it was as you see it. This was eleven days ago.” He shook his head. “I should have obeyed my first impulse and written to you earlier. If I had, you would have been here in time.”
“Veran … Veran,” Maskelle muttered to herself. “He’s a new one. Where is he now? What explanation does he give?”
“He is in the care of the healers, under watch. He is ill himself now and can tell us nothing of how this happened.”
Maskelle’s expression was dubious, as well it might be. Ignoring the fact that he probably shouldn’t be cross-questioning the Celestial One, Rian asked sharply, “What happened to the other priest, the one he replaced?”
“He is dead.”
“Poison?”
“There was no sign of it.” The Celestial One’s face was wry. “The convenience of his indisposition had occurred to us.”
Maskelle grabbed handfuls of her hair again and paced rapidly up and down the court. The Celestial One watched her hopefully, which worried Rian more than anything. The old man really had no idea what had happened to their Rite, and no idea how to fix it. Maskelle stopped and said finally, “The disruption that forms every day … It’s the same size as the first one, that Veran made.”
“Yes.”
She grimaced. “There’s more there than one person could do in a quarter hour.”
The Celestial One tilted his head in agreement. “We realized that.”
Rian asked, “How is the Rite made?” Since no one had bitten his head off for asking questions, he didn’t intend to stop.
Preoccupied, Maskelle answered, “You drop the sand from your palm and then guide it into place with your breath, using a small wooden tube to make it more accurate. It’s not as hard as it sounds; anyone who was clever with their hands could learn to do it.” She looked at the Celestial One. “But what are you doing about it?”
“The highest masters remove the offending section of the pattern, while the others continue with the undamaged section. They thought they had established the boundaries of the affected area.” The Celestial One regarded her steadily from under his heavy gray brows. “But they have not been entirely successful. Sometimes the spot changes its position to avoid them.”
Rian looked from one to the other. “I take it they can’t just stop it,” he said. “Or sweep it up and start over?” No, if it were that simple, then surely they would have done it already. And if it really worked as they thought it did … If that was really the world in there, spread out on the floor in colored sand with that disruption, that dark design of fire and storm and yawning void in it …
“Taking it apart…” Uneasily, Maskelle said, “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”
The Celestial One’s expression was grim. “I was afraid you would say that.”