35
Colors Too Bright
Do not look to war for wisdom,
the poet had written,
Death comes to all; seeing more of it brings nothing
But surfeit and sadness.
The sounds too loud, the colors too bright to carry meaning
And sudden death as pointless a lesson
As the rap of an inkstone across the knuckles
Of a dull student.
No, my child,
Do not look to war for wisdom.
Shun’y’asu’s infamous, forbidden lines were as hard to ignore as the stink of death that surrounded them now. Viyeki could only look around him and wonder why he felt no gladness in victory, and why the words of a poem that his masters called treasonous resounded in his head.
Only a short time ago, half a Great Year, the War of Return had ended in failure and humiliation for Viyeki’s people. He and his master Yaarike had made their way back to Nakkiga from the mortal lands in the south, harried by vengeful Northmen all the way, a struggle that had ended only when the face of the mountain fell, ending the mortals’ siege and burying the great city gate. During that flight and the many skirmishes along the way Viyeki had felt, if not joy, at least a sort of triumph each time the Hikeda’ya had beat back their persecutors. He had rejoiced at every dead mortal as a threat destroyed. But the destruction of Naglimund felt different. During the retreat, the Hikeda’ya had been defending themselves and trying to return home. But the mortals had not come anywhere near Hikeda’ya lands since then: the attack on this mortal fortress was an act of aggression, pure and simple, and Viyeki, though he would never voice his concerns aloud, thought it was both dangerous and foolish for his beleaguered people to anger the mortals again.
He and Pratiki made their way down the hill with the prince-templar’s troop of soldiers, steering their horses through the front gate of what had once been a formidable fortress but was now little more than toppled walls and scorched ruins. Viyeki had left his own household guards behind—what was the need when he rode with Pratiki and a half-hundred Hamakha guardsmen? The mortal corpses that lay on all sides, splayed in the gaps in the broken walls or scattered in unrecognizable heaps at the bases of the burned towers, certainly offered little threat.
General Kikiti was waiting on his horse inside the gate, clad in his dress armor, the witchwood polished so that even in twilight it gleamed. Behind him a half-company of Sacrifices stood in perfect order.
“Well done, General.” Pratiki might have been congratulating him on a well-laid table or a well-planned entertainment. “What were our losses?”
“Less than a score of Sacrifices, Highness, and some of those are only wounded and will recover. Most of those came because one of the giants was hit in the eye with an arrow and could not be controlled. But all the mortal soldiers and most of the men from the town have been killed—more than four hundred in all. The Garden was good to us.”
“Indeed,” said Pratiki. “Your Sacrifices have done well. The Mother of All will be pleased. I will be certain she hears of how well you and your order have done here.”
“That is kind, Highness, though I do not deserve praise for something the queen herself planned and ordered. It is she who should be exalted.”
Pratiki nodded. “You may tell her so yourself. Soon she will be here.”
Kikiti was clearly caught by surprise, as was Viyeki, who for a long moment thought he had misheard. “The Mother of All comes here, Serenity?” The look on the general’s face was something close to worshipful. “Is that true?”
“This was not an idle blow against the mortals,” Pratiki said. “And when High Magister Viyeki finishes his work and the queen comes, the War of Return can finally be won.”
Viyeki had known he had an important role to play, but he had thought he was merely retrieving an artifact to be taken back to Nakkiga. Never for a moment had he thought that the queen would actually leave the mountain and come to this far-off place. Utuk’ku had not left their mountain stronghold during his entire lifetime. “I . . . I am astonished by this honor,” he said weakly. It now seemed all too plain that he would not be seeing Tzoja or his home again for some time, and that thought troubled him more deeply than he would have guessed. “May I ask when the Mother of the People will arrive?”
“Only she knows, High Magister,” said Pratiki, but without rancor. “Now, General Kikiti, will you show us the rest of what your Sacrifices have won for us?”
They rode through the outer keep. Sacrifices and low-caste slaves were still dragging mortal bodies away. Instead of being burned, these were thrown into a vast pit in the shadow of the southern outwall.
“I am glad to see you received my message,” said Pratiki. “Burning the bodies of the mortals would create even more smoke and increase the speed with which our presence here is discovered. I do not fear any mortal army, but I would not choose another fight before the queen arrives with more of our folk.”
“Just as well, Highness,” said Kikiti. “The creatures smell even more foul when they are burning.”
“And you have been careful to see that none escaped?”
Kikiti hesitated so briefly that it was almost unnoticeable, but Viyeki felt sure the prince-templar saw it. “We think so, but we are still collecting reports. We lost a few Sacrifices on the far side of the castle, and we still do not know all that happened there. A borer was killed by a collapsing wall, along with several of its handlers.”
Pratiki seemed only a little interested. “But you have sent patrols onto the hillside and into the forest? We do not want refugees bearing tales.”
As they rode toward the ruined gate of the inner keep, a scream slashed the air and a body came plummeting down from above, waving its arms and kicking its legs, to land on the stones at the base of the guard tower with a noise like a dropped egg. Moments later another mortal prisoner was flung off the battlements. This one did not make a sound falling, but the body striking the ground was just as loud.
“Soon there will be none left to bear tales,” said Kikiti with a certain amused satisfaction. “But you look unhappy, Magister Viyeki. Does it disturb you to see our enemies—those who stole our land—being given the punishment they deserve? In fact, some might say we are too lenient, their deaths too swift, but we must put efficiency in front of our own pleasures. Do you not agree, Prince-Templar?”
Pratiki smiled absently. He did not appear to mind the screams and the thump of bodies, but he did not seem to relish the sight either. “They are our blood enemies. Given the chance, they would murder the queen and all our folk. There is nothing more to say.”
As they rode through the charred remains of the gate, Viyeki saw that those flinging mortals out of the tower were not the only ones dispatching prisoners. A squadron of Night Moth Sacrifices had gathered on the front steps of the mortal church—at least that was what Viyeki thought it by its architecture, though the mortal’s Tree symbol had been ripped from its high-peaked roof. The Night Moths, one of the fiercest of the Sacrifice legions, had assembled a crowd of mortal prisoners, not soldiers but women, children, and men too old to have been active defenders of the fort. These prisoners were being taken one at a time to the front of the landing atop the broad staircase, shoved onto their knees, then a Night Moth would step up and cut off the prisoner’s head. As Viyeki watched, a woman was forced to the ground, moaning and weeping, and then beheaded. Her head rolled and bounced down the stairs, long hair flailing, until it reached the bottom and came to a stop in the midst of many others. The Sacrifices laughed and talked in quiet voices. Some of them exchanged coins with each other, and Viyeki suddenly realized they were making wagers. He had to close his eyes for a moment as a feeling he did not entirely recognize washed over him. He covered for the failure of nerve by pretending to cough.
They swept past the stairway and rode on toward the main residence, headed for the side of the fortress closest to the hill that towered above Naglimund. Here and there other Sacrifices were dispatching prisoners of their own, but in a more leisurely way, taking a limb off and watching the bleeding creatures as they struggled to escape, then taking off another, trying different combinations.
“Surely that is not a very efficient method,” said Pratiki, and for the first time Viyeki thought he heard something like displeasure in the prince-templar’s voice.
“No, Highness, it is not. But those Sacrifices are no longer on duty. They are merely amusing themselves. Do not fear, we have already selected the females we will send back to Nakkiga for the slave pens.”
Pratiki nodded slowly, displaying no obvious emotion. “Ah. Of course.”
Viyeki found himself disturbed by the casual torture. They are our enemies, he reminded himself. Given the chance, they would murder our queen and destroy our entire race. Pity has no place when mortals are involved. But his disquiet was not so easily allayed.
Several of the largest buildings in the heart of the keep had been smashed to rubble. A few mortal corpses still lay on the ground, a few in armor, most wearing ordinary clothing. But these too were being dragged away by black-armored Hikeda’ya. Many of the corpses were female. Some were children. Even those that were man-sized and clad in battle gear seemed shrunken by death, less like dangerous enemies and more like the frozen birds that sometimes tumbled out of the sky around Nakkiga during a sudden winter storm.
More of Shun’y’asu’s words came back to him:
I must kill you before you kill me. That is truth.
And you must kill me, or else I will be your death.
Like scorpions in a crystal jar, for one to live the other must die—
But who made the jar?
And who put us in it?
It was said that those lines alone had been enough for the Maze Palace to ban the great writer’s books. Soon afterward, Shun’y’asu himself disappeared. Some claimed the poet had left Nakkiga to find the better world of which he had so often written.
Viyeki thought that might be true, but not in the way that most believers meant it.
As the prince-templar’s company turned toward the far side of the residence, Viyeki saw for the first time the tumbled outer wall and the immense bulk of a single dead borer, half-covered by the stones of a collapsed guard tower. A cluster of dark shapes crouched beside it, and for a moment Viyeki thought they had disturbed carrion-eaters feasting on the dead, some sort of huge kites or vultures native to these unfamiliar lands. Then one of the dark shapes straightened and looked to the approaching riders. Even with the dark crimson hood covering her face, Viyeki recognized Sogeyu, the leader of the Singers. She waited for their arrival with the stillness of a serpent watching an unwitting animal approach its den.
When they were only a few dozen paces away, Viyeki abruptly felt the air change. It seemed thicker now, and tasted of lightning. His skin prickled and the hairs on his neck stiffened.
Prince Pratiki noticed it as well and reined up his horse. “What Song is this I smell? Should we continue to approach, Kikiti?”
“Host Singer Sogeyu told us that they have found what we sought,” the general said. “She expects us.”
Sogeyu detached herself from her Singers and came to greet the prince-templar. She seemed almost to glide, as though her feet did not touch the torn and bloodied ground. “Hail, Prince-Templar, blood of our great mother,” she said, dropping to one knee. “May the Hamakha live forever. May the serpent always guard us.”
Pratiki nodded. “I thank you for your greeting, Host Singer Sogeyu. General Kikiti tells me that you have succeeded at your task.”
Sogeyu pulled back her hood. Her face and shaven head were covered with small, precise brown runes that Viyeki guessed had been painted in dried blood. “We have, Serenity. I see the High Magister of the Builders is with you.” She nodded to Viyeki and made a sign of fealty, but he thought he saw something other than welcome in her eyes. “This is good, because we have found Ruyan’s tomb.”
Viyeki did his best to banish all the unsettling things he had seen from his thoughts. “Is it in the spot your Singers are kneeling?” The ground here was hard-packed, but the frosts were at least a month away and the rain now falling would soften the earth. It should not be a difficult or lengthy task to dig.
Sogeyu shook her head. “No, Magister Viyeki, not precisely. In fact the tomb is deep below the stone building there and encased in even more stone. Basalt blocks would be my guess from the way they echo against our songs . . . but I would not dream of instructing someone like yourself in your own field of knowledge.” She did not smile mockingly, but it felt as though she did.
He did not like Sogeyu, and he did not like the task. Still, it was not the place of even a high magister to question the queen’s orders. “You said deep, Host Singer. How deep?”
“Again, I cannot pretend to your knowledge, but I would suspect that some twenty cubits of stone lies between the surface and the buried crypt.”
“You have a hundred Builders, Magister Viyeki,” said Pratiki. “Surely they can breach those depths without trouble. And they must, because the queen herself is coming.”
An unexpected chill ran through him. “Our order can achieve anything the queen asks of us,” he said. “But numbers and time are always the limiting factors, Serenity. More numbers, less time. I suspect we can manage it, but I would guess it will take until Sky-Singers’ Moon has waned.”
“That is not acceptable!” declared General Kikiti, barely hiding his anger. “The Mother of All will be here in a matter of days. Do you suppose we can ask her to wait while your Builders meander through their work?”
“A millionweight of stone and soil to shift is not something I think even the Order of Song could manage without considerable time and effort,” Viyeki said, keeping his voice as even as he could. “And the great borers are far too clumsy a tool for such delicate, important work. You can give me your Hammer-wielders, General—that will speed the breaking up of the rock. And perhaps the rest of your troops—and your Singers, Host Singer—can help to carry away the rubble while my men dig. Understand, this is earth, not solid stone. Any tunnels must be propped and scaffolded properly, or the mass above will collapse and we will have to start all over. Not to mention that many of my Builders would die.”
“Then let them die,” said Kikiti. “They live to serve the queen, do they not?”
“So you will give me your Sacrifices to help, General?”
Kikiti seemed perilously close to losing his temper. “Sacrifices are warriors, not . . . not rodents. They are trained to fight, not to dig. And our presence here might be discovered at any moment, then the mortals will be upon us. Who will fight if our Sacrifice legions are beneath the ground?”
“Who indeed?” said Viyeki. He had annoyed Kikiti, which was at least a small victory, and it allowed him to do something else—something he had been thinking about since he had entered the vanquished fortress. He turned to Pratiki. “I must have slaves, then, Serenity. Mortal slaves. All those still living must be spared and brought here to work if we wish to reach this tomb or crypt before the queen arrives.”
The prince-templar pursed his lips and considered, but Kikiti was again struggling against open, unhidden rage. “It matters little to me that you are the high magister of your order, Lord Viyeki—this is war, and those slaves belong to the Sacrifices! They are ours to do with as the queen bids us, and no one else. You cannot tell me what to do with them.”
“I only state what is necessary to achieve the queen’s desires, General. For every Builder who is scraping through stone, I need two more folk to carry away the rubble.” He turned back to Pratiki. “But I think our esteemed general is wrong, Serenity, at least in part. I suspect that the queen would not have sent one of her own family unless it was with a mandate to make sure things went smoothly and swiftly here before she came. Am I right?”
Sogeyu suddenly bowed. “This conversation does not concern me or my Singers. We are even less fit for heavy labor than Kikiti’s Sacrifices. If you will excuse me, Your Serene Highness, I will return to my order now.”
Pratiki nodded. Sogeyu turned and headed back to the ring of her kneeling, dark-robed underlings, but not before giving Kikiti a swift look that Viyeki could not entirely read, though he thought he saw a shadow of annoyance on her face.
Whatever Pratiki decides, Viyeki thought, if I have created a little disagreement between my enemies then I have accomplished at least one useful thing today.
“Ride with me a little way while I think,” the prince-templar told Viyeki. “General, the queen and the Hamakha are pleased with you. Your Sacrifices have made the Mother of All proud.”
“Thank you, Your Highness,” said Kikiti.
Pratiki guided his horse toward the far wall and reined up a few dozen paces away from the vast carcass of the borer. It did not smell like any ordinary dead thing but had a tang all its own, a stiflingly acrid, almost metallic scent.
The prince-templar stared at the great, mud-colored monstrosity. “There is nothing so big that something else cannot kill it,” he said.
Viyeki sensed that no reply was necessary. He waited through the long silence that followed as the prince-templar considered the dead creature.
“Do not create discord between the orders, High Magister,” Pratiki said at last. “That will not please me, and it will certainly not please the queen.”
“I apologize if I seemed to be doing so, Highness. It was not my intention.”
“Of that I am not so sure. And in other circumstances I would not entirely blame you—the Sacrifices and the Singers have long held themselves superior to other orders, and that is sometimes hard to live with. But although I do not agree with your methods, I agree with your conclusion—there is nothing to be gained by killing the rest of the slaves when we need workers. I will tell Kikiti to round up those who live. But I put the responsibility on you, High Magister. You want them, you must feed them and keep them alive and docile. Do you understand?”
“Of course, Highness.” But he also understood that he had crossed a line, not just with Pratiki and Kikiti, but in his own heart as well. It would be a long time until he would be able to see all that would come from today’s actions. “I hear the queen in your voice.”
“Soon enough you will hear the queen’s own voice, from the Mother of All herself.” Pratiki’s face had again become as unrevealing as any of the masks worn by the Eldest.
Viyeki felt a sudden fear at the gamble he was undertaking, bringing mortal prisoners to a task that had not just the queen’s eye but the queen’s full attention—prisoners who might try to thwart her will even at the expense of their own lives. And he had placed himself in this danger simply because he had felt a moment of pity for the wretched, suffering creatures. For mortal men, the animals who wanted to destroy his people.
“Your mind and attention seem to be wandering, Viyeki Seyt-Enduya,” the prince-templar said sternly. “But I urge you to hear me now. If Utuk’ku is not pleased with what you do here, then may the Garden protect you—because nothing else will.”
“Why must I come?” Jarnulf did not feel comfortable refusing, but the last thing he wanted was to be marched across the Hikeda’ya campsite by Saomeji.
“Because all during our trip into the eastern mountains you wondered why such honors had been given to me,” said the Singer, his unusual golden eyes alight with what looked like fierce joy. “Why one as young as I had been chosen to do the queen’s great work. Now you will see and understand.”
“You mistake my thoughts,” was all he said, but he might as well have been talking to the wind that whistled along the ridgetop.
Saomeji went on as though Jarnulf had not spoken. “Yes, now you will see, mortal. I brought Makho back with us in the hope that my master could do something great with his ruined body. And now you will see it!”
More than ever, Jarnulf wished he could be rid of the Norns and their strange ambitions and treacherous infighting once and for all. But I have been given a holy task by the Lord my God, he reminded himself. Not only will I likely not live past its completion, but it will almost certainly be these Hikeda’ya who take my life when I succeed. He had done his best to resign himself to that, to put everything in God’s hands.
“And soon the queen will be here,” said Saomeji. “Utuk’ku herself, praise her name, will see what I have done. She will see what I have helped make for her!”
It was the middle of the night and the camp was largely quiet. The Hikeda’ya seldom slept, but when there was nothing to do—and the Hikeda’ya here had no other task, as far as Jarnulf knew, but to wait for their monarch—they fell into silence and stillness. Only a few sentries watched, expressionless as birds, as Saomeji led him toward the edge of camp.
Akhenabi, the Lord of Song, stood by as three of his hooded underlings excavated the pit where they had buried Makho. Jarnulf had stayed away from the spot during the three days since they had consigned the chieftain’s shrouded body to the ground, and had thought about it as little as possible, but it appeared he would be able to avoid their ghastly handiwork no longer.
“Do not stand any closer,” Saomeji whispered, though the warning was hardly necessary; as the Singers dug down into the soil, a stench arose that made Jarnulf want to turn and retch. The distinct smell of putrefaction was combined with other, less expected scents—the harsh, salty odor of natron as well as rose petals, beeswax, and the bitter stink of urine.
After a short while they uncovered the shrouded body, now stained with dirt and mold, and heaved it up onto the edge of the pit. Akhenabi, who had watched without speaking, gestured. One of his Singers unwrapped Makho’s head.
Jarnulf’s first thought when he saw the chieftain’s face was that something had gone terribly wrong. Instead of being mended, or at least gifted with some magical improvement of health, the Hikeda’ya chieftain now looked thoroughly dead. His mouth was still sewed shut, and his skin had turned a horrible, hard, wrinkled gray, like the hide of a hairless boar or even a southern cockindrill.
Then Makho’s lone eye suddenly opened. It was no longer Hikeda’ya-dark, but bright amber, like a bird’s eye. Jarnulf gasped in surprise and took a step backward.
“Did I not tell you?” Even whispering, Saomeji sounded as pleased as a child on St. Tunath’s Day.
“Stand him on his feet,” Akhenabi ordered. “Cut the threads that seal his mouth.”
Makho was dragged upright; he swayed in place like a tree in a gale, held up by two of the Singers. The other Singer reached forward with a knife and grabbed Makho’s leathery gray cheek to hold his head steady, then split the threads so that the chieftain’s mouth sagged open and crushed herbs dribbled out onto his chin. His orange eye ranged wildly from side to side, as though newly-awakened Makho was eager to find out where he was and who surrounded him, but it never fixed on anything for more than a heartbeat.
“He will not be able to speak for some time,” said Akhenabi. “But he can already understand my words, and soon all his strength will return, and more—a might greater than he ever had before. He will bring horror and destruction to our queen’s enemies.”
“My master is truly great!” cried Saomeji, clapping his hands in pleasure.
Jarnulf turned and stumbled away, unable to bear the sight of Makho’s gleaming, deranged stare a moment longer.
Help me to destroy these abominations, my blessed Lord, he prayed, over and over, fighting against the need to be sick. Let me be your strong right arm. Let me be your cleansing fire.
When she was taken back to the dark cell, Tzoja sat on the floor and did her best not to weep, but she could not stop herself trembling. Her hands were shaking so badly she had to intertwine her fingers and hold them on her lap. She knew she should pray, knew she should thank all the gods for sparing her eyes, the Aedon and the Grass Thunderer and all of them, but all she wanted to do was stop shaking.
It had been such a near thing. After all the years of living in half-light, of being buried beneath stone like a dead person and only seeing the sun a few times a year, the idea of losing her sight had been too terrible to contemplate. When she heard the dreadful words her bowels had turned to water inside her, and it had been all she could do not to fall down onto the floor before the High Anchoress and weep for mercy. But in the twenty years that she had been a prisoner in Nakkiga she had learned many things, and one of them was that tears meant less than nothing to the Hikeda’ya. They thought of them as a mortal oddity, like the noises that animals make. Even Viyeki, the kindest of his race she had ever met, had never been moved by weeping, although he had at least tried not to be angry with her when she succumbed. Tzoja had known even as fear gripped her and shook her that the High Anchoress would feel no pity for a distraught slave. So she had used her wits instead.
“But please, High Anchoress,” she had said, doing her best to keep her voice steady and respectful, though it felt mad to do so. “Without sight, I will be useless to the Mother of All.”
The gray-masked figure stared at her. “Why do you say that, mortal?”
“Because the arts I was taught require gathering herbs and other plants. They must be found before they are prepared. If I am blind I cannot do that.”
“There will be Sacrifices and servants who could do it for you.”
She tried to make her voice strong, certain, though she felt as if she could not get enough breath into her chest to keep her heart beating. “I cannot teach someone in the time of a turning moon to recognize things it took me years to learn myself. Would you truly risk the queen’s health on how well a soldier had learned to recognize the difference between agrimony and meadowsweet? When they are not flowering, they look much alike.” Her mind was full of distracting thoughts that flapped and shrieked like birds trying to escape a burning grove, but she did her best to hold down the terror and remember what Valada Roskva had taught her. “Wood agrimony is good for heaviness of the chest and breath. Meadowsweet is not—it can even make breathing more difficult.” She struggled with her words, which kept threatening to escape her control, to turn desperate. “Please, High Anchoress, let me keep my eyes so that I can serve the queen to the best of my training.”
The stony mask had surveyed her for a moment longer, then the eyes of the Anchoress closed. At first Tzoja thought that perhaps the queen’s priestess was merely summoning the energy to have her dragged away by the guards still waiting just inside the door. At last, Tzoja had realized that the Anchoress must be in silent conversation with the queen herself.
The dark eyes had opened again, though the rest of the Anchoress remained as motionless as a statue. “It will be allowed,” she pronounced. “But you will be blindfolded and hooded whenever you attend the queen. If you flout this rule you will receive harsh punishment. And if the Mother of the People is displeased in any way by your ministrations, you will be sent to the Cold Slow Halls. By Her hand and Her words this decision is made, and as High Anchoress I witness it.”
Tzoja had finally managed to quiet her nerves in the lightless cell. She smoothed herself a place to lie down on what felt like a thin mattress stuffed with straw, damp but not disgusting.
“It’s very frightening at first,” said a small voice.
Tzoja had thought herself alone, and her heart leapt in fear so suddenly that she thought she could feel it bang against her breastbone.
“Don’t be afraid.” The voice was female, and though it spoke the Hikeda’ya tongue perfectly, there was something unusual about it. “I am like you—mortal. That is why they put you in my chamber.”
“Your chamber?” Tzoja could still feel her pulse beating like a drum. “I did not know. I did not mean to intrude . . .”
“Do not apologize. It is good to have company. May I come nearer? I mean you no harm.”
Tzoja heard movement, the sound of soft footfalls, then a moment later someone sat down on the mattress beside her. “My name is Vordis. Who are you?”
“Tzoja.”
“That is a Hikeda’ya name, but you are not of their kind.”
“My . . . my master gave me that name. Are you truly another mortal? Like me?”
Vordis laughed. She sounded young. Tzoja had not expected to hear the sound of merriment ever again and it cheered her. The stranger took Tzoja’s hand in her cool fingers and squeezed it gently before letting go. “May I touch your face?” she asked.
It surprised Tzoja a little, but she could smell the other woman now, ordinary scents of skin and clean hair, a sour tang of clothing that needed to be washed. “If you wish.”
“I want to see you.” Tzoja felt small hands touch her cheeks. The fingers spread gently across her cheekbones, light as a breeze, and then traced her brows, the arch of her forehead, her nose, her mouth.
“You are pretty,” the one called Vordis said, then took Tzoja’s hand again. “You may use your hands to see me, too.”
Tzoja did, but could make out little more from her exploration than that Vordis was not an old woman—her skin was firm, her jaw taut. She might have been Tzoja’s age but she was certainly no older. Tzoja could even feel the other woman’s eyes beneath the silky thinness of her eyelids, but no scars, no sign of injury. Why had she not been blinded by the Anchoresses? “How did you come here?”
Vordis laughed again. “I scarcely remember, it seems so long ago. My mother served in the house of the Yansu Clan. When I was very small, one of the female Hikeda’ya picked me up and carried me back to my mother, angry that I had been wandering. While she carried me, I suddenly knew—I could feel it, with my hands—that she had something growing inside her, something ugly and hurtful. I told my mother, who told her mistress. I was right, though nothing could be done, and the one with the bad thing inside her died a few months later. The Hikeda’ya soon discovered that I could feel such things in a way others could not.”
“You are a healer.”
“No, I cannot heal anything,” said Vordis sadly. “I can feel when something is wrong, and often where and how badly. While I was still a child I was brought here to the palace and became one of the queen’s Anchoresses. You are only the second mortal that has come to these halls. I am glad. It is . . . sometimes it is lonely.”
“But your eyes . . . you still have your eyes.” The thought of being blinded, so recently and narrowly avoided, still terrified her.
This time the woman’s laugh was quieter. “Yes. That is because my eyes were never of any use. I was born unable to see. Perhaps that is why I can feel things others cannot.”
“And do you really wait on the queen herself?”
“Of course. There is no more important task in all of Nakkiga. You should feel honored.” But something in her voice, some tiny, discordant note, made Tzoja wonder.
“And what do you do? What will I do here? Is the queen in good health?”
“Oh, yes,” said Vordis. “The queen is strong. The queen is very well.” But even as she said it, the woman squeezed Tzoja’s hand—squeezed it hard. The message was unmistakable: What I said is not true.
“That is good,” Tzoja said, trying to hide her surprise. “I am pleased to hear that. We owe our lives to her, and it will make my work easier.” For a long moment she sat thinking. “And is this place, this cell—are we alone here?”
“The other Anchoresses have their own chambers, their own places. But we are mortals—it is strange to say ‘we’!” For a moment the other woman seemed genuinely caught up in the novelty of it. “We are kept to ourselves.”
“Does anyone listen to what we say? Can we speak freely here?”
“Oh, of course,” said Vordis lightly, but again her hand gripped Tzoja’s and squeezed it tight. “Why would anyone bother to listen to two mortal women?”
It was nearly impossible to determine the passage of time in the lightless place where they were kept, but the guards had come in four times to bring them meals and a clean chamber pot, and she and Vordis had slept twice, so Tzoja guessed that two days had passed since she had first been brought to the cell. During that time she and Vordis continued to talk quietly to each other, taking care not to say anything that might alarm anyone listening. Vordis was full of wistful questions about life in Nakkiga, and Tzoja realized that what had been an endless, dull confinement to her must seem like a dream of freedom and excitement to the blind woman. Tzoja was selective with the history she shared, going no further back than her time in Rimmersgard with the Astalines, since it was clear that the Hikeda’ya must already know about that, but she left out any mention of her childhood in Kwanitupul with her father and mother and brother, or the terrible years in her grandfather’s camp in the High Thrithings.
In turn, Vordis told her careful stories of her own experiences among the Anchoresses, though living separately from the Hikeda’ya meant she could mostly only talk about what it was like when they were all with the queen. The unspoken knowledge that open speech was not safe meant that Tzoja learned little beyond the routine that would be expected of her.
Tzoja had been prepared to die, or at least she thought she had. Now she had to prepare herself to live the rest of her life in a lightless room, a grim prospect even with a sympathetic cellmate. Thus, when the guards came a fifth time and stood watching them as they ate their meager meal, Tzoja felt a sense of excitement that almost but not quite overcame her apprehension. When the guards silently signaled the two of them to follow, and Vordis took her hand, her legs felt as shaky as a fawn’s.
They were led through passages lit only by an occasional torch, but even that dim light seemed glaring to Tzoja after so long with no light at all. The corridors were not crude tunnels but seemed to be part of the huge palace, the floors flat and level, the walls and ceiling finished in stone that had been smoothed like fine silk.
The guards brought them to a door where more guards waited, then ushered them through it and back into complete darkness. Vordis’ grip tightened on Tzoja’s hand. “Let me lead you,” she said. “There are stairs before us—steep stairs.”
They made their way down until Tzoja could hear the sound of splashing water and the dull murmur of voices. Damp, warm air rose to meet her, along with the smell of wet stone and other, more complicated fragrances. At the bottom a single ni’yo sphere was set on a tripod in a niche, glowing like the first star of evening, and Tzoja could see naked female bodies.
“We bathe here before we wait on the Mother of All,” Vordis whispered. “Mortals and immortals alike. All must be pure for the queen.”
As she adjusted to the new brightness, Tzoja saw with a thrill of horror that the other Anchoresses had only dark holes where their eyes should be. The immortals were all agelessly beautiful and their faces were calm—some of them talked or even sang in soft, meditative voices—but below the brows of each one were empty sockets, like a room full of living skulls.
Tzoja turned toward Vordis, wondering what damage she might see there, but her companion was not much different than she had guessed, still apparently of childbearing age, though her figure was small and girlish, and with a round face that most would consider pretty. Vordis’s eyes did not fix on anything, but compared to the other Anchoresses she looked reassuringly ordinary.
“We bathe in the three pools, one after another,” Vordis said. “First take off your clothes.”
Almost before Tzoja had finished peeling off her garments, which she had been wearing for more days now than she could count, another female Hikeda’ya, dressed in the dark garb of a palace menial, swept them away. She never saw them again. Then Vordis led her through bathing herself, first in water so hot it made her forehead perspire, then in warm water scented with oils and flower petals, and last in a cold pool. When she and Vordis stood on the other side, shivering a little and with skin needled by chill, another servant handed them loose white gowns.
“Now we go out. Then there will be prayers,” Vordis whispered.
A door on the other side of the stone chamber opened without a sound; the Anchoresses, all now dressed in flowing white, walked through it. A Hikeda’ya priestess of some kind waited on the other side, and as she sang the words of some ancient ritual, more servants appeared and gave to each of the Anchoresses a mask, the same eyeless disguises Tzoja had seen before. A servant came to her and with impatient gestures indicated that she should put her hands at her side. When she did, the hard-faced Hikeda’ya tied a cloth around her face, dropping her into darkness again, then pulled some kind of hood over her head and tied one of the heavy masks onto her face.
“Today you will only be in the queen’s presence,” Vordis whispered. “Do not speak, no matter what you feel or hear. I will explain it all to you when we are home again.”
Home. The word seemed to rattle like a dropped spoon, falling from her ears and into her breast. She was more grateful than she could say for Vordis, but the idea that a lightless box of stone would be her home now gave her a pang so painful she could not have spoken if she wanted to.
The rest of the hour was an empty black blur. They were led into a farther chamber, then she heard the other Anchoresses’ rustling gowns as they dropped to their knees; Vordis showed her with soft pressure on her arm that she too should kneel. The queen was waiting for them there. Tzoja could not doubt it—she could feel Utuk’ku’s presence like an open window on a cold day, a chill that went right through her. She thought of the silver mask and the ageless mystery that must lie beneath it—the oldest living thing in the entire world, an unknowable dark presence that could have her killed with a gesture—and again found it difficult to breathe. Her skin prickled and shifted as if it sought to escape on its own. Perhaps sensing some of this, Vordis squeezed her arm, but then moved away, leaving Tzoja standing by herself in hooded blackness.
A voice floated up from the far side of the room. Someone was singing—someone male. It was a song Tzoja had never heard, in Hikeda’ya words she could not understand except intermittently. It was strange that the sound, after such long silence, did not seem to disturb any of the other Anchoresses; they continued about their invisible business as Tzoja stood, trying not to topple over, until Vordis returned and gave her hand a reassuring squeeze. The singer’s voice went on, echoing in the stony chamber, the melody as mournful as a nightingale’s.
If the indifference the queen and her Anchoresses showed to the presence of a singer was surprising, Tzoja was even more astonished to discover that the singer was not particularly good, at least not by the standards she had learned in the years she had been captive in Nakkiga. His voice was young and sweet, but he seemed to make mistakes that even she could recognize—a shortness of breath here, a slurring of a sound there, and once or twice even an unsteadily held note. She did not know very much about Hikeda’ya music but she could not believe that the all-powerful queen could not command better entertainment. She had heard better pitch and phrasing from entertainers at the festival celebrations which Viyeki’s wife Lady Khimabu had mounted.
At last there came a long silence, and as all the Anchoresses stood motionless, Tzoja could feel the queen’s presence diminish and disappear, as though the window to the harsh winter had been closed. The women were led back to the stone chamber and bathed themselves again, this time in reverse order from cold to hot. Tzoja had questions she wanted to ask, but every time she started to speak, Vordis squeezed her hand, silencing her.
When they were at last back in their cell, surrounded by darkness if not by privacy, Tzoja tried to find innocuous words to ask about what had most puzzled her.
“The singer,” she said. “He did not seem as . . . as well trained as I would have expected.”
“He is very well trained.” The other woman’s voice held something somber.
“Truly? Perhaps I am more ignorant of the Hikeda’ya than I thought—”
“What he sang was Drukhi’s favorite song.”
It took a moment for her to understand. “Drukhi, the queen’s son? The one that was killed by mortals so long ago?”
“The singer has learned it precisely the way Drukhi sang it to his mother when he was young,” Vordis explained carefully. “He learned it from the singer before him, who learned it in turn from the singer who came before, and so on. This one is the third Drukhi-singer since I have been here, but I am told that there have been many, many more over the years. Dozens. Each one learns every note and word and intonation perfectly, so that they can sing to the queen just as her son once did.”
Tzoja was so troubled by this that she could summon no other questions. Vordis at last curled up beside her. After a while her breathing became regular, but Tzoja lay awake for a long time, still hearing the haunting, imperfect song even as she finally drifted down into sleep.