“There, hand-sister—that should help.” He tucked the little pot back into a hidden pouch in his white robe. “I will tell Makho that your wounds are healing. And perhaps you will think over what I said.”
It was all too much, and suddenly the world and the night were pressing down on her like a great weight. Nezeru did not even pull her jerkin back on, but simply tugged her cloak around her and lay down on the cold, stony ground to sleep.
• • •
As they continued eastward along the base of the mountains the cold winds returned, scattering snow, and although the chill striking down from high peaks did nothing to relieve the ache of her wounds, Nezeru found that it helped in other ways. The swirling white felt like a curtain she could draw around herself, something to keep her thoughts private. She was glad, because those thoughts had grown strange.
She knew why she had lied about being with child—the idea of Makho forcing himself upon her when she was nearly dead from the whipping had been too much to bear. But she still could not say, even to herself, why she had hesitated to kill the young mortal on the island of bones. She had understood the danger as well as Makho himself, had known how much more difficult it would be to escape the island if the villagers were warned. And the child himself had almost certainly died anyway, along with most of the rest of his people, so her hesitation had accomplished nothing. And the most maddening part was that she had seen in that instant of hesitation all the likely consequences, seen them as clearly as if they had already come to pass. Yet she had not buried her knife in the fleeing boy’s back.
Destroying those who would destroy you is your solemn duty as a Sacrifice. If laying down your life for our queen is a joy, how much better to take the lives of the queen’s enemies? Nezeru had learned these lessons with her runes and numbers in her very first year at the order-house. She knew them as she knew her own name. But the first time the chance had come, she had bridled and failed. Why?
It is my blood. It must be. Somehow the mortal half, the part of me that is weakness and confusion, thwarted the better part.
It was not the anger of Makho and the others that filled her with shame, she saw now; it was the knowledge of her own impurity. It was the mortal in her, her mother’s shu’do-tkzayha blood, the blood of thralls and slaves. Look at how that Black Rimmersman captain and his men had stood by while women and children of their own mortal race fell beneath the blades of the Hikeda’ya! Only a weakness in the blood could explain such cravenness, such cowardice. If her own family were attacked, Nezeru knew that she would fight until she was killed and die with her teeth in an enemy’s throat. But how, then, had she failed to stop a single child to protect her people?
And now she had lied to her superior—a terrible, impious lie—simply to save herself discomfort. She had falsely promised to produce a child, a new subject for the queen, the thing the Hikeda’ya valued most. What madness had overtaken her?
I am at war with myself, she realized. If I am to be the queen’s woman, if I am to bring honor to the Order of Sacrifice, I must kill that weakness in my blood, that mortal weakness. It is the only way.
• • •
It was a long trek back to Nakkiga through the hilly lands along the base of the mountains the Hikeda’ya called Shimmerspine and the mortals called the Whitefells. The Talons sheltered for one night in a sentry outpost of the Order of Sacrifice, a cavern hollowed deep into the stony hillside and almost impossible to see from the valley below. The warriors stationed there were on long detail, and thus strange to Nezeru—their service had begun long before she had received her sacred calling—but Makho and Kemme knew many of them, and spent the evening drinking the quicksilver liquor called analita, and Ibi-Khai was closeted with the fort’s chief of Echoes for hours. Even Saomeji spent a brief time with his order counterparts, although as with most of their kind, Singers were solitary by nature, so the conversation did not last long. Only Nezeru found herself completely alone, but after what had happened on the island she felt no desire for fellowship and telling tales. She was also certain many of the tales would be about her, so she found herself a spot far from the sounds of conversation and did her best to rest.
In the morning, Nezeru thought that their Sacrifice hosts were looking at her differently: every Hikeda’ya soldier of the outpost, whose path crossed hers, seemed to examine her with interest, although with some it seemed more like contempt. She was shamed anew: she had little doubt that Makho and Kemme had told them of her failure and her punishment, and although her wounds were finally healed enough for her to move with some of her old grace, it felt as though everyone could see them through her garb. She could not help wondering if Makho had told them about the child she claimed to carry as well. Her belly would never grow, but her lies felt larger with each passing day, her crimes harder to hide.
“We have new orders,” Ibi-Khai informed them when Makho had gathered the Talons in preparation for leaving. “They were passed to the Chief Echo here in the sentry post, with my Magister’s binding truth-word to prove them. We are not to go back to Nakkiga, but instead we are ordered to take Hakatri’s bones to Bitter Moon Castle.”
All the Talons were surprised by this change in plans, and none were happy, especially not Makho, who Nezeru felt sure had been looking forward to a triumphant return to Nakkiga, not a trip to an isolated border fortress. Still, any message authenticated by the High Magister of the Order of Echoes came with the implied authority of Queen Utuk’ku herself, so all the Talons’ faces were cloaked in respect. Only Saomeji dared to show anything else, and his look was close to triumphant. As they made their way out of the fortified cavern, past the files of armored and helmeted Hikeda’ya soldiers, he leaned close to Nezeru, his golden eyes bright, and said, “It seems my masters have snatched this triumph from the lords of your order.”
She did not know what he meant, but she wanted no more to do with him than was strictly necessary, so she did not ask.
After leaving the outpost, Makho’s hand rode on fresh horses for several days through the mounting snows, following a more southerly route than they would have, until at last, on a morning when the sky was clear, they saw Bitter Moon Castle on the horizon. The fortress was a squat mass of granite at the top of Dragon’s Throat Pass, built in the days of Hikeda’ya power to watch over one of the most important routes in and out of Nakkiga. The Talons had a hard climb up narrow, winding paths to get there, and Nezeru was not the only one whose body ached by the time they reached the top of the pass and the great cleared area in front of the castle walls.
To her astonishment, as they approached the forbidding structure, its gates swung open and a great procession moved out onto the plain toward them, a hundred Sacrifices or more, a few riding but most marching to the rhythm of muffled drumbeats. The troop was led by something Nezeru could not quite make sense of, a massive sledge pulled across the snow by a team of panting wolves. A huge, cloth-covered bundle the size of a small cottage was lashed to the sledge.
Makho signaled the rest of the Talons to stop and wait. This was clearly no ordinary greeting party. Nezeru wondered what might be on the sledge. Was it meant for them?
The odd procession came to a halt before them, but a single white-robed rider continued forward on a tall, ice-white horse. As this figure neared, a sensation of helplessness swept over Nezeru, a terror stranger and more subtle than anything she had ever felt—like Saomeji’s ice moly, but chilling thoughts instead of wounds. She sank to her knees in the snow, waiting for the tall shape to dispose of her in whatever way it chose; within moments, the other members of the hand, even Makho the chieftain, had done the same.
“Where is the Singer of this hand of Talons?” asked the hooded rider in a voice like the scraping of ice on stone. Given time, Nezeru felt sure such a voice could reduce a mountain to rubble.
“Here! I am your humble minion, great Lord of Song.” Saomeji hurried forward to abase h
imself before the rider. “It is my joy to live and die for you and our queen, Master.”
“Pretty words,” said the rider. “Perhaps you shall have the opportunity to do both, and sooner than you think. Do you have the bones, little Singer? Hakatri’s precious bones?”
“I have carried them all this way.”
Makho stood up, although Nezeru thought he might have stumbled a little in his haste, which was astonishing in itself. “Here! By what right do you seize the queen’s prize?”
At his movement several Hikeda’ya soldiers from the front of the procession stepped toward the Talons, pikes lowered, but the smallest movement of the white rider’s hand stopped them. “By what right?” the tall figure said. “Child of our long exile, I am that right.” He reached up a white-gloved hand and pushed back his hood. Nezeru’s heart skipped and barely righted itself.
“Lord Akhenabi!” Makho’s voice was squeezed and faint. He fell back onto his knees and pushed his face against the snow. “Magister, I did not know it was you! I beg your forgiveness. I did not know . . .!”
Nezeru could only stare as her heart fluttered and bumped in her chest like a trapped thing. Akhenabi! She felt her skin tighten, her hackles rise. The High Magister of the House of Song was a figure of terrifying legend among the Hikeda’ya, the queen’s closest confidant and counselor. One of the first born in this land after the Eight Ships had arrived from the lost Garden, the great magician had been a power in Nakkiga since longer than any but Utuk’ku and a few other ancients could remember.
And like the queen, the Lord of Song went always masked. All the Hikeda’ya’s first generations wore masks by tradition, but Akhenabi’s was the strangest Nezeru had ever seen, made of a thin, pale material that clung to his face and neck so closely that it mimicked the movements beneath. Only his eyes, the holes of his nostrils, and his mouth showed through, but the mask clung so closely to those that it might have been a second skin.
Akhenabi turned back to kneeling Saomeji. “You. Bring the bones to me.”
The Singer carried the bundle forward with careful, reverent steps, then kneeled beside Akhenabi’s stirrup and lifted it high in the air. Akhenabi reached down his long arm for it, then unwrapped the cloth in which the bones were shrouded. His masked face did not change or show any emotion, but Nezeru thought she could feel the satisfaction beating out from him like the heat of a fire.
“So. You have done well.” The Lord of Song turned his masked face to Makho and the rest of the Queen’s Talons. “So well that the Mother of All has gifted you with a new quest—a second vital task. You should be very proud.”
Makho took a moment to speak. “Of course we are proud, great one. Serving the queen is everything to us. But may we know what this task is?”
“Your own Echo has been told what is needed,” rasped the Lord of Song. “The knowledge has already been placed in his head, and he will lead you where you must go, Hand Chieftain. To your eternal honor, you are given this service by the Queen herself.” He paused and nodded, as if savoring something. “You and your hand are to find a living dragon and bring it back. Our queen has a use for its blood, but the beast must be alive when we take that blood.”
“A living dragon?” Makho was clearly astonished, but with a visible effort of will, he mastered himself. “Are we not to return to Nakkiga first, Magister?”
“Did I not say this is the queen’s wish? Do you question me?” The angry scrape of Akhenabi’s voice made Nezeru tremble though she was not its target.
“No, great one!” Makho bowed his head, but the chieftain had never lacked for courage, and there was still a sign of stubborn resistance in the straightness of his back. “It is just that I had planned on our return, so I could deliver one of my Talons for discipline. She nearly compromised our retrieval of the bones. How can I trust her with this new task?”
Akhenabi’s masked face turned to the rest of the hand where they kneeled behind Makho, and lit on Nezeru with a chilly finality she could feel in her innards. “You,” he said. “Come to me.”
Her heart seemed to be racing downhill now. It was nearly impossible to make her legs work, worse even than the first day after her whipping. When she managed to get her feet beneath her at last, she staggered forward and then sank to her knees once more, staring at the horse’s slate-colored hooves instead of at the Lord of Song.
“Look up, Sacrifice. Look at me.”
She did, and had to restrain a sound of startled horror. Akhenabi’s mask was not simply draped over his face, she now saw, but had been stitched at the eyes and mouth and nostrils with tiny knots—stitched, she felt sure, to his very skin. The pearly, translucent mask itself was painted with runes almost as small as the knots, faint silvery letters she could not read, symbols that only showed when the starlight fell on them at an angle, so that as the Lord of Song examined her, they appeared and disappeared across his cheeks and forehead.
“No, my eyes,” he demanded. “Look into my eyes.”
She did not want to—by her oath and her death-song, she did not want to!—but she could not resist that harsh, powerful voice. Her gaze met his. For a moment the dark wells of the magician’s eyes seemed to grow smaller, until they were no larger than the puncture a bone needle would make, but at the same time Nezeru felt herself falling forward into them as though they were gaping holes in a dangerous, icy pond.
For an instant she tumbled helplessly into that darkness, then the magician’s empty black eyes were somehow inside her instead, digging carelessly through her thoughts. Everywhere they roamed she lay naked and unprotected, as if some great pair of hands held her and touched her in any way their owner wished. Her lies, her treacherous, cowardly thoughts, even the corrupt flow of her mortal blood—Nezeru was certain that the Lord of Song could see them all. She could hide nothing.
At last, Akhenabi turned from her, and she toppled forward into the snow, limp and barely sensible, resigned to death.
“There is no need to return her to Nakkiga,” the Lord of Song declared. “She will suffice for what comes next.”
Nezeru was astounded. How could the great Akhenabi not have seen her deepest secrets? But he had seen them, she was certain—she had felt the subtle, inhuman touch of his curiosity push in wherever it wished. So why was she not being punished?
“But, great lord,” protested Makho, “—a living dragon? How will a single hand, even of Queen’s Talons, manage to capture and bring back such a creature? Hakatri, whose bones we have brought to you, was one of the greatest of the Zida’ya, but the worm Hidohebhi burned him unto death.”
“So you would say five of our kind cannot equal the deeds of one of the Zida’ya?” Akhenabi hissed, and his voice was like the crack of the hebi-kei. Makho tried to meet his eye but could only hold that dark gaze for a split-instant. “You let fear of failure make you a coward, Hand Chieftain. But the queen herself demands your success, and Utuk’ku is always generous. She has sent you a gift to help you complete your task.” Akhenabi raised his hand again and the wolf-team drivers whipped their animals up onto their feet and drove them forward. The great sledge creaked and groaned for a moment, frozen in place, then the ice cracked and the huge runners slid across the ground until it reached Akhenabi and his white horse.
“Give Chieftain Makho the goad,” Akhenabi ordered. One of the sledge’s drivers came forward and handed Makho a rod of bright vermillion crystal. “Now take up the goad, Hand Chieftain.” The Lord of Song spoke as though enacting some ritual only he knew. “Wait until you feel it warm in your hand, then say the word ‘Awaken’.”
Makho stared at him for a moment, then at the sledge and the covered mound tied at the center of it. He lifted the crystal rod. “Awaken.”
For a moment, nothing happened. Then the ropes on the sledge began to rustle and creak as they were pulled tighter. One of them snapped with a report that made even Makho start. Then a second
broke, then a third, and the covered mass began to quiver. Now the great wolves harnessed to the sledge all began to moan, loud, whining noises of unease. An instant later the heavy tent-cloth ripped like parchment and fell away as the thing on the sledge rose, trailing broken ropes that seemed no larger than spiderwebs.
Even Saomeji was surprised—Nezeru heard him murmuring beneath his breath. It sounded like prayers.
The giant crouched, blinking. It was by far the biggest of its kind that Nezeru had ever seen, nearly twice the height of mortals or Hikeda’ya, covered in grayish-white fur except for its jut-browed face, which was hairless and covered in leathery, dark gray skin. A wide gray ring of witchwood encircled the beast’s neck.
“Look! Do you see the yoke he wears?” asked Akhenabi. “The queen herself put it on him. It binds him to the service of the one who holds the goad. But use it sparingly or he will become inured to the pain and difficult to master.”
The giant looked blearily from side to side. It hunched its shoulders and growled so loudly and deeply that the watching Hikeda’ya twisted in discomfort at the sheer power of it. The beast then leaped down from the sled, landing so hard Nezeru felt the ground shudder. The wolves began to howl with redoubled excitement and terror.
“Bind him to your will!” Akhenabi almost sounded amused. “Bind him quickly, Hand Chieftain, or he will tear you apart!”
“How?” shouted Makho.
“Hold the goad firmly! Think of your hands closing on his neck. Think of choking him as you tell him what you want.” Now Akhenabi actually laughed, a terrible, scraping sound. “Or be sure the monster will kill you all!”
“Stop, giant!” shouted Makho. He thrust the rod toward the creature. “Down on your knees.”