‘I still don’t understand why you didn’t tell me all this in Khalt. You should have spoken about it even before we left the Halmanes. It would have saved a lot of time and bother.’
Keea lowered his eyes. ‘I was obeying instructions. I’m sorry. I had to deceive you. My objective was to get you to Sacramante, and what better way to do that than to intrigue and mystify you? I had no idea that the Metatronims would change their mind about using your services.’
I shook my head, which was aching with the weight of all I had learned. Gimel: why did you have to turn out to be this terrible thing? The knowledge hurt me deeply. I did not want to believe it. This couldn’t be the truth, could it? All that Keea had said seemed to give me those answers I’d yearned for, and yet my instincts still advised caution. Was this because none of us ever want to credit the reality of painful truth? ‘Gimel Metatronim has haunted my life, since I was a child,’ I said. ‘And now I find she is a demoness, a succubus. And her brother...’ My neck and face went hot. ‘Incubus! Oh, Benevolent Spirits, what did he do to me?’
Keea leaned close and put his arm around my shoulder. ‘I know it must be hard for you to take in, Rayo. Gimel and Beth are ageless, as are all eloim. They are immortal and they are predatory.’
‘And the riders - the Knights? You were afraid of them. What were they?’
‘Eloim warriors. I feared the Metatronims had discovered I was not wholly loyal and that they had sent those monsters out looking for me.’
He seemed to have an answer for everything. I glanced at his hand where it hung over my shoulder. ‘How did you obtain the Metatronim seal?’
He curled his fingers and did not speak for a moment. ‘I stole it,’ he said eventually. ‘I stole it.’
Keea was obviously an intrepid and enterprising adventurer, although I would still have felt happier knowing more about his background. He did appear to be concerned for my safety.
‘Keea, this is their library! We must get out of here!’ I stood up quickly, knocking over my chair. ‘Helat’s tits and cock, we’re locked in!’
‘Sit down, Rayo, you are quite safe,’ Keea said. ‘The eloim don’t know we’re here. We can wait for the old goat to let us out.’
I walked to the door and pressed my face against it. ‘I don’t want to be a part of this. It’s madness! Why did I have to get the wanderlust? I should have stayed in Taparak.’
‘It wouldn’t have mattered,’ Keea said. ‘I would have found you there. I would have found you anywhere, Rayojini.’
I turned away from the door. He was sitting with one arm along the back of his chair, the other lying protectively over the ancient book. ‘Who are you Keea?’ I said. ‘Who are you working for? What’s happening?’
‘I am working for the good of humanity,’ he said. ‘You must believe that.’
Just by saying those words, he had me doubting. Avirzah’e had sounded so convincing when he’d spoken of Gimel’s regard for me. I found it difficult to envisage the artisans as callous predators. Avirzah’e had not seemed like a killer to me. Who was I to believe? Surely I should at least try to speak with Gimel to establish the eloim version of this story. If the history and the legends were true, they had given humanity immeasurable gifts. I found it hard to believe the Sacramantan nobles would perpetuate the situation simply for some kind of carnal gratification. It didn’t make sense. Izobella herself was a patron of the artisans. How had they hidden themselves for so long? It was incredible. Beyond belief. And to me, who worked with the incredible and the unbelievable on a daily basis, horribly possible. Gods walked down the road from Bochanegra. What would happen if the eloim were destroyed? Were they perhaps a necessary evil? I couldn’t decide for myself, not there, in that little room, with Keea’s energy blasting me into confusion. Who was he? I would still have to tread carefully.
I went to pick up my chair and sat down. Keea had begun to look through the book again. I noticed he had opened it at the end and was flicking backwards. ‘What are you looking for?’ I asked him.
‘Another hiding place,’ he said. ‘I want to know what they did with Sammael.’
‘Immortal Helat, hmm?’
He did not answer, but kept turning the pages. Then, he paused and marked the text with a finger. ‘Melancholia!’ he said. ‘He incarcerated himself.’
‘So Helat is out of the game?’
‘Never that,’ Keea replied. He closed the book, and rubbed his eyes.
‘So what do I do now?’ I asked him. ‘Do I have to meet someone - your employers perhaps?’
Keea laced his fingers beneath his chin, and the Metatronim ring cast a light over his throat. He did not look at me. ‘Not yet. It is nearly time, Rayo, very nearly time. Wait at The Temple Gate. I will contact you later today, when I am ready.’
‘When you are ready for what?’
‘To help you,’ he said. ‘Speak to no one about this. Promise me.’
‘Very well. I promise.’ But I had no intention of honouring it.
Section Seven
Rayojini
‘I see thy fall determined, and thy hapless crew involved in this perfidious fraud, contagion spread both of thy crime and punishment…
Paradise Lost, Book V
As soon as the old man let us out of the locked room, my instinct was to flee the building like a caged beast accidentally given freedom. Keea did not intend to come back to The Temple Gate with me and was vague about what he was going do before he contacted me again. We walked down the hill together and embraced awkwardly when our paths diverged. I felt we had shared some faintly shameful intimacy. He made me repeat my promise not to speak to anyone until he came to me.
The bells were striking mid-day as I hurried up Aurora Paths. Would Avirzah’e return? What if Keea came back first? What was I going to do? First, drink a couple of large brandies.
No messages had been left with Terissa, so I went into the bar and purchased a liquid lunch of strong alcohol. The room was full of the dreamy sound of people enjoying themselves in a relaxed manner. My nerves were jangling like bags of metal balls being juggled by an incompetent child. Restlessly, I kept changing my location; sitting by turn out in the garden, back in the salon, in the dining room. My mind kept trying to throw a hook over all I’d learned. One moment, I was convinced Avirzah’e’s account was the accurate one, the next that Keea was nearer the truth with his dark suspicions and hints of terrible oppression. I still wanted to see Gimel desperately, whether she was hostile to me or not. I could not rid my guts of an instinctive belief that she, more than anyone else, would tell me the truth. Why was I so convinced of that? Was I simply a dupe for a pretty face, believing Avirzah’e Tartaruchi because he’d batted his eyelashes at me? Surely not. Everything slotted comfortably into place, if juxtaposed against Keea’s explanation. And yet... I had not been able to read the ancient text in the library, which meant that anything could have been written there, anything. I recalled my first impression of Keea. Deep down, that hackle-raising suspicion had not left me.
About an hour after I’d returned to the inn, Terissa came to me in the main salon. I must have looked demented, because she backed away a step when I stood up. ‘Yes? What is it?’ I demanded.
‘Someone is here for you...’ she answered, looking puzzled.
‘Well, why haven’t you brought them to me? Who is it?’
‘I was only trying to find you, Rayojini,’ she said, in a hurt tone. ‘I’ve shown them to the bar. It’s a man. His name is Salyon Tricante.’
I barged past her without a word, and heard her affronted retort behind me.
‘Salyon? I’m so glad you came!’
He was sitting on a stool against the polished bar, with a tankard of ale in his hand. I greeted him as if he was a long-lost friend. He, like Terissa, looked rather taken aback. I ordered myself another brandy and took him to a secluded table where we could speak in private.
‘You look rather harassed,’ he said, taking off his cloak and sittin
g down.
I realised I was physically shaking, as if I was cold. ‘It has been an eventful day.’
‘Are you alright?’
I nodded. ‘Yes. Salyon, I hope you have come here prepared to answer questions, because I have plenty to ask.’
He smiled, an expression that split his gaunt, forbidding face into something more personable. ‘To be honest, I don’t know why I’m here. I found it quite moving to see you again. The last time we met, I had just surfaced from a nightmare. Your face has always stayed with me.’
I felt a little embarrassed by this frank admission, and shrugged uncomfortably. ‘Your nightmare,’ I said. ‘Did it have anything to do with the artisans?’
He rested his chin in his hands and stared at me for a few moments. I found it very disconcerting. ‘Are you aware of the special relationship between the patron families and the artisans?’
I nodded. ‘I think so. The eloim.’
He smiled in what seemed to be relief. ‘I am glad I’m not the one to tell you about that. It also proves that my assumptions about you might be correct. I hope I don’t regret coming here.’
I felt a twinge of guilt. ‘Are you putting yourself in danger, talking to me?’
He traced a bony finger around the edge of his tankard. ‘I don’t know what impels me to speak to you, other than our tenuous link from the past. I suppose you’ve realised that no patron talks about the... artisans.’
I nodded in encouragement.
‘Times are changing,’ Salyon said, giving me a penetrating look. ‘I’m not sure if I’m pleased about that or disturbed.’
He folded his arms on the table. ‘I might as well tell you that I am useless for eloim purposes. The sup unhinged my soul. I am estranged from patron society because of it.’
‘Excuse me,’ I interrupted him, ‘but there is something I have to clarify in my own mind. Were you intended to be a sacrifice for the Holy Death? And did that process go wrong in some way, which necessitated the attentions of my mother?’
Salyon looked puzzled. ‘Holy Death? No, no. Nobody survives a sacrifice! What a preposterous idea. What happened to me was quite different. During our early teens, patron children are introduced to the sup - that is, we learn the secrets of feeding the artisans. For some of us, it is impracticable. Don’t know why. An allergy, perhaps, or something like that. My first sup resulted in the condition you and your mother saw all those years ago.’
‘I see. So it was wholly voluntary.’
He frowned. ‘Of course. It was something I’d been waiting for with hungry anticipation for years! Having experienced it then, it grieves me I cannot enjoy those sensations again.’
‘But some individuals are given in sacrifice, are killed?’
‘Yes. But that again is voluntary.’ He looked at me directly. ‘You have no idea what it is like to belong to a patron family but not be able to indulge in the sup. I have felt wretched in the past, and aloof, and bereft, and relieved. I wanted you to know that.’
I made a soothing sound. ‘Thank you for telling me. Now, can you explain to me how “times are changing” as you put it? What has changed exactly?’
Salyon grinned. ‘I feel you already know more than I can tell you.’
I raised my hands. ‘Please, indulge me. I want to hear it from you.’
‘As you wish. Well, no one beyond patron society has ever become interested in the eloim before. Now, it seems that the invisible screen between them and the world has been shattered. Questions are being asked at last. People have woken up and are wondering exactly what, or who, the eloim are. They are in danger of being exposed. Another thing is that the eloim are dying. But I suppose you know that too.’
‘I have heard a little.’
‘Immortals taking their own life!’ he said. ‘Why? It must be a mental sickness.’ He leaned towards me. ‘Ah, but these are dangerous times, you know. Not just the eloim are dying. My own family has suffered a fatality!’
‘Who? Why?’
‘A cousin of mine. You might remember her: Perdina.’
I nodded. ‘Vaguely. I remember poetry and hair.’
‘Well, she too took her own life to protect the eloim. It’s a long story, which I won’t go into now, but in my eyes, Perdina can be regarded as a holy sacrifice. Things are getting out of control!’
‘Aren’t they!’ I said, under my breath. It was time for a little direct therapy. ‘Are you pleased that the artisans are suffering, Salyon?’ I asked carefully. It had occurred to me that the real reason Salyon had come to me was because he needed the services of a soulscaper himself. What I saw before me was an anguished soul.
He sighed. ‘I don’t know. I hate them because I cannot get close to them. I want to touch them, as my relatives do. Does that shock you? And yet, I cannot imagine the world without them. They are...’ He shook his head; there were no words for his feelings.
‘Salyon, do the eloim kill people regularly; you know, just people off the street, non-patrons?’
His head jerked up, and he blinked. ‘No, never, I’m sure of it! The only deaths they cause are those of the sacrifices, which the patrons give them as holy gifts, as a mark of trust and faith. These the eloim drain of life but, as I told you, all such sacrifices have to be voluntary. Eloim do not kill the unwilling.’
I was relieved to hear that, which must have showed on my face.
‘But does that make them any less parasitical?’ Salyon asked urgently. ‘Once you have been touched by them, it becomes an addiction. Whether it is bad for you or not, it still puts you in a vulnerable position. Life loses all meaning, but for the sup. You must believe that.’
I nodded slowly, and took a sip of brandy. ‘Would you say the eloim desire more power, more freedom?’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘I’m sure they do. Some eloim, more than others. When we speak of the artisans, we cannot speak of a single mind, a single purpose. They are like us, in that respect.’ He leaned towards me and lowered his voice, even though we had not been speaking very loudly. ‘I forced Livvy to tell me what you spoke to her about. She said you had seen strange things in Khalt, that you had been followed to Sacramante. I know what is going on, Rayojini!’
His hands were shaking, and I felt a tug of distaste for his vehemence, but also sadness, because I sensed there was sickness within this man’s soulscape still, despite all that Ushas had done for him so many years before. ‘Any theory, at this point, would be most welcome,’ I said. My brandy was finished. I raised my hand to attract the bartender and order another.
‘The artisans are going mad,’ he declared, with an air of triumph. ‘They are becoming dangerous, which is, of course, a reaction to their mindsickness.’
‘Dangerous in what way?’
His face assumed a closed, sly expression. ‘I have no proof,’ he said, ‘but it seems obvious to me that once the eloim’s disguise has been penetrated, they will be forced to rise up and take control of Sacramante. Izobella is their creature; she would not oppose it, I’m sure. Like us, self-preservation must be of prime importance to the eloim. I do not think they are naturally malevolent, but they will certainly want to protect themselves.’
I nodded. There was some sense in that, I suppose. It allowed for both Avirzah’e’s and Keea’s explanations to be honest ones. ‘Do you know Gimel and Beth Metatronim?’ I asked.
Salyon rubbed his arms, and gulped audibly. ‘I knew you would ask that. They are friends of the Sarim. Their father, Metatron, is a powerful figure among the eloim. I admire them greatly as artists, of course.’
My brandy arrived without me having to do more than raise a hand. They were already used to my tastes in this place. ‘Are the Metatronims suffering from the sickness too?’ I asked, once the bartender had gone.
Salyon shrugged. ‘I don’t know. Surely, you would be more aware of that. Neither Beth or Gimel have been much in evidence lately.’
I felt quite breathless. Here was someone, who wasn’t an artisan themselves,
who had seen the Metatronims, perhaps even talked to them. I realised my interest in Beth and Gimel had become more acute since my meeting with Avirzah’e. Had I dreamed of them last night? I couldn’t remember. It seemed, however, that Salyon thought I knew more about them than I did. ‘What will the patron families do if the eloim do try to attain more power?’ I asked. ‘How will the eloim subjugate everyone who isn’t a patron? Will the patrons fight with them as allies against their own people, other humans?’
‘How can I answer those questions?’ Salyon said sharply.
‘What have you really come here for?’ I asked.
A wily grin crept across his face. ‘I might ask you the same thing,’ he replied. ‘All these years, I’ve thought of you. All these years. You want to know what pulled me out of the darkness, when I was so sick? I’ll tell you. I saw you with the Metatronim, Rayojini! I know you were his lover. It was as if a door opened in my mind, and I saw you there, lying beneath him. It woke me up.’
‘How did you see that?’ I snapped.
He shrugged. ‘You know how! Oh, don’t try to deceive me any longer. I’ve uncovered your plot!’
‘What plot?’
He leaned closer towards me. ‘I know the Taps are poised to take the place of the patron families. It’s true, isn’t it?’
‘What?’ For one dreadful moment, I wondered whether that could possibly be true, and the reason why answers to the puzzle had eluded me. My own people working against me? Then, I looked at the crazed, fanatical light in Salyon’s eyes. Be sensible, Rayojini, I told myself. ‘Why do you think this?’ I asked in a reasonable tone.
‘That’s obvious!’ Salyon said. ‘I have heard the rumours that the eloim have a soulscaper they are planning to use. They think a Tap will be able to cure them of their mindsickness. But they’ll still need strong allies if they have to fight their human opponents, won’t they? I worked it out myself: the Taps would increase their own power tenfold if they had access to eloim ichor. It would be a mutually advantageous plan. You are the vanguard, Mistress Rayojini, aren’t you? And I have unmasked you! What do you say to that?’