Then two pairs of hands grabbed him, hauling him upright and off his feet. There he dangled, his feet kicking in midair, his arms aching where powerful fingers dug into his skin. He heard harsh but human voices speaking—women’s voices, not men’s, although two big men held him. He did not understand the language.
Twisting in the grasp of his captors, he tried to catch a glimpse of those speaking. He saw two women, one tall, one short, both clad in red garments that looked like cured and dyed animal hides. Their arms were bare and brown, and their hair was long, black as night, adorned with uncut gems. Neither was beautiful; their faces were much too hard.
There was no sign of the Black Dogs.
“Take him,” one of the women commanded, and though the Chronicler did not understand her words, he guessed her meaning by her gesture. The great men bore him easily down the pillared hall. They were naked to the waist, belted and armed, and their faces were stern and nearly inhuman. These were men who had never been shown mercy and would show no mercy themselves.
Doors at the end of the hall were opened, and the Chronicler was carried through into a great tower and the foot of a staircase. Straining his neck, he saw that there were no floors to break up the dreadful height of this tower, merely landings, almost like perches in a falconry mews.
They carried him up, higher and higher, his legs swinging, and the Chronicler thought he might shame himself and faint. He tried closing his eyes, but that was worse, so he forced them to remain open, refusing to look down. One of the priestesses went before, the short one. Behind there were others; how many he could not guess, but he heard the tramp of their feet.
They did not climb to the crest of the tower. Instead, they stopped at one of the final broad landings. There still was no barrier between a false step and the long fall to the floor below, but it was large enough to fit a crowd of fifty or more comfortably. In the center was a high-backed wooden chair covered with animal hides stained the same red as the robes of the priestesses. It took a moment before the Chronicler realized someone sat upon it: a tall, solemn woman whose face might have been handsome had it not been heavily scarred with sorrow and cruelty.
The high priestess, he guessed. The Speaker.
The Chronicler’s head whirled with vertigo when the slaves threw him facedown before that red throne. He saw the priestess withdraw her feet in apparent disgust. Then she spoke sharply. He could guess what she said.
“Is this the one? Is this the heir to Fireword?”
One of the priestesses answered in a deep voice what seemed to be a tentative confirmation.
“It is what was brought, Speaker. They never fail in their hunt.”
The Chronicler raised his head and met the eyes of the high priestess. She blinked once, then shook her head and looked away with something between repugnance and . . . could it be embarrassment?
He grimaced and pushed himself upright. They hadn’t bothered to bind him. What was the need? He looked around and saw that a large crowd had gathered, most of them women, but slave men stood on the edges, their faces implacable as stone.
The high priestess spoke again, and though there was doubt in her tone, the Chronicler thought she was agreeing.
“If they brought him, he must be the one.” Then, after a pause, “Where is the girl?”
The crowd parted. The Chronicler looked around and saw Mouse, more ragged than ever amid the sober grandeur of the priestesses. Another priestess, the short one the Chronicler had glimpsed earlier, walked behind her, a hand upon her shoulder. And yet, he thought, Mouse did not look like a prisoner somehow. Not quite.
“Come to me, Mouse,” said the Speaker, holding out a hand.
Mouse went, passing the Chronicler without a glance. She fell upon her knees and face before the high priestess, her hands pressed to her chest in a manner of complete subservience. The Speaker leaned down and cupped her by the chin, lifting her gently upright. Even then Mouse could not raise her eyes to meet those of her mistress.
The Speaker said: “Well done, child. You have served the Flame with utmost courage and devotion. You shall have your reward.”
The Chronicler stared. The words passed without meaning through his ears, but the tone was unmistakable.
“You betrayed us,” he said. His voice was cold as ice in that hot realm.
Mouse started and spun around to face him. Her face was stricken, for she too understood his tone.
“You betrayed us,” he said, struggling to his feet. “You led us here to hand us over to them. And what became of the cat-man, eh? What became of Alistair?” She winced at his cousin’s name, which she recognized. But he did not hold back, only raised his voice in an angry shout. “Are they dead, then? Are they killed?”
“Take him away,” said the Speaker quietly. The two slave guards stepped forward, and though the Chronicler struck out in his fury, he could do nothing against them. They once more lifted him from his feet, and he burned with humiliation and wrath. Writhing in their grasp even as they passed through the crowd, he shouted over his shoulder:
“You’re not a mouse, do you hear me? You’re not a mouse; you’re a rat! A dirty, gnawing rat!”
Mouse, still kneeling, her mouth open, watched him disappear into the throng and heard him shouting in his barbarous tongue as they bore him back down the winding stair. She tried to swallow, but her mouth had gone as dry as the world beyond the tower.
The Speaker placed a hand upon her head. “We will clean you and make you presentable,” she said. “Then you will have what many long for and never achieve. You will look upon the face of your goddess.”
I will look upon the face of holiness, Mouse thought. And then I will be cleansed of my sin.
Down the long stair, and the descent did not stop. Another long stair opened itself like a mouth below the Chronicler, and he was dragged down farther still, out of the light, out of the heat, into the close, stifling dark of the Citadel’s dungeons. They flung him unchained into a cell, and he heard the slam of iron on stone. Footsteps retreated. He was alone in the dark.
He lay for he couldn’t guess how long, unable to move, uncertain of his own limbs. Above him was a stone grate. He reached up, just able to grasp it and, with a grunt, hauled himself up. He could see nothing. All was pitch-black. So he let go and stood in silence, unable to think. It was too dark to think. It was too dark to feel.
And then there was light.
It was faint, reflecting on the ceiling above. The Chronicler looked up at it like a lost sailor looking to the pole star. A gentle voice spoke in a language he understood, though it was not his.
“Who are you?”
He ground his teeth, then shrugged. “I am the castle chronicler of Gaheris.”
A quiet moment, not quite silent. Then: “I am Dame Imraldera, Knight of the Farthest Shore. Are you Etanun’s heir?”
“Supposedly,” he replied. “According to some.”
“You don’t believe you are?”
“It’s hard to believe much of anything in this place, isn’t it?”
The light—perhaps from the starflower Mouse had mentioned in her tale—faded a little. Then Imraldera said, “It’s as well that what you believe cannot affect the truth.”
The Chronicler cursed and closed his eyes to avoid seeing that light. “If I survive this,” he said, more to himself than to the prisoner, “I swear I will find Leta and retract everything I ever said about truth and belief!”
“Who is Leta?” asked Dame Imraldera.
He could not answer. He told himself that he was not weeping, for no one could weep in this place. It was far too dreadful an end to merit tears.
After a silence that lasted forever, the prisoner across the way whispered, “Perhaps I should not have trusted Etanun after all.”
6
I SET UPON THE HOUSES OF LIGHTS AGAIN, picking them out as they shone at night and pouring flame down on them from above. So the gleam of Asha was extinguished across that world, and the voice
s of Lumé and Hymlumé were stilled.
Once more Etanun found me. Upon the Green of Corrilond we fought, and our battle extended for miles, decimating the land. I tore him with my claws, burned him with my fire, but Halisa protected him from death, and he dealt me many blows.
At last the sword found its way home and once more plunged into my breast. “Die, cursed devil!” Etanun cried. “And this time, stay dead!”
“But don’t you know?” I replied with my last breaths. “I am a queen. I will return.”
And with that, I took my original form. I was once more the woman he had known, suspended on the end of his weapon. I saw his eyes widen, his mouth open. I thought his lips formed the words, “Dear queen!”
But I was probably mistaken in that.
Darkness clouded out my fire. Once more I died.
“Lights Above us!” Alistair stared at the old man. “Aren’t you the kitchen man? The pot scourer?”
The scrubber touched his thin forelock respectfully. “My lord,” he said.
A snarl sliced the air. “You’re behind this, aren’t you? Traitor! Murderer! ”
Alistair ducked his head as, much to his surprise, Eanrin flew over him, leaping like a cat, though still wearing his man’s form, at the scrubber’s throat. For an instant, Alistair believed Eanrin would break the old man in two.
But the scrubber, his scrawny limbs moving so quickly that Alistair almost missed the action, turned, caught Eanrin by the arm and the back of the neck, and twisted him so that he was down on his knees and unable to move, though he spat and snarled and kicked. He even tried to take cat form, but the old man kept his grip on his scruff and pressed all his weight into Eanrin’s body.
“Steady now, kitty cat,” said the scrubber. “No use hissing at me like that.”
Eanrin, a man once more, knelt panting in the dirt, his red clothes dusted over and his immortal face smeared and dirty. But he calmed his struggles and only spat again, “Murderer!”
“Call me more names, why don’t you?” the scrubber said mildly. “Call me all the names you like. But shall we have done with the physical violence, at least for the moment? It unbalances the humors.”
Eanrin’s voice dropped into indecipherable mutters, and Alistair took the opportunity to scramble to his feet. “What are you doing here?” he demanded. “Did you follow us? How did you escape Gaheris? Have you word from the castle?”
The scrubber looked up at Alistair, his face so wrinkled that its expression was impossible to determine. “Stop asking questions for the moment, my boy,” he said. “Wait. Wait a little.”
He loosened his hold on Eanrin, and the cat-man was up in a trice, backed away and braced for battle. Though he was taller by far than the ancient scrubber, and his limbs were well-formed and strong compared to the other’s aged frailty, there was fear in his eyes. “What did you do to Imraldera?” he growled. “How did you force her to obey you?”
The old man chuckled. “When have you ever known Dame Imraldera to be compelled beyond her will? Remember, we speak of the same maid who fought Amarok and won.”
“The Wolf Lord possessed nowhere near your cunning, Etanun Ashiun,” Eanrin said. “Your manipulations are shrewd indeed, but do you really think you can convince the worlds to believe you anymore? Imraldera doesn’t know. She wasn’t there when you killed your brother and broke faith with the Lumil Eliasul.”
“Neither,” said the old man, “were you.”
“I saw what happened! I saw the Near World tumble back into darkness, cut off from the Sphere Songs. I saw the Flame at Night ravage nations unchecked; I saw Etalpalli burned to ruins. I saw the results of your evil.”
“So did our Lord,” Etanun replied.
He said no more, made no defense or argument. And yet, to Alistair’s surprise, Eanrin opened his mouth to speak, then swallowed back his words and turned away with a bitter curse. He refused to look at the old man again.
So it was to Alistair that the scrubber addressed himself next. “Mouse will be along shortly,” he said. “When she arrives, you must do as she says. She knows more than she thinks she knows, and she will help you. All is coming together as it must, so try to be forgiving”—he glanced at Eanrin—“if you can.”
With those words he began walking, bowed over and tottering, his face set toward the distant tower and the red light. “Wait!” Alistair cried, taking a step after him.
“That’s right,” the old man said over his shoulder. “Wait. Wait a little. You will see in time.”
“But where are you going?” Alistair glanced at Eanrin, but the cat-man’s head was bowed, his eyes closed, his face grimacing as though with pain. There would be no help from that quarter. “What do you intend to do?”
But the old man gave no answer. He continued on his slow, painful way, as though every step sent searing pain through his joints, along his veins. Then, as suddenly as the blink of an eye, he vanished. There was nowhere for him to hide, not on this wide, blank desolation. He was simply and utterly gone, like an interrupted dream, leaving only the faintest and most confused memories in his wake.
Alistair stared at the empty space. “Where did he go?” he cried, whirling upon Eanrin.
The poet straightened slowly, adjusting his clothes and wiping his face. He looked at the dirt that came off on his fingers and shuddered. Then he fixed Alistair with the intensity of his golden-eyed glare. “This land is crossed over with Faerie Paths,” he said. “Secret ways, most of them unsafe, by which immortal kind may travel. He has taken one of those.” Again he shuddered, and his throat constricted as though he was trying to keep from being sick. “Not one I would take.”
“And what are we to do?” Alistair cried. “He said Mouse would return, but you told me the Black Dogs took her!”
Eanrin bit out his words as though they tasted foul. “I have no answers for you, mortal. For once, I find myself as ignorant as you.” He drew a long breath and spoke with reluctance. “We will have to . . . wait.”
Alistair stared across the wide and lonely plain to where the tower slashed at the horizon. A red light flickered faintly.
Nothing could be done about her shaggy, cropped hair. After multiple washings and peelings away of the grime and dirt in which Mouse had lived for the last many weeks, the Speaker finally declared that it was the best that could be expected. She ordered the other acolytes to dress Mouse in a red robe like those of a priestess, but they covered her head with the black hood of an acolyte to disguise the damage the shears had done.
“Are you ready?” the Speaker asked when Mouse, shivering and clean, was presented before her. “To look upon the face of the goddess is an honor even priestesses are rarely given. You have served the Flame with a willing heart, proving your devotion even to the point of risking your own life. The Flame is pleased.”
The Flame should be pleased, Mouse thought with little reverence. After all, she had done as she was told.
“Follow the blue star, child,” the Silent Lady had said. “Do what you must.”
All those months ago, Mouse had withdrawn from the dungeons and made her way back up the long stairs to the temple above. Waiting at the top of that stair had been the high priestess.
“Well done, little Mouse,” the Speaker had said. “Tell me, what did you learn from our prisoner?”
Mouse had told her. What else could she have done? She’d told her everything, including her promise to find Etanun and his heir.
“The Flame is pleased,” the high priestess had said even then. “You will go. You will do as you have promised. And when you have discovered Etanun’s heir, you will bring him back to us. Do you understand?”
“If I do,” Mouse had whispered, surprised at her own daring, “will the Silent Lady be spared?”
The Speaker had smiled in reply a smile that did not reach her eyes. “If you succeed, small one, you will look upon the face of the goddess and plead for her life yourself.”
So Mouse had gone. She had followed
the blue star. She had risked her life in a cold nation where she did not understand the language. She had been nearly gutted by goblins.
And she had betrayed those who were her friends.
The Speaker’s eyes now bored into the shadows beneath Mouse’s hood. Mouse wondered, could she read her mind? She ducked her head, ashamed of her own thoughts. She hoped her attitude appeared merely humble.
The Speaker stepped back and made a final sign of blessing over the girl. Then she said, “Take care you do not undo all your good work. Take care you do not displease your goddess.”
Mouse trembled so much that she feared at every step she might fall as, led by the Speaker and flanked by other priestesses of high rank, she climbed the long stair of the Spire. She had never before stepped beyond the door at the top of the stair. She knew only that the altar burned above and that the goddess lived behind the altar.
The goddess whose face she was about to see. The dreadful holiness so near.
“Fire burn,” she whispered as she climbed. “Fire purify.”
At last they reached the end of their climb, and the Speaker opened the final doorway. A blast of wind, full of heat even at this height, struck Mouse in the face as she hastened after her mistress out upon a flat rooftop, the tower’s crest. No balustrade or barrier guarded against a fall to the dry plain below. The rooftop was bare except for the altar, which was red stone like the rest of the temple. On it burned the everlasting flame that must never die. And beyond the heat and smoke of that fire, the thin Spire itself, like a knife, pierced the sky.
In it was a curtained doorway.
The Speaker stepped forward and tossed a handful of black leaves into the fire. A billow of smoke rose up, and with it a strange smell. Mouse wanted to recoil but felt the presence of the priestesses behind her and did not dare.