My hand on the Tree’s bark began to tremble. I had never realized the Tree grew through the palace, integrated with its very substance. At the roots, its bark was rougher, with crevices deeper than the length of my hand. This bark, high on the Tree’s trunk, was fine-lined, almost smooth. I stroked it absently, seeking comfort.
“Lord Arameri,” I said. T’vril Arameri, head of the family that ruled the world. “Is that who you’re taking me to see?”
“Yes.”
I had walked among gods, wielded the magic they’d given my ancestors. I had held them in my arms, watched their blood coat my hands, feared them and been feared by them in turn. What was one mortal man to all that?
“All right, then.” I turned back to Hado, who offered me his arm. I walked past him without taking it, which caused him to shake his head and sigh. Then he caught up with me, and together we continued through the shining white corridors.
17
“A Golden Chain” (engraving on metal plate)
T’VRIL ARAMERI WAS A VERY BUSY MAN. As we walked the long hallway toward the imposing set of doors that led to his audience chamber, they opened several times to admit or release brisk-walking servants and courtiers. Most of these carried scrolls or whole stacks thereof; a few wore long sharp shapes that I assumed were swords or spears; still more were very well dressed, their foreheads bearing the marks of Arameri. No one lingered in the corridor to chat, though some spoke while on the move. I heard Senmite flavored with exotic accents: Narshes, Min, Veln, Mencheyev, others I did not recognize.
A busy man, who valued useful people. Something to keep in mind if I hoped to enlist his aid.
At the doors, we paused while Hado announced us to the two women who stood there. High Northers, I guessed by the fact that both were shorter than average and by their telltale straight hair, which hung long enough that I could see its sway. They did not appear to be guards at first glance—no weapons that I could see, though they could have had something small or close to their bodies—but something in the set of their shoulders let me know that was exactly what they were. They were not Arameri, or even Amn. Were they here, then, to guard the lord from his own family? Or was their presence emblematic of something else?
One of the women went inside to announce us. A moment later, a knot of other people emerged and filed past us. They stared at me with open curiosity. They looked at Hado, too, I noticed, especially the two fullbloods who emerged together and immediately fell to whispering at each other. I glanced at Hado, who seemed not even to see them. I wished I dared touch his face, because there was a pleased air about him that I wasn’t sure how to interpret.
The guard emerged from the chamber and, without a word, held the door open for us. I followed Hado inside.
The audience chamber was open and airy. Two enormous windows, each many paces in width and twice Shiny’s height, dominated the walls on either side of the door. As we walked, the sounds of our footsteps echoed from high overhead. I was too nervous to look up. The room’s sole piece of furniture, a great blocklike chair, sat at the farthest point from the door, atop a tiered dais. And though I could not see the chair’s occupant, I could hear him, writing something on a piece of paper. The scratching of his pen sounded very loud in the room’s vast silence.
I could see his blood sigil, too, a stranger mark than anything I’d seen yet: a half-moon, downturned, bracketed on either side by glimmering chevrons.
We waited, silent, while he finished whatever he was doing. When the lord set his pen down, Hado abruptly dropped to one knee, his head bowed low. Quickly I followed suit.
After a moment, Lord T’vril said, “You’ll both be pleased to know, I think, that the House of the Risen Sun is no more. Its threat has been removed.”
I blinked in surprise. The Lord Arameri’s voice was soft, low-pitched and almost musical—though the words he spoke were anything but. I wanted very much to ask what removed meant, but I suspected that would be a very foolish thing to do.
“What of Serymn?” asked Hado. “If I may ask.”
“She’s being brought here. Her husband has not yet been captured, but the scriveners tell me it’s only a matter of time. We aren’t the only ones seeking him, after all.”
I wondered at first, then realized—of course he would have informed the city’s godlings. I cleared my throat, unsure of how to pose a question without offending this most powerful of men.
“You may speak, Eru Shoth.”
I faltered a moment, realizing this had been another clue I’d missed—Hado’s gesture of using Maroneh honorifics. It was the sort of thing one did in dealing with folk of foreign lands, to be diplomatic. An Arameri habit.
I took a deep breath. “What about the godlings being held captive by the New Lights, ah, Lord Arameri? Have they been rescued?”
“Several bodies have been found, both in the city where the Lights dumped them and at the House. The local godlings are dealing with the remains.”
Bodies. I forgot myself and stared at the man in gape-mouthed shock. More than the four I knew of? Dateh had been busy. “Which ones?” In my mind, I heard the answer to this question, too: Paitya. Kitr. Dump. Lil.
Madding.
“I haven’t been given names as yet. Though I’ve been informed that the one who called himself Madding was among them. I believe he was important to you; I’m very sorry.” He sounded sincere, if distant.
I lowered my eyes and muttered something.
T’vril Arameri then crossed his legs and steepled his fingers, or so I guessed from his movements. “But this leaves me with a dilemma, Eru Shoth: what to do with you. On the one hand, you’ve done a great service to the world by helping to expose the New Lights’ activities. On the other, you are a weapon—and it is foolish in the extreme to leave a weapon lying about where anyone can pick it up and use it.”
I lowered my head again, dropping lower than I had before, until my forehead pressed against the cold, glowing floor. I had heard this was the way to show penitence before nobles, and penitent was exactly how I felt. Bodies. How many of those dead, desecrated godlings had been poisoned by my blood, rather than Dateh’s?
“Then again,” said the Lord Arameri, “my family has long known the value of dangerous weapons.”
Against the floor, my forehead wrinkled in confusion. What?
“The gods know now that demons still exist,” said Hado, through my shock. He sounded carefully neutral. “This isn’t something you’ll be able to hide.”
“And we will give them a demon,” said the Lord Arameri. “The very one responsible for murdering their kin. That should satisfy them—leaving you, Eru Shoth, for us.”
I pushed myself up slowly, trembling. “I… don’t understand.” But I did, gods help me. I did.
The Lord Arameri rose, an outline against the pale glow of the room. As he walked down the steps of the dais, I saw that he was a slender man, very tall in the way of Amn, wearing a long, heavy mantle. Both it and his loose-curled hair, the latter tied at the tip, trailed along the steps behind him as he came to me.
“If there’s one lesson the past has taught us, it is that we mortals exist at the bottom of a short and pitiless hierarchy,” he said, still in that warm, almost-kind voice. “Above us are the godlings, and above those, the gods—and they do not like us, Eru Shoth.”
“With reason,” drawled Hado.
The Lord Arameri glanced at him, and to my surprise seemed to take no offense from this. “With reason. Nevertheless, we would be fools not to seek some means of protecting ourselves.” He gestured away, I think toward the windows and the blackened sun beyond. “The art of scrivening was born from such an effort, initiated long ago by my forebears, though it has proven too limited to do humanity much good against gods. You, however, have been far more effective.”
“You want to use me as the Lights did,” I said, my voice shaking. “You want me to kill gods for you.”
“Only if they force us to,” the Arameri s
aid. Then, to my greater shock, he knelt in front of me.
“It will not be slavery,” he said, and his voice was gentle. Kind. “That time of our history is done. We will pay you as we do any of the scriveners or soldiers who fight for us. Provide you housing, protection. All we ask is that you give some of your blood to us—and that you allow our scriveners to place a mark upon your body. I will not lie to you about this mark’s purpose, Eru Shoth: it is a leash. Through it we will know whenever your blood has been shed in sufficient quantity to be a danger. We will know your location in the event of another kidnapping, or if you attempt to flee. And with this mark, we will be able to kill you if necessary—quickly, painlessly, and thoroughly, from any distance. Your body will turn to ash so that no one else will be able to use its… unique properties.” He sighed, his voice full of compassion. “It will not be slavery, but neither will you be wholly free. The choice is yours.”
I was so tired. So very tired of all of this. “Choice?” I asked. My voice sounded dull to my own ears. “Life on a leash or death? That’s your choice?”
“I’m being generous even to offer, Eru Shoth.” He reached up then, put a hand on my shoulder. I thought he meant to be reassuring. “I could easily force you to do as I please.”
Like the New Lights did, I considered saying, but there was no need for that. He knew precisely what a hellish bargain he’d offered me. The Arameri got what they wanted either way; if I chose death, they would take what blood they could from my body and store it against future need. And if I lived… I almost laughed as it occurred to me. They would want me to have children, wouldn’t they? Perhaps the Shoths would become a shadow of the Arameri: privileged, protected, our specialness permanently marked upon our bodies. Never again to live a normal life.
I opened my mouth to tell him no, that I would not accept the life he offered. Then I remembered: I had already promised my life to another.
That would be better, I decided. At least with Shiny I would die on my own terms.
“I’d… like some time to think about it,” I heard myself say, as from a distance.
“Of course,” said the Lord Arameri. He rose, letting go of me. “You may remain as our guest for another day. By tomorrow evening, I’ll expect your answer.”
One day was more than enough. “Thank you,” I said. It echoed in my ears. My heart was numb.
He turned away, a clear dismissal. Hado rose, gesturing me up, too, and as we had entered, we left in silence.
* * *
“I want to see Shiny,” I said, once we were back in my room. Another cell, though prettier than the last. I did not think Sky’s windows would break so easily. That was all right, though. I wouldn’t need to try.
Hado, who had gone to stand at the window, nodded. “I’ll see if I can find him.”
“What, you aren’t keeping him locked up someplace?”
“No. He has the run of Sky if he wants it, by the Lord Arameri’s own decree. That has been so since he was first made mortal here ten years ago.”
I was sitting at the room’s table. A meal had been laid out, but it sat untouched before me. “He became mortal… here?”
“Oh, yes. All of it happened here—the Gray Lady’s birth, the Nightlord’s release, and Itempas’s defeat, all in a single morning.”
My father’s death, my mind added.
“Then the Lady and the Nightlord left him here.” He shrugged. “Afterward, T’vril extended every courtesy to him. I think some of the Arameri hoped he would take over the family and lead it on to some new glory. Instead he did nothing, said nothing. Just sat in a room for six months. Died of thirst once or twice, I heard, before he realized he no longer had a choice about eating and drinking.” Hado sighed. “Then one day he simply got up and walked out, without warning or farewell. T’vril ordered a search, but no one could find him.”
Because he had gone to the Ancestors’ Village, I realized. Of course the Arameri would never have thought to look for their god there.
“How do you know all this?” I frowned. “You don’t have an Arameri mark.”
“Not yet.” Hado turned to me, and I thought that he smiled. “Soon, though. That was the bargain I struck with T’vril: if I proved myself, I could be adopted into the family as a fullblood. I think bringing down a threat to the gods should qualify.”
“Adopted…” I’d had no idea such a thing was even possible. “But… well… You don’t seem to like these people very much.”
He did chuckle this time, and again I had an odd sense about him, of someone wise beyond his years. Of something dark and strange.
“Once upon a time,” he said, “there was a god imprisoned here. He was a terrible, beautiful, angry god, and by night when he roamed these white halls, everyone feared him. But by day, the god slept. And the body, the living mortal flesh that was his ball and chain, got to have a life of its own.”
I inhaled, understanding, just not believing. He was speaking of the Nightlord, of course—but the body that lived by day was…?
Near the window, Hado folded his arms. I saw this easily, despite the window’s darkness, because he was darker still.
“It wasn’t much of a life, mind you,” he said. “All the people who feared the god did not fear the man. They quickly learned they could do things to the man that the god would not tolerate. So the man lived his life in increments, born with every dawn, dying with every sunset. Hating every moment of it. For two. Thousand. Years.”
He glanced back at me. I gaped at him.
“Until suddenly, one day, the man became free.” Hado spread his arms. “He spent the first night of his existence gazing at the stars and weeping. But the next morning, he realized something. Though he could finally die, as he had dreamt of doing for centuries, he did not want to. He had been given a life at last, a whole life all his own. Dreams of his own. It would have been… wrong… to waste that.”
I licked my lips and swallowed. “I…” I stopped. I had been about to say I understand, but that wasn’t true. No mortal, and probably no god, could comprehend Hado’s life. Children of Nahadoth, Shiny had called Lil and Dateh. Here was another of the Nightlord’s children, stranger than all the rest.
“I can see that,” I said. “But”—I gestured around at the walls of Sky—“is this life? Wouldn’t something more normal—”
“I’ve spent my whole life serving power. And I’ve suffered for it—more than you can possibly imagine. Now I’m free. Should I go build a house in the country and grow vegetables? Find a lover I can endure, raise a litter of brats? Become a commoner like you, penniless and helpless?” I forgot myself and scowled. He chuckled. “Power is what I know. I would make a good family head, don’t you think? Once I’m a fullblood.”
He sounded sincere; that was the truly frightening thing.
“I think Lord Arameri would be a fool to let you anywhere near him,” I said slowly.
Hado shook his head in amusement. “I’ll go find Lord Itempas for you.”
How jarring, to hear Shiny called that. I nodded absently as Hado headed for the door. Then, when he was at the door, a thought occurred to me. “What would you do?” I asked. “If you were me. What would you choose? Life in chains or death?”
“I would be grateful to have that much of a choice.”
“That’s not an answer.”
“Of course it is. But if you must know, I would choose life. So long as it was a choice, I would live.”
I frowned, mulling this over. Hado hesitated a moment, then spoke again. “You’ve spent time among the gods, Eru Shoth. Haven’t you noticed? They live forever, but many of them are even more lonely and miserable than we are. Why do you think they bother with us? We teach them life’s value. So I would live, if only to spite them.” He let out a single mirthless laugh, then sighed and offered me a sardonic bow. “Good afternoon.”
“Good afternoon,” I said. After he was gone, I sat thinking for a long time.
* * *
&nbs
p; I ate something, more out of habit than necessity, and then eventually I took a nap. When I woke up, Shiny was there.
I heard him breathing as I sat up, bleary and stiff. Still weary from my ordeals, I’d fallen asleep at the table beside the remains of my meal, cradling my head on my good arm. I bumped the sling-bound arm against the table as I lifted my head, but this elicited only a mild twinge. The sigil had nearly finished its work.
“Hello,” I said. “Thank you for letting me sleep.” He said nothing, but that didn’t bother me. “What happened to you?”
He shrugged. He was sitting across from me, near enough that I could hear his movements. “I was questioned at the White Hall; then we came here.”
Obviously. I did not say it, because one took what one could get with him. “Where did you go after they brought you here?” Silently I made a wager with myself that he would say nowhere.
“Nowhere that matters.”
I could not help smiling. It felt good, because it had been a long time since I’d felt the urge to genuinely smile. It reminded me of days long past, a life long gone, when my only worries had been putting food on the table and keeping Shiny from bleeding on my carpets. I almost loved him for reminding me of that time.
“Does anything matter to you?” I asked, still smiling. “Anything at all?”
“No,” he said. His voice was flat, emotionless. Cold. I was beginning to understand just how wrong that was for him, a being who had once embodied warmth and light.
“Liar,” I said.
He fell silent. I picked up the paring knife they’d given me for my meal, liking the slightly rough texture of its wooden hilt. I would have expected something finer to be used in Sky—porcelain, maybe, or silver. Nothing so common and utilitarian as wood. Maybe it was expensive wood.