“This is our Adept, Qanwa Shuthmili,” said Malkhaya, gesturing toward the girl. “Shuthmili, you know, you can say hello.”
Qanwa Shuthmili looked up at them now, as though she had only just noticed that they had visitors. The carnivorous look had faded, replaced with a haughty detachment that said I really have more important things to think about than you. Csorwe didn’t know what an Adept was, but she had seen the look a hundred times on the faces of desiccated collegiate scholars back in Tlaanthothe. It was strange to recognise it on someone her own age.
“Good evening,” said Shuthmili, and held Csorwe’s gaze for a moment, as though trying to identify an unusual moss.
Lagri Aritsa brought food for the rest of them and conducted an elaborate blessing over the table, thanking a whole panoply of gods for their providence, as if to make up for his rudeness in feeding Shuthmili first. When he took his place at the table, Shuthmili’s interest passed at once to him, becoming almost eager. “Your reverence, we saw it again—”
“I see. I’m not sure this is the moment to bother our guests with our internal business,” said Aritsa. “We’ll discuss it later.”
Shuthmili said nothing but “Certainly, your reverence,” and returned to her bowl of broth.
Tal appeared to be too busy with Daryou Malkhaya to notice this obviously suspicious behaviour. Csorwe wondered what he thought he was doing.
The rest of the meal went smoothly. Shuthmili hardly spoke again, and didn’t mention whatever it was she’d seen. Eventually Lagri Aritsa showed Tal and Csorwe to their quarters, which were just as austere as the rest of the lodge. This room was appointed with another ceramic icon of the dragon-slaying god, his eyes bulbed like fish eggs.
Tal had to tuck his knees up to his chest to fit into the narrow cot bed. Over the last five years he had put on muscle, but he still looked as though someone had deliberately stretched and rolled him out into this knotted shoelace of a man.
Bunched up in her own cot, Csorwe tried to think how many times she had shared a room with Tal. It was exhausting just trying to calculate it.
If Sethennai knew how much they despised each other, it didn’t stop him sending them out together. A little healthy competition was good for them, apparently. And—though she hated it—she saw the logic of sending Tal with her on this assignment. He was better at dealing with people than she was. Still, she wished Sethennai had trusted her to do this alone.
In theory, it didn’t matter who brought back the Reliquary. Belthandros Sethennai’s happiness was like the sunlight, there for anyone to enjoy. However, for his own sordid reasons, Tal wanted to be the one to hand it over, and Csorwe was personally opposed to Tal ever getting what he wanted.
“There’s something they aren’t telling us,” said Tal, once they’d put out the light.
“No shit,” said Csorwe. “You would’ve noticed if you hadn’t spent so much time batting your lashes at Malkhaya.”
“Keep your beak out of it,” said Tal. “I noticed. And I was getting somewhere with him.”
“You’re not going to get anywhere with a Qarsazhi,” said Csorwe. “They’re too religious.”
Tal snickered into his pillow. “Shows what you know.”
“Just don’t be an idiot,” said Csorwe.
“Oh, come on, Csorwe. I only ever want information. I’m just better at getting it than you. If you weren’t such a virgin you might not have such a gruesome suspicious mind.”
“Information,” said Csorwe. “That’s what you want from Sethennai, is it?”
She expected Tal to swipe back at her immediately. Instead there was a chilly silence, which thickened and expanded to fill the little room and suffocate the conversation. Tal’s loyalty to Belthandros Sethennai had curdled long ago into this awful unspoken thing. She didn’t think Sethennai realised, but Csorwe had known for years. They had plenty more important reasons to hate each other, starting in Psamag’s fortress and unspooling from there, a whole history of spite and malice, but this one particularly festered, because—no matter how Tal tried—Csorwe was the one Sethennai had chosen for himself, and Tal was the one he’d taken on as a favour.
She lay back on her bunk, regretting what she’d said. Tal had a good way of tricking you into taking the cheapest possible shot, then looking wounded. They were supposed to be working together, god help them both.
At last Tal’s breathing slowed until she was fairly certain he was not feigning sleep. He had fallen asleep with his pack under the blankets with him, and curled up around it like a clenched fist. Possibly he suspected she might go through his things in the night.
Csorwe lay awake. Sometimes it felt like sleep was on the other side of a wall, and she could only get there if she beat the wall down with her own head. Eventually she got out of bed and dressed again. Failing sleep, it was time to do what she did best: sidle around at night and eavesdrop. If the Qarsazhi were hiding something, they might stay up and talk about it after the visitors had gone to bed.
She crept out into the corridor. The door to the central room of the lodge was closed, and no sound came from within.
She opened the door a crack and peered round into the central room. The Qarsazhi girl, Shuthmili, was still sitting at the table, leaning over a large open book, surrounded by pages of notes.
As Csorwe loitered, Shuthmili turned a page and made a note on one of her papers. In her right hand she held a brush-pen, of the kind Parza had owned, which Csorwe had not been allowed to touch. From time to time she chewed the end of it, or twirled it in the air. Her hand was as delicately tapered as the brush itself and moved like water.
Csorwe blinked away that observation and scanned the rest of the room as best she could from behind the door. Was Shuthmili alone? If so, Csorwe wanted to ask what she’d been talking about at dinner, but she didn’t know how to phrase it without making it obvious that she was here with an ulterior motive.
“You can come in,” said Shuthmili without looking up from her work.
Csorwe cursed herself for blundering, but drawing back now would look even stranger. She sidled into the room and over to the fireplace as though what she’d intended all along was to get a better look at the painted icon over the hearth. The god was made in the likeness of a barefoot Qarsazhi boy, with a long braid swirling around his body. The dragon had the head and torso of a woman. Her scaled body coiled around a pile of bones.
“Linarya Atqalindri destroys Zinandour,” said Shuthmili, making Csorwe jump again. Her voice was cold, deep, and distant as an ice well. She hadn’t moved from her position at the table, and was still holding the brush in her hand.
“Sorry?” said Csorwe.
“Light destroys darkness. Wisdom destroys chaos and corruption. The hero of mankind destroys the Traitor,” she said, smiling. The smile looked hollow, wispy, as though it might blow away in a light breeze, and was accompanied by a dark and unsettling stare. “Haven’t you seen it before?”
Csorwe couldn’t work out whether this was meant to be condescending or genuinely curious. Either way, a direct question was more than she expected.
“Well, there’s one in our room,” said Csorwe. “But I don’t recognise it.” She remembered that the Qarsazhi had nine different gods, and that the worship of these gods ordered every part of life for them. Csorwe knew about that from the House of Silence, but nine gods still seemed like a lot to keep straight, and she couldn’t remember many of their names.
“Oh. That’s unusual,” said Shuthmili. She looked down at her papers as if composing her thoughts. It was a relief to have some respite from the intensity of her gaze, but Csorwe was oddly unhappy not to have met her expectations. For the first time in a while she wished she’d paid more attention to Parza’s lessons.
“I don’t know much about your religion,” she said.
“I think you may be the first person I’ve ever met who doesn’t,” said Shuthmili. “But I don’t have many unusual experiences, so it isn’t unwelcome.” She dipped her brush in water
, dried it, and put it away, clearly deciding that Csorwe was worth talking to.
“So what religion do they follow in Tlaanthothe?” said Shuthmili. Csorwe didn’t think she was being teased; sometimes Tal would feign fascination to take the piss, but Shuthmili’s interest seemed sincere, if unnerving. Csorwe remembered how she had behaved at dinner: head bowed, eyes low, rarely speaking. This was quite a transformation.
“Erm,” said Csorwe. “Well, none, really—” Tlaanthothe was apparently organised on the principles of a philosophical treatise composed in ages past by the Exalted Sages. Csorwe hadn’t bothered to learn about them. Sethennai didn’t seem very interested in them, and she didn’t think they’d approve of her.
“And you?” said Shuthmili, “You don’t worship any Oshaarun god?”
“No,” said Csorwe, preventing herself with a physical effort from adding not anymore. She hated that this still had the ability to take her by surprise. It had been eight whole years. It should have been long behind her.
Shuthmili didn’t seem to notice anything amiss, or else she was too curious to let it stop her. “And what about Belthandros Sethennai?” she said. She uttered the name with a kind of relish.
“We don’t really talk about it,” said Csorwe. “I think … if Sethennai ever encounters a higher power, I’ll wait and see who blinks first.”
“But surely he worships his patron?”
Sethennai regarded the Siren as a powerful older woman capable of being charmed. Women of a certain age loved Sethennai, even when they were giant snakes or evil rocks. “Not really,” said Csorwe, deciding this wasn’t appropriate for Shuthmili’s ears. “He gets his power from her. She gets … something out of the arrangement, probably.”
Shuthmili laughed, almost silently, covering her mouth with her hand.
“Hmm,” she said. “Yes. I suppose that’s broadly how it works.”
“You’re a mage?” said Csorwe.
“I’m an Adept,” said Shuthmili. Csorwe hadn’t heard the Qarsazhi word before; it sounded clinical. “A Church-trained practitioner.”
“Didn’t know that was a thing,” said Csorwe, remembering how Parza had reacted to magic. An abomination to the gods, he had said. Csorwe was just tactful enough not to repeat it.
“I suppose the Church thinks it’s better to train us than not,” said Shuthmili.
It was generally a mistake to get too curious about the people you met on this kind of mission, and yet. Knowing that Shuthmili was a mage explained something about why she was here, but it didn’t explain anything about why Daryou and Lagri treated her with such attentive care, as though she might explode at any moment.
“Do you have a patron?” said Csorwe, now utterly distracted from asking Shuthmili about whatever it was she had seen on her patrol. “Where do you get your, uh, stuff?”
“You really don’t know anything,” said Shuthmili. This seemed to be a compliment. She waved at the icon again. “Eight of the nine gods of Qarsazh take no mortal supplicants. It is a corruption of the mortal estate to partake in divine power.”
Csorwe had not known this either. She wasn’t sure she understood it now. Most likely Sethennai would call it all so much Qarsazhi nonsense.
“All magic is a corruption,” said Shuthmili. “To use magic is to violate the ordered structure of the cosmos, to step outside one’s allotted place … but some are born into it, and corruption has its uses. Even to the Church. My patron—patron of all Qarsazhi mages—is ninth of the Nine. The dead goddess.” She bit her lip, perhaps in case this sounded too impressive. “Well, that’s theologically debatable.”
“What, that she’s really dead?” said Csorwe.
“Or that she’s a true goddess,” said Shuthmili, with another wan smile. “Or that she is truly mine. Zinandour. The Dragon of Qarsazh. The Traitor. You truly don’t know?”
“No,” said Csorwe. “Tell me.”
“Zinandour was a goddess of chaos and corruption. She turned against the other gods, and was cast out, and she gives us her power because she is trying to find her way back to the mortal worlds. So you see, we walk on a knife’s edge. To make use of that power without opening yourself to corruption is … tiring.” Shuthmili looked up at Csorwe with an expression halfway between curiosity and melancholy. “She is why we are feared. Why I am feared. I could be the gate through which she returns.”
The fire had burnt low, turning everything in the room into a glimmering reddish silhouette. There was no sound but the shifting of the embers and the far-off senseless howling of the wind.
Into this stillness, like a rock dropped into a pond, broke the sound of the watchtower bell.
One chime, then another, and then a constant, insistent jangle. Footsteps pounded on the staircase as Lagri and Daryou rushed down from the floor above, and Qanwa Shuthmili rose unsteadily from her chair.
When Csorwe was ten, one of the priestesses had run lotus-mad, and they had found her in the woods, drinking blood from the neck of a deer. When they brought her back to the House of Silence, she was bloody from chin to navel, shaking with dreadful ecstasies and cursing death upon anyone who touched her. At last they brought Csorwe to see her, strapped to her bed in the infirmary. The wretched woman looked up at the Chosen Bride, took a shuddering breath, and died. The expression on her face had been indescribable.
Now Csorwe saw it again in the person of Qanwa Shuthmili.
“They’re here,” she said.
Csorwe’s body reacted faster than her brain. There was a threat and she had to deal with it. She dashed back to the bedroom to grab her sword and followed Daryou to the door. Tal followed moments later, instantly alert.
“What’s happening?” said Csorwe.
“Intruders! Intruders at the perimeter!” said Lagri.
“Raiders!” called Daryou, already heading out, with his weapon in one hand and a torch in the other. Csorwe ran after him, out into the night.
* * *
Daryou ran down the ridge, a moving point of flame. The intruders were coming up from below, illuminated by the perimeter lanterns. There were four or five of them, ragged, shambling, but purposeful.
As Csorwe followed, realisation hit her like nausea; like a cold hand clawing in her guts.
These were not raiders. They were revenants. No living person moved like that, stumbling at speed over the jagged ground, always on the point of falling, shedding mummified skin.
Their faces were bare and withered. The dry skin clung to the bones. The eyelids were like knots in a tree trunk. The lips had shrunk away, revealing teeth that stood up in sharp yellow ranks.
All of them were armed with great jagged broadswords. As Csorwe and the others approached, they drew them in unison.
Csorwe closed with the nearest of them. Tal and Malkhaya were somewhere nearby, and she had to trust they could take care of themselves. Cut, thrust, block. Back and forth across the ridge, never advancing nor retreating. The revenant was slow, but relentless. In a fight, her awareness narrowed and clarified, like lensed light, to only this, only the blade, only the terrain, only the position and the intentions of the enemy. Under other circumstances she might have enjoyed this. Now, between the darkness, the unfamiliar ground, and the impassive skeleton grin of her opponent, she wanted to end it as soon as possible.
She felt something give way as her sword severed the dry sinews in the revenant’s neck, and it went down. Whatever force held its bones together failed all at once, and its limbs disintegrated as it hit the ground. Csorwe was already looking for the next one.
Tal made short work of his corpse, and between them they dealt with a third. There were more of them coming up from the valley. Two—three—and there could be others, but Csorwe had plenty to handle in the present without worrying about the future.
There was a muffled cry and the skid of a body falling hard on loose rock. Csorwe caught her breath and looked in the direction of the cry. A revenant wearing a long veil had Malkhaya on the ground. It made
a rattling sound and slashed his face with the point of its blade.
From behind her, Csorwe heard a scream. There was a blur of white robes at the edge of her vision as Shuthmili scrambled up a row of rocks.
These revenants did not show emotion. They had no body language. Their empty eye sockets never gave away their next move. And yet, at the sight of Shuthmili, Csorwe’s adversary startled.
Csorwe used the opportunity to slip within its guard, driving her blade up and under its exposed ribs, cutting into the shrivelled remnant flesh within. The revenant stumbled back. The gristle of its joints was already sundering. Csorwe tripped it on its face and turned to the next, struggling to see what was happening to Daryou Malkhaya.
Malkhaya was on the ground, alive but winded. The veiled corpse stood over him, facing Shuthmili. She had been a woman, this revenant. Her fleshless mask was haloed by a dry braid of hair and a coronet of metal flowers.
“Will you save him, Adept?” said the revenant princess. Her voice was breathy, leathery, like a bellows. Malkhaya wriggled, trying to inch away from her, but the revenant had her blade at his throat. “Will you?”
Shuthmili ignored her. She looked at Malkhaya, twisting and writhing on the ground. There was an unmistakable question in this look. She did not need to speak the words May I?
“Do it,” said Malkhaya, choking for breath.
Shuthmili pulled off her gloves, raised a hand, and closed it, slowly, digging her fingernails into the heel of her palm. Her expression was dispassionate, unseeing, illuminated from within by an appalling brightness. The revenant princess hissed as though burnt, and her sword fell from her hand. Shuthmili watched with blank and burning focus as the revenant stumbled back from Malkhaya and dropped to her knees.
“Stand down, Shuthmili,” said Malkhaya, struggling up onto his elbows. “I’m fine.”
Shuthmili didn’t seem to hear him. Her fist was clenched, a single tight punctuation mark of fury. The revenant princess writhed, noises of unformed agony escaping from her throat.
“Shuthmili!” said Malkhaya. “Stop!”
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