“I really don’t understand how I’m supposed to help you,” said Shuthmili.
“I am a necromancer,” said Oranna. “A skilled and well-read necromancer, but this kind of close spell-logic is not my forte, nor that of my patron. The Unspoken One is not much of a lockpick. I need a Qarsazhi-trained mage, with all that sinister algebra and fetish for mechanism. I need an Adept. I need you.”
“I can’t do this,” said Shuthmili.
“Don’t doubt yourself,” said Oranna. “They keep you hooded and tethered like a hawk. There is so much you could accomplish if you could only extend your hand.”
“I know,” said Shuthmili. “Who has the right to stop me? Wouldn’t I like to use my powers for something more magnificent? Don’t I deserve to use the gifts I’ve been given? I know.”
“Well,” said Oranna. “Don’t you?”
“Ma’am…” Shuthmili blinked slowly. “Do you think…”
Oranna did not smile. She watched Shuthmili with unbroken focus.
“Do you think they would ever let me out of the School of Aptitude if I was really so gullible? They train us for this kind of thing, you know.”
Oranna laughed. “Well, perhaps not.” Really, it would have been a shame if Shuthmili had agreed too readily. Oranna was always pleased to meet someone with backbone. “But you understand the position you’re in. And you know what it is that I need from you.”
She left Shuthmili to consider it, watched by two of the revenants, and returned to Ushmai.
“Do you need anything, Librarian?” said Ushmai, rubbing her thumb nervously over one of her tusks.
“How many intruders are inside the Monument now?” she said.
“We think four or five,” said Ushmai. The Sleeper had softened the inner architecture of the Monument so thoroughly that it was difficult to keep track of unwelcome guests; but at least it also kept them slow and disoriented. “Some of them are armed,” Ushmai added.
“Don’t worry about that,” said Oranna. “That’s why we have the revenants.” Oranna’s undead followers outnumbered the living, even considering the ones Shuthmili had already destroyed. The ritual of oblation had provided the power, and the Monument itself had provided the corpses. “Take some of them and bring me back another Qarsazhi. You’ll probably need to split them off from the group first.”
Ushmai nodded. If not the brightest of the acolytes, she was at least the most reliable. Oranna could be reasonably sure she would pull this off.
“Oh,” said Oranna. “On your way out can you begin sending the others down to the theatre? It’s nearly time to begin.”
Time to find out exactly how much blood the Sleeper needed to drink before it would listen.
“Will I be needed, Librarian?” said Ushmai.
“No, not this time,” said Oranna. “Thank you.”
* * *
Csorwe should have noticed sooner that Daryou Malkhaya had disappeared. There were only three of them. She had been at the front of the group, with Tal in the middle and Malkhaya bringing up the rear. She should have been on alert the second she lost track of his footsteps. But something about the Hollow Monument killed your senses and dulled your awareness. They only realised he was missing when they paused in an alcove to get their bearings.
“Shit,” said Tal. “How long has he been gone?”
“I don’t know,” said Csorwe, too unsettled to worry about admitting her failure to Tal.
The Hollow Monument stretched out around them, an unreadable web of passages like the echoing veins of a giant. Malkhaya had been a trained soldier. It shouldn’t have been so easy for anyone to take him, without even a scuffle.
“Maybe he got lost,” said Tal. He sounded as rattled as Csorwe felt, glancing up and down the passage every minute or two, rocking on the balls of his feet as if readying himself to run. “Could’ve gone off to look for the girl.” He didn’t even wait for Csorwe’s response. “Yeah, and maybe we’ll get the Reliquary no problem and Sethennai will give us a fucking trophy. I know.”
“Look, we have to stay together,” she said.
“Wow, gross,” said Tal.
“I mean it. We shouldn’t lose sight of each other.”
“Oh, yeah, imagine if you got dragged off into some kind of skeleton murder hole, I’d hate that,” said Tal, sounding fractionally calmer.
There was no need to discuss looking for Malkhaya. It was just the two of them now, and they knew what they were here for.
For the first time, she could believe that the Reliquary might actually be within her grasp. She couldn’t imagine how it would feel even to see it. She would never have met Sethennai if not for this one thing. If he hadn’t wanted it so badly she would be dead, bones among bones in the Shrine of the Unspoken One. She knew exactly how much she owed. Returning it to him would be the proof that he had chosen correctly, that all Csorwe’s training and practice and dedication had made her truly worthy.
She was sure Tal was thinking something similar. Well, they had to get the thing before they could fight about it.
Another passage, another atrium, another row of sarcophagus chambers, another stone staircase—and then they saw lights up ahead.
They came out onto one of the upper tiers of the theatre, and for the first time heard the unearthly song that rippled through the chamber.
“Come to me and rest,” muttered Tal. “Yeah, great, really tempting.”
There were lights burning down at the centre of the theatre, braziers releasing a dim light and a faint smell of lotus, not strong enough to affect Csorwe’s senses but enough to make her uneasy. This was the theatre, clearly. This must be where they had brought Shuthmili. Csorwe squinted, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the flickering light. Further on, Tal stopped abruptly, his hands falling limp at his sides.
“The pool,” he whispered. “Fucking gods alive, Csorwe, look at the pool.”
In the gardens of the palace of Tlaanthothe, where Sethennai kept his private residence, there was a pool like this that stood beneath magnolia trees, and every summer the blossoms fell and bruised on the tiles. Here, in place of petals, bodies littered the steps.
There were more than a dozen, fallen in orderly rows at the water’s edge. Oshaaru women, in yellow habits: all followers of the Unspoken.
Csorwe’s breath caught. She had seen death before, but these corpses lay so peacefully, as though they had discarded their bodies like clothes and slipped into the pool to bathe. She found it hard to stomach the quietness of it, the fact that there had clearly been no struggle. They seemed to have walked down in neat lines to the deepest heart of the monument, and knelt by the pool, and cut their own throats, just as calmly as Csorwe should have gone to her own death at the Shrine.
“There she is,” whispered Tal. “Alive. I think.”
Submerged to the shoulders in the pool, floating in a corona of yellow robes like a water lily, was Oranna. Her hair trailed around her in a soft cloud. A shoal of white petals floated in the water. Her lips were parted, her mouth and tusks stained dark as though she had drunk from the open veins of an oblation.
The pollution of the waters, the vessel and her corruption, the secret darkness in the deepest parts of the earth. All these things were familiar—from The Book of Unmaking and the rites of the Unspoken—and familiarity turned Csorwe’s shock to comprehending disgust.
The water rippled as Oranna rose up out of the pool. Csorwe and Tal froze, but she didn’t seem to have noticed them. She moved off into darkness, out of the light of the nearest brazier. Csorwe and Tal edged around, darting from shadow to shadow, column to column, trying to get a better view.
Between the pool and the pillar there was a stone chair, and curled up in the chair, wrapped in her crumpled robe, was Shuthmili. It was difficult to tell whether she was alive or dead, but then she shifted, drawing her legs up into the chair to hug her knees.
It should have been a relief to see her alive, but Csorwe’s chest tightened, as if an iron
cage had closed around her beating heart. Another factor. Another distraction. She ought to have known better than to let herself talk to this Adept at all. She took a deep breath. At heart this was just another job, and she was a professional, and if she was good at anything it was putting things aside.
Oranna left her wet habit by the side of the pool and dressed calmly in a clean gown, which Csorwe recognised as the ceremonial vestment of the librarian. It had a train of brocade worked in saffron and gold, which made Csorwe think of the little rooms in the outland villages, the women stitching by lamplight: so much work for a ritual they would never see. It trailed behind her, strewn with embroidered flowers, bloodless and open like severed hands.
“You’re awake again, then,” said Oranna to Shuthmili. Despite the distance, they could hear every word clearly.
“God, I hate this shit,” said Tal under his breath. “Shall we kill her?”
“No,” said Csorwe, although it took some effort. “We don’t know what’s going on here. Wait.”
“Have you thought any further about what we discussed?” said Oranna.
“There is nothing to think about,” said Shuthmili. “I will not help you.”
Oranna lit a torch from one of the braziers and approached the pillar. Until now, they had seen it only in outline. Now Csorwe saw every detail of the chained figure, and of the box chained in his hands.
“Oh, shit,” whispered Tal. “Is that it?”
“Yeah,” said Csorwe, little more than a breath. “That’s it.”
She hadn’t expected the Reliquary to be so little. All of Sethennai’s wandering—Csorwe’s entire existence—rested on this one small thing that wound trouble upon trouble wherever it went.
“The Sleeper is so far gone that tribute will no longer suffice,” said Oranna. She looked back toward the bodies by the pool with regret, though without remorse. “We are going to have to shift for ourselves. It cannot be reasoned with.”
“Nor can I, ma’am,” said Shuthmili. “I will not help you.”
She was looking out into the shadows, directly at Csorwe and Tal. Csorwe shrank back automatically. If Shuthmili saw her, she might think they were there to help, and that seemed too cruel for words. They couldn’t risk rushing in now, before they had the facts. Csorwe had learned her lesson about that, and she had the gold tusk to prove it.
“That’s a shame,” said Oranna. She clicked her fingers, and a group of revenants came out of the shadows, carrying a large man-shaped bundle upside-down on their shoulders. Their bony feet clicked on the flagstones.
It was Daryou Malkhaya, limp and heavy as death. Blood trickled down his cheekbone from a wound on his temple.
“Warden—” said Shuthmili.
“He lives,” said Oranna. “And he fought fiercely, but without your help I’m afraid he could not match my revenants a second time.”
Csorwe winced. They needed the Reliquary. Their best chance to get it was simply to wait. But she didn’t want to sit through this. Even Tal had looked away.
Shuthmili half rose from the chair, but the revenants warned her back. “Warden, can you hear me?” she said.
“He is under lotus,” said Oranna.
Shuthmili shook her head. “This wasn’t necessary. Leave him alone.”
“Well, it’s not as though I want to drown him in the pool,” said Oranna. “That would be a waste, and upsetting for both of us. But the choice is there.”
“I’m sorry, Malkhaya,” said Shuthmili, softly. “You were right. We should have left.”
“Open the seal for me,” said Oranna. “Retrieve the Reliquary, and I will guarantee his safety.”
Shuthmili looked from Oranna to Malkhaya without a word.
Then she stood up. “If that’s the choice I’m given,” she said, removing her gloves. “Show me.”
* * *
For almost an hour, Shuthmili worked on the binding. Most of the time she sat on the ground, looking up at the pillar and muttering. Once or twice she got up and went to look closer at the chains.
“I wouldn’t touch them,” said Oranna. “If I were you.”
“I see that,” said Shuthmili. “This would be easier if I had pen and paper, you know.”
The revenants had dropped Malkhaya at the edge of the sacrificial pool, where he still lay, twitching occasionally as the lotus began to wear off.
All that time, Tal and Csorwe crouched in the dark, waiting for their moment.
“All right,” whispered Tal. “As soon as she opens the binding, I give the signal. You kill the priestess. I get the Reliquary. We deal with the revenants if we have to, and we go.”
“We could try and take her with us,” said Csorwe. “The Adept, I mean.”
Tal frowned. “What? Why? She’ll be fine. Her Warden can take her home. Anyway, you heard the priest talking. They think it’s a Qarsazhi artefact. We have to get it out before they realise and make a fuss.”
“All right. Fine.”
“Stay and make sure all your little friends get out safely if you want,” said Tal. “But I’m taking the Reliquary home.”
“I said fine,” said Csorwe. She didn’t know why she had even suggested it. Of course Shuthmili would be safe with the others. “I know the plan. As soon as Oranna has the Reliquary.”
Down in the arena, Shuthmili stood before the pillar, not quite touching it. There was almost nothing to see. On the edge of Csorwe’s hearing, the dull thunder of magic boomed, like the beating of a vast monstrous heart.
Csorwe tightened her hand around the hilt of her sword. She didn’t usually have so much difficulty slowing herself down before a fight, reaching that place of calm and ready decision. Something was throwing her off.
At times a dark aura flashed around Shuthmili: coiled roots and tendrils, delineated in darkness. Beyond that, nothing but the endless song of the god, apparently oblivious to what was happening in its resting place.
By now, Shuthmili was shivering like a flame flickering in a draught. She prayed out loud much of the time. “Friend of the Dead, you who watch over the gates of life, I pray that you watch over Warden Daryou Malkhaya. Lord of Wisdom, you who keep us in clarity and rectitude, I pray that you guide my hands.”
Then she broke off, turning back to Oranna, who watched from a few feet away.
“There is a problem,” said Shuthmili. “I know how to do it. I can remove the binding.”
“But…?” Oranna approached, picking a stray petal out of her hair.
“There’s no way to do it without awakening the divinity in the pillar. The Sleeper, as you said.”
“Ah,” said Oranna. “You worked that out. Yes. I suspect the thief was extremely pleased with that. My guess is that they planned to come back and open the seal when they were certain of their safety. Where better to hide it than a dying world?”
“The Sleeper won’t be happy,” said Shuthmili.
“No,” said Oranna. “As anyone might, after some thousand years’ captivity, it will be extremely angry.”
“Then—what do you think we should do?” said Shuthmili.
“Do it,” said Oranna. “Then we’ll need to run.”
Csorwe and Tal exchanged a glance.
“Wait,” Tal mouthed. “Stick to the plan. We get the Reliquary and we get out.”
“What about Malkhaya—” said Shuthmili. Her eyes were glassy and staring, as though she could not believe quite what was happening. “Tell your revenants to take the Warden to safety. Have them take him to the surface. I can’t let him get hurt.”
“Very well,” said Oranna. She gestured to the revenants, who picked him up again as if he were so much ballast.
“And there is another of my people here—Dr. Lagri—” said Shuthmili. Oranna raised her eyebrows, and Shuthmili’s expression hardened. “You know you can’t do this without me. As well as Dr. Lagri there are two others, two visitors. Tell your people to find them and make sure they get to safety.”
Csorwe winced. It woul
d have been less painful if Shuthmili had forgotten about them.
The revenants carted Malkhaya off toward the far staircase, on the other side of the arena, behind Oranna. Shuthmili ran her hands back through her hair, rearranging her plaits.
“All right,” she said, and straightened up.
She stood face-to-face with the kneeling giant, almost nose-to-nose, as if she might lean in and kiss him. Instead, she pressed her forehead to his, and shut her eyes.
The first chain broke with a bright metallic sound. Then another, and more, ringing out a terrible discord. Shuthmili’s fists were clenched at her side.
Another chain broke, releasing the arm of the frozen man. And he moved. At first Csorwe didn’t understand what she was seeing. The hand was square and massive, blue-white with cold. It flexed once or twice in the air, shedding ice crystals, and grabbed Shuthmili’s wrist, bending her arm up and back. She cried out once, as if the touch burnt her, but did not move.
Oranna was murmuring something to her, something Csorwe could not hear. Csorwe found herself remembering what Oranna had told her, eight years ago. She was afraid at first, but when the day came she was quite calm. Csorwe had really done her best to believe it. She had believed it enough to go up to the Shrine without question. She hadn’t known there was any other path but the path of sacrifice. She hadn’t known there was a choice to fight.
It might have been easier to bear if Shuthmili had wept. Instead Csorwe and Tal crouched in darkness as Shuthmili shook silently, as if she had gone through pain and into something beyond screaming.
It was Csorwe’s fault that Shuthmili was here. She had persuaded the Qarsazhi to stay when they could have run. And Shuthmili had stayed because she wanted to finish her work, to complete the one thing that had been given to her to prove herself.
The links continued to break, one every few seconds. The man in the pillar got his other arm free, and stretched his fingers, shattering their casing of ice. The frozen man cupped Shuthmili’s face in his hand, quite gently, as if to comfort her.
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