Chapter 15
The voices returned all at once—everything she’d heard in her fever-madness, everything she’d thought she’d seen as Taltaz the merchant of Gethlem pulled her north in his cursed wagon. Most of them she did not know, but some were all too familiar. A frail woman in Holjstruke with stained yellow teeth pulling the collar of a tattered dress over Rahlizje’s child-sized head. A young man from Grithrow with dust in his hair and eyes like cornflowers pulling her down with him onto the freshly laid straw in the stables. A redheaded scullery maid two days from Pelore who’d shared the secrets of her body before soon discovering her much more valuable secrets pilfered from her small, cramped room. A man in Gallerton who preferred to undress his conquests with a lashing whip instead of his fingers. The dark-skinned, grinning brothers of Xaalesch who’d not expected such a meek-looking wretch to draw a knife on them in that narrow alley.
They spoke to her in a way she’d never before heard anyone speak—not with their voices but with hers. It was the voice of her own thoughts, her ambitions, the sacrifices she’d made to achieve them, pummeling her from all directions. Their laughter was her laughter, their shrieks of rage and disdain and—yes, as surprising as it had been—pleasure returning now from Rahlizje’s own lips and yet still so far away.
She thought her fever had returned until, somehow, she touched her bandaged leg and felt nothing but the icy, unyielding thickness of dead flesh. No, that was the smooth stone floor beneath her fingers, was it not? Rahlizje could hardly feel her limbs at all in the blue haze of constant smoke. And everything was so damnably cold.
It made the hands reaching for her now feel quite warm in comparison—alive and real and warmed by blood from pumping hearts. The hands lifted Rahlizje up from the pallet; it occurred to her that perhaps these too were visions from the smoke and her own memory, that she could have sat up on her own. She forced her eyes open and saw black figures in swirling darkness. The next time she blinked, they were gone, unseen behind the thick, swirling curtain of whatever burned in that dish—or perhaps not there at all. The hands remained.
They pulled her up to sit on the pallet, moving over her arms, through her hair, down her neck and collarbone and perhaps lower. So many hands, and Rahlizje could not resist a single one of them, swaying this way and that as she was pushed, prodded, explored. It seemed an eternity of sitting there beneath the warm weight of fingers and palms before she heard a voice telling her to stand. Perhaps it was her own voice, or a whisper from unseen lips, or merely the sound of what she thought the hands wanted her to do.
She was pulled to her feet despite knowing that she was not fully healed. The thought was brief enough—that she would fall once the hands released her, crippled by the pain and her own weakness and the scars that had not yet had the time or space to form within and upon her flesh. Rahlizje still felt the warmth of others constantly touching her, and somehow she still felt the thick, damp brush of the blue smoke wafting over her. But she did not feel the pain. As surely as she reasoned that it must be there, she did not feel it. She did not feel herself at all.
A woman stepped in front of her—a woman with shorn hair grown back again but a few inches. Rahlizje knew those gray eyes, though she hardly knew the woman to whom they belonged. The healer who called herself a servant of Imlach brushed Rahlizje’s sweat-matted hair back from her shoulders and quickly undid the stays at the top of the thief’s dark tunic. She studied Rahlizje’s face all the while, another small, restrained smile lifting the corners of her mouth. Or perhaps that was more smoke rising between them and around them, blotting out the candlelight.
The whispers began again from all directions—hisses and low growls and sharp consonants that sounded more like steel on stone than any language had a right to sound. The healer jerked open the top of Rahlizje’s tunic as far as the stays would allow, and the hands roaming over the thief’s body lifted her arms so the short-haired woman could lift the tunic completely free.
Rahlizje’s skin prickled with gooseflesh in the cold, though it somehow felt hotter now within all the smoke and beneath the hands that had not left her. The next thing she knew, the healer had jerked Rahlizje’s breeches to the floor as well, where they pooled upon the pallet and did not bring another rise of pain in brushing against her leg. Somehow, with seemingly very little effort on the part of who knew how many others in the chamber with her, Rahlizje was guided into stepping from the last of her clothes before they too disappeared in the darkness.
She did not stand there, fully naked, on the strength of her body or by the force of her own will. Something else—something powerful and enduring and hungry—kept her there as she swayed amidst the curling smoke. Her leg offered no protest, but Rahlizje no longer felt a part of her own body. She might have separated from her own mind too, for all she knew. Somewhere, in the back of her consciousness, she noted how much worse this uncoupling was than the fever-madness wracking her until a day or two before; she could not say how long. This was a complete unraveling, where pain and physical sensation and mental existence separated, pulled apart, left her entirely before trickling back in fleeting images of her own bare breasts, of black-robed figures moving through blue smoke, of the healer fingering Rahlizje’s hair once more with that sad smile before she too vanished again.
The whispers built into a low chant of so many voices, caught somewhere between soundlessness and the barest rise of toning sound. A drum beat quickly somewhere very far away, matching the pounding rhythm of Rahlizje’s heart. The minute she thought of her own pulse, she felt it bursting from within her chest, throbbing through her limbs, spreading to every part of her she could no longer be certain was there.
Another figure approached her, parting the curtain of smoke with each slow step. Rahlizje saw the blue eyes first and wondered if that was where the smoke got its color. Yuhltse stopped, regarded her newest addition’s naked form, and nodded to someone Rahlizje could not see.
The hands that had not left her body lowered her with firm pressure to her knees on the pallet. Rahlizje’s head swung down in a heavy arc, and she saw her own clothes still there on the pallet beside her, unmoved. Then so many warm, urgent fingers clamped down on her shoulders, her arms, her wrists, holding them away from her sides.
A forceful tug jerked her head back just enough to make her wonder how. She swayed on her knees and could not see a thing through the smoke and under the rhythmic pull on the back of her head. A harsh whisper filled her ears, moving back and forth, tugging at her head again, over and over. Dark strands floated down her chest and onto the pallet, clinging to her flesh in places where her sweat had not yet dried. The warm hands held her steady. Her scalp prickled with another wave of overwhelming cold. The almost-black threads sifting to the floor around her were no longer thin and separate but thick, matted tendrils fluttering like feathers in the draft. Rahlizje blinked with heavy eyes and stared at the locks of her own hair scattering across the stone floor. Something warm and wet trickled down the back of her head, cold by the time it reached her spine. Then everything fell still beneath a thick anticipation.
The chanting continued. The smoke cleared again to make way for the High Priestess and her striking blue eyes within such a colorless complexion. Yuhltse stepped onto the pallet in front of Rahlizje until all the thief could see was the black weave of the woman’s robes. A cold hand ran over Rahlizje’s scalp, behind her ears, down the back of her neck. She’d never felt her own head this way, and it made her dizzy. The cold hand drew across the thief’s cheek and stopped under her chin, which Yuhltse lifted to make her newest prize look at her. Rahlizje could no more focus on the High Priestess’ gaze than she could say just what had been done to her, but every time her eyes slid away from the woman’s face, they were pulled back up again by some unseen force.
“This is where you belong now,” the woman said. Her voice sounded far away and right at Rahlizje’s ear all at once. “The Sleeping Darkness sees all. Even you, little flame. There
is nowhere left for you to hide.” She released Rahlizje’s chin and fluidly lowered herself to her knees in front of the thief. Dark robes pooled along the pallet between them. “You have been stripped of what you thought you were.” Those long, cold, eerily pale fingers trailed down the side of Rahlizje’s neck, contrasting the warmth of the hands still holding Rahlizje’s arms out by her sides. She wouldn’t have managed to fight against them anyway, and she didn’t even try. “On your knees, with every part of your past lifted up to the nothingness. You will offer yourself to the Kalibuun. Now, tell me your name.”
Rahlizje swayed on the pallet, held up only by the tight grip of those countless hands. The High Priestess’ eyes flashed with blue light, swimming in and out of focus behind the thick smoke still billowing from the pewter dish. She blinked heavily and tried to shake her head. “It’s… mine.” Her tongue was thick in her own mouth, clumsy and slow.
Yuhltse leaned toward her until all the thief could see were those blazing blue eyes surrounded by smears of black. “Not anymore.” Icy fingers brushed over Rahlizje’s collarbone, down her chest, over one breast before lingering no longer than a second on her nipple.
Everywhere she touched Rahlizje, she left a burning trail of prickling gooseflesh, hot and cold, defiance, and yes, even desire. It would have felt no different than if the woman had pinched her bare breast instead. Rahlizje’s response was not her own; a moan escaped her, and she hated herself for it. But in the back of her mind, where the smoke and the chanting had not yet reached, she knew it was the truth. Her swimming head aside, she was not being forced into anything. She could rip her arms out of all those warming grasps, if she wished to summon what strength she’d regained. She could fly at the High Priestess, spitting and kicking and biting. She could try to make her escape again, no matter how crippled her wounded leg made her or how much she’d since recovered. This was the moment where she still had a choice. So she said nothing.
Yuhltse’s eyes narrowed as she studied the thief’s slack expression—her haze beneath the smoke’s call. Her lips twitched. “You already know His face, don’t you? In every moment of your life that has brought you here, you’ve heard His voice. And you thought you were resisting…” Her fingertips left another burning trail down Rahlizje’s stomach, beside her navel, down and down. “He works through me too. Do you understand? Imlach has many hands.”
Rahlizje gasped when the woman’s icy fingers slipped between her legs. It was a warning to do as she was commanded and a threat of something more—of what would be done to her if she disobeyed. Or perhaps of what would not be done if Rahlizje did not play her part.
Leaning farther still toward the thief, the High Priestess held her captive’s gaze. Her face hovered so close that for the first time, Rahlizje felt what little warmth Yuhltse’s flesh offered. The woman’s lips brushed against hers, or perhaps it was merely her breath as she whispered, “Your name.” Her fingers moved between Rahlizje’s thighs, and the thief did not know whether she cried out in defiance or submission. She felt herself dropping back on her heels, but the hands lifted her up again by her arms. Yuhltse brought her lips toward the thief’s ear and barely breathed the words. “Tell me.” Those frozen, electric fingers paused just before entering Rahlizje and applied no more pressure there than a feather.
Desire and something more—something brutally primal—flared through Rahlizje’s belly. That was when she lost herself, if only for the briefest moment. “Rahli—” The first half of her name burst from her lips as if she were begging, and she bit back the rest of it. Her vision swam, her chest heaved, and yet she knew she had not given everything. Not completely.
The High Priestess did not know otherwise. Yuhltse’s lips parted as she pulled back to look into her newest acolyte’s eyes once more. “Ah…” She removed her hand and returned it to Rahlizje’s chin to ensure the thief did not look away again. “Now you are ready, Rahli. This is only the beginning.” She studied Rahlizje’s unfocused eyes once more, then rose swiftly, turned in a flutter of robes, and disappeared through the smoke.
Chapter 16
Rahlizje had no idea how much time she spent in that chamber, in the smoke and with so many hands still holding her in place. Eventually, those hands lifted her from her knees again. They guided her across the cold black stone, away from the pallet; one heavy, trembling glance over her shoulder showed the thief’s previous clothes and all that had been her hair lying on the pallet together in a tangle of what the High Priestess no longer wished Rahlizje to be.
Then she was moving, pulled through the smoke and the candlelight and then through the darkness. There were no doors or entryways, no opening in the stone walls that she could see, but she could not see much of anything anyway. Her head swam with constant visions of faces and hands, of flowing black robes, pale skin, eyes of every color. The people leading her might have owned those faces, and they might have uttered the whispered chants still echoing toward her from every angle. The smoke was gone now as Rahlizje shuffled through these pitch-black corridors, but her own mind had not returned. After a period of time she couldn’t quantify, she began to believe it might never return to her at all.
She still did not feel the agony of her healing leg, though she was certain it would still cause her incredible pain if she had the ability to be aware of it. She did, however, feel the cold. Like a slow, steady breath, that icy chill raced down the corridors toward her, stabbing at her naked flesh as everyone else around her—robed and somewhat more protected—ushered her onward.
They stopped at the first door she’d seen in this place. It was a simple thing on hinges in the stone, the dust-covered wood opening with a creak and soft whisper across the floor before Rahlizje was guided inside. The room was much smaller than the candlelit chamber, though it too was lit only by firelight. Not in a hearth but by two oil lamps, one on either side of the room.
Without a word, the faceless, nameless acolytes who’d led their newest addition released their grips on Rahlizje’s arms, their guiding hands slipping from her back, and slowly exited the small room. The door closed with a muted echo, and Rahlizje stood naked in the middle of what she almost didn’t dare to consider her own chambers. But that must have been what they were. She was alone.
The urge to vomit squirmed in her gut, and she turned her hazy, unfocused eyes upon the mattress not on the floor but set in an actual bedframe. For the first time in fortnights, she walked on her own toward the bed. Yes, she had a limp. No doubt it would be worse the next time she tried to move on her own. Some of the smoke’s effects were slipping away from her now, leaving her exhausted and nauseous with hunger and entirely confused. It occurred to her that this might have been another fever dream. The room seemed much warmer than the corridors and even the chamber where she’d been left to recover.
The woolen blankets on the bed were thin and itched something fierce upon her skin, but she slipped beneath them anyway, wondering what in the world would be required of her now after such a disturbing display in that chamber. Perhaps nothing. Perhaps far more than she could ever have imagined. Either way, it would have to wait until she finished sleeping, because now, the thief well and truly felt herself able to slip into the kind of slumber she’d been denied for far too long.
She slept long and hard despite the pit of hunger gnawing in her belly. Rahlizje would have slept longer if not for the door to her small chambers opening abruptly, followed by a gruff voice. “You are summoned, acolyte.”
Rahlizje blinked heavily and rolled over on the mattress which, despite its hard lumpiness, was far more comfortable than anywhere she’d slept in some time. She found it much easier now to focus on the figure standing just inside the door—the same man who’d greeted Taltaz upon the merchant’s arrival without bothering to spare a glance at the wounded thief in the man’s wagon.
“Get up,” he said and stepped farther inside the room. “Eat. Dress yourself. When you’ve finished, I’ll show you to her. But be quick about it.”
The man nodded toward the low table on the other side of the room opposite the hard bed, then turned swiftly and shut the wooden door behind him.
Grunting, Rahlizje sat up in bed and waited for the next wave of dizziness to pass. As far as she knew, there hadn’t been food here when she’d been unceremoniously abandoned in these chambers on her own. Then again, perhaps that was part of the ceremony. And these people all expected her to take it in stride, as if she’d chosen any of this.
Her defiance, though, did nothing to satiate her hunger. That was what the bowl of rice and potatoes and something that might have been meat was for. Rahlizje tested her weight on her injured leg and gritted her teeth at the sharp pain in her calf. She could endure it enough, as long as she didn’t put her full weight on it for now. With a highly exaggerated limp, she crossed the small room and knelt in front of the low table. The wooden spoon moved quickly from the tepid mush to her lips and back again, fueling her with even more strength than she’d gained from lying in recovery. It was flavorless and bland and entirely unsatisfying as far as taste, but at least it soothed her nausea.
With an empty bowl now, her gaze fell to the neatly folded black garments on the stone floor beside the table. Grunting, she grabbed them and stood. Yes, she’d generally dressed herself in black, but robes had never been her first choice. Here, apparently, they were the only choice. Rahlizje found herself smirking as she wondered what the acolytes in this place called Arahaz had done with her previous clothes. Perhaps they’d burned her stained breeches and her sweat-crusted tunic, no doubt creating some other ceremony out of that process too. With each passing second, her memories of that strange gathering in the chamber returned to her. It seemed quite the overindulgence on their part for nothing more than a strip-down of their newest arrival and a haircut.
Playing With Fire Page 110