The Godspeaker Trilogy

by Karen Miller

  “I cleaned the godhouse, master, I tended the sacrifices. I was about to start work in the godhouse library when—”

  “Yes, yes,” said Salakij. “Are you called as a vessel?”

  Vessels were those godspeakers chosen to lie with the warlord’s warriors. The god made godspeaker vessels sterile. Warriors needed to fuck, they did not need children. Not unless the warlord desired them to breed. A warrior discovered fucking anybody but a sterile godspeaker was delivered to an unspeakable death. In the godhouse it was counted an honor to be chosen as a vessel, mainly because only the vessels were allowed to fuck. All other godspeakers lived celibate, their bodies and their devotion reserved for the god.

  Vortka shook his head. “No, master. In Et-Nogolor I was not—”

  “You are in Et-Raklion now,” snapped Salakij. “Let me not hear those words again.”

  “Forgive me,” said Vortka, and received the testing stone handed to him. It was dark yellow, like the one in—like the one that had tested him before. This stone did not waken either.

  “You are not called as a vessel,” said the novice-master, taking back the stone. “You were to start work in the library, you say? That means you read and write?”

  “I do, master. I also have a good grasp of numbers. Before the god chose me I—”

  “You did not exist before the god chose you,” said Salakij, impatient. “You are a novice and do not know that? How long has it been since your last tasking?”

  Vortka swallowed. “Master, it is forty-three highsuns since my last tasking.”

  Salakij was affronted. “Forty-three highsuns? Tcha ! You overflow with sin. From newsun next you will toil in the library, Vortka novice, under the eye of Firuk godspeaker. Between now and lowsun sacrifice you will kneel before a taskmaster, that your sins might be beaten from your flesh. Tell the taskmaster not to spare you. Tell the taskmaster I will know if you are spared. Forty-three highsuns .” Salakij leaned across his stone desk. “You will find, Vortka novice, life is very different in Et-Raklion godhouse. In Et-Raklion godhouse we serve the god.” He waved his hand in curt dismissal. “Ask a godspeaker to show you to the taskmasters. I have stomached enough of you for one day.”

  Vortka wanted to say, That is unfair, it is not my fault. I traveled with the warhost, there was no tasking then . He held his tongue. A novice who questioned was a novice who walked with demons. Such a novice did not live long.

  As he followed a helpful godspeaker down the stairs and through the godhouse’s maze of passageways Vortka tried, and failed, to discipline his fear. Another sin he must confess to the taskmaster.

  I must not mind. I must endure. My life could be worse, I could still be a slave.

  Sadly, knowing soon he would weep beneath the taskmaster’s cane, the thought was not as comforting as he would have liked.

  Upon their return to Et-Raklion the warlord kept his word to Hekat. She left behind her chicken-killing days, she was given to Zapotar for training as a warrior. After she learned how to ride a horse—such stupid creatures—he assigned her to a knife-dance shell. She slept in the shell-barracks with twenty-nine other warriors who told her their names but did not make friends with her. She did not care, their friendship did not matter. Her bright new snakeblade mattered, her clean fresh linen training tunic mattered, and her stiff leather sandals she must soften with sheep-fat. Her knife-dancing mattered. That was all.

  When they were not training, Raklion’s warriors were free to sleep or game or fuck a vessel in the vessel-house. Hekat knife-danced. In the beginning Zapotar ridiculed her knife-dancing, but he did not laugh long. She learned fast, she learned well, soon he watched in silence as she danced the hotas with her snakeblade. His eyes were frightened.

  His fear was food, his fear was drink. She ate and drank him as she danced for the god.

  After two godmoons he summoned her to dance with him, he tested her as cruelly as he could. She pricked him four times, he pricked her once. He nodded, and said, You are a warrior . Before the knife-dancers and Hanochek warleader he heated his snakeblade and pressed it burning into her naked flank. She stared in his face, she did not scream. Now she bore her first warrior’s mark. She could ride to battle with Raklion’s warhost.

  After Zapotar she trained with Antokoi and his archers and slingshotters. The armorer made her a special bow, she was strong for her size but a full bow was beyond her. The god sat in her eye and in her fingers, she struck her targets over and over with arrows and with stones, she killed as many sheep and goats for their dinner as any of the seasoned warriors.

  After one godmoon Antokoi told her, You are a warrior . He shot her with an arrow, then. A godspeaker healer dug it from her thigh and sealed the bloody hole in her leg. The arrow’s scar was her second mark, it was tattooed with crimson ink to make it different from the arrow scars she would later earn in battle. The armorer pierced the arrowhead for her, then passed a heated wire through her ear. She dangled the arrowhead like an amulet, its weight made her smile when she turned her head.

  She was given to the chariots next, and her training continued with Bodrik Chariot-leader. He had seen her knife-dance and kill with slingshot and bow, he knew better than to sneer because she was young and ugly. She was too light to manage a chariot and its mad warhorses, she stood with the driver and loosed her arrows and her shot-stones, first at standing targets and later at godforsaken criminals let loose in the chariot field. No matter how fast the horses galloped, how desperately the criminals twisted and turned, she almost always hit her target.

  She did not grieve for the ones she killed, they were sinners and deserved to die.

  Bodrik said, one godmoon later, You are a warrior . She was tied to a chariot wheel and beaten with a chariot-whip, eight cuts to mimic the spokes of a wheel. The whip scars were her third warrior’s mark.

  She was not yet ready to learn the spear with Dokoy so she returned to Zapotar and her shell of knife-dancers. Through her other warrior-skill training she never once forgot her hotas , every day she had practiced them on the knife-dance field no matter how tired she was. Knife-dancing was her gift to the god and to Raklion, its chosen warlord. Of all her war skills, it was her best.

  She danced with her shell-mates and wished the warlord could see her. But Raklion stayed within his palace, plowing the Daughter, planting a son. Hanochek warleader trained with the warhost, he told them each newsun: You are Mijak’s greatest warriors, you make me proud .

  Tcha. What did she care for Hanochek’s praise? He had no power, he answered to the warlord. She wanted Raklion to see her, Raklion to smile and nod and say, You are a warrior . How long must it take him to plant his son? How long before they rode to smite that Bajadek, insolent warlord, sinning man?

  She did not know. She would have to wait. And dance while she waited, and dream of the god.

  Alone in the center of the knife-dancers’ field, as lowsun’s last light drained below the edge of the horizon, Hekat danced the steps of the sandcat striking . It was one of her favorite hotas , she felt like a cat as she flowed from pose to pose, leaping, twisting, flipping through the air to land lightly on her unshod feet. She could leap higher than any other knife-dancer in Raklion’s warhost, she could somersault over Zapotar’s head.

  I leap for the god, I leap in its eye.

  Someone called her. “Hekat? Hekat! Is that you?”

  She twisted in mid-air to see who dared call her name while she danced for the god. After a moment’s hard staring, she knew who it was.

  “ Vortka?”

  He stood three paces distant, his beautiful face alive with surprise. He was tall now, he had grown many handspans since last she saw him in Et-Nogolor, in the slave pen.

  “Hekat! It is you,” he said. He was smiling. “How can that be? I did not think a sla—”

  In a single striking leap the tip of her snakeblade pricked his throat. “You cannot be here! Only a warrior may tread this ground!”

  “I am a godspeaker,”
he said, and touched the scorpion shell bound to his brow. “I tread where the god sends me.”

  It was a very small scorpion shell. Leaving her blade against his throat she said, “You are a novice godspeaker.”

  He was still smiling, he did not seem to notice her knife. “True. But a godspeaker, even so.”

  “You were taken by the godspeaker in Et-Nogolor,” she said, baffled. “How are you here?”

  “By the god’s desire. And you? You are a warrior ?”

  He was beautiful, but she should kill him. He knew her from her dead life, he knew her with Abajai and Yagji. She pressed her snakeblade closer and felt it slide beneath his skin.

  He gasped. No smiling now. “What are you doing?”

  “I am not a slave,” she hissed. “I am Hekat, chosen by the god. I dance in the god’s eye for Raklion warlord. Why do you come here? Are you demon-sent, to cause me trouble?”

  His shining eyes were wide but not frightened. He should be frightened, she had killed many men. “Demon-sent?” he said. “ No ! I came down from the godhouse library with tablets for Hanochek warleader. I thought to walk my slow way back, I spend my days within four walls, it is good to see the open sky, feel cool fresh air against my face. I saw you knife-dancing, I thought you were beautiful. And then, as I watched, I thought I knew you.” Despite the knife at his throat, the thread of blood trickling down his chest, he traced one daring fingertip across her scarred cheek. “What happened, Hekat? Your face was a glory to the god.”

  “The god took my face. It does not matter.”

  “The god would never take your glory,” he protested. “Was it Trader Abajai? Did he—”

  “That name is dead to me!” she said, and pressed his throat harder with her knife. “My life outside these barracks is dead to me! Remember that if you wish to live.”

  Still his eyes were unafraid. “You look and sound so different, Hekat,” he said, his voice gentle. “Won’t you tell me how you came here?”

  “It is my business. Mine, and the god’s.”

  “I will keep your words secret. The god smite me if that is not so.”

  She could smell no stink of treachery on him. The god did not smite him. His word was his word. Slowly she lowered her blade from his throat. “Why do you care?”

  He smiled again. “You gave me food when I was hungry.”

  From her own bowl, after his was stolen. She remembered. “Tcha!” she said, and looked away. “Stale dry bread, I did not want it.”

  “I watched you after the Traders bought me in Todorok village,” he said. “Every day as I walked in my chains, I watched you riding Abajai’s white camel. You thought you were not one of us, you wore no chains, you ate and slept and talked with the Traders. I knew different. I was sorry for you.”

  Sorry ? Stung, she raised a fist to him. “Hekat needs no godspeaker pity!”

  He covered her fist with his fingers, and held her. “Not now. But I was sorry then, Hekat. If the god took you from them and put you in this place and if you are happy here, then I am happy for you.”

  She should pull free of his fingers, she should strike him for touching her. She said, “You are truly a godspeaker? The godspeaker in Et-Nogolor did not lie?”

  “Godspeakers cannot lie, Hekat.”

  “Tcha,” she said, and did pull free. “You are stupid, Vortka. Grakilon lied. He said the god wanted the Daughter for Bajadek but that was not true. He was high godspeaker and he told lies.”

  “Grakilon was a man, corrupted by demons. He turned his shoulder to the god, that is not the same thing.”

  His beautiful face was calm, his voice was calm, the god was in him, she could feel it. “So you are a godspeaker.”

  He nodded. “I will be. One day. When I’m done with training and have suffered the testing.”

  Across the shadowed knife-dance field floated sounds of laughter, of music, as Raklion’s warriors amused themselves around their nightly bonfires. The flickering light warmed the gathering darkness. Sometimes she sat with the knife-dancers before the flames and listened to the laughter, the stories, the songs that told of battles past. She was a warrior, and that was how warriors sometimes spent their nights. When she was not dancing or practicing her reading and writing, that was how she spent her nights.

  “What is the testing?”

  “A godspeaker secret.”

  She bared her teeth at him. “Now I see you, Vortka novice. You know my secret but keep yours in your heart. You are a man, like men you cheat, you lie, you would put chains on me if I was stupid, if I let you fool me.” She turned her shoulder to him and walked away.

  He followed. “Hekat! Wait!”

  Aieee, she should kill him, if she did not slit his throat he would name her a runaway slave, see her nailed to a godpost with her entrails at her feet. Her fingers on the snakeblade tightened, her drumming heart drummed hard and loud, she tensed her body to leap upon him, sandcat striking. She spun on one foot, snakeblade rising . . .

  Vortka was on the ground before her, on his knees before her, his throat was bare, like a lamb for sacrifice it was soft and waiting.

  She pulled back her blade and stumbled to stillness.

  “The god sees you, Hekat, it sees you in its eye,” he said, without fear. “I see you. Your secret is my secret, it sits in my heart. The testing is for novice godspeakers, they go alone into a desolate place. The god stings them with tribulations, it beats them low, and if they are true they lift themselves into its eye.”

  “And if they are false? What does the god do if they are false?”

  “It breathes upon them and they die.”

  She pressed her blade-tip into the softness under his jaw. “If you are false, Vortka, I will breathe on you and you will die.”

  His fingers closed around her wrist. He laid the snakeblade against his lips and kissed it. “I know.”

  She dropped to the dirt before him. “What else do you know, Vortka?”

  Now his warm palm cupped her cheek. “I am a novice, I know hardly anything. Except I think we are meant to be friends. And I think you have a purpose.”

  His touch burned her, gentle against her scars. “What purpose? Does the god tell you?”

  He shook his head. “No. Does it tell you?”

  She did not want to answer that, but if she said nothing he would guess anyway. “No,” she told him, grudging. “Not yet. Vortka, why are you here ?”

  He knelt in silence, his gaze turned inwards. “To find you, Hekat,” he said at last, looking outwards. “We know each other for a reason. I think I am meant to help you in your purpose for the god, whatever it is.”

  “ Tcha !” She gathered her muscles and sprang to her feet. Her scars were cold without his hand upon them. She melted her body into a hota , flowing like water, lizard waiting on a rock . “I am Hekat, warrior of Et-Raklion. I read, I write, I dance with my snakeblade. Do I need help from a godspeaker novice?”

  “I think the god thinks you do,” said Vortka, and stood. “Would you have me defy it, earn its smiting wrath? What have I done to you that you would do that to me?”

  Aieee, he was a twisty one. “Nothing,” she said, and kept on dancing. “Let the god show me I need you, and perhaps I will not send you away. Let it show me—”

  She missed her timing in a complicated cartwheel, her foot slipped, she fell hard to the ground. All the hot air whooshed out of her lungs. Shocked, offended, she lay gasping on her back and watched Vortka bend low to help her onto her feet.

  “Was that the god?” he said, his dark eyes laughing. “I think it was. I think you do need me, Hekat, though you wish you did not.”

  She shook his hand free of her and tossed her head. “Tcha. I think you think too much, Vortka novice. Go away, your silly face distracts me.”

  He retreated three paces, he did not leave. Ignoring him, she began dancing again. After watching for a while, he did go away. She let him go, she did not stop him. He was a novice, he was no-one. She was kn
ife-dancing with the god.

  She saw him again six highsuns later.

  Every tenth highsun Raklion’s warriors were given a day of freedom from training. Hekat spent that time mending torn training tunics and reading. With their copper coin warrior’s portion her shell-mates bought sweetmeats and godbones, amulets and fancy leatherwork from the city pedlars selling their wares in the barracks. She did not care for those things. She cared for stories, and bought them when she could.

  This free-day, she sat alone in the sunshine on the far side of the empty knife-dance field, mending a tunic, duty before pleasure, when a shadow fell across her face. She looked up, annoyed. It was Vortka again.

  “Tcha! I am stitching, are you blind not to see that?”

  He smiled, so beautiful, and sat beside her. “I see you stitching. You can stitch and talk, I think.”

  Mending tunics was a tedious business, she longed for a slave. “Of course I can. But do I want to? I do not think so.”

  He pulled his knees against his chest. “I have kept your secret, Hekat knife-dancer. Can you not give me a little of your time?”

  He had kept her secret, did that mean he owned her? “Why?”

  “I am freed from duties in the godhouse until highsun. I thought to sit a while with a friend.”

  “ Friend ?” She busied herself with the needle so he would not see her face. “What is friend ? It is a word. What is a word? A puff of air, it weighs nothing, it means less.”

  “Not to me, Hekat,” said Vortka, sighing. “Before Abajai bought me I had many friends in my village. I have none in the godhouse, friends distract from the god. I am not supposed to miss them but I do. I suppose you do not need another friend, you are a warrior now. You have your shell-mates.”

  Her hand jerked, the needle stabbed. Bright red blood-drops stained her mended tunic.

  “You’ve hurt your finger,” said Vortka. “I have my godstone. Shall I heal it for you?”

  “There is nothing wrong with my finger,” she snapped, and sucked the blood-drop from its tip.