The Godspeaker Trilogy

by Karen Miller

  “Yes, Retoth,” the young slave murmured, and did as he was told.

  “You are called Retoth?” Vortka asked. The slave nodded. “Then, Retoth, take me to your dead masters.”

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  The slave Retoth was reluctant to enter the cold, still sleeping chamber. Hanging back, he pointed through the open doorway and said, his voice unsteady, “There lies my master Abajai.”

  Vortka faltered. Abajai? Was there more than one Abajai in the Traders district? He took a deep breath and entered the room. One glance at the bed’s occupant told him there was not. “You found him like this?”

  “Yes, godspeaker. I have not touched him.”

  Abajai’s eyes were wide and staring, a fearful glare of agony and despair. Raised and blistered, the flesh of his naked chest echoed the image of a scorpion. The tattooed scorpion in his cheek was faded. Shriveled.

  This was godsmite, unmistakable.

  “Show me the other one,” he told the slave.

  Yagji’s face was a mirror of Abajai’s, a dreadful rictus of terror and pain. Burned in his chest, the same angry scorpion.

  “This was no demon,” Vortka told the slave Retoth. “This was the god. Send a slave to the godhouse, tell them Vortka calls for aid. Now , Retoth.”

  But Retoth was transfixed. “The god has taken my masters from me?” he whispered. “But why , godspeaker? What was their sin? They were good men, they—”

  Vortka struck him across the face. “You dare to question in a room still filled with the god’s dread presence? Do you wish to join your masters in hell?”

  Retoth gobbled in his throat, like a chicken. “ No , godspeaker!”

  “Then do as I bid you! And put the other slaves away where they will not be troublesome underfoot.”

  The slave Retoth stumbled from Yagji’s chamber. A moment later Vortka heard him shouting, and the hurried shuffling of many feet. Ignoring that, he looked again at the body on the bed.

  Why are you dead, Yagji, you and Abajai? Why did the god smite you? How did you sin, to be so struck doun?

  Burdened with dread, with unanswered questions, he returned to the villa’s entrance hall and waited for the senior godspeakers to arrive.

  When they came at last, a breath before highsun, they dismissed him to the godhouse. Relieved, Vortka escaped the villa with his heavy offering-satchel and struggled with it up the Pinnacle Road. After attending sacrifice he witnessed the collected coins and amulets counted into the treasury, then was freed until lowsun to pursue private dedications.

  It meant he could hide himself in the library and study the law and godhouse history. He could kneel before a godpost in the shrine garden and open his heart and mind to the god. He could train his body in the disciplines of godspeaker hotas , rigorous exercises designed to tone the body and keep it supple for the god. He could present himself to the taskmasters and offer his flesh for mortification, in remorse for all his novice shortcomings.

  He did none of these permitted things. Instead he slipped from the godhouse and went to find Hekat.

  She sat on a camp-bed in her shell-barracks, mending a pile of blade-slashed tunics. She was alone. When she wasn’t training or eating she was always alone. Alone with her snakeblade, dancing her hotas again and again. That was how she worshipped the god.

  He wondered if she ever got lonely, but so far hadn’t asked her. Something in her face discouraged those kinds of questions. “Hekat,” he said, and closed the door behind him.

  She stared in surprise. “Vortka? You should not be here. What do you want?”

  “To talk.” He looked at the pile of mending on the floor at her feet. Many of the tunics were stained brownish-red about the fraying slices in the fabric. “These are all yours?”

  “Tcha!” she said, and poked the tunics with a bare toe. “Not one of them is mine, stupid Vortka. You think a snakeblade touches me when I knife-dance with my shell?”

  “Then who do they belong to?”

  “Beginner knife-dancers come to join Raklion’s warhost.” She raised her arms above her head and stretched, like a cat. He tried not to notice the lift of her small breasts beneath the linen covering her body. She was a warrior and he was not a vessel, there could be no meeting of their flesh. To hope otherwise was to condemn himself to the most severe tasking in the godhouse.

  “More knife-dancers is a good thing, isn’t it?” he said, distracting himself.

  Her scars tangled themselves with contempt. “They dream of glory because we defeated Bajadek warlord, they think every day is a day of war. They think it is easy, to be a warrior.” She smiled, unkindly. “They are learning different. They make me laugh.”

  He looked again at the pile of tunics. “If they are not yours, Hekat, why do you mend them?”

  “ Tcha !” she spat, and leapt off her camp-bed to dance lightly down the shell-barracks center aisle and back again. “Stupid Zapotar, he punishes Hekat. I did not show myself to him when I came back to barracks last night. He says I sinned. He does not dare beat me, Raklion warlord sees me in his eye, so he says I must not dance my hotas , I must sit in this place and stab myself with needles.” She made a face. “That is not really why he is angry. He is angry because I killed Bajadek warlord, I saved Raklion’s life. He is jealous, I am the best knife-dancer and the warhost knows it.”

  Vortka felt his heart squeeze tight. He had heard about Bajadek’s slaying, who had not? But the warlord’s death was not important now. Abajai and Yagji, slain in their beds . “You were out of the barracks last night?”

  With exquisite control she turned slow and steady cartwheels between the long rows of camp-beds. The scorpion amulet round her neck swung to and fro, fracturing shadows. As the stone caught the light something about it tugged at his memory, he could not think why and pushed the thought aside for later. She was beautiful, turning cartwheels.

  When she was finished she stood before him, fierce and fearless. “The warlord sent to see me. I went to him. We spoke. I returned.”

  “When did you return?”

  She shrugged. “The godmoon and his wife were in the sky. I paid no closer attention than that.”

  “Hekat . . .” Aiece, how his heart was pounding. “Abajai and Yagji were killed last night.”

  Behind its scars her face was indifferent. But in her eyes he saw cold flames flickering. “You say so?”

  “I saw their bodies. They are dead.” She said nothing. She was not surprised. Seeing that, his skin went cold. “You did not need me to tell you. You knew already.”

  “And if I did?” she retorted. “Is that your business? I think it is not.”

  She had killed a warlord, slain him with her sharp snakeblade. That was warrior business . . . but the Traders were not. “Hekat, please. Are you bound in this? Is their blood on your hands? Did you kill them?”

  “Tcha,” she said, and bent herself backwards until her hands touched the floor behind her. “The god killed them, Vortka. If you saw them you know that is true.”

  “But you were there, weren’t you? You are somehow involved.” Curved like a horseshoe, she did not deny it. Staring at her, he felt sick and uncertain, his head felt light. “Tell me what happened.”

  With astonishing agility she flipped around and over and onto her feet. “You know what happened,” she said, flicking him a dark look. “The Traders died.”

  “ Why?”

  “Because they were stupid, they defied the god. They stopped their ears and refused to heed its wanting. They are no loss.”

  He could have smacked her. “ Tell me properly . Tell me everything.”

  Frowning, Hekat drifted her fingers to the snakeblade on her belt. Then she sighed. “They learned where I was, Vortka. They told the warlord I belonged to them. They told the warlord they wanted me dead. The god does not want me dead, the god sees me in its eye and wants me to live. I returned to their villa. I watched them die. I came back to the barracks and now I mend tunics. That is what happene
d. You can go away now.”

  He had no intention of going anywhere, not until she told him everything. “Hekat, they died by godsmite !”

  She smiled, and touched the amulet around her neck. “I know. I put my scorpion on them and the god’s power in me stopped their wicked hearts. They died in terrible fear and pain.” The smile twisted. “Stupid Traders.”

  The god’s power in her? How could that be? She was a warrior, only a godspeaker contained the god’s power. Determined to prove her wrong he opened his godsense and looked at her with his inner eyes.

  Touching her godspark was like breathing fire. He gasped, muscles spasming, and wrenched himself free of the cauldron that was Hekat before she burned him to ash and crumbling bone.

  “You see?” she said. “The god is in me. I live in its eye.”

  “I see,” he croaked, his throat scorched. “What you have shown me—it is dangerous to know. If Nagarak finds out . . . will you kill me now, Hekat? Will you put your scorpion on my flesh and watch it send my godspark to hell?”

  She dropped to the nearest camp-bed, flames still flickering in her eyes. He felt their echo in his blood. “Why would the god want your death, Vortka? You are godtouched as I am godtouched. You will not betray me. The god knows this and so do I.”

  He wet his dry lips. “Abajai and Yagji . . .”

  “Are dead because they wished to deny the god’s desire. You love the god, you serve the god, it chose you in that Et-Nogolor slave pen. Do not fear me, Vortka. I am not your death.”

  She was so young, yet she had killed a warlord. The god burned in her, its shadows darkening her face. Vortka shivered. “I am frightened, Hekat. You frighten me,” he whispered. “I am a potsmith made slave turned godspeaker. What is my place here? What is yours?”

  She laughed at him. “When you found me in the darkness, dancing, then you knew your place in this. As for mine, I will tell you in my time. The god is in us, Vortka. Let it guide you, let it fill you with its desires. Go back to your godhouse. Forget Abajai and Yagji, they are gone to hell. They are devoured by demons for their sins.”

  And she was devoured by the god.

  She is far beyond me already , he realized, standing. What will become of us as she grows in her power? Why has the god chosen her? What is her purpose? What is mine, that I know this about her?

  He had no answers. He returned to the godhouse, to ask the god. The god did not tell him.

  He must wait, and see.

  Raklion let nothing show on his face when Nagarak came down from the godhouse after highsun sacrifice to tell him of the two dead Traders. He said, “You are certain it was godsmite? It could be plague, returned to plague us. Pestilence sleeps in the sand and soil of Mijak, not long ago these Traders traveled the length and breadth of the land. Who knows what contagion they brought home with them on the soles of their shoes?”

  Nagarak would never sit when in his warlord’s private chamber, he paced within its confines, he was a restless man. “I am high godspeaker, yet you ask if I am certain?”

  Raklion raised one hand in brief apology. In his chest his heart beat hard. They died of godsmite? Hekat . . . Hekat . . . what have you done ? “Explain this, Nagarak. Why would the god smite these Traders, do you know? Has it told you?”

  The merest hesitation in Nagarak’s stamping stride, the slightest flicker of his eyes. “Some godspeaker business is not for discussion outside the godhouse. If these deaths have meaning beyond the sinful lives of the dead I will tell you, warlord. More than that you need not know.”

  He knew Nagarak, now. He cannot answer. The god has not told him why the Traders died . Relief and pleasure mingled hotly. It was a clear sign the god wanted Hekat safe. She is a knife-dancer yet the Traders died by godsmite. How could that be, god? Hekat, who are you?

  Nagarak stamped to a standstill. “I am here in your palace, I will see Et-Nogolor’s Daughter. Your son ripens in her, I would lay hands on her belly and feel his strength. Take me to her, warlord. I would—”

  Knuckles rapped on the door, then his personal slave entered. “Warlord, forgive me. Hanochek warleader would speak with you on urgent warhost business.”

  Raklion nodded. “I will see him. Escort Nagarak high godspeaker to the Women’s Chambers, he would see the Daughter and her growing belly. Nagarak, you honor me with your presence and word of that other matter. You will see me in the godhouse at lowsun, for sacrifice.”

  “Lowsun,” said Nagarak, and departed with the slave. Hanochek entered on the heels of their leaving, he looked harried and tense.

  “Raklion, I wish you would listen to me with your head and not your heart,” he said, throwing himself into the nearest empty chair. “I tell you something must be done, no matter how you feel for the girl, no matter her skill on the Plain of Drokar.”

  Hekat, again. Raklion sighed and leaned his elbows on his wooden desk. “Tell me, Hano. What must be done, and why?”

  Hano chewed the end of one godbraid, a boy’s bad habit he had never outgrown. “She slew Bajadek warlord, I do not quarrel with that. But there are fools in the warhost who would make eyes at her for doing her duty, for wielding her snakeblade no better or worse than any warrior of Et-Raklion. It bodes badly for discipline, warlord. She is one of ten thousand, not one alone.”

  He frowned. “She flaunts Bajadek’s slaying? I have not seen it.”

  “No,” said Hano, irritably shifting. “She does not flaunt it, it is flaunted by others. They see her, they flaunt it, they praise her, I tell you it means trouble.”

  It was a fair observation. One thing for his warriors to revere an older, seasoned fighter. But a girl barely out of childhood who, according to Hano, kept herself apart and mysterious? As his warleader said, such adoration could only mean trouble, and trouble in the barracks would be told to Nagarak by his godspeakers. He would pay attention to Hekat as the cause of that trouble, he would notice her. Ask questions.

  He did not want Nagarak noticing Hekat.

  “You are right, Hano,” he said. “The Plain of Drokar was one battle, it is over. Send Hekat’s shell into the wilderness for training. Send Arakun shell-leader’s shell with them so they can skirmish together.” He tapped a finger against his chin, warming to the idea even as it chilled him. Training in the wilderness was no easy business, warriors died in training. God, keep her safe . “Send them to train along the border with Et-Banotaj. Bajadek’s whelp has been silent since Drokar but that might change with the changing wind. And even if he does not think to bark, knowing my warriors dance on his doorstep he will think twice before clearing his throat.”

  Pleased, Hanochek stood and pressed a fist to his heart. “Warlord, it will be done. How long should the shells remain in the wilderness?”

  Raklion took a deep breath, and let it out slowly. “Send them out for three godmoons, Hano. That should be long enough for Drokar to fade. In that time let the knife-dancers live off the land, let them toughen their sinews and harden their bones. Three godmoons. No longer.”

  Hano nodded. “It is the right decision, Raklion.”

  “Yes. It is right.”

  Right, but not easy. He smiled at Hano and watched him leave. His heart was heavy, it was a cruel thing to be a warlord.

  God, keep her safe.

  Hekat laughed when she learned she was to train in the wilderness. She was tired of the barracks and being stared at, of pretending to fight tamely on the knife-dance field. Warriors were born for battle, she was born for battle, she knew that now as she knew her own name. In battle she felt herself close to the god, its fury boiled within her, she burned with its power. Skirmishing along the Et-Banotaj border was as close to battle as they could get for the moment . . . and if the god was pleased with her, it might send her enemies to slay.

  Send me enemies, god. I would worship you with my knife.

  The night before her shell and Arakun’s were to leave for the wilderness they attended a great sacrifice on the warhost field. Vortka was one
of the godspeakers present, when it was over they spoke swiftly, in shadows.

  “Nobody in the godhouse knows about you and the Traders,” he whispered. “Not even Nagarak. Your secret is safe.”

  “Of course it is safe,” she whispered back. “Nothing is known if the god wishes it unknown.”

  He sighed at her sharply, he did not like it when she spoke for the god. “They say skirmishing is dangerous, Hekat. You should be careful in the wilderness.”

  “I will be Hekat,” she retorted. “I am in the god’s eye, no harm can come to me.”

  “So bold, so proud,” he said. “If I spoke like that I would be caned for two fingers without stopping!”

  She shrugged. “You are a godspeaker, that is your life. I am a warrior, chosen by the god. No man dares cane me, any man who tried I would kiss him with my snakeblade.”

  “Or smite him with your scorpion?” said Vortka, then looked sorry he’d mentioned it.

  “No,” she said, fingers brushing her amulet. “That is not my business, that is for the god to say. You should not talk of my scorpion, Vortka. It would be better if you forgot it.”

  “I wish I could!” he said. The whites of his eyes shone in the faint, distant firelight. “Hekat, did you know your scorpion and Nagarak’s are carved from the same stone? Black, with gold and crimson flecks. That is special stone, meant only for high godspeakers. How is your amulet made from it? Where did it come from?”

  She did not want to tell him, that could make trouble she did not need. “I do not know. It was a gift.” A kind of truth, not quite a lie.

  “Ah,” said Vortka. “Then perhaps the god smote the Traders for dealing in the sacred stone.”

  There was no harm in letting him believe that. “Perhaps.”

  “Well, never let Nagarak see it closely. He will recognize that stone, he will not be pleased.”

  She did not care about Nagarak, she was in the god’s eye. “I must go, Vortka,” she said, as the rest of her shell-mates started drifting from the warhost field. “We are gone three godmoons. I will see you after that.”