by Karen Miller
Raklion embraced him. “I trust Zandakar with you as I trust him to no other, not Nagarak himself. Hano, if I were free to choose you would ride with me. You know that. You must.”
“I know it,” Hano whispered.
Raklion swallowed. “If you love me, Hano, never tell Nagarak what I said about not trusting him with Zandakar.”
Hano eased free, and took a step back to look at him. “I keep your secrets, Raklion. You know how well I keep them.”
“Yes,” he said solemnly. “I do.”
“Have you chosen the other warriors you wish to ride with you to Mijak’s Heart?”
“Not yet. I thought perhaps we could choose them now.”
Hano nodded. “As the warlord desires.”
“Then let us go to the warlodge, we can take our ease with mugs of ale and choose who is most worthy of the honor.”
“Tcha!” said Hano, and fell into step beside him. “Worthiness is a thing for godspeakers to decide. You should be concerned for the speed of their kills!”
It was the kind of bold thing Hekat might say. Raklion laughed, and nodded, and let his hand fall on Hano’s shoulder.
My friend, my friend. I would be lost without you.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
So, Vortka,” said Brikin novice-master. “You are returned from the wilderness, a tested godspeaker.”
Exhausted, filthy, scoured hollow with hunger, Vortka nodded. “Yes. What should I do now? Should I clean myself and attend a sacrifice or go to the high godspeaker as I am?”
It was a finger after highsun. They stood in the godhouse vegetable garden, where Brikin supervised a new crop of novices, most of whom hardly knew one end of a hoe from the other. As he waited for Brikin to advise him, despite his weariness and discomfort Vortka released a rueful smile. He was tested in the wilderness, transformed by the god and its infinite mysteries, yet part of him still felt like a novice, felt he could easily join the young men and women on their bare knees in the dirt as they grubbed up weeds and wondered why the god had called them for this.
Brikin said, “Nagarak high godspeaker is not free to see you. At newsun he rides with the warlord to Mijak’s Heart. He is secluded till then, seeking guidance in the godpool.”
Vortka felt his heart thump, hard. “Novice-master?”
“The god has chosen us for great things, Vortka,” said Brikin, smiling fiercely. “In time you will be told what you must know of them. Until then, go about your business. Bathe, godspeaker. Attend sacrifice, and eat. The god is not served if you fall stinking and starved on the godhouse floor. Nagarak will see you upon his return.”
Bathe, godspeaker . Vortka felt a surge of warmth. He was tested, he was returned, he had earned the right to be called godspeaker . He did not show his pleasure to the novice-master, such feelings of pride were strictly frowned upon. Instead he looked down at his unfortunate attire, leggings too short for him, a threadbare sleeveless vest. “Brikin, I have no clothing but what I was given by villagers upon the road.”
Brikin snorted. “See Oolikai provisioner on your way to the bath-house, he will give you a godspeaker robe and what else you may require. Once you are presentable and not likely to collapse, report to Peklia in the Sacrifice chamber. You must receive your sacrifice blade and make your first sacrifice under her exacting eye.”
And then what? What did the god expect of him then? He had asked, it had not answered.
“Brikin—”
But Brikin was no longer paying attention, he had noticed a sin in the vegetable garden. Leaping on the sinner he cuffed her smartly on the back of the head. “That is not a weed , fool, that is a seedling ! Do you desire your fellow novices to starve to death? Ten stripes in the tasking house for not paying attention! Go now! Run! Come back when you are smitten and can tell the difference between liver -rot and car -rot!”
Fighting tears, the sinning novice ran. Brikin continued to rant at his charges, Vortka withdrew quietly and presented himself to the godhouse provisioner, who made no comment on his newly won status, just handed him a robe, new sandals and an untied loincloth.
The bath-house water was hot and welcome. He eased himself into the communal stone tub and let the dirt and dried blood soak free of his weathered skin. The several godspeakers bathing at the same time nodded politely, they did not address him. They did not know each other, and idle chatter was strictly discouraged.
Alone with his thoughts, he considered what it meant, that he was back in the godhouse possessed of strange knowledge and those stranger crystals. Well, possessed of one. He had not brought the large crystal back to the godhouse with him, he had buried it in woodland beyond the Pinnacle’s base, where it would remain hidden until the god desired its unearthing. The small crystal was wrapped safe in the pocket of his gifted clothes, he would carry that with him, it seemed to him safest.
I must show it to Hekat, the god will tell her for what purpose it must be used.
It had not told him. That was the only thing about the crystal the god had not shared in the wilderness.
His aching body eased a little, Vortka found a brush and scrubbed himself to respectability. Clean and refreshed, he climbed from the bath and dressed like a godspeaker. The small crystal he slid discrectly into his robe pocket, the gifted clothes he bundled for burning, they could not be salvaged even by Oolikai.
I will make a sacrifice for the family who gave me them, I could have walked naked all the way here but I am glad I did not have to. Even though it means I must suffer in the tasking house.
He had no choice in that. Godspeakers did not possess money, they could not purchase a godhouse sacrifice. All he possessed in this life was his body, the only thing he could give the god in thanks for that family’s kindness was his pain.
So I will give the god my pain, and pray it gives them good fortune in return.
They had fed him, too, those traveling villagers who took pity on him, the poor naked godspeaker stumbling out of the wilderness. He had lost his strikestone and could not start a fire. After highsuns of raw meat and bird eggs and gnawed sour roots, their dry bread and old cheese had seemed a feast fit for a warlord.
Warlord.
Raklion and Nagarak rode to Mijak’s Heart at newsun. Only the gravest of matters could prompt such an action. Was it chance that had him tested at this time, sent into the wilderness to find the red crystals, just as Nagarak and Raklion were bent upon some great and secret task?
I do not think so. I think I am part of the god’s plan, as they are, and Hekat. I think change is upon us, I feel its winds blow.
His heart was racing. It was a fearsome thing, to be so deeply enmeshed in the god’s great workings.
As he left the bath-house and made his way to Peklia in the Sacrifice chamber he heard a hushed, familiar voice. Zandakar . He turned, and saw his son walking at Hekat’s side, barely six paces away, towards one of the four great entrances into the godhouse.
“I wish I was riding with you and the warlord. I wish I did not have to stay behind.” Zandakar sounded disconsolate, his beautiful face set in lines of sorrow.
“Tcha,” said Hekat. In the busy godhouse’s dim lighting her scars shone muted silver. “Mijak’s Heart is no place for you. We ride there on warlord’s business, you are not the warlord yet.”
Halted, Vortka stared. Hekat was riding to Mijak’s Heart with Raklion and Nagarak? As though the thought were a shout her gaze slid sideways. Their eyes met, hers narrowed, her lips tightened and then relaxed. Was she pleased to see him? He could not tell.
Hekat, I must speak with you. Hekat, we must meet.
She heard his thought, or read it in his face. One eyebrow lifted in agreement. Vortka nodded, the smallest gesture. Walking slowly now she flicked a careless finger towards him, then tapped it casually over her breast. He could read her easily too, even though they had spent so little time together. She meant, come to me . He nodded again, then turned away before one of the other godspeakers or novices notic
ed their exchange.
Zandakar had not noticed him. It was better that way.
Banishing all thought of his son he hurried to Peklia.
Et-Raklion’s godhouse was a place of constant sacrifice. From newsun to lowsun, sacrifices were made at all the godhouse altars for as many reasons as there were people with needs to be seen to, questions that sought an answer, sins that required a swift forgiveness. A fee was paid, a devotion offered, a godspeaker killed a cockerel or a lamb for the godspark of the supplicant. It was the main business of Et-Raklion’s godhouse, and the meat not consumed by the rites of supplication and divination fed the godspeakers and the novices.
Novice godspeakers prepared the chosen animals, they cleaned the altars, washed blood from the floors, fetched fresh robes for the sacrificing godspeakers and sharpened their knives, loaded the unconsumed carcasses into wooden barrows and wheeled them to the godhouse kitchens where more novices toiled alongside slaves in heat and fatty smoke. All the menial tasks, the novices did. Vortka had done them himself, for more godmoons than he cared to remember, as he studied in the godhouse.
Novices did not make the sacrifice themselves. That task was reserved for tested, godseen godspeakers.
The Sacrifice chamber was not the same as the altar alcoves that littered the godhouse, where city supplicants washed away their sins with purchased blood. In this place were the great sacrifices offered, for the warlord and his offspring, to bring victory in war, success in treaties, the approval of the god that life might continue safe and prosperous in the warlord’s lands. It was a large stone room, it stank of blood, it echoed with death. Its walls were blank, there were no windows. Fat candles in iron holders were fastened to the walls, they shed thin light on the floor, and the blood. The animals for sacrifice were penned and tied and caged along one wall. Dominating the chamber’s center, the altar of black stone was carved with snakes, lizards and scorpions, and banded by centipedes. The god’s presence was strong, it silenced the sacrifices and the novices alike. The god’s work was done here, in profound awareness of its might.
Peklia godspeaker ruled the chamber. Next to Nagarak she was the most senior, most revered godspeaker in the godhouse. She was also the largest, strongest woman Vortka had ever seen, she could sacrifice a bull-calf on her own. She glanced at Vortka once as he entered her domain but did not pause as she plunged her long knife into a black goatkid’s throat, expertly slicing through the large vessels under its jaws. Blood flowed, a novice caught the hot gush in a bronze basin. As the sacrifice died Peklia held a snake-eye amulet over the goatkid’s warm body, guiding its godspark to the god. Emptied, the goatkid’s carcass shrank, it shriveled, it fell to dust.
All sacrifice here was consumed by the god.
Peklia wiped her blade on her red-soaked robe and turned. “You are Vortka, returned from the wilderness. Tested by the god and seen in its eye. I remember you from your novice time.”
He bowed to her, still missing the musical swing of his burned godbraids. After so many highsuns his head still felt too light. “Peklia godspeaker, I am Vortka. I remember you, of course, I learned much here in your service.”
She snorted. “In the god’s service. I am its instrument, we are all of us its instruments. You are sent to me to learn the way of proper sacrifice?”
“Peklia, I am.”
“You will learn quickly, Vortka, we sacrifice as fast as animals are brought in from the farms. Do you know why?”
“For Raklion warlord and Nagarak high godspeaker,” he said, without thinking. “At newsun they travel to the Heart of Mijak.”
Peklia godspeaker’s thick eyebrows rose. “This is true. You know of their journey?”
He shook his head. “Peklia, I do not, beyond that they go.”
To his disappointment she did not enlighten him. “So, Vortka godspeaker. You are pleased to learn my business? Not all godspeakers have the knack of sacrifice. They serve better in other ways.”
He bowed again. “I am pleased if it pleases you.”
“Pleasing the god is what matters, Vortka,” she replied. “Come.”
As two of the attending novices began the arduous task of cleaning the altar he followed Peklia through a narrow door into a smaller chamber, where fresh robes and sharpstones and cleaning tools and the blood basins were kept. She went to a cupboard at the rear of the chamber and withdrew from it a long wooden box. Jutting from its top were the hilts of thirty knives, each one fashioned with a different grip and patterning. She put the box on the bench in the middle of the chamber and stood back.
“One of those knives is the sacrificial blade the god desires you to take as your own,” she said. “Open your heart, Vortka, let the god guide your choice.”
Vortka stepped close and held out his hand, fingers spread, above the jutting knife-hilts. Not one of them called to him. Instead he was tugged to the chamber’s cupboard, to a shelf within it, to a leather-bound case wrapped in a square of red wool. He withdrew it, and looked at Peklia.
Her face was set in a puzzled frown. “This is unusual,” she said, her eyebrows pulled low. “This knife is one of two that were offered to Nagarak after the god chose him as the next high godspeaker. He did not take it, the knife did not call to him.”
Vortka dropped the case onto the bench. “Forgive me, Peklia, I did not know. I will choose again, I—”
“No,” said Peklia, and held up her hand. “The god is here, you found the knife it wants you to have.” She picked up the case, unwrapped its red wool covering, unlaced its fastening and raised its lid.
Shivering with uncertainty, Vortka stepped close so he might look inside. “This knife is beautiful,” he whispered. “Too beautiful for me.”
“Tcha!” said Peklia, and thrust the case at him. “The god does not think so, do you tell the god no?”
Not if he wished to stay in its eye. He took the knife. As his fingers closed round its hilt, bone carved into a scorpion and black with age, its blue-sheened blade the shape of a snake’s flickering tongue, a jolt of power shuddered through him, reminiscent of the power he’d felt in the strange red crystal.
Peklia must have caught its echo. She dropped the case, gasping. “This is strange, the god stirs in that knife!”
Vortka looked at her. “Peklia, what do you know of it, what can you tell me?”
“It is old,” she murmured. “As old as Mijak. It was forged in the dead past, it belonged to the first high godspeaker chosen in the land.”
“And you keep it in a cupboard ?”
“Things are things, Vortka, we dress in plain robes, we keep knives in boxes, those boxes in cupboards. This knife is offered to high godspeakers, and then put away.”
He felt his heart beat against his ribs. “Offered only to high godspeakers?”
“So I was told.”
And yet the god had guided him to it. The hilt fit his hand like skin, like the flesh that clasped his bones. He loved this knife. It belonged to him.
If Nagarak discovers this knife has chosen me I will be in danger. No-one can tell him . . . he must never know it is mine. No-one can know. Not even Hekat.
“Who was the last person to use it?” he asked, as the knife’s power caressed his bones.
“I do not recall,” said Peklia, shaking her head. “A godspeaker long dead, that much I can tell you. Vortka godspeaker, I will open my heart. This choosing disturbs me. I think it an omen. A portent. But of what, I cannot say.”
“Peklia, are you sworn to tell of this choosing? Must others know what has happened here?”
She stared, surprised. “Other godspeakers? No. But—”
“Then please, I beg you. Let it be our secret. When the god is ready it will reveal its purpose in giving me this knife. Until that time I do not wish this choosing to be known. I am newly tested, I was not born in Et-Raklion. I have no desire for others to hear of this and treat me differently.”
“I understand that,” said Peklia, nodding. “But you must understan
d, Vortka, I cannot keep secrets from Nagarak high godspeaker.”
Nagarak. Nagarak. “Yes, he must be told,” said Vortka, slowly. “But will you let me tell him, Peklia, when he returns with the warlord from the Heart of Mijak?”
Her broad, plain face settled into stubborn lines. “That is not proper. I am godspeaker of the Sacrifice chamber, responsible for the sacrificial knives. It is my duty to record which knife is claimed by which godspeaker.”
Vortka took a deep breath and let it out, subduing frustration. “Peklia, I feel I am guided by the god. I must be the one to tell Nagarak high godspeaker of this strange choosing.”
It was no small thing, to invoke the god like that. No godspeaker did so lightly, if the claim was false the god would smite without mercy. Peklia’s eyes widened, her lips pressed tight. “You say so?” she said, after a long moment. “You are certain?”
“I am. I hear the god’s voice in my heart.” And that was no lie. The god was a burning coal, waking and sleeping he felt it, he heard it. “Please. Let me tell him.”
Peklia sighed. “Very well, godspeaker. You have my silence.”
He touched his fingertips to her arm. “Thank you. And if I might ask for one more thing?”
“ Tcha ! You are bold for one so newly tested!”
“Forgive me,” said Vortka, truly contrite. “Before lowsun I swear I will kneel in the tasking house, that I might be chastised for my sin.”
“And in the meantime?” she said. Her lips twitched a little, she was not a sour woman. “What is this other thing you desire?”
He looked at the ancient knife in his hand. “This blade will draw attention whenever I wield it. Until I have spoken to Nagarak, until he gives me leave to use it, I think I am better served with something plainer. Can I choose another, to learn the art of sacrifice with you?”
She shoved the knife-box across the table. “It would be wiser. Choose quickly, Vortka. You take much of my time.”
“Thank you, Peklia. The god see you for your understanding.”
She snorted. “And may it see you for your speed, godspeaker!”