by Karen Miller
He released his brother. “Dmitrak,” he said, his voice a command. Sniffing, trembling, Dimmi stepped back and looked up. “Here is something I have never told you. Do not repeat it, these words are just for you.”
Dimmi’s face brightened. “Our secret? I promise.”
“When I was small, seasons younger than you are now, I was wicked and foolish and galloped my pony in the old horse-field. Didijik fell, he died and I was injured. After I was healed, the Empress took me to the godhouse. A taskmaster tied me to the scorpion wheel and he whipped me for my sin. Four highsuns later I was given a new pair of horsehide leggings, made from the skin of my beautiful pony, that died because I was a wicked boy.”
Even now, so many seasons later, he felt his eyes prick at the thought of dead Didijik. He did not care about the whipping, the whipping had been well deserved. It was the memory of what he’d done to his pony, and of Hanochek who was sent away, that hurt him. He did not speak to Dimmi of Hano. Hano lived in his deepest heart, a secret he could never share.
“She did that?” said Dimmi, an awestruck whisper.
He nodded. “She did that. I know she is hard on you, little brother. She is hard on me also, when we are alone.”
“Maybe,” said Dimmi. His expression was stubborn. “But I still say she is hardest on me. It is not fair, is it my fault her body is broken? I could not help that, I did not ask to be born!”
Another memory, bloody and sharp. The Empress cut open on a chamber floor, Vortka’s hands thrust deep inside her, the sight of her agony, the sound of her screams. Raklion warlord, dying of his old age. He’d been such a small boy, he had never forgotten. Not even Vortka’s kind comfort, later, had softened the impact of that night.
He offered his brother his gentlest smile. “None of us ask it, Dmitrak, we are born by the god’s will.”
Dimmi kicked the dirt with the toe of his sandal. “I wish I knew why, Zandakar. Do you know why?”
He could not answer, that was another secret never to be shared. Its shadow lay between them, he prayed Dmitrak would never see it. “Am I a godspeaker, to know the god?” he said lightly, and tugged on Dimmi’s dusty godbraids. Their godbells jangled, so often out of tune. “Go to the godhouse, ask it yourself.”
“Tcha,” said Dimmi, and pulled a face. “I do not like the godhouse, it stinks of old blood. I only like the stink of sweat.”
“That is good, you must like yourself!” Zandakar said, teasing. “So now we should go back, I think. Tomorrow we attend sacrifice in the godtheater, before the people. You like that, Dmitrak. They always cheer to see you.”
He slid his arm around Dimmi’s shoulders, swinging his brother with him into movement. Dimmi groaned, and slipped himself free. “Yes. I like it. But first we must fast, and I get so hungry.”
“Aieee, little brother!” said Zandakar, only half-joking. “Must you complain so much? The god does not like it, such a moaning man are you!” Then, to forestall any temper at the rebuke, he broke into a jog, grinned over his shoulder and added, gently taunting, “I say you cannot catch me twice, Dmitrak!”
Laughing, they ran and left the pain behind them, in the branch-beaten tree, in the air.
Later that night, long after lowsun sacrifice when his brother was safely asleep, he went to his mother in her private chamber. She took one look at his face and tossed aside the clay tablet she was reading.
“I warn you, Zandakar, do not say it ! I am your mother, the Empress, am I to be chastised by you ?”
He did not answer, just dropped to the floor beside her chair, where so often he sat when he was a boy, and let his head rest against her knee.
“Tcha!” she said, after a long silence. “ You are the hammer, Zandakar, not him. What business does he have, trying to defeat you?”
He sighed. “Dimmi does not know I am the hammer, Yuma. I am his big brother, he walks tall when he wins.”
“Tcha!” she said again, and touched her fingers to his godbraids. His godbells sang softly, they said she forgave him. “Does that matter, Zandakar? I think it does not. Soon you must smite the world for the god, you must ride with me and the warhost against the world’s demons. Dmitrak cannot walk tall then, he must walk behind you. He must be content to live in your shade.”
He twisted round so he could see her. In the chamber’s lamplight her scars shone silver in her beautiful face. She would never tell him how she got them. Vortka would not tell him. Nobody else knew. It was a mystery, his mother was a mysterious woman. “When, Yuma?” he asked, his heart pounding. “When must I smite the world for the god?”
She smiled, he truly was forgiven. “In the god’s time. I will tell you when I know.”
“But you are certain it is soon?”
Her smile faded. “Yes, Zandakar. Very soon. Brown Mijak cries out for relief, Et-Raklion’s water cannot water it forever. Our water is less bountiful than even three seasons ago. The god grows impatient.”
“But it has not given you the sign.”
“It will.”
“Yuma . . .” He took a deep breath, she would not like this question. “Are you sure you are strong enough, to ride into the world?”
Her silver scars tightened, her lips pinched tight. “That is not your business. You have no right to ask me.”
“I have every right. You are my mother, and I love you.”
She leaned down and took his chin in her fingers. “Before I was your mother, I was the god’s slave. Before I am anything , I am the god’s slave. The god desires me to fight for it in the world, Zandakar. In the world I will fight for the god. It makes me strong, I am strong in its eye. Never ask me that again.”
He loved her, she frightened him. When the god was in her, she was to be feared. “I am sorry,” he whispered. “Yuma, forgive me.”
She released his chin, caressed his cheek. “Of course, my precious boy. I always forgive you. That is my weakness, did you not know?”
Hekat? Weak ? He almost laughed. He said, “Yuma. About Dmitrak. All he wants from you is a word of praise. Will you not praise him? Once? For me?”
She sat back. “Perhaps. Now leave me, Zandakar. Tomorrow we sacrifice in the godtheater, my mind must be peaceful so I can hear the god.”
He stood and kissed her, then retired to his chamber. In bed, his fasting belly rumbling, he stared at the ceiling, unable to sleep.
God, let her praise him. Warm her heart towards him. He is my brother, I weep when he weeps.
One finger before highsun Hekat rode in her slave-borne litter from the palace to the godtheater, with Vortka leading, walking in his glory, and Zandakar beside her, riding his stallion, and Dmitrak behind on his runty pony, out of her sight where he deserved to be. Praise him? I must praise him? Aieee, sweet Zandakar. The things I do for you . . .
Beneath her silk and wool and gold she wore her plain linen training tunic, her snakeblade was belted at her waist. She dreaded the knife-dancing expected of her as Empress, her body ached from the long ride to and from the horse-field. In truth, her body ached all the time, thanks to Nagarak’s murderous brat.
Three godmoons after Dmitrak’s violent birth she had known the claw-marks he’d left in her body would never fully heal. Riding was torment, knife-dancing a crueler tasking than any godspeaker could devise.
How could you allow this? she had railed at Vortka. You said you healed me, you said I was whole!
Vortka had frowned, and touched his scorpion pectoral. You did not die, Hekat. Be grateful for that .
Tcha, and tcha. You did not die . How did that help her? What a stupid man.
Et-Raklion’s citizens and its visitors from elsewhere in Mijak, those not chosen by Vortka’s godspeakers to witness in the godtheater, lined the streets leading to the great, sacred godtheater. The city was still called Et-Raklion, that was Zandakar’s plea, how could she refuse?
As was customary, it rained offerings as they proceeded through the city’s districts. Such devotion pleased her, but Vortka compl
ained his novices took far too long to clear the pavestones of the amulets and coins thrown before her. Nor did he approve that she made certain each journey to public sacrifice took them through the Traders district, past that villa once owned by Abajai and Yagji. It had long since been sold, someone else owned it now, the door was repainted, not blue but red.
She hoped Yagji knew that, screaming in hell. Red was the color he disliked most.
They reached the godtheater, it was crowded and hushed. She sat on her scorpion throne and hid her pain in her throat. Zandakar and the other one stood behind her, one on each side. Vortka sacrificed a bull-calf, and a black lamb, and a cockerel, and a dove. She drank the steaming blood from a golden chalice, so did Vortka, so did Zandakar, and so did Dmitrak, the last.
“Behold your Empress, the Empress of Mijak!” cried Vortka. “Behold godtouched Hekat, precious in the god’s eye!”
Twelve seasons a high godspeaker, and he had borrowed nothing from Nagarak. He ruled the godhouse not with terror, but with a smile. It was not her way, it was not her godhouse. That was Vortka, if the god disliked it the god would long ago have thrown him down.
He turned and nodded, his face not beautiful anymore, twelve seasons as high godspeaker had seasoned him out of beauty. Deep lines marred him, she was sorry for that. Once he had been a pleasure to behold.
His pronouncement was her signal. She stood and stripped down to her tunic, no longer the Empress but Hekat warleader, the god’s knife-dancer, beautiful and precious, the doom of Bajadek and his son. She heard the crowd suck in its waiting breath, she felt its righteous passion as flames on her skin.
Vortka struck his godbell. It was time.
She exhaled sharply, willing her hurting body to obey her, willing the hotas to flow without reluctance. The godforsaken criminal selected to die by her hand was brought before the platform by two of Vortka’s godspeakers. A man this time, but she had killed women and children too. Some were slaves, and some were not. All were wicked sinners, they deserved to die. She had started the practice of public execution four godmoons after Raklion’s burning.
I am the Empress, with the god’s power of life and death in my hand. At every godtheater sacrifice let the people see it. Let them be reminded. Let them know who I am.
The prisoner was weeping, he knew he was doomed. His godbraids were cut off, he did not need them. “The god is in me,” she told him, coldly. “You are judged, I am your smiting.”
She did not know his sin. She never knew, she never asked, that was the god’s business, hers was death. She unsheathed her snakeblade and danced to him lightly, on the balls of her unshod feet. There was pain, she ignored it, she gave it to the god.
As her snakeblade plunged into the sinner’s heart, as she looked in his pale eyes to watch his godspark blow out, she saw his face change, ripple and transform. The man she killed was the man from the village; the man who had sired her and sold her to the Traders.
He fell slain before her, he slid from her knife. She stood over his body, unable to move.
It is a sign. I knew a sign would be given. The god has spoken. The past is dead, with my snakeblade I killed it. The future is now, and the god wants the world.
“Hekat?” said Vortka, coming to her side as the crowd praised the Empress, and Zandakar, and Dmitrak, as it gave thanks to the god in its wrathful smiting. “Hekat, is something wrong?”
She turned to him, smiling. “No. Vortka, I must swim in the godpool, I must speak to the god. The time has come to make Zandakar its hammer. I must forge the crystal weapon, the god will tell me how.”
He drew back from her as though her words were a snakeblade, pricking his skin. “Hekat! You are certain ?”
She rolled her eyes. “Tcha, stupid Vortka. When was I not?”
When the godmoon and his wife stood on top of the sky, she swam in the godpool, the god whispered in her heart. Afterwards, Vortka unburied the large red crystal from the godhouse’s shrine garden, where it had slept safely for so long. She carried it with her down to the palace, then summoned a slave.
“Go to the Artisan district. Tell the best goldworker in Et-Raklion to expect a visit from the Empress.”
Palace slaves now wore gold-stitched tunics, their scarlet slave-braids were bound in gold wire. The whole city knew them, they were never disobeyed. Even godspeakers in the quiet time knew to leave them alone.
The god would have the artisan it required.
While she waited for the slave’s return, she prepared the heavy red crystal, picked it free of rotted goathide, cleaned it of old blood and crusted dirt and set it on the floor before her. Then she took the scorpion amulet from round her neck, unthreaded it from its leather thong and balanced it upon the dull red stone.
The amulet rippled. The crystal glowed. It fractured into myriad pieces, chunks and shards no bigger than a large plum, no smaller than a peach stone.
“Tcha!” she said softly, pleased. She rethreaded the stone scorpion and looped it over her head, gathered up the chunks of crystal, placed them carefully in a leather satchel, and wrapped herself in a woollen cloak.
The slave returned, it led her on foot to the Artisan district and a goldworker so overcome he could barely speak. He asked no questions.
That was wise.
“Empress, exalted, there is some risk,” he warned her once the slave was gone, as they stood alone in his workshop surrounded by lumps of gold and copper, crucibles, metal tools, a fierce hot fire. He was an old man, bent almost in half like a blighted sapling, scarred over and over with burns and cuts. “Working with gold is no simple business, you might be hurt. I could—”
“No,” she said. The god had been clear, the gold wire for the weapon must be made by its Empress, the god’s weapon for Zandakar must spring from her hand. “Begin.”
With the artisan guiding her she melted the gold and copper together in the exact amounts he told her, she rolled it and pulled it, sweating, cursing, she transformed it into strong wire for the god’s smiting hammer. Newsun broke beyond the workshop windows, she ignored it, she toiled for the god and so did the artisan. She was burned, she was cut, she ignored her small pains and her large ones. The artisan’s assistant brought ale and roast meat, she ate without tasting, the god was in her, whipping her on.
Time passed and passed, she did not heed it. When the wire at last was ready, coiled like a thin snake, she tipped the lumps of red crystal onto the workbench. “The crystals and the wire must fashion together.” She smoothed burned fingers over her left hand and up her arm. “Into a glove that will fit a man’s arm from fingertips to elbow: Do you understand me?”
The artisan frowned. “A glove made of gold wire and lumps of crystal?”
The god had shown her in the godpool but she was an ignorant slave-girl again, she did not have the words. She seized a lump of charcoal and scribbled on the bench, drew for him the picture the god had seared into her mind.
“There! That is what I must make, that is the god’s desiring.”
He gaped. “The god , Empress?”
“Are you deaf?” she demanded, and bared her teeth at him. “Yes, the god! Open your ears!”
“Forgive me, Empress,” he croaked, cringing. “I think this is possible. Let us begin.”
With his help, she created the weapon, a long woven glove crafted from gold wire and crystal, a gift for Zandakar from the god. Soft leather straps stitched there, and there, so it might be fastened securely to his arm. When the weapon was finished she slipped her hand inside it. Too large for her, it would be perfect for Zandakar, born the god’s hammer in the world. The red crystals shone with a dull, sleepy light, waiting for her son to wake their fury.
Only as she slipped off the weapon did Hekat realize the depth of her exhaustion, feel once more her deep-seated pain. The artisan could hardly stand, he clutched at the workbench and groaned.
“You have pleased me,” she told him. “You have pleased the god.”
The artisan thud
ded hard to the floor, water dribbling from his eyes. “Empress! To serve you, to serve the god, I am a fortunate man!”
She nodded. “Yes. You are.”
He gave her a soft bag for the gold-and-crystal weapon, she put that bag into her satchel and left him alive. Outside his workshop it was once again night, the quiet time. How many highsuns had passed since she came here? She was uncertain. It might be four. Slowly, painfully, she walked back to the palace, unseen by the godspeakers in the god’s eye.
She went straight to Zandakar’s chamber and slipped inside. Breathing softly she stood by his bedside and watched him sleep, as she had watched him sleep when he was a small boy, riding with the warhost throughout all of Mijak, taming its cities, accepting their oaths.
In those days you were a warlord, my son. Your life would be simpler if that were still true. But you are the god’s slave, as much as I. The god has its desires, and we must obey them. You were not born to be warlord, you were born the god’s hammer . . . and the time has come to smite in its name.
Aieee, god. He was so beautiful, he made her heart ache. She could watch him forever, she would never grow tired. Now he was a man she could see Vortka in him, he was as old today as his father had been when a goatslut and a potsmith spoke together for the first time, in the slave pen of a city whose name had long since blown away like smoke.
You must see my son, god. You must see Zandakar in your eye. He will smite for you, I have raised him in that purpose. Do not abuse him. Do not shatter him in your wrath.
Zandakar sighed and shifted, he opened his eyes. “Yuma?” He sat up. “Aieee, Yuma. Where have you been?”
“About the god’s business,” she told him, and hid her aching heart. “Do not ask stupid questions.” She tossed the weapon in its leather satchel onto his bed. “Dress, Zandakar, then take that to Vortka in the godhouse. Do not open it until he says you may. He will tell you what you need to know.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE
When Zandakar entered the godhouse, just before newsun, a godspeaker took him straight to the Sacrifice chamber.