The Secret Texts

by Holly Lisle

  The parnissa looked down at the floor and said softly, “I fear death. There is little peace for me in the thought of dying and being reborn, of struggling through helpless childhood again, of creating myself anew, of fighting my way back to power. I’m already where I want to be, doing what I want to do.” He looked at Crispin and said, “Tell me how I can help you.”

  “At daybreak, call a holy day. Ring the summoning bells, require all businesses to close, and demand that the people gather in the great square to hear your prayers. Say you had . . .” Crispin shrugged. “I don’t know. Say you had an omen, or words from the gods, or something. Whatever you want. Just get as many people into the square as you can. The Mirror will draw its magic from them to give us life and power.”

  “You’re of Familied blood, Crispin. The Sabirs could call such a gathering on their own.”

  “The Sabirs could,” Crispin agreed, “but I couldn’t do it now, without the consent and blessing of the paraglese. He would want to know why, and he would insist on benefiting the entire Family with this treasure. And I have no wish to confer immortality on most of my relatives. If we do this now, you and I need not share our secret with Andrew or Anwyn, with the paraglese, with the Wolves, or with the rest of the parnissery. If we act now, we two will hold the world in our hands.”

  “Ah.” The old parnissa nodded. “So that is why I come into your scheme. I can call a gathering without involving anyone else.”

  “Precisely.”

  “And these gathered thousands . . . what of them?”

  “Their lives will feed the magic.”

  “Will they die?”

  Crispin shrugged. “I don’t know. They might. Does it matter?”

  The parnissa smiled at him. “I taught you. I molded you in my own image. You are the man I created. Why do you even ask such a question?”

  Crispin returned his smile. “You asked what would happen to them, when I could not imagine you worrying yourself with such a question back when I was younger. I wondered if perhaps you had grown tender with age.”

  Nomeni threw back his head and brayed. “Old birds only grow tougher with time—never more tender. Let us go, then. You and I and your servants and the Mirror of Souls will creep from this House like the thieves in the tale of Joshan and the five winds. At daybreak the sheep will pray. And you and I shall prey.”

  Chapter 24

  The cry spread out from the central parnissery tower in Calimekka to the hundreds of outer towers throughout the great city, “Kae ebbout!”

  Come to prayer.

  The city echoed with the calls, and men slogging their goods to market over the rough-paved back streets hurried their burros or oxen along, hoping to get their goods to warehouse before sunrise; and women setting up stalls in the markets sighed and began repacking their wares; and servants in the great Houses groaned and rose from their hard beds and began readying the fine silks and linens that their parats and paratas would require in the next station. The city breathed in, an expectant little gasp, and did not exhale. The air itself seemed to shiver with anticipation.

  In the darkness before the dawn, the cries of the shevels brought sleepers out of sleep and warned the night workers that there would be no pleasant bed for them at daybreak. Those who could ate lightly of the foods permitted before a day of prayer and fasting.

  Crispin stood in the great parnissery square, staring out at the city that lay beneath his feet, feeling his heart race and his blood pound through his veins like floodwaters overfilling a stream. Soon . . . so soon . . .

  What does a god wear to his inauguration? Crispin wondered. He considered the green silk, but chose the cloth of gold, and his best emeralds. His best sword. The Fingus headdress, with the emeralds inset in the gold cap, and the two oxbow-cock feathers at each side. And his comfortable dress boots. No god should have to suffer aching feet.

  The Mirror of Souls already occupied its place just in front of the main altar in the central parnissery. He stood behind it, smiling down at the men and women and children who began to fill the square. They were his meat. His fuel, all of them. He could already feel the energy from their miserable little lives coursing through his blood.

  The sun rose over the horizon, barely making its presence known before vanishing behind the swollen bellies of the rain clouds that blanketed the sky. The bells began pealing out the single alto note of Soma, and as they did, the first huge drops of rain spattered the pavement and hit the carriage, and the low rumble of thunder rolled through the jagged hills. Crispin watched hundreds of heavy paper umbrellas blossom like desert flowers, and smiled to himself. How many fewer people would walk home than had hurried toward the sacred square? How many of them would he bleed dry to create himself as god?

  Nomeni took his place on the step in front of the Mirror of Souls and began leading the sheep in the first of the prayer dances, spinning slowly on one foot, bent all the way over with his wrists dragging the stone stair. He was still a limber bastard, Crispin thought. Old, certainly, and perhaps truly dying—Crispin had heard rumors to that effect for months—but not out of the game yet.

  Watching him, Crispin could regret the lie he’d told to win the old parnissa’s cooperation. Nomeni would not be joining him in godhood. No one would. Crispin didn’t care to share his power with anyone, so only he would rest his hands in the pool of light that swirled in the heart of the Mirror—the pool of light his Dragon told him was the key to immortality. Only he would be fed when the Mirror drew life and magic from the assembled thousands. Only he would live forever.

  The old man finished his prayer dance, and Crispin moved out from behind the Mirror and down the stairs. There he knelt in front of Nomeni, to all appearances the dedicated son of Iberism he’d been trained to emulate.

  “Rise,” the old man told him.

  Crispin kissed the hem of Nomeni’s robe—simple, pious black silk this morning, that made his own cloth of gold and emeralds and feathers look like the cheap gauds of a concubine by comparison. He felt silly for a moment, as if he’d seen in the old man the true definition of power with grace. But when he rose, he allowed only a warm smile to show in his face and his eyes, and he whispered, “Are you ready, old friend, to join me in godhood?”

  “Wait,” Nomeni whispered. “The square is not yet as full as it can be. I’ll tell the cattle why they’re here—by then, it should be packed.”

  Crispin nodded and tried to relax. He reascended the platform and stood behind the Mirror of Souls with his hands at his sides. The parnissa took his place directly in front of the Mirror as Crispin had told him he should.

  The parnissa raised his arms and pitched his voice to the back of the square. “Iberans, Calimekkans, sons and daughters of Iberism, hear now the words of the gods as they spoke them to me. As you watch, the sky darkens and the gods who hold Matrin in their hand crush the clouds in their fists and squeeze out thunder and lightning. They stare at you in anger and send forth foul omens of death and disease, of the destruction of this city and all who inhabit it.”

  Nice opener, Crispin thought. Good attention-getter. The people in the square were staring at the sky, crowding together tighter and tighter as more of them squeezed their way in. They were packed like pickled herring, and their faces wore expressions of fear. Their fear-stink rose from them in great waves, and touched Crispin’s nostrils like the sweetest of perfumes.

  He heard above their cattle moans and sheep bleats the rattle of other wheels on the pavement outside of the square. Other carriages, coming fast. He frowned. Only members of Families were permitted to ride in carriages to the parnisseries. But Families had their own parnissas, and their own private chapels, and would be meeting in them to hear the words of the parnissa broadcast from the Ancients’ tower in the central parnissery square of each lesser parnissery. So which Family members were out in the dreadful weather, fighting through the crowds to attend the prayers with a mob of the unwashed? From which Families? And why?

 
“Your sacrifices,” Nomeni growled to the listeners, “have been shameful. You have not offered your best of anything to the gods. Your penitences have been false; you have hidden secrets deep within the dark corners of your lives; and you have lied to Lodan, who gives and takes, and to Brethwan, who rejoices and suffers.”

  The carriages rolled into the square, parting the already packed crowds as they moved forward. Galweigh crests decorated their doors, and Galweigh colors caparisoned their horses. For a moment Crispin was bewildered. Then his cousin Andrew stepped out of the first carriage. Anwyn, cloaked and masked, his deformities disguised as parts of a costume, jumped down from the second. Both had disguised themselves in Galweigh finery, red and black; they stalked through the crowd like scythes through grass, the cowering peasants scrambling out of their way in fear of their lives. With reason, of course—the unfortunate un-Familied peon who touched a Family member without prior permission would find himself a featured attraction in Punishment Square.

  His brother and his cousin had discovered what he was up to, Crispin realized. But how?

  It didn’t matter—Crispin had enough time to do what he needed to do if he acted immediately. He wouldn’t have to share godhood with anyone.

  He slipped his hands over the colorful incised symbols on the main petal of the Mirror of Souls. He followed the pattern his Dragon had carefully described to him. His fingers touched the cool, polished surfaces of the gemstones inlaid in the metal. There, and there, and there—pressing, watching the gems light up from within, watching as the light swirling in the center of the Mirror began flowing faster, and faster, bulging upward in the center. It changed color, becoming first pale blue and then deeper blue and finally a blue so deep it was almost black; and at that instant, as he’d been instructed, he plunged both his hands into that darkly glowing dome of light in the heart of the Mirror of Souls.

  I win, he thought.

  You lose, the voice in his head shouted gleefully.

  Light poured upward and outward, a dark blue waterfall inverted and shot at the sky. It arced over the people in the square, over his brother and cousin, over the lesser parnissas that stood atop the altar behind him and at points around the square. It bounded from person to person in the crowd, touching all of them, connecting them, illuminating them. It shot into the central parnissery tower, and Crispin could see the light streaming from there toward other towers throughout the city. He could see . . . but he could not affect. He could not move, not breathe, not cry out—he could not even fall down and break contact with the Mirror of Souls.

  Inside his skull, the screaming of demons.

  Pain that lit up the backs of his eyeballs, seared the roots of his teeth, burned his tongue until he was sure it was a charred cinder in his mouth. Screaming white-hot pain shot through his spine, and from his spine burrowed outward, tearing him apart. He felt his awareness—his soul—rip loose from his body. He tried to resist the ripping, tried to fight the terror that he felt, but he was helpless. Utterly helpless, while the merciless light stripped his soul in tatters from his flesh and flung it in frightened, howling gobbets into the blazing maw of the Mirror of Souls. Sucked out of himself and tossed into the terrifying infinity of the Veil, left to float in the darkness—a mind without senses, a soul locked inside the impenetrable walls of itself. He screamed silently, pled for mercy or a second chance, begged the forces that had destroyed him to return him to his body and his life.

  The gods weren’t listening.

  In the square, the light retreated from the people it had touched; a sea swallowing itself at ebb tide. The parnissa, Nomeni, lay dead on the steps leading up to the altar, his corpse desiccated, mummified, his twisted body and horrified face locked into a hideous rictus, a silent testament to the pain and terror that had preceded his death. The crowd held a few other corpses, their locations marked by the movement of the living away from them—they were pocks in the complexion of the crowd. Surprisingly few—in a crowd of close to fifteen thousand people, there were fewer than twenty such pocks.

  Crispin stood with his hands still immersed in the light that swirled in the center of the Mirror of Souls. His body was stiff, his head bowed, his shoulders straining against invisible forces.

  Then the last pale strands of light spiraled down through the center of the Mirror and vanished. The artifact sat dead, dormant, silent. Crispin staggered backward and yelled, then caught himself and shook himself as if awakening from a nightmare. He flushed, embarrassment clear in his expression.

  With a deep sigh, he walked forward and down the steps, to kneel beside the corpse of the parnissa. As he did, a single beam of sunlight broke through the clouds and illuminated him, and the gold of his clothing and the gems he wore caught the light and scattered radiance around him as if he were a prism.

  He rose, and lifted a hand, and the panicked sounds in the crowd died down. “My people,” he said softly, though his voice carried clearly, “the gods brought us here to witness their judgment against the unfaithful, the unworthy, the dishonest. Many of us have been fooled by those we trusted; many of us have followed with pure hearts the edicts of the wicked; many of us have been victims of our own trust.” He stepped backward one step, up the stairs, placing intentional distance between himself and dead Nomeni. “I was made a fool; I allowed myself to be brought here at the insistence of a man I believed in, to offer sacrifice. But our gods have spoken for themselves, and have chosen their own sacrifices. And we who have been judged by fire, and have been found acceptable in the eyes of our gods, must now go back to our homes and reflect on those who have died for the evils they have done.”

  The people stood staring. Sheep. Stupid sheep. He waved a hand at them. “Go home,” he said. “Go back to your homes, to your work, to whatever you would have been doing. The gods have had their amusement, and have made their point. We must be vigilant in our care of our own piety—and the gods will be vigilant for us in guaranteeing the piety of those they set over us to serve them.” Bitterness tinged his voice. “For now, go home. Begone.”

  Anwyn made his way through the crowd that finally began to move out of the square, fighting the tide of humanity. “You don’t sound happy,” he purred. “Dear me, you don’t sound happy at all.”

  Crispin stared at him coldly. “How perceptive of you to notice, brother.”

  “Didn’t your little toy work the way you had hoped?”

  “Had it worked the way I hoped, I would have been a god, and you and everyone else in this city would have been bowing on your knees to me,” he snarled. “I don’t see anyone bowing.”

  Anwyn laughed, and the laughter echoed hollowly behind his metal mask. “Poor Crispin—being so clever and failing so miserably. You should have waited for us—perhaps the three of us together could have made the Mirror do what it was supposed to do.”

  Crispin shook his head. “It . . . failed. Some component inside of it shattered—I heard it go—and when it did, the magic fell back on itself.” He shrugged, a look of resignation on his face. “I lost nothing by the attempt. We’ll take the Mirror home, and you and Andrew can play with it, and see if perhaps you can get it to work.” He pointed to one of the junior parnissas who had been hovering well behind the altar. “You—have that taken to Sabir House.” He jerked his chin toward the Mirror of Souls.

  “Not to Galweigh House?”

  “It’s too remote for convenience. I’m having the treasures from its vaults brought to Sabir House. You will have already received the slaves. The furnishings . . .” He shrugged. “We can use the place as a fortress, perhaps, or for entertainment. But I’ve discovered that Sabir House is much more convenient for everyday use.”

  “I see. Just as well you’ll be rejoining us,” Andrew said. “We need to watch you better, Crispin. I don’t trust you.”

  Anwyn laughed; then Crispin laughed, too.

  “Trust. A concept the three of us are far too civilized to be seduced by,” Crispin said. “Trust is the domain of c
attle—watchfulness the purview of the cattleman who raises and slaughters the cattle.” He walked down the steps, brushing past his brother and his cousin, and strode to his carriage. “I’ll see both of you back at the House. At your leisure, of course.”

  He got into the carriage; the driver whipped the horses; they clattered out into the street.

  Crispin sat with his face to the window, staring out at the people leaving the square. A beautiful young woman caught his eye. She stared straight at him, gray eyes coldly curious. He touched his cheek with his little finger, and her lips curled into a smile. She nodded curtly and turned away. Then he spotted a man, tall and broad-shouldered, with a flat belly and jet-black eyes. The man gave him the same intent stare, raised his little finger to his cheek. Crispin nodded.

  A slender girl with the build of a dancer turned away from the boy who held her hand; at the sound of the approaching carriage she stepped back and lifted her chin and stared at Crispin, and her smile was feral. A quick gesture, hand up to brush a stray lock of hair from her forehead . . . and the little finger dragged for just an instant across her cheek. She turned away before he could even respond. It didn’t matter. They would all come together. He and she and the rest. Hundreds of them throughout the city, returned from the dead, invested into the youngest, strongest, most beautiful bodies available, and into bodies with access to power.

  Within a week, they would meet. Within another week, they would have gained control of the resources they needed to begin rebuilding the life-pillars that the Great War had destroyed. And with the life-pillars re-created . . .

  . . . Well, then they truly would be immortal.

  Dafril, the Dragon who wore Crispin’s body, smiled and flexed his arms, and stretched his legs, and arched his back. He couldn’t believe how good it felt to be embodied again; after more than a thousand years, he’d forgotten many of the pleasures of the flesh. He’d have plenty of time to reacquaint himself with them, though. The Dragons were back. And this time, they intended to stay. Forever.