Goddess

by Fiona McIntosh

  “Satisfaction that I fulfilled my role. Now choose.”

  Herezah knew that Luc was too precious. His existence had made it possible to barter their peace with the Galinseans. His existence meant peace and empire for future generations. She was dispensable. Percheron was safe, Boaz was dead, Lazar would never be hers. She didn’t allow herself another moment’s thought, for fear of losing her nerve. She stepped fully away from Lazar. “Give the child to Lazar.”

  “And then I have no bargaining power, Valide.”

  “Herezah, wait!” Lazar cautioned.

  “No. This is how it must be,” she said. “Salazin can take my life as you hand the child to Lazar, Arafanz. Is that fair? Are you a man of your word?”

  “Absolutely I am, Valide. I’m impressed by your heroics. I promise you both father and son will be left safe once you are dead.”

  She nodded. “How do I say ‘do it cleanly’ to the mute?”

  Arafanz laughed. “He is not mute. You can tell him yourself.”

  It was just one more shock she couldn’t be bothered to turn her mind to. Life had been enough of a blur these last few days. She stood still as Salazin approached, drawing a vicious-looking dagger from his belt.

  “Arafanz! This—”

  “Quiet, Lazar. Don’t draw that sword. Here, catch your son.”

  Herezah held her breath in readiness but it all happened so fast. She watched Arafanz throw Luc at Lazar, who frantically grabbed for the child in the air. When she looked back at Salazin, he was empty-handed. She turned and stared at the rebel’s surprised face, the dagger sticking from his throat. Arafanz just had time to switch his gaze from Lazar to Salazin.

  “Why, son?” he gasped before he fell heavily to the ground, dead before he hit it.

  “He had become dangerous,” the young man said into the shocked silence. Then he said to Lazar, “I’m glad your son is safe,” before he leaped off the edge of the balcony, escaping. Herezah felt her knees give and then her world blacked out.

  She inhaled a deep breath of the balmy late-summer air and smelled the sweet jasmine in it.

  “I walked through the harem today,” she said. “It is a very lonely place. But then it was never a terribly happy place.”

  “You won’t miss it.”

  “No, not one bit. And we shall find homes for all the girls. Some may return to their parents.”

  “How are you feeling?”

  “Ridiculous with this huge bruise on my forehead that not even a wretched veil will cover. I’m sorry I fainted. I’m fine, Lazar, really.”

  “I plan to leave this evening.”

  “I wish you’d let it go.”

  “I can’t. It must be done.”

  “I know. Well, I’m sure we’re safe. Captain Ghassal takes no notice of me, anyway, so I presume you’ve left him with his orders?”

  “I have. The city is calm.”

  “You’re not going to explain any of it, are you? The desert, the fortress, Boaz, Arafanz, none of it.”

  “You said what has passed is the past. That is a fine creed. One day I will tell you what Arafanz put us through that terrible night and why killing Boaz was the kindest act I could show him. But right now it is too raw, Herezah. I have lost a lot of people that I cared about. I, too, must do some healing. Please believe me when I tell you that Boaz did not die in vain.”

  She nodded, far too pragmatic to continue her argument. Nothing would bring back Boaz. The Spur had no reason to lie to her, not now. She ruled Percheron. “Go, Lazar. Return safely to us.”

  “Only when I am satisfied that he is dead.”

  “You carry my hate with you all the way to him,” she said as he bowed in farewell.

  38

  Who is this boy? Beloch asked as he carried Lazar east, skimming the northern mountain range.

  His name is Teril. He was an inflictor’s assistant. After I was flogged and nearly died, he helped me. He also helped me when I needed to return to the city to see Ana, and he got a message to Iridor when I was hardly capable of supporting myself. He never got over the death of a young inflictor, named Shaz, who the boy maintains was murdered for his silence.

  And he knows for sure this is the right direction? We are headed well beyond the area I know.

  Apparently our prey hails from a place to the east. Teril overheard the whispered arrangements, spied on them. We keep following this river and then we head south. The place is called Komassee. All I know is that it has a cave network.

  Which suggests rocky foothills?

  Yes, I imagine so.

  Then I see them in the distance, Lazar. We shall be there soon.

  He couldn’t have made it that far in the time he’s had.

  Ah, wait. I see a smoke by the river. Three figures, horses, a cart?

  Your eyesight is good! Sounds like my quarry. Set me down as close as you can. I’ll stalk them on foot now.

  And then what?

  Wait for me. If I don’t call to you within two days, I haven’t survived. Go to your mountain home.

  Survive, Lazar. Your son, Luc, needs you. Percheron needs you. Beloch knelt and set Lazar down as gently as he could.

  I don’t want them to see you, Lazar said.

  It may be too late. But he’s not expecting you now, is he?

  Lazar grinned and began running.

  The three men had seen nothing in the dim dusk. It was the evening of the second day since Beloch had spotted them. Lazar hid in the bushy undergrowth not far from where they had chosen to camp, and watched.

  “How much longer?” one man said.

  The one he addressed shrugged. “As long as it takes.”

  “We are far from home. Too far,” the third man whined.

  Salmeo scowled. “I am paying you enough.”

  “But we don’t even know where we’re going?” the first complained, trying to sound reasonable.

  “I do,” Salmeo replied, looking enormous in the falling dusk.

  “Another two days, I imagine,” Lazar heard Salmeo add, and then all three men were aware of his presence. The third man’s head flew from his shoulders while his body remained stoically upright, spurting blood around the fire.

  “What the—” was all the other companion had time to scream before he found Lazar’s blade poking through his middle and out past his spine. Lazar kicked the man off his sword, wiping it down on the now dead man’s chest.

  “Don’t bother running,” he said over his shoulder. “You’re much too slow.”

  “Can I offer you some quishtar, Spur?” Salmeo had the audacity to ask in his feminine lisping way. Lazar had to hand it to the eunuch. He was as cold as the lizard he looked like when his tongue flicked out between that hideous gap in his teeth.

  “No.”

  “But you must have traveled so far alone from Percheron. The least I can do before you start dragging me back is to pour you a cup of the hot brew.”

  “Perhaps with a drop of poison or two in it?”

  “Ah.”

  “That woman you so callously murdered, Salmeo, was my mother.”

  The fat man shrugged. “Not intentionally, Spur. I’d really rather hoped to kill the Valide.” He sighed. “So you want to begin the journey immediately, I take it?”

  “Whatever makes you think we’re going anywhere together?”

  And for the first time since he’d laid eyes again on the huge eunuch, Lazar saw fear in the man’s face. “Well, I presumed you would want to take me back for the usual humiliation—the chance to see justice done.”

  “No, Salmeo, I think I can mete out this justice,” Lazar said, amazed at the calm in his voice. He had imagined hacking the eunuch, limb from limb, leaving him dismembered in a bloodied pile for the ants to finish off. But now, suddenly, the blood rage had dissipated. “You get to choose.”

  “What can I choose, Spur?” the eunuch asked in a delicate voice.

  “Precisely how that justice is delivered.”

  “Not a pleas
ant choice, then.”

  “More than you ever offered any of the victims of your betrayals. Choose, Salmeo. By sword, or by poison. I’m sure you have brought some along.”

  “To be run through or to gasp, choking?” Salmeo mused.

  Lazar was impressed by the man’s composure. “What is it to be?”

  “Swords are so messy. And these are my favorite traveling silks. Let’s go with the poison.”

  “Where is it?”

  Salmeo pointed. “In the sack. A small dark glass vial.”

  Lazar dug around, finally withdrawing a deep blue bottle, small and innocuous-looking. “May I?”

  “By all means, Spur. It’s an old friend for you.”

  Lazar pulled the cork and sniffed it. “Ah, drezden. I should have guessed.”

  “It’s very potent when taken orally.”

  “I know. A single drop sustains me through the legacy of its poisoning when I get my fevers.”

  “Do you just want me to drink it all down?”

  “I don’t care how you do it, so long as you’re dead by nightfall.”

  “Oh, I think I can guarantee you that. You don’t mind if I take it with some quishtar?”

  “By all means. Here, let me do it for you.” Lazar busied himself preparing the death concoction, remembering how Zafira had traditionally poured the liquid from jug to jug, cooling it.

  “You pour as if you’ve been doing that for years, Spur,” Salmeo lisped.

  “I had a good teacher,” he admitted. “I’m told the best brew is made from the wild husk of the desert cherry.”

  “Oh, bravo, Spur Lazar. You have learned well. It is indeed and this is it.”

  “I recognize the fragrance.”

  “Such a pity to spoil it with the drezden, no?” Salmeo urged.

  Lazar actually smiled at the huge man’s dark humor. “All of it?” he asked, holding up the cup in one hand and the poison in the other.

  “That’s probably best. I’m not exactly small, am I?”

  Lazar tipped the contents of the vial into the cup and carefully placed the porcelain down before the eunuch, stepping back swiftly.

  “I didn’t even think of throwing it over you, Spur,” Salmeo assured him.

  “I don’t take unnecessary risks with my enemies.” Lazar said, moving away to sit down.

  “Oh, you and I, we’re not so different, you know, Lazar,” Salmeo said, reaching for the cup. It looked tiny in his huge, meaty hands, hands that nevertheless held the fragile porcelain with such care.

  “And why is that?” Lazar replied conversationally.

  Salmeo blew gently on the brew. “Well, you are the son of a king. You are the heir to a throne. And whether or not you choose to take that throne, you carry your pride, your obvious royalty, with great aplomb. It’s why people accuse you of arrogance. You were born to rule, to lead, to be a man whom your people look up to.”

  “And you?”

  Salmeo shrugged. “I am also the son of a king. I am an heir to a throne. But Percherese slavers slashed the throat of my mother, humiliated my father until he took his own life, dying in dirt on the roadside to Percheron. They made a whore of my sister, a princess. They cut away my manhood. In spite of all that, I remain a prince. I was born to rule, to lead, to be a man for my people to look up to. But I was denied my birthright, turning instead into what you see.”

  Lazar had stared at Salmeo, incredulous at the eunuch’s dark tale. “I, too, was captured as a slave, Salmeo; it gives you no right to murder.”

  “Perhaps not. But you at least were permitted to fight your way to freedom, an opportunity that was not offered to a black slave boy from a village in the eastern provinces.” He blew again on the quishtar. “I think this is ready. You are permitting me some small measure of dignity, Lazar, for which I am grateful, though I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised. I have hated you but I could never accuse you of being a cruel or unfair man. So let me thank you for not dragging me back to Percheron. At least this way I die free amongst the plants I recognize and smells I love. This is my land. I was almost home.” He raised his cup to the Spur. “Sherem,” he said and gave a gap-toothed smile.

  Lazar nodded. “Sherem!” he said softly, watching as the eunuch swallowed the contents of the cup.

  “Farewell, Lazar,” the eunuch said, grimacing at its bitterness.

  “Farewell, Salmeo.”

  Later, after the thrashing death throes had ceased, as night choked off the last light of the day, Lazar severed the former Grand Master Eunuch’s head from his body.

  It’s over, Beloch. Can you fetch me? Where you see the fire.

  I see it, the giant replied, and Lazar heard the relief in his friend’s voice. Coming.

  Lazar picked up the heavy head and carefully wrapped it in some linen he found, placing it in a sack he’d brought along for the purpose. Herezah would no doubt enjoy seeing Salmeo’s head on a spike, but until he delivered it to her, he would treat the chieftain with the respect due a king.

  Eight years later…

  Maliz seethed. He wished his smelly, lice-ridden body would die, forcing him to find a new host, but as long as it still breathed, he knew it was the best disguise for him. Frail and wizened, it required very little to keep alive, allowing him the opportunity to roam the city in his spirit form, watching helplessly as more of the dismaying changes were made.

  The temples of Zarab—three of them—had been razed. Two had already been rebuilt in Lyana’s honor. Crown Herezah ruled. As much as it galled him, she was doing a worthy job. The child had grown strong and sturdy. Although he was the image of his beautiful mother, Maliz was sure that, as the boy grew and turned into a man, the truth of who sired him would be apparent. But the youngster was already incredibly beloved by his people, and his so-called grandmother went to great pains to make him accessible so that his popularity was constantly fueled.

  Galinseans had stayed. Bloods had mixed. Already there were children running through the streets who were a product of both realms. Trade moved freely between the nations and the whole region was enjoying great prosperity. The harbor had never been busier, and the new “Jewelled Road,” as it was known, had caravans regularly crossing the desert between Percheron and Romea.

  And Lazar, Zarab rot him, remained as Spur, filling his lonely life with teaching the young Zar—to ride, to fish, to hunt, and to fight with two swords.

  Maliz had seen the fat eunuch’s head rotting on the tall spike outside the palace. Old Salmeo had had many enemies, it seemed, and he had remained there for years. When the spike had finally been taken down, it had been quietly removed and, unbeknownst to the populace, was replanted in the gardens of the harem, watching over its now long-defunct and empty hallways and chambers, no doubt a final satisfaction for Herezah.

  None of this mattered to Maliz, however. He was in the dormant stage of his cycle when he was, in the normal way of things, victorious and spent. But, although glad to be in this phase, he was confused this time. Had he won? He thought he had…and yet it had been years since he had felt that wonderful sense of power overwhelm and claim his body. And he had owned it only so momentarily…a matter of hours, in fact. Even that was of no consequence, however, when he considered the lack of confrontation. The only conclusion he could draw was that Lyana had been scared off; perhaps she had decided to abort this battle, but that seemed unlikely. She may be no match for him, but she certainly didn’t lack courage and had faced him bravely on previous occasions.

  He thought that she’d been at her most cunning this time and was amused he’d been hoodwinked into believing she traveled in the guise of a newborn. A newborn who was heir to the throne of Percheron and Galinsea, no less.

  Where was she? Oh, he could scream out to the heavens this evening! He’d been surviving in this pathetic excuse for a body for years now, waiting for a likely new host to come along but none had presented itself so far. All had been as vile and wasted a creature as the man who presently carried him.
He should have been Zar. He should have been living an exalted lifestyle by now, biding his time in a beautiful, pampered body.

  His fury spilled over this particular evening at the opening of the days of festivity in honor of Lyana. It was a new tradition that began with the first blow of the Samazen, almost always a midsummer night during the summer solstice. It was a superstitious time, anyway, for the region, and he had always hated it because people believed it was a brief period when the pathways between worlds were open, when spirits from other planes could enter this one. It was all old women’s babbling! He relieved his pent-up fury into Lyana’s waters at the rim where land meets sea.

  “I piss on you, Lyana, and all who love you,” he said, his toes wet as the water lapped around them, the music of the festival loud in his ears.

  Despite his anger, he enjoyed the water’s mildness, its invitation to take a few steps farther into its salty freshness. He felt guilty for even appreciating it, knowing the sea—like the other natural elements—was said to be owned by Lyana.

  The notion irritated him that anyone would imagine anything so powerful as the sea answering to a fallen Goddess. He hawked a gob of spit as far as he could launch it. “And I spit on you, Lyana. If I could move my bowels, I would do that right now, too. All the wastes of my body I would give to you. I pay you homage with Zarab’s excrement.” And he gave a high laugh in his old-man’s cackle at his jest.

  “Ah, there you are.”

  Maliz looked around, startled to be confronted by a figure he realized he knew.

  “Salazin?”

  “My name is Razeen.”

  Maliz felt his already frail body weaken with fear. “What are you doing here? I…you were dead. We left you in the desert!”

  “Or did I leave you?” the young disciple asked, smiling fiercely in the moonlight.

  “What do you want?” Maliz screeched, hating his pathetic, thin voice.

  “We have been looking for you, this night of all nights.”

  “‘We’?” Maliz asked timorously, his tiny head swiveling in all directions but seeing no one. “Why this night?”