I edged closer to my father. Without moving his eyes from the city, he said, "Amazing. Spared by the Harashil for the sake of the Naarlings dwelling inside, but the years have been less kind to Fathan."
"Never mind that. Did you know all this was going to happen? You said you'd know when to leave the road."
"It wasn't necessary. The road is still going in the right direction, just as we are."
"I could wish we were going with a little less company."
"Vero, we'll say it again—none of this is important."
"What about Calla and Chasco and Shree? Are they important? Are they somewhere in that great pile of rock?"
"We shall see, Vero. We'd better go down into the valley now, we believe they're anxious to greet us."
He led us on to the meandering road, conveniently lighting the way with his own internal fire. Night came quickly—before we were halfway down the cliff face, full dark had fallen and the sky was black. When I looked back up the road, all I could see was a throng of shadows pressing close behind us, pierced with hundreds of shining round eyes—like the eyes of wild beasts in the night-time jungles of Nkalvi. It still shocked me that these mantis men could be almost on our heels and still make no sound loud enough for our ears to catch.
Looking ahead, I gradually realized that a constellation of little lights at the bottom of the cliff was not, as I had thought, the reflection of stars on the smooth surface of the lake—it was too active to be that. This was our first hint of another, and larger, welcoming party; and these ones, unlike the crowd we had already collected, did not stand aside to let us pass when we reached the foot of the final switchback. We halted, faced by innumerable shining eyes.
"We wish you'd stop fiddling with that belt buckle, Vero. You weren't planning on swimming across, were you? This lake is very deep in places and stocked with strange fish. This way."
For all the world as if he'd lived his whole life in the valley and knew it like the lines of his own palm, my father veered to the right on a path that was invisible to the rest of us. Confidently, he led us past the silent watchers, made a couple of mysterious detours, and came at last to a point where the lake water lapped infinitesimally against a muddy beach. Still dragging the sledge, he slogged straight through the mud and set off across the water on foot. Angel, unperturbed, continued to gaze back at us blankly.
The rest of us hesitated on shore. In seconds, a host of shades with lambent eyes pressed around us. They did not touch us, but I could feel—and smell—their breath blowing down my neck.
"Tig? Oh, Tig?"
He stopped and turned around a little wearily. Aspects of the Myrwolf, the Sun Serpent, the Burning Child, the Lady, chased each other across his gleaming face. "What is it now?"
I ground my teeth together. Mallinna pressed my arm and called out, "Lord Tigrallef, about this idea of walking on water . . ."
He grinned as he turned his back on us. Even Angel looked amused. "Try it," Tig called over his shoulder. "Your feet might get a little wet, nothing more."
Jonno, bless him, probably started across the water as a pious act of faith in the Divine Scion Tigrallef—that devout background coming to the fore again, though he had more than once partnered Tigrallef on the evening ablutions and should have known very well my father was not divine. He did not, however, sink; his faith seemed vindicated; but he stopped and looked down at his feet, and called back to us in a voice that had as much chagrin in it as relief, "It's all right. There's a causeway."
"Why in the name of Raksh didn't those jokers say so?" I grumbled.
Kat shrugged. We set off—the causeway was covered by only an inch or two of water—and within a few minutes we were climbing the steps of a broad landing stage under the great gate of Cansh Fathan.
Up until this point, not a word had been spoken to or by our mass of followers. If I looked back, I could see them strung out along the causeway in a long patient queue, visible mainly by their glowing eyes, waiting up to their ankles in cold water for us to precede them into the city. Such quiet courtesy bothered me mightily. On the other hand, I reassured myself, they had already passed up numerous chances to tear us to tatters—perhaps I was being too suspicious.
The gateway was a cavern cut through the immense thickness of the wall. Thriving bushes leaned out of cracks in the masonry; twenty feet above our heads, a crust of heavy moss partly obscured a band of Old Fathidiic glyphs, each one the length of my arm. We could see all this partly by Tig's light and partly by torches being held by a semicircle of dignified cousins—our third welcoming party in under two hours—advancing on us from the greater cavern of the city proper. All were naked: three males, two females, two who rather defied classification. About ten feet away from the sledge they stopped and silently abased themselves before my father. He was in no great hurry to respond. He kept them waiting while he finished unstrapping Angel from the sledge and handed him over to Mallinna and me for safe keeping, and only then did he move forward to greet the newcomers and raise them graciously to their feet. They burst into flood tides of speech. At last somebody was talking to us.
The language was a version of Old Fathidiic with a peculiar slurred accent, probably a result of the many teeth they had to speak through and the odd shape of their throats. The phrases I could pick up seemed to indicate the faithful of Cansh Fathan were ecstatic to see my father, whom they called the Returned One and the Excommunicant, which was a fair confirmation they had mistaken him for our ancestor Oballef. They also declared themselves grateful to his prophets for preparing the way, and hopeful the Excommunicant would smile upon the humble arrangements they had made. There was, moreover, some mention of the Food of the [lost?/departed?] Old Ones, which made my ears grow big and my belly churn with a nausea of anticipation. Murderers, arsonists and committers of atrocities though they were, the despoilers of Deppowe and Faddelin, the degenerate heritors of the vicious Fathids, at least it sounded like they were going to feed us.
Katla, whose grasp of Old Fathidiic was better than mine, frowned. She had been translating in whispers for Jonno's benefit—now she leaned over to whisper in my ear, "Did the fat one just congratulate Father on having the foresight to bring sacrifices?"
"I missed that. Did you catch what they said about food?"
"Forget the food, think about the sacrifices. That's probably us they're talking about."
"Don't worry, Kat, I'm sure Tig would never let it happen."
"How sure?" Katla said. She was watching Tig dubiously.
Mallinna coughed. "Look behind us, Vero."
I looked. I forgot all over again about being hungry.
If the corpses left unburied on a battlefield lay around for a few days to let the rot set in properly, and then were given group rates to rise up and attend the performance of a travelling comedy show, I have a good idea what that audience would look like. It would be like the one behind us now—a solid press of the happy undead, stretching clear across the breadth of the outer gate and back to the edge of the landing stage. The leaping light from the torches hollowed their cheeks, peeled the flesh back from their bulging eyes and brutal teeth, picked out in high relief every knife-slash and bloodstain on their stolen rags. The comedy-show aspect came from how delighted with the proceedings they managed to look. I reached for my chain—Jonno's hand went to his sword. Tigrallef's voice stopped us before we got into any trouble.
"Our hosts call themselves the Afadhnid—note the slight but interesting sound shift in the second consonant. These are their leaders, the Councillors of the Flaming Skull, and they're going to take us to the prophets. Apparently a feast has been prepared. Keep close to our heels, all of you—very, very close."
No doubt we were led through many grandeurs of architecture that night; but any time there was enough light to see, I was too uneasy and sick with hunger to be interested. Our wits, temporarily sharpened by the presence of the mantis men, relapsed into dullness. I have a few hazy general impressions: narrow paths t
hrough heaps of rubble and collapsed structures of wood, brick and wattle; great stone courts and corridors, clear of rubble and open to the stars; lighted towers soaring above our heads. Cansh Fathan was much more tumbled and ruinous than it looked from the cliff top, but the destroyers were time and neglect as opposed to fire and fury. I remember wondering how, in the name of Oballef, we were going to find Calla, Chasco and Shree in this dilapidated labyrinth, assuming they were still alive and the natives continued to be friendly.
We halted in front of a well-preserved monumental doorway, double-leaved, three times my height and broad enough for a dozen persons to march through abreast. Heavy, too; a score of our Afadhnid cousins crowded past us to push the thick wooden leaves open, then fell on their faces in reverence as soon as the light hit them. It was a strong golden radiance that was spilling through the open portal—the Councillors of the Flaming Skull dropped to their knees, but I had a feeling they were anxiously watching Tigrallef's reaction, hoping for approval. He was glowing to rival the light from the interior; he stepped forward with an unconcerned air, pausing on the threshold only long enough to raise his hand and motion the rest of us to keep up with him.
The chamber was a vast rectangle of tile and stone, also well preserved. Its height was lost in shadows, but its corners were illuminated by hundreds, perhaps thousands, of grinning lanterns—human and semi-human skulls lit from within, ranged on great racks of shelves that ran the full length of the room on both sides. Midway along one of those walls was an archway leading to a side chamber. At the far end, the floor rose in narrow tiers to a broad stage whereon three tall, fantastical figures stood in masks and garish robes. I presumed these were the prophets mentioned by our hosts. They were praying around an altar draped with a banner, shimmering white on crimson and gold, the device a skull on a background of flame, and they lifted their hands in salute to us as we trooped through the doors.
Tig waved back and strolled down the axis of the chamber, his sandals slapping on the stone. We followed, with the Councillors just behind us and a rapt mob just behind them. Tigrallef turned on the first tier and raised his arms; the light expanded around him. Abruptly, he became the Flaming Skull of Fathan—Katla gasped and hid her face in her hands, the prophets fell to their knees around the altar and the multitude made an actual noise at last, a surf-like chorus of gasps and low wheezings.
"If you don't mind," my father boomed in Old Fathidiic, in a voice that was nine-tenths Pain, "we are to be left alone now to commune with our prophets. Go with our blessing, Children of Afadhna, Twigs of the Great Tree, the Abandoned Ones, and feast yourselves in celebration of the Excommunicant's return. Drink an ocean of strong waters in the name of the Excommunicant—that's an order. We'll let you know if we need anything. Now off you go."
I think the Afadhnid horde withdrew only with the gravest reluctance, worshipful eyes on Tigrallef right up until the moment they pulled the double doors shut behind them. Then we were alone with the mysterious prophets, and my hand strayed back to the buckle of the Gafrin-Gammanthan belt—Katla, however, was already racing past our father and up the lower tiers to the stage, where she flung herself into the arms of the shortest of the prophets, the one in the bright yellow robe.
"Mother!" she cried.
Twenty minutes later we were sitting on a carpet in the side chamber off the main sanctuary of the Flaming Skull, and the first bout of tears, explanations, embraces, incoherency and gruff manly greetings (the latter from Katla to Chasco and Shree, right after she blew her nose) was just about behind us. The promised feast was already in progress, by urgent necessity, though we were finding it easy to restrain ourselves from eating too quickly after our long fast: the Food of the Old Ones turned out to be fenset. In fact, it was our fenset, the selfsame supply stolen from us on the trail. It put paid to my theory that anything, no matter how loathsome, will taste good if one is famished enough.
Jonno and his long-lost uncle were sitting side by side on one end of the carpet, talking soberly together. Family matters, I supposed. There was a strange, hungry look on Chasco's face. It was odd to me, because I had never thought of him as having any family except us. On one side of them, Mallinna was tending to Angel. Opposite them was another family grouping, my mother and father and Katla, who was curled up with her head in our mother's lap.
I was keeping clear—I had embraced my mother but I was not yet ready to answer to her. Although Tigrallef had been on his best behaviour and worn his own face exclusively since the doors swung shut behind the Councillors—evidence, or so it seemed, that Calla could still anchor him—she was having great difficulty concealing her dismay. I knew what she was thinking. How long had Tigrallef been glowing like a candle factory on fire? How long since the Painful timbre had taken over his voice? How long had he been plural? How far was he from defeat? Deadliest of all—how could I, Vero, have let it happen? How could I have allowed it to go so far?
"The worst part," Shree was saying beside me, "is having to wear this tupping silk robe of your mother's the whole time. I can't take a decent breath without risking the seams."
I dragged my eyes away from Calla. "It looks good on you," I said. Straight-faced, too.
"Good enough to impress the locals," Shree retorted, "and that's all that matters. You should have seen them in Faddelin, Vero! Like ghosts—no—like plague-demons, just as silent and deadly. Their tactic was to seep into every corner of the town in the middle of the night and quietly start murdering everything in reach. The alarm was never even sounded. What saved us, now I think about it, was the Faddelin governor's suspicion of the papers that arrived with us—he couldn't quite believe what he was being ordered to do. Who did you say issued those orders?"
"The First Flamen, Kesi."
"I barely remember him."
"Fortunately he remembers you. Go on with your story."
Shree took a sip of the wine the Afadhnids had laid out with the fenset. "As I said, the governor was worried by his orders, not that we were ever told what the orders were, or anything else. We were just shunted from ship to ship, and finally into the old beacon-tower of that slummy little town, where we were locked up in the topmost chamber while the governor sent to Gil for confirmation that he was supposed to release us. And one morning we woke up to a strange silence."
"Silence?"
"Well, none of the noises we were used to, prisoners being moved around, overseers shouting, crates being loaded on the quay, that kind of noise. Just an odd crackling, like fire, and the occasional thump. And then, still quite early in the morning, the screaming started; they'd taken prisoners, you see. When we looked out the beacon-ports, we saw—well—you saw the aftermath, we saw the sacrifices in progress. These Afadhnids have an unfortunate fascination with fire."
"Part of the Fathidiic heritage, no doubt." I put down the bit of fenset I'd been considering putting in my mouth. "What saved you?"
"Being locked in," he said. "They had plenty to do with the targets at hand. They didn't try breaking the lock for two days, and by then the banner was ready."
I shook my head. "I still can't believe it. I still can't quite believe you prepared for battle by sewing a large quilt."
"A warrior," he quoted in Sheranik, "makes a sword from a silk scarf."
"You just made that up."
"No, it's a real proverb, it's just uncannily appropriate. Anyway, it wasn't a quilt, it was a banner. They'd brought out their poor excuse for a ceremonial banner during the sacrifices, and we could tell it was the Flaming Skull. We made a bigger and better Flaming Skull, that's all, using your mam's silk robes. And while we sewed, we cobbled all the Old Fathidiic we could remember into what we hoped was a plausible story—that we were the prophets of the Flaming Skull, come to announce the return of their Promised One. When they finally got around to breaking the lock of the beacon tower, we'd been waiting in costume for hours. The rest was easy."
"But what if we hadn't come along to fulfill your prophecy?"
/> "We knew you would," he said, lifting his beaker to me in a salute. "And if you hadn't, eventually someone else would have. The Afadhnids are doomed now, you know. The road to Cansh Fathan will be the death of them. They've given themselves away, given up the advantage of being lost and forgotten—a well-organized army with the right defences will be able to wipe them out in no time. I'd give them six months once the Primate—imagine it, old Mycri, still breathing!—tracks them back through the mountains."
"Why do you sound regretful? Think what they did to the Mosslines ports. They're monstrous."
"They're your cousins, not mine," Shree said airily. "And yes, they're monstrous, but once you get used to the teeth and forget the blood and soot on their hands, they're extraordinarily endearing. We've spent half the time fearing for our lives, the other half trying not to hurt their feelings. Look how anxious they were to give you a good welcome!"
"What, this feast?"
"They worked very hard on it."
"But they stole our food. We could have starved."
"True, Vero, but their intentions were good. Where else but in your backsacks could they find the Food of the Old Ones? Look at it from their point of view. To them, Tig is Oballef and Oballef is an Old One. Old Ones have to be given the right kind of food. And since the Bequiin Ardin walked off with their entire archives twenty-five years ago, they've had no way of checking how things should be done. They've been improvising."
"With your help, of course."
"On some things, these last few days—but they didn't consult us on the catering. They worked that out on their own." Shree grinned.
I grinned back, drew a deep breath and offered another small mouthful to my protesting belly. By the time I got it down my throat, Shree was conversing warmly with his old friend and colleague Angel and telling Mallinna what a very bright little child she'd been, as well as damned pretty, and how sorry he was to hear about her mother; and Calla was giving me the occasional glance across the carpet as if she might summon me for a full accounting at any moment. It was obviously a good time to get up and get interested in the things scattered around this very interesting chamber.
Gil Trilogy 3: Lady Pain Page 29