The Harshini were the strangest creatures R’shiel had ever encountered. All she had been taught to believe about them, since her earliest childhood, was proving to be wrong. They were not evil or wicked or even particularly threatening. They were a gentle, happy people who seemed to want nothing more than the same happiness for all living things.
For R’shiel, raised in an atmosphere of political intrigue and ambition, she found it hard to believe that the Harshini could be so innocent. She questioned them constantly, looking for the crack in their serene complacency, but found none. In fact, she suspected there were even some of the Harshini who deliberately avoided her, for fear of being asked questions they simply didn’t understand. They had no ambition beyond that which the gods had created them for. They were the guardians of the gods’ power. That was all they needed to know.
The demons were a different matter, however, and R’shiel found herself enjoying their company much more than the placid Harshini. Lord Dranymire was a bit of a bore, but she supposed that came from being older than time itself. The other demons, the younger ones, were much more interesting.
Korandellan had tried to explain the bond between the Harshini and the demons in some depth, but R’shiel understood so little about the gods that she had trouble grasping the concept. She could feel the bond, though, like an invisible cord that tied her to the demons. She only needed to think of them, and they were there, eager to show her Sanctuary, or have her tell them something of the outside world. Their hunger for new things was insatiable, particularly in the younger demons, although “young” was a relative term among the demonkind. “Young”, when compared to Lord Dranymire, the prime demon in the brethren bonded to the té Ortyn family, might be anything less than a thousand years.
“We are all one,” Korandellan explained patiently. “The gods, the Harshini and the demons. We are all made of the same stuff.”
“Then why aren’t the Harshini gods?” she asked.
“We are a part of the gods.”
“And the demons?”
“They are also a part of the gods.”
“So gods created the Harshini and the demons, right?”
“That is correct.”
“Why?”
“Because they feared that without some way of limiting their power, they would destroy each other.”
“So the gods gave you their power? That’s a pretty dumb thing to do. What happens if they want to use it?”
Korandellan sighed. “They did not give us their power, R’shiel, they share it. The power you feel is the same source of power that the gods draw on.”
“Then that makes you gods, too, doesn’t it?”
“Think of it as a rope made up of many strands,” the king said, trying to put his explanation into words she could grasp. “Each of the Primal Gods has divinity over a different aspect of life. Each god draws on their own strand. Depending on what is happening in the world, the strands grow thicker and stronger, or weaker and thinner.”
R’shiel thought on that for a moment. “You mean if everyone started stealing, then Dacendaran’s strand would grow and the others would diminish, because he’s the God of Thieves?”
Korandellan nodded happily. “Yes! Now you are beginning to understand!”
“Don’t count on it,” she warned.
“The Harshini use the gods’ power, R’shiel; they use it constantly.”
“So they drain off the excess?”
“In a manner of speaking.”
“But how can that work? You can’t abide violence, so you would only draw on the power of some of the gods, wouldn’t you?”
“That is what the demons are for,” he replied. “To maintain the balance.”
She nodded as it finally began to make sense. The demons were childlike and innocent and took thousands of years to reach maturity. They embodied all the violence, mischief and destructive capabilities of the power the Harshini could not draw on, but their childlike innocence and their blood bond to the gentle Harshini prevented them from causing harm.
“And only the té Ortyn family can draw on all the power at once, can’t they? That’s what makes me so dangerous?”
The king smiled, as he usually did when she asked such blunt questions. Then again, he would probably smile if someone chopped his leg off. No wonder Brak spent so much time out in the human world. Eternal happiness could be rather wearing at times.
“Your human blood allows you to circumvent our instincts against violence, yes,” he agreed.
“Is that why they call me the demon child? Because I’m human, with the same ability for causing violence as a demon?”
This time the king laughed out loud. “I never really thought of it like that, R’shiel. The name ‘demon child’ is a human one, but now that you mention it, yes, I suppose that’s exactly what you are.”
It made sense now. She wasn’t sure she actually believed it, but it did make sense.
“So tell me about Xaphista? How did he get to be a god?”
For the first time since she met him, Korandellan’s smile faded. “Xaphista learnt too much, too quickly, I fear. The family he was bonded to were travellers. They roamed the world seeking knowledge, and in time too much human blood became mingled with the Harshini line. The restraint on violence broke down and Xaphista learnt that if he could gather followers to believe in him, his power would grow to rival the Primal Gods.”
“And how am I supposed to destroy him?”
“I have no idea, child. I cannot contemplate destruction. That is a human quality. You must find the answer within yourself.”
Find the answer within yourself.
R’shiel didn’t even try. She liked the Harshini—it was impossible to dislike them—but she had no desire to become embroiled in some divine conflict. She accepted that there were gods. She had even met a few of them since coming here, but they didn’t impress her, and she certainly felt no desire to worship them. If the gods didn’t like one of their underlings getting above his station, then they should have thought about that before creating the problem in the first place.
She didn’t share her opinion with Korandellan. He was willing to answer any question she asked and teach her anything she wanted to know, but his aversion to violence made the subject of Xaphista an awkward one. That suited R’shiel just fine—she had no desire to discuss the matter anyway.
Time was a fluid quantity in Sanctuary, so R’shiel had no way of gauging how long she had been here. It seemed as if everyday she learnt something new, but if each day was a new one, or simply the same day repeated over and over, she couldn’t tell. She regained her strength and then grew even stronger, exploring the vast network of halls that made up the Harshini settlement.
There were rooms here that were so like the Citadel she sometimes had to remind herself where she was. The artwork that was so determinedly concealed in the Citadel was exposed here, in all its glory. Although the walls were generally white, there wasn’t a flat surface in the place that was not adorned with some type of artwork, large or small. It seemed every Harshini was an artist of some description. There were delicately painted friezes lining the halls and crystal statues in every corner. There were galleries full of paintings depicting everything from broad sweeping landscapes to tiny, exquisitely detailed paintings of insects and birds. The Harshini studied life and then captured its essence in their art.
Curiously, the one thing she expected didn’t happen here. The walls did not glow with the coming of each new day and fade with the onset of night. The Brightening and Dimming that characterised the Citadel was missing. The Harshini used candles and lanterns like any normal human, although admittedly they could light them with a thought and extinguish them just as easily.
The valley floor, which looked so wild and untended from the balconies, proved to be a complex series of connecting gardens and the source for much of the Harshini food in the settlement. At least it should have been, Korandellan had explained, with a slight frown. The abundant g
ardens were trapped in time, as was the whole settlement. The vines never wilted, the flowers never faded. Bees buzzed between the bushes, crickets chirruped happily, worms wiggled their way through the fertile soil—but a picked berry was gone forever. Like the Harshini, and every animal in Sanctuary, they could not reproduce. The issue of food was becoming critical, so much so, that Korandellan had allowed a number of Harshini to leave the settlement. Some of them went openly, like Glenanaran, who had returned to Hythria to teach at the Sorcerers’ Collective. Others went out into the human world, disguised and cautious, to barter or trade for some badly needed supplies. Although he never said it aloud, R’shiel guessed it was fear of Xaphista and the Karien priests that kept them hidden.
They were performers, too, R’shiel discovered soon after she was allowed the freedom of Sanctuary. In the amphitheatre in the hollow centre of the gardens, against the permanent rainbow that hovered over the tinkling cascade, they held concerts in the twilight as the sun settled behind the mountains. The first time R’shiel heard the Harshini sing she had cried. Nothing had prepared her for the beauty of their voices or their skill with instruments she had never seen in the human world.
Sometimes the concerts were impromptu affairs, where members of the audience would step forward, either alone or in groups, to perform for their friends. Other times the concerts were as well organised as any Founder’s Day Parade, and then the massed choir of the Harshini would transport R’shiel to a place she had never even glimpsed before. “The Song of Gimlorie”, the Harshini called it. The gift of the God of Music. A prayer in its own right, it had the power to devour one’s soul. The cadence of the song, the subtle harmonies, and the pure, crystalline voices of the Harshini, combined to create images in the mind that could be as euphoric as they were dangerous. The demons would appear in the amphitheatre whenever they sang for Gimlorie, their eyes wide, their bodies uncharacteristically still as they listened to the music with rapt expressions. R’shiel understood their fascination with the music and lamented its loss to the human world.
It was following the last concert she attended that R’shiel came to an important decision. Tarja was a pleasant, fading memory. Joyhinia and Loclon were so far buried in the back of her mind that she barely even acknowledged their existence. Xaphista was the gods’ problem, not hers. There was supposed to be a war going on, but it did not intrude on the serenity of this other-worldly realm. Sanctuary was peaceful, and the troubles of the outside world couldn’t touch her in this magical place. She was half-Harshini after all, and welcome here.
R’shiel decided that she didn’t really care if she never returned to the outside world at all.
CHAPTER 13
Karien was a vast country, full of tall evergreens, rugged valleys and steep, but distant, snow-capped mountains to the east. With autumn approaching the weather grew colder as they sailed north. Adrina found herself shivering each morning when she took her daily exercise on deck.
The Ironbrook was a heavily populated waterway. They sailed past numerous villages, some large and prosperous, some mean and depressing, some barely deserving of the name at all. They seemed dirty and crowded to a princess raised in the spacious, pink-walled cities of Fardohnya. In fact, Karien seemed a nation lacking in colour. The villages were drab, the people even more so, and the frequently overcast weather leeched the remaining pigment from the world. She was not looking forward to spending her life among these people, not even as their queen.
Adrina was easily bored and the seemingly endless journey up the Ironbrook River toward Yarnarrow offered little in the way of entertainment. She had exhausted most of the opportunities for distraction available to her. She had admired all the scenery she could bear and waved at so many ragged peasants lining the riverbank that her arm felt ready to drop off. When she wasn’t being hounded by Madren regarding the proper way to behave in a Karien court, Vonulus dogged her heels with his instruction in the unbelievably demanding laws of the Karien Church. Adrina was beginning to think the reason so many people sinned was because it wasn’t humanly possible to remember everything that would lead one into temptation.
The only other activity Adrina had to while away the long days on the river was socialising with her ladies-in-waiting. She was not certain what a lady-in-waiting was supposed to do. They hovered around her like flies around a corpse, and seemed anxious to perform small, meaningless tasks for her, but they were offended if she treated them as servants and too sheltered to serve as entertaining companions.
Adrina was unusually cautious in dealing with them. It would not do for these young women (virgins one and all) to learn that for her sixteenth birthday her father had given her a handsome young court’esa. Nor would it do to disillusion the Ladies Hope, Pacifica, Grace and Chastity regarding her virtue. As far as Adrina could tell, every one of them had been raised in finest Karien tradition, which meant they could read (barely), sing (acceptably), play a musical instrument (tolerably well) and discuss such riveting topics as needlework, banquet menus and the convoluted family bloodlines of the Karien nobility. All of these topics left Adrina cold, so she listened and smiled and pretended she didn’t understand them when the conversation became unbearable.
Today was proving particularly trying. Tall, dour, Pacifica had taken it upon herself to enlighten Adrina regarding the long and incredibly dull history of her family, the Gullwings of Mount Pike. She had only got as far as Lord Gullwing the Pious, who lived three centuries past, when Vonulus disturbed them. Adrina welcomed him into the crowded cabin. Even a lesson in the complex duties of a woman according to the Church of Xaphista was preferable to another three hundred years of Dullwings.
“Vonulus! Have you come to instruct me?” she asked. “Or perhaps another discussion about the definition of sin?”
“You would do well to heed both, your Highness,” Pacifica advised, a little put out at Adrina’s shift in attention.
“We may discuss whatever you wish, your Highness.”
Adrina glanced at Pacifica and her companions thoughtfully. “Sin shall be the topic today, I think. I am interested in your definition of adultery.”
Predictably, the Ladies Hope, Pacifica, Grace and Chastity gasped at the suggestion. Vonulus, however, was not so easily rattled.
“Certainly, your Highness. What were you planning?”
Adrina’s eyes widened innocently. “Planning? Why nothing, sir. I simply seek to avoid pitfalls. I have no wish to do or say something that in my country would be considered perfectly normal, but in yours would see me stoned.”
“A reasonable precaution,” he noted with a look that said he didn’t believe her for a minute. “What exactly did you want to know?”
“Define adultery. The Karien definition.”
“It is not the Karien definition, your Highness. It is the Overlord’s definition, and therefore, the only acceptable definition.”
Adrina chose not to pursue that particular argument. “As you wish, define it for me.”
“Adultery, according to the Overlord, is any thought or deed that causes a man to lust after another man’s wife, or a woman to lust after another woman’s husband.”
Adrina’s brow furrowed. “So, let me see if I understand you. If I lust after an unmarried man, then I have not committed adultery, but if I lust after a married man, I have? Is that right?”
“I think you take my meaning too literally, your Highness,” Vonulus began with a shake of his head, but Adrina didn’t allow him time to continue.
“So that would work the other way, too, I suppose?” she asked. “If my husband…well, for argument’s sake, let’s pretend Cretin falls madly in love with one of my ladies…” she glanced around at the four rather appalled young women, before fixing her eyes on Chastity. “Say…the Lady Chastity here…”
“Your Highness!” Chastity cried in horror.
Adrina smiled sweetly. “Oh never mind, Chastity, I only use you to demonstrate my point. With a name like yours, how could you b
e anything but pure? Anyway, let’s pretend that Cretin and Chastity…indulge in a bit of…sin…then by your definition, Cretin would get off free as a bird, because Chastity is unmarried, yet my poor Lady would be stoned, because Cretin is married to me. Is that right?”
Vonulus did not look pleased. “That could be regarded as the strictest definition, I suppose, however—”
“I see,” Adrina cut in. “And I can sin merely by thinking something lustful?” Gods! Am I in trouble! “How would you know what I’m thinking?”
“I don’t need to know, your Highness. Xaphista sees all. The Overlord would know.”
“He must be a very busy god, then,” she remarked irreverently.
“It is by resisting such thoughts, that we spare our god the need to constantly watch over us,” Vonulus replied.
“And do you ladies resist temptation?”
The young women nodded quickly in agreement. Too quickly, she thought, with a private little smirk.
“The Overlord teaches us that to resist temptation is to ensure a place at His table in the next life,” Pacifica said.
“You mean if you’re a good little girl in this life, you won’t come back as a cockroach in the next?”
Vonulus sighed heavily. “Your Highness, I believe we discussed the matter of reincarnation several days ago. There is no such thing. We are given one life. When we die, our spirit ascends to the Overlord’s table if we have lived according to his rules.”
“And you drown in the Sea of Despair for eternity, if you don’t,” Adrina replied with a nod. “I remember our discussion. That would mean, that by your definition, every soul who ever lived, who didn’t worship Xaphista, is splashing about in the Sea of Despair, wondering where they went wrong. It must be pretty crowded down there.”
“Your irreverence will lead you into trouble, your Highness,” Vonulus warned. “Have a care when you reach Yarnarrow. Such comments will not sit well at court.”
Adrina met the priest’s gaze evenly. “Can’t your religion stand a bit of scrutiny, Vonulus? You wish me to believe in your god, yet you resent me questioning anything I do not understand. My gods may be numerous, but at least they have a sense of humour.”
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