by Marc Turner
“Do I know you, sirrah?” she said.
“If we had met before, you would not have forgotten me. I am Ceriso di Monata”—he performed an extravagant bow—“second son of the Compte di Monata.” The youth spoke the name as if he expected her to know it. He waited for Parolla to reply, then added, “And whom do I have the pleasure of addressing?”
She ignored the question. “You must excuse me, sirrah. I need to be alone.”
“Perhaps you did not hear me when I first spoke. They are coming for you.”
“They?”
“The Hunt. You are marked by the Antlered God—even a mere novitiate such as I can detect his sign upon you.”
Parolla’s skin prickled, but she kept her expression even.
Ceriso said, “You seem strangely indifferent to my tidings. Are you ignorant, perhaps, of the seriousness of your plight?”
“This is not the first time I have crossed paths with the Hunt.”
“Whatever dealings you may have had with the Antlered God’s followers in the past will not prepare you for what you face now.” The youth spoke with a solemnity ill-suited to his piping voice. “The high priest of Xavel himself leads the Hunt, and with him are the Riders of Dorn. My Lady, now might be a good time to make peace with whatever gods you favor.”
Movement to Parolla’s right caught her eye. A three-legged dog was nosing through the refuse at the edge of the Round. It entered the temple’s shadow, then shrank away, growling.
Parolla looked back at Ceriso. The youth lingered like a courier wanting a tip for his news. She’d wasted enough time on him already, but perhaps she should take this opportunity to find out more about his masters—and how he had managed to track her down with such apparent ease. “Who sent you, sirrah?”
“The high priest of the Antlered God, of course.”
“Why? Why would he warn me he was coming?”
“Why would he not? He is, after all, a servant of the Lord of the Hunt. The thrill is in the chase.”
“And if I choose not to run?”
Ceriso winced. “That would be ill-advised. The high priest would be most aggrieved.”
And we wouldn’t want that, would we.
A gray-robed acolyte, hooded and stooped, emerged from the temple’s arched doorway, flinching as he passed from shadow into daylight. The three-legged dog took flight.
“My Lady,” the youth continued, “your accent betrays you as a stranger to this city, yet its provenance, I confess, eludes me. Never before have I seen eyes such as yours, like pools of deepest night, or skin so pale and lustrous.” He put on a smile Parolla assumed she was supposed to find alluring. “Where is your homeland?”
“I have none.”
Ceriso blinked. “Well, whatever place you hail from, you must surely recognize the temple before you. The patron god is Shroud, Lord of the Dead. If you are looking for a place of refuge, you will find no welcome here.”
You speak more truth than you know. “Would the Hunt dare to storm the temple, then?”
“It would not have to. Should you enter, you will find the air inside somewhat”—he groped for the right word—“unpalatable. No one of sound mind can breathe it for long. Better to die outside with the wind on your face.”
“Your concern for me is misplaced. Warn your mekra. For his own sake, tell him to stay away from me.”
Ceriso waved a hand at the feathermoths floating round him on the scorched afternoon breeze. “I will, of course, report your words, but I fear they will be greeted with a degree of skepticism. The high priest will not believe that you speak out of concern for the Hunt’s well-being.”
“I have never borne the Antlered God any ill will. This bakatta is of his making, not mine.” She hadn’t asked, all those years ago, to be held against her will. She’d made it clear to the god’s servants there would be consequences if they tried to stop her leaving the temple that had once been her home.
Ceriso must have misconstrued her meaning for he said, “Ah, I understand now. You wish to end your feud with the god. To plead for clemency, perhaps.” He shook his head. “Alas, I am but a humble messenger, and thus have no authority to adjudicate your cause. You may petition the high priest, of course, but I would counsel against it. Once unleashed, the Hunt cannot be recalled.”
“Tell your mekra anyway. If he ignores my warning, the blood spilled will be on his hands, not mine.” The gods knew, Parolla’s hands were stained enough already.
Ceriso made to say one thing before appearing to change his mind. “Forgive my curiosity, my Lady, but who are you?”
“The high priest didn’t tell you?”
“He said only that I should approach you with caution. You seem young to have earned the enmity of the Antlered God.”
“Appearances can be deceptive.” She’d got all she was going to get from the youth, she suspected. “Now, sirrah, leave me, please.”
“As you wish.” Ceriso sketched another bow, hesitated, then seemed to reach a decision. “I admit to being unacquainted with this part of Xavel, my Lady. A man of my standing rarely has cause to visit the more, shall we say, less privileged districts of the city. I am told the streets here are a veritable maze of passages. So easy to lose one’s way. It may be some time before I can report back to my master.”
Parolla inclined her head. “A gracious gesture.”
“Sadly it will serve only to delay the inevitable. It pains me to inform you that no one has ever escaped the Hunt in Xavel. We are truly blessed by the Antlered God.”
“‘We,’ sirrah? Will you be part of the Hunt, then?”
A look of distaste crossed the youth’s features. “Certainly not. The Lord of the Hunt has many aspects. I am not responsible for the unsavory predispositions of others that share the faith. I myself prefer pursuits of an amorous nature.” He tried his smile again. “It is a shame we did not meet under more auspicious circumstances.”
Parolla raised an eyebrow. She had to admire his persistence at least. “I think you would find I am dangerous company to keep.”
“Ah, my Lady,” Ceriso said wistfully. “Your words have served only to stoke the fires of my intrigue. If you should somehow evade the Hunt, perhaps you would seek me out.” He bowed a final time before spinning on his heel and setting off across the Round.
As Parolla watched him retreat she gave a half smile. It quickly faded. The Hunt again. Everywhere she went, they dogged her heels. Since arriving in Xavel she’d made a point of giving the Antlered God’s temple a wide berth, but still his followers had found her. And yet she’d been fortunate, she knew. If the Hunt had come a day sooner, her carefully laid plans would have been thrown into disarray. As it was, the presence of the Lord’s followers was little more than an irritation. With luck she’d be far away before they had the chance to interfere.
Nevertheless, she could not linger.
With a last look round to ensure she had no more unwelcome company, she strode toward the temple.
The building cast a shadow black as night, and as Parolla stepped into it her limbs felt cramped and heavy as if old age had placed a hand on her shoulder. Closer now, she saw two statues flanking the arched doorway, worn down over the centuries to amorphous swellings of wind-bitten rock. To the left of the opening, a man was slumped against the wall, his eyes rolled back in his head. He wore a tattered kalabi robe, and the soles of his bare feet were crisscrossed with bloody lacerations. An empty bottle was in his right hand. Parolla wrinkled her nose as she passed, for the cloying smell of juripa spirits could not mask the stink of sweat and putrefaction.
She stepped through the doorway and entered a corridor that opened out into a dark chamber. Smudges of light lined the walls to either side, the glow of the torches almost entirely smothered by shadows. The noise of the jadi crowds outside had dropped to a whisper, and not a sound reached Parolla from within the gloom ahead. Death-magic swirled round her on unseen currents. She felt something within her stir in answer. Digging her fin
gernails into her palms, she waited until the sensation diminished.
The light from the wall torches dwindled as she plunged into the blackness. To either side figures knelt on the floor. Some had their foreheads pressed to the stone; others watched her as she passed. Bones were scattered on the ground, as if a handful of worshippers had died in the act of prayer and been left to rot where they fell. Among the bones were scraps of clothing, a rusted belt buckle, an empty scabbard, even the occasional coin.
Amid the gloom, deeper shadows were congealing. When they brushed Parolla’s skin, her power rose in answer.
“Curb yourself,” a voice said. “Within these walls sorcery is forbidden to all but the anointed.”
Parolla halted. Footfalls approached, and an old man wearing gray robes shuffled into view. His eyes were filmed over in blindness, and the skin of his face and hands was covered in liver spots. His straggly white hair had been shaved at the left temple to reveal a tattoo of a snake. As Parolla peered at the serpent, its tongue flickered out.
The priest must have sensed her attention, for he said, “It is a bedra cobra. Do you understand its significance, I wonder?”
“I know something of Terenil customs—that is your tribe, is it not? The year of the snake was, what, thirty years ago?”
“Twenty-eight.”
Making the priest just a few years older than Parolla herself. “You display it like some badge of honor.”
A cough shook the man’s skeletal frame. “And so it is. What better proof could there be of my devotion to the faith?”
“And this is how you are rewarded for that devotion? Your body broken, your days cut short in return for a lifetime spent in your god’s service?”
“My god? Not yours?”
“A slip of the tongue, sirrah.”
The priest grunted. “My reward will come in the next life, as you well know.” He raised a palsied hand. “The surrender of this decaying flesh is a small price to pay for an eternity at the Lord’s right hand. Death is the one constant in our lives, the one certainty.” He turned his empty gaze on her. “Even for you, jezaba.”
Parolla tensed. “You know me?”
“I know what you are. How could I not? I am a priest of Shroud.”
He was watching her intently, and she forced herself to take a breath. So what if he recognized her? There was no way he could know her true purpose here. “Then why, sirrah,” she said, adding a note of steel to her voice, “have you not shown me the honor I am due?”
The blind man was still for a few heartbeats before bowing his head a fraction. “Why are you here?”
Parolla looked round. Blurred figures had gathered just beyond the limits of her vision, and she could hear their ragged breathing, sense their cold stares as a tension in the air. Had the priest summoned them as witnesses to their conversation? Better and better. She turned to the blind man. “I have heard tales of this temple on my travels. Pilgrims speak of it with awe, yet even their words fail to do justice to its majesty.”
The priest started coughing again.
“From the power in this place,” Parolla went on, “one would think the temple were newly sanctified. Yet I sense an unfamiliar taint to the death-magic that surrounds us.” It felt stronger here than it had outside the temple. And it appeared to be coming from … Parolla looked down at the floor. “Is there a crypt here?”
“It has been sealed off,” the blind man said. “Access is forbidden, by order of the high priest.”
“Forbidden? To me?”
“To all who are not anointed in the faith.”
Parolla let the silence draw out. “Would you brand me as an outsider then, sirrah?” she said at last, raising her voice to carry to those watching. “Am I no different to you than one of the unhallowed?”
“Of course you are, but—”
“There is something in the crypt you do not wish me to see?” Then, before the priest could respond, “You think the faith holds any secrets from me? Or that I cannot be trusted to keep them, perhaps?”
The blind man shifted his weight from one foot to the other. “That judgment is not mine to make.”
“Where is your mekra, then? I wish to speak with him.”
“Regrettably, the high priest is away from the temple at present.”
Of course he is, you fool. Why do you think I am here today of all days? “Where is he?”
“A ceremony at the Tebala Shrine in Kontynan. He will return by nightfall tomorrow.”
“By which time I will have left Xavel.”
“Perhaps when you next visit the city…” The priest’s voice trailed off.
Parolla left a pause for uncomfortable thoughts. “How do you suppose your mekra will react when he hears what happened here? When he hears that you insulted me, then dismissed me as if I were no more than a thief come to steal from your collection plate? For he will be told.”
“He will not condemn me for obeying his instructions.”
“Would you stake your life on that?”
As if seeking support, the old man shifted his milky gaze to the silent figures clustered round. No one stirred. The swirling darkness closed in on Parolla again, and this time when her power rose she made no effort to hold it back. A shadow settled on her vision.
The priest took a step back.
“My patience is wearing thin, sirrah.”
He hesitated an instant longer before nodding to Parolla’s right. When he spoke his voice was gruff. “The entrance to the crypt is protected by the high priest’s wards.”
“I can deal with those.”
“No doubt. Just be sure to replace them when you have passed through. The defenses were created as much to prevent something getting out as to stop someone getting in.”
“Meaning?”
“To enter the crypt you must relinquish the protections afforded by this temple.” The priest gave a thin smile. “I fear I cannot guarantee your safety.”
* * *
Majack steamed in the evening heat. Ebon rode with head bowed as he followed the Merchant’s Road through the Low Quarter. Just another traveler arrived from the wastelands. The city rang to the sound of hammers as people boarded up doors and windows in readiness for the Day of Red Tides, less than a week hence, when thousands of stoneback scorpions would sweep in from the east. As the prince passed, a dour-faced merchant paused in his hammering to nudge his wife, and the two of them stared at Ebon, their expressions wary. Probably just noticing the blood and the dust, he told himself. He’d never commanded the same affection as his father, even before the spirits took him, and after his years of isolation the townsfolk were as likely to recognize Vale as they were their future king.
Ebon rubbed a hand across his eyes. During the ride from the forest the babbling of the spirits had been unrelenting, and two bells in the saddle had left him yearning for even a moment’s respite. Like a chorus of the damned. What was it that tormented them so? Were they trying to communicate with him? At times when he listened he thought he could make out individual words, yet how could that be when he did not know the language? Why did it always seem as if comprehension hovered just a hairbreadth beyond his grasp?
Vale must have sensed his disquiet, for a strained silence had fallen between them. He fears, as I do, where this will lead—a return to the days of darkness. Ebon had no words of reassurance to give. When the spirits last possessed him, they had stayed for almost three years, and he didn’t know if he had the strength to go through that again. It would be harder this time too, he suspected. The spirits seemed … closer … somehow, as if whatever barriers existed in Ebon’s mind between him and them were already being whittled away. He could feel their madness seeping into him. Were they what he was destined to become?
Gods, I must find a way to halt this downward spiral.
Vale had moved ahead, cursing as he tried to clear a path through the crowds, and Ebon kicked his horse forward to join him. Together they skirted the smallest of the city’s f
our marketplaces. In the shadow of one of the countinghouses, the beggars and doom criers were out in force, keeping up a constant wail like a funeral dirge. Music to match Ebon’s mood. His gaze was drawn to a woman sitting with her back to a wall. She wore a robe the same color as her sun-blistered skin, and the black tears tattooed on her cheeks marked her as an initiate of the Watcher. Her eyes had been sewn shut, yet still she turned her head to follow Ebon as he rode past.
On the far side of the marketplace, the road leading to Wharf Bridge was choked with people. Ebon’s horse was being jostled on all sides, and it snorted its unease. From the prince’s elevated position he could see that on the bridge a cart had lost a wheel, spilling melons and sandfruit to the dust. The people nearby fell upon the fruit like a flock of redbeaks, only to scatter again when the driver of the cart—a snowy haired Maru—waded among them brandishing a club. A girl was knocked to the ground, blood streaming from her shattered nose, and the rumble of the crowd swelled in anger. Moments later the Maru was hoisted aloft by a dozen hands and hurled shrieking over the bridge’s railing. His cart and the remainder of its contents followed.
“About time,” Vale said.
As Ebon crossed the bridge he looked over the railing. There was no sign of the Maru, but his cart was visible, drifting a stone’s throw away. The prince covered his nose with a sleeve. A sewer must have burst somewhere upriver because the waters of the Amber ran thick with scum and stank like a week-old corpse. Floating among the rushes that clogged the shallows were the bloated bodies of scores of animals and birds. The air throbbed with flies, and a cloud of the insects swarmed round Ebon’s head wound. He swatted them away with one hand, but more soon took their place.
Reaching the opposite bank, he squinted east. He could just make out the crystal towers of Amarixil’s Shrine in the Marobi Quarter, even convinced himself he could see Lamella’s house beside it. Another time he might have gone there first, but his father’s cryptic summons demanded his presence. Duty first, always. Spying a patrol of Pantheon Guardsmen, he requisitioned it as an escort. The streets became wider as they traveled farther into the city, and the speed of their progress increased. There were more stares from the people now, hostility in them. Ebon bore them in silence. Eventually the palace came into view above the roofs of the buildings ahead: first its black towers, then its crenellated battlements, like a row of jagged teeth.