The House of Sacrifice

by Anna Smith Spark

  No one had come for her. Of course they had not come. Those empty rooms. She thought then what a sad and empty death it had been for Yanis Stansel, who had been a good man, who had been a friend of her father’s, who had outlived all four of his sons.

  The ship was ready at last, the tide was rushing in. Landra left the horse in the stables, telling the stable boy to sell it. She left him the blanket as well. He stared at her wide-eyed then nodded, his hands stroking the fine weave of the wool. She was not perhaps the first to leave all she had here, she thought, sailing for something greater.

  She could have turned the horse loose, she thought with a laugh. Let it run free on the dead shore where the men of Illyr had made their camp. The blind ones, who had not been dazzled by his light.

  “Three in gold,” the sailor with the black beard said when she got aboard. Her legs swayed as she stood on the deck. “Three in gold,” the sailor said, “two now, one at Morr Town.”

  “You said two.”

  He gestured to the sky. “Wind’s getting up. We’re going now. Three.”

  The wind was blowing in from the south, a fresh taste to it, they went fast down to the mouth of the Jaxertane. It was a long time, Landra thought, since she had last been on a ship. Before many things. The ship felt like an animal moving beneath her. The water parted before it like skin. Voices inside her weeping at leaving Illyr. Other voices singing in joy, for being on the water free. The gabeleth reaching out to the dead who lay beneath the grey sea, calling to them. Beneath the water, bone and bronze would move in the currents. The towers of Ethalden fell away in the ship’s wake, the silver and pearl spire, the gold walls. The ship rounded the headland, began to dance on the wind. The coastline of Illyr slipping past them, bare and dead. A sailor pointed up at the cliff tops: “There, see? Where the stones stand upright like a hand, there, you see, the marks on them? That’s where it was. Their camp.” Another sailor gestured at them angrily, waved them away to avert their faces from the cliff top. “Get back to work.” Ill luck to look. Landra too averted her face, watched white foam breaking on black rocks at the cliff’s base. Try to see something there, something living, but there was nothing. She moved to the other side of the ship, looked out to the north, where the sea went on forever, she thought she saw for a moment a whale breeching. A gull screamed on the wind far out to the north; a cloud of seabirds coming down to settle on the waves. She thought of killing Yanis Stansel and a part of her felt sick with horror and a part of her wept with happiness. She looked ahead into the white distance, imagined she saw the White Isles already rising before her, and thought what she must do. Grey water. Knife water. Stone water. Breaking over the bows of the ship cold and bitter, it stung the burns on her skin, her hands ached with damp cold. But the cleanness of it, also. The sting of the salt like a scourge. Movement, travelling. Racing on. Too fast. Too slow. The dead voice of the men of Illyr, who had died fighting to defend their home from Marith Altrersyr. The dead voice of the gabeleth, that had never lived. All ringing and ringing in her head. The gestmet Raeta hissing, “I am his death.” Kill them. His people. All of them. They must deserve it. They live only on others’ deaths. We all live on others’ deaths. She looked back towards Ethalden and saw the very tip of its spire lit and shining on the horizon, a pinprick, a faint star, and then even as she watched the light flashed very bright and then died away to nothing. A dark column of smoke. The dusk came rushing up. The smoke was gone.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Orhan Emmereth the Lord of the Rising Sun, the Dweller in the House of the East, once the Nithque to the Ever Living Emperor and the Undying City, once the Emperor’s True Counsellor and Friend, once a man who believed in himself

  The City of Sorlost the Golden, the Eternal, the Undying, the decaying heart of the mummified remnant of the Sekemleth Empire of the Golden Dawn Light

  The Immish guards were lined up three deep outside the Summer Palace of the Asekemlene Emperor of the Sekemleth Empire of the Eternal City of Sorlost. Thirty of them, at least. Sweat trickled down their faces beneath their helmets. A group of street children, drunk on firewine, dazed with hatha, giggled and shouted at the guards, threw handfuls of dust at them, one threw a clod of animal dung that bounced off a black-tempered shield. Flashed thin bruised child limbs, laughing calling, “Want some? Want some? One dhol. One dhol.” The guards ignored them. Lined-up faces set blank. A child stumbled closer, spat at a guard’s feet. White foam spit on bronze bootcaps. Dried quickly in the sun. No response from the guardsman. The children giggled and shouted and got bored. Drifted away.

  The gate opened. The guards flicked around to attention at that. Lord Tardein, Lord of the Dry Sea, Dweller in the House of Breaking Waves, Nithque to the Ever Living Emperor and the Undying City, the Emperor’s True Counsellor and Friend. Lord Cauvanh, the Emperor’s Adviser, so kindly lent the Emperor by the Great Council of Immish. An escort of twenty more Immish guards. They went hurriedly across the square, down the Street of Closed Eyes. The Immish guards went back to staring at nothing. Even the one with bits of goat shit on his shield. Lord Tardein the Emperor’s Nithque and in theory the third most powerful person in the Sekemleth Empire had trodden in the goat shit, got some on his right shoe.

  A street seller came into the square with a tray of preserved lemons. Her tray was decorated with sticks that knocked together as she moved, drew attention to her. She was wearing a yellow dress the same colour as the lemons. Hatha scars around her eyes and mouth. Flies buzzed over the tray; she waved her hand weakly to swat them off; her hand faltered over the tray, went back to scratching at her eyes and mouth. The guards ignored her. There was almost no one else in the square. Why would there be anyone in the square, in the dust, in the midday heat? She sat down in a corner in the shade, scratching at her eyes and mouth. The flies buzzed over the lemons. Her dress and her tray were covered with dust.

  No one came to buy any lemons. Lord Lochaiel, Lord of the Moon’s Light, Dweller in the House of Silver, the Emperor’s True Counsellor and Friend, came down the Street of Closed Eyes, crossed the square, the gate swung open and he went through into the palace. His guards stirred up more dust that settled on the street seller’s tray and on her dress.

  Another man came into the square. He might have been a handsome man, once. His black hair hung down his back, streaked with grey; his skin was black tinged with grey tiredness. He stood in the square for a long time looking up at the palace. The thousand windows of the palace looked back at him. Arches and columns of white porcelain. Silver towers, gemstone balconies, silk awnings, the great golden dome. Froth of beauty like petals floating on dark water. A building like a dream. White clouds piled on a sunlit horizon. Moonlight and shadows and voices whispering, laughing, murmuring love. Candlelight catching on the jewels of a necklace. Hands moving and dancing, fingers reaching out to touch.

  A reflection in a teardrop. A thousand dead, empty windows, that had once been lit with mage glass. The whole palace was blind and maimed. The Immish guards were quartered in buildings thrown up in the palace gardens. They trampled down the flowers. Pissed in one of the streams. The fruit trees that had been hung with painted apples were all cut down.

  Yesterday you walked by the Temple.

  You greeted friends, played yenthes—

  You played badly, at that I could have matched you—

  Your white hand around the stem of a wine cup.

  Later we walked in your garden.

  You were more beautiful than the flowers,

  The moon came out, your face was more beautiful,

  Your face was like the song of a nightingale.

  You were beautiful, yesterday.

  I counted the days, I longed for you.

  Yesterday we walked in your garden.

  Today, you are no longer beautiful.

  A boy had once fallen through one of those windows in a shower of breaking glass.

  The street seller gave up. Hauled herself to her feet, the sticks on her
tray rattling. The flies buzzed up, annoyed at being disturbed. She swatted them weakly away. Scratched at her face. One of the Immish guards, finally, gave her a look. Almost a sorry look. She didn’t notice. Wandered off down the Street of Closed Eyes. The flies buzzed around her.

  Lord Selim Lochaiel, Lord of the Moon’s Light, came out of the gate again. Set off down the Street of Closed Eyes. Orhan set off after him. They walked across the Court of the Fountain. Down the Street of All Sorrows. Gold Street. The Street of Children. The Street of the South. Lord Lochaiel stopped to look at the goods on display in a tailor’s. Walked on, went into a wine shop. Orhan loitered across the street a little while. Followed him in.

  “Hello Orhan.”

  “Hello Selim.”

  “A drink?” Selim asked him.

  “Thank you.”

  Selim poured him a cup of iced wine.

  “How are you? How is Bil? And your son?” Selim asked.

  Well enough. No different to how they were when you last asked me. Poor. Angry.

  Alive.

  “How is Elolale?” Orhan asked. “And the boys?”

  Selim winced. “‘The boys’ have learnt how to scream at night. I can hear them from the other side of the house.”

  “That will pass. If you’re lucky. In several years.”

  Orhan Emmereth giving advice on fatherhood!

  Orhan paused. “How is… How is Eloise?”

  “As well as can be. Well enough. No different.” Selim paused. “Darath is well enough, too, Orhan. If you’re wondering.”

  Orhan pushed his cup around the table. “I wasn’t.”

  “Your inability to lie convincingly… is one of the reasons we’re all in this mess.”

  “I—”

  “He—” Selim shook his head. “Actually, you know, things are better now than they were. When was the last time anyone tried to kill you, for example? The city was on the point of collapse. Riots in the street, plague, looting, the false High Priestess murdered by a mob, and, now, look, we’ve got peace again. We’ve had peace for the last four years. Perhaps, in an odd kind of way, we should thank you.” He said with a bitter little smile, “I know the Immish Great Council does.”

  Orhan drank his wine. Better wine than he’d had for a long time. The cool of the ice—ah, God’s knives, the cool of the ice in his mouth! Not had ice for a long time. Four years.

  The perfect irony of everything. Everything he’d ever feared: Immish soldiers in the streets, camped in the gardens of the Emperor’s very palace, the high families couldn’t blow their noses without getting signed and sealed permission from the Immish first. Lord Cauvanh and Lord Mylt of the Great Council and a magelord. They said the Emperor himself had to bow to Lord Mylt.

  Orhan had set fire to the palace and almost assassinated the Emperor and almost assassinated the High Priestess Thalia and let the demon loose in the heart of the city and killed something over a hundred people, including something over twenty people he personally knew. All to stop the Immish invading Sorlost.

  Lord Emmereth, Warden of Immish! Such a cruel stupid joke. The ancient role of the Emmereth family, to laud it over the eastern upstarts, keep them under the thumb of the great Asekemlene Empire. And didn’t that work out so well?

  No, you are unfair to yourself, Orhan. The Immish didn’t invade. You made very sure that didn’t happen. No chance at all of the Immish invading. Not after Lord Tardein invited them in.

  “Darath gave me this to give you,” said Selim. He put a silk purse on the table next to Orhan’s cup. Orhan looked at it. “It’s not got a scorpion in it. It didn’t last time, anyway.”

  “He… I… Thank him for me,” said Orhan. “Darath. Thank him. Tell him I’m grateful. As always.”

  “He told me not to tell him what you said,” said Selim. “As always.”

  Well, that was pointless. As always. What do I expect, Orhan thought, that one day the palace gates will open and they’ll tell me they’re sorry, let me walk in? That Selim will look at me with something other than desperate embarrassment, I’m only humouring him because I pity him, please someone get this wretched man out of my way? He walked slowly back to the House of the East. Bil his wife was sitting with her son in the courtyard gardens. A strapping boy of four, tall for his age, glossy brown skin, red-gold curls, handsome face. His mother’s face and his father’s body, lucky thing. Bil laughed as the child threw a ball towards her, ran towards her shouting, hugged himself into her arms.

  “My baby baby baby boy!”

  No, Orhan, he thought then. The cruellest joke life ever played was to take a woman as beautiful and alive as Bilale Aviced, load her with wealth and wisdom and grace, and then give her blackscab. And then marry her to you. One day soon the boy would learn to ask questions: why has Mummy got no hands, Father? Why has Mummy got scars all over her skin? Why is our house full of whispers, Father? Why do people curse our name in the street?

  Orhan picked the boy up. Kissed him. That strange rancid perfume scent of his hair. The perfect silk of his limbs. “Hello Dion. Hello Bil. Are you having fun?”

  Dion nodded. Squashed his nose into Orhan’s face. “I can throw the ball as high as the tallest tree in the garden!”

  “Can you now? Clever boy.”

  He’ll never know he’s not mine, thought Orhan. That I swear by Great Tanis, he’ll never know.

  Dion stuck his fingers up Orhan’s nose and yanked. Hooted with laughter. Bil called out “Dion!” helpless with laugher. The scabs moved on her face folding and crumpling; the rigid bits of scar tissue that couldn’t move, that strained and ached. “Dion, sweet one! Stop that!”

  Orhan put the boy down and he ran back to his mother, still crowing. She sat down and he scrambled into her lap, put his hands on her face, smoothing it.

  Orhan’s sister Celyse came into the courtyard. She, too, smiled at the boy. Celyse sat down next to Bil. Ruffled her hand in Dion’s hair.

  “Orhan,” Celyse said. “You’ve been out?”

  “I went to see Selim.”

  “How is he?”

  “Well enough.”

  “Did he say anything of any interest?”

  “What do you think? No.”

  “Look!” cried Dion, pointing at two pethe birds that had fluttered down into the lilac tree. Celyse turned away back to Dion. Relieved silence between her and Orhan, that they no longer had to speak.

  I should have asked Selim how Symdle is doing, Orhan thought. How Holt is doing.

  His sister’s son. His sister’s husband.

  Ex-husband.

  Ex-son.

  Orhan took out the purse of money Darath had given Selim. Passed it over to Celyse. Dion grabbed at the gold tassels.

  “You can have the bag,” Celyse said to Dion. He beamed.

  “What is it?” Bil said to Orhan. She could see the weight of it in Celyse’s hands.

  Pause. “Darath gave it to Selim to give to me.”

  “Darath.” Bil’s face went pale and thin. Her lips went pale and thin. “I told you before, Orhan. We don’t need his pity. Send it away.”

  “I want the bag!” Dion shouted, reaching for it. “Aunty Celyse said I could have the bag.”

  “Buy him some new clothes,” said Orhan. “Buy yourselves some new clothes.”

  The coins disappeared into Celyse’s pocket. She gave Dion the purse. He stuck his hand in it. White silk covering his hand to the wrist. Held it up, pressed the silk against Bil’s face. Bil smiled.

  Orhan thought: I killed his father. I sacrificed his father my sworn servant, watched him die in front of me… so that the Immish wouldn’t invade.

  Janush the doctor came into the courtyard. The last of the house’s bondsmen, the only man who refused to leave when Orhan had dismissed the servants. Spare them, as he had spared the little serving girl of Bil’s. “Bound to you means I’m bound to you,” Janush had only said. He nodded gravely as Dion showed him the tassels on the purse.

  Orhan went ups
tairs to his study. Sat down at his desk. He could hear Dion, laughing at something, his laughter drifting up through the window. Orhan opened his desk, looked at the empty drawer, closed it again. He’d burned every sheet of paper in his house four years ago as the Immish marched through the city towards his house to arrest him. Never write down another word. Nothing anyone could ever twist up and use against him. The pile of papers, himself throwing oil on the blaze, trying to make it burn up faster, sweating and cursing. Seeing Bil’s face and the boy’s and Darath’s in the flames as it burned. No books. No papers. Nothing anyone could ever, ever use.

  My son’s father is dead because I attempted a coup against my Emperor and my son’s father fought for me and died.

  My son’s mother has no hands because she fought off assassins trying to kill him. Trying to kill him to punish me.

  People curse my name because they think I betrayed the city.

  No. Not think.

  The truth, Orhan. People curse my name because I did betray the city.

  The child’s laughter turned suddenly to wailing. He must have fallen, hurt himself. “Baby boy, it’s all right, hush, hush,” Bil’s voice crooned.

  No books. No papers. Empty shelves. Empty drawers. Nothing, ever again, ever again. Orhan sat and stared at the wall.

  The child’s crying ceased as quickly as it had started. Bil comforting him. Celyse came into the room, opened the door without knocking, sniffed at the empty shelves as she always did. Tried not to look too pointedly at the patch on the wall where the plaster was crumbling, gold leaf and green paint flaking off.

  “I’m going out. Spend the money before Bilale sends it back. Do you want anything yourself?”