The House of Sacrifice

by Anna Smith Spark

  Crash against the doors. The furniture piled against them shook. Orhan took up his sword. Bil, seeing it or feeling it, cried, “No. Please. I can’t bear you to do it.” Dion in her arms fell silent, but Orhan could hear his breath rasping out.

  “Lord Emmereth, Lord Vorley,” the voice shouted in Pernish. “Surrender yourselves.”

  Darath was on his feet, scrabbling at the furniture barricading the doors closed. A shriek of the gold table legs on the stone floor. Set Orhan’s teeth on edge. They were blinded by torchlight. There were the soldiers of the Army of Amrath in the doorway, shoving their way in, the table legs shrieked on the stone, absurdist death song. A gilt chair tumbled to the ground and a soldier from the Army of Amrath kicked it away and swore. Glorious domestic elegance of a city’s end.

  Darath was standing with his sword in his hand. Darath said, “If you touch the women and the child, we will kill you.”

  One of the servant girls was already dead in a pool of blood. It spread glossily across the stone floor, trickled towards Janush’s legs. Janush held the dead girl’s hand in one hand, the knife he had killed her with in the other. Pointless cruelty and mercy both. Dion was crouched in Bil’s lap, his eyes glassy, his hair gummed to his forehead with sweat. He looked like he was dying from fever. He croaked and whimpered, twitched in Bil’s arms; she held him, stroked his forehead, he did not notice.

  Orhan too got to his feet. His sword was lying so close to him. He should have done it hours ago. Why had he not done it? “Make it quick,” Orhan said. “Please.”

  “I’ll make it however I like to do it.” There were men there in expensive armour, handsome and heroic, red plumes on their helmets. But the speaker was an old man with a battered face, poorly dressed, his armour barely fitting him. His voice had the accent of Immish. That struck Orhan as somehow worse than anything, having been pleading with an Immishman so recently to help him.

  “You, Lord Vorley,” the Immishman said. “Come here.” He jerked his sword, pointing to the doorway. “Outside. And you must be Lord Emmereth. Outside too. And you can put that sword down, Lord Vorley.”

  “Make it quick,” Orhan said in Immish. “Please.” Darath’s sword clattered on the stone floor. Dion’s eyes closed, his body jerked in Bil’s arms at the noise.

  “Now,” the Immishman said. “Move. Or I won’t make it quick for anyone.”

  Orhan looked at the boy’s face. Try to remember. Try. The thin silky limbs just starting to grow strong, the bones of his arms like bird’s wings, the plump-thin goat kid’s legs. The smell of his hair. The howls and shrieks that filled the house when they made him let them wash it, “help, help, Mummyyyyyyyy.”

  The Immishman must have seen something in the way he looked. Said roughly, “Your son, it is? Your wife?” Orhan nodded. “Look, you. Look—” Pause. The Immishman said, “Look, right, we’ve got orders, and we have to keep them. But… you come quietly, both of you, I promise you—” Pause. “I’d say I’d let them go,” the Immishman said roughly. “But I can’t. And there’s no point. But, look, I promise you—” Pause. “Look, right, whatever happens—I bloody swear to you—I’ll make it quick.”

  “Orhan,” Bil cried out. Just once. Orhan walked out through the doorway and Darath walked out. They clutched hands tight together. One of the servant girls screamed, they could hear it so loudly through the doors. One of the kitchen boys screamed. The man with the red plumes marched out with them, and five soldiers of the Army of Amrath with dried blood still covering their armour and their swords.

  Just like that. The doors closed behind them, and there was one more scream, and a sound that might have been Dion. It was quick, yes. Behind the door there in that pleasant room his son was dead, they were all dead.

  Chapter Fifty-Nine

  Outside in the streets it was a slaughterhouse. Soldiers strolled through the wide streets laughing, the city’s deathlight glinting on their armour so very much like the lamp light had glinted on the jewels of women promenading in the cool night after a fine day’s pleasure in Sorlost. Laughter and song and shouting from the wine shops and the brothels; in a courtyard by a drinking fountain a boy was dancing to the rhythm of handclaps; outside a tavern two men were fighting with knives and fists. Close your ears to the language, the death words: you could be walking the streets on any night in the eternal summer of the golden city of Sorlost. The sky was green now from the ring of fire around the city where the walls burned. But even that, Orhan thought, could be a wonder worker’s illusion, a trick for a party. Setting the city apart from the world, ringing it with fire, hiding it with enchantments. Green sparks like fireworks; beyond the circuit of the walls liquid metal would be flowing out over the sand. The people of the desert would look on in wonder, asking each other what new marvel had come down to engulf Sorlost.

  There was a column of fire, also, where the palace had stood. White, and very brilliant. The flames there were almost clear, like diamonds. Their route led them nearer: figures dancing past them, maimed by the darkness, too many arms, too many leering mouths, bonfires of corpses cast their shadows back and back. Orhan saw that the light from the palace cast no shadows, was not reflected on the men’s faces or on the stone of house walls. Ragged men danced past them whirling the bodies of murdered children, held tenderly in their scarred arms. A pack of street children ran past shouting in triumph. They carried severed heads. The soldiers marched them down the Street of Flowers and they had to wade through a river of blood and tears and semen.

  “Where are we going?” Darath asked. “He’s burned the palace, the stupid fool.”

  The blood was coming from Grey Square. The stones there must be sodden with human blood, Orhan thought. The guilt of every man who had tried to shape the fate of a city, lapping at the kerbstones, flowing down in long glittering curves. Grey Square was carpeted in human bodies. Hacked and dismembered, crushed half to nothing, limbs and faces and human offal nuzzling together, embracing, endless ways in which human bodies could fit and not fit.

  The Great Temple seemed to float above the killing. It rippled, in the green firelight, it seemed to change colour, to glint in the light. It should be black as midnight, sucking in the darkness. It crawled in the darkness like snakes. It had been covered and hung all over with raw flayed human skin.

  The doorway to the Temple stood open. Laughter and music were coming from inside. The soldiers surrounding them walked on through the square without a thought. Orhan clutched Darath’s hand so tightly. If we survive, Orhan thought, if we survive this, we’ll never be able to touch each other, all I’ll see if I touch him is this obscenity laid out here, dead hands clutching dead opened wounds, these men who do not notice it. I killed someone and then shortly after that I fucked Darath, he thought.

  He walked with Darath over the carpet of bodies, treading like treading in wet sand, slippery, they had to hold each other, step over bodies thrown down, scrambling over them. Crack of bones. The hard-soft yield of flesh. Most of the bodies here were unarmed.

  A cascade of blood ran down the steps of the Great Temple. White petals floated in the surface.

  Dreams of beauty: cool murmur of water, the night-flowering jasmine blooms; we light the lamps, drink wine to blur our vision, whisper together in an arbour of green rose leaves. An artifice of desire I have spun here for you. Even the God might be jealous.

  It is beautiful, Orhan thought.

  The door stood open. The crack in the wood of the door stood out clear. The dark passageway beyond was a short dirty corridor. The soldiers led them on, splashing through the blood.

  “Great Tanis,” Darath was whispering. “Dear Lord, Great Tanis, have mercy.”

  God dwells in His house of waters.

  God is not here. Never was here.

  There was nothing here but death, Orhan thought. Ever. Those people kneeling in worship in the Court of the Broken Knife, worshipping the demon—long ago, we should all have joined them. Seserenthelae aus perhalish: night comes, we
survive. The most pitiful obvious delusion. Even if we sacrificed every man woman and child in the city, Orhan thought, we could have found no other end.

  The Great Chamber blazed with candles. A thaler’s worth of candles, he had once burned here. Like the white fire consuming the palace, the candles cast no shadows. Yet shadows moved on the walls, bared their teeth at him as he passed. The black floor was dry and clean of blood.

  The High Altar had been overturned. It was broken into rubble. A stone block broken down, no different to a house being brought down to rebuild. The curtain covering the entrance to the Small Chamber was missing; despite it all, Orhan strained to see what was beyond it, felt Darath do likewise. Every child in Sorlost had thought once about dedicating themselves there.

  Before the Small Chamber the High Priestess’s bronze chair and the Emperor’s gold chair had been set up. They were flanked by gold candlesticks, the largest and finest in the Great Chamber. The flames of the candles burned blue.

  Finally he must look at the figures seated on the chairs. Tried to turn his eyes on them; his eyes slipped away, could not look.

  “Lord Emmereth,” the soft voice said. He could not look. He could not but look.

  He saw Dion’s body, the throat cut ear to ear; Bil’s body, her maimed arms thrown out towards Dion, her beautiful hair again clotted with blood. The Immishman had lied, they had both been despoiled. He could not say the true word for it in his mind. Tam Rhyl, as he tortured him, grunting, maggot-white, saw his own face as he tortured Tam. Darath cursing him. Darath ordering his own brother to poison March Verneth, and Darath’s face after his brother had left. Dion playing in the east gardens, running his hands beneath the spray of the fountain there, blowing his ivory flute. All the people of the city, going about their business.

  All those things he saw, in the face of the woman who sat on the bronze chair before the entrance to the Small Chamber.

  It was indeed the High Priestess Thalia. He remembered her enthroned on the day of her dedication. She had grown old, since then.

  Marith Altrersyr beside her looked almost a child. Very weary. Porcelain white, with the hatha scars standing out harshly. He looked as if he was dying in great pain. He was a young man with terror and horror in his eyes. He was nothing, a writhing mass of shadows without shape.

  I killed every member of your household. There was no need for the soft voice to say it. Are you satisfied?

  The High Priestess Thalia beside him raised her hand, gestured at someone behind him. The way she had once held the knife, welcoming the newly living, giving peace to the waiting dead. A stirring in the air behind them. A shifting, a sound of metal and cloth and footsteps. A terrified silent gasp of breath. Other people were coming forward. They were not under guard.

  Mannath Caltren the young Lord of Tears, his hand wrapped around Leada Verneth’s arm. Aris Ventuel the Lord of Empty Mirrors, who threw the best parties in Sorlost. Celyse, her son Symdle behind her but not her husband. Selim Lochaiel the Lord of the Moon’s Light was not there. Neither was old Eloise Verneth. Neither was Mannelin Aviced, Bil’s father. Thank Great Tanis, Orhan thought, that Mannelin was not living to know that his daughter and his grandson were dead.

  They knelt. The demon coughed, very politely. They went down flat on their faces, lower than any of them would ever have prostrated themselves for their Emperor. Orhan and Darath went down flat.

  “You are prostrate before the Ansikanderakesis Amrakane, the King of All Irlast, the World Conqueror, the King of Death, the King of Ruin, the dragonlord, the demon kin, Amrath Returned to Us, the new god, the only man in all the history of the world to have conquered your city of Sorlost,” a voice proclaimed. Orhan’s face pressed down into the floor of the Temple, seeing dark depths in the black stone. He knew the voice very well. Chief Secretary Gallus.

  They lay there prostrate for a long time, before there was a rustle from the two seated figures and Gallus said, “You may rise to your knees.”

  Creak of bones, rattle of jewellery, a little puff of breath from Darath.

  “You are blessed, to be left alive to prostrate yourselves,” Gallus proclaimed. Orhan squinted over at him: he was standing beside the demon’s chair, his silk coat immaculate, a little smudge of blood on his left cheek. “Thank Him,” Gallus continued. “Thank Him for sparing you.” Perhaps, if one tried, one might find something other than blank contentment in his voice.

  Celyse began it. “Hail to the king!” in every language she could think of. No one could say she was not practised in it. Harsh vulgarity, bred over the years as their city rotted, no different from their own absurd game of an Empire and an Emperor: a boy with eyes like wound scars, a woman with grief written hard on her face, trying trying to pretend to vast matchless glories, to be the wonder of the world, trying trying to pretend this was a great meaningful thing. Swap your Immish occupation for occupation by the Altrersyr demon. See how it goes. All the same in the end.

  A parade of the demon’s soldiers came down the Great Chamber. Still coated and dripping with blood. At their head, a young man with dark hair armed in the style of Chathe, whom Orhan guessed must be the famous Lord Mathen, and a young woman leaning heavily on crutches, who must be the equally famous Lady Sabryya. Behind them, the little figure of the Asekemlene Emperor in his black, his yellow silk crown still around his head.

  Gallus seemed astonished to see the Emperor alive. A silent murmuring from the High Lords and Ladies of the Sekemleth Empire.

  The child had the same fevered emptiness that Dion had had in Bil’s arms. Flushed, exhausted, all reason wept out of him. “I am begging you to,” the Emperor said haltingly in Pernish. “Spare. My people. Begging. Gifts.” He said in Literan, “They said, they said.”

  The demon said, “Well, then. Here we are. Shall we get it done?”

  Queen Thalia shifted in her bronze chair. Orhan thought: I wonder what they have done with the High Priestess Sissaleena? Killed her, I suppose, he thought. Lord Mathen moved towards the Emperor.

  “Wait.” The demon said, “One of them should do it, I think. Lord Emmereth should do it.” He said to Orhan, “Well, then, Lord Emmereth? What you hired me to do. Go on.” Queen Thalia sat very still now. The sleeve of her dress had fallen back, showing the scars on her arm.

  Orhan got to his feet. Took a step forward, bowed his head low to the king on his throne. Lord Mathen put a sword in his hand.

  This isn’t real. None of this.

  I’ll make it quick, he thought. Lord Mathen, Lady Sabryya: perhaps they would not make it quick. The Emperor still didn’t understand what was happening: “Begging,” he kept saying in Pernish and Literan. Orhan went up to him. There, at the last, the Emperor knew and understood. Orhan saw that he knew what a terrible thing it is to die.

  As the Immishman had cut Dion’s throat. Felt the blade on the boy’s skin. The Immishman had lied, when he said it was quick.

  Orhan untied the yellow silk cloth from the boy’s dead curls. Darath will hate me forever. Darath will never be able to think of me without sickness engulfing him. I don’t know myself why I am doing this. A cheap shoddy palace coup, he thought. In two years or ten or twenty they’ll find a boy born roughly at the right time, claim he’s our rightful Emperor, people will fight and die to try to crown him. The God knows all things. The demon here will reign over us in glory, or ride off to battle and never come back, or drink himself to death in six months.

  Whatever comes after, I’ve done it. I’ve brought down the throne. I’ve ended a reign that has lasted a thousand years. As every pathetic backroom plotter says.

  He raised the thin band of yellow silk. Approached his king on the gold chair. Bowed, straightened, bound the cloth around the demon’s head. Red-black curls. A boy’s wide frightened eyes, pleading with him.

  Orhan turned to the soldiers of the Army of Amrath, the High Lords of Sorlost, the Great High Nobles of the Ansikanderakesis Amrakane’s dazzling empire.

  “Behold Him! Worsh
ip Him! Praise Him! The King of Death! The King of Shadows! The Lord of the World! The Conqueror of the Sekemleth Empire of the Eternal City of Sorlost!”

  The decaying heart of a decayed empire. It is only fitting that I should crown him, Orhan thought.

  PART SEVEN

  THE WARMTH OF HER LIGHT

  Chapter Sixty

  Tobias, senior squad commander in the “Winged Blades”

  The King’s City of Sorlost

  Had a long wallow in the steam room, a swim in the warm pool, another turn in the steam room. There was a cold plunge, which sounded tempting when you were out in the hot dust taking your turn on watch duty. A special pool lined in green tiles where the water was so salty you floated, you literally couldn’t sink if you tried. The whole thing was underground, dug out of the earth, the rock walls dripped with cool water, it dripped from the ceiling and made you think of tears, natch. There were shafts cut to let in the light, overgrown with green stuff; greenish light came down in long blades. The ceiling was tiled to look like the morning sky. The walls were tiled to look like a forest. The floor was tiled to look like damp green grass.

  His fingers were getting all wrinkled up. Had to go on duty soonish. Tobias towelled the worst of the sweat from his face, had another rinse off in the warm pool, a bath girl rubbed him down all over—all over—with rose oil. Lounged around for a bit, another girl brought him a cup of wine and some fruit and bread. His leg didn’t hurt. His ribs didn’t hurt. Even his arm where King Marith had stabbed him didn’t hurt as bad.

  When he’d dressed, Tobias went up and out to his barracks. His squad was billeted in a merchant’s house just off the Court of Spices. It had a lovely little private garden, with an orchard of almond trees and peach trees and a fountain. The windows of the mess room looked out on it. They were sleeping two to a room, in real beds with real cushions, the frame of Clews’s bed was inlaid with what was generally agreed to be real ivory. They’d diced for that bed, Clews had won. There were twenty of them now in his squad in the Blades, spread across this house and the house next to it, six servants between them to look after them, couple of wives and lovers lodged in rooms round about. Clews had a man he saw sometimes, seemed happy as Larry, had sent a box brimming over with gold back to his family on the Whites. Tobias had visited a brothel twice with some of the others. The first girl had been fair and milky and yellow-haired, the second dark bronze.