“You were a veritable fiend. I couldn’t believe it of you. Don’t bring a weapon with you to the dome, by the way.”
“Oh?”
“It’s not permitted.”
“Very well. Not that I’d be a fiend in the dome in any case.”
“Of course not. I’m sure you’ve always been perfectly courteous, in every other port but that one. I really couldn’t have believed it of you, the way you murdered so many of them so easily. The heads that plopped into the harbour! The blood, the guts, the sharks waiting to eat all of it whenever you kicked a body overboard.”
Halva shuddered and jiggled. I lowered my gaze and pretended indifference to the topic. “I defended my ship, Deyer,” I reminded with utmost calm. “And your cargo.”
“Yes, yes, of course. You killed more pirates than the rest put together, it seemed.”
“I was caught at the front of the battle. I had no choice.”
“Aren’t you done with your hair yet?”
“Almost.” I was just then tying the end of my braid.
“Ever put into that harbour since?” he asked.
“Many times. And yes, there have been pirates since. They can’t catch us once we’re out to sea, after all.”
Halva laughed. I smiled. No one could catch my schooner once I put it out to sea.
“The legendary Deyer Choné,” Halva said, beaming at me. “The best of the Brellin seamen.”
Despite the praise, I could have winced over the poor use of my surname, but I kept my irritation netted as usual and squirmed past Halva to get at my wardrobe again.
To round out my attire, I dug beneath my ribbons for a few golden armbands and chose my better earrings to replace the simple circles I wore at the moment.
“Ah, the ones with sapphires dangling from the hoops. Good choice,” Halva said. “I should never have given them to you.”
“I won them from you, in a game of chance,” I replied.
“They were meant for my wife.”
I smiled. “You said they were for your concubine.”
“Did I?”
I hooked the first earring into a lobe, looked up at Halva, saw that he smiled as well. We’d had many good years of association despite his neglect of courtesy. I couldn’t stay irritated with him. He’d always been a jovial fellow, and well-meaning despite his poor education with regards to cultural differences.
“Yes, you did,” I said. “You were very wroth with me, until I lost my best bracelet in the next round.”
Not my family bracelet of braided leather bearing a collection of Little Brother’s teeth. Halva had tried to bet for that, but I’d refused. He’d taken an ornamental gold band instead. No Brellin man would wager his family braid. He’d sooner sink his arm in the sea and beg Little Brother to bite the bracelet off.
“Oh, yes,” Halva said. “I remember. I gave it to my wife. It’s her favourite. She has no idea it’s a man’s bracelet.”
I laughed and hooked the other earring in, my gaze idling upon Halva’s hair. Though the people of Brellin and Verdant shared the same general facial structure and skin tone, we were a very different people. Verdant’s men didn’t wear earrings and they kept their hair cut to their shoulders, to rest in an abundance of loose spirals around their faces. They wore tunics that hid their bodies down to their thighs, sported trousers that were loose, and embroidered all garments more heavily than we did ours.
“You look good in bronze,” Halva said. “Better than most. Must be that dark skin of yours.”
I began to smile with pleasure, until he added, “And those blond streaks in your hair.”
My pleasure evaporated. I am browner than the average Brellin, having skin like fertile soil, though not nearly as brown as the best soil. Darker skin is considered a mark of good fortune to my people, but I had been cursed at birth, for I also had the hair of bad luck. There are yellow streaks mixed in with the brown, which isn’t as dark as most of my people’s.
It’s a rare trait, a darker-skinned, lighter-haired Brellin, and most houses shudder to have someone like me born into their family, someone of such mixed omens, but I had managed to become a symbol of good luck for my House, where most like me hadn’t been so fortunate.
‘Little Brother is fond of me,’ my family matriarch always insisted, but I thought Little Brother simply liked to play his tricks on mortal folk. Even so, I wore the symbol proving his favour on my chest.
If Halva had seen the scarification, he might have considered more seriously the dumping of those pirate bodies into the water the day we’d been attacked. But during that journey, I’d hidden the mark until Halva had debarked and returned home.
“Are you ready, then?” he asked.
“Just need my boots, Deyer,” I muttered and bent to retrieve them from the drawer built beneath my bed. “Watch your legs, there.”
Halva backed out of the aisle, and I opened the drawer. I plucked out my favourite boots, slipped off my tacky-soled sandals, and dug my feet into good leather. The boots were fashioned of reptile skin, a lovely brown with beige diagonal patterns.
“Ah, perfect,” Halva said.
“Hmm,” I agreed. I loved those boots. “I’m ready now.”
“Then we’re off to the dome,” he replied and went up the hatch with an eager smile.
Chapter Two
A floating causeway joined Celestial Dome to the docks. Its cerulean planks formed a corrugated ribbon extending far out along the east side of the harbour. Temple guards never defended the landward end because guards weren’t necessary. Two ominous, black marble sentinels loomed from the water thirteen cubits in front of the dome steps and prevented interlopers from entering the holy edifice.
Whenever I approached these snakish, aquatic figures, my skin crept, as if my entire surface wanted to crawl beneath my muscles and hide inside my bones. The effect was unliveable, enough to have kept me off the causeway until today. I could only hope Deyer Halva’s invitation would ameliorate the unforgiving disposition of the sentinels.
Halva and I had yet to reach the causeway. We navigated the main dock, worming around stacks of crates and fresh produce in baskets. We stepped over ropes coiled near moored ships and threaded a path between folded nets and piled lobster traps. We were more than halfway to the first blue plank. Already my skin prickled. Halva seemed oblivious to how subdued I had become. He’d been nattering ceaselessly about all the recent events in his life since we rowed to shore.
My gaze drifted from the causeway and fixed on the dome. Just then it was blue as the sky, but at night it would turn into milk and seem like the moon had landed in the harbour. The dome drew me, always had. I wanted badly to see the secrets hidden beneath its great curve, but those sentinels…
“It is the most exquisite structure in all of the world, don’t you think, Choné?” Halva asked suddenly.
Well. It seemed he’d been paying more attention to me than I thought.
“It’s exquisite,” I said. “I wish your tradesmen would put that shade on the market. It’s a very common shade anywhere else. Sky blue, I mean. But the colour shift, that isn’t common.”
“It is forbidden,” Halva said, tone flat and forbidding. “No structure may bear the celestial colour.”
Too nervous. I’d spoken unwisely, worrying too much about the statues at the end of the causeway.
“Not here, no,” I said and quickly changed the topic. “But it’s simply amazing a roof that size stays up, or that the entire structure doesn’t sink into the ocean. It’s so huge! I can’t imagine what must have been done to support its weight. Your people must have dumped a mountain of gravel beneath.”
“Omos will not let Celestial Dome sink,” Halva replied.
I smiled and nodded, and Halva’s good humour returned. His wide lips formed a huge grin.
“I have swum beneath.”
I blinked, and my mouth dropped open. “You swam beneath? There’s a cave under there?”
Halva’s expression became serious
again. “I only say this because you come on this day of all days, a day of good fortune. No ship can enter harbour that bears an enemy on the day a new Oradhé is chosen. No ship generally enters at all. But yours did, and so I can tell you this secret thing only we men of Verdant comprehend.”
He seemed to double in size, his chest puffed so much. Whatever he had to tell me, he was apparently very proud of it.
“Beneath Celestial Dome is nothing but water,” he said, “and one massive golden chain linking it to the World. That is all. I have swum beneath, on my day of manhood, and seen the umbilical cord that connects us to heaven. Omos be praised for His mercy.”
“Omos be praised,” I repeated dutifully.
Halva gave me a shock to the shoulders, slapping his big hand hard on my right side. “You are blessed, Choné. Omos let you in the harbour. That’s as good as making you a man of Verdant.”
“Ah! How lucky I am!” I wasn’t entirely convinced of this, but Halva’s words held promise. Anything that improved trade pleased me.
“You will see the new Oradhé chosen, Choné. It is a wonderful day.”
Again I wasn’t entirely convinced, because the new Oradhé had his eyes put out the minute the divine son of Omos lifted his gaze to fix upon the old Oradhé’s successor. Priests performed the ceremony of sacrifice in view of all present during the investiture, divine son included.
Now that Halva seemed to accept me as a man of his faith, I thought I’d get an answer to a question I’d always wanted to ask. I let the words slip into the air before we met the first plank of Celestial Path. “Why do they put out the Oradhé’s eyes, Deyer Halva? Why does the divine son let it happen?”
“Ah! It is a thing of wisdom and also of tragedy,” he answered. “During the time of the great invasion, when we begged Omos for His mercy and He decided to give us His son, He made it clear Intana’s stay would not be permanent. He laid conditions on His son’s indenture.
“Intana, first of all, must have a master toward whom he will cleave, for Intana is an immature god and needs guidance. Secondly, Intana will obey his Oradhé and protect the people of Verdant only after the Oradhé touches Intana’s seal. This is, in actuality, Intana’s spiritual heart. Omos saw fit to give Intana this single weakness for our benefit, you understand? Intana will not lift a finger for the Oradhé beforehand. We are, after all, just mortals.”
It made very much sense to me, and I said so. There could be no possible way for a mortal to control a god, even an immature one, if there were no shackles to bind the god’s power.
Halva smiled at me and continued on with my education, but my attention drifted toward the causeway. Only a few people walked the cerulean boards at the moment. I found it odd there were not more.
“Thirdly,” Halva said, “Intana will choose only someone capable of loving him without reservation, and so each Oradhé is certain to be kind to him, but…”
There’s always a “but” when it comes to the gods. It seemed the Ardu god was no different. Ardu means dragon in the Verdant tongue. The people of the isle worshipped an ether dragon, Omos, said to be at one with the heavens. And there, at the end of the floating path, lurked His effigies.
I don’t like snakes, never have, and Omos seemed a snake with fins. A veritable eel. And yet he’d been birthed from the heavens, not the sea. I suspected He had affinity for both elements.
“…if Intana’s Oradhé should love him to the point of comprehending his true form, then Intana shall be free of servitude to the people of Verdant and return to his divine father.
“Upon receiving the seal, the first Oradhé looked upon Intana, saw only a godling, and ordered his men to put out his eyes before he could see more. And so it has been since that day. To be certain of it, no succeeding Oradhé has been permitted to touch the seal until after the eyes have been burned away.”
Mercy. That was horrible, and yet so very courageous of the first Oradhé. “How wise of him,” I said. “How noble.”
Gruesome. So gruesome. Never would I do such a thing. But then, I’m a selfish man.
Momentarily, I turned landward and noticed again the silent gathering of citizens within the capitol. The mood was sombre, yet festive clothes contrasted brightly against the tiers of terra cotta roofs and stucco walls. The populace crowded the streets and balconies, on to the highest summit—yes, past the grand palace of marble walls and turrets, up unto the temple.
“I’m surprised my ship is being rowed to dock during this celebration,” I said.
“First Servant ordered it,” Halva told me. “Men were summoned back to work just for that.”
“And why aren’t more walking down the holy path as we are?” At the moment, none did. It seemed we were the last men making our way there.
“Intana chooses from among the worthy of Verdant first,” Halva said and dismissed the general populace with a lazy wave. “These others will see the new Oradhé on his triumphal march up to the palace. The local constables have barred all routes above the beachfront until then.”
Yes. It was always this way. Only the worthy first—the worthy, the rich.
“Ah. So your esteemed warriors and scholars are already within Celestial Dome?” I asked. Yes, I can be sarcastic, but I generally hid it with smiles and polite blandness. One cannot negotiate good business contracts with disgruntled associates.
“But of course. Those that have their patrons’ vouchers,” Halva answered.
“Ah.” I understood. I, unworthy infidel, had this day gained an esteemed and wealthy patron. Halva exploited my unprecedented arrival. He’d snatched up a novelty to parade before his peers. I tell you, I had to refrain from making a cynical smile.
“I look forward to this, Deyer Halva,” I said, smiling, but politely. I bowed to veil the certain derision in my eyes. A direct look would have been unwise just then.
Halva knocked me on the shoulder again, and we at last set foot on Celestial Path. At once, I felt as if the skin of my forehead was tightening to the point of ripping apart. I supposed it would be the first section to crawl into my bones.
The long waving bounce of the planks became easier for my mind to bear than the distant statues we approached. I strode alongside Halva in silence for a while, looking down with a frown, and for the first time realized that Celestial Path never seemed lower or higher than the first steps of the dome.
Ah, marvels. I was an idiot. Impossible for the path not to change in height compared to the dome, unless both responded equally to the tide. Celestial Dome truly did float upon the waves. All these years and it had been before my eyes, but uncomfortable with the sentinels, I’d turned my gaze elsewhere before seeing the simple truth.
“Deyer…?”
“Yes, Choné?”
“How is it that the path stays so very straight upon the water? Is it anchored in some manner as well?”
“Why, yes, but…not as you might expect.”
I looked up at him. He was smiling, smug and self-important.
“Beneath us is nothing but the water, but beneath the water are the guide planks that lie in the seabed, and these keep the ones above in position.”
“Guide planks? Unattached?” I was thinking anchors still, but it was nothing so simple.
“Unattached. There is magic within the boards of Celestial Path. They are governed by the position of the planks set in the seabed below. The tide can move the ones we stride upon, but only up or down.”
“These guide planks? How were they put in the seabed?”
“It was amongst the first tasks, after the rout of the enemy, that the first Oradhé demanded of Intana.”
Ah. Divinity’s fingers mixing in earthly mediums. Naturally nothing that had once been ordinary would be as anyone expected, given this truth. I began to wonder if Verdant’s celebrated paint had its origin in the same extraordinary process.
“Ah, Deyer! So many things I have learned in only a few minutes. Your people have been legendary for keeping your religiou
s matters a secret, and yet the things you have just said!”
Halva pulled me to a stop on the causeway. “But Choné! You are of Ardu now. Do you not see that? You cannot reveal these things to any others. It would be sacrilege.”
I stared at Halva a few seconds, wondering to what depth he may have sunk me into his religion. “Um…my crew arrived here with me, Deyer. What of them?”
“They are of no account. You are their master and only you matter in the eyes of Omos. It was you, good man, that Omos permitted into the harbour. It is a certainty. The First Servant said it to me himself when we stood on the west balcony of the dome and watched your ship sail in past the points.”
“I see.” I drew in a firming breath, surveyed the harbour and thought, as I had done upon arriving, that it was oddly barren of foreign vessels. The few at anchor seemed to have been present beforehand. I wondered if their crews had been forced to remain on ship for the duration of the investiture. “I see,” I said again. “Then I must respect your traditions and keep the secrets of the Ardu.”
Halva beamed at me. I received yet another good thump on my back, and off we went again.
My cheeks were beginning to feel stretched. I looked down at the cerulean planks. So bland to gaze upon. So tormenting to walk. We hadn’t progressed a third of the distance, and I wanted to turn back already.
Something dark flashed past to the side, something in the water, something huge. I jerked Halva to a halt.
“Halva! There are sharks in the harbour. Does not your god keep them out? It was my understanding.”
“Keep them out?” Halva scanned the water lapping close to the edge of the path. “Well, He keeps them out of the main parts, yes, but beneath the cerulean path and under the dome, they are free to wander. No unprepared man of Verdant may trespass beneath the holy edifice, or inspect the mechanisms of the walkway.”
How many times had I jumped into the harbour water with my crew for a good dip when the weather had been too warm? I couldn’t count. Those were breaker sharks down there, sharks that hunted along shorelines and favoured the meat of humanity. They lurked in the shallows and waited for prey that dared encroach on Vaal’s territory without permission.
Loved Him to Death: Haru of Sachoné House Page 2