I laughed at her, said things I shouldn’t have: about her, Little Brother, Vaal. She had me carried from the hall, a man too fevered to know sense. A day after, I swam with Little Brother again, without any respect left in me. But though many manifestations of him coasted the deeper shallows of Blood Bay, none wanted me. When my limbs had tired, more quickly this time because fever still gripped my body, the bay threw me back onto shore, and I gave up trying to reach Jumi.
I’ve never loved a man since Jumi. I can’t touch a man without remembering his face when he only had his arms and shoulders left.
It was no use. The memory was too raw. There at the opening into Celestial Dome, with Halva’s big hand touching my shoulder to draw me onward, I could only stumble along at his side, all but insensible to the expanse opening before me. If the circuit of Celestial Dome had been meant to provoke humility, then it had failed in me. I only felt the anguish and the guilt of my worst day all over again.
Had Halva not been with me, I would have crumpled onto the steps and strangled myself with my own braid.
Chapter Four
Daylight brightened the innards of Celestial Dome, without the aid of torches, embrasures, or windows of any sort. The ceiling seemed non-existent. I beheld clouds, the sun, birds flying overhead. A gull sat above us, as if it floated in midair. Another flew down to join it, to stand there and squawk. I did not hear the sounds; only saw its beak moving, a distant, small motion.
The gull made the backward lift indicating defecation, and a light flashed beneath its bottom. Both birds rose from the invisible, their beaks open in protest. I wanted to laugh despite my agony, despite the edict against noise. It was too silly a thing. No indication of the dropping remained on the outside of the dome. The expanse had flicked it off with divine power.
I looked down. Marble benches lined the amphitheatre. Aisles, two-men wide, broke the rows. An upper walk, where temple guards stood in niches, commanded the highest view. The seating began several cubits from the entrance and continued around the dome until the inner staircase interrupted the flow. A huge triangular spur of stone blocked this second flight of steps from the exit leading out.
Halva shoved me along until we traversed three quarters of the structure again, this time from the inside. His was an important family and, perhaps after that day, it would be more important, for he had successfully brought a foreigner into Celestial Dome. Men stared at us the entire march, but no one whispered or made comment.
Halva’s family seats were in the section closest to the inner staircase, almost facing the dais on which the dying Oradhé rested. Halva descended the aisle and crept into his row. I followed, skirted knees as best I could, repressed the urge to apologize when I stubbed toes, and seated myself next to Halva. Ignoring the attention of the entire audience, I looked down at the smooth white expanse of the central space.
Intana stood near the old Oradhé, his right side toward us. This was the first I looked at the godling, and I saw ugliness.
His pale pinkish skin reminded me of the underside of toads. Silvery scales ran along the outer sections of his limbs, with small patches defining his torso, his back, the fronts of his thighs, and also marking his calves and shins. This scaling, and his electrum hair, seemed his only claims to beauty.
The distance prevented me from seeing his features properly. A hank of silver trailed down his forehead and crossed his nose, veiling his face in any case. He was tall, his shape supple, well-muscled, almost boyish. He wore only a grey cloth over his male parts and another over his buttocks. Silver chains at his hips held the fabric in place.
He looked only at the old Oradhé, who lay upon the dais with a black robe hiding what appeared to be an emaciated, aged body. Upon the old man’s chest rested the seal, a silver object that seemed too wide and heavy for his frail body to support. The flat circle appeared to have gaps in the metal here and there. Shapes swirled together, shapes I could not discern clearly.
Bright silks draped the dais. Festive colours. Flame colours. It seemed inappropriate for a culture worshipping a god at one with sea and sky, for a moment of death and then sacrifice. And continued slavery.
The old Oradhé… I couldn’t tell if he still lived, but he must have, because Intana did not look up. Junior servants waited beside the godling, watching him, not the Oradhé.
Cast off already, old man, thought I. Cast off before you are even dead. They look only to Intana, because you are no longer important. They watch the slave they must keep in metaphysical chains.
My attention rested on Intana again, and I thought him pitiful. What had he to look forward to but more of the same. An old Oradhé, a new, and always betrayed the moment he lifted his eyes to see the person who might be his saviour.
My gaze flitted toward the large brazier to the left of the dais. The concave, bronze vessel rested on three small likenesses of Omos. Smoke wafted up from freshly laid charcoal scattered about the old embers. Precious incense must have been sprinkled over the cinders as well, for a scent billowed in the air, not so strong as to be unpleasant, but I suspected it would be pungent down there with Omos’s son.
Resting with their ends in the embers lay the two iron rods intended to burn out the next Oradhé’s eyes. My gaze veered away. Images of eyes popping and searing into gaping sockets chased the lingering grief over Jumi from my mind. Feeling chilled and slightly sick, my mind fixed on a group further off to Intana’s left, near the lower amphitheatre wall.
Boys undergoing the manhood ceremony had collected near two semicircular swimming basins. Most of the celebrants appeared to have finished the rite and were washing in the larger pool, where priests with soaps, towels and robes attended them.
An aperture with a metal grid permitted water from the bay to fill the larger basin, but the aperture of the smaller pool possessed no grille, and sharks entered the dome to bite the silhouettes of the celebrants. Little Brother demonstrated his impatience for the remaining boys to enter Vaal’s domain.
I frowned, sensing more than impatience. Was it…anger?
Yes, anger. The Ardu brethren fouled the manhood ceremony. The supplicants greeted Little Brother in a polluted state.
I looked at the last of the celebrants. Two boys waited their turn not far from the smaller basin, and it was their shadows Little Brother attacked. A third boy stood before an elderly man I assumed to be First Servant. The boys were naked, First Servant as well.
The head priest presided over an earthenware urn half as tall as him and twice as wide. From it, he ladled the holy oils that Halva had mentioned. The priest poured this liquid over the current supplicant, who rubbed it all over his body. After First Servant set the dipper down, he passed his palms over the boy’s entire figure to ensure a good coating, and then pointed toward the smaller basin. The boy turned and took careful, small steps in that direction.
A cubit from the basin, another servant of the dome awaited, but he was dressed in robes and carried a brightly coloured sack. This man lifted a hand to the boy’s face and inserted into his mouth a brown object.
Ah. The sponge. I wondered if I could procure a sample. Somehow.
I could not help thinking of profit even then, but when another dark shadow swam past the aperture toward which the boy descended, I thought only of Jumi again. I tore my gaze back to the centre of the floor and looked upon Intana once more.
Truly, I thought him ugly for his pale skin, and perhaps he was also unlucky because of it. What had he done to displease his father so greatly that he’d been bidden to act the eternal guardian for an insignificant group of mortals?
Vaal had sent me into this harbour, perhaps with Omos’s permission, but what He meant by it, I could only guess. I had said to Halva I would keep the secrets of the Ardu faith, but if Vaal wanted the world to know of the duplicity of Verdant’s people, then I would spread this knowledge to the empires across the sea, and let all know that Omos’s worshippers cheated His son of freedom.
Intana’s
head suddenly lifted and turned. Just his head. His body stayed rigid. To his left, the attending servant stepped back to permit him an unobstructed view of the tiers on my side of the amphitheatre. Next to me, Halva loosed an excited gasp and clutched my wrist.
Intana’s gaze travelled no further, but remained fixed in our direction. It seemed to me he had chosen Halva or someone near us.
The sentinels along the upper walk at last went into motion. When Halva and I had passed these men on the way to our seats, they’d been silent and oblivious—dark men in dark robes, each bearing staves with bronze circles at the top, smaller rings looping within the circles. I heard the rings jangling as the sentinels converged on our section from all along the amphitheatre.
An image lodged in my mind, of a flock of black gulls circling the white island on which Intana rested. The wide sleeves of each sentinel billowed like wings. Flapping hems became the tail feathers that guided flight. The clinking of the rings echoed down from the hidden ceiling and threaded the vision with a metallic song of feeding.
The flock gusted an invisible cloud to their fore. It settled over me, a vaporous acid that burned fate into my bones. I shifted on the bench, wanting to leave, but the two nearest sentinels blocked the openings of the first row of seats, and more descended the aisles to obstruct the rows further up.
The flock gathered to hem our section in. Soon, the feeding would commence.
Halva looked at me, squeezed my wrist and smiled. I stared at his euphoric expression, and the vision of black gulls splintered and disintegrated. I was appalled, my heart thundering as if it were in my throat. I pitied Halva greatly, pitied any man about to lose his eyes.
The sentinels at the first row lifted their staves. Below, a holy servant near Intana spoke in a low voice. Intana did not respond at once, and the servant walked to the dais of the dead Oradhé, removed a small mallet from his sleeve and struck the seal. Intana jerked as if he’d been pinched and shook his head curtly.
At the ends of the next row of seats, a second pair of guards hoisted their staves. Halva’s grip on my wrist tightened. I reached down and pried his fingers loose, but he hardly noticed.
Again the servant below spoke to Intana. Again the godling refused to answer. The seal received another strike. Once more, Intana twitched and shook his head.
By now, others of the holy brethren had arrived to line the rest of the rows upward. The pair at either end of ours lifted their staves. A small noise escaped from Halva’s throat, and I prayed for the godling to shake his head again, but he didn’t. The servant struck Intana’s seal three times before he would answer, but in the end he nodded.
Without words, the spectators on the bench to my rear abandoned their seats. Once the space had cleared, a guard at each end walked inward, stood behind each man consecutively, and took turns raising staves over the heads of the men in my row. Meanwhile the other sentinels crowded yet closer, forming a wall of black robes to both sides and behind. It came to my mind that some Oradhé must have chosen to run in the past, or all this precaution would have been unnecessary.
Intana’s silver-crowned head shook curt negatives in response to each lifted stave, until only Halva and I remained. I could not accept that the priests would test an outsider, and I opened my mouth to protest, but Halva slapped my thigh. I shut my mouth, incapable of looking at Halva directly, thinking he was about to lose his eyes.
To my back, a stave rose. Below, the servant struck Intana’s seal five times, but the godling consistently refused to answer. Even from the distance, I could see he wept. A grimace pulled his lips back, and he shuddered occasionally, and not just when the hammer smote the silver of his imprisoned spiritual heart.
The servant waved at his brethren above, and the second guard elevated his stave over Halva, who again released a noise in his throat. I glanced at him. Halva still smiled. I couldn’t believe he would smile.
Again Intana would not answer. When ten strikes upon the seal availed him not, the servant walked to the brazier and returned bearing a glowing rod. Intana shook his head before it touched the seal, and that left only me. The guard to my back hoisted his stave again, and Halva stared at me with open mouth and shocked eyes. I was no less stunned.
“It’s not me!” I shouted. I lurched upward. Two hands on my shoulders slammed me back onto the bench, but I at once twisted loose and lunged over the backs of the men seated below. I would not give my eyes for these idiots of Verdant.
Someone grabbed my ankle. I kicked hard. My boot came off. I slipped over legs and onto the marble floor, shot upward, and rammed my way through to the lowest walk above the central floor. I began to sprint along it, but the holy sentinels had already spread down the aisles to block both ends of the row. I stalled in the midsection.
“Fleeing is of no use, foreigner,” one called to me. “There is no way out of Celestial Dome but one, and if you look there, you will see that more of my brethren stand in your path.”
Indeed, that avenue was obstructed, but another way out existed. Almost directly across the amphitheatre gaped an aperture where Little Brother waited. I looked at it and knew a desperation I had not felt since Jumi died.
“I’m not a man of Verdant!”
“It doesn’t matter. You are the one Intana wants,” the sentinel answered.
He stepped closer. I made to leap over the wall, a drop of twenty cubits onto solid marble. The sentinel halted, but the citizens closest to me grabbed at my clothes. I knocked their hands off. One caught his fingers in an armband. I slugged him in the face and almost toppled over the balcony after, but managed to stop myself.
“Get away!” I shouted. “Your people can’t hide what happens here today! If I die, my men will discover it, and they’ll spread the tale far and wide! If my family can’t make war with you, then trade embargoes will suffice to break the back of your economy! You may own this port in the middle of the ocean, but the Brellin own the sea!”
I had them there. I stood before a body of men who dipped their hands in commerce. Even the noblest of Verdant were merchants, but they worked through voyagers such as myself, people who built ships and came into port here, the stopover point halfway across the Umber Sea. They could not touch me without risking a great deal, and more than they actually understood.
I wasn’t merely a sea captain and merchant of Brellin, but a veritable prince in the eyes of my people. Prince, holy man, bringer of fortune: in my lifetime, I had found more goods worthy of trade than most men of Brellin, and I always managed to be where I could discover the next interesting item. If I went missing, if even my ship went missing, others would come to seek my resting place. Little Brother would give my people no peace until they did.
“This isn’t about dying,” the guard called. “Intana has chosen you. It is an honour.”
“Only an idiot would want this honour!”
Despite the edict against speech, mutters of discontent and outrage spread along the amphitheatre. Anger had muddied my wits. I needed to act fast to bring the holy servants to reason.
“I am not a man of Verdant! I haven’t yet seen the golden chain. You can’t give me to Intana until I have. By the customs of your people, I’ll never truly be a man of Ardu until I have swum beneath the dome. If you take my eyes before then, I will forever be an outsider.”
The mutters dwindled, became a considering silence. I wanted to howl my triumph. I’d strangled their logic in my fist. I had not seen the golden chain; therefore I was only a boy. For once, my short size and youthful countenance worked to my advantage.
“Bring him down,” someone called from below. “He will see the chain.”
The First Servant.
In relief, I took my bare foot from the rim of the drop and all but slumped into the arms of the men who had tried to stop me. The guards seized me and hauled me out from the row. Someone handed over my lost boot and I put it on. We rose to the upper walk and travelled along it, met the steps leading down into the central expanse a
nd descended.
I glared at the godling as I approached. The old Oradhé rested between us, a black accusation. Closer in, I perceived the damage done to his face, however many years ago he had become Intana’s chosen. Not only had his eyes been burnt away, but his eyelids, too. The sockets glistened. He had wept until he’d filled them.
The old man had died forlorn and unhappy, but his people didn’t care. It seemed to me, from the way Intana stared at me without expression, he didn’t care either.
First Servant, naked and glistening with oil, moved to the right of the dais. Now that I was closer, I noted he wore sandals with the special soles made for their tacky property. No doubt he’d have slipped on the marble had he walked barefooted.
“Is he the one, Intana?” First Servant asked the godling.
“Yes,” Intana said. His voice issued low, almost inaudible. How I hated him just then. He looked away from me, and I recalled he had been weeping. His cheeks still shone with damp.
His pale skin wasn’t as ugly as I’d first thought. Toad skin at a distance metamorphosed to pink cream with the palest blue sheen where the light hit the curves, and then the finest silver scales commenced, somewhat large in the centre of each patch, fading away into small sparkles at the boundaries.
His eyes, when he lifted them, had black irises with silver pupils. The fire in their depths wasn’t mortal.
His features little resembled those of the people of Verdant or mine. He seemed more like the southern men who lived on the cold continent, where massive expanses of evergreen forests sheltered the tribes from harsh winters. Intana had a narrow face, a narrow nose, high cheeks, and a chin with a shallow cleft. His eyes were well shaped and not too close together. His lips weren’t thin like the southern type, but well formed, the higher slightly thin compared to the bottommost.
“Have you seen enough of him to last, stranger?” First Servant asked me.
Anger gripped my tongue again. I said a rude thing, and Intana’s eyes widened. Around the gathering, the holy men frowned disapprovingly. I looked at the seal on the old Oradhé’s lifeless chest and thought about lunging for it, but my guardians clasped me securely to either side. One to the back clutched the waist of my trousers to keep me in place.
Loved Him to Death: Haru of Sachoné House Page 4