Past Imperative [Round One of The Great Game]

by Dave Duncan

  "A reminder of mortality and obedience.” She pointed a bony finger at Eleal's right boot, with its two-inch sole. “You also bear a burden, child."

  "Not willingly!” Eleal was annoyed to feel her face flushing.

  "But perhaps the gods had their reasons for laying it upon you."

  It was very impolite to discuss people's infirmities. The sword was not the same thing at all.

  "Swords are valuable! Suppose some man covets it and threatens to kill you for it?"

  The nun shrugged her narrow shoulders. “Then I refuse and he kills me. If he takes it without killing me, then I must kill myself in penance for whatever evil he may someday do with it. I said it was a burden."

  "You may never use it?"

  "Only in ritual. Some of my sisters have frozen to death rather than profane their swords by chopping wood with them."

  "Well!” Eleal said crossly. “You tell me that everything has a purpose. Obviously the purpose of a sword is to kill people, er, men, I mean."

  "Oh, I never said it had not killed people!” The nun patted the hilt of the weapon lovingly. “It has belonged to my order for a long time, so I expect it has been the death of many."

  That made no sense at all. The woman was as crazy as the equally ancient priest who had first mentioned her. The two of them must be in cahoots somehow. Feeling very uneasy, Eleal scrambled to her feet.

  "To endure without complaint, to obey without question,” Sister Ahn said, as if unaware of the movement, “this is what life is for. It is written in the Book of Shajug how holy P'ter, having ruled over the Thargians for tenscore years and seven—"

  "Why are you traveling to Suss?"

  The nun sighed. “The play was written long ago. By your definition it is a tragedy, for the gods are involved. There is a part in this play for one of my order. I deemed ... I was deemed the most expendable."

  "And me? You knew my name!"

  "Your part is written also."

  "Namely?"

  Sister Ahn peered up awkwardly at this impertinent young questioner. Tears were trickling down her cheeks. “So many questions! In the Blue Scriptures, the Book of Alyath, we read, Ask not lest the answer displease you; seek not lest you become lost; knock and you may open a dangerous door."

  Crazy as a drunken bat!

  "I really must be off!” Eleal said royally. “Business, you know. I do wish you would find yourself some warmer garments. Now, pray excuse me."

  She stalked away. She half expected to hear an order that she stay and listen to more, but it did not come.

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  11

  SUNDAY NEVER REALLY EXISTED FOR EDWARD EXETER. From time to time the pain in his leg would solidify out of the fog and he would open his eyes and see the mess of bandages and ropes and discover that he could not move. His head throbbed. He faded in and faded out. Often he would try to turn over and again be balked by those ropes and that leg stuck up in the air. He was vaguely aware of nurses coming around at intervals and talking to him. As soon as he grunted a few words, they would go away satisfied. Sometimes they tucked thermometers under his tongue and scolded when he went to sleep and dropped them. There was a nasty business with a bottle, too.

  Often the world was filled with silent music, sometimes music soaring like a Puccini aria, sometimes funny music, like a Gilbert and Sullivan patter song, although he heard no words.

  Once or twice he noted the drab brown walls and the stink of carbolic and ether. Then he would deduce yet again that he must be in a hospital and therefore was being cared for and could safely drift off again. At other times he thought he was back in Paris and reflected that Smedley's uncle kept jolly hard beds. Once he had a memory of pain and streaming blood; he started to cry out then. Someone came and jabbed a needle in him and the music returned.

  A voice he knew spoke his name, very far away. His eyelids were heavy as coffin lids, but he forced them open and saw Alice.

  "I'm dead, aren't I?” His tongue was too thick, his lips too stiff.

  "Not very."

  "Then why am I seeing angels?"

  She squeezed his hand. “How do you feel?"

  "Not quite as good as usual."

  "You'll be better tomorrow, they say."

  He blinked to try and make his eyes work correctly. There was an electric light up there. “What time is it?"

  "Evening. Sunday evening. You had a bang on the head. I told them there wasn't much brain there to start with."

  He tried to say, “Tell me you love me and I'll die happy.” He wasn't sure if he managed to. They woke him later to give him a back rub, but Alice had gone.

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  12

  ELEAL HAD BEEN WANDERING AIMLESSLY AROUND THE city's dreary gray streets until eventually her feet brought her into the temple quarter. The house of Ois was easily the tallest building in town, but no less ugly than any of the others. She did not want to visit that! Old Sister Ahn might describe what was happening there as a great and holy sacrifice, but Eleal still felt that it was degradation, and she would not witness her friends’ shame.

  Then she recalled the silver in her pocket. She was the only member of the troupe who had not made an offering that day, unless half a pie to a nun counted. She decided she would go to Tion's shrine and sacrifice some money there. If the crazy old priest was still there, she could reassure him that she was obviously in no danger and the reaper had left town anyway.

  But why just the Youth? Why not visit all the shrines? She could pray to the Parent for comfort and the Maiden for justice and even to the Man for courage. She could ask them all to intercede with the Lady. She headed for the street behind the temple. The area was busy now, full of hurrying Narshian troglodytes.

  She had often come along this street, so she knew the first shrine was Visek's, although she had never entered it before. Its imposing archway, which must once have been white, was now a grubby drab color and the faded sun symbol of the mother and father of gods was barely visible. She walked in boldly, to the small and shadowy courtyard, overgrown with somber trees and roofed by black branches and gray sky. The walls were smeared with lichen. Faint scents of stale incense cloyed the air. There was no one else present.

  The statue of the Father opposite the entrance was crude, spattered with bird droppings and shedding flakes of white paint like dandruff. It depicted a stern, bearded man wearing a crown and long robes. The contorted Narshian script on the plinth was obscured by moss, but the god had only one eye and one ear, in his aspect as Chiol, god of destiny. She hoped he had his one ear turned her way now, to hear her prayer. Chiol had a very splendid temple in Joal, which she had seen but never visited—she never had problems with destiny.

  She knelt before the figure. To pray to the All-Knowing, one should wear something white. Well, the inside of her fleece coat was sort-of white, so that was all right. She pulled out two of the silver coins Dragontrader had given her, unable to see what they were in the gloom.

  There were other offerings lying on the plinth: a few coppers, two jars and a bottle, a cold leg of goose with flies crawling on it, a hank of wool, and a string of beads, which was probably somebody's most precious thing. She resisted a temptation to open the jars and sniff at the contents. She laid the silver beside them.

  She bowed her head and repeated a prayer from the White Scriptures: “Father of Gods, Mother of Mortals, Giver of Truth, grant us comfort in our sorrows and forgive us our sins."

  That was very appropriate, she thought, and in a moment she did feel better. Surprisingly better—but then she had never offered silver to a god before. She murmured the first thanksgiving she thought of; it was from the Blue Scriptures, but that would not matter.

  Eleal limped out cheerfully, into a swirl of snow.

  White flakes danced around in the streets, sticking only to people, it seemed, and not settling on the ground. They made it hard to see where she was going. Tugging her collar tighter, she set
off between the hurrying pedestrians, the carts, and wagons. The high wall continued, marked by unwelcoming doors. Trees looked over the top in places, suggesting private gardens. The next shrine was Karzon's, in his aspect of Krak'th, god of earthquakes. She had rarely prayed to the Man before, and certainly never to Krak'th. She had no more problems with earthquakes than she did with destiny.

  The afternoon was drawing to a close already; she was cold and weary. Her hip hurt. Blinking into the snowflakes, she saw a familiar figure stalking toward her. Anyone could recognize Dolm Actor at a distance by his height and rolling gait. Normally, of course, she would run to him. Dolm was a gangly, cheerful man, almost as tall as Trong Impresario, but much younger. He had a wonderful voice, although he moved poorly and his gestures were graceless. She could just remember when Dolm had been young enough to play the Youth. Now he usually portrayed the Man when the troupe performed tragedies, lovers or warriors in the comedies.

  But Dolm would not be cheerful today, with Yama sacrificing in the temple. Dolm was very probably doing what she was doing—making a pilgrimage to all the shrines of Narsh—and in that case he was heading for Karzon's, as she was. She did not want Dolm to listen to her prayers.

  She did not think she was wicked enough to listen to his. It wouldn't be easy to arrange, anyway. She stepped behind a parked wagon to let him go in unmolested. As he came closer, she decided that there was something strange about the way he was behaving. He passed by without seeing her, and without entering the shrine.

  Curiosity is a sin, Ambria Impresario scolded.

  Curiosity is a great talent, T'lin Dragontrader said.

  So Eleal watched, and in a few minutes she decided that her hunch was correct, and Dolm Actor was being furtive. She stepped out from behind the cart and followed, keeping close to a rumbling wagon of bales. He walked faster than the yaks plodded, but every few minutes he would pause and look behind him.

  He was tall and she was small. She could be a lot more inconspicuous than he could, and on a gloomy afternoon in a rio of snowflakes, she could be downright invisible.

  Perhaps he was going to Chiol's shrine, to begin there, as she had. Why should he make such a mystery of it, though?

  Without warning, Dolm vanished. Eleal caught a brief glimpse of a closing door. She stamped her heavy boot with annoyance.

  Curiosity howled in frustration. Like her, Dolm visited Narsh only once a year, and briefly, yet he had obviously known exactly which door he wanted. As it was just a spread of timber in a featureless stone wall, with no name or marker on it, he must have been here before. The wall was too high to climb even had she dared try such a thing in a busy street. Shrubbery protruded over the top, so there was a garden beyond. It might be a back gate to the temple, or else another courtyard, like Chiol's shrine.

  Another courtyard, next to Chiol's shrine!

  Without pausing to think, Eleal sprinted back to the archway and through, into the gloomy shrine. There was still nobody there. Without a word of apology to the god, she hurried to the sidewall. Cursing her cumbersome boot and her heavy Narshian fleece, she scrambled up a tree until she could peek over.

  Below her lay a larger courtyard, enclosed by high mossy walls, overgrown with old trees and gangly shrubs. It had an air of neglect and decay about it, as if no one ever came. It was another shrine, although never in her life had she heard of a sacred place being kept secret. Despite the snow swirling in the air, she had a clear view across the wet cobbles to the god.

  The figure was so lifelike that it stopped her breath. She had never seen finer, even in the grandest temples. It was larger than mortal, wrought in bronze, a male in a loincloth. The Youth was usually shown nude and Karzon fully clad, but this must be the Man, for he was a heavyset mature adult, not a slim-waisted adolescent. Besides, he bore a skull in one hand and a hammer in the other. He was also weathered to a muddy green, and green was the color of Karzon, the Man. He stood in a sort of thicket of implements that stuck up around his feet: a spade, a word, a scythe, a shepherd's crook, and other attributes of his many aspects. All of those were also of green bronze, except the word, which was red with rust—she hoped it was rust.

  That was no minor local god. That must be Karzon himself, god of creation and destruction. She had never been to his temple because it was in Tharg. So the Man had two shrines in Narsh—a public one to Krak'th and a private one of his own. Curious!

  Then she saw Dolm, sitting on the ground below her, bare to the waist. While she watched, he hauled off his leggings and stood up, wearing nothing except a black cloth tied around his coins. He was visibly shivering as the snow settled on his shoulders and the prominent bald spot on top of his head, but the fact that he had stripped off everything except that one monocolored garment meant that he was about to perform some special ritual sacred to one god. Black meant Zath Karzon, the Man's avatar as god of death.

  She wanted to vanish, but mad curiosity froze her to her perch on the branch. Even if Dolm looked up, he would not notice her face peering at him through the foliage. Yet outsiders prying into secret rites were asking for very serious trouble. Trouble from Zath?

  And Dolm?

  Dolm Actor, her friend?

  Piol Poet would never eat fish. Ambria belonged to a women's cult that she would never discuss, and recently had begun taking Uthiam along to meetings, whenever they could get away. Eleal had overheard them talking about it when they did not know she was listening, but she had not learned much more than that it had something to do with Ember'l, who was goddess of drama, avatar of Tion in Jurg. Probably many people had sworn special allegiance to some particular god or goddess. A twelve-year-old was not likely to be told about such private matters.

  Oh, Dolm!

  Soldiers always wore something black. Many other men did—but an actor? An actor worshiping Zath?

  She stared in disbelief as that lanky, bony man strode forward to stand before the god and raise his lean arms in supplication. He was almost as tall as the idol. She did not recognize the word he began to chant—they sounded Thargian, but not a dialec she recognized.

  It was a complex ritual. Dolm turned around several times—he had an extremely hairy chest, Dolm. He dropped to his knee and touched his face to the ground. He sprang up, legs astride and recited something else. He touched his toes, crouched, rose bowed, in careful sequence, chanting softly all the time in his sonorous actor's voice. He dropped on hands and knees and barked three times like a dog. And finally he wriggled forward on his belly to the base of the plinth. Eleal shivered at the thought of all that cold, wet stone, and snow.

  Dolm Actor rose to his knees, and grasped the sword with his left hand. It came free of the plinth easily. He recited another formula and kissed the rusty blade. He stretched out his right arm, laying his hand at the god's feet, palm upward. For the first time his voice faltered and he seemed to hesitate. Then he slashed down at his wrist as if trying to sever it completely.

  He cried out, dropping the sword. A torrent of blood spilled from the cut arteries.

  Eleal's hair rose straight up, or at least felt as if it did.

  Steadying the wounded arm with his left hand, Dolm lifted it so the red fountain of his own life's blood gushed down upon his own balding head. The injured hand hung limp and useless.

  That last obscenity snapped the spell that had rooted Eleal. This was no normal worship! This was no little clique of gossipy women muttering secret prayers. This was some arcane invocation. Hiding from Dolm Actor was child's play, but she could not hide from the god of death if he came in person.

  Teeth chattering, she slithered wildly downward through the branches until she collapsed on the leaf-strewn ground. Then she sprang to her feet and fled.

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  ACT II

  Mystery

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  13

  THE NEW HOTEL IN GREYFRIARS WAS A GLOOMY VICTOrian structure of red brick, a short walk from the High Street,
blanked by Robinson & Son Drapers on one side and Wimpole Bros. Chemists on the other. Its prices were reasonable—four shillings and sixpence for bed and breakfast. It was convenient to the station and much favored by commercial travelers. On Bank Holiday weekend, it was as vivacious as the inside of a sealed Comb. No games of auction bridge would liven its Residents’ Lounge this evening. Very few pairs of shoes would be set outside its bedroom doors tonight for Boots to polish before morning.

  The entrance hall was dark, but still stuffy from the day's heat. Permanent odors of yeast and stale cigar smoke lingered amid the aspidistras drooping in the windows and the horsehair sofas banking the dead hearth. Walls and woodwork were a uniform, sad brown; the elaborate plaster ceiling was stained to the color of old tea. As the revolving door hissed to a stop behind her, Alice Prescott mentally prepared for a few hours of dread boredom before she could sleep. Her room would still be hot, and it overlooked the shunting yard. The bed was surely the lumpiest south of the Humber.

  The West Country could never be as unbearable as London, but she longed to reach her room and shed a few clothes. Africa had been hotter, but in the Colonies a woman was not required to wrap herself in quite such absurd creations of Oriental silk underskirts and ankle-length cotton voile gowns and broad silk sashes. Or, if she were, then she would not be expected to spend an afternoon trudging around a county town.

  Her plumed hat was going to come off before anything else did.

  Most Sunday evenings in Greyfriars would offer nothing whatsoever in the way of entertainment except Divine Service at St. Michael and All Angels'. Today, however, there had been an impromptu meeting in the park, which had provided sorry unexpected excitement. Mr. Asquith, God Bless Him, had been three-cheered several times, the Kaiser had been loudly booed. The mayor had spoken a few words about the Empire on Which the Sun Never Sets and England Expecting Every Man to Do His Duty. A hastily gathered band from the Boys’ Brigade had played some martial music, and everyone had sung “Land and Hope and Glory” and “God Save the King.” Then the crow had quietly dissolved, slinking away as if ashamed of having displayed emotion in public.