by Tanith Lee
Klyton walked up the Hall. He gestured graciously to me, and to Udrombis, who sat a few feet apart from my own chair, but, no lower.
“Excuse my tardiness, ladies. There was work to do. But now I’m here. The sight of you makes me glad to have hastened.”
A courtly speech, playful, and light.
The laughter in the room was also light, and might be false.
It came to me that perhaps he had not officiated at the Offering because it was deemed ill-augered. To reverence a sinking Sun—as now things stood. My heart beat its slow hard iron, but I smiled and let him take my hand. He leaned down, and muttered in my ear, “Thank the God, not long now till bedtime.” He was warm. His hair had a scent of thyme and myrrh. His lips brushed my cheek, and at the touch my skin crinkled like the sea, tingling at proximity, to be stretched beneath him, and in my loins the twang of desire, out of rhythm with the heavy heart that beat too slowly now to match the Drum on the mountain.
As he walked to the King’s place and sat down, I gazed at him for a scatter of moments, never too long, for even in a wedded Queen, it must be thought forward. He had put on dark red, with a border of gold deer running. He had not overdressed, had not needed to. He was the Great Sun. His presence, his gracious, graceful lightness, were enough. Nothing had disturbed Klyton. Nothing had caused him an instant of doubt.
I had come to know him, not thinking that I did. This was a show, careful and clever, not a chink left open.
As I sampled the meats and conserves, the egg dish with its pretty decorations, the fruits and sugars, complimenting the cooks, drinking from the goblet sparingly—all Udrombis and dead Stabia had taught me—I, too, kept an uncreased surface. I, too, had not experienced one second of unease.
The harper sang. He was a man from Ipyra, with a special song for me about a golden flower that with its fragrance unified two lands. I barely heard it, but he was much applauded, and Klyton gave him a ring set with an emerald. So I sent to him, all across the floor, a yellow flower from the table and my armlet with the turquoise. He bowed very low. But I had seen, even missing most of the words of his song, how his eyes now and then darted. He had heard things, even if we were so inured to them.
Soon I could get up and leave, and presently Udrombis would also. Klyton would stay to drink a while. But Oceaxis knew he cared for me. They knew a King’s work had detained him all today. How natural then, that he should seek early the couch of his young wife.
For myself I did not know if he would then come to me. What he had implied might have no relevance to what he must do.
I thought that, even if he did visit my rooms, he would go first to her, to Udrombis who had made herself his mother.
In my apartments, I had myself prepared for bed, as on every night. Then I sent my women away. Some went to their own beds, some slipped off to others. I had never seen a need to reprimand them.
Hylis was last to depart the bedchamber.
She came and combed out my hair, in exact strokes that had no involvement in them, no interest, and I thought again of Kelbalba and of Ermias.
Hylis was faithful, reliable and without fault. She cared nothing for me. If I had struck her she would have dismissed my act as that of a royal woman in a rage. If I had kissed her, or clasped her hand in terror, she would have soothed me, and going out, forgotten me.
She said, “The King will come tonight, madam.”
For the first, it seemed, I saw how often my servants would give me these personal fragments. When he would be with me, if he would, even, sometimes, the hour he must leave—or that he was already gone.
“Thank you, Hylis. That’s enough.”
She put down the comb, anointed with saffron and myrrh—she had chosen perfumes to match with his. Her eyes were lambent and void as glass. She said, “Shall I see to your shoes, madam?” My shoes—the silver feet. Tactful, impervious Hylis.
“Don’t trouble. Good night, Hylis.”
She bowed and left me.
The lamps burn low. In the chamber with the pool, Gemli stands and palely gleams on the air, again in the water. The turtle is swimming, by night. I see her pass like a dark sigh through Gemli’s reflection. And in their cage the pink doves are nestled, two by two, to sleep. The white dog pads to my side. He stares at what I seem to be staring at, sees nothing in it, goes away back into the outer room.
Just so I gaze on this world of my youth, my Queenship, I Calistra, wife of the Sun, and as the dog did, I see nothing that makes, suddenly, any sense to me. And like the dog I turn away.
The door opens, the outer door. I glimpse the well-lit corridor, and hear men laughing, and then the clank of the sentry’s salute.
My husband enters the room and the door closes. The dog trots up to him. He bends and affectionately, gently, pulls its ears, just as he whispered his promise in mine.
Annotation by the Hand of Dobzah
Sirai stopped at this point, and clapped her hands. I looked at her, I suppose, aghast. She said I was like a child when the storyteller falters. But she did not smile. “Put down now,” she said commandingly, “what the Muhzum is. Yes, here. You see, Dobzah, I don’t want to do it. Say what the Muhzum is.”
And so I dislocate the narrative to describe the Muhzum, which is perhaps anyway familiar to you.
In our land of Pesh, the Muhzum was at first a keepsake of the dead. It was intended to retain a tangible momento. And so into a box would be placed a coil of hair from the corpse, perhaps a fingernail, a small bone even, or a tooth, or perhaps a drop of blood kept in a vial. Even now one may come on an old widow lady who has kept such a box by her, or see the lovely boxes kept in great houses, that are many hundreds of years old, boxes of silver and enamel, or poor little boxes made of wood or parchment, or out of two hollow stones. These keepsakes are mostly crumbled now, when one examines them. One wonders, how many tears are dried up in their dust.
In recent times, although that is before I was born, the Muhzum became also a battle object, a thing of power. By obtaining such trophies from one who had been slain, a warrior could take dominion over the spirit of the deceased, which then could not afflict him after. They have been used too in magic, to summon up the dead. We may know many such stories.
The first Battle-Prince Shajhima took death tokens from the brother-husband of Sirai. But later he gave to her the Muhzum box, of hyacinth enamel that is like the sky.
Sirai says now to write the holy words, Sharash f’lum. She tells me I must also say what is their meaning. I finally protest that in Pesh, we know. But Sirai says, “Pesh is not all the world.” And though, now, surely Pesh is all the world, I will explain. Sharash f’lum is spoken at the end of a prayer and means, So it is through God’s will.
5
My husband is made of gold.
He has flung away the mantle, the tunic, the jewelry, leggings, boots, leather and linen. His groin lifts a fire to me, one shaft of fire from the golden fleece.
Klyton puts me gently on the floor, and keeps one arm under my head. He penetrates me almost at once. But I burst to a blossom of lust—his scent, his skin—his hair rains gold on gold and I am molten and I die. His own cry is low, muffled in my breast.
Soon he releases me, then picks me up and carries me to my bed, pushing aside curtains like thought. Once we are there, he begins again.
A frenzy. Lovers. Stars explode and perish in our bodies or the night. It seems an act of Death, not life. Is Death so wonderful? Or more wonderful—
“What can I tell you that you’d understand, Calistra? It doesn’t make much sense. Yes, a crowd came and they shouted. Some dolt from Airis had brought him, this wreckage of a man. A soldier, a captain—he should have known not to. And that bitch Elakti was there, prancing about with a trail of women, filthy and half out of their minds with some drug. The soldiers dealt with that. Then the temple sent to me. They wanted him, this—thing. Presumably human once. Amdysos,” Klyton said. He gave a short harsh laugh. “He would have been the fir
st to say, Put it out of its misery. It shouldn’t go on living in that state. How do I know this? Well, we had a conversation, once.” He had left the bed. The night was hot, thick with the nocturnal taste of flowers, the peppery scent of sex and skin. He paced back and forth, naked. His strides were swift, and the dog, which had jumped up to keep in step with him, drew away and sat down. “But it isn’t Amdysos. God’s Heart, I’d know. He’s Below. I’ve had—true dreams of him there. I’ll keep him in my brain and thoughts, I’ll do him honor. But that—that—God knows what it is. Some crippled felon set on in a mountain village down in Ipyra. Wandered to Airis. Taken up. Mistaken. A fluke of fortune. Yes, I glimpsed it—him. It wasn’t for me to go and inspect—Anyway, the priests want to and so they can decide. This is beneath the King, or beyond him. And Torca is there—do you remember Torca—of course you do. He was in the Sun Temple on religious business. He has a level head. And he knew Amdysos at least as well as he knew me.”
I said nothing. I had not spoken, nor asked him anything. He had simply begun to tell me.
“The Queen,” he said. Then he said, “I mean, Udrombis. I had to go to her of course, and explain what went on. I’ve never known her fumble. She was magnificent, what I’d expected. That’s good. It’s enough to make her ill, such a tale, this madness. She mourned him and knows him to be dead. I wish Stabia were alive,” the first I had ever heard him say this. “Udrombis loved my mother, and confided in her, I think. It would have been a consolation. She’s like a goddess in metal, but under it—this must make her sick.”
He stopped. He stood in silence, not moving. The dog wagged his plume of tail, then left off. Some minutes passed. I said, softly, “Won’t you lie down, and sleep?”
Why did I say this? Oh, my training, I imagine, as a virtuous and careful wife. As a woman. Adjunct and servitor, the rose upon the way which must have no thorn.
He only said, “Sleep? Yes. Later. Could it be, Calistra, that it is him—are such horrors conceivable? I had my signs, Calistra, portents of pure gold. The God showed me it would all be mine, but not how—would I have tramped up over his back to get it? He would have been the King and I his right hand. That was enough—I thought it was enough. But how could I serve—that—how could the Sun Lands hold together in the grip of that?”
I said then, “Did they ask it of you? To give it over to—Amdysos?”
“He is not Amdysos. If he were, do you think I could resist? But no, the priests took him out of harm’s way, to examine him. By the light of the God. By use of their tricks and sorceries, too, I suspect. They can only reveal he isn’t Amdysos. I’m content with that. Let them do it. Then the crowd can see. Would you believe—enough people for a festival—most of the town it looked to be. Were they so ill-content with me? Yes, those very ones that threw you flowers and brought you lambs. Howling about the curse of the God. As if I—I gave him to the eagle.”
He turned. The lamp fluttered and I saw, lit on the buckle of his belt which he had tossed aside, the eagle of red gold that had been his blazon since he was a boy.
He said, “I dreamed I was an eagle, Calistra. Before the Race. But he forgave me all that. Could I speak openly at his shrine, if he wanted vengeance?”
Klyton sat down on the bed. “My brothers, the princes, how they argued. Only Adargon kept steady. A few others. They can all see some stake in it. It would tear Akhemony apart. Lektos gathered five hundred men and went over to the temple. To guard the doors. But what does that mean? I let him go. To make a rumpus could do worse. Calistra, it wasn’t Amdysos.”
“No,” I said.
He lay down beside me. He said, his eyes hooded and untransparent, “How can I sleep?” And, slept, gone as the dead sometimes are, before the lids of his eyes could close.
I lay next to him, and the dog stole up light as a breeze, and rested along my side. I stroked the dog, but in my mind saw only the temple at Oceaxis, the under-room where I had been taken before my coronation, to swear my oaths to darkness, to the shades, to Thon, for a Queen remains a Queen even in death. They were strange chambers, those, not hideous as Thon’s Temple had been at Koi, yet filled for me with ominous mysteries, and a weird shiver like black wings.
So intrusive was my picture, on that night, of this spot and what went on there, that, even from the landfall of my old age, I can fashion or detect no other.
Ancient stone, pillars ringed by gold and brass, a floor painted with the maps of the Lands Below, into which Tithaxeli flowed, the River of Death. By a leaping brazier like a fever, I saw the priesthood, black clad there, interview the smashed thing from Airis. Even Torca I saw, in my imagined vision intransigently clothed as when first I saw him, in my youth, in leathers, his wooden leg clacking, coal-black, the black beard grown again down to his waist.
But the deduction of the priests I did not conjure. So abruptly it had come, this storm. It was not real, and could alter nothing.
When I woke at Sunrise, Klyton had left me already.
6
The room was not of great size. A prince among the priests sat to one side, and nearby, with his slate, a scribe. The light was artificial, from tall open lamps, fitful therefore, yet not really misleading. Less so than daylight, for one took more care. The Ipyran had come in, Elakti, in her hill dress. She had danced about, and then one of the brown young women had led her aside, and the guard got both of them out of the room.
Then Torca was able to concentrate upon the man.
Torca had previously asked various things, to none of which had the man—and a King, too, was a man—replied.
His stink was horrible, reminding one of rottenness, even after all the salves and bathing. Torca had breathed it in, grown used to it. It was no worse, probably, than a tent of the wounded in war. These, too, were injuries which would kill. A wonder they had not already done so. In itself, you could say there was something in that.
The man’s one eye had not fixed on, nor followed Torca. It seemed to gaze inward, perhaps did so, to some unnatural sight.
Torca touched the man lightly, on his right arm. Torca was prepared for any reaction, even to having to defend himself.
But only the eye revolved now, and looked full at him. In the eye was a core of lucency. Before it went out.
“Tell me,” said Torca, “about the eagle.”
To his surprise, the man spoke at once.
“Eagle is God.”
“Why is that?”
The man sat back in his chair. Everything was changed. His face was grave and thoughtful. Torca made himself keep very still. The priests had administered herbal tinctures and these too might mislead.
“Up to God we go,” said the man, “on wings. On anvils of fire God beats at us. To smooth us. Then plunged in flesh and blood we are, to cool the fire.”
Torca held his breath. Not from the stink.
The man said, consideringly, “Fell before done.”
After a long wait, Torca asked, “You fell, before the God was done with you?”
But the being had lain back in its chair. It stared upward at the ceiling of the chamber.
Torca felt time washing over him in waves, minutes, hours, days, years. He coaxed now, almost a mother’s tone. He took hold. Once he lifted the inert element of the being into his arms, held it eye to eye.
But its eye was asleep now, perhaps. And it would not speak again.
After many hours—days, years—still would not speak. It had said all it had to say.
These words Torca read again and again from the slate, afraid the scribe had scribbled them wrongly, or that he, Torca, was forgetting.
The higher priest, standing up, spoke to Torca.
“Cease now. It’s enough. We know. We have the other evidence.”
Torca shook himself. Yes. They knew. There was other evidence. But almost, this did not matter. Lord or offal—truth had been given voice. It was truth that counted.
Yet later, waking from brief slumber Torca put all that away. God had sent
them to live on earth. And there was enough in hand.
The tall room was as Torca recalled, not from his own experience but the descriptions of others. The Widow-Consort had not given over her apartments to a now High Queen. Udrombis kept her state here, as she had since her thirtieth year, when Akreon first had these rooms furnished and painted for her. Perhaps, although they said he had stayed faithful to her for longer, he had lost some of his heat. In the years before, she had slept always in his bed, having only a tiring room apart.
Torca composed himself. He had put on ordinary dress, not clad himself as a priest. She had summoned him. He wanted to display he did not, with her, have to represent the temple, that he had chosen to. Nor for that matter, was he solely a priest.
She in turn, when she entered—had she delayed for a purpose? Most of what she did had one—was dressed very simply. She wore only one jewel, the circlet of peal that supported the mass of black and white hair. She seemed to acknowledge he would not be impressed by glamours, and that this she knew.
They sat.
She offered him wine. A young woman poured it then left the jug and went away.
Udrombis, even at sixty, reminded him of the basalt lions crouching at her desk. The reality of the world was very real.
“You were thoughtful,” she said, “to attend me so swiftly.”
“Naturally, madam, I’ve come as soon as I was able. I would have sent word to you, in any case. As I have to the Sun, Klyton.”
“The Great Sun,” she said.
Torca put down his cup.
“Yes, madam, the Great Sun, Klyton. But there is this problem.”
“The creature taken to the temple. What are the priests doing there, to be so long over it?”
Torca said, “They’re working to be sure. It would be unforgivable to fail this trial the gods have set us all.”
Her face was very still. In her eyes he saw the tips of swords, and black drops of fatal medicine.