Giants forge a lovely ring
Humans lift a voice to sing
Lizards dart from thing to thing
—children’s rhyme
The Gek raced under and over and around, hissing and squawking.
“My totem,” Reyhim said. “That creature has it.”
Neighbors filed out of their homes at the commotion, people paused on the boardwalks, even boats out on nearby canals rowed closer. The sudden crowd gave the Gek an endless source of legs to weave through and heads to leap over. The neighbors looked like they were doing some insane new dance, up, down, twisting, tripping, clutching their hair.
The guards pursued, but, for all their strength, they were clumsy against the agile Gek. She darted out from under their blows, untouched. She zigged before they could zag, her slender fingers wrapped around the only thing that could get all that tea back in one spot again. What few pots and urns had survived the soldiers’ wrecking were overturned and emptied. Neighbors rushed to right this and catch that before the calamity got any worse. At last the Gek fled under our house, where she disappeared into the dark save for the glow of her eyes. I knelt between two stilts, the guards crouching behind me, a complete knot of frustration.
A soft, little-girl voice called out from underneath the house. “Bugsy, it’s me!”
The voice belonged to my youngest sister, who must’ve snuck out when she should’ve been in bed, asleep.
“Rishi,” I said, silently cursing the stupidity of little sisters. “Get out of there.”
“It’s okay. She likes it in here. Bugsy, are you okay?”
I heard hissing. “Rishi, we need that gold totem back.”
“Okay,” Rishi said. “Bugsy, give the gold toy back.”
So much for Rishi translating. At least I could see the Gek’s eyes. Maybe it could see me. I motioned.
Shaman-spawn. Were we hurting you?
I couldn’t see a thing. “Someone get me a light.”
A torch was passed to one of the guards. Reyhim held another over me. “So, this is the famous Gek translator? I might’ve known it was the same young woman.”
“I’ll do my best, Azwan.”
“Or we burn the house down to get it.” He was no longer smiling, no longer grandfatherly.
I turned to the Gek and my sister and motioned again with a renewed sense of urgency. Can you see me?
The Gek croaked and crept forward. She nodded and motioned back, the talisman in her hand. This metal is natural, but what it does is not.
It belongs to this drabskin, I replied. I was careful to translate aloud this time, with everyone peering over my shoulder.
Such unnatural things destroyed my nest, she signed.
The bad box destroyed it, I replied.
The Gek shook her head. The star does not make bad. It unmakes. It promised.
Reyhim nudged me. “Tell it you’ll go and get the star.”
“Will I?”
“Say it.”
I translated for her.
She cocked her head. Right now?
I glanced up at Reyhim. He shook his head and held a finger to his lips. He was lying, in other words. Traps and lies—it was what the Temple did best. I seethed but translated anyway. I told myself it wasn’t my own lies but the Temple’s, and I had to translate accurately. Mami was standing close by and would know if I didn’t pass along every last untrue word. We both wanted Reyhim to have his totem back for our own reasons, I suppose.
I made the last gesture when I heard a squawk and some tussling. Rishi shouted, “I got it! I got it!”
“Get out of there—she bites,” I said.
Rishi tumbled one way, and the Gek scrambled the other. A guard reached for Rishi and pulled her up by her curls. Reyhim plucked his totem from her hand and patted her on her head. She ran to Babba and buried her face in his legs. The Gek darted out the other side of the house and into a patch of tall grass, where I lost sight of her. Several neighbors applauded as Reyhim held up his prize.
“We averted disaster,” Reyhim said. “That’s all that matters. Well, now, everyone, I do believe you’ve gotten your entertainment for the night. The Temple bids you all a deep, dreamless goodmoons.”
People bowed and filed back indoors. Amaniel appeared in her nightdress to lead Rishi back to bed, but not before gazing wide-eyed at Reyhim, the second Azwan to come to our house in only a few days. Reyhim didn’t even see Amaniel, which made me feel guilty even if it wasn’t my fault. Poor Amaniel, so pious, left out of the biggest event to ever happen to us. Well, she could have all this history being made and then some. I’d prefer to be indoors in my nightdress if she wanted to change places, so long as she used her fancy language to persuade the Azwans to go—and take all their fear and suspicion with them.
As that wasn’t likely to happen, I followed Reyhim and Mami back to our hearth, where petals lay scattered in the dust. With a wave of Reyhim’s totem, everything on the floor became airborne. He asked for a small urn, which I held out for him. Gradually, bits of sand and dust and old crumbs settled back down, leaving only the precious petals and a few stamens that spiraled gently and precisely into the urn.
The relief was palpable. A happy sigh escaped my lips, and even Babba nodded as if agreeing. Mami capped the urn and handed it to Reyhim, who turned it over to the guard. “I believe you’ll have no compunction now about your comrades taking this.”
“Your word is Nihil’s,” the guard said. They did their chest-thump salute and strode off, leaving Reyhim with us, which I hadn’t expected. Traps and lies. I waited to see which it would be.
Babba’s voice also held a note of suspicion. “Surely it’s late, Azwan.”
“I ask but one other favor from you, pious Rimonil, and then it’s you who may request favors from the Temple.”
“That’s a gift we couldn’t possibly redeem,” Babba said.
“You will. We’ll owe you much.”
“It’s our pleasure to serve.”
“Not this time. Your daughter must come with me.”
I squeezed my eyes shut. Oh, dear Nihil. Dear, capricious, unknowable god of whims and wishes and all things dubious and strange. Reyhim was going to take me into the Ward, straight to the tin box. What other explanation could there be? I almost hugged the man. I’d get to talk to the star-demon, if it hadn’t been destroyed yet. I’d ask it what it wanted and why it was here. I’d promise to help, though maybe not in front of the Azwans. Even if that’s not exactly where Reyhim was taking me, I could figure it out. I’d be inside the Ward compound. It had to be easy after that.
What an amazing night it was turning out to be. I had every hope in the world suddenly bloom in my head. The star-demon, Valeo’s cure, everything. It was all happening.
Reyhim even seemed more kindly in the radiant moonlight. I warmed to the feel of his hand on my left arm and closed my eyes to savor the moment. “Come, child.”
I opened my eyes to see Mami and Babba trade worried looks. Babba placed a hand on my right shoulder, as if to stop me from going. “She’ll be back by morning?”
“No.”
“Azwan?”
“We don’t ask such a sacrifice lightly. Her body will be returned to you for burning.”
Mami gasped. Wait. Sacrifice? On an altar, that type of sacrifice? But Nihil wasn’t here. A sacrifice couldn’t happen without Nihil present to consume my soul. The Temple had said so. The Temple. Traps and lies. I snapped my head away from Reyhim with a fraction of a moment to spare before I puked suddenly and miserably onto the patio tiles. There wasn’t much in my stomach, fortunately, and a quick check told me I hadn’t soiled my dress. Babba’s sandals had gotten the worst of it, though. Poor Babba. He squeezed my shoulder by way of comfort.
I didn’t dare look up. I shut my eyes again and tried to think of something to be optimistic about, a way out or an excuse or something else I could try or say.
Nothing came to mind. A sour, acrid taste lingered on my tongue.
Babba’s grip hardened on my shoulder. “Why a sacrifice? Azwan, have we not . . .”
“Don’t ask, Rimonil. It’s through no shame of yours or sin. I could’ve left without the tea, but not without her. Our reasons remain our own.”
“This has to do with the demon?”
Reyhim’s voice lowered to a growl. “Our reasons. Remain. Our own.”
Something was wrong, then. They hadn’t defeated the tin box creature; that much I could’ve guessed anyway, or Reyhim wouldn’t be here. But something had gone wrong, I could tell by the desperation and anger in his voice, the rigid way he had begun to hold me, the urgency with which he wanted to be gone. All pretense of family warmth was gone.
Mami wedged herself between us, sheer hate rising from her twisted features. “You’re not doing this to me, Azwan. You can’t take everything from me again.”
The expression on Reyhim’s face went dark, as if he’d retreated into himself. “The Temple understands your anguish.”
“Do you?” Mami peered into Reyhim’s hood, but there was nothing there to read but shadows.
“It’ll be much worse for you if you resist,” he said.
“At least let us be there,” Babba said. “The parents are always there, aren’t they?”
The hood shook from side to side. “Not this time.”
“Is there nothing . . .”
“Nothing.”
Babba released my shoulder as he choked out a reply. “Then I lend her to you in all pious trust.”
I cried out as the Azwan pulled me away. Mami and I caught hands, but Reyhim’s pull was stronger than our grasp. I slid away from her as she began wailing and shrieking my name. I grabbed at the flimsy hope I was headed toward the tin box and whatever was in it was as benevolent as the Gek girl promised and that it might be waiting for me, and all would be well and the Temple would go.
It was an impossible hope, maybe beyond impossible, one it didn’t do any good to harbor, but it was all I had.
Reyhim’s grip was firm. Even for an old man, he was too strong to resist. I glanced back to see Mami try to claw and fight her way out of Babba’s arms, reaching for me, straining, calling my name.
My name. It echoed along the street, shrill and piercing, and out across the water, on up into the night sky.
Therefore you must assume that your life unfolds as I planned it. Do not curse me if your life does not take the path you desire. Instead look to yourself and the direction you chose.
—from Oblations 9, The Book of Unease
We paused before Ward Sapphire’s wide, carved doors. Reyhim placed his arm around me as if I were a beloved niece instead of a sacrifice. I bristled at his touch. We’d slowed our pace as we neared the Ward gates, and the guards had let us past with crisp chest-thumps. The long yard had been empty except for the rooftop sentinels, but even they kept their distance from the double doors of the sanctuary. I’d been right about our destination, but it was small consolation.
I removed my sandals inside the vestibule. On the Sabbath, it’d be stuffed with shoes. Reyhim placed his on the men’s rack beside mud-soaked boots I recognized as S’ami’s. Mine were the only pair on the women’s rack. My bare feet landed on the cold tile floor. I realized I was trembling.
Reyhim pulled me close again. I couldn’t meet his gaze and stared instead at his gnarled toes. “Don’t cry, whatever you do,” he said. “God is within. He scries from his home in the Abandoned City on the other side of the world. You’ll be in his presence, so keep that in mind.”
I shook harder. As a child, I was taught that Nihil could scry on anyone, at any time, and to always behave as if he had me in view. To remove all doubt of it only made me more uncertain. I knew then what I hated most about the Temple of Doubt—it stood sturdily on human infirmity, it pulled the legs of reason out from under you and offered you the wobbly crutches of faith instead.
Even the name of his home—Abandoned City—was supposed to remind us that he could thrive amid desolation. And, it implied, we could not. He did not give up as easily as his followers.
Had I given up on faith? I reminded myself of what I’d said in the swamp a few days ago with Mami—I believed in a god I could see and hear, or whom others had seen and heard. I believed even as I chose every path of rebellion that opened to me. If I didn’t believe in him, it would not bother me so much that I blasphemed. I wouldn’t care.
And I cared. A lot.
I hesitated as Reyhim pulled open the inner doors. Beyond this vestibule was my god and his enemy. Not just any enemy, but one who’d tracked him here from someplace beyond our world. Who hated Nihil that much? And what did it want with me?
My bare feet stuck to the floor. Reyhim placed his hand on my back and gently guided me into the sanctuary, shafts of moonlight sifting through the slatted shutters and oil lamps glowing from sconces along the broad walls. We passed the rows of prayer mats laid end to end around a raised wooden dais with carved railings. In its center stood the priests’ thrones, flanking a wide altar that glowed a faint orange. I recognized our high priest on one of the high-backed thrones. He was praying, fervently, his eyes closed, his body rocking back and forth with almost violent passion. The incantations were low but rapid, again and again:
From the void I come, through the abyss I fall;
My place is nowhere, and from naught comes all.
It was the prayer of last resort.
We stood by the first row of rugs, where a man lay sleeping. It was S’ami, unmistakable in his amethyst robes again, soundly snoring. Reyhim woke him with a single shake, and he bolted upright.
Reyhim motioned toward me. “The girl.”
S’ami rubbed his eyes. “None too soon. A moment or two to relieve myself, please.”
“We’ll wait.”
S’ami wandered across the sanctuary toward a side door that led to the priests’ quarters and their bathhouse. Reyhim removed his gray cloak to reveal a pale longshirt over loose trousers, like something a common clerk would wear on his day off, except it, too, looked to be made of finely wrought spider silk.
The other Azwan returned, looking more alert. By then, I’d guessed the orange glow from the altar must be where Nihil was scrying from, and that was why the priest prayed so fervently there. I stared at the glowing spot and felt waves of raw fear wash over me.
Not my fight. Not fair.
How had I been dragged into this?
It was no use trying to fix blame elsewhere. There had been plenty I’d done to make sure this day was inevitable. It wasn’t how the schoolmistress had described it, but it was coming true anyway. I had been chosen because I was the bold and curious one, and those were somehow bad traits. And here was my chance to make up for it all and presumably die to prevent a conflagration or some other horrible fate. Others would live. All my loved ones, and Valeo, and all the ones who’d never had much use for me at all, they would all live.
And I’d promised, back in the swamp, that I’d never, ever withhold my help from anyone for any reason.
Even if dying on an altar wasn’t what I’d had in mind, exactly.
Neither man looked at me as they conversed in hushed tones. Reyhim spoke first. “You’ve addressed our Master?”
“I promised we’d wait for you,” S’ami said.
“He’s likely seen her already.”
“Let’s be sure.”
I was led to a large mirror that graced the wall a few body-lengths beyond the altar. It ran from floor to ceiling, made of pure glass backed by real silver and always kept polished and fingerprint-free. Its gold-leaf frame swarmed with intricate, bejeweled insects to symbolize the plague Nihil had inflicted upon our island when we first colonized it. We were to remember his reach. Biting, gnawing, stinging vermin swarmed the length and breadth of it, refracting the dim light into thousands of glittery pinpoints.
The mirror held our faint reflections and blackness beyond. I had been wrong about Nihil’s scrying locale; of cou
rse, this mirror would be it. The Azwans sank to their knees, and I followed them. We cupped our hands beneath our chins, bowed our heads, and waited. My heart beating against my ribs drowned out any other sound to me, save for the priest’s chanting. I was caught between two ageless enemies; one was my god, and the other was some unknown creature from the stars. I had only the Gek’s word that it meant no harm. Scores had died already.
And here was Nihil, whom Scriptures taught had shaped our world, brought all its warm-blooded peoples here, given us a common language and the written word, who’d instructed us to build cities, to care for each other and heal the sick and mind the old. He’d promised us life after death, and we promised him our bodies if he required them and any sacrifice he felt he deserved.
Yet I wanted that fallen star so desperately, like nothing else I’d ever craved in my life. I wanted the truth with my own eyes and ears. I wanted to know if every beating and switching I’d ever gotten in Nihil’s name had been worth it. I wanted some sort of reward out of all this, but not money—no, it’d never been about money. I wanted some kind of elusive power that I didn’t know how to name or describe but that would make these desperate men look at me with something resembling respect. I wanted them humbled.
And I wanted proof of Nihil’s goodness on behalf of all the people who died because healing spells only did half the trick or nothing at all, and on behalf of a Tengalian girl I’d never met, whose father was standing beside me, seemingly immune to grief—his or anyone else’s.
If I was going to learn anything and live to tell it, I had to summon every scrap of protocol I’d ever managed to master and hope I didn’t mangle it. If there was any chance at all of saving my own life, I wanted to grab at it.
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