by Dave Duncan
Thorian uttered a low moan and followed me, but I noted an absence of vivacity in his demeanor.
I was pleased to see that my predictions were working out so far. The stair was directly opposite the entrance, and corridors led off to right and left. I suspected there would be other staircases in a structure so large, perhaps one for each face.
We peered cautiously up a narrow canyon, rising steeply to dangerous heights. Light flickered on our quarry, already past the next floor and still climbing. Their number had been increased by the two who had met them at the door. A second torchbearer had been added in front, and I could see that both were young priests in white cloaks. The man in armor was flanked by two priests, Purple Cloak and a Green. Corporal Fotius was at the rear, where he so richly deserved to be.
I set a foot on the first step. Thorian grabbed my shoulder with a fist like a lion's jaw.
"You are mad!" he said. "Foofang has eaten your brains. You are utterly, completely, incurably insane!"
"It saves worry," I retorted. "They won't see us, because nobody looks behind him when he's climbing stairs. We're in the dark, anyway." He had no reply to that, and we set off up the stair.
Our quarry's deliberate pace suggested that they were settling in for a long climb. I was disappointed, because in a high building with no scenic view from the top, the important people would live and work on the lower levels. It would be juniors who were banished to the peak. At least, that had been the way things were done in Ahu Sawish.
The longer the climb, the longer the strain on poor Thorian.
My guess about the design was confirmed. On every floor, a corridor stretched out to right and left, but none ever led inward. The only route toward the center was the staircase itself, and it rose steadily, never penetrating the solid granite core. In one respect the temple differed from Cuddles's palace—all the roofs and interior walls were of stone. Eternal Zanadon had built its temple to last.
The torches continued to ascend ahead of us, and we followed grimly. We did not speak, and soon had no breath to speak anyway. Once I heard a distant chanting, and a few times even snoring, but in the main the temple was as quiet and deserted as the city had been.
Most of the side corridors were dark, yielding an occasional glimpse of the stars through open spaces in the roof. When the corridors were lit, though, we advanced with caution, peering nervously along the floors before emerging from the stairwells. Usually the lights burned unattended in sconces, but once we saw a small group of priestesses. I heard Thorian stifle a cry as I emerged from the stairwell and strolled across to the next flight. Of course the gods arranged that the women all had their backs to me at that moment, but I did not linger to see what they were doing. In a moment Thorian streaked after me, breathing hard.
My heart had been beating fast enough before we even started. It excelled itself before we were halfway to the top. The stone was cold under my feet, the air heavy with incense and other perfumes. My legs wobbled. My knees burned. Even my hand ached from hauling on the hand-rail—my other hand was still throbbing from Thorian's abuse of it. It had been a long, hard day.
Higher and higher the priests conducted their two visitors. We followed like distant shadows. I was amazed at how well the fat priest in the purple cloak was doing, but of course he must be used to this. My greatest fear was they would all stop for a rest, for then they would instinctively look behind them, to see how far they had climbed. Thorian and I might be visible against the glimmer of the lights we had passed or the faint glow through the skylights.
I lost count of the stories. I kept thinking of being discovered and trying to run down again with a swarm of angry priests after me. It did not bear thinking about, but I thought about it anyway. I knew vaguely when we had come close to the top and must end our ascent or learn to fly. Either Thorian had kept accurate count or perhaps he detected a change in the light up ahead, or the echo of the voices—I never thought to ask him. However he knew, he grabbed my shoulder and hauled me back into a side corridor, which was fortunately deserted. The glimmer of light on the staffs dimmed and faded out. I do not know if the soldiers and priests paused to look back at the way they had come, but it would have been a very human thing to do. Thanks to my warrior companion, they would have seen the stairway empty.
"Come!" I gasped. We put on a staggering spurt and reeled up the last two flights, to where our prey had disappeared. We were at the top of the temple. There were no more stairs.
Nor was there a corridor. The stairwell emerged in a squarish hallway, the full width of the tier. To left and right stood imposing sets of double doors. Those to our left emitted faint voices; they were not quite closed, and a streak of light led enticingly across the floor to them.
For a moment I considered sneaking over and trying to listen. I decided that even I could not be quite so fool-hardy—that would fall into the category of tempting the gods. There was an excellent chance that those junior priests with the torches would be sent away before the serious intrigue began, and then they must emerge and find us.
I looked up at the ceiling. The stars shone through two wide spaces. I tottered over to the nearer of the two, leaned a shoulder against the wall, and cupped my hands. My legs were vibrating like the dancing girls of Sinishinstra.
Thorian muttered a faint version of his habitual grunt and then placed a huge cold foot in the stirrup I had made for him. My arms debated falling out of their sockets, but decided not to at the last minute. He stepped up on my shoulders, and then I was in grave danger of crumpling like a squeezed orange.
"Can't reach," he whispered.
I very nearly broke my lifelong rule by uttering a prayer. Instead I clenched my teeth and raised my hands to my shoulders, palms upward.
"You can't!" Thorian whispered.
"Get on with it!" I replied. I was certain those torchbearers would be dismissed any minute now, and come blundering out of the chamber.
Steadying himself against the wall, Thorian put his feet on my hands. I wobbled dangerously, and when I tried to lift him straight up nothing happened—I just did not have that sort of power available. However, I knew of another way—I dropped, bending my legs and straightening my arms at the same moment, leaving Thorian more or less where he was. Then I held my arms rigid, straightened my legs again, and so pushed him up. It's a cute little routine I learned when I was touring the Valley of Gold with Pav Im'pha and his troupe of acrobats. I had watched it done often enough, although I had never tried it myself.
My accomplice found a grip on the roof and was gone. In a moment, one end of his swath came dangling down. I had to jump to reach it, but he hauled me up beside him like an angler retrieving a minnow. Even as he did so, the doors opened and light flooded out below my feet.
Apparently priests are no more inclined to look up than other men are, and especially not when carrying torches above their heads. They did not notice me, although they very nearly set my loincloth on fire. Then Thorian's great hand closed on my arm and hauled me over the lip of the opening.
I lay on my back on the roof, sweating, gasping, and was lost in the glory of the stars.
The Tears of Sky are so many and so splendid that just to look at them makes me feel like a god. In my mind I reach upward to embrace them as a miser yearns for gold. They dance in glory in the night, cold and fiery like purest jewels, uncaring of mortals crying out to them and weeping for their beauty. They dance and swirl, cold, cold! But often instead—and this is the worst, or mayhap the best, I cannot decide—often I start to feel that I am looking down, instead of up, and when this mood comes upon me I fall and fall. I fall free, rushing eternally downward to the stars. Then the stars themselves are no longer cold but hot and burning, and the dark places between them are secret with need and mystery and fulfillment like the dark places of a woman's body, and they draw me homeward and excite me, soft, sweet! I am told then that my breath becomes labored and my limbs thrash … but I will not talk more of that now.
Below us, the two torchbearers were heading off down the staircase, side by side, followed by four priestesses of various colors. The priest in the green cloak had remained in the hallway, leaning back against the wall—keeping guard, I supposed. The doors had been closed. So the juniors had been dismissed and the serious conspiring could now start.
On the roof, Thorian and I had unlimited ability to spy. He had risen and tied his swath on again. He set off to investigate what was being plotted at this sinister hour of the night. I scrambled up and followed.
We were high upon a mountaintop, far above the city and the plain beyond. A gentle wind played over my sweaty skin and brought me the muddy odor of paddy fields. The world stretched out forever below us, shrouded in night and domed by the starry heavens. I could see over the towers and spires of all Zanadon to where the Jolipi River shone like beaten silver in the distance. Far to the east I saw wrinkles of flame on the hills—olive groves, perhaps, or villages I had passed in the last few days. There were the Vorkans, close enough to make me shiver; closer than I had expected.
Off to one side, and surprisingly far away, the great figure of Balor had his back to us. High as we were, he was higher. We were about level with his shoulder blades. Feeling a vague giddiness, I laid a hand on the wall beside me, the final step of the pyramid. It blocked my view of the House of the Goddess above me and Maiana herself, to the west.
I directed my attention to what lay below. The first room was almost completely open to the sky, a small court for use in hot weather. It was furnished with couches and a table, and also a contraption that puzzled me until I realized that it was a carrying chair. A lantern burned on a wall, casting shadows that seemed strangely distorted from our high vantage. At this time of year, such a court might well serve as sleeping quarters for someone important.
Had it been completely unroofed, then Thorian and I could have bypassed it only by walking along the top of the exterior wall, and then we might have been observed from the ground—or from a lower tier, for surely priests would prefer to sleep under the stars in summer like everyone else. We did not need to take that risk, for there was a covered walkway alongside the interior wall, and that stretch, of roof was a catwalk for us. I followed Thorian along it to reach the chamber beyond.
These doors had been closed, also, but three large openings in the roof admitted light and air. I expect they could be shrouded with awnings against rain; on that muggy summer night they were open for ventilation. The ceiling was so high that we could easily see any part of the room we chose, just by moving to a suitable location. And we were in relative darkness. So long as we stayed close to the dark granite wall of the uppermost tier, we should not be noticed by anyone glancing up.
The room was large, extending almost to the forward corner of the tier. It was sparsely furnished, and obviously a chapel, because a small altar stood against the end wall, flanked by life-size figures of Maiana and Balor. In front of those, five people were grouped around a high-backed chair.
The chair itself was a grand affair of gilded wood, draped with fine cloths and tapestries, and fitted with wheels. I had noted all that before I realized there was a sixth person present, sitting in the chair—I had overlooked her despite the crimson cloak she wore. She was very small and very ancient. She slouched in an awkward posture, as if her back were permanently twisted, a washrag wrung out and thrown in a corner. She was asleep. Shreds of white hair protruded from under a canted, ornate headdress; the hands resting on her lap were knotted claws, and her face was a shrunken mask of extreme age. I remembered Bedian Tharpit saying something about a mad hag.
On her flat chest, and grotesquely large for her, hung a jeweled pectoral in the shape of a crescent. When I saw that, I knew I was looking at the high priestess of Maiana, titular ruler of the temple and perhaps of the city, also.
On one side of her stood High Priest Nagiak, a smirking horror of crimson-draped obesity. I wondered if he had moved his soft mass to this great height by himself, or had been brought up in that carrying chair I had seen out in the court.
Alongside him stood the purple-cloaked priest who had escorted the guests. He was taller and slightly younger, but a little less odious. Like Nagiak, he was beardless and his head was shaven. He was still panting from his climb.
On the other side of the chair stood a sizable woman of middle years. Her purple cloak and headcloth proclaimed her a priestess, and she bore a temple pallor, yet her powerful frame belonged in the fields. She had fists like a man, and a rugged jaw. She was scowling at the lay visitors as a peasant might contemplate two pigs strayed into her vegetable patch.
These four must be the senior clergy of Zanadon, the high priest and priestess and their respective deputies. Before them knelt Gramian Fotius, and the older man in armor.
"… your considered opinion, War Lord," Nagiak was saying, "that the situation is hopeless?" His high-pitched voice whined deliberately overloud.
"Yes, Holiness." The soldier's baritone would have crossed a parade ground and echoed back again. "Hopeless by mortal standards."
"The army will not fight without Balor?"
"Regrettably, that is so."
They all waited for the high priestess to react. She dozed on unwitting.
"I told you!" the other priestess snapped. "It is useless."
Nagiak flashed her a sneer of dislike and leaned close to the old crone in the chair.
"Holy Mother! Your Holiness! Beloved of Maiana?" He screeched right in her ear, but he would have done better to address the statues by the altar.
"Try her name," said the woman in purple. "That works sometimes."
"Squicalm!"
Older than the gods, lips and eyelids twitched … dry leaves in the wind. Eyes opened uncertainly, staring blankly.
"The Vorkans," Nagiak screamed. "They pillage and burn and rape through the Spice Lands."
The crone chewed in silence, the myriad wrinkles of her face twisting like worms.
Nagiak turned to roll his eyes at his purple-clad subordinate, who pulled a face. He looked to the other woman, and she just shrugged. He leaned close to the high priestess again and bellowed in her ear once more. "The city is in danger. You must summon Immortal Balor!"
The toothless mouth moved silently. She pointed a gnarled twig at the kneeling soldier and muttered something, a query.
The onlookers exchanged glances, and I realized with a shiver that Nagiak was enjoying himself.
In the temple of any goddess the high priestess rules, but the goddess of chance outwits us all. Squicalm in her infirmity had let power slip, and the high priest had snatched it up. Obviously the woman in purple was outclassed, if she had allowed that to happen.
"Gillian Thwagus? Gillian Thwagus died years ago, Holy Mother. He was succeeded by Joliak Thwagus. Then he died, also. This is Rothian Arksis. He is War Lord of the Army now."
"You needn't shout! I'm not deaf."
"No, Holy Mother. The enemy is at the gate?"
The crone raised her claws and pawed at the glittering crescent on its silver chain. She was confused. She slobbered.
"You must go to the House of the Goddess!" the high priest warbled in his thin soprano. "Tomorrow you must lie on the holy bed and call on Immortal Balor. The god will come to you as he came to Maiana in the tamarisk grove when they founded the city. He will touch your limbs with his hand and age shall fall from you as it fell from Omia and Piala! He will look upon you and you will be beautiful in his sight. He will remember Maiana. You shall be Maiana for him, and he will lie with you in his strength. Great is the power of Balor!"
The old woman was asleep again.
Nagiak sighed and stepped back. "War Lord Arksis, you have done your duty. You have reported
the peril to Her Holiness."
"So what happens now?" asked the soldier, but I thought he already knew the answer. He and the high priest were acting out a play. He was a tall, spare man, like well-seasoned leather. His face was hidden from me by his helmet; the hair on his arms was grizzled.
"Tomorrow we shall parade the old baggage around …" The high priest sniggered and glanced at the other woman to see how she took his baiting. "So sorry—that was naughty of me. I mean tomorrow High Priestess Squicalm will do her duty, also. She will go to the House of the Goddess at sundown, and there wait for Immortal Balor."
"And it is certain he will come?" Arksis prompted.
"No. He may not find the offering acceptable." Nagiak giggled, with another glance at the furious priestess in purple.
"So then what happens, Holy Father?"
For devious reasons of their own, they were acting out a charade aimed at the large priestess—not at the other priest, for he was trying to hide a smirk, and certainly not to enlighten the moronic Fotius. Nor could the performance be intended for me, although the gods in their wisdom had brought me there to witness it. No, the large woman in purple was the chosen victim.
"If he does not come in glory that night, then Reverend Mother Belhjes becomes high priestess, and the following night she will await the god in her turn." He smiled greasily at her.
The woman's great fists were clenched, her lips pale. "As Maiana wills … But we must wait for the new moon."
"That is three nights off!" Nagiak purred. "I don't think we dare wait so long. The danger is extreme, is that not correct, War Lord? It is very frightening!"
"The situation is most urgent, ma'am," Arksis agreed. He shifted uncomfortably on his knees.
"Tomorrow!" Nagiak insisted. "We must begin tomorrow. The Holy Mother's sickness has come at a most unfortunate time for us all, of course, but I know we can rely on you to make the correct decisions in her stead. Surely you will not imperil the city by waiting, when the war lord himself has assured us that the situation is urgent?"