By Demons Possessed

by P. C. Hodgell

  “My name was . . .” she murmured, floundering to her feet. “My name was . . .”

  Should Jame take her to Patches’ house? Would she even go? The urge to wander had already seized her and she tugged fretfully at Jame’s grip.

  “My name . . . my name . . .”

  Dammit, Jame had stood there, transfixed, and watched it happen. She could have . . . what? Rushed out? Demanded that they stop? Here, next to the temple, she might even have danced that witch and her consort down, never mind that they were gods and she was only the third of one in nascent form. But she hadn’t. Thus, Aden had been lost.

  Figures rose about her. In the dim light, it was hard to see if their robes were brown or black, but she recognized them as Kencyr hieratic garb.

  Aden twisted free and fled. Jame took a step after her, but her way was blocked.

  “Child of darkness, we know who you are.”

  The priests wove around her, arms outstretched.

  “We also know your friends. Defy us, and we will hunt them down—yes, even that pathetic little thief and all of her scrofulous family. Will you risk that?”

  She didn’t dare.

  They escorted her to the temple, keeping their distance as if from something unclean. The doors swung open. Inside were the familiar curving corridors, their floors laid out with triangles of serpentine, lapis-lazuli, and ivory. Power flowed inward like swift water over that tessellated bed. Jame staggered, then caught her balance. It felt as if the pavement were rippling underfoot. So, perhaps, it was. She had seen that happen before when the current was particularly strong. In the past, however, it had flowed mostly outward to the hungry gods of the city—spectacularly so on that last night when they had gorged to the point of bursting out of their temples.

  “Well, go on,” said one of her conductors—an acolyte, she now saw, by his brown robe. He gave her a push, then stepped back hastily as she turned on him. Hah. This kitten had claws.

  Why not continue, though? She had questions to ask, more and more by the minute. Jame let her feet take her away from her guards, barely in touch with the floor, inward with the flow.

  The halls boomed with power. Walls seemed to swell, in and out, out and in, like passing through the guts of some monstrous creature. She floated above her feet, toes scrabbling for contact.

  Dust shaken out of paving cracks jittered on the floor and spiraled up in corners. A figure formed there, watching her. When she turned to look, however, it was gone, except for the lingering hint of a smile.

  Ah-ha-ha-ha . . .

  “Stop it!”

  Her shout surprised even herself. The temple had always been alarming, but not like this.

  . . . ha-ha-ha . . .

  The laugh chuckled away. She was alone again and, strangely, regretting it.

  Here was the central chamber, where she had first met that noxious hierophant, Ishtier. The door closed behind her. The room grew still, the floor quiet underfoot except for a slight, nervous tremor as the outer temple pressed in on it. Jame could feel that same pressure in her head, but tried to ignore it. This was no time for clouded wits.

  To one side was a well-defined whorl in the tessellated paving where she had danced down the power set loose by Ishtier in his ill-conceived experiment with divinity. The major pattern, however, still spiraled around the black granite figure of her god. Torrigion, That-Which-Creates; Argentiel, That-Which-Preserves; Regonereth, That-Which-Destroys, fused back to back to back, facing outward. Odd, she hadn’t seen anything like it in the Kencyr temples she had visited since, but then Tai-tastigon was an odd place.

  Someone stood beside the statue, in a belted robe as black as the stony folds above it, in outsized boots.

  “I want to talk to you,” said the young priest in his abrupt manner, unfolding from the shadows. “Especially after learning who you are. The legendary Talisman. A thief, of all things and, worse, a rogue Kencyr. You also had something to do with this temple’s near collapse five years ago. I was one of the priests sent to pick up the pieces.”

  “Sorry about the mess,” said Jame. She had wondered what that rescue mission had found. “You’ve been here ever since? What have you heard from the Riverland?”

  “Precious little. The high priest told us virtually nothing when he returned with his followers. I only just learned about you.”

  Jame braced for outrage similar to Lord Harth’s. Instead, this peculiar priest regarded her more with skepticism than animosity. Really? his arched eyebrows seemed to say. You caused all that trouble?

  “What were you doing in Tai-tastigon in the first place?” he asked instead. “This is hardly a Kencyr enclave.”

  “Oh, I was just passing through, but ended up staying longer than I intended.”

  “Didn’t you find it strange here? All these temples, these so-called gods . . .”

  Jame gathered her thoughts. Something about this man made her want to talk. Shanir, she thought again. Be careful. But still, how often did she have a chance to compare notes with one of her own priests?

  “When I first arrived,” she said, beginning to pace, “all the supernatural entities in this city panicked me. We are taught that there is only one god. Here there are many. We also value truth as much as we do honor. So. Is our long, painful history based on a lie?”

  Now he was pacing with her, hands clasped behind his back. Five steps one way, turn away from each other, five steps back. Turn. Clump, clump, clump went his heavy boots as their god’s image seemed to sway above them.

  “I did eventually realize,” she said, turning again, “that Tai-tastigon’s New Pantheon came into existence at the same time that our temples started up, immediately after the Fall and just before our arrival here on Rathillien. Then I saw the gods of Tai-tastigon flare and come untempled when Ishtier let the power of this temple run amok. Between, I realized that the New Pantheon draws its power from our temple, but its shape from the beliefs of its worshippers.”

  Titmouse grimaced at Ishtier’s name, but otherwise his pace remained steady.

  “That was when I first heard of the Anti-God Heresy—the belief that ‘all the beings we know to be divine are in fact but the shadows of some greater power that regards them not.’”

  “Wait. The local priests say that?”

  “They aren’t all fools, and this city’s gods aren’t just parasites. It’s more complicated than that.”

  He glowered at her. “I don’t see why it has to be, but go on, tell me: how?”

  “The thing is, there was native power here before we arrived, before the New Pantheon arose. The first I knew of it was when I met the Four.”

  “Who?”

  “Earth Wife, Falling Man, Burnt Man, Eaten One, the elementals of Rathillien. They also came into being when our temples started up, but before that they were mortals who worshipped gods even older than they. That would be the Old Pantheon, which owes nothing to us. And before that, there were what Granny Sits-by-the-fire calls the ‘Big Truths’ wholly native to this world. In the desert, they were such as Stone, which tells truths hard to bear. Dune, that reveals with one hand and covers with the other. Mirage, that always lies and lies without purpose. And Salt the Soulless. Mountain and Ocean presumably had others. Field, cliff, and hedgerow too, as far as I know. Perhaps they all still do. The Arrin-ken might know.”

  “You make my head spin.”

  “So did mine. To summarize . . .”

  “Must you?”

  “You will thank me. The point is that while our temples have had a tremendous impact on the nature of this world, there was native power here before us that lingers to this day in the Old Pantheon and especially in the Four. It seems to me now that divinity isn’t one thing, nailed down forever. It changes as people change, and people are changed by it. Did that make it untrue for Rathillien? Does it for us?”

  “Are you saying that we should no longer believe in the Three-faced God? Because of your . . . researches?”

  “Oh,
our god is real, whatever that is.”

  Ancestors knew, she felt at least one aspect of him (or her, or it) thrumming through her even as she spoke. What was such power good for, though, if not to break down outworn concepts, old ideas? If she overstepped, it was in recklessly creating new ones, or in clinging to what she only wished to believe.

  “Here’s a thought,” she said slowly, considering it out-loud. “In the beginning, say that the Three-faced God existed alone on our three home worlds, monotheism incarnate. We accepted that destiny, were proud of it. Too proud, perhaps. We lost. Fleeing down the Chain of Creation, we shattered our direct link to our god. He didn’t abandon us. We left him behind, except for fragments embedded in the Shanir, waiting to reemerge as the Tyr-ridan.”

  “You’re guessing.”

  “Yes. There could be any number of explanations. For example, here’s another one: Perimal Darkling invades the Chain of Creation. The Arrin-ken bring together the Kencyrath. Looking for a reason, we create our deity with our faith out of the god-stuff present on all of the worlds. In our pride, we have to be unique, so that’s how we see our god: monotheistic. See? I can spin you ideas all night long.”

  “Next you’ll say that the Builders were to blame by undermining worlds with their god-engines, otherwise known as our temples.”

  Jame shot him a sidelong glance. “Oh, you’re good. I hadn’t thought of that. Go on. What else?”

  “Maybe the first three Arrin-ken were called Torrigion, Argentiel, and Regonereth.”

  “Now you’re scaring me. This isn’t the first time you’ve thought about this, is it?”

  “Nights in the Priests’ College are long and not always quiet. Sometimes one can’t sleep.”

  Yes, he had endured that pesthole at Wilden where the strong preyed on the weak. Titmouse had undoubtedly been one of the former, although even based on this brief acquaintance she didn’t think he was a predator. How, then, had he felt, hearing those cries in the dark? Had he known her cousin Kindrie?

  Jame wrenched her mind back to the present.

  “I think,” she said, “that all of this makes my point. Why have we let one interpretation shape our entire society? What do we really know about what happened thirty millennia ago? Oh, perhaps the Arrin-ken do, but they haven’t talked freely to us about such things in a long, long time, if ever. In a sense, maybe it doesn’t matter except in how it helps us to move forward. And the last days are coming. I can feel it.”

  She cleared her throat. Some thoughts choked her with horror. So much was coming, so much depending on her and upon those whom she loved.

  “At least you haven’t yet accused me of blasphemy,” she said with a shaky laugh. “I’m trying to figure out how our past became our present, without invalidating either.”

  “You’re forgetting the God-voice.”

  “So-called. On rare occasions since we came here, the voice has spoken through rare individuals, Ishtier for one. I’ve come to believe, though, that that was the Arrin-ken.”

  Titmouse blinked. “What conceivable reason can you give for that?”

  “Think about it: There’s the Fall, with Gerridon trying to create his own future at the cost of everyone else. After it, the Arrin-ken support Glendar as the new Highlord on Rathillien, but the priests try to turn us into a hierocracy. For the first time, the God-voice speaks through the high priest to smash their pretensions. Sorry. I forgot for a moment that I’m talking to a priest. Say, though, that that was actually the Arrin-ken again.”

  “Then they lied?”

  “They didn’t actually call themselves God’s Voice; they let the priests assume it.”

  “A lie, then, by omission.”

  They had still been pacing but now stopped, facing each other.

  “I don’t know the mind of an Arrin-ken,” said Jame. “I don’t think one would deliberately lie, but their morality is . . . different.”

  He snorted. “And these are our judges.”

  “They would be, if they deigned. We aren’t what we should be either. There is this too: since I was last in Tai-tastigon, I’ve met two of them face-to-face, Immalai the Silent whose territory is the Ebonbane, and the one we call the Dark Judge, from the Riverland. After the fact, I recognized their undertones in what spoke to me out of Ishtier’s mouth. What game are they playing? I’m still not sure.”

  “Huh. At least you admit some ignorance.”

  “About a great deal. Life has been very confusing over the past few years. Think about it, though: what good have the temples done us since we first came here, perhaps even before? Yes, up until now they’ve allowed us to flee from world to world, but what world have we managed to hold except, so far, Rathillien? And the temples here are crippled. The one in Kothifir was never even completed. Since then, several others have been destroyed. Where are we today? What’s going on here in Tai-tastigon? You have a host of dead gods on your doorstep. Some of them are preying on the souls of mortals and, I think, becoming demons in the process. I refuse to believe all of that is coincidence. What does it have to do with this temple?”

  “As to that . . .” he began, but was interrupted.

  The door opened and a novice thrust in his head, eyes showing their whites.

  “M’lord,” he said. “Dinner has been carried away by a seething of maggots, and a headless chicken is wandering the halls.”

  “I say nothing about the chicken, after the escape of last night’s bustard. Cook can’t deal with a few ambulatory sausages, though?”

  “Cloth weevils are eating his hat. Just the same, he refuses to take it off.”

  “Oh, go away,” said Titmouse.

  The door closed, reluctantly.

  “Problems?” said Jame.

  “First it was a shadow. Don’t ask me what cast it. Those it touched had nightmares of being wrapped in darkness and afterward couldn’t stop shivering. Our novices were most affected, although I have felt it too, watching me as I slept. Then it was bloody footprints, starting at one wall, ending at another or in the middle of a room. Then it was a figure lurking in the corner, sometimes composed of dust or old clothes, sometimes of insect wings. How in Perimal’s name do we get flies inside with only one door and that usually shut? But the thing always falls apart if anyone touches it.”

  Jame wondered who would be bold enough to try.

  “It’s a bloody nuisance,” the priest concluded in exasperation.

  “You said that before. Are we talking about Bane?”

  The door opened again, a crack.

  “M’lord,” hissed the novice. “It’s in the pantry now. The floor is crawling with black beetles, making obscene patterns. The novices are hysterical. And the high priest is coming.”

  “I said go away. You too.” Titmouse flapped a big hand at Jame as he turned aside. “I want to think.”

  III

  OUT IN THE NIGHT AIR, Jame paused to consider. She had gone to ask questions and ended up instead mostly answering them. Obviously more was going on than she knew. That, however, was hardly unusual. If only time wasn’t so short and her way so confused.

  The gibbous moon had yielded to its last quarter, rising over the eastern plains to under-light the clouds that continued to gather over the city. The north wind seemed to be banking them there, almost into a recognizable shape, while stray huffs of the south wind teased its edges. It must be around midnight.

  Debris crunched.

  Jame turned to face those sad figures shambling through the ruins. One of them must be poor Aden, although from here Jame couldn’t discern the woman’s hunched form or shimmering veil, if she still had the wits to wear it.

  From her fate, though, Jame had realized that the dead gods were feeding on mortal souls, and that was turning those who already had the proclivity into demons. Kalissan appeared to fit that description. So, from what she had heard, did Heliot, with his dependence on his followers’ sacrifice. Ironic, but not surprising that he should aim for godhood and end up a demon
ic predator instead.

  For that matter, Ishtier had never understood the distinction. To him, it had only been important that his experiment, the Lower Town Monster, supposedly disproved his god’s monotheism and therefore severed Ishtier’s loyalty to that divinity even while he continued to make use of its power. Also, he had seen the Monster as under his control, but had that been true? It was hard to tell, since he had let it wander freely, feeding on the souls of children as it went. His control over Bane had been intermittent at best.

  A dead god plus a human soul equaled a demon. She remembered her glimpse of that haughty man at Heliot’s core. Who was he? Did Aden now reside, aghast, in the monstrosity that was Kalissan? One soul might act as an anchor, but more apparently were food, to give strength.

  G’ah. There were so many pieces to this puzzle. What a mess she had unwittingly left behind when she had fled this city. What an irony, if it turned out that she had had to return to sort it all out in order to secure the future of her own people. Tai-tastigon was important. She had always sensed that, even when she had sought to discredit it.

  Three shambling figures approached, hooded like lepers. For a moment, Jame thought that the temple acolytes had returned. These robes, however, were black, if dusty and tattered. A stench wafted toward her, part stagnant water, part rotting flowers, part something indefinable that made her sneeze. Bone-thin hands reached in supplication.

  “Name, name, name,” stuttered voices, and one, the foremost, croaked, “Help us. Please!”

  They spoke in Kens.

  Jame backed away. Were these the missing priests whom Titmouse had mentioned so disjointedly in Patches’ house? What had happened, to bring them here, in such a state? Help them? Sweet Trinity, how?

  A pebble skipped between them. They turned and stumbled off, another flung stone kicking up dust at their heels.

  “I thought they would never leave,” said someone perched on a nearby pile of rubble. “Really, the company that you keep!”