And now, perhaps, we add our voices to this great, ancient song, Shiloh thought, following the guards through the streets.
Beth Eloh was not only the oldest and largest city in Zohar, but also the most crowded. The streets were barely wide enough for her to walk alongside Maya. The walls of homes and shops rose at their sides, built of the same craggy, pale bricks of limestone. Here was a city built atop a mountain, and the roads rose and fell, revealing views of the city with every crest. Atop one hill, Shiloh saw a valley slide into haze, lined with many domed homes. Around a corner, peering between two palm trees, she beheld a cemetery that flowed down a hillside, the white tombstones as crowded as the city houses, so close together they touched, leaving no room for grass or trees or flowers. On another hillside she saw a house capped with a bronze dome—the fabled tomb of Elshalom himself, the first King of Zohar. From some streets upon the taller hills, Shiloh could see beyond the city walls, out onto the mountains. The forces of Yohanan still spread around the city, a noose of iron, more constricting every day.
"So many voices," Maya whispered, tears still flowing, and her hand trembled in Shiloh's grip. "I'm trying, Mother. I'm trying not to listen."
"Focus on the living, Maya," Shiloh said as they walked, following the city guards. "Not on the dead. Not on the unborn."
Many of those living filled this city. A hundred thousand souls inhabited Beth Eloh; the city was twice the size of Geffen. Some wandered the streets, clad in tunics of undyed cotton or wool, shawls covering their hair. Many others peered from stone windows, eyes haunted, deep set in gaunt faces. A child languished under an awning, skin white with leprosy. Animals shared this city too, camels with jangling saddles, donkeys bearing baskets, and stray cats, and they too were frail, their ribs pushing against their hides, their mouths foaming with hunger.
Gutters ran alongside the roads, clogged with human waste. Here was a dry city, only a few wells and cisterns supplying its water. These gutters would not be cleared until winter, half a year away, when the first rains fell. The stench of sewage rose so mightily it spun Shiloh's head. Here was a holy city—a city of gold, memory, and piousness, but also a city of hunger, disease, and shit.
When Shiloh followed the guards through a market, she saw vendors hawking whatever food they still found: the old bones of chickens for soup, the meat already gone; a few carobs and olives taken from the last trees; and brittle bread that seemed made from sand. Most of the market's carts were barren, their goods long gone. Children sat against brick walls, moaning, bellies extended with hunger. Eyes damp, Shiloh placed coins into the hands of those children strong enough to approach and beg, yet what good was copper or silver with no food to buy?
Finally, as they passed by the corpses of a starved mother and child, Shiloh could not maintain her silence.
"Why does he do this?" she said to the guards. "Why does Prince Shefael keep his gates closed when he can make peace with his brother, when he can end this siege?"
One of the city guards—the man who had first spoken to her at the gates—gazed at her with weary eyes. "The tyrant Yohanan Elior will never set foot in this city, and my glorious lord, King Shefael, will wipe his name off the earth." Yet there was no conviction to his voice, no rage; he was reciting.
They kept walking through the city, moving along cobbled roads, through courtyards lined with date palms, and finally toward a hill leafy with olive and cedar trees. In a city of stone and copper and bronze, here was a rare place of greenery. Here was the tallest hill in the city, gazing down upon the labyrinth of coiling streets. A thick wall, topped with battlements, surrounded this hill like the wall of a city. Indeed here was a city within a city, blessed with holiness and fortified with ancient stones.
"The Mount of Cedars," Maya whispered, trembling so wildly Shiloh thought the girl might collapse. "The lume flows from here, Mother. All of it." Her voice was barely audible, barely more than breath. "The spirit of God dwells here."
"And of men," Shiloh said, staring ahead.
Beyond the wall, two great structures rose atop the Mount of Cedars, marvels of light and stone. Two guardians of Zohar. Two beacons of power and majesty.
The Temple was the larger of the two. Thick walls rose around it, square towers sprouting from their corners. Within the enclosure rose many buildings, the largest among them soaring high above the walls, its surface so polished it reflected the sun. Columns rose here, their capitals gilded, and gold parapets circled the roof like laurels. Even from the distance, Shiloh could see priests standing on a dais, blowing rams' horns while leading a bull to sacrifice.
Shiloh turned toward the second building on the hill. Here rose the Palace of Zohar, smaller than the Temple but just as splendid. Walls surrounded this complex too, heavily fortified, their turrets capped with domes. Several towers rose within these walls, circular and framed with gilded columns. The central tower dwarfed its brethren, soaring toward a ring of columns and between them a dome, like a crown around a bald head.
"God and crown," Shiloh said, holding her daughter's hand. "Spirit and flesh. High priest and king. The two hearts of Zohar."
She knew that long ago, before King Elshalom, it was the High Priest who had ruled the tribes of Zohar, speaking with God's voice. But those were the old days, the days before temples or palaces had risen on hills. For a thousand years now, two men had governed this land: a priest in a temple, a king in a palace. Yet even that, perhaps, was untrue these days, for all her life, it had seemed like the priests of Zohar remained locked in the Temple, caring more for worship than the lives of men and women. And so Zohar, perhaps, remained in the hands of its king or queen alone.
And now we have no true king, Shiloh thought. Only two bickering princes while an emperor's eagles circle above.
"Worship the light for a shekel! Only a shekel, my lords."
The voice rose from ahead, and Shiloh raised her eyes to see several women advance, barefoot, their robes opened to show their nakedness. Their bodies were frail, their breasts thin and wilted, their thighs too narrow, and hunger filled their eyes. Other naked women languished ahead around the walls that circled the Mount of Cedars.
"Only a shekel for worship, my lords," said one, desperation in her eyes, white streaks in her hair.
"Get lost, dogs!" said one guard, knocking them aside with his spear.
The women began to scatter, trying to spit but too thirsty to produce saliva. Shiloh stared at the scrawny prostitutes with pity mingled with disgust, not sure which emotion she felt more. Here were women reduced to a state lower than dogs, selling their wilting bodies in a vain attempt to feed their decay. They shuffled away, perhaps hoping to find a soldier with a few coppers left to spare.
"Wait!"
The voice echoed, and Shiloh turned to see that Maya had spoken. The girl pulled her hand free from Shiloh's grip and stepped across the cobbled street.
"Wait," Maya said again. "Come here, daughters of Beth Eloh."
The prostitutes approached wearily, robes wrapped around them again to hide their nakedness. Hunger filled their eyes, and their white tongues licked their cracked lips. They gathered around Maya, stinking, starving things, fleas in their robes, their hair matted. Shiloh had the terrible thought that their disease would leap onto her daughter, infecting her with sores and leprosy. She wanted to intervene, to pull her daughter free from the ring of them, but she could not shield her daughter forever from the ugliness in this world. She watched.
"Why do you sell your bodies?" Maya asked.
"We have nothing else to sell," said one of the women. "We're hungry. There's no food in this city. There's only hunger here."
"But there is light too." Maya's fingers began to glow. "There is the light of Luminosity, the grace of God."
"We cannot eat grace," said another prostitute, a young thing, only a child, no older than eleven or twelve. "We need bread and milk and water and honey."
"This city will flow with milk and honey and wine," said M
aya. "Through the Gate of Tears she will enter, wreathed in white, and she will bring healing to the hurt, sustenance to those who hunger, light to those lost in the dark, peace to those who fight."
"Who?" the women said, raising their grubby hands, the fingers knobby.
"She whom I have foreseen," Maya said, "She who lingers. She who wears a crown of blood." She lowered her head, and the light faded from her fingers. "I don't know her name, and I don't know the time of her arrival. But here, let this sustain you while you wait for her coming."
Maya reached into her pack and pulled out loafs of bread, two skins of wine, and a purse of coins. The women approached, one by one. Maya placed a piece of bread into the hand of each woman, and she let each drink from her wine, and finally placed a coin into each hand. The prostitutes dispersed, whispering in awe of the woman who glowed . . . and of the woman in white who would enter the holy gates.
Shiloh took her daughter's hand, and they kept walking, taking a cobbled path toward the wall that surrounded the Mount of Cedars. Past a gatehouse, they climbed the hillside, moving between ancient trees, approaching the palace. The pale walls soared, engraved with lions and pomegranates, and the doors were gilded. More guards stood here, clad in finer armor than the others, their beards dark and their shields bright. More words were exchanged here, and soon those golden doors opened, allowing passage through the walls of the palace complex.
If the Mount of Cedars was a city within a city, here was a third city, all of limestone, marble, and gold. A cobbled courtyard spread ahead, lined with columns capped with gold. Many buildings rose here, all built from the same pale, rugged limestone as the rest of the city. Shiloh saw stables, fortified towers, and armories. Gardens stood alongside the protective walls, lush with trees bearing figs, dates, pomegranates, carobs, almonds, and olives. Many soldiers moved about the complex, armed with spears and swords. Ahead rose the palace proper, a massive building, large enough to house hundreds of souls. It rose many stories tall, encircled with several tiers of arches, crested with a dome and crown of columns.
My childhood home, Shiloh thought, for she was the daughter of King Rahamyah and the sister of Queen Sifora—both now gone, faded into legend, two more ghosts in this city of memories.
When Shiloh glanced at Maya, she saw that her daughter seemed more like her old self, her breath clearer, her eyes more alert.
"It's not as bad here near the palace," Maya said. "Here's a place of men more than lume."
A place men have fought over for years, Shiloh thought. A place where eagles will rip into lions, unless I can convince a cub to join his brother.
Accompanied by soldiers, Shiloh and Maya entered the main palace hall. A grand chamber awaited them, lined with porphyry columns. A mosaic covered the floor, depicting lions racing across the desert, hunting hinds while birds of every kind flew above. Shiloh smiled wryly to see a tiled eagle spread its wings. This mosaic had covered this floor for a thousand years, long before there'd been an Aelar, before the eagle's wings had shadowed Zohar.
Many guards stood here, far more than Shiloh had ever seen in this palace. But then again, she hadn't been here in years, not since her older sister, Queen Sifora, had died. Dear Sifora had never spent much time in this hall, preferring the shade of the gardens or the humbler chambers in the back of the palace.
Yet the new claimant to the crown, it seemed, found this hall rather welcoming. Prince Shefael Elior sat ahead on a throne of gold, draped in a majestic ultramarine robe embroidered with golden pomegranates. Rugs of red and gold spread around the throne, and frankincense burned in jeweled vessels, sending forth a sweet scent. Concubines, pleasantly curved and scantily clad, lounged around the throne on tasseled cushions, smoking hookahs, their faces painted, their bared bellies revealing jewels in the navels.
The prince was busy feasting from bowls of dates and grapes, and he held a mug of wine in one hand. When he saw Shiloh enter, however, he waved aside his dishes and rose to his feet. Shiloh remembered a scrawny young man, but the throne had filled his frame, and now his ample belly pushed against his fine raiment.
"Shiloh! My guards told me of your approach." Shefael stepped off his throne's dais and walked toward her, arms opened. "Welcome, my dear aunt! And little Maya. How you've grown, my sweet cousin! Come, drink wine with me, feast upon these chilled grapes."
Shiloh walked toward him, squared her shoulders, and slapped his cheek. Hard.
At once guards advanced with spears, and the concubines wailed. Even Maya gasped.
"Put down your weapons!" Shiloh said, glaring at the men. "You will not interfere with me disciplining my nephew." She turned her stare at the beefy, bearded prince. "How dare you cower here, feasting and drinking, while your people hunger and thirst?"
Shefael clutched his cheek, hiding the red mark her hand had left. He blustered for a moment before finding the ability to speak. "Cowering? I've been fighting a war, aunt. Winning a war. Yohanan languishes outside these walls, while—"
"While your people languish with him." She wrenched his wine goblet from him. "Have you been outside your palace this year and seen the state of your city?"
His jaw tightened, and his dark eyes burned. "I know the state of Beth Eloh. I know what Yohanan has done to it. He has besieged us for a year now, after two years of battling me in the wilderness. Yet the throne is mine, Aunt. My mother—your own sister!—named me her heir. This is my palace, and here I eat my meals, and here I sleep, and here—"
"And here you will die if you don't heed sense." Shiloh grabbed his shoulders and stared at him. "Shefael, your mother might be dead now, but I'm still here, and I bring you tidings. Aelar attacks! The Empire invades the coast. Her legionaries besiege Gefen and—"
It was his turn to interrupt. "I know."
That gave her pause. Shiloh frowned and took a step back, and her chest seemed to tighten. "You . . . know?"
He turned away from her, perhaps finally ashamed to show his face. "She told me. She tells me everything. But what could I have done, Aunt? Marched out to war, leaving the throne for Yohanan to grab? No. I had to stay. To wait."
Of course, Shiloh thought, heart sinking. She told him.
And from the shadows behind the throne, she emerged.
"Avinasi," Shiloh said, not bothering to mask the disgust in her voice.
The lumer was ancient; she had been old when Shiloh had been young. Her hair was snowy white, her face deeply lined, her shoulders stooped. And yet her eyes, the lids heavy and painted, still stared with wisdom. She wore fine silks woven with coins, a cloak wrapped around her even in the heat, and golden rings hung from ears so drooping they seemed to be melting. An amulet gleamed on her chest, shaped as a candelabrum with four candles—symbol of Luminosity.
"Shiloh Sela. And with her, little Maya, a child of Luminosity." The crone smiled at Maya, yet it was a wicked, ugly smile, almost a leer. "Have you come at last to learn the ways of light from me, precious child?"
"My mother said lumers are shipped off in chains," said Maya.
Avinasi stepped closer and caressed Maya's cheek, her knobby fingers tipped with long, painted nails like claws. "And yet I remain here, bonded to King Shefael, true lord of Zohar. No chains can hold me, for I weave the light of our lord."
"Enough of this," Shiloh said. "Shefael, listen to me. You must join your brother. You two must march together to the coast and stop this attack. I spoke to Yohanan. He'll march with you. Forget your quarrel with him for now, and face the true enemy."
But the prince still faced away from her, and his fists tightened at his sides. Even his rich cloak of blue and silver could not hide the stiffness of his shoulders. Finally he spun back toward Shiloh, and his face was haunted, sweat on his brow.
"I had no choice," the prince whispered. "He made me do it. Yohanan made me!"
Shiloh stared at him, the realization filling her, the horror spinning her head.
"What did you do?" she whispered.
Shefael lower
ed his head, overcome, able to say no more. Avinasi stepped up toward her king, her eyes lit with fire, her smile stretched across her withered face.
"My noble Shefael, King of Zohar, chose a path of light," said the old lumer. "The hard path lesser rulers would cower from. Don your finest garments, Shiloh and Maya of the coast! Adorn yourselves with jewels and silks, and fill your hearts with praise! A host of eagles fly forth to crush Yohanan the Tyrant, to deliver this city from his evil. Soon we will feast in the company of Aelar! Soon the bounty of an empire will fill this city! She is coming, Shiloh. A savior will enter the gates of this city, as your daughter foresaw. Soon we will welcome Porcia Octavius in our hall of gold."
All light seemed to fade from this hall. All hope seemed to flow from her heart. Shiloh fell to her knees, banging them against the eagle mosaic. Her daughter wrapped her arms around her, and the laughter of Avinasi echoed through the hall.
EPHER
Blood soaking their bandages, the brothers took the long, hard road up to Ma'oz.
The walled acropolis crowned a jagged mountaintop, the sentinel of North Zohar. Hills and valleys flowed around the mountain, thick with pines, and dry river beds snaked through ravines like roads. Flint and basalt boulders dotted the land, some larger than men, while dolmens rose upon hilltops—the tombs of ancient men. Vultures glided overhead, a hundred or more, scanning the land, dipping down, feasting upon the remains of the battle, cleaning off the flesh to leave the forest pristine.
Kings of Ruin (Kingdoms of Sand Book 1) Page 20