This was the same staircase, he suddenly recalled, that he had bounded up so hopefully just a few hours before, the same rope-woven bridge that he had crossed gladly into the lower floors of the floating elven home with dreams of a better future bright in his mind.
He placed one foot in front of the other and then frantically gripped the railing of the bridge. The cedar planks that had been roped together to form the suspended bridge had once passed so surely under his feet, but now they felt shifting and treacherous. He swallowed hard, closing his eyes for a few moments, hoping for a momentary respite in the darkness within himself; then he opened them and peered over the side.
The Servant’s Bridge was just over thirty feet above the floor of the garden below, he judged. Surely that was sufficient room to insure his death. All he had to do was vault the flimsy railings of the rope bridge. It would all be so easy and so quick. Mala would never have to know why he had done it.
Mala.
The thought of her gave him pause. She would not know why, indeed-and the not knowing would hurt her, too. So he looked away from the siren call of oblivion and made his way on unsure feet the rest of the way across the bridge.
He would have to find a way to keep his shame from Mala-because he would rather bear the pain of it himself than be the cause of pain to her.
Somehow, he made his way down the long, interminable circles of the spiral stairs until they ended at one side of the House Garden. He turned at once, keeping his watering eyes fixed on the curve of the garden wall, his left hand reaching up to feel its surface as he made his way quickly around its perimeter.
He bumped suddenly into the hulking form of a manticorian gardener-a fat brute he remembered as RuuKag-who snarled at him. Drakis mumbled his apologies and ducked past the lion-man quickly.
He had to get out of the garden. Mala often was assigned to work here, and he could not bear to see her, not yet at any rate. He had to think through this, figure out how it was that his good life and prospects for a better one had suddenly turned to ash in a single day.
No, he realized: not in a single day. Things had been going wrong ever since he had departed for the Battle of the Ninth Throne three weeks before. The terrible losses in the battle-friends and comrades with whom he had shared innumerable campaigns-as well as the loss of their Proxi at the climax of the battle itself and the subsequent loss of the crown. Then there was the bizarre dwarf whose endless prattle had suddenly, terribly come true and turned his blessed life into a cursed one. .
“Hail Drakis!”
Drakis snapped his head toward the sound. The wall of the House Garden had ended abruptly at a long, vaulted hallway curving back around to his left. The walls were covered with the picture-writing of the elves and lined with enormous elven statues of each of the previous masters of the line of Timuran. The figures looked down with disapproval on the two figures coming toward Drakis from its far end: a short, squat figure and a manticore.
Drakis did not immediately recognize the dwarf, for he was shaven after the fashion of slaves. His once long and luxurious beard was gone, as was his mane of hair. His jowly and receding chin gave his face an almost infantile appearance, like a fat human baby who had been too well fed. His extravagant clothing was replaced with the common tunic, and his newly shaved head now bore the tattooed mark of a House slave.
“It is good to see you again, Drakis,” the dwarf said with careful lightness in his voice, his eyes fixed on the human. “I have been worried about you, you know.”
Drakis could only stare at the dwarf.
“Drakis? Are you well?”
Only then did he realize that the manticore was Belag. Drakis took in a long, shuddering breath and looked up into the face of the towering manticore.
The creature’s yellow eyes narrowed suspiciously. “Is there something wrong?”
He doesn’t know, Drakis realized. Sha-Timuran has not told any of the Impress Warriors about my beating. . no one has told them. Perhaps Mala doesn’t know either. .
“No, everything is fine,” he lied. “Sha-Timuran was. . was pretty upset about losing the crown, especially to his neighbor. . but everything is fine.”
Belag considered this for a time and then nodded with a grunt. “You are square, then?”
“Yes-I am square,” Drakis replied, but he looked away as he spoke. “What are you doing with the dwarf?”
“Jerakh told me to bring him for shearing and branding.”
“Ah,” Drakis nodded. “I see. So he couldn’t stand him either. Where are you taking him now?”
They both turned to look at Jugar. He had wandered back down the long curve of the great hall, staring up at the wall above him with both of his thick hands clasped tightly behind his back.
“It’s back to the barracks with him until he is impressed this evening at Devotions,” Belag said although his furry brows were knitted in thought. “I don’t like him, Drakis. There’s something unsettling about him.”
He can see the future, Drakis thought. Yes, that is unsettling.
“Just another conquest to the glory of the House Timuran,” Drakis said. “Look, if you don’t mind, I’ll take the dwarf back-there are some questions I need to ask him.”
The manticore looked suddenly relieved. “Gladly. How the gods put so many words into so short a soul, I’ll never know. Better you listen to him than me.”
“Then off with you. . I’ll see you at Devotions.”
The manticore was already padding quickly back around the garden toward the north hall and the chakrilya beyond.
Drakis kept his eye on the dwarf. His figure seemed almost comical now that it was shaved and branded. This short, ugly creature had done more than bring them back to a world that was horrifying; he had predicted its horrors long before they had become fact. Drakis knew that the ways of the gods were strange and unfathomable to the mortals with whose fates they played, but he could not deny that this dwarf had conjured questions in his mind that he had to ask and have answered.
Drakis stepped up to the dwarf, and with a quick glance down the hall, spoke rapidly in hushed tones.
“Are you a god?”
The dwarf turned his chubby face toward the human. “What did you say?”
“I said,” Drakis spoke with only a slightly raised volume, “are you a god?”
The dwarf smiled in return, “Ah. . you want to know if I am a god?”
“Yes,” Drakis replied.
“I see. . well, that depends,” the dwarf said, turning back once more to examine the picture-writing carved into the wall in front of him.
Drakis stammered for a moment before he could continue. “What is that supposed to mean?”
Jugar turned back to the human, his pleasant smile still fixed between his round cheeks. “Oh, Drakis, my dear friend. . if someone ever asks you if you are a god, the only appropriate answer is-that depends!”
Drakis felt the warmth of his frustration rising into his face.
“Here, come walk with me for a while and I’ll explain,” Jugar said, turning to face back down the hall away from the garden. Drakis straightened slightly and fell into slow step next to the dwarf who still had his hands clasped in thought behind his back. “Let us assume that someone asks you, Drakis, if you are a god. If you were to answer them at once with a ‘no,’ then you would disappoint anyone who might have supported you, and, being embarrassed at their mistake and suddenly feeling you are much less than they expected of you. . well they would lose respect for you and not follow you at all. If they are your enemies and ask that question, then saying ‘no’ is just an invitation to have your land invaded and your people slaughtered. You follow me so far?”
“I think so,” Drakis said anxiously, “but I don’t see what this has to do with. .”
“On the other hand, if you were to answer ‘yes’ right away and all your supporters were following you based on your word that you were a god-and then it turned out that you weren’t a god but just some fellow who didn’t wan
t to disappoint everyone by not being a god. . well, they’d probably stone you right there on the spot and end your career rather abruptly. Then your enemies would come in and invade your land anyway and slaughter your people, so the result would be much the same, right?”
“Yes, but. .”
“So the only reasonable answer is, ‘that depends,’ ” the dwarf concluded. “It doesn’t commit you to performing like a deity and lets anyone who might follow you do so with a clear conscience. It also keeps your enemies guessing. . an altogether reasonable outcome for everyone involved.”
“But you see the future. . know it before it happens,” Drakis said under his breath. “Or do you cause it to happen-determining my fate?”
Jugar stopped, looking up earnestly into Drakis’ face. “No! No one determines your fate but you!”
“But you. . you knew!”
The dwarf let out a great sigh. “Yes, I knew, Drakis-and I am sorry for it, my boy.”
“But how? How did you know?”
The dwarf looked around them once more, gesturing as he did. “Have you ever been here, Drakis? Do you recognize the place?”
Drakis glanced around. “Of course. It is the Hall of the Past.”
“Do you know what it is for?”
Drakis shook his head, “Why can’t you just answer my question?”
“I am answering your question,” the dwarf continued. “Do you know what it is for?”
Drakis looked around him. Pictographs and hieroglyphics ornamented the walls, each set in various sized framing cuts making a mosaic on the wall. There were the figures of elves, larger than the rest and more prominent. There were smaller figures of manticores and chimera as well as humans. There were other creatures, too, which he thought mystical for he had never seen them in battle. “They are the histories and honors of the House of Timuran after the manner of the elven language.”
“That is right,” Jugar nodded. “Can you read them?”
“Read them?” Drakis scoffed. “You are a fool!”
“I may be a fool,” the dwarf replied, “but I can read these. Here, for example,” and he pointed three-quarters of the way up the slope of the wall, “here is where a Timuran participated in the expedition to the God’s Wall and slaughtered ten thousand humans in their native kingdom. And here,” his fat finger pointed a little to the left of the previous frame, “is where two brothers of the Timuran line were killed as they fought a dragon.”
“A what?” Drakis asked.
“A dragon,” the dwarf continued. “It is a creature of power and majesty not seen among breathing dwarves or men in three hundred years. They are, in fact, the source of the song that has troubled you of late. See, over here,” and the dwarf once more shifted the direction of his pointing finger, “is where the humans of the royal line were all called to their doom by the betrayal of the dragons that once had served them so well. It is written here that they sing this song now in lament.”
“Foolish nonsense,” Drakis spat.
“And this wisdom from a slave who cannot read.” Jugar sighed once more, shaking his head. “I knew your fate today, Drakis, because I could read you as I read the markings on these walls.”
Drakis shook his head in disbelief.
“Your back, Drakis. . I read your back,” Jugar continued sadly. “When we were in the baths. Those scars were too deep and the markings too regular to be anything but the firereed whip of an elven House Master. Combat scars would have been more varied and, truthfully, would have killed you had they come on the field. But they were also knitted back together with both elven skill and the power of Aether. That meant that someone in this household had saved you from death before and many times.”
“Many times?” Drakis shook his head. “This is the first time my master has ever beaten me!”
“This is the first time you have ever remembered your master beating you,” Jugar corrected.
Drakis paused. “Then how did you know about. . about. .”
“About your House mistress?”
Drakis glanced shamefully away once again.
“Those same scars-they were healed with elven powers of the Aether, too clean and regular to have been otherwise. . and it had to be someone who cared not only about how you healed but how you looked.” Jugar shrugged. “It happens in elven households-especially those of the higher estates. It is forbidden, of course, but the practice has gotten about among the younger generation of the elves that a warrior’s-well, attentions-will bring more power to their use of the Aether. So now it has become a common, dirty little secret practiced in most households between elven youth who have too little else to occupy their time and the warrior slaves who have no choice but to submit or die and be forgotten. Elven society goes on turning its blind eye to the practice and is content to pretend it does not exist. By the looks of your back, this has been a cycle going on for some time.”
“Shebin. . Timuran. . I don’t remember anything like this.”
“But you can remember,” Jugar said earnestly. He reached up and grabbed Drakis by the shoulders. “You can know the truth for yourself! You don’t need the word of an old dwarf or anyone else for that matter. You want to know about the gods-I’ll tell you about the gods! The gods know the future because they understand the past. You cannot see where you’re going if you forget where you’ve been. You can be like the gods-you can come to know who you truly are, who you’ve truly been, and you can shape your own destiny. All you have to do is not participate in Devotions tonight.”
“That’s insane,” Drakis said, pulling back. “Everything that has gone wrong in my life lately has been because I haven’t been able to perform my Devotions.”
“House Devotions are your problem, Drakis,” Jugar growled in frustration. “It’s how they keep you the happy little slave! They make you forget the pain and the suffering and the loss and the agony of your existence every night. But if that’s what you want-if you want to remain the blissful slave-boy who wants to forget that his master regularly beats him into the shadow of death just for the pleasure it brings him, whose daughter plays with him like her personal filthy toy. . if you want to be the slave who just dreams of a better life that will forever be promised and never delivered. . if that is what you want, then take House Devotions tonight and go back to sleep, Drakis!”
The dwarf spat on the polished floor.
“But if you do. . you’ll condemn all of us to sleep forever.”
CHAPTER 13
The Altar
House devotions were the touchstone of every elven household. Each evening-from the over five thousand elves of the First and Second Estates assembled to see and be seen in the glowing courts of the Imperial Cloud Palace to the handful of Fourth and Fifth Estate elves gathered in a humble garden on the farthest frontiers of the Empire-every citizen and slave of Rhonas gathered about their respective altars to offer their Devotions.
The ceremony was universal and unerringly prescribed. At the House Altar, usually situated in the subatria garden although any large space where the House Aether Well was located would suffice, every member of the household would gather. Each would arrange themselves according to their estate-those of highest rank nearest the altar with lesser estates in successive groups behind them ending with those of the Seventh Estate-the slaves of the Empire.
The rites were conducted by the Lord of the House and began with the invoking of the Emperor’s blessing on the proceedings and rededicating the household to bring its actions and thoughts in accord with the Emperor’s Will. This was followed by beseeching the blessing of the particular gods worshiped by that family upon the House and its servants, each god placated in turn, their praises lauded and then chorused in turn by the assembly. Then, the glories of the House were praised, and, in the case of recent battles, its treasures were displayed to the House as evidence of their power and entitled rank in the Empire. Only when the status of the House had been thus properly accounted did the Devotions proper begin.<
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It was the ranking member of the highest Estate who first knelt before the altar, placed his hands on its surface, and murmured his Devotions. Occasionally, a House might be blessed with the visit of a member of a higher Estate, and in such rare instances, he would take precedence in the ceremony; but in nearly all cases the Lord of the House was first to offer Devotions, and such was true of House Timuran. His words and thoughts were thus communicated through the medium of the altar and its connected Aether Well to the realms of both the gods and the blessed Emperor. The words of the supplication were always in the ancient elven tongue and conjured the Aether magic, filling the House Aether Well with light during the Lord’s Devotions. Then, by turns, each subsequent member of the household knelt before the altar, pressed their hands against the stone, and paid homage to the gods and the Emperor whom the gods had chosen.
For the slaves of the Empire, who were the last to approach the altar and universally the greatest in numbers, it was always a moment of rest and hope. To touch the altar was to touch-for the briefest of moments-the power of the Empire and the gods. It left them with the profound feeling of being bound to something greater than themselves and, during the long days of their servitude, granted them each night a sublime rest beyond anything else in their experience.
It was this thought that carried every slave through the day-the anticipation of the ecstasy that came with the Devotions each night. It was the embodiment of their hope to rise in status and someday become citizens themselves.
No slave ever willingly missed Devotions.
Drakis could not keep his hands still. Standing against the curving wall around the central garden, he was uncomfortable inside his own skin. Though he could no longer feel the scars on his back, they still burned in his mind, causing his back muscles to spasm involuntarily, flinching again with each imagined strike of the firereed.
“What’s wrong with you?” Belag rumbled under his breath. It was as close to a whisper as the manticore could manage as he stood next to the human. “You look as though you were about to die.”
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