by Jane Kindred
Ahr stopped pacing and stared at her. She was certifiably mad. He folded his arms, leaning back against the windowsill. “Is this what you do now, Ra? Haunt the Delta, taking your revenge on everyone who plotted the Expurgation? Why not kill me?”
Ra sighed. “I wish I could make you understand. I wish I could ever have made you understand anything of me.” She looked sad for a moment, which he hated. “I wish I could have understood you, Ahr.” He looked away. He would not be swayed by her. “But it’s all right. It doesn’t matter. Just let the others know when they wake up that I had to go. Tell Merit he’s not to pursue me. Tell him I have spoken. And Jak…just stop Jak from trying to circumvent my word. Even if you have to use force. I’m sure poor Geffn won’t be a problem. I think he’s had enough of me.”
“You really are out of your mind.”
Ra smiled. “That’s all right.”
Ahr shook his head, baffled by her. “Why are you coming to me with this? Why tell me any of it? Just go wake them up and tell them yourself. It’s nothing to me.”
“I’m telling you, Ahr, because you are the only one who won’t try to stop me.” Ra turned and left him more confounded and troubled by her than he’d ever been.
Deepening the sleep of those within the temple was one thing. The amount of energy it would have taken to extend her word beyond its walls was more than Ra could summon. She returned to her tower, casting one last glance of longing at Jak’s sleeping form before stepping out onto the terrace. Sneaking out of Ludtaht Ra was something she’d never had any need to do—though MeerRa had contemplated it once when he’d despaired of ever seeing Ahr again. If he could have run away with the maiden Ahr a lifetime ago, where would they be now? RaNa would be—
Ra cut off the thought viciously. She couldn’t think of RaNa. That way lay madness.
She hoisted herself over the balustrade and dropped onto the thin lip on the other side. From here, she could see the silhouettes of agitators at the courtyard’s edge against the torchlight. In’La’s gas lamps and electric current had not yet come to Rhyman. Drawing up the cowl of her cloak, she jumped, tumbling among the petals of flowering trees that scattered along the river’s edge and coming to a stop just short of careening into the water. A bone snapped in her foot. Perhaps several. Ra conjured healing and got to her feet.
As Nesre had promised, his men were waiting for her on the bank of the Anamnesis beyond the flowering grounds of Ludtaht Ra. She delivered herself to them at the river’s edge—where they bound her arms and her mouth, not quite trusting of her word—and a boat propelled by steam carried them down the sluggish Anamnesis, farther away from Temple Ra with every turn of its large paddlewheel.
Twenty-Four: Conflagration
Waking with a start to the light of dawn, having somehow slept through the night, Jak was alone in Ra’s bed. With the robe wrapped tight, Jak hurried down the stairs past the guard, who seemed unaware of anything amiss. In the breakfast nook, Merit was in an uproar, berating Ahr and gesticulating wildly, while Geffn arrived looking just as confused as Jak was.
“What’s going on?” Jak demanded when Ahr glanced their way. “Where’s Ra?”
“She’s gone.”
Jak stared at him in stark disbelief. “What do you mean ‘she’s gone’?”
He folded his arms, betraying no hint of what might have passed between them. “She said there was something she had to do and she was sorry. I’ve told Merit that Ra has ordered him not to pursue her.” He swallowed, and his cheeks went subtly red. “Ra has spoken.”
“Ra has—” Jak’s vision clouded with anger. “What did you do?”
“I didn’t do anything. She woke me up and told me to tell you good-bye.”
“And you just let her go.”
“What would you have had me do?” Ahr spread his arms at the walls around them that had been so carefully cleaned after the prelate’s destruction, as if to say you think I could have stopped the Goddess of Death?
“Something, Ahr. Anything. Maybe tell her not to kill herself!”
“I don’t think that’s what this is about.” Ahr’s stoic expression was infuriating.
“Then what is it about? What aren’t you telling me?”
Ahr glanced at Merit. “She said she meant to destroy the Prelate of In’La.”
Jak’s chest felt heavy. “Holy sooth. Is she going after them all?”
“That’s what I asked her. She just smiled.”
Merit was pacing angrily with his hand on his hilt. “Kasíschaht In’La?” Ahr explained in Deltan and Merit spat something that sounded like an obscenity, arguing with him at length.
Ahr sighed finally in exasperation, making an emphatic gesture of dismissal with his palms in the air beside his head. “Zela!” he shouted. “Enough!” He sat down at the table and began to fill his plate. “I’ve told Merit that Ra has spoken. She’s forbidden him to follow. He thinks he’s going anyway.”
“Then I’m going too,” Jak insisted.
He popped a piece of fruit into his mouth with a casual gesture as if they were discussing the weather, and spoke with his mouth full. “Ra told me to prevent you with force.”
“She what?”
“It really doesn’t matter, Jak.” Ahr finished chewing and swallowed. “Whatever else you understand of her, it ought to be clear to you by now. A Meer’s words have power. Separate from the one who speaks them. Merit can try to go after her all he wants; something will prevent him.”
Merit grumbled something else and jerked his sword in the scabbard before he stormed off, shouting orders to the Temple Guard. Jak sank to the bench. What if Ra had meant to do this all along? The intimacy they’d shared just hours ago now seemed surreal. Had it been nothing more than elaborate misdirection?
Merit returned from the front of the temple after a moment and spoke grimly in Deltan.
Ahr looked up at Jak. “The Guardsmen are defecting.”
In all the years of his reign, Ra had never once visited Ludtaht Alya, though he’d seen it in the Meeric flow. It seemed odd now to have lived so long and never to have spent time with other Meer. Alya had been a curious one, less than half Ra’s age and fascinated by non-Meeric creation. He’d perhaps gone mad a little earlier than most—it was a hazard of the Meeric blood—and had spent much of his time locked in his laboratory devising gadgets that could live on after he was gone. And so they had. The steam engine was one of them.
They made the port of In’La in less than three days.
The golden spires of Alya’s vast temple sparkled in the winter sun like a joyous expression as the steamboat drew near. MeerAlya had loved life, as Ra had never thought to. She wished now that she’d known him.
They disembarked, and she was escorted to the prelate, who sat upon the Meeric throne instead of wasting time pretending at presiding over a parliament of solicitors. He looked up from his reading and frowned at the sight of her, clapping his hands at the nearest guard.
“No need for that. Unbind her. She has spoken.”
The guard loosed her from the bonds, and Ra stood before Nesre, waiting.
“MeerRa.” Nesre rose and appraised her as one might a prize stallion on display. “Remarkable. I hadn’t expected you to return as the weaker sex. Don’t you find it limiting?”
Ra considered. “I find it limits the perception of others. Though such perceptions were limited before my renaissance in different ways.”
The prelate shrugged and nodded to her to follow him. “Alya was a bit in awe of you, you know. I believe he tried to outdo you with the grandeur of this place. The temple, of course, preceded his reign, but most of the embellishment was added by him.” He looked about at the sweeping vaults of the gold-painted ceilings and the magnificent array of art and tapestry that covered the walls. “I’ve not yet been to Rhyman. How did he do?”
“It’s very i
mpressive,” said Ra, and she was impressed, despite herself. She paused and touched a gilded frame that held a breathtaking view of a battle in a field of war. The reds of the bloodied warriors seemed so real she expected to see them drip. “Is this his art? I heard he painted.”
“These? No. These are priceless works he acquired throughout his reign from artists around the world.” Though Nesre had orchestrated his death, he spoke of him with something akin to pride. “He could have created whatever he liked, and yet he purchased things—with gold he’d spoken into being, but purchased nonetheless.”
They walked on until a portrait tucked into a dark alcove caught her eye. The subject was a tall, willowy man in a ceremonial robe of the House of Alya. Pale hair cascaded over one shoulder nearly to the floor.
Nesre nodded. “That is Alya.” Alya’s long mane was so fair it was silver, and his eyes were pale blue gems like Pearl’s.
“The boy is his,” said Ra.
“The child,” Nesre corrected. “It’s Alya’s seed, yes.”
“And the mother?”
“Ordinary stock. Meeric seed takes quite well to a common breeding bitch. But then, you know that, don’t you?”
He was trying to get a rise out of her, to test her at her word. Ra merely stared up at the inquisitive, intelligent face of MeerAlya until Nesre moved on.
He led her to a small, domed room in which a peculiar cage was the only furnishing: an eight-sided box of glass that appeared to be sealed on all sides. Inside, visible through the smoky glass, Pearl lay on his pallet, sucking his fist. Ra knew little of children, but he seemed far too old for such a gesture. Perhaps—she counted back over RaNa’s brief life—perhaps as old as ten.
“Have you kept him always this way?” She tried not to give him the satisfaction of her horror.
“Indeed, since birth.” Nesre brought out a key from the pocket of his robe and turned it in a lock recessed into the glass. “An experience that might have benefited others of its kind. It does only as I bid it.”
Pearl sat up swiftly at the sound of the key and stared toward the door. It was clear he couldn’t see them on the outside of it. He only saw what was reflected in his glass.
“I did only as my templars bid me,” said Ra. “No one had to keep me in a cage.”
Nesre ignored this and opened the door. Pearl’s eyes went to his like an obedient hound, and then he saw Ra standing before him in the flesh. He looked to the mirrored glass as if expecting to see her on the other side of it as he had in the vision, as if he thought he might be still staring at her reflection in the dark waters of the Meeric flow. When he began to believe his eyes, they filled with crescents of red.
“You will release him as you promised,” said Ra.
“Of course,” said Nesre. “I can do nothing else, as you can do nothing against your word.” He snapped his fingers at the boy, and Pearl came to him. Nesre pointed outside the cage. Apparently, their communications were not in words. Pearl trembled. Nesre snapped again, pointing, and Pearl obeyed, stepping out into the room with a look of sheer terror on his tearstained face. A breeze from the nearby arch lifted the loose hair in front of his eyes, and he shrank from it as if he’d never felt one before.
“It’s all right,” said Ra. “You can go.” She touched his hand, and he flinched, and then stared at the back of his hand. Had anyone ever touched him in kindness?
Pearl’s intent eyes studied her. He reached out to touch the dark braid hanging forward over her shoulder, and then, feeling it was solid, he fell on his knees and grabbed her around the legs as if he would never let go.
Ra pulled him away despite the strength of his grip and lowered herself to his level. She looked into his tear-red eyes and gave him a silent communication over the Meeric link: go to the coal woman. She searched his eyes to be certain he understood, and they widened with dread. He’d seen Shiva in his visions. She couldn’t blame him for his fear, but Shiva was the only one she could send him to. He was ill equipped to wander the world alone.
“Go,” she said aloud, and Pearl stood and stumbled away from her.
He glanced up at Nesre, not believing. Nesre waved his hand at him with impatience, and Pearl ran, haltingly, no doubt for the first time in his life.
She could see in the prelate’s eyes he intended to break his word the moment she was dead, thinking hers would no longer bind him. He intended to do harm to Pearl. He didn’t realize he would never have the opportunity. And anyone else who might think to try would encounter MeerShiva.
Nesre smiled at her and held his open palm toward the cage, welcoming her into it.
Pearl blundered through the temple. He’d seen parts of it in his mind’s eye through the shifting river of dark glass, but he hadn’t understood the enormity of it. It assaulted his eyes with a riot of light and hue as if his short-lived box of pastels had escaped and colored every surface, and it stretched around him endlessly, making him dizzy. He fell more than once, but picked himself up and hurried on, afraid the armed men who guarded the halls would take him back to the cage. He couldn’t quite believe it when they let him flee.
His head was so full of new things, he didn’t know where to look or what to think. He concentrated on the safe haven of his interior landscape. In the vision, Ra had called him a boy, and this had filled his mind for days. He was a boy, not a creature. Not a thing. The Master had only ever thought of him as Meerchild or “it”. In the Master’s mind, this was true, and Pearl didn’t question it.
He somehow reached the entrance to the temple and the light of day nearly blinded him. Pearl staggered down the shining white steps, slipping midway down and sliding to the bottom. He caught himself on the carpet of dead flowers that littered the ground and stared up at the temple, dazzling and sharp with gold.
Ra had told him to go, had shown him the picture in his head of the great Meer hiding in her guise as a vendor of coal. His intestines churned with fear as he picked himself up and turned toward the city. He knew where to go. He knew how to find her. He didn’t want to, but he must.
Pearl focused on the destination to keep from being overwhelmed by the things around him, running through the city with his vision narrowed, both physically and mentally. Color and sound blurred at the edges of the tunnel of purpose he’d made for himself. Nothing else mattered. He must reach the coal woman. He bypassed the market. She wasn’t there. He saw her in the small, dark room where she’d been before.
He pressed onward, weaving through the crowds of people as he crossed tree-lined avenues and dusty streets, dodging the wheeled contraptions careening around him with their loud, unpleasant noises. His heart was hammering in his chest and his sides ached like fire, and the soles of his feet were torn and bleeding, but he found the house. The grate was partially moved aside from the opening as if the coal woman had just stepped down for a moment to retrieve something before going out.
Pearl dropped into the cellar and crept to the door. She was there, and she sprang at him from the dark like a wild cat disturbed in its cave, green eyes glowing with feral rage as she transformed from the coal woman into the majestic Meer. Pearl cringed, bracing for her attack.
Shiva raised her hand to fling away the dirty child who had trespassed on her cell, but something about him made her pause. His knees shook beneath his stained shift as he stared up at her, but he stood his ground. He smelled like Meer, but that was impossible. She would have known the moment he was born.
She seized him by the front collar of the shift. “What do you want, boy? Out with it now, or I’ll snap your spine.”
He shook in her grip, and his mouth worked as if he was trying to speak, but only a tiny sound came out, like the squeak of a cornered animal. Shiva lifted him and threw him against the iron bars of the door with a force that would have broken a normal child in half. This one sank down on his knees and began to weep blood.
Shiva his
sed furiously. Where had this sniveling Meerchild come from? She strode forward to pick him up from the ground and finish him off. Meer or not, he had violated her sanctum.
The boy looked up, and as she reached for him again, he gasped one word, as if it took all his strength: “Ra.” With the name, she saw danger emanating from the swirling flow of Meeric knowledge.
Shiva looked into the boy’s eyes, paler than celestine, and read what he hadn’t words to tell her. With a sigh, she lifted him off the ground like a sack of grain and set him before a stool in the corner of her small room.
“Sit.” She pointed at the stool, and the boy stumbled back onto it in surprise. “Stay.”
She pulled her dusty, coal-woman’s cloak around her, transforming it into a dark swirl of fabric that spun about her limbs into the garments she wanted. It settled into a deep red gown in the tiny-waisted, high-busted fashion of the day—no corset needed, as she simply reshaped her own flesh and bone—with generous folds in the skirt to let her walk unencumbered, and over it, a deep indigo cloak of velvet into which she retreated beneath the cowl hood. Her Meeric hair she wound into a thick knot at waist level and let the rest flow. It snaked of its own accord into the cowl and down her back.
She hadn’t been out in public except as the wretched crone since the Expurgation. If she was going to show herself to the fools who fancied themselves worthy of a Meeric temple, she would do it as MeerShiva.
Ra hadn’t promised Nesre any other vetma beyond her peaceful surrender, so it was no breach of her word to refuse when he demanded she conjure for him. But she’d promised not to harm him, so when he drove his stiletto into her shoulder in a rage, she could only breathe through the pain.
On her knees in the mirrored cage, she bent forward as he yanked his weapon out of her. “I have granted your vetma,” she said through clenched teeth.
“You’ve only granted the letter of it.” He cleaned his blade. “But I happen to know that your kind is very resilient. I’ve had the child on whom to test the limits of Meeric endurance. We’ll just have to see whether your ability to withstand pain can outlast my patience. I have waited for you for thirteen years. I can be a very patient man.”