by J A Hutson
His eyes. They are nearly lost beneath his heavy brows and the bags that make it look like he has not slept in many days. But yes – they are like mine, though not as bright. A tarnished silver, almost gray, like the sky before a storm.
I realize after a moment that there’s another member of the Prophet’s entourage, trailing a few steps behind him, and I suck in my breath. It’s an alethian, like the lizard man I fought in Chale, towering head and shoulders over everyone else in the audience chamber. The one I killed in the ring had been sheathed in green scales, but this one is as black as pitch, save for its slitted yellow eyes. There are other differences, as well – several of the curving head-spines of this alethian end in jagged stumps, and the long tail trailing behind it on the marble floor is oddly bent, as if it has been badly broken. The same sense of menace radiates from this one as well, though, and from the way the courtiers are drawing back it seems they feel this also.
The four Daughters stop at the edge of the first tier, spreading out in a line. The Prophet walks between them and then starts upon the steps. It’s so quiet now that I can hear the scuff of his shoes upon the carpet. The alethian also halts at the base of the dais, crossing its massive arms across its scaled chest, watching as the Prophet ascends towards where the emperor waits.
I study the man carefully as he passes the tier upon which the matriarchs and patriarchs stand. I’m hoping for some lightning bolt of recognition that will bring my memories flooding back, but nothing happens. He looks just like a tired old man, save for his intense, storm-gray eyes.
He stops upon the fourth tier. The humming below finally fades away, as if the Daughters are also interested in what transpires next. With the pained stiffness of an old man, the Prophet goes to his knees and bows his head before the throne.
“Rise,” says the Purple Emperor, and the Prophet pushes himself to his feet.
“Ezekal. You come before us today with a matter of some importance. A grievance, we have heard. Something that you believe the court should witness.”
Auxilia shifts beside me, and I can sense her interest. Whatever is happening, it is not a common occurrence.
“Yes, Your Grace,” replies the Prophet, and his deep voice sends a shiver down my spine. Just like the emperor, this is a man who expects to be obeyed. “I come with great and terrible news.”
Mutterings ripple through the court at this. No, not common at all.
“And what is it?” asks the emperor. His voice is calm, but he’s perched on the edge of the throne, his fingers curled tight around the armrests.
“Night comes!” the Prophet booms, and the watching nobles gasp. “The twilight of the world fades away. Darkness gathers!”
“The gods have spoken to you again?” I can hear the cracks of strain in the emperor’s question.
“They have. They say they have sent a favored daughter into this world, and that she is the only one who can convince them to hold back the end.”
“A daughter,” the emperor repeats uncertainly, peering down at the four women arrayed before his dais. “Does she stand here today?”
“Nay, Your Grace. She was stolen away when she first arrived.”
“By whom?”
“By me.”
Another gasp, as all eyes turn to the small robed woman who shares the same tier as the Prophet. She steps forward, keeping her hands inside her long sleeves.
The Prophet’s lip curls, but she ignores him, watching the emperor above them both.
“Abbess Zaria. Explain to us what you mean.”
“The one the false prophet refers to appeared in our midst some months ago, stepping out of an archway of rock set far beneath the monastery, among the ruins upon which the Umbra is built. She is our ward now, under our protection.”
“She is the emissary of the gods,” spits the Prophet angrily, his hands balled into fists.
The woman’s face is unreadable, and she is quiet for a long moment. “The gods are gone, and care no longer for us,” she finally says, which brings shouts of outrage from below.
“They test us!” rejoins the Prophet fiercely, talking as much to the crowd as to the woman or the emperor. “And if we fail, we will be consigned to oblivion!”
More mutterings, and I can feel the mood of the court sharpening.
The emperor apparently feels it as well. “Silence,” he commands loudly, startling the great cat curled at his feet.
In the quiet that follows, I edge closer to Auxilia. “Who is that woman?” I whisper, careful to keep my voice low enough that Belav does not hear.
“She is the abbess of the Umbra,” the matriarch replies quietly. “The home of the xerin-tal - the shadowdancers of Zim.”
Shadowdancers. I remember Xela drawing clotted darkness from the shadows and molding it around herself. She’d spoken of the Umbra. And this woman was the leader of that order?
The emperor regains some measure of control. He turns to the Prophet again. “Ezekal. Are you certain?”
The old man nods. “I was told to wait for one such as her – a girl who can knit flesh and bone back together like the clerics of old.”
Valyra! Cold surprise floods me. They are speaking about Valyra!
“A healer?” the emperor asks, interest pushing aside his anger.
“As the blessed of the gods once were,” the Prophet says, sketching a quick circle in the air.
“The girl knows nothing of our gods,” the abbess interjects. “She does have strange powers, this I can attest to, but if she was chosen by the divine they forgot to impart their message. She believes her . . . abilities . . . come from something else.”
“I must counsel her,” the Prophet entreats the emperor. “I must make her understand. I have waited two hundred years for her, and I cannot let her languish in the care of this . . . creature and her foul disciples.”
“She belongs to the Umbra,” the abbess states calmly.
“She belongs to all Zim!” roars the Prophet in reply, spittle spraying from his lips.
“Enough!” cries the emperor, coming to his feet. The cat rises as well, its hackles up, and for the first time I see that there’s a golden chain connecting the beast to the throne.
The Prophet is quivering with rage, and I half expect him to rush at the abbess.
“Ezekal,” the emperor begins in a commanding tone. “You know that the Umbra has the same sway in this court as you do. I will not order Abbess Zaria to give up this girl now” – he turns to the shadowdancer, his eyes flashing – “but that does not mean I will not in the future. I need time to reflect on these matters.”
“Your Grace, there is little time.” The Prophet has controlled himself with impressive will, all traces of his anger vanished.
“You heard me,” the emperor snaps back. “I will not rush to a decision. My father put far more trust in the Umbra than he ever did with you, Ezekal. You claim your long life shows you have the favor of the gods, but the shadowdancers say the same about their abilities, and they have done more great services for the throne than you ever have. All I receive from you are premonitions of doom and destruction. One month. If the world has not ended by then, I will have an answer to what this girl’s fate will be.” Finished, the emperor sinks back onto his throne, his back straight and his head high.
The Prophet bows low, then, without a glance at the abbess, he whirls on his heel and starts to descend the tiered dais. When he reaches the bottom, his Daughters close around him and the nobles draw back as he makes his way back towards the arched entrance to the great hall.
My head is tingling, and I feel almost dizzy. Is it the surprise at learning that Valyra is being argued over by two of the most powerful factions in Zim? I put my hand out to keep from falling over, lightly touching Auxilia’s arm. She glances at me in shock, but that quickly turns to concern.
“Are you all right?” she murmurs.
“Yes,” I manage, but my voice is barely a whisper. What is going on?
I glan
ce towards the abbess of the Umbra, but she has vanished. I cast my gaze around. Where had she gone?
My eyes are drawn to the great black alethian striding in the wake of the Prophet and his Daughters. There’s someone beside the lizard man, wrapped in layers of gray clothes. No, there isn’t. Pain spikes in my head. Yes, there is, a figure so swaddled in cloth that no flesh is showing, and with a broad-brimmed hat that shadows its face. But my eyes want to slide over this man without stopping, as if he isn’t truly present.
Another wash of cold surprise when I suddenly realize when I’ve felt like this before – in the Last Word, when I glimpsed the Shriven lurking in the corner of the common room.
A Voice walks with the Prophet of Zim.
18
“Who is the Prophet?”
Auxilia regards me from over the lip of a silver wine glass. She’s comfortably ensconced in a nest of satin pillows and tangled silken sheets, and I’m pacing back and forth across her chambers, my body thrumming with restless energy. My thoughts are swirling with what I saw in the emperor’s audience chamber.
“I had hoped you could tell me,” she replies.
I pause, putting my hands on one of the twisting gold bedposts. “You said he simply appeared?”
Auxilia takes a quick sip. Her lips are already stained blue from the wine she’s drinking. What happened in the palace unsettled her, and after arriving again at the Orthanos estate she retreated to her chamber with a decanter of Ysalan azure . . . and me. “He did. Centuries ago. Some believe he is replaced by another when he grows too old. Others truly think he’s the same man, and it is the blessing of the lost gods that keep him from aging.”
“And what do you believe?”
She shifts uncomfortably. “I was raised by my mother, the old matriarch, with the belief that he is an elaborate fraud. Many of the most powerful houses believe the same. We put our faith in the emperor and the Umbra. But now . . . I don’t know. I have seen things I cannot explain. He seems to have powers greater than any man.”
For a brief moment I consider telling her everything: about the Shriven, the dying world, and the man who claimed to be my brother. Something holds my tongue. Perhaps she’ll think me mad, or offer me up to the Prophet in an attempt to curry favor. But I have to know about the Voice.
“I saw something,” I venture slowly. “A . . . man. He was wrapped in robes, and moved with the Prophet’s followers. There was something strange about him. My eyes wanted to slide over him, and he made my skin prickle.”
Auxilia is staring at me intently now. “The Stranger. They say he walks invisibly at the Prophet’s side, his guardian and confidant. Some have said to glimpse him out of the corner of their eyes, and when they turn to see him clearly, nothing is there. If he is real, he has strange powers.”
“Like causing paralysis. Holding others against their will with his mind alone.”
The matriarch’s eyes widen. “How do you know this?”
“I have encountered another like this creature. I watched it die.”
Auxilia sets her wine glass down carefully. She looks shaken. “Then you claim the Stranger was not sent by the gods to watch over the Prophet?”
“No. Something else.”
“Something evil? Something that would harm Zim?”
“Yes.”
“Then you are insinuating the Prophet himself is a threat to the Twilight Empire.”
“I suppose I am.”
Auxilia blinks quickly, as if trying to order her churning thoughts. “Such an idea . . . many would kill you for voicing it. A large part of the empire believes he is our only hope at salvation.”
“But not the Umbra.”
Auxilia’s face twists when I name the home of the shadowdancers. There’s anger there, and something else as well. “The Umbra has never accepted the Prophet. And as the only believers who retained their powers after the gods left, they have their own support in the empire. But their true motives are as opaque as the Prophet’s.”
“Why do you dislike them?”
The matriarch’s eyes flash. “That is none of your concern, slave.” Her voice is hard now. Cold. “But believe me when I say I would rather throw in my lot with the Prophet and his zealots than those spiders that lurk in the shadows, spinning their webs.”
“But I –”
“Enough,” Auxilia snaps, picking up her wine again. “You have disturbed my mood. Leave me, Talin. But when next I call upon you, I will get what answers you have about the Prophet, and you will never bring up the Umbra again without my permission. Do you understand?”
I give a quick nod, my mind roiling. Clearly ancient enmities run deep in Zim, and the Orthanos and the Umbra have been at odds in the past.
“Now leave.”
I manage a shallow bow and then retreat from Auxilia’s chambers. My last glimpse of the matriarch is of her staring into the distance, her mouth set in a thin line, and then the door of carved black wood thuds shut. I stand there, staring at the fanciful scenes carved into the grain, until one of the Zimani warriors flanking the door clears his throat meaningfully.
Apparently, when Swords are thrown out of the mistress’s bedchambers, they aren’t supposed to linger.
“All right, all right,” I murmur, turning away. The golden stone of the corridors is cool beneath my feet, and I realize that I’ve left my ridiculous slippers inside Auxilia’s room. Ah well. With a sigh, I start back towards my own chambers. There’s no handmaiden or Irix to guide me this time, and I fully expect to get lost within this labyrinth of a manse, but I truly do not care. Perhaps a bit of aimless wandering will help me work through this cascade of strange revelations.
The Prophet is accompanied by one of the same creatures that consumed the world in which I first awoke in. Valyra is alive and is under the protection of the abbess of the Umbra. The Prophet wants to claim her – does this mean the Shriven are seeking Valyra as well? And do the Prophet’s silver eyes mean he and I come from the same tribe? The one the priest of the copper-eyed people said had betrayed their world and abandoned it to the Shriven? If the Prophet had seen me standing beside Auxilia, would he have recognized me? I half wish I’d somehow drawn the man’s attention, just to see his reaction.
“Talin?”
I stop as suddenly as if the Shriven’s unnatural power had seized my limbs. Surprise washes through me in a cold wave. That voice . . . but it’s impossible.
I turn around slowly. At the other end of the corridor, a lanky Zimani woman has appeared. She’s dressed in robes of pale pink, and her hair is bound up in a silver weave inset with glimmering amethysts. She takes a tentative step forward, peering at me like she can’t believe her eyes.
And neither can I.
“Xela?”
“Oh, by the dark!” she cries, and then she’s running toward me. I have just a bewildered moment to try and order my whirling thoughts before her long arms wrap around me.
“What are you doing here?” she whispers fiercely, and I feel a hot tear trickle onto my shoulder.
“What are you doing here?” I reply, still in shock.
She pulls away, rubbing at her face, and looks me up and down. “You’re dressed like a fop,” she says critically. “You’re dressed like . . .” Her eyes widen. “A Sword.”
“I am a Sword,” I say quickly. “How did you find me?”
“I wasn’t . . .” Xela sees something, and I turn to find one of Auxilia’s handmaidens hovering at the end of the corridor watching us.
“Oh, Saints,” the shadowdancer hisses through gritted teeth. Then she draws herself up. “I see you lurking. Run away, and if you tell the matriarch I’m back I’ll have you flayed.”
The girl blanches and scurries off.
“You know her?”
Xela grimaces. “I grew up with her. She’s a gossipy little twit, and once my threat wears off she’ll go running right to Mother.”
“Mother?”
Xela sighs. “I am the daughter of A
uxilia Orthanos, though she may have disavowed me by now.”
I can’t help but goggle at her. “What?”
The shadowdancer grabs me roughly by the arm and starts to lead me down a side passage. “I feel like I’m dreaming,” she mutters. “Or having a night terror.”
“Where is Deliah? And Bell?”
“They are fine,” Xela replies, glancing around a corner. “Or as fine as a crazy red warrior and a maudlin drunk can expect to be.”
“Why didn’t you come after me?”
Xela gives me a look that makes me wish I could bite back what I just said. “Why didn’t you come find us? We thought you were dead at first. And then Fen caught your scent in the grasslands –”
“Wait, Fen Poria?”
“Yes, she’s with us now. She tracked you to Zim, but then lost your trail in the city . . . we’ve been tearing the place apart but it’s like you’d vanished without a ripple. And you were here the whole time?” She throws out her arms in exasperation to indicate the manse.
“Not the whole time. I was a mucker -”
“A mucker? The ones who go into the sewers?” Her beautiful almond eyes – so much like her mother’s, I now realize – widen again. “Wait, were you the one who saved my cousin’s life?”
“Ah, yes.”
Xela has to put an arm out to steady herself, nearly knocking over a porcelain vase. “I just heard . . . it’s why I came back here. I’d been steeling myself for a fight to shake this old place to its foundations, and then I saw you . . .” She passes a shaking hand across her face. Then she shoves me hard in the chest. “But how could you abandon us like that?”
I point to my ankle, and she gasps. “You’re wearing a circle? You’re a slave?”
“I was found by slavers after I tumbled off the cliff. They said by the laws of Zim I owed a life debt to them.”
She looks stricken for a moment, and then her surprise and horror melt away, replaced by anger. “How dare they?” she mutters. “How dare my mother?” She glances murderously back in the direction that leads to Auxilia’s chambers.