She forced herself out of her vision and back into the present, still shivering, still weak with knowledge, and he caught her by the arms as she quivered.
She saw him now—wrapped in golden radiance, as though he had been kissed by the Fire God he preached. And though she stared into his face a long time, she couldn’t see his death.
Now she saw the light; now she saw the truth.
Below her feet, buried and hidden in the red rock, golden light emanated from a cauldron. Like the smoke of myrrh, its power flowed from it in cascading vapors, a tantalizing scent beckoning her to come forward and taste.
A source of blinding power just as bright as the star in the north had been, and she burned to possess it.
“Lord,” she whispered and cast her eyes down, entranced by the lure of this thing. “I do not see your fate, but I can see the fate of this place you have carved out for yourself.”
Just as she had seen him shed tears in his dealings with the youths he sent on death missions, so she too let a single perfect tear fall down her cheek.
“Speak, child.”
“I see it tearing apart. I see you have built it with your attention on the menfolk only. But to achieve greatness, Ancient One, there must be balance.”
He frowned, and took her to his bed. But after, as they lay together, he bade her to tell him of what she had envisioned.
And for the first time in many years, the girl called You, Girl, Bitch, Goldie, and Shuran smiled a true smile. She was in a cage, just as she had always been, but there was a way to break it, to mold it into a form more pleasing.
She was perfectly placed to sit as a queen in a world made of lies and deception, of words and mind control, of fear and hope. And where others might have seen coincidence, her gift, strengthened by the mirror shard, made her see providence.
* * *
“The problem with the world,” Shuran sighed in the bed of her lover as though revealing a sad truth, “is that it limps along on one strong foot and one crippled foot. And instead of strengthening the crippled foot, people insist on making braces for the strong one.”
She waited for Aloadin to motion her to continue. She sat cross-legged before him, her hands accompanying her soft words in gestures, as though she were spinning a reality from thin air.
“Every year you must buy pretty girls as dancers for your paradise of men, Lord. Every year many die in childbirth. Others die as examples to those who think about escaping their fate. And yet, at the same time, you have trained the surviving girls as poisoners. They excel in the study of men’s weaknesses. But you do not use it to your advantage. Instead you have created a venomous serpent and hold it clutched to your chest, believing it too subdued to strike.”
“Are you saying you foresee a danger?” He pushed himself up on his elbow.
“My master is wise.” She cast her eyes down so she wouldn’t be tempted to roll them at him, and the lie flowed from her tongue easily. “So it troubles me that you do not see that in the same way you lead your purchased young men to utmost loyalty, you could do so easily with your purchased womenfolk.”
“Go on.” His finger drew a pattern on her thigh.
“Give them purpose, Lord. Give them a purpose other than to die here. Give them life instead. Life in service of the Fire God. Where neither a warrior nor an army of warriors can bring down a man—imagine a courtesan, skilled in the arts of seduction sent into the heart of your enemies, into their very bedrooms, and just as eagerly as any of your trained men would, carrying out your kill command.
“When they become pregnant, let them have the child. If it is a girl, let her mother raise her in the harem gardens. Make them compete amongst themselves whose daughter is the prettiest, or the most desirable, or the most competent brewess. If it is a boy, you can train him in the way of the warrior from such an early age that, when he comes to the initiation, he will not need to be drugged to believe the words you speak are true.”
“Hmm.” Aloadin narrowed his eyes at her, glancing at the tear-shaped pendant hanging, but said no more. So she too remained silent.
Until there would be a next time.
It took a while to see the first changes happen. Small gestures often go unnoticed. But she saw the difference in the way her master looked at the young men when they came in for initiation, when they came back after their glimpse of paradise. What if, his mind seemed to be telling him. What if he had even more willing souls to command? How far would his power reach then? He sent the old hag away to look for young midwives, skilled not at getting rid of unwanted babies but at making sure they were born healthy.
As the old hag stood before the Ancient One in the black throne room, Shuran basked in the look of hatred the hag shot her, the golden girl standing at their master’s side. Untouchable.
The hag would die soon, Shuran knew. She had seen it clearly without having to tap into the seeing power of the mirror shard. The hag would die, held down by the hands of the many girls, while one of them pinched her nose tight, and another poured the sleeping potion into her gaping mouth. Until her body could no longer gag on the milky liquid. Until it spilled from her mouth like too much cum. Until the hag’s body gave up its earthly struggle and stilled. Sleep eternal. And all the while, the girls would chant the hag’s soul to commence unto the Fire God.
It wasn’t a true prophecy, Shuran knew, since she’d been making that death possible over the months. Perhaps, she told herself, she’d been planning that death in revenge for all the murdered girls. Perhaps just out of spite for the ugly old bitch. But mainly, she knew, because the hag was in her way. And one thing she had learned from the hag as well as using her gift for her master was this: if a life was in your way on the road to power and control, you had to take that life.
Some days Shuran smiled unguardedly, and Aloadin told her she looked beautiful when she did.
And still, on occasion, when her master had no need of her, she’d pick her way down the winding, dark corridors of the mountain fortress, seeking to find a way to the pulsing light below, but telling herself she was checking on Salah.
Her cage brother had been set to carving out larger tunnels into the rock, chipping away at the sandstone to make cave dwellings, lighted by clever shafts coaxing the sunlight, Shinar’s gift, into the darkness below. She felt a need to watch him work, drawn closer to him by a desire that she didn’t recognize. It was not lust, for he had none for her, and it was not power. But he worked so hard, so dutifully with little or no reward except to do it all over again the next day. Why?
He wiped his brow and smiled when he caught sight of her lingering in the shadows, as though he did not rage inwardly, as though he did not scheme to escape.
“I wonder what happened to the childtaker,” he asked one day, breaking his bread and passing her some out of sight of the other workers. “I never heard that he returned here.”
“He died, Salah. He will never return here.” When the childtaker had brought her here, she thought, he had fulfilled his purpose, and so it seemed right that he had died.
“Oh.” Salah’s brow furrowed for a moment. “Did you know? I mean … did you see it?”
“Yes.” She opened her mouth for a moment, wanting to tell him that she had foreseen how the wheels of the cart would jolt off on the trek across the spine of the world; how the cage, being heaviest fell into the gaping chasm first, dragging the childtaker and the donkey along after it. How, if she hadn’t seen that fate, it was one Salah would have shared with the other children in the cage who went over the edge screaming.
But she closed her mouth again, and he accepted her hesitation, maybe interpreting it as a reluctance to speak of the death of their fellow road brethren. She wouldn’t bother to correct him.
“I sometimes think of death,” Salah said after a few thoughtful chews.
He was staring at the workers, all stripped to their waists, covered in red dust, hammering away at the living rock, or hauling baskets filled with stones on th
eir backs out of the tunnels. Beasts of burden. Like him. “I sometimes think it’s a lot like sleep.”
She thought of all the faces contorted with pain and anguish she had witnessed silently in their moment of death. It was nothing like sleep.
“At night, when I’m done with the work for the day, I lie down on my cot in the dorm, and it’s the best feeling ever,” Salah went on, his gaze locked on the workers. “No one wants anything of you anymore. You can just rest.”
“You don’t dream of paradise? Of a better life?” she asked. “Or that tomorrow, a new day will come when you don’t have to get up and work?”
“No. I don’t dream of any of that. I just let myself go.” He rose slowly to go back to work, brushing the crumbs off of the rags of his trousers. His break was over. It was time to go. He turned to her and smiled again. “I just fall asleep, and that feels good.”
But as she heard his words, she saw his death upon him. It crouched there in the corner, ready to spring at him. He’d leave her now and take up his basket, crawl into the tunnel to drag out more stones. Until, suddenly, someone would let a hammer fall on a chisel that would bring down the entire roof of the tunnel they were carving, and he and his fellow workers would be crushed.
“Salah!”
He stopped, and half turned, the wicker basket stained with red dust. Alive. For now. But soon he would be buried. Snuffed out. And no one would care. There was no point to his death. No point to his life, either. When he was gone, he’d be replaced by another man, another broad back with another basket waiting to be filled with rocks.
“Goldie?”
Her mouth worked while her heart thumped furiously.
She could call him back. She could change his fate yet again. Cheat death again. She could keep on coming and watch him live out his life.
But for what?
She had spoken to the master about giving the dancing girls purpose just as his assassins had purpose. Because it felt right. But Salah’s death had no purpose.
Because his life had no purpose.
She saw it so clearly now. Life. The wrongness of it. The monstrosity of it. So much life.
And she clutched her hands to her chest and ran from him before he guessed that she had seen his death. Before she could call out to him in warning.
She fled through the tunnels, heart pounding.
She had to find it.
She had to find the source of the divine light.
That was her purpose.
It’s why the childtaker had brought her here, to the temple of the Fire God. It was why she had gained the interest of the Ancient of the Mountain. Not because she had been sold to become a powerful assassin, but because she was meant to find the source of the Fire God’s power and use it to change the world.
Surely, that was what she was meant to do. Why else the gift of Sight? Why else other than to use her gift to make sure that no death was ever without purpose again?
She ran, breath catching like flame in her throat.
She ran, dodging the guards the Ancient One had placed judiciously.
She ran, sidestepping the many traps her master had built to protect his true power.
She ran on, seeing Salah’s death before her eyes, over and over again.
And then …
The floor gave way beneath her feet, and she screamed briefly in the darkness, fell, and impaled herself on the sharp teeth of wooden stakes.
* * *
A small bell jingled on its chain, making the master look up from his tallies. He frowned. One of his traps had been triggered. He put aside his pen and rose slowly.
Perhaps it was simply one of the construction workers, he thought, unlocking the door to a secret passageway in his personal chamber. He had mapped out a new tunnel for them to dig, and it led above the secret chamber in which his most precious possession was hidden. He had heard a faint rumble earlier. Perhaps the tunnel had collapsed? Perhaps it had laid bare the entrance to the secret passageway that led to his treasure.
The Cauldron of Arrun, granting health and everlasting youth. The greatest treasure of the gods, and it was his.
He walked briskly down the winding steps of the narrow stairs, his shoulders nearly brushing against the dusty red walls.
His hands were sweaty.
No one who knew of this treasure and how it got to be here or in his possession was alive. He had seen to that himself. If one is to become the Ancient One of the Mountain, one does not allow one’s master workers to have the same chance.
He swung the keys on their ring, giving them a twirl, before he unlocked the next door.
A door behind doors behind doors.
There was a maze of tunnels and passageways throughout the mountain, and only he had a map in his tiny study, below his royal bed chamber.
He had had traps built into the walls down here, into the floors, and ceilings. Perhaps the bell had simply rung from the reverberations of the construction work.
Perhaps.
He wished it were so.
Who could know? Who would possibly know of his secret? Not even the guards who patrolled in front of some of the tunnels’ entrances knew what it was they were guarding. He had told them these were passageways that led to his most private chambers. Would they dare to look?
Well, would they?
If they had, if anyone had, they would die in silence.
He took a turn to his right, then another to his left, along a path that only he knew, and finally came upon the last set of traps.
He had built and concealed death pits, had sharpened the stakes himself before clambering out and arranging the rush mats and omnipresent red dust to cover them.
In the light of his flickering torch, he saw that someone had indeed broken through the flimsy covering and now writhed like a dying worm on a hook.
It ends with a long drawn moan equal parts pleasure and pain.
For there, caught in his trap, was the one who had dared to encroach on what was his and his alone. Triumph flooded him. But as he bent closer, he saw his golden maiden, and he choked to know her body rent through, impaled like a rare and beautiful insect. One stake protruding just beneath the collarbone, another straight through her flat, childless abdomen.
She twitched when she became aware of the light, but her eyes were wide and glazed over already.
He knew that the wood piercing her was also keeping her from too much blood loss, but that she’d die a slow and agonizing death in the darkness of the pit if he left her there.
He cried out, a hand over his mouth.
If he moved her—she would have maybe minutes before she bled to death in his arms.
But if he moved her—he glanced across at a concealed doorway just beyond the death pit.
So close, she had come so close! His hands grew cold as he thought of her wresting away his control over the cauldron.
This was his fault.
He had given her the shard of the mirror of Neeze to enhance her scrying. He saw it there, the chain still clasped around her throat, the pendant dangling. But of course, he should have known that with it she would be able to see the greater treasure of the gods. He, of all people, should have known that the temptation to reach out for them would be too much to resist.
He should let her die.
He should give her some mercy and raise her from the pit so that death would come to her more quickly.
Carefully he lowered himself into the pit and stood beside her suspended body.
“Shuran?” he whispered.
An eye slowly rolled to meet his gaze. Had she seen him? Was she aware that he was right there next to her?
All the times he had wept with the youths when they recounted their visions of paradise, although he knew them to be false, although he knew it to be a sham. And now, here he was, Master Aloadin, Ancient of the Mountain, and he too had lost a piece of paradise as it hung dying on the stake. And so he wept.
“Shuran, please.”
; * * *
The pain dulled its gnawing, the sting of its bite turned to an itch that the girl could not reach, like a thousand thousand fire ants dancing on her skin and crawling beneath it. Her fingers curled into claws. She wanted to scratch her shoulder, but she found she couldn’t move her arm properly. Her wrist twitched and then her fingers gently passed through the ghost of a surface. Like the sun behind the clouds, she thought, like the skin on boiled milk, a sense of slight liquid resistance coating her hand.
She felt utterly safe.
The crawling ants turned to warmth that filled her, a radiant heat pulsing gently through her, keeping her nourished.
If there was a paradise, this was it, she thought. Salah was right. It was a bit like sleeping. Like that moment when you start to wake, but you know it is still early and you can rest a little while longer before starting a new day.
When she opened her eyes a milky white substance stung in them and she quickly shut them again, blinded by the brightness.
Heat pooled beneath her, lifting her body upwards, to heaven. Her lips kissed air, and tasted sweet incense, salty sweat, and cinnamon around her.
She came up and took a deep breath, and felt the coating skin slip from her body, a falling sensation.
The light changed beyond her closed eyes and she dared to open them.
“Shuran,” her master breathed her name in worry and relief. His elbows rested on a dark material. Maybe stone? She lay in what seemed to be a tub filled with a milky liquid that nevertheless emanated bronze warmth and hummed with power.
Her Master and lover had been waiting for her to rise out of her stupor. His hand came up to her cheek and tipped her face softly towards his.
Golden light flowed between them, and a halo of smoky vapors curled around his oiled beard, tangled in his hair.
He had saved her, she realized. She remembered dying, and he had placed her in his most holy place of power. She was at the source of divine light, and all was filled with love, and belonging, and purpose.
She smiled as she gazed into his rain-gray eyes, and finally saw his death by her hand.
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