The voice had manifested earlier when Torve had been describing his participation in the tortures ordered by his master. As
always, it began with a warming at the back of her head, just above her neck. Then a torrent of derisive laughter cut through
her horrified thoughts.
So, you object to using other people to further your own ends, little swan?
He had taken to calling her this in mockery of the story of the beautiful swan maiden, which he must have pulled from her
memories.
I would have thought someone who has been given so much suffering herself would be pleased to hear that she is not alone in
the world.
Then you don’t know me as well as you claim
, she had responded with heat of her own.
I was under the impression your magic allowed you to read my thoughts. Clearly I was wrong if you really think I would be
happy to hear of anyone suffering.
Not even the one responsible for what happened to you?
The voice seemed to stroke her mind like a fret-board, plucking at memories of anger and resentment.
Yes, you know who he is. And I do know you. Deny you’ve thought of revenge, little swan, and I’ll prove you a liar.
Of course I’ve thought of revenge. But thinking it and acting on those thoughts are entirely different things. I’ll never
do to anyone what the Emperor and his servant did, nor what the Recruiters did to me.
He snorted.
Have you learned nothing through my spike? Revenge is a necessary emotion. It motivates you to rid the world of something
evil. You act as though there is something intrinsically poisonous about the notion.
You might rid the world of one evil, but the cost will be the raising of another. If I had the power to bring down the Undying
Man, and acted on that power because I wished to avenge the wrong done me, I would simply ascend in his place. Much as you
intend to do, I’d guess. I’m right, am I not?
The voice affected nonchalance, but Arathé was sure she could hear agitation in the words.
You know nothing of what I intend to do.
No?
She aimed her thoughts recklessly at him.
I know that you put spikes in three people when they visited Andratan about two years ago. To do this you must have been in
Andratan yourself. And because you hate the Undying Man and plot his downfall, I would guess you are locked in his dungeon.
You want us to do what you yourself cannot—
Partway through her explanation, the warm place at the back of her head began to grow hot. By the time she’d reached the last
thought, the pain was nigh unbearable.
I have a problem with your thinking
, the voice said, its poise recovered, as waves of pain pulsed through her head.
If I continue to have this problem, I will snuff your thinking out. I could do it easily, little swan. I could take control
of your own hands and force you to wrap them around your lovely neck.
Her hands and arms tingled and began to rise without her volition, frightening her even more than the pain. She fought him,
but her limbs were his. Nothing in the dungeons of Andratan had scared her half as much.
Or I could have you cast yourself from a cliff. If you anger me, I might make you kill your friends first.
The voice was laden with mock sorrow.
I have no idea how effective you would be as an automaton, but I’d find a way to deceive your friends into thinking you remained
in control. So keep your thoughts to yourself and I’ll let you live. Do we have an understanding?
We do
, she told him, ashamed at her cowardice.
Please…
The voice vanished in an instant, but the pain and the horror took a great deal longer to fade.
I harbour a monster
, she had said to herself, and wept quietly.
“You’re not happy, sister.”
“You have eyes at least,” she said to Anomer, her hands busy shaping the words her tongue could not. “More than our father.
He’s noticed nothing.”
His eyes narrowed. “Something really is amiss. Normally you defend him past reason.”
“I am sorry, I have run out of energy to defend anyone.”
I’m going to lie to my brother about something important for the first time.
“This is not like you, sister.”
“I feel so weary. So much has happened, we have come so far, and I am near the end of my endurance. My legs feel as though
they cannot walk another step, and I do not want to see any more suffering and death.”
“Is this why you will not speak mind to mind? It would be so much easier for you.”
Anomer sat beside her on the cooling sand and put an arm on her shoulder. She rested her head against his hand.
“I am tired, Anomer,” she whispered, her hands flickering desultorily. “The effort of mind-speaking has left me exhausted.
I have had enough of gods and voices and earthquakes and whirlwinds and fire. I do not want revenge. Let Father confront the
man, if he must. I just want to go home.”
He will believe this
, she thought, sorrow bubbling up in her chest.
She allowed her tears to roll down onto her brother’s hand, her misery compounded by the necessary but cruel deception.
The perversity of life brought Mustar to her on the very evening she had decided she must remain alone.
He limped across the sand and sat with a groan in the same place Anomer had left only a few minutes before. Arathé dashed
away her tears, but could do nothing about her undoubted redness of eye. She smiled at him.
“You look tired,” he said.
“And your leg still gives you pain, I see.”
She had to sign slowly: Mustar had not yet fully mastered her language. At least he didn’t need Anomer to interpret for him.
He frowned. Arathé noted with dismay that even his frown crumpled his attractive face pleasingly, lending his chiselled features
a mock-serious air.
“My leg?” he said. “Only when I’m inactive for any length of time. Arathé, what do you think of this place? Does it make you
feel”—he cast about for the word—“uncomfortable?”
There was something irresistible about the young fisherman. Unlike the cliff-girls of Fossa, Arathé had never been impressed
by his broad shoulders and rippling muscles. Instead, it was his sly sense of humour, a cheekiness that immediately took her
side, engaging her, that she found most endearing. There was something carefree about him. He listened no better than any
male, to be sure, and was certainly not a person to whom she would ever confide her closest secrets. But talking with him
made her feel lighter somehow. She’d missed his banter on board the
Conch
, where he’d been absorbed in the rowdy single men’s section of the steerage cabin. He was certainly a welcome change from
the intensity of her father and brother. So if Mustar found the House of the Gods uncomfortable, and troubled to say so, the
feeling must be strong.
“Dead bodies make me uneasy,” she replied. “I haven’t noticed anything else.”
“No, it’s the place itself. There’s a sadness here. Do you remember Old Man Cadere’s family?”
“The Cadere Row mob?”
Arathé had heard about them from her father but, given their rather unsavoury reputation, had not mixed with them. Old Man
Cadere had gone through four wives, one after the other, and they had given him over twenty children—twenty-four by some counts,
twenty-five by others. They had all lived in a ramshackle house built of little more than driftwood and brushsticks. Then
the old man had died and the family immediately scattered throughout Fossa. Some eventually came back to Cadere Row and built
new houses there, giving the street its name, but the old house was never again occupied.
“I went to see the family house once, when I was little,” Mustar said. “Thought it would be a good place to play. But the
roof had fallen in, and the walls had turned white and splintered. All the life had gone out of it. It was only an old abandoned
house but it frightened me. Later I learned the old man’s sons had argued over who was to inherit it, and in the end decided
that since no one could agree on who should have it, it was to be left uninhabited. This place feels like that. There was
so much life here once, Arathé. Can’t you feel it? I can imagine the Father’s two special children playing in the room with
the large objects. Or all three sitting together, Father, Son and Daughter, watching the mist from the pool making wonderful
patterns. I imagine I can hear faint laughter at the edges of my ears. And when the children were grown, I see them in this
room with their Father, sitting on their three chairs, making decisions together, guiding, influencing the world of men.”
He closed his eyes. “Then arguments. Disagreements over what should be done and who should do it. Two children trying to grow
up, to become independent of a proud and powerful father.”
Now Mustar was talking of his own childhood, Arathé knew. His father, Halieutes, had been the Fisher of Fossa before Noetos
and had won widespread renown. Of course, he might just as well have been describing her own formative years.
“It must have been difficult growing up in the shadow of such a great man,” she signed, and he nodded, unconscious of how
she had read his meaning.
“It was, I think. And the Son and Daughter would have contended with their Father, wanting to prove themselves to him, until
they could no longer stand it. I feel their anger and frustration, Arathé. I feel the cliffs crowding in on me. The House
of the Gods would have become a prison. I hear the arguing, the reasoned voice of the Father, the words that make perfect
logical sense even as they stifle the life out of you. Then one day things went too far and the children left in anger, only
to return in strength to drive their hated Father from this place.”
“You sound like you sympathise with them,” she said.
“Of course I do. No matter how bad they’ve become, there must have been a point when the Father might have done something
to make things turn out differently.”
“So how did you turn out so well?”
He opened his eyes, his dark brown eyes, and turned to her. “You think I’ve turned out well?”
“I—”
“Arathé, you never saw what I did with the cliff-girls. Nothing they didn’t want, to be sure, but I did it anyway, knowing
it was wrong. Women, they… ” He struggled for words, and waved his hands desperately at himself, obviously thinking he was
not communicating his meaning. She nodded to him to continue.
“There was a woman in cabin class on the
Conch
. An older woman, travelling alone. She made a suggestion to me.” His face coloured, and suddenly Arathé didn’t want to hear
any more. “I moved in with her for the best part of a week. She… I… Arathé, I’m sorry. I’m not a good person.”
Her heart plummeted. There was no reason why this should matter, but it did.
“Why do you apologise to me?” she signed. “I am not your father or your sister. And you are not Keppia. You haven’t killed
people for fun or possessed others. You’re not trying to break apart the world so you can prolong your hateful life. So you
slept with a woman who desired you. Where is the harm?”
His look was full of helplessness and something else. “It would be harmful,” he said quietly, “if it hurt someone I hoped
might desire me.” Then he turned away.
Her chest flooded with renewed hurt. “Oh,” she said, a grunt more than a word. To be desired and not pitied…
Oh, Alkuon, not today. Not when someone truly dreadful holds my life in his hands.
He waited for her to speak, this young man who thought himself reprehensible merely for taking and giving pleasure, betraying
no one in the process. While she harboured a secret that ought to be screamed to everyone in this place, a warning of how
cruelly she was enslaved, of what the voice might make her do; a secret so shameful she could never share it with Mustar,
with anyone, for fear of losing everything.
She had no choice. She so wanted to take him in her arms and love him, to let his openness wash away all her sordid memories
and fears, but she could not do it. She could not open to him and still keep her secret, so she must remain closed. And the
sadness of this was how he would inevitably interpret her actions.
“Mustar,” she said, her hands weaving the words as though constructing the bars of her own prison, “I do not desire you. I
cannot. I am too broken. Please, give me time.”
He smiled wanly. “I thought this was so. You want time? You have it. And hopefully one day you might forgive me for the woman
in cabin class, and the many other terrible things I have done.”
“Truly, Mustar, it—” she began. But he had stood up and was already walking away from her.
Arathé sighed. Best, perhaps, if he thought her angry with him. If the voice in her mind thought Mustar was a threat, it would
not hesitate to use her to remove him. She could not stand that. As much as she desired his comfort and closeness, she had
to put beautiful, dangerous Mustar out of her mind. From now on she would have to keep well away from those she valued most.
“Father, we must talk.”
“Son, I have matters to discuss with Captain Duon. And, as you can see, I am helping him bear an unpleasant burden.”
“You are by no means the only one with an unpleasant burden. But if you don’t listen to me now, you’ll be continuing north
on your own.”
Ahead, Duon stumbled on a slope of slippery, worn rock reduced to the consistency of glass. They were in a room of rippled
blue stone with a steaming pool set in the rocky floor.
“Steady, there,” Noetos called, and the southern soldier grunted some answer he failed to catch.
There was no doubt the House of the Gods was beguilingly beautiful. Each room had its own hidden or obscure function, and
every room contained a numinous feel: the sense that someone immense had just left or was about to step in. Noetos prided
himself on his practical bent, but even he found himself distracted by the shapes, the colours, the way the light pooled or
rippled or reflected. Others of the party ran from one side of the room to the other, exclaiming over this strange relic or
that incomprehensible artefact.