Forge of Darkness (Kharkanas Trilogy 1) (48 page)

Behind her the lesser priestesses fretted, and the sound alone was sufficient to irritate her. They had fled their beds and the men lying in them as soon as the news reached them. In her mind she imagined them transformed, bright silks shed and in their place dark, oily feathers. Mouths twisting into beaks. Breathless, excited words dissolving into senseless cawing. And the musty heat of their bodies now filled the chamber, and the long-toed feet clacked and kicked through the white shit of their agitation, and in a moment Emral Lanear would turn from the mirror and look upon them, and smile at the death of illusions.

‘A woman!’ someone hissed.

‘Azathanai! It is said they can take any form they wish.’

‘Nonsense. They are bound by the same laws as the rest of us – you might well dream of escaping that ugly countenance of yours, Vygilla, but not even an Azathanai’s power could help you.’

High-pitched laughter.

Emral stared at the blurred reflection, wondering what it was thinking, wondering what it was seeing. There must be a secret dialogue, she told herself, between thinking and seeing, where every conclusion was hidden away. But to look upon oneself in this mirror-world was to witness every truth; and find nowhere to hide.
Mirrors, I fear, are an invitation to suicide
.

‘Sister Emral.’

At the familiar voice she felt something quail inside her. But the blurry reflection showed no sign of that, and Emral felt a flash of unreasoning jealousy. Yet she held that placid gaze and did not turn at the call. ‘Sister Syntara, is it time?’

High Priestess Syntara’s arrival in the chamber had, Emral realized, announced itself a few moments earlier, in the sudden hush among the priestesses. Such was the force of the young woman’s power, a thing of polished gold and dripping blood. Emral could see her now, almost formless in the mirror, neither beautiful nor imposing. She suppressed an urge to reach up and wipe through the shape, smearing it from existence.

There was no need for two High Priestesses. The temple was ancient, once consecrated to a spirit of the river. The god’s very name had been obliterated from all records. Pictorial representations had been effaced
from
the walls, but she knew the Dorssan Ryl had been named after the spirit that once dwelt in its depths. In that ancient dawn, when the first stones of Kharkanas were set down, a single priest led the processions, the rituals of worship, and conducted the necessary sacrifices.

The Yan and Yedan cults were survivors of that time, but Emral saw them as little more than hollow effigies, where ascetics invented rules of self-abnegation in the mistaken belief that suffering and faith were one and the same.

Instead of answering Emral’s soft query, Syntara spent a few moments sending all the others from the chamber. Now she turned to Emral once more. ‘Will you gaze upon yourself until All Darkness comes?’

‘I was examining the tarnish,’ Emral replied.

‘Set the candidates to polishing it, then.’ Syntara’s tone betrayed the first hint of annoyance. ‘We have matters to discuss.’

‘Yes,’ Emral said, finally turning to Syntara, ‘that does seem to be our principal task these days. The discussion of … matters.’

‘Changes are coming, Sister. We must be positioned to take advantage of them.’

Emral studied the younger woman, the fullness of her features, the unnecessary paint round her elongated, seductive eyes, the perfect moulding of her lips; and she thought of the cruel portrait Kadaspala had painted of Syntara – although it seemed that only Emral saw it as cruel, and indeed the portrait’s subject had uttered more than once her admiration of the rendition. But then Emral could not be certain that Syntara’s admiration was not for the woman depicted, rather than the genius of Kadaspala. ‘We must be positioned to
survive
, Sister Syntara. Seeking advantages is somewhat premature.’

‘That you are old is not my fault, Sister Emral. Mother Dark kept you elevated out of pity, I suspect, but that too is her decision to make. We are creating a religion here, but instead of glorying in the possibilities, you resist at every turn.’

‘From resistance comes truth,’ Emral replied.

‘What truth?’

‘Are we now discussing matters, Sister Syntara?’

‘An Azathanai has come from the Vitr. She even now approaches, as much as raised aloft by the Shake.’

Emral lifted her brows. ‘To challenge Mother Dark? I should think not.’

‘Did you know that Hunn Raal is in Kharkanas?’

‘I have observed his petition for an audience, yes.’

‘You should not have denied him,’ Syntara replied. ‘Fortunately, he sought me out and we have spoken. The Azathanai was found by a troop of Wardens of the Outer Reach, and it was a Warden who was escorting the woman here – before the monks intervened. The
Azathanai
was brought directly into audience with Sheccanto, and was a guest of the monastery for two nights. Do you begin to understand?’

‘I did not deny Hunn Raal. Rather, I saw no need for haste. He has brought you this tale? And what, do you imagine, might be his reasons for so eagerly filling your ear, Sister Syntara? Allow me to guess. He wishes to enliven the notion of this Azathanai woman posing a threat, and so receive from Mother Dark the command to once more muster unto arms Urusander’s Legion.’

Syntara was scowling. ‘She came from the Vitr.’

‘She is Azathanai. Perhaps she did indeed come from the Vitr, but she is not
of
it. Since when have the Azathanai posed a threat to us? If Hunn Raal gets his way, how will the highborn react to the resurrection of Urusander’s Legion at full strength? Particularly at this time when all of Kharkanas is talking about a holy marriage?’

‘Holy marriage? I assure you, Sister Emral, the talk on the streets is all about Draconus, and what he might do should such a union be announced.’

‘Only because they’ve thought further along this path than, it seems, you have, Sister. Draconus indeed – will it be his head on the plate offered to the highborn in appeasement? And how long will the pleasure of that last when a score or so of Urusander’s lowborn cohort commanders tramp mud into the Citadel’s Grand Hall? The banishing of Draconus from her bed is poor balance to the diluting of highborn power. The return of Urusander’s Legion will be a drawn blade, held high over our heads. And you would dance for them?’

At these last words, Syntara’s face darkened. The rumours of her childhood spent as an alley dancer – mouth round the cocks of drunken old men – never quite went away. Emral and her agents had done nothing to dispel them, of course. But then, Syntara’s own talespinners never rested in assailing Emral’s own reputation.
Accordingly, there are always matters to discuss
.

‘It would appear,’ said Syntara after a moment, ‘that you’ve become well acquainted with alley rumours of late, Sister Emral.’

‘Enough to know that the hatred of Draconus stems from jealousy—’

‘And his growing power!’

Emral stared at Syntara. ‘Are you now as deluded as the rest?
He has no power
. He is her lover, that and nothing more. A Consort.’

‘Who has doubled the number of his Houseblades over the past three months.’

Emral shrugged, turning back to the mirror. ‘In his place I would do no less. Hated by the Legion and the lowborn, feared by the highborn. To steal the threat from this, she would do no better than to marry him instead of Urusander.’

‘It is well then,’ snapped Syntara, ‘that Mother Dark does not seek our counsel.’

‘Upon that we agree,’ replied Emral.

‘But even that will change, Sister Emral. What then? Are we to stand before her snarling and spitting at each other?’

‘With luck, you will have aged by then, and so found for yourself some wisdom.’

‘Is that how you interpret the lines upon your face? Since you stare endlessly into that mirror, you must know those flaws well by now.’

‘But Sister Syntara,’ said Emral to the vague form standing behind her own reflection, ‘it is not me that I am looking at.’

* * *

Caplo Dreem and Warlock Resh rode at the forefront of the train. Behind them, unflanked and trailed by a half-dozen Shake, rode T’riss, astride her horse of bound and twisted grass. The black of the grass blades had faded in death; the simulacrum was now grey and brown, and in drying the entire creature had tightened in form, until the grasses bore the appearance of muscle and raw bone, like an animal stripped of its hide. The holes of its eyes were now spanned by the webs of funnel spiders. Caplo repressed an urge for yet one more glance back to the Azathanai and her ghastly mount.

His hands were sweaty inside their leather gloves. Up ahead, the forest’s edge was visible in a swath of dulled sunlight, as if the shadow of clouds resided in his own eyes, and he found himself fighting a shiver.

Beside him Warlock Resh was uncharacteristically silent.

As promised they had delivered T’riss to the Yan Monastery, riding into a courtyard filled with brothers called in from the fields and assembled to make formal greeting to the Azathanai. Many among the crowd had recoiled upon seeing the horse of grass – or perhaps it was its rider’s growing power, which Resh said roiled about her in invisible yet palpable currents – or the blankness of her expression, the flatness of her eyes.

Little had been said on the journey back to the monastery. None knew what they were bringing into the community; none knew what threat this Azathanai posed to Mother Sheccanto. Born of the Vitr was a fearful notion. Caplo regretted the enmity of the Warden, Faror Hend – he would have liked to question her more about T’riss: the first moments of their meeting; the details of their journey through Glimmer Fate.

Politics was worn like a second skin, smooth as silk when stroked but bristling when rubbed the wrong way. Caplo was as quick to make enemies as friends, and he had chosen wrongly with Faror Hend. Now that she was upon the other side, he would have to give thought to
diminishing
her reputation. But he would need his talent for subtlety, since she was betrothed to a hero of the realm. It was all very unfortunate, but a spy was the repository of many unpleasant necessities. The profession was not all daring and romance, and at times even the mask of seduction could turn ugly.

His thoughts returned to that fateful meeting between Mother Sheccanto and T’riss. There had been no delay in ushering himself, Resh and the Azathanai into the chamber of the Mother, known as the Rekillid – the old tongue word for womb. The candles of gold wax lining the walls had all been lit, bathing the round room in soft yellow light that seemed to lift towards the domed, gilt ceiling. The vast woven rug, rich with earth tones, was thick enough to swallow the sounds of their march across it to where waited Mother Sheccanto, seated in the high-backed chair of her office.

With Warlock Resh upon the Azathanai’s right and Caplo Dreem upon her left, they walked without speaking until halting five paces from the dais.

Caplo saluted. ‘Mother, the bandits have been eradicated. In sorrow I must report that no children were saved.’

Sheccanto waved one wrinkled hand in dismissal, her watery eyes fixed upon T’riss, who seemed to be studying the rug underfoot. ‘Warlock Resh,’ Mother then said, making a command of the name.

Bowing, Resh said, ‘Mother, the report of the Warden is that this woman emerged from the Vitr. Her escort named her T’riss.’

‘A Warden versed in the old tongue, then.’

‘Faror Hend, of the Durav, Mother.’

‘She had wise and knowledgeable parents,’ Sheccanto said, nodding. She’d drawn her hands into her lap and there they fidgeted, gripping one another as if to still an unseen tremble, but her gaze had yet to shift away from T’riss. After a moment, she lifted her chin and raised her voice, ‘Will you be a guest among us, T’riss?’

The Azathanai looked up and then away again, now studying the walls. ‘This light is pretty,’ she said. ‘I saw a fountain in the courtyard, but it seemed shallow. There is a dryness here that ill fits a mother’s home.’

Breath hissed from Resh’s nostrils in a rush, but a twitch from Sheccanto stilled the warlock, and then she said, ‘If you will not be a guest among us, Born of the Vitr, then we shall not delay you longer. It is your desire to speak with Mother Dark? We shall provide you a suitable escort.’

‘Your faith is empty,’ said T’riss. ‘But I expect you already know that. There was a spirit once, a god of sorts. From the river near here. It reached through the earth, pulsed in the well you bored in the courtyard. But now even the fountain is lifeless. In chaining and harnessing
the
power of the water, you bound the spirit and stole from it its life. The free shall live but prisoners shall die.’

‘It would seem,’ said Sheccanto – and now her trembling was beyond disguising – ‘that you lack the usual Azathanai tact.’

‘Tact?’ Still her eyes cast about in the chamber, more wandering than restless. ‘Mother, I am sure you mean amused condescension. Azathanai are amused by many things, and our superiority is not in question. Tell me, do we visit often? I imagine not, since the power that now grows from this realm called Kurald Galain is cause for consternation.’ She had slipped her feet from the odd grass moccasins she had been wearing, and now dug the toes of one foot into the deep plush of the wool rug. ‘Someone will come, soon, I expect.’