Requiem for the Sun (25 page)
Read Requiem for the Sun Online
Authors: Elizabeth Haydon
20
JIERNA'SID, SORBOLD
A
chmed had long despised cards and other games of chance.
chmed had long despised cards and other games of chance.
Part of the reason might have been that long ago, in the old world, that other life, his true name had been won in a game of cards from the Bolg of Serendair and given by the winner, under duress, to the demon that was his enemy.
Part of the reason might also have been that his Dhracian mother was selected for capture by the Bolg with a toss of the bones.
But whatever the reason, what he detested most about gamesplaying was the uncertainty of it.
The thrill of the gamble that others so often relished never came to him; he hated risk, and spent the better part of his existence minimizing it whenever possible. And while on those occasions in his life when he had succumbed to the need to gamble, to risk, in order to achieve what he wanted, he had more oftentimes been successful than not, he still endeavored to minimize that uncertainty, that surrender of control.
He ruminated on how much he loathed those ambiguous, helpless feelings as he stood on the reviewing stand, the lone representative of Ylorc amid a sea of other dignitaries and their retinues.
From his place in the crowd of heads of state he was learning a good deal about both the actual capacities of his fellow sovereigns, and the perceptions they hoped to convey, by studying the retinues they had brought with them to the state funeral of Sorbold.
The Sorbold army had turned out in force, doubtless to underscore to the visiting dignitaries the unwavering power they still had. Achmed counted twenty divisions in the square that surrounded the palace of Jierna Tal alone, with that many again lining the streets from the Place of Weight where the mammoth Scales stood to the mountains on the outskirts of Jierna'sid, where Terreanfor, the hidden Basilica of the Earth, was concealed in a place of endless darkness. It was an imposing display of manpower, well managed and obviously well trained. Grunthor would have been impressed. Achmed settled for merely being concerned.
Many of the other heads of state, including Tristan Steward, the regent of Roland, Miraz, the Diviner of the Hintervold, Viedekam, one of the chieftains of the Nonaligned States, and Beliac, the King of Golgarn, whose borders backed up to his own on the far eastern side of the Teeth, had brought enormous retinues with them as well. It was this genital-waggling posturing that flooded Achmed with the sensation of being at a game of cards; the silent bluffing, the position-staking, the puffery that irritated him beyond measure.
The Lirin realm, Tyrian, of which Rhapsody was titular queen, had sent a modest delegation headed up by her viceroy, Rial, a calm man with a sensible head on his shoulders. He had come with the Lirin ambassador to Sorbold and a handful of guards, as had Ashe, whose solitary presence caused Achmed to raise an eyebrow. Rhapsody's absence was rather disturbing; he knew that very little would have been able to keep her from attending such a landmark service as this funeral in Terreanfor, a place she had never been privileged to see, student of ancient lore that she was.
Achmed stepped out of the crowd as much as he could, though the dais was so full that he could barely separate himself at all. He concentrated, trying to locate Rhapsody's heartbeat; it was there somewhere in the distance, but jumbled, whether from the conflicting rhythms all around him, or for another reason he could not fathom. He resolved to make certain to catch up with Ashe when the opportunity presented itself.
As he stepped forward, what little space there was around him widened. The other nobles and heads of state had taken the implication, as he expected they would, of his solitude: he did not need guards, soldiers, or a retinue around him.
He was deadly enough all by himself.
Achmed glanced around the central square of the city, flooded to overflowing with onlookers. The Sorbolds were a stern-faced people, dour and stoic in their aspects, so different from the exuberant idiots in Yarim who had crowded the Bolg work site a few weeks prior, hooting and cheering as if they were at a carnival. He had no doubt that such an occasion of state would have been even more celebratory in Roland, where emotions ran high and increased proportionally with attendance.
Here, however, the all-but-silent crowd was much more intimidating. While it did not have the volatile nature of a gathering in Roland, which might go from excited merriment to angry destruction with very little warning, there was a threatening air to them, these silent desert dwellers who stood, staring down from city walls and parapets, ramparts, window ledges and rocky crags, watching the rites that marked the passage of their empire from an age of steelfisted autocracy into one of uncertainty.
Achmed knew exactly how they felt.
He noted silently how grateful he was at times like these that he was no longer subject to the heartbeats of each person who shared the land with him, as he had been in Serendair. His blood gift, the maddening pulses of millions of strangers beating in his mind, vibrating against his skin, had been horrific to endure, even if it had made him a handsome living as an unerring assassin. Now that was gone, left behind beneath the waves of the sea in the Island's watery grave; all that remained were the few distant pulses of those who had once lived there, now ageless, who still remained in the new world.
Like Rhapsody.
And Grunthor.
His attention was drawn to the steps of Jierna Tal by the clanging of the brass bells from the palace's towers. Harsh and dissonant, the ugly clamor rang
out over the land, silencing whatever noise had been present among the swell of troops and onlookers.
out over the land, silencing whatever noise had been present among the swell of troops and onlookers.
The funeral rite was beginning.
From the front palace doors a procession emerged, a double line of priests and acolytes dressed in robes in the colors of Sorboldâvermilion and green, brown and purple, twisting slashes of color that interwove like threads. Achmed recognized the pattern; it was the same colors that could be seen beneath the Sleeping Child's stone-gray skin, and in the altar of Living Stone on which she lay. They carried before them tall poles topped with the symbols of the dynasty, the golden sun bisected by a sword.
Following the line of clergy was the benison of the region, the Blesser of Sorbold, Nielash Mousa. Achmed recognized him by the rounded miter he wore on his head, and the amulet of the earth that hung around his neck, but otherwise would not have; in the intervening three years since the investiture of the Patriarch, Constantin, Mousa had aged at least a decade. He still carried himself with dignity, even as his shoulders were hunching under whatever weight was burdening him.
Behind Mousa came a pair of catafalques, each borne by six soldiers in the livery of the royal house, the bodies atop wrapped in simple white linen embroidered in gold. From the size of them there was no doubt that the empress was in the lead, consigning the Crown Prince to wait his turn unendingly, in death as she had done in life. A single line of mourners draped in black brought up the rear, silent and stoic.
The clanging bells slowed to a long, repeated knell tolled by the two deepest of them. As the sound diminished, one last figure emerged from the palace. A tall man in golden vestments, emblazoned with an ornate silver star on the front and back, his eyes scanning the crowd all around and above him; Achmed noted from the calm expression on his face that he had walked into his share of enormous gatherings.
The Patriarch, Constantin.
Alone among the clergy, the Patriarch's head was bare. He, like all those of Cymrian blood who had lived an extraordinary length of time, was a study in contrasts, his white-blond hair and curling beard streaked with gray, his face lined, while his shoulders remained broad, unbowed. He raised his hand to the people, moving it slowly across the panorama, and as he did, they bowed in a great wave of respectful motion. His presence, more than the death and burial of the two monarchs, caused an aura of awe in the square; generally Patriarchs remained unseen by the populace, even the faithful who worshipped in their cathedrals.
The procession moved through the city square, the dissonant bells tolling a clashing knell the whole while. Achmed shifted his stance; the vibrations from the bell tower were making his teeth ache, and sending spasms rattling down his spine.
He felt the touch of a hand on his elbow; Ashe had made his way through the cluster of nobles and heads of state to stand beside him on the reviewing stand.
“Achmed; well met.”
The Bolg king nodded perfunctorily. “Where is Rhapsody?”
“Navarne,” the Lord Cymrian replied, leaning forward to catch a better sight of the procession as it mounted the steps to the platform in the Place of Weight. “Though she may have left to visit Elynsynos by now.”
The last knell of the brass bells sounded, then died slowly away, taking the noise of the crowd with it.
With great, grim care, the bearers of the catafalques mounted the steps that led up to the Scales, following the benison. The remainder of the clergy stayed below, ringing the great stand on which the holy relic stood. One of the priests who had led the procession was handed a pair of parchment scrolls and a quill; he unfurled the first one, the older of the two.
At the top of the steps, the benison was met by two pairs of sturdy soldiers bearing an elaborately carved box the size of a coffin hanging from two poles; they followed him to one side of the Scales, standing rigidly, their eyes on the sun.
Achmed's eyes narrowed as the linen-wrapped body was lifted, under the direction of Nielash Mousa, and placed carefully into one of the great golden plates. He and Ashe watched closely as the benison himself reached into the ornate box and removed many small sacks of sand known as Fists, a measure of weight used commonly in Sorbold and among the merchants who did business there. He carefully placed each Fist onto to plate opposite the empress's body, watching the balance closely.
Finally, after an agonizing amount of time, the Blesser of Sorbold signaled to the priest who held the scroll. The cleric hurried forward to hear what the benison conveyed to him; he scratched it onto the scroll with the quill, then stood erect and turned to the Patriarch.
“Her Serenity, the Dowager Empress, at birth twenty-three Fists, one Fingerweight. Upon her coronation, five hundred fifty-one Fists, one Fingerweight. Upon her marriage, six hundred sixty-six Fists, six Fingerweights. Upon the birth of her son, the Crown Prince Vyshla, seven hundred seventy-five Fists, two Fingerweights. Upon the occasion of her fiftieth jubilee, five hundred fourteen Fists, eight Fingerweights. Upon the occasion of her seventy-fifth
jubilee, three hundred sixty-six Fists, three Fingerweights.”
jubilee, three hundred sixty-six Fists, three Fingerweights.”
The priest studied the scroll for a moment, looking puzzled, then announced in a voice that quavered slightly, “At the Weighing following death, one hundred two Fists, three Fingerweights.”
A buzzing rumble passed through the crowd at the number. Ashe and Achmed exchanged a glance.
“That can't possibly be right,” the Lord Cymrian murmured. “If that was correct, sheâshe would have not weighed much more than she did at birth; she'd have had the body mass of a three-year-old.”
“The Scales are obviously wrong,” Achmed said.
A stifled gasp rose from the ground below the reviewing stand; the Bolg king looked down to see the first few rows of Sorbold townspeople staring at him in a mix of muted horror and dismay. Ashe leaned forward slightly and spoke into his ear.
“Not a politic statement in these parts,” he said softly. “The Scales have long been trusted to be the unerring determinant in all grave matters. As you can see by the litany of her life, each Sorbold citizen is weighed at significant moments of passageâthough only the royal family is weighed on these Scales.”
Achmed swallowed angrily but said nothing. He had seen the plates of the Scales a lifetime before, affixed to another balance, in Serendair, and so knew better than Ashe their history.
“Declare the death weight again,” said the benison.
“One hundred two Fists, three Fingerweights.”
The benison and the Patriarch exchanged a glance. Then Nielash Mousa turned and addressed the crowd.
“Throughout her life, Her Serenity lived and breathed for Sorbold; it is not unexpected that she breathed the last of her life essence into the very air,” he said in his gravelly voice. “She gave everything she had to her people and her nation; there is nothing left of her earthly body, but the lightness of it shows clearly that her spirit is free, in the warmth of the Afterlife.”
The crowd fell into skeptical silence.
The Blesser signaled to the soldiers, who removed the small linen-wrapped corpse from the plate and returned it to the catafalque on which it had rested, then replaced the pile of Fists in their coffer. The soldiers who had borne the pall of the prince came forth and lifted his body, obviously with greater strain than the ones who had carried the empress, and placed it on the Scale plate.
Again the Blesser of Sorbold began the ceremony of weighing, slowly balancing the Scales against the corpse with the bags of sand. The crowd began to grumble quietly as the minutes passed, but the benison continued the task
meticulously, adding each small bag to the ever-growing pile with precision, followed by a check of the Scales' balance. Finally he conveyed the result to the head priest, who turned to the Patriarch, and the crowd once more.
meticulously, adding each small bag to the ever-growing pile with precision, followed by a check of the Scales' balance. Finally he conveyed the result to the head priest, who turned to the Patriarch, and the crowd once more.
Other books
Fear the Barfitron by M. D. Payne
Las señoritas de escasos medios by Muriel Spark
Assignment — Stella Marni by Edward S. Aarons
Let Me Love You by Davies, Amy
Royal Encounter (Russian Royalty) by Quinn, Shelli
Doctor On The Boil by Richard Gordon
Portrait of a Killer: Jack the Ripper--Case Closed by Patricia Cornwell
Blush by Anne Mercier
Reason To Believe by Kathleen Eagle
Lucid by A.K. Harris