The Birthgrave (36 page)

We entered the gates at evening, and rode for an hour or more through wide roads lined by shouting crowds, and even above this noise the birds of Za, circling and circling overhead, which was their ritual before sleep, made an incredible storm of twittering. The palace of the Javhovor of Za stood in a great circular square, a terraced tower with innumerable turrets, and ornamental work that looked like the decorations added to a cake. Facing the palace, a solitary finger tower, with a mechanized clock to strike out the hours of the day and night. At each striking—an appalling clangor from a brazen gong—ten fantastic figures of gilded iron and enamel in the shapes of maidens, monsters, and warriors progressed around the crown of the tower. It was a masterpiece of unique torture, clanging through my time at Za like a pretty and irritating child which grows worse and worse until tired out, its peak achieved at midnight—the twenty-fourth hour of the day, when the twenty-four pealing hammer blows of triumphant precision roused every soul from sleep or thought like the trumpet of Doom.

2

The High-Lord of Za who welcomed us was a small, plump man. Though the phoenix is the symbol of every Javhovor, it is designed and cast so differently in every city that you can easily tell one mask from another. The art-form of Za was languid, with soft curving lines. The Zarish lord's hair was long, yellow, and curled. Jewels dripped from his ears, and on his hands were openwork meshes of gold and pearls. Beautiful dove-masked women in the sheeny gray clothes of Za fluttered in the background. Music played. Formal words of greeting were spoken between lord and lord. There was a little embarrassment because the Javhovor of Za had not known the goddess was already present. He bowed hurriedly, striving not to look askance at my riding clothes, and a silence fell on the room.

Later, in my separate apartments, I heard the toy clock crashing the nineteenth hour.

* * *

They were all in the City, the lords of Ammath, Kmiss, So-Ess, and of the mountain place Eshkorek Arnor. The different colors of their soldiery and pavilions stretched down from the palace, through the broad open field at its back: red for Ammath, magenta Kmiss, So-Ess blue pastel, and the dull yellow of Eshkorek. Presumably these were the colors of their city stone, and it seemed incredible to me. I wondered what temperaments would come from a blood-colored place such as Ammath, or the purple wound of Kmiss.

I understood very well that I was to be a goddess again once inside Za. I donned the pleated jade-green silk, and countless ornaments of jet, emerald, and gold. The two women, in black velvet and jewels, came solemnly behind me with two colossal fans made from the stripped feathers of many white birds. The fan is a symbol to them of Greatness-Honored, but seemed absurd when snow lay thick on the ground. Behind the women came Mazlek and his ten under-captains, also clacking with ornaments and medals.

We entered the Great Hall of Za from its west end, where the huge marble stairway sweeps down a hundred steps into the room. Like staring from a mountain peak at the snake-carved pillars, a cypress tree of ebony and gold in the center, its branches touching a ceiling of gold lamps. There had been a fanfare at my entrance, they had cleared a lane for me; now, to a man, they bowed to me—heads dropped, most of the women on their knees. Contemptuously I glanced over them, and noted the ornamental false wings which drooped from many shoulders of both sexes.

I descended, and Vazkor approached and kneeled. I touched his head lightly, and said, “Rise, my husband,” after which he escorted me to a golden chair beneath the cypress tree. Here I sat throughout this first formal evening. There were entertainments—dancing and acrobatics I think—I hardly remember them. The High-Lords came to me and presented themselves. Each was arrogant, well-fed, and oddly in awe of me—except for the lord of Eshkorek. He was little, and bowed over like a man trying to withdraw inside himself; if he had possessed a shell like the tortoise, none of us would have seen him at all, I am certain. More than this, he was terrified of me, and I could tell quite plainly from the politely unmasked face and eyes that it was not my god-head he feared, but my Chosen One, Vazkor. There were some women too, rather lovely—princesses of the Cities, and concubines or wives of the Javhovors.

Toward midnight the affair began to end. Vazkor and I withdrew together. I had already noted his apartments adjoined mine. We parted at my doors, but, a little later, one of my women told me he was waiting in my reception hall. There was, apparently, a communicating door between our anterooms, though I could not see it.

“This is very formal,” I said when I went out to him. He was masked as he usually was now with me, except on occasion in public.

“Don't trouble yourself,” he said. “I will not keep you long. You did well tonight.”

“There was nothing for me to do.”

“Sometimes the manner in which nothing is done is important. Despite your curious entry into Za, they are very enamored of you. Do you recall the dark-haired woman—Kazarl of So-Ess' wife?”

“Not particularly.”

“Never mind. She'll be sending to you shortly, begging an audience.” He paused, but I said nothing so he continued. “She wants a child, I believe.”

“Am I supposed to give her one?”

“Indeed yes, Uastis. Though I imagine she does not expect you to do it in the normal fashion. You will promise her a conception.”

“And if she remains barren?” I asked. It seemed a pathetic request, and I was not certain I could help her.

“So-Ess,” he said deliberately, “is a friend.”

“And Eshkorek?”

He looked at me for a moment through the glass wolf-eyes.

“Why do you ask?”

“The mountain lord seems to understand what this council is truly about.”

“There is danger in Eshkorek,” he said. “She is very much on her own and very secure in her mountains. It's necessary I have absolute control of her. It would be foolish to ride out against the dragon, leaving a dragon's egg to hatch at home.” He nodded to me. “I'll go now.”

About half an hour after he had left, a woman came to me from So-Ess' wife, and minutes later the princess herself entered. She drew off her mask, and kneeled, a beautiful cold woman, well-suited by her ice-blue dress.

“Rise,” I said. “I know why you have come.”

She flushed slightly.

“Now,” I said, “tell me why the child is necessary.”

“But, goddess, unless I bear, I will be cast off.” She looked at me hollow-eyed. “I have prayed and longed for your coming to Za. You must help me—I am desperate.” Stiff proud woman, she was unused to pleading. I looked at her intently, and seemed to know her suddenly.

“You do not conceive because you do not enjoy your husband,” I said.

“It is true,” she said, and looked away.

“Enjoy him, and I promise you a child.”

She sobbed a little, and I thought of the southern people who dreamed they were the Old Race, yet still judged their women on the ability to bear, and still bred frigidity, because the act of sex to them was still such a tremendous curiosity.

“Come here,” I said. I touched her forehead and looked at her through the open eye-pieces of the cat mask. She flinched once, then relaxed.

“I will give you this ring,” I said. “Wear it whenever your husband comes to you, and you will have both fulfillment and a child.”

I touched her forehead again and put the ring on her finger. She thanked me profusely and left. It had been easy, after all, though I was not certain her belief in me was strong enough, for all her prayers.

I took what sleep I could between the strokes of the clock.

* * *

At Za I dreamed of Karrakaz many times, and they were strange dreams, not particularly frightening, but somehow desolate. My life was very empty. Yet I could not seem to break free from it. Where, after all, could I go? Nothing was left that might have belonged to me.

The Council met—So-Ess, Kmiss, Ammath, Za, Eshkorek, and Ezlann. Behind each Javhovor, an array of bodyguards and captains, behind my golden chair at the table head, Mazlek, Dnarl, and Slor. Vazkor had sent me a letter, directing me how and when to speak, and telling me the cues he would give me. Committing the precise words to memory, I thought of Darak's only written message to me, the misspelling and erratic formation of the letters. Vazkor's was an elegant and scholarly hand, which gave away nothing except that it would give away nothing.

At the first meeting there was a lot of talk about the war, the campaigns to come, honor, victory, and the final amalgamation of the three alliances. At each new utterance, they would look to Vazkor. He had them already, and they knew it—his decision, the powerful aura of his iron mind, the sense of mental Power that hung about him, had quelled them utterly. By what he said, and by what he had instructed me to say, they began to edge themselves toward the election of one total overlord. It was an amazing sight. I felt no pity for them, tangling themselves in Vazkor's web. Except for Eshkorek, perhaps. He was not in awe—he was terrified, and there is a great difference. At the first meeting he held back, his head bowed. At the second and third meetings he was noisy in his silence. At the fourth coming-together the lord of So-Ess voiced the opinion that Vazkor, honored of the goddess, should take possession of the five sisters of Ezlann. I recall I thought myself naïve that I had not seen before So-Ess was a friend indeed, and Vazkor's man into the bargain. I do not know what Vazkor had promised him, or how it had been done—possibly by the Power itself. I glanced around the table, and, like a dog sniffing out rats in the walls, abruptly I knew them all: So-Ess, Kmiss, and Za were his. Ammath was ready to fall. But Eshkorek . . . even as I reached him, he rose and stood there, bowed over, a bewildered, angry, frightened tortoise, sticking out its head at a serpent.

“No,” he said, “I do not think so.”

“What, my lord, do you not think?” Vazkor inquired.

“I do not think,” Eshkorek stammered, “I do not think any of our Cities should lose her independence.”

“There is strength in unity,” Vazkor said softly.

Eshkorek shook his head. He turned around to the others desperately. Surely he must know there was no help there?

“I simply say I do not think—”

“Truly, you don't think,” broke in Kazarl of So-Ess stridently. “Purple Valley might turn on us all in the spring and howl around our walls all summer. One petty argument between City and City—only one—and there is isolation and collapse. No. Safer to be under one rule. I'm happy to bow to it.”

“The war has never created such a situation before,” Eshkorek said. There was silence. Abruptly, impossibly, he turned to me. “Goddess,” he said, “I appeal to you.”

I was astonished at his stupidity.

“Eshkorek Javhovor,” I said, “I am of one mind with my Chosen Lord.”

An incredible thing happened. I had seen it before, and I have seen it since, but it is always curious. Eshkorek's fear turned to fury. He made a great lashing movement with both his hands.

“You!” he screeched at me. “Vazkor's witch-whore! Fine goddess for an ancient line to grovel before.”

The table erupted into righteous horror; soldiers drew their swords. Eshkorek grunted, turned, and walked from the room.

“Vazkor Javhovor,” Ammath cried, deferring already and apparently instinctively to Vazkor, “let me send men after him. The insult to the goddess must not go unavenged.”

“Goddess?” Vazkor turned to me.

I did not know what to say. I was oddly shaken, for I could see the tortoise had judged me very well, despite his stupidity.

“Let him go,” I muttered.

They bowed low to me, and the meeting ended.

A little later in the day, while Eshkorek's Javhovor was riding in the square, ordering preparations for departure from Za and the journey eastward to his mountains, a tiny piece of tile, dislodged from one of the turrets—by a bird presumably—fell and struck him. It entered the brain and killed instantly. It was a freak accident, yet none were particularly surprised that unseen forces had struck him down after his insult to me. The death had an enlivening effect on the City lords. They began to press for Vazkor's sovereignty. Murder can be a useful lesson, and Vazkor's men, of whom there were many, were everywhere.

* * *

After Eshkorek's death, there was strange weather at Za. A three-day storm came from the east and blanketed the world in blackness. Candles and lamps burned in the palace night and day. In this eerie and unnatural light Vazkor was made overlord. There were various ceremonies, but I do not remember them very well, only the flicker of the false gold light on gold, and the greenish-dark sky, and the thunder. I saw less of him privately than ever before, though I saw him more often in public.

The crowds in Za were afraid of the storm. When it cleared they chanted prayers of thanks to me in the square. I do not know why they did not thank their own goddess, whoever she was, but then she had not woken yet.

There were other meetings after this, though he sent me word I need not be present. I was very tired, and glad enough not to go.

Five nights passed. On the sixth Vazkor came through that mysterious door which joined our apartments.

“Goddess,” he said, “everything has been settled for the winter campaign. We shall be riding southward in two days, by which time the bulk of the armies of Kmiss, So-Ess, and Ammath will have joined us here.”

“And Eshkorek?” I asked him.

“We shall meet them on the way to Purple Valley.”

“Who is lord there now?” I asked.

“A man,” he said.

“Yours?”

“Yes. I had been planning for this time, goddess, a long while before your fortunate advent. Your arrival made this day sooner, that is all. It would have come anyway.”

He used a different tone with me, and he had come unmasked. I felt weaker than usual; the tiredness was intense. I had needed sleep a good deal in the past days, as seemed necessary with me from time to time, and the clock had made sure I had not got it.