The Godspeaker Trilogy (35 page)

One of the Et-Banotaj shell-leaders, a grizzled woman missing an ear, spat on the brown grass and sneered. “You are a liar.”

“No,” said the taken Et-Banotaj warrior. “Hestria shell-leader, she tells the truth. Banotaj is dead, we saw him die. Hekat warleader killed him in Mijak’s Heart. The other warlords are fallen, their high godspeakers are struck dead by the god. Raklion is the warlord of Mijak. It is the god’s will, you must accept it.”

Hestria shell-leader spat again. “She is a liar, and you are a traitor.” Her snakeblade took him through the throat. He died with a gurgle, his body toppled to the ground.

Hekat did not look at him. She looked at Hestria, she bared her teeth. “You stupid woman. You will join that man soon.”

She and Arakun spun their horses and galloped back to the warhost. The dead warrior’s horse galloped beside them. “Well?” said Nagarak sourly, waiting with his three hundred godspeakers.

“They reject the god, they reject Raklion warlord,” she told him. “They must die, Nagarak. I cannot let them live.”

Nagarak nodded. “The god see you, warleader. Slaughter those sinners, send their demon-tainted godsparks to hell.”

She smiled, it was another rare moment when they both agreed. She raised her hand, Arakun summoned the shell-leaders. “Prepare yourselves,” Hekat told them. “The warhost rides to war.”

Nagarak and his godspeakers and the fallen warlords withdrew, to witness and pray. Hekat led her warhost against the warhost of Et-Banotaj. It was a mighty smiting, the god was in every Et-Raklion heart. The sinning warriors of Et-Banotaj had no hope of victory, they died in their thousands, they died in their blood. They died with their demons, every last warrior cast down. The god gave Hekat the greatest victory, not a single Et-Raklion warrior was lost.

When it was over the bodies of Et-Banotaj’s warhost were not burned, they were left to rot. Nagarak cursed the ground they died on, every living thing of Et-Banotaj in that place died, the grass, the flowers, the trees, the insects, the burrowing creatures beneath the earth. Even the crows dropped dead from the sky. Nothing would live or grow there till the end of the world.

Hekat led her warhost on to the city, and its godhouse.

The godspeakers of Et-Banotaj shouted their defiance. They refused Nagarak’s authority, they begged the god to strike him dead, to strike Raklion dead and Hekat with him. They begged the god to kill Zandakar.

Nagarak’s stone pectoral again came to life. He smote all the godspeakers. All the godspeakers died. The godhouse tumbled to stone and dust. The ground opened beneath it and swallowed it whole.

The city of Et-Banotaj surrendered.

“You see the god here,” Hekat told the fallen warlords, as they stared with wide, frightened eyes where the godhouse had stood. “Remember its wrath. When you return to your cities, when the people who live there ask what you have seen, tell them of Et-Banotaj. When demons crawl on your pillows at night, whispering their promises into your hearts, remember this city. Remember how its godspeakers died, and its warriors. Remember how its warlord died, and your high godspeakers, for that is how every wicked sinner will die. Slain by my snakeblade, thrown down by the god. I am Hekat knife-dancer, warleader of Mijak. I speak for the warlord, I speak with his voice. Remember this place, or face its fate.”

Subdued and godsmitten, Et-Banotaj city was handed over to one thousand warriors and Nagarak’s godspeakers, that it might remain obedient and learn the new laws.

Hekat renamed it Zandakar .

Raklion wept when Hekat brought the warhost home. “You are the god’s greatest warrior,” he told her, astride his stallion at the barracks’ main gates with jubilant Zandakar at his side. “You are Hekat knife-dancer, you dance for the god.”

Zandakar had been given a new pony, it was plain black, not blue-striped. He wore the blue-striped leggings. The pony wore the silver and lapis bridle. “The god see you, Yuma!” he said, his fist on his heart. “I prayed for you, it heard my prayers!”

She smiled at her beautiful son, she nodded at the warlord. “The god was in me. What sinner could prevail?”

They rode together to the warhost field, at the head of her glorious warhost. There were prayers and sacrifice, there was praise and laughter. The warhost was exultant, it was the warhost of Mijak. It had witnessed the god’s glory, it had thrown down many demons.

Et-Raklion city sacrificed and feasted six highsuns without ceasing, to celebrate the victory over Et-Banotaj. Before each highsun’s bloody offering Raklion, Hekat and Zandakar rode through the streets, Mijak’s warlord, its warleader, its beautiful son.

When he was not performing the important sacrifices at newsun, highsun and lowsun Nagarak remained in the godhouse, he worked without sleeping. With Et-Banotaj laid low it was time to subdue the rest of Mijak. He examined the names of Et-Raklion’s godspeakers, he drew up lists of those who would be sent to serve the god in other cities.

The first name on the first list he wrote with a smile.

Vortka godspeaker.

When he learned he was to be sent far away from Et-Raklion, to serve in the godhouse of Takona city, Vortka was not surprised. Nagarak cannot prove anything against me, he gets rid of me the best way he can . The face he showed to Farhja godspeaker, who gave him the news, was perfectly accepting. In his heart, he wept. I must leave Zandakar. I must leave Hekat .

He must also leave the great crystal in her keeping, it could not stay in the godhouse if he was not there to protect it. Somehow he must get it to Hekat before he was sent away, Farhja had said he would be leaving soon. To do that he must see her, speak with her, if only for a moment.

Aieee, god, I need your help. Nagarak watches me, he sets other godspeakers to watch me. Speaking with Hekat will be no easy feat.

The god answered his prayer, it always did. The following newsun, as he returned to the godhouse from walking the city streets in the quiet time, he recognized Hekat, slender and linen-clad, slipping like a knife’s shadow towards the godhouse shrine garden. It was so early few godspeakers were about in the godhouse grounds, and not one had noticed him.

He looked around, he could not see Nagarak.

I think it is safe, god. Please, keep me safe.

He found Hekat kneeling before a greenstone snake-eye shrine in the sanctuary furthest from the godhouse. She held the small shard of red crystal in a bloodless grip, she was praying fervently, he had never heard her desperate before.

“I try to be patient, god, I do not hear your answer. I come to you here, in your godhouse. You must speak to me here. You must tell me, I must know . Is it your desire that I birth another son? I thought so before, when demons tried to kill Zandakar, but you still have not sent me a man to fuck who can wake this crystal! Does that man not live? Or is he not yet in Et-Raklion, must I wait and wait until he arrives? I—”

“No,” said Vortka, puzzled, and joined her in the sanctuary. “I am the man who wakes the crystal, Hekat. If the god desires you to bear another son, why do you not come to me?”

She turned on a gasp, and leapt to her feet. “Vortka!”

He felt his heart beat harder, the air catch in his throat. Aieee, the god see her. She is so beautiful . The spiderweb scars on her face were pale now, a subtle whisper instead of a shout. She was thinner too, since last he had seen her. Riding with the warhost, smiting Et-Banotaj, she had stripped the last softness from her bones. She was lean and hard like an unsheathed snakeblade.

A snakeblade glitter was in her eyes.

“I speak to the god, Vortka. You should not be here.”

He did not leave the sanctuary. The crystal could wait, this was more important. A brother for Zandakar . “Hekat. We can make another son together. Come to me hidden in the god’s eye, like before. We will fuck, you will quicken, we will give the god its desire.”

She shook her head. “No. Vortka, go away.”

He did not like that glitter in her eyes. “Do not tell me to go away. I will go nowhere till you tell me why you will not—”

“Aieee, Vortka, do I owe you a reason?” she snapped. “I think I do not.”

Baffled, he stared at her. “Yes, you do. I wake the crystal, Hekat, I have the power to give you a son. Why—”

“No you do not !” she said. “Not anymore. You have a blade but it is blunted, it will not plow. Your seed is dead. The fever killed it.”

Her words were a snakeblade, sliding between his ribs. He could not breathe, it was hard to see. “The fever?” he whispered. I knew it. Aieee, the god see me. I knew it in my heart. Hekat made me sick . . . “I am gelded? Like a horse?”

“Do not stare at me with those eyes,” Hekat told him, defiant. “It is not my doing, the god desired this.”

“I do not believe you!” he retorted, anguished. “Why would the god desire such a thing? This is your doing, Hekat. Why? Why ? Did you think I would spread my seed all over Mijak? Seek to make a new warlord, another child to be the god’s hammer, fuck with some ungodchosen woman? How could you think that? I am godtouched , like you! But you do not accept that. I think you never have. You are Hekat, godtouched and precious . You see me as—as a threat . Now you say the god desires a brother for Zandakar, a brother who can also wake the crystal, and I cannot serve the god because I am gelded ?”

She flinched, and held out her hand. “Vortka—”

He struck her hand away, tumbling the crystal to the grass. “Do not speak my name, on your tongue it is sour!” Bending, he snatched up the small red stone. “If you are precious , Hekat, then so am I . This crystal is the god’s hammer, only I can wake its—”

He stared, not believing. He held the crystal, it was in his hand. He felt nothing within him. No presence. No power.

The god’s smiting crystal did not wake.

“What is this, Hekat?” he whispered. “ What have you done ?”

H
ekat stared at the unwoken crystal.

I do not understand, god. How can this be?

Vortka held it so tightly its sharp edges cut his flesh. Blood dripped between his fingers, his face was full of desolation. “Did you know this would happen? Did you? Did you ?”

She fumbled for her scorpion amulet, it was cold in her grasp, she could not feel the god. “No. Would I thwart the god like this? I think I would not! Vortka, perhaps it is not you, perhaps it is the crystal, its power may have leached away, or—or—”

He was not listening. He could not hear her. “Are you still precious, Hekat? Are you in the god’s eye? I think you are blind to it. I think you are deaf .” Desolation had turned to rage, she had never thought to see Vortka so angry. “When you fucked me to make Zandakar, then the god saw you. But your pride and arrogance, Hekat, they have brought you down. They have brought me down, I—”

“No,” she said. “Vortka, no. There must be a reason, the god will tell us what it is. The god will—”

“ Vortka ,” said a hated voice, at the shrine garden’s entrance.

Hekat turned. Vortka turned beside her. She felt him shudder, felt her own guts twist.

Nagarak.

He walked to them smiling, it was a terrible sight. “So. Vortka,” he whispered. “At last I learn the truth of you, I see your heart’s secrets, I have plucked them out. No godspeaker, but a demonfucker. True father of the warlord’s son. You wicked man. I will see you on the scorpion wheel. I will send your sinning godspark to hell. You will die screaming, with your entrails in bloody ropes about your throat.”

“Nagarak,” Vortka croaked. He looked ready to fall on the grass. “No. You do not understand. Hekat—”

“ Is a demon ! I have always known it. She stinks of sin, she reeks of hell. She blinded the warlord, she did not blind me .”

“Tcha!” said Hekat, scornful. Her heart was drumming, she would not show fear. “You are a stupid, stupid man. You are the blind one, you are the demon spat from hell. If you were truly in the god’s eye you would know the truth of Hekat knife-dancer, Hekat warleader, Hekat the god’s snakeblade in the world. You do not know the truth, Nagarak. You know nothing .”

“I know you are corruption incarnate, an evil bitch, the spawn of hell! I know you have lied and lied and lied! I know you have tainted the warlord Raklion, his heart is rotted, his blood is turned black .”

“No!” said Vortka. “Nagarak, you must listen. Hekat—”

Nagarak hissed at him. “Still your tongue, you godforsaken sinner! You consorter with demons. You betrayer of the god ! You cannot defend her, she is putrid to the core!”

His fury was so scorching Vortka stepped back, he flung one hand before his face.

Nagarak pointed. “What is that crystal? Give it to me.”

“No, Vortka,” Hekat said quickly. “It is not for him. It is not his business. Give the crystal to me. The god will protect you, it knows Nagarak cannot be trusted.”

Nagarak laughed, a shivering sound. He seized Vortka’s wrist and closed his fingers around it, he held him so hard that Vortka cried out. The crystal slipped from his blood-slicked grasp, into Nagarak’s greedy hand.

With a thrumming of power, it burst into life.

Hekat heard herself scream in her head. No, god! Not Nagarak! He is repulsive! He hates me and fears me, his seed must be poison! Do not make me fuck him! Make Vortka whole!

Nagarak stared at the blazing red stone. “What is this? More demon trickery? Where is this crystal from? What is its purpose? Does it summon demons, open a doorway to hell?”

Beneath her tunic, against her skin, Hekat felt her scorpion amulet shudder, she felt the god stir from its stubborn sleep. She heard at last its longed-for voice, it did not whisper, it thundered through her bones. Here is Nagarak. He will make you a son . She wanted to vomit. She had to obey.

“I am Hekat, mother of Zandakar, Bajadek’s doom and the doom of Banotaj,” she said, staring at Raklion’s high godspeaker. “I am the god’s warrior, its sacred knife-dancer. Nagarak, I smite you blind in its eye. The god is deaf to you, you are deaf to the god.”

With a roar of fury Nagarak dropped the crystal and lunged towards her with murder in his eyes. His stone scorpion pectoral came thrashing to life. She heard Vortka’s cry, saw the horror in his face. Around her neck, her stone scorpion burned. She snatched it up and thrust it at Nagarak.

“ The god see me, Hekat, the light of its eye!”

Nagarak’s scorpion pectoral seized his body, it crushed him to stumbling, threw him onto the grass. He lay on his back, tongue protruding, nostrils flaring. The pectoral did not sting him, it only held him tight. He tried to speak, the god had taken his voice.

She looked at Vortka, he was sweating, gasping, he could hardly breathe. “You cannot be here,” she told him softly. “Go into the godhouse. Speak to no-one. I will come to you when I can.”

“Hekat—”

“Go,” she said, and let her voice bite. “What I do now, I must do alone.” Then she felt a sudden stab of guilt. “Vortka, I tell you, I am sorry for the fever. It was the god’s desire, I am its true slave. I do not know why you cannot wake the crystal. The god will tell us, in its time.”

He nodded, his eyes were still unforgiving. “Whatever you do here, Hekat, do it quickly. The godhouse is stirring. You do not have long.”

She did not watch him leave, or look at Nagarak. She pulled her scorpion amulet over her head and pressed it throbbing against her belly. She felt the god’s heat suffuse her, she felt its power, it reached into her center and woke her womb.

Nagarak was panting, his chest heaved within the pectoral’s tight embrace. The scorpion did not sting him, its raised tail hovered above his face, promising swift punishment if he did not lie still.

Hekat stripped off her loincloth and knelt beside him, pulled his robes open and his loincloth down, then pressed her scorpion amulet into his groin. He moaned and twisted as the god poured its power into him. He was helpless before her, she was in the god’s hands. When he was ready she straddled his hips and impaled herself on his blade.

“Do not think,” she said, as she bitterly rode him, “I do this for anyone but the god. Do not think the son you sire will make me happy. This is the god’s want, I am its slave.”

With a silent scream Nagarak poured himself into her. She clamped her thighs on him, she ground herself against his hips. She felt his seed take root within her, the god had made her hot and fertile, nine godmoons from now she would spawn Nagarak’s son.

She lifted herself from the high godspeaker’s limp blade and sat on the grass, willing her racing heart to calm. Held down by his merciless scorpion pectoral, Nagarak stared at her. He seemed overcome. As he stared, the scorpion’s barbed tail struck him hard between his eyes.

She thought he was dead then, but after a moment saw he still breathed. The fresh red welt above the bridge of his nose faded as she watched it, became one more scorpion-mark among so many. She watched his eyes glaze, their horror fade. His taut muscles relaxed and his cramped limbs lost their tension.

His scorpion pectoral returned to stone.

She re-tied her loincloth before he roused fully, found the dropped crystal, slipped it into her pocket, and returned her scorpion amulet to its rightful place. Then she retreated to the sanctuary’s snake-eye shrine. As she knelt beside it, fingers caressing its beauty, the godhouse godbells began to toll.

Nagarak stirred. He stood. In silence he straightened his robes and his loincloth and, unspeaking, unseeing, he walked away.

He was the third dead man walking she had seen.

After consuming breakfast, boiled eggs he could not taste, and too disturbed to sleep, Vortka offered his labor to the godhouse library. With three hundred godspeakers gone to Et-Bano—no, Zandakar now—the library archivists were pleased to have him. They did not ask if Nagarak had sent him, he did not enlighten them. In the godhouse library he would hear any commotion, and while he worked sorting, cleaning and stacking the clay tablets he would have a chance to think.

His night’s duty in the quiet time had left him exhausted. The revelations in the shrine garden had left him numb. Walking away from Nagarak had left him . . .

Aieee, god. God. Is this your purpose? Nagarak is your high godspeaker, you chose him in the scorpion pit. I do not think he will survive Hekat in the sanctuary. I saw her eyes. Is she your chosen? Does she do your will?

Until this moment, he had never doubted. Hekat was godtouched, godchosen, precious. He had seen her work miracles in the god’s eye. He knew she was arrogant, proud, impatient.

I never thought she was evil. Tell me, god, have I been wrong?

If Hekat was evil, what did that make Zandakar?

My son is not evil, god. He is pure. I can sense his godspark, there is no darkness in it. He desires to serve you, as do I.

He wished he knew what the god desired of him. To raise the alarm over Nagarak would be the same as putting a knife through Zandakar’s heart. As killing Hekat. As thwarting the god ? He saw again Nagarak’s living scorpion pectoral, lashing and hissing and crushing him to the ground.

That was the god’s power. That was the god. I am its servant, I must hold my tongue.

And it was not certain Nagarak would die. Hekat hated Nagarak but the god could stay her hand. It might take this newsun from Nagarak’s mind. The high godspeaker would never know what Hekat had done to him, never remember what he’d heard. He might forget about the crystal, and what had happened when he held it.

Aieee, god. The crystal. It was not flawed, the flaw is in me. In burning my seed Hekat damaged my power. Yet I am still a godspeaker, that power remains. What is the difference? Will you not tell me? If I cannot wake the crystal can I still help my son?

A stupid question. Of course he could. He had helped him already, by being his friend. How else he could help him, the god would reveal.

As he worked in the library his thoughts ground on, like oxen yoked to a grindstone they trod around and around.

What is it about me, about Nagarak, that makes us special? What is this power in us that can wake the crystal? We have nothing in common . . . except we are godspeakers. Although Nagarak is high godspeaker and I am only—

Vortka caught his breath. The clay tablet he was stacking nearly slipped from his fingers, he managed to snatch it before it fell.

If Nagarak dies . . . if the god does desire his death . . . then Mijak must have a new high godspeaker. God. God. Do you mean it to be me?

Vortka high godspeaker? He had never dreamed it. Never imagined . . . Was it possible? Was the godspeaker power within a high godspeaker the thing that made the crystal wake? And if his special power was burned out by the fever, would the god even choose him now? In siring Zandakar, was his purpose truly served?

Aieee, god. So many questions. I wish you would answer me, I am lost. Reveal your desires, I will bring them to pass.

The godhouse godbells tolled, startling him. He looked at the library candles, it was highsun. Time for sacrifice. Since he started working there had been no commotion. If Nagarak were dead in the godhouse shrine garden, surely someone would have noticed by now.

He went to the Sacrifice chamber for this highsun ritual, that was where Nagarak sacrificed in public for the god. He could have observed it anywhere in the godhouse but he needed to see the high godspeaker for himself. Nagarak did not appear, Peklia said he was occupied in his chamber, she performed his duty, she did not seem alarmed. Afterwards, Vortka ate a hurried bowl of mutton stew in the kitchens, then returned to his labors in the library.

The day dragged towards lowsun, there was still no commotion. Nagarak lived. Vortka sighed his relief. The high godspeaker did not appear for lowsun sacrifice, Peklia once more wielded the blade. No reason was given, Peklia still was not alarmed. After dinner, Vortka slept for a short while, then took up his godstaff and walked down the Pinnacle Road to the city, praying with every step that its people would respect the god and save him from the distress of smiting.

He kept his eyes on the road as he passed by the palace. If Hekat was in there he did not want to see her.

I am still angry, god. I still have questions. She said she was sorry. Can I trust her? She could have told me the fever was your will. I am your servant, I would have accepted it.

The god could have told him. The god did not, it was another question.

The streets assigned to his authority remained peaceful, he breathed a prayer of heartfelt thanks. Twice he heard distant sounds of smitings, wicked sinners found by other godspeakers. As he walked among the small, humble houses of the Weavers district he thought about the lives of the workers who dwelled within. The life he would have lived, had he remained a potsmith. Simple. Uncomplicated. He sighed, there was no point in regret. As the sky lightened towards newsun he returned to the godhouse.

Its bells were tolling, louder and longer than the call to sacrifice. Nagarak high godspeaker was desperately ill.

“It is the same fever that recently afflicted one other godspeaker, warlord,” the healer Sidik explained in a low voice. “That godspeaker recovered, we must pray Nagarak high godspeaker will recover also.”

Hekat stood with Raklion in the healing room, beside fevered Nagarak in his bed. Raklion was deeply upset, he was stupid wasting water on a man like Nagarak. For herself, she pretended to care.

Raklion turned to her. “You are certain he seemed well when he rode with the warhost to smite Et-Banotaj?”

She met his eyes unflinching. “Warlord, he seemed very well. He threw down that city’s wicked godspeakers, he was mighty in his wrath.”

“Aieee,” said Sidik. “Perhaps he was cursed by those sinning godspeakers, we know that Banotaj consorted with demons.” She frowned. “But I can sense no demon-taint in him.”

“This other godspeaker you say was afflicted,” said Raklion. He could not shift his gaze from Nagarak’s sweating, restless body, he flinched every time the dying man groaned. “Had he traveled to or from Et-Banotaj? Perhaps there is a sickness in their soil, perhaps he—”