The Godspeaker Trilogy (46 page)

Hekat caught her breath. Betrayal was a hot knife, plunged hard and deep between her ribs. She was a slave again, a bratty child, she stood in the chamber of Abajai’s villa and learned that all she thought was true were lies.

Dmitrak said, “I tried to reason with him, Empress. I tried to make him listen to the god. He cut me with his snakeblade! He tried to kill me with the hammer!”

She would not care if he had killed Dmitrak. She would not care if he had killed himself. She wished he was dead now. She wished that she was.

I am Hekat, godtouched and precious. How can this be happening to me?

“Is this so, warlord?” she whispered. “Did you turn the god’s hammer on your brother?”

Zandakar swallowed, his godbells cried. “Not to hurt him. Only to stop him. Yuma, I swear, I heard the god. I am not meant to make Mijak the world. I am meant for another purpose.”

His words struck her like blows. Annihilating. Numbing. Dimly she was aware of the watching crowd. Of Vortka beside her, his robes brushing her arm. She could hear the piebald bitch, breathing. That was offensive. This was her fault.

She tipped her face towards the sun. Breathed in deep the searing air. Around her neck, the scorpion amulet burned.

“ Aieeeeeeee! The god see me! My son Zandakar is dead !”

She leapt from her stone throne, she brought up her snakeblade, she dragged its sharp point through her left cheek, her right. She severed her silver scars, she turned them scarlet, she bled for the god and the pain in her heart. With her sharp snakeblade she cut her breasts, her arms, she soaked the hot air with her acrid blood.

The piebald bitch screamed. The crowd was screaming. Vortka was shouting, Zandakar too, even Dmitrak shouted, though he could not care.

Zandakar reached for her. “Yuma! Yuma !”

She could not hear him, her son was dead.

The piebald bitch screamed again, even louder. Hekat turned, blood pouring down her face. “Be silent, you patched slut! Did you not hear me, there is no Zandakar! Zandakar is dead ! Dead in the god’s eye, dead in mine!”

“No, no, he kneels before you!” the piebald bitch cried. “Do not disown him, forgive him, Empress. Whatever he did, he did for me! For his son in my belly, for the love between us!”

Forgive him? Forgive him?

He is unforgivable.

There was a roaring in her head, it was the god, the god was screaming. She lifted her snakeblade, the world was turned scarlet.

A dead man howled at her, “ Yuma, no !”

With five slashing strikes of her snakeblade she opened the piebald’s bulging belly. Watched, immobile, as the bitch’s ugly mouth widened, as her body went rigid, as something brown and white and covered in blood slid from that slashed place and fell to the ground. It writhed feebly for two heartbeats, then was still.

Slowly, the piebald’s stunned eyes lifted, then she began screaming. Dmitrak’s snakeblade plunged into her throat. The piebald thudded to the blood-slicked stone dais.

Silence, but for a dead man’s weeping.

Hekat looked at Dmitrak, saw Nagarak inside him. Saw the flash of the god’s power and snatched the hammer from Vortka. She gave it to Dmitrak, he put it on. In his face a riot of triumph, a hunger for power finally assuaged.

He raised his arm, and crimson power surged into the sky.

“Behold the god’s chosen!” she screamed for the crowd. “Dmitrak warlord, hammer of the god!”

It was the watching warriors who broke the dreadful silence. They yelled, they shouted, they surged for the stairs.

“ Dmitrak! Dmitrak! Behold the god’s hammer !”

The crowd took up their frantic chant.

“ Dmitrak! Dmitrak! The god’s mighty hammer !”

Dmitrak bared his teeth at her, it was almost a smile. With the power still surging, he turned to her people, he swam in their chanting, he grew in their eyes.

Hekat could not bear it. She looked at dead Zandakar, slumped over the piebald. He was oblivious, weeping, groaning like a man strapped to the scorpion wheel. She seized his godbraids, she wrenched his head back, she raised her snakeblade—

“ No, Hekat !” cried Vortka, and took hold of her wrist.

“Do not dare to stop me!” she cried, her voice was a stranger’s. “He is dead already, I but finish my task!”

Vortka’s face was running with water. “Hekat, don’t . When your anger cools you will hate yourself!”

Was she weeping also? She could not tell. “I have given him all my hatred, I have none left, not even for that !” She kicked the piebald’s flaccid body.

“You think so now, you will not think it forever!”

“You try to save him because he is yours!” she hissed. “Release me, Vortka, or lose your hand!”

Vortka pulled her close, he pressed his cheek to hers. He did not care who might be watching. Truly, to Vortka, they were alone.

“Hekat, spare him, I beg you. For what was between us, for how he was made.” He was weeping so hard, he was almost incoherent. “You will never see him again, you have my word. But do not kill him . I ask on my life.”

She looked again at her dead breathing son. Why should I spare him, this wicked sinner? For his sinning betrayal, god, he should die .

A flicker of memories crossed her inner eye:

Zandakar, bloody and slimed with mucus, still roped to her sweaty, exhausted body . . . Zandakar, two teeth revealed in his triumphant smile as he stood alone for the very first time . . . Zandakar, kissing her, saying, Yuma, I love you . . . Zandakar, brown and gold and gleaming, galloping his pony ahead of Raklion and the warhost . . . Zandakar, riding to conquer the world . . .

Zandakar . . . Zandakar . . . Zandakar . . .

She released his godbraids. Stepped away from his body. Wrenched her wrist free from Vortka’s desperate grasp. With her cold gaze resting upon the face of Dmitrak warlord, the god’s mighty hammer, her only living son, she said:

“Then take him, Vortka. Get him out of my sight. The next time I see him I swear, he will die.”

Well, this was an adventure! Kind of like trying to nail smoke to a wall, only harder.

First and foremost, heartfelt thanks to my long-suffering editor Stephanie Smith, who bore with patience above and beyond my extraordinary cluelessness through the writing of this book.

The entire Voyager team in Australia for their hard work and support: you guys rock every casbah on the planet.

My esteemed and invaluable guinea-pig readers, who must have qualified for some kind of purple heart: Glenda Larke, Mark Timmony, Elaine and Peter Shipp and Mary Webber.

My agent, Ethan Ellenberg, who scared the you-know-what out of me with a last-minute critique that really put the cat among the pigeons and the grey hairs on my head. Thanks, Ethan. I think. *g*

Those mad, mad puppies at Voyager Online (aka The Purple Zone) for—well—being mad, mad puppies.

Les Petersen, for his beautiful cover illustration, and Darren Holt, for the spectacular design.

The booksellers, who help spread the word.

extras

Your first series—Kingmaker Kingbreaker—was a two-book series which is quite unusual. Why did you decide to do this and do you plan to make it into a trilogy at a later date?

Funny you should ask that . . . originally, it was a standalone novel. Why? Because I honestly couldn’t imagine writing a trilogy. I never believed I had that many words in me. The idea of writing a single novel was daunting enough. Thoughts of a trilogy had me crawling under the blankets! As it was I struggled for a long, long time to get that single novel written. In the end I wrote it as a film script—I’ve always found dialogue fun and narrative prose more challenging. The only way to reach The End was to do it all in dialogue. After that I went back and novelized my script (you’d have to think there’s an easier way, wouldn’t you?) and—making the classic new writer’s mistake—submitted it to a publisher way before it was ready to be seen. But the editor liked it enough to include a list of rewrite suggestions with the rejection letter, and invited me to resubmit after having another try. Of course when I re-read it I saw all the mistakes—the biggest one being I’d massively shortchanged the story. So I looked for the natural breakpoint, cut the manuscript in two, making it a two book series . . . and got published.

Having said that, though, I do like the two-act structure. I do a lot of theater stuff, so it seems to be quite comfortable. As for expanding the series from two to more . . . well, there is something in the pipeline. No official announcements yet but stay tuned!

Kingmaker Kingbreaker is about the arduous coming of age of your protagonists. What is it about this situation that you think fascinates fantasy authors and readers? Is it also the sort of theme you enjoy coming across in books as a reader?

Well, it’s about a lot of things—love, hate, revenge, sacrifice—but certainly coming of age is a major factor in the story. It’s a theme that resonates through all literary genres, I think, and has done for as long as there have been stories. Because “coming of age” can be a great many things. As complicated human beings I think it’s possible that we never stop coming of age. Every time we grow in our lives, every time we take a chance, meet a challenge, survive something dangerous or frightening, we’ve come of age. We’ve reinvented ourselves. We’ve found a new way to live in the world. That’s where the appeal lies, I think. Because change is frightening. It’s confronting. Experiencing it vicariously through characters in a story can be helpful—but it’s also a lot of fun! All the emotional payoff without the actual scary of real life. It works for me!

Your books are very character-driven. Do you have a favorite among your characters? Are they based on people you know? (You’re allowed to say!)

It does seem to be working out that way, I think—that my books are more about the characters than they are about anything else. Certainly in my own reading and drama diet I gravitate towards stories that are about people more than stuff. I think people are fascinating. What makes us tick is a never-ending source of interest. The characters in my books are a kind of patchwork quilt, made up of aspects of myself and of people I’ve met in the real world. I’ve never based a character on a totally real person, but I’ve certainly been inspired by one. There’s an upcoming character, a psychic named Ursa, who was inspired by a doctor I know.

As for having favorites, well . . . if I admit to a sneaking affection for Hekat are you going to call for the men in white jackets? And of course I’m very fond of Asher—so brave and bloody-minded! I think he’s a doll.

The scenario you created for Empress is more expansive than your previous series. Is it inspired by anything or did you just feel you wanted to stretch your wings a bit further? Did the greater scope of the new series bring any new challenges to your writing?

With the Godspeaker trilogy I certainly did want to challenge myself. I wanted to shake things up a bit to make sure I didn’t let the fear of pushing the envelope keep me in the same place. The story idea had been sitting around for a long time—I had part of it written while I was still working on the Kingmaker, Kingbreaker books. When I came back to it I realized I’d made the same mistake as before—I was keeping the story too small. So I took a very deep breath, committed to a trilogy (a story in three acts, see, the theater will out!) and realized that I had to go back in time and start with Hekat’s story. So that’s what I did, with much trepidation! So I guess I’d have to say that the expansion grew naturally out of discovering the story I was trying to tell.

As for that providing challenges—yikes! Talk about growing pains. It’s proving to be an arduous journey. I’ve discovered my story ideas are like the Tardis: they’re bigger on the inside. And they take a lot of wrangling to make them behave! It’s not only keeping the various story threads neat and untangled, it’s remembering who said what to whom and when and how many times, and not falling into the trap of repeating myself with certain words and phrases, and remembering the big picture while I’m focusing on a small, intimate scene. Sheesh! It’s like trying to juggle twenty-seven balls at once without dropping any. It’s been a huge learning curve, but a fantastic one. I am in awe of writers who do big multi-volume series. I don’t understand how they keep everything straight!

Unlike your first series, the gods play a large part in Empress . Can you tell us a bit about the thinking behind that?

Philosophically, I wanted to have a look at the nature of divinity. We seem to fall so short of measuring up to certain religious ideals in our own world. People who claim to be religious do terrible things, and others who say they believe in no God at all routinely perform acts of great kindness and charity in ways that seem to fit a religious framework. That’s such an odd contradiction. And the exact nature of God is so elusive. I’m intrigued by those things, and wanted to explore some thoughts and ideas. Of course there’s not necessarily a direct parallel between the divine in the books and in the real world, but hopefully it’s interesting.

Do you have a personal theory on why Fantasy is so popular?

Fantasy is a really romantic genre. And I don’t just mean the hearts-and-flowers true love romantic—it’s sweeping and exotic and breathtaking. It has the power to whisk you away into amazing new worlds where romantic ideals like truth and love and justice and sacrifice and redemption and courage—ideals that are so often sneered at in our modern society—are celebrated and seen as something true and wonderful to aspire to. And I like that. I really enjoy a lot of science fiction, but often it’s very bleak and cynical. Mostly I think fantasy celebrates being human, it celebrates big emotions, it wears its heart on its sleeve—and it’s not ashamed of that. And while it can be down and dirty and gritty at times, still at the core it’s about hope and the triumph of the best of human nature—which is why I think it has such a strong and broad appeal.

Do you read mainly fantasy fiction yourself, or do you prefer a change of genre after a hard day of writing? What are you currently reading?

Overall I read a great deal less than ever I used to—not because there aren’t brilliant books out there, but because after eight hours in front of the computer thinking up words my brain is cactus and I can’t cope with any more! When I do read, I tend to switch genres so I’m using a different part of my imagination. I love crime, mystery and some romance. I can read those without exploding my head. I do still read fantasy and science fiction—I have a massive pile now waiting for my attention. I’ll get to them when I’ve made my current deadline. I also read non-fiction stuff, books on history mainly, for research. They’re always fun and quite relaxing. And I watch a lot of drama on DVD. TV dramas give me my story fix without words coming into the picture.

Currently I’m reading an older JD Robb thriller, the new Rachel Caine and a book about ancient imperial China.

Do you have any particular favorite authors who have influenced your work?

Probably the most influential writer in my life so far has been Dorothy Dunnett. Sadly she’s dead now, but she wrote historical fiction. Her most famous work is a six-book series called The Lymond Chronicles. It’s about a sixteenth-century Scots nobleman called Francis Crawford, and it follows his life for some fifteen years as he intrigues his way around most of the known world as a mercenary and a courtier trying to uncover the truth of his heritage.

The series is sheer magic. Breathtaking prose, immaculate worldbuilding, magnificent characters. Basically I want to be Dorothy when I grow up. I suspect that’s a tall order, but it’s something to aspire to!

What do you do when you’re not writing or reading?

The little time left over when I’m not unconscious, I spend at my local theater as an actor, director and public relations officer, or watching DVD dramas. It’s a sad little life but someone has to live it.

Can you tell us a little about where the story goes after Empress?

Well, there’s a change in location, for a start, to an island kingdom called Ethrea. We don’t lose touch with Mijak entirely—and one character in particular returns with an important role to play—but in the next book we meet the people who must stand in the way of Hekat and her warhost as she seeks to conquer the world. Unfortunately these new characters are dealing with their own major crisis—and if they don’t resolve it they’ll have no hope of saving themselves from Hekat. Things are about to get very interesting . . .

And, lastly, for those writers who have yet to see their books appearing in the shops, how did it feel to see your first novel in print?

Totally surreal. It’s the oddest feeling, having a dream come true. I’ve wanted to be a writer since I was a little girl in school. Having that happen now, holding the books in my hand, it’s exhilarating and terrifying at the same time. I frequently wonder when I’m going to wake up . . . but of course you know I’m praying I don’t!