The Godspeaker Trilogy (43 page)

Dreamlike, suspended, he felt his legs unfold themselves, he felt himself stand beneath the burning sun. The god’s voice was calling, it whispered, it beckoned. He followed it stumbling, shrouded in smoke. His bare feet clung to the sun-scorched rocks, if he was not careful he would drift from their surface, he would spiral like smoke into the sky.

Deeper and deeper he walked into the wilderness. His eyes were open but he was blind to the world, deaf to all sound save the voice of the god. He left the fire fat behind him but its smoke was in him, it guided his steps. The smoke was the god’s breath, breathing for him. He grew tired, muscles aching, he kept on walking. Sweat slicked his skin, stones like snakeblades sliced his feet, a sandcat could track him by the scent of his blood. Hunger plagued him, thirst shriveled his mouth, he kept on walking, following the god.

Without any warning the ground gaped wide beneath him. With a cry he fell, and knew no more.

When consciousness returned it was the deep of night. At first he thought the fall had blinded him, but after long panicked moments he looked up and saw a brief scatter of stars. He frowned, relief surrendering to confusion. What had happened to the rest? Nights in Et-Raklion meant a ceiling of stars watching the godmoon and his wife stride through the sky. He could see hardly any, it was as though some malicious demon had extinguished all save a small child’s handful.

Then fresh air stirred against his skin and he realized he had fallen into a cave where the fat godmoon’s light could not reach him. He was looking at stars through a ragged hole in its roof.

Not dead, not blind. Trapped.

It was cold. He hurt. Tentative exploration told him no bones were broken, the god had spared him that much, but his shorn head was battered, his flesh was split, he was bruised and bloody. His groping fingers felt rough walls, a rough floor, loose rocks. He sat up, slowly, but encountered no obstacle, there was empty space between himself and the cave’s rock ceiling.

He looked again at the hole through which he had fallen. Through which the god had led him to fall.

Why am I here, god? What is your desiring?

The god did not answer, its voice was silent and its smoke disappeared. He breathed alone now, his wits were his own.

The cave’s darkness was oppressive. It swaddled him like a baby’s blanket, crushed him to the floor. He lay down again, skinned knees tucked against his bare chest, forehead resting on them. He was bewildered, he tasted sour fear. When the sun rose again, letting light into this place, what would he learn? That he was trapped here forever, rejected, discarded by the god, his purpose achieved, destined to die starving and maddened by thirst?

God, god, is that your desiring? Am I now punished for my doubts?

He steadied his breathing, imagined himself still, like stone, so he might hear the god’s answer.

For a second time it did not come.

Fear overwhelmed him. Seasons of study in the godhouse meant nothing, all the times he’d given his body to the taskmaster, trusting that pain would drive out his sinful doubts, but he’d suffered for nothing, doubt was in him, it raged within him like the god’s wrath, unstoppable.

I think I wish I had stayed a slave.

Control deserted him, then, along with his faith in the god. Shouting, cursing, he waved his arms in the air, drummed his heels on the ground even though they were bloody. Blind in the cave’s dark, pale starlight, with no comfort, he groped for little rocks to throw, found them and snatched them and laughed wildly as they smashed to pieces against the walls.

His fingers closed on a rock that felt different. Heat flared in his loins and the pitch-black cave blossomed with light. His mind came alive with godsense unleashed.

“ Aieee !” He dropped the rock. His loins cooled. The light vanished, extinguished like a pinched-out candle.

Heart frantic, breath strangled in his throat, he sat in the dark and wondered if he dreamed. If he was fevered and raving on the brink of ugly death.

If I am dying, god, let me die in peace I beg you. Do not torment me with such terror. Do not take my mind from me.

The god was everywhere but in this cave. Unanswered a third time, Vortka felt his fingers reaching, as his heart pounded he felt them grope in the darkness for that strange rock. If light came again, if his godsense stirred, it might prove he was not raving. That this was real and not a dream. He could see where he had fallen. Perhaps even find a way out before he starved.

A pebble—nothing. A shard of stoneglass that cut his fingers—blood, but no light. A gritty, grainy chunk of sandrock—more darkness.

Something smooth and cold and briefly familiar—

“ Aieee !” he cried out, in the new light, in the roaring of his power. In the heat that was like fucking Hekat.

He clutched a crystal in his hand. It was dark red, but the light it emitted was purest white. Power pulsed within it and it pulsed in him, his eyes were burning, his flesh was on fire. He looked around him, saw another red crystal, this one as large as a man’s head. He had never seen crystal like it before. Never heard it mentioned, or found reference to it in the godhouse library.

Is this why I am brought here, god?

Despite the light and power, the dark red crystal was cool against his skin. The heat was in him, pouring out of him and through its rough-hewn facets. He remembered his testing in the slave pens of Et-Nogolor, how it felt when he took hold of the godstone and power woke within him for the first time in his life.

That was water. This was blood.

More time passed and he felt himself grow dizzy. He uncrooked his clutching fingers, let the crystal tumble to the gritty ground. This time the heat and light faded slowly, as though the crystal were a goblet with a hole punched in it and his godsense was rich wine trickling out.

Darkness returned, not as an enemy but as a friend, a refuge. Somewhere to hide while he struggled to make sense of the crystal, the light, the stirred power within him.

Not one godspeaker in Et-Raklion’s godhouse, not even Nagarak high godspeaker himself, had sensed this potential in their novice.

I am godchosen, like Hekat I hide in the god’s secret eye.

If only he understood what that meant. Understood what he was meant for, besides the siring of a child.

This dark red crystal that seemed to channel his godsense, did Nagarak know of its existence? Was it kept a terrible high godspeaker secret? If so, what might happen if Nagarak learned a newly tested novice had held it in his hand? Or was Nagarak ignorant, kept unknowing by the god? If that was so, then did he have a duty to tell the high godspeaker of his discovery? Surely not. If the god wanted Nagarak to know, he would know. If he told Nagarak when the god wished it secret, what dread retribution might he invite?

Questions scuttled round the bowl of his skull like rats in a dry well, he could not catch them, they would drive him mad. The god sent him no answers. It had brought him here, the smoke from his godbraids had led him to this place. There was a purpose to this discovery, he was sure of that much. As for the rest . . .

Hekat will know how to learn what this means. The god speaks to her when it will not speak to me. I must return to Et-Raklion. Hekat will know what to make of this mystery.

There was a measure of comfort in that, at least.

Exhaustion overcame him, then. He was so weary the cold meant nothing, his scrapes and bruises meant nothing, his clamoring belly and sand-dry throat, they also meant nothing. His bones were chalk, his muscles turned to sadsa dregs.

He stretched out on the ground, and slept.

When he woke again, filtering sunlight lifted the cave out of deep shadow. For a moment he thought again of dreams, of fevered ravings, but the dark red crystals were no dream. With the newsun’s help he searched the cave to see if there were more. He could not find any. One large crystal and one much smaller, that was all.

Squatting on his battered haunches, he looked at the large lump of dark red rock. He was afraid to touch it. Holding the small crystal had woken such power, what might happen if he roused the larger crystal to life?

He did not know. Turning aside from that thorny problem, he distracted himself with another no less uncomfortable.

How to get himself out of the cave.

But there, the god saw him, it answered his pleas. Exploration showed him the cave was a kind of bubble blown into solid rock. The hole in the roof, too high for him to reach, no rocks to help him upwards, was one breach; a narrow passageway behind some tumbled boulders was another. Whether it led all the way to the outside world he could not see, or even guess. The only way to learn that was to traverse it. He had no hope of walking upright in the passage, he had to lie on his back and shuffle his way along the ground like some crippled snake, like a lizard with no legs. It was a harsh tasking, he could feel his naked skin tearing, the solid rock pressed upon him, there was air but he could not breathe.

He thought of Zandakar, and throttled his fear.

The passageway ended just as he imagined, despairingly, he would never see the sky again. With a grunt he wriggled free of the oppressive crawlspace and regained his feet with great effort, shaking and mucky with dirt, blood and sweat. Aieee, had any novice before him endured such a testing?

He stood in the shadow of a crumbling rock cliff. As his harsh breathing eased and the thundering blood in his ears slowed to silence, he heard another, welcome sound. Running water, near at hand.

Vortka staggered towards that godsent flowing, to the fringe of green lining a rocky depression off to the right. It was an oasis, a grudging trickle of water from deep underground that fed into a shallow basin. Laughing weakly he thrust his face into it and drank, drank till his belly distended and threatened to burst. Then he wept, in fear and gratitude. The night’s doubts shamed him now, safe in sunlight, he knew the god would not abandon him but even so, he’d felt abandoned. He saw a brown lizard, torpid and sluggish, and killed it with a loose rock before it could escape. Ravenous, he devoured it raw.

After that he bathed his body as best he could, inspecting himself for wounds less than superficial. He had lost much skin, scored grooves, punched holes, but in truth the damage was no more dangerous than any brute strapping he’d received in the godhouse.

He would survive.

Letting unshaded sunshine dry him, he wondered what he must do about the crystals. Where he stood was a featureless plain, he saw no tree or outcropping he could recognize. He realized then he had no recollection of how he found this place. His last clear memory was setting fire to his godbraids. After that, it was smoke and wonder.

God, you must guide me. If this is my testing and I have passed, show me how to get home to Et-Raklion, to Hekat and our Zandakar. Tell me what you desire I do next.

His godsense stirred then, and he turned from the oasis to tread further across the stony plain. He walked until the god told him to stop, then dropped to the hard ground and lay on his back beneath the sun. The rock was burning, it woke all his small hurts and made them larger. The light dazzled his eyes, he closed them and was lost in blood-red shadows. His skull was vulnerable, pillowed on rock.

Here I am, god, at your mercy. Write your desires in my naked flesh.

The surrounding silence was vast and deep. But then something broke it, a skittering sound, faint at first but growing louder. He opened his eyes and turned his head.

Scorpions were coming.

Called by the god, whispered to its service, they covered the rocks in a carapace carpet, black and brown and red and ochre. Not the lovingly bred monsters from the godhouse, larger than a large man’s hand spread full wide, these were creatures of the wilderness, small and agile, bred to survive all of nature’s casual cruelties.

Vortka’s heart faltered, he felt it stop. Every muscle, every sinew, screamed at him to leap up and run. Run before the scorpions reached him, run before that first kiss of venom, run before it was too late.

If I run now, it has all been for nothing.

When his father died, he’d thought he knew fear. When his mother re-married, then he thought he understood it. When the slave chains closed about his wrists, his ankles, he was certain at last he grasped its meaning.

Now he knew those times were but seedlings, shy suggestions of what was to come.

Oh, Hekat. Oh, Hekat. I wish you were with me.

She had braved the scorpion pit, she had swum with godhouse scorpions and drowned in their venom. She had embraced that destiny, urged it upon herself. How could he do less when the god had chosen him to give her a son?

Swallowing a whimper, he watched as the rock plain disappeared beneath an onslaught of scorpions. Who knew so many lived in the world?

The god knows. The god made them. They serve its mysteries, and its purpose.

The scorpions reached him, covered him, stung him. They made of him a scorpion man. He forgot his name, he felt his flesh welt, his blood curdle, the god roared through him, leaving him weak. Hissing, scratching, the creatures scrambled upon him, he heard words in their voices, they whispered in his ears.

Vortka . . . precious . . . chosen . . .

Was he dying? He did not know. Consciousness left him. He sank into shadow. When he woke, he was alone. No sign of scorpions. No marks on his flesh.

He knew exactly what he must do.

Raklion waited until it was almost time to ride to Mijak’s Heart before telling Hanochek he would not be riding there with his warlord. He knew Hano would be hurt, so hurt, to have his rightful place taken by Hekat. He was the warleader, he stood tall in the world. Wherever the warlord rode, so rode his warleader.

But not this time. This time I must be guided by the god. The god tells Hekat she must ride beside me, who am I to say she will not?

After meeting with Nagarak for the taking of omens and private sacrifice on his knees, he walked down to the barracks. There he found Hano at warplay with Zandakar, they were the best of friends, his friend and his son. A ring of warriors surrounded them, cheering and shouting as Hano and Zandakar sparred on the warhost field. Zandakar was blindfolded, in his hand a blunt wooden snakeblade. He was learning to fight with senses not fed by his eyes, he was nimble on his feet, swift to feel Hano’s approach and retreat.