Part 7 (1/2)
And in the hammering heat of midday, naked was the way she wished she was. And while she was wis.h.i.+ng, she wished she was back at the villa of Golden Sky and not risking death by suffocation through her grandmother's scheme.
”You don't believe a thing that woman tells you,” Red Silk threw back over her shoulder. ”She's the king's minion. They all are, and that skinny-bones concubine of his most of all. What he says, they do. You don't trust any but your own. And you keep one eye on them.”
That, Foxfire supposed, was the reason she and her grandmother had been brought to the Slaughterhouse District by three of her older brothers: dour Sormaddin, fierce-tempered urthet, and dandified Zharvine, sons of her father by his legal wife, Hearthfire Lady (no newfangled dropping of the old name forms for her!). Sormaddin and urthet had been left with the camels among the ruined villas that lay along the eastward road. Zharvine, reveling at the prospect of lurking about in disguise, followed them at a distance with drawn sword, clothed as one of the bullyboys whose violence ruled the slum. Foxfire considered his presence as unnecessary as the spells that hid her and her grandmother. The least he could have done was lead the goat.
She knew what her grandmother intended, and though their success might well save her father's life, she wished desperately that she was home.
The walls narrowed around them, high now though ruinous and sending back waves of heat as if the two dark-clothed women made their way through a bread oven. The reek of rotting meat from the slaughtering yards, of dung and privies, made Foxfire dizzy. Before them the black stone walls of the old Temple of Nebekht rose over the surrounding jumble; six months ago the cult of the Iron-Girdled G.o.d had been strong enough to nearly oust the king from his throne, and now, like the Citadel of the Sun Mages, it stood empty.
Empty save for the king's guards and for the statue of gold-sheathed crystal where Raeshaldis said that the djinn Naruansich still lurked.
Foxfire half closed her eyes, stretched out her mind. Let her consciousness pa.s.s into the black stone walls of the temple, as Summerchild had taught her-had taught both the mother and the daughter of her lord's enemy, because they, like she, were the Sisters of the Raven. Because they, like she, needed the full use of their magic, for all to survive.
The guards in the lobby were dozing. As who wouldn't in this heat? Her spells probed at their somnolent, undefended minds, halfway toward dreaming already. One man, the older, had brought a book with him, a compilation of the runes of High Script, which he'd been copying onto wax and studying, along with a simplified version of the Cla.s.sic of Kings. No wonder he'd fallen asleep, reflected Foxfire: part of the training of a Pearl Woman was to learn the thousands of runes of the High Script and how to read the cla.s.sics of philosophy, scripture, and ancient lore written in them. The younger man was daydreaming about his girlfriend. Foxfire felt the warm tingle of his reminiscent l.u.s.t, and blushed a little under her veils.
”Two guards, Grandmother,” she breathed.
”Can you put them to sleep?”
She drew a deep breath. ”I think so.”
”Do it, then.”
It wasn't difficult. Shaldis had taught them all the Sun Mage spells for easing people over the edge into dreamland, but Foxfire, like all the women, had used these only as a starting point. She realized she'd been making up little songs in her head for years, to make her nurses and governesses-and later some of the ladies in the Blossom House where she'd had her advanced education in the womanly arts-drift off to sleep. Raeshaldis had told her that she'd done the same thing at her grandfather's house.
So Foxfire and Red Silk had practiced, all over Mohrvine's household, without anyone being the wiser. Most times Foxfire could put a guard to sleep, or one of the pages waiting in their little day room. Once she'd whispered a dreaming song that had put the whole dormitory of maids under, but as that had gotten the girls soundly beaten by the housekeeper she hadn't tried it again. Her grandmother, who experienced no such scruples about who got punished for falling asleep on duty, was much better at it than she was.
But in this case, aided by the day's heat, the matter was ludicrously easy. Foxfire breathed a sweet nostalgic air into the younger man's mind, about his beautiful sweetheart, and into the older man's whispered a soft monotony of runes, lulling as the song of spring wind in willow trees. Beside her she heard Red Silk chuckle. ”Very good, little minx,” the old lady whispered. ”You've put half the neighbors down as well. Now come. Let's see how you are with opening doors.”
That was another skill Foxfire had practiced under her grandmother's watchful eye. At least that one didn't get the servants in trouble. Foxfire wrapped her hands in the end of her veil before pressing them to the sun-hot bronze of the temple doors, probed into the iron-strapped slabs for the mechanism of the locks. Soth, Oryn's librarian, had taught them that, and mad old Pomegranate, whose brother was a burglar: all the women had studied the construction of locks and latches, to know what to feel for with their minds. Foxfire could see the mechanism in her thoughts, as if she were remembering a dream she'd had, but she couldn't touch the intricate maze of levers. She felt it when her grandmother reached in, and pushed the tumblers aside.
Her grandmother had poured dumbweed down the goat's throat, to paralyze its voice. Still it struggled, rasping hoa.r.s.ely as they pulled it over the threshold, as if it knew what would become of it in the vast enclosed dark of the temple.
Foxfire shuddered, hating herself as she drew the great doors closed.
The sanctuary that lay beyond the vestibule breathed with the old reek of sacrificial slaughter, of dirty blood and sc.r.a.ps of meat left rotting in corners-the followers of Nebekht had never enjoyed a reputation for cleanliness.
Above all, the statue of the Iron-Girdled One brooded in the dark.
”High One!” Red Silk's voice rang in the darkness like the blow of a hammer on steel. Foxfire clutched at the sleep spells on the guards. ”Sunflash Prince, Naruansich, lord of the invisible kingdom of the winds!”
Foxfire winced, knowing that her grandmother had learned the djinn's true name from Shaldis. She wanted her father to survive-she wanted her father to be king, but she knew betrayal when she saw it.
”We call upon you, Lord of the Thousand Lights, we beg of you, show yourself!” The old woman fell to her knees before the idol.
”We seek your council, wisest prince! We seek your aid. Show yourself, we beseech, we pray! Speak with us here!”
Silence, and the reeking weight of the noonday heat, as if the whole of the heavens pressed down upon the black rafters far above their heads. After what felt like hours-but, Foxfire calculated, was probably about as long as it would take to walk a mile-her grandmother cursed, and pulled from beneath her robes a corked gourd bottle of brandy doctored with tiga root, which the nomads of the desert used to simulate madness. Lohar, to whom the djinn had spoken in the name of the G.o.d Nebekht, had been mad; Foxfire privately considered that to ”free the mind” in this way was crazy in itself, but knew better than to tell her grandmother so.
Trembling, she led the goat forward, and the two women wrestled it to the dirty floor. It flung its horns up and down, and the broken noises that came from its mouth seemed louder than shouts in the horrible shadowed silence of the windowless temple; Foxfire was hard put to keep her thoughts concentrated on the two men sleeping in the vestibule, on the other spells Shaldis and Summerchild and old Pomegranate had taught her, to turn the attention of pa.s.sersby aside. She couldn't believe no one would hear.
The goat's hoof slashed her wrist and drew blood. A stone knife glinted dully in Red Silk's hand, a sacrificial implement from the desert tribes among whom she'd grown up. Foxfire draped her weight over the goat's thras.h.i.+ng legs and grabbed at the horns, and Red Silk struck. The flint blade tore through hair and soft flesh; blood fountained out. Pressed to the goat's body, Foxfire felt its lungs and heart work wildly as its life gushed away.
In her heart she cried, I'm sorry, and fought not to weep for the animal's soul.
Fought to keep her little songs of sleep upon the guards.
She stumbled back, nauseated by the stink of the fresh blood, her own garments dribbled and blotted. Reeling with the onset of the drugs, Red Silk knelt over the dying goat, slit the body open, and plunged her hands inside. Foxfire looked away, and when she looked back she saw her grandmother standing before the plinth on which the idol rested, her body pressed to the stone. The temple was windowless and the darkness complete, but Foxfire could see in the dark, as all Crafty ones could. She saw the trail of blood that led from the goat's body in her grandmother's wake, saw the thin streams of it crawling down, from where Red Silk's ensanguined hands stroked the idol's golden feet.
”Come to us and help us.” The old woman's voice was thick now and strange, stammering with the drugs that disjointed her mind. ”Speak, and we will speak for you. Help, and we will grant you whatever it is you ask for, whatever it is you need.” She pressed herself to the stone. Flies, that were to be found everywhere in the Slaughterhouse District, began to roar dully in the stillness and to settle on the dead goat and the blood trail.
Foxfire felt sick.
For almost two hours Red Silk whispered, screamed, pleaded, and threatened: offered blood, more goats, teyn, slave children. ”Tell me what it is you wis.h.!.+ What price you demand! You must speak to me! You must give us your help!”
Sleepy-by, sleepy-by, you're safe in Mama's arms, Foxfire sang mechanically into the minds of the two men slumped by their lamp in the oven heat of the vestibule. Sweat crawled down her face and body and the drone of the flies filled her mind like the howling of desert winds. As long as she's with you, you'll come to no harm.
She forced her thoughts to see only that plump little brown-eyed girl that the younger guard loved, a little like Opal before the fire, singing the sleepy-by song as she brushed her hair (Who is she? Do you treat her well?); to shape the one-thousand-two-hundred-and-fourth, the one-thousand-two-hundred-and-fifth of the twelve thousand specialized sigils of the High Script. What will you do with this knowledge? Write poems about the stars, read the tales of the ancient kings?
It seemed to Foxfire in her half-dreaming state that they were not alone in the temple after all, that someone or something stood quite close to her grandmother beside the blood-smeared plinth. Something that s.h.i.+ned as if all the stars of the Milky Way had collapsed upon one another into a single column of unbearable light.
Something that looked upon the old woman and the dead goat with disgust and contempt in its golden eyes. Around her the air seemed for an instant to buzz and jangle, as if with the sound of a hundred thousand chains shaken at the far side of the universe.
Then it was gone.
At last her grandmother staggered back to her, tripped on the dead goat, fell to her knees, and vomited. Foxfire hastened to her side to steady her, but was shoved away. ”d.a.m.n it, girl, you think I can't look after myself? In the tribes a woman who can't get to her feet again is left behind. Give me my stick.”
Trembling, Foxfire obeyed.
”There's nothing here,” muttered Red Silk. ”Nothing. Curse them all. Curse them for liars. Let's get out of here.”
She reeled toward the door, leaving the goat's carca.s.s in a puddle of filth, blood, and flies for someone else to clean up.
”We'll find a way, though. You mark my words, girl-my son will be king.”
In the doorway she slewed around, dilated eyes staring into the darkness. Then her drugged gaze swung onto Foxfire, contempt bitter in her voice. ”Just like that hussy Raeshaldis to lie about him being here. There's no one here. You can't trust her. Can't trust any but your own.”
But who, Foxfire wondered, are my own?
FOURTEEN.
A little before sunset Raeshaldis woke. The afternoon heat broke in the palace sooner than anywhere else in the city; breezes ruffled gently in from the lake, bringing the dry rustle of the date-palm groves along its sh.o.r.es, the creak of the long lines of bucket hoists that these days transferred water across the stretches of what once had been submerged.