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‘Yes. Some of us do. Power is seductive.’
‘Even the Dog-Runners deserve better. Is Burn too an Azathanai?’
‘I cannot even say if Burn exists, historian. The belief in her does, and that suffices. It will guide the believers, and give shape to their world. You must lean towards the pragmatic, Rise Herat. Motivations are mere ghosts, and if meaning rides in the wake of every deed, indulge it at your leisure.’ Grizzin Farl looked up, met the historian’s eyes. ‘What you choose to do can, without effort, be seen as a betrayal. Though you might name it the purest act of integrity imaginable.’
Rise Herat felt the blood pool in his gut, chilling his limbs. ‘Do you accuse me of something, Azathanai?’
Grizzin Farl’s brows lifted. ‘Not at all. I but question the validity of your role in life. The historian will dissect events, counting the ledger’s list of deeds, and seek meaning from invented motives. When you invite indulgence, I see how familiar to you its flavour.’
‘Mother Dark is as much a goddess as is this Olar Ethil,’ Rise Heart said. ‘Sorcery in the blood. There, on the throne, her eyes are closed. She might be sleeping. She might be dead. Still, through serpent eyes she sees the world. And, I am told, the blood’s taste is seductive. What has Draconus done?’
‘To your liege? Why, he has made her into a goddess. Do you name this love? Between lovers, worship is all sharp edges. Every embrace, no matter how heated, bleeds something. That woman behind you in your dreams, she means you ill. Or, in the next breath, blessing and revelation. The possibilities are endless, until you turn round.’
It was a wonder, Rise Herat reflected, that no one had as yet killed this Azathanai, so frustrating and infuriating was his conversation. He imagined that facing a sword-master would feel much the same, with every attack anticipated, every move effortlessly countered, and like the sword-master, Grizzin Farl was in no hurry to deliver the fatal wound. He scowled at the Azathanai. ‘Mother Dark is the absence at the centre of our worship. Is this by her choice, Grizzin Farl? Or does the blood – and her thirst – drive her farther and farther from mortal concerns? You say that Burn sleeps – did she choose to, or has she succumbed to some curse? You say that Olar Ethil inhabits the flames of the hearth – is this all that gods do? Simply watch?’
‘It may indeed seem that way, yes. But I already warned you against imagining motivations, inventing meanings.’
‘But she does nothing! No acts, no deeds! There is nothing to imagine or invent!’
‘And so the historian starves. But, soon to grow sated, yes? The enemy to order stirs in a distant camp. An army will march on Kharkanas. What, you wonder, will she do then? Where, you wonder, are those who will fight in her name? And, as for that name … what is the cause it represents? Assemble the beliefs, and paint in gold their many virtues. But that you cannot do, because she does not speak.’
Rise Herat glared at the Azathanai, who stared back with calm, sorrow-filled eyes.
After a moment, the historian looked away. ‘The High Priestess has not been given leave to visit the Chamber of Night.’
‘Nonsense,’ Grizzin Farl replied. ‘She chooses not to, because she has something she wishes to keep hidden from Mother Dark. But now the goddess makes use of poor Endest Silann, and deception grows harder to hide. You, sir, are doubtless in league with the High Priestess. You intend something, in Mother Dark’s name, but whatever it is, she must never know what you have done. Now,’ the Azathanai’s gaze suddenly hardened, ‘bend your deeds into worship.’
Rise Herat felt sick inside, as if he had fostered an illness of his own invention, to now lodge in his flesh, sour his blood, and bruise his organs. ‘Very well,’ he said in a dry, rasping voice. ‘Join me, Grizzin Farl. Let us go to the Chamber of Night. Let us speak to her.’
‘She remains with Draconus.’
‘Then we will speak to them both!’
The Azathanai pushed himself upright. ‘As you wish. Shall we collect up the High Priestess along the way?’
Rise Herat grimaced. ‘We can at least ask her.’
They departed the room. Behind them, the flames in the hearth devoured the last of the wood, and knew a time of hunger.
* * *
Emral Lanear, High Priestess of Dark, sat lost in a world of smoke. A vision blurred saw few cracks, and the future, laid out so smooth and perfect, proved no different from the present. This was the lure of d’bayang. There had been a time when ritual had surrounded its indulgence, and the dreamscape the smoke offered whispered messages both profound and quickly forgotten. The intent, she supposed, had to do with stepping aside, out of the flesh, outside the strictures of reality. Couched in ritual or not, it was an escape. The distinction, between then and now, belonged to intention.
Escape as ritual promises a return to the present, when the ritual is done. Escape as ritual is meant to seed the ground between the dreamscape and the real world. But here and now, I seek no return to any present, and I will make of the ground between a wasteland of despair. Mine is not an escape seeking discovery, but one born of flight.
She had once valued her own sobriety, the keen mind delighting in its wakefulness, its precious acuity. She had been unable to imagine wilfully surrendering such gifts, and had seen enough fools in her life to know, with dismay, the minds of company grown dull on alcohol or smoke. Fleeing without moving. Drowning in on
e’s chair. The bleary gaze, the comfort with confusion, the slow disintegration of time, and the slow losing of one’s place in its eternal stream.
But look at me now. With a future crowded with crimes, I make an island and clothe it in fog. Let time stream past; I yield no harbour.
It is delusion. Rise Herat saw well the desire in my eyes, which should have shamed me. But I am past shame, and that too proves an alluring escape.
Alas, a kind of crystal clarity remained in her mind, something immune to all her efforts at flight and evasion. Its light was guilt, painting her entire inner world. Not the d’bayang. That is too paltry a reason.
I am High Priestess to Mother Dark. And yet, in place of obeisance, vespers and rituals, I weave a web of spies, each one conducting subterfuge with her legs spread wide. Her mind was trapped in a cage of her own making, wherein every thought was cast into a construct of potential alliances, possible weaknesses, spilled secrets, and the option of coercion into a host of deceptions and machinations. By these efforts – this wretched course she had taken – she was seeing her world remade. She now weighed in terms of cold economy the value of each and every citizen of the realm. Collusion against opposition, strength against weakness, deceit against trust.
Like the d’bayang, this newly born way of thinking was in truth an inward spiral, with her own needs at the core. It was a world view that she now realized was far from unique, and, personal as it seemed, she but reflected the mien of countless others.
