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Bags settled himself into the corner of the door frame and took my hands in his. He nuzzled my face a little with his sleek snout and growled slightly with the pleasure of a father who sees his litter grown, hunting swift and strong.
“Just listen, love, for I have a tale to tell which will be repeated in the alleys of Al-a-Nur as long as there are Towers to shadow the streets…”
OF COURSE WE KNEW SHE WOULD COME, SOONER OR later. We knew she would come leading all the hordes of Shadukiam, all the horrors the Rose Dome could produce. She did not disappoint us, and came riding a great black antelope, whose slender legs were hooved in fire, and whose baleful eyes seemed to look in all directions at once. Behind her came her legions, Djinn with beards of smoke and spells in their saddlebags, Monopods drafted out of their ghettoes, their feet armored and bristling with iron spikes, Centaurs and archers with a dozen arms, even a few Manticore bred in who knows what foul cage. And the humans screaming their war cries like frenzied ravens, all those men with swords flashing, drunk on hatred of the Golden City, and adoration of the pale-haired Papess.
But she did not bring her damned army through the silver spires of the Salmon Gate. She bade them halt in the green fields outside the ringed Towers, and they halted. They quieted their cries and laid themselves out on the clover as though they had come to a country picnic—so completely were they in her power.
And Ragnhild, First and Second of her Name, the Black Papess of Shadukiam, entered the Holy City alone, without even a knife at her belt. She entered it like a postulant, with nothing but her torn dress fluttering in the wind, and her pale hair streaming behind her like a battle standard.
And alone she walked to the center of the City, to the Tower of the Papess, and no one dared to stop her, but all who could lay down their duties followed in her wake like a wave of flesh. Slowly, and without a sound, she seemed to glide over the blue-pebbled streets to the plain Tower with its deer-skin-slung windows, and strode through the door as if no one could contest her right to do so—as if it were her own house.
We were closeted with Yashna, in conference as we so often are these days. My brothers and I immediately growled; our hackles rose, ready to defend our Papess from whatever dank, filthy magic Ragnhild had brought with her into that sacred place. But the Apostate, her face as fair and terrible as it had been in the depths of our dreams, raised up her hands in a gesture of amity.
“Peace, my children! I have not come to fight with you, or to molest your poor Yashna. Smooth your venerable furs, and cool the blood in your veins. I have come on an errand of friendship. And we have seen, brave dogs, that you have no power over me. So I will say it again: Calm yourselves.”
Yashna said nothing, but smiled imperceptibly, like a leaf rustling in a faint autumn wind. Bartholomew snarled in her stead: “An errand of friendship? With that band of creatures at your back?”
Ragnhild smiled coolly. “I have brought them for my own defense. Surely you do not expect me to breach the Gates of Al-a-Nur with nothing but my own skin to protect me against the Draghi. I know too well the fate of innocent maids when the ire of the Towers is raised.” She lifted her delicate wrists and shook the golden manacles that still hung there like a dancer’s bracelets. The high, thin sound echoed in the chamber.
Balthazar’s
fiery eyes narrowed into slits. “She cannot be trusted, Mother. You must call on the Draghi now, before she has unleashed whatever magic she is hiding.”
Ragnhild laughed, a sound like glass breaking, or ice shattering over a running river. “Surely you do not think I could hide much in this, dear wolf,” she said, gesturing to the wide tears in her violet gown. “But enough—I did not come to speak with those I have already welcomed in my own hall. I came to treat with my sister, and put all this misunderstanding behind us.”
Yashna stirred in her chair and peered out at the Black Papess, whose smile seemed to glow with forgiveness and kindness.
“Very well, my child. Speak with me,” she said, her voice steady and deep.
“The Caliph has declared me the rightful Papess, not once, but twice. He has declared Al-a-Nur a territory of the Caliphate and demands tribute. You cannot refuse these things—even a City of Heaven must bow to the Laws of Earth. Indeed, I was anointed long before you, sweet lady, in the days when Cveti performed her heresy. By rights this City is mine. I will take it by force, if I must, but I do not wish to. Abdicate in my favor and I will allow you to go into seclusion in the Tower of the Dead, your home. All will be peaceful, and the City will go on as it always has. Surely you must see how greatly I have been wronged by Al-a-Nur, and understand that I am not a wicked woman—I only ask for what is mine by the hand of the Caliph and the hand of Heaven.”
Yashna rose from her seat, her yellow robes sighing behind her, and put out her hands to Ragnhild, taking those slim white forearms in her own withered brown palms.
“No one would deny that in your youth and innocence, you were wronged terribly, not only by Ghyfran, but by the Caliph himself. We know your sad tale, and we grieve for the gentle and bright-hearted girl you once were. If we could restore your life to you, please believe that we would do so, without a moment’s hesitation. But it is not in our power—it would not even have been in our power to restore what strange and alien life you have taken for yourself in this body.” Yashna paused, her eyes as full of pity as a well with water after a storm. “But you cannot believe I will simply hand this City to you. You know, in that stranger’s heart, that what you ask is wrong. The child who came to Shadukiam innocent of the schemes around her is still within you, and she knows I will not give you what you want.”
Ragnhild continued to smile in her bright, cold way, and her hands tightened on Yashna’s arms. “Then I will burn it to the ground, and let my Centaurs piss on your altars and spill their wine over every holy text in this clutch of hovels. And when I have finished, the Caliph will send his men to rape your nuns and count out every stone of this carrion-town for the Treasury.” Her smile deepened and grew even sweeter. Yashna’s expression did not change.
“The Caliph cannot and will not touch us. Why do you think he has set up little girls in his bank vaults instead of assaulting us directly? Why has he never marched an army to the brink of our borders? He knows the Draghi are very charming and debonair, but they are decadent, and they are not a tenth of our power. The heavens themselves will crack and spill their mortar onto the heads of any soldier who dares touch the flesh of a priestess of this City. You will find the same if your monsters broach the Gate. Please believe that I do not lie to you—I am of the Dead, and the Dead have no need of fiction. You think we are at an impasse, and that to avoid bloodshed, I will surrender to your smile, or your kiss.” Yashna released the Apostate’s arms, her dark eyes flashing suddenly like iron striking stone. “We are not at an impasse, and the Dead care nothing for whether the blood of the living is spilled. Bring your army within the Salmon Gate, and I swear to you by the Seven Corpses of Heaven, not a shred of their skin will be left when the moon rises.”
Ragnhild’s smile faltered slightly; her eyes seemed to shiver within themselves, and for a moment, for only a moment, I could see the creature she must have been before the Caliph had her, and I pitied her, may the Bough bend in forgiveness. But it was a moment soon past, and the seraphic smile had returned, harder and brighter than ever.
“You cannot frighten me with the oaths of the Dead, old woman. I am dead—I am a wraith on the earth. I have crossed into shadow while you and your priests sit playing with toy gravestones in your Tower. Do not speak of what you do not know.”
Yashna’s gentle gaze returned, like spring returning to a thicket of pine boughs. “Stop, my daughter. You do not need to brag to me of your putrefaction—I believe you. But I have a solution, if you will hear it. In recognition of Ghyfran’s mutilation of your first body, I will extend to you a single chance to take the Papacy in truth.”
Ragnhild leaned forward eagerly, scenting her victory.
“You wish to rule the Dreaming City; you must excel in all its ways. Play with me, a single game of Lo Shen. If you best me, I will go into seclusion as you ask, and you will ascend to the Tower without the slightest argument, and without battle. No one will contest you, and you will rule as well as you are able. If you lose, however, you must disband your army, and take the vows of one of our Towers, enter it as a novice, and pledge yourself to our City for the rest of your days. In the Anointed City, this is the way disputes are settled. If you would rule us, you must behave as one of us. Show me that you are the rightful Papess. Show me that you exceed us in all things.”
Ragnhild seemed to laugh, but no sound issued from her rosy mouth. Her eyes glittered like snowflakes catching the sun. “You cannot be serious. A single game to decide five hundred years of history?”
“Were it not that once my predecessor harmed you, I would simply kill you where you stand.”
Ragnhild was silent for a long time, studying her opposite number. There was no sound but breathing in the Tower, the shallow, quick sighs of all of us waiting to learn what would become of this infant war. Finally, Ragnhild seemed to come to a decision, and leaned forward, her shimmering hair brushing Yashna’s wrist. She cupped the older woman’s face in her hand, almost as a sister might, comforting her sibling with a touch. She tilted her head and pressed her lips to Yashna’s dry mouth, kissing her deeply, passing all of her murky magic through her lips and into the body of the ancient Papess.
When the kiss was ended, Yashna remained as she was, her smile, perhaps, a little sadder and a little more rueful than before.
“We are both creatures of the Dead, my dear. Let us not try to befuddle each other with these cheap glamours. It does not become us. Play my game, as I have now played yours, or go back to your army and see if the prancing Draghi are the worst we can muster to keep an infidel from our halls.”
