Idol of Glass (18 page)

Twenty-four: Impetuosity

Pearl drew feverishly, as he'd once done after Ra's renaissance, drawing as if he could bring Ra to him. Though he hadn't meant to consciously, it was exactly what he'd done from his mirrored cage. She'd come to
Soth
In'La and found him and set him free. It wasn't his aim now—he was dangerous, and he wasn't sure he ought to be set free—but he couldn't stop himself from drawing Ahr with fascination.

Like Ra, she moved like an omen in shadow across the barren white landscape of the snow-shrouded moor with grace and speed, walnut hair streaming out behind her dark-clad form like the mane of a horse. And like a wild horse, she was easily riled, somewhat skittish, and her emotions unpredictable. He couldn't see clearly when she'd gone inside the tavern, but he'd seen her come out. Pearl's heart pounded with fear when he paused in his drawing and saw who followed her. Not the drunk, but the other who'd chased him away. The Meerhunter Pike had found Ahr.

But in the next drawing that came to him, she'd left Pike behind. Had Pike known what she was? Pearl didn't think so. She was safe for now, and Pearl had the absurd feeling that as long as he drew her, he could keep her so. But that was foolish. He hadn't been able to with Ra.

Pearl remembered drawing Ahr from the distant flow of Meeric history before she'd been Meer—the maiden Ra had taken to his bed. Through the passion of Ra's blood, she'd burned almost as brightly as a Meer herself. And now she
was
Meer.

As was Merit. Pearl drew him also, MeerHraethe, whose throne Pearl had sat upon at the Meerhunter's machinations. Pearl wondered what Hraethe would think of him now if he knew. He drew MeerHraethe in the bath, surrounded by candles, not noticing until his drawing was done that the flickering glow of the lights around himself had become warm and steady like candlelight. He drew another, of Hraethe standing before a mirror, and for a moment, the reflective surface in the drawing seemed to waver, as though Hraethe might walk right through it—or Pearl might walk through his own picture into
Ludtaht
Ra.

He stretched out his hand and could almost feel the surface of the glass, just as he'd done from beyond his cage when Prelate Nesre had placed Ra within it in Pearl's stead. Pearl had shattered the cage with his words and loosed Ra from it from over a mile away. He closed his eyes, and felt the fabric of space bend against his palm, as though the glass were made of water, pulled toward him as with the wake of a boat. With a shudder, Pearl jerked his hand back.

Conveying his thoughts to his guests on paper was tedious. Hraethe wished he could break Shiva's petty spell. He imagined she'd done it to humiliate him, a punishment for his daring to desire her. Or at least to keep him powerless. He might be Meer, but he could no more speak his desires and make them manifest than he could when he'd been only Merit.

He'd explained, as well as he could—and within the bounds of propriety—how he'd come to be Meer after an ordinary lifetime. He said only that he'd been under a spell of forgetfulness of his own making so that he could watch over Ra. That much was technically true. He glossed over the bit about destroying his
soth
and killing himself for want of Shiva.

In return, Ume told him all that had befallen Pearl since he'd left
Ludtaht
Ra. Hraethe brought out the drawing Pearl had done to enchant him—it couldn't influence him now, since the key to remembering Pearl had been remembering himself. Had Pearl known who Hraethe was, hidden within Merit? He didn't think so. And yet the boy had tapped into his deepest subconscious and found
Soth
Szofl, MeerHraethe's shame. How Pearl had ended up there of all places was still a mystery. Perhaps drawing it had conjured it for him.

But the greatest surprise in Ume's tale was the knowledge that Cree was Pearl's mother, the common woman Nesre had found to bear Alya's seed. Ume too skipped over details, and Cree sat as quietly as Hraethe, letting Ume do the talking, but her suffering was palpable. Prelate Nesre had been more despicable than Hraethe had even imagined, and he found himself glad the man was dead to save Hraethe from losing control in tearing the miserable cur to shreds.

What was important now was getting Pearl back. That the ones Ume called the Hidden Folk had him in their realm was unconscionable. Hraethe couldn't say how the name of the Permanence had come to him, but something buried in his memory told him these were the ones who'd given life to the Meer. Ume confirmed that the Hidden Folk avowed this to be so. They claimed to have retreated under the hill to avoid the atrocities of humankind, but had felt remorse for their lack of involvement in the affairs of their offspring after the shockwave of the Expurgation reached them. They'd sensed Pearl in his prison at In'La in
Ludtaht
Alya and had brought his mother and her lover under the hill to enlist their aid in freeing him.

Whether any of what the Hidden Folk said was true, Hraethe couldn't be certain, but his memory insisted they belonged under the hill and had no business taking a Meerchild into their custody. He had a vague idea that they were no friends to the Meer, despite having been their source, but even how they were connected, he couldn't recall. It was maddening, like an itch against the back of his throat, to have these incomplete memories, when everything else in his former life seemed to lie in stark relief—so stark, it made him cringe at his own foolishness.

How he would breach their realm, he wasn't yet sure, but he wouldn't rest until he'd done it and brought Pearl back. There had to be some other way besides the method that had brought both Cree and Pearl under, but if there wasn't, Hraethe was prepared to do what he had to. He might not have his voice, but he'd given his promise on paper to Ume and Cree. He was Meer, and he would damned well keep his word.

Ahr returned before dawn, slipping noiselessly into the mound.

The two by the hearth were sleeping soundly as she descended the stairs. Her skin itched as though she were burning with fever, and she pulled off the coat and cap she'd conjured and hung them with the others in the entryway. Ra's door stood before her, tucked beneath the spiral staircase. The light no longer showed beneath it. Ahr turned the knob and stepped inside, her breathing hot and rapid in her chest. Ra lay there in the dark, a stark, satisfied shape in the gray mist of half-seen night. Her face seemed to have its own illumination, a pale glimmer on the horizon that said her light only waited beneath it.

Ahr's head was full of rage that only the Expurgation could still. The drunken Downser had only brought it more certainly to the fore. Her father had sold her for a trifle; her templar “husband” had desired her for her innocence, a prize to consume, and not a person; and Ra had used her to relieve the endless monotony of his pitiful Meeric existence.

He'd come to life within her. In the midst of his procession, in the midst of his glory and the begging of
vetmas
from the anonymous throngs, he'd experienced himself at last through the mirror of her body, through the hole into the world that he'd made of her. He had filled her with Mila, and he'd taken that too—a thing to reflect himself, to give himself value, not a person in her own right. RaNa, he'd called her: created out of him, of him, belonging to him, as if his semen were the only thing that made her who she was. Whether he truly believed he'd loved either of them was irrelevant, for even his love was a thing to make him feel the godhood of himself.

Ahr had no doubt Shiva would discover what she'd done. Shiva would exact the Meeric blood, spilling it out of Ahr through a hole more jagged and deep than the one Ra had torn in Ahr's body at AhlZel. But Ahr would be free at least from the cursed blood, and she would have had Jak, for the few days of this brief incarnation—hers alone. Something MeerRa would never again possess.

Wind buffeting the window casements woke Jak just after dawn to find Ahr standing at the mirror, her face streaming with tears, fingers clutching the untidy brush of her hair.

“It's all right.” Jak kissed her cheek. “We can fix it.”

Jak took her to the privy chamber and rummaged in the vanity for a small pair of scissors designed more to the task than the leather shears with which Ahr had accomplished the job, and began to trim what Ahr had done. Seated before the vanity, Ahr continued to weep as Jak brought the unruly strands into order. She could have spoken and restored her hair in an instant, but Jak preferred not to encourage her in that direction, and despite her weeping, she seemed content to let Jak work. The dark hair had a natural curve to it as it began to lie flat against her head, and Jak thought she was even more beautiful than she had been, with her cobalt eyes large in the tight-capped face. If only they weren't so wet with red.

“It's fine, Ahr. It really is,” Jak insisted. “Just look at yourself.”

“I
am
looking at myself.” Ahr took the damp cloth Jak offered and blotted at the stains on her face, peering closer into the mirror. She challenged her reflection. “Who on earth are you? I don't know you.”

Jak got up from the stool beside her and went to the plank door that enclosed the running shower Rem had fashioned, complete with a small brazier kept glowing with coal to heat the water. It was one of the things that made RemPeta the pride of Haethfalt. Jak cranked the reservoir's pump and stepped back to undress as the heat began to steam up the small closet. Ahr sat motionless, letting Jak come to her and loosen the tie of the robe she was wearing.

“Come on.” Jak drew her into the shower closet and closed the door.

They stood beneath the water and washed without speaking, the striking angles of Ahr's accentuated face streaming with water. Jak kissed her and pulled her close, their wet bodies slipping against one another.

Ahr murmured into the flow of the water running between them. “If I asked you to choose between us, would you do it?” Jak stood still, holding her, as the heat rolled over them. “You made me do it. I chose.”

Jak let the hot water beat against their skin for a moment, but Ahr was waiting. “If I had to, Ahr, I would choose you. Even with your Meeric blood, you're like me. She is something…else. And I couldn't bear to be without you again.” Ahr leaned her wet head against Jak's shoulder, obviously relieved by the answer she thought Jak was giving—until Jak finished. “But I don't want to choose.”

Jak had left her with no alternative.

Ahr dressed in the dark copy of Shiva's clothing as Jak was preparing to head up to the barn for the morning chores. “I'll feed the qirhu,” she offered. “I want to make myself useful.”

Jak stopped with one boot on and looked up at her. “It's not just feeding, Ahr. I have to break up the ice on the watering trough and clean out their bedding. I'll help you.” Jak stuffed the other foot into its boot.

“Ra can help me.” Ahr put on the leather gloves. “I want to talk to her.”

Jak observed her. “That's good, Ahr. You should talk.”

Ahr nodded and left Jak sitting on the bed staring after her.

Ra was a late sleeper, and Ahr stood inside her door, once more watching her sleep. Ra looked rested and content. She had no right to contentment.

“Ra.”

She woke instantly, coal black eyes, like her soul, staring into Ahr's. The bruise on her cheek was a dark, ugly mark impressed with the oval filigree of the silver brush. Ahr looked down at her hands. “I wanted to apologize. Could you—would you come up to the barn when you're dressed? I'm taking care of the morning chores.”

A soft smile lit Ra's face as Ahr lifted her head, dark eyes reflecting relief and longing in the dim morning light. “Of course.”

Outside, dawn was spreading cold and gray across the moor, wind whipping up whorls of snow on the path before her. Ahr pulled a weight before the barn door to prop it open, and watched as Ra approached, dressed too lightly in the garments she'd worn inside the cozy mound, her feet in a pair of fleece boots.

Ra blew into her hands and stopped before the barn, her eyes, as always, meeting Ahr's with the deep and silent communion that had been Ahr's downfall on the streets of Rhyman.

“You should have worn a coat.” Ahr took the scarf from her neck and placed it around Ra's.

Ra caught Ahr's gloved hand in her bare one and held the back of Ahr's fingers to her bruised cheek. “I've given you more than ample cause. There's no need to apologize.”

Ahr pulled her hand away, unable to look into those eyes any longer. “There will be. And I am sorry, but not for any of the things I've done to you.”

Ra looked puzzled, but before she could work out what Ahr meant, Pike stepped out of the shadows of the barn. He caught the ends of the scarf, spinning Ra about and onto her knees, and pulled up with a tight yank on the finely knitted wool to cut off her air. Ra's eyes went wide with surprise and shock. She had entirely underestimated Ahr.

Twenty-five: Consequence

Ra's head ached as if she'd just woken from a lethargic sleep following the ceremonial consumption of a
soth's
offerings after the annual People's Blessing. She'd lost consciousness from lack of oxygen with Ahr's lovely conjuring around her neck—the threads of the scarf still held the elemental resonance of Meeric creation. It made her ache for Ahr, her unreachable maiden.

The knitted lilac wool hung loosely at her neck now—as did her throbbing head—though her wrists were chained behind her back to the frame of an iron chair, and her mouth was bound by a leather strap. The Meerhunter had thought of everything.

“Coming around, are we?”

Ra lifted her head and regarded him with a sigh.

Seated across from her in the darkened room, the Meerhunter smiled through several days' growth of whiskers, his clothes rumpled with travel. He looked extraordinarily pleased with his luck.

“Name's Pike. I've been seeking you for quite some time. You're the elusive white elk, reports of you here and there, no one ever quite believing them, but everyone with a tale to tell. Whenever I arrive, you've just slipped away. But not this time.” He spat tobacco juice through his teeth over the side of his chair. “I imagine your head feels a bit thick. That's down to the elixir I funneled down your throat while you were out. Needed you to stay compliant until I had you transported to this special accommodation I made for you.”

Pike took the cover from a lamp on the floor by his chair. The flame reflected infinitely behind and around him in the glass of a mirrored chamber. “I believe you've seen one of these before.”

Ra nodded, though she couldn't quite recall the details of when she'd last been inside such a cage. It hardly mattered. She could conjure nothing without Shiva's word. He needn't have bothered.

“I obtained the plans for it from Prelate Nesre of
Soth
In'La.” Pike drew a small leather-bound volume from his coat pocket, curious symbols carved upon it like a book of magic. “Not all of his secrets burned with him.” Ra's shrug seemed to disappoint him, and he tucked the book away. “Naiahn's daughter says you killed her father. Is that so?”

So that was who Ahr had claimed to be. And Pike, the boastful Meerhunter so named for the implement upon which he was rumored to bring in his bounties' heads, hadn't recognized Ahr's Meerity.

He was waiting for her answer. Ra nodded and looked away.

“Everyone in the Delta knows Naiahn sheltered you in Rhyman after you spattered the walls of the temple with Prelate Vithius's remains. Naiahn was fool enough to harbor you in the
falend
, and then set up your puppet regime with Lord Minister Merit. And yet what did he get as thanks?” Pike paused to spit through his teeth. “I warned him about your kind, but he didn't take heed. His daughter, though—she's a smart one. Cozened you into believing she'd keep your secret without tipping you off that she'd betrayed you. The girl didn't even want a share of the bounty. Just justice for her father.”

If Pike had hoped to shock her with this, he would remain disappointed. There was no one in the world with more cause than Ahr to want Ra's head. She'd been within her rights to turn Ra in. Ra had been a fool to hope for anything else.

Pike tried a different tack. “Naiahn's daughter was a godsend, if you'll pardon the expression. But it was another mutual friend who led me to you.” His expression was pleased when Ra glanced up. He'd gotten her interest at last. “Calls himself Pearl.”

The sound of the name released the memory inside her as though a dam had burst. Ra sprang to her feet, pulling the heavy chair with her, and Pike rose likewise, stumbling back a bit against his chair in fear, though he had her bound as surely as Shiva did.
Pearl.
Where had the boy been when she'd returned to Rhyman? Why hadn't Merit spoken of him? How had she forgotten him?

Pike kept a few feet's distance between them. “Thought that might pique your interest. Little Pearl and I traveled together for a bit. He was perversely loyal to you for weeks, sent me on a wild goose chase all the way to the Eastern Continent. I made good use of him there—nothing untoward, don't waste that look on me. He spun gold for me with his art, and developed such a following, the locals made him their own Meer—throne,
vetmas
and all. Eventually, though, he started having visions of you on Munt Zelfaal. Damn near drove him mad.”

Ra sank slowly back against the chair, letting the legs drop onto the floor. This was why she'd forgotten him. She could see it now in the Meeric flow, the poison she'd spilled into it, and into Pearl, like a toxic spill on the Anamnesis. He'd seen her raving. Shiva had allowed her to suppress Pearl's memory because Ra would have given up seeking atonement in despair.

She was on the verge of it now, sick at heart at what Pearl had been subjected to because of her. There seemed to be no end to the consequences of her madness, no one she had not irreparably harmed. Pearl was an innocent soul who had suffered too much in his brief life. She'd wanted to spare him any more, and now she'd become the cause of further suffering. He'd trusted her implicitly as he'd trusted no one else. And she'd betrayed him.

Pike studied her warily, and apparently satisfied that she posed no imminent danger to him, he sat once more before her, though slightly farther back than he'd been. “I imagine you're wondering what became of the little Meer. I'd like to know myself. But I'd made a deal with him that if he ever gave you up to me, I'd set him free. And so I did. I'll probably regret my softheartedness later, but as long as he doesn't speak, I've promised to leave him in peace. Even a hardened hunter like myself doesn't relish beheading a boy. All bets are off, though, if he finds his voice. Or when he's grown. Whichever comes first.”

Pearl had let Pike believe Nesre had succeeded in silencing him. Smart boy. Ra hoped he was somewhere safe, and far away from them all.

Pike fiddled with a clasp at the back of his hip and drew out a blade. “Which brings me to you. As much as your present handicap suits me, I don't trust it. And further, I need a
vetma
from you. So we find ourselves in a bit of a quandary.” He rested the knife casually across his knees. “How do I get what I want out of you when you're apparently unable to give it?”

Curled up with Jak by the fire after they'd done the breakfast dishes together, Ahr steadfastly avoided her conscience. Breakfast had been quiet, with both Shiva and Ra absent—Jak had accepted Ahr's claim that Ra wanted to be alone, and Shiva had announced in no uncertain terms that anyone waking her again to eat “flesh” would be the meal.

When Shiva emerged, the others found excuses to be elsewhere, leaving Ahr and Jak alone with her in the cozy gathering room. Ahr moved closer to Jak, afraid to let the Meer see her eyes lest her secrets spill out of them. Shiva's height was daunting from this angle, long limbs sheathed in a pair of slim black pants, the deep ruby wine of her hair offset by a blood-red blouse.

“So here you are.” Shiva took one of the chairs by the fire. “The mortal girl who brought down the Meer.” She crossed her legs elegantly. “I see my blood agrees with you.”

“
Your
blood?” Ahr stared up at her after all, unable to look away. “It's your blood in me?”

“It was an incidental consequence. One I didn't foresee.”

“
You
brought her back,” said Jak.

Shiva shrugged in a manner that managed to be the opposite of self-effacing. “I completed her consignment to the elements.”

Ahr shivered, and Jak drew her close, kissing the top of her head in reassurance.

Shiva observed Ahr, the unnerving green of her eyes a sign of danger. “Jak required something tangible to believe in Ra once more. I provided that. What is it you require?”

Ahr managed not to flinch under her gaze. “I don't require anything. I believe in her. I just don't happen to like her.”

“You're a self-absorbed little chit. I don't like
you
very much at the moment either. Must you have tit for tat? Shall I bring her out and whip her in front of you, counting precisely so that you get just as much as Jak? Or shall I spear her on the points of my nails and make things even between you?”

“We
are
even. I crushed her skull; she opened my gut. An eye for an eye.”

Shiva laughed humorlessly. “Self-important fool. You never crushed her skull. You haven't the power. A mob of thousands did that. You merely stood by and enjoyed it.”

“I did not enjoy it!”

Shiva rose and took Ahr by the arm, pulling her to her feet with a grip of steel that not even the matching challenge of her breed could resist. “You hate Ra because he failed to read your mind.” Ahr tried to protest, but Shiva wouldn't allow her the indulgence of denial. “He couldn't, or wouldn't. But I have no such conscience.” Her dark Meeric gaze held Ahr more surely than her hand. Instinct told Ahr how Shiva's mind searched for what she wanted. Ahr steered her there to keep the darker truth hidden.

“The virgin's veil!” Shiva laughed, and Ahr turned her head away, as if that could stop the Meer from penetrating her secrets. “Is all this nonsense really just about your pride? That he left you in the veil while he fucked you?” Shiva held Ahr by the jaw and forced her to look the greater Meer in the eye. “It wasn't any failing in his Meeric conceit, you precious simpleton. It was the simple failing of sex. Ra was a man. What did you expect?”

Ahr pulled against her grip, but Shiva twisted her arm and brought her up close.

“Despite the disparity of gender, Ra is still accountable for being ignorant and cruel. But you didn't have the luxury of ignorance. Did it never occur to you to simply ask Ra to remove it? No. Instead, you asked him for the most selfish
vetma
before the
soth
of Rhyman, and in his sacred duty, he gave it to you. And your gratitude was to plot his death.”

“What
vetma
?” Despite herself, Ahr was distracted from her resolve. “He gave me nothing.”

“You asked him to say the child was his.”

Shiva's blood was pounding in Ahr's head. “He refused my
vetma
. He made me an object of ridicule before the whole of Rhyman.”

The Meer's grip tightened around her arm, and Ahr cried out. “If Ra had never acknowledged her, the child wouldn't have been taken from you. For you, Ra uttered the words. Yours was the
vetma
he granted that evening. Ra is Meer. His words went forth and became the semen of greed in the hearts of the templars. His word created the Expurgation.”

Ahr shook her head, bewildered and frightened. He hadn't answered her
vetma
. It was impossible. And how could it have been the cause of the Expurgation?

The blood pounded harder. It was the templars who'd stolen Mila. They'd wanted her, no matter how they'd learned of her. But the templars had also legitimized the Expurgist movement. The child, they said, was the cause. The child was the proof of the moral decay of the Meer. Rhyman had begun to change, they insisted, when MeerRa had acknowledged the child.

“His words,
fêt.
‘The child is mine.'
That was your
vetma
. I heard it from my temple.”

Her
vetma
. Ra had spoken and brought down all of Meerdom. And he'd done it for Ahr. Choking on tears she didn't dare allow herself to shed in front of Shiva, she stared up at the Meer in misery. What she'd been struggling to keep hidden was now a torrent of guilt and shame, an open book in her head. There was no way to keep it from MeerShiva.

The dawning knowledge on Shiva's face was more quiet and terrible than any violence Ahr had imagined.

Shiva's arms dropped to her sides. “What have you done?”

The Meerhunter rose without warning and stepped in with his knife, grasping Ra's hair at the scalp and turning her head aside. A flash of steel preceded the sting of a sharp blade against her cheek. Pike let go and stepped back, examining the dripping blade. The trickle of blood down the side of her face was a maddening itch she couldn't scratch.

“If you are who you say you are, this blood will tell. Just a formality. I've no doubt of your identity, but those who commissioned me will need proof before I get my bounty when I bring you in.” Pike uncorked a glass vial he'd taken from his pocket and let the blood drip into it from the end of his blade before replacing the stopper. “Now, before we proceed, one question remains: have you really lost the power to conjure? In case Naiahn's daughter was lying about that, I'll need your word, just as I exacted it from the boy.”

Producing a notepad and a blunt graphite pencil from his coat, he set them on Ra's lap and then moved behind her chair.

“Right-handed or left?” He paused with the key in his hand. Each wrist was chained separately. “Just wiggle your fingers to indicate the dominant one.”

Wearily, Ra moved the fingers on her right hand, and Pike turned the lock to release the chain, but held the knife to her throat as soon as she moved.

“One wrong move, and I'll take your head now, though I'd prefer to conclude our business properly first.” He tightened the steel against her. “Do we have an understanding?”

Ra nodded, causing the blade to cut into her flesh, though not deep enough this time to draw much blood.

“Good.” Pike put her hand on the pad and pencil in her lap. “Now, write for me:
I will do as you say.
”

There hardly seemed any reason not to. He had her where he wanted her. With Shiva's word preventing Ra from conjuring, she could do nothing to Pike within the cage, even if her tongue were loosed, while the cage itself kept Shiva from finding her, as it had kept Pearl from detection for the first twelve years of his life. On the other hand, since her words held no power, what she promised him was meaningless. She wrote the words.