Shadowrise (19 page)

Vash clapped his hands and stood, letting his morning robe slide from his frail old body. His youthful servants scuttled forward to dress him, their handsome little faces serious, as if they were taking care of precious artifacts. In a sense, they were, because the paramount minister’s power over them included the right to have them killed if they injured or displeased him. Not that he had ever killed anyone for displeasing him. He was not that type. A decade or so back he had even gone out of his way to choose boys with spirit, servants who would tease him or even occasionally pretend to defy him—knowing, mischievous, seductive boys. But as he passed four-score years Vash’s patience had dimmed. He no longer wanted the once enjoyable, but now only strenuous exercise of bringing such servants into line. Now, he gave any new recruit only two or three whippings to reform. Then if they showed no signs of learning the silent obedience he had come to prefer he merely passed them to someone like Panhyssir or the autarch’s current regent in Xis, Muziren Chah, someone who enjoyed breaking rebellious spirits and had no compunction about pain.

I have seen too much pain
, Vash realized.
It has lost its power to amuse or even to shock me.
Now it just seemed like something to be avoided.

 

Vash pretended to meet Panhyssir by accident on the deck outside the autarch’s huge cabin. The heavyset priest and an acolyte had apparently just opened the Nushash shrine.

“Good morning, old friend,” Vash said. “Have you seen the Golden One today? Is he well?”

Panhyssir nodded, a movement that consisted largely of flattening the front of his several chins. In the greater informality of shipboard life he had stopped wearing his tall hat except during actual services; his head and wide face, now covered only by a simple coif, seemed curiously and obscenely naked. Panhyssir was, however, wearing a very impressive black robe. Instead of the autarch’s falcon or the golden wheel of Nushash, though, it was embroidered with a flaming golden eye.

“What is that?” Vash asked. “I have not seen that mark before.”

“Nothing,” said Panhyssir airily. “A fancy of the Golden One’s. He is sleeping in today with the little queens.” These were his hundred-eleventh and hundred-twelfth wives, two young noble sisters, nieces to the king of Mihan sent to Sulepis as tribute. His interest in them, as opposed to the escaped temple girl, seemed of the ordinary sort. Ordinary for the autarch, in any case: the music of their shrieks had kept the ship’s passengers from sleeping well the last several nights.

“Ah, good,” Vash said. “May the gods send him health and vigor.”

“Yes, health and vigor,” repeated Panhyssir. Ready to move on, he gave Vash another little squish of his chins.

“Oh, I had just one question more, good Panhyssir. Do you have a moment? Could we speak somewhere out of the wind? These old bones of mine take the chill so, and I am not yet used to these northern waters.”

The chief priest gave him a blank look but turned it into a smile. “Of course, old friend. Come to my cabin. My slave will make you some good, hot tea.”

The priest’s cabin was bigger than his, but did not have a window. After decades of doing the crucial social computations of court, Vash could not help considering what that meant, and was pleased to decide that it meant his own status had not dropped precipitously despite all the time Panhyssir had been spending with the autarch in the last half a year.

The high priest’s cabin did have a chimney, which was good, since it meant he could have a small stove. An acolyte began making tea while Vash lowered himself onto a bench, consciously avoiding the usual game of trying to make a social near-equal sit first. He wanted the priest of Nushash in a good mood, after all: Vash was hoping for honesty, or something close to it.

“Now,” said Panhyssir when the bowls of tea were in their hands, “what can I do for you, my dear old friend Vash?”

Vash smiled back, thinking of all the times he had toyed with bringing one of his kinsmen in from the country to put a knife in Panhyssir’s eye. Court life made for both unexpected friends and enemies. Just now, he found himself thinking about the priest almost fondly. Panhyssir might be a self-serving dog, but he was one of the old crowd, and there were few enough left, especially after the carnage of Sulepis’ rise to power. “It is the Golden One, of course,” he said. “I worry night and day about how best to serve him.”

Panhyssir nodded sagely. “As do we all, may the Lord of Fire protect him always. But how may I help?”

“With your wisdom,” said Vash, and took a sip, deliberately slowing himself down. “And your trust. Because I would not want you to think I seek to pry into that which is unquestionably yours and yours alone.”

“Go on.”

“I mean of course your relationship with Golden One, and your counseling him in the ways of the gods. I do not wish to interfere in such an important stewardship, and of course I cannot even understand all the ways of the living god on earth, let alone the immortal gods in heaven.”

Panhyssir was half-amused. “Granted, granted. To what end may I lend you my . . . wisdom?”

“I will be honest, old friend. That is how I show you my trust and good faith. We both know that there are many in our court who would seek to exploit any sign of weakness or doubt on the part of another minister—denounce him, perhaps, or simply seek to blackmail him.”

“Terrible, these young ministers,” said Panhyssir gravely. “They know nothing of loyalty or service.”

“Just so. But I trust you, with your years of wise service, to recognize the difference between questioning the autarch’s wisdom and a mere—and completely sensible—concern for his well-being.”

Panhyssir was enjoying this. “You interest me, Vash. But then, in your zeal to serve, your thought always reaches far ahead of the rest of us.”

Vash waved his hand, anxious to avoid a flattery contest, which in the Xixian court could last for hours. “I seek only the well-being of Xis and to do the will of the gods, especially mighty Nushash, who is king of all the heavens as the autarch is master of all the earth. But here we come to my question.” He stopped and took another sip of tea, and for the first time felt the seriousness of what he was doing—the risk he truly was taking. “Where are we going, good Panhyssir? What does the autarch plan? Why do we take such a small force of soldiers so far beyond the reach of our mighty army into a strange northern land?”

Now that his doubt was spoken and could not be taken back, he swirled the tea in the bowl and watched the leaves eddy, the patterns as complex and beautiful as a poem rendered in fine script. For a moment Vash had a vision of a completely different life, one in which he had turned his back on power and wealth and had spent his time instead marking out in ink the delineations between earth and eternity, transcribing the words of the great poets and thinkers with no other goal than to make them as beautiful and evocative and true as they could possibly be.

But that Vash, disowned by his parents, would have starved by now,
he thought,
so I would not be having this thought . . .
He realized his mind had wandered, even at this crucial moment, and marveled.
Truly, I am getting old.

“Ah, yes, our journey north.” The high priest frowned, not in anger or indignation, but like someone considering an interesting challenge. “What has the Golden One told you?”

Vash almost said “Nothing,” but checked himself. That had the sound of exclusion to it. “Only this and that. But I fear I cannot understand him sometimes, his speech is so exalted and my thought is so humble. I thought perhaps you could explain it more fully to me.”

Panhyssir smiled and nodded.
You self-satisfied toad,
thought Vash.
This is why you became a priest, isn’t it? To be able to lord it over the rest of us, to say that you alone know the gods’ wishes.

“First of all,” the chief priest said, “you must understand that the Golden One is a scholar as well as a ruler. He has located and read books of old lore whose names few learned men even know. I can honestly say that he has gone farther in the study of the gods and their ways than even I, the chief priest of the greatest god, have done.”

Vash did not doubt that was true: Panhyssir was by no means a stupid man, but his enjoyment of power far exceeded his love of scholarship. “And all this . . . study? Somehow it draws us north, to some freezing, rain-swept, savage land—but why?”

“Because the Golden One has conceived a plan so audacious, so breathtaking, that even I can scarcely understand it.” The priest patted his broad middle. “And there is only one place in all of Xand or Eion that it can be implemented—a castle in the tiny nation called the March Kingdom. The pagan king Olin’s own country.”

“But what plan, Panhyssir? What plan?”

“The Master of the Great Tent, our blessed autarch, is going to wake the gods themselves from their long sleep.” The priest drained his tea and held out the bowl until the slave could come and take it from him. “And all it will cost is the northern king’s life. A trivial price to pay to bring heaven to our corrupted earth, dear Paramount Minister Vash, don’t you agree . . . ?”

 

Pinimmon Vash did not know what to think. As he slowly climbed the steps from the high priest’s cabin to the upper deck, a wave of weariness rolled over him, heavy as the foaming sea itself. What could anyone do in the face of such folly, let alone one old man? Of course Panhyssir and his priests were perfectly satisfied with the autarch’s madness—he jumped at their vaporous ideas like a cat chasing a piece of string. Was this the cause of the relentless expansion into Eion that had drained so many of Xis’ assets and which left them with an army so large, hungry, and dangerous that it had to be kept constantly in the field to keep it from causing trouble at home? But if so, why then this sudden change of plan, first the costly attack on Hierosol and then this strange stab, like a conjuror’s sleight-of-hand, into the far reaches of the northern continent?

Did the autarch and the priests truly believe the gods were waiting to be awakened at the northern king’s castle? Or did they seek something less unlikely—some object of great power or great worth? But what could someone like Sulepis want that much? He was already the mightiest man in the world. Would he bankrupt Xis on such whims, throw every adult man into battle, perhaps destroy an entire generation, just to buy himself the imperial equivalent of a shinier sword or a grander house?

And my task—is it to aid this folly, or to try somehow to prevent it? But even if I decided to oppose the autarch, what could I do except die protesting? He is constantly guarded, even on this small ship, by tasters and servants and Leopard guards, and he is much younger and stronger than I am, even if I could by some chance get him alone.
No, it was hopeless to think the paramount minister could do anything himself to harm the autarch, and any failed attempt would surely be punished by hideous torture before the inevitable execution. Vash thought of the fate of Jeddin, the autarch’s former Leopard captain, and shuddered.

He found the foreign king enjoying the cool but bright sunshine on the foredeck, sitting on a bench with his hat off and the hood of his cloak thrown back. A dozen guards lined the rails on either side of him, and two more stood above him at the walkway around the opening to the gun deck. What was strange, though, was the northerner’s apparent choice of companions: only a few steps from Olin Eddon sat the crippled scotarch Prusus, the curtain of his litter drawn back so he too could take the sun. The scotarch had been ill for the first days of the voyage, but even now that he was better he still looked on the verge of collapse, his head lolling and arms and legs twitching. Merely looking at Prusus irritated and frightened Vash. Choosing such a pathetic creature had been the first sign of the new autarch’s alarming, incomprehensible ideas.

Vash turned back to the northern king. Whatever madness the Golden One had planned, it was clear it would mean Olin’s death, so all conversation had to be undertaken with that in mind. It was like stroking an animal before sacrificing it—one did it only to calm the creature, because there was no value in developing a sentimental attachment.

Vash smiled. “Well, good day, King Olin. I trust you are enjoying the sun?”

“How can I not enjoy it when each time it goes down might be the last I see it?”

The paramount minister bowed his head in a good imitation of regret. “Do not despair, your Highness. It could be that the Golden One will spare you. He is changeable, our great lord.” Which he certainly was, but almost never to anyone’s good.

Olin raised an eyebrow. “Ah, well, then. Why should I fear?” He turned back toward the horizon. He had gained color in these days aboard ship, his prisoner’s pallor slowly turning brown. Even the faint reddish tones of his brown hair had begun to seem brighter and more fiery. Vash had to appreciate the irony. The closer he drew toward death, the more Olin Eddon began to look like a living man again.

“Is there anything you require?” Vash asked him.

“No. I am enjoying the wind on my skin, and for now that is enough. But you could answer a question for me.” He gestured toward Prusus in his shelter. “I asked him, but the . . . scotarch, I believe you call him . . . is not much of a conversationalist.”

“No, Highness, you are correct.”
He is a pitiful freak who should have been put down at birth. Only a woman as rich as his mother could have got away with keeping him.
It was foolish to let it bother him, but having Prusus’ watery, wandering eyes on him always made Vash fretful. “I will tell you what you wish to know, if I can.”

“Very well. What
is
a scotarch? I gather that this fellow is, in some way, the autarch’s heir.”

“Yes, I can see how that might seem strange to you.” Vash’s legs were beginning to ache from standing so long. He moved to the opposite end of the bench from the northerner and sat down. “They say that it goes back to the old days of our people, when we lived in the desert and traveled in nomad clans. We would draw together once in a year around the
xawadis
, the place where the water never completely disappeared, a very holy spot, and we would choose a chieftain of all the clans—a Great Falcon. But we also chose a Kite, the high-flying vulture of the desert. This was usually an older clansman, responsible and wise and thought to be without ambition. He would go with the Falcon’s clan and he would become Falcon if anything happened to the chief of the clans.