The Godspeaker Trilogy (124 page)

Vortka's godbraids were as silver as his godbells, they were weighted with amulets so his head was heavy to turn. His scorpion pectoral clasped ribs bare of flesh. He was an old man, older than the empress, but an agelessness was in him, as though he could never die.

He would die if I killed him, if the hammer struck him he would die.

Vortka's sunken eyes were bright with anger. “Dmitrak, you tempt the god to a great smiting. You are its hammer, you make no demands. The warhost is in Jatharuj until the god says it is not. Do you say to me
you will tell the god what it desires?” His hand lashed out. “
Tcha ! You sinning boy!”

Dmitrak stared at him, his face stinging from the blow. He did not need to look to know his gauntlet had caught fire, that power pulsed from his blood to the red stones, making them glow, waking in them their yearning for death.

Why can he strike me when I cannot strike back?

Suddenly he was a child again, cowering before the empress his mother, stinging from her careless blows because he danced too slowly in the
hotas , because he slumped astride his pony, because – because—

Because I am Dmitrak, I am not Zandakar.

“Dmitrak…”

The rage had died from Vortka's lined face, the heat in his dark eyes had cooled to – to – pity.

“You are the god's hammer, you are in the god's eye,” said Vortka. “You serve the god, you serve it well, do not tempt it to smiting. Do not let anger lead you astray, Dmitrak. The empress needs you. She will not admit it.”

Aieee god, the scorpion pain inside him. I am a man grown, I need no bitch empress to need me
. He let the gauntlet cool, pulled the burning power back into himself. I need no brother, I need no-one. I am the hammer.

“Dmitrak warlord,” said Vortka. “The warhost looks to you, you are its father and its mother and its brother. You must come to sacrifice, you must kneel for tasking, you must be Mijak's warlord as Raklion was warlord before you.”

He felt his lips thin to a sneer. “Not Zandakar?”

“Zandakar…” Vortka looked away, to the ocean, to the horizon at its distant edge. A terrible suffering was in his old face. “Your brother lost his way, Dmitrak. He was a great warlord until he was not, and when he was not the god smote him for his sinning. There is no mercy in it for the weakness of men. Sinning men die, how many times have I seen this? Sinning men are broken, the god hammers them to pieces. Are you stupid, Dmitrak? Do you think the god will not hammer you?”

If he said no
Vortka would strike him again. Vortka was not Nagarak, fierce tales of Nagarak lived long after his death, but still Vortka was fierce in his own way. He was fierce for the empress, he breathed the air for her and for Mijak.

He will choose her over me, he will never see she is used up. He is blinded by Hekat. He is blinded by love. Does he think I am blind, I cannot see it? Zandakar blinded, Vortka blinded, love is a blinding thing. I keep my eyes.

“When have I not served the god, Vortka?” he demanded. “Cities are rubble because I serve the god. Blood flows like rivers because I serve the god. My blood boils and burns me because I serve the god. I sweat newsun to lowsun because I serve the god. I live in its eye, the god is all that I see. But you stand there and say I do not serve it? Tcha
!”

Vortka looked at him steadily, hands relaxed by his sides. In the bright sunshine his stone scorpion pectoral glowed. “You do not serve the god if you keep from sacrifice, Dmitrak. You do not serve the god if you say ‘I will not be tasked’. Pain keeps your heart pure. Pain purges your godspark of sin. Pain keeps you in the god's eye, it sees your pain and knows your obedience. In your cries it hears your love.”

He had cried in tasking so often the god should be dead of his love by now. He had been tasked from small boyhood more times than he could count. Breathe too deeply, too often, the empress sent him for tasking. Dance too swiftly, too slowly, the empress sent him for tasking. Speak too loudly…speak at all…the empress sent him for tasking.

If I had died in the godhouse she would not have shed a tear.

That should not matter, he should not care if she cared. Yet he did care and it burned him, as the god's power burned him when he set his gauntlet on fire.

“When you kneel for tasking,” said Vortka, “your warhost sees you serve the god, your warriors know their warlord is seen, they know their warlord is in the god's eye. Can you look in my
eye, Dmitrak, and tell me it does not matter?”

Aieee, tcha, it mattered. It mattered but he hated it. “If they are truly my warriors they know I am their warlord, they know the god sees me,” he retorted. “Am I a child or a slave to be beaten, Vortka? I think I am not. Task the empress, not me.”

“The god tasks the empress every day, Dmitrak,” said Vortka. “That is the god's business and mine, you have your own business to think of. The warhost will not linger in Jatharuj forever. Do you wish to sail to Ethrea with your godspark in doubt?”

When he was a child the godspeakers tasked him, not kindly, but knowing he was a child. He was a man now, he was the warlord, he was the god's hammer. The godspeakers thought he would not break.

Every tasking he feared to prove them wrong.

He turned away from Vortka and stared at the clustering boats, at the sunlit water, at the ant-people scattering. Highsun sacrifice was done. Now the iron tang of fresh blood was on the salty breeze. His warhost would be looking for him, with fingers of light to fill there must be training, they could not stand idle. The empress was right about that much at least.

Vortka was right also, though it galled him to think it. The warhost is a beast, it must stay tamed to my fist
. It must have faith in him, believe in him. It must believe, never doubt, he was in the god's eye. He turned back. “No, high godspeaker,” he admitted, grudging. “I would not sail to Ethrea with my godspark in doubt.”

“Then you will come to lowsun sacrifice, warlord,” said Vortka, in the voice he used for the god's pronouncements. “And after you have drunk blood for the god you will kneel for the godspeakers to task you. You are the god's hope against the demons infesting the world. You are the empress's hope. You must not fail.”

He stared down his nose at the high godspeaker. “Fail? I am Dmitrak warlord, I am the god's hammer. Where Zandakar lost his way I
have stayed strong.”

Vortka nodded again, his expression cautious. “You have.” Like a fish in muddy water, pity stirred again in his eyes. “But true strength lies in knowing when to bend before you break, warlord. You have pride, it has saved you, it might not save you forever.”

Why do you care, high godspeaker? You love Zandakar, you love Hekat. You do not love me.

He frowned. “Yes, Vortka.”

Vortka looked around the bare hilltop where they stood. Now his expression was puzzled, as though he searched for something. The sky was above them, the harbour below. Beyond them stretched the ocean, blue and deep, the greatest test the god had sent its chosen people. What was a desert of sand when the world contained deserts of water to drown them?

“What do you do here, Dmitrak warlord?” said Vortka, almost whispering. “Why do you so often come to stand on this hill?”

It was far from the township. It was dry land, no water. The breeze was cool, it soothed his skin. It made his godbells sing like sweet birds. Until recently the empress came here, this hilltop pleased her, but she came no more. The walk was too tiring. She needed to rest.

But I can stand here, Vortka. I can stand where she wants to stand, I can see what she cannot see. What I have here she wants, she cannot have it, I win.

I win, Vortka. Why else would I come?

He smiled. “I will come to lowsun sacrifice, Vortka. I am the warlord, I give you my word. When sacrifice is finished I will kneel for your godspeakers, I will permit them to task me. I am the god's hammer. I serve the god.”

In silence Vortka stared at him. Not pity in his eyes, not puzzlement or caution or glorious fear.

His eyes are blank. I do not trust blank eyes.

“The god see you, warlord,” said Vortka high godspeaker. “The god see Mijak in the world.”

He walked away. Disquieted, Dmitrak watched until the old man disappeared from sight down the side of the steep hill. Then he swung back to the harbour, the blue water, the wet desert he must cross for the god. In the pit of his belly, a clutch of fear. Ruthlessly he killed it.

I am the warlord, what is fear to me? It is nothing, it is unknown, fear belongs to my enemies. I am not afraid.

Down in the township was a pen full of old slaves, sick slaves, crippled slaves who could no longer work. The empress desired them, their blood held great power, but he would take them first. He would deny them to her. She said the warhost must not be idle, it would not be idle, his warriors would sharpen their snakeblades on the bones of useless slaves. Warriors whose blades did not drink blood often were warriors whose godsparks withered in the sun.

How can she smite me? In her own words I am right.

Already he could feel his snakeblade biting flesh, breaking bone. He could smell the nectar of fresh blood, taste it spraying hot and iron on his tongue, his thirsty skin. He could hear the chanting of his warhost, see the empress's chagrined face, knowing she had lost to him, knowing he was right.

The hilltop breeze strengthened, his godbells sang in the ringing silence. They sang to his glory, they sang to Dmitrak warlord, Dmitrak god hammer, Dmitrak warrior of the world.

He threw back his head. He laughed, and laughed.

Returned to the township, Vortka barely noticed the godspeakers bowing to him, the warriors punching their fists to their chests, the fear in the slaves as they flung themselves face-down on the sand, the grass, the pavestones. He scarcely smelled the fresh sacrifice, the salt in the rising breeze, he paid no attention to the coins in the godbowls before this street's godposts. He hurried to his godhouse in search of the god.

Although it sat above the township, the godhouse of Jatharuj did not dominate like the godhouse atop Raklion's Pinnacle. Before Mijak came to cleanse the town, the building was the home of an official. He was dead now, his bones bleached in the sun. A godpost towered on the godhouse roof, it cast a long shadow down the Jatharuj hillside. Inside the godhouse the soft furnishings of Jatharuj were stripped away, broken up and burned, they did not please the god. The room for bathing in the house was turned into a godpool, its blood collected at sacrifices and stored in stone cisterns deep beneath the hot ground.

Vortka summoned three novices as he entered the godhouse. “Fill the godpool,” he told them. “I will seek the god now.”

Waiting for them to complete their task, he stood on the balcony at the front of the godhouse. In some small way it reminded him of Hekat's palace balcony in Et-Raklion. The view, perhaps, or the clean air. The sense of height and freedom. In Et-Raklion the palace was surrounded by a sea of green, fields and vineyards and open land. Here the sea was blue, it was an ocean, it stretched even further than the green lands of Et-Raklion. He missed Et-Raklion.

He stared at the harbour but instead of seeing the warhost's crowding war galleys he saw instead Dmitrak. He saw the warlord's angry face.

Aieee, god, he disturbs me. He is a boy in a man's body, his godspark is scarred. When I praise him he suspects me, when I chide him he wants me dead. Somehow I must reach him. How can I reach him? He lives alone in his heart. Without Zandakar he is lost.

A dreadful thought, since Zandakar was gone. Dmitrak called him likely dead and it was likely, though Hekat clung to hope. Hekat clung to Zandakar so tight she did not see the son in front of her.

She has never seen him, save for something to hate. Every highsun she hates him, every highsun his scars thicken but they do not keep him from pain. Aieee, god, this is a tangle, did you mean this? Is this right?

After the godpool he must go to the empress. If Dmitrak was angry, Hekat was raging. The trade winds were slothful, he could not tell her why. She was threatening a slaughter like the slaughter in that desert behind them, the one that had drunk her first human blood. He watched his fingers tighten on the balcony railing, in his mind's eye the ocean turned stinking and scarlet.

How I wish she had never learned the power of human blood. Why did you show her, god? It is a dreadful thing.

Doubtless that thought was dreadful too, but how could he help it? To sacrifice animals, that was one thing. That was proper, they lived that they might die. But to butcher humans, even slaves, even those blighted godsparks not living in the god's eye, to slaughter them when they were not criminals… Mijak was in the world for the god. What purpose was served in killing when the god needed living men and women to praise it?

If Zandakar were here he could stop her sacrificing humans, her love for him was the only soft thing in her. Zandakar…Zandakar…why did you stray?

Grief was a snakeblade lodged in his heart. Every time he thought of his son it twisted and he bled inside, bled tears, bled despair, bled fear they would never meet again.

If he was dead I would feel it, surely. If my son was dead the god would tell me in my cut and bleeding heart.