The Godspeaker Trilogy (23 page)

“But you are high godspeaker, who chastises you?” demanded Raklion, nauseous with his terrible grief. “Who names your sin and metes out tasking? Power lies in your hands, you have no master save the god, yet only you can hear the god, you say, and what does that mean? It means I have your word to take and no-one else’s! I must trust you or be accused of sin and here am I, Et-Raklion’s warlord, chosen to be the warlord of Mijak, there are more seasons behind me than before and I have no living son !”

He could not bear it. His heart was beaten to a pulp, he was a warrior and he was defeated, bludgeoned to his knees by this new disaster. His fists pounded the stone floor, skin tore, blood smeared.

Nagarak stood over him. “You know I am sinless, Raklion. You know where the sin lies. Lust stopped your ears, you were blinded by flesh. You took this Hekat when I told you not to, how then can this be my fault?”

Raklion pressed bloodied hands to his face. Was Nagarak right, had Hekat betrayed him? Had he been seduced by demons? He could not bring himself to believe it.

“I love her, Nagarak,” he whispered, broken. “I loved her since I saw her, I had no choice. She danced for the god, she danced into my heart, I did not touch her, I turned my face from her, I obeyed the god and touched only Et-Nogolor’s Daughter. Yet that bitch is dead, the son I planted in her is dead, now Hekat spawns demon-flesh, how can this be? She was with me always till I rode to the border, you and your godspeakers were with her after. How did this happen? How did she deceive me, deceive you, to sport with demons?”

“Warlord, you wrong me,” said Hekat from the doorway. “Your high godspeaker wrongs me. I consort with no demons. I am sinned against, not sinning.”

Hekat . Raklion staggered to his feet and confronted her. Little more than two godmoons since last he’d seen her, and there was less flesh on her bones, her eyes were sunk in hollows, her belly was flat between her hips. Grief in her face, grief in her voice, the faintest tremor in her hands. She did not kneel, she stood before him, grief had not diminished her pride.

Even though he loved her, he felt his anger stir. If she wept, if she begged, if she asked his forgiveness . . . “You are not summoned here, Hekat. You are not sent for.”

“I had to come,” she said, not looking at Nagarak, looking only at him. She wore no fine wools, just an old linen training tunic and weathered sandals on her feet. “Nagarak condemns me, he curses me in his mouth. He tells you I consort with demons. He lies. My heart is filled with the god, there is no room in me for sin.”

“So protest all demons,” said Nagarak, sneering.

Now she looked at Nagarak, with pride and temper in her eyes. “Perhaps it is you who consorts with hell’s children.”

Raklion struck her. “You will not say so, he is my high godspeaker! On your knees, you will kneel to me!”

A thread of blood trickled from the corner of her mouth. She knelt, obedient, but did not take her eyes from his. “He did not want me in your bed, he thinks I am not godchosen. He does not know what we know, warlord, he has not seen what you have seen.”

No, but what was it he had seen? Who had hidden her from Nagarak’s sight in the tasking house? The god? Or a demon she served in its place? Who told him the truth here, Hekat or Nagarak?

“What does she speak of?” Nagarak demanded.

Hekat said, “I do not deceive you, Raklion. I suckle no demons. The child I miscarried was blighted in my womb but I did not blight it. The god strike me dead if that is not true.”

The god did not strike her. Confused and wretched he examined her face for long heartbeats, searched over and over to discover the truth.

“I do not lie,” she told him proudly. “I am the god’s servant. I spit on demons, they are enemies to me.”

He could see no guile in her, he could hear no lies. She grieved as he grieved, how could he disbelieve her? He reached for her hands, and helped her to stand. “Then who?” he whispered. “Who stole from me another son? Who cursed your womb, who fouled my seed?”

She laid her cool palm against his cheek. “Warlord, how can I tell you what the god has not revealed to me? Ask this instead: who in Et-Raklion hates and fears me? Who has the power to defy the god?”

His reluctant gaze dragged slowly sideways, to fall upon his high godspeaker’s face.

“You will not heed this barracks bitch!” Nagarak cried. “I am high godspeaker, I live in the god’s eye. I am tested by scorpions, I breathe and I breathe, they cannot kill me!”

“Let them try to kill me,” said Hekat softly. “Put me in the pit, warlord. I will lie down with scorpions and get up with the god.”

Put Hekat in the scorpion pit? Raklion struggled for air. In his mind’s eye he saw her like Et-Nogolor’s high godspeaker, like the godspeakers who had challenged with Nagarak so long ago, he saw her distorted in agony, bloated with venom, stung to a lingering, hideous death.

“It is the god’s desire,” said Nagarak, nodding. “It will be done.”

Raklion stared at him. “The god’s desire, Nagarak, or your own?”

“You question my service to the god?”

He could see in Nagarak’s slitted eyes how much the high godspeaker wanted scorpions to sting Hekat. “No. Not to the god.”

“You think I seek to thwart you, warlord? Foolish man, you know that is not true. Those words are her words, her tongue drips poison.”

Raklion shuddered, he looked from Nagarak to Hekat and back again. Never had Nagarak counseled him wrongly, he was a true servant of the god. Yet Hekat was also in the god’s eye. He had seen that, how could he doubt her?

“Raklion,” said Nagarak, his voice less bladed. “This is the god’s business. Let the god decide it. Hekat must come with me, she must be prepared for the scorpion pit. Go into the shrine garden, pray there till lowsun. Then the scorpions will test her, and the god will show us the truth of her heart.”

Raklion nodded, and watched Nagarak push Hekat from the chamber. She did not fight the high godspeaker, she did not look back. Her spine was straight, her head was high, she walked like a woman with nothing to fear.

My endurance is ending. If she is false, god, my heart will break. Show me her heart, show me she is your chosen. Let me not be disappointed again.

Nagarak gave Hekat to four silent godspeakers, who took her to a cold stone chamber far below the godhouse. Silently they stripped her naked and cleansed her in blood, they anointed her with sacred oils and clothed her in a plain wool robe.

“Kneel,” they told her, pointing to the chamber’s scarlet godpost. “Pray until you are taken to the pit for testing. Prepare your sinning godspark for hell.”

They left her and she was pleased to see them go. Nagarak’s slaves, though they wore no scarlet godbraid. Chained to each other by blind obedience.

Fools. They see a lump of burning wood and think it is the sun.

Flickered with candlelight, the godpost’s red scorpions looked alive. She stroked them with her fingers, caressed them with her lips. She missed the touch of her scorpion amulet, but when Nagarak came for her in the palace the god had told her to leave it behind.

She wished Vortka was with her. She had not seen him since the miscarriage. Banishing regret, she turned her mind to the god.

I am here, god, where you desire. Show me what I am to see. Tell me what I am to know. I was afraid, I was lost, you were lost to me. Now you are found, and I am found, and I am ready for what must come.

Vortka was among the witnesses at the scorpion pit. Nagarak was there, and Raklion, and five other godspeakers she did not know. Nagarak stripped her of the plain godhouse robe, baring her skin to the chamber’s cool air.

She did not look at Vortka, she did not need to look to feel his concern for her. Foolish Vortka, there was no need to worry. No need either for Nagarak to tell her what she must do. She walked to the pit’s edge and stared at the heaving, writhing mass of scorpions within. Black. Red. White. Green. Sliding and hissing, pincers slashing, jointed legs scuttling. Venom seeped from their upcurled tails.

I am here, god. Show me your heart.

Almost eagerly, she slid into the pit. The mass of scorpions parted for her, they closed over her head and sucked her down, like a fish in water she swam in scorpions. The moment she joined them they began to sting her, she tasted their venom on her tongue.

There was no pain.

Instead her body was drowned in pleasure, in waves of heat and searing light. She remembered honey on Yagji’s corncakes, her blood was honey, she wept with joy. The god was in her, the god was honey, sweet sweet venom, flowing through her veins. The god’s desire was pouring through her, she shuddered in ecstasy, she moaned with delight. There were no words but she heard the god. She knew its desires, she laughed to hear them.

Yes, god. I will do that. Yes, god, I obey.

And then she was rising, the scorpions raised her out of the pit. Sprawled on the stone floor of the chamber she stared into the witnesses’ looming faces, into Nagarak’s shock and Vortka’s relief. She stared at Raklion. He was smiling.

“It is unheard of,” said one godspeaker, hushed. “Her skin is unmarked. Yet we saw the scorpions sting her, we saw the god testing her heart. What can this mean?”

The five godspeakers and Vortka turned to Nagarak. He said nothing. Did he even realize his fingers plucked the welts on his face, where the god had tested him and left its marks?

Raklion said, “It means she is untouched by demons. She is chosen by the god. She is Hekat, mother of my unborn son.” He sounded triumphant. There were tears on his cheeks.

Still Nagarak said nothing.

Raklion helped her to her feet. Smoothed his fingers over her scarred face, then clothed her nakedness in the godhouse robe.

“It is done, and decided,” he said, his warm gaze resting on her face. “She will come with me. She will come into the palace and give me a son.”

Yes. Yes. She would have a son. But the boy-child she birthed would not be his.

He will be mine, he will belong to the god. He will serve the god’s purpose in this world.

Nagarak said, “The god has spoken. It sees Hekat in its eye. She will go to the palace with the warlord, she will give him a son, for the god and for Mijak.”

He sounded breathless. Subdued. His eyes were empty. His godbells were silent.

“Come, Hekat,” said Raklion, and they left Nagarak behind.

M
uch, much later, in the coldest darkness of the night, Hekat woke in the palace, curled up beside Raklion in his bed. Hidden in the god’s eye she dressed in her tunic and left him sleeping, gliding out of the palace to make her way back to the godhouse, and Vortka.

He slept in the novice-quarters, where she had never been. The god guided her footsteps, she knew where to walk. Godspeakers were waking, the godhouse never slept, but they did not see her, they did not hear her or see her passing. She was air, she was shadow, she wore the night like a second skin.

There were no locks on godspeaker doors. She entered the novices’ sleeping chamber and crouched beside Vortka’s mat. Twenty other novices slept on, unaware. Candles burned along the walls, their dim light showed her Vortka’s face sunk far in dreams. Swiftly, silently, she peeled back his blanket. He was naked beneath it, his skin cruelly welted from his latest tasking. She took his blade in her warm hand and encouraged its attention. His breathing deepened, harshened, he responded eagerly to her touch. The other novices remained oblivious, their senses smothered by the god.

When Vortka’s eyes flew open she pressed her other hand across his mouth and straddled him, holding him tight between her thighs. Then she leaned close to him until her breasts touched his chest.

“When I was in the scorpion pit, the god poured its desires into my heart,” she whispered. “It told me things I did not know. Raklion warlord’s seed is salted, Vortka, the taint is in him . It is not in me. It was not in Et-Nogolor’s Daughter or any other woman he fucked to make a son. Raklion cannot sire a living child. But he is the warlord, a son must be born.”

Vortka plucked at her pressing fingers. She eased her grip slightly, that he might speak. “Hekat, what are you doing? I am not a vessel, I cannot fuck you! The other novices, they will see us!”

“They will see nothing, and you can fuck me if it is the god’s want,” she told him fiercely. “Do you doubt me, Vortka? Do you think I lie? Do you think you dreamed me in the scorpion pit, tested and untouched by the god itself?”

She could feel him hard and ready beneath her. His eyes were clouded as Raklion’s clouded when he feasted his mouth on her nipples. She knew enough of fucking now to know Vortka desired her. It was all she needed of him, the rest of the business she could do herself.

Vortka swallowed a tiny moan. “Hekat, you are sunstruck, we can’t, this is madness . . .”

“What we do, we do for the god,” she said, and shifted upon him until he groaned. “It is not madness, we will not be found out. The god wants this, Vortka. We must obey.”

His fingers closed upon her tunic-covered breasts. She raised her hips, wrapped her hand around him, and guided him deep between her legs. At first she rode him but then instinct took over and his hips were plunging, he thrust hard into her, like Raklion fucking he mewled and sobbed. He was a man, he could not help it. She covered his mouth again to keep him quiet.

When he was finished and panting, his seed spilled inside her, she eased herself off him and lay down for a moment. Her body was sore, Raklion had fucked like a mad thing in his desperation for a son.

“Hekat,” said Vortka, and took her hand. “You are certain that was for the god?”

She nodded, and let his fingers enclose hers. “I am certain.”

“I think I liked it,” he said, sounding wistful. “How many times will it take us to make Raklion his son?”

Her other hand drifted to her belly. She pressed her palm flat there and felt something shift. “It will happen quickly. The god has said so.”

“Oh,” said Vortka, disappointed. “Then you will not come to me again?”

“I will come if the god desires it,” she said, and rolled to her feet. “Go back to sleep, Vortka. Do not think on what has happened. Nagarak will watch me, he hates that the god whispers in my heart. If he sees you seeing me he will read your thoughts, he will see in your face you have feelings for me.” She gave him a brief smile. “You think you hide them but you do not. You are stupid, Vortka.”

He returned her smile, sadly. “Yes. I think I am.”

At least he admitted it now, that was something. She left him in the godhouse and returned to ignorant sleeping Raklion.

Four times more, in the deepest part of night, the god woke her so she might fuck with Vortka. Quick couplings in ragged silence, they spoke no more before or after. What use were words? Words would change nothing.

Nagarak conducted his business in the godhouse, except for sacrifice she did not see him. She was not sorry, let him stay there and rot. Raklion remained in Et-Raklion, he left Hanochek and the warhost on the border to frighten Nogolor warlord and his belligerent son. He kept her with him in their chamber, fucked her with vigor and told himself he was making a son. He would not let her knife-dance in the garden, he said she was too beautiful and precious to risk herself dancing with an unsheathed blade.

She wanted to stab him, but the god would not let her.

Twelve highsuns later she was pronounced pregnant for the second time. She knew it already, the god had told her, but it was safer to let Nagarak say so. It was stated, with certainty, this child was a boy.

She knew that, too. The god withheld her nothing.

Raklion kissed her, and then he wept. Five hundred black bull-calves were slain upon the godhouse’s great altar, five hundred black lambs lost their small lives. Et-Raklion’s godbowls were filled to overflowing, godbells rang until their tongues wore away. She was exiled to the godhouse soon after. She raged, she fought, Raklion would not listen.

“This son will be born safe,” he told her. “In the godhouse no evil can reach you. No demon can strike you or my son. If it is as Nagarak has said, if all my ills come from the ill-will of the other warlords and their high godspeakers, only in the godhouse will you be protected. Hekat, be silent. I will beat you if you cross me on this.”

He could beat her and not hurt the baby, so she held her tongue and did as she was told. She and her slaves were settled in the godhouse where she prayed five times daily, drank too much sacrificial blood, walked sedately in the shrine garden and tried not to go mad. If the warlords knew she was pregnant, no-one told her. If they continued their squabbling, rode to war against each other, made and broke treaties, continued their sinful dances with demons, no-one told her that either. She never saw Vortka, ten highsuns after she was banished to the godhouse he was sent far away to serve on a godhouse breeding farm, where the perfect sacrifice animals were born and raised. She hardly saw Raklion, he trained with his warhost beyond the city, riding the Et-Nogolor and Et-Banotaj borders with Hanochek, cowing the warlords with Et-Raklion’s might.

She begged to be let into the godhouse library, where she could read and forget the forbidden world beyond its walls. Nagarak resisted, whenever he saw a chance to thwart her, he took it. She prayed, then sent word to Raklion so her want might prevail. The god and Raklion defeated Nagarak, she was permitted to spend her time in the library, where she was largely ignored by godspeakers and novices alike. She did not care about that, all she cared for was learning.

To guide my son I must be wise, I must know the things a warlord should know.

The godhouse library’s vast collection of clay tablets saved her from madness, when she wasn’t praying or taking air in the shrine garden she read and read, gorging herself on all the things she never knew. Caravanning through Mijak with Abajai and Yagji, then her journey to knowledge was begun. In Nagarak’s godhouse it was completed, for nearly eight godmoons she put aside Hekat knife-dancer and became Hekat scholar, warrior for learning. She unsheathed her mind, it became her snakeblade.

Nagarak’s godhouse library did not only hold accounts of Et-Raklion’s history, in its cool, dim-lit tablet rooms she learned of all the warlords who ever ruled in Mijak, their treaties and battles, their victories and defeats. She read of high godspeakers who communed with the god, of the demons who tempted them and how those demons were destroyed. Demons were mysterious creatures, no-one ever saw them with their eyes, their presence was marked by the chaos that surrounded them and the sins men committed when fallen victim to their hellish wiles.

Hekat read from newsun to lowsun and far into the night. She would never much like godspeakers, except for Vortka, but it was a good thing the god created them. They wrote excellent histories, they kept meticulous records.

The days passed swiftly enough, her belly grew rounder. Her son grew within it, she talked to him as he slept.

You will be a great warlord, you will fight for the god. You will vanquish demons, you will smite the world.

Her pregnant body felt different, this time, she knew this growing life was not demon-blighted. Whatever sins had tainted Raklion’s seed, she did not know nor did she care. He would never again sire a godforsaken baby. The god would protect her from Raklion’s poisoned seed, her son would have no rivals, no deformed brothers or sisters to raise questions of his fitness to rule.

You will never know whose planted seed sired you. You are my son, that is all you must know. When old age claims Raklion you will be Mijak’s warlord. I will still be your mother, my hand will guide you, my voice will counsel you, you will see the world through my godchosen eyes.

At long last Raklion and his warhost returned from skirmishing on the borders. He did not clean the dirt of travel from his body but came straight to the godhouse weary and stinking.

“Aieee, Hekat, you are ripe enough to burst!” he marveled, pawing at her enormous belly in the godhouse shrine garden, where she sat in the shade feeling grossly misused.

She struck his hand away, irritable. “Do you think I don’t know that, warlord? I waddle like a camel, I pish ten times a finger.”

“I know, I know,” he told her, kindly. “You are near your time, it is expected.”

“ Tcha ! You are a man, what do you know of such things? Talk to me of what you do know. Raklion. Tell me of the warlords and their skirmishing ways.”

He sat beside her on the carved stone bench, took her hand with its swollen fingers gently in his, and kissed her tenderly on the brow. “My fierce Hekat. You have not changed.”

“You desire me to birth a fierce warlord for Mijak, it would be a sad thing if I turned soft like milk!” she retorted. She wanted to pull away from his touch but that would offend him. She must not do that. “The skirmishing , Raklion. How fared the warhost? Did you meet in battle with Nogolor or Banotaj, or any other warlord daring to challenge Et-Raklion’s might?”

He shook his head. “No. Nogolor still breathes in his palace, Tebek dares not disobey him and send warriors to break our treaty. We did see riders from Et-Banotaj, we glimpsed warriors from Et-Zyden and Et-Takona riding with them. It seems their fragile alliance still holds. I think they desire to raid again in our lands, if we did not show them our snakeblades they would have crossed our border. It was good we were there, Hekat.”

Aieee, I wish I had been there . She pressed a fist into her aching back. “The god will break that alliance, warlord. When it says the time is come for you to rule over Mijak they will be at each other’s throats, not standing shoulder to shoulder against you.”

“I wish it would say so soon, Hekat,” he whispered. “I am not a young man, I grow old in my bones.”

It will say so soon enough. First my son must be grown out of his cot, and I must know more of what it means to be a warlord.

“Et-Raklion’s warhost is not big enough yet,” she said, resting her head against his shoulder. He liked such gestures from her, they soothed his mood. “The other warlords are still too strong. Let the god further diminish them, Raklion. Let them sin, and grow weak. The god will tell us when to strike.”

“How will it tell us? What sign will it send?”

She did not know, she would never say so. He must never suspect she could not summon the god. She groaned, and flattened her palms to her belly. “Aieee, Raklion. I am so tired, I must lie down.”

Raklion was distracted, she knew he would be. Tenderly he helped her onto her feet, and walked with her into the shadowed godhouse, to the chamber where for so long she had slept alone.

He sat beside her till she drifted to sleep.

Six highsuns after his return, as newsun made the Pinnacle’s godpost shine, she felt the first birth pains, faint griping spasms that promised more to come. Her godspeaker attendant sent for Nagarak, Raklion and the godhouse’s senior healer. Nagarak came, with the healer he helped her to a different chamber, one with an altar in it and waiting godspeakers with sharp sacrifice knives.

Raklion came soon after, he brought Hanochek with him. In between the deepening contractions she swore at him for doing so. She did not want the warleader there.

“He is my best friend, he leads the warhost after me,” said Raklion. “He and I will make my son a warrior, I desire him here. Hanochek will stay.”

Sweat poured down her straining body, it soaked her godbraids and stung her eyes. “ I will make my son a warrior, I am Hekat knife-dancer, I am Bajadek’s doom!”

“He is a witness, approved by the god,” said Nagarak, standing with the healer beside her bed. “Hanochek will stay to see the warlord’s son born.”

He only said so to thwart her, she could see the mean pleasure in his face. She was defeated, at least for the moment. She said nothing more against Hanochek’s presence, or the warlord’s claim of his part in her life. Let Raklion and his dear friend think they would guide her son. She and the god had a different plan.

Soon enough she did not care Hanochek was present, soon enough she forgot he was there. All she could think of was the tearing pain, her body was being pulled apart, torn open, ripped wide. As the godspeakers sacrificed an endless stream of lambs and doves upon the altar, as they burned the sacred blood to stinking smoke, a deterrent for demons, she clung to the birthing stool and pushed and pushed her son from her body. She kept her teeth gritted, she did not scream. She was a warrior, she had her pride. Time lost its meaning, she hardly knew where she was.