The Godspeaker Trilogy (208 page)

“You didn't seem concerned when I burst into flames that first time,” he said, mild as milk. “As I recall, you proclaimed it a miracle. A sign from God.”

“Because it was! Do you deny it now?”

“No.”

“Then why are you here? Why do you disturb me as I seek divine guidance?”

“Because Rhian's right, Helfred. And you're wrong.”

Helfred clasped his hands and began to pace before the altar, agitated and dismayed. “I don't believe so. The soul of every Ethrean must surely be perilled if we truck with heathen magics, be they wielded by Zandakar or by Han's witch-men.”

“Helfred, God wouldn't have sent Zandakar to us, or the witch-men, if he didn't desire them to help us defeat Mijak!”

“So you say,” said Helfred, still pacing. “But you might be mistaken. You're not a prolate, you're a toymaker.”

Dexterity gritted his teeth. “And not so long ago you were a chaplain. I swear, you begin to sound like your uncle.”

Helfred turned on him. “That is a dreadful thing to say!”

“And Marlan was a dreadful thing to be. Helfred, put aside your self-consequence and listen to me. I tell you straightly, in this matter you are wrong .”

Offended. Helfred stood there and wrestled with his pride, or his conscience, or both. At last his shoulders slumped and his fingers sought the comforting reassurance of his wooden prayer beads. “Wrong how?” he asked, grudging. “Do you care to explain?”

Oh, Hettie. Let me be doing the right thing, please.

“Well,” he said, “all right. But you must promise not to repeat this. I've not told anyone, not even Rhian.”

“Really?” said Helfred, his curiosity piqued. “Why not?”

“Hettie said I shouldn't, but I think I need to make an exception. For if you don't support Rhian, Helfred, I fear Ethrea will be doomed.”

“Very well,” said Helfred, after a moment. “I'll not repeat it…but I'll not promise to change my mind, either.”

Dexterity swallowed a sigh. At least Helfred was listening. “There is no God of Mijak. Zandakar's chalava doesn't exist. At least, not in the way he and the others think it does. Mijak's priests have mistaken a dark supernatural force for a deity. The blood of their sacrifices feeds it, and gives them the power to do abominable things. It also deludes them into thinking they obey their god when they conquer other nations.”

Helfred's eyes had widened. “Does Zandakar know this?”

“I'm not certain if he knows all of it,” he said slowly. “But he knows enough. That's why we can trust him to fight for us. As much as he wants to help Ethrea, he's desperate to save his own people from this terrible lie. To save all the innocents who'd be destroyed by Mijak.”

“A laudable ambition,” said Helfred, “but what you say only strengthens my resolve. Zandakar is Mijaki, he must be using their dark power to—”

“And what of Han's witch-men? They don't dabble in blood sacrifices, do they?” Dexterity persisted. “And Sun-dao died fighting Mijak, Helfred.”

Helfred turned away, clutching his prayer beads so hard his fingers turned white. “Perhaps. But—”

“Helfred, there's only one thing to consider here,” he said, standing. “Mijak must be defeated. Human sacrifice , Prolate! Can you imagine ?”

“I've been trying not to,” Helfred whispered. “My stomach revolts at the very thought.”

“Well, I was in Jatharuj, Helfred. I don't have to imagine, I smelled it. Sometimes I think I'll never rid myself of the stench. In Jatharuj, in my dreams of Garabatsas, I have seen evil's true face…and I promise you, I promise , it doesn't look like Zandakar or the witch-men of Tzhung-tzhungchai.”

“Then how do you explain what they do?” cried Helfred, anguished.

Dexterity shrugged. “I don't. I can't. Any more than I can explain what I've done. All I can do is trust that Hettie wouldn't ask me to put my faith in evil.”

Helfred began to pace again. “It may be simple for you, Dexterity, but it is not so for me! I was a chaplain ! I counselled Rhian, I did my uncle's bidding, I had no thought of high office. No expectation. No desire . I studied the Admonitions , I tried to keep my soul pure. I never asked for the keeping of every soul in Ethrea! Who am I to decide these things? Who am I to know if Zandakar and the Tzhung will taint us or save us, or if they will taint us by saving us and in saving us destroy us. Who am I to know ?”

Helfred's distress was genuine, and heartbreaking. Gone the pompous chaplain, gone the assured sermoniser from the pulpit. He stood before the Living Flame with his soul stripped bare, revealing himself a young man, a doubting man, a man faltering beneath his impossible burden.

Dexterity went to him and laid a hand on his shoulder. “You're the man God chose to be Rhian's prolate,” he said gently. “Are you saying God made the wrong choice, Helfred?”

Helfred stared at him, his eyes haunted. “Sometimes I think he did. Yes.”

“Well, I don't. What I do think, Helfred, is we should open our eyes to wider horizons. Just because Zandakar and Han's witch-men aren't like us doesn't mean they don't serve God. I mean, who are we to decide how God is served?”

“A sound point,” said Helfred. “Rollin speaks often of humility in belief. You truly think they serve God, Dexterity?”

“Yes, Helfred. I do.”

“And you're against me denying Rhian their help? You think doing that would be a sin?”

He shrugged. “I don't know about a sin, Helfred. But I certainly think it'd be a mistake.”

“Well,” said Helfred. “You've certainly given me a great deal to think on, Mister Jones. Alas, any further reflection must wait. I have to prepare for this evening's Litany in the great chapel. Will you attend?”

“Ah…” Dexterity considered him. “That depends upon whether you'll be denouncing Her Majesty's alliance with Tzhung-tzhungchai, Prolate.”

“I denounce nothing,” said Helfred, staring now at the softly burning Living Flame. “I await God's whisper in my heart.”

He stifled a sigh. He'd been looking forward to a quiet evening's whittling. But if attending Litany would remind Helfred of this conversation…

“Then I'll be there, Prolate. You have my word.”

CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

D
ay was drifting to dusk when Rhian met with Zandakar in the torchlit tiltyard, alone. She'd ordered his soldier escort to stand guard along the path and turn back any nobles or courtiers thinking to observe their sparring hotas . Tonight she wanted a breath of time where she and Zandakar could talk privately. Honestly. And yes, dance the hotas together. Dear God, how she'd missed that.

He was there before her, dressed in deerhide leggings and a plain linen shirt. She'd wondered if he'd dance with the scorpion knife he'd brought back from Jatharuj, but no. It was the same plain hunting blade she'd given him to dance with, over Alasdair's objections.

He straightened out of a stretch as she approached, and watched her walk towards him. Lean and supple in her own battered leathers, she halted at an arm's-length distance and looked up into his smooth, unsmiling face.

He nodded. “We begin hotas, zho ?”

Unsheathing her blade, she nodded back. “We begin. Zho .”

As though they'd never been parted, as though they'd danced only that morning, they fell into the easy rhythms of the first hotas .

Rhian let her muscles relax, sought her calm centre, that place she'd discovered where the world went away and all she knew was her breathing, her heartbeat, the flow of blood through her veins. Eyes half-closed, barely glancing at Zandakar, she released her gathered tension in a cleansing exhalation.

“You hardly said a word last night, after we found you,” she commented. “Only what you had to, and only when you were asked. I swear, it was like pulling teeth. I know you're not a chatterbox, but still. A simple thank you might've been nice.”

His eyes glinted as he shifted his stance from the ibis, sleeping to the sandcat, waking . Long, fluid muscles worked beneath his skin. “Thank you.”

Time to take Dexterity's advice. “The man who gave you that scorpion knife. Vortka. Who is he to you?”

Sandcat, waking shifted to snake, coiling . “It matters?”

“I'm curious.”

Instead of answering, he tapped the side of her thigh with his knife blade. “More stretch.”

She hissed between her teeth and pushed her toes forward another inch. “Vortka, Zandakar.”

He tapped again. “More, Rhian.”

“What?” she said, glaring. “You want to split me in half?” With a grunt, she pushed herself another inch. “There. And that is all .”

With an ease that never failed to delight and aggravate, he shifted his stance again and turned a perfect, slow-motion cartwheel. Hand, hand, foot, foot. Then flowed straight again into the ibis, sleeping , his control complete.

With a shaming lack of the same elegance, she followed his example. When she stood upright again, she looked at him. “Dexterity said you didn't try and talk to your mother because this Vortka convinced you he had a better hope of changing her mind about sailing from Icthia. Is that true?”

“Zho,” said Zandakar, and watched her overbalance out of her one-legged ibis stance.

Cheeks burning, she turned a second, more pleasing cartwheel. “Well. That's most unfortunate, given what happened to those poor slaves.”

Zandakar bent double, stretching, and looked at her upside down, between his knees, saying nothing. Something unsettling gleamed in his eyes. He didn't need words to tell her Vortka was…special.

But why? How? And what does it mean for Ethrea?

Feeling more limber, trusting her warmer muscles, she began surging into her lunges, first the left leg and then the right. “I meant what I said, you know. About letting Sun-dao destroy Jatharuj. You shouldn't have stopped him, Zandakar. This could all be over now, if you hadn't stopped him.”

He unfolded, and flicked her with a cold blue glance before whipping into a series of spinning turns on one foot, knife-hand stretched straight and high above him.

“ Wei . Han say—”

“I know what Han said,” she retorted, puffing a little. “Clearly he was wrong. Sun-dao did start calling up a storm. If you hadn't interfered, he might have finished what he started.”

Zandakar stopped spinning. Shrugged. Perhaps . Then he turned another perfect cartwheel. Still pushing through her lunges, driving her heels into the ground as though she crushed an enemy's throat, Rhian felt the sweat begin to prickle through her heating skin.

“How do you do it?” she asked abruptly. “How do you make blue fire come from that knife?”

He dropped into his own sequence of lunges…but not in his usual position, directly opposite. This time he had his back to her. Avoided her.

“Zandakar, answer me,” she said, not ceasing her hotas . “I've a right to know. You sleep beneath my roof. You eat food from my table. I keep you safe. I want to know .”

Silence, broken only by their deep, steady breathing as they lunged. Then he grunted. “ Chalava .”

Oh no. Was Helfred right? Holding her own lunge extended, Rhian wiped suddenly damp palms down her leather leggings. “Your god gives you the power? The same god that drinks human blood?”

Awkwardly, Zandakar wrenched himself round to face her. “ Wei . Human blood evil. Chalava wei want human blood.” His clenched fist struck his chest. “ Chalava wei evil. Chalava good. Hekat wrong. Zandakar wrong, thinking chalava want death.” He stared past her, into the falling night, his breathing harsh and distressed. “Zandakar wrong.”

With the sky fast losing its light, the tiltyard's torches were throwing shadows. In the nearby stables horses whinnied and kicked, demanding their supper oats. The grooms' voices drifted overhead, chiding and cheerful, starkly contrasted with Zandakar's pain.

“Well, if you were wrong before, you're right now,” she said gently. “In helping us defeat Mijak, you're right.”

“ Zho ,” he whispered, and resumed his hotas .

Resisting the urge to push for more answers, she followed his lead. Now they were ready, they began the set movements of each dancing hota , when with exquisite control they traced every pattern as though the air was thick syrup. It was the part of her training she tended to gloss over when she was alone.

Of course Zandakar noticed that right away. Even distressed, he noticed it. He would make a formidable leader of Ethrea's army.

“ Tcha !” he said, and slapped the back of her head. “Rhian lazy, Rhian think hotas for pride, zho ?”

The blow was hard enough to really hurt. “ Wei ,” she said crossly. “I never show off. I might – well, I might get a bit bored , sometimes, but—”

“ Tcha ,” he said again, and again gave her a slap. “Bored?”

“All right, all right,” she muttered. “Slow hotas . I can do them.” Easing herself into the eagle, stooping , she flicked him a look. “But only if you answer this. The gauntlet Dexterity saw, in his dreams of Garabatsas. Does it work like that knife? The power goes from you into the gauntlet and comes out as fire?”

Zandakar's face tightened. “ Zho .”

Rhian thought he was remembering something, then. Something unpleasant. One of the cities he destroyed, when he wore that gauntlet? I can't begin to understand how it must feel, to wield that kind of power. Is it frightening? It must be frightening . She wanted to ask, but the bleak look in his eyes discouraged her. So she asked something else instead.

“The stone scorpion, Zandakar. Tell me about it.”

For the very first time since they'd started dancing hotas together, Zandakar stumbled and nearly dropped his blade. Gathering himself, his pale blue eyes narrowed, he stared at her. “You know.”

“I know what Dexterity saw,” Rhian replied. “What did you feel? What is the stone scorpion?”

“ Chalava ,” he said, after a moment, and resumed his slow hotas . “ Chalava in scorpion. Scorpion kill wicked men.”

Dexterity had told her and Alasdair that much last night, after Han's palanquin had returned them to the castle. Still she found it hard to believe. “And it tried to kill you?”

Instead of answering, he slapped her again. “ Hotas , Rhian.”

She eased herself once more into her slow-motion dancing. “Zandakar. Was Dexterity right? Did your chalava try to kill you?”