Brilliant polychrome glazes adorned the bricks of the walls, two of which bore bright friezes above shoulder height. The one depicting the Twelve, the Bright Ones, had been Benard's masterpiece, which had won him acceptance into both the artists' guild and the mystery of the Hands of Anziel; later it had gained him the Pantheon commission.
He looked instead at the other, Ingeld's personal wall of memory, executed by Master Odok. The central figures depicted what she claimed were good likenesses of her long-dead parents, who had died together on the day Stralg seized the city. Nars Narson, the last state consort, stood there eternally in his black robes, silver-maned and exactly as bony-jawed and stubborn as his legend required. The lady Tiu wore the robes of a pyromancer. Ingeld said her mother's hair had been the same rich bronze as her own, but glazing technique had limited Odok to using a gold luster, a three-firing technique formula normally used only by potters.
Off to the side stood the twins, Finar and Fitel, a little older than Cutrath was now, smiling proudly as newly initiated Heroes in brass collars. They had been six years older than Cutrath, and sixty-sixty times as worthy to be immortalized, although one picture would have served for both. Odok's glazes had barely cooled from the kiln before the twins had gone off to the war and died without ever reaching it.
Now another portrait had been inserted in Ingeld's wall of memories. There really was no accounting for a mother's delusions. Although Cutrath smirking in his new brass collar should not be regarded as an improvement to any room, even a latrine, Benard grudgingly conceded that the old master had excelled himself, for this was obviously more of Odok's work. The background tones matched the original perfectly; every fold of the pall crossed every tile boundary in perfect alignment. And when he stepped back to admire the whole, Benard reluctantly conceded that the young brute really did have an impressive body. Pad out the muscles to full adult mass, correct the brawler's battered features, catch that ghastly arrogance half as well as Odok had done... and Cutrath would do very well as a model for unholy Weru.
Disgusted, Benard leaned his sketch board against the wall below Cutrath's feet to show how much more handsome Horold had been, then wandered across to the sleeping platform. He kicked off Thranth's sandals and lay down. Ingeld's scent enveloped him in a mist of nostalgia, but he detected none of Horold's sour animal reek. That one deserved a stall with dry straw, nothing more. Benard assumed she was not required to function as the monster's wife these days, although that was not something one could ask. It was not something a man could even think about.
He was facing his own work, the frieze of the Twelve Bright Ones. He found it unsatisfying. Nowadays he always used models. Back then he had been content to rely on invention, and now the results seemed bland and unconvincing. Holy Veslih stood out from all the rest because She bore a strong resemblance to Ingeld herself—gorgeous, slender, vibrant, like a living flame. He had improved on Odok by combining copper luster with gold to achieve a closer match to robes and hair, and so far the results seemed to be stable. Holy Weru had a look of Bloodlord Stralg as he had been on that frightful morning outside Celebre, fifteen years ago. A few other faces were vaguely recognizable.
His gaze settled on holy Eriander. The temple displayed the god-goddess as an obscene combination of the sexes, a repulsive collage of organs. Benard had depicted a hermaphrodite youth, draped, taller than the women and shorter than the men. No one had objected to this innovation, even High Priest Nrakfin, and the statue in the Pantheon would be done the same way. The face ... Knowing no hermaphrodites, Benard must have invented those ambiguous features, and yet they were annoyingly familiar. He was still trying to remember who might have inspired them when his eyelids became too heavy to stay open any longer.
nine
INGELD NARSDOR
preferred to practice pyromancy at night, with sparks and voices twining upward to the stars above the hypnotic thunder of drums. Then the Daughters became swirling pillars of flame in their dance around the hearth, while glowing coals flickered myriad images. The ritual lacked the same drama in daylight, yet today's images had been unusually clear. Any fool could see pictures in a fire; the god-given skill of the pyromancer was to know which pictures mattered, to tease out divine resolve from the infinity of the possible.
The seers claimed that all prophecy was vain because the gods could not be bound. There was some truth in that, and at times Ingeld thought she could watch sixty-sixty futures dancing, as if the Bright Ones debated their plans in a vast divine committee. But the Maynists were not entirely correct, for Veslihans never claimed to see beyond their own realms. The peasant wife muttering prayers to her cooking fire differed only in degree from Ingeld, initiate of the highest level and first among the Daughters, seeking guidance on the future of Kosord in the sacred flames at the summit of the temple. One ruled a hovel and the other a palace, but both of those were households sacred to holy Veslih. If the goddess chose to make Her intentions known, the other gods would not interfere.
Last night, as was her custom, Ingeld had led the acolytes in prayer in the adytum. Inexplicably, she had seen Benard Celebre in the dark between the embers, indicating danger. That he was in peril was no surprise and she was overdue to warn him of the latest troubles, but the omens seemed to imply that the danger was to the city, which made no sense. She had been sufficiently concerned to send a herald around to his shack. He had not been home and she needed no divine guidance to guess that he was sleeping elsewhere, for he still had an astonishing ability to inspire women to mother him. At dawn she had visited the adytum again; again she had seen him, and this time heading for the palace. Images in a brazier could not compare with those in the sacred hearth itself, so she had decided on a full pyromancy, sending Sansya to the assize in her stead and warning Molith to admit Benard when he arrived.
That he was bound for Horold's audience had never occurred to her, but in the very first true images, she spied him already in the balcony of the court. The portents for Kosord were clearer than any she had seen in years—a baby shining, a letter shadowed, a boat that was sometimes good, sometimes bad. Those would be the sparks to ignite the blaze, but beyond them she spied only tumult and confusion and shadow. Time and again as images formed, the coals collapsed, obscuring them as if the gods had determined to set great events in motion without agreeing upon their outcome. But why everywhere Benard? Wherever she'd looked, there was Benard in the background. Baby, letter, boat, death, death, death... and always Benard. Why was he suddenly so important?
♦
Pyromancy was an ordeal that left her simultaneously exalted and exhausted. When it was over, two acolytes supported her while she addressed the anxious crowd that had gathered.
"I foresee no great evil," she told them. "Unsettled times approach, but the gods are merciful. Be mindful of them and the troubles will pass." They knelt to her as she descended the steps; she entered thankfully through the bronze doors, out of painful sunlight into the women's quarters, shadowed and cool.