He scowled across at her.
She continued. ‘You wear a sword, captain, hinting at the threat behind your every request. But not just requests – after all, we need not mince words’ meaning here – no, behind your expectations. Of obedience. Of compliance. Of the continuation of the way things are, provided that the way things are sets you above those others, and makes solid your claim to rule over them.
‘As for your soldiers, why, I would think each dreams an identical dream – no different from your own. A retinue of servants for each soldier, slaves even, as proof of that “recognition” you so desire. Every ploughed field will sprout some new estate, as your beloved soldiers scramble to carve out their rightful place in the new scheme. As for the peasants, why, their lives will not change. They were never meant to change, not by your reckoning, in any case. You would shake the order, but not so much as to send the framework down into crashing ruin. This war of yours, Hunn Raal, is but a shuffling of the pieces. That and no more.’
‘And what is it that you seek, High Priestess, if not the same, as you elbow your way to the table?’ He snorted behind his cup. ‘You dance well, but it is in the same fire as the rest of us.’
‘No,’ she replied. ‘You can have that table, Hunn Raal, and all the new but grubby faces around it. What I seek is a new place, a new realm, in fact. One where Light rules, and Dark has no claim. I will make it here, in Neret Sorr.’
‘That wins us nothing, Syntara. They will marry. There will be unification through balance, Dark upon one side, Light upon the other.’ His expression grew ugly. ‘Now you sit here, seeking to change what we agreed upon, and I like it not.’
She narrowed her gaze on him. ‘I sense how the power of my gift now infuses you,’ she said. ‘Who would have thought that Hunn Raal, this rough, rarely sober captain of the Legion, should find in himself a burgeoning sorcery? By title you should name yourself warlock and be done with it.’
He laughed, collecting up the wine jug and leaning back on the cushions. He poured his cup full once more. ‘I’d wondered if you knew. It is … interesting. I explore it, but cautiously, of course. Risky to be headlong in such matters, as I am sure you have discovered.’
‘My comprehension is absolute,’ Syntara replied. ‘So much so that I advise you to be most careful in that exploration, Hunn Raal. You may in ignorance unleash something you cannot hope to control.’
‘Abyss take me, Syntara, but you have grown arrogant. Young women come to you, shining with dreams of a better future for themselves, for their wretched lives, and you set most of them to scullery, to waiting on you and your guests. Your High House Light looks suspiciously similar to every other noble household, and yet here you sit, spouting bland pretensions to justify your – apparently – near universal contempt for everyone else.’ He paused, drank deep, and then said, ‘I see now what Lanear saw in you. The beauty of your flesh belies an ugly soul, Syntara.’
‘No longer,’ she snapped. ‘I am purged. Reborn.’
‘Repeated, more like,’ he said, smirking.
There would come a time, possibly soon, when she would no longer need this man. The notion calmed her down. ‘You have not yet asked, Hunn Raal.’
‘Asked what?’
‘The maid. Do you want her tonight? If so, she’s yours.’
He set the jug and cup down, and then rose, carefully. ‘A man has needs,’ he muttered.
She nodded. ‘I’ll send her to your chambers, then. You may have her, for a day or two. But no longer, lest the dishes pile up.’
He stared down at her with his red-rimmed eyes. ‘You say I should name myself warlock, Syntara. I would offer some advice of my own, to you. You are not alone in this newfound power. Best, I think, we work together. Urusander weds Mother Dark. He is given the title of Father Light. The civil war ends on that day. As for you and Emral Lanear, well, fight with your temples all you want, just keep it civil.’
She said nothing as he made his way out. Drunks made dangerous adversaries indeed. No matter. Warlock or no, he would never be her match.
In her mind, she unleashed a momentary spasm of power. A side door was pushed open almost immediately thereafter, and the serving girl stumbled into the chamber, her eyes wide and frightened.
‘Yes,’ murmured Syntara, ‘that was me. Now, come closer. I need to look at your soul.’
Even terror could not win out against Syntara’s will. She found the girl’s soul, and crushed the life from it. In its place, she planted the seed of herself, a small thing, that would control its newfound body, and lead it into untold horrors. Through the girl’s eyes now, Syntara could look out, whenever she chose to, and not even Hunn Raal would be the wiser.
‘Now then, warlock,’ she said in a low whisper, ‘let’s see the depths of your appetites, shall we? Things to use, things to abuse, things to twist my way.’
Syntara sent the girl to the captain’s quarters.
There was value in keeping such creatures close at hand.
Lowborn, ignorant. Such a pathetic soul, so easily snuffed out. No great loss.
She would raise a temple, here in Neret Sorr. And set into its floor a Terondai, artfully recreating the sun and its torrid gift of fire. An emblem of gold and silver, a symbol of such wealth as to make kings ill. A temple to house a thousand priestesses, two thousand servants. And in the central chamber, she would raise a throne.
The marriage was doomed. There was not enough left in Vatha Urusander to assure a proper balance. Perhaps, she reflected, he had never been what others believed him to be. There was little of value in commanding an army: the talents required seemed few, and the measure of respect accorded it woefully out of proportion.
One need only look at Hunn Raal to see the truth of that. His talent, such as it was, served to feed the ambitions of others, clothed in the trappings of an acceptable violence. When she looked upon soldiers, she saw them as children, still trapped in their games of heroism, triumph, and great causes. But so much of that was delusion. Heroes fell into their heroism, mostly by accident. The triumphs were short-lived and, ultimately, changed nothing, which made those triumphs hollow. As for great causes, well, how often were they revealed to be little more than personal aggrandizement? The elevation of stature, the tidal swell of adoration, the penile gush of glory.
Pray the servants tiptoe in to clean away the sordid stains, once that blazing light was past.
The young woman would please him, she knew. Every hero of the male frame needed his compliant beauty, a creature excited by the stench of old blood on his hands, thrilled to see his wake where bodies lay piled in heaps. Why, she all but drooled at the prospect of his strong arms about her.
The heroes marched back and forth in the courtyard below, day after day, clanking and boisterous in this serious posturing. They each stood, in ranks or alone, with blades within easy reach. This announced to all their dangerous selves. No, she understood them well enough. And like the fate awaiting Vatha Urusander, all would soon come to comprehend their own irrelevance.
There has never been an age of heroes, or not one of which the poets sing in their epic tales. Rather, we but witness one age upon another, and another, each one identical in every detail but for the faces – and even those faces blur into sameness after a time. In recognizing that, is it any wonder Kadaspala went mad?
Oh, they might point to the slaughter, the murder of his sister. But I believe it to be another kind of death that has broken our age’s greatest painter of portraits. When at last he realized that every face was the same. And it looked out at him, ox-dull, belligerent and unchanging. And what were once virtues were suddenly revealed for what they truly were: pride and pomp, preening and pretence.