“And may it pass you by as well, Golden One.” Vash remembered how fearful the holiday had seemed when he was small, especially the evening, the darkness full of mourning cries and the chants of the ash-covered priests. Then, in the middle of the night, crowds of wild women and men (or so it seemed to him then; the child Pinimmon had not recognized that they were simply ordinary people who had been drinking and dancing for hours) would charge through the streets, lighting bonfires and demanding that those in their houses come out and join them in making noise to frighten away the dreadful Deathlord Xergal, who was trying to steal the moon from Nushash’s brother, Xosh. When the sun finally rose the following morning, known as the Day of Smoke, the celebrants would slink back inside to sleep off their excesses. That day the streets were always deserted except for children; Vash could still remember the feeling that he and his younger brothers walked through a city of the dead.
“Yes, Vash, it is strange and wonderful to pass a Day of Fires here beneath the earth, unable even to see the sun.” Despite his words, the autarch did not seem unduly disturbed. He turned to Olin. “I heard you speak my name.” He took a few steps down the line of walk-board slaves. Each slap of his sandal was met with a small grunt as the man beneath took his weight; the autarch was not bulky, but he was very tall. “You seem glum, King Olin,” Sulepis said to the northerner, bending over him like a concerned parent. “Is our hospitality lacking? Is there something more you wish of me, King Olin?”
Olin nodded and even made and held a long bow, which seemed odd—he had always gone out of his way to avoid showing Sulepis any but the broadest social courtesies. “Yes. Yes, I do. I wish you… dead!”
To Vash’s utter horror, the northern king abruptly straightened and leaped at the autarch, far more swiftly than the paramount minister would have imagined a man Olin’s age could move. The guards were caught completely by surprise as the northerner drove whatever he held in his hand into the autarch’s belly. The weapon shattered.
Olin fell back, holding the broken end of a long, jagged shard of stone in his hand. For a moment Vash was terrified to see blood around the northerner’s fist where he clutched the broken stone blade, but then realized with relief that the dripping darkness came from King Olin’s own hand.
Olin cursed in a broken voice and staggered back. All three of the guards had their weapons out and aimed now, two with rifles, one with a matchlock pistol that only the autarch’s most senior guards were allowed to carry. More guards hurried up and likely would have beaten the northerner to death on the spot, but Sulepis stopped them.
“Do not harm him. I am well,” the autarch announced. He pulled aside a fold of his robe to display the padded, sleeveless shirt beneath. “It is a pity you did not study our people more carefully, Olin.” Sulepis appeared unmoved, even amused, as though a jagged piece of stone had not just been driven into his midsection. “On the Day of Fire, the autarch must dress like a high priest of Nushash, which means he must wear all the vestments, outer and inner.” He chortled with childlike glee. “I will not complain about having to wear such hot undergarments again!”
Olin dropped the piece of broken stone, then turned and ran toward the place where the cavern floor dropped away into darkness. The Leopard guard with the pistol took aim at his back but again the autarch stopped him.
“He can go nowhere. He knows that. Let him have his moment of freedom.”
The guard reluctantly dropped the weapon to his side, and they all watched as the king of Southmarch halted at the edge of the abyss. He looked down for a long moment, then turned back to the Golden One and the guards. “You have a demon’s luck, Sulepis. I have waited long for that chance, but your god must be watching you.”
“Oh, he is watching,” the autarch said again, still laughing. “But he is watching because he fears me!” He gestured toward Olin. “And now, little king, what will you do next?”
“The one thing you cannot prevent.” The northerner was disheveled, pale, and sweating, all his recent ill-health plain on his face and in his labored breathing. “I am going to take my own life. I need only step back one pace. Then you will see how far your plans go without any of Sanasu’s blood to make your filthy charms with!”
Vash did not doubt from the look on Olin’s face that he would carry through on his threat. He felt a moment of unexpected hope. If Olin Eddon dies, then perhaps our master will give up this mad plan of his. Perhaps we will be able to return to Xand—to a life worth living.
But the autarch seemed quite undisturbed. “Oh, Olin, this is a fine comedy. Like something played here during your Zosimia festivals, is it not?”
“I am no longer listening to you and your madness and your tricks.” The northerner was at the very edge of the pit—he did not even need to step back again to fall, only lean too far. Nobody would be able to prevent it.
“No trick. Rather, just like your comic tales, it is all a matter of timing. If you had made this threat yesterday or the day before, you would have posed a serious problem for me. But today ...” Sulepis chuckled again and shook his head. “Oh, wait until you see how your own gods have cursed and betrayed you!”
“What are you talking about?”
Sulepis turned and whispered something to one of the half dozen guards hovering nearby. The man turned and went back to the autarch’s magnificent, gold-stitched tent. “You have made one small misjudgment, Olin. That is no mean tally, but it is one more than you could afford to make. You see, it is not particularly the blood of Sanasu the Weeping Queen I must have, it is the blood of her ancestor, the god Habbili—the one you northerners know as Kupilas the Crooked.” The autarch smiled at the king’s growing look of dismay. “The god spread his seed a bit more widely than only among the Qar, you see. For one thing, he lived long on Mount Xandos among his enemies, and in that time fathered a child or two upon mortal women. Or perhaps it was upon goddesses or demi-goddesses, and they in turn mated with mortals—it does not matter. In Xand we have always heard tales of the survival of Habbili’s bloodline. My priests and I eventually proved those rumors right… and that is why, since last night, you are no longer the only key that will open Heaven’s door. Look!”
The guard was returning with the girl, who had been dressed like one of the Brides from the Seclusion. He brought her to Sulepis and pushed her roughly to her knees beside the walk-board slaves.
“You will remember Qinnitan of the Hive, I think, King Olin,” the autarch said, as if introducing them to each other at a state banquet. “You see her now as we first saw her, with the mark of her bloodline visible in her hair.” He bent and reached out a long arm to pull the girl’s hair back; a streak of fiery orange-red ran through the shining fall of black like a wound. “So you see, you may throw yourself to your death if you wish, Olin Eddon. I will miss these last hours of your conversation, but now that I have her, I no longer need you or your blood.”
The northern king looked from the triumphantly grinning autarch to the dull-eyed girl. “Ah, it’s you, child,” Olin said. “I was right—there was something about you, after all.”
She only looked at him and then back to the autarch, face full of sullen terror.
After a moment Olin lifted his hands. “I surrender. You can do with me what you will, Sulepis. I ask you a boon, however. I will go to my death without struggle if you promise you will spare the girl. She is only a child!”
“A child with very, very old blood,” said the autarch. “But you are in no position to make demands, Olin.”