Flowstone tried to smile bravely, but it didn’t entirely work. “Our faith teaches us that the past and present are nearest each other at moments like this, and so of course it is painful to be one of those caught in the folds of history. That is when we are closest to the scorching flames of the Eternal.”
Vansen wasn’t at all sure what that meant. His ideas about the gods had never led him much beyond what the priests had told him, coupled with a certain doubt about the good sense of any complicated hierarchy, even a heavenly one. He nodded, which was the best thing he could think of to do, and changed the subject. “We can only defend the last chamber—the Revelation Hall as you call it—then we will be forced out of the Maze entirely.”
“Captain!” One of Dolomite’s men trotted up, sweating. “They are breaking through the last of the rubble! The sentries say they will be on us soon.”
Vansen felt it like the last note of a triad—something he had been expecting, almost needing. Soon he would not have to fear his own mistakes any longer. Soon he would not have to watch good men die. He had given everything he had. There could be no shame in that… could there?
“Everybody to the back of the hall!” he said, pitching his voice to be heard by as many as possible. As the farthest who could hear him called to those who could not, Vansen added, “Douse any torches and get everyone behind the first barricade. We’ll make our stand there.”
Jasper grinned tightly and looked at the monk Flowstone, who appeared more than a little queasy at the prospect. “We will indeed,” the wardthane said. “We’ll give ’em something they’ll be talking about in Funderling Town and Xis itself for many a year!”
Fear ran through the hall like a ripple on a pool, but no one hesitated; within only moments they were moving in a ragged but orderly way toward the foremost barricade.
Flowstone looked up at Vansen, and his mouth trembled. “We’re all going to die in this hall, aren’t we?” he said quietly. “The same place where I was initiated—the place where I became a man.”
“Nobody knows when their time has come or what the gods plan.” Vansen shrugged. “Least of all now, when even the gods seem baffled. A year ago I thought I’d certainly die behind the Shadowline. That didn’t happen. Who knows what comes next, Brother Flowstone? Only the Sisters of Fate. Tighten your helmet strap and have a sip of water. You probably won’t have a chance at another for a while.”
Pinimmon Vash had no idea what to expect of the event. It seemed like one of his master’s typical whims—some sort of ceremony, apparently religious, but with a full slate of the autarch’s Leopard guards in attendance. Vash made certain that Panhyssir was informed so that the sanctuary would be ready.
To Vash’s inestimable relief, the northern king for once was nowhere to be seen. The girl with the red streak had been removed from the chamber as well, so that only the shrine of Nushash remained of things that might steal attention from the autarch—not that anything could truly compete with Sulepis. In his ceremonial golden armor and high-crested falcon helmet the tall ruler indeed seemed something far beyond a mere man. The autarch’s eyes even seemed to catch and reflect back something of the smoldering torches, shining almost orange beneath his crown’s golden beak. Two dozen of the autarch’s Leopards stood before, beside, and behind him, making a sort of human cage that briefly gave Vash a bizarre glimpse of the autarch imprisoned. Yet Sulepis stood nearly a head taller than even the biggest of them: the cage of men seemed scarcely enough to contain him.
Vash didn’t know himself what the autarch was planning. He had fulfilled all that was expected of him, and now waited with ragged nerves to discover it. He sometimes thought it must be the same to be a bird as to serve a capricious, deadly master like Sulepis. The winds shifted, a warm updraft became a downdraft that hurled you toward the earth, and all you could do was fight to keep your wings out and pray you would level out once more.
The autarch called out to the Leopard guard officer. “Did you bring them, as I bade you? Are they here?”
He bowed, shaved head gleaming with oil. “Waiting outside, Golden One.”
“Good. Send them in to me now.”
Two Leopards went out. The rest of the guards did their best to remain at strict attention, but they were clearly curious as to who might be such a risk that so many guards were present at once. Soon, three large women were led into the sanctuary. They were all Xixian, by appearance, and each woman was as tall and heavyset as almost any of the Leopards; also, all three were hard-eyed and sullen. The guards’ eyes grew wide to see them. Some of them must have wondered whether the autarch planned one of his strange jokes.
Sulepis waved his long, gold-tipped fingers and the desert priest A’lat appeared bearing a box of carved ivory. At a nod from Sulepis and despite his blind appearance, the priest walked directly to each of the women in turn and gave her something from the box. As the priest returned to the autarch’s side, Vash saw that each of the muscular women now held something that looked like a piece of dull crystal about the same size as a honey-sweet.
“You are Khobana the Wolf, are you not?” the autarch asked the tallest woman, whose hair was chopped shorter than that of most men. “The one who was sentenced to execution for killing her husband and family?”
A sort of sneer curled her lip. “Yes, Golden One.”
“I remember you. With your bare hands, yes?” He nodded, pleased. “Now, you three each hold a great gift—one that will make you as fearsome a fighter as one of the gods themselves, as powerful as Xosh the moon god who slew Okhuz, the god of war. And if you survive to return it… it will also buy your freedom.”
The women stared at him, mistrustful as wild animals. Vash was unsure of what was happening, but he could not help remembering that as powerful as Xosh Silvergleam had been, he had been slain in turn by another, stronger god. It was something Pinimmon Vash thought about more and more, these days: the servants of the powerful often came to a bad end—and nobody mourned them.…
The autarch had continued. “… And although in ordinary times such weak resistance would mean nothing—less than nothing—because I now have need of haste I cannot allow these mongrel Yisti and their March-man general to balk me any longer. That is why you hold those kulikos stones in your hands.”
Kulikos? Vash shivered. He had heard enough of the old stories to know such powerful magicks would bring death to many—and eventually, to their bearers as well.
As he warmed to his subject, the autarch’s voice rose and echoed. “With the stones and the spells A’lat has taught you, you will be true she-demons! You will tear my enemies apart as if they were mice and rabbits, and they will run weeping before you. You will leave nothing in your wake but blood, and when the sun has passed through the sky one more time in the world above, I will stand before the god himself and make his power mine. And you three will be among my most honored servants!”
Khobana the Wolf was the first of the women to drop to her knees. “Hail, Sulepis!” she said. “Hail, Golden One!” The other two echoed her cry.
“Hail, indeed!” the autarch said, laughing.
31. The Gate to Funderling Town
“…Zuriyal told her brother Zmeos that the strange smell in the great house was only that of a mouse that had snuck in to get out of the cold.”