Vash did his best to smile. “Sour, Golden One? How could anyone be sour in the midst of such a splendid adventure? I but reflected on worries of my own.”
“Ah, did you? How selfish you are, old man. All those concerns and you would not share a single one?” Sulepis turned to his prisoner. “Come, Olin, wouldn’t you like to hear what is worrying my good servant?”
To Vash’s eyes the northern king looked even paler than usual. His brow was damp, as if a fever were coming upon him. “I beg pardon,” Olin said. “I did not hear.”
“Never mind. Tell us why you are worried, Minster Vash.”
Vash took a breath, held it a moment. “I worry about you, O Golden One, that is all. I fear for your safety so far below the ground, in such a dark and treacherous place, and with such uncanny enemies.”
“But you told me only yesterday that I would triumph against any odds—that Heaven had ordained my victory, so how can you doubt me today? Do you doubt me, Minister?” The autarch was smiling, but the yellow lights of his eyes seemed as deep as the vast fires in the temple of Nushash.
He’s angry about something, Vash suddenly realized. Not me, but I was fool enough to let him notice an expression on my face. “I am sorry, Golden One. I try never to doubt your victory, but your enemies are so treacherous, so wicked… !”
Olin turned with a look of clammy disbelief on his face. “What? My poor people, wicked? Is it not enough to kill innocents without slandering them, too?”
“He does not mean them, Olin,” said the autarch, his mobile face suddenly full of noble feeling. “Although nobody who allows that Tolly creature to rule them can be truly innocent. Old Vash refers to my real enemies—the gods. And, yes, they are strong and cruel, but they do not have what I have… the blood of humanity flowing in my veins!”
The northern king, who unlike Vash himself seemed to have no reason to fear aggravating the autarch, asked, “What do you mean, humanity? It’s the blood of gods you’re always talking about—the blood that supposedly runs in my veins.”
Sulepis smiled with pleasure. “Ah, but that is just the point. The blood of the gods has grown thin and tired, but it is still the key that will unlock the door I need to open… and when the door is open, power will come through it. That power—the might of Heaven itself—will be mine. But my blood may be entirely mortal, or if Nushash is indeed my ancestor, it may have become an even thinner soup over the years than your own. What’s important about me is that I have the blood of human conquerors running in my veins—hard, silent men of the desert who seized what they wanted and held it by wits and bravery and nothing more. Who else would even think to snatch Heaven’s power? I am the closest thing this world has to a god, and it is exactly because of my mortal ancestors that the circle will be closed and I will inherit the greatest power imaginable.”
Olin looked at him for a long time. “Every time I think I have plumbed the uttermost depths of your madness, Sulepis, you surprise me yet again.”
“Excellent news!” The autarch was pleased. “Now come with me while I inspect the troops, Olin. They do not like this sunless place, and who can blame them? But I am their sun and I must shine upon them a little.”
“But I don’t shine,” Olin said quietly. “I only burn.”
“Ah.” Sulepis peered at him. “That is right, my friend, you suffer as you grow closer to your old home, do you not? Bad dreams, a racing heart, a pounding head? What an irony is there!” The autarch shook his head in dignified disapproval, like a grandfather watching the carryings-on of disrespectful youth. Vash could not help wondering how his master had managed to become even stranger than usuaclass="underline" Sulepis seemed to be trying on different ways of being, as though character could be changed like a priest’s ritual mask. “Is your suffering great?”
The look Olin gave him should have immediately set the young autarch aflame. “I persist. I survive.”
“Which is, after all, the highest to which most mortals can aspire, is it not?” The autarch laughed and stood. Half a dozen body servants rushed forward to unroll the sacred blue Bishakh carpet in whatever direction he chose to walk: Sulepis was still under the stricture of the priests not to touch the ground. Vash thought it strange that a man who was willing to kill kings and rob the gods themselves should be so scrupulous about religious ritual. “Now come along,” the autarch told his captive. “You will keep me company while I bring the sun’s brightness to my languishing soldiers.”
As his guards helped the northerner to his feet, Olin stumbled and took a lurching step toward Vash, then caught at the older man’s robes to keep from falling—or so it seemed; but as his sudden grab bent the paramount minister almost double, Olin leaned close to Vash’s ear.
“I know you are no fool,” the king whispered quickly. “If you wish to survive, go to Prusus. You will find him a good listener.”
For a moment Vash thought his own command of Eion’s common tongue had failed him—that Olin had muttered a curse and he had misheard it in a ludicrous, impossible way. But the quick look of significance the northerner gave him before allowing himself to be led away made the old minister’s heart, already beating swiftly, begin to rattle like a festival noisemaker.
Is he mad? Does he think for a moment I would betray the autarch?
But a second, guiltier thought followed quickly. What did he see in me? Is it in my face? Can everyone see my doubts?
A moment later came the third and most horrifying idea of alclass="underline" Olin must have heard something. He’s telling me that the Golden One already plans to have me removed and executed. Sulepis only toys with me, like a cat with a granary rat.
Vash watched as the autarch was carried across the great stone chamber, bobbing on his litter with lanterns hung at each corner, and suddenly felt his treacherous thoughts must be leaking out like blood through a bandage, or like the fever-sweat on Olin’s face. Perhaps everyone knew!
Badly frightened by the words of a condemned foreign enemy, the Paramount Minister of Xis hurried to his tent, seeking shadows and a chance to think.
“I can scarcely see anything,” Vansen whispered to the young warder Dolomite as he stared out into the blackness of the vast, low chamber. He had been told there was enough light from glowing fungus on the walls in most parts of the Mysteries for the Funderlings to see at least a bit, but Ferras Vansen thought he might as well have a bucket over his head. “I’m blind here!”
“That’s because you are an upgrounder, Captain Vansen.”
“Fortunately for us, then, Warder, so are our enemies.”
A moment later Dolomite whispered, “I think the southerners are breaking through the last of the rubble we stacked. Some have shuttered lanterns—even you could see them if they were a little closer, Captain!”
But Vansen had chosen this place at the opposite end of the wide Counting Room quite deliberately for his command post. The cavern floor was covered with broad, tablelike mounds of stone, and the cover they provided was why Vansen had decided to contest this cavern as fiercely as he could. He knew he would eventually have to give ground, but first he planned to make this stone room deadly for the Xixians. “Save your breath for the facts,” he told the young warder, making his voice harsh. “Jasper sent you to me to help me. If I have to argue with you, I’ll get another messenger and you’ll be making your explanations to Jasper.”