Blinded by the Sun (Erythleh Chronicles Book 4) (19 page)

Tethva waited for them at the summit, his arms outstretched in welcome. He was resplendent in his ceremonial robes, and evidently felt himself superior to the king on this day. What the masses below could not see was the look of condescension on the Grand Master's face. Lyssia did not like Tethva. She had been present in a more than a handful of meetings at which he had demanded a chair, and had decided that he was false, with one face for the King, one for Taan, and one for his own self-interest. She had no trust for him.

"You are come, Sire."

The tone of Tethva's voice suggested anything other than welcome, or abasement, and Lyssia knew immediately that Kavrazel and Girogis had caught the absence of all proper respect. Both men had stiffened. Both had resisted placing their hands on their weapons, but only just.

"Of course. I honour Taan, I thank him for our victory, and I wish him to look favourably on our celebrations in his honour," Kavrazel replied.

"Celebrations suggested by a whore," Tethva hissed.

At that insult, so clearly directed at her, the king and Girogis did place their hands on the pommels of their weapons. They had donned their blades as part of their ceremonial dress, but Lyssia wondered now if they hadn't foreseen some need for bearing arms. For herself, she was not so very insulted; it was the kind of epithet that she had expected from a man like Tethva.

Kavrazel, however, was bristling with anger. "She is no whore. Her blood honours Taan daily, and her mind likewise with the suggestion of these games. You, his supposedly devoted servant, offered no such advice."

Tethva made no reply. He only bowed, and that in itself was a telling action in Lyssia's mind. The priest denied nothing, retracted no statement, only made the action of abasing himself. Tethva turned and lead the way into the temple. The argument was not resolved, but neither man pursued it. This day was not the right day.

The interior of the temple was dim and smoky. The lingering foggy incense made it hard to breathe, even beneath the skylight that opened to the heavens over the altar. Lyssia yearned for the fresh air outside, but Kavrazel had promised her that this interlude would be brief, so she could endure. Tethva led them up onto the low, circular dais, and there they waited until the temple filled up around them. Lyssia tried not to think too much on the history of the charred stones beneath her feet.

By the time it was filled to capacity, with townsfolk spilling down the steps onto the street below, Lyssia was ready to scream with the oppressive feeling of being trapped. At the point at which she thought she might give in to the urge to yell, at the point at which she thought she could not spend one more moment so hemmed in, Kavrazel squeezed her fingers. That signal, even with the cold, hard press of the metal of his gauntlets, was a sign that he acknowledged her fear and discomfort, even if he could not spirit her away from it. The brief gesture did much to calm her. Lyssia attempted a deep breath, aided by another squeeze of the king's hand, and steadied.

Chapter Eighteen

Kavrazel tried to keep his hand away from the pommel of his sword, but it was hard... extremely hard. The comment about Lyssia being a whore was completely unwarranted, not to mention foolhardy. It wasn't simply a mistake to insult the king's blood slave because he had shown any preference for her, but because she was part of a ritual that invoked Taan on a daily basis. To insult her, to decry her as unworthy of the post in Taan's own temple, was a grave error on the part of the high priest of the god in question.

As far as Kavrazel had ever known, there had never been any ruling about the state of the person who provided the blood for the toast. Taan had not struck the country with thunder and lightning when the Vuthroans had made the transition from outright cannibalism to the more modest blood toast. Kavrazel did not think that the god was so very worried about the shape or purity of the vessel, only that the blood it contained was spilled on a regular basis.

Perhaps the intangible Taan would punish Tethva for his hubris. Kavrazel was hard pressed not to take matters into his own hands immediately, but slaying the Grand Master, whilst providing plenty of blood to appease the god of fire, would not be the wisest political move, especially since such a large number of his subjects were witness. Instead, he clenched his jaw and prepared for the next barb that he knew Tethva would deliver. He was not disappointed.

"Sire, I am not sure we have a suitable beast for sacrifice, one that befits the occasion. You sent no word in advance..."

Tethva trailed off, but from the way he was eyeing Lyssia he was obviously hoping, and had fully expected, Kavrazel to slit the throat of his blood slave in holy sacrifice. That would not be happening.

"I do not require a beast." If Tethva's eyebrows were to climb any higher, they might completely leave his forehead. "What better blood to honour Taan than my own?"

As the priest was stuttering, trying to come up with a valid reason why he should replace his own blood - that of a powerful monarch - with that of his foreign slave, Kavrazel unfastened the coat of his armour and shrugged free of it. The upper half of his body was naked beneath it. The scales were fastened to layers of stiffened cotton, which in turn were lined with black silk. There was no need for any undergarments to protect his skin from chaffing, or for insulation. He had been watching Lyssia as he had allowed the coat to drop to the ground, where it hit the stones with stuttering clanks and chimes. He might be a king, but he was still a man with some natural vanity. She hid her reaction well, but the flare in her eyes - the way the unfathomable black of her pupils expanded so that the striking green iris was almost lost - did much to stroke his ego.

A subordinate priest had appeared with the hammered silver ceremonial bowl.

"Please, allow me." Lyssia took it from the robed man, and gave him such a smile - only a small expression, but done in her own inimitable way - so that the younger priest blushed fiercely. Kavrazel wasn't sure whether to be proud or jealous... he decided to settle for frustrated.

Lyssia held the bowl out, rendering Tethva useless. The Grand Master seemed to be struggling to catch up with the events taking place before him. Kavrazel suspected that he was so busy searching the scenario for a way to gain the upper hand that he hadn't realised the best way to do so would be to remember to perform his duties.

She was smirking now, trying to control her humour, fully cognizant of her inflammatory actions. It was a private grin, meant only for him, and Kavrazel felt that stroke in more places than his ego. He slipped his small blade from the scabbard at his hip, behind the more violent broad sword that he carried, and laid the fine edge to the skin of his wrist. His flesh there carried marks that it had never known before. There were several short scars now, evidence of the times he had fed his strength to Lyssia. Kavrazel made a long cut, bisecting the shorter marks, running from his wrist towards his elbow. This cut needed to be different, this cut needed to bleed, it needed to defy its own ability to heal.

Lyssia offered the bowl, and Kavrazel offered his arm over it. His blood dripped into the metal with soft sounds, which changed in tenor as the vessel filled. The bowl was perhaps a quarter full by the time that his skin sealed the wound.

Kavrazel paused. If the sacrifice had been an inconsequential animal, they would have burned it whilst they drank its blood. He wasn't about to immolate himself, and he hadn't yet imagined an alternative. Lyssia, quick thinking witch that she was, had other ideas. He had not re-sheathed his blade whilst he had made the sacrifice; now, Lyssia offered him the bowl and wordlessly motioned an exchange for his knife. Kavrazel made the switch with her, and watched with quiet pride as she extended her own arm over the bowl and cut her wrist in the same way that he would have done if they had been about to share a meal. He was glad she had not tried to emulate him; she was in need of no such trickery to keep her veins from closing.

"Blessings to Taan the almighty. May his power endure. May his will be right. May his enemies tremble before him. May his friends know the warmth of his blessings. May his fire burn forever."

Lyssia's clear speech rang out through the silent temple.

"Blessings to Taan." Kavrazel was startled when Girogis stepped forward, even more so when his guard took the dainty blade from Lyssia, and laid it against his own wrist. Girogis had also shed his armour. Now he stood by Lyssia and held his arm over the bowl, alongside hers, and made a matching cut.

"Blessings to Taan," Kavrazel murmured, as he watched the two people who most closely shared his existence allow their blood to drip into the metal dish to mingle with his.

"Blessings to Taan." Multha gently pressed Lyssia to step back, and took her place, before taking Kavrazel's blade from Girogis and making his own sacrifice to mix with that of the king's.

One by one, each of his cabinet, the most trusted of all his brethren, stepped forward and added their life fluid to the quantity already collected. Last to step forward, and the one which caused a mumble of amazement to ripple through their audience, was Otal, Consul of Felthiss, Emissary of Thrissia.

"Blessings to Taan," the consul intoned as he added his own blood to the viscous stew. It was an incredibly powerful message; not only had the king himself, and the most superior of their kinsmen offered their own blood for the sacrifice, but two foreigners, without coercion, had also taken part in the toast. Kavrazel smiled, and nodded at Otal in acknowledgment of the gesture he had made. In his friend's clear and unrelenting gaze, he saw a challenge, or, perhaps, an invitation. Otal had something to say to him, but he would wait until they had privacy.

"Blessings to Taan!" Kavrazel called out so that all could hear. He took the first sip from the now nearly full bowl, and almost stumbled, such was the overwhelming potency of the mixture. The people who had added to it were all brave, strong, intelligent, and faithful in the best of ways. Their talents and endowments danced across his tongue.

In a move calculated to cause offense, without fear of reprisal, Kavrazel ignored Tethva, and handed the bowl to the closest, most lowly member of the crowd that he could see.

"Blessings to Taan," the ragged man whispered as he received the bowl from the king and took a sip of its contents.

There would be no need for a burning of the offerings. The people would taste the strength of their leaders this day.

~o0o~

Lyssia stopped suddenly as they were descending the stairs from the temple, almost causing Kavrazel to miss half a step. They were due to return to the castle for a grand feast, but the woman by his side appeared to have been frozen by a spell. Kavrazel looked on her with concern, and then followed her stare to the ground below. He realised why she had ceased to move. Several people, apparently devout to Taan in the most fervent of ways, and perhaps overcome by the atmosphere of the day, had ignited their clothing and were now twisting and writhing as the fire, and its attendant agony, consumed them.

The crowd around them were doing nothing to extinguish the blazing forms. There was an audible rumble of chanting. The mob had accepted the gruesome sacrifices and were calling on Taan to do likewise.

"Are they slaves?" Lyssia's hoarse whisper tore Kavrazel's eyes from the tableau.

"No. They are Vuthroan; devout, and overcome by the occasion, evidently."

"I don't understand..."

"We might steal people from their homes," Kavrazel admitted ruefully, "and drink their blood, but we are not so brutal as to burn them alive. This happens sometimes. The zealous... well... they believe very much in the honour of sacrificing themselves to Taan."

"No. I don't understand... How can people believe so powerfully in something they have never seen?"

"But they do believe they have seen it. They believe they see it in me, in the fact that we are not currently ruled by Illisrya and overrun by giants. They believe because of you." He turned to face her, and made Lyssia face him. "They believe because a slave opened her own veins to honour Taan. They believe that there is an entity to thank for that graciousness."

"I didn't mean... When I did... I didn't intend... this." Lyssia gestured helplessly at the blackened forms that were now still, curled on the earth, but smouldering in wisps of smoke and flame.

"Their burden is not yours. Their sacrifice was their own. What you did today," he lifted his hand, intending to stroke her cheek, and then realised he was still wearing his cruel and formidable armour and would likely wound her. He paused, with his metal-clad hand a hair's breadth from her skin. "What you did will live on, will ripple through this country, leaving only comfort and security in its wake. You, a slave, one of the taken, stood on that altar with vigour and poise. You were not beaten. You were not leashed. You were not forced. You made those steps on your own. You took the blade. You cut your skin. You offered your blood. No words were spoken, no blows thrown, no threats issued. You have likely re-written the life script of thousands from this day."

"The slavers will still abduct people from my country."

"But they will be treated as human. They will be treated as the honoured gift that they are. More than that is to be hoped for, and maybe for a different generation than ours to accomplish. We cannot change all worlds in the span of a year."

"It's not enough."

A single tear escaped and tracked a silvered path over Lyssia's cheek. Kavrazel snatched at his gauntlet until he could wipe that moisture away with the gentle warmth of his fingers.

"It must be, for now. It is more than you know."

"I'm afraid I will fail them."

"I don't think such a thing is even a remote possibility."

Lyssia looked back out to the crowd, which was flowing and ebbing like the tide. A respectful perimeter was being maintained around the bodies of the martyrs, but the crowd had resumed its festival atmosphere, and was no longer drawn by the spectacle. Kavrazel caught her chin and brought her gaze back to his. He didn't want her to dwell on the horrors below, they would have to walk past them soon enough. His thumb slipped over the soft fullness of her lower lip. "You have more strength than you know."

"I want to go out, to be amongst them, to see for myself." When she spoke, her lips moved against the pad of his thumb in the most distracting way, but Kavrazel was not insensible to her words. "I want to see more than the castle. I want to see how it is for those beholden to ordinary folk. I need to know."

"You won't find it so very different." The standard of food might be less luxurious, their rooms and clothes less lavish, but he knew that - for the most part - the level of respect that a blood save commanded was more or less the same. Perhaps he was in denial on that point; he held Lyssia in much greater esteem than most owners held their property.

She turned back to him then. "Will you show me?" Her eyes were large and luminous. Her expression completely unguarded. There was no mischievous intent in her plea.

How could he refuse such a pretty and honest request?

~o0o~

There was no way in all the fires of Taan that he would have allowed Lyssia to wander the streets of Vulc on her own, and equally no chance that Girogis would have allowed either of them to venture out without his protection. Thus, all three were dressed in clothes befitting common folk.