Bloodstone (63 page)

T
HE INITIAL BURST of agony was already ebbing when Xevhan’s face suddenly disappeared. The sunlight burned his eyes. More painful was the sense that he had failed. Malaq was dead. Xevhan had won. And his father . . . he could only hope his father had escaped in the chaos of the earthquake.

But even his failures leached away, like rain into soft earth, like blood into sand. There was only the sun, bright and remorseless, yet incapable of driving away the cold that crept up his legs, stealthy as Niqia stalking a butterfly.

He closed his eyes. Behind his lids, the crimson sun faded as if a cloud had passed overhead. From far away, he heard the voice, calling him. Felt the hands, gripping him.

Keirith opened his eyes and saw his father’s stark face, stubbled with a day’s growth of beard. He was always so meticulous about shaving, but of course, so much had happened. He smiled and his father’s face crumpled and disappeared. Then it bobbed back. Calloused fingers brushed the hair off his face. Cracked lips moved, but a sudden breeze snatched away the words.

He was flying. Not the soaring flight he had known with the eagle or the jolting disorientation of emerging too quickly from a trance. He was drifting skyward, like a wisp of smoke rising through the venthole of their hut. But like his flight with the eagle, his eyes were keener than they had ever been as a boy.

There were the adders, wriggling toward the mountains and freedom. There was Xevhan, fleeing in the opposite direction. And there was Hircha, standing on the ruined path he had just walked, shading her eyes against the glare of the rising sun as she watched Xevhan.

Two men were dragging the Khonsel away from the crumbling hillside overlooking the city. The slender man reminded him of Ysal. The other glanced up, shouting at the column of soldiers trotting toward them. When Keirith saw the eye patch, he recognized Geriv who had shadowed him since that morning in the Khonsel’s chamber. But today, he must have had other responsibilities. No one would bear witness to Malaq’s murder.

His regret faded as he drifted higher. He saw Temet, leaning against the ruined altar of Heart of Sky, bellowing out the hunter’s song. He saw dozens of people fleeing the palace. Among the dark heads was a cluster of color. The newly risen sun made their hair shimmer like the fires licking through the palace. Perhaps that fair head belonged to Brudien. Perhaps the red one beside it was Sinand’s, but he was too high now to discern their features.

Pilozhat was a pile of tiny white blocks that lay tumbled one atop the other at the bottom of the hill. The sea rose and fell like a panting bosom, tossing the ships about, but even as he watched, her anxiety began to subside. Soon she would be placid again; Womb of Earth could no more destroy the sea than she could tear a hole in the limitless sky.

The sunlight was everywhere, but now it bathed him in peace. This was how the sun must shine in the Forever Isles, soft and radiant and eternal. He wondered if it shone that way in Malaq’s Paradise. Perhaps Paradise and the Forever Isles were the same. He hoped so. He would like to see Malaq waiting for him on those sun-drenched shores.

A terrible howl shattered the silence in which he drifted. The sunlight retreated as if affronted. He felt himself floating earthward again and resisted the pull. But the howl came again—a hoarse, animal cry of pain that tugged him away from the sea and the sky and the sun, pulling him back over the ruined city, back to the altar.

He didn’t want to go there. There was only pain at the altar. Pain and failure.

A third time, the howl rent the air. And this time, he knew it was not the cry of a wounded animal, but the grief-stricken scream of a man.

Three times for a charm. Everyone knew that.

Reluctantly, Keirith answered his father’s call. He hovered over the temple. Malaq’s body sprawled on the steps. His body lay on the altar. There was so much blood. He hadn’t realized that. The big man from the troupe of players was bending over his father. Hircha was there now, too. And Niqia. At least Fa wouldn’t be alone. That was good.

But his father seemed unaware of that. His head was thrown back, his face contorted with grief. Keirith wished he could tell him that everything was all right now. His father’s pain made him ache, pulled him farther from the welcoming sunlight.

The earth was sliding into the gorge behind the temple, just melting away. Soon, the temple would melt with it. They had to leave. Hircha tugged on his father’s arm. Even in the midst of disaster, she knew what to do. Cool, clever Hircha. She would keep them safe.

But Fa wasn’t listening. He was still clinging to that body. His body.

“Come into me. Keirith! Please. Come into my body.”

Suddenly, Keirith understood. He had to reassure his father that all was well. Then he would cease his grieving and allow him to fly away.

Without the distraction of his body, it was so easy. His spirit flowed toward his father, gently seeking, gently touching.

“There’s no time for this!” Hircha shouted. “Pick him up. Drag him if you have to.”

Before Hakkon could move, the Spirit-Hunter reared back, his eyes huge. He crumpled onto the steps of the altar, then began convulsing. Hakkon heaved him into his arms to keep him from striking his head, but big as he was, he couldn’t restrain him. The Spirit-Hunter writhed. His legs jerked in helpless spasms. His eyes rolled back in his head and his back arched. For a heartbeat, he remained frozen in agony. Then he collapsed.

Hircha seized his limp arm, frantically searching for a pulse. “He’s alive. Whatever happened, he’s alive.”

A rumble behind her warned of another rockslide.

“You’ll have to carry him.”

East held death at the bottom of the gorge. To the north, there was only wilderness, to the south, only the sea. Hakkon heaved the Spirit-Hunter over his shoulder, grunting with the effort. Without waiting for her, he strode west.

Hircha paused. With a trembling hand, she lifted Keirith’s head and pulled his bag of charms free; his father should have some token of the son he had lost. Then she gently closed his eyes.

“I’m sorry. For everything. But I’ll see your father safe. I swear it on my life. So you can fly away. Fly to the Forever Isles. You’re lucky to be out of this miserable world.”

Niqia yowled. She turned to find the cat sniffing the Pajhit’s face. When the pink tongue darted out to lick his cheek, Hircha burst into tears.

The Spirit-Hunter had lost his son. Hundreds of people must have seen their loved ones die this morning. And she was crying because a cat had lost its master.

She bent down to pick up Niqia, but the cat arched her back, hissing.

“Fine. Stay here. I can’t be responsible for you, too.”

Angrily swiping the tears from her cheeks, she limped after Hakkon.

Lament for the Dead

L
IKE A NIGHTMARE, random images and sounds im pressed themselves on Hircha’s consciousness: the horrible chorus of human and animal cries that came from the palace, echoed by others, faint but clear, from the city below; a lone priestess, rooted before a gaping wound in the ground where the temple of Womb of Earth had stood; a man crouched beside a fallen pillar, lifting the hand of the person crushed beneath it to his mouth. His head shook back and forth in a frenzy of grief. Only when she got closer did she realize he was trying to work a ring free with his teeth.

The clouds of dust had settled, revealing the capricious devastation the earthquake had wrought. Pillars rose up between those that had toppled. The eastern wall of the palace had collapsed, but the others still stood. However, smoke billowed from the north wing, smearing the pale blue of the sky with black.

Men and women clawed through the rubble. Others streamed through the south gate, most with only the clothes on their backs. A few dragged carts behind them, hauling whatever was left of their belongings, only to abandon them with wails and curses when they reached the edge of the plateau.

The steps that led to the city were gone. All that remained of the houses that had clung to the hillside was a heap of debris. The buildings closer to the shore had escaped destruction, but they were threatened by the flames licking eagerly at the thatch of the collapsed roofs. Lines snaked from the sea; people must be passing buckets to control the flames before they engulfed the entire city.

She could not worry about Pilozhat’s fate. She had to consider hers and Hakkon’s and the Spirit-Hunter’s whose head dangled limply against the big man’s shoulder.

Incredibly, the stairway that led to the temple of the God with Two Faces was still intact, but it was clogged with refugees, shouting and shoving as they fought their way to lower ground. Amid the chaos, a woman stood immobile, barely covered by the shreds of her nightdress. As they passed, she called out, “Have you seen my little girl? She was right beside me at the gate.”

All the way down the steps, above the shouts and the curses and the weeping and the prayers, Hircha could hear that high-pitched voice calling, “Have you seen my little girl? Have you seen my sweet Shevhila?”

The temple of the God with Two Faces appeared unscathed. Outside, the tall figure of the Supplicant moved calmly through the crowd. A word, a touch, and the seething mass quieted. People paused to accept a dipper of water from her acolytes. In spite of her raging thirst, Hircha scuttled past with her head down, hoping Hakkon’s bulk would shield her from the Supplicant’s gaze.

It seemed like half of Pilozhat had taken refuge in the western fields. Some were dazed, some cradled the limp bodies of loved ones in their arms, but many were ripping up khirtas for bandages, tending to the wounded, sharing food and water. Squads of soldiers rounded up able-bodied men and women and marched them toward Pilozhat, probably to help fight the fires and dig out those trapped in the rubble. Hircha had to marvel at the efficiency of the Zherosi; it was almost like they knew the earthquake was coming.

As they neared the road to Oexiak, Hircha spied a pink tunic, incongruously bright among the dusty grays and tans. Olinio’s querulous voice rose above the cacophony of shouts and moans. Soldiers tossed costumes, scenery, and sacks of belongings out of the cart, ignoring his shrieks of protest.

“My mother is dead. Must you steal from me, too?”

“We need the cart to carry the dead,” a soldier explained patiently. “Shall we take them?”

Only then did Hircha notice the two bodies. Apart from a small cut on her forehead, the old woman looked unhurt; perhaps she had simply died of fright. The smaller body was covered with a bloodstained cloak.