The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (5 page)

This was my explanation, then. “That was what T’vril said.” I glanced back down the hall as if I was still afraid. It was not difficult to pretend.

“Scimina would have given him specific parameters,” Viraine said, which I suppose was meant to reassure me. “She knows what he’s like in that state. Come in, Lady Yeine.”

He stepped aside, and I entered the chamber. Even if I hadn’t been bone tired I would have stopped there, for I stood in a room like nothing I had ever seen. It was long and oval-shaped, and there were floor-to-ceiling windows down both of the longer walls. Twin rows of workbenches had been placed along either side of the room; I saw books, flasks, and incomprehensible contraptions on each. Along the far wall were cages, some containing rabbits and birds. In the center of the chamber was a huge white orb set on a low plinth. It was as tall as me and completely opaque.

“Over here,” Viraine said, heading toward one of the workbenches. Two stools sat in front of it. He chose one of them and patted the other for me. I followed him, but then hesitated.

“I’m afraid you have the advantage of me, sir.”

He looked surprised, then smiled and gave me an informal, not-quite-mocking half bow. “Ah, yes, manners. I am Viraine, the palace scrivener. Also a relative of yours in some way or another—too distant and convoluted to determine, though Lord Dekarta has seen fit to welcome me into the Central Family.” He tapped the black circle on his forehead.

Scriveners: Amn scholars who made a study of the gods’ written language. This scrivener did not look like the cold-eyed ascetics I’d imagined. He was younger, for one—perhaps a few years younger than my mother had been. Certainly not old enough for such stark white hair. Perhaps he was like T’vril and I, part Amn of a more exotic variety.

“A pleasure,” I said. “Though I cannot help but wonder why the palace needs a scrivener. Why study the gods’ power when you have actual gods right here?”

He looked pleased by my question; perhaps few people asked him about his work. “Well, for one thing, they can’t do everything or be everywhere. There are hundreds of people in this palace using small magics on an everyday basis. If we had to stop and call an Enefadeh every time we needed something, very little would get done. The lift, for example, that carried you to this level of the palace. The air—this far above the ground, it would ordinarily be thin and cold, hard to breathe. Magic keeps the palace comfortable.”

I sat down carefully on one of the stools, eyeing the bench beside me. The items there were laid out neatly: various fine paintbrushes, a dish of ink, and a small block of polished stone, incised on its face with a strange, complicated character of spikes and curlicues. The character was so fundamentally alien, so jarring to the eye, that I could not look at it long. The urge to look away was part of what it was, because it was gods’ language; a sigil.

Viraine sat opposite me while Sieh, unbidden, claimed a seat across the bench and rested his chin on his folded arms.

“For another thing,” Viraine continued, “there are certain magics that even the Enefadeh cannot perform. Gods are peculiar beings, incredibly powerful within their sphere of influence, so to speak, but limited beyond that. Nahadoth is powerless by day. Sieh cannot be quiet and well-behaved unless he’s up to something.” He eyed Sieh, who gave us both an innocent smile. “In many ways, we mortals are more… versatile, for lack of a better term. More complete. For example, none of them can create or extend life. The simple act of having children—something any unlucky barmaid or careless soldier can do—is a power that has been lost to the gods for millennia.”

From the corner of my eye, I saw Sieh’s smile fade.

“Extend life?” I had heard rumors about what some scriveners did with their powers—terrible, foul rumors. It occurred to me suddenly that my grandfather was very, very old.

Viraine nodded, his eyes twinkling at the disapproval in my tone. “It is the great quest of our profession. Someday we might even achieve immortality…” He read the horror in my face and smiled. “Though that goal is not without controversy.”

My grandmother had always said the Amn were unnatural people. I looked away. “T’vril said you were going to mark me.”

He grinned, openly amused now. Laughing at the prudish savage. “Mmm-hmm.”

“What does this mark do?”

“Keeps the Enefadeh from killing you, among other things. You’ve seen what they can be like.”

I licked my lips. “Ah. Yes. I… didn’t know they were…” I gestured vaguely, unsure how to say what I meant without offending Sieh.

“Running around loose?” Sieh asked brightly. There was a wicked look in his eye; he was enjoying my discomfiture.

I winced. “Yes.”

“Mortal form is their prison,” Viraine said, ignoring Sieh. “And every soul in Sky, their jailer. They are bound by Bright Itempas to serve the descendants of Shahar Arameri, His greatest priestess. But since Shahar’s descendants now number in the thousands…” He gestured toward the windows, as if the whole world was one clan. Or perhaps he simply meant Sky, the only world that mattered to him. “Our ancestors chose to impose a more orderly structure on the situation. The mark confirms for the Enefadeh that you’re Arameri; without it they will not obey you. It also specifies your rank within the family. How close you are to the main line of descent, I mean, which in turn dictates how much power you have to command them.”

He picked up a brush, though he did not dip it in the ink; instead he reached up to my face, pushing my hair back from my forehead. My heart clenched as he examined me. Clearly Viraine was some sort of expert; could he truly not see Zhakka’s mark? For an instant I thought he had, because his eyes flicked down to hold mine for half a breath. But apparently the gods had done their work well, because after a moment Viraine let my hair go and began to stir the ink.

“T’vril said the mark was permanent,” I said, mostly to quell my nervousness. The black liquid looked like simple writing ink, though the sigil-marked block was clearly no ordinary inkstone.

“Unless Dekarta orders it removed, yes. Like a tattoo, though painless. You’ll get used to it.”

I was not fond of a permanent mark, though I knew better than to protest. To distract myself I asked, “Why do you call them Enefadeh?”

The look that crossed Viraine’s face was fleeting, but I recognized it by instinct: calculation. I had just revealed some stunning bit of ignorance to him, and he meant to use it.

Casually, Viraine jabbed a thumb at Sieh, who was surreptitiously eyeing the items on Viraine’s worktable. “It’s what they call themselves. We just find the label convenient.”

“Why not—”

“We don’t call them gods.” Viraine smiled faintly. “That would be an offense to the Skyfather, our only true god, and those of the Skyfather’s children who stayed loyal. But we can’t call them slaves, either. After all, we outlawed slavery centuries ago.”

This was the sort of thing that made people hate the Arameri—truly hate them, not just resent their power or their willingness to use it. They found so many ways to lie about the things they did. It mocked the suffering of their victims.

“Why not just call them what they are?” I asked. “Weapons.”

Sieh glanced at me, his gaze too neutral to be a child’s in that instant.

Viraine winced delicately. “Spoken like a true barbarian,” he said, and though he smiled, that did nothing to alleviate the insult. “The thing you must understand, Lady Yeine, is that like our ancestress Shahar, we Arameri are first and foremost the servants of Itempas Skyfather. It is in His name that we have imposed the age of the Bright upon the world. Peace, order, enlightenment.” He spread his hands. “Itempas’s servants do not use, or need, weapons. Tools, though…”

I had heard enough. I had no idea of his rank relative to mine, but I was tired and confused and far from home, and if barbarians’ manners would serve better to get me through this day, then so be it.

“Does ‘Enefadeh’ mean ‘tool,’ then?” I demanded. “Or is it just ‘slave’ in another tongue?”

“It means ‘we who remember Enefa,’” said Sieh. He had propped his chin on his fist. The items on Viraine’s workbench looked the same, but I was certain he had done something to them. “She was the one murdered by Itempas long ago. We went to war with Him to avenge her.”

Enefa. The priests never said her name. “The Betrayer,” I murmured without thought.

“She betrayed no one,” Sieh snapped.

Viraine’s glance at Sieh was heavy-lidded and unreadable. “True. A whore’s business can hardly be termed a betrayal, can it?”

Sieh hissed. For an eyeblink there was something inhuman about his face—something sharp and feral—and then he was a boy again, sliding off the stool and trembling with fury. For a moment I half-expected him to poke out his tongue, but the hatred in his eyes was too old for that.

“I will laugh when you’re dead,” he said softly. The small hairs along my skin prickled, for his voice was a grown man’s now, tenor malevolence. “I will claim your heart as a toy and kick it for a hundred years. And when I am finally free, I will hunt down all your descendants and make their children just like me.”

With that, he vanished. I blinked. Viraine sighed.

“And that, Lady Yeine, is why we use the blood sigils,” he said. “Silly as that threat was, he meant every word of it. The sigil prevents him from carrying it out, yet even that protection is limited. A higher-ranking Arameri’s order, or stupidity on your part, could leave you vulnerable.”

I frowned, remembering the moment when T’vril had urged me to get to Viraine. Only a fullblood can command him off now. And T’vril was a—what had he called it?—a halfblood.

“Stupidity on my part?” I asked.

Viraine gave me a hard look. “They must respond to any imperative statement you make, Lady. Consider how many such statements we make carelessly, or figuratively, with no thought given to other interpretations.” When I frowned in thought, he rolled his eyes. “The common folk are fond of saying ‘To the hells with you!’ Ever said it yourself, in a moment of anger?” At my slow nod, he leaned closer. “The subject of the phrase is implied, of course; we usually mean ‘You should go.’ But the phrase could also be understood as ‘I want to go, and you will take me.’ ”

He paused to see if I understood. I did. At my shudder, he nodded and sat back.

“Just don’t talk to them unless you have to,” he said. “Now. Shall we—” He reached for the ink dish and cursed as it toppled the instant his fingers touched it; Sieh had somehow lodged a brush underneath. The ink splattered across the tabletop like

like

and then Viraine touched my hand. “Lady Yeine? Are you all right?”

That was how it happened, yes. The first time.

I blinked. “What?”

He smiled, all condescending kindness again. “Been a hard day, has it? Well, this won’t take long.” He’d cleaned up the ink spill; there was enough left in the dish that apparently he could continue. “If you could hold your hair back for me…”

I didn’t move. “Why did Grandfather Dekarta do this, Scrivener Viraine? Why did he bring me here?”

He raised his eyebrows, as if surprised that I would even ask. “I’m not privy to his thoughts. I have no idea.”

“Is he senile?”

He groaned. “You really are a savage. No, he isn’t senile.”

“Then why?”

“I just told you—”

“If he wanted to kill me, he could have simply had me executed. Trump up an excuse, if he even bothered. Or he could have done what he did to my mother. An assassin in the night, poison in my sleep.”

I had finally surprised him. He grew very still, his eyes meeting mine and then flicking away. “I would not confront Dekarta with the evidence, if I were you.”

At least he hadn’t tried to deny it.

“I hardly needed evidence. A healthy woman in her forties doesn’t die in her sleep. But I had her body searched by the physician. There was a mark, a small puncture, on her forehead. On the—” I trailed off for a moment, suddenly understanding something I’d never questioned in my life. “On the scar she had, right here.” I touched my own forehead, where my Arameri sigil would be.

Viraine faced me full-on now, quiet and serious. “If an Arameri assassin left a mark that could be seen—and if you expected to see it—then, Lady Yeine, you understand more of Dekarta’s intentions than any of us. Why do you think he brought you here?”

I shook my head slowly. All along the journey to Sky, I’d suspected. Dekarta was angry at my mother, hated my father. There could be no good reason for his invitation. In the back of my mind I’d expected to be executed at best, perhaps tortured first, maybe on the steps of the Salon. My grandmother had been afraid for me. If there’d been any hope of escape, I think she would have urged me to run. But one does not run from the Arameri.

And a Darre woman does not run from revenge.

“This mark,” I said at last. “It will help me survive this place?”

“Yes. The Enefadeh won’t be able to hurt you unless you do something stupid. As for Scimina, Relad, and other dangers…” He shrugged. “Well. Magic can only do so much.”

I closed my eyes and traced my mother’s face against my memory for the ten thousandth time. She had died with tears on her cheeks, perhaps knowing what I would face.

“Then let’s begin,” I said.

THAT NIGHT AS I SLEPT, I dreamt of him.

It is an ugly, stormcloud-choked night.

Above the clouds, the sky is lightening with the approach of dawn. Below the clouds, this has made absolutely no difference in the battlefield’s illumination. A thousand torches burning amid a hundred thousand soldiers are more than enough light. The capital, too, is a gentle radiance nearby.

(It is not the Sky that I know. This city sprawls across a floodplain rather than over a hill, and the palace is embedded at its heart, not hovering overhead. I am not me.)

“A respectable force,” says Zhakka, beside me. Zhakkarn, I know now, goddess of battle and bloodshed. In place of her usual headscarf is a helm that fits her head almost as closely. She wears shining silver armor, its surface a glory of engraved sigils and incomprehensible designs that glow red as if hot. There is a message written in the gods’ words there. Memories I should not possess tease me with its meaning, though in the end they fail.