The Kingdom of Gods (33 page)

She nodded. “Come, then. I’ll show you.”

Sar-enna-nem is a pyramid; only the topmost hall of it held prayer space and statues. The next levels down held much more interesting things.

Like masks.

We stood in a gallery of sorts. Our escort had left us at Usein’s unseen signal, though her glowering husband had brought an oddly shaped stool so that she could sit. She watched while I strolled about, looking at each mask in turn. The masks lined every shelf; they were set into the walls between the shelves;
they were artfully positioned on display tables in front of the shelves. I even glimpsed a few attached to the ceiling. Dozens of them, maybe hundreds, every size and color and configuration, though they had some commonalities. All of them were oval shaped, as a base. All had open eyeholes and sealed mouths. All of them were beautiful, and powerful in ways that had nothing to do with magic.

I stopped at one of the tables, gazing down at a mask that made something inside me sing in response. There, on the table, was Childhood: smooth, fat cheeks; a mischievously grinning mouth; great wide eyes; broad forehead waiting to be filled with knowledge. Subtle inlays and painting around the mouth had been applied, some of it realistic and some pure abstraction. Geometric designs and laugh lines. Somehow, it hinted that the mask’s grin could have been simple joy or sadistic cruelty, or joy in cruelty. The eyes could have been alight with the pleasure of learning or aghast at all the evils mortals inflict on their young. I touched its stiff lips. Just wood and paint. And yet.

“Your artist is a master,” I said.

“Artists. The art of making these masks isn’t purely a Darre thing. The Mencheyev make them, too, and the Tok — and all of our lands got the seed of it from a race called the Ginij. You may remember them.”

I did. It had been a standard Arameri extermination. Zhakkarn, via her many selves, had hunted down every last mortal of the race. Kurue erased all mention of them from books, scrolls, stories, and songs, attributing their accomplishments to others. And I? I had set the whole thing in motion by tricking the Ginij
king into offending the Arameri so that they had a pretext to attack.

She nodded. “They called this art
dimyi
. I don’t know what the word means in their tongue. We call it
dimming
.” She shifted to Senmite to make the pun. The word was meaningless in itself, though its root suggested the mask’s purpose: to diminish its wearer, reduce them to nothing more than the archetype that the mask represented.

And if that archetype was
Death
… I thought of Nevra and Criscina Arameri, and understood.

“It started as a joke,” she continued, “but over time the word has stuck. We lost many of the Ginij techniques when they were destroyed, but I think our dimmers — the artists who make the masks — have done a good job of making up the difference.”

I nodded, still staring at Childhood. “There are many of these artists?”

“Enough.” She shrugged. Not wholly forthcoming, then.

“Perhaps you should call these artists
assassins
instead.” I turned to look at Usein as I said this.

Usein regarded me steadily. “If I wanted to kill Arameri,” she said, slowly and precisely, “I wouldn’t kill just one, or even a few. And I wouldn’t take my time about it.”

She wasn’t lying. I lowered my hands and frowned, trying to understand. How could she not be lying? “But you
can
do magic with these things.” I nodded toward Childhood. “Somehow.”

She lifted an eyebrow. “I don’t know these people you work for, Lord Sieh. I don’t know your aims. Why should I share my secrets with you?”

“We can make it worth your while.”

The look she threw me was scornful. I had to admit, it had been a bit clichéd.

“There is nothing you can offer me,” she said, getting to her feet with pregnant-woman awkwardness. “Nothing I want or need from anyone, god or mortal —”

“Usein.”

A man’s voice. I turned, startled. The gallery’s open doorway framed a man, standing between the flickering torch sconces. How long had he been there? My sense of the world was fading already. I thought at first it was a trick of the light that he seemed to waver; then I realized what I was seeing: a godling, in the last stages of configuring his form for the mortal realm. But when his face had taken its final shape —

I blinked. Frowned.

He stepped farther into the light. The features he’d chosen certainly hadn’t been meant to help him blend in. He was short, about my height. Brown skin, brown eyes, deep brown lips — these were the only things about him that fit any mortal mold. The rest was a jumble. Teman sharpfolds with orangey red islander hair and high, angular High Northern cheekbones. Was he an idiot? None of those things fit together. Just because we could look like anything didn’t mean we
should
.

But that was not the biggest problem.

“Hail, Brother,” I said uncertainly.

“Do you know me?” He stopped, slipping his hands into his pockets.

“No …” I licked my lips, confused by the niggling sense that I
did
know him, somehow. His face was unfamiliar, but that
meant nothing; none of us took our true shape in the mortal realm. His stance, though, and his voice …

Then I remembered. The dream I’d had a few nights before. I’d forgotten it thanks to Shahar’s betrayal.
Are you afraid?
he’d asked me.

“Yes,” I amended, and he inclined his head.

Usein folded her arms. “Why are you here, Kahl?”

Kahl. The name wasn’t familiar, either.

“I won’t be staying long, Usein. I came only to suggest that you show Sieh the most interesting of your masks, since he’s so curious.” His eyes never left mine as he spoke to her.

From the corner of my eye, I saw a muscle in Usein’s jaw flex. “That mask isn’t complete.”

“He asked you how far you were willing to go. Let him see.”

She shook her head sharply. “How far
you
are willing to go, Kahl. We have nothing to do with your schemes.”

“Oh, I wouldn’t call it nothing, Usein. Your people were eager enough for my help when I offered it, and some of you likely guessed what that help would cost. I never deceived you.
You
were the one who chose to renege on our agreement.”

There was a curious shiver to the air, and something about Kahl wavered again, not quite visibly. Some aspect of his nature? Ah, but of course; if Usein had indeed reneged on some deal with him, he would consider her a target for vengeance, too. I looked at her, wondering if she knew just how dangerous it was to cultivate a godly enemy. Her lips were tight and her face sheened lightly with sweat as she watched him, her knife hand twitching. Yes. She knew.

“You used us,” she said.

“As you used me.” He lifted his chin, still watching me. “But that’s beside the point. Don’t you want your gods to see how powerful you’ve become, Usein? Show him.”

Usein made a frustrated sound, part fear and part annoyance. But she went to one of the wall shelves and pushed aside a book, exposing a previously hidden hole. She reached into it and pulled something. There was a low clack from somewhere behind the shelves, as of an unseen latch opening, and then the whole wall swung outward.

The power that flooded forth staggered me. I gasped and tried to stumble back from it, but I had forgotten the new size of my feet. I tripped and fell against a nearby table, which was the only thing that kept me upright. The radiating waves felt like … like Nahadoth at his worst. No, worse. Like all the weight of every realm pressing down, not on my flesh but on my mind.

And as I panted there, sweat dropping onto my forearms where they trembled on the table, I realized: I had felt this horror before.

There is a resonance
, Nahadoth had said.

I managed to force my head upright. My flesh wanted to let go of itself. I fought to remain corporeal, since I wasn’t sure I’d be able to re-form if I didn’t. Across the room I saw that Kahl had stepped back, too, bracing his hand against the door frame; his expression was unsurprised, grimly enduring. But elated, too.

“What …?” I tried to focus on Usein, but my sight blurred. “What is …”

She stepped into the hidden alcove that had been revealed by the opened wall. There, on a darkwood plinth, sat another mask — one that was nothing like the others. It seemed to be
made of frosted glass. Its shape was more elaborate than an oval, the edges fluted and geometric. I thought it might hurt the face of whoever donned it. It was larger than a standard mask, too, bearing flanges and extensions at jawline and forehead that reminded me, somehow, of wings. Of flight. Of falling, down, down, through a vortex whose walls churned with a roar that could shatter the mortal realm —

Usein picked it up, apparently heedless of its power. Couldn’t she feel it? How could she bring her child near something so terrible? There were no torches in the alcove; the thing glowed with its own soft, shifting light. Where Usein’s fingers touched it, I saw a hint of movement, just for an instant. The glass turned to smooth brown flesh like the hand that held it, then faded back to glass.

“This mask — or so Kahl tells me — has a special power,” she said, glancing at me. Then she narrowed her eyes at Kahl, who nodded in return, though he was looking decidedly uncomfortable, too. Hard to tell anything, looking at that stoic face of his. “When it’s complete, if it works as predicted, it will confer godhood upon its wearer.”

I stiffened. Looked at Kahl, who merely smiled at me. “That’s not possible.”

“Of course it is,” he said. “Yeine is the proof of that.”

I shook my head. “She was special. Unique. Her soul —”

“Yes, I know.” His gaze was glacially cold, and I remembered the moment he’d committed himself to being my enemy. Had the same expression been on his face then? If so, I would have tried harder to earn his forgiveness. “The conjunction of many elements, all in just the right proportion and strength, all at just
the right time. Of such a recipe is divinity made.” He gestured toward the mask; his hand shook and grew blurry before he lowered it. “Godsblood and mortal life, magic and art and the vagaries of chance. And more, all bound into that mask, all to impress upon those who view it, an
idea
.”

Usein set the thing down on the carved wooden face that served as its stand. “Yes. And the first mortal who put it on burned to death from the inside out. It took three days; she screamed the whole time. The fire was so hot that we couldn’t get near enough to end her misery.” She turned a hard look on Kahl. “That thing is evil.”

“Merely incomplete. The raw energy of creation is neither good nor evil. But when that mask is ready, it will churn forth something new … and wondrous.” He paused, his expression turning inward for a moment; he spoke softer, as if to himself, but I realized that his words were actually aimed at me. “I will not be a slave to fate. I will embrace it, control it. I will be what I
wish
to be.”

“You’re mad.” Usein shook her head. “You expect us to put this kind of power into your hands, for demons know what purpose? No. Leave this place, Kahl. We’ve had enough of your kind of help.”

I hurt. The incomplete mask. It was like the Maelstrom: potential gone mad, creation feeding upon itself. I was not mortal enough to be immune to it. Yet that was not the sole source of my discomfort; something else beat against me like an oncoming tide, trying to drive me to my knees. The mask had heightened my god-senses, allowing me to feel it, but my flesh
was only mortal, too weak to endure so much power in one place.

“What are you?” I asked Kahl in our words, between gasps. “Elontid? Imbalance …” That was the only explanation for the seesaw flux I felt from him. Resolve and sorrow, hatred and longing, ambition and loneliness. But how could there be another elontid in the world? He could not have been born during the time of my incarceration, not with Enefa dead and all gods rendered sterile for that time. And who were his parents? Itempas was the only one of the Three who could have made him, but Itempas did not mate with godlings.

Kahl smiled. To my surprise, there was no hint of cruelty in it — only that curious, resolute sorrow I’d heard in my dream.

“Enefa is dead, Sieh.” His voice was soft now. “Not all her works vanished with her, but some did.
I
remembered. You will, too, eventually.”