Wheel of the Infinite (3 page)

Old Mali wrapped a rag around one calloused hand and fetched a steaming kettle out of the coals. “Knew you’d be back,” she muttered.

“There was doubt?” Maskelle asked, taking a seat on one of the woven straw mats laid out on the mud. It squished unpleasantly under her.

“Just Gardick again,” Rastim said, and gestured disparagingly. “Nothing.”

“Hmph.” Maskelle took the ivibrae and ground it up with the mortar and pestle used for cooking. Together, and muttering curses at each other, she and Old Mali got the stuff strained into a pottery cup. Old Mali carried it off to Killia’s wagon, leaving Maskelle and Rastim to stare at each other tiredly.

“So we’ll be there in two days, will we?” he asked.

“Yes.” She flexed her hands in the firelight. Her back hurt from the damp and she felt old. More than a half decade over twice twenty years wasn’t that old for the Ariaden or the Kushorit. But it was old for a Court Lady, and her hands were almost as calloused as Old Mali’s.

“And there’ll be good crowds to perform for?” Rastim was uneasy.

“Oh, yes.” Though “good” was a matter of perspective. “The best of the best. And generous, too.”

“Ah.” Rastim nodded, looking out over the dark wet plain beyond the boundary of firelight and wagons. “And the audience with the great priest?”

“He’ll speak to you.” Maskelle was taking the Ariaden to Duvalpore to see the Celestial One, the highest religious office in the Celestial Empire.

“Two days. If the rain doesn’t slow us down.”

“It won’t,” she said, knowing it was true, a Word whispered in her ear by the Ancestors. They were good for something, occasionally.

“Ah.”

Old Mali came back from Killia’s wagon, a stooped figure on stumpy legs, and thumped her chest and nodded. From long acquaintance with Old Mali, Maskelle took this to mean that Killia’s daughter had drunk the posset and it had already relieved some of the congestion in her lungs. With luck, it would help the fever too and Maskelle wouldn’t even have to summon the healing spirits.

Maskelle stood and eased the kinks in her back. She wasn’t hungry anymore, even for tea, even for rice wine. And she didn’t want to answer all the same questions from the others, once the smell of supper permeated the wagons and they began to creep out. She nodded to Rastim and Old Mali and limped toward her wagon. It stood slightly apart the way she liked it, the two oxen unharnessed and dozing over fodder. Old Mali drove it for her during the day, and had opened the light wooden side panels when the rain had stopped, so the interior could air out. Maskelle paused at the dropped tailgate, looking into the dark. She could see the temple from here.

The massive domed spire was black against the lighter shade of the sky, the moon shape of the portal below it barely visible; male and female phallic symbols woven together. The detail of the terraced carvings was entirely lost in shadow. They had passed small sanctuaries along the way, but this was the first time in too many years that she had been so close to a true temple.

She moved away from the wagon, one of the oxen snuffling at her as she drifted past. The temple was calling to her, not the stone shell, but what it represented, and the power that likeness gave it.

She walked through the sodden grass until she came to the edge of the baray and stepped up onto the stone bank. The Koshan priests had the custody of the temples, but they were only static forms. It was the End of Year Rite that remade the universe in its own image, and that was only performed by the Voices of the Ancestors. The End of Decade rites were even more crucial.

This year would be the End of a Hundred Years rite.

Maskelle lifted her staff, holding it above her head. An echo whispered through her, a reflection from the Infinite through the structure of the temple. After all these years, it still knew her. “I helped another stranger tonight,” she whispered. “I didn’t kill anyone to do it. Not intentionally, at least. Is that enough for you?”

A slow wave of darkness climbed the temple wall, the lamps in the windows winking out one by one.

She lowered the staff and let out her breath. No, it wasn’t enough.
And now they will all know you’re back
. Oh, the delight in the power never died, that was the curse, and her true punishment, whatever the Adversary had decreed. She shook her head at her own folly and turned back to the camp.

She reached the wagon and climbed up the back steps, closing the panels that faced the campsite. She sat on the still damp wooden floor, looking out at the temple and the silver surface of the baray in the distance.

She was facing the right direction for an illusion of privacy, though voices from the other campsites, oddly distorted over the plain, came to her occasionally. The night breeze was chilly on her wet clothes, the drying mud itchy on her legs. And someone was watching her. She knew it by the way the oxen, caught in the firelight from behind the wagon, cocked their ears. She found his outline in the dark finally, about twenty feet away, sitting on his heels just out of reach of the light. She might have walked within ten feet of him on the way to the baray. Again, the shock of being so taken by surprise was like ice on her skin. She waited until it drained away, then quietly she said, “Come here.”

The breeze moved the short grass. He stood up and came toward the wagon.

Her staff, as much a part of her as her hands or feet, lay on the wooden bench of the wagon. He stopped just out of arm’s reach. Her arm’s reach. She was within easy range of his sword.

He stood in the shadow where the wagon blocked the firelight, but the moonlight was strong. The heavy siri rested easily on one lean hip.

Maskelle stretched out her foot, her toes finding the staff where it lay on the rough planks and gradually easing it toward her hand.

“What did you do?” he said.

He couldn’t be asking her what she thought he was asking her; after a moment she realized he meant the lamps in the temple. “I’m a Voice of the Ancestors.” That was still strictly true, if it didn’t actually answer the question. “What were you doing in the outpost?”

“Getting killed. Did it look like anything else?”

Instead of taking the bait, she said, “That’s a fine way to say thank you.”

“I was going up river and walked into them.”

“That’s still not ‘thank you.’ ” Though it could well be the truth. If he had come up the Western Road from the Sintane, he could have crossed the river at the fords at Takis. But why move along the bank instead of going on to the Great Road?
Well, the Great Road has regular patrols; the river doesn‘t, not in the rainy season
.

He didn’t take the bait, either. He said, “You’re a wizard?”

“No.”

Silence, while the damp breeze made the water in the baray lap against the stone banks and the temple cattle lowed in the distance. Why did she suspect it was the silence of disbelief? Almost against her will, she added, “I receive the Ancestors’ Will, when they have any, and translate it for others. In return, They allow me to manipulate the power of the Infinite.” An enormous simplification of the process, but she didn’t think he wanted an hours-long philosophy debate.

More silence. The disbelief was so thick it was practically dripping off the wagon. Finally, he said, “Are all the Koshan priests wizards?”

Ancestors help me
, Maskelle swore under her breath, then gave in. “To some extent. But none of the others are like me.”

He didn’t make any response. He was standing with his arms folded, but she had seen how fast he could move. Annoyed, she said, “If you don’t believe me, you can ask the priests at the temple.”

He jerked his head toward the camp. “Those priests?”

“What?” She sat up, startled, and the staff thumped loudly on the wagonbed.

He stepped back as Maskelle grabbed her staff and stood up. She could already hear the bells on the priests’ sistrum. Another moment, then he turned and walked—
strolled
, Maskelle thought, a brow lifted ironically—into the dark. She could hear his steps on the wet grass. Not magic then, and no power about it. Just skill at moving quietly.

Voices from behind the wagon recalled her to the current problem. Swearing under her breath, she dragged her wet robes off the bench and clambered down to the ground.

There were three Koshan priests standing near the fire, their cobalt blue robes caught up to keep them out of the mud, and a young acolyte with a sistrum behind them. Beyond the priests, half-surrounding the wagons, was a group of temple guards mounted on the small, sturdy horses of the lower plains. The guards wore dark silk overrobes sewn with chain and breastplates of tightly braided plates of lacquered iron, their crested helmets fitted with masks to make them faceless and terrifying.

Old Mali was still crouching stubbornly by the cooking pot, but the others were hiding in the wagons, peering anxiously out. Their eyes followed Maskelle as she crossed the campsite. Rastim was standing before the lead priest in an attitude of abject fear.
Damn overdramatic Ariaden
, Maskelle thought. Shaking her head in resignation, she approached the tableau.

The priest’s eyes flicked over her dismissively as she moved around the fire, then came back to her in growing astonishment as he saw her staff. The light was catching the old traces of silver left in the carved letters of the sacred text. The sparks jumped from word to word as the text wound up the length of the fine smooth wood like a snake around a pappas tree. The letters were worn down from years of handling, but they could still be read. Until they faded from sight, the staff would still have power.
Not unlike me
, Maskelle thought ruefully.

The priest was young and fine-featured, but the shaven scalp under the hood of his robe was marked with colored designs of the first rank. The men with him were older but not so high in honor. He stared hard at her, looking for what was left of her tattoo, but her hair had grown over it, obscuring all but the border of the design at her hairline. The staff told him that her rank was Voice, but not which Voice. He wet his lips, and said, “You shame us, lady. You should shelter in the temple.”

She leaned on the staff, mud and all. She hadn’t ever really expected to arrive in secret. “Thank you for the offer, my son, but I can’t.”

His eyes narrowed, alert for insult. He said, “You have a reason for refusing our shelter?”

“I’m forbidden the temples,” Maskelle said, watching his eyes.

He stared at her, frowning, and his gaze swept over her, seeing for the first time past the worn robes. He would have trouble estimating her age, she knew. Country people always thought her younger, city people used to courtiers who spent all their time lying in the shade and rubbing oils and creams into their skin always thought her older. His eyes went to the staff again.
But there are only so many Voices
, she thought. And the chance was he would know where all the others were.

She watched with interest as the blood drained from his face. “You . . .” He did not step back from her, though the tension in his body told her he wanted to. He drew in a breath and said coldly, “So the rumors were true. You’ve been summoned by the Celestial One.”

“Rumors fly fast.” She smiled.

A muscle jumped in his cheek. “I have something to show you.”

Maskelle lifted her brows. She hadn’t expected that response. “You know there are very few rituals I’m allowed to perform.”

He turned away without answering, his attendants hastily parting for him. Maskelle followed, baffled and trying— successfully, she hoped—not to show it.
What does he want? If this is a trap . . . If this is a trap, he’s mad
.

The priest led her through the dark, crossing through the muddy flats with no concern for his robes, one of the guards hurrying forward with a lamp to light the way. After a moment she realized he was leading her toward the temple’s outbuildings, the stables, storehouses, and the quarters for the monks and servants that stood near the end of the causeway that crossed the baray to the temple. He turned through a narrow gate in a stone wall, pausing to disperse the guards with a wave. Only his priest attendants followed Maskelle through the gate.

Inside was a courtyard, the few lamps hanging from hooks along the walls illuminating muddy ground and more gates leading off into the rambling structure that loomed over them in the dark. Two guards stood outside one of the gates, and one quickly reached to pull it open as the priest strode toward it.

Inside was a warm close room, the damp air smelling strongly of goat and the ground littered with straw. The other priests had remained outside, but the one guard with the lamp had followed them in. The head priest took it away from him and held it high over the occupant of the wooden pen.

Maskelle took a deep breath, despite the smell. “It’s a goat.”
The man is mad
.

It was an ordinary brown goat, staring up at them with opaque brown eyes. The goat turned its head and bleated, and Maskelle saw what was hanging out of its side. It was the rear half of a moray lizard. She stepped closer and leaned down, swallowing a curse. The moray were about a foot long, with tough gray green hides and a ridge of distinctive spines along their backs to complement their sharp teeth and clawed feet. This was distinctively a moray, or at least the back six inches of one. It was stuck against the goat’s side as if it had grown there, the two back legs dangling, the spiny tail hanging limply. Baffled, she looked up at the priest, who was watching her with a grim lack of expression that was impossible to read. She said, “It’s strange, but such things happen. Animals born with extra limbs or . . .”
Other, completely different animals hanging out of their bodies
. No, she didn’t think she had heard of that before. She forged on anyway, “They aren’t always omens, though people think ...”

He was shaking his head. He pointed toward a stone block set back against the wall of the stall, and angled the lamp so the light fell more fully on it. Hanging out of the stone was the front half of the lizard.

Maskelle wet her lips, feeling a coldness in the pit of her stomach. She said, “All right, that one is, uh . . . odd.” The front half of the moray hung limply out of the stone, its front legs and the wicked oblong head like some bizarre decoration. The stone itself was a square block with cracked mortar on the sides, as if it had been broken out of a wall.