Babylon Steel (26 page)

“They’re still treating you like a symbol. You’re a person.”

“But sometimes a person must be a symbol,” she said. “You see, it is true. I am what they believe. I am the Itnunnacklish.”

TIRESANA

B
EFORE
I
WAS
allowed out they dinned into me how I was to behave now I was an Avatar, how I owed it to those who’d given me this opportunity, to do what they told me, how we were the foundations of all that held the land and the people together and that a single misstep could have terrible consequences.

“And no-one,
no-one,
is to know who you were,” Hap-Canae told me. “The past is dead to us. It has to be.”

“Why?” I had very unworthy reasons for asking, like wanting to show off to the other girls who had become priestesses, who had all got posts before me and no doubt thought I was a failure. Priestesses! I was an
Avatar!
The thought that I might go back and terrify the life out of the bossy old cook at home, and make the master tremble that he had ever considered laying a hand on me, had crossed my mind, too.

“Listen to me.” Hap-Canae put both hands on my shoulders. He was as serious as I had ever seen him, wrapped in all the dignity of his office, looking the way he did when presiding at a major festival. “Tiresana is a plane whose gods have withdrawn from her. You understand?”

“But... but we still worship them. All the ceremonies are for the gods.”

“Of course we worship them. But the ceremonies? They are for the people, who
have
no gods. We, the Avatars, are all that is left. Why do you think we took on this mantle? Do you think it is easy, to be what we are? Our powers are greater than those of ordinary people, but they are limited. Tiresana is poor, and its people struggle. We are their hope. Without us, what would they look to? Who would they see, watching over them? Only a void. And that is a terrible thing.” He sighed. “Believe me, one day you will understand. For now, be guided. Use your powers with care, do not exhaust them. You are young in them yet, and they will take time to grow. You cannot afford to make mistakes in public; to the people, you must be, always, an Avatar, and nothing else.”

I was an Avatar. I could fight like a demon, without having to practice much, although I did pay for it eventually, in exhaustion; later and less heavily than a normal person, but pay I did.

Weapons could wound me, and they still hurt – I found that out after a particularly careless moment in practice, overexcited by my own newfound abilities – but I healed, within hours. I asked Hap-Canae about it.

“Oh, yes,” he said. “We are very hard to kill, child. Not impossible, but even then, only by another Avatar.”

It never occurred to me, then, to ask how he knew that.

When I was finally allowed to show my face, which they wouldn’t let me do often, people went silent or cheered, paled, flung themselves down in front of me, wept at the sight of me or begged for my blessing.

I realized, after doing it purely by accident, that I could make someone fall madly in lust with a glance. I could make a woman who’d never known pleasure laugh aloud with delight in the arms of a callow boy – or a callow girl, for that matter – which gave me immense satisfaction, but wiped me out for days.

Hap-Canae scolded me for overdoing it. “Remember, we have limitations. It is a great sorrow to all of us. Think what we could do, if we had not such limits!”

“I could make everyone as happy as we are!” I said, stroking his hair. We were, of course, in bed.

“My sweet girl, how generous you are,” he said, laughing. “We are seeking out knowledge, we have been seeking it for a long time. And one day we hope to have the capacity to do everything we wish to. Think what we could make of this land. Cities of gold and brass, cities of marble and jewels... oh, we could create such glories! One day, my child. One day, and you and I will ride in a barge made all of sunset clouds and drawn by dragons. Would that not be a marvel?”

“Oh, yes!”

I dreamed, one night, as I lay beside him. We flew in a chariot of sunset clouds, surrounded by glowing pink and gold. Yet the stuff of the clouds was sticky and damp, and clung to me like spiderweb. I realized Hap-Canae was spinning it out of his own body. We were flying high above the land; below us were the cities of gold and brass, the cities of marble and jewels. “Are they not magnificent?” Hap-Canae said.

In the way of dreams, I could see the cities in detail even though we were so high. The streets were full of tiny figures. They too were made of gold and brass, of marble and jewels; automata, mannequins. As we flew lower they all fell to their knees, in perfectly synchronized, perfectly meaningless worship.

“But they’re not real,” I said.

“They’re as real as they need to be,” Hap-Canae said, and then he was on top of me, inside me, the glowing stuff of the chariot still extruding from his skin, and I realized that he was drawing out my life, to make his cloudy chariot and his pretty mindless dolls.

I woke up in a gasping sweat, and told myself it was just a stupid dream.

But he’d miscalculated. They all had, and perhaps not for the first time.

Babaska of the double aspect; Babaska of war and love. I did more fighting once I became her Avatar. Once you’ve had someone knock aside the spear that was heading for your guts or stood back to back with them while you held off some maniac whose only perception of you was as something to be got through, you’re connected, you have a bond. Yes, I was an Avatar; yes, human blades couldn’t have killed me. They could have hurt me, of course – even Babaska herself bore a scar. But I’d fought before I became invulnerable, and the soldiers still fought alongside me the same way. It makes it harder to remember that you’re supposed to be separate, superior, different.

As for sex... it’s a sacrament, don’t get me wrong. Always was, always will be. It’s one of the most powerful forces there is. And misused, it’s devastating.

But sex is also intimate, essentially fairly ridiculous and very, very human.

They couldn’t keep me apart from people, as much as they’d have preferred to, because that wasn’t how Babaska worked. The others might take human lovers, but they didn’t talk to them; Babaska did. The others might appear at battles, but they didn’t fight alongside the common soldiers; Babaska did. It was in the scrolls and the carvings, in everything about her legend.

And sometimes, when I stopped an enemy blade from gutting the soldier next to me, when I made someone cry out in pleasure, I thought I felt something. A sense of being watched, as I had been at the altar when I became an Avatar. It was neither friendly nor hostile; it was... assessing. And it felt as though it came from a very long way away.

I came to look for it, and was aware of a faint disappointment when it wasn’t there.

I studied hard to be as much like Babaska as I could, to be a true Avatar; yet in doing so, I remained more human than an Avatar was ever supposed to be.

CHAPTER TWENTY

I
LOOKED AT
Enthemmerlee, down there in the reeking dark. “Ah,” I said.

“You do not believe me?”

“Does it matter?”

She looked thoughtful, then smiled again. It was an extraordinary smile, so sweet and open it should have looked childlike, but didn’t. “No, it does not matter, but it is true, nonetheless.”

“So why are you here?”

“It was necessary for me to stay out of the way, until the time of transformation.”

“So you made a bargain with the sewer-crawlers who run this place, so you’d be out of sight? Am I right that you need to remain – how can I put this – ‘untouched,’ for the transformation to take place?”

“Untouched?” She blinked. “Oh, unmated, you mean?” She shook her head. “No, it is not a matter of virginity. If I remain virgin, according to what we have been able to discover, I will only die.”

“Only?”

“It would be a waste,” she said. “It has happened before, in the family bloodline; yellow-eyed girl children, not mated in time, through fear, or ignorance. If I mate only with a Gudain, then” – she gestured at herself – “this is what I remain. To become what I can be, for the transformation to be complete, I must be mated, at the time of transformation, to two men; one Ikinchli, and one Gudain. You understand? Then it will happen.”

I managed to close my mouth, after a moment. And opened it again. “That’s why they were so eager to get you married.”

“Yes.”

“Why wait until Twomoon? Why didn’t they just mate you off as soon as possible?”

“Because until then I will not be...” – for the first time, she blushed, a soft greenish glow in the firelight – “physically capable.”

Well, she looked similar to a human, but Ikinchli had two cocks, after all. Who knew what was the case with Gudain, or indeed with her, who was neither one nor the other? I had no idea what was going on under her robe and didn’t think it was the time to ask.

“You really want to do this?” I said. “To become something else?”

“I have thought very hard. As Itnunnacklish, I can do so much more for both my people than I ever could if I remain Gudain. The transformation will be hard, I know, and painful. I may die, even if everything is done correctly. But I have to take the chance.”

I said, “You know, being turned into an image... well, it doesn’t always work out the way you expect. Trust me, I know this.”

“Symbols have great power.”

“Broken symbols do, too. If you survive the change, the Gudain may try and kill you.”

“Yes,” she said, “but even martyrdom can have its uses. Although I would prefer to avoid it. One can do so much more alive than dead.”

It was a moment before I could talk. “You’re a very brave young woman,” I said. “And if that’s really your choice, I’ll do what I can to help.”

“The mating must take place at the right time, and somewhere I will be safe for several days. During the transformation I am vulnerable.”

“Down here may be out of sight, but it’s a long bowshot from safe. We’ll think of something.”

She called, softly, and the others reappeared. I whistled, and Previous and Kittack returned to the firelight. “Sorry, Previous – would you go back out, keep an eye?” I said quietly. “I don’t trust our hosts one bit.”

“Me neither. I’ll watch.” She disappeared again.

“You have told her,” said Rikkinet.

“Yes,” Enthemmerlee said.

Kittack was still staring. He spoke, a question.

Enthemmerlee answered.

There was a long silence. The water dripped. Kittack drew a long, shaky breath, and then sat down, abruptly, on the stone flags, and made a choking noise. I put a hand on his shoulder. He touched it briefly and got to his feet. “Forgive,” he said, looking at Enthemmerlee. “Is not often a legend is walk out of the story and say, ‘hello.’”

He made a strange, ducking, twisting movement with his head, as Rikkinet had done when we entered the firelight. He said something to Enthemmerlee, first in Ikinchli, then in Gudain.

She answered him, first in one, and then in the other.

He made that odd movement again, and backed away, towards me, almost as though he were afraid.

“Now you’re a believer?” I muttered.

“I believe what I see. She is Itnunnacklish.” He shook his head. “I remember some saying, about living in interesting times. Suddenly everything getting very interesting, yes?”

“Too right. We need somewhere for Enthemmerlee, somewhere safe.”

Kittack said, “She come to my place, I keep safe.”

“Is Ikinchli bar,” Rikkinet said. “You think Gudain don’t come look?”

“Haven’t yet,” Kittack said.

“No,” I said. “Rikkinet, I’m assuming there was a reason you didn’t keep her where I met you? With the other Ikinchli?”

“There is Ikinchli who do not want to believe in Itnunnacklish. Who think that to say Ikinchli and Gudain are one is evil; that we should kill all Gudain. If they hear of Enthemmerlee, they will kill her. That was why come here, where no-one know.”

“Look. I can get you out of here, and take you to my jalla, but...” I rubbed my face, and my fingers found the scar.

My home, my safe haven, might not be safe any longer. What if the Avatars turned up while Enthemmerlee was there?

I began to pace the few feet between the walls, not really seeing those around me, trying to think.

“The man who paid me,” I said. “Maybe...”

Malleay snapped, “You will not betray us! I will kill you!”

“I’d love to see you try, boy. Now shut up and listen. This man wants stability on Incandress.
If
we can persuade him that Enthemmerlee can help provide that, then maybe we can also persuade him to keep her safe, with her two mates, until the transformation’s complete. That way, he has a fait accompli to present to the Gudain high court,
in
the safety of Scalentine.”

“Safety?” Malleay said.

“Scalentine’s diplomatically neutral territory. It’s where people come to negotiate without killing each other. If we can get you under the protection of the Diplomatic Section, perhaps we can...”

Then we heard a yell and a splash from further up the tunnel.

I heard a clash of steel, and a grunt. There was a brief, blinding flare of alchemical fire, lighting up the crumbling walls and the black flow of the river, then everything went dark again. Someone shrieked. Blinking furiously and totally failing to rid my vision of white-edged purple smudges, I drew my sword and dagger. “Enthemmerlee? Stay behind me.”

“What’s happening?” Malleay said. I could make him out, shaking, but with his dagger in hand.

“Wish I knew.” I still couldn’t see a damn thing beyond the firelight, that flare had mangled my night-vision. On the other side of me Rikkinet was swearing softly and steadily; the sling wouldn’t be much use to her if her vision was as messed as mine.