Garden of Madness (18 page)

They dropped another level in their strange race, then another until they were underground, where secret passages and chambers honeycombed the underside of the everyday workings of the palace, supporting it with sewage tunnels, storage chambers, and deep cisterns from which the Gardens were fed. Only an occasional torch against the damp walls illuminated the corridor, and Tia hurried through those patches of light, anxious to remain unseen. The dank air smelled of sulfur and earth. Still Shadir walked on, and still she followed.

But somewhere in the stretch of darkness beyond the next torch, he disappeared.

Tia slowed. Did he wait against a slick wall, ready to grab her? Her stomach cramped against her ribs, and she held her breath and moved forward, balanced on her bare toes.

A narrow doorway ahead suddenly blazed.

Tia jumped backward. No torch appeared to seek her out. Lamplight, from within a chamber. She crept forward to the dusty edge of the opening, stole a glance into the room, then pulled away.

Shadir stood within, his profile to her. She shifted so one eye cleared the door frame and braced her hands against the mildewed wall, breathing openmouthed past her desert-dry tongue.

He stood before a small table, like the one she had seen in the Hall of Magi. The same trappings of his art lay spread across the wood—clay bowls, knives, jugs of what must be oil. At his left hand a length of rope hung over the edge, and there was a figure of some sort lying on its side. She watched, entranced, as he began his rites.

It was the divine duty of every
ashipu
priest, given the power of divination and the wisdom of the stars, to protect king and kingdom from the demons, to seek the defense of the gods against their evil force. Shadir had been a mage for many years and knew his art. He began with a singsong chant in words foreign to her ear. Akkadian, perhaps—the language of his ancient tribe. He swayed over the table and lifted the figure, grasping it in his fist. She had seen only that it was a woman. His voice lifted, words in her own tongue now.

“Her name has been spoken. Her name has been exposed. By this I rob her of her power. By this I bring defeat.”

Tia shuddered. She had heard magi use the Power of the Name against their enemies—those believed to be sorcerers and sometimes the demons themselves—but to whom did Shadir refer? She had not heard the name when he spoke it.

“I call upon Labartu to torment her. I call upon Labartu to distress her.” His voice rose and fell, and she strained forward as far as she dared, trying to catch every word.

Shadir raised his clutched hand, the wood figure still strangled in his hold, and placed the other hand around it. With a snap, he rotated his hands opposite each other, as though wrenching the life from the image.

She felt the quick motion in her gut.

He dropped the figure into the terra-cotta bowl and, with muttered incantations, poured oil and touched it with flame. The bowl blazed and lit his face with an unholy glow.

She shrank back. He had only to turn his head and he would see her.

The torture and burning of a demon figure was an oft-used symbol meant to transfer destruction upon the demon that caused suffering. Yet something was not right here, something was different. What was it?

Shadir lifted the rope from the table, held it aloft by its two ends over the burning bowl for a moment, then quickly tied a knot into the rope. Then another.

As he tied the third knot, a flash of understanding swayed her on her feet.

He should be releasing the knots, not tying them afresh.
He is running the rites backward
.

It meant only one thing. Shadir was not performing his duties as a priest-mage, called to protect Babylon and its throne. He was acting
against
someone, trying to influence fate to harm someone or for personal gain.

Shadir is a sorcerer
.

A low buzzing in her head terrified her, and her feet had grown roots into the floor. She must escape. But she could not. Her breath expelled from her chest and she could not get it back. She gripped the door frame with whitened fingers and willed her feet to move.

He held a branch of wood now, a thin stick, slightly bent, and with it he traced circles around his head, calling out the spell. “In my hand I hold the circle of Ea, in my hand I hold the cedarwood, the sacred weapon of Ea, in my hand I hold the branch of the cedar tree of the great rite.” A circle of protection with only himself inside.

He had entangled his enemy in the rope’s knots, burned a figure of the enemy in the clay bowl, and exposed her by name. Left her outside the circle. Who was she?

At last, at last Tia broke from the darkness that held her, spun away from the evil chamber, and fled.

Her feet carried her across the shadowed expanses of the corridor, past the flickering torches, their light swallowed.

Only a heartbeat from the first set of stairs, she slammed into something—
someone
.

“Pedaiah?” His name escaped her lips like a desperate plea.

“Princess?” The man moved her backward, into the light.

“Amel!” It was the second time she had collided with Shadir’s mage-in-training. Her body responded with that strange comingling of fear and pull he always produced. Was he part of the dark plan?

“Princess, you are shaking.”

“It is nothing. I—I was lost for a few moments. Here are the stairs. I am fine.”

Behind her, she heard the one voice she dreaded. “Amel? Who do you have there?”

Tia shook her head, but Amel was peering into the darkness. “It is the princess. She was lost.”

Nothing but silence returned to them. Then only two words from Shadir: “Bring her.”

Her limbs flooded with hot panic. Would it seem suspicious to flee? More dangerous? Would she learn the truth if she stayed?

She let Amel lead her to Shadir’s secret room and felt as though neither of them truly had a choice. Inside, the last remnants of the wood figurine had turned to embers, and only the oil lamp gave off light.

“Curious that you should be down here this night, Princess.” Shadir waved a hand over his table. “I was just seeking the gods for your protection.”

She licked dry lips, tried to swallow the tightness in her throat. Amel still held her by the arm, whether to comfort or detain, she could not tell.

Shadir stirred the dying fire with a sharp iron instrument. “I have been given to know that you have been plagued by the demon Labartu.” He jabbed at the ash. “I sought to protect you from her evils.”

Tia shuddered and again cursed her transparency. Labartu? Was that the “she” that he had burned? The one named in his incantations?

Tia had been certain that he used his power to bring evil on someone. A woman. Had only her imagination led her elsewhere? She looked to the rope—surely that would be proof—but it lay pristine across the table, unknotted.

All those watching eyes in the palace—were they nothing but false suspicion?

Amel stroked her arm now, and she saw herself through his eyes for a moment—pale and shaky, eyes wide, lips parted.

Did Shadir speak truth? Perhaps she
had
let her imaginings run away.

But beneath her questions, her uncertainty about Shadir and even Amel, there was another possibility. One that had tickled at her thoughts for some days now, since all of this strangeness began . . .

Madness ran in the family.

CHAPTER 20

Tia escaped Shadir, and even Amel, and ran back through underground passages, up narrow stairs, and through corridors until she fell upon her bed, alone but not comforted. The long night labored past and birthed another day, murky and gray like those preceding. She wandered the courtyards, absent from her lessons but hardly present anywhere. The fountains and towering greenery did not soothe, and the harem women, with their garish dress and spoiled manners, irritated.

A hand on her arm arrested her slow spiral through yet another courtyard.

Pedaiah. She blinked once but had no words.

His eyes took in her face like an object of study. He glanced left and right, then spoke quietly. “Princess, are you well?”

Tia shrugged. Her attention strayed to a near fountain, with an orange and white fish fluttering in its pool.

“Tia, follow me.” His voice was strangely urgent.

She watched him go for a moment—his steady stride across the flagstones, his solid shoulders. He did not turn back. She followed.

The palace held many rooms for which there seemed no use. Into one of these, lit only by the gray dawn that filtered from the courtyard, she followed Pedaiah. He turned on her in the gloom, his brow furrowed.

“I have been looking for a moment to speak to you since we returned from Daniel’s house, these seven days. Where have you been? Have you learned anything more of Shealtiel’s death?”

Her heart slowed. “Seven days? It has been seven days?”

He grabbed her upper arms and peered into her eyes. “What has happened, Tiamat? Has someone . . . harmed you?”

She shook her heavy head, the effort nearly too great.

“You have the look of someone hunted. Tell me—who is hunting you?”

Her lips parted and she pulled the words from somewhere. “I think Shadir is a sorcerer . . . Or perhaps . . . I am going mad.” To speak the words made them closer to truth, and a chill ran through her, even under Pedaiah’s warm hold. He released her at once, as though fearful he would contract this madness.

But no, his hand went to her head instead. Covered her head like a priest. The other hand he lifted above them both. His eyes closed and his chin dropped to his chest.

He spoke, so quietly Tia strained to hear, to hear the prayer he poured over her like warm oil on abraded skin. Soft words that filled the chamber.

“He that dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall rest under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of Yahweh, He is my refuge and my fortress, my God, in Him will I trust.”

Her breath expelled, her shoulders sagged.

“Deliver her, Yahweh, from the snare of the enemy, from the poison of the evil one. Cover her with Your feathers, and under Your wings let her trust. Let Your truth be her shield. Let her not be afraid of the terror by night, nor of the arrow that flies by day, nor for the plague that walks in darkness in this palace, nor for the destruction that would steal her strength.”

He paused, as though emotion had choked his words. Tia studied his closed eyes, the fine lines that traced outward, and her own emotion swelled against her chest. But he was not finished.

“Yahweh, command Your angels concerning her, to guard her in all her ways. Because You love her, deliver her. Open her eyes. Show her Your name, teach her to call upon You, answer her and be with her in trouble.”

Because He loved me?
Who had ever loved her besides her father? Something loosened inside Tia’s heart, cords she had not known were binding her. Something fearful released, taking flight like a great black bird frightened from its prey. With the release came a spreading warmth to her cold limbs and a wash of tears.

Pedaiah opened his eyes. His hand was still upon her head, but he slid it down the side of her face, then lingered there a moment to collect her tears in his palm and wipe them away.

She would have him speak again, to reassure her that his prayer would save her, but he said nothing more and a moment later was gone.

Tia stepped from the chamber, reveling in the freedom his words brought.

Her slaves, Omarsa and Gula, descended before her eyes adjusted to the courtyard light. “Your mother has summoned, my lady. She is in your chamber.”

She drew in a deep breath, somehow more ready to face Amytis than in recent weeks. Omarsa and Gula followed to her chamber.

“Ah, Tiamat, good.” Amytis waved her in, her attention elsewhere. Four or five female slaves bustled around the room, laying rich clothing across her bed and setting carved wooden boxes on tables. Her two sisters were also present, though their cool appraisal made it clear they had come for duty, not love.

Amytis was babbling. “The palace seamstresses have finished your bridal wardrobe, and I have brought everything for your approval. Your trunks will be packed soon, so you will be ready when Zagros arrives. Come, take a look at the robes, and then I will show you the jewels I intend to send with you. You must show all of Media that Babylon’s riches are not to be surpassed.”

After the solid tranquility of Pedaiah, her mother was like a fluttering, chirping bird, feathers preening. Tia crossed to the bed wordlessly and ran her hand over the smooth silks she had assembled. So much red. As though Amytis sent protection against the demons that would chase her all the way to Media.

Media. She had given much thought to another marriage, to falling victim again to a man who would only use her and not love her, but she had not spent much time on thoughts of leaving Babylon. She let a silk robe slide through her fingers and saw herself, there in the palace of Media, growing old with her husband as king, separated from her parents, from her people, from all those who were dear to her. Alone and purposeless. Her stomach tightened.

Amytis was pushing perfume jugs into her hands. “I want you to have these, Tia. The finest alabaster.” She removed a stopper and waved the jug under Tia’s nose, smiling. “Yes? You smell that? What prince could resist such a scent?”

“Mother, what do you know of the diviner Belteshazzar’s prophecies concerning Father?”

Her mother’s face went dark and she stopped up the alabaster jar with a heavy hand. “Prophecies. Bah! That old fool.”

“Father trusted him completely.”

“Yes, and look at your—” Amytis glanced at the busy slaves and cut her words short.

“Why were you spending time with Kaldu?”

Amytis placed the perfume jug on a table and shooed Tia’s sisters and slaves from the room with long fingers until they were alone, then shut the chamber door and turned on her.

“Too many questions, Tia. You waste your time with this useless chatter. I would have you preparing for your wedding, making yourself both beautiful and wise in the way princesses have always secured the loyalty and affection of their husbands.” Amytis smoothed her robes, as if thinking of her father.