Red Tide (5 page)

“You mean you haven't read it? Shame on you! This is the Saradahn. The sacred text of the Lord of Hidden Faces.”

“But …
you
are the Lord of Hidden Faces, aren't you?”

“Am I? Decades ago, when I first unleashed the Lord on the world, I compiled this book from the writings of a hundred dead religions from all across the globe. Writings that were carefully chosen to offer up as many inconsistencies and outright contradictions as possible. You can imagine the fun I had watching priests and scholars try to make sense of it all.”

Fun?
Clearly when you'd lived as long as the Spider had, you had to go a long way to find entertainment.

“And the amusement didn't stop there,” the goddess went on. “Never once did I appear to my disciples to offer guidance on the text. Yet within a few years, a dozen sects had sprung up led by men or women claiming to have spoken directly to their Lord. Of course, the god had confirmed
their
understanding of the Saradahn to be correct above all others, and the quarrels and the inquisitions and the burnings duly started. If I had appeared at that moment to explain the lie behind the faith, do you think any of those people would have believed me? Would Artagina now?” She closed the book and set it down on a table. “So, to answer your question, yes, I
was
the Lord of the Hidden Faces once. Now I'm not so surrre.”

A feathermoth as large as Romany's palm had materialized from somewhere, and was trying to settle on the priestess's arm. She waved a hand at it. “Why did you start the religion? What purpose did it serve?”

“It was necessary for a deception against Shroud, the exact nature of which escapes me now.”

“And the deception failed? Is that why the Lord's faith died out?”

“The deception didn't fail. The faith died out because I destroyed it.”

Romany opened her mouth and closed it. Then opened it again. “You killed them all?”

“The priests, the acolytes, yes.”

The Spider's half smile hadn't slipped in the time she'd been talking, and Romany wondered if she was being made the butt of some joke. Yet the goddess's account would explain the overnight disappearance of the Lord's followers all those years ago.
A busy night that would have been.

“Even the devout ones?” she said. “Even the true believers?”

“Believers in what? A Lord that didn't exist? If they believed in anything, it was in a god of their own devising. A god that justified exactly what they wanted to say or do. And you think I owed them loyalty?”

The feathermoth landed on Romany's head. She cursed and shook it off. “Do I take it then that a similar fate awaits Artagina and his crowd?”
Please?

“Perhaps. For now, though, the high priest provides a useful screen for my other pursuits in Olaire.”

Romany didn't like the sound of that, if those pursuits meant she'd be spending more time here. “I was hoping … My temple in Mercerie—”

“
Your
temple?”

“A figure of speech.”

The Spider's fingers fluttered. “Why do you think I brought you back in this new body, High Priestess? For the pleasure of your company? Or as a thank-you for your efforts in the Forest of Sighs?”

When she said it like that, it did sound silly. The Spider, say thank you?
Absurd!

“As I rrrecall,” the goddess continued, “it wasn't even as if you died in the furtherance of your duties. To the contrary, your troubles started only
after
you stopped following my orders. A lesson in that, don't you think? And since we're on the subject of lessons, I trust there will be no recurrence of the … sensitivity you showed in your dealings with Mayot Mencada.”

Sensitivity? Yes, how dare Romany? “What happened after that Mayot business? Has Parolla's mother been reborn?” After Romany had died at Danel's hand, she had witnessed from the threads of the Spider's web the Book of Lost Souls being destroyed, but not what came after.

“Not yet, but soon. Parolla and her friends are about to discover they were fools to trust the White Lady over the details of the child's birth. The goddess is not as purrre as her name would suggest.” Another flutter of the Spider's fingers—at the feathermoth this time, now flapping between her and Romany. “But enough of that. You are anxious, I'm sure, to learn what I have planned for you in Olaire.”

Anxious was the word. Romany gave a reluctant nod.

“How much have you been able to piece together of the events in the Founder's Citadel on Dragon Day?”

“I'm aware of
what
happened. I'm less clear on
why
.”

“Why I helped Mazana Creed kill Fume, you mean?” The goddess leaned back in her chair. “From your history, you will know that Fume was taken prisoner by the titans toward the end of the Eternal War. But what you might not know is that
I
was the one who betrayed him. Once his high priestess and her followers located him, it was just a matter of time before they freed him. Imagine how cross he would have been with me after a few millennia of captivity.”

“But he was mad, wasn't he? How do you know he would even have remembered your name?”

“You think I should have taken the risk? And even if he
had
lost his memory, you think it would have been a good thing to have a mad god obsessed with blood sacrifice on the loose? I couldn't let that happen, of course.”

Romany sniffed. “How very public-spirited of you.”

The Spider accepted the praise graciously. “When I learned of Mazana Creed's plans to overthrow Imerle, I saw a chance to dispose of Fume and gain a little something extra in the barrrgain.”

“Mazana's debt to you.”

“Precisely.”

“And what
precisely
do you intend to ask from her in settlement of that debt?”

The Spider gave a secret smile.

The feathermoth had alighted on the table between the goddess and Romany—or rather on the blade of a throwing knife left by the room's former owner. Instinctively Romany reached out and picked up the weapon. The feathermoth took flight. Romany hefted the dagger, judging its weight.
Nice balance.

She froze. Nice balance? Where had that thought come from? She'd never so much as held a throwing knife before, let alone used one.

That smile of the goddess's was making Romany's skin prickle.

“You never told me,” the priestess said, “what you wanted my help for.”

“I'm getting there. As you'll appreciate, when Mazana took some of Fume's power, she also took in part of his spirit. Which part exactly, and how much, remains to be seen.”

Which part?
Did Fume have a good side, then? Some inner child hiding behind the tyranny and blood sacrifice? “You're worried another of your creations might slip its leash?”

“If by ‘another' you are referring to Mayot Mencada, I think you'll find he never escaped my control. Yourrrs maybe, but not mine. As the events after your death showed.”

“Yet you think Mazana might be different?”

“I think I need to be alive to the possibility,” the Spider said. “Oh, it's not like she's going to start hearing Fume's voice in her head. But she may begin to display an irrational dislike of both me and my followers.” As opposed to a very rational dislike. “Whether it gets that far will depend on how well she is able to withstand the force of the god's persona.”

“I've seen nothing yet to suggest she is under his thrall.”

“Nor I.” The Spider paused. “But the events of the next few days are likely to test her character to the full.”

That prickle was back, as if every hair on Romany's body was standing on end. “You are referring to her plan to retaliate against the stone-skins?”

“In part.”

The feathermoth flew past Romany's face, but she paid it no mind. “So you're sending me to keep an eye on Mazana.”

The goddess nodded.

“And if she should fail your … test?”

“That would be inadvisable.”

“You want her disposed of?”

“I thought I just said that.”

Romany frowned. There was a note to the goddess's voice she could not place, a certain sharpness to her look that suggested there was a hidden message beneath her words. In some indeterminable way, it felt like Romany herself was being tested as much as Mazana. With no hint as to the reason or the stakes, naturally. “Is there no other way to rid the emira of Fume's presence?”

The Spider shook her head.

Behind the goddess, the feathermoth had alighted on the door frame.

Without thinking, Romany pulled back her right arm and sent the throwing knife spinning through the air. It flew true to its target and thudded into the wood, impaling the moth.

The Spider raised an eyebrow.

Horrified, Romany stared at her hand. Except it wasn't
her
hand, was it? Her skin had never been that tanned, and she couldn't remember picking up that crescent-shaped scar where her thumb met her palm. She experienced a sensation as if she were looking out through the eye slits of a mask again, only this one was made of flesh instead of wood.

“One other thing I should mention,” the Spider said. “When you meet Mazana Creed, you might want to keep your mask on. And when you're around Senar Sol too.” She considered. “Actually, it's probably best if you wear it at all times.”

Romany's voice was a whisper. “What was … I … before?”

“An assassin, of course. Rrrather apt, in view of the task at hand.”

An assassin.
A part of Romany had suspected as much, but to hear it confirmed …
Oh, the indignity!

The Spider said, “There are things about your body that will take more time than others to get used to. The spirit of your predecessor may have flown, but certain memories of the flesh will remain. Or at least I hope they will, since your predecessor had a most intriguing ability that I have come across only a handful of times in all my years. Tell me, High Priestess, have you sensed anything different about the street in front of the temple?”

Romany's mind was only just starting to function again. “Different?”

“You know, as in ‘not the same,' ‘unusual,' ‘out of the ordinary.'”

Now the priestess thought about it, she
had
encountered something odd. Yesterday she'd left the temple to search for a bathhouse in the Jewelry Quarter. A stone's throw to the east, she'd encountered a spot that left her feeling nauseated when she passed through it, like when the Spider had transported her to Estapharriol along the strands of her web.

“What you're sensing,” the goddess said, “is a point where the veil between two worlds has been eroded. Your predecessor was able to travel between those worlds, even when the connection between them was not strong enough to create a portal. With luck, you will have that ability too. Though I wouldn't recommend using it in this particular place.”

Romany regarded her blankly.

“It leads to the Kerralai world,” the Spider explained. “As your predecessor discovered to her cost.”

“A demon followed her back to Olaire and killed her?”

“Not quite. It drove her to this temple, where the woman decided, with a little persuasion, to take shelter. Even from here she could sense the portal, and a nudge from me was enough to convince her she could make the jump to the world beyond, when in rrreality the distance was too great.”

That explained how the assassin's body had become available for Romany to use. But it didn't explain why she needed to wear a mask in Mazana Creed's presence.

The Spider was only too happy to enlighten her. “You tried to kill her,” she said. “Outside this very temple, in fact. You would have succeeded too, were it not for Senar Sol. And while I've taken the liberty of toning down the color of your eyes—they were a most conspicuous blue—I suspect both Mazana and Senar would recognize you if they saw your face again.”

Romany could only nod in response. If someone tried to assassinate you, it wasn't the sort of thing you forgot. Yet now she was supposed to introduce herself to the emira? Spend enough time in her company to assess the extent of Fume's influence?

She sighed.

It seemed the Spider had brought her back from the dead just for the pleasure of watching her die again.

*   *   *

From the shade of a ketar tree, Karmel studied the town house across the street. Like the buildings to either side, its roof was missing as many tiles as remained in place, and its ground-floor windows had been boarded up. Unlike those neighboring buildings, though, the house—that of Veran's widow, Zalli—showed scars of the fighting that had raged through the city since Dragon Day. The planks over the windows were fire-blackened, and the front door was marked as if someone had taken an ax to it.

In the front yard was a white-robed figure attached to a cross. Not a person, Karmel realized, because it had straw protruding from the ends of its sleeves. But why was there blood round its neck and down its chest? She edged forward for a closer look. Then stopped.
Lord's mercy.
For while the body was made of straw, the skin of the face was all too real. Some woman's scalp and face had been peeled from her skull and pulled down over the head of the figure. Zalli's? No, the features looked too old. Blood-soaked straw bulged from her gaping eyeholes and from between her broken lips. Her skin at the forehead and cheeks had blackened in the sun.

“What is that thing?” Karmel said to Caval at her shoulder.

“My guess? A flesh-and-blood effigy of the White Lady.”

“Meant as a warning?”

“Maybe. You said Zalli had the gray fever. Reason enough to stay away from this place, some would say.”