The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (21 page)

When I was done, she sighed, the only sign of her concern. “Kinneth always believed Dekarta’s love for her would safeguard you. I cannot say I ever liked her, but over the years I grew to trust her judgment. How could she have been so wrong?”

“I’m not certain she was,” I said softly. I was thinking of Nahadoth’s words about Dekarta, and my mother’s murder: You think it was him?

I had spoken with Dekarta since then. I had seen his eyes while he spoke of my mother. Could a man like him murder someone he loved so much?

“What did Mother tell you, Beba?” I asked. “About why she left the Arameri?”

My grandmother frowned, taken aback by my shift from formality. We had never been close, she and I. She had been too old to become ennu when her own mother finally died, and none of her children had been girls. Though my father had managed against all odds to succeed her, becoming one of only three male ennu ever in our history, I was the closest thing to a daughter she would ever have. I, the half-Amn embodiment of her son’s greatest mistake. I had given up on trying to earn her love years before.

“It was not something she spoke of much,” Beba said, speaking slowly. “She said she loved my son.”

“That couldn’t possibly have been sufficient for you,” I said softly.

Her eyes hardened. “Your father made it clear that it would have to be.”

And then I understood: she had never believed my mother. “What do you think was the reason, then?”

“She was full of anger, your mother. She wanted to hurt someone, and being with my son allowed her to accomplish that.”

“Someone in Sky?”

“I don’t know. Why does this concern you, Yeine? It’s now that matters, not twenty years ago.”

“I think what happened then has bearing on now,” I said, surprising myself—but it was true, I realized at last. Perhaps I had felt that all along. And with that opening, I readied my next attack. “Nahadoth has been here before, I see.”

At this, my grandmother’s face resumed its usual stern frown. “Lord Nahadoth, Yeine. We are not Amn here; we respect our creators.”

“The guard have drilled in how to approach him. A shame I wasn’t included; I could have used that training myself before I went to Sky. When did he come here last, Beba?”

“Before you were born. He came to see Kinneth once. Yeine, this isn’t—”

“Was it after Father recovered from the Walking Death?” I asked. I spoke softly, though the blood was pounding in my ears. I wanted to reach over and shake her, but I kept control. “Was that the night they did it to me?”

Beba’s frown deepened, momentary confusion becoming alarm. “Did… to you? What are you talking about? You weren’t even born at that point; Kinneth was barely pregnant. What did…”

And then she trailed off. I saw thoughts racing behind her eyes, which widened as they stared at me. I spoke to those thoughts, teasing out the knowledge that I sensed behind them.

“Mother tried to kill me when I was born.” I knew why, now, but there was more truth here, something I hadn’t discovered yet. I could feel it. “They didn’t trust her alone with me for months. Do you remember?”

“Yes,” she whispered.

“I know she loved me,” I said. “And I know that sometimes women go mad in childbearing. Whatever it was that made her fear me then—” I nearly choked on the obfuscation. I had never been a good liar. “—it faded and she became a good mother thereafter. But you must have wondered, Beba, what it was that she feared so. And my father must have wondered…”

I trailed off then, as awareness struck. Here was a truth I had not considered—

“No one wondered.”

I jumped and whirled. Nahadoth stood fifty feet away at the entrance of Sar-enna-nem, framed by its triangle design. With the moonlight behind him he was a stark silhouette, but as always, I could see his eyes.

“I killed anyone who saw me with Kinneth that night,” he said. We both heard him as clearly as if he stood right beside us. “I killed her maid, and the child who came to serve us wine, and the man who sat with your father while he recovered from the sickness. I killed the three guards who tried to eavesdrop on this old woman’s orders.” He nodded toward Beba, who stiffened. “After that, no one dared to wonder about you.”

So you’ve decided to talk? I would have asked him, but then my grandmother did something so unexpected, so incredible, so stupid, that the words stopped in my throat. She leapt to her feet and moved in front of me, drawing her knife.

“What did you do to Yeine?” she cried. I had never in my life seen her so angry. “What foulness did the Arameri put you up to? She is mine, she belongs to us, you had no right!”

Nahadoth laughed then, and the whiplashing rage in that sound sent a chill down my spine. Had I thought him merely an embittered slave, a pitiable creature burdened by grief? I was a fool.

“You think this temple protects you?” he hissed. Only then did I realize he had not actually stepped over the threshold. “Have you forgotten that your people once worshipped me here, too?”

He stepped into Sar-enna-nem.

The rugs beneath my knees vanished. The floor, which had been planks of wood, disintegrated; underneath was a mosaic of polished semiprecious tiles, stones of every color interspersed with squares of gold. I gasped as the columns shuddered and the bricks exploded into nothingness and suddenly I could see the Three Windows, not just Sun but Moon and Twilight, too. I had never realized they were meant to be viewed together. We had lost so much. And all around us stood the statues of beings so perfect, so alien, so familiar, that I wanted to weep for all of Sieh’s lost brothers and sisters, Enefa’s loyal children, slaughtered like dogs for trying to avenge their mother’s murder. I understand. All of you, I understand so much—

And then the torchlight went out and the air creaked and I turned to see that Nahadoth had changed as well. Night’s darkness now filled that end of Sar-enna-nem, but it was not like my first night in Sky. Here, fueled by the residue of ancient devotion, he showed me all he had once been: first among gods, sweet dream and nightmare incarnate, all things beautiful and terrible. Through a hurricane swirl of blue-black unlight I caught a glimpse of moon-white skin and eyes like distant stars; then they warped into something so unexpected that my brain refused to interpret it for an instant. But the library embossing had warned me, hadn’t it? A woman’s face shone at me from the darkness, proud and powerful and so breathtaking that I yearned for her as much as I had for him, and it did not seem strange at all that I did so. And then the face shifted again into something that in no way resembled human, something tentacled and toothed and hideous, and I screamed. Then there was only darkness where his face should have been, and that was most frightening of all.

He stepped forward again. I felt it: an impossible, invisible vastness moved with him. I heard the walls of Sar-enna-nem groan, too flimsy to contain such power. The whole world could not contain this. I heard the sky above Darr rumble with thunder; the ground beneath my feet trembled. White teeth gleamed amid the darkness, sharp like wolves’. That was when I knew I had to act, or the Nightlord would kill my grandmother right before my eyes.

Right before my—

Right before my eyes she lies, sprawled and naked and bloody

this is not flesh this is all you can comprehend

but it means the same thing as flesh, she is dead and violated, her perfect form torn in ways that should not be possible, should not be and who has done this? Who could have

what did it mean that he made love to me before driving the knife home?

and then it hits: betrayal. I had known of his anger, but never once did I imagine… never once had I dreamt… I had dismissed her fears. I thought I knew him. I gather her body to mine and will all of creation to make her live again. We are not built for death. But nothing changes, nothing changes, there was a hell that I built long ago and it was a place where everything remained the same forever because I could imagine nothing more horrific, and now I am there.

Then others come, our children, and all react with equal horror

in a child’s eyes, a mother is god

but I can see nothing of their grief through the black mist of my own. I lay her body down but my hands are covered in her blood, our blood, sister lover pupil teacher friend otherself, and when I lift my head to scream out my fury, a million stars turn black and die. No one can see them, but they are my tears.

I blinked.

Sar-enna-nem was as it had been, shadowed and quiet, its splendor hidden again beneath bricks and dusty wood and old rugs. I stood in front of my grandmother, though I did not remember getting up or moving. Nahadoth’s human mask was back in place, his aura diminished to its usual quiet drift, and once again he was staring at me.

I covered my eyes with one hand. “I can’t take much more of this.”

“Y-Yeine?” My grandmother. She put a hand on my shoulder. I barely noticed.

“It’s happening, isn’t it?” I looked up at Nahadoth. “What you expected. Her soul is devouring my own.”

“No,” said Nahadoth very softly. “I don’t know what this is.”

I stared at him and could not help myself. All the shock and fear and anger of the past few days bubbled up, and I burst out laughing. I laughed so loudly that it echoed from Sar-enna-nem’s distant ceiling; so long that my grandmother peered at me in concern, no doubt wondering if I had gone mad. I probably had, because suddenly my laughter turned to screaming and my mirth ignited as white-hot rage.

“How can you not know?” I shrieked at Nahadoth. I had lapsed into Senmite again. “You’re a god! How can you not know?”

His calm stoked my fury higher. “I built uncertainty into this universe, and Enefa wove that into every living being. There will always be mysteries beyond even we gods’ understanding—”

I launched myself at him. In the interminable second that my mad rage lasted, I saw that his eyes flicked to my approaching fist and widened in something very like amazement. He had plenty of time to block or evade the blow. That he did not was a complete surprise.

The smack of it echoed as loud as my grandmother’s gasp.

In the ensuing silence, I felt empty. The rage was gone. Horror had not yet arrived. I lowered my hand to my side. My knuckles stung.

Nahadoth’s head had turned with the blow. He lifted a hand to his lip, which was bleeding, and sighed.

“I must work harder to keep my temper around you,” he said. “You have a memorable way of chastising me.”

He lifted his eyes, and suddenly I knew he was remembering the time I had stabbed him. I have waited so long for you, he had said then. This time, instead of kissing me, he reached out and touched my lips with his fingers. I felt warm wetness and reflexively licked, tasting cool skin and the metallic salt of his blood.

He smiled, his expression almost fond. “Do you like the taste?”

Not of your blood, no.

But your finger was another matter.

“Yeine,” said my grandmother again, breaking the tableau. I took a deep breath, marshaled my wits, and turned back to her.

“Are the neighboring kingdoms allying?” I asked. “Are they arming for war?”

She swallowed before nodding. “We received formal notice this week, but there had been earlier signs. Our merchants and diplomats were expelled from Menchey almost two months ago. They say old Gemd has passed a conscription law to boost the ranks of his army, and he’s accelerated training for the rest. The council believes he’ll march in a week, maybe less.”

Two months ago. I had been summoned to Sky only a short while before that. Scimina had guessed my purpose the instant Dekarta summoned me.

And it made sense she had chosen to act through Menchey. Menchey was Darr’s largest and most powerful neighbor, once our greatest enemy. We had been at peace with the Mencheyev since the Gods’ War, but only because the Arameri had been unwilling to grant either land permission to annihilate the other. But as Ras Onchi had warned me, things had changed.

Of course they had submitted a formal war petition. They would want the right to shed our blood.

“I would hope we had begun to muster forces as well, in the time since,” I said. It was no longer my place to give orders; I could only suggest.

My grandmother sighed. “As best we could. Our treasury is so depleted we can barely afford to feed them, much less train and equip. No one will lend us funds. We’ve resorted to asking for volunteers—any woman with a horse and her own weapons. Men as well, if they’re not yet fathers.”

It was very bad if the council had resorted to recruiting men. By tradition men were our last line of defense, their physical strength bent toward the single and most important task of protecting our homes and children. This meant the council had decided that our only defense was to defeat the enemy, period. Anything else meant the end of the Darre.

“I’ll give you what I can,” I said. “Dekarta watches everything I do, but I have wealth now, and—”

“No.” Beba touched my shoulder again. I could not remember the last time she had touched me without reason. But then, I had never seen her leap to protect me from danger, either. It pained me that I would die young and never truly know her.

“Look to yourself,” she said. “Darr is not your concern, not any longer.”

I scowled. “It will always be—”

“You said yourself they would use us to hurt you. Look what’s happened just from your effort to restore trade.”

I opened my mouth to protest that this was merely their excuse, but before I could, Nahadoth’s head turned sharply east.

“The sun comes,” he said. Beyond Sar-enna-nem’s entry arch, the sky was pale; night had faded quickly.

I cursed under my breath. “I will do what I can.” Then, on impulse, I stepped forward and wrapped my arms around her and held her tight, as I had never dared to do before in my whole life. She held stiff against me for a moment, surprised, but then sighed and rested her hands on my back.

“So much like your father,” she whispered. Then she pushed me away gently.

Nahadoth’s arm folded around me, surprisingly gentle, and I found my back pressed against the human solidity of the body within his shadows. Then the body was gone and so was Sar-enna-nem, and all was cold and darkness again.