The Hundred Thousand Kingdoms (4 page)

Sieh hovered near as I wandered among his toys, his expression somewhere between anxiety and pride. The yellow ball had taken up position near the center of the room; all the other balls revolved around it.

“They’re pretty, aren’t they?” he asked me, while I stared at a tiny red marble. A great cloud mass—a storm?—devoured the nearer hemisphere. I tore my eyes from it to look at Sieh. He bounced on his toes, impatient for my answer. “It’s a good collection.”

Trickster, trickster, stole the sun for a prank. And apparently because it was pretty. The Three had borne many children before their falling-out. Sieh was immeasurably old, another of the Arameri’s deadly weapons, and yet I could not bring myself to dash the shy hope I saw in his eyes.

“They’re all beautiful,” I agreed. It was true.

He beamed and took my hand again—not pulling me anywhere, just feeling companionable. “I think the others will like you,” he said. “Even Naha, when he calms down. It’s been a long time since we had a mortal of our own to talk to.”

His words were gibberish strung together without meaning. Others? Naha? Calm?

He laughed at me again. “I especially like your face. You don’t show much emotion—is that a Darre thing, or your mother’s training?—but when you do, all the world can read it.”

My mother had warned me of the same thing long ago. “Sieh—” I had a thousand questions and couldn’t decide where to begin. One of the balls, a plain green one with bright white poles, went past us, tumbling end over end. I didn’t register it as an anomaly until Sieh saw it and stiffened. That was when my own instincts belatedly sent a warning.

I turned to find that Nahadoth stood behind us.

In the instant that my mind and body froze, he could have had me. He was only a few paces away. But he did not move or speak, and so we stared at each other. Face like the moon, pale and somehow wavering. I could get the gist of his features, but none of it stuck in my mind beyond an impression of astonishing beauty. His long, long hair wafted around him like black smoke, its tendrils curling and moving of their own volition. His cloak—or perhaps that was hair, too—shifted as if in an unfelt wind. I could not recall him wearing a cloak before, on the balcony.

The madness still lurked in his face, but it was a quieter madness now, not the rabid-animal savagery of before. Something else—I could not bring myself to call it humanity—stirred underneath the gleam.

Sieh stepped forward, careful not to move in front of me. “Are you with us yet, Naha?”

Nahadoth did not answer, did not even seem to see Sieh. Sieh’s toys, I noticed with the fragment of my mind that wasn’t frozen, went wild when they came near him. Their slow, graceful orbits changed: some drifted in a different direction, some froze in place, some sped up. One split in half and fell broken to the floor as I watched. He took a step forward, sending more of the colored balls spinning out of control.

That one step was enough to jar me out of my paralysis. I stumbled back and would have fled screaming if I’d known how to make the walls open.

“Don’t run!” Sieh’s voice snapped at me like a whip. I froze.

Nahadoth stepped forward again, close enough that I could see a minute shiver pass through him. His hands flexed. He opened his mouth; struggled a moment; spoke. “P-predictable, Sieh.” His voice was deep, but shockingly human. I had expected a bestial growl.

Sieh hunched, a sulky little boy again. “Didn’t think you’d catch up that fast.” He cocked his head, studying Nahadoth’s face, and spoke slowly, as if to a simpleton. “You are here, aren’t you?”

“I can see it,” whispered the Nightlord. His eyes were fixed on my face.

To my surprise, Sieh nodded as if he knew what such ravings meant. “I wasn’t expecting that, either,” he said softly. “But perhaps you remember now—we need this one. Do you remember?” Sieh stepped forward, reaching for his hand.

I did not see that hand move. I was watching Nahadoth’s face. All I saw was the flash of blind, murderous rage that crossed his features, and then one of his hands was ’round Sieh’s throat. Sieh had no chance to cry out before he was lifted off the ground, gagging and kicking.

For a breath I was too shocked to react.

Then I got angry.

I burned with anger—and madness, too, which is the only possible explanation for what I did then. I drew my knife and cried, “Leave him alone!”

As well a rabbit threaten a wolf. But to my utter shock, the Nightlord looked at me. He did not lower Sieh, but he blinked. Just that quickly, the madness left him, replaced by a look of astonishment and dawning wonder. It was the look of a man who has just discovered treasure beneath a pile of offal. But he was still choking the life out of Sieh.

“Let him go!” I crouched, shifting my stance the way my Darren grandmother had taught me. My hands shook—not with fear, but with that mad, wild, righteous fury. Sieh was a child. “Stop it!”

Nahadoth smiled.

I lunged. The knife went into his chest, going deep before lodging in bone with such a sudden impact that my hand was jarred free of the hilt. There was an instant in which I braced myself against his chest, trying to push away. I marveled that he was solid, warm, flesh and blood despite the power writhing about him. I marveled even more when his free hand wrapped around my wrist like a vise. So fast, despite the knife in his heart.

With the strength in that hand, he could have crushed my wrist. Instead he held me in place. His blood coated my hand, hotter than my rage. I looked up; his eyes were warm, gentle, desperate. Human.

“I have waited so long for you,” the god breathed. Then he kissed me.

Then he fell.

WHEN THE NIGHTLORD SAGGED to the ground, dropping Sieh in the process, I nearly fell with them. I had no idea why I was still alive. The tales of the Arameri’s weapons are full of them slaughtering whole armies. There are no stories of crazed barbarian girls fighting back.

Sieh, to my great relief, immediately pushed himself up on his elbows. He seemed fine, though his eyes went very round at the sight of Nahadoth’s motionless form. “Look what you did!”

“I…” I was shaking, almost too hard to talk. “I didn’t mean… He was killing you. I couldn’t”—I swallowed hard—“let him.”

“Nahadoth would not have killed Sieh,” said a new voice behind me. My nerves did not like this. I jumped and grabbed for the knife that was no longer tucked into my back-sheath. A woman resolved out of the silent drift of Sieh’s toys. The first thing I noticed was that she was huge, like the great sea ships of the Ken. She was built like one of those ships, too, broad and powerful and astonishingly graceful; none of it was fat. I could not guess her race, because no woman of any race I knew was that damned big.

She knelt to help Sieh up. Sieh was shaking, too, though with excitement. “Did you see what she did?” he asked the newcomer. He pointed at Nahadoth; he was grinning.

“Yes, I saw.” Setting Sieh on his feet, the woman turned to regard me for a moment. Kneeling, she was taller than Sieh standing. Her clothing was simple—gray tunic and pants, a gray kerchief covering her hair. Maybe it was her grayness after the unrelenting black of the Nightlord, but there was something about her that seemed fundamentally gentle to me.

“There is no greater warrior than a mother protecting her child,” the woman said. “But Sieh is far less fragile than you, Lady Yeine.”

I nodded slowly, not allowing myself to feel foolish. Logic had not been part of what I’d done.

Sieh came over and took my hand. “Thank you anyway,” he said shyly. The purpled, ugly handprint around his throat was fading even as I watched.

We all looked over at Nahadoth. He sat on his knees as he had fallen, the knife still hilt-deep in his chest, his head slumped. With a soft sigh, the gray woman went to him and pulled the knife out. I had felt it lodge in bone, but she made the withdrawal look easy. She examined it, shook her head, then offered it to me hilt first.

I made myself take it, getting more god’s blood on my hand. I thought that she held the blade more firmly than necessary because my hand was shaking so badly. But as I got a better grip on the hilt, the woman’s fingers trailed down the blade. When I had the knife again, I realized that not only was it clean of blood, but it was a different shape—curved now—and finely honed.

“That suits you better,” said the woman, giving a solemn nod at my stare. Unthinking, I put the knife into its sheath at the small of my back, though it should no longer have fit. It did; the sheath had changed, too.

“So, Zhakka, you like her.” Sieh leaned against me, wrapping his arms around my waist and resting his head on my breast. Immortal or not, there was such innocence in the way he did it that I did not push him away. I put my arm around him without thinking, and he uttered a deep, contented sigh.

“Yes,” said the woman without prevarication. She leaned forward, peering into Nahadoth’s face. “Father?”

I did not jump, not with Sieh leaning against me, but he felt me stiffen. “Shhh,” he said, rubbing my back. That touch was not quite childlike enough to be truly soothing. A moment later, Nahadoth stirred.

“You’re back,” said Sieh, straightening with a bright smile. I took that opportunity to step away from Nahadoth. Sieh caught my hand quickly, all earnestness. “It’s all right, Yeine. He’s different now. You’re safe.”

“She will not believe you,” said Nahadoth. He sounded like a man waking from a deep sleep. “She will not trust us now.”

“It isn’t your fault.” Sieh sounded unhappy. “We just need to explain, and she’ll understand.”

Nahadoth looked at me, which made me jump again, though it seemed the madness was indeed gone. Nor did I see that other look—when he’d held my hand in his heartblood and whispered soft, longing words. And that kiss… no. I had imagined it. That was clear, as the Nightlord who sat before me now was detached, regal even on his knees, and contemptuous. I was reminded painfully of Dekarta.

“Will you understand?” he asked me.

I could not help taking another step back in answer. Nahadoth shook his head and rose, nodding gracefully to the woman Sieh had called Zhakka. Though Zhakka towered over Nahadoth, there was no question which was the superior and which the subordinate.

“We have no time for this,” Nahadoth said. “Viraine will be looking for her. Mark her and be done with it.” Zhakka nodded and came toward me. I stepped back a third time, unnerved by the intent in her eyes.

Sieh let go of me and stood between us, a flea confronting a dog. He barely came up to Zhakka’s waist. “This isn’t the way we were supposed to do it. We agreed to try and win her over.”

“That isn’t possible now,” said Nahadoth.

“What’s to stop her from telling Viraine about this, then?” Sieh put his hands on his hips. Zhakka had stopped, waiting patiently for the dispute to be resolved. I felt forgotten and supremely unimportant—as I probably should, given that I stood in the presence of three gods. The term former gods just didn’t seem to fit.

Nahadoth’s face showed something less than a smile. He glanced at me. “Tell Viraine and we’ll kill you.” His gaze returned to Sieh. “Satisfied?”

I must have been tired. After so many threats that evening, I didn’t even flinch.

Sieh frowned and shook his head, but he stepped out of Zhakka’s path. “This wasn’t what we’d planned,” he said with a hint of petulance.

“Plans change,” said Zhakka. Then she stood before me.

“What are you going to do?” I asked. Somehow, despite her size, she did not frighten me near as much as Nahadoth.

“I will mark your brow with a sigil,” she said. “One that cannot be seen. It will interfere with the sigil Viraine intends to put on you. You will look like one of them, but in truth you’ll be free.”

“Are they…” All the sigil-marked Arameri? Was that who she meant? “… not free?”

“No more than we, for all they think otherwise,” said Nahadoth. There was, for just that moment, a hint of the softness in him that I’d seen before. Then he turned away. “Hurry up.”

Zhakka nodded, and touched my forehead with the tip of a finger. Her fists were the size of dinner plates; her finger seemed to sear like a brand when it touched me. I cried out and tried to slap her finger away, but she lifted her hand before I could. She was done.

Sieh, his sulk forgotten, peered at the spot and nodded sagely. “That will do.”

“Take her to Viraine, then,” said Zhakka. She inclined her head to me in courteous farewell, then turned away to join Nahadoth.

Sieh took my hand. I was so confused and shaken that I did not fight when he led me toward the nearest of the dead space’s walls. But I did glance back over my shoulder once, to watch the Nightlord walk away.

My mother was the most beautiful woman in the world. I say that not because I am her daughter, and not because she was tall and graceful, with hair like clouded sunlight. I say it because she was strong. Perhaps it is my Darre heritage, but strength has always been the marker of beauty in my eyes.

My people were not kind to her. No one said it in front of my father, but I heard the murmurs when we walked through Arrebaia sometimes. Amn whore. Bone-white bitch. They would spit on the ground after she passed, to wash the streets of her Arameri taint. Through all this she maintained her dignity and was never less than polite to people who were anything but. My father, in one of the few clear memories of him that I have, said this made her better than them.

I am not sure why I remember this now, but I am certain it is somehow important.

Sieh made me run after we left the dead space, so that I would be out of breath when we arrived at Viraine’s workshop.

Viraine opened the door after Sieh’s third impatient knock, looking irritated. The white-haired man from Dekarta’s audience, who had judged me “not hopeless.”

“Sieh? What in demons—ah.” He looked at me and raised his eyebrows. “Yes, I’d rather thought T’vril was taking too long. The sun went down nearly an hour ago.”

“Scimina sicced Naha on her,” said Sieh. Then he looked up at me. “But the game was to end if you made it here, right? You’re safe now.”