The Key to Creation (17 page)

Without formalities, Imir said, “I want to ride out with the next group of physicians and supplies to Arikara. Even those who survived the destruction face terrible hardship.”

Istar spoke up. “Our daughter asks permission to accompany her grandfather on this errand of mercy.”

The girl looked determined and ready for an argument. “I’ve been there before, Father,” Adreala blurted. “Remember, you appointed me your special ambassador to the Nunghals. Now I am needed in Arikara—our primary trade center with the Nunghals. It was a beautiful city.”

Omra was surprised. “It will be very difficult there—little food or shelter, many dead bodies, and conditions will grow worse as the bodies begin to rot and disease sets in.”

“It is as you say, Father—so much work to do,” Adreala countered. “Both of my sisters want to go, too. When I made my trip before, Cithara and Istala were being trained by the sikaras—but they should see the world, too, and they want very much to help.”

He frowned. “It does not sound like a fitting place for the daughters of the soldan-shah.”

Istar was surprisingly stubborn. “The girls have been raised as princesses, Omra, but hard work will make them strong. It will not harm them to be without comforts for a while.” At times, he forgot that his First Wife had been raised in a Tierran fishing village. Over the years, he had given her love, protection, wealth, and shelter here in the palace, but Istar’s more humble upbringing had made her sensible, capable, and wise.

His father added his support. “Their presence will encourage the people of Arikara, and the work will do my granddaughters good. The princesses will bring honor to the soldan-shah.”

Omra laughed as he looked at their expressions. “I have faced Tierran armies, but how can I stand against the three of you when you’ve made a decision?” He did not admit, however, that he was relieved to send the three girls far from the sikaras, who had so recently tried to use them in their schemes. “Go with my blessing. Just be careful.”

The
Moray

When the jeering crew brought out the rope for Ciarlo, he held out his arms, hands clasped together. Submission but not surrender. With the bright sun and cool breeze on his face, Ciarlo took a deep breath. The air smelled clean, salty, and rejuvenating. He did not give them the satisfaction of showing fear or begging for mercy. He said nothing, but his head was filled with silent prayers to Aiden.

The
Moray
’s first mate offered a large, wicked-looking fishhook used for catching grouper or tuna. Its barbed point had been filed sharp. Captain Belluc put on a cruel performance to amuse his crew. “Stick it through his palms and wrists, so we can drag him behind the boat like a fish.”

Ciarlo didn’t know how long his flesh would hold before the sharp metal ripped through his tendons and bones. He closed his eyes, ready to endure the crippling pain of the hook.

“Stop this!” bellowed a big man with shaggy black hair; a passenger, not a crewman. He had a gap between his front teeth, and he looked strange and exotic even for a Uraban. His expression was as dark as his weathered skin. “What crime has the man committed to deserve this punishment?”

The galley captain was offended by the interruption. “I wouldn’t expect a Nunghal to understand. He believes in Aiden. That’s crime enough.” Ciarlo didn’t know what a Nunghal was.

The large stranger stepped closer to Captain Belluc, intimidating him. “You said that was the reason he became a galley slave in the first place.”

The captain shrugged. “He has been preaching to the other oarsmen, corrupting their souls.”

The big stranger regarded Belluc with consternation. “You’ll kill him if you use that hook and keelhaul him.”

“He deserves to die.”

Ciarlo spoke up with enough conviction that everyone heard him. “Thank you for your intervention, sir, but you can say nothing to stop the captain. He has made up his mind to inflict pain on another human being.”

“I can report his behavior to my good friend, Soldan-Shah Omra,” Asaddan said.

Belluc’s eyes narrowed. “You are welcome to tell him whatever you like. The soldan-shah hates Aidenists.”

With an abrupt move, the Nunghal man grabbed the fishhook from the first mate’s hands and flung it over the
Moray
’s side. The wicked-looking hook spun in the air, glinting golden, then vanished into the waves.

The surprised crewmembers grumbled, wanting their captain to retaliate, but Asaddan broadened his shoulders and looked threatening. “Keelhaul the man if you must, but don’t cripple or kill him. Where would you find a replacement oarsman out here?”

“I could always put you on the oars,” Belluc snapped.

“You are welcome to try, Captain.”

The captain did not choose to try.

Ciarlo still held his arms out, waiting, and the first mate wrapped the rope around his wrists, adding several coils, then pulled the rope through. Ciarlo would have liked to grasp the symbolic Fishhook of Sapier between his palms for comfort, but he no longer had his pendant. He clung to the knowledge that he was the only devout Aidenist in the whole expanse of Middlesea from horizon to horizon. No matter how far away He was, Ondun would see him and show mercy.

The galley captain didn’t give him an opportunity to pray; the sailors simply threw him off the galley’s stern. Ciarlo plunged into the water. He kicked his feet to try to keep up, but the taut rope nearly wrenched his arms out of their sockets. Spray filled his face, and he couldn’t breathe. He choked, coughed. The oarmaster struck up a rapid beat so that the
Moray
moved at increased speed.

Over the stern rail, Belluc called down to him, “Don’t you wish you’d stayed at home in Tierra by your little kirk?”

Ciarlo could barely think as he struggled to remain afloat, but this torture would never convince him to abandon his faith. With the rope burning his wrists and his joints in agony, he steeled himself by thinking of what Sapier himself had endured during his tribulations. He thought also of the agonies of Prester-Marshall Baine and his followers, all impaled on fishhooks because they had tried to rebuild Ishalem.

A commotion occurred on the deck of the
Moray
, crewmembers shouting and pointing. Ciarlo turned his head, saw a flash of jagged fin, a gleam of emerald scales as a sea serpent arced out of the water and then dove again. Dangling at the end of the rope, pulled along in the wake of the slave galley, Ciarlo was like bait on a fisherman’s line.

The laughing men above seemed to be making wagers. Ciarlo was sure he would find himself in the belly of the serpent soon enough, and they would haul in the bloody end of the rope. But the Nunghal man was roaring now. “Pull him up—
pull him up
!”

Finally, the men hoisted Ciarlo out of the water. The pain in his shoulders was excruciating as he dangled there, dripping; his clothes weighed him down. Looking down to see the serpent’s wedge-shaped head rising up, jaws wide open, he cried out. The men dragged him over the stern rail only inches ahead of the serpent.

Sprawled on the deck, he coughed and vomited water. Now that he was safe, the pain was so great that Ciarlo felt ready to die. Behind the
Moray
, the sea serpent drifted away.

“Let him rest for the day.” Belluc sounded surly and dissatisfied. “Then put him back in chains at the oars tomorrow.”

Asaddan watched the cruelty of the Urecari sailors with angry disgust. For days on their voyage, he had observed the devout Aidenist down in the stinking, stifling hold, heard the poor man tell stories with fervor, and listened to the heart of what he believed.

After witnessing the atrocities at Ishalem, he had not thought he could change his mind. He had seen evil Aidenist warships intent on setting the city ablaze. He had seen the line of rotting Uraban heads dumped along the great wall, victims of Aidenist hatred.

Which was the true reflection of Aiden’s teachings? Asaddan didn’t know. Maybe evil had two sides.

And after watching the behavior of these Urecari, he couldn’t see that they were any better. He recalled that Istar, First Wife of Soldan-Shah Omra, had been taken from a Tierran fishing village. He knew that Urecari raiders had burned
her
town, killed
her
people, and dragged
her
away against her will. When Saan had told him his mother’s story during their time in the Nunghal lands, the boy had colored the events with his own upbringing. Asaddan suspected that Istar might tell a different version of the story.

Ciarlo’s courage affected him greatly. The Aidenist preacher steadfastly maintained that he meant no harm, that he simply wanted to spread the word. Admiring such devotion, Asaddan decided to listen with greater attention.

Ishalem, Urecari Church

Finally, after the many headaches, delays, and extraordinary expenses to build this damned church in Ishalem, Soldan Huttan felt satisfied, even victorious. For all the challenges and annoyances this grandiose project entailed, he was nearly finished with the task. The church was huge and ostentatious, a monument on the holy city’s skyline. Exactly what the soldan-shah had wanted.

More important, he’d beaten his rival, Soldan Vishkar. On the other side of Ishalem, Vishkar’s sturdy church was half completed, some of its minarets still only frameworks cocooned in bricklayers’ scaffolds. Huttan’s carpenters and stonemasons had far surpassed those accomplishments. He had ordered his crew leaders to use any means (even unethical ones) to get the job done with as much speed and as little expense as possible.

And it was only fitting, since his beloved wife Kuari—may she rot from within!—had just been named ur-sikara. Huttan couldn’t believe the choice. How had she managed it? Surely the church of Urec had better candidates than that stubborn, abrasive woman?

Still, the selection granted him a great deal of political capital. Even though their marriage had been officially dissolved (alas), due to her new position Soldan Huttan would hold additional clout. Perhaps he’d finally be able to annex the weak territory of Yuarej and expand the soldanate of Inner Wahilir. Once his great church was dedicated as the new home of the ur-sikara, Huttan would be in an excellent position to ask the soldan-shah for such a boon.

By now, cautious and kindhearted Vishkar must regret wasting so much time developing blueprints and plans, consulting with Saedran architects (who didn’t understand the first thing about the Urecari religion—how inappropriate!). Huttan had found it much more expeditious to spread a few bribes, and
his
church would be ready for the soldan-shah’s arrival, in time for the revered ur-sikara to be installed in her new residence.…

As morning light softened the tiled window arches, Huttan walked through the church’s cavernous main chamber, which was supported by dozens of pillars, all colorfully painted (rather than tiled, which took longer and cost much more). In his counterpart church, Soldan Vishkar had employed a veritable army of mosaic artists to assemble beautiful colored tiles, but Huttan convinced himself that the frescoes were more vibrant, and certainly less labor-intensive.

Hundreds of workers stood on scaffolds in the church’s vault, painting events from Urec’s Log. Up on the top platforms, the less skilled painters produced clumsier images; the colors had to be bright, the figures generally recognizable, but the details didn’t matter, since worshipers far below would not be able to see them. High up on the great eggshell-domed ceiling, the soldan assigned the least skilled apprentice painters.

Huttan raised his voice so that his words echoed in the huge chamber. “The soldan-shah and the ur-sikara will be here soon. In the name of Urec, give me your best work—and your fastest! Ondun will surely punish you if we don’t finish this church on time.”

The other soldan would be forced to attend the celebration and eat his own shame, while Huttan smiled with superiority. He couldn’t wait.

Servants swept the tiled floors. Each morning the workmen arrived to find that a layer of dust drifted down from above, trickling out of joints in the arches, cracks in the ceiling—more than just the hanging fog of construction dust and plasterers. His chief builder assured him that the enormous church was merely settling.

One of the apprentice painters, a harelipped young man from Sioara, hurried up to Huttan, chattering enthusiastically. Previously, the young artist had gushed his thanks, lisping all the while, for the opportunity to paint in this wondrous church. Now, however, the artist’s earnestness was tinged with alarm. “Soldan, the dome has many new cracks this morning. Several are wider than my fingers!” He held up a splayed hand, as if Huttan didn’t know how wide a finger was.

When he squinted upward, the soldan could see a spiderweb of black lines tracing the inside of the main eggshell dome. He grimaced. “It must be from those men pounding from above.” Dozens of roofers had been crawling over the outer dome, applying lead sheets to protect the surface. For a while the lead plates would gleam like brushed silver in the sunlight.

“But we can’t continue our painting,” the young apprentice explained. “The cracks are too wide.”

“Then take some plaster and fill them!” Huttan hated to be responsible for tiny decisions, but he realized this young man had no authority to do anything. “We can’t let any flaws be visible for the soldan-shah when he arrives…or my dear wife, of course.”

Workers scurried across the floor with hods of wet white muck, and the boy artist scrambled up the scaffolding like a monkey, as if he needed to supervise the plasterers. Men began to raise the first batch of plaster on ropes and pulleys suspended from the scaffolds. As he watched, Huttan pondered the cost of each load of plaster, each layer of bricks, each roofing sheet of lead. He would be relieved to have the spurting wound on his treasury plastered as well.

He crooked his index finger and raised it in the sign of the Unfurling Fern. “For the glory of Urec,” he mumbled.