The Shadow of Tyr Page 7

  They’d been talking all kinds of stuff in the Green Bear this evening. That was because it was the annual foretelling day on the morrow, when the Prefect Urbis, him that governed the city under the Exaltarch, went to the Oracle to hear what the coming year would bring and what he should do about it. Some said there was going to be a real shocker of a prophecy this year, what with Melete appearing all over the city.

  That wind had a nip in it. Usually people avoided the necropolis at night, but there had been the odd attempt at grave robbery. Barbarians, of course, who had no respect for anything, even the dead. Ocrastes’ balls, was that a light there now, tonight?

  A ray of brightness moved along the paths between the vaults. The hairs on his arms rose, his mouth dried out. He’d never seen such a light before: more like pure moonlight. Worse, it sought him out and then skewered him, pinned him to the spot with its intensity, rendering him almost blind.

  A voice came from its centre: ‘Hadrin.’

  He quaked, speechless. By the many heads of Ocrastes, hadn’t someone been jabbering in the pothouse about strange lights? He hadn’t paid much attention. Gods preserve him!

  He shaded his eyes, and thought he saw a glowing figure on the pathway. There was no doubt in his terrified mind: this was Melete. She disseminated light as cold and as beautiful as the moon. Her golden hair swirled around her face, long and luxuriant. He couldn’t make out the features of her face, the light was too bright, but otherwise she looked just like her statue in the temple at the end of the Forum Publicum. She held something; a sword, he thought. Something not quite right about that. The statue clasped a scroll, didn’t it?

  She spoke. ‘Hadrin. The task I perform this night is not your concern. Go home and cover your eyes. Seek not to see the business of gods.’

  He prostrated himself, forehead to the flagstones. In truth, his knees would no longer hold his body upright. When he finally raised his eyes again, the figure had vanished. He scurried to all the home he had, the watchman’s hut at the entrance gate, where he dived onto his cot and pulled the sacking over his head. He stayed that way till sunrise, swinging wildly between delight that a goddess had appeared to him, and trembling fear at the very thought of the same thing.

  His garbled story in the pothouse that morning might have been dismissed as the ramblings of a man made crazy by his nocturnal wanderings in a graveyard, except that a group of young highborn revellers returning home late had reported seeing a glow of light moving up the cliff at the back of the necropolis. ‘Like the glow of moonlight,’ one man said.

  And then there was all that happened later on that day…

  CHAPTER SEVEN

  Ligea, dressed in dark trousers and tunic and wearing a pack on her back, hauled herself through the slit in the cliff above the necropolis and into the cavern beyond. It hadn’t been a difficult climb. The cliff face sloped; there were ledges and holes, and plants grew here and there to offer handholds. The toughest part was to find the particular cleft she and Brand had identified as a way of entering the cave complex beneath the temple. She had to use her cabochon, lighting her way by its glow.

  It was a relief to stand finally on the cavern floor and call the light into her sword. Everything was quiet and, apart from the Eternal Flame burning in the connecting cave, in darkness. She brushed off some dirt and leaves and sucked at a scratch on the back of her hand, cursing all thorn bushes.

  She found a hidden corner in the folds and crannies of the rock walls of the cave, extinguished the light in her sword and settled down in the enveloping darkness to wait. Once, she would have enjoyed the thrill of anticipation, the way excitement made her feel more alive, but not now. Now, too much depended on her. Favonius could turn up at any time with news of her treachery for Rathrox. Now there was Arrant. Even though he had not come close to death again, her cabochon periodically did relay knowledge of his weakness to her. His infirmity. His something-not-quite-right. And so she worried—and in her mind, even as she mocked her silliness, she named him Arrant as a talisman against the arrant stupidity of worrying about something she couldn’t alter and which might never happen anyway.

  Dawn brought a feeble light into the cave through slits and holes in the cliff, but no activity. It wasn’t until late morning, by which time she was drowsy with boredom, that she heard voices in the main cavern where the Eternal Flame burned. Two young women, by the chatter. She enhanced her hearing.

  ‘Esme is feeling ill again,’ one was saying.

  ‘She’s always ill,’ the other grumbled. ‘She says it’s the fumes.’

  ‘She’s ungrateful. I would give anything to understand what the Oracle said…’

  ‘Would you, though? Fancy having to live in the High Priestess’s villa the way Esme has to! I’d be too scared to open my mouth. And Esme never gets to go anywhere, or speak to anyone else. It’ud give me the shivers, that would.’

  ‘Maybe—but only those who can understand the Oracle have a chance to be High Priestess one day. And think of that, Valaria! A villa of your own. As much jewellery as you could ever wear. The pick of all the men in Tyr—’

  ‘I might’ve known you’d get to men sooner or later. Do we need more orlyx, Ania?’

  ‘No. There’s plenty next to the brazier. Here, give me a taper and I’ll go and light it. You sweep the floor.’

  Ligea tracked the Priestess Ania with her senses as the girl made her way into the narrow cave behind the Oracle and back again. After that, a desultory conversation commenced, centring around the debatable attractiveness of a male acolyte at the temple to Ocrastes on Galetea Hill. The faint headiness of orlyx began to drift through the caves, borne on discernible draughts of air. A few minutes later, the two women left and the caverns were quiet once more.

  At last.

  Ligea stood up and emptied the small cloth pack she had brought. From a flask, she poured water onto a cloth, which she then wrapped tightly around her nose and mouth, hoping it would be enough to protect her from the haze-dreams of the burning orlyx crystals. Then she stuffed everything back in the pack and hurried through to the main cavern.

  By the flickering light of the Eternal Flame in its huge bronze bowl, the stone lion that was the Oracle appeared to be struggling to escape the rock face, a beast imprisoned in the cave wall trying to wrench itself free. The dark holes of its eyes and nostrils and mouth dribbled fumes that gave life to the human-like face. The mane rippled. The eyes watched. The nostrils flared. The jaw moved. Incomprehensible words spilled out.

  Closer up, the lion shape was less distinct, the face more nebulous, but the acridity of the vapour caught in Ligea’s throat and her thoughts tumbled, out of control. Her vision blurred. The Oracle exhaled powerfully against her cheek, the puff blowing her hair away from her face. The stone chin, finely balanced, wobbled.

  Standing as far back as she could, she clamped a hand over the wet cloth across her nose and hurried to build a ward in front of the lion’s face—but several hand spans out from the rock so that fumes could still pass from the cave to the main cavern. The smell was foul. A tomcat’s noxious breath, she thought.

  Still hurrying, she squeezed through the unobtrusive entrance to the cave at the back of the Oracle, and then warded the way in, just in case. Inside, the flow of air from under the floor was heavy with the sulfurous stench of the underworld, mixed with the smell of the orlyx. She found the brazier and extinguished the burning crystals with the rest of her water. Fortunately, fresh air flowed in from above, to whip most of the vapours straight out into the main cavern.

  Less dangerous, but almost as annoying as the fumes, was the continuous murmur of the Oracle. She even caught herself listening intently, as though she could make sense of the words if only she concentrated a little harder. And yet she knew it was no more than the wind whistling through a crack in the rock. She and Brand had even located the particular fissure to blame.

  Damn it, why was it so easy for people to believe the gods were whispering to them?
Why believe that the inhabitants of Elysium wanted to talk to the earthbound in the first place?

  There’s got to be something better out there than this—this silly superstitious nonsense. One day, maybe I’ll have time to think about it.

  ‘Well, I’m going to shut you up today, anyway,’ she said, addressing the fissure. ‘See what you make of that. And it serves you right for allowing so many people to be so deceived for so long…’

  Sweet hells, what am I doing talking to a hole in the rock? I hope the fumes aren’t driving me crazy. And it was a damned pity cabochon healing didn’t work with headaches.

  She rummaged in her pack and drew out a reed-woven sack filled with uncarded wool. She stuffed it into the crack and the sound vanished. There! See how easy it is to silence the gods?

  She removed the sack, restoring the status quo. It wasn’t yet time to render the Oracle speechless.

  She took the stool from under the brazier and sat on it, careful to position herself where she had plenty of fresh air. Confident that she would not be seen, not when she sat in darkness and the fumes from the cracks in the floor of the cave distorted everything by creating their own illusions of movement, she looked through the Oracle’s mouth at the Eternal Flame and waited.

  Another half hour passed before she again heard voices out in the cavern of the Eternal Flame. Esme and the High Priestess Antonia. She unwound the wet cloth from her face.

  Now it begins, Antonia. Let’s see who wins this time around, you—or me.

  ‘Are you sure you remember everything?’ Antonia was asking as they entered the main cavern.

  ‘Yes, Reverence,’ Esme replied.

  ‘Then seat yourself. I shall return with the Prefect Urbis and the others. Remember, breathe deeply.’

  Ligea’s anger rose. The bitch wanted the girl to appear to be in a trance, half unconscious on orlyx fumes. It was a miracle Esme could remember what to say after breathing in that stuff.

  Esme didn’t reply. Obediently, she sat on the stool to one side of the Oracle. Her profile was exquisite. She had doubtless been chosen as the Selected One for her beauty—but her hands trembled in her lap. Impossible to think of her as anything more than a pawn in the hands of the unscrupulous, just as Ligea had once been.

  Ligea had not been going to speak to her, but the rush of compassion she felt was both unexpected and overwhelming. In the midst of all the horror that was to come, perhaps she could help one individual. The thought was enticing. Besides, it would be fun to subvert the instrument of those who practised deception.

  ‘Esme,’ she whispered.

  The girl’s head swung towards the Oracle, her expression appalled. She tried to speak but it was a moment before she could utter a word. ‘Who speaks?’ she stammered at last.

  This will be good practice. Now let me get the tone just right…‘Melete, Goddess, Patroness of Tyr, addresses you.’

  Esme flung herself from the stool, to lie flat before the Oracle. ‘Lady! Lady, forgive…’ The terror in her voice was so extreme, her fear so intense, Ligea felt a pang of horror.

  Oh hells, what have I begun? ‘Forgive you for what, child?’

  ‘For not being a good Selected of the Oracle! I always should be able to understand your words. But I can’t! I tried and tried and tried, and then the High Priestess took pity on me. She said she would come and listen early in the mornings, and then she would tell me what you said so I could repeat it…’

  That bitch of a priestess, Ligea thought. Making Esme feel inadequate, preying on her feelings of unworthiness. ‘Esme, you are forgiven.’

  The girl, still prostrate, started to weep.

  Ligea felt the beginnings of panic. Damn it, she should never have started this. Her misplaced compassion would ruin everything if Esme couldn’t pull herself together. ‘Rise, child, and take your seat. Your Goddess requires something of you.’

  Vortexdamn, is what I am doing any better than Antonia’s lies? Don’t kid yourself, Ligea. This is just as dishonest…

  ‘Anything! Anything!’

  ‘Then seat yourself.’

  Esme struggled up, her whole body shaking in her shock.

  ‘Calm yourself, Esme. And listen.’

  The girl managed to nod but she couldn’t control her trembling.

  ‘Antonia put her own words in the mouth of the Oracle, not mine. That was not your fault, and I do not blame you. Today there will be no words from your lips. Today it will be my voice that speaks.’ My lies that are heard. My deception. Damn it, this is harder than I thought it would be. ‘All you have to do is be still.’

  ‘Lady…’

  ‘Hush, Esme. One day perhaps you can undo the wrongs that were done here in my name. Until such time, I ask nothing of you.’

  Esme sobbed quietly for a while, but managed to gain some vestige of control by the time the High Priestess returned with the blindfolded Prefect Urbis of Tyr, Laurentius Maximus. Ligea peered out through the lion’s mouth, watching as others crowded into the cavern in their wake. When their blindfolds were removed by their priestess guides, she recognised them all.

  Behind Laurentius came Trademaster Lettactes, the pompous head of the Trade Guild and reputedly the richest man in Tyr, if you discounted the man next to him, Javenid Baradas of Assoria, the Reviarch, most senior of the moneymasters. Inscrutable would be the best word to describe Javenid. He wore the bright scarlet robes of his position, and his shaved head shone like polished marble. In bold contrast to the deliberate baldness of his scalp, the locks of his long grey beard cascaded to his waist. Pearls had been threaded onto the beard hairs in eight long strings, each string representing a family genealogy, each pearl a male ancestor, extending back to the time when the One True God Himself walked Assorian soils and swam the sacred river in the guise of a crocodile.

  Sethicus the Imperial Historian was next, stumbling along with the aid of a walking stick; she knew him as an elderly pedant who took pride in the accuracy of his recording of history. As a result, his work had not always pleased the Exaltarch. Some of his annals had been banned from public reading, even within the walls of the Academy of Learning, and Tyr wagered money on whether Sethicus could stay alive long enough to die a natural death.

  After him came the Legate Valorian, commander of the city’s legion and the city guard. She’d never met him, but she knew he was beloved by society’s matrons for his social skills and charm, and Favonius had once told her that, although he was a vain hedonist with an insatiable appetite for virile young athletes, Valorian was yet much respected for his military skills and bravery. With him was Seamaster Mescades, the middle-aged commander of the Tyranian home fleet.

  After them was Arbiter Cestonius Loyad, the chief judge, learned and honest, but not known for the compassion of his decisions. And lastly, the only man without a priestess guide and a blindfold. A man she knew all too well.

  Magister Rathrox Ligatan.

  Her stomach heaved. Her fingernails dug into her palms.

  I should have known he would be here. Obvious, when she thought about it. The Exaltarch would want someone he trusted to report back to him.

  She sat, rigidly still, her breathing suddenly uneven. This was the man who had sent her to capture and imprison her own cousin, Mirager-temellin. The man whose schemes had killed her mother and turned her father into the most vile of all traitors. The man who had mocked her as she grew up—and moulded her to be the instrument of destruction of her own people.

  Get a grip on yourself, Ligea.

  She could kill him so easily. One bright beam from her cabochon, sent through the mouth of the Oracle, and he’d be dead on the floor. And probably all those now gathered in front of the Oracle, except Antonia, would think it was the anger of one of the gods that had killed him. And even Antonia may wonder. Revenge could be so sweet. But would the confusion be enough to give her time to flee? She couldn’t be sure.

  No, the time is not right. Not yet.

  Antonia indicated Esme where
she sat on the stool, her eyes downcast, her expression rigid. The High Priestess may have thought the girl in a trance, but Ligea’s senses told a different story. Esme was petrified.

  ‘Prefect,’ Antonia said, ‘you remember Esme, the Selected of the Oracle? She will be revealing the words of the Goddess Melete to you, should the Goddess bless us with her gracious presence today. Or if one of the other blessed deities were to do so.’

  ‘Of course,’ the Prefect said. ‘Who could forget such a beauty and one so honoured by the gods?’

  One blast of her cabochon…

  Stop thinking about it. You are not Compeer Ligea any more. You will do what is best for everyone, not what gives you the most satisfaction.

  ‘Then let us pray to the Goddess, that she may grace us with her guidance,’ Antonia said.

  Ligea stuffed the sack into the fissure behind her and the Oracle’s voice abruptly halted. Rathrox frowned and looked at the High Priestess. Antonia’s eyes widened in surprise. Esme began to rock to and fro like a devastated child.

  ‘Antonia,’ Ligea said, her voice loud and unrecognisable even to herself as it resonated through the stone of the Oracle’s face. ‘On your knees before your Goddess. Prostrate yourself in supplication, for you have lied.’

  It was Esme who moved first. She flung herself down before the Oracle while Antonia, her mouth a circle of astonishment, stood paralysed. Several priestesses squealed and sank to their knees; the remainder followed a second later. The men were slower to follow, but follow most did, until only Antonia and Rathrox and the Assorian moneymaster were still standing. Ligea strove to isolate their emotions from the welter of shock and fear. Antonia, she realised with surprise, was not only appalled but almost as terrified as Esme.

  Vortexdamn. She thinks I really am the Goddess, and it scares the shit out of her. Now that is funny.