The Book of Fire Page 28

  She lets herself out and stands by the tall paneled doors, listening. If a frantic search is underway, it hasn’t yet reached this deep into the rock. She’s enjoyed this respite from the mundane life of the Citadel, but it’s also given her several days’ worth of thinking to work her way through. She sighs and hurries down the dim corridor, trying to decide where she prefers to be found.

  One level lower and several room blocks closer to the front, the halls are still unlit, but now she hears the muffled beat of booted feet and voices bellowing orders and information. She used to see it as a game. She created the occasional fuss like this when she was a rebel teen, intentionally losing herself just to break the tedium. Endless loud and threatening lectures from the God about the heavy weight of her priestly responsibilities (never mind what he said he would do to her if she didn’t stop) had rendered her more docile as she moved into adulthood . . . at least, until recently. Perhaps those other games were her training for now, when she can give them a true sense of purpose.

  Docile. The word sticks in her mind and slows her steps until it actually brings her to a halt. It’s not a word she’d have thought to apply to herself, and yet . . . it is what she’s been. Not the bright, beautiful, and tempestuous woman of her standard self-image, an image built entirely in the God’s vocabulary. Those are his qualities, which she has been allowed to play at but not truly BE. Like Luco, she has been only a mirror for the God. She has been indulged in the things that don’t matter in order to buy her compliance in the things that do. At least, the things that matter to the God.

  Standing immobile in the darkened corridor, Paia resolves to reverse this pattern. And she’s already decided what her first demand is going to be.

  Voices and feet approach from the lighted sector. Paia moves resolutely forward to meet them and, rounding a corner, runs smack into Son Luco with a contingent of worried Third Sons trailing behind him.

  Paia steps back and smiles. “Hello, Luco. I thought I’d come down and see if it’s all over.”

  Luco is caught off guard. It takes him long uncertain seconds to plant his fists on his hips and square his broad shoulders. “Where have you been?”

  “Up in back, of course.” Perhaps the appearance of docility will be useful for a while longer.

  “Of course?”

  Paia lets her hands flutter. “When the alarm sounded, I was so surprised, I just did what we always did when my father was alive: run for the safest spot in the Citadel!” She imitates his peremptory stance. “Really, Luco. Is this any way to greet your High Priestess?”

  Luco’s blue eyes narrow. He drops his arms to his sides, though his big hands remain fisted, and he bows to her from somewhere in the middle of his back. “Mother Paia. Forgive me. How miraculous to find you safe and well.”

  Behind him, the Third Sons are already on their knees murmuring thanks to the God. If any one of them had an ear for irony, their priestly training has burned it out of them.

  Paia nods graciously. “Tell me, First Son, what was the emergency?”

  “None that we could find, my priestess.” Luco smooths his long hair back with restless fingers. “An equipment malfunction, I suppose. I had thought the general alarms disabled, but it appears that I was wrong.”

  “Ah. Nothing to fear, then. What a relief.” Paia moves past him and between the kneeling priestlets. Sailing grandly down the corridor, she beckons airily behind her. “Son Luco, a word in private if you please.”

  Luco bounds after her to loom at her side, his perfectly sculpted mouth flattened with rage. “Now what are you up to?”

  “Please, Luco . . . I’m sorry if I worried you. I really didn’t think . . . I just ran. My father drummed it into us until it was practically an instinct.”

  “You’d be a lot safer if you ran toward me in an emergency instead of away!”

  “Oh, Luco, I wasn’t! I tell you, it was instinct.”

  The priest is silent for a moment, pacing along beside her, shortening his stride to match hers now instead of the usual other way around. Paia knows he’s deciding whether or not to believe her. Since her attempts to talk truth to him have all been rebuffed, she doesn’t mind that he suspects her of subterfuge. It’s an improvement over being taken entirely at face value. She smiles at him sidelong, reverting to the playful, pleasure-loving Paia he seems most comfortable with. “Besides, it got your heart rate up, didn’t it? Don’t you feel invigorated?”

  Before he can sputter a sufficiently indignant reply, she lowers her voice and waves him closer. “Now, Luco: I have a proposition to put to you. I’ve been thinking it over, and I’ve decided that in these hard times when the Faithful are so despondent . . .”

  “Who says they’re despondent?”

  “They’re always despondent! Look at how they live, see how fervently they pray! They must be despondent! Anyhow, I’ve decided it’s time for the Temple to return a gesture . . .”

  “You’ve decided . . .?”

  “A gesture of appreciation for their unswerving devotion and of hope for . . . no, don’t scowl. How about hope for tomorrow, even if not for the day after? Shouldn’t they be offered just a little something, at least until the Last Day is actually upon us?”

  Luco draws out his grunt of agreement until it comes out like a negative. “What sort of gesture did you have in mind?”

  “Well . . . they’re always coming to the Temple. I think the Temple should come to them.” Paia checks her mental ammunition and forges ahead. “In the person of their High Priestess. Who will make a Visitation to the ten most exemplary villages. You can come, too, if you like.”

  Luco’s jaw slackens. “Ten?”

  “Five, then. How many do we have? Luco, neither you nor the God ever tell me these things!”

  “Why should you care how many villages?” he retorts stiffly, then seems to hear how snappish he sounds. “I mean, Mother Paia, your holy duty is the care and feeding of their souls, whatever their number.”

  Paia pats his gold-banded arm. “Well spoken, my priest. You do the God credit. But how am I to truly understand what troubles them, be they one soul or many, if I have never walked among them?”

  “You walk among them every day, in the Temple. It’s the God’s decree that you do so.”

  “Oh, Luco, surely you can’t believe such a narrow view can build a true understanding of a human soul?”

  She feels him studying her without wanting to be seen to do so. Finally he says, “What’s gotten into you? Who have you been talking to?”

  Paia suppresses a laugh. Suddenly she’s infused with a heady sense of power. “Why do you say that? Can’t I have an idea of my own? Besides, who would I talk to, besides the God and you? I’m not allowed, remember?”

  “That doesn’t mean . . .” Luco lets out a breath and collects himself. “Have you presented this mad scheme to the God?”

  “Ah, mad, is it? And here I thought that you, as a man of the people, would approve of the idea, and help me convince him.”

  It’s the first time Paia can recall using her heritage as a weapon against him. When Luco was a mere foot soldier, she would not have bothered. By the time he was elevated to the priesthood, she’d learned the folly of saying “don’t tell me what to do, I was born here!”

  But Luco fields the challenge by ignoring it. “Have you?”

  “No.”

  To her surprise, he seems more interested rather than less. “As it happens, I think it’s a fine idea, though I’d have never dared propose it myself. If you can clear it with the God, I’ll arrange it.”

  They reach the end of the corridor, where it meets the major cross hall for that level. To the right and down are Paia’s quarters. To the left and farther down, Luco’s. Paia says, “Couldn’t we do it when he’s not around?”

  He laughs, sharp and quick. “You must be kidding.”

  “I thought perhaps he might trust us by now to make a few day-to-day decisions on our own.”

  “He does.
But parading the High Priestess of the Temple around the countryside where she’s an open target for any and all disgruntled patrons—never mind the highly paid assassins—is hardly the God’s idea of day to day. Or mine either. But if you get his permission, I’ll make it happen. It’d be good for you to have a better idea of what we’re up against here.”

  Paia glances at him, sees bleak reality surface briefly, only to be smothered once more by his Temple face, his Temple smile. “I’ll try.”

  Luco shows no inclination to see her directly to her door. He’s decided she can’t get into any more trouble between here and there. As officious as he is, and ever so deeply in the God’s pocket, Luco knows that she needs the occasional private moment, even if it’s only while traversing the hallways to her rooms. His clutch of acolytes gaze after her sheepishly as she takes the right-hand turn away from them, alone.

  As grateful as Paia is for Luco’s small gesture of trust, there is one little detour she intends to make before retiring to her chambers. Down level, along the hall a bit, then another hairpin turn. Another servants’ secret back stair, and she’s avoided the probably twice strong and doubly alert contingent of Honor Guard waiting about uselessly on her doorstep. She’s past them and trotting down dark corridors toward the winding stair to her tower studio. She takes the first twenty steps two at a time, amazed at her own vigor after such a long day of heavy mind work and racing about.

  But on the top step, she hesitates, seized by the conviction that there’s someone in the room. She listens for a long, long moment. Nothing. She is imagining things. No human could stay so still.

  The cavernous space is a symphony of light and darkness. A vast rectangle of cool moon brilliance falls through the big window, blinding her vision into the pitchy corners and the shadows as thick as smoke. Paia reaches nervously for the lantern in its niche by the entrance. Lit, it clears her path to the shrouded easel but it does nothing to lighten the weight of those night-black corners. Still, she has never been afraid in this room, and she resents feeling that way now, resents whoever has been violating her private space, her sanctuary, without at least explaining themselves. As she nears the easel, her courage and her ire blossom. If he, she, or they are here now, she will confront them. She welcomes the chance.

  Even so, she gasps softly when she sees the neatly folded note. This time it’s been pinned to the outside of the plastic tarp. Irritably, Paia rips it free and shakes it open to hold it up to the lantern’s pale flame.

  “Hunh,” she says, for the second time in less than an hour. She has wished for clarity, and this time, she has gotten it. She reads it again, and a third time, biting her lip.

  His aura explodes around her only an instant before he speaks. “What does it say?”

  Paia whirls, her heart nearly leaping from her chest. He is silhouetted against the bright window, his grand profile etched with moonlight. But he is not looking at her. He is gazing out the window, his broad back like a wall and his hair loose and wild like the plumage of an extinct exotic bird. There is just the faintest glimmer about him. “Where did you come from?” she gasps when she has breath enough.

  “What a ridiculous question. Where do I always come from? Wherever I have just been.”

  Paia swallows. “My lord, I meant . . . where have you been?”

  “To a place that no longer exists! Do not hope to distract me. What does it say, this paper you’re hiding in your hand?”

  The note is a crushed ball in her fist. Paia remembers the magic sword she’s just read about, how she imagined it would sound when being drawn from its sheath. The God sounds like this now.

  “Open it and read it to me. Every word.”

  “It’s nothing, really, just a . . .”

  “A what? A love letter?”

  “No, of course not! Just a . . .”

  “Read it to me!” he thunders.

  “Yes, my lord.” Paia flattens the paper against her thigh but doesn’t bother to look at it. How long has he been standing here, waiting for her to arrive and unfold it, his rage and frustration building because he is unable to perform this simple human task? “It says, ‘Is your luxury worth the burning of a village?’”

  “Ha!” The God tosses his head. The bird plumage becomes a nest of snakes winding about his head.

  “Has someone been burning villages?” she asks innocently, although by now she guesses the answer.

  “Of course. I have. And I will continue to as needed, to keep my enemies at bay.” He aims a gilded nail at the crinkled note. “This is sedition!”

  “Yes, my lord. I suppose it is.”

  “You suppose?”

  Paia is relieved to discover that once her shock has receded to the normal levels of fear and dread, the infant flame of her rebellion still burns within. “Well, after all, it’s only rhetoric, isn’t it? What could anyone actually do?” She picks up the lantern and moves toward him, away from the easel and its shrouded, subversive painting. “I mean, against the power of a God? Surely these poor villagers are not your enemies.”

  “Enemies of the Faith! Sedition must be stamped out wherever it appears, and while it is only rhetoric. Before it matures into treason. How else can control be maintained? Do you question my right or my wisdom? My view is longer than you can conceive of. Who are you exchanging messages with, beloved traitor?”

  “It’s no exchange, my lord!” Paia would like to discuss his long view with him, to hear his response to the history she has just learned. But the word traitor wakes new thrills of terror. She clings to what the computer has promised: the God cannot harm her. She prays it is true. “Someone’s been leaving these notes up here. This is only the second. The first one said, ‘What price survival?’ and I didn’t understand what it meant.”

  His head swivels toward her. His stillness is what’s most frightening. His eyes glow in his shadowed face. In man-form, he has never looked more dangerous, or more alluring. “And now you do?”

  “I think I am beginning to.”

  The God laughs softly. “And you asked me what had changed . . .”

  She meets his golden gaze as boldly as she can. To her astonishment, he looks away to the window, turning his back on her. A silence hangs like a scent in the air, mysterious, inviting. And then, for no reason she can explain, Paia finds herself frightened for him, rather than of him. How could that be? “My lord Fire, is there something wrong? I mean, something else? I wish you would tell me.”

  “It’s all wrong,” he growls. “All of it, all I’ve worked for. All my work through space and time.” He spreads his arms grandly, encompassing the barren moonlit hills on the other side of the thick glass. “All this. My art. The expression of my genius. It’ll all be gone if I cannot defeat them.”

  Paia understands nothing of this, except that he’s finally been distracted by thoughts of his enemies, and that he’s in pain. The God is in pain. Like his rage, it pervades the room. Amazed, she sets aside the lantern and goes to him, as close as she has ever volunteered to approach him in man-form, close enough to feel the charged heat that his manifestation generates. It prickles along her bare arms and up the middle of her back and, disturbingly, deep in her groin. She wishes she could touch him, to soothe the rage and restlessness out of him. She raises her hand as if to lay it on his chest.

  His chin lifts. His elegant lip curls in a sneer. “Don’t. We’ll only both be terribly disappointed.”

  Paia drops her hand but stands her ground. It’s he who chooses to move a step away from her. She studies him. The difference in him unsteadies her. “How did you come here this time without my knowing?”

  His sneer sharpens to petulance. “I have a few tricks left you don’t know about. Entire lives you never even see.”

  “You were . . . spying on me, my lord?”

  “I must be certain of your loyalty.”

  As if a keyed lock has just clicked, Paia becomes aware of an instinct she’s never noticed before: deeply buried, isolated, inacc
essible until just now, like the House Comp’s time-lag programming. An instinct to read the truth in him and of him, and the truth of their bond. His wild threats against her may well be nothing but emotional manipulation. But equally, she would be unable to do anything to harm him. She can’t imagine what that could be—how could one harm a God? She only knows that she cannot do it.

  Her lips are dry, and her throat even more so. She wonders how long they have stood there, side by side, unspeaking in the moonlight. When she looks up, he is looking down at her, and the distance between them is a zone of fire. She has never wanted any man as much as she wants him now. Except that he is not a man. This time it is she who backs away, one step, then two, brushing tears from her eyes.

  “My lord Fire, my loyalty to you is undying. It cannot be otherwise.”

  “Easier to promise than to prove.”

  “A shallow response, my lord, when I am trying to tell you something serious, something I am only just beginning to understand.” Her hours in the Library have left her with half-knowledge, supposition, guesswork and conjecture, with understandings instinctive but still vague and uncertain. “I mean that I am born for this. To serve you.”

  “Indeed. It pains me to hear that this is news to you.”

  “I mean that it’s more than duty. It’s in my blood. I have no choice. Nor do you.”

  “Be careful, my priestess . . .”

  Again his stiffness frightens her, but she’s gone too far to stop now. “My lord, I mean that . . . it is decreed by history.”

  “Decreed? History? How dare you!” He spins away from her, then whirls and seems to launch himself at her. Paia recoils as heat washes over her in a torrent. The hair on her outstretched arm is singed by his passage. “It’s their doing! They have put this into your head!”

  “No! No! It’s not true!”

  “How would you know? No matter! It’s all lies! Lies! I will not be ruled! By you or any other!”

  Instantly he is before the easel, looming over a covering he cannot physically remove. The cavern shudders. The very bedrock shakes, glows hot and liquid. Magma. Paia crumples to the floor, the softening liquid rock. The computer was wrong. This is how he will destroy her. Not by his own hands but by . . . and there, he is Himself, a vast gilt-scaled monster coiled in the room with the easel at the center of his arc. His great barbed tail lashes at the wooden worktables and the piles of stacked canvases, sending brushes and palettes and mixing bowls flying, while a single ivory claw hooks the easel toward him to snag the plastic tarp and rip it free.