One of the priests said to him, “In this manner, the Lowland temples were made.”
“And so finely dressed?” Rem blurted in marveling anger.
“Yes,” the woman answered, “centuries ago. So finely, and more finely.”
“And beyond the curtain,” Rem said. “What’s there?”
“She is there.”
He shrugged to stop himself shivering. “Your goddess.”
“Anackire.”
The outer temple, the passages—they were a trick, a safeguard. Uninvited, none might enter here. Yet they had brought him here, because they sensed some supernatural element at work on him. He should resist, or he would lose himself. He winced at his thoughts. They were out of all proportion—Yet the sensation did not abate. He was turning to go when one of the men behind him, the other who had not spoken before, said quietly, “Cross the mosaic. When your feet touch the sky-borne dragons, the curtain will open.”
“More technology to astound the credulous.”
The man’s head was lifted in its hood. The eyes which looked into his were the color of the scaled curtain.
“Only logic,” the Lowlander said. “To approach so close to Her expresses a wish that you might see Her. And yet, to see Her at once, and always: How then are we to remember what She is, that an effort must be made to attain Her? Men grow too easy with familiar things.”
Rem turned again and observed the curtain. Its very wealth seemed to draw him, that and the thunder of flame across its fire.
He did not look for the dragons, but he must have trodden on them twenty paces or so from the curtain. Like a bright wing it soared away. Framed between the central pillars the statue rose, and stopped him like a blow.
She was only a small goddess, three times his own height, maybe a fraction more. The beauty of Her, the perfection of Her lines, led one to forget She had been fashioned. And yet She was bizarre, unhuman and terrible. That men and women, creatures of the world, could turn to this as to a mother—He smiled wryly, recalling the mother he himself had been given to.
Beneath the statue, a foible of the second continent he had been used to think, the bronze trough was filling with serpents as if with water. They came freely into or vacated the trough through holes that led away into their warrens under the floor. Their gold scales glittered like the huge scales on the looped curtain, and like the coiled tail of the goddess, for She too was a snake from the belly down. Her eight arms were upheld or outstretched in the traditional modes. He did not know their meanings, but some appeared benign, others cruel. Her eyes seemed to meet his own. Lowland eyes.
He, too, might have some Lowland blood, but then, Lyki would surely have flaunted it. It did not matter.
He had glimpsed representations of this goddess in the Ashara temples of Istris and Ioli, but they were not like the statue before him now, even when Ashara’s fishtail had been transformed to that of a water snake. Nor was the Vathcrian or Vardish Ashkar quite like this. And yet, Anackire Am Ankabek, modeled on the Lady of Snakes, the arcane deity of the Shadowless Plains—some part of Rem told him he had already seen Her, long ago, far away. Before he was even born.
Above the clearing, but west of the temple, the red trees gave way to oaks, and it was possible to look out between them to the dark blue sea of the long afternoon. Among the grasses stood a small stone Anackire, rough layman’s work. No offerings had been set before Her, for this was Ankabek, and She needed nothing.
Since the fever had left him, Kesarh had mostly slept. The priests of the place had come and gone. Day and night had come and gone. Rem had been at the door, or within call, except when sent away. Val Nardia had remained. Last night, waking, Kesarh had found her sitting on the low stool, exhausted from watching and asleep, her head beside his on the pillow. They had been together only what their blood had made them, brother and sister. And now, brother and sister still, they had come up here to gaze at the innocent sea. There was time enough for a prolonged convalescence. His last order had kept the two ships and their men at Tjis, where they were happy to stay, feted and adored, though the town would probably never recover. Meanwhile, the messengers must have space to reach Istris; the messenger dispatched to the King, and that other messenger Kesarh had dispatched for other purposes, the morning after the snake.
Val Nardia, paler now than Kesarh, sat close beside him. Her eyes on the ocean, she reminded him in swift sentences of their childhood at Istris, the old tower in the lower gardens from which they had watched the distant harbor, excursions into the hills. Or the summer Festival of Masks five years ago, when they had found each other in the crowds and known each other instantly. He drank the wine and water in the flagon and ate the fruits she pressed him to eat. He basked in her love, letting her see the weakness which had almost left him, nothing more. And she, he recognized, was his accomplice in the deception.
Speaking of Istris, however, brought her abruptly, like a slip of the tongue, to mention his departure. Her pallor deepened.
“When,” she said, “will it be safe for you to return? Must you go in fear of your life in Karmiss always?”
“I always have gone in fear. That’s how I escaped worse than a snake. But I had plans for this, the Zakorian sea-fight, the murder attempt. You see, Ulis, such things, or others like them, had to come. To be ready was everything.”
“Then—”
“Then my own men will alert the paid gossips of the capital. They’ll soon be active. My heroism will be paramount, that and the treachery offered me. By the hour of my return there’ll be flowers on the street for my chariot to crush, and he won’t dare try for me again.”
“I shall pray to Her it shall be so. And to keep you in her protection.”
“The goddess was his weapon against me in Tjis. Her sword, Her serpent.”
Val Nardia turned from him, bewildered, at a loss.
“His corruption, not the goddess’ will—But you’re certain it was the King?”
“Who else?”
“Some other enemy.”
“You think I have a variety and may choose?”
“Your ambition,” she said softly, “but more than this—this thing in you which frightens me. This has made you enemies. Is your way unalterable?”
He saw the dangerous path now, and avoided it. He lay down on the grass and told her his head ached.
Later, as he drowsed against her, he said, “I’m glad you came here. You’ll be out of the reach of any harm. Otherwise they might use you as a lever against me. Elsewhere I’m armored.”
“You would sacrifice me with all the rest,” she said remotely, without resentment or distress.
“Ah, no,” he said. “Not you.”
Not you.
Kesarh had been on the island of Ankabek ten days when the boat came from the Karmian mainland. It was full dark and the Red Moon had risen with the Star. Men ran from the village, and the arrival stood on the beach glaring at them.
“I am sent to the Prince Kesarh Am Xai, by Suthamun, the King.”
By dint of this lie, the man won through at last to the temple hostelry, and the poor cell where Kesarh now stood, healed and ominous in the sullen light.
“Good evening, Number Three.”
The man, one of the ten Threes of Kesarh’s guard, saluted him. “My lord, I have this message for you.”
The soldier recited. Seldom did Kesarh or his guard sergeant commit such things to paper. When the recitation stopped, Kesarh’s expression had not changed at all. He had, of course, no reason for surprise. Matters had run to plan. The riders, pausing for nothing and appropriating new mounts as they had to, had halved the journey time, and the work was well-advanced. Visian Istris seethed on his behalf. To go back now was as wise as it had been formerly to stay away.