A servant woke him an hour before dawn and led him by candlelight down into the courtyard, where the royal couple’s inner household was to have its holy vigil. The air was chill and foggy, but a few faint stars directly overhead promised a fair dawning soon. Ibran-style prayer mats had been arranged around the central fountain, and each person took their station upon them, on knees or prone as they were so moved; Iselle and Bergon knelt side by side. Lady Betriz placed herself between the royesse and Cazaril. Dy Tagille and dy Cembuer, yawning, hurried in to join them on the outer ring of rugs, with some half a dozen other persons of lesser rank. A divine from the temple led a short prayer aloud, then invited all to meditate upon the blessings of the turning season. All over Taryoon, winter’s fires were being extinguished. When all was in readiness, the last candles were blown out. A profound darkness and silence descended.
Quietly, Cazaril laid himself prone upon his rug, arms outstretched. He told over the couple of spring prayers he knew three times each, but then gave up trying to fill his mind with rote words to keep his thoughts out. If he let his thoughts run their course, perhaps some silence would follow. And in it he might hear . . . what?
He changed the subject, Betriz had charged, when the answers were too difficult for him. He’d tried to do so to the gods. He hadn’t fooled them either, apparently.
Ista had been given her chance to lift the curse, and failed; and had failed, it seemed, for her generation. If he failed, he suspected he would not be allowed to go around to try again. So would Iselle or Bergon or both get to be the new Orico, holding back the tide until they foundered, to create the next chance?
They will be vastly unlucky in their children. He knew it, suddenly, with a cold clarity. The whole of their scheme for peace and order rode upon the hope of a strong, bright heir to follow them both. They would pour themselves until empty into children miscarried, dead, mad, exiled, betrayed . . .
I’d storm heaven for you, if I knew where it was.
He knew where it was. It was on the other side of every living person, every living creature, as close as the other side of a coin, the other side of a door. Every soul was a potential portal to the gods. I wonder what would happen if we all opened up at once? Would it flood the world with miracle, drain heaven? He had a sudden vision of saints as the gods’ irrigation system, like the one around Zagosur; a rational and careful opening and closing of sluice gates to deliver each little soul-farm its just portion of benison. Except that this felt more like floodwaters backed up behind a cracking dam.
Ghosts were exiles upon the wrong border, people turned inside out. Why didn’t it work the other way around? What would it be like to be an anti-ghost of flesh let loose in a world of spirit? Would one be frustratingly invisible to most spirits, impotent there, as ghosts were invisible to most men?
And if I can see ghosts sundered from their bodies, why I can’t see them when they’re still in their bodies? Had he ever tried? How many people were ranged around him right now? He closed his eyes and tried to see them in the dark with his inner sight. His senses were still confused by matter; somewhere in the outer rank of prayer rugs, someone started to snore, and was nudged awake with a startled grunt by a snickering companion. If only it worked that way, it would be like seeing through a window into heaven.
If the gods saw people’s souls but not their bodies, in mirror to the way people saw bodies but not souls, it might explain why the gods were so careless of such things as appearance, or other bodily functions. Such as pain? Was pain an illusion, from the gods’ point of view? Perhaps heaven was not a place, but merely an angle of view, a vantage, a perspective.
And at the moment of death, we slide through altogether. Losing our anchor in matter, gaining . . . what? Death ripped a hole between the worlds.
And if one death ripped a little hole in the world, quickly healed, what would it take to rip a bigger hole? Not a mere postern gate to slip out of, but a wide breach, mined and sapped, one that holy armies might pour in through?
If a god died, what kind of hole would it rip between earth and heaven? What was the Golden General’s blessing-curse anyway, this exiled thing from the other side? What kind of portal had the Roknari genius opened for himself, what kind of channel had he been . . . ?
Cazaril’s swollen belly cramped, and he rolled a little sideways to give it ease. I am a most peculiar locus at present. Two exiles from the world of spirit were trapped inside his flesh. The demon, which did not belong here at all, and Dondo, who should have left but was anchored by his unrelinquished sins. Dondo did not desire the gods. Dondo was a clot of self-will, a leaden plug, digging into his body with claws like grappling hooks. If not for Dondo, he could run away.
Could I?
He imagined it . . . suppose this lethal anchor were suddenly and—ha—miraculously removed. He could run away . . . but then he’d never know how it might have worked out. That Cazaril. If only he’d hung on another day, another mile, he might have saved the world. But he quit just an hour too soon . . . Now, there was a damnation to make the sundered ghosts seem a faint quaint amusement. A lifetime—an eternity?—of second-guessing himself.
But the only way ever to know for certain was to ride it out all the way to his destruction.
Five gods, I am surely mad. I believe I would limp all the way to the Bastard’s hell for that frightful curiosity’s sake.
Around him, he could hear the others breathing, the occasional little rustle of fabric. The fountain burbled gently. The sounds comforted him. He felt very alone, but at least it was in good company.
Welcome to sainthood, Cazaril. By the gods’ blessings, you get to host miracles! The catch is, you don’t get to choose what they are. . . .
Betriz had it exactly backward. It wasn’t a case of storming heaven. It was a case of letting heaven storm you. Could an old siege-master learn to surrender, to open his gates?
Into your hands, O lords of light, I commend my soul. Do what you must to mend the world. I am at your service.
The sky was brightening, turning from Father Winter’s gray to the Daughter’s own fine blue. In the shadowed court, Cazaril could see the shapes of his companions begin to shade and fill with the light’s gift of color. The scent of the orange blossoms hung heavily in the dawn damp, and more faintly, the perfume of Betriz’s hair. Cazaril pushed back up onto his knees, stiff and cold.
From somewhere in the palace, a man’s bellow split the air, and was abruptly cut off. A woman shrieked.
Chapter 27
Cazaril put a hand to the pavement, shoving himself to his feet, and pushed back his vest-cloak from his sword hilt. All around him, the others were rising and looking about in alarm.
“Dy Tagille.” Bergon motioned to his Ibran companion. “Go see.”
Dy Tagille nodded and departed at a run.
Dy Cembuer, his right arm still in a sling, clenched and unclenched his left hand, awkwardly freed his sword hilt, and began striding after him. “We should bar the gate.”
Cazaril glanced around the courtyard, and at the tiled archway. Its decorative wrought-iron gate swung wide after dy Tagille. Was there another entrance? “Royesse, Royse, Betriz, you must not get trapped in here.” He ran after dy Cembuer, his heart already pounding. If he could get them out before the—