Nessaket made her way between gryphons and gargoyles, past chairs and benches, to the great statue of Herzu, gleaming in the light of high wall-sconces. His face looked down at her from a distance of twenty feet, fangs gleaming, eyes fierce. The dead baby in his left hand looked downwards too, eyes blank. She had achieved little; Herzu was impatient. All Nessaket could offer in recompense was a sacrifice. She reached into the pouch where Dreshka had placed a dove for her, well-trained by the palace birdman to trust her hands. She took it from the velvet and it fluttered its wings, adjusting to its new freedom. She wrapped one hand around its body and twisted its neck with the other before climbing up on the altar to place it in Herzu’s right hand. All was silent.
Tuvaini had once told her that he dreamed of Herzu as a handsome, tall man, not unlike himself. Perhaps gods revealed themselves within their worshippers, showing themselves both kin and stranger, human and deity, at once. Nessaket had never dreamed of Herzu; He did not favour her. She knelt on the rough mat that surrounded the altar. The stiff fibres below her knees were meant to cause discomfort and, over time, a unique pain. Nessaket prayed until her knees were on fire.
Once finished, she examined the dim corners of the nave. She did not see Dinar among the seats and statues, but this was not unusual; he often retreated beyond sight of the worshippers, his priestly tasks shrouded in power and mystery. This did not concern her. As empire mother, she had her own power; he would come. “Dinar?” she called out, moving to the side of the altar where a door led to the private chambers. It stood open but only blackness moved beyond it. “Dinar!” He would hear her. He would come.
And he did, appearing as a darker form cut from shadow, a dream of Herzu himself, finally granted to her. “You are here,” he said, as if he had been waiting, “come.” He moved back into the swell of night, beyond her vision, and she had no choice but to follow, blindly, feeling her way along the wall. For the first time she wondered what occupied his time beyond the altar, here in the dark, but she would show no fear. After a minute an open door shed light onto her path, and she could see Dinar ahead of her, his muscled arms hanging to his sides, his shoulders straight and square, a bloody knife in his hand.
No fear. She continued to move towards him and stepped into a bright, dirty room that stank of vinegar. Lit candles were scattered over every surface; the light flickered a sickly yellow and gleamed against his bald scalp. Besides the table she had seen, a desk and a chair stood against the wall, and a set of tall, disorganized shelves graced the far edge of the room. Every surface lay covered with books, melted wax and spatters of what looked like blood. “I need deadseeds.” Deadseeds would take care of any unborn heir inside of a concubine.
Dinar moved to the shelves and tossed a book aside, then two. Finally he lifted a ceramic canister tied to a rope and shook it. Nodding to himself he cut the rope with the knife and returned to her. “Deadseeds.” He put the canister in her hands and regarded her with flat, cold eyes as he produced a small pouch and held it up for her inspection. “And pika seeds.”
Nessaket turned the cold clay in her hands, heard the plinking of the deadseeds within. She had used pika to kill Tuvaini’s lover Lapella and it had not been a kind death.
Dinar spoke into the silence. “The empress sent a slave to fetch pika seeds of her own. But you hesitate.”
Nessaket thought of Mesema, her honest face, the way she spoke without thinking. “The empress is not capable-”
But Dinar grabbed her hands and slammed them against the wall, holding them there as he spoke, his breath against her face, smelling of garlic and bitter root. “You think I will protect your son, when you do not protect him yourself?”
The pressure against her hands grew intense; tears came to her eyes. “I am the empire mother! I-”
“Empire mother twice over,” he agreed, twisting the skin around her wrists, “and what have you accomplished? Beyon satisfied his bloodlust here in the palace, but we could have done more. So much more. The whole world under Herzu’s great gaze.”
Nessaket jerked her hands from his grasp. The pouch full of pika seeds dropped from his palm and made a soft landing on the floor. “Arigu and I would have succeeded but for the Pattern Master,” All those plans, so carefully laid upon the pillows. Her betrayal of Beyon. For a moment she saw his dark eyes, the way they had been before his brothers died, when he still loved her. “But that future has not been lost. When Pelar is on the throne, and Daveed his trusted advisor, a man of Herzu…”
“Why speak of the future, when today a Mogyrk austere wanders the palace freely?” Dinar stepped away. “And when the emperor is ready to declare peace with him?”
“I have slowed the negotiations. But they will go on if steps are not taken. His wife-”
“His wife is more powerful than you? A tiny child from a land where the god hides?” Dinar smirked. “Perhaps so; after all she asked for pika seeds. Perhaps she will use them and your suffering will please Herzu.”
She thought of Arigu, gone beyond the mountains, Tuvaini, dead, Beyon, dead. “How dare you. I am the empire mother.” It could not all be about suffering. There had to be something at the end, some reward, some reason for all the pain and betrayal and blood.
Dinar turned and walked out into the dark corridor. She lifted the pouch of pika seeds and followed him. He would not get the best of her. He came to another door, opened it and stepped in, and now she saw how he had occupied himself while she prayed. A massive golden hand lay upon the floor, large enough for two people to lay end to end in either direction, cupped for sacrifice. A man lay upon it, motionless and covered with blood; his eyes were closed. Dinar had peeled back the skin of his chest and secured it with hooks. What he had done with the reddish murk below she could not tell. It looked like the red, pulpy centre of a blood-orange. Dinar had sewn shut the man’s mouth; behind the black threads that held closed his lips she could see cotton stained with blood. A chamber-pot scent mixed in the air with another, something of rotting leaves and dead things.
“You want to give your son to Herzu. You should see what it is you do not understand.”
Vomit rose in her throat but she could not look from the tortured man. He held a fascination.
“Look.” He held her shoulders and pushed her towards the prisoner. “Look at the bone beneath his flesh.”
She followed the line of a colossal finger, eyes on the white solidity of breastbone. As she drew close the man screamed inside his throat, moving for the first time, his legs thrashing against her shin. “He’s alive.”
“What is pain to a dead man? Of course he is alive.”
She drew back and watched Dinar use his knife to clean dried blood from under his fingernails. “Only by stripping away the flesh do we find the spirit of a man.”
She wondered if it were possible for Mesema to go behind her back, to obtain pika seeds in secret. As she had gone behind Beyon’s back. “No,” she said, “love can be stripped away. Trust. That, too.”
“Yes.” Something in his face told her that he preferred to do it with a knife. “When all is stripped away, one shines with the dark of Herzu.” He turned to her, smiling like a cat, his knife gleaming where the blood did not cling to it. “Now you understand.”
Nessaket held the canister to her chest. “I do.” Herzu demanded all, or nothing-war, or peace-with Daveed making up the balance. She backed away, out into the dark corridor. Dinar had forgotten her; he occupied himself with his sacrifice. Images flashed in her mind as she walked to where her guards waited; black thread through a bloody lip; bloody rib bones; Dinar’s smile. The god grew impatient. The pouch filled with pika seeds felt heavy in the palm of her hand. Something terrible would have to happen.