Rising Wind
Uvis White-Hand, favorite of dark Zmeos, was wounded by Kernios and
was taken from the field to die. In his rage, the Horned One beat down
brave Volios of the Measureless Grip, stabbing him with his terrible sword
Whitefire until the war god's blood turned the river Rimetrail red, and at
last the giant son of Perin staggered, fell, and died.
— from The Beginnings of Tilings The Book of the Trigon
PINIMMON VASH, THE PARAMOUNT MINISTER of Xis and its possessions all across Xand, looked at his closet with disaffection. Three boys, naked except for artful decorations of gold around their necks and ankles, cringed on the carpet. The slaves knew what it meant when their master was in an unhappy mood.
"I do not see my silk robe with my family nightingale crest. It should be in the closet. That robe is worth more than your entire families to the sev¬enth generation. Where is it?"
"You sent it to be cleaned, Master," one of the slaves ventured after a long silence.
"I sent it to be cleaned and brought back. It has not been brought back. I am going on a voyage. I must have my nightingale robe."
Vash was just debating which one of them to beat, and if he had time to beat two, when the messenger came. It was one of the Leopards, dressed in the full panoply of warfare and very conscious of the days of fire and blood
just ahead. The soldier stood straight as a broomstraw in the doorway, touched his palm to his forehead in salute, and announced, "Our lord Sulepis, the Master of the Great Tent, requires your immediate attendance."
Pinimmon Vash carefully hid his irritation: it was not wise in these days of universal upheaval to give anyone even the slightest thing to mention to an ambitious courtier or (might all gods forbid it!) the autarch himself. Still, it was annoying. He could not imagine when he would find the time be¬fore leaving to give these boys the discipline they deserved, and even his large shipboard cabin was a place of little privacy. Nothing to be done, though. The autarch had called.
"I come," he said simply. The Leopard guard turned smartly on his heel and strode out of the room. Vash paused in the doorway.
"I will be back very soon," he told his servants. "If the nightingale robe is not in the closet, all of you will go up the gangplank limping and weep¬ing. If the robe is not in excellently clean condition, I will be taking other servants on my voyage. You three will be floating down the canal past your parents' houses, but they will not recognize you to weep over you."
The look on their faces was almost worth the tedium of having to go and listen to the ravings of his mad and extremely demanding monarch. Vash was an old man and he enjoyed the few simple pleasures left to him.
The autarch was being bathed in a room filled with hundreds of candles. Vash was all too used to seeing his master naked, but he had never quite grown unused to it. It was not because the autarch's nakedness was an ugly thing, not at all: Sulepis was a young man, tall and fit, if a trifle too slender for Vash's taste (which tended toward round cheeks and small, childlike bellies). No, it was that his nakedness, which should have provoked thoughts of vul¬nerability or intimacy, seemed… unimportant. As though Sulepis wore a body only because it was convenient, or demanded by his station, but really would have been just as comfortable with nothing more than a skeleton or skinless meat or the stone limbs of a statue. The autarch's nakedness, Vash had decided, had nothing much of the human about it. He never felt even a twinge of desire, shame, or disgust looking at the autarch, when any other un¬clothed man or woman would summon one of those feelings, if not all.
"You called for me, Golden One?"
The autarch stared at him for a long moment, as though he had never seen his paramount minister before-as if Pinimmon Vash were some stranger who had wandered into the monarch's bath chamber. The candlelight rippled across the monarch as though his long body was something dulling at the bottom of the Eminent Canal. "Ah," he said at last. "Vash. Yes." He gestured limply toward a figure on his other side, half obscured by the steam of the huge bath. "Vash, you must greet Prusus, your scotarch."
Vash turned to the crippled creature, who swayed in his litter as though caught in a high wind. Many thought he was simpleminded, but Pinimmon Vash doubted it. "A pleasure, Scotarch, as always. I hope I find you well?"
Prusus tried to say something, grimaced, then tried again. His round face contorted as though he were in agony-speaking was hard for him at the best of times, and even more difficult in front of the autarch-but he only got out a few grunting syllables before Sulepis laughed and waved his hand.
"Enough, enough-we cannot wait all day. Tell me, Prusus, how do you pray? Even Nushash must lose patience with your jerking and mumbling. Ah, and our other guest, Polemarch Johar. Vash, you and Johar already know each other, yes?"
Vash bowed slightly to the spare, cold-eyed man, as almost to an equal. Ikelis Johar, high polemarch of the autarch's troops, was a power unto him¬self and although he and Vash had not yet clashed over policy, it was in¬evitable that one day they would. It was equally inevitable that one of them would not survive the clash. Looking at Ikelis Johar's cruel, humorless mouth, Vash found himself looking forward to that day. One could have too much leisure, after all. "Of course, Golden One. The Overseer of the Armies and I are old friends."
Johar's grin was as humorless as that of a lion sniffing the breeze. "Yes- old friends."
"Johar is in a cheerful mood-aren't you, Overseer?" said the autarch, stretching his arms so a slave could oil them. "Because soon he will have a chance to give his men some exercise. Life has been dull the last few moons, since Mihan capitulated."
"With all respect, Golden One," Johar said, "I'm not certain I'd call be¬sieging Hierosol merely exercise. It has never fallen by force in all its long history."
"Then your name will live in glory beside mine, Overseer."
"As you say, of course, and I am grateful to hear it. The Master of the Great Tent is never wrong."
"That's true, you know." The autarch sat up as if struck with a sudden and pleasing thought; one of his slaves, trying desperately to avoid an in¬correct contact with his master, almost slipped and fell on the wet floor. "It
is the." god in me, of course-the Mood of Nuchash himself running through me. I cannot be wrong and I cannot fail." He sat back just as sud-denly as he had risen, making the water rush back and forth in waves from one end of the large tub to the other. "A very comforting tiling."
But if that is so, my very great lord, Pinimmon Vash could not help think ing, it did not save your brothers, who also had the blood of the god in them, from losing a great deal of that holy blood when you took the throne. This thought nat¬urally stayed private, but he could not avoid a pang of fright when the autarch looked at him and smiled with wicked amusement, as if he knew just what heretical ideas his paramount minister was harboring.
"Come, there is much to do-even for one like me who cannot make mistakes, eh, Vash? Someone take the scotarch to his chambers. Yes, farewell, Prusus. No, save your breath. We all must prepare for the cere¬monies of departure, the consecration of the army, and everything else." The autarch's smile twisted. "I need my most loyal servant at my side. Will you stay with me while the slaves dress me?"
The old minister bowed. "Of course, Golden One."
"Good. And you,Johar, doubtless have many details to see to. We depart at dawn."
"Of course, Golden One."
The autarch smiled. "Two strong men but the same obedient words. The harmony of infallibility. What a beautiful, melodious world this is, my dearly beloved servants. How could it be better?" The autarch laughed, but with an odd harshness, as though he fought some kind of doubt. But the autarch never doubted, Vash knew, and the autarch feared nothing. In all the years he had known Sulepis, from his silent, studious childhood to his sud¬den and violent ascension to the throne, Pinimmon Vash had never seen the autarch anything other than confident almost to the point of madness.
"It is a beautiful world indeed, Golden One," Vash said in the silence after the laughter, and despite the sudden chill that squeezed his heart he did his very, very best to sound as though he meant it.
She walked right out the door and no one stopped her. One moment all was light and warmth and the reassuring sound of her brothers and sisters breathing in their sleep, the next moment Qinnitan had stepped into the sudden, surprising cold of a night with no moon.
The houses and shops of Cat's Eye Street were only shadow-shapes, but it didn't matter. She knew the place as well as she knew the geography of her own body, knew that Arjamele's doorway would be just here, and the loose stone of the next doorway along would catch her toe if she didn't step over it. She knew the shape of everything, but she also knew that some¬thing was different-something in the dark, cold street had changed.
The well. The lid was off the well.
But that was impossible: the well was always covered at night. Still, even though she could not see it-could see almost nothing but the indistinct shapes of the buildings looming around her, black against the deep velvety purple of the sky-she knew it was uncovered. She could feel it like a hole in the night, a deeper black than anything she could see with her eyes. And worse, she could feel something in it-something waiting.
Still moving helplessly as though led by some god, she walked forward, feeling her bare soles against the gritty sand. The stones of her street, a street almost as old as Xis itself, had long since surrendered to the flowing sands which got into everything. No matter how hard the women of Cat's Eye Street swept, the stones would never be seen again. But it was said that some of the oldest houses had cellar rooms with doors that had once let out onto this very street when the stones had still been visible, although now those doors could no longer be opened, and would admit only cen-turied dust if they were.
Qinnitan felt the well before she saw it, the waist-high ring of stone with emptiness at its center like an untended wound. She thought she could hear a faint noise as of something in the depths gently pushing the water to and fro.
She leaned forward, although she did not want to, although every sense she had screamed out for her to turn back toward the house and the safety of her sleeping family. Still she leaned farther, until her face was over the invisible hole, until the faint noises were rising straight up to her ears- slish, splush, slish, something gently stirring down in the darkness.
Was it a monstrous eight-legger such as she had seen in the market, a sort of wet sea spider with limbs as slippery and loose as noodles? But how could such a thing get into the well? Still, whatever it was, she could feel it as well as hear it, sense its inhuman presence somewhere below her.
Now she could feel it moving. Coming upward. Climbing, with inhu¬man strength and patience, up the smooth, clammy stones, climbing right up toward her where she leaned helplessly over the well mouth, her limbs
stiff as stone. She could feel it in her head as well cold thoughts, alien wishes unclear but unmistakable as fingers around her throat. It was climb ing toward her as intently as if she had called it…
"Briony! Help me!"
At first she thought the startling voice came from the thing in the well, but it sounded like a real person-a young man, frightened as she was frightened. Was someone calling her? But why call her by that unfamiliar name?
The thing in the well did not stop or even slow the sticky slap of its climb. Qinnitan tried to scream, but could not. She tried again, but the scream could only build and build inside her until it seemed she would burst like a flooded dam.
"Briony! I'm here!"
She could feel him, as if he stood just on the other side of the well- could almost see him, a pale, pale boy with hair as flame-red as the streak in her own dark locks, a boy staring at her without seeing, his eyes haunted…
"Briony!"
She was terrified. The thing's wet fingers were curling on the lip of the well and the boy couldn't even see it? She wanted to know why he called her by that strange name, but instead when she found her voice at last she heard herself ask him, "Why are you in my dreams?"
And then the blackness burst up from below and the boy blew away like smoke and the shriek at last came rushing out of her, rising, ragged…
Qinnitan sat up, gasping. Something had a grip on her and for a moment she struggled fruitlessly against it until she realized it was not huge and chilly but small and warm and… and frightened. It was Pigeon. Pigeon was hanging onto her, grunting with fear. He was terrified, but he was try¬ing to comfort her.
"Don't worry," she said quietly. She found his head in the darkness, stroked his hair. He clung to her like a street musician's monkey. "It was just a bad dream. Were you frightened? Did you call me?"
But of course he couldn't have called her-not in words. The voice had been a dream, too. Briony. What a strange name. And what a terrible dream! It had been like the nights when she had lived in the Seclusion, when the priest Panhyssir had given her that dreadful elixir called the Sun's Blood, that poison which had left her feverish and terrified that it was stealing her mind.
Remembering, Qinnitan shivered helplessly. Pigeon was already asleep again, Iris bony little body pressed against her so that she couldn't lower her arm, which was already beginning to ache a little. How could she have be¬lieved that the autarch would simply let her go? She was a fool to linger here in Hierosol, only a short distance across the sea from Xis itself. She should pack up in the morning, leave the citadel and its laundry behind.
As she lay cradling the boy in the darkness, she heard something moan¬ing: outside the dormitory, the winds were rising.
A storm, she thought. Wind from the south. What do they call it here? "Red wind"-the wind from Xand. From Xis…
She rolled over, gently dislodging Pigeon. His breathing changed, then settled into a low buzz again, soothing as the drone of the sacred bees, but Qinnitan could not be so easily calmed. Winds push ships, she thought. Sud¬denly, sleep seemed farther away than the southern continent.
She got up and made her way across the cold stone floors to the main room, reassuring herself by the sound of the sleeping women she passed that all was ordinary, that only night's darkness was making it seem strange. She stepped to one of the windows and lifted the heavy shutter, wanting a glimpse of moonlight or the sight of trees bending in the wind's grasp, any¬thing ordinary. Despite evidence of the ordinary all around her, she half-expected to find Cat's Eye Street and the uncovered well outside, but instead she was soothed to see the high facades of Echoing Mall. Something was moving on the otherwise empty street, though-a manlike figure in a long robe walking away down the colonnade with casual haste. It might simply have been one of the citadel's countless other servants returning home late, or it might have been someone who had been watching the front of the dormitory.
Holding her breath as if the retreating shape might hear her from a hun¬dred paces away, Qinnitan let the shutter down quietly and hurried back across the dark house.
There were times that the great throne room of Xis seemed as familiar to Pinimmon Vash as the house in the temple district where he had spent his childhood (a large dwelling, but not too large, a dream of wealth to the servants but only one residence out of many that belonged to the eminent Vash clan). This throne room was the Paramount Minister's place of work,
after all: it was understandable that he might sometimes fail to notice its size and splendor. But sometimes he saw it for what it truly was, a vast hall the-size of a small village, whose black and white tiles stretched away for him dreds of meters in geometric perfection until the eye blurred trying to look at them, and whose tiled ceiling covered in pictures of the gods of Xis seemed as huge as heaven itself. This was one of those times.
The hall was full. It seemed as if almost every single person in the court had come to see the Ceremony of Leavetaking-even twitching Prusus was here, who generally only left his chambers when Sulepis demanded his at¬tendance, and who Pinimmon Vash was seeing for an almost unprecedented second time in one day. Vash was glad to see that the scotarch, nominal suc¬cessor to the monarchy, had been dressed as was fitting in a sumptuous robe too dark to show the spittle that dripped occasionally from his chin.
The monstrous chamber was so crowded that for the first time since the autarch's crowning, Vash could not see the pattern on the floor. Everyone was dressed as if for a festival, but instead they had been standing in silence for most of the morning as the parade of priests and officials filed past to take their places in front of the Falcon Throne, dozens upon dozens of functionaries who only appeared on these state occasions:
The Prophets of the Moon Shrine of Kerah
The Keepers of the Autarch's Raptors
The Master of the Sarcophagus of Vushum
The Chiefs of the Brewers of Ash-hanan at Khexi
The Eyes of the Blessed Autarch of Upper Xand
The Eyes of the Blessed Autarch of Lower Xand
The Oracle of the Whispers of Surigali
The Master of the Sacred Bees of Nushash
The Scribe of the Tablet of Destinies
The Wardens of the Gates of the Ocean
The Supplicators of the Waves of Apisur
The Wardens of the Royal Canals
The Keeper of the Sacred Monkeys of Nobu
The Sacred Slave of the Great Tent
The Master of the Seclusion of Nissara
The Chief of Royal Herds and Flocks
The Master of the Granaries of Zishinah
The Priests of the Coming-Forth of Zoaz
The Guardians of the Whip that Scourges Pah-Inu
The Wardens of the Digging-Stick of Ukanion The Priests of the Great Staff of Hernigal
There were other priests, too, many more: Panhyssir, high priest of Nushash and the most powerful religious figure in the land next to the autarch himself, along with priests of Habbili and priests of Sawamat (the great goddess who, truth be told, had far more priestesses than priests, but whose female servants, like the priestesses of the Hive, were subordinated to their male masters and had only a token presence)-priests of every god and goddess who ever lived, it seemed, and of a few that may have existed only in the tales of other deities.
And as many court functionaries crowded the chamber as priests, the Favored of the palace and the whole men of the autarch's army and navy, stable masters and kitchen masters, the clerks of records and the scribes of all the granaries and butteries and storehouses of the gigantic Orchard Palace, not to mention the ambassadors of every tame country that now danced to the autarch's tune: Tuan, Mihan, Zan-Kartuum, Zan-Ahmia, Marash, Sania, arid Iyar, even a few abashed envoys from the northern con¬tinent, representing captive Ulos, Akaris, and Torvio. There were islanders from distant Hakka wearing their skirts of palm fronds, and chieftains of the desert herders, camel masters and sneeringly proud horsemen of the red desert, from whom the autarch's own family had sprung, but who had the sense now to bend their knees beside everyone else. (To be master of the desert and kin to the autarch himself might be a matter of pride, but too much pride in the presence of the Golden One was foolishness; the few fools bred by the sands did not usually live to adulthood.)
Sulepis himself, the Master of the Great Tent, the Golden One, the God-on-Earth, stood before this assembly like the sun in the sky, clad only in a spotless white loin cloth, his arms raised as though he were about to speak. He said nothing, however, but only stood as the Slaves of the Royal Armor, under the direction of the high official known as the Master of the Armor-a position reserved for the closest thing to a friend the autarch had, a plump young man named Muziren Chah, eldest son of a middling noble family; Muziren had shared a wet nurse with the infant Sulepis but had no royal blood himself. Under Muziren's silent (but still obviously anx¬ious) direction, the Slaves of the Royal Armor clothed the autarch first in billowing pants and blouse of red silk embroidered with the Bishakh fal¬con, then pulled on the monarch's boots and belt and emblems of office,
the amulet and the great necklace, both made of gold and fire opal. Then they began to draw on his golden armor, first the breastplate and kill of del icate, tough chain, then the rest, finishing with his gauntlets. They draped his great black cape on which the spread wings of the falcon had been stitched in golden wire, and then lowered the flame-pointed Battle Crown onto his head.
When the priests had perfumed the autarch with incense it was Vash's turn. He carried up the cushion bearing the Mace of Nushash, gold-plated and shaped like a blazing sun. Sulepis looked at it for a long instant, a half-smile on his face, then winked at Pinimmon Vash and lifted the mace high in the air. For a moment the paramount minister felt certain the autarch was about to dash out his brains right here in front of all these gathered no¬tables-not that any one of them would have dared even to murmur in surprise, let alone protest-but instead he turned to face the sea of people and bellowed in his high, strong voice.
"We will not rest until the enemies of Great Xis have been subdued!"
The crowd roared its approval, a noise that started low like a moan of pain, then rose until it seemed as if it would rattle the tiled images of the gods overhead right out of their heaven and bringing them crashing down to earth.
"We will not rest until our empire spreads over the world!"
The roar grew louder, although why any of them should have cared whether Xis stretched its sway one inch, Vash couldn't imagine.
"We will not rest until Nushash is lord over all-the living God on Earth!"
And now the noise really did threaten to dislodge the tiles from the ceil¬ing and even shake the pillars that kept heaven and earth separated.
The autarch turned and said something to Vash, but it was lost in the storm of approval. He turned back and waved his hands for quiet, which came quickly.
"In our absence, the Master of the Armor, Muziren Chah, will care for you as I care for you, like a herdsman his goats, like a father his children. Obey him in all things or I will return and destroy you all."
Wide-eyed, the assembled courtiers nodded their heads and mumbled praise and in general did their best to look as if they could not even imag¬ine what disobedience meant; Vash, though, had to struggle to keep his face expressionless. Muziren? The autarch was leaving the simpleton Master of the Armor on the throne? Surely that was the role of Prusus, the crippled
scotarch, or even of Vash himself as paramount minister what could be the reason for such a bizarre choice? Was it merely that Muziren was no threat to take the throne? It was hard to believe Sulepis could feel that he would become so vulnerable simply by leaving the city, not with a quarter of a million men at his command and the blood of a hundred kings in his veins?
Muziren Chah took the circlet of regency from the autarch and then dropped to his knees to kiss Sulepis' feet. The autarch dismissed the crowd. (None of them were so foolish as to move from the spots where they stood until Sulepis himself had departed.) The autarch turned to Pinimmon Vash. "To the ships," he said, grinning. "Blood is in the air. And other things, too." Vash had no idea what he meant. "But… but what of Prusus, Golden One?" "He is going with me. Surely our beloved scotarch deserves to see a lit¬tle of the world, old friend?"
"Of course, Golden One. It is just that he has never traveled before…" "Then enough talk. I will need my most trusted minister, too. Are you ready?"
"Of course, Master of the Great Tent. Packed and ready to travel, ready to do your bidding, as always."
"Good. We shall have a most interesting adventure." The autarch stepped back into his litter-now that he was dressed in the royal armor, he could not set foot outside the throne room in the normal way, and in fact could not touch ground in Xis until he reached his ship. His brawny slaves lifted him and carried him out of the room, leaving Vash to wonder why it seemed to him as though the world had suddenly spun a little way out of its accustomed orbit.