“If I do,” Mouse had whispered, surprised at her own daring, “will the Silent Lady be spared?”
The Speaker had smiled in reply a smile that did not reach her eyes. “If you succeed, small one, you will look upon the face of the goddess and plead for her life yourself.”
So Mouse had gone. She had followed the blue star. She had risked her life in a cold nation where she did not understand the language. She had been nearly gutted by goblins.
And she had betrayed those who were her friends.
The Speaker’s eyes now bored into the shadows beneath Mouse’s hood. Mouse wondered, could she read her mind? She ducked her head, ashamed of her own thoughts. She hoped her attitude appeared merely humble.
The Speaker stepped back and made a final sign of blessing over the girl. Then she said, “Take care you do not undo all your good work. Take care you do not displease your goddess.”
Mouse trembled so much that she feared at every step she might fall as, led by the Speaker and flanked by other priestesses of high rank, she climbed the long stair of the Spire. She had never before stepped beyond the door at the top of the stair. She knew only that the altar burned above and that the goddess lived behind the altar.
The goddess whose face she was about to see. The dreadful holiness so near.
“Fire burn,” she whispered as she climbed. “Fire purify.”
At last they reached the end of their climb, and the Speaker opened the final doorway. A blast of wind, full of heat even at this height, struck Mouse in the face as she hastened after her mistress out upon a flat rooftop, the tower’s crest. No balustrade or barrier guarded against a fall to the dry plain below. The rooftop was bare except for the altar, which was red stone like the rest of the temple. On it burned the everlasting flame that must never die. And beyond the heat and smoke of that fire, the thin Spire itself, like a knife, pierced the sky.
In it was a curtained doorway.
The Speaker stepped forward and tossed a handful of black leaves into the fire. A billow of smoke rose up, and with it a strange smell. Mouse wanted to recoil but felt the presence of the priestesses behind her and did not dare.
“Come,” said the Speaker, beckoning, and Mouse had no choice but to approach. The high priestess put a hand on her shoulder and directed her toward the doorway. “Beyond lies the near abode of the goddess. Enter on your knees, and may your righteous heart guard you.”
As instructed, Mouse went down on her hands and knees, her eyes fixed upon the flat stone rooftop. She crawled, pushing through the heavy curtain, and her heart hammered like death tolls in her throat.
She entered a dark, small chamber that smelled heavily of incense, an incense that failed to disguise another scent Mouse could not at first recognize. Scattered about with no apparent order, little braziers gave off the dull red glow of dying embers. Otherwise, the room was empty, save for another red curtain, partially blackened by smoke and burned along the edges, which hung at its far end.
Beyond it, Mouse sensed a presence. A powerful, burning presence. The presence of Fire deified.
Sweat poured down her face, dampening her robes, dripping through the ratty ends of her hair. “Fire burn,” she whispered, then realized she had not spoken loud enough. Still on her hands and knees, knocking her forehead to the stone, she said in a loud, trembling voice, “Fire burn! Fire purify! Make us worthy in your eyes and let us see your face!”
She wasn’t certain if it was the right prayer for this occasion. No one had prepared her for what to say when she approached the goddess.
A voice emerged from the darkness beyond the braziers.
“Who is there? What do you want?”
It was like the hiss and spit of dying flame. It sounded as though it pained the throat and mouth of the one who spoke. Agony dripped from the words.
“I am . . . I am your humble servant,” Mouse said, afraid even to speak her name. “I have gone into the world beyond the mountains, and I have sought for he who might deliver Fireword into your hands.”
“Fireword?”
A low, hushed, horrible sound. The word itself was poison in the ear.
Mouse swallowed. She rose upright, her knees still on the stone, and made the signs of reverence due the goddess, the same signs she had made every time she lit the evening torches, again hoping this was right. “I have brought him to the Citadel,” she said, “as you commanded. And now I beg that you would spare the life of the Silent Lady, your great prophetess.”
She saw a hand. It crept out from behind the curtain and took hold. A large hand, gray even in the red light of the braziers. It fumbled, then gripped the curtain tightly and drew it back.
Mouse looked upon the face of her goddess.