Her goddess who was blind.
Her skin was gray ash, flaking from her body in a continuous cloud of dust. Her fingers were like bits of black charcoal, and she dug them into her own face, leaving black streaks. Her hair, as colorless as the rest of her, sizzled on the ends, red embers burning, and broke and fell away, but there was always more. Her form was like a woman’s but also not, for there was no femininity left in her.
But her eyes were the worst of all. They were like two small lumps of burning coal, red and crackling with heat. They saw nothing yet revealed her soul. They revealed her inner fire.
She opened her mouth, and glowing red and smoke billowed up from inside.
“The heir?” the Flame at Night said. “They have got the heir?”
“Yes,” Mouse gasped. “He’s in the dungeons even now. So please, please, spare the life of the Silent Lady!”
The Flame laughed. It was a hot, roiling sound that swept over Mouse and knocked her to the ground, her forehead pressed against the stone that was suddenly hot and painful to the touch. She saw sparks land and break upon the ground, and still the goddess laughed. Then there were words in the sound, and they were dreadful as well.
“At last! Send him, send him at once!” The voice rose to a manic frenzy. “Send him to the Diggings and bring me Etanun’s sword! I have waited too long for this. Bring me Halisa!”
Afraid she would be incinerated in the Flame’s eager joy, Mouse backed out, catching and stumbling over the long red robe as she went, trying to cover her face with her arms, forgetting all her prayers and all her signs in her haste. She felt the curtain behind her, turned, and fell through it, landing headlong upon the rooftop, which felt cool compared to the lair from which she had emerged.
There was no time for thought. The Speaker was kneeling beside her, lifting her to her feet. “Did you see the goddess?” she asked.
Mouse, coughing and hacking, could only nod.
“And she desires that we bring her the sword?”
Again a nod.
The Speaker released Mouse’s shoulders, letting the girl fall back to her knees. She strode around the altar, calling orders. “Prepare for the descent!” she cried. “We journey into the dark once more! The goddess has commanded.”
But Mouse, bent double, her stomach heaving, closed her eyes and forced back the scream, the sob that wanted desperately to escape. For she knew now. She knew the truth.
There was no goddess.
There was only the Dragonwitch.
As he lay in the dark, every sound was amplified to the Chronicler’s straining ears. He heard his fellow prisoner’s breathing, however light it was. Once or twice, he thought he heard her whisper, and even caught hints of words.
“Beyond the Final Water falling . . .”
He could not tell the passing of time in this place any more than he had in the Wood Between. All was darkness. A darkness cold and distant, even as the cell walls were close and pressing. He had to be careful not to let himself think. As soon as he did, his imagination would take over. It told him that the walls, already so close, were closer still. That they slowly compressed on all sides, ready to squeeze the life out of him.
He realized that his fist was clenched so tightly that it hurt. Slowly he unclenched it, and something gleamed in the dark.
Wondering, the Chronicler peered into a handful of sparkling water. Water that should long since have dripped away and evaporated, but which lay in his palm, a tiny pool of light.
Then, for an instant, the Chronicler thought he held rushing rivers in his hand.
The pound of approaching steps overhead. The Chronicler closed his fist, blocking out the light and the vision, and sat in darkness, straining his ears. He heard the thud of a procession making its way down the stairs. In another minute, there was the glimmer of a torch, and he turned to it as a moth to the flame, realizing that it might mean his death but desiring the warmth, the glow.
“Chronicler of Gaheris” came Imraldera’s voice, nearly lost in the approaching pound of feet, “if the sword is yours, you cannot give it to the Dragonwitch. Do you understand?”
He didn’t. Not the way she wished him to.
Slaves washed in torchlight flung open the grate above him, and he was dragged out by his arms, once more suspended between them. They carried him from the darkness of the dungeons, far from Imraldera’s voice, which called after him desperately, “Do you understand? Chronicler!”
Up the stairs they went and on out of the temple, outside into the blistering light of day that stung the Chronicler’s eyes like a thousand wasps. They carried him down the red stair cut in the foundation stone. By the time they neared the bottom, he could see, though blearily, the host gathered below. The high priestess, glorious in her wig and wreaths, stood at the head of the procession, her face shielded in a thick blindfold.