SEVENTY-ONE
Outside the palace, it was later than I had reckoned. Time moved differently in the spirit world, and it seemed the presence of Jehanne’s spirit had altered the flow of time in the twilight, too.
I returned to the temple of the Maidens of the Sun, thinking to take a moment to collect my thoughts before the sacred fire. A lone figure knelt before the firepit, tending to the coals. She glanced up at my approach.
“Machasu,” I said in greeting. “You do not sleep?”
She shook her head. “I was thinking of Cusi. I, too, wanted to spend the night in prayer.” In a graceful, reverent gesture, she stirred the coals. Low flames flickered. “I did not think you were coming here tonight, lady.”
I knelt beside her. “Nor did I.”
“Is all well?” she asked.
My diadh-anam burned steadily in my breast, calling to Bao’s in the distance, no longer in danger of being extinguished on the morrow. Jehanne had kept her promise. She had found a way to free me from my conflicting oaths. Whatever else happened come dawn, I would not be cast out of the presence of the Maghuin Dhonn Herself for eternity because I honored one oath, and broke another. Bao would not die because there was no way out of the oaths that bound me.
For that, I was grateful.
And yet it did not remove the burden of choice from me. It only altered it. Now I could obey Raphael without losing my diadh-anam.
But I could still refuse him and be forsworn if it were the only way to keep him from attaining his goal.
“Lady?” Machasu prompted me.
“I do not know,” I said honestly. “But before I went to see Lord Pachacuti, Cusi told me all was well. She is closer to the matter than anyone. If anyone would know, it is her.”
“I think so, too.” Machasu stirred the coals again, then fed them a few sticks of firewood. “Do you think she is frightened?”
“A little, maybe,” I said. “But she has great faith.”
“Do you think it will hurt?” she asked.
I clenched my hand on the newly reopened wound. It hurt, but it had hurt a great deal more when Cusi had cut me with the dull-edged bronze dagger. And although I wanted to utter a soothing lie, it felt like blasphemy in this holy place. “Yes,” I said quietly. “I think it will hurt.”
“I think so, too,” Machasu repeated. “But it will be swift. And then the ancestors will welcome her into the highest heaven.”
I nodded. “So we pray.”
“Yes.”
My handmaiden fell silent, tending the fire. I gazed into the shifting embers and breathed the Five Styles, praying to the Maghuin Dhonn Herself to guide me. The great magician Berlik had broken his oath and been forgiven in the end, finding atonement in the distant Vralian wilderness.
But in the end, Berlik had given his life in penance. It was part of the bargain. What penance had I to give if I broke my oath? It was not the same, not at all. There would be no one to claim my life as a right of justice.
Trust me.
The words echoed throughout the temple, spoken in a voice as deep as oceans and as vast as mountains. I jerked my head upright, my chin having sunk to my chest. The sacred fire flared and crackled as Machasu fed it an especially dry branch, throwing a massive shadow on the wall—a shadow with an imposing silhouette filled with bulk and grace that I’d seen but once in my life, but would never forget. A bear, but a bear far, far greater than any mortal bear. As the flames danced it appeared to move, pacing with profound and solemn grandeur, and then shrank and dwindled as the fire subsided from its first eager blaze.
“Did you hear that?” I asked, my voice trembling. I pointed at the wall. “Did you see it?”
Machasu gave me an odd look. “Lady, you slept for a time. I did not wake you, for I thought you must need it.”
My ears still rang with the words. Trust me. Jehanne had spoken the same words to me.
Mayhap it was why I had dreamed of them.
Or mayhap I had not dreamed. The scent that lingered in my nostrils was not Jehanne’s perfume, but somewhat older and more savage—earthen and musky, tinged with the scent of wild berries.
Trust me.
I pressed the heels of my hands to my eyes. “I don’t know what that means!” I cried aloud. “Trust, and keep my oath? Or break it, and trust to Your forgiveness?”
There was no answer.
My diadh-anam gave no guidance.
“Lady?” Sounding worried, Machasu tugged at my arms. “I am sorry your dreams were troubled, but dawn is near. I should have awakened you sooner. It is time to go and make ready.”
I lowered my hands, summoning a reassuring smile. “You’re right. Forgive me. It is as you said, I am short on sleep. Let us go.”
A short time later, we assembled in the Temple of the Ancestors.
The first light of dawn gilded the snow-capped peaks of the mountains that lay west of Qusqu.
Streams of ants scuttled throughout the streets of the city, accompanying us in an informal manner. I walked in procession with the high priestess Iniquill, Ocllo, and a half-dozen Maidens of the Sun including Machasu, all of us clad in garments of fine-combed vicuña wool. Theirs were dyed a saffron hue while mine was blue, trimmed with red and saffron embroidery.
The temple was already crowded, filled with Prince Manco’s Quechua warriors in D’Angeline armor, and other Quechua of high standing. I recognized the Sapa Inca’s elder sons among the latter. Everywhere, ants crawled.
The ancestors in their gallery watched silently, blank, sunken faces wrapped in cerements, their laps filled with flowers.
Raphael de Mereliot stood behind the altar. He wore a long robe of scarlet wool, belted with gold, a great emerald-studded collar around his neck. His head was bare, awaiting the crown, and his face was stern and beautiful. Last night had been his final crossroads, and he had made his choice. There was no trace of the tormented mortal man who had loved so deeply and endured such a bitter loss. Somewhere in the small hours of the night, he had put the past behind him. Raphael was ready for the mantle of godhood.
At a gesture from him, his knights made way for me. Temilotzin caught my eye as I passed and gave an infinitesimal nod, his expression more grave than I’d ever seen it.
It should have reassured me, but it didn’t. All he knew was that Cusi and the men had been safely delivered to the temple last night. My stomach was in knots, and I felt ill. Ah gods! I’d taken so much on trust. Now it seemed the gods asked me to take a further leap of faith, and I didn’t even know in which direction.
“Moirin.” Raphael acknowledged me in a flat tone. “Are you prepared?”
“Aye, my lord,” I murmured, wishing it were true.
He gazed at the sea of copper-colored faces regarding him with superstitious awe, at the impassive figures of the ancestors, at the winding lines of ants. “Today will be a glorious day,” he said, more to himself than to me, drinking it all in. “Today will be a day that lives forever in history.”
I said nothing.
Raphael glanced at me. “You should be honored to witness it, Moirin. You should be honored that the gods have chosen you for this. But you have never, ever valued the gifts you have been given.”
I met his gaze. “And you have never, ever understood them, my lord. I was not put on this earth to serve your ambition.”
“You are mistaken,” he said simply. “Your presence here is proof.”
And then we spoke no more, for somewhere in the hidden chambers beyond the stairs at the rear of the temple, a drum began to beat. Silence settled over the Temple of the Ancestors. Even the restless ants stilled. The Quechua watched Raphael with fascination, awaiting the coronation of this second Lord Pachacuti the Earth-Shaker who had overturned the order of the world. Raphael fixed his own gaze at the apex of the stairs, awaiting the arrival of the head priest and the willing victim who was to be sacrificed on the altar before him, the terrible, worshipful offering he believed would give him the power to contain the fallen spirit Focalor.
Atop the stairs, Cusi appeared.
She stood alone for a moment, clad in a long shift of unadorned white wool, her black hair loose and gleaming over her shoulders, and ah, stone and sea, she looked so young! She gave a faint, tremulous smile, one cheek dimpling, and I knew that despite everything, she had to be afraid. Raphael stared hungrily at her, his breathing quickening.
I closed my eyes for the space of a few heartbeats.
When I opened them, the high priest had emerged to stand behind Cusi, and although his face was obscured by a gilded mask depicting the sun god and gold bands hid the tattoos on his forearms, I knew by the flare of my diadh-anam that it was Bao.
His head was averted, the hilt of the bronze knife clasped in his right hand. And I thought in a panic that this was wrong, all wrong. There was no way Bao could commit this dreadful deed, no way that he could take an innocent girl’s life in cold blood in the service of the unknown dead and foreign gods.
Even as Raphael began to frown, wondering why they did not descend the stairs in procession, a line of priests behind them, a cry of protest rose in my throat.
But before I could give voice to it, Cusi spoke. “Brothers and sisters!” she cried. “The hour of our need is upon us!”
Beneath the shadow of the ancestors’ gallery, the assembled Quechua turned, staring up at her in wonder.
Beside me, Raphael swore savagely, gripping my shoulder and shaking me. “What the hell trick is this, Moirin?”
I bit the inside of my cheek until it bled, wishing I could turn back time, wishing it were yesterday again and this was not happening.
Atop the stairs, Cusi sank to her knees. She lifted her chin, her pretty face luminous. Now that she had begun the invocation, there was no more fear in her. “Great ancestors, hear me!” she called, her voice clear and strong. “I call upon you to save us in our hour of need! In your names, I offer myself as willing sacrifice!”
“No!”
Raphael shouted the word, and I whispered it, but it was already too late. Bao’s hand trembled only slightly as he laid the bronze blade against Cusi’s slender throat. He did not hesitate. With one powerful slash, using all his strength to compensate for the dullness of the blade, he slit open the girl’s throat.
A river of blood spilled from Cusi’s throat, soaking the white wool of her garment and turning it crimson. Her eyes rolled up in her head, and she fell forward, catching herself briefly on her hands, her hair trailing in her own blood.
Blood spilled over the top stair; more blood than it seemed one small body should hold. It poured into channels etched into the carvings behind the gallery of the ancestors, limning them in scarlet.
There was shouting and pandemonium in the temple, the Quechua jostling and shoving and yelling amongst themselves, Raphael attempting in vain to regain control of the situation.
It was old Iniquill’s voice that rose above the fray, high and fierce and quavering. “Let the ancestors speak!” she cried, pointing. “It is as the great Mamacoya foretold!”
The Quechua fell silent.
Atop the stairs, Cusi lay crumpled and still. Bao stood motionless, the knife yet in his blood-stained hand, his face yet hidden behind the sun god’s mask. Runnels of blood made their way through the carved channels, made their way toward the seated figures of the ancestors. Drop by drop, blood fell to darken their ancient cerements.
Bones creaking, the ancestors stirred.
I stared, as transfixed as everyone, my heart in my throat.
“No,” Raphael muttered frantically. “No, no, no! This is wrong, all wrong.” Pacing, he grabbed Prince Manco’s arm and pointed toward the head of the stairs. “Seize him! Seize the false priest!”
The prince hesitated.
Standing atop the stairs, Bao dropped the bronze knife and removed the high priest’s golden mask. Behind it, his face was streaked with tears, but his voice was steady. “There is no falsehood here save yours, Lord Pachacuti!” he called. “You are no god, only a man misguided. I have bridged the worlds between life and death, and today I pay the price for it.”
In the ancestors’ gallery, eight seated figures slowly began to rise, their brittle, blood-stained cerements crackling. Flowers spilled from their withered laps, desiccated fingers gripped bejeweled weapons. And still the blood continued to fall, drop by drop.
Abandoning Prince Manco, Raphael returned to pluck the Sapa Inca’s crown from the altar, placing it on his own head.
“It is done,” he said wildly. “So be it.” Lightning flared in his eyes as he rounded on me. “It is done! I rule in Tawantinsuyo; I, and I alone! I am worshipped here! Moirin, call your magic! Now!”
Trust me.
There was no time left to think.
Placing my faith in the Maghuin Dhonn Herself, in the words of my lady Jehanne, in the dead and the living and every god I knew, I obeyed.
I summoned the twilight.
“Focalor!” Raphael shouted, flinging his arms wide. “Come to me!”
In the temple, a doorway onto a raging maelstrom opened. The fallen spirit was there in inchoate form, answering the call of the spark of its essence that remained in Raphael de Mereliot. Raphael laughed aloud in triumph, and then stiffened. A thunderclap broke with a sound like boulders splitting and lightning-shot darkness poured through the doorway, poured into him, entering his open mouth. He cried aloud, his body convulsing in agony. Without a true sacrifice in his honor, he was not strong enough to contain it.
Mayhap he never would have been, but of a surety, he wasn’t now. The storm that was Focalor’s essence was consuming him.
And I felt the strength draining from me.
Bedecked with flowers, clad in finery, the ancestors continued their slow descent from the gallery, bony limbs clicking and creaking. The black tide of ants gathered and rallied, swarming them to no avail.
They could not stop the dead.
The tempest raged in the doorway, raged through Raphael’s mortal flesh. Half the folk in the temple cried aloud in fear, pushing their way toward the doorway; half gazed in dumbstruck awe at the awakened ancestors. Ignoring the futile onslaught of ants, the Quechua ancestral dead continued their inexorable assault, ancient faces blank beneath their wrappings, war-clubs raised by crumbling fingers, petals falling all around them.
It rained marigolds, garlands severed and petals shredded by the relentless mandibles of the ants. Yellow and orange and gold and bronze, the latter a deep hue like blood drying, like Cusi’s blood beginning to congeal on the stairway. I had fallen to my knees. Bits of cerement fell, and I caught glimpses of aged bone gleaming beneath tattered wrappings, bones gnawed in vain by Raphael’s unnatural army.
I could not turn back the dead, either. But the storm that held Focalor’s essence was another matter.
Lifting my head, I met Raphael’s eyes.
In our different ways, we had loved and hated in equal measure, Raphael and I. Each other, Jehanne. My magic. Between his ambition and my youthful folly, we had left a trail of dead between us, beginning with poor, doomed Claire Fourcay and ending with my sweet, innocent handmaiden Cusi. Now he was drowning in Focalor’s essence; drowning, and unable to save himself.
He grimaced, seeing his failure reflected in my gaze. There was enough of him left to recognize me. It was too late for Cusi, too late to halt the dead. It was not too late to banish Focalor. I prayed Raphael would hear me, for if he did not, the fallen spirit would be loosed unfettered on the world, and I did not think even the dead could stand against it.
“Raphael,” I whispered. “Please…”
He shut his eyes, his throat straining as he fought to force the words out past the influx of Focalor’s essence. “Close the doorway, Moirin,” he gasped, his chest heaving. “I was wrong. I erred. Forgive me if you can. Just… do it.”
I did.
It took strength, a great deal of strength. But I was not the foolish young woman I had been so long ago. Gathering every ounce of resolve that I possessed, I rose from my knees and faced the maelstrom I had unleashed. I was a child of the Maghuin Dhonn Herself, and no one’s useful tool. The memory of Her acceptance lent me strength. Although thunder crashed, lightning crackled, and the wind howled in protest, I poured myself into the effort. I beat Focalor’s essence back into the spirit world and closed the doorway, releasing the twilight at last with a sigh.
Shuffling across the temple floor on bony feet, the dead converged on Raphael, weapons raised. One by one, their weapons fell, bludgeoning him.
There was blood, darkness, and flowers.
And I shut my eyes.
I didn’t want to see the end.