Divinities don’t bleed, she thinks. Not since the last time I checked.
She continues up the stairs. The droplets of blood increase. Mulaghesh is perversely reminded of a lover leaving a trail of rose blossoms to their bed.
Finally the stairs end at a large foyer—one that seems far too big for the narrow white tower she saw from the ground. Its ceiling is arched and is covered in what appear to be stone swords, all carved at strange angles, like stalactites dangling from the roof of a cave. Empty, dusty lanterns hang along the wall. She guesses they haven’t seen use in years, maybe decades.
She walks in, mindful to move quietly. Then she sees the throne.
It’s difficult for Mulaghesh’s mind to determine exactly how big it is: sometimes it seems to be merely fifteen or twenty feet tall, but then the room will shift and warp, bending at the edges of her vision, and it will seem as if the throne is hundreds of feet tall, even miles tall—a giant, terrible construction that looms over her like a storm cloud. But no matter the size, its features remain the same: a bright red chair formed of teeth and tusks, all crushed or melted together, sticking out at strange angles. Wide arcs of horns and antlers sprout from the throne’s back, curving to form something like a rib cage around the chair. Mulaghesh imagines Voortya taking her place in this terrible seat, her plate mail gleaming and her silent, still face staring out from the cage of antlers like a cold, dark heart.
She shivers. Then she notices something at the feet of the throne: a pair of shoes. Normal ones, women’s shoes. They’re of a very old fashion, small and brown, featuring a modest heel. She can’t help but get the impression that their owner thoughtlessly kicked them off while taking her seat on the throne.
What in the hells?
She takes stock of the room. The door on the opposite side is far, far too large for a person, nearly four times as tall as the tallest man. Still not big enough for the Divinity she glimpsed on the cliffs, but couldn’t a Divinity change their size at will? Couldn’t they do more or less anything at will, really?
Mulaghesh looks down. The trail of blood leads across the receiving room and through the giant door to the chambers beyond.
She looks at it for a long time, thinking. Then she slowly stalks through the columns and through the door, rifling raised. The trail of blood droplets leads through a large door on the other side, then around the corner and down the hall.
She hears someone talking, or rather muttering. They’re cursing, it sounds like. And there’s a quiet clanking, too, as if they’re wearing armor.
Mulaghesh puts her back to the wall and slowly creeps through the doorway, rifling trained on the space ahead.
She reflects that this is possibly an incredibly bad idea. The only thing she knows about anything Divine is to stay away from it, as far away from it as one possibly can. As this person (if it is a person) seems to be occupying Voortya’s throne room, or private chambers, or something very personal to that Divinity, then all logic suggests she should back away now.
But she doesn’t. Something is moving down the hallway. Mulaghesh abandons all protocol and puts her finger right on the trigger: she’s willing to abandon trigger discipline in a situation like this.
She thins her eyes, watching. The person paces into view, then back out.
It’s a woman, she sees, a human woman, or at least she appears to be. The first thing Mulaghesh notices is that she’s both wounded and unarmed, clutching her left shoulder. Blood drips from her fingertips in a slow leak. But the second thing Mulaghesh sees is that she’s dressed…well, like Voortya: she wears the ceremonial plate armor Mulaghesh glimpsed days ago on the cliffs outside of Fort Thinadeshi, covered with horrific images of conquest and sacrifice. It’s just that this suit of armor is about one one-hundredth the size of that one, and there appears to be a bullet hole drilled into the left pauldron.
The woman is turned around so that Mulaghesh can’t see her face. A tall window is on her opposite side, allowing the pale moonlight to pour in, making it even harder for Mulaghesh to see, but she can make out that the woman’s hair is dark, as is her skin.
A Saypuri? How could that be?
What in all the fucking hells, thinks Mulaghesh, is going on in this mad place?
Whatever this woman’s story is she’s definitely no god, no Divinity, and certainly no sentinel. And she can bleed, which means Mulaghesh’s rifling might be an actual threat.
The next time the woman paces into view, Mulaghesh barks, “Freeze. Hands where I can see them.”
The woman nearly jumps out of her skin. She cries out, as this jolt obviously hurts her shoulder.
“Hands where I can see them!” says Mulaghesh again. “And turn around!”
The woman stiffens, then slowly does so, rotating on the spot.
Mulaghesh’s mouth opens, and she almost drops the rifling.
The woman’s face is familiar, but of course it is: Hasn’t Mulaghesh seen that visage in paintings and murals in schools and courtrooms and city halls, staring out with steely eyes on any number of estimable proceedings? Hasn’t she seen this woman in countless history books, the face that emblematizes one of the most important periods in the history of Saypur? And, more recently, hasn’t Mulaghesh seen this woman’s face every single time she paged through Sumitra Choudhry’s files?
“Holy hells,” says Mulaghesh. “Vallaicha…Thinadeshi?”
Thinadeshi glares back. It’s unmistakably her: the high, aristocratic cheekbones, the sharp nose, the piercing eyes, the face of the woman who in so many ways built Saypur itself, and tamed much of the Continent.
Thinadeshi looks her up and down. “You!” she says angrily. “You’re the one who shot me!”
The Divine world is largely incomprehensible to us, truly, a world of arbitrary and capricious miracles. But it did have rules, countless ones, all dictated by the Divinities—yet in many cases the Divinities could not break the rules they themselves had created.
What a Divinity said was true, was instantly, irrefutably true. In saying this they overwrote reality—including their own. In some ways the Divinities were slaves of themselves.
—DR. EFREM PANGYUI, “THE SUDDEN HEGEMONY”
Wha…What?” says Mulaghesh. “Shot you?”