Yet then there’s one shout that rings out above the muttering: “Who is that there?”
Everyone stops, frowning, to see who’s shouting. It proves to be a bowlegged man at the back with a ratty beard, and he leaps up onto his bench and flings a finger at Mulaghesh. “Who is that beside you? Who is that with the wooden hand?”
“Ah, shit,” mutters Mulaghesh, sinking low in her chair.
Then someone else cries out: “It’s the soldier who was there when Kolkan was slain!”
Balakilya screams triumphantly, “You see? Do you see? Why would Saypur bring the lieutenant of the god-killer if they did not fear the retribution from the Divine? Why would she be here if not to defend them against the vengeance of Voortya!”
“I…think I’m going to back out on this one,” Mulaghesh says, standing. “I’m pretty sure my presence here isn’t helping much.”
“Leave now,” says Signe, “and you’ll only inspire more questions.”
“She leaves because it’s true!” shouts Balakilya, striding to stand in the central aisle. “She fears the truth, so she flees from it!”
“See?” says Signe.
“General Mulaghesh,” says Biswal, looking up, “perhaps if you could spare a few words for—”
“She’s come to murder whatever’s left of our culture!” cries Balakilya.
“She’s here to force us to bow to the whip of Saypur!” shouts another man.
“Oh, for the love of…” Mulaghesh walks to the railing. “You want to know why I’m here? Here of all places on this damned world?”
“Tell us!” shouts one of the men below. “Tell us!”
“Fine!” snarls Mulaghesh. “I’m on vacation, you dumb sons of bitches!”
A loud silence echoes over the Galleries. Mulaghesh turns and strides away. As she walks through the door she hears someone say, very quietly, “Did she say vacation?”
***
Mulaghesh sulks in the hallways of the Galleries as she waits for the assembly to end. The Galleries are a deeply strange place to her: the interior is like being inside the bones of a massive beached whale, its roof made of white, arcing ribs, topped with a line of vertebrae with spinous flowerings. The thunderous shouts from the assembly chamber begin to feel like the roar of water, and suddenly it’s not so difficult to believe that she’s trapped in the belly of some undersea leviathan.
Bored, she looks at the displays along the walls of the Galleries, which are curated like the walls of a museum. She strolls down the hallway, absently looking at each one—though she quickly sees these aren’t just art pieces.
The first display is a massive, rounded standing stone that—according to the sign beside it—was carved by Saint Zhurgut himself during his “elevation.” It looks to Mulaghesh as if the stone’s been run through a sawmill: it’s been hacked and slashed many, many times, yet never cracked. Whatever blade sank through this stone did so perfectly, like a knife through butter. The sign reads:
Upon gripping his blade forged by Voortya, Saint Zhurgut was elevated, ascending into a state of pure warfare and battle, and this stone was his first test of power. Voortyashtani blades held many purposes beyond battle, however: stories suggest that the ancient Voortyashtani swords could communicate, serving as conduits for thought and speech. Swords were such a way of life among this ancient polis that many records suggest that human and weapon were considered indivisible. Regrettably, no Voortyashtani blades have survived to see modern times.
“What a tragedy,” mutters Mulaghesh. But she doesn’t feel really disturbed until she looks at the next display.
She stops and stares. She’s happy she’s alone, for she feels she might make a scene.
The exhibit is completely empty except for a stone mask standing on a thin steel pole. Unlike many of the other displays this mask is not large, though it is perhaps slightly wider and taller than the average human face. It’s also a little too round, as the normal human skull is somewhat oblong. But it’s the face that is the most disturbing part: the eyeholes are small and set both too far apart and far too low, leaving a prodigious brow above them with a single ridge-like seam running through their middle. The seam ends in a tiny, insignificant point of a nose with no nostrils, and below that are two short rows of needle-like teeth, a bad parody of a human mouth. Around the edges of the mask are many small holes through which, presumably, one once threaded string to tie the mask onto one’s face.
It’s not the real thing. Mulaghesh knows it isn’t. But she’s seen an abundance of sketches and paintings, for these masks haunt Saypur to this day. These masks—the real ones, the ones made of steel and bone—were present in Saypuri life for hundreds and hundreds of years, right up until the Night of the Red Sands.
For wasn’t every Saypuri terrified of waking up and finding such a face staring in through their window? Wasn’t every road and every river and every port watched by those blank, staring eyes? Mulaghesh was told that the people (if they could even be called such things) that wore those masks would go by Saypuri slums at night while everyone slept, and toss in little metal tokens through the open windows, tiny coin-like baubles fashioned to resemble their headgear. The Saypuri slaves would then wake up and find these distorted, grinning skulls no bigger than the palm of their hand waiting on their floors or on their tables, and they would understand the unspoken message: We were here. Walls mean nothing to us. Nothing can be kept from us.
Mulaghesh, breathing hard, looks at the sign beside the display:
CLAY RE-CREATION OF A VOORTYASHTANI SENTINEL MASK.
There is nothing else. But of course there isn’t: there is nothing more to say about such things.
“Not an original, of course,” says Signe’s voice.
Mulaghesh turns to see her walking down the hall in her quick, efficient pace. “It had fucking well better not be.”
“They’re wrapping up in there,” says Signe. “Biswal and Rada should be out any time, if you’re waiting.” She stops and looks at the mask, then thinks and asks, “What do you see, General, when you look at it?”
“I see millions of my fellow citizens tortured and dead,” says Mulaghesh.
Signe makes a small hm sound and nods, as if understanding her sentiment.
“Why? What do you see?”
“A culture that worshipped death,” says Signe, “and particularly those who dealt it. Their ancestors, mostly. For instance, Voortyashtanis believed that if you picked up the sword of an ancient sentinel it would possess you, take you over—you’d become them, in essence, but cease being you.”
“Sounds like a raw deal.”
“Yes—to them, a sword was a vessel of the soul. To do such a thing would be to lose your soul entirely. But I’m told they only did it in desperate situations. They didn’t only admire their ancestors, though. They also respected their foes, if they felt they were worthy. Hence why things went so smoothly just now, after your outburst.”