She crept further down the corridor, towards the stairs down to the rooms where the other priestesses slept. All the windows were shuttered, no one else would have seen. Fear filled the room.
The stairs creaked ahead of her. She stopped, drawing back. Not that way. There was another staircase, down from the back of her bedroom, leading straight to the heart of the Temple. She stole back into her bedroom and went down that way, creeping blind in the dark. She was not even sure how she knew something was seeking her, unless it was through the warning of her God. Demons, she thought. Death things. The ghosts of those she had killed. Then she took a deep breath of the dark air, drawing the dark into her, and knew better. Not demons. Men.
The stairs twisted and turned, the darkness like a living thing. She held her hand against the wall, but went on without hesitating, unafraid. She could see in the dark with her mind, as well as she could see in the light. She knew life and death and light and dark. But the men creeping down behind her would be afraid.
She came to the antechamber at the foot of the stairs. Now came the danger. The only way out led across the Great Chamber, blazing with light. No hiding place. No way to avoid being seen. But the light was her place also. Great Tanis would shield her there, as well and as safely as in the dark. And beyond that was the Small Chamber, the place of death absolute, where she would be safe. The place none would dare to go but herself.
The door opened silently at her touch and Thalia was in the Great Chamber. She gazed around her. Candles blazed, rich golden light; so much light there were no shadows on the floor. Only towards the great high ceiling did the shadows come. The air was warm and welcoming. The red light of the lamp on the High Altar gleamed.
Creaking and a muttered curse, quickly cut off, from the dark behind her. The men, coming down the stairs, frightened by the power of the God. Why did she not cry out, alert the others in the Temple? But the dark and the silence were inviolate. The God was here. The men following her were afraid. And she was the High Priestess, the greatest and holiest woman in the Sekemleth Empire. She would not shout out in fear.
She slid quickly across the Great Chamber, towards the heavy curtain and the room beyond. Slipped quickly behind it, into the Small Chamber that smelled always of blood. Her place. The High Priestess’s place. She would be safe here, surely.
The two slaves crouched against the walls, as they always squatted, day and night, sleeping and waking, waiting for their mistress to bring a life for them to bind, waiting for their mistress to leave a corpse for them to remove. Thalia had never spoken to them. Did not know if they could speak. To hide and wait and watch was their purpose. They too were tools of her God and her duty, like the knife and the stone itself. In the pitch dark of the room their eyes regarded her with dumb curiosity. She stood before the stone, looking at the dim arch of the curtained doorway.
A long time seemed to pass. It was cold in the Small Chamber, despite the heat of the room beyond. Thalia shivered in her thin dress. Faint sounds from the Great Chamber, men creeping in the light, looking for her. There were three entrances through which she could have gone. And they would not dare this one. A voice, muffled, whispering something, agitated, afraid.
The curtain lifted. Not just moved aside but pulled away completely, flooding the Small Chamber with light and heat. Thalia almost cried out in anger. How dare they? How dare they? Four men with swords came towards her.
The two slaves rose to their feet, blinking in the light, confused. The fear of death take you! The fear of life take you! But they came towards her unfearing, undying, and she knew they had come to kill her. They killed the slaves who stood dumbly before them, the pattern of their lives so shattered they could do nothing but stare open-mouthed as the swords went through their hearts. In their long years of service in that room they had perhaps forgotten there was a world beyond the Small Chamber and the Great Chamber and the High Priestess and the knife.
She was frightened. Frightened down into her bones. They had come to kill. They had come to kill her. She thought of reaching down for the knife in its wrappings of cloth. But that would be pointless. She knew how to kill with a blade, not how to fight with one.
I am the High Priestess of the Lord of Living and Dying, she thought. The Beloved of Great Tanis. The most powerful woman in the Sekemleth Empire. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath. Darkness. The darkness of death. The darkness of living. Darkness and fear.
Power rushing through her.
Darkness and light. Life and death.
Every candle in the Great Chamber went out.
The men screamed in terror. The crushing power of the God coming down. Thalia darted in front of them and began to run.
She did not even know where she was running to. The great door of the Temple was closed but not locked. Never locked, day or night. She could not go back into the warren of corridors. There might be more men there, with more swords. And Ausa would be there, with no hands and no eyes. I will live, she thought. I will live, and live. She ran through the narrow passageway, finding its entrance by feel, by the strength of her desire for life. She pushed open the door, smooth on its hinges. She ran down the steps of the Great Temple, with people scattering before her in the night, and into the street beyond.
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Marith opened his eyes. He was in a garden, lying on soft grass. The air smelled of jasmine and lilac blossom. The honey-sweet perfume of roses. Damp leaves. A fountain plashed like children laughing. Birds called from the trees. The ground was cool and pleasant. Everything twinkled with tiny shards of coloured mage glass, red and blue and green and white. Pieces were still falling, raining down on him. He watched them dance as they fell. Like jewels. Like snowflakes. Like eyes. Overhead, the great red star of the Dragon’s Mouth burned down.
He had no idea how he’d got there, or even where he was. In the gardens of Malth Elelane, on a summer’s night? Then Carin would be there beside him. He stared up at the Dragon’s Mouth. Perhaps he ought to get up. His whole body seemed to be hurting. His mouth tasted of blood.
There was someone beside him, getting to his feet, groaning as he did so. Carin? It didn’t look like Carin. And Carin wouldn’t be holding a sword. Would he?
He was in the gardens of the Summer Palace of Sorlost, and Carin was long dead, and he’d just fallen out of a window.
Marith sat up. Tobias was leaning against a wall. Alxine was sitting next to him, his right arm a shattered mess of blood and bone, his face a mass of bruises. Rate was kneeling retching onto the grass.
‘You … pushed me …’ Marith’s voice sounded weak and distant in his mouth. ‘I was going to kill him … You stopped me.’
‘I did.’ Tobias helped him get to his feet. ‘We ought to get moving. People will be looking for us.’
‘Why?’