Skullsworn Read online

  With a finger, she drew a slow circle in the air around us, as though to indicate the entire city. “Why we are here.”

  I took a deep breath, started to talk, thought better of it, and took a sip from my wine instead.

  “I understand,” Ela continued after a pause, “that you grew up here.”

  I nodded carefully. The wine brimmed bright and hot inside me. The world seemed wide and tight all at the same time.

  “And this is where,” she went on after a pause, “you made your first offerings to the god.”

  I took another sip of the wine, felt the pink on my tongue, in my throat, then nodded again. “If you could call them offerings.”

  “Every death is an offering.”

  Over Ela’s shoulder, in the center of the emptying dance floor, a man and woman twined around each other. Her hands were everywhere, like something flowering from his body.

  “It seemed like I’d have a better chance,” I said finally, “if I came back to somewhere I knew.”

  “You mean to someone you knew,” she said, leaning in over the table as she spoke. Torchlight shifted over her brown skin until it seemed to glow.

  “Everyone I knew from Dombâng is dead,” I said. “I killed them before I left.”

  Ela laughed. “Thorough girl. You’ll have to tell me the story sometime.”

  I shook my head, surprised by the sudden iron in my voice when I replied. “No, I won’t.”

  Our gazes snagged for a moment. Then I looked away.

  “Maybe we should go to sleep.”

  “Oh, undoubtedly!” Ela replied. “We should have gone to sleep hours ago, like Kossal.” She raised a finger, as though to forestall my response. “But we didn’t, and now we have an obligation.”

  I blinked. “To?”

  “To the wine, Pyrre! To the wine!” She laughed as she gestured to the carafe, the pink liquid so bright with refracted torchlight it might have been a lamp itself. I imagined that wine glowing inside me like a tiny moon.

  “You keep pouring me wine because you think I’ll tell you a secret.”

  The words came out slow and stupid. Ela smiled.

  “Of course I do. I’ll confess—I love secrets almost as much as I love dresses.”

  “What if I told you there was no reason that I chose Dombâng? Or that I just wanted to see it one more time before you slide a knife into me?”

  Ela kept her eyes locked on mine as she refilled her own glass. “Then I’d know that you were lying.”

  “How?”

  Her dark eyes were wine bright. “A lady doesn’t tell her secrets.”

  “And yet you want me to tell mine.”

  “You’re too young to be a lady.”

  I narrowed my eyes. “And what about you? Can you be a lady if you’re already a priestess?”

  “You wouldn’t believe how often I ask myself that very question.”

  “And what,” I replied, “do you answer yourself?”

  “Oh, I hardly think it’s for me to decide. According to Kossal I’m nothing more than a thorn in his side.”

  I stared into my glass, trying to shove my thoughts into some kind of shape I might recognize. The singers had fallen silent, and the flautists, while the two drummers hammered out a brutal rhythm against the night.

  “Do you really think he’d kill you?” I asked finally.

  Ela pursed her lips reflectively. “He wouldn’t be much of a priest if he wouldn’t.”

  “But he loves you.”

  She shrugged. “Maybe. It doesn’t change the fact that we worship Ananshael, not Eira.”

  Directly above us a pair of wooden shutters slammed open. High, wide laughter spilled out into the night. I caught a glimpse of a pair of hands, a pair of bare arms pulling the shutters closed, and the laughter was gone.

  “But you don’t love him,” I said.

  Ela studied me for a while, then shook her head. “It’s not something you can figure out by watching others, Pyrre. You can’t be me, you can’t be Kossal, any more than we could be you. I could tell you everything about my life, every kiss, every woman’s hips, every laugh, every sob, every stiff cock, and it wouldn’t mean anything. Language is a useful tool, but it’s only a tool. The truth is too large for it. If you’re going to survive this, you need to find your own way.”

  I took a deep breath, then lifted the wine to my lips again. The glass was shadow-cool against my skin. I tipped it back, closed my eyes, and drank. I kept my eyes closed for what felt like a long time, listened to the insistent thudding of the drums, to the dozens of voices rising and falling around me, to the hushed susurrus of the Shirvian’s split waters running under the deck, threading the pilings, surging blindly toward the salt sea. When I finally opened them again, Ela was still there, still watching me with those wide, dark eyes.

  “His name,” I said finally, “is Ruc Lan Lac.”

  Ela repeated the name, “Ruc Lan Lac,” then ran her tongue delicately over her lips, as though the syllables had left a salty residue. “Tell me about Ruc Lan Lac.”

  I hesitated. My own history felt like the drop at a cliff’s edge; once I stepped clear of the present, there would be no way to stop falling. “He’s here,” I said finally, teetering. “At least, he should be. He was a year ago.”

  Ela arched an eyebrow. “And how did you learn that?”

  Heat flushed my cheeks. “Tremiel was in Dombâng last year, for a contract. I asked her about Ruc when she returned to Rassambur.”

  “You’ve been stalking him,” Ela exclaimed, clapping her hands together in delight. “And here, the whole dull march to this city you’ve been lamenting the hard state of your cold, unbeating heart!” She narrowed her eyes. “But there are four hundred thousand people in Dombâng. How did Tremiel know about Ruc Lan Lac?”

  I grimaced. “He’s not just a person.”

  “We’re all just people, Pyrre. That’s one of Ananshael’s oldest lessons.”

  “Fine. What I mean is, he’s famous here.”

  Ela tsked. “Don’t love famous people. I loved one of the Vested in Freeport years ago. It didn’t work out.”

  “I’m not in love with him.”

  “But you’re planning to be.”

  I blew out a long, frustrated breath. “Planning might be a bit of a stretch.”

  Ela swirled her wine, eyeing me speculatively over the top of her glass. “I’ll be disappointed if, during this last month of travel, you didn’t come up with at least the faintest glimmer of an idea regarding how you might approach him. People use the phrase falling in love as though love is a mud puddle that you just tumble into when you’re not paying attention. I find the opposite: love requires a deliberate act of attention.”

  “I know how to get his attention.”

  Ela sipped her wine, waiting. I glanced behind me, gauging the distance to the next table, then leaned in, wrapped my hand around the carafe beaded with sweat, then pressed my palm on the wooden table. When I pulled my hand away, the print remained, soaked into the thirsty wood. I left it there for just a heartbeat, then scrubbed it out.

  “Do you know what that is?”

  “A squat, headless, five-legged beast?”

  I lowered my voice. “It’s a symbol.”

  I hesitated, uncertain how to go on. Ela waited a while, then rolled her eyes as she dipped her own finger directly into her wine and drew two semicircles, linked in the center. “Here’s a symbol,” she murmured in a conspiratorial faux-whisper. “I can never decide if it looks more like an ass or a pair of nicely proportioned breasts.” She dropped her voice even lower. “Maybe you could send it in a note to Ruc Lan Lac and ask him which he prefers.”

  “I know which he prefers.”

  Ela made an O with her mouth. “Makes the seduction easier.”

  “I’m not planning to seduce him.”

  The priestess’s excitement crumpled into a false frown. “How disappointing. One of my jobs as your Witness is, after all, to witness�
��” She shook her head. “No seduction. No ass or breasts. So?”

  I leaned over the table. “Insurrection.”

  Ela blinked. “Is that a sexual position?”

  “It is the cliff on the edge of which Dombâng has been teetering for decades.”

  “Teetering. How tedious.”

  “It will be a lot less tedious after we give it a shove.”

  “We?” Ela cocked her head to the side. “I came for the dresses and the dancing, remember?”

  “You can wear a nice dress to the revolution.”

  “Any excuse for a party.” She frowned. “But what does this have to do with…” She gave me an exaggerated series of winks, then nodded to the scribble of water left on the table.

  “That,” I said quietly, “was a bloody hand.”

  “I’ve seen blood,” Ela replied. “It’s redder.”

  “It will be when I do it for real.”

  “Are you going to tell me what it is, or do I have to guess?”

  The nearest other people on the deck were a dozen paces away, and the music was loud enough to talk without being overheard. I kept my voice low, all the same.

  “Did you hear the name Chong Mi the last time you were here?”

  “Does she run that brothel on the west end of the city? I only spent one night there, but sweet Ananshael’s touch, those beauties…” She trailed off, closing her eyes to savor the memory.

  “Chong Mi was a prophet, not a prostitute.”

  Ela frowned, opened her eyes. “Significantly less interesting.”

  “Interesting enough to see you executed, if you’re caught reciting one of her prophecies in Dombâng.”

  “More interesting,” Ela conceded, leaning in once more, her eyes bright with the wine and the candlelight. “Recite one.”

  “Did you not hear the part about the execution?”

  She waved away the protest. “You’re planning to give seven citizens of this city to the god—five, since you started early—and you’re worried about repeating a few lines of some madwoman’s poetry?” She lowered her voice. “You can whisper, if you really need to.”

  I checked over my shoulder once again, then leaned in toward Ela. We might have been two women gossiping about married life or trading surreptitious opinions on the few attractive dancers still left at the center of the deck, just a couple of normal people talking about love, not religious insurrection.

  Although, in truth, I hoped I might find my way to one from the other.

  * * *

  “Woe to you, Dombâng,” I began, my voice just a murmur, “for I have seen the day of our salvation.

  A snake with the face of a man came to me,

  A snake red as blood with eyes of fire,

  And the snake spoke to me, saying, “Woe to the faithless.

  “Woe to the fickle. Woe to those who forsake their gods.”

  Three times it spoke, saying, “Woe, woe, woe,”

  Then sank its poisoned teeth into my arm. And I saw:

  I saw hands of blood, ten thousand bloody hands

  Reach up from the waters to tear the city down.

  I saw those who worshipped fire burned in their own flame,

  Their fickle tongues turned, even in their pleading, to flame.

  I saw vipers in a nest of vipers, black snakes driving out the green,

  Three thousand coils curling tighter and tighter.

  I saw the vipers of the waters rise up to feed,

  Saw them gorge on the hearts of foreign soldiers.

  I saw a thousand skulls, a thousand eyeless skulls,

  Meat of their minds made mud for the delta flowers.

  I saw men and women gorging on foreign coin, choking on it,

  I heard them cry out in horror, gold dripping from their lips.

  In the place of priests, I have seen the beasts of the waters,

  Their jaws agape, howling, “Woe, woe, woe.”

  Woe to you, Dombâng, for I have seen the day of our salvation,

  I have seen the day and the hour of our gods’ return.

  Woe, woe, woe to you Dombâng, for I have seen it,

  And it is blood and fire and storm. And it is soon.

  “That’s a lot of woe,” Ela observed when I’d finished. “Prophecy is so exceedingly dour. Just once, before I go to the god, I’d enjoy hearing a happy prophecy.” She dropped her voice to a portentous register: “And you shall lick honey from honeyed lips. Yea, and it will be very, very delicious.”

  “Happy people don’t make prophecy.”

  “People aren’t supposed to make prophecy at all. They’re speaking for the gods. That’s the point of prophecy.”

  I nodded. “But the gods of Dombâng have been gone a very long time.”

  “They’re coming back,” Ela countered cheerfully. “Soon! According to Chong Mi.”

  “Chong Mi died a hundred and fifty years ago,” I observed pointedly.

  Ela spread her hands. “Who can say what time means to a god? Ten thousand years could be the blink of an eye. A whole age could be soon.”

  “I don’t have a whole age,” I said grimly. “Or ten thousand years. I have fourteen days.”

  Ela narrowed her eyes. “Surely you can fall in love without the help of Dombâng’s missing deities.”

  I let out a long, weary breath. “Actually, I don’t think I can.”

  “We’re back to the teetering insurrection.”

  I nodded. “Dombâng has never fully accepted Annurian rule. Five years ago, the city was on the edge of open revolution.”

  “And then what happened?”

  “Ruc Lan Lac happened.”

  Ela pursed her lips. “Your boyfriend singlehandedly put down an insurrection?”

  “He and the four Annurian legions placed temporarily under his control.”

  “A soldier,” Ela purred. “I like soldiers.”

  “Ex-soldier. When things started to heat up here, Annur sent him back to command the Greenshirts.”

  “Constabulary,” Ela said, grimacing. “I like constables less.”

  “Most people in Dombâng would agree with you, especially after Ruc got done ripping the throat out of the local insurgency.”

  “He should have ripped more thoroughly. For a creature with no throat, the insurgency did a pretty good job knocking down the causeway.”

  I nodded. “Annur’s been trying to root out the old worship for two hundred years, ever since conquering the city. The best they’ve managed is to force it underground.”

  Ela swirled the wine in her glass. “And what,” she asked, “does all this have to do with the warming of your calcified heart?”

  I hesitated. Suddenly my whole plan seemed insane. “I thought … if I helped him fight the insurgency, we might have a chance to…” I shook my head, unsure how to go on.

  “To snuggle up close,” Ela said, smiling. “I understand. So when do you go find him?”

  “Not yet. First, I need to drag the insurgency fully into the open.”

  “Knocking down causeways isn’t open enough?”

  I shook my head. “I want to help Ruc fight a war. That means there needs to be a war.”

  After a moment of silence, the priestess exploded in delighted laughter.

  “And where are you going to get one of those?”

  I pressed my hand against the carafe again, made another print on the table.

  “‘I saw hands of blood,’” I recited quietly, “‘ten thousand bloody hands reach up from the waters to tear the city down.’”

  “You know,” Ela murmured, “that it’s supposed to be the work of the gods, fulfilling prophecies.”

  I shook my head. “I told you. I need a way to get close to Ruc, and the gods of Dombâng have been gone for a very long time.”

  3

  I’ve always thought it strange that so much of the world remains unbroken. Take something as simple as a clay cup. So much time and effort goes into the making—the quarrying of the clay
, the spinning on the wheel, the glazing, the firing, the painting—and yet it takes only a moment to destroy. No malign intent required, no violent design, just a moment’s inattention, a careless elbow, fingers too slick with wine, and the vessel drops, lands wrong, shatters. Most things are like this. Daily, by imperceptible degrees, a boat’s hull warps with the sun, the rain, the heat, comes uncaulked, springs leaks. Rice takes months to grow from seed; left wet, it will begin to rot overnight.

  Our human flesh is better than most things at keeping pace with its own decay, and yet it takes so little—a tiny knife dragged across the windpipe, a dropped roof tile, a puddle three inches deep—to unmake a man or woman. It’s amazing, given everything’s fragility, that we don’t live in a smashed world, all order and structure utterly undone, the whole land heaped with bone, charred wood, carelessly shattered glass. It amazes me sometimes that anything is still standing.

  It takes work to keep the world whole. A simple thing like a cup needs to be cleaned each day, placed carefully back on the shelf, not dropped. A city, in its own way, is every bit as delicate. People move over the causeways, ply the canals with their oars, go between their markets and their homes, buy and barter, swindle and sell, and all the while, mostly unknowingly, they are holding that city together. Each civil word is a stitch knitting it tight. Every law observed, willingly or grudgingly, helps to bind the whole. Every tradition, every social more, every act of neighborly goodwill is a stay against chaos. So many souls, so much effort, so difficult to create and so simple to shatter.

  I left the first bloody print just before midnight on the central pier of Cao’s Bridge. The wide wooden span is one of the largest in the city, stretching north to south over Dombâng’s central channel. It’s not an easy place to do anything unseen; scores of merchant stalls line either side of the bridge, men and women selling everything from fried scorpions to crushed, honeyed ice beneath their swatches of bright canvas. The bridge is never really quiet. The stalls stay open almost all night, catering to pairs of lovers or insomniac loners until the eastern sky brightens and the ranks of revelers start to give way to more prosaically dressed men and women, some headed home, others still waking up, a mug of steaming ta in hand, as they cross the city to their waiting jobs.

  Cao’s Bridge is never empty, but one of the things you learn early in Rassambur is that a woman need not be alone to go unnoticed. A crowd provides just as much cover as a moonless night. It’s easier to hide in a group of hundreds than among just half a dozen. I waited at the bridge’s apex for a knot of drunken men to pass, let them jostle me into the nearest fish-scale lantern, then knocked it into the river below. It hissed angrily, then went out. It took only moments, in the shallow pool of shadow, to dip my hand into the mug—the prophecy said blood, but I was using paint—then press my palm against the pier and move along.