When I was ready, one called out, and the doors were opened again. Oparr stepped forward.
“It will do,” he said; and then, to me, “The people have been frightened for you, goddess; you must show them that you live and are well. We will help you.”
They did not carry me, but a priest came on either side of me, and led me firmly by the elbows, so I should not fall. Something about these men told me they were not really priests at all. They walked with a soldier’s stride.
After a time, Oparr stopped them. He came close, and said quietly, “We are nearly there, goddess. There is only one thing you must remember. When the High Commander, who has saved you, kneels before you, you must touch his shoulder and say, ‘Beheth Lectorr.’ Only those words, that’s all you need to remember. When he kneels. Do you understand?”
I nodded. I could remember, but they made little sense to me then, those two words of the Old Tongue.
There was red light ahead. We turned a corner and came into the long hall which opened onto a high terrace above the City. The terrace doors were wide, and scarlet torchlight
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streamed against the black racing sky. Below, thousands of people were massed, the gardens and the walks were flooded with them, and they were shouting, calling, screaming out in a frenzy of anger and fear a single name.
“Uastis! Uastis! Uastis!”
The storm had eased. Hail had fallen, and the terrace flags were very slippery. Men stood here, black still shapes, with silver skulls for heads. Near the edge of the terrace a man with a golden wolfs head stood alone. Oparr halted. The man with the wolfs head turned to us, then back again to the people. He raised his arms, and a crescendo of ragged cries broke the drumbeat of the chant. Slowly he left the edge and moved toward us.
“Let her go,” he said to the priest-soldiers who held me. He looked at me, and his eyes were fierce behind their glass shields, strong enough to hold me up instead. “Now you must walk out where they can see you,” he said. “They are very afraid for you, and you must reassure them.”
His eyes held me hard; my body braced itself, and the paving did not seem to tilt beneath my feet. Stiffly, I began to walk toward the terrace lip, Vazkor a pace or so behind me, holding me firmly without touching me. Moving me like a mechanical toy.
The crowd below could see me now, and they began to sing and cheer.
I stared down at them without thought, and behind me he said, “Give them your blessing, goddess.”
And without thinking, I raised my hands, and made over them the sign I made in the Temple.
A hush fell on them then, and, in the hush, Vazkor came and kneeled beside me, his head bowed.
I was very tired and wanted to sleep, but I had not forgotten. I bent and touched his shoulder, and said the two words, which meant nothing; to me, at least. At the sound of them, the crowd erupted once more. I am not certain how they heard my voice; it was little more than a whisper. I suppose there was some trickery in the structure of the terrace which allowed the whisper to carry.
Vazkor rose. His eyes willed me to turn and go back inside the hall. I did not understand the command, only obeyed it.
I walked before him, away from the noise, and away from the light and the attendants. No one remained; even Oparr was gone. In the faintly lit corridor he let go his mental control of me, and lifted me up physically instead. The doors of my bedchamber were ajar. He nudged them open with his
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foot, kicked them shut behind him when we were inside. He put me on the bed, neatly and precisely.
“Things have gone well,” he said. “You can sleep now.”
A little cold pain.
“Where is he?” I asked Vazkor.
“Who?”
“The Javhovor, my husband. He was with me before Oparr came.”
“The Javhovor has gone, goddess; he need trouble you no more.”
Weights of lead were piling themselves upon my body, but I must speak a little longer.
“Vazkor, where is he? Is he dead?”
“He’s finished, goddess, and as well for you he is. You have been sick, and now I will tell you why you have been sick. Your husband, afraid of your Power, has been poisoning you. A human woman would be dead by now, but you, goddess, being what you are, will recover and live.”
“No,” I said. “No, Vazkor, no.”
But he was gone. The doors were shut.
Far away the crowds still faintly roared, merciless in their joy. The snow was falling again.
7
Five more days it took me to be strong again, and in those days Vazkor achieved the last bastions of temporal power in Ezlann. Yet it had been quite easy for him, once the goddess had uttered the ancient words over him: “Beheth Lectorr””Here is the Chosen One.”
I remember how Vazkor had spoken of the garnering of the steaders as being for the Javhovor’s latest campaign. But he had not been one for war; it was Vazkor’s levy. He had been planning, even then, as if he sensed my coming.
Each day, despite my weakness and reluctance, I had to go out to the terrace, and let the people see me. I learned the story of the lost days from the physician who attended me now, though I learned it in secret. My husband, the Javhovor, had attempted to kill me by poison. On the night of the storm, Vazkor, suspecting the worst, had roused the crowd and come with his men to the palace. The Javhovor was called out. He denied the allegation very quietly, it seemed, and half smiling, and then, in the very act of the lie, some unseen
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Power had struck him down before the whole crowd. After this, I had been brought forth, and had selected the new Lord of the City-aptly my rescuer and champion.
I had no doubt it was Vazkor who killed him-killed, as 1 had killed, with the white knife of hate that leaps from the brain. I did not ask what became of his body, it seemed only Vazkor would know, and there was no point. As to the poison, it was a fallacy. How fortunate my illness had been for the High Commander-but he was Javhovor now, and the chosen one of the goddess.
But as I grew well, I grew hard in my bitterness. I saw Vazkor truly as he was, my enemy, and I knew my danger. Wherever I went I was attended by his people, both women and men. Outside my doors stood his guards-to protect and honor me, it was said. One day I was called out and taken to a small room, where Vazkor and Oparr and various priests waited. Here Oparr intoned over us words I recalled from that other ceremony in the Temple. And when this was finished, hand in hand, Vazkor and I presented ourselves at the high terrace, and the people roared. It was formality, yet I was afraid now what this lie would mean; but it proved even less of a marriage than the last. Vazkor was occupied in sending and receiving messages across the snow wastes to Ezlann’s five sister Cities, and had no time for me.
For many days after this I saw no one except the women, but eventually Oparr came. Since I had struck him, he had come to me, cringing a little with fear. To the fear-after the night of my first husband’s murder, when he had a brief power over me in taking me to Vazkor-was added a curious gloating little triumph. Now he both whined and exulted, one emotion or the other, in turn, getting the upper hand as he sensed my anger or weakness. He would be dangerous to me in distress, yet I dared not harm him, for I still feared Vazkor’s strength.
Now he bowed low, and informed me that I must go next day to the Temple and be worshipped there. The people pined without their goddess.
I answered “Yes,” and sent him out, and thought in terrible frustration of the great power which was mine in the City, and yet how helpless it had made me. In my sleep I dreamed myself a giantess, crushing Ezlann in my hands, throwing her towers into the desert, where they broke, and ran like blood.
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In a yellow dawn I rode there in the goddess” chariot, behind me thirty black guards, ahead thirty other guards, on either side two black archers with silver skull faces. Everywhere, the phoenix badge of the Javhovor, but under it the wolf’s head. I do not remember the worship in the Temple, only the murmur and sea-sound of the chanting, and smells of heavy incense. Going back, the snow was thick in the streets. In the huge forecourt my driver reined the white mares. Men waited courteously for me to retire. Slowly, with the goddess’ erect, stiff gait, I left the chariot, began to walk across the snow. Danger, all around me, and no help for it. Through the black doorway, along corridors with glassy floors. . . .